Airdate: The Planets

In The Planets, Professor Brian Cox tells the extraordinary life story of our solar system.

The series opens with the birth of the planets 4.5 billion years ago. In the first episode we meet the planets closest to the Sun: Mercury, Venus and Earth.

Each episode continues the journey out from the Sun for encounters with Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and finally Neptune (with a cameo appearance from Pluto).

Episode One: A Moment in the Sun. The Terrestrial Planets
The first episode traces the development of the four rocky worlds closest to the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Born together, they battled the unbelievable violence of the early solar system to become stable planets. For a while each had a moment of hope when they enjoyed almost Earth-like conditions. Yet today Mercury is a scorched barren world, Venus is a runaway greenhouse world with a scorching atmosphere and Mars is a frozen desert. Only on Earth do oceans – and life – survive.

Why has Earth thrived whilst the others have faded away? The most advanced space missions ever mounted allow us to reveal the moments when the fate of each world turned. Mercury was flung across the solar system in a collision of unimaginable ferocity. A young Venus, resplendent with oceans, was locked in a battle with the Sun. And an early wet Mars was robbed of the material it would need to survive.

Only Earth found itself far enough away from the Sun for life to hold on. But it can’t last forever. Billions of years from now our world will follow the fate of its sister planets, as the Sun expands to become a red giant. But as it does other oases may awaken on the faraway moons of the gas giants – like Saturn’s moon Titan. In the far future, it too may enjoy its moment in the Sun.

Series Producer: Gideon Bradshaw (Human Universe, 9 Months That Made You)
Executive Producer: Andrew Cohen (Wonders of the Solar System, Human Universe, Forces of Nature)
Production: A BBC Studios production with NOVA and WGBH Boston for BBC, PBS, co- produced by Tencent Penguin Pictures.

7:40pm Sunday on ABC.