The orbits of the planets are not stable over very long timescales. ibid.
Something large kicked Mercury inwards towards the Sun. ibid.
Venus: 108 million kilometres from the Sun. A world which at first sight has the potential to be much more Earth-like … Venus is a vision of hell where no life can survive. ibid.
Our planetary neighbour Mars is a cold barren rock. It’s rusted surface covered in parched sand. But beneath the dust the planet bears the scars of former life. Billions of years ago Mars was just like Earth. A world with a thick atmosphere that supported oceans of water. But today that world is gone. Mars lies dead while the Earth thrives. Brian Cox, The Planets II: Terra Firma
The Viking programme took us down to the ground for the first time. ibid.
A new generation of aircraft has been sent to Mars to investigate the existence of water. ibid.
Mars formed in a region of the solar system with considerably less rocky material and that had a profound impact on the planet’s growth. ibid.
Jupiter: 780 million kilometres from the sun: the largest of the planets is a giant swirling ball of gas. Its marbled appearance is generated by violent winds that rage through its clouds. Jupiter is a world as strange as it is remote. Brian Cox, The Planets III: The Godfather
Jupiter is the godfather of the planets. Understand it and you understand how the solar system came to be. ibid.
You could fit 1,300 Earths inside. ibid.
Beyond the warm worlds of the inner solar system, beyond the gas giant Jupiter, in the freezing regions far beyond the sun, lies Saturn, a planet made union, thanks to a nearly 300,000-kilometre ring of frozen water. Here, trillions of pieces of ice have been sculptured by gravitational forces. Brian Cox, The Planets IV: Life Beyond the Sun: Saturn
Saturn is a planet that has undergone some of the most radical transformations in the solar system. A planet that has seen destruction and creation. A planet that harbours hidden worlds, where just perhaps there may exist a second home for life. ibid.
Imagine a place with no surface to stand. Just an endless atmosphere, 1.4 billion kilometres from the sun. ibid.
The storms found on Saturn are amongst the most violent found anywhere in the solar system. ibid.
The mystery of the origin of the rings is an active area of research. ibid.
On average just ten metres thick. Within, moon-sized chunks of ice orbit the structure. ibid.
Over a billion kilometres from the warmth of the sun, just on the outer edge of Saturn’s rings lies the icy moon Enceladus … The most reflective object in the solar system … Giant plumes of water vapour and ice were erupting from its surface … An ocean of liquid water and it was there because of Saturn. ibid.
Far far away beyond Mars, past the storms of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, conditions become very different. Temperatures plummet and distances between worlds are measured not in millions but in billions of kilometres. Here lies the most mysterious planets of them all. Uranus: a pale blue marble hanging in the dark frozen depths of space. And further out, the solar system’s final true planet: Neptune. Beyond, we thought we’d only ever find tiny lifeless worlds frozen to the core. How wrong we were. Brian Cox, The Planets V: Into the Darkness: Ice Worlds
Uranus: 2.9 billion kilometres from the sun. Just like Jupiter and Saturn, the planet’s upper atmosphere is composed mostly of swirling hydrogen and helium gas. And hidden beneath, lies an exotic icy mix of methane, ammonia and water. But unlike the other gas giants, Uranus is almost featureless. ibid.
Just like Saturn, Uranus has rings. ibid.
Neptune: 4.5 kilometres from the sun … Neptune’s atmosphere is bursting with activity. What we found was a planet of extreme weather where high altitude winds whip white methane clouds around of over 2,000 kilometres per hour. ibid.
New Horizons 2006, fastest probe ever launched. Fight time to Pluto: 9.5 years … A controversy arose here on Earth about the definition of Pluto itself … that challenged its status as a planet … ibid.
If we can reach out in pursuit of life on other worlds, might they also be reaching out to us? And have they been doing so for thousands of years? Ancient Aliens s12e22: Secrets of the Exoplanets, History 2017
It used to be that the only planets we knew about were the ones that orbit our sun. Now we’ve discovered rocky worlds and gas giants orbiting other stars. And they tell an amazing story. Planets are made everywhere in the same way: they form from the dust and debris left over from the birth of stars. How The Universe Works s1e6: Extreme Planets, Discovery 2010
No two planets are the same. Each is unique. ibid.
Jupiter and Saturn have over sixty moons each. The gas planets also have another special feature: rings. ibid.
On the international space-station astronaut Don Pettit was experimenting in zero gravity. He put grains of salt and sugar inside a plastic bag, and instead of floating apart they began to clump together. This is how planets and moons build up. How the Universe Works s1e8: Alien Moons, Discovery 2012
Our universe is violent. The cosmos is full of hellish planets. Superhot worlds blistering at thousands of degrees. Frozen planets too cold for life. Worlds blasted by deadly radiation. How the Universe Works s2e3: Exoplanets: Planets from Hell
The Earth formed through a series of devastating catastrophes. An apocalyptic planetary collision. Millions of cosmic impacts. And one of the most powerful blasts in the universe – a supernova. Yet these cataclysms created the planet we know today. Could other planets have formed the same way? How the Universe Works s2e8: Birth of the Earth
It’s not just meteors, our planet will change. And our sun will eventually die. To survive in this universe we need an insurance policy: to colonise other worlds. So can we find a new home in the galaxy? Can we find Earth 2.0? How the Universe Works s7e10: Exoplanets, Science 2019
For centuries we’ve only had the solar system to tell us how planets form. Now, we’re discovering thousands of worlds around distant stars. How the Universe Works s8e7:
Building a planet is no easy feat. With many tricky steps along the way. ibid.
We’re discovering the cosmos is full of alien planets. Exoplanets. Strange worlds outside our solar system. Exoplanets are rewriting what makes a planet a planet. How the Universe Works s9e6: Mystery of Alien Worlds