Planets

The planets have fascinated us for millennia, but over the past 60 years our understanding of them has been transformed. Using The Sky at Night archives, Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes us on a spectacular voyage of discovery through our exploration of the planets. From incredible technological achievements, to astonishing phenomena such as epic storms on Jupiter and the stunningly complex rings of Saturn, this is the definitive guide to the planets. And the journey doesn't end at the edges of our solar system. We're now discovering that the Milky Way is full of weird and wonderful exoplanets outside our own solar system. Yet the more we learn, the more we discover how special our own planet really is.

Professor Brian Cox tells the extraordinary life story of our solar system. For four and a half billion years each of the planets has been on an incredible journey, filled with astonishing spectacle and great drama. Using the data from our very latest explorations of the solar system combined with groundbreaking CGI this series reveals the unimaginable beauty and grandeur of eight planets whose stories we are only just beginning to understand.

The Planets presents the incredible story of the discovery and exploration of our solar system, revealing the deepest secrets of our neighbours in space.

What would it be like to travel to planets in our Solar System? We find out as we journey through space in this two-part series.

Astronaut Mike Massimino journeys to Uranus and Neptune, the farthest planets from the sun and the home to some of the solar system's strangest mysteries.

Astronaut Mike Massimino explores the dark secret of the Milky Way, the home of both Earth and a terrifying supermassive black hole.

Early in the story of the planets, there was a beautiful water world, an oasis of hope in a sterile universe. But this was not Earth - this was the young Mars. Professor Brian Cox continues his tour of the solar system revealing that it was once home to not one, but two blue planets. For millions of years, Mars enjoyed oceans blanketed by a thick atmosphere and a temperature climate. Whilst at the same moment Earth was a far less favourable habitat. Our planet was toxic to life today, her atmosphere choked with carbon dioxide and her oceans, acidic.

Astronaut Mike Massimino uses the latest science to reveal the strange secrets of planet Earth, and explores whether alien Earths exist elsewhere in the universe.

Astronaut Mike Massimino uses the latest NASA discoveries to explore the dark and mysterious frontiers of our solar system.

Astronomers are finally unlocking the mysteries to the alien underworlds of Uranus and Neptune; experts reveal how an ancient mega-collision and a missing twin planet could uncover the secrets of these strange and frozen worlds.