The planets are nine worlds that seem to have little in common, except that they circle around a single sun and are bound together by its gravity. Shortly after World War II the Soviet astronomer Viktor Safronov picks up the 200 year old idea that the planets were formed from a cloud of dust. Gravitational instability first formed big clumps, which through gravity fused to planets. A huge number of such planets then collided and fused until only the four planets of the inner solar system remained. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars bear scars of their creation. The craters on their surfaces are signs of hard collisions with collapsing planets. Outside these four planets are the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, which became so large that they started sucking in the primordial gases from the original dust cloud, thus swelling to 100 times bigger than Earth. The ice giants Uranus and Neptune are still a mystery. The Kuiper belt outside Neptune consists of thousands of gigantic ice chunks. ... Written by Maths Jesperson {maths.jesperson1@comhem.se}
All Episodes - S01
EPS01
The planets are nine worlds that seem to have little in common, except that they circle around a single sun and are bound together by its gravity. Shortly after World War ...
EPS02
Earth is a living planet. Volcanic eruptions mean that it is geological alive. Astronomers and geologists wondered for a long time if other planets also are alive. When a ...
EPS03
To send space probes to the four giant planets in the outer solar system seemed in the mid-60's impossible. Rocket power could carry a spacecraft no further than Jupiter. ...
EPS04
In 1959 the Soviet probe Lunik 2 becomes the first spacecraft ever to hit the Moon. Within a month it is followed by Lunik 3, which takes the first pictures of the dark s ...
EPS05
A spectroscope splits the sun light into different colors, thereby making it possible to analyze which elements the Sun is made of. When the spectroscope is turned to dif ...
EPS06
The Planets looks at planetary atmospheres. It looks at the life giving atmosphere of Earth, the crushing greenhouse of Venus, the thin gaseous layer of Mars, and the mae ...
EPS07
The Planets examines the prospects of life on other worlds in our solar system. It looks at Venus, Mars, and the water bearing moons of the outer planets. ...
EPS08
The Planets looks at the ultimate fate of our solar system and examines the possibility of extrasolar planets. ...