Wonders of the Solar System (2010)

Wonders of the Solar System
Award-winning 2010 television series co-produced by the BBC and Science Channel, and hosted by physicist Brian Cox.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qyxfb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_Solar_System
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611787/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/wonders-of-the-solar-system/


Episode.1 - Empire of the Sun

Excerpts:
"I can tell you that in 2904  there will be five solar eclipses on the earth..
and I can tell you that on July 16th, 2186
there will be the longest solar eclipse for 5,000 - seven minutes."


"There are something like... 145 and 167 moons in the solar system,
depending on how you count them,
but none of them produce such perfect eclipses as the earth's moon."


"This accidental arrangement of the solar system
means we're living in EXACTLY the right place."


"(SUN) For us, it's everything and yet it's just one ordinary star
amongst 200 billion starry wonders that make up our galaxy."


"the earth is 150 million kilometers away from the sun."


"Our best estimate for the age of the universe is 13.73 billion years.
and the  sun has been around for five billion years of that."


"The greater the number of sunspots,
the more powerful our star becomes."


"We've discovered that the sun has seasons."


"The Sun will spend most of its life in the main sequence, steadily burning
its vast reserves of hydrogen fuel which will last for at least another five billion years."
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Episode.2 - Order out of Chaos

Excerpts:
"and we have seasons because the Earth's axis is tilted by 23 degrees."


"I know what Galileo thought when he said that the planet had ears. (Saturn)"


"Saturn has more than 60 moons.
and seen close up, they are a weird and wonderful bunch."

"Dione has about two-thirds water but the surface temp. is minus 190 degrees C."

"Iapetus is known as the yin and yang moon, one half clean ice, the other coated in black dusty deposits."

"Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury. But the unique thing about Titan
is this ... ATMOSPHERE, which is four times as dense as the Earth's.
It's rich in organic molecules and it's thought that the chemistry is very similar to that of the primordial Earth before life began."

"Hyperion is a moon unlike any other, it is captured comet (possibly)."

"Enceladus, it's the most reflective object in the solar system."


"We now believe that the giant planets formed much closer to the sun than they are today.
Their orbits drifted for hundreds of millions of years
until Jupitor and Saturn fell into a resonant pattern."


"but those changes weren't necessarily catastrophic because it's now thought
that a significant amount of the water in the Earth's oceans was delivered by the impacts of water-rich comets and other objects during the Late Heavy Bombardment.
And that means the impact played a key role in the developement of life on Earth."
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Episode.3 - The Thin Blue Line

Excerpts:
"Although governed by the same universal set of rules,
our planet is not too big, not too small,
not too hot, not too cold,
Earth has been called the Goldilocks planet
because everything is just right."


"Astrologers have said for years that Jupiter influences our lives,
but we now have scientific evidence that this mighty planet does have
a significant connection with our own small world.
...
Gravity is one of the fundamental forces of nature.
It exists between all objects, and the effects of a gravitational field
extend way beyond the planet that creates it.
...
Jupiter has the most powerful gravitational field of all the planets,
and it's the gas giant's gravity that can directly influence
the orbits of asteroids and other wandering space debris.
...
it can deflect stuff onto a direct collision course with our planet."


"Over 2000 objects have been identified that pass close to the Earth."


"Our planet is on a deadly journey.
... Jupiter regularly throws asteroids our way."


"Jupiter was once thought to be our protector,
its enormous gravity swallowing up dangerous asteroids.
Yet we now realise its gravitational influence can propel some of those asteroids in our direction.
But surprisingly, catastrophic impacts with space debris might not be a bad thing,
at least, in Earth's past."
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Episode. 4 - Dead or Alive

 Excerpts:
"Titan has the most Earth-like atmosphere in the entire solar system,

its atmosphere is four times denser than the atmosphere of the Earth, 1000 km deep."


"Just as our atmosphere allows all this to exist,
the atmosphere of Titan is the perfect temperature and pressure to allow something to exist that has never been seen before on world beyond Earth."


"Titan's atmospheric pressure and temperature
is perfect to allow methane to exist as a sold, a gas and, most importantly,
a liquid."


"On Titan methane plays exactly the same role that water does here on Earth."
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Episode. 5 - Aliens

Excerpts:
"So far life to exist you only need 3 things."
Set of Chemistry (mostly C, N, O, H)
Power (power of sun)
Medium (medium of water)


"Over the last 35 years, we've landed 6 robot probes on Mars.
and one of them, Opportunity, is still rolling across the surface."


"Our Civilization is the wonder of Solar System."
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