Wonders of the Solar System - Season 1 - Eps 4: Dead or Alive
The worlds that surround our planet are all made of rock, but there the similarity ends. Some have a beating geological heart, others are frozen in time. Brian travels to the tallest mountain on earth, the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii, to show how something as basic as a planet's size can make the difference between life and death. Even on the summit of this volcano, Brian would stand in the shade of the tallest mountain in the solar system, an extinct volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons, which rises up 27 km. Yet the fifth wonder in the series isn't on a planet at all. It's on a tiny moon of Jupiter. The discoveries made on Io have been astonishing. This fragment of rock should be cold and dead, yet, with the volcanic landscape of eastern Ethiopia as a backdrop, Brian reveals why Io is home to extraordinary lakes of lava and giant volcanic plumes that erupt 500 km into the sky.
About Wonders of the Solar System
Title: Wonders of the Solar System
First Air Date: 2010-03-07
Last Air Date: 2010-04-04
Status: Ended
Rating: 8.1/10 (from 70 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 2
Total Episodes: 5
Network: BBC Two
Genres: Documentary
Production Companies: Science Channel, BBC
Synopsis
In this spellbinding series, Professor Brian Cox visits the most extreme locations on Earth to explain how the laws of physics carved natural wonders across the solar system.
Cast
Brian Cox
Self - Presenter
