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Home > Categories > Entertainment > Television > Wonders of the Solar System review
Professor Brian Cox takes a giant leap for humankind as images of distant alien worlds are brought into breathtaking focus. Giant ice fountains rising over 100km high; an ocean hidden beneath a frozen crust of ice; storms three times the size of Earth coloured blood red by a vortex of dust and gases; immense volcanoes that would put Mount Everest in the shade - this amazing DVD reveals the true and awesome beauty of our solar system. It's an epic journey of discovery, where bizarre worlds become real places we can see, feel and visit.
Travelling from the Sun to the far-out reaches of Neptune, Wonders of the Solar System has at its heart the latest scientific knowledge beamed back from the fleet of probes, rovers and telescopes currently in space. Using the very latest images sent direct from space, and spectacular CGI, the series presents a spellbinding voyage around the natural wonders of the solar system, capturing explosive phenomena in minute detail.
Alongside these startlingly authentic images, some of the most spectacular, extreme locations on Earth help to reveal wonders never thought possible. Wonders of The World explores how these previously unseen phenomena have dramatically expanded our horizons, revealing more about the planets, their moons and how they came to be the way they are.
The series also looks at the big picture - how the forces of nature carved out beauty and order from the chaos of space; how our home planet doesn't sit in magnificent isolation but is intimately connected with the rest of the Solar System; and how these connections have created the haven we call Earth.
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Review by: tucker (Karl)
Dated: 20th of April, 2011
This series explores our solar system, and draws parallels between areas on earth and other planets in our system, formed by the same dynamics of weather and physics. You may be surprised to see how similar parts of Earth are to some of the other planets sharing the gravitational sway of our sun. For those who have an interest in the other balls of matter hoola-hooping their way through space with us, this series is an excellent way to get a quick overview of the similarities and differences.
Clocking in at around 5 hours spread over 5 episodes, there is a fair bit of repetition of some information... but it is all appropriate to the subject of each episode, as each one focusses on a main theme, be it 'weather' or 'gravity' or 'ice', etc... and let's be honest, no planet is controlled by a single factor. Thus, watching these in a single back-to-back sitting will prove somewhat mind-numbing for some. Best advise, watch one episode then take a break of a day or two before watching the next one.
I discovered, to my delight, that this series would be great for home-schooled kids aged 10+, as it is pitched at a level quite accessible to younger minds, giving it an educational aspect that reaches down to school aged kids too. Never too early to get them interested in not just our world, but also others. With a strong message of how lucky we are to have a living world as our home, and how easily we could end up as lifeless as the other worlds in our system, it's a good resource to help inspire young minds to find ways to slow down, if not reverse, the damage we have caused.
Overall, an excellent series, if a little dry in places when the science gets a little lost under the enthusiasm of the presenter, but well worth giving a go. The presenter, Professor Brian Cox, certainly has a passion for the topics, and that helps make the topics a lot more interesting to the non-scientific crowd, but you still need to have some level of interest in some branch of science - be it physics, geology, astronomy, etc - to sit and watch this, though not as much as you would assume, because of how this is pitched.
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