The Wonders of The Solar System is my favourite programme right now. It’s presented with a refreshing attitude of awe and wonder by the casual and relaxed Brian Cox who, believe it or not, was in D:ream. Things can only get better. Great locations, great imagery, well written and presented.

Among the things I learnt in Ep 1:

Take all the energy used in one year by one country, the USA.
The sun produces one million times this energy in a single second.

Clouds then clumps of hydrogen collapse under their own gravity, heating up, fusing into helium.
Hotter and hotter, this ignites forming a star, a sun.

The sun accounts for 99% of the solar system’s mass.

VLT stands for… erm, Very Large Telescope.

For those in the UK, the first two episodes can currently be seen here