Planets - Brief Encounters

This series of short 10-minute documentaries takes a look our Solar System.

In the first episode, entitled "Voyager" the programme takes a brief look at the longest space journey ever made (well, from Earth anyway). The Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 and is now passing into interstellar space, leaving a legacy of extraordinary detailed images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

In "Birth and Death" we are taken through the story behind the creation, and ultimate destruction, of our solar system.

"Rocket Men" focuses on the pioneers who invented, and piloted, the very first space rockets. We are taken on a jourmney of these men from the U.S. airman Joe Kittinger, who flew a helium balloon to an atmospheric height of 20 miles and then jumped. Straight through to the first men to orbit the planet, Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn.