National Geographic - Journey to the Planets (2010) Part 4 Venus and Mercury

Journey to the Planets aka Voyage To The Planets Have you ever wondered what it would be like to leave Earth? To lose sight of our home planet and go where no human has gone before? Blast-off with Voyage to the Planets a 6 x 50 minute documentary series exploring the pleasures and pitfalls of travel to the very alien planets of our own Solar System. What strange sights await you? What dangers must you avoid? Journey to the Planets visits the planets from two very personal perspectives the direct experience of the people who have sent probes hurtling to all our cosmic neighbours, and the viewpoint of any one of us who might dream of making a trip ourselves. Take a ringside seat to the splendours of the Solar System with Voyage to the Planets an astronaut's guide to whole new worlds of possibility. A traveller’s guide to leaving earth, narrated by Dominic Frisby

Part 4 Venus and Mercury

Everyone likes a vacation in a warm climate, but fancy a trip to a place as hot as Hades? Voyage to the Planets heads in towards the Sun to find two quite different sun-drenched worlds that both lay claim to that title. Tiny Mercury, almost invisible in the glare of the Sun, is the place to go for the ultimate suntan. But if your sun protection isn’t up to scratch, you can always get out of the oven by chilling out on the Dark Side. Step into the shade and Mercury’s mercury plunges over 600 degrees. And it’s here, in Mercury’s deep freeze, that things begin to get interesting. There’s an exclusive night show, caused by the Solar Wind that bombards the planet’s feather-thin atmosphere. And on the closest planet to the Sun, there is even the prospect of ice. In Mercury’s eternally shadowed polar craters, radar observations have detected what could be thick deposits of frozen water. And however it arrived on this sun-drenched, ancient surface, it certainly has a story to tell. But it is our nearest neighbour, pale and beguiling Venus, that hides the biggest secret. The Goddess of Love will literally melt your heart and crush your defences at the same time. Once the twin of Earth, it’s thought that Venus had oceans for billions of years and even the likelihood of life.

Voyage to the Planets

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