The Sky at Night

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BBC Four

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Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Iconic series exploring space science and the incredible universe all around us.

Look up! Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Professor Chris Lintott present the iconic, inspirational look at cutting-edge space science and the incredible universe all around us.

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Chris Lintott

Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Pete Lawrence

Carisse Perks

Raquel Taylor

Kassi Murphy

Steve Crabtree

Peter Leonard

The Sky at Night: The Forgotten Solar System

The Forgotten Solar System

BBC Four - The Sky at Night, The Forgotten Solar System

Why opportunities to explore our solar system's outer planets are so important.

The Sky at Night team reveal how important it is to investigate our solar system's outer planets close up and why opportunities to do so only come around every so often.

Of the 100 probes that have been sent out into space, only one probe - Voyager 2 in 1989 - has ever sent back any information about the solar system's outer planets. From afar, they seem featureless and devoid of any significant geological activity.

Since then, long-range telescopes have shown that there is much more to Neptune and Uranus than previously thought and that they both warrant closer inspection. Time, however, is of the essence. Deep-space missions are dependent on Jupiter. The slingshot effect it provides to move probes along the way is only available to us every 25 years.

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