Cosmic Vistas Episode Rating Graph

Mercury is one Earth's closest neighbors, but for centuries it eluded astronomer's best efforts to learn its secrets. But that has changed thanks to missions like Mariner and most recently, Messenger.

Thanks to a dramatic repair mission, the Hubble Space Telescope has another chance to capture more stunning pictures like only it can.

Mercury offers us a look at a solid world and the forces that shape it. Venus tells an even more complex story, but the story of life on these rocky shores ends with our own planet - Earth. The moon, our silent partner, is our closest neighbor in space and the keeper of some of our oldest secrets.

For the first time since man explored new continents on Earth, the human race is once again on the edge of discovery. This time our sights are set on unlocking the secrets of our solar system – starting with the Sun – the most brilliant and dangerous location we can explore.

Meteorites slicing across the sky introduce us to another component of the solar system – asteroids and comets. The series concludes with a tantalizing glimpse of the alien worlds that lie far beyond our solar system and a recognition that another new horizons now beckons.

They key ingredient to life in the universe is water. Until recently we thought Earth was the only place in the solar system to have any water at all. Now that probes are peering around nearby worlds we are finding that is just not the case.