I recently watched this on Netflix, where it was packaged as "Secrets of the Solar System". I hadn't even been aware this documentary-seeming investigative piece was part of a long-running British series called "Horizon" until I looked for it here, on IMDb. I was going to leave a review on Netflix, but, given that reviews of streamed content have been entirely removed from their platform, I'm leaving it here, which is likely a better place anyway.
The biggest takeaway from this episode is that the movements of the planets in our solar system have not always been confined to the fixed orbits to which we often think of them as belonging. The "planet seekers", a relatively recent class of astronomers, in fact seemed puzzled by the fact that our four gas giants occupy the outer section of our solar system. When these astronomers look to other star systems, they see that the gas giant planets they've so far found are respectively much much closer to their own stars than are ours. When they theorize as to how these types of planets are birthed, after their stars' formations, they again conclude that they should be much closer to their suns.
A secondary takeaway, according to these astronomers, is that the key to understanding the dynamism of planets within any solar system lies with understanding the gas giants and their life cycles, with how the gas giants interact with themselves and with other planets through various stages of the aging of the star systems they occupy.
Overall, though, I didn't really think any radical concepts were introduced. While forming this opinion, I also concluded that the same can be said of more or less all of the documentaries which Netflix makes available through their streaming platform.
When this episode of "Horizon" is compared against, say, the documentary "Symbols of an Alien Sky" (which also talks about the dynamic behavior of various planets in our solar system), it is really quite tame.
The biggest takeaway from this episode is that the movements of the planets in our solar system have not always been confined to the fixed orbits to which we often think of them as belonging. The "planet seekers", a relatively recent class of astronomers, in fact seemed puzzled by the fact that our four gas giants occupy the outer section of our solar system. When these astronomers look to other star systems, they see that the gas giant planets they've so far found are respectively much much closer to their own stars than are ours. When they theorize as to how these types of planets are birthed, after their stars' formations, they again conclude that they should be much closer to their suns.
A secondary takeaway, according to these astronomers, is that the key to understanding the dynamism of planets within any solar system lies with understanding the gas giants and their life cycles, with how the gas giants interact with themselves and with other planets through various stages of the aging of the star systems they occupy.
Overall, though, I didn't really think any radical concepts were introduced. While forming this opinion, I also concluded that the same can be said of more or less all of the documentaries which Netflix makes available through their streaming platform.
When this episode of "Horizon" is compared against, say, the documentary "Symbols of an Alien Sky" (which also talks about the dynamic behavior of various planets in our solar system), it is really quite tame.
