BRIAN COX: SEVEN DAYS ON MARS
BBC Two, 9pm
Professor Brian Cox has the gift of being able to explain complex science to those of us without a PHD in particle physics. He’s also puppyishly enthusiastic – a quality that rises to the fore in this documentary, as he realises a boyhood dream to visit Pasadena and Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL is the high-tech mission control centre for the Perseverance Rover programme, Nasa’s search for life on Mars, 200million
miles away. Cox was present for the crucial week when the machine was sent to do some tests at the Jezero Crater – believed to have been a lake, a mere 3.8billion years ago.
Cox joined the team who guided the rover and the Ingenuity helicopter (the first extra-terrestrial aircraft) and we hear some of the problems the team encountered (including a malfunctioning drill bit and a highly worrying bug in the
communications software). He explains some of the extraordinary science of Perseverance, including how it can test rock samples in situ so that scientists can gather vital hoards of data about the Red Planet, to be transmitted back to Earth.
Even though we know by now that the mission was a resounding success, hearts will surely be in mouths as we watch the rover inching ever closer to its final destination.