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The Cave of Swallows in Mexico is a 400m vertical shaft, deep enough to engulf the Empire State Building. The Lechuguilla cave system in the USA is 193km long and 500m deep with astonishing crystal formations hanging from its chambers. Although often overlooked, caves are remarkable habitats with equally bizarre wildlife. Cave angel fish cling to the walls behind cave waterfalls with microscopic hooks on their flattened fins. Cave swiftlets navigate by echo-location and build nests out of saliva. The Texas cave salamander has neither eyes nor pigment. Unique access to a hidden world of stalactites, stalagmites, snotites and troglodytes brings a wealth of surprises.

In the last few years, the Red Planet has yielded up many new clues that life may have once existed there...and may even exist there today. There is now have proof that water once flowed on the surface, that Mars once had lakes, and that the frozen poles are mostly water, not carbon dioxide as previously thought. Mars has snow--an aurora--and lightning generated by dust storms. Most intriguing of all are the seasonal plumes of methane that just may point to bacteria living below the surface.

They've discovered water on other planets, and snatched the actual building blocks of life from a comet's tail. But can space probes find a new Earth...and even make contact with alien life? In the 21st century, space probes are photographing, drilling and even sniffing new worlds in the quest for life, and scanning thousands of distant suns trying to detect Earth-like planets. It's only a matter of time before space probes unlock the secrets to extra-terrestrial life and the universe itself.

Have planet hunters finally found proof of other Earth like worlds? Astronomers have now discovered over two hundred alien worlds, beyond our solar system, that were unknown just a decade ago. Discover planets that rage with fiery hurricanes and bizarre planets covered by water so dense that it forms a kind of hot ice. Among these weird worlds, Earth actually seems like the oddball.

Space colonization is no longer the fodder of science fiction, it is becoming a reality. Examine the efforts underway to establish a human colony on Mars, including how they plan to grow food, recycle wastewater and introduce greenhouse gases to revive the red planet and make it more habitable for humans. Cutting-edge computer graphics are used to bring the universe down to earth to show what life would be like on Mars, and to imagine what kind of life forms might evolve in alien atmospheres.

Right now cosmic forces prowl the universe and threaten man's very existence. They're asteroids and comets; they've left their imprint on planet Earth, literally. Initially helping to build planets through violent collisions, during this fiery bombardment period they may have even seeded Earth with water and the building blocks for life. Since the turbulent formation of the solar system, these space rocks have continued to impact Earth. Some have been so violent that they've led to mass extinctions, including one that wiped out the dinosaur. New theories suggest that asteroid and comet dust harbour deadly viruses that may have triggered some of our worst pandemics. The possibility of future collisions remains a legitimate threat yet despite their dangers, asteroids and comets may hold vital natural resources, which could actually preserve