Uranus and Neptune, two of the largest, farthest and strangest planets in our solar system. These two planets break all the rules. Of all the big planets, Uranus and Neptune remain the biggest enigmas. Today, astronomers are finally unlocking why these supersized snowballs are so weird. Can an ancient mega-collision reveal what knocked Uranus onto its side? Can a missing twin world unlock why one of Neptune's moons orbits the wrong way? And what is the energy that drives the fastest winds in the solar system?

The mission of NASA's Osiris-Rex is to intercept a giant space rock and crack the mysteries of a potential killer asteroid. Can it unlock how asteroids kick-start life on Earth and reveal why they might be our ticket to other worlds? To find out, we take a ride with one of NASA's most ambitious missions to investigate a space rock in more detail than ever before, to reveal how asteroids will rewrite the past and forge the future of our solar system.

Brian Cox looks at our attempts to answer one of the most profound questions we can ask – are we alone in the universe? With scientists sending space probes to the furthest reaches of our solar system and beyond, the scientific search for alien life has begun. Inspired by a childhood love of science fiction, Brian still hopes to hear from ET. In this film, he explains why this search deserves to be taken seriously, and he explores the chances of it happening.

The Rosetta mission was a ground-breaking expedition to land on a comet for the first time, the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. The Rosetta mission tries to answer our most fundamental questions and to change our understanding of the cosmos forever. Special access reveals what this cutting-edge journey discovered and how these mysterious objects helped create life on Earth.

The Sun is a endless churning cauldron of nuclear reactions and our planet is at its mercy. Revealing its inner workings was once mission impossible, but not any more. We've recruited a fleet of spacecraft that monitor the Sun 24 hours a day, under close surveillance. We just might have what it takes to defend our planet.

They're the cooling corpses of stars like our sun, but new research proves white dwarfs are one of the driving forces of our universe. And they can tell us literally about the nature of the cosmos itself. Have scientists finally discovered how these small stars could be such massive galactic players?