Secrets of Our Universe with Tim Peake - Season 1

The astronaut delivers an action-packed and family-friendly exploration of our universe, sharing his knowledge of the planets, stars and black holes, and space missions. Tim visits astonishing locations, including the extraordinary laboratory where stars are made and the slopes of a volcano that offers the best stargazing on earth. He uses an arsenal of techniques to immerse viewers in his world, from high-end graphics and stunning archive, to going behind-the scenes with the world's top scientists and the latest discoveries.

In this episode, Tim Peake looks further out from our solar system, to the stars beyond.

While living in space, Tim discovered that the view of the Milky Way was unlike anything seen from Earth. Thousands of pinpricks of light twinkled back at him framed by the complete blackness of space. Tim is searching for answers to questions such as what are stars made of, how long do they live and what happens when they die?

At the centre of our solar system is our star the sun, and Tim travels to the shores of Western Australia to witness a truly spectacular event: a total solar eclipse. Surrounded by thousands of fellow stargazers, Tim experiences the magical moment when the moon covers the sun, causing darkness to fall and the stars to come out during the day. But the best view he gets of the sun is back in London at the Science Museum. Standing in front of a giant i-max screen showing a film of the sun, he meets solar scientist Prof Lucie Green. We discover the sun is huge, like 110 earths lined up side by side. It's a massive burning ball of gas, with solar flares erupting from the surface, each one with the power of a billion hydrogen bombs exploding.

To find out what happens when stars die Tim meets Dr Becky Smethurst. Standing on the edge of Warleigh Weir just outside Bristol, Becky explains the biggest stars in the Universe can form black holes, strange structures that only a few decades ago were the crazy ideas of sci-fi movies. Like the water cascading over the edge of the weir, a black hole drags everything close to it into its void. Even light can't escape its clutches.

The final scene sees Tim meeting up with Prof Andrew Pontzen. They marvel at the most recently captured beautiful images from the James Webb space telescope. One image "The Pillars of Creation" shows the moment stars are born in deep space. Incredibly this is so far out into the universe the light has taken over six thousand years to reach earth, meaning it started its journey in the stone age.

Life in space isn't easy, Tim knows because he had to go through six years of training before his trip to the International Space Station. One of the most daunting moments of a mission is when you head outside on your first space walk. Tim visits the European Space Agency HQ in Cologne, meeting up with Rosemary Coogan a trainee astronaut. Using the latest cutting-edge virtual reality technology, Tim gives Rosemary a lesson on how to survive, when you're floating 400 kilometers above the earth.

But even when you're inside the space station, life is totally different. Dealing with being weightless as you float around can be fun, but everything around you floats too. We see how Tim prepares his specially designed space food: everything from pizza to strawberry shortbreads. And there's something you really don't want floating around your living quarters… so going to the loo in space is much more complicated. Then there's the weekly Saturday morning clean up that includes two hours of vacuuming.

But the biggest strain on your body is the forces experienced when you're launched into space. Tim visits the RAF Centre of Aviation Medicine in Lincolnshire, where he meets space medicine doctor Joseph Britton. Tim undergoes a G-Force test that all astronauts dread, he is spun around in a capsule, replicating the forces as a rocket accelerates to ten times the speed of a bullet. All this training will be essential if we are to realise our dream of building a home on the moon and Mars.

It's said that the first person to walk on Mars has already been born. And to see the challenges of such an audacious mission, Tim travels to the US to meet Kai Staats. Housed under 6000 panes of glass, Biosphere 2 in Arizona is the world's largest enclosed ecological habitat: there's a forest and a coral reef, and people like Kai are working out how we take all this with us to survive on Mars.