Is mankind alone, or are there aliens out there, either waiting to be discovered, or on their way to find Earth? Professor Brian Cox spends this episode asking such questions, and what he discovers may raise a few eyebrows. He begins by exploring the human race's efforts to find neighbours in outer space, including the launch of two golden discs containing a greeting from Earth in the 1970s; they are still travelling and are now the most distant man-made objects from the planet. Brian also meets members of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, who have been monitoring radio signals for 50 years without success, before discussing the ingredients needed to make an intelligent civilisation with astrophysicist Dr Frank Drake.

How is the universe put together? How is it built? And how does it actually work? How the Universe Works Series 8 shows the inner workings of our planet, the solar system, the galaxies and the universe itself.
In the first episode, if a massive asteroid collides with earth, it could end life on our planet as we know it. New discoveries and cutting-edge tech reveal just how close we are to apocalypse and what it would take for the world's leading space agencies to stop it.

What are the latest discoveries in the deadly world of asteroids? Will a recently returned Japanese spacecraft become the first to bring an asteroid sample back to our planet? What would happen to America's East Coast if the massive asteroid impact that helped form Chesapeake Bay 35 million years ago struck today? And why did President Barack Obama choose an asteroid as the destination for the next great manned mission into space? Learning about these huge space rocks isn't just about science, it's about survival.

Does life exist on other planets? Astrobiology is a visionary new science that searches for life in space by combining the disciplines of astronomy, biology and geology. How did life evolve on Earth? What will life look like on other planets? These and other pertinent questions will be answered by a diverse group of scientists. Viewers will visit the Pilbara region of West Australia where the oldest evidence of life on Earth has been discovered. Travel to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to test a theory that life could exist in the clouds of Venus. Finally, watch as experiments are done to see if life exists on exoplanets, earth-like planets beyond our solar system.

The series, depicted by state of the art CGI techniques, and applying the laws of life on Earth to the rest of the galaxy, blends fact with science fiction and conceptualizes what alien life might be like on other planets.
In the prologue, astronomer Didier Queloz makes an appearance to discuss the discoveries of exoplanets and how they are analyzed in the real world. In Episode 1, the fictional world imagined is Atlas, a world with higher gravity than Earth and a thicker atmosphere leading to airborne creatures. In explaining the aliens of Atlas, the episode also explores the handicap principle in insects, and shows a rehabilitative form of falconry as captive falcons are trained to live in the wild.

What makes us human is the squishy triple-pounder inside our heads. It lets us build skyscrapers, and lift a special few of us into space. We are the only species on this planet that can construct realities in our mind and then go actually build it. The story of how our mind evolved on this one strange rock is one of chance, coincidence and impossible odds.
This episode is an investigation into the mystery of the human brain and the chain of events that produced the anomaly of human intelligence.