Man has been captivated by the possibility of life on other planets for what seems like an eternity. From the moment Neil Armstrong took 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind', our universe - and all that it presented, either real or imagined - began to open up.
While big-budget movies and TV shows usually portray aliens as weird-looking little green men intent on destroying our world - except E.T., of course - proof of life in outer space has been elusive for scientists.
Our perceptions are set to change with the brilliant Alien Planet (premiering today on Ultimate Discovery at 9pm). A futuristic boy's own adventure based on the book Expedition by Wayne Barlowe, it takes us on a virtual journey with leading scientists to a fictional world called Darwin IV. The planet is 6.5 light years away (that's 61.5 trillion kilometres), has two suns and only 60 per
cent of the Earth's gravity. As the story unfolds, we learn that scientists have identified Darwin IV as a planet capable of supporting life, and they send an unmanned pilot mission, dubbed Von Braun, to investigate possible life forms. Although Balboa, one of its three probes, is destroyed as it enters Darwin IV's atmosphere, da Vinci (nicknamed Leo) and Newton (aka Ike) end up in the middle of a fantastical, extra-terrestrial Serengeti.
We see Darwin IV through the 'eyes' of Leo and Ike, which relay data back to Earth. Because it takes 6.5 years for their information to reach scientists, the robots have been programmed to think for themselves. Throughout their journey and after each new discovery of life, the programme cuts back to the experts, which include physicist Stephen W. Hawking, Star Wars director George Lucas, scientists James Garvin and Michio Kako and palaeontologist James Kirkland, who discuss the possibilities of life outside our solar system and deconstruct the animals found on Darwin IV.
The computer graphics, by Meteor Studios (When Dinosaurs Roamed), are out of this world and bring to