Philomena Cunk Presents
The Final Frontier,
Or Is It Just The Sky But Higher?
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"This is the Sun. It's basically a massive radiator in the sky that nobody can figure out how to turn down. It's so bright that looking at it makes you go blind, which is nature's way of telling you to mind your own business. Without the Sun, we wouldn't have daylight, which means we wouldn't be able to see to make a cup of tea, and humanity would probably collapse."
"This small, burnt potato is Mercury. Not the stuff in old thermometers that you're not supposed to drink, but a rock. It's the closest planet to the Sun, meaning it's basically an oven that's been left on by mistake. Nobody lives here, not even on a bank holiday."
"Venus. Named after the Roman goddess of love, or possibly the ladies' razors. It's completely covered in toxic gas and traps heat under its clouds, making the atmosphere unbreathable and deeply unpleasant, much like the men's toilets at a Wetherspoons."
"Earth. The most important planet, because it's where we keep all the televisions. From out here, it looks quite peaceful and blue, but if you zoom in, absolutely everyone is quite annoyed about something. My mate Paul says if you dig a hole deep enough you fall out of the bottom of the planet, but scientists have asked him to stop saying that."
"Mars. The red one. For years, scientists thought there were aliens hiding here, but it turns out it's just a load of rusty dust. Billionaires currently want to move here, presumably because there's no council tax and you don't have to talk to regular people."
"Billions of bits of rock floating in a circle between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists believe this is the remains of a planet that never formed — essentially the laziest thing in the solar system. Some people worry about asteroids hitting Earth, but the Earth has been here for four billion years so it's probably fine."
"Jupiter. The biggest planet. It's made entirely of gas, which is frankly disgusting. It's so massive you could fit all the other planets inside it, though nobody knows why you'd bother. It also has a giant red spot, which is a storm that has been raging for hundreds of years. You'd think it would have blown itself out by now, but no."
"Saturn. Famous for its rings. It's like a cosmic Lord of the Rings, but without all the boring walking bits. The rings are actually just billions of bits of ice and rock spinning around, making Saturn the most aggressively accessorized planet in the solar system."
"Uranus. Nobody can agree how to say it — the scientists won't commit. It's an ice giant, which sounds prestigious but just means it's mostly frozen methane, very cold, and very far away. What makes Uranus remarkable is that it spins almost completely on its side, meaning its seasons last about twenty years each. This is what happens when no one is in charge."
"Neptune. The last proper planet, depending on your feelings about Pluto. It has the fastest winds in the solar system, at around 2,100 kilometres per hour, for no obvious reason. It was discovered entirely through maths, before anyone had even seen it — which is the most smug thing science has ever done. Astronomers calculated it must be there, then looked, and there it was. It didn't even get to be a surprise."
"And then there's Pluto. Which used to be a planet until 2006, when scientists cruelly demoted it for being too small. It has a heart-shaped plain of nitrogen ice on its surface, which is the most emotionally vulnerable thing in the solar system. Cancel culture gone mad."
Colophon
Philomena Cunk is a fictional character created by Charlie Brooker. This is an unofficial fan project.
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