Fans of Carl Sagan's cherished 1980 astronomy miniseries Cosmos rejoice! A lost fourteenth episode — about the awe-inspiring Meat Planet — has been found after decades of neglect. In this rediscovered footage, such geological features as the gristly mantle and Mount Sustenance are given their documentary due. Additionally, there is a website that explains the planet's most succulent features, such as its weather:
High pressure areas can lead to a lack of sweat clouds, allowing the exposed land masses to cook and burn in the noon sunshine. In temperate areas, the meat is often cooked to perfection, whereas on the equator giant scabs and blisters of burnt flesh blight the landscape, a blackened, arid desert of scorched carbon and crackled fat. The largest known blister discovered was photographed in 1997 by the Hubble Space Telescope and measured 6,500 horrible miles in diameter.
As well as grease mists and sweat clouds, evaporated blood plays a large part in the weather system of The Meat Planet. Extracted by the sun's rays from the deep oceans of liquid meat, the blood clouds are pushed by flatulent winds over the continents where they rain back down on bulbous hills and corpulent meat mountains, helping to moisturise and irrigate the land, keeping the ground plump and fresh.
Yes, it is truly a privilege to ogle the marbled marble that is Planet Meat. The Pork Volcano, it is breathtaking.
[Via MeFi]