Original subtitles

We think of life as confined to a single

planet.

But the nature of life

is to spread,

to seek out new horizons,

to take root on foreign shores

in search of new soils.

to make its mark on the cosmos.

Heat.

Heat.

If you were to travel back in time 4.4

billion years ago, you might not have

picked Earth as the future cradle of

life.

But Mars,

smaller and quicker to cool, Mars formed

a solid crust and flowing water. long

before the Earth,

giving it a 100 millionyear head start

to spark life.

Clues from Martian meteorites and rovers

tell the story of a once vibrant world

with rivers winding across ancient

valleys,

lakes pooling in craters

and a vast open ocean spanning the

northern hemisphere.

In Jezero crater in ancient river delta,

NASA's Perseverance rover found a

curious mudstone rock named Shyava

Falls.

Formed when liquid water covered the

planet billions of years ago,

it contains strange pale leopard spots,

each rich in minerals and organic

molecules that on Earth often point to

microbial activity.

So far, researchers have no natural

explanation for these patterns, meaning

that these spots could be the fossils of

ancient Martian microbes.

And our first true glimpse at alien

life.

But if there really was life here long

ago, it would have been under attack,

pummeled by a 300 millionyear asteroid

storm

on the surface. These impacts would have

been apocalyptic for life.

But underground, they may have been a

gift.

Residual heat from large impacts may

have created thousands of underground

mineralrich water systems that stayed

heated for millions of years.

Ideal incubators for life, protected

from the chaos on the surface.

But the barrage of impacts had another

effect.

Rocks blasted into space by the impacts

spread throughout the solar system

with billions of tons of Martian

material making contact with Earth.

13,000 years ago, one of these rocks

struck the Allen Hills in Antarctica.

It was found to have originated in a

deep Martian canyon at a time when Mars

still had flowing water.

And deep inside we found these

strange structures that look like

fossilized bacteria.

It now appears they are just natural

mineral formations. But these structures

stirred a deep question.

What if it wasn't just Martian rocks

coming to Earth,

but Martian life?

What if our oldest ancestors came from

Mars

or further beyond?

This is the theory of panspermia.

And for it to work, life has to survive

the gauntlet.

A three-stage journey from hell.

First stage, survive being launched into

space several times faster than a

speeding bullet.

Inside a superheated fragment of rock

with surface temperatures exceeding

1,000° C.

Second stage. Endure the long journey

through the frozen vacuum of space

devoid of water, air, or nutrients for

potentially millions of years.

All while being bombarded by ultraviolet

radiation that can shred DNA to pieces.

Final stage. Withstand the fiery

re-entry to a new world as your frozen

lifeboat becomes a fireball.

life uh finds a way.

Spores of the bacterium basillus

subtillus have been recovered alive just

millimeters inside a rock as its outer

surface was superheated to over 400° C.

Tardigrades one of the smallest and

heartiest animals known have been

witnessed surviving the freezing vacuum

of space for at least 10 days without

protection.

They do this with a unique protein

called DUP

which forms a protective cloud around

their DNA.

But when it comes to battling radiation,

the undisputed king is the bacterium

denocus radios.

It can withstand radiation levels a

thousand times higher than a dose fatal

to humans.

Its superpower is its ability to

reassemble its own shattered DNA,

rebuilding its entire genome in a matter

of hours.

Heat. Heat.

Dead microbial remains contain fragments

of DNA that carry valuable information.

These fragments could have spilled out

into Earth's primordial soup, providing

readymade materials to jumpstart life.

This is the theory of necropanspermia.

Like mana from heaven, the essential

molecules of life could have rained down

on our planet

from some ancient branch of life.

If true,

Earth life could be written with

borrowed words from a story that began

far from our shores,

delivered here by microbial martyrs.

But perhaps it was the other way around.

Perhaps Earth was the cradle for life

and a launch pad for its journey to

other worlds.

Tens of millions of rock fragments from

Earth have made it to Mars.

But due to its closer orbit, Venus may

have received far more,

potentially 100 times more over the

eons.

Together, these three planets formed a

bustling meteoric trade network, sharing

billions of fragments over billions of

years.

Some rocks travel as far as Jupiter and

its moons,

potentially seeding their underground

oceans.

Even Saturn is thought to have received

possibly millions of Earth fragments,

some splashing down into the liquid

methane lakes of Titan.

Seen in this way, the solar system could

be a constellation of life

intermixing its biochemistry through an

interplanetary asteroid highway.

But this might only be scratching the

surface.

In fact, life could be connected not

just between planets,

but between entire star systems.

The average distance between neighboring

stars in our cosmic neighborhood is

about four light years, around 40

trillion km.

This journey would take millions of

times longer, making survival even less

probable,

but not impossible.

Studies show that microbes shielded

inside 3 ft of rock could survive the

cosmic radiation of deep space for tens

of millions of years.

Comets could make the perfect

interstellar arcs as their thick mantles

of water ice form a natural radiation

shield for any microbial passengers.

But the best way to close the gap is to

pack the stars closer together.

Most stars in the universe are born

within dense clusters

packed in tight with other suns.

In these crowded cosmic neighborhoods,

the distance between stars isn't

measured in light years,

but in light months or light weeks.

Our

own son was no exception.

Born inside a crowded stellar nursery

with neighbors far closer than they are

today.

During this period lasting up to 90

million years, our solar system and its

nearest neighbor could have swapped up

to 30 quadrillion solid objects.

As many as 200 billion rocks from the

young lifebearing Earth could have

reached alien star systems.

If we ever touch down on nearby alien

worlds,

we might just find that they are part of

our family tree.

And some star systems could be even more

interconnected.

Globular clusters, the dense swarms of

stars that orbit our galaxy, contain

thousands or millions of suns packed

into a tight ball.

For any planets inside these clusters,

the night sky would be permanently

ablaze with thousands of nearby stars,

some shining as brightly as full moons.

At these stellar densities, an asteroid

carrying microbial life wouldn't need

millions of years to reach the next star

system,

but perhaps only thousands.

Across our galaxy, trillions and

trillions of rogue planets wander the

darkness alone, cast out of their home

system,

their surfaces frozen to near absolute

zero.

But deep inside, some could retain a

molten core which could supply heat to a

subsurface ocean.

A perfect sanctuary for an interstellar

journey

down here. Hidden biospheres could sail

safely through the void for millions or

even billions of years using the planet

itself as a starship.

A lucky few could even make the epic

journey to an entirely new galaxy.

potentially making panspermia an

intergalactic phenomenon.

But what if life didn't need to ride a

planet or rock at all?

By constructing a living shell to keep

in heat and block radiation, communities

of cells could weave their own wandering

habitats,

self- sustaining bubbles of life that

float through space like miniature

living planets.

Inside they'd hold liquid water, recycle

nutrients, and use distant sunlight for

energy.

All without ever landing on a planet.

By optimizing their size to a few meters

wide, they'd be strong enough to hold

pressure, yet light enough to drift

through space like cosmic plankton.

Imagine

a creature so large that it rivals the

size of entire planets.

It glides gracefully through the void,

guided by an internal organ that senses

the faint gravitational pull of distant

suns.

Despite its completely alien nature,

this titanic creature voyages the

darkness for a familiar reason.

to raise its young.

Using entire worlds as incubators

Heat up here.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat.

Like cosmic gardeners, advanced

civilizations could be casting seeds of

life across the universe, possibly as

backup copies of their species. She

could treat the galaxy like a vast

garden bed, spreading seeds and watching

how they take root on different worlds.

And we could even discover that our own

tree of life is just a branch of another

civilization's ancient grand experiment.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Heat up

here.

Heat

up

here.