All language subtitles for one.strange.rock.s01e04.genesis.480p.hdtv.x264.rmteam

When I was little,

my grandmother
gave me an old compass.

She wanted me
to know where I was going.

I was always much more
intrigued by where we came from.

I mean, I knew she was from
Pittsburgh, but before that,

her grandmother and her
grandmother's grandmother,

where did they come from?

You go back far enough and
everyone, every living thing,

we all come from the same place,

a moment when a
dead rock came to life.

Only a few of us have
been able to see just how

extraordinary life is.

Ignition and lift-off.

Eight astronauts,

with over 1,000
days in space between them,

can tell us how
being up there helped

them to truly understand
what goes on down here.

I look down and I
can see where we came from.

This living, breathing bubble of
life in the blackness of space.

It's hard to imagine
anywhere else where everything

could have fallen
into place so magically.

We're so used to life
that we start to think of life

as being really
simple and easy to do.

It's not.

We may never know exactly
how life got started,

but we do know it
was a strange brew.

A dash of magical liquid...

A sprinkle of stardust...

And a crackle of energy.

Mixed together in a big bubbling
cauldron to make our rock come alive.

Mae Jemison sees life
differently from most of us...

And not just because
she's an astronaut.

Go on
my mark, three, two, one...

Okay Mae, we copy.

She's also a doctor.

She's spent her
life studying life.

Houston now controlling.

Houston, Endeavour
switching into roll.

Roger roll Endeavour.

At an age when I was just
running around writing rhymes

in Philly, she was pondering
life's biggest questions.

As a child I was fascinated
by the question, who am I?

What am I?

I remember once when we
were driving from Chicago to

Alabama we stopped on the side
of the road and I looked up

and there was this
incredibly star-studded sky.

It just made the whole
universe very magical.

And 30 years later, I had
a ringside seat to the stars.

When I was in space, I felt
an incredible connection to the

rest of the universe.

And it's true.

We're made of the
stuff of stars.

The carbon, the
nitrogen, the oxygen,

the elements that are the key
components to our body were

actually generated inside
of stars that exploded.

All of the stardust
scattered across the universe,

clumping together into
rocks to form planets like ours.

And the great mystery of Genesis is
about how stardust came to life.

You, me, the dog, we're all
made of the same dead dust

that built the planet.

It's just mixed up different.

The big mystery is,
what's the mixer?

♪ ♪

Lechuguilla is probably one of the most
difficult places to visit on Earth.

♪ ♪

When you're deep in Lechuguilla you're
more than 1000 feet underground.

Lechuguilla cave is almost 150
miles long which makes it one

of the most complex
maze caves in the world.

The trail's down here.

♪ ♪

It's a big pretty big
drop-off into this room.

Got it.

♪ ♪

That's amazing. Absolutely.

♪ ♪

Most of these formations are a couple
of hundred thousand years old.

We'd better not touch anything.

Yeah, let's get through
without touching anything.

You'd imagine these deep
dark caves to be lifeless.

There's no energy
from the sun here,

but the cave walls are
not as dead as they seem.

If you were to put
on special glasses...

You'd see this
kaleidoscope of organisms,

living in the caves.

Billions of bacteria on
every surface you look at.

Lechuguilla is cut
off from the surface.

But there is something above all
else that is essential for life.

Water.

It takes up to 10,000 years
for water to work from the

surface into the lake.

You take the water out
of the equation and you have

no bacteria in the cave.

Water is required for life
as we know it here on Earth.

♪ ♪

One of the
important things you learn in

medicine is that bacteria
are made up of just one cell.

And cells are the
basic units of life.

Tiny bubbles or membranes
filled with water.

Floating around this solution,
we've got the ingredients of life.

Yet, it all depends on water.

And when looking at
our planet from space,

I was struck by just
how much water there is.

It is definitely
the blue planet.

These bodies of water are
massive around the Earth.

You're over the
ocean, ocean, ocean,

and then you hit a continent like Africa,
like, ooh, Africa, big continent.

In just a couple
of minutes it's gone and

you're over the ocean again.

Looking at the
Nile Delta from space,

you can see how
important water is,

because all along the Nile
river is this thin beautiful

green strip of life.

That H2O is magic, and so
when you're looking for life,

the key is to find water.

We can last way longer without
eating than we can without drinking.

Food gives us energy.

What does water give us?

Turns out that plain old H2O is the
universal champ at one crucial thing.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

We've come here to Angel Falls
to climb this huge overhang.

One of the biggest in the world.

You just feel like you're flying
when you're hanging from the wall.

The sound of the waterfall
is like a constant storm.

♪ ♪

Climbing Angel Falls
is very dangerous.

I want to keep climbing.

You want to take the lead?

Yeah. Of course.

Where the rock has been more
exposed to the water...

The Rock is crumbly.

It's very sandy, so I'm going
to put one protection here.

Got to be really
careful in this, you know.

And the other hand,

where there is no water at all,

you can see the rock
is completely different.

It's extremely hard.

Are you going to climb?

Yeah, I will try.

When you get to
see this landscape from above...

You can see how the water
is a big destroyer in a way.

It dissolves the rocks.

It continues, the flow of
water, for millions of years,

like these incredible
islands in the sky.

♪ ♪

Water has special properties.

You know the same water we drink
can dissolve almost anything.

It will even dissolve
rock over time.

So that means lots of
different molecules can be

mixed together in it.

And interact with one
another, making something new.

And that's what makes
Earth so special.

With all the
liquid water we have,

our planet's like some type
of giant chemistry lab.

Water takes dust from the stars,

breaks it down and shakes it up.

But life isn't going to bubble
up just because you stirred up

some muddy stardust.

If you want to brew
the soup of life,

you need to kick it up a notch.

If you want to
make stardust into life...

There's a bit more to
it than, just add water.

A recipe is more than
a list of ingredients.

It also tells you how to
put them all together.

Imagine a big pot
of all these ingredients,

you throw them in, but if
you throw in the celery,

tomatoes and the pepper,
you're not gonna get a

spaghetti sauce, unless
you add some heat.

♪ ♪

I usually start my day
with a hit of caffeine,

but Lee Koon Yau, his job gives
him all the jolt he needs.

♪ ♪

Lee is up top to check
the lightning conductor.

He's testing it to make sure it conducts
electricity right down to the ground.

You and I may only see
lightning a few times a year,

but the Earth is constantly
crackling with energy.

To see it, you have to go
way higher than a skyscraper.

Viewed from space,
the Earth is dynamic.

It's full of energy.

I remember seeing these big flashes of light
that sort of come through the clouds.

You know, the lightning just
propagates literally for

thousands of miles across
the surface of the Earth.

It looks like its
nervous system spreading

across the planet.

They're spectacular.

They almost seem to be
communicating to each other.

There are over 100
lightning strikes per second.

That's eight million a day.

And at the start of our
planet, billions of years ago,

there was even more
energy on display.

That's what life
needed to get started.

Energy.

The first experiment to
reveal this really captivated

me as a child.

I grew up in Chicago and two
scientists from my hometown

Urey and Miller, took the
components that were believed

to be Earth's primitive
lifeless atmosphere.

Then they subjected it
to electrical charges.

They were able to generate
organic molecules.

The basic building
blocks of life.

The thought that energy
could make lifeless stuff

come alive was just about as
exciting as life could get for me.

I mean, wow.

Now we have a lot more
knowledge about early Earth.

Billions of years ago, there
were many more sources of

energy than just lightning.

Meteors rained down.

There were volcanic eruptions.

Super-tides churned these seas.

The Earth was a much more
energy-rich, violent place.

Very lively, right?

Lots of things are happening.

But out of this lifeless system,

and over a long period of
time, we actually got life.

And one of the best contenders
for where life started is a

place we might believe nothing
could ever survive at all.

Deep on the floor of the oceans,

something very
mysterious happens.

Cracks in the Earth's
crust open up down there.

And heated water
and gases spew out.

Hydrothermal vents.

Chemicals, energy, water.

All in one place.

Some are even cooking up
organic molecules today,

life's building blocks.

And that's why many scientists
believe it's someplace like

this where life first started.

So the origin of
all of us, all the way back,

was fired out of a chimney
at the bottom of the ocean.

But it would have been nothing
more than hot mud if there

wasn't one very special
element in that stardust.

Space offers an
incredible platform to study

life as it evolved
here on Earth.

It's fascinating to think
that for us to be here now,

the right combination
of stardust,

energy and water had
to come together.

And not just any
bit of stardust...

When you look at life
in its most basic form,

you find that there's one
element that acts like a

backbone and holds
it all together.

And you only get to see
how important it is for

life when you encounter death.

For the Hindus of Bali,

death is a part of
the cycle of life.

Not the end.

♪ ♪

It's up to all the
members of the family to

make sure the spirits of the
dead get to the right place.

They burn the bodies to
return the elements of the

universe back to their source.

The goal?

To convert the body into ash.

When you burn
something that was once alive,

and drive off all the water,
what emerges in the flame is

the essential bit of stardust
that makes life possible.

That charred black
stuff, carbon.

Everything is our
body has carbon in it.

From our bones to our muscle
to our neuro-receptors.

It might be hard to understand what
makes carbon so great for life,

but it turns out that carbon is
the ultimate building block.

It can connect with other
elements in almost infinite

ways to generate all the
different molecules needed to

create a living cell.

Carbon is like the coolest
Lego brick you can imagine.

My kids loved playing
with this stuff,

but if carbon was
one of those blocks,

it'd be the one that
they'd all fight over,

because you can snap
it together just about

any way you like.

Take something with a
lot of carbon in it.

Spider silk.

♪ ♪

Now spider silk is finer than
hair, stronger than steel,

stretchy as elastic
and sticky as gum.

All of those qualities
just depend on how you snap

together that carbon.

Carbon's versatility
enables a construction of a

miraculous molecule inside
nearly every living cell.

DNA.

Our DNA is one of the most complex
molecules in the entire universe.

Billions of carbon atoms combined
to help hold it together,

and this beautifully tangled formation
is like an organic super-computer.

It contains the instruction
manual for life.

And every facet and every
detail that makes you, you.

And it's not just us humans.

DNA is at the heart of almost every
living cell that ever existed.

And you couldn't build
it without carbon.

Now hang on a sec, something
doesn't add up, alright.

I'm no scientist but growing up,

I made a lot of instant
noodles and I'll tell you one

thing, if you take your flavor
packet and throw it into a

swimming pool, you are not going
to get a nice bowl of ramen.

So how are you supposed to make DNA
in the middle of an endless ocean?

Take a pinch
of star, splash of water,

turn up the heat and bam.

Happy Birthday Life.

Not quite.

There's still something
missing from our recipe.

The pot you cook it all up in.

Everything alive needs to be
held together and protected.

That's true if you're
a strand of DNA...

Or an astronaut.

The space station
is like a cell in a way.

It's like a bubble of life.

You really have this
sense of being enclosed,

you know, just a few
inches in front of my eyes

is the vacuum of space,
and if I were out there,

I'd be gone in 10 seconds.

Inside we have
all the ingredients and the

systems to keep us alive.

It's the same for living cells.

Just at a microscopic level.

Water is a critical
solvent for life.

But if there's too much water...

The solution might be dilute,

and the molecules of life
never bump into one another.

So you need something
to contain them.

Think of a bubble that we blow.

That surrounds
this pocket of air.

And it keeps the air contained.

There's something similar
encasing all living cells.

Membranes.

The holy grail for me is to find out
how the first membranes formed.

It could have formed
in a hot spring,

in an ice pool
underneath an ice sheet.

It's a huge mystery.

I've come to Iceland because it's
a fantastic natural laboratory.

This is Liane, coming in.

I'm heading north, I'm at 460 meters
altitude and I'm heading to direction 71.

It's snowing outside.

I'll be there
in an hour. Over.

♪ ♪

Today in Iceland you see
volcanoes underneath icecaps.

You also see hot springs.

Bubbling pools where life
could have started as well.

Even in the hottest
environments,

if you take a sample
and you analyze its DNA,

there is life there.

In the early Earth you can
envisage these bubbling mud pools,

where water dissolves
the rocks and makes clay.

As the gas comes out, it forms
a membrane which then bursts.

So think of that membrane
not bursting and actually

preserving at a very,
very small scale...

And then if you mix
organic molecules inside,

you all of a sudden have an
organic molecule inside a

membrane to form a cell.

♪ ♪

Without membranes we would
be on a planet covered

by a dilute ocean of the
building blocks of life.

But with membranes,

finally there was a way to keep all
those building blocks together.

I believe there were many
opportunities for life to arise.

We may have had other types of
lifeforms that came and went,

but didn't take, right?

They didn't hit and stick.

But one of them made it.

It's called LUCA,
which stands for the

Last Universal Common Ancestor,

for all life here on Earth.

LUCA could protect itself with a
membrane and reproduce itself.

Everything came together in
just the right way to create

the first living cell,
with DNA at its heart.

Fast forward
billions of years...

And we find that all life today
uses the same basic chemistry.

And this points to one thing, it all
originated in that first primitive cell.

Alright, now my grandma,

you know, she was kind of small.

But LUCA, the great,
great, great times a gazillion

grandmother of us all,
she was tinier than a dot.

As far as we know, that
cell was the single and

only origin of all life.

Well, at least on Earth.

If you check out
pretty much anywhere in the

universe, you're going to
find the same ingredients

to cook up life.

They're not exotic,
they're staples.

Now sure, mixing them
up just right is hard,

but the universe is vast.

So does that mean there's
a big piping hot serving

of life somewhere
else out there?

That's what one group of
explorers is trying to find out.

Hunting for strange
lifeforms, not off-planet,

but right here,
in parts unknown.

There's an alien world
right beneath our feet.

♪ ♪

As you drop into this blackness,

you have no sense that you're
still on this planet anymore.

It can be
completely disorienting.

You're spun around,
and which way is up,

which way is forward,
which way is backwards.

These underwater caves are one
of the least understood parts

of our planet because of the
dangers of going down into them.

My desire to understand how
life began on Earth also

reaches out to the stars,
because the ingredients for

life probably exist
in many places.

In our solar system, in our
galaxy and in the universe,

stardust...

Water... And energy.

Out there we're finding water on
different moons that surround

some of the planets
in our solar system.

The icy moons of Jupiter and
Saturn have oceans of liquid water

underneath the ice.

Enceladus is a water-world,

but with a hot rocky center
and plumes of water spraying

out into the universe.

So maybe there's primitive life
on a moon of Saturn right now.

I always wondered, will
we find life on other planets?

Will we find life outside
of our solar system?

And as we look beyond the
Earth and explore other rocks,

I believe that it's likely
we will find simple life.

It'll look different, it will
be different, but our rock,

our planet is important to us.

It's special and it's unique
because it's our home.

It's where we evolved.

Think of that fragile
moment, billions of years ago,

where you and I and
all of us began.

A tiny moat of life suspended
in a ripple of water.

The promise of everything
that is alive or ever

lived in our world.

It's the moment nothing
turned to something.

That stardust sparkled to life.

The moment one rock in a remote
corner of the universe became

most wonderfully strange.

Genesis is the
bright side of life.

Next time, life's dark shadow...

Death.

Captioned by Cotter
Captioning Services.