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NARRATOR: Our world,
warm, comfortable, familiar...
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00:00:12,912 --> 00:00:15,581
...but when we look up, we wonder:
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00:00:15,749 --> 00:00:19,985
Do we occupy
a special place in the cosmos?
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00:00:20,153 --> 00:00:23,155
Or are we merely a celestial footnote?
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00:00:23,323 --> 00:00:27,826
Is the universe welcoming or hostile?
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00:00:28,895 --> 00:00:32,031
We could stand here forever,
wondering.
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00:00:34,234 --> 00:00:39,138
Or we could leave home,
on the ultimate adventure.
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To discover wonders.
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00:00:52,719 --> 00:00:55,287
Confront horrors.
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00:00:57,457 --> 00:01:00,192
Beautiful new worlds.
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00:01:01,728 --> 00:01:04,530
Malevolent dark forces.
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00:01:08,902 --> 00:01:11,236
The beginning of time.
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00:01:12,505 --> 00:01:15,607
The moment of creation.
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00:01:16,743 --> 00:01:20,079
Would we have the courage
to see it through?
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00:01:21,781 --> 00:01:24,416
Or would we run for home?
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00:01:25,852 --> 00:01:28,654
There's only one way to find out.
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00:01:47,307 --> 00:01:51,910
Our journey through time and space
begins with a single step.
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00:01:52,078 --> 00:01:55,914
At the edge of space,
only 60 miles up...
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00:01:56,082 --> 00:01:58,784
...just an hour's drive from home.
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00:02:01,821 --> 00:02:03,922
Down there, life continues.
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00:02:04,090 --> 00:02:07,559
The traffic is awful,
stocks go on trading...
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00:02:07,727 --> 00:02:10,796
...and Star Trek is still showing.
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00:02:22,976 --> 00:02:27,613
When we return home,
if we return home...
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00:02:28,948 --> 00:02:30,349
...will it be the same?
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Will we be the same?
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00:02:37,757 --> 00:02:40,392
We have to leave all this behind.
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00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:44,296
To dip our toes
into the vast dark ocean.
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00:02:45,398 --> 00:02:48,767
On to the Moon.
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00:03:18,698 --> 00:03:21,767
Dozens of astronauts
have come this way before us.
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00:03:21,935 --> 00:03:25,704
Twelve walked on the Moon itself.
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Just a quarter of a million miles
from home.
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Three days by spacecraft.
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Barren.
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Desolate.
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It's like a deserted battlefield.
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But oddly familiar.
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So close, we've barely left home.
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00:04:07,447 --> 00:04:11,183
Neil Armstrong's first footprints.
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Looks like they were made yesterday.
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There's no air to change them.
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00:04:16,956 --> 00:04:20,125
They could survive for millions of years.
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Maybe longer than us.
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Our time is limited.
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00:04:32,138 --> 00:04:35,507
We need to take our own giant leap.
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00:04:37,176 --> 00:04:41,780
One million miles,
5 million, 20 million miles.
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00:04:41,948 --> 00:04:46,518
We're far beyond
where any human has ever ventured.
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Out of the darkness, a friendly face.
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The goddess of love, Venus.
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The morning star.
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00:05:01,734 --> 00:05:04,036
The evening star.
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She can welcome the new day
in the east...
52
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...say good night in the west.
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00:05:18,351 --> 00:05:20,686
A sister to our planet...
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...she's about the same size and gravity
as Earth.
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We should be safe here.
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00:05:29,295 --> 00:05:33,031
But the Venus Express space probe
is setting off alarms.
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00:05:33,199 --> 00:05:38,236
It's telling us, these dazzling clouds,
they're made of deadly sulfuric acid.
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The atmosphere
is choking with carbon dioxide.
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00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:53,285
Never expected this.
Venus is one angry goddess.
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The air is noxious,
the pressure unbearable.
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And it's hot, approaching 900 degrees.
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Stick around and we'd be corroded,
suffocated, crushed and baked.
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00:06:16,809 --> 00:06:19,878
Nothing can survive here.
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00:06:21,514 --> 00:06:24,683
Not even this Soviet robotic probe.
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Its heavy armor's been trashed
by the extreme atmosphere.
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So lovely from Earth,
up close, this goddess is hideous.
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She's the sister from hell.
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Pockmarked
by thousands of volcanoes.
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00:07:05,691 --> 00:07:08,960
All that carbon dioxide
is trapping the Sun's heat.
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Venus is burning up.
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It's global warming gone wild.
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Before it took hold,
maybe Venus was beautiful, calm...
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...more like her sister planet, Earth.
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So this could be Earth's future.
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Where are the twinkling stars?
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00:07:29,715 --> 00:07:33,118
The beautiful spheres
gliding through space?
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00:07:33,286 --> 00:07:37,522
Maybe we shouldn't be out here,
maybe we should turn back.
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00:07:38,391 --> 00:07:42,527
But there's something about the Sun,
something hypnotic, like the Medusa.
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Too terrible to look at,
too powerful to resist.
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Luring us onwards on,
like a moth to a flame.
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Wait, there's something else,
obscured by the Sun.
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It must be Mercury.
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00:08:03,282 --> 00:08:07,953
Get too close to the Sun,
this is what happens.
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00:08:08,254 --> 00:08:10,589
Temperatures swing wildly here.
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At night, it's minus 275 degrees...
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...come midday, it's 800 plus.
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Burnt then frozen.
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00:08:28,407 --> 00:08:32,677
The MESSENGER space probe
is telling us something strange.
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00:08:32,845 --> 00:08:37,682
For its size,
Mercury has a powerful gravitational pull.
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It's a huge ball of iron,
covered with a thin veneer of rock.
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The core of what was once
a much larger planet.
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00:08:49,161 --> 00:08:50,729
So where's the rest of it?
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00:08:50,897 --> 00:08:54,032
Maybe a stray planet
slammed into Mercury...
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00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:59,671
...blasting away its outer layers
in a deadly game of cosmic pinball.
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00:09:02,375 --> 00:09:07,712
Whole worlds on the loose
careening wildly across the cosmos...
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...destroying anything in their path.
97
00:09:10,483 --> 00:09:12,450
And we're in the middle of it.
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Vulnerable, exposed, small.
99
00:09:15,922 --> 00:09:18,990
Everything is telling us to turn back.
100
00:09:19,492 --> 00:09:22,160
But who could defy this?
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00:09:22,495 --> 00:09:27,332
The Sun
in all its mesmerizing splendor.
102
00:09:28,768 --> 00:09:32,337
Our light, our lives...
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00:09:32,505 --> 00:09:35,540
...everything we do
is controlled by the Sun.
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Depends on it.
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00:09:38,744 --> 00:09:43,982
It's the Greek god Helios
driving his chariot across the sky.
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00:09:44,150 --> 00:09:47,719
The Egyptian god Ra reborn every day.
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00:09:47,887 --> 00:09:51,356
The summer solstice sun
rising at Stonehenge.
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00:09:51,524 --> 00:09:52,891
For millions of years...
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00:09:53,059 --> 00:09:59,197
...this was as close as it got
to staring into the face of God.
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00:10:07,907 --> 00:10:09,474
It's so far away...
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00:10:09,642 --> 00:10:13,878
...if it burned out, we wouldn't know
about it for eight minutes.
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00:10:17,216 --> 00:10:22,053
It's so big,
you could fit one million Earths inside it.
113
00:10:35,368 --> 00:10:39,337
But who needs numbers?
We've got the real thing.
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00:10:42,675 --> 00:10:47,112
We see it every day,
a familiar face in our sky.
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00:10:47,780 --> 00:10:52,651
Now, up close, it's unrecognizable.
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A turbulent sea of incandescent gas.
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The thermometer
pushes 10,000 degrees.
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00:11:04,697 --> 00:11:10,268
Can't imagine how hot the core is,
could be tens of millions of degrees.
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00:11:20,346 --> 00:11:23,415
Hot enough
to transform millions of tons of matter...
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00:11:23,582 --> 00:11:27,152
...into energy every second.
121
00:11:27,319 --> 00:11:31,623
More than all the energy ever made
by mankind.
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00:11:32,158 --> 00:11:36,027
Dwarfing the power
of all the nuclear weapons on Earth.
123
00:11:36,195 --> 00:11:40,899
Back home,
we use this energy for light and heat.
124
00:11:41,667 --> 00:11:46,171
But up close,
there's nothing comforting about the Sun.
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00:11:48,107 --> 00:11:54,312
Its electrical and magnetic forces erupt
in giant molten gas loops.
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00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:57,615
Some are larger than a dozen Earths.
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00:11:58,050 --> 00:12:01,386
More powerful
than 10 million volcanoes.
128
00:12:14,867 --> 00:12:19,771
And when they burst through,
they expose cooler layers below...
129
00:12:20,773 --> 00:12:23,475
...making sunspots.
130
00:12:25,344 --> 00:12:29,414
A fraction cooler than their surroundings,
sunspots look black...
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00:12:29,582 --> 00:12:32,250
...but they're hotter
than anything on Earth.
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00:12:32,418 --> 00:12:38,123
And massive,
up to 20 times the size of Earth.
133
00:12:52,738 --> 00:12:57,008
But one day, all this will stop.
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00:12:57,176 --> 00:13:00,011
The Sun's fuel will be spent.
135
00:13:05,050 --> 00:13:09,120
And when it dies, the Earth will follow.
136
00:13:12,892 --> 00:13:17,128
This god creates life, destroys it...
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00:13:17,296 --> 00:13:20,265
...and demands we keep our distance.
138
00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:31,409
This comet strayed too close.
139
00:13:31,577 --> 00:13:34,512
The Sun's heat is boiling it away...
140
00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:38,650
...creating a tail
that stretches for millions of miles.
141
00:13:49,461 --> 00:13:51,596
It's freezing in here.
142
00:13:51,764 --> 00:13:57,368
There's no doubt where this comet's from,
the icy wastes of deep space.
143
00:13:59,471 --> 00:14:03,308
But all this steam
and geysers and dust...
144
00:14:03,642 --> 00:14:08,413
...it's the Sun again,
melting the comet's frozen heart.
145
00:14:08,581 --> 00:14:09,881
Strange.
146
00:14:10,049 --> 00:14:15,587
A kind of vast, dirty snowball,
covered in grimy tar.
147
00:14:17,723 --> 00:14:20,191
Tiny grains
of what looks like organic material...
148
00:14:20,359 --> 00:14:24,596
...preserved on ice,
since who knows when...
149
00:14:25,397 --> 00:14:28,433
...maybe even the beginning
of the solar system.
150
00:14:30,603 --> 00:14:34,939
Say a comet like this crashed
into the young Earth billions of years ago.
151
00:14:35,107 --> 00:14:38,476
Maybe it delivered organic material
and water...
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00:14:38,644 --> 00:14:40,745
...the raw ingredients of life.
153
00:14:40,913 --> 00:14:43,381
It may even have sown the seeds of life
on Earth...
154
00:14:43,549 --> 00:14:47,085
...that evolved into you and me.
155
00:14:55,728 --> 00:14:59,297
But say it crashed into the Earth now.
156
00:14:59,465 --> 00:15:05,403
Think of the dinosaurs,
wiped out by a comet or asteroid strike.
157
00:15:06,906 --> 00:15:09,173
It's only a question of time.
158
00:15:09,341 --> 00:15:14,479
Eventually, one day,
we'll go the way of the dinosaurs.
159
00:15:21,854 --> 00:15:26,424
If life on Earth was wiped out,
we'd be stuck out here...
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00:15:26,592 --> 00:15:30,995
...homeless, adrift in a hostile universe.
161
00:15:31,397 --> 00:15:34,132
We'd need to find another home.
162
00:15:34,900 --> 00:15:37,902
Among the millions,
billions of planets...
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00:15:38,070 --> 00:15:43,041
...there must be one that's not too hot,
not too cold, with air, sunlight, water...
164
00:15:43,208 --> 00:15:47,211
...where, like Goldilocks,
we could comfortably live.
165
00:15:51,884 --> 00:15:53,885
The red planet.
166
00:15:54,053 --> 00:15:57,188
Unmistakably Mars.
167
00:15:59,725 --> 00:16:02,560
For centuries,
we've looked to Mars for company...
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00:16:02,728 --> 00:16:04,996
...for signs of life.
169
00:16:11,971 --> 00:16:15,840
Could there be extraterrestrial life
here?
170
00:16:18,243 --> 00:16:22,180
Are we ready to rewrite the history books,
to tear up the science books...
171
00:16:22,348 --> 00:16:26,317
...to turn our world upside down?
172
00:16:27,252 --> 00:16:31,789
What happens next
could change everything.
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00:16:40,299 --> 00:16:43,901
Mars is the planet
that most captures our imagination.
174
00:16:44,069 --> 00:16:47,939
Think of B-movies, sci-fi comics,
what follows?
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Martians?
176
00:16:49,508 --> 00:16:52,243
It's all just fiction, right?
177
00:16:54,179 --> 00:16:57,582
But what if
there really is something here?
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00:16:58,650 --> 00:17:02,653
Hard to imagine, though.
Up close, this is a dead planet.
179
00:17:03,722 --> 00:17:09,460
The activity that makes the Earth livable
shut down millions of years ago here.
180
00:17:09,928 --> 00:17:12,063
Red and dead.
181
00:17:12,231 --> 00:17:15,166
Mars is a giant fossil.
182
00:17:19,772 --> 00:17:23,975
Wait. Something is alive.
183
00:17:24,143 --> 00:17:26,377
A dust devil, a big one.
184
00:17:26,545 --> 00:17:29,247
Bigger than the biggest twisters
back home.
185
00:17:29,415 --> 00:17:31,049
There's wind here.
186
00:17:31,216 --> 00:17:34,185
And where there's wind, there's air.
187
00:17:34,686 --> 00:17:38,956
Could that air sustain
extraterrestrial life?
188
00:17:44,563 --> 00:17:47,698
It's too thin for us to breathe.
189
00:17:48,434 --> 00:17:50,635
And there's no ozone layer.
190
00:17:50,803 --> 00:17:55,606
Nothing to protect us
against the Sun's ultraviolet rays.
191
00:17:56,809 --> 00:17:58,709
There is water...
192
00:17:58,877 --> 00:18:03,147
...but frigid temperatures
keep it in a constant deep freeze.
193
00:18:05,184 --> 00:18:08,119
It's hard to believe
anything could live here.
194
00:18:11,723 --> 00:18:16,727
Back on Earth, there are creatures
that survive in extreme cold, heat...
195
00:18:16,895 --> 00:18:19,197
...even in the deepest ocean trenches.
196
00:18:19,364 --> 00:18:21,833
It's as though life is a virus.
197
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,603
It adapts, spreads.
198
00:18:25,771 --> 00:18:28,206
Maybe that's what we're doing
right now...
199
00:18:28,373 --> 00:18:33,511
...carrying the virus of life
across the universe.
200
00:18:36,915 --> 00:18:41,853
Even in the most extreme conditions,
life usually finds a way.
201
00:18:42,020 --> 00:18:43,855
But on a dead planet?
202
00:18:44,022 --> 00:18:49,861
With no way to replenish its soil,
no heat to melt its frozen water?
203
00:18:56,168 --> 00:19:00,438
All this dust,
it's hard to see where we're going.
204
00:19:08,213 --> 00:19:13,351
Olympus Mons,
named after the home of the Greek gods.
205
00:19:13,519 --> 00:19:16,087
A vast ancient volcano.
206
00:19:16,255 --> 00:19:18,890
Three times higher than Everest.
207
00:19:19,725 --> 00:19:22,727
There's no sign of activity.
208
00:19:23,996 --> 00:19:29,367
Since its discovery in the 1970s,
it's been declared extinct.
209
00:19:33,071 --> 00:19:34,405
Hang on.
210
00:19:34,573 --> 00:19:36,574
These look like lava flows.
211
00:19:36,742 --> 00:19:41,612
But any sign of lava should be long gone,
obliterated by meteorite craters.
212
00:19:41,780 --> 00:19:47,985
Unless,
this monster isn't dead, just sleeping.
213
00:19:49,054 --> 00:19:52,590
There could be magma
flowing beneath the crust right now...
214
00:19:52,758 --> 00:19:56,060
...building up, waiting to be unleashed.
215
00:19:56,461 --> 00:20:00,231
Volcanic activity
could be melting frozen water in the soil...
216
00:20:00,399 --> 00:20:04,535
...pumping gases into the atmosphere,
recycling minerals and nutrients.
217
00:20:04,703 --> 00:20:09,907
Creating all the conditions needed
for life.
218
00:20:12,177 --> 00:20:18,282
This makes the Grand Canyon
look like a crack in the sidewalk.
219
00:20:18,750 --> 00:20:20,351
Endless desolation...
220
00:20:20,519 --> 00:20:26,691
...so vast it would stretch all the way
across North America.
221
00:20:29,127 --> 00:20:35,533
But here, signs of activity, erosion,
and what looks like dried up river beds.
222
00:20:35,701 --> 00:20:38,903
Maybe volcanic activity
melted ice in the soil...
223
00:20:39,071 --> 00:20:42,240
...sending water gushing
through this canyon.
224
00:20:42,407 --> 00:20:48,546
Underground volcanoes
could still be melting ice, creating water.
225
00:20:48,714 --> 00:20:52,583
And where there's water,
there could be life.
226
00:20:58,223 --> 00:21:01,892
The hunt for life is spearheaded
by this humble fellow...
227
00:21:02,060 --> 00:21:04,795
...the NASA rover, Opportunity.
228
00:21:04,963 --> 00:21:06,964
It's finding evidence
that these barren plains...
229
00:21:07,132 --> 00:21:11,869
...were once ancient lakes or oceans
that could have harbored life.
230
00:21:31,323 --> 00:21:33,457
Look at those gullies.
231
00:21:35,994 --> 00:21:39,964
Probes orbiting Mars
keep spotting new ones.
232
00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:45,670
More proof that Mars is alive
and kicking...
233
00:21:46,638 --> 00:21:49,273
...that water
is flowing beneath its surface right now.
234
00:21:49,441 --> 00:21:52,643
Water that could be sustaining
Martian life.
235
00:21:57,716 --> 00:22:01,285
Now, all we have to do is find it.
236
00:22:06,725 --> 00:22:11,429
Maybe we've already found
what we're looking for on Earth.
237
00:22:11,596 --> 00:22:17,134
Some think that life started here
and then migrated to Earth.
238
00:22:20,706 --> 00:22:23,974
An asteroid impact
could've blasted fragments of Mars...
239
00:22:24,142 --> 00:22:27,912
...complete with tiny microbes
out into space...
240
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:32,583
...and onto the young Earth
where they sowed the seeds of life.
241
00:22:33,285 --> 00:22:39,790
No wonder we find Mars fascinating,
this could be our ancestral home.
242
00:22:40,692 --> 00:22:45,229
It could be we are all Martians.
243
00:22:47,499 --> 00:22:50,000
The Mars we thought we knew
is gone...
244
00:22:50,168 --> 00:22:54,839
...replaced by this new,
active, changing planet.
245
00:22:57,843 --> 00:23:01,178
And if we don't know Mars,
our next door neighbor...
246
00:23:01,346 --> 00:23:05,483
...how can we even imagine
what surprises lie ahead?
247
00:23:09,087 --> 00:23:12,890
Our compass points
across the cosmos...
248
00:23:14,126 --> 00:23:18,028
...back in time 14 billion years...
249
00:23:19,297 --> 00:23:22,032
...to the moment of creation.
250
00:23:31,610 --> 00:23:33,878
This is getting scary.
251
00:23:36,348 --> 00:23:40,084
It's like being inside a giant video game.
252
00:23:43,922 --> 00:23:46,724
But these are all too real.
253
00:23:47,092 --> 00:23:52,062
Asteroids,
some of them hundreds of miles wide.
254
00:23:54,032 --> 00:23:57,802
This one must be about 20 miles long.
255
00:23:57,969 --> 00:24:03,407
And there, perched on it,
a space probe.
256
00:24:04,943 --> 00:24:06,010
Can't have been easy...
257
00:24:06,178 --> 00:24:10,681
...parking on an asteroid
traveling at 50,000 miles an hour.
258
00:24:10,849 --> 00:24:14,351
It's a lot of effort
just to investigate some rubble.
259
00:24:14,519 --> 00:24:16,554
Rubble that regularly collides...
260
00:24:16,721 --> 00:24:21,292
...breaks up and rains down on Earth
as meteorites.
261
00:24:22,894 --> 00:24:27,731
Our ancestors saw shooting stars
as magical omens.
262
00:24:27,899 --> 00:24:29,834
And they were right.
263
00:24:30,769 --> 00:24:33,571
Rubble like this came together
to make the planets...
264
00:24:33,738 --> 00:24:35,873
...including our own.
265
00:24:36,341 --> 00:24:38,275
Pretty magical.
266
00:24:39,344 --> 00:24:41,612
By dating the meteorites
found on Earth...
267
00:24:41,780 --> 00:24:47,017
...we can tell the planets were born
4.6 billion years ago.
268
00:24:47,185 --> 00:24:51,889
These are the birth certificates
of our solar system.
269
00:24:55,327 --> 00:24:59,630
For some reason,
these rocks didn't form into a planet.
270
00:25:03,335 --> 00:25:05,870
Something must have stopped them.
271
00:25:06,037 --> 00:25:08,506
Something powerful.
272
00:25:17,649 --> 00:25:19,416
Jupiter.
273
00:25:19,584 --> 00:25:21,552
What a monster.
274
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,522
At least a thousand times bigger
than Earth...
275
00:25:24,689 --> 00:25:29,159
...so vast
you could fit all the other planets inside it.
276
00:25:29,661 --> 00:25:34,031
Something this massive
dominates its neighbors.
277
00:25:34,199 --> 00:25:38,102
Its gravity is pulling the asteroids apart.
278
00:25:42,207 --> 00:25:44,441
And it's breathtaking.
279
00:25:49,781 --> 00:25:52,550
But this beauty is a beast.
280
00:25:54,753 --> 00:25:56,186
It's almost all gas.
281
00:25:56,354 --> 00:26:01,191
Land here and we'd sink straight
through its layers into oblivion.
282
00:26:08,266 --> 00:26:10,234
And Jupiter's good looks?
283
00:26:10,402 --> 00:26:14,071
The product of ferocious violence.
284
00:26:14,239 --> 00:26:16,407
It's spinning at an incredible rate...
285
00:26:16,575 --> 00:26:20,377
...whipping up winds
to hundreds of miles an hour...
286
00:26:20,745 --> 00:26:25,549
...contorting the clouds into stripes,
eddies, whirlpools...
287
00:26:26,618 --> 00:26:31,155
...and this,
the legendary Great Red Spot.
288
00:26:32,891 --> 00:26:36,727
The biggest, most violent storm
in the solar system.
289
00:26:36,895 --> 00:26:42,333
At least three times the size of Earth,
it's been raging for over 300 years.
290
00:26:45,637 --> 00:26:50,474
All these churning clouds
must have sparked an electrical storm.
291
00:26:52,978 --> 00:26:57,247
Just one bolt is 10,000 times more intense
than any at home.
292
00:27:08,460 --> 00:27:14,298
Looks like the safest place to see Jupiter
is from a distance.
293
00:27:15,100 --> 00:27:16,667
Up there at the poles...
294
00:27:16,835 --> 00:27:21,005
...those dancing lights,
they're like the auroras back home.
295
00:27:24,409 --> 00:27:26,377
But the Geiger counter is going wild.
296
00:27:26,544 --> 00:27:31,548
Even these are deadly,
generated by lethal radiation.
297
00:27:38,456 --> 00:27:41,792
Out here, nothing is what it seems.
298
00:27:45,096 --> 00:27:50,634
The universe is full of terrors, traps.
299
00:27:56,608 --> 00:28:01,045
Maybe this is a safe haven,
the multi-colored moon, Io.
300
00:28:14,259 --> 00:28:15,392
Wrong.
301
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:17,061
Very wrong.
302
00:28:17,228 --> 00:28:23,133
Those brilliant colors are molten rock,
volcanoes spewing lava.
303
00:28:30,241 --> 00:28:35,479
Our journey across the universe
is turning into a struggle for survival.
304
00:28:35,647 --> 00:28:38,215
We've got to hope
that if we outlast the dangers...
305
00:28:38,383 --> 00:28:44,221
...we'll be rewarded by wonders
beyond imagination.
306
00:28:51,362 --> 00:28:54,431
Four hundred million miles
from Earth...
307
00:28:54,599 --> 00:28:59,336
...flying a commercial airliner here
would take nearly a century.
308
00:29:02,774 --> 00:29:05,642
What a weird looking place...
309
00:29:07,645 --> 00:29:10,047
...and yet, strangely familiar.
310
00:29:10,215 --> 00:29:15,819
A bit like the Arctic, with all that ice,
all those ridges and cracks.
311
00:29:19,958 --> 00:29:23,427
It's Jupiter's moon, Europa.
312
00:29:23,595 --> 00:29:29,366
And maybe, like the Arctic,
this ice is floating on water, liquid water.
313
00:29:32,337 --> 00:29:35,839
But we're half a billion miles
from the Sun.
314
00:29:36,141 --> 00:29:39,343
Surely, Europa is frozen solid.
315
00:29:45,617 --> 00:29:50,454
Unless, Jupiter's gravity
is creating friction deep inside...
316
00:29:50,622 --> 00:29:54,925
...heating the ice into water,
allowing life to develop in the waters...
317
00:29:55,093 --> 00:29:57,694
...beneath its frozen crust.
318
00:29:58,630 --> 00:30:01,832
We might be feet away from aliens.
319
00:30:03,368 --> 00:30:08,972
From a whole ecosystem of microbes,
crustaceans, maybe even squid.
320
00:30:09,140 --> 00:30:13,210
The only thing between us
and the possibility of alien life...
321
00:30:13,378 --> 00:30:15,979
...this layer of ice.
322
00:30:17,415 --> 00:30:20,083
But until we send a spacecraft
to drill here...
323
00:30:20,251 --> 00:30:25,322
...Europa's secrets
will remain beyond reach.
324
00:30:42,140 --> 00:30:48,045
It's captivated our imaginations,
haunted our dreams.
325
00:30:48,446 --> 00:30:53,183
And here it is, spinning before our eyes.
326
00:30:53,351 --> 00:30:54,618
Saturn.
327
00:30:54,786 --> 00:30:55,986
Named for the Roman god...
328
00:30:56,154 --> 00:30:59,990
...who reigned over a golden age of peace
and harmony.
329
00:31:04,662 --> 00:31:11,168
This planet's a giant ball of gas,
so light it would float on water.
330
00:31:12,070 --> 00:31:16,974
Its spectacular rings would stretch
almost from Earth to the Moon.
331
00:31:22,714 --> 00:31:24,514
There's the Cassini orbiter.
332
00:31:24,682 --> 00:31:27,150
It's picking up ghostly radio emissions.
333
00:31:27,318 --> 00:31:31,288
Probably generated by auroras
around Saturn's poles.
334
00:31:31,456 --> 00:31:34,591
This is the real music of the spheres.
335
00:31:34,759 --> 00:31:36,894
[HISSING PLAYING OVER RADIO]
336
00:31:39,030 --> 00:31:42,065
Cassini's telling us
where these rings came from.
337
00:31:42,233 --> 00:31:47,070
They're the remnants of a moon
shattered by Saturn's gravitational pull.
338
00:31:48,006 --> 00:31:53,143
Incomparable beauty
from total destruction.
339
00:32:03,955 --> 00:32:05,188
Billions of shards of ice.
340
00:32:05,356 --> 00:32:10,260
Some as small as ice cubes,
others the size of houses.
341
00:32:13,598 --> 00:32:17,567
They collide, break apart, reassemble.
342
00:32:21,339 --> 00:32:24,975
It's like a snapshot
of our early solar system...
343
00:32:25,610 --> 00:32:28,478
...as dust and gas
orbited the newly born Sun...
344
00:32:28,646 --> 00:32:31,715
...and gravity worked its magic,
pulling the lumps together...
345
00:32:31,883 --> 00:32:37,854
...until from space trash like this,
our home emerged.
346
00:32:44,662 --> 00:32:47,130
We could stay here forever.
347
00:32:56,341 --> 00:33:01,244
But there's so much further to go,
so much more to see.
348
00:33:02,513 --> 00:33:07,851
Like this moon wrapped in thick clouds,
Titan.
349
00:33:31,843 --> 00:33:34,644
There's an atmosphere down here.
350
00:33:34,812 --> 00:33:39,082
There's wind, rain, even seasons.
351
00:33:39,250 --> 00:33:42,753
Rivers, lakes and oceans.
352
00:33:43,721 --> 00:33:47,891
It looks so familiar, so similar to Earth.
353
00:33:51,295 --> 00:33:52,929
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
354
00:33:53,097 --> 00:33:57,701
But that's not water,
it's liquid natural gas.
355
00:33:57,869 --> 00:34:03,874
Hundreds of times more natural gas
than all the Earth's oil and gas reserves.
356
00:34:05,576 --> 00:34:09,813
Maybe, one day,
we'll use this energy to fuel a colony.
357
00:34:11,916 --> 00:34:14,851
Assuming there isn't life here already.
358
00:34:21,993 --> 00:34:26,396
The Huygens space probe
is here to find out.
359
00:34:27,865 --> 00:34:31,968
It's telling us
there's organic material in the soil.
360
00:34:33,204 --> 00:34:37,574
But it's so cold, minus 300 degrees.
361
00:34:38,843 --> 00:34:41,678
There's no way life could develop.
362
00:34:42,346 --> 00:34:45,082
Unless Titan warms up.
363
00:34:47,018 --> 00:34:49,219
The Sun is supposed to get hotter.
364
00:34:49,387 --> 00:34:52,456
When it does,
maybe life will spring up here...
365
00:34:52,623 --> 00:34:55,025
...just like it did on Earth.
366
00:34:57,762 --> 00:35:03,633
And as the Earth gets too hot for us,
maybe we'll move to Titan.
367
00:35:05,403 --> 00:35:09,473
One day,
we might call this distant land home.
368
00:35:17,815 --> 00:35:19,316
Home.
369
00:35:19,484 --> 00:35:23,253
We're at least 700 million miles away
now.
370
00:35:23,421 --> 00:35:27,324
After this,
we lose visual contact with Earth.
371
00:35:28,493 --> 00:35:30,594
We're standing on a cliff.
372
00:35:30,761 --> 00:35:35,499
Looking out over a great chasm
that stretches to the beginning of time.
373
00:35:35,833 --> 00:35:39,669
Do we have the courage to jump?
374
00:35:42,006 --> 00:35:45,442
We're in the solar system's
outer reaches.
375
00:35:46,410 --> 00:35:50,614
Unseen from Earth,
unknown for most of history.
376
00:35:51,048 --> 00:35:54,684
It's like diving
into the depths of the ocean.
377
00:36:04,662 --> 00:36:09,833
Those rings make it look like Uranus
has been tilted off its axis...
378
00:36:10,001 --> 00:36:12,969
...toppled over by a stray planet.
379
00:36:17,108 --> 00:36:19,276
It's eerie out here.
380
00:36:19,844 --> 00:36:24,014
Already beginning to feel small, lonely.
381
00:36:24,815 --> 00:36:28,852
Maybe this is how we'll feel
at the edge of the universe.
382
00:36:32,823 --> 00:36:35,859
But we've barely left the shore.
383
00:36:37,795 --> 00:36:44,301
If the solar system was one mile wide,
so far we've traveled about 3 inches.
384
00:36:57,281 --> 00:37:00,850
Out of the deep,
another strange beast...
385
00:37:01,018 --> 00:37:06,156
...the god of the sea, Neptune.
386
00:37:09,227 --> 00:37:12,896
This world is covered in methane gas.
387
00:37:14,265 --> 00:37:16,666
And a storm as big as Earth...
388
00:37:16,834 --> 00:37:21,137
...whipped up
by savage thousand mile-an-hour winds.
389
00:37:21,672 --> 00:37:25,041
Back home,
it's the Sun that drives the wind...
390
00:37:25,209 --> 00:37:26,710
...but Neptune's far away.
391
00:37:26,877 --> 00:37:31,548
Something else must be creating
these ferocious winds.
392
00:37:33,884 --> 00:37:35,518
But what?
393
00:37:37,655 --> 00:37:41,091
We know very little
about our own solar system.
394
00:37:52,303 --> 00:37:56,139
After all those balls of gas,
a solid moon...
395
00:37:58,876 --> 00:38:00,477
...Triton.
396
00:38:02,113 --> 00:38:06,116
Solid but not stable.
397
00:38:09,820 --> 00:38:11,154
Just look at those geysers...
398
00:38:11,322 --> 00:38:16,026
...cosmic smokestacks
pumping out strange soot.
399
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:18,895
And this moon
is revolving around Neptune...
400
00:38:19,063 --> 00:38:22,265
...in the opposite direction
of the planet's spin.
401
00:38:22,433 --> 00:38:25,035
A cosmic battle of wills...
402
00:38:25,202 --> 00:38:29,639
...that this angry moon
is destined to lose.
403
00:38:30,708 --> 00:38:34,344
Neptune's massive gravity
is pulling on Triton.
404
00:38:34,512 --> 00:38:38,148
Slowing it down, reeling it in.
405
00:38:41,652 --> 00:38:46,389
One day,
it will be ripped apart by Neptune.
406
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:51,227
And that's it.
407
00:38:51,395 --> 00:38:55,865
No more moons,
no more planets in our solar system.
408
00:38:56,033 --> 00:38:59,602
It's getting colder,
we're getting further from the Sun...
409
00:38:59,770 --> 00:39:03,840
...slipping from the grip
of its gravitational tentacles.
410
00:39:05,843 --> 00:39:08,278
But this isn't a void.
411
00:39:08,446 --> 00:39:12,549
It's teeming with frozen rocks.
412
00:39:13,551 --> 00:39:15,452
Like Pluto.
413
00:39:15,619 --> 00:39:18,822
Until recently,
we thought Pluto was alone.
414
00:39:18,989 --> 00:39:21,324
Beyond it, nothing.
415
00:39:22,059 --> 00:39:23,793
We were wrong.
416
00:39:23,961 --> 00:39:26,363
More frozen worlds.
417
00:39:26,897 --> 00:39:31,101
Discoveries so new
nobody can agree what to call them.
418
00:39:31,268 --> 00:39:36,206
Plutinos, ice dwarves, cubewanos.
419
00:39:39,076 --> 00:39:44,514
Our solar system is far more chaotic
and strange than we had imagined.
420
00:39:45,149 --> 00:39:48,651
Now we're 8 billion miles from home.
421
00:39:49,887 --> 00:39:53,823
The most distant thing ever seen
that orbits the Sun...
422
00:39:53,991 --> 00:40:00,497
...another small, icy world, Sedna,
discovered in 2003.
423
00:40:01,599 --> 00:40:05,368
Its orbit
takes 10,000 years to complete.
424
00:40:11,208 --> 00:40:15,044
Hang on,
there's something else out here.
425
00:40:16,614 --> 00:40:21,551
Ten billion miles from home
the space probe, Voyager 1.
426
00:40:22,953 --> 00:40:25,655
This bundle of aluminum
and antennae...
427
00:40:25,823 --> 00:40:29,092
...gave us close up views
of the giant planets...
428
00:40:29,260 --> 00:40:32,929
...and discovered
many of their strange moons.
429
00:40:34,965 --> 00:40:41,404
It's traveling 20 times faster than a bullet,
sending messages home.
430
00:40:50,147 --> 00:40:51,581
That gold plaque...
431
00:40:51,749 --> 00:40:54,884
...its a kind of intergalactic message
in a bottle.
432
00:40:55,052 --> 00:40:57,520
A greeting
recorded in different languages.
433
00:40:57,688 --> 00:41:00,190
BOY [OVER RADIO]:
Hello, from the children of planet Earth.
434
00:41:00,357 --> 00:41:04,994
[MAN AND WOMAN SPEAKING IN
FOREIGN LANGUAGES OVER RADIO]
435
00:41:06,497 --> 00:41:11,468
NARRATOR: And a map showing
how to find our home solar system.
436
00:41:13,437 --> 00:41:15,271
The great physicist, Stephen Hawking...
437
00:41:15,439 --> 00:41:18,842
...thinks it was a mistake
to roll out the welcome mat.
438
00:41:19,009 --> 00:41:24,948
After all, if you're in the jungle,
is it wise to call out?
439
00:41:37,995 --> 00:41:41,464
These comets
look like the ones we saw earlier.
440
00:41:41,632 --> 00:41:45,635
There's a theory that
the raw materials for life began out here...
441
00:41:45,803 --> 00:41:49,138
...on a rock like this
until something dislodged it...
442
00:41:49,306 --> 00:41:52,375
...sending it hurtling towards the Earth.
443
00:41:55,312 --> 00:42:00,650
And seeing all this ice,
maybe comets carried water to Earth too.
444
00:42:01,418 --> 00:42:04,687
The water in the oceans, in your body...
445
00:42:04,855 --> 00:42:08,691
...all from this distant
celestial ice machine.
446
00:42:14,698 --> 00:42:20,403
We're 5 million, million,
that's 5 trillion miles from home.
447
00:42:20,571 --> 00:42:23,072
But this is still only a baby step.
448
00:42:23,240 --> 00:42:27,911
Ahead,
trillions of miles, billions of stars.
449
00:42:28,078 --> 00:42:31,180
Time to stop looking back
and start looking ahead...
450
00:42:31,348 --> 00:42:36,219
...to step out into the big, wide universe.
451
00:42:49,300 --> 00:42:51,801
Interstellar space.
452
00:42:59,443 --> 00:43:01,978
Billions of stars like our own Sun...
453
00:43:02,146 --> 00:43:06,616
...many with planets,
many of those with moons.
454
00:43:13,390 --> 00:43:16,159
It's hard to know which way to go.
455
00:43:16,327 --> 00:43:19,362
There are infinite possibilities.
456
00:43:21,832 --> 00:43:25,401
We're going to need
a serious burst of acceleration.
457
00:43:50,060 --> 00:43:52,962
Twenty-five trillion miles from home.
458
00:43:53,130 --> 00:43:57,533
A 150,000-year ride
in the space shuttle.
459
00:43:57,768 --> 00:44:02,038
And we've only just reached
the first solar system beyond our own...
460
00:44:04,141 --> 00:44:06,342
...Alpha Centauri.
461
00:44:07,811 --> 00:44:10,179
Not one but three stars.
462
00:44:10,347 --> 00:44:14,384
Spinning around each other,
locked in a celestial standoff.
463
00:44:14,551 --> 00:44:17,120
Each star's gravity attracting the other...
464
00:44:17,287 --> 00:44:21,024
...their blazing orbital speed
keeping them apart.
465
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:34,370
Get between them
and we'd be vaporized...
466
00:44:35,039 --> 00:44:37,607
...trillions of miles from home.
467
00:44:38,108 --> 00:44:41,377
So far
that miles are becoming meaningless.
468
00:44:41,545 --> 00:44:44,914
Out here, we measure in light years.
469
00:44:48,419 --> 00:44:52,355
Light travels 6 trillion miles a year...
470
00:44:52,623 --> 00:44:56,325
...so we are over four light-years
from home.
471
00:44:59,963 --> 00:45:05,034
Distances so vast
they're mind-boggling.
472
00:45:10,307 --> 00:45:12,842
Who knows
what strange forces lie ahead...
473
00:45:13,010 --> 00:45:14,977
...what we'll discover when--
474
00:45:15,145 --> 00:45:19,716
If we reach the edge of the universe.
475
00:45:24,455 --> 00:45:30,226
Ten light years from Earth,
the star Epsilon Eridani.
476
00:45:30,994 --> 00:45:34,197
Spectacular rings of dust and ice.
477
00:45:34,364 --> 00:45:38,167
And somewhere in there,
planets forming out of the debris...
478
00:45:38,335 --> 00:45:41,571
...being born before our eyes.
479
00:45:49,079 --> 00:45:53,349
Asteroids and comets everywhere.
480
00:45:57,488 --> 00:46:00,289
We could almost be looking
at our own solar system...
481
00:46:00,457 --> 00:46:02,191
...billions of years ago.
482
00:46:02,359 --> 00:46:05,261
With comets delivering
the building blocks of life...
483
00:46:05,429 --> 00:46:07,897
...to these young planets.
484
00:46:27,217 --> 00:46:31,854
At the center of all the action,
a star smaller than our sun...
485
00:46:32,022 --> 00:46:34,557
...still in its infancy.
486
00:46:34,725 --> 00:46:39,262
Any life in this solar system
would be primitive at best.
487
00:46:47,037 --> 00:46:50,840
There must be more mature
solar systems out here...
488
00:46:51,008 --> 00:46:55,344
...but finding them is like looking
for a needle in a cosmic haystack.
489
00:47:04,555 --> 00:47:07,256
Twenty light years from Earth.
490
00:47:09,092 --> 00:47:12,161
Star Gliese 581.
491
00:47:17,301 --> 00:47:20,403
It's about the same age as our sun.
492
00:47:29,346 --> 00:47:33,115
This planet
is just the right distance from its sun.
493
00:47:33,617 --> 00:47:39,288
Any closer and water would boil away,
any further and it would freeze.
494
00:47:39,957 --> 00:47:43,492
Ideal conditions for life to emerge.
495
00:47:48,999 --> 00:47:53,836
And if a comet has struck,
delivering water and organic materials...
496
00:47:54,004 --> 00:47:59,542
...then life, complex beings like us,
even civilizations like our own...
497
00:47:59,710 --> 00:48:03,045
...could be down there right now.
498
00:48:07,985 --> 00:48:10,953
They could be tuning
into our TV signals...
499
00:48:11,121 --> 00:48:14,290
...watching shows from 20 years ago.
500
00:48:14,458 --> 00:48:17,627
MAN [OVER TV]:
And here's your host, Joe....
501
00:48:17,794 --> 00:48:20,997
[PEOPLE APPLAUDING ON TV]
502
00:48:21,164 --> 00:48:23,599
NARRATOR: But until we devise
a way of communicating...
503
00:48:23,767 --> 00:48:29,338
...over these vast distances,
all we can do is speculate.
504
00:48:30,007 --> 00:48:33,409
Us and them, living parallel lives...
505
00:48:33,577 --> 00:48:36,812
...unaware of each other's existence.
506
00:48:42,119 --> 00:48:46,489
Unless life has come and gone.
507
00:48:57,167 --> 00:48:59,669
That's the problem with comets.
508
00:48:59,836 --> 00:49:03,839
They're creators and destroyers...
509
00:49:04,007 --> 00:49:07,643
...as the dinosaurs found out
the hard way.
510
00:49:09,346 --> 00:49:12,048
This is the needle
in the cosmic haystack...
511
00:49:12,215 --> 00:49:16,786
...the closest we've come
to a habitable solar system like our own...
512
00:49:16,954 --> 00:49:19,422
...but it's a chance encounter.
513
00:49:19,957 --> 00:49:21,090
There could be hundreds...
514
00:49:21,258 --> 00:49:26,963
...millions more solar systems
like this out there or none at all.
515
00:49:37,708 --> 00:49:40,843
Some of the atmosphere on this planet,
Bellerophon...
516
00:49:41,011 --> 00:49:44,880
...is being boiled away
by its nearby star.
517
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:59,362
From Earth,
we can't see planets this far out.
518
00:49:59,529 --> 00:50:03,866
They're obscured
by the brilliance of their neighboring stars.
519
00:50:05,168 --> 00:50:09,472
But the planets have a minute
gravitational pull on those stars.
520
00:50:09,639 --> 00:50:14,643
Measure these tiny movements
and we can prove they exist.
521
00:50:18,548 --> 00:50:22,818
That's how we tracked down
Bellerophon in the 1990's...
522
00:50:24,588 --> 00:50:27,890
...and hundreds of other distant planets.
523
00:50:32,729 --> 00:50:36,298
Sixty-five light years from Earth...
524
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:41,037
...turn on your TV here
and you'd pick up Hitler's Berlin Olympics.
525
00:50:41,204 --> 00:50:43,205
[MAN SPEAKING IN GERMAN
ON TV]
526
00:51:02,459 --> 00:51:05,227
The twin stars of Algol.
527
00:51:05,395 --> 00:51:08,831
Known to the ancients
as the demon star.
528
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:15,805
From Earth, it appears to blink
as one star passes across the other.
529
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:18,841
Up close, it's even stranger.
530
00:51:19,009 --> 00:51:22,478
One star is being sucked
towards the other.
531
00:51:26,750 --> 00:51:28,951
Almost 100 light years from home...
532
00:51:29,119 --> 00:51:33,422
...faint whispers from one
of the first ever radio broadcasts.
533
00:51:33,590 --> 00:51:34,757
[STATIC HISSES OVER RADIO]
534
00:51:34,925 --> 00:51:36,425
MAN [OVER RADIO]:
We'd appreciate it...
535
00:51:36,593 --> 00:51:39,728
...if anyone hearing this broadcast
would communicate with us.
536
00:51:39,896 --> 00:51:43,299
We are very anxious to know
how far the broadcast can reach.
537
00:51:50,107 --> 00:51:54,243
NARRATOR: From here on out,
it's as if the Earth never existed.
538
00:51:59,382 --> 00:52:02,318
Feels like a lifetime
since we stood on that beach...
539
00:52:02,486 --> 00:52:08,390
...looking up at the sky,
wondering where and how we fit in.
540
00:52:10,127 --> 00:52:13,295
We've learned one thing for sure.
541
00:52:13,463 --> 00:52:18,000
The universe is too bizarre,
too startling...
542
00:52:18,502 --> 00:52:21,604
...for us to guess what lies ahead.
543
00:52:26,576 --> 00:52:31,347
Deep inside our galaxy, the Milky Way.
544
00:52:31,781 --> 00:52:36,519
Pinpricks of light that have inspired
a thousand and one tales.
545
00:52:37,954 --> 00:52:43,392
The Seven Sisters, the daughters
of the ancient Greek god, Atlas...
546
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:46,495
...transformed into stars
to comfort their father...
547
00:52:46,663 --> 00:52:50,699
...as he held the heavens
on his shoulders.
548
00:52:56,973 --> 00:53:00,609
And this giant, Betelgeuse.
549
00:53:00,777 --> 00:53:04,313
The brightest, biggest star
we've seen so far.
550
00:53:04,481 --> 00:53:08,317
Six hundred times wider than our sun.
551
00:53:20,363 --> 00:53:24,867
But this, it's not a star...
552
00:53:27,537 --> 00:53:32,308
...not a planet,
not like anything we've seen.
553
00:53:40,750 --> 00:53:45,454
A ghostly specter,
more than 1,300 light years from Earth...
554
00:53:45,822 --> 00:53:48,824
...Orion's dark cloud.
555
00:53:51,661 --> 00:53:55,197
Dust and gas shrouding us.
556
00:54:06,042 --> 00:54:11,580
There, deep inside, a light,
pulling the dust and gas towards it...
557
00:54:11,748 --> 00:54:16,485
...heating up,
merging into a ball of burning hot gas.
558
00:54:16,653 --> 00:54:21,357
Like a star, like our sun in miniature.
559
00:54:22,425 --> 00:54:24,693
Inside, it's millions of degrees.
560
00:54:24,861 --> 00:54:28,163
So hot, it's beginning
to trigger nuclear reactions...
561
00:54:28,331 --> 00:54:31,300
...the kind that keep our sun shining...
562
00:54:31,468 --> 00:54:36,372
...making energy, radiation, light.
563
00:54:36,539 --> 00:54:40,309
A star is being born.
564
00:54:57,994 --> 00:55:02,765
Orion's dark cloud is a vast star factory.
565
00:55:06,536 --> 00:55:10,773
We're witnessing the birth
of the future universe.
566
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:19,748
We've come to expect destruction...
567
00:55:19,916 --> 00:55:24,253
...but this is one of the universe's
greatest acts of creation.
568
00:55:24,421 --> 00:55:26,322
Star birth.
569
00:55:35,165 --> 00:55:37,966
This doesn't look right.
570
00:55:47,077 --> 00:55:52,448
Jets of gas exploding out
with tremendous force...
571
00:55:52,615 --> 00:55:56,919
...blasting dust and gas out
for millions of miles.
572
00:56:05,628 --> 00:56:11,600
It's unbelievably violent and creative.
573
00:56:14,738 --> 00:56:16,438
Nebula...
574
00:56:16,606 --> 00:56:22,444
...vast glowing clouds of gas
hanging in space.
575
00:56:22,612 --> 00:56:28,183
With no wind out here,
they'll take thousands of years to disperse.
576
00:56:30,954 --> 00:56:34,890
They seem to be forming
a vast stellar sculpture.
577
00:56:35,058 --> 00:56:39,261
Nature is more than a scientist,
an engineer...
578
00:56:39,429 --> 00:56:43,832
...it's an artist
on the grandest of scales.
579
00:56:51,274 --> 00:56:56,078
And this is a masterpiece.
580
00:57:00,483 --> 00:57:06,088
Stars are born, grow up,
and then, then what?
581
00:57:06,256 --> 00:57:08,424
Do they die?
582
00:57:08,591 --> 00:57:12,928
Do they slip quietly into the night
or go out with a bang?
583
00:57:18,701 --> 00:57:24,173
Somewhere between here and the edge
of the universe lies the answer.
584
00:57:29,679 --> 00:57:32,548
Luminous clouds,
suspended in space...
585
00:57:32,715 --> 00:57:36,852
...encircling what was once a star
like our own sun.
586
00:57:38,555 --> 00:57:42,357
All that's left of it
are these brightly colored gases...
587
00:57:42,525 --> 00:57:46,361
...elements formed
by nuclear reactions deep inside...
588
00:57:46,529 --> 00:57:49,598
...released into space on its death.
589
00:57:49,766 --> 00:57:53,569
Green and violet,
hydrogen and helium...
590
00:57:53,736 --> 00:57:56,939
...the raw materials of the universe.
591
00:57:57,574 --> 00:58:00,642
Red and blue, nitrogen and oxygen...
592
00:58:00,810 --> 00:58:03,912
...the building blocks of life on Earth.
593
00:58:07,083 --> 00:58:11,720
For us to live, stars like this had to die.
594
00:58:13,723 --> 00:58:18,193
Every atom in our body
was produced by nuclear fusion...
595
00:58:18,962 --> 00:58:23,298
...in stars that died long
before the Earth was even born.
596
00:58:24,601 --> 00:58:27,669
We are all the stuff of stars.
597
00:58:28,738 --> 00:58:33,375
Our family tree begins here.
598
00:58:54,464 --> 00:58:58,834
At its heart, the ghost of a star...
599
00:58:59,469 --> 00:59:01,403
...a white dwarf.
600
00:59:01,571 --> 00:59:05,541
White, hot, small...
601
00:59:05,708 --> 00:59:08,510
...but unbelievably dense.
602
00:59:09,078 --> 00:59:13,015
In the star's dying moments,
its atoms fused and squeezed together...
603
00:59:13,182 --> 00:59:19,688
...making it so dense that just a teaspoon
of this white dwarf would weigh 1 ton.
604
00:59:24,494 --> 00:59:28,163
It's a chilling premonition
of our sun's fate.
605
00:59:28,331 --> 00:59:32,467
Six billion years from now,
it will become a white dwarf.
606
00:59:33,069 --> 00:59:36,805
Its death will herald
the end of life on Earth.
607
00:59:38,308 --> 00:59:41,944
Makes you wonder how many other worlds
have come and gone...
608
00:59:42,111 --> 00:59:47,716
...celestial stories left untold,
lost forever.
609
00:59:51,321 --> 00:59:55,824
But the greatest story of them all
is still to be told.
610
00:59:58,795 --> 01:00:02,631
We must go back through time
to the very first chapter...
611
01:00:02,799 --> 01:00:06,468
...to learn how the universe began.
612
01:00:10,607 --> 01:00:14,476
The scattered remains of a dead star...
613
01:00:14,844 --> 01:00:17,145
...the Crab Nebula.
614
01:00:19,248 --> 01:00:25,220
Six thousand light years from home,
deep inside a stellar graveyard.
615
01:00:26,189 --> 01:00:27,556
We've learnt so much...
616
01:00:27,724 --> 01:00:31,593
...seen things we'd never
have believed possible.
617
01:00:32,562 --> 01:00:37,532
Now, sights like this,
wonders once beyond imagination...
618
01:00:37,700 --> 01:00:40,035
...we take in our stride.
619
01:00:42,672 --> 01:00:45,307
We're ready to face
whatever lies ahead.
620
01:00:45,475 --> 01:00:50,545
Determined to reach
the edge of the universe.
621
01:00:53,416 --> 01:00:58,053
This is the calm after the storm,
after a massive explosion...
622
01:00:58,221 --> 01:01:04,393
...a supernova
that turned a star into dust and gas.
623
01:01:12,568 --> 01:01:14,403
The eye of the storm.
624
01:01:14,570 --> 01:01:19,341
A spinning pulsating star, a pulsar.
625
01:01:23,179 --> 01:01:28,250
The gravity has squeezed
the giant star's core down to this.
626
01:01:31,387 --> 01:01:36,591
It's just 12 miles across,
unimaginably dense.
627
01:01:36,759 --> 01:01:39,761
One pinhead of this
would weigh hundreds...
628
01:01:39,929 --> 01:01:42,631
...maybe millions of tons.
629
01:01:42,799 --> 01:01:46,568
And as it shrank, like a figure skater
spinning on the spot...
630
01:01:46,736 --> 01:01:49,337
...arms outstretched,
then pulling them in...
631
01:01:49,505 --> 01:01:52,374
...it began to spin faster.
632
01:01:54,944 --> 01:02:00,782
Two beams of light, energy, radiation,
spinning 30 times a second.
633
01:02:00,950 --> 01:02:04,586
Powering the huge cloud
of dust and gas.
634
01:02:06,622 --> 01:02:11,960
There's so much radiation here,
more even than on the Sun.
635
01:02:18,735 --> 01:02:22,904
That was easily the deadliest thing
we've encountered so far.
636
01:02:28,811 --> 01:02:31,513
Once, it would have terrified us.
637
01:02:33,416 --> 01:02:35,517
But now we realize
that without the dangers...
638
01:02:35,685 --> 01:02:38,053
...there'd be no wonders.
639
01:02:39,489 --> 01:02:43,425
Without the nightmares,
there'd be no dreams.
640
01:02:55,138 --> 01:02:57,806
Getting a strange sensation.
641
01:02:59,075 --> 01:03:03,111
A feeling as though
there's something bad out here...
642
01:03:03,546 --> 01:03:06,214
...a malevolent presence.
643
01:03:06,516 --> 01:03:09,417
The one thing
we didn't want to encounter.
644
01:03:09,585 --> 01:03:15,190
Impossibly black,
blotting out the stars behind it.
645
01:03:15,992 --> 01:03:19,561
We're staring
into the face of extinction...
646
01:03:22,064 --> 01:03:25,167
...the remains of a giant star...
647
01:03:26,335 --> 01:03:28,436
...a black hole.
648
01:03:33,910 --> 01:03:36,945
Far denser than a pulsar...
649
01:03:38,381 --> 01:03:41,116
...and impossible to resist.
650
01:03:46,189 --> 01:03:50,659
Its gravity is so intense,
not even light can escape.
651
01:03:59,502 --> 01:04:02,704
This asteroid, it's a lump of solid rock...
652
01:04:02,872 --> 01:04:07,609
...but it's actually stretching,
being dragged towards the gaping hole.
653
01:04:07,777 --> 01:04:11,279
Inside,
there's no matter as we know it.
654
01:04:11,447 --> 01:04:17,919
No time, no space,
all the rules of physics collapse.
655
01:04:27,430 --> 01:04:29,731
The asteroid is gone.
656
01:04:30,466 --> 01:04:33,001
Nobody really knows where.
657
01:04:33,669 --> 01:04:37,439
This is the edge
of human understanding.
658
01:04:37,607 --> 01:04:41,610
There could be millions of black holes
creeping around our galaxy...
659
01:04:41,777 --> 01:04:45,247
...more perhaps
than all the stars in the sky...
660
01:04:45,414 --> 01:04:49,684
...but we wouldn't see them
until it was too late.
661
01:04:56,525 --> 01:04:59,895
Like this star, spiraling...
662
01:05:00,062 --> 01:05:04,199
...disappearing,
down an invisible sinkhole.
663
01:05:05,001 --> 01:05:08,637
Who's to say we don't live
inside a vast black hole...
664
01:05:08,804 --> 01:05:12,073
...that the whole universe
isn't inside one right now...
665
01:05:12,241 --> 01:05:14,175
...inside another universe?
666
01:05:14,343 --> 01:05:18,747
Think about it for too long
and your mind reels.
667
01:05:20,349 --> 01:05:25,253
Sometimes it feels like the more we see,
the less we know.
668
01:05:32,128 --> 01:05:36,197
And we're still in our own galaxy,
the Milky Way...
669
01:05:38,601 --> 01:05:43,605
...the vastness of the universe beyond
still lies ahead.
670
01:05:44,807 --> 01:05:50,979
The wonders, the dangers, the secrets,
they're out there...
671
01:05:52,982 --> 01:05:56,284
...waiting to be discovered.
672
01:06:08,531 --> 01:06:13,034
Seven thousand light years from home.
673
01:06:14,170 --> 01:06:17,872
It's as though we're in a forest
thick with trees.
674
01:06:18,040 --> 01:06:23,011
Each so beautiful, so fascinating,
it's impossible to look beyond...
675
01:06:23,179 --> 01:06:26,047
...to see the bigger picture.
676
01:06:26,215 --> 01:06:29,317
We have to find a way through...
677
01:06:29,485 --> 01:06:33,121
...to reach the clearing
at the galaxy's edge.
678
01:06:40,496 --> 01:06:44,766
But faced with sights like this,
it's hard to leave.
679
01:06:45,935 --> 01:06:52,007
A colossal glowing cloud topped
by these great towers of dust...
680
01:06:52,174 --> 01:06:54,843
...the Pillars of Creation.
681
01:06:55,011 --> 01:06:57,946
Like a gateway into the unknown.
682
01:06:59,515 --> 01:07:03,918
A star factory packed
with embryonic star systems...
683
01:07:04,787 --> 01:07:08,356
...each larger than our solar system.
684
01:07:18,868 --> 01:07:24,305
We have to resist its siren song,
tear ourselves away...
685
01:07:24,640 --> 01:07:28,109
...to carry on
towards the edge of the galaxy.
686
01:07:44,326 --> 01:07:49,264
Dazzled by the Milky Way's beauty,
we've been blinded to its terrors...
687
01:07:49,432 --> 01:07:53,435
...and strayed into a cosmic minefield.
688
01:07:54,804 --> 01:07:57,705
Like an explosion in slow motion.
689
01:07:57,873 --> 01:08:02,744
A massive star,
millions of times brighter than our sun.
690
01:08:03,512 --> 01:08:06,114
It's going into meltdown.
691
01:08:07,616 --> 01:08:09,717
The fuel that sustains it is running out...
692
01:08:09,885 --> 01:08:13,588
...the nuclear reactions that power it
winding down.
693
01:08:13,756 --> 01:08:17,225
We're watching its death throes.
694
01:08:35,744 --> 01:08:40,248
An even bigger,
dangerously unstable star.
695
01:08:40,416 --> 01:08:43,184
But this one's about to explode.
696
01:08:43,953 --> 01:08:45,587
And when a star this big dies...
697
01:08:45,754 --> 01:08:49,891
...it's a hundred times
more violent than a supernova.
698
01:08:50,960 --> 01:08:55,296
We've stumbled into
the most violent star death of all...
699
01:08:55,464 --> 01:08:57,732
...a hypernova.
700
01:09:09,912 --> 01:09:14,482
The core's collapsed,
it's becoming a black hole.
701
01:09:19,021 --> 01:09:22,023
And that's the shock wave,
surging through the star...
702
01:09:22,191 --> 01:09:25,693
...ripping its outer layers into space.
703
01:09:52,288 --> 01:09:55,690
Deadly hypernovas, frozen comets...
704
01:09:55,858 --> 01:10:01,763
...scorched planets,
white dwarves, red giants.
705
01:10:02,865 --> 01:10:07,035
Tiny drops in a vast pool of white light...
706
01:10:08,337 --> 01:10:12,974
...our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
707
01:10:14,910 --> 01:10:17,612
We wanted to know where we fit in.
708
01:10:19,114 --> 01:10:21,216
Here's our answer.
709
01:10:25,888 --> 01:10:28,890
Civilizations, past and present.
710
01:10:29,058 --> 01:10:31,859
Everyone that's ever lived.
711
01:10:32,695 --> 01:10:35,997
The smallest bug,
the highest mountain...
712
01:10:36,165 --> 01:10:42,036
...all of it invisible,
not even a tiny speck.
713
01:10:46,742 --> 01:10:51,879
Our home is a minor planet
orbiting an insignificant star.
714
01:10:52,047 --> 01:10:56,784
If it disappeared right now,
who would even notice?
715
01:10:58,988 --> 01:11:03,958
And yet, so far, we've found
nowhere else we would rather live...
716
01:11:04,126 --> 01:11:06,527
...nowhere we could live.
717
01:11:07,863 --> 01:11:10,265
It's only now, far from home...
718
01:11:10,432 --> 01:11:13,968
...that we're beginning
to truly appreciate it.
719
01:11:21,010 --> 01:11:26,247
Look at all these stars,
hundreds of thousands of them.
720
01:11:29,018 --> 01:11:35,189
Surely one of them, more than one,
must be capable of supporting life.
721
01:11:58,747 --> 01:12:04,452
Maybe here in this swarm of stars,
the Great Cluster.
722
01:12:05,220 --> 01:12:09,424
Back in the 1970's, astronomers
sent a message in this direction...
723
01:12:09,591 --> 01:12:14,562
...detailing the structure of our DNA
and our solar system's location.
724
01:12:15,331 --> 01:12:21,002
But the message won't arrive here
for another 25,000 years.
725
01:12:25,274 --> 01:12:28,276
We haven't found alien life yet.
726
01:12:28,444 --> 01:12:30,912
But neither have we found
any reason to believe...
727
01:12:31,080 --> 01:12:34,716
...it isn't out there somewhere.
728
01:12:35,150 --> 01:12:36,651
There's an equation devised...
729
01:12:36,819 --> 01:12:42,023
...to estimate the number
of other advanced civilizations.
730
01:12:42,191 --> 01:12:44,559
The result is startling.
731
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:50,698
There could be millions of civilizations
just in our own galaxy.
732
01:13:06,081 --> 01:13:10,118
Everything we've seen so far
is inside the Milky Way.
733
01:13:12,855 --> 01:13:18,059
Now we're ready
to leave our home galaxy...
734
01:13:18,227 --> 01:13:21,662
...to enter intergalactic space.
735
01:13:22,164 --> 01:13:27,635
Here's our chance
to solve the ultimate mystery...
736
01:13:27,803 --> 01:13:32,673
...and experience
the moment of creation.
737
01:13:44,420 --> 01:13:46,387
Beyond the Milky Way...
738
01:13:46,555 --> 01:13:49,757
...through the vast expanse
between galaxies.
739
01:13:49,925 --> 01:13:55,897
Against all the odds,
we've made it to intergalactic space.
740
01:14:05,774 --> 01:14:08,543
Out here, there's no horizon in sight.
741
01:14:08,710 --> 01:14:13,981
Even the closest galaxies are hundreds
of thousands of light years away.
742
01:14:15,350 --> 01:14:17,552
The remains of galaxies ripped apart...
743
01:14:17,719 --> 01:14:21,656
...by the Milky Way's
huge gravitational pull...
744
01:14:21,824 --> 01:14:25,760
...scattered among nothing.
745
01:14:30,032 --> 01:14:34,635
This is as close as the universe gets
to a perfect vacuum.
746
01:14:34,803 --> 01:14:37,705
But even this isn't totally empty.
747
01:14:37,873 --> 01:14:42,977
There are thin wisps of gas,
fine traces of dust.
748
01:14:43,145 --> 01:14:47,348
And something else, dark matter.
749
01:14:48,484 --> 01:14:50,718
So mysterious, we can't see it...
750
01:14:50,886 --> 01:14:55,790
...feel it, taste it, touch it
or even measure it.
751
01:14:56,492 --> 01:15:00,228
Yet so common,
it could make up over 90 percent...
752
01:15:00,395 --> 01:15:03,431
...of all the matter in the universe.
753
01:15:03,599 --> 01:15:05,466
If dark matter does exist...
754
01:15:05,634 --> 01:15:08,803
...it means there's no such thing
as empty space.
755
01:15:08,971 --> 01:15:13,374
Even out here,
we're surrounded by matter.
756
01:15:13,542 --> 01:15:17,712
We think it exists because
of its apparent hold on galaxies.
757
01:15:17,880 --> 01:15:22,517
Like this one,
the Large Magellanic Cloud.
758
01:15:27,022 --> 01:15:31,626
A 6-billion-year journey
in today's fastest spacecraft...
759
01:15:31,793 --> 01:15:34,862
... 160 thousand light years
from the Milky Way...
760
01:15:35,030 --> 01:15:38,332
...at the edge of its gravitational reach.
761
01:15:39,034 --> 01:15:43,938
This galaxy should spin off into space,
but something is holding it here...
762
01:15:44,106 --> 01:15:49,544
...something invisible,
powerful, dark matter.
763
01:15:51,914 --> 01:15:57,351
Stars, clusters of stars, nebulae...
764
01:15:57,519 --> 01:16:00,955
...it's a vast astronomical
treasure trove.
765
01:16:05,761 --> 01:16:10,665
But look at this,
it's like a string of gleaming pearls.
766
01:16:10,832 --> 01:16:12,600
It's a fireball...
767
01:16:12,768 --> 01:16:16,537
...expanding out from what must
have been a massive explosion.
768
01:16:16,705 --> 01:16:18,839
A supernova.
769
01:16:20,709 --> 01:16:24,912
So bright that when light from the
explosion reached Earth 20 years ago...
770
01:16:25,080 --> 01:16:27,949
...it was visible to the naked eye.
771
01:16:28,584 --> 01:16:31,619
And so violent,
it triggered a string of nuclear reactions...
772
01:16:31,787 --> 01:16:35,623
...forcing atoms together,
creating new elements...
773
01:16:35,791 --> 01:16:42,463
...gold, silver, platinum,
blasting them out into space.
774
01:16:47,603 --> 01:16:49,971
The gold in the ring on your finger...
775
01:16:50,138 --> 01:16:53,274
...was forged
in a massive supernova like this...
776
01:16:53,442 --> 01:16:57,878
...trillions of miles away,
billions of years ago.
777
01:17:00,115 --> 01:17:04,285
Before we left home,
the universe seemed separate...
778
01:17:04,453 --> 01:17:08,289
...something out there, up in the sky.
779
01:17:08,957 --> 01:17:10,424
But now we know better.
780
01:17:10,592 --> 01:17:15,529
We are the universe, and it is within us.
781
01:17:21,970 --> 01:17:26,707
It's comforting to remember
as we venture through this abyss.
782
01:17:27,576 --> 01:17:29,810
Further and further.
783
01:17:33,348 --> 01:17:35,816
Faster and faster.
784
01:17:43,125 --> 01:17:49,330
The Andromeda Galaxy
two and a half million light years away.
785
01:17:50,332 --> 01:17:53,734
It's racing through space...
786
01:17:54,736 --> 01:18:00,341
...everything blown apart,
like shrapnel in an explosion.
787
01:18:00,509 --> 01:18:02,309
We're seeing this galaxy as it was...
788
01:18:02,477 --> 01:18:08,249
...when our ape-like ancestors
first walked on the African plains.
789
01:18:18,093 --> 01:18:22,997
Further through space,
and further back in time....
790
01:18:23,165 --> 01:18:26,734
Hold on. This doesn't look right.
791
01:18:26,902 --> 01:18:30,604
A whole galaxy exploding?
792
01:18:31,606 --> 01:18:35,109
The only thing large enough
to cause an explosion on this scale...
793
01:18:35,277 --> 01:18:37,978
...is another galaxy.
794
01:18:39,548 --> 01:18:42,483
It looks like the end of the world.
795
01:18:44,219 --> 01:18:48,456
But this galaxy won't die,
it will be reborn.
796
01:18:48,623 --> 01:18:52,226
A new shape,
perhaps even new stars...
797
01:18:52,394 --> 01:18:57,298
...as dust and gas collide,
creating friction, shockwaves...
798
01:18:57,466 --> 01:19:00,501
...triggering the birth of stars.
799
01:19:07,242 --> 01:19:13,347
There's order in this chaos,
a pattern behind the infinite variety...
800
01:19:13,515 --> 01:19:19,754
...an endless cycle of birth and death,
creation and destruction.
801
01:19:19,921 --> 01:19:23,758
It's a pattern
woven through the vast fabric of space...
802
01:19:23,925 --> 01:19:27,595
...that binds each of these galaxies.
803
01:19:29,231 --> 01:19:30,831
There are billions of galaxies...
804
01:19:30,999 --> 01:19:35,336
...each with billions,
even trillions of stars.
805
01:19:35,771 --> 01:19:38,038
Maybe more stars
than there are grains of sand...
806
01:19:38,206 --> 01:19:40,741
...on all the beaches on Earth.
807
01:19:49,718 --> 01:19:53,287
We're finally beginning
to see the big picture...
808
01:19:53,822 --> 01:19:57,591
...and it's grander
than we ever imagined.
809
01:19:59,728 --> 01:20:03,931
This galaxy,
the huge Pinwheel Galaxy...
810
01:20:04,099 --> 01:20:07,735
...is so far from Earth
that if we send a message home now...
811
01:20:07,903 --> 01:20:11,138
...it will take 27 million years
to get there.
812
01:20:11,306 --> 01:20:14,675
Who knows whether our species,
our planet...
813
01:20:14,843 --> 01:20:18,345
...will still be around to receive it?
814
01:20:32,060 --> 01:20:35,696
We travel on, back through time.
815
01:20:37,465 --> 01:20:41,001
Past the point
where the dinosaurs were wiped out...
816
01:20:42,003 --> 01:20:46,440
...past the moment where
the first creatures crawled onto land.
817
01:20:56,985 --> 01:21:00,221
Two billion light years from home.
818
01:21:00,388 --> 01:21:04,825
Closing in on the edge of the universe.
819
01:21:04,993 --> 01:21:08,963
Going back to the beginning of time.
820
01:21:09,130 --> 01:21:14,235
This isn't a galaxy.
It's brighter than a hundred galaxies.
821
01:21:14,402 --> 01:21:19,607
A blinding beam of energy
surging for trillions of miles.
822
01:21:24,145 --> 01:21:28,115
Something this big, this bright,
must be incredibly powerful.
823
01:21:31,753 --> 01:21:37,224
Experience tells us,
out here, power equals danger.
824
01:21:38,226 --> 01:21:43,197
It looks like a quasar,
the deadliest thing in the universe.
825
01:21:46,268 --> 01:21:49,904
Our journey could be over.
826
01:21:57,512 --> 01:22:01,548
The deadliest,
most powerful thing in the universe.
827
01:22:01,716 --> 01:22:03,651
A quasar.
828
01:22:04,286 --> 01:22:08,222
A swirling cauldron of superheated gas.
829
01:22:19,668 --> 01:22:24,972
This beast has a heart of darkness,
a super-massive black hole...
830
01:22:25,140 --> 01:22:28,375
...as heavy as a billion suns.
831
01:22:42,757 --> 01:22:45,526
It's ripping apart whole stars...
832
01:22:45,694 --> 01:22:50,064
...devouring them until they're nothing...
833
01:22:50,231 --> 01:22:54,101
...lost forever from the visible universe.
834
01:23:08,817 --> 01:23:11,585
We think, we hope, we pray...
835
01:23:11,753 --> 01:23:14,822
...we've seen the worst
the universe can throw at us.
836
01:23:14,990 --> 01:23:17,791
But no one can know what lies ahead.
837
01:23:34,409 --> 01:23:38,245
We'll need to go further, go faster.
838
01:23:52,594 --> 01:23:55,629
Eight billion light years from home.
839
01:23:55,797 --> 01:23:59,600
More galaxies, but these look different.
840
01:23:59,768 --> 01:24:04,138
Ragged, small, close together.
841
01:24:05,173 --> 01:24:07,174
We're so far back in time...
842
01:24:07,342 --> 01:24:11,812
...we're seeing these galaxies
as they were before the Earth was born.
843
01:24:12,514 --> 01:24:15,983
They're still young, still growing.
844
01:24:18,686 --> 01:24:23,223
We're getting close
to where and how it all began.
845
01:24:36,337 --> 01:24:38,605
Look at the galaxies now.
846
01:24:38,773 --> 01:24:43,977
They're more like primitive plankton
floating in a vast dark ocean.
847
01:24:51,853 --> 01:24:53,821
Clouds of dust and gas...
848
01:24:53,988 --> 01:24:59,760
...dancing, twirling,
merging to make embryonic galaxies.
849
01:25:23,218 --> 01:25:25,385
They're disappearing.
850
01:25:27,589 --> 01:25:31,425
We've gone back
before the stars were born...
851
01:25:33,328 --> 01:25:36,697
...into a cosmic dark age.
852
01:25:39,834 --> 01:25:44,304
And before that, light, the afterglow...
853
01:25:44,472 --> 01:25:50,244
...from the massive explosion
that created the known universe.
854
01:26:06,594 --> 01:26:08,462
This is it.
855
01:26:09,063 --> 01:26:11,064
We've made it.
856
01:26:11,666 --> 01:26:14,835
The edge of the universe...
857
01:26:15,970 --> 01:26:19,673
...80 billion trillion miles from home...
858
01:26:19,841 --> 01:26:23,544
... 13 and a half billion years ago.
859
01:26:27,348 --> 01:26:30,350
The very instant of the Big Bang...
860
01:26:30,518 --> 01:26:35,389
...the most violent,
most creative moment in history.
861
01:26:35,557 --> 01:26:40,360
Everything that's ever happened
follows from this moment.
862
01:26:49,204 --> 01:26:54,908
Every religion, every culture,
has pondered it.
863
01:26:56,811 --> 01:27:02,883
But we still don't know
what sparked this act of creation or why.
864
01:27:06,487 --> 01:27:09,289
This is where our journey ends...
865
01:27:10,024 --> 01:27:12,726
...and the universe begins.
866
01:27:25,406 --> 01:27:31,178
An infinitely hot, small,
dense point erupts.
867
01:27:41,956 --> 01:27:48,295
Creating space, time, matter,
our universe itself.
868
01:27:50,098 --> 01:27:53,300
First, it's the size
of a subatomic particle.
869
01:27:53,468 --> 01:27:55,836
The tiniest fraction of a second later...
870
01:27:56,004 --> 01:27:59,439
...it's big enough to hold
in the palm of your hand.
871
01:27:59,607 --> 01:28:03,610
Moments later, it's the size of the Earth.
872
01:28:13,154 --> 01:28:17,291
Today, the light from the Big Bang
is still spreading out.
873
01:28:17,458 --> 01:28:20,894
You can hear it as a radio hiss.
874
01:28:24,666 --> 01:28:28,502
See it as television static.
875
01:28:40,515 --> 01:28:43,917
All the wonders
we've seen on our journey...
876
01:28:44,085 --> 01:28:47,487
...are sparks
flying out from the Big Bang.
877
01:28:47,655 --> 01:28:52,492
Galaxies, stars, planets...
878
01:28:52,660 --> 01:28:55,629
...all cosmic debris.
879
01:28:58,733 --> 01:29:01,335
We go forward through time...
880
01:29:02,870 --> 01:29:06,006
...riding the blast wave.
881
01:29:20,955 --> 01:29:25,692
Until we reach another cooling cinder...
882
01:29:25,860 --> 01:29:30,163
...swirling in the afterglow
of the Big Bang.
883
01:29:36,037 --> 01:29:38,105
We're back where we started.
884
01:29:38,272 --> 01:29:39,873
Home.
885
01:29:40,608 --> 01:29:44,111
Only now can we really know it.
886
01:29:44,645 --> 01:29:48,882
Smaller, more fragile
than we ever imagined.
887
01:29:49,050 --> 01:29:53,453
Destined to die,
swallowed by a dying sun.
888
01:29:55,189 --> 01:29:59,393
But we shouldn't despair.
We should rejoice.
889
01:29:59,727 --> 01:30:04,197
We've managed to experience
the wonders of the universe.
890
01:30:05,366 --> 01:30:08,368
We should celebrate
our achievements...
891
01:30:09,737 --> 01:30:13,473
...and enjoy our moment in the sun.
73947
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