Original subtitles

In the beginning, There was darkness,

And then, bang,

Giving birth to an endless,

Expanding existence

Of time, space and matter.

Every day, new discoveries

Are unlocking the mysterious,

The mind-blowing,

The deadly secrets of a place

We call the universe.

This cosmic world

Is unlike anything

You've ever seen

Or learned about.

Our galactic neighborhood

Is home to seven of the most

Mesmerizing, violent,

And otherworldly phenomena

In the universe:

A stunning planet

Whose iconic rings

Contain mountain ranges

That rival the alps,

A shimmering moon

Where massive geysers

Of water and ice

Spew from its surface.

Scale a mega volcano,

Then zigzag through a family

Of asteroids

Before diving into the eye

Of a super-sized hurricane.

Experience the newest,

Most mind-blowing discoveries

Revolving around our sun

As we venture

To the seven wonders

Of our solar system.

Sync by n17t01 www.addic7ed.com

The Universe - 5x01 August 29, 2010

If you think

Science has already uncovered

Every dangerous, strange

And extraordinary phenomenon

Under the sun, think again.

We are right now

In the midst of the greatest era

Of space discovery,

And many of the weird

And wondrous things

Are happening right here

In our own cosmic backyard.

Our solar system

Is a really fantastic place.

You know, we've now found

Other planetary systems,

And we've not yet found

Anything quite

Like our solar system.

You've joined us

On a magical journey

Through the seven wonders

Of our solar system.

We first head

For the orbit of Saturn.

Number seven...

It's midnight, November 2, 2009.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft

Orbits the planet Saturn.

Its cameras capture

Something bizarre

On one of its outer moons

Named Enceladus.

Most of the solar system's moons

Are geologically dead,

And looking at the glistening,

Icy surface of its South pole,

Enceladus seems

Like a peaceful world.

Then suddenly, without warning,

Gargantuan geysers

Of wer and ice

Eject from cracks

On its surface.

Enceladus is a fantastic moon

Of Saturn.

Though it's relatively small,

Enceladus is different

From the volcanism

That's here on earth

Where hot magma,

Which is basically molten rock,

Comes out from

Underneath earth's surface.

Enceladus has water,

Basically, liquid water

Coming out and freezing

And so it's called

Cryovolcanism.

The Cassini spacecraft

Flies directly

Through the energetic plumes

That blast hundreds of miles

Into space

At 1,400 miles per hour.

Enceladus has really

Caught our imagination recently

Because we see geysers

Coming out of the South pole.

We haven't seen

Anything like that

On any of the icy moons

In the outer solar system.

So something is going on

In enceladus,

And it's active

And we want to know why.

Scientists have counted

At least 30 geyser jets

Spouting from narrow

Geological fractures

Called tiger stripes

Located along enceladus'

South polar region.

A new infrared map of the area

Reveals warm

Surface temperatures.

The heat emanating

From the tiger stripes

May be due to the upwelling

Of water vapor

That propels the jets.

One of the few other places

To witness

This truly fascinating wonder...

Is on earth...

At a freshly groomed ski slope

Or on a movie set.

Wow.

Look at this snowmaking machine.

It's like a geyser

From enceladus.

All these ice particles

And water droplets freeze

When they encounter

That outside air,

And the expanding gases

Also help cool the dropls

And freeze them.

In the case of enceladus,

Heated liquid water

In a cauldron below the surface

Goes squirting out

Through some vents

In the South polar region.

And when that water comes out

And encounters

The cold surrounding space

It freezes, forming snowflakes

And ice particles,

Much like the ones coming out

Of this snowmaking machine.

So wow, I might as well be

On enceladus right now.

Scientists think

There must be two

Internal heat sources

Driving this icy volcanism

On enceladus.

One source could be

Radioactive elements

That decay and heat up

The interior,

Thereby keeping the water

In a liquid state.

The second could be

Tidal heating.

Suppose enceladus is like

This squishy balloon.

Now enceladus orbits Saturn

In a slightly elliptical,

Eccentric orbit.

So sometimes

It's closer to Saturn,

Sometimes it's farther away.

When it's close to Saturn,

Saturn's gravitational pull

Creates a greater

Tidal stretching of enceladus

Than when enceladus

Is farther away.

That leads to a rubbing

Of the interior materials

And a release of energy.

This tidal friction,

As it's called,

Helps melt the interior

Of enceladus and keep the water

In this molten

Or partly molten state.

One mystery is,

How much water actually exists

Beneath the surface.

Could the miniature moon

Be hiding an underground ocean?

We infer

That there is a liquid ocean

Because there needs to be

A source of water

To power these geysers.

The ocean may not extend

Under the entire

Globe of enceladus.

It may be just

Beneath these regions

Where the geysers are going off,

But there has to be

A significant reservoir

Of liquid water

Beneath the surface

Of enceladus.

If liquid water exists

Beneath the surface,

It could be teeming

With organic molecules.

These, along with

Relatively warm temperatures,

Are the essential ingredients

For creating life.

It would be incredible

If we were to find life,

Primitive life,

Underneath the surface

Of enceladus.

We don't expect

Complex creatures

Such as ourselves

Or rabbits or turtles,

But even primitive

Bacterial or microbial life,

Independent of life on earth

Would be one of the greatest

Discoveries ever.

Enceladus actually orbits

Within another wonder

Of the solar system.

Number six...

The rings,

Named in alphabetical order

As they were discovered,

Are among the most dazzling

Sights in the sky.

The voyager spacecraft

First visited Saturn

Quite a while ago,

And now with the new images

Provided by Cassini,

It's like putting

On a pair of 3d glasses

For the first time

To be able to see

With great detail

What's inside Saturn's rings.

Among the seven main rings,

It's estimated

That the gaseous planet

Has thousands of ringlets

Comprised of 35

Trillion-trillion tons

Of ice and dust,

Containing roughly

26 million times

The amount of water on earth.

Yet their origin

Has eluded scientists

For centuries.

We really don't know

Their origin.

They may consist of material

That never had a chance

To form into a moon

Because of

Gravitational influences

Of Saturn itself.

Or maybe, they're a moon

That wandered

Too close to Saturn

And got broken up,

Shattered by the tidal

Gravitational effects of Saturn.

Or possibly even, a comet

Came in too close to Saturn

And got tidally disrupted

By Saturn's immense

Gravitational field.

What's even more remarkable

Is that scientists have counted

62 moons

Embedded in Saturn's rings.

New images indicate

That these tiny satellites

Have taken the rings

To new heights.

August 11, 2009.

A rare equinox photo of Saturn

Shows her rings

"edge on" to the sun.

The image unveils

A shocking fact:

The bright bands

That once appeared

To be solid and flat

Actually contain ridges,

Spanning from a few feet

To mountain ranges

Taller than the alps.

When you look

At Saturn's rings

From a telescope on earth,

They look completely smooth

And featureless.

But now we see

That there are regions

Where the ring particles

Are piled up into,

What you could call mountains,

Which can be several miles high.

But how are these

Mile-high mountains formed?

NASA's Cassini mission

Actually captured images

Of embedded moons

Sweeping through Saturn's rings

Causing them to Twist and ripple

Creating ever-changing patterns.

In Saturn's "a" ring,

The outermost

Of the large bright rings,

The moon Daphnis

Has carved a vertical peak,

Which is over 2 1/2 miles high.

The moons are interacting

With Saturn's rings

In such a way

As to either pull material

Slightly above the ring

Or below the ring

As the moon goes round

Because s orbit

Doesn't quite match that

Of the ring itself.

The ring system

Surrounding Saturn

Is a spectacular sight.

But on a neighboring planet,

There's a very different scene,

One almost too monstrous

To believe.

It's number five

In our countdown

Of the seven amazing wonders,

A raging storm

That's nearly three times

The size of earth.

As we continue our countdown

Of the seven wonders

Of our solar system,

We leave behind number seven:

Enceladus and number six:

The rings of Saturn.

We now blast off to number five:

Jupiter's great red spot.

This mother of all storms

Is about three times

The size of earth.

We don't know exactly

How the red spot formed.

It's been there

As long as we've been looking,

As far back as the 165os.

So it was there

Before we started

Really paying attention.

The great red spot

Is actually an ancient storm

That's been spinning wildly

For centuries.

The super-sized vortex

Towers five miles

Above the planet's cloud tops

And dwarfs any storm system

On earth.

The 400-mile-an-hour winds

Measured in Jupiter's

Great red spot

Are faster than

Some of the most powerful winds

Measured in tornadoes

Here on earth.

Yet, tornadoes on earth

Only last,

Maybe a few tens of minutes

Or at most a couple of hours,

Whereas Jupiter's

Great red spot's

Been going strong

For at least 400 years,

And it's three times

The size of earth.

Now that's one storm

You don't want to get caught in.

Most tropical storms

In earth's Southern hemisphere

Spin clockwise

As our planet rotates.

But on Jupiter,

The great red spot

Follows an unearthly path.

The great red spot,

Which is in Jupiter's

Southern hemisphere,

Rotates counterclockwise.

It's anticyclonic,

And that's because

It's a high pressure system,

Unlike the low pressure systems

Here on earth,

Associated with storms.

So when you have

A high-pressure system,

The airflow is naturally

The opposite to that

Of a low-pressure system.

The origin of this

Long-lived storm

Has baffled astronomers.

But now, science may be

On the verge of unraveling

Its stormy secrets.

The Hubble space telescope

Recently snapped images

Of three smaller storms

On Jupiter called white spots.

Within three years,

The three white spots merged

To form one earth-size storm.

Then, the unexpected happened.

Over the course

Of only about a week,

The storm turned

From white to bright red.

It's now known as oval Ba

Or sometimes red junior.

Why it turned red

And exactly how that happened

Is still a mystery.

Astronomers now suspect

A similar merger

May have also created

The great red spot.

And like red junior,

The ferocious storm

May have originally been white.

But as its speed grew faster,

It began dredging up material

From deep

In Jupiter's atmosphere.

One of the compounds

Could actually be

A form of sulfur.

We don't fully understand

Why the red spot

Has its characteristic

Brick red color, but probably

There are chemical compounds

Which are reacting

With the sunlight

And are giving it this color.

Astronomers have been

Closely monitoring

The great red spot,

And in the last decade

They have detected

An astonishing change.

We've been watching

The great red spot shrink,

And actually become rounder

For some time now.

Who knows

If it's going to persist

For another 400 years

Or maybe disappear entirely.

The great r spot is by far

The biggest storm

In our solar system.

But after leaving Jupiter,

We head about 200 million miles

In the direction of the sun,

And have a close encounter

With another

Barely believable wonder.

Number four:

Scientists want to know more

About the origin

Of this cosmic junkyard

Of wayward debris,

Which is left over

From the formation

Of the solar system.

For a long time

We thought that, maybe,

There had been a planet there

That got pulverized,

And we were just

Seeing the debris

Of some major catastrophe.

But we pretty much now realize

That a planet

Never was able to form there.

E gravitational pull

From Jupiter

And the other planets

Just made it impossible

For material to coalesce

Into a planet.

We traverse through

100 million miles of rocks,

Some as small as several feet,

Others bigger than cities.

The belt probably contains

Millions of rocky pieces.

Yet, if all the asteroids

Were condensed into one boulder

It would be smaller

Than our moon.

We can start to learn more

About the history

Of our solar system

By studying the small bodies

In our solar system:

The asteroids.

We'd like to know

How they moved around,

How were they affected

By the giant planets,

And what is their ultimate fate?

What will happen to them?

Meteorite!

Popular movies have portrayed

The asteroid belt

As a cosmic obstacle course,

A place where spaceships

Dodge enormous boulders

That constantly collide

And jostle for position

Before hurtling down from space

To destroy planet earth.

But has Hollywood

Gotten it wrong?

How congested

Is the asteroid belt?

That's what one viewer

Wanted to ask the universe.

So Joel t.

From Kansas City, Missouri

Texted us...

Thanks for the question,

Joel.

I know this is a bit shocking,

But the asteroid belt

Hasn't always been portrayed

Terribly accurately

In most blockbuster movies.

If you were orbiting an asteroid

Inside our solar system's

Asteroid belt,

You wouldn't be able to see

Big cratered surfaces

Of other asteroids

Flying right next to you.

In fact, they probably look

Just like distant points

Of light.

That's because

The average separations

Between most asteroids

In the asteroid belt

Are much larger

Than their actual sizes.

So they'd really just look

Like dots.

In fact, an average distance

Between two asteroids

Can be one million miles.

However, among this spacious sea

Of odd-shaped rocks,

Exists a round ball.

Ceres is the biggest asteroid

In the solar system.

The awesome 600-mile wide rock

Contains a fourth

Of the entire mass

Of the asteroid belt.

Most asteroids

In the asteroid belt

Are lumpy shaped,

Kind of like potatoes,

But Ceres is different.

It's actually big enough

To have enough mass,

To have enough gravity,

To crush itself

Into a round shape.

Because of its

Spherical shape,

Ceres was upgraded.

Scientists recently listed it

As a dwarf planet,

The same designation

Given to Pluto.

The modern view of Ceres

Is that it's not big enough

To be called a genuine planet,

But it is big enough

For it to have formed

A roughly spherical shape,

But not big enough

To be a true planet.

This fourth wonder

Not only holds unique artifacts

From the formation

Of our solar system,

It also harbors

Potential weapons

Of mass destruction.

Many asteroids have escaped

The confin

Of the asteroid belt.

And at any moment,

One of these rogue space rocks

Could repeat history,

And no one will live

To talk about it.

So far, our journey

Through the seven wonders

Of the solar system

Has taken us

To the geysers of enceladus,

The rings of Saturn

And the great red spot

On Jupiter.

Now, we continue to travel

Through the fourth

Of our wonders,

The asteroid belt.

This band of leftover debris

Has even made it

To the big screen,

And the rocks Hollywood

Is obsessed with the most

Are those that escape

The asteroid belt

And head for planet earth.

Near-earth objects or neos

Are cosmic rocks

Like asteroids or comets,

Which strike earth

Almost every day.

We're really very interested

In near-earth objects,

Objects that pass

Across the orbit of the earth

Around the sun

Because occasionally they can

And do collide with the earth,

And if they're big enough

They can cause vast destruction

Here on earth.

On April 14, 2010,

Cameras caught sight

Of a 3-foot fiery asteroid

Streaming over the Midwestern

United States.

Fortunately, the cosmic rock

Broke into tiny pieces

Before hitting the ground.

But in the past,

Large asteroid impacts

Have created gigantic craters,

And even triggered

Mass extinction events

Like the chicxulub asteroid

That killed off the dinosaurs.

Over the last

Billions of years,

Earth has been hit many times

By asteroids of various sizes.

The impact that occurred

Roughly 65 million years ago

That perhaps wiped out

The dinosaurs

Was an example of something

That was about six miles across

That slammed into,

What is now Mexico,

And caused huge

Global ramifications

For the earth.

A number of new space surveys

Are currently tracking

All near-earth objects

That are large enough

To destroy a modern city,

Or even worse,

Ignite a global catastrophe.

We know of most

Of the objects

That are larger than a mile

That can intersect

The earth's orbit,

And so the effort now

Is going in to finding

These sort of stadium-sized

Objects,

That while not

Completely devastating

To the entire earth,

Would be a huge deal

If they hit the earth.

As we leave behind

The asteroid belt,

We chart a course to the next

Of our seven wonders,

Number three...

The largest volcano

In the solar system.

As we approach the planet mars,

We immediately catch sight

Of this mammoth mountain.

The base of it is about

Almost 350 miles across,

That's, as though, the base

Of the mountain

Were from Los Angeles

To San Francisco.

So even though it's so high,

The slope is very gradual.

You would barely know

You were climbing a mountain.

It's not like a steep volcano,

It's just...

It's a smooth, low slope,

But it just goes on forever.

Olympus Mons is located

In the tharsis bulge,

A region on the red planet

That's home to other

Massive volcanoes.

If you climb the 13 miles

To its summit,

You could take in a view

Of the very edge

Of the Martian atmosphere.

Olympus Mons

Is several times higher

Than the highest

Mountains on earth,

And its base

Is hundreds of miles across.

And it's been formed

Over the last billions of years

By eruption after eruption

After eruption,

Which has slowly surfaced it

With successive layers of lava.

100 million years ago,

Hot lava rivers poured down

From its peak to cover

Millions of square miles

Of the red planet.

Today Olympus Mons

Is 100 times the volume

Of earth's largest volcano,

Mauna Loa,

Located on the big island

Of Hawaii.

Olympus Mons got

So much larger

Than anything here,

For, well, a number of reasons.

One is certainly,

There was just

A lot of volcanic activity.

A second is that

Mare's gravity is much lower.

You weigh a lot less on mars.

So as the mountain built up,

It didn't compact back down.

It was able to build up

To a pretty huge volcano

Without collapsing.

The third and perhaps

Most important reason

Why Olympus Mons is so huge

Is that mars doesn't have

Plate tectonics,

The movement of crustal plates

That rest on top

Of the molten interior

Of bodies, such as earth.

Olympus Mons grew

To such a big size

Because of the lack

Of tectonic motions on mars.

The hot spot

From which the lava, the magma,

Emerged remained

At one location,

Allowing more and more material

To build up and create

A super mountain,

A super volcano.

Mars is now presumed

To be geologically inactive.

But is the volcanic beast

Really dead

Or merely a sleeping giant?

The European space agency's

Mars express mission

Recently captured

The highest resolution images

Ever taken

Of the planet's lava flows.

Some flows date back

115 million years,

But others are only

2 million years old,

And on geologic time scales

That's very recent,

Which suggests

There still may be some

Volcanic activity.

If we look at the surface

Of Olympus Mons,

We see especially

That there are lava flows,

Which have very few

Craters on them.

And so, we know that

Those lava flows are perhaps

10s-20 million years old

At the oldest.

But the eruptive activity

Has been going on

Until the relatively

Recent past,

If not right up

Until the present day.

Olympus Mons may have

Once produced

Vast amounts of lava,

But its hellish heat

Paled in comparison

To the current temperatures

Of number two on our countdown

Of the seven incredible wonders

Of our solar system.

This may look like

A ball of flames,

But its surface is an ocean

Of 10,000-degree plasma

With waves, winds

And massive eruptions

As explosive

As a billion tons of TNT.

Our next wonder

Of the solar system has been

Earth's best friend and foe.

It's bathed our planet

With heat and energy,

But it's also blasted us

With potentially deadly

Highly energetic

Particles and waves.

We now navigate

Around number two:

The sizzling surface of the sun.

The surface of the sun

Is really quite chaotic.

It's always boiling

And bubbling.

In particular,

There are hot cells of gas

That come out

From the interior up,

Radiate their energy, cool,

And then, come back down.

So this convection,

As it's called,

This boiling motion,

Similar to what you see

In a boiling pot of water,

Is occurring near the surface.

We have never been able

To look at the sun's surface

Up close until now.

At this very moment,

A new collection of satellites

Is capturing images

Of our home star.

These unprecedented movies

Make you feel like

You're an arm's distance away

From touching the sun's

Visible surface

Called the photosphere.

This is where solar storms

And other

Violent phenomena occur.

The surface of the sun,

If you were somehow

Able to go there

And protect yourself,

Is an incredibly noisy, hot

And violent place.

There are temperatures

Thousands of degrees,

There are continuous

Magnetic storms

That create huge,

Basically thunder-like sounds.

In this new movie, NASA's

Solar dynamic observatory

Recorded a prominence.

This is a relatively cool,

Dense cloud of plasma

That sits suspended

Above the solar surface,

Supported by magnec forces.

As seen here, prominences

Can occasionally rip free

And jet into space.

Our sun has an incredibly

Powerful magnetic field.

But every now and again,

Those field lines

Become connected to hot spots

On the surface of the sun,

And as the gas and plasma

Boils inside the sun,

Those magnetic field lines

Can disconnect or break,

Releasing huge bursts of energy.

And these throw up

Giant blasts of plasma

That come out

Along curious looking arcs,

But these are actually following

The magnetic field lines

Around the sun.

Eruptive prominences

Can occur in tandem

With another solar ejection

That can deliver a double punch,

If directed at the earth.

NASA's solar

And heliospheric observatory

Or Soho,

Recently took dramatic movies

Of coronal mass ejections

Or cmes.

These massive bubbles

Of hot ionized gas

Contain up to 10 billion tons

Of solar material.

They shoot out into space

At speeds of several million

Miles an hour.

Coronal mass ejections

Are incredibly powerful storms.

They can be as massive

As a billion h-bombs,

Just huge amounts of energy.

And sometimes those

Big blobs of plasma

Strike the earth

And lead to beautiful

Northern lights,

Aurorae displays.

They can also be very harmful

To the earth.

When large coronal

Mass ejections

Are blasted toward earth

They can trigger

Geomagnetic storms.

These blobs of ionized particles

Can damage or even

Terminate satellites

As well as fry

Our electrical grids.

What's more,

They're extremely hazardous

To astronauts

When outside of the protection

Of a spacecraft.

The cmes generate x-rays.

So, if you're out in space,

You would get

Quite a dose of radiation,

If you were in one

Of these cmes.

Luckily, our atmosphere

Absorbs most of the x-rays,

And we don't experience

The bad effects here

On the surface of the earth.

If you're high up

In an airplane,

Above most of the atmosphere,

Then you can get

A larger dose of radiation

If there's a large flare

Hitting the earth.

These latest images

Are chilling reminders

That our sun's surface

Is a force to reckon with,

And things may really heat up

On our home star

In the very near future.

Solar activity runs

Through an 11-year cycle.

In 2013, our sun will be

At the peak of this cycle

Called the solar maximum.

At this time,

The surface of the sun

Could create the perfect storm.

The sun has had in the past

Big solar storms

That have knocked out

Power grids and our

Communication satellites.

There will be more storms.

They might happen at any time

Or they may not happen,

You know, in our lifetime

Or even in the next millennium.

We just don't know.

That's one

Of the exciting things

About studying the sun

Is trying to be able

To understand

And maybe even predict

The storms

That we see on the sun.

But one thing a solar storm

Can't destroy is number one

On our countdown

Of the seven wonders

Of our solar system:

It's the fifth largest planet.

One tenth of its surface

Is permanently covered with ice,

And its hot interior

Has been churning up

Enough magma

To keep volcanoes erupting

For billions of years.

The exploration of our

Cosmic neighborhood climaxes

With a touchdown on number one

Of the seven wonders:...

The earth, without a doubt,

Is the single greatest wonder

In the solar system.

The earth is so perfect

For our existence.

There's liquid water.

There's an atmosphere.

There's comfortable

Temperatures.

It's just a great place.

Earth, the third planet

From the sun, is brimming

With breathtaking beauty.

Unlike any other body

In the solar system,

Liquid water covers

Nearly 2/3 of its surface.

Its continents inherited

A diverse landscape,

And it's the only planet

Confirmed to support life

In all its amazing forms.

Earth has a number

Of different features

That make it truly unique

In our solar system.

For one thing,

It's not boiling hot

And nor is it freezing cold.

It's just at the right distance

From the sun

To be a very

Moderate temperature

That supports life.

For another thing,

It's not completely

A water world

Nor is it completely

A dry desert either.

It's got just

The right mix of land and ocean

To support a wide variety

Of species.

Science is now getting closer

To solving the mystery

Of how life got started

By retracing the steps

Of our planet's formation.

4.6 billion years ago,

In the swirling disk of debris

Left over from the formation

Of our newborn sun,

Gas and dust particles

Began to clump together.

They eventually formed

Large boulders

Made of rock and ice

That we see today

As asteroids and comets.

For millions of years,

These bodies collided

And coalesced to form planets.

During this birthing process,

Earth acquired some

Special properties.

One unique feature on earth

Is abundant liquid water.

It is thought

That the earliest volcanoes

Spewed out

Massive amounts of steam,

Which condensed into rain

And supplied the planet

With water.

But recently, new sources

Of water have been suggested.

Some of that water

Might have come from comets

Or some of the water

Might have come

From an outer belt of asteroids

That was rich in water.

In other words,

Some of the water

Could have come from the rocks

That made the earth

Near the end of this era

Of heavy bombardment.

And water appears

To be a key component

For the origin of life.

It was previously theorized

That life began

In a primordial soup,

A warm pond containing energy

And atmospheric elements

To make amino acids.

However, the most recent

Pioneering research

Makes a strong claim

That the earth's own

Chemical energy

And rich proteins seeped up

Through hydrothermal vents

Deep under the ocean.

Over time, this mixture

Jump-started life

By producing living cells.

We know that liquid water

Is essential to life,

And life probably got started

In a water environment,

Whether it's in the deep ocean

At the volcanic vents

Or in a shallow pond,

We don't really know

Where and how precisely

Life got started here.

But it did.

And it's the only planet

That we know

Where life actually exists.

Regardless of how

Life started,

A fortunate event

Made it possible

For complex creatures to evolve.

About 3 billion years ago,

Ancient underwater bacteria

Began to use water,

Carbon dioxide

And the sun's energy

To produce carbohydrates

In order to survive.

This process,

Called photosynthesis,

Injected vast amounts of oxygen

Into seawater, and eventually,

Our atmosphere.

A huge step happened

In evolution

When the earth got polluted

With oxygen.

We didn't start

With a rich oxygen atmosphere.!

But later, the oxygen atmosphere

That developed on earth,

Basically from photosynthesis,

Allowed life to get

A lot more complex.

After a few billion years

Of planetary

And biological evolution,

The first plants and animals

Emerged from water on to land.

It's estimated

That modern humans

Came onto the scene

A mere 200,000 years ago,

And with our evolution

Came the technological

Revolution of the planet.

From ancient man-made monuments

To bustling metropolitan cities,

Human beings changed the way

Earth looks on the ground

And from space.

The earth's surface

Has started to be modified

Very significantly by cities,

By human activity.

We're part of the earth.

We've created all these changes

On its surface.

And so, the earth's geology,

In some deep sense,

Has been radically altered

By the appearances of cities,

By the appearances

Of all the things

That we do on the surface,

And that's something

That's remarkable, and which,

As far as we know,

Is not happening anywhere else.

Certainly, it's not happening

Anywhere else

In our own solar system.

Our cosmic tour has taken us

To seven wondrous sights:

The icy geyser-laden moon,

Enceladus,

Saturn's sensational rings,

Jupiter's great red spot,

The largest volcano,

Olympus Mons,

The mysterious asteroid belt

And our stormy sun.

But this unforgettable adventure

Would not have been possible

Without our home planet, earth,

A place with

Endless possibilities.

Over the last century,

Humans have manufactured metals

And other materials

From our planet's crust

To build spacecraft.

Our technology will enable us

To blast off to explore

The other wonders.

We'll be able to marvel

At these distant domains,

And realize that we're part

Of a much wider cosmic world.

These awe-inspiring phenomena

Allow us to ponder who we are,

And why we're here

In this magnificent place,

we call The Universe.

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