This is our world
a warm, comfortable, familiar place
But walk away from the fire and look up
our thoughts soon leave home
Are we just insignificant specks?
Is the universe welcoming or hostile?
We could stand here forever wondering
or we could turn our back on this beach, leave home
to see the universe, from here to its edge
to discover its wonders
confront its horrors
beautiful new worlds
malevolent dark forces
the beginning of time
the end of the world
Would we have the courage to see it through
or would we run for home?
There is only one way to find out
The edge of space
only 100km up, just an hour's drive from home
Down there, life continues
The traffic keeps moving
stocks go on trading and Star Trek is still showing
But we have to leave all this behind
To dip our toe into the vast dark ocean beyond
Into the shallows
not too far from home
onto.. the moon
Dozens of astronauts have come this way before us
12 of them have walked on the moon itself
Just over 400,000km from home
3 days in a spacecraft
So close, it's as if we've barely left home
Familiar, safe
within the sight of earth
It looks like a deserted battlefield
bombarded by millions of meteorites and asteroids
But it's quieter now
It's obvious there have been no major collisions for millions of years
This brings back memories
the Apollo 11, lunar module
Neil Armstrong's first footprints
looks like they were made yesterday
there is no air to change them
They should survive for millions of years
may be longer than us
Our time is limited
We need to take our own giant leap
further than any human as ever travels
Out of the darkness, a friendly face
the goddess of love
Venus
The morning star, the evening star
Sometimes she welcomes the new day in the east
others she says good night in the west
The planet's spectacular yellow clouds reflect the sunlight
That's why this is the solar system's brightest planet
a sister to our planet
She is about the same size and gravity as earth
We should be safe here
But the Venus Express space probe is telling us these dazzling clouds
are made of deadly sulfuric acid
that the planet's atmosphere is choked with carbon dioxide
It's ringing alarm bells
Venus is one angry goddess
The air is noxious,
the pressure unbearable
and it's hot,
approaching 500 degree Celsius
Stay too long
and we'd be corroded, suffocated, crushed and baked
Noting can survive here
Like this,
it's a Soviet Venera robotic probe
its heavy armor has been wrecked by the extreme atmosphere
So lovely from earth,
up close, this goddess is hideous
She is the sister from hell
pockmarked by thousands of volcanos
All that carbon dioxide in its atmosphere is trapping the sun's heat
This is global warming gone wild
Before it was cold, maybe Venus was calm
more like her sister planet earth
If that's true, this could be our planet's future
Beginning to think we shouldn't be out here
that we should turn back
But there's something hypnotic about the sun
Like Medusa, too terrible to look at, too powerful to resist
luring us onwards,
on, like a moth to a flame
Dwarfed by, scorched by the sun,
it's Mercury
Get too close to the sun, this is what happens
Temperature swing wildly here
At night, it's -170 degrees
come midday, it's 400+
burnt, frozen
and look at those scars
a sign that Mercury had a violent past
The Messenger space probe, it's telling us something strange
For its size, this little planet has a powerful gravitational pull
It must be heavier than it looks
It's like a huge ball of iron covered with a thin veneer of rock
The core of what was once much larger planet
Maybe a stray planet slammed into Mercury
blasting away its out layers in a deadly game of cosmic pinball
Whole planets on the loose
destroying anything in their path, even entire planets
and we are in the middle of it:
vulnerable, exposed, small
everything is telling us to turn back
but who could defy this
the sun, in all its mesmerizing splendor
Our light, our lives
Everything we do is controlled by the sun
depends on it
and more than that
it's the Greek god Helios driving his chariot across the sky
The Egyptian god Ra, reborn everyday
the summer solstice sun rising at Stonehenge
For millions of years
this was as close as it got to staring into the face of god
150 million kilometers from home
a 20-year journey by plane
switch it off
and it's so far away
we wouldn't know about it for a whole 8 minutes
It's so big, you could fit a million earths inside it
So heavy, its gravity controls the entire solar system
But who needs numbers
we've got the real thing
We see it everyday
a familiar face in our sky
up close, it's unrecognizable
a turbulent sea of incandescent gas
The thermometer rises to over 5,000 degrees
Down in the core,
it's got to be tens of millions of degrees
Hot enough to trigger a nuclear reaction
turning millions of tons of matter into energy, every second
More than all the energy ever made by mankind
Back home, we see this energy as light
feel it as heat
But up close, there is nothing comforting about the sun
It's so full of electrical and magnetic activity
It's bursting out in this huge incandescent gas loops called prominences
Each one releasing more energy than ten million volcanos
You could get the earth through one of these loops
and still have tens of thousands of kilometers to spare
And when they burst through
it's exposing a cooler layers below
making sunspots
They're a fraction cooler than their surroundings
it's why they look black
but they are still hotter than anything on earth
and they are massive too
Some of these are at least 50,000km across
a solar flare
a superheated stream of electrified gas
blasting deadly radiation out into space
But one day, all this will stop
the sun's fuel will be spent
When it dies, that will be it for the earth as well
This god creates life and destroys it
demands we keep our distance
This comet has strayed too close
It's been boiled away by the sun's heat
creating a tail stretches for millions of kilometers
It's freezing in here
There's no doubt where these comets come from
the icy wastes of deep space
But look at all these steam, the geysers and dust
it's the sun again, melting the comet's frozen heart
A kind of vast dirty snowball covered in grimy tar
Tiny grains of what looks like organic material preserved on ice
since... by who knows when
may be even the beginning of the solar system
Say a comet like this crushed into the young earth billions of years ago
May be it delivered organic material and water
the raw ingredients of life
It may have even sown the seeds of life on earth
that have evolved into you and me
But say a crash into the earth now
think of the dinosaurs,
wiped out by comets or asteroids strike
It's only a question of time
Eventually, one day,
unless we can find a way to protect ourselves
we'll go the way of the dinosaurs
The earth is safe, for now
But if life on earth was obliterated
we'd be stuck out here,
homeless, adrift in a hostile universe
We'd need to find another home
Among the millions, billions of planets
there must be one that's not too hot, not too cold
with air, sunlight, water
where like goldilocks we could comfortably live
The red planet,
unmistakably, Mars
For centuries, we've looked to Mars for company
for signs of life
Somewhere down there, could be extraterrestrial life
But are we ready to find it
ready to rewrite the history books, to tear up the science books
to turn our world upside down?
What happens next could change everything
More than any other planet, Mars captures our imagination
Think of Sci-Fi films, comics, what follows - Martians
It's all just fiction, right?
But what if there really is something here?
If there is, it's living on a dead planet
The processes that make earth habitable
shut down hundreds of millions of years ago here
Red and dead,
Mars is a giant fossil
Something is alive
a dust devil, a big one
Bigger than the biggest tornados back on earth
There is wind here
And where there is wind, there is air
Air that could sustain extraterrestrial life
But it's too thin for us to breath
full of choking carbon dioxide
There's nothing to protect Mars from the sun's ultraviolet rays
And it's cold, as low as -80 degrees
freezing water in the ground, at the poles
and even in the atmosphere, a snow
It's hard to believe anything could live here
But on earth,
there are creatures that survive in extreme cold, heat
and even in the deepest ocean trenches
It's as though life is a virus
it adapts, spreads
Maybe we are carrying the virus of life across the universe right now
Even in the most extreme conditions, life usually finds a way
But on the dead planet
with no geological activity to replenish the minerals and nutrients in its soil
no heat to melt its frozen water
and all this dust, it's hard to see where we are going
But we can't miss this:
Olympus Mons, a vast ancient volcano
Three times higher than Everest
so wide, it would stretch almost all the way across Spain
Since its discovery in the 1970s
it's been declared extinct
It looks like there is something happening on its slopes
It's as though lava has been flowing
But any lava flow should be long dead, obliterated by meteorite impacts
Unless this monster isn't dead after all
If it's not, there could be molten magma beneath the crust right now
This changes everything
Volcanic activity could be melting frozen water in the soil
recycling minerals and nutrients creating conditions for life to exist
This makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the pavement
It goes on and on
So far, it would stretch all the way across north America
But look, signs of activity: erosion
and what looks like dried up riverbeds on the canyon floor
Maybe volcanic activity melted ice in the soil
sending water flowing through this vast canyon
Activity that we now know could still be melting ice
creating water
and where there is water, there could be life
If we can find running water
there is a chance we could find living creatures
trundling across this desolate landscape, the NASA Rover Opportunity
It's finding evidence that these barren plains were once ancient lakes or oceans
that could have harbored life
Look at these gullies
When probes orbiting Mars pass over them
they keep spotting new ones
More proof that Mars is alive and kicking
that there may be water flowing beneath the surface creating these gullies
water which could be sustaining Martian life
Now all we have to do is find it
unless we've already found it, not on Mars but on earth
There is one theory that has life start in here before moving to earth
The idea is that an asteroid impact blasted fragments of Mars
complete with tiny microbes
out into space and onto the young earth
where they sowed the seeds of life itself
No wonder we find Mars fascinating
it could be our ancestral home
If it's true, it means we are all Martians
The Mars we thought we knew is gone
replaced by this new active changing planet
And if we don't know Mars
possibly the solar system's most studied planet
what else then we know?
There must be other secrets out there waiting to be discovered
This is getting scary
It's like being inside a giant computer game
But these are all too real
asteroids, some of them hundreds of kilometers wide
This one must be about 30km long
and look, perched on it, a space probe
Can't be easy parking on an asteroid travelling at 80,000km an hour
It's a lot of effort to investigate the rubble
Rubble, that regularly collides
breaking up and raining down on earth as meteorites
magical tokens,
supernatural omens
and more than that
turns out it was rubble like these that came together to make the planets
including our own
So by dating the meteorites we find on earth
we know the planets were born 4.5 billion years ago
These the birth certificates of our solar system, of our planet
but for some reason these rocks didn't form into a planet
Something must have stopped them
something powerful
Jupiter,
what a monster
At least 1000 times bigger than earth
so vast, you could fit all the other planets inside it
Something this big is going to have a major effect on its neighbors
Its gravity is stopping asteroids from forming a planet
And just look at it
it's stunning
But up close, maybe things aren't quite what they seem
This huge planet is almost all gas
Land here and we'd sink through its layers may be never hitting a solid surface
And Jupiter's good looks, the product of extreme violence
It's spinning at a huge rate
whipping up winds to hundreds of kilometers an hour
contorting the clouds into stripes, eddies, whirlpools
and this: the legendary great red spot
The biggest most violent storm in the solar system
at least three times the size of earth
it's been raging for over 300 years
All those churning clouds have sparked an electrical storm
Just one bolt is 10,000 times more intense than any at home
It seems the best place, the safest place to see Jupiter
is from a distance
That's just beautiful
dancing around the poles like the aurora back home
But the Geiger counter is going wild
It seems even these are deadly
generated by lethal radiation pulled from space by Jupiter's powerful magnetic field
We are beginning to realize out here
nothing is what it seems
The universe is full of contradictions
deceptions
traps
Right now, we need a safe haven
somewhere to find our feet, catch our breath
Maybe this, the multi-colored moon Io is it
Those pretty colors are molten rock, sulphur, volcanos
spewing burning hot ash and sulphur hundreds of kilometers into the air
This is no safe haven
this is the most volatile place we've seen since the sun
Our magical journey to the edge of the universe
is turning into a desperate flight
we've got to keep believing
hoping that amidst the dangers
there are wonders waiting to be discovered
650 million kilometers from home
What a weird-looking place!
And yet it looks strangely familiar
A bit like the Arctic with all the ice
all those ridges and cracks
This is Europa
and maybe like the Arctic
this ice is floating on water
liquid water
It's an intriguing thought
but we are 800 million kilometers from the sun
surely Europa is frozen solid
Unless Jupiter's gravity is creating friction deep inside
stopping Europa from freezing solid
allowing life to develop in the waters beneath its frozen crust
We might be meters away from aliens
From a whole ecosystem of microbes, crustaceans, maybe even squid
The only thing between us and the possibility of alien life:
this layer of ice
But until we send a spacecraft to drill through the ice
Europa will remain one of the solar system's greatest mysteries
It's captivated our imaginations,
haunted our dreams
And here it is,
spinning before our eyes
Saturn, the jewel in the solar system's crown
Seeing it makes everything we've experienced worthwhile
There is something magical about Saturn
a giant ball of gas,
so light, it would float on water
Its spectacular rings would stretch almost from earth to the moon
but they are just a few hundred meters deep
That's the Cassini orbiter
it's picking up ghostly radio emissions
probably generated by auroras around Saturn's poles
This is the real music of the spheres
And Cassini is telling us these rings are probably all that's left of a moon
shattered by Saturn's gravitational pull
Incomparable beauty from total destruction
Billions of shards of ice
some are small as ice cubes, others, the size of houses
They collide, break apart, reassemble
It's like a snapshot of our early solar system
As dust and gas orbited the newly born sun
and gravity worked its magic
pulling the lumps together until from debris like these
our home emerged
We could stay here forever
gazing at Saturn's seductive allure
But we have to drag ourselves away
we've got so much further to go, so much more to learn
which isn't easy when the largest object in sight is this moon
wrapped in thick clouds
Titan
It seems like there's an atmosphere down here
there is wind, rain, even seasons
And look at these rivers, lakes and oceans
It's the most similar place to earth we've seen so far
Maybe it was worth tearing ourselves away from Saturn after all
Except that's not water, that's liquid natural gas
There must be hundreds of times more natural gas here
than all the earth's oil and gas reserves
If we could get it home
it could power our cities, fuel our cars for thousands of years
or may be one day,
we could use it here, to fuel a colony
assuming there isn't life on Titan already
The Huygens space probe
dropped onto Titan's surface from Cassini is here to find out
It's telling us there are organic materials in the soil
but it is so cold, -180 degrees
There is no way these will come together to form life
Unless, Titan warms up
The sun is predicted to get hotter
when it does, maybe life will spring up here
just like it did on earth billions of years ago
As the earth gets too hot for us, maybe we'll move to Titan
One day we might call this distant place home
Home, we are at least a billion kilometers away now
Beyond this point, we lose visual contact with the earth
We are standing on a cliff
looking out into the solar system's mysterious outer reaches
If we want to understand the universe, to reach its edge
we have to jump
Unseen from earth, unknown for most of history
we are in the solar system's outer reaches
It's like diving down into the deep ocean
Those rings, it looks like Uranus has been tilted off its axis
toppled over by a stray planet
It's eerie out here
Already beginning to feel small, lonely
Maybe this is how we'll feel
what we'll find at the edge of the universe
But we've barely left the shore
Shrink the earth down to the size of a pea
we've travelled less than 2km
But to reach the edge of the solar system
we've got to travel another 20,000km
Out of the deep, another strange beast
the god of the sea - Neptune
This giant is swathed in methane gas
And look, a storm the size of earth
whipped up by savage 1500km/h winds
Back home, it's the sun that drives the wind
but Neptune is too far away
something else must be creating these ferocious winds
but nobody knows what
Our solar system is huge
it's alarming how little we really know about it
Plunging deeper, something to cling to
After all those balls of gas, a solid moon
Triton
solid, but not stable
Just look at these geysers
cosmic chimneys pumping out strange soot
And this moon is going around Neptune in the opposite direction to the planet's spin
a cosmic battle of wills
that this angry moon is always going to lose
Neptune's massive gravity is pulling on Triton
slowing it down, reeling it in
One day, it will be ripped apart by Neptune
and that's it
No more moons, no more planets to see in our solar system
It's getting colder
we're getting further from the sun
slipping from the grip of its gravitational tentacles
But look at all this, it's not a void
it's teeming with frozen rocks, icy spheres
Like Pluto
Until recently, it seemed Pluto was alone
beyond it, nothing,
we were wrong
more frozen worlds
Discovery so new, nobody can agree what to call them
Plutinos, ice dwarfs, cubewanos
whatever the name, the implications are the same
our solar system isn't a neat model we thought it was
Over 13 billion kilometers from home
the most distant thing ever seen to orbit the sun
another small icy world
called Sedna, discovered in 2003
Its orbit takes 10,000 years
and sends it 130 billion kilometers from the sun
Hang on,
there is something else out here
16 billion kilometers from home
the space probe Voyager 1
If it wasn't for this bundle of aluminium and antennae
we'd have no images of the giant planets
no clue about their strange moons
It's travelling 20 times faster than a bullet
sending messages home
And look, on its side, that gold panel
a kind of intergalactic message in a bottle
There's a greeting recorded in different languages
Hello from the children of planet earth
And a map, showing how to find our solar system
But if you are in the jungle, it is wise to call out
anyone, anything could hear our call
find out where we live and come knocking, friendly or not
A cloud of cosmic iceberg stretching for what seems like forever
They look like the comet we saw earlier
Maybe it started life out here
until something dislodged it
sending it towards the sun
just like the comets that may have planted life on earth billions of years ago
And seeing these ice, maybe they carried water to earth too
It's an astonishing thought
the water in the oceans, in your coffee, even in your body
all from this distant celestial ice machine
We are 8 million million, that's 8 trillion km from home
but in reality, this is only a baby step
ahead trillions of kilometers, billions of stars
This is it, time to stop looking in, and start looking out
to step out into the big wide universe
into interstellar space
Interstellar space,
far beyond our solar system
What a view!
billions of stars like our own sun
many with planets,
many of those with moons
It's hard to know which way to go
There are infinite possibilities in every direction
whichever way,
we are going to need a series burst of acceleration
40 trillion kilometers from home
150,000-year ride in a space shuttle
and we've only just reached the first solar system after our own
Alpha Centauri,
not one, but three stars
They are spinning around each other, locked in a celestial standoff
Each star's gravity attracting the other
their insane orbital speed keeping them apart
Get between them
and we could be flung into the face of one of these stars
vaporized, trillions of kilometers from home
so far, the kilometers become meaningless
We are going to have to talk in light-years
A beam of light takes one year to travel ten trillion kilometers
so 40 trillion kilometers is 4 light-years from home
It's crazy, distances so vast they're almost beyond comprehension
And exciting, who knows what strange worlds lie ahead
what we'll discover when, if we reach the edge of the universe
Ten light-years from earth, the star Epsilon Eridani
What spectacular rings of dust and ice
and somewhere in there
planets forming out of the debris
being born before our eyes
Asteroids and comets everywhere
We could almost be looking at our own solar system billions of years ago
With comets delivering organic molecules, water to these young planets
kick starting life just as they may have done on earth
At the centre of all this action, a star smaller than our sun
and still in its infancy
any life in this solar system would be primitive at best
There must be more mature, developed solar systems out here
but finding them is like looking for a needle in a cosmic haystack
20 light-years from earth
star Gliese 581
It's about the same age as our sun
and orbiting it, this planet
It's just the right distance from its sun
any closer and water would boil away, any further and it would freeze
Ideal conditions for life to have evolved
And if comets have struck, delivering water and organic materials
then life, complex beings like us
even civilizations like our own could be down there, right now
And if there are, even at this distance
they could be tuning to our TV signals
watching shows from 20 years ago
But until future generations can find a way of communicating over these vast distances
all we can do is speculate
us and them living parallel lives, unaware of each other's existence
unless life has been and gone
That's the problem with comets
They are creators and destroyers
As the dinosaurs find out the hard way 65 million years ago
This is the needle in the cosmic haystack
the closest we've come to a habitable solar system like our own
but it's a chance encounter
There could be hundreds millions more solar systems like this out here
or none at all
This is vast and look
it's the planet Bellerophon
So close to its own sun, it's a miracle it was discovered at all
Problem is from earth we can't see planets this far out
they're obscured by the brilliance of their neighboring stars
But the planets have a minute gravitational pull on their stars
Measure this tiny movements trillions of kilometers away
and we can prove they exist
That's how we tracked down Bellerophon in the 1990s
Opening the floodgates to the discovery of hundreds of other distant planets
65 light-years from earth
Tune in on this bright star
and you'd pick up TV signals from Hitler's Berlin Olympics
Twin stars, it's Algol, the Demon star
feared since ancient times on account of its sinister behavior
From earth, it appears to blink as one star passes in front the other
Up close, it's even stranger
One star has expanded into the gravitational pull of the other
it's been sucked towards it
Almost 100 light-years from home, listen
One of the first-ever radio broadcasts just a faint whisper
And then silence
From here and out, it's as if earth never existed
Any aliens living beyond here will have no idea we are there
It feels like a lifetime ago, we stood on that beach, looking up at the sky
wondering where and how we fitted in
It's time to appreciate the wonders we are seeing
not just for what they tell us about our own world
It's what they can tell us about the whole universe
its past and its future
Deep inside our galaxy, the milky way
a vast celestial library,
each star, a book with a story to tell
It's all here, waiting for us to lift the cover
The seven sisters, daughters of the ancient Greek god Atlas
transformed into stars to comfort their father
as he held the heavens on his shoulders
And this giant Betelgeuse
The brightest, biggest star we've seen so far
It's got to be at least 600 times wider than our own sun
But this, it's not a star
not a planet, not like anything we've ever seen
A ghostly specter, more than 1300 light-years from earth
Orion's dark cloud
Dust and gas, so dense, it's shrouding us
shutting us off from the universe outside
There, deep inside
a ball of light, pulling the dust and gas towards it
heating up, merging into a ball of burning hot gas
Like a star, like our sun, in miniature
It's millions of degrees inside it
so hot, it's beginning to trigger nuclear reactions
the kind that keep our sun shining
making energy, radiation, light
a star is being born
Or rather, stars
Orion's dark cloud is a vast star factory
We are witnessing the birth of the future universe
We've come to expect hostile horrors
but we're discovering one of the universe's greatest creative wonders
star birth
Perhaps we spoke too soon
Jets of gas, exploding outwards at 200,000 kilometers an hour
Blasting dust and gas out for millions of kilometers
It's unbelievably violent
but look at the results
it's beyond words
Nebula, vast glowing clouds of gas, hanging in space
With no wind out here
they'll take thousands of years to disperse
They seem to be forming a vast stellar sculpture
and makes you realize nature is more than a scientist and engineer
It's an artist on the grandest of scales
We've seen some strange sights,
but this is a masterpiece
A giant horse's head rearing up in space
Stars are born, grow up and then..
then what?
Did they die?
Did they slip quietly into the night or go out with a bang?
Somewhere between here and the edge of the universe
lies the answer
Nearly 4000 light-years further
luminous clouds suspended in space
encircling what was once a star like our own sun
All that's left of it are these brightly colored gases
elements formed by nuclear fusion deep inside the star
released into space on its death
green and violet, hydrogen and helium
the raw materials of the universe
red and blue, nitrogen and oxygen
the building blocks of life on earth
For us to live, stars like these had to die
the oxygen in our lungs, the nitrogen in our DNA
It was all produced by nuclear fusion
and the stars that died long before the earth was even born
We are made of stellar nuclear waste
our family tree begins here
At its heart, the ghost of a star
It's a white dwarf
white, hot, small
but unbelievably dense
In this star's dying moments
its atoms fuse and squeeze together
making it so dense that just a teaspoon of this white dwarf would weigh one ton
It's a chilling premonition of our sun's fate
Six billions years from now, it'll become a white dwarf
Its death will herald the end of life on earth
It makes you wonder how many other worlds have been and gone
stories left untold,
celestial books lost forever
But the greatest story of them all is still to be told
We must go back through time to the very first chapter
to tell the story of how the universe began
The scattered remains of a dead star
a nebula, the crab nebula
With 6,000 light-years from home
deep inside a stellar graveyard
We've learned so much
seen things we'd never have believed possible
Now sights like this
wonders once beyond imagination
we take in our stride
We are ready
ready to face whatever lies ahead
determined to reach the edge of the universe
It looks dead
but maybe this is just the calm after the storm
after a massive explosion
powerful enough to turn a huge star into a cloud of dust and gas
a supernova
The eye of the storm
a spinning pulsating star, a pulsar
Gravity must have squeezed the giant star's core down to this
It's just 20km across, unimaginably dense
One pinhead of this would weigh hundreds, maybe millions of tons
As it shrank
like a figure skater spinning on the spot
arms outstretched then pulling them in
It began to spin faster
Two beams of light, energy, radiation
spinning 30 times a second, powering the huge cloud of dust and gas
There are so much radiation here, more even than on the sun
That was easily the deadliest thing we've encountered so far
Once it would have terrified us
but now we realize that without the dangers, there'd be no wonders
Without the nightmares, there'd be no dreams
Getting a strange sensation
a feeling, as though there's something bad out here
a malevolent presence
The one thing we didn't want to encounter
impossibly black
blotting out the stars behind it
We are staring into the face of extinction
The remains of a giant star
a black hole
Instead of contracting to a white dwarf, or a pulsar
it just kept on going
shrinking,
until it got so small
it's just a few kilometers across
Far denser than a pulsar, and impossible to resist
Stray too close, and there's no turning back
Now we know why it's a black hole
Its gravity is so intense, not even light can escape
This asteroid, it's a lump of solid rock
but it's actually stretching
being dragged towards the gaping hole
Inside, there is no matter as we know it
no time, no space
all rules of physics collapse
The asteroid is gone
truth is nobody really knows where
We are looking at the limit of human understanding
There could be millions of black holes creeping around our galaxy
More perhaps than all the stars in the sky
but we wouldn't see them until it was too late
Like this star
spiraling, disappearing down in an invisible black hole
Who's to say we don't live inside a vast black hole
that the whole universe isn't inside one right now
inside another universe?
Think about it for too long, and your mind reels
Sometimes it feels like the more we see, the less we know
But we do know our galaxy is more complex, more dangerous
than we ever imagined
And we are still in our own galaxy, the milky way
The vastness of the universe beyond still lies ahead
The wonders, the dangers, the secrets, they are out there
But first, we've got to find a way out of the milky way
7,000 light-years from home,
still deep inside our own galaxy
It's as though we are in a forest, thick with trees
each so beautiful, so fascinating
it's impossible to look beyond
to see a bigger picture
We have to find a way through
reach the clearing at the galaxy's edge
Only then can we begin to understand where it and we all began
But faced with sights like this, it's hard to leave
a colossal glowing cloud topped by these great towers of dust
the pillars of creation
Like a gateway into the far galaxy
both pillars studded with tiny protrusions
embryonic star systems
Each one the size of our solar system
another monument to nature's astonishing creativity
We have to ignore its captivating beauty,
it's siren song, tear ourselves away
in order to carry onwards towards the edge of the galaxy
Dazzled by the milky way's beauty
we've been blind to its terrors and strayed into a cosmic minefield
Like an explosion in slow motion
giant clouds of gas are bursting out of the star
a massive star, millions of times brighter than our sun
It's going into melt down
The fuel that sustains it is running out
The nuclear reactions that power it winding down
We are watching its death throes
Eventually, the core will implode
the result: a new black hole
An even bigger dangerously unstable star
but this one is about to explode
And when a star this big dies
it's 100 times more violent than a supernova
Somehow we've stumbled into the most violent star death imaginable
a hypernova
The core's collapsed
It's becoming a black hole
And that's the shockwave
surging through the star, ripping its outer layers into space
There's lethal radiation everywhere
enough to have a catastrophic effect on any planet unlucky enough to be nearby
When virtually every species on earth was wiped out 450 million years ago
the culprit may have been one of these
Deadly hypernovas, frozen comets
scorched planets, white dwarfs, red giants, earth
Tiny drops in a vast pool of white light
our home galaxy, the milky way
We wanted to know where we fit in
Here's an answer
Civilization's past and present
everyone that's ever lived
The smallest bug, the highest mountain
all of it, invisible, not even a tiny speck
Our home is a minor planet of an insignificant star
If it disappeared right now, who or what would even notice
And yet, so far we've found nowhere else we would rather live
nowhere we could live
It's only now far from home
that we are beginning to truly appreciate it
Look at all these stars
hundreds of thousands of them
Surely one of these, more than one, must be capable of supporting life
Maybe here in this swarm of stars, the great cluster
Back in the 1970s, astronomers sent a message in this direction
detailing the structure of our DNA, and our solar system's location
But it's so far from home
the message won't arrive for at least another 25,000 years
We haven't found alien life yet
but neither have we found any reason to believe it isn't out here, somewhere
There is an equation
devised to estimate the number of other advanced civilizations
Crunch the numbers and the result is shocking
There could be millions of civilizations
just in our own galaxy
Everything we have seen so far is inside the milky way
Now here is our chance
to see other galaxies, to glimpse the even bigger picture
and perhaps to answer the ultimate question:
where does all this come from?
We are now ready to leave our solar system, our galaxy
and enter intergalactic space
Beyond the milky way, through the vast expanse between galaxies
against all the odds, we've made it to intergalactic space
Out here, there is no horizon in sight
Even the closest galaxies are millions of light-years away
The remains of galaxies ripped apart by the milky way's huge gravitational pull
Scattered through, nothing
This is as close as the universe gets to a perfect vacuum
but even this isn't totally empty
There are thin wisps of gas, fine traces of dust
and something else, dark matter
So mysterious, we can't see it, feel it
taste it, touch it or even measure it
Yet so common, it could make up over 90% of all the matter in the universe
If dark matter does exist
it means there's no such thing as empty space
Even out here, we are surrounded by matter
We only know it exists
because of the strange hold it exerts on galaxies
like this one, the Large Magellanic Cloud
More than 6 billion years in today's fastest spacecraft
160,000 light-years from the milky way
at the edge of its gravitational reach
This galaxy should spin off into space
but something is holding it here
something invisible, powerful
dark matter
stars
clusters of stars
nebulae
it's a vast astronomical treasure house
But look at this, it's like a string of gleaming pearls
It's a fireball
expanding out from what must have been a massive explosion,
a supernova
So bright, that when light from the explosion reached the earth in 1987
it was visible with naked eye
and so violent, it triggered a string of nuclear reactions
forcing atoms together creating new elements:
gold, silver, platinum
blasting them out into space
The gold in the ring on your finger
was forged in a massive supernova like this
trillions of kilometers away, billions of years ago
Before we left home, the universe seems separate
something out there, up in the sky
We were wrong
the story of the universe is the story of every one of us
It's comforting to remember as we venture through this abyss
Further and further
Faster and faster
The Andromeda Galaxy
2.5 million light-years away
It's moving through space at nearly a million kilometers an hour
Everything in space is moving apart, like shrapnel from an explosion
We've seen this galaxy as it was
when our ape like ancestors first walked across the African plains
We go further through space
and further back in time
This doesn't look right
A whole galaxy exploding
The only thing large enough to cause an explosion on this scale
has to be another galaxy
It looks like the end of the world
but we've seen enough to know things are never that simply
This galaxy won't die
It'll be reborn, a new shape, perhaps even new stars
as dust and gas collide, creating friction, shockwaves
triggering the birth of stars
There is order in this chaos
a pattern behind the infinite variety
an endless cycle of birth and death
creation and destruction
It's a pattern woven through the vast fabric of space
that binds each of these galaxies
There are billions of galaxies in the universe
each with billions, even trillions of stars
possibly more stars than there're grains of sand on all the beaches on earth
And all of these are just the stars that exist now
What about the stars that have been and gone
all the stars being born, yet to be born
We're finally beginning to see the big picture
and it's grander than we ever imagined
This galaxy, the huge pinwheel galaxy is so far from earth
that if we send a message home now
it'll take 27 million years to get there
Who knows whether our species, our planet will still be around to receive it
most likely, not
We travel along, back through time
Pass the point where the dinosaurs were wiped out
pass the moment where the first creatures clambered onto land
Two billion light-years from home
closing in at the edge of the universe
going back to the beginning of time
This isn't a galaxy
It's brighter than hundreds of galaxies put together
a blinding beam of energy bursting out for trillions of kilometers
Something this big, this bright must be incredibly powerful
Experience tells us, out here, power equals danger
It looks like a quasar, the deadliest thing in the universe
If it is, then our journey could be over
just as the end is almost in sight
The deadliest, most powerful thing in the universe - a quasar
a swirling caldron of superhot gas
brighter than hundreds of galaxies
The source of this awesome power lies deep inside the heart of the beast
a heart of darkness
a super massive black hole, as heavy as a billion suns
It's ripping apart whole stars
sucking their gases into the quasar, devouring them
Until they're nothing, lost forever from the visible universe
We've seen the worst the universe can throw at us
the most powerful and destructive forces the universe produces
Now it's onto the very edge of the universe
it's almost within reach
We'll need to go further
go faster if we were to cross the final reaches of the known universe
Eight billion light-years from home
more galaxies
but these look different,
ragged, small, close together
We are so far back in time
we are seeing these galaxies as they were before the earth was even born
They are still young, still growing
We are getting closer to where and how it all began
12 billion years ago
Look at the galaxies now
they are more like primitive plankton floating in the vast, dark ocean
It's magical, clouds of dust and gas
dancing, forming shape, merging to make embryonic galaxies
This is how our own galaxy was born
They are disappearing
We've gone back before the stars were born
into a cosmic dark age
and before that
light, the afterglow from a massive explosion
the explosion which created the known universe
We are almost there
This is it
We've made it
the edge of the universe
130 billion trillion kilometers from home
13.5 billion years ago
The very instant of the big bang
the most violent, most creative moment in history
Everything that's ever happened follows from this moment
Every religion, every culture has pondered it
But we still don't know what sparked this active creation
or why
This is where our journey ends
and the universe begins
An infinitely hot, small, dense point erupts
Creating space, time, matter, our universe itself
First, it's the size of a subatomic particle
the tiniest fraction of a second later
it's big enough to hold in the palm of your hand
Moments later, it's the size of the earth
Today, the light from the big bang is still spreading out
as a hiss of radial static
Your TV aerial picks it up
you can see it as static on an untuned TV
We go on, forwards through time,
riding the blast wave
All the things we've seen on our journey
are sparks flying out from the big bang
galaxies, stars, planets, all just debris
Back through our galaxy
our solar system
until we reach another cooling cinder
swirling in the afterglow of the big bang
the earth
We had to go back to the past to see our future
Three billion years from now
the vast Andromeda Galaxy smashes into our own
a new galaxy is born
the sun and planets survive
but they've been thrown into a huge looping orbit around the new galaxy
The sun is becoming a red giant
swallowing up Mercury and Venus
scorching our planet's surface, destroying all life on earth
the sun dies,
shrinking to a white dwarf
neighboring stars are dying too
being replaced by white dwarfs, pulsars, black holes
the lights are going down on the galaxy
Since the big bang, the universe has been fading, dying
not with a bang, but with a long drawn-out whimper
But there could be a way out
an escape route from our dying universe
It might be possible for our distant descendants
to find a shortcut through space and time
a wormhole
If there are other universes
it could take our descendants from our doomed universe into a parallel one
where they could find another earth, still in the prime of life
If they are lucky enough
they will live on in a new universe
a new home
Subtitles by Andrew and Hattie www.mvgroup.org
Sync for 720p.HDTV.DiCH: Phucnv87 For my Rose