Browse content similar to Richard Hammond Builds a Planet. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The Earth... | 0:00:03 | 0:00:04 | |
..third rock from the Sun. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:07 | |
And it's unique... | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
..it has life. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:15 | |
So how do you make a planet like ours? | 0:00:17 | 0:00:21 | |
I'm going to open up the cosmic tool box | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
and work it out. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:25 | |
We're going to build a planet, up there... | 0:00:25 | 0:00:29 | |
..at the top of this impossibly high tower. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:34 | |
It gives us the perfect platform | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
to make something really big. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:46 | |
Up here, we can do in seconds | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
what it takes nature millions or billions of years to do. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
We are going to build our planet... | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
brick by brick. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:06 | |
But to do that, I'm going to need help. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
And I'll find it in the most unlikely places. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
Right now, I am effectively weightless. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
I'm on the ceiling. I am ON the ceiling. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:36 | |
Of course, as with any construction work... | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
..there will be hiccups. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:45 | |
But out of these mistakes will come real insights | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
into what makes our planet, our solar system, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
exactly right for us - for life. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:58 | |
As an engineering challenge, | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
it doesn't get much bigger. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:02 | |
I love it here on this hill. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:34 | |
Feels like it was made | 0:02:34 | 0:02:35 | |
for bracing Sunday walks with the family. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
And indeed most weekend mornings, | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
the place is full of parents with their kids, | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
including me with mine, sometimes. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:49 | |
And when I was on those same family Sunday morning walks, | 0:02:49 | 0:02:53 | |
as a kid myself, | 0:02:53 | 0:02:54 | |
I spent as much of my time looking down as I did up and round. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:59 | |
Rocks, stones, the very stuff of the Earth - | 0:02:59 | 0:03:03 | |
they fascinated me. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:04 | |
And amongst my finds was one I felt particularly important - | 0:03:04 | 0:03:08 | |
a rock the size of your fist. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:11 | |
A rich brown - dimpled, heavy, glinting, | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
somehow special. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
It became one of my most treasured childhood possessions. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
I was convinced it was a meteorite - | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
a rock that had landed here from space. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
Morning. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:28 | |
Like most treasured childhood possessions, | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
it got lost or swapped, probably wasn't even a real meteorite anyway. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:43 | |
But it didn't matter because it had done its job - | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
it sparked my interest in space, | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
the idea of "out there". | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
Like most kids, I suppose, I believed that "out there" | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
would be full of planets like the Earth. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:05 | |
Each of them full of life, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:07 | |
even if it wasn't quite the same as ours. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
But as it turns out, | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
the planet we live on is very, very special. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
As far as we know, our Earth | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
is the only place in the solar system with life. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
To understand why, | 0:04:36 | 0:04:38 | |
we are going to build our own planet... | 0:04:38 | 0:04:41 | |
..at the top of that tower. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:45 | |
And to do that, | 0:05:01 | 0:05:04 | |
first we have to gather up the basic raw materials... | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
..all the big ingredients we need to start making a planet. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:14 | |
All right, all right! | 0:05:14 | 0:05:15 | |
And here comes my delivery now... | 0:05:17 | 0:05:18 | |
..right on time. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:21 | |
OK, so how much stuff do we need to build a planet like the Earth? | 0:05:34 | 0:05:40 | |
I know that the entire Earth weighs around six septillion kilograms, | 0:05:43 | 0:05:47 | |
that's a six followed by 24 zeros. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
But let's be sensible here, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
I've ordered the main planetary raw materials | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
and in the right proportions | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
but I've had to scale the delivery down... | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
..a bit. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:04 | |
Now, you'd think that our living Earth | 0:06:29 | 0:06:33 | |
would be made up of countless different things. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:36 | |
But actually, it's constructed almost entirely | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
out of just four basic ingredients. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
So that's what my convoy has delivered. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:45 | |
On these trucks - girders, iron girders. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:49 | |
Like most big construction projects, | 0:06:49 | 0:06:51 | |
we are going to need a lot of iron. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
Ah, we need this... | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
..oxygen. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:02 | |
And over here... | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
..sand... | 0:07:06 | 0:07:07 | |
..that's rich in silicon. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
Magnesium, like you find in alloy wheels. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:20 | |
The convoy has brought the elements | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
in exactly the same proportion as we'd find on Earth. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
So, there are 15 trucks laden with magnesium | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
because 15% of our planet is made from magnesium. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
There are 16 trucks for the 16% that's silicon. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:44 | |
30 trucks carrying oxygen. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:47 | |
And a column of 32 trucks with iron girders | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
because almost a third of our planet is made of iron. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
It is incredible to think that just these four elements | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
make up 93% of our planet. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:04 | |
The rest is elemental seasoning. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:06 | |
HORN TOOTS | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
And here's Billy Bob with some of the remaining ingredients... | 0:08:09 | 0:08:14 | |
which are tiny. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:15 | |
Hydrogen... | 0:08:16 | 0:08:17 | |
..aluminium, | 0:08:19 | 0:08:20 | |
a pinch of salt, | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
calcium. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
The question now is | 0:08:25 | 0:08:27 | |
how does all of this turn into a planet? | 0:08:27 | 0:08:31 | |
To find out, I need to take these basic planetary elements | 0:08:38 | 0:08:42 | |
and stick them in a blender. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
And I'm going to do that at the top of our tower, | 0:08:53 | 0:08:56 | |
where there's a sky-full of room to break down my ingredients. | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
The thing is, our planet didn't just pop into existence. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:08 | |
It started out as a swirling cloud of elemental dust, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
floating in the great void of space. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
So that's how I am going to have to start, as well. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
In case you're wondering, | 0:10:07 | 0:10:09 | |
yes, I am... | 0:10:09 | 0:10:10 | |
..scared of heights, that is. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:13 | |
High...really high. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:17 | |
4.5 billion years ago, before the Earth began to form, | 0:10:31 | 0:10:36 | |
this dust and gas was all there was. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:40 | |
So, how do we get from this cloud of dust | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
to a planet like the Earth? | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
We need something to bind it all together, | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
a sort of cosmic superglue. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:15 | |
Now, you might think that'd be gravity. Right? | 0:11:15 | 0:11:19 | |
Wrong. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:20 | |
The best way to find out what this super-strong planetary glue is | 0:11:38 | 0:11:43 | |
is to discover its power | 0:11:43 | 0:11:45 | |
in the weightless environment of space. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:48 | |
It's why I've come to this Air Force base, | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
where astronauts are trained. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:57 | |
I'll be honest, I am pretty thrilled right now | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
because I'm about to boldly go | 0:12:03 | 0:12:05 | |
where quite few have gone before. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:08 | |
I'm not actually going into space. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
There were budgetary issues with that. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:11 | |
But never mind because we have come up with | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
the very next best thing for our purposes. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
Where I'm headed is over there. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
This plane offers thrill-seekers something unique - | 0:12:28 | 0:12:32 | |
it can cancel out the Earth's gravity. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
For me, it means I can recreate the conditions in which | 0:12:37 | 0:12:42 | |
that elemental dust began to make a planet. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
Hi, how are you doing? Richard, hey. Good to see you. Welcome aboard. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
Are you ready...? I'm ready! Ready for a unique experience? | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
I don't know, I've never tried it, obviously. Let's see. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
'On today's flight, my chaperone is Dan Durda...' Thank you. | 0:12:55 | 0:13:00 | |
'..an expert on space dust.' | 0:13:00 | 0:13:03 | |
All right, Richard. I think... | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
Which seat are you here? I'm 2F. I'm just... | 0:13:05 | 0:13:07 | |
In the context, having this conversation is hilarious. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
I should imagine all astronauts do this. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
The attendant service on the space flights | 0:13:14 | 0:13:15 | |
is not quite up to par, though. I was wondering about that. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
Do they have, like, a trolley with all the space food on it? | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
I've got a window seat but there is no window. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
That's on purpose. I don't doubt it. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
A lack of windows | 0:13:35 | 0:13:36 | |
isn't the only strange thing about this plane. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
It's also got a padded interior, | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
sort of like a flying asylum. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
That's because, within 15 minutes, | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
we are going to experience weightlessness. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
And those zero gravity conditions | 0:13:55 | 0:13:57 | |
will allow Dan to show me a fascinating experiment. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:01 | |
Inside this Perspex box | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
is the next step to building a planet. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
We're going to simulate the way the planets formed | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
in the very earliest days of the solar system. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:12 | |
Instead of microscopic dust particles, | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
I've got coffee - ordinary coffee. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
So in this little box, we're going to see exhibited | 0:14:17 | 0:14:19 | |
what it was that brought stuff together? | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
Absolutely. So this is what kick-starts the whole process? | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
Big things have small beginnings. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:27 | |
So it all starts with a coffee? | 0:14:27 | 0:14:29 | |
It all starts with early coffee. Just like my day. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
It does all start with a coffee. Even the solar system. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:33 | |
As it turns out! We shall see. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:35 | |
Right, switch the gravity off, then. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
That's right! | 0:14:37 | 0:14:38 | |
It doesn't work, it's broken. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
The plane is now climbing to 34,000 feet. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
Once there, it'll throttle back down to Earth in a steep arc, | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
perfectly judged so that inside, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
we're falling at the same rate as the plane drops. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
The result - | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
a few moments of weightlessness. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:02 | |
Oh, yeah! | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
Oh, I swam, I did swim. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
Oh, that's peculiar. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:07 | |
Oh, look at that! Beautiful. Oh, we got it! | 0:15:07 | 0:15:09 | |
Look at! See, that's what I was trying to show you. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
Unfortunately, I'm upside down. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
I can't! I can't...it's over there. Here we go. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
Hang on, it's... | 0:15:17 | 0:15:18 | |
You come here to do these experiments all the time. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:20 | |
Right, I'm going to watch but I'm going to do it upside down. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
Why are you better at this than I am? | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
I'm really struggling. I'm... | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
Gravity, there it is. DAN LAUGHS | 0:15:28 | 0:15:30 | |
What are we looking for? | 0:15:33 | 0:15:35 | |
We're now weightless. That's how our planet started. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:37 | |
So these clumps, what's bringing them together? | 0:15:37 | 0:15:40 | |
Electrostatic forces. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:42 | |
Electrostatic's clumping this coffee together. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:44 | |
So this is the effect, this is what starts it all off. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
It's hard to concentrate when I'm floating. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
That's not gravity causing that clumping. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
That's electrostatics. I'm on the roof! | 0:15:52 | 0:15:53 | |
How did I get on the roof? And now I'm on the floor. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
Now gravity is coming back into play... And it's all gone. ..and it doesn't work. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
That's why we're weightless, | 0:16:01 | 0:16:03 | |
to see phenomena that we can't normally see | 0:16:03 | 0:16:05 | |
when gravity's turned on. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:06 | |
So what's happening here? | 0:16:08 | 0:16:10 | |
These coffee grains, like that first cosmic dust, | 0:16:11 | 0:16:15 | |
rub together as they float. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:17 | |
This means individual grains | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
get either negatively or positively charged. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
And this static charge means they stick together... | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
..just like the fledgling particles of the Earth | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
4.5 billion years ago. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:40 | |
This is as near as we're going to get | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
to being out there with those particles without gravity. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
How cool is that?! | 0:16:52 | 0:16:53 | |
Oh! HE LAUGHS | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
Congratulations! Thank you for that. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
I enjoyed it, thank you. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:06 | |
I need you to know that I did that | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
only because it was the best way of demonstrating | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
an essential principle in building a planet | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
and not because I had any fun at all. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
It was...yeah, it's quite boring. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:17 | |
I loved that! | 0:17:17 | 0:17:18 | |
So, around our planet-building tower, | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
we've bound together those first clumps of dust | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
without gravity present. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:33 | |
But there is a problem. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:36 | |
Electrostatic forces are very strong | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
but are only effective over tiny distances. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
Beyond a certain point, | 0:17:49 | 0:17:51 | |
about the size of gravel, | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
the dust stops growing. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
So our planet-building plans have ground to a halt | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
with nothing to show beyond bigger bits of dust. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
We need another force | 0:18:07 | 0:18:09 | |
to somehow grow them more. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
I think it's time to introduce a little gravity to the situation. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
How, then, does gravity take those bigger bits of dust and gravel, | 0:18:27 | 0:18:32 | |
and turn them into rocks | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
or even an entire planet? | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
At a concealed underground laboratory, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:46 | |
I'm told there's a secret device | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
that will help me find the answer. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
Until 2001, this was a gold mine. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
Now, it's at the cutting edge of scientific research. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
My goal lies | 0:19:18 | 0:19:20 | |
nearly a kilometre and a half straight down. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:23 | |
I'm going deeper underground than I've ever been before. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:28 | |
You know in disaster movies... | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
..when things go wrong | 0:19:33 | 0:19:34 | |
in things like giant lifts going a mile underground - | 0:19:34 | 0:19:38 | |
the short guy never lasts very long, does he? | 0:19:38 | 0:19:41 | |
Just thinking that out loud. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
More and more rock flashing past. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
Still plunging. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:51 | |
Still, plunging is better than plummeting. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
At the bottom of this shaft is an instrument | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
that's part of a global gravity research experiment. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
Apparently, it's going to help us understand | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
how gravity can grow a planet from gravel. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
In the tunnels of these, the Sandford Labs, | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
scientists are unravelling the workings of the universe. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
ALARM BLARES | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
I might not look it but I feel a bit like James Bond - | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
summoned to the underground lair of an international super-baddie. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:43 | |
And here is what I've come to see. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
Meet Dr Gnome. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:52 | |
Now the good doctor here is no common or garden gnome. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
He is a precision instrument of science. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
He's special because he has a super-tough coating | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
that means he can't be chipped or damaged easily. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:04 | |
So you would think that wherever he went, | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
he remained exactly the same. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
Looks the same. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
Same expression - | 0:21:11 | 0:21:12 | |
slightly puzzled. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:14 | |
Well, scientists have taken Dr Gnome all over the world. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
And wherever he's been, | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
he's been weighed with high precision scales. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:29 | |
And it's his weight that helps explain | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
how gravity can turn gravel into a planet. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:37 | |
It's my job now to weigh him down here, | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
a mile down beneath the surface, | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
in laboratory conditions. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
So let's zero the machine, pop him on. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
And as you can see, the doctor tipping the scales | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
at 330.95g. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
In the interest of thoroughness, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:01 | |
he has been weighed in a number of other locations down here. | 0:22:01 | 0:22:04 | |
And in all of them, we got the same reading. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
A kilometre and a half under the surface, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:11 | |
he weighs 330.95g. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:15 | |
And now we must travel back up to the surface | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
where we shall finish this experiment. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:22 | |
Right then, Doctor, you just sit there. I'll do all the walking. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
The doctor has to travel first class. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
It's vitally important that he isn't damaged on the way up, | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
or picks up any dirt that might interfere with readings. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
OK, Doctor, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:01 | |
time to weigh you up here, on the surface. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:04 | |
Zero the machine, | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
let it calm down... | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
..and here we go. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:10 | |
Look at that! | 0:23:12 | 0:23:14 | |
You are 0.06g heavier up here | 0:23:14 | 0:23:17 | |
than you were down there. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
I honestly didn't expect that. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
But just to be sure, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
he needs to be weighed in some other places. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
And sure enough - | 0:23:28 | 0:23:29 | |
331.01g. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
The doctor is showing a consistent weight gain | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
of six hundredths of a gram | 0:23:36 | 0:23:37 | |
up here on the surface, compared to when he was down below. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
Have you been secretly snacking?! | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
I can assure you that Dr Gnome hasn't grown on the way up. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:52 | |
His weight gain can be explained | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
by Earth's gravity. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:56 | |
Gravity is THE universal force | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
that attracts one thing to another. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
When we measure something's weight, | 0:24:07 | 0:24:09 | |
we are actually measuring the Earth's gravitational pull. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
So why has the doctor's weight changed? | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
Well, it's largely to do with differences | 0:24:20 | 0:24:22 | |
in the amount of rock underfoot. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:25 | |
Up here on the surface, there is a good mile more rock | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
beneath me and Dr Gnome | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
than there is in the lab down there, | 0:24:32 | 0:24:34 | |
meaning more planetary bulk pulling down on us, | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
making for a heavier Dr Gnome up here | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
than down there. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:41 | |
Nothing's changed about the gnome. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
What's changed is gravity. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:45 | |
Our experiment shows that the more massive something is, | 0:24:47 | 0:24:51 | |
the stronger its gravitational pull. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
So in space, around 4.5 billion years ago, | 0:24:55 | 0:24:59 | |
when there were no planets, just those elemental clumps, | 0:24:59 | 0:25:02 | |
any difference in the size of those clumps | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
would have mattered, because of gravity. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
If we add gravity to our orbiting swarm of dust, | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
we start to see the larger bits attracting the smaller bits. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:26 | |
Because they are bigger, | 0:25:27 | 0:25:29 | |
they have a stronger gravitational pull. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:33 | |
The bigger they are, | 0:25:33 | 0:25:35 | |
the bigger they get. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:37 | |
They start to become rocks. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
And the larger rocks | 0:25:40 | 0:25:42 | |
draw in the smaller ones. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
In space, a rock just a kilometre wide | 0:25:45 | 0:25:48 | |
can grow to a near Earth-sized planet | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
in just a few million years. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:54 | |
Around our tower, | 0:25:55 | 0:25:57 | |
we can do it in seconds. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
And we're seeing something really promising. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
The exciting thing is that even though that process | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
began 4.5 billion years ago - | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
on Earth, it hasn't finished. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
Because if you know where to look, | 0:26:16 | 0:26:17 | |
you can see where gravity is still shaping our planet, today. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:21 | |
Out in Arizona's Badlands, | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
there is breathtaking evidence | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
of how gravity is still building the Earth. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
This is the Barringer Crater. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
When this vast crater was first discovered, | 0:26:55 | 0:26:58 | |
many believed it to be an extinct volcano. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
But in fact, | 0:27:03 | 0:27:04 | |
it was created by a meteorite. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:07 | |
This 1.2km wide hole | 0:27:11 | 0:27:14 | |
is an impact crater. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
And it's given scientists like Matt Genge | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
a unique insight into how planets are built. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:26 | |
Matt, how are you? Hello, mate. Sorry about the dust. Wow! | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
This crater is the scar | 0:27:45 | 0:27:47 | |
left by an incredibly violent impact. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
If you look at the crater wall, you can see the strata... | 0:27:50 | 0:27:55 | |
..beds of rock, running across the crater. Yes. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
There's this nice red layer of rocks. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:02 | |
Above and below, there's some lighter coloured rocks | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
and they're actually the same band of rocks. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:08 | |
That layer has been folded over the red layer, red layers, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
like the cheese in a sandwich. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 | |
But they've been folded over all the way round the crater, | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
like they've been thrown outwards and have collapsed back. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
How big was it? Cos it's a really big crater. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
We think the object itself was probably only about 30m in size. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:28 | |
So a couple of double-decker buses back-to-back. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:32 | |
And it made a hole that big? It made a hole that big. Why? | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
Simply because of how fast it was moving. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
So by the time it fell towards the Earth, | 0:28:38 | 0:28:40 | |
it gets faster and faster as it falls towards the Earth, | 0:28:40 | 0:28:43 | |
hits the ground maybe at 26,000mph. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:48 | |
And the energy... | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
..the kinetic energy associated with that speed | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
is so huge, it's around two megatons, | 0:28:55 | 0:28:59 | |
that it blew all that material outwards. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
The rocks actually flowed like water out of the crater. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:06 | |
So this whole... all this area has been affected? | 0:29:06 | 0:29:09 | |
It's not just the big hole, then, | 0:29:09 | 0:29:10 | |
it's everything around that we're on. Absolutely, yeah. | 0:29:10 | 0:29:12 | |
All of this. In fact, if you were here before the crater was formed, | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 | |
you'd have had all that rock on top of your head, | 0:29:15 | 0:29:17 | |
so you wouldn't have been very happy. No, that would have been bad. | 0:29:17 | 0:29:20 | |
The meteorite was just 30m wide | 0:29:24 | 0:29:28 | |
but the shockwave of its impact would have been enough | 0:29:28 | 0:29:31 | |
to obliterate a brick wall 60km away. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:35 | |
The Barringer Crater is evidence | 0:29:43 | 0:29:45 | |
of how gravity builds a planet. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:47 | |
Because every meteorite that plummets to the ground | 0:29:48 | 0:29:52 | |
is drawn in by the Earth's gravitational pull. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
So when did all this happen, then? How old is that? | 0:29:57 | 0:30:01 | |
So the crater itself is about 50,000 years old. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:06 | |
But we actually know that meteorites like this | 0:30:06 | 0:30:09 | |
have been falling on Earth | 0:30:09 | 0:30:11 | |
throughout the Earth's history, for the last 4.5 billion years. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:15 | |
In fact, in the past, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:17 | |
they were much more frequent. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:18 | |
So back when the Earth was forming, | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
that bombardment was continual. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:25 | |
There was probably one of them every few minutes. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
These were the objects that were making the Earth. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:32 | |
Billions of years later, | 0:30:36 | 0:30:38 | |
meteorite fragments that survived the initial impact | 0:30:38 | 0:30:42 | |
offer a glimpse into the earliest moments | 0:30:42 | 0:30:45 | |
of a planet's formation. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:46 | |
This is rather a special meteorite. | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
It fell in Mexico | 0:30:55 | 0:30:58 | |
in 1969 | 0:30:58 | 0:31:01 | |
and it's called Allende. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:03 | |
We give meteorites names. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:05 | |
And what's special about this meteorite is | 0:31:05 | 0:31:09 | |
it's perhaps the oldest material on Earth. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:13 | |
So it's around 4.5 billion years old. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:16 | |
So that right there | 0:31:16 | 0:31:18 | |
is the oldest thing on Earth? | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
Yeah. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:23 | |
Wow. | 0:31:23 | 0:31:25 | |
Can I hold it? | 0:31:25 | 0:31:26 | |
Er...no. OK. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:29 | |
But you can touch it, if you like. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:31 | |
Just touch the oldest thing on Earth. Yeah. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
Oh, come on. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:35 | |
Wow. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:36 | |
It is kind of a goose-bump moment | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
because of the significance of a little piece of rock that, | 0:31:40 | 0:31:44 | |
well, frankly, I'd walk straight past. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:47 | |
Well, most people probably would. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:49 | |
But although they're quite rare, | 0:31:49 | 0:31:52 | |
you can find them everywhere. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:54 | |
They fall all over the world. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
But not always quite as spectacularly as here! | 0:31:56 | 0:31:59 | |
Yeah, you'd notice that. You'd certainly notice. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:02 | |
But to imagine that some of us are walking past lumps of rock | 0:32:02 | 0:32:07 | |
that contain all the elements you need to build a planet... | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
You know, you've got the magnesium and the silicon | 0:32:10 | 0:32:13 | |
and the iron and the oxygen. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:14 | |
It's just incredible that this is how we started | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
and they're just scattered | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
all over the world. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:21 | |
If you or I were to find an actual meteorite, | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
and - who knows? - we might, | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
it's, I don't know, almost a haunting thought | 0:32:31 | 0:32:33 | |
to consider that what you had in your hand | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
might be 4.5 billion years old | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
and one of the fundamental building blocks of our planet, | 0:32:39 | 0:32:43 | |
our world, | 0:32:43 | 0:32:44 | |
of our existence. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:46 | |
But the meteorite that you found | 0:32:46 | 0:32:47 | |
might not have landed billions of years ago. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
It might have landed the day before you found it. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
And that's quite exciting - | 0:32:53 | 0:32:54 | |
they're still arriving. the process is still going on. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
It's just that they're late gatecrashers | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
to some giant planetary party. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:02 | |
Astonishingly, today, 40,000 tonnes worth of meteorites | 0:33:05 | 0:33:11 | |
fall to Earth every year - | 0:33:11 | 0:33:13 | |
the equivalent of 30,000 transit vans | 0:33:13 | 0:33:17 | |
dropping out of the sky - | 0:33:17 | 0:33:19 | |
mostly arriving as dust. | 0:33:19 | 0:33:22 | |
But very occasionally, | 0:33:23 | 0:33:25 | |
as something much bigger. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
Early in 2013, | 0:33:31 | 0:33:33 | |
a meteorite fell near the Russian town of Chelyabinsk | 0:33:33 | 0:33:38 | |
that was the largest in a century... | 0:33:38 | 0:33:40 | |
..nearly 10,000 tonnes, before breaking up. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
But such spectacular events are incredibly rare. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
In fact, you're more likely to die from falling out of bed | 0:33:54 | 0:33:57 | |
than from being struck by a meteorite. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
GLASS SMASHES | 0:34:04 | 0:34:06 | |
Back when the Earth was forming, though, | 0:34:06 | 0:34:08 | |
huge meteorite strikes were constant, | 0:34:08 | 0:34:10 | |
with tens of millions hitting a year. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
The thing is, rather than destroying it, | 0:34:23 | 0:34:26 | |
the onslaught built our planet. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
Starting 4.5 billion years ago, | 0:34:30 | 0:34:33 | |
it took just 100 million years to reach almost full size. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:38 | |
So now we have a planet that's roughly the same size as Earth | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
and the same shape. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:51 | |
But at the moment, the surface of our planet | 0:34:51 | 0:34:54 | |
is a molten, fiery vision of hell, | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
which is going to be inconvenient. | 0:34:57 | 0:34:59 | |
For starters, there's nothing to stand on - | 0:35:11 | 0:35:15 | |
no solid rock. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:16 | |
It's just a fiery, molten sea of magma. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
And there's no way life could start | 0:35:23 | 0:35:26 | |
in this volcanic environment. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:28 | |
So how are we going to get a solid surface for our planet? | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
Back on the desert floor, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:52 | |
Professor Jeff Karlson and his team | 0:35:52 | 0:35:55 | |
are setting up a unique experiment. | 0:35:55 | 0:35:57 | |
They reckon they can show me | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
how to make land for our planet. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:04 | |
The first step in their challenge - | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
recreating that early, molten Earth. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:12 | |
And that means constructing what is basically a mobile volcano. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:19 | |
And now we're going to see if we can make it erupt. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:26 | |
All right, Richard? Yeah. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:32 | |
Let's get the helmet on. Yeah. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:33 | |
I'm guessing what we've got in here is not lunch, is it? | 0:36:35 | 0:36:38 | |
It isn't. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
Whoa! That's really hot! | 0:36:40 | 0:36:43 | |
So what Bob is stirring there isn't something that looks like lava... | 0:36:43 | 0:36:47 | |
No, it's... ..it's actual lava. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:49 | |
It is real lava, basaltic lava. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:51 | |
We just put in the ingredients, just like a recipe, | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
and cook up this primordial, primitive material | 0:36:54 | 0:36:58 | |
that makes up our Earth. | 0:36:58 | 0:36:59 | |
It's amazing and exhilarating | 0:36:59 | 0:37:01 | |
but also quite incredibly hot up here. Can I get down? | 0:37:01 | 0:37:04 | |
It's very hot. Yeah. And you can see, | 0:37:04 | 0:37:06 | |
we have to get it that hot so it will flow in a very viscous form. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
The recipe for lava that Jeff's team are using | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
includes the essential planetary ingredients - | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
iron, magnesium and silicon. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
But before this turns to solid land, | 0:37:23 | 0:37:25 | |
we need to make the lava flow. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
The spout, here. I see it. Here it comes, here it comes. | 0:37:29 | 0:37:31 | |
The temperatures | 0:37:54 | 0:37:55 | |
reached by this lava are extraordinary. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:58 | |
We know from using our infrared camera, | 0:38:01 | 0:38:03 | |
where it's incandescent orange, there, it's about 1,100 degrees centigrade. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:07 | |
Where it starts to get dark grey, like down at the toe here, | 0:38:07 | 0:38:10 | |
it's about 850 degrees centigrade, now. | 0:38:10 | 0:38:13 | |
Wow! | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
And now it's coming out here at 1,100 degrees again, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:17 | |
just like the temperature that we're pouring in. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
So this is much hotter than that stuff on top? It is. | 0:38:20 | 0:38:23 | |
Looking at what happens here on a small scale | 0:38:23 | 0:38:25 | |
but with the same materials and the same temperatures | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
and the same behaviours, | 0:38:28 | 0:38:29 | |
you can look back and work out what happened on the early Earth. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:33 | |
Exactly. We're sort of replicating those conditions of the early Earth, | 0:38:33 | 0:38:38 | |
in miniature. | 0:38:38 | 0:38:39 | |
Imagine the whole planet | 0:38:39 | 0:38:40 | |
covered with glowing, incandescent orange lava - | 0:38:40 | 0:38:43 | |
magma oceans. | 0:38:43 | 0:38:44 | |
That is intense. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:47 | |
You can see the little wrinkles and folds | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
starting to form on the surface | 0:38:50 | 0:38:52 | |
as the surface cools and a crust starts to form. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
I can feel wrinkles and folds forming on my face, watching. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
So, in order to create land from lava, | 0:39:00 | 0:39:03 | |
we need to cool it down until it turns into a crust. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
Simple. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
But there's a wrinkle in our plan. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:11 | |
On the early Earth, | 0:39:15 | 0:39:17 | |
the lava didn't cool in the way you'd expect. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
There was a reason the surface stayed molten. | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
Jeff has a, well, slightly unusual demonstration | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
of what that was. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:34 | |
Site up on the target... | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
Shooters, fire. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:38 | |
We're going in there? Let's go have a look. | 0:39:54 | 0:39:56 | |
That was quite exhilarating, I'll be honest. | 0:39:56 | 0:39:58 | |
Oh, my God! I can't see the target. OK, what am I doing? | 0:39:58 | 0:40:00 | |
OK, look here, Richard. Here's where all the bullets hit. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:03 | |
Feel how hot it is there, still. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:05 | |
It is, yes. Yes, there's definite heat in there. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
Ow, they're really... You could think of these as... | 0:40:08 | 0:40:10 | |
each one of these like a tiny meteorite that struck the Earth | 0:40:10 | 0:40:13 | |
and transferred its kinetic energy to heat energy, | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
keeping the planet warm. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:19 | |
I think I see where you're going with this | 0:40:19 | 0:40:21 | |
cos I did wonder for a moment. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:22 | |
So these are like meteors. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:24 | |
Right. So, the planet was under bombardment at a time. Right. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:27 | |
And those were going in like these and when they hit, | 0:40:27 | 0:40:30 | |
this is kinetic energy converting into heat. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:32 | |
And what, a meteorite hitting is enough, | 0:40:32 | 0:40:34 | |
is going to make it hot? It is. | 0:40:34 | 0:40:35 | |
It keeps it hot and that's one of the reasons | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
your planet's not cooling down. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:39 | |
And these meteorites are a lot bigger. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
The meteorites are much bigger than our little bullets, of course, | 0:40:41 | 0:40:44 | |
and they're travelling about ten times as fast. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:46 | |
I'd love to get a better idea, a better sense of that moment | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
when that energy is converted from kinetic into heat. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
But to do that, they'd have to shoot through my hand | 0:40:51 | 0:40:53 | |
and that's going to hurt, so... | 0:40:53 | 0:40:55 | |
Well, we have a safer way to do that. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:56 | |
A thermal infrared camera's been filming the entire experiment here | 0:40:56 | 0:41:00 | |
and we can show you the images created by that. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:02 | |
In here? Yeah. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:11 | |
So this is a thermal camera looking at what we've just seen. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
Right. There's the plate. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:15 | |
Hot areas are going to show up red | 0:41:15 | 0:41:17 | |
and little cooler areas will show up in a bluer, cooler colour | 0:41:17 | 0:41:20 | |
as each one of these bullets strikes the metal. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
And there they go, look! I mean, it's really pronounced. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
Look at the pieces being blasted off, there. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:29 | |
Watching them go in like that, | 0:41:29 | 0:41:31 | |
I can imagine they were meteorites. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:34 | |
Exactly, much bigger and ten times faster. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:37 | |
And this effect is one of the reasons | 0:41:37 | 0:41:39 | |
why my Planet Earth won't set... | 0:41:39 | 0:41:41 | |
That's right. ..remains molten. | 0:41:41 | 0:41:43 | |
So, to stand a chance of creating a solid surface for our planet, | 0:42:00 | 0:42:04 | |
we need to stop this constant barrage of meteors and asteroids. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:09 | |
On the actual Earth, | 0:42:22 | 0:42:24 | |
this bombardment petered out around four billion years ago. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:28 | |
On the planet we're building, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:30 | |
it can be done in a jiffy. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
And reducing the impacts from space helps the surface to cool | 0:42:35 | 0:42:39 | |
so that lava... | 0:42:39 | 0:42:41 | |
..turns to rock. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:43 | |
Perfect! | 0:42:48 | 0:42:49 | |
We now have a planet we can stand on without being burnt. | 0:42:49 | 0:42:53 | |
But there is something pretty important missing. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:57 | |
If we're going to have life on this planet of ours, | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
we are going to need water. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:02 | |
Incredibly, some water has been with us | 0:43:07 | 0:43:10 | |
from the very birth of our planet, | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
trapped in dust and rock, and then locked inside of the Earth. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:17 | |
Volcanic activity released this water as steam, | 0:43:19 | 0:43:23 | |
forming rain clouds that then filled the first oceans. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:27 | |
A lot more water arrived from space, | 0:43:35 | 0:43:38 | |
because asteroids and comets actually carried ice inside them, | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
adding to our already wet planet. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
So, we've got water. | 0:43:45 | 0:43:47 | |
We've also got land. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
But it doesn't look right. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
All that volcanic activity hasn't just pumped steam | 0:43:56 | 0:44:00 | |
into the atmosphere, it's produced a toxic cocktail of gasses. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:05 | |
This isn't a planet for us yet. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
So, how do we clean up this poisonous atmosphere? | 0:44:14 | 0:44:17 | |
Well, the answer lies with the oldest living thing on the planet. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:21 | |
On these rocks, there's a thin film of bacteria called a stromatolite. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:34 | |
These ones today are in Australia, | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
but three billion years ago they were everywhere. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:42 | |
They live on sunlight, and carbon dioxide in water, | 0:44:44 | 0:44:48 | |
and as a waste product, they release oxygen. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:52 | |
For more than a billion years, these bacteria pumped the stuff out | 0:44:59 | 0:45:04 | |
until the air was right for the evolution of complex life... | 0:45:04 | 0:45:08 | |
..including us. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
To build our planet, we started with truckloads of raw materials. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:22 | |
And we mixed them together... | 0:45:30 | 0:45:34 | |
..into a cosmic cloud of dust. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
We got it to stick together with static electricity. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:46 | |
And then we added gravity. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:52 | |
We bulked the planet up. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:03 | |
Then we stopped the onslaught to cool it down, and make land. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:12 | |
And then we sourced water | 0:46:15 | 0:46:19 | |
and a breathable atmosphere. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:21 | |
But hang on. This isn't right. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:31 | |
There's something seriously amiss with our planet. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
This is definitely not how things should be looking. | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
It's a bad case of the wobbles. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:48 | |
A wobble this big, even slowed down over millions of years, | 0:46:53 | 0:46:57 | |
would be catastrophic. | 0:46:57 | 0:46:59 | |
Without stability, seasonal changes are extreme, | 0:47:00 | 0:47:04 | |
ice ages are frequent, | 0:47:04 | 0:47:07 | |
and the surface is scoured by hurricane-force winds. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:10 | |
It's no good! Our planet has conditions completely hostile to life. | 0:47:15 | 0:47:20 | |
But don't worry, because to stabilise things, | 0:47:20 | 0:47:23 | |
we don't actually have to look too far. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:25 | |
The solution is a moon. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
To find out how a moon can stop a planet's wobble, | 0:47:45 | 0:47:49 | |
I've come to NASA in Texas... | 0:47:49 | 0:47:52 | |
..where the answer is kept in a bomb-proof vault... | 0:47:58 | 0:48:02 | |
..wrapped in foil. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:07 | |
And if that isn't enough, | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
this entire facility demands OCD levels of hygiene. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:20 | |
One man who knows a lot about this object is Harrison Schmitt. | 0:48:32 | 0:48:36 | |
And that's because he found it... on the moon. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:41 | |
Four decades ago, Harrison was an astronaut. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:48 | |
December 6th, 1972. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:50 | |
Dr Harrison Schmitt, better known as Jack. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:54 | |
He would be the first geologist to set foot on an alien world. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:57 | |
We have liftoff at 2.13... | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
I'm going to meet Harrison, after a final zap in the NASA microwave. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:12 | |
SHRILL BEEP | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
Harrison. Hey. Hello. Welcome. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:20 | |
I so wanted to shake your hand but it's in there! | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
A little bit later maybe. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:25 | |
It's great to meet you, and what have you've got in here? | 0:49:25 | 0:49:28 | |
We have one of the Apollo 17 samples. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:31 | |
It's one collected near the lunar module challenger. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:34 | |
And it is a... | 0:49:34 | 0:49:38 | |
..er, really quite a unique type of rock. | 0:49:38 | 0:49:42 | |
That rock formed about 3.8 billion years ago. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:48 | |
That's with a B! | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
So it's extremely old, it's part of a mass of magma that partially | 0:49:50 | 0:49:55 | |
filled the valley of Tarse Littoral where we landed on Apollo 17. | 0:49:55 | 0:50:00 | |
So let's just get this into context because, for mere mortals like me | 0:50:00 | 0:50:04 | |
to understand, you are standing there as the only geologist ever | 0:50:04 | 0:50:08 | |
to have walked on the moon? That's correct. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
And therefore, when you saw these rocks on the moon, they would have | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
meant more to you anyway because of your training and knowledge. I hope so. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
Your brain must have been just screaming! | 0:50:17 | 0:50:20 | |
You were looking at that rock. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:21 | |
Well, you can't believe where this geologic setting was. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:24 | |
It's a valley deeper than the Grand Canyon of the Colorado | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
here in the United States. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:29 | |
The mountains on either side are 6,000-7,000 feet | 0:50:30 | 0:50:34 | |
above the valley floor. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:36 | |
This was off the valley floor. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:38 | |
It's the moon that saves the real Earth from the disastrous | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
climatic effects of wobbling. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:47 | |
But how exactly the moon keeps us stable | 0:50:48 | 0:50:51 | |
is tied into its mysterious origins. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:54 | |
Until the Apollo programme, | 0:50:59 | 0:51:00 | |
we had no real idea of how the Earth got its moon. | 0:51:00 | 0:51:04 | |
Finding out was an important goal for Harrison Schmitt | 0:51:06 | 0:51:10 | |
when his Apollo 17 module touched down on December 11th, 1972. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:16 | |
Feels good, stand by for touchdown. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
Stand by, down at two. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:21 | |
Feels good. Ten feet. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:24 | |
That's contact! | 0:51:24 | 0:51:26 | |
Harrison had just three days | 0:51:28 | 0:51:30 | |
to collect as many lunar samples as possible. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:33 | |
Late in the mission, things got a little tense. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:38 | |
Harrison had just half an hour of oxygen left | 0:51:38 | 0:51:41 | |
and he was getting a bit carried away with his work. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
I've got to dig a trench, Houston. | 0:51:46 | 0:51:48 | |
Fantastic, sports fans! | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
It's trench time! | 0:51:53 | 0:51:55 | |
They got to leave at a certain time, | 0:51:55 | 0:51:57 | |
regardless of what they got. | 0:51:57 | 0:51:58 | |
There isn't enough time to do it, no matter which way we want to do it. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:02 | |
We need more time. | 0:52:02 | 0:52:04 | |
We need to make it clear, we've got to pull out. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
We'd like you to leave immediately. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:10 | |
OK. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:12 | |
By golly, this time goes fast! | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
We're on our way, Houston. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:17 | |
Once Harrison and NASA were able to examine the rocks, | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
they began to understand fully just how the moon had formed, | 0:52:26 | 0:52:30 | |
and the massive stabilising effect it brought. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
What the scientists discovered was an extraordinary connection. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:42 | |
It seems this moon rock was made of pretty much the same stuff | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
as Earth rock. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:49 | |
The oxygen isotope ratios in the rocks are identical | 0:52:51 | 0:52:55 | |
to those ratios that we have here on Earth | 0:52:55 | 0:52:57 | |
and it tells you that the Earth and the moon formed in, basically, | 0:52:57 | 0:53:01 | |
almost identically the same part of the solar system. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:04 | |
And this information that you brought back has helped | 0:53:04 | 0:53:07 | |
people narrow down the theories as to how the moon came to be | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
where it is and like it is. No question about that. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:14 | |
The primary hypothesis right now is giant impact. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:17 | |
Soon after the Earth formed, | 0:53:23 | 0:53:25 | |
another planet-sized rock crashed into it. | 0:53:25 | 0:53:28 | |
The impact threw huge chunks into orbit. | 0:53:30 | 0:53:33 | |
And these clumped together to make the moon. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:38 | |
When first formed, it was much, much closer than it is now. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:45 | |
One of the primary reasons that we still are here on this planet | 0:53:51 | 0:53:56 | |
is that the Earth is a stable planet and it's been stabilised by the moon. | 0:53:56 | 0:54:01 | |
With the moon there, there's a gravitational stabilisation | 0:54:01 | 0:54:04 | |
that occurs that keeps the Earth wobble down to an absolute minimum | 0:54:04 | 0:54:10 | |
and that makes a big difference for us, because | 0:54:10 | 0:54:13 | |
if you wanted to have major climate change on Earth, introduce a wobble. | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
It doesn't mean that life wouldn't be here | 0:54:17 | 0:54:20 | |
but it would be a very difficult and different kind of life that we | 0:54:20 | 0:54:24 | |
would have to deal with | 0:54:24 | 0:54:25 | |
with this wobble over fairly long periods of time. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:28 | |
So, let's see what happens to our planet when we add a moon. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:37 | |
Our planet and its new moon are two dancers | 0:54:41 | 0:54:45 | |
locked in a gravitational embrace, | 0:54:45 | 0:54:48 | |
steadying themselves as they swirl round and round. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:53 | |
Having a moon has one other vital effect. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:59 | |
Tiny variations in its gravitational pull on our planet's oceans | 0:54:59 | 0:55:03 | |
have given it tides, | 0:55:03 | 0:55:06 | |
and that's more important than you might think. | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
Without the tides, early life on Earth may never have left the sea, | 0:55:11 | 0:55:17 | |
because the tides created damp strips along the coast | 0:55:17 | 0:55:21 | |
that tempted life onto land. | 0:55:21 | 0:55:23 | |
And the actual positioning of the moon is crucial. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
Ever since its formation, it's been drifting away from the Earth. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:33 | |
But when it was closer, it generated immense tides. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
If we had them today, every few hours, New York and London | 0:55:40 | 0:55:45 | |
would disappear under tens of metres of water. | 0:55:45 | 0:55:48 | |
And if the moon was further away, the planet's spin would slow | 0:55:51 | 0:55:55 | |
and the days would be longer. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:57 | |
But put it at just the right distance, which in reality | 0:55:57 | 0:56:00 | |
is about 239,000 miles, and we have the stability we need. | 0:56:00 | 0:56:05 | |
So, there it is - the perfect planetary relationship. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:09 | |
After trial and error, I have built my planet and its moon... | 0:56:14 | 0:56:19 | |
..and got them working just right. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:23 | |
In reality, this whole process took four and a half billion years. | 0:56:29 | 0:56:34 | |
The sheer scale of it all is understandably mind-blowing, | 0:56:36 | 0:56:41 | |
especially when you realise that with just one element | 0:56:41 | 0:56:44 | |
out of place... | 0:56:44 | 0:56:46 | |
..nothing works, and life stops. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:51 | |
So what holds the Earth and moon in place? | 0:56:57 | 0:57:01 | |
They need a sun to orbit around, | 0:57:03 | 0:57:07 | |
and other planets to make our solar system... | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
..all of which is just a tiny part of a Milky Way galaxy | 0:57:12 | 0:57:16 | |
with 300 billion stars. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
And that galaxy is just one amongst half a trillion other galaxies. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:31 | |
So, to keep it all working, we're going to have to build a universe. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:43 | |
And to build a universe, | 0:57:53 | 0:57:55 | |
I'm going to need | 0:57:55 | 0:57:57 | |
a lot of help. | 0:57:57 | 0:57:58 | |
Oh, this is really difficult! | 0:57:59 | 0:58:01 | |
Oh, my God, it's beautiful! | 0:58:05 | 0:58:07 | |
Do I look faintly ridiculous? Yes! | 0:58:13 | 0:58:15 | |
I'll be honest. I'm faintly nervous. | 0:58:26 | 0:58:28 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:57 | 0:59:00 |