One Strange Rock (2018) s01e08 Episode Script

I am gonna tell you
about the most incredible place.
We think we know our home,
but once you've seen it
from space it hits you.
It might be the weirdest
place in the whole universe.
Eight astronauts,
with over a thousand days
in space between them,
can tell us how being up there
helped them to truly understand
what goes on down here.
I've been a stargazer
ever since I was a kid.
My grandmother even
gave me a compass
to make it easier to
find the North Star.
I love looking out into
space and imagining
are there other
worlds out there?
Is anything living on them?
You know, every day you're
finding a new planetary system
that looks pretty
similar to Earth.
The possibilities of life
somewhere else other than
Earth I think are very high.
I like to think that,
that there's other
life out there.
If there is life out there,
what would it be like?
Could we talk to it?
I mean, is it gonna wanna fight?
Or will it like romantic movies?
Is there anything out
there like you and me?
To find out, we can't
just look into space,
we also need to look down here.
I'm gonna tell you how
clues to alien life
are hidden on our strange rock.
Mae Jemison was the first
African American woman in space.
But Earth's orbit was
not enough for her,
she's now head of a
star ship initiative,
its 100 year mission,
to boldly go where no
one has gone before.
Growing up,
science fiction was my
go-to storytelling.
As a little girl as I watched
Star Trek, I was fascinated,
because science was
one of the characters.
It was right in
the middle of it.
And so my love for science,
really met an incredibly
interesting vision.
I was fortunate enough to meet
Nichelle Nichols who
played Lieutenant Uhura
at a Star Trek convention.
She was really instrumental
in the recruitment
of some of the first
women astronauts
and the first minority astronauts
in the US Space Program.
I wasn't one of her recruits,
but I'm really happy to say
that she's one of
my best friends now.
-You're an Andorian, huh?
-Yes.
People are always asking me,
'Will we find aliens
on other worlds?'
And I know they really mean,
will we find Vulcans
or Klingons?
Well, to know how
likely that is,
we really have to understand,
how we got diverse,
complex life on this planet.
Scientists believe that somewhere
around four billion years ago
life emerged on Earth.
One might imagine,
that once we get life out
of this primordial soup,
the road to complex
creatures like
flowers and humans,
is pretty straightforward.
But hold on,
it's not quite that easy.
There was no rule that
life had to get bigger.
There was no rule that life
had to become more complex.
Life could have stayed
simple and small,
but it didn't.
Today, we live in a planet
inhabited by over eight
million different species.
And for that to happen
is so unlikely,
that it makes you wonder
if it could
happen anywhere else.
As you look down at
the Earth from space,
you see the ocean,
the desert,
the grasslands,
you know that life exists
in every one of those locations.
And the type of
life that's there?
Well, that depends on
what food is available.
The caves have no light source.
When you're away
from the entrance,
it's as dark as dark things get.
The creatures that choose
to live in a cave,
they do it for a reason.
In a totally dark place
any light is
incredibly effective.
The glow worms glow
when they are hungry.
The bugs have no idea.
They think, oh light,
instinctively fly towards it.
All of a sudden, they're stuck.
The glow worm is a
deceptive creature.
The more you know,
the more you see,
the more disgusting
and ferocious
you realize these creatures are.
When the glow
worm's got its bug,
it will bite or
puncture into the wall
of the insect and
suck out the inside.
Surely it's a law of nature,
that life evolves to
fit its surroundings.
If we find life
on other planets,
it's likely that it was the
best suited to prosper
in the conditions there,
an extra-terrestrial Darwinian
evolution, if you please.
As human beings, we are
constantly asking questions.
Who am I?
Why are we here?
What is the meaning
of existence?
Well, it turns out the
big question for life
is what are we
having for dinner?
Food is energy, everything
living needs it,
and it's a big reason
creatures live,
act and look the way they do.
The complexity of
life here is staggering.
Just imagine how peculiar
a camel might appear,
if you'd never seen one before.
You might think it was a
creature from another planet
but its strange design
makes perfect sense
for the way it
gets and uses energy,
like its wide,
flat teeth for
chewing tough plants.
Or its hump, a mound
of fat, stored energy,
that allows it to
survive months,
in a harsh environment
without eating.
To sustain a complex
creature like a camel,
requires vast amounts of energy.
Even something like a fly,
with millions of complex cells,
is breathtakingly complicated
and requires a steady
flow of energy.
But even if you're
a tiny microbe,
smaller than a pinhead,
you still have energy demands.
When we think about life,
we usually think
of the big stuff,
you know plants and animals,
but the majority
of life on Earth,
are small, single-celled
organisms.
Bacteria.
And they have evolved
to eat almost anything.
So I think, yeah, you
go down the King Mast
and then you jump
into the third hole.
Okay. Well, you know,
I've done the checklist,
I've got the comms ready.
So good luck.
This is one of the
biggest graveyards
of ships in the world.
Around 50 Japanese boats,
and over 250 aircraft
were sunk here
by American forces
during the Second World War.
Some were blown
up with torpedoes,
others were bombed.
It might seem like
useless junk now,
but for some kinds of
life it's a perfect home.
All that energy
that was poured in
to make the vessels of the war
is there waiting to be released.
Rusticles look like stalactites
and they are part metal
and part microbes.
Microbes extract the chemical
energy from the metal,
using it to grow and reproduce.
To us iron is just a metal,
but for these
microbes it's food.
The rusticle is crawling with
billions of happy bacteria,
all chomping on an
all-the-iron-you-can-eat
underwater buffet.
The first creatures
on Earth were microbes.
And in the future when
all human life has gone,
bacteria will still be
there doing their business.
I love my food but, I
mean, I'm a little picky,
and that's because
I'm not a microbe.
They will eat anything,
metal, rocks, oil, plastic,
even human flesh.
But having a big palate
like that comes in handy.
Bacteria can survive
up on mountain tops.
They can survive in deserts.
They're in the soil.
They're thousands of
feet up in the atmosphere.
They're everywhere.
So it doesn't matter what
a planet is made of,
or how poisonous its atmosphere.
Even if there is just a tiny
bit of energy to extract,
simple microbes
will work out a way to get it.
Out in the universe there,
there's gotta be that stuff,
there's gotta be these
single cell organisms
that are living in environments,
that life as we know
it here on Earth,
could probably never tolerate.
Given an unlimited
number of planets
in an unlimited amount of time,
it's a little bit
delusional to think that
this is the only place
life could have ever evolved.
Maybe there are microbes
on other planets,
but there's a big
leap between them
and something I can talk to.
Here on Earth,
that leap couldn't have happened
without a visitor from
93 million miles away.
Over the years,
I've had many
encounters with aliens,
and this may come as
a shock to you, but
they weren't real.
But if Hollywood is right,
and there are aliens,
they're gonna have needs
and it's gonna be
all about energy.
Up to a point in
Earth's history,
energy came from heat,
from volcanic vents,
from lightning strikes.
This energy was readily around.
But, as the Earth started
to cool and to change,
the weather changed.
A new source of
energy was needed.
Some bacteria came up
with a new mechanism,
let's use the energy
from the Sun,
which is readily available.
It was a really pivotal moment
in the history of life on Earth.
On the space station,
we have this vast
array of solar cells,
that collect and harness the
solar energy from the Sun,
and we use this to run all
the systems to sustain life.
If things don't work the
way they're supposed to,
that can get very
tricky very fast.
When you look out the
window you see these
solar panels that extend
the length of a football field
and these eight
ginormous solar rays.
They would go from blue
to gold to copper colour.
Just beautiful.
So I'm out doing a spacewalk
and one of the things
you're worried about
is the solar panel,
trying to manoeuvre my way
around those solar panels
and looking down at plant Earth
and the greenery down
there and I realize, hey,
planet Earth is really
one big solar panel also.
Plants have been
converting solar energy
and storing it effectively
for billions of years.
This biological magic trick,
means that, even
when there is only
the faintest trickle
of sunlight,
plants can grow.
Photosynthesis,
we've all heard about it, right?
But have you ever really
considered what it means?
What plants do is eat sunlight,
streaming from our sun
93 million miles away.
And they use it to make
carbon dioxide into starch,
granules of stored energy
which plants use
to power their growth.
When I see a live plant,
their green makes me
know life is possible.
Plants make a place
feel welcoming,
like home.
Every leaf on every plant
is like a tiny battery.
Photosynthesis from
plants worldwide,
generate around 100 tera watts
of power each year.
To put that into perspective,
it's enough to match the energy
demand of the modern world
nearly six times over.
Running a planet
packed with life
takes a lot of energy.
Kudos to the big
ball of fire in the sky.
Plants dine out on it.
Once they started, they
spread all over the world.
But those first plants
were missing something,
which meant there was one
place they couldn't go,
up.
Bamboo can grow so high,
because it contains a
molecule called lignin.
It's the bamboo's own
internal scaffolding.
Lignin evolved around
400 million years ago,
and it changed the world.
It provides structural
strength for plants,
and they get to grow tall.
From the outside,
plants and trees are beautiful,
but it's the inside
that reveals their dynamic,
intricate structure.
These memorizing patterns are
the storybook of its life.
Because of lignin,
plants have given our rock
a solar-powered skin
that harvests energy
from the cosmos,
and that harvest supports
almost all life here on Earth.
The truth is money doesn't
make the world go around,
energy does.
Plants store energy.
So, it didn't take long
for something to evolve,
to take advantage.
When an animal eats a plant,
it gains the energy,
that a plant captured
from sunlight.
Animals could not
exist without plants.
If another planet evolved
creatures like goats or like us,
I'm almost certain
it would have plants as well.
But plants on this other planet,
may not be green.
Plants here are only green
because our Sun is green.
The majority of light
emitted from the sun
is in the blue-green wavelength.
It doesn't look green to us,
because,
it has light emitted
in other areas too,
in red and blue.
And so when you blend
all those together,
they look white.
Most plants here on Earth,
have evolved to use primarily
red and blue light
for photosynthesis.
They reflect back
the green light,
which is why they look green.
On an alien planet,
if there's complex life,
there'll be
something like plants
and something like
animals that eat them.
But it probably
wouldn't stop there,
because here on Earth,
that's not the last
link in the food chain.
How do we begin to imagine
what aliens might be like?
Well, if animals have
evolved on another planet,
they might not have arms,
but they'll still be
looking over their shoulders,
because chances are
there's predators out there.
There's two ways to load
up on the energy you need.
You can be like a fish
and spend all day
nibbling and nibbling
on your ocean greens.
Or you can be like a man o' war
and snatch up in an instant,
all the energy the fish picked
up from days of nibbling.
Plants consume sunlight.
Animals eat the plants.
And other animals
eat those animals.
It's the circle of lunch.
Every creature on Earth,
has evolved its own body shape
to maximize its chances
of getting a meal,
without being eaten.
Take cats.
I love cats,
particularly house cats.
Cats have a very good
sense of themselves,
they're very confident.
Cats are fairly
pleased with themselves.
And cats have good reason
to be pleased with themselves.
Cats are all around the world,
from the desert
to the Arctic
to temperate climates.
For me, cats represent
one of the pinnacles
of evolution.
Cheetahs, for instance,
have evolved into perfect
hunting machines.
But even they may find
it hard to catch their prey.
Shiloh is the cocky one,
that she's very independent
and on her own and as a
cub she was the one
that was the strongest.
Odyssey, the male, he's just a,
yeah, he doesn't have
a care in the world.
As a baby, I lost him almost.
I had to keep him in
my bed for two weeks.
He was on a drip,
'cause he was so dehydrated,
and he was just the
weakest of the three.
I raised them and I
gave them their name,
so they're like my kids.
They call Marlice Van Vuuran,
the Cheetah Whisperer.
She rescues abandoned cubs
on the plains of Namibia.
And helps them learn how to eat.
When they're babies and
they're around about six,
seven months old
they need to chew then,
they need to learn what
taste of meat they like.
Who's a good girl?
Where there is a juicy
hunk of energy,
some creature is
going to work out
a way to try and get a taste.
The springbok is
the ultimate fast food.
If you look at a Springbok,
they've kind of developed
into a smaller specie;
light-boned, nothing extra.
They've got these long
legs that gives them that
acceleration and jump.
To catch a Springbok,
the cheetah needs
to be even faster.
Come. Come babbas. Come.
So Marlice helps
the cubs keep in shape.
Come. Come.
The lure is a pulley system,
you just connect it to the
battery, a car battery.
We just tie a piece
of string to it
and we let them just chase it.
It's like a kid,
you have to make 'em fit.
By the time they have to
really run a 100 meters
and catch a springbok
they're gonna be dead
if they do it for
the first time.
So it's getting them
ready for a proper hunt.
They can get from zero to
100 kilometres an hour,
in a blink of an eye.
Everything is just
modified and made for speed.
They have a
light bone structure.
They've got long nails;
it's like a athlete
using spikes.
It's got a very long tail
in comparison to the
other carnivores,
so it can cut a
corner very quickly
without flipping or falling.
They normally spot
the springbok way before me.
They need to be at least
100, 120 meters from
a springbok
for the springbok
not to outrun them.
The surprise element
is crucial to them.
Almost 90% of the
times they get away.
It's rough being a predator.
Cheetahs are
living on a knife edge.
They use almost as many calories
catching their food as
they get from eating it.
But there's other ways to
get food besides catching it.
If you can't out run 'em,
out-think 'em.
These wise guys have
worked out an angle,
trading sunglasses for food.
It brings in the maximum
amount of calories,
for the minimum
amount of effort.
Monkeys are smart,
but we've got a bigger racket.
We've hacked the entire planet
to feed over seven
billion of us.
Hello.
I'm Mae Jemison.
Right now, I'm aboard the
space shuttle Endeavour,
over 300 kilometres
above the Earth
and travelling at over
7,000 meters per second.
My first view from space
was the city of Chicago.
No kidding.
My home town.
And it looked just like the map
I learned when I was a child,
because the concrete of the city,
seemed to be separated,
from the green of the farms
that surrounded Chicago.
Chicago prospered
because of its ability
to transfer food from the
place that it was grown
to humans that were far
removed from that locale.
The Chicago stock markets,
the agriculture around
Chicago, the corn fields,
all of that is about a
manipulation of the food web.
It's something we
humans do really well.
Our eating skills are epic.
Our brains are so
big and complex,
that we have managed to
figure out all sorts
of clever ways to get our food.
Chemicals to fertilize crops.
Genetic manipulation
to modify them.
Nourishment to make
animals grow up big and fast.
And even robotics
to process them.
Here on Earth there are
over eight million
different types of complex life,
all feeding 24 hours a day,
every day of every year,
including over seven
billion human beings.
If it's edible,
it's going to get eaten.
Plants eat sunlight.
Animals eat plants.
And other animals eat animals.
But there wouldn't be anything
larger than a microbe to eat.
No cucumbers, no fish,
no steak and fries.
None of this food
chain would exist
without a freak event
we think only happened once
in the whole of Earth's history.
Our planet is like
a huge restaurant,
where everything is
eating everything else.
Humans are at the best table,
just eating, eating and eating.
But is this joint a franchise?
Are there other branches
out there in the universe?
The answer to that revolves
around the strangest
meal that ever happened.
Every complex life
form on this planet,
including you and me,
has relied on the same solution
for what seemed like an
insurmountable hurdle,
getting enough energy.
Around two billion years ago,
when nothing lived on
Earth except microbes,
we think one microbe
ingested another.
Nothing particularly remarkable,
happened all the time.
But this time the
microbe was engulfed
but not digested.
It actually survived in the host
and became a part of it.
This remarkable
microbe had a superpower.
It generated
energy using oxygen,
allowing it to extract
15 times more energy
from its food.
This is the moment
when life as we know
it really began.
The microbe that survived
led to what we now
call mitochondria;
it lived on in its host
and together they started
a new life form,
a big complex cell
that could connect
with other cells
to make big creatures,
all of them using oxygen
to break down their food.
Mitochondria inhabit
every single cell
of every complex life
form on this planet.
That means they power everything
from flies,
to trees,
to cheetahs,
and us.
Think about it,
we all carry the same
machinery in us.
And we wouldn't be the complex,
complicated organisms
that we are today,
without mitochondria.
If we didn't have
that one moment,
Earth would have no plants,
no plant eaters,
no meat eaters,
no us.
Life on Earth would
be just bacteria
chewing on rock and each other.
It took trillions of bacteria,
swallowing trillions
of bacteria,
for more than two billion years
before that one failed meal,
which suggests it kinda rare.
How rare?
Maybe Earth only rare.
For an alien planet out there
to evolve over those
billions of years
and to be exactly like it
evolved here on Earth,
well that's like rolling
those dice and hitting
a one, you know, a
billion times in a row.
The overwhelming probability,
if you find a planet
with life on it,
it's probably gonna
be very simple life.
You know, we're not gonna
I always say see Mr. Spock.
You know, we're not
gonna necessarily find
the bipedal character
that looks very
humanoid just walk in
through the door and say,
'Hey, I evolved on a
different planet'
and there are a
whole bunch of us around.'
But do I think simple
life exists in other places?
Absolutely.
Looking up at all
those points of light,
we'll always wonder,
is there life out
there somewhere?
Maybe there is,
maybe even a lot of it.
But there's a good chance that,
as we gaze up at those stars,
there'll be nothing
remotely like us looking back.
Next time,
the greatest mystery
in the universe
could be right between our ears.