All language subtitles for Spaces Deepest Secrets Dark Secrets of the Solar System 720p EN SUB

Narrator:
The history of our solar system

Is the history of us,

But how well do we really
understand our cosmic roots?

To understand where we are now,

We need to understand where
we were at the beginning.

Narrator:
Remarkable new evidence

Threatens to rewrite almost
everything we thought we knew

About the birth of our
planetary backyard.

Oluseyi:
The history of the solar system

Isn't as neat as
eight planets formed

And now they're the same
eight planets today.

Greene: Anything that challenges
the status quo

And our thinking about
that is profound.

It profoundly changes our
sense of how we got to be.

Narrator:
Did one of the largest stars

That ever lived
give birth to the sun?

Was our solar system home
to two stars, not just one?

And did supersized
planets once roam

Where the earth sits today?

There were planets that
probably got ejected

From the solar system entirely.

There may have been planets
that were actually

Thrown into the sun.

Narrator: This is the all-new
birth story of our solar system,

And the race to rewrite history.

-- Captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by
discovery communications

♪

Today, across the world,
scientists are grappling

To solve a serious problem.

Their best theories for
how our solar system formed

Just don't add up.

Understanding the history
of our solar system

Really is the story
of our origin.

We happen to be here
today on this planet,

Because this planet formed
from the raw ingredients

That formed our solar system.

Narrator: For decades,
scientists have known

That the sun and the planets

Were born out of the same
cloud of gas and dust

That collapsed under gravity
4.5 billion years ago.

But that collapse needed
an extra ingredient

To get things started.

Somehow the cloud
has to collapse.

Something has to
give it a shove,

Make one area
denser than another,

And then gravity
can take its course

And bring things together,
and begin to form

Our sun and the planets.

But it doesn't just
happen spontaneously.

There needs to be a trigger.

Narrator: According to
the conventional theory,

That trigger was a supernova --

An exploding star.

The supernova sends a
shock wave of material

Blasting through space.

It smashes into a nearby
cloud of gas and dust,

Forcing it to collapse.

A new star, our sun,
sparks into life.

And the remaining
swirls of gas and dust

Condense into planets.

Our solar system is born.

♪

The supernova trigger theory
has reigned supreme for decades,

But remarkable new evidence
now threatens to override it.

At the university of california,

Ed young hunts for
cast-iron evidence

To support the supernova
trigger theory.

He studies some of
the rarest rocks on earth.

Meteorites that are
as old as the sun.

Young: I'm pulling out this
particular meteorite.

It's a meteorite that
fell in australia in 1960.

It's about 4.5 billion
years old, very ancient.

This rock is pretty much as old
as the age of the solar system.

Narrator: Ed looks for chemicals
inside these early rocks.

These chemicals could
prove a supernova shock wave

Really did trigger the formation
of our solar system.

Young: The solar system formed
by the triggering event

Being a supernova, then
this rock would contain

Some of the material
that was spewed out

By the supernova
at the time of the explosion.

Oluseyi:
When a supernova explodes,

It sends out radiation
in every direction,

And that radiation
encounters other stuff,

And the fingerprint
of the supernova

Is left on everything
it touches.

Narrator: Ed looks for traces
of a chemical

That forms in the abundance
in supernova shock waves.

It's called iron-60.

Young: We use this
instrument to measure

With great precision
the various elements

That make up that meteorite.

If we find evidence for iron-60,

Then we have possible evidence
for a supernova nearby

At the time
the solar system formed,

Because supernovae
form the iron-60.

Narrator:
The team prepares the sample.

They grind the meteorite,

Setting its
primordial grains free

After 4.5 billion
years of imprisonment.

Then, they dissolve
the grains in acid

And finally, place the sample

Inside a machine to measure
its chemical composition.

The machine heats the sample
to extreme temperatures,

Smashing it into its
component chemicals.

Young: We walked our sample over
to this mass spectrometer.

It has a plasma that's as hot
as the surface of the sun,

And so it's a very efficient way

Of analyzing ratios of elements
that we put in there.

Narrator:
After just a few minutes,

The results flash up
on ed's screen.

They list the type and abundance

Of every chemical
in the meteorite.

But how much of the supernova
marker, iron-60, will he find?

Young:
The slope of this line indicates

A modest amount of iron-60
in the early solar system.

Less than had previously
been estimated.

Narrator: The result
is a surprising setback

For the supernova
trigger theory.

Young: The fact that this
slope is lower

And the amount of iron-60
that implies

Is less than previously thought,

Tends to argue
against the notion

That there was
a supernova exploding

Right near where
the solar system was born

At the time it was forming.

Narrator: Ed's results suggest
that a supernova

Can't have triggered the
formation of our solar system.

If the violent
winds of a supernova

Didn't provide the trigger...

What did?

Young: Now that we know that
iron-60 is not a smoking gun,

We have to start rethinking
the origins of other isotopes

That were present in
the early solar system.

Narrator:
Ed goes back to his results.

He searches for unusual levels
of other chemical elements.

One stands out --

Aluminum-26.

Young: Unlike iron-60,
aluminum-26 can be formed

By other ways --
ways other than a supernova.

Narrator:
Aluminum-26 is commonly produced

By oversized stars.

But there's only one monster

With the power to kickstart
the birth of a solar system.

A giant wolf-rayet star,

50 times the size of the sun.

The most massive, brightest
breed of star in the universe.

Hidden under the surface,
it's a cosmic chemical factory,

Fusing atoms
of hydrogen together

To produce heavier elements
like oxygen and aluminum

But, crucially, not iron-60.

This stellar furnace
creates so much heat

It unleashes winds of nearly
five million miles per hour,

Which slam into the surrounding
clouds of cosmic gas and dust,

Sweeping them away from the star

And piling them up into a dense,

Chemically-rich shell
of material,

Trillions of miles wide.

If a supernova didn't explode
and collapse the cloud

That made the sun,
what could have?

Well, maybe it was a very, very
high-mass, luminous star.

There's a type of star like that
called a wolf-rayet star,

And they are incredibly
violent, blasting out radiation.

Narrator: Wolf-rayet stars
are extremely rare.

Of the two billion
stars in the milky way,

Astronomers have
only spotted 600

Of these spectacular,
bloated objects.

Thaller: They are very,
very massive stars

That are almost ripping
themselves apart with winds.

Winds of high
energy charged particles.

Oluseyi: The winds
of a wolf-rayet star

Are almost like a slow
explosion of the star,

And because that's the case,

You don't get these
radioactive iron elements,

So the fingerprint of
the wolf-rayet is very different

Than that of the supernova.

Narrator: Did the ferocious
winds from a wolf-rayet star

Trigger the creation
of our solar system?

The theory ticks
a number of boxes,

With one exception.

The clouds of gas
that give birth to stars

Are normally very cold,

But wolf-rayet stars and the
winds they throw out into space

Are scorching hot.

Far too hot to form
a star like the sun.

But could
the chemical-rich shell

That surrounds these
massive stars hold a clue?

♪

♪

Narrator:
At the university of chicago,

Astrophysicist vikram dwakadas,

Part of a team
that uses computer simulations

To peer inside giant
wolf-rayet stars.

He wants to know if the outer
shell of one of these stars

Might have triggered the
creation of our solar system.

Dwarkadas:
The solar system cannot be
formed too close to the star

Because these stars
are very hot.

The wolf-rayet star
is very small out here.

It's a single point
at the center,

And in fact, this single point
is still about a few times,

Up to 15 times
the size of our sun.

Then this medium out here

Could go up to about 10 billion
times the size of our sun.

Narrator:
Vikram believes the distant
outer shells of wolf-rayet stars

Have all the raw chemicals
needed to build a solar system.

And because this dense layer
lies trillions of miles away

From the hot central star,

It may have just the right
temperature for star birth.

Dwarkadas: What this animation
shows, basically,

Is the environment around
the wolf-rayet star,

And what you're seeing is
basically the density structure.

So, you can see that there's
very low density inside

And very high density outside,
which we call the dense shell.

Narrator: Vikram is convinced
that our solar system

Was born inside the dense outer
shell of a wolf-rayet star.

But to prove his theory,
he needs to show

These cooler, outer layers
can be rich in aluminum-26 --

The chemical found in
abundance in early meteorites.

Dwarkadas: The aluminum-26
is produced by the star

At the very center,
and what we want to know first

Is whether it can
survive its journey

All the way from here
out to the dense shell.

Narrator: Vikram suspects
the delicate aluminum-26 atoms

Survive by attaching
themselves to particles

Blown away from the giant star.

We find that dust
forms around the star

During the wolf-rayet phase,

And in our theory, the iron
actually hitches a ride

On the backs of
these dust rings.

Narrator:
Vikram's ideas are very new,

But if he's right,
we can piece together

A new birth story
for our solar system...

...Around one of the largest
stars that ever lived.

The wolf-rayet shell
is enormous --

20,000 times the size
of our solar system.

Peeling back the outer layers

Reveals a concentrated
patch of gas and dust.

A gust of hot stellar wind
slams into the patch,

Triggering it to collapse.

It starts to spin,
and flattens out into a disc.

The pressure at the
center rises so much

It triggers a new dawn.

The gas ignites,
and gives birth to the sun.

That's how the hot
winds of a giant star

Can breathe life into thousands
of others, like our sun.

These findings change everything
we thought we knew

About our cosmic birth story.

It's kind of neat to think
that it might be one of these

Rare, beautiful, violent stars

That triggered
the formation of us.

Thaller: That means that we come
from something rather special.

In many ways,
creation and destruction

Turn out to be
two sides of the same coin.

Narrator: New investigations
and new evidence

Are forcing astronomers
to reconsider

The birth story
of our solar system.

But is that all
we've gotten wrong?

Is it possible that our
sun was born with a twin?

Astronomers find planets
in other solar systems

Revolving around two stars,

Or sometimes more.

Thaller:
It is so easy to assume that
we are the normal things.

That we are not the exception
to the rest of the rules.

When you look up
into the night sky,

You see all these
stars overhead,

But do you realize that most
of those are not a single star?

They're actually two stars
that are so close together

You can't actually
see them as separate?

Narrator: Of all the stars
in the night sky,

Around 80% sit so close
to a neighboring star

That they orbit
around each other.

These gravitationally
bound stars

Are known as binary pairs.

Oluseyi: A binary star system
is when two stars

Are locked in orbit
around each other,

And that's a very common
scenario,

But binaries
are incredibly common

And they're very important
for understanding

How stars form and evolve.

Narrator: But if binary pairs
are so common,

How come we don't see two suns
in the sky instead of one?

Astronomers always assumed
the sun was born alone.

But startling new
evidence suggests

We may have gotten
that wrong, too.

Harvard astronomer sarah sadavoy

Studies star nurseries.

These are the vast clouds of gas

Where star birth
is still going on today.

Sadavoy:
Ultimately what we want to
understand is how stars form.

How do planets form?
How do solar systems form?

And it's a long process,
and so we need to look at

A number of different
observations

In order to really pick out

What's going on
at different stages.

Narrator: Her primary target is
this -- the perseus cloud,

An enormous haze
of gas and dust,

And a fertile birthing
ground for sun-like stars.

The perseus molecular cloud
is like the perfect laboratory

To look at star formation.

It's nearby.

It's only 750 light-years away,

So very, very close to us.

It's a really active cloud,

So it's got lots and lots
of star formation

Ongoing within it, and it's
also a star forming region

That's forming stars very
much like our own sun.

Narrator:
Deep within the perseus cloud,

Star birth takes place inside
the densest patches of gas.

Sarah calls them "cocoons".

She uses one of the world's
most powerful telescopes

To map out these cocoons.

The james clerk maxwell
telescope on hawaii.

Sadavoy: This is a dust map
showing where dust is located.

It's a three color
image indicating

The different
temperatures of the dust,

So, red corresponds
to colder dust

And blue corresponds
to warmer dust.

So, you can see, here are all
of the little cocoons

Where young stars
are going to form out of.

Just for size reference,
our solar system

Would fit inside each
of these little cocoons.

Narrator:
Once she's mapped them out,

Sarah turns to the mighty vla
radio telescope in new mexico.

She uses it to gaze
deeply into each cocoon

And reveal if it's hatching a
single star, or a binary pair.

Sadavoy: What I did was I took
radio observations,

Looking at all of
the young stars

In the perseus molecular cloud,

And I combined that
with observations

Of all of the dense cores,

The cocoons that these young
stars formed out of.

So, you've got the black
corresponding to the core.

That's where the dust
is located,

And then you've got
these white stars

That are labeled that indicate

Where the young stars are found.

Narrator:
What sarah finds is astonishing,

And it raises new questions

About the birth of our sun.

♪

♪

Narrator: With the help
of a powerful radio telescope,

Harvard astronomer sarah sadavoy

Peers deep into
the perseus cloud

To find out more about how
sun-like stars are born.

What she sees is remarkable.

Diving into the perseus cloud

Reveals a stellar
birthing ground.

Deep within is a strange
bean-shaped cocoon of gas.

Inside, a newborn star.

But it's not alone
in its cradle.

A mysterious second body
dances alongside it,

A partner star.

Spinning inside their
shared birthing cocoon,

These stellar twins
are not unique.

Lifting the lids
on all the cocoons

Reveals that out here, no
sun-like star is born alone.

The upshot of sarah's
study is jaw-dropping.

If every sun-like star
is born with a twin,

Perhaps our star was
born with a twin, too.

Sadavoy:
What we find with these models
is that all stars like our sun

Likely formed in binary pairs

So that they had a companion
when they initially formed.

And in the case of
our solar system,

Something happened and our sun
no longer has its companion.

This study showed that every
sun-like star was forming,

Every single one,
was in a binary system,

But yet, here our sun is
without a binary partner.

Narrator: The idea of two stars
in our solar system

Sounds like a science
fiction dream,

But would the earth
and life itself

Have evolved to see the wonder
of a double sunrise?

Unfortunately,
the chances seem slim.

If the sun was actually
part of a binary system,

Things would be
radically different,

And it raises the question --

Would there be life
on this planet?

Would this planet be here?

Narrator: Although planets
can exist around binary stars,

The earth may have been
a very different place

If the sun had kept its twin.

The combined heat from two stars

Would've roasted
the young earth,

Perhaps boiling away the oceans

And creating a crushing
acidic atmosphere.

Surface temperatures
would've soared.

Life as we know it
would've been impossible

In this hot, toxic hellhole.

In a sky full of double stars,

It seems like our small blue
planet may have gotten lucky.

And if that's true, how
did we lose our companion?

Narrator: Could the chaos of the
sun's early years be to blame?

One possible scenario
could've played out

Inside the sun's
stellar nursery.

Over 4.5 billion years ago,

Inside a stellar nursery,

Hundreds of gigantic
birthing cocoons

Are busy incubating stars.

Inside one of them is our
newly-formed infant sun.

As it swirls its way
through the stellar dust,

A second star comes into view --
the sun's twin.

An immense, second
cocoon passes by,

And its massive gravity
rips our sun's twin

From its cosmic cradle

And throws it out into
the wilderness of the cosmos.

Sadavoy: The more likely
situation for the sun

Is two stars splitting apart,

Getting flung off into
different directions

Within our own galaxy.

They're now millions
of millions of miles apart.

There is no way to tell
which star in the night sky

Is our companion star,
or was our companion star

Back in the day

And likely we are never
to meet it ever again.

Our sister star
that formed right with us

Could be clear on the other side
of the galaxy.

Narrator: Piece by piece,
astronomers attempt

To rewrite the birth story
of our home star -- the sun.

But what about the planets?

Do they hide
a secret history, too?

The history of the solar system

Isn't as neat as --
eight planets formed

And now, they're the same
eight planets today.

The early solar system
was very much different

Than the solar system
we now live in.

Narrator:
And could a rare mineral

Reveal a new history
for how the earth

Came to be the perfect
oasis for life?

♪

♪

Narrator: Planet earth
is bathed in warmth,

As it orbits close in to
our mother star, the sun.

The size of our planet
is perfect for gravity

To attract a thick atmosphere

And allow oceans of liquid
water to pool on the surface.

For us, it's paradise.

But how many other worlds
just like it are out there?

Scientists look
to distant stars,

Hoping to find similar
warm, wet planets.

What they find is shocking.

In the region where the earth
sits in our solar system,

Astronomers find a very
different type of planet.

When we look around the galaxy,

We see that the most common
type of terrestrial planet

Is what we call a super-earth.

The term super-earth
refers to a planet --

A solid planet --
that is somewhere between

Three and five times
the mass of the earth,

And amazingly, these are the
most common types of planets

In the universe.

Narrator:
Super-earth planets are so
common around sun-like stars

That astronomers now think our
ancient solar system

May have had a family
of super-earths, too.

This long-lost family of worlds

Would've orbited
close in to the sun.

So close that some
of their surfaces

Could've seethed
with molten rock.

Today, large super-earths

Are nowhere to be seen
in our solar system.

But if we did have them,
where did they go?

And how did the earth
and other rocky planets

Come to take their place?

The answer could
lie in the chaos

Of our fledgling solar system,

When newborn planets
were jostling

For their position
in the cosmos.

Plait: These things were in
all different orbits,

Elliptical orbits and they
would get close to each other,

And so you were
constantly seeing

Collisions between these things.

It wasn't like cars
on a racetrack.

It was more like a
demolition derby.

There were planets
that probably got ejected

From the solar system entirely.
There may have been planets

That were actually
thrown into the sun.

Narrator: But were these
mythical super-earths

Really destroyed this way?

A new theory suggests
that jupiter,

The largest planet
in our solar system,

May have been responsible

For sending the
super-earths to their doom.

Today, jupiter sits almost 500
million miles from the sun,

But in the early days
of our solar system,

Jupiter most likely migrated
in towards the super-earths.

This trajectory
creates cosmic carnage.

There's evidence of migration
of some of the giant planets

In other solar systems,
and so we think

That that same kind of process

May have happened
in our own solar system.

Narrator: This is the theory --

4.5 billion years ago,

Jupiter spirals inwards
through a young solar system.

Its immense gravity smashes
the forming planets together,

And snowplows their
corpses toward the sun,

Piling up a gigantic
ridge of rubble.

♪

The pile of rubble meets
the family of super-earths.

It disrupts their orbits.

Eventually, they collide,

Causing a planetary pileup that
annihilates the super-earths

And leaves a cosmic
wasteland in their wake.

Is jupiter really responsible

For the death of
the super-earths?

♪

In switzerland,

Scientist farhang nabiei
searches for evidence

That long-lost planets
once roamed our solar system.

Farhang studies a fragment of
the almahata sitta meteorite --

An 88-ton space rock

That exploded
over the nubian desert in sudan.

This rare meteorite
is thought to have formed

In the very early years
of the solar system,

Perhaps even before
the earth itself was born.

Tiny gemstones
inside the meteorite

Offer a clue for where
the rocks were formed.

These meteorites are from
the stony family of meteorites,

So they are basically
full of rocks,

And then one of the peculiar
characteristics of them

Is that they have diamonds,

And diamonds, to form,
they need high pressure,

So they should be really
deep inside the planet.

Narrator: It's impossible
for diamonds like these

To form inside small asteroids.

It takes a rock
the size of a planet

To create the pressures
that are needed.

This means the diamonds
in farhang's meteorite

Were once part of a young
planet that got destroyed.

Finding a diamond
inside of a meteorite

Means that that meteorite was
once under high temperatures

And high pressures,

And that could only occur
inside of a planetary body.

If this object is then broken up
by a catastrophic collision,

Those diamonds can
be incorporated

Into an asteroid,
a small asteroid.

Narrator:
Are these diamonds a relic

From a long-lost super-earth?

Farhang looks inside
the diamonds themselves

To see if there are clues

To the size of the planet
they came from.

Nabiei:
When diamonds are forming,
they trap minerals inside,

And those things
are called inclusions.

It's like when you
are freezing water,

You put a small piece of stone.

At the end, you have
that inside the ice.

You want to cut out
those diamonds

And look at those inclusions
and study

And see what we can know
about this ancient planet.

Narrator: Different minerals
form at different pressures.

If farhang can identify
the raw materials

Trapped inside these diamonds,

He'll know the size of the
planet that they were formed in.

The only trouble --
the mineral grains are tiny --

As fine as a human hair.

Luckily, farhang has access

To a multimillion-dollar
microscope --

One of the most advanced
of its kind in the world.

So, this is the transmission
electron microscopes,

Similar to, lets say,
biological microscope.

Instead of light, it's electrons
going through the sample.

And here's the sample that we
are gonna insert inside.

♪

Narrator: Moments later,
the results are in,

And they reveal a surprise.

The planet should be at least
about mercury- to mars-sized

To have such a pressure
in its interior

And form these inclusions
in diamonds.

Narrator: The diamonds
are unlikely to have come

From something the size
of a super-earth.

But could their planet
of origin

Have become part of the
rubble pile created by jupiter?

Nabiei: These meteorites,
they have characteristics

That shows that probably it has
formed somewhere quite close

To jupiter, but in
the inner side of jupiter,

Closer to the sun.

Narrator:
Farhang's incredible analysis

Proves that our solar system had
at least one long-lost planet.

We'll have to wait for evidence

Of the mysterious super-earths
to immerge.

But if they did exist,
one question still remains --

How did the earth
and other rocky planets

Come to take their place?

♪

♪

Narrator: As scientists continue
to rewrite the story

Of the birth of our solar
system,

They search for evidence
of long-lost super-earths.

Did they exist, and, if so,

How did the earth and other
rocky planets take their place?

One theory holds
jupiter responsible.

After 100,000 years of wreaking
havoc in the solar system,

Jupiter finally moves away
from the sun,

Leaving a trail of devastation.

The super-earths are gone,
burned up in the sun,

But the ridge of cosmic rubble
that jupiter piled up

Can now start flattening out.

Inside it, rocks collide and
merge to form new planets --

Mercury...Venus...And earth.

None of them are as big as
the super-earths they replace.

But these lumps of hot rock
will go on to form the heart

Of the solar system
that we know today.

All thanks to jupiter
destroying the first generation

Of super-earths.

Right now, it's only a theory,

But it may be that we don't
just have jupiter to thank

For clearing the super
earths out of the way.

The very rocks
under our feet

Could be relics from the battle
that killed them.

Through a process of collisions,

Planets being thrown out
of the solar system,

Planets being thrown
into the sun,

We ended up with a situation
where what we call earth

Is really perhaps the remnants
of early super-earths

And other broken-apart
terrestrial protoplanets.

Tremblay: If all of those
billions of years ago,

Jupiter hadn't carried out
its colossal inward journey,

Our solar system
could look completely different.

In fact, it might look like
the other solar systems

We see beyond own.

For example, maybe our earth
would instead be a super-earth.

Narrator: Scientists are writing
a brand-new birth story

For our solar system.

Born inside the shell
of a giant star,

The infant sun was ripped
from its twin

By a passing cocoon.

And its first generation of
rocky children were destroyed,

Allowing smaller planets like
the earth to take their place.

Perhaps all these extraordinary
events had to occur

For the earth to form,

Just the right size and just
the right distance from the sun

To support life like us.

But for that life
to get going,

One final extraordinary
event was required.

The young earth needed water.

But where did our planet
first get its water from?

For decades, scientists believed
that our planet was born dry,

Formed from dry materials.

And our water arrived later,

Most likely from asteroids
or comets

Smashing into the surface.

♪

One of the oldest questions
we've had about earth is,

Where did all of
this water come from?

We thought that perhaps
it came to earth in asteroids

Or comets, and for sure,
some probably did.

Narrator:
Now, new evidence suggests
this dry earth hypothesis

Could be completely wrong.

Geophysicist steve jacobson

Is convinced the rocks that came
together to form the early earth

Were already wet...

...And much
of this primordial water

Remains still trapped
in the ground beneath our feet.

Steve has spent his career
trying to prove

His controversial theory.

He studies a deep layer
of our planet

Called the transition zone,

Located about 370 miles below
the surface.

Jacobson: I study
a part of the earth's interior

That we can't visit.

It's much too deep
in the planet,

And so it's pretty difficult
being a geologist

That can't do field work.

Narrator: Steve believes
this deep layer of our planet

Is full of a rare mineral
called ringwoodite,

Which acted like a chemical
sponge when our planet formed,

Soaking up
the earth's primordial water.

In the transition zone,
it's possible that ringwoodite

Could contain more water than
is found on the earth's surface.

Narrator: Steve's about to put
his controversial theory

To the test.

♪

♪

Narrator: At the argonne
national laboratory in illinois,

Geophysicist steve jacobson
is about to make a sample

Of the rare mineral ringwoodite

And find out
if it can absorb any water.

He suspects ringwoodite
is made when a common earth rock

Called olivine is subjected
to intense pressures,

Like those found in the greater
depths of the earth's interior.

Jacobson: The most interesting
thing about ringwoodite

Is its ability to store
hydrogen and oxygen,

The components of water.

Narrator: Steve wants to know
how much water

The earth's supply
of ringwoodite could be hiding.

To find out, he takes
a powdered sample of olivine

And adds water to it.

The sample is now placed
at the center of this assembly,

Made of tungsten carbide cubes,
which are gonna transfer

The force from the press
to the sample.

Narrator:
Steve subjects the mixture

To the pressures found deep
in the transition zone.

These are 300,000 times higher

Than the pressure
found on the earth's surface.

Jacobson: In the same way
that ice can be made from water

When we change the temperature,

When we change the pressure,
minerals can transform

Into new minerals.

Narrator:
The 1100-ton hydraulic press
transforms the olivine sample

Into a microscopic grain
of ringwoodite.

Jacobson: What's gonna come out
of the experiment

Is no longer olivine.

It's going to be ringwoodite.

Now, that ringwoodite may or
may not have absorbed the water

That we put into
the starting materials,

And that's what
we're gonna find out next.

Narrator: With his sample made,
steve just needs to determine

How much water
the ringwoodite soaked up.

He places the sample
in a spectroscope

And fires a fine-tuned laser
beam to coax out the water

Trapped inside the tiny,
blue-colored crystal.

Jacobson:
When we change the pressure

And we change the temperature,
using lasers,

The water appears to come out
of the ringwoodite.

Narrator: But how much water
does the ringwoodite contain?

We found huge amounts
of water inside it.

This peak represents --

Probably 1 or 2%
of the crystals weight is water.

Narrator:
2% may not sound like much,

But there's a whole lot of
ringwoodite deep below our feet.

Jacobson:
Now if ringwoodite throughout
the earth's mantle

Contained this much water,
it would be equivalent

To three or four times the
amount of water in the oceans.

Narrator:
Amazingly, steve is convinced

That this hidden water supply
is as old as our planet,

Proving the earth
was born with water.

This is too much water

To have been added to the mantle
over geologic times,

Suggesting that the earth
started off

With quite a bit of water
from the beginning.

Narrator:
Steve's theory allows scientists

To write a brand-new birth story
for the earth's oceans,

One where they are filled from
below, as well as from above.

♪

Nearly 4.4 billion years ago,

When young earth
is parched and barren,

Hidden roughly 370 miles
beneath its crust,

A vast layer
of ringwoodite crystals

With enough water trapped inside

To fill our oceans
many times over.

Heat rising from the area below
forces the crystals upwards,

They melt and release water,

Creating fast-rising plumes
of magma

That explode onto the surface.

Here the water condenses
and rains down onto earth,

Filling up
the newly-formed oceans.

Plait:
Most of the water on the earth
isn't even on the surface,

It's locked up in the mantle.

We didn't know that a few
years ago, and now we do.

That changes our ideas
about where water came from.

So there's always
the possibility

That some new observation,
some new evidence

Will come along and show,
"hey, we're wrong."

Tremblay: If it turns out that
rocky planets like the earth

Can form with water
already in them,

That could suggest that there
are a lot more

Water-rich planets out there
than we originally thought.

Narrator: Chapter by chapter,
scientists are rewriting

The birth story
of our solar system.

But as technology develops
and new ideas come to light,

How long will it be before
the next revision

And the next after that?

This is what's really exciting
about the process of science,

Is that there's always
something new

That can lead us in directions
that we never even imagined.

The basic process
of scientific discovery

Is looking at how things are,
finding small problems,

Small chinks in the armor
of current theory,

And using them as a wedge
to break that theory apart,

Come up with new ideas
that radically enlarge

The arena of reality
that we understand.

Narrator: The birth story
of the solar system

Is a story that we should revise
again and again.

Because it is the story of us,

And the better
we understand that,

The better we understand
our place in the universe.