All language subtitles for One.Strange.Rock.S01E02.Storm.720p.HDTV.x264-DHD[eztv]-en

♪ ♪

WILL SMITH: Most
people go through life
trying to not get hit.

-What's up man?

WILL SMITH: All good.

-Did you see that fight?

WILL SMITH: Oh did I?
I think I could've won.

(laughs).

The trick is to roll with
the punches and hope that you

don't get floored by one.

-Again.

WILL SMITH: Our world was
born out of violence...

and a storm that has raged
since the beginning of time.

A storm with the power
to destroy planets.

One mighty collision
can change everything.

It's done it before and
it could do it again.

Most of us live in
blissful ignorance of
the chaos around us.

But, eight astronauts with
over 1,000 days in space

between them can tell us how
being "up there" helped them

to truly understand
what goes on down here.

NICOLE: Everyday the earth
ploughs through about 40 tons

of material in space.

MAE: There is so
much activity,

so much action and our planet
is right in the middle of it.

JERRY: Space isn't vast
and empty space but a

dynamic, cosmic storm.

NICOLE: It's a storm
that could kill us,

but without it...

we wouldn't be here at all.

WILL SMITH: This is a story
about the weird connections,

the near misses, the
lucky breaks that created

this amazing world.

For 4.5 billion years our
planet has been battered and

bruised and punched
and pummeled but
we're still standing.

It's actually the battle
that's built us and this is

the tale of the tape.

NICOLE: Thanks guys,
awesome. Alright.

WILL SMITH:
Nicole Stott is an engineer,
pilot and oh yeah...

-These are cool uh?

WILL SMITH: She lived for
three months in space.

-You can even stick
your hand in it.

Left hand.

Okay I'm coming out.

-Nicole, your right
waist tether to the
forward UIAD ring.

WILL SMITH:
Frankly she's a bad ass.

-Now imagine them all
pressurized and you're having

to work against
it really hard.

Here I was, it was
so unbelievable.

I'd spent almost 20 years
helping build spaceships and

now here I was
myself on one...

just amazing.

ASTRONAUT (over radio):
Okay I am clear Nicole.

-Remember watching
me do a spacewalk?

ROMAN: Yeah.

-Yeah. Was that fun?
-Scary.
-Yeah, why was it scary?

-Cause I thought you
were gonna fall off.

NICOLE: When you're in space,
250 miles above our planet and

looking at these things
you thought you knew,

you see them in a
totally new way.

For example, the first time
I saw a shooting star from the

space station was this very
visual reminder that there's

a lot of other things
travelling through the

same space, in space.

MIKE: What did I see and
the first time I saw it,

it kind of startled me was,

a shooting star
coming in below us.

That's a micro meteorite
coming into the earth and

burning up in the atmosphere
and you see this sort of

firework display
thing going on.

JERRY: I was doing earth
observation and I'm taking a

photo and all of a sudden
I see a hole just magically

appear about that big in
the solar panel, you know,

that was probably hit
by a grain of sand,

something that size,
coming at 17,500 miles an hour
in a different orbit.

CHRIS: You get hit by
rocks all the time,

you can hear them
ricocheting off the hull.

You can see the scars
of them in the windows
of the spaceship.

NICOLE: It's a
little mind boggling,

when you think about how
much is really out there.

WILL SMITH: Mostly the stuff
up there is pretty small,

burns up in the atmosphere,
nothing to get worked up about,

but there are some
pretty big rocks up there too,

ask the dinosaurs.

-We believe the
asteroid that caused
the extinction of the

dinosaurs started way
out in the solar system.

You know,
travelling that distance,

it's incredible that it
found this target of earth.

♪ ♪

Bad for the dinosaurs but
ultimately good for us.

WILL SMITH: We all think
we know this story,

but there's
something special about
the place where it happened,

in the jungles of Mexico.

GUILLAUME: Here in Mexico
I have the chance to dive in

what is the most
magical place to free
dive in the entire world.

♪ ♪

This incredible place was
created with very strong

violence when
the asteroid hit.

And the result of this is
this calm place, this paradox.

This place which is now very
quiet was, at some point,

where something
dramatic happened.

♪ ♪

Life almost disappeared.

But at the same time, this is
where our story started and

this is why we are here now.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NICOLE: When this
area was scanned,

we saw that hundreds of
these flooded Mexican caverns

connected together into
a vast semi-circle.

The edges of a huge crater,

110 miles across
and 12 miles deep.

An asteroid that big hitting
the planet anywhere is going

to be devastating, but
scientists think it was

especially devastating
because of where it hit.

A bulls eye strike on a
large Sulphur reserve.

The Sulphur rock vaporized
sending billions of tons of

polluting gas into
the atmosphere...

blocking out the sun.

The earth froze and
the dinosaurs died.

WILL SMITH: So this big old
asteroid has been journeying

for billions of years through
space before it gets to us and

the earth spins right.

So if the rock had arrived
just a few seconds later,

it would have crashed out in
the deep ocean, no bulls eye,

no fire storm,
no dino extinction.

Earth's history is full
of moments like this.

It's a tale of destructive
good fortune that connects the

death of a planet, ten
million African bats,

a clock in the sky and tiny
rocks from the birth of our

solar system, some about
the size of my fist.

NICOLE: There's a lot of rocks
hitting us from space.

If they make it through our
atmosphere and hit the surface

of our planet, people go in
search of these in very remote

places to try to find them.

They're extremely valuable
because they contain really

the story of where
our earth came from.

-Boom!

(laughs).

(speaking in native language)

ADAM: In Morocco we have a
couple of buzzes every year of

something that's way cool,
a super awesome meteorite.

If a meteorite is found in the
desert and word gets out...

Especially if it's
of extreme value.

Then there is
like a gold rush.

♪ ♪

We're talking about the
building blocks of our planet.

♪ ♪

Some of the most valuable
meteorites are carbonaceous
chondrite meteorites.

They're the oldest
form of solid material in

the solar system.

All the universities want
it, all the museums want it.

The Bedouins are
getting amazingly good at
recognizing these things.

(speaking in native language).

NICOLE: To the untrained eye,
these might just look like a

normal rock, but the really
old ones contain all the raw

materials to build
a planet like earth.

4.6 billion years ago
where earth is today,

there was just a giant
cloud of gas and dust,

all swirling around
the new born sun.

♪ ♪

This was where the
cosmic storm started.

First off with tiny
particles attracted by

an electrostatic force.

It's a slow process but
eventually clumps grew into

solid matter.

Still only as big
as a grain of sand,

but now with just enough
gravity of their own to pull

other grains in.

These grains fused into
rocks and as they smashed and

clumped the collisions
grew in intensity.

Under immense
heat and pressure,

the rocks began to
build our planet.

There seems to be
nothing subtle about the way

earth was built.

It would almost be like
building a space station with

a sledgehammer.

WILL SMITH: All those
bits smashing together,

they were everything we needed
to build a living planet.

The calcium in our bones, the
gold in our wedding rings,

even the iron in our ships was
all here from the beginning,

except one thing was
in short supply, water,

but it was on its way
and coming in fast.

♪ ♪

NICOLE: A lot of astronauts
will tell you that from

six years old
watching the moon
landing that they knew from

that moment on that
astronaut was a job that they

wanted to do.

For me, it wasn't that way.

My background is
aeronautical engineering.

I wanted to do something with
flying that allowed me to

learn about how things fly and
then ultimately if you wanna

know how things fly, I can't
imagine not wanting to know

how rocket ships fly.

And then one day I got
this phone call to say that

I was assigned to fly a long
duration flight on the

International Space Station.

WILL SMITH: Nicole didn't
set out to fly on the ISS,

her job was to
build the thing,

but once she got
up there, she still
had an eye for design.

NICOLE: So as an
engineer you can imagine,

I couldn't help but look
at the earth and wonder,

how does that work?

What's blindingly obvious
when you look at earth,

is water is the key.

♪ ♪

But earlier it didn't look
like this blue planet that I

saw, it was a dry
and baron rock.

For life to thrive
like it has done,

the earth needed
delivery of water.

We believe soon after
the earth was formed,

our water came from space
in a hail of violence.

♪ ♪

It must have been brutal.

We think it lasted for
about 100 million years.

♪ ♪

Icy comets and
asteroids collided with
the planet in that.

To supply us with
that top off of water.

♪ ♪

But unlike Mars and Venus,
who were surely bombarded by

the same storm,
we kept our water.

As luck would have
it, the sea that would
one day grow into

earth as we know it,
found its place at
the perfect distance

from the sun, what we now
call the Goldilocks zone.

Not too hot, not too cold.

(laughs).

WILL SMITH: The
solar system is vast.

Earth could have easily wound
up somewhere where every drop

of water either froze
up or boiled away.

But here it's solid, gas
and liquid all the time.

It only takes a tiny change
like a sunrise for things to

get a little bit slippery.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

WILL SMITH:
Solid, liquid, gas.

Earth's water,
it's a shape shifter,

constantly changing
forms and as it
moves from snow to sea,

from stream to steam it
helps make the weather that

keeps this planet a
paradise for life.

LELAND: From space you can
see clouds at the tops of the

Amazon Basin but you can also
see them evaporating on the

oceans and so these systems
are all interconnected.

CHRIS: That natural,
seemingly inevitable process

of turning the
oceans into rain,

it's the very essence
of life itself on earth.

MAE: Without it they'd be
no rivers, no ground water,

no plants, no animals.

The continents would be dead.

JERRY: It actually surprised
me how dynamic the planet is,

clouds whirling, lightning
storms propagating over
the surface,

the ocean currents
visible and you realize this

thing is not a dead rock down
there, this thing is alive.

NICOLE: So we can thank our
lucky stars I suppose that the

seed that started earth was in
the right place for water to

exist in its three states.

WILL SMITH: Our planet was
born out of cosmic dust then

watered by a storm from above,

but all those blows
were nothing compared
to one that literally

ripped the earth apart.

You see earth had a twin.

A twin that threatened
our existence.

WILL SMITH: The earth
is the result of many,

many collisions but the most
violent collision of all was

unknown to humankind,
unknown that is,

until we went to the moon.

NICOLE: I have really
vivid memories of our

first moon landing.

Sitting in front of
the black and white TV,

for some reason I remember
having a grilled cheese
sandwich, who knows?

We thought, how could there
possibly be anything in common

between the earth and all its
beautiful earthly colors and

the grey of the moon.

ASTRONAUT (over radio):
Oh that looks beautiful
from here Neil.

-This cratered surface.

ASTRONAUT (over radio)
It's different but it's
very pretty out here.

-What we found surprised us,
moon rock and earth rock had

striking similarities.

ASTRONAUT (over radio):
We'd like you to press on.

Yeah right.

-Suggesting that both the
earth and the moon had somehow

originated from
the same place.

ARMSTRONG (over radio):
It's one small step for man...

WILL SMITH: Well there's only
a handful of ways that could

have happened and none
of 'em are pretty.

NICOLE: The prominent theory
is that there was something

else in the Goldilocks zone.

Another planet called
Theia and it was on an

intersecting orbit with earth.

In space when two things are
in an intersecting orbit,

with enough time,
it's inevitable that those

two things will collide.

Both planets became
molten on impact.

We have debris thrown
out into space.

When this cloud of
debris eventually cools,

it condenses into a
new cosmic partnership.

Planet earth and a
uniquely large moon.

WILL SMITH: Our moon was
ripped right out of us,

because of that,

it's big and close
and has a lot of pull,

pulls the sea in, pulls the
sea out, tides, simple right?

But things get harder
when that same sea is

covered by ice.

Which is something that
grandads know and modern kids

could stand to learn.

♪ ♪

(singing in native language)

WILL SMITH: Lukasi knows
when the moon is full,

the tide is strongest and
he'll have a few more minutes

under the ice, the best
chance to grab their catch.

NICOLE: We shouldn't
underestimate how influential

the moon is in
all of our lives.

Those regular tides also
help give us another kind of

rhythm, one you might assume
had been with us all along.

The collision that ended up
forming the moon sent the

earth just spinning.

A day back then was
just five hours long.

It was the drag of the tides
that eventually slowed the

earth down to where a
day became 24 hours,

like we know now.

♪ ♪

The 24-hour day; waking
up, having breakfast,

working eight hours.

Making dinner,
day in, day out.

These cycles, they're
embedded in our DNA.

WILL SMITH: The violent
whack that gave us our moon,

our tides and
our 24-hour day,

it gave us one more thing too;

summer in Philadelphia.

♪ ♪

NICOLE: When I think
of the space station,

I think of this, like,
beautiful masterpiece in space,

just hanging there.

The ultimate engineering
challenge was,

how do ya make your
spaceship as much like
earth as possible?

Crossing the hatch from the
space shuttle into the space

station the first time.

I remember thinking,
wow, it's not the neatest

place I've ever seen.

There was wires and cables and
computers and equipment all

strung along these walls.

The way we live there is,
we've essentially mimicked

what we have naturally
occurring on our planet.

We have to generate
the oxygen to breathe.

We have to generate the
electricity to power all of

our systems.

We have to figure out
a way to clean the air,

so we can continue to breathe.

Because we're human beings
and can only live comfortably

really within a certain
temperature range,

the whole space station, all
of the systems are working

really hard to maintain
that environment for us.

And then you look down at
earth and you realize that's

exactly what nature is doing,
just on a mind-blowing scale.

And we've got that cosmic
collision that made our moon

to thank for it.

Wow.

That collision between
earth and Theia was so violent

that it actually knocked
earth off its axis.

There you go.

So let's just pretend,
this is our sun and this is

our earth and
our earth is titled,
due to that collision,

titled 23 and a half degrees.

For six months of the year
the northern hemisphere is

favoring the sun and for
six months of the year,

the southern hemisphere
is favoring the sun.

The shift in the sun's energy
from north to south throughout

the year is constantly trying
to move the hot areas to the

cold areas and the cold
areas to the hot areas.

This tilt of the earth
results in our seasons.

CHRIS: The seasons constantly
change in shape and contour

the land underneath.

The world is constantly
adjusting itself.

LELAND: From the vantage
point of space you can see the

ever-changing planet through
the seasons from snowcapped

mountains to desert plains.

JERRY: I really never thought
of this until just very

recently you know,
I'm seeing all the
seasons at once,

so I'm seeing the winter in
the northern hemisphere and

it's summer in the
southern hemisphere.

WILL SMITH: If we had no tilt,
nearly half the planet could

be frozen all year round.

Nicole would be fine in
Florida nearer the equator but

growing up in Philly, there'd
be a glacier in my backyard.

♪ ♪

NICOLE: Because of our tilt,
there really are few places on

this planet where
life can't thrive.

♪ ♪

Life on our planet has
synchronized with our seasons.

Raising its young in
the spring and readying

them for winter.

♪ ♪

WILL SMITH: Four and a half
billion years ago we started

with a smash that created a
tilt that made our seasons,

that gave us the
rhythms of existence.

But more than that,
it gave us the diversity of

life we see around us.

WILL SMITH: Hard to imagine
but for most of the year,

not a single one of
these bats lives here.

All ten million arrive
from across Africa,

chasing the rains, to
gorge on ripening fruits.

WILL SMITH: These bats are
essentially a flying forest

delivery system.

The tilt of the earth
means cold moves to hot
and hot to cold,

means winter gives
way to spring just as summer

yields to fall.

It means bats fly across
a continent seeding

forests as they go.

The world is connected in
1,000 ways and all because
of one massive whack.

So is the danger all
the in past or is the

calm before another storm?

♪ ♪

WILL SMITH: This planet
is only here because we've

weathered just enough body
blows to build our world.

So far it's been a
perfect storm that's
made our perfect home,

one that feels stable,
safe, reliable.

It isn't.

NICOLE: Imagine
yourself on a boat.

Out in the middle
of the ocean.

In the middle of a storm.

A big storm.

It's very real to you.

It might even be a
little bit scary.

But if you had the opportunity
to just zoom in on one of

these tiny little droplets and
see that inside that little

droplet are these tiny little
micro-organisms that are just

oblivious to this storm
going on around them.

And if we look at our earth,
if we look at where we live,

this planet that's
out in space,

we in some ways go about our
daily lives oblivious to all

the action that's going
on around us, in space,

in the solar system,
in the universe.

This cosmic storm
that actually has a
violent nature to it,

is the reason
why we're here.

The reason why we're
able to live so comfortably

on this planet.

Before flying in space I
tried really hard to learn

from the people who had
flown before me,

to get some idea of what
the experience meant to them.

These astronauts had seen
the whole earth from space.

While they described
it as a really
incredibly beautiful place,

there were
also some that said,

they felt a sense
of insignificance.

From the very first time
I looked out the window,

I felt like this
is significant.

The significance of it
to me is how something so

overwhelmingly beautiful
could have come from chaos,

violence and collisions.

It's just amazing to think
about this fine line, this,

this balance between
being here surviving,

thriving and not.

WILL SMITH: The storm
has not been our enemy.

We aren't here in spite of it.

We're here because of it.

And when the storm blows over,

it's anything but
blue skies and rainbows.

Next time...

Here comes the sun.

It is the fuel of life,
but it is not our friend.

The sun is a planet killer.

Captioned by Cotter
Captioning Services.