From space...
..is breathtaking.
Satellites orbiting the Earth...
..can now look down on it...
..in absolutely extraordinary detail.
Using cameras on the ground...
..in the air...
..and in space...
..we can tell the story of life on Earth from a brand-new perspective.
At a time when the Earth's surface is changing faster
than at any point in human history...
..we can see just what impact we're having.
In this episode...
..satellites uncover previously unknown colonies of penguins...
PENGUIN CHIRPS
..reveal mysterious ice rings that could put seal pups in danger...
..and make surprising discoveries in Earth's most remote landscapes.
Behind every image...
..there's a story.
This is our home...
..as we've never seen it before.
CROWD CHANTING
At any given moment, over a thousand satellites are orbiting the Earth.
Some are capturing images across the planet's surface so detailed...
..that we can now see individual animals from space...
..while simultaneously following them on the ground.
Kenya, East Africa.
The green of a river bank.
Look closely, and grey bodies are just visible.
A family of elephants.
ELEPHANT TRUMPETS
They have a new calf...
..just over a week old.
ELEPHANT RUMBLES
ELEPHANT SQUEAKS
At around 100kg and growing fast,
she needs to drink some 12 litres of milk a day.
But her mother is struggling to provide it for her.
She hasn't fed properly in weeks.
In fact, the whole herd is in trouble.
ELEPHANT TRUMPETS
And from space...
..it's clear why.
At this time of year, the family is usually found 10km north,
in the relative safety of Samburu National Reserve.
But satellite images reveal that all is not well here.
The ground is deep orange.
Barely any signs of water...
..or green spots of vegetation.
Samburu is in the grip of a vicious drought.
Northern Kenya has been struck hard by the planet's changing climate.
INSECTS BUZZ AND CHIRRUP
This year has seen 25% less rain than the average.
The dry season has been extreme.
Animals are starving.
FLIES BUZZ
A desperate search for food has forced the family
out of the safety of the reserve...
..to a few small patches of green,
dangerously close to a busy main road.
ELEPHANT RUMBLES
Scrubby vegetation provides a little to eat.
But here, the family could be a target for poachers.
On the ground, their situation is desperate.
But with cameras in space, we can see what the elephants can't.
From a satellite taking an image of the whole Earth every 15 minutes...
..we can track weather patterns.
Over East Africa...
..clouds are building.
Rain is just six days away.
The calf is worn out.
But her mother will not let her rest.
ELEPHANT HUFFS
It's not safe to be so close to a busy road.
They need to move on.
But she's too tired.
THUNDER RUMBLES
ELEPHANT GRUNTS
This is the first rain she's ever experienced...
ELEPHANT SQUEAKS
..and it's hard to get to grips with.
Her mother encourages her to her feet.
She wants her baby out of this dangerous place.
Samburu is transforming.
Elephants, scattered by the drought, are now returning to the reserve.
And our family is with them.
Overnight, one of the other females has given birth.
The rain means the best start for a new generation,
for this vulnerable species.
And it's not just elephants we can see from space.
Satellite cameras are finding animals across the globe.
The dunes of Namibia, Southern Africa.
Tiny, dark spots line the edge of the surf.
Each one is a Cape fur seal...
..in a colony several thousand strong.
Over the East African Plains of the Serengeti...
..scientists monitor the size of wildebeest herds
on their annual migration.
From 600km above Baja, Mexico...
..we can see grey whales
beneath the water...
..arriving here to give birth.
This new technology is now helping wildlife conservation
in the most inaccessible places.
Antarctica.
A continent so hostile and remote...
..that studying life here is incredibly challenging.
But now, satellites allow us to access
every square kilometre of its surface.
And this has led to an extraordinary discovery.
Brown patches, dotted across the ice.
Seemingly out of place...
..but they are vital clues, helping us to find
one of our most iconic species.
SQUAWKING
Emperor penguins.
This colony is full of new life.
Hatched just a month before,
the chicks consume pre-digested fish and krill,
brought to them by their parents.
But the results of this diet can be messy.
Over 10,000 birds create
a vast amount...
of poo.
A problem for the colony.
At -20, all the water is frozen solid.
With nothing to drink,
Penguins eat the snow beneath their feet...
..which is becoming rather unappealing.
They need to find fresh snow.
The youngest chicks,
who aren't yet able to keep themselves warm,
are carried on their parents' feet.
Others should be walking by now.
As each penguin moves to find clean snow...
..the colony slowly works its way across the ice...
..leaving a trail behind them.
Over weeks, the patches spread.
From space, a penguin colony would be difficult to spot
in this vast sea of white.
But the marks they leave behind stand out.
And now that scientists know what to look for,
they are finding more colonies.
So far, 26 new colonies have been discovered...
..doubling the known global population of the species.
A discovery at a crucial time.
It is predicted that the sea ice on which the penguins breed
will recede, due to climate change.
And as a consequence, 20% of Emperor Penguins
could disappear in the next century.
From satellite, scientists are now monitoring these colonies
as they face an uncertain future.
The view from space is allowing us to make scientific breakthroughs
in the most remote places on the planet.
In 2017, cameras captured a crack in the Antarctic ice shelf...
..450 metres wide...
..and nearly 200km long.
So inaccessible, that the only way to track it
has been from 600km up.
Images taken over the year showed the crack growing,
until eventually, a vast piece of ice broke free.
Four times the size of Greater London,
it is one of the largest icebergs on record.
In a remote part of Alberta, Canada...
..miles from civilisation...
..a strange, arced shape...
..in the middle of the forest.
This is the world's largest beaver dam.
Satellite records show that it was built over the last 30 years.
And it's now almost a kilometre long.
No-one knew that the species was capable of construction
on such a scale.
And in Mozambique, Africa...
..a scientist scanning through satellite images
found a lost world.
An isolated rainforest, on top of cliffs almost 500 metres high.
Completely untouched and unexplored.
Expeditions are now being launched,
in the hope of discovering entirely new species.
But other images are harder to explain.
Lake Baikal, Siberia.
The largest body of fresh water on the planet...
..its surface frozen solid for five months of the year.
But satellite images have revealed something unexpected in the ice...
..a huge, dark ring.
Broken ice and meltwater
in a circle, over 4km across.
A number of these rings appear almost every year...
..and in different parts of the lake...
..each triggering vast areas of ice to break apart.
A potential disaster...
..for an animal who lives on the ice.
The Baikal seal.
This pup was born in the depths of winter,
spending the first weeks of her life in and around an ice den.
In the spring, the ice will melt.
She has just two months to prepare for life in the water.
Moving around on the frozen surface
helps her to shed her soft baby coat.
With claws like ice picks, pups haul themselves across the ice...
..bar the occasional slip-up.
She's developing the muscles needed to swim and to hunt.
Each day, she grows stronger.
But if an ice ring appears...
..a pup without its adult coat or full swimming strength
could become stranded on an ice floe
or drown in open water.
These melting ice rings intrigued scientists,
who launched an investigation.
By studying satellite images and taking measurements
from beneath the ice, the cause of the rings has been uncovered.
Powerful warm water currents,
rising and swirling in circles.
As the ring begins to break apart,
satellites show that the ice across the rest of the lake is solid.
She has time to prepare for a life in the water...
..once the ice finally melts.
Ours is a blue planet.
From space, we can see how water defines the landscape.
Ocean tributaries fan out like branches on a tree,
through an island off the coast of West Africa...
..while the veins of the Yukon Delta flow into the Bering Sea,
off Alaska.
We depend so much on water that we built our cities around it.
Venice.
London.
Hong Kong.
Wherever there is water on our planet...
..there is life.
Botswana, Africa.
In the heart of the desert is a vast, shimmering fan.
Channels of water have created a delta,
that never reaches the ocean, but disappears into the sand.
The Okavango.
From above, you can see a network of tracks and paths,
running through the wetland.
Crossroads...
..forks in the road...
..roundabouts.
Carefully constructed by Africa's most unlikely architect...
..hippopotamus.
The delta is home to Botswana's largest population of hippos.
They wallow in pools to escape the heat.
But they can't escape each other.
Males defend their territory...
..while juveniles try to copy them.
There are youngsters underfoot.
GRUNTING
And the females have had enough.
They all need just a bit more space.
As the sun begins to set and the temperature drops...
..the hippos leave the pools to find food.
The best grazing spots can be more than a kilometre away,
through thick vegetation.
Their routes to feeding grounds are retraced daily.
Three-tonne bulldozers, keeping the pathways clear.
And, as all journeys originate in the pool,
the hippo tracks act like release valves...
..allowing water and nutrients to flow deep into the delta.
It's this movement that creates the channels
that sustain so much life.
These hippo tracks have helped to create
a tangled network of waterways...
..stretching for over 10,000 square kilometres...
..transforming a desert into an oasis
in the heart of Southern Africa.
Water isn't the only element needed for life.
From space, we can see an extraordinary phenomenon at work.
A surprising connection between two distant continents,
that supports millions of animal species.
A plume of orange...
..hundreds of kilometres across.
Dust.
It comes from here - North Africa.
What looks like a small, white scar in the Sahara desert
is actually the remains of a vast lake.
Once rich in life, now a dust bowl.
Winds whipping across the lake bed
lift nutrient-rich Saharan dust into the air.
By following the dust plume day and night...
..we can see it travel more than 3,000km...
..over the Atlantic...
..to Central and South America...
..home to the largest tropical rainforest in the world.
THUNDER RUMBLES
It rains here almost every day.
But plants need more than just water to grow.
Nutrient-rich Saharan dust,
carried in the raindrops...
..fertilises the soil...
..feeding the forest and helping to sustain more species of animals
than anywhere else on Earth.
It was only with satellites that scientists were able to calculate
that over 27,000,000 tonnes of dust
makes this journey every year.
A gift that has helped to make these rainforests
some of the most diverse on the planet.
Ancient forces are at work across our planet.
Their impact etched on the landscape.
A 1,300km scar runs through California.
The San Andreas Fault.
Created by the shifting of tectonic plates
over the last 30 million years.
The Grand Canyon.
Carved by the Colorado River, over millennia...
..now over a kilometre deep.
And Uluru, Ayres Rock, in Australia
has been eroded into an island of stone...
..over 500 million years.
But now, we can see the Earth's surface transform
in almost real-time.
In the South Pacific, two islands...
..become one.
New land, formed in a matter of weeks...
..by the eruption of an underwater volcano.
Satellites allow us to monitor dramatic change over time.
And there's one change
that fundamentally affects the lives of animals -
the passing seasons.
These are the Himalaya...
..a wall of rock, stretching between India and China.
When winter arrives,
the Hengduan range in the East of the Himalaya
becomes locked in ice.
The temperature rarely rises above freezing.
Most animals leave the mountains,
choosing lower valleys
to escape the extreme cold.
But not all.
Living 4,000 metres above sea level...
..Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys...
..are the world's highest living primate.
With dense fur...
..and a shortened nose to avoid frostbite...
..they're built for the cold.
This male is a year old.
Without a full adult coat,
he huddles close to his mother for warmth.
In just a few months, he'll leave her side
and go it alone.
Before then, there are lessons to learn.
The most important...
..to find food.
While other animals head down the mountain to feed,
the male must follow his family up...
..500 metres...
..through some of the hardest terrain on Earth.
The slopes are shrouded in shadow.
But there is a little sunlight on the peaks.
It takes the edge off the cold.
But there's only lichen to eat.
It will keep them alive, but it's far from a feast.
These monkeys endure winter on these peaks for good reason...
..which becomes clear when you look down from space.
Most of the Himalaya run west to east,
forming a barrier to tropical air moving north.
But the valleys of the Hengduans run north to south.
This allows warm, moist air to funnel up the deep valleys.
By combining satellite images...
..we can watch the mountains transform, as spring arrives.
The tropical air increases plant growth,
creating a unique environment.
Amongst the lush greens, bursts of colour.
Rhododendrons bloom in their thousands.
By toughing it out,
the monkeys are rewarded with a paradise.
A secret kingdom, where they can feed without competition.
Sweet rhododendron nectar is a real treat.
Spring brings new life to the troop.
With the mothers hands full...
..it's this male's cue to start out on his own.
Making the most of this new world...
..before winter reclaims it again.
While satellites allow us
to explore Earth's most remote landscapes...
..we can also see our cities.
Find famous landmarks...
..and even ourselves.
In Mecca, pilgrims from across the globe come together
to worship during the Hajj.
In the UK, the green fields of Glastonbury
transform into the world's most iconic festival.
In the desert of Nevada...
..a crescent is formed by 50,000 revellers at Burning Man festival.
And crowds gather in the Vatican to hear the Pope speak at Easter.
In central China is the small city of Dengfeng.
Amongst the shapes of buildings, bright red circles.
Shaolin Kung Fu students.
13-year-old Xing Yu La goes to a very different kind of school.
THEY SHOUT OUT
The students here spend their school life
mastering the art of Shaolin Kung Fu.
SHOUTING
Kung fu means hard training,
and to be a champion takes years of dedication.
As well as normal lessons, Xing Yu spends six hours a day...
..six days a week...
..learning multiple martial art disciplines.
Ah!
And all his training
culminates in a very special performance.
Xing Yu is part of a display so impressive...
Ah!
..that while we film them on the ground...
..at the same moment,
satellites capture the shapes they make.
THEY SHOUT TOGETHER
A series of precise kung fu moves...
..creating patterns visible far above.
Thousands of students performing in perfect synchronicity.
We first went into space to discover other worlds.
But it's only when we look back that we realise
just how special our home really is.
Next time...
..the view from space reveals extraordinary landscapes...
..covered in strange shapes...
..and mysterious patterns.
Water transforms Brazilian sand dunes.
A lake in China disappears...
..leading to conflict.
And the twists and turns of the Amazon
are the last hope for vulnerable manatees.
This is our home...
..as you've never seen it before.
The Open University has produced a poster exploring Earth from space.
To order your free copy, call...
Or go to...
..and follow the links to the Open University.