Fateful Planet • 2024 • 5 episodes • 4h:20m
A five-part science documentary tracing Earth’s violent past, from its dramatic birth to humanity’s rise, showing how life repeatedly survived asteroid strikes, volcanic disasters, and mass extinctions.
Our planet has had a difficult and violent past. The potential for life all begins when Earth collides with another protoplanet, the size of Mars, shortly after the formation of our solar system. The impact nearly destroys our home, but Earth survives. And in the end a new world was created: The moon. Although it causes a lot of trouble on Earth, it is the moon that plays an important role in the story of how life ultimately came to be on our planet.
S1E1 • 2024 • Nature
Temperatures are about to plummet as our planet heads straight into a period known as 'Snowball Earth'. Throughout its history, Earth has continuously fluctuated between greenhouse and icehouse. But this particular icehouse phase is the most extreme period of cold our planet has ever witnessed, with ice encasing Earth from the poles to the equator. Life, which had only recently developed on the planet, seems doomed to extinction, but somehow manages to survive.
S1E2 • 2024 • Nature
540 million years ago, the ancestors of modern complex organisms suddenly emerge in the Cambrian seas. Evolution progresses and even manages to make the leap onto land. But 250 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions trigger the most severe mass extinctions in Earth’s history.
S1E3 • 2024 • Nature
In the Triassic period, dinosaurs rise to dominate our planet for 150 million years. 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs vanish—along with 75% of all species. Did an asteroid cause the last mass extinction? Experts are using the latest scientific methods to discover what killed the dinosaurs.
S1E4 • 2024 • Nature
Shortly after humans appear, they become the dominant species on Earth, but face threats from both above and below—including super volcanic eruptions and falling asteroids. Today, scientists around the world use the latest technology to mitigate future catastrophes.
S1E5 • 2024 • Nature