Snowball Earth • 2024 • episode "S1E2" • Fateful Planet

Category: Nature | Subtitle:

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.

Make a donation

Buy a brother a hot coffee? Or a cold beer?

Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.

Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?

Donation addresses

BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v

ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116

With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.

Fateful Planet • 2024 • 5 episodes •

Dramatic Birth

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.

2024 • Nature

Snowball Earth

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.

2024 • Nature

Great Dying

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.

2024 • Nature

Doom of the Dinosaurs

Doom of the Dinosaurs

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.

2024 • Nature

Age of Humankind

Age of Humankind

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.

2024 • Nature

You might also like

The Poles

Cameras travel to the Arctic and Antarctic circles, following chicks in a king penguin colony on the island of South Georgia in the Southern Ocean. On the other side of the world, Spy Walrus discovers a walrus family hauled out on an ice floe, before Spy Gyrfalcon follows the family as they head towards dry land. Elsewhere on Norway's Hornoya island, Spy Puffin follows thousands of male puffins as they gather in the snow and search for their life-long partners.

S2E4 • Spy in the Wild • 2020 • Nature

The Deep

David Attenborough narrates a natural history of the oceans to uncover the strange, otherworldly creatures living in the depths of the ocean.

S1E2 • Blue Planet I • 2001 • Nature

Superhuman

Takes us into the world of digestion and its amazingly complex environment.Our health, body shape, mood and even our evolution are determined by the unseen life forms that swarm throughout our bodies. There are worms in your bowels, bacteria in your mouth, fungi in your lungs and even viruses in your DNA.The combined genetic information of all these bugs is more than 150 times greater than our own genes. Their cells outnumber our own by 10 to 1. This collective menagerie is called the microbiome, and in a very real sense, it is the making of us all.

S1E2 • Life on Us • 2014 • Nature

The Ancient Highway

The Ancient Highway

First transmitted in 1965. David Attenborough continues his journey along the Zambezi River. This episode begins at Victoria Falls, the largest waterfall in the world. At the foot of the falls, with its moist climate, a wealth of plants and animals can be found, such as hyraxes. To coax the hyraxes out of hiding, David Attenborough illustrates why taking a dog whistle with you while on an African adventure is a very good idea indeed. Other highlights encountered on the way include an estivating lungfish and a herd of elephants washing and dust bathing at a water hole.Further along his journey David Attenborough explores a Portuguese fortress at Tete, believed to have been built over 400 years ago, and assesses the impact of the then newly constructed Kariba Dam, one of the largest dams in the world, on the displaced Tonga people and surrounding countryside.

S1E2 • Zambezi • 1965 • Nature

Wild Swaziland

Journey deep into the heart of Swaziland--a wild kingdom of riverine forests and endless savanna. From dominant elephant herds to tiny dung beetles, a number of diverse keystone species are shaping a vibrant ecosystem.

S1E4 • Africa's Wild Horizons • 2017 • Nature

Zambezi

Africa's wildest river is home to the most spectacular wildlife. Hippos fight for territory while herds of elephant, water buffalo and zebra depend on it for life. In the wet season the rains burst the riverbanks and everyone, including people, must move whilst fish swim through the villages. In the dry season the creatures fight over the few pools of water while predators prowl. At its heart it plunges over Victoria Falls and into wild ravines before draining into the Indian Ocean, where storm clouds cycle the water back into the heart of Africa.

Natural World • 2012 • Nature