Ancient Earth

Early Earth was a hellscape of molten lava and barren rock, bombarded by meteors, with no atmosphere at all. How did our familiar blue sky – the thin, life-giving band of gasses protecting our planet – come to be? Discover how life itself helped create the air we all breathe today.

700 million years ago, Earth was a giant snowball cloaked in ice from pole to pole – a global deep freeze threatening the survival of the earliest complex life. How did life manage to hold on in this forbidding world? Leading scientists investigate how this catastrophe may have become a catalyst for life to evolve in creative new ways--setting the stage for the astonishing complexity we see today.

For billions of years, life teemed in the oceans of planet Earth while the land was desolate and inhospitable. So how did life make the leap to land? Scientists explore how some of the earliest life emerged and invaded a barren, rocky landscape, eventually transforming it into a verdant, green world.

252 million years ago, a devastating mass extinction wiped out about 90% of all species on Earth. Follow scientists as they piece together evidence to discover how life survived and set the stage for a new dominant life form: the dinosaurs.

How did Earth give rise to humans? With stunningly realistic animation, witness the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs, the spread of primates across the planet, and the geologic events that made our species' existence possible. Explore the power and paradox of humanity’s profound impact on our planet, and ponder the question of how we may shape its future.