Birth of Planet Earth: Collision that formed the Moon

Narrated by Richard Dormer.
Birth of Planet Earth tells the twisted tale of our planet’s origins.

Scientists now believe that our galaxy is filled with solar systems, including up to a billion planets roughly the size of our own. The film employs advanced, data-driven, cinematic-quality visualizations to explore some of the greatest questions in science today: How did Earth become a living planet in the wake of our solar system’s violent birth? What does its history tell us about our chances of finding other worlds that are truly Earth-like?

Theia slams into the Earth. Earth will soon be enveloped in vaporized rock, some of it hotter than the surface of the sun. Theia doesn’t survive the impact – its remains become mixed with debris from Earth, and are either flung out into space or become part of the Earth-Moon system.

Credit: Robin Canup, Southwest Research Institute.
Visualization by Advanced Visualization Lab, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, U. of Illinois.