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.