Nova: Origins

7.26
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Ratings: 7.26/10 from 27 users.

NOVA - OriginsHas the universe always existed? How did it become a place that could harbor life? NOVA presents some startling new answers in Origins, a new 4-part series. New clues from the frontiers of science are presented by astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. As the host of Origins, Tyson leads viewers on a journey to the beginning of time and to the depths of space, in search of the first stirrings of life and its traces on other worlds.

The documentary is very scientific considering as many options/possibilities as possible. Everything is well done. Just when you think they will skip an idea or just touch one it, they do a good job elaborating on it. The topics covered include: How the Earth formed?, How common is an earth-like planet?, search for extra-solar planets, the chemistry of life, formation of life molecules, big bang theory, cosmic microwave background and much more. If you like documentaries about origins of life and space, then this is likely one that you will enjoy.

I would strongly urge all members of Planet Earth to take a few entertaining and informative hours to understand what we know today about the origin of the Earth. Even if you are not in agreement, it gives you an idea on what popular consensus in the scientific community today.

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26 Comments / User Reviews

  1. William Askew

    Terrible quality. great program

  2. Gail Kulisch

    A very helpful and interesting presentation!

  3. Gordon Giroux

    i think it's kinda stupid to ask the question of origin. light water and atmosphere. the conditions were right and we came into being.

  4. Carl Hendershot

    The truth of how the moon was created is far simpler. It was a astroidroidial comet about the size of mars that hit earth. This is what brought water. When it hit the earth in its molten life a massive explosion happened. Just like adding water to hot oil. These two separated in time. You figure out the rest.

  5. mudshark23

    "...then came fish!" -45:19 part 2

    1. Carl Hendershot

      It should be then came fish?????? lol

  6. Justin Lesniewski

    also, vlatko.... you have a river of karma flowing through you

  7. Justin Lesniewski

    neil de grasse is without a doubt my favorite astrophysicist and he shows the true enthusiasm and wonder that I also feel. Some of you may be thrilled to know that he is hosting a sequel to Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". Yes...!

  8. Dov

    EarthLife Genesis By 2011 Data

    - Earth's primal ORGANISMS are RNAs, good Sun radiation absorption-constraint, self-replicating mass formats. Corroborating
    evidence: life's chirality and life's sleep.

    - All EarthLife is evolved RNAs. All self-replicators are organisms, including genomes. DNA selected for some genomes being
    energetically stabler than RNA.

    - Life's drive: RNA's natural selection, enhance-maintain Earth's biosphere, exploit-postpone Sun's and Earth's energy prior
    to their fueling universe expansion.

    - Drive of Life's evolution: Natural selection is ubiquitous for ALL mass-formats/spin-arrays; must ingest energy-or-mass to
    delay-postpone eventual own reconversion to energy, all of which is destined to fuel expansion of the universe. Universe
    expansion reconverts singularity's mass to energy. Eventually, as nearly all massfuel is consumed, expansion will be
    overcome by gravity to initiate re-empansion to singularity, reconverting ALL energy to ALL mass.

    1. Derrick Daly

      i have never heard so many answeres to my question.thanks for this site

  9. Swilla

    THe video isn't wokring anymore, I hope it will be up soon.

  10. Sideral

    play-lists are down :s

  11. capricious

    Seems like this one is broken? :\

  12. Slappy

    Also, our dear friend Zuke has been removed from youTube once again, Valtko, please find another source for this wonderful and entertaining presentation of some of the theories of how our world came to be how it is, thank you. And thank you very much for putting these docs in one place for us, you are educating and enlightening the world with your efforts and should be applauded.

  13. Slappy

    Chris, none of it is presented as fact, tis presented as theory, since all planet formation Theories are just that, there are many competing. Also, if you watched more, you would've seen where the alternate theory of cometary delivery is discussed, instead of presenting the theory you agree with as fact, take an example from real scientist and call it a theory, not facts.

  14. Dado

    Superb watch, thank you.

  15. Nathan

    Actually the use of the word "bang" in "big bang" is a misnomer. It wasn't an explosion, only an expansion.

    No air means no sound, no sound means no bang.

    Also there are several multiverse theories going on and one does state that a black hole in our universe could contain another universe... and that the matter trapped inside becomes so near infinite over billions of years that it could expand... not in our plane but in its own... and become another universe.

    It goes on from there and gets kinda weird. I don't know, I major in webdesign, not astrophysics... but space and science is my passion.

  16. John

    @ HM

    Thank you for elaborating upon the singularity. This is something that has always been somewhat confusing to me, but your description of the paper was very helpful.

  17. Chris

    I just watched the first 20 minutes and could not watch any more. Very disappointed. This program is not accurate or scientific.

    First: The approach is very stylized and artistic. Lots of interesting crystals growing. Lots of colors flashing around all intended to create a mood of awe and grandeur in the viewer. A bit manipulative. Please let the facts speak for themselves without the sugar frosting.

    Second: the facts are incorrect. The film claims the universe is 15 bil years old which is incorrect. It is closer to 13.73 billion. It claims the earth was able to hang onto it's primary atmosphere which contained copious amounts of water to supply the seas. This information is also not current planet formation theory. The earth's primary atmosphere contained lots of lighter gases such as H2 and He2 left over from the initial formation. These elements were lost because they are very light and there was a lot of heat energy in the atmosphere which gave them escape speed. Earth's current atmosphere was outgassed from the planet, and then underwent a lot of processing from various processes including cometary bombardment (which brought a lot of water) and oxygen producing life forms.

    If you cannot trust the first 20 minutes, can you trust the rest??

    1. Jimnal

      anyone who starts their comment with "I just watched the first however minutes" may as well not bother commenting how can you form a valid opinion of a 3 n half hour documentary in 20 minutes. If you had bothered to watch the rest you would realise they try to give every possible theory on the subject theyre dealing with.
      Alternatively you could have saved yourself all the hassel all together by reading the description where it clearly states "The documentary is very scientific considering as many options/possibilities as possible". If everyone just believes the current most popular theory we would still be believing the earth is the center of the universe.

    2. Carl Hendershot

      ROFLOL HELICOPTER

    3. terryrret

      After 20 minutes you should watch something simpler that you might be able to understand . Complaining after 20 minutes because somethings above your head says more about you then the 3 hour and 16 minute doc.

      After watching for 3 hours and 16 minutes I thought it was very good .

  18. mwana mashariki

    Somehow am getting your view nothing unfolds on nothing(space)there is a room whatever name we may call it that helps it to maneuver -unfolding.This is a theory that trys to explain things.As for the time it has never existed its only figment of our own minds,think about it critially.Thanks for your opinion,much appreciated

  19. HaTe_MaChInE

    @mwana mashariki - Because of Einstein the words beginning and time have become very difficult to define. A simple explanation of the big bang says that space time did not exist before the big bang. Also it wasn't a ball it was a singularity. A ball has size and mass a singularity only has mass.

    Your question leads me to guess that when you think of the early universe, you think of something like a bowling ball full universe stuff floating in empty space. Then suddenly exploding

    The theorists tell us it was a single point. That single point was all the "space" there was. When the single point expanded, the expanding stuff become space time. You have to understand that things like time, gravity, light, did not exist until after the big bang.

    Try not to even think of it as an explosion, think of it as a letter. As you unfold the letter it gets bigger. But imagine that nothing else exists except the letter. So as the letter unfolds you start to see words, the words make sentences, sentences make paragraphs. So our universe is an unfolding letter.

    This is going to make it more complicated but I hope I can express this how I want

    Now think of every fold in the letter as time, the white paper as space and the writing on it is matter. If you unfold 5 creases in the paper that means time is now = 5 (5 folds equals 5 measurements of time) at five unfolds we have lots of white paper (space) and words and paragraphs (matter) and we can read the paragraphs.

    Now lets reverse the process. You refold one crease (time =4) we still have white paper and letters. If you refold another crease (time = 3) we have white paper and can only make out words. Fold it again (time = 2) and we still have white paper but cant make out any words only letters(simplest particles). Fold again (time =1) and all we can see is a little white space (earliest moments after big bang) If we fold it again (time = 0) the letter is so small it cant be folded anymore. We have no more white paper (if there were white paper we could fold it again) and there is no more writing.

    So to ask what is before the big bang is like trying to fold a letter that cant be folded any more. We can unfold it and start counting but we can only fold it back up so much.

    String theory tells us that we can fold the letter in many different directions and ways and that there might even be lots of letters sitting on top of each other like in a mail box. But right now we can only see our own letter, and we can only guess why it started unfolding and what it looked like at the first unfold.

    Hope this helps and hope I didnt insult anyone that has a better understanding then me.

  20. mwana mashariki

    In the above question three was,what we call begining not begging.what we call begining or creation maybe chang of form due to....

  21. mwana mashariki

    I have heard of the bigbang,but my question are, this so called ball that exploded where was it floating on?like being in another universe?and that universe is it in another universe(think of two mirrors facing each other,they become infite)Two might it be there are other things exploding or some other activity is taking place or took place which is neither what we are aware of?and lastly is there a chance their is neither beggining or creation which is beyond our relm of conciousceness?Three what we call begging may be change of form due to external changes like weather(cosmic)think of rain,when heated it becomes vapour,clouds etc or water-ice-steam.Four how did that ball came into being assuming bigbang theory is true?