NOVA - Origins- Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution

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Origins is a spectacular four-part miniseries, first presented on PBS's Nova, about the beginnings of the universe, our solar system, life on Earth, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life on other planets. It is not a stretch to say that Origins, among all television documentaries about the evolving cosmos, offers the most breathtaking dramatic visual representation of Earth's tumultuous history, and the clearest, step-by-step explanation of the formation of planets, the development of water and living organisms, and the forces that shape other parts of our galaxy and beyond.

Earth Is Born
How Life Began
Where Are The Aliens?
Back To The Beginning

By Sara-Olivia "Bookworm and cat lover"(Michigan) -

I really enjoyed this Nova series and think that Neil DeGrasse Tyson did a great job as host (fortunately, my local library has many fine Nova and other PBS productions). His engaging narration echoed the drama of what the early Earth must have gone through. We see simulations of constant meteroroic and asteroidal impacts and collisions on a then-toxic Mother Earth. He references Earth's evolution to a 24-hour period, with us humans coming along about 30 seconds before midnight. We ponder the evidence for non-Earth life within our own Milkyway and learn how spiffy instruments let us deduce the gravitational pull that only planets could have over their corresponding stars. If a star is wavering, then scientists will check that out as a sign of the star's gravitational interaction with an orbiting planet. With deductive skills that surpass Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes combined, these modern scientific detectives have culled for themselves a wealth of probable scenarios about how life first began (electrically charged meteorites and space debris introduced our planet to the building blocks of protein), how the moon was formed (gravity and colliding sperical bodies), how Earth's atmosphere went from toxic to biospheric (oxygen-producing bacteria morphed our planet's atmosphere from a noxious 1% oxygen component to a hospitable 21%), and how time plays the key role in accommodating and tracing the "origins" of life. The early Earth was violent, volatile, and fiery (with lava oceans and molten rock; molten metals made their way into the planet's core--this hot core has many implications, including life itself); a far cry, says one scientist, from a Garden of Eden. (Even the Garden of Eden would depend on the planet's initially harsh conditions that would eventually--4.3 billion or so years later--lead to lush vegetation and life as we know it.) The Earth is home to fantastic biodiversity, representing the unlimited imagination of God. I am in no way less impressed if God chose billions of years to bring about life as we know it than if God accomplished the task in less than a week. We're only splitting hairs to worry about time frames and "modus operandi" (to quote another reviewer) in terms of accommodating our belief systems. Personally, I believe that God took his time creating the necessary conditions for life to originate and evolve. I'm glad that this program examines "the long and winding road" version of creation.