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00:00Our world is beautiful to look at.
00:25It's even more beautiful to understand.
00:42Forces of unimaginable power have forged our precious planet.
00:56They've created landscapes of endless variety and wonder.
01:05The forces of nature make Earth a volatile home.
01:15Yet the very stuff of our raging planet also created its greatest wonder, life.
01:27How could something so complex emerge from a barren rock?
01:57To understand how life arose from Earth billions of years ago, we have to start by understanding
02:15what our planet is made of, its raw ingredients.
02:25This volcano in Indonesia is one of the few places where you can see one of those ingredients
02:31boil to the surface.
02:40The substance that bubbles out of the volcano's crater is so pure, it's precious.
02:49It's enough for people to risk their lives to get their hands on it.
03:01Budi and his son Bagio have a job that brings them face-to-face with the raw ingredients
03:07of the Earth.
03:09I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:14I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:16I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:17I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:18I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:19I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:20I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:21I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:22I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:23I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:24I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:25I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:26I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:27I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:28I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:29I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:30I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:31I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:45I've been waiting for this day for so long.
03:54The crater of this volcano is a mine.
03:57The product is sulphur
03:58building blocks of our planet.
04:06It's rare to find elements in their pure form like this,
04:10because they tend to react and combine with others.
04:15This elemental sulphur is no different.
04:19It wants to combine with oxygen.
04:22It wants to burn to become sulphur dioxide.
04:26That impure combination creates choking fumes,
04:31making this sulphur worthless.
04:37It needs to be kept pure so that it can be sold on to industry,
04:42to become an ingredient in the man-made world.
04:49But these men aren't miners.
04:51Their job is to stop the sulphur from burning
04:54and turning into useless clouds of gas.
04:59They are firefighters.
05:05And it's at night that they can get down to work.
05:12That's when the flames of the burning sulphur reveal themselves.
05:22When it ignites and reacts with oxygen,
05:25sulphur emits a blue flame.
05:32If they set alight other parts of the mine,
05:35the blue fires can rapidly spiral out of control.
05:43Hey, watch out, watch out, watch out!
05:46Watch out!
05:48Watch out!
05:50Watch out!
05:54It's a big fire.
05:56It's a big fire.
06:05It's burning.
06:13It's a big fire.
06:16It's a big fire.
06:21It's a big fire.
06:24The noxious sulphurous gases want to react with us too.
06:35On contact with water in the eyes and mouth,
06:38gas from the blue flames instantly turns to sulphuric acid,
06:43making this one of the most hazardous places to work on Earth.
06:50I don't wear a mask.
06:52I just cover my eyes with smoke.
06:57Then I let out the water.
07:10In the fumes and the searing heat,
07:12Baggio and Budi are struggling to keep the fire under control.
07:20Each passing moment means more pure sulphur is going to waste.
07:50The fire of the Kawah Ijen volcano has been tamed for another night.
08:21Elemental sulphur from the volcano is valuable
08:25because it's needed in everything from sugar production to medicine.
08:34We rarely get to see the elements like sulphur in their pure state,
08:39but they are what the world is made of.
08:42What we are made of.
08:46There is no difference between the sulphur that pours out of a volcano
08:51and the sulphur in each one of us.
09:00All life is made up of the same elements as the Earth.
09:06Just 92 elements make up everything on the planet.
09:28The elements are the building blocks of our life.
09:33The elements are the building blocks of our world.
09:38But they are billions of years older.
09:43As old as the universe itself.
10:02The smallest of them all, hydrogen,
10:05was born at the beginning of the known universe,
10:08in the moments after the Big Bang.
10:16Then in the immense pressure and heat of stars,
10:20hydrogen atoms fused together to produce bigger elements,
10:24helium, carbon, oxygen.
10:29But it would take the death of these first stars to create enough energy
10:33to fuse those elements into the rest of the chemistry set.
10:4392 elements flung out into space by unimaginably powerful explosions.
10:50Where they eventually came together to build our planet.
11:04The story of Earth's creation is revealed in the colours that stain its rocks.
11:20Beneath the green carpet of grass of Tanzania,
11:24the ground is red.
11:28Thanks to the powerful reaction between two of the planet's raw ingredients.
11:38This is the Great Rift Valley,
11:41where the first humans walked the Earth and have existed ever since.
11:50Today, it's the Maasai who live off this land,
11:54and that's given them an intimate connection to the Earth.
11:59One that they exhibit in their most important ceremonies.
12:04Tomorrow, Moiswa's son Ndaika will celebrate a landmark
12:08in the life of a Maasai warrior.
12:12Earth's elements will play a vital role in the ceremony.
12:17Ndaika will become an elder.
12:21He will become a leader in the Maasai war.
12:25He will become a leader in the Maasai war.
12:31In the future, Ndaika will be the first person to lead the Maasai warrior.
12:40And he will become a leader in the Maasai war.
12:46He and his wives will join the leaders of their community.
13:16The family are almost ready for their guests,
13:19but there's one final ingredient that they must collect from the land.
13:46The ingredient they are looking for is red ochre, a traditional pigment.
14:17The redness of the land here
14:20comes from one of the most abundant of Earth's raw ingredients, iron.
14:27One third of our planet's mass is iron,
14:30most of it locked away in its molten core.
14:34Iron is a precious mineral,
14:36and it is the most precious mineral in the world.
14:40One third of our planet's mass is iron,
14:43most of it locked away in its molten core.
14:56But in this valley, iron has risen to the surface.
15:02The iron found here isn't pure.
15:05It has been powerfully attracted to oxygen in the environment
15:08and turned into iron oxide,
15:11a rusty red compound central to Maasai culture.
15:38This is the first time I've ever seen iron.
15:42This is the first time I've ever seen iron.
15:51This is the first time I've ever seen iron.
15:54This is the first time I've ever seen iron.
15:57This is the first time I've ever seen iron.
16:09Iron doesn't only inhabit the Earth.
16:13It's within us, too.
16:19Ndika's passage to elder status
16:22will culminate in the slaughtering of a bull.
16:27A moment that reveals that our connection to this element
16:30is more than skin deep.
16:39Just like the ochre, the blood is rich in iron.
16:45But this isn't just a ceremonial link to the land and nature.
16:50The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:08The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:12The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:15The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:18The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:21The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:24The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:27The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:30The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:33The Maasai rely on the nutritional value of iron-rich blood.
17:37The land here and the life that depends upon it
17:41are deeply entwined by the reaction of iron and oxygen.
17:47The same chemistry that makes the earth red also keeps us alive.
18:01Thanks to the food we eat,
18:04earth's iron is carried into the bloodstream.
18:08And like the iron in rock,
18:10iron in our blood cells binds to the oxygen we breathe.
18:15But only gently.
18:18As it circulates, blood releases the oxygen where it's needed.
18:25Life has taken the chemistry of the earth and made it its own.
18:34But for life to have started in the first place,
18:37it needed a medium for that chemistry to take place.
18:42Somewhere the elements of the earth could find each other,
18:45combine, and become the complex molecules of life.
18:53That medium was created by a chemical reaction
18:56between the elements of the earth and life.
19:00That medium was created by the union
19:02of two of the most common elements in the universe,
19:06hydrogen and oxygen.
19:09Water.
19:30Hidden deep in this forest in the Caribbean
19:34is one of the rarest phenomena there is.
19:41A magical site that only exists here because of a unique property of water.
19:50A property that makes it essential to life on earth.
20:00And biologist Tom Iliff has brought a specialist team here to track it down.
20:06This limestone is fantastic here.
20:08The way it's pockmarked and dissolved away
20:11indicates that there's a lot of water moving underneath.
20:15Only a handful of divers have the skills to explore this network of caves.
20:23So you're going to need those two and this one, yeah?
20:26For sand time.
20:28A place that only exists because of water's astonishing potency.
20:36The water is a natural resource.
20:38A place that only exists because of water's astonishing potency.
20:58These caves are one of the last true undiscovered,
21:02unexplored, unknown frontiers on the planet earth.
21:0999% of the planet's liquid fresh water is underground.
21:15But this cave is special.
21:17And it's all because of this liquid's extraordinary solvency.
21:26Water can dissolve more substances than any other liquid.
21:31Which makes it able to cut through the limestone.
21:34It can literally eat or dissolve its way through the solid rock
21:39and open up cracks and crevices, fissures.
21:44That makes it possible for even more water to go down that crack.
21:48And the crack gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
21:52And the bigger cracks get more water
21:55and so they get enlarged faster and they form caves.
22:05The caves are perilously fragile.
22:07But the team is intent on penetrating as deep as possible
22:11into this alien world.
22:14The reason why we go through these narrow slots,
22:18why we push our bodies to the limits,
22:22is to find something majestic, something beautiful on the other side.
22:30Unless you go there, unless you look,
22:32you're never going to know.
22:36Worst thing is your tanks may wedge in
22:40and literally stick you in a spot
22:45where you can't move forward or backward.
22:50The attempt to squeeze through the narrowing passages
22:54has disturbed the sediment.
22:58Tom and his buddy have no choice
23:00but to call a halt to their exploration.
23:04Hey there, welcome back, glad to see you.
23:07Oh, man, that tight spot in there,
23:09I could barely fit through.
23:11I'm not going to be able to get out of there.
23:13I'm going to have to get out of here.
23:15I'm going to have to get out of here.
23:17That tight spot in there, I could barely fit through.
23:20It was really a squeeze, just...
23:23I got the wing stuck on a rock.
23:26Yeah, yeah.
23:27I had to move the rock out of the way.
23:29I say we leave it 24 hours at least so it clears up.
23:32OK.
23:33Then come back, give it another go.
23:35The team has only explored part of this cave system
23:38and seen a hint of its beauty.
23:42What they will find in the morning will be truly spectacular.
23:46So we're going to tie in the main line and swim down.
23:49About 10, 15 minutes in, the line makes a slight turn to the left.
23:53So there are expected to be pretty bad waves.
23:56We have to keep pretty close to the line
23:58and be aware of that at all times.
24:06The next day, the visibility is cleared.
24:12The explorers are about to get their first glimpse
24:16of a rare natural phenomenon created by water's power to dissolve.
24:26I don't know what it is.
24:28I can't tell you exactly what's happening,
24:31but something different, something very, very important
24:35is going on in this cave.
24:41The quality of the water suddenly changes.
25:12This strange and beautiful phenomenon is known as a halocline.
25:22You pop up and there's crystal-clear water
25:26and it almost is as if you're lifting off and flying in the air.
25:34Seawater drawn in from the ocean
25:37is dense with dissolved salts and minerals
25:40and sits in a discrete layer beneath the fresh cave water.
25:47And it's so clear there's a tendency,
25:50you want to take your regulator out of your mouth
25:53and you want to start breathing the water.
26:03All this is created by the marriage of hydrogen and oxygen.
26:11RUMBLING
26:26Water's power as a solvent
26:29means it transports Earth's ingredients around the planet.
26:36And it does the same within us.
26:41RUMBLING
26:44The elements carried around the planet
26:47are also carried around our bodies.
26:53RUMBLING
26:56Every living creature on Earth
26:59needs water to deliver the ingredients of life to its cells.
27:04RUMBLING
27:07And life will go to extraordinary lengths to get those ingredients.
27:27It's the end of winter in the Italian Alps.
27:34Few creatures can endure this harsh, unforgiving landscape.
27:40The alpine ibex is one of them.
27:45As the winter snow melts, it unlocks the vast stores of water,
27:49replenishing the rivers.
27:54But for this female and her kid,
27:57water is not the most important thing for them right now.
28:00It's what the water brings that really matters.
28:08Water carries something so essential to their survival
28:11that this female is about to lead her kid
28:13on the most challenging climb of its young life.
28:26Rada Bionda is a park ranger.
28:29He's fascinated by the resilience of these creatures.
29:00Rada has been studying the ibex for years
29:03and he knows exactly where they're heading.
29:21This is the Cingino Dam.
29:25The vast expanse of the stone wall
29:28holds back the snow melt.
29:33But there is an unintended consequence,
29:35thanks to the solvent power of water.
29:41As it seeps through the dam, water evaporates.
29:47Any minerals it carried with it are left deposited on the dam wall.
29:53These mineral salts are the big draw for the mother and her kid.
29:59The diet is characterized by all kinds of herb-based foods.
30:06Vegetables, anyway.
30:08And it's very poor in mineral salts.
30:12In other situations, rocks, rocky walls,
30:15it's really linked to this need.
30:28Without salts and minerals, the ibex simply can't survive.
30:34Muscle fibres won't contract.
30:36Electrical signals in their nerves won't fire.
30:40They're left with no choice
30:42but to risk scaling the 50-metre high wall.
30:58Careful, peaceful.
31:23The promise of salt and minerals leers them even higher.
31:29MUSIC PLAYS
31:52The kid gets a first taste of the precious, salt-rich rock.
31:58MUSIC CONTINUES
32:14It's a heroic climb, driven by breathtaking determination.
32:18MUSIC CONTINUES
32:25With Earth's ingredients, brought here by water, the prize.
32:31MUSIC CONTINUES
32:56Life takes the raw ingredients of the Earth.
33:01And transforms them.
33:09Life hijacks Earth's simple chemical reactions.
33:15And makes them useful.
33:25Thanks to the medium of water,
33:27the chemicals of life are always on the move.
33:32We are just chemistry.
33:37Earth's elements brought together to create a living thing.
33:45But what is life?
33:48What does it mean to be living?
33:51HEARTBEATS
33:57MUSIC CONTINUES
34:02This part of Japan is famous for a unique creature.
34:08Every year, between March and June,
34:11a special type of squid rises up from the deep ocean in their millions.
34:22When these squid appear,
34:24they put on a remarkable display of the alchemy of life.
34:29For the locals, that alchemy makes them a delicacy.
34:35But for fishermen like Mr Urakami, it makes them highly profitable.
34:50MUSIC CONTINUES
34:55Mr Urakami is banking on what he needs
34:58to be the most profitable catch of the year.
35:01MUSIC CONTINUES
35:31MUSIC CONTINUES
35:46The squid are proving elusive.
35:48MUSIC CONTINUES
35:58But on the beach, there are the first signs
36:01that the firefly squid have arrived.
36:04MUSIC CONTINUES
36:19MUSIC CONTINUES
36:24This is the display that everyone has been waiting for.
36:27MUSIC CONTINUES
36:40This remarkable light show is caused
36:43by a beautifully controlled chemical reaction inside the squid.
36:49A chemical called luciferin reacts with oxygen and produces light.
37:05The luciferin is simply made of elements,
37:08such as carbon, nitrogen and sulphur.
37:13The basic elements and reactions of the Earth's raw ingredients
37:17have been hijacked by the squid
37:19and then controlled in an exquisite expression of life's alchemy.
37:33Back on board Mr Urakami's fishing boat, there's a change in fortune.
37:42MUSIC CONTINUES
38:07Light!
38:10Man, man, man, man! It's beautiful!
38:20Although uniquely spectacular, the squid are doing what all life does.
38:27Controlling chemistry to do what it needs to survive.
38:39MUSIC CONTINUES
38:45Ultimately, life is a cascade of controlled chemical reactions
38:49between the elements of Earth.
38:55Reactions played out at exactly the right time
38:58in exactly the right order.
39:01MUSIC CONTINUES
39:05Reactions that harness energy and sometimes beautifully release it.
39:25For Mr Urakami and his crew, this is the spectacle they live for.
39:31MUSIC CONTINUES
39:37Life's chemistry in action.
39:53No matter what form life on this planet takes...
39:57..there is one thing it has in common.
40:03Whether it's a plant...
40:06..or a firefly squid...
40:10..or you...
40:13..there is one chemical reaction that is universal to life.
40:20A remarkable piece of chemistry found in living things across the planet.
40:26MUSIC CONTINUES
40:31The chemistry that makes the inanimate animate.
40:38The chemistry we think made our planet come alive.
40:42MUSIC CONTINUES
40:53This fjord in Iceland holds the clues
40:56to how rock could have made the first step to life.
41:02What's hidden beneath the cold waters here may have gone undiscovered.
41:07But diver Erlendur Bogason heard vague reports
41:10of something strange going on.
41:20My next-door neighbour was this old lady
41:23telling me the stories about the steams she saw from the sea.
41:29I had been diving there many times, so I knew this place.
41:33I didn't believe this old lady.
41:39So I called my friend Artni, the fisherman,
41:42and asked him to take me to this place.
41:46I was, like, stressed, because you're going alone somewhere to dive
41:51and you don't know what you're doing or what you're going to find.
41:58MUSIC CONTINUES
42:01I was very stressed.
42:03I was very stressed, because I was going alone somewhere to dive
42:07and you don't know what you're doing or what you're going to find.
42:11MUSIC CONTINUES
42:15MUSIC CONTINUES
42:21When I just see this huge white thing, it looked like a giant.
42:34The towering pillar of rock was spewing water like a chimney.
42:39It was an unbelievable sight.
42:41Wow, it's beautiful. It's something incredible.
42:46Erlander had found a hydrothermal vent.
42:51I took my glove off, put my arm into the hot water.
42:54It was like burning hot.
42:57Searing hot fresh water pumping directly into cold seawater.
43:10But it's what happens when these two water sources meet
43:13that makes this place so special.
43:21We can see it in a simple experiment.
43:26Using the water samples collected from the fjord,
43:29we can create the same conditions of the vent on land.
43:35The voltmeter reveals that bringing the two sources of water together
43:39generates power.
43:44BEEPING
44:07Just like in a common battery,
44:09the power here is created by the movement of charged particles.
44:15Acidic seawater has lots of positively charged particles, or protons.
44:22And alkaline freshwater has relatively few.
44:30When you connect them together, they want to equalise.
44:34So protons cascade like a waterfall from one side to another, creating power.
44:45We now think energy produced this way is the spark of life.
44:51Because it doesn't just happen at these hydrothermal vents.
45:04BEEPING
45:12Exactly the same flow of particles
45:15goes on inside the cells of almost every living creature.
45:24From the lowliest seaweed...
45:28a whale...
45:30us.
45:34This source of energy is the one thing that unites life on Earth.
45:40And that's the clue.
45:50Our most ancient ancestor wasn't a living thing at all.
45:57It was most likely a hydrothermal vent pumping out water
46:01into the oceans of the restless young Earth four billion years ago.
46:24If the spark of life emerged from something as simple as the chemistry
46:28of a planet bathed in water, it could happen elsewhere.
46:34For there are places beyond Earth with oceans of liquid water,
46:39where there may be hydrothermal vents.
46:59Such a world may exist circling the giant gas planet Jupiter.
47:07Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is an ice-covered ball of rock.
47:18It's now thought that beneath its icy shell is a deep, salty ocean.
47:24Just the right kind of place to find hydrothermal vents...
47:30..that could have provided the same spark that started life on Earth.
47:45Europa's thick ice cap need not be a barrier to life.
47:50Bacteria live in lake water capped by deep ice in Antarctica.
47:59Perhaps the mysterious red stains on the surface of Europa
48:03are signs of alien bacteria.
48:12Perhaps Europa has mirrored the early Earth.
48:20Perhaps, once again, elements of the universe
48:24have been turned into the wonderful alchemy of life.
48:49Transcription by ESO. Translation by —