The planet we all call home is even more bizarre than you might imagine
March 2, 2019 9:37 AM   Subscribe

There’s no doubt that planet Earth is awe-inspiring. That’s even more true for the handful of humans who’ve seen it from space with their own eyes. “We tend to think of ourselves as a weird, tiny little human being on a very large, powerful planet, and therefore clearly irrelevant to anything that might affect the planet at a planetary scale,” says former NASA astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, who in 1984 became the first U.S. woman to walk in space. “In some ways that’s true. But if you step back and look at the planet in total, you see how richly interconnected and intertwined all the actual systems are.” Strange facts about Earth from National Geographic and One Strange Rock, with Will Smith

The first season was first aired a year ago, and the episodes are now on Netflix and other platforms, including copied to DailyMotion:
  1. Gasp
  2. Storm
  3. Shield
  4. Genesis
  5. Survival
  6. Escape
  7. Terraform
  8. Alien
  9. Awakening
  10. Home
Plus 15 bonus clips from NatGeo on YouTube, and National Geographic's "One Strange Rock" Discussion, a 36 minute video from BUILD Series on YouTube, interviewing producer Jane Root, Nutopia’s Arif Nurmohamed, and four of the eight astronauts who were included in the series, Chris Hadfield, Nicole Stott, Jerry Linenger, and Mike Massimino. Not featured, but included in the series: Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Mae Jemison, Leland Melvin, and Peggy Whitson.
posted by filthy light thief (6 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
"I'm keeping' it real. In house shoes." (from the bonus footage.)

Celebrities! They're just like us!
posted by the_royal_we at 11:07 AM on March 2, 2019


Buckle up folks, this is produced by Darren Aronofsky!
posted by sjswitzer at 11:15 AM on March 2, 2019


Having Will Smith as a narrator is ... interesting.

But hearing from the astronauts is really neat, and gives an interesting context to the segments.

Also, it's full of genuinely interesting facts about earth. I said "the Amazon rain forest are the lungs of the earth," before Will Smith laughed at his same misconception, and I learned that the Amazonian plants provide oxygen for the other lifeforms in the rain forest. It's diatoms that provide much of the oxygen for the world.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:41 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


When we say something is "bizarre," we mean it doesn't match our expectations. But then, saying it's the thing that's bizarre, and not our expectations... Seems to have a tenuous grasp on causality, if nothing else.
posted by aurelian at 1:18 PM on March 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Having Will Smith as a narrator is ... interesting.

Snoop Dogg would have been an excellent choice.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:20 AM on March 3, 2019


I tried gasp, but Will Smith plus the long drawn out glamour shots made it unwatchable, despite astronaut help.
posted by anadem at 5:40 PM on March 3, 2019


« Older "Sir, you've got resting confused face."   |   Milk coke Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments