[soft music]
♪ ♪
[wind gusting softly]
Elba: In every direction...
In every moment...
We are surrounded by wonder.
♪ ♪
For thousands of generations,
we have looked up to the night sky...
And dreamt about what might be out there.
♪ ♪
Now we are beginning a voyage...
to visit these distant places...
♪ ♪
And discover what lies in the great expanse
beyond our home.
♪ ♪
[calming music]
♪ ♪
High above us,
the International Space Station
orbits the Earth.
♪ ♪
Within this tangle of wires and windows
is our first permanent home in the cosmos.
♪ ♪
And for the crew who float on board,
it's a whole new way of life.
♪ ♪
Here, there is no up or down...
♪ ♪
No day or night as we experience on Earth.
♪ ♪
It's the ultimate cocoon.
♪ ♪
Further out than here,
space travel becomes a more formidable challenge.
[indistinct radio chatter]
Past the Moon,
only machines have ventured.
♪ ♪
But they have captured stunning images
of the beauty that lies beyond.
♪ ♪
Saturn...
the jewel of the solar system.
♪ ♪
Probes sent here are cloaked
in protective golden blankets...
♪ ♪
Keeping them safe
as they survey this majestic giant.
♪ ♪
In its orbit...
we've discovered 82 moons.
♪ ♪
Its rings stretch 175,000 miles across...
But are typically just 30 feet tall.
♪ ♪
With the help of our robotic explorers...
We're getting the first close-up glimpse
of our planetary neighbors...
In all their complexity and beauty.
♪ ♪
Only two human-made craft have ever traveled
past the boundaries of our solar system...
Into the Milky Way Galaxy that surrounds us.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
[indistinct radio chatter]
♪ ♪
They carried with them memories
and messages from our world...
[indistinct radio chatter]
♪ ♪
Hello from the children of Planet Earth.
♪ ♪
Elba: Greetings from humanity,
perhaps one day to be discovered.
♪ ♪
There are over 100 billion stars...
strewn like dust across our galactic home...
♪ ♪
And we now believe almost all these stars
have planets of their own.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
This is TRAPPIST-1...
♪ ♪
A small, dim star...
with seven planets in its orbit.
♪ ♪
We've detected thousands of planetary systems
like this one all over the galaxy.
♪ ♪
We can't yet see these worlds in detail.
♪ ♪
But we can infer what they might be like.
♪ ♪
55 Cancri E...
♪ ♪
A planet of profound contrasts.
♪ ♪
One side of this giant world
is permanently locked,
facing towards its parent star.
Its surface likely molten.
♪ ♪
[wind gusting softly]
The other side sits in perpetual darkness...
Landscapes destined
to an eternity without light.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
Out there in the galaxy...
Are endless permutations
of texture and form...
♪ ♪
[wind gusting]
Worlds encased in ice...
♪ ♪
[waves roaring]
♪ ♪
Planets wrapped entirely in ocean...
♪ ♪
Wonders...
waiting to be explored.
♪ ♪
Deeper into the Milky Way Galaxy...
we uncover beauty and mystery
on a larger scale.
♪ ♪
This the Gum 29 nebula.
♪ ♪
At its center is a cluster
of 3,000 newborn stars.
♪ ♪
As these bright, young stars burn,
they radiate energy outward...
♪ ♪
Sculpting the surrounding gas and dust
into this magnificent sight...
♪ ♪
Stretching light-years across...
♪ ♪
But this nebula...
is just one among many.
♪ ♪
Countless of these stellar nurseries
fill our galaxy...
♪ ♪
Each a unique work of art.
♪ ♪
The scale of the Milky Way Galaxy
is almost inconceivable.
♪ ♪
Traveling at the speed of light,
it would take 100,000 years
to cross from one side of this vast disk
to the other.
♪ ♪
But our galaxy is not alone.
♪ ♪
Two and a half million light-years away...
Is the Andromeda Galaxy...
♪ ♪
A collection of one trillion stars.
♪ ♪
We sit within a greater...
grander universe.
♪ ♪
We have captured images of galaxies
of every kind...
♪ ♪
Scattered across impossible distances.
♪ ♪
Every point of light here is not a star...
but a galaxy.
♪ ♪
These are places we can see...
♪ ♪
But will never reach.
♪ ♪
We're only left to imagine the wonders
that might exist out there...
♪ ♪
Symphonies written...
Love stories told...
Unimaginable beings...
With unknowable dreams.
♪ ♪
Back home...
Our place in this universe...
♪ ♪
Tiny...
And magnificent...
♪ ♪
A drop...
That has just begun to see the ocean.
♪ ♪