The Universe (2007–…): Season 8, Episode 1 - Omens of Doom - full transcript

(male narrator)
Can something in space

cause animals to be born
with two heads?

[bleats]

Why were
the most fearsome warriors

our planet has ever known

stopped by a flaming light
in the sky?

How did Columbus use
secret knowledge of the heavens

to cheat death
in the New World.

Our ancestors saw a universe
filled with bad omens.

But what were they
really seeing?

And how did fear
of these objects in the sky



change history?

Ancient mysteries,

shrouded
in the shadows of time...

Now, can they finally
be solved

by looking to the heavens?

The truth is up there,

hidden among the stars

in a place we call...

For our ancestors,

the skies were filled
with equal parts wonder...

And terror.

Bad omens from above
changed human history...

again and again.

Four centuries
before the birth of Jesus,



it is a time of war...

Athens versus Sparta.

And this time
it's for keeps.

Control of the ancient world
hangs in the balance.

Thousands of brave warriors,

hundreds of ships at sea...

all poised for action,

waiting for the command
from their leaders

to unleash hell on Earth.

And then...

An omen...

a strange light in the sky...

a fiery object
said to be visible

for 75 days...

as both sides nervously watch
and wait.

It's an omen.

But what does it mean,
and what is the object?

The Spartans devise a strategy.

They send an envoy
to the Greeks,

saying that with such
a bad omen overhead,

battle would have to wait.

As days stretch into weeks,

the Greeks grow confident
no attack is coming.

So that is when
the Spartans strike--

a sneak attack...

decimating the Greeks

and marking the beginning
of the end

for the nearly 30-year-long
Peloponnesian War.

The final toll is staggering--

more than 3,000 Greek men
captured and killed on the spot.

It couldn't be any clearer.

To the Greeks, the defeat
was definitive proof

the Greek Gods had sent
the sky object as a bad omen.

If you're in the middle
of a war

and you see an omen
in the skies,

that's gonna mean
something bad.

It's something to be
concerned about.

(narrator)
But what was the object
in the sky

that brought an end
to nearly 30 years of war?

One account
of the object describes,

"A fiery body of vast size,

"as if it had been
a flaming cloud,

"not resting in one place,
but moving along

with intricate
and irregular motions."

Could the ancient Greeks
have been describing a meteor?

Also known as shooting stars,

meteors make a fiery display
as they streak across the sky.

But since they're actually
small rocks and bits of dust

burning up as they fall
through the atmosphere,

meteors don't last very long.

They're visible
for a matter of seconds,

not days or months,
as the Greeks described.

Asteroids take longer
to pass through the sky,

but because they're dark,

almost none of them are visible
to the naked eye.

What the ancient Greeks
could have seen, however,

was a comet.

Mythmakers fear comets,
because they linger in the sky

for weeks,
even months at a time.

The idea of seeing a comet
for 75 days, I could buy that.

(narrator)
On average, only one bright
comet is visible

to the naked eye each decade,

meaning the appearance
of one in the sky

would've been a rare
and remarkable event

to the ancients.

Comets are made of materials

that we find readily
here on Earth.

They're largely made up
of dry ice,

frozen carbon dioxide
like we exhale,

as well as water, a little bit
of organic material,

ammonia, not too different than
what's in cleaning materials,

and even silicates
like in sand from the beach.

When you mix all
of these ingredients together,

you have the recipe
for a comet.

(narrator)
When the ancient Greeks

described
a flaming cloud in the sky,

is this
what they were seeing--

a comet, changing
its position in the sky

almost nightly,

faster than anything
they had ever seen?

And what gives these icy objects
the fiery appearance

that spooked the ancients?

(Grazier)
As a gross overview,
a comet has two parts.

It has the solid part

and the long tail.

When people talk
about a comet's tail,

they're really talking
about two tails.

You see, a comet has
a dust tail--

the material, the solid bits,

the icy bits
that come off the comet--

and an ion tail--

ionized material from the comet
pushed away by solar wind.

(narrator)
Comet tails come
in all shapes and sizes.

But they also have
one thing in common--

the tail points away
from the sun,

no matter what part of its orbit
the comet is in.

As comets streak

into the inner part
of the solar system,

they slowly heat up
from the sun's heat.

As they heat up,
they grow an amazing tail

that doesn't streak out
behind them,

the way
a lot of people think,

but rather it's pushed
by the sun's radiation.

How we're able to
see that tail

depends on where we are
relative to the sun

and the comet.

And sometimes
that tail's pushed out

such that as the comet
flies away from the sun,

it flies into its own tail.

(narrator)
Comets may hold the answer

to one of the most
fundamental questions

about our planet.

On Earth,
where there is water,

there is life.

But just where did
that water come from?

Many have proposed
the water in Earth's oceans

was delivered by comets

crashing into the planet.

Others believe the water
hitched a ride

inside rocky asteroids.

Which theory is correct?

Enter Rosetta--

a mission designed to survey
then land a space probe

on a comet.

Rosetta and its lander,
called Philae,

tracked down a comet
known as 67P

after a ten-year journey
through space.

So how do you get
to a comet?

Loop around our solar system
multiple times,

including a daring
low-altitude skim

less than 200 miles
above the surface of Mars.

Then jam on the brakes.

After establishing
a stable orbit of the comet,

the Philae lander
was deployed,

and the world watched
and waited.

[applause]

The gravity on a comet
is so little

that the pull on that spacecraft
was no different

than the weight of a piece
of paper on your hand.

The lander had to be
equipped with harpoons

that would help attach it
to the surface of the comet.

When those didn't deploy,

the lander actually bounced,

making it not just a day
for the first comet landing,

but also the second.

(narrator)
Unfortunately, when Philae
finally came to est,

it was partially
in the shade of a cliff.

That meant that the solar panels
were only receiving

about an hour and a half
of sunlight,

instead of the six hours
that we were anticipating

that they would.

However, the Rosetta team
deployed all

of its instruments
at once,

trying to get as much data
as they possibly could

before the lander
ran out of batteries.

(narrator)
Despite the bad luck,

the Rosetta mission was able
to make a significant discovery.

It appears unlikely
a comet like this one

brought water to our planet.

Its vapor has
a different chemical mix

than we see on Earth.

That leaves asteroids
as the most likely source

of our water...

an important finding
that could tilt

decades of debate.

Even if comets
didn't bring water here,

they do carry with them
a set of beliefs,

superstitions, and omens

unlike anything else
in the night sky.

Were the ancients right

that there's one comet
in the solar system

with the power to cause
the birth of two-headed animals?

[bleats]

And could that same comet
end all life on Earth?

(narrator)
Normandy, France,

the year 1066...

a grand army prepares
for an invasion

that could change
the course of history.

They are
Norman French soldiers,

descendents of Vikings
and warriors,

and they are led by a man

who will become known
as William the Conqueror.

William's army is on the move,

inspired by an omen
in the night sky.

And what a sight it is.

Where once there was only
the normal stars and planets,

now on view is an object
four time larger in the sky

than Venus

and a quarter of the brightness
of a full moon.

The Normans take
the comet's appearance

and the disruption
in the heavens

as an omen that God
is angry at their enemy--

the English king Harold.

Comets have been associated
with the death of kings,

because comets linger
in the heavens.

Meteors,
they just come and go,

but comets linger in
the heavens,

signaling that the gods
are angry at the king

and the king must die.

(narrator)
October 14, 1066--

the Normans have crossed
the English Channel

and engaged King Harold
and his forces

at the Battle of Hastings.

It's time to fight
and, for thousands of men,

time to die.

When the battle finally ends,

6,000 men are dead,
more English than Norman.

That includes King Harold,

whose advisors had warned him
the object was a bad omen.

And it works.
The Normans won.

The Anglo-Saxons lost.

The history
of the English-speaking world

changed forever.

(narrator)
The battle and the omen

live on
in a famous work of art.

(Markley)
The Bayeux Tapestry is
an incredible work of art.

It's 230 feet long,

and it tells the whole story
of the invasion.

It shows them crossing
the English Channel.

It shows them in battle.

It shows
the Anglo-Saxon shield wall.

It even shows
the Anglo-Saxon king dying

with an arrow in his eye.

(narrator)
And there, hovering over it all,

is the omen that set
it all in motion--

not just any comet,

it's Halley's Comet.

Halley's Comet
has been recorded

by Chinese astronomers
and on ancient stone tablets,

dating back
thousands of years.

The comet swings by the sun

once every 75 or 76 years,

making it the only comet
visible to the naked eye

that you can see
twice in a lifetime.

It seems nearly every time
Halley's Comet swings by Earth,

it shakes up our history.

The ancient Swiss thought
of Halley's Comet

as such a bad omen,

they blamed it for everything
from earthquakes

to the birth
of two-headed animals.

[bleats]

Following its appearance
in 1456,

it is said the Pope
excommunicated the comet,

thinking it was a bad omen
for Christian soldiers

battling the Ottoman Empire.

But is fear of Halley's Comet
just superstition,

or could it really cause
earthly Armageddon?

Imagine...

November 27, 2061...

As amateur astronomers gather
for a look at Halley's Comet,

stunning news is confirmed.

There has been a change
in Halley's orbit,

and it's headed straight
for Earth.

If a giant comet were
to crash into the Earth,

it would really ruin
your day.

First of all, there would be
a blinding flash of heat

traveling
at the speed of light,

infrared radiation,
heat radiation coming out.

Then a few seconds later,
the shockwave.

The shockwave traveling
near the speed of sound,

pulverizing everything
in its wake.

And then after that,
perhaps we would have a tsunami

coming at you.

Remember that Halley's Comet
is about 20 miles across,

about the size of Manhattan,

but the object which destroyed
the dinosaurs

65 million years ago
was only 6 miles across.

And so, if we had
Halley's Comet

hit the planet Earth,

it would be
not just a city buster,

it would be a planet buster.

(narrator)
Even today
we have the technology

to track and photograph
Halley's Comet

at every point in its orbit.

In the future, there is time
to develop a plan

to save humanity.

If we have a comet and we've
been following its orbit,

for many, many years
and we know it very accurately

and we can predict
the collision with Earth

decades ahead of time,

then we might be able
to do something

about that comet
before it hits the Earth.

You can send a spacecraft up
there and tug it a little bit

so that a bit at a time
we pull it away

in such a way
that it doesn't hit the Earth.

(narrator)
The truly dangerous comets

are the ones
we've never seen before--

objects with orbits so long

that they come in
once every thousand

or ten thousand years.

(Filippenko)
For a comet coming in
for the first time

in recorded history,

there's essentially nothing
we can do

with today's technology.

We have a few months' warning,
maybe one year at maximum.

We don't know the trajectory
very well.

We can't send up
the spacecraft.

So I'm sorry to say
that if there's a giant comet

with Earth's name written on it

heading toward us
for the first time,

it's good-bye, cruel world.

I'm sorry.

A really bad omen
that actually comes to pass.

(narrator)
If a new comet is approaching
Earth for the first time

in recorded history,

it's definitely coming in fast.

Visualizing the motion
of a comet in its orbit

is kind of like visualizing
the motion of a ball

being tossed into the air.

It starts out
moving fairly quickly,

slows at the apex,

and accelerates back
towards the ground.

This is, in fact,
a partial orbit.

Let's look at one full orbit.

So, as a comet moves
away from the sun,

it's moving fairly quickly

until, under the sun's
gravitational influence,

it slows, reaching the apex,

a point we call
the aphelion.

From that point on,

it accelerates
back towards the sun, coming...

back to its original position.

(Filippenko)
With our newfound understanding
of the dangers that lurk

in the solar system,

we do have to be aware
that some of these bad omens

indeed do turn out
to have terrible effects

on humans on Earth.

(narrator)
While our ancestors
feared comets,

they were even more frightened
of another bad omen in the sky--

one that arrives with
a sudden shadow and the terror

of daytime turned into
a potentially endless night.

(narrator)
In the tenth century,

a group of Vikings
are on top of the world.

They've set sail from what
we would now call Norway

and are bound
for the Shetland Islands

off the coast
of modern-day Scotland.

And while they may be ready

for anything the North Sea
can throw at them,

nothing can prepare them
for what is happening

in the northern sky.

One minute,
bright sunlight.

Then suddenly, a shadow starts
to blot out the sun.

What's going on?

Norse mythology tells
of twin wolves

who track the sun and moon.

When they catch them
and devour them,

that will signal
the beginning of Ragnarok--

the end of all things.

[horse neighing]

For a Viking, the question
he must face is simple

yet chilling...

is this it?

With the midday sun
getting darker by the second,

is this the end of the world?

The Vikings weren't
the only ancient people

who used creatures
to explain the unexplainable.

In ancient China,
it was thought that a dragon

devoured the sun.

This is the bad omen

that is a solar eclipse.

Historically, in China,

people would go outside
and bang pots,

because they perceived
the solar eclipse

as a bad omen of a dragon
consuming the sun,

and by banging the pots, they
were scaring away the dragon.

In the case
of a total solar eclipse,

it actually gets
reasonably dark.

It can last several minutes.

You don't know that the sun's
gonna come back.

You could go wild

with uncertainty
about your future, and, indeed,

ancient cultures
would sometimes react

in very, very negative ways
to an eclipse.

There would be mass murders.

All sorts of things
could happen.

Mayhem would break loose.

(narrator)
In 585 BC,

a six-year conflict

near present-day Turkey

is thrown into turmoil
when the day becomes night.

There's some evidence
that on May 28, 585,

a battle between
the Lydians and the Medes

was stopped because
of a solar eclipse.

They were into the sixth year
battling each other,

and near sunset,
a solar eclipse occurred.

(narrator)
The battlefield goes quiet,

as all involved
look to the heavens.

(Filippenko)
And they said,
"The gods are giving us a sign.

We shouldn't be fighting."

So they made a truce
and even offered

their own sons and daughters
to the other side for marriage.

That was a good thing,

even though it was initially
thought of as a bad omen.

(narrator)
So what's really going on
during a solar eclipse?

(Filippenko)
A solar eclipse occurs

when the moon goes exactly,

or nearly exactly,
between Earth and the sun.

So the moon's disc

blocks part
or all of the sun's disc.

(Johnson)
And the sun is so important
in our lives that the idea

of something going in front
of it and blotting it out

would be just
a remarkable event.

So you can imagine
this would create fear,

or perhaps
it would be interpreted

as a sign
of something terrible to happen.

(narrator)
But none of this would matter.

Eclipses on Earth
wouldn't be possible

without an amazing coincidence.

One that isn't duplicated
anywhere else

in our solar system.

The sun and the moon
just happen to be

the same apparent size
in our sky.

That's because,
while the moon's diameter

is about 400 times smaller
than the sun's,

the moon itself
is 400 times closer to us.

(Kaku)
It's a celestial accident
that the disc of the moon

just covers the disc
of the sun.

And so these eclipses
have fascinated astronomers

for thousands of years.

(narrator)
The perfect fit of Earth's moon

makes eclipses possible.

But will that
always be the case?

Year by year, inch by inch,

the moon is moving
further away from Earth.

Someday in the distant future,

the moon will no longer
completely block the sun.

The moon continues to go away
from the Earth,

appearing smaller and smaller
in the sky.

That means that
in about half a billion years,

total solar eclipses
will no longer be possible.

So we've lived
in a special time

where we can enjoy
the beauty

of what the ancients thought
were bad omens,

and we now understand them

and can appreciate them
for how beautiful and rare

they really are.

(narrator)
Our ancestors also saw
lunar eclipses as a bad omen.

A lunar eclipse foretold
famine and disease,

according to the Chinese.

In Japan, lunar eclipses
were associated with earthquakes

and meant disaster
was on the way.

But does science support
this superstition?

If the sky turns dark,
will the ground roll and roar?

(narrator)
The ancients looked warily
on the night sky,

where sudden changes
might foretell impending doom.

The disappearance of the moon
in a total lunar eclipse

struck fear
into our ancestors.

But did it also,
as some believed,

cause earthquakes.

Some people in Japan,
in particular,

have thought that
total lunar eclipses cause

bigger or more frequent
earthquakes.

So lunar eclipses
were bad omens for that reason.

(narrator)
December 21, 2010--

for only the second time
in the last two millennia,

a lunar eclipse takes place

on the day
of the winter solstice.

In Japan, a massive
7.4 earthquake

triggers tsunami warnings
along the coast.

30 years prior,
a 7.7 quake

killed 25,000 people in Iran,

just a few hours
before the start

of a total lunar eclipse.

Could it be that when
the sun and moon

are in perfect alignment,

their combined gravity has
enough influence on the Earth

to trigger killer quakes?

The truth is that if you look
at long-term statistics,

you don't see this.

(Filippenko)
And physically, we can't think
of a reason why

a total lunar eclipse
or a partial lunar eclipse

would lead to more earthquakes.

It's bunk, basically.

(narrator)
A lunar eclipse happens

when the Earth's shadow
covers the moon.

If the disappearance of the moon

wasn't frightening enough
to ancient eyes,

during some eclipses,

the moon
actually changes color.

When our moon passes through
Earth's shadow,

it can turn blood red.

To the ancients,
that was a bad omen.

From the moon's perspective,
during a total lunar eclipse,

the moon is receiving
the sunlight

of all the sunrises
and sunsets on Earth.

And that light is predominantly
orange or red,

having traveled
through all of that air

and dust and whatnot
in the atmosphere.

(narrator)
As frightening as they were,

some sky watchers
eventually realized

that eclipses were predictable.

Omens in the sky are something
that you can make use of.

If you have superior knowledge
of eclipses, you can use it.

(narrator)
One person to take advantage
of that knowledge,

the famed explorer
Christopher Columbus.

In 1502, Columbus
and his crew

were stranded in Jamaica
and running out of food.

And the natives, basically,
were no longer thinking

that there is something
special and God-like,

you know?
They were losing their oomph.

(narrator)
Columbus is said to have access
to a perpetual almanac

that contained
more than 300 pages

of sky tables, charts,

and eclipse forecasts.

Columbus happened to know that
there was a total lunar eclipse

coming up the next night,

and he told the natives
that if they don't continue

to provide food,
the moon will go away.

Sure enough, the next night,
a lunar eclipse did occur,

as predicted by Columbus.

And so this raised him,

his stature, in their eyes,

and the next day they started
providing goods and services

once again.

(narrator)
It's been said that all warfare
is based on deception.

And some of the world's
greatest military leaders

have used deceptions
based on lunar eclipses.

The famed T.E. Lawrence,

better known as
"Lawrence of Arabia,"

is said to have timed his
assault on Aqaba

to a lunar eclipse.

Muslims Turks holding the town

were distracted on
the night of the eclipse.

As was their tradition,
they were busy making noises,

firing rifles and banging pots

in an effort to rescue the moon.

Using his knowledge of science
and superstition,

Lawrence and his Arab fighters
were victorious,

taking the town without losing
a single man.

September 20, 331 B.C.

Alexander the Great
is outnumbered

and headed for defeat

at the hands of Emperor Darius
of Persia.

Alexander the Great
was very smart.

There's a lunar eclipse.

You know it's an omen
of something.

You don't want your own army
to become disheartened,

so he used it as
a propaganda coup.

(narrator)
As the moon glows blood red,

Alexander's secret weapon
goes to work

and the great leader
launches a desperate plan

to save himself,
his men

and his empire.

(narrator)
In the ancient world,
bad omens from the heavens

were exploited
to change history.

On a battlefield in Mesopotamia,

Alexander the Great
turns a lunar eclipse

into a weapon of fear.

Alexander the Great spread word
via his astrologers

that the lunar eclipse meant
that the Persians

were going to lose.

His men take heart,

they make sure they spread
this message

to the enemy army...

[blows landing, men shouting]

They lose heart.
It's a fantastic coup

in terms of undermining
the enemy morale.

Of course it helps them
win the battle.

(narrator)
The bad omen, paired with

Alexander's tactical
superiority

is a devastating blow
against the Persians

as Alexander romps to victory

and into history.

Nearly 300 years later,

another omen would play a part

in history's
most notorious betrayal

and assassination.

From a hilltop
in the mountains north of Rome,

observers gather and watch
with trepidation

as an unblinking red dot
rises in the night sky.

The date, March 15, 44 B.C.

The Ides of March.

Julius Caesar is dead.

And now, it appears
Mars is angry.

The Roman had
whole colleges of priests

who were responsible
for interpreting the omens.

Omens in the sky,
omens from the birds,

omens everywhere.
They were the guys you went to.

What does it mean?

(narrator)
On the night of Caesar's death,

it was said that Mars was
especially bright and red,

as though marking a triumph
over the emperor.

More than 2,000 years later,

we know Mars isn't red
because it's angry.

Mars is red, literally,

because it is rusty.

(Filippenko)
There's leftover water on
the surface of Mars

and below the surface.

Leftover from when Mars formed.

And it rusts or oxidizes

the iron in the surface.

(narrator)
But why would Mars be brighter
on certain nights,

giving it extra power
as an omen?

The distance between Earth
and Mars varies

as the two planets orbit
the sun.

Earth circles the sun

once every 365 days.

Mars takes 687 days,

meaning that at some times
during their orbits,

Earth is getting closer
and closer to Mars.

Finally, the planets reach
the phase

astronomers call opposition.

That's when Mars and the Sun are
on opposite sides of the Earth.

It is during opposition
that Mars is closest to Earth

and shines its brightest.

When the sun is directly
between Mars and Earth,

the planets are
farthest away from each other,

about seven times farther

than they were
during opposition.

Ancient observers
often saw omens

in the bright celestial objects

we know today as planets.

But could a planet be
responsible for

an ancient mystery

buried in the jungles

of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula?

For years, archaeologists
studying the Mayan ruins

at Chichen Itza

wondered why twin staircases
on one of the buildings

are out of alignment.

Could it be somehow connected
to the astronomer priests

who wielded tremendous power
in Mayan culture?

By offsetting the stairs,

what message were they trying to
send across the centuries?

We do know this...

the Mayans called Venus
"the great star."

Mayan leaders would
always account for

the position of Venus

in their calculations for
battles and raids.

When Venus is close
to the horizon,

it can shimmer,
it can change colors.

Venus has been reported
as a UFO

more times than any
other object in the universe.

You can imagine, to the
ancients, when it was doing

those weird things, those
twinkling and changing colors,

that could be seen
as a bad omen.

(narrator)
The Mayans would
actually block their chimneys,

so what they feared as
the evil light from Venus

couldn't get into
their homes.

If you look at Venus,
orbit after orbit,

month after month,
you'll notice that

it traces out a pattern
in the sky.

These different patterns are
actually reflected

in Mayan architecture.

(narrator)
And so, the mysterious message

is revealed.

The misalignment of
the grand staircase

at El Caracol,

an ancient Mayan observatory,

actually matches perfectly

with Venus's most northern
appearance in the sky.

Bright lights in the sky
always attracted the attention

of our ancient ancestors.

And while some were
merely ominous,

others crackled with
the threat

of imminent attack.

(narrator)
In the desolate
northernmost reaches of Alaska,

darkness reigns.

Polar bears are common here.

So, too, are elk

and other dangerous creatures

that serve as
both predator and prey

for the hearty few who make
this land their home.

It is dark and scary

and potentially deadly.

Suddenly, a man out hunting
sees it,

a threat known to his people
since ancient times.

So he does what comes
naturally,

what generations of native
Alaskans have done before him.

He draws his weapon

and prepares to defend himself

from the swirling
electrical madness

he sees in the skies.

Blazing lights.

A mysterious and
ever-changing symphony of color.

Today, we know this phenomenon
as the aurora borealis,

the Northern Lights.

And for many cultures,
like the Eskimos

living near Barrow, Alaska,

the aurora is a bad omen.

Auroras, the northern
or southern lights,

have often been seen as
bad omens because

there are these
ghostly lights in the sky

and they're flickering
and they're of unknown origin

to the people watching them.

Are the gods
angry or something?

(narrator)
So what causes
this sparkling show in the sky?

Aurorae are
fascinating examples

of the interaction between

the sun and us here on Earth.

(Walkowicz)
The sun has what we call
space weather.

These are solar flares or other
phenomena associated with

the sun's magnetic activity

that shower our planet with
not only high energy radiation

but also energetic particles.

Earth has
a magnetic field.

Now, if that magnetic field
was in isolation,

it would look sort of
like a cored apple.

But it's not in isolation.

The solar wind charged particles
streaming out of the sun

impinges upon Earth,

flattening the nearside
and extending the farside

of that field.

It also has holes at

the north and the south

called polar cusps.

Solar wind can flow into
the polar cusps,

creating the aurora borealis

and the aurora australis.

As they excite the gases
in our atmosphere,

depending upon the gases
that get excited,

you get different
colors.

These different gases are
exactly what are used to make

the neon signs that we see
down at the deli.

When you see that green palm
tree or that red open sign,

those are different gases
being energized

and it's the light escaping

as the electrons
change energy levels

that we perceive
as these different colors.

(narrator)
The spectacular light show
an aurora provides

isn't the only way
to experience one.

As it turns out, you can
actually hear an aurora too.

There have always been stories
of people hearing sounds

associated with the aurora.

Popping and whistling noises.

But it was unclear
if these were just stories

or real,
until recently

when scientists were
finally able to record

that, under very certain
circumstances,

you can hear whistling
and popping noises

associated with the sun's energy
interacting with

our own Earth's atmosphere.

(narrator)
What causes the sound is still
a bit of a mystery.

Researchers think the same
solar energy waves

that generate the spectacular
lights in the sky

are also responsible for
the sounds closer to the ground.

The phenomenon of auroras
is an ancient mystery

that stretches across
the cosmos.

(Gay)
Jupiter has amazing aurorae that
we see on a regular basis.

Saturn has aurorae.

And even Venus.

(narrator)
Omens, portents, and signs

are how ancient people
made sense of their universe.

Today, astronomers are making
remarkable discoveries

that help explain
the science behind

these once terrifying events.

One of the things that's
really amazing about

the time that we live in,
is that all of these things

that were very scary
for our ancestors

we now understand
through the lens of science.

(Markley)
Humans always want to know
about the future.

Whether you're an ancient Roman,
an ancient Chinese,

a person living in America
in the 21st century,

we want to look for signs
in nature, signs in the heavens,

that can help us
understand things,

can reassure us that we know

what will happen in the future.

As we learn more about
the universe,

knowledge is
replacing fear.

People go north
to see the aurora.

They take eclipse cruises.

Yesterday's bad omens
are today's tourist attractions.

(narrator)
This, then, is humanity
at the dawn of the 21st century,

striving to understand
and experience first hand

what men and women
through the millennia

formerly saw as bad omens.