A Beautiful Planet

A Beautiful Planet is a 2016 American documentary film that explores Earth by showing IMAX footage, recorded over the course of fifteen months by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.[4] It is narrated by actress Jennifer Lawrence.

A Beautiful Planet
Theatrical release poster
Directed byToni Myers
Produced byToni Myers
Written byToni Myers
Narrated byJennifer Lawrence
Music byMicky Erbe
Maribeth Solomon
CinematographyJames Neihouse
Edited byToni Myers
Production
company
Distributed byIMAX Entertainment[1]
Release date
  • April 29, 2016 (2016-04-29) (United States)
Running time
46 minutes[2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$25.7 million[3]
Most of the reviews for A Beautiful Planet admired the singular perspectives that can be seen from the ISS, like this image of southern lights. (The Space Station's solar panels are visible at the upper right.)

The film examines daily experiences of the astronauts,[5] who represent the respective space agencies for the United States, Russia, Europe, and Japan. This multinational crew lives and works on the Space Station, an orbiting symbol of cutting edge technology[6][7] and a peaceful international cooperation.[8][9]

Content

A Beautiful Planet utilizes large-scale cinema screens to display worldwide capital cities illuminated by skyglow,[10] lightning storms seen from above clouds, a glimpse into the eye of Super Typhoon Maysak, polar auroras viewed from low Earth orbit, the Great Lakes of North America locked in ice and snow, and reefs below the surface of the Caribbean Sea.

Astronaut Terry Virts has said that while he was in space,

"we did science and spacewalks and all kinds of things, but I think this movie is the most important thing I did because it brings space to people ... Most people can't go to space, unfortunately, so it's a way to share our experience with people on Earth."[11]

The big picture

The movie illustrates space-views from the International Space Station (ISS) of geographical realities that may not be visible from land. These images include annular lake, Lake Manicouagan in Quebec, Canada, and the Earth's blue sky. From the ISS, Lake Manicouagan is seen a large ring-like structure,[12] which scientists believe to be the flooded inner ring of an impact crater that formed when a meteor struck Earth during the Late Triassic. As opposed to the ground-view of a thick sky enveloping the Earth, ISS images on the atmosphere's edge presents the Earth's sky as a thin layer relative to the Earth's diameter, roughly like the skin on an apple.[13]

A sequence within the film looks down from the Space Station, into the eye of a tropical cyclone, attempting to provide additional perspective and clarity to this natural phenomenon. Super Typhoon Maysak was an extremely powerful typhoon that was filmed from the ISS in the spring of 2015. At peak intensity, its winds would have qualified as a Category 5 hurricane had it developed in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Northwestern Pacific basin. According to Butch Wilmore (the ISS commander when Maysak was filmed), when you look down into the cloud free center of a cyclone, "you see power. A funnel 25 miles in diameter at the center of a hurricane or typhoon [causes you to] realize: That's energy. It is powerful, powerful energy."

A Beautiful Planet is shown on movie screens, amplifying the large scale geographical features on Earth.

It shows a snow-capped segment of South America's Andes, "the longest [continental] mountain range in the world." Because they stretch across so much varied terrain as they wrap around the globe from Venezuela north of the Equator, through the Tropics, and down to southern Argentina, the Andean Mountains have their own list of "greatest and utmost" locations: they contain "some of the most extreme climate zones on Earth, from ice fields to deserts," and they include Aconcagua, the highest peak in The Americas, as well as the highest in the Southern Hemisphere.[14]

The Iberian Peninsula seen from the Space Station's vantage point in low Earth orbit. This photo shows all of Portugal, Spain and Gibraltar, and parts of Morocco, Algeria, France, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic.

The movie contrasts Earth's driest and wettest areas by showing an overhead sequence of the Namib Desert's red sands on the east cleft by the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean's Skeleton Coast on the west. The film repeats the consensus[15] that the Namib is the "oldest desert" on Earth, having a desert climate longer than any other region in the world, and being around tens of millions of year longer than the Sahara.[16] An opposed argument question exactly when and how the Sahara turned from a green savanna into a desert.[17]

Spaceship Earth

A number of the astronauts in A Beautiful Planet said that it was inevitable they would begin to see parallels between Earth and the Space Station. According to Kjell Lindgren, "The ISS is a microcosm of the Earth ... You have consumable resources, and you have to be mindful of how you use those resources. It reminds us that we have to be better stewards of what we have, and be better crew members of Spaceship Earth."[18] The film begins with a light-years-long, computer-generated trip through swarms of stars in the Milky Way; the compressed trip ends with the Solar System.[19] The planetary system is in fact "the only place we know, in all the universe, to harbor life."[20]

Mount Fuji in Honshu, Japan, was photographed in February, 2016, using the most powerful camera lens then aboard the ISS. The photograph shows details of Japan's famous volcano, including switchbacks in the trail leading to the summit crater and features of the Hōei flank crater.

In the film, Jennifer Lawrence's narration calls Earth's atmosphere "a delicate cocoon of air that shields us from our star's radiation." The atmosphere's ozone layer filters out much of the harmful ultraviolet light (or "UV rays") produced by the Sun, yet some sunlight reaches Earth's surface, providing plants with energy. UV rays can cause skin cancer.[21] Catastrophic damage to the ozone layer may have contributed to the End-Permian extinction[22] (also known as "The Great Dying"[23]).

Spaceship Earth has a magnetic field which prevents cosmic rays and the stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun from harming living beings on Earth.[24] In the narrative words of A Beautiful Planet, the glowing, curtain-like auroras that the astronauts admire in the film "show that shield in action. Because we have this magical magnetic field protecting us, we have our forests, and oceans, animals, and people. It's why ours is a planet of life." Mars does not have a planetary magnetic field,[25] "its atmosphere was ripped away from the planet by the solar wind.[26] If you could stand on Mars today, you would find a landscape of lifeless desolation; very cold, and very dry."

Super Typhoon Maysak viewed from the ISS, with peak winds of approximately 195 km/h (120 mph).

One of the current challenges in maintaining Earth's planetary "life support system" is global warming.[27] The film uses time-lapse photography to depict how Earth's warming climate is causing the Greenland ice sheet to melt, using footage of the Jakobshavn Glacier calving. If the entire island's ice sheet were to melt, it would likely cause sea levels to rise 20 feet[28] (or more[29]), possibly inundating low-lying cities[30] like New Orleans.

Another impediment to sustaining Earth's long-term habitability is deforestation. A Beautiful Planet shows kilometers of ground in Madagascar that have been cleared of trees to make way for agricultural fields, pasture, or simply as the result of logging companies cutting down the trees without replanting more. This evolutionarily isolated island suffers from widespread soil erosion and loss of habitat for its many unique animals (like the lemur). The movie also reveals what the burning of the Brazilian rainforest looks like from space, revealing long plumes of smoke which the astronauts see rising from the Amazon jungle. The burning trees adds species extinction, greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and curtail the capacity of the forest to reduce carbon dioxide and increase oxygen.[31]

Even though A Beautiful Planet contains a few dire warnings regarding climate change and environmental degradation, filmmaker Toni Myers wanted primarily to give moviegoers positive reasons why they might take better care of the Earth. She told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to inspire people especially as to how beautiful the planet is, how fragile it is, how complex and diverse and varied it is ... Most of all I wanted to show why we want to find solutions to look after our planet. It's our only one."[32]

The astronauts

The film's cast consists of ISS crew from many nations. The astronauts who appeared in the movie included: Scott Kelly (NASA / USA), who spent roughly a year in space during a long, uninterrupted stay aboard the International Space Station, Samantha Cristoforetti (European Space Agency / Italy), who has spent more time in an uninterrupted spaceflight than any other European astronaut, Barry "Butch" Wilmore (NASA / USA), commander of the 42nd expedition to the ISS from November 10, 2014 to March 11, 2015, Terry Virts (NASA / USA), commander of the 43rd expedition to the ISS from March 11, 2015 to June 11, 2015, Anton Shkaplerov (Roscosmos / Russia), the commander of the Soyuz spacecraft that brought Cristoforetti and Virts to the Space Station, Kjell Lindgren (NASA / USA), a medical doctor who had previously worked as a flight surgeon supporting medical operations and space-station training at NASA's Johnson Space Center,[33] and Kimiya Yui (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency / Japan), a space explorer who was made Head of the JAXA Astronaut Group after he returned from his stay on the Space Station.[34]

There are five space agencies that operate and pay for the ISS: the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities (Roscosmos), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Of these five, the Canadian Space Agency is the only agency that did not have an astronaut present on camera in A Beautiful Planet. (Canada's contribution to the film: the IMAX Corporation, the movie company responsible for the film's towering and detailed visual images, is headquartered in Ontario, Canada, and Toni Myers, the movie's writer, director and producer, was also a Canadian.)

The Space Station

A Beautiful Planet documents the movements of the International Space Station, a habitable, artificial satellite which is sometimes visible from the ground[35] as it zooms by 400 kilometers overhead, completing each 90-minute lap around the Earth. Approximately the size of an association football pitch (also known as a "soccer field" in the US),[36] it is possibly the most expensive object ever built by human hands, costing around $100 billion.[37]

The International Space Station is "a research lab, training facility, and observatory, all powered by the Sun."

According to NASA,[38] the Space Station has about the same amount of internal pressurized volume as a Boeing 747 aircraft; it orbits fast enough to experience, on average, 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours; it has 2 bathrooms, a gym and a 360-degree bay window; approximately seven tons of food and other supplies are required to support a crew of three for about six months; more than 100 US-telephone-booth-sized rack facilities can be housed in the Station for operating the spacecraft systems and research experiments; and it provides more livable room than a conventional six-bedroom house.

Research lab

The Space Station is a scientific laboratory,[39][40] and many of the experiments on the ISS use the astronauts themselves as willing research participants to determine how spaceflight affects the human body. On March 28, 2015 Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko arrived at the Space Station to commence a much-discussed one year mission to study the health effects of long-term space travel.[41] Scientists hope to analyze their mission and discover ways future space explorers might adjust to the effects of weightlessness, isolation, radiation exposure, and stress they would encounter in a 30-month-round-trip expedition to Mars, or in an even longer trip beyond Mars.[42] Shortly after Kelly's arrival at the Space Station, A Beautiful Planet shows him participating in an initial examination of his eye, to study and correct any vision decline reported by many astronauts.[43]

Former astronauts Scott Kelly (right) and Mark Kelly are the subjects of a groundbreaking twin study on the health effects of long-term space travel. Both cooperated with numerous medical tests during and after Scott's year long mission aboard the ISS.

Scott Kelly has an identical twin, Mark Kelly, who is also a retired NASA astronaut. The brothers have agreed to be the subjects of an unprecedented twin study; Mark stayed on Earth during Scott's eleven months aboard the ISS so that researchers could examine how an extended spaceflight affected Scott's body compared to Mark's.[44] While Scott was in space and then continuing after he returned, both twins gave periodic blood samples and DNA swabs, and they underwent body scans and many other medical tests.[45] In the epilogue to his 2017 book about the year long mission, Scott wrote that the very preliminary assessments of the data from the mission and from the twin study were promising:

The data is still being analyzed as I write this, and the scientists are excited about what they are seeing so far. The genetic differences between my brother and me from this year could unlock new knowledge, not only about what spaceflight does to our bodies, but also about how we age here on Earth. The Fluid Shifts study[46] Misha [Mikhail] and I did is promising in terms of improving astronauts' health on long missions. The studies I did on my eyes - which don't seem to have degraded further during this mission - could help solve the mystery of what causes damage to astronauts' vision, as well as helping us understand more about the anatomy and disease processes of the eye in general.

— Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery (2017)[47]

In the critical taste test phase of an experiment with space farming, Kelly and his fellow Expedition 44 crew-members Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui are shown sampling red romaine lettuce that was grown in the Space Station's "Veggie" (or Vegetable Production) System. The Veggie series of experiments are designed to ensure that future explorers visiting the Moon, Mars or an asteroid have access to fresh produce, and also to provide them with an opportunity for relaxation and relief from stress or boredom,[48] like therapeutic gardening.

Earth observatory

When Samantha Cristoforetti arrives at the Space Station she greets crew members already aboard, and then moves to a portal window to look at the Earth from roughly 400 kilometers above the surface, orbiting at 28,000 kilometers an hour.

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti in the Space Station's Cupola module, where many of the movie's scenes of Earth were filmed.

Describing her first view from the Station, Cristoforetti says, "I just couldn't resist taking a peek. I could see the Earth majestically flowing by,[49] almost like a river. I don't know what happiness is, but I was definitely happy at that time."

A Beautiful Planet provides close-up footage of the Cupola, a domed, 360 degree observation bay on the nadir (Earth-facing) side of the Station's Tranquility module / Node 3. It has six outwardly-angled windows arranged around a central, circular window which faces directly toward Earth. The circular window measures 80 centimeters in diameter; it is the largest window ever sent into space.[50] Many of the movie's scenes were filmed from the Cupola, and the astronauts themselves are shown taking photographs and gazing through its windows at views of Earth.

The Cupola was constructed by the European Space Agency for the utilitarian purpose of giving astronauts a workstation where they could observe the Earth, the exterior of the Station, visiting vehicles, and the operation of the ISS robotic arms.[51] It also serves as a rejuvenation area where astronauts can relax and seek inspiration.[52]

Training facility

Much of the "training facility" aspect of the ISS mission is geared toward providing practical experience so that astronauts, space agencies, aerospace engineers and scientists are prepared for much longer space missions, including a possible human presence on Mars or the Moon.

Astronauts on the Space Station are required to spend approximately two hours each day engaged in physical training to prevent loss of bone density,[53] muscle atrophy, and weightlessness.[54] In the film, Terry Virts is shown receiving a cardiovascular workout by running on an ISS treadmill and Samantha Cristoforetti does strength training using an ISS exercise machine[55] that mimics weightlifting exercises. Both machines have adaptations that permit them to function in a micro-g environment. The treadmill has a harness and bungee cord straps that keep astronaut runners from floating away from it, and the "weightlifting" machine replaces the weights (which don't "weigh" anything in orbit) with two canisters that create small vacuums against which exercising astronauts can pull.[56]

Barry "Butch" Wilmore conducting a spacewalk in 2015, with Earth visible in the background. Terry Virts accompanied Wilmore on this EVA; the inverted reflection of Virts is visible in the visor of Wilmore's EMU space suit.

The position of the Space Station in low Earth orbit is effectively just outside of the Earth's appreciable atmosphere, and is a training area in which astronauts can put on space suits, leave the ISS life support systems behind, and conduct spacewalks - or "Extravehicular activity (EVA)." An EVA may be undertaken to make repairs, reconfigure the Station to accommodate new modules, deploy new equipment, etc. The ISS orbits high enough to permit an astronaut and their sponsoring nation to gain valuable EVA experience outside of the atmosphere, but it is low enough to avoid the increased radiation exposure[57] and other difficulties associated with climbing further out of Earth's gravity well. (If the Earth is compared to a 16 inch beach ball, the orbit of the ISS would be about half an inch above the beach ball's surface.[58])

Butch Wilmore and Terry Virts teamed up to perform three spacewalks over a nine day period from February 21 to March 1, 2015, and A Beautiful Planet shows footage from some of their EVA activities outside the Space Station. While they worked, both explorers were acutely aware that spacewalks are inherently dangerous. This is especially true if something unexpected happens,[59] but many of the significant hazards an astronaut is likely to encounter are predictable and difficult to avoid completely. In the movie, Virts explains that possible punctures to their EMU spacesuits were a particular concern because "you 'walk around' by grabbing onto things with your gloves ... The outside of the Space Station [is] a jungle of wires and equipment and metal bars and trusses. If you accidentally sliced your glove or your spacesuit on one of the sharp edges, that could create a leak, and if that leak were big enough, you would die." Describing some of the other EVA hazards, Wilmore elaborates that the temperature is "almost 300 degrees [Fahrenheit] on the Sun side of the Space Station, [but when] you get in the shade, it's minus 275 degrees. You feel that inside the suit. My fingertips in the sunlight would feel like they were on fire almost ... [Also,] you have a safety tether attached to the Station, and it's on a reel ... You can be upside down, twisted, inverted; you can completely lose your spatial awareness about where you are and what your attitude is, and you can easily get tangled up in that safety tether if you're not cautious. Every single movement you make, you're making an effort to think [things] through."

Exoplanet Kepler-186f

The final scenes of A Beautiful Planet briefly examines an important extrasolar planet (a planet outside of our planetary system) which was discovered in 2014. The planet, Kepler-186f, was the first approximately-Earth-sized planet found to be orbiting within its star's habitable zone, or orbital area where liquid water could conceivably exist without freezing or vaporizing. It was the first discovery of an Earth-sized planet on which life could reside.[60]

An artist's conception of the Kepler-186 planetary system, with the Earth-sized planet Kepler-186f shown on the right, the system's red dwarf star at the lower left, and the four other known planets in the system faintly visible in orbits closer to the host star.

The name "Kepler" comes from its discovery by the Kepler Space Telescope, or "NASA Discovery Mission Number 10," a spacecraft observatory which is designed to find exoplanets in our region of the Milky Way Galaxy that are Earth-size and smaller, and that are within the habitable zone.[61] The planet orbits Kepler-186, a red dwarf star[62] about half the size and mass of the Sun[63] which lies in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, about 500 light-years away.[64] The number "186" in the planet's name refers to the order in which its planetary system was discovered while scientists processed all of the data produced by the Kepler Space Telescope. The planet is designated "f" because the first planet to be discovered in the system is designated as planet "b," the second discovered is "c," etc., and it was the fifth planet to be discovered.[65]

Although the idea of interstellar travel to another planetary system like Kepler-186 is not feasible given current astronautics technology, some spaceflight futurists (like Samantha Cristoforetti) find value in speculating about the currently-impossible.[66] In the film, Cristoforetti expresses the hope that someday future human explorers might have the opportunity to investigate the Kepler-186 system in person.

Production

A Beautiful Planet was written, produced and directed by Toni Myers, who created seven other space-themed IMAX films[67] such as Hubble 3D and Space Station 3D. The film premiered in Manhattan on April 16, 2016 and made its theatrical debut on April 29, 2016.[68][1] Despite being announced as distributor, Walt Disney Studios later removed association with the film prior to its release.[2]

Jennifer Lawrence narration
Jennifer Lawrence at the movie's 2016 premiere in New York City: "It was an honor for me to lend my voice to such a beautiful film."

A Beautiful Planet is narrated by actress, Jennifer Lawrence. Discussing her part in the movie's production, she said, "It was an honor for me to lend my voice to such a beautiful film that will educate audiences."[69]

By narrating a science-themed IMAX documentary, Lawrence joined a group of well-known actors who recorded voice-overs for similar IMAX films, including Tom Cruise (narrated Space Station 3D) and Leonardo DiCaprio (narrated Hubble 3D).

When IMAX's CEO Richard Gelfond was asked to compare how much money IMAX had paid Cruise, DiCaprio and Lawrence to narrate their respective documentaries, Gelfond replied that none of them did it for the money.[68]

Digital IMAX cameras

The astronauts who filmed the movie used digital IMAX cameras, and much of the footage they produced was shot through the seven window panes on the Space Station's domed Cupola module.[70] The use of digital cameras permitted cinematographer James Neihouse to review image sequences almost immediately and make suggestions for retakes, and was a lightweight alternative to using IMAX film which can be developed only when returned from space.[71]

This night photograph of the American Midwest was taken from ISS Expedition 46. The city of Chicago is visible on the shore of Lake Michigan, as are Earth's atmosphere, part of the Space Station, and the approaching sunrise.

Myers and Neihouse coordinated with their astronaut camera crew to use of the digital cameras' augmented capacity for filming in dim light. According to Myers, "We would not have the nighttime scenes without the digital dynamic range ... What the digital capture did was totally open up that night world to us, with stars, cities at night, lightning and other phenomena that you see at night, like aurora."[72]

There is speculation that once the movie's production team downloaded the image sequences, the cameras used for this film were incinerated on the ISS "trash dump" aboard a Cygnus resupply ship, due to the cost of returning items from the Station.[73] (The Cygnus is a one-way cargo vehicle that is designed to burn up as it re-enters the atmosphere.[74]) The total cost of sending and retrieving a single kilogram of supplies to and from the Station and Earth may exceed $40,000.[75]

Reception

A Beautiful Planet has been well received by customary film reviewers, popular science publications, and audiences.

All 13 movie reviews listed on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film positive reviews. This movie received a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 79% audience-enjoyment rating.[76]

Much of the praise for the film centered around its unique cinematography. A review in the British newspaper The Guardian called it a "large-format eye-opener [which] achieves a breathtaking new perspective on Earthly life,"[77] while another appraisal in The New York Times asked, "how can your eyes not bug out when given 3-D views of Earth, taken from space, on a stories-high [IMAX] screen?"[2]

See also

References
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