The Goldilocks Zone

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Jupiter and Saturn pulled the solar system in a very special way. Without Jupiter, Earth might not have had any water. And without Saturn, things could have been even worse. This whole thing almost reminds me of one of those Rube Goldberg type contraptions where you pull a string and launch a ball which lands perfectly in a cup or something. One tiny thing goes wrong and the whole thing falls apart.

Life as we know it needs water, but scientists can’t figure out where Earth’s water came from. Answering that question is just one piece of an even bigger mystery: “Why are we here?”

This is the first episode in our new three-part series, Origins, about the beginnings and boundaries of life on Earth.

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