Starts With A Bang Podcast

When we search for life in the Universe, it makes sense to look for planets that are similar to Earth. To most of us, those signatures would look the same as the ones we'd see if we viewed our planet today: blue oceans, green-and-brown continents, polar icecaps, wispy white clouds, an atmosphere dominated by nitrogen and oxygen, and even the modern signs of human activity, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions, planet modification, and electromagnetic signatures that belie our presence.But for most of our planet's history, Earth was just as "inhabited" as it is today, even though it looked very different. One fascinating period in Earth's history that lasted approximately 300 million years resulted in a planet that looked extremely different from modern Earth: a Snowball Earth period, where the entire surface, from the poles to the equator, was completely covered in snow and ice. This isn't just speculation, but is backed up by a remarkable, large suite of observational and geo