The CGI or computer animated drama/documentary takes place on Darwin IV, a planet 6.5 light years from earth, with 2 suns and 60% of Earth's gravity. Having identified Darwin as a world that could support life, Earth sends a pilot mission consisting of the Mothership Von Braun and three probes: Balboa, Da Vinci, and Newton. This robotic fleet is responsible for finding and assessing any life forms on Darwin IV. Initially, the expectation is to find microscopic life, but the probes soon find themselves in the middle of a developed ecosystem teeming with diversity of life of all sizes. The drama on Darwin IV is motivated by real science missions, such as the NASA Origins Program and the NASA / JPL Planet-Finder Mission, as well as the European Space Agency's Darwin Project. "Alien Planet " is a cosmic expedition along side Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Jack Horner, Craig Venter, and George Lucas, and NASA's Chief Scientist Jim Garvin. No longer just the domain of science fiction, "Alien Planet" dramatizes an exciting and possible answer to what alien life really looks like and when we'll find it.—Anonymous
A computer-animated speculative documentary created for the Discovery Channel, ALIEN PLANET posits a situation not far in the future, when human technology has developed artificial intelligence advanced enough to be sent into space to search for alien life. Scientists have identified Darwin IV, a planet 6.5 light years from the Earth, as a possibly life-sustaining environment, with two suns and 60% of earth's gravity. They send two AI probes, Newton (Ike) and da Vinci (Leo), to investigate the planet, expecting to find microscopic life forms. Instead, they find an ecosystem teeming with a diversity of life that rivals earth's own, with danger and wonder aplenty. The ensuing action was written according to the speculations of a team of top scientists in the field, including Stephen Hawking (A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME); J. Craig Ventor, who mapped the human genome; string theorist Michio Kaku; biologist David Moriarty; and many others. [D-Man2010]
