24 Hours on Earth Page #3

A waterproof makes it all

much more bearable.

Although...

this young orangutan

hasn't quite got the hang of

making his just yet.

But over drier parts of our planet,

all this pent-up heat energy

can spell disaster.

Turbulent air creates static charges.

Lightning.

Each strike five times hotter than

the surface of the sun.

Parched forests

take like tinder to a match.

The fire will eventually

burn itself out,

but the smoke lingers,

scattering all but the very longest

wavelengths of light -

reds and oranges.

While the Earth smoulders,

the sunset burns extra deep.

It takes, on average,

just two minutes

for the sun to sink

below the horizon.

Such a short time, in which

everything changes for life on Earth.

The sun's great energy,

its light and heat, is suddenly lost.

All over our planet, families regroup

and find the safety of their beds...

..as drowsy hormones

flood back into their bodies,

pulling them into sleep.

But not everyone's

quite ready to let the day go.

Above a limestone cave in Borneo,

a hawk, a day flyer,

has not yet flown to its roost.

What it's waiting for

is just beginning to stir.

Inside the cave, a storm is brewing.

The beating wings of millions

of wrinkle-lipped bats.

They use sound

more than sight to navigate,

so leaving the cave before dark

won't help them find food.

But there's just so many of them

that flying any later would

cut into valuable feeding time.

By pushing out into this last,

brief window of light,

they're taking a huge risk.

The hawk is just one of many

that's ready for them.

Our eyes would struggle

in this twilight.

But the hawk's eyes

can pick out fast-moving objects

in the faintest glimmer of light.

It's a twilight battle

of the senses -

sonar versus eyesight.

In the last moments before

complete blackness,

eyesight still wins.

As the very last of the sun's rays

are lost behind the horizon...

..for the first time,

the planet is in true darkness.

The night-time world.

The darkness holds allure for a whole

host of permanent night dwellers.

They've acquired

very different senses...

that don't rely on sunlight.

This scorpion has spent the daylight

hours hiding deep in crevices,

to avoid being eaten.

But when the sun is quite absent,

she becomes the predator.

Her small eyes are all but useless

in the darkness.

Instead, she senses prey

through vibrations.

VIBRATIONS PULSE

The movement of

a single grain of sand

gives her all the information

she needs to attack.

But just as she closes in on

her first meal of the night,

she freezes.

Sensing danger.

Even in the dead of night,

our sun is still not lost.

Its rays pass by the dark side

of the Earth...

..and reflect off its moon.

A ghost sun.

The full moon rises

high and bright...

..and the scorpion begins to glow.

Ultraviolet light reacts with

fluorescent chemicals

in the scorpion's armour.

Her eyes can't see moonlight, but

her whole body is a warning system,

telling her that her cover is blown.

She needs to hide,

before a predator sees her.

So she uses the fluorescence

to her advantage...

..as a light sensor.

Any part of her armour in shadow

will stop glowing...

..telling her she's found safety.

The scorpion is not alone

in her fear of the moon.

Known as lunar phobia,

many nocturnal species

around the world will hide away...

..and choose to go hungry,

rather than risk coming out

under the reflected sunlight.

But to a hunter in Southeast Asia,

a bright-lit night

is an opportunity to be seized.

Every night, the rainforest's insect

population comes under attack

from a palm-sized primate.

Don't let the wide eyes fool you,

this family of spectral tarsiers

are ruthless hunters.

With saucer-like eyes,

each as big as their brain,

this family use

the faintest of starlight

to see the forest

in incredible detail.

And when your eyes

are this sensitive,

all this reflected sunlight

is a gift.

The family aren't about

to miss a moment of

the best hunting night

of the month.

In the moonlit forest, the family

might triple their hunting success.

But it's all too easy for a tarsier

to have eyes bigger than its stomach.

In the early hours, full to bursting,

the family call it a night.

It's nearly morning.

The moon is hanging

just above the horizon.

Soon, it will be overwhelmed

by the first light of dawn.

But in the Arctic, the sun is casting

a new and different power over

the last few hours of darkness.

Particles thrown from the sun's

surface across 90 million miles

of empty space, to reach the Earth.

They are directed by the Earth's

magnetic field to the poles.

This cosmic storm

creates a magical aurora.

The spectacular Northern Lights.

But behind this beautiful

light show...

..is a sinister force...

..that impacts on whales, with

potentially lethal consequences.

The humpbacks have been relying

on the Earth's magnetic field

to chart their night-time course.

WHALE SONG:

But the Earth's magnetism

is becoming distorted

under this barrage of solar energy.

It's believed whales

can become disorientated.

Thrown off course.

They might even strand onto the land.

But soon, it will be morning,

and the sun compass

will bring them back on track.

Dawn.

The very first light of a new day.

The sun's power will soon be felt...

..and the world is waking...

..ready to begin

another ordinary day...

..on our extraordinary planet.

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