Now, open up a book on human history and you’ll see its dotted by the establishment of empires, the traversing of great oceans, or harnessing the earth's power for the furthering of humankind’s dominance.

But what if it was the very rock beneath our feet and the wind above us, the very earth itself that dictated how we did those things?

Not only that, what if the cosmos had a direct impact on the emergence of human life as we know it?

Prof Lewis Dartnell, Astrobiology Research Scientist at the University of Westminster, and Author of 'Origins: How the Earth Made Us'.