Many of us look at images of the planets of our solar system and see magnificent landscapes and stunning views of other worlds. But filmmaker Erik Wernquist sees humans living there. Go to full screen, HD, and turn up the sound:

I’ve watched this film about a dozen times now and I still cannot get over how incredibly amazingly cool this is! Wernquist takes us on a journey through time from nomads wandering the desert 10,000 BCE (underneath a sky filled with planets, no less) to future humans hiking on Europa, receiving shipments on Mars, to domed cities on Iapetus, and finally to clouds lit by ringshine as seen from a dirigible in Saturn’s upper atmosphere. All set to a heart jumping soundtrack, and narrated by Carl Sagan reading from Pale Blue Dot.

Just…wow.

Best of all, the imagery Wernquist chooses are not only sourced from actual NASA and ESA spacecraft, but he accurately imagines the realities of living elsewhere in the solar system. For example, with a surface gravity of just 0.14g, you would be light enough on Titan to strap on some wings and fly through the methane atmosphere. And sure enough, that’s exactly what we see:

Or how about base jumping off the tallest cliffs in the solar system, which happen to be  on Uranus’ moon Miranda? With a surface gravity of just 0.018g, you’d have plenty of time to enjoy the view and could safely land on your feet with some simple retro rockets.

Or just enjoying a pleasant day inside a pressurized rotating asteroid lit by an artificial sun.

Wernquist takes us on a journey that, for now, exists only in our dreams and speculations. But he manages to make these scenes seem so real that maybe, one day, they will be. Nothing that is depicted in this film is outright impossible, we only have to have the will to make this happen.

Update: I was initially going to offer a scene-by-scene breakdown to help explain what’s being depicted in each scene, but Erik has already done that here so by all means check it out!