Another Earth opens on a night of dramatic occurrences. Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling), a brilliant seventeen-year-old who’s just gotten into MIT, causes a car accident which leaves a man in a coma and kills his wife and son. Just as she steps out of the car, shell shocked, to survey the damage she’s caused, the radio broadcasts that a new planet has been discovered in the night skies—one that scientists believe could be very similar to Earth.