00:00It is so close to us, at least in terms of space, but there are still so many things that we do not know about the Moon.
00:08For example, Chinese researchers have collected samples of the Moon's soil and have discovered that there could be billions of tiny spheres of glass on the lunar surface.
00:18What is really impressive is that they could contain huge amounts of water.
00:24These tiny spheres form when meteorites hit the Moon at crazy speeds, sometimes at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.
00:32When this happens, a strong explosion sends pieces of lunar crust flying in the air like blown corn.
00:39As these pieces of crust cool down, they create small balls of glass that look like tiny sparkling spheres.
00:47These balls are so small that they look like crumbles scattered on the surface of the Moon.
00:53Scientists call them impact glasses.
00:57And it turns out that the lunar soil contains a secret ingredient that can produce water.
01:02Oxygen.
01:03Thus, these small balls of glass are like tiny capsules containing oxygen.
01:08There is a particular type of wind called solar wind, composed of protons and electrons.
01:14When the protons collide with the capsules, they mix with the oxygen inside and end up producing water.
01:22But the most amazing part is that some of these balls of glass containing water are hidden under a layer of lunar dust called regolith.
01:32So if we go on a mission to the Moon, we will have water tanks hidden underground.
01:37It's as if someone had prepared canned food for our survival.
01:42Because you can't drink this water directly from these balls of glass, you are supposed to collect them and boil them in an oven to extract the water.
01:50When they cool down, they release steam, so that you will have ordinary liquid water in a bottle.
01:57This way, the astronauts on the mission will be able to stay up there longer, taking into account these secret reserves.
02:04And the coolest thing is that these balls of glass are very common on the Moon.
02:08They are scattered from poles to equator, which means that there could be enough water even for generations to come and live there one day.
02:19There are also other places in space where we can find water.
02:23For example, scientists have discovered an extremely vast cloud of water vapor located 12 billion light years away from us.
02:31Not within reach, of course, but it's still good to know.
02:37And here we are talking about something bigger than we can imagine.
02:41We think the cloud contains at least 140 billion billion times the amount of water present in all the oceans and seas of our home planet.
02:50Imagine swimming or diving underwater there.
02:54It's like diving into a huge water balloon that travels through space.
02:58I mean, you wouldn't have a way out, given the amount of water there is, but hey, at least the view would be beautiful.
03:08Water is actually omnipresent in our solar system.
03:12It mainly occurs in the form of atmospheric gas or ice, and sometimes even in liquid form.
03:18There are probably also many aquatic worlds in our galaxy.
03:22Scientists from the University of Copenhagen have discovered new fascinating evidence on the formation of planets in our solar system and beyond.
03:31Their computer models have confirmed the interesting theory of rock accretion,
03:36which means that planets are formed from small pieces of ice and dust.
03:43This theory is based on the observation of disks around young stars composed of rocks representing several hundred terrestrial masses.
03:51As these rocks accumulate and agglomerate, they form protoplanets and, finally, planets.
03:59What is even more fascinating is that water could be an important ingredient in the formation of this planet.
04:04This also means that water may not have arrived on Earth by chance, for example, via icy comets hitting our planet.
04:13Instead, it may have been present from the very beginning.
04:17Perhaps the planets of our neighborhood, like Mars and Venus, were also formed with water.
04:25Scientists also say that we should not assume that we are a particular case simply because we have water.
04:31There could be many planets in our entire Milky Way galaxy, as large as the Earth, which also contains water.
04:38This means that there could be many worlds in our galaxy, with continents and oceans.
04:44This could also mean that there is a large amount of life out there waiting to be discovered.
04:51But it is not because there is water somewhere that this place would be a good choice for interstellar summer holidays for future generations.
04:59Water on many planets is probably trapped in the rock or filled with underground oceans.
05:06Researchers have examined more than 40 exoplanets that we know.
05:10They are all smaller than Neptune and are located around what we call red dwarf stars.
05:16These represent 80% of all the stars we know in our galaxy.
05:21They are colder than our sun and are also the smallest type of burning hydrogen star.
05:28And there could be more planets with huge amounts of water than we thought.
05:33In addition, this water can represent up to half the total mass of these planets.
05:38Scientists know this because they have studied the density of these exoplanets.
05:43They have realized that they are too light to be entirely made up of rocks.
05:48I mentioned Venus before.
05:50Today it is a hot and rocky planet, a little smaller than Earth, with a dry atmosphere and only a few traces of water vapor.
05:58It is also very poor in oxygen.
06:01But at its beginning, the planet was perhaps a completely different world with liquid water and even clouds,
06:07which means that it is possible that there is life there.
06:11And if Venus had once looked like Earth, with oceans and moderate temperatures,
06:17it would be great if it had remained that way because these conditions seem conducive to the development of life.
06:23We would probably be writing letters to some of our space friends there or visiting them already.
06:30But the scenario took a different direction for Venus about 700 million years ago.
06:35The planet became so hot that it lost all its oxygen.
06:39This is why it could not form liquid water on its surface.
06:42Instead, it developed a thick atmosphere composed of carbon dioxide,
06:47which made this world even hotter than Mercury, even if it is twice as far from the Sun.
06:54Even the ice comets that would bombard it could not bring water to its surface.
06:59We cannot do it either artificially.
07:02It would be like trying to grow a delicate flower in a desert.
07:06No matter how much water you give it, if the conditions are too dry and rigorous, the flower will not survive.
07:13But some people thought that the water in the atmosphere of our neighbor could be enough for the development of life.
07:21In addition, scientists have discovered a compound called phosphine, which is often associated with living organisms on Earth.
07:29Maybe in the past it was enough.
07:32Today, the amount of water on Venus is so insignificant that even our most resistant microbes,
07:38extremely tolerant of dryness, could not survive there.
07:42Phosphine is still an interesting discovery that deserves to be studied.
07:47But it is not something that indicates that there could be life on Venus.
07:51Jupiter could be a more likely option for this.
07:55The Galileo probe crossed the atmosphere of this magnificent gas giant to measure the temperature and activity of the water.
08:02It discovered that there was enough water for life to exist in the clouds of the planet.
08:07But unfortunately, there is not enough nutrients there.
08:11In addition, there is too much ultraviolet radiation, so most organisms would not be able to survive there.
08:19And everyone knows Europe, one of Jupiter's moons.
08:22It is this very place in our solar system that has the best chance of sustaining life.
08:27Its icy crust probably hides an ocean below.
08:31And because of the gravity of Jupiter that affects Europe, the ocean is not frozen but remains liquid.
08:37The ocean could even be hot under this icy crust, perhaps thanks to hydrothermal chimneys.
08:44Encelade, one of Saturn's moons, may have even more chances of saving life than Europe.
08:50And it is one of the best candidates to have a beautiful hot and salty ocean under the surface.
08:55It has the most impressive ice geysers, which project about 1,000 tons of water into space every hour,
09:01accompanied by salt, organic molecules and other materials.
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