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00:00:00Science served as a virtual time machine, peering into the past to deliver remarkable
00:00:12revelations, while also advancing amazing projections about the future, changes which
00:00:21will impact human lives, and all life on the planet. Now, as this year on Earth comes to
00:00:30a close, a new inquiry, which could yield clues to the origins of our solar system, is just
00:00:37getting underway.
00:00:47November 26, 2018, the NASA probe InSight barrels into the atmosphere of Mars at more than 14,000
00:00:54miles an hour. Controllers back at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been monitoring
00:01:00the spacecraft for six long months. Now, they can only sit, watch, and hope that their creation
00:01:09survives as it endures six minutes of hell on its perilous descent to the Martian surface.
00:01:14InSight should now be experiencing the peak heating rate. Portions of the heat shield
00:01:20may reach nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it protects the lander from the heating environment.
00:01:29InSight has passed through peak deceleration, standing by for parachute deploy.
00:01:36Telemetry shows parachute deployment, radar powered on.
00:01:44Teach shield separation commanded.
00:01:51Lander separation commanded. Altitude 600 meters. 200 meters. 50 meters, constant velocity. 17 meters,
00:01:59standing by for touchdown. Touchdown confirmed.
00:02:06Yeah!
00:02:07I got it!
00:02:08I got it!
00:02:09I got it!
00:02:10I got it!
00:02:11I got it!
00:02:12I got it!
00:02:13I got it!
00:02:14I got it!
00:02:15I got it!
00:02:16I got it!
00:02:17I got it!
00:02:18I got it!
00:02:21And to the Marco team there.
00:02:37The next step? Waiting for InSight's solar arrays to open and provide power to the probe.
00:02:49Finally, the proof arrives from across space. A dust-speckled image of the landing site,
00:02:57as well as an image of the craft, safely on the Martian surface.
00:03:02These first couple of pictures of a place no human has ever seen before
00:03:06also remind us that in order to do science, we have to be bold and we have to be explorers.
00:03:13For over 50 years, we've visited Mars with an increasingly powerful array of orbiters, landers and rovers.
00:03:21But these missions largely just scratch the surface.
00:03:26To really understand the Red Planet, we need to somehow look inside it.
00:03:31The basic idea of InSight is to map out the deep structure of Mars for the very first time.
00:03:38We're going to map out the thickness of the crust, the size of the core,
00:03:43sort of get the first map of the inside of Mars.
00:03:46InSight will peer deep into the Martian crust to uncover tectonic activity,
00:03:56and reveal the process that helped shape the rocky planets of our solar system.
00:04:01The first major science experiment to deploy will be a seismometer that can measure faint vibrations
00:04:11throughout the crust caused by Mars quakes.
00:04:16We'll be able to use the signals they produce that travel throughout the entire body of the planet
00:04:21to probe the interior of Mars, to look at the size of the core,
00:04:25to understand that molten versus solid structure.
00:04:30Mars is a record of an earlier geologic era.
00:04:34Mars pooled faster so that it never had plate tectonics, as far as we can see,
00:04:39and it no longer has a magnetic field.
00:04:42It preserved what it looked like early on when it formed,
00:04:46and therefore have a record of what the solar system and the rocky bodies might have looked like
00:04:51about four billion years ago when they actually were created.
00:04:57A second instrument aboard InSight, HP Cubed, will go even further,
00:05:02burrowing deep into the planet's surface to take its temperature.
00:05:09So inside this part of HP Cubed is a mole.
00:05:13It's like a self-hammering nail.
00:05:15So it'll hammer down into the surface of Mars to a depth of five meters.
00:05:23The probe will periodically measure the properties of the soil as it burrows into the planet.
00:05:30Embedded on a trailing tether are 14 sensors that will monitor the temperature at various depths beneath the surface.
00:05:38The results could provide scientists with stunning new insight about the earliest days of our universe.
00:05:45It's amazing. We're going to be the first mission to actually look at the inside of Mars,
00:05:51and probe the unseen interior, which we can not only apply to Earth,
00:05:56but also formation of rocky planet formation across the universe.
00:06:01As one Mars mission begins, another comes to a close.
00:06:06One of Mars' pioneering explorers may have just completed its record-setting expedition.
00:06:12Initially slated for a 90-day mission, the Opportunity rover shocked engineers back on Earth,
00:06:20as it soldiered on for nearly 15 more years.
00:06:23Opportunity has spent more operational days on the surface of the Red Planet than any other craft,
00:06:29beating back images of the Martian landscape and increasing our understanding of our neighbor until June 10th of this year.
00:06:39We haven't heard from Opportunity since.
00:06:42Ten days earlier, the MRO satellite saw a dust storm brewing.
00:06:47It would engulf the planet, making it one of the most extensive Martian storms on record,
00:06:51and concealing Opportunity's solar panels in dust, cutting off its power.
00:06:57The JPL team at NASA has been sending frequent commands to the rover ever since,
00:07:02sometimes multiple commands daily.
00:07:05They hope that the heavy winds that normally sweep across Mars from November to January
00:07:10will help dust off the rover's energy source, breathing life into it once more.
00:07:14NASA will continue to signal Opportunity until January 1st of 2019.
00:07:22If Opportunity remains silent, the team will decide then what to do next.
00:07:28But elsewhere in our solar system, other planetary missions remain well underway and continue to unlock mysteries.
00:07:35Like NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, which was recently extended until July 2021.
00:07:43Already revealing Earth-sized storms,
00:07:46a magnetosphere much more powerful than originally predicted,
00:07:50and a first look at Jupiter's poles.
00:07:55Instead of having just one polar vortex like we have here on Earth,
00:07:58the Juno spacecraft has spotted as many as eight swirls here on Jupiter's north pole,
00:08:06and five on its southern pole.
00:08:11The craft will continue to peer deep into the planet, including the red spot,
00:08:16to better understand the gas giant.
00:08:19While space exploration demands advanced technical wizardry,
00:08:23living on our liquid planet can demand advanced engineering as well.
00:08:29On October 28th, 2018, pictures of the high tide in Venice go viral around the world.
00:08:36This is nothing new for the Venetians who are used to it,
00:08:40but the intensity caught everyone off guard.
00:08:43It had been ten years since a high tide had exceeded the threshold of 1.5 meters above sea level.
00:08:50On October 28th, at 2 p.m., 75% of the city was underwater.
00:08:57The usual solutions, such as walkways, pumps, and barriers, were not enough this time.
00:09:05Inevitably, restaurant-goers were forced to eat their pizza with their feet in the standing water.
00:09:11Only a system of floodgates at the four lagoon entrances can protect the city from flooding.
00:09:22This solution, called Mohs, is based on an idea that is as simple as it is innovative.
00:09:29It consists of 78 flapgates like these.
00:09:35They each weigh nearly 330 tons and will lie at the bottom of the lagoon.
00:09:41When needed, the flapgates will be pumped with air until they rise in a straight line,
00:09:47blocking the flow of the tide coming in.
00:09:49Despite its simplicity, Mohs is the most ambitious and complex hydraulic engineering project ever attempted in the world.
00:10:00It took years to assemble the concrete platform on the sea floor.
00:10:05The individual components that make up the platform have been built here.
00:10:09In this site on the mainland, the engineers call them caissons.
00:10:15They may look like simple four-story buildings under construction, but each and every detail is special.
00:10:21From the concrete to the steel, all elements must endure the salt water.
00:10:27Each caisson weighs 24,000 tons and requires a special trolley fitted with pistons capable of raising them gently.
00:10:37Moving them to the launch pontoon.
00:10:41Then, once it's semi-submerged, like an iceberg, the caisson is dragged by the tugboats until it reaches its final home.
00:10:50This is the most delicate phase.
00:10:53The caisson needs to be lowered slowly until it rests on the ballast that's been prepared for it on the sea floor.
00:11:01It needs to be aligned with the previous one in such a way that the trimming between one caisson to the next is completely watertight.
00:11:14The platform has been designed to contain an underwater tunnel that crosses the entire stretch of sea.
00:11:19Here, the technicians can go down and fix the hinges of the flap gates.
00:11:32Back on the surface, the flap gate is now ready to be installed.
00:11:35It's time for the last flap gate of this inlet to be mounted.
00:11:55But the operation on number 19 gets off to a bad start.
00:12:00No, no, in fact.
00:12:02Look, the wind doesn't seem to want to lower it for now.
00:12:06And the wind doesn't even bother me.
00:12:09The divers swim underwater to prepare the slots that will host the hinges.
00:12:26Now for the most sensitive phase of the descent, the hooking of the hinges.
00:12:39And...
00:12:57So now I need to rotate it slightly up.
00:12:59Leg wet.
00:13:00And slightly lower.
00:13:03Ok, now I see.
00:13:05And, in my opinion, it's OK.
00:13:06the cables gradually lower the flap gate that allows the hinges to perfectly slide into the
00:13:15fitted slides video cameras film the decisive moment the technicians have to constantly make
00:13:23small adjustments to compensate for all external interference the technicians know the hinges are
00:13:33the heart of the system all electronic connections with the flap gate pass through them it's touched
00:13:48down so far so good but it's not over yet the technicians in the sea tunnel must now complete
00:13:57the hooking by rotating it 90 degrees and securing it to the platform a message arrives from underwater
00:14:08it's perfectly watertight operation over
00:14:27nineteen flat gates are in place by the end of the year all mobile barriers are scheduled to be in
00:14:36place the first tests on those already installed have started but it'll take months of tuning and
00:14:43testing before Moses operative only then will the world discover if this colossal megastructure can
00:14:49save Venice and its ancient beauty elsewhere though we now know all that falls below history's water
00:14:57line may not be lost forever near the Marshall Islands in an isolated area of the South Pacific a team of
00:15:08underwater archaeologists and divers is hoping to preserve an important relic of the 20th century's
00:15:13last great conflict the plane is a Douglas TBD-1 Devastator there's the US Navy's frontline torpedo bomber in
00:15:22the opening days of World War II this one was lost in a raid on Jalewit atoll in February of 1942 the
00:15:33weather was extremely poor on the day of the mission they ultimately had to jettison their bombs in the
00:15:38ocean and tried to return to the ship but got lost and had to turn around and ditch in the lagoon at Jalewit
00:15:45miraculously the entire crew survived the ordeal leaving behind a reminder of their mission 120 feet
00:15:54under the sea as of today there are no examples of this type of aircraft preserved in any collection
00:16:03or museum anywhere in the world it's really something of a miracle that the airplane has survived to this
00:16:08day in the shape that it's in but that won't last forever the forces of nature are already taking
00:16:15hold it will go away the team is in a race against time to preserve the plane in its entirety for the
00:16:23world to see but first they'll use the latest in photogrammetry virtual reality and light our laser
00:16:32scanning technology to create a model with sub millimeter accuracy as far as we're aware this
00:16:42particular technology hasn't been employed to any great extent and underwater archaeological sites by
00:16:49employing this technology in this way we're able to create a hyper accurate version of this site in the
00:16:57space of a few hours of dive time the 3d photogrammetry involves a diver with a still camera rig swimming around and
00:17:05around the wreck taking thousands of photographs in a single dive
00:17:13the lidar scanning is a bit more involved you have to place the scanning head at several positions around the wreck
00:17:19the lidar point cloud itself is comprised of 92 million individual points that were collected in a
00:17:29space of a few hours in less than a week we accomplished more and with greater accuracy than
00:17:37we have managed in five previous expeditions to this airplane the results one of the most accurate models of a
00:17:45world war ii airplane ever to be created by employing this technology in this way we've taken a step
00:17:53forward or a step into the 21st century and it gave us the ability to create a site map with sub millimeter
00:18:03accuracy something that we'll be able to consult time and again the ultimate goal is to see this airplane
00:18:10recovered conserved and placed on public exhibition this is really our last best chance to see
00:18:18one of these airplanes saved for future generations
00:18:252018 saw innovations illuminate discoveries from the depths of the sea and across the tide of time
00:18:32seven decades after the initial discovery of the dead sea scrolls a cigar box of dark and damaged fragments
00:18:43was located in a storage drawer by researcher or enablement these missing puzzle pieces unexamined since
00:18:51the 1950s included text which fit neatly into the scripts of the temple scroll and the great psalm scroll
00:18:58two thousand-year-old treasures conserved curated and catalogued by the israeli antiquities authority
00:19:08infrared imaging and careful analysis revealed previously undetected writing they used the system
00:19:15that we developed for them and took some stuff again that no one thought had anything on it or
00:19:22believed that it was anything useful american greg bearman a retired physicist from nasa's jet propulsion
00:19:29laboratory collaborated with a team from mega vision a digital imaging company to create the platform used
00:19:36by the israeli antiquities authority not only to preserve the scrolls for posterity but to see the unseen
00:19:44so the technology in general is what's called imaging spectroscopy
00:19:48and it combines digital imaging which gives you an image with spectroscopy which is what it's the
00:19:56standard physicist tool to understand what things are made out of
00:20:05nina shore leads the dead sea scrolls project for the iaa
00:20:10beginning in 2011 she and her team set out to use multi-spectral technology to image every single piece
00:20:16in their possession digitizing the results and posting online for all to see it's a massive undertaking
00:20:25which will still take years to complete we're talking about world heritage and it's part of our
00:20:33mission to bring this heritage and to share it with the world and these conservation efforts can
00:20:39from time to time reveal obscured texts like the characters on those recently discovered fragments
00:20:46literally hiding in plain sight bearman compares his multi-spectral technology to the difference between
00:20:53a black and white photo and a color image more light information offers more detail
00:21:01the reason that we don't see this faded text is that's what happened is in that part of the spectrum
00:21:06what's visible is the parchment has gotten dark and the ink is naturally dark so there's very little
00:21:12contrast between the two so you don't see it and it turns out for reasons that actually no one knows
00:21:19that as you go further in the infrared the parchment gets brighter so as the parchment gets brighter
00:21:25and the ink stays relatively the same you begin to get contrast so that's what's going on
00:21:29the visible spectrum seen by the human eye ranges between about 400 to 700 nanometers bearman first
00:21:40experimented with this method 25 years ago by dialing a filter to allow his camera to register longer
00:21:46wavelengths and struck gold and as we nothing nothing nothing nothing we got to like 800 a little bit of
00:21:54text 850 got to 900 950 it was just nice brought nice dark text on a white background
00:22:08and bearman has gone one step further recording images at 12 different bands of light
00:22:15it's a monochrome camera which is it doesn't have the the color filters on it so what we're doing
00:22:20the multi-spectral imager is that we provide the illumination in each wavelength most of the text
00:22:27that's illegible is made legible when you go out to 940 nanometer we have a 940 nanometer led
00:22:35and we take a single image and that's the the one that the tech scholars are interested in
00:22:41so while archaeologists continue to scour desert caves on the hunt for additional cultural treasures
00:22:51and new technologies emerge to study what's already in hand sometimes uncovering pieces of the past
00:23:00is accomplished simply by revealing what's been hiding in plain sight understanding these complexities
00:23:07requires mental clarity but unfortunately for a growing number of people illness affecting brain
00:23:14function steals their most basic cognitive ability in the united states alone more than 5 million people
00:23:21live with alzheimer's disease a number that's expected to more than triple by the year 2050
00:23:30but some alzheimer's researchers including professor christian holscher at england's lancaster
00:23:35university believe the foundation for treatment and perhaps even a cure may lie in our existing inventory
00:23:41of drugs so we thought maybe the drugs that are already on the market to treat diabetes perhaps they
00:23:49could be helpful to avoid this development happening in the first place recent studies had already shown
00:23:58positive results of some diabetes drugs to combat ailments of the brain like alzheimer's and parkinson's
00:24:04disease so holscher took the next step developing a next generation drug that targets multiple
00:24:11mechanisms so this new drug that we are testing actually activates three different types of receptors
00:24:19and signaling pathways and it looks like that this means that the protective effect is better is larger
00:24:29in holscher in holscher's experiment conclusions were reached thanks to three groups of test mice
00:24:37and their varying abilities to learn and remember the wild type ordinary mice are very quick but the
00:24:45transgenic mouse which expresses human genes that produce these amyloid plugs they're not great slow
00:24:55but if you then treat this alzheimer mouse with the drug you can see that the speed at which they learn
00:25:03is just as fast as that of a normal mouse so this demonstrates that this drug can protect learning
00:25:12and memory formation additional analysis shows increased synaptic activity in the brains of the treated mice
00:25:20a reduced rate of amyloid tangles and plaques and diminished tau buildup as well all encouraging signs
00:25:30the fact that we can improve all these important parameters in the brain which drive the disease
00:25:38gives us the hope that this drug can actually stop the disease in the human brain
00:25:44and it can even repair some of the neurons bring them back to a functional state and hopefully can
00:25:54bring back some of the impairments that we see in the patients to prove successful this new and still
00:26:03unnamed drug must move from mouse models to human clinical trials will holscher's triple receptor treatment
00:26:11work on people the same way the answer requires more testing and time of course protecting and
00:26:19restoring sound minds also requires maintaining healthy bodies and at times that can be a difficult
00:26:25habit to stick to food glorious food no doubt many consider eating to be one of life's greatest joys
00:26:35diabetes but big appetites coupled with poor nutrition can lead to devastating consequences
00:26:44nearly 40 percent of adults in america that's 93 million people are obese and therefore at greater risk
00:26:52for type 2 diabetes heart disease and stroke according to the center for disease control and prevention
00:27:00obesity costs the country 147 billion dollars in medical bills annually but researchers at the university
00:27:09of texas medical branch think they have a scientific solution to this weighty problem
00:27:16physiologically speaking obesity is caused by more than overeating proteins in fat cells act as a metabolic
00:27:25break and slow the burning of excess fat this in essence makes it harder for obese people to lose weight
00:27:34when they undertake diet and exercise the body is effectively fighting their attempts to lose weight
00:27:41however the researchers in texas developed a molecular key to deactivate these proteins and maintain a normal
00:27:47metabolism their first test subjects diet induced obese mice or simply put fat mice when we added our compound
00:27:59to the diet the treated animals didn't change their eating habits they ate the same as the control animals
00:28:06but they lost about 30 percent of their fat mass and over the course of 10 days their total body mass
00:28:14went down by about eight percent but most of that loss was concentrated in the fat tissues that's right
00:28:20the mice lost weight without changing their eating habits researchers are waiting on approval from the
00:28:27federal drug administration to begin testing with humans in about two years success however won't mean
00:28:34an end to exercise and healthy diets weight loss will still require some work while some advances in medical
00:28:42technology help us improve our quality of life others uncover deadly disease and extend our lives
00:28:51tests today can detect specific cancers each year millions undergo mammograms colonoscopies and lung scans
00:28:59most of these procedures involve dedicated office visits and big expensive equipment but in early 2018
00:29:07researchers at johns hopkins kimmel cancer center unveiled how they hope to simplify the diagnostic process
00:29:14making cancer tests cheaper less invasive and more efficient and effective
00:29:19dr nicholas papadopoulos and his colleagues have developed a single blood test they call cancer seek
00:29:26it is a pan cancer test you don't have to have a test only for pancreatic cancer or only for colorectal
00:29:33cancer but you have a test for cancer but you have a test for cancer and that is what is really needed
00:29:38for a screening test for asymptomatic individuals by identifying and measuring certain proteins and gene
00:29:45mutations released into the bloodstream by malignant tumors tests show cancer seek can screen for eight
00:29:52different types of cancer and help narrow down their location in the body it's it's hunting for cancer
00:29:59that's why we call the cancer seek we look for uh circulating tumor dna so those are pieces of
00:30:06our genetic material that they specifically come from the cancer cells and in addition to that we look
00:30:13at different biomarker proteins that are expressed at high levels from cancer cells and again they find their
00:30:22way into our bloodstream the blood sample serves as a liquid biopsy providing biomarkers used to highlight
00:30:31cancers of the colon lung and breast and five others for which no screening currently exists such as ovarian
00:30:39cancer cancer of the liver stomach pancreas and esophagus all totaled these diseases account for 60
00:30:48percent of all the cancer deaths in america if you look the statistics here in the united states and
00:30:55around the world the the number of cancers that they've been identified they're usually stage four
00:31:02most of them that means that we missed stage three that means that we missed it when it was stage two
00:31:09that means that probably we could have saved somebody's life if we had detected it earlier
00:31:14administered during general exams and costing only 500 dr papadopoulos and his colleagues expect cancer
00:31:22seek to be transformative changing both cancer diagnosis and treatments i mean you have to tell
00:31:29some person who has no symptoms and is healthy that uh hey you know there is some cancer growing inside
00:31:37you however that's good news because we caught it early it sounds simplistic but really that's what
00:31:44kind of boils down to it and while improving cancer survival rates will lead to changes in how people die
00:31:51scientists in asia seek to usher in dramatic new shifts in how life begins
00:31:59earlier this year professor mitinori saito and his team at kyoto university in japan demonstrated that
00:32:06they could deprogram specialized and fully differentiated human blood cells
00:32:10then coax them into becoming the kinds of cells that could eventually produce eggs and sperm and it's
00:32:18that last step that could be the breakthrough for over a decade it's been known that mature cells could
00:32:25be deprogrammed back into becoming stem cells and they can be reprogrammed to become almost any one of
00:32:32over 200 cell types in the body from brain cells to heart cells to bone cells in principle these induced
00:32:43pluripotent cells also ought to be capable of becoming germ cells or gametes eggs and sperm
00:32:52and creating them in the laboratory has been fraught with difficulties and setbacks
00:32:57this year however professor saito's team demonstrated that induced human pluripotent stem cells
00:33:04could become capable of being triggered into producing primordial germ cells from these
00:33:11they were able to create a type of cell known as an oogonium these oogonia are the cells that lie
00:33:18dormant in a woman's ovaries for decades until monthly hormonal signals direct them to produce functional eggs
00:33:27the next step will be to create human sperm today no one denies that in vitro male and female human
00:33:34germ cell production using reprogrammed cells taken from almost any part of a man or a woman's body
00:33:41will be achievable in the not too distant future the question of course is how such a capability could
00:33:49be handled the clinical therapeutic and medical benefits of induced pluripotent stem cells
00:33:55are already proving to be almost unlimited ranging from rejection free tissue growth and even whole
00:34:03organ transplantation to personalized drug regime testing and genetic disease diagnosis
00:34:11but making babies is a different matter and beyond the science there are profound ethical and legal issues
00:34:18that also need to be addressed changing the basic requirements for human reproduction could
00:34:23dramatically alter who can be a mother or father and when grief-stricken widows and widowers could
00:34:32have children with their deceased spouse made possible by a strand of hair perhaps older people especially
00:34:40women no longer bound by their biological clock could remain career focused longer and delay
00:34:46starting a family same-sex couples could create embryos with blended genetics true biological offspring of both partners
00:34:58the social consequences of this new capability could be enormous
00:35:01and within days of conception each of those embryos could be vetted by a process known as pre-implantation genetic
00:35:08diagnosis to enable a choice to be made about what characteristics the resulting child should have
00:35:18some commentators believe that in another 40 years from now traditional baby making may have become the
00:35:23exception rather than the norm and that many if not most of our descendants will begin life in a dish under a microscope
00:35:36while some fear a homogenized world of designer babies where parents choose their child's traits
00:35:41as if shopping in a catalog others are convinced it's a future which will be better for everyone
00:35:49inherited diseases could be averted vulnerabilities in later life identified and treated early
00:35:57and positive health traits could be reinforced others worry that such a capability will further
00:36:03discriminate between those that have access to such a technology and can afford it and those that don't
00:36:09or can't it's a call that society will have to make in the not so distant future
00:36:15no doubt our world will witness major transformations of all sorts as time moves on and some undoubtedly
00:36:25are already underway
00:36:28on april 30th the ongoing eruption of kilauea volcano ramps up dramatically on the big island hawaii
00:36:35triggering hundreds of earthquakes
00:36:39but the new eruption takes an unexpected turn when kilauea's two craters begin to collapse
00:36:46and a string of new fissures open along her eastern flank
00:36:53lava flows from the fissures ravages the residential community of leolani estates
00:36:58destroying hundreds of homes and burying roughly 14 square miles of the big island beneath 80 feet of lava
00:37:05the eruption continues for more than three months allowing scientists to peer into the inner workings
00:37:15of our planet like never before
00:37:20one of the fabulous opportunities we have right now because of an ongoing simultaneous eruption along
00:37:24kilauea's east rift zone and the summit is to look at this connection between the summit and east
00:37:30rift zone the magmatic plumbing connection scientists have already revealed several important insights
00:37:37about kilauea around the clock monitoring of lava lakes in her summit crater
00:37:43and the smaller east rift crater confirm both systems are being fueled by the same massive magma chamber below
00:37:50part of the uniqueness of the network we have monitoring that lake is that it's so close
00:37:59in proximity to the observatory that allows us to have really high bandwidth radio links that means
00:38:07that we can afford to do things like stream hd video from the vent back here to hbo
00:38:17one of the greatest mysteries geologists faced was identifying the source of several explosions
00:38:22that rocked kilauea ejecting plumes of ash up to 30 000 feet
00:38:29for decades many volcanologists thought these massive explosions were caused by the sudden interaction of
00:38:35ground water with hot rock or magma there was a debate there were actually several theories proposed
00:38:43what we were able to determine based on geologic observations and also installing high-res cameras
00:38:50around the vent to look in the vent we were able to determine that these explosions from the lake were
00:38:55actually triggered by large collapses of rock from the crater walls that were impacting the lake and the
00:39:02lake is very gas rich so it's very frothy and when the rocks impacted the lake then they triggered these explosions
00:39:10the lava flows from kilauea eventually reached the sea creating nearly a thousand acres of new land
00:39:19in august the eruption slowed dramatically but scientists will continue to analyze the enormous amounts
00:39:25of data they gathered for decades to come
00:39:40a far more devastating geological event unfolded just a month later in sulawesi indonesia
00:39:45on september 28th a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the island triggering a tsunami that inundated the
00:39:56provincial capital of palu the combined tragedies killed at least 2 000 people and wounded 10 000 more
00:40:09increasing threats from natural disasters became a major focus throughout 2018
00:40:13a growing body of evidence indicates human-induced climate change isn't just contributing to more
00:40:20frequent disasters it's also making them worse
00:40:26in the u.s an unprecedented report released by 13 federal agencies warned that if major steps aren't
00:40:32taken to rain in global warming soon the damage could knock at least 10 percent off the american economy
00:40:38in this century alone more than double the losses from the great recession understanding the global
00:40:46impact of climate change on society and the environment often means a more daunting and perhaps
00:40:52frightening forecast in october 2018 climate change experts met in south korea to answer a question that
00:41:00may seem like bureaucratic hair splitting but which is far far from it it's literally a matter of
00:41:07life and death the question was simple what would be the consequences for life on earth if global
00:41:15warming reached two degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels rather than 1.5 degrees celsius
00:41:23the answer is complicated says the ipcc the intergovernmental panel on climate change
00:41:29who were asked to study this question after the paris agreement was signed in 2016.
00:41:34globally we have already exceeded those pre-industrial temperatures by about one degree
00:41:4190 percent of that extra heat energy has been absorbed by our oceans
00:41:47and one of the most obvious effects is sea level rise produced by melting ice from glaciers
00:41:55it's early may now and the snow's starting to melt
00:41:57it's an amazing theory out there that the water gets to the base of the ice sheet and
00:42:05kind of pressurizes and hydraulically lifts the ice sheet up but the largest factor is thermal expansion
00:42:12as the water warms so too does sea level the ipcc report predicted that even if the global average
00:42:20temperature only increases by 1.5 degrees celsius sea levels are expected to rise by at least half a meter
00:42:27about two feet 60 million people will suffer flooding every year by 2100 but if the temperature
00:42:37increases by two degrees celsius that rise is projected to be almost a meter about three feet
00:42:44at two degrees celsius that figure climbs to 72 million people per year
00:42:49and that's not counting the people living on the small island states around the world five of the
00:42:59solomon islands have already disappeared
00:43:04changes in ocean temperatures also affect the creatures that live in it
00:43:08many of the tiny single-celled organisms that form the basis of the marine food chain
00:43:13and are therefore crucial to maintaining fish stocks don't like warm deoxygenated water
00:43:18so phytoplankton and fish are already migrating toward the cooler waters further north and south
00:43:26inevitably the world's fishing industries are suffering and the maximum catch potentials are
00:43:31projected to decrease by up to 25 percent in some of the hottest regions such as the tropics
00:43:38marine organisms that can't migrate such as coral are now disappearing at an alarming rate due to warm water stress
00:43:49by the end of the century at two degrees celsius 99 effectively all of the world's coral will have died
00:44:01as the corals disappear so too do the already precarious livelihoods of the thousands of coastal
00:44:06communities which rely on the oceans for food export and tourism
00:44:15one of the most important greenhouse gases is methane
00:44:1921 times more potent than carbon dioxide
00:44:23and vast quantities of it have been locked into the permanently frozen landscape for millennia
00:44:29and that permafrost is changing now
00:44:32and the changes that are taking place there and the methane that's being released
00:44:35that will impact the people in the cities and yet they don't always realize just how interconnected
00:44:41and what those feedbacks are
00:44:45the ipcc findings conclude that the arctic temperatures increase
00:44:49this permafrost will thaw releasing that methane and amplifying both local and global warming
00:44:57over 30 percent of the 15 million square kilometers of permafrost
00:45:01are expected to thaw in the 1.5 degree global temperature rise scenario
00:45:06at two degrees that figure climbs to 44 percent
00:45:12mountainous regions will see less snow causing water shortages
00:45:18and up to 271 million people will be exposed to water scarcity
00:45:22for humans this change in the biosphere will impact food supplies as wheat maize and other cereal crops
00:45:31decline and livestock grazing habitats become drought-stricken or unsustainable
00:45:38human health will also suffer as disease-bearing species such as mosquitoes ticks worms and bacteria
00:45:46adapt to new opportunities
00:45:51and the economic bottom line of all these impacts of global warming
00:45:55current estimates suggest that a 1.5 degree increase in global temperature above pre-industrial levels
00:46:01will cause an eight percent reduction in global gdp
00:46:04a 2 degree increase would mean a 13 percent reduction in global gdp
00:46:16wild weather is becoming a regular feature of our nightly news
00:46:20and it's a symptom of the global heat engine at work
00:46:23the changes in the severity and the frequency with which we have major storms typhoons and hurricanes
00:46:32all of these things are what the models tell us at least qualitatively will happen as the earth's
00:46:38climate system goes from the relatively stable conditions that it has been occupying for the
00:46:45last several centuries and begins to transform into a new state even as the ipcc report was making its
00:46:52findings public in early october 2018 hurricane michael and its 155 mile per hour winds were slamming into
00:47:00mexico beach florida with storm surges of up to 19 feet 80 percent of all homes were demolished or
00:47:08seriously damaged and when the hurricane finally ran out of energy in mid-october at least 45 people
00:47:14across four u.s states have been killed just two months after hurricane michael terrifying images of
00:47:21another consequence of global warming were capturing the headlines
00:47:24the deadliest wildfires in american history strengthened in their intensity by the warmer drier air generated by
00:47:34local climate change brought hell on earth to a sleepy town of paradise california and elsewhere across the state
00:47:41over 400 square miles of woodland were scorched and at least 86 people lost their lives
00:47:51coming to terms with climate change of any measure will likely demand adapting to new realities
00:48:03as it seems some of earth's creatures have already begun to do
00:48:08coral reefs are often compared to cities when you look at them from above you can see roads alleys
00:48:15buildings with fish streaming between them
00:48:20but if you move closer you begin to see individual coral polyps
00:48:25and then moving even closer you find the algae that live inside of corals known as algal symbionts
00:48:35zoom in more and you'll find microorganisms and bacteria thriving within the corals
00:48:40this is called the microbiome and some scientists believe the key to truly understanding corals and
00:48:48their survival lies at this microbial level
00:48:54one team of scientists from oregon state university is racing to create a global genetic
00:48:59map of the microbiology of coral reefs before many of them disappear
00:49:03there doesn't seem to be an evolutionary reason for why some groups of corals are doing poorly
00:49:11while others are doing really well and so we think that we would learn a lot about why some corals fare
00:49:18better during climate change by understanding the sum of all of its parts that is the bacteria and the animal
00:49:25the planet has changed before and coral reefs evolved to survive those changes but the difference
00:49:34now is the pace of that change there isn't enough time for corals to adapt and so they might need a
00:49:41little help one scientist has undertaken the bold project to jumpstart the evolutionary process
00:49:48with hopes of helping some corals keep up with unprecedented change
00:49:58i am incredibly stimulated by where we are the context is really depressing but you can either
00:50:06lay down and die or say this is a challenge that needs to be solved
00:50:11you know corals have this incredibly complex reproductive biology
00:50:16making it a very difficult test subject to selectively breathe
00:50:19people are astonishingly creative and when they see a change has to happen they change
00:50:28in corals we've just focused on the attributes that make them strong and ask the question of whether or
00:50:34not we can take that knowledge and start to harness it to develop solutions that we can use to mitigate
00:50:43the declines of coral reefs globally in the face of climate change
00:50:49the thing about it is we've never really tried to do this before in coral reef systems to take the
00:50:54strongest members and breathe them together if we do have stronger offspring can we use those corals
00:51:01to stabilize coral reefs that have been hit by say a very severe bleaching event
00:51:07while we mitigate the larger driving forces fossil fuel burning and climate change
00:51:20while analysis of the genetic makeup of coral samples uses the latest technology
00:51:25collecting these samples is manual work the oregon state university researchers on the project
00:51:31can only do this work by traveling to each location and getting in the water
00:51:40one of the most impactful parts of this process has been interacting with people who are directly
00:51:47impacted by the changes that are going on on these reefs local fishermen people who are managing scuba
00:51:54diving companies people who are involved in trying to save the reefs directly the boots on the ground if you will
00:52:00do this this isn't just about conservation of ecosystems this is about the conservation of livelihoods
00:52:11i see a world in 10 years where there are hundreds if not thousands of people selectively breeding
00:52:20corals in different locations across the world working on species that are relevant to their place
00:52:25in different locations is that lofty yes should you have a big dream abso-bloody-lutely
00:52:42in different locations perhaps changes in human behavior will be enough to offset the most dire
00:52:56consequences of climate change and maybe even lead to an environmental recovery after all it's happened
00:53:04before while most news on the health of our planet is doom and gloom a recent report on ozone recovery
00:53:12highlights the positive impact that's possible when humanity pulls together
00:53:18the ozone layer acts as earth's protective shield safeguarding all living beings from the sun's harmful
00:53:24ultraviolet radiation in the mid-1980s scientists pinpointed the use of chlorofluorocarbons
00:53:32or cfc's usually found in aerosol and other pollutants as the perpetrators responsible for
00:53:38a large hole in the ozone layer the chemicals were so harmful that they were banned worldwide during the
00:53:451987 montreal protocol those substances have to get up into the stratosphere before they can destroy ozone
00:53:53and they have to break down high up in the stratosphere and the chlorine that gets released from
00:53:58the chlorofluorocarbons that's what actually destroys ozone for the first time evidence linking the ban
00:54:05of cfc's to recovery of the ozone layer has been made public we were able to look at ozone changes during
00:54:15a period of time in the winter so what we've seen is that ozone depletion has declined it does vary a lot
00:54:23still but it declines and it's declining sort of in step with the chlorine changes and so that's what
00:54:29we're excited about is that we see for the first time chlorine levels are definitely going down and
00:54:35ozone levels are responding to it if countries continue to follow the guidelines established by
00:54:41the montreal protocol a un report predicts the complete recovery of the ozone within the next four decades
00:54:48knowing with a little push nature is capable of healing itself can motivate scientists to innovate
00:54:56new solutions even when battling the longest odds known as africa's rooftop the ethiopian highlands is a
00:55:06place of uncompromised beauty a remote refuge where wildlife lives largely undisturbed by the outside world
00:55:13but lately cattle herders on search for available grazing land are breaking the area's isolation
00:55:21ushering in a deadly danger for the region's rarest inhabitant the ethiopian wolf
00:55:30rabies and distemper diseases brought here by the ranchers domestic dogs are decimating the wolves
00:55:36of the wolves fewer than 500 survive today ethiopian wolves are on the brink of extinction filmmaker
00:55:45jan sokoshevsky followed the movements of the wolves for his project africa's lost wolves during the two
00:55:54years of the production of our film we witnessed a disease outbreak which killed around half of the
00:56:01world population another such event could easily wipe out the whole species
00:56:09sukoshevsky captured idyllic scenes of playful pups and pack dynamics
00:56:17but sadly his primary focus an individual wolf named megeti contracted distemper likely the result of
00:56:25her contact with dogs megeti's slow demise and ultimate death tragically played out before sokoshevsky's
00:56:34cameras spending time with ethiopian wolves was a great privilege and seeing them suffer was heartbreaking
00:56:44but at the same time it was very important to tell megeti's story as her fate could easily be the fate of
00:56:52her whole species but now there's a reason for new hope thanks to the scientists sokoshevsky worked with
00:57:00to track his canine subjects in addition to administering rabies shots for local dogs
00:57:07the ethiopian wolf conservation program successfully launched an oral vaccination campaign in 2018 for
00:57:13the wolves delivering doses of the vaccine and chunks of goat meat left in the area if the oral
00:57:19vaccine is working we will save more ethiopian wolves in their habitats motion triggered photos and video
00:57:27prove the wolves are eating the baited samples and follow-up tests show that almost 90 percent of the
00:57:33wolves eating the bait developed immunity the implications of success are immense and could lead
00:57:40to expanded efforts to use oral vaccinations to protect other isolated and endangered animals as well
00:57:46but the story of a species plays out in the lives of individuals like megeti
00:57:54and on the other side of the african continent deep in the rainforest
00:57:59biologists are struggling to crack the mystery surrounding one lonely lion
00:58:05dr philip henschel's lifelong obsession has led him deep into the rainforest of gabon
00:58:10to what just might be the big cat story of the decade
00:58:18three years ago a camera trap in the realm of chimps gorillas and forest elephants revealed an animal
00:58:25no one had seen here before one image challenged everything philip thought he knew about lions
00:58:31well the nearest no nine population from here is uh yeah either 2 000 kilometers away in that direction
00:58:41to the north which would be uh yeah sort of like northern cameroon or about 2 000 kilometers in that
00:58:48direction off to the south which would be yes southeast angola these are the two nearest line populations
00:58:55that we know about this is proper rainforest there's chimps in there forest elephant red river hogs and uh
00:59:03and one line it's uh yeah it's it's an interesting mix a few days later i was i was here with 20 camera traps
00:59:14so the first area the line was recorded was up in this uh forest gallery
00:59:19and since then we cast a somewhat wider net of camera traps hovering now uh about 500 square
00:59:28kilometers so this one didn't didn't get him this one actually got him so it's sort of like on the
00:59:33way between you know like sort of completing that triangle so the detective game basically is still
00:59:39ongoing we know that he uses other parts of the park but we don't know where
00:59:43it's going to be there to find out more about this lion philip needed a piece of him so to encourage
00:59:52some very targeted rubbing he sprayed some bottled lioness urine on a tree in his turf
00:59:58i don't know do you do you smell this it's really strong sort of like pungent uh odor
01:00:05because sometimes where they walk along regularly they're also cheek mark
01:00:09um trees so they have scent glands here and so uh often for for males in particular their long main
01:00:15hair then gets trapped in uh in little uh yeah little little crevices in the bark and so we did
01:00:21actually find lion hair here in uh on a on a tree uh on that very trail we found uh yeah some genetic
01:00:30material now from from main hair um and uh we were able to to then run the genetics and uh found that
01:00:38is closely related to the ancestral line a population that we had in bateke philip's research has
01:00:44revealed that the lone male of gabon appears to be the sole survivor of a now extinct population of lions
01:00:52his dna could carry unique adaptations to the rainforest environment that we're not currently aware of
01:00:59but his closest living relatives are in the kalahari desert half a continent away
01:01:05well the sad thing about this line is i mean we hear him call at night sometimes and he calls a
01:01:11lot like like any line would who wants to make contact with pride mates with yeah just any sort
01:01:17of like mate but uh he's calling in vain i mean there's just uh nobody else around so if we want to
01:01:23to assist him in in in his his uh yeah romantic endeavors it just means we have to bring in females
01:01:29an audacious plan to fly two lionesses 2 000 miles from botswana to the bateka plateau of gabon might
01:01:41just be the beginning of the new eden for africa's lions where a new pride of big cats might grow
01:01:48safely sheltered by the forest and largely out of view
01:01:51another discovery dug from the dirt is putting the finishing touches on the evolutionary map of human
01:02:01history four little foot bones found by accident in 1994 have led south african scientists to discover
01:02:10the most complete paleoanthropological find of its kind since revealed fossil by fossil over 20 years
01:02:19the new discovery replaces much guesswork with real answers about our early ancestors
01:02:26she was an older woman not much over four feet
01:02:31and perhaps in her foraging she'd been disturbed by something
01:02:35some predator a saber tooth or a lion
01:02:42and had hastily tried to get away
01:02:44she fell into a cave now known as the sterk fontan and four little foot bones of hers were discovered
01:02:54here quite by accident 3.7 million years later usually scientists only discover small fragments of a
01:03:02skeleton in the deep bedrock of time these give them clues but not many answers about our ancestors
01:03:09that has all changed with little foot
01:03:16from these first little foot fragments the team ron clark stephen matsumi and nikwan malefi
01:03:23set out to find and piece together the rest
01:03:26it was to be a labor of love over decades their biggest challenge was to remove soft fossil bone from
01:03:33breccia a type of natural concrete while keeping every single fossil fragment undamaged
01:03:41by the time they'd finished this is what they could show the world
01:03:46these are the actual fossils all assembled from one individual who fell into a cave 3.7 million years ago
01:03:54and left us a legacy of knowledge beyond measure the fossils which little foot has offered up quite
01:04:00literally fill the missing gaps in our understanding of our early ancestors
01:04:05this is the only complete skeleton of an australopithecus from anywhere in the world
01:04:13it is the only complete skull and it has a full adult dentition so this alone is a remarkable find
01:04:23we have for the first time ever a complete arm and a complete leg in one individual
01:04:32the find has changed the study of early man forever little foot or australopithecus prometheus
01:04:39stood upright and has not only revealed secrets about her own species
01:04:44but has shown that other species lived alongside her at the same time
01:04:48in learning how the planet and its inhabitants have changed over time we wonder about the endless
01:04:56possibilities throughout the universe but sadly we had to say goodbye to the prolific planet hunter
01:05:04that opened an unprecedented window into the cosmos kepler our eyes in the sky officially entered its
01:05:11mission on october 30th of this year six years later than initially planned kepler observed over a
01:05:18half a million stars during its search for a second earth confirming 2662 alien worlds in our galaxy alone
01:05:29we found so many fantastic and exciting planet systems out there none of which look quite like what we have at
01:05:36home and for me the most exciting part of all of this is not just the sheer number of planets but the fact
01:05:43that we've found so many varied planets we've found massive puffy hot jupiters that have orbits shorter than
01:05:51mercury and we found mini neptunes where we don't know if they are solid and rocky or are they puffy and gassy
01:05:59we found brand new forming planets and old planets too
01:06:03many of these worlds orbit their star's habitable zone the area of their solar system where liquid
01:06:10water could remain on the surface providing a potential home for extraterrestrial life
01:06:17it has really catalyzed a third pathway for the search for life in the universe you know before kepler
01:06:23we had setty searches to listen for techno signatures in the galaxy we had solar system exploration that was
01:06:31searching for life but of the third pathway was opened up i think by the sudden realization
01:06:40that the nearest potentially habitable planet could just be a stone's throw away
01:06:44that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone
01:06:53the trappist-1 system some 39 million light years from earth became the first confirmed planetary
01:06:59neighborhood where multiple planets orbit in the habitable zone kepler has helped further our
01:07:06understanding of what could now become a major candidate in the elusive hunt for life in space
01:07:14a study released this year using data from kepler and the spitzer space telescope
01:07:19show that all seven planets in the trappist-1 system are rocky worlds with a core and an atmosphere
01:07:24and some could even hold up to five percent of their total mass in water about 250 times more than
01:07:32the oceans here on earth while the study doesn't comment on the habitability of the planets the trappist-1
01:07:39system is just one example of the promising new frontiers being explored as humanity continues its
01:07:45search for a second earth and extraterrestrial life
01:07:48this is the golden age of exoplanets kepler has given us this tremendous data set this gift that
01:07:57we can continue studying for decades and all in the meantime there are new missions new telescopes and
01:08:03new technologies that are coming along which are going to help us learn even more in different ways
01:08:07and go beyond what even kepler could do learning about our universe isn't just about seeing new things
01:08:13it's also about listening deep in the allegheny mountains of west virginia a team of astronomers
01:08:22has detected a series of devastating high energy bursts erupting from an unknown source far off in space
01:08:30we've been absolutely confident that these are extragalactic sources all because of this
01:08:37the green bank telescope one of the largest movable objects on dry earth
01:08:41the structure here stands almost 485 feet above ground level it's actually taller than the great pyramid of giza
01:08:54we can see more of the celestial sphere here in green bank than can be seen from any single telescope
01:08:59anywhere else in the world we can see 85 percent of the celestial sphere from this point right here
01:09:08astronomers are now searching these same skies for clues to help solve a new mystery the source of a
01:09:17string of unidentified signals they call fast radio bursts
01:09:20they will do so by scanning the cosmos for radio waves
01:09:31when fast radio bursts erupt they can unleash as much energy as our sun does in an entire year
01:09:39in a fraction of a second
01:09:41but by the time that energy reaches earth it's a mere whisper
01:09:50and while astronomers have now detected dozens of different fast radio bursts
01:09:54one of them is different from the rest and they're determined to find out why
01:09:59they call it frb 121102
01:10:02we don't know when it's going to actually emit a burst and the bursts only last for a fraction of a
01:10:12second only a few milliseconds so we have spent many tens probably hundreds of hours on the gbt over
01:10:18the course of the last few years observing this object and hundreds of hours on other telescopes
01:10:23and we've only detected a few hundred bursts and if you were that all of those bursts up
01:10:28um you know they would only add up to a few seconds worth of time when the source is actually active
01:10:35we knew it was special almost right away because no other frb event has been seen to repeat
01:10:42as the signal kept reaching earth they could now track the location to the constellation of auriga
01:10:49once we were able to localize 121102 we realized that this galaxy has never been seen before
01:10:55they now knew where frb 121102 was coming from but they still didn't know what was generating the
01:11:03signal but each subsequent flash of energy helped them narrow down their list of suspects
01:11:11when fast radio bursts were first discovered they were all one-off events and so a lot of the early
01:11:16theories focused on catastrophic events that would destroy whatever was actually causing the fast radio
01:11:22bursts that could be things like an exploding star a supernova it was a huge explosion maybe two neutron
01:11:31stars colliding so when we start to see it repeat that changes our whole paradigm of what it could be
01:11:38and it is still the only known fast radio burst that repeats and that makes it an especially big mystery
01:11:45and you might think to yourself that with all of those bursts we would be able to
01:11:49find some sort of a pattern or a regularity in when they're going off but we've worked really hard
01:11:54and we haven't been able to find anything like that yet because astronomers haven't been able to
01:11:59uncover a pattern to 121102 seemingly random burst cycle they've turned their attention to one of the
01:12:05most exotic and violent phenomena in the universe magnetars magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields in
01:12:15the universe if you were to take a magnetar and place it at the distance of the moon which would
01:12:20not be a good idea because it would destroy the earth but in the process it would also erase all
01:12:25of the computer hard drives and credit cards on the earth because of the strength of the magnetic field
01:12:31when a crack forms on a magnetars rigid surface
01:12:35it can set off a starquake ejecting so much energy that it can be felt billions of light years across the universe
01:12:42we saw that they were really twisted up kind of like a corkscrew and the degree of twist is higher
01:12:51than in any other source of radio waves we've ever detected so we think that this could be a sign
01:12:58that frb 121102 is itself living somewhere near a black hole
01:13:03decoding frb 121102 has revealed to us a part of the universe we never knew before
01:13:14and it could also help us understand the threats that magnetars in our own galaxy
01:13:19could pose to our planet
01:13:23the marvels of space appear limitless even now as human ingenuity tests the outer reaches of the solar
01:13:29system
01:13:36three and a half years after revolutionizing our understanding of pluto
01:13:40the new horizon spacecraft continues its journey into deep space
01:13:44it's traveled one billion miles since cruising past the dwarf planet
01:13:49and the craft will once again provide a historic first look at an unknown alien object
01:13:54the piano sized ship traveling at speeds of almost 10 miles per second will be a pioneer of kuiper belt
01:14:01exploration its target the asteroid ultima thule
01:14:08if you think about it by analogy new horizons is going to the farthest part of our solar system
01:14:13and it is very cold and dark and barren out there so unlike an asteroid which is actually just a piece
01:14:18of rock that has melted and changed over with some alteration by some internal water
01:14:23ultima thule never melted never differentiated never made a core like even like our planet earth
01:14:28has a core all that stuff is just as it came from the galaxy we think and it's just a random loose
01:14:33snowball accreted material so we'll see if that's really true and on january 1st 2019 new horizons will
01:14:42ring in the new year by traveling back in time and studying the earliest days of our solar system
01:14:48the kuiper belt is the edge of our very solar system it's the part of the original disk that
01:14:56the sun and the planets formed out of that's at the very edge before you just get into the galaxy
01:15:00and the region between the stars and at that very edge of the disk there wasn't enough stuff to make
01:15:05giant planets and make big stars like our sun there was just enough stuff to make small dwarf planets and
01:15:12snowballs new horizons will fly past the 20 mile wide asteroid in a split second but the images and
01:15:19data beamed back to earth will provide scientists with a lifetime of information ultima thule we know
01:15:27very little about right now but we think it's the most primitive object ever visited by a spacecraft
01:15:33because it's been out there four billion miles from the sun kept in the coldest portion of the solar
01:15:40system for 4.6 billion years that's preserved what what the material was at the time of the formation
01:15:47of the solar system you know it preserves a record of the physics and chemistry of what was going on
01:15:54but we don't need to go to the frontiers of our solar system to undertake groundbreaking space
01:15:58exploration two recent audacious missions nasa's osiris rex and jaxa's hayabusa 2 are about to descend
01:16:09on two asteroids in our inner solar system to mine for souvenirs to bring back to earth
01:16:17after a two-year journey hayabusa 2 arrived at its target ryugu a half mile wide asteroid that could
01:16:24one day unravel the clues of our early solar system equipped with three rovers and a lander
01:16:31the vehicle became the first ever to successfully land on an asteroid
01:16:34ryugu's low gravity makes driving on the surface impossible so instead they must hop from location
01:16:43to location floating for up to 15 minutes per bounce
01:16:49the rover's images will help hayabusa 2 scout the best mining sites for its scientific souvenirs
01:16:57next year the craft will take two surface samples followed by a subsurface sample after a blast reveals
01:17:03ryugu's inner structure it will then fire up its ion propulsion thrusters and begin its journey back to earth
01:17:15at close proximity hayabusa 2 will jettison the samples through the atmosphere towards the australian
01:17:21outback arriving safely by 2023 likewise nasa's osiris rex has reached its target benu after its own two-year
01:17:30journey we're interested in the origin of water on the earth organic molecules that may have led to
01:17:35the origin of life so we want to go to a carbonaceous asteroid that's recorded over four and a half
01:17:40billion years of solar system history currently in orbit around the asteroid the science survey will
01:17:47begin next year
01:17:51throughout 2019 we'll be doing global characterization of the asteroid basically making maps of the entire
01:17:57surface we're going to be looking most importantly for areas where we can collect a sample
01:18:05if all goes according to plan the collection capsule will zoom towards utah and into the
01:18:10hands of eager scientists in late 2023 scientific investigations like this in all fields of study
01:18:18build on knowledge gathered in years past
01:18:21if this last year is any indication what lies ahead this next year is bound to astound
01:18:40save in years past year and that's what lies ahead with and that is going on
01:18:43to be even among the general
01:19:00so
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