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there's one thing that stands between us

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and the harsh environment of space our

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atmosphere the part of earth that

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sustains all life

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but here in the closest town to the

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north pole it's slowly leaking away

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a team headed there to launch rockets

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into the leak but it's not the lack of

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atmosphere that they're concerned about

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the leak is a natural process that will

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take billions of years so we're not

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going to run out anytime soon it's part

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of the larger story of how a planet's

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atmosphere changes over time a key

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factor in the search for life on other

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we have 35 residents and 60 of our team

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together in a town that is completely

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isolated there's a plane twice a week

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and there's a thousand polar bears

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nearby

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this is doug roland a nasa scientist

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who's taken his team to niallison on the

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island of svalbard

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the island lies beneath one of two

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regions near earth's poles called the

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cusps

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it's where we can access space directly

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and where a hundred tons of atmosphere

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escapes into space each day this escape

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gives clues to how long an atmosphere

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will last and ultimately whether it

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stays around long enough to sustain life

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we're trying to understand is how did

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earth's atmosphere evolve over time and

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how do other planets that might be like

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earth or more dissimilar to earth how

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did their atmospheres evolve

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so doug joined forces with joran mohan a

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professor at the university of oslo who

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started the grand challenge initiative

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cusp

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it's an international mission to launch

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12 rockets into the earth's northern

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cusp and doug he's the mission leader

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for the first two rockets of the

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campaign

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[Music]

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we don't want to waste our rocket it

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takes three years to make the rocket

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only 15 minutes to use it and i don't

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waste my shot here he's using a sounding

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rocket which is different from the

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bigger rockets that carry satellites and

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humans into space it's a small

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suborbital rocket that flies briefly

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into space collects real-time data for

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around 15 minutes then falls back to

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earth

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it's affordable quick to build and can

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launch towards a precise point the major

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advantage is that you can launch

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into a target on the sky but there's a

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limited launch window and only one

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we have these unguided rockets

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they go where you point them unless the

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wind is blowing because the wind

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literally just blows them over we don't

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launch when there's high wind so to

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measure the winds they launch balloons

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with gps trackers they're released every

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15 to 30 minutes and then they're

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monitored to see how fast the winds are

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the ground winds were 12 13 meters per

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second gusting 17 which is way off

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you're filled with trepidation oh my

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gosh this thing that i built is it going

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so i think we're going to scrub for

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today

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i'd like to thank everyone i think it

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was a great performance thanks a lot

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this means that we are scrubbing this

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operation for today and try again

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the mission is named visualizing ion

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outflow via neutral atom sensing 2 or

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visions 2. in short they're looking at

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how oxygen is getting enough energy to

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escape it's a good test of how

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atmospheric escape works earth's gravity

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should hold on to the oxygen and yet we

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see this gas shooting off into space

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we're trying to figure out how that

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works that is a science question that

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has been

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hanging around for four decades

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fortunately anyone can see atmospheric

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escape at the right place and time in

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svalbard we have the so-called polar

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night it's dark all 24 hours his

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continual darkness is key for witnessing

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this this is the cuspara it's a type of

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northern lights that appears between 8

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am and noon and you can only see it when

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it's dark during the day it looks

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similar to the aurora that occurs at

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night but when these iridescent colors

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dance at this hour each day 100 tons of

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oxygen escapes from earth's atmosphere

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into space

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this is our sport node to

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to chase the aurora

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working with them is the iscat radar and

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chell henriksen observatory they have

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additional instruments to find the

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aurora

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sometimes it's cloudy so we use radars

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to track the cusp we can give advice

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that this is the right type of aurora

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this is the wall of science a collection

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of data from satellites and ground

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instruments that helps them predict

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where the cusp aurora will be

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so the cusp

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actually isn't a fixed point in space it

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kind of moves around

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what's controlling the cusps movement is

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the sun interacting with earth

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our planet is surrounded by a magnetic

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field that helps us hold on to our

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atmosphere but at the north and south

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poles the magnetic field bends inwards

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creating a corridor between earth and

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space

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when energy is released from the sun via

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a solar flare or coronal mass ejection

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all of that energy in the form of

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radiation rides down the magnetic field

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lines of the earth and is transferred

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and dumped into the earth's atmosphere

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electrons cascade into earth's

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atmosphere they accelerate and collide

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with oxygen particles giving them energy

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to release light and sometimes enough

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energy to escape

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collectively this forms the cusp aurora

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and streams of escaping oxygen

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this cusp is in constant motion and

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we've got a fixed trajectory we really

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can't aim where the cusp is we have to

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wait for the cusp to come across our

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line of sight can you guys hear gelimer

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we'd like you as soon as you see an

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indication that crosstalk is moving

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close to move it the radar dish if we

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can this is ice cat it's been very quiet

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do you think

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probably about a 60 chance of launching

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when we started seeing this really good

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data this clock started counting down

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and that's when everyone realized this

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is going to happen we're going to launch

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we're doing everything we can to to get

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that launch off before the aurora goes

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away

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it is really really challenging and

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nerve-racking at that point

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you can see the tension just rise

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and everybody when that when that

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happens and so everyone's watching their

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instruments getting really excited and

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then at t minus one minute

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all of us

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ran out to go see the launch happen

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[Music]

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then we immediately turned around and

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ran right back in to look at all the

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data that was coming back from the

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instruments

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you know how much time and effort went

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into it because

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we all worked on it and there's just

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nothing

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that compares to that feeling

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everybody in every one of those little

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places you know really just so happy to

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contribute to uh to getting the science

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uh

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it's really an incredible experience

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this is a story about what it takes to

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launch science instruments into space

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but the real adventure will be in the

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data they sent back

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hidden within the numbers will be

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answers that reach far beyond earth

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shedding light on how atmospheres

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throughout the universe change evolve

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and perhaps