1 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,400 Operation IceBridge: You may know it from the beautiful photos that pop up in your 2 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:37,040 feed, but did you know that IceBridge is the 3 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:41,520 largest polar airborne survey of its kind. IceBridge was designed to study 4 00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:43,920 annual changes in the thickness of sea ice, 5 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:48,479 glaciers and ice sheets, as well as bridge the data gap between the ICESat 6 00:01:48,479 --> 00:01:55,439 and ICESat-2 polar-observing satellites. Between 2009 and 2019, IceBridge flew 7 00:01:55,439 --> 00:02:00,240 over a thousand scientific missions gathering data that has redefined our 8 00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:04,159 understanding of the cryosphere. So let's take a look back at some of the 9 00:02:04,159 --> 00:02:09,840 mission milestones from over the years. One of the first steps to measure sea 10 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:13,599 ice thickness is to get a handle on the amount of snow that accumulates on top 11 00:02:13,599 --> 00:02:17,040 of it. The IceBridge team pioneered the use of 12 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:20,800 a snow radar instrument to gather the first widespread data set 13 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:26,239 of snow thickness on top of both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. 14 00:02:26,959 --> 00:02:30,640 Closer to land, the point at which a glacier begins to float is called a 15 00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:33,280 grounding line, and it's a very challenging place to 16 00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:37,760 measure ice thickness. Using two instruments a radar sounder 17 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:41,280 and a gravimeter, the IceBridge team was able to survey 18 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:44,080 hundreds of these complex transition zones, 19 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:49,840 enhancing scientists understanding of the rapid changes in glacier behavior. 20 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:54,400 In 2011 NASA scientists discovered a 19-mile long crack 21 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:58,480 across the Pine Island Glacier, one of the fastest retreating glaciers in 22 00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:04,319 Antarctica. The crack measured 260 feet wide and 195 23 00:03:04,319 --> 00:03:08,239 feet deep when it was observed. Throughout the mission IceBridge was 24 00:03:08,239 --> 00:03:12,640 able to map rifts and ice shelves prior to major calving events. 25 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:16,959 And while these events are part of a natural cycle, IceBridge's observations 26 00:03:16,959 --> 00:03:19,200 helped scientists better record the changes 27 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:25,440 in calving frequency and model how they may be related to a thinning ice shelf. 28 00:03:26,799 --> 00:03:30,879 The motion of the Antarctic ice sheet, the largest ice sheet in the world, 29 00:03:30,879 --> 00:03:36,000 is heavily influenced by the topography of the bedrock underneath. 30 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:41,519 In 2013 the British Antarctic Survey used over 25 million measurements 31 00:03:41,519 --> 00:03:46,080 collected by IceBridge and other projects to develop a 3D map 32 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:49,680 of Antarctica's bedrock topography called 33 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:54,159 Bedmap-2. It provided unprecedented detail of how the continent's bedrock 34 00:03:54,159 --> 00:03:57,599 shaped the flow of the ice sheet. 35 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:03,519 Data collected by IceBridge enabled many discoveries in the Arctic as well. 36 00:04:03,519 --> 00:04:07,200 A team from the University of Bristol used IceBridge's radar data, 37 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:12,159 along with other data sets, to uncover a 400-mile long canyon buried under nearly 38 00:04:12,159 --> 00:04:17,280 two miles of ice. This hidden canyon is longer than any other known on Earth 39 00:04:17,280 --> 00:04:21,280 and provides a critical clue to modeling how melting ice is funneled into the 40 00:04:21,280 --> 00:04:23,100 Arctic Ocean. 41 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:28,080 Using ice-penetrating radar data collected by IceBridge, 42 00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:34,180 scientists were able to build the first-ever age map of the layers deep inside the Greenland ice sheet. 43 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:37,600 For the first time, scientists can 44 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:40,320 navigate the history of Greenland's ice layers, 45 00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:44,400 extending previously collected ice cores to better understand the ice sheets 46 00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:48,380 history and help build models of its future. 47 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:53,919 An international team of scientists used decades of NASA data 48 00:04:53,919 --> 00:04:58,160 to uncover a massive impact crater hiding beneath the Hiawatha Glacier 49 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:02,560 in northwest Greenland. At roughly a thousand feet deep 50 00:05:02,560 --> 00:05:06,560 and more than 19 miles wide, it is potentially one of the youngest large 51 00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:09,020 impact craters on Earth. 52 00:05:11,620 --> 00:05:17,620 Cockpit: "...6. It’s going to happen..5..4..3..2..1 53 00:05:17,900 --> 00:05:21,920 Mark on the overpass 043435 Zulu..." 54 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:28,080 Ice was bridged on April 8, 2019, with a direct underflight of the ICESat-2 55 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:33,919 satellite over Arctic sea ice. For the first time both ICESat-2 and 56 00:05:33,919 --> 00:05:36,639 IceBridge would be taking the same elevation 57 00:05:36,639 --> 00:05:40,960 measurements over the same ice. These mirrored measurements were 58 00:05:40,960 --> 00:05:43,759 critical in validating the satellite's instruments 59 00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:48,680 and continue the legacy of IceBridge after the mission was completed. 60 00:05:52,400 --> 00:05:57,600 Over the course of its 11-year mission, IceBridge completed 1,056 scientific 61 00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:00,240 flights and provided a wellspring of data that 62 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:05,380 fueled the publication of more than 660 papers and counting. 63 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:09,199 The mission provided new insight into the processes 64 00:06:09,199 --> 00:06:13,440 driving the changes in the cryosphere, helping scientists better understand 65 00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:17,240 what we can expect in the future. 66 00:06:17,780 --> 00:06:25,360 [music] 67 00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:32,960 The human exploration of space is still in its infancy. The Apollo missions were 68 00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:36,560 just the first step in our goal to have astronauts working 69 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:39,640 on the surface of worlds beyond our own. 70 00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:45,800 And as NASA plans its return of humans to the Moon and eventually onto Mars, a team of 71 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:50,240 scientists have come together to test and build some of the tools our 72 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:53,740 future explorers may use on these journeys. 73 00:06:53,840 --> 00:06:57,759 Based out of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, 74 00:06:57,759 --> 00:07:00,880 this group is called the Goddard Instrument Field Team, 75 00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:04,260 otherwise known as GIFT. 76 00:07:04,260 --> 00:07:23,760 [music] 77 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:27,920 The scientists in GIFT collect data on some of the most unique terrains on 78 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:31,199 Earth, such as glaciers in Iceland, lava tubes 79 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:36,440 in Hawaii, maar craters in New Mexico and the desert regions of Chile. 80 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:39,520 The goal is to conduct field research 81 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:43,120 and geologic settings that share similarities to locations on 82 00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:47,120 other planets, moons and even asteroids. Scientists call 83 00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:50,720 these sites planetary analogs as they help us learn 84 00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:53,919 how to interpret data from across the solar system 85 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:58,000 while also getting a better understanding of Earth. 86 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:01,840 In these environments GIFT researchers test both commercial 87 00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:04,600 and newly-developed scientific equipment. 88 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:10,160 These are portable devices that could be used by astronauts or used aboard future rovers 89 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:12,120 or other types of spacecraft. 90 00:08:12,780 --> 00:08:14,280 These field instruments 91 00:08:14,320 --> 00:08:18,080 are capable of multiple types of analysis with some providing 92 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:22,560 instantaneous feedback. The team uses devices that can observe 93 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:25,680 and characterize the landscape around a user, 94 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:28,960 as well as ones that analyze the chemical composition 95 00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:34,000 and physical properties of materials found at and below the surface. 96 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:38,240 The team also works with instruments that measure aerosols in the atmosphere, 97 00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:43,519 magnetic fields and solar radiation. No matter which field campaign they are 98 00:08:43,519 --> 00:08:48,240 on, the scientists in GIFT are selecting and using their instruments to answer 99 00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:53,040 high-priority science questions. And to more fully capture the essence of 100 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:56,240 how humans would explore the surface of the Moon or Mars, 101 00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,519 GIFT members also simulate astronaut EVAs, 102 00:08:59,519 --> 00:09:03,760 or extravehicular activities, at the planetary analogs they study. 103 00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:09,360 Both former and current astronauts have accompanied GIFT on these simulations. 104 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:11,680 Overall, the Goddard Instrument Field Team 105 00:09:11,680 --> 00:09:16,080 provides a unique resource to NASA and the external science community by 106 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:18,880 combining the studies of planetary science, 107 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:24,240 Earth science and hardware technology. All of the tests, experiments and data 108 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:28,080 collected provide a blueprint for the human exploration 109 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:30,120 of other worlds. 110 00:09:30,300 --> 00:09:36,520 And that's a great gift for those taking the next giant leap. 111 00:09:36,920 --> 00:10:44,980 [music] 112 00:10:45,920 --> 00:10:51,120 I'm Ernie Wright. I work in the Scientific Visualization Studio. 113 00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:56,660 My producer David Ladd and I made this video for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13. 114 00:10:57,260 --> 00:11:00,560 So Apollo 13 is pretty famously the moon 115 00:11:00,560 --> 00:11:05,040 mission where the oxygen tank explodes, and the astronauts have to use the lunar 116 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:06,600 module as a lifeboat. 117 00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:09,380 I'm a big fan of the Tom Hanks movie, but 118 00:11:09,380 --> 00:11:13,440 I wanted to do something that people hadn't seen before, something 119 00:11:13,440 --> 00:11:18,880 that Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data uniquely allows us to do to show what 120 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:23,720 the crew saw as they flew around the far side of the Moon. 121 00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:25,839 They arrive at the moon about a day 122 00:11:25,839 --> 00:11:29,440 after the explosion. They've been put on a free return 123 00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:33,200 trajectory that will sort of slingshot them around the Moon and send 124 00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:36,880 them home. I found just enough data in the old 125 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:40,240 Apollo documents to reconstruct their flight path. 126 00:11:40,240 --> 00:11:44,959 I put the virtual camera on that path, and I pointed it at the things they took 127 00:11:44,959 --> 00:11:49,440 pictures of using the same lenses they had on board. 128 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:53,040 So you see like they saw: Tsiolkovskiy Crater, 129 00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:57,120 and Mare Moscoviense and the Lunar Highlands. 130 00:11:57,120 --> 00:12:01,519 By the way, a lot of the major features on the far side were named by the Soviet 131 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:03,600 Union because they were the first to 132 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:06,960 photograph it in 1959. 133 00:12:08,720 --> 00:12:13,680 I made almost 15 minutes of this stuff. David cut it together in a way that 134 00:12:13,680 --> 00:12:17,040 found the emotional beats of this part of the journey. 135 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:20,639 The astronauts were behind the Moon for almost half an hour, 136 00:12:20,639 --> 00:12:24,000 completely out of contact with the Earth, and you can just 137 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,760 imagine what it felt like to see the Earth again, 138 00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:32,959 re-establish radio contact and know that they were finally heading home. 139 00:12:32,960 --> 00:12:38,480 It took them almost three more days before they finally splashed down. 140 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:42,639 The timing of the explosion was actually fortunate in a way. If it had happened 141 00:12:42,639 --> 00:12:45,839 during or after the Moon landing, there wouldn't have been a lunar module 142 00:12:45,839 --> 00:12:49,440 to serve as a lifeboat. And if it was earlier they might not 143 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:54,000 have had enough power, air and water to make it all the way back. 144 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,880 Thanks for watching. 145 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:09,540 [music] 146 00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:16,639 America has always been a fertile land. Grasslands and forests and farms from 147 00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:21,680 sea to shining sea. The U.S. Department of Agriculture tracks 148 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:26,900 how many acres and the annual yield for every crop produced. 149 00:13:27,180 --> 00:13:30,320 From the big ones, like corn, wheat, 150 00:13:30,320 --> 00:13:38,160 soy to regional crops, like cotton, rice, citrus. They track every year using data 151 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:40,940 from Landsat satellites and others, 152 00:13:41,020 --> 00:13:45,280 combined with data from surveys on the ground. 153 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:49,440 Landsat satellites see detail at the human scale, 154 00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:52,880 about the size of a baseball diamond, and can image 155 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:55,400 individual farm fields. 156 00:13:56,340 --> 00:13:59,280 The program started in 1997 with North 157 00:13:59,340 --> 00:14:01,640 Dakota as an experiment. 158 00:14:02,200 --> 00:14:07,279 Other states became interested, and the program grew. In 2008 159 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:13,360 Landsat data became free to use, and the USDA could afford to map 48 states. 160 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:18,920 During the growing season, the data helps estimate crop yields, 161 00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:23,240 which helps farmers and traders set prices for the harvest. 162 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:29,760 Thanks to Landsat's detailed view, the USDA tabulates stats, crop by crop, 163 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:35,279 county by county, and state by state. At the end of each year, the dataset is 164 00:14:35,280 --> 00:14:38,540 released to the public and it is a beautiful sight. 165 00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:44,700 The patchwork of corn in yellow and soybeans in green in the Midwest. 166 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:49,420 The diversity of crops in California's Central Valley. 167 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:54,420 The clusters of citrus in Florida and California and Texas. 168 00:14:54,660 --> 00:14:58,000 We can see changes in farming through the years. 169 00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:00,500 The easiest to see is crop rotation in 170 00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:04,920 the Midwest, cycling between corn and soybeans. 171 00:15:05,600 --> 00:15:09,680 In northern North Dakota, there is a shift from barley and wheat 172 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:14,800 to soybeans and canola. And we see an increase in cotton fields, 173 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:18,380 shown in red, in Texas and Oklahoma. 174 00:15:19,300 --> 00:15:23,120 Thanks to the free and open access to Landsat data, 175 00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:25,840 the US Department of Agriculture is 176 00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:33,440 providing our farmers with accurate data and helping maintain our nation's food supply. 177 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:44,100 [music] 178 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:49,480 MAVEN is a spacecraft that's orbiting Mars. It's been there since 2014. 179 00:15:49,620 --> 00:15:54,000 MAVEN, in this case, is an acronym it stands for Mars Atmosphere and 180 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:56,959 Volatile Evolution, and this gives a clue as to 181 00:15:56,959 --> 00:16:02,240 what MAVEN's real goal is: it's to study the top of the atmosphere and how the 182 00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:05,040 gases in the top of the atmosphere might escape 183 00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:07,140 from Mars away to space. 184 00:16:07,140 --> 00:16:09,040 So the atmosphere of Mars must have been a lot 185 00:16:09,080 --> 00:16:11,520 thicker about four billion years ago and today 186 00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:14,800 it's very cold and dry. And MAVEN is meant to understand the 187 00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:17,600 atmosphere as it is today and how it has evolved 188 00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:19,420 into this current cold dry state. 189 00:16:19,420 --> 00:16:21,720 One of the things we're trying to understand 190 00:16:21,760 --> 00:16:24,240 with MAVEN is whether a magnetic field for a 191 00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:27,839 planet is important for regulating the climate or allowing the 192 00:16:27,840 --> 00:16:32,560 planet to keep an atmosphere. Earth has a global dynamo magnetic field. 193 00:16:32,860 --> 00:16:38,440 Mars does not, but Mars has an induced magnetosphere. It has an induced magnetic field. 194 00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:40,160 The upper atmosphere of Mars is being 195 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:44,320 ionized by solar radiation, and so the electrons are being stripped 196 00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:47,199 from the atoms in the atmosphere. When that happens it turns into what we 197 00:16:47,199 --> 00:16:50,000 call a state of plasma. This plasma in the upper atmosphere 198 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,120 is very conductive. It leads electric currents to flow through it. 199 00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:56,320 Electric currents, they shape the magnetic fields that are around them, 200 00:16:56,320 --> 00:16:59,680 and that's actually how we see them with MAVEN. We take magnetic field data, 201 00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:03,279 and we map it around the planet. And from that the currents emerge. 202 00:17:03,279 --> 00:17:06,799 We've known how the currents flow in the Earth's magnetosphere for decades, 203 00:17:06,799 --> 00:17:10,559 but we don't know how that works around Mars. We don't know how it influences the 204 00:17:10,559 --> 00:17:13,600 interaction with the solar wind because it determines how energy is 205 00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:17,360 flowing into the atmosphere, how it's transferred from the solar wind 206 00:17:17,360 --> 00:17:20,959 into the system, and that's what we're trying to do with MAVEN. 207 00:17:20,959 --> 00:17:24,319 When you just look at the data as it comes down, you're just seeing a little 208 00:17:24,319 --> 00:17:27,039 squiggly line essentially. You're seeing the magnetic 209 00:17:27,039 --> 00:17:30,240 field strength and its direction vary as the spacecraft is flying through 210 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,640 different regions. And so what you have to do is you have 211 00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:36,400 to actually map it to the planet and to this interaction with the solar 212 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:40,960 wind, and then it starts to emerge that you have a drape situation where the 213 00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:44,320 magnetic field the solar wind encounters the planet and it starts to wrap around it. 214 00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:46,240 And the reason it wraps around the 215 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:49,280 planet is those electric currents that we are seeing. 216 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:53,360 The magnetic field in the solar wind is straight lines. You can think of straight 217 00:17:53,360 --> 00:17:56,799 spaghetti noodles, and it's flowing towards the planet and 218 00:17:56,800 --> 00:18:01,240 those spaghetti noodles wrap around this basketball-shaped planet, 219 00:18:01,300 --> 00:18:03,060 and that's indeed what we saw in the data. 220 00:18:03,100 --> 00:18:05,679 The magnetic field lines draping around 221 00:18:05,679 --> 00:18:08,960 Mars as a planet. One thing that wasn't so expected 222 00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:12,320 was the specific configuration of the electric currents 223 00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:16,640 that we derived from the magnetic field data. If Mars is a ball here it's sort of 224 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:19,200 this cup shape on the day side that loops 225 00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:22,480 back on itself. Maybe something that looks like this. 226 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:26,240 What wasn't so intuitive to me was the directions of those currents 227 00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:30,320 and the fact that it wraps continuously around to the night 228 00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:33,679 side, and it makes this marvelously complex 229 00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:36,420 current system on the night side as well. 230 00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:38,820 This is the first time that we've been 231 00:18:38,880 --> 00:18:42,160 able to actually map out the currents so we can see where the energy is being 232 00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:46,720 transferred. We can see what actually forms the underlying mechanisms creating 233 00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:50,160 these induced magnetospheres that are not just common here in the solar system, 234 00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:52,240 they're 50 percent of the planets that have them of the 235 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:56,240 terrestrial planets. And if you want to understand how the atmosphere of Mars 236 00:18:56,240 --> 00:18:59,440 and Venus, why they're so different from the Earth 237 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:02,799 and why they're different from each other, despite both being non-magnetized, 238 00:19:02,799 --> 00:19:06,320 we need to understand their induced magnetospheres first. 239 00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:10,080 So knowing how these global current systems are configured 240 00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:14,240 teaches us about how charged particles near the planet are going to move. 241 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:18,000 Both charged particles in the solar wind and charged particles from the 242 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:22,260 atmosphere itself that are in the process of escaping to space. 243 00:19:22,260 --> 00:19:26,240 So now we can understand better where those particles came from, how they 244 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:29,679 move near Mars, and where they're going to go next. 245 00:19:29,679 --> 00:19:32,400 That, in turn, teaches us about atmospheric escape from the 246 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:36,880 planet and the history of the atmosphere over time. How thick has it been, how much 247 00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:38,600 has been removed. 248 00:19:38,820 --> 00:19:54,140 [music] 249 00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:57,920 It's really satisfying to make someone else's 250 00:19:57,920 --> 00:20:01,480 ideas become a visual reality. 251 00:20:01,480 --> 00:20:12,000 [music] 252 00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:15,520 My name is Bailee. I'm a motion graphics artist 253 00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:20,559 at NASA's Conceptual Image Lab. You know, I start by asking a lot of questions, 254 00:20:20,559 --> 00:20:23,600 and then yeah I still use pencil and paper. 255 00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:29,440 I definitely doodle a lot and take notes during meetings and then and 256 00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:33,679 then make some preliminary sketches. It's really tempting to start animating 257 00:20:33,679 --> 00:20:36,880 right away but i think sketching those ideas out first 258 00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:40,640 really helps sort of lay the groundwork for the piece. 259 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:44,080 My name is Jonathan North. The first thing I do is 260 00:20:44,080 --> 00:20:47,280 try and get all the information about a project 261 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:51,440 that I can. I ask all the questions, like for example, 262 00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:55,520 Dragonfly's going to Titan. I have to know how big Titan is, 263 00:20:55,520 --> 00:21:02,240 the surface, air quality, how it looks. So once I speak with a scientist and 264 00:21:02,260 --> 00:21:07,520 get all my information, I then go to a rough storyboard. 265 00:21:07,740 --> 00:21:11,360 My name is Adriana Manrique. As we talk I'll 266 00:21:11,360 --> 00:21:14,880 start sketching, even though if there's like sketches that 267 00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:18,880 take five seconds, less, just to get the ideas down. 268 00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:23,039 They help me break down the big project. They help me troubleshoot 269 00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:28,800 things that otherwise I might not be able to even ask. 270 00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:33,760 My name is Dongjae Krystofer Kim. 271 00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:38,560 Sometimes there are projects that involve both 3D and 2D together, and I 272 00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:42,720 really do enjoy breaking that boundary I think there was one piece 273 00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:47,840 I did with dark energy for WFIRST, and it was a highly-stylized piece, 274 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:54,480 but it also used 3D models. But it was stylized in a way that it looks 2D, but I 275 00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:59,080 still had the freedom to move the spacecraft around in 3D. 276 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:03,120 My name is Jacqueline DeMink. I tend to be like generally like the 277 00:22:03,120 --> 00:22:07,440 more hand-drawn style of 2D animation. 278 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:13,200 It usually looks more fun and cartoony. I enjoyed working on the Earth 279 00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:17,600 Expeditions project, the five different missions because I not 280 00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:20,720 only got to do a different style that I never worked 281 00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:24,640 with before, but also I got to learn about five 282 00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:28,660 different missions that NASA was currently doing. 283 00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:32,920 [music] 284 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:37,600 My background, so i was born in South America in a country called Guyana. 285 00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,840 I was there until like around 12 or so. Coming from Guyana, 286 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:48,559 it really did influence my art style and artwork. I kind of tend to 287 00:22:48,559 --> 00:22:52,559 try to make everything a little brighter and a little more fun, add a little 288 00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:56,640 something in there to add a little flair to the work. 289 00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:57,760 Like sometimes I'll get a 290 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,480 lot of ideas I guess just from the natural 291 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:05,200 world, like the way sunlight hits something. Or maybe 292 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,960 there's like some flowers along a path that have a really interesting sort of 293 00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:10,100 color palette. 294 00:23:10,100 --> 00:23:12,559 If I can get away with it, I like 295 00:23:12,559 --> 00:23:16,320 to use really bright, punchy colors. Especially 296 00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:21,679 if it's 2D, I like to have swooshing lines, things that are more 297 00:23:21,679 --> 00:23:26,240 sketchy almost because I think it just gives the work a lot of energy, like a 298 00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,220 raw energy that's very appealing. 299 00:23:29,220 --> 00:23:31,780 [music] 300 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:36,880 One of the biggest things is getting the believability of the work, you know. 301 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:41,660 These are digital images that we are creating to make you believe. 302 00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:46,480 It makes science that would otherwise would be dry. It makes it very 303 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:49,300 interesting. It even makes it very attractive. 304 00:23:49,380 --> 00:23:53,200 I think science illustration just makes you very observant. You know, 305 00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,760 aside from all the techniques and stuff that you learn, 306 00:23:55,760 --> 00:24:00,520 it makes you look more closely at the world. 307 00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:10,980 [music] 308 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,040 Have you ever tried to listen to your favorite radio station, only to find it 309 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,480 garbled or replaced by a different station? Well if so, you might have been 310 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:22,480 the victim of something known as a sporadic e-layer. 311 00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:26,400 There are concentrations of electrically charged gas called plasma in a region of 312 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,440 space known as the ionosphere. They act kind of like 313 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:33,440 mirrors in the sky and bounce radio transmissions over the horizon and 314 00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,799 interfere with your radio. Kind of like two people trying to talk over each 315 00:24:36,799 --> 00:24:39,760 other. Even though we've known about these layers for 316 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:43,520 over 80 years now, we still don't fully understand them because 317 00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,760 they occur at an altitude that is really difficult to explore. The air there is so 318 00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:51,520 thin that we can't fly an aircraft, but it's just thick enough that if we were 319 00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:54,559 to try to orbit a satellite it would burn up in the atmosphere. So we've only 320 00:24:54,559 --> 00:24:58,559 ever been able to explore a handful. Well, one planet where the atmosphere is 321 00:24:58,559 --> 00:25:02,400 much thinner is the planet Mars. And one satellite that is currently 322 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,640 exploring Mars is the MAVEN orbiter. One of the instruments on MAVEN is 323 00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:10,559 called STATIC, it's designed to measure plasma escaping from the ionosphere, 324 00:25:10,559 --> 00:25:14,960 this upper atmospheric layer of Mars. And in the data scientists were seeing 325 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,760 that when MAVEN would fly through a certain region of the atmosphere, 326 00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:22,240 Poof! There was this big density enhancement of this plasma concentration. 327 00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:26,080 Scientists realized that they discovered the Martian equivalent of these layers. 328 00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,360 It's exciting because now we have a place that we can go to to directly 329 00:25:29,360 --> 00:25:32,960 explore these layers with a satellite. MAVEN has encountered more of these 330 00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:36,080 layers at Mars than we've ever been able to explore here at Earth. 331 00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,679 at Earth the layers are temporary and unpredictable, but at Mars they seem to 332 00:25:39,679 --> 00:25:41,520 be almost permanent and long long-lived at 333 00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,960 predictable locations. Also scientists found something that they 334 00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,320 didn't even know could exist. MAVEN discovered the opposite of a layer. 335 00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,279 They're calling it a rift, and it's where the sky has been pulled 336 00:25:51,279 --> 00:25:55,120 apart. And rather than a concentration of this plasma, there's a depletion. 337 00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:59,360 Many models said this actually couldn't happen, but yet they do exist, and we find 338 00:25:59,360 --> 00:26:02,320 them at Mars. This demonstrates how little we 339 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,600 actually know and how much there still is to discover. 340 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,960 These layers are so common they happen over our heads all the time. 341 00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:12,000 You yourself have probably detected one of these with your own radio, 342 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,880 even if you weren't aware of this. And who would have thought that one of the 343 00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,679 best ways to explore them would be to send a spacecraft 344 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,740 300 million miles to the red planet? 345 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:29,260 [music] 346 00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:34,400 This year five new missions are taking off to investigate our home planet. 347 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:38,080 From coast to coast, these missions will take a closer look at everything from 348 00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:43,280 sea level rise to snowstorms. All based right here in the United States. 349 00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:52,240 About 200 miles off the coast of San Francisco, the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean 350 00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:55,679 Dynamics Experiment, or S-MODE, will use measurements from a 351 00:26:55,679 --> 00:26:59,679 research vessel and three planes: a King Air, a Gulf 352 00:26:59,679 --> 00:27:02,720 Stream a Twin Otter to look at how swirling 353 00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,600 ocean eddies affect the movement of heat between the 354 00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:07,260 ocean and the atmosphere. 355 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:10,900 Autonomous wavegliders and ocean gliders 356 00:27:10,900 --> 00:27:14,799 will dive below the surface of the water to get a full picture of the ocean and 357 00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:15,820 atmosphere. 358 00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:22,799 Together the mission will collect data about temperature, salinity and ocean 359 00:27:22,799 --> 00:27:25,360 velocity to get a better understanding of how 360 00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:27,940 small eddies affect the upper ocean. 361 00:27:35,020 --> 00:27:36,780 Traveling inland to the Midwest, 362 00:27:36,780 --> 00:27:40,840 the summer months can bring intense thunderstorms 363 00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,520 Strong winds formed by these storms can overshoot the troposphere 364 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,200 and reach higher in Earth's atmosphere, injecting pollutants into the 365 00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,240 stratosphere, which can affect the ozone layer. 366 00:27:56,360 --> 00:28:00,320 Using an ER-2 plane flying up to 70 thousand feet 367 00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,640 the Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer Stratosphere, or DCOTSS mission, 368 00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:08,159 will investigate how the pollutants reach the stratosphere and how their 369 00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,380 impact could change in the future. 370 00:28:10,380 --> 00:28:19,200 [music] 371 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:23,440 Farther south, the Mississippi River Delta is sinking as sea levels continue 372 00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,000 to rise globally. 373 00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,320 The Delta X mission--no acronyms here-- 374 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:36,640 will combine measurements from two planes, 375 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,559 a King Air and a Gulf Stream, with measurements taken on the ground 376 00:28:40,559 --> 00:28:44,559 and in the water to study how and where soil is naturally transported and 377 00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,700 deposited by water. 378 00:28:46,700 --> 00:28:53,560 [music] 379 00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:56,880 This can help researchers better understand how the coastal regions will 380 00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:59,440 be affected by rising sea levels. 381 00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:14,960 [music] 382 00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,360 On the East Coast of the United States, the Aerosol Cloud Meteorology 383 00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,000 Interactions over the Western Atlantic Experiment, 384 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:26,399 or ACTIVATE mission, will look at how clouds in the marine boundary layer, 385 00:29:26,399 --> 00:29:31,760 roughly the two kilometers above the ocean, affect the water cycle. 386 00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,880 These cloud systems cover large stretches of the ocean and 387 00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,690 are not well represented in climate models. 388 00:29:37,690 --> 00:29:39,520 ACTIVATE will use two planes, 389 00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,559 a Falcon and a King Air, to take measurements remotely 390 00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:47,300 and in situ, including releasing dropsondes through the clouds. 391 00:29:47,300 --> 00:29:56,320 [music] 392 00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,080 Flying the same corridor, the Investigation of Microphysics and 393 00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,360 Precipitation for Atlantic Coast Threatening Snowstorms, 394 00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:07,440 or IMPACTS mission, will use measurements on the ground. 395 00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:13,279 Scientific balloons and two planes, the ER-2 and the P3, to measure snow 396 00:30:13,279 --> 00:30:16,640 storms at all altitudes. 397 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,080 IMPACTS is looking closely at the intense bands of snow that form inside 398 00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:24,740 clouds to improve forecasting of snowstorms in the future. 399 00:30:24,740 --> 00:30:36,880 [music] 400 00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,640 Stay tuned for more as these five missions take off! 401 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:48,800 [music] 402 00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:59,360 I think one of the things that's really special about this visualization is that 403 00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:02,240 it's showing this this new and really complex part of 404 00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,980 our model, which is atmospheric chemistry. 405 00:31:05,820 --> 00:31:09,120 One of the issues I think with atmospheric chemistry is that 406 00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:15,279 it's so complicated, and it changes so rapidly on a short scale. 407 00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:20,580 We're not necessarily able to observe it all the time everywhere. 408 00:31:22,140 --> 00:31:25,200 So that's where models come in. By merging models and satellite 409 00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,600 data, we get a much fuller picture of what's 410 00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,039 going on throughout the atmosphere. We can see gases that we couldn't see 411 00:31:31,039 --> 00:31:34,000 with satellites alone. We can see the parts of the atmosphere 412 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,480 column that we really need to know at the nose level 413 00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,760 contributions of pollutants that we need to communicate to 414 00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,860 policy makers to protect people's health. 415 00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:50,560 So what we are seeing is a visualization of the composition of the atmosphere 416 00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:55,039 as it relates to air pollution. There are hundreds of chemicals that all 417 00:31:55,039 --> 00:31:59,440 contribute to those pollutants, and you can see in 418 00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:03,760 this visualization is really what the computer model does 419 00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:06,720 like underneath there are hundreds of chemicals, 420 00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,559 they all react with each other. It's a huge dating pool, 421 00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:14,660 and all of the chemicals date each other all the time. 422 00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,440 So even though these chemicals, some of them are present only at these very 423 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:22,640 dilute concentrations, they're actually quite important so we 424 00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,840 have to really track all of these different molecules to be able to get at 425 00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,279 those pieces that people really need. The pieces of information that affect 426 00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:30,280 human health. 427 00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,080 We rely on computer models to gain 428 00:32:33,100 --> 00:32:38,640 additional insights on where is it formed, where is it destroyed, 429 00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:42,240 what are the mechanisms and how it is formed? But also how can 430 00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:46,399 can it be mitigated? There's all this interesting stuff going on all around us 431 00:32:46,399 --> 00:32:50,880 that we're not necessarily aware of, and so this the simulation is really 432 00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,679 just trying to illustrate what's going on with those 433 00:32:53,679 --> 00:32:57,440 gases, but by showing so many of them, illustrates how complex their 434 00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:01,200 interactions are and how many things are going on even if we're not aware of them 435 00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:02,540 all the time. 436 00:33:02,720 --> 00:34:25,720 [music] 437 00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:28,720 Ten years ago we couldn't do anything like this, so this is really a 438 00:34:28,720 --> 00:34:32,480 revolutionary type of approach to be able to combine 439 00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:37,000 the satellite and the model, and the thing that impresses me the most 440 00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:40,079 about visualizations like this is just that we can do it. 441 00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:44,080 Just that with all of this complexity, all of these kinds of things being 442 00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:47,119 transported in the atmosphere, that this actually works, and when we 443 00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:50,800 compare it against observations, it actually looks really, really good in 444 00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:55,600 a lot of places. This is a really exciting new frontier for us. 445 00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:08,160 [music] 446 00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:13,120 There's one thing that stands between us and the harsh environment of space: 447 00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,160 our atmosphere. The part of Earth that sustains 448 00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:21,680 all life. But here in the closest town to the North Pole, 449 00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:27,200 it's slowly leaking away. A team headed there to launch 450 00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:30,240 rockets into the leak, but it's not the lack of atmosphere that 451 00:35:30,240 --> 00:35:33,680 they're concerned about. The leak is a natural process that will 452 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,839 take billions of years. So we're not going to run out anytime soon. 453 00:35:37,839 --> 00:35:41,119 It's part of the larger story of how a planet's atmosphere 454 00:35:41,119 --> 00:35:47,200 changes over time, a key factor in the search for life on other planets. 455 00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:52,000 We have 35 residents and 60 of our team together 456 00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,040 in a town that is completely isolated. There's a plane twice a week, 457 00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,160 and there's a thousand polar bears nearby. 458 00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:02,800 this is Doug Rowland, a NASA scientist who's taken his team to Ny-Alesund 459 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:07,680 on the island of Svalbard. The island lies beneath one of two regions near 460 00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,720 Earth's poles called the cusps. It's where we can 461 00:36:10,720 --> 00:36:14,079 access space directly and where a hundred tons of atmosphere 462 00:36:14,079 --> 00:36:18,240 escapes into space each day. This escape gives clues to how long an 463 00:36:18,240 --> 00:36:21,680 atmosphere will last and ultimately whether it stays around 464 00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:23,500 long enough to sustain life. 465 00:36:23,500 --> 00:36:25,560 What we're trying to understand is how did 466 00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,040 Earth's atmosphere evolve over time and how do other planets that might be 467 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,940 like Earth or more dissimilar to Earth how did their atmospheres evolve? 468 00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:39,040 So Doug joined forces with Joran Moen, a professor at the University of Oslo 469 00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,380 who started the Grand Challenge Initiative - Cusp. 470 00:36:42,500 --> 00:36:47,580 It's an international mission to launch 12 rockets into the Earth's northern cusp. 471 00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:49,680 And Doug, he's the mission leader for the 472 00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:51,800 first two rockets of the campaign 473 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:56,740 [music] 474 00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:00,000 We don't want to waste our rocket. It'll take us three years to make the rocket 475 00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,860 only 15 minutes to use it, and I don't waste my shot here. 476 00:37:03,100 --> 00:37:07,680 He's using a sounding rocket, which is different from the bigger rockets that carry satellites and 477 00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:10,960 humans into space. It's a small suborbital rocket that 478 00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,720 flies briefly into space, collects real-time data for around 15 479 00:37:14,720 --> 00:37:19,600 minutes, then falls back to Earth. it's affordable, quick to build, and can 480 00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:21,560 launch towards a precise point. 481 00:37:21,720 --> 00:37:23,120 The major advantage is that you can 482 00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:25,760 launch into a target on the sky. 483 00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,780 But there's a limited launch window and 484 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,560 only one chance to get the launch right 485 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,440 We have these unguided rockets. They go where you point them unless the wind is 486 00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:37,920 blowing because the wind literally just blows them over. 487 00:37:37,980 --> 00:37:41,040 We don't launch when there's high wind. So to measure the winds, they launch 488 00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:45,839 balloons with GPS trackers. They're released every 15 to 30 minutes, 489 00:37:45,839 --> 00:37:48,640 and then they're monitored to see how fast the 490 00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:50,940 winds are carrying them. 491 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:58,240 The ground winds were 12, 13 meters per second, 492 00:37:58,240 --> 00:38:01,540 gusting 17, which is way off 493 00:38:01,940 --> 00:38:03,320 You're filled with trepidation, oh my 494 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,540 gosh this thing that I've built, is it going to work after all this? 495 00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,640 So I think we're going to scrub for today. I'd like to thank everyone. I think 496 00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:17,300 it was a great performance, thanks a lot. 497 00:38:17,700 --> 00:38:22,000 This means that we are scrubbing this operation from today and try again 498 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,480 tomorrow. 499 00:38:26,240 --> 00:38:31,440 The mission is named Visualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral Atom Sensing-2, 500 00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:37,340 or VISIONS-2. In short they're looking at how oxygen is getting enough energy to escape. 501 00:38:37,420 --> 00:38:39,760 It's a good test of how atmospheric escape works. 502 00:38:39,820 --> 00:38:43,520 Earth's gravity should hold on to the oxygen, and yet we see this gas 503 00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,140 shooting off into space. We're trying to figure out how that works. 504 00:38:47,180 --> 00:38:50,000 That is a science question that has been 505 00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,020 hanging around for four decades. 506 00:38:52,340 --> 00:38:57,040 Fortunately, anyone can see atmospheric escape at the right place and time. 507 00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:01,980 In Svalbard, we have the so-called polar night. It's dark all 24 hours. 508 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,160 This continual darkness is key 509 00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:08,800 for witnessing this. This is the cuspara, it's a type of northern lights that 510 00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:12,400 appears between 8 am and noon, and you can only see it when 511 00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:16,079 it's dark during the day. It looks similar to the aurora that occurs at night, 512 00:39:16,079 --> 00:39:18,640 but when these iridescent colors dance 513 00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:22,560 at this hour each day, a hundred tons of oxygen escapes from 514 00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:24,980 Earth's atmosphere into space. 515 00:39:25,180 --> 00:39:29,420 This is our sport now, to chase the aurora. 516 00:39:29,500 --> 00:39:34,700 Working with them is the EISCAT radar and Kjell Henriksen Observatory. 517 00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,220 They have additional instruments to find the aurora. 518 00:39:37,300 --> 00:39:42,720 Sometimes it's cloudy, so we use radars to track the cusp. We can 519 00:39:42,720 --> 00:39:46,640 give advice that this is the right type of aurora. 520 00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,640 This is the wall of science, a collection of data from satellites and ground 521 00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,400 instruments that helps them predict where the cusp aurora will be. 522 00:39:54,460 --> 00:39:58,960 So the cusp actually isn't a fixed point in space. It kind of moves around. 523 00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:02,000 What's controlling the cusp's movement is the Sun 524 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:06,800 interacting with Earth. Our planet is surrounded by a magnetic field that 525 00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,640 helps us hold on to our atmosphere, but at the North and South Poles, the 526 00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:15,440 magnetic field bends inwards, creating a corridor between Earth and space. 527 00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,640 When energy is released from the Sun via a 528 00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,640 solar flare or coronal mass ejection, all of that energy in the form of 529 00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,540 radiation rides down the magnetic field lines of the Earth and is transferred 530 00:40:26,540 --> 00:40:29,880 and dumped into the Earth's atmosphere. 531 00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,720 Electrons cascade into Earth's atmosphere. 532 00:40:32,780 --> 00:40:34,580 They accelerate and collide with oxygen 533 00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:38,800 particles, giving them energy to release light and sometimes enough 534 00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:43,200 energy to escape. Collectively this forms the cusp aurora 535 00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:45,540 and streams of escaping oxygen. 536 00:40:45,740 --> 00:40:48,720 This cusp is in constant motion. 537 00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:50,960 And we've got a fixed trajectory, we really can't 538 00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:54,900 aim where the cusp is. We have to wait for the cusp to come across our line of sight. 539 00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:56,400 Can you guys hear Kjellmar? We'd like you 540 00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,040 as soon as you see an indication that the cusp is moving close 541 00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,260 to move it, the radar dish if we can. 542 00:41:01,260 --> 00:41:06,260 This is EISCAT, it's been very quiet. Very difficult to launch. 543 00:41:10,720 --> 00:41:13,040 Do you think you'll launch today? 544 00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:16,040 No. 545 00:41:16,100 --> 00:41:19,760 Probably about a 60 percent chance of launching. 546 00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,400 When we started seeing this really good data, this clock started counting down, 547 00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:31,040 and that's when everyone realized this is going to happen. We're going to launch. 548 00:41:31,260 --> 00:41:35,360 We're doing everything we can to get that launch off before the aurora 549 00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:39,040 goes away. It is really, really challenging and 550 00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:44,319 nerve-wracking at that point. You can see the tension just rise 551 00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,660 in everybody when that happens. 552 00:41:46,740 --> 00:41:51,359 And so everyone's watching their instruments, getting really excited and then at 553 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:57,120 T-minus one minute, all of us ran out to go see the launch happen. 554 00:42:07,240 --> 00:42:10,400 And then we immediately turned around and ran right back in 555 00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:15,180 to look at all the data that was coming back from the instruments. 556 00:42:15,720 --> 00:42:18,720 You know how much time and effort went into it 557 00:42:18,720 --> 00:42:21,920 because we all worked on it and there's just 558 00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:25,100 nothing that compares to that feeling. 559 00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:27,160 Everybody in every one of those little 560 00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:31,520 places you know really just so happy to contribute to uh 561 00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:36,240 to getting the science. It's really an incredible experience. 562 00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:40,640 This is a story about what it takes to launch science instruments into space 563 00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,160 but the real adventure will be in the data they sent back. 564 00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:48,560 Hidden within the numbers will be answers that reach far beyond Earth, 565 00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,079 shedding light on how atmospheres throughout the universe change, 566 00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,640 evolve and perhaps support life. 567 00:42:58,380 --> 00:43:01,740 Hi, I'm Joy. And I'm Miles. And we created 568 00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:06,079 the video about NASA's VISIONS-2 campaign in Svalbard. 569 00:43:06,079 --> 00:43:10,240 It took 3 flights and a bus ride to get there, and when we finally arrived it was 570 00:43:10,240 --> 00:43:13,440 around noon, but it was still pitch dark outside due 571 00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,680 to the 24-hour darkness. We wore headlamps everywhere we went, day 572 00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,520 or night. The 24-7 darkness wasn't as jarring as I 573 00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,880 thought it would be, but I think that's because we also had a 574 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:29,920 really hectic schedule. We'd wake up at 2:30 a.m every day. 575 00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,040 I'd pack up my filming gear and then at 3 a.m 576 00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:36,079 we'd head over to wherever we're filming that day. 577 00:43:36,079 --> 00:43:39,040 Probably the hardest thing about covering this mission was that there 578 00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,079 were so many different things happening all at the same time. 579 00:43:42,079 --> 00:43:45,359 We really had to plan ahead to figure out where we were going to be when 580 00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:49,280 to capture it all. One of the things i was most worried about was being stuck 581 00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:53,520 in the block house during launch. It's this building right by the rocket, 582 00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,720 and when you're in there, you can't be outside during the launch, 583 00:43:56,720 --> 00:44:01,359 and you can only access that building by car with an escort. And you can only 584 00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:07,080 arrive and leave at certain times, but evidently we didn't miss the launch. 585 00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:11,120 And it was pretty much the best experience ever. 586 00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:24,160 [music] 587 00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:28,720 People have been hunting for sun grazing comets for well over 100 years, 588 00:44:28,720 --> 00:44:32,960 but up to 1979, we only knew of less than a dozen. 589 00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:37,119 As of 2020, we have seen around 4,000 sun grazers. 590 00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:43,260 Why did the number increase? The answer lies along the route most sun grazers follow. 591 00:44:43,260 --> 00:44:45,280 In the late 1800s Heinrich Kreutz 592 00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:48,480 observed that a few recent comets traveling near the Sun 593 00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:50,720 appeared to follow the same orbit. 594 00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:54,640 On this Kreutz Sungrazer Path, as we've come to call it, 595 00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:59,040 it takes the comet several hundred years to complete one loop around the Sun. 596 00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,480 While there are other orbits of sungrazers, Kreutz comets are the most 597 00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:05,359 common. All of the comets in this orbit came 598 00:45:05,359 --> 00:45:07,760 from a single comet that fell apart near the Sun 599 00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:11,920 thousands of years ago. As the comet moved closer to the Sun, 600 00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:16,240 the ice binding it together evaporated, breaking it into smaller pieces that the 601 00:45:16,240 --> 00:45:20,240 Sun's gravity pulled apart. Every time a comet comes around the 602 00:45:20,240 --> 00:45:25,440 Kreutz Path, this can happen again, resulting in a new generation of comets. 603 00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:28,720 It might sound like this would clutter the solar system full of comets, 604 00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:33,359 but that's not the case. Most of the new comets are small enough that they become 605 00:45:33,359 --> 00:45:36,240 completely vaporized as they approach the Sun. 606 00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:39,839 There are more comets observed in the last few decades, not because there are 607 00:45:39,839 --> 00:45:42,880 more in the solar system, but because we have better ways to see 608 00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,760 them when they are close to the Sun. Spotting a sun grazer from the ground is 609 00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,359 almost impossible because of the blinding sunlight. 610 00:45:51,359 --> 00:45:54,720 Now spacecraft uniquely designed to look at the Sun 611 00:45:54,720 --> 00:45:59,200 can block the brightest sunlight, making the job a lot easier. 612 00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:03,599 Since the joint ESA-NASA mission SOHO launched in 1995, 613 00:46:03,599 --> 00:46:07,680 it has shown us thousands more comets than any tool before it. 614 00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:12,480 With SOHO we can now see the smaller fainter comets close to the Sun 615 00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:16,560 just long enough to add them to our list of sungrazers before they vaporize. 616 00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:20,800 The spacecraft's data is available online so now anyone can discover a 617 00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,160 comet. Roughly 95 of these comets have been 618 00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:29,119 found by amateur astronomers. SOHO isn't the only Sun-observing 619 00:46:29,119 --> 00:46:32,800 spacecraft to have surprised us with beautiful images of comets. 620 00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:36,480 NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has spotted sun grazers too, 621 00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,599 though less frequently than SOHO. 622 00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:43,280 Now that we can observe comets better than ever, who knows, 623 00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,520 maybe you will spot the next sun grazer. 624 00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:54,040 [music] 625 00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:58,000 In this clip you will see four years 626 00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:02,960 covered in 100 seconds of data interplay where over half a million of reported 627 00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:07,839 cases of Rift Valley Fever affected humans and livestock. This data 628 00:47:07,839 --> 00:47:10,960 visualization gives you a peek into the scientific 629 00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:16,000 research efforts of Dr. Assaf Anyamba, who for over 20 years has been tracking 630 00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:20,240 diseases from space by combining hundreds of data sets from 631 00:47:20,240 --> 00:47:24,960 satellites and weather stations with disease reports and mosquito samples. 632 00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:29,920 This is what big science is all about. Big data all around from the ground and 633 00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:33,119 from space, and science has proven that there is a 634 00:47:33,119 --> 00:47:36,000 cause and effect pattern between climate events and 635 00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:41,599 infectious disease outbreaks. The climate patterns of El Nino and La Nina, 636 00:47:41,599 --> 00:47:44,720 as measured in the Pacific Ocean near the Equator, 637 00:47:44,720 --> 00:47:48,480 create weather anomalies whose ripple effects are felt with a two to three 638 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,720 month delay in distant regions such as southern Africa. 639 00:47:52,720 --> 00:47:57,440 For example, the mild 2009 to 2010 El Nino 640 00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:01,040 caused an above normal increase in rainfall and vegetation, 641 00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:06,800 which in turn triggered a large outbreak of mosquito-borne Rift Valley Fever. 642 00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:10,319 We created this data visualization with Dr. Assaf Anyamba 643 00:48:10,319 --> 00:48:14,720 to showcase complex data associations and allow the viewers to track the key 644 00:48:14,720 --> 00:48:20,800 indicators over a period of time. In a sense, this visualization allows you, 645 00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:28,080 the viewer, to see with Dr. Anyamba's eyes and be guided to the conclusions by the data. 646 00:48:28,720 --> 00:48:34,280 [music] 647 00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:42,480 We are in a very remote environment. It's a harsh environment. 648 00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:47,440 You move slower, you're tired, your eyes hurt because it is so bright out there. 649 00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,559 You're cold. You can't remember the last time you were warm, 650 00:48:50,559 --> 00:48:54,000 and to you know kind of make matters worse you're digging giant holes in the 651 00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,119 snow, so you're working hard the whole time 652 00:48:57,120 --> 00:48:59,820 that all of these elements are just pounding on you. 653 00:48:59,820 --> 00:49:05,720 [music, snowmobile engines] 654 00:49:06,240 --> 00:49:09,520 The SnowEx project is really a multi-year campaign 655 00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:13,599 to test different instruments and techniques for observing snow 656 00:49:13,599 --> 00:49:16,960 characteristics in different regions and and different 657 00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:19,839 snow types. So we collect measurements on the 658 00:49:19,839 --> 00:49:22,160 ground with different ground-based instruments 659 00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:25,280 and observing techniques. We use that to validate 660 00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:28,559 instruments on aircraft and in the air and 661 00:49:28,559 --> 00:49:33,200 eventually hopefully get some instrument on a satellite. 662 00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:36,240 One of the advantages of Grand Mesa is its elevation. We're 663 00:49:36,240 --> 00:49:40,319 at over 10,000 feet here, and so as you can see the snow is not 664 00:49:40,319 --> 00:49:45,920 wet at all. And so we want to start by really proving the concept in dry snow. 665 00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,440 A lot of the remote sensing approaches are also challenged by complex 666 00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:53,040 topography, so really steep topography and as you can see where 667 00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:56,559 we're standing here we're on the top of a mesa, which is relatively flat. This is 668 00:49:56,559 --> 00:49:59,280 the largest mesa in the world, and so it's a 669 00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:03,359 pretty unique spot to do this work. Within the pits we're looking at the 670 00:50:03,359 --> 00:50:06,559 vertical stratigraphy, so the layering of the snowpack 671 00:50:06,559 --> 00:50:11,119 and the different characteristics of those layers: temperature, density. 672 00:50:11,119 --> 00:50:14,640 I'm operating the snow micropenetrometer, 673 00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,760 which is one instrument that they use in the pit crews 674 00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:22,079 to look at the hardness of the snow and to look at the microstructure. 675 00:50:22,079 --> 00:50:25,520 The microstructure is a very, very important characteristic 676 00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:29,599 for these active-passive microwave retrieval,s so we wanted to get that in a 677 00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:31,200 lot of locations. 678 00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:40,080 I've just done a radar survey in a particular way, and we use this type 679 00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:43,920 of sampling strategy, we were calling it a Hiemstra spiral. 680 00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:48,079 It's a spiral pattern. I'm making a hundred measurements per 681 00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:52,720 second as I drive the snowmobile, and that is a very similar measurement 682 00:50:52,720 --> 00:50:54,280 to what's happening on the aircraft. 683 00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,920 SWESARR really stands for Snow Water Equivalent 684 00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:04,960 Synthetic Aperture Radar and Radiometer, and it's 685 00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:08,079 actually two instruments in one. It has a active radar 686 00:51:08,079 --> 00:51:12,880 and a passive radiometer. Basically they both work on the microwave frequencies, 687 00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:16,960 and what they do is to penetrate the snowpack a little bit 688 00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:21,280 and give us the volume scattering information 689 00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:25,040 then which we can relate to how much water is inside the snowpack. 690 00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,960 Snow water equivalent is really the the volume of water that's stored in the 691 00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,000 snowpack for hydrologic applications. That's 692 00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:35,760 really the most important characteristic we want to know, how much is available to 693 00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:39,920 melt and where it's going to go, evaporate into our groundwater, 694 00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,760 reservoirs and how much is available. 695 00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,640 Our climate's also changing, and snow is playing a really big role in that. 696 00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:50,000 And it's a big piece of the hydrologic cycle that's quite 697 00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:53,359 uncertain, and it's one of the pieces that we 698 00:51:53,359 --> 00:51:56,880 really see as a very high priority to get more 699 00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:59,360 quantitative, more accurate estimates for. 700 00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:04,880 Snow is a really important part of our planet. Provides water, hydropower, 701 00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:08,960 it's a water source for agriculture and and water supply. 702 00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,079 When we have snow in our mountains it's holding it, 703 00:52:12,079 --> 00:52:16,079 it's kind of like timing the melt in like a slow release 704 00:52:16,079 --> 00:52:19,920 versus just an onset of rain or a flood event. 705 00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:23,359 As we build these records for longer time series, 706 00:52:23,359 --> 00:52:27,200 we would be able to tell how the snow accumulation is changing over a given 707 00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:30,079 area and how that might impact the 708 00:52:30,079 --> 00:52:33,520 agriculture in that area or how the people live in that area. 709 00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:37,599 I'm really excited about the potential right now. I think there's a lot of 710 00:52:37,599 --> 00:52:42,000 excitement in the snow community. There's a lot of collaboration I think 711 00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:45,599 we really are at a point where we can push the 712 00:52:45,599 --> 00:52:50,400 science forward and move towards a global snow product 713 00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:53,720 and a satellite mission hopefully. 714 00:52:53,720 --> 00:53:01,840 [music] 715 00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:07,680 This is Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid, a remnant from the origins of the solar 716 00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:11,839 system and the target of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. 717 00:53:11,839 --> 00:53:16,480 When OSIRIS-REx arrived in December 2018, it brought Bennu into focus, 718 00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:20,480 confirming early radar images that suggested the asteroid was shaped like a 719 00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:24,079 spinning top. But the close-up images also brought a 720 00:53:24,079 --> 00:53:26,800 big surprise. 721 00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:31,440 Before OSIRIS-REx arrived scientists had expected Bennu's surface to consist 722 00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:35,359 largely of fine-grained material like a sandy beach. 723 00:53:35,359 --> 00:53:40,000 Sand heats up quickly during the day and cools off quickly at night. 724 00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:43,440 In contrast, solid objects like rocks and boulders 725 00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:48,559 heat up and cool down more slowly. Infrared telescope observations had 726 00:53:48,559 --> 00:53:52,640 shown that as Bennu rotates, its surface rapidly heats and cools, 727 00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:56,000 much like a sandy beach. But OSIRIS-REx was greeted 728 00:53:56,000 --> 00:54:02,079 by a rocky world, littered with boulders the size of cars, the size of houses, 729 00:54:02,079 --> 00:54:06,720 the size of football fields. This unexpected roughness confronted the 730 00:54:06,720 --> 00:54:11,440 mission with a major challenge. The main science goal of OSIRIS-REx is 731 00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:15,680 to briefly touch down on Bennu and grab a sample of fine-grained material for 732 00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:19,280 return to Earth. To protect the spacecraft the original 733 00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:23,040 plan called for touchdown in a boulder-free zone with a diameter of at 734 00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:27,520 least 164 feet, but as it turns out, boulder-free sites 735 00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:31,760 of that size don't exist. Following arrival 736 00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:35,839 mission planners began looking at safe zones that are just a few parking spaces 737 00:54:35,839 --> 00:54:38,319 wide with enough loose material to provide a 738 00:54:38,319 --> 00:54:42,400 sample. In mid 2019 they identified four 739 00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:46,319 candidate sites and named them after birds that can be found in Egypt: 740 00:54:46,319 --> 00:54:53,200 Osprey, Kingfisher, Nightingale and Sandpiper. Mission planners evaluated 741 00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:56,000 each site based on its safety to the spacecraft, 742 00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:59,839 the ease of getting to the site, the amount of sampleable material that it 743 00:54:59,839 --> 00:55:04,079 contains and the science value of the material itself. 744 00:55:04,079 --> 00:55:07,920 After carefully evaluating these criteria, they chose Nightingale as the 745 00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:13,359 primary sample collection site and Osprey as the backup. Nightingale is 746 00:55:13,359 --> 00:55:17,520 located near Bennu's north pole. It sits inside a small crater measuring 747 00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:21,520 66 feet in diameter. Nightingale contains mostly fine-grained 748 00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:24,960 material and has multiple areas for sample collection 749 00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:29,200 It is also the darkest of the candid sites and has high color variation, 750 00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:35,040 suggesting a diverse mineralogy. Osprey is also located within a 66-foot wide 751 00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:38,079 crater, just north of Bennu's equatorial bulge 752 00:55:38,079 --> 00:55:40,559 and may contain rock types from both the northern 753 00:55:40,559 --> 00:55:45,359 and southern hemispheres. Osprey has the strongest signal for carbon-rich 754 00:55:45,359 --> 00:55:48,319 materials of all four sites and contains a dark 755 00:55:48,319 --> 00:55:52,960 patch at its center that is of high scientific interest to the mission. 756 00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,880 Now that the primary and backup sites have been chosen, OSIRIS-REx is 757 00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:00,240 performing additional reconnaissance flights to prepare for the sample 758 00:56:00,240 --> 00:56:03,920 collection event. Later in 2020 the spacecraft will 759 00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:07,760 descend to Bennu's surface, briefly touch down and collect up to 760 00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:12,720 four and a half pounds of loose material. After collection OSIRIS-REx 761 00:56:12,720 --> 00:56:16,720 will carefully stow the sample and make the long journey back to Earth. 762 00:56:16,720 --> 00:56:20,319 In late 2023 it will return the sample, delivering 763 00:56:20,319 --> 00:56:23,280 pristine material from the origins of the solar system 764 00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:26,460 that will be studied on Earth for decades to come. 765 00:56:26,460 --> 00:58:14,240 [music] 766 00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:23,520 [helicopter] 767 00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:29,440 My land cover career really started in 2002 768 00:58:29,599 --> 00:58:33,280 with biggest wildfire in Oregon's history, and that was the Biscuit 769 00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:37,359 Wildfire. I at the time was doing botany surveys 770 00:58:37,359 --> 00:58:39,760 and looking for rare plants or rare 771 00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:42,160 mushrooms, and so I was spending a lot of time 772 00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:46,079 out on the on the forest looking at and taking photos 773 00:58:46,079 --> 00:58:50,160 and doing the documentation that a scientist or a land manager does. 774 00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,200 When that fire happened, it changed everything 775 00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:57,440 because we all had to react to this fire that was burning up 776 00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:01,119 some of the places that I'd literally been the day before. 777 00:59:01,119 --> 00:59:04,319 And it was mapping what was there and what was under threat, 778 00:59:04,319 --> 00:59:07,440 but it was also mapping the effects of the fire. 779 00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:11,359 We needed to find a way to look across 500,000 acres, 780 00:59:11,359 --> 00:59:14,960 and the only way that we could really do that was satellite data. 781 00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:18,480 If we can't get out and actually measure every single thing, 782 00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:22,720 what are we missing? And that's where citizen scientists can actually come in 783 00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:25,760 and really help traditional scientists to better 784 00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:31,360 understand what is happening around them but also fill in these gaps. 785 00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:34,720 The Global Learning and Observations to 786 00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:37,760 Benefit the Environment Program is an international science and 787 00:59:37,760 --> 00:59:42,079 education program. It provides students and the public with the opportunity to 788 00:59:42,079 --> 00:59:46,880 participate in data collection and the scientific process. The GLOBE 789 00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:49,359 Observer app is one of these opportunities allowing 790 00:59:49,359 --> 00:59:53,280 citizen scientists and students to take land cover observations around the world 791 00:59:53,280 --> 00:59:56,960 and submit them to a larger database. 792 00:59:57,599 --> 01:00:02,960 But what exactly is land cover? Dr. Eric Brown DeCoulston of NASA's 793 01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:06,880 Goddard Space Flight Center explains. Land cover is really the basic form of 794 01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:14,079 the landscape that we have around us. So whether it's a forest or a desert, but 795 01:00:14,079 --> 01:00:19,520 it's really one of the components of the landscape that we can study from space. 796 01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:23,440 Peder Nelson is a scientist who uses land cover imagery in his research 797 01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:26,559 I am a remote sensing scientist who studies 798 01:00:26,559 --> 01:00:32,880 land cover across the globe. I use satellite imagery to make maps of 799 01:00:32,880 --> 01:00:37,839 land cover and try to quantify what covers the Earth. 800 01:00:37,839 --> 01:00:42,160 Sometimes the satellite can't see what's happening underneath the tree canopy or 801 01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:45,920 what's happening underneath cloud cover, and so we really need people 802 01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:49,599 to go out there and to take these photos to do these observations 803 01:00:49,599 --> 01:00:54,000 to help fill in where a satellite can't actually make some observations. 804 01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:57,920 Just like any digital photograph, land cover images are made up of a series of 805 01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:02,240 pixels to show what covers the Earth. A pixel or picture elements is the 806 01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:06,000 smallest unit of a digital image. When combined with thousands of other 807 01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:11,200 pixels, a picture is formed. Each pixel color shown represents a land 808 01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:14,400 cover type. It's from these pixels where ground 809 01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:18,160 verification or ground truthing come into play. 810 01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:21,359 You see, depending on what satellite is taking images, 811 01:01:21,359 --> 01:01:26,480 a pixel can cover roughly an area 30 to 500 meters squared. 812 01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:29,680 For imagery captured by Landsat, a pixel is 30 meters squared, 813 01:01:29,680 --> 01:01:35,920 or about the size of a baseball diamond. However, part of the pixel showing forest 814 01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:40,559 might actually be water or shrubs. 815 01:01:40,720 --> 01:01:44,319 By taking land cover observations, citizen scientists can help 816 01:01:44,319 --> 01:01:48,480 answer these questions when it comes to land cover maps. 817 01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:53,599 So why are these land cover observations so important? 818 01:01:53,599 --> 01:01:57,200 Why are they taken in the first place? 819 01:01:57,599 --> 01:02:01,599 We also are looking at how these components are changing over time 820 01:02:01,599 --> 01:02:05,599 So deforestation in the Amazon or across the world, 821 01:02:05,599 --> 01:02:09,680 how are cities expanding, a lot of different things to study 822 01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:13,440 and and really the view from space is the way that we do it here in NASA. 823 01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:19,520 We have big supercomputers that simulate the physics of the atmosphere and the 824 01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:23,200 land, the interaction between the Earth's systems. 825 01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:27,520 It's important to have that you know that land cover map. 826 01:02:27,520 --> 01:02:32,960 It sets certain parameters. Those models can actually be used to look at 827 01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:37,839 current day conditions and weather. So based on these current conditions, 828 01:02:37,839 --> 01:02:43,359 what might the Earth look like 50 or 100 years from now? 829 01:02:43,359 --> 01:02:50,079 There's an element of understanding but then also being able to predict into 830 01:02:50,079 --> 01:02:53,520 the future, you know, what that might be like, what 831 01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:55,840 these changes may mean for us. 832 01:02:56,240 --> 01:03:01,120 Each point shown here represents a real-world measurement of environmental conditions. 833 01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:04,720 Scientists use computer models to fill in information where measurements may not 834 01:03:04,720 --> 01:03:07,920 exist. By verifying the satellite imagery and 835 01:03:07,920 --> 01:03:11,520 using the data for these models, scientists can predict changes in our 836 01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:15,680 environment more accurately. One of these scientists using land cover 837 01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:19,599 maps to track urbanization as part of her work is Dr. Amita Mehta of NASA's 838 01:03:19,599 --> 01:03:24,640 Goddard Space Flight Center. So urbanization changes terrain 839 01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:28,240 as well as characteristics of the surface itself and so 840 01:03:28,240 --> 01:03:33,599 impervious surface is what we look at when we are monitoring flooding. 841 01:03:33,599 --> 01:03:37,119 When there are say parking lots or cement and concrete surfaces they 842 01:03:37,119 --> 01:03:41,200 increase, so previously if it was a farmland or 843 01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:45,359 something which was not built and if that is built now 844 01:03:45,359 --> 01:03:48,720 that water previously that could go or percolate 845 01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:55,200 in the soil and in the ground now cannot go in and it stays there. 846 01:03:55,200 --> 01:04:01,599 Monitoring helps you to plan for it. If you see land cover changing, even then 847 01:04:01,599 --> 01:04:03,599 you know that you know how water is going to flow in 848 01:04:03,599 --> 01:04:08,240 that region might change. If you have to send rescue out or to 849 01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:13,039 plan for relief activities. Then if you know land cover 850 01:04:13,039 --> 01:04:17,359 then you know where there might be help needed. 851 01:04:17,359 --> 01:04:21,520 By using land cover maps and models that reflect changes over time 852 01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:26,400 scientists can predict where flooding and other events may occur. 853 01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:32,000 With a changing climate these predictions from models and land cover 854 01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:34,240 maps can help scientists better understand 855 01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:38,880 these changes and help communities prepare for them. 856 01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:43,200 But perhaps a more important reason as to why take land cover observations 857 01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:47,200 is you get to participate in a community of scientists, 858 01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:52,960 citizen scientists and students. So it's a very important component that 859 01:04:52,960 --> 01:04:56,160 the citizen science and students of the GLOBE program and 860 01:04:56,160 --> 01:05:01,680 GLOBE Observer can contribute to is by really giving us the information 861 01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:06,160 on the ground of what they're seeing around them and in front of them, and we 862 01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:10,240 hope over time as well, how maybe some of these things are changing 863 01:05:10,240 --> 01:05:13,520 because those would be very valuable for science. 864 01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:19,599 I saw the value of having information before a hazard happens. Because once 865 01:05:19,599 --> 01:05:24,640 that fire went through an area, we could never recreate that data 866 01:05:24,640 --> 01:05:28,240 This is all important for us to share and put together because 867 01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:32,960 that's how we understand Earth as a system. All of these things end up 868 01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:36,720 affecting where we live, why we live where we do, 869 01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:40,880 and why we make some of the choices that we do. 870 01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:45,760 To learn more about GLOBE Observer check out the website at observerdeckglobe.gov 871 01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:49,280 and download the app to start taking your own observations today. 872 01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:57,080 [music] 873 01:05:57,520 --> 01:06:01,200 So you want to visit a black hole. You've packed your bags, you've updated your 874 01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:03,280 passport, and you're basically ready to jump on a 875 01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:06,160 spaceship and blast off. However before you do that, 876 01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:10,960 I have just one piece of advice: Don't. 877 01:06:14,000 --> 01:06:18,480 Okay, if you really must go, I suppose you should at least know a few 878 01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:20,880 things about black holes before you leave. 879 01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:24,880 First you should know exactly what a black hole is. A black hole is a physical 880 01:06:24,880 --> 01:06:27,760 object in space just like everything else. It's made up 881 01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:30,960 of a tiny but massive point where gravity and density are infinite, 882 01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:34,960 a line beyond which everything including light can only fall into that tiny point 883 01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:37,839 and sometimes some glowing stuff orbiting around it and maybe some 884 01:06:37,839 --> 01:06:42,000 radiation. So basically here is kind of bad. Here is 885 01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:45,920 really bad, and here is safe. Also black holes mostly 886 01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:49,520 come in two sizes. Don't ask me why, we still aren't sure. 887 01:06:49,520 --> 01:06:53,200 However, a black hole is also not a lot of things. 888 01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:57,599 It is not a hole, a cosmic vacuum cleaner, a portal to another dimension populated 889 01:06:57,599 --> 01:07:01,520 by unicorns and space potatoes and absolutely not a good place to 890 01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:06,319 vacation. Okay fine, I guess next you'll need to 891 01:07:06,319 --> 01:07:09,839 know how to find a black hole. Though technically black holes could 892 01:07:09,839 --> 01:07:11,920 just sneak up behind you, they likely won't. 893 01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:14,960 The nearest known one is 3,000 light years away anyway. 894 01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:18,720 However, if you were to go looking for one, there are a couple of good ways to find 895 01:07:18,720 --> 01:07:21,359 them. First, black holes tend to mess with 896 01:07:21,359 --> 01:07:24,319 their environment, so you can sometimes use interesting clues 897 01:07:24,319 --> 01:07:27,599 such as a bunch of stuff orbiting what appears to be nothing. 898 01:07:27,599 --> 01:07:31,039 And second, as we mentioned before, there's often glowing stuff orbiting 899 01:07:31,039 --> 01:07:34,799 around them caused by, well, when things get too close. 900 01:07:34,799 --> 01:07:37,920 So now that you've found a black hole and clearly aren't listening to me 901 01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:40,839 saying not to go, it's time for a few important safety 902 01:07:40,839 --> 01:07:44,559 considerations. First of all the good news is that as 903 01:07:44,559 --> 01:07:49,119 long as you stay far away, black holes aren't that bad. However as you 904 01:07:49,119 --> 01:07:51,599 get closer, you need to keep a few things in mind. 905 01:07:51,599 --> 01:07:54,799 The radiation near the black hole can be extremely deadly, but the chances of 906 01:07:54,799 --> 01:07:58,720 escape get slimmer the closer you get. And if you get close enough you now have 907 01:07:58,720 --> 01:08:02,020 to worry about being stretched into a giant noodle and time getting really weird. 908 01:08:02,100 --> 01:08:04,319 So unless you have great radiation 909 01:08:04,319 --> 01:08:08,079 shields, a faster than light spaceship, or you're completely indestructible, you 910 01:08:08,079 --> 01:08:12,559 should probably just stay away. Well that pretty much sums up black 911 01:08:12,559 --> 01:08:15,359 holes. At least before things start getting really complicated. 912 01:08:15,359 --> 01:08:19,040 But before you go for real, please refer to the handy brochure on your spacesuit 913 01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:21,040 pocket since there's quite a bit to remember. 914 01:08:21,040 --> 01:08:26,160 Now then remember your tickets enjoy your trip and please be careful. 915 01:08:27,040 --> 01:08:37,840 [music] 916 01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:41,040 A hurricane is mother nature's grandest 917 01:08:41,040 --> 01:08:43,820 but most ferocious weather machine. 918 01:08:44,020 --> 01:08:45,460 A hurricane is two different things. 919 01:08:45,540 --> 01:08:46,560 If you're looking at it from 920 01:08:46,560 --> 01:08:52,480 above from the satellite down, a hurricane is a beautiful thing. It's a massive coil 921 01:08:52,480 --> 01:08:56,239 of clouds that is rotating, spinning like a top. 922 01:08:56,239 --> 01:08:59,920 When I look at images of hurricanes, I go through so many 923 01:08:59,920 --> 01:09:04,159 emotions. As a scientist, as a meteorologist, I'm like 924 01:09:04,160 --> 01:09:09,080 wow, this is fascinating you know look at this beautiful storm. 925 01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:15,279 But then the human side of me is saying how can we 926 01:09:15,279 --> 01:09:19,279 make sure that people are evacuating, that people 927 01:09:19,279 --> 01:09:23,440 have somewhere to stay, that they have the money to feed their families once 928 01:09:23,440 --> 01:09:28,560 they leave their homes. The hurricane on the ground, that's a 929 01:09:28,560 --> 01:09:32,719 completely different thing because all of that rotation, you really 930 01:09:32,719 --> 01:09:36,000 feel as incredibly severe winds. They can be up 931 01:09:36,000 --> 01:09:42,799 to 150 or more miles per hour. You can have up to 40 inches of rain and 932 01:09:42,799 --> 01:09:46,640 the most deadly thing is that the updraft from the hurricane 933 01:09:46,640 --> 01:09:53,860 is actually pulling ocean swell up into it and so it creates a storm surge up to 40 feet high. 934 01:09:54,700 --> 01:09:57,600 And occasionally when the storms hit at 935 01:09:57,600 --> 01:10:00,640 a little higher latitude, they can also spawn tornadoes in their 936 01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:03,840 fringe. So really the impacts are the the wind, 937 01:10:03,840 --> 01:10:08,320 the storm surge, the heavy rainfall and then occasionally severe weather 938 01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:13,199 that forms when they move inland. I feel like I got a deeper appreciation for 939 01:10:13,199 --> 01:10:18,800 hurricanes when I moved to Galveston, Texas. That entire city, 940 01:10:18,800 --> 01:10:22,560 it's almost like the ghosts of the 1900 hurricane that are still there 941 01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:26,960 because you see evidence of that storm, that particular 942 01:10:26,960 --> 01:10:32,000 famous storm that killed somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people, 943 01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:35,120 and so that is a very present you know thing 944 01:10:35,120 --> 01:10:41,840 in the city even to this day. So that was a category 4 storm that hit 945 01:10:41,840 --> 01:10:45,920 Galveston on September 8th, and there really was not a lot of information 946 01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:50,640 about what was happening in the Caribbean before the storm made landfall. 947 01:10:50,820 --> 01:10:52,640 And the hurricane hit them totally 948 01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:57,280 unprepared and thousands of people lost their lives. Tremendous damage because it 949 01:10:57,280 --> 01:11:02,880 surprised everyone. With the onsets of satellites 950 01:11:02,880 --> 01:11:06,700 that will never happen. 951 01:11:06,700 --> 01:11:09,679 The first leap forward would have been 952 01:11:09,679 --> 01:11:13,280 being able to see the entire planet from space in the first place. 953 01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:18,400 Prior to that how would you know for example that a hurricane was coming? 954 01:11:18,400 --> 01:11:21,199 It would have been very difficult to know that where it was coming, where it 955 01:11:21,199 --> 01:11:26,800 was going, how bad it was going to be. So that's one of the dramatic impacts is 956 01:11:26,800 --> 01:11:30,320 satellite data, sort of like your eyes in the sky to 957 01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:33,700 make sure that mother nature never can surprise you. 958 01:11:33,900 --> 01:11:37,679 You know when I was a child I loved playing with magnifying glasses because 959 01:11:37,679 --> 01:11:41,199 you can zoom in you know and see so many fine details. 960 01:11:41,199 --> 01:11:44,400 And that's what we can do with the satellites that we have now, particularly 961 01:11:44,400 --> 01:11:47,760 the GOES-R series. We're getting 60 times more data 962 01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:51,840 now than what we were in the previous series 963 01:11:51,840 --> 01:11:54,480 You know the first satellites I worked at the GOES I through M, which were great 964 01:11:54,480 --> 01:11:57,520 satellites, but taking a picture of the globe every 25 965 01:11:57,520 --> 01:12:00,159 minutes, you know the hurricanes would be like here 966 01:12:00,159 --> 01:12:03,600 and then they're here and then they're here. And it's not like you're losing 967 01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:06,159 track of them, but the difference between that and 968 01:12:06,159 --> 01:12:10,159 being able to see you know oh it's swerving, it's curling, oh it's you know 969 01:12:10,159 --> 01:12:13,760 it's dying. We take a full disc picture of the 970 01:12:13,760 --> 01:12:16,800 entire hemisphere in five minutes, but we can also look at 971 01:12:16,800 --> 01:12:21,920 smaller areas, and you can scan that once every 30 seconds. You get to see as 972 01:12:21,920 --> 01:12:24,880 the hurricane eyewall was forming. You can see that 973 01:12:24,880 --> 01:12:28,640 actually forming in real time. The Earth looks alive, 974 01:12:28,640 --> 01:12:31,340 it looks like a living thing. 975 01:12:34,160 --> 01:12:38,320 So the polar opening satellites complement the geostationary. 976 01:12:38,320 --> 01:12:41,679 Since the geostationary like 24,000 miles up, 977 01:12:41,679 --> 01:12:45,840 while they get great pictures it's really hard to measure 978 01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:49,199 what is the state of the atmosphere from that distance. 979 01:12:49,199 --> 01:12:53,760 So the polar orbiting are basically flying a little over 500 miles 980 01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:57,679 up, and when you're at that altitude you can 981 01:12:57,679 --> 01:13:02,239 sense what's in the atmosphere to a lot higher resolution. 982 01:13:02,239 --> 01:13:07,679 The JPSS satellite is really primary purpose is to take measurements 983 01:13:07,679 --> 01:13:10,560 of the temperature and moisture of the atmosphere 984 01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:14,480 to drive the weather forecast models. 985 01:13:15,360 --> 01:13:18,560 Two things people always want to know about hurricanes are 986 01:13:18,560 --> 01:13:21,920 how strong is it and where is it going to hit. 987 01:13:21,920 --> 01:13:26,320 And microwave sounders can certainly help with both of those. 988 01:13:26,320 --> 01:13:30,080 The ability to see through clouds becomes really important. 989 01:13:30,080 --> 01:13:33,840 If you've ever seen a picture of a hurricane from space, 990 01:13:33,840 --> 01:13:37,280 mostly what you're seeing is clouds and you can 991 01:13:37,280 --> 01:13:40,560 get a better weather forecast or better prediction of how strong the hurricane is 992 01:13:40,560 --> 01:13:42,880 and where it's going to hit, which 993 01:13:42,880 --> 01:13:45,440 direction it's going to go, if you could see through those clouds. 994 01:13:45,440 --> 01:13:49,520 And see the structure of the atmosphere, maybe even the ocean conditions 995 01:13:49,520 --> 01:13:55,800 underneath that, and so microwave sensors allow you to to do that kind of thing. 996 01:13:56,400 --> 01:13:59,520 As you've seen when they do the hurricane forecasting they there's 997 01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:02,400 usually a cone of uncertainty they put in the path. 998 01:14:02,400 --> 01:14:06,800 We don't know exactly where it's going, but for the next three days or five days 999 01:14:06,800 --> 01:14:10,880 or seven days, here's the cone that it could go in. 1000 01:14:10,880 --> 01:14:14,480 But you don't want to overwarn right? You don't want to 1001 01:14:14,480 --> 01:14:19,760 have the whole East Coast running inland 100 miles because of a hurricane, 1002 01:14:19,760 --> 01:14:23,520 potential hurricane. You'd like that as precise as you can so 1003 01:14:23,520 --> 01:14:26,080 that only the people who are really going to be affected 1004 01:14:26,080 --> 01:14:30,400 have to do something. The improved sensors that we've been 1005 01:14:30,400 --> 01:14:35,040 flying allow a better understanding of the core of that hurricane 1006 01:14:35,040 --> 01:14:38,159 and allow the forecasters to better predict precisely 1007 01:14:38,159 --> 01:14:42,400 where that hurricane is going to hit. And when they do that then you can narrow 1008 01:14:42,400 --> 01:14:47,060 and shrink that cone of uncertainty and give a better prediction. 1009 01:14:47,360 --> 01:14:49,120 We hope to continue to improve the 1010 01:14:49,120 --> 01:14:52,880 ability to do track forecasting. That's gotten so much better over the 1011 01:14:52,880 --> 01:14:57,280 past couple of decades. Our five-day forecast is about as accurate 1012 01:14:57,280 --> 01:15:01,360 as our two-day forecast was only about 20 years ago 1013 01:15:02,560 --> 01:15:06,719 And increasingly people are listening to the forecasts that they get from 1014 01:15:06,719 --> 01:15:10,000 meteorologists. They have increased confidence, they see the improvement 1015 01:15:10,000 --> 01:15:14,560 in forecasts as it relates to hurricanes over the last couple of decades, 1016 01:15:14,560 --> 01:15:18,080 and when a hurricane watch or hurricane warning goes into effect, 1017 01:15:18,080 --> 01:15:22,640 people take notice and they take action, and that's really encouraging to see. 1018 01:15:32,040 --> 01:15:39,600 [music] 1019 01:15:40,160 --> 01:15:44,320 NASA's TESS mission has found its first Earth-sized world in its star's 1020 01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:48,960 habitable zone. This means the planet called TOI700d 1021 01:15:48,960 --> 01:15:52,800 has the potential for liquid water on its surface. 1022 01:15:52,800 --> 01:15:57,199 TESS stares at patches of sky for long stretches recording light from thousands 1023 01:15:57,199 --> 01:16:00,400 of stars. Some of these stars have planets that 1024 01:16:00,400 --> 01:16:05,760 cross or transit in front of them. TESS sees these events as tiny regular 1025 01:16:05,760 --> 01:16:10,880 dimmings of the host's stars. One star where TESS saw transits is 1026 01:16:10,880 --> 01:16:14,320 TOI700. It's a red dwarf about 40 percent the 1027 01:16:14,320 --> 01:16:19,199 mass and size of our Sun and roughly half its temperature. One set 1028 01:16:19,199 --> 01:16:22,480 of transits announced the presence of a planet close to the star, 1029 01:16:22,480 --> 01:16:27,679 called TOI 700b. Another set revealed a second planet 1030 01:16:27,679 --> 01:16:32,239 named TOI 700c a little farther out. The deeper, shorter 1031 01:16:32,239 --> 01:16:34,719 transit means the planet is larger than the first 1032 01:16:34,719 --> 01:16:37,840 and the plane of its orbit is slightly tipped. 1033 01:16:37,840 --> 01:16:44,560 A final set of transits showed TOI 700d orbiting even farther out. TESS observed 1034 01:16:44,560 --> 01:16:48,000 the system for nearly 11 months and saw each planet transit 1035 01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:52,800 multiple times. Scientists determined that the inner and outer planets are 1036 01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:56,400 almost Earth-size and may be rocky. The middle world is 1037 01:16:56,400 --> 01:17:00,640 more than twice as large and most likely made of gas. All three 1038 01:17:00,640 --> 01:17:03,920 may be tidally locked, rotating just once each orbit. 1039 01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:10,000 So the same side always faces the star, but most importantly TOI 700d 1040 01:17:10,000 --> 01:17:14,800 is within the star's habitable zone. Scientists wanted independent 1041 01:17:14,800 --> 01:17:19,440 confirmation of TOI 700d so they monitored its star with NASA's 1042 01:17:19,440 --> 01:17:23,440 Spitzer Space Telescope. Spitzer saw a clear transit from the 1043 01:17:23,440 --> 01:17:27,600 outer planet affirming its existence and improving scientist certainty of the 1044 01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:32,640 planet's size. TOI 700d is one of only a few 1045 01:17:32,640 --> 01:17:36,239 Earth-sized planets found in potential habitable zones. 1046 01:17:36,239 --> 01:17:42,239 Others include discoveries by Kepler and several planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. 1047 01:17:42,239 --> 01:17:47,199 Because TOI 700 is bright and nearby the planets are good candidates for 1048 01:17:47,199 --> 01:17:51,280 precise mass measurements by ground-based telescopes. 1049 01:17:51,280 --> 01:17:54,640 Future missions may also tell us if the worlds have atmospheres, 1050 01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:58,400 but scientists need to know what kinds of signals to look for. 1051 01:17:58,400 --> 01:18:02,159 Researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center created models of the 1052 01:18:02,159 --> 01:18:05,120 planet to explore its potential conditions. 1053 01:18:05,120 --> 01:18:09,520 One version is a water covered world with an atmosphere similar to early Mars, 1054 01:18:09,520 --> 01:18:12,560 but denser. Another looks like a completely dry 1055 01:18:12,560 --> 01:18:17,440 version of today's Earth. Both models have vastly different 1056 01:18:17,440 --> 01:18:21,120 surface temperatures. Light passing through their atmospheres 1057 01:18:21,120 --> 01:18:26,080 creates distinct signals because different molecules are present. 1058 01:18:26,080 --> 01:18:29,679 By simulating these data now scientists can make predictions for real 1059 01:18:29,679 --> 01:18:33,840 future observations and narrow the range of TOI 700d's 1060 01:18:33,840 --> 01:18:37,920 possible conditions. We still have much to learn about the 1061 01:18:37,920 --> 01:18:42,320 TOI 700 system, but thanks to TESS, Spitzer and the work 1062 01:18:42,320 --> 01:18:46,000 of many scientists, we're beginning to form a picture of its 1063 01:18:46,000 --> 01:18:47,960 exciting new worlds. 1064 01:18:48,760 --> 01:18:52,920 [music] 1065 01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:57,760 The digital show NASA Explorers has a 1066 01:18:57,760 --> 01:19:01,280 few different taglines. One of them is "We follow intrepid 1067 01:19:01,280 --> 01:19:06,719 explorers into the field." And that is true, and it's sometimes to 1068 01:19:06,719 --> 01:19:12,320 places that are remote or can be hostile. 1069 01:19:12,320 --> 01:19:16,960 We went to one location that I would not consider remote or hostile, but it was an 1070 01:19:16,960 --> 01:19:21,060 adventure anyway. It was Boise, Idaho. 1071 01:19:21,200 --> 01:19:26,800 This mobile laboratory has been deployed for a very specific reason: the Shady Fire is 1072 01:19:26,800 --> 01:19:30,400 burning nearby, and this team is gathering data that you 1073 01:19:30,400 --> 01:19:32,840 can only get at night. 1074 01:19:46,080 --> 01:19:50,400 We were with a team of scientists who were tracking smoke, understanding 1075 01:19:50,400 --> 01:19:53,840 the chemistry of smoke. It was really around the wildfire season, controlled 1076 01:19:53,840 --> 01:19:56,560 burns, but just what what smoke was doing to 1077 01:19:56,560 --> 01:19:59,199 the air, what fires were doing to the land. 1078 01:19:59,199 --> 01:20:02,239 We had the opportunity to follow this team 1079 01:20:02,239 --> 01:20:05,520 who you meet in one of the episodes, Bruce Anderson and his team 1080 01:20:05,520 --> 01:20:10,320 out of Langley. We thought, you know it was 90 degrees that day. 1081 01:20:10,320 --> 01:20:14,239 Like we're just gonna sleep in the car and it'll be fine. 1082 01:20:14,239 --> 01:20:18,159 Hi NASA Expeditions followers, I'm Katy. I've been doing a lot of the tweeting 1083 01:20:18,159 --> 01:20:21,920 and the posting that you've been seeing and here we have Lauren. Hi guys! And 1084 01:20:21,920 --> 01:20:25,199 driving our car we have Ellen. She's not going to talk too 1085 01:20:25,199 --> 01:20:28,239 much because she's driving. We are the communications team in the 1086 01:20:28,239 --> 01:20:31,600 field with the FIREX-AQ mission this week and we thought we'd give you a 1087 01:20:31,600 --> 01:20:35,360 little behind the scenes peek at what it's like to be in the field 1088 01:20:35,360 --> 01:20:37,840 It'll be warm enough it'll be great we'll just follow them throughout the 1089 01:20:37,840 --> 01:20:39,920 night as they take all these measurements. 1090 01:20:39,920 --> 01:20:46,800 So you know, almost instantly when the sun goes down, 1091 01:20:46,800 --> 01:20:50,639 the temperature drops from around 90 or 95 1092 01:20:50,639 --> 01:20:56,800 somewhere in there to 19 degrees. We'll set out, drive up there, find a 1093 01:20:56,800 --> 01:21:01,600 place to position the van then start cranking up 1094 01:21:01,600 --> 01:21:04,880 instruments. And we're frozen. We're absolutely frozen 1095 01:21:04,880 --> 01:21:07,920 in the car and the thing is the team is waking up throughout the night. 1096 01:21:07,920 --> 01:21:11,679 You know the scientists collecting data, emptying filters, and so we're trying to 1097 01:21:11,679 --> 01:21:15,199 catch all these moments. It means that there's not a lot of sleep 1098 01:21:15,199 --> 01:21:19,840 it's really cold but you have to stay somewhat awake so that you can catch the 1099 01:21:19,840 --> 01:21:24,560 team working. I think what that experience allowed us 1100 01:21:24,560 --> 01:21:27,199 to have is this real relationship with the 1101 01:21:27,199 --> 01:21:30,560 the scientists in the field. Especially Bruce Anderson, 1102 01:21:30,560 --> 01:21:34,159 you know there's a moment where we're talking to Bruce in the show, 1103 01:21:34,159 --> 01:21:40,560 and he's talking about how he why he does what he does and 1104 01:21:40,560 --> 01:21:44,080 I asked him this question that i you know I tend to ask most people and I 1105 01:21:44,080 --> 01:21:46,800 think it's a really common question among producers. 1106 01:21:46,800 --> 01:21:50,000 But we asked him why do you do what you do? 1107 01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:54,719 And the response he gave was one I probably won't ever forget 1108 01:21:54,719 --> 01:22:01,120 because it was so based in his life experience and a genuine desire 1109 01:22:01,120 --> 01:22:07,120 to make a positive impact on the world. For some of our scientists understanding 1110 01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:11,280 pollution has defined the course of their life's work. 1111 01:22:11,280 --> 01:22:17,360 I'm a physical chemist but I'm also from what 60 Minutes called the 1112 01:22:17,360 --> 01:22:20,239 most polluted city in America, Anderson, Alabama. 1113 01:22:20,239 --> 01:22:24,400 When the opportunity came along to do this type of work, I really resonated 1114 01:22:24,400 --> 01:22:27,280 with it. He of course was interested in the 1115 01:22:27,280 --> 01:22:32,320 actual science but Bruce took this incredibly seriously. 1116 01:22:32,320 --> 01:22:35,280 He decided that he was going to pursue science. He was going to 1117 01:22:35,280 --> 01:22:38,560 understand pollution all over the United States, all over the 1118 01:22:38,560 --> 01:22:42,960 world and be able to produce hard data that could help communities make better 1119 01:22:42,960 --> 01:22:45,120 decisions about the way they wanted to live. 1120 01:22:45,120 --> 01:22:48,800 We wouldn't have gotten that story from Bruce had we not 1121 01:22:48,800 --> 01:22:55,120 spent this time with him in the field. If we hadn't gotten to know them as people. 1122 01:22:55,120 --> 01:22:59,679 And I think being able to do NASA Explorers, 1123 01:22:59,679 --> 01:23:03,440 it presents the opportunity to be humble about other people's stories and other 1124 01:23:03,440 --> 01:23:06,520 people's motivations to understand that they are 1125 01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:10,960 multi-dimensional people who do the things they do because 1126 01:23:10,960 --> 01:23:14,639 they're interested in science but often there's a deeper reason and a 1127 01:23:14,639 --> 01:23:18,800 deeper connection to the science they do. And it's our responsibility to tell them 1128 01:23:18,800 --> 01:23:23,360 with dignity and respect and we try and do that with 1129 01:23:23,360 --> 01:23:27,120 with our stories at NASA Explorers. So that's a little behind the scenes of 1130 01:23:27,120 --> 01:23:31,680 how we got that story and how we got those shots. 1131 01:23:31,880 --> 01:23:42,080 [music] 1132 01:23:42,880 --> 01:23:46,560 Global temperatures are on the rise. As our climate changes, 1133 01:23:46,560 --> 01:23:50,960 Earth is seeing more extreme and unusual weather. 1134 01:23:50,960 --> 01:23:56,080 In 2019 the National Audubon Society reported that two-thirds of America's 1135 01:23:56,080 --> 01:23:59,480 birds are threatened by climate change. That's 1136 01:23:59,480 --> 01:24:05,400 389 species in danger of extinction. Scientists at the University of 1137 01:24:05,400 --> 01:24:08,480 Wisconsin-Madison are trying to figure out how temperature 1138 01:24:08,480 --> 01:24:13,120 affects bird biodiversity across the country, which will help 1139 01:24:13,120 --> 01:24:17,920 conservationists figure out where to prioritize their efforts. 1140 01:24:17,920 --> 01:24:21,040 The team used data from Landsat's thermal sensor 1141 01:24:21,040 --> 01:24:25,600 called TIRS to map temperature across the United States. 1142 01:24:25,600 --> 01:24:30,400 They also used a computer algorithm to map small-scale temperature differences. 1143 01:24:30,400 --> 01:24:33,679 For example, a grove of trees in an open field. 1144 01:24:33,679 --> 01:24:37,280 The algorithm compares the temperature variability in one area 1145 01:24:37,280 --> 01:24:46,480 to those adjacent to it. The team then compared their temperature 1146 01:24:46,480 --> 01:24:49,760 data to bird biodiversity across the country, 1147 01:24:49,760 --> 01:24:54,000 focusing on the winter months and birds that don't migrate to find warmer 1148 01:24:54,000 --> 01:24:58,239 temperatures. Turns out large-bodied bird species tend 1149 01:24:58,239 --> 01:25:01,360 to choose places with higher overall temperatures, 1150 01:25:01,360 --> 01:25:04,480 but for small birds and climate-threatened species having a 1151 01:25:04,480 --> 01:25:08,960 habitat with variable temperatures seems to be more important. 1152 01:25:08,960 --> 01:25:12,960 The researchers speculate that some birds may use pockets of warmer habitat, 1153 01:25:12,960 --> 01:25:16,960 like a nest, a snow burrow or a patch of dense tree cover, 1154 01:25:16,960 --> 01:25:20,240 to wait out a cold spell or weather event. 1155 01:25:21,200 --> 01:25:25,440 In the study, temperature explained about a third of why some areas have more bird 1156 01:25:25,440 --> 01:25:28,960 species than others, but that still leaves nearly two-thirds 1157 01:25:28,960 --> 01:25:32,480 unaccounted for. To protect many bird species from 1158 01:25:32,480 --> 01:25:38,840 extinction, scientists will have to find other factors affecting bird biodiversity. 1159 01:25:45,280 --> 01:26:53,040 [music] 1160 01:26:54,080 --> 01:26:58,480 The Hubble Space Telescope has had five servicing missions since its launch in 1161 01:26:58,480 --> 01:27:02,880 1990. From servicing mission 1 in 1993 to 1162 01:27:02,880 --> 01:27:07,520 servicing mission 4 in 2009. Wait, what? 1163 01:27:07,520 --> 01:27:11,520 Five servicing missions but the last one is called servicing mission 1164 01:27:11,520 --> 01:27:16,080 four? While it might seem strange at first, there's a reason for that, 1165 01:27:16,080 --> 01:27:20,800 and that's because servicing mission 3 has a very interesting history. 1166 01:27:20,800 --> 01:27:25,040 Originally scheduled for launch in mid-2000 Hubble's third servicing 1167 01:27:25,040 --> 01:27:28,639 mission was going to upgrade and refurbish the telescope just as the 1168 01:27:28,639 --> 01:27:31,360 first two servicing missions had done before. 1169 01:27:31,360 --> 01:27:37,360 But in quick succession, Hubble's all-important gyroscopes began to fail. 1170 01:27:37,360 --> 01:27:41,280 So why are Hubble's gyroscopes so important? 1171 01:27:41,280 --> 01:27:45,040 Hubble Deputy Project Manager Jim Jeletic can explain. 1172 01:27:45,040 --> 01:27:48,080 So while we're turning Hubble we need to know exactly 1173 01:27:48,080 --> 01:27:52,400 which direction we're turning it. So we use a sensor known as a gyroscope or a 1174 01:27:52,400 --> 01:27:55,920 gyro. They use the conservation of angular 1175 01:27:55,920 --> 01:27:59,440 momentum to tell us if Hubble is turning, in which 1176 01:27:59,440 --> 01:28:02,639 specific direction and how fast it's turning in 1177 01:28:02,639 --> 01:28:06,239 that direction. So essentially without the gyroscopes we 1178 01:28:06,239 --> 01:28:08,800 have no way to know where Hubble is pointing, 1179 01:28:08,800 --> 01:28:12,400 which for a telescope is kind of important. 1180 01:28:12,400 --> 01:28:18,000 In 1999 Hubble needed at least three of its six gyroscopes to be running in 1181 01:28:18,000 --> 01:28:21,120 order to do science. And with only three gyros still 1182 01:28:21,120 --> 01:28:25,679 functioning, a Hubble emergency was declared and servicing mission 3 1183 01:28:25,679 --> 01:28:30,199 was quickly split into two separate launches. 1184 01:28:30,199 --> 01:28:34,880 SM3A's main priority would be switching out all the gyroscopes with new and 1185 01:28:34,880 --> 01:28:39,120 improved versions, while SM3B was scheduled for a few 1186 01:28:39,120 --> 01:28:41,360 years later and would work on the updates that 1187 01:28:41,360 --> 01:28:44,560 Hubble still needed but weren't as urgent. 1188 01:28:44,560 --> 01:28:49,679 Due to this timing change, the astronauts for SM3A had less time to train for 1189 01:28:49,679 --> 01:28:53,120 their important mission, but they went into overdrive and were 1190 01:28:53,120 --> 01:28:56,840 ready in time for their launch date of October 14th, 1999. 1191 01:28:56,840 --> 01:29:02,960 However, delays caused by final inspections and wiring repairs on 1192 01:29:02,960 --> 01:29:06,880 the shuttle continued to push the launch date deeper and deeper into the end of 1193 01:29:06,880 --> 01:29:09,920 the year. And then as if things couldn't get any 1194 01:29:09,920 --> 01:29:14,239 worse in mid-November a fourth gyroscope on Hubble failed. 1195 01:29:14,239 --> 01:29:19,120 Hubble was put into safe mode and all science came to a screeching halt. 1196 01:29:19,120 --> 01:29:22,239 Thankfully the Hubble team had already decided to split 1197 01:29:22,239 --> 01:29:27,040 SM3 into two missions months earlier. Otherwise Hubble would have been totally 1198 01:29:27,040 --> 01:29:30,719 silent until the originally planned mid-2000 mission. 1199 01:29:30,719 --> 01:29:34,960 So after a few more delays due to more inspections, rewiring, 1200 01:29:34,960 --> 01:29:38,880 engine replacements and bad weather, the crew of SM3A 1201 01:29:38,880 --> 01:29:43,600 sitting in the cockpit of the Space Shuttle Discovery was ready to launch. 1202 01:29:43,600 --> 01:29:46,639 The eight-day mission had three spacewalks planned. 1203 01:29:46,639 --> 01:29:50,560 The first was the all-important gyro switch-out. There were a few minor 1204 01:29:50,560 --> 01:29:55,040 problems that came up during the 8 hour 15 minute long spacewalk, but 1205 01:29:55,040 --> 01:29:59,600 by the end of the day, Hubble's gyro troubles were over. 1206 01:29:59,600 --> 01:30:03,840 The next two days had their own spacewalks, updating Hubble with a more 1207 01:30:03,840 --> 01:30:07,280 advanced computer, adding a new fine guidance sensor, 1208 01:30:07,280 --> 01:30:11,360 installing a new solid-state digital recorder and replacing Hubble's 1209 01:30:11,360 --> 01:30:15,760 old outer insulation with new panels in order to protect Hubble's scientific 1210 01:30:15,760 --> 01:30:20,960 equipment from getting too hot or too cold. When all the work was finished 1211 01:30:20,960 --> 01:30:24,000 Hubble was released back into orbit on Christmas Day, 1212 01:30:24,000 --> 01:30:28,080 and as the crew of Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center, it became clear 1213 01:30:28,080 --> 01:30:31,760 that this mission was a resounding success. 1214 01:30:31,760 --> 01:30:34,960 Servicing Mission 3B would also be a success 1215 01:30:34,960 --> 01:30:41,199 later in march of 2002, followed by the fifth and final flight Servicing Mission 4 1216 01:30:41,199 --> 01:30:46,000 in May of 2009. Thanks to everyone involved with 1217 01:30:46,000 --> 01:30:49,920 Servicing Mission 3A, Hubble was able to quickly get back on 1218 01:30:49,920 --> 01:30:54,560 schedule with its groundbreaking science and continue forward with its mission of 1219 01:30:54,560 --> 01:30:59,440 uncovering the mysteries of the universe.