1 00:00:00,030 --> 00:00:05,640 Hi, I'm Jacob Bleacher. I'm a geologist. That means I study rocks and dirt on the 2 00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:19,020 Earth and planets. This is ask NASA. I'm here to answer your questions. What is 3 00:00:19,020 --> 00:00:24,090 unique about the surface of the Moon? Well the Moon is quite unique from the 4 00:00:24,090 --> 00:00:28,619 Earth. It has no atmosphere, there's no air to breathe. What that means is that 5 00:00:28,619 --> 00:00:31,980 the processes that have occurred on the Moon are all preserved there in the 6 00:00:31,980 --> 00:00:36,380 rocks. For instance, if you look at the Moon from the Earth you may see circles. 7 00:00:36,380 --> 00:00:42,210 Those circles are impact craters. Let me show you. Except, making craters is really 8 00:00:42,210 --> 00:00:45,719 dirty business - I need my crater making poncho. Now we're 9 00:00:45,719 --> 00:00:51,739 ready. Let's pretend this is the surface of the Moon. It looks a lot like this. 10 00:00:51,739 --> 00:01:04,530 That's one crater. The surface of the Moon has many more. On the Moon these 11 00:01:04,530 --> 00:01:09,930 craters have formed over time and as you saw, material from each crater buries the 12 00:01:09,930 --> 00:01:15,900 previous ones, making this very rough terrain. In that terrain at the pole 13 00:01:15,900 --> 00:01:20,670 there are some craters that we believe have water ice trapped there and they never 14 00:01:20,670 --> 00:01:25,110 see the sunlight. That's good for science and could also be a resource that helps 15 00:01:25,110 --> 00:01:28,250 our astronauts survive. 16 00:01:28,340 --> 00:01:34,920 Why study moon rocks? Well besides the fact that rocks are awesome, each rock is 17 00:01:34,920 --> 00:01:39,509 kind of like a person. It has its own fingerprint. We talked about impact 18 00:01:39,509 --> 00:01:43,799 craters - that's recorded in the rocks. Whether or not ice or water has been 19 00:01:43,799 --> 00:01:52,590 near there, that's recorded in the rocks. It tells us the history of the Moon. 20 00:01:52,590 --> 00:01:57,689 What tools will astronauts use to explore the moon? Hopefully we'll have plenty of 21 00:01:57,689 --> 00:02:01,409 tools for them, for instance something like this. This is a hammer like you 22 00:02:01,409 --> 00:02:04,740 would use here on Earth. It's a geologist's best friend. It helps us 23 00:02:04,740 --> 00:02:08,819 to break up rocks and select samples. We could also use things like rakes and 24 00:02:08,819 --> 00:02:12,130 shovels to help us find the right kind of material to bring home. 25 00:02:12,130 --> 00:02:17,239 Eventually we could be using tools more like this. This tool is an x-ray 26 00:02:17,239 --> 00:02:23,840 fluorescence spectrometer or XRF and XRF basically shoots x-rays at a rock and 27 00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:28,640 then detects what comes back. And as I talked about before, rocks have unique 28 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:33,500 fingerprints. This helps us to determine what that fingerprint is. Our astronauts 29 00:02:33,500 --> 00:02:37,790 will also use rovers like this model that you can see right here. These 30 00:02:37,790 --> 00:02:42,160 vehicles are designed so that they can help us move around on the surface. 31 00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:47,750 Well this tool is 3D printed but this is just a model of an XRF. But right now 32 00:02:47,750 --> 00:02:51,560 we're actually testing 3D printers in space on the International Space Station. 33 00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:56,239 It'd be really helpful if we can use 3D printers to design the tools that we 34 00:02:56,239 --> 00:03:02,299 need. How are we preparing astronauts to investigate the Moon's surface? Well we 35 00:03:02,299 --> 00:03:05,599 have to practice here on Earth. The way we do that is we talk to them in the 36 00:03:05,599 --> 00:03:09,230 laboratory, in classrooms and we also take them out into the field, places like 37 00:03:09,230 --> 00:03:14,060 Hawaii or Iceland or Arizona. Places where there are similarities to what 38 00:03:14,060 --> 00:03:17,359 they might experience on the lunar surface. We're really excited to send 39 00:03:17,359 --> 00:03:21,530 humans to the moon with the Artemis program. The first woman and the next man 40 00:03:21,530 --> 00:03:26,120 will be going back there by 2024. Together they'll be able to explore the 41 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:32,090 surface of the Moon. Right now our plan is to send crew to the surface of the 42 00:03:32,090 --> 00:03:36,230 Moon once per year and bring more supplies to the surface, so that we can 43 00:03:36,230 --> 00:03:41,510 explore more and more of the south polar region. That is a great question. The 44 00:03:41,510 --> 00:03:44,750 first thing that's going to be very different is that during Apollo the Sun 45 00:03:44,750 --> 00:03:48,889 was overhead but at the south pole the Sun is always going to be right on the 46 00:03:48,889 --> 00:03:52,700 horizon. That means we'll have really long shadows and areas that are very 47 00:03:52,700 --> 00:03:56,630 dark. It's going to be very different. We really are exploring a brand new 48 00:03:56,630 --> 00:04:00,950 terrain where no one has ever been.The studies we'll be trying to do are looking 49 00:04:00,950 --> 00:04:05,209 at and understanding perhaps the water cycle on the Moon. And we really want to 50 00:04:05,209 --> 00:04:09,709 understand the processes that lead to that water being preserved there. Well 51 00:04:09,709 --> 00:04:15,139 that's an intriguing question. First of all, we can see fairly deep into the 52 00:04:15,139 --> 00:04:18,590 interior of the Moon by looking into craters. That's kind of our natural 53 00:04:18,590 --> 00:04:21,359 laboratory for getting at the inside of the crater. 54 00:04:21,359 --> 00:04:26,729 Every time I create our forms there's an explosion that moves rock up and out 55 00:04:26,729 --> 00:04:31,349 from inside of the Moon so our astronauts walking around the rim of the 56 00:04:31,349 --> 00:04:36,120 craters can pick up rocks that came from deep inside. The bigger the crater the deeper 57 00:04:36,120 --> 00:04:41,879 the rocks. Well in fact, we are aiming for farther out. Eventually we want to get to 58 00:04:41,879 --> 00:04:45,569 Mars, but first we're gonna go to the Moon and learn some really important 59 00:04:45,569 --> 00:04:50,039 answers to questions that will help us survive the trip out to Mars. Because I 60 00:04:50,039 --> 00:04:54,240 guarantee you I'm going have a lot of questions for them when they get back.