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[Music]

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i'm ellen stofan also known as dr e

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and i'm thomas surbuck and also known as

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dr z and here's another episode of easy

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science

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and we have a major milestone of one of

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our key missions coming up it's such an

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exciting mission nasa's first asteroid

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sample return mission the japanese

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stated earlier but this is nasa's first

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time

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a huge technological challenge but

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really critical because this sample is

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really a time capsule of the solar

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system you know dr z i was at nasa in

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2016 when osiris-rex launched incredibly

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exciting and it actually launched on a

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rocket that we have a model of here at

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the stephen f woodvar housing center

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it's the second one in the copper

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colored one there in atlas 5.

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exactly right we built a spacecraft that

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was launched in 2016 got into orbit in

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2018 did a remote exploration of banu

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the size of the empire state building a

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rubble pile of history of the solar

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system and we looked at it and practiced

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and got ready to really go pick up a

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sample so we could bring it back to

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earth and analyze it

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october 20th for four and a half hours

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we're going to grab

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that sample it's going to be really

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really hard but the team is up for it so

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let's talk about why we're going to all

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this trouble obviously bennu is what's

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called an apollo asteroid it's an

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earth-crossing asteroid so its orbit

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intersects with the earth's orbit

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now obviously that's a problem right

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members of this family

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have hit the earth in the past in fact

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we know there was a small apollo that

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entered the earth's atmosphere and

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exploded over the russian city of

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chelyabinsk a few years ago and caused

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so these asteroids do

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this whole family presents a hazard to

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the earth that's right so within the

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next 200 years or so there's a one in 3

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000 chance that this one

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will hit the earth which is not very

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high if you think about it compared to

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other kind of risks but needless to say

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this is 500 meters you know five

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football fields in dimension and so it's

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a much bigger asteroid than the one we

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just talked about in siberia right and

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bennu is an important type of asteroid

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because it's a carbonaceous asteroid and

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we know these asteroids have amino acids

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in them and every living thing on earth

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is made up of amino acids so we know

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those are critical components of life

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the building blocks of life and we

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suspect that comets and asteroids

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brought those to earth very early in

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earth's history the other fascinating

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thing about these carbonaceous asteroids

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that i find really interesting is

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there's been recent work over the last

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several decades that these asteroids

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could have been critical in actually

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bringing water to the earth because

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they're actually water rich tied up in

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the rocks of the asteroid is actually a

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lot of h2o and our oceans in the water

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in our atmosphere came from somewhere

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and we think it was actually dominantly

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asteroids not actually comets what's

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also exciting about this particular body

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so we went there right and we found all

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these surprises it's a highly saturated

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surface it's a gravel pile we expect it

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from other asteroids that we've seen we

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have these sandy places with rocks there

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oh no it's rocks on rocks and rocks very

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few sandy places which of course is a

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huge challenge for our mission designers

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but also a challenge for our theorists

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in addition to that the asteroid is

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emitting these softball-sized rocks they

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found them in a navigation camp cycles

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what is this like it's moving like you

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not expect that this body is active so

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yes it's really critical to our history

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to the history of the whole solar system

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but it's also as a world

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it's a really exciting and rough place

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to be at

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dr i can't let you go without talking

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about venus venus has been in the news

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so many times

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about life can you explain us

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sure and a lot of people might be

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puzzled about that they might know that

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venus has a runaway greenhouse

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atmosphere it's almost 900 degrees

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fahrenheit on the surface but you know

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back even to the early work of carl

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sagan it has been supposed that in the

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higher levels of the venus atmosphere

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where the temperatures are much cooler

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and the atmosphere is actually fairly

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stable which means clouds can persist

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for maybe thousands hugely long periods

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of time

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could you have some sort of life form

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living in the clouds of venus a lot of

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speculation never been able to determine

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if that's true or not

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so just recently a group of scientists

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detected a gas called phosphine in the

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atmosphere of venus now on the earth

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phosphine is associated with life but it

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also can be created through other

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processes for example you find it in the

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atmospheres of jupiter and saturn so

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this is an intriguing result there's not

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really a great reason why there should

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be phosphene in the atmosphere of venus

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so

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other cause

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so this is just one more reason that we

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need to get back to venus it's a planet

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the size of the earth it's gone through

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a very different geologic history and

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it's really helps us understand when we

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go to other solar systems to say why did

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you have one planet in our solar system

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that became earth became this lovely

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habitable planet that we all live on and

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you have venus that went down a very

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different evolutionary path yeah and in

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fact two of our four candidate missions

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in the discovery program will go to

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venus and look at various parts of venus

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if they get selected also io is one of

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the targets and trident the moon out

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there by neptune so i need to say

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there's many amazing targets in the

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solar system and venusaur system we see

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it in the sky many evenings it's more

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and more exciting to think of the signs

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that we could explore there

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in the meantime come visit us here at

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the stephen f woodvar housing center in

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chantilly virginia we're open for

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business you need a free timed entry

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pass come see the wonders that we

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display of the history of aviation and

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space flight and of course stay tuned