1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,360 Now, here are some of the stories Sightings is following in the news. 2 00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:12,080 Only 12 astronauts have made it as far as the moon, and the chance that any of us will 3 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:15,960 be able to travel any farther may be remote than Pluto. 4 00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:20,540 But thanks to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there will soon be a way for one million lucky 5 00:00:20,540 --> 00:00:29,680 people to send a small part of themselves all the way to Saturn. 6 00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:34,760 In Pasadena, California, at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the next great interplanetary 7 00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:38,800 observer is being readied for its October 1997 launch. 8 00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:44,040 Spacecraft Cassini is a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency. 9 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:45,040 Its goal? 10 00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:49,320 To reach the rings of Saturn and explore its many intriguing moons. 11 00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:52,080 Many researchers have their eye on this one. 12 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:55,740 Titan is Saturn's largest moon, half the size of Earth. 13 00:00:55,740 --> 00:01:01,020 It has a dense atmosphere denser than Earth's, and for this reason, scientists like Planetary 14 00:01:01,020 --> 00:01:05,420 Society's Tom McDonough speculate that there could be life on Titan. 15 00:01:05,420 --> 00:01:09,420 Titan is one of the most fascinating moons in the solar system, because it's similar 16 00:01:09,420 --> 00:01:14,060 in a lot of ways to what Earth was like when we first got started as a planet and when 17 00:01:14,060 --> 00:01:16,100 life first got formed. 18 00:01:16,100 --> 00:01:20,500 Titan's surface is hidden beneath a thick, smoggy cloud, believed to be similar to the 19 00:01:20,500 --> 00:01:23,420 haze over Los Angeles or Mexico City. 20 00:01:23,420 --> 00:01:28,060 In order to see through this cosmic veil to the moon below, Cassini is equipped with 21 00:01:28,060 --> 00:01:31,180 an unmanned probe called the Huggins' Probe. 22 00:01:31,180 --> 00:01:36,420 It will descend through the cloud, land on the surface of Titan, and snap the first pictures 23 00:01:36,420 --> 00:01:39,100 of this unexplored moon. 24 00:01:39,100 --> 00:01:43,380 It's really important to send a probe to a place like Titan, because it's so far away 25 00:01:43,380 --> 00:01:45,660 that we cannot see it very well with our telescopes. 26 00:01:45,660 --> 00:01:48,780 If we want to see what's really down on the surface, are there oceans and things like 27 00:01:48,780 --> 00:01:53,380 that, then you have to send a probe that penetrates through the atmosphere and lands on the surface. 28 00:01:53,420 --> 00:01:57,100 NASA wants the public involved on this project. 29 00:01:57,100 --> 00:02:00,500 On their website, you can watch Cassini's progress. 30 00:02:00,500 --> 00:02:05,460 Every four minutes, live video images from the construction site at JPL are downloaded 31 00:02:05,460 --> 00:02:08,380 for you to see. 32 00:02:08,380 --> 00:02:14,360 And NASA is also creating a CD-ROM to be carried aboard Cassini with one million signatures 33 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:15,900 from planet Earth. 34 00:02:15,900 --> 00:02:19,180 You can send your signature to Cassini Program JPL. 35 00:02:19,180 --> 00:02:29,700 Names will be included on a first-come basis until the CD-ROM is filled. 36 00:02:29,700 --> 00:02:35,100 In Siberia, Russia, two scientists from Kagoshima University in southern Japan have taken the 37 00:02:35,100 --> 00:02:40,700 first step toward recreating a creature that has been extinct for nearly 10,000 years. 38 00:02:40,700 --> 00:02:46,300 Recently, the researchers unearthed this baby woolly mammoth and now hope to extract DNA 39 00:02:46,300 --> 00:02:51,300 from the sperm of the Stone Age carcass and use it to fertilize an elephant egg. 40 00:02:51,300 --> 00:02:54,580 The result, they hope, will be a modern mammoth. 41 00:02:54,580 --> 00:02:59,740 What we're able to do in space is at a standstill. 42 00:02:59,740 --> 00:03:05,940 And yet our genetic technology, this really seems to be the next big frontier. 43 00:03:05,940 --> 00:03:10,740 Paleontologist Dr. Charles Pellegrino of Brookhaven National Laboratory is familiar 44 00:03:10,740 --> 00:03:14,380 with genetic manipulation like that proposed by the Japanese team. 45 00:03:14,500 --> 00:03:19,700 Pellegrino's own work formed the basis for the book and the movie Jurassic Park. 46 00:03:19,700 --> 00:03:26,140 The genetic distance between a woolly mammoth and an elephant is probably about the genetic 47 00:03:26,140 --> 00:03:33,580 distance between a horse and a donkey, probably somewhere in the range of less than 1%. 48 00:03:33,580 --> 00:03:40,620 So you would only have to go in and basically re-edit less than 1% of the genetic code of 49 00:03:40,620 --> 00:03:44,940 an elephant that is already walking around today. 50 00:03:44,940 --> 00:03:49,300 Many scientists question the feasibility of this process, but if indeed it is possible 51 00:03:49,300 --> 00:03:54,420 a larger question needs to be addressed, why should we resurrect such a creature? 52 00:03:54,420 --> 00:04:00,300 It's almost like asking why do we want to go to the moon, why do we want to go to the 53 00:04:00,300 --> 00:04:01,900 bottom of the ocean. 54 00:04:01,900 --> 00:04:08,100 To me, bringing back a woolly mammoth or bringing back a dinosaur, it's the ultimate paleontological 55 00:04:08,100 --> 00:04:09,100 tool. 56 00:04:09,100 --> 00:04:14,100 It's the closest you can have to building a time machine and going back into time and 57 00:04:14,100 --> 00:04:18,220 studying these creatures face to face, nose to nose. 58 00:04:18,220 --> 00:04:22,980 Although Pellegrino believes that such a genetic feat would be invaluable, he worries about 59 00:04:22,980 --> 00:04:27,260 the new mammoths' impact outside the scientific community. 60 00:04:27,260 --> 00:04:31,500 There are probably industrial types around the world right now who are looking at this 61 00:04:31,500 --> 00:04:37,340 and saying, gee, if we can bring back extinct life forms, then we don't have to worry so 62 00:04:37,340 --> 00:04:39,820 much about endangering species. 63 00:04:39,820 --> 00:04:46,260 So let's cut down more of the Amazon rainforest, or it might incite people to get a bit cocky 64 00:04:46,260 --> 00:04:50,620 about creating the conditions that lead to extinction in the first place. 65 00:04:50,620 --> 00:04:58,740 Each door you open to a tremendous new technology, it seems to be the yin-yang principle. 66 00:04:58,740 --> 00:05:03,420 We can either do wonderful things with it, or we can unleash horrors on a scale that 67 00:05:03,420 --> 00:05:04,780 we've never known before. 68 00:05:08,340 --> 00:05:12,340 We'll have more stories in the news next time. 69 00:05:12,340 --> 00:05:15,340 Now here's what's coming up as sightings continues.