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Join us on an exhilarating journey through the cosmos as we explore the captivating wonders of the universe.
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00:00Ah, what a nice cosmic family.
00:02Meet Mars.
00:03I bet you've met him before.
00:05These two little guys are Phobos and Deimos, Mars' small moons.
00:10But it seems like Mars isn't treating the little ones the right way.
00:14Phobos and Deimos are believed to be captured asteroids.
00:18However, Phobos is gradually moving closer to Mars due to gravity.
00:22And it is predicted that it will eventually be destroyed by the planet's gravity
00:27within the next 35 million years.
00:30I won't be around that.
00:31So, I imagine this will result in a ring of debris around Mars,
00:36similar to Saturn's rings.
00:38However, this process is a natural phenomenon and not an act of destruction by Mars.
00:44Apparently, Phobos is getting ripped apart by the crazy gravitational forces of the Red Planet.
00:50But wait, there's more!
00:52Phobos has these crazy parallel grooves all over its surface.
00:55We used to think that they were from an asteroid crash.
00:59But now scientists think they're actually from Mars' intense gravity pulling the Moon apart.
01:04Talk about a rough ride!
01:06Scientists have this wild idea that when a little guy like Phobos gets too close to a big guy like
01:13Mars,
01:14it starts to stretch out towards it.
01:16They call it the tidal force.
01:18Phobos is predicted to get stretched out so much that it'll actually break apart.
01:24Crazy, right?
01:24And the debris from the Moon will form a tiny ring around Mars, just like Saturn's rings.
01:31Now, some people thought that Phobos's tiger stripes were caused by tidal forces before.
01:36But that theory got shut down because the Moon is just too darn fluffy.
01:41But now, these genius researchers ran some computer simulations
01:45and found out that maybe there's a hard shell underneath all that fluff
01:49that could create grooves on the surface.
01:51But don't worry.
01:53At the rate Phobos is going, it's going to crash into Mars in about 40 million years.
01:58But if tidal forces are already tearing it apart, it might not even last that long.
02:04However, we'll still have the chance to learn more about Phobos.
02:07NASA just picked 10 rock star researchers from all over the U.S.
02:12to join the science working team for JAXA's Martian Moons Exploration, or just MMX, mission.
02:19As NASA-supported participating scientists, they'll be helping JAXA explore the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos.
02:26And get this, they're even planning to land on Phobos and grab a surface sample.
02:32The mission is set to launch in 2024, and we'll get our hands on that sample in 2029.
02:38Seven of the lucky researchers will be using the MMX flight instruments to conduct their research.
02:45Phobos is a real oddball.
02:46It's only 17 miles wide and orbits Mars at a distance of 3,728 miles, to be precise.
02:55Now, that's way closer than Earth's moon, which takes a whole 27 days to orbit us.
03:00But Phobos is in a death spiral toward Mars and is slowly falling towards the planet's surface at a rate
03:07of 6 feet every 100 years.
03:10But there must be a reason why Mars is acting that nastily, right?
03:14What if it's all just because of plain vengeance?
03:17Well, okay, picture this.
03:19Mars is minding its own business, being all hot and watery like a young Earth.
03:24It's got a sweet magnetic field that's protecting it from cosmic radiation and keeping its atmosphere nice and thick.
03:31Hey, life is good.
03:33But then, at least 20 asteroids, each the size of a small country, come crashing down on Mars like a
03:40giant game of cosmic whack-a-mole.
03:42One of them even leaves a crater that's almost 2,000 miles wide.
03:46Now imagine how Mars must feel with two asteroids being its moons after what other asteroids did to the red
03:53planet.
03:54All these impacts are like a massive punch to Mars' gut, and its already weak magnetic field is knocked out
04:00cold.
04:01The core gets all overheated and can't circulate properly, which means no more magnetic field to protect the planet.
04:08It's like as if you were wearing nothing at the depth of the Mariana Trench.
04:13If it were possible, you'd be defenseless and chilly.
04:17That's basically what happened to Mars.
04:18So now, poor Mars is out there in the cold, unprotected from all those nasty cosmic rays.
04:25It's like going outside without sunscreen.
04:27Not a good idea.
04:28But at least we can learn from Mars' mistakes and make sure Earth doesn't have the same fate.
04:34Maybe we should start investing in some asteroid insurance.
04:38But trust me, the red planet isn't mean at all.
04:42It's actually pretty friendly.
04:43While Mars may seem to be pretty tough for Phobos, there's something that might be thriving with Mars' help.
04:50So get this.
04:51A team of scientists found a way to grow rice on Mars.
04:55Yep, you heard me right.
04:57They used MMS.
04:58Not the outdated way to send pictures, but a special soil called Mojave Mars Simulant.
05:04It's supposed to mimic Martian soil.
05:06And here's the catch.
05:07Martian soil has these nasty, percolate salts that can be toxic for plants.
05:12So the team grew three types of rice, one normal, and two gene-edited with mutations
05:18that make them better at handling stress, like drought or salinity.
05:22And guess what?
05:23The mutant strains were able to root in soil with one gram of percolate per kilometer.
05:29Take that, Martian soil.
05:31But hold up.
05:33The rice grown in the MMS didn't turn out as great as the ones grown in regular potting soil.
05:38So the team decided to mix a quarter of the potting soil with the Martian simulant, and
05:44looky there.
05:45The plants started developing better.
05:48Now, these scientists aren't just thinking about feeding Martians.
05:51They also want to see if their findings can help grow crops in places on Earth with high
05:56salinity.
05:57And get this.
05:58The whole project started when two researchers met for coffee and decided to try growing
06:03plants together.
06:04Well, isn't that nice?
06:06I suspect you're about to say, hey, but if you want to grow rice on Mars, you'll have
06:11to ship insane amounts of water from Earth, and it's not easy to quench this plant's thirst.
06:17You're right.
06:18You need about 449 gallons of water to only grow a pound of rice.
06:24But guess what?
06:25Scientists made a groundbreaking announcement at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
06:30in Texas.
06:31They found a relic glacier near Mars' equator.
06:35That's right, water ice on Mars, even near the equator.
06:39This is huge news, and could mean there's even more ice just below the surface.
06:44It's not just any glacier.
06:46It's a relic glacier that's estimated to be 3.5 miles long and up to 2.5 miles wide.
06:53It's like the size of a small town.
06:55It's got all the features of a glacier, including crevasse fields and moraine bands.
07:00But get this, it's not actually ice.
07:03It's a salt deposit that formed on top of the glacier while preserving its shape.
07:08So how did this salt deposit form?
07:11Well, it turns out that volcanic materials blanketing the region might have something to
07:16do with it.
07:17When these materials come into contact with water ice, sulfate salts may form and build
07:23up into a hardened, crusty layer.
07:25Over time, erosion removed the volcanic materials, exposing the sulfates and revealing the glacier's
07:32unique features.
07:33This glacier is young, likely from the Amazonian geologic period.
07:37That means that Mars has had surface ice in recent times.
07:41Who knows what other icy secrets Mars is hiding?
07:44But, hold your horses, there's still more research to be done.
07:48Scientists need to figure out if there's still water ice preserved underneath the salt
07:53deposit, or if it has disappeared entirely.
07:56And if there is still water ice at shallow depths near the equator, that could have major
08:02implications for human exploration.
08:04Imagine being able to extract water from the ground at a warmer location.
08:09That would be a game-changer.
08:11So, let's see what else these scientists uncover about our favorite red neighbor.
08:16Maybe someday, we'll even get to visit that salt glacier statue in person.
08:21See you next time.
08:23Buckle up, fellow space enthusiasts, because we're about to uncover the celestial secrets
08:28that have been unveiled this year.
08:30From giant stars to organic molecules, this year is going great for astronomers.
08:35So, let's catch up on all the excitement you might have missed in 2023.
08:42First of all, we've discovered some real astral monsters.
08:45Imagine looking up at the night sky and seeing stars that are not just big, but absolutely enormous.
08:53Scientists have been using a special telescope called the James Webb Space Telescope to explore
08:58the early days of the universe.
09:02And during their adventure, scientists stumbled upon ancient stars that are 10,000 times bigger
09:08than our sun.
09:09Yes, you heard it right.
09:1010,000 times.
09:12These giants of the stellar world were some of the very first stars ever to form in the
09:17universe, billions of years ago.
09:21Imagine a globular cluster as a massive cosmic crew, where each group consists of a whopping
09:27100,000 to 1,000,000 members.
09:29These clusters are like giant family gatherings, with all the stars being born around the same
09:34time.
09:37But what makes these newly discovered monsters so special?
09:40Well, their cores, or their central parts, are way hotter than what we see in stars today.
09:47Scientists think that this intense heat might be due to a lot of hydrogen burning at really
09:51high temperatures.
09:52It's like they're having a galactic barbecue party.
09:58Something fascinating happens in these globular clusters.
10:01The smaller stars crash into the supermassive ones and gain extra energy, like a power-up.
10:07But here's the twist.
10:09Most of these clusters are now getting old, and the supermassive stars disappeared a long
10:14time ago.
10:15We can only see hints of their existence in the clusters we observe today.
10:19Scientists study them by just the mysterious traces of their grand presence.
10:24The discovery of these monster stars is incredibly important for our understanding of the universe.
10:30If scientists can gather more evidence to confirm their existence, it would be a major breakthrough.
10:36It would help us learn more about globular clusters, and how supermassive stars form in
10:41general.
10:43But that was only the first fascinating discovery of 2023.
10:47Although the next one is kinda sad.
10:50You know those beautiful rings that make Saturn look so fancy?
10:54Well, guess what?
10:55They might disappear in the not-so-distant future, astronomically speaking.
11:00NASA's Cassini mission, which explored Saturn from 2004 to 2017, gathered some fascinating
11:07data about the rings.
11:08During Cassini's grand finale, when it did some cool maneuvers between Saturn, scientists
11:14noticed something surprising.
11:15The rings were losing a lot of mass every second.
11:18Tons of it.
11:19That means this magnificent halo will only stick around for a few hundred million more years,
11:24at most.
11:27That may seem like a long time for humans, but in the grand scheme of the universe, it's
11:32just a blink of an eye.
11:34The important thing is that we've learned that huge rings like Saturn's don't last forever.
11:39They eventually fade away.
11:42Oh well, at least you and I personally won't catch this moment.
11:47Scientists have a fun theory about what will happen when Saturn's rings disappear.
11:51They think that the other ice and gas giants in our solar system, like Uranus and Jupiter,
11:56might have once had massive rings too.
11:59But over time, those rings wore down and became more like the thin, wispy bands of asteroids
12:05like what Uranus has now.
12:09Saturn's rings are mostly made of ice, but they also have a sprinkling of rocky dust.
12:14This dust comes from asteroids and teeny tiny meteoroids crashing into the celestial objects
12:21and breaking apart.
12:23It's like a snowstorm of icy particles and space debris.
12:28The research also revealed that Saturn's rings appeared long after the planet itself formed.
12:34They were still forming when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
12:38So, in terms of astronomical age, they're actually quite young.
12:43Only a few hundred million years old.
12:46This discovery has got scientists all excited because it means something dramatic happened
12:51in Saturn's past to create this stunning icy disk.
12:55But this is a mystery waiting to be solved.
12:59Scientists want to figure out what exactly caused the rings to form
13:03and why they have such a breathtaking structure.
13:06Let's hope they'll figure it out.
13:10But moving on to something more optimistic,
13:12we have another exciting space news.
13:15Recently, scientists have been studying one of the most distant galaxies in the universe
13:20and they found something amazing.
13:23Organic molecules.
13:26The galaxy in question has a long name, SPT-041847.
13:32It's over 12 billion light-years away from our little blue planet.
13:36Can you even imagine that distance?
13:39It's the farthest galaxy ever known,
13:41where complex organic molecules have been found.
13:46That's why looking at this galaxy is like looking at something
13:49from when the universe was just a baby.
13:52We have no idea what this galaxy looks like now.
13:56The light that has reached us is what it looked like
13:58when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old.
14:02Imagine being able to see things from so far in the past.
14:08So what they found is something with a very complicated name.
14:11A polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecule.
14:14Or simply PAH molecule.
14:17You might be wondering,
14:18what in the world is that?
14:20Well, guess what?
14:21You can actually find these molecules right here on our planet.
14:25They can be in things like the smoke from car engines or even forest fires.
14:30PAH molecules are made up of chains of carbon atoms.
14:33And here's the super cool part.
14:35They're considered the basic building blocks for life.
14:40Imagine that.
14:41Life's building blocks.
14:43Those tiny carbon chains being discovered in a galaxy that's so far away.
14:48That's like finding a needle in a haystack.
14:53They also found out that gas floating around in that galaxy is filled with heavy elements.
14:59That's a big deal because it suggests that many stars have come and gone there,
15:03creating all these amazing elements.
15:05This means that this galaxy can be potentially rich in many other elements too.
15:10This discovery opens up a world of possibilities and raises so many exciting questions.
15:16How did these molecules form in a galaxy so distant?
15:20And since we're looking into the past,
15:22what could have happened to these organic molecules during this time?
15:26Could they have evolved into life?
15:29We're only scratching the surface of the incredible things waiting to be uncovered.
15:36By the way, if it's so far,
15:38how did scientists even manage to discover something like that?
15:43Well, they had the instrument called the James Webb Space Telescope.
15:48This fancy telescope was recently launched
15:50and has superpowers when it comes to observing the universe.
15:55So when the scientists were studying this faraway galaxy,
15:58they had a little problem.
16:00The light coming from those distant objects was so faint that it was hard to see or detect.
16:06But guess what?
16:08They had a brilliant idea to solve this.
16:10They used something called gravitational lensing,
16:13which is like a special power of nature's magnifying glass.
16:17Imagine two galaxies lining up perfectly,
16:19just like in a photo shoot.
16:21The light from the faraway galaxy,
16:23the background one,
16:24travels towards us.
16:25But on its journey,
16:26it passes through the foreground galaxy,
16:29which is like a giant space lens.
16:33And guess what?
16:34The foreground galaxy's gravity bends the light,
16:37just like a magnifying glass,
16:39making it bigger and brighter.
16:41It's like having a cosmic zoom lens for our telescopes.
16:45This bending of light creates a super cool shape called an Einstein ring.
16:50It's like a halo,
16:52or a ring of light surrounding the foreground galaxy,
16:55basically a nature's way of showing off its magical powers.
16:59With gravitational lensing and these beautiful Einstein rings,
17:04scientists can see distant objects more clearly
17:06and learn amazing things about the universe.
17:11And thanks to all that,
17:12they managed to uncover the hidden chemical interactions
17:15from the early galaxies.
17:17Isn't that incredible?
17:21The scientists are beyond excited about this discovery.
17:25They never expected to find such complex organic molecules
17:28in a galaxy that's incredibly distant.
17:32Who knows?
17:33Maybe this is just the beginning of a thrilling cosmic journey.
17:38So,
17:39keep your eyes on the stars,
17:40fellow space explorers.
17:42The universe is full of surprises,
17:44and who knows what other mind-blowing discoveries await us out there.
17:48Let's hope we'll learn even more in the future.
17:53Astronomers have been asking one question for decades.
17:56Is space really as black as we think it is?
17:59Well,
17:59NASA's New Horizons space mission
18:01might have just given us the answer.
18:04After exploring Pluto,
18:06the spacecraft kept going,
18:07and is now billions of miles away from Earth.
18:09This means it's far from all the light pollution
18:12we get from sources like the sun and dust particles around our planet.
18:16Scientists used the spacecraft's simple camera
18:18to take images of what looked like
18:20incredibly boring blank space,
18:22free of bright stars or anything else
18:24that could scatter light back into the camera.
18:26They then processed these images
18:28to remove all known sources of visible light.
18:31Once they'd removed the light from stars,
18:33plus scattered light from the Milky Way,
18:35they were left with light coming in
18:37from beyond our own galaxy.
18:39But here's the surprising part.
18:42They found that there was still plenty of unexplained light.
18:45In fact,
18:45it was about equal to all the light coming in
18:47from the known galaxies.
18:48That means there's just as much light
18:50outside of galaxies as inside them.
18:53So,
18:53where does all this light come from?
18:56Well,
18:56it could be coming from sources
18:57we haven't yet discovered,
18:58like small faint dwarf galaxies
19:01or unknown phenomena out in the universe.
19:03Or it could be associated with dark matter,
19:05which is still a mystery to scientists.
19:08With this groundbreaking research,
19:09we can say that space isn't as dark as we know it.
19:12What if we take all the light
19:14from the stars and galaxies out there
19:15and throw in some gas and dust clouds?
19:18What color do we get?
19:20Beige.
19:21This leads us to another question.
19:23Do we still need the sun if our space is colorful?
19:26And the short answer is,
19:28yes we do.
19:29The colors of space are a result of the interactions of light
19:32with different celestial objects,
19:34such as stars,
19:35galaxies,
19:36and gas clouds.
19:37While these colors are fascinating to observe,
19:40they do not provide the energy life on earth needs to survive.
19:43There you go.
19:44Don't expect to see the color of the sky in space.
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