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SUB BY : DENI AUROR@
https://aurorarental.blogspot.com/
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Join us on a journey to infinity and beyond,
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to a place where the rules of physics collapse.
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Imagine a place surrounded by trillions of icy rocks...
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Unlock the secrets of earth's first oceans,
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and we'll unlock the secrets of alien life.
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And the magnetic fields that help stars ignite,
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they shape entire galaxies.
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And what's going on in its outer reaches determines
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whether we live or die.
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Captions paid for by discovery communications
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The first second of the universe has barely begun.
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And the shortest possible units of time, planck times,
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are flying by in their millionths.
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The universe is a super-hot ball of radiation,
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billions of times smaller than an atom,
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and dense beyond imagination.
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Gravity has begun shaping the future of the cosmos.
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But as the universe expands, temperature drops.
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Another force arrives on the scene, the strong force.
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Without the strong nuclear force,
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the nuclei of the atoms themselves
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would all disintegrate.
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Three forces ...
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gravity, the strong force, and the fractured super force ...
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rule the universe as it hurdles towards its next milestone,
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an event that sets out the blueprint for the galaxies
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that fill the cosmos today.
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We think this event happened
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because it explains a longstanding mystery.
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Everywhere we've looked in the universe,
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its billions of galaxies are spread evenly,
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the same number in every direction.
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Nobody could explain why.
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All of these parts of the universe must have at one point
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been in contact with each other.
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It's kind of like having two people
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who live on opposite sides of a country
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getting up at the same time,
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eating the same breakfast, dressing the same way,
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even when they don't talk to each other.
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There must be something common in their past that links them.
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This problem needed a solution.
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And in 1979, a young cosmologist named Alan guth proposed one.
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He called it inflation.
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This was very exciting.
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I suddenly realized that this might be the key
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to a very important secret of the universe.
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But at the same time, I was, of course, very nervous
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because it was all new.
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And I was shaky about whether or not it was right.
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Guth speculated that the infant universe
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went through a phenomenal growth spurt.
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Cosmic inflation was a moment in the history,
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the very early history, of the universe
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when the expansion suddenly accelerated.
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It got huge for the briefest moments of time.
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Just 10 million planck times after the big bang,
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a tiny volume of space suddenly starts to expand
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much more quickly than before.
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This inflation is so rapid that it turns chaos into order,
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spreading the constituents of our universe
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evenly throughout space
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and fixing their positions within it.
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As the universe cooled down in those earliest moments,
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it increased in volume by a factor of 10 to the 90th,
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in a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second.
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It's like a grain of sand
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swelling to larger than the sun faster than the speed of light.
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Well, have we violated Einstein's laws?
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Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.
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And here is one of the real subtle points
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about the big bang.
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Space can expand so much that two objects appear to move apart
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faster than the speed of light.
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But they're not moving.
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It's the space in between them that's growing.
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Guth's audacious idea, the inflationary universe,
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could push the limit of our understanding back
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to the very first moments of the very first second.
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But how could we ever test it?
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How could we peer into the birth of creation?
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TV static holds a clue.
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1% of the static on this screen
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comes from light from the big bang.
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In 1964, astronomers arno penzias and Robert Wilson
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were listening to radio signals from space.
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But in every direction,
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they were picking up a background hum.
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Puzzled by the hum, they suspected they knew the culprit
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and swept the entire receiver free of pigeon droppings,
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but to no avail.
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What penzias and Wilson had stumbled upon
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was the afterglow of the fireball
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created by the big bang.
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As the universe expanded, it cooled.
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After a few hundred thousand years,
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it was just protons and electrons flying around.
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But at some point, the universe cooled enough
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that when an electron and proton got together
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all over the universe, essentially all at once,
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the universe became transparent.
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Kaku: Think of a gigantic fog that suddenly lifts.
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Before the fog lifts,
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you can only see a few feet in front of you.
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Then suddenly everything becomes clear.
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That's what happened 380,000 years after the big bang.
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Ever since that moment,
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380,000 years after the big bang,
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this light has traveled uninterrupted through space.
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Scientists call it the cosmic microwave background.
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If you were to write down a handful
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of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time,
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one of them might be the discovery of DNA.
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Another one might be
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the discovery of a cosmic microwave background.
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That's how big this discovery was.
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We once believed creating a star was easy.
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Take a huge cloud of gas,
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add some gravity,
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and stand back as the gravity crushes the gas down
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to a hot ball of plasma.
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Temperatures and pressures rise until fusion sparks,
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and a star is born.
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Now scientists think gravity alone is not enough.
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To construct a star, you also need magnetism.
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The primary mover when you're forming a star is gravity.
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The material condenses in the center to form a star,
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and as that star forms there's material swirling around it,
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attracted to that central mass by its gravity,
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but there's a problem.
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This stuff has what's called angular momentum.
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Angular momentum is the force of rotation
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that keeps the clouds of gas spinning around the center
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of the forming star.
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It works against gravity,
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smearing the gas into a thin disk.
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Young stars, or protostars,
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can only ignite if the central gas cloud
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reaches a super hot, dense state.
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But the disk spins around the center too fast
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for gravity to do its work.
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Scientists now understand that a third force
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is at at play here.
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That's where magnetism can play a role.
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The magnetism of the protostar, the forming star,
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can actually affect the disk and slow it down
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and actually let it drop in and help the star itself form.
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The swirling gas in the forming star
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and its surrounding disk
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generate powerful magnetic fields.
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These fields grab the fast-moving particles,
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slowing them down.
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Bullock: Magnetism works like a cosmic brake.
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It slows down a little bit
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and eventually spirals into the center.
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Gravity stars to win.
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Gravity beats out that angular momentum,
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and star formation happens.
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Gravity drags the slowing disk inwards,
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crushing it until the gas gets so dense it ignites.
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A star bursts into life.
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This is our universe as it looked 12 billion years ago.
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The gassy cosmos is filled with flashes
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as gravity and magnetism crush clouds of hydrogen gas
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to create stars.
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Some of the largest of these stars burn through
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their hydrogen fuel quickly.
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Without the power of fusion,
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there's nothing to fight against gravity.
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Sometimes this leads to a violent, magnetic death
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when the star collapses and implodes in a supernova.
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The gassy outer layers of the star blow out into space,
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and the core of the star crushes inward,
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supercharging its magnetism.
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If you look at stars, just about all stars have
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strong magnetic fields at their surface.
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What happens is that if a star dies and it collapses,
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the same amount of magnetic field must still be present.
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So if the surface area of the star is decreased
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by a factor of 1,000 or 10,000,
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then that means that the magnetic field intensity
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must increase by that same amount.
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As the supernova's core collapses,
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the magnetic field's strength keeps building.
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At the end of all this, you get a ball 12 miles wide
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called a magnetar.
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These dense balls have very, very strong magnetic fields.
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In fact, the strongest magnetic fields in the universe.
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The magnetic field can be more than a trillion times
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stronger than the earth's field.
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If you got very, very close to a magnetar,
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that strong magnetic field might possibly rip you apart
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because your atoms just can't stay together
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in the vicinity of such a strong magnetic field.
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Giant stars with the potential to form magnetars
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still exist within our universe.
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Scientists know of 23 magnetars within our galaxy today,
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and one of these, sgr 1806-20,
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located 50,000 light-years from earth,
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is the same magnetic monster that unleashed an assault
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on the earth in 2004.
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The blast was triggered by a starquake.
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That's like an earthquake, but it's on a star,
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and the crust of the star slipped about this much,
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literally about a centimeter,
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the width of your finger, but this was far larger
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than any earthquake this planet has ever seen,
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millions of times stronger,
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and the magnetic field is coupled with the matter in it.
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So when the crust slipped, so did the magnetic field,
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and it launched a blast of energy so powerful
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that 50,000 light-years away
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it physically affected our planet.
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Happily, this occurred halfway across the galaxy.
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If this thing had been a lot closer,
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the effect on us would have been huge.
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A magnetar a couple of light-years from earth
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would devastate our planet.
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There could be a burst of radiation that could literally
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strip away our atmosphere.
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Without an atmosphere, there's no air to breath.
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Animal life would die.
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Without air pressure, the seas would boil away.
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Earth would be left as a lifeless ball of rock
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spinning through space.
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Everywhere we look in the universe,
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we see the same stuff following the same rules.
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The universe is only made up
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of a handful of basic ingredients ...
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hydrogen, helium, lithium, carbon and so on.
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All of these chemicals, in different proportions,
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are what make us up.
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And these same chemicals, in different proportions,
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make up everything.
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The same chemicals that form galaxies and stars
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do something amazing on earth, perhaps even unique.
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They become living things,
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organisms that can grow, reproduce and think.
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Durda: We are bits of the universe made conscious.
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I think that's a ... it's ... it's a biological miracle.
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You look out into the sky, and you know you're connected
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to that somehow.
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It's pretty fantastic.
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So when does the story of life on earth begin?
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Actually, it begins long before earth existed.
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After the big bang, the universe is little more
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than a vast cloud of hydrogen gas.
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Then, pockets of the gas cloud collapse to form stars.
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And only stars can turn hydrogen
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into the more complex molecules that will become planets
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and people.
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Deep inside the cores of these early stars,
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heat and pressure crush hydrogen atoms together
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so powerfully they fuse,
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creating helium atoms and releasing a burst of energy.
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Over time, helium atoms fuse together too, creating carbon,
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nitrogen, oxygen and even heavier atoms.
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Over hundreds of millions of years,
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ancient stars build up all the elements
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that make up our solar system today,
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including the atoms in your body.
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But in doing so, these stars pay a catastrophic price.
263
00:16:12,638 --> 00:16:15,440
Drained of energy, the ancient stars collapse
264
00:16:15,442 --> 00:16:17,675
and then explode in a supernova,
265
00:16:17,677 --> 00:16:23,514
spreading their chemically rich stardust across space.
266
00:16:23,516 --> 00:16:25,984
The iron in your blood, the calcium in your teeth,
267
00:16:25,986 --> 00:16:28,586
in your bones, these were created
268
00:16:28,588 --> 00:16:30,521
in a supernova explosion,
269
00:16:30,523 --> 00:16:34,592
probably different stars that blew up billions of years ago,
270
00:16:34,594 --> 00:16:37,628
seeding the space around them with this stuff.
271
00:16:44,169 --> 00:16:47,471
Blasted through space, these complex atoms
272
00:16:47,473 --> 00:16:53,344
now pepper the clouds of gas that are nurseries of new stars.
273
00:16:53,346 --> 00:16:55,946
And 4.6 billion years ago,
274
00:16:55,948 --> 00:17:01,285
one particular cloud begins to collapse under its own gravity,
275
00:17:01,287 --> 00:17:03,988
and our sun ignites.
276
00:17:03,990 --> 00:17:07,792
Much of the ancient stardust is sucked into the sun,
277
00:17:07,794 --> 00:17:09,960
never to be seen again.
278
00:17:09,962 --> 00:17:13,431
But the leftovers clump together to form comets,
279
00:17:13,433 --> 00:17:18,702
asteroids, planets and eventually life.
280
00:17:18,704 --> 00:17:20,537
I actually think of myself
281
00:17:20,539 --> 00:17:22,073
as a very complicated rock.
282
00:17:22,075 --> 00:17:25,443
I am made of things like iron and copper and manganese.
283
00:17:25,445 --> 00:17:27,512
When you sit down on a mountainside
284
00:17:27,514 --> 00:17:30,448
and you're there with a rock, those are your cousins too.
285
00:17:30,450 --> 00:17:34,218
Thanks to ancient supernovas, the earth forms
286
00:17:34,220 --> 00:17:39,189
with all the atoms needed to create both rocks and life.
287
00:17:39,191 --> 00:17:42,593
But what is it that distinguishes us
288
00:17:42,595 --> 00:17:46,931
from a piece of granite?
289
00:17:46,933 --> 00:17:48,132
Three things ...
290
00:17:48,134 --> 00:17:50,768
a power source, a protective sack,
291
00:17:50,770 --> 00:17:54,972
and the plans for making more protected power sources.
292
00:17:56,041 --> 00:17:57,808
DNA is the plan.
293
00:17:57,810 --> 00:18:01,278
It's a long molecule, built up from small units
294
00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:03,280
called nucleotides.
295
00:18:03,282 --> 00:18:06,750
DNA contains the instructions for how to build the cell's
296
00:18:06,752 --> 00:18:11,823
protein engine using small molecules called amino acids.
297
00:18:11,825 --> 00:18:15,693
DNA also tells the cell how to make lipids,
298
00:18:15,695 --> 00:18:19,897
a fatty molecule that forms a perfect protective sack.
299
00:18:19,899 --> 00:18:21,532
And that's all there is to it.
300
00:18:21,534 --> 00:18:26,803
You have the basic form of life, a cell.
301
00:18:26,805 --> 00:18:28,839
The chemistry set for life is actually quite simple.
302
00:18:28,841 --> 00:18:30,974
It's 20 amino acids.
303
00:18:30,976 --> 00:18:34,278
It's a few nucleotide bases for making DNA and rna,
304
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:36,914
a few lipids, and that's it.
305
00:18:38,317 --> 00:18:40,784
Think of it as like a lego kit.
306
00:18:50,729 --> 00:18:53,097
A few billion years ago,
307
00:18:53,099 --> 00:18:54,965
when you looked in our solar system,
308
00:18:54,967 --> 00:18:56,567
you might have seen two earths.
309
00:18:56,569 --> 00:18:59,703
Well, a few billion years from now, in the future,
310
00:18:59,705 --> 00:19:01,372
you might look at our solar system
311
00:19:01,374 --> 00:19:05,643
and see two venuses.
312
00:19:05,645 --> 00:19:10,948
So we can look to Venus' past and see our future.
313
00:19:10,950 --> 00:19:14,051
We know that temperatures skyrocketed,
314
00:19:14,053 --> 00:19:18,122
and the scarred surface hints at why.
315
00:19:18,124 --> 00:19:21,792
Hawaii's volcanic lava fields
316
00:19:21,794 --> 00:19:23,995
look like Venus in miniature.
317
00:19:27,399 --> 00:19:30,401
Both produce the same kind of runny lava,
318
00:19:30,403 --> 00:19:34,271
building flat, shield-like volcanoes.
319
00:19:34,273 --> 00:19:36,174
The big difference
320
00:19:36,176 --> 00:19:42,880
is there are only five active volcanoes on Hawaii.
321
00:19:42,882 --> 00:19:46,517
Venus is covered in them.
322
00:19:46,519 --> 00:19:50,021
One thing that really jumps out all around the planet
323
00:19:50,023 --> 00:19:54,391
is the number and variety of volcanoes.
324
00:19:54,393 --> 00:19:56,894
I mean, Venus could almost be nicknamed "volcano world."
325
00:19:56,896 --> 00:20:01,966
Venus has tens of thousands of volcanoes all over the planet.
326
00:20:04,402 --> 00:20:07,772
But it's not the erupting lava
327
00:20:07,774 --> 00:20:10,374
that turns up the heat.
328
00:20:10,376 --> 00:20:13,310
It's what comes out with it.
329
00:20:16,014 --> 00:20:18,216
Up close on the surface,
330
00:20:18,218 --> 00:20:21,085
jani can see the origin of the gases.
331
00:20:23,055 --> 00:20:24,922
If we look behind us,
332
00:20:24,924 --> 00:20:28,225
we can see volcanic gases gushing out of steam vents.
333
00:20:28,227 --> 00:20:30,895
We've got carbon dioxide being delivered to the atmosphere.
334
00:20:30,897 --> 00:20:32,830
It's exactly like what has happened on Venus.
335
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:38,236
Carbon dioxide has been delivered out of volcanoes
336
00:20:38,238 --> 00:20:41,238
over and over and over again throughout its history
337
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:43,641
so that now we have
338
00:20:43,643 --> 00:20:48,812
just a tremendously thick, dense atmosphere.
339
00:20:48,814 --> 00:20:51,849
The net result of all of these volcanic gases
340
00:20:51,851 --> 00:20:55,019
pouring out of volcanoes, major greenhouse gases,
341
00:20:55,021 --> 00:20:57,087
is that they have been absorbing heat
342
00:20:57,089 --> 00:20:59,490
for billions of years of the history of Venus.
343
00:20:59,492 --> 00:21:02,058
The temperature has been gradually creeping up
344
00:21:02,060 --> 00:21:06,497
until, today, the surface of Venus is 900 degrees.
345
00:21:08,266 --> 00:21:11,502
It's hard to imagine such extreme temperatures.
346
00:21:14,039 --> 00:21:16,373
But probes orbiting the planet
347
00:21:16,375 --> 00:21:20,577
revealed just how insanely hot it is.
348
00:21:21,946 --> 00:21:24,115
Scientists studying the images
349
00:21:24,117 --> 00:21:27,184
noticed something strange on the planet's mountains.
350
00:21:27,186 --> 00:21:31,555
It looks like, on the mountains,
351
00:21:31,557 --> 00:21:33,157
that there's apparently snow-like structures.
352
00:21:35,526 --> 00:21:37,861
But this is not like
353
00:21:37,863 --> 00:21:40,131
any snow found on earth.
354
00:21:40,133 --> 00:21:44,368
So, if you look at the white-peaked mountains of Venus,
355
00:21:44,370 --> 00:21:45,936
you would think that it was snow,
356
00:21:45,938 --> 00:21:48,072
but it's actually metals that have rained down
357
00:21:48,074 --> 00:21:50,441
and deposited on the top of those mountains.
358
00:21:53,244 --> 00:21:57,782
Metals like bismuth and lead melt.
359
00:21:57,784 --> 00:22:01,852
Then they evaporate into the atmosphere.
360
00:22:04,989 --> 00:22:07,057
As they rise, they cool
361
00:22:07,059 --> 00:22:11,695
until they finally fall like snow on the mountaintops.
362
00:22:11,697 --> 00:22:15,499
I'm not sure even the imagination
363
00:22:15,501 --> 00:22:17,034
of science-fiction authors would have come up
364
00:22:17,036 --> 00:22:18,169
with something as weird as Venus.
365
00:22:18,171 --> 00:22:19,937
I mean, just think about that.
366
00:22:19,939 --> 00:22:23,107
You have possibly metal frost on the top of mountains.
367
00:22:23,109 --> 00:22:24,908
I mean, how weird is that?
368
00:22:24,910 --> 00:22:26,877
It's pretty insane. Raining metals.
369
00:22:26,879 --> 00:22:29,713
Where would you ever think about that existing?
370
00:22:29,715 --> 00:22:31,248
On Venus.
371
00:22:34,652 --> 00:22:35,786
In the future,
372
00:22:35,788 --> 00:22:38,422
metallic snow is forecast for earth, too.
373
00:22:38,424 --> 00:22:41,958
And our scorching mountain caps
374
00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:44,795
will glitter like Venus.
375
00:22:56,375 --> 00:22:58,776
This is the earth half a billion years
376
00:22:58,778 --> 00:23:00,844
after the crust cooled.
377
00:23:02,381 --> 00:23:04,748
The climate is warm and wet,
378
00:23:04,750 --> 00:23:08,119
and the asteroids that delivered the building blocks for life
379
00:23:08,121 --> 00:23:11,455
are a distant memory.
380
00:23:11,457 --> 00:23:15,759
Some simple life may have already taken hold,
381
00:23:15,761 --> 00:23:21,999
but this may not be the life that turned into us,
382
00:23:22,001 --> 00:23:25,269
because the earth is about to be pummeled
383
00:23:25,271 --> 00:23:27,938
by a second wave of asteroids,
384
00:23:27,940 --> 00:23:31,409
and a radical theory called panspermia
385
00:23:31,411 --> 00:23:34,111
suggests some of these space rocks
386
00:23:34,113 --> 00:23:37,314
are filled with alien life.
387
00:23:37,316 --> 00:23:41,852
So panspermia is the idea that life Rose on some other
388
00:23:41,854 --> 00:23:45,489
planetary body or other environment and came to earth
389
00:23:45,491 --> 00:23:48,225
and was delivered by falling debris.
390
00:23:54,065 --> 00:23:56,600
The panspermia argument begins with a game
391
00:23:56,602 --> 00:24:01,938
of cosmic pinball 4.1 billion years ago.
392
00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:03,874
The outer planets of the solar system
393
00:24:03,876 --> 00:24:06,743
haven't yet settled into stable orbits.
394
00:24:06,745 --> 00:24:09,613
They jostle for position.
395
00:24:09,615 --> 00:24:14,284
The gravitational fallout sends a hail of giant asteroids
396
00:24:14,286 --> 00:24:16,320
towards the earth.
397
00:24:16,322 --> 00:24:21,158
It's called the late heavy bombardment.
398
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,861
We're just orbiting the sun, happy as can be,
399
00:24:23,863 --> 00:24:25,696
and the outer planets are throwing
400
00:24:25,698 --> 00:24:28,165
these gigantic objects at us.
401
00:24:28,167 --> 00:24:30,400
And they just kept coming in and kept coming in
402
00:24:30,402 --> 00:24:31,701
and kept coming in.
403
00:24:34,173 --> 00:24:35,506
If delicate organisms
404
00:24:35,508 --> 00:24:37,975
had developed in the early oceans,
405
00:24:37,977 --> 00:24:41,912
the late heavy bombardment would have wiped them out.
406
00:24:41,914 --> 00:24:45,749
But the earth wasn't the only planet in the firing line.
407
00:24:45,751 --> 00:24:48,719
Asteroids also hit Mars,
408
00:24:48,721 --> 00:24:53,924
and back then, Mars was a very different planet.
409
00:24:53,926 --> 00:24:57,160
With an evolutionary head start,
410
00:24:57,162 --> 00:25:00,664
Mars could have developed Hardy bacterial life
411
00:25:00,666 --> 00:25:05,302
by this stage, perhaps living deep within the surface rocks.
412
00:25:05,304 --> 00:25:10,574
We've seen life on earth that are cryptoendolithic,
413
00:25:10,576 --> 00:25:12,642
so they hide in those rocks,
414
00:25:12,644 --> 00:25:15,579
and they survive the radiation and the harsh environment
415
00:25:15,581 --> 00:25:18,448
by hiding and thriving inside of that surface.
416
00:25:23,555 --> 00:25:27,390
A giant impact on the surface of early Mars
417
00:25:27,392 --> 00:25:33,297
could have thrown rocks filled with bacteria high into space.
418
00:25:33,299 --> 00:25:36,433
McKay: These are organisms prepackaged, ready to fly.
419
00:25:36,435 --> 00:25:39,002
You could imagine some of them trapped in a rock,
420
00:25:39,004 --> 00:25:42,105
kicked off a planet, flying through space,
421
00:25:42,107 --> 00:25:44,308
thousands of years later landing on another world,
422
00:25:44,310 --> 00:25:48,112
popping open, and being able to reproduce and grow.
423
00:25:51,215 --> 00:25:55,719
So, did a martian rock seed the earth with life
424
00:25:55,721 --> 00:25:59,056
toward the end of the late heavy bombardment?
425
00:25:59,058 --> 00:26:02,359
It's an incredible possibility.
426
00:26:02,361 --> 00:26:06,630
But how could the Mars bugs have survived the long journey
427
00:26:06,632 --> 00:26:08,399
through space?
428
00:26:11,369 --> 00:26:13,103
Certain bacteria on earth,
429
00:26:13,105 --> 00:26:15,573
when they experience a stressful environment,
430
00:26:15,575 --> 00:26:18,242
they start forming what we call spores.
431
00:26:18,244 --> 00:26:20,944
And spores, if you imagine a seed,
432
00:26:20,946 --> 00:26:23,213
has all of the genetic information in the middle,
433
00:26:23,215 --> 00:26:26,517
and it's protected by numerous layers of defense.
434
00:26:26,519 --> 00:26:29,353
They really seal themselves up in little spaceships,
435
00:26:29,355 --> 00:26:31,922
and that would allow them to survive in space.
436
00:26:31,924 --> 00:26:35,359
You could take a spore, put it in space, bring it back,
437
00:26:35,361 --> 00:26:36,860
and it would still be viable.
438
00:26:39,764 --> 00:26:43,767
Spores also allow bacteria to stay alive in a dormant state
439
00:26:43,769 --> 00:26:46,437
for incredible lengths of time.
440
00:26:46,439 --> 00:26:48,638
The record on earth is a spore that formed
441
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,441
before the age of the dinosaurs
442
00:26:51,443 --> 00:26:56,580
and was recently resurrected after a 250 million-year nap.
443
00:26:56,582 --> 00:26:59,783
You know that ... that spores can survive in theory
444
00:26:59,785 --> 00:27:01,352
for millions and millions of years,
445
00:27:01,354 --> 00:27:04,721
but to actually see evidence of a spore being revived
446
00:27:04,723 --> 00:27:07,524
is pretty fantastic.
447
00:27:10,895 --> 00:27:13,831
The final hurdle for panspermia
448
00:27:13,833 --> 00:27:17,634
is the fiery touchdown on the surface of the earth.
449
00:27:17,636 --> 00:27:21,171
Planetary scientists simulate violent impact events
450
00:27:21,173 --> 00:27:24,407
with high-speed guns to see if martian bacteria
451
00:27:24,409 --> 00:27:26,810
could have survived.
452
00:27:26,812 --> 00:27:29,880
Not every bit of the projectile is destroyed
453
00:27:29,882 --> 00:27:31,281
and highly shocked in an impact.
454
00:27:31,283 --> 00:27:34,051
When we do these experiments, we often find little bits
455
00:27:34,053 --> 00:27:36,486
of the projectile left over in the impact chamber.
456
00:27:38,256 --> 00:27:41,691
If there are bacteria living in that portion of that rock,
457
00:27:41,693 --> 00:27:44,294
they could potentially survive the impact back onto the planet.
458
00:27:44,296 --> 00:27:48,999
The science shows us that panspermia is possible,
459
00:27:49,001 --> 00:27:52,636
but does it take us any closer to understanding
460
00:27:52,638 --> 00:27:55,272
the origins of life?
461
00:27:55,274 --> 00:27:57,574
The fundamental problem with panspermia is that
462
00:27:57,576 --> 00:27:59,810
it's just removing one step of the problem
463
00:27:59,812 --> 00:28:01,779
and putting it someplace else.
464
00:28:01,781 --> 00:28:03,881
We don't know how life originated on earth.
465
00:28:03,883 --> 00:28:05,082
Now it's going to originate on Mars,
466
00:28:05,084 --> 00:28:07,017
but we don't know how it originated on Mars.
467
00:28:07,019 --> 00:28:10,020
So you still have this basic problem, and that is,
468
00:28:10,022 --> 00:28:11,955
how did life start?
469
00:28:11,957 --> 00:28:15,625
Did our ancestors arrive from space,
470
00:28:15,627 --> 00:28:19,096
or did they rise up from the oceans of the earth?
471
00:28:26,704 --> 00:28:29,573
Pushing atoms together so strongly they stick
472
00:28:29,575 --> 00:28:31,207
is called nuclear fusion.
473
00:28:33,611 --> 00:28:36,813
It's the first step for turning a universe full of gas
474
00:28:36,815 --> 00:28:40,016
into one filled with the ingredients for planets,
475
00:28:40,018 --> 00:28:43,253
people, and cars.
476
00:28:43,255 --> 00:28:47,090
So, how do you get two atoms to fuse?
477
00:28:47,092 --> 00:28:50,861
This guy's been doing it in his garage since he was 14.
478
00:28:53,030 --> 00:28:57,468
Taylor Wilson is obsessed with nuclear fusion.
479
00:28:59,804 --> 00:29:01,805
Yeah, the neighbors know about the radioactive stuff
480
00:29:01,807 --> 00:29:03,540
that's in the garage.
481
00:29:03,542 --> 00:29:05,275
And so does the government.
482
00:29:05,277 --> 00:29:07,611
It's all relatively low level.
483
00:29:07,613 --> 00:29:10,013
That's my watch going off.
484
00:29:10,015 --> 00:29:11,748
I think I'm the only person I've ever met
485
00:29:11,750 --> 00:29:13,650
with a geiger-counter watch.
486
00:29:16,354 --> 00:29:19,389
The centerpiece of Taylor's nuclear man cave
487
00:29:19,391 --> 00:29:23,360
is this precision-engineered fusion reactor,
488
00:29:23,362 --> 00:29:25,995
which he built when he was still in high school.
489
00:29:25,997 --> 00:29:27,931
Okay, I'll let in some gas now.
490
00:29:27,933 --> 00:29:31,168
The first ingredient ... hydrogen gas.
491
00:29:31,170 --> 00:29:34,104
And it will be flowed into the chamber through this very
492
00:29:34,106 --> 00:29:36,873
precise sapphire leak valve.
493
00:29:36,875 --> 00:29:41,044
The next ingredient ... high-voltage electricity.
494
00:29:44,083 --> 00:29:46,182
Taylor passes a high voltage
495
00:29:46,184 --> 00:29:48,051
through a small, spherical cage
496
00:29:48,053 --> 00:29:50,587
that sits inside the reactor.
497
00:29:50,589 --> 00:29:51,989
The negatively charged cage
498
00:29:51,991 --> 00:29:55,225
quickly draws the hydrogen ions inside it.
499
00:29:55,227 --> 00:29:57,127
So it's taking all those ions
500
00:29:57,129 --> 00:29:58,461
and sucking them towards the center.
501
00:29:58,463 --> 00:30:01,498
And as they fly in they get confined,
502
00:30:01,500 --> 00:30:04,334
and hopefully they collide with each other and fuse.
503
00:30:04,336 --> 00:30:08,505
The temperature of the atoms inside the cage is now so great
504
00:30:08,507 --> 00:30:11,374
that hydrogen atoms are fusing together,
505
00:30:11,376 --> 00:30:15,045
creating heavier helium atoms and a burst of energy
506
00:30:15,047 --> 00:30:17,681
hotter than the surface of the sun.
507
00:30:17,683 --> 00:30:22,018
It's that little, tiny blob of plasma inside those grid wires
508
00:30:22,020 --> 00:30:24,454
that's kind of like a star in a jar.
509
00:30:31,662 --> 00:30:33,730
13 billion years ago,
510
00:30:33,732 --> 00:30:36,600
the universe uses gravity to fuse atoms
511
00:30:36,602 --> 00:30:38,869
instead of an electrical cage.
512
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,676
Across the cosmos, vast clouds of hydrogen gas
513
00:30:46,678 --> 00:30:49,246
collapse under their own gravity.
514
00:30:50,481 --> 00:30:52,949
Pressure and temperature build
515
00:30:52,951 --> 00:30:55,819
as more and more gas gets sucked in.
516
00:30:55,821 --> 00:30:58,856
Eventually, fusion sparks deep in the core
517
00:30:58,858 --> 00:31:01,224
of these giant balls of gas,
518
00:31:01,226 --> 00:31:04,027
and the first stars start to manufacture
519
00:31:04,029 --> 00:31:07,864
many of the heavy elements that make up your car today.
520
00:31:21,278 --> 00:31:23,747
Deep in the outer reaches of the solar system,
521
00:31:23,749 --> 00:31:28,118
far beyond the last gasps of the sun's atmosphere,
522
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:29,719
we are blind.
523
00:31:29,721 --> 00:31:31,922
We simply can't see that far.
524
00:31:31,924 --> 00:31:36,392
But sometimes we get messengers from beyond,
525
00:31:36,394 --> 00:31:40,530
potentially life-ending messengers ... comets.
526
00:31:49,273 --> 00:31:51,041
There's basically two kinds of comets.
527
00:31:51,043 --> 00:31:53,576
There's comets that are called short-period comets,
528
00:31:53,578 --> 00:31:55,745
and the other kind is called long-period comets.
529
00:31:55,747 --> 00:31:58,916
Short-period comets come from the kuiper belt,
530
00:31:58,918 --> 00:32:02,652
the disk of space junk just beyond the planets.
531
00:32:02,654 --> 00:32:04,688
They travel around the solar system
532
00:32:04,690 --> 00:32:06,957
in relatively small circles,
533
00:32:06,959 --> 00:32:11,228
returning at regular intervals of 200 years or less.
534
00:32:15,399 --> 00:32:18,802
Long-period comets are a bit more mysterious.
535
00:32:21,072 --> 00:32:23,306
The long-period comets can come back around
536
00:32:23,308 --> 00:32:24,841
something like every 1,000 years,
537
00:32:24,843 --> 00:32:25,875
or even a million years,
538
00:32:25,877 --> 00:32:27,611
and unlike the short-period comets
539
00:32:27,613 --> 00:32:29,579
that come in on sort of circles,
540
00:32:29,581 --> 00:32:31,581
the long-period ones come in on really plunging orbits,
541
00:32:31,583 --> 00:32:32,982
and they can come in
542
00:32:32,984 --> 00:32:35,419
from all over the place and all different directions.
543
00:32:37,422 --> 00:32:42,258
And that tells us they come from somewhere different.
544
00:32:44,962 --> 00:32:47,530
The long-period comets we think are coming from someplace
545
00:32:47,532 --> 00:32:49,398
much, much farther away,
546
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,300
and it's more like a spherical cloud
547
00:32:51,302 --> 00:32:53,136
of very distant things
548
00:32:53,138 --> 00:32:57,474
that are now plunging down into the sun every now and again.
549
00:32:57,476 --> 00:33:00,243
When a comet comes in, the sun heats it up.
550
00:33:00,245 --> 00:33:03,747
The ice turns into a gas, and the comet loses mass.
551
00:33:03,749 --> 00:33:06,449
Over time, these comets will disappear,
552
00:33:06,451 --> 00:33:08,085
and yet they keep coming.
553
00:33:08,087 --> 00:33:10,887
That means that there must be a reservoir of them out there.
554
00:33:12,423 --> 00:33:16,359
But where is there? Where are they coming from?
555
00:33:16,361 --> 00:33:18,829
One of the first explanations for these strange comets
556
00:33:18,831 --> 00:33:21,098
is maybe they're not from our solar system.
557
00:33:21,100 --> 00:33:23,733
Maybe the galaxy is full of these icy chunks
558
00:33:23,735 --> 00:33:25,635
that occasionally rain down on us.
559
00:33:25,637 --> 00:33:26,937
But then we thought,
560
00:33:26,939 --> 00:33:29,840
"maybe they come from another part of the solar system."
561
00:33:29,842 --> 00:33:33,543
Maybe our whole solar system was surrounded
562
00:33:33,545 --> 00:33:35,478
by a ball of junk left over
563
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,448
from the very first days of its creation ...
564
00:33:38,450 --> 00:33:40,484
the oort cloud.
565
00:33:40,486 --> 00:33:43,720
It was theorized that there must be a reservoir of them,
566
00:33:43,722 --> 00:33:46,690
a giant cloud surrounding the solar system, with millions,
567
00:33:46,692 --> 00:33:50,727
billions, maybe even trillions of these icy bodies.
568
00:33:50,729 --> 00:33:54,330
But we've never actually seen it.
569
00:33:54,332 --> 00:33:55,465
So this oort cloud,
570
00:33:55,467 --> 00:33:57,801
this theorized population of comets, is that ...
571
00:33:57,803 --> 00:33:59,035
it's theoretical.
572
00:33:59,037 --> 00:34:01,304
It's never been directly observed.
573
00:34:01,306 --> 00:34:03,673
The objects in the oort cloud are so far away
574
00:34:03,675 --> 00:34:04,841
and so small and dark
575
00:34:04,843 --> 00:34:06,777
that we've never observed something
576
00:34:06,779 --> 00:34:08,378
actually out in the oort cloud.
577
00:34:08,380 --> 00:34:10,647
Something has to fall in.
578
00:34:10,649 --> 00:34:12,081
So you see things falling in
579
00:34:12,083 --> 00:34:13,850
from all of these different angles.
580
00:34:13,852 --> 00:34:16,887
From there, you can deduce what must be out there.
581
00:34:16,889 --> 00:34:19,222
A fun way to think of the oort cloud
582
00:34:19,224 --> 00:34:22,592
is that these are pieces of planets that never got used.
583
00:34:22,594 --> 00:34:24,261
They really are leftovers.
584
00:34:24,263 --> 00:34:27,530
The oort cloud actually didn't come with the original package,
585
00:34:27,532 --> 00:34:28,531
if you will.
586
00:34:28,533 --> 00:34:30,800
The oort cloud formed when they tried,
587
00:34:30,802 --> 00:34:33,570
but miserably failed, to join the party
588
00:34:33,572 --> 00:34:35,605
and become those giant planets,
589
00:34:35,607 --> 00:34:37,340
and instead got thrown all in different directions,
590
00:34:37,342 --> 00:34:40,177
and they now exist halfway to the next star.
591
00:34:40,179 --> 00:34:41,812
They're a big, giant spherical distribution.
592
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:47,617
4.6 billion years ago, our sun ignites.
593
00:34:47,619 --> 00:34:52,088
A cloud of dust and gas circles the infant star.
594
00:34:52,090 --> 00:34:54,124
Then gravity gets to work,
595
00:34:54,126 --> 00:34:57,027
sucking in gas, dust, ice, and rocks
596
00:34:57,029 --> 00:35:00,063
to form the infant planets.
597
00:35:00,065 --> 00:35:02,566
The planets formed out of building blocks,
598
00:35:02,568 --> 00:35:07,871
smaller chunks of material ... rock, ice...
599
00:35:07,873 --> 00:35:09,906
Stuff that came together over time.
600
00:35:10,875 --> 00:35:13,576
The frenzy of swirling, colliding matter
601
00:35:13,578 --> 00:35:17,547
leaves behind debris as rocky rubble in the asteroid belt
602
00:35:17,549 --> 00:35:20,450
and ice in the kuiper belt.
603
00:35:20,452 --> 00:35:23,720
Then Neptune and uranus got in on the act,
604
00:35:23,722 --> 00:35:27,157
scattering the debris out further.
605
00:35:27,159 --> 00:35:29,893
Most of them go thrown out of the solar system forever,
606
00:35:29,895 --> 00:35:31,127
but the ones that didn't
607
00:35:31,129 --> 00:35:33,763
go on these big, long, million-year looping orbits,
608
00:35:33,765 --> 00:35:35,765
and that's the oort cloud.
609
00:35:35,767 --> 00:35:37,567
Billions of icy rocks
610
00:35:37,569 --> 00:35:39,469
were thrown out in all directions
611
00:35:39,471 --> 00:35:45,108
until a ball of debris formed around the whole solar system.
612
00:35:45,110 --> 00:35:46,375
The oort cloud comets
613
00:35:46,377 --> 00:35:48,311
are dinosaur bones of solar system formation.
614
00:35:48,313 --> 00:35:50,179
Contained in them are the ingredients
615
00:35:50,181 --> 00:35:51,848
that went up to make our planets.
616
00:35:51,850 --> 00:35:54,284
Most of the oort cloud objects
617
00:35:54,286 --> 00:35:56,553
will stay in this icy cloud forever,
618
00:35:56,555 --> 00:35:58,921
orbiting the distant sun.
619
00:35:58,923 --> 00:36:01,391
But a few get nudged loose,
620
00:36:01,393 --> 00:36:06,529
and the sun's gravity pulls them inwards like moths to a flame.
621
00:36:06,531 --> 00:36:09,166
And such a comet could sneak up on you,
622
00:36:09,168 --> 00:36:10,767
and you won't even know it's there.
623
00:36:19,810 --> 00:36:22,078
These comets can be many miles across,
624
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,181
and they're moving extremely rapidly,
625
00:36:24,183 --> 00:36:26,816
sometimes as much as 100 miles per second.
626
00:36:26,818 --> 00:36:28,652
This makes them pretty dangerous.
627
00:36:28,654 --> 00:36:31,688
How dangerous? Ask a dinosaur.
628
00:36:33,391 --> 00:36:35,959
Some people think that the massive impact
629
00:36:35,961 --> 00:36:37,393
that killed off the dinosaurs
630
00:36:37,395 --> 00:36:41,464
may have been caused by a huge oort cloud comet.
631
00:36:44,802 --> 00:36:47,504
They can be every bit as dangerous
632
00:36:47,506 --> 00:36:51,441
as the asteroids usually blamed for extinctions on earth.
633
00:36:53,144 --> 00:36:58,615
We'd have little or no warning because we have no idea what
634
00:36:58,617 --> 00:37:03,086
is hurling stuff out of the oort cloud at us.
635
00:37:18,903 --> 00:37:20,370
For over 4 billion years,
636
00:37:20,372 --> 00:37:23,072
the earth and the moon have traced
637
00:37:23,074 --> 00:37:24,975
a delicate dance around the sun.
638
00:37:26,510 --> 00:37:30,846
But our celestial partner is gradually slipping away.
639
00:37:34,518 --> 00:37:37,253
Sometimes, we talk about things that are reliable.
640
00:37:37,255 --> 00:37:38,888
We say there's nothing as reliable
641
00:37:38,890 --> 00:37:40,223
as the rising of the sun, right?
642
00:37:40,225 --> 00:37:42,325
We can think of the moon in the same way.
643
00:37:42,327 --> 00:37:43,893
It goes through its phases.
644
00:37:43,895 --> 00:37:46,062
It's there night after night, year after year.
645
00:37:46,064 --> 00:37:48,932
But it turns out the moon is actually
646
00:37:48,934 --> 00:37:51,801
moving away from the earth, and that's due to
647
00:37:51,803 --> 00:37:55,371
the interaction of the moon and the earth's tidal bulge.
648
00:37:56,641 --> 00:37:58,575
The bulge of water pulled up by gravity
649
00:37:58,577 --> 00:38:00,976
sits slightly ahead of the moon
650
00:38:00,978 --> 00:38:05,181
because the earth spins faster than the moon orbits.
651
00:38:05,183 --> 00:38:09,252
The moon pulls by gravity on that bulge
652
00:38:09,254 --> 00:38:11,621
and slows the earth's rotation.
653
00:38:11,623 --> 00:38:13,223
Over billions of years,
654
00:38:13,225 --> 00:38:15,224
that has slowed the earth's rotation a lot.
655
00:38:15,226 --> 00:38:17,093
We used to be spinning a lot more rapidly,
656
00:38:17,095 --> 00:38:20,096
probably more than twice as fast as we do now.
657
00:38:20,098 --> 00:38:23,366
But, like a gravitational whipline,
658
00:38:23,368 --> 00:38:28,304
the moon's attraction to the bulge also speeds up its orbit.
659
00:38:28,306 --> 00:38:31,240
This speed makes the moon's orbit wider,
660
00:38:31,242 --> 00:38:34,643
pushing it farther and farther away.
661
00:38:36,580 --> 00:38:39,549
It's a very small amount, so it's only about
662
00:38:39,551 --> 00:38:43,252
3.8 centimeters, which is about an inch and a half a year.
663
00:38:43,254 --> 00:38:44,888
Over billions of years,
664
00:38:44,890 --> 00:38:48,557
the moon will shrink to a dot in the night sky,
665
00:38:48,559 --> 00:38:51,194
and the earth's spin will become so slow
666
00:38:51,196 --> 00:38:56,031
that the moon will appear to freeze above our heads.
667
00:38:56,033 --> 00:38:59,436
There will come a time where the earth is actually locked.
668
00:38:59,438 --> 00:39:01,671
One side of the earth faces one side of the moon,
669
00:39:01,673 --> 00:39:04,474
and the two of them will go around in lockstep.
670
00:39:06,844 --> 00:39:08,445
So there'll be one place on earth
671
00:39:08,447 --> 00:39:09,846
where you can see the moon.
672
00:39:09,848 --> 00:39:12,482
So you might imagine you'd have to go on some kind of, uh,
673
00:39:12,484 --> 00:39:15,885
vacation to actually see the moon at that point in time,
674
00:39:15,887 --> 00:39:17,921
but that's gonna be a long time from now.
675
00:39:17,923 --> 00:39:22,158
So ... so, you know, um, I wouldn't start booking
676
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:23,626
your tickets quite yet.
677
00:39:25,129 --> 00:39:27,897
Is this the long-term future of our moon?
678
00:39:27,899 --> 00:39:33,402
Some scientists envision a more dramatic ending ...
679
00:39:33,404 --> 00:39:36,605
a death by fire that will destroy the moon
680
00:39:36,607 --> 00:39:39,876
and, quite possibly, all life on earth.
681
00:39:39,878 --> 00:39:44,013
The process begins with the expansion of the sun.
682
00:39:44,015 --> 00:39:47,517
The actual future history of the earth-moon system
683
00:39:47,519 --> 00:39:49,452
will depend upon the sun,
684
00:39:49,454 --> 00:39:53,022
and it could produce remarkable effects.
685
00:39:53,024 --> 00:39:56,058
As the sun gets older, it expands,
686
00:39:56,060 --> 00:40:00,329
filling the inner solar system with a denser solar wind.
687
00:40:00,331 --> 00:40:03,333
This wind will impede the moon.
688
00:40:03,335 --> 00:40:07,537
So as the moon orbits around the earth, there'll be drag.
689
00:40:07,539 --> 00:40:09,072
There'll just be more stuff in space
690
00:40:09,074 --> 00:40:10,773
for the moon to push against.
691
00:40:10,775 --> 00:40:12,841
So the moon has been moving away from the earth
692
00:40:12,843 --> 00:40:14,310
for billions of years.
693
00:40:14,312 --> 00:40:17,647
Maybe at that point, it'll start coming back.
694
00:40:17,649 --> 00:40:22,651
This new inward trajectory is a death spiral.
695
00:40:22,653 --> 00:40:26,188
The moon eventually is going to spiral
696
00:40:26,190 --> 00:40:28,324
closer and closer, and then,
697
00:40:28,326 --> 00:40:29,993
because of the gravitational forces,
698
00:40:29,995 --> 00:40:31,894
the tidal forces are going to be so strong, it's going to,
699
00:40:31,896 --> 00:40:33,229
essentially, explode.
700
00:40:35,365 --> 00:40:39,235
The moon, 11,000 miles above the surface of the earth,
701
00:40:39,237 --> 00:40:41,404
reaches a point of no return.
702
00:40:41,406 --> 00:40:45,708
The gravitational pull of the earth finally overwhelms it.
703
00:40:48,812 --> 00:40:51,614
The fractured remains of the moon
704
00:40:51,616 --> 00:40:56,352
create a saturn-like ring of rocky debris.
705
00:40:56,354 --> 00:41:00,990
Having a ring around the earth would be a phenomenal sight.
706
00:41:00,992 --> 00:41:04,627
I would love to see that.
707
00:41:04,629 --> 00:41:07,162
You would look up, and you would be able to see the ring.
708
00:41:07,164 --> 00:41:08,631
It would be at an angle to the earth.
709
00:41:08,633 --> 00:41:10,633
If you were at the right place on the earth,
710
00:41:10,635 --> 00:41:14,837
you'd be able to see it, broad, stretching across the sky.
711
00:41:14,839 --> 00:41:17,106
I don't know if you'd be able to see it during the day,
712
00:41:17,108 --> 00:41:18,274
but at night, it would be
713
00:41:18,276 --> 00:41:21,143
one of the most spectacular sights I can imagine.
714
00:41:23,315 --> 00:41:25,648
But the beauty soon turns to terror,
715
00:41:25,650 --> 00:41:29,552
as pieces of the ring rain down on earth.
716
00:41:33,824 --> 00:41:36,092
I mean, it's gonna be an awesome sight,
717
00:41:36,094 --> 00:41:37,460
a terrifying sight.
718
00:41:37,462 --> 00:41:40,096
I mean, the whole sky is going to be filled
719
00:41:40,098 --> 00:41:44,300
with raining meteors just showering through the sky,
720
00:41:44,302 --> 00:41:46,536
and they're gonna be huge.
721
00:41:54,278 --> 00:41:56,178
Radebaugh: Eventually, all of that material
722
00:41:56,180 --> 00:41:58,514
will be incorporated into the earth, and now,
723
00:41:58,516 --> 00:42:01,317
these two siblings, separated at birth,
724
00:42:01,319 --> 00:42:03,653
now are finally again one body.
725
00:42:07,791 --> 00:42:09,492
More than 9 billion years
726
00:42:09,494 --> 00:42:15,632
after the big bang, our sun and our planet, earth, is born.
727
00:42:17,168 --> 00:42:22,572
Slowly, we're piecing together the complex connections
728
00:42:22,574 --> 00:42:27,977
that bind it to our lives and to the universe beyond.
58248
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