Solar.System.2024.S01E05.1080p.BluRay.x264-DRCOX_track3_[eng] Movie Subtitles

1 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:21,280 We all know the familiar faces of our solar system. 2 00:00:22,840 --> 00:00:24,960 The worlds we grew up with. 3 00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:29,960 But there's another side to our solar system 4 00:00:30,80 --> 00:00:31,720 we're now discovering. 5 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:38,360 The misfits and oddballs. 6 00:00:41,480 --> 00:00:44,920 Worlds of freakish shape and size. 7 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:50,880 Of extreme landscapes... 8 00:00:55,00 --> 00:00:56,840 .. mysterious phenomena... 9 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:03,760 ...and hidden secrets. 10 00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:14,80 Our neighbourhood is far stranger than we ever imagined. 11 00:01:17,480 --> 00:01:20,360 So, how did all these weird worlds 12 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:22,320 come about? 13 00:01:25,80 --> 00:01:26,560 Well, to answer that question, 14 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:29,800 we'll have to explore the force that sculpted 15 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:32,200 and created them - gravity - 16 00:01:32,320 --> 00:01:36,760 and the forces that resist its relentless inward pull. 17 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:40,120 And also, at a deeper level - 18 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:42,400 cos there's always a deeper level - 19 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:44,480 we'll be forced to contemplate 20 00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:47,240 why there is anything of complexity 21 00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:50,40 and beauty in our universe at all. 22 00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:54,160 Welcome to the solar system of the weird. 23 00:02:22,640 --> 00:02:25,400 From a cloud of gas and dust, 24 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:29,280 gravity, the great sculptor of our universe, 25 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:31,800 fashioned our star and all the worlds 26 00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:33,600 and moons around it... 27 00:02:40,520 --> 00:02:42,520 ... creating the solar system. 28 00:02:55,00 --> 00:02:58,600 And gravity has continued to shape these myriad worlds 29 00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:00,400 ever since. 30 00:03:09,80 --> 00:03:13,80 Let me give you a little 30-second lecture on gravity. 31 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:16,880 And I'm going to use Newton's picture, 32 00:03:17,00 --> 00:03:18,440 not Einstein's, cos we don't need 33 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:21,400 the additional accuracy delivered by relativity. 34 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:26,480 Gravity is a force of attraction between objects - 35 00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:28,280 and it only attracts, 36 00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:31,480 so that means that it tends to clump things together. 37 00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:35,800 And it's a force that only depends on the distance 38 00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:38,200 between objects, not the angle, 39 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,00 and so it tends to make spheres. 40 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:46,960 It's this property of gravity... 41 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:56,80 ... that shaped the moons and planets. 42 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:03,360 But beyond the near-perfect spheres 43 00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:05,600 that dominate our solar system... 44 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:13,840 ...out past the giant orbs... 45 00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:19,80 ...Of gas and ice... 46 00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:25,80 .../n a distant realm of the solar system... 47 00:04:27,80 --> 00:04:30,40 ...we found something strange. 48 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:50,120 Only one craft has been sent to explore the worlds 49 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:52,40 of this distant region. 50 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:07,480 And on its epic, ongoing journey, 51 00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:10,880 the probe caught a glimpse of something truly bizarre 52 00:05:11,00 --> 00:05:13,880 moving in the dark. 53 00:05:20,80 --> 00:05:23,440 Not a sphere like Earth, or even Pluto... 54 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:31,80 ...but a giant, 2,000-km-long egg-shaped world. 55 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:41,80 Orbiting around it, 56 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:44,320 two glittering moons. 57 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:49,80 Mountains of icy rock and a faint ring. 58 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:54,560 If you were standing on Haumea's surface, 59 00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:57,00 the stars would wheel above you 60 00:05:57,120 --> 00:06:00,600 six times faster than here on Earth. 61 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:07,880 Haumea Is a truly unexpected and bizarre-shaped object. 62 00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:14,640 The first like it ever discovered. 63 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:24,760 Leaving the question... 64 00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:28,200 ...what created 65 00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,600 such a seemingly gravity-defying world? 66 00:06:38,320 --> 00:06:39,960 Now, for rocky worlds, 67 00:06:40,80 --> 00:06:43,680 the force resisting the inward pull of gravity 68 00:06:43,800 --> 00:06:46,200 is created by this - 69 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:48,880 the rigidity of the rock. 70 00:06:49,00 --> 00:06:51,280 And the thing about pressure is 71 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:56,240 that it acts equally outwards in all directions, 72 00:06:56,360 --> 00:06:57,600 so if you have a force 73 00:06:57,720 --> 00:06:59,320 that's squashing everything inwards equally 74 00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:01,760 in all directions, and a force that's resisting 75 00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:05,40 that squashing equally in all directions, 76 00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:09,280 then the shape that's naturally produced is a sphere. 77 00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:10,560 And you might say, 78 00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:14,400 well, why is something like that not a sphere, then? 79 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:15,800 | mean, it's made of rock, 80 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:17,840 it's g***t a gravitational pull, 81 00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:20,120 but it's a very weak gravitational pull 82 00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:21,760 because it's not very massive. 83 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:23,560 And that's the point. 84 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:26,880 So the gravitational forces on the surface here 85 00:07:27,00 --> 00:07:30,160 trying to squash it down are nowhere near big enough 86 00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:33,520 to overcome the strength of the rock. 87 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:38,240 So, how big does a thing have to be 88 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:41,280 such that the gravitational force is strong enough 89 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:43,640 to overcome the strength of the rock 90 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:46,600 and allow it to deform into a sphere? 91 00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:49,600 And you find, if you wave your hands around a bit, 92 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:53,160 that that size, the radius, is something like 93 00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:56,920 200, 300km. 94 00:07:57,40 --> 00:07:58,840 It's called the potato radius. 95 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:00,880 And indeed, you find that, 96 00:08:01,00 --> 00:08:02,960 if you look out into the solar system, 97 00:08:03,80 --> 00:08:04,480 anything that's smaller 98 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:07,240 than about a couple of hundred kilometres in radius 99 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:09,40 looks like that. 100 00:08:09,160 --> 00:08:10,600 And anything that's bigger 101 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:12,960 than a couple of hundred kilometres in radius 102 00:08:13,80 --> 00:08:15,680 looks like the Earth. 103 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:23,00 From what we observe, it seems that the potato radius 104 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:25,640 is a pretty strictly followed rule. 105 00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:37,280 The larger worlds are, 106 00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:39,80 the more spherical they become. 107 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:46,280 Yet it's a rule Haumea breaks. 108 00:08:53,880 --> 00:08:56,320 Way over the potato radius, 109 00:08:56,440 --> 00:08:59,40 Haumea should be a round world. 110 00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:04,400 So, if its egg shape is not down to its size, 111 00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:06,280 then what is it? 112 00:09:07,880 --> 00:09:09,440 There is a clue, 113 00:09:09,560 --> 00:09:14,80 found by looking at our world in a Slightly unusual way. 114 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:20,440 This is a photograph of us working on the beach today. 115 00:09:20,560 --> 00:09:22,520 | use the term loosely. 116 00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:25,840 And what we did is we took a time-lapse. 117 00:09:25,960 --> 00:09:27,880 But it's an interesting time-lapse. 118 00:09:28,00 --> 00:09:29,880 We used an astronomical mount, 119 00:09:30,00 --> 00:09:34,800 and so we fixed the camera at a single point in the sky - 120 00:09:34,920 --> 00:09:36,240 the sun. 121 00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:38,720 And then, can you see what happens? 122 00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:40,720 So, it's holding its position. 123 00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:42,600 It doesn't look right 124 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:46,80 because the whole ground is rotating around. 125 00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:50,360 So, usually, our experience on the surface of the Earth 126 00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,960 is watching the sky and the sun and the moon and the stars 127 00:09:54,80 --> 00:09:56,40 rotate around us. 128 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:58,320 But if you take that motion out, 129 00:09:58,440 --> 00:10:00,680 then what you're seeing here is the Earth 130 00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:03,80 rotating beneath the sky. 131 00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:17,960 This unusual view really brings home the fact 132 00:10:18,80 --> 00:10:20,640 that we live on a spinning ball of rock. 133 00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:32,160 And there are consequences for sitting on the surface 134 00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:34,280 of something that's spinning. 135 00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:36,680 New forces are introduced, 136 00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:39,840 forces that are so-called fictitious forces - 137 00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:41,720 but there's nothing fictitious about them. 138 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:43,800 Actually, you'll know that if you've tried to hang on 139 00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:45,200 to a spinning roundabout. 140 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:47,640 If you let go, you go flying off. 141 00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:49,80 That's not a fiction. 142 00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:51,880 And that force is called the centrifugal force. 143 00:10:55,80 --> 00:10:59,680 Like the Earth, all worlds in...