Solar.System.2024.S01E03.1080p.BluRay.x264-DRCOX_track3_[eng] Movie Subtitles

1 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:22,160 There's something out there in the darkness. 2 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:28,160 A world with no name. 3 00:00:32,80 --> 00:00:34,760 Its surface is ancient... 4 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:36,560 ..and probably pink. 5 00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:41,880 We don't know where it came from 6 00:00:42,00 --> 00:00:43,880 or how long it's been there. 7 00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:47,720 But we do know it's not alone. 8 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:55,640 It's a dwarf planet, only discovered in 2018. 9 00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:04,720 Now, you might reasonably ask, 10 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:06,760 how could thousands of astronomers, 11 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:08,400 both amateur and professional, 12 00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:13,240 miss a world that is pink and 400km across? 13 00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:17,400 Well, the answer might lie in its nickname, 14 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:19,880 which is FarFarOut, 15 00:01:20,00 --> 00:01:23,320 because it really is far, far out. 16 00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:28,840 You might have thought of the solar system as the sun, 17 00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:32,120 and then all the planets lined up, all the way out to Pluto, 18 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:37,00 but we now know that that's just the tip of the iceberg. 19 00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:45,360 This is a journey to the least explored regions 20 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:47,240 of our solar system... 21 00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:53,00 ...a***S we probe the mysteries of the asteroid belt... 22 00:01:58,200 --> 00:01:59,720 ... Visit frozen worlds 23 00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:03,360 that we're discovering beyond Pluto... 24 00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:07,600 ..and reveal a vast hidden kingdom 25 00:02:07,720 --> 00:02:10,880 that even our most powerful telescopes can't see... 26 00:02:11,920 --> 00:02:13,240 ...lost... 27 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:16,840 ...In the dark. 28 00:02:48,560 --> 00:02:51,520 It was the sound that most people noticed. 29 00:02:51,640 --> 00:02:53,800 (RUMBLING BOOM) 30 00:02:58,00 --> 00:03:00,520 A sonic boom in the night. 31 00:03:09,00 --> 00:03:12,640 Travelling at almost 50,000km per hour, 32 00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:15,920 a rock tore through the atmosphere... 33 00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:24,40 ... broke apart... 34 00:03:26,80 --> 00:03:29,640 ...and rained down across Winchcombe. 35 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:35,600 A visitor from a distant realm. 36 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:58,160 On 28th February 2021, a rock from space landed there, 37 00:03:58,280 --> 00:03:59,800 on this driveway, 38 00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:02,120 and it shattered into hundreds of pieces. 39 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:03,520 Most of it went onto the lawn, 40 00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:06,00 bits of it went onto the neighbour's driveway, 41 00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:09,520 and the indentation in the driveway that was here 42 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:12,160 is now in the Natural History Museum. 43 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:16,280 And here is a piece of that rock. 44 00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:21,600 And you see that it's very dark. It's almost black, 45 00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:23,600 very different to the rocks 46 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:25,400 that you find naturally around here. 47 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:28,920 So the question is, other than the rather nonspecific 48 00:04:29,40 --> 00:04:31,00 "it came from space", 49 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:35,680 what exactly is this and where exactly did it come from? 50 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:44,360 The cows werent the only ones watching that night. 51 00:04:47,840 --> 00:04:51,240 Doorbell and CCTV cameras never sleep. 52 00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:58,160 A network of specialist meteor cameras also captured it. 53 00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:07,80 And that meant it was possible to calculate its trajectory... 54 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:15,200 ...back over the skies of England... 55 00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:19,80 ...out of Earth's atmosphere... 56 00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:27,240 ... past Mars... 57 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:33,920 ...and into the darkness. 58 00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:39,280 In between Mars and Jupiter... 59 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:43,440 .. lies a realm of rocky worlds. 60 00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:47,920 This is where that rock came from. 61 00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:52,800 The asteroid belt. 62 00:05:56,120 --> 00:05:58,920 Asteroids are rubble left over from the formation 63 00:05:59,40 --> 00:06:00,320 of the solar system. 64 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:04,880 The remnants of planets that never were. 65 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:09,640 It's thought there are at least a million out here, 66 00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:14,760 so dark they're incredibly difficult to see. 67 00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:20,800 But asteroids don't always stay in the asteroid belt. 68 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:24,440 (RUMBLING EXPLOSION) 69 00:06:26,40 --> 00:06:29,920 Every now and then, two asteroids collide... 70 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:34,480 ... causing fragments, big and small, 71 00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:36,600 to be lost from the belt. 72 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:46,80 This can create havoc for neighbouring planets... 73 00:06:56,600 --> 00:07:00,160 ...[ncluding...our own. 74 00:07:10,640 --> 00:07:12,40 We've flown several spacecraft 75 00:07:12,160 --> 00:07:14,80 Straight through the asteroid belt... 76 00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:20,920 ...but only one has stayed to explore the region itself. 77 00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:29,800 Most asteroids are like misshapen boulders... 78 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:34,520 ...but one stands out from the rest... 79 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:42,80 ...much bigger than the others 80 00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:44,640 and almost perfectly spherical. 81 00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:50,640 Dawn's target world. 82 00:07:56,00 --> 00:07:59,280 At first, Ceres appears dark and heavily cratered, 83 00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:01,240 like its fellow asteroids. 84 00:08:03,00 --> 00:08:06,560 But Dawn has discovered that it's different. 85 00:08:08,00 --> 00:08:11,720 Its surface is peppered with bright white crystals. 86 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:19,00 So what are they? 87 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:31,680 Now, there is another world in the solar system 88 00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:35,520 where white crystals form on the surface. 89 00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:37,520 It's here, it's Earth. 90 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,160 This is a mountain composed almost entirely of salt. 91 00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:44,480 It's mainly sodium chloride - actually, table salt - 92 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:46,40 although there's a bit of magnesium 93 00:08:46,160 --> 00:08:47,280 and potassium in there, 94 00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:49,00 which gives it those pinky colours. 95 00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:50,600 This is enormous. 96 00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:54,360 It extends hundreds of metres down into the ground. 97 00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:56,40 Now, it formed because, 98 00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:58,00 around 40 million years ago Or SO, 99 00:08:58,120 --> 00:09:00,160 this was the Atlantic Ocean. 100 00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:04,00 And then, as the climate changed, the oceans receded, 101 00:09:04,120 --> 00:09:06,560 evaporated away, and left the salt behind. 102 00:09:06,680 --> 00:09:11,320 And then plate tectonics raised the ground up 103 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:14,00 to form salt mountains. 104 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:38,280 Now, salt crystals like this 105 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:41,760 only form in the presence of liquid water. 106 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:47,280 In this case, it was the Atlantic Ocean. 107 00:09:48,360 --> 00:09:50,800 That raises an intriguing question. 108 00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:55,840 Are those crystal deposits on the surface of Ceres salt? 109 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,280 And, if so, does that imply 110 00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:01,240 there was once an ocean on Ceres? 111 00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:09,800 Dawn entered into a close orbit. 112 00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:18,400 And by measuring sunlight 113 00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:21,160 reflected off the crystal deposits, 114 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:23,680 it could determine what they're made of. 115 00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:27,760 Sodium carbonate. 116 00:10:29,00 --> 00:10:30,680 A common type of salt. 117 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:38,40 A tantalising sign that Ceres had an ocean in its past. 118 00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:50,600 Orbiting just 35km from the surface, 119 00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:52,760 Dawn found another clue 120 00:10:52,880 --> 00:10:56,360 that suggests an ocean may still be there today. 121 00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:06,640 It detected a different type of salt crystal 122 00:11:06,760 --> 00:11:09,560 that's only been found in one other place 123 00:11:09,680 --> 00:11:11,280 in the solar system. 124 00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:20,920 When saltwater evaporates, 125 00:11:21,40 --> 00:11:23,160 then it leaves these things behind - 126 00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:26,880 salt crystals - essentially sodium and chlorine ions 127 00:11:27,00 --> 00:11:30,400 bonded together into a crystal lattice. 128 00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:33,640 But under the right conditions, when it's very cold, 129 00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:37,00 then a different sort of crystal can form 130 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:39,40 when sea water freezes. 131 00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:40,760 It's called a hydrohalite. 132 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:43,760 Essentially, water molecules are incorporated 133 00:11:43,880 --> 00:11:45,720 into the crystal lattice. 134 00:11:45,840 --> 00:11:48,120 Now, we see hydrohalites here on Earth. 135 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:50,720 But the fact that we also see them on Ceres 136 00:11:50,840 --> 00:11:52,720 presents a mystery, 137 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:56,640 because hydrohalites are unstable in a vacuum. 138 00:11:56,760 --> 00:11:58,200 It's been calculated 139 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:00,960 they should only last around 100 years 140 00:12:01,80 --> 00:12:02,560 on the surface of Ceres 141 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:06,320 before the water escapes out into space. 142...