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

00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:22,There's something
out there in the darkness.

00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:28,A world with no name.

00:00:32,80 --> 00:00:34,Its surface is ancient...

00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:36,..and probably pink.

00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:41,We don't know
where it came from

00:00:42,00 --> 00:00:43,or how long it's been there.

00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:47,But we do know it's not alone.

00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:55,It's a dwarf planet,
only discovered in 2018.

00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:04,Now, you might reasonably ask,

00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:06,how could thousands
of astronomers,

00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:08,both amateur and professional,

00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:13,miss a world that is pink
and 400km across?

00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:17,Well, the answer
might lie in its nickname,

00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:19,which is FarFarOut,

00:01:20,00 --> 00:01:23,because it really is
far, far out.

00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:28,You might have thought
of the solar system as the sun,

00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:32,and then all the planets lined
up, all the way out to Pluto,

00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:37,but we now know that that's
just the tip of the iceberg.

00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:45,This is a journey to
the least explored regions

00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:47,of our solar system...

00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:53,...a***S we probe the mysteries
of the asteroid belt...

00:01:58,200 --> 00:01:59,... Visit frozen worlds

00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:03,that we're discovering
beyond Pluto...

00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:07,..and reveal
a vast hidden kingdom

00:02:07,720 --> 00:02:10,that even our most powerful
telescopes can't see...

00:02:11,920 --> 00:02:13,...lost...

00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:16,...In the dark.

00:02:48,560 --> 00:02:51,It was the sound
that most people noticed.

00:02:51,640 --> 00:02:53,(RUMBLING BOOM)

00:02:58,00 --> 00:03:00,A sonic boom in the night.

00:03:09,00 --> 00:03:12,Travelling at almost
50,000km per hour,

00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:15,a rock tore through
the atmosphere...

00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:24,... broke apart...

00:03:26,80 --> 00:03:29,...and rained down
across Winchcombe.

00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:35,A visitor from a distant realm.

00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:58,On 28th February 2021,
a rock from space landed there,

00:03:58,280 --> 00:03:59,on this driveway,

00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:02,and it shattered
into hundreds of pieces.

00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:03,Most of it went onto the lawn,

00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:06,bits of it went onto
the neighbour's driveway,

00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:09,and the indentation
in the driveway that was here

00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:12,is now in
the Natural History Museum.

00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:16,And here is a piece
of that rock.

00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:21,And you see that it's
very dark. It's almost black,

00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:23,very different to the rocks

00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:25,that you find naturally
around here.

00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:28,So the question is, other than
the rather nonspecific

00:04:29,40 --> 00:04:31,"it came from space",

00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:35,what exactly is this and where
exactly did it come from?

00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:44,The cows werent the only ones
watching that night.

00:04:47,840 --> 00:04:51,Doorbell and CCTV cameras
never sleep.

00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:58,A network of specialist meteor
cameras also captured it.

00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:07,And that meant it was possible
to calculate its trajectory...

00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:15,...back over the skies
of England...

00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:19,...out of Earth's atmosphere...

00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:27,... past Mars...

00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:33,...and into the darkness.

00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:39,In between Mars and Jupiter...

00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:43,.. lies a realm
of rocky worlds.

00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:47,This is where
that rock came from.

00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:52,The asteroid belt.

00:05:56,120 --> 00:05:58,Asteroids are rubble
left over from the formation

00:05:59,40 --> 00:06:00,of the solar system.

00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:04,The remnants of planets
that never were.

00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:09,It's thought there are at least
a million out here,

00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:14,so dark they're incredibly
difficult to see.

00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:20,But asteroids don't always stay
in the asteroid belt.

00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:24,(RUMBLING EXPLOSION)

00:06:26,40 --> 00:06:29,Every now and then,
two asteroids collide...

00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:34,... causing fragments,
big and small,

00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:36,to be lost from the belt.

00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:46,This can create havoc
for neighbouring planets...

00:06:56,600 --> 00:07:00,...[ncluding...our own.

00:07:10,640 --> 00:07:12,We've flown several spacecraft

00:07:12,160 --> 00:07:14,Straight through
the asteroid belt...

00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:20,...but only one has stayed
to explore the region itself.

00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:29,Most asteroids are like
misshapen boulders...

00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:34,...but one stands out
from the rest...

00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:42,...much bigger than the others

00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:44,and almost perfectly spherical.

00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:50,Dawn's target world.

00:07:56,00 --> 00:07:59,At first, Ceres appears dark
and heavily cratered,

00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:01,like its fellow asteroids.

00:08:03,00 --> 00:08:06,But Dawn has discovered
that it's different.

00:08:08,00 --> 00:08:11,Its surface is peppered
with bright white crystals.

00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:19,So what are they?

00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:31,Now, there is another world
in the solar system

00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:35,where white crystals form
on the surface.

00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:37,It's here, it's Earth.

00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,This is a mountain composed
almost entirely of salt.

00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:44,It's mainly sodium chloride -
actually, table salt -

00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:46,although there's a bit
of magnesium

00:08:46,160 --> 00:08:47,and potassium in there,

00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:49,which gives it
those pinky colours.

00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:50,This is enormous.

00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:54,It extends hundreds of metres
down into the ground.

00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:56,Now, it formed because,

00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:58,around 40 million years ago
Or SO,

00:08:58,120 --> 00:09:00,this was the Atlantic Ocean.

00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:04,And then, as the climate
changed, the oceans receded,

00:09:04,120 --> 00:09:06,evaporated away,
and left the salt behind.

00:09:06,680 --> 00:09:11,And then plate tectonics
raised the ground up

00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:14,to form salt mountains.

00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:38,Now, salt crystals like this

00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:41,only form in the presence
of liquid water.

00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:47,In this case,
it was the Atlantic Ocean.

00:09:48,360 --> 00:09:50,That raises
an intriguing question.

00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:55,Are those crystal deposits
on the surface of Ceres salt?

00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,And, if so, does that imply

00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:01,there was once an ocean
on Ceres?

00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:09,Dawn entered
into a close orbit.

00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:18,And by measuring sunlight

00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:21,reflected off
the crystal deposits,

00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:23,it could determine
what they're made of.

00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:27,Sodium carbonate.

00:10:29,00 --> 00:10:30,A common type of salt.

00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:38,A tantalising sign that Ceres
had an ocean in its past.

00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:50,Orbiting just 35km
from the surface,

00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:52,Dawn found another clue

00:10:52,880 --> 00:10:56,that suggests an ocean
may still be there today.

00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:06,It detected a different type
of salt crystal

00:11:06,760 --> 00:11:09,that's only been found
in one other place

00:11:09,680 --> 00:11:11,in the solar system.

00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:20,When saltwater evaporates,

00:11:21,40 --> 00:11:23,then it leaves these things
behind -

00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:26,salt crystals - essentially
sodium and chlorine ions

00:11:27,00 --> 00:11:30,bonded together
into a crystal lattice.

00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:33,But under the right conditions,
when it's very cold,

00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:37,then a different sort
of crystal can form

00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:39,when sea water freezes.

00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:40,It's called a hydrohalite.

00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:43,Essentially, water molecules
are incorporated

00:11:43,880 --> 00:11:45,into the crystal lattice.

00:11:45,840 --> 00:11:48,Now, we see hydrohalites
here on Earth.

00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:50,But the fact that we also
see them on Ceres

00:11:50,840 --> 00:11:52,presents a mystery,

00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:56,because hydrohalites
are unstable in a vacuum.

00:11:56,760 --> 00:11:58,It's been calculated

00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:00,they should only last
around 100 years

00:12:01,80 --> 00:12:02,on the surface of Ceres

00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:06,before the water escapes
out into space.

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