Solar.System.2024.S01E02.1080p.BluRay.x264-DRCOX_track3_[eng] Movie Subtitles

1 00:00:06,80 --> 00:00:08,800 - (THUNDER ROLLS) - (WIND WHISTLES) 2 00:00:16,360 --> 00:00:18,120 It's midsummer. 3 00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:23,720 A storm is breaking... 4 00:00:31,00 --> 00:00:33,160 ... Unleashing torrents of rain... 5 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:43,240 ... forming floods that drain into raging rivers... 6 00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:51,800 ..and giant lakes. 7 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:00,400 This is the only world in our solar system 8 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:03,40 where raindrops fall to the ground... 9 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:13,200 .. apart from our own planet. 10 00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:21,880 1.4 billion kilometres from the sun 11 00:01:22,00 --> 00:01:25,40 lies Earth's strange, stormy twin. 12 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:34,960 Saturn's moon Titan is, in some ways, 13 00:01:35,80 --> 00:01:36,800 more like a planet than a moon. 14 00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:39,00 It is larger than Mercury, 15 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:43,00 and it is also, in some ways, more like the Earth 16 00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:45,560 than any other place in the solar system. 17 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:50,280 | could stand on the surface of Titan in a spacesuit 18 00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:53,240 and look out over lakes, 19 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:55,600 and | could look into the sky, 20 00:01:55,720 --> 00:02:02,40 and | could experience droplets of rain landing on my visor. 21 00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:05,920 But appearances can be deceptive. 22 00:02:12,200 --> 00:02:13,920 Temperatures on Titan 23 00:02:14,40 --> 00:02:17,200 hover around minus 180 degrees Celsius, 24 00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:19,720 far too cold for liquid water. 25 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:28,840 Instead, these clouds are made of a chemical that, on Earth, 26 00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:30,120 is a flammable gas. 27 00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:33,240 Methane. 28 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:41,240 Titan is a world sculpted by methane storms. 29 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:45,680 Titan is the only moon in the solar system 30 00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:47,400 with a thick atmosphere, 31 00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:51,280 and that atmosphere is the stage for the methane cycle, 32 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:55,40 an arena within which liquid can evaporate from lakes, 33 00:02:55,160 --> 00:02:58,680 condense as clouds, and fall as rain. 34 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:03,640 But Titan is certainly not the only storm world. 35 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:09,600 Among the most dynamic and violent worlds 36 00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:10,960 in our solar system... 37 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:18,160 ..are the handful that, like Titan, 38 00:03:18,280 --> 00:03:20,600 have a thick atmosphere. 39 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,240 Planets where sulphuric acid storms rage... 40 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,80 ... giant dust vortices dance... 41 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:39,840 ..and lighting ten times more powerful 42 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:43,00 than anything found on Earth lights up the sky... 43 00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:48,480 ...and worlds whose storms grow so large, 44 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:51,800 they are entirely engulfed. 45 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:04,800 (THUNDER ROLLS) 46 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:18,200 On a perfectly still morning like this... 47 00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,800 ..as the sun rises above the high plains of Utah, 48 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:27,40 it's easy to forget that we live in an atmosphere. 49 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:32,80 But our atmosphere is central to our existence, 50 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:35,640 and central to the character of our planet. 51 00:04:44,280 --> 00:04:47,160 Atmospheres behave like fluids, 52 00:04:47,280 --> 00:04:52,480 and that's extremely important for a planet like Earth. 53 00:04:52,600 --> 00:04:54,120 Let me show you what | mean. 54 00:04:56,800 --> 00:05:01,40 You can see that I'm a very experienced camper! 55 00:05:02,280 --> 00:05:06,480 Now, if | build a model of the Earth's atmosphere - 56 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:08,120 which is coffee - 57 00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:11,560 and then, if | put some milk in... 58 00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:15,160 ...which is a denser fluid than the coffee, 59 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:19,320 and so it's sinking down to the bottom of the pan. 60 00:05:19,440 --> 00:05:21,360 And the reason | want to do that 61 00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:26,360 is to show you something that happens when | heat a fluid. 62 00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:31,200 You think about a planet like the Earth, 63 00:05:31,320 --> 00:05:33,680 then it's heated from the sun. 64 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:36,400 That means that there are temperature differences 65 00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:38,440 naturally occurring in our atmosphere, 66 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:41,80 and it's what happens in nature 67 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:44,320 when there are temperature differences that matters. 68 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,800 So what you see here is that that milk 69 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:49,320 at the bottom of the pan 70 00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:52,80 is getting hotter than the coffee at the top. 71 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:58,840 And that temperature difference is trying to equalise. 72 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:01,320 So it's not that the temperature difference 73 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:03,680 just equalises In a nice uniform way. 74 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:07,280 But you can see it...there. 75 00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:10,280 See? There are patterns developing. 76 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:13,400 A tremendous amount of complexity. 77 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:16,760 And it's exactly the same in our atmosphere. 78 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:20,560 But in our atmosphere, we Call all those patterns 79 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:23,600 and all that turbulence weather. 80 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:33,80 Wind, rain and storms 81 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:35,320 can almost be thought of as side-effects 82 00:06:35,440 --> 00:06:38,160 of an atmosphere trying to move energy 83 00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:40,320 between hot and cold. 84 00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:46,480 lf a world has an atmosphere, 85 00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:49,560 it will have some form of weather. 86 00:06:56,160 --> 00:06:58,120 But as the fleet of spacecraft 87 00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:01,00 exploring our cosmic back yard have revealed... 88 00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:05,360 ..atmospheres vary hugely 89 00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:09,600 by temperature, pressure and chemical make-up. 90 00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:14,80 And that means that, 91 00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:16,720 while storms might be common in our solar system, 92 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:21,320 on no two worlds are they ever the same. 93 00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:37,200 Journeying outwards from our shared star, 94 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:40,400 searching for storm worlds... 95 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:46,80 ...we dodge past a planet with no atmosphere... 96 00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:55,520 ...and arrive at a world consumed by one. 97 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:10,600 From a distance, Venus appears to be a serene pearlescent orb 98 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:12,320 floating in space. 99 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:16,00 But get a little closer... 100 00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:21,280 ..and the planet begins to reveal its true nature. 101 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:26,200 (WIND WHISTLES) 102 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:29,160 All that can be seen are clouds. 103 00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:32,680 Endless, thick, churning storm clouds 104 00:08:32,800 --> 00:08:36,40 that conceal the entire surface from view. 105 00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:45,80 This is just the top of a cloud deck that's 20km deep... 106 00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:50,600 ..and whipped up by hurricane-force winds. 107 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:56,320 Venus Is a true storm world. 108 00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:04,280 Now, those clouds on Venus 109 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:06,880 just look like storm clouds here on Earth. 110 00:09:07,00 --> 00:09:09,400 They're a bit foreboding, perhaps, 111 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:12,280 but maybe nothing too much to worry about 112 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:14,760 if you were sat beneath them. 113 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:18,760 Well, they are actually something to worry about. 114 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:20,520 They're not made of water. 115 00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:23,840 They're made of this. 116 00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:26,640 Concentrated sulphuric acid. 117 00:09:26,760 --> 00:09:29,960 (LAUGHS) Now, even saying that sounds nasty, 118 00:09:30,80 --> 00:09:33,200 but just wait till you see what this stuff does 119 00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:36,800 to the stuff that I'm made of, the stuff that you're made of, 120 00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:40,40 just organic material - in this case, sugar. 121 00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:48,640 Now, you see that's already starting to react - 122 00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:50,720 it's turning brown, it's starting to bubble. 123 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:53,520 The concentrated sulphuric acid - 124 00:09:53,640 --> 00:09:55,840 and this is 90-odd percent concentrated, 125 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:59,00 which is precisely what we find in the clouds of Venus - 126 00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:03,440 is ripping the water out of the sugar. 127 00:10:03,560 --> 00:10:07,280 In fact, that dark material there is carbon. 128 00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:08,600 It's what's left over 129 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:10,800 when you rip all the water out of the sugar. 130 00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:11,840 | can show you. 131 00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:15,600 So, C12H22011... 132 00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:17,520 So that's the sugar we've g***t. 133 00:10:17,640 --> 00:10:19,360 And then sulphuric acid, 134 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:21,160 which is H2SO4, 135 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:25,240 and that goes to carbon and water, 136 00:10:25,360 --> 00:10:28,200 and... (LAUGHS) | can smell it, actually! 137 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:30,480 ... sulphur dioxide. 138 00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:32,880 - That's it. And a lot of heat. - (BUBBLING) 139 00:10:33,00 --> 00:10:34,400 But just think, 140 00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:36,720 that started off...