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KIDS: Our World!
EVAN: Hey Globey, I'm going to catch a meteorite.
Any minute now... a meteorite is going to fall from the sky,
and I'm going to be right here to catch it... that's right. Any minute now.
that's right, any minute now.
Okay, we actually might be here for a while.
You see even though meteorites fall to Earth everyday,
we might have to wait a thousand years or so to
actually catch one in this spot.
And since these show's roughly about five minutes long, I better get right to the point.
Today we're going learn about how NASA has been studying meteorites
and comet dust to learn more about our world.
Dr. Mike Zolensky is a cosmic minerologist
at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
He studies rocks from outer space.
These space rocks are called meteorites
and are basically samples from other worlds.
These samples contain the materials, like carbon,
that make up our planet and other planets in our solar system.
Scientists call these materials the building blocks of the universe.
DR. MIKE ZOLENSKY: Well, the compounds that make up you and me
and all the world around us are in this rock.
It isn't alive, it was never living.
But all the building blocks of all those things are in here.
So we think that the Earth and the Moon and the Sun formed from
rocks just like this. And so by getting these,
collecting them, and bringing them to labs like this one right here;
and analyzing them with things like this machine right here,
we can find out a lot about where all the planets came from.
How they formed, and maybe a little bit about where we came from as well.
EVAN: So, how do mineorologists like Dr. Zolensky find these meteorites?
Well, some of these meteorites have already fallen to Earth.
So, where are the best places to find them?
Places like the desert are a great because
they don't contain rivers or oceans that could hide the meteorites or wash them away.
Also, most people don't want to live in the desert,
so sometimes these meteorites go undiscovered in the deserts
for thousands of years.
But the best place on Earth to find meteorites
is at the South Pole in Antarctica.
The area is cold and dry. And until recently,
humans rarely went to the Antarctic.
So there are many meteorites waiting to be found there.
In fact, some of these meteorites may have been
lying there on the ice for millions of years.
EVAN: Dr. Zolensky is part of an important mission at NASA
to study other kinds of rocks.
Tiny little particles that can be found in comets.
Let's ask Dr. Zolensky what a comet is.
DR. ZOLENSKY: Comets are icy objects and you see,
this is a chunk of very very cold ice.
It's a special ice called dry ice. It's super cold,
like you have in space. And there's rock attached to it here.
And this sort of thing, this is where most of rocks in space come from.
They come from real icy rocky objects that are orbiting the Sun.
And they're mostly composed of ice here,
which is frozen gases and frozen water.
And these comets are always flying around the Sun.
And they're giving off particles.
EVAN: So how do scientists like Dr. Zolensky study comets?
I mean, how do you actually get a sample of a comet?
DR. ZOLENSKY: ďStardustĒ is the name of a mission
created by scientists all over the United States in cooperation with NASA.
The purpose of this mission was to investigate a comet called ďWild 2.Ē
Interesting name, isn't it?
During the Stardust mission, a space craft
was launched from Earth on February 7, 1999.
It took seven years just to complete the mission.
The Stardust space craft traveled nearly 4.8
billion kilometers to reach the comet.
We could make 6,000 trips to the Moon and back before we traveled that far.
Once the spacecraft reached the comet,
it opened up like a giant collector dish
to capture samples of the comet's dust.
DR. ZOLENSKY: Well, it's more like a catcher's mitt.
The clam shell opened up, the catcher's mitt came out,
and as the comet dust smacked into it, it's like catching baseballs.
Thousands of baseballs. But very tiny microscopic baseballs.
These grains are smaller than the width of a human hair.
EVAN: This comet dust was collected in a substance called Aerogel.
Aerogel is so light that when you hold it in your hand, you can't even feel its weight.
EVAN: Aerogel gel begins as a gel, much like the gelatin that you eat.
The material then goes through a special process
where the liquid is taken out without collapsing the gel.
The result is an amazingly strong lightweight material.
Seven years after the Stardust space craft was launched,
it returned to Earth on January 15, 2006.
Scientists then had access to all of this comet dust that was stored in the Aerogel.
DR. ZOLENSKY: Basically everyone here is calm.
So you know how some of your friends are like constantly, uh, like this:
they just can't settle down. Right? And some people are calm,
you know they're really calm. They're kind of laid back. That's how we are.
And people like that can very carefully take little pins
and just pick up little microscopic things under
a microscope and move them place to place.
Pick them up, set them down, in places like this.
A microscope like this to study.
And so it takes a special kind of person who's very calm
and very hardworking.
But a lot of people are like that. So a lot of kids out there watching this
I'm sure this is the job for you. Not everyone, but for some people
who are really curious about what' s out there in space
and where the Earth came from. And really have the drive to learn about it.
EVAN: But the mission was worth the time and effort.
Scientists like Dr. Zolensky discovered not
only the dust they expected to find in aerogel,
but small crystals as well.
And by studying these small crystals,
scientists have already changed some of their ideas
on how and where comets are formed.
So Globey, today we've learned that meteorites and comet dust
contain particles that are the building blocks of our universe.
And when scientists get a chance to study these particles,
they can find out more about our own world.
Maybe one day you'll get to find a meteorite.
And remember, if you hold one in your hand,
you're actually holding something that may be millions and millions of years old.
Maybe it's even older than our Earth itself.
That's pretty cool isn't it.
All right, let's go. Come to papa.
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KIDS: Our World!