Space Knowledge: Other Planets & Spacesuit | Zenith | Free Documentary

for a human to work in space he or she must have a space suit it protects the astronaut from the vacuum beyond the atmosphere supplying oxygen as well as insulation from the extremes of heat and cold the spacesuit has to have means of communication with the outside world and it must enable freedom of movement the modern space suit is the result of a long and complex evolution [Music] long before humans had traveled to space aviators wanted to fly at heights that could not support life in 1932 auguste picard flew above 16 000 meters in a helium-filled balloon to stay alive pika ascended in an aluminium pressure vessel fed with compressed air [Music] spanish aviator emilio herreras came up with a different solution his stratospheric suit never flew it was an idea ahead of its time [Music] in the united states aviator wiley post had supercharged his plane the winnie may it could fly at 15 000 meters where the jet streams blow post knew he could save fuel and fly faster at that height so with the help of tire maker bf goodrich he devised the first serviceable pressure suit at this time even military aircraft were flying at much lower altitudes where the use of a simple oxygen mask was enough to ensure pilot efficiency however as jet power was introduced operational ceilings lifted at high altitudes low ambient air pressure meant the oxygen mask would lift off the face when oxygen was fed to the pilot at pressures high enough to sustain life when bombers like the b-36 began long-duration missions at high altitudes they adopted pressurized crew compartments yet the pressure suit with a fully enclosed helmet was necessary as sudden cabin depressurization could be lethal in the 1950s partial pressure suits became common they had inflatable capstans that stopped blood draining to the legs under heavy g-forces avoiding blackouts air crews hated them but figures showed they functioned more effectively when wearing them in 1955 a unique american spy plane made its first flight the following year the u-2 began reconnaissance missions over the soviet union flying at 21 000 meters it was beyond the range of soviet radar and neither jet fighters nor missiles could reach it pilots flying the u-2 wore a new partial pressure suit the mc3 rather than save a pilot's life in case of sudden depressurization this suit was designed to be under pressure throughout the mission without it the pilot's blood would boil [Music] as missile technology developed it appeared that human beings would be dispensed with as a weak link not able to cope with conditions imposed by the technology but the us air force had different ideas they felt that a pilot could make better decisions than a guidance system and they began a research program using hypersonic aircraft to learn about the problems associated with ultra high speed ultra high altitude operations the culmination of this program was represented by the x-15 a rocket-powered aircraft that could fly to the edge of the atmosphere [Music] because of its limited fuel load the x-15 was launched from beneath a b-52 bomber at an altitude of 15 000 meters the cabin of the x-15 was pressurized with nitrogen to reduce the risk of fire for the pilot a new full-pressure flight suit known as the xmc2 was developed it too was pressurized with nitrogen a neck dam excluded the nitrogen from the helmet which was fed with oxygen for life support this suit was the predecessor of nasa's most important spacesuits the x-15 set the speed record for a powered aircraft at well above 7 000 kilometers per hour and the altitude record at just over 000 meters the first real space suit was worn by russian cosmonaut yuri gagarin in 1961 aboard vostok won he became the first man to orbit the earth his suit the sk-1 was to protect against capsule depressurization and to sustain him during ejection from his craft the vostok cosmonauts had to parachute to the ground because their capsules landed too heavily [Music] since 1959 the newly formed u.s space agency nasa had been working towards launching an american interspace seven test pilots had been selected as the mercury program's first group of astronauts the first attempt would be a short hop as the only booster available at the time the redstone lacked the power to reach orbit an important part of the preparation involved the development of a spacesuit [Music] as a starting point nasa looked at the xmc2 used for x-15 flights and the navy's aviation pressure suit the mark iv both were full pressure [Music] suits nasa decided that the mark iv suit worn here by alan shepard was lighter and could be more easily modified for space flight the boot leather and the suit's grey outer covering would be replaced by aluminized nylon for greater thermal control and the helmet's rubber diaphragm surrounding the face was eliminated with oxygen now entering via a hose at the waist to help cool the suit [Music] for all six manned mercury missions the mark iv suit performed well but the demands placed upon it were modest like most pressure suits at the time it served as a backup in the event of cabin pressure failure because this never happened on the mercury flights this suit was only ever pressurized at launch in the early 1960s the soviet union space program was achieving an impressive list of firsts for the united states this was a source of national embarrassment in 1961 the new president john kennedy had boldly proclaimed that america should land a man on the moon before the end of the decade and nasa was flooded with funds this was the beginning of the space race i don't think we ought to waste any money but i think we ought to do the job and this will be done in the decade of the 60s the mercury program was terminated early in favor of a more complex series of missions with the aim of solving problems associated with sending a man to the moon the gemini program made use of a new two-man capsule boosted to orbit atop a modified nuclear missile gemini required a new suit with new capabilities nasa now understood future missions would have to last much longer suits would have to be more comfortable and astronauts would have to leave their spacecraft in the vacuum of space gemini controllers were planning the first space walk in the less open soviet union they were also preparing for a space walk cosmonaut alexei leonov was practicing with an inflatable canvas airlock in temporary weightlessness in an aircraft in a parabolic flight path [Music] he was wearing a new spacesuit the berkut designed to function outside his voskod spacecraft the airlock was needed because the new voskod still did not have solid-state electronics its thermionic valves needed air cooling so the capsule could not be evacuated [Music] in march 1965 alexa leonov left the airlock convos got 2 to float freely in space it was another first for the soviet union soon his berkut spacesuit began ballooning to such an extent that leonov could not reach his camera shutter release positioned on his leg it was not until after the fall of the soviet union that the full story became known the berkut space suit had expanded so much that leonov could not get back inside only by venting his spacesuit could the cosmonaut regain entry to the voskod capsule [Music] back at nasa they heard that leonov spacewalk had been a resounding success but they felt the gemini program was catching up in june 1965 astronauts jim mcdivitt and ed white were preparing for the world's second space walk gemini 4's launch went smoothly and on the third orbit ed white left the capsule [Music] although they didn't know it the greater sophistication of the gemini craft made this space walk much simpler than alexi leonov's just two months earlier [Music] it was easy to depressurize the entire capsule so no airlock was needed and ed white's spacesuit was fed through an umbilical connected to the spacecraft leonov carried his own oxygen in a backpack that made re-entry to the vosgod capsule that much harder within the structure of the gemini suit was a mesh that prevented the ballooning problem experienced during the russian space walk [Music] the first american space walk went so well that nasa assumed working in space presented few obstacles white's joyride in space gave no indication of the difficulties that lay [Music] ahead the gemini program had a number of goals and in december 1965 gemini 6a and gemini 7 achieved two of them rendezvous and long duration flight the crew of gemini 7 remained in orbit for 14 days mission planners knew that staying in a spacesuit for two weeks would be a challenge so a new version of the g3c spacesuit called the g5c was worn by the gemini 7 astronauts it replaced the pressure helmet with a zippered hood and frank borman and jim lovell became the first people to remove their spacesuits in flight new technologies were being pioneered in the gemini spacecraft and problems with the new systems often meant gemini flights were only partially successful the capsule had to be capable of far more complex maneuvers than its predecessor and longer duration missions required fuel cell technology for electric power in march 1966 gemini 8 had successfully rendezvoused and then docked with a target vehicle but a thruster problem sent the linked craft into a spin the mission was immediately terminated the scheduled space walk did not take place and the craft landed in the pacific half a world away from the planned landing area three months later gemini 9 could not dock because its target vehicle's fairing had not been jettisoned the scheduled spacewalk went disastrously wrong when gene cernan inflated his suit it did not want to bend exhaustion and a fogging space helmet saw cernan called back inside he was overheating training for a spacewalk was limited to brief periods of weightlessness in an aircraft all being suspended in a special jig that moved via an air suspension system across a smooth floor neither provided anything like the real thing engineers had realized that the current generation of space suit worked well sitting in a spacecraft but when doing strenuous work its air cooling system was inadequate new designs were already in train the next two gemini flights both failed to demonstrate that an astronaut in a spacesuit could do meaningful work in space [Music] before the final gemini flight a new training simulation was tried a mock-up of the gemini craft docked to an agena target vehicle was built in the macdonald school indoor pool an approximation of the true weightless environment it allowed astronaut buzz aldrin to train for extended periods hand holds were fitted to the outside of the spacecraft and the extra vehicular work assignments on gemini 12 were a complete success it gave nasa planners the confidence to move to the apollo program and the final stages in america's progress to its moon landing by 1966 it was apparent that apollo was well behind schedule the first manned flight of the program had been delayed by almost a year because of developmental problems with the apollo spacecraft nasa was rushing to meet the 1969 moon landing deadline set by president kennedy and privately some in the astronaut corps felt that the hurry was not good for the development of a new capsule [Music] nasa had flagged changes to later models of the spacecraft but the early block one version would still carry a crew in the first manned mission to test systems in earth orbit a new space suit was being developed for use on the later moon missions but it would not be ready for apollo 1 whose astronauts gus grissom ed white and roger chaffee would wear a slightly different version of the gemini gc4 suit all american spacecraft had been pressurized with pure oxygen this had weight saving benefits and by exclusion of nitrogen found in natural air the danger of bubbles forming in the bloodstream during rapid decompression was eliminated though the pure oxygen environment presented a fire danger nobody had thought to check the real risks in january 1967 less than a month before the scheduled launch date the apollo 1 crew were in their capsule under simulated launch conditions with the craft being tested under its own power a spark triggered a fire and in seconds the crew were dead the inquiry into the fire found the astronauts had died of asphyxiation from carbon monoxide both the spacesuits and the cabin made extensive use of combustible materials for the program to continue everything would have to be redesigned research into the problems associated with a spacesuit that could be used on the moon had been going on since 1962. the new suit had to be rugged designers were still not sure what the lunar surface would present all previous suits had been fed with oxygen and power from an external source the moon suit had to be self-contained and the backpack supplying life support presented problems the backpacks dimensions and weight were determined by extensive testing and designers of the life support battery and communication systems worked within strict parameters after the apollo 1 tragedy flammable components had been removed and an outer layer of beta cloth of woven silica fibre coated with teflon was added many different ways of simulating the moon's one-sixth gravity were trialled finally the a7l suit emerged beneath the outer layer a tight-fitting suit with elbow wrist and knee joints of a bellows-like structure that maintained equal volume when bent allowed freedom of movement absent in previous suits beneath the pressure suit a light open weave layer was networked with fine tubes circulating cooling water this carried away excess body heat that earlier air-cooled suits had not coped with the pressure suit and the outer protective layer were joined together with the inner cooling garment remaining separate [Music] on earth the whole suit weighed 35 kilograms with the backpack a further 60 kilograms it was the a7l that went to the moon with the first three successful apollo lunar missions and it performed flawlessly it continued to evolve as subsequent missions became more demanding the moon suit was robust and apollo astronauts had complete confidence in it no lunar mission ever had a problem with the spacesuit [Music] with the arrival of the space shuttle nasa was expecting to do serious work in orbit and it needed a new space suit the extra vehicular mobility unit or emu is a direct descendant of the apollo a7l its main difference is the rigid upper torso because they are used in a weightless environment the new suits could be heavier than the apollo suit which operated in lunar gravity the emu is not custom tailored for each user components are made in a range of sizes and are interchangeable parts are intended to have a useful life of around 15 years with the shuttle nasa envisioned servicing satellites in low earth orbit but first it had to learn how to do simple tasks new technologies were combined with the spacesuit in 1984 astronaut bruce mccandless using the manned maneuvering unit flew independently beside the space shuttle challenger after four hours he returned safely the mmu was used for satellite recovery on two subsequent occasions with mixed results after the challenger disaster nasa reviewed all aspects of safety and the mmu was retired as too risky a simpler technique emerged with foot restraints on the shuttle's robotic arm astronauts could be moved accurately to a site and have a stable work platform in 1990 the hubble space telescope was launched unlike other satellites hubble was designed to be visited by the space shuttle for regular maintenance and upgrades over a 16-year span there were five servicing missions to the telescope the first being to fix an error in its manufacture each servicing mission called for long and complex spacewalks the evas were all thoroughly rehearsed in nasa's neutral buoyancy laboratory astronauts are weighted so that they neither rise nor sink and all the large components that they handle are similarly neutral astronauts still have the perception of up and down in neutral buoyancy unlike in weightlessness in 1998 work commenced on the international space station a collaboration between the us russia europe japan and canada this was the type of project for which the space shuttle had been designed and the expertise that nasa's astronaut corps had gained was to be put to use for on-orbit construction as the space station grew the emu spacesuit was refined increased battery capacity was added so that small heaters in the gloves could keep astronauts fingers warm during passages through the earth's shadow a new safety system was added to the emu suits called safer the simplified maneuvering system is designed for emergencies in the rare event that a spacewalker becomes untethered from the space station it was first tested in 1994 but it has never been used for an actual emergency with the completion of the iss in 2011 the space shuttle was retired this meant sole access to the orbiting laboratory was via the russian soyuz spacecraft cosmonauts and astronauts where the russian so-called flight suit during trips to and from orbit for maintenance and repair sorties outside the iss crew will wear either the emu or the russian or land space suit many of the europeans on board have training in the use of both the all land space suit is very practical designed to be serviced on the space station it has a rigid torso with the helmet and visor joined to the suit and access is via a rear hatch cosmonauts wear a water-cooled undergarment similar to the american suit [Music] unlike the american suit the all and can be put on in just five minutes in the mks the latest version of the orlan a cosmonaut can safely remain outside for seven hours and finally nasa is working on a new generation suit to meet its future needs called the pxs for prototype exploration suit it also features a rear entry hatch the pxs has a more advanced life support system and is lighter [Music] a different version called the z2 is being developed for use on the surface of mars it allows a greater range of movement and its life support system will take less time to recharge although neither suit has yet been used in conjunction with its life support backpack some of our solar systems planets have been visited by scientific probes less frequently than others [Music] the outer gas giants uranus and neptune are so distant they're hard to reach uranus is 20 times further from the sun than earth while neptune is 30 times further [Music] both have only been seen at close range by nasa's voyager 2 spacecraft mercury is so close to the sun that any probe sent in its direction must take a circuitous path to offset the sun's immense gravitational influence the mariner 10 probe flew past mercury in 1973 and the messenger probe went into orbit around mercury in 2011. venus presents different problems though it's our closest planetary neighbor and easier for spacecraft to reach dense cloud hides its features and its surface has hellish conditions the russian veneer craft have landed but in the hostile environment they could only survive for minutes [Music] roughly twice every century the planet venus passes between the earth and the sun called the transit of venus it was closely observed in 1769 astronomers realized that careful timing of venus's passage across the face of the sun would allow them to calculate the distance to the sun which in turn would unlock far more accurate methods of navigation [Music] in 1961 the soviet union launched venera 1 the first venus probe it passed venus as intended but mission control had lost contact with it [Music] the following year nasa launched mariner 1 to venus we're not on trajectory a coding error led to control problems with the launcher destruct command it was destroyed minutes after blew liftoff because convenient launch opportunities only occur in 18-month cycles nasa had a second probe ready to launch [Music] mariner 2 was essentially a ranger spacecraft designed to go to the moon these were the early days of the space race and the united states was desperate to catch up with the soviet union lead times were short and the jet propulsion laboratory did not have time to complete its original design [Music] in august 1962 mariner 2 was launched the ranger spacecraft launched toward the moon had all failed mariner 2 on its way to venus was functioning but its transmissions were weak and due to a launch anomaly it was off course after a week instructions for a complex course correction were transmitted to the spacecraft about an hour later mariner executed the maneuver which involved a roll turn followed by a pitch turn and finally a main engine burn [Music] it worked well but several days later the craft lost lock on the sun and the earth its two attitude reference points it corrected itself before ground control could diagnose the problem next the signal strength increased to its normal level but a short in a solar panel left it low on power at this time although both america and the soviet union had been sending probes toward the planets nothing had succeeded mariner 2 lost several telemetry sensors and it began to overheat [Music] it continued limping toward venus but some of the spacecraft's problems were solving themselves mariner 2 was now close enough to the sun that it could function effectively on just one solar panel it passed slightly less than 35 000 kilometers above venus's cloud tops it could detect no planetary magnetic field and it recorded temperatures across the planet approaching 500 degrees kelvin clearly landing on the surface would present problems but america wanted to focus on their first real success in space finally doing something that the soviets had not mariner 2 was the first successful interplanetary probe and in california the home of jpl they celebrated [Music] the next major advances in the exploration of venus were made by the soviet union the objective of the venera series was to land on the surface of venus designers understood that not only were the surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead but that the atmospheric pressure was many times that of earth the landers they built looked more like diving bells than spacecraft in june 1967 venera 4 was launched the vehicle consisted of a carrier craft with instruments used during the cruise phase of venus and a spherical landing module that could communicate independently [Music] after entering the atmosphere venera 4's parachute opened it sent back data for 93 minutes but stopped 28 kilometers above the surface yet its electronics hadn't been overwhelmed by the heat it had simply run out of power extrapolations from its final measurements showed a surface temperature of 500 degrees celsius and a pressure of 75 atmospheres far higher than anyone expected [Music] the venera program strengthened its landers and fitted smaller parachutes to reduce descent time launched in january 1969 venera 5 and 6 learned more about the chemical makeup of the atmosphere but neither remained functioning at the surface the venera series continued refining the technology and making incremental improvements to mission duration adding to the knowledge about venus [Music] in 1975 venera 9 was launched it was a new design consisting of an orbiter lander combination with the orbiter able to act as a relay station for signals transmitted from the surface four months after launch the orbiter and the lander encased in a spherical shell separated it entered the atmosphere two days later while the mother craft became the first probe to go into orbit around venus photographing parts of the surface in ultraviolet the new lander had a ring shield that could replace a parachute during the latter stages of the descent through the dense atmosphere [Music] venera 9 transmitted the first black and white pictures from the surface though a design fault meant a second camera could not eject its lens cap [Music] three days later and 2000 kilometers away a twin craft venera 10 landed it took pictures too but the same design fault left a lens cap stuck in place both landers had been pre-cooled while still in space and circulating cooling fluid kept the craft operating on the blistering surface for more than an hour in 1983 two more venera craft arrived at venus equipped with synthetic aperture radar they made the first serious attempt to map the surface beneath the cloud layer [Music] over eight months they mapped from the north pole down to 30 degrees north [Music] t 9 8 7 6. nasa had taken a minor role in the early exploration of venus but in 1989 the space shuttle atlantis lifted off carrying the magellan probe magellan was bound for venus like the venera craft before it magellan would use radar to map the surface of the planet it was the first interplanetary spacecraft launched from the space shuttle following a cruise of 15 months magellan arrived at venus and entered an elliptical orbit to keep costs down the probe had been built from an agglomeration of spare parts left over from previous nasa missions after some software problems it began mapping the images it relayed remain the highest resolution pictures we have of the surface of venus pictures of low volcanic blisters emerged and lava channels were evidence of an extremely active surface the thick atmosphere has prevented all but the largest meteors reaching venusian ground and few impact craters were visible yet evidence of plate tectonics that sculpts the earth's surface was not obvious after mapping venus magellan changed its orbit and plotted the planets gravitational anomalies on venus localized changes in gravity correspond to surface features on earth this is not the case a new naked picture of venus emerged the surface appears to have been completely remade around half a billion years ago yet while volcanoes and lava channels are common features on venus magellan could not find evidence that volcanic activity still happens on the planet in 2006 the european space agency's venus express went into orbit around venus its focus was the long-term analysis of the planet's atmosphere during its eight-year mission it registered a sharp rise in the atmosphere's sulfur dioxide this could be due to changes in wind patterns but it could also be a sign of volcanic activity researchers also saw increases in infrared radiation coming from three different volcanic locations more circumstantial evidence of current volcanic activity finally the infrared team saw short-term temperature changes that fluctuated over just a few days it appears that volcanoes may still be active on venus [Music] the mission ended in 2015 with a series of swoops into the upper atmosphere that verified unexpected ripples in the mesosphere very little in the way of venus exploration has happened since venus express though elaborate plans exist for future missions to venus nothing at this stage has been funded [Music] yet many missions still pass close to venus to use its gravitation to alter their flight paths in 1974 mariner 10 was the first spacecraft ever to use the gravitational slingshot effect on its way to mercury [Music] italian mathematician giuseppe colombo devised the maneuver as a way to save fuel and to fly past mercury not once but several times the technique is now commonplace ten days after launch mariner 10 executed instructions for a routine course correction this appeared to go well but after the burn when the craft attempted to reorient itself there was a problem mariner 10 knew where it was pointing because its tracking sensor could lock onto the star canopus but a flake of paint that had come from the spacecraft was confusing the system an automated backup procedure found canopus again but flaking paint was an issue for the rest of the mission to reach mercury a spacecraft must approach the sun and its immense gravity presents a problem voyages to outer planets are constantly slowed by solar gravity but with the inner planets a spacecraft constantly accelerates mariner 10 used venus's gravity to reduce its speed and it approached mercury at an acute angle mariner 10 did not have enough fuel to go into orbit around mercury but its sun-centered path allowed the probe to make three close passes its first pass revealed a moon-like planet with a heavily cratered surface though mercury is the smallest planet it's the most dense it has a large iron-rich core prominent escarpments were seen here discovery scarp cuts through two craters it falls three kilometers it's thought that these cliffs are the result of cooling and shrinking of the core mariner 10 continued to suffer technical problems its tape recorder kept sticking there were restrictions in the rates of data transmission and limited attitude control meant flight engineers were using solar pressure on the high gain antenna and solar panels to compensate yet the mission continued mariner 10 could only map about 45 of mercury's surface as the same hemisphere faced the sun during each of its passes mariner 10 discovered a very thin atmosphere primarily of helium several months after its third and final pass of mercury it ran out of fuel it still orbits the sun main engine start two one and zero it was more than thirty years before the next mission to mercury in 2004 messenger was launched it was designed to go into orbit around mercury which presented a number of design constraints it featured a large woven ceramic sun shield but it did not have a dish antenna it would rely on a phased array that could be electronically pointed after a year in space messenger was back at earth using its gravitation to modify its orbit even though it was not a large spacecraft it had a powerful engine for course corrections and orbit insertion it continued on to pass venus twice to lose speed as it drew closer to the sun three and a half years after launch messenger approached mercury but this was not the end of its journey the probe made two more passes of mercury before finally going into orbit after almost seven years in space mission engineers had the extra problem of always requiring the probe sun shield to be pointed toward the sun because it was in orbit messenger was able to complete the mapping started by mariner 10. the planet's dominant feature is the caloris basin it's an ancient crater more than one thousand five hundred kilometers across mariner 10 saw some of the area but the rest had been in darkness this map of the southern polar region uses color to represent illumination because mercury's axis is not tilted sunlight cannot penetrate deep craters near the poles it was in these areas that messenger discovered substantial amounts of water ice messenger received several mission extensions but in 2015 it crashed into mercury after running out of fuel a new mission is already on its way to mercury bepi colombo named after the designer of mariner 10's trajectory it's a joint effort between jaxa the japanese space agency and the european space agency it will take seven years to reach mercury the voyager 2 spacecraft is the only probe to have made close approaches to the two outer ice giants uranus and neptune launched in 1977 with its twin voyager 1 it was able to take advantage of a rare alignment of the four outer planets enabling it to make close observations of each one in 1986 voyager approached uranus in the distant past it must have been hit by another massive body that knocked its axis sideways uranus has an east and a west pole and for half its orbit one side sees continual sun while the other remains in darkness it has rings which follow its north-south equator [Music] voyager 2 discovered 11 new moons and a misaligned magnetic field images that the voyager captured showed uranus as a bland featureless planet but this was because of its particular season with images from the hubble space telescope we now know that at certain times clouds and planetary weather appear in the atmosphere uranus's largest moon miranda was observed in detail for the first time so chaotic is its surface that researchers thought that it must have been blown apart by some cosmic impact with the fragments reforming now it's thought that tectonic forces initiated by the gravitation of uranus are responsible for the moon's jumbled appearance [Music] as voyager 2 left uranus back lighting from the sun revealed two new rings encircling the [Music] planet the spacecraft was now heading toward neptune the solar system's last planet in the three years it would take to get there ground engineers began preparing for unique challenges [Music] neptune is 30 times further from the sun than the earth and the light intensity is one thousandth what it is here for photography time exposures would be necessary yet voyager 2 was traveling so fast that images would smear without special preparation [Music] engineers calculated just how much the craft would have to swivel while exposures were made to compensate for the probe's movement [Music] in june 1989 voyager 2 began returning distant images of neptune across the world people had realized that the data sent back to earth by this spacecraft was transforming our understanding of the solar system [Music] this was before the internet age researchers of the jet propulsion laboratory clustered around tv sets to watch as data and images came in line by line [Music] neptune is a more conventional planet than uranus its axial tilt is 30 degrees and it revolves in the same direction as earth while neptune is slightly heavier than its fellow ice giant uranus it has a slightly smaller diameter and though it is further from the sun than its neighbor neptune emits more heat than uranus the planet has an internal heat source that drives more dynamic weather patterns voyager 2 measured wind speeds at neptune in excess of 2000 kilometers per hour the fastest in the solar system there were cirrus clouds in the atmosphere and the probe recorded pictures of a great dark spot similar to jupiter's great red spot it was an anticyclone in the southern hemisphere as large as the earth [Music] in 1994 when hubble tried to find the same feature it had disappeared but a new dark spot was forming in the northern hemisphere [Music] voyager 2's last observations within the solar system were of neptune's largest moon triton unlike all other moons in the solar system triton has a retrograde orbit indicating that it was not formed at the same time as the planet but that it had been captured as voyager 2 moved beyond the planets its cameras were switched off to save power both voyagers continue away from the solar system measuring the influence of the solar wind this remains the only mission to the ice giants on january the 19th 2006 an atlas v was launched it was a very powerful rocket with an unusually small payload new horizons left earth orbit faster than any other probe it was headed for the kuiper belt at the outer edge of the solar system in particular pluto in a little more than a year new horizons reached jupiter where it received a gravitational assist that cut three years from its flight time to pluto after it passed jupiter the spacecraft went into hibernation simply sending an allswell transmission once a week it took new horizons more than nine years to reach pluto since it had departed pluto had lost its status as a planet with the discovery of more objects of similar size in the kuiper belt it was decided that to be a planet a body had to clear its orbit pluto's features surprised everyone here was a living planet shaped by tectonic forces but instead of rock the mountains were made of ice and frozen methane and pluto has a thin atmosphere mainly of nitrogen the probe continued on over current pluto's largest moon its icy surface has deep canyons and some evidence suggests that it has ice volcanoes current is about half the size of pluto and the two orbit each other from pluto karen would appear motionless in the sky as the new horizons probe sped away from pluto into deep space it began the slow process of transmitting its recorded data back to the earth at these distances it takes signals four and a half hours to reach earth with data coming in at one kilobit per second it took 469 days for all the pluto information to be received back on earth early in 2019 new horizons passed trans-neptunian object altima toulet and with a mission extension it continues exploring the outer reaches of the solar system [Music] you

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), Planetary Research, All You Need to Know about Space, space, space documentary, space knowledge, zenith, space learning, planet, planet documentary, planets, planets documentary, science, science documentary, other planets

Id: bjm7D2jpnko

Length: 53min 54sec (3234 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021