La NASA garde un œil sur Yellowstone, mais pas pour la raison que vous pourriez penser. Alors que la plupart des gens s'inquiètent de l'éruption du supervolcan, la NASA s'intéresse davantage à son environnement extrême. Les sources chaudes, les geysers et les formes de vie souterraines uniques pourraient aider les scientifiques à comprendre à quoi la vie pourrait ressembler sur d'autres planètes. Puisque Mars et certaines lunes de Jupiter présentent des signes d'activité géothermique passée ou présente, étudier Yellowstone pourrait fournir des indices sur la vie extraterrestre. De plus, la NASA teste également des technologies là-bas qui pourraient un jour être utilisées pour explorer l'espace. Ainsi, bien que Yellowstone soit un point chaud—littéralement—la véritable mission de la NASA est hors de ce monde ! Animation créée par Sympa.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Musique par Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com
Pour ne rien perdre de Sympa, abonnez-vous!: https://goo.gl/6E4Xna
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nos réseaux sociaux :
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sympasympacom/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sympa.officiel/
Stock de fichiers (photos, vidéos et autres):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Si tu en veux encore plus, fais un tour ici:
http://sympa-sympa.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Musique par Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com
Pour ne rien perdre de Sympa, abonnez-vous!: https://goo.gl/6E4Xna
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nos réseaux sociaux :
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sympasympacom/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sympa.officiel/
Stock de fichiers (photos, vidéos et autres):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Si tu en veux encore plus, fais un tour ici:
http://sympa-sympa.com
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Space missions are known for their costly costs.
00:03To give you an idea, a ticket allowing an astronaut to access space starts at about $20 million and can go up to $50 million.
00:12Although NASA has a substantial budget, it constantly strives to optimize its spending and to make savings of several million.
00:20In addition, the agency has understood for a long time that it was not essential to go to a Saturn moon to look for traces of extraterrestrial life,
00:28because all the favorable conditions are already met in Wyoming.
00:32If that appeals to you, you already understand why Yellowstone arouses such interest from NASA.
00:38To explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life, it is essential to study environments that reproduce these conditions.
00:45This is where Yellowstone's thermal sources take on all their importance.
00:50However, it is not the entire park that interests NASA.
00:53Bears, moose and other local species are at the heart of biologists.
00:57These are the geysers, home to microbial life, which captivate their attention.
01:01Note that Yellowstone has more geysers and hot springs than the rest of the world.
01:07In some of its sources, the water reaches temperatures up to 90 ° C.
01:13This may seem useful only to infuse tea, but there is more.
01:18Microbial life survives not only in these extreme conditions, but also thrives after a specific adaptation.
01:24Could these microbes help us to detect traces of life elsewhere? Absolutely!
01:29Let's move on to the park's true star, Great Prismatic Spring.
01:33Its high concentration of silica gives it its spectacular colors.
01:37Silica refracts sunlight.
01:40In particular, the length of blue waves, which gives the source its vivid and sparkling appearance.
01:46What is even more fascinating, however, is not its color, but what it reveals about the evolution of life.
01:53About 4.5 billion years ago, living organisms did not yet know how to capture solar energy.
02:00They used chemical processes, just like those still in operation today in Great Prismatic Spring.
02:08But why mention other planets?
02:11If life on Earth emerged in a way similar to that observed in Yellowstone,
02:15it is very likely that similar conditions exist elsewhere in the universe.
02:19If we manage to identify precisely the origin of life here,
02:23we could considerably refine our quest for traces of life on other planets.
02:30Geysers comparable to those of Yellowstone have been discovered on moons such as Enceladus, orbiting around Saturn,
02:37and Triton, a satellite of Neptune.
02:39But what does it look like to those we observe in Yellowstone?
02:43In 1989, NASA's Voyager 2 probe made a sensation by spotting geysers on Triton,
02:49marking the first observation of such a phenomenon outside the Earth,
02:53not to mention the volcanic eruptions on Io, Jupiter's moon, discovered by Voyager 1 in 1979.
03:01Since then, other geysers have been spotted on other moons of the solar system.
03:07In Yellowstone Park, the water of the geysers is heated by sources from the Earth's bowels.
03:13However, on some distant moons, the heat comes from the forces of the tides
03:17generated by the gravitational attraction of the large planets around which they gravitate.
03:22Just as terrestrial tides are influenced by the Moon and the Sun,
03:25these moons know of phenomena similar, on a much larger scale.
03:30Under their thick, icy layers, there are hot and salty oceans, isolated by this layer of ice.
03:36The forces of the tides, bringing the moons closer and further away from their planets,
03:40generate enough heat to project hot water into space when a crack forms.
03:45This frozen crust, with the hot water underneath, evokes a pond caught in the ice on Earth.
03:51But could there be forms of life evolving in these hidden oceans,
03:55like creatures living under the ice of the ponds?
03:58Scientists want to be sure.
04:00NASA plans to send high-pitched probes to explore these distant moons in search of signs of life.
04:07But these oceans are buried several kilometers under the ice.
04:11How to get there? Well, geysers could hold the key.
04:16In February 2019, a group of planetologists went to Yellowstone in winter
04:21to analyze the similarities between terrestrial geysers and those observed in space.
04:26They knew that Yellowstone geysers were home to resistant microbes, called extremophiles,
04:32which thrive in extreme conditions such as hot or acidic water.
04:36Researchers wanted to learn as much as possible about these microbes and their habitat.
04:41They brought various instruments to measure temperature, pH, and oxygen levels in water.
04:47Specific tools were also used to analyze the chemical composition of ice and rocks,
04:53while scrutinizing the air in search of gas.
04:56They even took samples of water, rocks and ice by capturing thin droplets
05:02on aluminum sheets soaked in geyser steam.
05:06Their main target was the Great Fountain geyser,
05:10located in the Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone.
05:13Yellowstone is famous for its impressive shows, repeated 2 to 3 times a day.
05:18However, the winter season left them with surprises.
05:22Some scientists, delayed by the snow, arrived late at night just before the park entrance.
05:28Their SUV then got stuck in a freezer and had to be cleared by a snowplow.
05:34The next day, on board a snowmobile, they traveled nearly 1 km
05:39towards a thick layer of ice to reach the geyser,
05:42while keeping an eye on elephants, bison, and even bears.
05:46On their way to the Great Fountain geyser,
05:49they made several stops to collect samples and take measurements in other basins,
05:54such as Lemon Pool and Surprise Pool.
05:57Despite its apparent isolation, Yellowstone remains much more accessible than moons like Encelade or Triton.
06:03It is an exceptional natural laboratory,
06:05capable of teaching us a lot about terrestrial life and, perhaps, about life beyond our planet.
06:11As far as laboratories are concerned, Great Prismatic Spring can be one in its entirety.
06:16Under the microscope, these bacteria look like matches.
06:20They bear the Latin name of Termus Aquaticus and live in this hot spring.
06:25These microbes have saved millions of lives.
06:28If this seems hard to believe,
06:30know that they have allowed the creation of the basis of PCR tests,
06:33today widely used to obtain rapid and precise medical diagnoses.
06:38In the 1960s, Thomas Brock, a microbiologist,
06:41explored the overheated thermal basins of the park when he made an extraordinary discovery.
06:46Brock was particularly interested in bacteria capable of surviving in extreme environments.
06:52For 10 years, he studied the geysers and thermal sources of Yellowstone
06:56and discovered, in a source called Mushroom Pool,
06:59a microbe capable of surviving in a boiling water.
07:03This small organism, Termus Aquaticus, revolutionized science.
07:07Why?
07:08Well, this microbe is essential to the PCR technique,
07:11or chain reaction by polymerase, used to quickly copy DNA samples.
07:17Before its discovery, heat damaged the enzymes, keeping the DNA intact,
07:22thus complicating the process.
07:24But thanks to Termus Aquaticus,
07:26scientists can heat and cool the samples without degrading them,
07:30making the process faster and more efficient.
07:34This has been made possible by purifying an enzyme called Taq polymerase,
07:39extracted from this microbe.
07:42Yellowstone microbes could also become your ally for a long and tasty breakfast.
07:47A unique microbe, discovered during research funded by NASA,
07:52is now transformed into vegan pancakes for breakfast and cream cheese.
07:57This microbe, found in a hot source called Fusarium Flavolapis,
08:02arouses the interest of space enthusiasts
08:04as a potential source of protein for long-term space missions.
08:08In addition, it uses much less water and soil than beef,
08:12making it an ecological choice.
08:16Originally, researchers studied this microbe to produce biofuels,
08:21but they quickly discovered that it could be grown as a complete protein,
08:25with a texture similar to that of chicken.
08:28This product, marketed as FI,
08:31can be transformed into various foods thanks to a fermentation process
08:35guaranteeing the absence of contaminants.
08:38NASA is even developing a bioreactor to grow FI in space.
08:43Stay tuned.
08:46NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology