This Planet is...Up to Something — Transcript

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1. 0:00We are doing something [music] here on
2. 0:02this planet, and I think we mostly don't
3. 0:04know what it is, and that's not because
4. 0:06we're idiots or something. It's because
5. 0:08it isn't something that's being [music]
6. 0:09done by any one of us. It's beyond
7. 0:11intent, but it does appear to be a
8. 0:14something that is happening. [music]
9. 0:17We're warming the atmosphere, and we're
10. 0:19eradicating diseases, [music] and we're
11. 0:21making weapons that can end civilization
12. 0:24and probes that can leave the solar
13. 0:26system. We make extremely beautiful
14. 0:28[music]
15. 0:29things. Sometimes for excellent reasons,
16. 0:32sometimes because somebody rich enough
17. 0:34wanted a weird chair.
18. 0:37Every day we do things that make me
19. 0:39furious, [music]
20. 0:41and every day we do things that make me
21. 0:43so glad that people [music] exist.
22. 0:47I don't know what all that adds up to.
23. 0:49>> [music]
24. 0:49>> I don't think anyone does, but whatever
25. 0:51we are doing, we are not doing it
26. 0:54individually. Humans get ideas from each
27. 0:57other. We get inspired by each other. We
28. 0:59can get excited by something another
29. 1:01person has imagined, argue about it, or
30. 1:03build the tool that makes it possible.
31. 1:06And we can also [music]
32. 1:07be inspired by the universe. We can look
33. 1:09at the world as it is, and we can say,
34. 1:11"Yeah, okay, but [music]
35. 1:13what if?
36. 1:14What if we could cross the ocean? What
37. 1:16if a cancer diagnosis didn't have
38. 1:18[music] to be the end? What if everyone
39. 1:20could talk to everyone else all of the
40. 1:23time? Which, to be clear, has [music]
41. 1:25been a mixed bag. We get pulled into
42. 1:28that what if feeling in a lot of
43. 1:29different ways, but one way is through
44. 1:32images.
45. 1:33>> [music]
46. 1:33>> The right image in the right context can
47. 1:36change you. And if it can change you, it
48. 1:38can change other people, too.
49. 1:41There's been some images like that
50. 1:42brought [music] to us by our exploration
51. 1:45of space over the last 70 years.
52. 1:47Earthrise did not reveal a truth that
53. 1:50the Earth was round or small or
54. 1:52surrounded by space. We all knew that.
55. 1:53[music]
56. 1:54But then there it was, rising above the
57. 1:57dead gray surface of the moon, looking
58. 1:59less [music] like the mess that we are
59. 2:01always embroiled in and more like a
60. 2:03peaceful jewel, immediately more
61. 2:05beautiful than any other planet in the
62. 2:08solar [music] system.
63. 2:09The pale blue dot didn't reveal the size
64. 2:12of the solar system, [music]
65. 2:13but it let us feel the scale with the
66. 2:16entire human world located in less than
67. 2:20a pixel [music] caught in scattered
68. 2:22sunlight.
69. 2:23When the Hubble Space Telescope pointed
70. 2:25at a patch [music] of empty sky to
71. 2:27create the Hubble Deep Field, scientists
72. 2:29weren't surprised to find the frame
73. 2:31packed with galaxies,
74. 2:33but perhaps they were surprised by how
75. 2:35actually seeing that made them feel.
76. 2:37[music]
77. 2:39Those images became objects that we
78. 2:41think with. They gave people a way to
79. 2:43feel something that facts alone could
80. 2:45not make them feel.
81. 2:47>> [music]
82. 2:47>> Recently, I think that we got another
83. 2:50one of those images. It hits very hard,
84. 2:52>> [music]
85. 2:53>> and it stays in your brain.
86. 2:55And it is not this image.
87. 2:57I mean, this image is extremely cool.
88. 2:59>> [music]
89. 2:59>> This is the night side of the Earth
90. 3:01photographed by the Artemis 2 crew as
91. 3:03they were accelerating away from Earth
92. 3:05on their way to the moon. The sun is
93. 3:07behind the planet, so [music] the Earth
94. 3:09is almost entirely dark, but it is not
95. 3:12entirely dark because the moon is behind
96. 3:15the spacecraft bouncing [music] the
97. 3:16sun's light onto the Earth.
98. 3:19But because that moonshine is so dim,
99. 3:22you can still see the city lights along
100. 3:24[music] the coasts of Africa and South
101. 3:26America. You can see the flashing of
102. 3:28thunderstorms. You can [music] see the
103. 3:29northern and southern auroras glowing at
104. 3:32opposite ends of the planet. And there's
105. 3:34also a bright patch in the ocean that
106. 3:36turns [music] out to be the moon
107. 3:39reflecting off the water.
108. 3:41So, it is a good picture, but it is not
109. 3:43the thing I'm talking about. The image
110. 3:45I'm talking about here was captured by
111. 3:47accident, and no one knew they had it.
112. 3:50And it was created [music]
113. 3:51by a guy.
114. 3:53Here's how it happened. And I know this
115. 3:55because [music] I got a DM on Instagram
116. 3:57from Commander Reed Wiseman who said to
117. 4:00me, "Hank, we have to talk."
118. 4:02Unsure of whether he was getting the
119. 4:04best possible photo, Reed Wiseman took a
120. 4:06whole series of [music] photographs with
121. 4:08his camera pushed up against the glass
122. 4:10while Orion was moving away from Earth.
123. 4:13He was just trying to get one good
124. 4:14picture [music] in a pretty difficult
125. 4:16situation, and it's good to have some
126. 4:17backups. During the mission, NASA
127. 4:19released just one of these photographs
128. 4:21[music]
129. 4:21because it turns out the rest of them
130. 4:23were pretty much identical. But then,
131. 4:25because this is what [music] NASA does,
132. 4:27they dropped every photo taken during
133. 4:30the mission, all 12,000 [music]
134. 4:32of them. And normal people could look
135. 4:34through those photos. And one normal
136. 4:36person, who goes by responsibility
137. 4:38number 2097 on Reddit, noticed this long
138. 4:42[music] string of very similar images,
139. 4:44and they asked,
140. 4:46"What if?
141. 4:48What if you lined them up? What if these
142. 4:50still photographs became a movie?"
143. 4:53And so,
144. 4:54they did that.
145. 4:57This is not a photograph of the Earth
146. 5:00from space [music] anymore.
147. 5:02Now, it is a movie of the Earth from
148. 5:04space. And you see something [music]
149. 5:06dynamic. You can see the physical beauty
150. 5:09of the Earth with its auroras shifting
151. 5:11and [music] its lightning flashing. You
152. 5:12can see the lights of cities on the
153. 5:15surface. And then, at certain points
154. 5:17around the [music] edge of the planet,
155. 5:18you can see glints of light appearing
156. 5:21and disappearing.
157. 5:22>> [music]
158. 5:23>> You can see the Earth's physics. You can
159. 5:25see its life. And you can see its
160. 5:28technology.
161. 5:30So many of the deeply moving pictures of
162. 5:33the space age have shown our fragility,
163. 5:36[music]
164. 5:36our insignificance, the Earth without
165. 5:39borders, out of the weeds, and free of
166. 5:41the messes that we're all so obsessed
167. 5:43[music] with. But this is not that
168. 5:45Earth.
169. 5:47Those are cities [music] down there.
170. 5:48Cities that contain hospitals and
171. 5:51prisons and birthday parties and weapons
172. 5:53factories. Cities that need to burn
173. 5:55[music] fossil fuels to keep food cool
174. 5:58and neighborhoods lit. These satellites
175. 6:00around the edge, they help us forecast
176. 6:02hurricanes, navigate ambulances, [music]
177. 6:05and communicate with each other. But the
178. 6:06orbits have become crowded and they're
179. 6:09messing with our telescopes. [music] A
180. 6:11lot of communication about space has
181. 6:13been about our insignificance.
182. 6:16And in space,
183. 6:17there's no doubt that we are not a
184. 6:19significant portion of what there is.
185. 6:21The Hubble Deep Field is a real image.
186. 6:24But space isn't just space.
187. 6:27It's [music] also time.
188. 6:29And it's worth noting that it took an
189. 6:30unbroken chain of living chemistry
190. 6:33around 4
191. 6:34>> [music]
192. 6:34>> billion years to go from the first
193. 6:37self-replicating systems on Earth to
194. 6:39things that could weave baskets and
195. 6:41refrigerate vaccines and launch a rocket
196. 6:44to the moon.
197. 6:45If some alien had wandered by the Earth
198. 6:48100 years ago and taken this exact
199. 6:50[music]
200. 6:50sequence of images,
201. 6:52there wouldn't have been as much to see.
202. 6:54No satellites, obviously, [music] but
203. 6:56also the world was just beginning to
204. 6:58electrify.
205. 7:00This world is [music] a new one, which
206. 7:03lends it a different kind of weight
207. 7:05and also maybe a different [music] kind
208. 7:06of fragility.
209. 7:08This isn't the peaceful blue marble. It
210. 7:11isn't [music] the insignificant mote of
211. 7:13dust. This is a planet where someone
212. 7:16is up to something.
213. 7:19Some of what we are up to is [music]
214. 7:21wonderful. Some of it may be
215. 7:22catastrophic.
216. 7:24This video, [music] just a few frames
217. 7:27looping back and forth, doesn't wave
218. 7:29away those contradictions or resolve
219. 7:31them.
220. 7:32>> [music]
221. 7:32>> It shows all of it at once.
222. 7:34This
223. 7:36is us.
224. 7:38Carl Sagan said,
225. 7:39>> [music]
226. 7:40>> "The surface of the Earth is the shore
227. 7:42of the cosmic ocean.
228. 7:44And when I asked the audience here on
229. 7:46this channel [music] what we should call
230. 7:47this moving image, someone suggested the
231. 7:50cosmic shoreline,
232. 7:52which is what I've [music] been calling
233. 7:53it.
234. 7:55We're doing something here on this
235. 7:57planet,
236. 7:58and we do not know what it is.
237. 8:00>> [music]
238. 8:00>> None of us can see it because it doesn't
239. 8:02happen inside of any of us. It emerges
240. 8:04[music] from us, the way consciousness
241. 8:07emerges from a brain, the way life
242. 8:08emerges from chemistry. We do not know
243. 8:11what it is, but we know that it is.
244. 8:15>> [music]
245. 8:16>> This is the first image of Earth from
246. 8:18space that has made me feel like I am
247. 8:21part of something [music] big,
248. 8:23not of something small.
249. 8:25The 4 billion years it took for the
250. 8:27Earth [music] to look like this
251. 8:29is actually a meaningful fraction of the
252. 8:3113 billion [music] years the universe
253. 8:33has existed. And the fact that we know
254. 8:36the universe had an [music] age itself,
255. 8:39that's younger than the electric light
256. 8:41bulb.
257. 8:41There [music] are people alive today who
258. 8:43were born into a world where we did not
259. 8:46know other galaxies existed. I think
260. 8:48we're still struggling with this.
261. 8:51We aren't just not the center of the
262. 8:53solar system, [music]
263. 8:54we're the center of nothing.
264. 8:57But when I look at this image, I do not
265. 9:00primarily see how small [music] we are.
266. 9:02I see something that may indeed be very
267. 9:05rare and very precious.
268. 9:08Something down there isn't just [music]
269. 9:10flowing. It's evolving. It isn't just
270. 9:13evolving, it's thinking. It isn't just
271. 9:15thinking, [music]
272. 9:16it's making. It's making beauty.
273. 9:19It's making mistakes.
274. 9:22It's the first time I can kind [music]
275. 9:24of see it all at once.
276. 9:26A planet that is very clearly up to
277. 9:29something,
278. 9:30on the edge, reaching [music] out,
279. 9:33a mess,
280. 9:35and worth it.
281. 9:37The only home
282. 9:39we've ever [music] known.
283. 9:53>> That wasn't part of the mission. That
284. 9:55was That was just you did that?
285. 9:56>> I almost called the chief astronaut and
286. 9:57said, "Take me off."
287. 9:58>> It does seem like we're probably pretty
288. 10:00[music] rare.
289. 10:01>> I think so, too. I think I really think
290. 10:03so, too.
291. 10:03>> This is why I wanted to talk to you,
292. 10:05because [music] you you were going to
293. 10:06talk about things that nobody else ever
294. 10:07talks about. I'm probably going to end
295. 10:09up getting myself in trouble. [music]
296. 10:10>> Gravity or no gravity?
297. 10:11>> Oh, no gravity, 100%.
298. 10:12>> Best thing about space?
299. 10:13>> No gravity.
300. 10:14>> Worst [music] thing about space?
301. 10:15>> No gravity. And that was where I was
302. 10:18just like, I think they messed up. We're
303. 10:20going to go a little too far, and I
304. 10:21don't think we're ever going to go home.
305. 10:22>> going to ask you who it was, but do you
306. 10:25know who was farthest away from Earth
307. 10:27when
308. 10:28>> [music]
309. 10:28>> Artemis was farthest away from Earth?
310. 10:30>> He refuted this. We just talked about
311. 10:32this yesterday. It had to have been
312. 10:33There's really only two things that can
313. 10:35trip an emergency tone. One of them is
314. 10:36fire, and one of them is
315. 10:37depressurization. [music]
316. 10:38We weren't feeling our ears pop at all,
317. 10:40so I went straight to the displays. I
318. 10:42already knew what it was going to say.