WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:11.136 --> 00:00:11.886 So this weekend, 2 00:00:11.886 --> 00:00:15.348 the moon is going to give us an incredible show, a real treat. 3 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:18.560 All weekend long will be treated to effectively a full moon. 4 00:00:18.768 --> 00:00:22.147 And it culminates on Sunday night with this beautiful lunar eclipse. 5 00:00:22.355 --> 00:00:24.607 So starting at about 10 p.m. 6 00:00:24.607 --> 00:00:29.320 Eastern on Sunday night, the moon will start passing through the Earth's shadow 7 00:00:29.529 --> 00:00:33.116 and right around midnight will be the peak of this eclipse, 8 00:00:33.116 --> 00:00:36.536 when the moon will turn this beautiful coppery reddish orange color 9 00:00:36.828 --> 00:00:39.622 and then gradually move out of the Earth's shadow. 10 00:00:39.622 --> 00:00:43.418 So all night long, late Sunday night into Monday morning on the East 11 00:00:43.418 --> 00:00:46.838 Coast, we'll be treated to this beautiful lunar eclipse. 12 00:00:54.804 --> 00:00:57.557 So this weekend we are treated to a spectacular 13 00:00:57.557 --> 00:01:01.352 sight of a full moon, culminating in a lunar eclipse. 14 00:01:01.686 --> 00:01:05.440 Now, I would encourage people to go out any time during the night, Saturday 15 00:01:05.440 --> 00:01:07.108 and Sunday night, even Friday night. 16 00:01:08.068 --> 00:01:12.447 Look up to the sky and you'll see the beautiful majesty of a full moon. 17 00:01:12.822 --> 00:01:16.034 Now, during the eclipse, if it's cloudy, if it's. 18 00:01:16.659 --> 00:01:20.163 If it's. If you're surrounded by trees or tall buildings, you'll want to find 19 00:01:20.163 --> 00:01:23.416 a relatively open space where you have a good view of the sky. 20 00:01:23.458 --> 00:01:27.295 Now, there's no one critical moment that you have to be outside to see this. 21 00:01:27.545 --> 00:01:29.422 The eclipse will begin about 10 p.m. 22 00:01:29.422 --> 00:01:33.676 Eastern time on Sunday night, reaching its peak just around midnight. 23 00:01:33.885 --> 00:01:35.762 And then gradually the moon will be passing 24 00:01:35.762 --> 00:01:37.889 out of the earth's shadow over the next few hours. 25 00:01:37.889 --> 00:01:41.726 So find your ideal location, whether it's in your backyard 26 00:01:41.726 --> 00:01:44.020 or on the top of your building or in some location, 27 00:01:44.020 --> 00:01:46.064 or have a beautiful, unobstructed view of the sky. 28 00:01:46.064 --> 00:01:50.110 You want to be clear of bright lights or tall buildings around you, if you can, 29 00:01:50.860 --> 00:01:53.154 and just relax and enjoy the show. 30 00:02:00.870 --> 00:02:03.790 The moon turns this beautiful red color during the eclipse 31 00:02:03.790 --> 00:02:07.710 because of this really special connection between the earth and the moon. 32 00:02:08.336 --> 00:02:10.797 Just the same reason why when you go out at sunset 33 00:02:10.797 --> 00:02:14.342 or sunrise, the horizon turns that beautiful red orange color. 34 00:02:14.676 --> 00:02:18.138 Well, now imagine all of the sunrises and sunsets 35 00:02:18.138 --> 00:02:22.433 from the earth get projected onto the surface of the moon when it passes in 36 00:02:22.559 --> 00:02:23.643 to the shadow of the earth. 37 00:02:23.643 --> 00:02:27.897 And so during the peak of the eclipse, which is just to right around midnight 38 00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:31.067 Sunday night, East Coast time, 39 00:02:31.317 --> 00:02:34.195 the moon will turn this beautiful, coppery brown color. 40 00:02:34.445 --> 00:02:37.615 And again, that's the projection of all of the sunrises and sunsets 41 00:02:37.615 --> 00:02:39.659 on the earth onto the surface of the moon. 42 00:02:47.959 --> 00:02:50.044 We're preparing for the art of exploration 43 00:02:50.044 --> 00:02:53.506 of the South Pole of the Moon by doing really two fundamental things. 44 00:02:53.506 --> 00:02:56.634 One is we're analyzing the data that we've collected 45 00:02:56.634 --> 00:03:00.013 for the moon over the last 13 years, thanks to the Lunar Reconnaissance 46 00:03:00.013 --> 00:03:03.558 Orbiter, a spacecraft NASA's sent to the moon in 2009 to do 47 00:03:03.558 --> 00:03:07.812 just this, to help chart the the places that we want to send astronauts. 48 00:03:07.812 --> 00:03:09.939 We want to send robotic missions to 49 00:03:09.939 --> 00:03:13.401 to look for scientifically interesting and safe places to explore. 50 00:03:13.651 --> 00:03:14.903 And so, on one hand, 51 00:03:14.903 --> 00:03:18.656 we're studying that data to find those ideal locations to send crew. 52 00:03:18.907 --> 00:03:22.410 We're also preparing those astronauts, the Artemis astronauts have been selected 53 00:03:22.785 --> 00:03:27.540 to, you know, begin their education on geology, on planetary science, 54 00:03:27.540 --> 00:03:30.585 so that when they're on the surface of the moon, they can make the decisions 55 00:03:30.585 --> 00:03:34.464 of which samples to collect and what to do while they're exploring the moon. 56 00:03:34.923 --> 00:03:37.967 So we're at this very exciting point where we have the data, 57 00:03:37.967 --> 00:03:41.971 we have the talent, and it's now a matter of of letting letting time march on 58 00:03:41.971 --> 00:03:45.683 and prepare for 2025 to send that first crew to the South Pole of the moon. 59 00:03:54.108 --> 00:03:57.237 The Moon is a wonderful 60 00:03:57.237 --> 00:04:01.532 surface are a quarter of the processes that occur across the solar system. 61 00:04:01.908 --> 00:04:06.329 When we look at the lunar surface, we are gazing back to the earliest part 62 00:04:06.329 --> 00:04:09.207 of the history of our solar system, four and a half billion years. 63 00:04:09.582 --> 00:04:11.876 And so when we look at the craters that have formed 64 00:04:11.876 --> 00:04:13.711 on the surface of the moon and we look at the 65 00:04:13.711 --> 00:04:17.548 the volcanic eruptions that have occurred there, we are peering back in time. 66 00:04:17.840 --> 00:04:20.593 And indeed, when we study any other object in the solar system, 67 00:04:20.593 --> 00:04:23.846 whether it's Mercury, whether it's Mars, whether it's Pluto. 68 00:04:24.305 --> 00:04:27.350 Our understanding of the processes, the changes that have occurred on 69 00:04:27.350 --> 00:04:31.771 those planets are in large part due to the understanding we have of the moon. 70 00:04:31.980 --> 00:04:33.022 We look at the moon. 71 00:04:33.022 --> 00:04:35.441 We understand the fundamentals of how planets work 72 00:04:35.692 --> 00:04:39.028 and then apply those rules to other objects in the solar system. 73 00:04:39.028 --> 00:04:42.282 So the moon is really this incredible Rosetta Stone for understanding 74 00:04:42.532 --> 00:04:43.700 how planets work. 75 00:04:43.700 --> 00:04:47.495 And so when we look at other objects around other stars, our understanding 76 00:04:47.495 --> 00:04:49.122 of what we think is happening there 77 00:04:49.122 --> 00:04:51.958 in large part is informed in our understanding of how the moon 78 00:04:52.208 --> 00:04:54.961 formed and evolved over four and a half billion years. 79 00:05:03.511 --> 00:05:07.181 To me, the most surprising thing that we've learned from the LRO spacecraft 80 00:05:07.181 --> 00:05:10.518 in its 13 year mission to the moon is that we were able to see 81 00:05:10.518 --> 00:05:13.271 the moon change underneath our feet. 82 00:05:13.563 --> 00:05:17.442 We've identified new impact craters that have formed in the last 13 years. 83 00:05:17.442 --> 00:05:18.693 We're seeing surface changes. 84 00:05:18.693 --> 00:05:21.029 We're seeing the presence of volatiles, water 85 00:05:21.029 --> 00:05:23.156 at the surface of the moon and how it moves around 86 00:05:23.364 --> 00:05:26.534 as a function of the time of day on the surface of the moon. 87 00:05:26.784 --> 00:05:29.579 We've really taken the moon from being what was once thought to be 88 00:05:29.579 --> 00:05:33.166 a sort of a static, unchanging world and are now actually able 89 00:05:33.374 --> 00:05:37.086 to measure changes on the lunar surface, the dynamics of the moon, 90 00:05:37.253 --> 00:05:40.089 and how it evolves, not over millions or billions of years, 91 00:05:40.089 --> 00:05:43.634 but over the span of a human lifetime of several years. 92 00:05:43.676 --> 00:05:47.013 And so we've taken the moon from being this ancient object 93 00:05:47.013 --> 00:05:50.224 and really showing how compelling and how dynamic it is. 94 00:05:50.475 --> 00:05:54.103 And again, all with the lens of how do we prepare to send future 95 00:05:54.103 --> 00:05:58.066 explorers, both crew and robotic explorers, to the surface of the moon, 96 00:05:58.358 --> 00:06:03.071 to take the lessons that we've learned from orbit and apply them to the surface? 97 00:06:03.321 --> 00:06:07.909 So this next era of lunar exploration is very exciting, but it's informed 98 00:06:07.909 --> 00:06:10.953 in large part of the discoveries that we've made over the last 13 years. 99 00:06:19.545 --> 00:06:20.713 We have a number of 100 00:06:20.713 --> 00:06:23.758 important science questions of things that we want to learn about the moon. 101 00:06:23.758 --> 00:06:27.095 We're still arguing among ourselves, the scientific community, 102 00:06:27.095 --> 00:06:29.138 about how the moon formed, how old the moon is. 103 00:06:29.430 --> 00:06:32.392 We think we have a good understanding of that, in large part 104 00:06:32.392 --> 00:06:34.644 because of the samples that were brought back by Apollo. 105 00:06:34.811 --> 00:06:35.895 But what Artemis will do in 106 00:06:35.895 --> 00:06:39.524 exploring the South Pole of the moon, a completely new frontier of the lunar 107 00:06:39.524 --> 00:06:43.027 surface, is inform those models, those hypotheses 108 00:06:43.027 --> 00:06:46.489 that we have, and ultimately potentially challenge those hypotheses. 109 00:06:46.489 --> 00:06:49.242 We may find out the moon is older than we think it is. 110 00:06:49.242 --> 00:06:50.785 The places that we want to go at the South 111 00:06:50.785 --> 00:06:52.787 Pole are going to be some of the oldest surfaces 112 00:06:52.787 --> 00:06:54.288 that we've ever explored on 113 00:06:54.288 --> 00:06:57.458 any planetary body, whether it's with humans or with robots. 114 00:06:57.458 --> 00:07:01.212 And so those first explorers will be peering back in time 115 00:07:01.212 --> 00:07:03.840 to the very earliest history of the moon. 116 00:07:04.215 --> 00:07:07.969 We'd also like to know what what the volatiles that we've mapped 117 00:07:07.969 --> 00:07:11.055 from orbit, the water that we see from orbit, what is it like? 118 00:07:11.806 --> 00:07:12.765 How much is there? 119 00:07:12.765 --> 00:07:16.936 And so these very first missions to the surface of the moon, to the South 120 00:07:16.936 --> 00:07:19.272 Pole are going to really be telling us something fundamental 121 00:07:19.272 --> 00:07:23.401 about the age of the moon , as well as how much water might be present there. 122 00:07:23.568 --> 00:07:27.155 And that water becomes a valuable resource that we could potentially use in 123 00:07:27.155 --> 00:07:31.117 future exploration of the moon to sustain a long term presence at the moon. 124 00:07:31.117 --> 00:07:34.954 And so the fundamental questions of how the moon formed its age 125 00:07:35.121 --> 00:07:38.416 and how this precious water actually got to the surface of the moon, 126 00:07:38.416 --> 00:07:40.126 are some of the key questions that we'll be asking. 127 00:07:48.342 --> 00:07:50.595 If you're interested in learning more about this eclipse 128 00:07:50.595 --> 00:07:52.472 and what we have learned about the moon in general, 129 00:07:52.472 --> 00:07:57.143 I would suggest people go to the website moon dot nasa.gov and really dive 130 00:07:57.143 --> 00:08:00.855 into everything we've learned, everything that we are learning about the moon. 131 00:08:01.481 --> 00:08:04.233 To help you understand how to take pictures of the moon. 132 00:08:04.275 --> 00:08:05.735 We have a number of resources there 133 00:08:05.735 --> 00:08:09.405 for four lunar observers over the weekend and during the eclipse. 134 00:08:09.447 --> 00:08:13.451 I would encourage people to tune in to our NASA's broadcast of the Eclipse. 135 00:08:13.784 --> 00:08:17.538 Go to nasa.gov, slash live and you'll get treated to 136 00:08:17.663 --> 00:08:21.292 a wonderful sharing of the lunar eclipse around the world. 137 00:08:21.334 --> 00:08:24.253 If it's cloudy where you are, you can tune in and still enjoy it 138 00:08:24.504 --> 00:08:25.671 from the comfort of your own home. 139 00:08:33.638 --> 00:08:35.306 The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched 140 00:08:35.306 --> 00:08:38.851 in 2009 for what was supposed to be a 1 to 2 year mission. 141 00:08:39.477 --> 00:08:43.523 We recently learned that we've been given a three year extension to our mission, 142 00:08:43.523 --> 00:08:46.943 which will take our operations out until 2025, at least. 143 00:08:46.943 --> 00:08:49.820 And so what we've done is take this 1 to 2 year mission 144 00:08:50.029 --> 00:08:53.115 and turn it into now a decade plus long mission. 145 00:08:53.407 --> 00:08:56.619 This June, we'll be celebrating 13 years of orbiting the moon. 146 00:08:56.869 --> 00:08:59.622 And in that time, we've discovered new impact craters. 147 00:08:59.622 --> 00:09:02.041 We've found that the moon is 148 00:09:03.125 --> 00:09:05.586 changing in ways that we had never expected before. 149 00:09:05.586 --> 00:09:09.799 We're actually able to see the surface change very slowly underneath our feet. 150 00:09:10.216 --> 00:09:13.511 We're able to measure the presence of water on the surface of the moon. 151 00:09:13.511 --> 00:09:16.722 And so over the next several years, we're going to be looking at the presence, 152 00:09:16.764 --> 00:09:20.184 abundance of water in places near the south pole of the moon, places 153 00:09:20.184 --> 00:09:23.854 that we hope to explore with future human and robotic explorers. 154 00:09:24.188 --> 00:09:26.774 We're also looking at the volcanic and impact history of the moon, 155 00:09:26.774 --> 00:09:30.611 the fundamental geologic evolution of the object over billions of years. 156 00:09:30.611 --> 00:09:33.948 And so the next three years of LRO data is going to really 157 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:37.660 reveal some of the additional mysteries about the moon and set us up 158 00:09:37.660 --> 00:09:40.746 for the next decade and beyond of lunar explorations 159 00:09:40.746 --> 00:09:43.833 with both human and robotic explorers going to the surface of the moon.