[music]
Narrator: NASA is an agency of explorers.
It looks out into space. It looks back at Earth.
What do penguins have to do with it? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Which is precisely why NASA takes them so seriously.
Here on Operation IceBridge, researchers us a modified
DC-8 to fly low and slow over wide expanses of Antarctic
geography including the coasts.
The goal is to gather data about changing conditions over time. But while
ice research at the bottom of the world requires pluck and fortitude for human
travelers, it's home to these guys. And they're all over the place
at the water's edge. Big airplanes like this one can cause a
ruckus in a rookery. And as far as NASA's concerned, that's
just not cricket. So mission planners take penguin habitats
into account when they design flight plans.
Routes are carefully considered ensuring the plane either steers around penguin
habitats, or passes high overhead so as not to bother anyone.
So yeah, penguins and NASA. They do share
a few things after all. They share the same atmosphere, the same
sun, the same solar system. And more.
That's when we visit there turf, we try to tread lightly. [clapping sound]
Ok we're done. Do you want to go get something to eat?
You feel like fish? I could do fish?
[music]