WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.870 Hello, I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber, and today 2 00:00:03.870 --> 00:00:07.307 I get the pleasure of chatting with Ivona, an oceanographer and a scientist 3 00:00:07.307 --> 00:00:11.044 who can help me understand NASA's PACE mission and what it does for 4 00:00:11.044 --> 00:00:13.713 the health of the oceans and what that means for us. 5 00:00:13.713 --> 00:00:16.449 Ivona, thanks for a chatting with me today. 6 00:00:16.449 --> 00:00:18.385 So, so happy to be here. 7 00:00:18.385 --> 00:00:21.287 I'm very honored myself too. 8 00:00:21.287 --> 00:00:23.990 You may not know, but actually the last two big expeditions 9 00:00:23.990 --> 00:00:27.560 that I've done were for television programs, and they both involved 10 00:00:27.560 --> 00:00:32.165 ocean health and and one of them, we've launched a NASA probe for OMG, 11 00:00:32.165 --> 00:00:35.702 the Oceans Melting Greenland project. -Oh, awesome. 12 00:00:35.702 --> 00:00:37.370 So I feel like I’m 13 00:00:37.370 --> 00:00:42.175 I've been sort of into NASA ocean health projects already, but so it's it's 14 00:00:42.175 --> 00:00:45.979 nice to be able to talk to you today and learn more about the current project. 15 00:00:46.112 --> 00:00:49.315 So, yeah, well, I mean, like, you were working part part of the 16 00:00:49.349 --> 00:00:53.286 you know, this part of NASA that is looking at ice, but NASA is really, 17 00:00:53.286 --> 00:00:56.289 you know, looking at all different systems of the Earth. 18 00:00:56.489 --> 00:00:59.325 And we have ice, we have land, we have atmosphere, we have ocean. 19 00:00:59.325 --> 00:01:02.562 And I'm kind of like, you know, really focused on oceanography 20 00:01:02.562 --> 00:01:06.132 and trying to understand how different processes in the ocean are impacting, 21 00:01:06.132 --> 00:01:08.568 you know, our livelihood, but also the whole, you know, 22 00:01:08.568 --> 00:01:10.603 climate system of the Earth. 23 00:01:10.603 --> 00:01:12.372 But I think maybe the bigger question is 24 00:01:12.372 --> 00:01:16.309 how often does NASA look back at Earth as opposed to at space? 25 00:01:16.309 --> 00:01:19.179 I mean, I think that most of us think of NASA as, 26 00:01:19.179 --> 00:01:23.116 you know, going to the Moon, going to Mars, going into deep space or something. 27 00:01:23.116 --> 00:01:26.019 But how much of NASA's work is focused on the Earth? 28 00:01:26.886 --> 00:01:29.189 So that's a really good point, because when, you know, people 29 00:01:29.189 --> 00:01:32.425 ask me what I do, I say like, I'm an oceanographer and I work at NASA. 30 00:01:32.425 --> 00:01:33.026 They're like, hmm? 31 00:01:33.026 --> 00:01:33.293 You know, 32 00:01:33.293 --> 00:01:36.596 big question mark on top of their head because not that many people know 33 00:01:36.596 --> 00:01:40.266 that really like a big portion of NASA's mission is looking back at the Earth, 34 00:01:40.300 --> 00:01:43.903 you know, having that vantage point of space and turning these instruments 35 00:01:43.970 --> 00:01:47.207 back towards our home allows us to observe the Earth 36 00:01:47.207 --> 00:01:50.510 in a way that we can't do it from sitting down here. 37 00:01:50.510 --> 00:01:54.114 So big portion of NASA, I think we have like 20 different satellites 38 00:01:54.347 --> 00:01:56.983 are looking back at the Earth, at different aspects of Earth. 39 00:01:56.983 --> 00:01:59.786 So talk about this current mission, the PACE mission. 40 00:01:59.786 --> 00:02:02.222 What differentiates that from the other NASA 41 00:02:02.222 --> 00:02:04.390 missions that are also looking at the Earth? 42 00:02:04.390 --> 00:02:05.859 So PACE mission, 43 00:02:05.859 --> 00:02:08.862 you know, It's my baby, So I love it and I think is the best one ever. 44 00:02:08.995 --> 00:02:12.365 But PACE is I mean, like, you know, like your love your children the best. 45 00:02:12.365 --> 00:02:15.368 They are better than everybody else, however weird they are. 46 00:02:15.401 --> 00:02:19.572 But PACE stands for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem 47 00:02:19.572 --> 00:02:21.941 And it's a really one of a kind mission that’s 48 00:02:21.941 --> 00:02:25.044 going to be looking at a global ocean color and atmosphere. 49 00:02:25.044 --> 00:02:25.945 as well. 50 00:02:25.945 --> 00:02:30.383 What makes it so special is that for difference that other global 51 00:02:30.383 --> 00:02:34.721 missions, it's going to be able to see so many different colors of the rainbow. 52 00:02:34.821 --> 00:02:37.690 So imagine, you know, like you have a supersonic camera 53 00:02:37.690 --> 00:02:40.393 sitting on a satellite looking down at the ocean. 54 00:02:40.393 --> 00:02:44.464 And before this one, we just had that like, you know, Nokia flip phone cameras. 55 00:02:44.531 --> 00:02:48.268 So the amount of information that we're going to be getting is so much larger 56 00:02:48.268 --> 00:02:53.373 than we had before and higher quality information--sorry. 57 00:02:53.473 --> 00:02:54.240 Go ahead. 58 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:55.909 What is that, what does that information tell you? 59 00:02:55.909 --> 00:03:00.880 So why does the color of the ocean tell us anything about the health of the ocean? 60 00:03:00.980 --> 00:03:01.981 Yeah, great question. 61 00:03:01.981 --> 00:03:05.151 So so, you know, like, yeah, everybody thinks ocean’s blue. 62 00:03:05.151 --> 00:03:05.852 Ocean is not blue. 63 00:03:05.852 --> 00:03:10.390 Ocean comes in many different colors and what changes the color of the ocean-- 64 00:03:10.390 --> 00:03:14.160 I'm like, I don't know where you from originally. 65 00:03:14.227 --> 00:03:14.827 California. 66 00:03:14.827 --> 00:03:17.864 Okay, well, you have kind of bluish color of the ocean, but, you know, like, 67 00:03:17.864 --> 00:03:21.100 if you go in and like in the San Francisco Bay and stuff, 68 00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:22.769 that ocean is not really any more blue. 69 00:03:22.769 --> 00:03:25.038 It's kind of like greenish and brownish and stuff. 70 00:03:25.038 --> 00:03:28.942 And the color of the ocean changes based on the things that are in the ocean. 71 00:03:29.008 --> 00:03:32.378 And we go in the field, we measure the color of the ocean, 72 00:03:32.378 --> 00:03:33.947 we measure the things that are in the ocean. 73 00:03:33.947 --> 00:03:37.650 We try to build these mathematical ways to translate the color 74 00:03:37.717 --> 00:03:39.285 into what is in the ocean. 75 00:03:39.285 --> 00:03:42.021 And, you know, we can have sediment, we can have dirt, 76 00:03:42.021 --> 00:03:45.992 we can have dissolved organic material, which is kind of like, you know, leaf tea. 77 00:03:45.992 --> 00:03:48.528 But ultimately, and most importantly, 78 00:03:48.528 --> 00:03:51.864 We can have this teeny tiny plankton that lives in there. 79 00:03:51.864 --> 00:03:53.666 These are like, you know, plants or animals 80 00:03:53.666 --> 00:03:56.636 that support the life in the ocean. 81 00:03:56.636 --> 00:03:58.204 So that's kind of what I study. 82 00:03:58.204 --> 00:04:00.073 So just by looking at the color, 83 00:04:00.073 --> 00:04:02.976 I can tell you how many of them there is in there. 84 00:04:02.976 --> 00:04:03.476 So yeah. 85 00:04:03.476 --> 00:04:09.449 That tells us a lot, a lot about, you know, how ocean is, how healthy is the ocean. 86 00:04:09.449 --> 00:04:10.717 And it's kind of 87 00:04:10.717 --> 00:04:13.820 amazing when you think about it that a satellite in space 88 00:04:13.820 --> 00:04:18.057 with a very fancy camera can look at the ocean and tell how many living things 89 00:04:18.057 --> 00:04:18.858 are inside the ocean. 90 00:04:18.858 --> 00:04:21.227 I mean normally you would think that 91 00:04:21.227 --> 00:04:24.297 to determine the number of plankton or phytoplankton in the ocean, 92 00:04:24.297 --> 00:04:27.867 you have to sample the water itself and sort of count the living things. 93 00:04:27.867 --> 00:04:30.937 I mean, isn't it--like is this new technology? 94 00:04:30.937 --> 00:04:34.140 Or is this you like I mean, this seems this seems kind of mind-blowing to me 95 00:04:34.140 --> 00:04:37.210 that you can count the number of living things in the ocean from space. -It is. 96 00:04:37.210 --> 00:04:39.145 It is because you have something that is so 97 00:04:39.145 --> 00:04:41.047 teeny tiny that you can't see with your eyes. 98 00:04:41.047 --> 00:04:42.215 And we usually yes, 99 00:04:42.215 --> 00:04:44.751 we usually take samples of water, look at them under the microscope. 100 00:04:44.751 --> 00:04:49.622 But if you think: they're plants, no, and every plant kind of has green stuff, 101 00:04:49.622 --> 00:04:52.625 the same as plants in the land, these guys have this pigment 102 00:04:52.625 --> 00:04:55.161 that allows them to actually make that and capture 103 00:04:55.161 --> 00:04:59.165 the energy and capture the carbon and feed the rest of the ocean --using chlorophyll? 104 00:04:59.165 --> 00:04:59.666 chlorophyll?--so we can see this. 105 00:04:59.666 --> 00:05:03.102 Yeah. Chlorophyl. Exactly. Yay. Awesome. 106 00:05:03.202 --> 00:05:05.972 So we can see this chlorophyl from space the same way as we can see 107 00:05:05.972 --> 00:05:08.808 the plants in the land. We can see this chlorophyl from space. 108 00:05:08.808 --> 00:05:12.679 The more green there is, the more phytoplankton there is in the ocean. 109 00:05:12.679 --> 00:05:14.681 So this technology is really not that new. 110 00:05:14.681 --> 00:05:18.584 We have we've been observing ocean for over 20 years now 111 00:05:18.618 --> 00:05:22.255 just by looking at a certain set of colors so we can see the green, 112 00:05:22.322 --> 00:05:24.657 we can see a couple of blues, we can see a couple of reds. 113 00:05:24.657 --> 00:05:26.726 And from there we can say, 114 00:05:26.793 --> 00:05:29.762 there is this much phytoplankton in the ocean. 115 00:05:29.762 --> 00:05:33.333 But what PACE is bringing along is that it’s going to be able 116 00:05:33.333 --> 00:05:35.168 to see so many different colors. 117 00:05:35.168 --> 00:05:37.136 So roll back into your backyard. 118 00:05:37.136 --> 00:05:40.440 We have different plants, different roses or whatever. 119 00:05:40.440 --> 00:05:43.676 You have lots of different plants that have different colors, no? 120 00:05:43.743 --> 00:05:46.479 I live in the desert, so there are several species of plant, 121 00:05:46.479 --> 00:05:47.680 but there aren’t that many species of plant. 122 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:50.850 Just imagine that like, you know, anza-borrego after the rain, 123 00:05:50.850 --> 00:05:54.921 that beautiful bloom of everything, 124 00:05:54.987 --> 00:05:58.658 and in the ocean, you have it's very similar situations 125 00:05:58.658 --> 00:06:02.462 where you have a bunch of different phytoplankton has different colors, 126 00:06:02.462 --> 00:06:06.566 and these pigments do not just pretty things, but they really help 127 00:06:06.632 --> 00:06:08.468 for that transfer of energy. 128 00:06:08.468 --> 00:06:11.938 So PACE is going to be able to see all these different colors. 129 00:06:11.938 --> 00:06:16.242 So currently we see green, if we want to talk about, you know, like 130 00:06:16.342 --> 00:06:18.911 how much food is there in the ocean, we can say that now, 131 00:06:18.911 --> 00:06:22.882 but we cannot say what type of food is in the ocean, what type of phytoplankton 132 00:06:22.882 --> 00:06:25.918 is there and how is it impacting, you know, the carbon flow in the ocean. 133 00:06:25.952 --> 00:06:29.155 So many different important questions that we have. Yes. 134 00:06:29.288 --> 00:06:32.692 So how does the amount and type of phytoplankton in the ocean 135 00:06:32.692 --> 00:06:34.427 determine ocean health? 136 00:06:34.427 --> 00:06:35.995 What does that really tell us? 137 00:06:35.995 --> 00:06:38.664 Yeah, knowing that there are lots of tiny little creatures in the sea, 138 00:06:38.664 --> 00:06:40.433 what does that mean? 139 00:06:40.833 --> 00:06:45.405 So, you know, like on one side, phytoplankton 140 00:06:45.505 --> 00:06:47.740 is the the base of marine food web. 141 00:06:47.740 --> 00:06:51.744 Now we want to have a good amount of phytoplankton to support the livelihood 142 00:06:51.744 --> 00:06:53.246 of all these other things. 143 00:06:53.246 --> 00:06:56.516 You know, this like, you know, really cool megafauna 144 00:06:56.516 --> 00:07:00.920 that we care about, you know, dolphins and whales and manatees down in Florida. 145 00:07:00.987 --> 00:07:04.056 So we want to have this this phytoplankton 146 00:07:04.056 --> 00:07:07.160 present there and we want to have diversity of phytoplankton. 147 00:07:07.160 --> 00:07:10.663 We also want to have phytoplankton present there because it gives 148 00:07:10.663 --> 00:07:14.267 a really big ecosystem service to the climate of the ocean. 149 00:07:14.367 --> 00:07:18.704 So phytoplankton captures that carbon and while feeding the rest of the ocean, 150 00:07:18.704 --> 00:07:22.842 actually removes some of the carbon from the atmosphere and controls the climate. 151 00:07:22.942 --> 00:07:26.145 But ultimately, when you think about ocean health-- sorry, go ahead. 152 00:07:26.245 --> 00:07:28.848 Well, actually, that's just a question of 153 00:07:28.848 --> 00:07:32.351 when we talk about the oceans absorbing carbon, because I mean, you know, 154 00:07:32.351 --> 00:07:34.687 I've read statistics about climate change and stuff that oceans absorb 155 00:07:34.687 --> 00:07:37.290 most of what humans have dumped into the atmosphere 156 00:07:37.290 --> 00:07:38.724 over the last hundred years. 157 00:07:38.724 --> 00:07:40.426 Fifty percent, yeah. 158 00:07:40.426 --> 00:07:43.996 So is that through phytoplankton, is that what you're describing? 159 00:07:43.996 --> 00:07:47.767 Like when we talk about oceans absorbing carbon, how much is that through phytoplankton 160 00:07:47.767 --> 00:07:51.671 and through other things eating phytoplankton? 161 00:07:52.104 --> 00:07:52.405 Yeah. 162 00:07:52.405 --> 00:07:55.041 So, so there's, there's two different systems in the ocean. 163 00:07:55.041 --> 00:07:57.877 Majority of this anthropogenic carbon that we are talking about 164 00:07:57.877 --> 00:08:01.347 is actually absorbed through ocean itself, through the water of the ocean, no? 165 00:08:01.581 --> 00:08:04.116 So you just have a physical process of diffusion 166 00:08:04.116 --> 00:08:06.018 And that’s the ocean acidification? --and that takes the anthropogenic. 167 00:08:06.018 --> 00:08:06.686 Yeah. 168 00:08:06.686 --> 00:08:11.824 What phytoplankton does, phytoplankton really likes they like a natural carbon. 169 00:08:11.824 --> 00:08:14.727 Carbon that comes from the natural sources, the carbon that is already there. 170 00:08:14.727 --> 00:08:17.830 But just by doing so, by removing this carbon from the surface 171 00:08:17.830 --> 00:08:21.400 of the ocean, it allows more carbon to enter inside. 172 00:08:21.501 --> 00:08:23.536 So it's not directly eating the anthropogenic 173 00:08:23.536 --> 00:08:26.572 carbon, it's not taking that one, but it's removing the other one 174 00:08:26.772 --> 00:08:29.108 so the anthropogenic carbon can come inside. 175 00:08:29.108 --> 00:08:32.111 But what is more important, so it’s really good, 176 00:08:32.245 --> 00:08:35.414 you know, remove that carbon, puts it into sugars, either dies 177 00:08:35.414 --> 00:08:38.818 and then sinks deep into the ocean and removes that carbon 178 00:08:38.818 --> 00:08:40.486 from that contact with the atmosphere, therefore 179 00:08:40.486 --> 00:08:43.022 leaving that space open for more carbon to come in. 180 00:08:43.022 --> 00:08:47.994 Or it shoves it like, you know, laterally into the fishes and rest of the 181 00:08:48.094 --> 00:08:50.696 and things in the ocean that ultimately poop 182 00:08:50.696 --> 00:08:53.966 and then the poop sinks down and once again you're removing that carbon. 183 00:08:53.966 --> 00:08:58.671 So it's, it's a really interesting process where you have biology 184 00:08:58.671 --> 00:09:03.309 just kind of making space for the physics to pull down that anthropogenic carbon. 185 00:09:03.409 --> 00:09:05.278 that kind of like explaining it? 186 00:09:05.278 --> 00:09:07.446 Yeah, no, totally, totally. -Awesome. 187 00:09:07.446 --> 00:09:12.885 I mean I guess that brings me back to the bigger questions about PACE. 188 00:09:12.885 --> 00:09:16.756 So, so what's the key differentiator like, well, what's what's new? 189 00:09:16.756 --> 00:09:18.558 It's just that the camera is much nicer, 190 00:09:18.558 --> 00:09:20.993 so you get great resolution on what exactly is in the ocean? 191 00:09:20.993 --> 00:09:21.561 Yeah, Yeah. 192 00:09:21.561 --> 00:09:23.095 And that's sort of sounds like, Yeah, well, 193 00:09:23.095 --> 00:09:26.432 you know, like you can go down and like get a better iPhone 194 00:09:26.432 --> 00:09:29.402 and then whatever phone, but it's a big deal for us. 195 00:09:29.402 --> 00:09:30.836 You know, like for, for 20 years 196 00:09:30.836 --> 00:09:33.806 we've been staring at the ocean and seeing in five or six colors 197 00:09:33.806 --> 00:09:37.143 and it couldn't tell you if it's a, if it's an oak forest or is it a meadow. 198 00:09:37.143 --> 00:09:38.611 You know, or is it a desert blooming? 199 00:09:38.611 --> 00:09:41.581 With PACE I'm going to be able to tell you that. 200 00:09:41.581 --> 00:09:43.516 And it's really important because think about yourself. 201 00:09:43.516 --> 00:09:46.052 You can't eat peas all the time, you know, the specific diet, 202 00:09:46.052 --> 00:09:49.255 and you want to know what is there to be offered. So... 203 00:09:49.255 --> 00:09:50.056 That's a good 204 00:09:50.056 --> 00:09:53.292 analogy, differentiating between the desert in bloom versus 205 00:09:53.292 --> 00:09:56.696 a meadow because it’s like fundamentally different ecosystems, completely different. 206 00:09:56.696 --> 00:10:00.399 But you're right, viewed from above, you just be like it’s a bunch of green. Like it all looks the same. 207 00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:01.200 Exactly. 208 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:05.271 It could be a lawn, could be a meadow, could be a desert after a big rain. 209 00:10:05.271 --> 00:10:07.740 Could be your desert now blooming. 210 00:10:07.740 --> 00:10:11.677 And the ocean does have, you know, jungles and deserts and stuff 211 00:10:11.677 --> 00:10:12.578 we just don't think about. 212 00:10:12.578 --> 00:10:16.148 And we really never thought about it until we had a vision 213 00:10:16.148 --> 00:10:19.385 of of of, of ocean from the, from the space. 214 00:10:19.385 --> 00:10:21.587 That's pretty much the first time where like, you know, 215 00:10:21.587 --> 00:10:22.588 when you look at these animations 216 00:10:22.588 --> 00:10:26.125 that NASA has, you see this like blooms like pulsating, you know. 217 00:10:26.392 --> 00:10:29.261 In North Atlantic along the coast and stuff like that. 218 00:10:29.261 --> 00:10:30.796 And that's the vantage point of space. 219 00:10:30.796 --> 00:10:33.299 This is where we start to understand so much better. 220 00:10:33.299 --> 00:10:34.800 You know, the the the 221 00:10:34.800 --> 00:10:38.404 not just the vastness, but the diversity of the ecosystems and the ocean. 222 00:10:38.471 --> 00:10:40.539 And, you know, and this is just the beginning. 223 00:10:40.539 --> 00:10:42.174 We just see the base of the food chain. 224 00:10:42.174 --> 00:10:45.044 And then you can just imagine everything else that happens 225 00:10:45.044 --> 00:10:48.014 in three dimensions of the ocean in a sense. 226 00:10:49.215 --> 00:10:49.949 It's pretty cool. 227 00:10:49.949 --> 00:10:50.383 Yeah. Yeah. 228 00:10:50.383 --> 00:10:53.386 So what are you most excited about with the PACE mission? 229 00:10:53.386 --> 00:10:55.955 Which aspect of PACE mission gets you fired up? 230 00:10:56.589 --> 00:11:01.427 So, so, you know, there's there's lots of human impact 231 00:11:01.427 --> 00:11:04.397 when it comes to PACE you know, like harmful algal blooms 232 00:11:04.397 --> 00:11:08.734 and all these things, you know, fisheries in coastal area, aquaculture. 233 00:11:08.801 --> 00:11:11.137 I'm an open ocean girl, I'm a carbon girl. 234 00:11:11.137 --> 00:11:15.207 I'm really, really, really interested in understanding 235 00:11:15.207 --> 00:11:17.076 how the diversity of the phytoplankton. 236 00:11:17.076 --> 00:11:20.946 So like, you know, the community that you see in your blooming desert 237 00:11:21.047 --> 00:11:22.448 impacts the flow of carbon. 238 00:11:22.448 --> 00:11:24.183 I'm really working on that whole story 239 00:11:24.183 --> 00:11:27.453 that we spoke about is, you know, where is the carbon going to end up? 240 00:11:27.453 --> 00:11:30.589 Because ultimately the diversity of the phytoplankton 241 00:11:30.589 --> 00:11:33.759 community in the surface will determine the path of that carbon. 242 00:11:33.859 --> 00:11:39.031 And once I understand that, we can work with modelers 243 00:11:39.098 --> 00:11:42.568 and modelers can put that in their bigger system models and 244 00:11:42.735 --> 00:11:46.572 and then give us, you know, like a better opportunity to understand 245 00:11:46.572 --> 00:11:49.709 what's going to be happening down the line not just for the oceans, 246 00:11:49.709 --> 00:11:53.179 but also for the whole Earth system, because everything is interconnected. 247 00:11:53.179 --> 00:11:55.448 So that's where I am. 248 00:11:55.448 --> 00:11:58.050 And I think that's that's something that we talk about, 249 00:11:58.050 --> 00:11:59.952 just getting more data to put in the models. 250 00:11:59.952 --> 00:12:02.955 That's something I sort of realized on our expedition in Greenland. 251 00:12:02.955 --> 00:12:06.625 Where I was describing launching a little NASA probe with the OMG. 252 00:12:06.625 --> 00:12:10.696 You know, it was just like a little little metal cylinder that bobs up and down 253 00:12:10.730 --> 00:12:12.398 and measures temperature and salinity 254 00:12:12.398 --> 00:12:15.968 in the fjord and kind of helps determine how much the ocean is melting 255 00:12:15.968 --> 00:12:18.971 the glaciers or vice versa, how much water is coming from each. 256 00:12:18.971 --> 00:12:22.942 And you know, you're like, it's just one tiny, 257 00:12:22.942 --> 00:12:26.979 tiny little device that just adds data to, 258 00:12:26.979 --> 00:12:28.214 you know, it made me realize 259 00:12:28.214 --> 00:12:31.851 how much modern science is just tons and tons of data. Yep. 260 00:12:31.851 --> 00:12:35.755 Trying to paint a more full image of how the world actually works. 261 00:12:35.755 --> 00:12:38.524 And so when you talk about a mission like PACE, or talk about OMG and like 262 00:12:38.524 --> 00:12:40.726 launching this little temperature and salinity probe, 263 00:12:40.726 --> 00:12:45.197 you're like, it's not as if one instrument is is doing the thing. 264 00:12:45.197 --> 00:12:48.200 It's not like the one instrument is, you know, 265 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:51.203 making key discoveries by itself necessarily, 266 00:12:51.203 --> 00:12:55.508 but it's helping to determine, I don't know. 267 00:12:55.508 --> 00:12:59.078 It just made me realize that the vastness of science now. 268 00:12:59.745 --> 00:13:04.016 It, it takes a lot of data to sort of understand very complex systems. 269 00:13:04.183 --> 00:13:06.919 Yeah. And you know, I'm a biologist by training. 270 00:13:07.019 --> 00:13:10.122 I started as a biologist, like, you know, doing classical biological 271 00:13:10.122 --> 00:13:10.623 things, you know, 272 00:13:10.623 --> 00:13:12.958 looking at the things in the microscope, looking at the little like, 273 00:13:12.958 --> 00:13:14.894 you know, foxes running into the forest and stuff. 274 00:13:14.894 --> 00:13:18.497 And as I was going up, you know, through my, you know, 275 00:13:18.597 --> 00:13:21.801 my training, I've been turning myself more and more towards data. 276 00:13:21.901 --> 00:13:24.804 You know, I still go in ocean, I still collect samples and still, 277 00:13:24.804 --> 00:13:27.606 you know, throw these little probes similar to the ones that you have, 278 00:13:27.606 --> 00:13:30.643 you know, throw in to see temperature and salinity because again, temperature 279 00:13:30.643 --> 00:13:34.046 salinity defines the ecosystem in which my phytoplankton lives. 280 00:13:34.113 --> 00:13:37.316 There's such a thorough data out there and the more data we get with 281 00:13:37.349 --> 00:13:41.287 that allows us to better focus on the things that we don't understand. 282 00:13:41.387 --> 00:13:44.390 So like, you know, PACE is going to give us like currently--to 283 00:13:44.423 --> 00:13:47.827 step back--currently we know from the current ocean 284 00:13:47.827 --> 00:13:50.830 color satellites that there's a big change happening in the ocean. 285 00:13:51.063 --> 00:13:52.498 There’s certain types of oceans, 286 00:13:52.498 --> 00:13:56.502 the certain portions of the oceans that are getting greener, you know, rapidly. 287 00:13:56.602 --> 00:13:57.469 And we can just say that 288 00:13:57.469 --> 00:14:00.639 they're getting greener because we can’t see different colors. 289 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:03.809 But with PACE we're going to be able to look at those portions 290 00:14:03.809 --> 00:14:07.079 of the ocean and understand is there just only a change 291 00:14:07.079 --> 00:14:11.417 in the number of the phytoplankton, or is it also actually community changing? 292 00:14:11.417 --> 00:14:14.954 Because going back, you know, like if you have a specific thing that depends 293 00:14:14.954 --> 00:14:19.692 and likes to eat, only peas and peas are disappearing, we have a problem. 294 00:14:19.792 --> 00:14:22.528 So like, you know, every new data set, 295 00:14:22.528 --> 00:14:25.764 I mean, every new vastness of data allows us to focus better on the problem. 296 00:14:25.764 --> 00:14:30.469 And yeah, there's the more data we have, the better decisions we can make. 297 00:14:30.469 --> 00:14:34.540 And what you're describing there like this species composition sort of thing. 298 00:14:34.540 --> 00:14:35.641 I mean that's kind of like the 299 00:14:35.641 --> 00:14:39.745 algal blooms, like from and from like agricultural runoff and things 300 00:14:39.745 --> 00:14:43.082 where it just kills an entire area because of the wrong-- Yes, Yes. 301 00:14:43.315 --> 00:14:45.017 And that's one of the things that's 302 00:14:45.284 --> 00:14:46.919 one of the things that we're going to be able to see. 303 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:47.786 So think about, you know, 304 00:14:47.786 --> 00:14:50.856 like you have the coast of California, I went to grad school there. 305 00:14:50.856 --> 00:14:54.927 You know, you have this red bloom, a red tide blooms, or you have this 306 00:14:54.927 --> 00:14:59.331 like diatoms pseudo-nitzschia blooms that make birds and sea 307 00:14:59.331 --> 00:15:02.468 mammals kind of like a little bit cuckoo because it has a toxin 308 00:15:02.468 --> 00:15:04.370 that impacts their brain. 309 00:15:04.436 --> 00:15:05.571 So so 310 00:15:05.571 --> 00:15:08.807 by looking at it from space, if we can see it early, 311 00:15:08.908 --> 00:15:12.544 we can send a warning to the local, you know, like mammal 312 00:15:12.544 --> 00:15:17.016 society, decision makers, surfers and everybody who they kind of like lives. 313 00:15:17.082 --> 00:15:17.816 I mean, surfers. 314 00:15:17.816 --> 00:15:19.618 I mean, like they're there, they're out there. 315 00:15:19.618 --> 00:15:22.454 You didn't want them to be more cuckoo than they are, no? 316 00:15:22.454 --> 00:15:24.790 So so but you know and you would be surprised 317 00:15:24.790 --> 00:15:26.425 how much of that coastal communities 318 00:15:26.425 --> 00:15:30.796 actually plugged into our data, you know, because we really work hard 319 00:15:30.896 --> 00:15:34.533 to have those type of communities they're dependent on the ocean. 320 00:15:34.533 --> 00:15:37.736 The coastal communities have access to this data that we produce. 321 00:15:37.736 --> 00:15:39.905 We've been working for the last three years really closely 322 00:15:39.905 --> 00:15:45.244 with people like surfers, aquaculture people, fishermen, policy makers 323 00:15:45.244 --> 00:15:48.247 to actually start using PACE data the same second they come out 324 00:15:48.447 --> 00:15:50.582 so they can make this informed decision about ooh, 325 00:15:50.582 --> 00:15:52.351 there's a harmful algal bloom coming. 326 00:15:52.351 --> 00:15:56.355 We should maybe not, you know, pick oysters for like two weeks 327 00:15:56.355 --> 00:15:59.391 so we don't kill anybody who's going to eat those oysters and things like that. 328 00:15:59.391 --> 00:16:02.027 So that's all interconnected. Yep. 329 00:16:02.027 --> 00:16:02.561 I feel like the 330 00:16:02.561 --> 00:16:05.331 PACE mission needs to chat with more professional surfers. 331 00:16:05.431 --> 00:16:07.866 Like why did you get a rock climber, like, I'm into, 332 00:16:07.866 --> 00:16:08.901 you know, mountains and glaciers. 333 00:16:08.901 --> 00:16:10.536 We will make a surfer out of you 334 00:16:10.536 --> 00:16:12.771 like you go, you know, like I was like, you know, at one point 335 00:16:12.771 --> 00:16:14.640 you going to start exploring other spheres 336 00:16:14.640 --> 00:16:16.542 of the Earth then, you know, like, we're in the ocean, 337 00:16:16.542 --> 00:16:19.645 we welcome you, you know. But everything is interconnected, 338 00:16:19.645 --> 00:16:22.815 you know, like ocean controls in a sense climate. 339 00:16:22.815 --> 00:16:25.818 It controls a big portion, the cycle of the water. 340 00:16:25.951 --> 00:16:28.253 You can't climb if everything is wet, it gets slippery 341 00:16:28.253 --> 00:16:29.488 and you fall and you don't want to fall. 342 00:16:29.488 --> 00:16:32.691 So all these things-- --No, like I was saying 343 00:16:32.691 --> 00:16:36.362 in my last two big expeditions that were both for National Geographic 344 00:16:36.362 --> 00:16:40.032 TV shows, this summer was to Alaska, the summer before was to Greenland, 345 00:16:40.032 --> 00:16:42.401 but both of them involve boats to navigate fjords. 346 00:16:42.401 --> 00:16:44.236 Both of them 347 00:16:44.503 --> 00:16:48.007 went through, you know, basically the local communities all rely on fishing. 348 00:16:48.007 --> 00:16:49.008 So it's, 349 00:16:49.008 --> 00:16:52.878 you know, just makes your remember how much of the world is dependent. 350 00:16:52.878 --> 00:16:55.681 And then also, I mean, just with Arctic glaciers 351 00:16:55.681 --> 00:16:58.617 retreating, I mean, that is sea level rise, and that determines-- 352 00:16:58.617 --> 00:17:00.152 I mean, that's like hundreds of millions 353 00:17:00.152 --> 00:17:03.155 people around the Earth that are affected by by oceans rising. 354 00:17:03.288 --> 00:17:05.691 And so no matter, you know, I live in a desert. 355 00:17:05.691 --> 00:17:06.558 I mostly climb rocks. 356 00:17:06.558 --> 00:17:10.562 And so I don't often think about the ocean necessarily, but, you know, 357 00:17:10.562 --> 00:17:11.830 as soon as you go on an expedition, 358 00:17:11.830 --> 00:17:14.433 as soon as you really think about it, you're like the entire coast. 359 00:17:14.433 --> 00:17:17.836 I mean, that's you know, it's hundreds of millions of humans that are affected by 360 00:17:17.836 --> 00:17:19.705 what goes on at the oceans. 361 00:17:20.839 --> 00:17:21.173 Yeah. 362 00:17:21.173 --> 00:17:23.208 And in a sense, you know, like again, 363 00:17:23.208 --> 00:17:25.244 you know, you live in the desert, you climb and so on. 364 00:17:25.244 --> 00:17:27.446 But think about just like economically, 365 00:17:27.446 --> 00:17:29.815 there's a big portion of the protein coming from the ocean. 366 00:17:29.815 --> 00:17:31.450 Remove that source of protein. 367 00:17:31.450 --> 00:17:33.419 Now you have an impact from the rest of the, 368 00:17:33.419 --> 00:17:35.287 you know, protein sources on the land. 369 00:17:35.287 --> 00:17:38.424 So even if you don't eat fish, if you don't if you don't like fish, 370 00:17:38.424 --> 00:17:40.092 you don't care about the ocean, stuff like that. There's 371 00:17:40.092 --> 00:17:44.196 so many different routes that ocean, you know, that that's going to impact 372 00:17:44.196 --> 00:17:45.998 you. Just think about ocean transport. 373 00:17:45.998 --> 00:17:47.866 There's so, so, so many different things. 374 00:17:47.866 --> 00:17:52.304 I mean, ultimately, you know, for many of us, ocean is just not livelihood. 375 00:17:52.304 --> 00:17:54.873 Ocean is like, you know, part of our cultural heritage. 376 00:17:54.873 --> 00:17:56.842 I come from the coastal community. 377 00:17:56.842 --> 00:17:59.044 My parents come from two islands. 378 00:17:59.044 --> 00:18:00.712 It's just part of everything, 379 00:18:00.712 --> 00:18:04.683 you know, everything what I do, is comes, starts and ends with the ocean. 380 00:18:04.750 --> 00:18:06.585 Weather is associated with the ocean. 381 00:18:06.585 --> 00:18:08.053 The stories associate with the ocean. 382 00:18:08.053 --> 00:18:11.824 So, you know, ocean makes so many-- so much strong impact 383 00:18:11.824 --> 00:18:13.158 on all us around the Earth, 384 00:18:13.158 --> 00:18:16.562 regardless if we're close to the ocean or living in a desert like you are. 385 00:18:16.562 --> 00:18:19.264 And maybe the most underappreciated aspect, like you're saying, 386 00:18:19.264 --> 00:18:22.868 if it's absorbed 50% of the anthropogenic carbon. 387 00:18:22.868 --> 00:18:25.804 And that's something that's sort of nobody thinks about. 388 00:18:26.472 --> 00:18:29.108 I mean, the ocean is taking for granted as a as a 389 00:18:29.108 --> 00:18:33.145 repository for waste and for absorbing waste into the atmosphere and just kind of 390 00:18:33.212 --> 00:18:36.215 it's like a big emptiness that that helps clean 391 00:18:36.281 --> 00:18:39.618 that we never really think of, and, you know, sort of take for granted. 392 00:18:39.685 --> 00:18:42.087 Yeah, yeah. It's ocean. 393 00:18:42.087 --> 00:18:44.756 You don't see it far away from my eyes, far away from the mine. 394 00:18:44.756 --> 00:18:50.596 But it's there is big and it's controlling pretty much everything we do. 395 00:18:50.696 --> 00:18:53.632 So is there anything else you think I should know about the PACE mission? 396 00:18:53.632 --> 00:18:55.367 I mean-- It's pretty awesome. 397 00:18:55.367 --> 00:18:58.403 We’ve really covered the “P,” the phytoplankton, 398 00:18:58.403 --> 00:19:00.038 but is there anything else we should touch on? 399 00:19:00.038 --> 00:19:01.140 We should touch on the “A” and “C,” yeah. 400 00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:03.442 So aerosols and clouds. 401 00:19:03.442 --> 00:19:05.844 I can say a little bit about that if you're interested. 402 00:19:05.844 --> 00:19:08.514 So and this might be maybe more important for you. 403 00:19:08.514 --> 00:19:11.817 So like, you know, by having this amazing technology and that's, 404 00:19:11.884 --> 00:19:15.220 I spoke of just one of the instruments, which is this Ocean Color Instrument, 405 00:19:15.220 --> 00:19:19.124 this hyperspectral, we're going to have a two teeny tiny instruments on the side. 406 00:19:19.124 --> 00:19:21.793 They're looking at the polarization of the light. 407 00:19:21.793 --> 00:19:23.228 So like, you know, if you think about the light 408 00:19:23.228 --> 00:19:25.197 and you put the sunglasses to stop the glare, 409 00:19:25.197 --> 00:19:29.501 that's pretty much cutting out certain polarization aspects of the light. 410 00:19:29.501 --> 00:19:30.636 It's kind of hard to explain. 411 00:19:30.636 --> 00:19:33.172 But by looking at the polarization of the light, 412 00:19:33.172 --> 00:19:36.675 we can get even more information about the little things 413 00:19:36.675 --> 00:19:38.443 that live in the--I mean, the don't live--you know 414 00:19:38.443 --> 00:19:40.712 the little things that are in the atmosphere. 415 00:19:40.712 --> 00:19:43.148 So aerosols and clouds, 416 00:19:43.148 --> 00:19:47.319 understanding the interaction between those and different types of on clouds 417 00:19:47.319 --> 00:19:49.788 can really, really, really help us to understand 418 00:19:49.788 --> 00:19:53.192 the role of atmosphere and those guys and climate. 419 00:19:53.392 --> 00:19:55.894 We really kind of don't know too much about it. 420 00:19:55.894 --> 00:19:59.598 And PACE is really with with the suite of instruments that it has, 421 00:19:59.598 --> 00:20:04.636 not just a main one can really answer and, you know, give us answer to those 422 00:20:04.636 --> 00:20:11.076 really big questions about role of that, our aerosols in clouds and climate, 423 00:20:11.143 --> 00:20:12.844 but ultimately rolling back to human health. 424 00:20:12.844 --> 00:20:15.280 It kind of like most of people think about this like, 425 00:20:15.280 --> 00:20:17.382 I don't know, where were you during this Canadian fires? 426 00:20:17.382 --> 00:20:20.219 Probably back in the desert, and you didn't really care about them, 427 00:20:20.219 --> 00:20:22.387 but we were like, choking out of here. --This summer? 428 00:20:22.387 --> 00:20:23.522 Yeah, Yeah. 429 00:20:23.522 --> 00:20:24.156 You know, actually. 430 00:20:24.156 --> 00:20:28.594 So the expedition that I was on, it ended with a boat in Alaska, 431 00:20:28.694 --> 00:20:30.429 and we were getting to this peak in Alaska, 432 00:20:30.429 --> 00:20:32.598 but we actually started by bicycling from Colorado. 433 00:20:32.598 --> 00:20:36.668 So we bicycled from there in Colorado up to the Canadian border, 434 00:20:36.668 --> 00:20:39.004 and they got in a boat and sailed up into southeast Alaska. 435 00:20:39.004 --> 00:20:42.975 So we actually biked like right through the center of a lot of those fires. 436 00:20:43.208 --> 00:20:48.247 But just by sheer good fortune happened to nail like this five day weather window. 437 00:20:48.247 --> 00:20:51.250 And we kind of like managed to thread the needle and it all worked out for us. 438 00:20:51.350 --> 00:20:53.952 And so we actually weren't too impacted by fires, 439 00:20:53.952 --> 00:20:56.355 but we were sort of threatened by them the entire time. 440 00:20:56.355 --> 00:20:58.857 And and, you know, had a few days of heavy smoke. 441 00:20:58.857 --> 00:21:02.561 But generally we were like, it was pretty crazy. 442 00:21:02.661 --> 00:21:06.298 It was it was disgusting and like biking through that, it's a no-no. 443 00:21:06.298 --> 00:21:08.400 I mean, like, we couldn't go out here for a couple of days in D.C. 444 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:11.036 and I can just not imagine it was further up north. 445 00:21:11.036 --> 00:21:13.472 So those kind of things, I mean, like looking at back 446 00:21:13.472 --> 00:21:16.575 at the climate change and things they will be happening in the future. 447 00:21:16.575 --> 00:21:19.578 However much we wish them not happening, they will be happening. 448 00:21:19.678 --> 00:21:20.379 These kind of events 449 00:21:20.379 --> 00:21:24.216 are going to be happening more and more, and PACE is going to be able to observe 450 00:21:24.283 --> 00:21:27.286 that information and give kind of like 451 00:21:27.386 --> 00:21:30.689 better source of data, better information about you know, 452 00:21:30.689 --> 00:21:34.026 where does that those those type of aerosols are going to go? 453 00:21:34.026 --> 00:21:34.893 How are they going to merge? 454 00:21:34.893 --> 00:21:35.927 How are they going to change? 455 00:21:35.927 --> 00:21:37.796 And ultimately, how is that going to impact, 456 00:21:37.796 --> 00:21:41.366 you know, our livelihood and livelihood of the rest of the ecosystem? 457 00:21:41.366 --> 00:21:42.434 We think about ourselves. 458 00:21:42.434 --> 00:21:44.903 But, you know, what about the little creatures that live in the forest? 459 00:21:44.903 --> 00:21:47.005 You know, like we can hide inside. 460 00:21:47.005 --> 00:21:51.610 But yeah, so so there's lots of information 461 00:21:51.610 --> 00:21:54.279 about both ocean and atmosphere that they're really getting and 462 00:21:54.279 --> 00:21:57.916 getting those to together is really cool because they talk to each other, you know. 463 00:21:58.116 --> 00:22:00.152 They exchange things, you know. 464 00:22:00.152 --> 00:22:02.788 Like think about volcano, it drops certain things in the ocean 465 00:22:02.788 --> 00:22:05.590 and that's food and the phytoplankton bloom. 466 00:22:05.590 --> 00:22:08.160 And there's so many cool stories that are going to come out of it. 467 00:22:08.160 --> 00:22:12.597 So, yeah, that's another thing that you should know about PACE. 468 00:22:12.664 --> 00:22:16.735 Actually, maybe two more really basic questions about PACE. 469 00:22:16.802 --> 00:22:19.438 One, how long is this supposed to last? 470 00:22:19.438 --> 00:22:20.672 Like how long is the mission? 471 00:22:20.672 --> 00:22:21.740 That's a great question. 472 00:22:21.740 --> 00:22:25.444 There is an official length of a mission, and unofficial length of a mission. 473 00:22:25.510 --> 00:22:29.815 Officially, I think we are on the books to last for three years. 474 00:22:29.815 --> 00:22:33.085 And one of the media people might correct me in the one, 475 00:22:33.151 --> 00:22:36.555 but unofficially it has the fuel to last for a very long time. 476 00:22:36.555 --> 00:22:40.992 So, for example, the mission that is currently operating is called 477 00:22:40.992 --> 00:22:42.361 MODIS, MODIS Aqua. 478 00:22:42.361 --> 00:22:44.262 That's a really important mission 479 00:22:44.262 --> 00:22:46.932 that is once again looking at the color of the Earth. 480 00:22:46.932 --> 00:22:50.869 That one was launched in the same way, but it was launched 20 years ago. 481 00:22:50.936 --> 00:22:53.772 So we say three years. 482 00:22:53.772 --> 00:22:56.408 Ultimately, we hope we're going to be lasting really, really long time 483 00:22:56.408 --> 00:23:02.314 and keep on giving this information to all of us to do some cool science. 484 00:23:02.314 --> 00:23:06.451 So you're saying that that NASA's satellites are a lot like every other home 485 00:23:06.451 --> 00:23:07.719 applicance where your warranty is for 486 00:23:07.719 --> 00:23:10.222 like five or ten years, but you hope that will last for 30? 487 00:23:10.222 --> 00:23:13.492 You just hope that it keeps working as long as possible. --Yeah, pretty, pretty much. 488 00:23:13.492 --> 00:23:14.426 And we know that is going to 489 00:23:14.426 --> 00:23:18.330 last a long time, but it's like, okay, this is not going to end up anywhere. 490 00:23:18.363 --> 00:23:19.865 Okay. Three years is right. Thank you, Kate. 491 00:23:19.865 --> 00:23:21.566 This part is going to be cut out. 492 00:23:21.566 --> 00:23:24.903 It's just the level of bureaucracy that it takes from taking the mission from 493 00:23:24.970 --> 00:23:29.374 three years to five years would put such a financial over, you know, 494 00:23:29.441 --> 00:23:30.942 drain on the system. 495 00:23:30.942 --> 00:23:32.244 This this won’t cut out. 496 00:23:32.244 --> 00:23:34.579 I think that's an important thing, though, is that 497 00:23:34.579 --> 00:23:36.948 I mean, because that's was true in all aspects 498 00:23:36.948 --> 00:23:40.252 of human life, in that you can only even on the guarantee a few years. 499 00:23:40.252 --> 00:23:42.888 But you can sort of hope for more. And you can assume that it’s going to work. 500 00:23:42.888 --> 00:23:43.622 Exactly. 501 00:23:43.622 --> 00:23:47.325 I mean, wasn't that true for the Mars rover, whatever? Didn’t that last way longer than it was supposed to? 502 00:23:47.325 --> 00:23:50.762 That’s true for every mission that is put out there. 503 00:23:50.762 --> 00:23:52.130 We always put extra fuel. 504 00:23:52.130 --> 00:23:54.132 We always like, you know, the amount of fuel--we 505 00:23:54.132 --> 00:23:57.202 just fueled the satellite, which is a really exciting. No. 506 00:23:57.202 --> 00:24:00.205 And if you think about a majority of the fuel is actually going to be used 507 00:24:00.439 --> 00:24:02.874 to burn the satellite when it’s coming back to the atmosphere. 508 00:24:02.874 --> 00:24:05.444 So it doesn't like land somewhere in the middle of the desert. 509 00:24:05.444 --> 00:24:08.480 But that small percentage of the fuel that's going to be used there 510 00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:12.250 to kind of like control its orbit can last for ten years or more 511 00:24:12.350 --> 00:24:15.086 if we're like really smart and just find smart, 512 00:24:15.086 --> 00:24:16.721 smart people working in NASA, and they're going 513 00:24:16.721 --> 00:24:19.257 to, you know, spin around and use it other different ways 514 00:24:19.257 --> 00:24:22.027 to control that orbit, not to spend it all that fuel. 515 00:24:22.027 --> 00:24:25.697 And instruments in theory, you know, even if they start degrading 516 00:24:25.697 --> 00:24:27.732 and we have put so many different 517 00:24:27.732 --> 00:24:31.670 checks in system that we can, even with the degrading instruments, 518 00:24:31.670 --> 00:24:36.007 we can still do good to science because, you know, we calibrate against the Sun 519 00:24:36.007 --> 00:24:37.809 Moon, calibrate against the Moon, recalibrate 520 00:24:37.809 --> 00:24:41.913 against some spots in the ocean where we have these buoys that you talked about. 521 00:24:41.980 --> 00:24:44.850 So, you know, it can last if you take care of it 522 00:24:44.850 --> 00:24:47.953 like your home appliance, it can last for very long time. 523 00:24:47.953 --> 00:24:48.720 Totally. 524 00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:51.289 And you have a bunch of the smartest people in the world taking care of it. 525 00:24:51.289 --> 00:24:53.892 So you’re like, ah. Yeah. It's probably going to last pretty well. 526 00:24:53.959 --> 00:24:57.162 Actually that maybe brings me to my most basic question, 527 00:24:57.162 --> 00:24:59.431 which I probably should've started with, but the PACE mission, 528 00:24:59.431 --> 00:25:02.667 I mean, so we're just referring to a satellite that orbits the Earth? 529 00:25:03.034 --> 00:25:06.137 Yes, it's a satellite, but it’s a very cute satellite? --Like the PACE mission is one object? 530 00:25:06.137 --> 00:25:08.573 How big is the satellite? Like, what is it? 531 00:25:09.641 --> 00:25:13.645 So imagine two suburban 532 00:25:13.645 --> 00:25:16.615 mom minivans plumped together. 533 00:25:16.715 --> 00:25:19.551 That's your size. 534 00:25:19.551 --> 00:25:21.786 So like and it looks like a cube. 535 00:25:21.786 --> 00:25:24.956 And then on top, actually on the side, 536 00:25:24.956 --> 00:25:28.727 if I sit up here,you have the big instrument, called Ocean Color Instrument. 537 00:25:28.727 --> 00:25:29.794 And this one is pretty large. 538 00:25:29.794 --> 00:25:34.666 You know, it's going to like as this and it kind of sits on top of that box. 539 00:25:34.666 --> 00:25:38.570 And then the two, two other satellites--the 540 00:25:38.637 --> 00:25:41.306 two other instruments, the polarization ones, 541 00:25:41.306 --> 00:25:43.508 the polarimeter ones, those are the CubeSats. 542 00:25:43.508 --> 00:25:44.643 So know what a CubeSat is? 543 00:25:44.643 --> 00:25:47.312 That’s a teeny tiny satellites that launch in space independently. 544 00:25:47.312 --> 00:25:48.880 Everybody can launch them. 545 00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:52.083 So we took those and we attached them to the satellite. 546 00:25:52.150 --> 00:25:54.119 So these are the these are made not by NASA. 547 00:25:54.119 --> 00:25:57.622 So these are made by the collaborators, either in Netherlands 548 00:25:57.622 --> 00:26:01.159 or here at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 549 00:26:01.226 --> 00:26:04.129 And so we just attached them there and connected to the you know, 550 00:26:04.129 --> 00:26:06.765 to the to the computer of the of the satellite. 551 00:26:06.765 --> 00:26:08.533 And what are those satellites for? 552 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:10.368 So those are the instruments. 553 00:26:10.368 --> 00:26:14.406 So those are predominantly going to be looking--so instruments on the satellite, 554 00:26:14.472 --> 00:26:16.107 they're going to be-- they’re teeny tiny satellites. 555 00:26:16.107 --> 00:26:18.376 But we kind of attach them to the big satellite. 556 00:26:18.376 --> 00:26:20.245 They're going to be looking mostly at atmosphere, 557 00:26:20.245 --> 00:26:22.480 but we're hoping we're going to be able to kind of like 558 00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:25.150 check out the ocean a little bit with them as well. 559 00:26:25.417 --> 00:26:26.651 So it's sort of modular. 560 00:26:26.651 --> 00:26:30.021 You have like the main NASA instrument and then you add other 561 00:26:30.021 --> 00:26:31.556 sort of add-on features. 562 00:26:31.556 --> 00:26:34.259 It’s like adding lenses onto a camera or something like that. 563 00:26:34.259 --> 00:26:35.460 In a sense. 564 00:26:35.460 --> 00:26:38.530 In a sense, think about like, you know, going back to the buoy that you deployed 565 00:26:38.530 --> 00:26:42.334 in Greenland, that buoy can have a bunch of different instruments. 566 00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:44.869 So the one that you'd probably deployed had, I think 567 00:26:44.869 --> 00:26:47.872 temperature, salinity, oxygen probably, and maybe something else. 568 00:26:48.073 --> 00:26:51.309 So you can attach instruments and once you're building the satellite, 569 00:26:51.309 --> 00:26:55.246 which is pretty much, you know, like your home for all these instruments, 570 00:26:55.347 --> 00:26:59.851 if other other agencies have an instrument, they want to contribute. 571 00:26:59.851 --> 00:27:04.222 Very often NASA's works with other, you know, agencies or institutions 572 00:27:04.289 --> 00:27:06.825 because very expensive, you know, to launch a thing in space. 573 00:27:06.825 --> 00:27:08.326 So you just kind of attach things. 574 00:27:08.326 --> 00:27:11.429 That's actually maybe the biggest lesson that I learned from that expedition 575 00:27:11.429 --> 00:27:15.300 to Greenland was how much, you know, because we were in the most remote part 576 00:27:15.300 --> 00:27:16.768 of eastern Greenland, the middle of nowhere, 577 00:27:16.768 --> 00:27:19.371 and it's really hard to get there, it’s really expensive to get there. 578 00:27:19.371 --> 00:27:23.908 And so we had a scientist with us, Heidi Sevestre, who's a French glaciologist, 579 00:27:23.908 --> 00:27:28.813 and she was basically executing sort of experiments for universities 580 00:27:28.813 --> 00:27:31.816 all over the world because it's just so hard for people to get there. 581 00:27:31.816 --> 00:27:35.120 And so it made me realize that a lot of science is that opportunity. 582 00:27:35.120 --> 00:27:35.654 It’s like, 583 00:27:35.654 --> 00:27:39.791 if somebody is going to a place, then like send them, send them a PDF of the experiment 584 00:27:39.791 --> 00:27:42.694 that you want them to do and they’ll like, bring you back some data. 585 00:27:42.694 --> 00:27:45.096 So it's funny to hear that even at the highest levels of science, 586 00:27:45.096 --> 00:27:47.932 like NASA’s sending satellites to space, there's still some other universities, 587 00:27:47.932 --> 00:27:50.969 it’s like, Hey, let us just like tack on an extra little piece on your satellite 588 00:27:50.969 --> 00:27:52.370 so we can get some data too. 589 00:27:53.004 --> 00:27:53.304 Yeah. 590 00:27:53.304 --> 00:27:55.874 And again, it's not as opportunistic as, you know, 591 00:27:55.874 --> 00:27:58.343 like there's there's lots of reviews and things, but, 592 00:27:58.343 --> 00:28:02.380 but it's pretty much that's how science works. You know, like it's 593 00:28:02.380 --> 00:28:04.482 how important it is, you know, like 594 00:28:04.482 --> 00:28:07.452 there is only a certain amount of money that is going to come our way, going 595 00:28:07.452 --> 00:28:10.855 on, on field, going in space is extremely expensive. 596 00:28:10.855 --> 00:28:12.424 So, like, you know, 597 00:28:12.424 --> 00:28:14.392 --Understandably so. --I’ve been to Greenland myself--I’m sorry 598 00:28:14.392 --> 00:28:15.827 I said “understandably so.” 599 00:28:15.827 --> 00:28:16.995 I mean, it's you know, 600 00:28:16.995 --> 00:28:18.329 it sounds like basically the hardest thing 601 00:28:18.329 --> 00:28:21.666 you can imagine doing is sending something into orbit and then keeping it in orbit. 602 00:28:21.666 --> 00:28:23.435 And like all the instruments involved, it 603 00:28:23.435 --> 00:28:25.937 totally makes sense that if you're doing all that work, 604 00:28:25.937 --> 00:28:31.009 somebody else should be should be reaping some benefit from it as well to like learn more in a different way. 605 00:28:31.009 --> 00:28:35.346 And exactly the same way as in the field, You know, like it's 606 00:28:35.480 --> 00:28:38.850 every time you go in a field, you're collecting your stuff and then you're 607 00:28:38.850 --> 00:28:42.721 collecting water and samples for so many, many, many more people 608 00:28:42.787 --> 00:28:46.758 because it's just yeah, it's once you going there, you know, bring everybody 609 00:28:46.758 --> 00:28:50.628 along and make sure that everybody really benefits of this once 610 00:28:50.628 --> 00:28:51.830 in a lifetime opportunity. 611 00:28:51.830 --> 00:28:56.401 Like in ocean we don't get that many satellites, especially ocean biology. 612 00:28:56.468 --> 00:28:58.870 The last one we got was what, 20 years ago. 613 00:28:58.870 --> 00:29:01.973 So like, you know, it's a good opportunity to jump on the board. 614 00:29:02.140 --> 00:29:04.142 Totally, totally. Well cool, 615 00:29:04.142 --> 00:29:06.811 well, thank you so much for taking the time, and I appreciate chatting, 616 00:29:06.811 --> 00:29:09.514 yeah, good luck with the mission. Hope you guys learn a lot. 617 00:29:09.547 --> 00:29:10.448 Thank you.