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OASIS IN SPACE
Copyright 2003, Spitz, Inc.
TIME
NARRATIVE
01:00:00:00
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SCENE 1
Beyond the moon, beyond the sun and stars, far beyond the Milky Way,
we enter a realm of perpetual darkness… the cold, black emptiness of
space.
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Yet, even here, small amounts of matter can be found – a variety of
different atoms and molecules spread thinly throughout the void.
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Together, these microscopic particles form the raw material of the
evolving cosmos, the basic building blocks of the universe itself.
SCENE 2
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From our present position, the architecture of the universe can be seen
on a much grander scale.
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Here we see the galaxies…glowing pinwheels of gas, dust and stars.
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The universe is organized into galaxies of many shapes and sizes.
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Before us now is an enormous “spiral” galaxy.
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A typical galaxy, it glows with the light of billions of suns.
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Along the expanse of its arms, swarms of gas and dust are swept into
vast clouds called “nebulae.”
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In some regions, a nebula may glow with an eerie light produced by the
energy of nearby stars, while elsewhere, the clouds are so thick that
nearly all star light is blocked out.
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OASIS IN SPACE
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01:02:13:00
Thousands of these gaseous clouds are scattered throughout the galaxy.
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Within their frozen interiors, atoms combine into more complex molecules
– ammonia, methane, carbon monoxide, and surprisingly – water.
SCENE 3
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These interstellar clouds hold other secrets too – they are the birthplace
of stars
SCENE 4
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About five billion years ago, a new, rather average yellow star condensed
from a great cloud of gas and dust.
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Also born was a family of planets, moons, asteroids and comets – all built
with chemicals from the original cloud.
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The inner planets orbit swiftly; the outer planets can take decades to
complete a single revolution of their far-off parent star.
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We now direct our approach toward the heart of this young solar system.
SCENE 5
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Relatively close to the star, a place of blue skies and liquid, watery
oceans looms into view.
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Here, water molecules inherited from the ancient nebula collect and flow
on the surface of a small, fragile, rocky world.
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Here we find our Oasis In Space.
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OASIS IN SPACE
Copyright 2003, Spitz, Inc.
01:05:38:00
The Earth is dominated by water in all its forms.
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Some floats in the atmosphere in clouds of water vapor.
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Some is tied up in ice caps at the poles, growing and shrinking with the
seasons.
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But most of the water ebbs and flows in the oceans, lakes and rivers that
cover three-quarters of our planet.
SCENE 6
01:06:05:00
The young, evolving Earth was very different than it is today.
01:06:10:00
The Earth was a barren wasteland, bombarded by comets and meteors.
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Volcanoes dominated the landscape, venting enormous amounts of
gases.
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Gravity held the gases, creating an atmosphere.
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Eventually, the rains came, filling the ocean basins.
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And it was in the oceans that life began.
SCENE 7
01:07:22:00
Over the millennia, we have learned how to explore our water world.
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But the tools of exploration have changed, and today, our eyes look
outward to space, to the other planets of our solar system.
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Are there other water worlds, like our own?
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01:07:46:00
Could life, human or otherwise, survive on any of them?
SCENE 8
01:08:00:00
As we move away from Earth, the Moon, our closest celestial neighbor, is
our first stop.
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Far from the ocean-covered world early observers imagined it to be, the
Moon suffers from a simple lack of size.
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Too small to retain an atmosphere, any gases it once had have long
since escaped into space.
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With no air, there can be no clouds, no rain, no oceans, no weather to
erase the impact craters that scar this dead landscape.
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Vast, ancient lava flows cover the regions that were once, hopefully
named, seas.
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Yet, we have found small amounts of frozen water on the Moon, mostly
inside craters at the Moon’s poles.
SCENE 9
01:09:11:00
Spacecraft revealed another angry, barren desert when they flew past
Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun.
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Only slightly larger than the Moon, Mercury too is an airless, waterless,
heavily-cratered world.
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Scorched by its proximity to the Sun, the daytime side of Mercury roasts
at hundreds of degrees, then plunges to well below zero as it slowly
rotates into night.
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01:09:46:00
Still, water actually exists on this world of extremes – in the form of tiny
patches of ice, clinging to the inside of craters at the north and south
poles of the planet, forever sheltered from the sun.
SCENE 10
01:10:05:00
One of the biggest triumphs of the space age has been the exploration of
Venus.
01:10:19:00
Of all the worlds, Venus is most like the Earth in size, mass, composition
and distance from the Sun.
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Yet what a different world it is!
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Pierced by a handful of small probes, explored by radar, the thick clouds
of Venus, so different from the water-bearing clouds of Earth,
permanently shroud an awful reality.
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Clouds rain drops of sulfuric acid, not water, on to the landscape.
01:11:05:00
The clouds pass some sunlight, warming the ground, but the thick carbon
dioxide atmosphere prevents most of the heat from escaping back into
space.
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This "greenhouse effect" traps the energy, making Venus the hottest
planet in the solar system.
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Still mockingly known by the name of the goddess of beauty, Venus
offers us a nightmare vision of planetary evolution gone astray.
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OASIS IN SPACE
Copyright 2003, Spitz, Inc.
SCENE 11
01:11:43:00
Larger than Mercury, but only half the diameter of Venus or Earth, Mars
has enough gravity to retain a thin atmosphere of unbreathable carbon
dioxide.
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Iron oxide, commonly known as “rust,” covers the surface of the “red
planet.”
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In Martian summer, huge dust storms scour the surface with hurricane
force winds, while in winter, frozen carbon dioxide frosts the landscape.
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On Mars, we see signs of giant volcanoes, canyons and riverbeds, but
the volcanoes are dormant and the riverbeds dry.
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Water once flowed here, carving the land.
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New evidence suggests that there might still be liquid water – and
possibly life -- under the Martian surface.
SCENE 12
01:13:51:00
On the border between the inner and outer planets lies the Asteroid Belt.
01:14:07:00
The asteroids are little more than jagged cinders, small chunks of rock
and iron, with very small amounts of frozen water.
SCENE 13
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Beyond the Asteroid Belt we enter the realm of the giant planets.
01:14:26:00
As a group, they contain most of the total mass of the planets in our solar
system, and most have large numbers of moons.
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OASIS IN SPACE
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01:14:42:00
Jupiter, the largest planet, is a typical gas giant – a huge sphere of
hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia.
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At some depth, the pressure probably compresses the gases into a
liquid, forming a bizarre ocean of toxic chemicals.
01:15:04:00
Floating in the turbulent atmosphere is Jupiter’s most distinctive feature -the Great Red Spot, a huge, rapidly spinning storm system.
01:15:16:00
More than three times larger than our entire planet, it has been observed
ever since the invention of the telescope.
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Inside the Spot, spacecraft revealed winds that reach and surpass the
most violent typhoon known on Earth.
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But this storm rages without pounding surf and torrential rains, for water
is not the raw material of Jupiter’s weather.
SCENE 14
01:15:58:00
Like many of the gas giant outer planets, Jupiter is circled by a diverse
family of moons, and the four largest are worlds in their own right.
01:16:09:00
Europa has a white, smooth surface criss-crossed by dark stripes, with
few craters.
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The lack of craters could mean that the surface is fluid and self-repairing,
most likely a cracked, icy crust over an ocean of liquid water or slushy
ice.
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OASIS IN SPACE
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01:16:51:00
Life can be found in some very inhospitable places on Earth… could
there be life in the Europan ocean?
01:17:07:00
Some scientists think it’s possible…new space probes launched over the
next few decades may provide the answer
SCENE 15
01:17:21:00
Our search for water takes us on to Saturn, the jewel of the outer solar
system.
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Almost twice as far from the Sun as Jupiter, Saturn is encircled by a
complex system of satellites and rings.
01:18:03:00
The rings are probably remnants of a shattered moon, or perhaps, the
raw material of a moon that never came to be.
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Saturn’s rings, too, are mostly ice.
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Though they look uniform and solid from a distance, close up, the rings
resolve into a vast swarm of icy particles, each particle an individual
satellite.
SCENE 16
01:18:37:00
Across ever-widening gulfs of distance, we next encounter Uranus and
Neptune, only discovered in the last two hundred years.
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Both Uranus and Neptune have a bluish color that suggests oceans, and
Neptune was even named for the ancient god of the sea.
01:19:03:00
But appearances are deceiving, for their color is caused by methane
clouds in their frigid atmospheres.
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OASIS IN SPACE
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01:19:19:00
Within the clouds, charged particles circulate in a sea of liquid water,
producing electric currents and magnetic fields which surround these
planets.
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So, there may be oceans of a sort on Uranus and Neptune.
01:19:39:00
But under these conditions, they probably resemble battery acid more
than water!
SCENE 17
01:19:50:00
Finally we come to Pluto, dimly lit by the distant Sun.
01:19:55:00
Pluto, its moon Charon, and Neptune’s moon Triton may be large
examples of a newly-discovered class of objects orbiting at the far
reaches of the solar system.
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They appear to be left-overs from the creation of the planets, frozen
water and gases similar to the nuclei of comets.
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Some of the comets we see from Earth probably originated here.
01:20:21:00
But most will remain, like Pluto, a reservoir of water frozen by the cold of
space into ice as hard as the hardest rock.
SCENE 18
01:20:36:00
Our star dwindles in the distance, circled by a family of planets and
moons.
01:20:43:00
Water exists on many of these worlds, but only on Earth did it become
the major component of evolving life.
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OASIS IN SPACE
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01:20:52:00
With its moderate conditions, its vast oceans and oxygen-rich
atmosphere, Earth is unique in the solar system.
01:21:01:00
But the Sun is just an average star; small, stable, like billions of other
stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
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And our galaxy itself is typical of billions of galaxies in the known
universe, each in turn, home to untold billions of stars.
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Stars and planets form from clouds of gas and dust, clouds which contain
water.
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Several other solar systems have already been discovered.
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How many more are out there?
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How many other “water planets” orbit just the right distance from their
own “average” stars?
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Across the reaches of space and time, our quest continues, the search
for life goes on.
01:22:01:00
We listen for a faint echo from some far-off civilization, for a signal from
an alien world…
01:22:09:00
For signs of another…Oasis In Space.
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