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[light music]

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children: "Our World"!
[laughter]

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- Ever look up at the sky
and see the Moon?

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Astronauts visiting the Moon
might look up and see Earth.

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Viewing our planet
from a distance

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must be an amazing sight,

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but it also provides
a powerful perspective

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on how we fit
into a bigger story--

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the story of the solar system.

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How do we learn
about this story?

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Well, for this,
we look to the rocks.

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- We can learn so much
from the rocks.

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We can learn
the age of the rocks,

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which will tell us when
the moon formed

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and when the Earth formed.

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We can learn
about the ages of the surfaces

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of the bodies
in our solar system.

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Everything that you
might be able to figure out

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about our solar system
we can learn from rocks.

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So we are
at NASA Johnson Space Center

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in the
Astromaterials Acquisition

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and Curation Office,

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but we just call it
the Curation Office.

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Here we take care
of all of the moon rocks

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that NASA brought back
during the Apollo missions.

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We take care of them
so that they can be studied

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by scientists
around the world.

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They use instruments

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to analyze something specific
about the rocks,

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and then they use the evidence

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they get
from those measurements

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to tell a story.

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So the very first mission,
the Apollo 11 mission,

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they collected at the very end
of the mission,

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they collected
a whole bunch of dirt,

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a whole bunch
of the lunar soil,

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and they shoveled it
into the rock boxes,

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and then they brought it back.

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And then
when they studied that,

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they found little,
tiny fragments

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of white rock inside.

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And they were able
to reconstruct

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the history
of how the entire Moon formed

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from those one-

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or two-millimeter
fragments of rock

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in that first sample.

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That white rock was very rare

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and had only formed
under very special conditions,

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which they didn't think
existed on the Moon in 1968

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before they went to the Moon.

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And so, when they found
this rock,

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they're like, "Oh, well, there
must've been an ocean of magma

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covering the entire Moon."

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So they couldn't prove it

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because the samples
were too small,

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but when they got back
the Apollo 15 samples,

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they found a bigger fragment
of that same type of rock.

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They got a very ancient age,

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and from that,
our impact origin of the Moon

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and magma ocean theory
for the Moon--

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that all came
from those first two samples.

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- Wow. It seems there's a lot
we can learn from rocks,

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and technology
has changed a lot

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since we first
brought them back.

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But what new instruments

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do we have now
that we didn't have

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back when the samples
were first collected?

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- So it used to be, when
we were studying the rocks,

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we would do everything
physically.

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And so we would take a rock,
and then we would use a hammer

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and just smash it and look
and see what was inside.

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That's not very efficient.

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And so now we have an X-ray
computed tomography scanner,

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just like
the medical CT scans,

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and what that lets us do

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is actually scan the rocks
ahead of time

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and then use three-dimensional
viewing software

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to look inside, identify
features that are of interest,

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and very specifically
target those

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when we smash
it with a hammer.

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So that lets us be
much more intentional

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with how we use the samples.

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During the Apollo missions,
they collected

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about 2,200 individually
numbered samples,

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and up until
about 4 years ago,

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we had saved 6 samples in
order to be able to study them

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with modern techniques--really
get the most out of them.

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So the Apollo next-generation
sample analysis

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was looking
at unanalyzed samples

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using modern technology

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and a big consortium
of scientists.

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- With technology
coming so far,

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it's amazing how much
we're able to learn

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from rock samples.

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But there's another incredible
rock-related tool

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that will knock your socks off.

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And here to tell us
more about it

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is Erika Blumenfeld from
NASA's Johnson Space Center.

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- Have you ever wanted
to explore the Moon

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or the inner solar system
yourself?

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We developed Astromaterials 3D
so you could do that.

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Astromaterials 3D

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is an interactive
virtual library

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of NASA's
astromaterials collections,

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and you can explore them
for yourself

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in the Astromaterials
3D Explorer,

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which allows you
to virtually manipulate

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and rotate and look inside
of these rocks from space.

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- How cool is it that anyone
can study moon rocks today?

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With powerful tools
like Astromaterials 3D

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at our fingertips,

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it's exciting to explore
and learn more

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about the stories rocks tell.

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But don't just take
my word for it.

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- The work that we do here
in the Curation Office at NASA

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is really about preserving the
samples for future generations.

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And we've had these rocks
for 50 years.

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We've been learning
new stuff about them

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every year
for the last 50 years.

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And so, when we go
back to the Moon

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and collect a bunch
of new samples,

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we're gonna learn even more
about the Moon

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and the rest
of the solar system.

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- The story is in the rock,

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and that, to me,
captured my imagination--

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that rocks could be
scrolls of knowledge,

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that they could be storybooks,

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that if you know how to read
the language in the rock,

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you can unravel the stories
and the mysteries within them.

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And it's meaningful to be able
to shine light on these stories

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and to share them
with the public.

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My hope is that we can inspire

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the next generation
of explorers of all kinds,

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whether that's exploring
the lunar surface itself

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or exploring the samples
that come back,

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and hopefully our work
will open their minds

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to an adventure that they'll
take into their own lives.

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- Advances in technology
are continuing the efforts

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to help us learn more
about the stories rocks tell.

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Thanks to Ryan, Erika,
and the team

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at NASA's Johnson Space Center,

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we're able to see
and understand the Moon's story

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here in our world.

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And that rocks.

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See you next time.

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children: "Our World"!
[laughter]