Microscopic Space Travelers

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This might not look like much. But every day, tiny little things like this are raining down on our planet. Each one is small, about a millimeter across. But over the course of a year, each individual piece that makes its way to Earth’s surface adds up to around 30,000 tons.
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This video has been dubbed using an artificial voice via aloud.area120.... to increase accessibility. You can change the audio track language in the Settings menu.

[@Beryllahawk]

Didn't they also do something similar with tardigrades, placing them in open test tubes outside the Station for a time? I never recall the exact details of just what they did in preparation, or how long they left the little guys out there. Fascinating though, that earthbound creatures have evolved such sturdy protections. Makes me wonder sometimes just how inhospitable our nurturing Earth has been in the past, you know? And astonishes me always, how resilient our planet and its life really is, from the great to the infinitesimal. Thank you once again for such wonderful videos, a wonderful channel

[@Mrcheekymonkeyisback]

you guys have made me see the beauty of life on such a smaller scale, they all have a reason to be alive, theyre surprisingly vital for our survival. such a cool and a humbling video

[@almightyconicalflask4997]

The Almighty Conical Flask approves.

[@bluefalcontransport6335]

Yup

[@spaceman465]

your name is Erlenmeyer flask

[@ErebusTheDragonn]

Dear Mr. Almighty Conical Flask, what makes your conical flaskness so almighty? Is it the conicalness of your flask, or something ethereal and eldridge? This is question has pondered my brain since it’s inception, and I beg to know the answer. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, ErebusTheDragon

[@kingtoad2234]

Toad will crush you

[@kingtoad2234]

Only toad is almighty

[@sarahng5191]

I'm astounded that I haven't heard of micrometeorites before, so cool! Wonder what John would think of tons of space matter landing on earth each year

[@katerinaboskova5901]

The ambient music, Hank's soothing (yet excited) voice, the story,... the perfect bed time story for me for tonoght. And I will play it at 0.75x the speed, on repeat, until I fall asleep.

[@RoxaneJ14]

Omg same, this channel is literally my lullaby (along with Eons)! I feel kinda guilty because they put so much work into this and i hear like 3 minutes of it but i can't help it, it's soooo relaxing 😌

[@katerinaboskova5901]

@@SolaceEasy Thank you for the tip, I know many people love it but anything ASMR makes me want to crawl out of my skin :D

[@prionkor]

Hank should be voice over meditation audios!

[@hoodyk7342]

Thats just weird, why not actually listen and learn

[@anonymocha]

I love starry/galactic aesthetics in this video and the Star Stuff one. Very comforting and soothing

[@BallisticDamages]

I'm very excited that I get to watch KSP grow from an early access to completion once again

[@scottpeltier3977]

A hobby about collecting millimeter sized bits of space rock from just about everywhere with a surface, people like the darnedest things

[@atlsxfinest8509]

thanks for reminding me about the diatom shirt. I wanted to use some of my refund for it, and totally forgot about it until this video. love y'alls stuff and happy to support an amazing group of people

[@terryenby2304]

Thank you for this. I really needed this video today. It’s been a very hard day. Let’s learn and relax all at once ❤

[@NewMessage]

"It's life, Jim, but not as we... oh, wait... nevermind."

[@Nandeadstudios]

Not really relates to this video but is it possible that the journey to the micro cosmos store could expand its colour pallette on clothing items? I'd personally love a hydra t-shirt in black for instance.

[@Zimke42]

I was surprised how well I did with the micro-meteorite slides. I got all but the last one. I am used to looking in to a microscope, but at human and bacterial cells, not minerals.

[@astick5249]

Hey i got the exact same!

[@2nostromo]

Spores have a relatively high Zeta potential... the ratio of charge to surface area. Airborne spores are certainly captured in the Earths magnet field and elevated high into the atmosphere. Is the magnetic field and solar wind combined sufficient to blow them into space? I don't know but it would be a low cost, low risk experiment to "open a petrie dish" in space to see what grows

[@stephanieparker1250]

THIS IS SO COOL!! Thank you Hank and team! ❤❤❤🎉

[@terrynewberg5732]

Cool, including a micrometeorite 😊

[@prompiriya-phophun]

2:42 LETS GO :D

[@stax6092]

Cool.

[@JxH]

Re: Depth of Field. There's software that can input a short video of an in-out focus sweep and it will automatically produce a single clean-focus image (assembled depth of field stack). Such SW might be useful for this channel, instead of the out of focus images shown here. Cheers.

[@stephanieparker1250]

Way to go, James! 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@ДенисГончар-э9л]

Found 3 out of 4 micrometeorites

[@averagehummus]

we should send bacteria capsules into space that in case life on earth would somehow die, the capsules would fall from space and start life again. lol

[@PhilipMurphyExtra]

Like learning new things for sure.

[@salt-emoji]

The Mars Rover prep room was something like 300x cleaner than a intensive care operating room. Which is kinda crazy.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Unless that fingertip was GIGANTIC, that micrometeorite was a whole lot smaller than a mm! Half that, at maximum! 😮

[@napoleonfeanor]

Are there any chances we could create microbes actually actually thrive on other planets or moons?

[@tomholroyd7519]

2:57 What are all the spherical things??

[@bassplayersayer]

Question, what happens to the solid waste, poop, of astronauts while in space? Is it brought back or is it jettisoned out into space. Especially when they went to the moon. Do all the nations in space dispose of waste the same way? Basically are humans seading space with our biodome? Thanks, I enjoy your video's.

[@blackrasputin3356]

I got the first and third one right.

[@Shanghaimartin]

So with Earth getting heavier by 30,000T per year, I wonder how this affects gravity. Like... is there's a measurable difference between what cavemen felt to what we feel now, or how about people in the year 4099, will their gravity be rated at 1.1G instead of the 1g we're at now?

[@AaronOfMpls]

Earth may pick up 30,000 t/year, but the Earth's mass is about 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 t -- about 20,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more massive than that year's worth of meteorites. It'd probably take some pretty sensitive measuring to notice any difference, even over hundreds of millions of years.

[@edgeeffect]

​@@AaronOfMpls I was reading this and thinking "yeah, but how much does The Earth weigh?"... thanks for coming up with the figures ahead of me. :)

[@davidh.4944]

Our planet also bleeds atmosphere into space (mostly hydrogen and helium) at an even higher rate. The estimate is that we are actually _losing_ a net 50k tons of mass per year.

[@bigmclargehuge8219]

WAIT WHAT HANK GREEN HOSTS THIS??? HOW DID I NOT REALIZE EARLIER???

[@alvaronavarro4895]

BRUH WHAAAAT I have just realized by reading yout comment lmaoo

[@uilliamwilliamrigotti3877]

❤

[@AnApePlaysMinecraft]

Why don't we launch a pan-spermia type rocket with microbial life in it over to Alpha Centauri or somewhere we want to colonize one day? Could we send certain microbes to Venus to start the teraforming early?

[@edgeeffect]

Sadly, we've got to do something about getting rid of most of Venus' atmosphere before even the hardiest microbes have any chance of surviving there. As Venus is right now, it makes living in the vacuum of outer space look like a good idea.

[@southsiren]

It's is obvious that life on Earth started with some sort of interstellar fungus that made it to Earth

[@LucVNO]

Space isnt a "vaccuum" its just really thin, of course there will be microbes that withstand the conditions.

[@trebell885]

Is Earth; exhaling her breath, out in2 space. Can, microbial matter, Find a foot hold on space junk. Creating a space barrier Reef?

[@thaphreak]

I'm surprisingly good at identifying micrometeorites it turns out. wow'd myself

[@MoisesMoralesGarcia]

It saddens me that your videos don’t have more views. It talks a lot about how people just care about “influencers” instead of learning and knowledge.

[@TheGeorgianGuy]

Can you do a video on anthrax

[@Zichie]

So if 30 thousand tons of material enter earth every year then the earth would be 100 trillion tons lighter when life formed? Wouldn't that effect gravity a little? For reference the earth only contains 1.6 billion tons of water. Am i making stuff up this seems like something i should have been taught in science class.

[@peterkraus2249]

Here's an idea, create a video that somehow gives us a better look at what these creatures are like 3-dimensionally. It's easy to visualize things like stentors, and of course tardigrades in 3D, but hard for other things. That would put a better dimension on things!

[@dontworry4945]

Maybe two lenses focused on the same place .like eyes

[@user-nl2tc9to7s]

@@dontworry4945 problem with that is combining the two videos into one. i'm pretty sure youtube doesn't support stereoscopic video outside of VR

[@Linguae_Music]

2d may be the best we can do on the average display :D

[@zhoufang996]

You could do cross eye 3d but that's never really worked for me. Or you could try Google cardboard etc

[@kendokaaa]

For photos, I wonder if focus stacking could be used

[@Ink_Tide]

I'm surprised he didn't mention the poop the Apollo missions left on the moon - if we retrieve and/or locally study the Apollo moon poops, it would represent possibly the most extensive long-term astrobiological experiment that humanity has ever conducted... entirely by accident.

[@BlueSkyCountry]

I've installed HVAC and conduits on the roofs of newly constructed commercial buildings. Pretty tall too. Every few months we are called back for routine maintenance on the systems on the roof and I'd notice small gravelly pebbles on the roof. They couldn't be from wind blowing debris from the ground up to 11-20 stories high so they could have only fell down to earth.

[@n1msu]

I've been waiting for this little bit of inorganic chemistry since I first came across this channel! One of my hobbies is dragging my neodymium magnet along the drive then scraping the magnetic 'bits' under my £15 usb amazon microscope! I will buy one of your ones when I have enough disposable income to though! Keep up the fantastic work!

[@ewanb8067]

I know no one will believe this, but I used to collect micrometeorites and once got extremely lucky. I was walking to school and just managed to catch the sun glistening off one on the ground! So, I put it in some tape folded over and put it in my pocket (i looked at it under a microscope when I got home to check and it was either one or part of a woodchiper).

[@SmartMaterial]

Perhaps we can send micro biota to distant star systems to get things churning before our arrival;)

[@thesilentone4024]

Wouldn't it be nice if we can prob one of the ice moons or ice giant planets and study life that uses something new to live like titanium shells or something like that.

[@ginnyjollykidd]

I got 2 out of 4. I think I'm micrometeorite-ologist material. I do have the tenacity and patience to do the scrutinizing. I thought I had the characteristics pegged till you showed the last one that had none of the characteristics I inferred. Tricksy! Can I get a job doing that?

[@boot21158]

Best video ever

[@boot21158]

Thank you, could you send me picrures of micrometeorites

[@THarSul]

the depth of field on the microscope lens is so shallow, you should see if you can edit together the in-focus ring of the micrometeorites from the different frames, to fill out the volume of their silhouettes with detail, it's a technique that's usually used in macrophotography by combining multiple exposures at different depths to display more detail than could have been captured in a single image. it's not a technique that would work on the usual mobile subjects, but the stationary subjects should allow for some of these more traditional macrophotography techniques to be used.

[@davisjugroop3782]

My teacher told us how to find them. Get a large water bucket , place it for a month on your roof. Then take a magnet , scan the water. What stick to the magnet are probably micro meterites.

[@40kBookSummaries]

Is it weird to have less than 10% of your subscribers watching most your videos?

[@sscjessica]

Ooo I got 3 of the micro meteorites from their look and how obvious they were to the others, the last one I couldn't get but it looked like there was another one a bit lower down, was cool they look rough and smooth and have sharp lines down them from the ones shown which look slightly darker and more carboney wish a slight shine, they seem to stand out for the most part.

[@tylerlock2984]

Wow same

[@1cool]

I actually got the micrometeorite test correct twice in a row

[@KartikPatel-nt4ff]

😅😅😅😅well information good show 😅

[@bozinoski]

My new favorite channel

[@CrochetIsLife54]

I’m curious whether these micrometeorites will stick to a magnet? If so, that would be my first step to finding them.

[@bazpearce9993]

That's the first clue. Helps identify possble mms. Then they go under a microscope for more testing.

[@eroraf8637]

Many do, but not all. Like the larger meteorites and their parent asteroids, most are fragments of undifferentiated rubble. When a micrometeorite enters the atmosphere, it melts and decelerates, and the denser components accumulate in front; this usually results in isolated metallic beads surrounded by a glassy or stony crystalline matrix once the object cools and solidifies in flight. Sometimes there’s just not much metal to start with; other times, the metal bead breaks off entirely, leaving just the non-metallic portion. But as a general rule, a magnet should pick up the majority of micrometeorites, and this is indeed the first step hunters take.

[@Chronosonder]

Astrophage

[@caramel9600]

As always, a wonderful video. Thank you for a great start to the day!

[@jamesourmasterofmicroscopes]

2:08

[@skybluskyblueify]

So Earth gains 30k tons. How much does Earth lose? Are we gaining weight/mass? or losing weight/mass? or is there an equilibrium?

[@SuLokify]

We are gaining weight. It's less than a rounding error though. We also lose some weight due to hydrogen, helium, and things struck by cosmic rays escaping. The helium mostly comes from radioactive decay.

[@phoenixthedragon6798]

The shinier looking one at the end was the only mM I couldn't find. Not terribly hard, but I can imagine the strain from examining so many specimens so closely

[@Vistico93]

Most of the Universe is 100% hostile to life whereas Earth is, like what? 98-99% hostile? So while I wouldn't call Earth nurturing, life has made good use of that 1-2% blindspot in Earth's hostility ;-)

[@Darksagan]

I remember Jennifer Connelys character in the movie, The day the world stood still talking about Deinococcus radiodurans in her class. lol My selective memory at work.

[@edgeeffect]

Apollo 12 bringing back the camera off of Surveyor 3 which had been (at least in Pete Conrad's retelling) sneezed on my a technician.

[@brih.2947]

I was actually thinking about us bringing microbes to space the other day! Wondering if they'd survived the journey to other celestial bodies, like the Moon or Mars, and wondering if there are microscopic little ecosystems that are developing that we just can't see... sorta like the panspermia theory but BECAUSE of us

[@Dr.Cosmar]

Ok... So, how do I get a job looking for micro-meteorites. I spotted all of them... Each time you point one out, I would think, "Oh wow, I was right... luck. Bet." Then you pointed out the next photo... and I thought, "...no..." Now I'm thinking there was more than one in some of those photos, and this should be my day job.

[@martf1061]

In 20-30 years from now, we will be able to see mibrobes living on the microbes we see for now.. There is no limits to size. One day, we will realize that atomes are the same as solar systems, but on a different size scale. And after this happens, we will observe living creatures on what we call for now, electrons... And so on, and so on

[@deltalima6703]

There is no world outside our planet. By definition our planet is the world.

[@alexanderx33]

Do yall think the cretacious extinction event caused panspermia of other celestial bodies in the solar system? Are there microbes that have been out there for 65 million years? Tardigrades where around then...

[@donchonealyotheoneal5456]

So over four million years we've accumulated 120 thousand million tons am I saying that right I don't know anyway that's a lot of material is there any way that you could represent that on a scale that we could understand it sounds like it should make a difference in the size of our planet it would also be interesting to know how many thousands of tons that we have put up into space I mean I guess it's probably more like millions of tons and I almost forgot to ask are some of these micro meteors magnetic or perhaps all of them could somebody please tell me or I guess I could look it up on the old interweb that's all ciao for now

[@ronanclark2129]

3:50 We walk around breathing hydrogen and deuterium that was produced, not in the early solar system like the rest of our planet, but produced by the big bang 😭😱

[@Kuichio]

So these slides aren't real photos? Your third slide at the bottom left has one pearl-looking stone that is identical to the one next to it, as will as each having identical pink crystals touching them... Knowing that, looking for the real meteorite feels pointless.

[@blahpunk1]

You guys should be on PBS or something. You remind me of the "Hearts of Space" radio show here.

[@kanisnealon5062]

Panspermia looking more and more likely...

[@billfarley9015]

I didn't know there was going to be a quiz. I was thinking panspermia.

[@Gutterrat69]

Intresting i was just listening to the Outside/In podcast episode on gutters and thats where i learned about micrometeorites

[@MUZKF47]

This was boring and mostly common knowledge

[@drsidsloth]

I wonder what it's like to be hit by one, would you even know it? For all we know, we've injested micrometerorites

[@Etrancical]

I say we bring microbes into other planets if there is no other life there. It would be interesting to see what adaptations come after decades

[@CarlosJavier-123]

Saludos Cordiales Shalom

[@JaneXemylixa]

(sees micrometeorite) (swims closer to it to unlock a cell part)

[@Amocles]

Correct, Sir Hank: Everything is in space.

[@SpazTc01]

Thanks patreons for being able to make this free for us folk on yt

[@ronanclark2129]

It sounded like Terraria music this time

[@davidkemp3154]

I knew Enceladus was behind this. .

[@StanleyWallice]

Free comment, boost those views, cool content

[@jc_da_joker1533]

Guys where is @rotifer he’s not here

[@behavior852]

Flatworms resemble a Lava lamp.

[@danieldeelite]

Scott Peterson, the hot dog guy?

[@ConsciousConversations]

❤

[@TEDDYPlayit]

When my curiosity about Space things and micro world In one video ⭐🦠 Awsome!! 😍 I like it! So much!

[@gustavrsh]

I'm calling micrometeorites Space Waldos from now on.

[@madamsloth]

This is the perfect name ✌️

[@nandospm]

Truly a journey to the cosmos

[@ll7868]

But if space microbes had a silicon based virus could it create the Borg in the same way cordyceps took over humanity in The Last Of Us? I think that's how the Borg were created.

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

i believe in voyager they specify that they were normal humanoids who gradually became borg through cybernetic enhancements its unlikely that a silicon-based virus or disease would be able to affect carbon-based lifeforms at all, because the basic chemistry they operate on would be entirely different. its also unlikely that such a being would be able to survive for very long in earth's conditions. due to the way respiration would need to work for them (oxidized carbon is a gas, so we can just breathe it out - oxidized silicon is a solid, so it would either have to exist in an environment with average temperatures around ~2000C or exude solid silica and have a much higher body temperature) etc etc. the reason TLOU used cordyceps is because it's known to take over the nervous systems of insects, which is pretty cool, but as far as we know there's no similar interaction between a fungus and a vertebrate, so we don't really have to worry about it.

[@edgeeffect]

Y'all know Star Trek is fiction? .... just sayin'

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

@@edgeeffect yes. i thought it would be a fun thought experiment to engage this question from a genuine biochemical perspective

[@Shadow_The_Pad]

1:44 Its not friction based heating its air pressure that causes the heat.

[@alucardnolifeking789]

air pressure that causes friction, yes. Thought about that? :D

[@friendoftheoyster3906]

Learning new things every day!

[@praveenb9048]

Hasn't anyone trained an AI to pick out micrometeorites from photos?

[@brendakrieger7000]

Endlessly fascinating and very relaxing🔬💚🦠