yego.me
yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Flight at the Edge of the Ozone Layer | One Strange Rock

2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

NARRATOR: 30 years ago, we discovered man-made chemicals had punched a hole in the ozone layer. Is that hole here to stay, waiting around to kill us? Today, we're trying hard to find out. Morgan Sandercock is about to test an experimental plane, perfect for sampling ozone.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Copy that. So I felt pressure rising.

MORGAN SANDERCOCK: (VOICEOVER) We think we can go as high as 90,000 feet.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Jim, you ready to go?

JIM PAYNE: (ON RADIO) We're ready.

MORGAN SANDERCOCK: (VOICEOVER) That's the big boy territory. That's where things can go wrong very, very quickly. If we lose cabin pressure, then, the pilots could very easily pass out. And we don't have any automatic systems to recover from that.

WOMAN: (ON RADIO) Getting ready to roll.

NARRATOR: Now, a glider might sound like a dangerous choice so high up. But gliders don't have engines, which means they can't pollute the team's samples.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Confirm [inaudible] off.

WOMAN: (ON RADIO) [inaudible] is off. Wing wheel is off.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Been running at 11:32.

MAN: (ON RADIO) 11:32. Written down in GPS 5.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Airborne. [music playing]

NARRATOR: The Perlan glider uses air rising over the Southern Andes to reach extraordinary heights.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Airspeed, 70 knots. Looking beautiful.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Yeah?

MAN: (ON RADIO) Really high.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Traffic.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Yeah.

NARRATOR: 52,000 feet up makes this the highest glider flight ever. But you've got to get this high to get a great picture of the ozone layer. The good news is that thanks to a global ban on ozone-harming chemicals, it looks like the hole is healing up. Our shield is regenerating.

Ichthyosaurs 101 | National Geographic
3 habits that boost mental clarity

More Articles

View All
The Journey of Self Discovery: Uncovering Your True Identity
Every day you cross paths with countless strangers. People sit next to you on the bus; you’re a cashier at the grocery store, sends you a smile, and someone works out beside you at the gym. Often, these faces pass us by; there’s nothing particularly disti…
A Rare Look at the Secret Life of Orangutans | Short Film Showcase
Something like seven million years ago, there was nothing like a human on Earth. There was not even a pre-human standing upright; there were simply great apes, very much like the ones that live with us today. [Music] I was crossing the river at dawn. It…
Relationships between scientific ideas in a text | Reading | Khan Academy
Hello readers, this is Professor Mario Molina, a scientist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Now, I’m going to use the example of Professor Molina to teach us about connections, or drawing connections between scientific information in a text, in a pi…
The Gulf Stream Explained
The ocean conveyor belt and the Gulf Stream. Ocean currents have a direct influence on our lives. They determine our weather, our climate, and much more. The ocean currents and wind systems transport heat from the equator to the poles and operate like a l…
Tiny Bombs in your Blood - The Complement System
Every living being needs to fight off other living beings that want to feast on them. Every living being needs to fight off other living beings that want to feast on them. Every living being needs to fight off other living beings that want to feast on the…
Estimating adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers
[Instructor] What we’re going to do in this video is get some practice estimating adding and subtracting three digit numbers. And so here it says 398 plus 251 is, and this squiggly equal sign means we just need to make an estimate. We wanna know what is…