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.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized - HD

A Year in Space | MARS

View All

5 Destructive Mind States | And How To Tackle Them

A coal mine is a happy mind, but most people, especially in this day and age, so it seems, do not have calm minds. I’ve always been a chronic worrier, and however my condition improved, I often catch myself overthinking and overanalyzing situations either…

Worked example: calculating ion charge | High school chemistry | Khan Academy

So we’re asked what is the charge of a calcium ion with 18 electrons. So pause this video and see if you can work that on your own. I will give you a little bit of a tip: a periodic table of elements might be useful to see where calcium sits on that perio…

Meet the Intimidating Eel That Mates For Life | National Geographic

Okay, so this is a wool feel. As anything named after a wolf would suggest, they are intimidating master predators. You may see the way this guy chomps down on a sea urchin like it just doesn’t even feel its spines on its throat. His teeth are pretty worn…

Worked example: Identifying an element from its mass spectrum | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy

So let’s say that we have some mystery substance here, and we know that it’s a pure element. We need to figure out what it is. Well, scientists have a method, and we go into the details or more details in other videos called mass. Sometimes it’s known as …

Should We Seek Immortality?

One day you’re going to die, and that sucks. The truth is, you, me, and every other human on this planet have been marched toward death since the minute we were born. But this is hardly news. Death is just the price we must pay for being alive, right? Al…

Flying from Japan to Turkey during Pandemic🇯🇵🇹🇷✈️~19 hours long flight vlog✌🏻📸

Hi guys, it’s me, Judy again. I’m back with another vlog! In this vlog, I will show you what it’s like to fly during a pandemic from Japan to Turkey. Before my flight, I decided to get coffee from a convenience store which is in the airport. Because I’m a…

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

More Articles