What It Takes To Reach The Asteroid Belt... And What Really Hides There

Every diagram of the solar system draws the same dense grey band between Mars and Jupiter. Gather up every asteroid actually out there and you would have a ball smaller than Pluto — four per cent of the mass of the Moon, spread through a slab of space a hundred and eighty million kilometres deep. So why has only one spacecraft in history ever stopped there? Tonight is the whole crossing — what it really costs to arrive, the seven months in nineteen seventy-two when nobody knew it was survivable, and what was waiting for us when we finally got close enough to look. Get cozy and let this long, slow walk out past Mars keep you company tonight. Subscribe to The Sleepy Solstice if you enjoy finding out that the empty parts of the map are the interesting ones. CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 1:42 The belt you were shown 13:18 The price of leaving 24:42 The first machine to try it 35:49 Where the light runs out 46:36 The only ship that ever stopped 58:31 The world that almost became a planet 1:10:04 The ocean that should not be there 1:23:16 The core with nothing around it 1:34:11 The gaps where nothing survives 1:45:09 Families and the crime scene 1:55:07 The rocks that behave like comets 2:05:34 The ninety-nine per cent that left 2:18:43 What really hides there SOURCES NASA Science — Asteroid 4 Vesta — 4 Vesta - NASA Science NASA Science — Ceres: Facts — Ceres: Facts - NASA Science NASA Science — Dawn: Ceres — Ceres - NASA Science NASA Science — Ceres: Exploration — Ceres: Exploration - NASA Science NASA Science — Psyche — Psyche NASA — Pioneer 10 Crosses the Asteroid Belt — Pioneer 10 Crosses the Asteroid Belt NASA Technical Reports Server — In-Flight Operation of the Dawn Ion Propulsion System — In-Flight Operation of the Dawn Ion Propulsion System - The First Nine Months - NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Nature Communications — The varied sources of faculae-forming brines in Ceres' Occator crater — The varied sources of faculae-forming brines in Ceres’ Occator crater emplaced via hydrothermal brine effusion NASA Technical Reports Server — Faculae-Forming Brines in Ceres' Occator Crater — The Varied Sources of Faculae-Forming Brines in Ceres’ Occator Crater Emplaced via Hydrothermal Brine Effusion - NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Science — The Violent Collisional History of Asteroid 4 Vesta — The Violent Collisional History of Asteroid 4 Vesta Earth and Planetary Science Letters — Differentiation of Vesta: implications for a shallow magma ocean — https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... Planetary Science Institute — Dawn Reveals Asteroid Vesta's Role in Solar System History — Dawn Reveals Asteroid Vesta’s Role in Solar System History - Planetary Science Institute arXiv — The Asteroid Belt as a Relic From a Chaotic Early Solar System — https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.04970 MNRAS — Asteroids in the 2:1 resonance with Jupiter: dynamics and size distribution — Asteroids in the 2 : 1 resonance with Jupiter: dynamics and size distribution Astronomy & Astrophysics — Testing the comet nature of main belt comets: 133P/Elst-Pizarro and 176P/LINEAR — Testing the comet nature of main belt comets. The spectra of 133P/Elst-Pizarro and 176P/LINEAR | Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) The Astronomical Journal — Hubble Space Telescope Investigation of Main-Belt Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro — HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE INVESTIGATION OF MAIN-BELT COMET 133P/ELST-PIZARRO OSIRIS-REx Mission — Publications — Publications - OSIRIS-REx — Disclaimer: This channel makes educational entertainment. All factual statements come from published research and recognized scientific organizations. Segments covering speculation, alternative theories, or the narrator's own interpretation are flagged as such within the video. The Sleepy Solstice does not report the news. Watch at your own discretion. #OccatorBrines #KirkwoodGaps