So, we talked a lot about the formation of the moon. >> Mm-mm. >> But, and you mentioned that the moon is important to life on earth. Why, why is that? What do we get from having a moon that we may not have had if there was no moon? So, the moon's important for several reasons. It helps us stabilize the Earth's obliquity, so the way that the Earth wobbles around on its axis naturally during it's orbit is actually dampened somewhat by having a moon. Now, if you have big obliquity, a little bit like Mars does, you can change the seasons of your planet a great deal. >> Mm-hm. >> So it can be very, very cold for a very long period of time in one hemisphere. And then it'll be very, very cold in another hemisphere. So, the Moon helps it dampen that effect on Earth, which is why we kind of create relatively stable climatic conditions across its surface. The Moon's also quite big. >> Mm-hm. >> So it, to some extent, it sucked up some of the asteroids and comets that would have hit the Earth, protecting it from those types of additional bombardment processes. But perhaps most importantly, the Moon helps to give us a tide. >> Mm-hm. >> So it helps to control the, the, the water motions of the seas on the Earth. Now, it's been hypothesized that some of the places where life might have started on Earth is actually in that tidal zone. So providing the chemical balance from high tides to low tides could have helped to kick start life in those types of environments. So, if that's the case, without the Moon, we may not have actually had life forming in those types of environments. >> Wow. That's a deep thought there. So where do you see planetary science, lunar science, going in the next five, ten, 20 years? So, there's loads of exciting things happening at the moment. There's loads of space missions going off to explore our other planetary neighbors. So, for example, at the moment, there is an amazing NASA rover on the surface of Mars, exploring the surface and testing conditions for past habitability and past climatic conditions. We're hoping that the European Space Agency sends its own rover to Mars in the early 2020 timeframe. But not only Mars, there's a mission going to Mercury from the European Space Agency to explore that, that, that cold dead planet closest to the sun. We're hoping that the Russians might go to the Moon and bring us back some more lunar samples. And China have a really exciting robotic program sending space probes to the moon, they have their own rover there at the moment. We're hoping they'll bring us back some more samples in the next ten years. So, there's lots of really great robotics stuff. Now, what I really get excited about is human exploration. So, we have people up on the International Space Station at the moment in lower orbit doing microgravity experiments and doing some really neat science. But where as geologists want to go, is we want to send astronauts to the surface of moon, to asteroids and on to Mars. Now, this is very challenging, costs a lot of money. However, just imagine all the wonderful things we can do if we can actually send real geologists who explore some of these other planets. I really hope that within 20 years, we'll see people back on the surface of the moon. I think China will go first, but hopefully Europe and the US and other countries will follow soon afterwards, and I'd like to be there kind of helping to support the lunar science activities they're doing. >> Excellent. Very good. Thank you, Katy Joy from the University of Manchester.
