Planetary Plants: Crash Course Kids #45.2 - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

Planetary Plants: Crash Course Kids #45.2 - By Crash Course Kids

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00:09	last time we met you and I were wondering if
00:11	there might be creatures on other worlds , Parts of
00:13	otherworldly food webs , looking up into the sky and
00:16	wondering if they were alone in the universe to .
00:18	But what about plants ? I mean , alien plans
00:21	aren't out there wondering about anything probably . But I
00:25	wonder if plants here on earth have plant like buddies
00:28	somewhere out there . Plants on other planets . It's
00:30	not that big of a stretch why food webs ,
00:33	Dude on earth , plants form the base of the
00:35	food web . Animals can't exist without them . After
00:39	all , plants take light energy and turn it into
00:41	chemical energy . And when animals eat the plants or
00:43	eat the animals that ate the plants , they're consuming
00:46	that energy . So plants are vital to the survival
00:49	of almost everything on earth . That means that if
00:52	you can believe there are creatures on other worlds ,
00:55	you might as well believe that there are plants out
00:56	there too . But how could plants exist on other
01:00	planets ? Well , think about what plants need on
01:06	earth to survive . First . They need energy from
01:09	light around here , they get that from the sun
01:11	, But on other planets outside our solar system ,
01:14	they could get it from their planets near a star
01:16	. Alien plants could then use that Starlight to power
01:19	photosynthesis the system , Earth plants used to create sugar
01:22	from lights , but they need a few other resources
01:24	for photosynthesis to like water and air specifically . They
01:28	need a gas called carbon dioxide and a little bit
01:31	of oxygen to help them use the energy that they
01:33	make from photosynthesis . Plus plants need nutrients to make
01:36	the chlorophyll that they have in their leaves , which
01:39	they used to carry out photosynthesis and they usually get
01:42	these nutrients from the soil . But if you're a
01:44	plan , you can get by without soil . Remember
01:47	in an earlier episode , we talked about hydroponics ,
01:49	which is a way to grow plants without dirt .
01:51	Instead , the plants get the resources they need from
01:54	the water and the air . So we know what
01:56	plants need . Light water , gases and nutrients .
01:59	Now let's check out some potential alien plants . Let's
02:07	start with a neighbor . Could plants grow on a
02:08	planet ? Like MArs , mars gets a lot of
02:11	light from the sun . That's crucial . We've met
02:13	the plants first need and Nasa has recently reported that
02:16	mars likely has liquid water flowing on the surface from
02:19	time to time to great . Another plant need met
02:22	martian soil is also good for plants . It contains
02:25	many nutrients that plants need , like oxygen , hydrogen
02:28	, carbon , nitrogen and potassium looking good . What
02:31	about those gases ? Mars has a lot of carbon
02:33	dioxide , which is great because that's an essential ingredient
02:36	that plants need to grow . But hold up ,
02:39	there are some other major issues on MArs that plants
02:42	would have to overcome . For one thing , mars
02:44	has a very thin atmosphere , about 100 times less
02:47	dense than Earth's , and it's very , very cold
02:50	for these . And other reasons , we haven't found
02:52	any plants there , but plants growing in distant Galaxies
02:55	might be perfectly adapted to environments that are totally different
02:58	from either Earth or mars . How well maybe they
03:02	have different tricks for capturing light . For example ,
03:04	on earth , plants appear green because they absorb all
03:06	the other colors from the light that comes from the
03:08	sun . But what if an alien plant was on
03:10	a planet orbiting a different star ? Not a medium
03:12	sized yellow sun , but a small , dim red
03:15	dwarf plants there could look red , blue , yellow
03:18	, purple , or even grayish black in order to
03:21	best absorb the light from that kind of star .
03:23	Now , what if that planet is way too close
03:25	to the star ? Well maybe it's plants would thrive
03:29	under rocks or in shadows to protect themselves from too
03:32	much light . What about plants on the planet with
03:33	low gravity ? In that case maybe plants could float
03:36	like hot air balloons far above the surface , High
03:39	flying hydroponic plants . So conceivably plants could be adapted
03:43	to all kinds of alien environments and like all living
03:46	things , they would affect the environments they live in
03:49	on earth . When plants photosynthesize , they produce oxygen
03:53	. That's right . Plants aren't only the base of
03:55	our food chain , they also provide the life giving
03:57	oxygen we need to breathe . So plants on other
04:00	worlds could create an environment that's able to support alien
04:03	creatures . Just like how earth plants support us .
04:10	We know what plants on earth need . So we
04:13	think that plants could possibly change and adapt to get
04:16	similar things depending on the special conditions of other worlds
04:20	. And I mean without plants , how would aliens
04:22	be able to eat salad ? These are the kinds
04:26	of things I wonder about ?

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