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<p>NOVA Next is NOVA’s award-winning digital publication that provides answers from the cutting edge of science and technology. Launched in 2012, we feature in-depth articles and commentaries from some of the most respected journalists, scientists, and engineers. NOVA Next explores the ideas that are changing the future, from the frontiers of synthetic biology to the politics of personalized medicine.</p><p>Let us know what you think. We’re listening on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/NOVAonline">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/novapbs">Twitter</a>, and email.</p><p>If you’re a journalist and have an idea for a story, send it our way.</p>

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Geneticist-bioethicist Krystal Tsosie. Image courtesy of Krystal Tsosie.

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      <div class="rich-text"><p>On Friday, August 28, actor Chadwick Boseman died at age 43 of colon cancer.</p><p>Perhaps best known for his role as King T’Challa in “Black Panther,” the actor starred in numerous other Avengers movies, “21 Bridges,” “Da 5 Bloods,” and a not-yet-released adaptation of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” This “superstar run” of back-to-back productions “seems all the more miraculous in light of the knowledge that Boseman pulled it off while quietly undergoing many surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy,” David Sims<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/08/chadwick-boseman/615868/?utm_source=feed"> writes for The Atlantic</a>.</p><p>The cancer that killed Boseman is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States after lung cancer. And although the majority of colon cancer cases are found in older adults, rates are rising among young people.</p><p>In July 2019, University of Texas at Austin researchers reported that “the proportion of newly diagnosed colorectal patients under age 50 <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cncr.32347">rose from 10 percent in 2004 to 12.2 percent in 2015</a>. Younger patients were also likely to have advanced cases more often than older patients,” Knvul Sheikh <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/health/colon-cancer-young.html">writes for the New York Times</a>. (Colorectal cancer includes illness in which tumors are present in the rectum or the colon.) According to the <a href="https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/colorectal-cancer-rates-rise-in-younger-adults.html">American Cancer Society</a>, about 18,000 people under 50 will be diagnosed with colon cancer in 2020.</p><p>Data from Canadian national cancer registries illustrate a similar trend in colorectal cancer rates in younger adults. Colorectal cancer rates increased by 3.47% among Canadian men under age 50 between 2006 and 2015, and by 4.4% among Canadian women under age 50 from 2010 to 2015.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Sessile_Serrated_Polyps.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" width="800"
            src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Sessile_Serrated_Polyps.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Micrograph of a colorectal sessile serrated lesion, which is most commonly seen in the cecum and ascending colon, and has the potential to lead to colorectal cancer. Image credit: Nephron, Wikimedia Commons</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <p>While older patients undergo regular screenings like colonoscopies, which help flag the disease in its early stages so that doctors can remove polyps before cancer develops (colorectal cancer rates have been declining among people over 65, likely because of more regular screenings), neither younger adults nor their healthcare providers are actively on the hunt for colon cancer, Kat Eschner<a href="https://www.popsci.com/story/health/colon-cancer-young-people/"> reports for Popular Science</a>. Therefore, younger patients are often diagnosed at the later stages of the disease and are more likely to die from their illness, whether or not their cancer is more aggressive than an older patient’s.</p><p>Experts aren’t yet sure why colon cancer rates are increasing among younger Americans and Canadians, but lifestyle changes may be a contributor. “Obesity and sedentary lifestyles, for example, are linked to colorectal cancer, as are poor diets low in fiber,” Sheikh writes. But experts are not entirely convinced these are the only factors at work. Trends in obesity among people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds don’t always correspond to an increase in colorectal cancer, Rebecca Siegel, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society Patients, told Sheikh.</p><p>Patients with <a href="https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(11)00170-3/fulltext?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2F">chronic inflammation</a> or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5392343/">Type 2 diabetes</a> have also been found to be at increased risk for colon cancer. According to the National Institutes of Health, because of genetic traits, insulin resistance, and the prevalence of obesity—explained at least in part by<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/racism-stress-covid-allostatic-load/"> systematic racism and allostatic load</a>—African Americans have a<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1743410/"> high risk for type 2 diabetes</a>.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>As a Black man, Boseman belonged to the demographic of people who have the highest rates of colorectal cancer. In another major healthcare inequity, African Americans, particularly men, are more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age relative to other diagnoses, Eschner writes for Popular Science. And Black Americans are less likely to be screened early and are more likely to die of the disease, research <a href="https://www.asge.org/docs/default-source/education/practice_guidelines/piis0016510717318059.pdf?sfvrsn=0">shows</a>.</p><p>At the Center for Young Onset Colorectal Cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which was opened in 2018 to treat younger patients and study the reasons for their diagnoses, Co-Director Dr. Robin B. Mendelsohn and her colleagues “are exploring whether diet, medications like antibiotics, and the microbiome — which have all changed significantly for generations born in the 1960s and later — might be contributing to the cancer in younger people,” Pam Belluck<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/colon-cancer-chadwick-boseman.html"> writes for the New York Times</a>.</p><p>As experts attempt to elucidate why colon cancer rates are increasing among young people, physicians should monitor their younger patients for symptoms that might suggest colorectal cancer, Nilofer Azad, a professor of gastrointestinal oncology at Johns Hopkins University, tells Popular Science. In this population, Eschner writes, symptoms like bloody stool, unexpected weight loss, and prolonged cramping can be overlooked or misdiagnosed as conditions like hemorrhoids.</p><p>Moving forward, better understanding and detection of colon cancer are crucial. But Boseman’s story and his legacy—an incredible collection of films created in a mere 7 years—also illustrate something else: a continued need to address systemic inequities in health care and beyond.</p></div>
  

  
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Chadwick Boseman speaks at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International for "Black Panther." Boseman died of colon cancer on August 28, 2020 at age 43. Image credit: Gage Skidmore

<p>Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Boseman’s case illustrates the importance of more screening—and addressing systemic inequities in health care.</p>

Chadwick Boseman and the rise of colon cancer in young adults





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>A global pandemic. Forest fires in the West. And now a derecho.</p><p>On the evening of Monday, August 10, a weather complex known as a “derecho” sent intense winds and thunderstorms over a 700-mile stretch from Nebraska to Indiana. In Iowa, the hardest-hit state, <a href="https://apnews.com/d44fdc171bf64a11981cec69e39390a9">three deaths have been reported</a> so far and hundreds of thousands of people went without power for days. More than 40% of the state’s corn and soybean crop, the core of Iowa’s economy, was severely damaged by the storm, whose winds reached 110-140 mph, equivalent to those of a Category 3 or 4 hurricane. Patrick Marsh, science support chief at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma compared it to the devastating <a href="https://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/casepages/may82009page.htm">“Super Derecho” of 2009</a>, which extended from Kansas to Tennessee.</p><p>Destruction to Iowa’s homes, farms, businesses, livestock, and crops translates to a $4 billion hit, Donnelle Eller reports for the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2020/08/17/derecho-damage-homes-farms-push-higher-than-iowas-4-billion-estimate/5598590002/">Des Moines Register</a>.</p><p>Cedar Rapids was one of the hardest hit cities in the state. More than 800 buildings suffered partial collapse of the roof, walls, ceiling, or floors, and more than 20 schools sustained damage, Cedar Rapids Fire Chief Greg Smith tells CNN.</p><p>“Nearly every home has damage. Most big trees in the city fell. Most local businesses are closed. Every business is damaged. Most roads are impassable,” <a href="https://medium.com/@bjkap/its-worse-in-cedar-rapids-than-you-know-33b4c9b9c7fe">writes Cedar Rapids resident</a> Ben Kaplan on Medium.</p><p>“Our city of Cedar Rapids has been destroyed by a Derecho, a term for a type of storm I’ve never heard of and never want to hear of again,” one <a href="https://twitter.com/WadeNJerry/status/1295434198485000196">Iowa resident tweeted</a>.</p><p>Though derechos are often referred to as “inland hurricanes” because of their extreme rainfall and winds that can exceed the hurricane threshold of 74 mph, “that is where the similarities end,” Marshall Shepherd, director of University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2020/08/18/a-derecho-is-not-an-inland-hurricane-but-does-it-matter-what-people-call-it/#36b40a10199a">writes for Forbes</a>.</p><p>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association <a href="https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/wind/types/">defines a derecho</a> as a widespread, long-lived wind storm associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Though the damage they can create can be similar to damage inflicted by tornadoes, there’s a key difference: Unlike the spiraling winds and winding paths of twisters, derechos tend to move in one direction along a relatively straight line. Thus their path of destruction is also relatively linear.</p><p>“Meteorologists like me will often refer to this hazard as ‘straight-line wind damage,’”<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2020/08/10/what-is-a-derecho/#32c400593b8e"> Shepherd writes</a>. Much like blizzards, he adds, derechos are defined by very specific criteria. For a storm to be considered one, it must have wind gusts at or greater than 58 mph, pockets of 75 mph or greater gusts, and cause a band of wind damage that is greater than 250 miles long.</p><p>In the Eastern half of the United States, one derecho is expected to occur between every .75 and 4 years, depending on the location. Researchers aren’t yet sure whether climate change is affecting derechos or the frequency at which they occur. Warming global temperatures may actually inhibit the cooler temperature gradients that derecho-producing thunderstorms need to grow. What’s more certain, NOAA states, is that climate change is causing the jetstream to move toward the pole. So it’s likely that derechos will shift poleward in a warming world, too.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Derechoclimo.png" class="richtext-image full-width" height="334" width="500"
            src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Derechoclimo.width-800.png"/><figcaption><p>Derecho frequency for the lower 48 United States. Derechos in North America form predominantly from April to August, peaking in frequency from May into July. Image credit: Wikimedia commons</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <p>The storms associated with derechos can be arranged in a line and be accompanied by squalls of high wind and heavy rain (a “squall line”) or like the curve of a boomerang (a “bow echo”), Shepherd writes. Collectively, squall lines, bow echoes, and other types of thunderstorms that act as a single system are called “<a href="https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/thunderstorms/types/">mesoscale convective systems</a>.”</p><p>On August 10 in Iowa, swaths of 90 to 100 mph winds may have been between 30 and 50 miles wide at times, radar signatures indicate. In Marshalltown, a community of 27,000 people northeast of Des Moines, a personal weather station measured a 106-mph gust of wind, Matthew Cappucci <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/12/iowa-derecho-corn-damage/">reports for the Washington Post</a>; in Midway, a town just north of Cedar Rapids, winds clocked in at an alarming 112 mph.</p><p></p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Thousands of Iowans remained without power and dozens were in shelters as of Thursday, August 20. And then there’s the damage to Iowa’s agriculture, which approximately 90% of the state’s land is dedicated to. Iowa has been the number-one corn producer in the United States for the past 26 years, and experts can’t yet tell the extent of the derecho’s destruction to this year’s crop. “A lot of the corn is in the later development stages,” Keely Coppess, communications director for the Iowa Agriculture Department, tells the Washington Post. “Some is at a 45-degree angle, but it may attempt to stand back up. But it’s really too soon to tell.”</p><p>Now, volunteers are now traveling from out of town to assist with cleanup efforts in Cedar Rapids. Among the volunteers are Dave and Diane Lobermeier from Amherst, Wisconsin, about 300 miles away.</p><p>“We’re retired so we decided we’ll take some time and pack up and come,” Diane tells Cedar Rapids’ local news station KCRG, adding that it’s “the right thing to do.” She and her husband Dave came armed with donations and a chainsaw.</p><p>“They found Pete Martin, from North Liberty, wanting to help, too,” Aaron Scheinblum<a href="https://www.kcrg.com/2020/08/17/volunteers-traveling-from-out-of-town-to-help-cleanup-efforts-in-cedar-rapids/"> reports for KCRG</a>. “‘I feel like we all have a part to make a difference and help recover from this, so this is what I’m going to do,’ Martin said.”</p></div>
  

  
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Members of the Iowa Air National Guard remove trees limbs near downed power lines in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on August 18, 2020, eight days after a powerful derecho hit the Midwest. Image credit: Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groo, U.S. Air National Guard

<p>On August 10, a weather complex known as a “derecho” sent intense winds and thunderstorms over a 700-mile stretch from Nebraska to Indiana. Now, Iowa works to recover from its damage.</p>

Inside the derecho that pummeled the Midwest





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Ceres, the biggest asteroid in our solar system, now has another bragging right. According to new research, Ceres has water seeping onto its surface, suggesting the presence of an ancient <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/pluto-ocean-giant-thermos/">underground ocean</a>.</p><p>The new findings, documented in seven studies published Monday in the journals Nature Astronomy, Nature Communications, and Nature Geoscience, suggest that, despite being cold and salty (and lacking an atmosphere), Ceres is geologically active.</p><p>Also known as a <a href="https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvcp-sci-studypluto/why-study-pluto-and-dwarf-planets/">dwarf planet</a>, Ceres dwells in the asteroid belt sandwiched between Mars and Jupiter. At about 588 miles across, it’s about the third of the width of our moon. <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/dawn/overview/">NASA’s Dawn Orbiter</a> studied Ceres thoroughly from March 2015 to November 2018, getting within 22 miles of the asteroid in its final weeks before running out of fuel. During Dawn’s final year of orbit, it collected high-resolution images of Ceres, which a team of Italian researchers has now analyzed.</p><p>The images illustrate the briny liquid seeping out on Ceres’ surface, “as well as mounds and hills that formed when ice melted and refroze after an asteroid impact about 20 million years ago,” Michael Greshko <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/dwarf-planet-ceres-churns-briny-fluids-icy-volcanoes-nasa-dawn/">reports for National Geographic</a>. Researchers found that the liquid comes from an underground reservoir of saltwater 25 miles beneath Ceres’ Occator Crater. The reservoir may be hundreds of miles wide.</p><p>Occator is a 57-mile-wide impact crater that’s approximately 20 million years old and dappled with bright spots of salt. This week’s findings suggest that these salt deposits formed when cold underground brine oozed out onto the crater’s surface as recently as 1.2 million years ago.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>“Bulging mountains and hills also support the idea that Ceres experiences a kind of ice-cold cryovolcanism, with briny mud or slush acting like molten lava does on Earth,” Greshko writes. “In one region of Occator&#x27;s crater floor, Dawn spotted hints that brines had dribbled out of ice volcanoes within the past few decades, if not more recently.”</p><p>“And the Dawn data shows that the dehydrated salts actually still have a bit of water in them,” Neel V. Patel <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006447/ceres-largest-asteroid-dwarf-planet-underground-ocean-salty-water/">reports for MIT Technology Review</a>. “That suggests whatever geological activity is encouraging these deposits might still be happening, which would mean Ceres is still an active world.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Occator_Crater.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="393" width="590"
            src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Occator_Crater.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>A mosaic image of Ceres&#x27; Occator Crater using false color (in red) to highlight the recently exposed saltwater pushed up from a deep reservoir under the dwarf planet&#x27;s crust. Image credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, UCLA, MPS, DLR and IDA</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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            <p>However, not all scientists are convinced that Ceres is home to a subsurface ocean. Jim Zimbelman, a Smithsonian Institution geologist who was not involved in the latest studies told Scientific American that he remains “pretty skeptical.” Water on the dwarf planet’s surface doesn’t entail the presence of an underground ocean but perhaps a smaller reservoir, some skeptics believe. Mikhail Zolotov of Arizona State University, who was consulted for one of the seven studies but was not directly involved in the work, “dismisses the conclusion that Ceres hosts a brine reservoir as ‘wishful thinking,’” Scott Hershberger <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/claims-of-lsquo-ocean-rsquo-inside-ceres-may-not-hold-water/">reports for Scientific American</a>. In a paper published in January, Zolotov expressed that the presence of water in the form of ice is not required to explain Ceres’ density and that the body’s shape and composition could be explained by organic matter, chondrites (stony, non-metallic meteorites), and a high surface porosity.</p><p>But many scientists agree that the possibility of a brine layer on Ceres is compelling and that the Dawn mission, which provided the discovery, was groundbreaking. Dawn was the first probe to orbit two objects beyond Earth’s immediate neighborhood, having visited asteroid Vesta before Ceres. Along with NASA’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/new-horizons-makes-historic-flyby-on-new-years-day/">New Horizons spacecraft</a>, which <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/pluto-and-beyond/">flew by Pluto</a> in 2015 and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/nasa-celebrates-most-distant-space-encounter/">space rock Arrokoth</a> on New Year’s Day of 2019, Dawn has “shown that small, icy bodies are far more active than once thought,” Greshko writes, “stretching how scientists imagine the geology of dozens of alien worlds.”</p></div>
  

  
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The dwarf planet Ceres, photographed by NASA’s Dawn orbiter. False-color renderings highlight differences in its surface materials. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

<p>High-resolution images from NASA’s Dawn Orbiter suggest our solar system’s largest asteroid may have an ancient underground ocean, but some scientists are skeptical.</p>

Dwarf planet Ceres has salty water and appears geologically active





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>There were nights every August and November when I couldn’t sleep.</p><p>My dad would bundle me in my sleeping bag—a forest green junior rendition of his own—and carry me to a lawn chair outside. He’d put a cup of steaming hot chocolate in my hand. Together, we’d wait for the show to begin.</p><p>These nights were not<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/sleep-deprivation-anxiety/"> bouts of insomnia</a> fought off with fresh air. My six-year-old self and my dad <i>chose</i> to stay up until the early hours of the morning. In November, when the <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/meteors-and-meteorites/leonids/in-depth/">Leonid meteor showers</a> were in full bloom, I’d sleep from 3-6 a.m. and scramble off to school red-eyed. In August, after watching the Perseids perform for hours, I’d sleep in like a teenager.</p><p>I credit these spectacles, put on by the cosmos twice a year, for my unending passion for science and understanding the world around us.</p><p>I may not be alone. The Perseid meteor shower, which peaks overnight from 2 a.m. to dawn local time, is one of the most popular of the year, Rachel Treisman<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901094691/perseid-meteor-shower-peaks-after-midnight-nasa-says-its-one-of-the-best"> reports for NPR</a>: Warmer summer temperatures and high rates of meteors are hard for astronomy aficionados to resist. If you’re able, find a spot away from city lights, lie on your back or sit in a camping chair, and gaze toward the night sky. Meteors will appear like faint streaks of light that gradually fade within moments.</p><p>Meteors form when meteoroids, objects in space that range in size from dust grains to about 80-foot asteroids, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/cone-meteorites/">enter Earth’s atmosphere</a> at high speed and burn up.</p><p>Debris left behind by the ancient <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/109p-swift-tuttle/in-depth/">comet Swift-Tuttle </a>creates the Perseid meteors. Every year in August, Earth ventures through trails of this debris. “NASA says it&#x27;s ‘one of the best’ meteor shows of the year. That&#x27;s because of the sheer number of meteors<b>—</b>50 to 100 meteors to catch per hour as well as their <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/meteors-and-meteorites/perseids/in-depth/">fireballs</a>—larger, brighter explosions of light and color that last longer than an average meteor streak,” Treisman writes.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Unfortunately, this year’s shower will be somewhat impeded by the Moon, which is currently in its last quarter phase. This will limit observers’ view of the shower peak, “reducing the visible meteors from over 60 per hour down to 15-20 per hour,” Emily Clay<a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch_the_Skies/2020/08/06/perseids-peak-watch-best-meteor-shower-of-the-year/"> reports for NASA</a>. “But the Perseids are rich in bright meteors and fireballs, so it will still be worth going out in the early morning to catch some of nature’s fireworks.”</p><p>With<a href="https://www.space.com/comet-neowise-is-dimming.html"> Comet NEOWISE</a> now making a 6,800-year exit from our solar system and a global pandemic still very much underway, any meteor shower spectacle is better than none. I think my six-year-old self would agree.</p></div>
  

  
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A meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower on Friday, Aug. 12, 2016 in West Virginia. Image credit: Bill Ingalls, NASA

<p>Here’s how to watch and what you’ll see.</p>

The 2020 Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>The PBS science series NOVA has earned three nominations for the 41st Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards. The films nominated showcase timely and inspiring science storytelling that span both time and space, illustrating what our solar system’s history reveals about our own planet and whether data-driven research into the history of human violence can inform new approaches to making the world a more peaceful place.</p><p>The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences made the announcement on Thursday, with PBS leading the list of networks with 48 nominations. NOVA’s nominated films include the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/planets/">five-part series <i>The Planets</i></a> in the Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary and Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction categories, and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-violence-paradox/"><i>The Violence Paradox</i></a> in the Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary category.</p><p>“<i>The Planets</i> thrilled millions of PBS viewers with dramatic stories of the life and times of our closest celestial neighbors,” said NOVA Co-Executive Producer Chris Schmidt. “We’re so delighted and proud that our peers in the National Academy have chosen to nominate this amazing series in both categories.&quot;</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Co-Executive Producer Julia Cort added: “<i>The Planets</i> and <i>The Violence Paradox</i> are two of our most ambitious projects, one revealing some of the greatest planetary discoveries of the last 50 years, and the other using scientific data to investigate some of the most controversial questions about human behavior. At a time when excellence in journalism and trusted science storytelling is perhaps more important than ever, we are truly honored that the National Academy has chosen to recognize our dedication to delivering the highest-quality programming to our audiences.”</p><p>The awards ceremony will take place on Sept. 22, 2020 and will be streamed online at <a href="https://watch.theemmys.tv/">watch.theemmys.tv</a> and on The Emmys apps. The full list of nominees can be found on the <a href="https://theemmys.tv/">National Television Academy’s website</a>.</p><p>Watch <i>The Planets: Inner Worlds</i> below:</p></div>
  

  
      

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Five of NOVA's previous News and Documentary Emmy awards. Image credit: Sukee Bennett, WGBH

<p>The network tops the list with 48 nominations.</p>

PBS series NOVA nominated for three 2020 Emmy Awards





  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>NASA scientists are about to get one step closer to knowing what, if anything, has lived on Mars, with <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive">the launch</a> of the Mars 2020 spacecraft at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday, July 30. <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/">The mission</a> will take a rover called Perseverance and the first-ever space helicopter to the red planet, hopefully arriving in February 2021. The objectives of the mission center on detecting Mars’ habitability, and even signs of past life, as well as experiments that investigate the possibility of human exploration. </p><p>One of Perseverance’s main goals will be to collect samples that could prove Mars was once home to microscopic life. Understanding Mars’ past climate and learning more about its geology will also help researchers fill in longstanding gaps in our understanding about how the planet was formed and how it has changed over time. That could help us more fully grasp why Earth and its neighbor—which were originally made from the same deep space materials—<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-planets-mars/">turned out to be</a> such contrasting compatriots. And that’s just the first step in an ambitious mission to bring humans back to the Moon, and then eventually to Mars.</p><p>The mission’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/2020-latest-mars-rover-will-land-jezero-crater/">carefully chosen</a> landing site is the Jezero Crater, where an ancient river delta full of mineral-rich sediments joined a huge lake—the kind of place scientists think might have supported life. Mars orbiters have already spent years collecting information and images from 200 miles above Jezero. But pinpointing signs of ancient life will require a closer look, and that’s where Perseverance comes in. </p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>The robotic scientist, which weighs about 2,300 pounds and is the size of a small car, will spend at least one Mars year (about 687 Earth days) using a specially designed drill to collect intact rock cores—rather than pulverizing the rock the way its predecessor <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/home/">Curiosity</a> did—and store these samples on the surface until future missions can return them to Earth. All this study requires a new <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/">set of instruments</a>, which, like any prepared student, Perseverance is toting on its back. One instrument can detect organic matter; another measures the composition of rocks and soil. Together, they’ll help us learn with greater precision than ever before what Mars is made of.</p><p>Perseverance (<a href="https://www.space.com/nasa-mars-2020-rover-name-perseverance.html">nicknamed ‘Percy</a>’) also carries one particularly ambitious tool, a proof-of-concept experiment called <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/moxie/">MOXIE</a> (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment). Nestled inside the rover itself, MOXIE will test whether it might be possible for future astronauts to turn the planet’s carbon dioxide atmosphere into oxygen for both breathing and rocket propellant. </p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Ingenuity space helicopter" class="richtext-image full-width" height="469" width="800"
            src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/PIA23720_hires.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>An artist&#x27;s redering of the space helicopter Ingenuity, which will be the first aircraft to attempt controlled flight on another planet. Image Credit: NASA</p><div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
            </figure>
            <p>This veritable Swiss Army knife of instruments will be accompanied by the first-ever space helicopter, dubbed Ingenuity. The diminutive aircraft weighs only four pounds, but it will attempt to do something big: fly in another world. Ingenuity will use four carbon-fiber blades spinning at 40 rotations per second to navigate gravity that is a fraction of Earth’s and an atmosphere that is just 1% as dense as our own. </p><p>Showing that Martian flight and local oxygen creation are both possible on this small scale will open important doors. In the short term, flying vehicles on Mars could offer perspectives of the landscape that can’t be accessed by rovers on the surface or spacecraft in near orbit. It could also provide key transport services between distant missions and access to areas that would be difficult for rovers to get to. In the long term, though, such technologies lay an essential foundation for NASA’s <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/artemisprogram">Artemis Program</a>, helping us take our first steps back to the Moon—and, perhaps some day, beyond.</p></div>
  

  
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An artist's rendering of the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance. Image Credit: NASA

<p>The Mars 2020 mission will begin with July 30th’s launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:50 a.m. EDT.</p>

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