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COY WIRE: Happy Tuesday, everyone.
Thanks for making us part of your day.
I'm Coy.
This is "CNN 10."
The start of this week marks 50 days until the 2022
US midterm elections.
These elections are called midterms
because they happen in the middle of a president's
four-year term.
Americans won't be picking a president.
They'll be voting for the representatives in Congress
and candidates for state and local offices.
Currently, members from President Joe Biden's
political party, the Democratic Party,
control both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Let's take 10 to break it all down.
In the House, there are 435 voting members.
Democrats currently hold 221 seats, Republicans 212,
with two current vacancies.
Representatives are elected every two years,
so every one of those seats is up for election in 2022.
In the Senate, there are 100 members.
Democrats control 50 seats, Republicans 50 as well,
but Democrats are said to control the Senate
because the Democratic Vice President Kamala
Harris has a tie-breaking vote.
Senators are elected every six years, so about a third
of these seats are up for election this year.
The House and Senate get a lot of attention
because the balance of power there
can affect the president's ability to get
legislative goals accomplished.
Historically, lawmakers who are in the same party
as the president tend to lose seats in the midterm elections
regardless of who the president is.
So the next question is, will Democrats
hold on to their control of both the House and Senate
in this year's elections, or will
the Republicans take control of one or both chambers?
We'll find out November 8, when Americans head to the polls
to cast their vote.
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10-second trivia-- who is considered the father
of the US Constitution--
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, or James Monroe?
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James Madison is referred to as the father
of the Constitution because of his pivotal role
in the document's drafting.
In recognition of Constitution Day,
we'll be continuing our special Constitution-themed trivia
all week.
Next up, though, could an asteroid ever
become a disasteroid?
Several Hollywood movies have explored the idea
of a mega-sized space rock hitting Earth,
but now NASA is looking for potential ways
to protect the planet and avoid that whole dinosaur situation.
A new mission from NASA called DART, or the Double Asteroid
Redirection Test, plans to deliberately smash
the spacecraft into an asteroid's moon,
and it's getting closer to its target.
The mission is headed for a near-Earth asteroid
named Didymos and it's moonlet.
And the goal is to slam into the moon
and change the asteroid's motion in space.
If the mission is successful, it won't be returning home.
The spacecraft is scheduled to make impact next Monday.
Let's learn more.
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MICHAEL HOLMES: It's a space story seen several times
in the movies, like in the 1998 sci-fi film, "Armageddon."
HARRY STAMPER: The United States government just
asked us to save the world.
Anybody want to say no?
MICHAEL HOLMES: An asteroid threatens Earth.
The military, astronauts, even oil rig drillers
try to save mankind.
Some cities don't make it, but in the end,
the planet survives.
A Hollywood ending, which NASA is hoping
to make a reality with its first planetary defense test mission.
Scientists say they have identified
the kilometer-wide asteroids, like those shown
in the blockbusters, and there are no dangers of them hitting
Earth in the coming centuries.
But NASA says it wants to study what
could be done if an Earth-threatening
asteroid is discovered.
NANCY CHABOT: These asteroids are not a threat to the Earth.
They are not a danger to the Earth.
They are not on a path to hit the Earth
in the foreseeable future.
That makes them an appropriate target for a first test.
MICHAEL HOLMES: Traveling at a speed of 6.6 kilometers
a second, DART will then deliberately
crash into the moonlet to try to jolt it from its regular orbit.
Scientists back on Earth will monitor the collision
using satellite imagery and ground-based telescopes
to see how much the moonlet changes course.
ANDY CHENG: If, one day, an asteroid is discovered
on a collision course with Earth,
then we have an idea of how big the asteroid is
and how fast it's coming, and when we'll
hear that kind of information, then we
will have an idea how much momentum we need to make
that asteroid miss the Earth.
MICHAEL HOLMES: The targeted moonlet
is a little larger than one of the pyramids in Egypt.
NASA says there are 10,000 known asteroids that are just
as big or bigger that could potentially cause
major regional damage if they ever
hit the Earth, although none of them are tracking this way.
DART's kamikaze mission could provide
life-saving data if anything ever does get too close.
Michael Holmes, CNN.
COY WIRE: Next, we're going to meet Joel Sartore,
founder of the Photo Ark.
He's answering the call of wildlife conservation
through photography.
His goal-- take a photo of every animal in captivity
around the world.
He's photographed a whopping 13,000 species from ants
to elephants, and he's on a mission to save them.
This project has taken him 30 years.
Here he is.
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JOEL SARTORE: The world has a million and a half
species described on it.
We tend to give all the publicity to the tigers
and the gorillas and the giant pandas,
but who cares about the minnow or the sparrow or the toad?
I do.
My name is Joel Sartore.
I'm a photographer and fellow of National Geographic Society
and founder of the Photo Ark.
The Photo Ark is my 30-year effort
to document every species in captivity around the world.
We try to do portraits of each animal on a black and white
background to eliminate distractions and allow you
to look them in the eye and see that there's great
beauty there and intelligence, and they're worth saving.
They have a basic right to exist, in my opinion,
like we do.
30% or 40% of the amphibians could go away
in the next 50 years, and a lot of the insects
are already going away.
We need those animals to survive.
One in three bites of food we eat comes from an insect,
comes from a pollinator.
So it's just critically important
that people pay attention, and as a photographer,
I didn't know what else to do.
We've done studio portraits of about 12,500 species.
That's mammals and birds.
It's reptiles and amphibians.
It's fish and invertebrates, so everything
from ants to elephants.
The goal is to get the world's 20,000 to 25,000
that are in captivity, while there's still time.
Many of these animals don't even exist in the wild anymore.
They're extinct in the wild.
So the only breeding populations,
the seed stock are in zoos.
Beyond that, zoos are a great way for people
to stay connected to nature.
At the Lincoln Children's Zoo, we
got some interesting animals.
We did prehensile-tailed porcupine
and ball python and tenrec and three-banded armadillo.
But to see these animals actually alive and thriving
and looking at the camera and thinking, this is a big deal.
And it's not done very often with smaller creatures.
The majority of the animals we photograph
have never been photographed well before.
Many of them have not ever been photographed alive.
My job is to become a voice for all
these animals, the small things that
really keep the planet running.
It's really at our own peril if we ignore them.
Who all do we have coming in here today for animals?
My answering the call of conservation
came the only way it could-- through photography.
So the Photo Ark is my desperate attempt,
last ditch attempt, to try to get the public just
to pay attention.
If we take the pressure off some spots,
animals will come roaring back.
We're going to have this window close on us.
We don't have an infinite amount of time.
Most of the species I've photographed can be saved,
but we actually have to do something about it.
I get asked a lot, what's your favorite animal to photograph?
And it's the next one.
It's the next one.
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COY WIRE: For 10 out of 10 today,
let's check into the Sky Cruise Hotel, a futuristic
nuclear-powered flying hotel.
For now, it's just a concept.
The idea is that it would be piloted
by artificial intelligence, and if built,
this hotel could be in the sky for months without landing.
And it could hold up to 5,000 passengers.
The video you're seeing here was based on an artist's 3D model,
but don't start packing your bags yet.
This version of air travel is a long way off
because the technology that this would run on
doesn't quite exist, nor does a runway big enough.
But the creator of the concept says
it's only a matter of time.
That's about all we have time for for now.
We hope you and everyone watching around the world
have a wonderful one.
But one last thing--
Sulfur Springs High School, go Wildcats.
Shout out to our viewers in Sulfur Springs,
Texas for subscribing and leaving
a comment on our YouTube page.
I'm Coy.
Thanks for watching "CNN 10."
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