so curiosity shown in this nasa animation gets its instructions biemed up at the start of each day, andver is such a talented jieologist that it can teach us a lot from a single pebble fused into a bigger rock. >> there's a pebble right here, and it's actually quite round. >> reporter: and on mars, round pebbles mean they used to be wet. >> if you think about pebbles that you find in a stream on round as well. as they move in the stream, pebbles are hitting other pebbles, and they round off all the other corners. and that shows us they were formed in rushing water. this is the first evidence we have from the surface that water flowed across the surface of mars. >> reporter: this nasa animation is based on mars' actual surface. curiosity's capabilities include a laser that zaps rocks up to 25 feet away to find out what they're made of. it's the first rover that can drill for samples of mars and analyze them in its built-in lab. an early sample told us more about that water that used to be here and led to curiosity's biggest find so far. >> water on the surface of mars, you could scoop it

there's a 30- minute time lag to get a message to mars and back, so "curiosity," shown in this nasa animations beamed up at the start of each day. and the rover is such a talented geologist that it can teach us a lot from a single pebble fused into a bigger rock. >> morgan: there's a pebble right here, and it's actually quite round. >> whitaker: and on mars, round pebbles mean they used to be wet. >> morgan: and if you think about pebbles that you find in a stream on earth, they tend to be very round, as well, because, as they move in the stream, pebbles are hitting other pebbles, and they round off all the little corners. that's how we know this deposit was formed in rushing water. this is the first evidence we have from the surface that water flowed across the surface of mars. >> whitaker: this nasa animation is based on mars' actual surface. "curiosity's" capabilities include a laser that zaps rocks up to 23 feet away to find out what they're made of. it's the first rover that can drill for samples of mars and analyze them in its built-in lab. an early sample told us more about that water

nasa releasing animation of its historic mission to touch the sun.olar probe will launch in the summer of 2018. that spacecraft will be placed in orbit within 4 million miles of the sun's surface. that's the news update this hour. back out west to "squawk alley." carl, you guys are making me homesick for california. >> thank you very much, sue. here is what reed hastings had to say about amazon. >> she are so scary. everything amazon does is so amazing. how are they doing so many different business areas so well? they are trying to repeal the basic laws of business of limited capability. we are continuing to watch them and be impressed with them. they are help tog grow ting to industry, because they are investing in the content. joining us this morning, jeff richard, mark mahaney and john fortt here with us. good to see you, guys. great discussion with reed. it fits in with the overall tone of code. these giants are duking it out. what did you make of it? >> amazon is spending close to $4 billion a year on prime video content. our survey shows that t

this animation shows nasa's cassini spacecraft diving through a plume of ice spraying from the moon insolitusd a significant a hydrogen. nasa announced the findings during an online news conference. >> that is coming from a hydrothermal development on the sea floor of insolitus. >> reporter: here on earth, hydrogen from vents on the ocean floor serve as life source for creatures on the ocean floor. >> perhaps that's what's going on on insolitus. >> it has almost all the ingredient you would need to support life as we know it. >> reporter: scientists also believe jupiter's moon europa has a sea of water beneath its frozen crust. the hubble telescope has again spotted towering plumes of water erupting from cracks in europa's crust. >> we're looking in a way that we never thought possible before for environments in our solar system which may harbor life. >> reporter: to do that, they need new tools. nasa will retire the cassini spacecraft this year, nearly 20 years after it launched. >> four years for this moment! >> reporter: nasa engineers have already prototyped new technology to discover mor

animation. we will need newkinds of fuel and proposing to g's . we just need to do rnd and heading to the stars would be an extraordinary thing. >> is anyone doing that r and d?>> nasa as i mentioned has resuscitated some of their more visionary ideas, the breakthrough star shot which is half years nano robots for the nearest star system and that's a sign that things are taking off. nasa is hosting conferences on interstellar drives and propulsion systems which they had hosted decades ago and then stop doing. now they're doing it again. the medical research on how humans could be taken into a white space is continuing for other reasons like life extension and medical reasons so yes, i think the balls are only moving forward. >> what is it about you that 100,000 students take your courses online? >> to be honest, 100,000 is a lot but is not outrageous because you're tapping the whole world, these are in the 170 different countries. my course is about the cutting edge of astronomy so i tried to rather than marching through the subject the way a textbook would or i would with students at the university, i give them the good stuff. i talk about xo planets and how we mak