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What is a space hurricane? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, have you ever been in a hurricane? Uh?
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Technically no, really, Panama doesn't get hurricanes. I think we
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: felt the effects of them, but none of them have
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: technically touched us, except maybe like one a long time ago. Well,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: then maybe you'll get your chance here in l A. Really,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles gets hurricanes not very often, but the occasional
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Mexican hurricane is strong enough to make it all the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: way up here. I like myc a little spicy. Yeah,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: there's nothing worse than like a bland hurricane. It's just
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: boring hundred mile and hour winds. Hi. I'm or handmade
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. H I'm Daniel.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and I also never been in
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a hurricane. You've never lived to tell the tale, that's right.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Never been like one of those reporters standing in knee
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: deep water with winds blowing all around them. I would
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: have been out of there much sooner. You've never been
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in a science hurricane, like a flurry of scientific discovery
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and activity, like wind of knowledge blowing over everything. It's
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: definitely felt like a thunderstorm. How and then with some
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of the conflicts and the egos. But no, never officially
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a science hurricane. You've never upgraded that brainstorm to like
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a brain hurricane. Maybe I'm just trapped in the eye.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: But welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explained the Universe,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio, in which we explore
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the swirling mysteries of the universe. We rain knowledge down
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: upon you and try to blow confusion away with hundred
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: mile and our winds of silly jokes. In our podcast,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: we tackle the biggest, deepest, most dramatic questions of the universe.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We don't shy away from any and every topic, and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: we find some nugget of mystery or knowledge and we
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: break it open for you and try to explain it
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: with a few dad jokes. That's right. We try to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: sweep you off your feet with giant winds of corny
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: jokes and serious knowledge about the universe and everything in it,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: because it really does make us spin. I mean, this
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: universe we live in is fantastic. It's beautiful, it's wet,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: it's wild, it's crazy. There are so many things we
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: need to understand, and not just at the most fundamental level.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: As a particle physicist, my job is to break the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: universe down to the very very smallest bits and understand
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the deepest, most fundamental nature of the universe. But even
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: if we did that, it doesn't mean necessarily it would
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: help us understand the world around us. You can't go
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: from string theory to predicting weather. So sometimes there are
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: deep mysteries worth tackling that are right around us, at
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the same scale as our lives. Yeah, because I guess
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the universe does seem a little unpredictable sometimes. I mean,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it's pretty chaotic out there. Even though it sort of
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: seems nice and calm here, there are parts of the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: universe that are pretty crazy and there's a lot going
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: on in there. Yeah. We talk a lot on the
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: podcast about how complex phenomena arise from really simple rules
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and simple objects. From just a few particles, you can
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: make everything that anybody has ever touched, tasted, or eaten,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and that includes really weird stuff like people and hurricanes.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It's amazing what this universe has cooked up for us
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: out of a few basic elements, and some of it
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: is really quite complex and very very difficult to predict.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Some of it we just have to look at in wonder. Yeah,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and so here on Earth we have weather, which is
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: pretty chaotic. Although I feel like we have done a
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: pretty good job in you know, meteorology, of predicting the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: weather a little bit, or at least forecasting the weather
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: annoying when and where hurricanes are going. Yeah, I feel
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: like comedy hasn't really caught up with progress in weather science.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Used to be a standing joke that nobody could predict
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the weather, but these days they're actually pretty good at it.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I find myself relying on my little weather app to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: tell me if it's going to rain today or tomorrow.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's just easy in southern California because it says
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: it never rains. Yeah, you just need comedians to predict
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the weather, you know, just give him a sharpie and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: they'll know exactly where the hurricanes go. Maybe this wisdom
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: in the crowd, right, Get a hundred comedians in the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: room and ask them where the hurricane is going to go,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and that we'll see if on average they're right. Yeah,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and if they bomb, maybe that will I don't know,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: dissipate the hurricane or something, or maybe all the arguing
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: will create a hurricane of shouting or hurricane of egos
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: or all the groaning from the bad jokes. Will I
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: don't know, blow a lot of hot air and blow
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: away to story. Yeah, but meteorologists are still the butt
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of jokes about how they can't predict the weather, even
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: though I think they are doing a pretty good job
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: these days. Yeah. So the weather here on Earth, which
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: is kind of a little bit crazy, sometimes chaotic, a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: little bit unpredictable still sometimes So the question is does
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that happen in other parts of the universe? Is there
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: an equivalent of weather out there in space, maybe other planets,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: or in between planets, or out there in the galaxies
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: or between galaxies. And as usual, we're wondering if the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: ti arunti we see here on Earth are particular to
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Earth or if they are universal. This little parochial tribe
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of humans trying to crack big questions about the universe,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: having only looked at the way things work on Earth,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: we're always faced with this question of whether we can
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: take the things we've learned here and generalized to the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: rest of the universe, or if we live in a
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: really weird, unusual corner and the things that happened here
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: only happened here. Like the people and ice cream Sundays
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. So are hurricanes at
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: universal phenomena experienced on every planet around the universe, or
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: are they something that space tourists will come to Earth
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: just to experience. So to be on the podcast, we'll
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: be asking the question what is a space hurricane? So
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're asking like, are there hurricanes in space?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Or can you make a hurricane in space? Or what's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of a hurricane in space? For all of
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the above, it sounds like a pitch for a movie
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: on the Discovery Channel, you know. It sounds like in
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the category of shark tornado. You know, take two cool
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: words and put them together, right. Yeah, It's like if
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the Weather Channel and the Discovery Channel teamed up and
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: made a special movie space hurricane with sharks, Space Sharknado,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Hurricane with dinosaurs in it. I'm sure somebody in the
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: writer's room has already thought that idea up and discarded it,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: thank God. And then you throw like a bachelor in
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: there and also a home remodeling project, and you've got
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Emmy Award winning television right there. Flip your house and
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: get married using a space hurricane filled with sharks that
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: sounds like a great show and dinosaurs also, everything can
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: happen here on this show. But yeah, that's an interesting question,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: what is a space hurricane? And this sort of relates
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to that question. We were asking about space weather, like
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: is there the equivalent of weather out there in space
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and with all that gas and dust maybe out there floating. Yeah,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and we're interested in whether these oterns we see in
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: hurricanes here on Earth are replicated maybe in other forms,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: maybe not in water, maybe not in air, maybe in
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: other objects out there in space and other parts of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the universe, so that when the aliens come we will
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: have something to talk to them about. Well, as usually,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: we were wondering how many people out there had heard
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of a space hurricane or had any idea of what
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: it is. So Daniel went out there into the wilds
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of the Internet to ask people what is a space hurricane? So,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: if you live in the wilds of the Internet and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you would like to answer random questions I sent you
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: with no opportunity to prepare, please write to me two
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. I personally live
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: in the planes of the Internet. It's a lot calma there.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: There's no Twitter or Facebook, just a gentle wind of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia information. Every time you say the wilds of the Internet,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: it makes me feel like a rugged explore risking my
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: life to go out there and gather information in the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: name of science. I mean reaching out to strangers and Internet.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It's totally safe. These are our listeners men. They are
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: nice people. M I see. That's all it takes to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: be your friend, Daniel. Just be willing to listen to
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: about physics. Absolutely. Anybody willing to listen to this podcast
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: is definitely my friend. All right, Well, think about it
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: for a second. If someone asks you, what is a
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: space hurricane, what would you answer. Here's what people had
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to say. I assume it has something to do with well,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: space weather and possibly solar wind or stellar wind. I'm
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: not entirely sure. Maybe there's hurricanes. I don't think it
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: would count as a hurricane on the Sun or a
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: hurricane on say Jupiter, because they're not quiet space hurricanes. Um,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: maybe it's some sort of hurricane to do with the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: curvature of a space maybe approaching a black hole, something
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: along those lines. I have no idea what a space
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: hurricane is, but I would have to guess that it
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: has something to do with solo winds. But it sounds
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: like a swirling mass of If it's in space, it's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: probably something like stars or something else with a lot
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of mass. When you look at a hurricane and Earth,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: it sure looks like a galaxy, So maybe a spiral
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: galaxy is a space hurricane. I can imagine the space
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: hurricane is created by the solar ring, so like there's
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a big outburst from the Sun um that creates space weather,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and if it's a really extreme outburst, then it might
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: create a space hurricane. But I can also imagine um
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: movement of stuff in space itself might create vortexes or
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: space hurricanes. Hope you will all right. I guess it's
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: some pretty interesting answers here. I feel like people sort
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: of thought about a hurricane and what it looks like
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: in pictures that the swirling massive stuff, and then they
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: try to, I don't know, project it into space, like
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: what would that look like in space or in other planets. Yeah,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: it's some great examples of generalization, like this is real
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: physics in action here. I love people take this idea
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and wonder whether or not it could exist in other forms. Awesome,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: especially the one about a galaxy being a space hurricane.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Very cool, right, Yeah, it is a galaxy technically a
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: space hurricane. Like they look kind of the same as
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: a big flushing toilet or swirling disc. Right, that's kind
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of what a hurricane is, and that's kind of what
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a galaxy is. Yeah, we'll get into it. But a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: hurricane actually is a low pressure center, right where things
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: flow out from the center, and a galaxy, of course
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: is very high pressure center. It's really the densest spot
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: with if all the forces pulling towards the center of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the galaxy. So the mechanisms are something different, but you're right,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: they do look kind of similar. It's an anti hurricane.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe it would be awesome that have a hurricane where
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: it's raining stars instead of water droplets. That's pretty meta,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that would be That sounds really dangerous. You would definitely
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: not be a weatherman standing there for very long. Yeah,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: what kind of hurricane proofing do you need when it's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: raining stars? That sounds like another great show on the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Discovery slash Weather channel Surviving Extreme Space Weather Raining Stars.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: But let's get into it then. I guess step us
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: through here, Daniel. First of all, let's tackle one word
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: at a time. So a hurricane, what is that technically
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: here on Earth? Like, how do we get hurricanes? And
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: what technically counts as a hurricane? And is that the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: right name for the weather phenomenon that most people think
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of when they think of hurricanes. I was really surprised
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to learn that you give the name hurricane to a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: particular type of storm that appears all around the world,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: but you only call it a hurricane if it appears
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: in particular places in the Atlantic or in the northeastern Pacific.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: It's the most general phrase. Is a cyclone this this
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: kind of storm you get over the water, but you
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: only call it a hurricane in various parts of the world.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It's like the naming committee couldn't agree on what I
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: call these things, and so they broke up without like
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a global agreement for what to call them. I see now,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: is this like a convenient naming you know, scheme or
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: is this just like out of the history of how
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: like you know, people who lived here called it a
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: hurricane and people who lived over there call it a typhoon.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: You know. Is it like pop and soda and coke
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: or is it like you know, scientists were like, okay,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: we'll call these the ones that we hear this and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the ones that were there, and we'll call them that.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: There's really no difference between a hurricane in the Atlantic,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: or a typhoon in the Northwest specific or a tropical
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: cyclone in the South Pacific. They're fundamentally the same thing.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: The only thing that differentiates them is where they happen.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: So the naming convention is just historic. That's what we
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: call those storms. And then I think later people understood
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in more detail. All these are really all sort of
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: examples of the same thing I see. But the technical term,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the scientific term is actually cyclone, yeah exactly, which sounds
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: like a killer robot from the future or something, but
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: it really just describes this sort of spinning storm that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: you get, which is very typical the kind of storm
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I think about when I think about a hurricane. I see,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: so all hurricanes are cyclones, but not all cyclones are hurricanes,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that's right, exactly. So they're called typhoons in Northwest Pacific
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and tropical cyclones in the South Pacific or Indian Ocean.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: So what are the basics of the cyclone storm? So
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it's the same all around the world, and it's this
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: phenomenon where you have a bunch of really warm water,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and so the water heats up the air that's above
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: it and moistens it because the water is evaporating from
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the surface, and then hot air rises, right, and so
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the hot air rises over this warm spot in the ocean,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and because the air is rising, it causes this low
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: pressure center because the air is leaving, so other air
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: sort of have to get sucked in. So it sucks
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: in air from around it, which then rises up and
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: has to go somewhere and then spreads out. So you
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: get this pattern where air is getting pulled in over
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the water, rising up and then spreading out. And that's
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the basics of it. And if the Earth wasn't spinning,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the cyclones wouldn't spin either. The way these storms start
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to spin is just because of the spin of the Earth, right,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: It's you to the Coriolis effect, right, that's right. As
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: these winds blow outwards from the center of the storm,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: they start to curve. And the reason is really cool
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: is because, as you say, it's because of the Coriolis effect.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: If you're standing on the equator, then you are spinning
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: around the Earth really fast. Right, You're going a thousand
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: miles per hour. The surface of the Earth at the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: equator is moving a thousand miles per hour. The surface
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of the Earth at the North pole isn't moving at all, right,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're spinning in place, but you're not actually moving.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: So what that means is that the closer you are
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to the equator, the faster you're moving, and the closer
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: you are to the north or South pole, the slower
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: you're moving. That's very cool a sort of to know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: but it has an actual effect because if you have
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: air that moves from the equator up towards the poles,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: then it's moving faster than the air it's encountering, and
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: so it actually sort of drifts. So, for example, if
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you're in the northern part of the Earth, in the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: northern hemisphere, air that moves up from the equator towards
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the north is going faster than the other air, so
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it actually sort of curves to the east. So air
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: that flows north from the equator curves to the east,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and air that flows south from the North pole is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: going too slow to catch up with the air it
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: is encountering, so it sort of flows a little bit
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to the west, so you get this curving effect just
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: due to the spinning of the Earth. Right, So then
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the idea is that the warm air heats up the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: air above it, that air gets kind of sucked up
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: into the upper atmosphere, and that draws in cold air
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: which comes in with some sort of spin or some
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: sort of kind of skew twit, which then starts kind
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: of the swirl of it. Right, And so you can
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: make this mental picture in your mind of air getting
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: pulled towards the hurricane from the south curves to the right,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and air coming down from the north also curves to
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: its right. And so everywhere as the air is getting
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: pulled towards the center of the thing is curving towards
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the right. So then it becomes self reinforcing and this
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: whole thing starts to spin. But to me, it's just
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: sort of awesome that you could like prove that the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Earth is spinning just by looking at hurricanes, right, Or
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: how toilets flashed technically right, Like you don't need to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: leave your house, you can just flush the toilet. I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: think that's an urban legend, man, I think toilets flushed
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the same way in Australia. Well, may it depends on
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: how you designed the toilet. You're right. If you have
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: a toilet it's like a thousand miles wide, then maybe
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you're right. Yeah, that's what I mean. Isn't your toilet
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: a thousand miles wide? I don't know what you had
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: for lunch, dude, but just my particular needs. That's a
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: spicy hurricane, my friend. But the amazing thing is that
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: in the Southern hemisphere storms really do spin the other
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: way because the same effect works the opposite way in
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the Southern hemisphere. So if the air is flowing from
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the equator towards the south, then it's going faster than
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the air it's encountering. But now it's going to spin
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the other direction. Right, it's going to spin sort of too.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: It's left. The same deal. If air is coming from
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the south pole up towards the equator right, then it's
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: going slower than the air that's spinning. It's going to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: her to the left, and so you get storm spinning
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the other way in the Southern hemisphere. I think this
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: is super awesome. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And so I
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: guess maybe a quick question is, like what happens to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: all that air getting sucked up. Does it just go
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: up to the upper atmosphere and then dissipates or does
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: it recycle kind of down and then helps to feed
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that hurricane. Yes, you're right. The cold air gets sucked
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: in and then it rises and then it flows out
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: in this sort of big shield. And that's what you
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: see sort of from the space if you're looking at
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: this hurricane, that you get this like big spinning shield
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: that sort of spins out away from the hurricane. And
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: so that's what these sort of these arms are there,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: these clouds and condensation formed from the air flowing away
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: from the center of the hurricane and the upper atmosphere.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So a hurricane it's actually like a three D thing.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: It's not just a swirl like the air and the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: bottom is swirling inwards, but the air in the upper
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: atmosphere is swirling outwards. Yeah, exactly. And so it's this
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: machine and it's all powered by the energy from the ocean.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: And so that's why as the Earth warms up and
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: we get more hot spots and hotter spots in the ocean,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: we get more and more dramatic hurricanes. And I guess
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: it's due to these currents too, because I guess you
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: need warm water under cold air, right, So it like
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: as the warm water, you know, moves under cold air,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: then it creates these low pressure points. M exactly. It
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: warms up the air and the air rises, and then
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: you get this low pressure center. So you know, in general,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the idea of hurricane is this flow, this cyclic flow
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: of the air and this low pressure center. All right, well,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: let's get into whether or not something like that can
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: happen out in outer space, maybe in other planets or
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: in our galaxy. But first let's take a quick break. Right,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: we're talking about space hurricanes and whether or not those
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: are actually a thing. I guess there are a thing
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: that I know if we're asking the question what is
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: a space hurricane? So it might be a thing. Right.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It would be a short podcast if we were just
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: saying no, you can tell, because otherwise we would have
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: titled this episode do space hurricanes exist? Right? But here
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: we are asking what is a space hurricaine? So I
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: think we spoiled a little bit. If they do exist,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: there are a thing. But I guess the question is
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: how does that happen? How do you get a hurricane
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: in space? Yes, so this basic mechanism that we're talking
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: about can exist in other places, other places where you
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: have something like air that can flow, and then you
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: have some source of energy to like pump into that
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to create this low pressure center. And so you have
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: lots of places, actually in the Solar System we know about,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and then probably in the rest of the universe where
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: you get similar structures that are forming not necessarily out
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of air and water droplets. But the structure of a
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: hurricane turns out to be something we see all over
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the place, really not necessarily with water, but maybe other
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: science of storms. Yeah, exactly, with other kinds of storms.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: You know, around the Solar System, we have atmospheres with
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: methane and all sorts of other crazy stuff in them,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And so we can take the same idea of a
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: hurricane and use it to understand storms on other planets
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: or moons. I guess the other planets are spinning and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: they have some kind of atmosphere, so why not, right,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: they could have hurricanes to Yeah exactly, But wait, don't
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you need the oceans to like the moving oceans and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: currents and things like that. Well, you really just need
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: sort of like bands, right, You don't necessarily need an ocean.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: You just need something underneath it to provide the energy,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: something to power this thing. And so you know, you
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: could have like hot rocks or other bands of denser gases.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: You don't necessarily need a liquid ocean of water. You
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: don't need like the moving currents of water, right, because
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that's that's kind of why hurricanes move, isn't it or
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is it just due to the weather. Well, motion of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the hurricanes on other planets will see is a little
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: bit different than it is on Earth. That they don't
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: necessarily crash into shores the way they do on Earth,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: but they're definitely formed and there can be a lot
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: more stable. Sometimes these storms on other planets can last
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: for hundreds of years. All Right, we'll step us through here.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: What are some of the interesting hurricane type of storms
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: that we see in other planets? Well, sort of the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: most boring are the ones on our neighbor planet Mars.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Mars does have big storms on it, so we don't
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: understand them exactly how they work, but we have seen
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: cyclones on Mars. Mostly these things are dust storms, and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they're not as dramatic as the hurricanes on Earth, mostly
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: because the atmosphere on Mars is just a lot lower pressure.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: You know, there's just not that much atmosphere, so you
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: don't get as many dramatic events. Like the winds in
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: storms on Mars blow up to maybe a hundred kilometers
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: per hour, which is not nearly as dramatic as hurricanes
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: here on Earth. It's sort of like a slow motion,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: mild kind of hurricane. Yeah, exactly. But we are watching
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere of Mars pretty carefully. We have a lot
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of satellites in orbit around it. And in April of
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: scientists saw this huge cyclone near the north pole of Mars.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: It was eleven hundred miles wide and had these big
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: cloud bands and it spun around and it dissipated after
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: several hours. It was the Mars Santa Claus who was like, no, no, no, no,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: no, no no, hurricane here in Mars. Yeah, and it's not
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: something that we have seen since. And we are watching
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the Martian atmosphere, so it's something we're looking to understand
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: because we're always wanting to get a better understanding of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: what's in the atmosphere of Mars and what the dynamics
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: of it are. But you know, the same basic idea,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you know, something must have heated up the center of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: this thing to create the rising air from the center,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: which flew outwards and then spun because of the spinning
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: of Mars. What about other planets have we seen cyclones
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in like Saturn? We have. Saturn, of course, has an
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: amazing storm. There's this storm on its north pole which
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: is in the shape of a hexagon. We did a
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: whole fun podcast episode about like what is going on there?
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: How do you get a hexagon shaped storm on the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: north pole of Saturn that's been there for a long
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: time time and it's like twenty five thousand kilometers wide, So, like,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: this thing is a monster. But not just its north pole.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: It has these spots on it that are these like
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: massive planets circling storms. They don't last that long, but
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: they can impact the atmosphere and the temperature of the
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: planet for quite a while. So there are these great
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: white spots on Saturn that scientists think have the same
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: fundamental mechanisms as hurricanes here on Earth. Interesting now, because
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I guess Saturn is sort of a gas planet, right,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: It's mostly gas, and so it must have all kinds
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of currents and layers of gas swirling and bands and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: things like that exactly, and so you have these layers,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and so when a deeper layer has a hot spot
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: in it, it can create a low pressure center in
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the band above it, right, which creates exactly the same
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: effect as we see here on Earth. And so we
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: don't understand a lot of the mechanisms that the internals
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: of Saturn, mostly because we haven't had a chance to
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: probe it. Remember Cassini did it like death dive into
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Saturn and give us measurements about what was going on
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: inside of it. But mostly Saturn has been unexplored, so
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: we have to just observe it from the outside. And
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that's why asking these questions like do we understand how
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the storms form? Do we understand the mechanisms of it?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Can we extrapolate from the things we have learned on
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Earth is a really good way to try to build
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: a model of what's going on in Saturn, so we
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: can ask if it makes sense or if there are
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: surprises inside. Interesting now here that Saturn has a record
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: for the longest continuous storm in the Solar System, Yeah
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: that's right, not necessarily just a hurricane, but there was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: a thunderstorm on Saturn that lasted for over eight months.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Cassini observed it back in two thousand nine, and we
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: measured the strength of this thunderstorm by measuring the radio
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: emissions from its lightning. Right, every time you have a thunderstorm,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you have lightning, and lightning, of course, is an electromagnetic phenomena,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: which means it creates radiation. I mean, what you're seeing
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: is radiation from the lightning, So there's also radiation in
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: other frequent seas of light, including the radio. You can
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: detect thunderstorms in radio waves. That's why it interferes with radio,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of course. And this one was ten thousand times stronger
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: than storms we see here on Earth and lasted for
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: eight months, So that's pretty dramatic. So really hunker down
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: if you're in a storm on Saturday. I guess technically
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that wasn't a cyclone. It was just a big thunderstorm,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: like clouds crashing into each other. Yeah, exactly, that was
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: not a cyclone. Alright. What about the big guy in
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: our solar system, Jupiter, That must have a lot of
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: cyclones because it's a big gas giant exactly for the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: same reason, and it has the biggest cyclones humanity has
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: ever discovered. In the Great Red Spot is basically a hurricane.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: This thing we did a whole episode about it. Remember,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: it's been seen by astronomers for hundreds of years, and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: so we know that this storm is at least three
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years old. It also boasts the fastest
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: winds in the Solar System, and so this is essentially
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: a huge hurricane on another planet. It's visible from Earth, right,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and it's read for some reason. Right. We talked about
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: it in a podcast episode. Yeah, although it's a really
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: fun mystery, and so digg into that whole episode if
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you're curious about why the Great Red Spot is read,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and also why the Great Red Spot is shrinking, Yeah,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: check that out please. And something else and just think
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: about Jupiter is that it has a lot of cyclones,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: but they're not regular cyclones. Yeah, Jupiter turns out has cyclones,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: but mostly it has anti cyclones. Anti cyclones are not
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: like anti matter. It's not like if a cyclone meets
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: an anti cyclone, they annihilate. It's a cyclone that has
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the opposite sort of structure because it has high pressure
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: center instead of a low pressure center, and so the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: winds actually go the opposite direction. Like on Earth, if
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you have a cyclone in the northern hemisphere, it spins
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: counter clockwise. If you had an anti cyclone in the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: northern hemisphere, it would spin clockwise, and so on Jupiter,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: most of these things are actually anti cyclones. Interesting, meaning
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: like it's a high pressure center somehow, like maybe the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: bottom layer is colder and then that pushes air away somehow. Yeah,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I would have to have like the air sinking in
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the center exactly, like if you have a cold spot,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: then it's pulling the air in and sinking it down
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: towards the center, and so that creates a pattern of winds,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and it also spins again because of the spinning of Jupiter.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: So again, this is something that's like on the forefront
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: of our knowledge. Space meteorologists and planetary scientists are trying
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to understand the dynamics of Jupiter's atmosphere. And that's a
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: tough thing to do from so far away with very
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: limited instruments. So it's a tough science. Yeah. I can't
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: imagine it's hard enough here to monitor the weather, imagine
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: doing it a million miles away. All right, Well, what
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: about other planets in the Solar System? What other interesting
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: cyclones can we find. Yeah, Neptune has a great dark spot.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: It seems like on other planets we call these things spots, right,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I guess, just because that's what they look like from space.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: But I feel like it undersells them in mas It
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: feel like a stain in your laundry instead of this
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: like mammoth atmospheric event with incredible power and destructiveness. But
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Neptune has a great dark spot. Must have spilled coffee
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: on itself or something, and it features winds a fifteen
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: hundred miles per hour and it rotates around the planet
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: every eighteen hours or so. This thing in the southern
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: hemisphere of Neptune is the same size as the Earth. Wow,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: that's crazy, Like you could fit the Earth inside of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the storm, I know. And it's sort of like the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: unloved cousin of the Great Red Spot, because the Great
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Red Spots pretty big, but it's not that much bigger
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: than the Great dark Spot. The Great Red Spots like
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty percent the size of the Earth,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: so it's only a little bit bigger. But nobody talks
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: about the Great Dark Spot and all the destruction it's achieved.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like the Earth, maybe this feeling left out,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: like maybe the Earth wishes it had a tattoo, just
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: like Jupiter Neptune. I don't think we wish the Earth
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: had any big spots like that who plowed throughout civilization. Well,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I guess there does have a big stain at it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: It's called humans jazz kidding, I'm looking forward to that movie,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a human hurricane. All right, Well, what about some of
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the other planets, anything in our inner Solar system? Yeah,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: So Mercury actually has a really really fin atmosphere, so
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: there aren't really storms to speak of in terms of winds,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: But it has a crazy magnetic field, and also it's
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: very close to the Sun. It interacts with its magnetic field,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and so it has these things called magnetic tornadoes, which
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: are sort of related. What. Yeah, you get these bundles
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of magnetic fields and magnetic field lines can twist and eventually,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: when there's too much strain on them, they can snap
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and then like realign, and so this sort of causes
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: something similar because these magnetic fields push charged particles, and
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: when they spin and twist, they can push particles sort
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: of in a circular pattern, and so you get these
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: magnetic tornadoes. Where it's sort of like you know the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Northern lights, which are just charged particles moving around magnetic fields,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: except you get these sort of spinning patterns of the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: charge particles on mercury. Whoa, but you call that one
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a tornado. That's different than a maybe a cyclone or
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: a hurricane. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't have like the same
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: sort of low pressure center. It's just this sort of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: like sheer effect that's creating this spinning due to the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: magnetic fields, I guess. And you have the same sort
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of thing happening actually on the Sun. On the Sun,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you have these like really huge towers of plasma being
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: ejected from the center and all these tangled magnetic fields
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: because these charged particles moving really fast, which gives you
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: magnetic fields, and so you get these huge towers with
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: tangled magnetic fields, and sometimes those magnetic fields get strained
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and then they snap and realign and you get the
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: same sort of effect. These are called solar tornadoes, but
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: they don't actually spin. People thought for a long time
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: these things also spun and give you these like weird patterns,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: but they're just these sort of like long towers of
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: plasma that are like several times the size of the Earth.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: So they're not spinning, but they are maybe swirling, right,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: that's what makes us call them tornado. Yeah, I don't
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: think they're even swirling. I think people fought for a
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: while they might be swirling, and they applied this phrase
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: solar tornadoes to them before they understood that they're not spinning,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: and then later measurements show that they don't actually rotate.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: So probably they should be downgraded from solar tornado to
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: just like solar massive tower of plasma, but they still
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: have the name. I don't know which one has a
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: better movie like a name, Solar Power Giant Tower of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Doom or solar Tornado. All right, well that's on the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: planets and in our Solar system. Now let's talk about
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: possible hurricanes in actual space, because I feel like these
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: are hurricanes, but they're in other planets, so they're technically
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: not in space. I mean there's space relative to us,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: but not to like Saturn in Jupiter. Yeah, there's sort
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of extraterrestrial hurricanes. All right, Well let's get into actual
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: hurricanes in space. But first let's take another quick break.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: All right, we're trying to come up with the next
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: great movie for the Discovery Channel and the Weather Channel. Daniel,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: any interesting names that we come up with in the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: break dark matter typhoon. Daniel and Jorge get eaten by
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: dark matter sharks, but then it gets saved by regular
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: matter dinosaurs. Why would regular matter dinosaurs come and save us.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: They're still mad that we took over the planet when
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the afteroid hit. They left it to us. Colan. It
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: could just be the vegetarian dinosaurs. I think those died
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: out pretty quick. Yep, you gotta eat a lot of
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: salad if you're a dinosaur. Let me tell you. All right, Well,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: let's get into whether or not we can have weather
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: in space. I think we had an episode about weather
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: in space, but this one today we're talking specifically about
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: hurricanes in space. Space weather in general mostly refers to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: what the Sun is doing, because the Sun generates a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: solar wind, which is a stream of particles, or the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Sun is not just a ball of plasma that generates
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: heat and photon, It also shoots out protons and electrons
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and all sorts of other stuff, neutrinos, all sorts of
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: stuff the products of the fusion going on at its center,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and that solar wind is important and if you're out
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: there in space like you're a satellite, you have to
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: be careful because these things are like tiny bullets and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: they can shred your electronics. And because the Sun is unpredictable,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: solar weather is unpredictable, and like a solar storm leading
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: to a solar flare can really inundate our delicate electronics
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: with all sorts of particles. But what we're talking about
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: today is actually something quite different. It's a space hurricane,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you're right, is not the product of solar weather, but
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: actually something that's happening in the very very upper atmosphere
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of Earth. So it's actually more like near space weather,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: almost space weather. It's like right on the border between
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Earth and space. Yeah, exactly, it's like near Earth space.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: But you see this sort of same structure that we're
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: familiar with now of a hurricane, where you have this
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: like low pressure center and things rising and then of
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: course the spinning effect. And this is a fascinating study
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: from a university in China. This is done by Shandong
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: University in China, and they actually observed a hurricane over
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the Earth's magnetic north pole. We're talking about really really
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: far up in the very upper atmosphere of Earth where
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: you have mostly just like charged particles whizzing around. So
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: basically where the atmosphere becomes a plasma, you know, where
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: it's like protons and electrons whizzing around in space. There's
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: not a lot of air there, or is this plasma
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: made from air? This plasma is made from air. But
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: also you know, like this is where the solar wind
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: hits the outer atmosphere, and so a lot of the
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: air molecules get ionized when the solar wind hits them,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and so would you have up there's a lot more
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: charged particles than you have down here on Earth. What
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: they saw was this thing they call a space hurricane
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: because you have this circulation, but instead of in air
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: with water droplets, it's in plasma and the precipitation are
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: electron So this is a space hurricane in plasma raining electrons.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: What raining electricity? Basically yeah, exactly, not like lightning, right.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Electricity is like the motion of energy through electrons. Right
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: as energy gets passed along a chain of electrons. Here
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the electrons themselves are actually shooting, going really really fast
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: up to like ten thousand killer electron bolts, which is
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: like not nearly as fast as we have the large
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: hadron collider, but it's a huge, massive number of electrons,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: and so these things get pulled up and then rain
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: back down. Now, this is like different than the Northern lights, right, Like,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: this is different than what's going on with the solar
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: wind hitting the atmosphere. This is like stuff that's happening
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: with the ions and the electrons that are already floating
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: above the Earth. Yeah, this is a complex interaction of
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the plasma at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the magnetic fields and how the Earth's magnetic fields interact
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: with the other magnetic field to round us. Right, Like,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: we have our own magnetic field, and then there's the
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Sun's magnetic field and the magnetic fields of all the
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: other objects that we're sort of flying through, and our
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: magnetic field lines sort of like add up with those
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: magnetic field lines to make a total magnetic field. But
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: because we're moving through that magnetic field, it gets complicated
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: and these magnetic field lines sort of snap and rearrange
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: sometimes and that creates this central vortex. This like spinning
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: magnetic fields, very similar to these magnetic tornadoes we talked
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: about our mercury, and the net effect is that it
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: accelerates electrons upwards. It pulls them up so effectively makes
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a low pressure region at the center where it's low
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: pressure in terms of like fewer electrons are there, and
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: so then the other electrons around rush in and then
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: that creates a swirl. That's exactly it. So the other
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: electrons rushed in and then everything rises up. In this case,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: it's powered by this magnetic field vortex instead of like
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: you know, warm ocean waters, but the structure is the same.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing I find really fascinating that this
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: basic mechanism of a hurricane you see in lots of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: different places. As long as you have these basic ingredients,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: you know, something to power it, create a low pressure center,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and then on a spinning planet, you'll end up with
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: this spinning effect. And that's exactly what they see. But
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: these are not that common, and so this one particular
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: storm was seen in two thousand and fourteen. With satellite observations.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: There's this awesome device called the Special Sensor Ultra Violet
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Spectrographic Imager or SUSY to its friends, Sassy or SUSY.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: I'll let you decide how to pronounce it. I'm not
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: sure how the scientists who work on to pronounce it.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: So this was that somebody took a picture of this
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: space hurricane with plasma and raining electrons. They took a
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: picture of it with a satellite. Yeah, exactly, because it radiates. Right,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: anytime you have charged particles accelerating, they radiate photons, and
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: so we can see this anywhere in the universe electrons
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: are being bent or accelerated, they will give off photons,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and this is a great way to see how particles
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: are moving through space and what's going on. So this
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: satellite detexts in the ultra violet the radiation of these
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: electrons trapped in this space hurricane, and so they were
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: able to see it. And so if you google space hurricane,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: you can see this awesome picture of really the spinning
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: vortex and it's got these lines and everything. But it's
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: sort of similar to the Northern lights right in that
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: these are charged particles that are moving along magnetic field
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: lines and they are giving off radiation. But instead of
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: just being these long bands, it really is this spiral
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: with various arms. Did you see it with the naked
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: eye or is it that you can only see it
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: with the satellite. You definitely couldn't see it from the surface.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it gave off radiation in the
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: visible light, but it was definitely strongest in the UV
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: and I think that's because these very high energy electrons.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: It's a very high frequency radiation. I guess the question
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: is why did they call it a space hurricane and
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: not a space typhoon or space cyclone? Is it because
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: it's technically in the northern hemisphere. I space hurricane just
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: has the right ring to it, right. Hurricane just sounds
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: more dramatic than typhoon or cyclone, space cyclone, cosmic cyclone.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: You see that extra You should have been in the
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: room pitching these ideas. So this thing is pretty awesome.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: It's a thousand kilometers wide. It's not something that happens
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: very often. This one lasted about eight hours before it dissipated,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and we haven't seen another one, and so it's something
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: scientists are on the lookout for because we're looking to
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: understand like, are these hurricanes really universal phenomenon? Do they
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: exist all over the universe in various kinds of forms,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: in water, in methane, in electrons. That's really fascinating to
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: know that we could like take our knowledge of what's
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: happening here on Earth and use it to understand the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: weather on other planets around other stars. Interesting, like if
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: it can happen here, it can happen in other places,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and you know the way it happens, it can maybe
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: tell us about what's going on in those layers of
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: clouds and gases and other planets. Because we spent a
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: lot of energy right now trying to understand hurricanes, not
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: just because we want to predict them so that we
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: can keep people safe because we know where they're gonna land,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: but because they're an example of something that's really difficult
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to talk about, really difficult to calculate. You talked earlier
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: in the podcast at the very beginning about chaos, and
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: they are a great example of chaos. Like we understand
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: the basic rules of everything that goes on inside a hurricane.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: There's no mystery there, there's no like magic happening. It's
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: all just water droplets and air moving. But it's still
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: very difficult to predict when a hurricane will form and
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: what it will do because it's very very sensitive to
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: tiny little details, a small change and how it started
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: can mean a big change and where it landed, and
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that makes it difficult to handle for our computers. So
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: some of the most powerful computers in the world right
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: now are spending their cycles trying to understand what's going
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: on inside of hurricane. It's a great example of a
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: chaos problem. You know, even if particle physicists solid string theory,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean we could predict where hurricanes will land.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: It's sort of like a problem at aff for in scale.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: So if we can figure this kind of stuff out,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: if we spend our energy understanding hurricanes here on Earth,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: it might very well help us understand whether on alien planets.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: You mean, like if you get good at modeling how
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: gases and liquids and fluids basically work right, and what
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: they can do, and we can predict how they're going
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: to move together. That's right. We need a string theory
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: of hurricanes, or you can string together a theory of hurricanes.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: As long as we don't get a string of hurricanes
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: that would be pretty dangerous. Just take that sharpie and
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: move them out of the way, all right, Well, that's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: pretty cool space hurricanes. They do happen in other planets,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: and also in the upper atmosphere, now, Daniel, I guess
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the question we sort of asked at the beginning was,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: you know, can this same phenomenon happen out there in
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: like outer space, like between stars, between galaxies. You know,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: if you have like a cloud of gas and dust,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: can it form a hurricane? Maybe out there in space.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I suppose it's possible. You know, you need some sort
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: of energy source that can create like a low pressure region.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: But we do have big clouds of gas and dust
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: out there, and they're heated by supernova and all sorts
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: of other stuff, and so in the dynamics of those
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: turbulent clouds there potentially could be hurricanes forming, right, or cyclones,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: space cyclones, whatever you want to call them. They're awesome
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: in their destructive power, all right. Well as always keep
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: an eye on the weather, because they can tell us
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: a lot about Earth, about physics, about gases and ions,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and just help us a little bit more understand how
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: things work in the universe. And I find its heartening
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: to know that the things we learned here are on
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Earth can be translated to other places in the Solar
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: System and other places in the universe. That human science,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: all of our knowledge might help us crack problems on
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: other planets. They will know whether to bring an umbrella
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: or not to set an or Neptune. Definitely bring an
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: umbrella and a space suit made out of diamonds. Hopefully
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: all right, Well, we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: joining us, See you next time. Thanks for listening, and
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is a
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast for my
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.