Latest / Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder / Beyond the Frost Line: The Giant Planets of Our Solar System

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Beyond the Frost Line: The Giant Planets of Our Solar System · Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder

0:06
Howdy Star Gazers and welcome to this episode
0:09
of Star Trails. My name is Drew, and I'll be
0:13
your guide to the night sky for the week of March
0:15
the 8th through the 14th. This week we continue
0:19
our month -long exploration of our solar system.
0:23
by leaving the warm terrarium of the inner planets
0:27
for the deep freezer of the outer planets. In
0:31
these far reaches, our sun is no longer a dominating
0:34
presence, but a bright star among many, and the
0:38
worlds we find here are as strange as they are
0:41
lonely. Later in the show, I'll report on my
0:44
efforts to observe a recent SpaceX rocket launch.
0:48
We'll press forth into the next two chapters
0:51
of Night Watch, And we'll look at what you can
0:54
expect to see in the night sky this week. Whether
0:57
you're tuning in from the backyard or the balcony,
1:00
I'm glad you're here. So grab a comfortable spot
1:03
under the night sky and let's get started. Tonight
1:13
we pick up where we left off in the last episode.
1:17
The rusty deserts of Mars are fading in the rear
1:20
-view mirror of our spaceship, and the sun begins
1:23
to shrink ever so slightly into something less
1:27
oppressive and more distant. Ahead of us lies
1:30
the asteroid belt, not the chaotic pinball machine
1:34
of science fiction, but a wide, mostly empty
1:38
region stretching between Mars and Jupiter. If
1:42
you could stand on Ceres, the largest object
1:45
there, and it's now classified as a dwarf planet,
1:49
you'd see a lonely landscape of ice and rock
1:52
under a dimmer sun. The belt contains millions
1:56
of objects, yes, but they're separated by vast
1:59
distances. Once we clear that frontier, the solar
2:04
system changes character. The outer planets are
2:07
not simply bigger versions of the inner ones.
2:10
They're a different category of existence. Jupiter
2:15
announces itself long before you arrive. It's
2:18
more massive than all the other planets combined.
2:21
A gravitational monarch presiding over the outer
2:25
solar system. It resides around 5 AU from the
2:29
sun, or about 465 million miles. Its diameter
2:35
could fit more than 11 Earths across. Its volume
2:39
could swallow more than 1 ,300 Earths whole.
2:43
And yet it's made mostly of hydrogen and helium.
2:46
The same stuff as our Sun. Just not quite massive
2:50
enough to ignite nuclear fusion. Sometimes people
2:54
call it a failed star, but that's poetic shorthand.
2:58
In reality, it would need about 80 times more
3:01
mass to shine. Jupiter's atmosphere is a masterpiece
3:05
of fluid dynamics. Cream and cinnamon -hued bands
3:10
wrap around the globe, driven by jet streams
3:13
moving hundreds of miles per hour. The Great
3:16
Red Spot, a storm larger than Earth, has been
3:20
raging for at least 350 years. It seems to be
3:24
shrinking, but it's still a planetary -scale
3:27
hurricane that refuses to die. Jupiter also radiates
3:31
more heat than it receives from the Sun. Deep
3:35
inside, gravitational compression slowly releases
3:38
energy, as if the planet is still settling into
3:42
itself. And then there are the moons. Four of
3:45
them were spotted in 1610 by Galileo Galilei,
3:50
Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Tiny moving
3:55
points of light that quietly proved not everything
3:58
orbits Earth. Not surprisingly, we refer to these
4:02
as the Galilean moons, and even a small scope
4:06
will reveal them here on Earth. Io is the most
4:10
volcanically active world in the solar system.
4:13
Europa likely hides a global ocean beneath its
4:17
icy shell, twice as much water as all of Earth's
4:21
oceans combined. Ganymede is the largest moon
4:24
in the solar system and has its own magnetic
4:27
field. We've explored Jupiter extensively. Pioneer
4:31
10 and 11 first passed by in the 1970s. Voyager
4:37
1 and Voyager 2 gave us the iconic images that
4:41
have defined our view of Jupiter for four decades.
4:44
Galileo orbited the planet for eight years in
4:47
the 1990s and early 2000s, and today Juno continues
4:52
to dive over the poles, mapping gravity, magnetic
4:56
fields, and peering deep beneath the clouds.
5:01
Now let's drift outward another 400 million miles
5:05
to the ringed planet. Saturn feels like Jupiter's
5:08
more refined sibling. It's less massive, but
5:12
visually unforgettable. Its rings stretch hundreds
5:16
of thousands of miles wide, yet in places they're
5:19
only tens of meters thick. Thinner than a football
5:23
field is long. They're made of countless particles
5:27
of ice and rock, each one following Kepler's
5:30
laws with quiet obedience. Saturn's density is
5:34
so low that, in theory, it would float in water,
5:38
if you had an ocean large enough to hold a planet.
5:41
Saturn deserves more than it has rings. That's
5:44
like introducing Jimi Hendrix by saying he dabbled
5:48
in guitar. So let's widen the lens. First, Saturn
5:53
is not just a smaller Jupiter. It's structurally
5:56
different in subtle but important ways. While
6:00
both are gas giants, comprised mostly of hydrogen
6:03
and helium, Saturn's core is proportionally larger
6:07
relative to its total mass. That may tell us
6:10
something about how and where it formed in the
6:13
early solar system. Planet formation models suggest
6:17
Saturn may have grown more slowly than Jupiter,
6:20
accreting gas after Jupiter had already become
6:23
the dominant gravitational bully. Now let's talk
6:27
about those rings in more depth because they're
6:30
not permanent. The rings are likely young on
6:34
cosmic timescales. Current models suggest they
6:38
may be only a hundred to four hundred million
6:40
years old, possibly the remains of a shattered
6:43
moon torn apart by tidal forces after wandering
6:47
too close. When dinosaurs walked Earth, Saturn
6:51
may have looked different in the sky. The rings
6:54
are organized into major divisions, A, B, and
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C rings, with the prominent Cassini division
7:01
separating A and B. That gap isn't empty. It's
7:05
sculpted by gravitational resonances with Saturn's
7:09
moons. In other words, the moons are choreographing
7:12
the rings. Tiny shepherd moons like Prometheus
7:17
and Pandora actively confine ring material, preventing
7:21
it from dispersing. Even so, the rings are slowly
7:25
dissolving. At current rates, they may vanish
7:28
in a hundred million years or so. Saturn's North
7:32
Pole hosts a bizarre persistent hexagonal storm
7:36
system. It's not a trick of the eye, it's a stable
7:39
wave pattern in the atmosphere, larger than Earth.
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Saturn currently holds the record for the most
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known moons, well over a hundred confirmed objects,
7:50
though many are tiny captured rocks. Titan and
7:55
Enceladus get the spotlight, but Iapetus is a
7:59
wonder too. One hemisphere bright as snow, the
8:02
other dark as coal. The yin -yang moon. The real
8:07
golden age of Saturn exploration came with Cassini
8:10
-Huygens. For 13 years, Cassini orbited Saturn,
8:15
transforming it from a distant ringed icon into
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a richly detailed world. It watched seasons change.
8:22
It flew through the rings. It revealed Enceladus
8:25
spraying plumes of water vapor from its south
8:28
pole. evidence of a subsurface ocean. It delivered
8:32
the Huygens probe to Titan, where it parachuted
8:35
down through a thick orange atmosphere and landed
8:39
on a surface shaped by methane rain. Titan has
8:43
lakes and rivers, weather, dunes, a hydrological
8:47
cycle built not on water but on hydrocarbons.
8:51
When Cassini ended its mission in 2017, it deliberately
8:56
plunged into Saturn's atmosphere to avoid contaminating
9:00
potentially habitable moons. A spacecraft choosing
9:04
its own fiery end to protect alien oceans is
9:07
poetic engineering. And now we reach the ice
9:12
giants, Uranus and Neptune. It's wild to think
9:17
that through most of my childhood, we didn't
9:19
have any detailed images of either of these worlds.
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All the books I grew up reading just featured
9:26
artist's renditions, and both planets today still
9:29
remain some of the least imaged. Of the two,
9:34
Uranus is the real oddball. It rotates on its
9:37
side, tilted 98 degrees. It essentially rolls
9:41
around the sun. Its seasons last about 20 years
9:45
apiece. For decades at a time, one pole faces
9:49
the sun in continuous daylight, while the other
9:52
endures unbroken darkness. Its pale blue color
9:57
comes from methane in its atmosphere, which absorbs
10:00
red light and reflects blue. Beneath the atmosphere
10:04
lies a mantle of super pressurized water, ammonia,
10:09
and methane ice. Some models suggest that under
10:12
those immense pressures, carbon could crystallize
10:16
into diamonds that rain downward through the
10:18
interior. That remains a working hypothesis,
10:22
but it's consistent with high pressure physics
10:25
experiments. Like Saturn, Uranus has a ring system,
10:29
although they are very different in almost every
10:32
way. They were discovered in 1977 during a stellar
10:36
occultation experiment. Astronomers were watching
10:40
Uranus pass in front of a distant star. Instead
10:43
of the star dimming once as the planet moved
10:46
across it, it flickered multiple times before
10:49
and after the main event. That meant something
10:53
thin and structured was blocking the starlight.
10:56
That something turned out to be rings. Uranus'
11:00
rings are narrow, dark, and composed mostly of
11:04
relatively large particles mixed with radiation
11:07
-processed material that makes them charcoal
11:10
-colored. They don't shine so much as they lurk.
11:15
There are currently 13 known rings, named mostly
11:19
with Greek letters, alpha, beta, gamma, and so
11:22
on, along with a few more recently discovered
11:25
faint outer rings. Like Saturn's, Uranus's rings
11:30
are shaped and maintained by shepherd moons.
11:33
Because the planet is tilted on its side, the
11:36
rings are tilted with it. So from Earth, over
11:39
decades we see the ring system dramatically change
11:42
orientation. Sometimes they're wide open and
11:46
visible, and other times we see them nearly edge
11:49
on and they almost disappear. During Uranus's
11:53
equinox, which happens only twice every 84 Earth
11:57
years, the sun shines directly on the ring plane.
12:01
producing unusual lighting effects and stirring
12:04
up dynamic changes in the system. Voyager 2 gave
12:08
us our only close -up look in 1986, and at the
12:12
time the rings looked simple and sparse. But
12:16
modern observations from the Hubble Space Telescope
12:19
and large ground -based telescopes have revealed
12:22
faint dusty components and more complex structure
12:26
than Voyager initially detected. There's never
12:29
been a return mission to Uranus. We know considerably
12:32
more about it than we did before the Voyager
12:35
flyby, but much of it has remained a pale turquoise
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mystery. At nearly 2 billion miles away, the
12:43
sun is just a bright point of light at Uranus.
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And Uranus moves slowly. It takes 84 Earth years
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to complete one orbit. That means since its discovery
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in 1781 by William Herschel, Uranus has only
12:59
completed a little more than two full orbits
13:02
around the sun. Neptune lies even farther out,
13:08
nearly 3 billion miles from the sun. It was the
13:12
first planet discovered by mathematics before
13:15
observation. Astronomers noticed irregularities
13:18
in Uranus's orbit and predicted another world
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must be tugging at it. They calculated where
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it should be. Then they looked, and in 1846 they
13:29
found it. It takes Neptune 165 Earth years to
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complete one orbit. It completed its first full
13:38
orbit since discovery in 2011. Neptune's beautiful
13:43
blue color comes from methane in its atmosphere,
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but it's a deeper, more vivid blue than Uranus.
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That difference likely comes from subtle atmospheric
13:54
chemistry and haze layers we still don't fully
13:57
understand. Neptune is also wildly dynamic for
14:02
such a distant cold world. Its winds are the
14:06
fastest in the solar system, reaching more than
14:08
1200 miles per hour. That's supersonic, in a
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place where temperatures hover around minus 350
14:16
degrees Fahrenheit. Neptune radiates more heat
14:20
than it receives from the Sun, much like Jupiter.
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Its interior is still warm from formation. Triton
14:28
is Neptune's largest moon and likely a captured
14:32
Kuiper belt object. It orbits backwards, which
14:36
is a huge clue that it didn't form alongside
14:39
Neptune. As for exploration, Neptune has been
14:43
visited exactly once. Voyager 2 flew past in
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August 1989. It revealed the Great Dark Spot,
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a storm similar to Jupiter's Red Spot, along
14:55
with a ring system. After that brief encounter,
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Voyager kept going. Since then, it's only been
15:02
studied by Hubble and some ground -based observatories,
15:06
leaving a lot of unanswered questions. The outer
15:11
planets hold most of the mass and angular momentum
15:14
of our solar system. They sculpt cometary paths.
15:19
They influence the asteroid belt. They may have
15:22
helped make Earth stable enough for life. And
15:26
yet, in terms of direct exploration, only Jupiter
15:29
and Saturn have received sustained attention.
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Uranus and Neptune remain frontier worlds. There
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are serious proposals right now for a dedicated
15:39
Uranus orbiter, but nothing has been launched
15:42
yet. In some ways, the outer solar system still
15:45
feels like it's stuck in the 1970s. And that's
15:49
astonishing. When you step outside this evening
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and see Jupiter and Saturn blazing in the twilight,
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you're looking at a system of worlds we've actually
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visited. And beyond it lie two giants we've barely
16:02
touched. We've mapped Mars with rovers and drones.
16:06
We've landed on comets, but the ice giants remain
16:10
largely unexplored. That should humble us a little,
16:14
and maybe excite us. As we step back from this
16:17
tour of the outer planets, it's natural to ask
16:20
a bigger question. Why are the worlds closest
16:24
to the sun small and rocky, while the outer planets
16:28
are enormous spheres of gas and ice? The answer
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goes all the way back to the birth of the solar
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system, about 4 .6 billion years ago. At that
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time, the young sun was surrounded by a vast
16:42
rotating disk of gas and dust. Close to the sun,
16:47
temperatures were extremely high. In that hot
16:50
inner region, only heavy materials like iron,
16:54
nickel, and rocky minerals could condense into
16:57
solid grains. Lighter substances, things like
17:00
water, methane, and ammonia, remained vaporized.
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That meant the inner planets formed from relatively
17:08
limited ingredients, building small, dense, rocky
17:11
worlds like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
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Farther from the sun, however, temperatures dropped
17:19
dramatically. Beyond a certain distance, what
17:22
astronomers call the frost line, water and other
17:26
compounds could freeze into solid ice. Suddenly,
17:30
there was far more material available to build
17:33
planets. With ice joining rock and metal, planetary
17:37
embryos in the outer solar system could grow
17:40
much larger. Once these growing worlds became
17:43
massive enough, their gravity began pulling in
17:46
the surrounding hydrogen and helium gas from
17:49
the disk, ballooning into the giant planets we
17:52
see today. So the solar system naturally divided
17:56
itself into two very different neighborhoods
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The inner region gave rise to small terrestrial
18:03
planets made mostly of rock and metal While the
18:06
cooler outer region produced the giant planets
18:10
Jupiter and Saturn with their vast envelopes
18:13
of hydrogen and helium and Uranus and Neptune
18:16
with interiors rich and frozen compounds like
18:20
water methane and ammonia All the planets, in
18:24
a way, represent the structure of the original
18:27
disk that formed our solar system. It's a fossil
18:30
record of temperature, chemistry, and gravity
18:34
written across billions of miles of space. After
18:57
a quick break, we'll be back to discuss what
18:59
you can actually see in this week's sky and how
19:02
to spot these distant planets for yourself. Stay
19:05
with us. Welcome back. Before we get into this
19:21
week's sky, I have a quick observation report.
19:24
Last week, a series of SpaceX launches were carried
19:28
out from Cape Canaveral to deliver Starlink satellites
19:32
into orbit. Some of these launches were in the
19:35
evening or early morning, which means folks along
19:38
the eastern seaboard hundreds of miles away can
19:42
see them soaring into orbit if conditions are
19:44
right. These launches weren't even on my radar
19:48
until my brother -in -law, Chris, shared a post
19:51
with me on Sunday afternoon. With nothing better
19:54
to do, we decided to find a nice high elevation
19:57
with an eastern view of the sky and see if we
20:00
could spot a Falcon 9 rocket. We arrived at the
20:04
site around 940 for the nearly 10pm launch. We
20:08
both had the SpaceX live feed on our phones so
20:12
we could hear the countdown and launch. About
20:15
30 seconds after launch, looking south, Chris
20:18
thought he spotted a red dot making its way upward
20:21
into the east. then we didn't see anything. Some
20:25
moments passed and then to the east and some
20:28
30 degrees off the horizon, we spotted a bright
20:31
reddish object, which morphed subtly for a few
20:35
seconds, then winked out as fast as it appeared.
20:39
It didn't look like the plumes we normally associate
20:42
with SpaceX launches. We think the significant
20:45
cloud cover may have affected our view, but based
20:48
on Chris's initial observation and the direction
20:52
it was heading, We're pretty certain we saw the
20:54
rocket, 20 stories of fire and fury climbing
20:58
into space at 17 ,000 miles per hour. Several
21:02
days later, another Falcon took flight in the
21:05
pre -dawn hours, and local observers captured
21:08
some really stunning images of the rocket's plume
21:11
as it blasted across the sky, backlit high in
21:15
the atmosphere by the sun before it peeked over
21:18
the horizon. Sadly, I wasn't awake for that launch.
21:23
From now on, I'm going to make it a point to
21:25
routinely check out what's launching from the
21:28
Cape, using a website like Space Flight Now to
21:32
see what's on deck. I'll include a link to that
21:35
in the show notes. If there's an evening or nighttime
21:38
launch window and you live in the viewable zone,
21:41
it could make for a nice observation or even
21:44
a photo op. Keep in mind the Kennedy Space Center
21:47
isn't the only NASA launch pad. West coasters
21:51
can try viewing rockets from Vandenberg Space
21:55
Force Base in California. Farther up the East
21:58
Coast, Wallops Flight Facility on the coast of
22:02
Virginia is used for supply missions to the ISS.
22:06
Alaska has a spaceport, and SpaceX's private
22:10
launch site is in South Texas. There's surprisingly
22:14
a lot of rocket action, so keep an eye on spaceflight
22:18
now and maybe you can catch a launch from the
22:21
Cape or from one of these alternate locations.
22:31
Now, let's see what's in the sky above our own
22:33
backyard this week. First, a quick note about
22:37
daylight saving time. Clocks sprung forward one
22:41
hour this morning. That pushes darkness later
22:44
into the evening. Your best deep sky observing
22:47
window will now start later after sunset, even
22:51
as overall night length slowly increases toward
22:54
the spring equinox on March 20. This week the
22:58
moon is still in its waning gibbous to waning
23:02
crescent phase. By March 14, it's a thin crescent
23:05
with about 20 % illumination. Perfect for viewing
23:09
surface detail near the terminator with binoculars
23:12
or a telescope. After sunset in the western sky,
23:17
brilliant Venus dominates low over the horizon.
23:20
It's the brightest star you'll see after dusk.
23:24
And early in the week you might spot Saturn just
23:26
above or beside it. A visual pairing that will
23:29
linger near the western horizon for several evenings
23:32
as the planets slowly separate. A pair of binoculars
23:37
will show them together easily, and around tonight
23:40
or tomorrow that conjunction is tightest. In
23:44
the southern evening sky, high above the horizon,
23:48
Jupiter shines like a beacon. It's visible well
23:51
after dark at this time of year and doesn't set
23:54
until the late night hours. Its steady bright
23:57
light makes it excellent for telescopic views.
24:00
The Galilean moons and cloud belts are easy pickings.
24:04
Mercury will be very low after sunset early in
24:08
this window and quickly lost to twilight glow.
24:12
It re -emerges in the morning sky later in March.
24:15
Mars remains too close to the Sun for effective
24:18
evening observing right now. Uranus is technically
24:22
still placed in western Taurus and can be tracked
24:26
down in binoculars or a small scope if the moon
24:29
hasn't risen and your sky is dark. But Neptune
24:33
is too close to conjunction with the Sun to be
24:35
seen this week. Now let's talk deep sky objects.
24:40
March evenings are rich with open star clusters
24:43
and faint nebula that reward patients and optics,
24:47
especially once the moon sets. The Hyades cluster
24:50
near Aldebaran and Taurus is a sprawling binocular
24:54
-friendly grouping. Look for the broad V of stars
24:58
that makes up the head of the bull. The Rosette
25:01
nebula and its embedded cluster in Monoceros
25:05
is a favorite for long exposures and narrow band
25:09
imaging. A pair of binoculars under dark skies
25:12
will show the cluster and a camera will begin
25:15
to tease out nebulosity. The Beehive cluster
25:19
M44 in Cancer sits higher in the late evening
25:23
once the moon dips below the horizon. This object
25:27
is beautiful through small scopes and even in
25:30
urban skies. While there's no major meteor shower
25:34
peaking this week, a few minor streams may be
25:37
detectable after midnight under truly dark skies.
25:41
Finally, don't forget the spring constellations
25:44
rising in the east late evening. Leo, with its
25:48
graceful sickle, and regal regulus, and Cancer
25:52
just above, are home to loose stellar groupings.
25:56
These aren't the obvious constellations like
25:58
Orion or Ursa Major, but they'll reward viewers
26:02
who take time with their charts and optics. For
26:10
this week's book club segment, we're looking
26:12
at chapters 6 and 7 of Nightwatch, covering the
26:17
deep sky and the planets. And what I appreciate
26:20
most about these chapters is that Terrence Dickinson
26:23
continues what he's done throughout the book.
26:26
He manages expectations. In chapter 6, when he
26:30
describes deep sky objects like galaxies, nebula,
26:34
and globular clusters, he tells you plainly what
26:37
they actually look like in the eyepiece. They're
26:40
dim, subtle, often colorless, and that's just
26:44
how our eyes work. Under low light, our eyes
26:48
rely mostly on rod cells. Rods are incredibly
26:53
sensitive to faint light, which is why they allow
26:55
us to see these ghostly smudges in the first
26:58
place. But rods don't detect color well. The
27:02
cone cells that do perceive color require much
27:06
brighter light to activate. So when you look
27:09
at the Orion Nebula or the Andromeda Galaxy through
27:12
a telescope, you're not seeing the saturated
27:15
pinks and blues of astrophotography. You're seeing
27:18
what the human visual system can gather in a
27:21
fraction of a second. A camera can collect photons
27:25
for minutes. It can stack exposures for hours.
27:30
Your retina resets continuously. Dickinson explains
27:34
this, and I think that's crucial. I think new
27:37
astronomers expect the sky to look like processed
27:40
long exposure images. But visual astronomy is
27:44
quieter than that. It's about contrast, texture,
27:48
and shape. It's about learning to recognize faint
27:51
structure at the edge of perception. And then
27:55
Dickinson gives us something very practical.
27:58
Maps. The deep sky charts in chapter 6 are clean,
28:02
readable, and focused. They highlight specific
28:05
objects. They indicate magnitude. They note what
28:09
size instrument might be needed. They help you
28:12
plan a session instead of overwhelming you with
28:15
thousands of targets. There's something philosophical
28:19
there. He's not encouraging you to conquer the
28:22
sky. He's encouraging you to spend time with
28:25
it. Then in chapter 7, when he turns to the planets,
28:29
he does something similar. Again, he calibrates
28:32
expectations. Saturn will not look like a glossy
28:36
NASA poster. Mars won't resemble a spacecraft
28:40
mosaic. Jupiter's belts may be subtle. Features
28:45
will shift from night to night. And that's the
28:48
point. Planets reward repeated observation. You
28:52
begin to notice the tilt of Saturn's rings changing
28:55
over years, the shrinking and expanding of Mars's
29:00
polar caps, the steady dance of Jupiter's moons.
29:04
Patience is the key here. I think both of these
29:07
chapters serve as nice companions to this podcast,
29:11
especially the chapter on the planets, since
29:14
we've been discussing them all month long. We
29:17
mention Deep Sky objects on nearly every episode,
29:21
and while smartphone apps and computer databases
29:23
make it easy to locate and track these objects,
29:27
those great maps included in Nightwatch are really
29:31
helpful for planning and laying out what's what
29:34
and where it's located in relation to common
29:37
constellations. We'll be back in two weeks with
29:40
a discussion on the next two chapters. That's
29:48
going to do it for this week. If you found this
29:50
episode interesting, please share it with a friend
29:53
who might enjoy it. The easiest way to do that
29:56
is by sending folks to our website, StarTrails
29:59
.show. And if you'd like to support the show,
30:03
use the link on the site to buy me a coffee.
30:05
That really helps. Be sure to follow Star Trails
30:09
on Blue Sky and YouTube. Links are in the show
30:12
notes. Until we meet again beneath the stars.
30:16
Clear skies everyone!