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Asteroooooid De-FENSE! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: and Jerry's here, too, with their laser blaster. Yeah, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: this is Stuff You Should Know.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: I was reminded today of the Asteroids joke from the
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: movie Vacation.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that one.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: It's when they go visit Cousin Eddie.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: And the two boys are hanging out, Anthony Michael Holland,
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: the cousin. And he's talking about you got Pac-Man something,
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: you got asteroids. And I think he says something like, no,
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: but my dad does. And sometimes he can't even sit
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: on the toilet or something like that.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Dumb, dumb joke.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: That is a dumb joke. That's a Chevy Chase level joke.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, he didn't write that. It was John Hughes.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I think Chevy Chase maybe contributed
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: that one.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I know your lifelong grudge against Chevy Chase continues.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does. Unabated.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So we are talking about asteroids, not hemorrhoids, I think
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: is what they were getting at, right?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And they are small, rocky bodies. That's the point here.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: These are essentially two different things, Chuck. They're either ancient
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: pieces of the early universe.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Were meant to become planets but never did, so they
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: disappointed their parents tremendously. Or they're smashed remnants of early planets, right?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Whatever they are, they're big or sometimes small chunks of
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: rock floating around in our solar system, most of the
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: time trapped between Jupiter and Mars in an asteroid belt.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: But every once in a while, one of them gets
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: spit out, And by God, there is a non-zero chance
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: that thing is headed right toward Earth, ready to kill
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you and everything you love.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, that is a deep impact in Armageddon.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Weren't those the two movies?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at the same time.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that happened a.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Few times back then, back in the good old days
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: of moviemaking. But there are, and they probably said some
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: of this stuff in the movie, who knows? There are
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: more than 1.8 million known asteroids and they can be,
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: you know, 30, 35 feet in radius. They could be
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: several hundred kilometers in radius. The ones that we worry
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: about are the 25,000 near-Earth asteroids. And we discover about
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: 1,100 of those every year. So, you know, those are
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: the ones that we keep an eye on. And as
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: you'll see, we have plans for potentially.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The reason we want to keep an eye on
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: them is because they sometimes can fall into orbit or
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: fall through an orbit and interact with a planet, whether
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: it's Earth, the moon. If you look at all the
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: craters on the moon, those are from former asteroid strikes.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: And so one of NASA's big roles is to monitor
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: these asteroids that are near Earth and classify them even
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: further if they pose a threat. We'll get into that.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: But NASA is carrying on a several hundred year old
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: tradition of discovering new asteroids that started in the 1770s,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: the swinging 70s.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's crazy when you look at the year
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: when some of these discoveries were being made, like how
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: far ahead of stuff they were. Super impressive. And there
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: was an astronomer named Johan Bode. And they discovered a
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: through math, a mathematical sequence that you're going to. I'm
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: going to make you explain it.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: That explained the distances from the sun for all known planets.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: And when they were doing their calculations, they were like,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, there seems to be one missing here
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: in the calculation. Like there should be something like a
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. And eventually, well, they
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: started to search for it. And in 1801, an Italian
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: astronomer named Giuseppe Piazza found a faint body that he
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: called Ceres. And I guess we should explain what these
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: planetesimals were and kind of what happened back then, right?
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the planetesimals, which is an okay word, I guess.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: They were either forming into planets and didn't, like I said,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: or they were broken up from other chunks of planets.
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  Speaker 2: And when they came near Jupiter, Jupiter is so immense
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: that And its gravitational pull is so strong. How strong
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: is it? It actually can break stuff into other planets
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  Speaker 2: just from orbiting around it. So these asteroids have been
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: broken into smaller and smaller pieces. But the one that
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: remained the largest, Ceres, is so big that it makes
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  Speaker 2: up one third of the total mass of the entire
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: asteroid belt. 1.8 million known asteroids. One third of the
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: mass of all of them is just Ceres. That is
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: an asteroid we do not want coming anywhere near us, Chuck.
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  Speaker 3: I think Ceres is Latin for problem, problematic. Potentially problematic.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: All right. I got you.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you say how big it was?
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  Speaker 3: 620 miles across, a thousand kilometers across. So that is
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: very large. there had been five asteroids. You know, there's
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: something called Asteroid Watch, which is exactly what you think
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It's a watch made of asteroids.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, shoot.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: There were five asteroids on that list in December 22 alone.
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  Speaker 3: Two were thought to be about the size of a
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: commercial jet. And earlier in 22, there was one that
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: was two and a half times the height of the
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Empire State Building, and it flew the closest it's got
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  Speaker 3: in 200 years to planet Earth in 2022, which was
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: 1.2 million miles. So everyone can now breathe a sigh
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: of relief.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that sounds like a really far distance, and
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: it is pretty far. It's further than the moon is,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: but for an asteroid, that's close. It's close enough that
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: NASA keeps them on what's called its close approaches list.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And I said, oh, there's a close approaches list. Let
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: me go check that out. And most of these, these
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: are like, you know, airplane size meteors or asteroids millions
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: of miles away than as close as they're going to get. But, Chuck,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: there's one. There's one that's coming on April 13th, 2029.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: A popfish, A-P-O-P-H-I-S. Oh, yeah. 375 meters in diameter. That's big.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: It's going to come. Within 20,000 miles of planet Earth.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: That's relatively close.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: That's closer than some of the satellites we've launched in
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: orbit around Earth are. It's going to come really close.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And NASA was like, calm down, everybody. There's basically no
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: chance of it hitting Earth for the next hundred years.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: They added that kind of quietly on the end. Great.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: So look out on April 13th, 2029 for some end
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: of the world parties that are going to be bitching. Oh,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I bet.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, they did come out and say like, hey,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: something bigger than 400 meters could collide with Earth about
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: every 160,000 years. So it's not a matter of if,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: but when. And it could be 100,000 years from now. But,
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: you know, at some point it's happened before and we'll
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: talk about some of those events and it will happen again.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: And the idea is that NASA is just going to
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: keep an eye out and hopefully thwart anything in the
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: near future.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: That's the hope for sure. One of the ways that
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: they do it is by launching space telescopes to keep
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: an eye on these things. And not only are they
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: using them to track, they're using them to discover new ones.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Because like you said, I think Giuseppe Piazzi discovered a
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: planetismal that he named Ceres and And he noticed that
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: it was way darker than the other planets. And one
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: of the reasons why is that asteroids reflect far less
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: visible light than planets do, than other celestial bodies. So
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: they've created infrared space telescopes to keep track of them.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: And these are turning up an alarming number of near-Earth
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  Speaker 2: objects that we didn't realize were there before. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we're throwing around a lot of terms. Near-Earth
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  Speaker 3: object is one. There's also a PHA, Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.
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  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: So this near-orbit surveyor has been, you know, infrareding around,
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  Speaker 3: spotting these PHAs, writing them down.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Probably not writing them down. It's probably digital, I would guess.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: And basically anything over 460 feet or 140 meters in
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: size that has an orbit that will bring them as
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: close as 4.6 million miles. So they're really like, they're
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: really pushing it out there. Those are the ones that
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: are potentially hazardous.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that are ending up on the closest approaches
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: list too. So yeah, there's all sorts of, the other
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: thing too, is there's different lists, there's different definitions for
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: what's close, there's different definitions for what size we need
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: to keep an eye on. But essentially what they're saying
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: is there are some out there that could be close
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: enough that we really need to track and that we
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: eventually may need to actually do something about this. So
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Let's start thinking about that today because we might need
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: a decade's worth of heads up to do something about it.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: And I say, Chuck, that we take a break and
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: come back and talk about that after the break.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. Let's do it. So we're back.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I want to make a quick, not a correction, but
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: maybe clear something up. That Near Earth Orbit Surveyor is
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: not launched yet. I think they said September 27 was
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: like the earliest it could get out there. But they
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: had something for 25 years, another space telescope called the NEOWISE.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: And so it's not like nothing was going on. No.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And I think you said that there was like it
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: discovers we discover eleven hundred new ones every year.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: That's new asteroids like overall new asteroids.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, no.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I think those are near Earth asteroids even.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, were they?
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But not potentially hazardous. There's so many distinctions.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. There's this and this and this, and they're
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: all subclasses. It's really the potentially hazardous ones that we
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: need to keep an eye on. Sure. But NEOWISE is
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: how we started discovering so many every year.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: And I think these guys were like, we really should
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: start doing something about that. There are some, here's another subclass.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: This is one of my favorites. It's a subclass of
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: potentially hazardous asteroids that That are extinction class asteroids.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: The kind that are so big that they could conceivably
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: wipe out all life on Earth, which makes them an
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: existential risk, by the way.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: That's right. What Busta Rhymes would call an extinction level event.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Is that one of Busta Rhymes' songs?
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: That's one of his records.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. That sounds like a Busta Rhymes record for sure.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that, there may have been a
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: song called that, but yeah. ELE.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it like Busta Rhymes.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Please.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: But extinction class is anything bigger than 6.2 miles or
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: 10 kilometers in diameter. And that's basically like, hey, if
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: this thing hit Earth, could possibly destroy all of life.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: There are four of these that are PHAs. So four
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: extinction class asteroids that are potentially close enough to one
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: day cause us a problem, even if that day is
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: 100,000 years from now.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and not just cause us a problem, cause bacteria
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: a problem. Like everything on Earth would die if one
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: of these hit it, you know?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but who cares about bacteria?
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The chances are very small, obviously. And I think
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: NASA's like, we've got 90% of the near-Earth asteroids at
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: least half a mile wide tracked. And they stop taking
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: questions before anybody can be like, what's up with the
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: other 10%? They rushed off stage. And they're like, none
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: of that 90% have a significant chance of hitting Earth,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: but there is a non-zero chance, which means we really
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: need to keep an eye on these things. There could
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: be some bigger ones out there that we don't know about.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't have to be an extinction class asteroid
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: for us to want to do something about it. They
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: gave an estimate of What would happen if a mile wide?
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I think you said a six mile wide would be
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: extinction class. This is one sixth of an extinction class.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: What would happen if it hit the planet, Chuck? What
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: would happen?
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a few scenarios.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: If it's a mile wide asteroid and it comes in
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: cooking at 30,000 miles an hour, that would be about
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: a one million megaton bomb.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: You probably don't even know what that means.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: So.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So let's lower the stakes a little bit and make
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: it a little more relatable.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Let's say it was the.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Size of a house, an asteroid the size of a, oh,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Let's call it an 1,800-square-foot home.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Two-story, one-story?
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Let's go with two-story, maybe a basement, subterranean basement.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Ranch, Dutch colonial revival?
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Dutch colonial at 30,000 miles an hour hits the Earth.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: It would be equal to the bomb that fell on Hiroshima.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: It would completely flatten any kind of reinforced concrete building
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: about a half a mile from where it hit. And
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: any wooden structure up to a mile and a half
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: out is just gone so.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: That's one the size of a house, Chuck. I want
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: to go back and point out that there are, I think,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: five or six airplane size like jet like air commercial
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: aircraft size asteroids that are passing by Earth today and tomorrow.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Today's September 1st and tomorrow's September 2nd that we're recording this.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: So like if it was even bigger than, say, a
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: house or a commercial airline or say like a 20
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: story building, that would be roughly something like 20 to
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: 50 megatons worth of explosion. I saw that the most
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: powerful nuclear warhead in the United States arsenal is 1.4 megatons.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: This is potentially 50 megatons, which is the same size
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: as the Tsar Bomba, which is the far and away
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: the largest nuclear warhead ever exploded on Earth. And it
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: was just a test.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: If you want to wipe out almost everything on Earth,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: it would have to be about seven, an asteroid seven
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: to eight miles or 11 to 12 kilometers big.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: It would there would be a dust plume.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Basically, you know, we would experience something like a nuclear
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: winter would block out the sun, raise temperatures to scorching heats.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Almost everything would be destroyed, but potentially some stuff might live.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I think they said it would have to be an
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: asteroid 60 miles or 96 kilometers wide. to completely wipe
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: out every bacteria that you were talking about.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Everything on Earth would die.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Like unquestionable. There's just no way something would survive. Although
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: life tends to surprise us, you know?
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Life finds a way.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Right. Can't you just see like a couple bacteria just
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: jumping right at the moment of impact, like an elevator
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: going down and surviving?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: And, you know, we're going to detail some past events,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: kind of like the one 66 million years ago. that
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: most people agree that was an asteroid that took out
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: the dinosaurs and a lot of other things. It was
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: a global mass extinction event. About 75% of all species
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: were killed off. And we discovered this in 1978. We
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: discovered along the Mexican Gulf Coast, these geologists were doing
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: an underwater survey for an oil company. And we're like,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: there's a weird arc-like formation on the seabed here north
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: of the Yucatan Peninsula. And they're like, buddy, this is
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: an underwater, underground crater between 112 and 124 miles in diameter.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: That's a big crater for sure.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: It's a very large crater.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: So, by the way, I mentioned this in a little
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: more detail in The End of the World. It's one
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: of my favorite things to talk about is this insane
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: event that took place in a moment in Earth's history.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Just talking about it. And like all the little details
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: of what happened as a result are just mind boggling
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And what episode was that?
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: That was, I don't remember. Okay. So I guess they're
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: going to have to listen to all 10.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: But this was the Chicxulub impactor is what they call
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: whatever it was that hit the earth. And I think,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you said it could have been
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: a comet, could have been an asteroid, but it seems
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: pretty clear that it was definitely an asteroid that did this. Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: The Iridium is kind of the giveaway.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Iridium is in the Earth's crust, but it's like asteroids
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: are just loaded with Iridium. And the Chicxulub impact crater landed,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: I think it was named after a village near there
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: where it hit. And it left the crater and it
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: also scattered Iridium all over the planet because all over
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: planet Earth in geologic layers that Mark, 66 million years ago,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: the end of the Cretaceous period, there's really high levels
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: of iridium. So if you're still on the comet train,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: you're probably missing out on the good parties would be
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: my guess.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: I agree. So a couple of things about this. They
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: think now, just basically by crunching some numbers, that it
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: was this Chicxulub impactor, this asteroid, was about 8.7 miles
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: in diameter.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: That's big.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. That it produced an explosion or an
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: impact or a blast, I guess you'd call it, equal
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to about 100 million megatons. That's 20, 30 times the
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: total megatonage of all of the nuclear weapons and all
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: the nuclear arsenals in the world today, all going off
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: at once in one place. And they figured out that
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: right when it hit, since it hit in what's now
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: the Gulf of Mexico, or part of it, that it
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: just created all sorts of chaos, not the least of
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: which was a tidal wave that formed within five seconds
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: of impact, right?
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a 15-mile, 15-mile-high tidal wave.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: That's so nuts.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel bad for all the animals.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Like, can you imagine just being a stegosaurus, just grazing around,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: and all of a sudden it's just over everything? Yeah, yeah.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I can. That's why I think that I find this
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: so fascinating. I can just imagine this stuff happening. I
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: can imagine like a sauropod getting carried away on that
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: 15 mile high tidal wave going.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: For real. I feel bad for that. What'd you say
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: it was?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Sauropod. I believe that's one of the flipper ones.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: OK, the flipper guys. Yeah, I'm sure they were into waves,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: but nothing like that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: No, not like that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: So all the rock and seawater would have been vaporized.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: It's going to obviously kick up all kinds of debris,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: geologic debris, that's going to come back down to Earth.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Like what goes up must come down. And that produced
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: friction that set off what's called the heat pulse throughout
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: the atmosphere. Basically, that's what killed off all the surface
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: dwelling life. And then the after effects are sulfur dioxide
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: in the atmosphere raining down as sulfuric acid. The acidity
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: of the planet and the oceans as a whole changes
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: in an instant, basically.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Ocean acidity increased a hundred fold very, very quickly.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: That is a really quick, really big rise in acidity.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: So that killed a lot of stuff off immediately, right?
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: There was just like plankton doesn't like stuff that acidic.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: And so you've got a food web, which means if
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: you kill off stuff like plankton or ferns on the surface.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: it's going to have an extended cascading effect on the
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: rest of life. And that's what happened not just from
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: the acidity, but also from the nuclear winter that followed.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Because remember, like you said, what comes up or what
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: goes up must come down, but it doesn't necessarily mean
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: that it comes down immediately. So a lot of that
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: vaporized rock floated as dust in the atmosphere and blocked
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: the sun out. for God knows how long, and a
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: nuclear winter set in, and it was an extended one.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, they estimate that it took about 30,000 years
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: for the Earth to just be Earth again.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a long time.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That really knocked Earth off of its good mood.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: It's charted course.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I don't know if you can say
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: like bright side or anything, but it allowed mammals to
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: fill in a lot of niches that were vacated. The
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: mammal diversification after this was just bonkers. Birds, obviously, humans
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: probably would have never evolved had it not been for
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: this event.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So, you know, bright side.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I call it a bright side for sure. For us,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: at least.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we wouldn't have this podcast.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: No, and you know what? Nothing alive today would know
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: that this even happened if we hadn't evolved. So, pow.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good point.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, so even though there's a silver lining that
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: humans evolved as a direct result of the KPG extinction event,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't want it to happen while we're around because
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: we'd be the dinosaurs this time, right?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: But unlike the dinosaurs, we have things like nuclear weapons.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: We have brains. We're a space-fearing, well, you know, I
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: guess that was pretty dinosaurist. We're a space-faring species, too,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: which means we can actually get out there and meet
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: the asteroid where it's at and deal with it there.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: So you put all this stuff together, and it's actually
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: becoming a lot clearer that we could conceivably deal with
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: an asteroid that we figured out was headed for Earth
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to mess stuff up.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: So the first thing, obviously, that you might think is
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: nuclear bomb. And that is a reasonable thought because we
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: have all seen those two movies and.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: That could work.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I've actually not seen either of those movies. Oh, really? Well,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: wait a minute.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I saw both of them.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Is one of them. Does one of them feature Taylor
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Leone standing on a beach where their dad is like
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: a tidal waves about to kill them both?
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I think that was Deep Impact.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: OK, then I guess I was Morgan Freeman president, although
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: that doesn't really narrow it down for disaster movies from
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: the 90s.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Bet your sweet bippy he was president in Deep Impact.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I guess I have seen that one then.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that I mean, you know, they both were what
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: they were, like fairly fun summer movies, like not great cinema,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: but not like terrible. Armageddon was a I don't know
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: which one did better. I feel like Armageddon probably did better.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Or maybe I'm just thinking because of the Aerosmith song.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I was going to say you can chalk it up
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: to Aerosmith if it did.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, Bruce Willis. Poor Bruce Willis. It makes me sad
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: every time I think about him.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All right.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: So nuclear bombs is a reasonable assumption. And like I said,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: it depends on how big the asteroid is. If it
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: was smaller, a nuclear bomb could just take care of
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: that one and blow it into a million tiny pieces.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: But those are the ones that aren't really a threat
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: to the Earth. Like the ones that are big enough
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: to be a threat to the Earth, like hitting it
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: with a nuclear bomb wouldn't even work because it would
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: the pieces of it would still be big enough to
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: be a problem.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even if so, NASA was like, let's think this through.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: If we went out to an asteroid and we landed
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: on the asteroid and we drilled into it and put
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: a nuclear warhead in there and blew it up, or
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: maybe we just left one on the surface, who knows
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: what would happen? And they were like, it would basically
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: break it into like smaller chunks, but still really problematic chunks.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: And it might not blast them all off of course
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: for Earth, right? So they're like, I don't think blowing
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: up asteroids is a very good way to approach this.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that we can't use the world's
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: nuclear arsenals for a really good, noble purpose and use
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: nuclear warheads in a different way. And what they figured
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: out is that something called a standoff explosion, where you
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: set these things off near an asteroid on one side
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: of it, that actually could have a pretty pronounced effect
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: on dealing with an asteroid headed for Earth. Yeah.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: The idea there is to obviously just blow it off
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: its course. There was a report in 2007 from NASA
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: that said planting a nuclear bomb either on the surface
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: or under the surface would would fracture it. And it's
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: going to be an issue. So that was like sort
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: of official confirmation that that wasn't the best plan. So
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: in 2005, I think Congress said, all right, NASA, do
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: your do your thing. We need some like real plans.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: We just saw Armageddon.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they just saw Armageddon.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: And in 2007, they presented the ideas at what was
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: called the Planetary Defense Conference in D.C. And they said,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: all right, like Josh Clark will one day say, I
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: think the best idea is to try and nudge these
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: things off course, at least away from the United States.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: No, like completely off course from planet Earth.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Sure. Because a nuclear winner affects everybody. I think that
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: was the slogan of the Planetary Defense Conference.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and on the back it said, don't be a dinosaurist.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: That's right. So this staggered explosion where you set off
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: a bunch of nuclear explosions like all in one place
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: just off of the surface of an asteroid would actually
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: sear it. And it would vaporize a bunch of the
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: asteroid and it would push the asteroid in the opposite directions.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like exhaust almost, right?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd go and shoot off somewhere else. That is
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: essentially the only explosive technique that seems to be endorsed
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: by the scientific community that we could conceivably do, the
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: staggered explosion technique. Most of the other ideas are not explosive,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: which is why they don't get as much press. But
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: they do seem to be even more viable. They all
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: basically fall into the kinetic impactor deflection category. The KID
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: cat is what I call it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: The kid cat?
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's even better. And essentially what it is is
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out how to use a spacecraft as
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: a cue ball hitting an eight ball, the asteroid being
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: the eight ball, and sending the eight ball off into
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: a different trajectory.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Into the corner pocket, hopefully. And that's basically what they're
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: It's like, how many remote controlled spacecrafts would we have
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: to ram an asteroid with to knock it off its course?
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Is that an idea that could work? And they're like, yeah, potentially, sure.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: And then they're like, that's kind of hard, though. I
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: think they likened it to shooting at a speeding cannonball
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: with a bullet. So the ESA, the European Space Agency, said,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: All right, we got a plan called the– we'll call
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: it the Don Quixote. And we're going to get two
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: spacecraft out there. One's going to land on that asteroid
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: and analyze it for a while and give us all
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: sorts of data points to where we can make sort
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: of a more pinpointed strike and just the right place
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: to maximize it so we're not just throwing cue balls
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: at this thing. Or we could just have an unmanned
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: probe just– Park it in orbit and shoot lasers at
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: it because Star Wars is a thing, guys. I don't
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: know if you've seen that. Yeah.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And people are like, where are you going to get
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: your lasers, bucko? That requires a lot of energy. And
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: somebody said, I have a witty retort. How about we
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: put a bunch of mirrors on the space probe and
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: concentrate a beam of sunlight and use that as a laser?
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: And that shut those critics up real fast. Yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: What was the?
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, what was the sunbeam laser years ago that the
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Mythbusters tested that we covered?
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Archimedes ray?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Archimedes death ray. So something sort of like that. Not
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: a bad idea. And it's sort of the same thing.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Is it that laser is going to heat up? It's
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: not like it shoots it and it blows it up.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: It just heats it up and bits of steam start
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: popping off as the laser hits it. And that creates, again,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: like an exhaust, like a jet almost moving it in
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: a different direction.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Or like when somebody is in a manned spacecraft
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and they're using like the little boosters. They're not called boosters.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: They're called, I just had it.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Where you're just like, you're, you know, evening out or
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: something like that.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Thruster? Boosters?
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. And you're creating with this beam of sunlight,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: this Archimedes death ray, little thrusters within the rock as
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: this gas like vaporizes and explodes and all of them
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: start pressing down Or pushing the asteroid in a different direction.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: None of this is going to happen. We should say
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: none of this will happen in any kind of rapid way.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: We're talking pushing this asteroid with a beam of sunlight,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: such a minute fraction of a minute fraction of a nanometer.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: that it will take years and years and years and
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: years to actually have the effect that we're looking for,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: which is why we said earlier we need to start
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: planning for this stuff now and know what we're going
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: to do because we might need 30 years of lead
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: time to be successful in moving the asteroid off course
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: using some of these totally viable solutions that we have today. Yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Another idea was like maybe we should just park a
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: probe in its orbit. And just leave it there. And
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: if you have enough time, it might, like Jupiter did,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: it might have a gravitational pull that will pull that asteroid, again,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: off its course just enough to where in like 30,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: 40 years, 50 years, it ends up in a completely
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: different place.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Pretty neat, huh?
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: And they call that a gravitational tractor.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I love that, like a tractor beam.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: For sure. I saw somewhere 20-ton gravity. probe, essentially, working
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: as a gravitational tractor, could move a 60 million ton
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: asteroid in less than a year. Amazing. It is, especially
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: considering this is just something that's messing with its gravity
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: just by orbiting around it. I mean, that's like, you know,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Dollar Tree version idea. Like, you don't have to do anything.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: You just send a probe up there and get it
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: into orbit around the asteroid. Done.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you didn't say Teemu.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: What is that?
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's the big thing to call the cheap version something,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: the Timu version. I think it's a Chinese company that
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: does knockoff stuff.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: So everything is like your Timu, like if you look
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: like somebody, you're Timu Ryan Gosling.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I gotcha.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: That kind of thing.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a non-zero chance I would have said that
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: had I known about that meme.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I love how out of touch you are
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: sometimes with some of that stupid stuff.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: You're like you're better for it. You know, Dollar Tree
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: is better.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that. I mean, I don't think the Gen
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Z listeners agree, but I appreciate that.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: So we should talk about Project Near because the question
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: here toward the end of this thing is like, how
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: worried should we be? And the answer is not super worried.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Like in our lifetime. And like I said, it could
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: be thousands and thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: of thousands of years that this is going to happen.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Or a hundred years.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Or 100 years, you and I don't need to sweat it, pal.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I'm 55 years old.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Who cares?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I'll be lucky to make it till 80.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: And people are like, what about your child, Chuck?
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be around.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not even going to know. Exactly. What do you care?
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, of course. But Project NEAR, capital N-E-A-R,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: what does that stand for? Do you know?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Near Earth Asteroid....
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Rolodex?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Okay. That was the– Project NEAR was the first spacecraft
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: to orbit a small body of the solar system.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And it launched in 1996, in February of that year.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: And at first it flew by the asteroid Matilda or Matilde,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: June 1997.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: It came within 753 miles or a little over 1,200
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: kilometers of its surface. Kept going.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: And eventually orbited an asteroid called 433 Eurus in February
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: of 2000.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it went psych Matilde and headed on to Eurus.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: But Eurus is a big deal because it's a big asteroid, right?
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: It is a big asteroid. Just orbiting Matilde, I think,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: was like a first-time thing, like just to see that
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: they could do it. So they put it into orbit
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: around Eurus, 433 Eurus. And it's a potato-shaped, 21-mile-long, 8-mile-wide asteroid. What,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: like a....
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Baker, New Potato.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Russet.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Russet, okay.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Everything I saw said Russet.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, I got you.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: And it's, I mean, it's a ways away from us.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: So it's a great little test asteroid. But what they
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: did was they put near, the near spacecraft in orbit
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: around Eros for about a year. Just kind of, just
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: to make Eros a little nervous, like what's this thing?
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Four miles over the surface, which is, I mean, like
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: if you're a high altitude skydiver, you might be diving,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: skydiving onto Eros from that height. It was just kind
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: of circling it for a year. And then it's like,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: you know what? I'm going to go down and get
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: on Eros. And it did.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: And it got data, measured its gravity, took some nice pictures,
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: mapped it out, of course, and made some chemical measurements
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: of the surface. Right. they're basically proving in real time, like, hey,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: this is something we have proven that we can do.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: I think it was in orbit for about a year
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: when it landed on it and was sending back good
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: data until it completely just froze, like the extreme cold
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: just destroyed how it could communicate.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Yes. And so one of the big things about NEAR
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: is that it satisfies that thing that the European Space
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Agency pointed out, which was like, You really need data
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: on this thing before you actually shoot a probe at
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: it to knock it off course. And so NEAR proved, OK, great,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: we can send a probe to send back data on
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: it that will need to shoot a probe in exactly
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: the right place. So that was a big deal. Then
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: they came up with the DART test. DART, we don't
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: have to make up the name for. We understand what
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: that acronym stands for.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the Double Asteroid Redirection Test. And it is
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: a robotic spacecraft that launched a few years ago, I
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: guess five years ago.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Geez, time's flying. November 2021.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: And its mission, they were like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: programmed to slam into an asteroid, Dimorphos, at 4.1 miles
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: per second and see if we can change its orbit.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And they did. And it did.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Now, remember I said we're talking like just minute little
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: amounts that it's moving it. But it adds up over time.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: So what they figured out, and this is just amazing
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: that there are people here on Earth that can talk
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: about the orbit of an asteroid being moved this slightly.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: They figured out that DART, when it hit it, it
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: knocked it off of its course at a rate of
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: 11.7 microns. That's one-tenth the width of a human hair
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: per second, which is a crazy small amount. But over
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: the course of a year, all of those microns per
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: second add up to about 360 meters a year. So
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: it depends on how far you need to move the
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: thing out of orbit. If you have a decade or
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: two heads-up time, you could just do that. So everybody,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I just want to make sure this is getting through.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: We have shown as of 2022 that we can handle
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: asteroids that are coming near Earth. Isn't that amazing? That
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: makes this an amazing time to be alive. Don't you think?
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: And just that little nudge, I believe it was former
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: President of the United States, one Barack Obama, who talked
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: about making change and how you might not feel like
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: you're making change when you're making change. But I believe
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: he likened it to a big ship in the ocean.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: And he said, if you just get that thing a
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: couple of inches in another direction in 10 and 20 years,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: you'll be surprised about where that ship ends up.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Wow. I was not expecting an Obama quote.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Just substitute asteroid and outer space. And it's the same
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: sort of idea.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I think that's what he was really saying. If you
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: read between the lines, he was talking about the dark project.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: That's right. And then he said, don't be a dinosaur.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Peace out.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I should say, by the way, just to be specific,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: that one-tenth of a human hair, the width of a
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: human hair, that's if you're using salon selectives. If you're not,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: it's probably your hair's a little thinner.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. More body, right? Mm-hmm.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: That's my experience.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I knew there was going to be a hair girth
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: joke coming.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck figured out that there was going to
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: be a hair girth joke, I think that that means
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: listener mail's coming up, don't you?
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Hair girth might rival diarrhea planet is one of the
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: worst fan names you can think of.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I wonder if there's one. I'm going to look it
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: up while you figure out what listener mail we're going
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: to read.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear. People are going to actually listen
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: to listener mail for change just so they can hear.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Hey, guys.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: First of all, I love the show.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I was born in 1970, so I relate to many
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: of the things you guys randomly reminisce about during each episode.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: This morning, I dragged myself out of bed early to
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: go for a run before work. My back was stiff.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: My throat was a little sore. But I resisted the
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: temptation to have a handy excuse not to run. I
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: got dressed, put on my earbuds, and I looked at
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: my app to see if there were any good podcast
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: episodes to listen to, and I gleefully saw your episode
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: on Terry Fox. I remember seeing that movie several times
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: on HBO before I even joined cross-country in junior high.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: What an inspiration he was for Canadians and Americans and
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: all humans alike. So thanks for this great episode and
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: for being in my ear during many, many runs in
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: the last several years. And that is from Jim.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Jim. That was a good one. And
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: that was a good episode. We haven't heard from enough
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Canadians to keep me from being nervous about it still,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: but I feel like it was a good one.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I imagine if you're debating on whether or
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: not to go for a run and you see that
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: pop up, you're like, I've got to go for the run.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You know? Yeah, for sure. You just be like,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: I feel a little slack for not.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: That's right. So Terry Fox continuing to inspire. I love it.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Very nice. Who is that from?
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: That's Jim.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Jim. I appreciate that. Chuck appreciates it.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Jerry does too. And before I tell you where to
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: send your own email to, I want to tell everybody
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: that if you have a band... And you want to
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: name it Hair Girth? You will have zero competition out there.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: You'll be the only band named Hair Girth as far
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: as the internet reports. Wow.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: And you know what?
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: I just Googled it in quotes just to see if
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: Hair Girth is a term.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: And the only thing you see is.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: Like hair comma girth and rude awakenings by somebody named
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Michael Nader.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, Mike Nader said that?
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Please tell me you're kidding.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I am.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. I guess it's a book, so yeah. Book plug.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, way to go, Mike Nader. Does it say
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: the name of the book?
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Hair, Girth, and Rude Awakenings. Childhood, Fatherhood, and the Chaos
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: in Between by Michael Nader.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: It's released 2014. It's out there. It's a short, 112 pages.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Ooh, that's a slim tome. That's great. Yeah. A brisk read.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Anthony Jezelnik, pay attention. You should be in
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: your book club list.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, if you've read any of Michael Nader's work...
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: that would be fantastic to let us know how it was.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: We'll let everybody else know. And if you want to
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: just send us an email for any reason at all,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: you can send it off to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.