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How the Moon Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
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Speaker 1: From house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
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Speaker 1: a very reluctant Charles W. Checkers Bryant not always reluctant.
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Speaker 1: Always here with me as always sometimes reluctant as a
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Speaker 1: reluctant Chuck Bryant. How's it going, Josh? It's going fine
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Speaker 1: for me. I'm great, dude. I'm going to see Bob
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Speaker 1: Dylman tonight. Are you really living legend with Leon red
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Speaker 1: Bone or Russell? Yeah? Russell right, Yeah, he's opened up
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Speaker 1: at me. I don't really care about that. I always
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Speaker 1: confusing with Acre Winner. Yeah yeah, just they kind of
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Speaker 1: look alike. Yeah. Well that's all I have to say
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Speaker 1: about that. Okay, Um, Chuck, you're ready, I'm ready? Okay.
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Speaker 1: So um back in November nineteen sixty six, are you
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Speaker 1: ready for this? We should probably say first, let me
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Speaker 1: tell you, Chuck, we're gonna make it through this. Okay,
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Speaker 1: I have PTSD from the Sun podcast. We need to
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Speaker 1: do PTSD. I always forget that. Let me just write
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Speaker 1: that down alright, PTSD, Yes, and now we're doing the
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Speaker 1: Moon podcast, which really, aside from the orbital dynamics, has
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Speaker 1: almost no physics to it whatsoever. This is it'll be
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Speaker 1: better than the Sun. Okay, So still a little mind
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Speaker 1: numbing for me. It'll be okay, we'll make it interesting, alright.
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Speaker 1: So back in November nineteen sixty six, uh, there was
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Speaker 1: a lunar orbiter called the Orbiter two because it was
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Speaker 1: the second one UM and it was flying around the
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Speaker 1: Moon taking pictures of it for the impending moon landing
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Speaker 1: that the Apollo program was leading up toward, right exciting,
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Speaker 1: and it had taken its last bit of film, last picture,
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Speaker 1: and it actually took what's called the picture of the
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Speaker 1: Sun Tree, or it was at the time. It was
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Speaker 1: this kind of side shot of the Moon rather than
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Speaker 1: from above. It was almost like from the side, so
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Speaker 1: you could see the elevation and everything, and it just
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Speaker 1: looked like a new view of the Moon. So anyway,
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Speaker 1: the the NASA controllers tell orbiter to go ahead and
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Speaker 1: crash land, and it did on the dark side of
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Speaker 1: the Moon, never to be heard from again until like
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Speaker 1: a week ago when another lunar orbiter which was taking
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Speaker 1: pictures for the Moon based program. It's not around anymore.
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Speaker 1: We got canceled. Um caught this kind of crater, a
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Speaker 1: butterfly shaped crater that's um characteristic of a low trajectory landing.
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Speaker 1: Was that it and Um, it's exactly where NASA thought
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Speaker 1: it would be. So there you go. One of the
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Speaker 1: mysteries of the Moon, salt, the the the Yeah. This
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Speaker 1: this thing's been sitting there for you know, forty years,
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Speaker 1: chimp or anything like a chip. But I mean you
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Speaker 1: just to think of this like lunar orbiter crashed by itself,
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Speaker 1: sitting on the dark side of the Moon for forty years.
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Speaker 1: That's it's lonely. It's chilling, isn't it. It is. Have
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Speaker 1: you seen the movie Moon? Yes, enjoyed that very much.
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Speaker 1: You know the guy who directed that, Duncan Jones. That's
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Speaker 1: Um Bowie. Yeah, Bowie's son. Yeah, imagine David Bowie being
3:23
Speaker 1: your dad. I want to see him perform live more
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Speaker 1: than anything else ever, and I don't think he'll ever
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Speaker 1: do it. Oh, he doesn't perform any longer. No, he
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Speaker 1: hadn't played. I think his last tour was like ten
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Speaker 1: years ago or something. And he kind of said this
3:37
Speaker 1: is it? Huh, come see me. I'll be on my
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Speaker 1: Hawaiian island with him. On is that he lives in
3:43
Speaker 1: an island? Well, he has a place in Kauai. I'm
3:47
Speaker 1: sure he'd spend some time there. Very nice. Sorry, so
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Speaker 1: can you see where? Like really trying to put this on? Yeah, anyway, Yes,
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Speaker 1: the Moon is a good movie. And the Moon is
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Speaker 1: a good um planetary satellite to Earth. It does all
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Speaker 1: sorts of cool beneficial things for Earth. Did you know
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Speaker 1: that it has an influence on Earth? So let's talk
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Speaker 1: about the moon, Chuck. She would go all the way back,
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Speaker 1: Josh too, at the times of Aristotle. Why not Aristotle? Josh,
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Speaker 1: as we all know, I believed in the geocentric model
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Speaker 1: of the universe. Galileo said, no, no, no, you're wrong.
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Speaker 1: It's heliocentric. And apparently he came to that conclusion by
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Speaker 1: studying the moon. Yeah, basically, like the Sun is the
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Speaker 1: center of the universe, jerk, not the Earth. And uh,
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Speaker 1: they said, you know what, that's heresy and you're gonna
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Speaker 1: be under house arrest for the rest of your life.
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Speaker 1: And he's like, I have a lot of wine and
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Speaker 1: cheese in my house and that's not so bad, and
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Speaker 1: I didn't need much anyway, so I don't like the
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Speaker 1: outside world. But at first, you know, and I guess
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Speaker 1: he had a better telescope or something, because Galileo saw
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Speaker 1: a lot more detail, it sounds like than Aristotle did.
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Speaker 1: I don't think Aristotle had a telescope. Was that the deal?
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Speaker 1: I think that he was just looking at it. I
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Speaker 1: think Copernicus was the first one to look through a telescope,
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Speaker 1: or Galileo was before Copernicus. A Copernicus had a nicer telescope.
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Speaker 1: I think Galileo came after Copernicus. All right, well, then
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Speaker 1: that's the way it went. We're gonna get this wrong.
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Speaker 1: We totally are, but continue, chuck. But the point is
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Speaker 1: Aristotle thought the Earth was the center in the universe,
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Speaker 1: and that the Moon had dark spots and light spots
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Speaker 1: they thought were sees, right, Maria, Yes, I looked up
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Speaker 1: a bunch of pronunciations on this one, by the way, Maria, Yeah, no,
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Speaker 1: that sounds right. And uh, the lighter spots were correctly
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Speaker 1: perceived to be land or terry. Yeah, but it's all land.
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Speaker 1: As it turns out. It does turn out the moon
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Speaker 1: is kind of boring place. Yeah, you think, I think
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Speaker 1: as a as a destination, Yes, I think it's incredibly boring.
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Speaker 1: It'd be cool to go there. I'm sure it's the
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Speaker 1: most thrilling thing in the world to do, or beyond
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Speaker 1: the world to do, to go to the Moon and
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Speaker 1: be on the Moon. But just you know, being back
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Speaker 1: here on Earth and in discussing parts of it, like
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Speaker 1: the moon as the destination's kind of boring. What the
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Speaker 1: moon does, where the Moon came from. I think it's fascinating.
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Speaker 1: I do too. And despite the fact that they were
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Speaker 1: not sees, they still call the Maria sees. Yes, Tranquility, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: mar Tranquility or mar twin Quillium, etcetera, etcetera. And the
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Speaker 1: Sea of Tranquility is where the first moon landing took place.
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Speaker 1: They thought it looks like a nice place to land.
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Speaker 1: And that was forty three years ago this month when
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Speaker 1: we're recording, when this comes out, it will be last month.
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Speaker 1: But um, that that um buzz Aldrin, right, who never
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Speaker 1: gets mentioned? First? Yeah, Neil Armstrong. Second, how about that
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Speaker 1: um landed on the moon. Apparently buzz Aldre was the
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Speaker 1: first person to um urinate on the moon. Yeah, Neil
6:56
Speaker 1: Armstrong didn't buzz did while they were there, not on
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Speaker 1: the moon, but while on the moon. While on the moon, okay, yeah, um,
7:03
Speaker 1: and uh you always have to church it up then, Well,
7:05
Speaker 1: I mean that's disrespectful. He literally on the surface of
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Speaker 1: the Moon. I think something probably really bad would happen
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Speaker 1: to his physiology if he tried to pee on the moon.
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Speaker 1: Well it would float away anyway, right, yeah, but I
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Speaker 1: mean he just implode, right, Okay, yeah, vacuum. And since
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Speaker 1: I was guys, since Buzz Alburing first pete on the
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Speaker 1: Moon in nineteen nine, um, for the following three years,
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Speaker 1: twelve other Americans set foot on the Moon. And you
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Speaker 1: don't hear a lot about that, supposedly, uh. And we're,
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Speaker 1: as far as we know, the only people to set
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Speaker 1: foot on the moon so far. Um. And they brought
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Speaker 1: back about eight hundred and forty two pounds, which is
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Speaker 1: threems of moon rock moon dust, and it was studied
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Speaker 1: and then that's about it. That was all they had.
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Speaker 1: They were like, well, I guess we can bring back
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Speaker 1: some of these rocks and that's all over. What. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I told everybody on Earth, I'd bring him something, but
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Speaker 1: there is nothing here. I wonder if if they got
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Speaker 1: a little piece of rock. I'm sure they did. Surely
8:01
Speaker 1: you should be able to ask for that, right yeah. Okay,
8:03
Speaker 1: well yeah if you're the guy who went and got it, yeah, exactly. Um.
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Speaker 1: And so since then, you know, since they brought back
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Speaker 1: this moon rock, a lot of these questions that have
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Speaker 1: been around since ancient times. Um, we're settled just really
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Speaker 1: in the last like forty years or so. Like, I mean,
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Speaker 1: we now know, okay for sure that there isn't water
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Speaker 1: on the moontain. Supposedly there could be, um, but we
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Speaker 1: now have a good idea thanks to the moon rocks
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Speaker 1: how the moon was formed, which settled a longstanding debate,
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Speaker 1: that's right. And um, yeah, and just being there, they
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Speaker 1: found out a lot of stuff, like they're like, hey,
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Speaker 1: it's just in a sea, it's all land about of
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Speaker 1: it is uh the dark spots that you see, the Maria, Maria,
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Speaker 1: the Maria, and it is the is the terra is
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Speaker 1: that terry terry And uh that's the lighter parts of
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Speaker 1: the moon that you see. And that's like mountainous, it's
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Speaker 1: crazy steep mountains, craters, all kinds of things there on
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Speaker 1: the terrat. Well yeah, because um, the Earth, the Earth
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Speaker 1: was about four billion years ago, there were a lot
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Speaker 1: of meteorites bombarding this neck of the Solar system, right,
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Speaker 1: and the Earth took as many as the Moon, if
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Speaker 1: not more. It still happens today every day meteorites at
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Speaker 1: the Earth, but our atmosphere burns most of them up,
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Speaker 1: and the ones that made it through the atmosphere and
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Speaker 1: had made a substantial impact on the Earth um have
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Speaker 1: been largely covered over by the biogeochemical processes that take
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Speaker 1: place on Earth. The Moon is utterly devoided these things
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Speaker 1: these days, and has been for about the last three
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Speaker 1: billion years. So just about anything that's happened over the
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Speaker 1: last three billion years, right, is just a few meteorite.
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Speaker 1: It's some impacts here there, but for the most part,
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Speaker 1: the Moon's surface was shaped and about four billion to
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Speaker 1: three billion years ago, and it's remained the same ever
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Speaker 1: since then. In addition, they think there were volcanoes at
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Speaker 1: one point on the Moon because they noticed rills like
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Speaker 1: these channel channel like depressions that they think was from lava.
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Speaker 1: They found old lava flows and lava tubes. So they said, hey,
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Speaker 1: looks like there were some volcanoes here at one point. Yes,
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Speaker 1: and that accounts for a lot of stuff on the Moon,
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Speaker 1: but also some of its composition as well. No soil, No,
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Speaker 1: it has something called regules, and regula means basically like
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Speaker 1: blanket over solid rock. Right. So, um, it's really just
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Speaker 1: this kind of fine particulate dust moon dust with vault
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Speaker 1: mixed with volcanic glass and then larger rocks and it's
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Speaker 1: just covers the surface of the Moon. It doesn't have
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Speaker 1: soil because it doesn't have any living organisms that are
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Speaker 1: required make soil. Yeah, nothing organic on the Moon, correct. Yeah. Uh,
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Speaker 1: So they brought back these rocks. They found out that
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Speaker 1: the uh Maria, which is what we said was only
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Speaker 1: the dark spots, was primary. Uh that primarily that one
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Speaker 1: word that we said over and over on the show,
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Speaker 1: what basalt, Yeah, buzzled and uh that is igneous rock
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Speaker 1: from cooled lava. So again with the volcanoes and the
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Speaker 1: highland regions, the mountain regions we talked about was mainly
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Speaker 1: in north the site and Breccia. Yeah, did you look
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Speaker 1: that on it? I did. Because when there's a C
11:40
Speaker 1: I C a in Italian that makes a chess sound,
11:44
Speaker 1: but it's c H makes a sound, So it's backwards
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Speaker 1: from what we might think as Americans, pretty neat but
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Speaker 1: correct if you're into in Italian that's right. What else, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: The lunar rocks have very little in volatile compounds, so
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Speaker 1: they resembled Ers's mantle. They have very little volatile compounds
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Speaker 1: or water. And then Tracy puts in as if they've
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Speaker 1: been baked a little bit of like foreshadowing. Um. And
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Speaker 1: also check they found that the Highland areas are much older.
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Speaker 1: The rocks in the Highland areas are much older than
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Speaker 1: the um Maria areas. Right. And so now with all
12:25
Speaker 1: of this information, we have a pretty good idea of
12:28
Speaker 1: how the Moon formed. Yeah. Oh, they also had they
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Speaker 1: they had some size size seismometers and they found that
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Speaker 1: there's no there's no shifting of the plates going on, right,
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Speaker 1: tectonic activity in the Moon. There are no moon quakes
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Speaker 1: and um. They also used magnetometers and they did not
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Speaker 1: detect any substantial magnetic field at the around the Moon,
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Speaker 1: which means that it's not it doesn't have a substantial
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Speaker 1: iron core. Right, so they're basically just trying to figure
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Speaker 1: out how much is it like the Earth in some ways,
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Speaker 1: I mean, they one to found out what it was,
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Speaker 1: but they were kind of comparing because some of the
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Speaker 1: old previously thought reasons why the Moon was there had
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Speaker 1: to do with it literally spinning off of the Earth. Well,
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Speaker 1: it's significant that moon rocks are similar in composition to
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Speaker 1: mantle rocks found on Earth pretty close, um, which means
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Speaker 1: to a lot of people that they're the the The
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Speaker 1: Moon has always been connected to the Earth and a
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Speaker 1: lot of people's minds, right, So there's different ways that
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Speaker 1: it formed, but it's always in relation to the Earth
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Speaker 1: almost except for one. Yes, So previously to the to
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Speaker 1: the lunar landing, they had a few ideas. They thought
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Speaker 1: maybe there was the double planet hypothesis, which was the
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Speaker 1: Earth and Moon formed together. Yeah, because remember in the
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Speaker 1: Asteroid Mining podcast we talked about the formation of planets.
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Speaker 1: It's just that starts in this Uh, it starts spinning
13:52
Speaker 1: and then everything's kind of comes together. It's an easy
13:55
Speaker 1: way to say it. Uh. The capture hypothesis was the
13:58
Speaker 1: Earth's gravity captured the own as it was just cruising by.
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Speaker 1: That's the only one where they weren't related. But the
14:05
Speaker 1: Earth said hey, we're gonna hold you captive now because
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Speaker 1: we like your gentle light that you cast upon its
14:10
Speaker 1: At nighttime. And then the fission hypothesis, which was the
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Speaker 1: Earth spun so much and so rapidly that a blob
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Speaker 1: of molten earth spun off and that was the moon. Right.
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Speaker 1: That sounds a little even in the sixties, I would
14:24
Speaker 1: have been like, really, well, I mean, think about it.
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Speaker 1: If it's if it's forming and everything is kind of
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Speaker 1: loose still, I guess we didn't know as much back then. Um,
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Speaker 1: So all of these have been kind of shot down, right,
14:37
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. The fact that the the Moon and
14:42
Speaker 1: the Earth's compositions are not the same means that they
14:45
Speaker 1: probably didn't form right alongside one another because they should
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Speaker 1: be pretty much the same material. Um. The Earth can't
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Speaker 1: possibly capture something as large as the moon as the
14:57
Speaker 1: moon and keep it there. Um. And then lastly, chuck,
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Speaker 1: the Earth has never been known to be able to
15:04
Speaker 1: spin fast enough to spin any part of it off.
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Speaker 1: If it were, we would be the first things off
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Speaker 1: of the Earth if it could spin that fast anybody,
15:13
Speaker 1: let alone a sizeable chunk. So what they think now
15:17
Speaker 1: is um. After the seventies they came up with this
15:20
Speaker 1: thing called the giant impact or theory. Yeah, that's it's
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Speaker 1: standing up fairly well. Right, so, yeah, it's this idea
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Speaker 1: that another planet or planetoid or something about the size
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Speaker 1: of Mars, early in the Earth's formation, came along and
15:35
Speaker 1: collided with the Earth with such force that it was
15:39
Speaker 1: absorbed into the Earth. It broke off a chunk, and
15:43
Speaker 1: then that part filled in the part that was was
15:47
Speaker 1: chunked off. It's like, um, what are the what are
15:50
Speaker 1: those twins where one eats the other in the womb called?
15:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's kind of like that, I mean twins.
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Speaker 1: So it's like the Earth has like another planet that
16:01
Speaker 1: really just looks like a taratoma with fingernails their teeth
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Speaker 1: inside of it. Yes, and that one, that one is
16:09
Speaker 1: actually held up. They've done computer simulations and they said
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Speaker 1: this could have happened. Well, we left out the most
16:14
Speaker 1: important part from that impact. It's shot out a bunch
16:18
Speaker 1: of stuff that formed into the Moon. Yes, and that
16:20
Speaker 1: was very hot obviously, and then and it cooled eventually.
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Speaker 1: But that's why the rocks appear to have been baked.
16:27
Speaker 1: That was the foreshadowing, right. Um So the idea behind this,
16:31
Speaker 1: like you said, it's still it stood up. That's enjoys
16:34
Speaker 1: the majority opinion, right. Um So, after this impact. As
16:39
Speaker 1: the as the Moon's spinning and forming itself into a spheroid. Um,
16:44
Speaker 1: it's covered in this ocean of magma, right, And this
16:49
Speaker 1: ocean of magma starts too cool and inside the cores
16:54
Speaker 1: solid outside magma, it starts to cool and everything kind
16:58
Speaker 1: of switches. The outside becomes solid, the inside magma and
17:02
Speaker 1: then um. After a while, the there's this period of
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Speaker 1: um bombardment that I talked about of meteorites in the neighborhood.
17:10
Speaker 1: It forms all of the highlands, the craters, um. Almost
17:15
Speaker 1: every feature on the surface of the Moon is formed
17:17
Speaker 1: during this bombardment period when the lava's eking out through
17:21
Speaker 1: the cracks from that came after that. So this at
17:24
Speaker 1: this point, the Moon has a molten core, a solid
17:28
Speaker 1: exterior um, and it's being bombarded with meteorites. So we're
17:32
Speaker 1: seeing the stuff that that we see today happen, you know,
17:36
Speaker 1: three point nine billion years ago. Then after that period,
17:40
Speaker 1: the there's a period of volcanic activity all over the
17:43
Speaker 1: So that's when it's leaking up through the cracks, and
17:45
Speaker 1: it leaks up through the cracks in the Maria areas, right,
17:49
Speaker 1: which explains why there's more craters on the Highlands than
17:52
Speaker 1: in the Maria because the craters were covered over by
17:56
Speaker 1: this basult, which is so so prevalent in these areas. Right,
18:00
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense actually, And and then lastly,
18:02
Speaker 1: the volcanic activity expelled all of the heat in the moon,
18:08
Speaker 1: turning it into a dead, lifeless hulk that we know
18:10
Speaker 1: and love today. Well that sounds sad, but I love
18:14
Speaker 1: it in its current state, so I'm actually happy about it. Okay,
18:17
Speaker 1: So let's talk about it and it's current state, Chuck.
18:20
Speaker 1: Here's so, there's the moon that's right there. That's how
18:23
Speaker 1: it got there, right, that's kind of cool, Like you
18:26
Speaker 1: didn't know that before. I didn't until we researched this stuff,
18:29
Speaker 1: all right. So in its current state, Chuck, it's in
18:32
Speaker 1: this um orbit around Earth. It doesn't spin on its axis,
18:36
Speaker 1: and it's basically dragged along like you know a wheel
18:41
Speaker 1: that's stuck. You can still drag it across the ground.
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Speaker 1: It's just not spinning. This is much the same way,
18:47
Speaker 1: but rather than in a in a vertical orientation, this
18:50
Speaker 1: is horizontal that the moon is not spinning and a
18:53
Speaker 1: horizontal axis it's being dragged around. And so that's why
18:58
Speaker 1: we only see the ones of the moon. The same
19:00
Speaker 1: side of the moon all the time, the happy side
19:03
Speaker 1: inside with the cheese. Well we wouldn't know if the
19:06
Speaker 1: other side is happier. Well, that's the dark side. This
19:08
Speaker 1: is scary side. Asked that crashed lunar rover or not
19:13
Speaker 1: rover but orbiter, orbiter two, orbiter two. So you're talking
19:18
Speaker 1: about the twenty nine it's the twenty nine point five
19:21
Speaker 1: days or is it just twenty nine it's my understanding
19:24
Speaker 1: that it's twenty nine point five. Okay, that's what I thought. Uh.
19:27
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is between the Earth and the Sun. Sometimes
19:31
Speaker 1: it's behind us. So what we're talking about here is
19:34
Speaker 1: the moon phases. That's why you'll see the crescent moon
19:38
Speaker 1: or the half moon or the full moon. Different parts
19:40
Speaker 1: of the moon are lit up by the Sun depending
19:42
Speaker 1: on where it is in relation to the Earth. It's
19:44
Speaker 1: pretty simple. Yeah, and NTO yeah. Uh. And when it's
19:49
Speaker 1: lit up and when it's not lit up, there's a huge,
19:52
Speaker 1: huge difference in temperature. What was that? Was it a
19:56
Speaker 1: future rama? It was a future rama where they had
19:59
Speaker 1: to it back to their transport before the horizon line,
20:05
Speaker 1: the point where the sun was you know, hitting the
20:08
Speaker 1: moon got to them where also is just gonna vaporize
20:11
Speaker 1: them because the difference in temperature, the mean temperature in
20:14
Speaker 1: the shadow of the moon, if I may, I know
20:16
Speaker 1: you like stats, please, the mean temperature in the shadow
20:20
Speaker 1: of the moon is negative two hundred ninety two degrees fahrenheight.
20:24
Speaker 1: Temperature negative a hundred and eighty degrees celsius in the sunlight, Chuck,
20:28
Speaker 1: the mean, the mean, This is the one that's the average, right,
20:32
Speaker 1: there's the median average. You could say that the mean
20:36
Speaker 1: surface temperature in the sunlight is two hundred and sixty
20:39
Speaker 1: six degrees fahrenheights. That's a hundred and thirty degrees celsius,
20:43
Speaker 1: so quite a different. So yeah, there's like a six
20:45
Speaker 1: hundred degree difference. That's the power of the sun, my friend,
20:49
Speaker 1: which we've gone over in detail. So over these billions
20:53
Speaker 1: of years, a couple of changes have happened to the Moon. Uh.
20:57
Speaker 1: It's moved a little further away from the Earth, and
20:59
Speaker 1: it's rotation has slowed some over the years, which you
21:05
Speaker 1: know that doesn't mean anything to me right now, but
21:08
Speaker 1: it's worth pointing out. Okay, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
21:12
Speaker 1: did you talk about the different phases like the did
21:16
Speaker 1: the waning and the waxing and all that. Uh, well
21:19
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't govert in that much detail. Now, well,
21:22
Speaker 1: I've always just enjoyed this, right, So do you know
21:26
Speaker 1: what they call a moon that's growing toward full moon
21:31
Speaker 1: and is almost full. Uh, that's waxing give us, yes,
21:36
Speaker 1: So remember that one it's going on its way toward
21:39
Speaker 1: a full moon and it's there's more moon present than
21:43
Speaker 1: there isn't there's a waxing GiB us. And then do
21:45
Speaker 1: you know what it's called when it's going toward a
21:47
Speaker 1: new moon and it's a thin little sliver, Uh, the
21:51
Speaker 1: waning crescent. Yes, if you remember waning crescent and waxing,
21:55
Speaker 1: give us, you can name any phase of the moon
21:58
Speaker 1: just by looking at it and impress your friend that's true,
22:00
Speaker 1: because you also have the waxing crescent, first quarter, a
22:03
Speaker 1: waning give us last quarter, and everyone's favorite, the full moon. Yeah,
22:08
Speaker 1: the full moon's that's the money moon. Sure, and you
22:11
Speaker 1: know people say that things go wacky at full moon's
22:13
Speaker 1: but I think that we found that that is largely
22:16
Speaker 1: just stories and it's not necessarily been proven. Like emergency
22:21
Speaker 1: medical emergency rooms are supposed to be like wacky and
22:24
Speaker 1: people go crazy and in the full moon and where
22:27
Speaker 1: wolves coming backed up though by by numbers. Tracy said,
22:30
Speaker 1: it's not. Um, where did you see that? It was
22:33
Speaker 1: somewhere in here? I didn't see it. Well, it's in there,
22:37
Speaker 1: or maybe I saw it somewhere else. Yeah, but they
22:39
Speaker 1: said it's it's pretty much anecdotal. But I thought I
22:41
Speaker 1: had seen that too where it was backed up by numbers. Well,
22:43
Speaker 1: there is, there's another um, there's a I guess if
22:47
Speaker 1: you're a skeptic, it's a crackpot theory. But there's a
22:50
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who believe in the concept of
22:54
Speaker 1: the super moon. Have you heard about that? That sounds familiar.
22:58
Speaker 1: So the moon travel, it's orbit around the Earth is
23:01
Speaker 1: not a perfect circle. It's in the lips. So that
23:04
Speaker 1: means that there are points where it's as far as
23:06
Speaker 1: it can be away from the Earth and as close
23:08
Speaker 1: as it can be. So as close as it can
23:10
Speaker 1: be as called paragy and as far away is called
23:13
Speaker 1: apog and it hits these once a month each right,
23:18
Speaker 1: So it's not unusual for the Moon to be impared
23:20
Speaker 1: your apogee, and normally when it is, it just means
23:23
Speaker 1: that the tides are higher and lower, and we'll talk
23:25
Speaker 1: about tides in a minute. It's right, but um, if
23:28
Speaker 1: it's in a full moon and it's a parady, which
23:31
Speaker 1: means that there's more exposed right to the sunlight, which
23:35
Speaker 1: really doesn't mean anything, but it's closer. Okay, Um, Supposedly
23:41
Speaker 1: what this happens like once every nineteen years. Supposedly that's
23:44
Speaker 1: linked to all sorts of destructive stuff on Earth, like
23:46
Speaker 1: earthquakes and floods and things like that. And you can
23:50
Speaker 1: go back and say, oh, well the moon there is
23:52
Speaker 1: a super moon in nineteen The last one was March nineteen,
23:59
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven. March eleventh, two thou eleven was
24:03
Speaker 1: the Japan quake. So people who believe in the Superman
24:06
Speaker 1: say they're see that, like, we can go back and
24:08
Speaker 1: find this all the time. And then people who who
24:11
Speaker 1: poo poo it's say if yeah, you're linking to unrelated phenomena. Yeah,
24:17
Speaker 1: that's very interesting, but that's the supermoon. At the very least,
24:19
Speaker 1: it sounds very cool. Super anything sounds cool. Um, So Chuck,
24:23
Speaker 1: I said that we were going to talk about tides,
24:25
Speaker 1: and I deliver around my promises. Well, you can't talk
24:28
Speaker 1: about the Moon without talking about tides. It's true, and Riley,
24:33
Speaker 1: we mentioned him right. The Moon has a gravitational force.
24:37
Speaker 1: We all know that. And it it pulls on water
24:40
Speaker 1: and the oceans. It stretches this water out and forms
24:44
Speaker 1: what's called the title bulge on the sides of the
24:46
Speaker 1: planet that are in line with the Moon. That's the
24:49
Speaker 1: first part. The moon. Water obviously pulls on the side
24:53
Speaker 1: closest to it, which causes the bulge toward the Moon
24:56
Speaker 1: pulls on the Earth a little bit and drags the
24:58
Speaker 1: Earth away from the water from the opposite side. And
25:01
Speaker 1: there's another another tidal bulge. And uh, the area under
25:06
Speaker 1: the bulge. The areas of the Earth under the bulge
25:08
Speaker 1: are high tide. The areas on the thin sides are
25:11
Speaker 1: low tide. It's mind boggling. Six hours, twelve hours. The
25:18
Speaker 1: moon pulls tugs on the ocean. It does, tugs on
25:22
Speaker 1: the ocean toward it, right, and it even moves the
25:26
Speaker 1: Earth a little bit. It does into the ocean a
25:28
Speaker 1: little more. Another way, the Moon actually pulls water. Yeah,
25:33
Speaker 1: it's a pretty impressive it is. Yeah. And then on
25:36
Speaker 1: the other side it pulls it away from the water.
25:38
Speaker 1: It pulls the Earth away from where the water is,
25:41
Speaker 1: so that's low tide. And yeah, like you said, that
25:43
Speaker 1: happens every six hours, right, Yeah. And the other cool
25:46
Speaker 1: thing is it also the moon stabilizes the Earth's rotation.
25:49
Speaker 1: If it wasn't for the moon, we might end up
25:51
Speaker 1: looking like wobbly top. That's it's starting to slow down, yes,
25:56
Speaker 1: like Inception. Yeah, your favorite movie. So, um, you know
26:03
Speaker 1: that that top wobbling. Tracy talks about precession. Um where
26:08
Speaker 1: because of that that skew to its axis. The angle
26:12
Speaker 1: of its axis. The polar star changes every like fourteen
26:17
Speaker 1: thousand years, I think twenty six thousand years. So right now,
26:21
Speaker 1: Polaris is the north star. Um. The north star in
26:26
Speaker 1: three thousand BC was called Theuban. Did you know that? No,
26:30
Speaker 1: So we're gonna get another one and a D fourteen
26:32
Speaker 1: thousand Vega will be the pole star. Huh Are they cool?
26:38
Speaker 1: That is pretty cool? I hope I'm around to see it.
26:40
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know. They're gonna have to be
26:43
Speaker 1: some significant advances in longevity really in the next years. Um,
26:48
Speaker 1: so what else do we have a chuck? Well, we've
26:51
Speaker 1: got eclipses. If you want to dive into that. What's
26:54
Speaker 1: it's worthy take it? Think? Uh, when the Moon passes
27:00
Speaker 1: between the Sun and the Earth, right, occasionally, you're gonna
27:03
Speaker 1: get that exact alignment of the Sun, Moon and Earth,
27:07
Speaker 1: and that's a solar eclipse. And I don't know if
27:09
Speaker 1: a lot of people know this. When you have a
27:10
Speaker 1: solar eclipse that same month, you're gonna have a lunar
27:12
Speaker 1: eclipse as well. Yeah, it's like in the bag. In
27:15
Speaker 1: the bag, but the moon has to be full, correct, Yeah,
27:19
Speaker 1: when the moon is full, a lunar eclipse will occur
27:23
Speaker 1: in the same month as a solar eclips Yes, you're right, okay,
27:25
Speaker 1: but for the solar eclipse, it's got to be a
27:27
Speaker 1: new moon, yes, Josh, new new phase only. So when
27:31
Speaker 1: you have a lunar eclipse, the moon is new and
27:33
Speaker 1: it's in line between the Sun and the Earth. And
27:38
Speaker 1: then when it's full fifteen days later, fourteen days later,
27:42
Speaker 1: it's on the other side of the Earth, you're gonna
27:44
Speaker 1: have a lunar And depending on where it goes into
27:49
Speaker 1: the Earth's shadow, either the pin umbra, which is like
27:52
Speaker 1: an angled part of the shadow it's not the full
27:54
Speaker 1: shadow um or the umbro, which is the full on shadow.
27:59
Speaker 1: It'll either be a partial or of full eclipse. That's right.
28:01
Speaker 1: And kids, remember never staring too a solar eclipse. Right,
28:04
Speaker 1: you can stare at a lunar eclipse all night long
28:06
Speaker 1: if you want to. So we talked about will the
28:09
Speaker 1: Moon saved humanity? We talked about lunar bases, and we
28:12
Speaker 1: talked about um mining, asteroids and fake moon landing. This
28:16
Speaker 1: is like our fourth Mooney. But I think that there
28:19
Speaker 1: should be required listening because you know, there's there's this
28:24
Speaker 1: there's an idea that there's possibly ice that was missed
28:27
Speaker 1: on the Moon. There's a couple been a couple of
28:30
Speaker 1: the Clementine probe found evidence of it, and then a
28:34
Speaker 1: more recent one said yeah, that's probably ice right there,
28:38
Speaker 1: which probably a good deal. Well, yeah, it probably got
28:41
Speaker 1: different like comets or something else. But there's ice on
28:43
Speaker 1: the Moon, and if there is, then that means that
28:45
Speaker 1: we have water and fuel on the Moon for a
28:49
Speaker 1: moon base, which is very exciting news. It's a lot
28:51
Speaker 1: cheaper apparently too. If you had a moon base to
28:54
Speaker 1: send off a rocket from the Moon, then it would
28:57
Speaker 1: be from the Earth. Plus you can be like, I
28:58
Speaker 1: got a moon base and that's just cool. Yeah, it
29:02
Speaker 1: sounds so sixties unless you see the movie Moon and
29:06
Speaker 1: that wasn't very cool at all. Alright, good moon movies.
29:10
Speaker 1: What you got? Uh? Well Moon? Okay, what else is there?
29:17
Speaker 1: Moon raker? Yeah, um paper Moon Moon River it's a song. Yeah, sure,
29:28
Speaker 1: I bet there's been a movie called Moon Rivers. I'm
29:30
Speaker 1: gonna do you think you remember the film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
29:36
Speaker 1: I love that movie. Well that's one thing we've got. Okay, wow,
29:42
Speaker 1: Well the song is that Breakfast that Tiffany's? Is that
29:45
Speaker 1: the name of it? By that awful band who I
29:48
Speaker 1: hope doesn't listen to this show. Uh sorry, that was
29:51
Speaker 1: a sidetrack. So um. The reason we mentioned that they
29:55
Speaker 1: found what they think might be ice is because that's
29:57
Speaker 1: pretty important because um, President Bush was GungHo to go,
30:02
Speaker 1: uh find out and potentially get on the moon again.
30:06
Speaker 1: And Obama came in and in two thousand ten, in
30:09
Speaker 1: February and canceled the constellation program, which I looked into
30:15
Speaker 1: because my first thought was, you know, I'm a big
30:16
Speaker 1: fan of our president, and I thought, well that stinks.
30:21
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back to the Moon, and I
30:23
Speaker 1: think there's there's it's worthy to do so, Oh we will.
30:26
Speaker 1: It'll just be private companies that get there. Exactly. That's
30:29
Speaker 1: what he says, at least as he ordered a review
30:31
Speaker 1: and found it to be behind schedule and over budget
30:35
Speaker 1: and just not a very lean program. And so hey,
30:38
Speaker 1: let's extend the International Space Station for about five years,
30:43
Speaker 1: give NAS about six billion bucks, and then see if
30:45
Speaker 1: we can get some private companies to start shuttling astronauts
30:48
Speaker 1: up there. Into the private sector. Yeah, so we'll see
30:52
Speaker 1: what happens. Neil Armstrong is against that, but Paul's buzz
30:56
Speaker 1: altern is for it. Yeah. I don't know if they're
30:59
Speaker 1: duking it out or it, But well, how do you
31:01
Speaker 1: feel about it? I don't know. I mean I think
31:05
Speaker 1: if the private sector could get involved, and that's that's good.
31:08
Speaker 1: That's companies making money. It is. But like I tend
31:11
Speaker 1: to think of like the Moon is a part of
31:13
Speaker 1: the commonwealth of humanity, you know, like that, it just
31:17
Speaker 1: seems like you shouldn't you shouldn't apply capitalism to the Moon. Yeah,
31:22
Speaker 1: maybe not, but what you know, China might get there
31:25
Speaker 1: and set up camp and be like no, no, no,
31:27
Speaker 1: China will get there. They are spending a significant amount
31:30
Speaker 1: of money, They're building their own international space station. Actually
31:33
Speaker 1: it's just a National Space station because it's just theirs.
31:37
Speaker 1: So yeah, they'll be on the Moon for the National
31:39
Speaker 1: Space Station. Yeah, that's uh. I mean, do we have
31:44
Speaker 1: an article on who owns space? I know we have
31:48
Speaker 1: who owns the oceans? We did that, but I mean
31:50
Speaker 1: that's a valid thing. Well, let's find out. What if
31:52
Speaker 1: Trya got up there and they're like, this is ours.
31:54
Speaker 1: Now you can gotta you can see the moon base?
31:58
Speaker 1: All right, we gotta do that. Alright, let's the moon
32:01
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about the Moon. And seriously,
32:03
Speaker 1: there's some really handy graphs and illustrations in this type
32:07
Speaker 1: in Moon in the search bar at how stuff works
32:10
Speaker 1: dot com and that brings up listener mail hold on
32:14
Speaker 1: their partner. We are going to plug our new audio
32:20
Speaker 1: book that is available on iTunes, The super Stuff. It's
32:23
Speaker 1: called The super Stuff Guide to Happiness. Features interviews and
32:27
Speaker 1: Josh's niece, very cute niece, and um what else, great
32:32
Speaker 1: sound design. We talked to Eric Wilson, who wrote the
32:36
Speaker 1: book Against Happiness. Awesome Wake Forest professor. Great interviews in
32:41
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, um, and we we talked to a
32:43
Speaker 1: bunch of great people, uh, and just really got into
32:47
Speaker 1: what is happiness? What makes us happy? How how can
32:50
Speaker 1: we possibly study happiness and just came up with some
32:53
Speaker 1: pretty good answers. It's worth it. It's worth the three
32:58
Speaker 1: or more in Australia, or if it makes you feel better,
33:01
Speaker 1: divide that three ninety nine over the three hundred and
33:03
Speaker 1: forty something shows nothing. That's almost just like a penny
33:08
Speaker 1: of show. Yeah, not even except in Australia, where it's
33:11
Speaker 1: gonna be more like a tough pence of show. Yeah.
33:13
Speaker 1: We're gonna work that off over the next couple of
33:15
Speaker 1: years to our AlSi friends. So it's on iTunes, the
33:18
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know, super Stuff Guide to Happiness, and
33:22
Speaker 1: when you search that on iTunes, it will probably bring
33:24
Speaker 1: up the super Stuff Guide to uh the Economy, which
33:28
Speaker 1: is pretty good listen to if you ask me. Agreed. Um.
33:31
Speaker 1: And now that we've done this and we did it shamelessly,
33:34
Speaker 1: that's right, it's time for listener mail again. Josh, we
33:40
Speaker 1: called for a karma off. Send us your karma stories.
33:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read one and uh, this is from a
33:46
Speaker 1: dude in a band that I'm actually a fan of. Okay,
33:50
Speaker 1: their name is Fang Island and they're awesome and they're
33:54
Speaker 1: based in Brooklyn, New York now, although they're originally from
33:56
Speaker 1: Rhode Island. And Jason Bartel, a Fang Island, wrote in
33:59
Speaker 1: and said this, I've been joining the podcast for a while.
34:02
Speaker 1: I'm in a touring band. It's been way too much
34:05
Speaker 1: time in the van, so I welcome the opportunity to
34:08
Speaker 1: keep my brain occupied. So thanks. And if people wrote
34:11
Speaker 1: in with lots of karma stories, and if you think
34:14
Speaker 1: I'm just reading this because I'm a fan of this
34:15
Speaker 1: guy's band, then you're right. So I apologize if you
34:18
Speaker 1: think your story was better. Uh. He went to college
34:22
Speaker 1: in Providence, Rhode Island. Was driving home to New Hampshire
34:24
Speaker 1: one holiday weekend and nearing the end of the trip,
34:27
Speaker 1: there's a toll there and I had zero money in
34:30
Speaker 1: my wallet and I was stuck in line. It was
34:32
Speaker 1: too late. In hindsight, I was probably overly panicked, because
34:35
Speaker 1: the penalty for not having enough money at a toll
34:38
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire is probably pretty minuscule. Like they probably
34:41
Speaker 1: would have said, don't worry about it. They're really nice
34:43
Speaker 1: up there, you know, Yeah, you've ever been there. I
34:47
Speaker 1: have not been in New Hampshire. But day yea Evermont,
34:49
Speaker 1: They're all just like super nice holes. Uh. Nevertheless, I
34:52
Speaker 1: started sweating, my heart was racing. I began scrounging for
34:55
Speaker 1: loose change to no avail. Uh. One long shot scenario
34:59
Speaker 1: that crossed my mind was maybe the car in front
35:00
Speaker 1: of me would pay for me for some reason. But
35:03
Speaker 1: I dismissed it, so I barely knew that I had
35:06
Speaker 1: even thought it. But when it came time for me
35:08
Speaker 1: to face the music, it turns out this is exactly
35:11
Speaker 1: what happened. The operator said the car in front of
35:14
Speaker 1: me covered my fare and said to have a nice day.
35:17
Speaker 1: I was stunned. I have no idea still why they
35:20
Speaker 1: paid for me, even sped up alongside them to give
35:23
Speaker 1: him a thank you and wave my gun in and
35:25
Speaker 1: tell him pull over. They want to ask them, but
35:27
Speaker 1: they never acknowledged me. Normally, it would be stone cold
35:30
Speaker 1: case of luck, except that I've actually done this before
35:32
Speaker 1: for other people in the past. When I felt randomly charitable,
35:36
Speaker 1: I realized this is probably the very definition of the
35:38
Speaker 1: simplified New Age interpretation of karma that you were talking about.
35:43
Speaker 1: But I was destruck by the almost cute one to
35:45
Speaker 1: one ratio of this particular karmic transaction, and that is
35:50
Speaker 1: Jason Bartel of Fang Island, who is a great band.
35:53
Speaker 1: They got a eight point three review on their debut
35:55
Speaker 1: album on Pitchfork, which is really Pitchfork. They're not kind
36:00
Speaker 1: the bands usually, well that's not true. They they review
36:03
Speaker 1: how they review, but at eight point three is good.
36:06
Speaker 1: They're not sick of fans. They are not. They will
36:09
Speaker 1: they will trash your record if they don't like it.
36:11
Speaker 1: So they're they're awesome, and go see them. They're on tour.
36:14
Speaker 1: I think said they might be come through Atlanta as
36:16
Speaker 1: false maybe if you want to say saying them again
36:19
Speaker 1: Bang Island. Okay. They opened up for Flaming Lips a
36:22
Speaker 1: lot on this last tour, so that should tell you
36:24
Speaker 1: something about their Their sound very cool, but they sound
36:27
Speaker 1: like the Flaming Lips there, No, I mean a lot
36:29
Speaker 1: of it's instrumental. I mean they're just insanely talented and uh,
36:33
Speaker 1: their self described sound is quote everyone high fiving everyone,
36:38
Speaker 1: and he's kind of right. It sounds like how I
36:41
Speaker 1: would describe the Go Team. Uh. Yeah, they have been
36:45
Speaker 1: compared to them, although this is like a three guitar onslaught,
36:50
Speaker 1: but it's like happy music. It's not like Explosions in
36:53
Speaker 1: the Sky. Got type of instrumental stuff, and they got
36:57
Speaker 1: words too. It's just not like the first course type
36:59
Speaker 1: of songs. They clients and scissors very unique. Goodness me,
37:05
Speaker 1: that was a plug and a half. Well, if you
37:06
Speaker 1: have a band that you think Chuck likes, he wants
37:09
Speaker 1: to hear about it. I really do. Actually I don't like, Like,
37:13
Speaker 1: what if one of my heroes listens to the show
37:15
Speaker 1: and I'll never know? Or what if it's a new
37:18
Speaker 1: band that you've never heard of yet? Well, that too, Okay,
37:22
Speaker 1: you should contact Chuck like David Bowie. What if he
37:24
Speaker 1: listens David Bowie does not listen. You're right. You can
37:28
Speaker 1: contact Chuck and me. We're both on the same email address.
37:32
Speaker 1: You just need to direct it toward us at Stuff
37:36
Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
37:45
Speaker 1: check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
37:48
Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
37:50
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by
37:56
Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you