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How Earth-Like Planets Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry AND's
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Speaker 1: the stuff you should know. Just a few geezas, what not?
0:22
Speaker 1: Galizas very good? That was terrible, is what it was.
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Speaker 1: I read an article the other day on my people
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Speaker 1: find puns so offensive. It's very interesting. Oh yeah, I
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Speaker 1: know it is. Yeah, I'm sending my way, will you sure? Thanks,
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Speaker 1: You're welcome. Chuck. Yes, have you ever heard of an
0:44
Speaker 1: exo planet? Yes? You have. Well that's all I got.
0:50
Speaker 1: I'm down. I'm done with Kepler. Kepler is pretty awesome,
0:54
Speaker 1: isn't it. Kepler is way awesome. Let's talk about Kepler.
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Speaker 1: What is it? Well, Kepler is a guess what you
1:00
Speaker 1: call it? A program? Sure, the Kepler Project program. It's
1:04
Speaker 1: a mission. Yes, it's all the mission. And since two
1:08
Speaker 1: thousand nine they have Their task has been to survey
1:13
Speaker 1: the sky in fact, um, well a small patch of
1:17
Speaker 1: sky right now. And it's an outer space telescope. Yeah. Sure,
1:21
Speaker 1: it's spine on people in the city park. No, no no,
1:24
Speaker 1: they shot it out in a space. It's dressed in
1:26
Speaker 1: like a silver um jumpsuit, so you can tell it's
1:31
Speaker 1: a space telescope and not just like a regular one.
1:34
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, it has a little twelve degree um
1:38
Speaker 1: field of vision, and what it's doing is just looking
1:42
Speaker 1: out into the cosmos in the Milky Way. Still. Yeah,
1:47
Speaker 1: specifically near the constellations Sickness and Lira. For now. For now,
1:53
Speaker 1: you gotta start somewhere, right, you only have twelve degrees.
1:56
Speaker 1: You know, it's not the big ear. It's like a journey.
2:00
Speaker 1: You have a thousand miles starts through the singles that. Uh. Basically,
2:04
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do is see I think the
2:08
Speaker 1: ultimate goal it's just to see what's out there. But
2:12
Speaker 1: what they really secretly get giddy about and titter about
2:16
Speaker 1: um late at night is finding exoplanets that are like
2:20
Speaker 1: our own Earth. I know. I think the whole thing
2:22
Speaker 1: was a straight up planet hunting mission. Well yeah, but
2:25
Speaker 1: like I said, they're not just like we want to
2:27
Speaker 1: find another Earth. They they're like, we want to see
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Speaker 1: what's out there because we don't know what's out there. Yes,
2:31
Speaker 1: and they get really excited when it's not a big
2:33
Speaker 1: giant ball of gas. So the Kepler mission actually the
2:37
Speaker 1: first Kepler mission ended this past May because the Kepler
2:41
Speaker 1: telescope I think ran out of battery power or something
2:44
Speaker 1: like that to turn itself. But they started there. They're
2:48
Speaker 1: ramping up the K two mission, which is actually this
2:52
Speaker 1: is so amazing to me. I love this stuff. It's
2:54
Speaker 1: they're going to use photons light from the Sun to
2:59
Speaker 1: move it. Pretty amazing. And the photons are going to
3:02
Speaker 1: move this thing called solar power to direct it and
3:05
Speaker 1: look in different directions. It is very much so amazing. Um.
3:10
Speaker 1: So the whole point is is defined planets. But really,
3:13
Speaker 1: like you say, what they're looking for our planets that
3:17
Speaker 1: fall within what's called the Goldilocks zone or the habitable zone.
3:22
Speaker 1: And there's a couple a couple of different types of zones. Yeah,
3:25
Speaker 1: if we're talking the Goldilocks zone, what we mean is
3:28
Speaker 1: a planet that, um where there is water that doesn't
3:32
Speaker 1: evaporate immediately or freeze. Well, yeah, that's one way to
3:38
Speaker 1: put it. You know, flowing water would be great, so
3:43
Speaker 1: CEO two that'd be awesome. So the whole Earth earthlike planets, right,
3:48
Speaker 1: earthlike is what it what it comes down to, able
3:51
Speaker 1: to sustain life, right, and the the whole thing. I've
3:54
Speaker 1: read this really interesting article, Chuck, and it was I
3:58
Speaker 1: think it was an aon magazine like it is one
4:01
Speaker 1: of the greatest online magazines ever created, so interesting, everything
4:05
Speaker 1: is so well written. It's just great. A on magazine,
4:09
Speaker 1: aon magazine anyway. Um, the the person writing this article said,
4:17
Speaker 1: what if our conception of life is really limited? And
4:22
Speaker 1: when we think of life, we think of like um
4:25
Speaker 1: genetic genetic molecules capable of self replicating, right, like us,
4:32
Speaker 1: like life, like anything that that can make new copies
4:36
Speaker 1: of itself, cellular reproduction. Right. So, um, what if there's
4:41
Speaker 1: life has evolved in many, many other ways, not just
4:44
Speaker 1: out an outter of space, but here on this planet,
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Speaker 1: Like we could be surrounded by life and not even
4:48
Speaker 1: be aware of it because we're not thinking of it
4:52
Speaker 1: that way. We're strictly looking for evidence of um DNA
4:56
Speaker 1: based life. If life evolved in other ways and it's
5:00
Speaker 1: we're surrounded by it, that's pretty neat. That's one of
5:02
Speaker 1: those late night college conversations, if you know what I mean.
5:06
Speaker 1: But with Kepler too, it's looking for planets that could
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Speaker 1: sustain a certain brand of life, which is the life
5:15
Speaker 1: that we know and the whole thing is predicated on
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Speaker 1: the idea that you need water and liquid form to
5:22
Speaker 1: be the foundation, the the sustaining foundation of life. And
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Speaker 1: so that's what that's what this habitable zone is. It's
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Speaker 1: a planet that is far enough away from the Sun
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Speaker 1: that it can um. It's it's surface water is not
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Speaker 1: going to boil away and turn it into um and
5:42
Speaker 1: just just go into the atmosphere far away from its star. Right,
5:47
Speaker 1: not necessarily the Sun. Right, it's star is what I mean.
5:51
Speaker 1: It's version of our Sun, yes, yes, oh, and but
5:55
Speaker 1: it's not so far away that it's not getting enough
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Speaker 1: heat so that it just frees. So it's within this
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Speaker 1: what's called the circumstellar habitable habitable zone. It's or it's
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Speaker 1: in this little distance like we are in our sun.
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Speaker 1: Our stars habitable zone are its circumstellar habitable zone, right,
6:13
Speaker 1: And so it's looking for planets that um are surrounding
6:17
Speaker 1: stars in that little band that's not so close that
6:21
Speaker 1: it's too hot and not so far away that it's
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Speaker 1: too cold. It's just right. I love it. That's called
6:27
Speaker 1: the Goldilocks zone. Yeah, that's the name for it. Um.
6:31
Speaker 1: So there are they have the Kepler mission has returned
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Speaker 1: UM a lot of startling information like thousands, perhaps tens
6:40
Speaker 1: of thousands or hundreds of thousands of planets maybe out there. Um,
6:45
Speaker 1: in fact, probably are out there. I think it's forty
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Speaker 1: billion in the the Milky Way alone, is what estimates
6:53
Speaker 1: are unbelievable in the Milky Way alone. Forty billion Earth
6:56
Speaker 1: sized planets, not just all plants. Forty potentially Earth sized
7:03
Speaker 1: planets in the Milky Way alone. Yeah. So, like I
7:05
Speaker 1: was saying, UM, giant balls of gas are fun gas
7:09
Speaker 1: giants like Saturn and Jupiter, they're needo torpedo. But UM,
7:14
Speaker 1: as far as science really getting um getting their rocks off,
7:18
Speaker 1: these Earth size planets are the ones that that that's
7:22
Speaker 1: where the money is, you know, right, And when I
7:24
Speaker 1: say money, I don't mean cash money, although if we
7:26
Speaker 1: colonize them, I guess it could be cash money. But
7:29
Speaker 1: the smaller planets, what they call terrestrial planets earthlike planets,
7:33
Speaker 1: UM are terrestrial planets would be a great band name,
7:36
Speaker 1: by the way, because they are They have heavy metal
7:40
Speaker 1: cores and rocky mantle, and they have smaller orbits, shorter years,
7:47
Speaker 1: they're close to the host star. All these things that
7:50
Speaker 1: are Earth like, which could mean potentially you know something there,
7:54
Speaker 1: so okay, so something living. You've got the circumstellar habitable zone,
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Speaker 1: which is not too close to the Sun or not
8:02
Speaker 1: too close to the star, not too far away from
8:03
Speaker 1: the star. But there's also um a larger habitable zone
8:08
Speaker 1: that that kind of if you have that one, great,
8:12
Speaker 1: But there's some other qualifications that a planet has to
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Speaker 1: hit to be considered habitable, and these are galactic habitable zones, right,
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Speaker 1: So part of that is that it has to have
8:24
Speaker 1: a heavy metal core, like you say, it's got to
8:27
Speaker 1: be terrestrial. It also has to um it can't be
8:31
Speaker 1: tidally locked. Right. There's we found actually some planets out
8:35
Speaker 1: there that fit the bill, except they are tidally locked
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Speaker 1: with their star, which means only one side and the
8:42
Speaker 1: same side is always facing the sun, which means that
8:46
Speaker 1: that is a very very hot body of water right
8:49
Speaker 1: there that's facing the sun. And then on the back side,
8:52
Speaker 1: the dark side, it's just completely frozen and since it's
8:55
Speaker 1: not turning, the atmosphere is not being um kept around,
9:01
Speaker 1: the planet is able to like migrate to like say
9:04
Speaker 1: the dark side of the planet and just freeze there.
9:07
Speaker 1: That's a great example of how you can have all
9:10
Speaker 1: these other things. That planet might be in the habitable
9:13
Speaker 1: zone for its star, but it falls out of the
9:17
Speaker 1: category of a truly habitable planet because it's missing some
9:20
Speaker 1: other factors, for example not being tidally locked. So that
9:23
Speaker 1: would be the case with Gliza fight one G. So yes, okay,
9:28
Speaker 1: So that is was discovered in two thousand ten, and
9:30
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of back and forth between a
9:33
Speaker 1: lot of different countries and scientists saying is it really there?
9:36
Speaker 1: Is it not there? I think where it lands now is?
9:39
Speaker 1: They are pretty sure it's there. Um. But with Glees
9:44
Speaker 1: eight one g um, it faces uh the star at
9:50
Speaker 1: all times, one side of it does, so it's tightly locked,
9:53
Speaker 1: tightly locked. Um. Although it does orbit once every thirty
9:56
Speaker 1: seven days, it keeps that face. So basically what they think,
10:00
Speaker 1: because if there could be life there, you have what
10:02
Speaker 1: they would call an eyeball Earth with a one part
10:06
Speaker 1: of this planet having being liquid water right and the
10:09
Speaker 1: rest of frozen, so like an eyeball in the middle
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Speaker 1: kind of neat. I think what keeps Glees of eight
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Speaker 1: one g in the news is the fact that it's
10:19
Speaker 1: only twenty point five light years away. Um. And we'll
10:23
Speaker 1: talk about some more of these, but a lot of
10:25
Speaker 1: them are like over a thousand light years away. So
10:28
Speaker 1: let's take a break real quick and we'll get back
10:30
Speaker 1: to exoplanets right after this. So check you you touched
10:50
Speaker 1: on something I think is very important before we go
10:52
Speaker 1: any further there. People say, well, yeah it exists, or no,
10:56
Speaker 1: it doesn't exist. And there's a lot of back and
10:58
Speaker 1: forth in the scientific community. And the reason is, is
11:02
Speaker 1: the as as high powered and awesome as the Kepler
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Speaker 1: telescope is it really is. It doesn't look at a
11:11
Speaker 1: star and say, oh, look at that planet. That's a
11:13
Speaker 1: fine looking planet right there. It looks like, oh yeah,
11:16
Speaker 1: I can see water on there and wall like a
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Speaker 1: giant pterodactyl like a monkey head. Yes it is. No,
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Speaker 1: it can't see these kind of things, right. So there's
11:29
Speaker 1: different techniques that are used for hunting planets exoplanets, um,
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Speaker 1: that use deduction in a lot of ways in concert
11:39
Speaker 1: with these telescopes right to surmise the existence of planets.
11:44
Speaker 1: So um, there's three main techniques that even these telescopes
11:51
Speaker 1: us Like the Kepler telescope is it uses a photometer
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Speaker 1: which senses light, right, and it'll look at a star,
12:00
Speaker 1: are and it'll just keep looking at the star, looking
12:02
Speaker 1: at the star. It's got a really good Uh, something
12:05
Speaker 1: weird just happened at the star got dim and then
12:07
Speaker 1: it went back to normal light. And what just happened
12:11
Speaker 1: was probably a planet orbited in between the telescope and
12:16
Speaker 1: the star, which dim the light of the star. That's right.
12:19
Speaker 1: They called that a transit and that technique is called
12:22
Speaker 1: the transit method. And so they, like you said, they
12:25
Speaker 1: use that photometer and um, if they see that dim
12:28
Speaker 1: that's a lead in the right direction. Yeah, and now
12:30
Speaker 1: it doesn't prove anything, no, so that that that planet
12:35
Speaker 1: becomes a candidate planet. So they go back and they
12:38
Speaker 1: look at it. And if they say, use a different technique,
12:41
Speaker 1: or if they um, if they come up with the
12:44
Speaker 1: same data using that same technique again and again, then
12:48
Speaker 1: most likely that planet does exist and it becomes a right,
12:53
Speaker 1: it becomes a confirmed planet. So it goes from a
12:55
Speaker 1: candidate planet to a confirmed planet. Um. And there's a
12:58
Speaker 1: lot of criticism in this side actific community because when
13:01
Speaker 1: a candidate planet is found, it is far from being
13:04
Speaker 1: proven as existing. But um, it's very frequently rushed out
13:09
Speaker 1: to the media, which treats it like a new planet's
13:12
Speaker 1: been discovered and we know all about it, when we
13:15
Speaker 1: really don't even know for a fact it exists, And
13:18
Speaker 1: very infrequently the science behind having to deduce its existence
13:24
Speaker 1: is explained in in the in the articles that are
13:28
Speaker 1: written about them. So it just gets rushed to press
13:33
Speaker 1: a little too premisuarly to keep that public interest up,
13:35
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but it wouldn't hurt to also educate
13:39
Speaker 1: the public at the same time. So a lot of
13:42
Speaker 1: people say, oh, well that we just discovered a new
13:44
Speaker 1: planet where it's still a candidate planet and it doesn't
13:47
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily know it exists. It's a good point, um.
13:50
Speaker 1: So that the transit method is is the one where
13:54
Speaker 1: the light pulses, the star pulses, well, it dims because
13:58
Speaker 1: the planet comes in between the telescope and the yeah star.
14:01
Speaker 1: Then you have the wobble method, which is pretty neat
14:03
Speaker 1: in itself. Um. It looks for changes in relative velocity
14:07
Speaker 1: caused by the gravitational pull of another nearby planet. So
14:12
Speaker 1: basically what happens is they use the spectrum of light
14:14
Speaker 1: for this one and they analyze that spectrum around this
14:19
Speaker 1: uh what they think could be a planet. It planet
14:22
Speaker 1: it planet it can planet it so, thank you. So
14:27
Speaker 1: what happens is if it is being pulled by another planet,
14:30
Speaker 1: when it surges towards Earth and then away, it causes
14:33
Speaker 1: variations in that light spectrum. So when it comes towards Earth, um,
14:37
Speaker 1: it shortens a wavelength and you see a blue spectrum
14:39
Speaker 1: more um. When it goes away from Earth, it lengthens
14:42
Speaker 1: and you see red more So it's almost like a
14:45
Speaker 1: color pulse. Uh. And that is the Wobble method. So
14:50
Speaker 1: that's number two. And that's the Doppler effect. Uh is it? Yeah,
14:55
Speaker 1: but with light instead of sound. But the Compler effect
14:59
Speaker 1: is only sound. No, it's any kind of wavelength. Oh
15:02
Speaker 1: I thought the Doppler effect was strictly sound. No, it's
15:04
Speaker 1: it's it's any I'm telling you. It's the thing that
15:09
Speaker 1: links bats to earthlike planets, to Doppler to a passing ambulance. Yes, man,
15:15
Speaker 1: I'm so psyched about the Doppler effect. Uh. And you
15:19
Speaker 1: want to go ahead and hit us up with that
15:20
Speaker 1: last one micro lensing that's pretty neat too, yes. So, um,
15:24
Speaker 1: when you have a star and another star passes, if
15:28
Speaker 1: you're looking at a star with say if um, like
15:31
Speaker 1: the the Kepler telescope, which the Kepler telescope strictly uses
15:34
Speaker 1: the transit method from what I understands, So you have
15:39
Speaker 1: another telescope that that is more open minded. Yeah. UM,
15:43
Speaker 1: And you're looking at a star and another star comes
15:46
Speaker 1: in between you and the star. You're looking at that
15:50
Speaker 1: star that's in the foreground, that's in between you and
15:53
Speaker 1: the original star. UM actually takes the light and acts
15:58
Speaker 1: as a kind of a magnifying lens and intensifies the
16:01
Speaker 1: light of the star behind it thanks to its gravity.
16:04
Speaker 1: This is called micro lensing. Right. If a planet falls
16:08
Speaker 1: into that that's an orbit around that other star falls
16:12
Speaker 1: in line with this, it takes that um that micro
16:16
Speaker 1: lensing effect and amplifies it even further. And then you
16:20
Speaker 1: can calculate, based on the amplification of the micro lensing effect,
16:24
Speaker 1: the mass of all of the stars and this new
16:27
Speaker 1: mystery planet that just came into into line with this orbit. UM,
16:31
Speaker 1: And they use that mind blowingly enough to deduce the
16:36
Speaker 1: presence of planets around stars too. So you've got these
16:39
Speaker 1: three methods and all of them though again it's really
16:44
Speaker 1: important to remember this, all of these used deduction, Like
16:48
Speaker 1: none of these planets have been visually observed. They are
16:52
Speaker 1: all deduced to exist based on um, the mathematical evidence
16:59
Speaker 1: that there's something going on here, like that this light
17:02
Speaker 1: is dimming, this color is changing, or the light is
17:05
Speaker 1: being amplified by something, and it all has to do
17:08
Speaker 1: with mass and gravity. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, alright, so
17:12
Speaker 1: we'll take a little break here and come back and
17:13
Speaker 1: talk about some of these exo planets and if there
17:18
Speaker 1: are people living there, there aren't so chuck. Remember we
17:40
Speaker 1: mentioned the transit method. You can also use these things
17:42
Speaker 1: to deduce even more stuff about these planets once you
17:46
Speaker 1: confirm they exist. Personality, right, it's signed like kind of things. Um.
17:51
Speaker 1: There's something called transit spectroscopy which uses the apparently the
17:59
Speaker 1: atmosp fear of a planet leaves a certain kind of
18:03
Speaker 1: mark on the light that it messes with in the
18:08
Speaker 1: star that you're looking at. So not only are you
18:11
Speaker 1: deducing that the planets there, you're deducing by the effect
18:15
Speaker 1: that that planet has on the light the type of
18:17
Speaker 1: atmosphere it has as well. So pretty amazing, right, So
18:22
Speaker 1: once they figure out that yes, the planet is likely there,
18:25
Speaker 1: they go back and look at it and the planet
18:28
Speaker 1: goes from a candidate to a confirmed planet, and the
18:31
Speaker 1: Kepler Um came up with one thousand and thirty confirmed exoplanets,
18:36
Speaker 1: twelve of which are in a Goldilocks zone. Right. Um,
18:40
Speaker 1: they really start going to town studying this planet and
18:43
Speaker 1: figuring out what its atmosphere is like, where it is
18:46
Speaker 1: in relation to the star, what the temperature is, and
18:49
Speaker 1: they can tell some pretty amazing stuff about an exo
18:52
Speaker 1: planet just from all of these deductions. Yeah, Like, uh,
18:57
Speaker 1: I guess let's just talk about a couple of these
18:59
Speaker 1: UM the the Gliza. Uh I guess it's a group
19:03
Speaker 1: because there are several glazes. There's a gliza. So each
19:08
Speaker 1: one of these UM exoplanets is named after the star
19:12
Speaker 1: that it orbits. Yeah. So so the Glaza Gleaz is
19:15
Speaker 1: a star. Yeah, and it has several potential habitable planets
19:20
Speaker 1: around it. We already talked a little bit about five
19:23
Speaker 1: eight one G, but there's also a five eight one C.
19:27
Speaker 1: It is twelve thousand miles in diameter UM, which is
19:30
Speaker 1: not too much bigger than Earth um, and makes one
19:34
Speaker 1: complete revolution in thirteen Earth days, which means it's too hot,
19:39
Speaker 1: but it balances that out because it has a surface
19:42
Speaker 1: temperature one uh that of our Sun, which means potentially,
19:48
Speaker 1: and again this is all speculation. Potentially the temperature range
19:52
Speaker 1: on the surface of five eight one C could be
19:55
Speaker 1: thirty two degrees to two degrees fahrenheit, such as in
19:58
Speaker 1: the wheelhouse. It isn the wheelhouse. I think further study
20:02
Speaker 1: has kind of discarded the idea that um gleeza vibe
20:05
Speaker 1: eight one c is habitable. Yeah, it's pretty quick right
20:10
Speaker 1: as far as breaking news goes. But you raise a
20:13
Speaker 1: really good point that if this thing has a revolution
20:18
Speaker 1: a year that's thirteen days long, the there's no part
20:22
Speaker 1: of the planet that's going to get cool enough to
20:25
Speaker 1: even things out. It's gonna just stay too hot. And conversely,
20:30
Speaker 1: if the thing has a year that lasts too long,
20:34
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's not gonna get hot enough. It's gonna
20:36
Speaker 1: stay cool. So that's another galactic habitable zone factor. Well,
20:43
Speaker 1: I love him, man, keep them coming. I know. I
20:45
Speaker 1: basically went and looked today. I was like, what are
20:48
Speaker 1: the most likely habitable exoplanets? And an article from a
20:52
Speaker 1: year ago has a top five that's different from an
20:55
Speaker 1: article now, Like that's how quickly things change, right, Well,
20:58
Speaker 1: I mean these things were all just basically theoretical, like
21:02
Speaker 1: we assumed that, you know, a star would have planets
21:06
Speaker 1: orbiting it, but it wasn't until the Coupler mission within
21:09
Speaker 1: the last like ten years or so, I think it
21:10
Speaker 1: was from the Arecibo telescope was the first confirmed exo
21:18
Speaker 1: planet to be detected. And that was but once Kepler
21:22
Speaker 1: started going, it's they started to come like hard and fast.
21:26
Speaker 1: And once they started and people started rushing to press,
21:30
Speaker 1: then the science is having to retract them now and
21:33
Speaker 1: things are going from yeah, well, well there's a new
21:36
Speaker 1: exit planet that we could just travel to now if
21:38
Speaker 1: we wanted to to. This thing actually doesn't exist or
21:42
Speaker 1: it's not really habitable. I looked. The most recent one
21:46
Speaker 1: I found was from like three months ago and May
21:48
Speaker 1: of this year, and they say, I believe this was
21:52
Speaker 1: from space dot Com said that Kepler forty eight B
21:56
Speaker 1: is the most earthlike planet yet that we've discovered. Um
22:00
Speaker 1: it orbits a distant star in the constellation of Lira,
22:03
Speaker 1: which is where Kepler is looking. Which eight B. It
22:08
Speaker 1: gets really confusing. They need to start naming these things,
22:11
Speaker 1: they do, you know, So four thirty eight B is
22:14
Speaker 1: a little bit bigger than Earth, uh more heat than
22:18
Speaker 1: Earth than what we received from the Sun though. UH.
22:22
Speaker 1: It's small though, which means it is UM just because
22:25
Speaker 1: it's twelve percent larger means it's seventy has a seventy
22:29
Speaker 1: chance of being rocky like Earth. UH. It is four
22:34
Speaker 1: d and seventy light years away, which is not too
22:36
Speaker 1: bad considering some of these are thousands and thousands of
22:39
Speaker 1: light years away. UH completes an orbit around its star
22:42
Speaker 1: every thirty five days, which is about ten times as
22:45
Speaker 1: fast as Earth. UM. And basically the Harvard Smithsonian Center
22:51
Speaker 1: of astro UH for Astrophysics said that UM, they announced
22:56
Speaker 1: this one along with seven other planets UM in the
22:59
Speaker 1: same habit of ball zone. So decent chance. But UM,
23:03
Speaker 1: like I said this this, By the time this comes out,
23:06
Speaker 1: this may be old news and debunked. Who knows. UM.
23:11
Speaker 1: There's another one that I think they discovered even more recently,
23:14
Speaker 1: which is Kepler fifty two B and it's light years
23:18
Speaker 1: away UM, and it is an earthlike planet. I think
23:22
Speaker 1: it's UM like uh si larger in diameter than the
23:27
Speaker 1: Earth UM, but it's still Earth like. It is a
23:31
Speaker 1: super Earth, yes, UM. No, that automatically qualifies it as
23:35
Speaker 1: a super Earth. So it's it's Earth size, but it's
23:38
Speaker 1: not so big that it's like a gas giant. It's
23:41
Speaker 1: terrestrial likely um. And it's in the Goldilocks zone for
23:45
Speaker 1: its star um, and they're pretty excited about it. Actually.
23:51
Speaker 1: I think the it has a mass that's five or
23:54
Speaker 1: six times Earth's and so you would be you you
23:59
Speaker 1: would feel about double your weight or you would weigh double.
24:03
Speaker 1: Well you do here. But they think that if we
24:06
Speaker 1: did sink colonists there, their bodies would adapt to be
24:10
Speaker 1: like working out all the time. Um, but you would
24:13
Speaker 1: become super strong, and if you came back to Earth
24:16
Speaker 1: you could just beat everybody up. Interesting because you'd be
24:19
Speaker 1: twice as strong. Pretty cool, huh, it'd be great. That's
24:22
Speaker 1: the point of space travel is to find ways to
24:25
Speaker 1: just walk around and come back and beat everybody up
24:28
Speaker 1: on Earth. It's a bully program. That is a good question, though,
24:31
Speaker 1: what's the point of all this? If these things are
24:33
Speaker 1: light years away? What's what's the point? Um geez, just
24:40
Speaker 1: to keep looking beyond? I mean, isn't that exploration the
24:44
Speaker 1: whole point? I guess, because it's not like we could
24:48
Speaker 1: colonize any of these places, well not now. But I
24:50
Speaker 1: think that some people have an eye toward that that
24:53
Speaker 1: the if we ever do figure out interstellar travel, um,
25:00
Speaker 1: it would be really good to know where we could
25:02
Speaker 1: go and take off our helmets and breathe. Yeah, I
25:06
Speaker 1: think of it more in the opposite way, like you
25:08
Speaker 1: can't stop doing stuff like this. No, I agree with
25:10
Speaker 1: because then you've just I don't know, then you're just
25:12
Speaker 1: you've given up. You're an isolationist. Yeah, you're adults living
25:16
Speaker 1: on Earth and o'tre I'm just gonna die anyway. Well,
25:20
Speaker 1: the other thing that they're looking for that that exoplanets
25:24
Speaker 1: searches bring into the fold is steady the search for
25:27
Speaker 1: estratra extra extraterrestrial intelligence or just the search for life
25:32
Speaker 1: um elsewhere. And again, if you're looking at planets that
25:36
Speaker 1: can sustain humans, they could conceivably sustain other types of
25:40
Speaker 1: life as well. So we're hedging our bets for the future.
25:45
Speaker 1: We're also looking to see if we're alone out there
25:47
Speaker 1: or not. Imagine there are people out there that thinks
25:49
Speaker 1: there's a big waste of time and money though probably
25:51
Speaker 1: you know, whatevs. The adults, the isolationists, you got anything
25:58
Speaker 1: else right now? Oh? This is uh, this is good.
26:01
Speaker 1: Stuff is a little heady and it's such a rapidly
26:03
Speaker 1: changing thing. Yeah, we could revisit this easily. Yeah, I
26:05
Speaker 1: mean this will be outdated in six months. But tops, Hey,
26:10
Speaker 1: we we like to do these topical things every now
26:13
Speaker 1: and then. Uh, if you want to know more about
26:18
Speaker 1: earth like planets, you can type that into the search
26:20
Speaker 1: part how stuff forks dot com. And since I said
26:23
Speaker 1: search parts, time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this,
26:29
Speaker 1: uh road rage and no not road rage. Citizens arrest. Okay,
26:35
Speaker 1: there's kind of a difference, big difference. Guys. Have a
26:39
Speaker 1: citizens rest story. Um from two thousand one. I was
26:41
Speaker 1: a naive nineteen year old behind the wheel of the
26:44
Speaker 1: first car ever bought myself when I was rear ended. Um.
26:47
Speaker 1: It was two thousand one, so we didn't have cell
26:49
Speaker 1: phones and there was no phone booth nearby, so we
26:51
Speaker 1: could not call the highway patrol or police. The other
26:54
Speaker 1: driver had insurance, but did not have a valid driver's license,
26:56
Speaker 1: only an expired one. Later found out he obtained a
26:59
Speaker 1: license during a window time when the Governator of California
27:02
Speaker 1: announced him to be issued to undocumented persons who had
27:06
Speaker 1: emigrated without completing all their legal steps yet. So basically
27:09
Speaker 1: this guy got in a window had it license at
27:11
Speaker 1: one point it was expired. I got my crunch car
27:14
Speaker 1: home that afternoon and, at the suggestion of my parents,
27:17
Speaker 1: called the local cops to file a police report since
27:20
Speaker 1: we couldn't do one at the scene in the accident.
27:22
Speaker 1: The officer that came out to my home was the
27:24
Speaker 1: most militant, sour woman in law enforcement that I have
27:28
Speaker 1: ever had the pleasure or displeasure I'm encountering. She impatiently
27:33
Speaker 1: asked the questions and took notes, all while sneering at me.
27:36
Speaker 1: When I got to the part about the other driver
27:38
Speaker 1: having expired license, she literally yelled at me for not
27:41
Speaker 1: placing him under citizens arrest. Mind you, this was a
27:45
Speaker 1: car full of men. I was a nineteen year old
27:48
Speaker 1: girl who weighed a hundred pounds and was four ft ten,
27:52
Speaker 1: and she chastised me for not placing an entire car
27:54
Speaker 1: full of grown men under citizens arrest for driving on
27:57
Speaker 1: an expired license. Uh. She went on about how many
28:01
Speaker 1: undocumented persons have criminal records and can be very dangerous,
28:05
Speaker 1: and this would have been a good opportunity to get
28:07
Speaker 1: them deported. Well, this is an explosive listener mail. Yeah,
28:12
Speaker 1: or a car full of potentially dangerous men. Maybe you
28:15
Speaker 1: should not try and place under citizens rests would be
28:17
Speaker 1: my idea. At this point, my father had enough of
28:20
Speaker 1: her shenanigans and asked her to leave. That was the
28:23
Speaker 1: end of that, but we still chuckled this day over
28:25
Speaker 1: the absurdity of her suggestion. Uh. And she goes on
28:28
Speaker 1: to say that the guy in the car and the
28:30
Speaker 1: dudes were very nice, and the exchange insurance and it
28:33
Speaker 1: wasn't like a bad scene or anything. So, um, it
28:36
Speaker 1: just sounds like this officer was not a very nice persons. Like, yeah,
28:42
Speaker 1: and every cop that we heard from after citizen arrest
28:45
Speaker 1: said don't do it, and this lady saying, now try it.
28:50
Speaker 1: A little four ft tin lady shot on a car
28:52
Speaker 1: full of men, and um, all of sudden, you want
28:55
Speaker 1: to point out that I forgot that one of the
28:57
Speaker 1: most legendary Remember I was trying to think of famous
29:01
Speaker 1: citizens arrests. The most legendary of all time is, uh,
29:07
Speaker 1: the night Stalker. Oh yeah, he got arrested by a
29:11
Speaker 1: citizen by citizens Like he was checked the knight Stalker
29:14
Speaker 1: did no not him? Richard Richard Ramirez. He was recognized
29:19
Speaker 1: out on this because they eventually found out who he
29:20
Speaker 1: was and blasted his face out everywhere in this group
29:23
Speaker 1: of Hispanic women saw him and started screaming in uh
29:27
Speaker 1: in Spanish like night stalker, night stalker. And he was
29:30
Speaker 1: gang piled by like fifteen people and cops had to
29:35
Speaker 1: pull people off. He was almost beaten to death. So
29:38
Speaker 1: I guess you would call that a citizen's arrest. I
29:40
Speaker 1: would call that, yes, yeah, like a good one, yeah,
29:43
Speaker 1: an effective one. Yeah, well they got a serial killer.
29:46
Speaker 1: You always gotta feel good about that citizens arrest. Yeah.
29:49
Speaker 1: I fell down the rabbit hole of reading all about
29:50
Speaker 1: that guy recently. Yeah. Yeah, man, what a crazy time
29:54
Speaker 1: to be living in l A. I bet people were
29:57
Speaker 1: because there was no rhyme or reason and it was
29:58
Speaker 1: like one night, then two nights later, than three nights later,
30:01
Speaker 1: than two nights later, and just crazy, awful, awful things.
30:05
Speaker 1: That was like The Zodiac, one of my favorite movies
30:08
Speaker 1: of all times. Zodiac. It's a great movie. That was
30:10
Speaker 1: a great one. But then you read ramirez is background
30:14
Speaker 1: and it's like abusive father, Um, this crazy uncle that
30:18
Speaker 1: was in Vietnam that showed him pictures of like decapitated bodies,
30:23
Speaker 1: and you know, he was dropped on his head like
30:26
Speaker 1: three times, like he had a whole list of things
30:30
Speaker 1: that's like how to become a serial killer. And uh
30:33
Speaker 1: so it's two times you're fine, that third time you
30:37
Speaker 1: get dropped on your head, that's big. And let's not
30:39
Speaker 1: say every head trauma leads to that, but they think
30:41
Speaker 1: it could have something to do in cases like that.
30:44
Speaker 1: It was just it was very sad and fascinating. Yep,
30:48
Speaker 1: do you have a particular article you recommend on the dude? Uh? No, Okay,
30:53
Speaker 1: well look, come up. Yeah, uh if you want to
30:57
Speaker 1: let us know about your personal story of something that
31:01
Speaker 1: has to do with what we've talked about in the past,
31:05
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31:08
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31:14
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31:16
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31:26
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