Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Where in the solar system might we find life? (ft. Katie Goldin of Creature Features)
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: And Daniel, I've got a tough question for you. I
- 0:11Speaker 1: love those, Well you might not like this one. I
- 0:14Speaker 1: don't know. Bring it on all right? Would you prefer
- 0:16Speaker 1: that we a never find life outside of Earth? Or
- 0:20Speaker 1: be we find ailing life but it's just tiny little microbes?
- 0:23Speaker 1: Oh man, you mean like we find aliens, but I
- 0:26Speaker 1: don't get to ask them any physics questions unless you
- 0:28Speaker 1: speak microbe. No. I mean you can ask, but I'm
- 0:32Speaker 1: not sure that microbes will reply. Oh that's such a
- 0:36Speaker 1: nightmare scenario. But even worse, what if alien physicists come
- 0:40Speaker 1: here and find us, but we just seemed like microbes
- 0:43Speaker 1: to them? Oh man, they might not even bother to
- 0:45Speaker 1: ask us physics questions? How dare they? Hi? I'm orhammy
- 1:04Speaker 1: cartoon is and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel.
- 1:07Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and if the aliens come, I
- 1:11Speaker 1: demand an audience with them, even if they're microbes. Hey,
- 1:15Speaker 1: my wife is a microbiologist, so I think I've learned
- 1:17Speaker 1: to speak microbe a little bit. It might be funny
- 1:19Speaker 1: of our first contact with Aidian life is that we
- 1:21Speaker 1: accidentally breathe them and then kill them with our immune system.
- 1:27Speaker 1: That's right. Maybe they'd be inside us, right, we catch
- 1:29Speaker 1: some alien disease. I think I've seen that movie. But
- 1:31Speaker 1: welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explain the university
- 1:34Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio, in which we take you
- 1:36Speaker 1: on a tour of everything that's amazing and beautiful and
- 1:40Speaker 1: squishy and dangerous in this universe and try to explain
- 1:43Speaker 1: it all to you or squishy and dangerous at the
- 1:46Speaker 1: same time and amazing and bonkers. The universe is bizarre.
- 1:50Speaker 1: It's stranger than fiction, and what we discover out there
- 1:53Speaker 1: is always weirder than what we imagine. That's right. And
- 1:56Speaker 1: it's also really big universe. And so a big question
- 1:58Speaker 1: for us and for everyone is are we alone in
- 2:01Speaker 1: the universe and this huge giant cosmos? Are we the
- 2:05Speaker 1: only sentient life out there? Or are there other living
- 2:08Speaker 1: things out there in this solar system or in this galaxy?
- 2:13Speaker 1: That's right, because we want to know. Are we the
- 2:14Speaker 1: only ones thinking these questions? Are we the only ones
- 2:17Speaker 1: trying to figure out how this universe works, why we're here,
- 2:20Speaker 1: what we're supposed to do with our lives? And should
- 2:22Speaker 1: we get out of bed in the morning? Are we
- 2:24Speaker 1: the only ones? Are there other people out there who
- 2:26Speaker 1: have maybe made significant advances, and would you know, give
- 2:29Speaker 1: us a clue that would be fun. Well, to be honest, Daniel,
- 2:32Speaker 1: I record from my bed, so literally, I don't have
- 2:34Speaker 1: to get up ever. Well, maybe you answered the question, Joge,
- 2:38Speaker 1: but not everybody else out there has figured it out
- 2:40Speaker 1: for themselves. And you know, this is a question that
- 2:43Speaker 1: when we think about we wonder sometimes cosmically, like are
- 2:46Speaker 1: there alien civilizations and minds out there, deep deep far
- 2:50Speaker 1: away in space? But it's also a question we can
- 2:52Speaker 1: ask about our own neighborhood. Yeah, because you know, I
- 2:54Speaker 1: feel like most science fiction movies assume that when we
- 2:56Speaker 1: find alien life, it's you know, from a galaxy far
- 2:59Speaker 1: far away, or you know, maybe from another part of
- 3:02Speaker 1: the galaxy or some our way out there in space.
- 3:05Speaker 1: But maybe, you know, there's a question of whether or
- 3:07Speaker 1: not life could also be here in our own backyard,
- 3:10Speaker 1: in our own solar system. Yeah. And I think historically
- 3:13Speaker 1: it's a fascinating question because a long time ago, hundreds
- 3:16Speaker 1: of years ago, we didn't know the answer to that question.
- 3:18Speaker 1: People wondered, you know, is their life on Mars. And
- 3:21Speaker 1: then more recently, like a hundred years ago, fifty years ago,
- 3:24Speaker 1: it seemed to be sort of settled that there wasn't
- 3:26Speaker 1: a place in the Solar system where we could find
- 3:29Speaker 1: intelligent life or life at all. But then recently I
- 3:32Speaker 1: think the question has changed again and now we have
- 3:34Speaker 1: a new perspective on life in our own backyard. Heard.
- 3:38Speaker 1: So today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question,
- 3:45Speaker 1: what's the most likely place in the Solar system to
- 3:48Speaker 1: find life other than of course here on Earth? And um,
- 3:51Speaker 1: I guess not Twitter. Twitter wouldn't be a Daniel not
- 3:53Speaker 1: if we're talking about intelligent life. Yeah, we'll be tackling
- 3:58Speaker 1: this question of whether or not and air would we
- 4:00Speaker 1: most likely find life in our own solar system? And
- 4:03Speaker 1: so we have a special treat for you guys here today.
- 4:05Speaker 1: We have a guest today to help us answer this
- 4:08Speaker 1: question and to talk about the possible places in our
- 4:11Speaker 1: solar system that we can find life. She's the guest
- 4:13Speaker 1: of the podcast Creature Features, which you can also find
- 4:16Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you listen
- 4:19Speaker 1: to podcasts, and so welcome Katie Golden. Hey, guys, thank
- 4:22Speaker 1: you so much for having me. Thanks very much for
- 4:24Speaker 1: being a guest on our podcast. Yeah, I was a
- 4:26Speaker 1: guest on Creature Features last week or so, and I
- 4:29Speaker 1: had a blast talking to Katie about irradiating animals or
- 4:33Speaker 1: animals that survive I radiation. No animals were intentionally irradiated
- 4:37Speaker 1: for that podcast. I was just gonna ask if you
- 4:41Speaker 1: can have Peter knocking on our podcast doors. You know,
- 4:45Speaker 1: although we did, of course create our own radiation. You know,
- 4:47Speaker 1: the sound waves you are hearing in your ear right
- 4:49Speaker 1: now are a form of non ionizing, non damaging intellectual
- 4:54Speaker 1: radiation NERD radiation, pure NERD radiation. It'll make your brain grow. Yeah,
- 5:00Speaker 1: grows your brain case. O Katie, you're you have a
- 5:02Speaker 1: biology background rate? Yeah. So I actually studied both psychology
- 5:07Speaker 1: and biology at Harvard as an undergrad, and after that
- 5:12Speaker 1: I went into the various fields of both, uh, science
- 5:18Speaker 1: education and comedy, a natural mix science comedy or science
- 5:22Speaker 1: education kind of plus comedy, science education plus comedy. The
- 5:26Speaker 1: comedy thing came after the science education because I think
- 5:30Speaker 1: I having to do a bunch of learning modules about
- 5:33Speaker 1: all these diseases and stuff. I was like, you know,
- 5:36Speaker 1: I need a little comedy in my life. Nothing sence disease.
- 5:38Speaker 1: Like That's what I did. When I would I would
- 5:43Speaker 1: do these educational animations for pharmaceutical researchers. And I would say,
- 5:48Speaker 1: but you know what the best medicine is laughter? Yeah,
- 5:51Speaker 1: for sure, for sure. Uh. And so Katie, that's kind
- 5:54Speaker 1: of what your podcast is about. And you talk about
- 5:56Speaker 1: biology and creatures and but you also make sing comedians
- 5:59Speaker 1: and lot of funny stuff. You want to tell us
- 6:01Speaker 1: a little bit about it. Yeah, So it's called Creature Feature,
- 6:04Speaker 1: And I like to explore what is it like to
- 6:07Speaker 1: be an animal? And I think it's it's a lot
- 6:12Speaker 1: easier to relate to animals when you think about it
- 6:15Speaker 1: from a human lens. So it's fun to look at
- 6:18Speaker 1: all this huge variety and great diversity of animal behaviors
- 6:22Speaker 1: and kind of try to imagine yourself as that animal,
- 6:25Speaker 1: Like imagine the rat that gets infected with Toxoplasma gondhai
- 6:30Speaker 1: and how it would be to suddenly be attracted to
- 6:33Speaker 1: a cat, your most dreaded of predators. And nature is
- 6:37Speaker 1: so full of incredible behaviors that there's no there's no
- 6:41Speaker 1: better way to experience it than to imagine what it's
- 6:44Speaker 1: like to be those animals and dive right in. Those
- 6:47Speaker 1: are some deep questions, you know, what is it like
- 6:49Speaker 1: to be a bat? What is it like to be
- 6:51Speaker 1: attracted to a cat? I mean, I don't know that
- 6:53Speaker 1: anybody's ever going to answer those questions. I thought you
- 6:55Speaker 1: were going to rhyme that, Daniel, I don't know anything
- 6:57Speaker 1: about that. That's Doctor SEUs right there. That's what we
- 7:02Speaker 1: should make comedy science and Dr SEUs all at the
- 7:05Speaker 1: same time, comedy science and children's education. That sounds like
- 7:09Speaker 1: a great mixture. Horry, we should do that sometimes. Let's
- 7:11Speaker 1: get on it, Daniel. Cool. So, Katie, we're attacking today
- 7:15Speaker 1: the question of whether there could be life in our
- 7:17Speaker 1: solar system, and if there could, where might we find it?
- 7:21Speaker 1: And so we're so glad to have it here as
- 7:23Speaker 1: a Sartain biology guide. As we talked about life and
- 7:26Speaker 1: what it needs and where it can possibly thrive. But
- 7:28Speaker 1: as usual, we sort of like to go out there
- 7:30Speaker 1: and ask people what they think of this subject. And
- 7:32Speaker 1: so Daniel went out there and he asked people on
- 7:35Speaker 1: the internet what they thought was the most likely place
- 7:37Speaker 1: in the solar system to find life. That's right, And
- 7:40Speaker 1: so I got these questions answered from people on the internet.
- 7:43Speaker 1: Now I assume there are people, some of them may
- 7:45Speaker 1: well be aliens, that have slipped their way into human society,
- 7:48Speaker 1: trying to influence the direction of human thought. But so
- 7:51Speaker 1: I can't attest. Maybe they're irradiated animals. Could they be
- 7:55Speaker 1: irradiated birds from cheer Noble? They could be, as they
- 7:58Speaker 1: very well could be. So I cannot attest to their
- 8:00Speaker 1: actual humanists. But I think you'll hear them quite interesting answers.
- 8:03Speaker 1: Here's what people have to say. It depends what we
- 8:05Speaker 1: define life. There's a frozen moon of Jupiter. I think
- 8:08Speaker 1: probably proper conditions water I would say in Mars, or
- 8:17Speaker 1: maybe some of them June moons of Jupiter, probably by
- 8:21Speaker 1: looking in the mirror outside of Earth, I would say
- 8:24Speaker 1: Mars places where we have water and some kind of
- 8:29Speaker 1: reasonable temperature in the clouds on Venis. I think there's
- 8:32Speaker 1: weird forms of life everywhere. I know that Jupiter has
- 8:36Speaker 1: a lot of moons, and one of them, europa Is.
- 8:41Speaker 1: It's said that there's like a lot of ice on
- 8:44Speaker 1: that moon. And I read an article recently and it's
- 8:49Speaker 1: some scientists are proposing or describing potential water that's like
- 8:55Speaker 1: spewing out into space one of jupiter moons. I was thinking,
- 8:58Speaker 1: Iowa for a minute, they're but then realized that you
- 9:01Speaker 1: really don't want to live on Ohio. I will say Titan,
- 9:05Speaker 1: which is a moon of Saturn. All right, Katie, what
- 9:07Speaker 1: did you think of these answers from people or birds?
- 9:10Speaker 1: These are very smart, guess is whether they come from
- 9:12Speaker 1: people or birds. I think that people have the right
- 9:15Speaker 1: idea that you want water and the right temperature and
- 9:20Speaker 1: conditions for that water to both be warm enough to
- 9:24Speaker 1: actually be flowing water and then also have enough sort
- 9:28Speaker 1: of like chemistry going on for there to be life.
- 9:31Speaker 1: But I think that's a really although I'm not it's
- 9:34Speaker 1: interesting that in the clouds on Venus answer I thought
- 9:37Speaker 1: was very intriguing. I'm I don't know too much about
- 9:41Speaker 1: the chemistry of the clouds on Venus, but that that
- 9:44Speaker 1: seems like an interesting answer. Yeah, we have some smart listeners. Right.
- 9:47Speaker 1: Congratulations listeners, you just got an A plus on your
- 9:50Speaker 1: biology tests. All right, well, let's just jump into this
- 9:52Speaker 1: topic here, and so if you guys can answer me
- 9:54Speaker 1: for me this first question, which is what what are
- 9:57Speaker 1: the conditions that you need for life? You know a
- 9:59Speaker 1: lot of people sort of talk about needing water, and
- 10:02Speaker 1: you know, nobody said that the life could be in
- 10:04Speaker 1: the sun. Although that's an interesting idea, So step us
- 10:08Speaker 1: through here. What do you think are the what are
- 10:10Speaker 1: the basic things that life needs another to exist and
- 10:13Speaker 1: to thrive? Well, you know, as usual. I think we've
- 10:15Speaker 1: got to take a digression even before we get to
- 10:17Speaker 1: that interesting question, because the necessary question to ask first
- 10:21Speaker 1: is like what do we even mean by life? Like
- 10:23Speaker 1: life as we know it, or like any kind of
- 10:26Speaker 1: life at all? So I thought maybe we could first
- 10:30Speaker 1: ask Katie, like, what does it even mean, you know,
- 10:33Speaker 1: life as we know? How you define life? Yeah, this
- 10:36Speaker 1: is actually the question I think of first when when
- 10:38Speaker 1: you ask what's the requirement for life? Is? What? What
- 10:42Speaker 1: even is life? And this is actually a much trickier
- 10:46Speaker 1: question than it seems. It's not just kind of a
- 10:48Speaker 1: hippie question to ask. It's something that is tricky for
- 10:52Speaker 1: biologists to answer because when you come up with criteria
- 10:56Speaker 1: for what life is, it seems to necessarily cover everything
- 11:01Speaker 1: that does seem alive. So you could maybe come up
- 11:05Speaker 1: with a list like, say, okay, to be alive, you
- 11:08Speaker 1: have to respond to stimuli. You have to be able
- 11:12Speaker 1: to grow, reproduce, and have offspring pass on traits to offspring.
- 11:18Speaker 1: You have to be complex, you have to seek homeostasis,
- 11:21Speaker 1: hold on a second, respond to stimuli. Does that mean
- 11:24Speaker 1: if you don't answer your emails, you're not alive? That's
- 11:27Speaker 1: what I assume. I think it means you're truly alive.
- 11:31Speaker 1: You're living more than anyone else. I think you correctly
- 11:34Speaker 1: understood that. To be a subtweet to you, Yes, so
- 11:39Speaker 1: you you have to also grow, reproduce, and have offspring
- 11:44Speaker 1: pass on traits to offspring. You have to be complex.
- 11:47Speaker 1: Maybe maybe it's that you seek out homeostasis or equilibrium,
- 11:53Speaker 1: or maybe it's that you're built with cells. But even
- 11:56Speaker 1: this criteria doesn't really seem to be satisfactories. So a
- 12:00Speaker 1: few examples. Crystals take energy to grow, they reproduce, they
- 12:05Speaker 1: even respond to stimuli. If you change their environment, they
- 12:09Speaker 1: will grow in a different way. They will respond to
- 12:12Speaker 1: it by altering their growth. Does that mean that crystals
- 12:15Speaker 1: are alive? And you might argue like, well, no, they
- 12:20Speaker 1: don't have a nervous system, but neither do plants. And
- 12:23Speaker 1: then you might say like, well, then they need to
- 12:25Speaker 1: be built with cells. But then well, viruses aren't a cell.
- 12:29Speaker 1: Are our viruses alive? Are they not alive? So it's
- 12:33Speaker 1: it's a very complicated question, and it's not one that
- 12:37Speaker 1: I think we have a strictly neat and tidy little
- 12:41Speaker 1: answer to. And why is that? Why is it so
- 12:44Speaker 1: hard to answer? Is it because they're just like different
- 12:47Speaker 1: you know, sort of religious groups arguing this thing or
- 12:50Speaker 1: that thing, or is it one of these things where
- 12:51Speaker 1: the distinction is artificial, whether it's sort of like a
- 12:54Speaker 1: spectrum of different ways to be in the universe and
- 12:57Speaker 1: calling some things alive and some things not alive as
- 13:00Speaker 1: an artificial distinction. I think it's the latter. Mostly. It
- 13:02Speaker 1: seems to be less that there are these very specific
- 13:08Speaker 1: ideas in biology of like, well, I think life has
- 13:11Speaker 1: to be you have to be green if you're alive.
- 13:13Speaker 1: Only frogs are alive, Like I think it's it's just hard.
- 13:17Speaker 1: Like basically, once we get to okay, so our viruses
- 13:21Speaker 1: are alive, like they they are able to replicate, reproduce,
- 13:26Speaker 1: but they require a living cell. So they could be
- 13:29Speaker 1: are they like a parasite that's alive or are they
- 13:32Speaker 1: not life because they can't exist on their own. But
- 13:35Speaker 1: we also have plenty of clear you know, animals, you
- 13:39Speaker 1: carryotes that are alive by any definition, who are parasites
- 13:45Speaker 1: and who require other organisms to live. I mean, you
- 13:48Speaker 1: could even say, like humans require other humans to live.
- 13:51Speaker 1: So you know, to say that a virus isn't alive
- 13:54Speaker 1: just because it requires a living cell to replicate and
- 13:59Speaker 1: to extract energy is kind of an odd distinction. So
- 14:03Speaker 1: I think it is. It does at a certain point
- 14:05Speaker 1: become hard to make that cut off, as with many
- 14:09Speaker 1: categories in biological science. Yeah, and we're also kind of
- 14:13Speaker 1: dependent on other organisms to like, our guts are full
- 14:17Speaker 1: of bacteria and viruses and we kind of depend on critically,
- 14:20Speaker 1: right exactly. Yeah, we we have a lot of gut
- 14:22Speaker 1: bacteria that we actually have to develop soon after we're
- 14:26Speaker 1: born to be able to digest things. And we actually
- 14:30Speaker 1: the earliest forms of life were a symbiotic relationship, probably
- 14:36Speaker 1: between these really early cells and the mitochondria, which may
- 14:42Speaker 1: have been an entirely different organism that these early cells
- 14:45Speaker 1: just kind of absorbed and formed this partnership. And now
- 14:48Speaker 1: mitochondria are, as everyone learned, you know, the powerhouse of
- 14:51Speaker 1: the cells, the things that make most life on Earth possible. Well,
- 14:56Speaker 1: I guess the conclusion is, no matter what we discover out,
- 14:58Speaker 1: their biologists will argue about it. Yes, it's a lively
- 15:01Speaker 1: debate about what it means to be alive. All right. Well,
- 15:06Speaker 1: I think it's interesting because all these is just sort
- 15:08Speaker 1: of our discussions and talking points about life as we
- 15:11Speaker 1: know it. But there's also kind of the question of
- 15:14Speaker 1: what if there's life out there in ways that are
- 15:17Speaker 1: that we don't know, you know, or can't even imagine
- 15:19Speaker 1: at this point. Yeah, I mean, I think that's sort
- 15:21Speaker 1: of the role of like science fiction authors to be
- 15:23Speaker 1: creative and think out of the bounds and imagine different
- 15:26Speaker 1: ways to live life. And you know, I've been doing
- 15:28Speaker 1: some research in that area, by which I mean reading
- 15:31Speaker 1: science fiction novels, and you know, there's some crazy ideas
- 15:35Speaker 1: out there, you know, life on galactic time scales, you know,
- 15:39Speaker 1: where the constituent processes are, like gravitational processes inside a
- 15:43Speaker 1: galaxy to take millions of years, or life inside energy
- 15:46Speaker 1: flow of stars. It's like the galaxy could be sentient
- 15:50Speaker 1: in itself. Yeah, it's sort of could you know, very
- 15:53Speaker 1: slowly thinking, very deep thoughts. But I guess maybe for
- 15:56Speaker 1: our discussion, let's maybe talk about what are some of
- 15:58Speaker 1: the basic things that we think right now, at least
- 16:01Speaker 1: for life as we know it that we need in
- 16:03Speaker 1: order to have life. We're going to talk about other planets,
- 16:06Speaker 1: and so I think, you know, as somebody mentioned, water
- 16:09Speaker 1: is kind of a pretty big requirement Katie. Yeah, and
- 16:12Speaker 1: specifically liquid water, because it is a very unique kind
- 16:17Speaker 1: of molecule or large group of molecules that are essential
- 16:22Speaker 1: for biochemical reactions to take place. It's it's basically like
- 16:27Speaker 1: it's the work bench and tools and you know, everything
- 16:31Speaker 1: you need to create these biochemical reactions that are requirement
- 16:37Speaker 1: for life, at least life on Earth or life as
- 16:40Speaker 1: we know it. And you also need chemicals plenty of
- 16:44Speaker 1: plenty of things like carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, obviously oxygen that
- 16:50Speaker 1: and then once you have water that is like this
- 16:53Speaker 1: giant work bench that facilitates all of these chemical reactions,
- 16:57Speaker 1: you can actually with some energy, turn these into proteins
- 17:02Speaker 1: and also energy currency that life needs, right, And then
- 17:06Speaker 1: that's when you get into things like DNA and sort
- 17:09Speaker 1: of complex molecules that can then sort of I think
- 17:12Speaker 1: the basic idea is to create something that can store information, Daniel,
- 17:17Speaker 1: Is that kind of how you would put it? Yeah?
- 17:18Speaker 1: I think you need some way to write down your
- 17:21Speaker 1: good ideas and pass them onto your offspring. And so
- 17:23Speaker 1: it's Katie was saying, you need like basically the lego
- 17:26Speaker 1: pieces of life, which are you know, these organic molecules,
- 17:29Speaker 1: and then you need a way to put them together.
- 17:32Speaker 1: But a question I have for you, Katie, is like,
- 17:34Speaker 1: why is liquid water so unique? I mean, why can't
- 17:37Speaker 1: you have all these lego pieces come together in like
- 17:40Speaker 1: liquid methane or liquid some other kind of organic molecule. Yeah,
- 17:44Speaker 1: that's a really good question. And water is just a
- 17:48Speaker 1: really unique molecule that it has these properties that kind
- 17:55Speaker 1: of it's like it's one of the most incredible fluids ever.
- 17:59Speaker 1: It's on the like a miracle liquid that can do
- 18:02Speaker 1: it all. So first, just kind of on the molecular level,
- 18:06Speaker 1: it is polar, so it has a positively charged side
- 18:09Speaker 1: and a negatively charged side. So it binds really well
- 18:13Speaker 1: to itself because it's polar, So that's why water kind
- 18:17Speaker 1: of sticks together. But it also can bind to other
- 18:21Speaker 1: polar molecules and this sticky cohesion which is great for
- 18:27Speaker 1: all sorts of things that life needs, so transporting nutrients,
- 18:31Speaker 1: transporting molecules that life needs. So like an example on
- 18:36Speaker 1: the macro level would be a plant being able to
- 18:39Speaker 1: transport nutrients from its roots into the plant, but that
- 18:42Speaker 1: also happens on the cellular level of nutrients being transferred
- 18:46Speaker 1: to cells. And also it's great at breaking apart substances
- 18:52Speaker 1: into these molecules because it has these strong bonds. Basically,
- 18:56Speaker 1: you can think of oxygen as having these two little
- 18:58Speaker 1: hands and it really wants to hold hands with each other,
- 19:02Speaker 1: and then other molecules that are also willing to hold
- 19:04Speaker 1: hands with it. So if if something gets in the
- 19:07Speaker 1: way of it, like wanting to hold hands with itself
- 19:10Speaker 1: or with another polar molecule, it will actually break it apart,
- 19:13Speaker 1: like you know, like you won't get in the way
- 19:15Speaker 1: of me holding hands. And then that actually helps break
- 19:19Speaker 1: down molecules, and that's why it's called like the universal solvent,
- 19:23Speaker 1: and that can dissolve compounds which allows them to be
- 19:27Speaker 1: transported and used by cells. And basically it can also
- 19:33Speaker 1: I mean you can think of it as like lazy river,
- 19:36Speaker 1: but all of the inner tubes are like chemical molecules
- 19:40Speaker 1: like oxygen that are important to life, and this lazy
- 19:43Speaker 1: river water just like lets them be transported into cells
- 19:46Speaker 1: and then also breaks them apart so that they can
- 19:48Speaker 1: be actually used by cells. So life is a lazy river.
- 19:51Speaker 1: You're saying, yes, yes, that's that's how I approach life. Yeah,
- 19:55Speaker 1: but what's in the lazy river of water? Water and
- 19:58Speaker 1: a little bit of RUMs, Yeah, rivers. I feel like,
- 20:05Speaker 1: say you're gonna use water, You're not gonna use methane
- 20:08Speaker 1: or anything else. Crazy. It can't be solid water because
- 20:12Speaker 1: things don't flow, electricity doesn't conduct. Why can't you have
- 20:15Speaker 1: life which has a basis of like water vapor, like
- 20:18Speaker 1: steam based life. Why can't you get the same kind
- 20:20Speaker 1: of chemistry? I think it has to do with equilibrium
- 20:24Speaker 1: and the structure of cell membranes. So water inside of
- 20:29Speaker 1: cells actually plays this really important role, especially for cells
- 20:34Speaker 1: that have a membrane instead of a cell wall, so
- 20:37Speaker 1: it helps it maintain its shape without collapsing. So liquid
- 20:41Speaker 1: water has enough movement that it's relatively like it. It's
- 20:46Speaker 1: unlike frozen water, which is static and forms this like
- 20:50Speaker 1: crystalline structure. Liquid water has movement, but it's stable enough
- 20:54Speaker 1: that you can actually have basically like a little water
- 20:57Speaker 1: balloon which is the cell, and it does and explode
- 21:00Speaker 1: or or collapse. But with vapor, I think that's too chaotic.
- 21:05Speaker 1: It can't achieve that kind of equilibrium and that pressure.
- 21:10Speaker 1: So you don't want a frozen river. And then you
- 21:12Speaker 1: don't want a crazy river. You want the lazy river,
- 21:15Speaker 1: which is right in the middle. You don't want whitewater rapids, right,
- 21:18Speaker 1: just a lazy river. All right, let's get into um,
- 21:22Speaker 1: how rare it is to find water out there and
- 21:25Speaker 1: these organic molecules, and also let's get into where in
- 21:28Speaker 1: our sources and we might find these things. But first
- 21:31Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. All right, we're talking to
- 21:45Speaker 1: Katie Golden from the podcast Creature Features. You can find
- 21:49Speaker 1: it on iHeart Radio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.
- 21:52Speaker 1: And Katie, I'm talking to a little bit about water
- 21:56Speaker 1: and the things that the life as we know it needs,
- 21:59Speaker 1: the organic materials like carbon, nitrogen. Uh. And so I
- 22:04Speaker 1: guess my question I have is how rare are these
- 22:08Speaker 1: in our solar system? Like is the Earth the only
- 22:10Speaker 1: place you can find water and in these basic building
- 22:13Speaker 1: blocks or are there a lot of places in this
- 22:16Speaker 1: solar system where you might find these I mean, as
- 22:19Speaker 1: far as I know, it is tough to find liquid
- 22:22Speaker 1: water because we both have water on our planet, but
- 22:26Speaker 1: we're also close enough to the Sun where we are
- 22:30Speaker 1: nice and warm enough to have that liquid water. But
- 22:33Speaker 1: I think recently we're we're finding that there may be
- 22:37Speaker 1: liquid water, especially not necessarily on planets, although there's some
- 22:42Speaker 1: it seems like maybe there's some recent discoveries like maybe
- 22:46Speaker 1: we know Mars has frozen water, but we're not sure
- 22:49Speaker 1: whether any of that water is actually a liquid And
- 22:53Speaker 1: then also we may have some moons right that could
- 22:57Speaker 1: have some liquid water. I think there's sort of too
- 22:59Speaker 1: fascinating things to understand. They're one is like that water
- 23:02Speaker 1: itself as a substance is not rare at all in
- 23:06Speaker 1: our Solar system, Like in the form of ice. There
- 23:08Speaker 1: are huge stores. They're like enormous asteroids that are basically
- 23:13Speaker 1: just ice balls, and some of those planets out there, Neptune,
- 23:16Speaker 1: they're referred to as ice giants. So we have like
- 23:20Speaker 1: huge deposits of the actual chemical for water. Then the
- 23:23Speaker 1: second part is like does it exist in liquid form anywhere?
- 23:28Speaker 1: And here this is sort of fascinating because if you
- 23:30Speaker 1: just look at the surfaces of other planets, you don't
- 23:33Speaker 1: see oceans, right, no oceans of water except here on Earth.
- 23:36Speaker 1: And so to have liquid water, you need the water
- 23:39Speaker 1: which is everywhere but then you also need a heat source.
- 23:42Speaker 1: And so, as Katie said, recently, people have been thinking
- 23:44Speaker 1: about like having underground liquid water, which is a really
- 23:49Speaker 1: fascinating way for little creaters to potentially evolved. Okay, so
- 23:52Speaker 1: water is not that rare in our Solar system. And
- 23:55Speaker 1: by the way, I really want to see that space
- 23:56Speaker 1: comedy movie ice Balls sounds and so besides the Earth,
- 24:03Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, there's no maybe oceans liquid
- 24:06Speaker 1: oceans out there but that you can see on the
- 24:08Speaker 1: surface of other planets or moons. But there might be
- 24:12Speaker 1: underground oceans out there, right, and several moons and places
- 24:16Speaker 1: in the Solar System. So maybe Daniel, you want to
- 24:18Speaker 1: step us through some of these fun places. Yeah. One
- 24:20Speaker 1: of my favorite is Europa. This is a moon of Jupiter,
- 24:24Speaker 1: and it's amazing because if you look at its surface,
- 24:27Speaker 1: it's totally frozen. It's just like it's an ice crust, right,
- 24:31Speaker 1: It's like super thick ice ball. But the surface of
- 24:35Speaker 1: itself is very smooth. And anytime you see something in
- 24:38Speaker 1: the Solar System that's smooth, that means that it's new,
- 24:40Speaker 1: it's fresh. Because things in the Solar System are always
- 24:43Speaker 1: getting impacted by rocks and meteors and whatever. So if
- 24:47Speaker 1: it's smooth, it means it's fresh, it's newly formed, sort
- 24:50Speaker 1: of on the Solar System time scales. And they've done
- 24:53Speaker 1: a bunch of fly bys to try to understand what's
- 24:55Speaker 1: going on in Europa, and they discovered that it's covered
- 24:58Speaker 1: in a thick crust of it's about a hundred kilometers thick,
- 25:02Speaker 1: maybe thinner. And they've probed the inside of this moon.
- 25:06Speaker 1: This is incredible science and they're pretty sure that under
- 25:09Speaker 1: that ice crust is liquid water. So when you have
- 25:12Speaker 1: a planet that is maybe kind of far from the Sun,
- 25:17Speaker 1: so like the surface of the planet is frozen, how
- 25:20Speaker 1: are you getting that liquid water under this frozen surface? Potentially? Yeah, right,
- 25:26Speaker 1: you can't get the energy from the Sun, right, you
- 25:28Speaker 1: have an ice cube on the surface of Europa. It's
- 25:30Speaker 1: not gonna melt, right, It's gonna be frozen forever. And
- 25:33Speaker 1: so the heat comes from underneath, from the core of Europa,
- 25:37Speaker 1: and the heat comes from Jupiter. Actually, because Jupiter is
- 25:40Speaker 1: dumping energy into Europa using its gravitational field, it has
- 25:44Speaker 1: tidal forces, much the way that the Moon tugs on
- 25:47Speaker 1: the oceans of Earth. Jupiter is tugging on Europe. It's
- 25:51Speaker 1: squeezing it with its gravity, and that's squeezing creates a
- 25:54Speaker 1: lot of energy, keeps the insides of Europa sort of
- 25:57Speaker 1: fluid and hot, and so it's getting needed underneath, which
- 26:01Speaker 1: is why the the ocean is underneath the ice crust
- 26:05Speaker 1: on Europa. So it's sort of underground heat. Really, it's
- 26:08Speaker 1: not because it has you know, like Earth has a
- 26:10Speaker 1: molten cores, not because we have left overheated. It's like
- 26:13Speaker 1: it's all from the shaking that Jupiter gives Europa. Yeah,
- 26:16Speaker 1: it's all from the tidal fluxes there. Remember, these tidal
- 26:19Speaker 1: forces come about from the gravitational field. If you're further
- 26:22Speaker 1: from Jupiter, you feel less of a force, and if
- 26:25Speaker 1: you're closer to Jupiter, you feel more of a force.
- 26:28Speaker 1: And so if you're big enough that one side of
- 26:30Speaker 1: you is feeling more of a force than the other
- 26:32Speaker 1: side of you, then effectively Jupiter is like pulling you apart.
- 26:35Speaker 1: And so as Europa spins, Jupiter is like squeezing different
- 26:39Speaker 1: parts of it, and that keeps it hot and fresh.
- 26:42Speaker 1: And so they think that that there's a huge ocean
- 26:45Speaker 1: under there. They think that under the ice of Europa
- 26:48Speaker 1: there is as much liquid water as two to three
- 26:50Speaker 1: times all of Earth's oceans. That's incredible. But for life
- 26:54Speaker 1: to exist, it's not just liquid water that you need, right,
- 26:58Speaker 1: You need chemicals and need energy input. So do we
- 27:02Speaker 1: know what the chemical composition is in the water that
- 27:06Speaker 1: is fluid in Europa? We don't. We think that there's
- 27:10Speaker 1: some salt in there. And they've done these measurements where
- 27:13Speaker 1: they measure the electrical conductivity of the ocean, Like, how
- 27:17Speaker 1: do you know if there's liquid water under a hundred
- 27:20Speaker 1: kilometers of ice? Right? You can't see it. And so
- 27:22Speaker 1: what they do is they see the impact on Jupiter's
- 27:26Speaker 1: magnetic field when Europa moves past it, and ice has
- 27:30Speaker 1: a different conductivity than liquid water, which is a different
- 27:33Speaker 1: conductivity than salt water. So you can measure sort of
- 27:36Speaker 1: the phase of the water and how much salt there
- 27:39Speaker 1: is in there by measuring its electromagnetic properties, which is
- 27:43Speaker 1: sort of an incredible piece of science. So we think
- 27:46Speaker 1: there's a little of salt in there, but we don't
- 27:47Speaker 1: know the answer to your really good question, which is
- 27:50Speaker 1: like are there the organic molecules we need? But we
- 27:54Speaker 1: do have an awesome plan for figuring it out. Are
- 27:56Speaker 1: we going to drill down. We're gonna send physicists over,
- 28:02Speaker 1: We're gonna send biologists. Katie, put on your helmet. You're
- 28:06Speaker 1: going to Europe. Let me get my drama. Mean, well,
- 28:10Speaker 1: it's sort of a two stage plan. The first one
- 28:13Speaker 1: is to just fly by because this surface of Europa
- 28:16Speaker 1: cracks furally often and the water shoots up into space.
- 28:20Speaker 1: And we've actually seen this from Earth using hubble, we
- 28:23Speaker 1: can see these things, these water volcanoes, these cryo geysers,
- 28:27Speaker 1: shooting the water out into space like up to a
- 28:30Speaker 1: hundred or two hundred kilometers. So we're planning to send
- 28:33Speaker 1: something in. It's the Europa Clipper that will fly through
- 28:38Speaker 1: these guysers and sample when the water from Europa and
- 28:41Speaker 1: see are there things living in there? Wow? I know,
- 28:45Speaker 1: is that's gonna be so exciting. That's I guess simultaneous
- 28:49Speaker 1: mind blowing there we'll imagine be there right? Are these
- 28:52Speaker 1: going to be unmanned? Because I feel like this would
- 28:54Speaker 1: be way more exciting than driving through a car wash
- 28:57Speaker 1: to be able to fly through a guys and and
- 29:03Speaker 1: do you one win to you know, brush away the
- 29:07Speaker 1: line you're trying to detect. I don't know if you're
- 29:09Speaker 1: flying through it and just like a fish lands on
- 29:11Speaker 1: your windshield. You're like, there it is an alien fish.
- 29:14Speaker 1: I guess there's life. That's sort of the fantasy. No.
- 29:17Speaker 1: Much more likely, of course, is that they just get
- 29:19Speaker 1: some like frozen bit of life. But it's you know,
- 29:22Speaker 1: that's also a fascinating question. Like say you had a
- 29:24Speaker 1: sample of water from underneath Europe that was spewed out
- 29:28Speaker 1: into space, How would you tell if there's life in there?
- 29:31Speaker 1: I guess that's a question for you can like what
- 29:33Speaker 1: experiments would you do on this tea spoon of water
- 29:36Speaker 1: from Europa to tell me whether there was life in there.
- 29:39Speaker 1: One of the things that you would be looking for
- 29:41Speaker 1: would be some sort of organized structure of molecules. So
- 29:47Speaker 1: it's I mean, obviously you could potentially identify if you
- 29:51Speaker 1: had unicellular or multicellular life forms. You would, you know,
- 29:55Speaker 1: take a look at the samples under a microscope and
- 29:59Speaker 1: check it out. But if you want to see if
- 30:01Speaker 1: it has if it is starting to form life, or isn't,
- 30:05Speaker 1: like has the capability of forming life, you would probably
- 30:10Speaker 1: want to see what molecules it has in there, and
- 30:14Speaker 1: if it's able to form any of these protein chains
- 30:18Speaker 1: that are so important, and amino acid chains because we
- 30:23Speaker 1: think that probably early on in the development of life
- 30:28Speaker 1: r n A chains, So that's similar to DNA, but
- 30:31Speaker 1: it's just a single strand of amino acids we're able
- 30:35Speaker 1: to form, and that is basically how you, like you
- 30:39Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, you need that ability to record data and
- 30:43Speaker 1: pass it on in order to create complex life. And
- 30:47Speaker 1: so if we saw any evidence of these these chains forming,
- 30:52Speaker 1: I think that would be a really positive indicator that
- 30:57Speaker 1: you know, there could be life or it has the
- 31:00Speaker 1: possibility of life. And obviously if we found a big
- 31:02Speaker 1: old alien fish that would be that would be pretty positive,
- 31:06Speaker 1: but far more likely we wouldn't find any large life
- 31:10Speaker 1: forms just probabilistically in terms of it would more likely
- 31:16Speaker 1: be unicellular or maybe just like the beginnings of some
- 31:19Speaker 1: protein chains that could eventually form life. Really you don't
- 31:23Speaker 1: think it's likely, you know, that's kind of where the
- 31:25Speaker 1: science falls, is that there's a probability and and it's
- 31:29Speaker 1: it's more likely than not that it will be microscopic
- 31:32Speaker 1: and not a big fish. I think it's more about
- 31:35Speaker 1: just the time scale, right, like, because I think it's
- 31:39Speaker 1: very likely that there is life in the universe, but
- 31:42Speaker 1: for our like very short human time to be able
- 31:46Speaker 1: to intersect with other complex life, especially this close by,
- 31:51Speaker 1: when we know that complex life has been around much
- 31:56Speaker 1: less time than these these sort of archaic unite cellular organisms,
- 32:01Speaker 1: small organisms have been around. So it's just it's more
- 32:04Speaker 1: in terms of, like, you know, we have this little
- 32:08Speaker 1: short flight through the universe US humans, and then for
- 32:12Speaker 1: our our little flash in the pan time to intersect
- 32:15Speaker 1: with another flash in the pan time of other complex life,
- 32:19Speaker 1: it would be very lucky. I would say it's not impossible.
- 32:23Speaker 1: I just think that we would be incredibly lucky to
- 32:26Speaker 1: find complex life. But I think it's I think that
- 32:30Speaker 1: in terms of whether it exists somewhere, even if we
- 32:32Speaker 1: don't find it, I think it's almost inevitable that there
- 32:35Speaker 1: is some life out there. Just the question is are
- 32:38Speaker 1: we going to be lucky enough to you know, have
- 32:40Speaker 1: a have a missed meeting on on intergalactic craigslist like
- 32:45Speaker 1: this connection. I think that's a good point, and I
- 32:48Speaker 1: mostly agree, But I think also it's important to remember
- 32:52Speaker 1: that we just really don't know because everything we're basing
- 32:56Speaker 1: this off of is one example, which is that on Earth,
- 32:59Speaker 1: life form pretty quickly, and then complex life took a
- 33:02Speaker 1: long time, as you say, and then intelligent life, you know,
- 33:04Speaker 1: still has yet to form here on Earth, and and
- 33:07Speaker 1: so we don't know how long it will take to
- 33:10Speaker 1: form on another planet, but we don't know necessarily that
- 33:12Speaker 1: it will follow the pattern here on Earth. Right, maybe
- 33:14Speaker 1: Earth was unlucky. It took us unusually long to make
- 33:17Speaker 1: complex life. So we gotta keep an open mind and
- 33:20Speaker 1: and believe in this space fish man, I mean, especially
- 33:23Speaker 1: if it's not like life on Earth, right, Like, if
- 33:26Speaker 1: we have instead of it being carbon based, like being
- 33:30Speaker 1: silicon based life, it may function entirely differently, have a
- 33:35Speaker 1: totally different, much longer kind of time scale in terms
- 33:38Speaker 1: of how it evolves and develops. Yeah, but to get
- 33:41Speaker 1: back to the original question, like are there organic molecules
- 33:44Speaker 1: on Europa? We don't actually know. We could figure it
- 33:47Speaker 1: out by flying something through these geysers, But in general,
- 33:50Speaker 1: I think we do have a sense that there are
- 33:53Speaker 1: organic molecules out there. It's not like it's super rare
- 33:56Speaker 1: to find complex organic molecules in comments or in meteors,
- 34:01Speaker 1: so probably there's a lot of them out there. Do
- 34:04Speaker 1: you do you agree with that sentiment? Katie, Oh, absolutely, Yeah,
- 34:06Speaker 1: I think finding the building blocks for life, it makes
- 34:11Speaker 1: sense that it would exist. It's I think the reason
- 34:14Speaker 1: that we don't have life on every asteroid and every
- 34:17Speaker 1: planet that has these these complex molecules is that you
- 34:21Speaker 1: need a lot of other conditions to be met as well.
- 34:25Speaker 1: Like in terms of how life formed on Earth, it
- 34:28Speaker 1: was this very potentially kind of complex interplay of having
- 34:34Speaker 1: the right organic molecules, having just the right amount of
- 34:38Speaker 1: water and just the right amount of energy, and maybe
- 34:41Speaker 1: even like so you guys know, the sort of primordial
- 34:45Speaker 1: soup hypothesis. Yeah, I had some of this morning for sure.
- 34:49Speaker 1: That's definitely the very back of your free Jimmy. I
- 34:53Speaker 1: think there's done life growing there as well, extra chunky. Yeah,
- 35:00Speaker 1: but yeah, there's other ideas about how life could have formed,
- 35:04Speaker 1: and it's not like the idea that it just kind
- 35:06Speaker 1: of formed in a big boiling pot of stew is
- 35:12Speaker 1: a little bit hard to believe because once you start
- 35:14Speaker 1: to get a complex chain of amino acids or protein
- 35:18Speaker 1: to form and you have this chaotic environment, it could
- 35:21Speaker 1: just get blasted apart by other molecules before it has
- 35:24Speaker 1: a chance to form these complex structures. So there's actually
- 35:28Speaker 1: a theory called the primordial soup and sandwich. I kind
- 35:33Speaker 1: of like the term primordial bok Leva better because it's
- 35:37Speaker 1: basically these thin sheets of mica that like are like
- 35:41Speaker 1: these layers of a pastry or or if you want
- 35:44Speaker 1: layers of a sandwich, and in between these sheets of mica,
- 35:48Speaker 1: which is a type of thin sheeting mineral that then
- 35:52Speaker 1: you could get these organic compounds to kind of like
- 35:54Speaker 1: have these like little safe havens, these little hidy holes,
- 35:58Speaker 1: to be able to start forming these complex structure while
- 36:02Speaker 1: also having access to enough chemicals and enough water and
- 36:05Speaker 1: enough energy to actually have these biochemical processes take place.
- 36:10Speaker 1: I feel like we should just go for it and
- 36:11Speaker 1: call it the primordial big neck, the primordial club's handling.
- 36:17Speaker 1: This is what this is what happens when you charge
- 36:19Speaker 1: your signs. Just before, so, to wrap up on Europa, Katie,
- 36:23Speaker 1: let me just ask you a really quick question. Say
- 36:25Speaker 1: we have the organic molecules and we have energy source
- 36:28Speaker 1: that's heating this liquid water. What do you think do
- 36:30Speaker 1: you think there is microbial life right now in the
- 36:33Speaker 1: oceans of Europa. I want there to be, so I
- 36:38Speaker 1: would say yes, just because I'm very optimistic. I think
- 36:44Speaker 1: if we will it, it will happen. Yes, exactly, it's
- 36:47Speaker 1: you're officially in I think it's I mean, I think
- 36:51Speaker 1: it's almost basically inevitable that there's alien life somewhere, whether
- 36:57Speaker 1: it's on Europa, I think it it would be lucky
- 37:01Speaker 1: for it to be there, But it seems like it's very,
- 37:03Speaker 1: very possible, and I'm so excited for discoveries to be
- 37:08Speaker 1: made from there. Like I hope that we are able
- 37:11Speaker 1: to make some of these discoveries in my lifetime because
- 37:14Speaker 1: that would be so exciting. But yeah, I think there's
- 37:17Speaker 1: a definitely good chance that we have some some form
- 37:21Speaker 1: of life, especially if we see that all of these
- 37:23Speaker 1: basic requirements are met. Cool. Well, I'm glad we're optimistic,
- 37:27Speaker 1: and and we'll send you the our official Daniel and
- 37:29Speaker 1: Jorge explain the universe alien button commemorative souvenir. Alright, well, right,
- 37:36Speaker 1: let's get into other places where there could be life
- 37:38Speaker 1: in our solar system and whether or not that is
- 37:41Speaker 1: even remotely possible. But first let's take another quick break. Alright,
- 37:56Speaker 1: we're talking to Katie Golden, host of the podcast Creature.
- 37:59Speaker 1: Feature is about life and other places in our Solar System,
- 38:03Speaker 1: and so we talked about Europa. Now Daniel did maybe
- 38:06Speaker 1: give us a quick rundown of maybe other places in
- 38:09Speaker 1: the Solar System where we can find life and water
- 38:12Speaker 1: and moleculars. Well, the sort of three categories in general,
- 38:15Speaker 1: One is like moons of really big planets, and then
- 38:18Speaker 1: there are dwarf planets, and then there are like actual
- 38:22Speaker 1: straight up possibility for life on planets in the Solar System.
- 38:26Speaker 1: And so in the moon category, of course we had
- 38:28Speaker 1: Europa that's maybe number one, But then there are other contenders.
- 38:31Speaker 1: There's Titan. Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. It
- 38:35Speaker 1: itself is actually bigger than Mercury. So like, what, Yeah,
- 38:39Speaker 1: if I was a Titan booster, I'd be like, how
- 38:41Speaker 1: come I'm called the moon and Mercury is a planet?
- 38:43Speaker 1: And so there's water there too. Well we don't know,
- 38:46Speaker 1: but we think so. And Titan it's fascinating because it
- 38:49Speaker 1: has an atmosphere. It has a nitrogen atmosphere. You know
- 38:52Speaker 1: on Earth is a lot of nitrogen, and they're active
- 38:55Speaker 1: rivers and lakes and oceans on the surface of Titan.
- 38:58Speaker 1: Problem is they're not the oceans of water. Their oceans
- 39:01Speaker 1: of like methane and ethane, which is why I was
- 39:04Speaker 1: asking Katie earlier about whether you could have life in
- 39:06Speaker 1: like methane oceans. But it's sort of awesome because there's activity,
- 39:09Speaker 1: you know, it's like the surface of the planet has
- 39:12Speaker 1: motion on, it has stuff going on. But just like Europa,
- 39:16Speaker 1: we think that underneath those oceans is a shell of ice,
- 39:20Speaker 1: and underneath that is probably liquid water. So again we
- 39:24Speaker 1: have subsurface oceans that are probably under the ice on Titan.
- 39:28Speaker 1: I don't know, a sea of methane that sounds like
- 39:31Speaker 1: more like a smelly river more than a lazy river.
- 39:36Speaker 1: Have you been in a lazy river recently? They're mostly
- 39:38Speaker 1: smelling methane there, I'm sure. All right, Well, what are
- 39:43Speaker 1: some other places? Um, So there might be moons that
- 39:46Speaker 1: have also kind of like Europa, kind of a shell
- 39:48Speaker 1: and an underground ocean. But you're saying there might be
- 39:51Speaker 1: other kinds of places. Yeah, So Ganymede is another moon
- 39:54Speaker 1: like that, an icy crust, probably with a big ocean underneath.
- 39:57Speaker 1: And you know, you add all of these up and
- 39:59Speaker 1: it tells you that most of the liquid water in
- 40:01Speaker 1: the Solar System is probably not on Earth, which is
- 40:04Speaker 1: kind of mind blowing because until recently we thought it
- 40:07Speaker 1: might be the only place. But there are other things
- 40:09Speaker 1: that are not moons. Like one of my favorite places
- 40:12Speaker 1: in the Solar System is this dwarf planet called Series.
- 40:15Speaker 1: And it's not a TV series, it's you knows, of all,
- 40:19Speaker 1: we have a dwarf planet in our Solar system. Oh yeah,
- 40:22Speaker 1: I mean Pluto is now a dwarf planet, right it
- 40:24Speaker 1: got demoded. And there are others. There's an element of
- 40:28Speaker 1: the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter where some of
- 40:32Speaker 1: the chunks are big enough that they could called dwarf
- 40:34Speaker 1: planets and Series. If you remember, we saw this weird
- 40:38Speaker 1: feature on it a couple of years ago. They took
- 40:40Speaker 1: a picture of it and it looked like a pyramid,
- 40:43Speaker 1: and there was a moment there when I thought, this
- 40:45Speaker 1: is like the opening act of every science fiction novel.
- 40:48Speaker 1: You know, somebody sees a pyramid and an alien planet
- 40:51Speaker 1: and they go, what Hereles soundtrack from two thousand and one, Well,
- 40:57Speaker 1: this planet is amazing because it's twenty five percent water.
- 41:01Speaker 1: Like this dwarf planet is not tiny. It's a big
- 41:04Speaker 1: chunk of stuff and it's one fourth water. You know,
- 41:07Speaker 1: Earth is like a tiny fraction of Earth is water
- 41:10Speaker 1: in comparison, so this thing is basically a big or
- 41:14Speaker 1: liquid well again, it's a frozen crust, but we think
- 41:17Speaker 1: that underneath there could be a salty ocean. So it's
- 41:21Speaker 1: most of the oceans in the Solar system turned out
- 41:23Speaker 1: to be under frozen ice crusts, and this is another
- 41:27Speaker 1: place where we can have the same situation. And it
- 41:29Speaker 1: has a pyramid, so that's that's really And it turns
- 41:33Speaker 1: out there's this really shiny feature and it's this pyramid
- 41:36Speaker 1: shaped It looked really geometrical, but then you know, just
- 41:39Speaker 1: like the face on Mars and other fascinating features, when
- 41:42Speaker 1: you zoomed in and you've got better pictures from other angles,
- 41:45Speaker 1: it looked just like a word shaped rock. So it
- 41:48Speaker 1: turns out probably not a signal from the aliens, but
- 41:50Speaker 1: another place in the Solar system where you have a
- 41:53Speaker 1: lot of organic molecules and probably liquid water. So it's
- 41:56Speaker 1: a great place to get started. I mean, if you're
- 41:58Speaker 1: a young microbe you're looking to start our family, you know,
- 42:01Speaker 1: this place is everything you're looking for if your life
- 42:05Speaker 1: try series, Welcome to series your new home. That's right,
- 42:09Speaker 1: And then you've got another couple of small moons like
- 42:11Speaker 1: Callisto and in slats which I don't even know if
- 42:15Speaker 1: are you supposed to pronounce in slatist like you know,
- 42:17Speaker 1: like um something you would see on the menu to
- 42:20Speaker 1: tak area is. I don't know, but I guess my
- 42:23Speaker 1: question for you guys is you know a lot of
- 42:24Speaker 1: these moons. It seems like Earth is the only place
- 42:27Speaker 1: that you can see from space liquid ocean, and so
- 42:30Speaker 1: a lot of these places have like underground oceans, and
- 42:33Speaker 1: that's how maybe life could be there. But could life
- 42:35Speaker 1: exist in an underground ocean, you know, without you know,
- 42:38Speaker 1: sunlight or you know some sort of you know, heat
- 42:42Speaker 1: and wind and things like that. Yeah, I mean absolutely,
- 42:45Speaker 1: we see it on our own planet right where we
- 42:47Speaker 1: have deep sea life and we don't necessarily life doesn't
- 42:51Speaker 1: necessarily need sunlight to provide it with energy as long
- 42:55Speaker 1: as it's getting some kind of energy. So we see
- 42:58Speaker 1: life around the clustered around these deep sea events that
- 43:02Speaker 1: are spewing energy and nutrients down at the bottom of
- 43:06Speaker 1: the ocean where there's no light and life drives there.
- 43:10Speaker 1: And so you could definitely have a planet that is
- 43:14Speaker 1: not getting any sunlight on its oceans. But if they
- 43:18Speaker 1: have some form of energy down in like near the
- 43:23Speaker 1: core of the planet. You know, maybe these deep see
- 43:25Speaker 1: events spewing some heat and and nutrients into these oceans.
- 43:30Speaker 1: You can absolutely have life. It sort of comes along
- 43:33Speaker 1: for free this source of energy because if you're asking
- 43:35Speaker 1: for liquid water, if you're starting from that requirement, then
- 43:39Speaker 1: to make the water liquid to avoid it being iced,
- 43:41Speaker 1: you need some energy source, and that's either solar energy
- 43:45Speaker 1: or you know, internal energy from tidal forces or from
- 43:48Speaker 1: having a hot core or something. So if you have
- 43:50Speaker 1: liquid water, that by definition requires you have an energy
- 43:53Speaker 1: source for life to get start. Interesting, you just made
- 43:56Speaker 1: me think that maybe I wonder if there are aliens
- 43:59Speaker 1: in the ocean of Europa having a podcast discussing whether
- 44:02Speaker 1: or not life could exist on surface water like they
- 44:05Speaker 1: have on Earth. Well, you know, another fascinating question is
- 44:09Speaker 1: if you are alien intelligent life that grew up under
- 44:12Speaker 1: an ocean, so you never saw the sky, right then
- 44:15Speaker 1: could you even imagine the vastness of the universe? What
- 44:18Speaker 1: is it like to drill through that for the first
- 44:21Speaker 1: time and stick your head out above the ocean and
- 44:23Speaker 1: see that there's a whole universe out there? What a
- 44:26Speaker 1: what a crazy sort of philosophical moment for those aliens,
- 44:29Speaker 1: do you think they may maybe they could have like telescopes.
- 44:31Speaker 1: Could you build a civilization with technology with telescopes that
- 44:34Speaker 1: could see through the ice shell and so then maybe
- 44:38Speaker 1: that's how they could know about the wider universe. It's
- 44:40Speaker 1: a hundred kilometers thick in a lot of places, so
- 44:43Speaker 1: that'd be a pretty impressive telescope. I think you'd have
- 44:45Speaker 1: to drill well. I wonder how they would evolve in
- 44:48Speaker 1: terms of sight and the use of light, especially if
- 44:52Speaker 1: they're not getting light from the sun. So we do
- 44:55Speaker 1: know that deep sea animals on Earth, while they don't
- 44:59Speaker 1: get sunl they can have these biochemical processes that result
- 45:03Speaker 1: in bioluminescence, which then provides them light to see and
- 45:09Speaker 1: also light to potentially lure prey into their doom, like
- 45:13Speaker 1: with the deep sea angler fish. It's got that beautiful
- 45:16Speaker 1: bulb of bioluminescence that it uses to lure prey. But
- 45:20Speaker 1: basically what that means is you could have a group
- 45:23Speaker 1: of life or a group of animals or no, I
- 45:26Speaker 1: don't want to calm animals, but life whatever form it
- 45:28Speaker 1: may take, that doesn't get to see sunlight. But if
- 45:31Speaker 1: you have the right biochemical processes to create bioluminescence, they
- 45:36Speaker 1: could potentially evolve eyes because then they can use that
- 45:41Speaker 1: bioluminescence to navigate and find prey or find mates. So
- 45:45Speaker 1: I think that's a fascinating kind of idea of like,
- 45:48Speaker 1: how would you evolve the ability to see if you
- 45:50Speaker 1: don't have sunlight? That sounds like a great science fiction novel.
- 45:54Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to reading that. There's another possibility, which
- 45:57Speaker 1: is that life could have started out on the surface.
- 45:59Speaker 1: It would have been that the word liquid oceans in
- 46:02Speaker 1: the Solar System, not on Earth, for example, on Mars,
- 46:05Speaker 1: and life evolved in those scenarios and now is underground.
- 46:09Speaker 1: So one of my favorite possibilities is Mars because as
- 46:13Speaker 1: listener as to podcasts, no, Mars doesn't have a magnetic field,
- 46:16Speaker 1: it really doesn't have much atmosphere, so any water on
- 46:19Speaker 1: the surface of Mars will either just sublimate or freeze.
- 46:23Speaker 1: But we do think that there is water again underground
- 46:27Speaker 1: on Mars. They detected on Mars a sub glacial lake.
- 46:31Speaker 1: It's like just two kilometers below the surface and it's
- 46:35Speaker 1: like twenty kilometers wide. So there's a stable body of
- 46:39Speaker 1: liquid water on Mars. And if a billion years ago
- 46:42Speaker 1: there were the conditions for life on the surface, that
- 46:45Speaker 1: it is possible that in that lake underground there are
- 46:49Speaker 1: you know, remnants of that archaic life still swimming around, right.
- 46:52Speaker 1: And there's even the theory that maybe life on Earth
- 46:55Speaker 1: came from Mars, like maybe a meteor hid Mars and
- 46:57Speaker 1: a chunk of water or rock or ice from there
- 47:01Speaker 1: came to Earth with life, and that's how we have life.
- 47:04Speaker 1: It certainly would explain a lot about how weird people are, right,
- 47:07Speaker 1: we're all Martians, all aliens, but wouldn't we be aliens
- 47:11Speaker 1: to aliens? Nice? All right? Well, um, and I think
- 47:17Speaker 1: there's a couple other places that sound interesting, Tritton, even Venus,
- 47:20Speaker 1: Daniel can have maybe water or life. Yeah, And this
- 47:23Speaker 1: is something that one of our listeners pointed out that
- 47:25Speaker 1: the surface of Venus is crazy intense. It's you know,
- 47:29Speaker 1: hundreds of degrees, it's covered with sulfuric acid. You do
- 47:32Speaker 1: not want to be alive on the surface of Venus.
- 47:34Speaker 1: But and the pressure is really intense. There's like so
- 47:37Speaker 1: much atmosphere that you're getting instantly crushed. So it's not
- 47:41Speaker 1: a place that's very hospitable to life. But you go
- 47:44Speaker 1: above the surface, like in the clouds, like fifty kilometers
- 47:47Speaker 1: above the surface, then the pressure is lower. You're above
- 47:50Speaker 1: the sulfuric acid clouds, and you might have life sort
- 47:53Speaker 1: of floating in water droplets that far above the surface.
- 47:57Speaker 1: Does that sound plausible, Katie, to evolve life or create
- 48:00Speaker 1: life and in a cloud. I mean, if you have
- 48:03Speaker 1: water droplets that are large enough to have tiny microbes
- 48:09Speaker 1: floating around in liquid water, then I think that is
- 48:13Speaker 1: certainly possible. That's that's crazy to think about, like these
- 48:17Speaker 1: little tiny floating micro bioms of little water droplets. But yeah,
- 48:22Speaker 1: I mean life can be so teeny tiny, it can
- 48:26Speaker 1: exist in a droplet of water. And we know that
- 48:29Speaker 1: we can take a little drop of water, put it
- 48:31Speaker 1: on a microscope slide and see a bunch of little
- 48:33Speaker 1: guys swim around in there. I've I've done that. I've
- 48:35Speaker 1: looked at dinal flagelets. It's amazing how many of those
- 48:39Speaker 1: guys you can cram into one little tiny drop of water.
- 48:42Speaker 1: So if you have water in clouds, I think it
- 48:47Speaker 1: would have to be the right temperature, it would have
- 48:49Speaker 1: to be stable enough to actually, you know, have large
- 48:53Speaker 1: enough droplets for enough life to be in. But yeah,
- 48:56Speaker 1: I think it's possible your whole entire specy, decent, civilization,
- 49:01Speaker 1: and life could just exist in a water droplet. It's
- 49:03Speaker 1: kind of like a like a like a city in
- 49:06Speaker 1: a bottle to Yeah, and then you smash up against
- 49:08Speaker 1: another droplet and you've got all of a sudden new
- 49:10Speaker 1: neighbors or new roommates. Maybe to them, that's like two
- 49:16Speaker 1: galaxies colliding, or the premise for a good reality show
- 49:20Speaker 1: on Venus. Yeah, we'll call it iceballs to just because
- 49:24Speaker 1: you know, I like the name. All right, Well, it
- 49:28Speaker 1: sounds like the ingredients for life are out there for sure,
- 49:32Speaker 1: like in other planets and moons of other planets in
- 49:35Speaker 1: our Solar system. I guess you know, um, maybe a
- 49:39Speaker 1: larger question that we can just wrap up here is,
- 49:42Speaker 1: you know, what are the chances of life, Like we
- 49:44Speaker 1: have all the ingredients definitely for sure in our Solar system,
- 49:48Speaker 1: is it likely? I know, we we optimistically think that
- 49:50Speaker 1: there is probably life, But what does this sign say
- 49:54Speaker 1: about the likelihood of their being life out there? Yeah?
- 49:59Speaker 1: I mean I think it is. I mean, you guys
- 50:02Speaker 1: can speak more to the expansiveness of the universe, but
- 50:05Speaker 1: I think because we have so many chances and so
- 50:09Speaker 1: much time that it's almost inevitable that there is going
- 50:15Speaker 1: to be life somewhere else in the universe. I think
- 50:18Speaker 1: the thing that is much more difficult is the timing
- 50:22Speaker 1: of it, whether our time in the universe is going
- 50:24Speaker 1: to overlap with life somewhere where we can measure it.
- 50:29Speaker 1: So there could be life out there simultaneously with us
- 50:32Speaker 1: in an area where we can't find it and can't
- 50:35Speaker 1: measure it. There could be life somewhere right next door.
- 50:38Speaker 1: But it's just it happened either before after our time here.
- 50:42Speaker 1: But yeah, there is there is a chance for sure
- 50:45Speaker 1: that we are going to overlap with some form of life,
- 50:48Speaker 1: especially if we loosen our definition of what life is,
- 50:51Speaker 1: and it's not doesn't have to be some green little
- 50:54Speaker 1: aliens with funny hats. I totally agree with what you said,
- 50:57Speaker 1: and I think a lot about this question. You know,
- 51:00Speaker 1: how do you go from the precursors to actually having life?
- 51:03Speaker 1: And I just wish that we understood the science of
- 51:05Speaker 1: that better, that we could reproduce that in the lab
- 51:07Speaker 1: or understand whether it's likely or unlikely, because we only
- 51:11Speaker 1: really have this one experiment, and as you say, it
- 51:13Speaker 1: could be that life started many times on Earth and
- 51:16Speaker 1: didn't take hold, then once actually got a foothold and
- 51:19Speaker 1: then spread and became us. We just don't know. So
- 51:22Speaker 1: I did a little informal survey where I asked basically
- 51:25Speaker 1: all the biologists I know what they think about this question,
- 51:29Speaker 1: And the thing that strikes me is that they're all optimistic,
- 51:32Speaker 1: like they think the way you do that, like life
- 51:34Speaker 1: is probably inevitable. I don't know if that's they're biased
- 51:38Speaker 1: just because they are alive, and so they're like pro life.
- 51:41Speaker 1: They've got a probe being alive bias exactly pro prob
- 51:45Speaker 1: being alive, not pro life. That's a whole different philosophical discussion.
- 51:49Speaker 1: But it makes me wonder, you know, why they all
- 51:52Speaker 1: think that's true. We don't really have a solid scientific
- 51:55Speaker 1: argument for the likelihood of life starting given these precursors,
- 51:59Speaker 1: but everybody has this sense that it might be inevitable,
- 52:02Speaker 1: or maybe they just wanted to be inevitable, because the
- 52:05Speaker 1: alternative is scary that even with the precursors and our
- 52:08Speaker 1: own solar system, we could be the only things alive.
- 52:12Speaker 1: But the answer is that we you know, we won't
- 52:14Speaker 1: know until we look, until we send these missions out
- 52:16Speaker 1: to Europa and sample those cryo geysers. Until we drill
- 52:19Speaker 1: down underneath the ice on some of these moons, until
- 52:22Speaker 1: we sample that lake on Mars, we won't actually know
- 52:25Speaker 1: the answer. Until then, we're just you know, all informed
- 52:28Speaker 1: podcasters speculating wildly. I think also the fact that our
- 52:32Speaker 1: measly little planet has been capable of producing such incredible
- 52:38Speaker 1: complexity over what is kind of a short period of
- 52:42Speaker 1: time on the scale of the universe makes it really
- 52:45Speaker 1: feel like that cannot be a fluke if you have
- 52:48Speaker 1: the necessary ingredients, and our little tiny Earth was able
- 52:53Speaker 1: to do all of this in just a few billion years, Like,
- 52:56Speaker 1: it has to be happening elsewhere. How could we possibly
- 52:59Speaker 1: be that special? I think is, and I think there's
- 53:02Speaker 1: a certain logic to that, Like, how can we evolve
- 53:05Speaker 1: this incredibly bio diverse planet with these ingredients and there
- 53:10Speaker 1: not be some form of life elsewhere where they also
- 53:13Speaker 1: have similar ingredients? Yeah? How special can we be? Really?
- 53:18Speaker 1: I feel like life may be inevitable is kind of
- 53:21Speaker 1: like the optimists extrovert point of view, you know, I
- 53:25Speaker 1: wonder if introverts out there might look at it more
- 53:27Speaker 1: as life is unavoidable. There's no escaping life. But either way,
- 53:35Speaker 1: it sounds like, um, there's a lot to look forward
- 53:37Speaker 1: to in terms of exploring our solar system and learning
- 53:40Speaker 1: more about what's on the surface of these frozen, crusty planets. Yeah,
- 53:45Speaker 1: and it's fascinating because it's either out there or it's not.
- 53:48Speaker 1: Like right now, there are maybe things swimming around in
- 53:52Speaker 1: liquid bodies in our solar system. And the only thing
- 53:55Speaker 1: that keeps us from knowing the answer from cracking this
- 53:58Speaker 1: crazy ancient miss three these our willingness to go and look.
- 54:02Speaker 1: These things don't even cost that much money, you know,
- 54:05Speaker 1: a few hundred million dollars. We could know the answer
- 54:08Speaker 1: to this question that every human has been asking basically
- 54:11Speaker 1: since forever. So if you think that's important to talk
- 54:14Speaker 1: to your elected officials and support this kind of research.
- 54:17Speaker 1: Al right, Well, uh, that was super interesting. Thank you
- 54:20Speaker 1: Katie for joining us today. Again. Katie, your podcast is
- 54:25Speaker 1: called Creature Features And so where can people find it? Yeah,
- 54:28Speaker 1: I mean it's on this network, on I Heart Radio.
- 54:31Speaker 1: You can find it on iHeart Radio website, the app,
- 54:34Speaker 1: or you know, on Apple podcasts where wherever you get
- 54:36Speaker 1: your podcasts. And yeah, we answer a lot of questions
- 54:40Speaker 1: about life here on Earth on that podcast with comedy
- 54:43Speaker 1: and in diseases, right, also, that's right, more comedy than
- 54:47Speaker 1: diseases generally. Well, I mean you also talked about the
- 54:52Speaker 1: viruses and fun and interesting things that affect the animal behaviors. Absolutely. Yeah,
- 54:58Speaker 1: like we we talked about sometimes serious subjects about our
- 55:02Speaker 1: health and and the planet's health. But yeah, we we
- 55:05Speaker 1: always try to bring it back to the things that
- 55:08Speaker 1: really bring us together and the common behavior as you
- 55:11Speaker 1: can find in life on Earth, and it's it's really fun.
- 55:14Speaker 1: Who knows, maybe in a couple of years in the future,
- 55:16Speaker 1: you'll be having an episode about life in other planets. Yes,
- 55:22Speaker 1: space fish, don't get them on your windshield. I like
- 55:26Speaker 1: to eat buy space fish with the side of ice balls.
- 55:29Speaker 1: All right, Thank you Katie, and thank you guys for
- 55:31Speaker 1: joining us. We hope you enjoyed dad, see you next time.
- 55:42Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
- 55:45Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For
- 55:48Speaker 1: more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
- 55:51Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
- 55:55Speaker 1: favorite shows. No