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How Saturn Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to this podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. Did I flub that line?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Am I going to retake it? No?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I am not welcome to the pod broadcast.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: This is stuff you should know, by the way, the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Far out edition.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: That's right, it's in stuff out there in space.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and not just stuff in general. We're actually gonna
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: zero in on one specific piece of stuff that's out
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: there in space, a little planet called Saturn.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: That's right. The ring to beauty. That's they'd like to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: say in the biz it is.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yet that's what the astrophysicists I'll call it. Uh huh
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: uh yeah. Or Saturn does have rings. It's not the
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: only planet with rings, as we'll see, or we can
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: see now. I think Jupiter and Uranus and is it
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Mercury also that has rings, but they're just they don't
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: hold the candle the Saturn's rings.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, get the candle away from Minis.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Saturn's also a really ancient planet in that, as far
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: as human experience goes, is for as long as we've
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: been looking up in the night sky, we've seen Saturn
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: because it is the sixth planet from the Sun. It's
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: also the furthest planet away that you can see with
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: the naked eye here on planet Earth.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: You want to know something funny before we go any further. Yeah, always,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: before we recorded, Emily was asking, as she sometimes does,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: what we're recording, and I told her the two episodes
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and she asked about Saturn and I was like, not
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: very interesting to me, and she said, so, what are
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you gonna what do you do in those episodes? Just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: like to commentary and make jokes. I went, well, there's
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: probably not gonna be a lot of jokes, and she said, well,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: as long as you can make one about your and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I said, I don't think i'll be able to because
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it's about Saturn and lo and behold a minute and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: twenty end.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, Now you have two more times to bring
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: it back and then you'll have completed the comedy try.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I think that's a wonner, as they say, But I'm
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: just excited to report back to Emily that that happened
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: unexpectedly and delight delightedly.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Well, way to go, Chuck, I thought you said it
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: was going to be funny though, huh.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Hey you laughed? Was that bitty?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Let's just move on all right?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Great?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: So oh yeah, Like I said, people have known about
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Saturn for a very very long time, and in fact,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I think twenty five hundred years ago the first people
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: to document it were the Sumerians, and not too long
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: after that or around that time, in India the world's
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: oldest astronomy book, the Suriya Siddanta. Obviously whoever wrote it
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to try to guess the diameter
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of Saturn, and I don't think they guessed at it,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: like you know how many jelly beans are in this jar?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Kind of guess like they used math and geometry and
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: all sorts of great stuff. Sure, but this is long
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: before they should have. So what makes it impressive is
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: that they were only off by one thousand miles. So
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: today we believe that the diameter of Saturn is about
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: seventy four thousand, five hundred and eighty miles. In the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Suria Sedanta they guessed seventy three thousand are estimated seventy
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: three thousand, five hundred and eighty. That, my friend, is remarkable.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the regular Lewis and or Clark kind of weren't
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: they famous for like almost guessing the distance.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, great, great analogy. Sorry it was lost
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: on me. Yeah.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: First, so the name itself, Saturn is named after Saturnus,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: which is the god of agriculture and harvest. So it
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: came from the Romans. And you know, Saturn goes pretty
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: slowly across the sky. So the day Saturday is named
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: for Saturn, which is the last day of the week. Yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and now we're going to compare Saturn to Earth in
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of scintillating ways. And we could start with
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: just the massive size, because it makes Earth look like
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: just a pee and a pocket. Basically, it makes.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: It look like a nickel if Saturn was a volleyball.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: NASA loves that one. If you ever look up Saturn,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: NASA uses that every chance they get.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I wonder if when they got they got the nickel part.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And they were like, all right, well, we got to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: find something laying around here that's as big as this distance.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And some guy was like, you know, there was one
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: sporty guy in the corner like practicing setting a volleyball spike.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: He said, what about Jim over there is that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Low hanging fruit Phil who is about.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: To do that oh Man pork bill. But you know,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you're right, nickel compared to a volleyball is pretty good.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: But let's talk equator. The equator's close to ten times
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: larger than Earth at two hundred and twenty seven miles around,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: compared to Earth badly little twenty five thousand miles.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got an extra spare tire compared to Earth's,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: you know, totally. One of the things about Saturn though,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: if you were, if you aren't like an astronomy type,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: the kind of planet that Saturn is is a gas giant,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: which means that it's made largely of gas or gases.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: So to be a gas giant, you don't have to
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: just be a big ball of gas, but you're made
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: of things that typically are considered gases on the periodic table.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Let's just get that straight right out of the gate. Okay, right,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: But if you put the whole thing together, Saturn doesn't
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: have a surface to speak of. If you can go
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: far enough in toward the center, you might eventually hit
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: something you could stand on, but you would be under
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: so much heat and pressure that you wouldn't be thinking
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: about standing on the surface anymore. You'd have other problems.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very not dense planet, and some say
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: could even float in water if there was water that large.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: A pool, yeah, or I don't know. A pond.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Sure, isn't that what they call lakes up in the Northeast.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know the difference between a pond.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And a lake in Maine. There is no difference.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I would think a pond is human made, but there
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: are many human made lakes too, so I don't know.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I'll have to look that up.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I always assumed it was size like pond is smaller,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: lake is larger. Well that's what That's how you remember
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: lake l large.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Large l and pond puny nice one. I mean that
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: seems obvious, but surely there's something else, but maybe not.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: We'll look into that. More to come on, ponds and links.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'll keep talking while you look at it.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to talk, So why don't you
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: look it up. Earth is the third planet out as
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: modest mouse will tell you. They're about ninety two million
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: miles away, or we are rather. Saturn is the sixth
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: planet away from the Sun, and things really pick up
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: after you after you get away from Earth about eight
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty six million miles, which is going to
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: mean they're gonna be a very cold planet because they
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: get not nearly as much sun They get about one
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: point two percent of the sunlight that we get, which
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: means the average temperature in the upper atmosphere of Saturn
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: is a very chilly negative two hundred and twenty degree fahrenheit.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Or negative one hundred and forty celsius for our non
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: American liberian or can't remember the third one friends, that's right.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: So there's some other interesting things that happen because it
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: gets such little sunlight. But one of the things that
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: astronomers were surprised by at first was Saturn's atmosphere that
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: is very cold, but it's not nearly as cold as
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: you would expect for how far away from the sun
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: it is and how little sunlight it gets. And they
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: finally figured out the reason why is because Saturn generates
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: its own internal heat. That's why it's not as cold
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: as it as it should be. That'sn't me yeah, exactly,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: you could never be cold if you tried.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Man, I've been cold, but and when I get cold,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I have a very hard time warming up.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I meant, in like the figurative sense, you know, like.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Like a cold emotional individual. Yes, yes, oh well.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you. So there's a couple other things about being
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: that far away from the Sun. I think it takes
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: eighty minutes for sunlight to get there. That's a long
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: time to stand around and wait for sunlight. We only
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: have to wait like eight minutes here on Earth.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So when they flick that switch on, you just
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: got it. You got a huddle, hunker down, right.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: And then so in its orbit around the Sun, it
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: takes almost thirty earth years for Saturn to complete a year.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, they're rotating very very quickly on
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: its axis, second fastest in the Solar system, second just
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: behind Jupiter. But if you're talking rotation speed here on Earth,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: we're going at about nine hundred and seventy eight miles
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: an hour. Saturn is twenty three thousand miles an hour.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, almost, no more than twenty three times faster than he.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And that's going to give it a short day, about
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a ten point seven hour day.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, And here on Earth, for comparison, a day is
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: more than twenty hours long.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: So I said earlier, Chuck, that Saturn's a gas giant
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  Speaker 2: and the two gases that it's most fond of our
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: hydrogen and helium, and overall, the I think the composition
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: of its atmosphere is about three quarters hydrogen one helium,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: but in the planet itself it has far less hydrogen
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: than helium. That's about all you really need to know
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: about those two for now. But the point of the
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: whole thing is that there is an atmosphere. There are
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: different layers, and the atmosphere itself is about thirty seven
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: miles thick, and it is just generally gas, but it's
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: also super freaky, as we'll see. But if we zoom
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: in a little further, drop down a little further into Saturn,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: into its center, and we make it through the thirty
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: seven mile thick atmosphere, we're suddenly going to find out
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: that the pressure is extraordinarily great in the next layer,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: which is a layer of liquid hydrogen.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's liquid hydrogen because of that pressure. It's
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the It's just such a massive planet that here on Earth,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: if we want to make liquid hydrogen, you have to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: cool that gas down to very very low temperatures like
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: negative four hundred and twenty three degrees fahrenheit. But it's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: just the pressure on Saturn. Even though those are high temperatures,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: that pressure alone can make that gas a liquid, which
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: is incredible.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: It really is. And then it gets even crazier because
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: so further in towards the core, toward the center of
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: the planet, that liquid hydrogen turns into a completely different
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: kind of thing that they call liquid metallic hydrogen. It's
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: still again on the periodic table, the gas even though
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: it's in liquid form, but it behaves like a metal
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: and that it can conduct electricity. So imagine hydrogen gas
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: conducting electricity. And once you put your head back together,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: because it got blown so wide open from that, you
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: will understand now how heat is generated inside Saturn. It's
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: from that liquid metallic hydrogen just acting like it ain't
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: supposed to. The reason why is because it's so compressed
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: from the pressure toward the center that everything, even the
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: electrons you remember like electrons are they are to like
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: a nucleus of an atom. What you know. I think
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the outer planets in our Solar system is to the Sun,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: they're really far away from it. This pressure is so
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: great in saturn center that their electrons are touching. It's
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: all mushed together. And that's why it's behaving weirdly, because
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the electrons can conduct electricity a lot more easily.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: And then if you want to go further down to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the core, you talk about hot. We don't know for
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: sure because you can't get in there. They've tried, they've tried,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: But the current belief right now is that it's basically
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: compressed molten iron into a ball about the size of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: fifty five earth and a temperature of about fifteen thousand
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Which is hotter than the surface of the Sun.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Hot hot stuff in there.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: But if we're going to compare core to core, the
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: core of the Sun is twenty seven million degrees fahrenheight.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Note I saw one other thing about the core of Saturn,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: and then maybe we'll take a break. Apparently some researchers
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: have concluded that it's actually slushy, so it's not solid,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: which makes sense. I mean, you'd think it'd be kind
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: of moltener in some weird state, but that it's also
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: made of in addition to iron, ice, rock and gas,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: and how there could possibly be ice in the core
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: that's fifteen thousand degrees fahrenheit is totally beyond me. I
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: couldn't see a good explanation of this whatsoever. It's possible
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: that the researchers who've proposed this completely off their rockers.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but I thought it was worth mentioning
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: because I think that's fantastic if it is true. And
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: hopefully there's the stuff you should know listener who is
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: out there as like grave and I'm going to email
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: in and explain to Josh and Chuck how there could
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: possibly be ice there.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: That would be great.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Yep, Okay, you want to take that huge four promised break.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it and we'll be back on I
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: don't know. Let's talk about like how Saturn was sworn
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: to begin with, right after this. All right, So there
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: are a couple of theories about how Saturn was formed.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: If you're a if you're a regular human walking around
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: planet Earth, you might hear both of these and say
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: sounds like like you're kind of talking about basically the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: same thing.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: If you're an astrophysicist, you might glavin out as you
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: mentioned before, that's two Glavin's and say, oh no, no, no,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: it is a very very polarizing question in astrophysics, and
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to us this different is very large. So yeah, so
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: if you're an astrophysicist out there, this might really excite you.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: If you're not, would I would dare you. I would
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: urge you to try and be delighted in the minutia
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of the difference of science and how important that can be.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: The question about how Saturn or gas giants like Saturn
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: form is more polarizing than the proposal to rename Uranus. Right,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: if we work together, that's two.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: That's two.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to explain the difference because I find
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: this fascinating. There's the main generally accepted model of how
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: planets form, including gas giants like Saturn, is called the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: core accretion model, and that is basically, when a star forms,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: like our Sun, it forms out of dust and gas
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: and all sorts of crazy stuff, and there's a lot
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: of other debris that starts swirling around it, forming a disc,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: and that's where planets form from. There's all sorts of
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: collisions and things get bigger and kind of clump together,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: and as they get bigger, they attract more stuff. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the closer you are into, the closer you are to
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: the star, the more likely you are to attract heavy
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: stuff like say, iron, nickel, stuff that makes up rocky planets, right,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: And everybody's like corecretion model, that's just how planets form.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: But then there's a group of like renegade astrophysicists led
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: by a guy named Alan Boss, who are basically like no.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: That leaves a couple of questions out there. One is
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: that there's less rocky debris in the outer reaches of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: this disc that's swirling around the Sun, so you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: how can a gas giant be made out of rocky core?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: And then secondly that the remnants that are out there,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: say like dust and gases like hydrogen and helium, they
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: will float away into outer space and out of the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Solar System and out of reach before a gas giant
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: could form using the core accretion model. So what they've
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: come up with instead is called the disk instability model.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And they said, you don't need rocky stuff like iron
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: and nickel to form a gas giant. It forms from
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: gases from the start, And the core accretion model people said, okay,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: smart guys, how how could that possibly happen? And the
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: disk instability model people said that that swirling disk becomes
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: so compressed and so dense from swirling around the Sun
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: for so long that when it breaks up, some of
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: that dust and gas has enough density that it can
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: attract other dust and gases and hence form a gas giant.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And the core accretion model people were a gog.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I love that word, by the way, I do too.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It works really well well.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Another remarkable thing about Saturn are the just incredible storms
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: that have and around Saturn. There's a very large temperature
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: difference between the very hot interlators that we were talking about.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I can't remember how many degrees fahrenheit.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: We said, but fifteen thousand, yeah.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Fifteen thousand, and then the very icy atmosphere out there
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: is very very cold I see obviously, and so near
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the equator you're going to have winds that are going
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: about one thousand miles an hour. You've got a very
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: erratic atmosphere, so it's not like it's just constantly stormy.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: There may be years that go between storms, but then
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: they might go through a storm that lasts like literal
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: years and years and years. They photograph one with the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Cassini probe in twenty ten, and this storm was so
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: big and this is you know, on a big planet
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that it went all the way around and met itself
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: like a single storm system like Borros. Yeah, that is
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: just I mean, we've seen some crazy storms here in
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: recent years where like, you know, from middle Mexico all
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the way up through like the northeast of the United States.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I'll and I'll look at a Doppler and be like,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that's incredible to see a storm that large. So imagine
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: when going all around the entire planet of Earth, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: then imagine Earth's size and relation to Saturn, and that'll
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: kind of tell you how big of a storm we're
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: talking about.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely nuts. And the reason why that it's
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: got such a crazy atmosphere is because of that temperature difference,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: the temperature gradient. So remember we were talking about how
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: tornadoes form on Earth and the tornado alley short stuff
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: that you have to have a temperature gradient. Apparently the
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: same thing happens on Saturn as well. But there's also Chuck,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a really weird weather system that does not come and go.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: It's essentially a feature, it seems like, because it was
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: first photographed in nineteen eighty one when the Voyager two
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: probe did a fly by of Saturn and when the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Cassini mission arrived I think in like two thousand and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: nine or ten or something like that, it saw the
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: exact same thing was essentially there. So what they figured
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: out is it's not a storm. It's a really really
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: fast jet stream. But the thing about it, I'm sure
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: people out there who are familiar with jet streams are like,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: so big, whoop, Well get this. This jet stream forms
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: a hexagon around the top of the planet. It's one
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: of the weirdest things I've ever seen.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like you said, they photographed it in nineteen
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: eighty one, and then I think the Cassini Huygens mission
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: ended in twenty seventeen and it was still there and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: still basically looked the same, and I can only reckon
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that it's still like that today.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a good reckon.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: We're talking five hundred mile an hour winds at the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: center of this vortex, and they think that weird shape
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: is due to the really fast rotation, which makes a
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: bulge at the equator and flattens things out at the pole.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: So it's just created this really strange kind of jet stream,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: this strange shape.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think, Chuck, we can't really put it
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: off any longer. I believe that it's time to talk
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: about Saturn's rings because I mean, imagine if we didn't
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: in this episode.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you mentioned, you know, it's not the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: only one with rings. I know you mentioned myanus.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Sorry that's three.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I know that's the lowest of lowing fruit.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Though Phil would be like, that's fine.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Phil would love it. But Neptune and Jupiter, I'm
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: not sure if you mentioned those. Those are some other
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: ringed planets. But Saturns are like, those are the show stoppers.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: They're incredible. If you've ever you know, do yourself a favor,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: if you've never looked at like real pictures, like telescopic
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: pictures of Saturn, like, do so, because oh it's incredible
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: looking these pictures.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I have an anecdote about that.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Let's hear it.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: So remember we did an Australian tour a few years back.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: It was great.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it was on one of the days off.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: You mean, I went to the Sydney Observatory one night.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Oh cool, and they had just happened to have one
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: of their telescopes trained on Saturn and you could lean
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: over and look through the eyepiece. And we did, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: both of us just started laughing because it looked so fake,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: like a little white cutout of Saturn, just fat as.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: It just looked like they were like, we can't find Saturn,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: so we're gonna.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Have to put this slide exactly.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: But the volunteer was looking at us like, what do
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: you what's so funny about Saturn. Basically we just moved along.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: But that was our that's my Saturn annexode.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: And you said it looked fake, and he's like, that's real, man.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: No, we didn't. We didn't bother to say anything. It
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: was mine and Yumi's little joke.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: That was the worst aussy accent I've ever done, and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I've done some pretty good ones over the years. I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: don't know what happened.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: It sounded like Billy Ray Cyrus trying.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: To be h It came out so wrong. It was
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: very strange. It sound about in my head right before
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I said it. So yeah, any aside from the telescope
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: slide fake, it's just incredible looking and the sort of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: knockout fact is we're still not exactly sure where these
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: rings came from.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: And we've known about the rings, so I remember people
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: have known about Saturn since we started looking up at
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the sky, but you can't see the rings. But right
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: when people started inventing telescopes, they noticed that Saturn had
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: something weird going on. In sixteen ten, Galileo, the astronomer
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: made famous by the Indigo Girls, he spotted Saturn's rings
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: in his telescope, but it wasn't of high enough quality
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: for him to be like, those are rings. He thought
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: they were like bulges on the side, like handles on
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: a pot or something like that. He wasn't quite sure
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: what the heck it was. He actually, I think thought
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: it was like a three body system, like two huge
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: moons in a planet, and it wasn't. But I mean,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: fifty years later, I guess even less that. Christian Huggins said,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: I've got a much better telescope now, and those are rings.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I bet my bottom dollar on it. That was his
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: famous quote.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: You know what Galileo's crime was.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Loving too much looking up the truth? Is that what
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: the lyric is?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great song, sure it is. You know
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I went to the same orthodontist as Emily from Indigo Girls.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Oh that's great, that's my claim to fame.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Did I can't even come up with a joke. But yes, that's.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Great, shout out to oh God, doctor Blake. Hope he's
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: still around. He may not be. This was in the
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: eighties and he was okay and is probably. I mean,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: he looked at seventy, but that means he was probably.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Fifty right in the eighties. Sure.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And just for my teenage gays, you know, I.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Was gonna say that's that was mean, Like this is
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: like a recent person he went to.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: No, he could still be around. He could be in
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: his nineties probably, But I hope he is. I hope
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he's still putting braces on kids.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't want them, but he's doing it anyway.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: He's putting like nineteen eighties braces on kids, though they've
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: come a long way. And he's like, no, these metal
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: bands go around your teeth.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: The lip slashers.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Oh god, all right, So back to the rings. They
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: are ninety five percent ice. It's rock and ice, but
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: ninety five percent of it is ice. And these are particles.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: But when you say particles, it could be a particle
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: like a sandy grain, but it could also be like
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: a large boulder like they very widely in size. And
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: here's the thing about those rings too. They are very
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: very wide, but comparatively they are very very thin. I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: think the farthest ring, which is one hundred and seventy
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: five thousand miles from the upper atmosphere of Saturn, is
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: seven thousand times the diameter of planet, but only about
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: thirty to sixty feet wide or thick, I guess.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: And that nuts. Yeah, I mean that's crazy. Like, how
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: does that thing even exist? Is my question.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: We're about to tell you.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So if you look at Saturn, especially through a Sydney
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: based telescope, you're gonna see that it looks like it's
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: it basically like kind of cocked its rings to the
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: side like a hat, a jaunty cap, as I put it.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do that sometimes with certain caps exactly.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Who doesn't. Everybody's familiar with that. Now, the thing is
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: is Saturn's not doing that. Actually, if you straighten Saturn out,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: its rings would be roughly parallel to its equator. It
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: turns out that Saturn itself is jauntily cocked to the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: side too, to the tune of twenty seven degrees and
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Earth's axial tilt I think is what it's called. So
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: the tilt relative to the plane of orbit around the Sun,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: black plane tilted planet. Let's just leave it at that.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Earth's twenty three degrees, so twenty seven isn't that much more.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: But Saturn's rings like really point out how angled the
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: whole thing is. Yeah.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if we had a little jaunty cap, then Earth
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: would look good jaunty as well, I guess.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But the other thing about it too, is with
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: an axial tilt that pronounced like Earth's and like Saturns,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: that's how you have seasons. Some parts are closer to
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the Sun at different times of the year. Same thing
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: on Saturn. But since Saturn's years are almost thirty Earth
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: years long, that would mean that the seasons are like
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: seven years long on Saturn. Yeah, seven year spring. Who
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: wouldn't want that.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: That's a good band name right there.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: It is, It really is, Chuck.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: These rings are separated, obviously. When you look at them,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: you can tell there are gaps in between, and some
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: are brighter than others, some are more dense than others.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And because of that, they you know, when they knowed
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the rings, they didn't know about all of them. They
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: were discovered individually over time and named A, B, C, D, E, F,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and G. And order of when they were found, but
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: that's not the actual order of where they are. If
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: you just started at Saturn and work your way out, right,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: in that case, it would be DCB, A, F, G
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: and then E.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: The best mnemonic device I could come up to, remember
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: that is, don't choose brunch and four go grits and eggs.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought so too.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I thought just a nonsense joke was coming my way,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: But no, that one actually makes sense. Yeah, nice, nice work, Yeah,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Phil A.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Bruise, good. Thanks Phil. So if you ever noticed Saturn's
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: rings also, there's like dark stripes in between them that's
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: actually voids in between the rings, right that Saturn's got
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: tons of rings, some are bigger than others, and when
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: you kind of look at them from afar, it just
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: looks like they have what is that seven seven rings,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: but there's actually way more. These are just the rings
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: that we can see and identify, and they're they're differentiated
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: by these gaps, and there's a huge gap I think
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: between the B ring and the A ring. So it's
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: about in the middle of Saturn's rings. It's called the
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Cassini division and it's about three thousand miles across.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a gap.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a big gap. And kind of put
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: this in perspective, especially for our American friends. If you
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: took Seattle and you took Boston, and you erase the
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: country in between them and replace it with the void
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: of space, the people in Seattle and Boston could look
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: out from one another across what was roughly the size
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: of the Cassini Division. I like that analogy. I don't
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: know what's so funny about.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: It, Daddy, how far is three thousand miles?
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Okay? But it was replacing it with the void of
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: space that I think really drove it home. If you
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: ask me, Yeah, do you know how long I went
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: into a distance calculator to figure out two cities that
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: most people know are roughly three thousand miles apart.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Did you come up with that? Yeah? So the Cassini Division.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: The cause of that whole thing is the interaction gravitationally
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: speaking with the moon. And we'll talk about the various
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: moons coming up. But the moon, I guess, is it mimis.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: It is not mimas, is it.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: I've been saying mimis.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been saying mimis in my head.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Although Mimas makes sense too.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I like Mimas okay, because it's not Titan.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: It's Titan depending on where you live, though, I guess so.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: But the particles in that b ring orbit about two
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: times for each of Mimis's trip around Saturn, and each
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: time they're going to pass, Mimis has the chance to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: inflict a little gravitational influence on those particles, and that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: just accumulates, basically, and it creates a very steady gravitational
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: force on those particles. It's just going to hold them
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: right there in place, and they're not gonna drift into
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the gap. They're gonna stay nice and tight.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's how that's how the Cassini
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: division is created by that gravitational pull and me Mimis
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: also is nicknamed the Death Star because if you look
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: at a picture of Mimis, it looks an awful lot
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: like the Death Star. Yeah, and the death Star that's
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: a it's like a space fortress in the Star Wars movies.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: That's no planet, that's right, But no, it's a moon.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Oh that's no moon. Was that what it was?
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: No? I'm saying he was right. It isn't a planet,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: it's a moon.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the line that was it that's no planet.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I think that's what it was.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure when the Hans solo is saying that, Yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I think so. But you know, it's no big deal
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: if you gets Star Wars stuff wrong.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Right now, everybody's very easy going about that stuff.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Uh, should we know, should we break or should we not?
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about how the rings formed and then we'll
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: come back into it. Now, let's take a break.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: You want to take a break, Yeah, okay, and then
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about how those rings form.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Right for this, So, Chuck, you said a little early on,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: I think that the people who study this kind of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: stuff are not one hundred percent sure how Saturn's rings formed.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of different competing theories. There's a whole
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: camp that's like they're as old as the planet, so
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: there are multi billion year old rings, and other people
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: are like, that's just stupid. And specifically, there's a researcher
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: from NASA who in nineteen eighty six wrote a paper.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Its name's Jack Connerney. I don't think he actually said
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: your idea is stupid. To other people But what he
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: did do he calculated the rate of what came to
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: be called ring rain, and that is those particles falling
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: into Saturn. And when they do that, that ring becomes
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: slightly depleted, and it happens more and more and more,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: and on the scale of tens or hundreds of millions
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: of years. Saturn is eventually steadily losing its rings. And
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: apparently the particles fall into Saturn when they become charged,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: and I guess they're more attracted by Saturn's gravitational pull
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: and they travel down the magnetosphere just like particles bombard
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Earth's magnetosphere and produce the auroras. Same thing happens to Saturn,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: but it's paying the price. It's at the expense of
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: losing its rings.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Does it come does it become part of Saturn itself?
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Does it suck that up into Saturn?
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, I believe so, and I think it melts as
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: it gets further and further toward the center.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Saturn isn't necessarily becoming larger as the rings deplete.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: No, Leon's becoming larger.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, So all right, that means a lot of stuff.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: That means that we are living on Earth at a
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: time where we just happened to live and it's a
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: long period of time, but if you if you zoom
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: out on a macro level, cosmically speaking, it's not that long.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: But we happen to be living in a time where
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: we're probably at like peak ring, don't you think?
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because guys like Jack Connor and he calculated that
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: based on the rate of ring rain, the rings probably
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: aren't more than one hundred million years old, right, So
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: one hundred million years before this, Saturn wouldn't have had rings,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: And they also calculated one hundred to three hundred million
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: years Hence Saturn's not going to have rings. The way
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: that they came up with that one hundred million year
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: old estimate is because any older than that there should
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: be far less rings based on the rate of ring rain,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: and if it were younger, there should be more rings
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: than that. So that group is pretty self satisfied right now.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet they are. We also talked about, well,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: we still haven't really talked about where the actual stuff
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: that makes up those rings come from. And again there
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: are competing theories, one of which is that there used
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: to be and again we'll get to the moons Saturn
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: has lots of moons, but one theory is that there
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: used to have even a lot more moons than they
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: have now. And one of those moons that may have existed,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: they actually named Chrysalis, was in a little bit of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: a push and pull with Titan, the largest moon, a
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: gravitational battle or Tin or titin. Yeah, it fell out
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: of orbit because of that battle, I guess Titan wins
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and Chrysalis verr too close to Saturn, was basically just
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: busted apart by the gravity of this enormous gas giant,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and then that debris field is what formed that ring.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And then over time, over millions and millions of years,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Chrysalis continued to sort of crash into itself and created
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: like the smaller rings around itself or above and below.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: And also some of the bigger ones because you know,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: like you said, some of the some of the particles
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: in the rings are like grain of sand size, but
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: other like bowler size, and those bolder ones are just
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: ones that haven't crashed into the proper other boulders yet
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: to create those sand grains. They just it's just a
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: matter of time eventually.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's what's the other theory?
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: There's another theory, which, by the way, Saturn apparently is
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: like a thunderdome for astrophysicists. There's so many different theories
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: about so many different things. Yeah, but the other theory
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: is that a bunch of Saturn's moons collided together. It
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't just one getting pulled towards Saturn. They all just
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: kind of got all tripped up and boom boom boom
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: boo boo boom, and all of a sudden, you've got
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: this dbris field that got smaller and smaller, more particulate
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: over time, just like the chrysalis theory too.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: So they don't fight over this one, probably as much.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Not as much, but they do dress like master Blaster
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: when they talk about it. They just don't actually fight.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Some of these rings are formed by these moons. There's
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: one called one of the moons ensilattice.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going with enceladus, enceladus o encilatus sounds way too
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: much like salad.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, en solata. Yeah, this thing is erupting saltwater kind
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: of constantly into the atmosphere and that turns into ice crystals,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: and those ice crystals, as we see, can very easily
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: form into rings. And that is, in fact where we
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: get our e ring around Saturn. If you know, you're
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: looking at the letters, So I guess the ABC the
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: fifth one discovery.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Well no, remember they are out of or oh yeah,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: the fifth one discovered. You're right? Sorry, nice save. So
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: there's also another ring that they discovered as recently as
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, because our telescopes just keep getting
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: better and better, from Galileos in sixteen ten to the
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Spitzer space telescope. Surprisingly hard to say, Yeah, they found
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: a new ring that basically follows the orbit of Saturn's
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: furthest moon out Phoebe Buffe.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's right. I was gonna say Bridgers, but sure.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yours is a little more art housey than mine.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Who I love that boy, genius record so good. I
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: believe Phoebe's is a very faint ring, is that right?
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah I do. Yeah, it's very That's why it
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: took so long for us to find it.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I think we knew Phoebe existed the moon. It could
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: be fau Abbe they might be pronouncing it like that,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: but we didn't know the ring was there until two
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: thousand and nine.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but were mentioning all this is the fact that
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: those rings are they're dynamic, they're changing, they're reshaping, and
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: like we said, and you know, maybe as little as
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: one hundred million years, they might may not even be there.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I just think that's really fascinating. You know, you
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: can thank the Good Lord that we're alive at a
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: time when Saturn has rings and we have telescopes.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: So we also talked a lot about the moons just now,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: and it turns out that Saturn's moons are really fascinating
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: in and of themselves. It has a bunch of moons,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: as many as one hundred and forty six that we
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: know about right now. Just last year, well two years ago,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: when this comes out in twenty twenty three, the International
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Astronomical Union, they added sixty two more moons. And I
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: don't know if they were saving up and just wanted
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: to do a batch edition of moons. Yeah, if they
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: found a bunch in quick secession, I'm not sure, but
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: they're like, there are definitely more moons there.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, our moon's coming, I mean, because yeah, just a
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago they were under one hundred and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: now there's one hundred and forty six. So big changes.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: So keep collecting those moons, everybody, and hit us in
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a few years with a number that's going to knock
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: our socks off.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Collect all one hundred and forty six, that's right. So
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: the other thing about the moons too is that they
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: orbit outside of the rings, which makes sense because the
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: moons that were inside of the rings were what make
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: up the rings. Probably. Yeah, so these moons haven't smashed
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: into anything else and they're just orbiting around. And like
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: you said, mimis that one exerts a gravitational influence that
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: creates the Cassini division, which means that it's really close
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: to those rings. It's actually the nearest moon to Saturn's atmosphere,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: but it's only about half the distance of the moon
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: we have here on Earth. Whi's about two hundred and
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: thirty seven thousand miles, as every shining.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Fan knows, that's right. But this thing hauls it. It
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: has an orbital speed of about thirty two thousand miles
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: an hour. It's so fast that it completes an orbit
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: in less than an Earth day, about twenty two hours.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: And if you consider our moon here on Earth, what
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: does it take about a month to complete its orbit.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: That's that's really cooking.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: In fact, the month is based on the moon taking
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: a month. They're inextricable basically, So is there a month.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Two hours?
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: I guess so?
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because what was their day? What did you say
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: their day was tennish?
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: I think ten point six?
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Ten.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: So there's a bunch of different moons, different sizes, but
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Saturn has some really really big ones. Titan, which we've
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: already talked about, is enormous and what a moon. It
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: is a great moon. Its size is large enough that
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: it can actually hold an atmosphere in place. It's one
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: of the very few moons that we know about that
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: has an actual atmosphere to speak of. And boy are
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: we gonna speak about it?
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It's a It's Titan is quite striking.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: It is has mountains made of ice, has seas made
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of ethane and liquid methane. So it's just an incredible moon.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: It has an atmosphere much like ours. It's composed of nitrogen,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: but it has an air pressure that just knocks ours
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: out of the park. It's I think one hundred and
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: fifty percent stronger at sea level, which is it's going
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: to be like you'd think you were on LSD or
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: something if you you plopped yourself on Titan and you
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: would look around and you were being like, wait, there's
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: odd things happening, like it's raining really slowly, and someone say, well,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: what does that even mean. It's like, well, look at
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the literal rain. It's coming down at about three and
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: a half miles an hour on Earth, it rains down
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: at about twenty miles an hour, and it just it's
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: it sounds funny and it looks funny.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: And the one of the friends there was like, rains
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: of weird word have you ever thought about that word rain?
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: But why does it sound funny?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Because the atmosphere is so thick that vibration sound can
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: travel much more efficiently through it. So if you shouted
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: like hello, you would burst the eardrums of your friend
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: on LSD.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you said look how slow the rain is.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: They just tap their hands over their ears and like
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: double over and pain.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: But it's not a hospitable place, like nothing could could
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: live on the surface of Titan. I think it has
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: a negative two hundred and forty I'm sorry two hundred
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: and ninety degree fahrenheit average temperature and like we said,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: the liquids there are methane and ethane, so that's you
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: know what, you can't do anything with those two.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: No, but there is a liquid ocean about fifty miles
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: below the surface that methane and ethane and ice surface.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: And this ocean is actually made of salt water.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah good fishing, yea from what I hear for sure.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: But that's the point. They're like, wait a minute, there's
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: salt water. There's it's heated by the core of Titan.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: There's also hydrocarbons on the planet's surface. Like if you
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: put this stuff together in just the right arrangement, you
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: might have some sort of bizarre form of life. Like
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: these are organic materials that you could conceivably create life from.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: So who knows what's swimming around or floating around in
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: that ocean underneath Titan's surface. Yeah, that's why people are
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: so jazzed about Titan.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And it's Titan, I mean, come.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: On, yeah, you know there's also what'd you say, ensaladus.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Insuladus, That's right, what'd you call it?
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Uh? I said enceladus? You said something else. It sounded
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: like salad. Are you Enceladus.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I think I said, enceladus. We'll let the listeners decide.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about that word in soladus?
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: What's the deal with that one? That's I know it's
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: about the size of Arizona and also has the salt
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: water ocean under the crust.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: That is so so far Titans two for two that
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: we've talked about. We've talked about two moons and both
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: of them happen to have salt water oceans. Yeah underneath Yeah,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: that's a big one too. So like it's underneath its
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: icy crust, which means that it's protected and heated and
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: heated so much in fact that I think we said enceladus.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Now I don't know how to say. It bursts ice
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: from its ocean out into the atmosphere, creating the e ring,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: which is pretty cool in and of itself, But that
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: also means that there's geysers, and where there's geysers, there's
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: probably hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, the floor of
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: the salt water ocean, and that means that life could
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: conceivably create or start up there, because that's a really
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: popular theory these days about how life started on Earth.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Around hydrothermal vents in the ocean. Yeah, so who knows.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: And then the Cassini probe wrote back, wrote home from
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: camp not too long ago, and was like, hey, I
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: sampled some of this water and it's got some mind
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: blowing stuff in there.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. And you know we mentioned earlier the
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Cassini spacecraft finished up in twenty seventeen. It was called
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the Grand Finale when it wrapped up its mission because
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: it on purpose says like, hey, let's just get really
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: close and just kamikazi this thing and just see what
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: kind of readings we can get up to the last
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: second there. So that's how it ended its mission. But
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: there's a new and dragonfly that's coming up, I believe,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: launching in twenty twenty eight and will arrive on Titan
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: by twenty thirty four, so I mean, hang on to
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: your hat. So it'll be a decade. But then from now,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: but then we're going to start get some I mean
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: imagine the changes that were going to happen between now
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. And there's actually a really cool animation
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: artist interpretation of that Grand Finale of the Cassini pro bit.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: It's worth watching on YouTube. Oh cool, you got anything else?
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I got one more thing. It turns out in the
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: northern hemisphere September twenty twenty five will be the best
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: time to view Saturn because it'll be on the opposite
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: side of the Sun from Earth, so it'll be nice
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: and bright and easy to see. Oh cool.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll either think to remind you and we'll probably forget.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: But I imagine that'll be a newsmaker like people on the
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: news will be saying, like, hey, go out and look
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: for Saturn. For sure, might be able to see it
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: with your eyeballs.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, Chuck mentioned eyeballs, so we have no choice
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: but to unlock listener mail.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is from Rockney. I'm the mother of one.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: This is another, but I bet they met mother probably
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I'm the mother of one aber longtime listeners. I don't
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: remember exactly when I started listening, but it was back
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: in high school I graduated.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, so Rockney is the
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: mother of one of our listeners.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: I bet you anything they meant to say, I'm another
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: one of your longtime listeners. Now that I'm reading it
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: and doing the.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Math, okay, okay, here we go.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, my name is Rockney. I'm another one of
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: your longtime listeners.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: My girlfriend Anna has never listened to a single episode
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: of your podcast. English is her second language, so she's
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: probably ana and English spoken word entertainment doesn't quite feel
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: relaxing for her yet, so don't hold it against her.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: But over the past few weeks, I've been on a mission.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I've been humming, whistling, and vocalizing these stuff you should
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Know theme song non stop around her, trying to make
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: it familiar. And this past weekend my experiment finally succeeded.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I called her humming it on her own, completely unprompted.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I came clean, told her I'd been training her ears,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: explaining it's the theme song of my podcast. She's familiar
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: with stuff you should Know through my constant mentions, and
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: she just calls it my podcast. We've both had a
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: great laugh about it. Recently, I heard a listener mail
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: from a mom who casually used as a verb, so
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I figured i'd share my similar success story. So thanks
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: for over one point two decades of entertainment, and that
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: is from Rockney.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Rockney, we appreciate that. Thanks for trying
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: to spread the good word by creating earworms. It's right
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: if you want to be like Rockney and let us
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: know your situation. We love to hear that kind of stuff.
• 49:23
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• 49:25
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• 49:32
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• 49:35
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