Latest / Made of Stars / Jupiter, Mars and Isaacman, Oh My!

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Jupiter, Mars and Isaacman, Oh My! · Made of Stars

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  Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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  Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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  Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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  Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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  Speaker 2: Go ahead. When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes.
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  Speaker 2: When made of stars, you could be from high they
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  Speaker 2: would New Mexicomus. Where a.
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  Speaker 1: Stars?
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  Speaker 3: When we are made of stars.
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  Speaker 4: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Seawan,
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  Speaker 4: cruising from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Hey Sean, Hey well ascot to be here with you today.
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  Speaker 4: We got a couple of stories about Jupiter, we got
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  Speaker 4: a couple of stories about Mars, and we're gonna talk
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  Speaker 4: a little bit more. A little rollover from last week's
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  Speaker 4: big story, which was the story about Jared Isaacman being
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  Speaker 4: appointed by the Trump administration. I'm sorry, the Time magazine
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  Speaker 4: Person of the Year, Donald Trump's pick for the for
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  Speaker 4: the Director of NASA. Sorry, it's still free. He was
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  Speaker 4: at the Stock Exchange this morning with his crew. I
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  Speaker 4: didn't see Isaacman there for that, but a lot of
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  Speaker 4: his people were there as they were ringing the bell
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  Speaker 4: to kick off the day. That of course continues to
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  Speaker 4: be a big story, especially in the world of space news.
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  Speaker 4: But let's start with Jupiter, because we've got a couple
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  Speaker 4: cool stories about Jupiter relating basically to you know, brightness
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  Speaker 4: in the sky. And then of course a story from
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  Speaker 4: about a week or so ago, back on December fourth,
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  Speaker 4: about a pretty cool event that happened on Jupiter.
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  Speaker 2: So first of all, there are certain times of the
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  Speaker 2: year where the planets just get into a position where
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  Speaker 2: people notice them right, people are noticing them a lot.
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  Speaker 2: And the two planets that are in kind of prime
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  Speaker 2: position for this are Venus, which is hanging around in
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  Speaker 2: the western sky right after sunset, so it is really
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  Speaker 2: hard to miss that one. Especially earlier this week, a
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  Speaker 2: crescent moon kind of slid by the planet Venus. They
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  Speaker 2: got in close quarters with one another and it was
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  Speaker 2: absolutely a gorgeous site. And then also the planet Jupiter
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  Speaker 2: is at a very special position, and that's what we're
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  Speaker 2: going to talk about now. And then the planet Jupiter
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  Speaker 2: is at a location that we call opposition. And when
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  Speaker 2: Jupiter is an opposition, what that means is if you
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  Speaker 2: look one direction, if you could stand on Earth's north
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  Speaker 2: pole and look in one direction, you would see the Sun.
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  Speaker 2: If you looked one hundred and eighty degrees opposite of
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  Speaker 2: that direction, you would see Jupiter. You'd be looking at Jupiter.
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  Speaker 2: So Jupiter is basically diametrically opposite in the sky of
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  Speaker 2: the Sun. Well, what that means when you're in your
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  Speaker 2: backyard just watching the nighttime sky is that as the
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  Speaker 2: sun is setting, Jupiter is rising, which means, in some
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  Speaker 2: you know, reasonably bright twilight, you see this massive, bright
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  Speaker 2: object rising up in the east. And that object gets
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  Speaker 2: people's attention because it's close to the horizon and they
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  Speaker 2: don't have to crane their neck to look up. They
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  Speaker 2: also don't have to wait until it's midnight, and so
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  Speaker 2: they can see it. Right. You know, maybe on the
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  Speaker 2: this time of year, you might be commuting home from
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  Speaker 2: work still right, and you see these very bright stars.
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  Speaker 2: One in the west that's Venus, one in the east
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  Speaker 2: rising that's Jupiter. Jupiter at opposition. So what it means
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  Speaker 2: again for Jupiter to be at opposition is it's at
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  Speaker 2: its close approach to the Earth as well, and so
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  Speaker 2: it's shining over there in the in the eastern sky.
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  Speaker 2: Once it rises, it's about four times brighter than the
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  Speaker 2: brightest star in the sky that we see that's not
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  Speaker 2: named the Sun, and that star is called Serious. So
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  Speaker 2: Serious is the brightest star in the night time sky.
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  Speaker 2: And Jupiter, weighing in in a magnitude of negative two
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  Speaker 2: point eight, that's an apparent magnitude, is about four times
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  Speaker 2: brighter than Serious, which means the only things brighter in
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  Speaker 2: the sky than Jupiter for the month of December are
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  Speaker 2: the Sun, the Moon, and the planet Venus. That's it.
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  Speaker 2: Everything else is fainter than Jupiter.
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  Speaker 4: During opposition, we talk a lot about how you know
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  Speaker 4: when the first star I see tonight thing, how typically
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  Speaker 4: you know that's going to be Venus and it is
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  Speaker 4: so bright. So for there a little while, we'll we'll
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  Speaker 4: have some folks maybe making a wish on Jupiter.
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  Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, I mean, and you know, I don't
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  Speaker 2: know the rule I don't have that rule book. Uh huh,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I've never seen that rule book. I'm not
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  Speaker 2: sure what it means to to wish on a planet.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe you're maybe it's like double secret probation or something.
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  Speaker 2: You're twice as likely to have your wishes.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know, could be, could be. You know, I
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  Speaker 4: know the rules concerning birthday wishes. You're not supposed to
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  Speaker 4: say what they are. You know, you're you're supposed to
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  Speaker 4: make sure I think your eyes are closed. You have
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  Speaker 4: to get all the candles out.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know what the specific rules.
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  Speaker 4: Are concerning the stars and planets, but if you do
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  Speaker 4: make a wish on Jupiter and big things happen for you,
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  Speaker 4: maybe throw a little our way. That's all I'm saying.
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  Speaker 4: That's all I'm saying. If it works, you know, let
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  Speaker 4: us know. Maybe then the next night we can try
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  Speaker 4: it and see how it goes.
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  Speaker 2: You heard it here first, That's what I would say. Now,
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  Speaker 2: pushing on planets is good. You heard it here first. Friends.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, breaking news now. The brightness and visibility of
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  Speaker 4: Jupiter won't help us with spotting any you know, massive
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  Speaker 4: storms that happen on Jupiter or here with the naked eye,
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  Speaker 4: But that doesn't mean that they don't happen from time
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  Speaker 4: to time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Here in Columbus, Georgia, just a couple of days ago,
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  Speaker 2: we had one whale of a storm. We it was
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  Speaker 2: raining buckets here on Tuesday, which is a couple of
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  Speaker 2: days before we recorded this show this week. And it's
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  Speaker 2: just an interesting reminder that thunderstorms actually do happen in
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  Speaker 2: the atmosphere of Jupiter in a not totally dissimilar way
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  Speaker 2: to that they do here on Earth. So you get
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  Speaker 2: a collection of moisture, you get a collection of condensation
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  Speaker 2: in the cloud tops of Jupiter, and that and that
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  Speaker 2: that condensation can cause convection, and that convection creates, uh,
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  Speaker 2: a rubbing of friction in the atmosphere that knocks electrons
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  Speaker 2: off their atoms, and suddenly you get these clouds that
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  Speaker 2: are charged, uh you know they they are they are
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  Speaker 2: charged by the removal of electrons and they're just ready
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  Speaker 2: to zapp something. So that's that's not entirely dissimilar to
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  Speaker 2: what happens in thunderstorms here on the Earth. So but
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  Speaker 2: the interesting thing is that earlier this month, an amateur
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  Speaker 2: photographer by the name of Michael Carr from Austria, not
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  Speaker 2: Australia this time, but Austria. So Michael o'carr from Austria
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  Speaker 2: captured some gigantic thunderstorms that look like giant white plumes
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  Speaker 2: in the atmosphere of not the Earth but Jupiter itself,
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  Speaker 2: and he sent these photographs into our friends at spaceweather
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  Speaker 2: dot com, and doctor Tony Phillips and the crew at
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  Speaker 2: space weather posted those pictures up and now you see
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  Speaker 2: a lovely picture in the archive of spaceweather dot com
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  Speaker 2: of a couple of gigantic thunderstorms in the dark brown
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  Speaker 2: belt of Jupiter in the southern help the belt, Southern belt,
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  Speaker 2: and so it's a southern equatorial belt SEB is what
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  Speaker 2: that's called. If you want to see this image, here's
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  Speaker 2: what you need to do. Go to spaceweather dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Look over on the upper right hand corner they have
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  Speaker 2: their archive, and just pull up the date for December
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  Speaker 2: the fourth. On December the fourth is where this photo posted.
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  Speaker 2: It's a great shot. They're fairly rare, so according to
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  Speaker 2: space weather, the last time these storms were seen was
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  Speaker 2: about eight years ago. So they don't have giant thunderstorms
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  Speaker 2: in the atmosphere of Jupiter nearly as often as the
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  Speaker 2: Great State of Florida seems to have them. So, but
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  Speaker 2: from twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen was really the last
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  Speaker 2: time that these giant convection systems were seen in the
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  Speaker 2: upper atmosphere of Jupiter, so again it's a rare event.
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  Speaker 2: Check out the cool picture spaceweather dot com archive December fourth,
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  Speaker 2: Michael Karr from Austria.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't have the specific date for the twenty
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  Speaker 4: sixteen twenty seventeen archive story, but you can just go
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  Speaker 4: back to December fourth. That's all you got it. It's
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  Speaker 4: not too far back to go. I predict this This
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  Speaker 4: will be Luke carol my Son's favorite story of the
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  Speaker 4: of the entire show this week. This is right up
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  Speaker 4: his alley.
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  Speaker 2: So what's funny for Luke, obviously, is just understanding that
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  Speaker 2: there's weather in the atmospheres of all the planets that
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  Speaker 2: have atmospheres that and it doesn't need to be a
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  Speaker 2: whole lot of atmosphere, as the planet Mars demonstrates to us, right,
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  Speaker 2: Mars hasn't actually a very thin atmosphere, but it still
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  Speaker 2: has weather systems that form and about a lot of
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  Speaker 2: what we learn about weather here on Earth applies in
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  Speaker 2: a more or less direct way to these weather systems
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  Speaker 2: in these other worlds, which is very interesting. So yeah,
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  Speaker 2: so Luke, you know, if you get bored with Earth
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  Speaker 2: Weather bud, go out and check out the space weather.
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  Speaker 2: And I don't mean just the Sun, I mean weather
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  Speaker 2: occurring on other planets, which is pretty cool. Another thing
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  Speaker 2: that's interesting is when you look at the planet Jupiter
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  Speaker 2: and these really detail images, all of the different colors
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  Speaker 2: that you see tend to also be different altitudes, and
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  Speaker 2: so it almost gives you that sense of texture once
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  Speaker 2: you realize that that the brown belts are lower than
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  Speaker 2: some of the white banding, and they're certainly lower than
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  Speaker 2: those two thunderstorms that we just talked about, which are
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  Speaker 2: convection systems that rise up above the brown belts. And
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  Speaker 2: the reason they're different colors at different altitudes is because
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  Speaker 2: there are also different temperatures, and so the kinds of
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  Speaker 2: things that either condense into ices or form droplets of
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  Speaker 2: liquid at different temperatures are visible at different altitudes. So
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  Speaker 2: it's almost like nature has given us a way to
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  Speaker 2: see the different depths in the cloud layers of Jupiter
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  Speaker 2: by tinting them different colors, much the way that if
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  Speaker 2: you dropped a few drops of food coloring into a jar,
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  Speaker 2: you could see the different the different depths to which
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  Speaker 2: that food coloring had sunk, right and so it's a
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  Speaker 2: way of kind of color testing the different altitudes in
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  Speaker 2: the atmosphere of Jupiter. So that's another fun thing to
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: remember when we're looking at pictures of actually any of
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  Speaker 2: those gas giant planets in our solar system.
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  Speaker 4: Jared Isisigman was our entire show last week. We talked
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  Speaker 4: about him pretty much start to finish. It continues to
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  Speaker 4: be one of those stories that's reverberating through the space community,
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  Speaker 4: obviously really around the world.
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  Speaker 3: This is a big deal.
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  Speaker 4: It was a big deal when we talked about it
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  Speaker 4: last week, and now he has finally made some public
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  Speaker 4: remarks about his nomination for the new administrator of NASA.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and again we don't want to beat dead horses,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: but Jaredisagman is going to show up on our show
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  Speaker 2: for a while now, and again we don't want to
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  Speaker 2: prolong this. We talked an entire show about Jared last week,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: which is a great show. By the way, You should
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: go back and listen to it if you haven't heard
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: that one yet. He's a really interesting guy, and I
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: think it's setting an interesting vector for NASA. But this
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: time the reason we're chatting him about him is as
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Wes just said. These are his first public comments after
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: being named as the appointee for the National Aeronautics and
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Space Administration by soon become President Trump. And so he
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: appeared at something called the Space Force Association's Space Power Conference.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: So it's not the Space Force necessarily, it's a Space
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Force Association, and it's a conference in Orlando. This conference
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  Speaker 2: just happened yesterday, and so it's important for us to
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  Speaker 2: understand what the vector of NASA might be. And so
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  Speaker 2: these are some comments that are kind of leading us
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  Speaker 2: down that primrose path. So, first of all, Jared came
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  Speaker 2: out and he acknowledged SpaceX, and he was asked about
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  Speaker 2: SpaceX and about Starship and the development for the missions
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: on board the Crew Dragon and also the development of Starship.
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  Speaker 2: So he made some comments about those things. He also
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  Speaker 2: gave multiple kudos to other commercial launch providers, which included
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  Speaker 2: Blue Origin among others. Right, So, and so here's the
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  Speaker 2: quote Jared Isaac Bean on Wednesday at the Space Force
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  Speaker 2: Snociation's Space Power Conference in Orlando, Florida. He says this quote,
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  Speaker 2: I love all about commercial space industry right now, just
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  Speaker 2: to point out they are all generally doing the same thing,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: which is putting a lot of their own dollars on
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: the line because they believe in the future that it holds.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: There's so much uncertainty around it too. Right there, there
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: will almost assuredly be some space economy that's up there,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: and we're gonna need a lot of people in this
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: room to protect it when it fully develops. So these
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: are quotes from Jaredisigman on Wednesday. By the way, the
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  Speaker 2: quotes come to his courtesy of spaceflightnow dot com. Check
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: out spaceflightnow dot com for lots of great space news.
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  Speaker 2: Jaredisigan went on to say these these quotes quote, but yeah,
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  Speaker 2: Blue Origins putting up a ton of their own money
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: on the line right now. Love everything that Rocket Lab did.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: It's another small, scrappy startup that's doing great. And for
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: sure SpaceX and their approach of fully reusable first and
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: second stage pretty awesome stuff. Unquote, says Jared Isisagman, the
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: new director of NASA. So, if you're wondering if NASA
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: is going to have a collaborative footprint with commercial space
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  Speaker 2: companies as they go into the next four years, if
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Jared Isaacman is approved as the new NASA director, I
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: would say yes, I'd say that that is pretty clear
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  Speaker 2: from these comments and just from things we already know. Again,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: go back and listen to last week's show, you'll pick
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: up a lot of that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, we covered a lot of why that's significant, and
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  Speaker 4: some of the reasons is significant, and some of the
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: maybe even the challenges he might face along with all
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: of that. Coming up after a quick break, we'll go
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  Speaker 4: to Mars sort of and talk about a couple of
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  Speaker 4: things related to Mars, including a rock that they found
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  Speaker 4: something weird inside.
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  Speaker 2: We'll do that next.
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  Speaker 3: I don't want to overhype this story.
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  Speaker 4: I'm just pointing out the fact that there are many
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  Speaker 4: cases in history and science where like an accident leads
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  Speaker 4: to some kind of a cool discovery. And I don't
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  Speaker 4: want to set the table for this sort of accidental
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  Speaker 4: discovery being too significant. But it's kind of a cool
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  Speaker 4: story that happened on Mars. As you know, they accidentally
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  Speaker 4: cracked open a rock and I don't know, I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I don't want to say it's some sort of alien
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  Speaker 4: life in there. I'm not gonna say that.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know what I do.
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  Speaker 4: You can maybe give me some better idea of what's
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: in this thing. But I'm looking at the image from
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  Speaker 4: this discovery, I guess, first of all, it's kind of
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  Speaker 4: cool we got things rolling around on Mars. Second of all,
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  Speaker 4: we got things rolling around on Mars that can take
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  Speaker 4: pictures and send them back to us. That's also fascinating.
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  Speaker 4: So let's talk about this rock they cracked open and
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  Speaker 4: what they found inside that, you know, really kind of
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: looks like somebody went crazy on a pistachio pie, you know,
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  Speaker 4: That's what it looks like. They just did a big
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: old karate like this is pistachio and then did some
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: sort of a karate chop into it several times.
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  Speaker 2: There were also these games that I used to play
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: when I was a much younger person, and in the
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: primitive days of shall we say computer gaming, where you
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: were looking for various minerals on you know, extraterrestrial planets. Well,
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  Speaker 2: that's exactly what this is. There are crystal mineralizations on
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the planet Mars, and sometimes we are intentionally looking for
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: them and we find them. But other times you just well,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: you just run things over and magic happens. I remember
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: once that I was backing out of the parking lot
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: with my Toyota pickup and I heard a popping sound
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and I thought, goodness, what was that? So I put
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: it in park, I got out of the truck, I looked,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: and there on the ground was a bag of Dorito's
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: that I had just run over and just popped. And
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: you know, the bag had been untouched prior, so that
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: you know, that's that's a fine, that's a great discovery
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  Speaker 2: right there, depending on what you do with it. So anyway,
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  Speaker 2: this is the kind of thing that can also happen
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  Speaker 2: on Mars.
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  Speaker 4: I'm just saying, yeah, it also depends on whether or
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: not they were, you know, space Doritos. What isn't it
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  Speaker 4: Dorito's that they took to space? And is that part
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: of the Jared Isaacman adventure. I mean, it all seems
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: to come back to Jared Isagman. So maybe that was
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  Speaker 4: one of his bags of Dorito's that fell back to Earth.
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  Speaker 3: Who knows.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if Jared Issagman has ever backed over a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: bag of Dorito's, heard the pop, got out and picked
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: it up. I don't know. We'll have to ask him
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: once he's NASA director.
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  Speaker 3: Directors of NASA, they're just like us.
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  Speaker 2: Friend friends. If you think this silly line of discussion
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: has nothing to do with the story. Well, you're wrong,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: because it's almost exactly what happened. The Mars Curiosity rover.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: The Mars Curiosity rover, not Perseverearance. That's the newer one.
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  Speaker 2: Let's make sure we keep them straight. It's the older
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  Speaker 2: of the two up there running around on Mars. Mars
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  Speaker 2: Curiosity rover ran over a bag of potato chips, heard
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  Speaker 2: the pop, jumped out of the rover, took a picture.
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  Speaker 2: That's not exactly that, but they did run over a
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  Speaker 2: rock and crush it. The nineteen hundred and eighty two
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  Speaker 2: pound Mars Curiosity rover, I think that's earthweight, by the way,
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  Speaker 2: ran over a rock and crushed it. And then they
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: took a picture of the rock that they had crushed.
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  Speaker 2: And when they did that, they found a really, really
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  Speaker 2: unusual set of crystals on the inside of that rock.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: As Wes Is described very eloquently, it's a mishmash of
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: green stuff that would make you wonder if you were
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: playing a video game, or if aliens had inside smashed
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: rocks on the Earth. But this is on Mars, and
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: what the green crystal is is a fairly uncommon pure
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: element of sulfur. Now, sulfur is not at all uncommon
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: on the Earth, and in fact, sulfur is really not
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: that uncommon on Mars either, but it's not usually in
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: a pure crystalline form. It's usually in some sort of
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: a compound like sulfur dioxide or other sulfur compounds that
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: get mixed into various minerals. To find crystals of sulfur
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: in their pure elemental form actually is mildly rare on
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: the Earth and much more rare on Mars because it
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: requires a very specific set of geological conditions. Now, when
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: we do these hey guess what they found on Mars stories,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: which we've done a lot on this podcast, it's usually, hey,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: look what they found on Mars. It's one more piece
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: of evidence that liquid water was running on the surface
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: of Mars, because these kinds of elements can only form
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: in aqueous environments, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Well,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: here's the thing. If there was a watery environment on Mars,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: it would have destroyed these pure crystals of sulfur. The
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: basic chemistry of water is that will break down these
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: kinds of crystals, and so then those now freely aqueous
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: forms of sulfur will be floating around the water. They
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: would recombine into the minerals like sulfur dioxide and all
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: the other things that form regular minerals as we are
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: more common minerals as we find them on the Earth.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing. This rock that Mars Curiosity ran
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: over is in a place called the Gadiz Valley, and
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: it's in the Gadiz Valley channel, a place where we
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: thought water once flowed on Mars. And water doesn't make
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: pure crystals of sulfur, So what is up with this? Well,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: one might ask this, Well, okay, what environments do we
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: expect pure crystals of sulfur to form in on the Earth,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: which then we can extrapolate that to Mars. We tend
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: to find them in volcanic environments, And yes, there are
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: volcanic environments on Mars. They're just not in the Godis
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Valley channel where Mars Curiosity is rolling around. So this
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: rock is kind of in a place where it doesn't belong,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and that's that makes scientists curious. Obviously, how did it
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: get there, Why is it still there? What is the
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: true geological history of this region of Mars that we're
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: studying because we think we know, but then we turn over,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: shall we say, maybe counter pieces of evidence, like pure
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: sulfate crystals contain within a rock, and then we have
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: to just we have to answer those questions, right, So
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: all scientists love a good mystery story. It's a mystery
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: to why we would find pure elemental sulfur in a
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: channel that was probably a liquid channel at some time
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: in the past history on Mars.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: How does that connect to this discovery that maybe the
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: water on Mars may have actually been a liquid CO two.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: And I didn't even know liquid CO two existed, But
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: I'm not an elementologist, so I don't know. I don't know,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: I don't know all these things. But is that common
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: liquid CO two?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm not one of
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: those either. I didn't know if I could reproduce that
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: word you said, but but I'm not one of those
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: either anyway. So well, there's two things to think about
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: before we leave the story of the crushed rock. Number One,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: maybe it came from somewhere else, right, so then you
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: know something transported this rock to this location. Could it
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: have been in a volcanic environment, somewhere else, and water
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: flowing on Mars actually swept it down and deposited it
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: in this location. That's certainly one possibility. Maybe the volcano
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: itself was so explosive as to fire this rock up
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: into the air where it traveled through the air on
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Mars and landed in this location. So there's those kinds
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: of transportation type questions. Another possible question is maybe the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: chemistry of what's going on in this location just isn't
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: what we think it is. And that's what I think
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: you're alluding to, because now the story that we have
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: coming up is this a group of scientists led by
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: people from the Mars Perseverance Rover. Yeah, that's the other rover, right,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: that's the newer cousin to Curiosity there. And they have
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: an instrument called the Moxie Instrument, which is investigating the
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: surface of Mars and looking at various chemical the chemical
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: nature of the Martian surface as well as the Martian atmosphere.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: These folks have come out and said, hey, you know
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: all of these all of these liquid flows that we
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: see on Mars that we've been saying for quite some time,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: well that's probably just more of the wet past that
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Mars had when it had rivers and oceans and had
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: a much more dense atmosphere. This group from the Moxie Instrument,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: from the from NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover who come out
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: and said, wait a minute, there's another possible explanation, and
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: that is liquid carbon dioxide. Now, if you have sufficient pressure,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: in other words, in the very early days of Mars history,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: when it's atmosphere was very thick, you could have had
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: a sufficient atmospheric pressure to condense CO two from the
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: gaseous state that we normally experience it in. And by
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the way, that's mostly what Mars atmosphere is today, is
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: gaseous CO two. If you squeeze that hard enough, you
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: can actually push it into the liquid form. You can
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: actually make it become a different state of matter, liquid
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: rather than gas. And once it's in the liquid form, well,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: there's nothing to say that it couldn't have fl across
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: the Martian surface in the forms of alluvial systems right
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: where where you get streams depositing rocks and materials, or
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: aqueous systems like streams and rivers, or maybe even CO
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: two oceans lakes. I don't know so that's one of
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the things that this team has come out and said, Look,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: we don't entirely know that conditions on Mars in the
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: past would not have supported liquid CO two. So instead
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: of just assuming that everything was water, we also need
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to consider it could have been either water combined with
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: CO two or just straight liquid CO two systems, and
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: water was never on the surface of Mars, which if
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: that's the case, that changes a lot of things. Now
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of rocks that we've found on the
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: surface of Mars, minerals like gypsum that these things we
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: have a hard time explaining how they would form without
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: H two oh, rather than just liquid CO two. But
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: yet the idea that it may be a combined system
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: of water and liquid Z two that to me actually
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: seems potentially reasonable. So let's hear from uh. This is
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Michael Heckt, who's the principal investigator on the Moxie instrument
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: aboard the Mars Perseverance Rover. He said this quote, it's
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: difficult to say how likely it is that this speculation
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: about early Mars is actually true. Unquote. He's referring to
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: liquid CO two, And he said this in an interview
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: with MIT news. Quote. What we can say, and what
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: we are saying is that the likelihood is high enough
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: that the possibility should not be ignored unquote. So in
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: the story that we found on space dot com today
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: where Michael Heck was talking with MIT news, he's saying, Hey,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: we can't say that, yeah for sure, where there was
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: liquid CO two on the surface of Mars. But there's
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: enough likelihood according to the numbers that are modeling, that
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: it might be true that we need to stop ignoring it.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: We need to consider it in all modeling moving forward
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: of any kind of water or liquid environments on the
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: surface of Mars that have led to the geological features
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: that we're investigating. So there you go. There you could
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: have it. So maybe the reason that green crystal of
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: sulfur inside that crushed rock under curiosity was because that
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: stream that was in was actually a CO two stream
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: and not an H two O stream. Interesting science taking
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: place on the surface of Mars and in the labs
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: of planet Earth.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about the final days to check out the
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Christmas Star at the Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, friends, we are going to be open here through
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: the rest of next week as we're recording in this
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: show the twenty first of December, and that's for the
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Christmas holiday here. But in the meantime you can come
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: see a great Christmas show that's all about astronomy and
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: about some ancient times of recorded history, the Mystery of
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: the Christmas Star. We find accounts of the Christmas Star
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: in the Bible and in other places, and this is
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: an event that led the wise men to Bethlehem to
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: look for the Savior. And so they came and talked
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: to King Herod along the way and said, Hey, Herod,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: have you seen this star in the sky. Well, all
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: of those events are recorded historically, but the astronomers that
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: wrote the show that we have called Mystery of the
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Christmas Star have investigated all of the kinds of things
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: that could have taken place in the nighttime sky that
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: might have accounted for this very unusual astrological event that
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: led these astrologers from the East to travel west to
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Bethlehem to look for a brand new baby being born
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: in a manger. So if you like that kind of thing,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: we have a great show playing in the Atmosphere Theater.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Check out the times for that show on our website.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Visit www dot cc s SC dot org. Charlie, Charlie,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Sam Sam, Charlie, I shammed that, Sam, Charlie, Charlie SamSam
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Charlie dot org, CCSSC dot org, and you can check
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: out that website. Come visit us for all the information
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: on the atmosphere theater shows as well as all the
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: activities taking place here at Columbus State University's Coca Cola
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Space Science Center.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
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