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Speaker 1: You know, I look up at the sky at night,

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Speaker 1: and one of the most amazing things to stare at

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Speaker 1: as the moon, because it just seems so calm and peaceful,

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Speaker 1: hanging up there in the sky and looking down at us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: moonlight is so calming, right and reassuring. Yes, especially if

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Speaker 1: you're a vampire or a werewolf. I heard that the

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Speaker 1: moon actually has this crazy, violent, cataclysmic past. Yeah, that's right,

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Speaker 1: hanging up there in the sky acting all common nights.

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Speaker 1: It turns out it may have been party to one

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Speaker 1: of the greatest murder mysteries in the history of the

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Speaker 1: Solar system, a very impactful event, that's right. And I

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Speaker 1: love when there are things hanging out right there on

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Speaker 1: our faces that give us clues as to great drama

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Speaker 1: that took place in deep dark history. Hi. I'm Jorge.

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Speaker 1: I'm a cartoonist, and I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist,

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Speaker 1: And welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explained the

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Speaker 1: universe in which we look around at anything in the

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Speaker 1: universe and try to explain it to you. On today's program,

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Speaker 1: that big white, shiny thing in the night sky, the

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Speaker 1: thing you referred to as the moon, not any moon,

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Speaker 1: Not a moon, The moon, the moon earth little sidekick.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And if you're a person who wonders and

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Speaker 1: thinks about the history of things, you like all of

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Speaker 1: humanity must have looked up in the night sky wondered

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Speaker 1: what are the stars? Where do they come from? But

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Speaker 1: the biggest thing, the fattest thing out there in the

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Speaker 1: night sky is the moon. And what a mystery that

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Speaker 1: must have presented to ancient man and woman. Right, what

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Speaker 1: is that giant disk and where did it come from?

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Speaker 1: That's right, And that's a question that science is still

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Speaker 1: trying to answer. We've gone to the moon, We've looked

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Speaker 1: at the moon with crazy telescopes, people have walked across

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Speaker 1: it and brought samples back. But we still don't know

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Speaker 1: the answer to the question how did the Earth get

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Speaker 1: its moon. That's a crazy idea to me that we

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Speaker 1: don't know where the moon came from, you know, like

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Speaker 1: we it could have just appeared out of door one day,

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Speaker 1: or aliens could have dropped it off. Oh that's an

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Speaker 1: option I haven't heard yet that like somebody opened a

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Speaker 1: wormhole in the moon just look popped, there's a moon

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden. That's an awesome idea. Yeah, how

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Speaker 1: does something that big just come about right, so perfectly

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Speaker 1: round and pretty smooth and bright. Yeah, but it turns

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Speaker 1: out the Earth's moon is not like the other moon's.

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Speaker 1: You know, one of these things is not like the

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Speaker 1: other things, and the moon is kind of weird, which

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Speaker 1: makes it hard to explain. Yeah, it's a weird moon.

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Speaker 1: It's the only one we have, and so for a

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Speaker 1: long time it's sort of defined the whole concept of moon. Right,

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Speaker 1: But now that we've seen other planet and we've seen

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Speaker 1: how many little moons they have, were like, jeez, our

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Speaker 1: moon is kind of weird. Does my moon make me

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Speaker 1: look fat? You know, because we've got a big, fat moon. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this is an interesting question, and we wondered how

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Speaker 1: many of you out there no or think they know

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Speaker 1: the answer to the question where did the moon come from?

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Speaker 1: So I walked around the campus of UC Irvine and

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Speaker 1: accosted random strangers who are willing to talk to me

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Speaker 1: and asked them this question, where do you think the

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Speaker 1: moon came from? Yeah, so before you listen to these answers,

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Speaker 1: think for yourself what would be your best guess. Here's

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Speaker 1: what people have to say. I'm not entirely certain. I

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Speaker 1: just know gravity plays a part in it. There was

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Speaker 1: like a meteorite that hit the Earth which broke off

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Speaker 1: some rocks or something like that. From what I remember,

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Speaker 1: it might be that, well this is like the big Thing,

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Speaker 1: but I don't really know, no, No, My best guess

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Speaker 1: is that it either came from some sort of material

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Speaker 1: that was already in the atmosphere and by some sort

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Speaker 1: of a potational pull was brought in. Alright, So not

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Speaker 1: a lot of strong ideas here. I think it's a

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Speaker 1: pretty there's a good breath of ideas. Yeah. I like

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Speaker 1: the people who answer where did the moon come from?

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Speaker 1: And they would just say gravity, Like that's the answer too,

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Speaker 1: pretty much everything there, or the or someone said the

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Speaker 1: Big Bang. I'm like, yeah, of course everything came from

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Speaker 1: the Big Bang. That is that is a good default

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Speaker 1: physics answer that somebody asked you a physics question. The

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Speaker 1: answer is always the Big Bang. How does the hig

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Speaker 1: boson give mass to other particles? It's the Big Bang? Really,

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Speaker 1: you can't go wrong. So could have see that person

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Speaker 1: on the street figured out how to always be right? Well,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about the moon. How big is the moon? Daniel?

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Speaker 1: Or let's maybe take a step back. What is the moon? Right,

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Speaker 1: So it's just a definitional thing, right. You have solar

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Speaker 1: systems that have these hierarchies. You almost always have the

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Speaker 1: main masses in the center. You have star where most

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Speaker 1: of this has gathered, and then you have the planets

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Speaker 1: orbiting around it. And then you know, you have need

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Speaker 1: a name for the stuff orbiting around the planets. The

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Speaker 1: theory this could go on forever. Right, you have the

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Speaker 1: star with planets around it, and then moons around the planets,

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Speaker 1: and then you can have things orbiting around the moon,

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Speaker 1: and then things orbiting around those things, like moons can

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Speaker 1: have moonies. Yeah, I think they're called moonlits moon or

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Speaker 1: moon ETOs or something. Yeah. So so it's just it's

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Speaker 1: just the name given to something floating around a planet. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: If you're a blob of stuff floating around the planet,

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Speaker 1: then we call you a moon. But it's interesting because

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Speaker 1: you've got to be big enough, right, Like, if you're

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Speaker 1: just specks of stuff, then we call you a ring. Right,

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Speaker 1: if you're like distributed all the way around the planet,

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Speaker 1: then we got then you've got rings, Like Saturn has rings.

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Speaker 1: Saturn's got rings Jupiter's got rings, you know. Um, and

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Speaker 1: it's in some ways a question of definition, Like there

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Speaker 1: is stuff floating around the Earth into sort of a vague,

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Speaker 1: hazy rings. So could you say the Earth has rings?

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Speaker 1: You know, people argue about that kind of stuff, but

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Speaker 1: that's just like that's arguing about the definition. It's not

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Speaker 1: really arguing about the science generally. But it has it

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Speaker 1: has to have a certain size to be called a moon,

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Speaker 1: I think, so, yeah, otherwise it's just a rock rock

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Speaker 1: rock or rock let or rocky rocky dough. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: must be some organization out there that's tasked with classifying

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Speaker 1: what the moon and what's the moonlit, and what's just

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Speaker 1: a piece of ring and with just random garbage in space.

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Speaker 1: You know. Um, that doesn't sound a very glamorous job.

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Speaker 1: So how big is our moon? Our Our moon is

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Speaker 1: really big. Our moon is two thousand miles across, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty big compared to the Earth, which you know,

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Speaker 1: is only eight thousand miles across, and most of the

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Speaker 1: other planets their moons are tiny in comparison to the

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Speaker 1: size of the planet. So it's pretty big. So it's

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Speaker 1: like from California to about like Arkansas or something, you're

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Speaker 1: giving me the worries here, Like if you took the

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Speaker 1: Moon and sort of gently put it down, how far

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Speaker 1: would it would it look? Like? Why do you even

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Speaker 1: imagine that? Like placing the Moon on the Earth just

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Speaker 1: for scale, you know, like you were to walk across

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Speaker 1: the Moon, how long would it take you? You know? Right? Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: well not that long because you could bounce because of

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Speaker 1: the gravity is pretty low. But yeah, it's like two

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Speaker 1: thousand miles, so it's not as far as l A

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Speaker 1: to New York, for example. But it's pretty big, right,

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Speaker 1: It's pretty big. And the interesting thing is that it's

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Speaker 1: at the same scale as other planets in the Solar System. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so I looked it up, uh, and I did some

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Speaker 1: quick calculations because I'm a train engineer and I can

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Speaker 1: do some math here, and so like if the Earth

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Speaker 1: was the size of a basketball, the Moon would be

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Speaker 1: a little bit under the size of a tennis ball.

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Speaker 1: I prefer I preferred fruit based analogy. So I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: go with a watermelon and an apple. Watermelon, and then

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Speaker 1: are you hungry, Daniel? Do we need to take a

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Speaker 1: break here and break for a while? A right, as

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Speaker 1: a watermelon and an apple. Except what this interesting? The

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Speaker 1: distance is maybe a lot larger than most people think. So,

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Speaker 1: like you would have to put a watermelon down and

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Speaker 1: then walked about twenty five ft and then set down

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Speaker 1: that apple. And that's about the distance between the Earth

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Speaker 1: and the Moon. Yeah, it's crazy. These things seem big,

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Speaker 1: but they're tiny compared to the distances between them, right,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of a larger lesson for everything in space, right,

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Speaker 1: Like the Sun and the Earth seem huge, but they're

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Speaker 1: really far apart compared to their diameters. And our solar

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Speaker 1: system is far from the next star and and it's

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Speaker 1: incredible the distances between stuff and space. Yeah, okay, so

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Speaker 1: that's the moon. Um. The crazy thing is that we

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Speaker 1: don't know where the moon came from. That's right. People

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Speaker 1: have been trying to figure out how do you get

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Speaker 1: the Moon this big and this weird around the planet

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Speaker 1: this close to the Sun, and they can't figure it out.

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Speaker 1: You know, they have simulations and theories, and you know,

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Speaker 1: this is what scientists do. They say, can we explain

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Speaker 1: what we see? And they start with an idea and

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Speaker 1: they see does that work? Right? Can I take that

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Speaker 1: idea and end up with the situation I see in

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Speaker 1: front of me, and they have some ideas, and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about them, we'll dig into them. But the bottom

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Speaker 1: line is that none of the ideas we currently have

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Speaker 1: completely work. They all have problems, which suggests that the

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Speaker 1: answer is something we haven't yet thought of, or some

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Speaker 1: weird twist on one of the current ideas. All right,

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Speaker 1: bring it down for us. How what are the different

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Speaker 1: ways that a planet can get a moon? Like? If

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Speaker 1: I wanted a moon, what would I need to do?

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Speaker 1: You just go on Amazon, man, you can order anything. Well,

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Speaker 1: you can probably get a moon. Tomort. You want a moon,

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Speaker 1: I get you a moon by tomorrow afternoon. That's what

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Speaker 1: Walter from the Big Labowski would saying. Can I just

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Speaker 1: get a slightly a shorter person to just follow me

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Speaker 1: around and turn around me? That's not a moon, that

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Speaker 1: that's an assistant. You want somebody in your orbit, right

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Speaker 1: who protects you from stuff? Right, cleans out all the

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Speaker 1: space junk that's coming at you. Um. Yeah, So how

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Speaker 1: does the planet get a moon? Well? One option is

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Speaker 1: that it's formed when the planet is formed. Right, Let's

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Speaker 1: remember how our planets formed, and it's um not from

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Speaker 1: the Big Bang, right, Like our professional physicist from earlier. Directly,

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Speaker 1: it is from gravity though, So you're saying that the

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Speaker 1: planet can get a moon at the same time that

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Speaker 1: it's forming, kind of like a little twin brother. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So imagine how is the planet formed. Well, it starts

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Speaker 1: from a big poof of gas and dust and rocks, right,

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Speaker 1: and then gravity coalesces it together gradually, slowly, slowly into

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Speaker 1: a big clump. And you might wonder, why doesn't it

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Speaker 1: all form into one big clump, right? Why do you

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Speaker 1: get little bits left over as moons or other stuff? Um?

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Speaker 1: And this sort of two answers to that, like most

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Speaker 1: of it goes into the big clump. Right. First of all,

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Speaker 1: like most of the stuff goes into the planet. Um.

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Speaker 1: The reason it doesn't all is that some of it's

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Speaker 1: traveling really fast, and so rather than getting pulled down

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Speaker 1: into the central clump, essentially ends up in orbit. Right.

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Speaker 1: So what we call in physics, we call it angular momentum.

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Speaker 1: Supported you know, it's the reason that the Earth doesn't

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Speaker 1: just fall into the Sun. Right, It's because it's moving fast. Oh.

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Speaker 1: I see, So there's a bunch of stuff that came together,

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Speaker 1: But some of that stuff was a little bit out

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Speaker 1: on the periphery and didn't quite make it into the

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Speaker 1: main planet clump exactly. And it's all spinning, right, the

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Speaker 1: whole thing is spinning and it's going and so it

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Speaker 1: starts out spinning around and it's moving too fast to

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Speaker 1: get sucked in. Um. And the other part of the

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Speaker 1: story is that none of this happens in isolation, right.

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Speaker 1: The Earth is not in the middle of totally empty

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Speaker 1: space forming quietly. This stuff going on all the time,

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Speaker 1: And in the early soul or system, we think things

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Speaker 1: were pretty crazy and so um. It might have been

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Speaker 1: that the early blob that formed the Earth could have

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Speaker 1: formed a single planet with no moon and no other

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Speaker 1: objects or whatever. But it probably got perturbed a lot,

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Speaker 1: you know, things crash into it, things bump into it.

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Speaker 1: Even just the tugging of the Sun and other planets

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Speaker 1: coming nearby keep that stuff from really settling, and so

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Speaker 1: some of it ends up still out in space opening

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Speaker 1: around the planet. Okay, it formed at the same time

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Speaker 1: as the planet. Yeah, that happens in some cases, we think, um,

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Speaker 1: so sorry it's too late for you there. Or if

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Speaker 1: you wanted a moon from the from zero, you've missed

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Speaker 1: your window. I need to go back to the to

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Speaker 1: the womb. That's right, the womb moon the moon. That's

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Speaker 1: a that's a tongue twist right there. Um yeah. But

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Speaker 1: the better way, I think, the more popular way the

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Speaker 1: planets gives moves. All the cool planet at least get

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Speaker 1: moons by basically interacting with other objects. You know, like, um,

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Speaker 1: something smashes into them, or something flies by and they

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Speaker 1: capture it. Um, that kind of stuff. Wait wait wait wait, um,

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Speaker 1: so those are two other things. You can either capture

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Speaker 1: a moon, Like if the Earth was flying around and

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Speaker 1: suddenly there was a little bit of rock out there,

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Speaker 1: it would it could like bring it into its orbit.

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Speaker 1: It could bring it into its orbit. That's not very

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Speaker 1: easy to do because much more likely is that something

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Speaker 1: comes and smashes into the Earth and then the resulting

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Speaker 1: debris floats up into space and then turns into a

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Speaker 1: system of rings and then coalesces into a moon. That's

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Speaker 1: much more likely. It's because it's hard to capture something entirely.

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Speaker 1: Either it deflects right, it bounces off into space, or

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Speaker 1: it hits the Earth getting captured. It means you have

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Speaker 1: to be exactly the right speed at exactly the right

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Speaker 1: angle at exactly the right orbit. It's a difficult thing

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Speaker 1: to do. It's like getting a perfect pool shot, you know,

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Speaker 1: jumping the eight ball or something. You're saying, that's harder

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Speaker 1: than getting hit by something out in space. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: the Earth has gravity, right, So if something comes close by,

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Speaker 1: it's most likely just going to spiral in and smash

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Speaker 1: into the Earth, or it's going to bounce off into flect.

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Speaker 1: So coming in from somewhere else and then ending up

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Speaker 1: in orbit is pretty trick. Okay, So I think the

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Speaker 1: most likely way to get a moon is for something

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Speaker 1: to smash into the planet and the debris to float

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Speaker 1: up and then coalesce into a moon. Alright, let's get

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Speaker 1: into this smashing idea, but first let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: All right. So you're saying that one way to get

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Speaker 1: a moon, and maybe our moon came this way, is

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Speaker 1: that something smashed into the Earth and kind of like

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Speaker 1: broke off a piece that then became the moon. That's right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And that's a that's the way we think some of

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Speaker 1: the moon's have occurred in the Solar System. But it's

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Speaker 1: tricky to explain our moon, right, Um, and because our

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Speaker 1: moon is so big, right, Our moon is huge compared

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Speaker 1: to the planet, and so in order to make that

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Speaker 1: size the Moon work, you need a huge impact, right,

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Speaker 1: You need a ridiculously big effact. You can't just be

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Speaker 1: hit by laroc that knocks off a bunch of stuff.

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Speaker 1: You need a giant impact, like a planet killing impact. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the current models say that the kind of thing

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Speaker 1: that hit the Earth a long long time ago to

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Speaker 1: make the Moon might have been something the size of

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Speaker 1: a planet. It might have been a proto planet, might

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Speaker 1: have been something the size of Mars. Right, So we're

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Speaker 1: talking about like two planets colliding, right, This must have

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Speaker 1: been amazing to watch, right, right or not if you're

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Speaker 1: living in these planets, that's right. Well, we don't think

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Speaker 1: there was anything alive on Earth when it happened. The

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Speaker 1: best estimates say that this happened about um zero point

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Speaker 1: one billion years or a hundred million years after the

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Speaker 1: Earth was formed, So the Earth was still pretty hot

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Speaker 1: and a nasty when this kind of stuff happened. We

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Speaker 1: don't think there was any atmosphere of life yet collided

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Speaker 1: with another planet about its size. That's incredible, right, two

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Speaker 1: giant balls of rock just yeah, exactly, and um and

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Speaker 1: that must have been pretty kindaclasmic, right, A lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff must have gotten thrown off into space, and some

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Speaker 1: of that stuff coalesced into rings. So the Earth probably

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Speaker 1: had rings for a while, no way like Saturn. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know that has been pretty awesome, right, I kind

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Speaker 1: of wish the Earth had rings, Like what would that

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Speaker 1: look like at night or during the day, you know,

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Speaker 1: to see rings up in the sky. That would be

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Speaker 1: pretty incredible. So then the two planets collected is the

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Speaker 1: idea to planets collided, they form a new Earth with

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Speaker 1: some stuff out there in rings that eventually became the Moon.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And this collision was huge, right, It was

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Speaker 1: like a hundred million times the energy of the asteroid

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Speaker 1: that hit the Earth and probably killed the dinosaurs. So

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Speaker 1: it's a ginormous explosion. It's nothing that anybody could ever survive. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen the videos of the stimulations. Like

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Speaker 1: it's basically the Earth just gets pulverized and then just

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Speaker 1: kind of coagulates into this new thing. But it's like

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Speaker 1: it's basically obliterated. Yeah, and here you'll see the strength

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Speaker 1: of my fruit based analogy, which is imagined you take

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Speaker 1: two watermelons and you throw them together. What happens, right,

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Speaker 1: that's pretty much what's happened. You know, it's complete destruction.

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Speaker 1: The watermelons do not survive that kind of impact. So

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Speaker 1: then how do rings become moons? And why? Like, why

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Speaker 1: does Saturn still have rings and nut moons? Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a really awesome question because gravity, right, you would think

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Speaker 1: if stuff is floating out there in space, then eventually

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Speaker 1: gravity would coalesce, it would pull it all together into

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Speaker 1: a moon. And that does happen if you're far enough

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Speaker 1: away from the planet. If you're too close to the planet,

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Speaker 1: then the strength of gravity tugging on you from one

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Speaker 1: side and the strength of gravity tugging you from the

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Speaker 1: other side are too different. Because remember the force of

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Speaker 1: gravity depends on your distance from an object, and so

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Speaker 1: one side of the Moon is closer to the Earth

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Speaker 1: than the other side of the Moon, So the Earth

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Speaker 1: pulls on one side of the Moon more than the

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Speaker 1: other side, So it's literally pulling the Moon apart. But

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Speaker 1: the Moon is far enough away from the Earth that

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Speaker 1: the Earth is not strong enough to shred the Moon.

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Speaker 1: But if the Moon was a lot closer right then

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Speaker 1: it then it would be pulled apart. By these gravitational

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Speaker 1: they're called tidal forces. By the tidal forces, so there's

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Speaker 1: a region around every planet where you just cannot be

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Speaker 1: a moon because if you are, you're gonna get shredded, right,

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Speaker 1: So you just kind of get ripped apart. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: like a blender. There is like a blender. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: we've seen this happen if you remember the comment that

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Speaker 1: hit Jupiter um in the nineties. It passed really close

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Speaker 1: by Jupiter before it hit and Jupiter pulled it apart

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Speaker 1: into twenty six pieces because of his tidal forces. And

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Speaker 1: so the larger the planet, the stronger the force of gravity,

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Speaker 1: and the more likely this is to happen. Oh I see.

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Speaker 1: So if Saturn had bigger rings or rings that were

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Speaker 1: further apart, then the tidal forces would be less and

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Speaker 1: then the little bits of it would have time when

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Speaker 1: and kind of space to clump together. Yeah, but that's

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Speaker 1: a whole other fascinating mystery, like how long has Saturn

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Speaker 1: hand rings? How long will it continue to have rings? Right?

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Speaker 1: We think that those rings are pretty stable because they

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Speaker 1: have been there for like a hundred million years and um,

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Speaker 1: and because Saturn has really strong title forces. So anything

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Speaker 1: that coalesces, Saturn will tear up again, but we don't

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Speaker 1: really know for sure. And Saturn does have some moons,

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Speaker 1: and we don't know like are those moons in the

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Speaker 1: process of being trashed, Like if you fast forwarded a

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Speaker 1: billion years with Saturn look totally different or is it

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Speaker 1: looked this way for a long time. It's amazing to

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Speaker 1: me how dynamic the Solar system is. You know, like

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Speaker 1: if you look at a picture of the Solar System

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Speaker 1: from two billion years ago, you might not recognize it.

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Speaker 1: You could have a different number of planets, and all

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Speaker 1: the planets could have different number of moons, or the

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Speaker 1: planets could even be in a different order. It's crazy

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Speaker 1: stuff that's happened in our Solar system. Or even two

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Speaker 1: billion years from now, it might look totally different. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: in two billion years from now, I hope we've built

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Speaker 1: massive interstellar structures so we're recognizable from space. Um. But

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Speaker 1: even without that, Yeah, the planets could reorganize or realign,

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Speaker 1: or things could drift this way or the other way,

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Speaker 1: or something could come from another Solar system and knock

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Speaker 1: knock into something and change everything. Yeah, you know, people

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Speaker 1: might imagine the Solar system is really static because it's old,

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00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:57,159
Speaker 1: but we've only seen the recent history of it. And

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Speaker 1: one of the best ways to figure out what is

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Speaker 1: the history, what is the whole story here, what is

380
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:04,240
Speaker 1: the drama that's taking place out there in space, is

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Speaker 1: to ask these questions, you know, like how did the

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Speaker 1: moon form? Yeah, so that's one possibility, is that something

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Speaker 1: smashed into the Earth through all this stuff out there

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Speaker 1: that became a moon because it was far enough away

385
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Speaker 1: from the Earth. But there's some that's not quite right, right,

386
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Speaker 1: Like that doesn't quite fit what we see or know

387
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:25,760
Speaker 1: about the moon. Yeah, it's interesting because we can't quite

388
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:29,480
Speaker 1: make that story explain everything we see. And so one

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Speaker 1: of the things we see, for example, is that we've

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Speaker 1: been to the moon and we've looked at rocks from

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Speaker 1: the moon. You've been to the moon. I mean we

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Speaker 1: collectively as humanity. I like to take credit for humanities

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Speaker 1: of humanities collective. The Royal week there. Okay, we have

394
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Speaker 1: won a bunch of NBA championships, by which I mean

395
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:53,720
Speaker 1: me and Lebron James. Yeah, we are an acclaimed internet cartoonist.

396
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:57,280
Speaker 1: But which I mean me and you. We are Tom Cruise.

397
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:02,399
Speaker 1: You know, we are sexy in our fifties exactly. Humanity,

398
00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:04,520
Speaker 1: not me personally, has been to the Moon and brought

399
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Speaker 1: back rocks, and we've looked at those rocks, and those

400
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,639
Speaker 1: rocks look really similar to rocks on Earth. And you

401
00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:12,000
Speaker 1: should know that rocks on every planet look different because

402
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 1: they're formed under different circumstances from different bits and different

403
00:20:14,880 --> 00:20:17,960
Speaker 1: temperatures and different ages. So you can sort of tell

404
00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,040
Speaker 1: where a rock came from, Like really that different because

405
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:23,920
Speaker 1: they it all came from the debris of this Solar system, right,

406
00:20:24,080 --> 00:20:26,000
Speaker 1: wouldn't it all be sort of the same. But like

407
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 1: Mars is different from Earth, and we can we we

408
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Speaker 1: found rocks on Earth that we can tell came from

409
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 1: Mars because we know they're different. They have different structures,

410
00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,199
Speaker 1: formed in different temperatures at different times and this you know,

411
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,919
Speaker 1: different totally different kind of tectonic activity on different planets,

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Speaker 1: like Mars doesn't have any at all, you know, and

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00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:50,320
Speaker 1: letters of the bottoms that made in Mars Mars first, Yeah, exactly,

414
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:54,159
Speaker 1: make Mars great again. They don't like, they don't want

415
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:56,880
Speaker 1: to import our rocks anymore. The high tariffs on Earth

416
00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:59,640
Speaker 1: rocks anyway, So they can look at these rocks from

417
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:01,720
Speaker 1: the Moon and they say, they looked just like rocks

418
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:05,359
Speaker 1: from Earth. Right. So that's really interesting because suggests that

419
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:07,399
Speaker 1: the stuff that the Moon is made out of is

420
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:09,280
Speaker 1: really similar to the stuff that the Earth is made

421
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 1: out of. But if a really really big planet came

422
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Speaker 1: and smashed into the Earth, that's not what you would

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Speaker 1: really expect. You would expect that planet to have mostly

424
00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:20,000
Speaker 1: survived or that or to bounce off, or for this

425
00:21:20,119 --> 00:21:22,280
Speaker 1: stuff in the Moon to be made from that planet

426
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:24,600
Speaker 1: that came. Right, You started out with two objects, you

427
00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:27,320
Speaker 1: have a collision, you end up with two objects. You

428
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 1: expect sort of a you know, a connection between the

429
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:32,600
Speaker 1: incoming and the outgoing too, but instead both objects that

430
00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:35,639
Speaker 1: survives seem to be like the Earth stuff, which is

431
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:39,360
Speaker 1: a bit weird. But we couldn't, um, couldn't this new

432
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 1: planet have also mixed in with our old Earth. And

433
00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:44,160
Speaker 1: so that's why it's the same, you know what I mean?

434
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:46,199
Speaker 1: Like maybe the Moon and Earth is a mix of

435
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,800
Speaker 1: these two pre crash planets. They have these simulations that

436
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,399
Speaker 1: are totally crazy where essentially the other planet gets like

437
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:57,880
Speaker 1: subsumed into the Earth like including it's it's like core, right,

438
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:02,399
Speaker 1: So there's some other planets internal bits, right, the iron

439
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 1: and the nickel that makes up the inside of a

440
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: planet is inside the Earth. Now, like if you cut

441
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 1: the Earth open, you would find evidence for like, you know,

442
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 1: a second planet in there. And then what made the

443
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:15,760
Speaker 1: Moon was like the Earth's crust just got ejected. It's

444
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 1: like ice cream, like a swirly ice cream doesn't completely

445
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:22,920
Speaker 1: just mixed together, and that you would expect chunks. Yeah,

446
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:24,919
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're with me on the food out analogies. Now,

447
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:27,719
Speaker 1: trying to move us here towards dessert. We had our

448
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:32,399
Speaker 1: fruit as the meal is wrapping up. In some places

449
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:34,080
Speaker 1: fruit is considered dessert. I think we should do something

450
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 1: a little bit more meaty. Um. Yeah. So that's one

451
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 1: mystery is like why does the stuff on the Moon

452
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:40,640
Speaker 1: look just like the stuff in the Earth. And they

453
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 1: can kind of make it work, right, Like they can

454
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: make it work that most of the stuff from the

455
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,840
Speaker 1: Earth's crust turned into the Moon and the other planet

456
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,159
Speaker 1: just sort of got swallowed by the Earth. But it's tricky.

457
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,360
Speaker 1: It's not an easy thing to make work. And if

458
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 1: that happened, then you'd expect crazy stuff to have happened

459
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,200
Speaker 1: on Earth, like you know, huge oceans of molten talk

460
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,200
Speaker 1: of magma like magma oceans which is just a phrase

461
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:06,919
Speaker 1: I love saying and hearing, magma oceans um. But we

462
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:08,680
Speaker 1: don't see any evidence of that on Earth. Like people

463
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 1: who look at the history of rocks on Earth don't

464
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: see evidence of these of these magma ocetions that you

465
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:15,879
Speaker 1: would expected from a huge such a huge collision. It

466
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 1: doesn't look like we were hit by a big rock. Yeah,

467
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:20,159
Speaker 1: we don't see evidence for that on Earth. And you know,

468
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: when you put together this kind of story, you want

469
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 1: to check it multiple ways and does this make sense?

470
00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:26,679
Speaker 1: And let's see it in this other way? And we

471
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: can't find any confirmation for that currently, and the simulations

472
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,360
Speaker 1: are are pretty hard to get right. Before we keep going,

473
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: let's take a short break. Man, that's wild. So we

474
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 1: really don't know where the moon came from. Kind of Yeah.

475
00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 1: There are some other ideas, you know, crazy ideas about

476
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: how two other planets may have collided and basically totally

477
00:23:56,840 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 1: annihilated each other into some other sort of cosmic doughnut,

478
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,200
Speaker 1: which then spun around and formed the Earth in the moon.

479
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:08,280
Speaker 1: I said, that's right, we're doing double dessert here. One

480
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 1: of the crazy ideas is that the Earth essentially was

481
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:15,120
Speaker 1: obliterated in this collision, and everything just became a big cloud,

482
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: really fast spinning cloud, which ended up shaping shaped into

483
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: this crazy donut shape. It's spun out a blob which

484
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,160
Speaker 1: became the Moon. Um. That theory has some trouble because

485
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: it turns out the Moon doesn't really have like a

486
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: solid iron core like you would expect, like, you know,

487
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: the Earth has a as a release heavy metallic core

488
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: like most rocky planets, but the Moon is pretty light.

489
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 1: It's mostly fluffy, right. It has a little bit of

490
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: a core, but not very much. And so that's better

491
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: explained by saying that the Moon mostly came from Earth

492
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: crust stuff rather than from like an entire blob of

493
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,120
Speaker 1: planetary stuff, where you would get like the same same

494
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 1: amount of serving of the core as you would have

495
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:57,159
Speaker 1: the crust. Um. So all these theories have some problems. Well,

496
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: what are some other crazy ideas? Yeah, Well, a theory

497
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: that exists for a long time was just that the

498
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: Moon was captured, you know, like maybe the Moon came

499
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: from somewhere else or used to be its own planet,

500
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 1: or was wandering around just sort of got sucked into

501
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: the Earth's orbit. And this theory has a couple of problems.

502
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: One is that that's really hard to do. Like you

503
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,200
Speaker 1: do simulations and you have another planet approach Earth, as

504
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 1: we were saying before, usually they you know, spin off

505
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: each other and then one gets flung out into space

506
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,119
Speaker 1: or they end up colliding right to get it to

507
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:28,919
Speaker 1: come into stable or with that last for billions of years.

508
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: That's really really hard to do. That's a one in

509
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 1: a billion chance. So that might be possible, but it's

510
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 1: hard to do. And the other problem is it doesn't

511
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:39,679
Speaker 1: explain why the Earth and the Moon looks so similar, right,

512
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:41,919
Speaker 1: they have like these really similar rocks on them. The

513
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 1: Moon came from somewhere else. I was captured. It shouldn't

514
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: have the same basically rock d n a that we have. Okay,

515
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 1: but I heard another idea is that maybe the Moon

516
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,159
Speaker 1: fell off to Earth like it was part of us,

517
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: but then it was like I'll see you later. Yeah.

518
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: I think this is a really popular, super ancient idea,

519
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: Like if you look in the historical documents, people speculate

520
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: about this, you know, a thousand years ago before really

521
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: anybody knew physics, and somebody even wrote that the Pacific

522
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: Ocean was like the scar of the moon leaving the Earth.

523
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:12,679
Speaker 1: You know that a huge chunk of land to just

524
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: like floated off into into space because the Earth of spinning, um,

525
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: and it got turned into the moon. The moon is Atlantis?

526
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: Is Atlantis? Oh my gosh. I love when you can

527
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,880
Speaker 1: connect to mysteries at once. Um. But there's basically no

528
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: data to support that at all. I mean, it's just

529
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: I mean, we know the Pacific Ocean is not formed

530
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: by somebody taking a scoop out of the Earth, um.

531
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: And so it was just like random speculation. But it

532
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 1: was a popular idea for you know, a long time

533
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: among the medieval and ancient folks. So what's kind of

534
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: the best current thinking about where the moon came from?

535
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 1: I think, um, if you ask most scientists, and I

536
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: haven't asked most scientists, but I've asked a few. He

537
00:26:54,920 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: was asked science scientists. I've asked a scientist who's an

538
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: expert in planetary science, and I've asked myself. I'm a scientist. Um,

539
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: So yes, I've asked scientists about this. That's the deep

540
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 1: research we do for this show, folks. UM. And the

541
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: prevailing theory is the giant impact, right, it has some problems.

542
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: There are things we don't understand about it. But that's

543
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: sort of the progress of science. Right, we say, here's

544
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: a bunch of ideas. This one doesn't quite work, but

545
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: it mostly works. The elements of it that explain things

546
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 1: we see. There's just stuff to figure out. And so

547
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 1: that's that's the prevailing ideas, the giant impact. It's the

548
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: best idea we have. That's right, that it's that or

549
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 1: the Big bang? Man. Yeah, and I like this process

550
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: of science. You know, we have one idea, we refine it,

551
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 1: We refined it, and then we see doesn't fit the

552
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: data better than it used to. Is it sort of

553
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: coming together? It's like solving a murder mystery, right, You

554
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 1: look for clues, you come up with the theory. Something

555
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 1: doesn't quite work, makes you change your theory. Eventually you

556
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: have a story that explains everything you see and that

557
00:27:57,760 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: fits in with what other people say and that makes sense.

558
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,159
Speaker 1: You get more data, and that's what we're looking for,

559
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: and we have a story. They definitely wasn't murder. A

560
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: huge planet died um in the making of our moon,

561
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:10,679
Speaker 1: but we don't quite know how it happened. And it

562
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: might be that, you know, it's just sort of weird,

563
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 1: and it's it seems unlikely that this sort of configuration

564
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,360
Speaker 1: would happen, and maybe it was unlikely, or maybe there's

565
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 1: some part of the story we haven't understood, like there

566
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: was two cataclysms, or you know, two planets hit the

567
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 1: Earth or something like that makes you wonder, what if

568
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 1: that other planet or asteroid hadn't hit us, you know,

569
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: if it just missed by a few degrees, we wouldn't

570
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: have a moon and we would have a super different

571
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: planet Earth, right, Yeah, and things could be very different.

572
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: You know. The reason we have tides is because we

573
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: have the Moon, and the moon stabilizes the Earth's orbit,

574
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: and we think that the collision that caused the moon

575
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: might have also caused the tilt of the Earth, which

576
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: means if we didn't have a moon, we might not

577
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: have tides, we might not have seasons, and that's a

578
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: pretty big change in what life on Earth is like, right,

579
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 1: And a lot of people think the tides were critical

580
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: to life because as the sea comes in and out,

581
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a lot of slashing around, which

582
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: is what you need to mix up those basic organic

583
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: chemicals into something that might turn into life and so yeah,

584
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: we might have the Moon to thank for the fact

585
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: that we're even here to ask about it. It just

586
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: that a planet had to die. That's right to get

587
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: to But in the interest of all things good, so

588
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: that we could be here eating watermelons, somebody had to

589
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: sacrifice a big planet. So yeah, that's another one of

590
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: these crazy mysteries that are just staring at us in

591
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: the face every single night. And when you think about

592
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: the Solar System next time, remember it's not static, it's dynamic.

593
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: There is stuff happening, and there is a story. It's

594
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: playing out really slowly right geological cosmic time scales. But

595
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: if you took a time lapse video of the Solar system,

596
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: it would seem like a crazy dance party. Yeah, so

597
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: next time you are mooning the moon, pull up your

598
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: pants and show some respect, because that we owe the

599
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: Moon a big thank you. All right, thanks for listening

600
00:29:52,800 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: to everyone, See you next time. If you still have

601
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: a question after listening to all these explanations, please drop

602
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: us a line. We'd love to hear from you. You

603
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: can find us at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel

604
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: and Jorge that's one word, or email us at Feedback

605
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: at Daniel and Jorge dot com