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Speaker 1: What if we've been looking for life in all the

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Speaker 1: wrong places. Sure, we're searching for signs of life on Mars,

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Speaker 1: and we're hunting down planets around other stars and far

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Speaker 1: away solar systems, hoping to find one with an atmosphere

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Speaker 1: and maybe even signs of life. But what if life

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Speaker 1: could be out there, but not on a planet, not

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Speaker 1: even on a moon. What if life could be out

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Speaker 1: there but hiding in something much smaller. Hi, I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, a sometimes author, and a twice

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Speaker 1: a week podcast host. You are listening to the podcast

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, brought to you by

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. My usual co host, Jorge isn't here

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Speaker 1: still this week. He'll be away for a little while,

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Speaker 1: but don't worry, folks, he'll be coming back soon. Our

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Speaker 1: podcast is dedicated to zooming around the universe, exploring everything

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Speaker 1: that's weird, that's amazing, that's crazy, that blows your mind,

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Speaker 1: that maybe you hear scientists talking about but never really

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Speaker 1: understood until today until we break it down for you.

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Speaker 1: So the goal of our podcast is to share with

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Speaker 1: you the amazing, crazy bunkers universe that we live in.

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Speaker 1: Without blowing your mind too much. We want to download

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Speaker 1: that information into your brain so that you really get it,

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Speaker 1: so you can appreciate, just like scientists on the cutting

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Speaker 1: edge of knowledge, how amazing and crazy this universe is.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of times on this podcast we go

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Speaker 1: far away and talk about the center of the galaxy

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Speaker 1: or other galaxies, or the structure of the whole universe,

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Speaker 1: or we zoom down a tiny little particles and talk

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Speaker 1: about how amazing and weird they are and the strange

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Speaker 1: rules that governed life of the quantum realm. But there

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Speaker 1: are mysteries close to home, and we have talked, for example,

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Speaker 1: about the mysteries of lightning and house skip stones, and

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Speaker 1: also about weird things going on in our solar system,

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Speaker 1: and that is the focus of today's episode. We want

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Speaker 1: to understand the weird stuff that's in our neighborhood. We

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Speaker 1: want to make sure, then we look over our shoulder,

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Speaker 1: we understand what's going on, because people think, oh, our

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Speaker 1: solar system, we've been exploring it for hundreds of not

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Speaker 1: thousands of years. Surely we understand what there is to

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Speaker 1: know there. Surely we have a grasp on everything that's

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Speaker 1: going on in the Solar System. Well, not true, and

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Speaker 1: some of those amazing mysteries are hiding in a place

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Speaker 1: you probably don't even think about. If I tell you

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Speaker 1: to imagine the Solar System, you probably think of the Sun.

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Speaker 1: First off, it's the biggest, baddest object in the Solar System,

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Speaker 1: and then of course the planets zooming around it, with

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Speaker 1: the star being our blue globe that we call home.

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Speaker 1: But there's something else there. There's another big piece of

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Speaker 1: the Solar System that takes up a huge chunk. It's

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Speaker 1: an important element, but it's not a dense object like

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Speaker 1: planets in the Sun. It's the asteroid belt. The asteroid

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Speaker 1: belt is this weird collection of rocks between Mars and Jupiter,

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Speaker 1: and it turns out there's a lot of things we

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Speaker 1: don't understand about. It's starting off with why is there

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Speaker 1: an asteroid belt. It goes planet planet, planet, planet, planet,

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt, planet, planet, planet, planet, anything that's weird in science,

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Speaker 1: anything that sticks out, that's a clue that's going to

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Speaker 1: show you the path to an answer. It's gonna reveal

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Speaker 1: something about why it looks that way and not some

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Speaker 1: other way. So every time we find a pattern that

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Speaker 1: doesn't quite fit, we ask why, and hopefully those answers

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Speaker 1: lead to mind blowing discoveries and probably more questions. But

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Speaker 1: it's not just the fact of the asteroid belt that's weird,

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Speaker 1: it's what's inside it. So the question will be answering

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Speaker 1: today is what's going on with the asteroid belt? And

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Speaker 1: I have to share with you that learning about the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt, I had a personal oh my god, is

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Speaker 1: it aliens moment when one of these strange, bizarre, crazy

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Speaker 1: features of the asteroid belt was first discovered. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: about that soon, but first I was wondering, what do

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Speaker 1: people know about the asteroid belt? Do people out there

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Speaker 1: even know what's in the asteroid belt? And why it's interesting?

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Speaker 1: Does everybody know that there is an asteroid belt? So,

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Speaker 1: as usual to sort of get a sense for how

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Speaker 1: much people know and what their questions are, I walked

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Speaker 1: around campus at you see irvine and I asked people, Hey,

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Speaker 1: what do you think is in the asteroid belt? People

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Speaker 1: thought that was a weird question, but as usual, they

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Speaker 1: were games. So thank you again to the students that

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Speaker 1: use the irvine for answering a weirdos weird questions. Here's

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Speaker 1: what they had to say. But before you answer, think

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Speaker 1: to yourself, do you know what's in the asteroid belt?

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Speaker 1: How accurately could you describe it? Here the answers from

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Speaker 1: students at you see irvine for the most precious rocks,

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Speaker 1: and then now it's a debris because space jump in

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Speaker 1: all that, and then it's accumulating, So it can be

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Speaker 1: I believe, a combination of things of sizes at least

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Speaker 1: from larger to smaller, tiny rocks next to moon, maybe

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Speaker 1: the size of the moon, bigger, I don't know, combination

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Speaker 1: of sand and some other chemicals. I would say they're

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Speaker 1: pretty big rocks, but there's a lot of diversity there.

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Speaker 1: I'm under the impression that it's a lot of rocks

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Speaker 1: and maybe a couple of like icy stuff in there too.

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Speaker 1: They could be as big asn't want to as big

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Speaker 1: as Earth. It just depends, like where you are. I

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Speaker 1: would say it varies a lot, like maybe somewhere from

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Speaker 1: like the car through maybe like a small moon or something.

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Speaker 1: So of course the most popular answer is asteroids. That

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Speaker 1: makes sense. You wouldn't call it the asteroid belt if

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Speaker 1: you didn't have asteroids in it. But what are asteroids?

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Speaker 1: And of course you heard a lot of people say, rocks,

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Speaker 1: big rocks, small rocks, read the little rocks. Some people

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Speaker 1: even thought that there were rocks in there the size

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Speaker 1: of the moon. So there's a big variety of reactions

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Speaker 1: out there to what's in the asteroid belt. So that

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Speaker 1: makes me feel like, yeah, let's dig into it. Let's

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Speaker 1: make sure everybody out there knows what the asteroid belt is,

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Speaker 1: what we know about it, what we don't know about it,

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Speaker 1: and what amazing potential alien discoveries it might be hiding.

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Speaker 1: All right, So first of all, where is the asteroid belt.

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Speaker 1: The asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter, right, so

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Speaker 1: we got four inner planets and then we got this

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Speaker 1: big swath or rocks or asteroids, and then we got

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Speaker 1: the outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, and the Neptune Uranus. Of course,

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Speaker 1: so we sort of divides the Solar system. Right, you

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Speaker 1: have these inner rocky planets and then the asteroid belt,

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Speaker 1: and then you've got the big gas planets on the outside.

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Speaker 1: And that seems like a clue, right, So let's dig

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Speaker 1: in a little bit. What is in the asteroid belt. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's not just asteroids, right, Asteroids means a lot of things,

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Speaker 1: and the asteroid belt was discovered actually in the eight hundreds,

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Speaker 1: because some of these asteroids in the belt are big, like,

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Speaker 1: they are really big. In fact, the asteroid belt doesn't

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Speaker 1: just have asteroids in it, it also has dwarf planets,

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Speaker 1: planets that are as big as Pluto, not quite the

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Speaker 1: size of our moon, right, but these are big rocks.

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Speaker 1: And remember, the way we see these things in the

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Speaker 1: sky is we can't see them glow directly. They don't

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Speaker 1: give off light the way the sun does. We can

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Speaker 1: only see them when the Sun's light shines on them

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Speaker 1: and then bounces back to Earth, the same way we

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Speaker 1: see our own moon, which also doesn't actually glow in

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Speaker 1: the sky. It's just a reflection of the light from

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Speaker 1: the Sun. So any of these objects for us to

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Speaker 1: see them, they have to be shiny, and they have

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Speaker 1: to be big, because that's the only way we can

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Speaker 1: see this stuff. So of course, in the eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: the first thing we found were the biggest ones. That's

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Speaker 1: back before we had amazing space telescopes to track all

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Speaker 1: these things down. And there are four objects in the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt that take up a whopping half of the mass.

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Speaker 1: That's right. You add up all the rocks and set

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Speaker 1: and sand and dust and ice and all that stuff

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Speaker 1: in the asteroid belt, and why it Half of it

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Speaker 1: is in just four objects, and these were the first

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Speaker 1: four scene. Those are Series, which is a little dwarf planet,

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Speaker 1: Vesta Palace, and Hygia. Again, I don't know who's in

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Speaker 1: charge of naming these objects. I'm not even sure how

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Speaker 1: to officially do pronounce them, but I think it's sort

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Speaker 1: of awesome that they're out there, that's sort of dominating

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Speaker 1: the asteroid belt. So it's mostly these big four asteroids.

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Speaker 1: And then in the late eighteen hundreds people were looking

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Speaker 1: more and more and they saw smaller rocks. But it

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Speaker 1: drops off pretty fast, and so it took until about

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight before people had seen a hundred of

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Speaker 1: these things, and then in the early nineteen hundreds they

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Speaker 1: had seen a thousand, and then by one we had

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Speaker 1: found ten thousand individual objects in the asteroid belt. And

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Speaker 1: now we have more than a hundred thousand individual objects characterized.

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Speaker 1: We know where they're going, we know half fast they're spinning,

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Speaker 1: we know their orbit. They each probably have names, though

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Speaker 1: those names, of course are probably not very creative. If

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Speaker 1: you have to name a hundred thousand objects in the

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Speaker 1: Solar System. You probably come up with a scheme, and

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Speaker 1: they probably have really boring names like letters and numbers.

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Speaker 1: So most of the mass is in just four these objects, right,

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Speaker 1: and those are really sort of like many planets. They

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Speaker 1: can't really even call those asteroids. But you know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of this is just terminology. What do you call

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Speaker 1: a planet? What do you call it dwarf planet? What

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Speaker 1: do you call an asteroid? This is just sort of

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Speaker 1: arbitrary stuff that we made up. Like a whole controversy

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Speaker 1: about whether Pluto is a planet or a dwarf planet

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Speaker 1: comes down to semantics. It's not like there's a clear

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Speaker 1: difference between one object and the other. People just have

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Speaker 1: to draw a line somewhere and then you say, well,

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Speaker 1: on this side of the line your planet over here,

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Speaker 1: your dwarf planet. Doesn't really necessarily mean anything. So sometimes

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Speaker 1: I feel like the whole controversy about whether Pluto is

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Speaker 1: a planet or not is a bit overblown. It's there,

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Speaker 1: we know what it is. It's a thing, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's part of our family. Do we have to be

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Speaker 1: so we're about labels anyway? Even if you add up

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Speaker 1: all the stuff in the asteroid belt, all the rocks

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Speaker 1: and dust and ice and all of that stuff that's there.

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Speaker 1: It's only four percent of the mass of the Moon.

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Speaker 1: That's right. The Moon is more than twenty five times

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Speaker 1: more massive than all the stuff in the asteroid belt

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Speaker 1: put together. And that tells you two things. One, we've

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Speaker 1: got a big moon, like it's the truth, like, of

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Speaker 1: all the moons in the Solar System, Earth is odd

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Speaker 1: for having such a big moon. Also, it tells you

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Speaker 1: that the asteroid belt is not that big, right, There's

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Speaker 1: not that much stuff in it. You probably imagine the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt is like space totally dotted with rocks, and

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Speaker 1: like that scene in Star Wars where the Millennium Falcon

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Speaker 1: is trying to navigate its way at high speed through

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Speaker 1: those rocks and just barely whizzing by and almost crashing.

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Speaker 1: That's not the experience we have when we send probes

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Speaker 1: through the asteroid belt, because the asteroid belt is not

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Speaker 1: that dense. Remember, space is big, like really really big.

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Speaker 1: If you're gonna fly out into the Solar System, you're

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Speaker 1: very unlikely to hit a planet, right, because even though

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Speaker 1: planets are big, they're not big compared to the Solar System.

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Speaker 1: In the same way, the asteroid belt. Even though it's

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Speaker 1: distributed across lots of little rocks, it still doesn't fill

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Speaker 1: up space. It doesn't even come close to filling up space.

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Speaker 1: We have sent lots of probes to the outer part

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Speaker 1: of the Solar System and never even worried about having

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Speaker 1: them hit an asteroid. It's difficult, in fact, to hit

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Speaker 1: an asteroid. The Japanese recently sent up an awesome probe

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Speaker 1: to land on an asteroid and punch it to see

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Speaker 1: what it's made out of and understand, you know, is

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Speaker 1: it made out of carbon or silicon or ice or whatever.

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Speaker 1: And that was hard, right, So it's not easy to

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Speaker 1: run into an asteroid. If you want to fly your

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Speaker 1: spaceship through the asteroid belt, most likely you'll never even

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Speaker 1: see one. And if you just watch these things, they

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Speaker 1: don't even bounce into each other. Very often. Asteroids of

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Speaker 1: any size hit each other around every ten million years.

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Speaker 1: And that's because number one, there aren't very many in

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Speaker 1: space big, but also number two, because it's been around

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Speaker 1: for billions of years, and so by now a lot

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Speaker 1: of those collisions that were if they were going to happen,

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Speaker 1: they sort of already happened. And what you have left

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Speaker 1: is a bunch of asteroids in their own lane. It's

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Speaker 1: like a huge traffic jam, but all the collisions have

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Speaker 1: happened already, and all those wrecks have been towed off

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Speaker 1: the road, and now you just have a bunch of

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Speaker 1: clean lanes and safe drivers and everybody's sort of go

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Speaker 1: in their own way, so you can very safely navigate

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Speaker 1: through the asteroid belt, though you'll see some weird stuff,

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Speaker 1: like some of these rocks that we see in the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt are kind of hard to understand. Some of

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Speaker 1: them are spinning super fast, Like it takes the Earth

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours to rotate one time, but it takes

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Speaker 1: these rocks less than thirty seconds some of them to

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Speaker 1: rotate to do a full rotation, and one of them,

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Speaker 1: the speed champion the asteroid belt, doesn't complete turn in

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Speaker 1: ten seconds, so it's spinning like crazy. And while most

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Speaker 1: of the things in the Solar System go in the

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Speaker 1: same direction, and that comes from the initial angular momentum

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Speaker 1: in the Solar system that's rotating blob of gas and

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Speaker 1: dust that formed the star and the planets and all

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Speaker 1: that stuff, some of them are going the opposite direction

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Speaker 1: their retrograde. They're like spinning the wrong way. So there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of clues there, and there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: clues about how the Solar System was formed. Why is

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Speaker 1: the asteroid belt there? Why is it there and looked

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Speaker 1: like this, Why does it have these weird elements in

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Speaker 1: it doing this strange stuff? A lot of fascinating questions

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Speaker 1: to dig into, and we'll dig into them, but first

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Speaker 1: we'll take a quick break. All right, So we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the asteroid belt. What mysteries does it contain? What

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Speaker 1: secrets of the origin of the Solar System are hidden

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Speaker 1: there in the asteroid belt? Well, it turns out a lot.

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Speaker 1: And the first question you might ask, if you're a

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Speaker 1: scientist is why isn't there a planet there? Like why

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Speaker 1: is there an asteroid belt and not just a planet?

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Speaker 1: If you make a plot of the distance from the

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Speaker 1: Sun of the various planets and you start with the ones,

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Speaker 1: you know, then there's sort of a gap there. You

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Speaker 1: expect there to be a planet there between Mars and Jupiter.

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Speaker 1: And very early astronomers, they were big into these kind

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Speaker 1: of patterns. We didn't have a detailed mathematical understanding of

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Speaker 1: how things worked, even before gravity and understanding orbits and stuff.

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Speaker 1: People were just looking at patterns like the distances from

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Speaker 1: these planets to the Sun, and it just didn't look right.

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Speaker 1: There was this weird gap there and made people think

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Speaker 1: could there be another planet there hiding. Then of course

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Speaker 1: we saw the little rocks there, and people understood, oh,

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Speaker 1: there's no planet there. There's just sort of a big

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Speaker 1: slew of rocks. But it makes you wonder why. And

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Speaker 1: one of the most natural stories to imagine is maybe

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Speaker 1: there used to be a planet there. Maybe there was

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Speaker 1: an ancient planet and got ripped apart by some disaster,

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Speaker 1: and what we're looking at now is basically the shrapnel

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Speaker 1: from some ancient murder mystery. They even named it. It's

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Speaker 1: called Phaeton, which is a really cool name for a planet. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: that's a cool story, but it's unlikely to be the

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Speaker 1: accurate scientific description of what happened there. But it just

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Speaker 1: shows you that people have been thinking about this for

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Speaker 1: a long time. People have been wondering why is an

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt there, Why isn't there a planet. And to

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Speaker 1: understand why there isn't the planet there, why we have

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Speaker 1: an asteroid belt, we have to understand two things. First

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Speaker 1: is how the Solar System was formed, Like, where did

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Speaker 1: this all come from? Anyway? How are any of the

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Speaker 1: planets made? And why wasn't there one made there? Well,

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Speaker 1: we think that the Solar System, it's ancient progenitor, is

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Speaker 1: just a big cloud of gas and dust and stuff.

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Speaker 1: Some of that gas is hydrogen, which probably comes from

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Speaker 1: the Big Bang. It's left over from billions of years ago.

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Speaker 1: Some of it is helium, also maybe from the Big

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Speaker 1: Bang or fused together hydrogen in the COREUS stars. And

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Speaker 1: then the rest of it, the heavier elements, either made

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Speaker 1: in old stars which then blew up and spewed their

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Speaker 1: remains all over the university, gathered back together by gravity,

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Speaker 1: or even the remnants of neutron star collisions. Remember, all

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Speaker 1: the gold and the heavy elements on Earth were made

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Speaker 1: not in stars, not in supernovas, but instead they were

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Speaker 1: made when neutron stars collided. Because that's the crazy situation.

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Speaker 1: You need to fuse those heavy metals. And we have

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Speaker 1: a whole podcast episode about that, which I suggest people

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Speaker 1: dig into if they like these questions. So we have

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Speaker 1: the raw materials, we've got the hydrogen, we've got the helium,

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Speaker 1: we got the heavy stuff. All this is left over

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Speaker 1: from previous activity in the universe and then what happens. Well, gravity,

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Speaker 1: Gravity is the dominant force that controls the structure of

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Speaker 1: the universe. It's the weakest force. It's totally weird. We

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Speaker 1: don't understand is it a force, is it just a

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Speaker 1: bending of space? Is it something else? Can it be

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Speaker 1: described by quantum mechanics. We have so many questions about gravity,

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Speaker 1: But one thing we do know about it is that

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Speaker 1: it almost always wins in the end because it's patient.

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Speaker 1: And remember that gravity has this other feature that, unlike

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Speaker 1: the other forces, it can't be opposed, like electromagnetism can

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Speaker 1: be balanced. You can have things that are neutral, but

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Speaker 1: gravity operates on everything with mass, and because we've never

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Speaker 1: seen anything with negative mass, gravity is only attractive. And

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Speaker 1: so it just keeps pulling and pulling and pulling. It's patient,

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Speaker 1: it's slow, but eventually it does what it needs to do.

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Speaker 1: And so you take this huge cloud of gas and

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Speaker 1: dust spread out across an enormous area, and slowly the

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Speaker 1: gravitational forces between these particles, tiny little objects. It tugs

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Speaker 1: them closer and closer, and it gathers them together and

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Speaker 1: eventually gathers it together. So densely that you get things

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Speaker 1: like stars and planets and other stuff. And you might think, first, well,

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Speaker 1: why doesn't it just gather everything together into one big blob, right,

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Speaker 1: Why doesn't it just make a big star? Why do

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Speaker 1: you get anything but the star? Then initial cloud of

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Speaker 1: gas and dust and particles. It's spinning, of course, because

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Speaker 1: everything in the universe is spinning from some previous interaction

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Speaker 1: that happened, maybe from the initial looks illusion of the

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Speaker 1: supernova or whatever that generated that stuff. And that spinning

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Speaker 1: can't just go away. Remember, in our universe we have momentum,

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Speaker 1: so if you push something in space, it will go forever.

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Speaker 1: If you start something spinning, it'll spin forever until something

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Speaker 1: stops it. And so this cloud of gas and dust

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Speaker 1: that created our solar system was spinning, and it is

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Speaker 1: still spinning, and that spinning keeps it from collapsing, but

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Speaker 1: only in the direction that it's spinning. It's spinning around

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Speaker 1: a plane. That plane is now the plane of our

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Speaker 1: solar system, and that's why everything in our solar system

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Speaker 1: is sort of flat, is spinning around the same axis

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Speaker 1: because that's the original access of spin. And in that direction,

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Speaker 1: gravity can't do everything. It's opposed by this rotation. The

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Speaker 1: rotation keeps it from falling into the very center. That's

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Speaker 1: why the Earth is in orbit around the Sun rather

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Speaker 1: than just falling in. That's why the Moon is in

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Speaker 1: orbit around the Earth rather than just falling in. But

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Speaker 1: in the other direction, perpendicular to the plane of the

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Speaker 1: Solar System, there's no rotation, and so gravity can do

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Speaker 1: its job and it flattens things as much as it can.

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Speaker 1: So gravity does all this work, and some of the

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Speaker 1: stuff is spread out, some of the gas and the

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Speaker 1: dust doesn't fall all the way into the center because

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Speaker 1: of this rotation. So the stuff in the center condenses

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Speaker 1: into a star, and the rest of the stuff grabs

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Speaker 1: itself together. It forms into these distributed objects, and that's

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Speaker 1: how you get the planets. The planets are only there

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Speaker 1: because the original blob was rotating. If it wasn't rotating,

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Speaker 1: we would just have one star. But now you have

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Speaker 1: these large gravitational objects, these planets, and they start to

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Speaker 1: affect the stuff around them. And Jupiter, of course, is

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Speaker 1: the monster planet. It has most of the mass of

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Speaker 1: all the planets. It's tiny compared to the Sun, but

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Speaker 1: of course it's huge compared to the Earth. And it

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Speaker 1: has its own gravity, and that gravity is very powerful,

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Speaker 1: and it yanks and it pulls on things. We've talked

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Speaker 1: to in this podcast about how Jupiter massages its own

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Speaker 1: moons because of the tidal forces, and this is exactly

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Speaker 1: the issue. We think that the gravity from Jupiter is

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Speaker 1: too strong to let the stuff in the asteroid belt

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Speaker 1: ever pull together to form a planet. So the asteroid

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Speaker 1: belt is sort of like leftovers from the original formation

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Speaker 1: of the Solar System. We think that a long time ago,

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Speaker 1: maybe in the first ten million years of the Solar System,

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Speaker 1: most of the Solar System looked a lot like the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt ahead rocks and chunks of stuff that were

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Speaker 1: slowly gathering together. But Jupiter prevents those rocks in the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt from getting any further. It keeps them down

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Speaker 1: from creating their own planet. It's like Jupiter is like

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Speaker 1: a union buster, right. It says, nobody get together. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna treat you all individually. And so the tidal forces

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Speaker 1: from Jupiter prevent this from happening. Every time Jupiter sweeps around,

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Speaker 1: it tugs on all these objects and prevents them from

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Speaker 1: gathering together. Remember, gravity is slow, and gravity is gentle

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't take that much perturbation to prevent it

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Speaker 1: from pulling all of this stuff together. And Jupiter is

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Speaker 1: a big, popa planet, and when it sweeps around it

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Speaker 1: messes it all up. And you might think, well, if

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Speaker 1: Jupiter can do that on the inside, wasn't to do

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Speaker 1: that on the out side. Well, the reason is that

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Speaker 1: Saturn is further away from Jupiter. There's a bit more

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Speaker 1: space there, and literally there's more space there, not just

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Speaker 1: in the gap between the objects, but because Saturn is

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Speaker 1: further out, it has much more space to move, and

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Speaker 1: Jupiter's gravity drops from much more rapidly as you got

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Speaker 1: on the outside compared to being on the inside. While

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Speaker 1: it seems more dramatic to have had a planet there

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Speaker 1: which then got torn up in some sort of ancient

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Speaker 1: battle or collision between objects, that's not the case. In fact,

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Speaker 1: nothing really even got started there. They think there used

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Speaker 1: to be a lot more asteroids than the asteroid belt

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Speaker 1: when the Solar System was young, but then those got

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Speaker 1: tugged out of orbit and collided and probably a lot

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Speaker 1: of those hit the Earth. There's this period in the

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Speaker 1: early Solar System called the late heavy bombardment when a

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Speaker 1: lot of objects came raining in and landing on the

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Speaker 1: Earth and the other inner planets. So most of the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt from the very early days has been lost,

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Speaker 1: either due to collisions like we talked about earlier, hitting

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Speaker 1: other planets, or just getting tugged out of their orbit

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Speaker 1: by Jupiter. So what we have is a small remnant

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Speaker 1: of our original asteroid belt. We're lucky, frankly, they even

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Speaker 1: have it at all. But there are some really fascinating

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Speaker 1: objects in the asteroid belt, and one in particular, that

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Speaker 1: dwarf planet Series that holds a special mystery, one that's

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Speaker 1: been in my mind for years, and we'll talk all

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Speaker 1: about it, but first let's take another break, al right.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about the mysteries of the asteroid belt,

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Speaker 1: why we have it where it is, what's in the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt, And the big Papa asteroid in the asteroid

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Speaker 1: belt is actually a planet, and it's called Series C

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Speaker 1: E R E S. And it's pretty big. It's almost

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Speaker 1: a thousand kilometers in diameter. This is no small rock.

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Speaker 1: This is something to be taken seriously. And Series is

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Speaker 1: a fascinating object for many reasons. But the thing that

430
00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 1: really sticks out of me is something which literally sticks out.

431
00:22:57,119 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 1: They sent a probe past and it took a picture

432
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:02,680
Speaker 1: of Series, and he saw something really weird on the surface.

433
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:04,880
Speaker 1: All right, if you haven't heard of this before, it's

434
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 1: gonna blow your mind. It blew my mind when I

435
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: heard it. Series has something on it which looks like

436
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 1: a pyramid. Now, I know, pyramids are a favorite element

437
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: of stories of the occult, and people think maybe aliens

438
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:19,879
Speaker 1: came to Earth and built pyramids and all sorts of stuff,

439
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 1: and a lot of that, of course, is nonsense. But

440
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 1: there is a weird pyramid on Series. And when I

441
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 1: first saw these pictures, I gasped. I thought, oh my gosh,

442
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: maybe this is the moment we find an alien artifact.

443
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: And I read a lot of science fiction and I'm

444
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:39,359
Speaker 1: desperate defined aliens, and in a lot of those science

445
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 1: fiction stories where humanity comes across aliens, this is how

446
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: it starts. We find some weird feature on somewhere in

447
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 1: the Solar System and can't be explained. I mean, think

448
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: about two thousand and one, right, the monolith it was

449
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 1: there orbiting Jupiter. What we're looking for is something unnatural,

450
00:23:55,440 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: something strange, something which we cannot explain without invoking intelligent life.

451
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:04,439
Speaker 1: And something like a pyramid. Wow, that's amazing. Now, this

452
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: pyramid on Series is pretty weird. First of all, it

453
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 1: rises five thousand meters above the surface. That's not tiny.

454
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 1: That's enormous, especially compared to the size of Series. It's

455
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: fully one percent of the height of Series itself. If

456
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: you had an object, if you had a feature that

457
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: big on Earth, it would be eight times higher than

458
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 1: Mount Everest right in relative size to the Earth. So

459
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: this is not a tiny mountain. If you are on Series,

460
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: you would definitely know about it. It seems like it's

461
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: about two hundred million years old. And they can date

462
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: these things by seeing how many collisions there are nearby stuff.

463
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: You can tell how old something is on in the

464
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: Solar System just by counting the sort of collision to

465
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: impact craters, because everything in the Solar System eventually is

466
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: hit with little rocks. Now, NASA, when they first saw it,

467
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: they announced this and they describe this, and I'm gonna

468
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: quote here they say, it's quote like nothing humanity has

469
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 1: ever scene. And not only is it something we've never

470
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 1: seen before, there's not even any other one on Series.

471
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: It's not like we saw this planet and we're like, oh, look,

472
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,160
Speaker 1: it has all these weird bumps on it. How could

473
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: that be? What makes those It's maybe evidence of some

474
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 1: new geological feature. There's only one. So we have this

475
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,640
Speaker 1: weird planet in the asteroid belt with this strange pyramid

476
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: on it. And this is not just a mountain which

477
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 1: looks a little bit like a pyramid. The first pictures

478
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 1: it looked a lot like a pyramid. It looked like

479
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 1: an artificial structure. This is the kind of thing that

480
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: makes people go, wow, we better get another picture of

481
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: this thing. And so of course they did. They sent

482
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,679
Speaker 1: out more probes and they focus telescopes on it, and

483
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: everybody wanted to know what is this weird thing on Series?

484
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: And the short answer is we still don't really know.

485
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: There are some nice ideas. People think that Series underneath

486
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: has a molten core, but it's not molten rock. The

487
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 1: inside of the earth. When you dig down into the earth,

488
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 1: this molten rock. Because of all the pressure, Series has

489
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: molten mud. Right. Do you think that there's water on Series?

490
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: Maybe liquid water and it combines with a service to

491
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,239
Speaker 1: make this sort of molten mud, and that sometimes this

492
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: mud might push up or spew up based on something

493
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 1: happening on the inside of series, and this mud is

494
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: actually not that hot, and so they call this sort

495
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: of like a cryo volcano, like a cold volcano. So

496
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 1: they think it's like some salty, rocky, frozen mud that

497
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: came out from the interior and pushed up like a

498
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: big ZiT. And that's possible, and they have some simulations

499
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,120
Speaker 1: that suggests this kind of thing could happen. But then

500
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 1: why is there only one? Why is there just this

501
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,719
Speaker 1: one feature? If this is the kind of thing that

502
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: happens inside series, you would expect to see more than one,

503
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,880
Speaker 1: and you'd expect to see big ones and then lots

504
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: of little ones. But you know, sometimes weird things happen.

505
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: Sometimes in the solar system, there's a one off event,

506
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: and that could explain it. It could just be a strange,

507
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: one off event in the solar system that nobody understands.

508
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: Or hey, it could be aliens. We're still not are now.

509
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: Don't go running off and tell people that Daniel said

510
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,959
Speaker 1: they're aliens in the Solar system. There probably aren't. That

511
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: kind of explanation requires extraordinary evidence. But I really enjoy

512
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 1: thinking about it. I really enjoy holding out hope that

513
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: maybe one of these things we're seeing in the Solar

514
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,479
Speaker 1: system is not just going to tell us about the

515
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: origins of our solar system and how it was formed

516
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: and how planets are formed, and how solar systems everywhere

517
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: put together, and those are all fascinating questions I want

518
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 1: the answer to. But I'm holding out hope that maybe

519
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: there's a clue in our Solar system of something weirder,

520
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: something grander, something which reveals the secret about the universe

521
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: we have been dying to know the answer to, namely,

522
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: are we alone? And so it turns out that the

523
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 1: asteroid belt not only does it have lots of these

524
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: fun mysteries in it, but there's lots of places to hide.

525
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: There's lots of these asteroids we haven't examined, and there's

526
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,439
Speaker 1: still the possibility that we could land on one of

527
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: these and explore it and find some thing weird, something

528
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: weirder even than a pyramid. We could find alien technology,

529
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: We could find all sorts of crazy stuff. The point

530
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: is that there's a huge amount of area in our

531
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 1: Solar system that remains unexplored, lots of opportunities to find life,

532
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 1: to find alien civilization, to find all sorts of crazy

533
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: stuff that would literally blow our minds. And so while

534
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,479
Speaker 1: we should zoom our minds around the universe and think

535
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: about all the crazy stuff happening far away and also

536
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: under our feet, remember that right here in our neighborhood

537
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: there are plenty of opportunities to make mind blowing, earth shattering,

538
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 1: paradigm shifting discoveries. All right, this has been an episode

539
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, all about the

540
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: mysteries of the Asteroid Belt. Thanks for tuning in, and

541
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: if you have questions about something you'd like to hear

542
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: us talk about, please send them to us at Questions

543
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks for tuning in.

544
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: If you still have a question after listening to all

545
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to

546
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,

547
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or

548
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

549
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

550
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For

551
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the i heart

552
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

553
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Speaker 1: favorite shows yea