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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Today is Saturday,

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Speaker 1: Valentine's Day apparently, and we have a vault episode for you.

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Speaker 1: This is going to be The Burning Mountains of Io,

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Speaker 1: Part three. It originally published two thirteen, twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: It is part three of three. Let's jump right in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with the

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Speaker 3: third and final part in our series on Jupiter's moon Io,

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Speaker 3: the innermost and third largest of Jupiter's four Galilean moons

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Speaker 3: and the most volcanic body in our solar system. Years ago,

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Speaker 3: we did a multi part series on the moons of

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Speaker 3: Jupiter at large, but this time we wanted to come

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Speaker 3: back and do a deeper focus on Io, in particular

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Speaker 3: to explore its own peculiar Hadean prodigies, because it really is,

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Speaker 3: as I've said in the previous two parts, I think

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Speaker 3: probably one of the most dramatic places in our Solar system,

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Speaker 3: certainly beyond Earth. Now, if you haven't heard the previous

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Speaker 3: two parts yet, I would recommend you go back and listen.

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Speaker 3: Listen to those in order, but to briefly recap, we

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Speaker 3: started off by talking in detail about some really eerie

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Speaker 3: and thrilling images of the surface of Io, mostly based

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Speaker 3: on data collected in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: four by NASA's Juno mission. These images highlighted a lot

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Speaker 3: of the really enigmatic features of the Moon's topography, including

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Speaker 3: these gargantuan thorn like mountains and volcanic highlands, huge fields

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Speaker 3: blanketed and yellow sulfurous frost, Vast lakes of molten lava

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Speaker 3: constantly overturning with ways waves, giant lava flows spreading in

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Speaker 3: some cases hundreds of kilometers, forever resurfacing the Moon and

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Speaker 3: erasing all the scars of its history. We also talked

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Speaker 3: about the physical ironies of the conditions on Io, including

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Speaker 3: the fact that it is at once deep cold due

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Speaker 3: to its extremely thin sulfur dioxide atmospheres inability to trap heat.

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Speaker 3: Doesn't really have much of an atmosphere, can't trap heat there,

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Speaker 3: but of course in places it is unimaginably hot due

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Speaker 3: of course, two volcanic eruptions. According to a volcanologist we

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Speaker 3: discussed in Part one a single one of the Moon's volcanoes,

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Speaker 3: the lava lake known as Loki Petera, which we did

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Speaker 3: do a little focus on, that was the one that

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Speaker 3: has has a big island in the middle of it

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Speaker 3: actually has a number of islands, but one big old

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Speaker 3: island in the middle, which which shall not be named.

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Speaker 3: That one volcano emits more heat than all of Earth's

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Speaker 3: volcanoes combined, which is a pretty startling fact. We also

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Speaker 3: talked in previous parts a bit very briefly about the

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Speaker 3: historical exploration of Io, including Carl Sagan's account of the

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Speaker 3: discoveries made by the voyager one Probe in nineteen seventy nine.

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Speaker 3: We talked about the character from Greek myth that provides

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Speaker 3: Io its name, about how the story of Io was

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Speaker 3: told by Avid and other ancient authors, and how in

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Speaker 3: ancient times the character of Io was said to overlap

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Speaker 3: or interact with other religious figures, such as the Egyptian

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Speaker 3: goddess Isis. In Part two, we discussed when and how

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Speaker 3: Io tends to pop up in science fiction storytelling. There's

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Speaker 3: sometimes what at least feels like a dearth of Io stories,

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Speaker 3: and then we talked about a mystery regarding images of

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Speaker 3: so called ridges on the Moon's surface, which paradoxically look

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Speaker 3: extremely similar to wind driven sand dunes on Earth and Mars.

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Speaker 3: This is paradoxical because of the tenuous, barely their atmosphere

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Speaker 3: of Io, which wouldn't see to be thick enough to

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Speaker 3: support the winds needed to make dunes. And then we

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Speaker 3: got into a paper that offered a likely solution to

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Speaker 3: this mystery. Finally, in the last episode, we talked about

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Speaker 3: the possibility of life on Io Io being a blasted, cursed, irradiated, waterless, sulfurous,

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Speaker 3: freezing cold, searing hot kind of nightmare ball, a place

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Speaker 3: from the video game Doom I would not seem to

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Speaker 3: be a good place to look for signs of extraterrestrial life,

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Speaker 3: but if it were to exist there, we talked about

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Speaker 3: some astrobiology speculation on where and how that life might persist.

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Speaker 3: And now we are back today to round out the discussion,

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Speaker 3: talk about a few more things that's right, all new

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Speaker 3: things quite true in fact. To kick things off today,

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Speaker 3: I want to talk about a pretty new research paper.

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Speaker 3: I think it was just published a couple of months

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Speaker 3: ago in the journal Nature, I believe in December twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty four. Which addresses a longstanding mystery about the interior

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Speaker 3: of Io. We've talked about the mysteries of its surface,

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Speaker 3: but now we're going to talk about mysteries of what

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Speaker 3: lies inside. So this paper was by park at All

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Speaker 3: and it's called Io's Tidle Response Precludes a shallow magma Ocean,

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Speaker 3: again published in Nature twenty twenty four, So a bit

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Speaker 3: of context about this. For the past four decades or so,

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Speaker 3: there has been a question about what powered the volcanic

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Speaker 3: eruptions on Io, and it was long suspected for a

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Speaker 3: number of reasons, but not confirmed, that underneath the surface

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Speaker 3: of the Moon there lay a vast planetary magma ocean,

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Speaker 3: sometimes thought to be maybe roughly fifty kilometers deep below

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Speaker 3: the surface, a vast ocean of liquid magma stretching around

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Speaker 3: the planet, which found release points at each of Io's

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Speaker 3: roughly four hundred active volcanoes. So this was long suspected

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Speaker 3: by some researchers to be the case. But this new paper,

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Speaker 3: published in Nature in twenty twenty four has a group

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Speaker 3: of researchers who took information gathered by the NASA Juno

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Speaker 3: mission and used it to argue that the magma ocean

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Speaker 3: hypothesis cannot be correct, and instead each volcano is probably

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Speaker 3: powered by its own distinct magma chamber, and I'm going

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Speaker 3: to try to explain how we get there. So a reminder,

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Speaker 3: going back to part one of this series, volcanic activity

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Speaker 3: on Io was not directly detected until the discovery of

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Speaker 3: a volcanic plume by NASA JPL scientist Linda Morabito in

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine. The image was found in actually navigational

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Speaker 3: images created by the Voyager one spacecraft. Volcanism had been

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Speaker 3: hypothesized by the astrophysicist Stanton Peel beforehand, but this was

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Speaker 3: the first time direct evidence was identified. But ever since

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Speaker 3: the erupting volcanoes were first discovered, there has been this

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Speaker 3: mystery about like what's inside the moon to feed the eruptions?

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Speaker 3: And I wanted to read a quote here by JUNO

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Speaker 3: principal investigator Scott Bolton, who is quoted in a NASA

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Speaker 3: press release about this new paper. Bolton summarizes it saying, quote,

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Speaker 3: since Mora Beido's discovery, planetary scientists have wondered how the

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Speaker 3: volcanoes were fed from the lava underneath the surface. Was

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Speaker 3: there a shallow ocean of white hot magma fueling the volcanoes,

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Speaker 3: or was their source more localized. We knew data from

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Speaker 3: Juno's two very close flybys could give us some insights

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Speaker 3: on how this tortured moon actually worked. So how did

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Speaker 3: they investigate this? Well? I thought this was pretty cool.

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Speaker 3: So the Juno spacecraft did flybys of Io in December

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty three and February twenty twenty four, and during

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Speaker 3: those close passes, Juno interfaced with an Earth based tool

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Speaker 3: called NASA's Deep Space Network, which is a network of

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Speaker 3: three equidistant ground based radio antennas on Earth. There's one

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Speaker 3: in California, there's one in Australia, and one in Spain.

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Speaker 3: And the ideas with this equidistant spacing of these antennas,

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Speaker 3: they always at least one of them can maintain contact

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Speaker 3: with something in space. You never have it going dark. Together,

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Speaker 3: these instruments were able to acquire high precision Doppler readings

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Speaker 3: to detect minute changes in Juno's acceleration, which was in

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Speaker 3: turn able to tell us things about the gravity of Io,

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Speaker 3: but the gravitational influence of Io, because it was primarily

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Speaker 3: Io's gravity that would have been affecting Juno's acceleration at

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Speaker 3: these moments. So essentially researchers were looking for how the

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Speaker 3: gravitational field of IO changes during its tidal stretching cycle.

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Speaker 3: More on that than just a minute, because that would

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Speaker 3: help us know how rigid the Moon is. A more

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Speaker 3: rigid IO would be consistent with a more solid interior,

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Speaker 3: but a more flexible IO would indicate a liquid magma

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Speaker 3: ocean underneath. Now on that sort of flexing and stretching cycle,

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Speaker 3: IO is in a very close orbit around Jupiter. The

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Speaker 3: average distance between the planet and the Moon is four

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Speaker 3: hundred and twenty two thousand kilometers over the course of

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Speaker 3: its roughly forty two point five hour orbits. Now, that

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Speaker 3: is not much further than the distance between the Earth

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Speaker 3: and the Moon, which is about three hundred and eighty

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Speaker 3: four thousand kilometers, except think of how big Jupiter is.

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Speaker 3: In the words of Scott Bolton, the junoprincipal investigator IO

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Speaker 3: is orbiting a monster and this has many different effects.

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Speaker 3: We've talked about some of them already, but a big

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Speaker 3: one is a gravitational effect. Gravity follows the inverse square law,

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Speaker 3: meaning that the attractive force between two objects in space

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Speaker 3: is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them,

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Speaker 3: and another way of thinking about that is, as you

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Speaker 3: get closer to a planet, the force of gravity asserted

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Speaker 3: on you rapidly becomes greater. So get a little bit

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Speaker 3: closer to Jupiter and you get pulled harder toward it.

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Speaker 3: A strange thing about Io is that, in addition to

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Speaker 3: being very close in orbit around a very massive planet,

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Speaker 3: the orbit of this moon is also not circular. It

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Speaker 3: is slightly elliptical, meaning that if you look down from

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Speaker 3: above the orbital plane, you're going to see the orbit

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Speaker 3: being slightly longer in one direction than another. It's a

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Speaker 3: little bit more oval shaped than a circle. This elliptical

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Speaker 3: orbit is actually because of regular gravitational influence by two

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Speaker 3: more of the Galilean moons, Europa and Ganymede. These moons

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Speaker 3: are in what's called an orbital resonance with Io, which

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Speaker 3: means that their orbits are sort of like small integer

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Speaker 3: multiples of the orbits of iOS. They frequently line up

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Speaker 3: in the same place as Io as they're going around

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Speaker 3: the planet, and the fact that they continually line up

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Speaker 3: in the same direction over and over means that they

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Speaker 3: sort of stretch Io's orbit in that one direction. So

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Speaker 3: the elliptical orbit of Io means that the distance between

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Speaker 3: Io and Jupiter keeps changing, And so as the distance

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Speaker 3: keeps changing, the strength of Jupiter's gravitational pull on Io

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Speaker 3: keeps changing.

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Speaker 1: Two.

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Speaker 3: And this really affects the Moon because it's always the

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Speaker 3: case that the side of the Moon facing Jupiter experiences

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Speaker 3: a stronger pull than the side that's farther away. The

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Speaker 3: nearer side is pulled harder than the far side. But

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Speaker 3: because of the constantly changing distance between Io and Jupiter,

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Speaker 3: the difference between the pull on the far side and

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Speaker 3: the near side of the planet keeps changing too. And

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Speaker 3: this manifests as what planetary geologists might call tidal flexing.

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Speaker 3: It's a squeezing, stretching of the solid material that the

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Speaker 3: Moon is made of in the fluctuating gravitational field. You

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Speaker 3: can kind of just imagine this by by like holding

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Speaker 3: a rubber ball in your hand and just like squeezing

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Speaker 3: it over and over again. It's a it's a flexing

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Speaker 3: of the material that the moon is made of. Now, Rob,

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Speaker 3: did you ever do the thing in like the school

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Speaker 3: cafeteria when you were younger where you get one of those,

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Speaker 3: you know, cheap metal forks, cafeteria forks, and you bend

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Speaker 3: it back and forth a bunch of times, real fast,

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Speaker 3: until it gets hot.

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Speaker 1: No, I never did this. I didn't even know this

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Speaker 1: was a thing. I mean, I mean, physically, I understand

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Speaker 1: why it's possible, but I didn't know it was a

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Speaker 1: thing that kids do.

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Speaker 3: I guess it was the thing I did. I don't

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Speaker 3: know sure, is that are most forks supposed to bend

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Speaker 3: like that?

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Speaker 1: You're using your hands right, not your mind?

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Speaker 3: Yes, just hands, just hands. This this has got to

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Speaker 3: be possible only with like real bottom shelf cutlery. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: so you know, you flex a piece of metal back

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Speaker 3: and forth a bunch of times. Usually what you will

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Speaker 3: find is that the metal heats up. The flexing causes

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Speaker 3: a frictional force within the material that excites the atoms,

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Speaker 3: and it makes the metal hot or at least warm.

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Speaker 3: Similar principle here. The flexing of the Moon by the

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Speaker 3: changing gravitational field as it gets closer and farther away

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Speaker 3: from Jupiter causes frictional heating of the inside of the Moon,

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Speaker 3: and that heat is immense. It is so immense that

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Speaker 3: it melts parts of the Moon's interior, and this massive

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Speaker 3: build up of internal heat energy is released to the

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Speaker 3: surface through volcanic eruptions. But this brings us back to

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Speaker 3: the question we started with, what is the nature of

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Speaker 3: the subsurface magma source? To read from the paper in

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Speaker 3: Nature quote for decades, it has been speculated that this

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Speaker 3: extreme tidal heating may be sufficient to melt a substantial

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Speaker 3: fraction of Io's interior, plausibly forming a global subsurface magma ocean.

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Speaker 3: Many worlds are believed to have had magma oceans early

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Speaker 3: in their evolution, notably the early Moon referring to Earth's

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Speaker 3: moon there, notably the early Moon which is thought to

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Speaker 3: have had a shallow magma ocean in the first one

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Speaker 3: hundred million years, caused by the giant impact that birthed

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Speaker 3: the body, which that is not new information in this paper,

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Speaker 3: but that on its own is just a fascinating fact

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Speaker 3: to consider it, you know. So there is the main

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Speaker 3: theory of the origin of the current Earth and Moon

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Speaker 3: is the giant impact hypothesis. So the idea is that

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Speaker 3: roughly four and a half billion years ago, during the

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Speaker 3: formation of the Solar System, when the you know, the

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Speaker 3: planets were just accreting. There was a collision between the

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Speaker 3: early proto Earth and some kind of roughly Mars sized object,

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Speaker 3: and this collision caused a fracturing that eventually ended up

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Speaker 3: causing the the separation of the material that became the

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Speaker 3: Earth and became the Moon. So that's the common origin

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Speaker 3: of the Earth we have now and where the Moon

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Speaker 3: came from. And so the idea here is that for

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Speaker 3: the first one hundred million years or so after that,

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Speaker 3: the Moon probably had a global shallow magma ocean surrounded

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Speaker 3: by liquid by molten rockow would have been cool to see,

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Speaker 3: perhaps not physically cool, but anyway. So the authors cite

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Speaker 3: that as an example of a global shallow magma ocean

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Speaker 3: surrounding a planetary body or a moon, and then the

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Speaker 3: quote goes on to say Io's extreme volcanism strongly suggests

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Speaker 3: the existence of at least a partially molten interior. Whether

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Speaker 3: the interior contains a shallow global magma ocean has been

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Speaker 3: an outstanding question since the discovery of Io's volcanism. Now,

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Speaker 3: beyond these theoretical models, were there any recent experiments that

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Speaker 3: would have provided support for the idea of a global

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Speaker 3: magma ocean. I was looking into this, and it appears, yes,

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Speaker 3: there were some good reasons, some findings that pointed in

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Speaker 3: this direction. Apparently, the Galileo mission took some magnetic measurements

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Speaker 3: that were thought to be consistent with a shallow, shallow

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Speaker 3: reserve of global magma. And I also wanted to flag

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Speaker 3: another argument for the magma ocean. I came across in

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Speaker 3: a space dot com article by Keith Cooper, which pointed

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Speaker 3: out that previous data collected by the junomission had actually

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Speaker 3: enabled researchers to create the first global map of Io's

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Speaker 3: volcanic activity. Rob actually pasted a picture of this global

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Speaker 3: map in the outline for you to look at here.

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Speaker 3: And so it's got little color coded polka dots of

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Speaker 3: different energy levels of volcanic eruptions all over Io's surface.

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Speaker 3: The authors here assembled this map based on near infrared

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Speaker 3: signatures of Io's poll polar regions. In particular, data collected

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Speaker 3: by previous missions had already done some of this mapping,

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Speaker 3: I think, but had left us with an incomplete picture

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Speaker 3: of volcanic activity near the poles. And I was reading

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Speaker 3: a space dot Com article that quoted study author Ashley Davies,

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Speaker 3: a volcanologist, at NASA, JPL and Caltech Pasadena, and Davies

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Speaker 3: explained their findings by saying, quote, before this analysis, it

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Speaker 3: was thought that Io's polar volcanoes were fewer and more

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Speaker 3: powerful than at lower latitudes. We showed that polar volcanoes

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Speaker 3: are about as prevalent as at lower latitudes, and actually

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Speaker 3: with lower emitted power, suggesting smaller eruptions. And another thing

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Speaker 3: the researchers found is that these findings were interpreted by

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Speaker 3: computer modeling to lend support to the hypothesis of a

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Speaker 3: global subsurface magma ocean. So it seemed like this looked

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Speaker 3: good for the magma ocean.

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Speaker 1: Did they consider connecting these dots and seeing if it

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Speaker 1: made a pentagram or not, because that's generally what you

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Speaker 1: do in detective movies.

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Speaker 3: It really does look like people should be putting tax

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Speaker 3: in and putting string between them, doesn't it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, say it all lines up with that unnamed island.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, that unnamed island is I'm sure going to

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Speaker 3: be right around one of the yellow dots here. In fact,

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Speaker 3: I think I see where Loki Ptera is, and yes

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Speaker 3: it is. In fact one of it is one of

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Speaker 3: the hottest types of dots, any pentangles, I'm not really

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Speaker 3: seeing it.

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Speaker 1: If you want them bad enough, they will manifest.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, coming back to the new Jono experiment, park

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Speaker 3: it all from twenty twenty four, So the author is

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Speaker 3: use the Doppler data from the JUNO flybys and the

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Speaker 3: Deep Space Network radio telescopes, as well as data previously

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Speaker 3: collected by the Galileo mission to try to look at

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Speaker 3: the tidal deformation of Io. And again remember they're looking

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Speaker 3: for if it's more, if it's stretching more, if it

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Speaker 3: seems more easily deformed, that probably means liquid magma ocean underneath.

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Speaker 3: And if it's more rigid, that probably means that it

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Speaker 3: is more solid underneath. And they concluded based on their

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Speaker 3: findings that Io could not have a global magma ocean

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Speaker 3: underneath its surface. Instead, the Moon must be mostly solid

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Speaker 3: with individual magma chambers driving the hundreds of volcanoes. The

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Speaker 3: authors of the Paperwright quote, our results indicate that tidal

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Speaker 3: forces do not universally create global magma oceans, which may

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Speaker 3: be prevented from forming owing to rapid melt ascent, intrusion

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Speaker 3: and eruption. So even strong tidal heating such as that

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Speaker 3: expected on several known exoplanets and super earths may not

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Speaker 3: guarantee the formation of magma oceans on moons or planetary bodies,

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Speaker 3: and rob I've got a little artist's rendition for you

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Speaker 3: to look at here. This is an artist's impression of

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Speaker 3: the interior of Io informed by these new findings. Does

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Speaker 3: not show a global magma ocean. Instead shows these the pockets,

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Speaker 3: these magma chambers that are leading up to the volcanoes

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Speaker 3: on the surface, some of these volcanoes being connected to

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Speaker 3: plumes that we see erupting far over the surface of

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Speaker 3: the planet. This has more the look of you know,

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Speaker 3: it's like when you see superheroes and movies that like

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Speaker 3: have the fire inside and you see their skin kind

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Speaker 3: of cracking and then the fire is ready to come out.

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Speaker 3: It looks like it's about to go supermode exactly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, these kind of yeah, these deep I want

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Speaker 1: to describe them as veins because they don't really have

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Speaker 1: that kind of rooting pattern. But deep fissures, I guess

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Speaker 1: would be more glowing fissures would be the way to

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Speaker 1: describe them.

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Speaker 3: And so perhaps one reason Io doesn't have a magma

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Speaker 3: ocean would be all of its volcanoes, they may in

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Speaker 3: fact be dissipating the heat that would otherwise melt the mantle.

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Speaker 3: The author's right in their conclusion quote. On Earth, deep

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Speaker 3: melts can be denser than the surrounding mantle and thus

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Speaker 3: remain sequestered. In a basal magma ocean. On io, pressures

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Speaker 3: are much lower, so mantle melts are expected to be

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Speaker 3: always less dense than the surrounding solid mantle. The melts

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Speaker 3: will tend to ascend, making maintenance of a deep magma

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Speaker 3: ocean dynamically problematic. Conversely, if the melts are dense, for example,

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Speaker 3: if sufficiently iron rich, although a deep magma ocean could

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Speaker 3: then form, it would be hard to explain how any

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Speaker 3: such melt would ascend and erupt. Thus, we conclude that

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Speaker 3: the volcanism seen on iosurface is not sourced from a

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Speaker 3: global magma ocean. So it seems like that interesting idea

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Speaker 3: is likely put to rest unless something causes us to

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Speaker 3: really reinterpret these results. But despite the magma reserves not

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Speaker 3: being part of a sort of global shared ocean in nature,

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Speaker 3: I still think that leaves the volcanoes and the plumes,

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Speaker 3: and the eruptions and the lava lakes no less fascinating

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Speaker 3: and charismatic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Plus, you know, if you miss that, if

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Speaker 1: you miss that vision of what IO is, it's probably

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Speaker 1: out there somewhere else in the universe. So you can

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Speaker 1: just imagine that it's out there somewhere waiting.

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Speaker 3: For you used to be present on our moon.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's somewhere else in time and space and

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Speaker 1: in time, maybe a lot closer than you thought. Now.

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Speaker 1: One of the features of the illustration that you showed me,

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Speaker 1: and certainly listeners can find various images that either depict

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Speaker 1: this or are actual captures of this. One of the

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Speaker 1: distinguishing features that you often see with IO is that

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Speaker 1: of these plumes coming up from its surface, a volcanic

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Speaker 1: eruption that is ejecting material into space. And it is

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Speaker 1: always kind of weird to look at because it feels

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Speaker 1: completely out of scale, like we're not used to seeing,

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Speaker 1: you know, we we've all seen images of volcanic eruptions,

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Speaker 1: and yes they can actually they can look quite alarming

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Speaker 1: from orbit, but this just looks These just look amazing

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Speaker 1: because the moon in profile has this plume coming off

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Speaker 1: of it, just this ridiculously far reaching plume of volcanic eruption,

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Speaker 1: and so that's what I want to explore here in

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Speaker 1: this next section, getting into like what exactly this is,

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Speaker 1: what does it mean for not only Io but for

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Speaker 1: the the basically the entire orbital realm of Jupiter itself.

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Speaker 3: I totally agree with what you say about looking at

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Speaker 3: these plumes, that the plumes, even in real direct images

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Speaker 3: taken from reality, look fake. They look like they look

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Speaker 3: like art. The word photo can be misleading because the

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Speaker 3: instruments used to capture these images can be different. In nature,

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Speaker 3: it's not always just visual light. But but yeah, like

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Speaker 3: direct images of reality that we're looking at, but they're

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Speaker 3: that they look like a yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like this is grotesque and ridiculous. But I'm reminded

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Speaker 1: of pimples. You know, usually in profile, you are not

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Speaker 1: going to notice a pimple, And if a pimple were

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Speaker 1: to burst on a person, you wouldn't see that in profile.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't see like the silhouette of the eruption. And

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Speaker 1: if you were to see that, well, you would be

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Speaker 1: watching like an itchy and scratchy cartoon or a SpongeBob

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Speaker 1: cartoon or something. It would be a cartoon exaggeration of

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Speaker 1: reality and that's what the scale of these things really

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Speaker 1: looks like.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. We see plumes on Io that are

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Speaker 3: like somebody with a three inch high pimple that when

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Speaker 3: you pop it, it squirts like six feet off their body.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So what's going on here? Well, you know, here

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Speaker 1: on Earth we certainly have powerful volcanic eruptions as well,

400
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Speaker 1: we have in the past, and they occur periodically and

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00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:55,479
Speaker 1: they will continue to occur. But we also have some

402
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Speaker 1: other things going for us that you don't find on

403
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Speaker 1: Io and you don't find everywhere else. In our Solar system.

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Speaker 1: We have a robust atmosphere, We have resulting wind resistance

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Speaker 1: and sufficient gravity to place the necessary escape velocity beyond

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Speaker 1: what even a very powerful terrestrial eruption is capable of reaching.

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Speaker 3: Right, So that escape velocity number is going to mean

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Speaker 3: that our volcanoes, they might erupt quite powerfully, but they're

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Speaker 3: not blasting stuff out into space so that it never

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Speaker 3: comes back, or not much stuff certainly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've read that while terrestrial volcanoes can't really blast

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Speaker 1: things into orbit, they can reach really high into the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: in arguably touching space. For instance, the twenty twenty two

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Speaker 1: Hanga Tonga volcanic eruption supposedly shot water vapor up that

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Speaker 1: high to where it was essentially touching space. But it's

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Speaker 1: not quite what we're seeing with Io at all.

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Speaker 3: Right, And even if it were to go into space

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Speaker 3: and go into orbit, that still wouldn't be a scape velocity.

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Speaker 1: Right right. Yeah, you've got to get all the way

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Speaker 1: out of there, you got to. It's got to be

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Speaker 1: a complete breakup with the planet, not one of these things.

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Speaker 1: We'll continue to see each other socially. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: you've got to be out of there.

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Speaker 3: Volcanoes are not doing that.

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Speaker 1: So this thinking about this led me to, you know,

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Speaker 1: get into escape velocity uh here on Earth and elsewhere,

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Speaker 1: and ways to escape it. You know. The most obvious

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Speaker 1: way to do it is, of course, in a rocket.

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Speaker 1: That's what we're used to seeing with our Earth space technology.

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Speaker 1: The escape velocity on Earth is eleven point one eighty

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Speaker 1: six kilometers per second. That is, that's that's going to

432
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: be a higher velocity than is necessary for any of

433
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: the other inner planets. On Earth's own moon it's two

434
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: point thirty eight kilometers per second, and on Io the

435
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 1: number I've seen is two point five five eight so

436
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: just to give you a little frame of reference for

437
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here again coming back to what

438
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: does Earth have that a lot of these other suspects

439
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: don't you know? It has the gravity, it has the

440
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: robust atmosphere, and so forth. So this all adds up

441
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 1: to a greater necessary escape velocity for anything that is

442
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: leaving the surface of the planet or any point within

443
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: the atmosphere of the planet and hoping to free itself

444
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: of our orbital dominion. Now, one thing, I want to

445
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:26,719
Speaker 1: go ahead and get out of the way at the

446
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: top here there, I think a lot of people have

447
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: probably heard the legendary manhole shot into space story via

448
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: operation plumb Bob. These were atomic tests in nineteen fifty seven.

449
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: The idea here was that you had these test wells

450
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: for atomic detonations with a metal cap on the top,

451
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: essentially a manhole cover, and at least one of these

452
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: blasted the cap off, and it was said that it

453
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: achieved such velocity. In fact, I think the number that

454
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: is often cited is six times the necessary escape velocity,

455
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: and therefore flew off into space and is potentially still

456
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: out there well. According to a twenty twenty two snop's

457
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 1: article by Bethania Palma. There's nothing actually out there to

458
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: back this up. This all seems to stem from a

459
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: comment by Robert Brownly, who worked on the project, who

460
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,959
Speaker 1: remarked that the manhole cover in question would have been

461
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: blasted off at six times the necessary escape velocity. It

462
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 1: apparently went flying, but that's all that's really known. We

463
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: don't know if it was launched into space, and if

464
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: it was, we have no records or recording of it.

465
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: I think it's also been mentioned that it's possible that

466
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 1: it would have burnt up on the way up as well,

467
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: So you know, we have to consider all these options.

468
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: But there's no clear evidence that this thing actually made

469
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: it into orbit or beyond orbit and so forth.

470
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, all we actually know is that this was a piece,

471
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 3: a solid piece of metal that was hit from below

472
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 3: with tremendous energy. But we don't know exactly what happened

473
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 3: to that matter and energy afterwards. What its journey was

474
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 3: question mark right now. Of course, we already mentioned rockets.

475
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 3: Rockets are you know, we can compare rockets to volcanoes

476
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 3: in that you know, the rocket is taking advantage of

477
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 3: a very explosive chemical reaction in order to propel this,

478
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 3: you know, tower of steel and so forth upwards through

479
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:36,239
Speaker 3: the atmosphere, and you know it's and rocket science has

480
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 3: come a long way. It's ultimately a lot more dependable

481
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 3: than trying to blast into space on a volcano, which

482
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 3: again probably wouldn't give you the exactly the push you needed. Anyway,

483
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's been tried.

484
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 1: It you'd have to be you'd have to be so patient.

485
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think it's just maybe there's

486
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 1: some sort of sci fi scenario, or it would make

487
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: sense if you know of a science fiction tale which

488
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: someone uses a volcano to escape a planet's orbit, do

489
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: write in and tell us about it. Now, in terms

490
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: of just using explosions, though, and explosive events to potentially

491
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: transfer into orbit or beyond orbit, we do have to

492
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: mention Project Ryan here. This has come up on the

493
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 1: show in the past because it is an early concept

494
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: of how we might achieve interplanetary travel. It was a

495
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: nuclear pulse spaceship concept from the nineteen fifties and sixties.

496
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: I think a lot of you may be familiar with

497
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: this essentially built around the idea was built around the

498
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: concept you could propel a craft through space via a

499
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: series of nuclear detonations behind the craft. Not to be

500
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: confused with nuclear thermal rockets such as the Nerva project,

501
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: in that you'd have a nuclear reaction that was heating

502
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: fuel rather than depending on a chemical reaction to do so.

503
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 3: So the nerve rocket would still be a reaction drive,

504
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 3: but it would just be that the heating is from

505
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 3: nuclear sources.

506
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: Correct. Yeah, And that one was never tested in space,

507
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: nor was Orion. But the Orion program is like, let's

508
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: keep throwing atomic bombs behind the ship, allowing them to explode,

509
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: thus propelling our ship onward and onward through space with

510
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: each blast like pushing up against a blast plate on

511
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: the rear of the vessel. An idea that I've just

512
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: always found. I mean, it's it's it's preposterous and yet reasonable,

513
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: amazing in its own right, and you know, in in

514
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: Yourself to the Stars, Yeah, yeah, and yeah, it's it's

515
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: it's one that I've come back to a few different times.

516
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: But it's one of Sagan wrote about as well. Actually

517
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: up an old like press briefing where someone asked Sagan

518
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: about it, and you know, he pointed out he'd written

519
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: about it in Cosmos or I don't remember if you'd

520
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: written about it in Cosmos or you just discussed it

521
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 1: on the television series. But he pointed out like, Okay, well,

522
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: this is actually not a bad way to go ahead

523
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: and get rid of some of our atomic weapons. Let's

524
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: use them to propel a spaceship. But of course there

525
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: are all these various hazards to such a technique as well.

526
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: Some of these we'll get into here in the discussion.

527
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: So I was, you know, I was mostly familiar with

528
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: the concepts involved here, the potential benefits and the downsides.

529
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: But one thing that I didn't quite realize is that

530
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: early models of the project oriyon nuclear pulse spaceship during

531
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties actually considered it not only for

532
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: propelling a vehicle through space, but for using it in

533
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: liftoff in order to achieve escape velocity from Earth.

534
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 3: WHOA, I don't think I'd ever thought of it that way.

535
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was reading about this in a couple of sources.

536
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 1: One was in a Nuclear Pulse Propulsion Orion and Beyond

537
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: by Schmidt at All for NASA, and they pointed out

538
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: that early drafts of the proposal called for a bullet

539
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: light capsule to be launched from the ground from the

540
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: ground via an atomic detonation, likely from a Nevada nuclear

541
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: test site. The mass of the vehicle on takeoff would

542
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: have been on the order of ten thousand tons, most

543
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: of which would have gone into orbit. At takeoff, the

544
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: zero point one kiloton yield pulse units would be ejected

545
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: at a frequency of one per second. As the vehicle accelerated,

546
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 1: the rate would slow down and the yield would increase

547
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: until twenty kiloton pulses would have been detonated every ten seconds.

548
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: The vehicle would fly straight up until it cleared the

549
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: atmosphere so as to minimize radioactive contamination. This is one

550
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: of the big hazards and downsides to this whole concept

551
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: is that you would it would entail detonating multiple, multiple

552
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: atomic weapons in this model within the atmosphere. But even

553
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: if you weren't using that within its atmosphere to achieve

554
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: lift off, if you were going to the program where okay,

555
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:15,399
Speaker 1: you know, once you get your spaceship away from Earth,

556
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: then you can start dropping bombs in order to accelerate.

557
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: Even then you're still causing all of these detonations, and

558
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: then what happens when you reach your destination. There are

559
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: some models that were outlined that would call for detonating

560
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:34,279
Speaker 1: bombs as you landed, thus like you know, nuking the

561
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: landing site ahead of your arrival, and if there are

562
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: people on board, whether they're gonna have to deal with

563
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 1: with the literal fallout of all of that. The original

564
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: concept was created by Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson, and

565
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: Freeman Dyson's son, George Dyson, claimed historian of science, wrote

566
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: about all this in the book Project Orion, The True

567
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 1: Story of the Atomic Spaceship, and he points out quote

568
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 1: these early four thousand ton ground launch versions of Orion

569
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: specified the ejection of about eight hundred bombs raging and

570
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 1: yield from zero point fifteen kilotons at sea level to

571
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 1: five kilotons in space to reach a three hundred mile

572
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,360
Speaker 1: orbit around Earth. Points out that each bomb would have

573
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 1: weighed around half a ton. Less yield would be necessary

574
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: at lower altitudes, since the thicker air itself would absorb

575
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 1: energy and add to the kick against that plate. But

576
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: then you would need more yield. You'd have to steadily

577
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 1: increase the yield of the detonations as the vessel is

578
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:42,479
Speaker 1: propelled upwards, and this would have all required like tight

579
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: precision and exactly how you're detonating these bombs, and even

580
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 1: how you're getting them back there underneath the ship, like

581
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 1: is it a trapdoor or is there some sort of

582
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: a you know, some sort of a targeted rocket system

583
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: that launches them alongside the vessel and then back underneath it.

584
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,080
Speaker 1: You know, you would have to work out all of

585
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: those problems. So that's about eight hundred bombs. The original

586
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: design called for about two thousand bombs or two thousand

587
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: pulse units, far more than needed to reach orbit according

588
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: to their calculations, but that was because they'd set their

589
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: sites pretty high. Their slogan was Mars by nineteen sixty five,

590
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: Saturn by nineteen seventy, and they were talking about like

591
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: crews of one hundred and fifty people. So this was

592
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:28,359
Speaker 1: a really ambitious concept. Obviously, this is not the way

593
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: it all worked out.

594
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 3: I mean I said this in a totally different context earlier.

595
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 3: But there's a cartoonishness to this. It kind of reads

596
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 3: like a joke.

597
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does, and I think that's one of the

598
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: reasons it resonates so well. It's like this interesting perversion

599
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: of the accumulation of atomic weapons, though not necessarily a

600
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:52,800
Speaker 1: negative pervert, like the accumulation of atomic weapons is already

601
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: a perversion in many respects. But the idea of then

602
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: taking them all and using them to propel a spaceship

603
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: to another planet, you know, with such ambition, it you know,

604
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: it's ultimately more attractive. Like Sagan said, it's like, well,

605
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 1: that's one way to get rid of the weapons, or

606
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: at least that's the way he put it at one point.

607
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: Now the concept here continued to evolve again, they ended

608
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: up moving away from the idea of it potentially blasting

609
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: off of the surface of the Earth like this via

610
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: atomic weapon detonations. It had many powerful supporters, but it

611
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: never came to fruition for a variety of reasons, including cost,

612
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 1: including risk, and of course including international treaties about nuclear testing.

613
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: George Dyson points out that, yeah, you had these had

614
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 1: various drawbacks to such a program, including the idea that

615
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: if you were going to use detonations while potentially a

616
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: landing a ship in another world, again, you would be

617
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:02,239
Speaker 1: pre contaminating the landing site. So even if you even

618
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 1: if that wasn't going to make it too you know,

619
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: radioactive for then humans to venture out on the surface

620
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: of this destination world. You're still messing with what you

621
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:14,839
Speaker 1: were going to explore to begin with. You know, uh

622
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: so so many different reasons to not go in this direction.

623
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 1: Now you might be wondering, was there another way to

624
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,919
Speaker 1: get something into orbit from Earth's surface without some sort

625
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: of an explosion. Well, there has been research into the

626
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: use of centrifugial force, and such research actually continues at

627
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: least as as a rocket aid to decrease the dependence

628
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: on traditional rockets. You know, you can think essentially like

629
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:46,239
Speaker 1: slingshots in terms of like the basic fundamentals here. This

630
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing we could potentially come back

631
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 1: and do a more dedicated episode on this idea, because

632
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: again they're there. There as at least one company out

633
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 1: there that continues doing a lot of well funded work

634
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:03,280
Speaker 1: in this area. Now elsewhere in speculation and in science fiction,

635
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:08,280
Speaker 1: there are some ideas related to directed panspermia to consider,

636
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 1: so directed PAMs spermias, of course, they this would entail

637
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: the intentional seeding of other worlds with life, and in

638
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,360
Speaker 1: some creative takes on what this might look like, it

639
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: might entail some manner of biological propulsion, maybe some sort

640
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 1: of biocannon that enables a seed of some sort to

641
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 1: escape from one world's gravity, drift through space and find

642
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: another world. And we actually saw a vision of what

643
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 1: this might look like in a recent film that we

644
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: discussed on Weird House Cinema, Beyond the Mind's Eye.

645
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 3: Oh, that's right, with the yon Hammer soundtrack, It's like

646
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 3: the second or third track on there is the one

647
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 3: that the seeds blasting into space and then we see

648
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 3: them form. And what was the deal with that? Like?

649
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,800
Speaker 3: Why do I associate that with a cover of Black

650
00:39:57,840 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 3: Sabbath's Planet Caravan.

651
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: Because it was used as a music video for that

652
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: cover the Planet Caravan. Yeah, which kind of shakes out,

653
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. Now is this at all feasible?

654
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. Again, I think it comes down to

655
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: what sort of world are you attempting to escape with

656
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: this seed? You know, what's the gravity like, what's the

657
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: atmosphere like and so forth. Now I haven't seen this

658
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: movie in ages, but I believe the bugs in the

659
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven Starship Troopers movie also have something like this.

660
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: I think they're called plasma bugs in that and some

661
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 1: sort of organic cannon system.

662
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:39,399
Speaker 3: Right, biological artillery. Yeah, there's some big bugs that kind

663
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 3: of bend over and they like eject something out of

664
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 3: their backside that goes up into orbit and it takes

665
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 3: out the capital ships.

666
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,800
Speaker 1: All right, So some maybe some sort of weaponized version

667
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:54,240
Speaker 1: of something that might otherwise be used for pan spermic.

668
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 3: Purposes possibly, who knows.

669
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:02,240
Speaker 1: Now, there's another major player in the world of science

670
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: fiction biothreats, and that's the Tyrannids and the Warhammer forty

671
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: thousand universe. These are if you're not familiar with these,

672
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: they're kind of there's a little bit of zenomorph to them,

673
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 1: except they are a spacefaring species. They have big, big

674
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: leviathan bioships and they arrive on worlds and they invade

675
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 1: them and eventually like turn all the bio they convert

676
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: all the biomass on the planet. But then they have

677
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 1: to get it off the planet. And interestingly enough, unless

678
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: I'm mistaken, they don't have any kind of way of

679
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: like launching it directly back up with their you know,

680
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: entirely biological civilization. Instead, they depend on something called capillary towers,

681
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 1: which are like organic space elevators. So they just have

682
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: the big ships in orbit suck it all up back

683
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: off the surface of the planet, which I guess is

684
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: one way to potentially do this.

685
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 3: Sounds kind of necromonger style.

686
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a certain necromongernous to them, or

687
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: there's a certain tyrannid nature. Did the neckromongers one way

688
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: or the other? Including an image an illustration here of

689
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: what this might look like, you know, the big coiling

690
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: ambilical cord going from the planet's surface up to some

691
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: sort of you know, horrifying living alien vessel.

692
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 3: Yikes, give me out.

693
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: But anyway, back to the real world, back to volcanoes. Yeah, so,

694
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: while Earth volcanoes can't blast things into orbit space, volcanoes,

695
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: including ice volcanoes, which I think we've talked about on

696
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: the show before, absolutely can and the volcanoes of Io,

697
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:38,359
Speaker 1: dealing with much less gravity and atmosphere, can easily jet

698
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: their contents into orbit, and not only into their orbit,

699
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: but into the orbit of Jupiter. Ah.

700
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 3: Well, this actually brings us back to the one of

701
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 3: the first things we talked about in the series, when

702
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 3: we were discussing Carl Sagan's comments about what scientists knew

703
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 3: as the voyager probe was approaching Jupiter before they actually

704
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 3: had to direct evidence of the volcanoes. One of the

705
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 3: indications that there might be something strange going on with

706
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 3: Io was he said that they had already detected a

707
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:14,280
Speaker 3: huge doughnut shaped tube of atoms in orbit around Jupiter,

708
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 3: basically within the sort of the same position as the

709
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:20,359
Speaker 3: orbit of the Moon. Io made up of just like

710
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 3: just isolated atoms of things like sulfur and potassium and sodium.

711
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 3: And for some reason that's just going around the planet.

712
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: Why that's right. Yeah, These eruptions create a toroidal or

713
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: doughnut shaped cloud of charged particles that follow Io's orbit

714
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: and wraps part of the way around Jupiter. It's also

715
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:45,399
Speaker 1: referred to as a plasma taurus, and it produces ultra

716
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 1: violet light, intense radiation, and as Io orbits Jupiter, it

717
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 1: travels through the torrent, generating an enormous electrical current, thus

718
00:43:55,160 --> 00:44:00,439
Speaker 1: amplifying Jupiter's magnetosphere. So the ioplasma Taurus play a major

719
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: role in strengthening the most powerful magnetosphere in the Solar System.

720
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: I mean, the magnetosphere of Jupiter almost reaches the orbit

721
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 1: of Saturn. Now, there are other sources of charge particles

722
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: in Jupiter's orbit, including other Jovian moons and the Solar wind.

723
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: But according to the ESA, Jupiter's magnetosphere captures all of

724
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: these particles and then speeds them up like it's a

725
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 1: literal particle accelerator, creating intense radiation belts out of these

726
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: accelerated particles, and i OWE is a major contributor. These

727
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: radiation belts pose an additional obstacle to missions to any

728
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 1: missions to the Jovian moons, particularly any possible future missions

729
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: that might feature live crew members, because this would expose

730
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: them to lethal doses of radiation for like hours at

731
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: a time potentially, and it imposes a risk to equipment

732
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,279
Speaker 1: as well. So any mission through these belts requires, on

733
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 1: one hand, additional navigation precision to avoid as the ESA

734
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: points out, low latitude orbital paths around Jupiter, and also

735
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 1: you just need to have additional shielding and protection for

736
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: any gear because I've read that it essentially would be

737
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: it would be a case where whatever kind of equipment

738
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:17,239
Speaker 1: was aboard one of these craft, it would encounter as

739
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 1: much radiation as a terrestrial satellite would endure over the

740
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: course of multiple decades. And Joe I included a couple

741
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: images here in the notes for you. Here the sort

742
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: of highlight iOS plasma Taurus and shows shows us like

743
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: how it sort of features into the complex magnetosphere and

744
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:39,879
Speaker 1: orbital ecosystem of Jupiter. Ah.

745
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So branching out from the poles we see

746
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 3: the magnetic field lines, but then closer in to of

747
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 3: course those extend out really far into space. But then

748
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 3: in closer to the planet we see the gold ring,

749
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:57,280
Speaker 3: we see the ring of the atom or the ion Taurus.

750
00:45:57,400 --> 00:45:59,919
Speaker 3: And this is a lot of this, as you said,

751
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 3: stuff that is actually being ejected from the thin atmosphere

752
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 3: and uh, an orbit of io bi volcanic eruptions and

753
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,359
Speaker 3: just goes off into space and ends up in orbit

754
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 3: not around Io, but around Jupiter.

755
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I found found this that this is

756
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: just another way in which IO stands out and I

757
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 1: think is rather fascinating. It's it's again, it's easy to

758
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 1: consider IO and think, Okay, well it's not It's maybe

759
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: not a top consideration for extraterdustrial life. It's not a

760
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,320
Speaker 1: top consideration for some sort of uh you know, distant

761
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: future human colony. Uh. And it's not even like the

762
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 1: biggest moon. Maybe in your opinion it's not the most

763
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: impressive moon in the Jovian system, but when you look

764
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,719
Speaker 1: at details like this, it's clear that it is a

765
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: major player in the Jovian system. Like it, it contributes

766
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 1: quite a bit. So it would be you would be

767
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: in great error if you were to completely dismiss Io

768
00:46:57,080 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, it's not interesting it it doesn't

769
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: really do anything, etc. Like No, it's it's it's of

770
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: extreme importance.

771
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 3: I want to meet the person who says it's not

772
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 3: interesting because it's not the biggest size matters not. Come on,

773
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 3: look at the volcanoes. I know it's got that island.

774
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on here, you know, maybe maybe

775
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 1: not life, but maybe life. As we discussed in the

776
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: last episode, we just don't know. There's a lot more

777
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: to learn from Io, that's for sure.

778
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:29,919
Speaker 3: Did I tell you I've been thinking about that big

779
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,320
Speaker 3: island in the middle of Loki Potera as the island

780
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:32,800
Speaker 3: of Death.

781
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: That would be something if it had the like the

782
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: signature booklan topography going on there. Once we get some

783
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: more detailed imagery, all right, well, we're going to go

784
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 1: ahead and close the book on Io. Here you know,

785
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:52,319
Speaker 1: at least until more data presents itself and provokes us

786
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: to come back and take another look. But in the meantime,

787
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from all of you out there

788
00:47:56,320 --> 00:48:00,439
Speaker 1: if you have feedback on anything we've discussed in these episodes. Wise,

789
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: are there other moons that we've covered in the past,

790
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 1: Jovian moons, the moons of Saturn and so forth that

791
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: you think deserve a second, more detailed examination on the show.

792
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:15,319
Speaker 1: If so, write in let us know and we will

793
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:16,360
Speaker 1: consider giving it a go.

794
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 3: I feel like the obvious candidate is Titan, right, Yeah,

795
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 3: here we go deep.

796
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: On Titan, Yeah, or you know whatever, the biggest one is, right,

797
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 1: all right? Just a reminder to everybody's stuff to Blow

798
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with

799
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on

800
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns

801
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

802
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our regular audio producer JJ Posway,

803
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 3: and shout out special thanks today to our guest producer

804
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 3: Max Williams. Thank you so much. Max. If you would

805
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 3: like To get in touch with us with feedback on

806
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 3: this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for

807
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,280
Speaker 3: the future, or just to say hello, you can email

808
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 3: us at con Intact. That's Stuff to Blow Your Mind

809
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 3: dot com.

810
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

811
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 2: more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

812
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.

813
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