WEBVTT - Asteroooooid De-FENSE! 0:00:01.490 --> 0:00:05.010 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.150 --> 0:00:13.990 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.240 and Jerry's here, too, with their laser blaster. Yeah, and 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:19.280 this is Stuff You Should Know. 0:00:20.260 --> 0:00:23.320 I was reminded today of the Asteroids joke from the 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:24.200 movie Vacation. 0:00:26.020 --> 0:00:27.659 I don't remember that one. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:29.280 It's when they go visit Cousin Eddie. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.100 And the two boys are hanging out, Anthony Michael Holland, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.879 the cousin. And he's talking about you got Pac-Man something, 0:00:36.900 --> 0:00:40.900 you got asteroids. And I think he says something like, no, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.199 but my dad does. And sometimes he can't even sit 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:45.500 on the toilet or something like that. 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:47.220 Dumb, dumb joke. 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.650 That is a dumb joke. That's a Chevy Chase level joke. 0:00:51.100 --> 0:00:53.210 Oh, he didn't write that. It was John Hughes. 0:00:54.470 --> 0:00:57.130 Yeah, I don't know. I think Chevy Chase maybe contributed 0:00:57.190 --> 0:00:57.550 that one. 0:00:58.170 --> 0:00:58.310 Okay. 0:00:59.350 --> 0:01:03.180 I know your lifelong grudge against Chevy Chase continues. 0:01:03.740 --> 0:01:05.680 Yeah, it really does. Unabated. 0:01:05.700 --> 0:01:06.360 I know. 0:01:07.540 --> 0:01:10.620 So we are talking about asteroids, not hemorrhoids, I think 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:11.760 is what they were getting at, right? 0:01:11.780 --> 0:01:12.240 Yeah, probably. 0:01:13.060 --> 0:01:16.620 And they are small, rocky bodies. That's the point here. 0:01:16.670 --> 0:01:22.390 These are essentially two different things, Chuck. They're either ancient 0:01:23.230 --> 0:01:26.130 pieces of the early universe. 0:01:26.209 --> 0:01:26.390 Yeah. 0:01:27.450 --> 0:01:30.050 Were meant to become planets but never did, so they 0:01:30.090 --> 0:01:36.200 disappointed their parents tremendously. Or they're smashed remnants of early planets, right? 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.800 Whatever they are, they're big or sometimes small chunks of 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.340 rock floating around in our solar system, most of the 0:01:43.380 --> 0:01:47.060 time trapped between Jupiter and Mars in an asteroid belt. 0:01:48.700 --> 0:01:51.010 But every once in a while, one of them gets 0:01:51.110 --> 0:01:54.610 spit out, And by God, there is a non-zero chance 0:01:54.670 --> 0:01:57.410 that thing is headed right toward Earth, ready to kill 0:01:57.490 --> 0:01:59.090 you and everything you love. 0:02:00.010 --> 0:02:04.570 Yeah. I mean, that is a deep impact in Armageddon. 0:02:04.890 --> 0:02:05.830 Weren't those the two movies? 0:02:06.430 --> 0:02:07.730 Yeah, at the same time. 0:02:08.250 --> 0:02:09.050 Yeah, that happened a. 0:02:09.030 --> 0:02:11.490 Few times back then, back in the good old days 0:02:11.530 --> 0:02:15.030 of moviemaking. But there are, and they probably said some 0:02:15.060 --> 0:02:17.010 of this stuff in the movie, who knows? There are 0:02:17.060 --> 0:02:21.440 more than 1.8 million known asteroids and they can be, 0:02:21.700 --> 0:02:25.590 you know, 30, 35 feet in radius. They could be 0:02:25.710 --> 0:02:30.090 several hundred kilometers in radius. The ones that we worry 0:02:30.130 --> 0:02:36.110 about are the 25,000 near-Earth asteroids. And we discover about 0:02:36.110 --> 0:02:39.140 1,100 of those every year. So, you know, those are 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.260 the ones that we keep an eye on. And as 0:02:41.300 --> 0:02:43.419 you'll see, we have plans for potentially. 0:02:43.889 --> 0:02:46.230 Yeah. The reason we want to keep an eye on 0:02:46.250 --> 0:02:50.340 them is because they sometimes can fall into orbit or 0:02:50.410 --> 0:02:53.600 fall through an orbit and interact with a planet, whether 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:55.520 it's Earth, the moon. If you look at all the 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.700 craters on the moon, those are from former asteroid strikes. 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.519 And so one of NASA's big roles is to monitor 0:03:03.780 --> 0:03:07.580 these asteroids that are near Earth and classify them even 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.640 further if they pose a threat. We'll get into that. 0:03:11.250 --> 0:03:14.049 But NASA is carrying on a several hundred year old 0:03:14.110 --> 0:03:19.030 tradition of discovering new asteroids that started in the 1770s, 0:03:19.470 --> 0:03:21.330 the swinging 70s. 0:03:21.610 --> 0:03:21.950 Yeah. 0:03:22.090 --> 0:03:23.990 I mean, it's crazy when you look at the year 0:03:24.490 --> 0:03:26.740 when some of these discoveries were being made, like how 0:03:26.790 --> 0:03:30.660 far ahead of stuff they were. Super impressive. And there 0:03:30.700 --> 0:03:35.240 was an astronomer named Johan Bode. And they discovered a 0:03:36.180 --> 0:03:40.010 through math, a mathematical sequence that you're going to. I'm 0:03:40.030 --> 0:03:40.930 going to make you explain it. 0:03:40.930 --> 0:03:41.450 I'm just kidding. 0:03:43.110 --> 0:03:46.810 That explained the distances from the sun for all known planets. 0:03:46.990 --> 0:03:49.050 And when they were doing their calculations, they were like, 0:03:49.790 --> 0:03:51.870 wait a minute, there seems to be one missing here 0:03:51.910 --> 0:03:55.970 in the calculation. Like there should be something like a 0:03:56.030 --> 0:04:01.190 planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. And eventually, well, they 0:04:01.230 --> 0:04:03.650 started to search for it. And in 1801, an Italian 0:04:03.690 --> 0:04:08.510 astronomer named Giuseppe Piazza found a faint body that he 0:04:08.550 --> 0:04:14.400 called Ceres. And I guess we should explain what these 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.920 planetesimals were and kind of what happened back then, right? 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.520 Yeah, the planetesimals, which is an okay word, I guess. 0:04:23.220 --> 0:04:27.080 They were either forming into planets and didn't, like I said, 0:04:27.260 --> 0:04:29.600 or they were broken up from other chunks of planets. 0:04:30.060 --> 0:04:33.060 And when they came near Jupiter, Jupiter is so immense 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.230 that And its gravitational pull is so strong. How strong 0:04:37.290 --> 0:04:40.610 is it? It actually can break stuff into other planets 0:04:40.670 --> 0:04:43.150 just from orbiting around it. So these asteroids have been 0:04:43.190 --> 0:04:46.790 broken into smaller and smaller pieces. But the one that 0:04:47.010 --> 0:04:50.630 remained the largest, Ceres, is so big that it makes 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.820 up one third of the total mass of the entire 0:04:54.020 --> 0:04:58.660 asteroid belt. 1.8 million known asteroids. One third of the 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.200 mass of all of them is just Ceres. That is 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.159 an asteroid we do not want coming anywhere near us, Chuck. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:10.440 I think Ceres is Latin for problem, problematic. Potentially problematic. 0:05:10.500 --> 0:05:11.260 All right. I got you. 0:05:11.660 --> 0:05:12.380 Yeah. 0:05:12.420 --> 0:05:14.220 Yeah. Did you say how big it was? 0:05:14.220 --> 0:05:19.770 620 miles across, a thousand kilometers across. So that is 0:05:19.810 --> 0:05:24.810 very large. there had been five asteroids. You know, there's 0:05:24.830 --> 0:05:27.200 something called Asteroid Watch, which is exactly what you think 0:05:27.220 --> 0:05:27.500 it is. 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:30.500 It's a watch made of asteroids. 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:31.080 Oh, shoot. 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.960 There were five asteroids on that list in December 22 alone. 0:05:36.930 --> 0:05:38.590 Two were thought to be about the size of a 0:05:38.650 --> 0:05:42.890 commercial jet. And earlier in 22, there was one that 0:05:42.910 --> 0:05:45.520 was two and a half times the height of the 0:05:45.580 --> 0:05:49.479 Empire State Building, and it flew the closest it's got 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:54.320 in 200 years to planet Earth in 2022, which was 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.170 1.2 million miles. So everyone can now breathe a sigh 0:05:57.190 --> 0:05:57.529 of relief. 0:05:58.310 --> 0:06:00.609 Yeah, and that sounds like a really far distance, and 0:06:00.650 --> 0:06:03.430 it is pretty far. It's further than the moon is, 0:06:03.510 --> 0:06:06.180 but for an asteroid, that's close. It's close enough that 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:09.679 NASA keeps them on what's called its close approaches list. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.540 And I said, oh, there's a close approaches list. Let 0:06:12.580 --> 0:06:15.510 me go check that out. And most of these, these 0:06:15.550 --> 0:06:21.570 are like, you know, airplane size meteors or asteroids millions 0:06:21.610 --> 0:06:24.930 of miles away than as close as they're going to get. But, Chuck, 0:06:24.950 --> 0:06:28.490 there's one. There's one that's coming on April 13th, 2029. 0:06:28.490 --> 0:06:32.490 A popfish, A-P-O-P-H-I-S. Oh, yeah. 375 meters in diameter. That's big. 0:06:32.550 --> 0:06:42.570 It's going to come. Within 20,000 miles of planet Earth. 0:06:42.710 --> 0:06:43.900 That's relatively close. 0:06:44.660 --> 0:06:48.100 That's closer than some of the satellites we've launched in 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.289 orbit around Earth are. It's going to come really close. 0:06:52.790 --> 0:06:56.170 And NASA was like, calm down, everybody. There's basically no 0:06:56.230 --> 0:06:59.050 chance of it hitting Earth for the next hundred years. 0:06:59.350 --> 0:07:02.360 They added that kind of quietly on the end. Great. 0:07:03.750 --> 0:07:06.860 So look out on April 13th, 2029 for some end 0:07:06.900 --> 0:07:09.390 of the world parties that are going to be bitching. Oh, 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:09.740 I bet. 0:07:10.500 --> 0:07:12.119 I mean, they did come out and say like, hey, 0:07:13.900 --> 0:07:18.700 something bigger than 400 meters could collide with Earth about 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:23.650 every 160,000 years. So it's not a matter of if, 0:07:23.810 --> 0:07:27.950 but when. And it could be 100,000 years from now. But, 0:07:28.070 --> 0:07:29.970 you know, at some point it's happened before and we'll 0:07:30.010 --> 0:07:32.590 talk about some of those events and it will happen again. 0:07:33.130 --> 0:07:34.640 And the idea is that NASA is just going to 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.200 keep an eye out and hopefully thwart anything in the 0:07:37.580 --> 0:07:38.420 near future. 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.000 That's the hope for sure. One of the ways that 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.100 they do it is by launching space telescopes to keep 0:07:46.140 --> 0:07:48.460 an eye on these things. And not only are they 0:07:48.580 --> 0:07:50.720 using them to track, they're using them to discover new ones. 0:07:50.780 --> 0:07:55.140 Because like you said, I think Giuseppe Piazzi discovered a 0:07:55.940 --> 0:07:58.930 planetismal that he named Ceres and And he noticed that 0:07:58.950 --> 0:08:01.330 it was way darker than the other planets. And one 0:08:01.370 --> 0:08:04.230 of the reasons why is that asteroids reflect far less 0:08:04.310 --> 0:08:08.830 visible light than planets do, than other celestial bodies. So 0:08:08.940 --> 0:08:12.500 they've created infrared space telescopes to keep track of them. 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:16.120 And these are turning up an alarming number of near-Earth 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.840 objects that we didn't realize were there before. Yeah. 0:08:18.860 --> 0:08:21.660 I mean, we're throwing around a lot of terms. Near-Earth 0:08:21.740 --> 0:08:26.100 object is one. There's also a PHA, Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:26.740 Mm-hmm. 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.420 So this near-orbit surveyor has been, you know, infrareding around, 0:08:31.980 --> 0:08:34.540 spotting these PHAs, writing them down. 0:08:34.740 --> 0:08:36.900 Probably not writing them down. It's probably digital, I would guess. 0:08:37.540 --> 0:08:38.420 Sure. 0:08:38.700 --> 0:08:45.420 And basically anything over 460 feet or 140 meters in 0:08:45.490 --> 0:08:48.410 size that has an orbit that will bring them as 0:08:48.510 --> 0:08:52.470 close as 4.6 million miles. So they're really like, they're 0:08:52.490 --> 0:08:55.170 really pushing it out there. Those are the ones that 0:08:55.230 --> 0:08:56.830 are potentially hazardous. 0:08:57.420 --> 0:08:59.740 Yeah. And that are ending up on the closest approaches 0:08:59.780 --> 0:09:03.520 list too. So yeah, there's all sorts of, the other 0:09:03.590 --> 0:09:06.910 thing too, is there's different lists, there's different definitions for 0:09:06.950 --> 0:09:09.890 what's close, there's different definitions for what size we need 0:09:09.910 --> 0:09:13.570 to keep an eye on. But essentially what they're saying 0:09:13.650 --> 0:09:16.090 is there are some out there that could be close 0:09:16.150 --> 0:09:20.489 enough that we really need to track and that we 0:09:20.550 --> 0:09:23.910 eventually may need to actually do something about this. So 0:09:24.500 --> 0:09:27.700 Let's start thinking about that today because we might need 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.030 a decade's worth of heads up to do something about it. 0:09:31.660 --> 0:09:35.020 And I say, Chuck, that we take a break and 0:09:35.070 --> 0:09:38.429 come back and talk about that after the break. 0:09:38.950 --> 0:10:06.670 Let's do it. Let's do it. So we're back. 0:10:07.070 --> 0:10:09.630 I want to make a quick, not a correction, but 0:10:09.670 --> 0:10:13.090 maybe clear something up. That Near Earth Orbit Surveyor is 0:10:13.110 --> 0:10:16.809 not launched yet. I think they said September 27 was 0:10:16.830 --> 0:10:20.010 like the earliest it could get out there. But they 0:10:20.050 --> 0:10:24.380 had something for 25 years, another space telescope called the NEOWISE. 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.520 And so it's not like nothing was going on. No. 0:10:29.580 --> 0:10:32.460 And I think you said that there was like it 0:10:32.500 --> 0:10:36.640 discovers we discover eleven hundred new ones every year. 0:10:36.660 --> 0:10:40.000 That's new asteroids like overall new asteroids. 0:10:40.020 --> 0:10:40.179 Yeah. 0:10:40.380 --> 0:10:40.990 Yeah. Yeah. 0:10:41.110 --> 0:10:41.350 Oh, no. 0:10:41.390 --> 0:10:43.829 I think those are near Earth asteroids even. 0:10:44.550 --> 0:10:44.890 Oh, were they? 0:10:44.929 --> 0:10:45.189 Okay. 0:10:45.370 --> 0:10:45.530 Yeah. 0:10:45.550 --> 0:10:47.730 But not potentially hazardous. There's so many distinctions. 0:10:47.830 --> 0:10:49.730 Right, exactly. There's this and this and this, and they're 0:10:49.750 --> 0:10:52.610 all subclasses. It's really the potentially hazardous ones that we 0:10:52.650 --> 0:10:55.510 need to keep an eye on. Sure. But NEOWISE is 0:10:55.580 --> 0:10:58.380 how we started discovering so many every year. 0:10:58.400 --> 0:10:58.800 That's right. 0:10:59.140 --> 0:11:02.100 And I think these guys were like, we really should 0:11:02.620 --> 0:11:07.179 start doing something about that. There are some, here's another subclass. 0:11:07.220 --> 0:11:09.980 This is one of my favorites. It's a subclass of 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.700 potentially hazardous asteroids that That are extinction class asteroids. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:15.220 Yeah. 0:11:15.740 --> 0:11:18.819 The kind that are so big that they could conceivably 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.920 wipe out all life on Earth, which makes them an 0:11:23.140 --> 0:11:24.579 existential risk, by the way. 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.880 That's right. What Busta Rhymes would call an extinction level event. 0:11:29.860 --> 0:11:31.520 Is that one of Busta Rhymes' songs? 0:11:32.020 --> 0:11:34.040 That's one of his records. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.920 Oh, okay. That sounds like a Busta Rhymes record for sure. 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:37.140 Yeah. 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:38.459 I don't know if that, there may have been a 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:40.900 song called that, but yeah. ELE. 0:11:41.620 --> 0:11:41.800 Okay. 0:11:44.809 --> 0:11:45.990 I'm not going to say it like Busta Rhymes. 0:11:46.370 --> 0:11:46.790 Please. 0:11:47.390 --> 0:11:47.910 No, no, no, no. 0:11:48.690 --> 0:11:52.070 But extinction class is anything bigger than 6.2 miles or 0:11:52.070 --> 0:11:55.829 10 kilometers in diameter. And that's basically like, hey, if 0:11:55.870 --> 0:11:59.810 this thing hit Earth, could possibly destroy all of life. 0:12:00.809 --> 0:12:05.510 There are four of these that are PHAs. So four 0:12:05.610 --> 0:12:09.230 extinction class asteroids that are potentially close enough to one 0:12:09.270 --> 0:12:11.390 day cause us a problem, even if that day is 0:12:11.390 --> 0:12:11.970 100,000 years from now. 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.000 Yeah, and not just cause us a problem, cause bacteria 0:12:16.059 --> 0:12:19.170 a problem. Like everything on Earth would die if one 0:12:19.210 --> 0:12:20.230 of these hit it, you know? 0:12:20.490 --> 0:12:22.090 Yeah, but who cares about bacteria? 0:12:23.070 --> 0:12:29.089 Exactly. The chances are very small, obviously. And I think 0:12:29.170 --> 0:12:32.690 NASA's like, we've got 90% of the near-Earth asteroids at 0:12:32.730 --> 0:12:38.270 least half a mile wide tracked. And they stop taking 0:12:38.330 --> 0:12:41.250 questions before anybody can be like, what's up with the 0:12:41.290 --> 0:12:46.910 other 10%? They rushed off stage. And they're like, none 0:12:46.950 --> 0:12:50.650 of that 90% have a significant chance of hitting Earth, 0:12:50.750 --> 0:12:54.370 but there is a non-zero chance, which means we really 0:12:54.470 --> 0:12:58.219 need to keep an eye on these things. There could 0:12:58.260 --> 0:13:00.700 be some bigger ones out there that we don't know about. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:06.180 And it doesn't have to be an extinction class asteroid 0:13:06.220 --> 0:13:09.360 for us to want to do something about it. They 0:13:09.380 --> 0:13:13.680 gave an estimate of What would happen if a mile wide? 0:13:13.940 --> 0:13:16.200 I think you said a six mile wide would be 0:13:16.260 --> 0:13:19.540 extinction class. This is one sixth of an extinction class. 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.459 What would happen if it hit the planet, Chuck? What 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:24.000 would happen? 0:13:24.220 --> 0:13:25.800 Yeah, we have a few scenarios. 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:30.070 If it's a mile wide asteroid and it comes in 0:13:30.110 --> 0:13:33.469 cooking at 30,000 miles an hour, that would be about 0:13:33.490 --> 0:13:35.650 a one million megaton bomb. 0:13:36.710 --> 0:13:38.089 You probably don't even know what that means. 0:13:38.370 --> 0:13:38.570 So. 0:13:39.860 --> 0:13:41.380 So let's lower the stakes a little bit and make 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:42.280 it a little more relatable. 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:43.199 Yeah. 0:13:43.300 --> 0:13:43.860 Let's say it was the. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.670 Size of a house, an asteroid the size of a, oh, 0:13:46.700 --> 0:13:47.059 I don't know. 0:13:47.460 --> 0:13:49.679 Let's call it an 1,800-square-foot home. 0:13:50.100 --> 0:13:51.260 Two-story, one-story? 0:13:52.100 --> 0:13:54.620 Let's go with two-story, maybe a basement, subterranean basement. 0:13:54.950 --> 0:13:57.160 Ranch, Dutch colonial revival? 0:13:57.830 --> 0:14:01.190 Dutch colonial at 30,000 miles an hour hits the Earth. 0:14:01.950 --> 0:14:04.710 It would be equal to the bomb that fell on Hiroshima. 0:14:04.730 --> 0:14:04.810 Yeah. 0:14:05.550 --> 0:14:09.340 It would completely flatten any kind of reinforced concrete building 0:14:09.420 --> 0:14:11.319 about a half a mile from where it hit. And 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.860 any wooden structure up to a mile and a half 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:15.099 out is just gone so. 0:14:15.620 --> 0:14:15.800 Right. 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.120 That's one the size of a house, Chuck. I want 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.640 to go back and point out that there are, I think, 0:14:23.060 --> 0:14:28.280 five or six airplane size like jet like air commercial 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.990 aircraft size asteroids that are passing by Earth today and tomorrow. 0:14:33.420 --> 0:14:36.700 Today's September 1st and tomorrow's September 2nd that we're recording this. 0:14:37.260 --> 0:14:40.120 So like if it was even bigger than, say, a 0:14:40.180 --> 0:14:42.550 house or a commercial airline or say like a 20 0:14:42.550 --> 0:14:47.270 story building, that would be roughly something like 20 to 0:14:47.270 --> 0:14:52.729 50 megatons worth of explosion. I saw that the most 0:14:52.810 --> 0:14:57.540 powerful nuclear warhead in the United States arsenal is 1.4 megatons. 0:14:58.860 --> 0:15:02.060 This is potentially 50 megatons, which is the same size 0:15:02.140 --> 0:15:05.450 as the Tsar Bomba, which is the far and away 0:15:05.500 --> 0:15:10.810 the largest nuclear warhead ever exploded on Earth. And it 0:15:10.850 --> 0:15:11.730 was just a test. 0:15:12.450 --> 0:15:12.870 That's right. 0:15:13.570 --> 0:15:15.750 If you want to wipe out almost everything on Earth, 0:15:15.850 --> 0:15:18.430 it would have to be about seven, an asteroid seven 0:15:18.450 --> 0:15:20.320 to eight miles or 11 to 12 kilometers big. 0:15:24.110 --> 0:15:25.730 It would there would be a dust plume. 0:15:25.770 --> 0:15:28.470 Basically, you know, we would experience something like a nuclear 0:15:28.510 --> 0:15:32.510 winter would block out the sun, raise temperatures to scorching heats. 0:15:34.230 --> 0:15:39.750 Almost everything would be destroyed, but potentially some stuff might live. 0:15:39.770 --> 0:15:42.330 I think they said it would have to be an 0:15:42.450 --> 0:15:47.000 asteroid 60 miles or 96 kilometers wide. to completely wipe 0:15:47.140 --> 0:15:49.580 out every bacteria that you were talking about. 0:15:49.660 --> 0:15:50.640 Everything on Earth would die. 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.860 Like unquestionable. There's just no way something would survive. Although 0:15:54.020 --> 0:15:55.740 life tends to surprise us, you know? 0:15:56.500 --> 0:15:58.000 Life finds a way. 0:15:58.220 --> 0:16:01.040 Right. Can't you just see like a couple bacteria just 0:16:01.220 --> 0:16:03.980 jumping right at the moment of impact, like an elevator 0:16:04.020 --> 0:16:06.120 going down and surviving? 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:07.220 That's right. 0:16:07.300 --> 0:16:10.420 And, you know, we're going to detail some past events, 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.580 kind of like the one 66 million years ago. that 0:16:15.020 --> 0:16:17.720 most people agree that was an asteroid that took out 0:16:17.740 --> 0:16:21.100 the dinosaurs and a lot of other things. It was 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.920 a global mass extinction event. About 75% of all species 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:30.940 were killed off. And we discovered this in 1978. We 0:16:30.980 --> 0:16:34.820 discovered along the Mexican Gulf Coast, these geologists were doing 0:16:34.860 --> 0:16:37.640 an underwater survey for an oil company. And we're like, 0:16:37.660 --> 0:16:42.140 there's a weird arc-like formation on the seabed here north 0:16:42.180 --> 0:16:46.310 of the Yucatan Peninsula. And they're like, buddy, this is 0:16:46.350 --> 0:16:53.290 an underwater, underground crater between 112 and 124 miles in diameter. 0:16:53.630 --> 0:16:55.180 That's a big crater for sure. 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:56.500 It's a very large crater. 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.220 So, by the way, I mentioned this in a little 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.180 more detail in The End of the World. It's one 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.359 of my favorite things to talk about is this insane 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:10.040 event that took place in a moment in Earth's history. 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.070 Just talking about it. And like all the little details 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.770 of what happened as a result are just mind boggling 0:17:16.830 --> 0:17:17.109 to me. 0:17:17.130 --> 0:17:18.790 And what episode was that? 0:17:19.130 --> 0:17:21.650 That was, I don't remember. Okay. So I guess they're 0:17:21.670 --> 0:17:24.150 going to have to listen to all 10. 0:17:24.150 --> 0:17:24.620 That's right. 0:17:25.130 --> 0:17:29.140 But this was the Chicxulub impactor is what they call 0:17:29.180 --> 0:17:31.440 whatever it was that hit the earth. And I think, 0:17:31.660 --> 0:17:32.859 I don't know if you said it could have been 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:34.800 a comet, could have been an asteroid, but it seems 0:17:35.020 --> 0:17:40.060 pretty clear that it was definitely an asteroid that did this. Yeah. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.020 The Iridium is kind of the giveaway. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:47.140 Iridium is in the Earth's crust, but it's like asteroids 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:51.950 are just loaded with Iridium. And the Chicxulub impact crater landed, 0:17:52.150 --> 0:17:54.090 I think it was named after a village near there 0:17:54.150 --> 0:17:58.109 where it hit. And it left the crater and it 0:17:58.150 --> 0:18:01.210 also scattered Iridium all over the planet because all over 0:18:01.250 --> 0:18:06.630 planet Earth in geologic layers that Mark, 66 million years ago, 0:18:06.670 --> 0:18:09.669 the end of the Cretaceous period, there's really high levels 0:18:09.730 --> 0:18:12.570 of iridium. So if you're still on the comet train, 0:18:12.590 --> 0:18:15.230 you're probably missing out on the good parties would be 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:15.650 my guess. 0:18:16.220 --> 0:18:21.820 I agree. So a couple of things about this. They 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.440 think now, just basically by crunching some numbers, that it 0:18:25.540 --> 0:18:30.990 was this Chicxulub impactor, this asteroid, was about 8.7 miles 0:18:31.050 --> 0:18:31.750 in diameter. 0:18:32.250 --> 0:18:32.650 That's big. 0:18:33.450 --> 0:18:37.070 Yeah, it is. That it produced an explosion or an 0:18:37.330 --> 0:18:42.109 impact or a blast, I guess you'd call it, equal 0:18:42.150 --> 0:18:47.290 to about 100 million megatons. That's 20, 30 times the 0:18:47.470 --> 0:18:51.840 total megatonage of all of the nuclear weapons and all 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.700 the nuclear arsenals in the world today, all going off 0:18:54.740 --> 0:18:58.840 at once in one place. And they figured out that 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.639 right when it hit, since it hit in what's now 0:19:01.700 --> 0:19:04.800 the Gulf of Mexico, or part of it, that it 0:19:04.859 --> 0:19:07.940 just created all sorts of chaos, not the least of 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.800 which was a tidal wave that formed within five seconds 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:11.620 of impact, right? 0:19:12.340 --> 0:19:16.870 Yeah, a 15-mile, 15-mile-high tidal wave. 0:19:17.430 --> 0:19:18.950 That's so nuts. 0:19:19.930 --> 0:19:23.189 I mean, I feel bad for all the animals. 0:19:23.250 --> 0:19:28.250 Like, can you imagine just being a stegosaurus, just grazing around, 0:19:28.530 --> 0:19:31.900 and all of a sudden it's just over everything? Yeah, yeah. 0:19:32.510 --> 0:19:34.189 I can. That's why I think that I find this 0:19:34.210 --> 0:19:37.450 so fascinating. I can just imagine this stuff happening. I 0:19:37.470 --> 0:19:41.100 can imagine like a sauropod getting carried away on that 0:19:41.100 --> 0:19:44.680 15 mile high tidal wave going. 0:19:46.710 --> 0:19:48.570 For real. I feel bad for that. What'd you say 0:19:48.590 --> 0:19:48.810 it was? 0:19:48.830 --> 0:19:52.780 Sauropod. I believe that's one of the flipper ones. 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.800 OK, the flipper guys. Yeah, I'm sure they were into waves, 0:19:56.859 --> 0:19:57.520 but nothing like that. 0:19:58.180 --> 0:19:59.060 No, not like that. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.270 So all the rock and seawater would have been vaporized. 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.140 It's going to obviously kick up all kinds of debris, 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.300 geologic debris, that's going to come back down to Earth. 0:20:09.340 --> 0:20:12.200 Like what goes up must come down. And that produced 0:20:12.260 --> 0:20:14.500 friction that set off what's called the heat pulse throughout 0:20:14.540 --> 0:20:18.260 the atmosphere. Basically, that's what killed off all the surface 0:20:18.300 --> 0:20:22.420 dwelling life. And then the after effects are sulfur dioxide 0:20:22.460 --> 0:20:27.770 in the atmosphere raining down as sulfuric acid. The acidity 0:20:27.869 --> 0:20:30.830 of the planet and the oceans as a whole changes 0:20:31.010 --> 0:20:32.650 in an instant, basically. 0:20:32.910 --> 0:20:38.150 Yeah. Ocean acidity increased a hundred fold very, very quickly. 0:20:38.570 --> 0:20:42.370 That is a really quick, really big rise in acidity. 0:20:42.450 --> 0:20:46.150 So that killed a lot of stuff off immediately, right? 0:20:46.210 --> 0:20:50.100 There was just like plankton doesn't like stuff that acidic. 0:20:50.180 --> 0:20:52.800 And so you've got a food web, which means if 0:20:52.820 --> 0:20:56.760 you kill off stuff like plankton or ferns on the surface. 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:00.879 it's going to have an extended cascading effect on the 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.270 rest of life. And that's what happened not just from 0:21:03.369 --> 0:21:06.969 the acidity, but also from the nuclear winter that followed. 0:21:07.030 --> 0:21:10.590 Because remember, like you said, what comes up or what 0:21:10.609 --> 0:21:13.490 goes up must come down, but it doesn't necessarily mean 0:21:13.540 --> 0:21:16.119 that it comes down immediately. So a lot of that 0:21:16.140 --> 0:21:20.600 vaporized rock floated as dust in the atmosphere and blocked 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.270 the sun out. for God knows how long, and a 0:21:24.330 --> 0:21:27.609 nuclear winter set in, and it was an extended one. 0:21:28.270 --> 0:21:28.550 Yeah. 0:21:28.630 --> 0:21:31.459 I mean, they estimate that it took about 30,000 years 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:33.900