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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what's the difference between a physicist and an astronomer?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I feel like this is a trap.

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Speaker 1: It seems like a simple question.

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Speaker 2: It's a constant debate we have in faculty meetings in

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Speaker 2: the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Where do we draw

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Speaker 2: the arbitrary dotted line?

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Speaker 3: Like?

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Speaker 1: Are all astronomers physicists or are some physicists astronomers? How

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Speaker 1: does it work?

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Speaker 2: I feel like any answer I give here is can

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Speaker 2: generate a lot of angry.

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Speaker 1: Emails physicists or astronomers.

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Speaker 2: A lot of astronomers think of themselves as physicists first

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Speaker 2: applied to questions of astronomy, but also a lot of

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Speaker 2: astronomers think of themselves as a very different breed of

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Speaker 2: scientists who tackle problems differently and think about things differently

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Speaker 2: than physicists do.

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Speaker 1: All right, that wasn't so hard.

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Speaker 2: It was my best non answer.

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Speaker 1: All Right? May I actually just ask non questions in

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Speaker 1: the future.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to our non podcast.

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Speaker 1: I am Jorge. I'm a cartoonist and the author of

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Speaker 1: Oliver's Great Big Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor

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Speaker 2: at UC Irvine. Though I'm no longer sure what those

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Speaker 2: categories even mean.

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Speaker 1: You don't know what you are? Are you having like

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Speaker 1: an identity crisis?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, and yes. I mean if everything's particles, then

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Speaker 2: isn't everybody a particle physicist?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 1: Not everything's a particle, right, then we're.

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Speaker 2: All field physicists.

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Speaker 1: I suppose, like what's dark energy? Dark energy is not

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Speaker 1: necessarily a particle.

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Speaker 2: Yet nobody knows. Maybe dark energy is a particle we

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Speaker 2: don't know.

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Speaker 1: In fact, isn't particles in arbitrary name or term? Like,

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Speaker 1: isn't everything just energy? In the end, maybe you should

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Speaker 1: just all be energiest.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you ask ten particle physicists what is a particle?

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Speaker 2: You'll get ten different answers.

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Speaker 1: Well, if you guys can't even agree, then you know

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Speaker 1: what's the point.

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Speaker 2: The point is that names and words are how we communicate,

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Speaker 2: though it's probably best if we do assign meaning to

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Speaker 2: them first.

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Speaker 1: Maybe should just all do science with sign language.

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Speaker 2: Or like charades, Let's just give up on language and

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Speaker 2: use math. Right, that's just so much more crisp.

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Speaker 1: I think charades is not just more fun, but also

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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit easier. You would have a whole

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Speaker 1: conferences where the presentations are just signists getting up there

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Speaker 1: and and miming their papers.

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Speaker 2: Is that supposed to increase clarity or just hilarity?

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Speaker 1: Well, hopefully it'll increase clarity and also hilarity. But anyways,

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Speaker 1: welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: A podcast that does try to pump both clarity and

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Speaker 2: hilarity into your brain. We hope that the universe is

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Speaker 2: one that we can understand, that we could take it

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Speaker 2: up hard into little bits that follow some fundamental rules.

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Speaker 2: Then we can weave it back together into all the

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Speaker 2: amazing and beautiful emergent phenomena that we enjoy from ourselves,

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Speaker 2: to our planets, to our solar system, to everything beyond,

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Speaker 2: and explain all of it to you with a little

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Speaker 2: bit of Dad Joe hilarity sprinkled on top.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Because whether you're a physicist and astronomer, a cartoonists

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Speaker 1: and energists, or a dad, we all live in this

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Speaker 1: universe and we all look out there and we wonder

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Speaker 1: how things work, why are things the way they are?

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Speaker 1: And can you cerade math?

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Speaker 2: Nobody wonders that man, Nobody wonders that that's done in

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Speaker 2: the top one thousand questions. Humans ask, how do you know?

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Speaker 1: Nobody wonders that, Daniel, do you have scientific proof or

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Speaker 1: data to back up your claim.

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Speaker 2: I do have some data. Yes, I cannot rule it

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Speaker 2: out entirely. But over the many tens of thousands of

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Speaker 2: questions I get from listeners, I've never gotten that one,

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Speaker 2: which means it's not in the top one thousand questions.

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Speaker 2: I can confidently say that.

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Speaker 1: I see, But you can't say that nobody wonders that.

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Speaker 2: No, right, that was too strong. You wonder that, apparently,

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Speaker 2: and your people, So the exception proves the rule.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure the situation has come up, like somewhere in

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Speaker 1: the history of math, at some point some people needed

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Speaker 1: to communicate some calculation or result and they couldn't talk

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Speaker 1: for some reason.

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Speaker 2: Maybe in Italian universities, you know, hand gestures are much

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Speaker 2: more important in communicating these abstract ideas.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's why their equations have so much possess.

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Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, whether we're Italian or not, or using charades

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Speaker 2: or symbols or language, we are trying to make sense

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Speaker 2: of the universe, and part of that involves categorizing it,

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Speaker 2: saying this is one kind of thing. This is another

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Speaker 2: kind of thing, whether that means distinguishing between particles and fields,

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Speaker 2: or between living things and not living things, or planets

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Speaker 2: and dwarf planets. Putting things in boxes is just one

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Speaker 2: way the humans make sense of the universe, defining kinds

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Speaker 2: of things and applying those labels.

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Speaker 1: Willy nilly, yeah, And we are trying to make sense

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Speaker 1: of the whole universe, not just the little things that

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Speaker 1: we're made out of, then that things are made out of,

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Speaker 1: but everything, all the huge amazing phenomena that are happening

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Speaker 1: out there, the flying planets, the swirling galaxies, and the

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Speaker 1: ginormous galaxy clusters.

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Speaker 2: And we'd love to study all that in great detail,

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Speaker 2: but most of it is very far away, and so

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Speaker 2: far our technological eyeballs aren't powerful enough to really resolve

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Speaker 2: all the details. So if we want to get down

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Speaker 2: to the astronomical nitty gritty, we're best off studying our

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Speaker 2: own backyard, looking in our solar system to understand how

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Speaker 2: did it form, what's in it, what kinds of stuff

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Speaker 2: are out there swirling around in our neighborhood. And over

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Speaker 2: the last few hundred years, we've come to a pretty

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Speaker 2: good understanding of what's there and where it's going.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we live in a pretty busy neighborhood full of planets,

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Speaker 1: asteroid comets, raining satellites from failed rockets, and so there's

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Speaker 1: a lot for us to see in our very near vicinity.

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Speaker 2: And while the truth is that the Solar system is

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Speaker 2: fills with a huge spectrum of stuff, from tiny cosmic

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Speaker 2: dust to huge we asked giants to the Sun itself,

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Speaker 2: we do like to impose categories on it. And as

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Speaker 2: the decades and centuries go by, we keep discovering things

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Speaker 2: that lie at the edge of those boundaries that challenge

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Speaker 2: our definitions for what is what, Pluto of course being

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Speaker 2: a famous example. But as our telescopes get more powerful,

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Speaker 2: we keep discovering things in the wrong places or at

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Speaker 2: the edge of these definitions that make us wonder, really,

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Speaker 2: where do we draw these dotted lines?

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Speaker 1: And so to be on the podcast, we will be

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Speaker 1: tackling the question are there comments in the asteroid belt?

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Speaker 4: Now?

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Speaker 1: How many people do you think wonder about this question?

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Speaker 1: Of your tens of thousands of emails, how many have

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Speaker 1: asked this particular question.

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Speaker 2: This particular question in this phrasing.

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Speaker 1: Zero So you're saying the same amount of people that

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Speaker 1: wonder if there are commets in the astert belt. Also

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Speaker 1: probably perhaps wonder if you can cherate.

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Speaker 2: Now if that was your metric. Yes, but there are

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Speaker 2: a lot of questions in the vicinity of this, wondering

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Speaker 2: about like what's the difference between comments and asteroids? Or

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Speaker 2: why do we have comments out there and asteroids over here?

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Speaker 2: And so I think people are curious about, like what's

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Speaker 2: out there in the solar system? Why do we give

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Speaker 2: them these labels? And is it really so neat and crisp?

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Speaker 1: This is an interesting question, and so let's dig into it.

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Speaker 1: And as usually, we were wondering how many out there

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Speaker 1: had thought about this question of whether there are comets

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Speaker 1: in the asteroid belt.

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Speaker 2: Thanks very much to everybody who contributes their voice to

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Speaker 2: this segment of the podcast. Really appreciate your responses. If

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Speaker 2: you'd like to hear yourself on a future episode, please

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Speaker 2: don't be shy or write to me too questions at

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Speaker 2: Danielandjorge dot com.

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Speaker 1: So think about it for a second, cast your mind

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Speaker 1: out there into the far reaches of our solar system

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Speaker 1: and wonder if there are comets in the asteroid belt.

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Speaker 1: Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 4: I mean, sure, why not. Maybe they also pass through

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Speaker 4: the asteroid belt from time to time. And I always

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Speaker 4: thought asteroid belt was what's mainly in that reage, not

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Speaker 4: what's the only thing in that region.

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Speaker 5: I don't have very good idea of the definition of

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Speaker 5: a comet versus an asteroid, but I think it has

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Speaker 5: to do with amount of ice in the structure. So

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Speaker 5: if that is the definition, I can imagine sure there

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Speaker 5: might be something that falls under that definition in the

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Speaker 5: asteroid belt.

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Speaker 2: No comment in the asteroid belt, just asteroids. Comments are

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Speaker 2: out a lot further.

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Speaker 6: I think another sort of way to distinguish commets from

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Speaker 6: asteroids is that asteroids are well in the asteroid belt,

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Speaker 6: and comets can come from a couple different places. Long

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Speaker 6: period comets come from the Oort Cloud, but then there

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Speaker 6: are shorter period.

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Speaker 2: Comets than that.

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Speaker 6: Now, if we have a dirty snowball in the asteroid belt,

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Speaker 6: which I believe there are. Some of these bodies that

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Speaker 6: have been discovered, are they correctly labeled as comets?

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Speaker 2: Are not commets? I'm always heard made up ice. I

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Speaker 2: think if they were that close, they probably melt.

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Speaker 7: I think comets coming in at a high rate of

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Speaker 7: speed from the Oort cloud are unlikely to get caught

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Speaker 7: up in the asteroid belt.

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Speaker 1: Comments might be more about composition than trajectory. I mean

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Speaker 1: that if it has more ice than rock, it might

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Speaker 1: be a comet.

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Speaker 3: I can never remember the difference between asteroids and comets.

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Speaker 3: I mean, surely there's a good acronym or something out

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Speaker 3: there to remember the difference. But I have to say

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Speaker 3: that there's no comets in the asteroid belt because asteroids

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Speaker 3: become comets after they and through the atmosphere.

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Speaker 8: So there are short period comets, and I think there

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Speaker 8: are some that operate closer to the Sun kind of

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Speaker 8: in that asteroid belt range, but being within the ice

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Speaker 8: line like most of its quote unquote life, I don't

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Speaker 8: really see how they can be long lived.

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Speaker 9: I think comets heavenly bodies which have eccentric orbits around

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Speaker 9: the Sun, so they don't fit in nicely with the

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Speaker 9: other better behaved inhabitants of the Solar System. So although

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Speaker 9: comets may pass through the asteroid belt, I don't think

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Speaker 9: they can remain there permanently.

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Speaker 10: I think that the asteroid belt is far enough out

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Speaker 10: so that comets could remain frozen, and I guess the

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Speaker 10: asteroid belt does have a lot of its own gravity,

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Speaker 10: so it could capture comets if it was lucky.

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Speaker 7: I think there might be a few transient comets in

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Speaker 7: the asteroid belt, but I don't think that there would

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Speaker 7: much chance for comets to persist in that kind of

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Speaker 7: orbit because of exposure to the Solar wind and the

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Speaker 7: interaction of the gravity of Jupiter disrupting either the orbit

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Speaker 7: or the structure of those comets.

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Speaker 8: Guess there could be comets, but yeah, usually commas have

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Speaker 8: a large orbit, a very large orbit in detail.

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Speaker 2: That wouldn't be the case if it was found in

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Speaker 2: the asteroid belt.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, pretty wide range of answers here. I guess

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Speaker 1: there's only two options, yes or no.

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Speaker 2: Or there could be this is a trick question, or

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Speaker 2: let's answer in charades, right.

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Speaker 1: What made you think of this question? Why are there

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Speaker 1: comets in the asteroid belt? Is this something that astromers

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Speaker 1: have been wondering about.

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Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this kind of question for a

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Speaker 2: while because I find the whole labeling of stuff in

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Speaker 2: the Solar System to be kind of ridiculous and arbitrary.

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Speaker 2: You know, we're just humans putting dotted lines on a

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Speaker 2: smooth spectrum of different kind of stuff that's out there.

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Speaker 2: But also it is interesting because when you invent categories,

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Speaker 2: then you can wonder about this in the boundaries or

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Speaker 2: things across the boundaries. And then I read a paper

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Speaker 2: about people who were finding weird stuff in the asteroid

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Speaker 2: belt that didn't belong there.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, let's dig into it, Daniel, I guess

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Speaker 1: the question is, but comets and asteroids, what's the difference

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Speaker 1: between the two?

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Speaker 2: Yes, so these are two human constructed, arbitrary definitions that

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Speaker 2: are mostly historical and don't really represent like our best

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Speaker 2: understanding of what's out there in the Solar System. If

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Speaker 2: you were going to start today, you probably wouldn't come

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Speaker 2: up with the same definitions. But you know, science is

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Speaker 2: a human endeavor, which means we need to understand the

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Speaker 2: words scientists use when they talk to each other, even

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Speaker 2: if it's imprecise or historical or ridiculous. So what do

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Speaker 2: we mean by an asteroid and what do we mean

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Speaker 2: by a comet? So an asteroid is basically like a

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Speaker 2: mini planet. Right, there's this complicated definition of a planet

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Speaker 2: as an object in the Solar System that's orbiting the

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Speaker 2: Sun is big enough to be mostly round and has

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Speaker 2: cleared its own path. An asteroid is like that, except

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Speaker 2: that it's not necessarily big enough to be round, and

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Speaker 2: it hasn't cleared its own path. So it's like a

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Speaker 2: mini chunky, funky shaped planet that doesn't have its own

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Speaker 2: parking space.

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Speaker 1: But is there like a size a range, like can

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Speaker 1: you have an asteroid size of a marble? Or or

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Speaker 1: does that count of something else?

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Speaker 2: Technically there's no minimum size for an asteroid, so like

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Speaker 2: a dust grain, technically is an asteroid. Practically that's very,

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Speaker 2: very difficult to see those things, you know, of course,

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Speaker 2: unless they land on Earth, in which case they're no

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Speaker 2: longer an asteroid. We can't really detect them in the

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Speaker 2: asteroid belt unless they're very shiny or large, or some

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Speaker 2: combination of them. So the range of asteroids that we've discovered,

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Speaker 2: like in the asteroid belt goes from things like down

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Speaker 2: to one meter across all the way up to things

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Speaker 2: like five hundred kilometers across. So there's an incredible range

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Speaker 2: of stuff in the asteroid belt that we call asteroids.

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Speaker 2: We give them all the same name.

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Speaker 1: But I guess there's one common threat, which is that

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Speaker 1: it needs to be some kind of solidial, right, Like

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Speaker 1: a cloud of gas doesn't count as an asteroid, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, needs to hold itself together.

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Speaker 1: So it has to be solid and it has to

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Speaker 1: be in space. Is that about the definition of an asteroid?

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Speaker 1: Something solid floating in space that's not round.

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Speaker 2: And it has to be orbiting the Sun. It's a

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Speaker 2: rocky object that orbits the Sun and doesn't qualify as

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Speaker 2: being a planet or a comet.

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Speaker 1: But I guess why does it need to be orbiting

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Speaker 1: the Sun? Can't you have an asteroid other than space

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Speaker 1: by itself? Like, what do you call those?

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Speaker 2: Well, if it's not orbiting the Sun and it's orbiting

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Speaker 2: like the Earth, then you'd call it a moon. If

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Speaker 2: it's not orbiting the Sun and it's not really orbiting anything,

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Speaker 2: it's just like floating in the galaxy, then it's not

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Speaker 2: an asteroid. It's just a rock.

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Speaker 1: Is that the official astronomy definition? It's just a space rock?

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Speaker 1: Are you sure we don't want to anger any astronomers.

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Speaker 2: Now, it's definitely don't. And you know, I'm in a

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Speaker 2: department of physics and astronomy, and that doesn't make me

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Speaker 2: an astronomer, even though I'm technically a professor of physics

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Speaker 2: and astronomy. And I don't want to speak for the astronomers,

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Speaker 2: but that is my understanding. If it's out there in

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Speaker 2: interstellar space, you could call it an interstellar asteroid. I

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Speaker 2: suppose the problem is we haven't like discovered or seen

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Speaker 2: many of those. You know, we have had a couple

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Speaker 2: of interstellar objects come, but those who think are interstellar

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Speaker 2: comets not interstellar asteroids. So yeah, that's a whole new frontier.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like like in Star Wars when they run into

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Speaker 1: like an asteroid field, are they takenly not calling it

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Speaker 1: the right thing?

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Speaker 2: Well? I think those are usually near a stars. There

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Speaker 2: probably are orbiting a star.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, they never show the star.

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Speaker 2: That's what I'm always thinking about when they're dodging asteroids.

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Speaker 2: Where's the star that makes us an asteroid and not

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Speaker 2: a rock?

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Speaker 1: Excuse me? Excuse me, I don't see the sun actually,

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Speaker 1: all right, So an asteroid is by definition a rock

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Speaker 1: that's orbiting the sun. Basically, Yeah, that has to be solid, right,

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Speaker 1: or like a solid object that's orbiting the Sun.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and your point about it being solid as crucial.

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Speaker 2: Asteroids are rocky objects, meaning they're made of rock and

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Speaker 2: metal and this kind of stuff, and that's going to

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Speaker 2: help us distinguish them from their cousin the comet.

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Speaker 1: Gosh, well, how do you define a rock?

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Speaker 2: A rock is something made it mostly out of silica?

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Speaker 2: You know, the chemical composition of these things tells you

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Speaker 2: what it is. If it's a blob of iron, then

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Speaker 2: it's metal, you know, if it's a This is all chemistry. Man,

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Speaker 2: it's well beyond me. Don't ask me to do chemistry.

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Speaker 1: Joined the Department of physic Astronomy and chemistry.

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Speaker 2: No, never, never, My son is into chemistry.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. I guess all those professors just don't

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Speaker 1: have the chemistry.

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Speaker 2: I don't have chemistry with those professors, that's for sure. No.

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Speaker 2: I respect chemistry, I respect chemists, but I'm not that

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Speaker 2: in the history of asteroids is kind of fascinating because,

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Speaker 2: you know, we use these words, but for a long time,

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Speaker 2: people didn't really distinguish between planets and asteroids, and the

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Speaker 2: word planet was used very broadly, Like the moon was

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Speaker 2: a planet for a while before we invented the concept

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Speaker 2: of a moon. So these things change with time. It's

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Speaker 2: possible to redefine what is a planet or an asteroid

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Speaker 2: maybe in five hundred years astronomers will have totally different

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Speaker 2: words for these things, or use the same words in

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Speaker 2: a different way. Who knows.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe they'll use the same like charade gesture.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly when we transition fully to charade science.

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Speaker 1: Then we're I wonder if in the future we transition

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Speaker 1: to like telepathy, you know, then you don't need words,

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Speaker 1: you can just transfer thoughts.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, if we're playing charades and your clue

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Speaker 2: was asteroid, what motions would you use to describe it?

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Speaker 1: Oh, that's totally easy, Dan, I would do this, so

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Speaker 1: he totally conveys what asteroid means.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that's a funny way to duck the question. But seriously,

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Speaker 2: can you describe what an asteroid gesture would be?

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Speaker 1: I just did, all right, but I feel like we're

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Speaker 1: getting a little bit uh deilled.

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Speaker 2: Well, then let's go back to the history of asteroids,

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Speaker 2: because I also think it's fascinating when we knew there

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Speaker 2: were lots of asteroids, Like, as our technology developed to

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Speaker 2: be able to see these things, right, we can see

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Speaker 2: smaller and smaller ones. Then we discovered more, and it's

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Speaker 2: this incredible sort of explosion of discovery.

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Speaker 1: But how do we see them? Like you sort of

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Speaker 1: can't see asteroids with the naked eye, can you? Or

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Speaker 1: sometimes if they catch the sun.

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Speaker 2: Technically, I don't see why you couldn't have photons hit

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Speaker 2: an asteroid and then hit your eye, but enough of

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Speaker 2: them for you to spot it and identify it seems

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Speaker 2: very challenging. So asteroids are usually seen through telescopes just

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Speaker 2: because you know, the aperture is larger and you're gathering

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Speaker 2: more light and so it's basically a bigger eyeball.

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Speaker 1: So is that how they discover them? Like they were

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Speaker 1: looking through a telescope and they saw a bunch of

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Speaker 1: these They probably looked like pinpoint stars, but they were

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Speaker 1: probably moving faster than the regular stars.

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Speaker 2: Exactly the same way that planets move across the field

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Speaker 2: of the stars, which is how you know that they're closer, right,

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Speaker 2: And that's why sort of planets and asteroids were called

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Speaker 2: the same thing for a long time before we distinguished

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Speaker 2: between them somewhat arbitrarly. And you know, until one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty years ago, we thought there were six ish planets,

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Speaker 2: and we thought there were about ten asteroids. Like eighteen

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Speaker 2: forty nine, we knew about ten different asteroids, and then

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Speaker 2: as technology improved, that number grew to be one hundred

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Speaker 2: twenty years later to a thousand about one hundred years ago.

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Speaker 2: And now we know about more than a million individual

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Speaker 2: asteroids that can be tracked, and we have these telescopes

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Speaker 2: that look at these things, of course, because we're concerned

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Speaker 2: about whether one of them might eventually hit the Earth.

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Speaker 2: And NASA is tracking all of these things. And as

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Speaker 2: you say, they don't glow, but they do reflect the sun,

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Speaker 2: and so when the conditions line up for like photons

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Speaker 2: from the Sun to hit the asteroid and then reflect

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Speaker 2: back into the telescope aperture, that's when we see it.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of these things are invisible for long

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Speaker 2: fractions of their flight around the Sun.

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Speaker 1: Now, what was the technological advance that it allows us

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Speaker 1: to see so many Like you just we just got

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Speaker 1: bigger telescopes and we're more sensitive. They could see dimmer things,

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Speaker 1: or we could maybe zoom with more presitionion into certain

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Speaker 1: parts of the sky.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a combination of more telescopes and bigger telescopes.

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Speaker 2: So a lot of this is limited by glass technology.

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Speaker 2: Can you make lenses that are big and smooth and

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Speaker 2: free of aberrations and so like Galileo's original telescopes are

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Speaker 2: pretty bad, right, and limited by the size of the

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Speaker 2: telescope you could make, because the glass you could grind

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Speaker 2: and have it to be smooth and not create distortions

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Speaker 2: was pretty small. But then people got a lot better

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Speaker 2: about that about one hundred and fifty years ago, and

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Speaker 2: things exploded from there, and then we also just built

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Speaker 2: more of them, and now of course we have dedicated

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Speaker 2: space telescopes just out there looking for these things.

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Speaker 1: Meli Nastas, that's pretty wild. I mean, if you could

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Speaker 1: see the way these telescopes could see, you would see

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Speaker 1: the night sky basically like shifting all the time, right, moving, swirling, spinning.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's much more dynamic than you imagine. There's a

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Speaker 2: lot of stuff out there. There's also inflection point in

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Speaker 2: sort of the history of astronomy in the mid nineties

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Speaker 2: when Jupiter was hit by a comet. Comet shoemaker Levee

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Speaker 2: broke up as it entered the inner Solar system, whipped

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Speaker 2: around the Sun, and then each of the twenty six

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Speaker 2: or so pieces slammed into Jupiter, creating huge fireballs the

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Speaker 2: size of the Earth and that's made people wake up

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Speaker 2: to the idea that like, wow, you know, asteroids of

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Speaker 2: comets really could hit the Earth. This is potentially an

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Speaker 2: existential threat, and NASA has really been investing in tracking

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Speaker 2: near Earth objects ever since that moment comet shoemaker levee.

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Speaker 2: That's one reason why we went from like seeing some

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Speaker 2: of the asteroids to like, let's be serious about this,

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Speaker 2: folks and make a solid catalog of all the biggest ones.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so that's asteroids, and most asteroids are in the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt, right, or there's a couple of belts around

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Speaker 1: the Solar System.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, asteroids are mostly in the asteroid belt, which is

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Speaker 2: between Mars and Jupiter. And that's not an accident, right.

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Speaker 2: The reason we have asteroids is basically because of Jupiter.

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Speaker 2: Jupiter has a huge, huge fraction of the mass of

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Speaker 2: the Solar System that's not in the Sun. Like the

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Speaker 2: Sun is ninety nine percent of the mass of the

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Speaker 2: Solar System, and Jupiter is almost three times the mass

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Speaker 2: of everything else in the Solar System combined, including like

441
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:16,640
Speaker 2: Saturn and Neptune and Urinous. So it's a big massive

442
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:18,240
Speaker 2: thing and it's gravity.

443
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 1: Wait what so like seventy five percent of the non

444
00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:24,080
Speaker 1: sun mass in the Solar system is Jupiter.

445
00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:26,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jupiter is a big hog.

446
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:29,600
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure we should be shaming Jupiter, Daniel.

447
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:33,760
Speaker 2: You're taking big hog to be pejorative. I meant it

448
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 2: as a compliment, like, hey, good job, Jupiter, congrats.

449
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:40,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess it was your tone.

450
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:45,159
Speaker 2: Okay, Hey, Jupiter is a big hog. Has that. But

451
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,200
Speaker 2: you know, this is gravitational runaway effect at work. You

452
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:50,520
Speaker 2: have a huge cloud of gas and dust that forms

453
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 2: the Solar system. Somewhere in there is an initial density

454
00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:56,760
Speaker 2: that causes the collapse that's going to turn into the Sun,

455
00:21:57,320 --> 00:22:00,360
Speaker 2: but it's somewhere else in that nearby cloud also has

456
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,400
Speaker 2: a little spot of density. Then it can form its

457
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:06,239
Speaker 2: own little runaway effect to gobble up some of that

458
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 2: gas and dust before it falls into the Sun. And

459
00:22:09,119 --> 00:22:10,120
Speaker 2: that's what Jupiter did.

460
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:13,439
Speaker 1: Now, Jupiter is mostly made out of gas. So I

461
00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: wonder why got so much of the gas in the

462
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 1: Solar system, Like, did it some of it just blow

463
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:21,040
Speaker 1: away when the Sun ignited or what and it just

464
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:22,480
Speaker 1: happened to gather around Jupiter.

465
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of controversy about that where gas

466
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:27,920
Speaker 2: giants form. Do they mostly form in the outer Solar

467
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 2: System and then transition inward? Do they form in the

468
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:33,280
Speaker 2: inner Solar System? We see a lot of gas giants

469
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:36,520
Speaker 2: in exoplanet systems that are near their Sun, but we

470
00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:40,920
Speaker 2: think probably these gas giants form farther away because further

471
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 2: away from the Sun. Number one, the gas isn't being

472
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 2: blown away by the radiation of the Sun. And number two,

473
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,479
Speaker 2: there's ice there, which helps these planets to crete more quickly.

474
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:53,280
Speaker 2: There's like more stuff to gather. So we think that

475
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 2: Jupiter became so big because it's so close to that

476
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,520
Speaker 2: snow line, you know, where ice and frozen vapor can

477
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 2: still exis. It helps these planets accrete quickly. And then

478
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:05,560
Speaker 2: we think it's probably a complicated history of Jupiter moving

479
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 2: in towards the Sun and then getting pulled back out

480
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 2: by a now missing gas giant which was ejected in

481
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:15,399
Speaker 2: that interaction. So the whole formation of Jupiter is a

482
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 2: really fascinating and complex topic.

483
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's dig into where else in the

484
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: Solar System you might find asteroids, and then we'll dig

485
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 1: into comets and whether there are any in the asteroid belt.

486
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:29,679
Speaker 1: So we'll get to that But first, let's take a

487
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're talking about asteroids, comets and

488
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: belts and the fact that Jupiter needs a really big

489
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: built and the question is are there comets in the

490
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:54,960
Speaker 1: asteroid belt? So we've been talking about asteroids what they are,

491
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 1: and you said they're mostly in the asteroid build but

492
00:23:57,680 --> 00:23:59,959
Speaker 1: can you find them anywhere else in the Solar System?

493
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 2: You can find them also in Jupiter's orbit. So there's

494
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 2: a big blob of asteroids ahead of Jupiter in its

495
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 2: orbit and another one behind Jupiter in its orbit. They're

496
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:14,160
Speaker 2: like bleeding and trailing Jupiter. These are called the Greeks

497
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 2: and the Trojans, and these are just like big clumps

498
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 2: of rock that are in Jupiter's orbit. So you know, technically,

499
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 2: did Jupiter really clear its orbit? Is Jupiter even a planet?

500
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: Well? I mean is if these things are orbiting Jupiter,

501
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: then they're not asteroids, right, No, these.

502
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,120
Speaker 2: Things are orbiting the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter.

503
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,919
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and all of this is just dominated by

504
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 2: Jupiter's gravity. Like why don't the rocks in the asteroid

505
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:43,159
Speaker 2: belt come together to make another planet the way they

506
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 2: did for Earth or for Mercury, or even for Mars.

507
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 2: The answer is Jupiter's gravity distorts it. It pulls it apart,

508
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 2: it shreds things. These are all tidal forces. Jupiter's gravity

509
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 2: is so strong that if you try to pull these

510
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 2: things together, It's gravity would tug on one side harder

511
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:01,679
Speaker 2: than the tug's on the other side and pull it apart.

512
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 2: So it's sort of like mixes it up. It's I

513
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 2: got a big spoon, and it keeps stirring up the

514
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 2: asteroid belt and keeping it from coalescing into something.

515
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 1: Whoa, It just disrupts the formation of any planets in

516
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: that sort of neighborhood exactly. Do we have any asteroids

517
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: out there beyond the gas giants?

518
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 2: There are definitely rocks further out in the Solar System,

519
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 2: because remember any big rocky object that's not a planet

520
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 2: or a dwarf planet is technically an asteroid. There's some

521
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 2: fuzziness there because past Neptune there's a huge number of

522
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 2: these objects were called dwarf planets, which are like sort

523
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 2: of larger enough to be called a planet maybe but

524
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 2: haven't cleared their own path right like Pluto and Shareon

525
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 2: for example. And so the distinction between dwarf planet and

526
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 2: asteroid out there, and the edges of the Solar system

527
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 2: is pretty fuzzy. You'd have to ask an astronomer.

528
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 1: Okay. So then the question was are there commets in

529
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,199
Speaker 1: the asteroid belt? So now, how do you define what

530
00:25:58,280 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: a comet is?

531
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 2: So your comment earlier about asteroids that they have to

532
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 2: be solid was really on point because one of the

533
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 2: crucial ways we define a comet is very similar to

534
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 2: the way we define an asteroid. An asteroid is a

535
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 2: rocky object that orbits the sun. A comet is an

536
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 2: icy and dusty object that orbits the sun.

537
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: Icy. So it's made out of ice. But isn't ice

538
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: technically a mineral, which means it's a rock? Right?

539
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a distinction here. Ice is not like a silicate, right,

540
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 2: It doesn't have the same chemical composition as these things

541
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 2: we call it rocks.

542
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:39,120
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Daniel, excuse me. I believe. I believe that

543
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: the definition of a rock is like a composite of minerals, right,

544
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: and ice is a mineral. So wouldn't ice be a rock?

545
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: Or is this something that would be have to be

546
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: decided in a death match between geologists and astronomer Yeah?

547
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 2: And I think some chemistsy to be involved in that conversation.

548
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 2: But in terms of the Solar System, we distinguish between

549
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 2: ice and other kinds of rock or rocks, depending on

550
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 2: whether you're gonna call ice.

551
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 1: A rock and so ice. How do you define ice?

552
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 1: Does it need to be water or can it be

553
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: other liquids?

554
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 2: There's several categories there. First of all, water ice has

555
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 2: lots of different chemical forms, so it's not just the

556
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 2: kind of ice that we see on Earth. There's like

557
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 2: ice and ice three, and ice seven and ice nine,

558
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 2: all sorts of complicated water chemistry to give you solid

559
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 2: forms of ice that we don't often see on Earth

560
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 2: because it's a very different pressure environment out there in

561
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 2: the outer Solar system. But also you know things like methane.

562
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 2: If that's frozen, they call that ice. A lot of

563
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 2: the ice that's out there is water ice, but there

564
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 2: are also other kinds of ices.

565
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: Gosh, I have so many nitpicky questions, Daniel. I mean, like,

566
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: if you heat up a rock, it'll melt, so it's liquid.

567
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: So really a rock is just frozen liquid rock.

568
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 2: Yes, a rock is frozen liquid rock, But lots of

569
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: solids are frozen liquids, right.

570
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 1: How do you define what an ice is?

571
00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 2: There's an arbitrary dotted line, you know, it's just historical

572
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 2: crystals we call ices, some crystals we call rocks. And that's, frankly,

573
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 2: is my whole problem with chemistry. All of chemistry is

574
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 2: like this, just like draw dotted lines between stuff because

575
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:11,719
Speaker 2: some dude one hundred and fifty years ago thought that

576
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 2: made sense. We're sticking to it.

577
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like it's not just chemistry, it's physics.

578
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: And it's proud of me too. Why are you trying

579
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 1: chemist under the bus.

580
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 2: We're definitely guilty of that in physics and in astronomy,

581
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 2: and especially in this situation naming things in the Solar system.

582
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 2: But and I'm really going to catch a lot of

583
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 2: flak from the chemists out there. I feel like all

584
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 2: of chemistry is just built on that. Like, if you

585
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 2: took that away from chemistry, what do you have left?

586
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 9: Man?

587
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: It's all just exceptions.

588
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: Oh man, he just lost is a bunch of chemists listeners?

589
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 2: No, man, they're all going to write to me and

590
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 2: they're gonna listen carefully through all the next episodes to

591
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 2: see if I slight chemistry.

592
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: I see they're gonna hate listen. That's the kind of

593
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: fan that we want. Look, as long as they sit

594
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: through the ads, then we don't care why.

595
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 2: They're love listen or hate listen.

596
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: We love you, all right. But so then what does

597
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 1: that leave with about the definition of a comet.

598
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 2: So, according to the arbitrary distinction between ices and rocks,

599
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 2: comets are made out of ice and asteroids are made

600
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 2: out of rocks. And one important difference is that if

601
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 2: you bring something made out of ice into the Inner

602
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 2: Solar System, it tends to vaporize, Like the Sun is

603
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 2: capable of turning those ices into vapor, and it's not

604
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 2: capable of doing that with rock. So probably there's some

605
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 2: distinction there about like the melting point or the vapor

606
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 2: point of these substances.

607
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, all right, now we're getting somewhere. It's

608
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: the sort of scientific If it melts under the light

609
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 1: of the sun, then you might call it a comet.

610
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: That's basically the only distinction.

611
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 2: That yeah, yeah, And when you bring these things into

612
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 2: the inner Solar System, like comets traditionally originate in the

613
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: Kuiper Belt or in the Oort Cloud, which are kind

614
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 2: of like bands of rocks in the more distant parts

615
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 2: of the Solar System, much further out than the asteroid belt.

616
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 2: When you bring them into the inner Solar System, they

617
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 2: develop tails because the Sun is beginning to vaporize them.

618
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 2: They get a coma, they have like a little envelope

619
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 2: of gas around them, and then as they move in

620
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 2: towards the Solar System, they get tails. And so that's

621
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 2: really what distinguishes comets from asteroids. Asteroids are just rocks,

622
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 2: and comets have these little gas clouds and tails because

623
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 2: they're made out of ices.

624
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,719
Speaker 1: All right, and they mostly hang out on the outside

625
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: of the Solar System.

626
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they originate in the Kuiper Belts, which is

627
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 2: this big collection of rocks, billions and billions of snowballs

628
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 2: in the distant Solar system, and this is probably the

629
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 2: origin of short period comets, like you know, years up

630
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 2: to tens of years. And then we think there's a

631
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: collection of them also much much further out in the

632
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 2: Ort Cloud, which is like very far out there, much

633
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 2: further than Pluto. And it's also technically theoretical because we've

634
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 2: never actually seen the Orc Cloud. We've just like deduced

635
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 2: its existence from various gravitational calculations and models. And we

636
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 2: also think that it's a source of long period comets,

637
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 2: comets with periods, you know, again longer than tens or

638
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 2: hundreds of years, and they could take a very long

639
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 2: time to fall into the inner Solar System. And out

640
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 2: there there could be trillions of these snowballs.

641
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: And that's in the or cloud. So what's the Kuiper belt?

642
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: Is it asteroids or comets?

643
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 2: The Kuiper Belt is snowballs, and when they fall into

644
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 2: the Inner Solar System you call them comets. I think

645
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 2: you still call them comets when they're in the Kuiper

646
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 2: Belt before they've fallen in, because technically they are icy

647
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 2: objects out in the Solar System orbiting the Sun.

648
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 1: Because they would melt if they got closer to the Sun.

649
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: But doesn't everything melt if you get close enough to

650
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 1: the Sun?

651
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And so this distinction between asteroids and comets

652
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 2: is also a little bit fuzzy. I found a comet

653
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 2: from an astronomer or the University of Arizona who said, quote,

654
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 2: everything is a comet. If you brought my couch close

655
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: enough to the Sun, it would start melting and have

656
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 2: a coma. So like it's just a question of how

657
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 2: close you get to the Sun. Because you bring an

658
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 2: asteroid close enough to the Sun, it's going to get vaporized,

659
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 2: even if it's like a hunk of iron.

660
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: What if it's a hunk of like diamond.

661
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 2: If you dropped a huge diamond into the Sun, it

662
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 2: would definitely get vaporized.

663
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, into the Sun.

664
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 2: If you had a huge diamond and you dropped it

665
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 2: from the outer Solar system and it fell in towards

666
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 2: the Sun, there at some point at which it would

667
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 2: reach its melting point, and you would melt that.

668
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 1: Diamond and become a diamond commet.

669
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 2: A diamond, commet with a cloud of carbon.

670
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: And leave a trail of sparkly melted diamonds.

671
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think melted diamond is just carbon though, because

672
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 2: it's only diamond because of the arrangement of those carbon atoms,

673
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: and so once you melted it could it's the same

674
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 2: as like melted coal. I guess.

675
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: Oh, man, now we're getting really confusing.

676
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 2: Turn chemistry is a mess.

677
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: Is melted chocolate just carbon?

678
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 3: Then?

679
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 1: Oh no, amre I just eating coal when I when

680
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: I'm drinking my hot coco.

681
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 2: That's why putting these names on things is such a mess,

682
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 2: and we should just use math or charades.

683
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: That's why would you just use charades or speed up

684
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: the telepathy idea.

685
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 2: And then to make things even more confusing, there's another

686
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 2: counter glory of stuff that's sort of like a hybrid,

687
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 2: these things that are actually brilliantly named. They call them centaurs.

688
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 2: You know, centaurs are like half horse, half human. These

689
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 2: things have characteristics of asteroids and characteristics of comets. So

690
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 2: they're sort of like a comet because they have long

691
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 2: elliptical orbits the way comets do, and some of them

692
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:26,239
Speaker 2: have dust comas. But they're kind of like asteroids in

693
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 2: that they're really large and they're mostly metallic. But they're

694
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 2: not like asteroids because they leave the asteroid belts and

695
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 2: they sort of traverse the Solar system the way comets do.

696
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 2: So these centaurs are sort of like a weird thing

697
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 2: in the Solar system that blurs the line between asteroid and.

698
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: Comet, meaning like it's a mix of rocks and ice.

699
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And it sort of moves like a comet,

700
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 2: and it's the size of an asteroid. These things tend

701
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 2: to be typically bigger.

702
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean it moves like a comet?

703
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 1: You never said motion was part of the definition.

704
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not technically part of the definition, right, But

705
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 2: comets tend to have these longer elliptical orbits just because

706
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 2: of where they come from in the Solar System. They

707
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 2: come from further out, and so they have these longer

708
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 2: orbits that traverse the path of the giant planets, whereas

709
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 2: asteroids typically hanging out in the asteroid belt and sometimes

710
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 2: fall in and so they don't traverse the giant planets.

711
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 2: So if you have like an asteroid like rock that

712
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 2: also has a long elliptical orbit, you're like, hmm, it's

713
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 2: a little comedy. It's a little asteroid y. You know.

714
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 2: It's sort of like chocolate and peanut.

715
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: Butter, which we all know. If you melt it just

716
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: becomes carbon.

717
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,240
Speaker 2: And if you squeeze it hard enough, it becomes a diamond.

718
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, technically a chunky diamond or a smooth diamond.

719
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe a creamy diamond.

720
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:40,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, or me a carrot diamond.

721
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 2: I like my diamonds nicely salted.

722
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: So these centers are pretty interesting. How big can they get?

723
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 2: Some of them are pretty big, Like the largest one

724
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:52,439
Speaker 2: is two hundred and seventy kilometers across and Actually it's

725
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 2: so big that it has its own rings, like a

726
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:58,720
Speaker 2: little group of dust and tiny rocks orbiting this centaur.

727
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: Well, and where is that it orbits in.

728
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 2: The Solar system out there between Saturn and Urinus. So

729
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 2: it's a big blob out there, and it's sort of

730
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 2: weird to be that far out. Why isn't it in

731
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 2: the asteroid belt? Or if it's that far out, why

732
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 2: doesn't that have more ice? You know? You might ask also,

733
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 2: well why do all the objects and what we call

734
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 2: the asteroid belt, why are they mostly rocks and metal

735
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 2: and the stuff out there in what we call the

736
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 2: Kuyper belt in the or cloud, why do they have

737
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 2: more ices? And that's just distance from the sun. If

738
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 2: you're further from the Sun, then the sun is not

739
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 2: bright enough, not hot enough to vaporize all that stuff,

740
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 2: so you get these ices. And that's why comets when

741
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 2: they form out there, are icy and asteroids are not.

742
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 2: The way the Earth is not mostly icy, right, and

743
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 2: so it's weird to have an object that's out there

744
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 2: beyond the snow line that doesn't have as much snow

745
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 2: or ice as everything else.

746
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: And how do we know it's a scenter? Does it

747
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: have a tail.

748
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:55,359
Speaker 2: This one is big enough that it might have its

749
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 2: own like little atmosphere, right, things that are boiling off

750
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 2: of it. But we don't know the compassation of it

751
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 2: that well, it's sort of far enough away that it's

752
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 2: difficult to study. But we do see that has its

753
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 2: own ring systems, so we have some information about it.

754
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 2: But these things are really fascinating because they paint sort

755
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 2: of a picture of the history of the solar system.

756
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 2: A lot of this stuff is interesting in the context

757
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 2: of like, hey, how did we get here? How did

758
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 2: our solar system end up the way that it is?

759
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 2: All these things are clues that let us like back

760
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 2: out that story and figure out how it all got

761
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 2: arranged to be this way.

762
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 1: So can we tell what it's made out of?

763
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 2: With our telescopes, we can tell a little bit because

764
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 2: of the color, Like some of these things are a

765
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,320
Speaker 2: little bluer and some of these things are a little redder.

766
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 2: That gives us a clue as to what they are,

767
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 2: because what they are determines you know, what they're reflecting

768
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 2: and what they're absorbing. So we have some clues about

769
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:48,720
Speaker 2: their chemical composition. But that's also sort of a mystery,

770
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 2: Like some of these centaurs are bluer, and some of

771
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 2: these are redder. Some of them look more like asteroids,

772
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 2: some of them look less like asteroids. That's sort of

773
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 2: one of the central mysteries of centaurs. But none of

774
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 2: these things have been like foot Graft up close. A

775
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 2: lot of Solar System objects have been visited by probes,

776
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 2: like we recently had up close pictures of Pluto, which

777
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 2: is awesome, and most of the moons of Saturn and

778
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 2: Jupiter have been visited. But nobody's ever done a close

779
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 2: flyby of a centaur to take like crisp photos of

780
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 2: its surface and see what it's made out of and

781
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 2: what that surface looks like. It'd be really fascinating.

782
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: But wait, how do we know what they're made out of?

783
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: Then we don't know for sure. It's just really guesses

784
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 2: based on the spectrometry looking at the wavelength of light

785
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 2: that bounces off of it. So we have ideas.

786
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: How do you assume that it has I in it?

787
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 2: Because they look different from the asteroids, right, they have

788
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,839
Speaker 2: different reflections than asteroids do m All.

789
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:42,800
Speaker 1: Right, Well, let's get to the question of the episode,

790
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: which is are there comments in the asteroid belt So

791
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 1: let's tackle that. But first let's take another quick break.

792
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: All right, we're talking about comets, asteroids, and centaurs and

793
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: also a charades.

794
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 2: So in your house, who typically wins the games of charades?

795
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 1: We never play charades.

796
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 2: What you're such a big proponent on the podcast, but

797
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 2: you don't practice that at home.

798
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:20,399
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to see, Daniel, is bring more

799
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: charates into everyone's homes. So we're tackling today the question

800
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: are there comments in the asteroid belt? Now, Daniel? Is

801
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: the answer yes or no?

802
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,359
Speaker 2: The answer is that there's some weird stuff in the

803
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 2: asteroid belt that we don't understand. In nineteen ninety six,

804
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:40,240
Speaker 2: people saw something in the asteroid belt that had a coma,

805
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 2: Like it has this gas and envelope in it, so

806
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 2: it looks like it's melting in the presence of the sun.

807
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 10: Wait.

808
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 1: Wait, so that the tail of a comet, you call

809
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: it a coma.

810
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 2: The tail is when it's moving, a coma is like

811
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 2: the envelope that surrounds It's sort of like a little atmosphere,

812
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:55,800
Speaker 2: but it's not really an atmosphere because it's not holding

813
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 2: onto it gravitationally. It's just sort of like off gassing.

814
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 2: It's like melting the vapor that's coming off as the

815
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 2: sun is melting it.

816
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,840
Speaker 1: That's the coma, like an ara or like a cloud

817
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: of a vapor around it.

818
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And then if it's in motion, it's going

819
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 2: to leave that behind because it's not gravitationally holding on

820
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 2: to it and generated a tail. So coma and a

821
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 2: tail are characteristic signatures of a comet rather than asteroid.

822
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 2: And in nineteen ninety six people were looking at stuff

823
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:25,359
Speaker 2: in the asteroid belt and it's like, what's out there,

824
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 2: what's weird? And they found this one that had a

825
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 2: coma and a tail, and people were like, well, that's weird.

826
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 2: But you know, one example is never anything, because you

827
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 2: can always find one weird thing just necessarily tell you anything.

828
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 2: But then a few years later they did a systematic

829
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 2: study this Isaac Newton telescope in the Canary Islands. They

830
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 2: were watching five hundred and thirty four asteroids specifically looking

831
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 2: for like a gassy shell around them or whether they

832
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 2: had a tail, and they found like twenty more of

833
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 2: these things in the asteroid belt that have comas and tails.

834
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: Well, so does that I mean their comments or centaurs.

835
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 2: It means we don't know what to name these things,

836
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 2: and maybe we're all wrong about these definitions. After all,

837
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 2: it means that we don't really understand like how they

838
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 2: got there, you know. I think question number one is like,

839
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 2: why is there something in the asteroid belt that's still melting?

840
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 2: You put something there and it's melting, it's gonna shrink,

841
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 2: so it can't last for very long. But we think

842
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 2: a lot of these asteroids have been there for like

843
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 2: billions of years, and so how long have these things

844
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 2: been in the asteroid belt? And if it's only and

845
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 2: if it's a recent event, then where do they come from?

846
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 2: And if it's not a recent event, then how they

847
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 2: lasted so long? So it's weird to see something that

848
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 2: you know has got to be short lived. So it's

849
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 2: weird to see so many things that you know have

850
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 2: to be short lived, because there's got to be some

851
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 2: explanation there.

852
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: You're saying they saw a coma or a shell or

853
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 1: a cloud or a tail, because you can see it

854
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: with the telescope.

855
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 2: As it passes in front of the sun, for example,

856
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 2: you could see the gas around it affecting the light

857
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 2: as it transits, or you can see the way it

858
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 2: reflects light differently.

859
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 1: These are pretty firmly in the asteroid belt or are

860
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,799
Speaker 1: they maybe just cruising through the asteroid belt?

861
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, great question. Now these are things that are

862
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 2: part of the asteroid belt, and as they watch them,

863
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 2: they have stable orbits that can make them be part

864
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 2: of the asteroid belt. They're not just like happened to

865
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 2: be comets that were captured on their way into the

866
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 2: inner Solar System. These things are not transients. They're there

867
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 2: in the asteroid belt basically to stay. But we don't

868
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 2: understand where they came from. And these are deep and

869
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 2: important questions because we want to understand, like where is

870
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:32,879
Speaker 2: the water in the Solar System? How did it get

871
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 2: spread out the way that it did? For example, where

872
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 2: did Earth's water come from? We know that all the

873
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 2: ice and all the water that originally was involved in

874
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 2: the formation of our planet got boiled off by the

875
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 2: Sun in the early history of the Solar System, and

876
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 2: so it's still an open question of like where did

877
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:52,399
Speaker 2: the water that's on the surface of the Earth. Now,

878
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 2: Like where did our oceans come from? Did it come

879
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 2: from comets hitting the Earth? Did it come from the

880
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:01,720
Speaker 2: water that's still trapped inside the Earth. These are important

881
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:03,720
Speaker 2: questions and to answer them, we're gonna have to understand

882
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 2: like where's the water now and what is it? All

883
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 2: of its history. It's a deep question about our origins

884
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 2: and the whole history of the Solar System. And so

885
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 2: whenever you see something weird.

886
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 1: Like wait, are you saying that maybe, like some of

887
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:18,320
Speaker 1: these weird objects in the asteroid belt, they came from

888
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: the outer Solar System and then maybe they crashed into

889
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:22,919
Speaker 1: the asteroid belt.

890
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 2: It could be absolutely it could be that they were

891
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 2: comets and they were coming into the asteroid belt and

892
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 2: they like interfered with something. And people think of the

893
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 2: asteroid belt the way you described like Star Wars earlier,

894
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 2: like oh it's hard, you got to dodge the asteroids,

895
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 2: it's very dense. In reality, the asteroid belt is very dilute,

896
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 2: Like if you flew through the asteroid belt, it'd be

897
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 2: hard to hit an asteroid. So a random comet flying

898
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 2: through the asteroid belt is not going to have a

899
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 2: problem making it through. But you know, maybe occasionally these

900
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 2: things do get disturbed, or they get deflected by Jupiter

901
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 2: or captured effectively somehow, And so it could be that

902
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 2: these are comets that got waylaid and ended up in

903
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 2: the asteroid belt. But then you'd need a continuous stream

904
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 2: of them to keep it populated because they're not going

905
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: to last very long in the asteroid belt, like the

906
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 2: Sun is.

907
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: Going to fry them even with they're that far away.

908
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the fact that they have a gassy

909
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,839
Speaker 2: shell means that they are actively outgassing because they can't

910
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 2: hold onto that gas. And if you're actively outgassing, you're

911
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 2: literally melting, you're shrinking. That's not going to last very long.

912
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 2: They might have like a rocky core and that might

913
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:26,799
Speaker 2: be left over when the Sun is done frying all

914
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 2: of their ices, but they're definitely not going to look

915
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 2: like this for that long. We're talking, you know, millions

916
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:34,720
Speaker 2: of years, but in the history of the Solar System,

917
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 2: that's just a blink of an eye.

918
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: I wonder if it could be just like the Earth

919
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: when the Earth got formed, they had water trapped inside

920
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 1: of it in the rock. Could these asteroids also have

921
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: water inside of them that's maybe sweating out.

922
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 2: They certainly might have water inside of them the way

923
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 2: the Earth does. And you know, if you think about

924
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 2: water inside the Earth, it's not like there's literally an

925
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 2: ocean you can go swimming in. It's like the chemical

926
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 2: composition of the rock includes a lot of water, and

927
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 2: so in a similar way, you might have water infused

928
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 2: into the metals and the rocks at the heart of

929
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 2: these asteroids. But any water ice that the sun is

930
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,399
Speaker 2: capable of frying off got fried off a long time ago,

931
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 2: because these asteroids have been there for billions of years,

932
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 2: and so these guys would have to be new, right,

933
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: these new, weird things they spotted in the asteroid belt

934
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 2: should have arrived fairly recently, if that makes any.

935
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: Sense, all right, Well, so I guess the answer is

936
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: maybe are there comets in the asteroid There could be

937
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: There are definitely things that are comedy, right, or that

938
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: have ice in them.

939
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 2: There's definitely something in the asteroid build that has ice

940
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 2: because it's melting. We don't understand what they are, where

941
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 2: they came from, or what it means about where our

942
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 2: drinking water came from.

943
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: Or would you say, maybe the answer is that some

944
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: of the things in the asteroid belt are comets or

945
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 1: could be classified as sort of comets.

946
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, by our definition, where comets are things that have

947
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 2: ice in them, they're icy and dusty. Then, yeah, there

948
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,839
Speaker 2: are definitely some icy, dusty things in the asteroid belt.

949
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,919
Speaker 2: The asteroid belt is not just asteroid anymore where.

950
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: I guess if you go by your definition of a comment,

951
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: then everything is a comment.

952
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 2: That's right, You're a comment. Right, we tossed you into

953
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 2: the sun, you would melt and vaporize as well.

954
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I'd be you know,

955
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 1: trying to communicate with charades all the way down hoping

956
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: someone picks me up. Good luck with that, all right? Well,

957
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: another interesting exploration into our solar system, it's history and

958
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:31,560
Speaker 1: the mysteries that are still out there waiting to be discovered.

959
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 2: There's so many missing chapters to the history of our

960
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,799
Speaker 2: solar system, so many things about our own backyard we

961
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 2: still don't understand. And every time we look more carefully

962
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 2: the things we thought we understood, we find weird things

963
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,919
Speaker 2: that defy our explanation, that tell us there's a lot

964
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 2: more to this story to be revealed.

965
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be revealed by astronomers or physicists or both,

966
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: or perhaps chemists. We're all just people, No, we're all

967
00:45:58,120 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 1: just comments.

968
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 2: That's right, what is it? Comed?

969
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 1: Yeah? Thank you? We all have tales in Komas. All right, well,

970
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, See

971
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:08,399
Speaker 1: you next time.

972
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:16,240
Speaker 2: For more science and curiosity, come find us on social media,

973
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 2: where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter, Discord, Insta,

974
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 2: and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel

975
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 2: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.

976
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

977
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.