WEBVTT - From the Vault: Jupiter the Destroyer, Part 2 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:07.560 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.039 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday, 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:15.120 We're going into the vault. This episode originally aired on 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.439 March and it is the sequel to the one that 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.599 ran last Saturday. This is Jupiter the Destroyer, Part two. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:29.920 Ready yourself, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:39.280 of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.800 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.080 and we're back with part two of our discussion of 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.960 Jupiter the Destroyer. In the last episode, we ended up 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.879 talking about some of the myths of Zeus and Jupiter, 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.920 Zeus's war against the Titans, and how that related to 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:00.440 some ideas in astrophysics about how an early forming Jupiter 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.000 in the solar nebula of our of our young Solar 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.480 system may have played a very important role in the 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.920 destruction of early forming super Earth's in the inner Solar System, 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.039 leading to or clearing the way for the eventual creation 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.600 of rocky planets like the Earth we live on today. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:17.759 So that last episode was kind of it was kind 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.640 of a mash up we had we had some planetary science, 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.880 we had some mythology. It's like we had two turntables 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.319 and uh, and we had two different records and we 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.800 kind of mixed and mashed them both. Uh. So we're 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.039 we're kind of like your DJs. We well, we we're 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.399 your hosts, except no substitutes. Uh. And we're gonna have 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.880 more of the same in this episode. We're gonna have 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.959 plenty of planetary science, but we're also gonna have mythology. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.160 So uh, if you love both, stay tuned, because you're 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.000 gonna get everything you love. If you lean more towards 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.280 one direction of the other, well it's still hang on 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.120 because we're gonna take you on a ride. But if 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.360 you're only interested in when we talk about the Texas 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.160 Chainsaw Massacre movies and stick around anyway because who knows 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.200 what will come up. Well that that movie also is 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.960 astronomical in its own wise, that's true. So maybe I 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.480 thought we should start just by doing a brief refresher 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.240 on one of the studies we talked about in the 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.600 last episode, because it kind of ties into some of 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.400 the stuff I'm going to talk about right after. Um. So, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.280 one of the studies we looked at last time was 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.240 published in in p N A. S. And it was 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.760 by Constantine Batigan and Greg Laughlin, and it's called Jupiter's 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.360 Decisive Role in the Inner Solar System's early evolution. And 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.800 the rough outline is that the authors here argue that 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.760 they put together a simulation that assumes a version of 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.919 what's known as the Grand tax scenario, and that's where 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.120 in the early solar nebulas, So when the Solar system 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.960 is first forming, it's this big disc of gas and 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:49.000 dust all swirling around this newly forming Sun. When that's 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.799 going on, a young Jupiter migrated from somewhere around five 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.440 astronomical units out in radius from the Sun into about 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.880 one point five astronomical units and then reversed course and 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.520 went back out to a larger orbital radius when it 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.520 was pulled outward by the gravitational influence of Saturn. And 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.600 the authors here right quote, we proposed that the primordial 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.760 nebula driven process responsible for retention of Jupiter and Saturn 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.880 at large orbital radii and sculpting Mars low mass, is 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:25.480 also responsible for clearing out the Solar systems innermost region. So, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.000 like we talked about last time, this would be wiping 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.120 out these early forming super Earth's or mini Neptunes that 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.840 were forming near the Sun and thus making room and 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.160 freeing up some materials for rocky planets like Earth and 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.840 Venus to form. And if you remember the details we 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:44.640 talked about last time, this would have happened according to 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.720 these authors here via a what they call a collisional cascade. 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.800 So Jupiter's inward migration would hurl all of these planetesimals 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.000 into um what they call mean motion resonances low order 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.280 mean motion residences, shepherd ng and exciting their orbits, so 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.520 basically just causing chaos in the inner Solar System where 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.800 things would smash into each other and then ultimately spiral 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.960 into the Sun and be vaporized down there in the 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:13.520 bottom of the Solar System. And then finally, they write, 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.080 in this scenario, the Solar systems terrestrial planets formed from 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:21.760 the gas starved mass depleted debris that remained after the 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:26.560 primary period of dynamical evolution. So under this scenario, it 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:31.000 is the gravitational influence from a coalescing Saturn that finally 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.480 pulls Jupiter back out of the fray back into the 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.480 outer Solar System. But I wanted to think about another 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:42.839 way that gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, or like 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.040 if you imagine another solar system somewhere else in the galaxy, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:51.120 multiple jupiters can interact with one another in catastrophic ways 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.120 that have major influence on the other planets in that 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.240 star system. Because going to the mythological analogy, one Zeus 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.000 or one Jupiter is bad enough. Got a couple, you 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.680 you're really running into trouble. Wow, they're not going to 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.240 tolerate each other, that's right, though, it is funny that 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.520 literally in our Solar system, if you look at the 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.880 mythological counterparts of the three the first three outer planets 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.760 you get to after the asteroid belt, you've got Jupiter, 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.359 you got Saturn, and then you got Uranas and there 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.240 if you look at their mythological counterparts, each one ascending 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:25.960 out there is the father of the other who was 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:30.440 defeated by the Sun. So Jupiter or Zeus defeated Chronus, 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.760 which is Saturn, and dethroned him, throw him into Tartarus. 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:38.640 But Chronus previously the Titan had defeated Uranos or Uranus 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.280 by castrating him and throwing his genitals into the ocean. Yeah, 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.159 so like if you've been to thrown, you get pushed 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.039 further out of the solar hierarchy. Yeah, I guess so. Now, 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.960 now that's an interesting question, which is more like Tartarus 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.880 being cast into the sun like these early super earths 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.719 may have been, or being cast farther out into a 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.760 greater orbital radius where you're you're very cold and very 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.680 lone lee. I guess I go with the cold and 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.680 lonely uh interpretation more again, just in terms of thinking 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:12.160 about what mythological punishments would be, like I tend to imagine, uh, 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.360 the prison of the Titans as being cold and lonesome. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.080 But anyway, I wanted to, uh now now talk about 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:24.080 the idea of Jupiter's going eccentric, and uh, usually the 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.000 word eccentric, how do we use that? We use the 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.520 word eccentric to mean weird, but in kind of a 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.960 harmless way, like it's the nice version of weird, or 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.080 the or the at least the rich version of weird, 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.960 right right, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know exactly what 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.240 you mean by that. But now in this case, this 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.839 would be uh eccentric in a way that is that 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.560 is not at all harmless and potentially could be world ending. 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.320 Uh So I wanted to look at a blog post 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.960 by an American astrophysicist living in France named Sean Raymond, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.400 who I wanted to bring this up because I think 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.919 reading his blog on his website was one of the 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:03.839 reasons I ended up wanting to do this pair of 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:08.440 episodes about Jupiter. I was originally reading his website because 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.600 he was one of the authors of a study about 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.280 moons of moons that I talked about for an episode 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.160 of The Artifact, where I was saying like, like, how 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.440 many levels of orbits can you go down? You know, 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.560 the the so the our our Sun orbits the center 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.160 of the Milky Way galaxy, and then the Earth orbits 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.240 the Sun, and then the moon orbits the Earth. But 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.280 could the moon have its own moon? And it turns 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.400 out the answer is yes, there's nothing in physics that 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.640 prevents moons from having moons. But of course, every every 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.720 step you go down that ladder of orbits within orbits, 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.440 the maximum size of the orbiting object gets smaller and smaller, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.440 And if you include really small stuff, I think moons 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.240 of moons can have moons. But anyway, through that, I 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.040 ended up reading some posts on this guy's website. So 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.320 he's a professor of astrophysics at the University of Bordeaux 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.520 in France, and his blog is fun. He he sometimes 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.280 like writes poems about astrophysics, and that's weird stuff on there. 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:07.000 But there was this one post that I thought was 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.120 really interesting and got me thinking about this topic and 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.800 reading other stuff about it. And it was a post 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.880 called how planets die when good Jupiters go bad? And 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.440 the gist of this post here is about how planets 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:24.200 like Jupiter have the potential to destroy the solar systems 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.880 that they dwell within and in other planetary systems around 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.040 other stars in the galaxy. There is evidence that gas 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.640 giants like Jupiter have indeed already destroyed other planets in 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.160 in their solar systems. Uh Now, of course, as we 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:40.440 talked about in the last episode, Jupiter is the largest 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.520 planet in our Solar system. It's more than three hundred 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:45.680 times more massive than Earth. What was it was like 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.720 three hundred and seventeen times as massive as Earth or something, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.400 I mean, just huge. And of course the Sun is 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.720 the largest gravitational influence in our Solar system, but Jupiter 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.440 is second in that regard, and Jupiter has more effects 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.760 on what happens to the rest of the objects in 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.960 the Solar System. Then you might imagine Raymond talks about 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:06.840 some stuff that we didn't really get into in the 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.280 last episode. Like one of the things he mentions is 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:14.320 that Jupiter probably would have blocked large icy bodies from 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.400 the outer Solar System from invading the inner Solar System 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.360 when the Solar System was first forming. It would have 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.640 cleared this large gap in the solar nebula disc that 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.480 was forming around the early Sun uh and with its 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.680 gravity it would prevent large icy objects from migrating inwards. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.000 Of course, we already talked about that Batigan and Laughlin 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.160 idea that if it's correct, during Jupiter's Grand tach or 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.200 the movement in and then out again UH, it would 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:45.720 have had these catastrophic implications for early forming super Earth's 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.959 or many neptunes close to the Sun through this collisional 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.680 cascade uh and would have allowed small rocky planets like 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.079 Earth to take shape in the aftermath. But Jupiter also 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.920 we should remember, and this is one thing we're gonna 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.160 look at in several different ways today. Jupiter plays a 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:07.280 major role in influencing what kinds of space objects crash 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:12.320 into Earth and at what rate and at what velocity, Because, 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.520 to read from Raymond here quote, Jupiter's gravity determines how 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.520 comets enter the Inner Solar System and how long they 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.840 spend near the planets with the potential to crash into 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:28.280 Earth before launching them into interstellar space. And this has 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.240 implications both ways. So it means that Jupiter can act 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.800 as a kind of destroyer, flinging objects in our direction 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.560 in a dangerous way. But Jupiter can also act as 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.000 a kind of protector, shepherding objects away from Earth and 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.760 keeping us safe. And so Jupiter's effect on the movements 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.839 of space objects in the Inner Solar System, like asteroids 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.400 and especially comets, I think will have powerful effects on 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:56.440 things like the water contents of Earth and the biological 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.760 development of Earth, which will come back to as we 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.880 go on. But coming back to the idea of eccentric 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.199 jupiters now, I mentioned in the last episode that sometimes 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.280 when we look out at other stars in our galaxy, 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.080 we can see that they have large exoplanets, large gas 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.280 giants in very eccentric orbits. The orbits of most of 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.640 the planets in our Solar System are nearly circular. They're 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.600 not perfectly circular, but they're pretty close. I mean, you know, 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.600 roughly circular. If you look at the orbit of some comets, though, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.200 it is a completely different story. There are comets that 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:36.920 orbit the Sun in these incredibly squashed, squeezed out oval trajectories. Uh. 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.440 And these orbits that deviate from near circularity are called eccentric. 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.400 And of course the more squashed out they get, the 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.320 more highly eccentric they are. So if you're trying to 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.120 picture it, you can think of a more eccentric orbit 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.480 is like a rubber band being stretched out instead of 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.360 allowed to just like sit slack in a circle. And 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.640 in fact, exoplanet research reveals that around other ours in 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.360 the galaxy there are gas giants like Jupiter that have 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.720 orbits more like these comets. So imagine a Jupiter or 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.160 a Saturn with a highly eccentric orbit more like a 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.240 stretched out rubber band. These types of planets exist, and 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.440 the question is, well, how does that happen? Well, Raymond 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:24.160 discusses one way, when gas giants act upon one another 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:29.359 in dangerous ways. So large gas giants exert gravitational influence 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.160 not only on comets, not only on the moons that 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.960 orbit them, but also on one another. You know, if 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.120 you have like two jupiters orbiting a star, they will 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.120 have influence on the paths that they each take. Uh. 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:45.920 Remember thinking again about the way that a Saturn may 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.920 have pulled Jupiter back out of the inner Solar System 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.800 according to the Grand Tach hypothesis. So if you have 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.520 two gas giants that are affecting one another gravitationally, it 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:01.680 can throw their orbits off course. And sometimes these gravitational 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:06.559 interactions can even put them into orbital patterns, uh, such 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.520 that one gas giant gets gravitationally ejected out of the 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.600 Solar System by the gravitational influence of the other. Like 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.920 it does sort of a gravity sling shot like we 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.439 might do with a with one of our space probes, 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.080 but on a planet, and just like throws it way 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.720 out of there, and then the other one remains, but 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.160 in this stretched out eccentric orbit. And as you might 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.680 well imagine, these gravitational disturbances in the orbits of gas 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:35.040 giants can have horrible effects on the planets nearby. So 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.319 if there are earthlike inner planets in one of these scenarios, 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.600 they tend to get cast into the pit of Tartarus. Uh. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:43.640 And this could actually this could be either of the 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.800 Tartarus scenarios we were talking about earlier in the in 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.080 the closest thing to a literal sense, right, They either 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.440 get cast way out into nowhere, into space, or they 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:57.000 get thrown into the Sun or destroyed by collisions, possibly 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:01.360 with gas giants themselves or with other rocky planets or planetestimals, 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.960 and then those the debris from those collisions can spiral 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.120 into the Sun, or they get ejected and then just 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.800 plunge forever into the void. Yeah, it's the thing about 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.760 the Amokies. They tend to they tend to throughout the 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.120 old order in place it was something new. You know. 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.760 This reminds me of one of the possible explanations for 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.000 Umu Mua, that object, interstellar object that we did a 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.760 couple of episodes about that. Some people, I think, probably 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.600 very prematurely, we're trying to say it was an alien probe, 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.480 and I don't think there's good evidence of that. But 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.120 one of the ideas about what this object probably is 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.120 because it had strange characteristics, like it's kind of elongated 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.440 and seemed to be moving in a kind of tumbling motion. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.680 One of the ideas is that it is part of 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.520 an object that was destroyed or rejected from its host 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:51.040 star system by a gravitational disturbance like this. Now, most 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:55.200 of the time, when a Jupiter turns murderous, when when Jupiter, 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.360 you know, when when his hand flashes with power, as 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:00.480 it says in the in has He, it's the agony 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.160 um when a gas giant goes rogue and destroys the 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.000 other planets. Most of the time it happens early in 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.560 the formation of the Solar System, shortly after most of 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.040 the material and the nebula disc is dissipated and absorbed 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.160 by newly forming planets. And the reasoning here is that 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.960 without the stabilizing presence of this cloud like disk, a 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.080 jupiter like planet can start going off the rails very quickly. 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:29.800 But sometimes a gas giant can turn into the destroyer. 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.240 Its hand can flash with power later in its lifespan, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.960 for example, if its orbit is disturbed by external influence. 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.680 An example here could be another star passes too close 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:46.240 to the Solar System and this uh this causes gravitational disturbances, 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:48.960 throws the orbit of the jupiter like planet off course, 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.840 and then the same thing happens. It just it starts 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.479 this cascading series of effects on the orbits of other planets. 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:57.880 And you know, many of these inner rocky planets are 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.080 just destroyed, they're they're sent down into the sun on Well, 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.680 you know, if we're to to to draw in comparison 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.000 to maybe not literal the literal mythology, but just sort 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.360 of the nature of mythologies and belief I'm reminded of 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:16.360 what happens when a foreign um religion or foreign deity 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.880 uh comes too close to an establish religion and deity. 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.480 You know, it can also result in a fair amount 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:27.560 of disorder uh and a realigning of the order of things. Yes, 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.080 the realignment of a pantheon in the presence of a syncretism. 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.000 Right when we emerge to religions together. If you merge 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.040 to two stars gravity is too close to one another, 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:42.160 this can definitely realign things and possibly result in a monotheism. Yeah, 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.640 more on that in a bit. So, Yeah, I do 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.040 want to be clear, we're not saying there's any reason 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.080 to think that this is likely to happen to our 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.120 solar system anytime soon like that that that's not the 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.320 implication here, but it is scary to imagine that it 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.720 does sometimes happen around other stars, and at least is 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.040 possible in theory that you know, you can have this 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.280 influence from some kind of external object, another star passes 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.080 too close or something. This can nudge the orbit of 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.800 a previously pretty stable Jupiter like planet, leading to a 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.960 cascade of effects like we just talked about, and then 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.720 the Earth like planets have an appointment with the wicker Man. 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.560 And uh. One interesting thing that Raymond mentions in this 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.919 blog post is he does some rough calculations and guesses 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.280 that about half of the stars in the Milky Way 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.960 galaxy with gas planets have annihilated the rocky planets through 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.800 a process like this. And remember that it's much more 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.439 likely for to happen early during formation, when when the 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.760 disk is first sorting itself out, but it can, in 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.920 some rare cases happen later. And I guess this all 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.960 comes down to the fact that we have a Jupiter 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.640 and we still exist. So it looks like in in 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.200 some sense we're one of the lucky ones. But it's 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.359 also true that the influence of Jupiter or gas giants 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.480 in general, especially Jupiter in our case, doesn't stop there. 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.880 I mean the influence on Jupiter on the history of 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:09.879 the planet Earth appears to be pervasive. I was looking 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.320 at one study by A. Lisa V. Quintana, Thomas Barclay, 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:18.400 William J. Baruki, Jason f Row, and Johnny Chambers from 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.879 the Astrophysical Journal called the Frequency of Giant Impacts on 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.399 Earthlike Worlds, and I was reading some write ups of this, 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.400 and basically, these researchers did some simulations of what happens 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.480 in different types of Solar System configurations where you have 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.200 a Jupiter present, or where you don't have a Jupiter present, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.639 where you have multiple jupiters, and their simulations revealed that 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.919 in general, gas giants like Jupiter have complicated effects on 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.160 rocky inner planets like Earth. So young Jupiter, they think, 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.679 probably flung material into the cores of newly forming rocky 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.640 planets when the Solar System was young, and this would 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.439 have helped planets like Earth come together faster than rocky 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.560 planets in the Solar System without a nearby gas giant. 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.880 But at the same time, by hoarding materials to themselves, 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.520 gas giants limit the number of rocky planets that form 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:12.600 around a star. So if you have a star without 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.480 a planet like Jupiter, it can have way more rocky 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:19.040 planets out there. Um. And then if you don't have 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.960 any nearby gas giants, young rocky planets are subjected to 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.879 a much longer period of early bombardment where they're just 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.760 constantly being hit with impacts from space by smaller objects 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.040 from the solar nebula cloud. And a planet like Jupiter 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.280 makes that cloud disappear faster and thus makes the early 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:44.399 bombardment period last a shorter span of time. But then again, 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.840 you can also look at ways that a planet like 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.000 Jupiter ends up accelerating larger objects like comets into the 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.200 inner Solar System and controlling how long they stay there 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.000 in the Inner Solar System. Uh. And of course those 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.600 things can lead to impacts later on down the line 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.600 that a act Earth life. So Jupiter is once again 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:06.720 sort of protecting and attacking in tandem. Yeah. I guess 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:11.000 the relationships between humans and gods that they tend to 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.800 be a little bit unhealthy. But then again, I mean 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.320 there there are reasons. I guess what we've gone through 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.000 here kind of uh, you know, justifies the ways of 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:28.679 God demand uh to some extent than well, Rob I 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:30.280 don't know about you, but I am ready to mount 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.760 an apologia for Jupiter pluvious. Yeah, let's do it. Let's 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.960 let's talk Jupiter the god a bit more. Um Again, 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.200 I think this comparison between planet Jupiter and the god 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.639 Jupiter is is increasingly apt the more you look at it. Uh. 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.720 And in this episode, we're talking a good deal and 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:51.399 we're still talking about Jupiter the destroyer and Jupiter um 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.800 of of passionate lashing out against a humanity. But but 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.760 also Jupiter the protector, Jupiter the Lord of Earth, because 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.240 he enforces his order upon it and he is in 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.960 many ways its protector. And he was also expressly stated 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.200 to be the protector of the Roman state. The White 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.879 Ox was his favorite sacrifice, and it could afford an 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:18.959 entire year's protection uh from the Lord of the gods. Uh. 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:21.880 And he probably took this sort of thing seriously, seeing 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.240 as how he was also the god of oaths and treaties. 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.800 It's kind of a rules Yeah. Yeah, so you know 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.680 he's lawful. Whatever else he is, he's he's lawful. Uh. 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:35.320 So I was, well, maybe he's the emblem of lawfulness 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.200 to others. I don't know, does he have to follow 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:41.720 the laws himself. Well, I mean he's he's in. It's 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:43.560 here in a tough spot, like if you can't, who 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:47.320 are you going to report him to write? Uh? I 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.400 was reading the Imperial Ideology of Rome and the Principalities 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.000 and Powers in Romans eight thirty one through thirty nine 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.320 by Sun Cho Hong in scripture and interpretation from two 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:01.720 thousand and eight, and Home points that imperial Roman propaganda 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.440 expressly stated that the safety of the entire human race 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.200 lay in the hands of mighty Jupiter. And this is 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.560 the point pressed by Cicero, among others. And I believe 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:15.600 in the particularly in on the ends of Good and Evil. 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.080 I want to read a quote here from it, uh, 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:21.120 And this is not I want to stress that Cicero 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:23.000 goes into a lot more detail about all this, and 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.920 he's he's crafting a much greater point, uh than this. 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.560 This is just a fragment. But he does a right 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:32.120 or he does say. Quote, when we call Jupiter all 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.000 powerful and all good, and likewise, when we speak of 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:39.359 him as the salutary God, the hospitable God, or as state, 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:42.280 or we mean it to be understood that the safety 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.560 of men is under his protection This reminds me of 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.080 like when when presidents of the United States will say, like, 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:53.040 the president's first responsibility is to keep America safe. This 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:55.359 seems like a very close analogy. It's just like, first 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:57.600 of all, I am, I am the daddy, and it 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.879 is it is all protection from me. Yeah, so this 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:04.479 seems to be again Cicero's saying all other things in 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.680