Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb and.
Speaker 3: I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two
Speaker 3: in our series on Jupiter's innermost moon, Io, the most
Speaker 3: volcanic body in our Solar system, and, as I argued
Speaker 3: in the last episode, one of the most fascinating and
Speaker 3: dramatic places we know of beyond Earth. So if you
Speaker 3: haven't heard part one, we would recommend going back to
Speaker 3: listen to that one first. But for a brief recap
Speaker 3: of what we talked about last time. We started off
Speaker 3: talking about how I got interested in revisiting Io because
Speaker 3: we did do a series of episodes on Jupiter's moons
Speaker 3: at large several years back, but I wanted to come
Speaker 3: back and do a closer pass on Io, in particular
Speaker 3: because I got visually obsessed with some images produced by
Speaker 3: the NASA Juno mission in the past year or so.
Speaker 3: Guess it's actually little bit over a year because some
Speaker 3: of the data that we were looking at was collected
Speaker 3: in late twenty twenty three. But we talked about several
Speaker 3: of these images in detail, about the strangely polychrome surface
Speaker 3: of the Moon and its truly fascinating surface features, including
Speaker 3: gigantic blade like mountains, vast sulfurous plains, hundreds of erupting volcanoes,
Speaker 3: enormous hellish lava lakes rippling with lava waves, and lava
Speaker 3: flows stretching hundreds of kilometers, all situated within a land
Speaker 3: that is at once burning hot and freezing cold. So
Speaker 3: it is, as Bart Simpson might say, a land of contrasts,
Speaker 3: but also just a place of enormous physical and sort
Speaker 3: of geological drama. We also talked a little bit about
Speaker 3: the history of the exploration of Io, at least going
Speaker 3: back to Carl Sagan's account of the discoveries made by
Speaker 3: the Voyager Probe in nineteen seventy nine. Around then talked
Speaker 3: about the extremely thin sulfur dioxide atmosphere of Io, which
Speaker 3: is generated initially by venting from the Moon's volcanoes and
Speaker 3: subsequently by the cyclical freezing and sublimation of sulfur dioxide
Speaker 3: frost on the surface, freezing when the Moon passes into
Speaker 3: Jupiter's shadow, then transitioning into gas again once back in
Speaker 3: the sunlight. We also talked a good bit about the
Speaker 3: Greek myth of the Moon's namesake, sort of the themes of
Speaker 3: the Io story, especially in Ovid's telling and other versions
Speaker 3: of the story, and the way the tale was said
Speaker 3: in ancient times to interlock with Egyptian religious figures such
Speaker 3: as the goddess Isis, Shepherd of the dead, and the
Speaker 3: Sacred Mother of Pharaoh's And we are back today to
Speaker 3: talk once again about Io.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: So there's something we didn't really talk about at all
Speaker 3: last time, and that was the use of IO as
Speaker 3: a setting or plot device in science fiction, which, you know,
Speaker 3: despite all of its, at least to me, really apparent
Speaker 3: aesthetic virtues as a setting for a story, it doesn't
Speaker 3: really seem to be a favorite place within our solar
Speaker 3: system for sci fi writers. Or maybe I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just not in a lot of stories I've read.
Speaker 3: But I was having trouble thinking of many examples in
Speaker 3: which it featured in stories I knew. I think it
Speaker 3: showed up at some point briefly in the Expanse, and
Speaker 3: I can't really think of many other examples.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even in the Expanse. And I'm a little foggy
Speaker 2: on where it shows up or doesn't show up if
Speaker 2: it's in the novels by James S. A. Corey, or
Speaker 2: if it's in the TV adaptation. I've only read the
Speaker 2: first book in the series, Leviathan Wiggs, but I watched
Speaker 2: the entire run of the show. But even then, I
Speaker 2: think maybe it only partially factored in there. And I
Speaker 2: think one of the possibilities here is that i Owe
Speaker 2: is a moon that we know to be rather extreme
Speaker 2: and hostile, for even our sci fi visions and fantasies
Speaker 2: tend to give it a little safe distance.
Speaker 3: You know, it doesn't seem like a top candidate for colonization.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, in well, I don't want to spoil too
Speaker 4: much of the plot if people aren't familiar with the expanse,
Speaker 4: but I do remember it pops up as the location
Speaker 4: of a quite cursed laboratory.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're working on a particular molecule. Yes, yes. Now.
Speaker 2: One place you do see Io pop up as a
Speaker 2: setting is the nineteen eighty one gritty sci fi western Outland.
Speaker 2: This one starred Sean Connery and Peter Boyle, has some
Speaker 2: other fairly big names sprinkled throughout the cast as well.
Speaker 2: Directed by Peter Hyam's and I guess they chose Io
Speaker 2: as a setting here because it would be such a
Speaker 2: horrible place to work. It's the horrible working conditions and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of like labor dispute in this particular
Speaker 2: sci fi vision, you know, eighty one, that's not too
Speaker 2: long after Ridley Scott's a and it's a film that
Speaker 2: you could almost assume to be in the same universe,
Speaker 2: you know. It's that sort of very gritty, essentially near
Speaker 2: future vision of science fiction that is very much focused
Speaker 2: on like the working man in space.
Speaker 3: I have meant to see this for years and never
Speaker 3: have it. It's intrigued me ever since my days of
Speaker 3: like in high school flipping through you know, stacks of
Speaker 3: DVDs at the used bookstore in town because it really
Speaker 3: pops because it's Sean Connery holding a shotgun, dressed like
Speaker 3: a cop, except he's in space. So strange vibes from
Speaker 3: the get go. But I've read that if you didn't
Speaker 3: already say this, I've read that this one is supposed
Speaker 3: to be like a Western but in space.
Speaker 2: Correct. Yeah, And I saw it many many years ago,
Speaker 2: but I'm a little foggy on the details. But it
Speaker 2: is gritty, it is very much a Western in space.
Speaker 2: A lot of it concerns explosive decompression, people's heads exploding
Speaker 2: inside a set of suits, and yeah, terrible labor conditions. Now,
Speaker 2: one thing about it that I wasn't familiar with until
Speaker 2: very recently is there was a comic book adaptation of
Speaker 2: it for heavy metal, I believe, by comics legend Jim Staranco,
Speaker 2: and I include a few stills from it here for you, Joe.
Speaker 2: I've seen people talk about this online almost in terms
Speaker 2: of like a lost classic, Like it's apparently hard to
Speaker 2: get your hands on, but it's got some very impressive
Speaker 2: line work and just some really beautiful imagery. I mean,
Speaker 2: like I say that the film itself has a very
Speaker 2: gritty air to it, and that flavor is still present
Speaker 2: in the comic book apparently, but it also has this
Speaker 2: like extra like wilder vibe going on.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's one of those comic book art styles
Speaker 3: where even apparently static objects seem to radiate with energy.
Speaker 3: It's just I don't know what you call that style,
Speaker 3: but it's where everything looks dynamic, like the style of
Speaker 3: drawing is of a reality in which everything is about
Speaker 3: to explode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who's
Speaker 2: read the comic book. There was also an Alan Deine
Speaker 2: Foster novelization, so it has that in common with Alien
Speaker 2: and Aliens and Alien three as well. But as far
Speaker 2: as the treatment of Io in the motion picture and
Speaker 2: in the comic book, basically it's a hell world where
Speaker 2: they just decided to put a mining colony of some
Speaker 2: sort and then prioritize profits over human safety. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: it's the perfect setting for that. Now I had to
Speaker 2: hunt around a little bit more defined examples of Io
Speaker 2: being used as a setting in other sci fi visions.
Speaker 2: There's a nineteen ninety four mini series titled Escape from
Speaker 2: Jupiter that concerns an escape from Io. Apparently it's an
Speaker 2: Australian kids adventure and it's also has Steve Bisley in it,
Speaker 2: who's in a number of I think it was in
Speaker 2: at least one of the Mad Max films.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, I don't reckon him by name. Yeah, well
Speaker 3: maybe what if I saw him? Is this a screenshot
Speaker 3: you've got from it with the bright colors?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's one of the most nineteen nineties TV images
Speaker 2: you could possibly look up online.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what what was the name of it? Wasn't there
Speaker 3: like a Canadian kids sci fi show, sort of a
Speaker 3: Star Trek for kids that was on Nickelodeon in the nineties.
Speaker 3: It was like Space Cases or something.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's ringing a bell only.
Speaker 3: The foggiest memory, but this is reminding me of that,
Speaker 3: except I recall that had a darker look and this
Speaker 3: is very pastel.
Speaker 2: Now. There's also a twenty nineteen film titled Io. This
Speaker 2: was apparently one that was put out on Netflix and
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it, but it concerns refugees of a
Speaker 2: destroyed Earth living on a space station near Io. It
Speaker 2: stars Margaret Qualley of the Substance fame, Anthony Mackie, and
Speaker 2: Danny Houston. Again, I haven't seen this one, but apparently
Speaker 2: it's one. It was released on Netflix. I have to say,
Speaker 2: in the one still I found from or a production
Speaker 2: image promotionary image, doesn't look very pizza in the background.
Speaker 3: No looks this is very gray. One of those shows
Speaker 3: where all the colors washed out. To be fair, this
Speaker 3: is just a still. I don't know the show, but
Speaker 3: marketing department is not selling me on it with this
Speaker 3: color here.
Speaker 2: All right. Now, In terms of written sci fi, there
Speaker 2: are at least there at least two examples to call out.
Speaker 2: There's The Mad Moon by Stanley Jen g Weinbaum. This
Speaker 2: is from nineteen thirty five, same individual who wrote a
Speaker 2: Martian Odyssey, and it features two different alien species that
Speaker 2: are supposed to be native to Io and there's a
Speaker 2: human colony. I haven't read that one, but I did
Speaker 2: read a story he wrote titled The Planet of Doubt,
Speaker 2: which I did a Monster Fact episode back in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, So I'm going to make sure that I
Speaker 2: re air that one either this week or the following
Speaker 2: week so you don't have to go look it up again.
Speaker 2: But it's a pretty fun one. This guy had a real,
Speaker 2: real creative mind for dreaming up alien creatures that you know,
Speaker 2: often reflected some of the stranger biological examples we have
Speaker 2: on our own planet, but with you know, a nineteen
Speaker 2: thirties or slightly later sci fi spin.
Speaker 3: But now nineteen thirties, so that's long before Voyager. I'm
Speaker 3: wondering what did we actually know about Io at that
Speaker 3: point to inform a vision of the biology that would
Speaker 3: arise there.
Speaker 2: Well, that may maybe not enough to know that two
Speaker 2: indigenous species of any human colony were not maybe that likely.
Speaker 2: We have some caveats on the whole life on IO thing. Well,
Speaker 2: we'll come back to it though. Another one that came
Speaker 2: out though is The Very Pulse of the Machine by
Speaker 2: Michael Swanwick. This is from nineteen ninety eight and it
Speaker 2: concerns a possibly sentient IO. It was adapted into an
Speaker 2: episode of Love, Death and Robots on Netflix again, Netflix
Speaker 2: loves Io with the main character voice by McKinsey Davis,
Speaker 2: who's been in things like Halden Catch Fire and I
Speaker 2: believe the more recent Blade Runner of film.
Speaker 3: So when you say sentient io, you're talking about the
Speaker 3: moon itself, the planetary body being a sentient organism or
Speaker 3: sentient in some way.
Speaker 2: Yes, I believe so, And I haven't read the story,
Speaker 2: but I have seen this episode of Love, Death and Robots,
Speaker 2: and I just the only thing I remember about it
Speaker 2: is that it looked beautiful and it concerned bad things
Speaker 2: happening in space on the Moon.
Speaker 3: That sounds kind of like silarious, But having not seen it,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be overly broad about that.
Speaker 2: But there's a fair amount of variety in Love, Death
Speaker 2: and Robots. It's a really fun series, but there are
Speaker 2: a number of episodes I think that you can describe
Speaker 2: as bad things happen to people in space. So maybe
Speaker 2: some of those bleed together in my memory.
Speaker 3: I'm going to write some sci fi where only good
Speaker 3: things happen to people in space.
Speaker 2: There you go, That's what we need, you know, we
Speaker 2: need a dash of the more of the Star Trek
Speaker 2: optimism these days.
Speaker 3: Like page three hundred, people just wake up, Oh splendid
Speaker 3: day once again, smooth sailing.
Speaker 2: So that's what I've got. Now, there may be some
Speaker 2: other fantastic examples or just even marginally interesting examples of
Speaker 2: IO in science fiction. So if you have any of those,
Speaker 2: do write in. We'd love to share them with everyone
Speaker 2: else on a future listener mail episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially if it's something that takes the real physical
Speaker 3: characteristics of IO seriously as either a source of creating
Speaker 3: alien biology or something people on the planet would have
Speaker 3: on the moon would have to live with. Yeah, right
Speaker 3: in contact at stuff to Blow your mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Yeah again. One of the challenges though, is we've been
Speaker 2: discussing it and will continue to discuss It's just it's
Speaker 2: a very extreme place. There are there are I'm not
Speaker 2: going to say there are more interesting Jovian moons, But
Speaker 2: there are other Jovian moons that are better candidates for
Speaker 2: things like some sort of life form being present there potentially,
Speaker 2: or there being some possibility for human colonization or outpost efforts,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 3: Forth, bridging to the next thing I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 3: Even though Io, and as you said, we'll get into
Speaker 3: this a bit more later, might not be the best
Speaker 3: place to search for alien life, might not be the
Speaker 3: best place for humans to colonize, that doesn't mean it
Speaker 3: is a place without mysteries of its own. There can
Speaker 3: be mysteries of a quite inorganic nature that I still
Speaker 3: think are pretty compelling, and I wanted to bring up
Speaker 3: one of those, the mystery dunes of Io. So Rob
Speaker 3: to start off with, I'm gonna have you look at
Speaker 3: two images side by side in our outline here, and
Speaker 3: folks at home, we will describe them for you so
Speaker 3: you understand what we're looking at. On the right, we
Speaker 3: have a satellite image. This is taken from above the
Speaker 3: Namib Desert, which is on the west facing Atlantic coast
Speaker 3: of Southern Africa, and that desert covers parts of the
Speaker 3: coastal region of Angola, South Africa, and primarily Namibia. Now,
Speaker 3: looking down at this desert from an orbital perspective, we
Speaker 3: can see a beautiful, almost hypnotic pattern repeating across the
Speaker 3: sandy expanse. Those are dunes, and sand dunes are characteristic
Speaker 3: of many, but certainly not all, desert environments on Earth.
Speaker 3: Some desert environments are very rocky, others are very cold,
Speaker 3: places you might find ice fields, and then other desert
Speaker 3: environments are the places you would find vast expanses of
Speaker 3: sand dunes. Sand Dunes on Earth are formed primarily by
Speaker 3: what are called Eolian forces, meaning they're created by the
Speaker 3: action of wind, and actually the influence of wind comes
Speaker 3: in at multiple stages because if you go way back
Speaker 3: to the point of of the sand, wind along with water,
Speaker 3: plays a role in the weathering and the transportation of rocks.
Speaker 3: So you start off with rocks. You might have rocks
Speaker 3: in the mountains or something, and they are broken up
Speaker 3: by weathering, they get rained on, or they get the
Speaker 3: wind blows on them, and various forces break those rocks
Speaker 3: up into smaller pieces which can then be transported by
Speaker 3: water and by wind downhill into places where they collect,
Speaker 3: and over time those pieces of rock are continually broken
Speaker 3: down into smaller and smaller pieces by further weathering and
Speaker 3: erosion and transport, and the smallest sizes of mineral grains.
Speaker 3: You might remember this if you listen to our series
Speaker 3: on dust, are known as from larger to smaller are
Speaker 3: known as sand, silt, and then clay. Sand Dunes are
Speaker 3: created in areas where sand collects, So after the rocks
Speaker 3: are weathered and eroded and then the sand is broken
Speaker 3: down in transport, it'll sort of end up in some
Speaker 3: kind of catching place, a depression, usually a lower lying area,
Speaker 3: And when the wind blows it can move sand particles
Speaker 3: along with it, And this is something yet again we
Speaker 3: talked about in our series on dust. The term for
Speaker 3: the process by which sand is moved around by the
Speaker 3: wind is known as saltation. So you can get different
Speaker 3: ways that the wind interacts with sediments and rock pieces
Speaker 3: of different sizes. So you know, a larger rock, the
Speaker 3: wind blows against it, it's not going anywhere. Maybe a
Speaker 3: pebble the wind blows against it, it might kind of
Speaker 3: move it a little bit, or a pebble might get
Speaker 3: blown off another a pile of other pebbles and kind
Speaker 3: of tumble a little bit, but it doesn't really go
Speaker 3: much of anywhere unless you get really high winds. And
Speaker 3: then meanwhile, if you go all the way down to
Speaker 3: the sort of the dust size of grains of sediment,
Speaker 3: the wind can pick it up and carry it up
Speaker 3: into the atmosphere and then the dust just you know,
Speaker 3: it is borne a lot for a long long time.
Speaker 3: It can travel anywhere. It can travel across the land,
Speaker 3: across the ocean, end up in different places. But sand
Speaker 3: is in this middle zone where it's subject primarily to
Speaker 3: the forces known as saltation. When wind blows on sand,
Speaker 3: the sand will be blown along the surface of the ground,
Speaker 3: or will follow the surface of whatever sort of the
Speaker 3: base layer of the earth is, and it will will
Speaker 3: be kicked up, and it'll kind of jump and bounce
Speaker 3: and then come back down and hit the sand, and
Speaker 3: that will cause other pieces of sand to kind of
Speaker 3: get knocked out of place when the initial piece of
Speaker 3: sand lands, So it creates this kind of bouncing, jumping,
Speaker 3: hopping motion as sand is blown along by the wind,
Speaker 3: As sand gets blown along by the wind, as saltation
Speaker 3: is going on. At some point the flow of wind
Speaker 3: driven sand can become obstructed. Maybe it gets caught on
Speaker 3: an obstacle like there's a bush, or maybe it falls
Speaker 3: behind an obstacle like a bush or piece of vegetation,
Speaker 3: and then the wind cannot exert as much of a
Speaker 3: force on it anymore, so it just kind of like
Speaker 3: sits there and grains can pile up, or maybe it
Speaker 3: gets blown against the side of a slightly elevated pile
Speaker 3: of other grains of sand and it gets stuck there
Speaker 3: instead of moving on and from here, these places where
Speaker 3: sand starts to collect can be a self reinforcing process,
Speaker 3: where a mound of sand just gets bigger and bigger
Speaker 3: as the wind forces blowing sand particles against it cause
Speaker 3: the particles to collect around this mound in one way
Speaker 3: or another. So a common format of sand dune that
Speaker 3: you will get in places, especially where the dominant winds
Speaker 3: are blowing primarily in one direction, is that the side
Speaker 3: of the sand dune facing the wind will be a smoother, slower,
Speaker 3: more gradual slope, and then the side of the sand
Speaker 3: dune facing away from the dominant winds will be a
Speaker 3: much steeper, sharper slope. And what's usually happening is the
Speaker 3: wind is blowing sand along and it's eroding sand from
Speaker 3: the middle of the rising slope on the windward side,
Speaker 3: and then trying to deposit it right at the crest,
Speaker 3: right at the peak of the dune. And in this way,
Speaker 3: over years and years, more and more sand accumulates. But
Speaker 3: sand dunes don't just grow higher and higher forever. Eventually
Speaker 3: a sand dune will collapse, not totally disappearing, but losing height.
Speaker 3: And this happens when one side of the dune becomes
Speaker 3: too steep, exceeding what is called the angle of repose. Now,
Speaker 3: this is a kind of cool physics principle. I think
Speaker 3: we may have talked about this on the show before,
Speaker 3: but the angle of repose is the steepest angle that
Speaker 3: a pile of sediment or whatever other granular substance can
Speaker 3: attain before it collapses under its own weight. In fact,
Speaker 3: I wonder if we talked about the angle of repose
Speaker 3: in when we were talking about the ant lion, because
Speaker 3: I believe that is a factor in the construction of
Speaker 3: their conical traps. That you know, they make them so
Speaker 3: just so that they're sort of right on the edge,
Speaker 3: and it's easy for the sides to start collapsing and
Speaker 3: pull an ant down if they fall in.
Speaker 2: That may be a place where it's come up before. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, the angle of repose is not a universal constant.
Speaker 3: It instead depends on a number of variables about the
Speaker 3: material you're piling up. So you know, different types of sand,
Speaker 3: different grain sizes of sand, like the amount of friction
Speaker 3: between the particles, how big the particles are on average,
Speaker 3: stuff like that will all affect what the angle of
Speaker 3: repose is for a pile of this stuff. But I
Speaker 3: was reading that. I was reading on an information page
Speaker 3: by the USGS. This was a page about Sand Dune's
Speaker 3: National Park in Colorado. The angle of repose for sand
Speaker 3: is usually between thirty and thirty four degrees, so once
Speaker 3: it gets steeper than that, the dune will collapse. And this,
Speaker 3: in part explains why when you're looking at pictures of
Speaker 3: sand dunes in the desert, you will, as I said,
Speaker 3: often see them with this one smooth side, kind of
Speaker 3: a gentler slope on one side ascending at a shallower angle,
Speaker 3: and then the other side will fall off at a
Speaker 3: steeper angle with an almost kind of sheared off texture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, looking like someone is sliced into it to get
Speaker 2: a little bit of the dessert. That's sort of a look.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. So generally the smoother side is facing the
Speaker 3: dominant winds, where the sediment continues to be eroded from
Speaker 3: the slope going up and then tries, and then the
Speaker 3: wind deposits more and more of it at the crest,
Speaker 3: and then it gets steeper and steeper on the downwind
Speaker 3: side until it collapses. And of course there's also going
Speaker 3: to be some sand grains falling over the top of
Speaker 3: the dune and then ending up down sort of in
Speaker 3: the shelter from the wind on the leeward side. And
Speaker 3: sand dunes are really interesting, you know, you can if
Speaker 3: you watch them over long periods of time, they can
Speaker 3: start to seem less like the geological formations we're used to.
Speaker 3: I mean, we know that mountains move over time, but
Speaker 3: you know, it's really hard to imagine how mountains move.
Speaker 3: You really have to just sort of think outside of
Speaker 3: the human timescale. Dunes are kind of somewhere in between
Speaker 3: mountains and the waves in the ocean. Over periods of
Speaker 3: you know, months or years, dunes will will creep across
Speaker 3: the surface of the Earth. So that's dunes on Earth. However,
Speaker 3: Rob I want to come back and have you look
Speaker 3: at the photos we started with, So the one we
Speaker 3: were looking at first is sand dunes on Earth. But
Speaker 3: then the photo I've got for you here on the
Speaker 3: left is a photo of Io. So what we see
Speaker 3: on the lower left hand side of the image is
Speaker 3: a kind of dark spreading expanse that has a sort
Speaker 3: of creepy organic outline, kind of like if you zoom
Speaker 3: way out, like a flood pouring through topography. And researchers
Speaker 3: think that this area in the photo of Io is
Speaker 3: probably one of those relatively fresh lava flows that we
Speaker 3: talked about last time. You know, a lot of the
Speaker 3: surface of Io is affected by lava flows, and that
Speaker 3: they can be huge, enormous, hundreds of kilometers of just
Speaker 3: lava flows. And this helps contribute, of course to what
Speaker 3: Carl Sagan said about the moon right. He said that
Speaker 3: Io is a place of relatively rapid change by planetary standards.
Speaker 3: Major changes to the surface of Io can occur on
Speaker 3: a timescale of months. But if you look at the
Speaker 3: other side of this image from Galileo, not the dark side,
Speaker 3: but the lighter colored side, we see not lava flows,
Speaker 3: but these pale reflective ripples thousands of them arrayed in
Speaker 3: a repeating pattern, kind of like what you would see
Speaker 3: in like when you can see a standing wave of
Speaker 3: emerging in a fluid, or you know, if you like
Speaker 3: a rattle, you like rattle a speaker, and then on
Speaker 3: top of it there's some sand. You get these emerging things.
Speaker 3: One thing I wanted to compare it to was like
Speaker 3: a silver reptile skin. It has almost kind of a
Speaker 3: pebbly lizard texture.
Speaker 2: It does.
Speaker 3: But actually when you see him side by side here
Speaker 3: this looks quite a lot like satellite photos of desert
Speaker 3: dunes on Earth. But could that really be what they are?
Speaker 3: Because remember what we talked about in the previous episode.
Speaker 3: Io only has the most tenuous, ghost like suggestion of
Speaker 3: an atmosphere. It's composed primarily of sulfur dioxide with a
Speaker 3: few other trace constituents. And for a comparison of how
Speaker 3: thin Io's atmosphere is, I was looking for, you know,
Speaker 3: what's the difference between Earth's atmosphere and iOS And I
Speaker 3: actually found a twenty twenty press release from the National
Speaker 3: Science Foundation that addressed this. They crunch the numbers and
Speaker 3: they say that i Io's atmosphere is roughly a billion
Speaker 3: times thinner than Earth's It is barely an atmosphere at all,
Speaker 3: thicker than the even more tenuous exosphere of Earth's moon,
Speaker 3: which I was looking that up. Also, apparently Earth's moon
Speaker 3: has such a thin layer of gas that there are
Speaker 3: only about one hundred molecules of gas per cubic centimeter
Speaker 3: near its surface. So iOS is thicker than that, but
Speaker 3: still not thick enough to cause irrosive wind patterns like
Speaker 3: we have on Earth. So if there's not enough of
Speaker 3: an atmosphere to sustain significant winds on Io, and if
Speaker 3: dunes are generally created by Eolien forces by wind, what's
Speaker 3: making the dunes or are they actually dunes at all?
Speaker 3: So just a couple of years ago, there was a
Speaker 3: paper that actually addressed this question. It was published in
Speaker 3: Nature Communications by MacDonald at All and the title is
Speaker 3: this will answer some of the questions Eolian sediment transport
Speaker 3: on IO from lava frost interactions and for context. I
Speaker 3: was also reading about this in a Rutgers University press
Speaker 3: release by Kiddy Macpheerson from April twenty twenty two that
Speaker 3: had some quotes from the authors. So, first of all,
Speaker 3: to answer the question, are these dunes previous researchers had
Speaker 3: noted that the features which are generally turned termed ridges
Speaker 3: in the astronomy context or the planetary science context. These
Speaker 3: features that they had been noticed for their similarity to
Speaker 3: eli and sand dunes on planets like Earth and Mars.
Speaker 3: Mars has dunes as well, But these previous investigations usually argued, no,
Speaker 3: these are probably not dunes formed by wind. For the
Speaker 3: reasons that we've already raised. The atmosphere of Io is
Speaker 3: not thick enough to really have wind. It's not thick
Speaker 3: enough to lift sediment and move it around. And again,
Speaker 3: this moving around of sediment by s particles by wind
Speaker 3: would be saltation. So remember that when it comes up
Speaker 3: in these quotes. The authors of the paperwright quote choosing
Speaker 3: zero point one nanobars as a representative atmospheric pressure. One
Speaker 3: study estimated a twenty kilometer per second threshold friction speed
Speaker 3: to move grains on Io, two orders of magnitude greater
Speaker 3: than Io's roughly three hundred meters per second wins, concluding
Speaker 3: that an Eolian origin for these features was impossible. Formation
Speaker 3: by tidal forces was favored. Now, tidal forces means the
Speaker 3: interaction of different gravitational forces on matter exerting a pulling
Speaker 3: or a stretching force. So this alternate explanation previously favored
Speaker 3: because Io can't sustain wins, is that there's something about
Speaker 3: the gravity that is causing these ridge features to emerge. However,
Speaker 3: despite agreeing that saltation is not possible under the ambient
Speaker 3: atmospheric conditions of Io, the authors note that there really
Speaker 3: are a number of similarities between the features seen in
Speaker 3: these images and Eolian dunes. They mentioned quote the ridges,
Speaker 3: regular spacing, slightly meandering forms, and possession of crestline defects.
Speaker 3: So these are all features that are very similar, so
Speaker 3: similar to wind formed dunes on Earth and Mars that
Speaker 3: it would be kind of strange if that's not what
Speaker 3: they were. So is there any way that these features
Speaker 3: could have been formed by something like wind, even though
Speaker 3: you know, even given the limitations we know of Io's atmosphere. Well,
Speaker 3: the authors of the paper note that the thickness of
Speaker 3: Io's atmosphere is not consistent across its surface, so the
Speaker 3: density of surface gas could actually be much higher at
Speaker 3: certain times and in certain areas, specifically in the vicinity
Speaker 3: of volcanic vents, which are rapidly viewing so two gas
Speaker 3: as they erupt. The authors ask, what if there is
Speaker 3: a sort of you could say, quote unquote wind that
Speaker 3: is present locally, not globally, on the surface of Io,
Speaker 3: consisting of some kind of rush of gases from subsurface
Speaker 3: interactions from volcanism or from downstream effects of volcanic eruptions,
Speaker 3: And what if this is responsible for crafting the dunes?
Speaker 3: And this is in fact what they find support for
Speaker 3: in their paper and the author's write quote here we
Speaker 3: demonstrate that interactions between lava from volcanic eruptions and the
Speaker 3: sulfur dioxide frost blanketing Io's surface can produce localized sublimation
Speaker 3: vapor flows with sufficient gas densities to enable saltation. So
Speaker 3: I thought that was really interesting. So what would these
Speaker 3: interactions be. To be clear, they're not talking about their
Speaker 3: quote unquote wind being the gases that burst directly from
Speaker 3: volcanic eruptions. You know, it's not like the gas comes
Speaker 3: out of the volcano and that is the wind. They're
Speaker 3: talking instead about a secondary mechanism that they find probable,
Speaker 3: which is that you have hot lava flowing just underneath
Speaker 3: the surface of the frost layer here, and it's creating
Speaker 3: this interaction with the sulfur dioxide frost on the surface,
Speaker 3: causing the sulfur dioxide to sublimate. Essentially, it heats it
Speaker 3: up and it causes an outgasing process. So suddenly a
Speaker 3: bunch of this SO two turns into gas and then
Speaker 3: they find that that would be capable of driving saltation.
Speaker 3: So lead author George MacDonald, quoted in the press release, says,
Speaker 3: our studies point to the possibility of Io as a
Speaker 3: new dune world. We have proposed and quantitatively tested a
Speaker 3: mechanism by which sand grains can move and in turn
Speaker 3: dunes could be forming there. And I really they actually
Speaker 3: come through in the in the press release there the
Speaker 3: authors are like referencing the book Dune and talking about
Speaker 3: how it could be like a racket. So I like
Speaker 3: the dedication to like we have we have determined how
Speaker 3: it can be a dune world.
Speaker 2: We have captured a sand worm and will soon begin
Speaker 2: the spice spice production on another planet.
Speaker 3: Yes, now, if this is in fact the mechanism, it
Speaker 3: would explain a number of things. It would explain the
Speaker 3: similarity to dunes created by wind on the other planets
Speaker 3: of course, it would also explain, sort of going against
Speaker 3: the tidal forces argument, why you see dunes in different orientations,
Speaker 3: because the authors say, you know, if it was tidal forces,
Speaker 3: it seems like you'd be more likely to see all
Speaker 3: the dunes kind of aligned along with certain gravitational axes,
Speaker 3: but instead you see dunes facing different directions. But another
Speaker 3: thing is that if this really is the mechanism, you
Speaker 3: might expect to see more dunes forming, like around the
Speaker 3: edges offs like we see in this image we started with,
Speaker 3: where you've got this black glassy area on one part
Speaker 3: of the image. You know, that's where the lava is flowing,
Speaker 3: and then at the edge of that it's probably interacting
Speaker 3: with these these planes of so two frost, and that
Speaker 3: could be creating the winds that blow that blow over
Speaker 3: the surface and help form the dunes. Interesting, So I
Speaker 3: feel like sci fi writers, we're just feeding you, We're
Speaker 3: just you know, like you can you can do a
Speaker 3: dune type thing on io that'll work here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean it's a again, this is
Speaker 2: it's an exciting world and perhaps a little too exciting,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what maybe scares away even some
Speaker 2: sci fi visions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, once again. I mean, I agree, that's fair. Like
Speaker 3: I understand, especially if you're trying to write hard or
Speaker 3: semi hard sci fi, like dealing with the real uh
Speaker 3: what we actually know and how that would inform the
Speaker 3: story creates problems. But I think this is really enticing
Speaker 3: because Okay, so we've seen Arakis, We've seen Dune as
Speaker 3: a hot world, but imagine a freezing cold Dune world
Speaker 3: but also super hot in certain areas.
Speaker 2: I guess one of the things to keep in mind,
Speaker 2: kind of going back to our full episodes on the
Speaker 2: Jovian moons, is like they're all kind of terrible, you know,
Speaker 2: compared to what we have here on Earth. I mean
Speaker 2: the same can be said for pretty much everywhere else
Speaker 2: in our Solar system and the known universe, you know,
Speaker 2: like this this is the world we can live on,
Speaker 2: this is the world we have to make work, and
Speaker 2: the rest of them. It's kind of like looking at
Speaker 2: the I don't know Batman's rogue gallery and saying, well,
Speaker 2: which one is the like the least awful, And you
Speaker 2: might be like, well, mister Freeze has some you know,
Speaker 2: some virtues to him, yes, but he's still a murderous madman. Killer.
Speaker 3: That's a very good comparison. Weirdly, and I've sort of
Speaker 3: had this on my mind lately. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: something I think of every now and then, ever since
Speaker 3: I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, which is a book
Speaker 3: very much about It's a space exploration book that I
Speaker 3: don't want to spoil too much for people who haven't
Speaker 3: read it, but it ends up being very much about
Speaker 3: the virtues of Earth.
Speaker 2: Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, the preciousness of the planet we
Speaker 3: already have. Uh, and so that's a wonderful theme. It's
Speaker 3: you know, some people I love space, space exploration and
Speaker 3: space colonization as a setting for a science fiction story.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love that as much as anybody. But
Speaker 3: but also sometimes in people who are real advocates of
Speaker 3: space exploration, you almost get a sense of that they're
Speaker 3: just kind of done with Earth. It's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: we've used that up, we can kick that out. We
Speaker 3: just got to move on to the next thing. I
Speaker 3: don't I don't think that's a good basket to put
Speaker 3: your chickens in.
Speaker 2: No. No, I mean, you know this has come up
Speaker 2: in various conversations in the show before, but you know,
Speaker 2: you pretty much any model for near to medium term
Speaker 2: colonization efforts, you know elsewhere in the Solar System, those
Speaker 2: are all going to be completely dependent upon Earth. You know,
Speaker 2: There's there's no deshackling from that planet. You know, even
Speaker 2: in your you know, sci fi visions. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like you have to really look at far future scenarios
Speaker 2: where it would even become possibly feasible for there to
Speaker 2: be truly independent colonies, independent systems that are not depending
Speaker 2: on this place where we evolve to thrive. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. And to be clear, once again,
Speaker 3: I'm not against space exploration or even necessarily space colonization.
Speaker 3: See the beauty and the excitement in those kind of
Speaker 3: grand projects. But I don't know, I find it revolting
Speaker 3: when that kind of grand ambition brings along with it
Speaker 3: contempt for the planet that we need right now and
Speaker 3: will need for the foreseeable future. You gotta love Earth now.
Speaker 2: This is a commentary that has existed in the zeitgeist
Speaker 2: for a while. I always come back to a particular
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four talk given by Terrence McKenna in which
Speaker 2: he refers to the Earth as quote, an incredible pearl,
Speaker 2: flung out in a universe of ashes and darkness. And
Speaker 2: and he's making a larger point in referencing this about
Speaker 2: a decision to be made regarding human nature and how
Speaker 2: we view ourselves and our place in the universe. But
Speaker 2: I keep coming back to that idea. Our earth is
Speaker 2: this incredible pearl, and because it is the place where
Speaker 2: there is life, it is the place where we are
Speaker 2: meant to be. And you know, we may expand out
Speaker 2: and explore these other places, we may expand out and
Speaker 2: make new homes on these other places, but this, this
Speaker 2: is the place from which we arose. This is our
Speaker 2: true home. This is the only place we can count
Speaker 2: on to sustain us as long as we cherish it.
Speaker 3: Everywhere else is a gamble, And you don't bet the
Speaker 3: home world on a gamble, you know, that's right. Nothing
Speaker 3: else is a sure thing.
Speaker 2: And you certainly don't bet on Io. Yeah no, because
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's realistically betting on Io. They may,
Speaker 2: they may be placing moderate bets on other destinations in
Speaker 2: our solar system, but Io is the odds are great.
Speaker 2: You're a gambler, but it's not likely going to be
Speaker 2: a win.
Speaker 3: However, greatly worth studying, if not the number one candidate
Speaker 3: for a little for a base out there. One thing
Speaker 3: I did observe about that quote before we move on, though,
Speaker 3: I actually think the pearl is a wonderful metaphor for Earth,
Speaker 3: not just because it's a ball, you know, like Earth
Speaker 3: is roughly spherical and pearl is usually somewhat spherical, Not
Speaker 3: just because it is precious. I mean, pearl, of course
Speaker 3: is a type of jewel, so it's precious just like
Speaker 3: the Earth is. But it is also essentially a mineral
Speaker 3: product at its material base, which most of the Earth is,
Speaker 3: but also a biofact. You know, a pearl is created
Speaker 3: by life, and the way the Earth is now it
Speaker 3: was also in a way created by life. Life is
Speaker 3: defined what the planet is down to its very physical substance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Oh now, Rob, I remembered something we said we were
Speaker 3: going to come back to, was the question of the
Speaker 3: possibility of io sustaining life. We've already said that it's
Speaker 3: probably not, you know, just from from what we already know.
Speaker 3: Probably not the first candidate to look for life elsewhere
Speaker 3: in our solar system. But you know, with with most
Speaker 3: planetary bodies out there, people have kind of done the
Speaker 3: work to say, like what sort of thing would be
Speaker 3: most plausible here? And I know you'd been reading a
Speaker 3: bit about io and life, so once you turn up.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, again, it is an extreme environment and it's
Speaker 2: by no means the best option for life in amid
Speaker 2: the Jovian Moons. The best options I think are arguably
Speaker 2: Europa and Ganymede. But you know, we know, based on
Speaker 2: our own model of life here on Earth, that life
Speaker 2: can thrive in extreme environments. And you know, over the
Speaker 2: past several decades, I think that's become you know, more
Speaker 2: and more crystallized in our understanding that you know, life
Speaker 2: here on Earth is pretty rugged and certain models of
Speaker 2: it can survive in very hostile conditions. So it's not
Speaker 2: completely out of the question that something could evolve, either
Speaker 2: evolve within those hostile conditions on another world, or survive
Speaker 2: in such conditions, you know, after the loss of a
Speaker 2: previous habitat. And so I was looking around in one
Speaker 2: individual in particular that has speculated a fair amount concerning
Speaker 2: IO is German astrobiologist Dirk Schultz Makouch speculated in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three on Big Think about the possibility. The title
Speaker 2: of the Big Think article that he crafted is there
Speaker 2: could be life on hot volcanic Io. Jupiter's quote pizza met.
Speaker 3: We talked about the pizza surface in the last episode.
Speaker 3: It looks like it's got I don't know, what would
Speaker 3: you say? The topping selection is definitely pepperoni and olives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and cheese of course, the fair amount of cheese,
Speaker 2: mozzarella and or parmesan on top. And of course Schultz
Speaker 2: macouch has has also a third and co authored a
Speaker 2: number of peer reviewed articles that the Big Think article
Speaker 2: is more is more general audience. But but he goes through,
Speaker 2: you know, all the major points that he hits in
Speaker 2: some of these other articles, and he drives home that
Speaker 2: the Juno mission revealed much more about Io than we
Speaker 2: previously knew, and that based on these more recent discoveries,
Speaker 2: you know, it's reasonable to hypothesize that while Io is
Speaker 2: now this volcanic world of extreme cold and extreme hot temperatures,
Speaker 2: it may have once had as much liquid water as
Speaker 2: Europa and Ganny meat and during those early days, the
Speaker 2: combination combination of liquid water and geothermal heat again you know,
Speaker 2: highly volcanic world could have led to the development of life. However,
Speaker 2: of course, this wouldn't be the case today. Io would
Speaker 2: have gone on to lose most of the water due
Speaker 2: to Jupiter's radiation and tidal forces, and this is pretty
Speaker 2: much left the surface of Io quite uninhabitable. But what
Speaker 2: about the underground, Well, Schulzmakouch stresses that it might still
Speaker 2: prove too violent beneath Io's surface for life, Like it's
Speaker 2: still it's still you know, not the best bat, but
Speaker 2: you know. He says that there's a chance it could
Speaker 2: survive there due to the possibibility of remaining abundant water
Speaker 2: carbon and reduce sulfur compounds. So a dynamic, though possibly
Speaker 2: too dynamic environment for life. Maybe not on the surface
Speaker 2: of Io, but perhaps maybe underneath the surface of the planet,
Speaker 2: beneath the planet of the pizza if you will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where the remnants of their civilization worship a
Speaker 3: giant pizza oven.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So where would we look for them, if
Speaker 2: we could at all look look for them on this world,
Speaker 2: We suggests lava tubes, which should be common on such
Speaker 2: a volcanically active world. These would of course be beneath
Speaker 2: the surface of Io, where they would possibly serve as
Speaker 2: a safe haven for life, protected to some degree from
Speaker 2: radiation and subject to warm at least semi constant temperatures.
Speaker 2: And he stresses that lava tubes here on Earth, you know,
Speaker 2: they provide a great example because they are often home
Speaker 2: to extremophile and microbial life, regardless of the region in
Speaker 2: which you find them. You know, this is true of
Speaker 2: lava tubes in the desert as well as in Iceland,
Speaker 2: in places like that. And on top of that, lava
Speaker 2: tubes on Mars, according to schulsmaccooch the most plausible place
Speaker 2: to find life on the Red planet. So lava tubes
Speaker 2: in general great place to look for. It seems like
Speaker 2: lava tubes should be present beneath the surface of Io
Speaker 2: as well. Now, he also discusses that if there's not
Speaker 2: enough water for life on Io, it's also feasible that
Speaker 2: hydrogen sulfide might and in for water, though he stresses
Speaker 2: that quote suggesting an alternative alternative solvent for life is
Speaker 2: always very very speculative. Yeah, So I do want to
Speaker 2: make sure I'm doing justice to what he has written
Speaker 2: and said about this, because he's not saying there's definitely
Speaker 2: life on ioh. He's saying, you know, we have to
Speaker 2: keep an open mind about these things and discuss how
Speaker 2: it could exist there based on what we know of
Speaker 2: life here on Earth.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, as you said that this is a common
Speaker 3: experiment a lot of you know, people who are interested
Speaker 3: in astrobiology go through. Is not to say there is
Speaker 3: definitely life on Titan or whatever it is, but to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: given the conditions we know about here, what could you
Speaker 3: imagine working there? If we were to discover life in
Speaker 3: this kind of place, where would we expect to find it,
Speaker 3: What form would we expect it to take?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it sounds like the possibility here would be
Speaker 2: some sort of you know, microbial extremeophile life form that
Speaker 2: again is living in certain lava tubes where they're protected
Speaker 2: from the radiation, where there's something like consistent warmth going
Speaker 2: on and it's not subject to like massive freezes and
Speaker 2: then massive you know, boiling temperatures. So but again it
Speaker 2: would be down in these lava tubes. And one of
Speaker 2: the things that he points out is that, yeah, these
Speaker 2: we just have to speculate like this, This would be
Speaker 2: very hard to just to explore one hundred percent for
Speaker 2: a number of reasons. It's very difficult to figure out
Speaker 2: how you would like land a craft or a rover
Speaker 2: on IO and then dig down underneath the surface. It's
Speaker 2: a very hostile world. However, there's still plenty of room
Speaker 2: to explore it from an orbital standpoint, and we can
Speaker 2: continue to learn more about the surface of Io and
Speaker 2: the composition of IO, and in doing so we might
Speaker 2: be able to make even better guesses about what might
Speaker 2: be beneath the surface. All right, Well, on that note,
Speaker 2: we're going to close out this episode, but we'll come
Speaker 2: back with one more episode on Io this Thursday. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, definitely feel free to write into us. We'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from you your thoughts about anything we
Speaker 2: discussed here. Examples of IO from science fiction. All of
Speaker 2: that is fair Game will remind you the stuff to
Speaker 2: blow your mind. Is primarily a science and culture podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes
Speaker 2: on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious
Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema. Maybe we'll get to Outland someday. It's been
Speaker 2: on kind of like the shortlist for a little bit,
Speaker 2: but maybe maybe someday soon If you would like us
Speaker 2: to cover Outland on Weird House Cinema, write in and encourage.
Speaker 3: Us, Sir, Sean just looks so serious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's very serious in this one. I think
Speaker 2: maybe that's why I've held off on this one, like
Speaker 2: this is a gritty film, or at least that's my
Speaker 2: memory of it. Very gritty, not a lot of fun
Speaker 2: to be had, you know, it's it's a dirty future.
Speaker 3: Oh, I've got a note. Does he just use his
Speaker 3: normal accent or does he pretend to have a different accent?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't remember, but if added that, I would say,
Speaker 2: just normal accent. Okay, that's normally how it shakes out.
Speaker 3: I would want to hear Sean Connery doing cowboy voice. Well,
Speaker 3: howdy partner, all right, huge, Thanks as always to our
Speaker 3: excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to
Speaker 3: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 3: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 3: or just to say hi, you can email us at
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