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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: listen listen to those in order. But to briefly recap,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: in the middle which shall not be named. That one

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Speaker 3: volcano emits more heat than all of Earth's volcanoes combined,

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Speaker 3: which is a pretty startling fact. We also talked in

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Speaker 3: previous parts a bit very briefly about the historical exploration

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Speaker 3: of Io, including Carl Sagan's account of the discoveries made

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Speaker 3: by the Voyager one probe in nineteen seventy nine. We

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: interact with other religious figures, such as the Egyptian goddess Isis.

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Speaker 3: In Part two, we discussed when and how Io tends

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Speaker 3: to pop up in science fiction storytelling. There's sometimes what

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: talk about a few more things.

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Speaker 2: That's right, all new things quite true.

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Speaker 3: In fact. To kick things off today, I want to

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Speaker 3: talk about a pretty new research paper I think it

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Speaker 3: was just published a couple of months ago in the

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Speaker 3: journal Nature, I believe in December twenty twenty four, which

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Speaker 3: addresses a longstanding mystery about the interior of We've talked

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Speaker 3: about the mysteries of its surface, but now we're going

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Speaker 3: to talk about mysteries of what lies inside. So this

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Speaker 3: paper was by park at All and it's called Io's

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Speaker 3: title response precludes a shallow magma ocean. Again published in

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Speaker 3: Nature twenty twenty four, So a bit of context about this.

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Speaker 3: For the past four decades or so, there has been

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Speaker 3: a question about what powered the vulcan canic corruptions on Io,

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Speaker 3: and it was long suspected for a number of reasons,

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

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Speaker 3: there lay a vast planetary magma ocean, sometimes thought to

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Speaker 3: be maybe roughly fifty kilometers deep below the surface, a

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Speaker 3: vast ocean of liquid magma stretching around the planet, which

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Speaker 3: found release points at each of Io's roughly four hundred

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Speaker 3: active volcanoes. So this was long suspected by some researchers

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Speaker 3: to be the case. But this new paper published in

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Speaker 3: Nature in twenty twenty four has a group of researchers

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Speaker 3: who took information gathered by the NASA Juno mission and

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Speaker 3: used it to argue that the magma ocean hypothesis cannot

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Speaker 3: be correct and instead each volcano is probably powered by

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Speaker 3: its own distinct magma chamber. And I'm going to try

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: volcanic plume by NASA JPL scientists Linda Morabito in nineteen

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: about what's inside the Moon to feed the eruptions. And

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Speaker 3: I wanted to read a quote here by Juno principal

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

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

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Speaker 3: since Morabido's discovery, planetary scientists have wondered how the volcanoes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: iob the gravitational influence of IO, because it was primarily

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: In the words of Scott Bolton, the Juno principal investigator,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: keeps changing. Two. And this really affects the Moon because

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Speaker 3: it's always the case that the side of the Moon

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Speaker 3: facing Jupiter experiences a stronger pull than the side that's

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Speaker 3: farther away. The nearer side is pulled harder than the

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Speaker 3: far side, But because of the constantly changing distance between

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Speaker 3: Io and Jupiter, the difference between the pull on the

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Speaker 3: far side and the near side of the planet keeps

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Speaker 3: changing too, And this manifests as what planetary geologists might

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Speaker 3: call tidal flexing. It's a squeezing, stretching of the solid

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Speaker 3: material that the Moon is made of in the fluctuating

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Speaker 3: gravitational field. You can kind of just imagine this by

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: of those, you know, cheap metal forks, cafeteria forks, and

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Speaker 3: you bend it back and forth a bunch of times,

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Speaker 3: real fast until it gets hot.

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Speaker 2: No, I never did this. I didn't even know this

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Speaker 2: was a thing. I mean, I mean, physically, I understand

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Speaker 2: why it's possible, but I didn't know it was a

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Speaker 2: thing that kids do.

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

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

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Speaker 3: like that? You're using your hands right, not your mind? Yes,

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: metal back and forth a bunch of times. Usually what

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Speaker 3: you will find is that the metal heats up. The

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Speaker 3: flexing causes a frictional force within the material that excites

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Speaker 3: the atoms, and it makes the metal hot or at

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Speaker 3: least warm. Similar principle here, The flexing of the Moon

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Speaker 3: by the by the changing gravitational field as it gets

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Speaker 3: closer and farther away from Jupiter causes frictional heat of

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Speaker 3: the inside of the Moon, and that heat is immense.

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Speaker 3: It is so immense that it melts parts of the

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Speaker 3: Moon's interior and this massive build up of internal heat

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Speaker 3: energy is released to the surface through volcanic eruptions. But

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Speaker 3: this brings us back to the question we started with,

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Speaker 3: what is the nature of the subsurface magma source to

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Speaker 3: read from the paper in Nature quote For decades it

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Speaker 3: has been speculated that this extreme tidal heating may be

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Speaker 3: sufficient to melt a substantial fraction of Io's interior, plausibly

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Speaker 3: forming a global subsurface magma ocean. Many worlds are believed

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Speaker 3: to have had magma oceans early in their evolution, notably

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Speaker 3: the early Moon referring to Earth's moon there, notably the

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Speaker 3: early Moon, which is thought to have had a shallow

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Speaker 3: magma ocean in the first one hundred million years, caused

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Speaker 3: by the giant impact that birthed the body, which that

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Speaker 3: is not new information in this paper, but that on

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Speaker 3: its own is just a fascinating fact to consider it,

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Speaker 3: you know. So there is the main theory of the

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Speaker 3: origin of the current Earth and Moon is the giant

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Speaker 3: impact hypothesis. So the idea is that roughly four and

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Speaker 3: a half billion years ago, during the formation of the

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Speaker 3: Solar System, when the you know, the planets were just accreting,

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Speaker 3: there was a collision between the early proto Earth and

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Speaker 3: some kind of roughly Mars sized object, and this collision

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Speaker 3: caused a fracturing that eventually ended up causing the separation

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Speaker 3: of the material that became the Earth and became the Moon.

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Speaker 3: So that's the common origin of the Earth we have now,

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Speaker 3: and where the Moon came from. And so the idea

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Speaker 3: here is that for the first one hundred million years

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Speaker 3: or so after that, the Moon probably had a global

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Speaker 3: shallow magma ocean surrounded by liquid by molten rock. Wow

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Speaker 3: would have been cool to see. Perhaps not physically cool,

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Speaker 3: but anyway. So the authors cite that as an example

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Speaker 3: of a global shallow magma ocean surrounding a planetary body

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Speaker 3: or a moon, and then the quote goes on to

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Speaker 3: say Io's extreme volcanism strongly suggests the existence of at

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Speaker 3: least a partially molten interior. Whether the interior contains a

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Speaker 3: shallow global magma ocean has been an outstanding question since

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Speaker 3: the discovery of Io's volcanism. Now, beyond these theoretical models,

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Speaker 3: were there any recent experiments that would have provided support

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Speaker 3: for the idea of a global magma ocean. I was

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Speaker 3: looking into this and it appears yes, there were some

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Speaker 3: good reasons from findings that pointed in this direction. Apparently,

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Speaker 3: the Galileo mission took some magnetic measurements that were thought

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Speaker 3: to be consistent with a shallow, shallow reserve of global magma,

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Speaker 3: and I also wanted to flag another argument for the

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Speaker 3: magma ocean, and I came across in a space dot

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Speaker 3: Com article by Keith Cooper, which pointed out that previous

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Speaker 3: data collected by the JUNO mission had actually enabled researchers

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Speaker 3: to create the first global map of Io's volcanic activity.

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Speaker 3: Rob actually pasted a picture of this global map in

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Speaker 3: the outline for you to look at here. And so

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Speaker 3: it's got little color coded polka dots of different energy

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Speaker 3: levels of volcanic corruptions all over Io's surface. The authors

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Speaker 3: here assembled this map based on near infrared signatures of

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Speaker 3: iOS polar regions. In particular, data collected by previous missions

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Speaker 3: had already done some of this mapping, I think, but

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Speaker 3: had left us with an incomplete picture of volcanic activity

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Speaker 3: near the poles. And I was reading a space dot

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Speaker 3: com article that quoted study author Ashley Davies, a volcanologist

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Speaker 3: at NASA, JPL and Calteche, Pasadena, and Davies explained their

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Speaker 3: findings by saying, quote before this anal it was thought

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Speaker 3: that Iowe's polar volcanoes were fewer and more powerful than

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Speaker 3: at lower latitudes. We show that polar volcanoes are about

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Speaker 3: as prevalent as at lower latitudes, and actually with lower

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Speaker 3: emitted power. Suggesting smaller eruptions. And another thing the researchers

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Speaker 3: found is that these findings were interpreted by computer modeling

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Speaker 3: to lend support to the hypothesis of a global subsurface

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Speaker 3: magma ocean. So it seemed like this looked good for

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Speaker 3: the for the magma ocean.

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Speaker 2: Did they consider connecting these dots and seeing if it

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Speaker 2: made a pentagram or not, because that's that's generally what

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Speaker 2: you do in detective movies.

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

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

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, see it all lines up with that unnamed island.

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: it is, in fact one of the It is one

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Speaker 3: of the hottest types of dots. Any pentangle, I'm not

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Speaker 3: really seeing it.

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Speaker 2: If you want them bad enough, they will manifest.

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

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Speaker 3: it all from twenty twenty four, so the authors use

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: authors of the paper right quote our results indicate that

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: that expected on several known exoplanets and super earths, may

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Speaker 3: not guarantee the formation of magma oceans on moons or

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Speaker 3: planetary bodies. And Rob, I've got a little artist's rendition

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Speaker 3: for you to look at here. This is an artist's

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Speaker 3: impression of the interior of Io informed by these new findings,

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Speaker 3: does not show a global magma ocean instead shows these

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

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

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Speaker 3: connected to plumes that we see erupting far over the

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Speaker 3: surface of the planet. This has more the look of

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

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Speaker 3: that like have the fire inside and you see their

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Speaker 3: skin kind of cracking and then the fire is ready

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Speaker 3: to come out. It looks like it's about to go

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Speaker 3: supermode exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these kind of yeah, these deep the I

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Speaker 2: want to describe them as veins because they don't really

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Speaker 2: have that kind of rooting pattern. But deep fissures, I

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Speaker 2: guess would be more glowing fissures would be the way

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Speaker 2: to describe them.

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

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Speaker 3: ocean would be all of its volcanoes. They may in

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

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Speaker 3: the author's write in their conclusion quote. On Earth, deep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: and charismatic.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Plus, you know that if you miss that,

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Speaker 2: if you miss that vision of what iowe is, it's

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Speaker 2: probably out there somewhere else in the universe. So you

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Speaker 2: can just imagine that it's out there somewhere waiting for you.

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Speaker 3: Used to be present on our moon.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's somewhere else in time and space, and

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Speaker 2: in time maybe a lot closer than you thought. Now.

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Speaker 2: One of the features of the illustration that you showed me,

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Speaker 2: and certainly listeners can find various images that either depict

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Speaker 2: this or are actual captures of this. One of the

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Speaker 2: distinguishing features that you often see with IO is that

359
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Speaker 2: of these plumes coming up from its surface volcanic eruption

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Speaker 2: that is ejecting material into space, and it is always

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Speaker 2: kind of weird to look at because it feels completely

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Speaker 2: out of scale, like we're not used to seeing. You know,

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Speaker 2: we've all seen images of volcanic eruptions, and yes they

364
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Speaker 2: can actually they can look quite alarming from orbit, but

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Speaker 2: this just looks These just look amazing because the Moon

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Speaker 2: in profile has this plume coming off of it, just

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Speaker 2: this ridiculously far reaching plume of volcanic eruption. And so

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Speaker 2: that's what I want to explore here in this next section,

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Speaker 2: getting into like what exactly this is, what is it

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Speaker 2: mean for not only IO, but for the the basically

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Speaker 2: the entire orbital realm of Jupiter itself.

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

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

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00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 3: taken from reality look fake. They look like they look

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

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

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00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 3: and it's not always just visual light. But but yeah,

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

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Speaker 3: they're that they look like a cartoon.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like this is grotesque and ridiculous, But I'm

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Speaker 2: reminded of of pimples. You know, usually in profile, you

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Speaker 2: are not going to notice a pimple, And if a

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Speaker 2: pimple were to burst on a person, you wouldn't see

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Speaker 2: that in profile. You wouldn't see like the silhouette of

385
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 2: the eruption. And if you were to see that, well,

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00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:58,160
Speaker 2: you would be watching like an Itchy and scratchy cartoon

387
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 2: or a SpongeBob cartoon or something. It be a cartoon

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00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 2: exaggeration of reality. And that's what the scale of these

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00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:06,199
Speaker 2: things really looks like.

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

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

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00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 3: you pop it, it squirts like six feet off their body.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so what's going on here? Well, you know, here

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Speaker 2: on Earth, we certainly have powerful volcanic eruptions as well.

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Speaker 2: We have in the past, and they occur periodically, and

396
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 2: they will continue to occur. But we also have some

397
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 2: other things going for us that you don't find on

398
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,600
Speaker 2: IO and you don't find everywhere else in our solar system.

399
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Speaker 2: We have a robust atmosphere, We have resulting wind resistance

400
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 2: and sufficient gravity to place the necessary escape velocity beyond

401
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 2: what even a very powerful terrestrial eruption is capable of reaching.

402
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Speaker 3: Right, So that escape velocity number is going to mean

403
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 3: that our volcanoes they might erupt quite powerfully, but they're

404
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 3: not blasting stuff out into space so that it never

405
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 3: comes back, or not much stuff certainly.

406
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I've read that while terrestrial volcanoes can't really blast

407
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 2: things into orbit, they can reach really high into the atmosphere,

408
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 2: in arguably touching space. For instance, the twenty twenty two

409
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 2: Hanga Tonga volcanic eruption supposedly shot water vapor up that

410
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 2: high to where it was essentially touching space. But it's

411
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:26,880
Speaker 2: not quite what we're seeing with IO at all.

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

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

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Speaker 2: Right, right, Yeah, you've got to get all the way

415
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 2: out of there. You got to it's got to be

416
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 2: a complete breakup with the planet, not one of these things.

417
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 2: We'll continue to see each other socially. No, no, no,

418
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Speaker 2: you've got to be out of there.

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Speaker 3: Volcanoes are not doing that.

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Speaker 2: So this thinking about this led me to, you know,

421
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 2: get into escape velocity here on Earth and elsewhere, and

422
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,400
Speaker 2: ways to escape it. You know, the most obvious way

423
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 2: to do it is, of course, in a rocket. That's

424
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:04,360
Speaker 2: what we're used to seeing with our Earth space technology.

425
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Speaker 2: The escape velocity on Earth is eleven point one eighty

426
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 2: six kilometers per second. That is, that's going to be

427
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 2: a higher velocity than is necessary for any of the

428
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 2: other inner planets. On Earth's own moon it's two point

429
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 2: thirty eight kilometers per second, and on Io the number

430
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Speaker 2: I've seen is two point five five eight. So just

431
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 2: to give you a little frame of reference for what

432
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 2: we're talking about here again coming back to what does

433
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 2: Earth have that a lot of these other suspects don't

434
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 2: you know? It has. It has the gravity, it has

435
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 2: the robust atmosphere and so forth. So this all adds

436
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 2: up to a greater necessary escape velocity for anything that

437
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 2: is leaving the surface of the planet or any point

438
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 2: within the atmosphere of the planet, and hoping to free

439
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:59,239
Speaker 2: itself of our orbital dominion. Now one thing I want

440
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 2: to go ahead, get out of the at the top here there.

441
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people have probably heard the

442
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 2: legendary manhole shot into space story via Operation plumb Bob.

443
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,439
Speaker 2: These were atomic tests in nineteen fifty seven. The idea

444
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 2: here was that you had these test wells for atomic

445
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,959
Speaker 2: detonations with a metal cap on the top, essentially a

446
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 2: manhole cover, and at least one of these blasted the

447
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 2: cap off, and it was said that it achieved such velocity.

448
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 2: In fact, I think the number that is often cited

449
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 2: is six times the necessary escape velocity and therefore flew

450
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 2: off into space and is potentially still out there well.

451
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 2: According to a twenty twenty two Snop's article by Bethania Palma,

452
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 2: there's nothing actual actually out there to back this up.

453
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 2: This all seems to stem from a comment by Robert Brownly,

454
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 2: who worked on the project, who remarked that the manhole

455
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 2: cover in question would have been blasted off at six

456
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 2: times the necessary escape velocity. It apparently went flying, but

457
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 2: that's all that's really known. We don't know if it

458
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 2: was launched into space, and if it was, we have

459
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 2: no records or recording of it. I think it's also

460
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 2: been mentioned that it's possible that it would have burnt

461
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 2: burnt up on the way up as well. So you know,

462
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 2: we have to consider all these options. But there's no

463
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 2: like clear evidence that this thing actually made it into

464
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 2: orbit or beyond orbit and so forth.

465
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, all we actually know is that this was a piece,

466
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 3: a solid piece of metal that was hit from below

467
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 3: with tremendous energy. But we don't know exactly what happened

468
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 3: to that matter and energy afterwards, what its journey was

469
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 3: question mark right now.

470
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 2: Of course we already mentioned rockets. Rockets are you know,

471
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 2: we can compare rockets to volcanoes in that, you know,

472
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 2: the rocket is taking advantage of a very explosive chemical

473
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 2: reaction in order to propel this you know, tower of

474
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 2: steel and so forth upwards through the atmosphere. And you know,

475
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 2: it's and rocket science has come a long way. It's

476
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 2: ultimately a lot more dependable than trying to blast into

477
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 2: space on a volcano, which again probably wouldn't give you

478
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 2: the exactly the push you needed anyway.

479
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's been tried.

480
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 2: You'd have to be you'd have to be so patient.

481
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think it's just maybe there's

482
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 2: some sort of sci fi scenario, or it would make

483
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 2: sense if you know of a science fiction tale in

484
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 2: which someone uses a volcano to escape a planet's orbit,

485
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 2: do write in and tell us about it. Now. In

486
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 2: terms of just using explosions though, and explosive events to

487
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 2: potentially transfer into orbit or beyond orbit, we do have

488
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 2: to mention Project Ryan here. This has come up on

489
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 2: the show in the past because it is, you know,

490
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: it's an early concept of how we might achieve interplanetary travel.

491
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 2: It was a nuclear pulse spaceship concept from the nineteen

492
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 2: fifties and sixties. I think a lot of you may

493
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 2: be familiar with this. Essentially built around the idea was

494
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 2: built around the concept you could propel a craft through

495
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 2: space via a series of nuclear detonations behind the craft.

496
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 2: Not to be confused with nuclear thermal rockets such as

497
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 2: the Nerva project, in that you'd have a nuclear reaction

498
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:40,479
Speaker 2: that was heating fuel rather than depending on a chemical

499
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 2: reaction to do so.

500
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 3: So the Nerv rocket would still be a reaction drive,

501
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 3: but it would just be the heating is from nuclear sources.

502
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, And that one was never tested in space,

503
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 2: nor was Orion. But the Orion program is like, let's

504
00:30:55,520 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 2: keep throwing atomic bombs behind the ship, allowing them to explode,

505
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 2: thus propelling our ship onward and onward through space with

506
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 2: each blast like pushing up against a blast plate on

507
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 2: the rear of the vessel, an idea that I've just

508
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 2: always found. I mean, it's it's it's preposterous and yet reasonable,

509
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 2: amazing in its own right, and you know, in Inner

510
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 2: Yourself to the Stars, Yeah, yeah, and uh yeah, it's it's.

511
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 2: It's one that I've come back to a few different times.

512
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 2: But it's one of Sagan wrote about as well. Actually

513
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 2: looked up an old like press briefing where someone asked

514
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 2: Sagan about it, and you know, he pointed out he'd

515
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 2: written about it in Cosmos or I don't remember if

516
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 2: you'd written about it in Cosmos or if you just

517
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 2: discussed it on the television series, but you know, pointed

518
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 2: out that like, Okay, well, this is actually not a

519
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 2: bad way to go ahead and get rid of some

520
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 2: of our atomic weapons. Let's use them to propel a spaceship.

521
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 2: But of course there are all these various hazards to

522
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 2: such a technique as well. Some of these we'll get

523
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 2: into here in the discussion. So I was, you know,

524
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 2: I was mostly familiar with the concepts involved here, the

525
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 2: potential benefits and the downsides. But one thing that I

526
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 2: didn't quite realize is that early models of the project

527
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 2: Orion nuclear pulse spaceship during the fifties and sixties actually

528
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 2: considered it not only for propelling a vehicle through space,

529
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 2: but for using it in liftoff in order to achieve

530
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 2: escape velocity from Earth.

531
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 3: WHOA, I don't think I'd ever thought of it that way.

532
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was reading about this in a couple of sources.

533
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 2: One was in a nuclear pulse Propulsion Oriyan and Beyond

534
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 2: by Schmidt at All for NASA, and they pointed out

535
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 2: that early drafts of the proposal called for a bullet

536
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 2: light capsule to be launched from the ground. From the

537
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 2: ground via an atomic detonation, likely from a Nevada nuclear

538
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 2: test site. The mass of the vehicle on takeoff would

539
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 2: have been on the order of ten thousand tons, most

540
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 2: of which would have gone into orbit at takeoff, the

541
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 2: zero point one kiloton yield pulse units would be ejected

542
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 2: at a frequency of one per second. As the vehicle accelerated,

543
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 2: the rate would slow down and the yield would increase

544
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,719
Speaker 2: until twenty kiloton pulses would have been detonated every ten seconds.

545
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 2: The vehicle would fly straight up until it cleared the

546
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 2: atmosphere so as to minimize radioactive contamination. This is one

547
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 2: of the big hazards and downsides to this whole concept

548
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 2: is that you would it would entail detonating multiple multiple

549
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 2: atomic weapons in this model within the atmosphere. But even

550
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 2: if you weren't using that within its atmosphere to achieve liftoff,

551
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 2: if you were going to the program where okay, once

552
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 2: you get your spaceship away from Earth, then you can

553
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 2: start dropping bombs in order to accelerate. Even then you're

554
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 2: still causing all of these detonations. And then what happens

555
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 2: when you reach sure destination. There are some models that

556
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 2: were outlined that would call for detonating bombs as you landed,

557
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 2: thus like nuking the landing site ahead of your arrival.

558
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:13,439
Speaker 2: And if there are people on board, well they're gonna

559
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,839
Speaker 2: have to deal with the literal fallout of all of that.

560
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:22,240
Speaker 2: The original concept was created by Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson,

561
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:28,720
Speaker 2: and Freeman Dyson's son, George Dyson, claims, historian of science,

562
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: wrote about all this in the book project Orion, The

563
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 2: True Story of the Atomic Spaceship, and he points out

564
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 2: quote these early four thousand ton ground launched versions of

565
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 2: Orion specified the ejection of about eight hundred bombs raging

566
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: and yield from zero point fifteen kilotons at sea level

567
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 2: to five kilotons in space to reach a three hundred

568
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 2: mile orbit around Earth. Points out that each bomb would

569
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 2: have weighed around half a ton. Less yield would be

570
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 2: necessary at lower out tod since the thicker air itself

571
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 2: would absorb energy and add to the kick against that plate.

572
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 2: But then you would need more yield. You'd have to

573
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 2: steadily increase the yield of the detonations as the vessel

574
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 2: was propelled upwards. And this would have all required like

575
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 2: tight precision and exactly how you're detonating these bombs and

576
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 2: even how you're getting them back there underneath the ship,

577
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 2: like is it a trapdoor or is there some sort

578
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 2: of a you know, some sort of a targeted rocket

579
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 2: system that launches them alongside the vessel and then back

580
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 2: underneath it. You know, you would have to work out

581
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,320
Speaker 2: all of those problems. So that's about eight hundred bombs.

582
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 2: The original design called for about two thousand bombs or

583
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 2: two thousand pulse units, far more than needed to reach

584
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 2: orbit according to their calculations, but that was because they'd

585
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 2: set their sites pretty high. Their slogan was Mars by

586
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five, Saturn by nineteen seventy, and they were

587
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 2: talking about like crews of one hundred and fifty people.

588
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:02,200
Speaker 2: So this was a really ambitious concept. Obviously, this is

589
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 2: not the way it all worked out.

590
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 3: I mean I said this in a totally different context earlier.

591
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 3: But there's a cartoonishness to this. It kind of reads

592
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 3: like a joke.

593
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does, and I think that's one of the

594
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 2: reasons it resonates so well. It's like this interesting perversion

595
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 2: of the accumulation of atomic weapons, though not necessarily a

596
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 2: negative pervert, like the accumulation of atomic weapons is already

597
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 2: a perversion in many respects, but the idea of then

598
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 2: taking them all and using them to propel a spaceship

599
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 2: to another planet, you know, with such ambition it, you know,

600
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:43,319
Speaker 2: it's ultimately more attractive. Like Sagan said, it's like, well,

601
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 2: that's one way to get rid of the weapons, or

602
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 2: at least that's the way he put it at one point.

603
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 2: Now the concept here continued to again they ended up

604
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 2: moving away from the idea of it potentially blasting off

605
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 2: of the surface of the Earth like this via atomic

606
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 2: weapon detonations. It had many powerful supporters, but it never

607
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 2: came to fruition for a variety of reasons, including cost,

608
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 2: including risk, and of course including international treaties about nuclear testing.

609
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 2: George Dyson points out that, yeah, you had these various

610
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 2: drawbacks to such a program, including the idea that if

611
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 2: you were going to use detonations while potentially a landing

612
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:32,839
Speaker 2: a ship in another world, again, you would be pre

613
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 2: contaminating the landing site. So even if you even if

614
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 2: that wasn't going to make it too you know, radioactive

615
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 2: for then humans to venture out on the surface of

616
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 2: this destination world, you're still messing with what you were

617
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 2: going to explore to begin with. You know, so so

618
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:55,359
Speaker 2: many different reasons to not go in this direction. Now

619
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 2: you might be wondering was there another way to get

620
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,320
Speaker 2: something into orbit from Earth's surface without some sort of

621
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 2: an explosion. Well, there has been research into the use

622
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 2: of centrifugal force, and such research actually continues at least

623
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 2: as a rocket aid to decrease the dependence on traditional rockets.

624
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 2: You know, you can think essentially like slingshots in terms

625
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 2: of like the basic fundamentals here, this is the sort

626
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 2: of thing we could potentially come back and do a

627
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 2: more dedicated episode on this idea, because again there as

628
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 2: at least one company out there that continues doing a

629
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 2: lot of well funded work in this area. Now elsewhere

630
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 2: in speculation and in science fiction, there are some ideas

631
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 2: related to directed panspermia to consider, so directed PAMs spermias.

632
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 2: Of course, this would entail the intentional seeding of other

633
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 2: worlds with life, and in some creative takes on what

634
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 2: this might look like, it might entail some manner of

635
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 2: biological propulsion, maybe some sort of biocanon that enables a

636
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 2: seed of some sort to escape from one world's gravity,

637
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 2: drift through space and find another world. And we actually

638
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 2: saw a vision of what this might look like in

639
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 2: a recent film that we discussed on Weird House Cinema,

640
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 2: Beyond the Mind's Eye.

641
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 3: Oh that's right with the Yon Homer soundtrack, It's like

642
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 3: the second or third track on there is the one

643
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 3: that the seed's blasting into space and then we see

644
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 3: them form, and what was the deal with that?

645
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 1: It?

646
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 3: Like, why do I associate that with a cover of

647
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 3: Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan.

648
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 2: Because it was used as a music video for that

649
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: cover the Planet Caravan. Yeah, which kind of shakes out

650
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 2: kind of makes sense. Now is this at all feasible?

651
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 2: I don't know. Again, I think it comes down to

652
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:50,799
Speaker 2: what sort of world are you attempting to escape with

653
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 2: this seed? You know, what's the gravity like, what's the

654
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 2: atmosphere like? And so forth. Now I haven't seen this

655
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 2: movie in ages, but I believe the bugs in the

656
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 2: eteen ninety seven Starship Troopers movie also have something like this.

657
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 2: I think they're called plasma bugs in that, and these

658
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 2: are some sort of organic cannon system.

659
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 3: Right, biological artillery. Yeah, there's some big bugs that kind

660
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 3: of bend over and they like eject something out of

661
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 3: their backside that goes up into orbit and it takes

662
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 3: out the capital ships.

663
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 2: All right, So some maybe some sort of weaponized version

664
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 2: of something that might otherwise be used for pan spermic.

665
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 3: Purposes, possibly, who knows.

666
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 2: Now there's another major player in the world of science

667
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 2: fiction biothreats, and that's the Tyranids in the Warhammer forty

668
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,399
Speaker 2: thousand universe. These are if you're not familiar with these,

669
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: they're kind of there's a little bit of xenomorph to them,

670
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 2: except they are a spacefaring species. They have big, big

671
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 2: leviathan bioships and they arrive on worlds and they invade

672
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 2: them and eventually like turn all the bio they convert

673
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,840
Speaker 2: all the biomass on the planet, But then they have

674
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 2: to get it off the planet. And interestingly enough, unless

675
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 2: I'm mistaken, they don't have any kind of way of

676
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,359
Speaker 2: like launching it directly back up with their you know,

677
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 2: entirely biological civilization. Instead, they depend on something called capillary towers,

678
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 2: which are like organic space elevators. So they just have

679
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 2: the big ships in orbit suck it all up back

680
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 2: off the surface of the planet, which I guess is

681
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 2: one way to potentially do this.

682
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 3: Sounds kind of Necromonger style, Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a

683
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 3: certain necromongernous to them, or there's a certain Tyranid nature

684
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 3: to the Necromongers.

685
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 2: One way or the other, including an image an illustration

686
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 2: here of what this might look like, you know, the

687
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 2: big coiling ambilical cord going from the planet's surface up

688
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:51,800
Speaker 2: to some sort of you know, horrifying living alien vessel.

689
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:53,399
Speaker 3: Yikes, give me out.

690
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 2: But anyway, back to the real world, back to volcanoes. Yeah, so,

691
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 2: while Earth volcanoes can't blast things in orbit space, volcanoes,

692
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 2: including ice volcanoes, which I think we've talked about on

693
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 2: the show before, absolutely can and the volcanoes of Io,

694
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:12,760
Speaker 2: dealing with much less gravity and atmosphere, can easily jet

695
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 2: their contents into orbit, and not only into their orbit,

696
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 2: but into the orbit of Jupiter. Ah.

697
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 3: Well, this actually brings us back to the one of

698
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 3: the first things we talked about in the series, when

699
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 3: we were discussing Carl Sagan's comments about what scientists knew

700
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 3: as the voyager probe was approaching Jupiter before they actually

701
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 3: had direct evidence of the volcanoes. One of the indications

702
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 3: that there might be something strange going on with Io

703
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 3: was he said that they had already detected a huge

704
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 3: doughnut shaped tube of atoms in orbit around Jupiter basically

705
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 3: within the sort of the same position as the orbit

706
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 3: of the moon Io made up of just like just

707
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 3: isolated atoms of things like sulfur and potassium and sodium,

708
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 3: and for some reason that's just going around the planet.

709
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,360
Speaker 2: Why that's right. Yeah, These eruptions create a terroidal or

710
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 2: doughnut shaped cloud of charged particles that follow Io's orbit

711
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 2: and wraps part of the way around Jupiter. It's also

712
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,719
Speaker 2: referred to as a plasma taurus, and it produces ultra

713
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 2: violet light, intense radiation, and as Io orbits Jupiter, it

714
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 2: travels through the torrent, generating an enormous electrical current, thus

715
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:34,759
Speaker 2: amplifying Jupiter's magnetosphere. So the ioplasma Taurus plays a major

716
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 2: role in strengthening the most powerful magnetosphere in the Solar System.

717
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:43,959
Speaker 2: I mean, the magnetosphere of Jupiter almost reaches the orbit

718
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 2: of Saturn.

719
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 3: Wow.

720
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,919
Speaker 2: Now, there are other sources of charge particles in Jupiter's orbit,

721
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 2: including other Jovian moons and the Solar wind, But according

722
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 2: to the ESA, Jupiter's magnetosphere captures all of these particles

723
00:43:57,080 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 2: and then speeds them up like it's a literal part

724
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 2: article accelerator, creating intense radiation belts out of these accelerated

725
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 2: particles and I owe as a major contributor. These radiation

726
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 2: belts pose an additional obstacle to missions to any missions

727
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 2: to the Jovian moons, particularly any possible future missions that

728
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 2: might feature live crew members, because this would expose them

729
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 2: to lethal doses of radiation for like hours at a

730
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 2: time potentially, and it poses a risk to equipment as well.

731
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 2: So any mission through these belts requires, on one hand,

732
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 2: additional navigation precision to avoid, as the ESA points out,

733
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 2: low latitude orbital paths around Jupiter. And also you just

734
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,760
Speaker 2: need to have additional shielding and protection for any gear

735
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 2: because I've read that it essentially would be it would

736
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 2: be a case where whatever kind of equipment was aboard

737
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 2: one of these craft, it would encounter as much radiation

738
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:55,840
Speaker 2: as a terrestrial satellite would endure over the course of

739
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 2: multiple decades.

740
00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 3: And Joe I.

741
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 2: Included a couple images here in the notes for you.

742
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 2: Here the sort of highlight iOS Plasma Taurus and shows

743
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 2: shows us like how it sort of features into the

744
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 2: complex magnetosphere and orbital ecosystem of Jupiter.

745
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 3: Ah yeah, okay, so branching out from the poles, we

746
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,880
Speaker 3: see the magnetic field lines, but then closer in to

747
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:24,279
Speaker 3: of course those extend out really far into space. But

748
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 3: then in closer to the planet we see the gold ring,

749
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 3: we see the ring of the the the atom or

750
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 3: the ion Taurus. And this is a lot of this,

751
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 3: as you said, is stuff that is actually being ejected

752
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 3: from the thin atmosphere and uh, an orbit of Io

753
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 3: bi volcanic eruptions and just goes off into space and

754
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 3: ends up in orbit not around Io but around Jupiter.

755
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so I I found found this. This is

756
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 2: not just another way in which Io stands out and

757
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 2: I think is rather fascinating. It's it's again, it's easy

758
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 2: to to consider Io and think, okay, well it's not

759
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 2: It's maybe not a top consideration for extraterdustrial life. It's

760
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 2: not a top consideration for some sort of uh, you know,

761
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 2: distant future human colony.

762
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 3: Uh.

763
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 2: And it's not even like the biggest moon. Maybe in

764
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 2: your opinion, it's not the most impressive moon in the

765
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 2: Jovian System. But when you look at details like this,

766
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 2: it's clear that it is a major player in the

767
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 2: Jovian System, like it contributes quite a bit. So it

768
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 2: would be you would be in great error if you

769
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 2: were to completely dismiss IO and be like, oh, it's

770
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 2: not interesting it it doesn't really do anything, et cetera. Like, no,

771
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 2: it's it's it's of extreme importance.

772
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 3: I want to meet the person who says it's not

773
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 3: interesting because it's not the biggest size matters not. Come on,

774
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 3: look at the volcanoes. Yeah, I know, it's that island.

775
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 2: There's a lot going on here, you know, maybe maybe

776
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 2: not life, but maybe life. As we discussed in the

777
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,359
Speaker 2: last episode, we just don't know. There's a lot more

778
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 2: to learn from Io, that's for sure.

779
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,239
Speaker 3: Did I tell you I've been thinking about that big

780
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 3: island in the middle of Loki Potera as the Island

781
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 3: of Death.

782
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:12,239
Speaker 2: That would be something if it had they like the

783
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 2: signature booklan topography going on there. Once we get some

784
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 2: more detailed imagery. All right, well, we're going to go

785
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:21,640
Speaker 2: ahead and close the book on Io here, you know,

786
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 2: at least until more data presents itself and provokes us

787
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,280
Speaker 2: to come back and take another look. But in the meantime,

788
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from all of you out there

789
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:34,760
Speaker 2: if you have feedback in anything we've discussed in these episodes. Likewise,

790
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 2: are there other moons that we've covered in the past,

791
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 2: Jovian moons, the moons of Saturn, and so forth that

792
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 2: you think deserve a second, more detailed examination on the show.

793
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 2: If so, right in, let us know and we will

794
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 2: consider giving it a go.

795
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,040
Speaker 3: I feel like the obvious candidate is tighten right. Yeah,

796
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:56,720
Speaker 3: here we go deep on Titan.

797
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, or you know whatever, the biggest one is, right,

798
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 2: all right? Just a reminder to everybody. It' Stuff to

799
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

800
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes

801
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,880
Speaker 2: on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious

802
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird

803
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 2: House Cinema.

804
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our regular audio producer JJ Posway,

805
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 3: and shout out special thanks today to our guest producer

806
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 3: Max Williams. Thank you so much. Max. If you would

807
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 3: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

808
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 3: this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for

809
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 3: the future, or just to say hello, you can email

810
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 3: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

811
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:47,480
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812
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:50,359
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813
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:53,240
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814
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:05,680
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