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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time for an episode from the Vault. This one originally

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Speaker 1: aired on A and it is about the moons of Mars,

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Speaker 1: Phobos and Demos. Yeah, this one is a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: This is another one of those episodes where we get

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Speaker 1: to talk about mythology, but we're also talking about other worlds,

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Speaker 1: so you know, it's it's a wonderful balance. This, uh,

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Speaker 1: this cocktail of an episode. Get it. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, the production of My Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be bringing you an episode about space objects. And as

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Speaker 1: we often do, we're gonna be We're gonna be starting

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Speaker 1: off here by talking a little bit about the mythology

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Speaker 1: that is related to these space objects. Rob, do you

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Speaker 1: mind if I start with a reading from the Iliad? Oh,

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Speaker 1: let's do it, okay, So I want to read a

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Speaker 1: passage from the Iliad book four, from the excellent translation

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Speaker 1: by Caroline Alexander, And this is describing a big host

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Speaker 1: of warriors raging for battle. It begins, but the Trojans,

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Speaker 1: as the numberless use of a wealthy man, stand in

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Speaker 1: their pen to be milked of their white milk, bleeding

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Speaker 1: incessantly as they hear the cries of their lambs. So

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Speaker 1: the war cries of the Trojans rose through the broad army.

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Speaker 1: For the speech of all the men was not the same,

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Speaker 1: nor was there one voice, but the tongues were mixed

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Speaker 1: in confusion. The men were summoned from many places. These men.

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Speaker 1: Aries drove on and gleaming eyed Athena drove the Achaeans,

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Speaker 1: and terror and panic and strife raging Insatia, the sister

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Speaker 1: and companion of man, slaughtering Aries. She is small when

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Speaker 1: she first rises up, but in the end she leans

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Speaker 1: her head against the heavens even as she strides upon

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Speaker 1: the earth. Oh, I love that section about the bad

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Speaker 1: sister there. And she's small when she first rises up,

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Speaker 1: but then when she she gets big, she leans her

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Speaker 1: head against the heavens and got her feet on the earth.

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Speaker 1: So uh. That is referring to one of the companions

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Speaker 1: of Aries, the the god of war. In this passage

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Speaker 1: it is written in this translation as strife the abstract concept.

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Speaker 1: But in the Greek, of course, strife is also the

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Speaker 1: goddess Heiress, and I love that final couplet about her.

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Speaker 1: But there are a couple of other concepts that are

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Speaker 1: mentioned there that also have personifications. It's not just Heiress,

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Speaker 1: the goddess of strife. There's also terror and panic that

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Speaker 1: are driven on by aries, and these concepts have the

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Speaker 1: godly personifications of the god's phobos and demos. So phobos

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Speaker 1: and deem ohs are each an abstract concept representing a

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Speaker 1: human state of mind or something you might witness on

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Speaker 1: the battlefield or leading up to it, but they're also

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Speaker 1: these heavenly persons in the Greek mythology, and to read

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Speaker 1: another passage from the Iliad about their their representations, also

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Speaker 1: from the Caroline Alexandra translation. Then he took up his man,

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Speaker 1: surrounding much emblazoned forceful shield, a thing of beauty, around

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Speaker 1: which ran tin rings of bronze, and on it twenty

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Speaker 1: pale shining discs of tin, and in the very center

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Speaker 1: was one of dark enameled blue. And crowning this a

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Speaker 1: snake bristling gorgon face stared out with dreadful glare, Terror

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Speaker 1: and Route about her and the shields Baldric was of silver,

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Speaker 1: and on it a blue dark serpent writhed with three

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Speaker 1: heads turned in all directions, growing from a single neck.

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Speaker 1: So here this actually ties back into the episodes that

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Speaker 1: we re aired pretty recently. I think about the Gorgon

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Speaker 1: Medusa and how uh the the head of the gorgon

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Speaker 1: of of Medusa is widely represented in in Greek art

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Speaker 1: and in Greek literature as a feature of Greek art,

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Speaker 1: mentioned in the literature as this, like this thing that

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Speaker 1: would be on the aegis of Athena or of Zeus,

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Speaker 1: a terrifying image looking out at you, but mentioned alongside

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Speaker 1: the face of the gorgon. Here are Terror and Route. Again,

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Speaker 1: I think these would be Phobos and Demos. Yeah, Phobos

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Speaker 1: and Demos. So, like you said, this episode we're getting spacey,

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Speaker 1: we're also getting a little mytho mythological here, especially at

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Speaker 1: the start. Phobos and Demos are the names of the

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Speaker 1: two moons of the planet Mars uh and so this

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Speaker 1: this marks return for us uh in in the past.

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Speaker 1: I want to say, it's been a couple of years

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Speaker 1: at least now we did episodes exploring the moons of Jupiter,

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Speaker 1: and then other another episode or episodes exploring the moons

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Speaker 1: of Saturn. And we always intended to venture onto other moons,

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Speaker 1: and here we are now exploring the moons of Mars,

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Speaker 1: much like the space agencies of Earth. We have long

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Speaker 1: wanted to return a sample from the moons of Mars

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Speaker 1: and and have failed to do so. But you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe the time has finally come. Don't curse this. We

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Speaker 1: might have a technological problem during the recording or retrieval

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Speaker 1: of this episode. Uh So, I'm so excited to be

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Speaker 1: talking about a this gorgeous couple of space turn ups

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Speaker 1: in orbit around Mars. And uh and so this is

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Speaker 1: going to be the first of a pair of episodes.

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Speaker 1: Be sure to join us for both. Yes, uh and

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Speaker 1: even though it deals with two moons, it's just gonna be.

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Speaker 1: It's very much a part one in part two. It's

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Speaker 1: not like one episode is Phobos in one episode is Demos,

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Speaker 1: as you will see. But before we even get back

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Speaker 1: into Phobos and Demos, I want to start by talking

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Speaker 1: just a bit about our naming of Mars itself. Um So,

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Speaker 1: today we you know, largely refer to the fourth planet

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Speaker 1: from the sun as Mars. But of course Mars can

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Speaker 1: be seen in the nights sky without the aid of

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Speaker 1: a telescope. So it's gone by many names and has

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Speaker 1: been factored into numerous pantheons and cosmological systems throughout human history. Right, Mars,

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Speaker 1: because it is it can be observed through naked eye astronomy.

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Speaker 1: It was known to the ancient Mesopotamians. Yeah, there was

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Speaker 1: the god nergal Uh, a god of of plague and war,

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Speaker 1: the one that kind of evolved apparently from a war

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Speaker 1: god into a another world deity. But this was a

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Speaker 1: This was a deity that was recognized by the Sumerians. Likewise,

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Speaker 1: the Greeks knew it as the star of Aries, and

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Speaker 1: we'll of course talk more about areas here in a bit.

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Speaker 1: In Hinduism, Mars was associated with Mangala, a god of

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Speaker 1: war that interestingly seems to encompass aspects of war related

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Speaker 1: to anger and hot headedness, but also to stability and balance.

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Speaker 1: And then the ancient Egyptians connected Mars to Horace, the

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Speaker 1: celestial falcon and embodiment of kingship. Geraldine Pinch points out

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Speaker 1: in Egyptian mythology that Egypt's earliest kings were depicted as

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Speaker 1: hawks praying on their enemies. So here once once more

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Speaker 1: we can easily connect this to a motif of warfare,

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Speaker 1: um uh, well of one former that or another. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Though interestingly enough, in Chinese traditions, Mars was apparently merely

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Speaker 1: associated with the element of fire. Oh yeah, because in

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Speaker 1: the Chinese astronomical traditions that different heavenly bodies tend to

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Speaker 1: be associated with like the elements of Earth. Right, so

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Speaker 1: like one planet will be fire, one planet will be

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Speaker 1: would one planet will be metal or something else? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,

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Speaker 1: So they're important within um, you know, Chinese cosmology and

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Speaker 1: Chinese astrology, though I've also read it argued that the

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Speaker 1: planets have will have maybe less of a significance in

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Speaker 1: Chinese cosmology versus uh, their their place especially in um

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Speaker 1: in in you know, some of these other models that

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Speaker 1: were looking at here where they're closely associated with very

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Speaker 1: important gods. Coming back to the idea that some of

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Speaker 1: the earliest kings of Egypt were depicted as hawks praying

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Speaker 1: on their enemies, I was just thinking how good it

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Speaker 1: would be if you just made a slight rotation on

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Speaker 1: that and they were portrayed as vultures vomiting on their enemies. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's it's not not that huge of a difference, right,

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Speaker 1: and also seems kind of fitting so and and it

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Speaker 1: would be in keeping with with what we've been discussing here, right,

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Speaker 1: because so far we we've been talking about connections to

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Speaker 1: ideas of blood and fire. And of course this inevitably

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Speaker 1: seems to stem from the fact that Mars appears as

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Speaker 1: a red quote unquote star in the night sky. Even

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Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, where we have terrible light pollution at night,

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Speaker 1: you can often go out and see that that red,

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Speaker 1: gleaming eye of Mars out there in the distance. I

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Speaker 1: think my eyes must be a little bad because I've

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Speaker 1: never personally been able to notice the redness of Mars

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Speaker 1: when I've looked at it with the naked eye, But

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Speaker 1: I believe other people do see it. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's faint, but it's it's noticeable, you know,

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Speaker 1: like you can you can tell that there's something different

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Speaker 1: going on compared to all the other stars in the sky.

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Speaker 1: It stands out. And since it has that red color,

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Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense to associate it with blood

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Speaker 1: and fire and violence and all of these things tied

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Speaker 1: up with it. So the name Mars, of course uh

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Speaker 1: arises from the Roman tradition. And roughly speaking, you can

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Speaker 1: say that the Roman god of war is Mars, and

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Speaker 1: then the Greek god of war is Aries, and these

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Speaker 1: are basically two names for the same thing. But it's

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Speaker 1: it's really worth driving home that then Mars differs from Aries,

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Speaker 1: and that while Aries was a god of brutality and

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Speaker 1: war in its most base and chaotic state, which I

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Speaker 1: think is is is well represented in in the in

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Speaker 1: the and in in his usage in the Iliad, the

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Speaker 1: Roman Mars, however, had a different character. He was warfare

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Speaker 1: as just and orderly, you know. He he was warfare

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Speaker 1: that brings um a sense of balance to the world

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Speaker 1: that you know, warfare is viewed by an imperial culture.

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Speaker 1: You know, war is the instrument that demonstrates your greatness. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Mars is therefore a military deity that maintains order and

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Speaker 1: protects agriculture. Mars is uh Is is very closely associated

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Speaker 1: with agriculture in the Roman tradition. Um, so he upholds

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Speaker 1: while Aries threatens and tears down Um. And so it's

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Speaker 1: it's interesting because they are like two sides of the

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Speaker 1: same thing, which which I think the Hindu god Mangala

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Speaker 1: seems to encompass both of these aspects. Here we see

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Speaker 1: this divergence in Arias and uh in mars Um. I

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Speaker 1: was I was reading a little bit more. There's a

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Speaker 1: there's a book called Classical Mythology a to z Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's quite good. And in one of the ways they

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Speaker 1: describe Aries is that he is he's a lord or

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Speaker 1: a god of the screams of the dying. Uh so

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Speaker 1: you know it's it's not so so. Yeah, mars Is

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Speaker 1: is the god of of war is great, War is good?

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Speaker 1: And then Aries is the war? What is it good for? Uh? Deity?

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Speaker 1: You know, he's just um he he is the worst

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Speaker 1: of the pantheon. Uh he is Aries, the lord of

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Speaker 1: the screams of the dying. Sounds very like a seventies

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Speaker 1: exploitation movie epithet for him, right, you know, he's um

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Speaker 1: Aries and Aries again. Yeah, and I guess it does

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Speaker 1: come to like, you know, Aries is the very nature

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Speaker 1: and heart of war and violence, where mars is more like,

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Speaker 1: what what use can war be put to? What does it?

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Speaker 1: What does it do? What can it accomplish, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: very much a whitewashing of war. Now, as with Jupiter

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Speaker 1: that we you know, which we discussed in our recent episode,

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Speaker 1: Mars has many epithets or aspects um. So instead of

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Speaker 1: having you know, a whole bunch of different deities representing

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Speaker 1: different shades of the same thing, you have different versions of,

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Speaker 1: say Jupiter, and in this case, there are different versions

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Speaker 1: of Mars as well, such as Mars grativ Us, the

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Speaker 1: marching Mars. So this would be the Mars that a

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Speaker 1: soldier in the field would swear by, because you know,

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Speaker 1: as with Jupiter, deities are important for swearing and making

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Speaker 1: oaths and so forth. Another major Mars is is Mars Pader,

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Speaker 1: protector of agriculture. And this, of course is is literally

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Speaker 1: Mars the Father. And this is also very notable because

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Speaker 1: in Roman myth he is the father. Uh, Mars is

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Speaker 1: the father of Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome.

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Speaker 1: So in the Roman tradition, Mars isn't just the god

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Speaker 1: of of noble war. He is also the ancestor of

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Speaker 1: the Roman people. He is the patriarch of the empire exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So he yeah, he is the empire. Um. Now this

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Speaker 1: is this is where it gets kind of curious, right,

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Speaker 1: and I imagine a number of people are already thinking

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Speaker 1: about this. So in the Roman tradition, the primary war

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Speaker 1: god Mars has two highly important sons, Romulus and Remus.

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Speaker 1: So wouldn't it make more sense to name the two

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Speaker 1: moons of Mars after Romulus and Remus rather than going

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Speaker 1: to the Greek hopping over to the Greek tradition and

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Speaker 1: drawing on the two uh, two of the sons of Aries.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't that imply that one of the moons has to

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Speaker 1: kill the other moon. Um, well, you know, as we'll

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Speaker 1: get into in this episode of the next that's not

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Speaker 1: a crazy idea considering the House of Mars over there.

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Speaker 1: Orbitally speaking, I may be remembering my mythology wrong. I

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Speaker 1: think things go bad for Remus. Well, um, it's worth

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Speaker 1: worth noting. Outside of Star trek Lore, Romulus is the

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Speaker 1: outer moon of the main Belt asteroid eighties seven Sylvia,

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Speaker 1: and Remus is the inner moon. Sylvia is named for

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Speaker 1: Rea Sylvia, the mythical mother of the founders of Rome. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So it's you know, kind of this was all filled

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Speaker 1: in later. Well, while while we're doing a round up.

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Speaker 1: I should also mention that that passage from the Iliad

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Speaker 1: I read at the top that had that great couplet

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Speaker 1: about airis the goddess of strife. Uh, there is actually

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Speaker 1: an object name for Airess as well. It's the dwarf

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Speaker 1: planet Airis that is not quite a planet, but is

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Speaker 1: a nearly nearly spherical asteroid. Yeah, I guess it's Uh. Basically,

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Speaker 1: we're just gonna keep finding new things to name. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So if you're if you're out there, any members of

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Speaker 1: the Greek Roman pantheon and you don't have something named

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Speaker 1: after you yet, just hold on, Just be patient, um

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Speaker 1: and mortal beings that you are, We'll get around to

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Speaker 1: you eventually. Wait a second, I feel like I just

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Speaker 1: said something wrong. I think I called Airis an asteroids. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Heiress is not an asteroid. A Airis is a nearly

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Speaker 1: spherical trans Neptunian object. Apologies about that, you pologizing to

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Speaker 1: the planet or the deity. I don't want to be

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Speaker 1: roped in by strife here. Want to make an enemy

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Speaker 1: of strife, all right? So yeah, obviously instead of naming

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Speaker 1: Mars's two moons after Romulus and Remus, uh, the traditions

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Speaker 1: of drawing on the names of two of the many

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Speaker 1: children of Aries in Greek mythology. So partnered with Aphrodite,

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Speaker 1: he fathered Demos Phobos of course, and we'll get into

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Speaker 1: them in a second, but also Aros or love uh,

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Speaker 1: Antros requitted love, and Harmonia, who represents harmony uh. And

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Speaker 1: he's also said to have produced other children by other mothers.

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Speaker 1: So there's you know, there's a there's a vast brood.

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Speaker 1: Now I believe Aries Uh. Isn't it the case that

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Speaker 1: Aphrodite was actually married to have faced Us, the forge god,

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Speaker 1: the the equivalent of the Roman vulcan, and that Aries

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Speaker 1: is sort of her lover on the side or are

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Speaker 1: they officially an item later on? There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: drama there, but it seems are to call a myth

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Speaker 1: about he faced Us making like a net of chains

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Speaker 1: to catch them in the act or something. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean it fits the nature of Arias again, he's he's

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Speaker 1: really the scum of the pantheon here um. But let's

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Speaker 1: talk a bit about the twins. Demos and Phobos, both

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Speaker 1: deities very much in the Greek tradition of war gods.

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Speaker 1: While Demos is traditionally associated with terror and dread. Phobos

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Speaker 1: is fear and panic, though both of them may be

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Speaker 1: collectively thought of as deities of fear. Uh. They ride

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Speaker 1: beside their father into battle, along with the goddess of

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Speaker 1: discord Heiress so who he mentioned already, But the twin

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Speaker 1: brothers of Fear are referred to in several key works.

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Speaker 1: We already mentioned the Iliad. They also show up in Hesiods,

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Speaker 1: the Shield of Heracles and um if if memory serves,

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Speaker 1: I think in the Shield of Heracles, they actually like

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Speaker 1: their their father is wounded on the battlefield and they

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Speaker 1: drag him off the battlefield. So they're very much his

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Speaker 1: his pendence, his personal guard, the warriors that go into

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Speaker 1: battle beside him. Um. But they are also just horrifying specters,

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Speaker 1: you know, they are gods of trauma and the psychological

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Speaker 1: dimensions of war. Um. But they do seem to revolve

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Speaker 1: around their father on the battlefield in a way befitting

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Speaker 1: of moons. So perhaps they're ultimately a better fit, uh

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Speaker 1: than the Roman figures of Romulus and Remus. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: would say that. I mean, I think one thing that's

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Speaker 1: interesting about them is that they represent two distinct types

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Speaker 1: of fear that are things that you need to manage

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Speaker 1: differently if you're writing horror fiction, say like that Phobos

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Speaker 1: Phobos is is panic. Phobos is sometimes translated as route, right,

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Speaker 1: like getting routed in battle. You're just like, you know,

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Speaker 1: you're terrified and you're running away, whereas Demos is dread,

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Speaker 1: the terror that builds in anticipation of of something horrible. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so uh And I also think probably more fitting because

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Speaker 1: Romilis and Remus are a little more they're a little

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Speaker 1: more fleshed out as as figures, whereas Demos and Phobos

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Speaker 1: are a bit more abstract, you know, like we don't

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Speaker 1: have as many tales about them and stories about them

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Speaker 1: that that uh, you know, that stick with us. They

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Speaker 1: are more you know, harshly formed they are, and then

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Speaker 1: that they themselves are these kind of like fragile, fractured

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Speaker 1: nightmare beings. Um. And I think that's very befitting of

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Speaker 1: the sort of moons that we're going to be talking about,

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Speaker 1: uh in these episodes. Sorry, one thing I just got

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Speaker 1: distracted wondering about. Wait a minute, are are the moons

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Speaker 1: of Mars especially scary as moons? Not in the way

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Speaker 1: that I can think of but they are rather mysterious.

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Speaker 1: I think they are some of the weirdest, most mysterious

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Speaker 1: objects in the Solar system. You can sort of looking

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Speaker 1: at it sideways, connect that sense of mystery to a

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Speaker 1: kind of creepiness about them. Yeah, I mean, I guess

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Speaker 1: I would. I would say that less frightening as more

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Speaker 1: just like, yeah, mysterious. And also, like you clearly the

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Speaker 1: product of violence, and in the case of one of

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Speaker 1: the moons, like you know, just destined for destruction is

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Speaker 1: just on a on a collision course with destruction. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, and uh, I think it pairs well with

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Speaker 1: this idea of like two shattered beings that serve this

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Speaker 1: horrible god they you know, that represents some of the

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Speaker 1: worst aspects of of mortals except in immortal form um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I will come back throughout these episodes with

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Speaker 1: comparisons to the mythic twins, the double Grima worm tongues

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Speaker 1: of the Mars system. Yeah, yeah, imagine there's some other

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Speaker 1: good comparisons to make. Yeah, like you know, the sons

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Speaker 1: of some you know, awful ruler. There might be a

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Speaker 1: good Dune reference in there somewhere. I'm not sure. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I see, like they're the beast Ribon and Uh and

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Speaker 1: fade route the Yeah, though, I don't know. Fate has

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Speaker 1: a lot of things together in ways that these these

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Speaker 1: two don't, so I'm not sure. All right, Well, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about the discovery of Phobos and Demos. Like we said,

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Speaker 1: Mars has been something that people throughout human history have

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Speaker 1: looked up and seen and attributed various meanings and interpretations too,

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Speaker 1: But not so with Phobos and demos. Uh. These we

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Speaker 1: were not to be discovered for some time. Right. You

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Speaker 1: have to get well into the age of the telescope

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Speaker 1: to be able to see these objects from Earth because

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Speaker 1: they are both very small and very close to Mars.

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Speaker 1: And when you're looking at Mars in the night sky,

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Speaker 1: it's reflecting a lot of light and it's sort of

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Speaker 1: going to to blast out any small objects nearby it.

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Speaker 1: You're just not going to be able to distinguish them

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Speaker 1: from it. Yeah, So it just simply wasn't possible. Um.

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Speaker 1: They these two moons were discovered though, in eighteen seventy

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Speaker 1: seven by American astronomer ASoft Hall, who lived eight nine

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Speaker 1: through nineteen oh seven. Now, Hall was was large as

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Speaker 1: an interesting character because, for one thing, he was largely

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Speaker 1: self taught astronomer. He was not a gentleman scientist of

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Speaker 1: the day, but rather the impoverished son of a clockmaker.

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Speaker 1: His father died when he was young, so he had

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Speaker 1: to leave school, uh, in order to be He was

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Speaker 1: going to become an apprentice to a carpenter, but later

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Speaker 1: on he ended up taking math classes at New York

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Speaker 1: Central College, and from there he took a job at

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Speaker 1: the Harvard College Observatory and then became an assistant astronomer

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Speaker 1: at the US Naval Observatory, and eventually he was made

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Speaker 1: a professor. So he had a really interesting career path,

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Speaker 1: you know, an ascension story. So uh, you know, on

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Speaker 1: one hand, it's it's just neat to see that kind

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Speaker 1: of trajectory with an individual who plays into the history

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Speaker 1: of astronomy like this. So the way it went down

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Speaker 1: is in eighteen seventy seven, during Mars Closest Approach, his wife,

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Speaker 1: Angeline Stickney, who was a mathematician and a suffragist, encouraged

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Speaker 1: him to engage in the search for the Martian moons,

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Speaker 1: and and to keep engaging in the search because he

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Speaker 1: had in his writings. He apparently loses this saying, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's just seemed to be so such a

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Speaker 1: small chance of him seeing anything. Um, you know, he

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Speaker 1: was considering just giving it up, but his wife encouraged

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Speaker 1: him on, and so he thought he made out Martian

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Speaker 1: moons on August tenth, but he couldn't be sure, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was I think the weather was weird that night,

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Speaker 1: so he didn't have the clarity that he wanted. But

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Speaker 1: then on August twelve he discovered Demos, and on August eighteenth,

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Speaker 1: he discovered Phobos. Both both of these discoveries were made

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Speaker 1: using equipment at the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. Interesting now, since he found them, he got

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Speaker 1: to name them. But as far as I can tell,

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Speaker 1: there's not much more to it than that. I don't

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Speaker 1: you know. I couldn't find anything about him having any

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Speaker 1: real reasoning for choosing these two names over Romulus and Remus. Uh,

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Speaker 1: if he ever considered other names, if he if he

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Speaker 1: named them in an error, I don't know. Um. I

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Speaker 1: think ultimately they're good names, though, just really scared. That

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Speaker 1: night he'd been reading some ec comics or what would

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Speaker 1: be correct for the time period. He was reading The

393
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Speaker 1: Great God Pan or whatever. Actually I don't know if

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Speaker 1: that was out of the time. I mean, ultimately, he

395
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Speaker 1: you know, he could have tried to call them Tweedle

396
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Speaker 1: dumb and tweedled d So I guess it's just as

397
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Speaker 1: well that he went with Phobos and Demos. Now, this

398
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Speaker 1: is an interesting little side note. I can't find a

399
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Speaker 1: what felt to me like a really solid source on this,

400
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Speaker 1: but a profile of his wife, Stickney on the official U. S.

401
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Speaker 1: Navy page used to state that as she was helping

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Speaker 1: her husband with the calculations and all of this, she

403
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Speaker 1: asked for a man's wages compensation and he refused so

404
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Speaker 1: she quit. Um. Oh yeah, I think you know, it's

405
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:41,479
Speaker 1: not like it's really hard to say. I couldn't find

406
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Speaker 1: any more information about this, so I don't know if

407
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:46,080
Speaker 1: this is a joke, uh, if this is you know,

408
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: totally made up, or you know, if what we're talking

409
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Speaker 1: about was a serious argument or more of like kind

410
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Speaker 1: of a fun story that you know that that that

411
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Speaker 1: spouses tell. I don't know. But at the very least,

412
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Speaker 1: though Phobos is the largest crater ended up being named

413
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Speaker 1: for her, Stickney Crater, which we'll get back to in

414
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Speaker 1: a bit. So, you know, I guess ultimately her work

415
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: paid in exposure at least now. Um, others were looking

416
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Speaker 1: for those moons as well and speculating about their existence.

417
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Speaker 1: And I ran across a really interesting story about all

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Speaker 1: this that I read on Stephen Novella's neurological blog, And

419
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Speaker 1: this concerns the moons of Mars and Gulliver's travels. Gulliver's Travels.

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Speaker 1: But Jonathan Swift, Yeah, so that would be long before

421
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Speaker 1: this discuss This would be over a hundred years before

422
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: the discovery of the moons, right, Yeah, this goes bad.

423
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,919
Speaker 1: This book came out in seventy And have have you

424
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 1: ever read Gulliver's travel Yeah, it's been a long time.

425
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 1: I read it in college. Um, I took a class

426
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: in college, so we read a lot of like John

427
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: Dryden and Alexander Pope and and and Swift and uh,

428
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: I think we read Gulliver's Travels for that class, or

429
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: if not, we read large sections of it. It's one

430
00:24:57,119 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 1: that I've never read. I'm just sort of familiar with

431
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: it bits and pieces that I've absorbed through through other sources. Well,

432
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 1: so Gulliver's Travels, if you've never read it. Here, it's

433
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: about a it's largely satirical, but it's about a sailor

434
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: who goes to these weird lands that end up being

435
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 1: sort of humorous portraits of things that Swift Swift observed

436
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 1: about the world. So they're the lily Putians who are tiny.

437
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: And then I think at some point he goes to

438
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: a place called brobb ding Nag, if I remember correctly,

439
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: this full of giants. And then he also goes to

440
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 1: a place where I don't remember the name of it,

441
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: but it's the place where the yahoo's are, where the

442
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 1: idea of the yah Who's comes from these like a

443
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: sort of sort of cross apes. Well. At one point

444
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: in the book, the Lilliputians catch him up on things

445
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:51,360
Speaker 1: and inform him that quote. They have likewise discovered two

446
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: lesser stars or satellites, which revolve around Mars, where all

447
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: the innermost is distant from the center of the primary

448
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: exactly three of his diameters and the outmost five. The

449
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: former revolves in the space of ten hours and the

450
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: later in twenty one and a half. Holy cow, that's

451
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:12,720
Speaker 1: not that far off. Yeah, and that this is what

452
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,920
Speaker 1: m Novella writes about in this blog post. He points

453
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 1: out quote Phobos and Demos have orbits which are about

454
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: one point four and three point five diameters from Mars center, respectively.

455
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: The Houtians gave figures of three and five. The periods

456
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 1: of Phobos and Demos are seven point seven and thirty

457
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 1: point three hours, respectively, while while the Laputians reported ten

458
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: and twenty one point five. These figures are correct to

459
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 1: within an order of magnitude, which is another way of

460
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: saying that they are wrong. They are reasonable guesses, obviously,

461
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 1: but do not betray any special knowledge, because basically what

462
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: he's exploring in this blog post is like the question

463
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: what did Swift know? Like why is Swift? Why did

464
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: Swift get this right? Or sort of right or mostly right,

465
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: depending on how you're you're skewing it, Rob, I realized

466
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 1: I may have led you astray by talking about the

467
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: lily Putians, because I think there are actually two different things.

468
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: They're the Lilliputians and the Laputans. And I think this

469
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: is the Laputans, okay. I think the people of Laputa

470
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: are on a flying island, whereas the lily Pucians are

471
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 1: somewhere else. They're they're the people who are tiny compared

472
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:22,880
Speaker 1: to our apologies to the the Putians and the LiTi Pucians. Um. Yeah,

473
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: I ended up going When you mentioned Lily Pucians, I

474
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: ended up going with them because it makes me think

475
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: of Oliver Sacks talking about the Lily Putians in his

476
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: book Hallucinations. Oh, I don't recall that having to do

477
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: with like seeing tiny people. Uh okay, as hallucinations sometimes

478
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: do to I think I can't remember that tied into

479
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: migraines or not. But anyway, fabus book Hallucinations. Well, yeah,

480
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. So I guess the question is like,

481
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 1: how how close do you have to be in guessing

482
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: stuff like this to to really be impressive? I don't know.

483
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: This seems pretty impressive for not actually knowing anything. Well,

484
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: Novella points out that, first of all, it could just

485
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:05,120
Speaker 1: be an educated guess um based for starters on how

486
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:09,199
Speaker 1: Mercury and Venus have zero moons, Earth has one, and

487
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: then Jupiter and Saturn were known to have many moons. Therefore,

488
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: perhaps two felt about right, you know, like you needed

489
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: something between one and many? Uh so why not too? Yeah? Uh?

490
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: And of course, yeah, you said that it was known

491
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: that these outer planets had many moons, like we've known

492
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: that Jupiter had moons since Galileo. Right, But Novella presents

493
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: another idea that is pretty interesting. Uh and this this

494
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: gets kind of this is a really weird concept of

495
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: because it has to do with uh anagrams and um

496
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: and so forth. But the idea here is that Swift

497
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: may have gotten the notion from Johann Kepler, who concluded

498
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: at one point that Mars had two moons based on

499
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: a misunderstood cryptic anagram the Galileo devised. What so basically,

500
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: in Kepler's sixteen ten memoir, he misconstrued this anagram that

501
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: Galileo put together. You know all these these uh, these

502
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 1: letters that you're supposed to rearrange into their proper form,

503
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: that he had sent his friends announcing the discovery of

504
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: Saturn's rings. And instead of getting and I'm not gonna

505
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: read the the original phrase here, but instead of getting

506
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: I have observed the highest most distant planet, Saturn to

507
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: have a triple form, instead he got hail twin companionship,

508
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: children of Mars, or I agreet you double knob, children

509
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: of Mars. I agreet you double knob. Sure that's what

510
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 1: he was writing. Yeah, so in anyway, that's that's interesting.

511
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: Um Novella also points out that Voltaire also wrote about

512
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: Mars having two moons in the seventeen fifty two book Micromegas.

513
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a quote from that quote. But

514
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: let us now return to our travel ers. Upon leaving Jupiter,

515
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: they traversed a space of around one hundred million leagues

516
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: and approached the planet Mars, which as we know, is

517
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: five times smaller than our own. They swung by two

518
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: moons that cater to this planet, but have escaped the

519
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: notice of our astronomers. I know very well that Father

520
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against the existence

521
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: of these two moons. But I rely on those who

522
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: reasoned by analogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it

523
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: would be for Mars so far from the Sun to

524
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: have gotten by with less than two moons. Okay, so

525
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: I guess this is a work of fiction as well. Yes, yeah,

526
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: and I think of of similar I've read Voltaire, but

527
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: not this particular work, but you know, a similar satire

528
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 1: and fantasy. Well, good job, Jonathan Swift. Yeah uh yeah,

529
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 1: so he basically got it right. But anyway that none

530
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: of this has anything you know, directly to do with

531
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: the nature of Demos and Phobos, but it's it's interesting nonetheless.

532
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: All right, well, maybe we should talk about some of

533
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: the physical characterists six of Phobos. All right, Yeah, so yeah,

534
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna mostly start with Phobos, and we'll get into

535
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: Demos a bit more in the second episode, as well

536
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: as more stuff about Phobos, because ultimately they are twins

537
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: um and they have a lot in common. So if

538
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: Phobos represents the psyche ravage by war in Uh in

539
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: Greek mythology, then it might be fitting, you know, given

540
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: the nature of the moon named after him, because you know,

541
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: we're talking about a shattered wreck destined to battle its

542
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: father and perish in the conflict. Now, Phobos is the

543
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: larger of Mars's two moons. It is seventeen by fourteen

544
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: by eleven miles or twenty seven by twenty two by

545
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: eighteen kilometers in diameter, and its shape is is pretty irregular.

546
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like whatever whatever you're imagining. If you

547
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: haven't seen an image of Phobos, it doesn't look like that.

548
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: It looks more like a space potato. Yeah, I've seen

549
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: people say potato. I would say kind of turnip, or

550
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: if it is a potato. It's not a Russet potato.

551
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: I think it's more like a Yukon gold. Yeah, it

552
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: doesn't look very spherical. Um now, it seems to be

553
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: made of C type rock similar to blackish carbonaceous chondrite asteroids.

554
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: And it is, uh, it's absolutely battle scarred. I mean,

555
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: it's just there are various tracks on it caused by

556
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: landslides that have occurred, it seems, but it's its surface

557
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: has just been bombarded into dust by impacts. Uh. And

558
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: its largest crater again is named for Stickney, and it

559
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,479
Speaker 1: is um six point two miles or ten kilometers in

560
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: diameter and seems to have been almost violent enough to

561
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: have just destroyed it outright. Yeah, if you're trying to

562
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: picture it in your head, the Stickney crater is so

563
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: large that it essentially is one side of this moon. Yeah,

564
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: it's uh, yeah, it's just it looks really beat up,

565
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: and it even has these these things that look very

566
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: much like battle scars, like it's been scratched by an

567
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: enormous space cat and these were likely caused by uh,

568
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: you know, various could visions and violence as well. So

569
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: it's just totally beat up. But like the son of

570
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: a brutal war. God, it just keeps going on. It's

571
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: just it keeps clinging to life and uh, and keeps orbiting.

572
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's father. It completes three orbits per day

573
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: and uh. And it has also has the tightest orbit

574
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: of any known moon, orbiting at a mere six thousand

575
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: kilometers or three thousand, seven hundred miles. To put that

576
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: in comparison, our moon is two hundred and thirty eight thousand,

577
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty five miles away or three d

578
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: eighty four thousand, four hundred kilometers away. Yeah, so Phobos

579
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: is really close to the surface of Mars. Demos is

580
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,239
Speaker 1: a good bit farther out, but Phobos. The distance from

581
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars to Phobos is actually comparable to

582
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: distances between recognizable landmarks on the surface of the Earth.

583
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: Like if there was a road you could drive from

584
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: Mars to Phobos in a couple of days. Like for comparison,

585
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: Google Maps tells me that the dry having distance between

586
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: Miami and Vancouver. So basically, you know, sort of diagonally

587
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: across North America, I mean, not even all the way

588
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: up to Alaska. Uh, that's about thirty four hundred miles

589
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: or roughly kilometers, so just a little bit shorter than

590
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: the distance from Mars to Phobos. Phobos is right in there, right. So,

591
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: while we've joked about extraterrestrial skies and how large planets

592
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: sometimes appear in the sky in various movies or works

593
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 1: of sci fi art if it's like Battle for Indoor

594
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: or basically any location in the video game No Man Sky,

595
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 1: despite all that, Mars would actually be quite huge in

596
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: the sky of Phobos if you were standing on its surface.

597
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I actually looked this up to see if

598
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 1: I could find somebody who had done like a scale

599
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 1: attempt to create that view, and I could not find it.

600
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: Maybe it exists somewhere out there, but yeah, it would

601
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 1: be absolutely huge because to look at it from the

602
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: other way, Phobos is, as moons go, extremely tiny. I

603
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: mean it's again you're looking at like like twenty some

604
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:04,880
Speaker 1: thing kilometers in width depending on which side is facing you. Um, so,

605
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: so this is much much smaller than moons were familiar with,

606
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: like Earth's moons or like the Earth's single moon. I

607
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 1: didn't mean to suggest the multiple or the larger moons

608
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: of Jupiter or something like that, but from the surface

609
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: of Mars, Phobos appears relatively large. I think I remember

610
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: reading somewhere that it was it looks about a third

611
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: as big as the Moon usually looks from the surface

612
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: of Earth, but it's so much smaller. And the reason

613
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: it looks that big is just how close it is.

614
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,439
Speaker 1: And here's the an added factor at all this, it's

615
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: getting closer. Uh. Phobos edges closer to Mars at a

616
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 1: rate of six ft or one point eight meters every century,

617
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: So in fifty million years it will probably either crash

618
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 1: into Mars or break up and become a ring of

619
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:59,359
Speaker 1: debris around Mars. I hope it goes the ring route. Personally, yeah,

620
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: either way, I think I really like the mythic synergy

621
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: of this because I can easily imagine, you know, this

622
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:09,919
Speaker 1: terror using war god Phobos just being destined to fight

623
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: his own terrible father and perish one way or another

624
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 1: in the attempt. You know, yeah, you're not gonna win, dude, Yeah,

625
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: but he but he has to, like it's his nature,

626
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: like this is this is what he's been been, you know,

627
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 1: raised and traumatized to do. What else could possibly happen? Now,

628
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,439
Speaker 1: of course, given the time frame involved here, fifty million years.

629
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: You know, humans don't have to worry about you know,

630
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 1: it's not one of these things we're like, oh, we

631
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: better not try and land anything on Phobos because it's

632
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:39,799
Speaker 1: it's doomed, won't you know not, you know, not anytime soon. Um.

633
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: And there have been some proposals that have sought to

634
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: use Phobos as a kind of staging ground for the

635
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: exploration of Mars itself, you know, perhaps for robotics for example. Yeah,

636
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of we can talk more

637
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 1: about this in the second episode in this series, but

638
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: there are a lot of reasons that Phobos might be

639
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 1: really a great place to try to stage space missions.

640
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 1: One reason, for example, is that it would be if

641
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 1: you're trying to get something back from Mars or to

642
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: another place in the Solar System from Mars, it's much

643
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: easier to get off of Phobos than it is to

644
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: get off of the surface of Mars itself. Yeah, I mean,

645
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's basically it's like a you know,

646
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: it's a it's a space station. Um. Now, Phobos has

647
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: no atmosphere. Um. And also gravity on Phobos, uh is

648
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 1: pretty weak. According to NASA quote, Phobos has only one

649
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 1: one thousand as much gravitational pull as Earth. A one

650
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: fifty pounds or sixty eight kilogram person would weigh two

651
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 1: ounces or sixty eight grams there. Um. Yet they do

652
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 1: point out that NASA's Mars Global Surveyor has shown evidence

653
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: of landslides. You know, we mentioned that that earlier of

654
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 1: boulders and dust that's fallen back down to the surface

655
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 1: after being blasted due to various impacts. So the gravity

656
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: there is in play, but it is, you know, it is.

657
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: It is slight compared to the avity of Earth or

658
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: certainly other uh moons out there. Right. Phobos is about

659
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:08,320
Speaker 1: the mass that if you were to jump on Phobos,

660
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 1: you could jump really high, but you would eventually fall

661
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: back down right now, Like our moon, the twins of

662
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: Mars are both locked with the same face pointed at

663
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: their planet. Uh. The day side gets reasonably warm from

664
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: human perspective. I think I saw it compared in in

665
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: one NASA document to a a winter day in Chicago,

666
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: while the night side gets extremely cold. Uh. Though again

667
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: there's no atmosphere, so we're talking about surface temperatures here. Uh,

668
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: you know, there's no air to do anything. They're right

669
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: the air can't hold the warmth you're just talking about,

670
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 1: like being blasted by radiation, and I guess whatever is

671
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: radiating back up off of the rock beneath your feet.

672
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: All right, So in discussing Phobos, we should point out

673
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 1: as well, and we'll probably get more into this maybe

674
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 1: in the second episode. Is that as of today, as

675
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:04,839
Speaker 1: of this recording, no one has actually been to Phobos,

676
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 1: certainly not in person, but even attempts to send probes

677
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: directly to Phobos have failed for various reasons. The Russians

678
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:17,399
Speaker 1: made two attempts in the late eighties Phobos one and two. Uh.

679
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,879
Speaker 1: Those failed seemingly, I think for technical reasons, and then

680
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: in eleven they attempted to send another one um Phobos

681
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: grunt to Phobos. That's felled f O b O S

682
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: g r U n T in uh. The the at

683
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: least the English language literature. It was going to collect

684
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: two grams of soil, but that didn't quite work out. Yeah,

685
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: it was a proposed sample return mission. Would have been

686
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: really cool if we could have gotten some of Phobos

687
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: back here to Earth to study. But it failed. I

688
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 1: think it actually was it failed in orbit before it

689
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: began its journey to Mars and just ended up stuck

690
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 1: in Earth orbit without the ability to travel. Now, various

691
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 1: other missions have been proposed and are being considered ard

692
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 1: but nothing is launched as of this recording. UM. But

693
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: missions to Mars have and will continue to capture images

694
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: of the moons. Uh, you know if for starters, like

695
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: once again, it's it's fairly visible in the sky if

696
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: you catch it at the right time. So that has

697
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: been one of the ways that we've captured images of it.

698
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: Also the fly bys. Oh, one thing I forgot to

699
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: mention about Phobos Grunt was actually, uh, it was a

700
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 1: Russian mission, but it was also a joint venture with

701
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: the Chinese Space Program and so the Chinese had part

702
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,879
Speaker 1: part of the mission as well. And then also part

703
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:34,839
Speaker 1: of what they were going to do was they were

704
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 1: going to they had some micro organisms aboard and they

705
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: were going to study how the round trip from the

706
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 1: from Earth to the moons of Mars and then back

707
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: to Earth affected these micro organisms that were on the payload.

708
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: I think the Planetary Society had a had a small

709
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: uh experiment that was aboard as well. Yeah, yeah, was

710
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: that the was that the micro organisms that may have

711
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 1: been actually yes, yeah, but a any rate it did

712
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,319
Speaker 1: not come to pass. Uh, So we did not get

713
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: to bring anything back from the surface of Phobos. We

714
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: didn't get to have any thing directly investigate the surface

715
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: of Phobos, which is a shame, because there there's some

716
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: interesting features there to say the least. Oh. Yeah, So,

717
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 1: if we were to begin a curiosity tour of the

718
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: surface of Phobos, I think one of the top things

719
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: to look at would be the Phobos Monolith. Monolith. You

720
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,319
Speaker 1: say monolith, I say, so, there is a giant rock

721
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 1: on the surface of Phobos against the relatively smooth, cratered background.

722
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: And I mean smooth, not because not because it's like

723
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 1: a featureless surface. There are many craters, but it's not

724
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 1: very craggy, if that makes any sense. It is, uh.

725
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: It is kind of dust covered and dimpled but not

726
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: not not sharp angles. And against this relatively smooth background,

727
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,760
Speaker 1: there is this rock that stands out like a white

728
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: tower in the great dust, and it shines really bright

729
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:05,760
Speaker 1: in the sun and it casts this long looming tail

730
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: of shade across the ground behind it. And judging by

731
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: the length of its shadow, some astronomers have estimated that

732
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 1: this rock is about ninety meters tall or about three

733
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: hundred feet, and for this reason, some media outlets describe

734
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 1: it as building sized. I guess that's reasonable. If it's

735
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 1: like three d feet tall, it's like a small office building.

736
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 1: But you're you're you're also bringing to mind certain ideas

737
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,479
Speaker 1: about what it might be when you say it's building sized. Yes,

738
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: and that's like if I were to say it was

739
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: it's giant robot sized. Yeah. Uh So this rock has

740
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:41,360
Speaker 1: come to be known as the Phobos monolith, and it

741
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: is one of the geologic features of our solar system

742
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: that is genuinely exquisitely interesting, but you know, like so

743
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: many others, in many cases appreciated for all the wrong reasons. Uh.

744
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,719
Speaker 1: The the it's aliens crowd loves this rock, now, why

745
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 1: would that be. Well, a major point of departure here

746
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: seems to be originally a c SPAN clip, which is

747
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,879
Speaker 1: not where you might expect, you know, sort of conspiracy

748
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 1: minded ideas to originate from c SPAN. You generally pretty uh,

749
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 1: pretty dry and pretty by the numbers. Yeah, I oh,

750
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: I like c Span And actually I would say there's

751
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with this clip. It's just people misinterpreting a

752
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: clip or selectively quoting from a clip. So this originally

753
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: I think aired in July of two thousand nine, that's

754
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: at least when the version I found was uploaded. But

755
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 1: in this clip, the revered American astronaut Buzz Aldren, who

756
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: of course, along with Neil Armstrong, was one of the

757
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 1: first two human beings to walk on the Moon, that

758
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: was during the Apollo eleven landing in nineteen sixty nine.

759
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 1: He is being interviewed on the c SPAN program Washington Journal,

760
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,839
Speaker 1: and I believe this was in the context of originally

761
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:56,760
Speaker 1: talking about human colonization of Earth's Moon, but Aldren starts

762
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: talking about the general impetus for exploration of looking at

763
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 1: things that people find curious or inspiring about the about

764
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 1: the Solar system at large, and using that sort of

765
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: like public rapture about strange and interesting features of the

766
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: Solar system to to motivate scientific exploration of them, as

767
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: opposed to just say returning to the Moon exclusively. And

768
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,759
Speaker 1: Aldrin says, quote, we should go boldly where man has

769
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit

770
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: the moon of Mars. There's a monolith. They're a very

771
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: unusual structure on this little potato shaped object that goes

772
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:39,719
Speaker 1: around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out

773
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: about that, they're gonna say, who put that there? Who

774
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: put that there? Now, it seems like when the alien

775
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:48,760
Speaker 1: websites clipped this out, they stopped the quote right there

776
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: and then they, you know, slap a headline on it,

777
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:55,319
Speaker 1: like buzz alder and let's slip the alien conspiracy. Of course,

778
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,399
Speaker 1: the next thing Aldren says is, well, the universe put

779
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: it there, or if you choose, God put it there,

780
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: and then he moves on to other topics. You can

781
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:07,839
Speaker 1: look this clip up yourself. So obviously Aldern is not

782
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 1: alleging that this monolith is of artificial origin. He's not

783
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: only not alleging that he's explicitly saying the exact opposite,

784
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,799
Speaker 1: it is of natural origin. But of course that's not

785
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,840
Speaker 1: going to stop the usual suspects from using this clip

786
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: as evidence of the alien cover up conspiracy. Uh And so,

787
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: of course, the the Internet's favorite hoax hype man and

788
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,839
Speaker 1: general disinformation source Alex Jones, has it several times tried

789
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: to suggest that buzz Aldren might be saying he believes

790
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 1: it was made by aliens like uh. During a two

791
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,760
Speaker 1: thousand nine interview, and that might actually be the weirdest

792
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: thing here is that Alex Jones actually did do an

793
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: interview with Buzz Aldren in two thousand nine. I guess

794
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: at the time nobody really knew who Alex Jones was.

795
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: But during this interview, Jones tried to suggest that buzz

796
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: Aldren might believe that this monolith was made by aliens,

797
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: and in a more recent clip I found Jones is

798
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: saying that Aldren actually told him in that two thousand

799
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 1: nine interview that the Phobos monolith was quote sending a

800
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 1: transmission and quote it's all Egypt. There's aliens and everything else.

801
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: It's all Egypt. Yeah, it's all Egypt. There's aliens and

802
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: everything else. And I saw that, I was like, what

803
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 1: what could he even be referring to? Like, I didn't

804
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: believe that Aldren had actually said that, but I wonder, like,

805
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: what's he basing this claim on. So I said, what

806
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: the heck, I'll actually look it up and the result

807
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: was hilarious. So again, the weirdest thing about this to

808
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: me is that at some point Alex Jones actually did

809
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: interview the second person to walk on the Moon. Um,

810
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: but so in the interview, he does ask Aldrin about this,

811
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: and Aldrin says the exact opposite of what Jones claims.

812
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 1: So Jones asks him, while if I'm not mistaken, I

813
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 1: think showing him a picture of the wrong object. I

814
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:55,160
Speaker 1: think he's showing him a picture of an object from

815
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars. But he says, what does this

816
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,720
Speaker 1: look like to you? And Aldrin respond on he says,

817
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: it's a big, big, tall rock. Now I can say,

818
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 1: maybe it looks like a crude construction device by some

819
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:11,280
Speaker 1: creatures who practiced on Phobos and then landed in Egypt

820
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: and built the Pyramids. And then he starts laughing and says,

821
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,480
Speaker 1: I don't really believe that, but some people are liable

822
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: to think that. So Aldrin is making fun of and

823
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:24,439
Speaker 1: then explicitly rejecting the claim that Jones attributes to him.

824
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 1: Not only did he not say what Jones claims, he

825
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: says literally exactly the opposite. This is interesting. Yeah, it's

826
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:37,439
Speaker 1: a real real cherry picking of you know picking. Yeah. Yeah,

827
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: Like like he's saying, I'm not saying it's aliens at all,

828
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: it's actually this, but he's but then it's like he

829
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 1: said the word aliens in the sentence, so he's basically

830
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 1: saying it's aliens. Well, the claim that Jones is referring

831
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:53,760
Speaker 1: to their is Aldrin making fun of people like Alex Jones.

832
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: He's saying, like, you know, I could say that the

833
00:47:56,360 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 1: this was aliens practicing building the pyramids, and you know,

834
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,840
Speaker 1: you have to admit like that idea, even though it

835
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:07,720
Speaker 1: raises additional questions, is a fantastic idea, and you should

836
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:09,839
Speaker 1: see why people would be drawn to it and wanted

837
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 1: to be true. I mean, what does it mean? What

838
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 1: what would it mean for ancient Egypt? What would it

839
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 1: mean for life in our solar system? It brings so

840
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:21,760
Speaker 1: many sort of vague, half form but promising science fiction

841
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: ideas to mind. I have so many funny questions about

842
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 1: So here's one random thought. If there were actually a

843
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 1: conspiracy to cover up the existence of an alien office

844
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: building or a practice pyramid on the surface of Phobos,

845
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,840
Speaker 1: why would buzz Aldren know about it? Like, do you

846
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: all retired astronauts just get a regular digest of the

847
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: alien cover up? You know, like they get a dossier

848
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 1: every week. It's like, here's all the alien evidence we've

849
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 1: covered up in the past quarter well, I was thinking

850
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: about this a little bit. On one hand, Yeah, this

851
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: kind of the loose idea that well, they were they

852
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 1: were part of the space exploration and system, you know,

853
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: so perhaps they have privileged information or they've been to space,

854
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:08,919
Speaker 1: so maybe they know about space, but you know, in

855
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:11,720
Speaker 1: secret ways. But then I also was thinking, well, maybe

856
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 1: this goes back, Maybe this is deeper, like maybe this

857
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,840
Speaker 1: connects to a lot of our mythological ideas about people

858
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: who are you know, taken up that ascend into heaven

859
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 1: you know, so here is, or or have descended into

860
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: the underworld. So here is a case where someone has

861
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 1: literally traveled to what you could easily classify as another world.

862
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: They have traveled beyond our world to another and returned.

863
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:39,959
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's amazing, don't get me wrong. Uh,

864
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:45,440
Speaker 1: you know, the the lunar missions were incredible technological achievements

865
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 1: and and achievements of just a human courage and ingenuity. Um,

866
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: but they were not other worldly journeys. But I wonder

867
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: if the two you know, become uh you know, wound

868
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 1: together in the sort of the collective imagination, like you know,

869
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: I had to I had within the you know, the

870
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: time or two that we've been around astronauts or spoken

871
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,879
Speaker 1: to an astronaut, it has entered my mind like this

872
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,239
Speaker 1: person has left the earth. You know. It's like in

873
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 1: in a not in a you know, I you know,

874
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,799
Speaker 1: I know that I'm I'm talking to an accomplished human

875
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: being when we're doing this, But there's there's a part

876
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:26,800
Speaker 1: of me that is like, this person's maybe not completely

877
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,319
Speaker 1: human anymore, like they're not completely of earth because they

878
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: have left Earth, you know, you know, in an you know,

879
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:36,960
Speaker 1: like unformed way, This bipedal primate like me has been

880
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: touched by the gods. Now, yeah, so I wonder if

881
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: you know, to to some extent we were sort of

882
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: hardwired to make those connections due to our our myths

883
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: and our you know, our religious um stories, etcetera. Oh yeah,

884
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 1: I mean I can see that tendency. I mean again,

885
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: I think with this kind of thing, the logic is

886
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,359
Speaker 1: very loose. And on one hand, I mean, I would

887
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: say with somebody like Alex Jones, I mean, he just

888
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: this is just a person with a propensity to spread lies.

889
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: But I would say as for the the broader, uh

890
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,720
Speaker 1: tenacity of this misunderstanding about this object, on the surface

891
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 1: of Phobos. I think maybe part of the misunderstanding might

892
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 1: just come from the word monolith. This would tie back

893
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 1: to back into the idea you brought up when I

894
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:20,240
Speaker 1: was first introducing the subject about calling it building sized,

895
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 1: which I mean, I guess it is also calling it

896
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:26,319
Speaker 1: a monolith. I mean, this object does appear to be

897
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: a monolith. That is a literally accurate description. It's a

898
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 1: single piece of rock. But unfortunately, by its association with

899
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:37,359
Speaker 1: two thousand one of Space Odyssey, that word now has

900
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 1: some baggage, you know, of of associations with artificial origin.

901
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: Of course, there are tons of natural monoliths on Earth.

902
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:47,280
Speaker 1: The world is full of them. But when you say monolith,

903
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 1: I think, especially in anybody who's who's ever seen a

904
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: science fiction film or anything that has any derivative of

905
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 1: science fiction, has has a certainly a way of two

906
00:51:57,800 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: thousand and one of Space Odyssey, and so you think

907
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,919
Speaker 1: of the monolith. Right. So if that's causing confusion for you,

908
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: you could just say the huge rock on Phobos. Uh.

909
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 1: But anyway, whether or not you would expect a retired

910
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: astronaut to have any special insight on this subject, it

911
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,240
Speaker 1: is absolutely false that Aldrin claimed that Phobos. The Phobos

912
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 1: monolith was of artificial origin, he said, the exact opposite.

913
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:23,920
Speaker 1: So that leads to the question what is its real origin?

914
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:27,319
Speaker 1: And I found a good article on the BBC from

915
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 1: s by Colin Barriss that tried to look into this question. Okay, so,

916
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:35,400
Speaker 1: given that there's this huge, weird looking boulder jutting up

917
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:39,280
Speaker 1: out of the surface of Phobos, where did it come from? Well, again,

918
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:42,360
Speaker 1: according to our best images, the monolith does appear to

919
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 1: be some kind of giant boulder. It's about ninety ms

920
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 1: or roughly three hundred feet tall, as I said, and

921
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,240
Speaker 1: it's on a surface region of Phobos that is otherwise uh,

922
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: free of large craggy features like this. I was trying

923
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,959
Speaker 1: to communicate exactly what I meant when I smooth isn't

924
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:01,440
Speaker 1: quite the right word, because it has all these craters

925
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: and dimples in it. But the craters and everything look

926
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 1: relatively I don't know, rounded, as as the surfaces of

927
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: dusty objects in space often do. And this thing looks

928
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: I guess you would say. The angles appear uncharacteristically sharp.

929
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: So imagine a you know, office building sized boulder in

930
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:24,359
Speaker 1: the middle of a field in Kansas that otherwise has

931
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:27,960
Speaker 1: some kind of big soft craters in it. Now, the

932
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:30,879
Speaker 1: Phobos monolith has not really been the subject of much

933
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 1: high profile scientific study, but it seems consistent with surface

934
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 1: features that are produced by normal natural processes on the

935
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: surface of moons and planets. So this could be a

936
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: giant boulder that fell off of, say the edge of

937
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:48,360
Speaker 1: a crater in a in a rock slide or something

938
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 1: like that. And furthermore, there is pretty clear evidence that

939
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: whatever Phobos itself is, it has at various points in

940
00:53:55,440 --> 00:54:00,479
Speaker 1: the past experienced asteroid impacts, so the monolith could also

941
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: be a giant shard of rock that was ejected from

942
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: some past impact. But then Barris draws attention to another

943
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: really interesting option, which is that the Phobos monolith could

944
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 1: also possibly be a chunk of Mars itself, and as

945
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:20,080
Speaker 1: as evidence of this, he points to the precedent of

946
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:23,160
Speaker 1: a study by Kenneth R. Ramsley and James W. Head,

947
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: the third published in the journal Planetary and Space Science

948
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen called Mars Impact Ejecta in the

949
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:35,760
Speaker 1: Regular of Phobos Bulk Concentration and Distribution. Basically, the idea

950
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:39,120
Speaker 1: is that the surface of Phobos is blanketed in little

951
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 1: bits of Mars, and I think mostly these would just

952
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:45,320
Speaker 1: be very small particles, but they could include larger particles.

953
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 1: And the authors estimate based on some calculations that the

954
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 1: bulk concentration of Mars ejective fragments in the upper Phobos

955
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: regulars is about two hundred and fifty parts per millions.

956
00:54:56,840 --> 00:54:58,880
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at the stuff on the surface

957
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: of Phobos, about two hundred and fifty parts per million

958
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: of that stuff is actually stuff that's from the planet Mars.

959
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: And this again would come from uh from impacts. Like

960
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 1: the majority of it is going to be smaller particles,

961
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:16,240
Speaker 1: but when objects strike the surface of Mars with high energy,

962
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: bits of Mars sometimes get blasted into orbit, and some

963
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: of those bits are going to end up settling on

964
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: the surface of Phobos. And of course this brings us

965
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:27,800
Speaker 1: back again to what we were talking about earlier. Remember

966
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:31,600
Speaker 1: that Phobos orbits very close to the surface of Mars

967
00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:34,080
Speaker 1: compared to most moons, so you can imagine that it's

968
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:37,239
Speaker 1: easier for parts of Mars to end up on the

969
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 1: surface of Phobos than it would be for parts of

970
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:41,359
Speaker 1: the surface of a planet to end up on a moon.

971
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:45,759
Speaker 1: That's orbiting much farther away. But Barris mentions another possibility,

972
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 1: writing quote Alternatively, the Phobos monolith might not have formed

973
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 1: during an impact. It could be a rare chunk of

974
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: the moon solid bedrock, poking up through a surface that

975
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: is otherwise mostly strewn with loose debris. So imagine that

976
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:02,799
Speaker 1: kind of a Devil's tower of Phobos, like poking up

977
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: out of where everything else around it has is covered

978
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 1: with enough dust to look pretty smooth. And Barriss writes

979
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:11,840
Speaker 1: that if this is true, if it's you know, some

980
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 1: some feature of the underlying rock of Phobos, if it's

981
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,680
Speaker 1: a devil's tower kind of thing. Uh. If this is true,

982
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:20,880
Speaker 1: studying the monolith could actually help us solve some of

983
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:24,959
Speaker 1: the mysteries about the origin of Phobos, like where did

984
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 1: these strange moons come from in the first place, which

985
00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 1: I guess maybe we'll come back to at the beginning

986
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 1: of part two of this series. But just a couple

987
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 1: of other notes about the Phobos monolith. One is that

988
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:36,879
Speaker 1: it looks really cool and you should look it up,

989
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: but source your images carefully. I was coming across a

990
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,000
Speaker 1: lot of photos on the web that seem to be

991
00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:45,279
Speaker 1: labeled as if they are the Phobos Monolith, but I'm

992
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: pretty sure they're not. Some of them just look like

993
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 1: they're from a movie or something, and I think others

994
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:52,120
Speaker 1: are pictures of things that are actually on the surface

995
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: of Mars itself. But then one other thing I found

996
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: out was that Les Claypool and Sean O. O. Lennon

997
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 1: have an album that is named after the Phobos Monolith.

998
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 1: Rob I sent you a link. Did you have a

999
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:06,239
Speaker 1: chance to listen or not? I have not had a

1000
00:57:06,320 --> 00:57:07,960
Speaker 1: chance to listen to it yet. I haven't heard any

1001
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:10,839
Speaker 1: of Claypool stuff with with Oh, no, I've I'm of course,

1002
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with Primus and NF Scene, Primus Live. And

1003
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: I'm I'm familiar with his work with uh with with

1004
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:23,680
Speaker 1: Trey Anastasio in Oyster Head. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah,

1005
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 1: have some some good stuff there too, But no, I haven't.

1006
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: I haven't heard Phobos Monolith. Well. I only got to

1007
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: listen to a little bit. But it is very weird,

1008
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: but with less of the cheese related humor that you

1009
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,120
Speaker 1: associate with older less Claypool works. It seems a little

1010
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:42,040
Speaker 1: a little more sober perhaps, uh and actually a little

1011
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 1: a little more sober and has some relatively scientifically accurate lyrics.

1012
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 1: I can't vouch for the whole thing, but the part

1013
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:50,960
Speaker 1: I was listening to was talking about the Phobos monolith

1014
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 1: and buzz Aldrin, and I think everything that it said

1015
00:57:53,680 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 1: about the everything I recall it saying about the monolith

1016
00:57:56,720 --> 00:58:02,800
Speaker 1: and the moon was scientifically correct. Quote the monolith of Phobos,

1017
00:58:02,920 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: it stares buzz in the eye. It bids him question

1018
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:12,840
Speaker 1: while we live and do or die? Okay, checks out. Wait, wait,

1019
00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 1: that's not the part I was thinking. Maybe that went

1020
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: by me. I remember him talking about He had some

1021
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 1: part about the moon being sort of tat or shaped,

1022
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: which seems reasonable, even though we maybe turnip is better.

1023
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:26,800
Speaker 1: I think he also mentioned that its orbit is decaying

1024
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:30,240
Speaker 1: over time, so it's moving closer to Mars, which is true. Yeah. Yeah,

1025
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:32,760
Speaker 1: Well the next two lines are the monolith of Phobos,

1026
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 1: it stares buzz in the eye on a tat shaped

1027
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 1: moon that's falling from the sky. Okay, so that's that's

1028
00:58:38,520 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: that's more accurate. Yeah, And and then there's also some

1029
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 1: part about it like it. It doesn't say it's aliens,

1030
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 1: It just says that like the monolith raises a bunch

1031
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: of questions, which is true. It does raise questions. It

1032
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:54,920
Speaker 1: some genuine and scientific uh, others not so much. Um,

1033
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,920
Speaker 1: but but yeah, still, I mean it's it is something

1034
00:58:58,520 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 1: like the monolith of Phobos as real. As we've said, Uh,

1035
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 1: you just need to be be careful about what image

1036
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 1: you're you're pulling up of it and uh and what

1037
00:59:07,480 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 1: interpretation you're reading regarding it. Now. As we've mentioned already,

1038
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 1: one of the biggest mysteries about Phobos and demos is

1039
00:59:15,040 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 1: where these moons come from in the first place? What

1040
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:21,640
Speaker 1: is their origin? Because they have a number of features

1041
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 1: that seem to be, at least on the surface level,

1042
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: contradictory and point off in different directions when you're looking

1043
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 1: for an origin story. And I think maybe that's where

1044
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: we should start when we come back in part two.

1045
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 1: Where do these moons come from? And how were they made? Yeah? So,

1046
00:59:36,320 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 1: so join us. Will also be some some at least

1047
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: from today's standpoint, kind of out there sounding hypotheses about

1048
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:49,080
Speaker 1: about what what what these moons are. Uh, so it'll

1049
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:51,360
Speaker 1: be it'll be fun. So join us in our next

1050
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:53,560
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff to Blow your mind as we continue

1051
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Speaker 1: our exploration of Phobos and demos the Moons of Mars.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to check out

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Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you know

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Speaker 1: where to find them. Core episodes come out Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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Speaker 1: In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed Monday's

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Speaker 1: we do a bit of listener mail. Wednesdays that's when

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Speaker 1: we do the artifact. On Friday's we do a little

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Speaker 1: weird house cinema where we we set most of the

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Speaker 1: science aside and just talk about a weird movie. And

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Speaker 1: on the weekend we do a little bit of uh,

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Speaker 1: a little vault episode. We do a little rerun for you.

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Speaker 1: So that's what six days out of seven, and on

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Speaker 1: the seventh day we rest or, we run an ad sometimes,

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Speaker 1: you know, we get ready for the first day again. Yes,

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Speaker 1: all right, huge, thanks as always to our wonderful audio

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Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get

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Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or

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Speaker 1: any other to suggest a topic for the future, we're

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Speaker 1: just to say hello. You can email us at contact

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Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For

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01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:05,560
Speaker 1: more podcasts for My Heart radio, visit the I heart

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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listening to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows.