WEBVTT - From the Vault: Phobos and Deimos, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.639 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.640 Time for an episode from the Vault. This one originally 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:19.200 aired on A and it is about the moons of Mars, 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.239 Phobos and Demos. Yeah, this one is a lot of fun. 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:24.320 This is another one of those episodes where we get 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:28.640 to talk about mythology, but we're also talking about other worlds, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.159 so you know, it's it's a wonderful balance. This, uh, 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:37.479 this cocktail of an episode. Get it. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:46.720 to Blow your Mind, the production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.920 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.040 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:57.080 be bringing you an episode about space objects. And as 0:00:57.240 --> 0:00:59.440 we often do, we're gonna be We're gonna be starting 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.360 off here by talking a little bit about the mythology 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.039 that is related to these space objects. Rob, do you 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.319 mind if I start with a reading from the Iliad? Oh, 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:10.640 let's do it, okay, So I want to read a 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.480 passage from the Iliad book four, from the excellent translation 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:19.360 by Caroline Alexander, And this is describing a big host 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:24.600 of warriors raging for battle. It begins, but the Trojans, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.520 as the numberless use of a wealthy man, stand in 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.840 their pen to be milked of their white milk, bleeding 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.240 incessantly as they hear the cries of their lambs. So 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.000 the war cries of the Trojans rose through the broad army. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.840 For the speech of all the men was not the same, 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.640 nor was there one voice, but the tongues were mixed 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.320 in confusion. The men were summoned from many places. These men. 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.880 Aries drove on and gleaming eyed Athena drove the Achaeans, 0:01:54.960 --> 0:02:01.000 and terror and panic and strife raging Insatia, the sister 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:05.200 and companion of man, slaughtering Aries. She is small when 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.400 she first rises up, but in the end she leans 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.519 her head against the heavens even as she strides upon 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.400 the earth. Oh, I love that section about the bad 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.280 sister there. And she's small when she first rises up, 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.320 but then when she she gets big, she leans her 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.440 head against the heavens and got her feet on the earth. 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.239 So uh. That is referring to one of the companions 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.400 of Aries, the the god of war. In this passage 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.160 it is written in this translation as strife the abstract concept. 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.359 But in the Greek, of course, strife is also the 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.040 goddess Heiress, and I love that final couplet about her. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:42.640 But there are a couple of other concepts that are 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.440 mentioned there that also have personifications. It's not just Heiress, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.400 the goddess of strife. There's also terror and panic that 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.920 are driven on by aries, and these concepts have the 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:59.560 godly personifications of the god's phobos and demos. So phobos 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.080 and deem ohs are each an abstract concept representing a 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.560 human state of mind or something you might witness on 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.120 the battlefield or leading up to it, but they're also 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.880 these heavenly persons in the Greek mythology, and to read 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.840 another passage from the Iliad about their their representations, also 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:21.560 from the Caroline Alexandra translation. Then he took up his man, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:26.640 surrounding much emblazoned forceful shield, a thing of beauty, around 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.160 which ran tin rings of bronze, and on it twenty 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.680 pale shining discs of tin, and in the very center 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.200 was one of dark enameled blue. And crowning this a 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:42.800 snake bristling gorgon face stared out with dreadful glare, Terror 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.800 and Route about her and the shields Baldric was of silver, 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.400 and on it a blue dark serpent writhed with three 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.120 heads turned in all directions, growing from a single neck. 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.040 So here this actually ties back into the episodes that 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.880 we re aired pretty recently. I think about the Gorgon 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.360 Medusa and how uh the the head of the gorgon 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:09.360 of of Medusa is widely represented in in Greek art 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.360 and in Greek literature as a feature of Greek art, 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.440 mentioned in the literature as this, like this thing that 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:17.880 would be on the aegis of Athena or of Zeus, 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.920 a terrifying image looking out at you, but mentioned alongside 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.320 the face of the gorgon. Here are Terror and Route. Again, 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.240 I think these would be Phobos and Demos. Yeah, Phobos 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.840 and Demos. So, like you said, this episode we're getting spacey, 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.880 we're also getting a little mytho mythological here, especially at 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:39.440 the start. Phobos and Demos are the names of the 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.040 two moons of the planet Mars uh and so this 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.760 this marks return for us uh in in the past. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.120 I want to say, it's been a couple of years 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.560 at least now we did episodes exploring the moons of Jupiter, 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.839 and then other another episode or episodes exploring the moons 0:04:55.880 --> 0:05:00.200 of Saturn. And we always intended to venture onto other moons, 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.599 and here we are now exploring the moons of Mars, 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.800 much like the space agencies of Earth. We have long 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.400 wanted to return a sample from the moons of Mars 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.680 and and have failed to do so. But you know, 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.960 maybe the time has finally come. Don't curse this. We 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.760 might have a technological problem during the recording or retrieval 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.479 of this episode. Uh So, I'm so excited to be 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.200 talking about a this gorgeous couple of space turn ups 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.640 in orbit around Mars. And uh and so this is 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:29.919 going to be the first of a pair of episodes. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.880 Be sure to join us for both. Yes, uh and 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.440 even though it deals with two moons, it's just gonna be. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:38.880 It's very much a part one in part two. It's 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.479 not like one episode is Phobos in one episode is Demos, 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.799 as you will see. But before we even get back 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.200 into Phobos and Demos, I want to start by talking 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:53.440 just a bit about our naming of Mars itself. Um So, 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.279 today we you know, largely refer to the fourth planet 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.800 from the sun as Mars. But of course Mars can 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.000 be seen in the nights sky without the aid of 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.880 a telescope. So it's gone by many names and has 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:11.320 been factored into numerous pantheons and cosmological systems throughout human history. Right, Mars, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.880 because it is it can be observed through naked eye astronomy. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.560 It was known to the ancient Mesopotamians. Yeah, there was 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.799 the god nergal Uh, a god of of plague and war, 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.960 the one that kind of evolved apparently from a war 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.960 god into a another world deity. But this was a 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:36.719 This was a deity that was recognized by the Sumerians. Likewise, 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:38.920 the Greeks knew it as the star of Aries, and 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.080 we'll of course talk more about areas here in a bit. 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.640 In Hinduism, Mars was associated with Mangala, a god of 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.200 war that interestingly seems to encompass aspects of war related 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.200 to anger and hot headedness, but also to stability and balance. 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.240 And then the ancient Egyptians connected Mars to Horace, the 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:04.520 celestial falcon and embodiment of kingship. Geraldine Pinch points out 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.640 in Egyptian mythology that Egypt's earliest kings were depicted as 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.080 hawks praying on their enemies. So here once once more 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.600 we can easily connect this to a motif of warfare, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.080 um uh, well of one former that or another. Uh. 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.880 Though interestingly enough, in Chinese traditions, Mars was apparently merely 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.600 associated with the element of fire. Oh yeah, because in 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.520 the Chinese astronomical traditions that different heavenly bodies tend to 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.240 be associated with like the elements of Earth. Right, so 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.640 like one planet will be fire, one planet will be 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:40.240 would one planet will be metal or something else? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.360 So they're important within um, you know, Chinese cosmology and 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:48.680 Chinese astrology, though I've also read it argued that the 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.840 planets have will have maybe less of a significance in 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.560 Chinese cosmology versus uh, their their place especially in um 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:58.840 in in you know, some of these other models that 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.640 were looking at here where they're closely associated with very 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.400 important gods. Coming back to the idea that some of 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.320 the earliest kings of Egypt were depicted as hawks praying 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.040 on their enemies, I was just thinking how good it 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.000 would be if you just made a slight rotation on 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:18.640 that and they were portrayed as vultures vomiting on their enemies. Yeah, well, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.400 you know, there's it's not not that huge of a difference, right, 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.760 and also seems kind of fitting so and and it 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.800 would be in keeping with with what we've been discussing here, right, 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.400 because so far we we've been talking about connections to 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.560 ideas of blood and fire. And of course this inevitably 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.240 seems to stem from the fact that Mars appears as 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:43.440 a red quote unquote star in the night sky. Even 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.640 here in Atlanta, where we have terrible light pollution at night, 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.000 you can often go out and see that that red, 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.160 gleaming eye of Mars out there in the distance. I 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.240 think my eyes must be a little bad because I've 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.560 never personally been able to notice the redness of Mars 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:02.080 when I've looked at it with the naked eye, But 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.319 I believe other people do see it. Yeah, I mean 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.040 it's it's it's it's faint, but it's it's noticeable, you know, 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:10.320 like you can you can tell that there's something different 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:12.200 going on compared to all the other stars in the sky. 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.600 It stands out. And since it has that red color, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:16.760 you know, it makes sense to associate it with blood 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.160 and fire and violence and all of these things tied 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.800 up with it. So the name Mars, of course uh 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.160 arises from the Roman tradition. And roughly speaking, you can 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:34.080 say that the Roman god of war is Mars, and 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.760 then the Greek god of war is Aries, and these 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.000 are basically two names for the same thing. But it's 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.600 it's really worth driving home that then Mars differs from Aries, 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.840 and that while Aries was a god of brutality and 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.960 war in its most base and chaotic state, which I 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.880 think is is is well represented in in the in 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.360 the and in in his usage in the Iliad, the 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.559 Roman Mars, however, had a different character. He was warfare 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.800 as just and orderly, you know. He he was warfare 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.520 that brings um a sense of balance to the world 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.079 that you know, warfare is viewed by an imperial culture. 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.840 You know, war is the instrument that demonstrates your greatness. Yeah, 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.920 Mars is therefore a military deity that maintains order and 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.960 protects agriculture. Mars is uh Is is very closely associated 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:35.040 with agriculture in the Roman tradition. Um, so he upholds 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:39.720 while Aries threatens and tears down Um. And so it's 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.120 it's interesting because they are like two sides of the 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.480 same thing, which which I think the Hindu god Mangala 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.400 seems to encompass both of these aspects. Here we see 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.800 this divergence in Arias and uh in mars Um. I 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:54.800 was I was reading a little bit more. There's a 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.480 there's a book called Classical Mythology a to z Um. Yeah, 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.800 that's quite good. And in one of the ways they 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.760 describe Aries is that he is he's a lord or 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.400 a god of the screams of the dying. Uh so 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.439 you know it's it's not so so. Yeah, mars Is 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.240 is the god of of war is great, War is good? 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:20.000 And then Aries is the war? What is it good for? Uh? Deity? 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:24.720 You know, he's just um he he is the worst 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.680 of the pantheon. Uh he is Aries, the lord of 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.559 the screams of the dying. Sounds very like a seventies 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.400 exploitation movie epithet for him, right, you know, he's um 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.000 Aries and Aries again. Yeah, and I guess it does 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.640 come to like, you know, Aries is the very nature 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.440 and heart of war and violence, where mars is more like, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.920 what what use can war be put to? What does it? 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.360 What does it do? What can it accomplish, uh, you know, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.319 very much a whitewashing of war. Now, as with Jupiter 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.600 that we you know, which we discussed in our recent episode, 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:06.080 Mars has many epithets or aspects um. So instead of 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.680 having you know, a whole bunch of different deities representing 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.640 different shades of the same thing, you have different versions of, 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.080 say Jupiter, and in this case, there are different versions 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.800 of Mars as well, such as Mars grativ Us, the 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.080 marching Mars. So this would be the Mars that a 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:27.080 soldier in the field would swear by, because you know, 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.560 as with Jupiter, deities are important for swearing and making 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:35.199 oaths and so forth. Another major Mars is is Mars Pader, 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.000 protector of agriculture. And this, of course is is literally 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.760 Mars the Father. And this is also very notable because 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.440 in Roman myth he is the father. Uh, Mars is 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.680 the father of Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome. 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:55.160 So in the Roman tradition, Mars isn't just the god 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.960 of of noble war. He is also the ancestor of 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:04.040 the Roman people. He is the patriarch of the empire exactly. Yeah. 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:08.839 So he yeah, he is the empire. Um. Now this 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:10.880 is this is where it gets kind of curious, right, 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:12.920 and I imagine a number of people are already thinking 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:17.120 about this. So in the Roman tradition, the primary war 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:22.319 god Mars has two highly important sons, Romulus and Remus. 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.640 So wouldn't it make more sense to name the two 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.920 moons of Mars after Romulus and Remus rather than going 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.320 to the Greek hopping over to the Greek tradition and 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.959 drawing on the two uh, two of the sons of Aries. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.360 Wouldn't that imply that one of the moons has to 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.520 kill the other moon. Um, well, you know, as we'll 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.680 get into in this episode of the next that's not 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:48.839 a crazy idea considering the House of Mars over there. 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.240 Orbitally speaking, I may be remembering my mythology wrong. I 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.720 think things go bad for Remus. Well, um, it's worth 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.240 worth noting. Outside of Star trek Lore, Romulus is the 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.480 outer moon of the main Belt asteroid eighties seven Sylvia, 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.720 and Remus is the inner moon. Sylvia is named for 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.960 Rea Sylvia, the mythical mother of the founders of Rome. Uh. 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.440 So it's you know, kind of this was all filled 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.880 in later. Well, while while we're doing a round up. 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.480 I should also mention that that passage from the Iliad 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.120 I read at the top that had that great couplet 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.280 about airis the goddess of strife. Uh, there is actually 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.200 an object name for Airess as well. It's the dwarf 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.280 planet Airis that is not quite a planet, but is 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:34.520 a nearly nearly spherical asteroid. Yeah, I guess it's Uh. Basically, 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.800 we're just gonna keep finding new things to name. Uh. 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:39.960 So if you're if you're out there, any members of 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.800 the Greek Roman pantheon and you don't have something named 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.800 after you yet, just hold on, Just be patient, um 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.120 and mortal beings that you are, We'll get around to 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.320 you eventually. Wait a second, I feel like I just 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.720 said something wrong. I think I called Airis an asteroids. Uh, 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.240 Heiress is not an asteroid. A Airis is a nearly 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.600 spherical trans Neptunian object. Apologies about that, you pologizing to 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.520 the planet or the deity. I don't want to be 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.280 roped in by strife here. Want to make an enemy 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.400 of strife, all right? So yeah, obviously instead of naming 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:13.359 Mars's two moons after Romulus and Remus, uh, the traditions 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.840 of drawing on the names of two of the many 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.680 children of Aries in Greek mythology. So partnered with Aphrodite, 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.240 he fathered Demos Phobos of course, and we'll get into 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.880 them in a second, but also Aros or love uh, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:33.720 Antros requitted love, and Harmonia, who represents harmony uh. And 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.600 he's also said to have produced other children by other mothers. 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.080 So there's you know, there's a there's a vast brood. 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.040 Now I believe Aries Uh. Isn't it the case that 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.840 Aphrodite was actually married to have faced Us, the forge god, 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.440 the the equivalent of the Roman vulcan, and that Aries 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.600 is sort of her lover on the side or are 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.400 they officially an item later on? There's a lot of 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.760 drama there, but it seems are to call a myth 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.760 about he faced Us making like a net of chains 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.600 to catch them in the act or something. Yeah, I 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.680 mean it fits the nature of Arias again, he's he's 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:14.160 really the scum of the pantheon here um. But let's 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.800 talk a bit about the twins. Demos and Phobos, both 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.920 deities very much in the Greek tradition of war gods. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.720 While Demos is traditionally associated with terror and dread. Phobos 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.720 is fear and panic, though both of them may be 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.480 collectively thought of as deities of fear. Uh. They ride 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.920 beside their father into battle, along with the goddess of 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.800 discord Heiress so who he mentioned already, But the twin 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:42.200 brothers of Fear are referred to in several key works. 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.560 We already mentioned the Iliad. They also show up in Hesiods, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.640 the Shield of Heracles and um if if memory serves, 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.560 I think in the Shield of Heracles, they actually like 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.800 their their father is wounded on the battlefield and they 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.000 drag him off the battlefield. So they're very much his 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:04.040 his pendence, his personal guard, the warriors that go into 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:09.040 battle beside him. Um. But they are also just horrifying specters, 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.640 you know, they are gods of trauma and the psychological 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.480 dimensions of war. Um. But they do seem to revolve 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.760 around their father on the battlefield in a way befitting 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.520 of moons. So perhaps they're ultimately a better fit, uh 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.840 than the Roman figures of Romulus and Remus. Yeah, I 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:27.760 would say that. I mean, I think one thing that's 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.880 interesting about them is that they represent two distinct types 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.119 of fear that are things that you need to manage 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:39.159 differently if you're writing horror fiction, say like that Phobos 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.960 Phobos is is panic. Phobos is sometimes translated as route, right, 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.919 like getting routed in battle. You're just like, you know, 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:51.480 you're terrified and you're running away, whereas Demos is dread, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:57.760 the terror that builds in anticipation of of something horrible. Yeah. Yeah, 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.920 so uh And I also think probably more fitting because 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.400 Romilis and Remus are a little more they're a little 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:08.000 more fleshed out as as figures, whereas Demos and Phobos 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.840 are a bit more abstract, you know, like we don't 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.800 have as many tales about them and stories about them 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.800 that that uh, you know, that stick with us. They 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.320 are more you know, harshly formed they are, and then 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.679 that they themselves are these kind of like fragile, fractured 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.800 nightmare beings. Um. And I think that's very befitting of 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.359 the sort of moons that we're going to be talking about, 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.600 uh in these episodes. Sorry, one thing I just got 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.399 distracted wondering about. Wait a minute, are are the moons 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.680 of Mars especially scary as moons? Not in the way 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:42.920 that I can think of but they are rather mysterious. 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.719 I think they are some of the weirdest, most mysterious 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.440 objects in the Solar system. You can sort of looking 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.760 at it sideways, connect that sense of mystery to a 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.920 kind of creepiness about them. Yeah, I mean, I guess 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.840 I would. I would say that less frightening as more 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.840 just like, yeah, mysterious. And also, like you clearly the 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.040 product of violence, and in the case of one of 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.840 the moons, like you know, just destined for destruction is 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.119 just on a on a collision course with destruction. Um, 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.520 you know, and uh, I think it pairs well with 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.400 this idea of like two shattered beings that serve this 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.560 horrible god they you know, that represents some of the 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:26.800 worst aspects of of mortals except in immortal form um. 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.480 So yeah, I will come back throughout these episodes with 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:35.200 comparisons to the mythic twins, the double Grima worm tongues 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.040 of the Mars system. Yeah, yeah, imagine there's some other 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:43.000 good comparisons to make. Yeah, like you know, the sons 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.680 of some you know, awful ruler. There might be a 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.000 good Dune reference in there somewhere. I'm not sure. Oh, 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.000 I see, like they're the beast Ribon and Uh and 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.280 fade route the Yeah, though, I don't know. Fate has 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.480 a lot of things together in ways that these these 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:05.120 two don't, so I'm not sure. All right, Well, let's 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:08.840 talk about the discovery of Phobos and Demos. Like we said, 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.840 Mars has been something that people throughout human history have 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:16.439 looked up and seen and attributed various meanings and interpretations too, 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.800 But not so with Phobos and demos. Uh. These we 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.520 were not to be discovered for some time. Right. You 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:24.960 have to get well into the age of the telescope 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.879 to be able to see these objects from Earth because 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.240 they are both very small and very close to Mars. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.680 And when you're looking at Mars in the night sky, 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:35.760 it's reflecting a lot of light and it's sort of 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:39.320 going to to blast out any small objects nearby it. 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:41.240 You're just not going to be able to distinguish them 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:45.040 from it. Yeah, So it just simply wasn't possible. Um. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.600 They these two moons were discovered though, in eighteen seventy 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:53.520 seven by American astronomer ASoft Hall, who lived eight nine 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.919 through nineteen oh seven. Now, Hall was was large as 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.760 an interesting character because, for one thing, he was largely 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.679 self taught astronomer. He was not a gentleman scientist of 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.920 the day, but rather the impoverished son of a clockmaker. 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:09.560 His father died when he was young, so he had 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.000 to leave school, uh, in order to be He was 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.920 going to become an apprentice to a carpenter, but later 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.160 on he ended up taking math classes at New York 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.960 Central College, and from there he took a job at 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:24.360 the Harvard College Observatory and then became an assistant astronomer 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.080 at the US Naval Observatory, and eventually he was made 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:31.080 a professor. So he had a really interesting career path, 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.000 you know, an ascension story. So uh, you know, on 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:35.399 one hand, it's it's just neat to see that kind 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.520 of trajectory with an individual who plays into the history 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.200 of astronomy like this. So the way it went down 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:47.639 is in eighteen seventy seven, during Mars Closest Approach, his wife, 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:53.400 Angeline Stickney, who was a mathematician and a suffragist, encouraged 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.560 him to engage in the search for the Martian moons, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.720 and and to keep engaging in the search because he 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.360 had in his writings. He apparently loses this saying, well, 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:04.119 you know, there's just seemed to be so such a 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.000 small chance of him seeing anything. Um, you know, he 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.280 was considering just giving it up, but his wife encouraged 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.359 him on, and so he thought he made out Martian 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:15.960 moons on August tenth, but he couldn't be sure, you know, 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.400 it was I think the weather was weird that night, 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.040 so he didn't have the clarity that he wanted. But 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.720 then on August twelve he discovered Demos, and on August eighteenth, 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.840 he discovered Phobos. Both both of these discoveries were made 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.920 using equipment at the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.440 d C. Interesting now, since he found them, he got 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:37.680 to name them. But as far as I can tell, 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:39.800 there's not much more to it than that. I don't 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.480 you know. I couldn't find anything about him having any 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.720 real reasoning for choosing these two names over Romulus and Remus. Uh, 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:49.639 if he ever considered other names, if he if he 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:53.040 named them in an error, I don't know. Um. I 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:55.800 think ultimately they're good names, though, just really scared. That 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.560 night he'd been reading some ec comics or what would 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.399 be correct for the time period. He was reading The 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:03.879 Great God Pan or whatever. Actually I don't know if 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:05.960 that was out of the time. I mean, ultimately, he 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:07.840 you know, he could have tried to call them Tweedle 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:10.919 dumb and tweedled d So I guess it's just as 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:14.320 well that he went with Phobos and Demos. Now, this 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:16.639 is an interesting little side note. I can't find a 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:19.119 what felt to me like a really solid source on this, 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:23.520 but a profile of his wife, Stickney on the official U. S. 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:27.200 Navy page used to state that as she was helping 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:29.880 her husband with the calculations and all of this, she 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:33.800 asked for a man's wages compensation and he refused so 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:39.080 she quit. Um. Oh yeah, I think you know, it's 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:41.479 not like it's really hard to say. I couldn't find 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:43.280 any more information about this, so I don't know if 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:46.080 this is a joke, uh, if this is you know, 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:49.600 totally made up, or you know, if what we're talking 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.320 about was a serious argument or more of like kind 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.040 of a fun story that you know that that that 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:59.240 spouses tell. I don't know. But at the very least, 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:02.359 though Phobos is the largest crater ended up being named 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:05.040 for her, Stickney Crater, which we'll get back to in 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.400 a bit. So, you know, I guess ultimately her work 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:11.320 paid in exposure at least now. Um, others were looking 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:14.280 for those moons as well and speculating about their existence. 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.359 And I ran across a really interesting story about all 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:22.040 this that I read on Stephen Novella's neurological blog, And 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:27.120 this concerns the moons of Mars and Gulliver's travels. Gulliver's Travels. 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:31.200 But Jonathan Swift, Yeah, so that would be long before 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.320 this discuss This would be over a hundred years before 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:37.040 the discovery of the moons, right, Yeah, this goes bad. 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.919 This book came out in seventy And have have you 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:43.680 ever read Gulliver's travel Yeah, it's been a long time. 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:46.040 I read it in college. Um, I took a class 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:48.280 in college, so we read a lot of like John 0:24:48.359 --> 0:24:52.000 Dryden and Alexander Pope and and and Swift and uh, 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:54.320 I think we read Gulliver's Travels for that class, or 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.080 if not, we read large sections of it. It's one 0:24:57.119 --> 0:24:59.639 that I've never read. I'm just sort of familiar with 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:04.840 it bits and pieces that I've absorbed through through other sources. Well, 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:07.600 so Gulliver's Travels, if you've never read it. Here, it's 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:11.600 about a it's largely satirical, but it's about a sailor 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:14.280 who goes to these weird lands that end up being 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:18.720 sort of humorous portraits of things that Swift Swift observed 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:22.159 about the world. So they're the lily Putians who are tiny. 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:24.399 And then I think at some point he goes to 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:28.080 a place called brobb ding Nag, if I remember correctly, 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:30.800 this full of giants. And then he also goes to 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.080 a place where I don't remember the name of it, 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:36.119 but it's the place where the yahoo's are, where the 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:38.159 idea of the yah Who's comes from these like a 0:25:38.440 --> 0:25:44.080 sort of sort of cross apes. Well. At one point 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:47.280 in the book, the Lilliputians catch him up on things 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:51.360 and inform him that quote. They have likewise discovered two 0:25:51.440 --> 0:25:55.800 lesser stars or satellites, which revolve around Mars, where all 0:25:55.880 --> 0:25:58.920 the innermost is distant from the center of the primary 0:25:59.040 --> 0:26:03.080 exactly three of his diameters and the outmost five. The 0:26:03.119 --> 0:26:06.080 former revolves in the space of ten hours and the 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:09.400 later in twenty one and a half. Holy cow, that's 0:26:09.440 --> 0:26:12.720 not that far off. Yeah, and that this is what 0:26:13.160 --> 0:26:15.920 m Novella writes about in this blog post. He points 0:26:15.920 --> 0:26:19.119 out quote Phobos and Demos have orbits which are about 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:23.680 one point four and three point five diameters from Mars center, respectively. 0:26:24.160 --> 0:26:28.760 The Houtians gave figures of three and five. The periods 0:26:28.920 --> 0:26:31.879 of Phobos and Demos are seven point seven and thirty 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:36.120 point three hours, respectively, while while the Laputians reported ten 0:26:36.440 --> 0:26:39.439 and twenty one point five. These figures are correct to 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:42.119 within an order of magnitude, which is another way of 0:26:42.119 --> 0:26:45.280 saying that they are wrong. They are reasonable guesses, obviously, 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:48.399 but do not betray any special knowledge, because basically what 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:51.280 he's exploring in this blog post is like the question 0:26:51.400 --> 0:26:53.720 what did Swift know? Like why is Swift? Why did 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:56.359 Swift get this right? Or sort of right or mostly right, 0:26:56.440 --> 0:26:59.200 depending on how you're you're skewing it, Rob, I realized 0:26:59.280 --> 0:27:01.439 I may have led you astray by talking about the 0:27:01.480 --> 0:27:04.280 lily Putians, because I think there are actually two different things. 0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:07.600 They're the Lilliputians and the Laputans. And I think this 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:12.440 is the Laputans, okay. I think the people of Laputa 0:27:12.560 --> 0:27:15.800 are on a flying island, whereas the lily Pucians are 0:27:15.880 --> 0:27:18.399 somewhere else. They're they're the people who are tiny compared 0:27:18.400 --> 0:27:22.880 to our apologies to the the Putians and the LiTi Pucians. Um. Yeah, 0:27:22.920 --> 0:27:25.320 I ended up going When you mentioned Lily Pucians, I 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:26.880 ended up going with them because it makes me think 0:27:26.920 --> 0:27:30.480 of Oliver Sacks talking about the Lily Putians in his 0:27:30.520 --> 0:27:34.560 book Hallucinations. Oh, I don't recall that having to do 0:27:34.600 --> 0:27:38.639 with like seeing tiny people. Uh okay, as hallucinations sometimes 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:40.680 do to I think I can't remember that tied into 0:27:40.720 --> 0:27:44.080 migraines or not. But anyway, fabus book Hallucinations. Well, yeah, 0:27:44.280 --> 0:27:47.400 this is really interesting. So I guess the question is like, 0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:50.440 how how close do you have to be in guessing 0:27:50.440 --> 0:27:53.040 stuff like this to to really be impressive? I don't know. 0:27:53.080 --> 0:27:57.720 This seems pretty impressive for not actually knowing anything. Well, 0:27:57.880 --> 0:28:00.800 Novella points out that, first of all, it could just 0:28:00.840 --> 0:28:05.120 be an educated guess um based for starters on how 0:28:05.119 --> 0:28:09.199 Mercury and Venus have zero moons, Earth has one, and 0:28:09.240 --> 0:28:13.080 then Jupiter and Saturn were known to have many moons. Therefore, 0:28:13.200 --> 0:28:16.080 perhaps two felt about right, you know, like you needed 0:28:16.119 --> 0:28:20.720 something between one and many? Uh so why not too? Yeah? Uh? 0:28:20.760 --> 0:28:23.000 And of course, yeah, you said that it was known 0:28:23.080 --> 0:28:25.280 that these outer planets had many moons, like we've known 0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:29.720 that Jupiter had moons since Galileo. Right, But Novella presents 0:28:30.000 --> 0:28:34.520 another idea that is pretty interesting. Uh and this this 0:28:34.560 --> 0:28:37.240 gets kind of this is a really weird concept of 0:28:37.320 --> 0:28:41.400 because it has to do with uh anagrams and um 0:28:41.560 --> 0:28:45.080 and so forth. But the idea here is that Swift 0:28:45.120 --> 0:28:48.680 may have gotten the notion from Johann Kepler, who concluded 0:28:48.880 --> 0:28:51.920 at one point that Mars had two moons based on 0:28:52.000 --> 0:28:58.840 a misunderstood cryptic anagram the Galileo devised. What so basically, 0:28:59.760 --> 0:29:04.960 in Kepler's sixteen ten memoir, he misconstrued this anagram that 0:29:05.000 --> 0:29:07.840 Galileo put together. You know all these these uh, these 0:29:07.920 --> 0:29:10.640 letters that you're supposed to rearrange into their proper form, 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:14.040 that he had sent his friends announcing the discovery of 0:29:14.040 --> 0:29:18.040 Saturn's rings. And instead of getting and I'm not gonna 0:29:18.680 --> 0:29:22.560 read the the original phrase here, but instead of getting 0:29:22.680 --> 0:29:25.920 I have observed the highest most distant planet, Saturn to 0:29:26.040 --> 0:29:30.560 have a triple form, instead he got hail twin companionship, 0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:34.880 children of Mars, or I agreet you double knob, children 0:29:34.920 --> 0:29:40.560 of Mars. I agreet you double knob. Sure that's what 0:29:40.640 --> 0:29:44.720 he was writing. Yeah, so in anyway, that's that's interesting. 0:29:44.880 --> 0:29:48.560 Um Novella also points out that Voltaire also wrote about 0:29:48.640 --> 0:29:54.320 Mars having two moons in the seventeen fifty two book Micromegas. 0:29:54.840 --> 0:29:58.440 I'm going to read a quote from that quote. But 0:29:58.560 --> 0:30:01.360 let us now return to our travel ers. Upon leaving Jupiter, 0:30:01.520 --> 0:30:05.560 they traversed a space of around one hundred million leagues 0:30:05.600 --> 0:30:08.280 and approached the planet Mars, which as we know, is 0:30:08.320 --> 0:30:11.120 five times smaller than our own. They swung by two 0:30:11.160 --> 0:30:13.840 moons that cater to this planet, but have escaped the 0:30:13.880 --> 0:30:16.800 notice of our astronomers. I know very well that Father 0:30:16.920 --> 0:30:20.800 Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against the existence 0:30:20.800 --> 0:30:23.440 of these two moons. But I rely on those who 0:30:23.520 --> 0:30:27.360 reasoned by analogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it 0:30:27.360 --> 0:30:29.680 would be for Mars so far from the Sun to 0:30:29.800 --> 0:30:33.440 have gotten by with less than two moons. Okay, so 0:30:33.480 --> 0:30:36.800 I guess this is a work of fiction as well. Yes, yeah, 0:30:36.920 --> 0:30:40.360 and I think of of similar I've read Voltaire, but 0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:43.920 not this particular work, but you know, a similar satire 0:30:44.000 --> 0:30:47.960 and fantasy. Well, good job, Jonathan Swift. Yeah uh yeah, 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:51.840 so he basically got it right. But anyway that none 0:30:51.880 --> 0:30:54.120 of this has anything you know, directly to do with 0:30:54.160 --> 0:30:57.080 the nature of Demos and Phobos, but it's it's interesting nonetheless. 0:30:57.280 --> 0:30:58.880 All right, well, maybe we should talk about some of 0:30:58.880 --> 0:31:03.360 the physical characterists six of Phobos. All right, Yeah, so yeah, 0:31:03.360 --> 0:31:06.160 we're gonna mostly start with Phobos, and we'll get into 0:31:06.200 --> 0:31:08.200 Demos a bit more in the second episode, as well 0:31:08.240 --> 0:31:11.160 as more stuff about Phobos, because ultimately they are twins 0:31:11.640 --> 0:31:14.680 um and they have a lot in common. So if 0:31:14.680 --> 0:31:19.200 Phobos represents the psyche ravage by war in Uh in 0:31:19.280 --> 0:31:22.800 Greek mythology, then it might be fitting, you know, given 0:31:22.840 --> 0:31:26.120 the nature of the moon named after him, because you know, 0:31:26.120 --> 0:31:29.360 we're talking about a shattered wreck destined to battle its 0:31:29.400 --> 0:31:33.080 father and perish in the conflict. Now, Phobos is the 0:31:33.160 --> 0:31:37.520 larger of Mars's two moons. It is seventeen by fourteen 0:31:37.560 --> 0:31:40.440 by eleven miles or twenty seven by twenty two by 0:31:40.520 --> 0:31:45.240 eighteen kilometers in diameter, and its shape is is pretty irregular. 0:31:45.320 --> 0:31:48.880 It doesn't look like whatever whatever you're imagining. If you 0:31:48.880 --> 0:31:51.600 haven't seen an image of Phobos, it doesn't look like that. 0:31:51.680 --> 0:31:54.560 It looks more like a space potato. Yeah, I've seen 0:31:54.560 --> 0:31:57.120 people say potato. I would say kind of turnip, or 0:31:57.160 --> 0:31:59.560 if it is a potato. It's not a Russet potato. 0:31:59.600 --> 0:32:02.440 I think it's more like a Yukon gold. Yeah, it 0:32:02.760 --> 0:32:06.840 doesn't look very spherical. Um now, it seems to be 0:32:06.960 --> 0:32:13.880 made of C type rock similar to blackish carbonaceous chondrite asteroids. 0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:17.400 And it is, uh, it's absolutely battle scarred. I mean, 0:32:17.440 --> 0:32:20.280 it's just there are various tracks on it caused by 0:32:20.400 --> 0:32:23.200 landslides that have occurred, it seems, but it's its surface 0:32:23.240 --> 0:32:26.960 has just been bombarded into dust by impacts. Uh. And 0:32:27.000 --> 0:32:30.240 its largest crater again is named for Stickney, and it 0:32:30.320 --> 0:32:33.479 is um six point two miles or ten kilometers in 0:32:33.480 --> 0:32:36.920 diameter and seems to have been almost violent enough to 0:32:36.960 --> 0:32:39.560 have just destroyed it outright. Yeah, if you're trying to 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:41.800 picture it in your head, the Stickney crater is so 0:32:41.960 --> 0:32:47.280 large that it essentially is one side of this moon. Yeah, 0:32:47.480 --> 0:32:51.080 it's uh, yeah, it's just it looks really beat up, 0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:53.440 and it even has these these things that look very 0:32:53.520 --> 0:32:55.640 much like battle scars, like it's been scratched by an 0:32:55.760 --> 0:32:59.120 enormous space cat and these were likely caused by uh, 0:32:59.160 --> 0:33:02.120 you know, various could visions and violence as well. So 0:33:02.200 --> 0:33:04.960 it's just totally beat up. But like the son of 0:33:04.960 --> 0:33:07.680 a brutal war. God, it just keeps going on. It's 0:33:07.720 --> 0:33:11.320 just it keeps clinging to life and uh, and keeps orbiting. 0:33:11.440 --> 0:33:15.120 It's uh, it's father. It completes three orbits per day 0:33:16.440 --> 0:33:19.280 and uh. And it has also has the tightest orbit 0:33:19.320 --> 0:33:23.000 of any known moon, orbiting at a mere six thousand 0:33:23.080 --> 0:33:26.760 kilometers or three thousand, seven hundred miles. To put that 0:33:26.800 --> 0:33:30.360 in comparison, our moon is two hundred and thirty eight thousand, 0:33:30.520 --> 0:33:33.000 eight hundred and fifty five miles away or three d 0:33:33.200 --> 0:33:37.320 eighty four thousand, four hundred kilometers away. Yeah, so Phobos 0:33:37.440 --> 0:33:41.080 is really close to the surface of Mars. Demos is 0:33:41.080 --> 0:33:44.239 a good bit farther out, but Phobos. The distance from 0:33:44.280 --> 0:33:46.840 the surface of Mars to Phobos is actually comparable to 0:33:47.000 --> 0:33:51.760 distances between recognizable landmarks on the surface of the Earth. 0:33:52.040 --> 0:33:54.680 Like if there was a road you could drive from 0:33:54.720 --> 0:33:58.160 Mars to Phobos in a couple of days. Like for comparison, 0:33:58.240 --> 0:34:01.160 Google Maps tells me that the dry having distance between 0:34:01.320 --> 0:34:05.000 Miami and Vancouver. So basically, you know, sort of diagonally 0:34:05.040 --> 0:34:07.560 across North America, I mean, not even all the way 0:34:07.640 --> 0:34:11.160 up to Alaska. Uh, that's about thirty four hundred miles 0:34:11.239 --> 0:34:14.920 or roughly kilometers, so just a little bit shorter than 0:34:14.960 --> 0:34:20.000 the distance from Mars to Phobos. Phobos is right in there, right. So, 0:34:20.080 --> 0:34:24.000 while we've joked about extraterrestrial skies and how large planets 0:34:24.080 --> 0:34:27.520 sometimes appear in the sky in various movies or works 0:34:27.520 --> 0:34:29.880 of sci fi art if it's like Battle for Indoor 0:34:30.200 --> 0:34:33.640 or basically any location in the video game No Man Sky, 0:34:34.560 --> 0:34:37.759 despite all that, Mars would actually be quite huge in 0:34:37.800 --> 0:34:40.320 the sky of Phobos if you were standing on its surface. 0:34:40.400 --> 0:34:42.480 Oh yeah, I actually looked this up to see if 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:45.320 I could find somebody who had done like a scale 0:34:45.360 --> 0:34:48.360 attempt to create that view, and I could not find it. 0:34:48.400 --> 0:34:50.560 Maybe it exists somewhere out there, but yeah, it would 0:34:50.560 --> 0:34:52.920 be absolutely huge because to look at it from the 0:34:52.960 --> 0:34:57.200 other way, Phobos is, as moons go, extremely tiny. I 0:34:57.200 --> 0:34:59.840 mean it's again you're looking at like like twenty some 0:35:00.080 --> 0:35:04.880 thing kilometers in width depending on which side is facing you. Um, so, 0:35:04.880 --> 0:35:08.560 so this is much much smaller than moons were familiar with, 0:35:08.600 --> 0:35:12.400 like Earth's moons or like the Earth's single moon. I 0:35:12.400 --> 0:35:15.440 didn't mean to suggest the multiple or the larger moons 0:35:15.440 --> 0:35:18.600 of Jupiter or something like that, but from the surface 0:35:18.640 --> 0:35:22.759 of Mars, Phobos appears relatively large. I think I remember 0:35:23.160 --> 0:35:26.560 reading somewhere that it was it looks about a third 0:35:26.760 --> 0:35:29.480 as big as the Moon usually looks from the surface 0:35:29.520 --> 0:35:32.880 of Earth, but it's so much smaller. And the reason 0:35:32.960 --> 0:35:34.960 it looks that big is just how close it is. 0:35:37.040 --> 0:35:39.439 And here's the an added factor at all this, it's 0:35:39.480 --> 0:35:43.239 getting closer. Uh. Phobos edges closer to Mars at a 0:35:43.320 --> 0:35:46.719 rate of six ft or one point eight meters every century, 0:35:47.320 --> 0:35:51.560 So in fifty million years it will probably either crash 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:54.960 into Mars or break up and become a ring of 0:35:55.040 --> 0:35:59.359 debris around Mars. I hope it goes the ring route. Personally, yeah, 0:36:00.280 --> 0:36:02.680 either way, I think I really like the mythic synergy 0:36:02.719 --> 0:36:05.560 of this because I can easily imagine, you know, this 0:36:05.840 --> 0:36:09.919 terror using war god Phobos just being destined to fight 0:36:10.040 --> 0:36:13.120 his own terrible father and perish one way or another 0:36:13.160 --> 0:36:16.160 in the attempt. You know, yeah, you're not gonna win, dude, Yeah, 0:36:16.239 --> 0:36:18.160 but he but he has to, like it's his nature, 0:36:18.280 --> 0:36:21.040 like this is this is what he's been been, you know, 0:36:21.440 --> 0:36:25.799 raised and traumatized to do. What else could possibly happen? Now, 0:36:25.840 --> 0:36:28.439 of course, given the time frame involved here, fifty million years. 0:36:28.719 --> 0:36:30.520 You know, humans don't have to worry about you know, 0:36:30.560 --> 0:36:31.680 it's not one of these things we're like, oh, we 0:36:31.760 --> 0:36:34.680 better not try and land anything on Phobos because it's 0:36:34.680 --> 0:36:39.799 it's doomed, won't you know not, you know, not anytime soon. Um. 0:36:39.880 --> 0:36:41.799 And there have been some proposals that have sought to 0:36:41.880 --> 0:36:44.080 use Phobos as a kind of staging ground for the 0:36:44.120 --> 0:36:49.000 exploration of Mars itself, you know, perhaps for robotics for example. Yeah, 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:51.160 And there are a lot of we can talk more 0:36:51.160 --> 0:36:53.480 about this in the second episode in this series, but 0:36:53.480 --> 0:36:55.640 there are a lot of reasons that Phobos might be 0:36:55.719 --> 0:36:59.160 really a great place to try to stage space missions. 0:36:59.480 --> 0:37:01.680 One reason, for example, is that it would be if 0:37:01.719 --> 0:37:04.799 you're trying to get something back from Mars or to 0:37:04.920 --> 0:37:07.960 another place in the Solar System from Mars, it's much 0:37:07.960 --> 0:37:10.560 easier to get off of Phobos than it is to 0:37:10.680 --> 0:37:13.319 get off of the surface of Mars itself. Yeah, I mean, 0:37:13.320 --> 0:37:15.200 it's it's it's it's basically it's like a you know, 0:37:15.200 --> 0:37:18.719 it's a it's a space station. Um. Now, Phobos has 0:37:18.760 --> 0:37:23.600 no atmosphere. Um. And also gravity on Phobos, uh is 0:37:24.360 --> 0:37:27.960 pretty weak. According to NASA quote, Phobos has only one 0:37:28.480 --> 0:37:32.239 one thousand as much gravitational pull as Earth. A one 0:37:32.680 --> 0:37:36.120 fifty pounds or sixty eight kilogram person would weigh two 0:37:36.120 --> 0:37:40.799 ounces or sixty eight grams there. Um. Yet they do 0:37:40.880 --> 0:37:44.760 point out that NASA's Mars Global Surveyor has shown evidence 0:37:44.800 --> 0:37:47.400 of landslides. You know, we mentioned that that earlier of 0:37:47.480 --> 0:37:50.840 boulders and dust that's fallen back down to the surface 0:37:50.880 --> 0:37:55.760 after being blasted due to various impacts. So the gravity 0:37:55.800 --> 0:37:58.480 there is in play, but it is, you know, it is. 0:37:58.520 --> 0:38:00.759 It is slight compared to the avity of Earth or 0:38:00.800 --> 0:38:05.280 certainly other uh moons out there. Right. Phobos is about 0:38:05.400 --> 0:38:08.320 the mass that if you were to jump on Phobos, 0:38:08.360 --> 0:38:11.239 you could jump really high, but you would eventually fall 0:38:11.280 --> 0:38:15.120 back down right now, Like our moon, the twins of 0:38:15.200 --> 0:38:18.239 Mars are both locked with the same face pointed at 0:38:18.280 --> 0:38:21.480 their planet. Uh. The day side gets reasonably warm from 0:38:21.560 --> 0:38:24.600 human perspective. I think I saw it compared in in 0:38:24.719 --> 0:38:28.080 one NASA document to a a winter day in Chicago, 0:38:28.560 --> 0:38:31.719 while the night side gets extremely cold. Uh. Though again 0:38:31.760 --> 0:38:35.600 there's no atmosphere, so we're talking about surface temperatures here. Uh, 0:38:35.600 --> 0:38:38.239 you know, there's no air to do anything. They're right 0:38:38.280 --> 0:38:40.680 the air can't hold the warmth you're just talking about, 0:38:40.719 --> 0:38:43.560 like being blasted by radiation, and I guess whatever is 0:38:43.719 --> 0:38:46.920 radiating back up off of the rock beneath your feet. 0:38:53.520 --> 0:38:56.600 All right, So in discussing Phobos, we should point out 0:38:56.840 --> 0:38:58.759 as well, and we'll probably get more into this maybe 0:38:58.760 --> 0:39:01.399 in the second episode. Is that as of today, as 0:39:01.400 --> 0:39:04.839 of this recording, no one has actually been to Phobos, 0:39:04.840 --> 0:39:08.160 certainly not in person, but even attempts to send probes 0:39:08.200 --> 0:39:12.920 directly to Phobos have failed for various reasons. The Russians 0:39:13.000 --> 0:39:17.399 made two attempts in the late eighties Phobos one and two. Uh. 0:39:17.719 --> 0:39:20.879 Those failed seemingly, I think for technical reasons, and then 0:39:20.920 --> 0:39:25.040 in eleven they attempted to send another one um Phobos 0:39:25.080 --> 0:39:28.160 grunt to Phobos. That's felled f O b O S 0:39:28.400 --> 0:39:32.160 g r U n T in uh. The the at 0:39:32.239 --> 0:39:35.080 least the English language literature. It was going to collect 0:39:35.080 --> 0:39:38.600 two grams of soil, but that didn't quite work out. Yeah, 0:39:38.680 --> 0:39:41.319 it was a proposed sample return mission. Would have been 0:39:41.320 --> 0:39:43.600 really cool if we could have gotten some of Phobos 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:46.400 back here to Earth to study. But it failed. I 0:39:46.400 --> 0:39:50.719 think it actually was it failed in orbit before it 0:39:50.760 --> 0:39:53.480 began its journey to Mars and just ended up stuck 0:39:53.480 --> 0:39:57.080 in Earth orbit without the ability to travel. Now, various 0:39:57.080 --> 0:40:00.319 other missions have been proposed and are being considered ard 0:40:00.719 --> 0:40:04.040 but nothing is launched as of this recording. UM. But 0:40:04.320 --> 0:40:07.360 missions to Mars have and will continue to capture images 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:10.040 of the moons. Uh, you know if for starters, like 0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:12.920 once again, it's it's fairly visible in the sky if 0:40:12.960 --> 0:40:14.799 you catch it at the right time. So that has 0:40:14.840 --> 0:40:16.880 been one of the ways that we've captured images of it. 0:40:16.920 --> 0:40:19.560 Also the fly bys. Oh, one thing I forgot to 0:40:19.560 --> 0:40:22.920 mention about Phobos Grunt was actually, uh, it was a 0:40:23.000 --> 0:40:25.719 Russian mission, but it was also a joint venture with 0:40:25.800 --> 0:40:30.120 the Chinese Space Program and so the Chinese had part 0:40:30.200 --> 0:40:32.879 part of the mission as well. And then also part 0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:34.839 of what they were going to do was they were 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:38.239 going to they had some micro organisms aboard and they 0:40:38.280 --> 0:40:41.239 were going to study how the round trip from the 0:40:41.680 --> 0:40:43.719 from Earth to the moons of Mars and then back 0:40:43.719 --> 0:40:47.040 to Earth affected these micro organisms that were on the payload. 0:40:47.320 --> 0:40:50.120 I think the Planetary Society had a had a small 0:40:50.360 --> 0:40:54.040 uh experiment that was aboard as well. Yeah, yeah, was 0:40:54.120 --> 0:40:56.480 that the was that the micro organisms that may have 0:40:56.520 --> 0:40:59.560 been actually yes, yeah, but a any rate it did 0:40:59.640 --> 0:41:02.319 not come to pass. Uh, So we did not get 0:41:02.360 --> 0:41:05.640 to bring anything back from the surface of Phobos. We 0:41:05.680 --> 0:41:09.960 didn't get to have any thing directly investigate the surface 0:41:10.000 --> 0:41:13.000 of Phobos, which is a shame, because there there's some 0:41:13.200 --> 0:41:16.160 interesting features there to say the least. Oh. Yeah, So, 0:41:16.200 --> 0:41:19.839 if we were to begin a curiosity tour of the 0:41:19.840 --> 0:41:23.880 surface of Phobos, I think one of the top things 0:41:23.920 --> 0:41:28.000 to look at would be the Phobos Monolith. Monolith. You 0:41:28.080 --> 0:41:32.319 say monolith, I say, so, there is a giant rock 0:41:32.560 --> 0:41:37.880 on the surface of Phobos against the relatively smooth, cratered background. 0:41:37.960 --> 0:41:40.600 And I mean smooth, not because not because it's like 0:41:40.640 --> 0:41:43.319 a featureless surface. There are many craters, but it's not 0:41:43.480 --> 0:41:46.319 very craggy, if that makes any sense. It is, uh. 0:41:46.640 --> 0:41:50.120 It is kind of dust covered and dimpled but not 0:41:50.120 --> 0:41:55.000 not not sharp angles. And against this relatively smooth background, 0:41:55.800 --> 0:41:58.760 there is this rock that stands out like a white 0:41:58.880 --> 0:42:02.080 tower in the great dust, and it shines really bright 0:42:02.080 --> 0:42:05.760 in the sun and it casts this long looming tail 0:42:05.880 --> 0:42:09.160 of shade across the ground behind it. And judging by 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:12.399 the length of its shadow, some astronomers have estimated that 0:42:12.440 --> 0:42:15.359 this rock is about ninety meters tall or about three 0:42:15.440 --> 0:42:20.040 hundred feet, and for this reason, some media outlets describe 0:42:20.040 --> 0:42:22.839 it as building sized. I guess that's reasonable. If it's 0:42:22.840 --> 0:42:25.320 like three d feet tall, it's like a small office building. 0:42:26.360 --> 0:42:29.480 But you're you're you're also bringing to mind certain ideas 0:42:29.520 --> 0:42:32.479 about what it might be when you say it's building sized. Yes, 0:42:32.560 --> 0:42:34.000 and that's like if I were to say it was 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:38.520 it's giant robot sized. Yeah. Uh So this rock has 0:42:38.880 --> 0:42:41.360 come to be known as the Phobos monolith, and it 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:44.120 is one of the geologic features of our solar system 0:42:44.200 --> 0:42:48.120 that is genuinely exquisitely interesting, but you know, like so 0:42:48.160 --> 0:42:52.279 many others, in many cases appreciated for all the wrong reasons. Uh. 0:42:52.320 --> 0:42:55.719 The the it's aliens crowd loves this rock, now, why 0:42:55.760 --> 0:42:59.279 would that be. Well, a major point of departure here 0:42:59.360 --> 0:43:03.920 seems to be originally a c SPAN clip, which is 0:43:03.920 --> 0:43:06.879 not where you might expect, you know, sort of conspiracy 0:43:08.120 --> 0:43:12.440 minded ideas to originate from c SPAN. You generally pretty uh, 0:43:12.640 --> 0:43:15.359 pretty dry and pretty by the numbers. Yeah, I oh, 0:43:15.400 --> 0:43:17.640 I like c Span And actually I would say there's 0:43:17.640 --> 0:43:20.880 nothing wrong with this clip. It's just people misinterpreting a 0:43:20.960 --> 0:43:25.480 clip or selectively quoting from a clip. So this originally 0:43:25.520 --> 0:43:28.279 I think aired in July of two thousand nine, that's 0:43:28.280 --> 0:43:30.680 at least when the version I found was uploaded. But 0:43:31.120 --> 0:43:35.280 in this clip, the revered American astronaut Buzz Aldren, who 0:43:35.400 --> 0:43:37.440 of course, along with Neil Armstrong, was one of the 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:39.400 first two human beings to walk on the Moon, that 0:43:39.480 --> 0:43:42.279 was during the Apollo eleven landing in nineteen sixty nine. 0:43:43.239 --> 0:43:48.000 He is being interviewed on the c SPAN program Washington Journal, 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:51.839 and I believe this was in the context of originally 0:43:51.880 --> 0:43:56.760 talking about human colonization of Earth's Moon, but Aldren starts 0:43:56.840 --> 0:44:00.960 talking about the general impetus for exploration of looking at 0:44:01.000 --> 0:44:04.800 things that people find curious or inspiring about the about 0:44:04.800 --> 0:44:07.200 the Solar system at large, and using that sort of 0:44:07.239 --> 0:44:11.600 like public rapture about strange and interesting features of the 0:44:11.600 --> 0:44:16.319 Solar system to to motivate scientific exploration of them, as 0:44:16.320 --> 0:44:19.880 opposed to just say returning to the Moon exclusively. And 0:44:20.080 --> 0:44:23.759 Aldrin says, quote, we should go boldly where man has 0:44:23.800 --> 0:44:28.000 not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit 0:44:28.120 --> 0:44:31.960 the moon of Mars. There's a monolith. They're a very 0:44:32.040 --> 0:44:36.000 unusual structure on this little potato shaped object that goes 0:44:36.040 --> 0:44:39.719 around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out 0:44:39.760 --> 0:44:42.640 about that, they're gonna say, who put that there? Who 0:44:42.640 --> 0:44:45.560 put that there? Now, it seems like when the alien 0:44:45.640 --> 0:44:48.760 websites clipped this out, they stopped the quote right there 0:44:49.120 --> 0:44:51.600 and then they, you know, slap a headline on it, 0:44:51.640 --> 0:44:55.319 like buzz alder and let's slip the alien conspiracy. Of course, 0:44:55.360 --> 0:44:58.399 the next thing Aldren says is, well, the universe put 0:44:58.440 --> 0:45:01.120 it there, or if you choose, God put it there, 0:45:01.680 --> 0:45:04.000 and then he moves on to other topics. You can 0:45:04.040 --> 0:45:07.839 look this clip up yourself. So obviously Aldern is not 0:45:07.960 --> 0:45:11.880 alleging that this monolith is of artificial origin. He's not 0:45:11.920 --> 0:45:15.080 only not alleging that he's explicitly saying the exact opposite, 0:45:15.160 --> 0:45:17.799 it is of natural origin. But of course that's not 0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:20.840 going to stop the usual suspects from using this clip 0:45:21.280 --> 0:45:25.719 as evidence of the alien cover up conspiracy. Uh And so, 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:28.640 of course, the the Internet's favorite hoax hype man and 0:45:28.840 --> 0:45:32.839 general disinformation source Alex Jones, has it several times tried 0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:36.600 to suggest that buzz Aldren might be saying he believes 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:39.799 it was made by aliens like uh. During a two 0:45:39.840 --> 0:45:42.760 thousand nine interview, and that might actually be the weirdest 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:45.480 thing here is that Alex Jones actually did do an 0:45:45.480 --> 0:45:47.920 interview with Buzz Aldren in two thousand nine. I guess 0:45:47.960 --> 0:45:50.480 at the time nobody really knew who Alex Jones was. 0:45:50.960 --> 0:45:54.120 But during this interview, Jones tried to suggest that buzz 0:45:54.200 --> 0:45:57.920 Aldren might believe that this monolith was made by aliens, 0:45:58.120 --> 0:46:01.440 and in a more recent clip I found Jones is 0:46:01.719 --> 0:46:05.360 saying that Aldren actually told him in that two thousand 0:46:05.440 --> 0:46:09.000 nine interview that the Phobos monolith was quote sending a 0:46:09.040 --> 0:46:14.200 transmission and quote it's all Egypt. There's aliens and everything else. 0:46:15.239 --> 0:46:18.000 It's all Egypt. Yeah, it's all Egypt. There's aliens and 0:46:18.040 --> 0:46:20.520 everything else. And I saw that, I was like, what 0:46:20.520 --> 0:46:23.560 what could he even be referring to? Like, I didn't 0:46:23.640 --> 0:46:26.880 believe that Aldren had actually said that, but I wonder, like, 0:46:27.000 --> 0:46:29.040 what's he basing this claim on. So I said, what 0:46:29.120 --> 0:46:31.840 the heck, I'll actually look it up and the result 0:46:31.880 --> 0:46:34.759 was hilarious. So again, the weirdest thing about this to 0:46:34.840 --> 0:46:37.960 me is that at some point Alex Jones actually did 0:46:38.080 --> 0:46:40.920 interview the second person to walk on the Moon. Um, 0:46:40.960 --> 0:46:43.759 but so in the interview, he does ask Aldrin about this, 0:46:44.120 --> 0:46:47.160 and Aldrin says the exact opposite of what Jones claims. 0:46:47.239 --> 0:46:50.600 So Jones asks him, while if I'm not mistaken, I 0:46:50.600 --> 0:46:53.239 think showing him a picture of the wrong object. I 0:46:53.239 --> 0:46:55.160 think he's showing him a picture of an object from 0:46:55.200 --> 0:46:57.880 the surface of Mars. But he says, what does this 0:46:57.960 --> 0:47:00.720 look like to you? And Aldrin respond on he says, 0:47:00.960 --> 0:47:04.600 it's a big, big, tall rock. Now I can say, 0:47:04.600 --> 0:47:07.719 maybe it looks like a crude construction device by some 0:47:07.800 --> 0:47:11.280 creatures who practiced on Phobos and then landed in Egypt 0:47:11.280 --> 0:47:14.440 and built the Pyramids. And then he starts laughing and says, 0:47:14.560 --> 0:47:17.480 I don't really believe that, but some people are liable 0:47:17.520 --> 0:47:20.880 to think that. So Aldrin is making fun of and 0:47:20.920 --> 0:47:24.439 then explicitly rejecting the claim that Jones attributes to him. 0:47:24.560 --> 0:47:27.359 Not only did he not say what Jones claims, he 0:47:27.400 --> 0:47:30.600 says literally exactly the opposite. This is interesting. Yeah, it's 0:47:30.640 --> 0:47:37.439 a real real cherry picking of you know picking. Yeah. Yeah, 0:47:37.520 --> 0:47:40.440 Like like he's saying, I'm not saying it's aliens at all, 0:47:40.520 --> 0:47:42.920 it's actually this, but he's but then it's like he 0:47:43.000 --> 0:47:46.880 said the word aliens in the sentence, so he's basically 0:47:46.880 --> 0:47:49.960 saying it's aliens. Well, the claim that Jones is referring 0:47:50.000 --> 0:47:53.760 to their is Aldrin making fun of people like Alex Jones. 0:47:54.320 --> 0:47:56.000 He's saying, like, you know, I could say that the 0:47:56.360 --> 0:48:00.400 this was aliens practicing building the pyramids, and you know, 0:48:00.480 --> 0:48:03.840 you have to admit like that idea, even though it 0:48:04.080 --> 0:48:07.720 raises additional questions, is a fantastic idea, and you should 0:48:07.719 --> 0:48:09.839 see why people would be drawn to it and wanted 0:48:09.920 --> 0:48:12.040 to be true. I mean, what does it mean? What 0:48:12.040 --> 0:48:13.960 what would it mean for ancient Egypt? What would it 0:48:14.000 --> 0:48:16.920 mean for life in our solar system? It brings so 0:48:16.960 --> 0:48:21.760 many sort of vague, half form but promising science fiction 0:48:21.960 --> 0:48:26.160 ideas to mind. I have so many funny questions about 0:48:26.360 --> 0:48:29.920 So here's one random thought. If there were actually a 0:48:29.960 --> 0:48:34.600 conspiracy to cover up the existence of an alien office 0:48:34.600 --> 0:48:38.360 building or a practice pyramid on the surface of Phobos, 0:48:38.920 --> 0:48:41.840 why would buzz Aldren know about it? Like, do you 0:48:41.880 --> 0:48:44.960 all retired astronauts just get a regular digest of the 0:48:45.000 --> 0:48:47.600 alien cover up? You know, like they get a dossier 0:48:47.719 --> 0:48:50.560 every week. It's like, here's all the alien evidence we've 0:48:50.600 --> 0:48:53.160 covered up in the past quarter well, I was thinking 0:48:53.200 --> 0:48:55.600 about this a little bit. On one hand, Yeah, this 0:48:55.880 --> 0:48:58.040 kind of the loose idea that well, they were they 0:48:58.080 --> 0:49:01.520 were part of the space exploration and system, you know, 0:49:01.960 --> 0:49:05.960 so perhaps they have privileged information or they've been to space, 0:49:06.040 --> 0:49:08.919 so maybe they know about space, but you know, in 0:49:09.200 --> 0:49:11.720 secret ways. But then I also was thinking, well, maybe 0:49:11.760 --> 0:49:14.600 this goes back, Maybe this is deeper, like maybe this 0:49:14.640 --> 0:49:17.840 connects to a lot of our mythological ideas about people 0:49:17.880 --> 0:49:20.960 who are you know, taken up that ascend into heaven 0:49:21.239 --> 0:49:23.440 you know, so here is, or or have descended into 0:49:23.520 --> 0:49:27.080 the underworld. So here is a case where someone has 0:49:27.239 --> 0:49:32.040 literally traveled to what you could easily classify as another world. 0:49:32.640 --> 0:49:36.120 They have traveled beyond our world to another and returned. 0:49:36.560 --> 0:49:39.959 And you know, it's it's amazing, don't get me wrong. Uh, 0:49:40.000 --> 0:49:45.440 you know, the the lunar missions were incredible technological achievements 0:49:45.440 --> 0:49:50.440 and and achievements of just a human courage and ingenuity. Um, 0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:54.600 but they were not other worldly journeys. But I wonder 0:49:54.640 --> 0:49:58.680 if the two you know, become uh you know, wound 0:49:58.680 --> 0:50:03.000 together in the sort of the collective imagination, like you know, 0:50:03.080 --> 0:50:04.680 I had to I had within the you know, the 0:50:04.719 --> 0:50:08.000 time or two that we've been around astronauts or spoken 0:50:08.000 --> 0:50:10.879 to an astronaut, it has entered my mind like this 0:50:10.960 --> 0:50:14.239 person has left the earth. You know. It's like in 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:16.759 in a not in a you know, I you know, 0:50:16.800 --> 0:50:19.799 I know that I'm I'm talking to an accomplished human 0:50:19.840 --> 0:50:23.160 being when we're doing this, But there's there's a part 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:26.800 of me that is like, this person's maybe not completely 0:50:26.840 --> 0:50:29.319 human anymore, like they're not completely of earth because they 0:50:29.320 --> 0:50:31.960 have left Earth, you know, you know, in an you know, 0:50:32.280 --> 0:50:36.960 like unformed way, This bipedal primate like me has been 0:50:36.960 --> 0:50:40.000 touched by the gods. Now, yeah, so I wonder if 0:50:40.160 --> 0:50:42.239 you know, to to some extent we were sort of 0:50:42.280 --> 0:50:45.480 hardwired to make those connections due to our our myths 0:50:45.520 --> 0:50:49.160 and our you know, our religious um stories, etcetera. Oh yeah, 0:50:49.280 --> 0:50:51.200 I mean I can see that tendency. I mean again, 0:50:51.280 --> 0:50:53.000 I think with this kind of thing, the logic is 0:50:53.080 --> 0:50:55.359 very loose. And on one hand, I mean, I would 0:50:55.360 --> 0:50:57.520 say with somebody like Alex Jones, I mean, he just 0:50:57.800 --> 0:51:00.520 this is just a person with a propensity to spread lies. 0:51:00.560 --> 0:51:03.239 But I would say as for the the broader, uh 0:51:03.320 --> 0:51:06.720 tenacity of this misunderstanding about this object, on the surface 0:51:06.719 --> 0:51:11.000 of Phobos. I think maybe part of the misunderstanding might 0:51:11.040 --> 0:51:14.799 just come from the word monolith. This would tie back 0:51:14.840 --> 0:51:16.840 to back into the idea you brought up when I 0:51:16.880 --> 0:51:20.240 was first introducing the subject about calling it building sized, 0:51:20.360 --> 0:51:22.960 which I mean, I guess it is also calling it 0:51:23.000 --> 0:51:26.319 a monolith. I mean, this object does appear to be 0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:29.560 a monolith. That is a literally accurate description. It's a 0:51:29.560 --> 0:51:33.719 single piece of rock. But unfortunately, by its association with 0:51:33.760 --> 0:51:37.359 two thousand one of Space Odyssey, that word now has 0:51:37.440 --> 0:51:41.360 some baggage, you know, of of associations with artificial origin. 0:51:41.800 --> 0:51:44.520 Of course, there are tons of natural monoliths on Earth. 0:51:44.600 --> 0:51:47.280 The world is full of them. But when you say monolith, 0:51:47.480 --> 0:51:50.759 I think, especially in anybody who's who's ever seen a 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:55.480 science fiction film or anything that has any derivative of 0:51:55.480 --> 0:51:57.799 science fiction, has has a certainly a way of two 0:51:57.800 --> 0:51:59.839 thousand and one of Space Odyssey, and so you think 0:52:00.080 --> 0:52:03.919 of the monolith. Right. So if that's causing confusion for you, 0:52:03.920 --> 0:52:07.600 you could just say the huge rock on Phobos. Uh. 0:52:07.640 --> 0:52:10.440 But anyway, whether or not you would expect a retired 0:52:10.480 --> 0:52:13.600 astronaut to have any special insight on this subject, it 0:52:13.680 --> 0:52:17.240 is absolutely false that Aldrin claimed that Phobos. The Phobos 0:52:17.239 --> 0:52:20.360 monolith was of artificial origin, he said, the exact opposite. 0:52:20.640 --> 0:52:23.920 So that leads to the question what is its real origin? 0:52:24.800 --> 0:52:27.319 And I found a good article on the BBC from 0:52:27.719 --> 0:52:31.520 s by Colin Barriss that tried to look into this question. Okay, so, 0:52:31.680 --> 0:52:35.400 given that there's this huge, weird looking boulder jutting up 0:52:35.400 --> 0:52:39.280 out of the surface of Phobos, where did it come from? Well, again, 0:52:39.320 --> 0:52:42.360 according to our best images, the monolith does appear to 0:52:42.400 --> 0:52:45.759 be some kind of giant boulder. It's about ninety ms 0:52:45.880 --> 0:52:48.360 or roughly three hundred feet tall, as I said, and 0:52:48.440 --> 0:52:52.240 it's on a surface region of Phobos that is otherwise uh, 0:52:52.440 --> 0:52:55.759 free of large craggy features like this. I was trying 0:52:55.760 --> 0:52:58.959 to communicate exactly what I meant when I smooth isn't 0:52:59.040 --> 0:53:01.440 quite the right word, because it has all these craters 0:53:01.440 --> 0:53:04.160 and dimples in it. But the craters and everything look 0:53:04.800 --> 0:53:09.200 relatively I don't know, rounded, as as the surfaces of 0:53:09.320 --> 0:53:13.120 dusty objects in space often do. And this thing looks 0:53:13.560 --> 0:53:17.560 I guess you would say. The angles appear uncharacteristically sharp. 0:53:18.160 --> 0:53:21.560 So imagine a you know, office building sized boulder in 0:53:21.600 --> 0:53:24.359 the middle of a field in Kansas that otherwise has 0:53:24.440 --> 0:53:27.960 some kind of big soft craters in it. Now, the 0:53:27.960 --> 0:53:30.879 Phobos monolith has not really been the subject of much 0:53:30.960 --> 0:53:35.560 high profile scientific study, but it seems consistent with surface 0:53:35.600 --> 0:53:39.560 features that are produced by normal natural processes on the 0:53:39.600 --> 0:53:42.480 surface of moons and planets. So this could be a 0:53:42.520 --> 0:53:45.480 giant boulder that fell off of, say the edge of 0:53:45.480 --> 0:53:48.360 a crater in a in a rock slide or something 0:53:48.400 --> 0:53:51.400 like that. And furthermore, there is pretty clear evidence that 0:53:51.520 --> 0:53:55.440 whatever Phobos itself is, it has at various points in 0:53:55.440 --> 0:54:00.479 the past experienced asteroid impacts, so the monolith could also 0:54:00.480 --> 0:54:04.160 be a giant shard of rock that was ejected from 0:54:04.239 --> 0:54:08.520 some past impact. But then Barris draws attention to another 0:54:08.560 --> 0:54:11.759 really interesting option, which is that the Phobos monolith could 0:54:11.760 --> 0:54:17.520 also possibly be a chunk of Mars itself, and as 0:54:17.600 --> 0:54:20.080 as evidence of this, he points to the precedent of 0:54:20.080 --> 0:54:23.160 a study by Kenneth R. Ramsley and James W. Head, 0:54:23.200 --> 0:54:27.480 the third published in the journal Planetary and Space Science 0:54:27.520 --> 0:54:30.960 in two thousand thirteen called Mars Impact Ejecta in the 0:54:31.000 --> 0:54:35.760 Regular of Phobos Bulk Concentration and Distribution. Basically, the idea 0:54:35.840 --> 0:54:39.120 is that the surface of Phobos is blanketed in little 0:54:39.120 --> 0:54:41.480 bits of Mars, and I think mostly these would just 0:54:41.520 --> 0:54:45.320 be very small particles, but they could include larger particles. 0:54:45.360 --> 0:54:48.960 And the authors estimate based on some calculations that the 0:54:49.120 --> 0:54:53.400 bulk concentration of Mars ejective fragments in the upper Phobos 0:54:53.440 --> 0:54:56.840 regulars is about two hundred and fifty parts per millions. 0:54:56.840 --> 0:54:58.880 So if you're looking at the stuff on the surface 0:54:58.920 --> 0:55:02.520 of Phobos, about two hundred and fifty parts per million 0:55:02.680 --> 0:55:06.480 of that stuff is actually stuff that's from the planet Mars. 0:55:06.560 --> 0:55:10.120 And this again would come from uh from impacts. Like 0:55:10.360 --> 0:55:12.600 the majority of it is going to be smaller particles, 0:55:12.600 --> 0:55:16.240 but when objects strike the surface of Mars with high energy, 0:55:16.680 --> 0:55:20.520 bits of Mars sometimes get blasted into orbit, and some 0:55:20.600 --> 0:55:22.840 of those bits are going to end up settling on 0:55:22.920 --> 0:55:25.680 the surface of Phobos. And of course this brings us 0:55:25.719 --> 0:55:27.800 back again to what we were talking about earlier. Remember 0:55:27.800 --> 0:55:31.600 that Phobos orbits very close to the surface of Mars 0:55:31.640 --> 0:55:34.080 compared to most moons, so you can imagine that it's 0:55:34.120 --> 0:55:37.239 easier for parts of Mars to end up on the 0:55:37.239 --> 0:55:39.560 surface of Phobos than it would be for parts of 0:55:39.600 --> 0:55:41.359 the surface of a planet to end up on a moon. 0:55:41.400 --> 0:55:45.759 That's orbiting much farther away. But Barris mentions another possibility, 0:55:46.239 --> 0:55:49.600 writing quote Alternatively, the Phobos monolith might not have formed 0:55:49.719 --> 0:55:52.279 during an impact. It could be a rare chunk of 0:55:52.320 --> 0:55:55.680 the moon solid bedrock, poking up through a surface that 0:55:55.840 --> 0:55:59.719 is otherwise mostly strewn with loose debris. So imagine that 0:55:59.800 --> 0:56:02.799 kind of a Devil's tower of Phobos, like poking up 0:56:02.840 --> 0:56:06.040 out of where everything else around it has is covered 0:56:06.080 --> 0:56:09.399 with enough dust to look pretty smooth. And Barriss writes 0:56:09.480 --> 0:56:11.840 that if this is true, if it's you know, some 0:56:11.840 --> 0:56:14.880 some feature of the underlying rock of Phobos, if it's 0:56:14.880 --> 0:56:17.680 a devil's tower kind of thing. Uh. If this is true, 0:56:17.800 --> 0:56:20.880 studying the monolith could actually help us solve some of 0:56:20.880 --> 0:56:24.959 the mysteries about the origin of Phobos, like where did 0:56:25.000 --> 0:56:27.560 these strange moons come from in the first place, which 0:56:27.560 --> 0:56:29.560 I guess maybe we'll come back to at the beginning 0:56:29.640 --> 0:56:32.279 of part two of this series. But just a couple 0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:34.680 of other notes about the Phobos monolith. One is that 0:56:34.800 --> 0:56:36.879 it looks really cool and you should look it up, 0:56:36.960 --> 0:56:40.440 but source your images carefully. I was coming across a 0:56:40.480 --> 0:56:43.000 lot of photos on the web that seem to be 0:56:43.080 --> 0:56:45.279 labeled as if they are the Phobos Monolith, but I'm 0:56:45.320 --> 0:56:47.239 pretty sure they're not. Some of them just look like 0:56:47.280 --> 0:56:49.640 they're from a movie or something, and I think others 0:56:49.680 --> 0:56:52.120 are pictures of things that are actually on the surface 0:56:52.160 --> 0:56:55.480 of Mars itself. But then one other thing I found 0:56:55.480 --> 0:56:59.520 out was that Les Claypool and Sean O. O. Lennon 0:56:59.640 --> 0:57:02.360 have an album that is named after the Phobos Monolith. 0:57:02.520 --> 0:57:03.960 Rob I sent you a link. Did you have a 0:57:04.040 --> 0:57:06.239 chance to listen or not? I have not had a 0:57:06.320 --> 0:57:07.960 chance to listen to it yet. I haven't heard any 0:57:08.000 --> 0:57:10.839 of Claypool stuff with with Oh, no, I've I'm of course, 0:57:10.880 --> 0:57:14.239 I'm familiar with Primus and NF Scene, Primus Live. And 0:57:14.800 --> 0:57:19.560 I'm I'm familiar with his work with uh with with 0:57:19.840 --> 0:57:23.680 Trey Anastasio in Oyster Head. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, 0:57:23.840 --> 0:57:25.920 have some some good stuff there too, But no, I haven't. 0:57:25.920 --> 0:57:28.920 I haven't heard Phobos Monolith. Well. I only got to 0:57:28.920 --> 0:57:31.520 listen to a little bit. But it is very weird, 0:57:31.680 --> 0:57:34.760 but with less of the cheese related humor that you 0:57:34.800 --> 0:57:38.120 associate with older less Claypool works. It seems a little 0:57:38.320 --> 0:57:42.040 a little more sober perhaps, uh and actually a little 0:57:42.080 --> 0:57:46.200 a little more sober and has some relatively scientifically accurate lyrics. 0:57:46.240 --> 0:57:48.040 I can't vouch for the whole thing, but the part 0:57:48.080 --> 0:57:50.960 I was listening to was talking about the Phobos monolith 0:57:51.280 --> 0:57:53.680 and buzz Aldrin, and I think everything that it said 0:57:53.680 --> 0:57:56.640 about the everything I recall it saying about the monolith 0:57:56.720 --> 0:58:02.800 and the moon was scientifically correct. Quote the monolith of Phobos, 0:58:02.920 --> 0:58:05.800 it stares buzz in the eye. It bids him question 0:58:06.200 --> 0:58:12.840 while we live and do or die? Okay, checks out. Wait, wait, 0:58:12.880 --> 0:58:14.520 that's not the part I was thinking. Maybe that went 0:58:14.560 --> 0:58:17.400 by me. I remember him talking about He had some 0:58:17.480 --> 0:58:20.000 part about the moon being sort of tat or shaped, 0:58:20.040 --> 0:58:23.160 which seems reasonable, even though we maybe turnip is better. 0:58:23.400 --> 0:58:26.800 I think he also mentioned that its orbit is decaying 0:58:26.840 --> 0:58:30.240 over time, so it's moving closer to Mars, which is true. Yeah. Yeah, 0:58:30.240 --> 0:58:32.760 Well the next two lines are the monolith of Phobos, 0:58:32.800 --> 0:58:35.240 it stares buzz in the eye on a tat shaped 0:58:35.280 --> 0:58:38.440 moon that's falling from the sky. Okay, so that's that's 0:58:38.520 --> 0:58:41.000 that's more accurate. Yeah, And and then there's also some 0:58:41.080 --> 0:58:43.240 part about it like it. It doesn't say it's aliens, 0:58:43.280 --> 0:58:45.360 It just says that like the monolith raises a bunch 0:58:45.360 --> 0:58:47.960 of questions, which is true. It does raise questions. It 0:58:48.720 --> 0:58:54.920 some genuine and scientific uh, others not so much. Um, 0:58:54.960 --> 0:58:57.920 but but yeah, still, I mean it's it is something 0:58:58.520 --> 0:59:01.960 like the monolith of Phobos as real. As we've said, Uh, 0:59:02.000 --> 0:59:04.480 you just need to be be careful about what image 0:59:04.480 --> 0:59:07.360 you're you're pulling up of it and uh and what 0:59:07.480 --> 0:59:11.160 interpretation you're reading regarding it. Now. As we've mentioned already, 0:59:11.200 --> 0:59:14.800 one of the biggest mysteries about Phobos and demos is 0:59:15.040 --> 0:59:18.000 where these moons come from in the first place? What 0:59:18.200 --> 0:59:21.640 is their origin? Because they have a number of features 0:59:21.680 --> 0:59:24.600 that seem to be, at least on the surface level, 0:59:25.000 --> 0:59:28.280 contradictory and point off in different directions when you're looking 0:59:28.280 --> 0:59:30.600 for an origin story. And I think maybe that's where 0:59:30.600 --> 0:59:32.720 we should start when we come back in part two. 0:59:32.840 --> 0:59:36.320 Where do these moons come from? And how were they made? Yeah? So, 0:59:36.320 --> 0:59:40.320 so join us. Will also be some some at least 0:59:40.360 --> 0:59:44.760 from today's standpoint, kind of out there sounding hypotheses about 0:59:45.520 --> 0:59:49.080 about what what what these moons are. Uh, so it'll 0:59:49.080 --> 0:59:51.360 be it'll be fun. So join us in our next 0:59:51.360 --> 0:59:53.560 episode of Stuff to Blow your mind as we continue 0:59:53.640 --> 0:59:57.960 our exploration of Phobos and demos the Moons of Mars. 0:59:58.640 --> 1:00:00.400 In the meantime, if you would like to check out 1:00:00.440 --> 1:00:02.560 other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you know 1:00:02.560 --> 1:00:05.680 where to find them. Core episodes come out Tuesdays and Thursdays. 1:00:05.720 --> 1:00:08.640 In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed Monday's 1:00:08.680 --> 1:00:11.920 we do a bit of listener mail. Wednesdays that's when 1:00:11.920 --> 1:00:14.200 we do the artifact. On Friday's we do a little 1:00:14.200 --> 1:00:16.200 weird house cinema where we we set most of the 1:00:16.200 --> 1:00:19.920 science aside and just talk about a weird movie. And 1:00:20.200 --> 1:00:22.320 on the weekend we do a little bit of uh, 1:00:22.840 --> 1:00:25.720 a little vault episode. We do a little rerun for you. 1:00:26.000 --> 1:00:28.480 So that's what six days out of seven, and on 1:00:28.520 --> 1:00:31.720 the seventh day we rest or, we run an ad sometimes, 1:00:31.760 --> 1:00:35.520 you know, we get ready for the first day again. Yes, 1:00:36.680 --> 1:00:39.800 all right, huge, thanks as always to our wonderful audio 1:00:39.920 --> 1:00:42.800 producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get 1:00:42.840 --> 1:00:44.960 in touch with us with feedback on this episode or 1:00:44.960 --> 1:00:47.440 any other to suggest a topic for the future, we're 1:00:47.520 --> 1:00:50.440 just to say hello. You can email us at contact 1:00:50.480 --> 1:01:00.720 at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to 1:01:00.720 --> 1:01:03.280 Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 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