Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be bringing you an episode about space objects.
Speaker 1: And as we often do, we're gonna be We're gonna
Speaker 1: be starting off here by talking a little bit about
Speaker 1: the mythology that is related to these space objects. Rob
Speaker 1: do you mind if I start with a reading from
Speaker 1: the Iliad? Oh, let's do it, okay, So I want
Speaker 1: to read a passage from the Iliad, book four, from
Speaker 1: the excellent translation by Caroline Alexander, And this is describing
Speaker 1: a big host of warriors raging for battle. It begins,
Speaker 1: but the Trojans, as the numberless use of a wealthy man,
Speaker 1: stand in their pen to be milked of their white milk,
Speaker 1: bleeding incessantly as they hear the cry of their lambs.
Speaker 1: So the war cries of the Trojans rose through the
Speaker 1: broad army. For the speech of all the men was
Speaker 1: not the same, nor was there one voice, but the
Speaker 1: tongues were mixed in confusion. The men were summoned from
Speaker 1: many places. These men aries drove on and gleaming eyed
Speaker 1: Athena drove the Achaeans, and terror and panic and strife, raging, insatiable,
Speaker 1: the sister and companion of Man slaughtering Aries. She is
Speaker 1: small when she first rises up, but in the end
Speaker 1: she leans her head against the heavens even as she
Speaker 1: strides upon the earth. Oh, I love that section about
Speaker 1: the the bad sister there. And she's small when she
Speaker 1: first rises up, but then when she she gets big,
Speaker 1: she leans her head against the heavens and got her
Speaker 1: feet on the earth. So uh. That is referring to
Speaker 1: one of the companions of Aries, the the god of war.
Speaker 1: In this passage. It is written in this translation as strife,
Speaker 1: the abstract concept, but in the Greek, of course, strife
Speaker 1: is also the goddess Heiress, and I love that final
Speaker 1: couplet about her. But there are a couple of other
Speaker 1: concepts that are mentioned there that also have personifications. It's
Speaker 1: not just Heiress, the goddess of strife. There's also terror
Speaker 1: and panic that are driven on by Aries, and these
Speaker 1: concepts have the godly personifications of the God's phobos and demos.
Speaker 1: So phobos and demos are each and abstract concept representing
Speaker 1: a human state of mind or something you might witness
Speaker 1: on the battlefield or leading up to it. But they're
Speaker 1: also these heavenly persons in the Greek mythology, and to
Speaker 1: read another passage from the Iliad about their their representations,
Speaker 1: also from the Caroline Alexandra translation. Then he took up
Speaker 1: his man, surrounding much emblazoned forceful shield, a thing of beauty,
Speaker 1: around which ran tin rings of bronze, and on it
Speaker 1: twenty pale shining discs of tin, and in the very
Speaker 1: center was one of dark enameled blue, and crowning this
Speaker 1: a snake bristling gorgon face stared out with dreadful glare,
Speaker 1: terror and route about her, and the shields baldric was
Speaker 1: of silver, and on it a blue dark serpent writhed
Speaker 1: with three heads turned in all directions, growing from a
Speaker 1: single neck. So here this actually ties back into the
Speaker 1: episodes that we re aired pretty recently. I think about
Speaker 1: the gorgon Medusa and how uh the the head of
Speaker 1: the gorgon of of Medusa is widely represented in in
Speaker 1: Greek art and in Greek literature as a feature of
Speaker 1: Greek art, mentioned in the literature as this, like this
Speaker 1: thing that would be on the aegis of Athena or
Speaker 1: of Zeus, a terrifying image looking out at you. But
Speaker 1: mentioned alongside the face of the Gorgon, here are Terror
Speaker 1: and Route. Again I think these would be Phobos and Demos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Phobos and Demos. So, like you said, this episode we're
Speaker 1: getting spacey. We're also getting a little methought mythological here,
Speaker 1: especially at the start. Phobos and Demos are the names
Speaker 1: of the two moons of the planet Mars. Uh and
Speaker 1: so this this marks a return for us uh in
Speaker 1: in the past. I want to say, it's been a
Speaker 1: couple of years at least now. We did episodes exploring
Speaker 1: the moons of Jupiter, and then other another episode or
Speaker 1: episodes exploring the moons of Saturn. And we always intended
Speaker 1: to venture onto other moons, and here we are now
Speaker 1: exploring the moons of Mars, much like the space agencies
Speaker 1: of Earth. We have long wanted to return a sample
Speaker 1: from the moons of Mars and and have failed to
Speaker 1: do so. But you know, maybe the time has finally come.
Speaker 1: Don't curse this. We might have a technological problem, uh
Speaker 1: during the recording or retrieval of this episode. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be talking about a this gorgeous
Speaker 1: couple of space turn ups in orbit around Mars and uh.
Speaker 1: And so this is going to be the first of
Speaker 1: a pair of episodes. Be sure to join us for both. Yes,
Speaker 1: uh and even though it deals with two moons, it's
Speaker 1: just gonna be. It's very much a part one in
Speaker 1: part two. It's not like one episode is Phobos in
Speaker 1: one episode is Demos, as you will see. But before
Speaker 1: we even get back into Phobos and Demos, I want
Speaker 1: to start by talking just a bit about our naming
Speaker 1: of Mars itself. Um. So today we know largely refer
Speaker 1: to the fourth planet from the Sun as Mars. But
Speaker 1: of course Mars can be seen in the night sky
Speaker 1: without the aid of a telescope. So it's gone by
Speaker 1: many names and has been factored into numerous pantheons and
Speaker 1: cosmological systems throughout human history. Right Mars, because it is
Speaker 1: it can be observed through naked eye astronomy. It was
Speaker 1: known to the ancient Mesopotamians. Yeah, there was the god Nergal,
Speaker 1: a god of of plague and war, the one that
Speaker 1: kind of evolved apparently from a war god into a
Speaker 1: another world deity. But this was a This was a
Speaker 1: deity that was recognized by the Sumerians. Likewise, the Greeks
Speaker 1: knew it as the star of aries, and we'll of
Speaker 1: course talk more about areas here in a bit. In Hinduism,
Speaker 1: Mars was associated with Mangala, a god of war that
Speaker 1: interestingly seems to encompass aspects of war related to anger
Speaker 1: and hot headedness, but also to stability and balance. And
Speaker 1: then the ancient Egyptians connected Mars to Horace, the celestial
Speaker 1: falcon and embodiment of kingship. Geraldine Pinch points out in
Speaker 1: Egyptian mythology that Egypt's earliest kings were depicted as hawks
Speaker 1: praying on their enemies. So here once once more we
Speaker 1: can easily connect this to a motif of warfare um uh,
Speaker 1: well of one former that or another uh. Though interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: in Chinese traditions, Mars was apparently merely associated with the
Speaker 1: element of fire. Oh yeah, because in the Chinese astronomical
Speaker 1: traditions that different heavenly bodies tend to be associated with
Speaker 1: like the elements of earth. Right, so like one planet
Speaker 1: will be fire, one planet will be would one planet
Speaker 1: will be metal or something else? Yeah? Yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: so they're important within um you know, Chinese cosmology and
Speaker 1: Chinese astrology, though I've also read it argued that the
Speaker 1: planets have have maybe less of a significance in Chinese
Speaker 1: cosmology versus uh, their their place especially in um in
Speaker 1: in you know, some of these other models that were
Speaker 1: looking at here where they're closely associated with very important gods.
Speaker 1: Coming back to the idea that some of the earliest
Speaker 1: kings of Egypt were depicted as hawks praying on their enemies,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking how good it would be if
Speaker 1: you just made a slight rotation on that and they
Speaker 1: were portrayed as vultures vomiting on their enemies. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, there's it's not not that huge of a difference, right,
Speaker 1: and also seems kind of fitting so and and it
Speaker 1: would be in keeping with with what we've been discussing here,
Speaker 1: right because so far we we've been talking about connections
Speaker 1: to ideas of blood and fire. And of course this
Speaker 1: inevitably seems to stem from the fact that Mars appears
Speaker 1: as a red quote unquote star in the night sky.
Speaker 1: Even here in Atlanta, where we have a terrible light
Speaker 1: pollution at night, you can often go out and see
Speaker 1: that that red, gleaming eye of Mars out there in
Speaker 1: the distance. I think my eyes must be a little
Speaker 1: bad because I've never personally been able to notice the
Speaker 1: redness of Mars when I've looked at it with the
Speaker 1: naked eye. But I believe other people do see it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's it's faint, but it's it's noticeable,
Speaker 1: you know, like you can you can tell that there's
Speaker 1: something different going on. Compared to all the other stars
Speaker 1: in the sky. It stands out. And since it has
Speaker 1: that red color, you know, it makes sense to associate
Speaker 1: it with blood and fire and violence and all of
Speaker 1: these things tied up with it. So the name Mars,
Speaker 1: of course uh arises from the Roman tradition, and roughly speaking,
Speaker 1: you can say that the Roman god of war is Mars,
Speaker 1: and in the Greek god of war is Aries, and
Speaker 1: these are basically two names for the same thing. But
Speaker 1: it's it's really worth driving home that then, Mars differs
Speaker 1: from Areas, and that while Arias was a god of
Speaker 1: brutality and war in its most base and chaotic state,
Speaker 1: which I think is is is well represented in in
Speaker 1: the in the in in his usage in the Iliad Uh.
Speaker 1: The Roman Mars, however, had a different character. He was
Speaker 1: warfare as just and orderly, you know. He he was
Speaker 1: warfare that brings um a sense of balance to the
Speaker 1: world that you know, warfare is viewed by an imperial culture,
Speaker 1: you know, where war is the instrument that demonstrates your greatness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mars is therefore a military deity that maintains order and
Speaker 1: protects agriculture. Mars is Uh is very closely associated with
Speaker 1: agriculture in the Roman tradition. Um So he upholds while
Speaker 1: Aries threatens and tears down. Um So. It's it's interesting
Speaker 1: because they are like two sides of the same thing,
Speaker 1: which which I think the Hindu god Mangala seems to
Speaker 1: encompass both of these aspects. Here we see this divergence
Speaker 1: in Aries and Uh in mars Um I was I
Speaker 1: was reading a little bit more. There's a there's a
Speaker 1: book called Classical Mythology a to z Um. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: quite good. And in one of the the ways they
Speaker 1: describe Aries is that he is he's a lord or
Speaker 1: a god of the screams of the dying. Uh So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not so so Yeah, mars Is
Speaker 1: is the god of of war is great, war is good?
Speaker 1: And then Aries is the war? What is it good for?
Speaker 1: Uh deity? You know, he's just um he He is
Speaker 1: the worst of the pantheon. Uh Is Aries the lord
Speaker 1: of the screams of the dying. Sounds very like a
Speaker 1: seventies exploitation movie epithe for him, right, you know, he's
Speaker 1: um Aries and Aries again. Yeah, and I guess it
Speaker 1: does come to like, you know, Aries is the very
Speaker 1: nature and heart of war and violence, where Mars is
Speaker 1: more like what what use can war be put to?
Speaker 1: What does it? What does it do? What can it accomplish? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, very much a whitewashing of war. Now, as
Speaker 1: with Jupiter that we you know, which we discussed in
Speaker 1: our recent episode, Mars has many epithets or aspects um
Speaker 1: So instead of having you know, a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: different deities representing different shades of the same thing, you
Speaker 1: have different versions of, say Jupiter, and in this case,
Speaker 1: there are different versions of Mars as well, such as
Speaker 1: Mars grativ Us, the marching Mars. So this would be
Speaker 1: the Mars that a soldier in the field would swear
Speaker 1: by because you know, as with Jupiter, deities are important
Speaker 1: for swearing and making oaths and so forth. Another major
Speaker 1: Mars is is Mars Pader, protector of agriculture. And this,
Speaker 1: of course is is literally Mars the Father. And this
Speaker 1: is also very notable because in Roman myth he is
Speaker 1: the father. Uh, Mars is the father of Romulus and Remus,
Speaker 1: the twin founders of Rome. So in the Roman tradition,
Speaker 1: Mars isn't just the god of of noble war. He
Speaker 1: is also the ancestor of the Roman people. He is
Speaker 1: the patriarch of the empire exactly. Yeah, so he yeah,
Speaker 1: he is the empire. Um. Now this is this is
Speaker 1: where it gets kind of curious, right, And I imagine
Speaker 1: a number of people are already thinking about this. So,
Speaker 1: in the Roman tradition, the primary war god Mars has
Speaker 1: two highly important sons, Romulus and Remus. So wouldn't it
Speaker 1: make more sense to name the two moons of Mars
Speaker 1: after Romulus and Remus, rather than going to the Greek
Speaker 1: topping over to the Greek tradition and drawing on the
Speaker 1: two uh, two of the sons of Aries. Wouldn't that
Speaker 1: imply that one of the moon's has to kill the
Speaker 1: other moon. Um. Well, you know, as we'll get into
Speaker 1: in this episode of the next that's not a crazy
Speaker 1: idea considering the House of Mars over there. Orbitally speaking,
Speaker 1: I may be remembering my mythology wrong. I think things
Speaker 1: go bad for Remus. Well, um, it's worth worth noting.
Speaker 1: Outside of Star trek Lore, Romulus is the outer moon
Speaker 1: of the main Belt asteroid eighties seven Sylvia, and Remus
Speaker 1: is the inner moon. Sylvia is named for Rea Sylvia,
Speaker 1: the mythical mother of the founders of Rome. Uh So
Speaker 1: it's you know, kind of this was all filled in later. Well,
Speaker 1: while while we're doing a round up, I should also
Speaker 1: mention that that passage from the Iliad I read at
Speaker 1: the top that had that great couplet about airis the
Speaker 1: goddess of strife. Uh There is actually an object name
Speaker 1: for Airess as well. It's the dwarf planet Eiress that
Speaker 1: is not quite a planet, but is a nearly nearly
Speaker 1: spherical asteroid. Yeah. I guess it's a Basically, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna keep finding new things to name. Uh So, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're out there, any members of the Greek
Speaker 1: Roman pantheon and you don't have something named after you yet,
Speaker 1: just hold on, just be patient, um and mortal beings
Speaker 1: that you are, We'll get around to you eventually. Wait
Speaker 1: a second, I feel like I just said something wrong.
Speaker 1: I think I called Aris an asteroid as uh, Airis
Speaker 1: is not an asteroid. Airis is a nearly spherical trans
Speaker 1: Neptunian object. Apologies about that. You're apologizing to the planet
Speaker 1: or the deity. I don't want to be roped in
Speaker 1: by strife here, want to make an enemy of strife,
Speaker 1: all right? So yeah, obviously, instead of naming Mars's two
Speaker 1: moons after rhyming lissen remus Uh the traditions of drawing
Speaker 1: on the names of two of the many children of
Speaker 1: Aries in Greek mythology, so partnered with Aphrodite. He fathered
Speaker 1: Demos Phobos of course, and we'll get into them in
Speaker 1: a second. But also Aros or love Uh Andros requitted
Speaker 1: love and Harmonia, who represents harmony. And he's also said
Speaker 1: to have produced other children by other mothers. So there's
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's a vast brood. Now I
Speaker 1: believe Aries. Uh. Isn't it the case that Aphrodity was
Speaker 1: actually married to have faced Us the forge god the
Speaker 1: the equivalent of the Roman vulcan, and that Aries is
Speaker 1: sort of her lover on the side or are they
Speaker 1: officially an item later on? There's a lot of drama there, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't have to recall a myth about have faced
Speaker 1: us making like a net of chains to catch them
Speaker 1: in the act or something. Yeah, I mean it fits
Speaker 1: the nature of Aries again, he's he's really the scum
Speaker 1: of the pantheon here um. But let's talk a bit
Speaker 1: about the twins Demos and Phobos, both deities very much
Speaker 1: in the Greek tradition of war gods. While Demos is
Speaker 1: traditionally associated with terror and dread, Phobos is fear and panic,
Speaker 1: though both of them may be collectively thought of as
Speaker 1: deities of fear. Uh. They ride beside their father and
Speaker 1: battle along with the goddess of discord Heiress so who
Speaker 1: he mentioned already. But the twin brothers of Fear are
Speaker 1: referred to in several key works. We already mentioned the Iliad.
Speaker 1: They also show up in Hesiods, the Shield of Heracles
Speaker 1: and um if if memory serves, I think in the
Speaker 1: Shield of Heracles they actually like their their father is
Speaker 1: wounded on the battlefield and they drag him off the battlefield,
Speaker 1: So they're very much his his attendance, his personal guard,
Speaker 1: the warriors that go into battle beside him. Um. But
Speaker 1: they are also just horrifying specters, you know, they are
Speaker 1: gods of trauma and the psychological dimensions of war. Um.
Speaker 1: But they do seem to revolve around their father on
Speaker 1: the battlefield in a way befitting of moons. So perhaps
Speaker 1: they're ultimately a better fit, uh than the Roman figures
Speaker 1: of Romulus and Remus. Yeah, I would say that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think one thing that's interesting about them is that
Speaker 1: they represent two distinct types of fear that are things
Speaker 1: that you need to manage differently if you're writing horror fiction,
Speaker 1: say like that Phobos Phobos is is panic. Phobos is
Speaker 1: sometimes translated as route, right, like getting routed in battle.
Speaker 1: You're just like, you know, you're terrified and you're running away,
Speaker 1: whereas Demos is dread, the terror that builds in anticipation
Speaker 1: of of something horrible. Yeah. Yeah, so uh, And I
Speaker 1: also think it's probably more fitting because rome Elis and
Speaker 1: Remus are a little more they're a little more fleshed
Speaker 1: out as as figures, whereas Demos and Phobos are a
Speaker 1: bit more abstract, you know, like we don't have as
Speaker 1: many tales about them and stories about them that that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, that stick with us. They are more you know,
Speaker 1: harshly formed they are, and then that they themselves are
Speaker 1: these kind of like fragile, fractured nightmare beings. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think that's very befitting of the sort of moons
Speaker 1: that we're going to be talking about in these episodes. Sorry,
Speaker 1: one thing I just got distracted wondering about. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: are are the moons of Mars especially scary as moons?
Speaker 1: Not in the way that I can think of, but
Speaker 1: they are rather mysterious. I think they are some of
Speaker 1: the weirdest, most mysterious objects in the Solar system. You
Speaker 1: can sort of looking at it sideways. Connect that sense
Speaker 1: of mystery to a kind of creepiness about them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I would. I would say that
Speaker 1: less frightening as more just like, yeah, mysterious, and also
Speaker 1: like you know, clearly the product of violence, and in
Speaker 1: the case of one of the moons, like you know,
Speaker 1: just destined for destruction is just on a on a
Speaker 1: collision course with destruction. Um, you know, and uh, I
Speaker 1: think it pairs well with this idea of like two
Speaker 1: shattered beings that serve this horrible god they you know,
Speaker 1: that represents some of the worst aspects of of mortals
Speaker 1: except in immortal form um. So yeah, I will come
Speaker 1: back throughout these episodes with comparisons to the mythic twins,
Speaker 1: the double Grima worm tongues of the Mars system. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine there's some other good comparisons to make. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: you know, the sons of some you know, awful ruler.
Speaker 1: There might be a good Dune reference in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Oh, I see, like they're the beast
Speaker 1: Ribon and uh and fade Rouph the Yeah, though I
Speaker 1: don't know. Fate has a lot of things together in
Speaker 1: ways that these these two don't, so I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Thank you. All right, Well, let's talk about the discovery
Speaker 1: of phobos and demos. Like we said, Mars has been
Speaker 1: something that people throughout human history have looked up and
Speaker 1: seen and attributed various meanings and interpretations too, But not
Speaker 1: so with phobos and demos. Uh, these were not to
Speaker 1: be discovered for some time. Right, you have to get
Speaker 1: well into the age of the telescope to be able
Speaker 1: to see these objects from Earth because they are both
Speaker 1: very small and very close to Mars, and when you're
Speaker 1: looking at Mars in the night sky, it's reflecting a
Speaker 1: lot of light and it's sort of going to blast
Speaker 1: out any small objects nearby it. You're just not going
Speaker 1: to be able to distinguish them from it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it just simply wasn't possible. Um. They these two moons
Speaker 1: were discovered though, in eighteen seventy seven by American astronomer
Speaker 1: ASoft Hall, who lived eighty nine through nineteen oh seven. Now,
Speaker 1: Hall was was large as an interesting character because, for
Speaker 1: one thing, he was largely a self taught astronomer. He
Speaker 1: was not a gentleman scientist of the day, but rather
Speaker 1: the impoverished son of a clockmaker. His father died when
Speaker 1: he was young, so he had to leave school uh
Speaker 1: in order to be He was going to become an
Speaker 1: apprentice to a carpenter, but later on he ended up
Speaker 1: taking math classes at New York Central College, and from
Speaker 1: there he took a job at the Harvard College Observatory
Speaker 1: and then became an assistant astronomer at the US Naval Observatory,
Speaker 1: and eventually he was made a professor, So he had
Speaker 1: a really interesting career path, you know, an ascension story.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, on one hand, it's it's just
Speaker 1: neat to see that kind of trajectory with an individual
Speaker 1: who plays into the history of astronomy like this. So
Speaker 1: the way it went down is in eighteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: during Mars Closest approach, his wife, Angeline Stickney, who was
Speaker 1: a mathematician and a suffragists, encouraged him to engage in
Speaker 1: the search for the Martian moons and and to keep
Speaker 1: engaging in the search because he had been his writings.
Speaker 1: He apparently a loses this saying, well, you know, there's
Speaker 1: just seemed to be so such a small chance of
Speaker 1: him seeing anything. Um, you know, he was considering just
Speaker 1: giving it up, but his wife encouraged him on and
Speaker 1: so he thought he made out Martian moons on August tenth,
Speaker 1: but he couldn't be sure. You know, it was I
Speaker 1: think the weather was weird that night, so he didn't
Speaker 1: have the clarity that he wanted. But then on August
Speaker 1: twelve he discovered Demos, and on August eighteenth he discovered Phobos.
Speaker 1: Both both of these discoveries were made using equipment at
Speaker 1: the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, d C. Interesting now,
Speaker 1: since he found them, he got to name them, But
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, there's not much more
Speaker 1: to it than that. I don't you know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything about him having any real reasoning for choosing
Speaker 1: these two names over Romulus and Remus. Uh, if he
Speaker 1: ever considered other names, if he if he named them
Speaker 1: in an error, I don't know. Um. I think ultimately
Speaker 1: they're good names, though, just really scared that night he'd
Speaker 1: been reading some ec comics or what would be correct
Speaker 1: for the time period he was reading the Great God
Speaker 1: Pan or whatever. Actually, I don't know if that was
Speaker 1: out of the time. I mean, ultimately he you know,
Speaker 1: he could have tried to call them Tweedle dumb and
Speaker 1: tweedledd So I guess it's just as well that he
Speaker 1: went with the Phobos and Demos. Now, this is an
Speaker 1: interesting little side note. I can't find a what felt
Speaker 1: to me like a really solid source on this, but
Speaker 1: a profile of his wife, Stickney on the official U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy page used to state that as she was helping
Speaker 1: her husband with the calculations and all of this, she
Speaker 1: asked for a man's wages compensation, and he refused, so
Speaker 1: she quit. Um, oh yeah, I think you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like it's really hard to say. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any more information about this, So I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is a joke, uh, if this is you know,
Speaker 1: totally made up, or you know, if what we're talking
Speaker 1: about was a serious argument or more of like kind
Speaker 1: of a fun story that you know, that that that
Speaker 1: spouses tell. I don't know. But at the very least, though,
Speaker 1: phobos largest crater ended up being named for her Stickney Crater,
Speaker 1: which we'll get back to in a bit, so you know,
Speaker 1: I guess ultimately her work paid in exposure at least. Now, um,
Speaker 1: others were looking for those moons as well and speculating
Speaker 1: about their existence. And I ran across a really interesting
Speaker 1: story about all this that I read on Stephen Novella's
Speaker 1: neurological blog, and this concerns the moons of Mars and
Speaker 1: Gulliver's travels. Gulliver's travels but Jonathan Swift, Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: would be long before this discuss This would be over
Speaker 1: a hundred years before the discovery of the Moon's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this goes bad. This book came on seventy six. And
Speaker 1: have have you ever read Gulliver's travel Yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: a long time. I read it in college. Um, I
Speaker 1: took a class in college, so we read a lot
Speaker 1: of like John Dryden and Alexander Pope and and and
Speaker 1: Swift and uh. I think we read Gulliver's Travels for
Speaker 1: that class, or if not, we read large sections of it.
Speaker 1: It's one that I've never read. I'm just sort of
Speaker 1: familiar with it by bits and pieces that I've absorbed
Speaker 1: through through other sources. Well, So Gulliver's Travels, if you've
Speaker 1: never read it, it's about a it's largely satirical, but
Speaker 1: it's about a sailor who goes to these weird lands
Speaker 1: that end up being sort of humorous portraits of things
Speaker 1: that Swift Swift observed about the world. So they're the
Speaker 1: lily Putians who are tiny. And then I think at
Speaker 1: some point he goes to a place called brobding Nag,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, this full of giants. And then
Speaker 1: he also goes to a place where I don't remember
Speaker 1: the aim of it, but it's the place where the
Speaker 1: Yahoo's are, where the idea of the yah who's comes
Speaker 1: from these like a sort of sort of crass apes. Well.
Speaker 1: At one point in the book, the Lilliputians catch him
Speaker 1: up on things and inform him that quote. They have
Speaker 1: likewise discovered two lesser stars or satellites which revolve around Mars,
Speaker 1: where all the innermost is distant from the center of
Speaker 1: the primary exactly three of his diameters and the outmost five.
Speaker 1: The former revolves in the space of ten hours and
Speaker 1: the later in twenty one and a half. Holy cow,
Speaker 1: that's not that far off. Yeah, and that this is
Speaker 1: what m Novella writes about in this blog post. He
Speaker 1: points out, quote, Phobos and Demos have orbits which are
Speaker 1: about one point four and three point five diameters from
Speaker 1: Mars center, respectively. The lit Houtians gave figures of three
Speaker 1: and five. The periods of Phobos and Demos are seven
Speaker 1: point seven and thirty point three hours, respectively, while while
Speaker 1: the Laputians reported ten and twenty one point five. These
Speaker 1: figures are correct to within an order of magnitude, which
Speaker 1: is another way of saying that they are wrong. They
Speaker 1: are reasonable guesses, obviously, but do not betray any special
Speaker 1: knowledge because basically what he's exploring in this blog post
Speaker 1: is like the question what did Swift know? Like why
Speaker 1: is Swift? Why did Swift get this right? Or sort
Speaker 1: of right or mostly right, depending on how you're you're
Speaker 1: skewing it, Rob, I realized I may have led you
Speaker 1: astray by talking about the Lily Pucians because I think
Speaker 1: there are actually two different things. They're the Lilliputians and
Speaker 1: the Laputans. And I think this is the Laputans okay.
Speaker 1: I think the people of Laputa are on a flying island,
Speaker 1: whereas the Lily Pucians are somewhere else. They're they're the
Speaker 1: people who are tiny compared to our apologies to the
Speaker 1: Laputians and the Lilliputians. Um, yeah, I ended up going
Speaker 1: when you mentioned lily Pucians, I'd up going with them
Speaker 1: because it makes me think of Oliver Sacks talking about
Speaker 1: the Lily Pucians in his book Hallucinations. Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: recall that having to do with like seeing tiny people
Speaker 1: uh as hallucinations sometimes due to I think I can't
Speaker 1: remember that tied into migraines or not. But anyways, book Hallucinations. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. So I guess the question is
Speaker 1: like how how close do you have to be in
Speaker 1: guessing stuff like this to to really be impressive. I
Speaker 1: don't know, this seems pretty impressive for not actually knowing anything. Well,
Speaker 1: Novella points out that, first of all, it could just
Speaker 1: be an educated guess um based for starters, on how
Speaker 1: Mercury and Venus have zero moons, Earth has one, and
Speaker 1: then Jupiter and Saturn were known to have many moons. Therefore,
Speaker 1: perhaps two felt about right, you know, like you needed
Speaker 1: something between one and many? Uh so why not too? Yeah? Uh?
Speaker 1: And of course, yeah, you said that it was known
Speaker 1: that these outer planets had many moons, like we've known
Speaker 1: that Jupiter had moons since Galileo. Right, But Novella presents
Speaker 1: another idea that is pretty interesting. Uh And this this
Speaker 1: gets kind of this is a really weird concept of
Speaker 1: because it has to do with uh anagrams and um
Speaker 1: and so forth. But the idea here is that Swift
Speaker 1: may have gotten the notion from Johann Kepler, who concluded
Speaker 1: at one point that Mars had two moons based on
Speaker 1: a misunderstood cryptic anagram the Galileo devised what so basically,
Speaker 1: in Kepler's sixteen ten memoir, he misconstrued this anagram that
Speaker 1: Galileo put together. You know, all these these uh these
Speaker 1: letters that you're supposed to rearrange into their proper form,
Speaker 1: that he had sent his friends announcing the discovery of
Speaker 1: Saturn's rings. And instead of getting and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: read the the original phrase here, but instead of getting
Speaker 1: I have observed the highest most distant planet, Saturn to
Speaker 1: have a triple form, instead he got hale twin companionship
Speaker 1: children of Mars, or I agree you double knob children
Speaker 1: of Mars. I agree you double knob. Sure, that's what
Speaker 1: he was writing. Yeah, so in anyway, that's that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Um Novella also points out that Voltaire also wrote about
Speaker 1: Mars having two moons in the seventeen fifty two book Micromegas.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a quote from that quote. But
Speaker 1: let us now return to our travelers. Upon leaving Jupiter,
Speaker 1: they traversed a space of around one hundred million leagues
Speaker 1: and approached the planet Mars, which as we know, is
Speaker 1: five times smaller than our own. They swung by two
Speaker 1: moons that cater to this planet, but have escaped the
Speaker 1: notice of our astronomers. I know very well that father
Speaker 1: Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against the existence
Speaker 1: of these two moons. But I rely on those who
Speaker 1: reasoned by analogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it
Speaker 1: would be for Mars so far from the Sun to
Speaker 1: have gotten by with less than two moons. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I this is a work of fiction as well, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think of of similar um. I've read Voltaire,
Speaker 1: but not this particular work. But you know, a similar
Speaker 1: satire and fantasy. Well, good job, Jonathan Swift. Yeah, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so he basically got it right. But anyway that none
Speaker 1: of this has anything, you know, directly to do with
Speaker 1: the nature of Demos and Phobos, but it's it's interesting nonetheless.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, maybe we should talk about some of
Speaker 1: the physical characteristics of Phobos, all right, Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna mostly start with Phobos, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: Demos a bit more in the second episode, as well
Speaker 1: as more stuff about Phobos, because ultimately they are twins
Speaker 1: um and they have a lot in common. So if
Speaker 1: Phobos represents the psyche ravage by war in uh in
Speaker 1: Greek mythology, then it might be fitting, you know, given
Speaker 1: the nature of the moon named after him, because you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a shattered wreck destined to battle its
Speaker 1: father and perish in the conflict. Now, Phobos is the
Speaker 1: larger of Mars's two moons. It is seventeen by fourteen
Speaker 1: by eleven miles or twenty seven by twenty two by
Speaker 1: eighteen kilometers in diameter, and its shape is is pretty irregular.
Speaker 1: It it doesn't look like whatever whatever you're imagining. If
Speaker 1: you haven't seen an image of Phobos, it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like that. It looks more like a space potato. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've seen people say potato. I would say kind of turnip.
Speaker 1: Or if it is a potato, it's not a Russet potato.
Speaker 1: I think it's more like a Yukon gold. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't look very spherical. Um. Now, it seems to be
Speaker 1: made of C type rock similar to blackish carbonaceous chondrite asteroids.
Speaker 1: And it is Uh, it's absolutely battle scarred. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just there are various tracks on it, caused by
Speaker 1: landslides that have occurred, it seems, but it's its surface
Speaker 1: has just been bombarded into dust by impacts. Uh. And
Speaker 1: its largest crater again is named for Stickney, and it
Speaker 1: is UM six point two miles or ten kilometers in
Speaker 1: die ameter, and seems to have been almost violent enough
Speaker 1: to have just destroyed it outright. Yeah, if you're trying
Speaker 1: to picture it in your head, the Stickney Crater is
Speaker 1: so large that it essentially is one side of this moon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, yeah, it's just it looks really beat up,
Speaker 1: and it even has these these things that look very
Speaker 1: much like battle scars, like it's been scratched by an
Speaker 1: enormous space cat and these were likely caused by uh,
Speaker 1: you know, various collisions and violence as well. So it's
Speaker 1: just totally beat up. But like the son of a
Speaker 1: brutal war god, it just keeps going on. It's just
Speaker 1: it keeps clinging to life and uh and keeps orbiting.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's father. It completes three orbits per day
Speaker 1: and uh. And it has also has the tightest orbit
Speaker 1: of any known moon, orbiting at a mere six thousand
Speaker 1: kilometers or three thousand, seven hundred miles. To put that
Speaker 1: in comparison, our moon is two hundred and thirty eight thousand,
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty five miles away or three D
Speaker 1: eighty four thousand, four d kilometers away. Yeah, so Phobos
Speaker 1: is really close to the surface of Mars. Demos is
Speaker 1: a good bit farther out, but Phobos. The distance from
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars to Phobos is actually comparable to
Speaker 1: distances between recognizable landmarks on the surface of the Earth,
Speaker 1: Like if there was a road, you could drive from
Speaker 1: Mars to Phobos in a couple of days. Like for comparison,
Speaker 1: Google Maps tells me that the driving distance between Miami
Speaker 1: and Vancouver, so basically, you know, sort of diagonally across
Speaker 1: North America. I mean, not even all the way up
Speaker 1: to Alaska. Uh that's about thirty four hundred miles or
Speaker 1: roughly kilometers, so just a little bit shorter than the
Speaker 1: distance from Mars to Phobos. Phobos is right in there, right. So,
Speaker 1: while we've joked about extraterrestrial skies and how large planets
Speaker 1: sometimes appear in the sky in various movies or works
Speaker 1: of sci fi art if it's like Battle for Indoor
Speaker 1: or basically any location in the video game No Man Sky,
Speaker 1: despite all that, Mars would actually be quite huge in
Speaker 1: the sky of Phobos if you were standing on its surface.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I actually looked this up to see if
Speaker 1: I could find somebody who had done like a scale
Speaker 1: attempt to create that view, and I could not find it.
Speaker 1: Maybe it exists somewhere out there, but yeah, it would
Speaker 1: be absolutely huge, because to look at it from the
Speaker 1: other way, Phobos is, as moons go, extremely tiny. I
Speaker 1: mean it's again, you're looking at like like twentysomething kilometers
Speaker 1: in with depending on which side is facing you. Um so,
Speaker 1: so this is much much smaller than moons were familiar with,
Speaker 1: like Earth's moons or like the Earth's single moon. I
Speaker 1: didn't mean to suggest the multiple or the larger moons
Speaker 1: of Jupiter or something like that. But from the surface
Speaker 1: of Mars, Phobos appears relatively large. I think I remember
Speaker 1: reading somewhere that it was it looks about a third
Speaker 1: as big as the Moon usually looks from the surface
Speaker 1: of Earth. But it's so much smaller. And the reason
Speaker 1: it looks that big is just how close it is.
Speaker 1: And here's the an added factor to all of this,
Speaker 1: it's getting closer. Uh. Phobos edges closer to Mars at
Speaker 1: a rate of six ft or one point eight meters
Speaker 1: every century, So in fifty million years it will probably
Speaker 1: either crash into Mars or break up and become a
Speaker 1: ring of debris around Mars. I hope it goes the
Speaker 1: ring route. Personally, Yeah, either way, I think I really
Speaker 1: like the mythic synergy of this because I can easily imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, this terror using war god Phoebos just being
Speaker 1: destined to fight his own terrible father and perish one
Speaker 1: way or another in the attempt. You know, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna win, dude. Yeah, but he but he has to,
Speaker 1: like it's his nature, like this is this is what
Speaker 1: he's been been, you know, raised and traumatized to do.
Speaker 1: What else could possibly happen? Now? Of course, given the
Speaker 1: time frame involved here fifty million years, you know, humans
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about you know, it's not one
Speaker 1: of these things we're like, oh, we better not try
Speaker 1: and land anything on phoebe Post because it's it's doomed,
Speaker 1: won't you know not, you know, not anytime soon. Um.
Speaker 1: And there have been some proposals that have sought to
Speaker 1: use Phobos as a kind of staging ground for the
Speaker 1: exploration of Mars itself, you know, perhaps for robotics for example. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of we can talk more
Speaker 1: about this in the second episode in this series, but
Speaker 1: there are a lot of reasons that Phobos might be
Speaker 1: really a great place to try to stage space missions.
Speaker 1: One reason, for example, is that it would be if
Speaker 1: you're trying to get something back from Mars or to
Speaker 1: another place in the Solar System from Mars, it's much
Speaker 1: easier to get off of Phobos than it is to
Speaker 1: get off of the surface of Mars itself. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's basically it's like a you know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a space station. Um. Now, Phobos has
Speaker 1: no atmosphere um. And also gravity on Phobos uh is
Speaker 1: is pretty weak. According to NASA quote, Phobos has only
Speaker 1: one one thousandth as much gravitational pull as Earth. A
Speaker 1: one fifty pound or d eight kilogram person would weigh
Speaker 1: two ounces or sixty eight grams there. Um. Yet they
Speaker 1: do point out that NASA's Mars Global Surveyor has shown
Speaker 1: evidence of landslides. You know, we mentioned that that earlier,
Speaker 1: of boulders and dust that's fallen back down to the
Speaker 1: surface after being blasted due to various impacts. So the
Speaker 1: gravity there is in play, but it is, you know,
Speaker 1: it is it is slight compared to the gravity of
Speaker 1: Earth or certainly other uh moons out there, right, Phobos
Speaker 1: is about the mass that if you were to jump
Speaker 1: on Phobos, you could jump really high, but you would
Speaker 1: eventually fall back down right now, Like our moon, the
Speaker 1: twins of Mars are both locked with the same face
Speaker 1: pointed at their planet. Uh. The day side gets reasonably
Speaker 1: warm from human perspective. I think I saw it compared
Speaker 1: in one NASA document to a a winter day in Chicago,
Speaker 1: while the night side gets extremely cold. Though again there's
Speaker 1: no atmosphere. So we're talking about surface temperatures here. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no air to do anything there. The
Speaker 1: air can't hold the warmth you're just talking about, like
Speaker 1: being blasted by radiation and I guess whatever is radiating
Speaker 1: back up off of the rock beneath your feet than
Speaker 1: al right, So in discussing Phobos, we should point out
Speaker 1: as well, and we'll probably get more into this maybe
Speaker 1: in the second episode. Is that as of today, as
Speaker 1: of this recording, no one has actually been to Phobos,
Speaker 1: certainly not in person, but even attempts to send probes
Speaker 1: directly to Phobos have failed for various reasons. The Russians
Speaker 1: made two attempts in the late eighties Phobos one and two. Uh,
Speaker 1: those failed that seemingly, I think for technical reasons, and
Speaker 1: then inn they attempted to send another one um Phobos
Speaker 1: grunt to Phobos. That's spelled fo b O s g
Speaker 1: r u n t in uh the the at least
Speaker 1: the English language Letterally sure it was going to collect
Speaker 1: two grams of soil, but that didn't quite work out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a proposed sample return mission. Would have been
Speaker 1: really cool if we could have gotten some of Phobos
Speaker 1: back here to Earth to study. But it failed. I
Speaker 1: think it actually was it failed in orbit before it
Speaker 1: began its journey to Mars and just ended up stuck
Speaker 1: in Earth orbit without the ability to travel. Now, various
Speaker 1: other missions have been proposed and are being considered, but
Speaker 1: nothing is launched as of this recording. But missions to
Speaker 1: Mars have and will continue to capture images of the moons. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know if for starters like once again, it's it's
Speaker 1: fairly visible in the sky if you catch it at
Speaker 1: the right time. So that has been one of the
Speaker 1: ways that we've captured images of it. Also the fly bys. Oh,
Speaker 1: one thing I forgot to mention about Phobos Grunt was
Speaker 1: actually uh, it was a Russian mission, but it was
Speaker 1: also a joint venture with the Chinese Space program, and
Speaker 1: so the Chinese had part part of the mission as well.
Speaker 1: And then also part of what they were going to
Speaker 1: do was they were going to they had some microorganisms
Speaker 1: aboard and they were going to study how the round
Speaker 1: trip from the from Earth to the moons of Mars
Speaker 1: and then back to Earth affected these microorganisms that were
Speaker 1: on the payload. I think the Planetary Society had us
Speaker 1: had a a small uh experiment that was aboard as well. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: was that the was that the micro organisms that may
Speaker 1: have been actually yes, yeah, but anyday, right, it did
Speaker 1: not come to pass. Uh. So we did not get
Speaker 1: to bring anything back from the surface of Phobos. We
Speaker 1: didn't get to have any thing directly investigate the surface
Speaker 1: of Phobos, which is a shame, because there there's some
Speaker 1: interesting features there, to say the least. Oh. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: if we were to begin a curiosity tour of the
Speaker 1: surface of Phobos, I think one of the top things
Speaker 1: to look at would be the Phobos monolith. Monolith. You
Speaker 1: say monolith, I say, so there is a giant rock
Speaker 1: on the surface of Phobos against the relatively smooth cratered background,
Speaker 1: and I mean smooth, not because not because it's like
Speaker 1: a featureless surface. There are many craters, but it's not
Speaker 1: very craggy, if that makes any sense. It is, uh.
Speaker 1: It is kind of dust covered and dimpled, but not
Speaker 1: not not sharp angles. And against this relatively smooth background,
Speaker 1: there is this rock that stands out like a white
Speaker 1: tower in the gray dust, and it shines really bright
Speaker 1: in the sun and it casts this long looming tail
Speaker 1: of shade across the ground behind it. And judging by
Speaker 1: the length of its shadow, some astronomers have estimated that
Speaker 1: this rock is about ninety meters tall or about three
Speaker 1: hundred feet, and for this reason, some media outlets describe
Speaker 1: it as building sized. I guess that's reasonable if it's
Speaker 1: like three feet tall, it's like a small office building.
Speaker 1: But you're you're you're also bringing to mind certain ideas
Speaker 1: about what it might be when you say it's building sized, yes,
Speaker 1: And that's like if I would have say, where it's
Speaker 1: giant robot size. Yeah. Uh. So this rock has come
Speaker 1: to be known as the Phobos Monolith, and it is
Speaker 1: one of the geologic features of our solar system that
Speaker 1: is genuinely exquisitely interesting, but you know, like so many others,
Speaker 1: in many cases, appreciated for all the wrong reasons. Uh.
Speaker 1: The the it's aliens crowd loves this rock, now, why
Speaker 1: would that be. Well, a major point of departure here
Speaker 1: seems to be originally a c SPAN clip, which is
Speaker 1: not where you might expect, you know, sort of conspiracy
Speaker 1: minded ideas to originate from c SPAN. You generally pretty uh,
Speaker 1: pretty dry and pretty by the numbers. Yeah, I oh,
Speaker 1: I like c SPAN And actually I would say there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with this clip. It's just people misinterpreting a
Speaker 1: clip or selectively quoting from a clip. So this originally
Speaker 1: I think aired in July of two thousand nine, that's
Speaker 1: at least when the version I found was uploaded. But
Speaker 1: in this clip, the revered American ast not buzz Aldren, who,
Speaker 1: of course, along with the Alarmstrong, was one of the
Speaker 1: first two human beings to walk on the Moon that
Speaker 1: was during the Apollo eleven landing in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: He is being interviewed on the c SPAN program Washington Journal,
Speaker 1: and I believe this was in the context of originally
Speaker 1: talking about human colonization of Earth's Moon, but Aldrin starts
Speaker 1: talking about the general impetus for exploration of looking at
Speaker 1: things that people find curious or inspiring about the about
Speaker 1: the Solar system at large, and using that sort of
Speaker 1: like public rapture about strange and interesting features of the
Speaker 1: Solar system to to motivate scientific exploration of them, as
Speaker 1: opposed to just say returning to the moon exclusively. And
Speaker 1: Aldrin says, quote, we should go boldly where man has
Speaker 1: not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit
Speaker 1: the moon of Mars. There's a monolith. They're a very
Speaker 1: unusual structure on this little potato shaped object that goes
Speaker 1: around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out
Speaker 1: about that, they're gonna say, who put that there? Who
Speaker 1: put that there? Now, it seems like when the alien
Speaker 1: websites clipped this out, they stopped the quote right there
Speaker 1: and then they, you know, slap a headline on it
Speaker 1: like buzz alder and let's slip the alien conspiracy. Of course,
Speaker 1: the next thing Aldern says is, well, the universe put
Speaker 1: it there, or if you choose, God put it there.
Speaker 1: And then he moves on to other topics. You can
Speaker 1: look this clip up yourself, so obviously Aldern is not
Speaker 1: alleging that this monolith is of artificial origin. He's not
Speaker 1: only not alleging that he's explicitly saying the exact opposite,
Speaker 1: it is of natural origin. But of course that's not
Speaker 1: going to stop the usual suspects from using this clip
Speaker 1: as evidence of the alien cover up conspiracy. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so of course, the the Internet's favorite hoax hype man
Speaker 1: and general disinformation source, Alex Jones, has it several times
Speaker 1: tried to suggest that buzz Aldren might be saying he
Speaker 1: believes it was made by aliens, like uh during a
Speaker 1: two thousand nine interview, And that might actually be the
Speaker 1: weirdest thing here is that Alex Jones actually did do
Speaker 1: an interview with buzz Aldren in two thousand nine. I
Speaker 1: guess at the time nobody really knew who Alex Jones was.
Speaker 1: But during this interview, Jones tried to suggest that buzz
Speaker 1: Aldren might believe that this monolith was made by aliens.
Speaker 1: And in a more recent clip, I found Jones is
Speaker 1: saying that Aldren actually told him in that two thousand
Speaker 1: nine interview that the Phobos monolith was quote sending a
Speaker 1: transmission and quote it's all Egypt. There's aliens and everything else.
Speaker 1: It's all Egypt. Yeah, it's all Egypt. There's aliens and
Speaker 1: everything else. And I saw that, I was like, what
Speaker 1: what could he even be referring to? Like, I didn't
Speaker 1: believe that Aldren had actually said that, but I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: what's he basing this claim on. So I said, what
Speaker 1: the heck, I'll actually look it up, and the result
Speaker 1: was hilarious. So again, the weirdest thing about this to
Speaker 1: me is that at some point Alex Jones actually did
Speaker 1: interview the second person to walk on the Moon. Um.
Speaker 1: But so in the interview he does ask Aldern about this,
Speaker 1: and Aldrin says the exact opposite of what Jones claims.
Speaker 1: So Jones asks him, while, if I'm not mistaken, I
Speaker 1: think showing him a picture of the wrong object. I
Speaker 1: think he's showing him a picture of an object from
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars. But he says, what does this
Speaker 1: look like to you? And Aldrin responds he says, it's
Speaker 1: a big, big, tall rock. Now I can say, maybe
Speaker 1: it looks like a crude construction device by some creatures
Speaker 1: who practiced on Phobos and then landed in Egypt and
Speaker 1: built the pyramids, and then he starts laughing and says,
Speaker 1: I don't really believe that, but some people are liable
Speaker 1: to think that. So Aldrin is making fun of and
Speaker 1: then explicitly rejecting the claim that Jones attributes to him.
Speaker 1: Not only did he not say what Jones claims, he
Speaker 1: says literally exactly the opposite. This is interesting. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a real real cherry picking of you know. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: like he's saying, I'm not saying it's aliens at all,
Speaker 1: it's actually this, but he's but then it's like he
Speaker 1: said the word aliens in the sentence, so he's basically
Speaker 1: saying it's aliens. Well, the claim that Jones is referring
Speaker 1: to their is Aldrin making fun of people like Alex Jones.
Speaker 1: He's saying, like, you know, I could say that the
Speaker 1: this was aliens practicing building the pyramids, and you know,
Speaker 1: you have to admit, like that idea, even though it
Speaker 1: raises additional questions, is a fantastic idea and you should
Speaker 1: see why people would be drawn to it and wanted
Speaker 1: to be true. I mean, what does it mean? What
Speaker 1: what would it mean for ancient Egypt? What would it
Speaker 1: mean for life in our solar system. It brings so
Speaker 1: many sort of vague, half form but promising science fiction
Speaker 1: ideas to mind. I have so many funny questions about
Speaker 1: So here's one random thought. If there were actually a
Speaker 1: conspiracy to cover up the existence of an alien office
Speaker 1: building or a practice pyramid on the surface of Phobos,
Speaker 1: why would buzz Aldren know about it? Like, do you
Speaker 1: all retired astronauts just get a regular digest of the
Speaker 1: alien cover up? You know, like they get a dossier
Speaker 1: every week. It's like, here's all the alien evidence we've
Speaker 1: covered up in the past quarter. Well, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this a little bit. On one hand, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: kind of the loose idea that well, they were they
Speaker 1: were part of the space exploration system, you know, so
Speaker 1: perhaps they have privileged information or they've been to space,
Speaker 1: so maybe they know about space, but you know, in
Speaker 1: secret ways. But then I also was thinking, well, maybe
Speaker 1: this goes back, Maybe this is deeper, like maybe this
Speaker 1: connects to a lot of our mythological ideas about people
Speaker 1: who are you know, taken up that ascend into heaven
Speaker 1: you know, so here is, or or have descended into
Speaker 1: the underworld. So here is a case where someone has
Speaker 1: literally traveled to what you could easily classify as another world.
Speaker 1: They have traveled on our world to another and returned.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's amazing, don't get me wrong. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the the lunar missions were incredible technological achievements
Speaker 1: and and achievements of just a human courage and ingenuity. Uh,
Speaker 1: but they were not other worldly journeys. But I wonder
Speaker 1: if the two you know, become uh you know, wound
Speaker 1: together in the sort of the collective imagination like you know,
Speaker 1: I had to I had with in the you know,
Speaker 1: the time or two that we've been around astronauts or
Speaker 1: spoken to an astronaut, it has entered my mind like
Speaker 1: this person has left the Earth. You know. It's like
Speaker 1: in in a not in a you know, I you know,
Speaker 1: I know that I'm I'm talking to an accomplished human
Speaker 1: being when we're doing this, But there's there's a part
Speaker 1: of me that is like this person's maybe not completely
Speaker 1: human anymore, Like they're not completely of Earth because they
Speaker 1: have left Earth, you know, you know, in an you know,
Speaker 1: like unformed way. This bipedal primate like me has been
Speaker 1: touched by the gods. Now, so I wonder if you know,
Speaker 1: to some extent we were sort of hardwired to make
Speaker 1: those connections due to our our myths and our you know,
Speaker 1: our religious um stories, et cetera. Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I can see that tendency. I mean again, I think
Speaker 1: with this kind of thing, the logic is very loose.
Speaker 1: And on one hand, I mean, I would say with
Speaker 1: somebody like Alex Jones, I mean, he just this is
Speaker 1: just a person with a propensity to spread lies. But
Speaker 1: I would say, as for the the broader, uh tenacity
Speaker 1: of this misunderstanding about this object on the surface of Phobos,
Speaker 1: I think maybe part of the misunderstanding might just come
Speaker 1: from the word monolith. This would tie back to back
Speaker 1: into the idea you brought up when I was first
Speaker 1: introducing the subject about calling it building sized, which I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it is also calling it a monolith. I mean,
Speaker 1: this object does appear to be a monolith. That is
Speaker 1: a literally accurate description. It's a single piece of rock.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, by its association with two thousand one of
Speaker 1: Space Odyssey, that word now has some baggage, you know
Speaker 1: of of associations with artificial origin. Of course, there are
Speaker 1: tons of natural monoliths on Earth. The world is full
Speaker 1: of them. But when you say monolith, I think especially
Speaker 1: in anybody who's who's ever seen a science fiction film
Speaker 1: or anything that has any derivative of science fiction has
Speaker 1: has a certainly a way of two thousand and one
Speaker 1: of Space Odyssey, and so you think of the monolith, right.
Speaker 1: So if that's causing confusion for you, you could just
Speaker 1: say the huge rock on Phobos. Uh. But anyway, whether
Speaker 1: or not you would expect a retired astronaut to have
Speaker 1: any special insight on this subject, it is absolutely false
Speaker 1: that Aldrin claimed that Phobos the Phobos monolith was of
Speaker 1: artificial origin. He said the exact opposite. So that leads
Speaker 1: to the question what is its real origin? And I
Speaker 1: found a good article on the BBC from Steen by
Speaker 1: Colin Barriss that tried to look into this question. Okay,
Speaker 1: so given that there's this huge, weird king boulder jutting
Speaker 1: up out of the surface of Phobos, where did it
Speaker 1: come from? Well, again, according to our best images, the
Speaker 1: monolith does appear to be some kind of giant boulder.
Speaker 1: It's about ninety ms or roughly three hundred feet tall,
Speaker 1: as I said, and it's on a surface region of
Speaker 1: Phobos that is otherwise uh, free of large craggy features
Speaker 1: like this. I was trying to communicate exactly what I
Speaker 1: meant when I smooth isn't quite the right word, because
Speaker 1: it has all these craters and dimples in it. But
Speaker 1: the craters and everything look relatively I don't know, rounded,
Speaker 1: as as the surfaces of dusty objects in space often do.
Speaker 1: And this thing looks I guess you would say, the
Speaker 1: angles appear uncharacteristically sharp. So imagine a you know, office
Speaker 1: building sized boulder in the middle of a field in
Speaker 1: Kansas that otherwise has some kind of big soft craters
Speaker 1: in it. Now, the Phobos monolith has not really been
Speaker 1: the subject of much high profile scientific study, but it
Speaker 1: seems consistent with surface features that are produced by normal
Speaker 1: natural processes on the surface of moons and planets. So
Speaker 1: this could be a giant boulder that fell off of, say,
Speaker 1: the edge of a crater in a in a rock
Speaker 1: slide or something like that. And Furthermore, there is pretty
Speaker 1: clear evidence that whatever Phobos itself is, it has at
Speaker 1: various points in the past experienced asteroid impacts, so the
Speaker 1: monolith could also be a giant shard of rock that
Speaker 1: was ejected from some past impact. But then Barris draws
Speaker 1: attention to another really interesting option, which is that the
Speaker 1: Phobos monolith could also possibly be a chunk of Mars itself,
Speaker 1: and as as evidence of this, he points to the
Speaker 1: precedent of a study by Kenneth R. Ramsley and James W. Head,
Speaker 1: the third published in the journal Planetary and Space Science
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen called Mars Impact Ejecta in the
Speaker 1: Regular I of Phobos Bulk Concentration and Distribution. Basically, the
Speaker 1: idea is that the surface of Phobos is blanketed in
Speaker 1: little bits of Mars, and I think mostly these would
Speaker 1: just be very small particles, but they could include larger particles.
Speaker 1: And the author's estimate, based on some calculations that the
Speaker 1: bulk concentration of Mars ejective fragments in the upper Phobos
Speaker 1: regular is about two hundred and fifty parts per millions.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at the stuff on the surface
Speaker 1: of Phobos, about two hundred and fifty parts per million
Speaker 1: of that stuff is actually stuff that's from the planet Mars.
Speaker 1: And this again would come from uh from impacts, like
Speaker 1: the majority of it is going to be smaller particles.
Speaker 1: But when objects strike the surface of Mars with high energy,
Speaker 1: bits of Mars sometimes get blasted into orbit, and some
Speaker 1: of those bits are going to end up settling on
Speaker 1: the surface of Phobos. And of course this brings us
Speaker 1: back again to what we were talking about earlier. Remember
Speaker 1: that Phobos orbits very close to the surface of Mars
Speaker 1: compared to most moons, so you can imagine and that
Speaker 1: is easier for parts of Mars to end up on
Speaker 1: the surface of Phobos than it would be for parts
Speaker 1: of the surface of a planet to end up on
Speaker 1: a moon that's orbiting much farther away. But Barris mentions
Speaker 1: another possibility, writing quote alternatively, the Phobos monolith might not
Speaker 1: have formed during an impact. It could be a rare
Speaker 1: chunk of the Moon's solid bedrock poking up through a
Speaker 1: surface that is otherwise mostly strewn with loose debris. So
Speaker 1: imagine that kind of a Devil's tower of Phobos like
Speaker 1: poking up out of where everything else around it has
Speaker 1: is covered with enough dust to look pretty smooth. And
Speaker 1: Barris writes that if this is true, if it's you know,
Speaker 1: some some feature of the underlying rock of Phobos, if
Speaker 1: it's a Devil's tower kind of thing. Uh. If this
Speaker 1: is true, studying the monolith could actually help us solve
Speaker 1: some of the mysteries about the origin of Phobos, like
Speaker 1: where did these strange moons come from in the first place,
Speaker 1: which I guess maybe we'll come back to at the
Speaker 1: beginning of part two of this series. But just a
Speaker 1: couple of other notes about the Phobos A with one
Speaker 1: is that it looks really cool and you should look
Speaker 1: it up, but source your images carefully. I was coming
Speaker 1: across a lot of photos on the web that seem
Speaker 1: to be labeled as if they are the Phobos monolith,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure they're not. Some of them just
Speaker 1: look like they're from a movie or something, and I
Speaker 1: think others are pictures of things that are actually on
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars itself. But then one other thing
Speaker 1: I found out was that Less Claypool and sean On
Speaker 1: O Lennon have an album that is named after the
Speaker 1: Phobos Monolith. Rob, I sent you a link. Did you
Speaker 1: have a chance to listen or not. I have not
Speaker 1: had a chance to listen to it yet. I haven't
Speaker 1: heard any of Claypool stuff with with Oh no, I've I'm,
Speaker 1: of course I'm familiar with Primus and nfccen Primus Live,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm familiar with his work with uh with
Speaker 1: with Trey Anastasio in Oyster Head. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that some some good stuff there too, But no, I haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't heard Phobos Monolith. Well, I only got to
Speaker 1: listen to a little bit, but it is very weird,
Speaker 1: but with less of the cheese real related humor that
Speaker 1: you associate with older less claypool works. It seems a
Speaker 1: little a little more sober perhaps, uh and actually a
Speaker 1: little a little more sober, and has some relatively scientifically
Speaker 1: accurate lyrics. I can't vouch for the whole thing, but
Speaker 1: the part I was listening to was talking about the
Speaker 1: Phobos monolith and Buzz altern and I think everything that
Speaker 1: it said about the everything I recall it saying about
Speaker 1: the monolith and the moon was scientifically correct. Quote the
Speaker 1: monolith of Phobos, it stars buzz in the eye, It
Speaker 1: bids him question while we live and do or die? Okay,
Speaker 1: checks out. Wait, wait, that's not the part I was thinking.
Speaker 1: Maybe that went by me. I remember him talking about
Speaker 1: he had some part about the moon being sort of
Speaker 1: tat or shaped, which seems reasonable, even though we maybe
Speaker 1: turnip is better. And I think he also mentioned that
Speaker 1: its orbit is decaying over time, so it's moving closer
Speaker 1: to Mars, which is true. Yeah. Yeah, Well the next
Speaker 1: two lines are the monolith of Phobos, it stars buzz
Speaker 1: and the I on a tator shaped moon that's falling
Speaker 1: from the sky. Okay, so that's that's that's more accurate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and then there's also some part about it like it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't say it's aliens. It just says that like
Speaker 1: the monolith raises a bunch of questions, which is true.
Speaker 1: It does raise questions. It some genuine and scientific uh,
Speaker 1: others not so much. Um, but but yeah, still, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it is something like the monolith of Phobos
Speaker 1: is real. As we've said, Uh, you just need to
Speaker 1: be be careful about what image you're you're pulling up
Speaker 1: of it and uh and what interpretation you're reading regarding it. Now.
Speaker 1: As we've mentioned already, one of the biggest mysteries about
Speaker 1: Phobos and Demos is where these moons come from in
Speaker 1: the first place, What is their origin, because they have
Speaker 1: a number of features that seem to be at least
Speaker 1: on the surface level, contradictory and point off in different
Speaker 1: directions when you're looking for an origin story. And I
Speaker 1: think maybe that's where we should start when we come
Speaker 1: back in part two, where do these moon come from?
Speaker 1: And how were they made? Yeah? So so join us.
Speaker 1: Will also be some some at least from today's standpoint,
Speaker 1: kind of out there sounding hypotheses about about what what
Speaker 1: what these moons are. Uh so it'll be it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: So join us. In our next episode of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is we continue our exploration of Phobos
Speaker 1: and demos the moons of Mars. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you know where to find them.
Speaker 1: Core episodes come out Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Bow Your Mind podcast feed. Monday's we do a
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail. Wednesdays that's when we do the artifact.
Speaker 1: On Friday's we do a little weird house cinema where
Speaker 1: we we set most of the science aside and just
Speaker 1: talk about a weird movie. And on the weekend we
Speaker 1: do a little bit of uh a little vault episode.
Speaker 1: We do a little rerun for you. So that's what
Speaker 1: six days out of seven and on the seventh day
Speaker 1: we rest or, we run an ad sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: we we get ready for the first day again. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, huge, thanks as always to our wonderful audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
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