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

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

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault. This is Phobos and Demos,

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Speaker 1: Part two, picking up where we left off last Saturday.

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Speaker 1: This originally aired on April. All right, let's jump right in.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: we're back with part two of our talk about the

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Speaker 1: moons of Mars, Phobos and Demos. Now, in the last episode,

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Speaker 1: we talked a bit about the mythology behind the moons

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Speaker 1: of Mars, the companions and sons of the war god

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Speaker 1: Aries the Roman Mars, the god of War, and we

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Speaker 1: talked about how the names of these came to be

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Speaker 1: applied to the moons of Mars, these two small objects

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Speaker 1: that were discovered in the late nineteenth century. We talked

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Speaker 1: about that discovery story. We talked about some of the

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Speaker 1: basic properties of Phobos and Demos and why there is

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Speaker 1: some question about what their origin was. We're gonna get

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Speaker 1: into more detail about that today. And we ended up

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Speaker 1: talking about a bizarre conspiracy theory about an interesting surface

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Speaker 1: feature of Phobos that really had nothing to it. But

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Speaker 1: the surface feature, known as the Phobos Monolith, is inherently

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Speaker 1: very interesting. Yeah, and so in this episode, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: we're gonna cover more interesting stuff about Phobos and demos, uh,

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Speaker 1: stuff about the history of its exploration. We'll get into

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Speaker 1: another idea that conspiracy theorists seem to really like concerning

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Speaker 1: one of the two moons. There'll be a dash of

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Speaker 1: mythology here and there, but it should be a fun ride, now, Robin.

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Speaker 1: The last episode, we were talking about how close the

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Speaker 1: moon Phobos is to Mars. It is the loosest moon

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Speaker 1: to its host planet in the entire Solar System. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's so close. I think it's a it's a matter

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Speaker 1: of you know, just like several thousand kilometers. It's a

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Speaker 1: distance that is a little bit longer than the driving

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Speaker 1: distance between Miami and Vancouver, as we talked about the

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Speaker 1: last time. So you know, if you if there were

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Speaker 1: a road between them, you could drive it in two

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Speaker 1: or three days. And that's incredibly close for a moon

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Speaker 1: to uh to orbit its host planet. But I found

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Speaker 1: Another point of comparison that we didn't make in the

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Speaker 1: last episode that I thought was absolutely astounding, and it's

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Speaker 1: that the moon Phobos orbits so close to the surface

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Speaker 1: of Mars that if you are standing near the polar

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Speaker 1: regions of Mars, sometimes you can't see the Moon even

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Speaker 1: when it's on the same side of the planet as you,

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Speaker 1: because it's blocked by the horizon. It's orbiting down near

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Speaker 1: the equator and you can't see it over the curvature

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Speaker 1: of Mars itself. That that's unbelievable. Yeah, that is that

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Speaker 1: is pretty amazing. And of course, as we discussed, it's

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Speaker 1: getting closer to Mars and will eventually, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: millions and millions of years in the future, will actually

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Speaker 1: crash into Mars or break up in orbit and become

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Speaker 1: a new ring around the planet. Yeah, they're gonna tussle. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But one of the things we also alluded to in

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Speaker 1: the last episode is that these two moons, Phobos and Demos,

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Speaker 1: have extremely weird properties that really raise questions about where

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Speaker 1: they come from in the first place. And you can

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Speaker 1: ask this about moons all throughout the Solar System, like

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Speaker 1: there is some question about where the moon of Earth

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Speaker 1: came from those. There's a there's a pretty strong leading

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Speaker 1: theory that is the giant impact hypothesis, the idea that

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Speaker 1: early during the formation of Earth, Earth was hit by

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Speaker 1: a planetestimal or you know, a Mars sized object roughly,

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Speaker 1: and that giant impact created a bunch of debris and

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Speaker 1: eventually the what was left over coalesced into the Earth

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Speaker 1: and then the Moon in orbit around the Earth. Indeed, uh,

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Speaker 1: certain properties of these moons as well discussed here, tend

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Speaker 1: to lend themselves more to one interpretation, and other properties

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Speaker 1: if you focus on those, lend towards another interpretation, which

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Speaker 1: leads to just a fair amount of you know, continued confusion,

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Speaker 1: but also intense fascination. Yeah. There's an article about this

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Speaker 1: that we were both reading that kind of sums up

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Speaker 1: some of the debate pretty nicely. It was published in

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Speaker 1: The New York Times by Robin George Andrews in July,

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Speaker 1: called why the super weird Moons of Mars Fascinates Scientists,

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Speaker 1: and it briefly goes over some of the arguments either

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Speaker 1: way is now um. One of the things that points

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Speaker 1: out is that if you're just to look at the

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Speaker 1: what the moons appear to be made of you know,

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Speaker 1: they're they're sort of physical characteristics in and of themselves.

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Speaker 1: They look a lot like captured asteroids, asteroids that at

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Speaker 1: some point would have been bumped off course and then

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Speaker 1: caught in the gravity well of Mars, so that they

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Speaker 1: ended up just orbiting Mars permanently. Yeah, the the the

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Speaker 1: asteroid capture hypothesis, which which which is a popular one,

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Speaker 1: but it doesn't quite explain everything right now in its favor.

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Speaker 1: One of the main things that has going for it

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Speaker 1: is that the material that the Martian moons are made

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Speaker 1: of looks a lot like asteroid type material. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that they they look like asteroids. They seem to be

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Speaker 1: composed of the same material as asteroids, And yeah, they

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Speaker 1: would have just ended up too close to mars gravitational

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Speaker 1: pull and would have been simply orbitally dominated by the

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Speaker 1: planet Mars. The god of War says, you too, you

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Speaker 1: you shattered wrecks. You are now my son's come with me,

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Speaker 1: right into battle with me. It's like in the cop

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Speaker 1: movie when you commandeer the vehicle. You know, I'm commandeering

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Speaker 1: this vehicle, or James Bond gets into somebody's car and

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Speaker 1: drives off with it, or I guess it would be

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Speaker 1: more like tying a car to you and making it

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Speaker 1: swing around you. I guess that analogy isn't that great,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's saying you're coming with me now, right.

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Speaker 1: But the other interesting thing is that they have that

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Speaker 1: kind of throws this off. Is they have near equatorial orbits,

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Speaker 1: and Is Andrews points out in this article this suggests

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Speaker 1: that they coalesced from a disc of debris that danced

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Speaker 1: around a very young Mars. So it basically it's just

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Speaker 1: all too neat and tidy surely to be an asteroid capture.

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Speaker 1: So in other words, like, okay, if there, if it's

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Speaker 1: asteroid capture, these are like wildcats. But if they're wildcats,

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Speaker 1: why are they behaving like orbital house cats? So so

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Speaker 1: that's that's part of the big confusion here. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: you've got some creepy space yukon golds that look like

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Speaker 1: they're made of roughly asteroid stuff. But the way they

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Speaker 1: orbit Mars, it's a couple of things actually that their

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Speaker 1: orbits are near equatorial, meaning that they orbit basically, you know,

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Speaker 1: not exactly but pretty close to around the equator line

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Speaker 1: of Mars. You know, in between polls. And then the

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Speaker 1: other part is that their orbits are nearly perfectly circular.

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Speaker 1: And this is just not what you would expect to

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Speaker 1: see with a captured asteroid. If an asteroid came in

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Speaker 1: that was originally orbiting the Sun at a different speed

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Speaker 1: and then it just got stuck in the gravity well

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Speaker 1: of Mars, what you would probably expect to see is

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Speaker 1: that its orbit would be more irregular, some more stretched out, right.

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Speaker 1: You know, that's often when something gets captured by an

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Speaker 1: object and it was originally on its own trajectory, it

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Speaker 1: tends to have a more stretched out oval type orbit.

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Speaker 1: But then the other thing is you would expect its

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Speaker 1: orbit to be tilted at a steeper angle rather than

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Speaker 1: neatly orbiting pretty close to its equatorial line. And then

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Speaker 1: there's one more factor that I think is worth considering.

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Speaker 1: This is actually cited in that article in The New

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Speaker 1: York Times by Robin George Andrews. And Andrews quotes a

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Speaker 1: Japanese scientist named Tomohiro Usui who points out that also

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Speaker 1: Mars gravity is pretty weak. I mean, you know, you

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Speaker 1: can capture an asteroid, but Tamohiro Sui points out that

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Speaker 1: Mars has like a tenth of Earth's mass, So it's

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Speaker 1: kind of improbable that it would be able to capture

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Speaker 1: two asteroids that are traveling by at orbital speeds, you know,

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Speaker 1: speeds of orbiting the Sun. So it just seems kind

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Speaker 1: of unlikely as an origin story for them, and their

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Speaker 1: orbits really don't seem to match what you would expect

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Speaker 1: from from asteroid capture. Now, there is another hypothesis that

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Speaker 1: would make some sense, which is that what if the

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Speaker 1: moons of Mars were formed from a debris disc that

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Speaker 1: was kicked up into orbit around Mars after a colossal impact.

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Speaker 1: So not exactly the same as but but similar to

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Speaker 1: one of the leading ideas about where the Earth's moon

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Speaker 1: comes from. There's a giant impact on Mars at some point,

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Speaker 1: and that shoots all this stuff in to space around Mars,

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Speaker 1: which gradually coalesces into a disc that's in orbit around Mars,

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Speaker 1: and then that disc gravitationally coalesces into solid objects, these

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Speaker 1: two moons. Now there's some reasons for doubting that as well.

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Speaker 1: I mean, one idea offered in this article is that

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Speaker 1: demos is orbit is maybe a little too far out

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Speaker 1: to be explained that way, but that could possibly be overcome.

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Speaker 1: One paper I was looking at that supports the idea

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Speaker 1: of a giant impact is The original source of Phobos

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Speaker 1: and Demos was published in Nature Geoscience by Pascal Rosenblatt

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Speaker 1: at all and it's called accretion of Phobos and Demos

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Speaker 1: in an extended debris disc stirred by transient moons um

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Speaker 1: and so that they write in their abstract that quote.

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Speaker 1: Here we use numerical simulations to suggest that Phobos and

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Speaker 1: Demos accreeded from the outer portion of a debris disc

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Speaker 1: formed after a giant impact on Mars. In our mulations,

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Speaker 1: larger moons form from material in the denser inner disc

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Speaker 1: and migrate outwards due to gravitational interactions with the disc.

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Speaker 1: The resulting orbital resonances spread outwards and gathered dispersed outer

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Speaker 1: disc debris, facilitating accretion into two satellites of sizes similar

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Speaker 1: to Phobos and Demos. The larger inner moons fall back

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Speaker 1: to Mars after about five million years due to the

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Speaker 1: title poll of the planet, after which the two outer

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Speaker 1: satellites evolve into Phobos and Demos like orbits. The proposed

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Speaker 1: scenario can explain why Mars has two small satellites instead

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Speaker 1: of one large moon. Our model predicts that Phobos and

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Speaker 1: Demos are composed of a mixture of material from Mars

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Speaker 1: and the impact or so. Again, this would be kind

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Speaker 1: of similar to the Earth's moon origin story. There's a

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Speaker 1: giant impact on Mars long long ago. It spits out

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Speaker 1: all this debris into orbit around Mars that forms into

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Speaker 1: multiple moons at different orbital distances, and interactions between those

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Speaker 1: eventually cause inner moons to be destroyed spiraling into Mars

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Speaker 1: as Phobos will one day do, and then UH, and

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Speaker 1: then these other objects to coalesce into the current orbits

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Speaker 1: that we see for Phobos and Demos. So that's one

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Speaker 1: plausible possibility they've put together. Yeah, and this satisfies some

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Speaker 1: of the mysteries that we discussed earlier. How can it

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Speaker 1: be uh and have the qualities of an asteroid capture

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Speaker 1: but also have the qualities of something that formed out

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Speaker 1: of a disk around Mars. Now we've mentioned that Phobos

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Speaker 1: as its spirals into Mars will probably break apart. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we mentioned a couple options. It could just crash into Mars.

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Speaker 1: More of the sources that I was reading seemed to

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Speaker 1: suggest that the more likely option is that as it

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Speaker 1: spirals into Mars, it will be sort of ripped apart

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Speaker 1: by tidal forces and it will break up and become

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Speaker 1: rings in orbit around Mars. But really interesting question that

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Speaker 1: I came across in another study in Nature Geoscience, this

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Speaker 1: one published in This is the question of what if

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Speaker 1: this future scenario where Phobos breaks up in orbit around

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Speaker 1: Mars and becomes rings, what if that has already happened.

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Speaker 1: Very interesting origin hypothesis for for these two moons. So

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Speaker 1: this is by Andrew J. Hessel Brock and David A. Minton. Again,

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Speaker 1: that's Nature Geoscience in seen called an ongoing satellite ring

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Speaker 1: cycle of Mars and the origins of Phobos and Demos.

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Speaker 1: Now this uh. This explanation has a similar beginning as

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Speaker 1: the last one, but some of the details are different.

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Speaker 1: Again to read from their abstract, the Martian moons Phobos

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Speaker 1: and Demos may have acreated from a ring of impact debris,

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Speaker 1: but explaining their origin from a single giant impact has

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Speaker 1: proven difficult. One clue may lie in the orbit of

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Speaker 1: Phobos that is slowly decaying as the satellite undergoes tidal

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Speaker 1: interactions with Mars. In about seventy million years, Phobos is

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Speaker 1: predicted to reach the location of title, breakup and break

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Speaker 1: apart to form a new ring around the planet. Here,

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Speaker 1: we use numerical simulations to suggest that the resulting ring

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Speaker 1: will viscously spread to eventually deposit about eight percent of

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Speaker 1: debris onto Mars. The remaining twenty of debris will accrete

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Speaker 1: into a new generation of satellites. Furthermore, we propose that

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Speaker 1: this process has occurred repeatedly throughout Martian history. In our simulations,

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Speaker 1: beginning with a large satellite formed after giant impact with

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Speaker 1: early Mars, we find that between three and seven ring

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Speaker 1: satellite cycles over the past four point three billion years

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Speaker 1: can explain Phobos and Demos as they are observed today.

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Speaker 1: Such a scenario implies the deposition of significant ring material

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Speaker 1: onto Mars during each cycle. We hypothesize that some anomalous

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Speaker 1: sedimentary deposits observed on Mars maybe linked to these periodic

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Speaker 1: episodes of ring deposition. So Phobos or the ancestor of

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Speaker 1: Phobos could have been once much larger, maybe twenty times

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Speaker 1: more massive. But then there's this pattern that repeats over time,

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Speaker 1: almost like you know, the mythological cycle of history, where

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Speaker 1: there's orbital decay. It's it's going closer and closer down

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Speaker 1: into Mars. It shatters from tidal forces. It's you know, turned,

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Speaker 1: It splits apart into a million pieces, forms a ring

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Speaker 1: around Mars. The pieces of the ring then coalesce into

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Speaker 1: a moon, and then repeat with the moon getting smaller

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Speaker 1: every cycle. I love this because if you if you

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Speaker 1: take it and then apply it to the mythological model

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Speaker 1: that we've been discussing here, you have Mars, who is

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Speaker 1: you know, actually more the the you know, we can

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Speaker 1: would think more of the Greek war god aries representing

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Speaker 1: the worst of war, just the the bloodshed and the screams.

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Speaker 1: Just this awful deity, the god of the screams of

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Speaker 1: the dying. Yeah, yeah, the god of the screams of

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Speaker 1: the dying. And so it makes sense that his two

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Speaker 1: loyal sons who are destined to rebel against him have

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Speaker 1: always rebelled against him, Like there's a cycle of them

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Speaker 1: rebelling against the Almighty Fad. They're here being destroyed, breaking up,

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Speaker 1: but then he reforms them. You know, it's like they're

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Speaker 1: resurrected to continue to serve them as these kind of

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Speaker 1: misshapen wraiths. Oh man, Yeah, I love that. Another way

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Speaker 1: to think about it is if you're talking about a

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Speaker 1: god of war. I mean, this is the process of attrition, right,

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Speaker 1: slowly wearing down your enemy's forces over time. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they keep coming back, but each time weaker and weaker. Now,

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Speaker 1: like many things in space science, this is one of

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Speaker 1: these great fascinating open questions that really could uh we

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Speaker 1: could really have a better chance of solving if we

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Speaker 1: were to have more physical data to work with. And

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Speaker 1: so this is one of the many reasons that there

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Speaker 1: have been all these proposed missions to the moons of Mars,

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Speaker 1: and including that, there's a there's an upcoming mission that

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about in a bit from the Japanese Space

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Speaker 1: Agency from Jackson that is planning to go to the

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Speaker 1: moons of Mars in I think it's supposed to launch

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Speaker 1: in twenty four and hopefully arrive in five. But there

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Speaker 1: we could learn more the composition of these moons, which

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Speaker 1: could maybe tell us more about their history. But to

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Speaker 1: come back to that New York Times article we were

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Speaker 1: talking about, Uh, there's a part of it which says, quote,

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Speaker 1: although made of ancient matter, the phobos we see today

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Speaker 1: may have been assembled just two hundred million years ago.

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Speaker 1: If it were confirmed that Phobos is a haphazardly clumped

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Speaker 1: together mass, it would be a revelation suggesting planets with

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Speaker 1: rings are the norm for our Solar system. And I

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Speaker 1: had to think about that for a second, and then

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Speaker 1: I realized, like, oh, yeah, okay, So if it's normal

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Speaker 1: for Mars to have a ring and we just happened

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Speaker 1: to be observing it during one of its you know,

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Speaker 1: interring periods, one of its ringless periods, that would mean

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Speaker 1: the majority of planets in our Solar system have rings.

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Speaker 1: Jupiter as rings, Saturn has huge rings, uh Uranus has rings.

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Speaker 1: So you'd realize that rings are the standard and a

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Speaker 1: planet without rings is actually weirder. Yeah, I guess It's

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Speaker 1: kind of like thinking about cities, right. Um Imagine you

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Speaker 1: know most cities have some sort of sprawling suburbs, but

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Speaker 1: maybe you have a city that doesn't really have suburbs,

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Speaker 1: but just has like a a centralized satellite uh town

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Speaker 1: outside of it, maybe to such satellite towns. Um that

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Speaker 1: if that was the main thing you saw, you might think, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is just how it works, this is how cities

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Speaker 1: are come together. Though, one thing I should point out

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Speaker 1: from that article that they quote. Again, the Japanese researcher

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Speaker 1: tell me Hero sue who says that you know, this

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Speaker 1: that we were just talking about could possibly be true

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Speaker 1: of Phobos, but at the same time not for Demos.

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Speaker 1: It's possible that they you know, that they have these

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Speaker 1: different origins, that they're not exactly the same thing. So

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Speaker 1: Demos could be much older than Phobos potentially. Uh Suey

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Speaker 1: says that Demos could be three point five billion years old,

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Speaker 1: whereas it's it's possible that Phobos is much much younger,

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Speaker 1: just like two million years old. But again it's one

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Speaker 1: of those things that it'll be hard to know for

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Speaker 1: sure until we send something there and maybe even bring

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Speaker 1: part of it back. I'm really need to get weird.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about some weird historical hypotheses

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Speaker 1: about photos? Yeah, concerning the idea of a hollow Phobos. Now,

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Speaker 1: one thing I want to stress here is again we'd

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Speaker 1: love to have physical evidence, physical material to look at

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Speaker 1: regarding Phobos and Demos, but we don't yet. Hopefully in

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Speaker 1: the future, but we don't have it now. What we

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Speaker 1: have are, in addition to various other readings, we have

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Speaker 1: visual images taken via fly bys and and and Mars missions,

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Speaker 1: But there was a time where we didn't have those

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Speaker 1: additional um images. So I want to go back to

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen fifties and ultimately to the decades preceding that,

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Speaker 1: and the work of Russian astrophysicist, uh Joseph Shklovsky, who

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Speaker 1: hypothesized that Phobos might be hollow and even more to

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Speaker 1: the point, might be an artificial structure. Oh yeah, now

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Speaker 1: you also Shaklovsky was born nineteen sixteen died nine five.

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Speaker 1: He was a Soviet astronomer and astrophysicist. And we've actually

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Speaker 1: mentioned him on the show before because he co wrote

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Speaker 1: and he had for the main credited author on intelligent

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Speaker 1: Life in the Universe with Carl Sagan in nineteen sixty six.

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Speaker 1: I believe we discussed it in our Look at Ancient

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Speaker 1: Astronaut hypothesis, which uh, you know, the basics of which

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Speaker 1: they went into in this book. Uh in a in

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Speaker 1: a way, this this book was was kind of pivotal

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Speaker 1: to the whole Ancient Aliens movement, even though I have

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Speaker 1: to stress the Chaklovsky and Sagan they discussed it rather

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Speaker 1: uh you know, very in a very grounded nature very scientifically. Um.

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Speaker 1: And it's other authors who really have would run wild

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Speaker 1: with it and um and just you know, go off

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Speaker 1: the speculative deep end with it. You know, there's something

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Speaker 1: I noticed in the in the responsible science journalism of

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Speaker 1: today that is a kind of automatic, reactive uh opposition

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Speaker 1: to the subject of like aliens or evidence for aliens.

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Speaker 1: And and I get it right, because if you're covering space,

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Speaker 1: if you're covering astronomy, if you're covering space missions, you know,

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Speaker 1: in anything having to do with space, one of the

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Speaker 1: things you're going to be dealing with most often is

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Speaker 1: people irresponsibly taking some piece of evidence that in no

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Speaker 1: way really indicates evidence of alien life and saying it's aliens,

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Speaker 1: and that they're just going to be doing that over

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Speaker 1: and over again, and then you just end up having

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Speaker 1: to spend your career writing article after article of like, no,

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Speaker 1: this rock on Mars is not an alien. There's no

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Speaker 1: reason you have to conclude that. You know, natural wind

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Speaker 1: erosion can cause features that look strange like this, here's how,

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Speaker 1: And then you can end up explaining interesting things about

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Speaker 1: natural science about like how wind erosion can cause something

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Speaker 1: to look sculpted or designed in a certain way or

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Speaker 1: you you know, you end up saying like, no, we

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Speaker 1: we don't have any reason to conclude yet that the

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Speaker 1: signal coming from this star, even though it's like repeating,

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Speaker 1: is an alien. And then you can explain stuff about

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Speaker 1: pulsars and how they work and what we know about them,

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Speaker 1: and that's all good stuff. But I think because there

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Speaker 1: is such a tendency for for hoax hype people and

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Speaker 1: for the public generally to get over excited about something

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Speaker 1: that's mysterious and say therefore it's aliens, you can start

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Speaker 1: getting opposed to even playing with the idea of aliens, right.

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Speaker 1: It starts to become like subject matter that's almost like

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Speaker 1: inherently revolting to you. Does that make any sense? And

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Speaker 1: I'm very much like I I very much respect all

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Speaker 1: the skeptical work, you know, and we do that too,

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Speaker 1: Like we we end up having to say, like, no,

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Speaker 1: there's no reason to conclude this is aliens. Nothing we

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Speaker 1: have ever discovered in space is definitely aliens. There's no

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Speaker 1: reason to think that there's never even really been a

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Speaker 1: strong piece of evidence for aliens that we've come across. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I think there's no reason at all to go from

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Speaker 1: there to say, so they're for like, don't play around

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Speaker 1: with the idea of aliens, Like what would what would

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Speaker 1: be evidence if we were defined it? Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like with the Muamua. You know, I

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Speaker 1: think there's gonna be there're gonna be people out there

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Speaker 1: who are just always going to be convinced that was

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Speaker 1: a spaceship. It wasn't It was not a spaceship, right,

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Speaker 1: But you know, certainly the spaceship interpretation is one that

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Speaker 1: is you know, way weird, way like easier to fathom

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Speaker 1: because it's so uh, it's so based in science fiction.

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Speaker 1: You know, you don't need a breakdown a discussion of

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Speaker 1: like why this thing was ejected from from some distant

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00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 1: uh interstellar locale, you know. Um, And yeah, it's just

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Speaker 1: more exciting. But to a certain extent, any coverage of

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Speaker 1: Mumu will always involve having to to really remind everybody

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Speaker 1: that there is there's there's no strong evidence that it

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Speaker 1: was a spaceship, that it was not a spaceship, but

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Speaker 1: let's explore these these also these other fascinating ideas and

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Speaker 1: hypotheses concerning its origin and its nature. Sure, So, I

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Speaker 1: mean I feel very attracted kind of the Carl Sagan outlook,

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Speaker 1: never saying like, oh, yeah, it's aliens when you see

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Speaker 1: something you don't understand, but also feeling fully free to

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Speaker 1: speculate about the idea of aliens because it's an interesting subject.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's fun to think about and and consider

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Speaker 1: what the real scientific implications of the existence of aliens

400
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Speaker 1: would be, even though you're always going to try to

401
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:25,159
Speaker 1: remain skeptical and grounded and not interpret every new piece

402
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Speaker 1: of information about the universe that you can't currently explain

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Speaker 1: as an artifact of an alien civilization, right right, And

404
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 1: in the second was great with this, you know, he

405
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 1: was always open to exploring those big questions and those

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Speaker 1: those those um, you know, the more radical questions, but

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Speaker 1: doing so in a balanced way. We're saying, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: let's let's talk about it. Yes, it could you know,

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Speaker 1: aliens certainly could exist, They could have visited the Earth.

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Speaker 1: There could be evidence of it in the historical record.

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Speaker 1: But what would that look like, what specifically would we

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Speaker 1: be looking for? Um? But that is a far hell

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Speaker 1: fear approach in my opinion. Yeah, And for me, I

414
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Speaker 1: think it's just like important to just always emphasize the

415
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Speaker 1: lines between you know, factual reporting and intellectual play. Yes. Now,

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Speaker 1: interestingly enough, in in this book in question here Sholowsky

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Speaker 1: and say again, they describe Phobos and Demos as quote,

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Speaker 1: the chariot horses of the god of war um. And

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Speaker 1: I'm unclear on where that comes from exactly than being

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Speaker 1: horses as opposed to or in addition to, being the

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Speaker 1: sons of Arias. But I think it still checks out,

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Speaker 1: you know, whether their war horses or or sons, that

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Speaker 1: they're kind of treated like war horses. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: areas could have had some horse sons that would make sense. Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think so. Another bit that they note in the book,

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Speaker 1: and I do want to continue to drive on this

427
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,719
Speaker 1: is the nineteen sixty six book um quote. Thus, if

428
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:55,719
Speaker 1: we neglect the artificial satellites of Earth, Phobos is the

429
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: only known moon in the Solar System with a period

430
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 1: of revolution about its planet, which is less than the

431
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 1: period of rotation of the planet itself. Yeah. So it

432
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:08,120
Speaker 1: takes Earth's moon roughly a month to orbit the Earth, right, Uh,

433
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 1: it takes less than a day for Phobos two less

434
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 1: than a Martian day for Phobos to orbit Mars. I

435
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:18,680
Speaker 1: think it orbits like three points something times every Martian day,

436
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: and by the very nature Martian day is one rotation,

437
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: so it's kind of it's easy to miss that that

438
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: that point. So I like the way that it really

439
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: drove that home here. So if you're you're clocking in

440
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 1: at work for your your Martian work day, oh, there

441
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:33,679
Speaker 1: goes Phobos, and then maybe you could look at Phobos

442
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: again to know when it's time to go home. Yeah. Now,

443
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: if it wasn't already obvious from the association with Sagan,

444
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: I want to be clear that Shaklovsky was no quack.

445
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a crater on Phobos named for him,

446
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: Shaklovsky Crater. But he was. He was understandably intrigued and

447
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: confused by the Martian moons for decades for the reasons

448
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: that we've already stated. Um. Sagan in nineteen six described

449
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: alas these ideas concerning uh, the idea of a hollow

450
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: Phobos as quote uh the only serious extant argument supporting

451
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: intelligent life on Mars now to now. Certainly, additional information

452
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 1: eventually discredited this notion, um. But it's interesting to look

453
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: at how he got there. And the book with Sagan

454
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: contains a fair amount of of math and technical information. Uh,

455
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: it's not it's not you know, certainly not a technical paper,

456
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: but it's certainly not the wide audience work of science

457
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: communication that we often associate with with Sagan Solo books

458
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:36,239
Speaker 1: and articles to come. But they they break down this

459
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: idea in a great deal again based on data from

460
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six and before so Schklovsky's idea of a

461
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: hollow Phobos and then eventually tying that to speculation about

462
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: alien life. This is something that is no longer an

463
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 1: option given what we know about Phobos today, But we're

464
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: exploring this as a historical curiosity of a hypothesis. Yes, yes,

465
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: So here's the here's one of the main points here.

466
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 1: I'm going to read from from the article and uh,

467
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: and I should mention as well that in these some

468
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:10,119
Speaker 1: of these quotes, um, they'll be using I, and I

469
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: think we're very much that I is referring to Shakoski quote.

470
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: But how can a natural satellite have such a low density.

471
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: The material of which it is made must have a

472
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: certain amount of rigidity, so that cohesive forces will be

473
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: stronger than the gravitational tide forces of Mars, which will

474
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:31,640
Speaker 1: tend to disrupt the satellite. Such rigidity would ordinarily exclude

475
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: densities below about zero point one Graham's per centimeter to

476
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: the negative third power. Thus, only one possibility remains. Could

477
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:44,199
Speaker 1: Phobos be indeed rigid on the outside but hollow on

478
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: the inside. A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object. Therefore,

479
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 1: we are led to the possibility that Phobos and possibly

480
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: Demos as well, maybe artificial satellites of Mars. And if

481
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: so quote they would be artificial satellites on a scale

482
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: al surpassing the fondest dreams of contemporary rocket engineers. Now again,

483
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: this hypothesis is no longer really viable given the evidence

484
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: that we have available to us today. But what what

485
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: a wild and wonderful idea? Yeah and uh, And Chicolosky

486
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,199
Speaker 1: continues to to to back this up and make some

487
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: arguments around it, So I'm gonna roll through some of

488
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,479
Speaker 1: them here. First of all, he says, this idea might

489
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,880
Speaker 1: seem fantastic at first glance, but it demands serious consideration

490
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 1: because a technologically advanced civilization would certainly be capable of

491
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: manufacturing and launching such an advanced satellite. And if Mars

492
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: did not have any natural moons. The establishment of artificial

493
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: moons would be a greatly important endeavor to any native civilization,

494
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: or presumably, and this is just my reading of it,

495
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: any civilization that took a strong interest in the planet.

496
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: Further More, Shaklovsky says it it would be much easier

497
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: for a Martian presence to launch a satellite h than

498
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 1: for you know, earthlings to launch the satellite due to

499
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: the reduced Martian gravity, less work is required to get

500
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: something into orbit. And also quote, conceivably, the capture and

501
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: hollowing of a small asteroid might be technically more feasible

502
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: than the construction in orbit of an artificial satellite with

503
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: material brought from the surface. In our future, uh, he says,

504
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: we too might construct such artificial satellites, and if we

505
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: pass on into extinction, well, those satellites might remain. And

506
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: if so, quote, we cannot reasonably assess these possibilities, but

507
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: it does seem conceivable that the lifetime of our artificial

508
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: satellites may exceed the lifetime of our civilization. These satellites

509
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: would then remain as unique and striking monuments to a

510
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: vanished species which had once flourished on the planet. Earth.

511
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: So hypothetically, if Mars had once harbored advanced life forms

512
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: and they developed an advance enough civilization, they might have

513
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: established such artificial satellites have some hundreds of millions of

514
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,719
Speaker 1: years ago. So again, to be very clear, it is

515
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: not currently the case that there is evidence to that

516
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: points strongly to an artificial origin for these moons, though

517
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: of course all the interesting mysteries about their natural origins remain.

518
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: But to add to the beauty of this idea, uh,

519
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: there's another fact about Phobos I wanted to add, which

520
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: is that it is thought to have a a very

521
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: thick layer of powdery regulars all around the outside of it,

522
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: So it has, uh, it's it's often thought to be

523
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: very deep. I've read estimates that it's like a hundred

524
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: meters deep, so it's like, you know, over three hundred

525
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: feet deep of this powdery dusty material, this regulars on

526
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: the outside of it, which which gives the possibility that

527
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: if in this alternate universe scenario where these moons were

528
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: artificial creations of ancient technology, you could literally maybe uncover

529
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: surface features of them indicating artificial origin by dusting, by

530
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: moving the dust away, you know, like like the movie

531
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: scene where you wipe the sand off of a sign

532
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: and see the writing on it. Yeah, blow the dust

533
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,719
Speaker 1: off of the the artifact and determine what it is,

534
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 1: except I guess would be a hundred meters of dust.

535
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: So that be that's that's mega dust. Now. You know,

536
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: we were talking about the difference between, you know, coming

537
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: up with a controversial hypothesis versus just running wild with

538
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: the radical ideas. And it seems it seems like Shaklovsky

539
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: was mindful of this as well, because he points out

540
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: that that there are stronger and less favorable versions of

541
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: this kind of line of thinking. He points out that

542
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: Soviet researcher and someone who's who would later come to

543
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: be known as the father of Russian ufo ology, Felix Ziegel,

544
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: had an even more extreme notion. Uh, perhaps Phobos and demos.

545
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: Zigel argued, perhaps they weren't discovered by the astronomer Herschel

546
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: during the favorable Martian opposition. That means, you know, the

547
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: closeness of Mars to Earth and therefore it's increased um

548
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 1: visibility via telescope. Perhaps Herschel didn't discover these moons in

549
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two and instead they were discovered by this

550
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: by a smaller telescope in eighteen seventy seven, because they

551
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: were not there in eighteen sixty two. Rather, they were

552
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: launched after eighteen sixty two by an existing Mars civilization,

553
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: and therefore, uh, were there to be discovered in eighteen

554
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: seventy seven seems implausible, yes, And Shiklowski dismisses this notion

555
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: for several reasons, in part because the naval telescope that

556
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: was actually used to discover the moons, while smaller, was

557
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: still superior to Herschel's, and he contends that if Yeah,

558
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: the Shilklowski is very into this idea that the moons

559
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: could be artificial, but he's like, the only way this

560
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: works is if they were also ancient. There's no way

561
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: that these were just launched in the past few years. Uh.

562
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: And part of that also comes down to, you know,

563
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 1: we've discussed this in terms before, like one of the

564
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: rules of of observing the cosmos is to realize that

565
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: or to work from the vantage point that we have

566
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: we do not have a privileged place in the universe, uh,

567
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: in space or in time. So the idea that we

568
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: just happened to be looking at Mars one day and

569
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: there were no moons, and then we're looking at it

570
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: years later and there are moons because they were launched

571
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: in the interim. That's just it's just too perfect. It's

572
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: it's just too unlikely. And this is actually one of

573
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: the reasons that Klowski says that that he thinks that,

574
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: you know, another reason that that Phobos could have potentially

575
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: been some sort of an artificial creation. He points out

576
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: that it's eventual crash into Mars means that we are

577
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: in the unlikely position of viewing the moon during its

578
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: final days. Um, I mean, you can argue that we're

579
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,040
Speaker 1: not really talking about days, We're talking about millions and

580
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: millions of years. Uh, it's just astronomically speaking, their days.

581
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: And he argued that it was quote an unlikely but

582
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: not impossible coincidence. Now all of this being said, Chicosi

583
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,800
Speaker 1: also insisted that if ancient Mars was truly this advanced,

584
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: advanced enough to create huge artificial satellites and either construct

585
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 1: them in orbit, make them out of asteroids, or launched

586
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: them into orbit around Mars, then we will we're bound

587
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: to eventually discover evidence of this civilization, not only you know,

588
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: via the satellites of Mars, but also Mars itself during

589
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: the future exploration of the red planet. And as far

590
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: as the moons themselves go, he said, well, eventually we're

591
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: going to conduct fly bys and the and the images

592
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,359
Speaker 1: that we gain from these, this will shed light on them.

593
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: Will they have special shapes for example? And of course

594
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: the answer would prove to be yes, but also sort

595
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,800
Speaker 1: of no as well, because as we've discussed, like, Phobos

596
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: does have an unusual shape, but it is it a

597
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: special shape? Is it? Is it a shape that that

598
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: screams um artificial construction? Um? I think pretty much everybody

599
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: would argue no. I can't wait to read the articles

600
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: about how no, actually the shape of a Yukon gold

601
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: potato is the perfect shape for for an orbital launch

602
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: platform or whatever. This thing was supposed to be a

603
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 1: space elevator. And I think that's what some of the

604
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 1: It's aliens people are saying today, that uh, that that

605
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: Phobos was an ancient Martian space elevator. Once again, there

606
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: is no strong evidence of this. Is I mean, it's

607
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: find a play around, have fun speculating about that. But

608
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: you know, understand the difference between playing with an idea

609
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: and saying like that there's actually strong evidence for it,

610
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: there is not, right, Yeah, because because certainly Schoklovsky ultimately

611
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:51,239
Speaker 1: contended it while his own hypothesis was scientifically sound at

612
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: the time, though there were some uh, there were some

613
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,320
Speaker 1: arguments and some and certainly some opposition to his ideas

614
00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: and people saying, well, I don't think we need to

615
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: go that far and try try to explain phobos um.

616
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: Schoklovsky still acknowledged that future explorations would put his hypothesis

617
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: to the test and that it very well could prove incorrect.

618
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: And if it proved incorrect, though, uh, then it would

619
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: have still served the purpose of forcing people to think

620
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: about the sorts of advanced work that aliens cultures would

621
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: have constructed or could have constructed, and what would remain

622
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: of them, and therefore what we could potentially look for, uh,

623
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: in terms of of evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence and extraterrestrial life. Yeah.

624
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 1: And of course, one of the signs of a good

625
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:40,239
Speaker 1: hypothesis is that it makes specific predictions that can be

626
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: tested in the future, right, and uh, you know, and

627
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: again this means nothing to people who want to run

628
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 1: wild with the idea that Phobos is hollow, and as

629
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: an ancient space elevator, I was looking around briefly and

630
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: I ran across one of these pages and they referred

631
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 1: to Schklovsky here, but they referred to his quote unquote findings,

632
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: uh as if he had proven, uh, you know, without

633
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: any doubt that Phobos was a hollow artificial satellite, and

634
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: that just that is absolutely not the case, exactly right.

635
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: But coming back to the original thing leading people off

636
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: in this direction, while it's not indication of an artificial origin,

637
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: there is something interesting about the composition of these moons.

638
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: I mean, so like, if you look at Phobos, it

639
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: has weird density. It seems very low density for a

640
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: moon or an object of this type. So that leads

641
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: to other questions like what would be the cause of

642
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: this low density in the moon if it's not, you know,

643
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: a hollow alien spaceship or something, which again it's not,

644
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 1: and what would be the implications of that low density.

645
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: And this leads us into our next section because we

646
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: have some current hypotheses that hold that the density problem

647
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: is likely solved by in some cases, large spaces within

648
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: Phobos that are not areas that were hollowed out by

649
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: an ancient civilization, but could be due to just the

650
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: the the structural qualities of Phobos itself, the way it

651
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: came together as essentially a big old heap of space junk, right,

652
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 1: And this ties into something else I was reading, actually,

653
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 1: so I was looking at a NASA feature from by

654
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Zubritzky called Mars Moon. Phobos is slowly falling apart. So,

655
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 1: as we mentioned already, Phobos is doomed to spiral into

656
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: Mars and either crash into it or break up and

657
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:34,400
Speaker 1: become rings. This will probably not happen for tens of

658
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: millions more years. Actually, the estimates I've seen for this

659
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: or sort of all over the place. Some say this

660
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,879
Speaker 1: will happen in thirty to fifty million years, some say

661
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 1: fifty million years, some say a hundred million years. Um.

662
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 1: So I don't think that there's an actual really tight,

663
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: you know limit on that pin down, but it seems somewhere,

664
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:55,919
Speaker 1: you know, thirty to a hundred million years from now

665
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: it is expected to break apart into a ring or

666
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,439
Speaker 1: crash into Mars. Probably more likely break apart into a ring,

667
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 1: which is still pretty close in astronomical time. H Yeah, Well, again,

668
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 1: we're only looking at the end days. Astronomically, from a

669
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 1: human standpoint, this is so far in the future that

670
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 1: it's it's it's hard to imagine that these will truly

671
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: be humans that observe it, if humans are around to

672
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: observe it at all. Right, But you remember last time

673
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: how we talked about we were looking at surface features

674
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: of Phobos, and one of the things we talked about

675
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: where the cat scratches, you know, these long grooves along

676
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:35,439
Speaker 1: the surface of the moon. And so what explains those grooves. Well,

677
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,240
Speaker 1: in this article it quotes a researcher named Terry Herford

678
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 1: of NASA Goddard who says, we think that Phobos has

679
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: already started to fail, and the first sign of this

680
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 1: failure is the production of these grooves. And so Zubritsky

681
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: writes that quote. Phobos grooves were long thought to be

682
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: fractures caused by the impact that formed the Stickney Crater.

683
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: Remember the Stickney cra It is that huge crater on

684
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: one face side of Phobos that was named after Angeline Stickney,

685
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: who worked on observing Mars during the eighteen seventies along

686
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:13,320
Speaker 1: with her husband ASoft Hall. But coming back to this article,

687
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: so the idea was that you had this crater caused

688
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 1: by a collision with Phobos long ago quote that collision

689
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,360
Speaker 1: was so powerful it came close to shattering Phobos. However,

690
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: scientists eventually determined that the grooves don't radiate outward from

691
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: the crater itself, but from a focal point nearby. More recently,

692
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:37,240
Speaker 1: researchers have proposed that the grooves may instead be produced

693
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: by many smaller impacts of material ejected from Mars. But

694
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: new modeling by Herford and colleagues supports the view that

695
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: the grooves are more like stretch marks that occur when

696
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: Phobos gets deformed by tidal forces. Now these would be

697
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 1: tidal forces caused by its close orbit around Mars. Now,

698
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: remember title forces occur when they're is a significant difference

699
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: in gravitational forces felt by different parts of the same object,

700
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 1: So when something is orbiting close to a huge object,

701
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:13,479
Speaker 1: it will often experience tidal forces. A very extreme case

702
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: of tidal forces would be the idea of spaghettification, the

703
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: much celebrated way of dying as you go into a

704
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: black hole. As the if you're falling feet first, the

705
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: gradient of gravitational uh forces that you feel as you

706
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 1: fall into the black hole are so extreme that the

707
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: difference between the forces on your feet and the forces

708
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 1: on your head would sort of stretch you out like

709
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 1: a noodle. But in more mundane scenarios, tidal forces are

710
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 1: also responsible for things like the actual tides right. You know,

711
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 1: as as Earth in the Moon orbit each other, they

712
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: exert gravitational influences that are not evenly distributed on the

713
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 1: entire sphere of the other body, but they pull like

714
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: specifically at the at the facing equatorial region of the

715
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: other body, right, And so this results in tides in

716
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: the water on Earth. But also you can see that

717
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: the spheres of Earth in the Moon are also kind

718
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,720
Speaker 1: of the kind of bulge out at the middle around

719
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 1: the regions where they're they're most pulled on by the

720
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: other body. Now, in the case of Phobos, it was

721
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,959
Speaker 1: once thought that tidal forces should not be strong enough

722
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: to be stretching apart a moon like this, But that

723
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: was when Phobos was assumed to be solid all the

724
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: way through at the time of this writing, and I

725
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,320
Speaker 1: wonder how this idea has matured since then. It's possible

726
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: that there have been some arguments against it in the meantime,

727
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: but at least at this time. In these findings from

728
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 1: from NASA, Goddard were that the interior of Phobos is

729
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: more likely to be this kind of loose collection of

730
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,879
Speaker 1: rubble is sometimes referred to as a rubble pile, and

731
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: that it's all just sort of barely stuck together and

732
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: then quote surrounded by a layer of powdery regular about

733
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,399
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty feet or a hundred meters thick

734
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:01,879
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, right, So on this model, you've got

735
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: this blanket of dusty powdery regular sort of uh, sort

736
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 1: of like acting like the bindle sack for a bunch

737
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: of rocks that are just barely loosely held together by gravity.

738
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 1: So if this model is correct, then there's actually not

739
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: all that much holding the core of Phobos together. It's

740
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 1: just a bunch of junk kind of loosely stuck together

741
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: by gravity rather than a single massive rocky core, and

742
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,360
Speaker 1: title forces will have a much easier time ripping it

743
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: apart than it would ripping apart something that was more solid.

744
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: And again, mythologically speaking, I think this sounds perfect. The

745
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: idea of the war God's son being this this fast

746
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: and fearful uh creature on the battlefield but ultimately he's

747
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: just this, this wreck, this just partially hollow, falling apart, doomed,

748
00:43:55,719 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: you know, wraith of a warrior. Now, we've been looking

749
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 1: a lot at Phobos, and to be fair, I mean,

750
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:09,279
Speaker 1: I think there's a reason for that. Like a lot

751
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: of the real interest and research and big questions have

752
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: been focused on Phobos. But Demos is interesting too, So

753
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a quick look at Demos in particular. Yeah,

754
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: Demos is the smaller of the twins. It's nine by

755
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: seven by six point eight miles in size or fifteen

756
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: by twelve by eleven kilometers. It goes around Mars every

757
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 1: thirty hours. It doesn't have grooves and ridges like Phobos,

758
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 1: but it has plenty of craters. Uh. And while you

759
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: know normal craters on on other uh, you know, bodies

760
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 1: are surrounded by ejective from the impact, you know, the

761
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: stuff that gets launched up when that impact takes place.

762
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: Demos is gravity is low enough that impact ejecta achieves

763
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: escape velocity. Uh, So it doesn't fall just immediately fall

764
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: back down. Instead, the debris remains in a ring around

765
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: Dame Us, it seems, and then it's slowly redeposited on

766
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: its surface. Now, we talked in the last episode about how,

767
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,959
Speaker 1: even though Phobos is extremely small for a moon, it's

768
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 1: so close to Mars that when you look at it

769
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: from the surface, it looks pretty substantial in size. It's like,

770
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: not quite as big as the Moon looks from Earth,

771
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 1: but like a substantial fraction of it. You can see

772
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: it as a disk and not just a dot. The

773
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: same is not true for Demos. Right from the surface

774
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 1: of Mars, Damos would appear star like in the sky.

775
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: That's how small it would be. It would just look

776
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: like a star. Uh, you know, it would you know,

777
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 1: and they would stand out a little bit, but it

778
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 1: would essentially just look like a star. And that's that's

779
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: interesting because it runs counter intuitive to what we think

780
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 1: of when we think of a moon. Now, when it

781
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: comes to named craters on Demos, there are only two,

782
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: Swift and Voltaire, chosen for obvious reasons, because, as we

783
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 1: explored in our first episode, the works of Swift and

784
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,879
Speaker 1: Voltaire were early works that alluded to Mars having two

785
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: moons in advance of those two moons actually being discovered.

786
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: But I was reading in uh In Broca's Brain, the

787
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: book by Carl Sagan Um. He has a whole section

788
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: where he goes into like the naming of Mars. He

789
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: lists a bunch of the different gods in addition to

790
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: the gods that we uh that we discussed, that have

791
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: been associated in different cultures with the planet Mars. Uh.

792
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:26,280
Speaker 1: And he shares that in addition to Swift and Voltaire,

793
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:31,280
Speaker 1: he wanted to name a third crater of Demos after Um,

794
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: after Renee Uh Margretti a Belgian surrealist whose paintings featured

795
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:41,359
Speaker 1: large rocks and suspended in the sky. Or at least

796
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 1: two of his paintings depicted large rocks suspended in the sky,

797
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:49,319
Speaker 1: and they reminded Sagan of the Martian moons quote. The

798
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: suggestion was, however, voted down as frivolous. But if you

799
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:56,279
Speaker 1: look up some of these of these paintings by the

800
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: artists like that, they are really cool. They don't you know,

801
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,800
Speaker 1: they don't look exactly like uh for Boss and Demos,

802
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: but they are the surrealist images of large rock craggy

803
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:09,399
Speaker 1: boulders suspended in the sky over the ocean or a landscape.

804
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: In one case there's a castle on top of one

805
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:15,720
Speaker 1: of these boulders. In another case, you see uh crescent

806
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:18,920
Speaker 1: moon in the sky above it clearly an inspiration for

807
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: Czardas now um and obviously, you know, given it's a

808
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: very small moon, uh. And it is also further away

809
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:32,320
Speaker 1: from Mars and Phobos. And while Phobos, as we've discussed

810
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 1: several times already is faded to one day crash into

811
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 1: the red planet or break up against its power, Demos

812
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: is drifting further away and will one day escape Mars entirely. Uh.

813
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: Though from a mythological standpoint, this I like. I like

814
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: this too, because the this doomed, insane godling who will

815
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 1: one day earnest freedom, he'll one day escape the awful

816
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: war god uh that that he has served. But he's

817
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:00,760
Speaker 1: just gonna wander out into the waist of the Solar System,

818
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: perhaps crash into lesser deities or mortals and die by

819
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 1: bare hands instead, or just wander aimlessly. So that's it's

820
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: kind of perfect in its own way. Now we've talked

821
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 1: about the idea of missions to the moons of Mars

822
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: in order to study them and perhaps even return a

823
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,440
Speaker 1: sample from them that would allow us to better understand

824
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: where they come from and what they are. There's actually

825
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:26,840
Speaker 1: another one of these scheduled. It's Japan's Martian Moons Exploration

826
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: or the MMX mission of Jackson, the Japanese Space Agency,

827
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: which is currently scheduled to launch in and perform an

828
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:40,720
Speaker 1: orbital insertion around Mars in and so it would travel

829
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: to survey both of the planet's moons. And then the

830
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 1: idea is that it will land on Phobos and collect

831
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: a sample from Phobos to bring back to Earth for study.

832
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 1: And major scientific objectives of this mission would include determining

833
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: the origin of Phobos and Demos, so possibly answering these

834
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: big questions that we've been talking about all this research

835
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 1: on today. So are they actually captured asteroids that just

836
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: happened to have these very tidy orbits? Are they the

837
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: result of a giant impact with Mars long ago and

838
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 1: so forth? And uh? And also we should be able

839
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,839
Speaker 1: to study the history of Mars itself by looking at

840
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:21,359
Speaker 1: these moons. But as far as space exploration goes, there's

841
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 1: another interesting thing about the moon Phobos, which is that

842
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 1: it has often been proposed as a potentially useful base

843
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:32,760
Speaker 1: of operations for space missions. Yeah, for the same reason,

844
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:35,959
Speaker 1: Shklovsky outlined it would be advantageous to have a moon

845
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: like Phobos above your Mars. If Phobos did not exist,

846
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: it would be necessary to invent it. And since it

847
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: does exist, it would make a handy base. Yeah, And

848
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:48,759
Speaker 1: so one of the things is that it has been

849
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:53,880
Speaker 1: proposed as a remote control base of operations for surface

850
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,719
Speaker 1: robots on Mars. So this would eliminate the problem that

851
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:00,800
Speaker 1: when we want to control rovers and explore Asian vehicles

852
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: on the surface of Mars, there is a large time

853
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: delay between Earth and Mars where we have to wait

854
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: after we transmit a command signal for that signal to

855
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: reach the robot and it performs the operation, and then

856
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: we have to wait to receive feedback, and this can

857
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: be a while while you're just sitting there, you know,

858
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 1: waiting for your your signal, your remote control signal to

859
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,560
Speaker 1: reach the rover. And so that this can cause a

860
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: lot of slow down and difficulty in these kind of missions.

861
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,799
Speaker 1: If you could get your humans onto the surface of Phobos,

862
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: they could essentially control things operating on the surface of

863
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: Mars remotely in real time. And it would be better

864
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 1: trying to put humans on the surface of Phobos than

865
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: trying to put them on the surface of Mars itself.

866
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:48,719
Speaker 1: Because it's a lot easier to get back from the

867
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: surface of Phobos than it is to get back from

868
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 1: Mars itself. To get off of the surface of Mars,

869
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 1: you need a powerful rocket to leave the gravity well

870
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,240
Speaker 1: of the planet. Getting off of Phobos would be would

871
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:02,760
Speaker 1: be a cake walk in comparison. Now, of course, putting

872
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:05,240
Speaker 1: humans or even just probes on the surface of Phobos

873
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: would still be plenty difficult. And I was reading about

874
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 1: one possible complication that really fascinated me. This was in

875
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:14,919
Speaker 1: another NASA press release that I was looking at from

876
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: October of seventeen by Bills Stegerwald and Nancy Jones, and

877
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 1: it is about research suggesting that solar eruptions may have

878
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: a tendency to electrically charge up the surface of Phobos

879
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 1: two hundreds of volts quote, presenting a complex electrical environment

880
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:39,839
Speaker 1: that could possibly affect sensitive electronics carried by future robotic explorers,

881
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: according to a new NASA study. The study also considered

882
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 1: electrical charges that could develop as astronauts transit the surface

883
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 1: on potential human missions to Phobos, and they quote a

884
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 1: researcher named William Farrell of NASA Goddard who says, we

885
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:01,360
Speaker 1: found that astronauts or rovers could accumulate it's significant electric

886
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: charges when traversing the night side of Phobos, the side

887
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: facing Mars during the Martian day. So why would this happen?

888
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: Why would Phobos turn into a giant Ben Franklin Turkey

889
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,240
Speaker 1: killing jar. Well, fortunately, the electric charge is not quite

890
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,280
Speaker 1: that powerful. I think it is not at the Turkey

891
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: killing jar levels. It seems unlikely that it would be

892
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:25,480
Speaker 1: in the human injury range at least most of the time,

893
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: but it might be enough to screw up sensors and

894
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: sensitive or delicate electronic equipment. So what gives What would

895
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: cause this? Well, Phobos and Demos both have no atmosphere,

896
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 1: and they are exposed to solar wind, which is a

897
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 1: giant stream of charged particles. You can think of it

898
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 1: as a kind of electric gas that's blowing off of

899
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:49,279
Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun in every direction at a

900
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 1: million miles per hour. So solar wind hits the day

901
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 1: side of Phobos, that would be the side that's facing

902
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 1: the Sun, and some of the plasma gets absorbed on

903
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 1: the day side, but then the rest flows around the

904
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 1: rocky mass of Phobos, and this creates a void of

905
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:10,239
Speaker 1: solar wind on the night side of Phobos and the

906
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:12,759
Speaker 1: solar wind is made up of two major types of

907
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 1: charge particles. You've got electrons, which of course are negative,

908
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,239
Speaker 1: and then you've got ions, pieces of atoms that can

909
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:22,399
Speaker 1: be positively charged. And the electrons are much lighter than

910
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 1: the ions. So the article again quotes William Farrell of

911
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: NASA Goddard, who says, quote, the electrons act like fighter jets.

912
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:33,359
Speaker 1: They're able to turn quickly around an obstacle, and the

913
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:37,600
Speaker 1: ions are like big, heavy bombers. They change directions slowly.

914
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: This means that the light electrons push in ahead of

915
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,680
Speaker 1: the heavy ions, and the resulting electric field forces the

916
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: ions into the plasma void behind Phobos. According to our models,

917
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 1: and so the result is that the night side of

918
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:57,560
Speaker 1: Phobos builds up significant static electricity. Quote. The study shows

919
00:53:57,600 --> 00:54:00,800
Speaker 1: that this plasma void behind Phobos make a to situation

920
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:05,840
Speaker 1: where astronauts and rovers build up significant electric charges. For example,

921
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: if astronauts were to walk across the night side surface,

922
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: friction could transfer charge from the dust and rock on

923
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:16,879
Speaker 1: the surface to their space suits. This dust and rock

924
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 1: is a very poor conductor of electricity, so the charge

925
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,200
Speaker 1: can't flow back easily into the surface. And charge starts

926
00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:26,320
Speaker 1: to build up on the space suits. On the day side,

927
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 1: the electrically conducting solar wind and solar ultra violet radiation

928
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 1: can remove the excess charge on the suit. But on

929
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 1: the night side, the ion and electron densities in the

930
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:40,120
Speaker 1: trailing plasma void are so low they cannot compensate or

931
00:54:40,239 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 1: dissipate the charge build up. And so the team looked

932
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:46,280
Speaker 1: into this and they found that the static charge could

933
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: reach up to ten thousand volts on some materials that

934
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: would be moving across the surface. And some of those

935
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 1: materials would include like the teflon suits that that astronauts

936
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 1: have used in the Apollo lunar missions. And of course

937
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:02,000
Speaker 1: this leads so you hold up a gigantic static electric

938
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: charge on your space suit and then you go and

939
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: touch something. It's like you know when when you you

940
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 1: shuffle across the carpet and then use zap your family members.

941
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 1: They also point out that this is always going to

942
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: be the case when solar wind is blowing onto Phobos,

943
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 1: but it's going to be especially bad during heavy sun weather,

944
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: such as in the wake of a coronal mass ejection.

945
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 1: So astronauts on the surface of phobos might need. I

946
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: don't know that they may need mitigation measures for this,

947
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: somehow to avoid accumulating static electricity in this way. I

948
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 1: was wondering. I was looking it up. Do they make

949
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: those anti static socks I've seen before. I don't know

950
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 1: if those actually work. Those might be a scam. I've

951
00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:41,239
Speaker 1: never really looked into it. Oh yeah, I mean, I

952
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:43,759
Speaker 1: guess they'd be useful if you're touching a lot of

953
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:48,239
Speaker 1: electronics and stuff. But if you're just like a kid,

954
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:51,120
Speaker 1: they seem like a horrible invention. Why would you take

955
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 1: this gift of static electricity away from them? Oh? I

956
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 1: know you. You like zapping people, don't you. Um. I

957
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 1: actually don't zap people as much in intentionally. But one

958
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 1: thing that my son and I have always enjoyed is

959
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:08,600
Speaker 1: if the if atmospheric conditions are right, he can go

960
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:13,239
Speaker 1: down a slide at a playground and he'll build up

961
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:15,799
Speaker 1: that electric charge on the way down, and then he

962
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:17,839
Speaker 1: can give me a high five, and when he gets

963
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the slide and it will be

964
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 1: what we call an electric high five, because it will

965
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:24,880
Speaker 1: be an actual static shock to it. So I do

966
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 1: go if that a lot? Uh, you know, always a

967
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:30,520
Speaker 1: hit with the kids. That's so beautiful I'm gonna cry.

968
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:33,800
Speaker 1: But as far as Phobos goes this, this whole scenario

969
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:35,799
Speaker 1: you just discussed here, it made me think like this

970
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 1: would be perfect. You have like a Phobos space Western

971
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:43,440
Speaker 1: kind of like the Sean Connery movie Outlander. Um Outland

972
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:49,879
Speaker 1: not Outlander. Yes, yes, the Killed TV show, uh, which

973
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:52,359
Speaker 1: which is also entertaining. But now this is this is uh,

974
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 1: this is a space Western scenario where you have your

975
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: astronaut and he's been left for dead, uh, you know,

976
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: on the far side of Phobos. But he's not dead.

977
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 1: So he comes trooping back walking across the waste land

978
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:08,480
Speaker 1: of Phobos, just building up static electricity with each vengeful

979
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 1: step until he can get back to the habitat and

980
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:17,040
Speaker 1: and zap his killers or would be killers. Brutal. Yeah.

981
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 1: I don't know if the science completely works, but I

982
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:21,560
Speaker 1: think there's enough science there that you could make it

983
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 1: work in a science fiction property. Well hey, okay, so

984
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: we love the cool idea of the holo Phobos, but

985
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: there's not good evidence that it's actually true. Put it

986
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: in the science fiction movie. Uh, the there is actually

987
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 1: evidence that you get this electric build up on Phobos'

988
00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 1: is probably not enough to do the like electric weapon

989
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 1: idea you want to do, but they put it in

990
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:45,000
Speaker 1: the science fiction movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you use it

991
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:47,960
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point to create your your your

992
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:51,920
Speaker 1: science flavored fantasy. I'm all for that. All right, Well,

993
00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:54,720
Speaker 1: there you habit. We're gonna go ahead and close out

994
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 1: our look at the moons of Mars. We'll hope you

995
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:01,680
Speaker 1: and enjoyed this. We enjoyed it, and you know it's

996
00:58:01,680 --> 00:58:06,919
Speaker 1: a great opportunity to bust out some planetary uh information,

997
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:10,320
Speaker 1: to discuss mythology a bit, and uh, I guess the

998
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:12,440
Speaker 1: big question is would you like us to continue this

999
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: journey now that we have started it again? Should we

1000
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:18,800
Speaker 1: move on to other moons, other planets? Uh, you know,

1001
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:21,040
Speaker 1: even planets that that don't have moons. I don't know

1002
00:58:21,040 --> 00:58:22,919
Speaker 1: if we've I can't remember if we've ever ever done

1003
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:26,240
Speaker 1: like a proper look at the planet Mercury. I know

1004
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: we've looked at at Venus a few times, but I

1005
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 1: don't know that we've really looked at Mercury. So may

1006
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's uh in the cards. Let us know.

1007
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,760
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, If

1008
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:39,440
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Stuff to

1009
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, well, you can find us anywhere you

1010
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:44,320
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Go to the Stuff to Blow your

1011
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: Mind Podcasts feed you'll find core science and culture episodes

1012
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. On Tuesdays and Thursdays,

1013
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 1: we publish artifacts on Wednesday's listener Mail. On Monday's Friday's

1014
00:58:54,840 --> 00:58:57,720
Speaker 1: that's when we bust out weird how Cinema. That's our

1015
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 1: time to just discuss some weird movies and sometimes there's

1016
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 1: a little science sprinkled in there. And then on the

1017
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:04,880
Speaker 1: weekends we do a bit of a rerun. Yeah, I

1018
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: gotta catch them all huge things. As always to our

1019
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:11,120
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

1020
00:59:11,160 --> 00:59:13,120
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1021
00:59:13,160 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,

1022
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,720
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1023
00:59:18,760 --> 00:59:28,880
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1024
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:31,400
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For

1025
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:34,280
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1026
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