WEBVTT - How Mars Works 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.200 Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:12.720 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.560 Josh Clarkner's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there. We 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:21.520 all have um I boogers because this is an early morning, unusual, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.599 early morning edition of Stuff you Should Know. Welcome to 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.880 the morning edition. We should just talk like this. We 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.800 got on NPR. We got taken to task in its 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.960 nine email from a morning talk show TV show host. 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.000 Did you see it? Uh about the inquisition? Yeah, He's like, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.960 way to release the inquisition on Ash Wednesdays, kind of 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.440 slapping the face. Five respond I said, actually, it came 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.199 out on fat Tuesday and by sheer coincidence. He's like, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.760 thanks for the reply, and I responded to him too. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:51.440 I was like, man, I wish I was that clever 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.920 who said I had no idea. It's like our our 0:00:55.000 --> 0:01:02.200 medical marijuana episode being our four utter complete coincidence. Guaranteed everybody. 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.520 I think over the course of six hundred plus shows, 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.880 you're gonna have some weird coincidences like that. You know, Yes, 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.160 I certainly didn't know it was Ash Wednesday. I didn't 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.680 either until I went to the mall yesterday evening and 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.080 a third of the people are were walking around with 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.560 charcoal crosses on their forehead. Nice. It's like, I had 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:23.040 no idea Atlanta had this many Catholics, good going, They're 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.960 everywhere there are Well, I mean that didn't use to 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.880 because you know, I grew u Baptist here and I 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.640 didn't know many Catholics growing up. But well, Atlanta became 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.839 a transplant towns instead, exactly. And I'll tell you about 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:39.400 another transplant chuck. Possibly life here on Earth from Mars. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.600 Oh yeah, is this your intro? Have you got breaking news? No? 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.200 That was it. Oh do you remember we did an 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:52.360 episode on UM the Origin of life on Earth? Remember? Uh? 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.760 Oh yeah, yeah. And one of the possibilities that it 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:59.480 was from Mars. And one of the um pieces of 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:05.800 evidence of this possibility was the Alan Hills Rock from Antarctica, 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:11.720 a Martian meteorite that was discovered in that was studied 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.399 and studied and they thought in basically Bill Clinton said, 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.359 we found evidence of life on Mars. And then they 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.040 studied it again and they were like, maybe not. And 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.480 now they're studying it again they're saying, yeah, it's possible. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.440 It's very possible that this four point one billion year 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:33.280 old rock is showing evidence of fossilized nano bacteria. And 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.040 this is all still Bill Clinton saying this. It is 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.720 underwear at home the authority. He's talking to the TV again. 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.799 Nice uh, but yeah, we're gonna do how Mars works. 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:51.760 Tom Hanks, this one's for you, big space guy. Oh yeah, sure, Okay, 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:53.640 I didn't know if I was missing something there, like 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.600 he did some movie that didn't know about. No, if 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.119 I said Gary CINESI, this one's for you, there would 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:01.760 be a mission to Mars reference. I did not see that. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.560 Mind bogglingly odd and pretty bad. Yeah, I heard, That's 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:07.200 why I didn't see it. That and Red Planet didn't 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:11.120 see either. One of those Red Planet I don't know about. Yeah, 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.480 but that kind of brings us to a point that 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.560 we've long been fascinated with the Red Planet, going back 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.720 to you know, War the Worlds and early science fiction 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:24.320 and Martians, and Mars has just always captivated us because 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.560 you know, sometimes you can see it with a telescope 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.320 and it's not like what's on the other side of 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.720 Venus Venus. Yeah, we don't know much about Venus mystery. 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.920 There are no Venusians that we're afraid will come down 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.400 here and attack us. I think it's Venusians Venetians, which 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.880 is different from Venetians, which are people from Venice, which, 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.200 strangely enough, UM kind of coincides with the guy named 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.960 Giovanni shia Parelli. He might not have been from Venice, 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.680 but that man was definitely from Italy. Do you think, 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.000 yeah he was? Can you say his name for everybody? Chuck? 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:04.400 Who Givanni? Really? That was good? Man? Have you been 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.480 practicing at all? No? I just don't even want of pasta. 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:12.880 That's good stuff, man. So Um Shipprelli in eighteen seventy 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:17.080 seven decided to draw a map of Mars, and his 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.520 conception of Mars, what became the popular conception, if it 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:25.320 wasn't already UM, was that Mars was a UM, a 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:30.440 lush planet with civilizations, and he named the regions of 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:37.360 Mars accordingly, like Elysium, which which UM culture believed that 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.040 that was Heaven. I don't know, I can't remember, man, 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.600 I haven't heard that. We you know, we've discussed it before, Elysium. 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:49.680 I haven't retained that. UM. Another part was called Utopia Arcadia, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.360 basically all these different names for paradise reflected the idea 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.000 that Mars was a very similar to Earth, most likely 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:04.200 inhabited by intelligent beings and um. As proof, uh Sia 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.680 Parelli drew canals that he noticed on the on Mars, 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:13.400 which suggested that this advanced civilization had dug canals to 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.839 um route water from the polar ice caps, which are 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:22.279 visible here on Earth, to the central locations where their 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.039 civilizations were get water to the Martians. Yeah, and this 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.520 established like what Earthlings thought of Mars for a hundred 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.679 years almost. Yeah. About forty years after that, a US 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.520 astronomer named Percival Lowell Um wrote a book also about Mars, 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.279 where he actually talked about civilizations and h The problem 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.120 was he he wasn't really based on anything. It might 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:46.840 as well have been science fiction, right, and yet they 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.520 named the Lowell Observatory after him. He was an astronomer, 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.520 so it's not like he was He wasn't just making 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:55.440 stuff up, but he didn't have like hard evidence. He 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.400 made a lot of stuff up. Okay, he well, he 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.080 interpreted it without any evidence. Yeah, and then wrote a book, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:07.080 and that became the impetus for Mars based science fiction. Yeah. 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.919 It really captured folks. And that's when, like I talked about, 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.400 were the world's and uh Edgar Rice Burrows the Princess 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.400 of Mars, and it's just always been just out there 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.640 staring down at it. Yeah, speaking of war the world's. 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:22.680 It even says it in this article. It did not 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.920 cause the national panic in night. That's a myth. Did 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.640 you know that? Um? I don't know. I'm not sure 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.280 I knew the full stories. Supposedly when h when um 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:39.600 uh who directed Citizen King? When Orson Wells carried out 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.000 this radio? Yeah, yeah, it's scared everyone, right, it caused 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.840 a panic, people for wild in the streets, committing suicide, 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.600 like doing all sorts of stuff. No, it isn't true. Um. 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:53.159 Apparently the newspapers got wind of this rumor and played 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.720 it up. And um, the reason they played it up 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:58.920 was to prove that radio couldn't be trusted as a 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.080 source of news because it was a big competitor to 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.120 newspapers at the time. Have you done Don't Be Dumb 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.960 on that? No? Maybe I will? Can I plug that? 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.640 Go ahead? Josh? As a web series called Don't Be Dumb? 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:17.640 That is very funny and uh strange and you learned stuff. 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.200 It's like the perfect one to three punch. Weird funny 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.000 and you walk away with some knowledge. Thanks man, And 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.280 everyone likes it that watches it, So we just need 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.120 more people to watch it. Give me the weird sausage fingers. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:35.239 Steve McQueen clap. That's that is weird? Oh the director? 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.160 Oh yeah, he was clapping weird, wouldn't he at the oscar? 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.240 Apparently he and um, the screenwriter who won an oscar 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.080 for that movie for Twelve Years of Slave do not 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.760 like each other over the writing credit. Oh yeah, the 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.480 writer walked right past him, and Steve McQueen didn't even 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.120 turn to look at him as he was walking up 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.760 to get his oscar. I did kind of notice that. Yeah, well, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.520 if you read delisted, he rooted it out and found 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.640 out that it was over a writing question credit. Is 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.440 that why he was clapping weirdly? He was showing his 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:09.080 this thing with sausage weird. Al right, So, um, this 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.840 weird early fascination with Mars, Like I said, we didn't 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:13.840 have a lot of information other than just sort of 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.040 looking at it from earth. Um, And it wasn't until 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.840 the sixties and seventies that we started in many countries 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:25.960 started exploring Mars, but we started sending UM orbiters to 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.880 take a closer peak, and then eventually orbiters led to 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:33.480 landers and rovers and it's been like kind of a 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.920 prime directive of NASA for a while. Yeah, one of them, 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.720 and and it was UM. When they scrapped the Space 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.840 Shuttle UM program. I remember NASA was saying like, don't 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.600 worry everybody, We're gonna go to Mars. We're gonna focus 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.640 on Mars. That's why we're not doing the Shuttle anymore. UM. 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.440 And apparently they are. There was just as recently as 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.760 yesterday NASA testified about its budget and UM and they 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:00.840 were saying, well, we've got a really great thing plan. 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.520 We're gonna get this asteroid. We're gonna maneuver it with 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.240 a robot into lunar orbit so we can go visit 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.800 it later. And the Senators at this hearing basically said boring, 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.520 like yeah, they're like, what's this backup Mars mission listed? 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:17.720 And they're like, oh, well, we're talking about doing a 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:23.439 man fly by a venus and Mars. The senators are like, Mars, Mars, Mars. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.520 So it looks like NASA is gonna be forced to 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:27.480 go to Mars, whether they like it or not. So 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.840 it's still captivating. If it's captivating. The dumb dums in Congress, well, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.280 they even said, like the asteroid mission, that's not gonna 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.640 spur the public, the public imagination, like going past sending 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.079 a person past Mars, that's what you want to do, NASA. 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.480 And NASA's like, all right, but it's gonna we could 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.640 probably mind the asteroid And the senators I went Mars, Mars, Mars, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.640 and they all went to a bar afterward. Yeah again, Jim, 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.160 you want to go to Mars. And he was like, 0:09:56.200 --> 0:10:00.480 all right, I guess so. Um, all right, so where 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.280 should we start here? Um, well, let's start with the 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.320 origin of Mars. It seems pretty appropriate. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:13.640 I love how scientists piece together ancient history of the cosmos, 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.600 you know, without having ever sent a geologist there. It's 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.480 all I mean, even before the rovers, it was basically 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.480 all just based on photographs and and and surmising from those. 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.320 Now we've got the Curiosity rover, the third rover up there. 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.480 It's still up there, right, yeah, yeah, or it didn't 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:35.000 come home, does it? No, it will, It's yeah, um, 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:36.880 and they were thinking, I think it was a two 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:38.839 year mission, but it could go longer than that. I 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.000 think it's already gone a little longer than that, because 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:42.800 I think it went isn't really already. I think it 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.800 went up in late two thousand eleven, So I think 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.320 it's been there a little over two years. Well, good 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.800 going curiosity. I might be wrong. Um. All right, So 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:57.000 there's basically five things that they surmise happened to four Mars, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:01.120 which will will list and then get into in more detail. Um. 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:06.720 It initially formed from clumping together of little tiny objects 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.480 until it made a big round planet as an accretion disk. Yeah, 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.400 like just like Earth, just like Earth. Uh. Then there 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.640 was a lot of meteor bombardment all over the Solar System, 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.040 and Mars was of course affected just like Earth, just 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.560 like Earth. In the Moon, the mantle was very hot 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.400 and pushed through the crust, lifting up portions of it, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.679 just like And then there were a couple of uh 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:31.520 they don't know how many, but at least a couple 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:36.160 of periods of lots of volcanoes going on it, just 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.800 like lava flows. And then finally the planet cooled down 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.400 and the atmosphere thned out to leave this with Mars, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:48.600 unlike Earth, right, Uh, and it Mars formation was virtually 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.800 identical of the process that formed Earth. It's about half 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.640 the size, but there in the beginning, as far as 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.240 makeup and the processes that they were undergoing, they were 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.559 virtually identical. Yeah, and being half the size is pretty 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:06.640 key to uh, why it's not like Earth more um 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.280 one of the reasons. So I guess we should get 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.520 into some more detail about this, huh. I think the 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.760 accretion that you talked about, the small objects about it 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.360 took about a hundred thousand years, and as the gravitational 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:20.400 field got stronger, it kept pulling in more of this 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:24.199 stuff and it would crash into the planet and uh 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.079 and get hot basically and just sort of meld together. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.160 It was like, oh, Mars, And that was interesting. I 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.400 looked at why planets around and the reason why it's 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.480 because the gravitational field and the spin. Uh, it's sucking 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.880 everything into the dense core. Yeah, well it's the core. 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.560 The gravitational field behaves like it's coming from the center, 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.120 and everything else thinks it's coming from the center. So 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.280 the only way to get everything is close to the center. 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.440 As possible is to make a sphere like obviously, if 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.640 you had a square, that would be a corner that's 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:01.800 not as close as other parts. It would be a 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.280 creepy planet like a cube. Yeah, but I wondered, you know, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.160 or why doesn't it look like an asteroid. Let's say, 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.719 but asteroids don't have the kind of gravitational force to 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.400 draw everything in like that to form that sphere. It's 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.840 called isotactic adjustment. Yeah. I just thought, wait a minute, 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.600 all these things are perfectly round. We're not perfectly around. 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.439 I want more pyramids. Shake planets would be kind of cool. Um, 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:27.200 all right, so that was the acretion. And now you 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:32.800 have gas being released from cooling after the core and 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.800 mantle and crust have formed in this hot ball. Right, 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.320 and as the as the gases are being released in 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:45.839 the hot ball, um, they are forming this atmosphere. They're 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:50.560 supporting an atmosphere there floating out and um kind of 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:55.120 hanging around. Yeah yeah, yeah, and um, so you've got 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.280 an atmosphere in place. You have a molten core, you 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:03.800 have a after mantle, and then a crusts that formed. Yeah, 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.240 and um, as that that softer mantle and the molten 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:13.040 core press up you have volcanic activity, yeah, which releases 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:17.320 even more heat and gas, which makes the atmosphere even thicker. 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:19.560 And at this point they think that there is a 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:24.840 period of um water presence on Mars where it was raining. 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.600 So then after you've got a primitive atmosphere. And then 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.880 as it says in the article by Craig, he's a 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.920 great writer for us, Yeah, PhD, that's right. Uh he 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.280 said March March couldn't catch a break, which was pretty accurate, 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.880 and it was pounded by meteors in the Solar system, 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:49.440 forming craters and basins and all sorts of interesting land forms. 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.600 And you know, the same thing happened here, but we 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:56.480 had like water and things like that too, cause erosion 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.440 and fill it, fill it in. On the Moon there 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:01.480 isn't anything like that, so you still see those craters. 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.640 And but the same thing happened on Mars. Yeah, and 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.160 actually there was water on Mars um that bombardment in 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.280 the that caused the magma to come up out of 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:17.480 the core of of Mars, creating volcanic activity and shifts 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.760 in the mantle and the crust um all released hot 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:25.200 gas into the Martian atmosphere, which thickened it and increased 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:30.720 its temperature, which led to rain, yes, rain, flooding, erosion. 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.840 So there was like a period at least for a 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.600 little while of um the presence of water on Mars. 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:44.280 There still is, dude, the presence of unfrozen flowing water. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.080 Uh yeah, there's not flowing water right as of September 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.200 of last year, they found water in the dirt. Yeah, 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.560 it's pretty exciting to pint for cubic foot. Yeah, but 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.880 but it's a spoiler. Sorry, actually it can't be a spoiler. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.480 That happened in the bast right, Yeah, but if if 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.840 you haven't heard of it anyeh, all right, uh so 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.160 then Craig likens to Mars at this point is a 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.680 soft boiled egg and as the eggshell is cooling, uh, 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.880 the the yoke is gonna start busting through the mantle. 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.240 And that's like on Earth is what is going to 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.800 form things like volcanoes. And again those volcanoes and that 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.600 activity led to that atmosphere in the periods of rain 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.920 and flooding and erosion. Olympus Mons, Yeah, that's a good 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.760 pixie songs. That a pixie song for a dream of 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.800 the Olympus. Mons. Nice. Yeah, I don't think I need 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:43.760 that one. What's that on? Uh okay? Uh? Olympus Mons 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.640 is the largest volcano there and it's like it makes 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.000 Mountain Evers look like a mole hill. As a matter 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.960 of fact, it's the largest point in the known Solar system, 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.560 the highest point. Yeah, yeah, the tallest. Um. Remember our 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.520 myth busting episode where we showed that Mount Everest wasn't 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.560 the tallest mountain. It's mounta loa Um on Earth. Mounta 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:11.440 looa is um something like I think it's six miles 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:16.280 from the ocean floor. Uh, yes, there rises sick nice 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.080 chuck and um. It's a hundred and forty miles wide 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:23.560 at its base. That's a big mountain on Earth. On Mars, 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.960 which is again half the size of Earth in diameter, 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:32.400 Olympus Mons is sixteen miles tall. And that's not from 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.280 an ocean floor either. Yeah, you know, because there is 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.560 no ocean on Marks exactly. But if you want to 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:42.520 see something cool, type in Mars, what would Mars look 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.040 like with ocean and people have done like um simulations 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.240 of it. It looks really neat, like vacation worthy, like 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.040 you would want to go there to vacam He's like 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.359 a sunny beach with it looks like Earth but with 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.480 weird continents. Um. And then it's three seventy miles across 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.879 Olympus mons is. That's large. It's big. And they have 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.080 like pictures if you google it, Uh, compare it to 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.240 Everest and it just dwarfs it. That's right. And you 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.000 can see pictures of it too, you know, they snapped 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:19.800 photos of it. It's pretty impressive. It's large volcano which 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.240 eventually went dormant. All the volcanoes on Mars went dormant 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:28.880 somewhere possibly about three billion years ago. And um, as 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:35.680 the volcanoes went dormant, the the the heat was released. Basically, Yeah, 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.280 Mars had no more heat to give from its core um, 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.040 which meant the atmosphere wasn't being fed any longer, so 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.600 it thin, which led to a drop in temperatures. Yeah. 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:47.720 And how we mentioned earlier, how the fact that it 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.280 was smaller than Earth is one reason why it's not 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.480 more like Earth. That's the reason it cooled so fast, 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.280 like Earth wouldn't have cooled nearly as fast, no, huh. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.680 And um, it also kept a magnetic field going thanks 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.399 to its molten core. Mars did not any longer, so 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.480 you got a thin atmosphere, cold temperatures. Um the atmosphere 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.479 that was there started freezing and falling two Mars and 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.720 was stored as ice. Any water that was already on 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.879 the planet's surface turned into perma frost, and um Mars 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.760 became it underwent what's called the Great desiccation event, where 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:27.600 it became a barren, deserted, desert planet. Yeah. Before that, 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:29.840 these were this kind of happened in cycles for a while, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.200 like the volcanic action, and then the gas is being 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.520 released in like major flooding from water, until like you said, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.080 eventually it's the cold, not hot, but cold, dusty place 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.280 that we love today. Yeah. And what's um interesting is 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.040 that Earth and Mars were so similar as they formed 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.480 and about at the same time, about three billion years ago, 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.760 Mars underwent the Great Desiccation event and Earth underwent the 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.040 Great Oxygenation event, which gave rise to all life here 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:04.080 on Earth, the appearance of algae, which created a breathable 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.520 atmosphere almost at about the same time, So they totally 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.200 diverged in two different paths that around the same time. 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.040 I wonder if the main reason was because of its size. Yeah, 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.719 the cooling another Earth. Yes, it's interesting. Had it been 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.520 the exact same size, who knows, maybe we'd be like 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:26.159 going there and back right now, right on vacation. Like, 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.639 how was a good one for Colin Farrell? Did you 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.240 see the remake? No? Although I heard the Robo Cup 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.920 remake was like surprisingly good, I haven't expecting that. I 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.040 haven't seen it either. Yeah, that's what I'll definitely wait 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.720 for TV for that one. You know, Uh, you really 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.960 don't care about seeing that one, not even DVD like TV. Well, 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:54.120 I don't watch dvs. Okay, I'm streaming like the rest 0:20:54.119 --> 0:21:00.160 of the modern world, not even a laser disk. Uh. 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.560 Should we talk about what it's like there? Yeah, on 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.399 the surface, yes, the surface of mars Um. Scientists have 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:12.280 divided it into three major parts, the southern highlands, the 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.960 northern plains, and the polar regions, which we already said 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.280 you can actually see from Earth polar ice caps. Yeah, 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:20.919 just like her. But the ice caps are made of 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.520 carbon dioxide, so it's dry ice ice caps, and then 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:29.399 underneath there's water ice. So the southern highlands are vast. 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:32.440 I love our morning shows. It's always a little more 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.479 like laid back. I feel like yeah, like I'm sleepy. Yeah, 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.359 you're not riddle with anxieties yet. No, that comes on 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.000 about noon. Yeah, I haven't had enough coffee yet. So 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.040 you've got your Southern Highlands, and like I said, they 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:49.040 are extensive and vast and uh, it is elevated. It's 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.119 not the highest part of Mars and heavily cratered and 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.480 again the highest part of the solar system, right, because 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.200 that's where Olympus Mons is, that's right in the southern region, 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.840 the Southern Highlands. Uh. And they scientists think it's ancient 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.960 um these highlands because of the craters, because the cratering 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.480 happened close to four billion years ago and that was 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.960 just meteors kind of just pounding the solar system all 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.399 over the place. So the Southern Highlands are high and 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:22.200 then there's a very um pronounced drop of several kilometers 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:27.080 down to the um northern plains, which are low lying regions. 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:29.919 There are a lot like the season the moon um. 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:35.400 But they do feature raised areas plateaus a couple of them. Yeah, 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.119 the cinder cones. Yeah, well, the cinder cones are on 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.200 the plateaus. I think basically the mantle bulged up through 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:44.240 the crust is thinner in the northern region, and the 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:48.480 mantle just pushed up and formed like continent sized plateaus 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:52.920 um that are called crustal upwarps. That's a great word. Yeah, 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:57.080 I kept thinking I was reading it wrong. Nope, crystal upwarps. Uh. 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:00.200 And the these crystal upwarps, there's two of them. One 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.760 is smaller, it's Elysium remembered Paradise, that's right, and the 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:08.200 other one is called Tarsus arcs uh. In the Northern 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:13.000 Hemisphere is divided into eastern and western hemispheres. Tharsis is 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:17.119 in the west and Elysium is in the east. Yes, 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:19.840 celestial names are so cool, it really are. You know, 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:25.159 what do we have on Earth? New Jersey not thar No, 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:33.159 start a campaign to rename New Jersey Tharsis um and 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:35.760 then like the main city could be Tharci City, which 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:40.560 sounds super futuristic, and in fact it's Newark. Every citizen 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:46.240 has issued is sparkly silver jumps. Oh uh, so you've 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:48.760 called out Olympus. Mons is the highest point that is 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:52.239 where in the It's in the Stars region, which this 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:55.800 article is confusing because it mentions the Sarsest reason region 0:23:55.840 --> 0:24:00.640 in the southern um the hemisphere and in the northern hemisphere. Uh. 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.280 And I looked all over the place to find definitively 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.359 where it is. And I think the discrepancy comes from 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:10.040 the fact that it's equatorial. Okay, it's pretty close to 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:15.680 the equator Olympus Mons definitely is. So maybe it's both right, 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:19.520 But it's about at that point, um that the uh, 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:24.360 the highlands drop off into the northern plains. That's right. 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:28.879 And Uh, in Tharcis you have some pretty impressive canyons um, 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:34.560 a system called the Vallis Marineris, and it makes the 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:37.399 Grand Canyon look like a tiny little hole in the ground. 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:40.840 It is three hundred and seventy miles wide and twenty 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:44.800 six thousand, four hundred feet deep. Not to slay the 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:47.600