How Saturn Works | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to this podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's. here too did I flub that line yes am I. going to retake it no I am not welcome. to the Pod. broadcast uh this is stuff you should. know by the way uh the far out. Edition that's right as in stuff out.

there in space yeah and not just stuff. in general we're actually going to zero. in on one specific piece of stuff that's. out there in space a little planet. called. Saturn that's right the ringed Beauty as. they like to say In The Biz it is yeah. that's what the astrophysicists all call. it uhhuh uh yeah or Saturn does have. rings it's not the only planet with. rings as we'll see or we can see now I. think Jupiter and Uranus and is it.

Mercury also that has rings but they're. just they don't hold a candle to. Saturn's rings hey get that candle away. from. myus Saturn's also um a really ancient. planet and that as far as Human. Experience goes as for as long as we've. been looking up in the night sky we've. seen Saturn because it is the sixth. planet from the sun it's also the. furthest planet away that you can see. with the naked eye here on planet Earth.

you want to know something funny before. we go any further yeah. always uh before we recorded Emily was. asking um as she sometimes does what. we're recording and I told her the two. episodes and she asked about Saturn and. I was like not very interesting to me. she said so what are you going to what. do you do in those episodes just like do. commentary and make jokes I went well. there's probably not going to be a lot. of jokes and she said well as long as. you can make one about your Rus and I.

said I don't think I'll be able to CU. it's about Saturn and lo and behold a. minute and 20 in yeah wow now you have. two more times to bring it back and then. you'll have completed the comedy Tri I. think that's a Warner as they say but. I'm just excited to report back to Emily. that that happened uh unexpectedly and. Delight delightedly well way to go Chuck. I thought you said it was going to be. funny though huh hey you laughed was. that. pity let's just move on all right great.

so um oh yeah like I said people have. known about Saturn for a very very long. time and in fact I think 2500 years ago. the first people that to uh document it. were the. Sumerians and not too long after that or. around that time in India the world's. oldest astronomy book The surria SED. obviously the whoever wrote it was like. I'm going to try to guess the diameter. of of um Saturn and I don't think they.

guessed at it like you know how many. jelly beans are in this jar kind of. guess like they used um math and. geometry and all sorts of great stuff. sure but this is long before they should. have so what makes it impressive is that. they were only off by a th000 miles so. today we we believe that the diameter of. Saturn is about. 74580 mi in the surria SED they guessed. 73,000 or estimated 7358029.

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and uh you know Saturn goes pretty. slowly across the sky so the the day. Saturday is named for Saturn which is. the last day of the week yeah and now. we're going to compare Saturn to Earth. in a lot of uh scintilating ways and we. could start with just the massive size. because it makes Earth look like a just. a PE in a pocket basically it makes it. look like a nickel if if Saturn was a. volleyball.

NASA loves that one if you ever look up. Saturn size Nasa uses that every chance. they get I wonder if when they got they. got the nickel part and they were like. all right well we got to find something. laying around here that's um as big as. this distance and some guy was like you. know there there was one sporty guy in. the corner like practicing setting a. volleyball Spike MH he said uh what. about Jim over there is that loow. hanging fruit Phil who was about to.

oh man poor Phil uh but you know you're. right nickel compared to a volleyball is. pretty good um but let's talk equator uh. the equator is uh close to 10 times. larger than Earth at. 227 miles around uh compared to Earth's. piddly little 25,000 miles yeah it's got. a extra spare tire compared to Earth you. know totally um one of the things about. CN though if you weren't if you aren't. like a astronomy type the kind of planet.

that Saturn is is a gas giant which. means that it's made largely of gas uh. or gas is so to be a gas giant you don't. have to just be a big ball of gas but. you're made of things that typically are. considered gases on the periodic table. let's just get that straight right out. of the gate okay right but if you put. the whole thing together Saturn doesn't. have a surface to speak of if you did go. far enough in toward the Center you.

might eventually hit something you could. stand on but you would be under so much. heat and pressure that you wouldn't be. thinking about standing on the surface. anymore you'd have other problems yeah. it's a very um not dense Planet uh and. some say could even float in water if. there was water that large a pool yeah. or I don't know a. pond uh sure isn't that what they call. Lakes up in the. Northeast I you know I don't know the.

difference between a pond and a lake in. Maine there is no difference I would. think a pond is uh human-made but. there're many human-made lakes too so I. don't know I'll have to look that up I. always assumed it was size like Pond is. smaller lake is larger well that's what. the L that's how you remember Lake L. large L and pond puny nice one uh I mean. that seems obvious but surely there's. something else but maybe not we'll look.

into that more to come on pwns and links. okay I'll keep talking while you look. [Laughter]. at uh well I was going to talk so why. don't you look it up uh Earth is the. third planet out as Modest Mouse will. tell you they're about 92 Million Miles. Away or we are rather um Saturn is the. sixth planet away from the Sun at and. things really pick up after you after. you get away from Earth 886 million. miles which is going to mean they're. going to be a very cold old Planet.

because they get uh not nearly as much. sun they get about 1.2% of the sunlight. that we get which means the average. temperature in the upper atmosphere of. Saturn is a very chilly -220 de fahit. orative 140 cels for our non-american. Liberian or can't remember the third one. friends that's right um so there's some. other interesting things that happen. because it gets such little sunlight but. one of the things that astronomers were. surprised by at first was Saturn's.

atmosphere that is very cold but it's. not nearly as cold as you would expect. for how far away from the Sun it is and. how little sunlight it gets and they. finally figured out the reason why is. because Saturn generates its own. internal heat that's why it's not as. cold as it as it should be like me yeah. exactly you could never be cold if you. tried man I've been cold but uh and when. I get cold I have a very hard time. warming up I meant like the figurative.

sense you know like real I'm oh like a. cold emotional individual yes yes oh. well thank you um so there's a couple. other things about being that far away. from the Sun uh I think it takes 80. minutes for sunlight to get there that's. a long time to stand around and wait for. sunlight we only have to wait like eight. minutes here on Earth yeah so when they. flick that switch on you just got to sit. you got to huddle hunker down right um. and then it so in its orbit around the. sun it takes almost 30 Earth years for.

Saturn to complete a. year yeah because uh you know they're. rotating very very quickly on on its. axis um second fastest in the solar. system uh second just behind Jupiter uh. but if you're talking rotation speed. here on Earth we we're going at about. 978 mil an hour Saturn is wow. 23,000 miles an hour. yeah almost no more than 23 times faster.

than her and uh that's going to give him. a short day about a a 10.7 hour day yes. and here on Earth for comparison a day. is more than 20 hours long that's. right so I said earlier Chuck that. Saturn's a gas giant um and the two. gases that it's most fond of are. hydrogen and helium MH and overall the I. think the composition of its atmosphere. is about three4 hydrogen one quar helium.

but in the planet uh itself it has far. less hydrogen than helium that's about. all you really need to know about those. two for now um but the the point of the. whole thing is is that there is an. atmosphere there are different layers. and the atmosphere itself is about 37. miles thick um and it is just generally. gas but it's also super freaky as we'll. see but if we zoom in a little further. drop down a little further into Saturn. into its Center and we make it through.

the 37 M thick atmosphere we're suddenly. going to find out that the pressure is. extraordinarily great uh in the next. layer which is a layer of liquid. hydrogen yeah and it's liquid hydrogen. because of that pressure it's the it's. just such a massive planet that here on. Earth uh if we want to make liquid. hydrogen you have to cool that gas down. to very very low temperatures like 423. de f he but it's just the pressure on.

Saturn uh even even though those are. high temperatures that pressure alone. can make that gas a liquid which is. incredible it really is uh and then it. gets even crazier because so further in. toward the core toward the center of the. planet that liquid hydrogen turns into a. completely different kind of thing that. they call Liquid metallic hydrogen it's. still again on the periodic table the. gas even though it's in liquid form but. it behaves like a metal in that it can.

conduct electricity so imagine hydrogen. gas conducting electricity and once you. put your your head back together because. it got blown so wide open from that uh. you will understand now how heat is. generated inside Saturn um it's from. that liquid metallic hydrogen just. acting like it ain't ain't supposed to. the reason why is because it's so. compressed from the pressure toward the. center that um every everything even the. electrons you remember like electrons.

are they are to like a nucleus of an. atom what you know I think the outer. planets in our solar system is to the. sun they're really far away from it this. um pressure is so great in Saturn's. Center that their electrons are touching. it's all mushed together and that's why. it's behaving weirdly because the. electrons can conduct electricity a lot. more easily and then if you want to go. further down to the core you talk about. High.

uh we don't know for sure CU you can't. get in there they they've tried they've. tried uh but the current belief right. now is that it's basically um compressed. molten iron into a ball about the size. of 55 Earth at a temperature of about. 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit which is. hotter than the surface of the Sun hot. hot stuff in there but if we're going to. compare core to core the core of the Sun. is 27 million degrees fah not 15,000 you.

know yeah I saw one other thing about. the core of Saturn and then maybe we'll. take a break apparently some researchers. have concluded that it's actually slushy. so it's not solid H which makes sense I. mean you'd think it'd be kind of molten. or in some weird um state but that it's. also made of in addition to iron ice. rock and gas and how there could. possibly be ice in a core that's 15,000.

degrees Fahrenheit is totally Beyond me. I couldn't see a good explanation of. this whatsoever it's possible that the. researchers who've proposed this. completely off their rockers I don't. know but I thought it was worth. mentioning because I think that's. fantastic if it is true and hopefully. there's a stu you should know listener. who is out there is like GLA and I'm. going to email in and explain to Josh. and Chuck how there could possibly be. ice there that would be great yep okay. you want to take that um here to for.

promised break yeah let's do it and. we'll be back on uh I don't know let's. talk about like how Saturn was formed to. begin with right after this. [Music].

all right so there are a couple of. theories about how Saturn was formed uh. if you're a if you're a regular human. walking around planet Earth you might. hear both of these and say sounds like. like you're kind of talking about. basically the same thing yeah if you're. an astrophysicist you might glaven out. as you mentioned before that's two glav. and say oh no no no it is a very po.

polarizing question in astrophysics and. to us this different is very large um so. yeah so if you're an astrophysicist out. there this might really excite you if. you're not I would I would dare you I. would urge you to try and uh be. delighted in the minutia of the. difference of Science and how important. that can be the the question about how. Saturn or gas giants like Saturn form is. more polarizing then the proposal will.

rename Uranus. right if we work together that's two. that's two so uh I'm going to explain. the difference because I find this. fascinating there's the main generally. accepted model of how planets form. including gas giants like like Saturn is. called the core accretion model and that. is basically when a star forms like our. sun it forms out of dust and gas and all. sorts of crazy stuff and there's a lot. of other debris that starts swirling. around it uh forming a dis and that's.

where planets form from there's all. sorts of collisions and things get. bigger and kind of Clump together and as. they get bigger they attract more stuff. and the closer you are into the or. closer you are to the star the more. likely you are to attract heavy stuff. like say iron nickel stuff that makes up. rocky planets right and everybody's like. cor cre model that's just how planets. form but then there's some uh there's a. group of like Renegade astrophysic led. by a guy named Alan boss who are.

basically like no that leaves a couple. of questions out there one is that. there's less Rocky debris in the outer. reaches of this disc that's swirling. around the Sun so you know how can a gas. giant be made out of a rocky core and. then secondly that the remnants that are. out there say like dust and gases like. hydrogen and helium they will float away. into outer space and out of the solar. system and Out Of Reach before a gas.

giant could um form using the core. accretion model so what they've come up. with instead is called the disc. instability model and they said you. don't need Rocky stuff like iron and. nickel to form a gas giant it forms from. gases from the start and the core. accretion model people said okay Smart. Guys how how could that possibly happen. and the the disc instability model. people said that that swirling disc.

becomes so compressed and so dense from. swirling around the Sun for so long that. when it breaks up some of that dust and. gas has enough density that it can. attract other dust and gases and hence. form a gas giant and the core cre model. people were a. [Laughter]. Gog I love that word by the way I do too. it works really well uh well another. remarkable thing about Saturn are the. just incredible rible storms that happen.

around Saturn uh there's a very large. temperature difference between the the. very hot inter lators that we were. talking about I can't remember uh how. many degrees Fahrenheit we said but. 15,000 yeah 15,000 uh and then the very. icy up atmosphere out there is very very. cold IC see. obviously uh and so near the equator. you're going to have winds that are. going about a thousand miles an hour. you've got uh a very erratic atmosphere.

so it's not like um it's just constantly. stormy there may be years that go. between storms but then they might go. through a storm that lasts like literal. years and years and years um they they. photograph one with the Cassini probe in. uh 2010 and this storm was so big and. this is uh you know on a big planet that. it went all the way around and met. itself like a single storm system like a. uros yeah that is just I mean we've seen. some crazy storms here in recent years.

where like you know from middle Mexico. all the way up through like the. northeast of the United States and I'll. and I'll look at a Doppler and be like. that's incredible to see a storm that. large so imagine one going all around. the entire planet of Earth and then. imagine Earth's size in relation to. Saturn and that'll kind of tell you how. big of a storm we're talking about yeah. it's absolutely nuts and the reason why. that it's got such a crazy atmosphere is. because of that temperature difference. the temperature gradients remember we.

were talking about how tornadoes form on. earth and the Tornado Alley short stuff. that you have to have a temperature. gradient apparently the same thing. happens on Saturn as well but there's. also Chuck a really weird weather system. that does not come and go it's. essentially a feature it seems like. because it was first photographed in. 1981 when the Voyager 2 probe did a. flyby of Saturn and when the Cassini. Mission arrived I think in like 200 nine. or 10 or something like that um it it.

saw that the exact same thing was. essentially there so what they figured. out is it's not a storm it's a really. really fast jet stream but the thing. about it the re I'm I'm sure people out. there who are familiar with jet streams. are like so big whoop well get this this. jet stream forms a hexagon around the. top of the planet it's one of the. weirder things I've ever seen yeah it's. um like you said they they photographed. in. 1981 and then I think the Cassini hyans.

Mission ended in. 2017 and it was still there and still. basically looked the same and I I can. only reckon that it's still like that. today yeah I think that's a good reckon. we're talking 500 M hour winds at the. center of this Vortex and they think uh. that weird shape is due to the uh really. fast rotation which U makes a a bulge at. the equator and flattens things out at.

the pole so it's just created this. really strange kind of jet stream this. strange shape yeah so I think Chuck we. can't really put it off any longer I. believe that it's time to talk about. Saturn's rings because I mean imagine if. we didn't in this episode yeah I mean. you mentioned you know it's not the only. one with rings uh I know you mentioned. my anus mhm sorry that's three I know. that's the lowest of low hanging fruit. though Phil would be like it's fine yeah.

Phil would love it um but Neptune and. Jupiter I'm not sure if you mentioned. those those are some other ringed. planets but uh Saturns are like those. are the. showstoppers um they're incredible if. you've ever you know do yourself a favor. if you've never looked it like real. pictures like telescopic pictures of. Saturn like do so because they're it's. incredible looking these pictures I have. a I have an anecdote about that let's. hear it so remember we did an Australian. tour a few years back it was great yes.

yeah it was on one of the days off you. mean I went to the Sydney Observatory. one night oh cool and they had they just. happen to have one of their telescopes. trained on Saturn and you could lean. over and look through the eyepiece and. we did um and both of us just started. laughing cuz it looked so fake like a. little white cut out of Saturn just flat. as could be it just looked like they. were like we we can't find Saturn so. we're going to have to like put this put. the slide in there yeah exactly. but the volunteer was looking at us like.

what are you what's so funny about. Saturn basically we just moved along but. that was our that's my Saturn anecdote. and you said it looked fake and he's. like that's real man no we didn't we. didn't bother to say anything it was. mine and yumi's little joke that was the. worst Aussie accent I've ever done and. I've done some pretty good ones over. over the years you have I don't know. what happened it it sounded like Billy. Ray Cyrus trying to do in Australian it. came out so wrong that was very strange. it sounded better in my head right.

before I said it uh so yeah any uh aside. from the the telescope slide fake um. it's just incredible looking and the. sort of knockout fact is we're still not. exactly sure where these Rings came from. and we've known about the Rings so. remember people have known about Saturn. since we started looking up at the sky. but you can't see the Rings but right. when people started inventing telescopes. they noticed that Saturn had something. weird going on um. in 1610 Galileo the astronomer made.

famous by the Indigo Girls He spotted. Saturn's rings in his telescope but it. wasn't of high enough quality for him to. be like those are rings he thought there. were like bulges on the side like um. like handles on a pot or something like. that he wasn't quite sure what the heck. it was he actually I think thought it. was like a three-body system two huge. moons in a planet um and it wasn't but I. mean 50 years later I guess even less. that Christian hugan uh said I've got a.

much better telescope now and those are. rings I bet my bottom dollar on it that. was his famous quote you know what. Galileo's crime. was uh loving too much looking up the. truth is that what the lyric is yeah. that's a great song sure it. is uh you know I went to the same. orthodontist as Emily from Indigo Girls. oh that's great that's my claim to fame.

did. uh I I can't even come up with a joke. but yes that's. great uh shout out to uh oh God Dr Blake. hope he's still. around he may not be this is in the 80s. and he was okay in his probably I mean. he looked 70 but that means he was. probably 50 right in the 80s sure yeah. and just for my teenage gays you know I. was going to say that's that was mean. like this is a recent person you went to.

no I mean he could still be around he. could be in his 90s probably but I hope. he is I hope he's still putting braces. on kids yeah they don't want them but. he's doing it anyway he's putting like. 1980s braces on kids though they've come. a long way and he's like no these metal. bands go around your teeth the lip. slashers oh god um all right so back to. the Rings uh they are 95% Ice uh it's. rock and ice but 95% of it is ice and. these are particles but when you say.

particles um it could be a particle like. a Sandy grain um but it could also be. like a large Boulder like they vary. widely uh in size and here's the thing. about those rings too they are uh very. very wide but comparatively they are. very very thin um I think the the. farthest ring uh which is. 175,000 miles from the upper upper. atmosphere of Saturn is 7,000 time times. the diameter of the planet but only.

about 30 to 60 ft wide or thick I guess. isn't that nuts yeah I mean that's crazy. like how does that thing even exist is. my question well we're about to tell you. so um if you look at Saturn especially. through a Sydney based telescope you're. going to see that it looks like it's it. basically like kind of cocked its rings. to the side like a hat a juny cap as I. put it yeah I do that sometimes with. certain caps exactly who doesn't.

everybody's familiar with that yeah the. thing is is Saturn's not doing that. actually if you straighten Saturn out. its rings would be roughly um parallel. to its um equator it turns out that. Saturn itself is jauntily cocked to the. side too to the tune of. 27° and Earth's x uh axial tilt I think. is what it's called so the Tilt relative. to the the plane of orbit around the Sun. flat plane tilted Planet let's just.

leave it at that Earth is. 23° um so 27 isn't that much more but. Saturn's rings like really point out how. angled the whole thing is yeah yeah if. we had a a little JY cap then Earth. would look a JY as well I guess yeah but. the other thing about it too is with a. with a axial tilt that pronounced like. Earth's and like Saturns um that's how. you have seasons some parts are closer. to the Sun at different times of the.

year same thing on Saturn but since. Saturn's years are almost 30 Earth years. long that would mean that the the. seasons are like seven years long on. Saturn yeah NE sevene spring who. wouldn't want that that's a good band. name right there it is it really is. Chuck uh these rings are are separated. obviously when you look at them you can. tell there are gaps in between and some. are brighter than others some are more. dense than others and because of that. they you know when they noticed the.

Rings they didn't know about all of them. they were discovered uh individually. over time and named a b CDE e f and g an. order of when they were found but that's. not the actual order of where they are. if you just started at Saturday and. worked your way out right in that case. it would be DCB AF G and then e the best. demonic device I could come up to. remember that is don't choose brunch and. forego grits and eggs.

that's pretty good yeah I thought so too. I thought a just a nonsense joke was. coming my way but no that one. actually yeah nice nice work Phil. approves good thanks Phil so if you ever. noticed Saturn's rings also there's like. dark stripes in between them that's. actually voids in between the Rings. right that Saturn's got tons of rings. some are bigger than others um and when. you kind of look at them from afar it. just looks like they have what is. that seven seven rings but there's.

actually way more these are just the. rings that we can see and identify and. they're they're differentiated by these. gaps and there's a huge gap I think. between the B ring and the a ring uh so. it's about in the middle of Saturn's. rings it's called the Cassini Division. and uh it's about 3,000 miles across. yeah that's big gap yeah it is a big gap. and it kind of put this in perspective. especially for our American friends if. you took Seattle and you took Boston and.

you erased the country in between them. and replaced it with the void of space. the people in Seattle and Boston could. look out from one another across what. was roughly the size of the Cassini. Division I like that analogy I I don't. know what's so funny about. it Daddy how far is 3,000. miles okay but it was the replacing it. with the void of space that I think. really drove it home if you ask me yeah.

do you know how long I went into a. distance calculator to figure out two. cities that most people know are roughly. 3,000 miles. apart did you come up with that. yeah so uh the Cassini division the the. cause of that whole thing is the. interaction uh gravitationally speaking. with um the moon and we'll talk about. the various moons coming up but the moon. I guess is it mimus it's not mimus is. I've been saying mimus yeah I've been.

saying mimus in my head although mimus. makes sense too yeah but I like mimus. okay uh because it's not tietan it's. Titan depending on where you live though. I guess so uh but the particles in that. b ring uh orbit about two times for each. of mos' trip around Saturn and each time. they're going to pass mimus has the. chance to you know inflict a little. gravitational influence on those. particles and that just accumulates.

basically and it creates a very steady. gravitational force on those particles. it's just going to hold them right there. in place and they're not going to drift. into the Gap they're going to stay nice. and tight yeah that's pretty cool that's. how the that's how the Cassini division. is created by that gravitational pole. and me mimus also is um nicknamed the. Death Star because if you look at a. picture of mimus it looks an awful lot. like the Death Star yeah and the Death. Star that's a a um it's like a a a space.

Fortress in the Star Wars movies that's. no Planet that's right but no it's a. moon oh that's no moon was that what it. was no I'm saying he was right it isn't. a planet it's a moon I can't remember. the line that was it that's no Planet I. think that's what it was I'm pretty sure. wasn't that Han Solo saying that yeah I. think so but you know it's no big deal. if you get Star Wars stuff wrong right. no everybody's very easygoing about that. stuff uh uh should we no should we break.

or should we not let's talk about how. the Ring's formed and then we'll come. back and talk no let's take a break you. want to take a break yeah okay uh and. then we'll talk about how those Rings. form right after this. [Music].

so Chuck you said uh a little early on I. think that the people who study this. kind of stuff are not 100% sure how. Saturn's rings formed right right. there's a lot of different competing. theories there's the whole Camp that's. like they're as old as the planet so. they're multi-billion year old rings and. other people are like that's just stupid. and specifically there's a researcher. from NASA who in 1986 wrote a paper it's.

name is Jack Conor I don't think he. actually said your idea is stupid to. other people but what he did do is he he. um calculated the rate of what came to. be called ring rain and that is those. particles falling into Saturn and when. they do that that ring becomes slightly. depleted and it happens more and more. and more and on the scale of tens or. hundreds of millions of years it will.

Saturn is eventually steadily losing its. rings and apparently the particles fall. into Saturn when they become charged and. I guess they're more attracted by. Saturn's gravitational pole they travel. down the magnetosphere just like. particles bombard Earth's magnetosphere. and produce the auroras same thing. happens to Saturn but it's it's paying. the price uh it's at the expense of. losing its rings does it come uh does it. become part of Saturn itself does it.

suck that up into Saturn yes I believe. so and I think it melts as it gets. further and further toward the center. okay so Saturn isn't necessarily. becoming larger as the Rings deplete no. Leon's becoming. larger. okay uh so all right that means a lot of. stuff um that means that uh we are. living on Earth at a time where we just. happen to live um and it's a long period. of time but if you if you zoom out on a.

macro level cosmically speaking it's not. that long but we we happen to be living. in a time where we're we're probably at. like Peak ring don't you think yeah. because uh guys like Jack Connor and he. calculated that based on the rate of. ring rain um the Rings probably aren't. more than a 100 million years old right. so 100 million years before this Saturn. wouldn't have had rings then they also. calculated 100 to 300 million years. hence Saturn's not going to have rings. either the way that they came up with.

that 100 million year old estimate is um. because any older than that there should. be far less Rings based on the rate of. ring rain and if it were younger there. should be more rings than that so that. group is pretty self-satisfied right now. yeah uh I bet they are um we also talked. about well we still haven't really. talked about where the actual stuff that. makes up those rings come from and again. uh there are competing theories uh one.

of which is that there used to be and. again we'll get to the moons Saturn has. lots of moons but one theory is that. they used to have even a lot more moons. than they have now and one of those. moons that may have existed they. actually named uh Chrysalis was in a. little bit of a a push and pull with. Titan the largest moon a gravitational. battle or Titan or Titan yeah it fell. out of orbit because of that battle I. guess Titan wins and Crystalis veed too. close po to Saturn was basically just. busted apart by the the gravity of this.

enormous gas giant and then that debris. field is what formed uh that ring and. then over time over millions and. millions of years um Chrysalis uh. continued to sort of crash into itself. and created like the smaller rings. around itself or above and below and. also some of the bigger ones because you. know like you said some of the some of. the particles in the Rings are like. grain of sand size but other like. Boulder size and those Boulder ones are.

just ones that haven't crashed into the. proper other Boulders yet to create. those sand grains they just it's just a. matter of time eventually yeah what's. what's the other Theory there's another. theory which by the way Saturn. apparently is like a um Thunderdome for. astrophysicists there's so many. different theories about so many. different things yeah but the other. theory is that a bunch of Saturn's moons. collided together it wasn't just one. getting pulled towards Saturn they all. just kind of got all tripped up and boom. boom boom boom boom boom and all of a.

sudden you've got this debris field that. got smaller and smaller more particulate. over time just like the Chrysalis Theory. too so they don't fight over this one. probably as much not as much but they do. dress like Master Blaster when they talk. about it they just don't actually. fight um some of these rings are formed. by these moons uh there there's one uh. called one of the moons um insul lus I'm. going with Enceladus Enceladus okay.

Enceladus sounds way too much like. salad en Salada yeah uh this thing is. erupting salt water kind of constantly. into the atmosphere and that turns into. ice crystals and those ice crystals as. we see can very easily form into rings. and that is in fact uh where we get our. e-ring around Saturn if you know you're. looking at the letters so I guess the a. b CDE e the fifth one discovered well no. remember they are out of or oh yeah the.

fifth one discovered you're right sorry. nice save um so there's also another. ring that they discovered as recently as. 2009 like because our telescopes just. keep getting better and better from. galileos in 1610 to the Spitzer Space. Telescope surprisingly hard to say yeah. uh they found a new ring that basically. follows the orbit of Saturn's furthest. Moon out Phoebe buet yeah that's right. right I was going to say Bridger but. sure yeah yours is a little more ousy.

than. mine uh oh I love that boy Genius record. so good uh I believe Phoebe's is a very. uh faint ring is that right yeah yeah. yeah it's very that's why it took so. long for us to find it yeah guess I. think we knew Phoebe existed the Moon it. could be fbe they might be pronouncing. it like that but uh we didn't know the. ring was there there until 2009 yeah but. the reason we're mentioning all this is.

the fact that the those rings are uh. they're Dynamic they're changing they're. reshaping and uh like we said and you. know maybe as little as a 100 million. years they might may not even be there. yeah I just think that's really. fascinating you know you can thank the. good Lord that we're alive at a time. when Saturn has rings and we have. telescopes that's right so um we also. talked a lot about the moons just now. and it turns out that Saturn's moons are. really fascinating in and of themselves.

it has a bunch of moons as many as 146. that we know about right now just last. year well two years ago when this comes. out in. 2023 the in international astronomical. Union they added 62 more moons and I. don't know if they were saving up and. just wanted to do a batch edition of. moons or if they found a bunch in quick. secession I'm not sure but they're like. they're definitely more moons there yeah. more moons coming uh I mean cuz yeah.

just a couple years ago there were under. 100 now there's 146 so uh big changes so. keep collecting those moons everybody. and and hit us in a few years with a. number that's going to knock our socks. off collect all 146 that's right so um. the other thing about the moons too is. that they orbit outside of the Rings. which makes sense because the moons that. were inside of the Rings were what make. up the Rings probably yeah so these. moons haven't smashed into anything else.

and they're just orbiting around and. like you said mimus um that one exerts a. gravitational influence that creates the. Cassini division uh which means that. it's really close to those Rings it's. actually the nearest moon to Saturn's. atmosphere um but it's only about half. the distance of the Moon we have here on. Earth is about 237,000 miles as every. shining fan knows. that's right but this thing hauls it it.

has an orbital speed of about 32,000. miles an hour it's so fast that it. completes an orbit uh in less than an. Earth Day about 22 hours and if you. consider our moon here on Earth uh what. does it take about a month to complete. its orbit that's that's really cooking. in fact the mo the month is based on the. moon taking a month they're inextricable. basically so is their month uh 22 hours. I guess so yeah because what was their. day how what did you say their day was.

uh 10ish I think. 10.6 yeah that's right 10 so um there's. a bunch of different moons different. sizes but Saturn has some really really. big ones Titan which we've already. talked about is enormous and it what a. moon it is a great Moon um its size is. large enough that it can actually hold. an atmosphere in place it's one of the. very few moons that we know about that. has an actual atmosphere to speak of of. and boy are we going to speak about it.

yeah it is uh it's a it's Titan is quite. striking it is um has mountains made of. ice it has Seas uh made of um ethane and. liquid methane so it it's just an. incredible Moon it has an atmosphere um. much like ours it's composed of nitrogen. um but it has an air pressure that just. knocks ours out of the park it's uh I. think 150% stronger MH at sea level. which is it's going to be like you'd.

think you were on LSD or something if. you you popped yourself on Titan and you. would look around and you were being. like wait there's odd things happening. like it's raining really slowly and. someone say well what does that even. mean it's like well look at the literal. rain it's coming down at about 3 and a. half miles an hour on Earth it rains. down at about 20 M an hour and it just. it's it sounds funny and it looks funny. and one of the one of the friends there. was like rains of weird word have you. ever thought about that word. rain but why does it sound funny uh.

because the the atmosphere is so thick. that um vibration sound can travel much. more efficiently through it so if you. shouted like hello you would burst the. eardrums of your friend on. LSD yeah if you said look how slow the. rain is they just clap their hands over. their ears and like double over and. paint uh but it's not a hospitable place. like um nothing could could live on the. surface of Titan I think it has a a.

negative 240 I'm sorry 290 degree uh. Fahrenheit average temperature and like. we said the liquids there uh are methane. and ethane so that's you know what do. you can't do anything with those too I. know but there is a liquid ocean about. 50 miles below the the surface that that. methane and ethane and Ice surface and. this ocean is actually made of salt. waterer. yeah good fishing from what I hear for.

sure but that's the point they're like. wait a minute there's salt water there. it's it's heated by the core of Titan. there's also hydrocarbons on the. planet's surface like if you put this. stuff together in just the right. Arrangement you might have some sort of. bizarre form of life like the or these. are organic materials that you could. conceivably create life from so who. knows what's swimming around or floating. around in that ocean uh underneath Titan. surface yeah that's people are so jazzed. about Titan yeah totally uh and it's.

Titan I mean come on yeah you know. there's also uh what did you say ins. saladis Enceladus that's right what' you. call it uh I said Enceladus you said. something else that sounded like salad. are you Enceladus uh I think I said. Enceladus we'll we'll we'll let the. listeners decide have you ever thought. about that word. Enceladus uh what's the deal with that. one that's it's a I know it's an um. about the size of Arizona and also has a.

saltwater ocean under the crust that is. so so far Titans two for two that we've. talked about we've talked about two. moons and both of them happen to have. saltwater oceans yeah underneath yeah. that's that's a big one too so like it's. underneath its icy crust which means. that it's protected and heated and. heated so much in fact that I think we. said en Enceladus now I don't know how. to say it um bursts ice from it ocean. out into the atmosphere creating the.

e-ring um which uh is pretty cool in and. of itself but that also means that that. there's geysers and where there's. geysers there's probably hydrothermal. vents on the ocean floor the floor of. the saltwater ocean and that means that. life could conceivably create or start. up there because it's that's a really. popular Theory these days about how life. started on Earth around hydrothermal. vents in the ocean yeah so who knows and. then the Cassini probe wrote back wrote.

home from Camp not too long ago and was. like Hey I sampled some of this water. and it's got some mind-blowing stuff in. there yeah for sure uh and you know we. mentioned earlier the Cassini spacecraft. finished up in. 2017 um it was called the Grand Finale. when it wrapped up its Mission because. it on on purpose uh says like hey let's. just get really close and just kamakazi. this thing uh and just see what kind of. readings we can get up to the last. second there so that's how it ended its.

Mission but there's a new one uh. dragonfly that's coming up I believe. launching in 2028 and will arrive on. Titan BY 2034 so I mean hang on to your. hats it'll be a decade but then from now. but then we're going to start get some I. mean imagine the changes that are going. to happen between now and then yeah for. sure uh and there's actually a really. cool um animation artist interpretation. of that um grand finale of the Cassini. probe that's worth watching on YouTube.

oh cool uh you got anything else uh I. got nothing else I got one more thing it. turns out in the northern hemisphere uh. September 2025 will be the best time to. view Saturn because it'll be on the. opposite side of the Sun from Earth so. it'll be nice and bright and easy to see. oh cool well we'll either think to. remind you and we'll probably forget but. I imagine that'll be a newsmaker like. people uh on the news will be saying. like hey go out and look for Saturn for. sure might be able to see it with your.

eyeballs okay well Chuck mentioned. eyeballs so we have no choice but to. unlock listener. mail uh hey guys this is from rockney uh. I'm the mother of. one it says another but I bet they meant. mother probably uh I'm the mother of one. of longtime listeners I don't remember. exactly when I started listening but it. was back in high. school I graduated wait a minute wait. wait wait so rockney is the mother of.

one of our listeners rockney okay I bet. you anything they meant to say I'm. another one of your longtime listeners. oh okay now that I'm reading it and. doing the math okay okay here we go hey. guys my name is rockney I'm another one. of your longtime listeners nice uh my. girlfriend Anna has never listened to a. single episode of your podcast English. is her second language so she's probably. Anna and English spoken word. entertainment doesn't quite feel. relaxing for her yet so don't hold it. against her uh but over the past few.

weeks I've been on a mission I've been. humming whistling and vocalizing the. stuff you should know theme song. non-stop around her trying to make it. familiar and this past weekend my. experiment finally succeeded I caught. her humming it on her own completely. unprompted I came clean told her I'd. been training her ears explaining it's a. theme song of my podcast uh she's. familiar with stuff you should know. through my constant mentions and she. just calls it my podcast uh we both had. a great laugh about it uh recently I. heard a listener mail from a mom who. casually used Clark as a verb so I.

figured I'd share my similar success. story so thanks for over uh 1.2 Decades. of entertainment and that is from Rocky. thanks a lot rockney we appreciate that. thanks for trying to spread the the good. word by creating earworms that's right. uh if you want to be like Rockne and let. us know your situation we love to hear. that kind of stuff you can wrap it up. spank it on the bottom and send it off. to stuff podcast at iheartradio.com. [Music].

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