This episode of astronomy cast is brought to you bye swing burn astronomy online the world longest running online astronomy degree program visit astronomy dot s w i n died at u dot eighty for more information. Throwing out absolute two hundred and twenty by someone being march twenty first two thousand let i yeah me was running account or backstage or anything because most real people understand only what we know what how we know what you know. My name is preserve came from the publisher university and with me just doctor come okay a professor at southern illinois university number two. Pamela you doing i i am mostly over broad kind of finally that's good that's good a uh would you be break another a break but er but no your voice he's functioning. It's a little slower but but you can get through an episode. It and and preston are wonderful editor will cut out all the coughing and they don't have you will have to suffer through it just what. Yeah well alright so okay well huge part of the soldiers do these jobs to me device their comments rings moved on even dwarf planets word oversize come from and what impact pardon the pun has it have for life on earth. Are you found what i and you know what this is being your life. For the last couple of months right it it has back in i guess january i. Flew out to now sayings and got to sit down and talk with the folks behind the new horizons mission which is going to fly through the put a system in twenty fifteen. And this in some ways is one of these scariest space craft flight plans i've ever read. Because the flight plan basically states okay we're going to go past jupiter take lots of shiny pictures they've done that we're gonna keep going where and fly past point oh and it's man. Of. Argued over pronunciation higher on whatever you wanna call it and and then we're going to keep going and there's gonna be enough fuel left on board to go to one maybe two warm quite propelled objects. Except those objects haven't been discovered yet so sometime between mission launch and well twenty sixteen to twenty twenty we need to discover those objects. That's scary. So right now the new crisis team has been taking. Amazing images of the region of the solar system where something with the right orbit to carry it in front of of new horizon should be located. And we just finished creating a website we being me and corey lee hand one of my programmers a website called ice hunters that takes all of these images. And puts them online for anyone out there this is anyone in our listening audience your friends your family your kids your grandmother's. Asks you to look through the images and help the new horizons team discover that quick per belt object that new horizons will go to some time after visit split up. Right so anybody can go and help discover where new horizons should go next who sent. It it's it's remote screw in fact it's full of ice full of eyes old old over the border now okay schooling yeah yeah let's go back then so we so how much of the solar system. I. Well not a lot bye math in in fact if if you pull together all the not from the quite for about it it's kind of a large rocky plan it's worth of materials. Not a lot and it's also scattered into what's called the scattered desk and beyond the quick about the on the scattered desk the or a cloud not really sure how much masses tied up out there haven't really observed it yet. It's a lot of stuff so it's sort of like when you're cleaning your house. You don't realize how many fork c on and tell you realize that you have forks and every remove your house from those random snacks that have been gathered right so when we you know. We get them past what the astros don't right i mean i start to. And then we've got moon's that are made of i use we've got the rings of saturn and the rings with you of the other planets are made of ice we've got. The the dwarf planets the core build objects the scattered just go work cloud we've got comments short and long through comments. Then then towards in inside of jupiter's or but so why do we have dividing line but funny so should you know where does that start. Well the the water line is midway through the asteroid belt and then the freeze line is out there pretty much between jupiter and saturn and these are basically the places where you go from. Completely blasted drive dictatorship dot strides to potatoes with water. To things of very mixtures of rock and ice and then the. In general pure i stuff in the out our solar system and and what you're seeing is essentially the thermal great into of when our solar system form between when it formed and not the way it is today. Right well plus interesting yeah and it. Where things are located isn't purely because of where they formed see scattered disk of objects of these are things that nap twos gravity periodically flames around. The quicker about these are objects it probably formed where they're located the or cloud is a mixture. Well we think a lot of the work cloud of stuff they got swung out there actually the send towards these are things that got hold and and trapped in stan and stable or but. But for the most part asteroid belt formed mostly in place quick rebel formed as much in places anything in the out our solar system formed in place. And these dividing lines reflect the situation in the early solar system when things were settling into their lasting positions but where did all this water come from but i mean. These old sizes just water and so where did all come from and how to disturb to distribute around drove into our solar system. Well it it's more than just what water well waters a complicated thing. It it's more than just liquid it's ammonia it's nothing it's anything that we'd call volatile sleeve these are things that when exposed to enough keep become gas just form right ross right we're not talking about water for ice it's everything okay yeah i got the. And and came from the stuff our solar system formed out of the early solar system was this mix of molecules in items. You you had all the iron all of those celica all of the stuff that we think of is heavy metals. Um we had all of the carbon molecules. And next and all of this was oh two oxygen next into all of this was all sorts of different carbon gases next into this was the unknown yeah and nothing in and. Part of this mixing process. Um yeah different things segregated out into different places do to grab occasional attraction. Pulling things into the center of the solar system versus the light pressure. Forcing things back out in the inter- solar system all of that light pressure from the sun basically said okay volatile but by or sending far far away now and so the earth initially it was this molten dry thing. And we had to wait for the comets to come flying in and were you water us i guess right okay soun- this would be in that early sold system with the light pressure on the radiation coming off of the coming off of this on. Innings it wasn't. But you know metal in rock just couldn't couldn't sort of fight against it and was pushed out into the owner solar system and even out of the whole whole system right. Yeah and so. But then you've got that dividing line right you've got the dividing line in between the the asteroid built so what was different there why did it stick around there it we it was a combination of. Well had as you increase your distance from the sun that. Pressure from the light every time you double the distance but let pressure spread out over four times the area. So as you get further and further away the stocks get less you also had temperature dropping so even though the early sign was. In some cases hotter it it. Didn't forget see things once you got far enough away. And and then once you get far far away uh then you reach the point where volatile sort quite happy to sit around is nice solid ice. And that's where you see the evolution in composition as a distance from the sun so it had nothing to do with the temperature of the sons with all like the. The the stuff was melted away it was really able blood pressure. It it's a combination of both so well things were hot enough that you had the the asteroid quite simply supplemented away volatile from there surface if if you're cold. But not. Covered up i says exposed to vacuum quite happily go straight to get. And and say you had a certain amount of temperatures were high enough to supplement away thanks. But at the same time this this radiation pressure is what took materials that would otherwise grab occasionally get held onto i push them away so this is where planet earth. Was really hot but was also experiencing this press sure that took everything that could have sat around as a grad potentially held onto atmosphere and said no i'm i'm just gonna push you out of the way i'm gonna send you out to the other solar system. So then is the amount of ice it's in the elders whole system is that it sort of the same amount of was probably formed in a universal system as well but just go out. Got blown out. Now you start getting into details where i have to say i'm not comfortable i have three nine hundred still not entirely sure helpful or systems form. And and so it's unclear how much did we lose how much should we just rearrange bryce how much got sucked into jupiter in the sun along the way how much became the our social. And and even i mean we sold them even know fully where the oceans came from i mean the comets is the is one of the servers but there's other ones as well so it's. You know more research is necessary yeah there's diverse models one how our solar system form there's this one fabulous model that. Has jupiter saturn here and it's a nap to starting closer n basically is this tumbling swarm of planets that. Gravitates surely eventually flying each other out where you had saturn in jupiter and residence for awhile just radically. Slinging small bodies all over the solar system sure season models we don't know what's right yet no use mention there's different kinds of ice i mean it's not just water s's mowing you know. Messing things like that do both have different ones as well order they all sort of. You know was role but how bowls how what would be real collected together or do you not see view mon you know until you're further out. For the most part the ah nice happy solid i see bodies we see these are the send towards the quick for both objects the scattered disk objects. Well they have a variation in composition we think we're still figuring this out the suckers are far away and they're faint. Well they may have differences in composition and we guessed that that based on differences and i'll be though. Eh they they all formed and basically the same area and then got scattered around by crab attention all interactions so it's more like you take the snow bank on the side of the road that. Has some of it has been it attacked by pollution from cars. Some of it has do a random spilled coffee from someone falling on the ice there's unfortunately dot p on the snow bank. And we have you grab a a or don't grab a handful of snow from that snow bank there's gonna be variations and composition but in general it's all one snow back and in this case. It's all one family if i see objects. Uhhuh. And is it do is it more than about their position then. They're composition. Yeah that's exactly how we segregated things into different bands it's where they're located in solar system not what're they made us like we do with other objects. So was taken object that you know people might be familiar with. That that is largely comprise devising kitty kind of a better look at what we would find side of it now you mentioned you know gravel and dog pee on the snow bank but what would it you know you know and sell it is or. Uh you know a call me at like at least comet or something like that i mean it's not just to sure block of ice right. Right so eh the the the way we typically model comments is. You take a couple handful of of of gravel uh celica some metals mix it all together. Add in dry ice add in um oh yeah add in oxygen out in a little bit of nitrogen had in pretty much anything you can think of that can be comma frozen gas. Mix it all together and and a variety of slightly different ways and. And that's what you get when you look at a comment at start taking it apart mostly it's ice but there are bits of rock and gravel next in there ultimately you're just. Like like the the way the earth has the different layers i mean you can give you cracked and what you find layers or would you find it'll just jumbled oh. It's hard to know the it we haven't had the chance to grab one of these things and take it apart with a small objects like comments it's it's generally thought that there pretty much composition only. When you you you look at non whether ing affects the surface is going to have it it's own son affected materials but once you get in from the stuff that integrated through so interactions with solar whether. It's probably a fairly consistent composition that's also what we think of asterisks your mostly rocky bodies. But ads things become bigger as you go from looking at the small potatoes to looking at things like serious and once you go from looking at. The smaller comments to looking at the bigger quite crippled object things like put out then you start to expected traffic haitian of some sort has happened. But we're still learning we're still not entirely sure. To uh right i guess the question is if there you know depends like if it were bidding uh planet like like trite an orbiting nap ten right there might be a certain amount of title selection going on it's was going to have heating up the core bitten maybe that allows me to differentiate of it. And and more than that you all set up while it for them to. It had a chance to start grabbing on to things and slightly different ways and. Segregated in the trails out has things got bigger and bigger you you end up hm plan information is one of the things that i'm still trying to get my head around but one of the neat facets of of for me. Any large. Object it becomes rounds due to having sufficient gravity. Is and the trails inside move around of their own accord this is where are you and up on the earth with bands as metals that are easier to mind and if the entire composition was like a well next cake batter. So. Through all of these complicated processes you do end up inside of these bodies with materials moving around and so what impact then as i job to the beginning this is what impact because has has this ice had on. On the. You know geologic. Development of the earth and and and life especially. Well i i think the most interesting one in modern history is. The object it flew over for the the soviet union in the early nineteen hundreds the ten discuss that is thought to perhaps been a comment that choose to evaporate right prior to hitting the planet earth and. That's kinda cool to think about new i heard it was you oppose or black hole. Yeah now know yeah alright it was it it was probably. A little comet. Right and it's it's thought that the comment in key and this is it. This is a much argued over thing but it's not the common inc he used to be much much larger in the past and various chunks of it of probably hit the planet earth at various times in our past. And one particular theory not widely accepted but still kind of need to think about you're allowed to think about the not widely accepted but not yet this proven serious. It's thought that one particular chunk might as hit the middle east indian part of the collapse of the copper h. Well then just in general we have water on our planet. Pretty much all this the planetary for me some of those we have. Say that in the early parts the solar system our planet should've gotten bake try so why i had to come from somewhere. And comets are thought to be. Maybe that source of water in the same strips the planet mars when we look at mars and we see what look like refer bad. Begin mars is was inside the frost line should've adults water blasted out all of its ice. You know pushed away and yet inclusion evidence of past water. And and now as we start to explore the moon and mercury with the lunar constant for better in the messenger mission. Where even finding i. On the polar regions of mercury this little paper rock next to the sign. And the only reason that we can even start to think about explaining that is. The idea that well we see comets plunge into the sign all the time using the the so ho- and other fun staring satellites. Well what if it instead of plunging into the sign you had comets plunging into creators in the polar regions on mercury these places that are in constant shadow and cold enough to keep that i. So it looks like. Comets native even brought water tumor carrie one thing is good i funds quit interesting is is what the future hold for the solar system you know we've talked what how the amount of energy coming out of sons heating up. That you know as the sun continues to to heat up it's gonna because some trouble for your life on earth what it's going to actually. To the point show to have it abilities on of the whole of the whole whole system yeah it it's an interesting feature because our son is going to get larger and surface area. Colder in temperature and the combination is a whole lot more light the whole much a whole bunch more thermal energy. And um ah surface that is much closer to the surface of the planet and in fact probably uncomfortably close and killing us in the future. And as we move out words. Is humanities capable of moving out words. We can start thinking about the necessity of finding water and finding other things that we need for life and grabbing a a hold of an asteroid and turning it into a space craft and going out and grabbing water from a comment. It's it's the stuff of science fiction but also perhaps the stuff of the scientific future. And you can imagine way down the road billions and billions of years down the road it could very well be the the it's the older solar system actually has the liquid we could be paying you know on the beaches of the tell us right. You know our summer home one poodle. Um i i'd much rather have rock beneath my feet but uh you know that those are futures that we can think about now i think one of the really interesting meal law is this research is being done right now. Because it has a very practical purpose which is as we want to further explorer the solar system. We need just water we need to sign. You know what you know a lot of the research is being done especially searching for it on the moon has a very practical purpose right. And and on the moon unfortunately we're finding that yeah there's volatile yeah there's it h too well water but a lot of it seems to be mixed into the soil switch makes it very energy intensive to pull it out. Bye if we can growled one of these comments that wonders into the inner solar system one of these pieces of either the quite per belt or the scattered desk or the or cloud all depending on what it's early oracle parameters where before we captured it. We can capture it and gently crash landed on the moon. That's resources. As as we start to think about how much. Harder it is too mine metals as we start to use up all of our easily accessible resources this we start to think about the grab potential requirements of. Building colonies on the moon and mars suddenly it starts to make sense to just go grab an asteroid instead of mine and things here on the planet earth for. So we now see comments we now see asteroid is. Teacher resources uhhuh. No you know in the past week when we had our own sold systems look at but now we have. Hundreds um other sources out there to see with the you know with all the extras what planets with times are are turning up is this water or just i use. You know part of the puzzle were you able to see it very well. Were able to see and you can't get compositions from this distance but you can speculate we're able to see disks of material asteroid like belts quaker about like things around other stars. In some of the more interesting cases at young young solar systems we can see the the empty gaps of still forming planets and and other systems the much larger gaps of the mature graphic patiently swept out region. It seems to be that there's always stuff left over and how much stuff gets left over varies from systems assistant they got has its own set of belts around it and appears to have no planets. Different solar systems are built in different ways but one if the not unusual features is a belt in a position that would make sense for it to be frozen objects just like our corporate belt. Uhhuh and it and sometimes you can see you when things are colliding open when the you know the activities happening. It it's need to be able to look around the solar system and basically catch snapshots of solar systems in the process of growing up. Thanks pamela oh into one last reminder for people if they want to participate and help figure aware new rises is going to go next what you to do. They should go to w w w dot ice hunters dot o. r. g. and i feel free to follow some toward her and i'll be keeping people up today well it's not me it's the servers we'll be keeping people up to date. On all the things that are going on in being discovered school and if if you're lucky you will be the person that picks. Contributes to choosing. The next target for new rises i flew pretty cool so hope to see you on line alright for like three of them all my pleasure but it's really care we reverse booster me through because oh total transcripts for every episode are available on our website truck about astronomy care though any comments questions or feedback ten folders are me too really over your mail for sure nonprofit educational resource right away for you today about family day were supportive of a confirmation but where would you if you enjoy seven cats one of his information it helps me from being worse trade just quit the building wink on the website ovation forgotten about them over us taxpayers you can for sure for free to write a review recommend it to your friends every little bit helps export show on our website instructions that it was true on your part of the software installer major dot com aforethought yeah got it tomorrow worth it really you because brought aboard trevor thorough sure we'll go to the programs astronomy test is produced it sort of illinois university over at all would generally support from the university good you wow alright
Copyright Astronomy Cast