May 11, 2023 • 36 mins
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe continue their multi-year mission to discuss the various moons of our solar system – this time with the literary-themed moons of the ice giant Uranus. (Part 2 of 3)
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the USS Hamlet's Father's Ghost, requesting entry into
Uranian orbit and the Uranian satellite system. We have decelerated
and see clearance to titanium.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Greetings, USS Hamlet's Father's Ghost. This is Mustard Seed. Can
you state the purpose of your visit?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Roger that Mustard Seed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I have two hundred and fifty Shakespeare enthusiast on board,
just waking up for a tour of the Uranian moons.
Our visit to the Royal Automated Uranian Theater on Titanius
should be registered in the lock.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
All right, Roger that USSHFG. I can confirm your reservation
now and docking credentials are good to go with your passengers.
A pleasant and safe visit to the Uranian satellite system.
The next automated Thespianoid performance will be let's see Ooh
Edward the third Well, better luck next time.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back with Part two of our series on the
planet Uranus and its moons. Now in Part one, we
focused mainly on the planet itself. This time we're going
to start getting more into the moons. Maybe we'll do
all of the moons this time. I think last time
we promised it would happen. We'll see whether we can
(01:27):
fit it all into one episode. But I had a
few more core planet digressions burning a hole in my
pocket that I wanted to mention before we fly off
to the satellites. Are you okay with that? Rob, Let's
do it.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
First of all, I was wondering what's the density of Uranus,
And it turns out that Uranus is the second least
dense planet in the Solar System at one point twenty
seven grams per cubic centimeter. The only planet less dense
is actually Saturn, the second largest planet in the Solar System.
You might wonder which planet is the dense baby, that's Earth.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
That's Earth.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We are at five point five to one grams per
cubic centimeter, so we are the density king. But one
of the real things I wanted to return to was
a question of materials, because in the last episode we
mentioned just giving sort of an overview of the basics
of the planet, that most of the mass of Uranus
is thought to be a hot, dense fluid of ices,
(02:27):
probably surrounding a rocky core of some sort. And though
it might be kind of strange to hear like hot
dense fluid of ices, that almost kind of doesn't make
sense based on our definition of ice. And it's true
that a lot of this ice is going to be
different than the kind of ice we know. So I
was reading more about this in an article by a
(02:48):
planetary atmospheric scientist named Amy Simon, who is a senior
researcher at NASA Goddard, and this was written for the
magazine of the Planetary Society. The article is called the
of the Ice Giants, and one of the questions Simon
addresses in this article is why are the planets Uranus
and Neptune called ice giants as opposed to regular gas giants.
(03:13):
It's because, compared to regular gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune are composed of a higher proportion of
ice forming molecules like water and methane, though much of
that so called ice is in a phase unfamiliar to
us on the surface of Earth. Cymon writes quote, ice
giants are mostly water, probably in the form of a
(03:36):
supercritical fluid. The visible clouds likely consist of ice crystals
with different compositions, So regarding supercritical fluid, a supercritical fluid
doesn't behave exactly like a liquid, gas or a solid.
It's an emergent state of matter occurring at temperatures and
pressures beyond what is known as the critical point for
(04:00):
each substance. And Simon has a very good paragraph clarifying
the planetary science use of the term ice, which could
help clear up any confusion there. She says that on
Earth we usually use the term ice to refer to
just water H two O when it is frozen solid,
but planetary astronomers use the word ice to refer to
(04:20):
any condensable molecule in its solid form. She writes, quote,
these tend to be highly reflective form clouds, and unlike minerals,
can readily change between liquid, solid and gas states at
relatively low temperatures. So we're mainly familiar with water ice
on the surface of Earth, but throughout space there are
(04:43):
lots of ices. There's methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and phosphene
pH three, and these are all condensable molecules and could
all freeze in the atmosphere of Uranus and Neptune also
for that matter, and Simon writes that most of the
cloud clouds we see in the atmospheres of these ice
giants are clouds of methane ice crystals or hydrogen sulfide ice,
(05:07):
So there's probably weird supercritical fluids down below, and then
an atmosphere above. The atmosphere in its gas contents, is
mostly hydrogen and helium, but that atmosphere is probably full
of traces of different kinds of ice, including not just
H two O, but things like ammonia and methane. And
speaking of methane, as we mentioned last time, the blue
(05:31):
color of both Neptune and Uranus appears to come from
the presence of methane in their atmospheres, which absorbs the
red wavelengths of light from the sun and reflects only
the blue spectrum. But the question is why is Urinus
a paler shade of blue than Neptune. If you look
at Neptune, it's often kind of a royal blue, whereas
(05:53):
in true color, Uranus appears kind of a gray green blue.
Simon writes that this is quote either because Urinus has
more haze, so more kind of a cloudy outer shell,
but she goes on or because Neptune's atmosphere has another
unidentified constituent that absorbs longer wavelength light even more strongly,
(06:15):
and of course longer wavelength light would be more red
shifted toward the red end of the visible spectrum. Okay,
so that's ice, the atmosphere, the makeup of the planet.
But there's one more thing you may have seen headlines
about regarding Urinus in Neptune that if you have seen
these headlines, I'm sure you're wondering about it, and that
is the claim that some experts have argued that it
(06:37):
likely rains diamonds on Urinus in Neptune. And from what
I can tell, this is true. Now, this is obviously
something we haven't been able to detect directly with probes
or anything, so nobody can sense this happening. Instead, it's
based on what we do know about the planets and
argue and sort of extrapolating logically from the starting facts.
(07:01):
So how does the logic go? Well, I was reading
about this in an article for space dot Com by
the Sunny Stonybrook astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter, and in this article,
Sutter explains that we know from mathematical models that the
inner mantles of ice giants probably have temperatures of about
seven thousand kelvins or over sixty seven hundred celsius and
(07:25):
pressure about six million times the atmospheric pressure on the
surface of Earth. Meanwhile, higher up in the mantle, things
are cooler about two thousand kelvins and only two hundred
thousand times Earth's atmospheric pressure. And we know that water, ammonia,
and methane are present within that mantle. So what happens
(07:46):
to those substances in those conditions, Well, these conditions of
temperature and pressure would tend to tear apart molecules of methane,
methane is H four carbon, and hydrogen. And when those
molecules get torn apart, we are left with free carbon.
Free carbon tends to link together with other free carbon
(08:08):
to form long chains of carbon. What happens to long
chains of pure carbon under high pressure that gets pressed
into a diamond? These diamonds would tend to then drop
down to lower in the mantle where high temperatures vaporize them,
and then they float back up into the upper mantle,
and then the cycle repeats, so you're left with diamond rain.
(08:32):
Sounds like the name of a great alternate universe collaborative
sci fi movie musical between Prince and David Bowie. Wish
I could have seen it, but it does appear to
be very likely a physical reality on Uranus and Neptune
as well.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So you're saying that all we have to do is
jet out to Urinus, dip down into the atmosphere of Uranus,
scoop up some diamonds, then get back to Earth and
we're set for life.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I've always said when I look at but the stars
at night, what I see is profit. Okay, but one
more digression before we get to the moons. Since part one,
we actually got a really great bit of listener mail
from Joe, not me, but a different Joe who listens
to the show, who brought to our attention some really
(09:18):
awesome photos of Uranus recently captured by the James Web
Space Telescope. Joe writes, quote, I've long awaited with tremulous
anticipation the resumption of your ural journey to the Heliopause
and was thrilled to see the recumbent sky King Uranus
on my podcast Feed Your Choice was timely indeed, as
the James Web Space Telescope just last month released some
(09:41):
spectacular visuals of Uranus. These images bost greater clarity than
the Hubbles effort, especially of the planet's rings. I love
living under a sky that will never run out of
extraordinary things to look at and talk about, and I
appreciate when you cast your gaze upward from time to time. Joe, Well,
thank you, Joe. Because I had not seen these, I
(10:01):
looked them up and this is fantastic. So I saw
these within the context of a NASA press release from
April sixth, twenty twenty three that Joe shared with us Rob,
I pasted these two photos here in the outline. One
is just zoomed in on the planet from the more
zoomed out second one. I would say, from my perspective,
(10:21):
these images are gorgeous. They fill one with awe at
the picture of this frosty, dark recess where the Blue
God lives. And this might sound a little bit weird,
but I actually mean this in the best possible way. Somehow,
in these images, Urinus looks more like an optical artifact
than a physical object, as if the planet were like
(10:44):
a glint or a lens flare. And to explain what
I mean, so the planet is pictured on its side,
because of course that's how it is. We're not seeing
the rings laterally from the side, crossing over and behind
the planet, like we do in most photos of Saturn. Instead,
we're seeing the rings encircling the planet in an egg
shape because we're looking roughly down toward the north pole,
(11:09):
which faces sideways. And in this particular photo, though this
is not exactly true color, the planet is pale blue
with a white cap, and the rings sort of fade
outward to inward from a screaming fluorescent white to a
dim blue gray as they sink toward the planet's atmosphere.
(11:30):
And the sunlight seems blinding in these images because we
actually see it gleaming off the edge of the planet,
which is even weirder because, as I said, the disk
of Urinus facing us looks like a glint or a
gleam itself. And in the more zoomed out of these
two photos, we can see the blue dots of the
larger moons surrounding it, also sending out these sort of
(11:52):
shafts of reflected light in these hexagonal criss crosses out
into space.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, these images are gorgeous. It makes it look like
Urinus is a planet designed by Japanese illustrator Hajimi Soriyama, whose,
of course I think he worked on the design for
the original Sony Aibo robot, but also mostly known for
(12:17):
robot pin up like really shiny, silvery robot pin up models.
This artist is on my mind because the movie we're
watching Friday in for Weird House Cinema, this artist is
credited like deep down in the credits because there's a
character in the movie that has some of this art
up on his workstation. But this kind of but there's
(12:38):
a certain aside from like the female robot bodies in
his art, there is this kind of like glimmering, like
silvery perfection to things. And that's what that's what I
kind of get from this image of Urinus. And if
you're into planets, like I mean, put it on a calendar.
It looks it looks nice.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It is beautiful. And I will say the blue in
this photo, as I alluded to, is not exactly true
color from the visible spectrum. I think it's approximate. So
the image is from the webs near infrared camera combining
data from two filters. According to the press release, it
was one point four and three point zero microns, and
then the article explains these are coded out to blue
(13:19):
and orange respectively. Now I mentioned the white cap that
we see on Uranus in this photo. The article explains
that this is known as the polar cap, and it
seems to manifest when the pole of the planet goes
into direct sunlight during its long polar summer, which, again,
as we talked about last time, lasts many earth years
(13:41):
at a time, and then the cap seems to disappear
in the fall when it starts to turn away from
the sun. As far as I could find, we aren't
sure exactly what causes this, or maybe if somebody knows,
I just didn't dig that up. But so regarding the
beautiful rings in the picture, Urinus has thirteen known rings,
and you can see eleven of them in this photo,
(14:02):
though some of them are so bright that they bleed
together in the image. There are nine major rings and
then there are two kind of faint dusty rings that
were discovered during the approach of Voyager two in nineteen
eighty six. But speaking of those, rings and moons. Rings
and moons sometimes have an interesting origin story, so I
was wondering where do experts generally think they came from
(14:26):
in the case of Uranus. Going back to that Planetary
Society article by Amy Simon, Simon writes that the medium
sized moons of Uranus probably formed in place at the
same time or after whatever event it was that left
Uranus tilted on its side. And as we talked about
last time, it seems likely that Uranus was probably knocked
(14:48):
on its side and left colder than all the other
planets because of an impact with a large object, maybe
like an Earth sized planet billions of years ago. And
so what we're left with is that the moons orbit
Urinus on its equatorial plane, so like the planet itself
and like its rings, the moons are tilted at a
(15:10):
roughly ninety degree angle to the rest of the Solar System.
In general, the moons of Urinus are made of ice
and rock, usually slightly more ice than rock, and they
show some interesting surface features, like patterns of darkening on
their surfaces that are caused by some unknown material. Spectral
analysis reveals the presence of frozen carbon dioxide on a
(15:33):
lot of the moons. Meanwhile, the origin of the rings,
the consensus seems to be that they are created by
the shattering into dust and fragments of formerly solid moons.
And as we've seen with other planets, the sudden or
gradual smash up of moons can happen a number of ways,
(15:53):
by lots of little collisions with meteoroids or other objects,
or by tidal breakup due to gravity, in any case,
turning former larger satellites into smaller satellites and rings of
little fragments.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, it's fascinating. How from our human perspective we look
up at our moon, we consider the moons of other worlds,
and there's a certain certain stability to them, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
But if you look at.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Any planets, moons or moon, generally, you're looking at a
more violent relationship over the vast history of a given planet.
There's nothing peaceful about it. All right, Well, let's begin,
(16:45):
at least begin to dip into the moons of Uranus.
Like I said, we originally set out to do them all.
Maybe we won't do them all. Maybe we'll get part
way through the journey and we'll come back on Tuesday.
Who knows, Maybe we'll just we'll just get we'll finish
them up, and then we'll go right into Neptune.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
There are no rules. We can do what we want.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So let's start with the inner moons of Uranus thirteen
total known. All right, We're going to start with a
pair of moons, Cordelia and Ophelia. These are named for
the youngest daughter of King Lear and of course Hamlet's
tragic beloved, respectively. The main significance of these moons is
(17:26):
that both Cordelia and Ophelia are shepherd moons, as their
gravity keeps Uranus's epsilon ring from dispersing.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Now, I thought this was interesting, so I was looking
up how exactly it is that shepherd moons work. What
does the shepherd moon do? These little small moons, how
do they keep a ring? Essentially, they keep a ring
in tight formation around the planet and clear these gaps
between the rings. And it seems that essentially it works
(17:56):
like this. So you've got a small moon and it's
orbiting planet. And imagine at first it's orbiting the planet
along with a bunch of other small particles sort of
within the lane of that small moon's orbit. Particles that
are ahead of the small moon will be attracted by
(18:16):
gravity to it, meaning if they're orbiting ahead of it,
they will naturally want to slow down in their orbit,
right because they're getting pulled toward this moon. But slowing
down in their orbit actually causes them to lose energy
and fall down closer to the planet that they're orbiting.
So these like dust and particles and things in the
(18:37):
ring actually end up sorting down into lower orbit rings.
And then meanwhile, things that are orbiting along the same
lane as this moon, that are behind it in its
orbit are attracted to it and thus sped up. And
as they get sped up trying to chase after this
(18:58):
moon by the force of gravity, that acceleration actually causes
them to have greater energy and to ascend in their
orbit and end up going into outer rings beyond that
little moon.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So again we have the Shepherd moons here. They were
discovered by Voyager two in nineteen eighty six. Like the
rest of Uranus's inner moons, they appear to be roughly
equal split of water, ice and rock. They're small. Of
note to Cordelia is the closest to the planet, and
I guess we should also point out or come back
(19:30):
to the fact that yes, these are both Shakespearean references.
There are going to be a lot of shakespeare references
as we go through the moons of Uranus, and these
are just the first two.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It seems that a lot of the names of these
satellites for some reason were chosen either from the works
of Shakespeare or from the works of Alexander Pope.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, predominantly Shakespearean, but definitely there's some key Alexander Pope
references as well. So as we go through it, we
can probably talk a little bit about some the namesakes here.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Well, this was something I was wondering. I don't know
about the origin exactly, like what people had in mind
when they were naming these, But so I think, like,
is there some significance to the innermost minor moon here
being called Cordelia, because Cordelia is a very poignant character.
Cordelia is the youngest daughter of King Lear in the
(20:24):
play King Lear. If you don't know the play or
need refreshing, the very beginning of it, the first scene
is King Lear is this old king. He comes out.
He decides that he will divide up his kingdom between
his three daughters, Goneril, Reagan, and Cordelia, and he's going
to give the largest portion to the daughter that loves
him most. So Goneril and Reagan give these speeches where
(20:48):
they overwhelm their father with absurd insincere flattery about how
much they love him. And then when it's Cordelia's time
to speak, she finds that she cannot put into words,
She cannot express her love for her father to herself.
She says that she knows her love is richer than
her tongue. And then when it's her time to speak,
(21:09):
she says, unhappy that I am. I cannot heave my
heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to
my bond, no more nor less. And I think he
gives her a chance to amend her statement. She doesn't really,
and then so Lee gets furious at this decides to
disinherit her. He gives nothing to Cordelia, splits his kingdom
(21:30):
between the other two daughters, Goneril and Reagan, who secretly
think he is a fool and they will go on
to betray him once they come to power. And of
course it's a tragedy, so things just get worse and worries.
Basically everybody ends up dead but you know, it's a
very meaningful character and something I think, I don't know.
That moment in the first scene is something that always
(21:50):
got me, something I can really relate to, Like the
feeling of worrying that you don't express positive feelings because
you're afraid that you can't phrase them in the sincerest way,
like you don't know how to put them to words.
So then you worry that like you're perceived as not
wanting to say a positive thing at all. I don't
know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
No, no, no, no, I mean, certainly with the example
here from the play, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
But she's the daughter that truly loved him. She just
didn't want to give a big, insincere speech.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's a very meaningful character. So I'm wondering, is there
some similarly at play here in the selection of the
name for this moon? Maybe not so, Like it's a
very small satellite, it's the closest to the planet of these.
It is one of the shepherd moons that sort of
guides the Epsilon ring and keeps it tight in formation.
By the end, I mean, she does show great discipline
(22:46):
because she comes back with an army to try to
to fight on her father's side against her cruel, duplicitous sisters.
I don't know, maybe not. I don't know if it fits,
but I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
No, I think it's natural to try and read some
sort of sense into the naming.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Though.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Of course, as we'll discuss it, it's different people at
different times coming up with these names. You know, some
are maybe probably a little more up on the works
of William Shakespeare than others. Sometimes there's there seems like
something they could be getting, at other times not. And
also some of these kind of slip by on a technicality,
so they're kind of all over the place. All right,
(23:26):
let's let's go into the next one. There's a Bianca
named after Kate's sister in the Taming of the Shrew.
This one does nothing really else that I think is
significant about it, and it was also discovered by Voyager two.
All right, after that, we have Cressida. This is the
title character from Troylus and Cresida. Again, nothing other else
it's really significant about this moon it was also discovered
(23:49):
by Voyger two. I know some of your probably wondering
when's Voyager six is going to show up in all this?
But I guess Voyger six just shot right out there, right.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I was unsure, but what you're for di vigure here? Right?
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, Voyager six doesn't actually exist except in the world
of Star Trek, okay, specifically Star Trek the motion picture,
the most riveting of all of them, that was pinned
by Alan Dean Foster. Oh wait, was he the one
who wrote.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
The novelization of Halloween three or something like that?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
He wrote the novelization of most films? Yes, all right.
The next moon of note here is Desdemona. This one's
named after the wife of Othello. No other real significance,
once again discovered by Voyager two. All right, now we're
moving on to another one. This is Juliet or Juliet
right if you're depending on how you're what line from
(24:42):
the play using sometimes you got to hit two syllables
instead of three on that. This is of course, named
after the title character from Romeo and Juliet. Romeo, meanwhile,
is nowhere to be found amid the moons of Uranus.
It is kind of interesting that there's a part in
Romeo and Juliet where Romeo is swearing his love up
and down the universe and Juliette specifically asked him not
(25:06):
to swear by the moon. She says, quote, oh, swear
not by the moon, the inconstant moon that monthly changes
in her circle orb less that thy love prove likewise variable.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Changes in her circle? Orb What does that refer to,
like the like waxing and waning of the moon or
maybe I'm not sure I know.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
What that means.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
I mean I take it to me and yeah, it's
like there are different faces of the moon, Like like
if your love is like the moon Romeo, then I
don't you know, it's like what am I going to
get today? I mean it seems like if it is
like the moon, she could chart it out and then
she'd have a really good idea of what she's gonna get,
you know, phase by phase. But yeah, she's like, I
need consistency.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Right, your love should not wax and wane. We shouldn't
have a new moon of your love. Yes, it's were
wolf night every night.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Anyway, Aside from these thoughts, juliet nothing else than literally
significant once again discovered by Voyger. Two, then we have Portia.
This one is named after the heroine from the Merchant
of Venice. This one. I guess the main significance is
that it orbits Urinus in less than one earth day,
and it.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Was discovered by Voyger two. All right.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Up, next we have Rosalind. Rosalind is one of the
Duke's daughters in As You Like It. That's the namesake.
Nothing else really significant to discuss here.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
This one was also discovered by Voyager two. All right.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
The next one is Cupid. This is this one? This
one is is a tough one to fit in, but okay.
Cupid is, of course the Roman god of.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Love, famously invented by William Shakespeare.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Well, he is technically a character in Shakespeare's what is
it timin Timon of Athens. I'm not familiar with this play.
I don't know anything about that one. This may be
one of the more obscure ones. I don't remember studying
this one in school. But the discovery of it is
kind of interesting because it was discovered by m R
(27:14):
Showalter in JJ Lissauer using the Hubble space telescope in
two thousand and three. It was too small and too
dark for Voyager two to spot. And I was thinking
about this. It's tempting to try and spin this one out.
And think of like, Okay, here we have Cupid as
this dark, near invisible shadow press presence, you know, reminding
(27:35):
us of past discussions about how Cupid was sometimes said
to shoot lead and arrows. So it's you know, he's
not only dealing out love with his projectiles, but also
some of the ramifications of love, and maybe even the
tragic ramifications of love. But again, this one, this one
seems to sort of slip by on a technicality in
(27:57):
terms of its naming. All right, the next one is Belinda,
And this is one where we have to just have
to ask Shakespeare to move over, because this one is
named after the character whose lock of hair is stolen
in Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Now, this is an unfortunately titled poem because it doesn't
mean what it sounds like. That the poem by Pope
is an older definition of the word rape, which is basically,
in this context it means like theft or snatching. So
the poem is a mock heroic satire. It narrates like
a social scandal in which a lord of some sort.
(28:37):
I did read this in school, and I forget a
lot of the details, but he steals a lock of
hair from a young woman. But it's written like in
the style of the Iliad, to be mocking of the like,
oh hoho, this is actually insignificant. I think Pope's point
is best summarized in one of its lines, where he says,
what mighty contests rise from trivial things? Though I don't know,
(28:59):
thinking on it now, there are obviously much worse crimes,
but stealing somebody's hair is pretty weird.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, Plus hair has magical connotations. They could be stealing
it to work some sort of magic. Maybe that's explored
in the poem. I don't know. I have a degree
in English, and I somehow managed to never read this poem.
I remember that, you know the course. I'm familiar with
the author's name and his popularity and importance in English literature,
but I remember this title would come up and I
(29:26):
would think, Oh, that doesn't sound like something I want
to read, not realizing that it's about hair theft Alexander Pope.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Everything I recall that he wrote is basically satirical in nature.
I'm sure he must have written serious poems, but like
the other main thing I remember he wrote is something
called the Dunceiad, which is a sort of an epic
poem about stupidity.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
He was like, it seems like he was just really
into not suffering fools.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Though.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I feel like if that's your main vibe, you really
open yourself up to scrutiny, don't you.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
All Right, well, we'll come back to Pope's work in
a bit, because there are more moons named after him.
The next one is Perdita, and this is the daughter
of Leontes and Hermione in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tail.
This one's discovery is actually pretty interesting because Voyger two
is involved in its discovery, but it wasn't recognized till
two thousand and three. Basically, University of Arizona's Eric Karkoshka
(30:27):
discovered it by comparing Voyger two imagery with Hubble imagery
and sort of working out its existence based on these
two different streams. All right, up next, we have Puck Is,
of course, named after the sprite from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Stanley Tucci played him in the nineteen ninety nine film adaptation,
which had a great cast. I do remember seeing this
(30:48):
film when it came out, and I imagine I've seen
multiple it seems like Midsummer Night's Dream is just one
of those plays that if you're just going to fall
into seeing it, even if you don't set out to
watch Shakespeare in life.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Puck's a great character, great mischief maker, the mischief maker
who brings wisdom, whether on purpose or not.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, yeah, Tucci was perfect casting. Now significance. Here is
the smallest of the inner moons, with a diameter of
about one hundred and fifty kilometers or about ninety miles,
And it was guess what discovered by voyager two? All right,
up next we have Mab. It's named after Queen Mab,
queen of the fair Folk and English folklore. She's mentioned
(31:28):
in Romeo and Juliet So and just mentioned. So it
just really really squeaks by on a technicality. I mean,
this is one of those situations where I feel like
I want to shout a little bit and be like, look,
there are a lot of names that are mentioned in Shakespeare,
and there are plenty of characters. I don't know why
Queen Mab seems like the ideal choice.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Here is there an inner moon named Julius Caesar?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
No, but you know you could that would have been
a good one Caesar, right, But that's just off the
top of my head.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I'm not sure if there's some other.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, you know, I should also point out when you
start looking. And I didn't get into this in any
of my note taking, really, but there are individual features
on some moons that are likewise named after other things.
So it could be a Caeesar in there somewhere, you
know what.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Actually, I want to be fair, Even a lot of
the Shakespeare characters that we think of as more original
shakespeare characters are actually often from like adapted versions of
pre existing tales. Like a lot of Shakespeare's plays were
not wholly made up stories. They were based on something
from history or from an older story or another play,
(32:39):
or something right right, Like who would have thought of it?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
You know?
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Hamlet is the guy from the Northman.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, I mean, if you were around today, he'd be uh,
you know, he'd be in the MCU somewhere working on
a project.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Of it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Anyway, Mab is the moon here. This one's discovered in
two thousand and three by show Alter and Lisaur using
the Hubble space telescope.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Interesting in fact, I came across while reading that article
by the NASA Goddard researcher Amy Simon. She writes that
Mab quote maybe generating a tenuous blue toned ring like
Enceladus does for Saturn's e ring, though the source currently
remains a mystery.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Well, you know that sounds kind of fitting for the
Queen of the fairy Folk.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So I do like that.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Well, I'm looking at the clock, and do you know
what the clock reads. It reads a promise broken because
we said we were going to do all of the
moons within part two, and I think we have failed
because we're coming up against a time limit. We got
to cap it here and we've got all of the
major moons left to talk about. So I think that's
going to have to be part three of our series
on Uranus and its satellites.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, hopefully we didn't mess anybody up there, But I
think the journey will be better for breaking into three
parts here, and there's gonna be a lot of fun
stuff to talk about, especially with the major moons of
Uranus and then getting also into just some of the
additional Shakespearean.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
References in the naming of these moons.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
In the meantime, if you would like to catch up
on past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, including
our past episodes dealing with the moons of Jupiter and
Saturn and Mars and so forth. You'll find those in
the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed, which you'll
find wherever you get your podcasts. We have core episodes
of Stuff to Blow Your Mind airing there on Tuesdays
(34:30):
and Thursdays. On Mondays, we open up the mail bag
on our listener mail episodes. That's primarily where we read
emails from people. Occasionally we'll read one in an episode,
as in today's episode, you know, if it relates to
the subject matter, but generally it's going to be in
the Monday episodes. On Wednesdays, we do a short form
artifact or monster fact episode this week. Of course, it
(34:52):
ties into our theme of Urinus, so go check that
out if you haven't. And then on Fridays we set
aside most serious concerns just talk about a weird film
on Weird House Cinema. Our selection for this week does
not have anything to do with the planet Uranus, but
that it's still.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
A lot of fun. Bye God.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
We'll find a way to tie it in by the
time Friday comes around. Anyway, Huge thanks as always to
our audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to
get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
or just to say hello, you can email us at
(35:31):
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Its West d d
This is the USS Hamlet's Father's Ghost, requesting entry into
Uranian orbit and the Uranian satellite system. We have decelerated
and see clearance to titanium.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Greetings, USS Hamlet's Father's Ghost. This is Mustard Seed. Can
you state the purpose of your visit?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Roger that Mustard Seed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I have two hundred and fifty Shakespeare enthusiast on board,
just waking up for a tour of the Uranian moons.
Our visit to the Royal Automated Uranian Theater on Titanius
should be registered in the lock.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
All right, Roger that USSHFG. I can confirm your reservation
now and docking credentials are good to go with your passengers.
A pleasant and safe visit to the Uranian satellite system.
The next automated Thespianoid performance will be let's see Ooh
Edward the third Well, better luck next time.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back with Part two of our series on the
planet Uranus and its moons. Now in Part one, we
focused mainly on the planet itself. This time we're going
to start getting more into the moons. Maybe we'll do
all of the moons this time. I think last time
we promised it would happen. We'll see whether we can
(01:27):
fit it all into one episode. But I had a
few more core planet digressions burning a hole in my
pocket that I wanted to mention before we fly off
to the satellites. Are you okay with that? Rob, Let's
do it.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
First of all, I was wondering what's the density of Uranus,
And it turns out that Uranus is the second least
dense planet in the Solar System at one point twenty
seven grams per cubic centimeter. The only planet less dense
is actually Saturn, the second largest planet in the Solar System.
You might wonder which planet is the dense baby, that's Earth.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
That's Earth.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We are at five point five to one grams per
cubic centimeter, so we are the density king. But one
of the real things I wanted to return to was
a question of materials, because in the last episode we
mentioned just giving sort of an overview of the basics
of the planet, that most of the mass of Uranus
is thought to be a hot, dense fluid of ices,
(02:27):
probably surrounding a rocky core of some sort. And though
it might be kind of strange to hear like hot
dense fluid of ices, that almost kind of doesn't make
sense based on our definition of ice. And it's true
that a lot of this ice is going to be
different than the kind of ice we know. So I
was reading more about this in an article by a
(02:48):
planetary atmospheric scientist named Amy Simon, who is a senior
researcher at NASA Goddard, and this was written for the
magazine of the Planetary Society. The article is called the
of the Ice Giants, and one of the questions Simon
addresses in this article is why are the planets Uranus
and Neptune called ice giants as opposed to regular gas giants.
(03:13):
It's because, compared to regular gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune are composed of a higher proportion of
ice forming molecules like water and methane, though much of
that so called ice is in a phase unfamiliar to
us on the surface of Earth. Cymon writes quote, ice
giants are mostly water, probably in the form of a
(03:36):
supercritical fluid. The visible clouds likely consist of ice crystals
with different compositions, So regarding supercritical fluid, a supercritical fluid
doesn't behave exactly like a liquid, gas or a solid.
It's an emergent state of matter occurring at temperatures and
pressures beyond what is known as the critical point for
(04:00):
each substance. And Simon has a very good paragraph clarifying
the planetary science use of the term ice, which could
help clear up any confusion there. She says that on
Earth we usually use the term ice to refer to
just water H two O when it is frozen solid,
but planetary astronomers use the word ice to refer to
(04:20):
any condensable molecule in its solid form. She writes, quote,
these tend to be highly reflective form clouds, and unlike minerals,
can readily change between liquid, solid and gas states at
relatively low temperatures. So we're mainly familiar with water ice
on the surface of Earth, but throughout space there are
(04:43):
lots of ices. There's methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and phosphene
pH three, and these are all condensable molecules and could
all freeze in the atmosphere of Uranus and Neptune also
for that matter, and Simon writes that most of the
cloud clouds we see in the atmospheres of these ice
giants are clouds of methane ice crystals or hydrogen sulfide ice,
(05:07):
So there's probably weird supercritical fluids down below, and then
an atmosphere above. The atmosphere in its gas contents, is
mostly hydrogen and helium, but that atmosphere is probably full
of traces of different kinds of ice, including not just
H two O, but things like ammonia and methane. And
speaking of methane, as we mentioned last time, the blue
(05:31):
color of both Neptune and Uranus appears to come from
the presence of methane in their atmospheres, which absorbs the
red wavelengths of light from the sun and reflects only
the blue spectrum. But the question is why is Urinus
a paler shade of blue than Neptune. If you look
at Neptune, it's often kind of a royal blue, whereas
(05:53):
in true color, Uranus appears kind of a gray green blue.
Simon writes that this is quote either because Urinus has
more haze, so more kind of a cloudy outer shell,
but she goes on or because Neptune's atmosphere has another
unidentified constituent that absorbs longer wavelength light even more strongly,
(06:15):
and of course longer wavelength light would be more red
shifted toward the red end of the visible spectrum. Okay,
so that's ice, the atmosphere, the makeup of the planet.
But there's one more thing you may have seen headlines
about regarding Urinus in Neptune that if you have seen
these headlines, I'm sure you're wondering about it, and that
is the claim that some experts have argued that it
(06:37):
likely rains diamonds on Urinus in Neptune. And from what
I can tell, this is true. Now, this is obviously
something we haven't been able to detect directly with probes
or anything, so nobody can sense this happening. Instead, it's
based on what we do know about the planets and
argue and sort of extrapolating logically from the starting facts.
(07:01):
So how does the logic go? Well, I was reading
about this in an article for space dot Com by
the Sunny Stonybrook astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter, and in this article,
Sutter explains that we know from mathematical models that the
inner mantles of ice giants probably have temperatures of about
seven thousand kelvins or over sixty seven hundred celsius and
(07:25):
pressure about six million times the atmospheric pressure on the
surface of Earth. Meanwhile, higher up in the mantle, things
are cooler about two thousand kelvins and only two hundred
thousand times Earth's atmospheric pressure. And we know that water, ammonia,
and methane are present within that mantle. So what happens
(07:46):
to those substances in those conditions, Well, these conditions of
temperature and pressure would tend to tear apart molecules of methane,
methane is H four carbon, and hydrogen. And when those
molecules get torn apart, we are left with free carbon.
Free carbon tends to link together with other free carbon
(08:08):
to form long chains of carbon. What happens to long
chains of pure carbon under high pressure that gets pressed
into a diamond? These diamonds would tend to then drop
down to lower in the mantle where high temperatures vaporize them,
and then they float back up into the upper mantle,
and then the cycle repeats, so you're left with diamond rain.
(08:32):
Sounds like the name of a great alternate universe collaborative
sci fi movie musical between Prince and David Bowie. Wish
I could have seen it, but it does appear to
be very likely a physical reality on Uranus and Neptune
as well.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So you're saying that all we have to do is
jet out to Urinus, dip down into the atmosphere of Uranus,
scoop up some diamonds, then get back to Earth and
we're set for life.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I've always said when I look at but the stars
at night, what I see is profit. Okay, but one
more digression before we get to the moons. Since part one,
we actually got a really great bit of listener mail
from Joe, not me, but a different Joe who listens
to the show, who brought to our attention some really
(09:18):
awesome photos of Uranus recently captured by the James Web
Space Telescope. Joe writes, quote, I've long awaited with tremulous
anticipation the resumption of your ural journey to the Heliopause
and was thrilled to see the recumbent sky King Uranus
on my podcast Feed Your Choice was timely indeed, as
the James Web Space Telescope just last month released some
(09:41):
spectacular visuals of Uranus. These images bost greater clarity than
the Hubbles effort, especially of the planet's rings. I love
living under a sky that will never run out of
extraordinary things to look at and talk about, and I
appreciate when you cast your gaze upward from time to time. Joe, Well,
thank you, Joe. Because I had not seen these, I
(10:01):
looked them up and this is fantastic. So I saw
these within the context of a NASA press release from
April sixth, twenty twenty three that Joe shared with us Rob,
I pasted these two photos here in the outline. One
is just zoomed in on the planet from the more
zoomed out second one. I would say, from my perspective,
(10:21):
these images are gorgeous. They fill one with awe at
the picture of this frosty, dark recess where the Blue
God lives. And this might sound a little bit weird,
but I actually mean this in the best possible way. Somehow,
in these images, Urinus looks more like an optical artifact
than a physical object, as if the planet were like
(10:44):
a glint or a lens flare. And to explain what
I mean, so the planet is pictured on its side,
because of course that's how it is. We're not seeing
the rings laterally from the side, crossing over and behind
the planet, like we do in most photos of Saturn. Instead,
we're seeing the rings encircling the planet in an egg
shape because we're looking roughly down toward the north pole,
(11:09):
which faces sideways. And in this particular photo, though this
is not exactly true color, the planet is pale blue
with a white cap, and the rings sort of fade
outward to inward from a screaming fluorescent white to a
dim blue gray as they sink toward the planet's atmosphere.
(11:30):
And the sunlight seems blinding in these images because we
actually see it gleaming off the edge of the planet,
which is even weirder because, as I said, the disk
of Urinus facing us looks like a glint or a
gleam itself. And in the more zoomed out of these
two photos, we can see the blue dots of the
larger moons surrounding it, also sending out these sort of
(11:52):
shafts of reflected light in these hexagonal criss crosses out
into space.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, these images are gorgeous. It makes it look like
Urinus is a planet designed by Japanese illustrator Hajimi Soriyama, whose,
of course I think he worked on the design for
the original Sony Aibo robot, but also mostly known for
(12:17):
robot pin up like really shiny, silvery robot pin up models.
This artist is on my mind because the movie we're
watching Friday in for Weird House Cinema, this artist is
credited like deep down in the credits because there's a
character in the movie that has some of this art
up on his workstation. But this kind of but there's
(12:38):
a certain aside from like the female robot bodies in
his art, there is this kind of like glimmering, like
silvery perfection to things. And that's what that's what I
kind of get from this image of Urinus. And if
you're into planets, like I mean, put it on a calendar.
It looks it looks nice.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It is beautiful. And I will say the blue in
this photo, as I alluded to, is not exactly true
color from the visible spectrum. I think it's approximate. So
the image is from the webs near infrared camera combining
data from two filters. According to the press release, it
was one point four and three point zero microns, and
then the article explains these are coded out to blue
(13:19):
and orange respectively. Now I mentioned the white cap that
we see on Uranus in this photo. The article explains
that this is known as the polar cap, and it
seems to manifest when the pole of the planet goes
into direct sunlight during its long polar summer, which, again,
as we talked about last time, lasts many earth years
(13:41):
at a time, and then the cap seems to disappear
in the fall when it starts to turn away from
the sun. As far as I could find, we aren't
sure exactly what causes this, or maybe if somebody knows,
I just didn't dig that up. But so regarding the
beautiful rings in the picture, Urinus has thirteen known rings,
and you can see eleven of them in this photo,
(14:02):
though some of them are so bright that they bleed
together in the image. There are nine major rings and
then there are two kind of faint dusty rings that
were discovered during the approach of Voyager two in nineteen
eighty six. But speaking of those, rings and moons. Rings
and moons sometimes have an interesting origin story, so I
was wondering where do experts generally think they came from
(14:26):
in the case of Uranus. Going back to that Planetary
Society article by Amy Simon, Simon writes that the medium
sized moons of Uranus probably formed in place at the
same time or after whatever event it was that left
Uranus tilted on its side. And as we talked about
last time, it seems likely that Uranus was probably knocked
(14:48):
on its side and left colder than all the other
planets because of an impact with a large object, maybe
like an Earth sized planet billions of years ago. And
so what we're left with is that the moons orbit
Urinus on its equatorial plane, so like the planet itself
and like its rings, the moons are tilted at a
(15:10):
roughly ninety degree angle to the rest of the Solar System.
In general, the moons of Urinus are made of ice
and rock, usually slightly more ice than rock, and they
show some interesting surface features, like patterns of darkening on
their surfaces that are caused by some unknown material. Spectral
analysis reveals the presence of frozen carbon dioxide on a
(15:33):
lot of the moons. Meanwhile, the origin of the rings,
the consensus seems to be that they are created by
the shattering into dust and fragments of formerly solid moons.
And as we've seen with other planets, the sudden or
gradual smash up of moons can happen a number of ways,
(15:53):
by lots of little collisions with meteoroids or other objects,
or by tidal breakup due to gravity, in any case,
turning former larger satellites into smaller satellites and rings of
little fragments.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, it's fascinating. How from our human perspective we look
up at our moon, we consider the moons of other worlds,
and there's a certain certain stability to them, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
But if you look at.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Any planets, moons or moon, generally, you're looking at a
more violent relationship over the vast history of a given planet.
There's nothing peaceful about it. All right, Well, let's begin,
(16:45):
at least begin to dip into the moons of Uranus.
Like I said, we originally set out to do them all.
Maybe we won't do them all. Maybe we'll get part
way through the journey and we'll come back on Tuesday.
Who knows, Maybe we'll just we'll just get we'll finish
them up, and then we'll go right into Neptune.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
There are no rules. We can do what we want.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So let's start with the inner moons of Uranus thirteen
total known. All right, We're going to start with a
pair of moons, Cordelia and Ophelia. These are named for
the youngest daughter of King Lear and of course Hamlet's
tragic beloved, respectively. The main significance of these moons is
(17:26):
that both Cordelia and Ophelia are shepherd moons, as their
gravity keeps Uranus's epsilon ring from dispersing.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Now, I thought this was interesting, so I was looking
up how exactly it is that shepherd moons work. What
does the shepherd moon do? These little small moons, how
do they keep a ring? Essentially, they keep a ring
in tight formation around the planet and clear these gaps
between the rings. And it seems that essentially it works
(17:56):
like this. So you've got a small moon and it's
orbiting planet. And imagine at first it's orbiting the planet
along with a bunch of other small particles sort of
within the lane of that small moon's orbit. Particles that
are ahead of the small moon will be attracted by
(18:16):
gravity to it, meaning if they're orbiting ahead of it,
they will naturally want to slow down in their orbit,
right because they're getting pulled toward this moon. But slowing
down in their orbit actually causes them to lose energy
and fall down closer to the planet that they're orbiting.
So these like dust and particles and things in the
(18:37):
ring actually end up sorting down into lower orbit rings.
And then meanwhile, things that are orbiting along the same
lane as this moon, that are behind it in its
orbit are attracted to it and thus sped up. And
as they get sped up trying to chase after this
(18:58):
moon by the force of gravity, that acceleration actually causes
them to have greater energy and to ascend in their
orbit and end up going into outer rings beyond that
little moon.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So again we have the Shepherd moons here. They were
discovered by Voyager two in nineteen eighty six. Like the
rest of Uranus's inner moons, they appear to be roughly
equal split of water, ice and rock. They're small. Of
note to Cordelia is the closest to the planet, and
I guess we should also point out or come back
(19:30):
to the fact that yes, these are both Shakespearean references.
There are going to be a lot of shakespeare references
as we go through the moons of Uranus, and these
are just the first two.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It seems that a lot of the names of these
satellites for some reason were chosen either from the works
of Shakespeare or from the works of Alexander Pope.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, predominantly Shakespearean, but definitely there's some key Alexander Pope
references as well. So as we go through it, we
can probably talk a little bit about some the namesakes here.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Well, this was something I was wondering. I don't know
about the origin exactly, like what people had in mind
when they were naming these, But so I think, like,
is there some significance to the innermost minor moon here
being called Cordelia, because Cordelia is a very poignant character.
Cordelia is the youngest daughter of King Lear in the
(20:24):
play King Lear. If you don't know the play or
need refreshing, the very beginning of it, the first scene
is King Lear is this old king. He comes out.
He decides that he will divide up his kingdom between
his three daughters, Goneril, Reagan, and Cordelia, and he's going
to give the largest portion to the daughter that loves
him most. So Goneril and Reagan give these speeches where
(20:48):
they overwhelm their father with absurd insincere flattery about how
much they love him. And then when it's Cordelia's time
to speak, she finds that she cannot put into words,
She cannot express her love for her father to herself.
She says that she knows her love is richer than
her tongue. And then when it's her time to speak,
(21:09):
she says, unhappy that I am. I cannot heave my
heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to
my bond, no more nor less. And I think he
gives her a chance to amend her statement. She doesn't really,
and then so Lee gets furious at this decides to
disinherit her. He gives nothing to Cordelia, splits his kingdom
(21:30):
between the other two daughters, Goneril and Reagan, who secretly
think he is a fool and they will go on
to betray him once they come to power. And of
course it's a tragedy, so things just get worse and worries.
Basically everybody ends up dead but you know, it's a
very meaningful character and something I think, I don't know.
That moment in the first scene is something that always
(21:50):
got me, something I can really relate to, Like the
feeling of worrying that you don't express positive feelings because
you're afraid that you can't phrase them in the sincerest way,
like you don't know how to put them to words.
So then you worry that like you're perceived as not
wanting to say a positive thing at all. I don't
know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
No, no, no, no, I mean, certainly with the example
here from the play, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
But she's the daughter that truly loved him. She just
didn't want to give a big, insincere speech.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's a very meaningful character. So I'm wondering, is there
some similarly at play here in the selection of the
name for this moon? Maybe not so, Like it's a
very small satellite, it's the closest to the planet of these.
It is one of the shepherd moons that sort of
guides the Epsilon ring and keeps it tight in formation.
By the end, I mean, she does show great discipline
(22:46):
because she comes back with an army to try to
to fight on her father's side against her cruel, duplicitous sisters.
I don't know, maybe not. I don't know if it fits,
but I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
No, I think it's natural to try and read some
sort of sense into the naming.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Though.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Of course, as we'll discuss it, it's different people at
different times coming up with these names. You know, some
are maybe probably a little more up on the works
of William Shakespeare than others. Sometimes there's there seems like
something they could be getting, at other times not. And
also some of these kind of slip by on a technicality,
so they're kind of all over the place. All right,
(23:26):
let's let's go into the next one. There's a Bianca
named after Kate's sister in the Taming of the Shrew.
This one does nothing really else that I think is
significant about it, and it was also discovered by Voyager two.
All right, after that, we have Cressida. This is the
title character from Troylus and Cresida. Again, nothing other else
it's really significant about this moon it was also discovered
(23:49):
by Voyger two. I know some of your probably wondering
when's Voyager six is going to show up in all this?
But I guess Voyger six just shot right out there, right.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I was unsure, but what you're for di vigure here? Right?
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, Voyager six doesn't actually exist except in the world
of Star Trek, okay, specifically Star Trek the motion picture,
the most riveting of all of them, that was pinned
by Alan Dean Foster. Oh wait, was he the one
who wrote.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
The novelization of Halloween three or something like that?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
He wrote the novelization of most films? Yes, all right.
The next moon of note here is Desdemona. This one's
named after the wife of Othello. No other real significance,
once again discovered by Voyager two. All right, now we're
moving on to another one. This is Juliet or Juliet
right if you're depending on how you're what line from
(24:42):
the play using sometimes you got to hit two syllables
instead of three on that. This is of course, named
after the title character from Romeo and Juliet. Romeo, meanwhile,
is nowhere to be found amid the moons of Uranus.
It is kind of interesting that there's a part in
Romeo and Juliet where Romeo is swearing his love up
and down the universe and Juliette specifically asked him not
(25:06):
to swear by the moon. She says, quote, oh, swear
not by the moon, the inconstant moon that monthly changes
in her circle orb less that thy love prove likewise variable.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Changes in her circle? Orb What does that refer to,
like the like waxing and waning of the moon or
maybe I'm not sure I know.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
What that means.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
I mean I take it to me and yeah, it's
like there are different faces of the moon, Like like
if your love is like the moon Romeo, then I
don't you know, it's like what am I going to
get today? I mean it seems like if it is
like the moon, she could chart it out and then
she'd have a really good idea of what she's gonna get,
you know, phase by phase. But yeah, she's like, I
need consistency.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Right, your love should not wax and wane. We shouldn't
have a new moon of your love. Yes, it's were
wolf night every night.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Anyway, Aside from these thoughts, juliet nothing else than literally
significant once again discovered by Voyger. Two, then we have Portia.
This one is named after the heroine from the Merchant
of Venice. This one. I guess the main significance is
that it orbits Urinus in less than one earth day,
and it.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Was discovered by Voyger two. All right.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Up, next we have Rosalind. Rosalind is one of the
Duke's daughters in As You Like It. That's the namesake.
Nothing else really significant to discuss here.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
This one was also discovered by Voyager two. All right.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
The next one is Cupid. This is this one? This
one is is a tough one to fit in, but okay.
Cupid is, of course the Roman god of.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Love, famously invented by William Shakespeare.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Well, he is technically a character in Shakespeare's what is
it timin Timon of Athens. I'm not familiar with this play.
I don't know anything about that one. This may be
one of the more obscure ones. I don't remember studying
this one in school. But the discovery of it is
kind of interesting because it was discovered by m R
(27:14):
Showalter in JJ Lissauer using the Hubble space telescope in
two thousand and three. It was too small and too
dark for Voyager two to spot. And I was thinking
about this. It's tempting to try and spin this one out.
And think of like, Okay, here we have Cupid as
this dark, near invisible shadow press presence, you know, reminding
(27:35):
us of past discussions about how Cupid was sometimes said
to shoot lead and arrows. So it's you know, he's
not only dealing out love with his projectiles, but also
some of the ramifications of love, and maybe even the
tragic ramifications of love. But again, this one, this one
seems to sort of slip by on a technicality in
(27:57):
terms of its naming. All right, the next one is Belinda,
And this is one where we have to just have
to ask Shakespeare to move over, because this one is
named after the character whose lock of hair is stolen
in Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Now, this is an unfortunately titled poem because it doesn't
mean what it sounds like. That the poem by Pope
is an older definition of the word rape, which is basically,
in this context it means like theft or snatching. So
the poem is a mock heroic satire. It narrates like
a social scandal in which a lord of some sort.
(28:37):
I did read this in school, and I forget a
lot of the details, but he steals a lock of
hair from a young woman. But it's written like in
the style of the Iliad, to be mocking of the like,
oh hoho, this is actually insignificant. I think Pope's point
is best summarized in one of its lines, where he says,
what mighty contests rise from trivial things? Though I don't know,
(28:59):
thinking on it now, there are obviously much worse crimes,
but stealing somebody's hair is pretty weird.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, Plus hair has magical connotations. They could be stealing
it to work some sort of magic. Maybe that's explored
in the poem. I don't know. I have a degree
in English, and I somehow managed to never read this poem.
I remember that, you know the course. I'm familiar with
the author's name and his popularity and importance in English literature,
but I remember this title would come up and I
(29:26):
would think, Oh, that doesn't sound like something I want
to read, not realizing that it's about hair theft Alexander Pope.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Everything I recall that he wrote is basically satirical in nature.
I'm sure he must have written serious poems, but like
the other main thing I remember he wrote is something
called the Dunceiad, which is a sort of an epic
poem about stupidity.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
He was like, it seems like he was just really
into not suffering fools.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Though.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I feel like if that's your main vibe, you really
open yourself up to scrutiny, don't you.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
All Right, well, we'll come back to Pope's work in
a bit, because there are more moons named after him.
The next one is Perdita, and this is the daughter
of Leontes and Hermione in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tail.
This one's discovery is actually pretty interesting because Voyger two
is involved in its discovery, but it wasn't recognized till
two thousand and three. Basically, University of Arizona's Eric Karkoshka
(30:27):
discovered it by comparing Voyger two imagery with Hubble imagery
and sort of working out its existence based on these
two different streams. All right, up next, we have Puck Is,
of course, named after the sprite from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Stanley Tucci played him in the nineteen ninety nine film adaptation,
which had a great cast. I do remember seeing this
(30:48):
film when it came out, and I imagine I've seen
multiple it seems like Midsummer Night's Dream is just one
of those plays that if you're just going to fall
into seeing it, even if you don't set out to
watch Shakespeare in life.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Puck's a great character, great mischief maker, the mischief maker
who brings wisdom, whether on purpose or not.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, yeah, Tucci was perfect casting. Now significance. Here is
the smallest of the inner moons, with a diameter of
about one hundred and fifty kilometers or about ninety miles,
And it was guess what discovered by voyager two? All right,
up next we have Mab. It's named after Queen Mab,
queen of the fair Folk and English folklore. She's mentioned
(31:28):
in Romeo and Juliet So and just mentioned. So it
just really really squeaks by on a technicality. I mean,
this is one of those situations where I feel like
I want to shout a little bit and be like, look,
there are a lot of names that are mentioned in Shakespeare,
and there are plenty of characters. I don't know why
Queen Mab seems like the ideal choice.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Here is there an inner moon named Julius Caesar?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
No, but you know you could that would have been
a good one Caesar, right, But that's just off the
top of my head.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I'm not sure if there's some other.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, you know, I should also point out when you
start looking. And I didn't get into this in any
of my note taking, really, but there are individual features
on some moons that are likewise named after other things.
So it could be a Caeesar in there somewhere, you
know what.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Actually, I want to be fair, Even a lot of
the Shakespeare characters that we think of as more original
shakespeare characters are actually often from like adapted versions of
pre existing tales. Like a lot of Shakespeare's plays were
not wholly made up stories. They were based on something
from history or from an older story or another play,
(32:39):
or something right right, Like who would have thought of it?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
You know?
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Hamlet is the guy from the Northman.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, I mean, if you were around today, he'd be uh,
you know, he'd be in the MCU somewhere working on
a project.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Of it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Anyway, Mab is the moon here. This one's discovered in
two thousand and three by show Alter and Lisaur using
the Hubble space telescope.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Interesting in fact, I came across while reading that article
by the NASA Goddard researcher Amy Simon. She writes that
Mab quote maybe generating a tenuous blue toned ring like
Enceladus does for Saturn's e ring, though the source currently
remains a mystery.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Well, you know that sounds kind of fitting for the
Queen of the fairy Folk.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So I do like that.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Well, I'm looking at the clock, and do you know
what the clock reads. It reads a promise broken because
we said we were going to do all of the
moons within part two, and I think we have failed
because we're coming up against a time limit. We got
to cap it here and we've got all of the
major moons left to talk about. So I think that's
going to have to be part three of our series
on Uranus and its satellites.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, hopefully we didn't mess anybody up there, But I
think the journey will be better for breaking into three
parts here, and there's gonna be a lot of fun
stuff to talk about, especially with the major moons of
Uranus and then getting also into just some of the
additional Shakespearean.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
References in the naming of these moons.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
In the meantime, if you would like to catch up
on past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, including
our past episodes dealing with the moons of Jupiter and
Saturn and Mars and so forth. You'll find those in
the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed, which you'll
find wherever you get your podcasts. We have core episodes
of Stuff to Blow Your Mind airing there on Tuesdays
(34:30):
and Thursdays. On Mondays, we open up the mail bag
on our listener mail episodes. That's primarily where we read
emails from people. Occasionally we'll read one in an episode,
as in today's episode, you know, if it relates to
the subject matter, but generally it's going to be in
the Monday episodes. On Wednesdays, we do a short form
artifact or monster fact episode this week. Of course, it
(34:52):
ties into our theme of Urinus, so go check that
out if you haven't. And then on Fridays we set
aside most serious concerns just talk about a weird film
on Weird House Cinema. Our selection for this week does
not have anything to do with the planet Uranus, but
that it's still.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
A lot of fun. Bye God.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
We'll find a way to tie it in by the
time Friday comes around. Anyway, Huge thanks as always to
our audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to
get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
or just to say hello, you can email us at
(35:31):
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Its West d d
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