May 16, 2023 • 45 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 3 of 3)
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
These are the forgeries of jealousy. And never since the
middle summer's spring met we on a hill in dale forest,
or mead by paved fountain, or by rushing brook, or
in the beached margin of the sea, to dance our
ringlets to the whistling wind. But with thy brawls thou
hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the winds piping to us
(00:28):
in vain as in revenge, have sucked up from the sea.
Contagious fogs, which falling in the land, have every pelting
river made so proud that they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vein. The
plowman lost his sweat, and the green corn hath rotted,
(00:49):
ere his youth attained a beard. The fold stands empty
in the drowned field, and crows are fatted with the
murray and flock. The nine men's morris filled up with mud,
and the quaint mazes in the wanton green, for lack
of tread, are undistinguishable. The human mortals want their winter here.
(01:10):
No night is now with him or Carol blessed. Therefore
the moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger
washes all the air that rheumatic diseases do abound. And
thorough this distemperature, we see the seasons alter hoary headed
frosts far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
(01:31):
and on old highams than an icy crown, an odorous
chaplet of sweet summer buds is as in mockery set
the spring, the summer, the childing autumn, angry winter change
their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, by their increase,
now knows not which is which. And this same progeny
(01:53):
of evils comes from our debate, from our dissension. We
are their parents and original.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I can't believe nine Men's Morris is filled up with mud.
It used to be a cool place.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, I know. So we're back with our third and
final part in the series on the moons of the
planet Uranus, and I started today with a reading from
It's Actually It's a speech given by the character Titania,
the Queen of the Fairies, in William Shakespeare's play A
Midsummer Night's Dream. Now I've read that half just because
(02:48):
I loved that speech and I thought it was really cool,
but it also seemed to kind of resonant with our
subject matter today. So the speech in the play is
delivered by Titania to Oberon of the fairies, describing how
the jealous feuding between the two of them has had
malicious effects on the weather and the very environment of
(03:09):
nature in the human world, because you know, when fairies fight,
it's not just bad vibes. The bad vibes apparently become
quite physical, and they take the form of floods, drought,
frostbitten winters, famine, disease, etc. And this struck me as
interesting in this case because of the ways that hundreds
of years ago, the behavior of planets and moons and
(03:33):
other objects up in the heavens was thought to affect
the weather, and not just affect the weather, but to
produce the bad air that brings plague. So both of
the things kind of mentioned in this speech bad weather
and disease. And we've talked about numerous specific examples of
that in previous episodes, but one being that during the
(03:53):
Second Plague pandemic. In thirteen forty eight, a convocation of
scholars from the medical faculty at the University of Paris
was assembled by King Philip the sixth of France to
determine the cause of the plague, and they concluded it
was because of the thirteen forty five conjunction of Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn in the House of Aquarius, which had
(04:16):
caused evil vapors to rise up from the earth and
breathe death into the cities of humankind. So the idea
of this direct causal connection between what the planets are doing,
what things in the sky are doing, and then weather
on Earth and then disease. And this struck me because
in Shakespeare the behavior of Oberon and Titania is thought
(04:38):
to change the weather and bring disease. But this was
before those characters were also the names of actual heavenly
bodies moons of the planet Uranus. In fact, that would
have been before the official discovery of Uranus as a
planet at all. But Titania and Oberon are now both
major moons of Uranus. Those two were discovered by William
(05:01):
Herschel in seventeen eighty seven, the same guy who discovered
Urinus as a planet, though curiously I was just reading
about this. William Herschel also at the same time reported
discovering several other moons that were never confirmed by later astronomers.
So nobody ever found moons matching the orbits of these
(05:23):
other couple moons he described. Herschel Apparently, I don't know
he wrote something down wrong or something he claimed, you know,
he claimed to have found some non existent moons in
addition to these real ones. But anyway, I wonder if
if the Uranian moons Oberon and Titania had been known
about in Shakespeare's day, they might also, I wonder, have
(05:45):
been blamed for making the green corn rot and filling
the Nine Men's moriss up with mud and spreading the
rheumatic diseases and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Despite all of the shakespeare references
in the naming of the Iranian moons, I don't believe
Shakespeare ever references the god Uranus or Urinas in his works.
Could be a lot wrong about that. I'm not a
Shakespeare scholar. I'm just combining memory of Shakespeare with some
(06:15):
searches on some digital databases of his work. All the
other gods featured in our planetary lineup are referenced numerous
times in his plays, but never never Uranos, and the
same seems to be true of Alexander Pope, which I
guess this ultimately just speaks to the limited or non
existent role Uranas had in literature of the times of
(06:38):
these writers.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Right, I guess he's just wasn't one of the flashiest gods,
you know. Yeah, yeah, But actually I was just thinking,
to come back on what I said a minute ago,
you know, wondering if the moons of another planet would
have been used in astrological explanations for weather patterns and disease.
Now that I think about it, I can't think of
a case where, then, at least that I'm familiar with,
(07:02):
where the moons of other planets were used to explain
that that. Maybe that's because, like those, moons of other
planets had only been known about since the time of Galileo.
But as far as I can recall, it's always invoking
the outer planets themselves and not their moons, of course,
apart from our own moon, which, according again to Titania,
(07:23):
is the governess of floods.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, I love that the governess of floods.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
You know, before I had ever seen or read Midsommer
Night's Dream and knew Oberon and Titania as characters here
before I even knew them as the names of moons
of Uranus that I recall, I actually knew them from
a different place. I knew them as part of a
spooky chant in a song my dad used to listen
(07:49):
to when I was younger, the line you have to
imagine this with several voices and a strange dissonant harmony
saying Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda, Titanya, Neptune, Titan stars
can Frighten, which is of course from the nineteen sixty
seven psychedelic space rock anthem Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd.
(08:11):
I think this song was written by syd Barrett, a
song that I think I have to admit is still
sort of always looping in the back of my head
when I think about space, when I picture the empty
landscapes of other planets and moons. It manages to capture
a feeling of space that is simultaneously very unsettling but
(08:32):
also so inviting, And it really helped me be excited
about space before I knew much about it, like seeing
it as this realm of mysteries that were thrilling to unveil.
So I'm not saying the effect would be the same
with all kids, but for me personally, this weird song
by Pink Floyd was a wonderful early science education tool.
(08:54):
Not because it contains any actual information or educational content
it doesn't, but because it really made me want to
know more about what's out there.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So you're saying Astronomy Domine was kind of your Star Wars?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Is that what Star Wars was for you? I mean,
I love Star Wars too, I you know, wore out
the videotape.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah. I mean when I think back on just earliest
idea things that got me excited about space, I think
they were mostly you know, space stories, Like I remember
really liking the black Hole from Disney, and I had
like a storybook and cassette of the black Hole. Even though,
of course, as we've mentioned on the show before and
maybe we'll get into again in the future, you know,
(09:31):
the black Hole contains very little that you can take
to the bank regarding actual information about about this about
space and the nature of black holes.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, I guess this is part of the song's psychedelic qualities.
But yeah, Astronomy domine. I always felt it was. It
was scary in the best possible way. It was scary
in the way that it's like, you know, you want
to know what's behind the door, but you're you're frightened
to open it in a way that makes you just
you have to look even more.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Hm hm, No, I know, having been hurt, listened to
part of this song here, and I'm not super familiar
with Pink Floyd. You know, I know the big ones,
of course, but I haven't I've never done a deep
dive into their discography. Yeah, I see what you're saying
about this, this track.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
This is early Pink Floyd. Most of the Pink Floyd
stuff people know is from a later period of the
band where they sound totally different. They're more the kind
of you know, I don't know what you call it,
progressive classic rock. This is from their early couple of
albums that were more weird British psychedelic rock. Okay, all right,
But anyway, in the line of lyrics from from the
(10:34):
song you Hear you hear three names, it's oberon Miranda
in Titanya. So I think we're still taking the moons
somewhat in order. Right. Last in the previous episode, we
talked about the the inner moons of Uranus, and now
we're going to be talking about the major moons.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
That's right, and we'll begin with with Miranda here. Miranda's
name for Prospero's daughter in the Tempest. She's also the
subject of a pretty famous waterhouse painting. I included this
for you, Joe. I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this,
but I just remember seeing this one a lot. I
feel like this one. There were a lot of posters
of this on dorm rooms or something.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I don't know. If I did see it, it didn't really
make an impression, but I.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Like it has sort of Gothic sensibility to it. I
don't think I've ever seen the actual painting. I'm not
sure where it is at any rate. It was discovered
by Gerald P. Kiper on February sixteenth, nineteen forty eight,
at the McDonald Observatory in Texas. It was the last
moon of the planet to be discovered prior to Voyager two,
the smallest and closest to the planet of the pre
(11:38):
Voyager two discovered moons of Uranus. Now, the composition here,
like all the larger moons, it's thought to consist mostly
of a roughly equal mix of water, ice and silicate rock.
The significance it is, I've seen numerous descriptions referring to
it as a Frankenstein moon, which of course instantly sounds
pretty jazzy Frankenstein moon of seemingly mismatched landscapes and featuring
(12:03):
Titanic canyons thought to be twelve times as deep as
the Grand Canyon of Earth. In some cases, its surface
also bears the mark of coroni, which are sound delicious
what they're found to be. They're found on the surface
of Venus as well. These like oval shaped geological markings
caused by upwellings of subsurface warm material. So Miranda is
(12:27):
known to or as thought to have frozen water ice
on its surface, and the corona here may have caused
warm ice rising to cause tectonic faults in the rock here.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
So you mentioned it has this peculiar, fascinating outer appearance.
I add a couple of I added a couple of
photos here to the outlines, so we could rub the
fur a bit to look at the different textures on
Miranda across much of the known surface, it does look
a lot like our moon, Like you can see sort
of swaths of landscape of rocks and soil, you know,
(13:02):
the very familiar looking dotted with that kind of fractal
vanishing pattern of craters. But then across some stretches of
the Moon's surface, it looks like a bear about the
size of the Sun, just like dug its claws in
and used it as a scratching post. Something absolutely tore
up the crust of this planet.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Now, you know, part of this is I'm primed by
being described as the Frankenstein Moon, but also looking at
these images of it, it makes me think of this
moon as a mad ball, which I don't think. I'm well,
they were apparently still around. I think they started in
the mid eighties and they were a toy when I
was a kid. But they're like these bouncy balls that
have these like textured monster heads, like ones of cyclops,
(13:48):
ones like a meducer or something.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And I just looked it up. Yeah, okay, I think
I've seen these.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, So it's kind of like if you're familiar with these,
and I think they're still around. They have a website,
so I think you can probably buy him somewhere. Maybe
they're not the hot thing with kids these days, But
at any rate, I look at this moon and I
think of mad balls.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So I'm looking at an arrangement of six mad balls,
and five of them are some kind of monster I
don't know, like a like a one eyed, one horned,
purple people eater of some sort. And then but one
of them is just a baseball with an angry face.
It's just a baseball. Why do they got to put
a baseball in there? Even got the little seams with
(14:29):
the red thread, and I don't know, just.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
An angry baseball. I monster baseball.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I see what you're talking about, though. Yet, yes, it
is kind of like a mad ball. It has very
the different mismatched parts. It looks like it could be
you know, illustrated scarring or something. I don't know. It's
just like a hugely variable, strange surface. So there I
mentioned the parts. Some just look kind of like any
(14:54):
moon you might imagine. Some look like the parts where
the bear dug its claws in. Other parts look to
me like you've ever seen the you know, those little
zin gardens people have where they are like soft patterns
of parallel lines and raked into the sand. Yeah, yeah,
there are parts of the surface that look like that.
Here you see these little kind of I'm not implying
(15:16):
that they were left there by an actual being, but yeah,
it looks like just kind of parallel lines gently raked
into the surface, but of course with massive proportions. And
there are some places that show jagged ruptures and protrusions
off of the Moon's surface that are really just scraping space,
Like you can really see like a kind of a
(15:36):
point coming off of there. Rob you mentioned that some
of the canyons on Miranda are thought to be twelve
times as deep as the Grand Canyon on Earth. I
wanted to zoom in on one particular feature that I
found very interesting. Let's go to the Verona rupus. Verona
is I believe here a reference to Romeo and Juliet,
(15:58):
because again the Shakespeare name of Urines's moons, and so
Romeo and Juliet is set in the Italian city of Verona. Meanwhile,
Verona rupus Rupus is a word used in planetary geology
to refer to extraterrestrial escarpments or cliffs. It's the Latin
word for cliff, so Raba included a photo for you
(16:20):
to look at of Verona rupas zoomed in. This is
an image that was featured by NASA and Michigan Tech's
Astronomy Picture of the Day site, and this photograph was
taken by No Surprise Voyager two, as all these close
up photos of Uranes's moons are. But what's really interesting
here is that you can see in the picture this
(16:43):
massive feature is not a gently sloping mountain side, but
a steep sheer cliff. And what you can't tell from
the picture is the scale of this massive landscape feature.
According to the APOD write up, the drop from Verona
Rupus is thought to be about twenty kilometers deep. Now
(17:05):
I've seen other estimates somewhere. I don't know exactly who's
the final authority on estimating the heights of features like
this from photos, but twenty kilometers is the estimate given here.
And for a point of comparison, they say that this
is in this case ten times the depth of the
Grand Canyon. For another one, I just looked up the
(17:25):
height of Mount Everest. That's about eight point eight kilometers
in height, so imagine a drop off more than double
the peak to ground height of Everest. But it's not
a slope, it's a cliff. It's a vertical cliff.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I'm imagining the cull devoid kind of thought patterns that
looking at a cliff of that size. Man, if you're
somebody with like kriminophobia, you know, you get afraid of
sharp drop offs. I don't know, you can't even process it.
But another thing they point out is that, so you
imagine a future astronaut is somehow on the surface of
(18:03):
Miranda and maybe they are suddenly they're cursed by Oberon
and Titania, you know, the fairy magic falls upon them,
and they are made to jump the cliff. This source
estimates that it would take them about twelve minutes to
fall to the bottom, though the length of that fall
is somewhat stretched out because Miranda has relatively very low
(18:25):
gravity compared to Earth. But despite the lower gravity, the
fall would probably still probably would still hurt you.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I mean, I guess in the future, extreme base jumpers
might venture there in their robot avatar bodies and take
a leap off, and in that case, I guess you
survive the fall because you're just back in your actual
body at the end of it. Yeah, always safety precautions though,
just a heap of robots to the bottom though, just
(18:54):
smashed down to a thin sheet.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
So what causes this chaotic patch landscape? There are a
couple of hypotheses. One appears to be the idea of collisions.
Basically that Miranda was actually somewhat smashed to pieces by
collision with a large object. But these pieces did not
you know, fly off into deep space. They were still
(19:18):
caught in orbit around Uranus, and they were ultimately attracted
to each other by gravity and reformed into a moon
once again. But then you'd have the different pieces sort
of fitting together weirdly, explaining the patchy surface.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, so a Miranda is a mess, but potentially she's
a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yes, And if that were indeed the case, that sort
of reminds me of the whole thing about like why
planetary defense concepts, you know, like protecting Earth from comets
and asteroids don't tend to focus on trying to blow
up incoming asteroids. So you got an asteroid that's coming
toward Earth, you don't want to like, you know, nuke
its core and smash it to a million pieces, like
(19:57):
in you know, movies like Armageddon or something thing, Because
fragmenting it into pieces, it potentially would just still hit
earth anyway, like the pieces would hit Earth, or it
might be gravitationally attracted to itself reform and still hit Earth.
So instead the better plan is to deflect its path.
You want to blow it off course, not blow it up.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, nudget, nudget a little bit. Make sure it just
gradually goes off course far enough ahead of the entering
any kind of danger zone.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
But another possible explanation for the weird mismatched surface of
Miranda is a not a collision and a reforming together,
but instead is like that Miranda is struck by like
large rocky objects or meteorites of some kind. These impacts
partially melt the ice that is underneath the surface of Miranda,
(20:50):
and then that melting from the heat of the impact
causes water to rise to the surface, icy water to
come up to the surface, and then it refreezes somewhat chaos,
giving rise to these strange patterns of different types of
surface texture.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, however, it comes together. Definitely worth pulling up an
image of this so you'll see what we're talking about here.
Because it's uh visually, it's I think one of, if
not the most notable of the Uranian moons. All right,
(21:26):
let's move on to the next one. The next one
is Arial and this one, this one pulls double duty
because it is a spirit who serves Prospero in the tempest,
but it is also a sylph or a sylphid from
Alexander Pope's the Rape of the Lock. This is like
(21:48):
like an invisible air elemental being that is brought up
in the works of Paracelsus.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Yeah, So anyway, double duty this one. This one's in
both camps of Pope and Shakespeare. Discovered by English astronomer
William Lassel in eighteen fifty one. The composition, you know,
same as Miranda and other larger moons, but carbon dioxide
has also been detected. And the significance here it's tidally
locked like our moon, youngest surface of the moons of
(22:16):
Uranus and the most recent geologically active, So.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Like Earth and its moon, if you were able to
stand on the surface of Uranus and look up at Ariel,
I mean you can't stand on the surface of Uranus,
but if you were to look up at Ariel, you
would always see the same side of it facing the
planet right. So, to invoke another Pink Floyd reference there,
there would not actually be a permanent dark side of
the Moon on aerial, but there would be an always
facing away side of the Moon, the far side, all right.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Moving on to the next one, Umbriel, also discovered by
William Lassel in eighteen fifty one. This one is named
after an evil spirit in Alexander Pope's poem Rape of
the Lock. Significance here it has a mysterious ring on
its surface, revealed by Voyager two, which might be due
to frost deposits from an impact crater. It's ancient and dark,
(23:04):
as the shadowy name suggests. Just a couple of quick
quotes here from the poem by Pope. First, Umbriel a dusky,
melancholy sprite as ever sullied the fair face of light.
And then later on there's another nice little snippet here,
but Umbriel hateful gnome forbears not so he breaks the vial,
(23:27):
whence the sorrows flow? Hateful? No I like it.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Well, you know the name is fitting because so it mentions.
He's the enemy of light basically, and that's also true
if you look up about Umbriel the moon. Because Umbriel
is the darkest of all of Uranus's major moons, it
reflects very little light. You mentioned that bright ring a
(23:53):
minute ago, the kind of mysterious bright ring in a crater.
I added a photo of this for you to look
at here. I think it's interesting. So the contrast with
the glowing white ring is quite profound. That I guess
that seems especially true because Umbriel is the darkest of
the major moons. And unfortunately the images we have from
(24:14):
Voyager two do not capture the ring looking down, so
you're not looking at it head on. Instead, we see
we can just barely tell it's a ring, but we
can see it at sort of the edge of the
hemisphere that Voyager two was able to photograph, so it's
right there on the cusp of the planet like a
little halo. The Moon as a whole is about twelve
(24:36):
hundred kilometers in diameter, and the white ring here is
about one hundred and forty kilometers itself, so more than
ten percent of the width of the Moon. And scientists
are not sure what caused the ring to appear. But
Rob you mentioned the frost deposits. In the last part
of the series, I referenced an article by the planetary
scientist Amy Simon, and she explains a little further in
(24:59):
that article that it might be like a layer of
ice on a crater floor that is lying exposed to
the sunlight. For some reason, something knocked the what might
have otherwise been covering it off, so it's exposed and
reflecting much more light than the surface around it. But
this tickled something in my memory, and I realized it
was reminding me of when we discussed the bright white
(25:22):
spot in the center of a crater on another object
in the Solar System, on the dwarf planet Series. So
Series is not a planet on its own, it is
the largest object in the asteroid belt, the biggest asteroid
known as a dwarf planet. And on the surface of
Series there are actually a number of different bright spots
(25:45):
known as facue and there's one I've got you here
to look at, rob So it's in the middle of
a crater. The crater is called the Okat Crater, and
the bright spot, this is the most famous of the
bright tipots, is known as the Cerealia facula. So it's
right there in the middle of the crater almost like
(26:06):
a I don't know what to call it. It's just like,
you know, it's like a bull's eye. It's a bright
dot in the middle of this depression in the surface
of CeREES And these bright spots are thought to be caused,
in this case on series by the presence of ice
or salts rising to the surface from below. So there
might be there's like sort of a mantle or a
(26:27):
subsurface layer of briny solution kind of water with salts
in it, and maybe some kind of impact caused that
that stuff to well up, so the water the salts
came up, and then the ice that's there or the
salts that are left once the water is gone, leave
this area of higher reflectivity than the surrounding surface. So
(26:50):
it forms this little you know, bull's eye in the
middle of the crater.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Interesting. Yeah. Now, now as for just the ring on umbrel,
it's also and it also makes me think of like an
intentional bald spot at the top of the head, like
a monk's conture, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I can see that it's just sitting
right up there. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
But we spoke earlier of the Fairy Royalty Titanya and Oberon.
Should we set them a bickering Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Next up is Titania, the queen of the fairies in
A Midsummer Night's Dream is the namesake discovered by William
Herschel this moon in seventeen eighty seven. It's the largest
moon of Uranus, with a diameter of roughly one thousand
miles or sixteen one hundred kilometers. Voyager two images revealed
that it was at some point geologically active. Reflective material,
(27:38):
possibly frost, adheres to sun facing valley walls. And then
we have Oberon. Oberon is named for the king of
the Fairies and midsummer Night's Dream, also discovered by William
Herschel in seventeen eighty seven. It's the second largest moon
of Uranus. It's heavily cratered and has at least one
large mountain. This large mountain towers I believes six kilometers
(27:59):
and is named but is sometimes called the Limb Mountain.
The outmost of the major moons is over On. Many
of its craters have an unidentified dark material in them.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
That was something else mentioned in that Amy Simon article
that a lot of the moons of Uranus have substances
on their surface which cause darkening, and it's not known
exactly what that is.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah. Now, another interesting note about some of these moons
we just discussed here is the potential the possible potential
for life on the major moons of Urinus. Life on
Uranus itself seems extremely unlikely based on everything I've been
looking at life as we know it anyway, because is
always the caveat. For instance, just one case of this,
(28:43):
the long standing risk of contaminating Uranus or Neptune with
terrestrial microbes seems to be essentially nil. Based on scientific
opinions NASA and so forth. It is, by most estimates,
likely a dead world. Now, I did run across a
nineteen eighty eight paper by ing Bolshkarov in Bioastronomy titled
(29:06):
in the bio Astronomy Next Steps My bad there it's
titled is Urinus the most promising planet for SETI? This
paper seems to mostly focus on the presence of water
drops and electrical discharges in the planet's atmosphere as a
possible precursor to life. Still, most sources seem to say no,
Uranus is a no go for life as we know it.
(29:27):
You know, there are other places that we can look
to in our Solar system that are far better candidates
for exploration. But any right, the idea of it being
a dead world. We can't say the same for the moons.
We can't say the same for all of the Uranian moons.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I like how the title of the paper though, is
not just like is it worth looking at Urinus for SETI,
it's saying is it the most promising planet? That seems
like the answer is no, No, it's not.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
It's interesting, you know, we often have to think back
to you know, the reality of putting missions together for
these various various moons and planets. It's like you've got
to really build up the hype, you know, you've got
to you got to make the case why is this
worth all of this money, this time, this investment. And
you know, there's a strong case to be made for
(30:13):
any destination in our Solar system to you know, to
broaden our understanding of the world surrounding our star. But
you know, you got to make that case. You got
to believe, and maybe maybe you got to You got
to push a little hard.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Well, yeah, and even if you're looking at places that
are not themselves at least as far as we can
tell very good candidates for discovering life, they can still
usually teach you a lot about the dynamics and life
history of planets in general, which is something that we
do need to always understand better if we want to
know where best to look for life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, So the most recent paper that I was running
across about Uranian moons in life. This comes from a
December twenty twenty two paper in the Journal of Geophysical
Research by Castillo Roguez at All. They point out that Titania, Oberon, Aerial,
and Umbrial may have salty oceans beneath their frozen surfaces,
(31:08):
opening up the possibility for life as we know it.
They base their findings on three factors. First, fall observational
constraints about each moon's internal and geological evolution. Secondly, the
current level of tidal heating, and third thermal models. They write, quote,
we predict that if the Moon's preserved liquid until present,
(31:31):
it is likely in the form of residual oceans less
than thirty kilometers thick on Aerial, Umbrial and less than
fifty kilometers in Titania and Oberon. Now, they stress that
liquid preservation depends on a number of factors, and ultimately
we just can't know for certain until we look closer. Miranda, however,
they say, is unlikely to boast any water unless there
(31:53):
was some manner of tidal heating there quote a few
tens of millions of years ago. They also point out
that thermal metamorphism could create a late second generation ocean
in Titania and Oberon. In either case, It's also possible
that liquid on these moons, if present, is preserved by
anti freeze in the form of something like ammonia and chlorides.
(32:15):
The downside to this possibility, they stress, is that the
electrical conductiveness may be close to zero in such waters
if they're there, making it impossible for future probes to
detect them via magnetic field generation. Also, we'd be talking
about temperatures close to the lower limit for metabolic activity
and terrestrial microbe reproduction based on life as we know it,
(32:39):
so the author's stress that it might not really be
a high priority liquid environment for astrobiologists. It's no Enceladus
that seems to remain the most interesting lunar ocean for astrobiologists,
but we can't rule out life on the Uranian moons
more research, more inquiry is required.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Always Enceladus now considered a better candidate than Europa. I
would have assumed Europa was still on top. I guess
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Well, I don't want to get into the beef between
Enceladus and Europa, but okay, either of these, it's my understanding,
would would ultimately be better placed if you had to
place hard bets on it, which essentially you are if
you're deciding to, you know, potentially launch any kind of
like a mission, fly by probe, et cetera. So yeah,
that seemed to be the basic take home from the
paper is that, like, there's a possibility it's not, but
(33:32):
it's not. Maybe the they're not the best odds of
the moons in our solar system.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Maybe not, But wouldn't that be a good surprise. You
look at all of the higher tier candidates, Europa and Enceladus, whatever,
and nothing's there but way out in the ice giants,
those moons are cranking with life.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, I mean, it's always in the last place you look, right.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
All right, Miranda, Umbriel, Titanya, and Oberon. Those are the
four major moons. But that doesn't exhaust the list, right,
we've got a bunch of so called irregular moons and
other stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna venture into the outskirts here, Like
we're leaving Las Vegas proper and we're down into the
area surround in Vegas. We're getting into the irregular moons
of Uranus. According to NASA, the composition of the moons
outside the orbit of Oberon remains largely unknown, but they
are likely captured asteroids. These are all positioned far beyond
(34:36):
the orbit of Oberon, and there are nine known irregular
moons of Uranus. All right, we're gonna start with Francisco.
This is named after a shipwrecked nobleman in the Tempest,
discovered in two thousand and one by Cavalleras at All
at Chile Sero Tololo Inter American Observatory. It has a
retrograde orbit. It is the innermost of the irregular moons,
(34:58):
but it orbits at about four point three million kilometers
from the planet itself.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I do not recall what the character Francisco and the
Tempest does, but you know who I do recall is Caliban.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah, the sort of a monstrous character from the Tempest
who was also the inspiration for the character Calibos in
the movie Clash of the Titans, which we discussed in
Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
A little bit of crossing of the streams there. I
got your Shakespeare in my Greek mythology.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah. So this one was discovered by Gladman at All
in nineteen ninety seven at the Palomar Observatory in California.
Significance here it has a retrogade orbit that is also
inclined and eccentric, thought to be the second largest irregular moon.
It is also far out and likely an independent body
(35:46):
captured by the planet's gravity. All right, Up next we
have Stefano. This is named after King Alonzo's butler in
The Tempest. It's been a while since I've actually seen
The Tempest or certainly read it, so I don't remember
the significance of King Alzo's butler.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I also have no memory of what's going on with
the butler. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
At any rate, he gets a mon named after him.
Discovered in nineteen ninety nine by Gladman at All at
the Canada, France Hawaii Telescope at the Monachia Observatory on
the island of Hawaii. They discovered Stefano, Prospero, and Setebas
at the same time. Significance here basically just retrograde orbit
similar in composition to Caliban, is.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Likely, all right.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Next we have Trinculo, named after the jester from The Tempest.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah. This one discovered by Holman at All in two
thousand and one at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Canada
using the Sero Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile. This one
has a retrograde orbit, all right, all right. The next
one is Psychoax. This is named after the which mother
of Caliban in The Tempest. This is an off screen
(36:54):
character though that dies before the play, so it's just
like a name drop. Discovered by Gladman at All in
nineteen ninety seven at the Palomar Observatory in California, discovered
at the same time as Caliban, thus the naming the
main significance here. It's the largest of the irregular moons
and it also has a retrograde orbit. Now it's hard
to beat that name. That's a cool name, so the
(37:14):
next one doesn't even try. The next one is Margaret.
This is named after a character from much Ado about
nothing discovered by Scott S. Shepherd and David C. Juleet
In with the Subaru eight point two millimeter reflector at
the Monarchy Observatory in two thousand and three. The significance
here we have a pro grade orbit for once.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Oh is this the first one of the irregulars?
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah? Yeah, they're all retrograde thus far. Okay, now the
next one, this one has as a pretty We've mentioned
him already. But finally we have a moon named after Prospero,
the sorcerer from the Tempest.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I know this isn't true, but I'm going to tell
myself that it's actually named after Prospero, the Vincent Price
character in the Mask of the Red Death.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Ah. Now here's an interesting little side bit. You know
we discussed or this. I believe this was Christian and
I that did much older episode about the Elizabethan poly
math and occultist John D. There's this this theory that
the historic individual of John D may have been partial
inspiration for Shakespeare's Prospero, and he also seems to have
(38:23):
influenced John D that seems to have influenced our ideas
concerning Merlin as well, and ultimately, like the Fantasy Wizard
character as a whole.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That seems true to me, though it doesn't exactly match,
because the Fantasy Wizard character does not get obsessed with
trying to talk to angels.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Dee's full story has a lot of
strange turns in it, and you know, he gets caught
up in some in a few messes. Interestingly, his occult
interests include the angel Uriel, the supposed to be the
angel of Wisdom, who's said in some cases to have
worn Noah of the flood and revealed astrological secrets of
(39:03):
the stars and planets. To Enoch, Uriel is synonymous with Aeriel,
which we already discussed as a major Uranian moon. Interesting now, Prospero,
the Uranian moon setting all that aside, is just discovered
by Gladman at All in nineteen ninety nine at the
Canada France Hawaii Telescope at Monarchy Observatory Nowland of Hawaii.
(39:24):
They and again they also discovered Stefano, Prospero, and Setebos
at the same time. It has a retrograde orbit. Orbital
details suggests it shares common origin with Serrax and Setibas,
but its gray colorations suggest otherwise. So it's from what
I was looking at it sounds like there's still some
you know, some unknowns about.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
It for sure.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Now I personally found it kind of amusing, you know,
looking back again at the Shakespeare, it's amusing to see
that Prospero in the Tempest mentions moons and the god Neptune,
but of course not Uranus, obviously not the planet, but
also not the god. But there is this wonderful little
bit here that I wanted to read. Prospero says, ye
elves of hills brooks, standing lakes and groves, and ye
(40:09):
that on the sands with printless foot, do chase the
ebbing Neptune, and do fly him when he comes back.
You dimmy puppets, that by moonshine, do the green sour
ringlets make where all the u not bites. And you
whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice to
hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid week masters, though
(40:32):
ye be I have bedimmed.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Speak for yourself. I don't make midnight mushrooms. You know.
I'm struck. How often if you look at a passage
from Shakespeare that is a reference to a I don't know,
a fairy or magical creature or someone doing sorcery. The
language employed could easily pass for lyrics to space Rock
of later centuries.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, all right, the next one is setibas we have
to already. The Shakespearean connection is that Cigarax and Caliban
are said to worship said it Boss in the Tempest.
But the name was prior to this, it seems, the
name of an actual Patagonian god. I was reading up
(41:17):
on this a little bit. Shakespeare apparently took the name
from Richard Eden's sixteenth century accounts of Magellan's experiences with
Patagonian natives, which, of course we always have to take
an enormous grain of salt in such accounts, you know,
concerning some of the finer details of people's beliefs and practices.
(41:38):
But this according to a work I was looking at
by Charles Frey titled The Tempest in the New World,
getting into these various connections between Shakespeare's The Tempest and
information that was coming out of exploration of the New
World of the Americas. In Eden's work, he writes of
natives who quote cried upon the great devil Boss to
(42:00):
help them again, you know, the grain of salt, to
say the least, concerning some of these accounts of other
peoples and cultures and their practices. Also, poet Robert Browning
would later write a poem inspired by the Tempest Caliban
upon Setibas. Also of note, the giant Antarctic octopus is
(42:22):
classified as megalodone Setiboss, which I thought was interesting. But anyway,
Setibas the moon discovered by Gladman at All in nineteen
ninety nine. Again this was the Canada, France Hawaii Telescope,
and again they discovered the Stefano, Prospero and Setibas at
the same time, retrograde orbit one of the farthest moons
more than eleven million miles or seventeen million kilometers out.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Well, I guess that about does it for our trip
to Uranus and exploration of the moons.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's been fun. Most of these I really
wasn't that familiar with. And again this is unlike the
Jupiter and Saturn. We actually could take time to go
through them blow by blow, even if there's not much
to know about them currently, you know, given our current
knowledge of the Uranian satellite system. But still pretty fun
to explore I also enjoyed looking into some of the namesakes,
(43:13):
because yeah, there's some Shakespeare plays. I'm more up on
some of these. Even like Midsummer Night's Dream, I feel
like I like intentionally didn't learn much about it in school,
like I thought I was. I thought I was too
cool and dark for Midsummer Night's Dream. I was like,
you know, give me, I gotta have Macbeth. I can't
an my time for Midsummer Night's Stream. So you know,
I ultimately cheated myself out of out of some goodness there.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Well, I'm still reeling from the way you discouraged Margaret,
and I won't have you speak that way about the
irregular moon Margaret. In fact, who are you to say
Margaret is irregular? I demand satisfaction.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
We'll see about upgrading her, see if we can make
her a regular moon. Yeah, all right, Well, we're going
to go and close this episode out here. Let us
know what you think. If you have thoughts about you know,
there's any of the the actual planetary lunar stuff that
we've discussed in these episodes, or if you lean the
other way and you have stuff you want to add
about the mythological or literary inspirations for the various namings
(44:12):
of the Uranian moons. So yeah, right in about that,
we'd love to hear from you and if you want
us to keep going. If you were like, yes, let's
get to Neptune and talk about the moons of Neptune,
let's do it sooner rather than later, let us know.
Or if you are like, well, I want to go
to Neptune, but I think you should wait a year
or two like you've been doing between lunar episodes, then
(44:33):
that's fair too. Either way, let us know. Just a
reminder that core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind
publishing the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on
Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yeah, they are primarily a science podcast,
and that's where you'll find those core science episodes. On
Mondays we do listener mail, on Wednesdays we do a
short form artifact or monster fact episode, and on Fridays
we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
(44:55):
a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Huge thanks 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 contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
These are the forgeries of jealousy. And never since the
middle summer's spring met we on a hill in dale forest,
or mead by paved fountain, or by rushing brook, or
in the beached margin of the sea, to dance our
ringlets to the whistling wind. But with thy brawls thou
hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the winds piping to us
(00:28):
in vain as in revenge, have sucked up from the sea.
Contagious fogs, which falling in the land, have every pelting
river made so proud that they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vein. The
plowman lost his sweat, and the green corn hath rotted,
(00:49):
ere his youth attained a beard. The fold stands empty
in the drowned field, and crows are fatted with the
murray and flock. The nine men's morris filled up with mud,
and the quaint mazes in the wanton green, for lack
of tread, are undistinguishable. The human mortals want their winter here.
(01:10):
No night is now with him or Carol blessed. Therefore
the moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger
washes all the air that rheumatic diseases do abound. And
thorough this distemperature, we see the seasons alter hoary headed
frosts far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
(01:31):
and on old highams than an icy crown, an odorous
chaplet of sweet summer buds is as in mockery set
the spring, the summer, the childing autumn, angry winter change
their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, by their increase,
now knows not which is which. And this same progeny
(01:53):
of evils comes from our debate, from our dissension. We
are their parents and original.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I can't believe nine Men's Morris is filled up with mud.
It used to be a cool place.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, I know. So we're back with our third and
final part in the series on the moons of the
planet Uranus, and I started today with a reading from
It's Actually It's a speech given by the character Titania,
the Queen of the Fairies, in William Shakespeare's play A
Midsummer Night's Dream. Now I've read that half just because
(02:48):
I loved that speech and I thought it was really cool,
but it also seemed to kind of resonant with our
subject matter today. So the speech in the play is
delivered by Titania to Oberon of the fairies, describing how
the jealous feuding between the two of them has had
malicious effects on the weather and the very environment of
(03:09):
nature in the human world, because you know, when fairies fight,
it's not just bad vibes. The bad vibes apparently become
quite physical, and they take the form of floods, drought,
frostbitten winters, famine, disease, etc. And this struck me as
interesting in this case because of the ways that hundreds
of years ago, the behavior of planets and moons and
(03:33):
other objects up in the heavens was thought to affect
the weather, and not just affect the weather, but to
produce the bad air that brings plague. So both of
the things kind of mentioned in this speech bad weather
and disease. And we've talked about numerous specific examples of
that in previous episodes, but one being that during the
(03:53):
Second Plague pandemic. In thirteen forty eight, a convocation of
scholars from the medical faculty at the University of Paris
was assembled by King Philip the sixth of France to
determine the cause of the plague, and they concluded it
was because of the thirteen forty five conjunction of Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn in the House of Aquarius, which had
(04:16):
caused evil vapors to rise up from the earth and
breathe death into the cities of humankind. So the idea
of this direct causal connection between what the planets are doing,
what things in the sky are doing, and then weather
on Earth and then disease. And this struck me because
in Shakespeare the behavior of Oberon and Titania is thought
(04:38):
to change the weather and bring disease. But this was
before those characters were also the names of actual heavenly
bodies moons of the planet Uranus. In fact, that would
have been before the official discovery of Uranus as a
planet at all. But Titania and Oberon are now both
major moons of Uranus. Those two were discovered by William
(05:01):
Herschel in seventeen eighty seven, the same guy who discovered
Urinus as a planet, though curiously I was just reading
about this. William Herschel also at the same time reported
discovering several other moons that were never confirmed by later astronomers.
So nobody ever found moons matching the orbits of these
(05:23):
other couple moons he described. Herschel Apparently, I don't know
he wrote something down wrong or something he claimed, you know,
he claimed to have found some non existent moons in
addition to these real ones. But anyway, I wonder if
if the Uranian moons Oberon and Titania had been known
about in Shakespeare's day, they might also, I wonder, have
(05:45):
been blamed for making the green corn rot and filling
the Nine Men's moriss up with mud and spreading the
rheumatic diseases and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Despite all of the shakespeare references
in the naming of the Iranian moons, I don't believe
Shakespeare ever references the god Uranus or Urinas in his works.
Could be a lot wrong about that. I'm not a
Shakespeare scholar. I'm just combining memory of Shakespeare with some
(06:15):
searches on some digital databases of his work. All the
other gods featured in our planetary lineup are referenced numerous
times in his plays, but never never Uranos, and the
same seems to be true of Alexander Pope, which I
guess this ultimately just speaks to the limited or non
existent role Uranas had in literature of the times of
(06:38):
these writers.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Right, I guess he's just wasn't one of the flashiest gods,
you know. Yeah, yeah, But actually I was just thinking,
to come back on what I said a minute ago,
you know, wondering if the moons of another planet would
have been used in astrological explanations for weather patterns and disease.
Now that I think about it, I can't think of
a case where, then, at least that I'm familiar with,
(07:02):
where the moons of other planets were used to explain
that that. Maybe that's because, like those, moons of other
planets had only been known about since the time of Galileo.
But as far as I can recall, it's always invoking
the outer planets themselves and not their moons, of course,
apart from our own moon, which, according again to Titania,
(07:23):
is the governess of floods.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, I love that the governess of floods.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
You know, before I had ever seen or read Midsommer
Night's Dream and knew Oberon and Titania as characters here
before I even knew them as the names of moons
of Uranus that I recall, I actually knew them from
a different place. I knew them as part of a
spooky chant in a song my dad used to listen
(07:49):
to when I was younger, the line you have to
imagine this with several voices and a strange dissonant harmony
saying Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda, Titanya, Neptune, Titan stars
can Frighten, which is of course from the nineteen sixty
seven psychedelic space rock anthem Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd.
(08:11):
I think this song was written by syd Barrett, a
song that I think I have to admit is still
sort of always looping in the back of my head
when I think about space, when I picture the empty
landscapes of other planets and moons. It manages to capture
a feeling of space that is simultaneously very unsettling but
(08:32):
also so inviting, And it really helped me be excited
about space before I knew much about it, like seeing
it as this realm of mysteries that were thrilling to unveil.
So I'm not saying the effect would be the same
with all kids, but for me personally, this weird song
by Pink Floyd was a wonderful early science education tool.
(08:54):
Not because it contains any actual information or educational content
it doesn't, but because it really made me want to
know more about what's out there.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So you're saying Astronomy Domine was kind of your Star Wars?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Is that what Star Wars was for you? I mean,
I love Star Wars too, I you know, wore out
the videotape.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah. I mean when I think back on just earliest
idea things that got me excited about space, I think
they were mostly you know, space stories, Like I remember
really liking the black Hole from Disney, and I had
like a storybook and cassette of the black Hole. Even though,
of course, as we've mentioned on the show before and
maybe we'll get into again in the future, you know,
(09:31):
the black Hole contains very little that you can take
to the bank regarding actual information about about this about
space and the nature of black holes.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, I guess this is part of the song's psychedelic qualities.
But yeah, Astronomy domine. I always felt it was. It
was scary in the best possible way. It was scary
in the way that it's like, you know, you want
to know what's behind the door, but you're you're frightened
to open it in a way that makes you just
you have to look even more.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Hm hm, No, I know, having been hurt, listened to
part of this song here, and I'm not super familiar
with Pink Floyd. You know, I know the big ones,
of course, but I haven't I've never done a deep
dive into their discography. Yeah, I see what you're saying
about this, this track.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
This is early Pink Floyd. Most of the Pink Floyd
stuff people know is from a later period of the
band where they sound totally different. They're more the kind
of you know, I don't know what you call it,
progressive classic rock. This is from their early couple of
albums that were more weird British psychedelic rock. Okay, all right,
But anyway, in the line of lyrics from from the
(10:34):
song you Hear you hear three names, it's oberon Miranda
in Titanya. So I think we're still taking the moons
somewhat in order. Right. Last in the previous episode, we
talked about the the inner moons of Uranus, and now
we're going to be talking about the major moons.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
That's right, and we'll begin with with Miranda here. Miranda's
name for Prospero's daughter in the Tempest. She's also the
subject of a pretty famous waterhouse painting. I included this
for you, Joe. I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this,
but I just remember seeing this one a lot. I
feel like this one. There were a lot of posters
of this on dorm rooms or something.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I don't know. If I did see it, it didn't really
make an impression, but I.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Like it has sort of Gothic sensibility to it. I
don't think I've ever seen the actual painting. I'm not
sure where it is at any rate. It was discovered
by Gerald P. Kiper on February sixteenth, nineteen forty eight,
at the McDonald Observatory in Texas. It was the last
moon of the planet to be discovered prior to Voyager two,
the smallest and closest to the planet of the pre
(11:38):
Voyager two discovered moons of Uranus. Now, the composition here,
like all the larger moons, it's thought to consist mostly
of a roughly equal mix of water, ice and silicate rock.
The significance it is, I've seen numerous descriptions referring to
it as a Frankenstein moon, which of course instantly sounds
pretty jazzy Frankenstein moon of seemingly mismatched landscapes and featuring
(12:03):
Titanic canyons thought to be twelve times as deep as
the Grand Canyon of Earth. In some cases, its surface
also bears the mark of coroni, which are sound delicious
what they're found to be. They're found on the surface
of Venus as well. These like oval shaped geological markings
caused by upwellings of subsurface warm material. So Miranda is
(12:27):
known to or as thought to have frozen water ice
on its surface, and the corona here may have caused
warm ice rising to cause tectonic faults in the rock here.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
So you mentioned it has this peculiar, fascinating outer appearance.
I add a couple of I added a couple of
photos here to the outlines, so we could rub the
fur a bit to look at the different textures on
Miranda across much of the known surface, it does look
a lot like our moon, Like you can see sort
of swaths of landscape of rocks and soil, you know,
(13:02):
the very familiar looking dotted with that kind of fractal
vanishing pattern of craters. But then across some stretches of
the Moon's surface, it looks like a bear about the
size of the Sun, just like dug its claws in
and used it as a scratching post. Something absolutely tore
up the crust of this planet.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Now, you know, part of this is I'm primed by
being described as the Frankenstein Moon, but also looking at
these images of it, it makes me think of this
moon as a mad ball, which I don't think. I'm well,
they were apparently still around. I think they started in
the mid eighties and they were a toy when I
was a kid. But they're like these bouncy balls that
have these like textured monster heads, like ones of cyclops,
(13:48):
ones like a meducer or something.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And I just looked it up. Yeah, okay, I think
I've seen these.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, So it's kind of like if you're familiar with these,
and I think they're still around. They have a website,
so I think you can probably buy him somewhere. Maybe
they're not the hot thing with kids these days, But
at any rate, I look at this moon and I
think of mad balls.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So I'm looking at an arrangement of six mad balls,
and five of them are some kind of monster I
don't know, like a like a one eyed, one horned,
purple people eater of some sort. And then but one
of them is just a baseball with an angry face.
It's just a baseball. Why do they got to put
a baseball in there? Even got the little seams with
(14:29):
the red thread, and I don't know, just.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
An angry baseball. I monster baseball.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I see what you're talking about, though. Yet, yes, it
is kind of like a mad ball. It has very
the different mismatched parts. It looks like it could be
you know, illustrated scarring or something. I don't know. It's
just like a hugely variable, strange surface. So there I
mentioned the parts. Some just look kind of like any
(14:54):
moon you might imagine. Some look like the parts where
the bear dug its claws in. Other parts look to
me like you've ever seen the you know, those little
zin gardens people have where they are like soft patterns
of parallel lines and raked into the sand. Yeah, yeah,
there are parts of the surface that look like that.
Here you see these little kind of I'm not implying
(15:16):
that they were left there by an actual being, but yeah,
it looks like just kind of parallel lines gently raked
into the surface, but of course with massive proportions. And
there are some places that show jagged ruptures and protrusions
off of the Moon's surface that are really just scraping space,
Like you can really see like a kind of a
(15:36):
point coming off of there. Rob you mentioned that some
of the canyons on Miranda are thought to be twelve
times as deep as the Grand Canyon on Earth. I
wanted to zoom in on one particular feature that I
found very interesting. Let's go to the Verona rupus. Verona
is I believe here a reference to Romeo and Juliet,
(15:58):
because again the Shakespeare name of Urines's moons, and so
Romeo and Juliet is set in the Italian city of Verona. Meanwhile,
Verona rupus Rupus is a word used in planetary geology
to refer to extraterrestrial escarpments or cliffs. It's the Latin
word for cliff, so Raba included a photo for you
(16:20):
to look at of Verona rupas zoomed in. This is
an image that was featured by NASA and Michigan Tech's
Astronomy Picture of the Day site, and this photograph was
taken by No Surprise Voyager two, as all these close
up photos of Uranes's moons are. But what's really interesting
here is that you can see in the picture this
(16:43):
massive feature is not a gently sloping mountain side, but
a steep sheer cliff. And what you can't tell from
the picture is the scale of this massive landscape feature.
According to the APOD write up, the drop from Verona
Rupus is thought to be about twenty kilometers deep. Now
(17:05):
I've seen other estimates somewhere. I don't know exactly who's
the final authority on estimating the heights of features like
this from photos, but twenty kilometers is the estimate given here.
And for a point of comparison, they say that this
is in this case ten times the depth of the
Grand Canyon. For another one, I just looked up the
(17:25):
height of Mount Everest. That's about eight point eight kilometers
in height, so imagine a drop off more than double
the peak to ground height of Everest. But it's not
a slope, it's a cliff. It's a vertical cliff.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I'm imagining the cull devoid kind of thought patterns that
looking at a cliff of that size. Man, if you're
somebody with like kriminophobia, you know, you get afraid of
sharp drop offs. I don't know, you can't even process it.
But another thing they point out is that, so you
imagine a future astronaut is somehow on the surface of
(18:03):
Miranda and maybe they are suddenly they're cursed by Oberon
and Titania, you know, the fairy magic falls upon them,
and they are made to jump the cliff. This source
estimates that it would take them about twelve minutes to
fall to the bottom, though the length of that fall
is somewhat stretched out because Miranda has relatively very low
(18:25):
gravity compared to Earth. But despite the lower gravity, the
fall would probably still probably would still hurt you.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I mean, I guess in the future, extreme base jumpers
might venture there in their robot avatar bodies and take
a leap off, and in that case, I guess you
survive the fall because you're just back in your actual
body at the end of it. Yeah, always safety precautions though,
just a heap of robots to the bottom though, just
(18:54):
smashed down to a thin sheet.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
So what causes this chaotic patch landscape? There are a
couple of hypotheses. One appears to be the idea of collisions.
Basically that Miranda was actually somewhat smashed to pieces by
collision with a large object. But these pieces did not
you know, fly off into deep space. They were still
(19:18):
caught in orbit around Uranus, and they were ultimately attracted
to each other by gravity and reformed into a moon
once again. But then you'd have the different pieces sort
of fitting together weirdly, explaining the patchy surface.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, so a Miranda is a mess, but potentially she's
a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yes, And if that were indeed the case, that sort
of reminds me of the whole thing about like why
planetary defense concepts, you know, like protecting Earth from comets
and asteroids don't tend to focus on trying to blow
up incoming asteroids. So you got an asteroid that's coming
toward Earth, you don't want to like, you know, nuke
its core and smash it to a million pieces, like
(19:57):
in you know, movies like Armageddon or something thing, Because
fragmenting it into pieces, it potentially would just still hit
earth anyway, like the pieces would hit Earth, or it
might be gravitationally attracted to itself reform and still hit Earth.
So instead the better plan is to deflect its path.
You want to blow it off course, not blow it up.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, nudget, nudget a little bit. Make sure it just
gradually goes off course far enough ahead of the entering
any kind of danger zone.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
But another possible explanation for the weird mismatched surface of
Miranda is a not a collision and a reforming together,
but instead is like that Miranda is struck by like
large rocky objects or meteorites of some kind. These impacts
partially melt the ice that is underneath the surface of Miranda,
(20:50):
and then that melting from the heat of the impact
causes water to rise to the surface, icy water to
come up to the surface, and then it refreezes somewhat chaos,
giving rise to these strange patterns of different types of
surface texture.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, however, it comes together. Definitely worth pulling up an
image of this so you'll see what we're talking about here.
Because it's uh visually, it's I think one of, if
not the most notable of the Uranian moons. All right,
(21:26):
let's move on to the next one. The next one
is Arial and this one, this one pulls double duty
because it is a spirit who serves Prospero in the tempest,
but it is also a sylph or a sylphid from
Alexander Pope's the Rape of the Lock. This is like
(21:48):
like an invisible air elemental being that is brought up
in the works of Paracelsus.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Yeah, So anyway, double duty this one. This one's in
both camps of Pope and Shakespeare. Discovered by English astronomer
William Lassel in eighteen fifty one. The composition, you know,
same as Miranda and other larger moons, but carbon dioxide
has also been detected. And the significance here it's tidally
locked like our moon, youngest surface of the moons of
(22:16):
Uranus and the most recent geologically active, So.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Like Earth and its moon, if you were able to
stand on the surface of Uranus and look up at Ariel,
I mean you can't stand on the surface of Uranus,
but if you were to look up at Ariel, you
would always see the same side of it facing the
planet right. So, to invoke another Pink Floyd reference there,
there would not actually be a permanent dark side of
the Moon on aerial, but there would be an always
facing away side of the Moon, the far side, all right.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Moving on to the next one, Umbriel, also discovered by
William Lassel in eighteen fifty one. This one is named
after an evil spirit in Alexander Pope's poem Rape of
the Lock. Significance here it has a mysterious ring on
its surface, revealed by Voyager two, which might be due
to frost deposits from an impact crater. It's ancient and dark,
(23:04):
as the shadowy name suggests. Just a couple of quick
quotes here from the poem by Pope. First, Umbriel a dusky,
melancholy sprite as ever sullied the fair face of light.
And then later on there's another nice little snippet here,
but Umbriel hateful gnome forbears not so he breaks the vial,
(23:27):
whence the sorrows flow? Hateful? No I like it.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Well, you know the name is fitting because so it mentions.
He's the enemy of light basically, and that's also true
if you look up about Umbriel the moon. Because Umbriel
is the darkest of all of Uranus's major moons, it
reflects very little light. You mentioned that bright ring a
(23:53):
minute ago, the kind of mysterious bright ring in a crater.
I added a photo of this for you to look
at here. I think it's interesting. So the contrast with
the glowing white ring is quite profound. That I guess
that seems especially true because Umbriel is the darkest of
the major moons. And unfortunately the images we have from
(24:14):
Voyager two do not capture the ring looking down, so
you're not looking at it head on. Instead, we see
we can just barely tell it's a ring, but we
can see it at sort of the edge of the
hemisphere that Voyager two was able to photograph, so it's
right there on the cusp of the planet like a
little halo. The Moon as a whole is about twelve
(24:36):
hundred kilometers in diameter, and the white ring here is
about one hundred and forty kilometers itself, so more than
ten percent of the width of the Moon. And scientists
are not sure what caused the ring to appear. But
Rob you mentioned the frost deposits. In the last part
of the series, I referenced an article by the planetary
scientist Amy Simon, and she explains a little further in
(24:59):
that article that it might be like a layer of
ice on a crater floor that is lying exposed to
the sunlight. For some reason, something knocked the what might
have otherwise been covering it off, so it's exposed and
reflecting much more light than the surface around it. But
this tickled something in my memory, and I realized it
was reminding me of when we discussed the bright white
(25:22):
spot in the center of a crater on another object
in the Solar System, on the dwarf planet Series. So
Series is not a planet on its own, it is
the largest object in the asteroid belt, the biggest asteroid
known as a dwarf planet. And on the surface of
Series there are actually a number of different bright spots
(25:45):
known as facue and there's one I've got you here
to look at, rob So it's in the middle of
a crater. The crater is called the Okat Crater, and
the bright spot, this is the most famous of the
bright tipots, is known as the Cerealia facula. So it's
right there in the middle of the crater almost like
(26:06):
a I don't know what to call it. It's just like,
you know, it's like a bull's eye. It's a bright
dot in the middle of this depression in the surface
of CeREES And these bright spots are thought to be caused,
in this case on series by the presence of ice
or salts rising to the surface from below. So there
might be there's like sort of a mantle or a
(26:27):
subsurface layer of briny solution kind of water with salts
in it, and maybe some kind of impact caused that
that stuff to well up, so the water the salts
came up, and then the ice that's there or the
salts that are left once the water is gone, leave
this area of higher reflectivity than the surrounding surface. So
(26:50):
it forms this little you know, bull's eye in the
middle of the crater.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Interesting. Yeah. Now, now as for just the ring on umbrel,
it's also and it also makes me think of like an
intentional bald spot at the top of the head, like
a monk's conture, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I can see that it's just sitting
right up there. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
But we spoke earlier of the Fairy Royalty Titanya and Oberon.
Should we set them a bickering Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Next up is Titania, the queen of the fairies in
A Midsummer Night's Dream is the namesake discovered by William
Herschel this moon in seventeen eighty seven. It's the largest
moon of Uranus, with a diameter of roughly one thousand
miles or sixteen one hundred kilometers. Voyager two images revealed
that it was at some point geologically active. Reflective material,
(27:38):
possibly frost, adheres to sun facing valley walls. And then
we have Oberon. Oberon is named for the king of
the Fairies and midsummer Night's Dream, also discovered by William
Herschel in seventeen eighty seven. It's the second largest moon
of Uranus. It's heavily cratered and has at least one
large mountain. This large mountain towers I believes six kilometers
(27:59):
and is named but is sometimes called the Limb Mountain.
The outmost of the major moons is over On. Many
of its craters have an unidentified dark material in them.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
That was something else mentioned in that Amy Simon article
that a lot of the moons of Uranus have substances
on their surface which cause darkening, and it's not known
exactly what that is.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah. Now, another interesting note about some of these moons
we just discussed here is the potential the possible potential
for life on the major moons of Urinus. Life on
Uranus itself seems extremely unlikely based on everything I've been
looking at life as we know it anyway, because is
always the caveat. For instance, just one case of this,
(28:43):
the long standing risk of contaminating Uranus or Neptune with
terrestrial microbes seems to be essentially nil. Based on scientific
opinions NASA and so forth. It is, by most estimates,
likely a dead world. Now, I did run across a
nineteen eighty eight paper by ing Bolshkarov in Bioastronomy titled
(29:06):
in the bio Astronomy Next Steps My bad there it's
titled is Urinus the most promising planet for SETI? This
paper seems to mostly focus on the presence of water
drops and electrical discharges in the planet's atmosphere as a
possible precursor to life. Still, most sources seem to say no,
Uranus is a no go for life as we know it.
(29:27):
You know, there are other places that we can look
to in our Solar system that are far better candidates
for exploration. But any right, the idea of it being
a dead world. We can't say the same for the moons.
We can't say the same for all of the Uranian moons.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I like how the title of the paper though, is
not just like is it worth looking at Urinus for SETI,
it's saying is it the most promising planet? That seems
like the answer is no, No, it's not.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
It's interesting, you know, we often have to think back
to you know, the reality of putting missions together for
these various various moons and planets. It's like you've got
to really build up the hype, you know, you've got
to you got to make the case why is this
worth all of this money, this time, this investment. And
you know, there's a strong case to be made for
(30:13):
any destination in our Solar system to you know, to
broaden our understanding of the world surrounding our star. But
you know, you got to make that case. You got
to believe, and maybe maybe you got to You got
to push a little hard.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Well, yeah, and even if you're looking at places that
are not themselves at least as far as we can
tell very good candidates for discovering life, they can still
usually teach you a lot about the dynamics and life
history of planets in general, which is something that we
do need to always understand better if we want to
know where best to look for life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, So the most recent paper that I was running
across about Uranian moons in life. This comes from a
December twenty twenty two paper in the Journal of Geophysical
Research by Castillo Roguez at All. They point out that Titania, Oberon, Aerial,
and Umbrial may have salty oceans beneath their frozen surfaces,
(31:08):
opening up the possibility for life as we know it.
They base their findings on three factors. First, fall observational
constraints about each moon's internal and geological evolution. Secondly, the
current level of tidal heating, and third thermal models. They write, quote,
we predict that if the Moon's preserved liquid until present,
(31:31):
it is likely in the form of residual oceans less
than thirty kilometers thick on Aerial, Umbrial and less than
fifty kilometers in Titania and Oberon. Now, they stress that
liquid preservation depends on a number of factors, and ultimately
we just can't know for certain until we look closer. Miranda, however,
they say, is unlikely to boast any water unless there
(31:53):
was some manner of tidal heating there quote a few
tens of millions of years ago. They also point out
that thermal metamorphism could create a late second generation ocean
in Titania and Oberon. In either case, It's also possible
that liquid on these moons, if present, is preserved by
anti freeze in the form of something like ammonia and chlorides.
(32:15):
The downside to this possibility, they stress, is that the
electrical conductiveness may be close to zero in such waters
if they're there, making it impossible for future probes to
detect them via magnetic field generation. Also, we'd be talking
about temperatures close to the lower limit for metabolic activity
and terrestrial microbe reproduction based on life as we know it,
(32:39):
so the author's stress that it might not really be
a high priority liquid environment for astrobiologists. It's no Enceladus
that seems to remain the most interesting lunar ocean for astrobiologists,
but we can't rule out life on the Uranian moons
more research, more inquiry is required.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Always Enceladus now considered a better candidate than Europa. I
would have assumed Europa was still on top. I guess
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Well, I don't want to get into the beef between
Enceladus and Europa, but okay, either of these, it's my understanding,
would would ultimately be better placed if you had to
place hard bets on it, which essentially you are if
you're deciding to, you know, potentially launch any kind of
like a mission, fly by probe, et cetera. So yeah,
that seemed to be the basic take home from the
paper is that, like, there's a possibility it's not, but
(33:32):
it's not. Maybe the they're not the best odds of
the moons in our solar system.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Maybe not, But wouldn't that be a good surprise. You
look at all of the higher tier candidates, Europa and Enceladus, whatever,
and nothing's there but way out in the ice giants,
those moons are cranking with life.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, I mean, it's always in the last place you look, right.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
All right, Miranda, Umbriel, Titanya, and Oberon. Those are the
four major moons. But that doesn't exhaust the list, right,
we've got a bunch of so called irregular moons and
other stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna venture into the outskirts here, Like
we're leaving Las Vegas proper and we're down into the
area surround in Vegas. We're getting into the irregular moons
of Uranus. According to NASA, the composition of the moons
outside the orbit of Oberon remains largely unknown, but they
are likely captured asteroids. These are all positioned far beyond
(34:36):
the orbit of Oberon, and there are nine known irregular
moons of Uranus. All right, we're gonna start with Francisco.
This is named after a shipwrecked nobleman in the Tempest,
discovered in two thousand and one by Cavalleras at All
at Chile Sero Tololo Inter American Observatory. It has a
retrograde orbit. It is the innermost of the irregular moons,
(34:58):
but it orbits at about four point three million kilometers
from the planet itself.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I do not recall what the character Francisco and the
Tempest does, but you know who I do recall is Caliban.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah, the sort of a monstrous character from the Tempest
who was also the inspiration for the character Calibos in
the movie Clash of the Titans, which we discussed in
Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
A little bit of crossing of the streams there. I
got your Shakespeare in my Greek mythology.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah. So this one was discovered by Gladman at All
in nineteen ninety seven at the Palomar Observatory in California.
Significance here it has a retrogade orbit that is also
inclined and eccentric, thought to be the second largest irregular moon.
It is also far out and likely an independent body
(35:46):
captured by the planet's gravity. All right, Up next we
have Stefano. This is named after King Alonzo's butler in
The Tempest. It's been a while since I've actually seen
The Tempest or certainly read it, so I don't remember
the significance of King Alzo's butler.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I also have no memory of what's going on with
the butler. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
At any rate, he gets a mon named after him.
Discovered in nineteen ninety nine by Gladman at All at
the Canada, France Hawaii Telescope at the Monachia Observatory on
the island of Hawaii. They discovered Stefano, Prospero, and Setebas
at the same time. Significance here basically just retrograde orbit
similar in composition to Caliban, is.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Likely, all right.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Next we have Trinculo, named after the jester from The Tempest.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah. This one discovered by Holman at All in two
thousand and one at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Canada
using the Sero Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile. This one
has a retrograde orbit, all right, all right. The next
one is Psychoax. This is named after the which mother
of Caliban in The Tempest. This is an off screen
(36:54):
character though that dies before the play, so it's just
like a name drop. Discovered by Gladman at All in
nineteen ninety seven at the Palomar Observatory in California, discovered
at the same time as Caliban, thus the naming the
main significance here. It's the largest of the irregular moons
and it also has a retrograde orbit. Now it's hard
to beat that name. That's a cool name, so the
(37:14):
next one doesn't even try. The next one is Margaret.
This is named after a character from much Ado about
nothing discovered by Scott S. Shepherd and David C. Juleet
In with the Subaru eight point two millimeter reflector at
the Monarchy Observatory in two thousand and three. The significance
here we have a pro grade orbit for once.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Oh is this the first one of the irregulars?
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah? Yeah, they're all retrograde thus far. Okay, now the
next one, this one has as a pretty We've mentioned
him already. But finally we have a moon named after Prospero,
the sorcerer from the Tempest.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I know this isn't true, but I'm going to tell
myself that it's actually named after Prospero, the Vincent Price
character in the Mask of the Red Death.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Ah. Now here's an interesting little side bit. You know
we discussed or this. I believe this was Christian and
I that did much older episode about the Elizabethan poly
math and occultist John D. There's this this theory that
the historic individual of John D may have been partial
inspiration for Shakespeare's Prospero, and he also seems to have
(38:23):
influenced John D that seems to have influenced our ideas
concerning Merlin as well, and ultimately, like the Fantasy Wizard
character as a whole.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That seems true to me, though it doesn't exactly match,
because the Fantasy Wizard character does not get obsessed with
trying to talk to angels.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Dee's full story has a lot of
strange turns in it, and you know, he gets caught
up in some in a few messes. Interestingly, his occult
interests include the angel Uriel, the supposed to be the
angel of Wisdom, who's said in some cases to have
worn Noah of the flood and revealed astrological secrets of
(39:03):
the stars and planets. To Enoch, Uriel is synonymous with Aeriel,
which we already discussed as a major Uranian moon. Interesting now, Prospero,
the Uranian moon setting all that aside, is just discovered
by Gladman at All in nineteen ninety nine at the
Canada France Hawaii Telescope at Monarchy Observatory Nowland of Hawaii.
(39:24):
They and again they also discovered Stefano, Prospero, and Setebos
at the same time. It has a retrograde orbit. Orbital
details suggests it shares common origin with Serrax and Setibas,
but its gray colorations suggest otherwise. So it's from what
I was looking at it sounds like there's still some
you know, some unknowns about.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
It for sure.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Now I personally found it kind of amusing, you know,
looking back again at the Shakespeare, it's amusing to see
that Prospero in the Tempest mentions moons and the god Neptune,
but of course not Uranus, obviously not the planet, but
also not the god. But there is this wonderful little
bit here that I wanted to read. Prospero says, ye
elves of hills brooks, standing lakes and groves, and ye
(40:09):
that on the sands with printless foot, do chase the
ebbing Neptune, and do fly him when he comes back.
You dimmy puppets, that by moonshine, do the green sour
ringlets make where all the u not bites. And you
whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice to
hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid week masters, though
(40:32):
ye be I have bedimmed.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Speak for yourself. I don't make midnight mushrooms. You know.
I'm struck. How often if you look at a passage
from Shakespeare that is a reference to a I don't know,
a fairy or magical creature or someone doing sorcery. The
language employed could easily pass for lyrics to space Rock
of later centuries.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, all right, the next one is setibas we have
to already. The Shakespearean connection is that Cigarax and Caliban
are said to worship said it Boss in the Tempest.
But the name was prior to this, it seems, the
name of an actual Patagonian god. I was reading up
(41:17):
on this a little bit. Shakespeare apparently took the name
from Richard Eden's sixteenth century accounts of Magellan's experiences with
Patagonian natives, which, of course we always have to take
an enormous grain of salt in such accounts, you know,
concerning some of the finer details of people's beliefs and practices.
(41:38):
But this according to a work I was looking at
by Charles Frey titled The Tempest in the New World,
getting into these various connections between Shakespeare's The Tempest and
information that was coming out of exploration of the New
World of the Americas. In Eden's work, he writes of
natives who quote cried upon the great devil Boss to
(42:00):
help them again, you know, the grain of salt, to
say the least, concerning some of these accounts of other
peoples and cultures and their practices. Also, poet Robert Browning
would later write a poem inspired by the Tempest Caliban
upon Setibas. Also of note, the giant Antarctic octopus is
(42:22):
classified as megalodone Setiboss, which I thought was interesting. But anyway,
Setibas the moon discovered by Gladman at All in nineteen
ninety nine. Again this was the Canada, France Hawaii Telescope,
and again they discovered the Stefano, Prospero and Setibas at
the same time, retrograde orbit one of the farthest moons
more than eleven million miles or seventeen million kilometers out.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Well, I guess that about does it for our trip
to Uranus and exploration of the moons.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's been fun. Most of these I really
wasn't that familiar with. And again this is unlike the
Jupiter and Saturn. We actually could take time to go
through them blow by blow, even if there's not much
to know about them currently, you know, given our current
knowledge of the Uranian satellite system. But still pretty fun
to explore I also enjoyed looking into some of the namesakes,
(43:13):
because yeah, there's some Shakespeare plays. I'm more up on
some of these. Even like Midsummer Night's Dream, I feel
like I like intentionally didn't learn much about it in school,
like I thought I was. I thought I was too
cool and dark for Midsummer Night's Dream. I was like,
you know, give me, I gotta have Macbeth. I can't
an my time for Midsummer Night's Stream. So you know,
I ultimately cheated myself out of out of some goodness there.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Well, I'm still reeling from the way you discouraged Margaret,
and I won't have you speak that way about the
irregular moon Margaret. In fact, who are you to say
Margaret is irregular? I demand satisfaction.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
We'll see about upgrading her, see if we can make
her a regular moon. Yeah, all right, Well, we're going
to go and close this episode out here. Let us
know what you think. If you have thoughts about you know,
there's any of the the actual planetary lunar stuff that
we've discussed in these episodes, or if you lean the
other way and you have stuff you want to add
about the mythological or literary inspirations for the various namings
(44:12):
of the Uranian moons. So yeah, right in about that,
we'd love to hear from you and if you want
us to keep going. If you were like, yes, let's
get to Neptune and talk about the moons of Neptune,
let's do it sooner rather than later, let us know.
Or if you are like, well, I want to go
to Neptune, but I think you should wait a year
or two like you've been doing between lunar episodes, then
(44:33):
that's fair too. Either way, let us know. Just a
reminder that core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind
publishing the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on
Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yeah, they are primarily a science podcast,
and that's where you'll find those core science episodes. On
Mondays we do listener mail, on Wednesdays we do a
short form artifact or monster fact episode, and on Fridays
we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
(44:55):
a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Huge thanks 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 contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
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