S2E05 - The Search for Planet X (Planetary Science) - Gaming with Science

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Music.

Brian (00:06):
Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast
where we talk about the sciencebehind some of your favorite
games.

Jason (00:11):
Today, we'll be talking about the search for Planet X by
Fox Trot games. All right,everyone, welcome back to gaming
with science. This is Jason,

Brian (00:20):
this is Brian,

Addie (00:22):
and I'm Addie Dove.

Jason (00:23):
All right, we have the inestimable, incorrigible Addie
Dove, who told us just beforerecording, that she comes from
the best podcast walk about thegalaxy.

Addie (00:33):
I have the shirt on today too.

Brian (00:35):
Oh, cool,

Jason (00:36):
which, sorry, listeners. We can't show you that. It's an
audio podcast. You can look itup. I'm sure they have it for
sale somewhere. Anyway, Addie,can you introduce yourself to
our audience, let them know whoyou are and why you're on the
show about finding Planet X.

Addie (00:48):
Happy to Yeah, hi. I'm Addie Dove. I'm a planetary
scientist and physicist at theUniversity of Central Florida.
So My day job is that I doresearch understanding planetary
surfaces. I study dust in space,so dust, specifically on the
moon and asteroids, and how itbehaves and how we understand

(01:10):
it. I'm involved in a number ofexperimental projects and
missions, and my favorite partabout my research is that I've
done things on on orbitalassets, so on the ISS, on cube
sats and on the vomit comet. SoI've actually flown on the
parabolic airplane flights.

Jason (01:25):
Fun or, well, I don't know I've heard about the vomit
comet, maybe not so fun, butit's fun.

Addie (01:31):
I love it so much.

Jason (01:32):
So you are an astro quark. That's what the host of
the walk about the Galaxypodcast call themselves.

Addie (01:36):
Yes, it is.

Brian (01:38):
Yes. Are you bottom quark or charm? You are. Charm. Quark,
Jason was right, He's right,

Addie (01:45):
Yeah. So we have strange and charm, and then we also have
bottom. And lately, our newestAstro quark is down. So this is
a, this is a clever name that wehave because we're mostly
astronomy folks, and it'sastronomy podcast, and quarks
are sort of like the fundamentalunits, right, of matter. And so
there's strange charm, topbottom or truth and beauty, if

(02:06):
you like those names a littlebit better, instead of top and
bottom, and then up and down.

Brian (02:11):
Truth and beauty are substitutes for which ones then?

Addie (02:14):
top and bottom.

Jason (02:15):
Yeah, same initials, but more poetic, yes.
Okay, one of our quarks enjoysbeing beauty, not bottom.

Brian (02:22):
So are you allowed to have more than six hosts? Then
do you just have to nominatepeople on and kick people off?

Addie (02:29):
We've had two tops technically. So as we've had
people iterate through,

Jason (02:34):
well, you can get someone to be the gluon, holding them
together.

Addie (02:37):
Yeah, exactly. And some quirks have lasted longer than
others. So we've, we've had acouple of replacements,

Jason (02:43):
All right, well, I think that's already given us one fun
science fact is the quarks inmatter, but let's go on.

Brian (02:48):
I guess it is.

Jason (02:49):
We'd like to start with some fun science fact and Addie
as our guest. You get priority.Is there something fun about
science that you've learned orrun across lately you want to
share?

Addie (02:58):
Oh, man, let me go. Let me go. Second, I have to think
about it a little bit

Brian (03:02):
more. Okay, then I will go first. But I think this is
probably something you alreadyknow. So if you want to hop in,
that's fine. So my challenge isalways, how can I make this
about onions in some weird way?So what does the moon smell
like? I learned what the moonsmells like from the people who
have been there. And I knowAddie, you definitely know this
for the people who have been tothe move lunar regolith smells

(03:22):
like spent gunpowder, evidently,although it doesn't last,
because when those samples werebrought back to Earth, it's now
odorless. So there's been somespeculation about why it's like
that. Now I have anotherquestion for you, Addy, I again,
you probably already know theanswer, so I'm going to make
Jason guess we're going to do astump question, like you guys do

Addie (03:40):
a stumper,

Brian (03:41):
yeah, what astronomical body smells like a combination
of cat urine, burnt matches, androtten eggs?

Jason (03:48):
Okay, cat urine, burnt matches and rotten eggs. So cat
urine is going to be likeammonia compounds, probably
urea. Burnt matches isphosphorus and rotten eggs is
sulfur. So we've got ammonia,phosphorus and sulfur, I'm going
to guess IO Jupiter's volcanicMoon

Brian (04:05):
comets stink like that, according to the organic
molecule. So of the we've foundorganic molecules in lots of
astronomical bodies inasteroids, in dust, yes, in
planets, of course. But themissions that went to the
asteroids picked up glycine,which is an amino acid. They
also picked up hydrogen sulfide,which is one of the flavor
components of onion. So if youwere to have a human mission to

(04:27):
an asteroid and go inside, itwould smell really, really bad.

Addie (04:30):
Oh yeah. I was trying to think, is it Titan? Is it Venus?
Interesting? Okay, okay.

Jason (04:35):
I mean, I guess you're protected by the spacesuit until
you bring the samples insidewith you, and then you've just
contaminated your entirespaceship with rotten onion
smell

Brian (04:44):
and cat urine,

Addie (04:48):
which like future safe spaceships, maybe you're gonna
smell like anyway, I can hope,in some ways.

Brian (04:54):
So that was, that was my, that was my science fact, yeah.
Comets smell bad.

Addie (05:01):
I like it,

Jason (05:02):
How about you addie, you come up with one?

Addie (05:03):
Yeah, I'm starting to think there's been a bunch of
interesting JWST results outlately. So the James Webb Space
Telescope, so I've been, I feellike a lot of my sort of like
new science things are fromthat, but I don't know if
they're facts. They're like newthings we're seeing that are,
that are sort of like blowingour mind, right?

Brian (05:19):
Can I? Can I pitch something you guys were so
excited about on your ownpodcast? Yes, you talk about
here?

Addie (05:24):
sure.

Brian (05:25):
So there was that asteroid that we thought would
hit the Earth, and now it's, oh,now it's gonna hit the moon, or
at least there's a better chanceit's gonna hit the moon, right?

Addie (05:33):
Yeah. So there's an asteroid that's great. Yes, I
love talking about YR4. Sothere's this asteroid, YR4 2024

Jason (05:36):
How big is this asteroid?
YR4, which has to do with likewhen it was discovered, and what
discovered it. And it's thislike asteroid that has a very

Addie (05:46):
It was, it's pretty small. So, like, it would, it
elliptical orbit. So it camenear the earth back in 2024 and
it's going to come back in 2028and 2032 based on its orbit, we
hadn't seen it before, and thenwe discovered it. And the
predictions were that when itcomes by in 2032 it was going to
hit the Earth, and it was a 3%chance that it was going to hit
the Earth, which is actually astaggeringly high percentage

(06:06):
chance for asteroid encounterslike we just that's the highest
we've had in a really long time.But then we looked at it with
more telescopes and got moredata about it, and it's not
going to hit the Earth, which isgreat in a lot of ways, but also
kind of disappointing we get tostudy so much. Yeah,

(06:27):
would be something that, like,if it hit in a city, it would be
really bad news. But like,statistically speaking, it would
hit in the ocean, and we'd beable to, like, observe it coming
in and see it disintegrating,and see the big splash. And it
wouldn't be, it's not like adinosaur killer asteroid. It was
more of like a Tunguska eventkind of thing, where it wipes
out a big area, which is thisold location that it hit. It was
an old meteor that actually,like, sort of disintegrated in

(06:49):
the atmosphere, and so itcreated a shock burst and
leveled trees for miles, butdidn't destroy anything. So
probably something more likethat. So now, so we don't think
it's going to hit the Earth, butthere's a small chance now that
it might hit the moon, which iseven which is kind of exciting.

Jason (07:04):
that I agree is going to be cool, because if we can see
that and not be in any dangerfrom it, that sounds great.

Addie (07:10):
Exactly, right. Yeah,

Brian (07:12):
yeah. You guys were all bubbling with excitement about
the idea that it might hit themoon, and what it would mean for
study, like knowing it was goingto happen, being able to point
every telescope at the moon whenthis happened.

Addie (07:21):
for so long, and we'd see the impact and we'd learn a lot
about it, and the moon so muchdata.

Jason (07:28):
All right. Well, let's segue onto this game, which also
actually involves asteroids, notimpactors, just trying to find
them and point a bunch oftelescopes at them. So game for
today is the search for PlanetX. So quick background. This is
by Foxtrot games and Renegadegames studios. I assume Foxtrot
is like the creator of it, andRenegade is more the distributor
of it. It's actually very highlyrated. It's 107 on Board Game

(07:50):
Geek overall. So 107 out of allthe games there, which is
actually really, really highbasic stats, plays for one to
four players. Again, theobligatory single player mode,
about an hour run time, ages 13plus, which, as we now know,
means that they didn't test thepieces for safety for eating. So
do not eat the pieces of thisgame. We don't know what will
happen.

Brian (08:11):
Yeah, something bad.

Jason (08:12):
Retail Price is $45 currently on Renegade's site.
And what does this game consistof? So this is a deduction game,
which for having two of these inthe past three episodes. I
didn't know about this genre asa genre until earlier this year.
So we when we're choosing thesegames, we don't choose them
based off of the type of game.We choose them based off of the
science and the field of sciencewe're talking about. And so this

(08:34):
is complete coincidence. We'vehad two out of the last three be
the same genre, but the idea issimilar to Turing machine. You
are trying to find somethingout. In this case, it is the
location of Planet X, which isthis mysterious 10th planet in
the solar system, maybe ninth.Now, due to Pluto getting
demoted, you're trying to findit, and you're trying to figure
out other things like asteroidsand comets and gas clouds and

(08:57):
their relationships to eachother. So the board is this
large, circular board that ifyou're playing normal mode, it
has 12 sectors. If you'replaying advanced mode, it has 18
sectors, and each sector hassomething in it. That something
can be Planet X, or it could beasteroids or comets or gas
clouds or a dwarf planet ornothing. Some of them are just

(09:18):
empty. And the thing is, thereare logic rules that control
where certain things show up. Socomets can only show up in
sectors that are prime numbered.Dwarf Planets can't be next to a
gas cloud or something likethat. I don't remember what all
the logic rules are, but theyhave logic rules that connect
where certain things are inrelationship to each other. And
your job, you have a littlethese cute little telescope

(09:39):
shaped meeples, which areactually based off of four real
telescopes in the world thatrepresent your players. And
you're going around the circulartrack that represents time. And
so the idea is that as you goaround the track, you're doing
one of several things. You areusually surveying the sky,
looking for a certain type ofobject, or you are doing a
targeted analysis, where you geta lot. Of data on one specific

(10:01):
sector. Or you're doing researchwhich doesn't tell you anything
about the sky, but gives yousome more logic rules that help
you kind of figure out therelationships among individuals.
Or you're trying to figure outyou say where Planet X is, and
importantly, to win, you have toknow not only where Planet X is,
but you also need to know itsneighbors to the right and to
the left. So you can't justguess randomly and hope to have

(10:21):
it, the odds of that are justtoo small. And if you guess
wrong, there's actually asignificant time penalty in
terms of moving your pieceahead. And so it's guessing is
bad like guessing generally is abad thing. Other various
components of the game, thereare little player screens that
tell you all the logic rules.They actually have a clever
little card insert that willreplace the basic rules with the
advanced rules. If you'replaying the advanced version, it

(10:42):
has the highest quality scorepads I've ever seen. They're all
in full color. There are fourdifferent ones for which side of
the board you're sitting on, andthey're front and back for basic
and expert mode. So like, theseare high quality stuff like I've
I've never seen so much effortput into a score pad before. I
was impressed.

Addie (11:00):
They looked nice.

Jason (11:01):
And then the one other thing in the box which I was not
expecting is actually anadvertisement for the Planetary
Society, which is a non profitorganization that funds space
research. And I thought that wascool. I actually used to be part
of the Planetary Society. Ithink I let my membership lapse
a few years ago, sorry, BillNye, I need to start that up
again. But I thought that wascool. The Planetary Society is

(11:21):
doing a lot of good publicscience outreach, including on,
I know asteroids that mightimpact Earth. That's one of
their major things, is lookingfor potential impactors.

Brian (11:30):
Was there a deeper connection there, other than
just like, this is something wewant people to know about, or
was the Planetary Societyinvolved in the game in some
way?

Jason (11:37):
I don't know if the Planetary Society was involved.
They might have been consultedfor it. I couldn't find any
evidence that they were involvedin the creation of the game.
There is one other veryimportant game component,
though, that's not in the box,and that's the app. So if you
remember from our discussion,from Turing Machine two episodes
back, the whole thing is like,who has the information you're
trying to get out? And that gametrying to solve it by saying,

(11:57):
Okay, we the game has theinformation, and we have these
fiddly little boards with holes.This is how you get that
information out of the game. Thesearch for Planet X has the same
ideas like the players don'thave information the game does,
but they just use an app to tellyou where things are. Now, if
you don't want to do that, thereis actually a free download on
their website where you candownload a game master kit where
you can have one of your friendsplay the role of the app. And

(12:19):
essentially, you ask themquestions, they give you
answers, and you just reallyhope that they're right and they
don't mess up, because if theydo, they're gonna mess up your
game. So I'd probably stick withthe app, just because I trust
the computer to not make amistake. So that's basically the
game. As you go around, youspend your turn making
observations, doing research,different actions have different
time costs, so you can actuallytake different number of turns

(12:42):
over the course of the game. Onekind of nice little aspect of
the game I liked is that there'sa little turn tracker thing that
goes around the board that tellsyou which half of the sky is
visible right now. Because theidea is that you're all
astronomers making observations.You can only look at the side of
the sky that is dark, the sidethat has the sun, you can't see
anything. And so you can onlymake observations in the half of

(13:04):
the sky that's currently dark,and as you move around, that
position changes. And so it kindof limits what you're able to
look you can't just look at anysector anytime. You have to
think ahead of like, Oh, if I dothis, suddenly these sectors
will go away next turn. I can'tdo that. There are definitely
times when Brian and I wereplaying that I made some choices
based off of which sectors wouldappear or disappear, based off

(13:24):
of what decisions I made on myturn.

Brian (13:26):
and there were times that I made decisions that I ended up
immediately regretting, becauseit's like, oh, well, now I can't
get that piece of information.So we talk about when we play
games, sometimes like Earth,where it's very fiddly, there's
lots of little pieces to manage,lots of little cubes and cards
and dice and everything elsethat you have to do. Search for
Planet X is anti fiddly. This isthe cleanest board game setup

(13:48):
I've ever seen. It's a disc inthe middle. It's your little
meeples. It's just, I mean, anda lot of it's because you have
to, you're handing your phoneback and forth so that people
can use the app in turn. Butthis game definitely leaves you
with room for a bowl of chips.

Jason (14:00):
Yeah, that's the thing. We have definitely had games
where there is no chip room onthe table afterwards. This one's
fine.

Addie (14:06):
Oh no.

Jason (14:07):
Possibly that simplicity is why they could splurge so
much on the scorecards, isbecause there weren't a bunch of
meeples and cubes and otherthings. So they could just make
a really nice, printedscorecard.

Brian (14:15):
If they had to develop an app that could that must have
cost something.

Jason (14:19):
True that probably cost a decent amount. Okay, yeah, you
don't have to hand the phonearound. If you all have the app,
then you can just type in therandom game code and it will
give you the same game eachtime. But again, make sure you
type in the right code, or elseyou're playing different games
and it won't work.

Brian (14:33):
Yeah, we actually did have to hand the phone around
because I was using my phone torecord us playing, so we
couldn't do that.

Jason (14:39):
So that's the idea of the game. It's actually, as Brian
said, it's a fairly elegantgame. I thought it was actually
really fun playing. It's niceand simple, like, just try to
find this thing. And there's oneother part I forgot to mention,
is as you go around the boardand as the Earth is moving
around, it triggers differentthings. It triggers what's
called a theory phase, where,essentially you put out a
publication saying, I think thisitem. Is in this sector, and it

(15:01):
takes a few turns for that towork its way in and be revealed.
And it's one of thoseinteresting things where you get
points for being right. You'repenalized for being wrong. So
you want to put it out, and youwant to be right, but no matter
what it is, you're givinginformation to your opponents,
because if you're right, theysuddenly know what's in that
sector. If you're wrong, theyknow what's not in that sector.
And so there's this littletension of, do I want the

(15:21):
points, or do I want to keepthat information to myself, but
possibly be scooped by one of myopponents? And then there is
also actually a Planet Xconference event that happens
when you reach a certain point,which there's nothing fancy
about, you just learn a newlogic rule about where Planet X
is located, like it's notopposite an asteroid, or it's
within three sectors of a cometor something like that. It's

(15:43):
called a conference. You don'tactually confer as a group, but
it's a fun little thing thatthey put that in to kind of keep
up the appearance of you'reactually scientists doing
scientific things like puttingforth theories and publications
and going to conferences.

Brian (15:55):
Yeah there was a keynote address, and everybody's like,
looking at their own data. Nowit's like, Oh, wait. How does
this inform my logicaldeductions about which sector's
actually empty?

Addie (16:04):
Yeah, I really appreciate, I mean, there's a
lot of mechanics that we can, wecan talk about, but I really
appreciated some of those, like,additional features that sort of
give you. There's like, oh,there's a community knowledge
aspect, and then there's, yeah,you have to publish your results
to get the points for them. It'sso true to the scientific
endeavor.

Jason (16:22):
It is. And that's the thing. Like, if you go into
actual scientific fact, there'salmost none in this game. I
mean, there are logic rules ofwhich things have to be next to
each other. Maybe, well, maybewe can talk about that later.
There's not that much science.And yet it feels like science,
which is an interesting thing,yeah. And so now we're going to
pivot to talking about thatscience, and maybe not so much

(16:43):
the science in the game as thescience that the game is
representing. And so Addie, Ihave a very crucial critical
question for you to start usoff. What is Planet X and why
haven't we found it yet?

Addie (16:54):
Yeah, it's a trick question. So Planet X is, I
guess, I would say the mostrecent incarnation is sort of
this hypothetical planet, right?And even in the game, right?
It's in a blank sector of space,and you're hypothesizing that
it's there. And the most Yeah,so I said the most recent
incarnation because thereactually was, think when, oh,

(17:14):
man, I'm totally blanking on hisname right now, when Lowell was
looking for something that waslike Neptune.

Jason (17:22):
Percival, Lowell?

Addie (17:23):
Percival Lowell, sorry, was first looking for another
planet that would sort ofexplain irregularities in Uranus
and Neptune's orbits they calledsort of a companion planet,
Planet X. So they ended upfinding Pluto, which actually
didn't explain theirregularities that they were
looking for because it needed tobe something with a higher mass.

(17:43):
So that's sort of, I think,where the name potentially comes
from. And so in the in the mostrecent incarnation, there's sort
of this hypothetical planet X orPlanet Nine, or, I don't know,
we've called it Egotron A fewtimes on our podcast, and
there's other fun names that youcan come up with for it.

Brian (17:59):
Why is it egotron?

Addie (18:00):
Why don't even entirely remember the the full etymology
of that name, but it has to dowith the fact that, like
sometimes when people are sayingthese things about discovering
planets, it has to do with egos.But I think that there's
additional etymology to it thatI have to would like go back in
the catalog and remember why wecalled it that. Okay,

Jason (18:20):
I assumed it had something to do with Unicron
from Transformers The ego,doesn't

Addie (18:24):
it doesn't. You have to. I think if for our podcast, you
probably have to assume somesort of Star Trek reference. But
I actually don't think there isone for this. So, so Planet X or
Planet Nine is a, is ahypothesized additional planet
that is sort of Neptune sized,that is far, far out beyond
Pluto's orbit. So this is theplanet that would be in the

(18:46):
outer solar system, and it wouldhave to be like, really far out.
We think that it's therepotentially, based on a number
of lines of evidence. And thisis one of the fun things about
the existence or non existenceof it is there's different
hypotheses. And we trade, thatthe community trades papers
about whether or not it existsbased on new observations all
the time. And so the originalobservations are based on some

(19:09):
dynamical observations ofsmaller bodies in the solar
system. So there's a couple ofastronomers, including Mike
Brown, the Pluto killer, whohave have had some observations
of a bunch of other small bodiesthat are further out in the
solar system that sort of havethese interesting groupings
dynamically. So like, if youlook in in space and you're just
looking out, they sort of okay,they're distributed. But if you

(19:32):
plot them in interesting ways,they sort of group together. And
so that could potentially be tothe existence, due to the
existence, of another largeNeptuneish sized body that
influences the gravity andgravitational perturbations of
those planets. And so that'ssome of the original
observations. And I think thatwas in like 2019 that sort of
inspired this. There's someother folks who have said, like,

(19:54):
well, those orbits that they'reon could happen due to these
other reasons also. And there'salso. So other things that would
happen if you had something thatlarge out there. So where's the
observations for that? And thenthere's been some more recent
observations. It's like, Nope,it probably is there, because
this other line of evidence. Sothere's been really interesting
sort of training of why we thinkit might be out there. If it's
out there, it's really far outso it's hard to see. But if it's

(20:16):
as large as Neptune, thereshould be some observational
evidence of it so, but wehaven't directly ever observed
it.

Jason (20:22):
That was going to be my next question, actually, is, if
we're when we're looking forthis or for other bodies out
there, how do we go aboutlooking for them? Like, what do
we use to try to spy new bodies?I know the Hubble Space
Telescope, I imagine it's notused for planet hunting, but
what do we use?

Addie (20:37):
Yeah, so when we're looking for planets in our own
solar system, or planets andother solar systems, or other
planetary systems, we often useindirect observation techniques.
So we look at the wobble of astar, for instance, when we're
finding extra solar planets,where we see that like we were
looking at a star, very brightobject. You can see it from

(20:58):
really far away, right? So wecan observe it from here on
earth, from the ground, with ourlittle ground based telescopes
in the game even. And we say wecan see something that's out
there. We can see this star, butit's it's orbit actually maybe
wobbles. So that has to do with,like, gravitational tugs. So
like, Jupiter actually tugs ourSun, and it sort of wobbles if
we were observing it fromoutside the solar system. So
other large planets do that totheir stars also, and we've

(21:19):
detected a lot of extra solarplanets from that wobble. You
can also do transit techniques,where a planet will go in front
of a star and then the lightblinks right. And so that's what
Kepler is really well known for,the Kepler space telescope. And
so where there's several ofthose sort of indirect
techniques. For planets in oursolar system and for asteroids
and comets in our solar system,sometimes we do have direct

(21:41):
observations. So we see them byeither staring a long time into
one part of the sky, which Ithink is one of the techniques
you can use in the game, sort oflike look, do a deep search in
that part of the sky, right? Andthen you see, like, does
something come across mytelescope in that time, right?
Or you can sort of be scanningall the time. So we have some
telescopes on Earth that arelike Pan-STARRS. As one example,

(22:02):
it's located in Hawaii. Thatjust does, like, sort of
observations of large portionsof the sky night after night
after night, and then you lookfor changes over night after
night to see if we discover newobjects,

Brian (22:12):
like planets are hard to see, right? I mean, I remember
when, when New Horizons went outto Pluto. It's like the best
picture we had with Hubble ofPluto was terrible.

Addie (22:21):
So most of the sort of canonical planets, right? The
traditional eight planets areobservable from ground based
telescopes and even likebinoculars, mostly right.
Mercury is very difficultbecause it's very tiny and very
close to the sun, but you can,sort of, you can see them as
points of light in the sky.Pluto very, very challenging to

(22:42):
see, even with ground basedtelescopes. The best one we had
for a long time was from theHubble Space Telescope. And even
it was not very resolved, so itjust sort of looked like a fuzzy
blob. It wasn't until we gotbetter, better imaging from
that. And then, like you said,New Horizons got out there, and
we were like, Oh, wait, this isa full geologically active
planetary body. So they areespecially when they're as far
out as Neptune or Pluto, they'revery hard to observe. Just

(23:05):
because it's dim out there.Planets don't emit their own
light, so the only way we detectthem is from these gravitational
techniques or from reflectedlight, right? And the sun is
very dim the further out youget. And so it takes a lot of
staring at an object for a longtime to get to collect enough
light that's been reflected backfrom it.

Jason (23:24):
Okay, so is it mostly visible light? Or can we also
use, I know, radio, infrared orother stuff, to try to see these
things?

Addie (23:31):
Sure. Yeah, most of what we think about when we think
about looking at these objectsis visible light. I know a lot
of our ground based telescopesare in the visible part of the
spectrum, because that's whatgets through our atmosphere. You
get a lot of really interestinginformation. Interesting
information about other planetsfrom infrared. So that tells you
about the heat that's beingemitted and different cloud
layers. On Jupiter, forinstance, we learn about that in

(23:52):
the infrared, but that's hard todo from the ground, because our
atmosphere blocks a lot of thatinfrared light from coming into
ground based telescopes. So youhave to do space based
telescopes for thoseobservations, and then, like UV
light also, yeah, there's a lotof really interesting
information that comes from theUV but we have to again, thanks,
ozone layer actually, right? Welike that for our skin cells and

(24:13):
everything, but and our DNA, butnot for not so much for
observing. So like those kindsof telescopes we typically have
to put in space, there's reallyinteresting data that can come
from radio a lot of asteroids,for instance, and things we've
detected we used to detect withthe Arecibo observatory. So that
was bouncing radio waves off ofthings, and you can use that to
detect objects as well.

Brian (24:34):
I'm picturing some kind of malevolent AI astronomer bot
who wants to eliminate the ozonelayer and the atmosphere so that
they can get a cleaner view ofspace.

Addie (24:45):
That's right, astronomers are always like "atmosphere!". I
was shaking my fist for thelisteners.

Jason (24:52):
I was actually wondering about that, because with visible
light, one thing I've heard justkind of scrolling through
science news, is that a lot ofastronomers are concerned with
the number of satellites we'resending up, especially these
giant arrays of like Starlink,where there's like 10s of 1000s
of satellites that are allreflecting light down to us, and
they're making these streaksacross the telescopes. How is
that affecting observations andstuff, and how can we get

(25:13):
around? Because I don't thinkthey're going to take it down
internet access, global internetaccess, anytime soon. So what is
the astronomy field doing toadjust?

Addie (25:20):
Yeah, it's challenging. So that's one of those things
that like, yeah, what is the thegreater good? And all sorts of
arguments you can make there.Astronomers are always getting
mad about things getting in ourlight. Just turn off all the
lights all the time too, by theway. So it's challenging. It
does show up in a lot like soStarlink and other
constellations, right? Thatthere's more and more of them do

(25:40):
show up in observations and docreate streaks across images.
The worst time is if you'reobserving, sort of around
sunrise and sunset, because thesatellites sort of glint the
most during those observationconditions. So like, if you're
not observing, then thestatistically, you have fewer of
these streaks if you are, theyshow up. There should, in
theory, be ways to remove thempretty easily from the data,

(26:03):
like, they're pretty obvious,and there's usually several sets
of them that go through animage, but if they happen to go
right in front of the object,you're trying to view bad news,
right? And as they're becomemore and more and more of them,
it just it makes it morechallenging to do the
observations that you intend.

Brian (26:17):
And we're getting, like, SpaceX photo bombed?

Addie (26:20):
Yeah, there's a lot of photo bombing.

Jason (26:22):
Yeah, I almost wonder. That sounds like the sort of
thing that AI would actually bea good use for is that, as
you're recording the data,instead of just putting it all
in a single image, like youstream it through, it's like,
oh, that's a satellite goingthrough. I'm just gonna, like,
remove that part of it, and soit doesn't get saved in the
final image or whatever.

Addie (26:38):
Yeah. And I mean, astronomers have had to do a lot
of image processing and removalof of streaks and things like
that for a long time, right? Sothat kind of stuff is like,
especially because they'rerelatively they're going to be
linear features, they're prettyeasy to like detect. So even
without AI, there are techniquesto remove those types of things.
I think it's, yeah, it'ssomething that you have to have
adaptive versions of youranalysis pipelines to be able to

(27:01):
handle some of this stuff. Idon't, I mean, and I think
that's going to be the solution,right? I don't think, yeah, like
you said, I don't think we'renot going to have these
satellite constellations so ormore space based telescopes. So
those are way more expensive andso,

Jason (27:14):
so I then want to zoom back a little bit, even from
from this specifically, buttalking about planetary science,
people have been staring at theplanets for 1000s of years.
We've been using telescopes onthem for hundreds of years.
What's it for? What are wepulling out of planetary science
that is worth pouring all thistime and energy and papers and
conferences and all sorts ofstuff to try to find stuff on

(27:36):
these planets?

Addie (27:38):
What? What is it for? That's a great that's a great
question. I think. I mean, soplanetary science is, for a lot
of us and for a lot of people,is about understanding the
Earth's place in the universe.So planetary scientists are
typically studying other planetsin order to understand things
about those other planets, butalso to understand the basics of

(27:58):
how those planets formed and howthe solar system formed, and how
the earth came to be, and whyall of these things are like
they are right now, tounderstand, like, how the earth
came to be and how life came tobe. A lot of it is just sort of
a really innate curiosity, Ithink, about the universe, right
that drives us to be astronomersand planetary scientists, the
same as a lot of scientists arejust sort of innately curious

(28:19):
about the things around them.And so I think that, like, how
that's expressed then becomes,like, this thing that is
studying planetary bodies, orplanetary bodies in our solar
system, or in extra solarsystems. And yeah, I think a lot
of it comes down to, like, whyare we here now, in this place
in the universe, and how did wecome to be here? And what is
that, and how might we evolve?Right? Because we can learn a

(28:41):
lot about the evolution ofplanets and the evolution of
stars and planetary systems bylooking at our own and then at
others.

Jason (28:48):
Yeah. Actually, I was on a road trip with my daughter
this past week, and due to somepodcasts we were listening to,
we ended up talking about theDrake Equation,

Brian (28:55):
yeah, yeah,

Jason (28:56):
which is, is basically our place in the universe, and
how special are we? Like, What'sthe odds that we would contact
another alien race, essentially,that is at a similar
technological level, and has allthese factors of like, okay, the
number of stars in the universe,the number of stars that are
kind of like our Sun, that couldhost life, the ones that have
planets, the ones that haveplanets in that the right spot,
and so on and so forth. Like allthese different terms. And so

(29:18):
far, no one knows the answer tomost of those. So it seems like,
while the purpose of it is notto fill out, that I don't think
the Drake Equation motivatesmany people. It seems like it's
that same idea of like, figuringout where we fit, for lack of
better word, how special are we,and trying to to keep that in
perspective, which I feel likethe thread of science for the

(29:39):
past 500 years has basicallybeen keeping us humble and
pointing out that we are lessand less and less the center of
the universe that we thought wewere.

Addie (29:46):
Right, we're definitely trending that direction. Yeah,
yeah. I mean, it's funny becauseyeah, the Drake Equation is
always a fun one to think about.And like so Frank Drake came up
with it in like, the 60s, Ithink, and it was this sort of,
yeah. A statisticalprobabilistic argument about
what the number of civilizationsmight be, right? And there's
occasionally people propose anew term to add to the equation,

(30:07):
but like, when he proposed it,we had very we had almost no
information about any of thevariables that he included in
the equation. And so, like, itcould be one, right? It's an N,
where N could be one. It couldjust be us, but it has to do
with, like, the number of starsin the galaxy. And so every time
we discover new things, thestatistics about how many
planets there are out there, andhow many planets there are

(30:28):
around stars, right? Like all ofthat's happened in the last two
decades, and that's really givenus a lot more knowledge about
how to sort of fill out thatequation. But there's always
this question of, like, how manyof those actually have life, and
how long does life andcivilization last on a planet?
And then also, like, if itexists on a planet, how does it
move away from that planet? Andlike, that's another thing.

(30:49):
That's the aspect of my interestis in exploration, right? So if
we understand how what it's likeon the moon or on Mars, and how
do we go there as a civilizationalso, and sort of expand our
presence in space, I thinkthat's an ongoing driving theme
as well.

Jason (31:03):
Yeah, we've actually done two previous games on space
exploration and colonization,Terraforming Mars and stellar
horizons.

Addie (31:10):
I love Terraforming Mars.

Brian (31:11):
Do you love stellar horizons?

Addie (31:13):
I've never played that one.

Brian (31:14):
Okay, well, set aside a weekend because the full
campaign takes how long to playfull eight hours. Eight hours.

Addie (31:21):
Oh man, it's longer than Mars.

Brian (31:23):
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. Because in stellar horizons,
each turn is a year, and youplay through 200 years or so,
you only get your funding everyten. You get your funding every
decade, which certainly feelsvery real right now.
Yeah I should say, too soon.

Jason (31:39):
So if any of you listeners haven't listened to
that, you can go ahead, go aheadgo ahead back and listen to
that. We have a NASA engineer ontalking about that, but for now,
we're sticking with searchingfor Planet X and yes, Addie,
when I asked you about planetaryscience and getting information,
I was kind of implicitly talkingabout the planets in our solar
system. But you mentionedstudying extra solar planets.
What information can we get fromthem? Like, what data can we get

(32:01):
about something that, as Iunderstand it, is not even a
pinprick of light in ourtelescopes. What can we get from
it when we try to find them andlook at them?

Addie (32:08):
Yeah, increasingly, when we talk about planetary science,
we do talk about extrasolarplanets, right? And planets
around other stars, and part ofthat is those of us who study
rocky planetary bodies or bodiesin the inner solar system,
typically, like those are veryspecific ones that are close to
the sun and like the Earth andMars and Venus, right? But then
we, when we talk about those, wealso include things like moons

(32:31):
of outer planets. Now, sometimesin those discussions, like I
mentioned earlier, Titan is thisreally crazy moon around Saturn
that has a really thickatmosphere, and it has like
weather processes similar to theearth, but, like, the rocks are
That's interesting to thinkabout, because again, there's
basically ices instead of rockmaterial, right? So it's really
interesting to think about,like, what other sort of
potentially places we could go,or where life could exist, or

(32:53):
where we could go and havehabitats might exist in our
solar system. And so I'm comingback to your question, which is,
like when we're studying otherplanetary systems that are very
far away, right? They're aroundother stars, they're very far
this trending of assuming thatwe are very typical, we are very
away, we get a lot of secondaryinformation. So I was talking
about earlier, the differentways we detect them, is by
indirect methods for wobble ortransit, but we are increasingly

(33:15):
being able to get more directmethods. So if you have the
transit method, and there's likean atmosphere of the planet, as
the planet goes in front of thestar, some of the light from the
star goes through theatmosphere, and then you can
actually measurespectroscopically some of the
average, we are very bland.Because that has been the
some of the constituents of theatmosphere. So you can actually
get information about theatmospheres. You can get better

(33:37):
information about the sizes ofthose planets. And so these
things all tell us about, like,how many planets are there
around other stars, and what'sthe chemistry of those planets,
and do they have atmospheres, orare they rocky? And so all of
that can tell us again, about,like, how unique the evolution
pattern of science as we havegone, is that there is nothing
of our solar system has been.And like, 15 years ago, so when
I was in so N years ago, when Iwas in undergrad, right? We

(34:00):
actually didn't have a lot ofextrasolar planets we've
detected yet. And even, like, 15years ago, when we'd just been
starting to detect them, we'relike, okay, these are all weird
sort of configurations we'rediscovering. Like, we're
discovering Jupiter-sizedplanets that are close in and
particularly special about us.But as we're learning more about
Jupiter-sized planets that are,like, at the location of Earth,
right? And like, those are allsuper weird, but it's because

(34:22):
that's the type of thing we candetect. Like it's easier to
detect those things. That's notlike representative. But as it
turns out, as we've discovered1000s and 1000s of extra solar
systems, the like configurationsof those planetary systems is
statistically not like ourconfiguration in our solar
system. So all of our like ideaswe've had for I don't know, 60
solar systems, that's notexactly true. Our solar system
years about how our solar systemis shaped and evolved have had

(34:44):
to be restructured in light ofthese other observations to
think like, why is our solarsystem configuration so unique,
and how has it maybe changedthroughout the evolution of the
solar system to be theconfiguration we see today, and
how would that have affectednacent life on early planetary
bodies and how they evolve.
Yeah it is. It's super atypical.And, like, we still have some
is a little weird, or at least alittle atypical.

(35:11):
observational biases. Like, it'sstill really hard to find, like,
an earth around another starbecause it's small, so like,
it's not you're not going to beable to directly detect it, but
also, it's small, so it's notgoing to cause its star to
wobble very much, right? Sothere's a lot of biases against

(35:39):
detecting those things, butwe're still seeing, like, way
more planets close in. Like,large planets close in than
these large planets close out.And we have enough data now to
be able to detecting more ofthose. So it's really
interesting. And I think, yeah,there's, like, the cosmological
principle, and I think we applythat in other things too. Is
like, remember making theseassumptions. You have to assume
that, like, you're not observinga special place or a special

(36:00):
time, because that it makes ithard to like, make broader
assumptions about the thing andlike and extend those
observations. But it does turnout that, like, some parts of
where we are in the solar systemare special, and some parts
about the evolution of our solarsystem are special. And like,
how does that apply to then oneof the variables in the Drake
equation, right? How does thatapply to us understanding, like,

(36:20):
how unique we are and how uniquethe evolution of life is.

Jason (36:23):
Hey and you talked about the evolution of our solar
system, you can maybe answersomething. I have heard that
according to recent models, theidea is that originally, Jupiter
and Saturn were in the oppositeorder. Is that true?

Brian (36:36):
What?

Addie (36:38):
Yes, yes. And like Uranus and Neptune, we're in totally
different places too. Yeah, sothere's this, there's these fun
sets of models called the Nicemodel, but it's nice France, so
it looks like the Nice model,and it's a very nice model.
Yeah, those jokes are probably adecade old now,

Brian (36:55):
not to us!

Addie (36:56):
So that model, yay. So that model has and then there's
a newer one called the Grandtack. But anyway, they're
dynamical models of like theevolution of the solar system.
And the current configuration ofthe solar system is pretty
stable, like things aren'tmoving around very much, but
probably way back in the past,things were in different orders,
and like Uranus and Neptune werecloser in, and Saturn and

(37:19):
Jupiter could have beenswitched. And then due to
gravitational interactions, theylike, sort of tug at each other,
and they would have, like,caused one to sort of move in
and one to move out. And thenthis also scattered a lot of
asteroids out to further out inthe solar system. Yeah, it's
pretty crazy.

Brian (37:36):
Oh, man, all my mnemonics are going to have to change
based on the model. You can't be"My Very Energetic Mother", and
then everything else is out oforder.

Addie (37:43):
I know.

Brian (37:43):
Oh, geez,

Addie (37:44):
I know. And then the whole system's out of order.

Jason (37:47):
I'm pretty sure your mnemonics have been valid for at
least the past 2 billion years.

Brian (37:51):
OK, all right, fair enough.

Addie (37:53):
It's been a long time. And actually part of this ties
to like the cratering we see onthe moon and when that happened.
And so there's some interesting,very close in ties to this
evidence for that,

Jason (38:03):
Addie I've got a question on some of the logic rules here
in the game, because they haverules about what shows up where,
and I don't know if any of theserepresent are somehow reflecting
reality, like comets can onlyshow up in prime numbered
sectors, but I think just meansthey can only show up some
places, but not others. Yeah, ora gas cloud has to be next to
empty space. Or asteroids alwaysappear in clumps. Do these

(38:26):
reflect the way our the solarsystem is actually laid out?

Addie (38:29):
Yeah, first of all, I don't know why there are glass
gas clouds. What is that? Idon't know why there are gas
clouds in our solar system. Thatone seemed a little strange to
me. There's so many types ofobjects you could have picked,
but

Brian (38:39):
What should they have picked? What should they have
picked? We're almost doing ournitpick corner. What would have
been better than gas clouds?

Addie (38:44):
Oh, I don't, I guess I don't fully understand what
they're supposed to represent.So I don't know.

Brian (38:49):
I hear about clouds of gas being things that exist out
in the world, but not in a solarsystem. Usually, all the gas
should be in planets and stuff,right?

Addie (38:56):
Yeah, there's gas on like, there's clouds on planets,
and there's gas in planets, andthen there are like, gas clouds
and molecular clouds and thingslike that out in the broader
galaxy. But, yeah, we don'tknow, like gas clouds, per se,
there are dust clouds, youcould call them dust clouds, So
asteroids, I think I understand.So asteroids, there's like the

(39:18):
asteroid belt, right, which isin between Mars and Jupiter, and
there's like, sort of othergroupings of asteroid-like
objects that tend to be sort ofdynamically grouped together, so
in the same sort of place in thesolar system. And that has to do
with, like, probably how theywere formed, and how they broke
up from an object and then sortof stayed together. So like, I

(39:38):
can, kind of, I can kind of seethat rule, I think that's
supposed to represent maybe,like the asteroid belt, or like
asteroid families, because we dohave families of asteroids that
we call them. For the comets.Comets come from further out in
the solar system, typically, andthey have long orbits, and
there's different sort of typesof things. So maybe that that
represents that they can only,yeah, I don't know that we only

(39:58):
see them periodically. Right? Solike, maybe something like that.
You can think of like Halley'scomet as the one we think of. It
comes by every 86 years orwhatever, right? Because they go
really far out in the solarsystem, and they come close in.
Maybe it has something to dowith that. They're only in prime
numbered spots. There's fewer ofthem.

Brian (40:15):
It's interesting that we actually didn't even, and I
mean, not that you would have toknow this, but when we played
this other deduction game. Theywouldn't use something like, Oh,
it must be in a prime number,because they weren't assuming
that people knew what that is,right?

Addie (40:28):
Oh wow.

Jason (40:29):
Well, this one is easy on the scorecard. They don't print
a commet unless it can actuallyshow up there, so I guess they
could control that.

Brian (40:35):
Yeah, it's not like design. I'm not assuming people
we did have a discussion aboutwhether or not two is a prime
number. You remember asking,

Addie (40:42):
oh,

Jason (40:43):
Two is a prime number. And the last one is that a dwarf
planet can't be next to PlanetX, and that's part of what you
have to use to figure out wherePlanet X is in the game. Does
that reflect like this groupingof planets that you say, some
people are using to say wherePlanet X is, like, would it
have, like, gobbled it up, or,like, cleared its orbit, or,

Brian (41:05):
yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. If we, if we find a
Neptune like object, is it goingto be a planet or not?

Addie (41:14):
If we find a Neptune sized object far out in the
solar system, it would mostlikely be a planet. by the
current definition, I'm usingair quotes, for definition, even
it's a terrible definition. I'mfine with Pluto not being a
planet, but I still hate thedefinition. Anyway. That's my

(41:34):
take on that, so I think thatwould make sense. So part of
what the deal is with Planet Xis that it's like there are some
gaps in where we don't see someof these small objects further
out in the solar system. Andthere are certain like
arrangements of some of thedwarf planets we have
discovered. And so part of thehypothesis for Planet X is the
reason there you see thosethings the way they are is

(41:56):
because of the gravity of thislarger planet is sort of pushing
them into those locations. So Iam okay with that rule.

Brian (42:03):
Can we talk about the dwarf planet definition and how
you don't like it, or do you notwant to talk about it anymore?
No, I'm happy to talk aboutbecause our last episode, we had
a bunch of controversy too. Soevidently, this is the, this is
the controversial season ofgaming with science.

Addie (42:17):
I love it. Yeah. So the, the IAU definition of like, what
is a planet, right? Has theselike, different things. So
there's it has to be spherical.So it has to be, like, large
enough to sort of make its shapespherical. And that has to do
with, like, basically how big itis. And then there's this other
sort of, much more controversialrule about it has to have
cleared its orbit. And so that'slike, sort of a dynamical

(42:39):
argument of like, where it'sgoing in space, and there aren't
a lot of other things right inthat in the same orbit. Doesn't
make any sense. That's a dumbrule, because, like, Neptune and
Pluto's orbits cross, andthere's lots of these other,
like, types of objects in bothof those orbits, and there's
lots of other objects inJupiter's orbit. There's other

(43:00):
things in our orbit. So, like,there's, it's just not a great
definition. There probablyshould be some sort of, like
geological definition,potentially, of a planet. Or
there's lots of other ways youcould go. And there's other
other definitions that have beenproposed. But I think the idea
of having, like, sort ofcanonical planets, and then
dwarf planets and sort of havingsome size differentiators is

(43:20):
fine. We have different types ofbodies of water right on the
earth, and there are differentclassifications for, like,
rivers and streams and thingslike that, right? So, like,
there could be sort of thesedifferent definitions, and I
think that's fine. And you havePluto in the Plutinos which is
also a great band name. Sothere's, there can be a little
bit more nuance, or, like,uncertainty and nomenclature, I
think.

Jason (43:39):
so, last thing I want to cover about the game here is the
aspect of the doing science itcovers. So like the you put
forth the theories, and Brianhad determined that the fact
that you put down a theory, butthen it takes like, two or three
turns for it to work its waytowards the center, and you
actually see what it is that'speer review.

Brian (43:56):
That's peer review

Jason (43:56):
it's like the peer reviewers are doing it, and the

Addie (44:01):
reviewer number two!

Jason (44:02):
yes, yeah. See our previous episode on Publish or
Perish. So yeah, but theinteresting thing is that just
like real science, it rewardsyou for being first. So if
you're the first person topublish that and get it right,
you get a bonus point at the endof the game. If your paper is
essentially in peer review atthat time, you still get points,
but after it's revealed, youdon't get any points for saying
it again. Because I it again,because, like, that's already no

(44:23):
no one cares about you, like yousaying I have rediscovered Mars,
it's like that doesn't doanything,

Addie (44:31):
although people rediscover water on Mars all the

Brian (44:33):
Yeah that's true. You get to put it in your annual
time.
performance review. There yougo. I complain about this. And I
did complain about it when wetalked about publish or perish,
and I complain about it ingeneral, science is supposed to
be repeatable. If somebodydiscovers the same thing using a
different line of evidence,that's a good thing. That means
that the system is working.Yeah, so, but you're right.

(44:55):
There is this priority. It'slike they don't get to be the
one to name it. That's just thefact that it's a human. Jobness
being on top of the scientificendeavor, right?

Jason (45:04):
Maybe. But my question is, like in the planetary
science field, like, what arethe current arguments that are
going back and forth in theliterature, where people are
pushing one way or another, thatthings haven't been settled? You
mentioned that the existence ofPlanet X is one of them where
people argue for or against itbased off certain evidence. What
other stuff is out there rightnow that's being debated?

Addie (45:25):
Ooh fun question. All so many things. It's funny, like we
have all of this information,but like every time we have new
planetary missions, right, itopens up new questions and opens
up new debates about things. Oneof the big ones that's been, I
actually haven't seen an updateon this in a little while, but
that's been going around thelast few years. Few years is
this question of, like, sort oflife producing products in

(45:46):
Venus, on Venus and in Venus'satmosphere. That was a popular
one for a while. So there wasthis paper that was published
that there was phosphine, whichis a specific type of molecule
in Venus's atmosphere. Rememberthat? And the big thing about
big thing about that, right wasthat it's probably produced by
biological compounds. Like, ithas to be a biologic origin.

(46:07):
There had to be somethingbiologic producing it, yes, so
this was the paper, but there'sbeen all these other things
since then, of like, oh well,there's all these abiotic ways
to make it. Or maybe that's nota detection of that line that
you think it is. It's like abecause it was a spectroscopy,
so it was a specific line and anobservation. And so like, maybe
it was, you're looking at,actually a different line, it
was a different molecule, right?So there's been a fun, a lot of

(46:29):
fun back and forth about that.And, like, if there's life on
Venus recently, that's been afun one. There's a lot of
hypotheses for, so I study theMoon a lot these days. There's a
lot of different hypotheses for,like, how different things
formed in different places onthe moon, and what that tells us
about, like, the history of theMoon's evolution, and also the
Earth's evolution. And so thoseare always really interesting, I

(46:50):
think, like, yeah, this bigquestion about, like, are there
other large planets out, furtherout in the solar system? Is
going to be one we keep having?And then also, like, sort of the
astronomical scale, there's allthere's all these questions of,
like, what is dark matter, andwhat are, what is dark energy,
and what do those things tell usabout the evolution of the
universe? Big questions thathave a lot of, like, different

(47:12):
hypotheses that sort of comebubble up to the surface every
now and then and get pushed backdown, and then another one
bubbles up. All right, well,

Jason (47:18):
we need to start wrapping it up. So, Brian, you like doing
the nitpick corner. So do youhave any nitpicks about this?
There's not that much science inthis two pick.

Brian (47:27):
I do have a nitpick, and it is as you are proposing your
theory, and it advances throughthe peer review process, and
then it gets flipped over. It'salways correct. It's just, you
know, as it goes through peerreview, it is now the truth and
it will reflect the truth, andthat's all that there is to it.
So, so that's my sciencenitpick.

Jason (47:46):
Well, I guess, yeah, in reality, we don't have an
omniscient app that we can justask if we got it right. That
would actually make our jobs alot easier.

Brian (47:52):
Yeah, it would be great if we just had an app that had
all the answers. My gamingnitpick is not even in a gaming
nitpick, it's just the the truthof any kind of logical deduction
game, the first time you make amistake, you're screwed.

Jason (48:06):
Yeah, you cross something off in the wrong in the wrong
region.

Brian (48:08):
I did something in the wrong place, in the wrong time.
And it's like, technically, ifyou're really careful, and if
you're really diligent about howyou've coded all of your all
your information, you could goback and figure out, back out
again in single player mode,sure, but if you're actually
playing with other people, youdon't have time to go back and
be like re logicing All of yourlogic. So that's just, you know,
again, another example of mebeing bad at games. So

Jason (48:30):
the scorecard actually has space for you to record all
your moves and all youropponents moves. If somehow you
have the brain space to be ableto think what they're trying to
deduce, too. I, I don't know howpeople can do that, but
congratulations to you if youcan.

Addie (48:43):
Well, it's nice to kind of have a place to write it
down, actually, because a lot oftimes you're sort of trying to
keep track of those things inyour head. So it is kind of nice
to have a place to write itdown,

Brian (48:51):
for sure.

Jason (48:51):
I don't have nit picks. There's not much science to pick
at in this game. And I actuallyreally enjoyed it. I thought it
was quite well put together.

Brian (48:58):
I guess we already know Addie's. There's no gas clouds
in the solar system.

Addie (49:02):
My nit was the gas clouds.

Jason (49:05):
From here on out, whenever we play, they are dust
clouds. We find dust clouds outin the solar system. Yes,

Brian (49:10):
or hey, what else should it be? I mean, if there's
something else it should be,we're just going to print up new
cards and it'll just be,

Addie (49:16):
well, I love Yeah, I don't know. I'll think about it.

Brian (49:19):
Egotron radiation.

Addie (49:22):
yeah. Oh, you could have, yeah, you could have, like,
solar wind plasma or something.

Brian (49:26):
OK that sounds cool. I think that one of the things is
that, like, that's probably for,you know, people like myself, I
wouldn't really know thedifference between solar wind
plasma and a gas cloud. I wouldassume that they were the same
thing.

Jason (49:37):
aren't they the same thing?

Addie (49:39):
Oh, no, no.

Jason (49:41):
See what happens when you ask a biologist space questions?

Brian (49:44):
Well, every time you're saying evolution, I'm having to
recalibrate my brain. It's like,okay, not that kind of, yeah,
it's a different type ofevolution. But no, I mean
different type. I kind ofappreciate that. The challenge
is, they were trying to usestuff in the solar system that
is hard to see, hard to observe.Right? So, but that people would
also know, so I think that's whywe ended up with gas clouds.

Addie (50:06):
Probably, yeah,

Brian (50:07):
but they're, they're cool with people knowing what Prime
numbers are, but they're notgoing to say plasma,

Addie (50:11):
right, or different types of radiation.

Jason (50:17):
All right? Well, let's go on the grading. So we're all
university professors here,Addy, you can participate or not
if you want, but we like givinga letter grade for just how well
did it do for the fun and howwell for the science? Let's
start with science, since that'swhat you're just talking about.
Brian standing on your plasmaclouds and peer review and
everything, what would you givethis for the science?

Brian (50:35):
Let me think. Let me think. Let me think. Let me
think. So. My biggest concernis, are you going to come away
with something fundamentallywrong from the way that the
science is being depicted inthis game. I don't think you
will. I think like this one sortof, again, leans a little bit
more towards the process and alittle bit less towards the
like, okay, asteroids are notgoing to be necessarily be found
right next to each other. Idon't have a problem with a B.

(50:58):
Does anybody think I'm being tooharsh? Am I going to get a
request for a regrade. If I givethis a B, should this be a B+?

Jason (51:04):
I was going to put forth a B plus. Okay, similar things
in that there's not, it's nottrying to convey a bunch of
science fact, but there's allthose little things It didn't
have to do, like the whole thepapers and the peer review and
the conferences and stuff. Thosehelp make it feel like science.
And so I want to bump it up alittle bit for that,

Brian (51:23):
modeling the little meeples after actual telescopes,
making sure that the night skyhad to move and that you
couldn't observe everything atthe same time, which makes it
very tactical, but also bringsin this not realism, but because
you can't do realism, but a funmetaphor for what you're
actually trying to do.

Addie (51:41):
Yeah, I think even, like, the turn mechanics, right, where
they it took, it took differentamounts of time to do different
types of observations and likethat would give you different
amounts of information. I thinkthat that added, like, an
interesting realism to, like howlong it takes to do science,

Jason (51:56):
oh, yeah, and how you have to declare what you're
doing to everyone, because

Brian (51:58):
you got to book that telescope time.

Jason (52:00):
Yeah, you're booking the telescope time. I was actually
just looking at the board to seeif there were any actual
constellations on thebackground. I couldn't spot any.
So I think it's just an artisticstar background. But that would
have been cool if they put a fewof those into All right? What
about gameplay? So I guess I'llgo first. Addie, you didn't have
a chance to play this, right?You were able to watch some
actual plays and stuff. Yeah, it

Addie (52:21):
looks fun. I would like to play it. I'm gonna try to
find a if I can find it aroundhere somewhere.

Brian (52:26):
I'm sorry we didn't get to play. I was in Florida, but
our schedules just did notalign.

Addie (52:30):
Yeah, that would have been fun.

Jason (52:31):
Appropriate enough. It's only when the planets align
we're actually able to play agame with someone. Sorry, I
couldn't pass that up.

Brian (52:38):
Addie, Are you cool with the B+, because I had one of my,
uh, somebody listened to thepodcast, I got a comment that
said that we didn't let theguest give a grade last time we
had a guest on not on purpose.But I think the conversation
just moved away from it.

Addie (52:52):
I think I'm okay with a B+. I also don't have, like, the
grading scale, right? So finewith with this be that being a
B+

Brian (53:00):
okay, yeah, we definitely do great inflation. We start at
a B, and you could do better orworse than that.

Jason (53:06):
Okay, all right, so fun. I'll take the lead on this. And
I thought this was really fun. Iactually really enjoyed playing
it. I think the little funscience touches were good. I
think the play balance of like,Oh, I'm using this many turns
and trying to find things, itjust felt fun. And this is
weird, because last time we whenwe talked about Turing machine,
we talked about going for thepure mathematical abstraction
and not skinning something elseon top of it. And this is the

(53:28):
complete opposite. This hastotally been skinned about
science and finding things thathas nothing to do with the logic
rules behind it. And yet I foundit really fun. I actually found
it more fun than Turing machine,I think because it resonated
with me of like, Oh, I'm huntingfor this thing, and there's
comets and asteroids and stuff,rather than this logic rule
about triangles and squaresbeing more than circles or
something like that. So I'mgonna give it an A like, this is

(53:51):
a game I would gladly playagain. So I definitely give it
an A, A minus at the lowest,it's

Brian (53:56):
Addie. You didn't get a chance to play, so I guess
you're gonna abstain. I haven't

Addie (53:59):
Okay. Mine's a pending. I

Brian (54:02):
have an incomplete grade. Okay, all right,

Addie (54:04):
I'll have to update it next semester. Okay, oh,

Brian (54:08):
Jason, this is hard because I crapped out at the
game like I screwed it up. Somaybe, maybe I'm gonna give it a
B, because I want to give itanother try. And I actually do
legitimately feel bad, becausewe were very complimentary about
what Turing machine did. It'slike, oh, it's just pure
deduction. It's just a puzzle.But you're right. It's so much
more fun if you get to pretendthat you're doing something. The

(54:29):
role play is so much more fun tobe. Like, well, I am an
astronomer looking for a planet.Now I'm going to publish that
information.

Jason (54:36):
I respect the people who did Turing machine for making
that choice, and I think forwhat they wanted to do, it was
the right choice. I enjoyed thisone more. And I think for this
game, it was the right choice,like they wanted it to be fun.
And I mean, it seems to haveworked, like I said, 107 on
Board Game Geek, they've seemedto have cracked the code to get
a really high ranking deductiongame.

Brian (54:55):
And where is Turing machine on that ranking? Not
that I want to apply appeal tothe masses to see which game is.
Better, but I am curious.

Jason (55:01):
Let me look that up. Okay, I think Turing Machine
probably has a much smallerdistribution, so I don't know
that that's necessarily fair.

Brian (55:08):
and Turing machine also has a very ardent group of
supporters.

Jason (55:13):
Okay, Turing machine is 324, okay, so lower, but
actually not that much lower,yeah, like when you're talking
about the 10s of 1000s of gameson Board Game Geek anywhere in
the top 500 to 1000 I considergood. So, yeah, Turing machine
is also up there.

Brian (55:27):
OK, now I'm curious if there anyway, this is, this will
be extra credit. I'll see ifthere are any deduction games
that are higher on the list thatwe haven't looked at yet.

Jason (55:35):
Yeah, they probably have nothing to do with science,
unfortunately. Yeah, so we can'ttalk about them. Nope. They're
both, at least on this podcast,

Brian (55:41):
until we have that like gaming without science bonus
episode that we've been talkingabout.

Jason (55:49):
All right? Well, I think we're going to wrap it up there.
Addie, if people want to lookyou up, where can they find you?

Addie (55:54):
You can find me on Walkabout the galaxy, or
wherever you get your podcastsor walkaboutthegalaxy.com, you
can also find me at theUniversity of Central Florida.
And let's see, I'm on Instagramas Astro Addy. And I also have a
mascot that has an Instagram.He's his name is Citronaut,
underscore Dave, C, i, t, r, o,n, a, U, T, underscore Dave. And

(56:18):
he goes to space and does funspace things, so he's fun to
follow too.

Brian (56:22):
Like for like for realies. Like he really goes to
space? Oh, she's going to fetchsomething. Awwe,

Addie (56:28):
Dave,

Jason (56:30):
we're looking to a cute little stuffed green faced
person. Yes, I'll see if I canfind a picture that I can link
in the show notes. Butotherwise, look up Astro Addy on
Instagram, and hopefully she hasa link to Citronaut, Dave,
Citronaut Dave and I have toask, so your Instagram is
basically consists of coolpictures of planets and stuff?

Addie (56:48):
No, that's actually my personal Instagram, and it
consists of not a lot of things,because I don't use it very
often Citronaut Dave's Instagramis much better because it
consists of the my space flightprojects.

Jason (57:01):
Okay, I was asking because my family's card against
humanity, one of the cards iscool pictures of planets and
stuff. And I was hoping I couldconnect another game. Oh, well,
all right, we should probablywrap this up before it goes
completely off the rails.

Brian (57:15):
Where the heck is the stock outro that I wrote? Where
is it? I don't know where I leftit. Do you know where it is?

Jason (57:21):
OK So thank you, Addie, so much for coming on. Hopefully
we get to see you at Dragon Conagain, if you're gonna be there
again this year. And with that,we're gonna wrap it up. So thank
you everyone for listening. Havea great month and great games

Brian (57:42):
and have fun playing dice with the universe. See ya,

Jason (57:44):
this has been the gaming with Science Podcast, copyright
2025 listeners are free to reusethis recording for any non
commercial purpose, as long ascredit is given to game with
science. This podcast isproduced with support from the
University of Georgia. Allopinions are those of the hosts,
and do not imply endorsement bythe sponsors. If you wish to
purchase any of the games wetalked about, we encourage you

(58:05):
to do so through your so throughyour friendly local game store.
Thank you and have fun playingdice with the universe.

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S2E05 - The Search for Planet X (Planetary Science)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S2E05 - The Search for Planet X (Planetary Science)