What if you could uncover the secrets of Mars with the help of an expert scientist? This week, we had the privilege of having a fascinating conversation with Dr. Dabarati Daa, a Mars scientist with a doctorate in geology and a postdoc at Los Alamos National Broad Street. We explored Mars' intriguing similarities and differences to Earth, including its roughly 24-hour day and carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Dr. Das also shared her incredible journey from a struggling math student to an accomplished Mars researcher.
During the episode, we dove into Dr. Das's experiences in Japan studying meteorites and her research on extraterrestrial materials. We discussed the lithium isotope variation across minerals in meteorites and the effects of space weathering. Dr. Das also shared her expertise in the ChemCam instrument and her work with the Mars Science Laboratory team. We even examined the potential of using cyanobacteria to create a more hospitable environment for plants on Mars.
As if that wasn't enough excitement, we also touched on the upcoming Dragonfly mission to explore Saturn's moon Titan and pondered the power source of the Curiosity Rover. Finally, we delved into The Arc, a science fiction show that sparks thought-provoking discussions about Earth's environment and the potential challenges of colonizing Mars. Don't miss this captivating episode with Dr. D where we uncover the wonders of our planetary neighbor and beyond!
For Science, Empathy, and Cuteness!
Being Kind is a Superpower.
https://twitter.com/bunsenbernerbmd
What if you could uncover the secrets of Mars with the help of an expert scientist? This week, we had the privilege of having a fascinating conversation with Dr. Dabarati Daa, a Mars scientist with a doctorate in geology and a postdoc at Los Alamos National Broad Street. We explored Mars' intriguing similarities and differences to Earth, including its roughly 24-hour day and carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Dr. Das also shared her incredible journey from a struggling math student to an accomplished Mars researcher.
During the episode, we dove into Dr. Das's experiences in Japan studying meteorites and her research on extraterrestrial materials. We discussed the lithium isotope variation across minerals in meteorites and the effects of space weathering. Dr. Das also shared her expertise in the ChemCam instrument and her work with the Mars Science Laboratory team. We even examined the potential of using cyanobacteria to create a more hospitable environment for plants on Mars.
As if that wasn't enough excitement, we also touched on the upcoming Dragonfly mission to explore Saturn's moon Titan and pondered the power source of the Curiosity Rover. Finally, we delved into The Arc, a science fiction show that sparks thought-provoking discussions about Earth's environment and the potential challenges of colonizing Mars. Don't miss this captivating episode with Dr. D where we uncover the wonders of our planetary neighbor and beyond!
For Science, Empathy, and Cuteness!
Being Kind is a Superpower.
https://twitter.com/bunsenbernerbmd
Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zakowski. I'm the dog dad of Bunsen and Beaker the science dogs on social media. If you're tuning in to side chat, welcome. My co-host is.
Speaker 2:Hi there, i'm Chris Zakowski, and I am here as the dog mum to Bunsen and Beaker and the cat mum to Ginger.
Speaker 1:Every week, in side chat, we bring you an amazing expert to enthrall you with their area of knowledge. And, without further ado, i'd like to welcome Dr Dabardi Doss to the space. Doc, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:Hi everyone, i'm so happy to be here. I'm doing good And, yeah, super excited to speak to you guys.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned, Doc, we play a little game called Beat the Doc. Do you see the link up at the top of the nest?
Speaker 3:I am a fox with a witch hat.
Speaker 1:Okay, here we go Mars facts. It's all about Mars.
Speaker 2:You love Mars Jason.
Speaker 1:I love Mars. Mars is about half the size of the Earth, one fifth the size of the Earth. The size of the Earth, two times the size of the Earth And again I'm using National Geographic. I could probably, I could probably. It's half the size of the Earth. That's how big Mars is. That's what National Geographic says. Oh, we had people thinking it's bigger than Earth. That's interesting. Mars has a 12 hour day, 945 hour day, 48 hour day, roughly 24 hour day. So how long is an a day on Mars? night It's a day And it's shocking, but it's roughly 24 hours, just a little bit more than a day on Earth. As the day on Mars, I think it's longer by 30 minutes. Is that correct, Doc?
Speaker 3:Pretty much like that. I mean, if you see, the size is also pretty similar to that of Earth. So yeah, it's offset by a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, roughly 24 hour day. That's wild, that it's almost the same kind of day as we would have here on Earth. All right, slim Shady's in first. Does everybody We have to beat Chris? This is Slim Shady.
Speaker 1:She's always does well at these. Then we've got the doc and Dr Liz, sarah B, tracy C. Okay, all right, here we go. Next question What is one of the moons of Mars? Phobie Callisto Deimos Io I hope I've said that correct. I didn't practice my pronunciation before that. Phobie Callisto Deimos Io. It's Deimos, and the moons of Mars are teeny, tiny, right. They're little tiny rocks compared to our moon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, weird, little Weird, little shaped.
Speaker 1:Yeah, weirdo shaped ones right, Like they're oddball football.
Speaker 2:Weirdo shaped.
Speaker 5:yeah, Okay, next question.
Speaker 1:Carson 4,. the average temperature on Mars is Oh boy, 85 Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius. That's right. I've got the Fahrenheit for the Americans there Minus 284 Fahrenheit minus 140 Celsius, minus 81 Fahrenheit minus 63 Celsius, minus 4 Fahrenheit minus 20 Celsius. So it's the average temperature. Oh no, oh no, you got that one wrong. I did get that one wrong. Yeah, so the average according to National Geographic is minus 81 Fahrenheit minus 63 Celsius.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's cold.
Speaker 1:It's been colder here in Red Deer than it has been on Mars, then minus 63, i don't think so.
Speaker 2:Minus 63. just better, it was colder here.
Speaker 1:There are days in the winter where we live, doc, where it is colder on where we live than Mars. Yes, and it is very sad and we tell our students that and they pout and they're like this is the stupidest place to live.
Speaker 3:That's motivation to forward science on Mars.
Speaker 1:Okay, last question. Mars has an atmosphere mostly made of argon, oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide. What is the atmosphere?
Speaker 3:I answered it so fast. I answered it wrong.
Speaker 1:Oh no, you got the wrong. I bet you, i bet you, i know which one you picked. Mm-hmm, yep, yeah it's carbon dioxide, not carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide is the atmosphere of Mars very, very thin atmosphere.
Speaker 2:It's okay. Jason always puts distractors on there.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 3:This is a stressful game. Let me tell you that.
Speaker 1:In third place we have Dr Doss, in second place we have Dr Liz And, oh my God, christy, one again. How do you know so much about Mars?
Speaker 2:I used to teach the space unit in grade nine science.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, i knew you would do quite well at this because that's part of the curriculum in Alberta. Well, let's get back to the main show, because everybody Sarah Bram in the chat just said I just clicked the red color because you know it's Mars. That's a good way to go. I was wondering if you could tell everybody a little bit about your science training. You have a doctorate. What's going on there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I started my school in India and I did my bachelors in science and I had a major in geology. From there I went on to study the Himalayas and I had a chance to study meteorites in Japan. I took that opportunity. That's where I did my second masters. My first masters was on Himalayan geology, second masters being on the Shellyabinsk No, that was my internship, it was on the Uralite meteorite. That was my second masters And following that I found Mars and that's what my PhD was on past water activity in Gale Crater. And now I'm doing a postdoc at Los Alamos National Broad Street, also studying geochemistry of Mars in Gale Crater.
Speaker 1:Okay, when you were young I love asking this question When you were like a little little debarti, were you? did you love space? Were you into space or were you into other stuff?
Speaker 3:I was definitely into a lot of random stuff. You know, every time I go on a panel, or you know, when there are so many scientists, they're talking about how their childhood dream was to become an astronaut, become a scientist. My dad was a scientist, but then as a kid, when someone asked me, what do you want to become, I would say, oh, I want to sell flowers by the side of the street. or I want to become an artist. And I think, growing up in India and not being, I think, kind of being a little bit neurodivergent it wasn't my picture, wasn't that? you know, I could become a scientist one day. I wasn't very good at math, So I'm I kind of I'm surprised that I am a Mars scientist, but little debarti was like a little weirdo who sat at the back of the class and doodled and didn't do well in math.
Speaker 1:And so that's okay. You know I'm, i have science training, i teach science and I'm not great at math. Math is not my strong suit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i mean, did you have a good math teacher?
Speaker 1:I did My math teacher was the one of the one of my, one of the inspirations for me to become a teacher. actually.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so, that's. that's awesome, That's super inspiring.
Speaker 1:But I was not very good at math, yeah.
Speaker 3:Math's tricky, i would say, we can always study Mars.
Speaker 1:Okay, there we go.
Speaker 3:Turns out. You don't need to be amazing at math for that, but we do have some math.
Speaker 1:Okay, i have a question. What was going on in Japan with meteorites? Did they just have the ones you wanted to look at Like what's, what's with that? Did you see an ad on like Facebook marketplace?
Speaker 3:No, So when I was studying for my, when I was doing my first masters on Himalayan geology, one of my one of my seniors sent this it wasn't an ad, it was like this information about an internship at this lab called the Planetary Materials Institute And they have a yearly internship, international internship program and they have a really good collection of different kinds of meteorites And they have really high end instruments to study isotopes, to understand what's going on with these meteorites. And I applied for this internship and got it. And this was the first time I would. I traveled, i traveled out of India and it was super exciting.
Speaker 3:The two months I was there with amazing students from all across the world, we did science on extraterrestrial materials and it was just extremely mind blowing for me. So I I went to the director. I went to the director and I asked him hey, can I do a you know, a graduate program here? And he was like, yeah, you can apply for it. And I did. And then I got in and then we changed our project a little bit to another meteorite that they had in their collection. And yeah, and that's what my second master's with.
Speaker 1:So you, you were going from meteorite to meteorite. Was there anything wild about these that you found?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i my project kind of revolved around looking at about nine different uh urolyte meteorites that were collected from all across the world, um, somewhere from, uh northwest Africa, some are some, some of them were from Antarctica, and these were just, and what I was studying was like was the lithium isotope variation across the minerals inside these meteorites, and I was looking at trying to understand are these, have these undergone any kind of extraterrestrial, um aqueous alteration which which would mean like space weathering? And it was super interesting to see how these patterns kind of matched up, even if they were collected from Africa or Antarctica, which kind of gave us an idea that, huh, maybe this is not just earth. You know the, the rocks sitting out in the surface, surface off earth, um, so that that was something really cool that I found.
Speaker 1:The meteorites were affected by space weather.
Speaker 3:Space weathering Yeah, oh, space weathering. I was like oh man, what's the?
Speaker 1:five-day forecast for the oracle.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, I think probably affected by freeze thawing and Micro fractures and ice getting inside these meteorites and stuff.
Speaker 1:Cool. Did you get to hold them or were they like? Yeah how big were they? How big were they Like?
Speaker 3:this is something from freaking outer space right, so we tried not to touch them. Oh.
Speaker 3:Extremely, extremely clean room and we had. So I didn't get to hold the full sample We did. We already had thin sections of it. So you take a, take a little piece and you put it on a glass slide and you polish it so that it becomes a thin section that you can see under the microscope. So that those are the things that I had. I had a collection of thin sections all, or in some cases, grain mounds that were polished really, really well so that we can see off the surface what it looked like. So yeah, that's kind of what my samples look like.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so cool. Now, from from little rocks to a big rock, you, you study Mars and specifically, you are a part of the curiosity rover team. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:That is correct.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, do you? do you wake up some mornings and can't believe what you're doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i definitely wake up some some mornings. I'm just like, oh, i have to reply to these emails. I'm, like you know, so stressed out, but then I have to, just, like you know, think about what I'm doing, like, oh, i'm actually today I have training on operations to Select a target, a rock target to shoot on fricking Mars. That kind of changes My perspective of, like you know what. Having to eat answers any mail says fine, because this is amazing.
Speaker 1:So, doc, could you specifically tell everybody like what? what part of the rover team Are you? Are you the driver? Do you work on the rock part of it? Are you the on the team chemistry, are you looking for a little green men like what? what do you do with the rover team?
Speaker 3:Very good questions. So I am a part of, i'm a member of the Mars, nasa's Mars science laboratory team and I work with the group That has expertise in the chem cam instrument on board the curiosity rover, just the the laser instrument. It's called libs, which stands for laser induced breakdown spectroscopy, and it shoots laser high powered laser beams on rock surface this to determine its chemistry. And I am a new addition to this, although I my whole PhD was looking for water soluble elements boron and lithium in salty minerals in gale crater. So that was my PhD and I'm sort of continuing that work at Los Alamos as the postdoc with some amazing mentors and experts on my team. Yeah, so I've been focusing on these water soluble elements and part of the team that focuses on a whole spectrum of elements, and I'm also looking at Mars, like environments on earth, to understand how the Earth is, to Understand how do these elements behave, how do they enrich, what do they tell us about, while Other movement underground on surface.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's kind of what I'm doing so the There's a laser on the rover like is it like what dr Evil put on the sharks, like it's a freaking laser and it like lasers the rocksa little bit like that.
Speaker 3:And we always have this slide.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, go ahead.
Speaker 3:So it's. It's funny because often when we give presentations, we have this slide where the curiosity river is just like making this huge explosion And then we always have to have a disclaimer. Haha, just kidding, it's an explosion like that, but you know, reduce it to like 1000 of that size and then you'll have something what's kind of closer to what we actually do on Mars, like the beam spot size is maybe like when you put a few of your hair strands together, that's how big the The laser Spots are on the rocks, so it's not very dramatic.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you're not melting rocks into like liquid hot magma?
Speaker 3:I do a very small scale. Yes, we are in fact it not just magma, we're turning it into plasma. It's the fourth state of Nature?
Speaker 1:I guess yeah so you, the laser hits the rock. And what is the the curiosity?
Speaker 3:have a little smeller that comes out like slurps up the gases kind of like that, but for the, for the come, come and cement, it's basically a camera. So what happens is the high power laser Turns this very small area of rock into plasma and the plasma is basically extremely hot and also is emitting Characteristic wavelengths. So as the plasma is cooling down, it gives off this fingerprint of different wavelengths and each wavelength is characteristic of a particular Element, for example the. On a wavelength spectrum, for example, we have these different ranges, uv, visible IR and for example, the element boron has peak in the UV spectrum around 249 nanometers. So we buy that signature. We can tell that, oh, a few elements like iron or calcium or boron can be around this area And based on the relative intensity, we can say, oh, maybe there's a lot of it or maybe not so much of it.
Speaker 1:So the laser tells you what's in the rocks.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, yeah, and how much relatively?
Speaker 1:that's wild.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:If you're just tuning into side chat live. Hello Welcome. We are talking to dr Dabardi Doss, who is Are you an astrogeologist? Is that a? is that a cool Title that I just made up for you? Is that accurate or not? so much I.
Speaker 3:Mean. It's pretty cool. I usually call myself a Martian Geochemist, But nobody believes that everyone's like. I used making that up Really my job. I do study Mars Geochemistry.
Speaker 1:I Love it. That's amazing. And if you're, and if you're just joining us or if you're listening, thank you. We are gonna have some questions from the folks listening in about 15 minutes. I'm Chris. Did you want to ask your question? if you're available.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of Jason's favorite movies is the Martian with Matt Damon and also known as Mark Watley, and He was able to grow those potatoes. Yes, and so I think you know where my question is going. You were talking about nutrients that are, or I guess you were talking about elements, but I guess I'm curious about Nutrients that we would find on Mars and if that is a plausible thing to grow those potatoes or other Things on Mars.
Speaker 3:Right, that's such a great question. I think a lot of people have tried to answer that on earth, even without actually going to Mars. So the things that limit us currently to grow When you foot on Mars is the presence of surface water, which isn't a lot I mean, it's nothing Because it doesn't have the atmosphere, like earth, to keep water in its liquid form, it doesn't have oxygen that plants require to grow any food, and also the Surface UV radiations are so harsh It would pretty much kill off anything that's present. However, if you look at the chemistry of Martian soil, you can't really call it soil because soil on earth has organic mulch, let's say, and we don't really see that mulch on Mars So often we call it regolith.
Speaker 3:So what people have done on earth is they've taken that Mars chemistry and they've tried to simulate a Mars like soil composition To see if anything would grow on that, and this was done by Vama Link at all. I think this was in 2014. They did it on Mars and moon soil simulants to see what grows on it and they found out just with the soil, if they provided water And you know, regular, non killer sun rays. They tried to plant tomatoes and watercress and mustard and these did. These actually did better in the Mars simulant soil than nutrient poor river soils on earth.
Speaker 1:So no way really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if you, if we have the water carrying capacity, if we have the organics present, mars rocks are pretty dense and nutrients by themselves. So, yeah, we, if we had that bio What what should I say the the production of biomass use through bacteria, i think plants would thrive, but it's a pretty Unhabitable situation going on on the surface right now.
Speaker 1:That see, i did a story on the science podcast about growing stuff in regolith from the moon and It's struggled like. I think they used mustard, like some like really hearty Plant, and I don't know how long you can live off mustard if you're trapped.
Speaker 3:I mean I guess you'll have to adapt.
Speaker 1:You're pretty awful diet. Yeah, it grew, but it was like it struggled big time. That's that's wild about Mars. I didn't know that that's so cool.
Speaker 3:I mean, some people also think that you know you'd need bacteria to turn stuff into other good stuff for plants. So if there was cyanobacteria which thrives in low pressure, a high carbon dioxide environment, it could get it, get get the soil a little bit less hostile, hmm. But I think people think that initially you'd have to start the stuff hydroponically with artificial lights, protected from the, the pillar, pillar sun, sun rays on the surface, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was totally plausible that Watney was able to grow potatoes inside the dome using more.
Speaker 2:Yeah wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the dome. The dome would have worked and he got all that water too. Right Like he worked hard for that water and Maybe got some sign of got some, got his hands on some sign of bacteria to turn it into compost, turn stuff into compost.
Speaker 1:Hmm, i just love being able to talk about the Martian, because Chris is right, that's one of my all-time favorite movies.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he got to. He even got to hold a Mars meteorite. Isn't that cool.
Speaker 1:Oh, mark, or Matt Damon. Matt Damon, sorry, what a lucky. He's not even a real scientist. Yeah, but it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, holding Mars meteorites would be pretty cool.
Speaker 2:It would be um. so here's a question What three items would you bring with you if you were to go tomorrow?
Speaker 3:Lots of water, for sure, and definitely some dehydrated.
Speaker 3:Yeah, water, i mean, it's pretty obvious and dehydrated foods you know, the ones that are extremely dense and nutrients, the ones that you, you know it's. It's just like, wow, this is just full of sugar, but You'd need that. Lots of beef jerky, i think, or jerky's of some kind. So compressed foods and, yeah, i mean Oxygen tanks, or at least the blueprints of turning, you know whatever Matt Damon did, their blueprints of turning mass and Balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen, so that I can just hang around and chill After having done all that travel. I think those will be my top three for sure. Yeah, maybe some kind of bacteria too, if I had a fourth option.
Speaker 1:What about things that are not needed for survival, like three? Three items not needed for survival, like you know, luxury items.
Speaker 3:Luxury items I mean another human being would be like luxury, i think okay could be there.
Speaker 3:I would probably go insane if I was just by myself. Like you know, i can't. There's only so much meditation You can do by yourself, so a friend would be nice. I mean, i understand it's like not an object, but definitely a luxury sign friend or a non, i don't know artist friend would be good. Hmm, what are the other two things? I would bring some music, because That's awesome. You know, music is so inspiring and Tons of Abba, abba. Oh, my gosh, that's you hit the nail on the head out. Tons of Abba, yeah, all kinds of stuff actually. It'll help me dance. So I love dancing. It motivates me in science, for sure. What's that? the what's? the third thing? Oh, i would bring art supplies so that I could do some art.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I'd be sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very cool. So when you were studying the rocks, was there anything you found that has blown you away so far, like, is there something you're like? whoa, that's so cool.
Speaker 3:Just think, finding things every day is kind of, when I think a little bit about it, i'm just kind of blown away that, wow, we are looking at At the chemistry of rocks on another, like we literally drilled a little hole on Rocks on another planet, like that blows my mind and To the fact that there used to be water and there, there, all these water soluble elements that tell us this really cool story Of what possibly could have happened. It's just like super satisfying detective work that you get paid to do It. Just It's kind of blows my mind. So yeah, it sounds a little bit mundane, but it's literally the chemistry of another whole planet In our solar system.
Speaker 1:So yeah, very cool next time on Detective de Bardi Doss.
Speaker 3:Love that yeah.
Speaker 1:You're uh, yeah, you're uh, you're uh. What kind of title would you be as a detective? a Martian detective?
Speaker 3:Private I.
Speaker 1:Very good.
Speaker 3:Private Martian? I don't know, uh, what would you say? a private Martian? I a private laser.
Speaker 1:Would you have a hotheaded boss that you'd have to like go around to get the job done? I? Hope not 1980s, 1970s Detective shows where the like the gum shoes always got his boss breathing You can't do that Doss.
Speaker 3:Doss, you can't do that and you're like, haha, yeah, actually, yeah, haha, i did that. I kind of like that, yeah, yeah, okay, that that makes academia sound like relatable and better. No shade, no shade.
Speaker 1:So when it's time to laser a rock, like, do you Does? do you ask the camera people to look around and then you just vote on which rock to laser? or Or do you do what? do you spin around in a circle and was ever pointing at the rock that one gets to go.
Speaker 3:I mean pretty much so their Operations and you get schedules to do operations and the chem cam team. So I'm still in training. So There are all these teams that come together and there's the engineering team. So what the chem cam team does is like we do look around and see what's a really good target That's not too close to the, the rover. In case, like you know, we don't want to hit the rover with the laser beam and it can't look directly at the Sun because, well, you know, mess up the detectors so we have something called the sun blob, so it can't be your You know, like how we can't, we shouldn't be looking directly at the Sun, we don't want the rover to directly look at the Sun. So we have to be careful not to be in the sun blob. And Also, the target that we have chosen it can't be Too far because although we're doing a long distance, a Remote measurement, it still has to be within four meters. So there are these three criteria is that we have to follow and also we also we want to meet the science Goals of the.
Speaker 3:Really we want to understand How is the rock changing from as we are moving along the traverse, and also what is exciting, what is something, what is new.
Speaker 3:So we have to have a balance of, like characterizing the whole past, staying, staying on on this. You understand, this regimented documentation of the changing rock and Also a little bit of you know, fun with new things. It can't all be new things or can't just be Looking at the same rocks, the bedrock, all the time. So, yeah, that's kind of how we like pick a target, then have a plan and then all the other instruments Have a plan and the engineers will come together, put that plan together, make sure all the, the rover cooling is in place and nothing is on fire, and then in the next, next date, the, the plan gets deployed and we find out the next time the Orbiter is in place, whether the data was downloaded, downlinked or not, and then we discuss what they're, what we we saw on on Gil crater, yeah, Because the rover has to talk to the orbiter and the orbiter has to talk to NASA.
Speaker 1:Is that right? the, the Martian, the little rover thing, isn't beaming back itself?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. So I have one more question for our guests, and I've left some pretty big ones out for folks if they are curious to ask The doc some more. So on purpose I've left some follow-up out. Maybe some people like, oh, i wish, i wish I would ask that question. Well, guess what? you're gonna have a chance. And my last one's more of a big picture question, doc, and that's Mm-hmm. People are always like looking for life outside the earth, and There I mean maybe we'll find it on Mars. I think as of yet there hasn't been life found on Mars. What are some other candidates for life that's close to home?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. So we have a lot of places to look at, starting with our solar system, some of the key things that we need for life or water. So I think for a lot of planetary scientists, the obvious choices are Planetary bodies that have a lot of water, and some of these planetary bodies tend to be icy moons, and I think some good candidates for this are Jupiter's moon which one is that Europa and Saturn's Moon and Solidus and I think Titan too. So they have a lot of surface ice and below that it's Hypothesis to have a lot of. You know, it's like a ocean, ocean moon basically. So, yeah, there are a lot of hypotheses on what possible life could exist here, and Terrestrial analogous like similar work to understand what kind of extremophiles as in life that likes likes to live in extreme environments a lot of research on that is ongoing in Alaskan or Arctic lakes and, yeah, on earth there is, extremophiles are abundant, so there's a lot of hope to find out, find to at least do a lot of research on these IC moons to understand what is the potential of habitability in these areas, given there's so much water, and beyond our solar system.
Speaker 3:I think exoplanet planetiers, exoplanetary scientists are doing a lot of research on something called the habitable zone in other solar systems, which is also known as the Goldilocks zone. I think I'm not an expert at this, but I definitely studied this in my exoplanet class and when I was doing grad school, and this is one of the really cool things for me to realize, like, wow, you know, like we, sometimes we get so caught up in our like oh, we have these habitable planets in our solar system and that's so cool, we have to get there. But then there are these other solar systems that also have this habitable zone, which is basically the distance from a sun to a planet where, you know, the temperature is just right And it is an Earth or Mars sized planet where life could be potential, and maybe they have a similar wobble like Earth and maybe they have seasons and stuff. So that's definitely a potential to understand that these could be habitable planets that are outside our solar system, and maybe we can't really get there right now, but hey, it's there, you know.
Speaker 1:Very cool. I know I think I'm still going to be alive when some of those missions launch to those different moons the Europa and the Enceladus ones And I think they're sending something to Titan like a weird chopper thing that's going to be flying around through Titan's atmosphere, which is very, very cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's such an exciting mission.
Speaker 1:I hope something reaches out and licks it. That's what I'm hoping Licking your key, some kind of? weirdo alien thing just licks the chopper that's flying around on Titan.
Speaker 3:Isn't that the dragonfly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the dragonfly Yeah.
Speaker 3:I love the name of the mission.
Speaker 1:I love it to the very first science podcast episode, when I didn't know what I was doing. That was the first science story that I covered. I know, and because of that it's just in the back of my brain, that it'll eventually be here and it'll come full circle when we cover it on the science podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Yeah, I think it's like is that? I think it's proposed somewhere in 2020, something right? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'd have to go back 2028, but things keep moving around. Yeah, things moving around And it takes like a year to get there, a year and a half or something Like. it's a long hoof to get to Saturn.
Speaker 3:Yep, it's not closed.
Speaker 1:Well, we're at the time of the space where we take community questions, people that maybe have questions for Dr Doss about Mars, things that I left out. I see we have some speakers that we've brought up As we're getting ready. I want to give a shout out to our partner, indra. Indra is our amazing partner who runs audio shows about mindfulness, meditation and wellness, and she runs them during the day and they have grown to have huge followings Just amazing. So congratulations, indra, and up in the nest. I've put Indra's latest one, which is happening tomorrow. Tomorrow, yeah, so it's about my mastering mindfulness tips. That's some alliteration happening there. Okay, so I think we'll go to Tracy and then Richard Tracy go ahead. Hi, hello.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to know if you have a pet story for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i mean, i used to have a pet when I lived in Montreal. Unfortunately, i wasn't able to move with my pet because of limited resources and travel, and they don't let you take animals if you can't keep them in your apartment, so I had to leave my cat Kitty behind. But there is this one cat that comes by on sunny days and I am trying to make friends with them. I don't know their gender And, yeah, once in a while Kitty will come by and sometimes I'll leave snacks out. But now I am in this conundrum because it is hummingbird season in New Mexico And I've put up this hummingbird feeder. So I think the hummingbirds don't come by because they're scared of the kitty. So I have to have a balance of feeding the kitty versus feeding the hummingbirds, but I want both of them to be there, but I also don't want the kitty to be attacking native birds. So yeah, that's my dilemma, that story.
Speaker 1:Thanks for asking that. Tracy, did you name? do you have a name for the kitty? Doc, it's Kitty, just Kitty. Okay, there was an outside Kitty at where we live. They just randomly show up because we live on a farm and they're just strays that come by much the same as your situation And I believe one of them was this cat that they called okay, but he would, but that was short for outside Kitty, Was that?
Speaker 2:is that right, Chris? Okay, We call them okay like orange kitty or outside Kitty. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I kind of love that. I might steal that. Actually I like that, and then maybe I would have to have an inside Kitty. I K to have an outside Kitty, yeah.
Speaker 1:I like that too.
Speaker 3:Okay, i K.
Speaker 1:Yeah, As we're bringing people up. There's somebody who requested and I'm sorry you don't have your DMs turned on and we don't know you. We're not saying that you would be a troll, but we have been burnt in the past. That's at Brook for life art. Maybe DM us with the question you'd like. We won't ask, we won't let you up otherwise, So just keep that in mind. We want to make sure we only bring people up that we know, or we can ask if we're unfamiliar with the account. We're going to go over to Richard, Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yes, doctor, when you fire off the laser on the rover and do the analysis, does it take very long for the rover to re-carg?
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's a good question.
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. So there are certain tasks that are pretty power hungry. On the rover, for example, drilling is extremely power hungry. So, compared to drilling, shooting a laser is not as power hungry. But yes, the rover definitely requires naps to charge. Yeah, it needs to cut down on its power hungry tasks and often some tasks are not possible, so we get something called the power gift so we can do extra analysis with that. So, yeah, strategize with power. For sure It's a really good question.
Speaker 1:Richard, are you cool? Is that good? Do you have a follow up question? That was a really good question. I never even thought of that. Okay, richard's giving a thumbs up. How is the rover powered Like when you say it has to have a nap? what is it? What's going on there?
Speaker 3:I think it has to do with the overall lifetime. It is powered by a radioactive source. That's actually a really good question that I didn't think about myself. I have not. It's not solar powered, So I think it's either to preserve the lifetime of how long we can do the analysis Yeah, I think I would say that, but I should look that up. Why we're taking these naps but it's also so that we can preserve the long term energy for all the science based analysis, I think.
Speaker 1:Perfect, great question, richard. Okay, we're going to go over to Cece.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much everybody, And thank you so much, Dr Doss, for giving this really fascinating talk. You mentioned early in the talk that some scientists are researching Mars-like environments on Earth And I was wondering what those were.
Speaker 3:Also a very, very good question. Often people will ask what is the perfect Mars-like environment on Earth And to answer that I know that's not directly your question, but there is no perfect analog for Mars in one place on Earth, so it depends on what you're looking at on Mars. So, pretty much like Earth, mars has lots of different areas and different areas experienced different physiochemical processes. So, based on what physiochemical process you are studying, if you want to look at basalts on Mars, you would probably have to go to a place that has a lot of basalts. And if you are studying salts on Mars, you'd like to go to a place on Earth that has a lot of salts, that is dry, that has a bunch of dry lakes, where you can study all kinds of different salty rocks. So Mars has different kinds of iron-rich rocks. So there are some areas on Earth that show similar rock compositions.
Speaker 3:But it's obviously not a one-to-one match because we have different atmospheres to account for different. There's life on Earth, there's biogenic activity going on, so it's never a one-to-one direct comparison. But we can always kind of understand what kind of physical and chemical processes could have happened if we changed the parameters a little bit. So my area of study was based on dry lakes on Mars, so I went to Death Valley in California to understand what salts look like on Mars, or veins of salts in loose clay-like rocks would look like, and that was a really good comparison and helped me understand what Mars would do in a wet, dry seasonal cycle.
Speaker 4:That's really cool. Thank you, that's really cool. Thank you so much, yay awesome.
Speaker 3:Good question.
Speaker 1:Great question. Thanks, Cece. Okay, we'll go to Sarah.
Speaker 5:Hey everybody, thanks for letting me come up and speak. So I don't know if you all saw in the comments I've been plugged. I am very nerding out during this space because I recently started watching the TV show The Arc. It came out and it started in February and just season one just ended a couple of year months ago and they just got renewed for season two. But it's basically exactly what you guys were talking about, jason and Chris. I think you guys would love this if you get, i don't know, i don't know, in Canada Do you guys have peacock The streaming run by NBC?
Speaker 1:I think we probably could subscribe, chris, do you know anything more?
Speaker 2:I know zero things Okay.
Speaker 5:So it's in the US. It's streaming on peacock, but it's basically the premise is it's 100 years in the future and Earth is dying And there are a group of people who are on this fancy spaceship headed for this mystery planet that is supposed to be the next Earth. Okay. Yeah, and it has turned me into a sci-fi fan. I have never been a sci-fi fan until this show. I watched the pilot just to give it a chance, because its creative team is people who I like for other shows, and I got hooked.
Speaker 3:Yay, a convert. Awesome Welcome to sci-fi.
Speaker 5:But yeah, i mean the whole growing plants and space thing they have. I'm trying not to give things away. They figure out a way to grow plants on a spaceship. That's so inspiring. Yeah, no, really I'm glad, but I'm not going to give spoilers, but it's definitely. It's very interesting, especially to think about because it's 100 years in the future. You know, like what happens on Earth between now and then, kind of it gets you thinking a bit about the environment. Besides it being a drama, it actually gets you thinking a little bit about like what's going to happen between now and then, kind of thing.
Speaker 5:And it's really it's really interesting. It is a drama, obviously, but it's. it actually is quite thought provoking.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I have to check it out. I haven't heard of that one before.
Speaker 5:I don't know. I mean I think I'd assume it's fitting it will be in Canada. I don't know why not. I mean I know it's starting. It will be premiering in other countries soon and it's second season got announced the day the season finale aired. So I don't know, but hopefully.
Speaker 1:Okay, Doc, have you heard? have you heard of that one before, Doc?
Speaker 3:I have heard of it, i've just not watched it. Recently I have not. I don't know Something about my brain doesn't let me watch TV or movies anymore. I feel like I'll just kind of you know, wander away. But that sounds extremely interesting And I am highly motivated to watch it.
Speaker 1:Is it a tough thing Like you work studying Mars all day and then you know people like me are like Hey, here's this Mars TV show you could watch here. Like wait, that kind of feels like work to me.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, on some days, for sure, on some days, some days are extremely heavy and something's so stressful And I just want to watch some, you know, extremely lightweight reality TV show that has nothing to do with science, but on some days I'm so motivated to watch sci-fi and things that really, really draw me to what I'm doing. I think it depends on the day. There are some days where I'm just going to sit down and read like a whole book about possibility of life or Mars, science fiction, to understand, like, what people's imaginations have been on this super amazing study of our, you know, solar system. So I think it depends.
Speaker 1:I was just mentioning that, because for for about how long was it, Chris? Eight months I worked in the oil patch as a Oh wow. Yeah, And what was really funny is there's this game called Oil Man That's the name of the game And and so people would. People would work all day and then at night they would play Oil Man, which was like drilling for oil.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, you're hooked like on site and off site.
Speaker 1:Yeah, So I was just. that's the whole thing. It's like there's another game called Farmville that was really popular and, like some of the farm people would, Those farmers. Yeah, they'd like farm all day and then they play Farmville at night and I'm like, oh my goodness, so I can.
Speaker 3:I can get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it definitely depends, because some days are definitely not. You know, on spy, i mean Mars science, where we're making big strides in humanity. It's just a lot of like why isn't my laptop working with this data, or something like that.
Speaker 1:So we have one final question from Facebook. I think all of our speakers have asked or spoken, and it's from Madison Redford on Facebook. Madison says does Dr Doss think we can live on Mars, not Mars like Earth at one time?
Speaker 3:Very good question. I personally think that, yes, mars used to be like Earth And at that point it would have been habitable. But today it would be a really hard task to do that. It's way easier and way nicer to live on Earth. So the appeal of, like you know, if Earth gets really polluted and we can just like hop off to another planet, it's actually way harder than maintaining the wonderful environment that we have on Earth.
Speaker 3:So it would start with a lot of you know one way trips there And it would, i mean, as all you know, like novel science missions, human science missions. There's a possibility of, like life being sacrificed there. So it's not an easy path where we can just be like, oh, tomorrow we're just going to go colonize I don't like that word colonize We can go live on Mars. It's extremely complicated. We don't have air to breathe, we don't have water to drink, the sun rays will probably kill you, if you know you don't have Mars grade sun protection. So theoretically you could, and based on movies, yes, imaginatively we can imagine a life on Mars. But will it be pleasant? Probably not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, Madison, did that answer your question? Oh, Madison says thanks. So we're at the top of the hour And as we have no more guests, I think it's time to do a little bit of wrap up. Uh, Dr Doss, we had an interview with you for the science podcast, So that will be coming out a little bit later. This recording will go out right away And if you want to know more everybody, if you're like oh, I'd like to know more about what the doc is up to And then some more deep dives into what makes you tick, that that will be on the science podcast, the full episode.
Speaker 3:Yay, awesome.
Speaker 1:So you are still trucking along looking at the doing the rock thing for the next next little bit here, doc.
Speaker 3:Yep, pretty much I love it.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Uh, thank you so much for being a guest with us tonight. This was so fun and so interesting.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me again. All the questions were amazing.
Speaker 1:All right, wrap up music. There we go. Well, chris, that was pretty cool. Hey, i don't know if you can. Maybe you're wrangling the dogs, i don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i'm trying to settle the dogs. They are definitely toddlers, both of them tonight.
Speaker 1:Oh well, you did a good, you did very good. I didn't hear a word from them, which was awesome. Uh.
Speaker 2:Dr, What Bunsen was barking. You probably heard a bark from him.
Speaker 1:It wasn't too bad. It wasn't too bad, it's all good. So to everybody who had great questions tonight, thank you, that is amazing. And again to our guests, dr Doss, thanks for being with us tonight.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:A reminder to everybody that pet chat is every Saturday and that will be this Saturday at 6pm mountain time, 8pm Eastern. Uh, a couple information items. We'd love for you, if you're listening, to check out the science podcast And I haven't checked where we are today, but, as I was mentioning on Saturday, we are one podcast ranking behind Bill Nye the Science Guy. So you know, amazing, yeah, we zipped on by Dr DeGrease Tyson. We're ahead of Star Talk on Good Pods. Um, we're one behind Bill Nye the Science Guy right now. So, um, we just need to get more people listening to the show, uh, so we'd love for you to listen to the science podcast wherever you find podcasts, but Good Pods is amazing, it's a great place to listen to podcasts. And what's another information item? Chris, did I get everything?
Speaker 2:Well, we had extended the ginger stuffy sale.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we've extended that kind of indefinitely kind because we heard from people they just needed a bit more time to think about it or, um, it wasn't a great time to make a purchase. So we have extended the ginger stuffy and I'm I just need to reschedule some posts about that, chris. So, um, people will know I just need to get on my own. I just need to do that. And if you're wondering who our guest is next week, we have Grant Steiner next week.