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The Science Pawdcast
The Science Pawdcast breaks down the latest science happening in the human world AND the pet world.
Each episode will also bring you a guest to enthral you with their area of knowledge.
You'll learn, be captivated, and laugh along with host Jason Zackowski.
Pets and Science, it's the pawfect mix.
You'll also get episodes of SciChat and PetChat which are the live shows from social audio.
SciChat has an interview and Q+A with a scientist, while PetChat is a live community gathering for games and stories about pets!
For Science, Empathy, and Cuteness!
The Science Pawdcast
Science Chat: Planet Nine and More with Dr. Stephanie Deppe
As we gaze up at the night sky, the stars tell ancient stories, and no one knows this better than Dr. Stephanie Deppe, a planetary scientist with an affinity for the Kuiper Belt.
During our cosmic conversation, she transports us from nostalgic tales of her first telescope to the outer reaches of our solar system, revealing her academic odyssey and the pivotal role of educators in shaping the path of young scientists.
Get ready to traverse the history and evolution of the planets and learn about the gravitational intricacies that suggest there might be a ninth planet hiding beyond Neptune.
This episode isn't just about unraveling the mysteries of space; it's about the connections we forge through shared passions. We'll embark on a journey discussing the construction of a new observatory in Chile, the surprising truths behind Neptune's deep blue image, and how space exploration brings joy to our lives.
Our guest, Dr. Deppe, leaves us with an inspiring reminder of the wonder that the cosmos holds and the exciting potential discoveries that lie ahead with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
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Hello science enthusiasts, welcome to Science Chat. My name is Jason Zakowski. I'm the dog dad of Bunsen Beaker, the Science Dogs. I'm social media and my co-host is.
Speaker 2:Hi there, I'm Chris Zakowski and I am the dog mom to Bunsen Beaker and the cat mom to Ginger.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Science Chat, our multi-cast across Twitter, instagram and Facebook Live. In Science Chat, we bring you amazing guests. We have one today, Dr Stephanie Deppa. Doc, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm good. It's a little late here it's 9pm, but I'm a night owl so it's all good.
Speaker 1:Oh hey, that's great. I mean you do study space. Probably you got to go out at night when the stars are twinkling, hey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's fitting. My profession totally aligns with my sleep schedule, so that's good.
Speaker 1:I love it. Doc, what's your education in science? You've got a doctorate. Tell everybody about it. It's so cool.
Speaker 3:I do, yeah, so I guess I'll kind of go in reverse order. So I got my PhD in physics at the University of Michigan, but I am a planetary scientist by training. I studied the outer solar system, a region of our solar system beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt, and Pluto is one of these objects in this belt of icy asteroids and comets out beyond Neptune. So if you heard of comets coming close by, a lot of them originate from this area of the solar system way out beyond Neptune. But before that, I realized pretty early on that I like science and physics. I had a really awesome high school teacher who made it really fun and like that. That was a game changer for me.
Speaker 3:I knew I like science, but I had no idea what kind of science I liked and I had a really really awesome high school teacher who made it really fun and I was good at it. So I knew pretty early on I was one of the weird ones, I guess, who knew, going into undergrad, what I wanted to do. And so, yeah, I've been in physics for, oh God, almost 15 years at this point. That's a long time.
Speaker 1:Wow. So what I mean? That's cool, that you had a memorable teacher. That hits me in the heart because both Chris and I are high school teachers. I teach chemistry and Chris teaches math. So that's you know. That's cool. I often wonder if you know I do something great and a kid goes on to become someone something like you. I mean that's why we do what we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, yeah, go ahead. Like he just he just made it so fun, like he was just kind of a big old goofball, like he just had a ton of fun in the class and he would just like do really silly things all the time to like really drive the lessons home. It was just, it was really memorable and really fun, yeah, and I actually ended up inviting him to my PhD.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh, that's so sweet, so like yeah, so he got to be there, I got to take picture with him and it was, oh, it was so special.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so sweet. So if any of my students are former students, are listening, I've got a couple that are working on their doctorate I'm probably available to come, yeah, so, anyways, what? What gave you this space? Bug, though, like physics can go anywhere, like, what was it about?
Speaker 3:space. Yeah Well, so actually the physics part was the weird part because, I had loved astronomy since I was little.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Like my I mean my parents obviously aren't on the show, but if you would, if you could ask my parents, they would tell you that like ever since, probably sixth grade, I was just obsessed with this guy. I very vividly remember one lesson in my sixth grade class, learning about the planet Jupiter, and that just totally opened up the whole world.
Speaker 1:Oh, Jupiter is cool though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was kind of the first time that I had learned about something that wasn't Earth and I was like, oh my God, there's so much stuff out there that I don't even know about. Like this planet is so weird and different from Earth and it looks so cool, and so like I caught the bug and it's like a very vivid memory in my mind that that first moment learning about something and else in the solar system.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then ever since then I'd like all through middle school and high school I couldn't get enough. Like my parents, my dad was like my biggest advocate. He would buy me like all of the astronomy things that I ever wanted. That's awesome. And also like a little overwhelming at times, but in a good way.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought you were going to say it's a little expensive for your parents. Well, yeah, that too my sisters, oh go ahead.
Speaker 3:Luckily we didn't get too far into, like, the big telescope thing. So like we didn't get too far into that.
Speaker 1:My sisters did figure skating. That is a costly thing. That is costly yeah.
Speaker 3:But he would always take me up. Like there was a hill by our house, that kind of would get us above the trees a little bit and he would regularly take me up there to watch the International Space Station go overhead at night. And I had, like all the magazine subscriptions and the field guides and binoculars and my uncle had a telescope. At one point my uncle was an astronomy teacher and he had a telescope that the mirror was misaligned and so like it wouldn't pick up light in the right way.
Speaker 4:So you couldn't see anything through it.
Speaker 3:But my dad's an engineer, so we pretty quickly figured out how to fix it. My uncle said if you can fix it, you can keep it. And I still have that telescope. But yeah, then in undergrad I ended up I went to Michigan State University for my undergrad and part of the Honors College there is they will match, like some of their Honors College folks, with professors from their very first semester, like as a freshman, to do research and I got placed with a high energy physics professor, which was really fun and really cool, but it wasn't astronomy and I did that for four years because he was an awesome advisor and I liked working with him. But yeah, I took a little detour and undergrad from astronomy.
Speaker 1:That's cool. One of my favorite questions asked scientists is like especially somebody like you that has pursued a doctorate like that's some serious dedication to a thing. I just love learning why. What was the thing that drove you like you've got to have a lot of like, stick to it and you really have to love it. You're not going to do all that and not love the thing that you do, right. So thank you for talking to us about that. That's kind of cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah sure. So, yeah, I had a few like really cool opportunities and undergrad that kind of kept the drive going and I was like, oh OK, like grad school is the next thing, the next step on this journey that I'm finding myself on. And yeah, so I did end up going to grad school but pretty quickly actually realized that I didn't super love research which was a little ironic and a research degree but I enjoyed the research enough to stick it out but not to like stay in it after my PhD.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 3:I do science communication now, so I'm kind of like the person who gets to tell the world about the cool stuff that other scientists are doing. I'm kind of like that middle person, which is exactly where I want to be.
Speaker 1:Love it. So, doc, just a little bit of kind of a reset. So if you're just tuning in now, this is science chat and our guest today is Dr Stephanie Deppa. Would you classify yourself as, like an astrophysicist, astronomer, what would you call yourself?
Speaker 3:I'd call myself more of an astronomer astronomer and science communicator.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, yeah, so so welcome. We are multicasting across many different platforms. I don't know if Instagram is still there. Hi, instagram, if you're still there, I can't tell. I don't want to crash my computer again. So we have a really popular show. There's 500 people right now watching live, which is kind of cool. Yeah, I have to. You studied some really cool things. So let's just get to a couple of the things. The first one is the Kuiper Belt. You mentioned the Kuiper Belt and I was wondering if you could tell everybody a little bit about, like, what it is and why. Why it's kind of interesting to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So the Kuiper Belt is this area of the solar system out beyond Neptune that's full of icy, asteroids and comets. If you're familiar with the asteroid belt that is closer to us, in between Mars and Jupiter, it's kind of like that, but out beyond Neptune it's much, much wider, like it extends much farther and it is like more icy. There's more ices.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So think of like your comets are super icy. They're called dirty snowballs Often is how you'll hear them referred to, and a lot of them originate from this area out beyond Neptune. The reason it's interesting is because, basically, what scientists have figured out over the last probably 30 years, it's like not super, super ancient history we're talking about here.
Speaker 3:It's pretty recent in grand scheme things, but we scientists have figured out that the way the solar system looks now the distances that all of the planets are from each other is different from how it was when the solar system formed. So when everything formed it was all a lot closer together. Really, the reason we know this is because we have been able to study this debris that was cast around the solar system in the form of these really small asteroids and comets. That's how we can trace where things in the solar system have been and where they've gone is by, like, basically, studying the debris left in the wake, and so there's a lot of stuff that you can learn by studying these really small objects, their paths around the sun, how they're like, where they are in the solar system, where they're located.
Speaker 3:So the Kuiper Belt in particular is really interesting, because that was an area of the solar system that formed kind of outside all of the planets. It was kind of outside a lot of this, like the plowing through that the giant planets did, casting all this debris in their wake. So there's a portion of this area of the solar system that's like kind of untouched. It's pristine in a way. But then also there's a lot of stuff that's kind of been thrown out there. And so by combining those studying the stuff that's like hasn't been touched so much, like it's pretty much how it was when it formed, and then combining that with like the stuff that has been thrown out there and cast around and like kind of disrupted over the last four billion years, that you can kind of like figure out what happened in the solar systems history.
Speaker 1:How much stuff is out there Like these are little, these are, they're not. Big right You're calling them objects. They're not, really they're not planet size?
Speaker 4:They're just little.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Pluto, which I'm sure a lot of folks are familiar with, don't.
Speaker 1:Pluto.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is the biggest one of all of these.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And it's quite small. Pluto is very small and there are only a few objects that are kind of comparable in size to it. Everything else is smaller.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Quite a bit, but there's kind of like a distribution. So there's a few big things and then as you go, smaller and smaller. Inside there's more and more and more objects and sort of like, given size class.
Speaker 1:Right, but is it really spread out Like if you were flying? Let's say we're in a spaceship, right, we can't get there with our technology, but let's say we could. Like, would you be? Would you have to dodge stuff? Would you have to be Han Solo, or would there be like huge distances between all that kind of like crap that's out there?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, That's…. Yeah, you would have to really try hard to hit something.
Speaker 4:Like it's it is.
Speaker 3:It's a little confusing because it's one of the denser areas of the solar system, but that's not saying much because the solar system, like there's a lot of space in between all of the planets. There's also a lot of space between all the asteroids and comets. So, like you, you have to know exactly where you're going in order to hit something out there Otherwise you'll just you'll fly through empty space. You won't hit anything. Gotcha Okay so there was a mission that NASA sent out to Pluto called New Horizons.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and so it flew past Pluto, but then it continued on into this Kuiper Belt region and they were having a really hard time trying to find another object for this thing, for for New Horizons to visit and take pictures of. So like even in this kind of quote unquote denser area of the solar system, they were still really struggling to find even one other object to go see.
Speaker 1:They sent the thing out there and they're like we need to take pictures of something else. And they're like, well, no, no.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they did end up finding one that was super, super small and they had to like do some like really clever analysis methods to even find this second object past Pluto to go visit. So they, yeah, it's, it's really difficult, you have to know exactly where you're going and, like intentionally, try really hard to hit something.
Speaker 1:So you're saying the video game asteroids not really realistic. Have you played that one where you're the little?
Speaker 3:I have. Unfortunately, it's not realistic.
Speaker 4:You just be sitting there forever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you, you. Would you basically fly right through and not even notice that you went through an asteroid belt, Like that's? That's kind of how how it is out there.
Speaker 1:Are the objects like hard or are they like really kind of loosely packed together, like if you smashed into it would you just blow through the thing, or was it like a planet would wreck you?
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, I mean, it really depends on what the size of the object is.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so the smaller something is. So the reason that a planet is hard is because there's a lot of gravity pulling everything together super close.
Speaker 3:So, everything kind of gets like really really pulled in tight and that's why you have a hard surface, but things that are much smaller, because we were pretty sure that asteroids formed. Like you have little pebbles that then like at some point got, eventually got close enough to like stick together and then that attracted more pebbles and kind of like. It kind of grows that way from the bottom up rather than like a bunch of hard things smashing apart, and that's how you get asteroids.
Speaker 3:So it's like building from, from small towards big is how these things form, and so if you think of asteroids as forming that way, you have to bring a whole bunch of little pebbles and rocks together and then at some point you hit a certain size that like, okay, now it's big enough for like everything to really stick together, but below that size it is, it's they're called rubble piles, and so it is just kind of like a collection of rocks that just happened to be kind of sticking together, but not very strongly. So I don't know exactly. That's so cool. Yeah, I don't know exactly what size that that kind of jump happens. But yeah, we've we've visited an asteroid or a rubble pile.
Speaker 1:Is that the Osiris Rex stuff?
Speaker 4:Yep.
Speaker 1:Oh man, we were talking about Osiris Rex, Everybody last week on our roundup and was that cool for you too? Like to, to, to, to to. It's like a little robot scooped up some rock from this like thing and sent it back home Like that's wild.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's yeah. That that whole, that whole mission is completely wild. The fact that we can launch something, direct it so precisely to kind of intercept and effectively run into this thing, yeah, scoop up some material and then bring it back and land and like nothing goes wrong, that's wild.
Speaker 1:That is insane. Yeah, I can't wait to see what they find Like they got like 120, some grams of like the stuff I'm sure they're the geologists over at NASA are looking at, so yeah.
Speaker 3:And one of the cool things about that is that is like really four and a half billion year old rock.
Speaker 4:Oh.
Speaker 3:We don't have that on earth, really because of plate tectonics.
Speaker 1:It goes under yeah.
Speaker 3:It goes under, it melts, it turns into a new rock and like over and over and over. But asteroids don't have plate tectonics. They're big enough and hot enough to have that kind of maximum in the middle, and so these are like some of the oldest rocks ever Like in in our entire solar system. We can't get that on earth. So we literally have to go to a different thing in the solar system to study that?
Speaker 1:I love that If you're just tuning in, we have Dr Stephanie Deppa with us an astronomer it's hard to get across Like we've got some people listening on audio. I've just been smiling this whole interview because it is so fun to listen to you talk. I love space. People who follow us know that I love, love, love space and I've been looking forward to talking to you for like weeks.
Speaker 3:Oh good, so thank you so much. Yeah, it's, and it's really fun to talk about too, but oh man. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:Uh, we have hundreds of people watching the live right now, so this is like a very this. This topic is very cool for them too. Uh, can we talk about planet nine? You did some research on this, right, I did. So I told my students I was going to be talking to somebody that can maybe answer the question about planet nine and they're, you know, like high school kids they had some of them are big into like the whole earth is hollow. Planet nine. Birds aren't real kind of stuff, right? Um, so they were excited to hear what you had to say. So the the big question is like is there a planet nine, or or is or the men in black going to come and like do something to us if you start talking about this?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, the real answer I can't tell you no, no, I'm just um. The real answer is if we don't know, uh, because, oh, that's cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Like, we haven't seen it yet, and so right now it's kind of a a proposal, um, that does have some evidence behind it.
Speaker 3:But, um, you can't like say one way or another unless you actually like see the planet with a telescope, and we haven't done that yet, and so right now it's it's a lot of predictions of like, oh, if it exists, it could be in this area of the sky, because we haven't found it, um, in these other areas that we've looked or like, based on, um again, some of these objects out in the Kuiper belt, Um, as I I mentioned earlier, we can kind of try to understand what happened in the history of the solar system by studying how these objects orbit around the sun.
Speaker 3:Where they are in the solar system, they're kind of like the debris that is left behind in the wake of, uh, what, what the larger planets are doing? Um, and there's some objects way, way way out in the Kuiper belt, Like they're kind of not even considered part of the Kuiper belt anymore. They're so far away, Um, we can't explain how they got there or why they're there. Um, and so one of the explanations for these objects and it's like maybe a couple dozen or a few dozen uh objects at this point. I, to be honest, I haven't stayed up to date in the research since I left my PhD.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um, but uh, but there are a collection of objects, um, that we can't explain. How they got there there. There are some um other ideas too that explain some things but not others. Uh, and planet nine is one of these ideas that explains why, uh, these objects are where they are. And then some other things too, some other weird oddities about the solar system, and again, like focusing on these really small objects, not the big planets, but but like studying the small stuff and where it is.
Speaker 1:Can I, can I tell you what I've heard and then you can let me know if I'm like cuckoo for cocoa puffs about what about this? So there is there, there is evidence, there is a, a planet out there for like, planet nine Like. Is that true? Is that something you could say, that there is some evidence, or is there loose evidence? Or is it more of a? You know, a gum shoe with the string all over the board linking things together?
Speaker 3:Uh, this is um. It depends on who you ask, okay.
Speaker 1:So some yes, some no.
Speaker 3:Uh, so there's, yeah, so a lot of there's In the planetary science kind of circles. There's a lot of debate around this particular topic, because introducing a new planet to the solar system, like that's kind of an extreme idea. And this is this is like happened a lot of times in the past and it's not panned out to anything.
Speaker 4:Oh.
Speaker 3:And so, at one point, there was a planet that was proposed to be like inside the orbit of Mercury it's called the planet Vulcan.
Speaker 4:What is it?
Speaker 3:Yeah no, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm like, oh, my god, I this. How is there something that close like I okay sorry. My heart skipped a beat. I was like oh my god, okay.
Speaker 3:But it was, it was a proposal, it was an idea at one time, because there are some weird things about Mercury's orbit the way that it goes around the Sun that were actually solved by Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Speaker 1:No, I that guy. We're always doing that guy's homework, I swear.
Speaker 3:I know. But turns out, his Nice theory of gravity explains the weird stuff going on with Mercury's orbit, and so we didn't need a new planet. But at some time there was like a whole, like big effort to try to find this planet that was thought to be Closer to the Sun, the Mercury, and like there was so much effort put towards this and no one found anything. And then it was explained by something else. This has happened a few times in the history of like solar system science and studies. Now, that's not to say that this one doesn't exist, but there are some reasons to think that maybe it doesn't, because a lot of the evidence and the data that is Kind of used to back this idea of a new planet Planet 9 is oh god. I'm gonna get into the weeds a little bit, so bear with me.
Speaker 1:We have hundreds of people listening, so we Everybody is here for the weeds. We've got like over 800 people watching live right now.
Speaker 3:All right, so bear with me for a second. One of the explanations for the weird things that we're kind of seeing in the outer solar system is something called observational bias, essentially that like you see what you see because you're looking there, not because Something's actually happening. It's like trying to find your keys under a spotlight, right like you're gonna look under the spotlight because Probably that's like that's where you'll find things, but there could be stuff like outside the area of that spotlight too. It's just a lot harder to look there. And so one of the explanations for what we're seeing in the outer solar system is it's called this observational bias that we have found things where we are looking for them. There've been efforts to try to, like you know, look elsewhere, but we have this like pesky galaxy that gets in the way and like this. There's a bunch of reasons why you can't fully get rid of this observational bias, but so there's kind of a split, a divide, and In the planetary science community at the.
Speaker 4:Moment.
Speaker 3:Whereas, like there's people who think that, like these weird things can be explained because, like that's where our telescopes have been looking, and there's a camp of people who are like, no, that it doesn't explain Everything. The best explanation is the existence of the new planet. So again, we're in this kind of Period of time where there's like a lot of effort going toward trying to find a new planet.
Speaker 1:That is so exciting though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which, like who's to say, maybe it's there and we just like it would be. So, for context, this does planet nine In its current form. I believe it's thought to be Um about the size of five earths. So five earth masses, holy heck, it's huge. Yeah, five times the mass of the earth. For, for reference, I think Neptune is about 17. So it's like a little bit bigger than earth, but not quite Neptune size. And it is thought to be Uh, what is the latest?
Speaker 3:Um, can't remember how far away it would be rocky like 300 astronomical units um, which is 300 times farther away from the sun than the earth is. So again, Neptune um, just for scale purposes, is at about Um 30 astronomical units, so 10 times.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. It says way, it's way out, like way out yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is why, like it's, if it's there, it's really hard to find.
Speaker 1:It's in the dark. It's in the dark right.
Speaker 3:Uh yeah, which would kind of explain, if it's there, why we haven't seen it yet, because that's like kind of a big thing to miss In the solar system. But if it's, if it's that far away, um.
Speaker 1:It's like a rogue planet, it's like kind of it's ungovernable, it's just hanging out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's still it's still in the in the gravitational influence of the sun.
Speaker 1:Oh, it is Okay, it's in a pretty solid like orbit around the sun.
Speaker 3:But yeah, there's, it's a big hunt Under way to try to find it.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, and you know.
Speaker 3:Segway, so a little pro, no sorry.
Speaker 1:No promo. You want go for?
Speaker 3:it. Yeah, the observatory I work for I was called the ferrocyl Rubin observatory and Rubin observatory is, um, in about a year and a half, gonna start a big 10 year long survey of the night sky. It's like totally general purpose. It'll study everything from very distant galaxies to stars in the Milky Way to asteroids in the solar system. It's very general purpose kind of astronomy data set, um. But one of the things that's kind of expected is if planet nine is in the sky where Rubin is looking, rubin will find it.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if not, then it'll. It'll find a whole bunch more of these kind of really small objects that will either build the evidence toward it or kind of like Take away evidence knocked out of the card stone. Yeah, so like we'll know, I think in the next 10 years, or probably a lot sooner.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness. If it's real what would you, what would you name it?
Speaker 3:doc Like if, oh god like that's too much pressure, I don't know the depay planet. No no.
Speaker 4:No, I'm not gonna be the one to find it, but yeah, there's.
Speaker 3:There's like all kinds of uh naming rules for solar system stuff. Uh especially important things like planets.
Speaker 1:Okay, so who votes on that? Like, do they, do you, do you come up with a name and then put, put what you think in a hat and then, like I don't know Seems like it would be such a big, momentous thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we haven't found a planet. Well, in our own solar system we found lots of planets in other, in other systems now, but in our own solar system we haven't found one. Since it's the like early 1800s forget when Neptune was discovered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're named after the old, old roman and greek gods, anyways, so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it'd probably be something along along that theme.
Speaker 1:I don't know, Chris. What do you think over there on on audio? What would you name the planet?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure. Bunsen, bunsen and beaker named the bunsen planet, people, people would go for that.
Speaker 1:People would go for naming it. Oh, we've got a whole bunch of emojis going on audio.
Speaker 3:You can start a Whatever like a petition.
Speaker 1:Well, pluto is a dog, Pluto's Pluto's a dog. The next planet could also be a dog named bunsen.
Speaker 3:So yeah, hey, I'm on board. I would vote for that.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, I'm just. That is wild. So I have a silly question. So when you memorize the planets, what do you use? What do you have a pneumatic that you use, doc.
Speaker 3:Oh a pneumatic. Yeah Well yeah, so mine was from when Pluto was a planet.
Speaker 4:Me too.
Speaker 3:My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas.
Speaker 1:That was mine too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's a pretty classic one. I forget what it is now.
Speaker 1:I teach because the space unit is part of one of the grades I teach. It's my very excellent, my very educated mother just served us nachos. Oh, nine pizzas, nachos. You just end with.
Speaker 3:Neptune, I don't know. Kind of like nine pizzas better. Nachos are good.
Speaker 1:Nachos are decent yeah.
Speaker 3:It's just not. It's not the same as nine pizzas.
Speaker 1:No, I can see, I can hear how, like, how contentious that would be, because when Pluto was demoted people lost their damn mind, like people were like very attached to that little dwarf planet, you know you know what's hilarious?
Speaker 3:What, what the astronomer who kind of kicked that off, not so much with the purpose of getting Pluto demoted, but he is well known in the in the solar system community because he's discovered a lot of these dwarf planets, especially out beyond Neptune. So these objects that aren't quite planets but they're like kind of more than asteroids. They have their own class, but he is the one who proposed Planet Nine.
Speaker 1:Really, that's ironic, that's very intentional.
Speaker 3:Switching planets one for another, yeah, yeah, so he, he discovered, like back in the 2000s I think, like I don't know how many like four or five dwarf planets out in the Kuiper Belt, and so like at some point was like OK, pluto is not so special anymore, like there's a bunch of these things out there. You have to demote Pluto or you rope all these other ones in too. And so, instead of like you have a buffet. We would have like 15.
Speaker 1:Yeah, doc, it wouldn't be nine pizzas. You'd have to name everything at the buffet.
Speaker 3:I know, yeah, like that would be a really terrible mnemonic, like no one would remember that, even with a mnemonic, and so, yeah, they ultimately demoted Pluto instead of adding all of these other now dwarf planets into the mix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I tell my students. They they had to demote it because it was too complicated, because there's a whole bunch of other things that were just like it.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and like if you, if you could look at Pluto in the context of the rest of the solar system, like you have the sun in the middle of course, giant ball of gas that's super, super hot, and then you have the four rocky planets that are kind of close Mercury, venus, earth and Mars, that are all kind of like of a family. You have the asteroid belt and then you have the gas giants Jupiter, saturn, uranus and Neptune. Those all are you know kind of of a family?
Speaker 3:And then you have Pluto which is like what are you doing here? It's a little tiny rock, he's waving. Yeah, it's like. It's like the little tiny rock like the size of a moon kind of like some. I mean I think it's smaller than some moons.
Speaker 1:That was a trivia question. That was the cut that crashed. That was a trivia question. Yeah, pluto, apparently, is two thirds the size of our moon.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, yeah, it's small, like it didn't, it didn't fit in with the rest of the picture, and so, like the scientists really like to classify things, like it helps us make sense of the world around us, to like put things into categories and kind of understand, try to understand the categories, and then, as you get more information, like you kind of understand, like, oh, this thing that I thought was in this category like now looks kind of different, maybe it doesn't belong in this category with all this other stuff, and so you have to kind of reevaluate and put it into a different category, and so that's kind of what happened to Pluto.
Speaker 1:That's the story.
Speaker 3:Everyone got real sad, but we still got to visit it though, like there was still a spacecraft that went there, it's still a very, very cool object. Like it's just because it's not a planet doesn't mean it's not awesome.
Speaker 1:It has a heart on it. The first image it was like that, that like adorable heart, and they're all of these like cartoonists drawing it with the great big heart on it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I know well that that didn't really help the whole. Like, pluto is not a planet thing, no, really. It's attached to this really cute little heart, yeah, but you know it's fine, it's good.
Speaker 1:It just wanted to belong and had a little heart on it.
Speaker 3:You know we broke it's heart. No, no, but it's still a very, very interesting object to study.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 3:And it has its own atmosphere and like its own kind of surface geology and all kind of like it has, I think, glaciers made of solid nitrogen, which is is bananas, honkers. Yeah, it's still a very cool place, it's just doesn't fit with the rest of the plan.
Speaker 1:I was using liquid nitrogen the other day for demos and I was like this is solid on planets and the kids are like what? So it's really hard to wrap your head around, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and water ice on Pluto is as hard as rock.
Speaker 1:I read that it's so cold yeah, it's so cold. It would deflect bullets like nothing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's wild. So, doc, I have one more question before we go to our the people who are watching, if they're, if they have their own. You, you do a bunch of science communication. Now you kind of like mentioned you work for is it an observatory? I'm sorry if I got that wrong. Yep, I mean like, if you like what's going on now with, with your science, like that's, that's your role as a science communicator there.
Speaker 3:Yep, I no longer do active research anymore, but I get to tell people about a whole bunch of cool research. The observatory work for is not yet up and running. It's still kind of under construction.
Speaker 4:It's being built down in Chile, whoa.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'll start taking data in about a year and a half.
Speaker 1:So you don't have to move down there, or can you do this remotely?
Speaker 3:No, so it's a. It's a US funded observatory down in Chile, because Chile is a really, really awesome place for ground based astronomy If you're building a telescope on the ground, because it has really high and dry, desert mountains, lots of clear, clear nights, not as much like water and turbulence and the atmosphere that makes your images all blurry.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, chile, chile and the US have a very strong relationship in terms of astronomy because they just they have really really great sites.
Speaker 1:They also have alpacas too.
Speaker 3:They do. I have not seen one. I've been down, you've been down there I've been down to Chile three times.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Not not as part of my current job, but I used a telescope for my PhD. That was like on a neighboring mountain from the one that I, the observatory that I work for now.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 3:And they had foxes, which were very cute.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a long ways to Chile. That's like that's, that's like a day of travel, that is a good day of travel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the most bizarre thing I found when traveling because a lot of the long haul flights Excuse me, that a lot of us, I think, are used to maybe is going to Europe, for example, where you kind of like jump ahead in the day, but Chile is south, it's not so much east, and so like you have a whole overnight flight and you wake up and it's a very normal time.
Speaker 1:That's good, though, for jet lag.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's not a ton of jet lag, you're just, you know, long haul plane ride lagged.
Speaker 1:Chile would be like Pacific time, right, Like that's what it would be.
Speaker 3:No, they're farther east than New York.
Speaker 1:They're farther. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm on the wrong side. I'm sorry, I thought I was on the West. I'm sorry, I'm going the wrong way. Oh, okay, so yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. See, this is why I don't teach geography, chris, so yeah that's fine. Ha, ha ha ha. People are laughing at me on Twitter right now. Um, doc, are you okay taking some of our curated questions?
Speaker 4:Yes From folks.
Speaker 1:Okay, uh, so Chris is. Chris has got the show on the audio spaces. So the the advantage of the audio space is, if you do have a question, um, chris can bring you up to ask the question live, and if you are watching live, you can type the question into the comments and then we can get to the the question that way. So if you would like to ask Dr Depeh a question, now is the time, maybe keep it around. Obviously, astronomy planets, um, I mean squid are interesting, but I'm not sure if that's.
Speaker 3:I unfortunately can't answer any questions about school, not as quick.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if you have, and also Chris, you may have some questions on Twitter from, like the, the comments and stuff like that. Uh, we do have some fun comments, like Madison Redford said it's so fun tonight and random and true said the world needs translators that interpret research for citizens. Good job, um, and then somebody just wrote Tyson I think that means Dr DeGrease Tyson. I don't know if he was responsible for demoting Pluto, but I think he may be. Is that true?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I don't think so. I feel like I should know this history better, but he might, he might have been involved.
Speaker 1:So I'll go to you. Chris, do you have any questions on Twitter? So far, no. So far no, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:No, I went through our chat.
Speaker 1:Um, we have 1000 people watching live, At least one of those people. One of those people could have a question.
Speaker 2:One of those people um KF rescues are my favorite. It said how about naming it Pluto? Part two oh, the sequel the sequel because Hollywood's out of ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hollywood is out of ideas.
Speaker 3:Maybe we could uh name it reverse. What is that oh?
Speaker 1:oh, to play. What is? How would you do that? Even Pluto would be oh to the plit, oh to the I don't know. Um, we do have a comment. Usually there is somebody on Twitter that always asked the scientist about their pets. She's not here today and they want to answer that. They want to ask that question in her honor? Um, we always. That's one of the things I always ask guests on the podcast. Uh, so do you have a pet story for us?
Speaker 3:Pet story yeah, well, I have a feisty cat. Um, yeah, I have a cat who I got at the beginning of grad school. Uh, because it's like, well, I'm going to grad school, um, I don't know anyone if I end up and I'll get a cat, and I don't know if I then subconsciously made the decision to live alone so I could get a cat. That's entirely possible. But I got a cat and I was living alone, um, but what's your cat's name? Her name is Mira.
Speaker 1:Mira Okay.
Speaker 3:And she is a very vocal, grumpy kitty. Oh she loves to be outside and um. She traditionally has not been very cuddly, but in the last, like six months or so, she's become um a relentless cuddle monster. So I guess that's a nice change.
Speaker 1:Our orange cat ginger isn't, isn't big on the cuddly Um, but I don't think I don't think we would classify her as grumpy right, chris? She's more mischievous.
Speaker 2:She's a ghoul.
Speaker 1:She's a ghoul. We call her a ghoul because she's like she gets into things and she sneaks around. She just causes. She's like a gremlin, you know she causes chaos. She's a chaos agent, that's. That is the best example. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like all cats have a little bit of that in them.
Speaker 1:They do, yeah, they're. They're an apex predator that we just scooped up out of the garbage and say now, this is your home.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I'm, I'm most people get.
Speaker 1:most people's cats are rescues. You don't, you know you don't go to a breeder for a cat so generally.
Speaker 3:I was a rescue from the human society.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 3:Michigan.
Speaker 1:Uh, okay, okay. So Richard on Twitter has a question, chris, uh yeah, so, um, hi, richard, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Hello everybody. Uh, I was curious. Will the observatory that she's going to be working at down there be affected by the Starlink satellites? Will it be a different observatory?
Speaker 3:No, uh, yeah, it will Um, that is uh, that's definitely a concern um for the observatory Um, but I will say that um the, the people who are kind of working on that side of things, um and trying to understand how the camera detectors will respond to, like, satellites moving through the field a few uh and being picked up by the camera Um, there's a lot of uh folks working to understand um how satellites will affect that, because, um, we're all like none of us is under the illusion that this is going to slow down or stop Um, so it's it's a thing that we, you know, need to learn to work with Um and the folks at SpaceX in particular, and other companies also that are um that are looking at launching these satellite constellations.
Speaker 3:Um has been very receptive Uh, we've like kind of been in conversations with them um express concerns expressed, um, like you know, our understanding of how the detector works and the limits that we need to meet in order um to like make sure the science isn't too badly affected, and um, they've been like willing to work uh and adjust the kind of designs of the satellites to try to alleviate some of the issues Um, so that's been really encouraging Uh, but it's definitely a concern.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry about that, Doc. We just got Starlink. We're talking to you through Starlink right now. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I think Starlink, like that's, it's great, I think it's awesome. It's just a little bit annoying for the observatory because now we have to like it's. It's like it's a thing that's going to appear in the detector. That, uh, is not something that we want to study. So, we have to, you know, figure out how to work around it.
Speaker 1:A little swarm of nonsense in your, in your data.
Speaker 3:Richard, that's a great Starlink itself, I think is awesome, Like I think that's really cool.
Speaker 1:Our internet is much better since we got Starlink. So, uh, richard, that's a great question. We have some comments. I'm not sure what Pamela is asking. Uh, can you see the comment when I put it up there, doc? When is this ultimate telescope that pose located, if the Milky Way is based inside its own black hole? Have you heard of this? The Milky Way is in its own black hole. Um, I'm not sure about this one.
Speaker 3:Not familiar.
Speaker 1:Not sure. Okay, so we'll go to. We'll go to another one. Um, this is a good one. Do the observatories coordinate with NASA on science outreach?
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, uh, in a lot of ways, yeah, Um. So a lot of the um observatories that I work closely with kind of have their own separate teams from a lot of the people who work with NASA. Um, but there are a lot of efforts to, you know, work together on things as well. I think there's probably a lot of um effort, um kind of around the upcoming solar eclipse in the U S uh and like efforts that way to try to, you know, reach as many people as possible with some some cool clips, outreach.
Speaker 3:Uh, there's um a lot of like on the science side of things. There's a lot of kind of projects that try to use multiple telescopes to learn different things about the Milky Way Um, different things about um like the same set of objects. Uh, so something like JWST, for example, the new space telescope um studies primarily infrared light, so you know, light that our eyes can't see, uh, whereas the observatory that I'm working for does study objects using light that our eyes can see. So, um, you know, you can see a different spectrum of um or a different uh part of the wavelength spectrum of light, and you learn different pieces of information um by studying different types of light. Um, so a lot of the scientists will work closely together and then if there are cool results that come out, um, from that sort of, you know, cross collaboration, uh sorts of efforts, then, um, often there will be some like coordination on um trying to share those results out with people.
Speaker 1:Okay, uh, madison is just hopeful that if you uh do discover the ninth planet, please don't, please don't name it META.
Speaker 3:I feel like that's probably not going to be the running, so no worries there.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll head back over to Chris. I've got one last question here as we kind of wrap up. Do you have any of your own questions over there on Twitter, Chris? Anything that piqued your interest?
Speaker 2:Everything piqued my interest. I love this. This was an excellent conversation.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 2:So good.
Speaker 2:I love space as well and so when you're talking about, like the asteroids that we got from Osiris Rex, like I haven't bought, taught space in a long time.
Speaker 2:It's part of our Science 9 curriculum, but I'm at the high school now, so I just think back to how excited the kids were when I was sharing them with them all the knowledge about the space unit and we don't do it a lot of service. Our textbook is old and so teachers have to keep up to date with current information and not going to say that some teachers don't Like you can't teach from the textbook with something that is changing and growing and like more knowledge is about that. So I always wanted to spend a lot more time teaching about space because it's just so exciting and awesome and some of my kids were like I remember when you told us that and all of it was awesome. So I just really appreciate what you're doing with communicating about science and the importance about space and, just you know, remaining topical and engaged and passionate about all that you're talking about. It's just amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I admire you as well, because it's like it's so hard to keep up to date with all of the things that are changing. Like science is not a static field, it's not like I mean, we do get answers, of course, but, like usually, those answers will raise new questions, and so then the things we know of our knowledge base is constantly changing and it's hard to keep up with it all.
Speaker 1:That is like for us in Alberta, canada, the grade nine curriculum. So we have grade nine, 10, 11, 12. The Americans call it something a little bit different, I think, like junior to senior or something like that, but I don't know. But yeah, grade nine is the only time in high school where kids get taught anything about space beyond some stuff in physics 30. So yeah, that's what Chris, I think Chris, you were mentioning. Like we do kids sometimes a disservice because space is so engaging, like it is so freaking cool, it's so fun to talk about. I love the space unit and I defend the space unit. Some teachers are like I wish we could just teach more, whatever. I'm like no, we'll just teach only the space unit. Like, just space. All year, every day, is space unit.
Speaker 3:I mean it's called a I don't know. I guess in the lot of the circles I'm in or whatever, like it's called the gateway science, because it's often one of the things that gets people interested in science in the first place. It definitely was for me Like that was between that and, like rocks, geology is amazing.
Speaker 1:I love geology. Geology is so cool. Richard, your hand is up, we'll go to you and then we'll wrap.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Jason and Chris I'd like to thank you, and Stephanie I'd like to thank you also. I've met a real light worker tonight.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to ask one last question before we wrap. I asked this to all astronomers, astrophysicists and cosmologists what is your favorite planet? And you can't say Earth.
Speaker 3:Favorite planet. I got to go with Neptune.
Speaker 1:Really, you're the first one to say that, you're the first one.
Speaker 3:Really, yeah, you're the first one to say that. What's the most common?
Speaker 1:answer Saturn and Jupiter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I like Neptune, which I'm really disappointed that I don't know if you or other folks tuning in. There was some recent news, maybe a month or so ago, that revealed that that deep blue image of Neptune is not real. That's not what it looks like. I was so sad.
Speaker 1:It's quite a bit more dull right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it looks closer to what Uranus is often depicted as, just like a touch more blue but kind of muted. But Neptune is kind of the big player and influence on the Kuiper Belt. So I got to know Neptune very well during my PhD studying the Kuiper Belt.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:I actually have this cool glow.
Speaker 1:You have a Mova globe.
Speaker 3:I have a Mova 2. I have the Neptune one.
Speaker 1:I love it. It's spin. It's so cool, chris. She just held up a Mova globe. Chris is on audio, only she can't see. For my birthday, chris got me the Earth, the Mova.
Speaker 3:I know I want more of them, but I think they're kind of expensive. They are, and I don't have other places to put them.
Speaker 1:The Jupiter one is gorgeous too. The Jupiter one is gorgeous.
Speaker 2:That's the one I wanted to get you, Jason, because you love Jupiter. Unfortunately, they had sold out.
Speaker 1:The Earth has dogs, it's okay. It's the only planet that does. Doc, thank you so much for spending an hour with us. This. I've been smiling from ear to ear. This was fabulous. If you missed this or if you're turning in late, we've got the replays on Twitter, the audio replays on Twitter, and I'll cut the audio together as a bonus episode on our podcast. Please give Dr Depe a follow if you're on Twitter or X. Are you on Instagram at all? I?
Speaker 3:am, yeah, same handle Space-size stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you very much, doc. Best wishes. In the future, we'll be watching you from social media and see what's up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, and go follow Ruben Observatory too. It's going to be a really exciting upcoming year as we wrap up construction and as we open our eyes to the sky. Finally, for the first time, lots of discoveries coming in the next several years.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. You've been a gem of a guest. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:We said we would be reaching for the stars tonight, and we had one with us, so thank you.
Speaker 3:Aw thanks.
Speaker 1:Okay, take care, We'll just do some wrap up. You're welcome to stay or leave it. You can do whatever. So thanks Doc.
Speaker 3:Alright, thanks again.
Speaker 1:You betcha, Do-do-do-do-do. Well, Chris, wasn't that amazing. That was out of this world. Oh man, I was smut like it's hard to get across on audio, but maybe you heard it in my voice Like it was just so that was so cool, so cool.
Speaker 2:Jason, you are so passionate about space Like there is nobody who, maybe aside from Dr Stephanie, that is more passionate about space than you.
Speaker 1:I love space.
Speaker 2:You love it and that's something I think that brought us together that and Transformers.
Speaker 1:Well, Transformers are also from space.
Speaker 2:I know. But you, when you met me and I said, yeah, I used to watch the Transformers cartoon when I sat on Saturday morning cartoons you were like what it was meant to be.
Speaker 1:That's how you know you gotta go out and get a ring as your special. Someone likes outer space and Transformers. That's like that's a winning combo right there.
Speaker 2:Winning combo. Well, that's just prime.
Speaker 1:Very good, we have. I think it's a glitch, but I don't know. There's over 1,000 people watching this right now, which is bananas.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's awesome and I think the science communication tonight was top-notch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good.
Speaker 2:So excellent. So thank you for bringing us together in this amazing space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I do have some good news. Bad news situation. Good news is, like Pet Chat will continue, so we'll see like that's our next audio live thing. But I've kind of hit a dry spell for scooping up guests for Tuesday. So we will have side chat as I find guests and I'll try to give people some notice. And, chris, you and I will still do like a science wrap up and we might do it every two weeks if I can't get a guest, instead of once a month. But I just want to warn everybody that I've had a bit of a dry spell trying to find a scientist that will be on. I'm still looking, I'm still trying and, of course, obviously, if anybody listening wants to nominate somebody, send us a DM or an email.