Oceans & Organics on Mars

Hello humans. — Hello. — How was Japan? Tell us about Japan. — It was good. Uh I came back to a brick wall of histamines though. Oh no. I can see your eyes are all red and tearary. — Yeah, I'm My eyes are red. I'm tearary. I'm on Claritin. But holy, you could hear it in my nose. But holy moly uh did the you know I just like I came back to peak allergy system. No ramp up. Just a straight up wall event. So like literally the day after we got off the plane, I'm sneezing and Yeah. Yeah. Just crazy. Um, Japan was fantastic as always. The you know, last time I took my son. — Yeah. — And so I think we uh what? Okay. Last time I took my son and we had a great time and Carla, you know, obviously was like, uh, hello. — You know, now that you've decided that Japan is the best place ever, uh, I want a piece of that action. So, I took Carla and my um hard to describe Judy. Judy, did you ever meet Judy or talk to Judy? Judy was our office manager at Universe Today about — for a few like for about a decade. But she was but she's also like a family friend, sort of my adopted mother, — my Courtney mother from when I was a kid. — And so I'm just like really close to her. and she off-handed was like, "Oh, I'd love to go to Japan someday. " And I'm like, "Okay, let's bring you with us. " So, so it was amazing. Yeah. It was absolutely fantastic. So, we did sort of a very similar tour. We did uh Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and this time we went to uh Nagoya as well, which is a big town the sort of halfway in between uh Osaka and Tokyo. — Okay. And you know, my big question was, would Carla like Japan? Because — um we did Thailand last year. — Yeah. — And she liked Thailand, but it got a little hot for her. And she didn't love the food. — Oh. — Which is bananas to me. I mean, Thai food is just is so good. And in fact, she was hunting out Japanese vegan ramen in Thailand, which is, you know, possible. but but harder to get, right? — And so now in Japan, could we find vegan — ramen and other stuff for her? — And that was no problem. I was quite worried about that. Um cuz they put like — paste fish paste in everything. — Yeah. Exactly. — And but we were able to find choices that were in the larger towns that were that and then for the smaller towns, we were able to kind of come up with our own solutions for those problems. There's you can get little rice balls that have uh — oniri is the best thing ever. — Yeah. You get brown rice and soy sauce, you know, like stuff that and then we could figure out protein in other ways. So, uh it all sort of came together and she told me that she loved every single second of being there. So, uh and like and like people who have never met my wife don't understand. She hates humanity. She likes animals. Uh but us uh humans not so much. And when you're in Tokyo, 37 million people, the most populated place on planet Earth, uh you are going to interact with a lot of humanity. And I was genuinely concerned that she was going to nope out and go, you know, in the middle of the Shabuya scramble with thousands of people flowing past her. Um, she was going to go, "Okay, this is ridiculous.

Get me out of this place. " And uh, or when we're packed into a subway, cheek to jowl. And uh, no, she loved it. And I think the thing that she loved is that the Japanese people don't acknowledge your existence. — No. — So, yeah. So, so nobody is asking her how she's doing. Nobody is making eye contact. Nobody is, you know, asking how things are going. You're just, you know, you were just, you were a ghost. You are not there. and uh they'll take your money and they'll then they'll deliver prompt service and they'll do precisely what's expected but there is no attempt to cross the bridge in a way that you know the tie are just they're so gregarious and they're so much fun and you go to Costa Rica and you're just feeling this sense of community and warmth even you Americans um you know you're walking down the street in some place in the US and people will make eye contact and they'll smile and they they'll say how are you doing and for me that's the kind of thing that I like. grew up on. That's what I want out of my cultural experience is I want to dip in and enjoy the chaos and Carla is like does not. And so it was Yeah, it was it was chef's kiss. So — excellent. — Yeah, Japan nailed it for us. — I love the fact that we're both married to people who hate humanity. — Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It's funny. You're, you know, Kyle is Man, Kyle and Carla are just cut from the same cloth. Yeah, that is very funny. Yeah. Yeah. I think if uh — I mean, I don't know how he is, but Yeah. If we don't have anybody visit us or we don't have to go anywhere for a month straight, I'm going bananas. — And she's like, "Now we're just getting now things are just getting started now. " — Yeah. — Yep. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, it Yes. — Yeah. So funny. Uh but yeah, can so I think if if weirdly if a lot a wild press of humanity bothers you, Japan is going to feel like the perfect place to visit. — Yeah. Hawaii. We had a very similar experience when we went to Honolulu. — Yeah. — And Kyle was in heaven in Honolulu. — So, um, that's a thing. — That's interesting because again, my experience in Hawaii, — not so much in Honolulu, but on the Big Island is just this wonderful welcoming culture. Yeah. It just you just feel, — you know, you walk into a little poke. Is it Po Poke Place? — Poke Poke. And you just feel the small town charm radiating off of everybody and you give them a reason to talk to you and you're there for the day. So — yeah, Honolulu is much more touristy and there are so many Japanese and Chinese tourists that it changes the culture dramatically. — Okay. All right. I'll buy that. Um, I apologize that I'm going to be a little bit sniffly, but we'll I'll try to minimize that and our editors turns. — Yeah, our editors will uh will knock that out. — Um, okay. Let's do our jobs. — I am pressing record on my audio. the video. And there we are. — Here we go. Astronomy Cast episode 796, Oceans and Organics on Mars. Welcome to Astronomycast, our weekly facts based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm Fris Kane. I'm the publisher of Universe Today. With me as always is Dr. Pam Gay, senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of CosmicQuest. Hey Pamel, how you doing? — I am experiencing levels of spring — that are unlike your levels of spring, right? — But my weeds are taller than I am in some of my flower beds. Oh my goodness, things are growing like never before. And you have them trying to breed in your nose from what I understand. — Yeah. So I returned from a trip in Japan to a wall of histamines. Uh you know all of the uh plant matter had been waiting for me to return. And so it's literally the moment I got off the plane uh in our home city, the allergies came roaring in. And I am all, you know, I am I'm a claritin in and still uh I know you can probably hear a little uh a little gloopiness in my voice. So I will do the best that I can to minimize it. And you know our editors will clean up the dad sounds. But um yeah, it's man it is gorgeous. You leave your garden for 2 weeks, you come back and it has been uh busy and it's surprising and it's wonderful to see all of the changes. So and no deer got in, which is great. So, so I get to see what trees

look like when they're actually allowed to grow as opposed to uh savaged by brutal, cruel. — I have one hilarious green bean plant. They're growing up spring strings and I have cages around the bottom and then the cage only goes up so high. And there is this naked section on the vines that is the part the groundhog could reach over the cage. So, leaf, leaf, naked leaves. It's glorious and excellent. And the groundhog survived getting picked up by my dog can carry it off. — Yeah. If you don't garden, why not? It's the best. — Yeah. — Uh, obviously, you know, some people don't have a room to garden, but even if you have like a little balcony, get gardening. Um, all right. Mars is cold and dry today, but the evidence is growing that it used to be warmer and wetter with seas and oceans that covered large parts of its surface. With with the additional findings of the chemicals for life, the search for life on Mars is getting pretty interesting. And we'll talk about in a second, but it's time for a break. And we're back. All right. So I want to talk first about like setting the scene which was the dead end that the Viking mission got us to in the search for life on Mars. Can you tell the story? — So the Viking mission had three different experiments on board that were designed I to try and identify is there life here? both by looking to see what chemicals were getting metabolized, how the uh air in the container was getting metabolized and by looking at the organics and they realized that one of the experiments they had not taken into consideration the reality of Mars and it was utterly inconclusive. — The worst kind of conclusive. — Yes. Um, one of the experiments was like there is life. Um, and then everyone's like, "No, no, no. This must have a different explanation. " And then the third one was like, "I got nothing. " So, we have yes, no, and did we take into consideration everything we should have? And this has led to squabbbling that persists to this day. — To this day, — right now, as we are recording this at the National Academy of Science, there is a two-day meeting going on astrobiology and signs of life where they were discussing these experiments this morning. — So, literally to this day, on this day, this is getting discussed. — Yes. And so the thinking was some people were like, "Yes, there is present- day microbial life on Mars. " And they will go to their graves arguing even for lychans, — right? — Um and then the majority of the field, which is honestly over it with all of the people claiming aliens, is like, "No, — Viking did not prove anything. It And so from the 1970s until the early 2000s, everyone was like, "No, Mars is dry. Mars has never had water. We're going to explain the canyons. everything that looks like fluid flow as aolon processes, which means wind. It is the coolest word. " Yeah. — Um and not fluial processes, which means water, less cool of a word. Um and then we started landing landers again. — Mhm. But I think the I mean more than just landing landers, there were orbiters. There were images from this the from orbit that told a story that was really hard to explain. was — by wind patterns alone that you're seeing craters where rivers are flowing into them and rivers are flowing out of them. are seeing features that can really only be explained by moving water — and and then I think so then they sort of you know the way they described is they went back to the to the beginning they ripped up the foundation went back to first principles and said okay — let's just start by telling the story of the of Mars let's just like was there ever liquid water on Mars and if we can get to there then was there liquid water on Mars for a long time and if we can get there then were there organics on Mars and then are there any indications that there is or was ever life on Mars

like it was like we are going to no longer make this argument inconclusive — and this was the follow the water plan and so in 2003 we had a new orbiter arrive that started delivering high-res images um and We started getting neutron uh measurements indicative of frozen water. And what was really interesting was the 2003 Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference, the headliners were all a processes. It's wind. And at the end of the session, uh, which is usually when people's brains are dead and they're no longer taking notes, was when you'd hear the but but Fluial explains this better. Let me count the ways. — Yes. — And then a couple years later, we finally had Spirit and Opportunity get to the surface. And as Spirit and Opportunity climbed around looking at the landscape, we were finding things like these cracked mud landscapes that I mean, listen to the words I just used to describe it. Cracked mud. — Cracked mud. Yeah. — And suddenly the language that was headlining changed to water processes. Mhm. And but and so you you're still sort of living in this seems to indicate cracked mud. This appears to indicate water. But then you're seeing things like the famous blueberries uh concretions. — The blueberries were actually from Pathfinder. Um so those came earlier. Those came I believe in the late 90s. Um, and the problem that we ran into was there's always going to be someone who's like, well, there must have been some other geological thing that happened or it was only very temporary water because comets do crash into Mars. And so, you did have arguments in the '9s for temporary water, very brief water allowed hematite to form and things like that. — So, sorry, I need to fact check you. Okay. — Um, the sphirerals were discovered by opportunity. — Really? — Yeah. Yeah. — Pathfinder had tiny — Pathfinder was just can we drive a rover on Mars? So if you search for Martian sphererals, there was a discovery with uh of the location from the Mars Global Surveyor where they were seeing hematite and other interesting minerals. But it and that was why they chose the locations for Spirit and Opportunity, but their goal was — any geological reference. I don't know. I just apparently completely confused. — Pathfinder. — Uh, — okay. — Yeah. Yeah. Like spirit opportunity where the these are all the places that we think there there's evidence of water. Now, let's look for geological smoking guns. And they found them. — Okay. So, sorry. I You're going to have to go back to where I said Pathfinder. Um, so sorry. Do you want me to re ask the question? Yes, please. — Yeah. Okay. — So, you talked about cracked mud and and that was just one. I mean, there were a lot of smoking gun evidence and I think one of the ones that was most exciting people are probably very familiar with were these spherules or these Martian blueberries. — So, these were actually discovered by the Opportunity Rover. Again, part of that Spirit and Opportunity pair of rovers. And these were the kind of small minerals that we really only expect to be formed in water. And it got people thinking, okay, so how do we need to rewrite the history of Mars to make sense of this? — And the revolution started there. And Spirit and Opportunity had a lot of really good equipment. They had their stereoscopic vision. They had arms. They could drill a bit. They had some spectral capacity, but they didn't have that dig deep and they didn't have the power necessary. And so the next — Hold on, hold on. All right, so we're going to continue this story, but it's time for another break. And we're back. All right. So, Spirit Opportunity said, "Okay, yes, there appear to be geological

geological traces that water was acting here on the surface of Mars. " But it wasn't. You could have had a deluge and then it was over. One rain 4 billion years ago and then it was over and then the world was dry forever more and that is not conducive to life. So NASA said, "Okay, let's build up the picture. How long was water present on the surface of Mars? — And this is where we saw a trio of missions that started with Mars Phoenix, which was launched in 2007, landed in 2008, and its sole raise on debt was to identify water flat out. Is there water ice? It went to a polar region. It had a scoop. It had an amazing social media campaign. — And it landed on the surface. It went scrapey scrapey. It revealed white stuff and the white stuff sublimated exactly the way water ice should sublimate. — There it was. And — right. And I mean sorry like you look at Mars in a telescope, you see the polarized caps. Like there is water ice. It is but it is hard as rock ice at the poles. The question is it mixed in with the regalith at more you know more southern latitudes — 68° north. So — right. — Yeah. — So you're seeing that this that water ice is blended in to the regalith just below the surface — in the one spot that Phoenix landed. And so it must be in other places as well. — And this was where we also saw discussion start to arise about the dark stripes that were getting seen. — Uh is that water? Is there brine beneath the surface. So all of that was coming out and this led to funding of Curiosity rover and Insight lander. Insight went with a seismograph looking to see if Mars was still geologically active. It went with a equipment to drill that failed spectacularly and was the most amazing. We're going to problem solve this ever. Um, Insight is amazing. Um and then Curiosity was sent with a nuclear reactor, not reactor with a radiothermal generator, which is a lump of nuclear materials that as it decays generates heat, generates power. Um so with its radiothermal generator, it had more power to be able to do more science. And it also carried with it a sample analysis uh ability that we had never had before. So the sample analysis at Mars SAM located in Curiosity's belly had the ability to take samples and twice which is not a lot but it had to carry uh chemicals with it to run to drop on the samples. it scooped up. Um, so the samples that it scooped up, the chemical it dropped on allowed it to break apart organics to see what are these complex molecules made of. The first paper to come from this just came out. They did a sample at Mary Annings is the name of the rock. It's named after the uh woman in uh Dover that the sea se she sells. She's — sheell sells sea cell. Yeah, that tongue twister that I am incapable of saying is actually because of her. She collected fossils uh and sold them uh to — Oh, you're saying that she sold seashells by the seashore. — Exactly. And she was also like the first citizen science but also became a leading paleontologist. Awesome story. Go read it. They named this rock after her. — That's awesome. and they found 20 organics that had never previously been seen on Mars in the broken up much bigger molecules, — right? — And so this is one of the amazing wet chemistry labs that they're able to do with Curiosity. And Curiosity's early successes led to the launch of Perseverance rover which is in Jezro crater. So Gail Crater is clearly a former lake. It has Mount Sharp which is the central peak of the crater. It has been climbing Mount Sharp looking at organics at different places as it goes. Jezro crater is a another previously

filled with water crater but its wall collapsed creating this amazing river delta and while crossing the river it came across um it it's called Sapphire Canyon where this river — you're talking about p perseverance. — Yes. So Percy over in Jezro Crater had been going through Sapphire Canyon where the this river used to flow and — came across what they've named the Bright Angel Formation. And this was about a year ago. And with all the capabilities that this little rover has, they poked and prodded this rock and the organics they're finding are completely consistent with a bio signature. Now, they can't say for certain that there was life on Mars. They don't have the capacity. Percy did its best. It could only get us so far. We need to do a sample return. We have canceled our sample return. We hate everything right now. — Yeah. All right, we are going to talk about this some more, but it's time for another break. And we're back. So, just to sort of recap the story so far, right, the purpose of Curiosity was to say, was there water acting on the surface of Mars for a long period of time? And — in the crater that it landed in, climbing the flanks of Mount Sharp, it found ample evidence that this place was not only wet once, but it was wet for a long time. that the rains fell, the crater filled, that this was a lake. — Yeah. — And that water was doing water stuff for a very long time. — Curiosity kind of nailed that. Yes. — So then you move on to that next step and you say, "Okay, — then were the conditions habitable for life for a long period of time? " And this was the purpose of perseverance. And so in addition to it confirming that Jezel crater had water acting on it for long periods of time, it also found that the conditions were it found the stuff of life that the conditions were reasonable that if we dropped Earth life down, it would stand a good chance of surviving in this environment. And then as you said, found some really exciting and this is fairly fresh stuff. I mean, we're talking within the last year here from a exploration mission that has been — been in this new phase since Spirit and Opportunity. I mean, we are — 20 years into Let's Find Life on Mars V2, right? Um, and we are now getting to the point where there is a rock. There are chemicals in that rock, which we'll talk about a little in a little more detail here that the scientists have said, we've tried to explain it in every non-life way that we can, and we have come out, we've run out of ideas. Someone please explain this rock. Now, obviously, other astrobiologists are saying, "Hold my beer. " Right? been able to do. But that's the thing is they said, "Hold my beer. " And they said, "Give me my beer back. " I got — my beer back. Hold on. Hold my beer. No, I'm going to need my beer back. Okay, one more time. No, wait. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're exactly right, which is that we are now we have gone as far as I mean, obviously we can get farther. I mean, if we saw a bossel, right? strumatalite, if we saw something really exciting, — things that look exactly like stratalite. — I know, I know, I know. But if we did see a Mars bunny run by, then that would be more, right? But but now we need that sample return because — there is only so much lab equipment you can pile into these rovers. — We need to bring these things home and perseverance — Franklin just doesn't have it. It's Rosalyn Franklin rover is several year old technology because this poor rover got cursed by the Russian Ukrainian war and losing its launch vehicle and bunch of other stuff. The US has canled all NASA funded missions to Mars in lie of — commercial missions to the moon. And we have these samples scattered all over Mars that just needs someone — not sampled in Perseverance's sample collection — like I think — it's left caches as it goes. — It has done both. — Yeah. — So it is it has taken samples, put them inside its special sample collection apparatus and then it has taken backups and dropped them on the landscape behind it. And so you could either meet up with Perseverance, hand over the samples, put them on your return vehicle, bring them

home to Earth, or you could chase down the pathway that Perseverance has traveled and pick up samples that are lying there on the surface of Mars. — Both are options. Yeah. — And that you get 20 or whatever of the finest, most interesting samples that the scientists on Earth were able to direct Perseverance towards into the hands of the biggest labs on Earth. You are going to make some magic. — Yeah. — And and but this is, you know, this is not a we're not going to trauma dump. This is not a grieving session here where we are just going to whine about a lack of a Mars sample return mission. We want to — celebrate what's been discovered. — Yeah. We want to bring you right up to speed with what is the cutting edge of the search for the story of life on Mars. — And it's really amazing. And the details are still coming out. It takes time to analyze results. We're going to continue to see new results about a bright angel rock. Um I I'm having to be so careful during this episode because I read a paper that is not yet published that I'm working on putting together press stuff for and it's so cool people. And so here we have a river delta that has essentially been fossilized in place. And there's so much other cool stuff on Mars. There was work done a few years ago where by looking at how the landscape was altered in uh response to water, they were able to identify where tsunamis have historically taken place. So, you can imagine one of these crater lakes that gets swamped by either a landslide or an incoming meteor, both um and as a result, a tsunami moved across the crater lake. And there's some evidence, this is still being discussed, how long it would have lasted, that the reason that one side of Mars is at a radically different altitude uh than the other is there used to be an ocean. And so what we're seeing is the ocean floor and the continental land masses, sands, ocean, right? And I just love that idea. Kevin Gil has amazing graphics related to that. We used one of them for the slide cover for this video. Uh go look at Kevin Gil's work. It's science based — and this is like a multi multi-country exploration. So we got a really interesting discovery from the Chinese — uh rover uh Tim Wen which found — it was able to map the ancient shoreline. They targeted the landing site for Timwin to be at what they was thought to be the ancient shoreline and it was able to map out and see that yes indeed this was the place where water was probably lapping at the side of an ancient sea for a very long period of time. Very exciting. So again the evidence is building now. The Chinese are going to be sending a sample return mission but it is — genuine three — and yeah and it's going uh 28 — it launches in 28. It lands in 2031 — and they're not going to have a multi-year rover ahead of it collecting samples, but they are going to carefully target where it lands. It's too early to know where it will land at this point. — Grab something interesting — nearby, put it on a rocket, send it home. So, we will by the middle of next decade, well, early next decade, get our hands on a fresh piece of Mars, which is pretty exciting. Not as good as the best samples Perseverance could find, but it is still a good first step before it's getting uh some samples from Mars. Um, so do you think like are we now in the endgame of the V2, Search for Life on Mars? I mean, I don't know if we're endgame yet just because time scales are so wibbly wobbly. Um, I mean that's the thing is our exploration of Mars is limited by the technology we've been able to land which is where Percy did the best it could and said I I think bio signatures but we can't prove it — without a full laboratory of equipment that has a whole lot more power than that little robot has. Um the helicopters we're planning to send

aren't going to be able to do chemistry, — right? The skyfall. — Yeah. And so the endgame question is when are we going to bring back the right samples to incontrovertibly say — Yeah. — Yes. — Yeah. And I think like I'm sure people who are listening to this right now, their thought is, well, aren't humans going to go to Mars and so can't they do this in the same way that humans went to the moon? And you like the the tech stack for sending humans to Mars and bringing them safely home to Earth is the same thing, but vastly more complicated than sending a robot, picking up a bunch of samples, and bringing them back home to Earth. The robots are hardier. they can handle a lot more. So if you can't do the first thing then second thing, — right? — And your other option is well let's send the humans and send good lab equipment. But again good lab like we are talking devices that are the size of a small building, — right? — You cannot take one of those and put them on the surface of Mars. You really want to bring that stuff back home to Earth. And so I think you're going to see that gate be can we get good samples back from Mars that allow the scientists to conclusively search? And I think a great analogy of this is what's happening with the samples of Ryugu and — and Bennu — Bennu. And you're seeing these just little whiffs of asteroids turning into some of the most incredible discoveries that science has made about our understanding of the history of the solar system. I mean they are finding amino acids. They are finding — ratios of water to deterium. They are putting together the history of the solar system in a way that you just have never been able to do with the the meteorites that the solar system has gained to drop on our planet up until this point. So — yeah. Um endgame is — I'm hoping that we can do fossil hunting while we're both still alive. That is my dream is — you — fossil hunting on Mars. Yeah. walking around chipping open a rock — be a robot. It can be a super powerful robot. — Yeah. But but why not astronaut? Like I like to go with a little hammer and chip away at rocks and look for fossils inside. So let's let an astronaut do that too. That might be a good use of astronauts. — It's true. It's something that I've always said I hope to be a little old lady fossil hunting on Mars. I think I'm just a little bit scarred by the double boom of uh Starship's booster and Blue Origins New Glenn. So, last week was a really bad day and currently we have Starship New Glenn and Vulcan all grounded. So, — yeah, we're we are not go for launch. — launch, — right? All right. Well, Pamela, that was awesome. Thanks. — Thank you. It was my pleasure. And thank you to all our patrons. This is where Rich inserts me mispronouncing all of your lovely names. I love you dearly. My pronunciation is terrible. All right. Thanks everyone and we will see you next week. — Bye-bye. And then they save. — And then they saved. — I appreciated the comment that my boom arm pays the price for my enthusiasm. That is completely true. Yeah. It's just an a bystander, but it does its job. — And I'm sorry for all the So, we all have certain phone numbers that are allowed through the uh Oh my god, something went wrong. Get through, do not disturb. And one of my people who does that had a was text messaging and was text messaging because her dog is asleep inside the bathtub which is adorable but not worth breaking through the banging of uh recording. So, uh, the binging you heard was the announcement that Zephyr, who you will all meet at some point, uh, who's added to our local dog collection, uh, when she gets hot, sleeps in the bathtub. — Wait, did you got another dog? — So, Tanya did. Um, so, so dog cohort, I don't know if you can see my

— a — so Zephr who so Malachi died at the beginning of May and Ms. Brick Kitten desperately needed a companion. — Yeah. — And um, Zephr's another uh, Australian Shepherd from Rest. — Why not? Why not just keep doubling down on the highest energy dog? — Yes. — Yeah. — Um and Zephr likes to sleep in the bathtub. — Um — All right. — Got some questions. — Okay, go for it. — Raj Luffa asks, "With all those Mars samples collected and left on the ground, can it be located especially if they get buried? " — Yeah, totally. — Yes. Yeah. The amount of burial that will happen from the winds on Mars is actually not that bad. It is negligible that you are looking at centuries, not weeks, for stuff to disappear under the sand. — Yeah, — don't worry. Um TPC grass, are the Chinese rovers on the moon still operating? Yes. — Okay. I'm glad you knew that. I did not. — Yeah. So, some of them are, some of them are not. Uh, one of them is um, let's see. — The far side one is, isn't it? — Um, so YouTube 2, which was on Chong Five, — Chunga 4. — Channel 4. Yeah, U22 is still operational. And that was on Chong 4 and it landed in uh — where is it? — Let me see. Let me look check Wikipedia. — Where is it? I think it's the far side one. — Yeah. So it's operating for 2,700 days. Supposed to operate for 3 months. Um so it launched — Oh, this is the South Pole one on the far side on the South Pole. — Yeah. January 2019. — Yeah. — It's cool. which is fantastic when you think about how they have to be able to survive the lunar night. — Yeah, they have mastered the battery technology. — Yep. Um I think that's it. — Um yeah, I didn't I just saw love and support on Twitch, which is greatly appreciated, but doesn't leave — questions. the uh existential squeeze said she sells fossils. Yes, that I can say much easier. Um — she sells fossils. — Yes. — Um did So, let's do a media update. Have you watched uh The Mandalorian and Grou yet? — No, I haven't. — Neither have I. Okay. — I've been watching Monarch on Apple TV because sometimes you need Kaiju in your life. — You'll always True. It's so true. — And the problem with that show is there's not enough kaiju. It's funny. Carl and I were watching that and we're like, we need monsters. Enough blah blah. Let's get monsters. — Yeah. Well, and like there's multi-generational polyamory, which is not what I was expecting when I tuned in to a kaiju show. — Like time dilated um Yeah. multigeneration. Yeah. It's a It is a peculiar aspect to the story. — It was not expected. So, be prepared. Happy Pride Month to all who celebrate. And really, all of you should celebrate cuz we need rainbows in our lives. — Yeah. But it didn't sound like it was 100% consensual polyamory. It was — No. It's true. It was totally not. — Yeah. — Um but yeah, Monarch is — I would call it fine plus. Yeah. So, it's it's like it's not quite good, but it's fine. And there are some kaijus and they I well I don't want to spoil the very ending, but you're just like cameo. So, — yeah, there is um I have been cleaning our Patreon channel. So, it turned out that like we didn't have things in seasons and titles were a hot mess. And so, um, both the astronomy cast and Cosmo Quest Patreons have been getting cleaned. And so, I have Apple TV up. I have an ultra wide monitor. It's up doing the top half and half like that quarter of the monitor while uh I'm cleaning Patreon and then I'm monitoring Discord and this has been my life and ultra wide monitors are the best thing ever. — Um — stuff happening at the same time. Yeah

— go check out our Patreon, folks. — Um yeah. — Uh okay. What about Spider Noir? — That's on my list to watch next. I have like three more episodes of Monarch left. — Okay. Yeah. Um we watched the first episode of it last night. I think they're all available. — Black and white or color? — Black and white, of course. — Okay. I've been seeing debate. — Yeah. I feel it feels like the creators really want you to watch it in black and white and so we're watching in black and white. Um which is fine. And I haven't even peeped at the color to see because the makeup is very black and white style. So it would be weird to know sort of how that all translated. Did they have to color grade color correct? I'm not sure what they did, but — Oh, yeah. All of that. — Um Yeah. Like they probably put a lot of energy into making the black and white look good, which you know, if that's an intentional creative choice, I'm gonna go that route. Um new season of Rick and Morty. No. — Good show. Yeah, the first episode was so good. Yeah. So, I've seen I haven't seen the second episode yet, but the first one was great. — I Yeah, I I've been watching Monarch. I demolished the latest book from Dungeon Crawler Carl series. — Yes. Yeah. I'm on the waiting list at the library. So, — so the level is not as interesting as many of the other levels, but the characters have internal stories is much more powerful. Um, and I currently I'm reading Claire North's uh, Slow Gods, which — is a really interesting um, what happens when organics have to interface with technology to travel through time and how does it break them and how Yeah. and then just all the aspects of multilanetary systems and — yeah so — I did um I finished reading Dune Messiah I'm now reading Children of Dune — stop after that — no I plan to read I need to gaze into Frank Herbert's original vision for the whole story okay uh it is definitely Dune the perfect science fiction book, everything else. What is going on here? I totally get that. And then, you know, you have like Brian Herbert, like you have the other parts in the Duniverse and it feels like very sane heads were taking notes and turning them into perfectly reasonable stories that try to match the original Dune book. But I don't think you can continue like you need to take a second to peer into the mind of Frank Herbert on what he was — originally intending even though you can then — put it into your into the happy box and leave it, you know, put it in the vault and never think about it again. I think it's vital that you get a sense of where his brain was because then it you could then look back at doing the original book and just go was this the plan all along? Is he trolling us? What what is going on here? So yeah. Um — so Children of Dune you re — Yeah. Children of Doom closes really nicely and then he just like I don't know what he was on. — I'm going for it. — No, I'm going for it, man. I'm going all the way. — Um I read three quarters of Ancillary Justice and then I had to get the book back to the library and I didn't love it. — So, — I had that happen recently with a book like my brain it was — Yeah. I even waited to get it from the library and it was apparently so not worth finishing that I even like forgot its name which — Wow. — Yeah, it was — of all — it was a Martha Wells and I was like looking for murder the witch king. The witch king I just didn't finish — and yeah it — I don't know if in the chat what are you watching? What are you everybody? reading? What are you playing? — We've got uh a month away. We're on summer hiatus. Yeah. — So, we're going to need your summer summer books. — Are we going to do that? our summer reading and summer playing and summer watching? — We have to do that. — Of course we do. It's what we do. Okay.

— Um — yeah, I haven't been playing any new video games. I've been playing stupid existing video games. — I me too. I replayed Rim World. — That is not a stupid game. — No, but I see you're playing dumb games. — Yeah, I I hate to admit this, but I actually like the upgrades to Animal Crossing got lame. And I saw that Disney Dreamlight Valley is supposed to be like if Animal Crossing had quests. And so I installed it. And that is actually an accurate description. There is because it's the Disney universe. There's some surreal moments where you see characters like Minnie and Mickey having really complex, thoughtful conversations between the two of you, two of them. And I'm like, "No, do not. No, I cannot with the love relationship between Mickey and Minnie. No. And and I think I need to stop. uninstall that from my Switch. I need to stop. — Yeah, I need to go play Zelda. And there's the new season of Path of Excel 2 that I'm probably going to get rolling on, but I just I can't bring myself to to start up a 200 hour commitment. — I understand. — But it's like they've totally redone the game. They've completed the they've done an amazing job on the end game. the reviews are raving and I just look at that and go like I will love that and it will gobble up all my time and then I look out of the forest and go like I need to fire safe you so it's like chainsaw or steam deck and right now my instinct is on chainsaw — we did no mo — and I actually mowed on Saturday because I walked down into our grass and like three feet into the lawn and was a very bity garder snake. And garder snakes are absolutely harmless. And my reaction was, "Oh, aren't you cute? " and keep my gardening gloves on while I tried to pick it up and realized this is a snake that's not going to let me pick it up, — right? — And I ended up like stomping it across the yard and then I mowed cuz three-foot very bityy snakes right where my dogs go was not going to find. When you say stopping it across, what you're saying is you are sweeping it in front of you, trying to get it to a place where I was hurting it. So I was doing the not hurting it. — No, no. I was doing the penguin walk to encourage it into the flower beds. — Um, — so I have no m ever. — I need to get to that. — I don't own a lawnmower. Yeah, because I won't I don't have I don't have any grass — and I refuse to let grass grow. So, I — refuse to let lawn grow. — I've been working on replacing the backyard with stuff that doesn't get very tall. And I have the area closest to the house that the dogs completely killed off one really muddy winter. And then I planted seed and that part is perfect. And I need I want to replace the rest of the yard with creeping time. Um the problem we run into — creeping — Yeah. I've got creeping time. Yeah. Yeah. — And it's just not — it's not creeping. — Well, no, it is. And it has beautiful flowers, but you it just can't handle any traffic, foot traffic. So, — yeah. So, there is no lawn substitute. — Okay. — There. And so, I think if you want a place where your animals can go to the bathroom, — clover is actually really good. — Yeah. But yeah, you I mean you can absolutely have clover and you can mow it short if you want to have a place where they can go into it. But I think it's just it's a matter of turning lawn into beds into either uh zeroscaping or flower beds, permaculture like um uh perennial beds, fruit trees. Just turn that lawn and I don't know how are you at risk of an HOA at all? — No. — Okay. So you could turn your entire front and back into a food forest and nobody's going to whine about it. Okay, great. Do that. Man, I love having a food forest. I cannot describe to you how delightful it is — to walk into your yard and to start feasting on the things that grow from plants. It's the greatest. — We have the wild variety of strawberries all over our back lawn. Um, our back, whatever the heck it is, is this wild mix of uh, clover, wild strawberries

strawberries, uh, chives I let go to seed. Um, basil seed, and then crabrass cuz crab grass is a prairie grass. And then this mix near our house that is these low growing things with little tiny purple flowers that apparently — snakes love. — But I think I remember your backyard like I you know we I've been there and I remember your front yard is very shaded under a lot of big trees. — Totally shade it. It is — and is a sort of a struggling lawn. — Yeah. — That I'm assuming requires mowing. And then your back is more open. — Mhm. and fairly large — and and is a long gone wild. — Yeah, I've I'm trying to replace things. So, like all along the fence lines is blackberries. And — it's super easy. You just you take um either cardboard boxes or uh newspaper. — Mhm. — And you just drop them down at a thickness. Well, you pull off the plastic and you drop them down at a thickness that the grass can't get through — and then drop six inches of wood chips on top of it. Hopefully, you can get wood chips delivered to you, which is amazing, but if not, there are places you can get wood chips. — And then you just drill a hole through it, drop whatever perennial you want into the slot. — Mhm. and then it'll grow and now you've got less lawn to deal with and you can just take back your whole property and have a place that you could walk away from it for 6 months and not have to do a lick of work outside. — You failed to recognize how easily things grow here. So, — I I'm I think perennials will grow. You know, that works in your favor as well because I know what you mean. That pl like being where you live, it was in the summertime. It was incredible. Yeah. Just like an amazing jungle. And like you have paw paws. — Uh-huh. — You have mulberries. — The mulberries are such messy plants. Like I love them and hate them. There's a bunch of them that grow. Yeah. What I hate is the poke berries that are volunteers and they're poisonous and they're gross and when you cut them back they release this smell that is terrible and I'm allergic to. — Right. — Um yeah, and there's ivy growing in my yard, Ian is pointing out. And then we also have Virginia creeper and we have poison ivy. Everything just grows and — it's incredible. Yeah, — this I keep forgetting the name of it. It's an invasive tree that will go from not there to four foot tall in three weeks — like eucalyptus or something. — No, it's an India something. Um — that's amazing. — Yeah. No, it's not. — No, no. Well, like I use that kind of stuff for improving the soil, for laying down shade. So there's a permaculture uh guy that I like and he says no tree can outrun a chainsaw. — So you let that thing grow — and then you come at it with a chainsaw and you hack it down to the ground and then the next year one comes out with 30 sapling things and — and you cut them too. — I've been trying to murder this one plant for so many years. — Yeah. Poison this year. No, no, no, no. Plant can with like part of it is in the timing, — but no plant can withstand you cutting off all its new growth. Like it is constantly putting all of its energy that's stored like you — out every day. And that's the problem is you ignore it for a week. — Yeah. — I can do every Saturday and the plant still lives. — Yeah. That's incredible. — I hate this plant. — I hate — Yeah. I have versions of that. We have Japanese knotwheat here and it is amazing in its sort of ability to take over and you cannot turn your back on it. And they go straight to poison. Like whenever Japanese awe shows up here, they just go, "Well, — like either we poison it out of existence or we're just going to nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. " So yeah. — Yeah. All right, we've reached the end of our episode. Gardening with Fraser and Pamela. Um, this is where my dad when I talk to my stepmother about uh gardening, my dad is like, "Oh god, are you guys talking about gardening again? I'm just going to go to sleep now. " So, he'll just turn his attention away from us while we just nerd out about gardening. — Uh, anything interesting happening that people should be aware of? — Uh, I am working on writing up a So, everything is currently grounded. How did we get here?

— And uh also I'm going to be running the math of so what would it actually mean if uh we actually launched 10,000 starships a year? The steel production alone is not something the global economy can produce. It's really wild what's in that IPO. — Yeah. — So yeah, I'm running the numbers behind the SpaceX IPO. — Oh, that is interesting. Oh man, that sounds great. Okay. Uh, nothing interesting happening for me. I'm just getting back up to speed. But, uh, I'm back, baby. So, — awesome. — All right. Thanks everybody and we will see you next week. All right.