Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles Bryant Chuckers. You might know him. An Sure, there's a w in there somewhere at sure for the Wayne. Yeah, named after Wayne coyn Right, No, we talked about that before. Yeah, John, Wayne, how are you doing. I'm great, man, Um, I am all over this NASA activity. Oh yeah, yeah, good because it seems like i'll we hear about NASA these days is how they're having to shut down uh space programs, Right, that's the other stuff is cool. Well, that's the impression I have is that they're kind of taking their um, their field of vision the mountain to outer space and turning it planet word towards Earth. Why not, That's where all the people are that are buying Big Max. Right. Well, if if space exploration is going private, you got the Elon Musk's and the Richard Branson's of the world saying we got this, NASA, you go do something else with all of your high tech remote sensing equipment, then it makes sense that NASA would say, Okay, we'll become the watchdog guardian of the planet. And that's what they've they've become. Plus, also, if you're the United States using NASA's remote sensing equipment on Earth, is a dynamite cover for intelligence gathering? Well yeah, I mean you have all sorts of satellites carrying out different functions, but really all of them are taking pictures of the Earth, highly detailed ones too. You want to know about Russian troops formation as NASA yet of volcano? Sure? If you want to know what kind of sand way? Uh, Julian Assange had today, asked NASA, Well, that's NASA. Everyone knows that what Juna fish is, That what his thing is. Sure every day, that's how he keeps his white main white. Him and Michio Kaku. Yeah, the white mullet. Actually it's not so mellody. It's just more of a main main for sure. Both of them have a main, a big helmet of hair. So chuck um. But I guess the question we've posed today I feel like we need to answer is can NASA predict natural disasters? I think we can go ahead and answer and say not yet. Right, But now that again, they've kind of mothballed space exploration to an extent. I mean we're still hitting Mars. Yeah, yeah, we're not. They're not mothballing it, but they're they're they've reached the point where they're like, Okay, we've got all this really good equipment, let's start monitoring Earth a little more because there's a lot of questions we have. Um. Now, they've reached this point where since the beginning of twenty one century, they've started conducting missions. They have planned ones that are just being started now, some that are coming in the next couple of years, and from all this data they'll be able to analyze it and start to be able to predict natural disasters. So they have this whole like toolbox. I guess if you wanted to go into like corporate buzz speak of of programs and missions that they're carrying out that will help them predict natural disasters pretty soon. That's right, not the low hanging fruit, right, they're just trying to reach out and play together with the Earth in the same in the same space, in the same space. Maybe Java storm boy at the corporate talk, Yeah, we shunned that at all costs here, Um, all right, so let's talk about this. We talked about remote sensing. That is UM basically detecting energy reflecting from something UM when it's pointed out in space, like when you're looking for new planets, it's pointed out in space. When you pointed on Earth, it's a heck of a lot closer, right, And to get more detail. And they're they're using different kinds of UM detectors. They're detecting different kinds of energy I should say, like microwave, radiation, X rays. It's not just like using your peepers. That information can be translated into something we use our peepers to look at, but for they can use this equipment to sense all sorts of different stuff. Yeah. And like you said, it's UM. It's like mounted on aircraft or it's part of a satellite or is a satellite and um, yeah, it's all up. They're looking back at you right now, yes, the wave. Yeah, or it's looking at the Earth where we're just the insignificant tiny specs crawling around on the Earth. Yeah. And this is this is a kind of a big deal. You know, it makes sense, it's sensible what they're doing. It's a smart thing. To do with NASA's department, but it also really is, um, we're at the threshold of like a really big change in our understanding of our planet, you know, Like I think there's kind of a lot of assumptions that people make about our understanding of the planet that are just totally incorrect. Like, for example, I would have guessed that meteorologists and climatologists knew how tropical storms form. They do not, uh, And from using things like well, there's actually a project that was carried out in the summer of two thousand ten UM that was dedicated to studying this is called grip genesis and rapid intensification processes. And for a couple of a couple of months, some NASA scientists flew around on a Gulf Stream jet and took really precise measurements of what they believed were the beginnings of tropical storms to see how they form exactly. Yeah, And the goal with pretty much everything that we're going to talk about today is early detection. Because you can't stop a hurricane, you can't stop a volcano or an earthquake. But like the old saying, that's right, but if you know it's coming, then you can get people out of the way. You can thwart some of them to some degree. Yeah, Like anybody can point to a hurricane be like, oh, there's a hurricane. By then it's a little too late. If you can point to the very beginnings the cradle of the hurricane, the formation of a tropical storm. Now you're talking about time that you have to warn people, like you, guys need to get out of here. Yeah. And there is one really cool program they've had going since two thousand two called GRACE. There's gonna be a lot of acronyms today, by the way, the UM the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, this is my favorite one. It's it's really cool basically what they're doing. All right, Well, let's step back a minute. Let's talk about Newton. Okay, gravity depends on the mass of an object. In the case of polar ice caps, the mass is changing. So if the mass is changing, the gravity is changing. Right. So when when the polar ice caps melt and turn to water and then flow towards the equator, um they are often so big that they left it in depression on the Earth's surface. Once they're gone, that depression could be filled in the mantle can fill back in in the area, changing the mass in that particular part of Earth and hence changing the gravity. Right, Yeah, it's one estimate has between two thousand and ten and two thousand and eleven UM, the Greenland ice Shield lost two hundred and twenty four giga tons of mats. So not only is that going to change the land formation in the mass, it's gonna make the sea level rise at a rate of about point seven millimeters a year. That's going to change the makeup of the Earth. Um. And so they have a couple of buddies, Tom and Jerry that are in orbit satellites, twin satellites about a hundred and thirty six miles apart from each other. Do you know why they're called Tom and Jerry because they're chasing each other and then only they're on the same orbit exactly a polar orbit. Yeah, it's very cute. So they're constantly going from the North pole to the South Pole um as the Earth spins below them, right, that's right. And um they're taking they're they're taking measurements, two different types of measurements, but they're precisely separated from one another, and they're on precisely the same orbit, so they can. Really what they produce every thirty days is a full map of the gravitational field of Earth. Yeah, and they've Nanasa. They always work with other people, it seems like, which is a good thing to work with people around the world. But they worked with a company in Germany to develop UM an ultra precise distance measuring system that basically can measure within the precision what they say is one tenth of the width of a hair. That's pretty precise. Yeah. So basically these things are flying U and between the two they're measuring the distances and discrepancies between these two identical twin satellites, and that's information is being relaid back analyze. Yeah, because the upside of this is number one, the Earth is not a perfect sphere. We know that. I can't remember what we talked about that in oh maps. Yeah potato. Yeah, in the the the gravitational field is not perfectly round either. It's lower in some places, higher in other places. The force of gravity um. So yeah, it's formed what was coined the Potsdam gravity potato. And if you look it up now there's some pretty cool UM artists rendering of what the Earth's magnetic field looks like and as a three dimensional model. Yeah, it's very cool. Um, so check that out. And that's been updated dramatically in the last couple of years thanks to this GRACE project. Yeah, and the ultimate goal basically is to measure this gravitational field over time see how it's changing with kind of accuracy we've never had before, which will in turn inform us on climate related uh drunk right, I mean and and is it just a correlation between mean, like ice caps melting in a change in a gravitational field, or does that ice cap melting trigger that change in the gravitational field, which in turn has some other effects. So, um, there's a lot of I think understanding we can gain from knowing what the gravitational field is changing, how it's changing. Yeah, do you like using your GPS to get somewhere, Well, then this kind of information can go on to help GPS because basically it's just gonna improve the trajectories of these UH satellites and everything is just more specific. It's like a hundred times um more detailed than they've ever had before. So that's gonna help everything out from detecting climate change or temperature and in like potential hurricanes and stuff too, like getting you to McDonald's, right, you know, which is pretty important by the way, chuck. Um uh, the tropical storms. You want to how they think they form? Now? Um, well, I'm gonna tell you. So. The speed of waves on an ocean, um, if it matches the speed of the movement of some air above it, and an umbilical cord of warm, humid air can get into this little pillow sandwich. It forms this protective pouch and from there a convection current can start and form into a tropical storm, which can then form into a hurricane. That's what they learned from the GRIP program. Man, it seems like they would have known this stuff before then, you think, so, you know, but we're talking like two when they're I don't even think it's been proven. I think that that's what they think based on the data from the two thousand ten experiments. Yeah, aren't they still analyzing that stuff? Alright? I imagine like that's got to be a pretty good field to get into now and in the next like five ten years, analyzing NASA data. Yeah, and just anything to do with the climate probably anything, Yeah, things that's changing. It's gonna be gangbusters. There's a lot of money in the weather. Um. All right, so that's tropical storms and hurricanes. We didn't talk about the GPM project. Um. Yeah, that they're working with UM. NASA's working with Japan and they're NASA, which is called the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency or JACKSON, and that is a Global Precipitation measurement and they are using satellites to observe all kinds of participation precipitation patterns all over the world. And basically, like before, we can only place these things in certain spots that were easier to get to, and you can't place them out of the ocean, and you can't place them in the andies because it's too rocky. This allows us to study the entire globe for the first time. So they're following they're basically tracking the movement of water around the planet on like a daily, seasonal, a yearly basis um. And what they hope to be able to gain from this it's a predict when floods happened, because apparently a major flood happens every day around the Earth. Yeah, and a lot of times those floods lead to landslides. We saw firsthand in Guatemala what happens when a landslide comes down. Remember, oh, yeah, we were standing there and they said, this is literally twelve feet higher than it was. Yeah, we were standing on the remains of a village that got caught in the middle of the night and they're like, there are people down there still. Yeah, you could still see the swath that have been cut through the jungle on the mountain side. Right. So they're hoping, okay, well, if we can figure out when a flood's coming, we can predict landslides in turns, So by tracking global precipitation, that's what they're hoping to be able to do with that. Yeah. They're also using uh L I d a R at the light R Surface topography system. This is my second favorite one, the list one UM, and they're hopefully going to be able to attract things like volcanoes, earthquakes, landslide us and erosion. But not wildfires. No, not wildfires. That's crazy talk. That is crazy talk. But it's the same thing as with tracking precipitation. As of two years ago, we had to physically put some sensor somewhere and there are places we just couldn't get to, and now that we have satellites, we can track that stuff. Same goes with this, like we used to have to be able to find a fault line, put sensors there and then monitor that um with with the list program. With leader UM, they're using lasers to monitor fault lines and find new ones that we didn't know were there before, track their movement, and then use those to predict earthquakes and then similarly predict volcanoes. So listen to this. Okay. The resolution now they have is five meter horizontal resolution with a precision of four inches. Previously, the best data we could get was thirty meter resolution with a thirty to foot precision, So went from thirty two to four inches. That's pretty good. They'd be like, give it take thirty two ft. Yeah, now let's give it take four inches with thanks to lasers, so they could possibly detect volcanic activity before it happens. Right, And the way that they're doing that, you would think, well, they're using thermal cameras. You'd be wrong. What they're doing is looking for land deformation. Apparently before a volcano goes off, that land around it literally deforms, it swells due to pressure. And since we are tracking topography now using this UM this program, we can say, oh, well that that crater wasn't three times larger than it is now like a week ago, maybe a volcan is about to go off. Uh. And it's not just volcanoes and natural disasters. They can also monitor erosion and top soil loss, basically anything on the Earth that's interesting they can like really accurately closely monitor. Now and this said two thousand sixteen, is it already underway? Um? No, it's two thousand thirteen. Chuck. Now that says it was gonna launch in two thousand sixteen, but it's already Is it already going Okay? I think it's launching in two thousand sixteen. Okay, so this is just the plan, you're right, Yeah, I know they have a lot of like this just started, like the UM I think it might have been the Grace Program started in two thousand two and it's been going on. It is the Grace Program, the one with Tom and Jerry. Right, Yeah, that was right, and it had its tenth anniversary in two thousand twelve. I think that might have been the first project like this and now NASA's throwing like everything into this stuff, and we're just at the at the forefront, at the very beginning of this kind of thing. This is a very timely episode. Frankly, it's actually um they have. In fact, I think these new probes are even newer than the List program, right that NASA is proposing to launch, the one we were just talking about with the volcano deformation. Yeah, yeah, um this is a pair of satellites that monitor little bitty changes in the surface. And um, I guess it's a funding thing because I don't think these two are even uh, I think they're still just like in the proposition phase. So I guess we should say, like then they will be doing this, this is coming yeah, and like this particular project. Yeah, and the precipitation when his launches in February of next year. So it sounds as though these things are already happening. But I think it's just like this is how it's gonna work. It sounds as though they're already happening because of us. The tents were using that's right, we're using present, we should be using future perfect. One of the problems with the satellites, though, is um and with lasers, is clouds right? Because clouds get in the way. It's got to be a clear day to use most of this stuff. Hold on, I know you love talking about clouds. I do too. But before we go any further, what do you think about a message break? That's great? Okay, So back to clouds. They caused trouble with lasers and with satellites. Yeah, so that you gotta count on clear days. So it's not like these things are humming seven. Weren't you surprised finding out that clouds are still an impediment to lasers? No, I would have thought, like, I mean, the projects we're talking about, so like, gee, whiz, that can't cloud I thought that. It just seemed kind of like, well, what are you guys gonna do about that? Because that's a pretty big obstacle. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, maybe they could have an anti seating program, Oh yeah, to disperse clouds. Nice. Um, so, chuck, NASA doesn't need to turn its back fully on space, like we said, it's still carrying out the Mars mission. Um, what was after that? Are they going to Saturn? I don't know, Saturn Uranus? Maybe they're they're exploring some moon I can't remember, remember it's what They haven't turned their back on space, and they don't need to because there's a huge threat from space bearing down on us constantly. That's right near Earth objects, which I feel like we should do a podcast just on near Earth objects. If you want to get here then some medium, go watch the movie Armageddon done. Although that is deep impact in armagedding. We're both um, while fanciful, not too far off, and that there are objects that come near the Earth and we think if we can detect them soon enough, that there is existing technology now that can throw these things off course. Right, and Earth is constantly being bombarded every day about a hundred hundred tons of material like rain down on the Earth. We're talking little particles, things that break up in the atmosphere, um, mostly like comment dust and stuff. Right, Um, But there are uh NASA estimates about a thousand objects that could collide with Earth that are kilometer or more in diameter. It's point six two miles in diameter, and that if any one of these impacted Earth, which they do about every ten thousand years, it would be what's called a global catastrophe. Actually, good news, buddy, that is every several hundred thousand years, So what comes down every ten years? About every ten thousand years, asteroids um larger than about a hundred meters could hit the Earth and that would just be like a local disaster. So it would be like a one the size of a football field. Yeah, and that I mean, that's not great if you're near it, but it's not like a what they would call a global disaster, like the end of the world type scenario. And that's one that's like a kilometer in diameter. Yeah, And it says every several hundred thousand years or so. I feel like, yeah, what are the chances that that's going to happen the next like forty years? I don't know, aren't we like on a when was the last one? It was about a quarter of a million years ago, wasn't it. I don't know. Was it the one that formed the chit club creator? I don't think I've pronounced that correctly, but you know what I'm talking about people who are familiar with that or they do. But the point is we need a lead time on the stuff. Chee Club, the Chicken Club. It's a there's an X in there, but it's a. It's it's in Mesoamerica. So the X is like a hawk. Oh, it's pronounced cutulu. No, it was close oak, it's like that. But there's a chi and I believe a club afterwards. So I'm just gonna say, chee club creator. But I think that was longer ago than a hundred thousand years ago, that extinction event. Yes, okay, Well, the good news is if we have a little bit of lead time, like a few years, supposedly there are things that we can do to knock these asteroids off course, like what one is. Using nuclear fission weapons, you set it off and the trick is you don't want to blow this thing up, no, because then you might have a lot of problems. Yeah, that's even worse. But um, it would just set it off course. And even if you set something off course by a few millimeters over the course of years, that could be enough. So it's not like they're looking to knock at miles away or anything, although in the movies that's how they do it. Yeah, and the movies that's how they did do it. I think, of course, we may mind them, which we talked about. Yeah, asteroid mining, um and tracking these things has actually become something of a crowdsource thing. There's NASA has this um All Sky Fireball Network that sounds so not real, yeah, but it is. It's a real program they have where they have cameras that are connected to the Internet that are constantly filming the night sky. Most of them are along the Eastern Seaboard. We got one here in Georgia, yeah, and Alabama, HASM, Tennessee. Um. They're they're grouped in clusters. Um. And actually, if you want to propose your location as a place to host one of these cameras, typically they're like on schools or things like that, Yeah, you can. You can submit an application and if there's there's really just like four criteria. It's like there can't be a lot of light pollution or a light nearby, and that rules me out. You have to be able to um, you have to be connected to the internet, like a couple of a couple of other things. Um. But it's it's like you can get a camera set up and be part of the All Sky Fireball Network. That's pretty cool. I think the plan is to eventually have fifteen of these in place, and um, I guess tracking fireballs, Yeah, which were good, good things to keep TAM's on for sure, you got anything else? No, that's all the news about NASA. I wish NASA would sponsor US man, that'd be awesome. Yeah, talk talk about someone we could stump for NASA. Yeah, sure, let's let's do it. NASA. What's your problem? You guys have deep pockets? Yeah? Uh, let's see. If you want to know more about NASA, you can type that word into the handy search bar how stuff works. That comment will bring up a bunch of articles we love NASA here, how stuff works and stuff you should know. Um, and since I said handy search bar, Chuck, it's time for listener mail. Straight to listener mail. Yeah. Oh do you hear that chime? Man, it's like two thousand nine? All right, dear guys and Jerry. It just got home from another eight hour car trip with my hobby, during which we binge listened to the stuff you should know. Yeah, this has been our car trip ritual for about a year now. We actually moved to Atlanta, Kenna saw last August, and we make pretty frequent trips to our hometown of St. Louis. That's a long car trip, Yeah, it sure is. I wonder if they know that you can fly there really quickly. Um. He introduced me to the Podcas asked on her first trip down here, and I have to admit I didn't have much hope. I'm a ballet teacher who loves arts and fiction in long hours with Netflix, and he is a self tart programmer who loves biographies and doing math for fun in its free time. So when he told me what the show was, I was thinking, great, I'm gonna feel dumb and bored. But we gave it a try. Anyway. I also have to admit, and this one is kind of funny. After listening to one or two episodes, I told him I didn't like it. He not understanding how that was possible, ask me why not, and I said, dude, it's so condescending that the way they ask each other questions and converse as if they don't already know what the other person is gonna say, as if he sniffed me off the case right away. She says, So she's a true fan by saying, I don't think that's fake. I think they're really right. Don't write out a full script ahead of time, I believe it or not. He's right, believe or not. That changed everything, which might seem silly, but I bet you listened to a past episode and imagine it was totally scripted and rehearse she'd see what I mean now, I recommended everyone. I can't even conceive of how we would be able to generate the level of clumsiness that we rise to every episode. You couldn't write that. Yeah, So thanks guys for putting out a very entertaining program for people of all ages to enjoy, and for being less sad than this American life, which we also love, but sometimes we just don't have enough tissue and emotional resolve to listen to it. That is from Amber and Ben Studive Baker. Thanks to you guys. Thanks Amber and Ben. Hey there, if you're on one of your road trips, drive safe and drive safe to everybody out there who's listening on a road trip or on a long haul or on an airplane whatever. If you're listening to us right now and you're traveling, I hope it's a nice time, agreed. Uh. If you want to tell us about those travels, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. UM. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email Yeah Too Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com m brought to you by the all neween Toyota Corolla

Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles Bryant Chuckers. You might know him. An Sure, there's a w in there somewhere at sure for the Wayne. Yeah, named after Wayne coyn Right, No, we talked about that before. Yeah, John, Wayne, how are you doing. I'm great, man, Um, I am all over this NASA activity. Oh yeah, yeah, good because it seems like i'll we hear about NASA these days is how they're having to shut down uh space programs, Right, that's the other stuff is cool. Well, that's the impression I have is that they're kind of taking their um, their field of vision the mountain to outer space and turning it planet word towards Earth. Why not, That's where all the people are that are buying Big Max. Right. Well, if if space exploration is going private, you got the Elon Musk's and the Richard Branson's of the world saying we got this, NASA, you go do something else with all of your high tech remote sensing equipment, then it makes sense that NASA would say, Okay, we'll become the watchdog guardian of the planet. And that's what they've they've become. Plus, also, if you're the United States using NASA's remote sensing equipment on Earth, is a dynamite cover for intelligence gathering? Well yeah, I mean you have all sorts of satellites carrying out different functions, but really all of them are taking pictures of the Earth, highly detailed ones too. You want to know about Russian troops formation as NASA yet of volcano? Sure? If you want to know what kind of sand way? Uh, Julian Assange had today, asked NASA, Well, that's NASA. Everyone knows that what Juna fish is, That what his thing is. Sure every day, that's how he keeps his white main white. Him and Michio Kaku. Yeah, the white mullet. Actually it's not so mellody. It's just more of a main main for sure. Both of them have a main, a big helmet of hair. So chuck um. But I guess the question we've posed today I feel like we need to answer is can NASA predict natural disasters? I think we can go ahead and answer and say not yet. Right, But now that again, they've kind of mothballed space exploration to an extent. I mean we're still hitting Mars. Yeah, yeah, we're not. They're not mothballing it, but they're they're they've reached the point where they're like, Okay, we've got all this really good equipment, let's start monitoring Earth a little more because there's a lot of questions we have. Um. Now, they've reached this point where since the beginning of twenty one century, they've started conducting missions. They have planned ones that are just being started now, some that are coming in the next couple of years, and from all this data they'll be able to analyze it and start to be able to predict natural disasters. So they have this whole like toolbox. I guess if you wanted to go into like corporate buzz speak of of programs and missions that they're carrying out that will help them predict natural disasters pretty soon. That's right, not the low hanging fruit, right, they're just trying to reach out and play together with the Earth in the same in the same space, in the same space. Maybe Java storm boy at the corporate talk, Yeah, we shunned that at all costs here, Um, all right, so let's talk about this. We talked about remote sensing. That is UM basically detecting energy reflecting from something UM when it's pointed out in space, like when you're looking for new planets, it's pointed out in space. When you pointed on Earth, it's a heck of a lot closer, right, And to get more detail. And they're they're using different kinds of UM detectors. They're detecting different kinds of energy I should say, like microwave, radiation, X rays. It's not just like using your peepers. That information can be translated into something we use our peepers to look at, but for they can use this equipment to sense all sorts of different stuff. Yeah. And like you said, it's UM. It's like mounted on aircraft or it's part of a satellite or is a satellite and um, yeah, it's all up. They're looking back at you right now, yes, the wave. Yeah, or it's looking at the Earth where we're just the insignificant tiny specs crawling around on the Earth. Yeah. And this is this is a kind of a big deal. You know, it makes sense, it's sensible what they're doing. It's a smart thing. To do with NASA's department, but it also really is, um, we're at the threshold of like a really big change in our understanding of our planet, you know, Like I think there's kind of a lot of assumptions that people make about our understanding of the planet that are just totally incorrect. Like, for example, I would have guessed that meteorologists and climatologists knew how tropical storms form. They do not, uh, And from using things like well, there's actually a project that was carried out in the summer of two thousand ten UM that was dedicated to studying this is called grip genesis and rapid intensification processes. And for a couple of a couple of months, some NASA scientists flew around on a Gulf Stream jet and took really precise measurements of what they believed were the beginnings of tropical storms to see how they form exactly. Yeah, And the goal with pretty much everything that we're going to talk about today is early detection. Because you can't stop a hurricane, you can't stop a volcano or an earthquake. But like the old saying, that's right, but if you know it's coming, then you can get people out of the way. You can thwart some of them to some degree. Yeah, Like anybody can point to a hurricane be like, oh, there's a hurricane. By then it's a little too late. If you can point to the very beginnings the cradle of the hurricane, the formation of a tropical storm. Now you're talking about time that you have to warn people, like you, guys need to get out of here. Yeah. And there is one really cool program they've had going since two thousand two called GRACE. There's gonna be a lot of acronyms today, by the way, the UM the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, this is my favorite one. It's it's really cool basically what they're doing. All right, Well, let's step back a minute. Let's talk about Newton. Okay, gravity depends on the mass of an object. In the case of polar ice caps, the mass is changing. So if the mass is changing, the gravity is changing. Right. So when when the polar ice caps melt and turn to water and then flow towards the equator, um they are often so big that they left it in depression on the Earth's surface. Once they're gone, that depression could be filled in the mantle can fill back in in the area, changing the mass in that particular part of Earth and hence changing the gravity. Right, Yeah, it's one estimate has between two thousand and ten and two thousand and eleven UM, the Greenland ice Shield lost two hundred and twenty four giga tons of mats. So not only is that going to change the land formation in the mass, it's gonna make the sea level rise at a rate of about point seven millimeters a year. That's going to change the makeup of the Earth. Um. And so they have a couple of buddies, Tom and Jerry that are in orbit satellites, twin satellites about a hundred and thirty six miles apart from each other. Do you know why they're called Tom and Jerry because they're chasing each other and then only they're on the same orbit exactly a polar orbit. Yeah, it's very cute. So they're constantly going from the North pole to the South Pole um as the Earth spins below them, right, that's right. And um they're taking they're they're taking measurements, two different types of measurements, but they're precisely separated from one another, and they're on precisely the same orbit, so they can. Really what they produce every thirty days is a full map of the gravitational field of Earth. Yeah, and they've Nanasa. They always work with other people, it seems like, which is a good thing to work with people around the world. But they worked with a company in Germany to develop UM an ultra precise distance measuring system that basically can measure within the precision what they say is one tenth of the width of a hair. That's pretty precise. Yeah. So basically these things are flying U and between the two they're measuring the distances and discrepancies between these two identical twin satellites, and that's information is being relaid back analyze. Yeah, because the upside of this is number one, the Earth is not a perfect sphere. We know that. I can't remember what we talked about that in oh maps. Yeah potato. Yeah, in the the the gravitational field is not perfectly round either. It's lower in some places, higher in other places. The force of gravity um. So yeah, it's formed what was coined the Potsdam gravity potato. And if you look it up now there's some pretty cool UM artists rendering of what the Earth's magnetic field looks like and as a three dimensional model. Yeah, it's very cool. Um, so check that out. And that's been updated dramatically in the last couple of years thanks to this GRACE project. Yeah, and the ultimate goal basically is to measure this gravitational field over time see how it's changing with kind of accuracy we've never had before, which will in turn inform us on climate related uh drunk right, I mean and and is it just a correlation between mean, like ice caps melting in a change in a gravitational field, or does that ice cap melting trigger that change in the gravitational field, which in turn has some other effects. So, um, there's a lot of I think understanding we can gain from knowing what the gravitational field is changing, how it's changing. Yeah, do you like using your GPS to get somewhere, Well, then this kind of information can go on to help GPS because basically it's just gonna improve the trajectories of these UH satellites and everything is just more specific. It's like a hundred times um more detailed than they've ever had before. So that's gonna help everything out from detecting climate change or temperature and in like potential hurricanes and stuff too, like getting you to McDonald's, right, you know, which is pretty important by the way, chuck. Um uh, the tropical storms. You want to how they think they form? Now? Um, well, I'm gonna tell you. So. The speed of waves on an ocean, um, if it matches the speed of the movement of some air above it, and an umbilical cord of warm, humid air can get into this little pillow sandwich. It forms this protective pouch and from there a convection current can start and form into a tropical storm, which can then form into a hurricane. That's what they learned from the GRIP program. Man, it seems like they would have known this stuff before then, you think, so, you know, but we're talking like two when they're I don't even think it's been proven. I think that that's what they think based on the data from the two thousand ten experiments. Yeah, aren't they still analyzing that stuff? Alright? I imagine like that's got to be a pretty good field to get into now and in the next like five ten years, analyzing NASA data. Yeah, and just anything to do with the climate probably anything, Yeah, things that's changing. It's gonna be gangbusters. There's a lot of money in the weather. Um. All right, so that's tropical storms and hurricanes. We didn't talk about the GPM project. Um. Yeah, that they're working with UM. NASA's working with Japan and they're NASA, which is called the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency or JACKSON, and that is a Global Precipitation measurement and they are using satellites to observe all kinds of participation precipitation patterns all over the world. And basically, like before, we can only place these things in certain spots that were easier to get to, and you can't place them out of the ocean, and you can't place them in the andies because it's too rocky. This allows us to study the entire globe for the first time. So they're following they're basically tracking the movement of water around the planet on like a daily, seasonal, a yearly basis um. And what they hope to be able to gain from this it's a predict when floods happened, because apparently a major flood happens every day around the Earth. Yeah, and a lot of times those floods lead to landslides. We saw firsthand in Guatemala what happens when a landslide comes down. Remember, oh, yeah, we were standing there and they said, this is literally twelve feet higher than it was. Yeah, we were standing on the remains of a village that got caught in the middle of the night and they're like, there are people down there still. Yeah, you could still see the swath that have been cut through the jungle on the mountain side. Right. So they're hoping, okay, well, if we can figure out when a flood's coming, we can predict landslides in turns, So by tracking global precipitation, that's what they're hoping to be able to do with that. Yeah. They're also using uh L I d a R at the light R Surface topography system. This is my second favorite one, the list one UM, and they're hopefully going to be able to attract things like volcanoes, earthquakes, landslide us and erosion. But not wildfires. No, not wildfires. That's crazy talk. That is crazy talk. But it's the same thing as with tracking precipitation. As of two years ago, we had to physically put some sensor somewhere and there are places we just couldn't get to, and now that we have satellites, we can track that stuff. Same goes with this, like we used to have to be able to find a fault line, put sensors there and then monitor that um with with the list program. With leader UM, they're using lasers to monitor fault lines and find new ones that we didn't know were there before, track their movement, and then use those to predict earthquakes and then similarly predict volcanoes. So listen to this. Okay. The resolution now they have is five meter horizontal resolution with a precision of four inches. Previously, the best data we could get was thirty meter resolution with a thirty to foot precision, So went from thirty two to four inches. That's pretty good. They'd be like, give it take thirty two ft. Yeah, now let's give it take four inches with thanks to lasers, so they could possibly detect volcanic activity before it happens. Right, And the way that they're doing that, you would think, well, they're using thermal cameras. You'd be wrong. What they're doing is looking for land deformation. Apparently before a volcano goes off, that land around it literally deforms, it swells due to pressure. And since we are tracking topography now using this UM this program, we can say, oh, well that that crater wasn't three times larger than it is now like a week ago, maybe a volcan is about to go off. Uh. And it's not just volcanoes and natural disasters. They can also monitor erosion and top soil loss, basically anything on the Earth that's interesting they can like really accurately closely monitor. Now and this said two thousand sixteen, is it already underway? Um? No, it's two thousand thirteen. Chuck. Now that says it was gonna launch in two thousand sixteen, but it's already Is it already going Okay? I think it's launching in two thousand sixteen. Okay, so this is just the plan, you're right, Yeah, I know they have a lot of like this just started, like the UM I think it might have been the Grace Program started in two thousand two and it's been going on. It is the Grace Program, the one with Tom and Jerry. Right, Yeah, that was right, and it had its tenth anniversary in two thousand twelve. I think that might have been the first project like this and now NASA's throwing like everything into this stuff, and we're just at the at the forefront, at the very beginning of this kind of thing. This is a very timely episode. Frankly, it's actually um they have. In fact, I think these new probes are even newer than the List program, right that NASA is proposing to launch, the one we were just talking about with the volcano deformation. Yeah, yeah, um this is a pair of satellites that monitor little bitty changes in the surface. And um, I guess it's a funding thing because I don't think these two are even uh, I think they're still just like in the proposition phase. So I guess we should say, like then they will be doing this, this is coming yeah, and like this particular project. Yeah, and the precipitation when his launches in February of next year. So it sounds as though these things are already happening. But I think it's just like this is how it's gonna work. It sounds as though they're already happening because of us. The tents were using that's right, we're using present, we should be using future perfect. One of the problems with the satellites, though, is um and with lasers, is clouds right? Because clouds get in the way. It's got to be a clear day to use most of this stuff. Hold on, I know you love talking about clouds. I do too. But before we go any further, what do you think about a message break? That's great? Okay, So back to clouds. They caused trouble with lasers and with satellites. Yeah, so that you gotta count on clear days. So it's not like these things are humming seven. Weren't you surprised finding out that clouds are still an impediment to lasers? No, I would have thought, like, I mean, the projects we're talking about, so like, gee, whiz, that can't cloud I thought that. It just seemed kind of like, well, what are you guys gonna do about that? Because that's a pretty big obstacle. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, maybe they could have an anti seating program, Oh yeah, to disperse clouds. Nice. Um, so, chuck, NASA doesn't need to turn its back fully on space, like we said, it's still carrying out the Mars mission. Um, what was after that? Are they going to Saturn? I don't know, Saturn Uranus? Maybe they're they're exploring some moon I can't remember, remember it's what They haven't turned their back on space, and they don't need to because there's a huge threat from space bearing down on us constantly. That's right near Earth objects, which I feel like we should do a podcast just on near Earth objects. If you want to get here then some medium, go watch the movie Armageddon done. Although that is deep impact in armagedding. We're both um, while fanciful, not too far off, and that there are objects that come near the Earth and we think if we can detect them soon enough, that there is existing technology now that can throw these things off course. Right, and Earth is constantly being bombarded every day about a hundred hundred tons of material like rain down on the Earth. We're talking little particles, things that break up in the atmosphere, um, mostly like comment dust and stuff. Right, Um, But there are uh NASA estimates about a thousand objects that could collide with Earth that are kilometer or more in diameter. It's point six two miles in diameter, and that if any one of these impacted Earth, which they do about every ten thousand years, it would be what's called a global catastrophe. Actually, good news, buddy, that is every several hundred thousand years, So what comes down every ten years? About every ten thousand years, asteroids um larger than about a hundred meters could hit the Earth and that would just be like a local disaster. So it would be like a one the size of a football field. Yeah, and that I mean, that's not great if you're near it, but it's not like a what they would call a global disaster, like the end of the world type scenario. And that's one that's like a kilometer in diameter. Yeah, And it says every several hundred thousand years or so. I feel like, yeah, what are the chances that that's going to happen the next like forty years? I don't know, aren't we like on a when was the last one? It was about a quarter of a million years ago, wasn't it. I don't know. Was it the one that formed the chit club creator? I don't think I've pronounced that correctly, but you know what I'm talking about people who are familiar with that or they do. But the point is we need a lead time on the stuff. Chee Club, the Chicken Club. It's a there's an X in there, but it's a. It's it's in Mesoamerica. So the X is like a hawk. Oh, it's pronounced cutulu. No, it was close oak, it's like that. But there's a chi and I believe a club afterwards. So I'm just gonna say, chee club creator. But I think that was longer ago than a hundred thousand years ago, that extinction event. Yes, okay, Well, the good news is if we have a little bit of lead time, like a few years, supposedly there are things that we can do to knock these asteroids off course, like what one is. Using nuclear fission weapons, you set it off and the trick is you don't want to blow this thing up, no, because then you might have a lot of problems. Yeah, that's even worse. But um, it would just set it off course. And even if you set something off course by a few millimeters over the course of years, that could be enough. So it's not like they're looking to knock at miles away or anything, although in the movies that's how they do it. Yeah, and the movies that's how they did do it. I think, of course, we may mind them, which we talked about. Yeah, asteroid mining, um and tracking these things has actually become something of a crowdsource thing. There's NASA has this um All Sky Fireball Network that sounds so not real, yeah, but it is. It's a real program they have where they have cameras that are connected to the Internet that are constantly filming the night sky. Most of them are along the Eastern Seaboard. We got one here in Georgia, yeah, and Alabama, HASM, Tennessee. Um. They're they're grouped in clusters. Um. And actually, if you want to propose your location as a place to host one of these cameras, typically they're like on schools or things like that, Yeah, you can. You can submit an application and if there's there's really just like four criteria. It's like there can't be a lot of light pollution or a light nearby, and that rules me out. You have to be able to um, you have to be connected to the internet, like a couple of a couple of other things. Um. But it's it's like you can get a camera set up and be part of the All Sky Fireball Network. That's pretty cool. I think the plan is to eventually have fifteen of these in place, and um, I guess tracking fireballs, Yeah, which were good, good things to keep TAM's on for sure, you got anything else? No, that's all the news about NASA. I wish NASA would sponsor US man, that'd be awesome. Yeah, talk talk about someone we could stump for NASA. Yeah, sure, let's let's do it. NASA. What's your problem? You guys have deep pockets? Yeah? Uh, let's see. If you want to know more about NASA, you can type that word into the handy search bar how stuff works. That comment will bring up a bunch of articles we love NASA here, how stuff works and stuff you should know. Um, and since I said handy search bar, Chuck, it's time for listener mail. Straight to listener mail. Yeah. Oh do you hear that chime? Man, it's like two thousand nine? All right, dear guys and Jerry. It just got home from another eight hour car trip with my hobby, during which we binge listened to the stuff you should know. Yeah, this has been our car trip ritual for about a year now. We actually moved to Atlanta, Kenna saw last August, and we make pretty frequent trips to our hometown of St. Louis. That's a long car trip, Yeah, it sure is. I wonder if they know that you can fly there really quickly. Um. He introduced me to the Podcas asked on her first trip down here, and I have to admit I didn't have much hope. I'm a ballet teacher who loves arts and fiction in long hours with Netflix, and he is a self tart programmer who loves biographies and doing math for fun in its free time. So when he told me what the show was, I was thinking, great, I'm gonna feel dumb and bored. But we gave it a try. Anyway. I also have to admit, and this one is kind of funny. After listening to one or two episodes, I told him I didn't like it. He not understanding how that was possible, ask me why not, and I said, dude, it's so condescending that the way they ask each other questions and converse as if they don't already know what the other person is gonna say, as if he sniffed me off the case right away. She says, So she's a true fan by saying, I don't think that's fake. I think they're really right. Don't write out a full script ahead of time, I believe it or not. He's right, believe or not. That changed everything, which might seem silly, but I bet you listened to a past episode and imagine it was totally scripted and rehearse she'd see what I mean now, I recommended everyone. I can't even conceive of how we would be able to generate the level of clumsiness that we rise to every episode. You couldn't write that. Yeah, So thanks guys for putting out a very entertaining program for people of all ages to enjoy, and for being less sad than this American life, which we also love, but sometimes we just don't have enough tissue and emotional resolve to listen to it. That is from Amber and Ben Studive Baker. Thanks to you guys. Thanks Amber and Ben. Hey there, if you're on one of your road trips, drive safe and drive safe to everybody out there who's listening on a road trip or on a long haul or on an airplane whatever. If you're listening to us right now and you're traveling, I hope it's a nice time, agreed. Uh. If you want to tell us about those travels, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. UM. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email Yeah Too Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. 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