Icy Worlds - December Theme Month

To conclude our December theme, Quizmaster Andi surveyed the frigid cosmos for four icy worlds. But one of the celestial bodies she describes is from a fictional universe! Listen in as hosts Tanner and Sups do their best to separate fact from fiction and find the fake world. Bundle up and chill out as we round out the year and ring in the new one with this ent-ice-ing episode. 

Transcript

Sups 0:01

Mmm. Take me to that world.

Andi 0:03

well, it would melt your face off. So,

Tanner 0:07

make

Sups 0:09

you can't just make random words and just say, okay, I feel like I'm sitting in a physics class at Harvard that I'm unqualified for. a lot of times when something sounds super crazy Yeah. Might as well be true.

Tanner 0:24

This is all really sketchy.

Sups 0:26

Yeah.

Tanner 0:27

This is that part of science where it's like, This is science fiction.

Andi 0:31

Hello and welcome to this episode of I Should Have Known, the trivia game show that can't be trusted. Each week, one of our Quizmasters will present you with four facts about a topic, but one of them is a lie. And for the month of December, we've been doing a December theme. I don't know how that happened. Today's episode is winter inspired I will be your quiz master. I'm Andy, and we are doing a find the fake episode on icy worlds. So we're talking about cold, cold worlds. but one of these worlds is actually from science fiction. It is not real. So join our other hosts, Supes and Tanner in figuring out which one of my icy worlds is alive.

Tanner 1:13

Oh, right, Other planets, other

Andi 1:16

Wow. Yeah. So specifically this is icy worlds because not all of them are planets.

Tanner 1:22

Okay.

Sups 1:22

Okay.

Andi 1:23

And icy is also kind of, we'll talk a little bit more about that later, but that's not as literal or obvious as you might

Tanner 1:29

Do you mind if I ask? Kind of. So, I'm actually,

Andi 1:34

worlds. Yeah. So I'm not going to give you the names or locations of any of them. So they're all decontextualized. Because otherwise it would be pretty

Tanner 1:44

of

Andi 1:44

So to start getting you thinking about what we're talking about, our PQQ what is the name of the fictional icy planet in the Star Wars Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back?

Tanner 1:58

Oh yeah. I was actually hoping that the fake would be this one, so I would know it nice.

Andi 2:03

Nice try.

Tanner 2:04

It's H right?

Andi 2:05

Yeah, at the beginning of that movie, there's a battle of Hoth between the Empire and the Rebellion. Hoth is actually a rocky Earth like planet about half the size of the Earth, orbiting a star also named Hoth. So it's in the Hoth system.

Tanner 2:21

They really were not creative in that department.

Andi 2:24

No, So, that is kind of The trick of this episode will be something like Hoth, where it's a fictional world.

Tanner 2:31

I love it. Awesome. Let's get nerdy talk about icy

Andi 2:35

Yeah, so icy world number one. An ice giant with diamond rain.

Tanner 2:40

diamond freed

Sups 2:41

Mmm. My kind of

Andi 2:44

ice

Sups 2:44

world.

Tanner 2:44

diamond freed

Andi 2:46

Yes.

Sups 2:47

How many carrots? No.

Tanner 2:48

of

Andi 2:49

I don't

Tanner 2:50

only icy

Andi 2:51

So actually not only diamond rain. Mm-Hmm. but also likely diamond oceans with diamond bergs. An

Tanner 3:00

What? Like an iceberg, but diamonds?

Sups 3:03

every girl's dream. Take me to that world.

Andi 3:06

well, it would melt your face off. So, yeah, so this is an ice giant. So an ice giant is a specific designation of planet. there are giants. planets who are composed primarily of gases or gaseous And then ice giants are a subsect of giants, where they are high in elements other than hydrogen and helium. So this particular ice giant with the diamond ring is cyan or blue in color because it is high levels of water, ammonia, and methane ice. And

Tanner 3:44

Okay, so it has to be cold, because if the temperature was a little higher, then all those would be liquid or gas,

Sups 3:51

gas.

Tanner 3:52

Oh.

Andi 3:53

So this planet It's minimum temperature Which is a theoretical concept is about 49 Kelvin, which is minus 224 Celsius or minus 371 Fahrenheit.

Tanner 4:08

Yikes, that is cold.

Andi 4:09

So that's its theoretical minimum temperature. it is roughly 20 AU, or astronomical units, which is the distance of the Earth from the Sun, from its star.

Tanner 4:20

the Sun, from its star. It's about 4

Andi 4:25

It's about 4 times the diameter of the Earth, but 14 times the mass.

Tanner 4:29

the mass.

Andi 4:30

So it has this diamond Rain, which is probably actually a pretty common feature of ice giants, basically when methane molecules are put under a lot of pressure, they lose the carbon and then that carbon collects and is put under a lot of pressure. And we know when you do that, you get

Tanner 4:51

that, you get So the methane clouds are getting a carbon stripped. These are crunched together into diamonds, and they fall as rain into diamond lakes. Oh,

Sups 5:02

And we have to guess the fictional world this

Andi 5:04

that this comes from? this

Sups 5:08

description for some reason, scream Superman to

Tanner 5:11

screen Okay. Something like only he would survive it or a villain comes from this world or something Yeah, this sounds Very unbelievable to me. Yeah,

Sups 5:20

What were you thinking?

Tanner 5:21

Mean I think all four are gonna sound unbelievable today. I've heard of like planets that are diamond or like stars that are diamond But not diamond rain

Sups 5:31

are diamonds found in other planets?

Tanner 5:33

Yeah, because it's just like carbon high pressure,

Andi 5:37

hmm.

Tanner 5:37

but they're not like cut like Oh pretty, you know

Andi 5:40

Yeah.

Tanner 5:40

But it's, it sounds

Sups 5:43

Mm-Hmm..It's like the extreme end But also a lot of times when something sounds super crazy Yeah. Might as well be true.

Tanner 5:51

Right.

Andi 5:52

honestly, I think this was the least impressive of

Sups 5:56

Wow.

Andi 5:57

Wow. All

Tanner 5:58

I'm very curious as to what the other three are.

Andi 6:01

I will say it's important to keep in mind that most of this stuff is theoretical, because we have the technology to observe these kinds of things.

Tanner 6:08

right?,

Andi 6:09

We've never seen diamond rain, but, theoretically, That's what's there. Yeah. So, icy world This is a hop tune with hot ice.

Sups 6:22

the? No, no,

Andi 6:25

those words don't go

Tanner 6:25

just make

Sups 6:28

you can't just make random words and just say, okay, yes. I mean, cold fire, hot ice, like, I mean. Alright,

Andi 6:37

Alright, so let's first start with Hoptoon Yeah, that? Hoptoon is a hot Neptune.

Tanner 6:43

Oh, sure. Yeah. Right?

Andi 6:48

So this. Is a planet. about the size of Neptune, but it likely has a rocky core because it is under immense pressure because It's extremely close to its son. It's orbital period is about 2 days. It is less than 1 15th the distance between the sun and Mercury.

Tanner 7:08

between the Sun and Mercury. It's

Andi 7:12

yeah. Two days. Two days. Yeah. So it's extru Extremely Pew, pew! And so it's extremely close to its sun, and it's under immense pressure. So much pressure that ice that it has in its body is being compressed so that it's solid, it's ice, but it's hot.

Tanner 7:36

What?

Andi 7:37

So it has something called ice 16. first of all, let me blow your mind, there are different kinds of ices. They have numbers. What fridge? Ice one.

Tanner 7:46

brain? I don't know.

Andi 7:49

I assume. I'm only assuming that. so, Water is an extremely weird molecule. So because of its structure it can be pushed together in different ways. That it becomes solid molecularly, but it's not solid how it would want to be So there's ice 1 through, at least 18

Tanner 8:12

18. So there's a version of ice on this planet.

Andi 8:14

That is hot.

Sups 8:16

So do I burn myself when I touch this ice

Andi 8:18

Well, do you think 526 degrees Celsius is hot? or 980 degrees

Tanner 8:27

ice and it doesn't melt or evaporate? Because of the pressure? Pressure. Oh, okay. So the pressure is overtaking the temperature here.

Andi 8:36

So it's under immense pressure where it's forcing the molecules together so that they're not vibrating as a liquid,

Tanner 8:42

Hot

Andi 8:42

but it's not boiling away.

Sups 8:44

Hot

Tanner 8:45

This is all really sketchy.

Sups 8:47

Yeah.

Tanner 8:47

This is that part of science where it's like, This is science fiction. Like, this is so

Sups 8:52

unbelievable. BUt can you think of if it's fiction, like where

Tanner 8:55

That's always the fun

Sups 8:56

That's the funny part.

Tanner 8:57

is this from? So, yeah, I'm starting to think like Star Trek or something. like

Sups 9:01

that revolves like in two days? Yeah, weird

Tanner 9:04

Yeah But this is awfully Specific, so many details, you know, like,

Sups 9:09

I I feel like I'm sitting in a physics class at Harvard that I'm unqualified for. And like the is just going on and I'm like just nodding my head. Yep. Yep. That's

Tanner 9:18

belong in this class.

Sups 9:19

don't

Tanner 9:20

YOu said there's multiple ices?

Andi 9:21

There are multiple kinds of ice, yes.

Tanner 9:23

I need a lower level

Sups 9:25

level class. Okay.

Tanner 9:26

Yeah,

Sups 9:27

but

Tanner 9:27

of any fictional

Sups 9:28

no, no, I think I think this whole thing about hot ice really threw me off. And especially the ice have numbers now and we're talking about ice 16.

Tanner 9:38

I've heard of only ice nine because it's in like a Kurt Vonnegut story It has nothing to do with hot

Sups 9:44

or

Andi 9:45

Do you remember what Ice 9 does? Ice

Tanner 9:47

nine kills people it like freezes in a different way And it takes over ice and then everyone dies

Sups 9:53

everyone dies. Sure.

Andi 9:56

Yeah.

Tanner 9:56

Doesn't help us much.

Sups 9:57

no, no.

Andi 9:59

want to hear about Icy World number three?

Sups 10:00

Let's go.

Andi 10:01

All right. So I see world number three is an earth like planet with a band of liquid water.

Tanner 10:09

Okay. Cool.

Andi 10:11

I don't know if you guys realize this, but there's literally only one planet that we know of that has standing liquid water and it's the one we're

Sups 10:19

Yeah. Hang on.

Tanner 10:19

Right. You're

Andi 10:20

This one probably has a band of liquid water on So, this planet is about the size of the Earth. so it's rocky. It is on, outer edge of the Goldilocks zone. You ever heard of the Goldilocks zone?

Tanner 10:35

Yeah, it's the distance from its star where it's like habitable. theoretically, right?

Andi 10:40

Close. So this is a band of a distance that a planet can be from its star, where liquid water is possible on the

Tanner 10:49

Right. so theoretically you could draw a conclusion from that where you could have life.

Andi 10:53

Yes. Because as far as we know, life requires liquid water. so this was found a while ago, it also has a highly elliptical orbit, which makes it a little weird. so the earth has a nearly circular orbit. It is elliptical, right? It's a little bit further. Sometimes of the year than others. This is highly elliptical, which means at some points in its orbit, it's much further from its star than others, and it's just on the outer limit. And what's weird about this one is that it's highly reflective at the poles. But not the whole thing.

Tanner 11:26

thing. Yes. So that's

Andi 11:28

Yes. So that's what's led the theory of it having liquid water If it has water on the poles. within this zone. Pot. It should have liquid water in the tropics of

Sups 11:41

this

Andi 11:41

planet, essentially.

Sups 11:42

And you said this is a rocky planet. It's

Andi 11:45

planet.

Sups 11:46

Hmm,

Tanner 11:47

sounds like it should be a really big deal.

Sups 11:50

exactly.

Tanner 11:51

it's like Earth. It must be really, really far away. Otherwise, why, why are people wasting their time going to

Sups 11:56

Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. They could go, there.

Andi 11:59

yeah, it's 140 light years away.

Tanner 12:01

And you said it's an icy planet so is it cold

Andi 12:04

Yeah, I mean. Yeah, it's cold. I mean it has water ice on it. So it has to be at least as cold. Permanent water ice.

Sups 12:11

Mm hmm.

Andi 12:12

So like, at least that cold

Tanner 12:16

I was picturing Hoth for all of these. Like it's totally

Andi 12:19

icy. This is an ice, it has ice on it. That was my only

Tanner 12:24

meaning it has ice.

Sups 12:27

yeah.

Tanner 12:27

about this. We don't know all

Andi 12:33

It's all ice. has ice. It's like water ice is actually extremely common in the universe.

Tanner 12:38

yeah people think that it might be on the moon

Sups 12:41

Mm.

Tanner 12:41

right

Andi 12:42

on Mars For

Sups 12:43

Yeah.

Tanner 12:43

Right water ice

Andi 12:45

And then we're used to saying ice means Water.

Sups 12:48

But it's not only kind of ice. Yeah. Yes. some physics for you right

Andi 12:52

Yeah. It's not the only kind of ice, water ice, but liquid water we know of no planet other than this one that has it

Sups 13:00

liquid water. Yeah. Sounds too good to be true. I mean, if it were on the papers, if people were talking about it, then I think scientists would like spend a little bit more resources.

Tanner 13:12

Mm hmm. The other two sound like they're from fiction because they're so unbelievable. Like who thinks up Diamond Rain? This one sounds like it could be from fiction because it's too good to be true.

Sups 13:23

It's,

Tanner 13:23

It's unbelievable that we found another one like this. Hmm. But I can't pinpoint which fiction it's from, you know.

Sups 13:30

I'd imagine this to be like a maybe in this section where life was formed or whatever, like, you know, because this is, let's see,

Tanner 13:37

Like from Prometheus or something. yeah, Yeah. Yeah We have one more

Andi 13:43

Alright, icy world number four Is a snowball moon with cryovolcanoes.

Tanner 13:48

snowball moon.

Andi 13:50

Yes, so this one is not a planet. It's a moon.

Tanner 13:53

Mhmm.

Andi 13:53

So it orbits a planet, not a star. It is pretty small. about 500 kilometers across. Or 310 miles.

Sups 14:02

Or

Andi 14:03

It is entirely covered in water ice. It is bright white. talking. Like a snowball.

Tanner 14:10

Yeah.

Andi 14:10

is the most Hoth like of them.

Tanner 14:12

Yeah. This fits the description.

Andi 14:15

Yes. It reflects almost all the sunlight it receives. So the surface temperature is about minus 201 degrees Celsius, which is minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's cold. So this is the iciest of them, I suppose. Yeah.

Tanner 14:30

what was the other part? Cryovolcanoes? Okay, I know a thing or two about volcanoes. I did an episode on volcanoes.

Sups 14:37

Okay.

Andi 14:37

the hubris on this

Sups 14:39

the is It from? don't

Andi 14:44

So a cryo volcano cryo, of course means cold or ice and volcano is exactly what you think. So the surface of this world is water ice, but underneath, probably there's a liquid ocean and fresh ice. Get it? This ocean explodes out because the inside of this body is active. It's not geothermal because geo means earth, but it has like thermal activities inside of it. And so, spews out water from icy volcanoes.

Tanner 15:18

Like a geyser.

Sups 15:19

Yeah. Kind

Andi 15:20

of like a geyser yeah. And it has, rich plumes of, like, salt, silica, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, lots of elements, they spew out into space, and then it rains back down. In snow

Tanner 15:33

Wow Wow

Andi 15:34

ice snows back down,

Tanner 15:36

Wow

Sups 15:37

So instead of lava, this volcano is giving out ice. you're not burning, you're freezing to

Tanner 15:42

you're breezing. Wow.

Sups 15:45

What do you think? This one's real or fake?

Tanner 15:46

Ah, it sounds so fake. a pure white moon. with like ice volcanoes. that sounds like it's from fiction. Yeah. Oh no. That's a good point.

Sups 16:00

This one to me sounds real.

Tanner 16:03

hmm.

Sups 16:04

I mean, sure, just by the description, this is outrageous, but in our spaces like a lot of outrageous things.

Tanner 16:11

Yeah, and I know a lot of moons are really weird like that, like around Jupiter and Saturn, they have really weird makeup.

Sups 16:18

are you trying to tell me that there isn't one moon

Tanner 16:21

moon which can have

Sups 16:22

something like this? That's I mean, can't believe I'm saying this, I'm feeling this is

Tanner 16:28

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sups 16:30

okay. we have to guess, right. There's brilliant descriptions of icy worlds. Before we do, Andy, will you repeat these words for us?

Andi 16:38

us? Yes. Icy world number one was an ice giant with diamond rain. Icy world number two was a hoptoon with hot ice. Ice world number three was an earth like planet with a band of liquid water. And ice world number four is a snowball moon with cryovolcanoes. One of those is from a work of fiction. The other three are real.

Tanner 17:12

Man.

Sups 17:13

I am feeling that number three is the fake one. but the problem there, why I'm not 100 percent sure is that because the description is like earth like, you know, which makes me believe. And at the same time, not believe that this is a work of fiction. it's between number three and four I don't have any logic, knowledge, to go off of but what are you thinking? Which one's the fake one?

Tanner 17:36

Yeah. I agree. I think it's three or four. I think three sounds really, really close to how you would describe Earth or where a human-like character from Sci-Fi would come from. Yeah. So I think that's very convenient. I think that's probably the sci-fi mm-Hmm. I think number four is like very. Easy to come up with, so I think a science fiction writer would come up with a world like that. So which one are you gonna go with?

Sups 18:02

Hmm. I think I'm going to go with number four, even though I believe it's real, but I see why this could be fictional. Like it's, it has the quality of both. I'm going to pick number

Tanner 18:12

Yeah, you there. I think number three would fit really well in sci fi, so I think it's number three.

Sups 18:18

Okay.

Andi 18:19

Okay. So let's start with the two you didn't pick. icy world number one. The ice giant with diamond rain. That's Uranus.

Sups 18:27

Yep.

Andi 18:28

Actually, probably all ice giants have diamond rain. So it's not impressive at all. Neptune also would have worked, but I just picked Uranus.

Sups 18:35

Uranus.

Andi 18:36

Hoptoon is a planet called GJ436b, which orbits, red dwarf called GJ436, which is in Leo. It's roughly 32 light years away from here. It actually has this weird ice, hot ice.

Tanner 18:57

weird,

Andi 18:58

real.

Tanner 18:58

so weird.

Andi 18:59

so, number four the snowball moon is Enceladus, which is a moon of Saturn.

Tanner 19:06

moon in Saturn.

Sups 19:09

Mm hmm.

Andi 19:09

Yeah, so that one's real. I mean, I thought that you guys would question more how we know what's inside the plume. We know because we've sent spacecraft to collect the water from this moon, which is crazy

Tanner 19:23

collected water from the moon.

Andi 19:25

Yeah, that's how we know what's inside the water That's why I was like you guys never even question how like how do we know? What's in the water? We've collected water from this moon that orbits Saturn and we analyzed it.

Tanner 19:36

That's nuts.

Andi 19:37

I know, and you never questioned that. You were

Sups 19:40

like, oh yeah, we Just assumed

Andi 19:42

But yeah, anyway, number three, you're right. It The only planet that has standing liquid water is the Earth's. We don't have the ability to detect Exoplanets of Earth's size, almost all exoplanets we find are much bigger than the Earth's. And certainly not with enough detail to know. what different parts of the surface of this planet would look like. So this planet is actually a planet called Gethen or Winter, and it's from the universe of Ursula K. Le Guin. In the Hamish series, particularly, this is the setting of The Left Hand of Darkness from 1969.

Sups 20:17

mm-Hmm.

Andi 20:18

So, this planet is a cold planet. Its poles are permanently frozen and only, like, the tropics are habitable. And they're also cold. And it's inhabited by an ambisexual, agender species of human.

Tanner 20:30

And there's liquid water.

Sups 20:33

Yes,

Andi 20:33

that's how they live there. But that's the weird part. They're humans, they're humans, yeah. So there's standing liquid water on Titan, which is a moon of Saturn as well, but that's not a planet. So the only planet we know of with Standing liquid water is the earth.

Tanner 20:50

All

Sups 20:50

Right. Mm-Hmm.

Andi 20:51

And yeah, Ice 9 is real. We can maybe talk about that in a bonus. I have a lot more to say about Ionic Ice and all the different kinds of ices because it's absolutely bonkers.

Tanner 21:01

Absolutely

Andi 21:01

But that's maybe for A bonus for our patrons.

Tanner 21:04

When we nerd

Sups 21:05

we can really

Andi 21:06

really nerd out and talk about ice

Sups 21:07

Thanks

Andi 21:10

should have known. Thanks for listening to this episode of I should have known. This concludes our wintry December theme. And Happy New Year to everybody, and we'll see you on the other side. And as always,

Tanner 21:37

Let's get chilly.