Searching for Space Water, with Natalie Starkey - StarTalk All-Stars

Water, water everywhere…and by everywhere, we mean the solar system, our galaxy, and the universe itself. Join us as we search for space water with our host, cosmochemist Natalie Starkey, co-host Chuck Nice, and planetary scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is StarTalk.

• 0:09Natalie Starkey?

  Hello and welcome to StarTalk. I am Dr. Natalie Starkey and this is StarTalk All-Stars. I am going to be your All-Star host today and joining me as a co-host, I have comedian Chuck Neid.

• 0:20Chuck Nice?

  Hey Natalie!

• 0:21Natalie Starkey?

  Thank you.

• 0:22Chuck Nice?

  Good to be with you again.

• 0:24Natalie Starkey?

  Yes, it's going to be fun, I think, because today we are going to be talking about water in space. I want to just stress that I'm saying water.

• 0:32Chuck Nice?

  Water.

• 0:32Natalie Starkey?

  Water. I'm very British.

• 0:34Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, water.

• 0:35Natalie Starkey?

  There's a T in the middle of water.

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Not water.

• 0:37Natalie Starkey?

  Not water, no.

• 0:37Chuck Nice?

  You're not having water?

• 0:39Natalie Starkey?

  We are actually talking about that as well.

• 0:40Chuck Nice?

  We're talking about water too.

• 0:42Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, so...

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  Talking about water too.

• 0:44Natalie Starkey?

  I guess I want to talk about this subject because it's quite important, right? We drink water all the time. We drink liters of it.

• 0:52Chuck Nice?

  I'm going to say that water is indeed the most important substance on Earth.

• 0:59Natalie Starkey?

  Ooh.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  Ever.

• 1:00Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, you said it. Okay.

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  I really believe that. There is nothing more important than water. I believe that is where the origins of life stem.

• 1:09Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 1:10Chuck Nice?

  I believe that that is why it is the most necessary thing to sustain life. So it is where life began and it is also where, it is also what sustains it. And for some reason, we don't treat water like it's important.

• 1:29Natalie Starkey?

  We need to respect the water.

• 1:30Chuck Nice?

  Respect the water. You respect the water.

• 1:34Natalie Starkey?

  You are so right and it's a bold statement, but I think, you know, it's fair enough. We do need to respect, but we need to understand where it came from because it does appear that Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has liquid water on its surface. Now, it's not to say there isn't liquid water elsewhere, but not on the surface of any other planets. It's probably ice. Now, there's loads of water in the solar system, but it's probably as ice. Now importantly, we think we need it as liquid for life, to start and form and everything, so... Why are we the only planet with liquid water? This is one of the big research questions and, you know, one of the questions we should be asking.

• 2:10Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna say it's because we're special.

• 2:11Natalie Starkey?

  We are special. We are. We are very special.

• 2:14Chuck Nice?

  I think we're special. I mean, just look around the solar system, okay? We're pretty damn special. All right, take that Venus.

• 2:22Natalie Starkey?

  There we go.

• 2:22Chuck Nice?

  With your hot climate surface.

• 2:24Natalie Starkey?

  Exactly.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 2:26Natalie Starkey?

  Crazy hot.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are basically the Bahamas of the solar system.

• 2:32Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 2:32Chuck Nice?

  You know, think about it.

• 2:33Natalie Starkey?

  The place you want to be.

• 2:34Chuck Nice?

  It's the place you want to be, right?

• 2:36Natalie Starkey?

  I like that. Yeah, it's true. So, okay, to help us with this subject today, um, we have a world expert on water in the solar system. And it is Lindy Elkonstanton. Welcome to the show.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Hi, thank you so much.

• 2:50Natalie Starkey?

  That's all right. We're really glad you could join us. Now, I'm gonna get this right. You're the director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration. Is that correct? At Arizona State University?

• 2:59Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 3:00Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, and what does your job involve just directing people around the university?

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  You over there, pick that up.

• 3:11Chuck Nice?

  I'm Director Lindy.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Remind them that we're living in the Bahamas, basically. That's what I do.

• 3:15Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, that's good.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  No, I, I, I serve, right? That's what, that's what directors do. I try to make it easier for the scientists to do their jobs and answer their big questions. And a lot of people here are working on questions, just like what you're talking about. Why do we have water here? Why is there not liquid water elsewhere? Why is the Earth not Venus? Thank goodness.

• 3:37Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 3:37Natalie Starkey?

  And your own research, I mean, you've got a background in research as well. And then that's what you've been looking at, right? You've, you've been looking at this kind of how, how we get water on planets and all this business. So you are gonna be quite helpful, I think, because today we're gonna be looking at cosmic queries and trying to answer some questions from the peoples out there about this subject. Um, so I think we should probably kick off and see, see how we go.

• 4:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's jump right into the questions here and, um...

• 4:07Chuck Nice?

  I'm going to take one from Dylan Hallahan, who is a Patreon patron. If you're a Patreon patron, what you get to do is send us a question and we will give it priority. Because if you're a Patreon patron, it means that you have supported us financially. And you help make this whole thing happen. So it's actually addressed to both of you. Dr. Elkins Tanton and Dr. Starkey.

• 4:33Natalie Starkey?

  Very nice, very formal.

• 4:34Chuck Nice?

  Isn't that very formal, but still very cool? How likely would it be for us to set up a workstation in a La Grange Point?

• 4:43Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  Limit fuel consumption and keep equipment in safe location, near the moon Europa. And be able to take multiple trips to analyze the composition or harvest the water that lies beneath it. Now that, to start off, I'm gonna tell you right now, to start off the cosmic queries with that. That's, first of all, that's a super packed question right there.

• 5:08Natalie Starkey?

  That is a big question.

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  I mean, that's a huge question. I mean, this question really has more parts.

• 5:13Natalie Starkey?

  It's got everything in there.

• 5:14Chuck Nice?

  It's got everything in there. It's like a frickin' cosmic cake that you gotta bake.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  This person is too sophisticated. We're gonna have to get them to answer their own questions.

• 5:21Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. You know, before we get into this, let me just ask another question.

• 5:25Natalie Starkey?

  This guy knows too much.

• 5:26Chuck Nice?

  Yes, right. Lindy, what is water? No.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  I could do that one.

• 5:35Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so.

• 5:36Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, we can break it down though.

• 5:37Chuck Nice?

  Let's break this down and get into it. First of all, he's talking about a workstation in a La Grange Point.

• 5:42Natalie Starkey?

  Well, I was gonna start first with the Europa part. I think that's the better way to get into this.

• 5:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay, you're the doctor.

• 5:48Natalie Starkey?

  First of all, why does he wanna go to Europa? You know, that's the big question. What is so interesting about Europa? It is very interesting. Because what we think is happening there is that there is liquid water. But it's not at the surface. It's under a surface of probably water ice. But the fact is that there potentially and quite likely is water under the surface.

• 6:10Chuck Nice?

  And why do we say potentially and most likely? What evidence do we have?

• 6:15Natalie Starkey?

  I think, Lindy, am I right in saying it's not fresh water, is it? It's salty, I think. Is that right?

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we think it's salty partly because fresh water is really rare in our solar system. And there we think that the water is actually, there's an icy. Crust and then liquid water and then underneath that a rocky core. And so the water and the rock are interacting. And when geysers go up from the surface, it looks like they have salt in them. So it's not fresh water, but it still could be good for life.

• 6:48Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  And when you say it looks like it has salt in them when the geysers, you know, create their plume into space. Is that because we're able to, uh, we're able to see that in some form?

• 7:00Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, so we can measure that, that material that's coming off. And so they know that it's, you know, it's got potentially some, some elements in it that look like it could be salty water. Now, the thing is that planet is kind of sounding a lot like Earth, right? We've got the rocky interior.

• 7:14Chuck Nice?

  I was about to say, it sounds like our poles.

• 7:15Natalie Starkey?

  We've got the oceans and okay, we've got ice on the surface in some places. So it is one of the key places in the solar system that we're wanting to go in the future to actually look for life. But first of all, we need to understand the, you know, the moon itself a bit, a bit more. But this is, I think, why this person's asking this question.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  Dylan is saying this.

• 7:35Natalie Starkey?

  This is why we want to go there and we definitely do want to go there. Now, the second half of the question, in terms of setting up a camp in, you know, an orbit around it or something. I guess that is going to be extremely challenging. I mean, Lindy, I don't know what you, you know about this, but I think that would be, I think first of all, we just need to probably do a flyby and potentially drop something in so that we can work out what is going on there. But trying to, you know, get into orbit around something that's so far away that we don't know much about still would be challenging.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  That's right. So first, we're just trying to send a mission that's going to do a whole series of flybys and look at Europa from different points of view. And right away, there's a giant challenge because there is such strong radiation that we don't even think the robotic spacecraft is going to survive for long.

• 8:20Natalie Starkey?

  Woo.

• 8:21Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Let alone a person.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  Now, that's a huge, huge challenge. So the the radiation itself would actually interfere with the instrumentation.

• 8:31Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, we think it'll break down the instrumentation. I heard someone say recently that if you could put an unshielded person on the surface of Europa, they would die from radiation poisoning in a matter of minutes. It's that strong.

• 8:44Chuck Nice?

  It's that strong.

• 8:45Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  So I don't think we want to hang around. And, and, and you know, NASA always says you have to limit the number of technology miracles that you require for every mission. And this idea of going and hanging out in the Lagrange point and then zooming back and forth, that's, that's, I can't count that high. That's a lot of technology miracles.

• 9:02Natalie Starkey?

  That, that is.

• 9:03Chuck Nice?

  All we need is, all we need is a starship with, with shields. That's it.

• 9:07Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah. And you know what?

• 9:08Speaker 03

  So are you on this? You got this covered?

• 9:11Natalie Starkey?

  We, we can, that's easy. We'll just do that. But you know, in terms of Lagrange points, I mean, I think it's something that we can think about around the moon because this is a body we understand a lot better. And, you know, in, in terms of we would talk about asteroid mining, that's one of the ideas. We drag something into low, low moon orbit and, and then we can mine it and, you know, it's a bit easier because it's closer to us. But when you try and extend this out into the solar system, it just gets so much more complex. And we know so little about these objects that it's basically impossible at the moment, but you never know in the future. We need to take small steps, like the Apollo mission, small steps, and we get there eventually.

• 9:46Chuck Nice?

  So now I'm really fascinated by the fact that the radiation is so strong that it will actually impede the function of instrumentation. With that in mind, is there any attempt to create those circumstances somewhere here, close by, and then test instrumentation so that we can send it there? Is, is that a, is that a plan in the works at, at all?

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so stay tuned because NASA has every intention of sending a flagship Europa mission, a Europa mission. There's no launch date yet, but they've actually chosen the instruments. So we're really trying to do this. We are, we're really trying to.

• 10:30Natalie Starkey?

  Does this mission have a name at the moment?

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Uh, it's had several names. I don't know what its official one is. Uh, and the, the controversy right now is, do we do what some of the congressional supporters want and try to send a lander? Or is that too many technology miracles and we're just gonna fly by?

• 10:48Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 10:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:49Natalie Starkey?

  That sounds good. We, and this, but this isn't gonna be for a while, or are we?

• 10:53Speaker 03

  No, no, there isn't, there isn't even a launch date yet. I think we have to get past Mars 2020 and then, you know, some other budget.

• 11:01Natalie Starkey?

  And see if there's any money.

• 11:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God, now, see, that's where it all screws up. When you start asking for the money.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 11:10Chuck Nice?

  You know?

• 11:10Natalie Starkey?

  There's no money.

• 11:13Chuck Nice?

  And the funny part is, there's tons of money. There's so much money.

• 11:17Natalie Starkey?

  In the wrong places.

• 11:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. I mean, seriously, the billions of dollars that we give in tax credits to just one oil company. I mean, do you think we could do this for about four billion dollars? Do you think, if I gave you four billion dollars?

• 11:31Speaker 03

  That's about right, actually.

• 11:32Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 11:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah? Okay, so there you go. That's one year. That's one year of tax credits.

• 11:36Natalie Starkey?

  Wow.

• 11:37Chuck Nice?

  Can you imagine? That's one year of tax credits and we could get this done. This is crazy. Okay, don't get me started.

• 11:43Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, we won't.

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  How many cents per person, you know, and it's not much. It's not much. So I'm just gonna give you that assignment too, I think.

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm on, I'm on that one for you. Okay, Lindy, I'm on that one. All right, okay, here we go. Um, I like this. Nate Carlson from Ottawa, Canada, would like to know this. How did large moons like Europa and Enceladus end up with so much water while others, like Io, are mostly rock? So he went from Jupiter to Saturn and two different moons.

• 12:20Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  And that are, that we know are water, have a lot of water.

• 12:24Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, yeah, it's a good question.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  But then when you do think about most moons, you don't think of a moon as a place with water. You think of a moon as a dry desert, rocky, crater-filled, you know?

• 12:33Natalie Starkey?

  Well, that's because we think of our moon, you know, and that's what we see because it's our closest neighbor and we look up and we go, oh, it's there and it's dry and rocky and, you know, fair enough.

• 12:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:42Natalie Starkey?

  But you know, they're all different and they're all formed in different ways. And so they've got, you know, different origins and therefore they're going to look different after they formed. So I mean, I think part of the question of the answer here is, um, basically, I think it's the proximity of the moons to their big planet. So we take Jupiter, i- if you're really close to Jupiter, the effects that that massive planet has on a moon are gonna strip away the atmosphere, any water away from that moon. Whereas I think, am I right, Lyndian, saying like Europa's further away, so it's managed to maintain its, its water? Is that right?

• 13:15Speaker 03

  I think there's a mixture of things. I think, I think you're right. It depends on what the, uh, history of the moon is, you know, was it, did it get, was it from a giant impact the way the Earth was? Was it accreted from material very close to the planet or from farther away? And then indeed, how does the planet affect it? Does it have its own magnetic field that helps shield it? Or is it just, uh, um, fall victim to being stripped of everything by, by the magnetic field of its larger planet?

• 13:43Chuck Nice?

  Ah, okay. So all those things come together to pretty much determine, you know, whether or not. And that's why you see it like, I, I love the fact that he used Enceladus along with Europa.

• 13:55Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 13:55Chuck Nice?

  Because now we have two different moons, two different planets.

• 13:58Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 13:58Chuck Nice?

  And, and, and they do share those characteristics.

• 14:00Natalie Starkey?

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 14:01Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 14:02Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Chuck Nice?

  All right. Hey, Nate Carlson, man. Nice, nice question, buddy. Nice question. All right, let's go to Anna Magnus. Uh, mangus. Sorry, not Magnus. Mangus. All right. It's a mangus, baby. All right. Uh, Anna wants to know this. Hello, this is Anna from Phoenix. Uh, given the fact that we only see life sustaining water in a few places in our solar system, how likely is it that in other solar system galaxies, uh, there is water like we have on Earth?

• 14:34Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, yeah. Okay. Great question. Yeah. We, we agree on that. Like, where can we start?

• 14:40Chuck Nice?

  Anna, good job, because I've never, like, both of them got excited at the same time. So that was a damn good question.

• 14:45Natalie Starkey?

  Okay. Lyndi, you, you, you go ahead.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Okay. First of all, yay, Phoenix. That's what I mean, I have to say.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  So, uh, this is something I'm really obsessed with. Does the water get built into the planet through its normal process of building up to planet size, or does it have to get added later? We used to be taught that the Earth got its water from comets that struck the surface after the Earth was pretty much completely made, and now we have lots of evidence that that's not true.

• 15:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Lots of evidence that the water on the Earth came from rocky material, the same rocky material that built up the bulk of the Earth. And if that's correct, it's not that later water wasn't added. I mean, we still have stuff falling to the Earth today and adding water, but the point is it wouldn't be necessary. And so if it's true that the Earth was born wet, then that means that rocky planets everywhere in the universe have a very good chance of being born wet. And then the question becomes, how long can they stay that way? There's some lifetime to have an ability, and it's not going to be long enough everywhere.

• 15:50Chuck Nice?

  Let me just say that that will be the name of my first erotic rock and roll album, Born Wet. Secondly, if you could please tell me how you get water from a rock aside from being Moses. If you could please tell me when you say that you think the water was built into the rock.

• 16:15Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, okay. And also, the thing is, the Earth was really, really hot to start with. So, this is what I don't understand about these theories, although I've read Lindy's papers, obviously, but it's still hard to understand how we would trap all that water in the Earth when it was, you know, thousands of degrees Celsius. Because water is volatile, and it's going to evaporate away. So, how do we keep it in the Earth if it, you know, went through this?

• 16:39Speaker 03

  So, water, we think, was delivered in crystals that had water trapped inside the crystal, like mica. There's a mineral that a lot of us have played with, and it turns out that there are water molecules actually trapped inside those crystals.

• 16:53Chuck Nice?

  Holy crap!

• 16:54Speaker 03

  So, it doesn't come as ice, and it doesn't come as liquid water, it actually comes as rock. Which is kind of crazy. And so then it also turns out, it's really hard to dry things. Even if you melt that rock, and even if you melt it and raise it up to thousands of degrees, there's still going to be a little bit of water stuck in that liquid magma, because water just doesn't go away that easily. It likes to hold in. So, so people say to me, so people say to me, how can that be, right?

• 17:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that's, I mean, that's

• 17:24Natalie Starkey?

  It doesn't make sense, really.

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  But it's fascinating. I mean, honestly, as a concept, it, it really does, it, the, the crystal itself is holding the water.

• 17:34Speaker 03

  It's holding the water.

• 17:35Chuck Nice?

  But to unlock the water in the crystal, because the crystal is a crystal, you would have to superheat that crystal to release the water molecule.

• 17:45Natalie Starkey?

  And that, if that didn't happen, then you can retain that water in the earth, and then it, it can stay there. And then still water can come in from elsewhere.

• 17:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:52Natalie Starkey?

  Meaning our, the water we end up with is, is a bit of a mixture of potentially different sources, but actually, you know, some of it was there from the beginning. Now, unfortunately, we have run out of time on this, on this question, I know. We can come back, we can come back.

• 18:08Chuck Nice?

  All right, good, we gotta come back.

• 18:09Natalie Starkey?

  Because there's, you know, there's plenty more to be had here. But for the time being, we're going to take a short break, and we'll be back shortly.

• 18:18Natalie Starkey?

  And welcome back to StarTalk All Stars. I am Dr. Natalie Starkey. I still have Chuck Nice with me here, and Lindy Elkins-Tanton joining us from Arizona.

• 18:26Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:27Natalie Starkey?

  Back to the Cosmic Queries.

• 18:28Chuck Nice?

  Back to the Cosmic Queries. Now, you know, we had to take a little break, but I really did kind of step on, on a mongoose's question when I interjected my, my question about the crystals. But let's give, let me just give her the proper due.

• 18:44Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay, because here was her actual question, given the fact that we see life-sustaining water in a few places here in our solar system, how likely is it in other solar systems and galaxies, there is water like we have on Earth? So, that's the, that's the real crux. We, we got off into the crystals and, you know, that whole deal and which is fascinating.

• 19:06Natalie Starkey?

  It is.

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  But.

• 19:06Natalie Starkey?

  That is important.

• 19:07Chuck Nice?

  And, and very important. But please go ahead and finish, uh, Anna's question.

• 19:12Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, so Lindy, elsewhere, I think you, you alluded before that, you know, yes, it's quite likely in the way we think the water in Earth is present, that it was trapped in the beginning, that actually this could happen lots of times elsewhere all throughout the universe. Um, but we haven't, have we seen any yet? Have we actually detected it?

• 19:31Speaker 03

  There's hints of what's in the atmospheres of exoplanets around stars far away, but only about 12 of them have had any part of their atmosphere measured yet. So that's really an unknown area for us. All we can really do right now, besides work on making those measurements, is learn more about how water is delivered to our planets here in our solar system.

• 19:54Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:56Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:57Natalie Starkey?

  That is it.

• 19:58Chuck Nice?

  That is it.

• 19:58Natalie Starkey?

  These things are very far away, but I, I strongly believe there is life elsewhere in the universe and that because there's water, I think there's just got to be. This place is so huge that, you know, it's unimaginable, but I think it's got to be there.

• 20:11Chuck Nice?

  Now, a couple of years ago, I saw this, uh, I, uh, read this article and there was a discovery and it was more of a postulate than a discovery.

• 20:18Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 20:19Chuck Nice?

  That, um, there may be, when we consider all of the galaxies that we know, uh, uh, and, and now with the information that we have from the imaging that's coming back, that there might be as many as 600 million planets like Earth.

• 20:39Natalie Starkey?

  Wow.

• 20:39Chuck Nice?

  Is that true? And?

• 20:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that is true. Cool.

• 20:43Natalie Starkey?

  That is exciting.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  That's very exciting. And, and so with 600 million planets like Earth, uh, uh, what does that do to the likelihood of life and even sentient life?

• 20:54Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a huge number to even imagine. This is like so I just it has to be that there has to be life somewhere else. I'm just absolutely sure of it. When we say that Earth-like, we should probably explain why they're Earth-like.

• 21:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 21:07Natalie Starkey?

  Because we end up, we basically to get an Earth, we need a planet orbiting a star that is it's kind of the right distance away from the star. And it's got to be the right size star, so it's not too hot, not too cold, and that this planet is at the right distance that it could have liquid water on its surface, but it probably needs an atmosphere there to contain it, probably needs a magnetic field to keep it kind of safe. And and therefore, it's kind of what we call the Goldilocks zone. So this is, you know, the porridge, that's sorry, the oatmeal, whatever you call it here.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, it's porridge.

• 21:35Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, it's porridge as well. Not too hot, not too cold, just perfect, so that we have the really good conditions like we have on Earth. So these planets exist, and there's a lot of them. We, you know, it's hard finding them, but they're there just because they're so far away. But yeah, there are a lot of them. I think they've got to contain life. What do you think, Lindy? Is there life out there?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  I think that there has to be. I'm with you. But here's the thing that we really don't know. I think we're pretty confident that there are really a lot, hundreds of millions, a billion planets like the Earth. But how long does it take and how unlikely is it for life to actually start?

• 22:13Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  If we have evidence here on Earth that life only started on Earth one time, even though we had the perfect conditions.

• 22:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  Does that make it less likely? However, I'm with you. There has to be life out

• 22:25Natalie Starkey?

  But we don't yet know if there isn't life elsewhere in the solar system. I mean, that's the thing. There's not complex life. So we know that because I think we would have seen it by now. But, you know, we're still looking on Mars. There might have been life in the past.

• 22:37Chuck Nice?

  And the other thing that we have to take into consideration, though, is that there could have been life and it could be gone.

• 22:43Natalie Starkey?

  Yes, exactly.

• 22:44Chuck Nice?

  Because our solar system will one day be gone.

• 22:46Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  So there is very possible that another solar system with the same type of conditions as an Earth planet like ours came along. And now we're looking at that system as a part of a black hole somewhere.

• 22:59Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, exactly. So that is, yeah.

• 23:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right.

• 23:02Natalie Starkey?

  It's a scary thought. That'd be us.

• 23:04Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah. You know, I'm not going to worry about that because I got a feeling that it might happen after I'm gone and I'm that selfish.

• 23:13Chuck Nice?

  Speaking of selfish, here's a great question from Travis Sheeves.

• 23:19Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  We're gonna bring it back to Earth. I know both of you are, you know, concentrated on space, but here's a, when we're talking water.

• 23:26Natalie Starkey?

  Earth is in space. It's all the same. We've got to look at the Earth to understand space.

• 23:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright. Earth is in space. I'm gonna remember that. Keep remembering that, because that's a good one. Earth is in space. Travis says this, "One big issue facing humans, especially in the third world countries, is access to clean drinking water. Is there a way to possibly manufacture water through chemistry? Or is it just not as simple as throwing two hydrogen atoms together with one oxygen atom? Is it even possible to create water, or is there a finite amount available on Earth?" That's a great question.

• 23:59Natalie Starkey?

  That is a good question. And you know, it's a huge problem for when we want to explore the solar system. Because if we're going somewhere else where there's no water, then we need to take it with us. Or we need to pop by a comet or an asteroid on the way and, you know, get some water from it, melt it, you know, take it with us. Because we need water, and humans are not going to survive very long without it. So if we want to go to Mars, that again is one of the big challenges for having humans on Mars. Because to get water off the planet is hugely expensive. It's not very efficient to get, you know, to launch stuff into space, so this is a big problem. We need, yeah, we need to find a way to either mine it on these planets, if there is any water, but, you know, most of them are bone dry. That's a big problem. But in terms of the Earth, we have enough water, it's just in the wrong places most of the time, if you know what I mean. It's like...

• 24:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:45Natalie Starkey?

  We...

• 24:45Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 24:46Natalie Starkey?

  I don't think we need to find a way to manufacture it. It's more a way of getting clean water. We have a lot of salt water, but it's getting the clean freshwater in the right places. Lynda, do you have anything to add?

• 24:58Speaker 03

  I just agree with you completely. There's plenty of water, but too much of it is dirty, or too much of it is salty, and we don't know where to find more clean water. And making the dirty salty water clean is expensive.

• 25:10Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  But you can make water, and I was so excited when I did that in the lab the first time. We were doing experiments in these little tubes, and the, inside the tube was hydrogen. And if you open the tube and the hydrogen started to burn...

• 25:28Speaker 03

  It makes water, because when you burn hydrogen.

• 25:31Natalie Starkey?

  You add oxygen.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  You're oxidizing it, it becomes water.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  And somehow making it and seeing the drops of water fall down was kind of mind blowing to me because you could do it hypothetically or like in your head, but this was for real. We were burning hydrogen and making water.

• 25:45Natalie Starkey?

  Yep, and this is why she's a scientist, because we find these kinds of things interesting.

• 25:49Chuck Nice?

  That is very interesting. I mean, honestly, you're burning hydrogen to create water.

• 25:56Natalie Starkey?

  That is crazy.

• 25:57Chuck Nice?

  I mean, that's crazy. That's basically a James Taylor song, you know what I mean? That's really what it is, so.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  It's about emotions, it's all about emotions.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. So, wow. So now, the fact that you've done this in a lab, if we ever got to a place where we actually had to create water, and this is what he was saying, we would be able to do that, as Travis wants to know, we would be able to create water out of nothing.

• 26:24Natalie Starkey?

  I guess so. And I think, didn't they do this in The Martian? I don't know, wasn't this Matt Damon was up there doing this? It went a bit wrong, didn't it? But, you know, when you're burning hydrogen, you've got to be a bit careful, but.

• 26:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Okay. Hey Travis, great question, man. That was very, very cool. And let me put an addendum on his question. So, you talk about salty water, water being in the wrong place. You talk about salty water, you talk about dirty water.

• 26:47Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 26:48Chuck Nice?

  Is there, now we'll never run out of water ostensibly because three quarters of our planet is water.

• 26:53Natalie Starkey?

  And we have a water cycle.

• 26:55Chuck Nice?

  And we have a water cycle, right. And our ecosystem is part, is, creates the water cycle.

• 27:00Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 27:01Chuck Nice?

  Is there a way, if we stay on our current course, that we would actually dirty enough water that we will run out of water? Is that possible?

• 27:12Natalie Starkey?

  I don't know. Yeah, I guess, yeah. I don't see why not, because we're not very careful with it. And I guess at some point, you know, we'll have to find a way to make all the water clean, and that will be hard, but we could, you know, we can desalinate the seawater. It's really expensive and it takes a lot of energy to do that, which is the main problem. I, yeah, I have no idea. Lindy?

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so the simple answer is yes, because it's a finite, there's a finite amount of water, so you could make it all dirty. But the thing that I learned recently that really shocked me is most of the water that we get is from wells, it's from underground water, you know, aquifers.

• 27:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  Not only do we not know how much water there is in aquifers on the earth, almost none of that is legislated. Governments don't control how much water you take out of aquifers almost anywhere. So we don't know how much there is, and we're not tracking it and taking care of it.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 28:06Natalie Starkey?

  That's worry.

• 28:06Chuck Nice?

  That's worrisome, to say the least.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  I didn't know that, just recently.

• 28:10Chuck Nice?

  That's a crazy, so what you're saying is, there's no regulation on the amount of extraction, but there's

• 28:16Speaker 03

  A lot of places.

• 28:17Chuck Nice?

  But there's also no effort to measure how much is actually there?

• 28:25Speaker 03

  People are beginning to work on it, but we haven't, we haven't gotten there.

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's, I'm just gonna say that's really stupid, but, you know, that's just my opinion.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  We're trying to grow up, as a civilization, we're trying to grow up. We're in a sort of an awkward adolescence here, but

• 28:43Chuck Nice?

  Alright, alright. Hey, well Travis, that was a great question, man. Really, really enjoyed that. Alright, here's a simple one, and this is Tom Ricks from Western Australia.

• 28:55Natalie Starkey?

  There's never a simple question, is there, though? There's no stupid questions, but then, oh.

• 28:59Chuck Nice?

  Let me just say, this is a short one.

• 29:00Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, it's a short one.

• 29:01Chuck Nice?

  I don't know if it's simple. I'm sure if it's simple, because our listeners, they're not simple people, okay?

• 29:07Natalie Starkey?

  True.

• 29:08Chuck Nice?

  Tom Ricks wants to know this. Is, is a comet, or is comet water salty or fresh? And can we find out?

• 29:18Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, okay, that's a nice question.

• 29:20Chuck Nice?

  This is a nice question.

• 29:21Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, so, yeah, we can find out, definitely, because we can go and measure, measure the water. It's in the form of ice, so we have to be able to measure the ices, but this comes off as vapor when the comet goes via the sun and gets heated up, so we can measure either the vapors with telescopes, or we can send a space mission and go measure these things. So this is definitely something measurable, and, and we do do it. In terms of fresh or salty, I'm gonna hazard a guess it's fresh. I should probably know this, this is embarrassing. Lindy, do you? My pulse is over!

• 29:56Chuck Nice?

  Lindy, save me!

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Okay, ready for this? I'm gonna hedge. This is called hedging.

• 30:02Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  So when you, if you had salty water and you froze it, the ice would be almost entirely fresh. And so since the water didn't start as salty water and it's frozen, I think it's mostly fresh. But it's dirty.

• 30:15Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Because there's all kinds of other ices and there are lots of rock fragments and bits of minerals and lots of organic matter, lots of, lots of complex hydrocarbon biological building blocks kind of stuff. And so if you took a whole comet and you melted it, you would definitely not want to drink it.

• 30:33Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, it would taste...

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  Speak for yourself, Lindy.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  I'm just talking about...

• 30:37Chuck Nice?

  All I'm saying is I can't wait to drink it.

• 30:40Natalie Starkey?

  We don't just have water ice on these comets. Because of where they formed, it's super cold. You can get other weird types of ice as well, like methane ice.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:49Natalie Starkey?

  And, and so you've, you've got a whole mixture. So yeah, if you could just get the water ice itself, you'd probably be all right. But yeah, I'm not sure I'd want to be drinking all the methane water and stuff.

• 30:59Chuck Nice?

  Because there's a lot of things that, once you get to a certain temperature, they'll, they'll become ice.

• 31:02Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Chuck Nice?

  A lot of gases that will become ice.

• 31:04Natalie Starkey?

  Exactly.

• 31:05Chuck Nice?

  At a certain temperature.

• 31:06Natalie Starkey?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 31:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so, and all, and all that's mixed in. And when you say mixed in, are, are they mingled?

• 31:12Natalie Starkey?

  Well...

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Or are they mixed in as in you have one type of ice next to another type of ice?

• 31:17Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, I mean, it's probably a bit complex because you've got, you've got the dust in the comet and these are all kind of fine-grained bits of rock, kind of small pieces of rock, just the dust that formed the solar system.

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:26Natalie Starkey?

  But mixed into that, you've got organic material, which we kind of say it's kind of gloopy. It's like, uh...

• 31:32Chuck Nice?

  Gloopy, that's a nice scientific term that I like.

• 31:35Natalie Starkey?

  It kind of holds stuff together. It's like a glue to hold these, these dust particles together. Otherwise, the comet, well, it wouldn't just fall apart because there's not much acting on it to make it fall apart. But this helps us stick the stuff together. And then we've got the ices. Now, in terms of understanding the distribution of those ices through the body, I don't think we have a good idea about that at the moment. But the methane ice forms what we call a clathrate. It's a different, it's kind of a different structure. It's got a different structure to normal ice. And that can actually, you know, have bits of other material in it, but you then have the water ice as well. I, I think, yeah, they're probably closely associated.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  Closely associated.

• 32:10Natalie Starkey?

  It'll depend on the particular area of the comet and, but yeah, it will be dirty. It'll contain a lot of, a lot of the dust and the organic materials, so...

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  Cool, very cool. I don't know why, but every time you said ices, I had a patriotic urge to kick that comet's ass. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that. Everyone, please, I apologize.

• 32:31Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 32:31Natalie Starkey?

  Have we got a quick one?

• 32:32Chuck Nice?

  Okay, let's get a quick one. And see, I said it was short, and you're right. It wasn't simple.

• 32:36Natalie Starkey?

  It wasn't simple.

• 32:37Chuck Nice?

  It was a short question, but it really wasn't simple. All right, here we go. Uh, this is Heidi Heimler, and Heidi says, are there any indications of possible life forms in the rocky material that may be the source of water on Earth?

• 32:54Chuck Nice?

  So that's a, that's kind of, see, and I said simple.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Great question.

• 32:58Chuck Nice?

  That's a really cool question. And I don't know, you know, that certainly, I don't know if we got time for it, but that's a great question.

• 33:04Natalie Starkey?

  Lindy, we have.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  So are there any indications of possible life forms in the rocky material that may be the source of water on Earth? Lot of stuff packed into that question.

• 33:14Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, so I think what we can do, this is a great question. So Lindy, do you want to start answering this question?

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:20Natalie Starkey?

  We may run out of time in this segment, but we can come back because I think there's probably quite a lot to say. So, yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  So the short answer is no, there's not.

• 33:28Natalie Starkey?

  Ah.

• 33:29Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 33:30Speaker 03

  But, but why not? We don't know why not. And so, and so actually, uh, we're teaching a whole course about this in the fall to try to begin to understand why not, because no one knows.

• 33:41Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Chuck Nice?

  Wow. That would, see that? We did have time for that question.

• 33:45Natalie Starkey?

  We had time, but then, why? You know, this is some of the questions we've got to ask.

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:50Natalie Starkey?

  And, you know, it should be. So it is, it's a really good question.

• 33:55Chuck Nice?

  It is a good question.

• 33:55Natalie Starkey?

  We can leave it there.

• 33:56Chuck Nice?

  We're gonna leave it there.

• 33:57Natalie Starkey?

  And we're gonna take a short break, but we'll be back with StarTalk All Stars shortly.

• 34:04Natalie Starkey?

  Welcome back to StarTalk All Stars. I am Dr. Natalie Starkey. I'm still here with Chuck Nice and Lindy Elkonstanton, and we are getting some cosmic queries about water in the solar system. We've had a great time so far trying to understand this complex subject. Uh, so you're gonna?

• 34:21Chuck Nice?

  Let's move on.

• 34:22Natalie Starkey?

  With another question?

• 34:22Chuck Nice?

  Let's hit you with another question right here, okay? I'm still reeling from the crystals. I'm telling you right now.

• 34:29Natalie Starkey?

  Wet rock.

• 34:30Chuck Nice?

  Wet rock is like freaking me out. And, uh, by the way, I, for those of you listening and watching us here on our video of Connect Pal, please look for my new erotic rock and roll album, Born Wet, named by Dr. Lindy. Okay?

• 34:48Speaker 03

  I want licensing fees on that.

• 34:53Chuck Nice?

  All right, all right. Let us move on. And this is Jalen Paxton. And Jalen is coming to us from Twitter at Jalen Paxton. And Jalen wants to know this. What is the feasibility of using comets to combat freshwater shortage shortages on Earth in the future? Now, we kind of touched the comets earlier when you were talking about the ices on a comet.

• 35:13Natalie Starkey?

  And actually, no, I mean, it's a good question, because they do contain a lot of water. But actually, asteroids also contain a lot of water. In fact, they could be, you know, tons and tons of water on asteroids, more than than in the Earth itself. So, and they might be easier to get to, because we have quite a lot of near Earth asteroids, which are close to us, which we can get to quite easily. But I think, as we've said earlier, it would be more useful to use those to go elsewhere in the solar system. Because we, you know, don't have a huge water problem on Earth at the moment. So I think if we want to go to those and mine the water, we can split it and use it for hydrogen fuel, or we can use it to drink or survive. There's even talks about the best way to protect yourself in space is from

• 35:54Natalie Starkey?

  the radiation, I think, is to coat a spacecraft in in a kind of volume of water.

• 35:59Chuck Nice?

  Bubble of water. Like a womb. A space womb.

• 36:03Natalie Starkey?

  Exactly.

• 36:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God.

• 36:05Natalie Starkey?

  A little protection bubble. Back to your album. Back to your album.

• 36:10Chuck Nice?

  That's my second album. Space womb.

• 36:14Natalie Starkey?

  So this might be a way to do it, you know, use the water from these asteroids, or comets, but it's just, you know, they both contain the water. But actually,

• 36:21Chuck Nice?

  The asteroid is probably a better choice, because you might find more water.

• 36:25Natalie Starkey?

  It's easier to get to, maybe. There's more of them nearer to us. So, yes, that would be.

• 36:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay. All right. Very cool. Very cool. Let us move on.

• 36:36Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, God.

• 36:39Chuck Nice?

  I'm just laughing at the name. Electronic janitor.

• 36:44Natalie Starkey?

  Is this from Twitter?

• 36:45Chuck Nice?

  This is from Twitter. At Electronic janitor.

• 36:47Natalie Starkey?

  Nice.

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  That's a very cool handle. Something tells me he's an IT guy who really hates his job.

• 36:56Chuck Nice?

  He wants to know this, uh, where other than Earth have we positively identified, uh, water like we have here on Earth?

• 37:08Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, but we have tons of different types of water on Earth. So I guess do we, we've got fresh, so we've got fresh water and we've got salt water.

• 37:14Chuck Nice?

  Salt water, fresh water.

• 37:15Natalie Starkey?

  So yeah, lo- loads of places, it's everywhere.

• 37:17Chuck Nice?

  It's everywhere.

• 37:18Natalie Starkey?

  It depends if you want it as liquid or, or not, but I mean, we do, there, we think there is liquids in loads of other places, so yeah.

• 37:24Chuck Nice?

  So now here's what I want to know, uh, based upon his question, uh, for you and Lindy, um, you know, ice seems to be the order of the day.

• 37:32Natalie Starkey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:33Chuck Nice?

  Because, you know, space is really, really cold.

• 37:36Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Chuck Nice?

  Um, but wh- where does the ice get to be ice? Because it had to be someplace hot and something else before it became that ice on the asteroid or the comet.

• 37:51Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 37:52Chuck Nice?

  So where does that happen?

• 37:53Natalie Starkey?

  Where does water become the ice water?

• 37:55Chuck Nice?

  Right, well, you know, what is that, is that in the formation of something or what happens to make that happen?

• 38:01Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, Lindy, do you wanna?

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Sure, uh, I can tell you what our best idea is, although I don't think we really understand this process yet, but it looks like when planets are forming, they start out just as a, as a, as a rotating disk of gas and dust around the young star. We see this elsewhere in the universe, even though ours is long gone, and close to the young star, it's too hot for the water to be ice, but further away from the young star, ice is formed, because it's cold, even in that early dust and gas disk. And so some of the ice could have been ice from the beginning of the solar system, and it was never melted and then frozen again.

• 38:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 38:40Natalie Starkey?

  There we go.

• 38:42Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Primordial, so if we captured a comet, we could drink primordial ice from the origin of the solar system.

• 38:50Natalie Starkey?

  So this is like four and a half, beginning years old.

• 38:52Chuck Nice?

  That's a party I want to go to, Lindy, by the way.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  I know, that's good.

• 38:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  A little vodka.

• 38:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying, you know what I mean? Just like, you know, a little kettle one and primordial ice.

• 39:02Natalie Starkey?

  Primordial ice, yeah.

• 39:03Chuck Nice?

  Can I have kettle one on, uh, primordial rocks, please? So that's it.

• 39:08Natalie Starkey?

  And you could get the ice made of different types of hydrogen. So if you got like the heavy ice, then you'd get potentially ice cubes that might sink in your drink rather than float.

• 39:21Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 39:22Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Chuck Nice?

  Alright, yo, this is fun. I kinda like it.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  You could really charge a lot of money for that.

• 39:27Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're lining up right now.

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  Alright, very cool, very cool.

• 39:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay, this is Chris Jacobs coming to us from Twitter. And Chris wants to know this.

• 39:44Chuck Nice?

  Do you think we'll be mining from asteroids or meteors in the very near future? It's a, it's a good question because we have now landed with filet.

• 39:53Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 39:54Chuck Nice?

  So how far are we from actually going in and mining?

• 39:57Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, that's really debatable because I mean, it's something that we've, it's kind of come to the forefront in the last few years. And there's a couple of kind of private companies that are now looking at actually doing space mining. Now, originally, I think they were saying it was gonna happen really soon. And I think as scientists, we all stood there going, wow, okay, they're gonna do this really quickly. And that's gonna be very, very impressive if they can do it. And I think their plans have been slightly scaled back. When they realized that actually it is gonna be a little bit tricky than they thought. They gotta get the funding together. But the potential is that if they were to be able to mine these things, the return economically is enormous. So a small investment to start with, you know, we're still talking billions of dollars.

• 40:41Natalie Starkey?

  But you could potentially release many, many more billions of, you know, from these asteroids.

• 40:46Chuck Nice?

  And that's because, you know, of course, you being a geologist. Inside of these asteroids are the same elements that we find here on Earth.

• 40:57Natalie Starkey?

  Exactly.

• 40:57Chuck Nice?

  Which means the rare elements, the ones that are really expensive.

• 41:02Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Chuck Nice?

  We might be able to find crap loads of those.

• 41:05Natalie Starkey?

  There's so much up there and, you know, quite a lot of the precious metals are so, so important on Earth for making a lot of our electronics.

• 41:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:12Natalie Starkey?

  And there's a finite amount on Earth, you know, we're gonna use it up. It's in seams and stuff and it's concentrated in different areas. That's why we mine in different areas on the surface. But with an asteroid, there's tons of this material. So the potential is that, I mean, there's every potential that we can mine these things. But it's just going to be a case of time and economics. And then we've got to decide how much we need, say platinum, how much we need the platinum. And if we've run out on earth, what price it's got to on earth. And whether it's going to be economical to go into space and make this happen. So I think it is going to happen in the future. And I think it's going to be a case of, hopefully, what I hope is private companies working with space agencies. So that we get some scientific return from this, but we also get whatever we need economically.

• 41:57Natalie Starkey?

  So, yeah, do you have anything to add, Lindy?

• 41:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can't resist. So they are thinking, they've got even models for how they could go to a rocky asteroid. Take some of that miracle water that's trapped in the minerals and heat it up to release the water. And so it's feasible, it's not economically viable yet, like you say. But the thing I like to think about, we're trying to go to an iron, a metal asteroid right now with a mission to look at it. And if we could bring that back to earth, you're right, it would be, it would be the equivalent of all the metals we've ever needed. But then you don't really make billions and billions of dollars because what you do is you collapse the global market.

• 42:37Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah. Because then you have too much there.

• 42:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, right. Because from an economics.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Interesting question.

• 42:41Chuck Nice?

  From an economic standpoint, if we had a crap load of gold here on earth, gold would no longer be valuable.

• 42:49Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah, so we'd have to kind of retain it. So there'd have to be, you know, organizations that retained it and released it as we needed it. Otherwise, there'd be no cost to it.

• 42:57Chuck Nice?

  The fact is, you would have to, you would own the asteroid. And then you would release the gold as necessary. So you would basically corner the market.

• 43:06Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Chuck Nice?

  On whatever it is, platinum, gold, or whatever it is. And then you would determine how much you're going to release to set the price for it.

• 43:14Natalie Starkey?

  And then there's other problems with who owns this stuff because it's space, you know. We understand earth, we fight over who owns bits of the earth, and that's bad enough. But we're going to space, well, who owns the stuff? So if a private company goes up, a US company, is it a US asteroid then? Is it a whole, is it all US resources or is it the global, you know?

• 43:33Chuck Nice?

  All I know is if I land on that asteroid.

• 43:36Natalie Starkey?

  It's yours.

• 43:36Chuck Nice?

  That's my asteroid. And if you think it's not, you can kiss my asteroid, okay?

• 43:43Natalie Starkey?

  Very good.

• 43:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay, okay. Uh. Let's go with Lucas M. Rodriguez, and he wants to know which of the two icy moons is more likely to support life in your opinion Europa or Enceladus?

• 44:04Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, that's a good one.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so which one of those two moons from those two planets is more likely to have life?

• 44:12Natalie Starkey?

  That is so, gee, I could not decide actually between those. They're both quite, I'm gonna say highly likely to, they've got the right conditions almost, so I, I don't know. Do you have, do you have an idea? I, I don't know. I think both could.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  I can't immediately think of a reason why one would be more likely than the other. But the, the thing that troubles me about it is that the very most likely place for there to be life on them is at the bottom of the water ocean next to the rock.

• 44:40Natalie Starkey?

  Okay.

• 44:41Speaker 03

  And how we will ever detect that? I don't know.

• 44:44Natalie Starkey?

  Well, I mean, can we just, so we've got to get through the ice. They've both got an ice layer, I guess, on the outside. Um, so we've got to get through the ice with some kind of spacecraft and drop it in and then get that to get to the bottom of that ocean. It's not very easy because if it's deep, you know, we'd find it hard to get to the bottom of our ocean.

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  We can't even get to the bottom of our own ocean.

• 45:02Natalie Starkey?

  So the pressures are crazy. The conditions are gonna be not very conducive to, you know, getting so, you know, to get transmitting a signal back and to understand what's there. So, so yes, I guess it's gonna be hard for us to tell.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, there you have it. Lucas, you have just given our two scientists a Sophie's Choice. They cannot decide. Okay? Both my babies must die.

• 45:28Chuck Nice?

  I can't decide. All right.

• 45:33Chuck Nice?

  That is fantastic. Um, what is our next question? We'll come. Wait, let me see, because I know we're running out of time.

• 45:39Natalie Starkey?

  We are, we are.

• 45:40Chuck Nice?

  I saw a cool question from someone from the United Emirates, and I just lost it. Oh, my God, I'm so.

• 45:48Natalie Starkey?

  Listening everywhere.

• 45:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, people are listening everywhere, and that is what is so cool. Um.

• 45:55Natalie Starkey?

  Ah.

• 45:56Chuck Nice?

  All right, I can't.

• 45:56Natalie Starkey?

  You can't find, oh.

• 45:58Chuck Nice?

  I can't, oh, damn it. I'm so sorry. I just marked it and I can't.

• 46:02Natalie Starkey?

  I know, it's gone.

• 46:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. And there's only three pages here. It's not like, what the hell just happened to me? Oh, my God, ladies, I'm having a stroke.

• 46:12Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, it's gotta be there.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  That person is sad.

• 46:16Natalie Starkey?

  They have to get a question.

• 46:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 46:18Natalie Starkey?

  Mention them.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Keep looking, keep looking.

• 46:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. What they wanted to know was, can we make a substitute for water? That's, that's really what the question was.

• 46:30Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, okay, so.

• 46:32Chuck Nice?

  Is, can we make a substitute for water so that when we are traveling to someplace else, instead of having a waystation, can we make a substitute for water for both here on Earth and for space travel? And I'll look for their name while you guys answer that.

• 46:43Natalie Starkey?

  Okay, but I guess it, it, yes, okay, I get the question, but it's understanding like why we need water and what water does on Earth. And water acts as a solvent and it's, it's basically allows us to, for thing, for reactions to happen. So, but, and there are other solvents as liquids that can exist in the solar system that could do the same job. But we wouldn't be able to drink them or survive on them. But that doesn't mean that other life forms couldn't, but we just haven't seen those life forms yet. We have like just a little bit of time, Lyndy, do you want to add anything to this?

• 47:17Speaker 03

  No, I, I think you nailed it. There's nothing else that will do it for people but water.

• 47:21Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 47:22Chuck Nice?

  So, water is it? I mean, we could make a substitute, but, you know, why would you? Right?

• 47:27Natalie Starkey?

  Yeah.

• 47:28Chuck Nice?

  That's, that's really the deal.

• 47:29Natalie Starkey?

  Exactly. But it doesn't mean that other organisms can, other organisms elsewhere, alien organisms might not need water. That's the thing. But they need something that's liquid that probably that is not gonna boil away and not gonna freeze too easily that they can survive in a form.

• 47:44Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. And by the way, it came from, okay, here's the name, uh, uh, Shirag Jangla.

• 47:51Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, brilliant.

• 47:52Chuck Nice?

  From Dubai and the United Arab Emirates.

• 47:54Natalie Starkey?

  Wow. And they've got, you know, quite a lot of desert there, not much water going on there.

• 47:59Chuck Nice?

  Can you, can you, can you just imagine why someone from Dubai might ask a question of, can we make a substitute for water?

• 48:07Natalie Starkey?

  I know.

• 48:08Chuck Nice?

  Because I'm so tired of eating sand.

• 48:11Natalie Starkey?

  They've made a city out of sand. But I'm afraid that is all we've got time for. We are like at the end. That was fun. I know. It was a whirlwind. Yeah, I had lots of fun. Yep, thank you so much, Lindy.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. Thanks so much.

• 48:27Natalie Starkey?

  You've been great. You've helped me with some tricky questions.

• 48:32Speaker 03

  You had great answers. I didn't need to. I was just nodding my head.

• 48:34Natalie Starkey?

  Oh, well, I'm pleased. Thank you. That's very, I feel happy. But thank you so much. And I'm going to thank Chuck Nice, my co-host. You've been fantastic. But that's, yeah, all we have time for today. But that's been StarTalk All-Stars. I am Dr. Natalie Starkey.