How Saturn Works

Saturn is the fanciest planet thanks to its prominent rings, cocked jauntily to the side. But this showy gem of the solar system has a lot of substance in addition to a great sense of style. Learn what makes Saturn so interesting in this episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:10Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:19Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to this podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. Did I flub that line? Yes. Am I going to retake it? No, I am not.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Welcome to the pod broadcast.

• 1:32Josh Clark?

  This is Stuff You Should Know, by the way, the far-out edition.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  That's right. That's in stuff out there in space.

• 1:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and not just stuff in general. We're actually gonna zero in on one specific piece of stuff that's out there in space, a little planet called Saturn.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  That's right. The ringed beauty, as they like to say in the biz.

• 1:58Josh Clark?

  That's what the astrophysicists will call it.

• 2:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Saturn does have rings. It's not the only planet with rings, as we'll see. Or we can see now, I think Jupiter and Uranus and is it Mercury also that has rings? But they're just, they don't hold a candle to Saturn's rings.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Hey, get the candle away from my anus.

• 2:20Josh Clark?

  Saturn's also a really ancient planet in that as far as human experience goes, for as long as we've been looking up in the night sky, we've seen Saturn. Because it is the sixth planet from the sun. It's also the furthest planet away that you can see with the naked eye here on planet Earth.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  You want to know something funny before we go any further?

• 2:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, always.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Before we recorded, Emily was asking, as she sometimes does, what we're recording. And I told her the two episodes and she asked about Saturn and I was like, not very interesting to me. And she said, so what are you gonna, what do you do in those episodes? Just like do commentary and make jokes? I went, well, there's probably not going to be a lot of jokes. And she said, well, as long as you can make one about Uranus. And I said, I don't think I'll be able to because it's about Saturn. And lo and behold, a minute and 20 in.

• 3:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 3:17Josh Clark?

  Now you have two more times to bring it back and then you'll have completed the comedy.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  I think that's a one-er, as they say, but I'm just excited to report back to Emily that that happened unexpectedly and delightedly.

• 3:30Josh Clark?

  Well, way to go, Chuck. I thought you said it was going to be funny, though.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Huh? Hey, you laughed. Was that pity?

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  Let's just move on.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  All right, great.

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  So, oh yeah, like I said, people have known about Saturn for a very, very long time. And in fact, I think 2,500 years ago, the first people to document it were the Sumerians. And not too long after that, or around that time in India, the world's oldest astronomy book, the Surya Siddhanta, obviously.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  Whoever wrote it was like, I'm gonna try to guess the diameter of Saturn. And I don't think they guessed at it like, you know, how many jelly beans are in this jar? Kind of guess like they used math and geometry and all sorts of great stuff.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 4:21Josh Clark?

  But this is long before they should have. So what makes it impressive is that they were only off by a thousand miles. So today, we, we believe that the diameter of Saturn is about 74,580 miles. In the Suria Sedanta, they guessed 73,000 or estimated 73,580. That, my friend, is remarkable.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, regular Lewis and or Clark.

• 4:47Josh Clark?

  Kind of.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Kind of. Weren't they famous for like almost guessing the, the distance?

• 4:52Josh Clark?

  Oh, yes. Yeah, great, great analogy. Sorry. It was lost on me at first.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  So the name itself Saturn is named after Saturnus, which is the, the god of agriculture and harvest. So it came from the Romans. And, uh, you know, Saturn goes pretty slowly across the sky. So the, the day Saturday is named for Saturn, which is the last day of the week.

• 5:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  And now we're going to compare Saturn to Earth in a lot of scintillating ways. And we could start with just the massive size because it makes Earth look like a, just a pea in a pocket. Basically.

• 5:34Josh Clark?

  It makes it look like a nickel if, if Saturn was a volleyball. NASA loves that one. If you ever look up Saturn's like size, NASA uses that every chance they get.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  I wonder if when they got, they got the nickel part and they were like, all right, well, we got to find something laying around here. That's, um, as big as this distance. And some guy was like, you know, there was, there was one sporty guy in the corner, like practicing setting a volleyball spike. He said, uh, what about Jim over there?

• 6:05Josh Clark?

  Is that low hanging fruit Phil who is about to do that?

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Oh, man, poor Phil. But, you know, you're right, nickel compared to a volleyball is pretty good. But let's talk equator. The equator is close to 10 times larger than Earth at 227 miles around compared to Earth's piddly little 25,000 miles.

• 6:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's got a extra spare tire compared to Earth, you know?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 6:34Josh Clark?

  One of the things about Saturn, though, if you weren't, if you aren't like a astronomy type, the kind of planet that Saturn is, is a gas giant, which means that it's made largely of gas or gases. So to be a gas giant, you don't have to just be a big ball of gas, but you're made of things that typically are considered gases on the periodic table. Let's just get that straight right out of the gate, okay?

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:00Josh Clark?

  But if you put the whole thing together, Saturn doesn't have a surface to speak of. If you did go far enough in toward the center, you might eventually hit something you could stand on, but you would be under so much heat and pressure that you wouldn't be thinking about standing on the surface anymore. You'd have other problems.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a very not dense planet and some say could even float in water if there was water that large.

• 7:28Josh Clark?

  A pool.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, or I don't know, a pond.

• 7:33Josh Clark?

  Uh, sure. Isn't that what they call lakes up in the Northeast?

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, I don't know the difference between a pond and a lake.

• 7:41Josh Clark?

  In Maine, there is no difference.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  I would think a pond is, uh, human made, but there are many human made lakes too. So I don't know, I'll have to look that up.

• 7:49Josh Clark?

  I always assumed it was size, like pond is smaller, lake is larger.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Well.

• 7:56Josh Clark?

  That's what the L, that's how you remember, lake, L, large, L.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  And pond, puny.

• 8:04Josh Clark?

  Nice one.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean, that seems obvious, but surely there's something else, but maybe not. We'll look into that.

• 8:10Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  More to come on ponds and lakes.

• 8:11Josh Clark?

  Okay, I'll keep talking while you look.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Uh, I was gonna talk, so why don't you look it up? Uh, Earth is the third planet out, as Modest Mouse will tell you. They're about 92 million miles away, or we are, rather. Saturn is the sixth planet away from the sun. And things really pick up after you, after you get away from Earth. About 886 million miles, which is gonna mean they're gonna be a very cold planet because they get, uh, not nearly as much sun. They get about 1.2% of the sunlight that we get, which means the average temperature in the upper atmosphere of Saturn is a very chilly negative 220 degrees Fahrenheit.

• 8:52Josh Clark?

  Or negative 140 Celsius for our non-American Liberian, or I can't remember the third one, friends.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 9:00Josh Clark?

  So there's some other interesting things that happen because it gets such little sunlight. But one of the things that astronomers were surprised by at first was Saturn's atmosphere, that is very cold, but it's not nearly as cold as you would expect for how far away from the sun it is and how little sunlight it gets. And they finally figured out the reason why is because Saturn generates its own internal heat. That's why it's not as cold as it, as it should be.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Just like me.

• 9:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. You could never be cold if you tried, man.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  I've been cold, but, uh, and when I get cold, I have a very hard time warming up.

• 9:37Josh Clark?

  I meant like the figurative sense, you know, like real, I'm...

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Oh, like a cold, emotional individual?

• 9:42Josh Clark?

  Yes, yes.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Oh, well, thank you.

• 9:44Josh Clark?

  Um, so there's a couple of other things about being that far away from the sun. Uh, I think it takes 80 minutes for sunlight to get there. That's a long time to stand around and wait for sunlight. We only have to wait like eight minutes here on Earth.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so when they flick that switch on, you just gotta, you gotta huddle, hunker down.

• 10:01Josh Clark?

  Right, um, and then it, so in its orbit around the sun, it takes almost 30 Earth years for Saturn to complete a year.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, because, uh, you know, they're rotating very, very quickly on its axis. Um, second fastest in the solar system, uh, second just behind Jupiter. Uh, but if you're talking rotation speed here on Earth, we're going at about 978 miles an hour. Saturn is, wow, 23,000 miles an hour.

• 10:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Almost, no, more than 23 times faster than Earth.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  And that's gonna give it a short day, about a 10.7 hour day.

• 10:45Josh Clark?

  Yes, and here on Earth, for comparison, a day is more than 20 hours long.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 10:53Josh Clark?

  So I said earlier Chuck, that Saturn's a gas giant, and the two gases that it's most fond of are hydrogen and helium. And overall, the, I think the composition of its atmosphere is about 3/4 hydrogen, 1/4 helium. But in the planet itself, it has far less hydrogen than helium. That's about all you really need to know about those two for now. But the, the point of the whole thing is, is that there is an atmosphere. There are different layers, and the atmosphere itself is about 37 miles thick. And it is just generally gas, but it's also super freaky, as we'll see.

• 11:34Josh Clark?

  But if we zoom in a little further, drop down a little further into Saturn's, into its center, and we make it through the 37 mile thick atmosphere, we're suddenly going to find out that the pressure is extraordinarily great in the next layer, which is a layer of liquid hydrogen.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's liquid hydrogen because of that pressure. It's the, it's just such a massive planet that here on Earth, if we want to make liquid hydrogen, you have to cool that gas down to very, very low temperatures, like negative 423 degrees Fahrenheit. But it's just the pressure on Saturn, even, even though those are high temperatures, that pressure alone can make that gas a liquid, which is incredible.

• 12:19Josh Clark?

  It really is. And then it gets even crazier, because so further in toward the core, toward the center of the planet, that liquid hydrogen turns into a completely different kind of thing that they call liquid metallic hydrogen. It's still again on the periodic table, the gas, even though it's in liquid form, but it behaves like a metal in that it can conduct electricity. So imagine hydrogen gas conducting electricity, and once you put your, your head back together, because it got blown so wide open from that, you will understand now how heat is generated inside Saturn.

• 12:56Josh Clark?

  It's from that liquid metallic hydrogen, just acting like it ain't supposed to. The reason why is because it's so compressed from the pressure toward the center that everything, even the electrons, you remember like electrons are, they are to like a nucleus of an atom, what, you know, I think the outer planets in our solar system is to the sun. They're really far away from it. This pressure is so great in Saturn's center that their electrons are touching. It's all mushed together and that's why it's behaving weirdly because the electrons can conduct electricity a lot more easily.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  And then, if you want to go further down to the core, you talk about hot. We don't know for sure because you can't get in there. They've tried, they've tried. But the current belief right now is that it's basically compressed molten iron into a ball about the size of 55 Earth and a temperature of about 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

• 13:57Josh Clark?

  Which is hotter than the surface of the sun.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Hot, hot stuff in there.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  But if we're going to compare core to core, the core of the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, not 15,000, you know?

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:10Josh Clark?

  I saw one other thing about the core of Saturn and then maybe we'll take a break. Apparently, some researchers have concluded that it's actually slushy. So it's not solid. Which makes sense. I mean, you'd think it'd be kind of molten or in some weird state. But that it's also made of, in addition to iron, ice, rock, and gas. And how there could possibly be ice in a core that's 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit is totally beyond me. I couldn't see a good explanation of this whatsoever. It's possible that the researchers who've proposed this completely off their rockers? I don't know. But I thought it was worth mentioning because I think that's fantastic.

• 14:54Josh Clark?

  If it is true, and hopefully there's a Stuff You Should Know listener who is out there is like Glave, and I'm going to email in and explain to Josh and Chuck how there could possibly be ice there.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  That would be great.

• 15:05Josh Clark?

  Yep. Okay, you want to take that heretofore promised break?

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it. And we'll be back on, I don't know, let's talk about like how Saturn was formed to begin with, right after this.

• 15:28Speaker 02

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• 16:47Josh Clark?

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• 17:11Josh Clark?

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• 17:51Speaker 02

  All right, so there are a couple of theories about how Saturn was formed. If you're a regular human walking around planet Earth, you might hear both of these and say, "Sounds like you're kind of talking about basically the same thing."

• 18:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  If you're an astrophysicist, you might glaven out, as you mentioned before, that's two glavens, and say, "Oh, no, no, no. It is a very polarizing question in astrophysics, and to us, this difference is very large."

• 18:24Speaker 02

  So yeah, so if you're an astrophysicist out there, this might really excite you. If you're not, I would dare you, I would urge you to try and

• 18:34Speaker 02

  be delighted in the minutia of the difference of science and how important that can be.

• 18:40Josh Clark?

  The question about how Saturn or gas giants like Saturn form is more polarizing than the proposal to rename Uranus.

• 18:50Josh Clark?

  If we work together, that's two.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  That's two.

• 18:53Josh Clark?

  So I'm going to explain the difference because I find this fascinating. There's the main generally accepted model of how planets form, including gas giants like Saturn, is called the Coricretian model, and that is basically when a star forms, like our sun. It forms out of dust and gas and all sorts of crazy stuff. And there's a lot of other debris that starts swirling around it, forming a disk. And that's where planets form from. There's all sorts of collisions and things get bigger and kind of clumped together. And as they get bigger, they attract more stuff. And the closer you are into the, or closer you are to the star, the more likely you are to attract heavy stuff, like say, iron, nickel, stuff that makes up rocky planets, right?

• 19:38Josh Clark?

  And everybody's like core accretion model, that's just how planets form. But then there's some, there's a group of like renegade astrophysicists led by a guy named Alan Boss, who are basically like, no, that leaves a couple of questions out there. One is that there's less rocky debris in the outer reaches of this disk that's swirling around the sun. So, you know, how can a gas giant be made out of rocky core? And then secondly, that the remnants that are out there, say like dust and gases, like hydrogen and helium, they will float away into outer space and out of the solar system and out

• 20:16Josh Clark?

  of reach before a gas giant could form using the core accretion model. So what they've come up with instead is called the disk instability model. And they said, you don't need rocky stuff like iron and nickel to form a gas giant. It forms from gases from the start. And the core accretion model, people said, okay, smart guys, how, how could that possibly happen? And the disk instability model people said that that swirling disk becomes so compressed and so dense from swirling around the sun for so long that when it breaks up, some of that dust and gas has enough density that it can attract other dust and gases and hence form a gas giant.

• 21:01Josh Clark?

  And the core accretion model people were a gog.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  I love that word, by the way.

• 21:09Josh Clark?

  I do too. It works really well.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Well, another remarkable thing about Saturn are the just incredible storms that happen around Saturn. There's a very large temperature difference between the, the very hot interlaters that we were talking about. I can't remember how many degrees Fahrenheit we said, but

• 21:27Josh Clark?

  15,000.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, 15,000. And then the very icy upmer atmosphere out there is very, very cold, icy, obviously. And so near the equator, you're going to have winds that are going about a thousand miles an hour. You've got a very erratic atmosphere, so it's not like, um, it's just constantly stormy. There may be years that go between storms, but then they might go through a storm that lasts like literal years and years and years. They, they photographed one with the Cassini probe in, uh, 2010. And this storm was so big, and this is, uh, you know, on a big planet, that it went all the way around and met itself, like a single storm system.

• 22:12Josh Clark?

  Like Ouroboros.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is just, I mean, we've seen some crazy storms here in recent years where like, you know, from middle Mexico, all the way up through like the northeast of the United States, and I'll, and I'll look at a Doppler and be like, that's incredible to see a storm that large. So imagine one going all around the entire planet of Earth, and then imagine Earth's size in relation to Saturn, and that'll kind of tell you how big of a storm we're talking about.

• 22:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's absolutely nuts. And the reason why that it's got such a crazy atmosphere is because of that temperature difference, the temperature gradients. Remember we were talking about how tornadoes form on Earth and the tornado alley short stuff, that you have to have a temperature gradient? Apparently the same thing happens on Saturn as well. But there's also, Chuck, a really weird weather system that does not come and go. It's essentially a feature, it seems like, because it was first photographed in 1981, when the Voyager 2 probe did a flyby of Saturn. And when the Cassini mission arrived, I think in like 2009 or 10 or something like that, um, it, it saw that the, the exact same thing was essentially there.

• 23:22Josh Clark?

  So what they figured out is it's not a storm, it's a really, really fast jet stream. But the thing about it, the, I'm, I'm sure people out there who are familiar with jet streams are like, so big whoop. Well, get this, this jet stream. Forms a hexagon around the top of the planet. It's one of the weirder things I've ever seen.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, um, like you said, they photographed it in 1981. And then I think the Cassini-Huygens mission ended in 2017. And it was still there and still basically looked the same. And I, I can only reckon that it's still like that today.

• 24:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think that's a good reckon.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  We're talking 500 mile an hour winds at the center of this vortex. And they think, uh, that weird shape is due to the, uh, really fast rotation, which, uh, makes a bulge at the equator and flattens things out at the poles. So it's just created this really strange kind of jet stream, this strange shape.

• 24:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so I think Chuck, we can't really put it off any longer. I believe that it's time to talk about Saturn's rings. Cause I mean, imagine if we didn't in this episode.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you mentioned, you know, it's not the only one with rings.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  I know you mentioned my anus.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 24:41Josh Clark?

  That's three.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  I know, that's the lowest of low hanging fruit though.

• 24:45Josh Clark?

  Phil would be like, it's fine.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, Phil would love it. Um, but Neptune and Jupiter, I'm not sure if you mentioned those. Those are some other ringed planets, but, uh, Saturn's are like, those are the showstoppers. They're incredible. If you've ever, you know, uh, do yourself a favor. If you've never looked at like real pictures, like telescopic pictures of Saturn, like do so because it's incredible looking, uh, these pictures.

• 25:09Josh Clark?

  I have a, I have an anecdote about that.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Let's hear it.

• 25:12Josh Clark?

  So remember we did an Australian tour a few years back?

• 25:15Speaker 02

  It was great, yes.

• 25:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was. On one of the days off, you and me and I went to the Sydney Observatory one night.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 25:22Josh Clark?

  And they had, they just happened to have one of their telescopes trained on Saturn. And you could lean over and look through the eyepiece. And we did, um, and both of us just started laughing because it looked so fake. Like a little white cut out of Saturn, just flat as could be. It just looked like they were like, we, we can't find Saturn. So we're gonna have to like put this.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Put the slide in there.

• 25:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. But the volunteer was looking at us like, what are you, what's so funny about Saturn? Basically, we just moved along, but that was our, that's my Saturn anecdote.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  And you said it looked fake and he's like, that's real, man.

• 25:59Josh Clark?

  No, we didn't, we didn't bother to say anything. It was mine and Yumi's little joke.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  That was the worst Aussie accent I've ever done. And I've done some pretty good ones over the years.

• 26:08Josh Clark?

  You have.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  I don't know what happened.

• 26:09Josh Clark?

  It sounded like Billy Ray Cyrus trying to do an Australian accent.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  It came out so wrong, it was very strange. It sounded better in my head, right before I said it. So yeah, aside from the telescope slide fake, it's just incredible looking. And the sort of knockout fact is, we're still not exactly sure where these rings came from.

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  And we've known about the rings. So remember, people have known about Saturn since we started looking up at the sky, but you can't see the rings. But right when people started inventing telescopes, they noticed that Saturn had something weird going on. In 1610, Galileo, the astronomer made famous by the Indigo Girls, he spotted Saturn's rings in his telescope, but it wasn't of high enough quality for him to be like, those are rings. He thought they were like bulges on the side, like handles on a pot or something like that. He wasn't quite sure what the heck it was. He actually, I think, thought it was like a three-body system, like two huge moons and a planet.

• 27:11Josh Clark?

  And it wasn't, but I mean, 50 years later, I guess, even less, that Christian Huygens said, "I've got a much better telescope now, and those are rings. I bet my bottom dollar on it." That was his famous quote.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  You know what Galileo's crime was?

• 27:30Josh Clark?

  Loving too much?

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Looking up the truth.

• 27:33Josh Clark?

  Is that what the lyric is?

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a great song.

• 27:37Josh Clark?

  Sure it is.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  You know, I went to the same orthodontist as Emily from Indigo Girls.

• 27:44Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's great.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  That's my claim to fame.

• 27:47Josh Clark?

  Did, uh, I can't even come up with a joke, but yes, that's great.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Shout out to, oh god, Dr. Blake. Hope he's still around.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  He may not be. This was in the 80s and he was

• 28:01Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  In his probably, I mean, he looked 70, but that means he was probably 50.

• 28:07Josh Clark?

  Right, in the 80s, sure.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and just for my teenage gaze, you know?

• 28:11Josh Clark?

  I was gonna say, that's, that was mean. Like, this is like a recent person you went to.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  No, I mean, he could still be around. He could be in his 90s probably, but I hope he is. I hope he's still putting braces on kids.

• 28:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah. They don't want them, but he's doing it anyway.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  He's putting like 1980s braces on kids though. They've come a long way and he's like, no, these metal bands go around your teeth.

• 28:32Josh Clark?

  The lip slashers.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Oh, God. Um, all right, so back to the rings. Uh, they are 95% ice. Uh, it's rock and ice, but 95% of it is ice. And these are particles, but when you say particles, um, it could be a particle, like a sandy grain. Um, but it could also be like a large boulder, like they vary widely, uh, in size. And here's the thing about those rings too, they are, uh, very, very wide, but comparatively, they are very, very thin. I think the, the farthest ring, uh, which is 175,000 miles from, uh, the upper, uh, upper atmosphere of Saturn is 7,000 times

• 29:15Speaker 02

  the diameter of the planet, but only about 30 to 60 feet wide, or thick, I guess.

• 29:20Josh Clark?

  Isn't that nuts?

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:22Josh Clark?

  I mean, that's crazy. Like, how does that thing even exist, is my question.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  We're about to tell you.

• 29:28Josh Clark?

  So, um, if you look at Saturn, especially through a Sydney-based telescope, you're gonna see that it looks like it's, it basically like kinda cocked its rings to the side like a hat, a jaunty cap, as I put it.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do that sometimes with certain caps.

• 29:46Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Who doesn't? Everybody's familiar with that.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:49Josh Clark?

  The thing is, is Saturn's not doing that. Actually, if you straighten Saturn out, its rings would be roughly, um, parallel to its, um, equator. It turns out that Saturn itself is jauntily cocked to the side too, to the tune of 27 degrees. And Earth's ex- Axial tilt, I think is what it's called. So the tilt relative to the the plane of orbit around the sun. Flat plane, tilted planet. Let's just leave it at that. Earth is 23 degrees. So 27 isn't that much more, but Saturn's rings like really point out how angled the whole thing is.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, if we had a little jaunty cap, then Earth would look good. Jaunty as well, I guess.

• 30:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but the other thing about it, too, is with a with a axial tilt, that pronounced like Earth's and like Saturn's. That's how you have seasons. Some parts are closer to the sun at different times of the year. Same thing on Saturn, but since Saturn's years are almost 30 Earth years long, that would mean that the the seasons are like seven years long on Saturn.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:58Josh Clark?

  Seven year spring. Who wouldn't want that?

• 31:01Speaker 02

  That's a good band name right there.

• 31:02Josh Clark?

  It is. It really is, Chuck.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  These rings are are separated. Obviously, when you look at them, you can tell there are gaps in between and some are brighter than others. Some are more dense than others. And because of that, they, you know, when they noticed the rings, they didn't know about all of them. They were discovered individually over time and named A, B, C, D, E, F, and G in order of when they were found. But that's not the actual order of where they are. If you just started at Saturn and worked your way out.

• 31:31Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  In that case, it would be D, C, B, A, F, G, and then E.

• 31:37Josh Clark?

  The best mnemonic device I could come up to remember that is don't choose brunch and forego grits and eggs.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  That's pretty good.

• 31:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought so, too.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  I thought just a nonsense joke was coming my way, but.

• 31:51Josh Clark?

  No, that's a real way you could remember it.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, nice, nice work.

• 31:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Phil approves.

• 31:57Josh Clark?

  Good. Thanks, Phil. So if you ever noticed Saturn's rings also, there's like dark stripes in between them. That's actually voids in between the rings, right? That Saturn's got tons of rings. Some are bigger than others. And when you kind of look at them from afar, it just looks like they have, what is that? Seven, seven rings. There's actually way more. These are just the rings that we can see and identify. And they're differentiated by these gaps. And there's a huge gap, I think, between the B-ring and the A-ring. So it's about in the middle of Saturn's rings. It's called the Cassini Division. And it's about 3,000 miles across.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a big gap.

• 32:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is a big gap. And to kind of put this in perspective, especially for our American friends. If you took Seattle, and you took Boston, and you erased the country in between them, and replaced it with the void of space, the people in Seattle and Boston could look out from one another across what was roughly the size of the Cassini Division.

• 33:02Josh Clark?

  I like that analogy. I don't know what's so funny about it.

• 33:07Josh Clark?

  Daddy, how far is 3,000 miles? Okay, but it was the replacing it with the void of space that I think really drove it home, if you ask me.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:18Josh Clark?

  Do you know how long I went into a distance calculator to figure out two cities that most people know are roughly 3,000 miles apart?

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Did you come up with that?

• 33:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  So, the Cassini Division, the cause of that whole thing is the interaction, gravitationally speaking, with the moon. And we'll talk about the various moons coming up. But the moon, I guess, is it Mimas? It's not Mimas, is it?

• 33:45Josh Clark?

  I've been saying Mimas.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've been saying Mimas in my head.

• 33:48Josh Clark?

  Although Mimas makes sense, too.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I like Mimas.

• 33:52Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Because it's not Titan, it's Titan.

• 33:56Josh Clark?

  Depending on where you live, though.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  I guess so. But the particles in that B-ring orbit about two times for each of Mimas's trip around Saturn. And each time they're going to pass, Mimas has the chance to inflict a little gravitational influence on those particles. And that just accumulates, basically, and it creates a very steady gravitational force on those particles. It's just going to hold them right there in place, and they're not going to drift into the gap. They're going to stay nice and tight.

• 34:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's how the Cassini Division is created by that gravitational pull. And Mimas also is nicknamed the Death Star.

• 34:38Josh Clark?

  Because if you look at a picture of Bemis, it looks an awful lot like the Death Star.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:43Josh Clark?

  And the Death Star, that's a, it's like a space fortress in the Star Wars movies.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  That's no planet.

• 34:52Josh Clark?

  That's right, but no, it's a moon.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Oh, that's no moon? Was that what it was?

• 34:56Josh Clark?

  No, I'm saying he was right. It isn't a planet. It's a moon.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  I can't remember the line though. Was it, "That's no planet"? I think that's what it was.

• 35:03Josh Clark?

  I'm pretty sure. Wasn't Han Solo saying that?

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. But you know, it's no big deal if you get Star Wars stuff wrong, right?

• 35:09Josh Clark?

  No, everybody's very easygoing about that stuff.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Uh, should we, no, should we break or should we not?

• 35:18Josh Clark?

  Let's talk about how the rings formed and then we'll come back and talk. No, let's take a break.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  You want to take a break?

• 35:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Okay, uh, and then we'll talk about how this rings formed, right after this.

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• 36:47Speaker 02

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• 36:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you can search through tons of cars online, compare prices, check out financing and trade-in options, all from your couch, or your office, or wherever. And if you want to start online but still hit the dealership for a test drive, you can do that, too. Really?

• 37:11Speaker 02

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• 37:21Josh Clark?

  And unlike other sites, you're working with local dealers. So you've got real people helping behind the scenes. And when you're ready, you can pick your car up or have it delivered. Really?

• 37:31Speaker 02

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• 38:01Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, you said a little early on, I think, that the people who study this kind of stuff are not 100% sure how Saturn's rings formed, right?

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:12Josh Clark?

  There's a lot of different competing theories. There's a whole camp that's like, they're as old as the planet. So they're multi-billion year old rings. And other people are like, that's just stupid. And specifically, there's a researcher from NASA who in 1986 wrote a paper. His name's Jack Connerney. I don't think he actually said, "Your idea's stupid" to other people. But what he did do is he calculated the rate of what came to be called ring rain. And that is those particles falling into Saturn. And when they do that, that ring becomes slightly depleted. And it happens more and more and more. And on the scale of tens or hundreds of millions of years,

• 38:54Josh Clark?

  Saturn is eventually steadily losing its rings. And apparently, the particles fall into Saturn when they become charged. And I guess they're more attracted by Saturn's gravitational pull. And they travel down the magnetosphere, just like particles bombard Earth's magnetosphere and produce the auroras. Same thing happens to Saturn, but it's paying the price. It's at the expense of losing its rings.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Does it come, does it become part of Saturn itself? Does it suck that up into Saturn?

• 39:27Josh Clark?

  Yes, I believe so. And I think it melts as it gets further and further toward the center.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Okay, so Saturn isn't necessarily becoming larger as the rings deplete?

• 39:37Josh Clark?

  No, Leon's becoming larger.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  So, all right, that means a lot of stuff. That means that we are living on Earth at a time where we just happen to live, and it's a long period of time, but if you zoom out on a macro level, cosmically speaking, it's not that long. But we happen to be living in a time where we're probably at like peak ring, don't you think?

• 40:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because guys like Jack Conner, he calculated that, based on the rate of ring rain, the rings probably aren't more than 100 million years old, right? So 100 million years before this, Saturn wouldn't have had rings. Then they also calculated 100 to 300 million years. Hence, Saturn's not going to have rings either. The way that they came up with that 100 million year old estimate is because any older than that, there should be far less rings based on the rate of ring rain. And if it were younger, there should be more rings than that. So that group is pretty self-satisfied right now.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, I bet they are. Um, we also talked about, well, we still haven't really talked about where the actual stuff that makes up those rings come from. And again, uh, there are competing theories, uh, one of which is that there used to be, and again, we'll get to the moons. Saturn has lots of moons. But one theory is that there used to have even a lot more moons than they have now. And one of those moons that may have existed, they actually named, uh, Chrysalis, was in a little bit of a, a push and pull with Titan, the largest moon, a gravitational battle.

• 41:14Josh Clark?

  Or Titan.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Or Titan, yeah. It fell out of orbit because of that battle. I guess Titan wins. And Chrysalis veered too close to Saturn, was basically just busted apart by the, the gravity of this enormous gas giant. And then that debris field is what formed, uh, that ring. And then over time, over millions and millions of years, um, Chrysalis, uh, continued to sort of crash into itself and created like the smaller rings around itself, or above and below.

• 41:45Josh Clark?

  And also some of the bigger ones, because, you know, like you said, some of the, some of the particles in the rings are like grain of sand size, but other like boulder size. And those boulder ones are just ones that haven't crashed into the proper other boulders yet to create those sand grains. They just, it's just a matter of time eventually.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. What's, what's the other theory?

• 42:03Josh Clark?

  There's another theory, which, by the way, Saturn apparently is like a, um, thunder dome for astrophysicists. There's so many different theories about so many different things.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:14Josh Clark?

  But the other theory is that a bunch of Saturn's moons collided together. It wasn't just one getting pulled towards Saturn. They all just kind of got all tripped up and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And all of a sudden you've got this debris field that got smaller and smaller, uh, more particulate over time, just like the Chrysalis theory too.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  So they don't fight over this one probably as much?

• 42:37Josh Clark?

  Not as much. But they do dress like Master Blaster when they talk about it. They just don't actually fight.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Um, some of these rings are formed by these moons. Uh, there, there's one, uh, called, one of the moons, um, Enceladus?

• 42:53Josh Clark?

  I'm going with Enceladus.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  Enceladus? Okay.

• 42:56Josh Clark?

  Enceladus sounds way too much like salad.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Ensolata, yeah. This thing is erupting saltwater kind of constantly into the atmosphere and that turns into ice crystals. And those ice crystals, as we see, can very easily form into rings. And that is, in fact, where we get our E-ring around Saturn. If, you know, you're looking at the letters. So I guess the A, B, C, D, E, the fifth one discovered.

• 43:22Josh Clark?

  Well, no, remember they are out of orbit. Oh, yeah, the fifth one discovered. You're right, sorry. Nice save. So there's also another ring that they discovered as recently as 2009. Like, because our telescopes just keep getting better and better. From Galileo's in 1610 to the Spitzer Space Telescope. Surprisingly hard to say.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:43Josh Clark?

  They found a new ring that basically follows the orbit of Saturn's furthest moon out, Phoebe. Bouffet.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's right. I was gonna say Bridgers, but sure.

• 43:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yours is a little more arthouse-y than mine.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Oh, I love that Boy Genius record. So good. I believe Phoebe's is a very faint ring. Is that right?

• 44:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's very, that's why it took so long for us to find it.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:12Josh Clark?

  I think we knew Phoebe existed, the moon. It could be Phoebe. They might be pronouncing it like that. But we didn't know the ring was there until 2009.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the reason we're mentioning all this is the fact that those rings are, they're dynamic. They're changing, they're reshaping. And like we said, and, you know, maybe as little as 100 million years, they may not even be there.

• 44:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I just think that's really fascinating. You know?

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:41Josh Clark?

  You can thank the good Lord that we're alive at a time when Saturn has rings. And we have telescopes.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 44:48Josh Clark?

  So we also talked a lot about the moons just now. And it turns out that Saturn's moons are really fascinating in and of themselves. It has a bunch of moons, as many as 146, that we know about right now. Just last year, well, two years ago, when this comes out in 2023, the International Astronomical Union, they added 62 more moons. And I don't know if they were saving up and just wanted to do a batch edition of moons.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:17Josh Clark?

  If they found a bunch in quick succession, I'm not sure. But they're like, there are definitely more moons there.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, more moons coming. I mean, because yeah, just a couple of years ago, there were under 100. Now there's 146. So, big changes. So, keep collecting those moons, everybody. And hit us in a few years with a number that's gonna knock our socks off.

• 45:36Josh Clark?

  Collect all 146.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 45:39Josh Clark?

  So, the other thing about the moons too, is that they orbit outside of the rings. Which makes sense, because the moons that were inside of the rings were what make up the rings, probably.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:52Josh Clark?

  So, these moons haven't smashed into anything else, and they're just orbiting around. And like you said, Mimas, that one exerts a gravitational influence that creates the Cassini Division, which means that it's really close to those rings. It's actually the nearest moon to Saturn's atmosphere. But it's only about half the distance of the moon we have here on Earth. Which is about 237,000 miles, as every Shining fan knows.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  That's right. But this thing hauls. It has an orbital speed of about 32,000 miles an hour. It's so fast that it completes an orbit in less than an Earth day, about 22 hours. And if you consider our moon here on Earth, what does it take? About a month to complete its orbit? That's really cooking.

• 46:41Josh Clark?

  In fact, the month is based on the moon, taking a month. They're inextricable, basically.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  So, is their month 22 hours?

• 46:51Josh Clark?

  I guess so. Yeah.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  Because what was their day? What did you say their day was?

• 46:54Josh Clark?

  10-ish, I think. 10.6?

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right, 10.

• 47:00Josh Clark?

  So, there's a bunch of different moons, different sizes. But Saturn has some really, really big ones. Titan, which we've already talked about, is enormous.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  What a moon.

• 47:10Josh Clark?

  It is a great moon. Its size is large enough that it can actually hold an atmosphere in place. It's one of the very few moons that we know about that has an actual atmosphere to speak of. And boy, are we gonna speak about it.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is, uh, it's a, it's, Titan is quite striking. It is, um, has mountains made of ice. It has seas, uh, made of, um, ethane and liquid methane. So it's just an incredible moon. It has an atmosphere, um, much like ours. It's composed of nitrogen. Um, but it has an air pressure that just knocks ours out of the park. It's, uh, I think 150% stronger at sea level, which is, is gonna be like, you'd think you were on LSD or something if you, you plopped yourself on Titan and you would look around and you were being like, wait, there's odd things happening. Like it's raining really slowly. And someone say, well, what does that even mean?

• 48:07Speaker 02

  It's like, well, look at the literal rain. It's coming down at about three and a half miles an hour. On Earth, it rains down at about 20 miles an hour. And it just, it's, it sounds funny and it looks funny.

• 48:18Josh Clark?

  And one of the, one of the friends there was like, rain's a weird word. Have you ever thought about that word rain?

• 48:25Speaker 02

  But why does it sound funny?

• 48:27Josh Clark?

  Uh, because the, the atmosphere is so thick that, um, vibration sound can travel much more efficiently through it. So if you shouted like, hello, you would burst the eardrums of your friend on LSD.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. If you said, look how slow the rain is.

• 48:42Josh Clark?

  They just clap their hands over their ears and like double over and paint.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Uh, but it's not a hospitable place. Like, um, nothing could, could live on the surface of Titan. I think it has a a negative 240, I'm sorry, 290 degree, uh, Fahrenheit average temperature. And like we said, the liquids there, uh, are methane and ethane. So that's, you know, what do you, you can't do anything with those two.

• 49:08Josh Clark?

  Uh, no, but there is a liquid ocean about 50 miles below the, the surface. That, that methane and ethane and ice surface. And this ocean is actually made of salt water.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, good fishing from what I hear.

• 49:25Josh Clark?

  For sure, but that's the point. They're like, wait a minute, there's saltwater there. It's heated by the core of Titan. There's also hydrocarbons on the planet's surface. Like, if you put this stuff together in just the right arrangement, you might have some sort of bizarre form of life. Like, these are organic materials that you could conceivably create life from. So who knows what's swimming around or floating around in that ocean underneath Titan's surface?

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:51Josh Clark?

  That's why people are so jazzed about Titan.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. And it's Titan. I mean, come on.

• 49:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  You know?

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  There's also, what'd you say? Insalitus?

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Insalatus.

• 50:02Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  What'd you call it?

• 50:05Josh Clark?

  I said insalatus. You said something else. It sounded like salad.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Are you?

• 50:09Josh Clark?

  Insalitus.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  I think I said insalatus. We'll let the listeners decide.

• 50:14Josh Clark?

  Have you ever thought about that word, insalitus?

• 50:18Speaker 02

  What's the deal with that one? That's, I know it's about the size of Arizona and also has a saltwater ocean, under the crust, that is.

• 50:27Josh Clark?

  So so far, Titan's two for two that we've talked about. We've talked about two moons, and both of them happen to have saltwater oceans.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, underneath.

• 50:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a big one, too. So like, it's underneath its icy crust, which means that it's protected and heated, and heated so much, in fact, that I think we said insalitus, now I don't know how to say it, bursts ice from its ocean out into the atmosphere, creating the E-ring, which is pretty cool in and of itself, but that also means that there's geysers. And where there's geysers, there's probably hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, the floor of the saltwater ocean, and that means that life could conceivably create or start up there. Because that's a really popular theory these days about how life started on Earth around hydrothermal vents in the ocean.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:21Josh Clark?

  So who knows? And then the Cassini probe wrote back, wrote home from camp not too long ago and was like, hey, I sampled some of this water and it's got some mind-blowing stuff in there.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, we mentioned earlier, the Cassini spacecraft finished up in 2017. It was called the grand finale when it wrapped up its mission because it on purpose. So it's like, hey, let's just get really close and just kamikaze this thing. And just see what kind of readings we can get up to the last second there. So that's how it ended its mission, but there's a new one. Dragonfly that's coming up, I believe, launching in 2028. And will arrive on Titan by 2034. So, I mean, hang on to your hats. It'll be a decade, but then from now, but then we're gonna start get some, I mean, imagine the changes that are gonna happen between now and then.

• 52:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. And there's actually a really cool animation, artist interpretation of that grand finale of the Cassini probe that's worth watching on YouTube.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 52:27Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 52:29Speaker 02

  Uh, I got nothing else.

• 52:32Josh Clark?

  I got one more thing. It turns out in the northern hemisphere, September 2025 will be the best time to view Saturn. Because it'll be on the opposite side of the sun from Earth. So it'll be nice and bright and easy to see.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Oh, cool. Well, we'll either think to remind you and we'll probably forget. But I imagine that'll be a newsmaker, like people on the news will be saying like, hey, go out and look for Saturn.

• 52:54Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Might be able to see it with your eyeballs.

• 52:56Josh Clark?

  Okay, well Chuck mentioned eyeballs, so we have no choice but to unlock listener mail.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Hey, guys, this is from Rockney. I'm the mother of one. It says another, but I bet they meant mother.

• 53:13Josh Clark?

  Probably.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  I'm the mother of one of your longtime listeners. I don't remember exactly when I started listening, but it was back in high school. I graduated.

• 53:21Josh Clark?

  Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait. So Rockney is the mother of one of our listeners.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 53:26Josh Clark?

  Rock needs to.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  I bet you anything they meant to say, I'm another one of your longtime listeners.

• 53:33Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  Now that I'm reading it and doing the math.

• 53:35Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Okay. Here we go. Hey, guys, my name is Rockney. I'm another one of your longtime listeners. My girlfriend Anna has never listened to a single episode of your podcast. English is her second language, so she's probably Anna. And English spoken word entertainment doesn't quite feel relaxing for her yet. So don't hold it against her. But over the past few weeks, I've been on a mission. I've been humming, whistling and vocalizing the Stuff You Should Know theme song nonstop around her, trying to make it familiar. And this past weekend, my experiment finally succeeded. I called her humming it on her own, completely unprompted.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  I came clean, told her I'd been training her ears, explaining it's the theme song of my podcast. She's familiar with Stuff You Should Know through my constant mentions, and she just calls it my podcast. We both had a great laugh about it. Recently, I heard a listener mail from a mom who casually used Clark as a verb, so I figured I'd share my similar success story. So, thanks for over 1.2 decades of entertainment, and that is from Rockney.

• 54:34Josh Clark?

  Thanks a lot, Rockney. We appreciate that. Thanks for trying to spread the good word by creating earworms.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 54:42Josh Clark?

  If you want to be like Rockney and let us know your situation, we'd love to hear that kind of stuff. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to [email protected].

• 54:57Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 55:12Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordibility, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Curious people ask great questions, and here's one. What's something you wish there was an app for? Well, with Base44, you can build it yourself. Maybe it's a tool to organize a project, or track a hobby, or share knowledge, or solve a

• 55:56Josh Clark?

  problem that's always bugged you. Just describe what you want in your own words, no coding required. Base44 handles the database, login, backend, and hosting. Try it for free. Go to base44.com to get started.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees a network you can rely on so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T: Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Just visit att.com/guarantee for details.

• 56:43Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.