Science Friday - An Exoplanet Where It Rains Sand

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Scientists observing the exoplanet WASP-107b with the James Webb Space Telescope say that the planet has clouds of sand high in its atmosphere. The scientists detected water vapor, sulfur dioxide, and silicate sand clouds in the atmosphere of the planet, which is about the mass of Neptune but the size of Jupiter—stats that caused astronomers to describe it as “fluffy.” Science journalist Swapna Krishna joins guest host Flora Lichtman for a look at the planet.They also discuss the tense seismic situation on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland.    Starting in late October, earthquakes have been occurring there with increasing frequency, with hundreds of earthquakes detected over a recent 24-hour period. The quakes are due to underground magma flowing into the area and straining the earth’s crust. Measurements have also spotted an increasing concentration of sulfur dioxide gas in the area—which could point to an impending volcanic eruption. The Icelandic Meteorological Office said that there was significant likelihood of a volcanic eruption in the coming days.Flora and Swapna also discuss other stories from the week in science, including a growing discrepancy in life expectancy between US men and women, a 3D printed robot hand with working tendons, efforts to control the spread of a drug lord’s escaped hippos in Colombia, and the tale of a tool bag—lost in space.To stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

It's been a tense time on Iceland's Rakhianas Peninsula. For the last few weeks, they've been seeing a lot of earthquakes. Most of these are smaller earthquakes you can't really feel, but a lot of them, they've been larger earthquakes, like we're talking 5.0 magnitude. It's Friday, November 17th, and today is Science Friday. I'm SciFri producer Charles Bergquist. Starting in late October, the Raycianus Peninsula has seen a lot of seismic activity. guest host Flora Lickman and science journalist Swapna Krishna talk about what's going on underground in Iceland.

Plus other stories from the week in science, including the tale of an exoplanet where it rains sand and a wayward toolbag in space. It's all in this week's CyFRI News Roundup. Here's Flora. Earthquakes have been rumbling through the peninsula for the last few weeks with increasing frequency. And this week, they were seeing hundreds of earthquakes a day. Listen to this. That sound is a translation of seismic data made by the Earth Tunes app run by Northwestern University. Each of those snaps and pops represents an earthquake. That 30-second clip captures the earthquake activity of about eight hours last Friday.

Here to tell us what's going on is Swapnakrishna, a science journalist based in Philadelphia. Welcome back to Science Friday. Thank you so much. What is happening with all these earthquakes? Yeah, so this peninsula is in southwest Iceland, and scientists think a volcanic eruption might be imminent in the area. And so part of the reason for this is this area sits on the mid-Atlantic ridge, which is the boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. And they're drifting apart and creating rifts. Yeah, so what's causing all of these earthquakes? Do we know?

Right now, there is a what's called a magma dike, and that's around 9.3 miles. long, and it's a tunnel of molten rock basically underneath the earth. And that's resulting in holes in the ground, cracks through streets. It's a big deal. I saw some of the pictures. It's really dramatic. I mean, highways, like, completely cracked in half with huge gaping holes. Exactly. And so right now, the main area of concern is Grendavik, which is a town of about 3,000 people. The town's been evacuated. So is the Blue Lagoon, which is a popular tourist attraction. And there have been thousands of earthquakes reported in the region. At one point, the number was 1,400 in a 24-hour period.

Whoa. That's wild. Yeah. It's a lot. Most of these are smaller earthquakes you can't really feel. But a lot of them, they've been larger earthquakes, like we're talking 5.0 magnitude. So a magma river under the ground, that does not sound like a good sign for eruption. What are people bracing for?

Right now, we're basically just waiting to see, is there going to be an eruption? We don't know. If it's going to happen, it's probably going to happen within the next few days to three weeks. And if that doesn't happen in that amount of time, the activity will likely quiet down. When we say an eruption is imminent, does that mean, like, should I be picturing a Hawaiian volcano or sort of magmas like oozing out or like Mount St. Helens explosion level eruption? We're not talking Mount St. Helens here. We are talking a Hawaii-style explosion. It'll be slow-moving lava, seeping out of the ground. The concern, though, is this is a populated area. Right now, they're not worried about Reckieckovic, but it's only 25 miles from the epicenter where all of this is happening. Wow. And so the concern really is

not just the lava, but the fissures and the cracks that will open up and threaten these populated areas. plus scientists detected sulfur dioxide seeping from the ground, which means that any eruption will probably mean that this toxic gas will affect air quality. But it's important to note. We're not talking about the effect that the 2010 eruption had, which disrupted all kinds of air traffic, because that lava flow specifically happened through glacial ice, which is what threw up that giant ash cloud.

Let's move to a planet with its own extreme environment. You have a story about a planet where it may rain sand. Yeah, this is a really interesting one. I love these weird exoplanets. So scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope identified an exoplanet. It's called WASP 107B, and that's about 211 light years away. It has clouds made of silicate particles in its upper atmosphere, and silicate is the main ingredient in sand. So sand clouds. That sounds unpleasant. Yes, I would say. I would think so. But I think it's important to note that this isn't like a dust storm that's whipping sand into the atmosphere like a sandstorm, what you would think of here on Earth. This is actual clouds made of sand. How did they figure this out? So one interesting thing about Wasp 107B is that it's basically puffy. It's got the mass of Neptune, but the size of Jupiter.

So for context, Neptune is about 17 times more massive than Earth, but just 1 19th of Jupiter's mass. So this planet is like puffy. You can think of it like cotton candy. And so one thing this allows us to do is look deeper down into the atmosphere than we would for like a Jupiter. So using JWST, they were actually able to look down into the planet's atmosphere and see what's going on. That's really cool. I mean, I love this because it creates this image in my head that, you know, raining sand on a cotton candy planet. Like you had me at hello. But does it tell us anything important about how planets work? Yes, it does. So here's where it gets interesting. Silicate particles form clouds at around 1,000 degrees Celsius. But the upper atmosphere of WASP 107B is only about 500 degrees Celsius. So that's a pretty big temperature differential. And these clouds are higher up in the atmosphere than scientists would expect. So they must be traveling from a lower, warmer part of the atmosphere. And so what they think is happening is there's this sort of water vapor phenomenon like we have here on Earth. except with sand. So down in the lower atmosphere, the sand particles evaporate and then travel on some sort of vertical updraft into the upper atmosphere. They form clouds, and then the cycle continues with the raining sand back into the lower atmosphere. Science fact is science fiction,

almost. This is wild. Yes. So back here on Earth, a more serious story, a growing discrepancy in life expectancy for U.S. men and women. Tell me about this. Yeah, this is kind of a sad one. We've known for over a century that women, on average, live longer than men. This is not just a United States phenomenon. It's international. But in the U.S., we're seeing that gap widening after it was closing for a long time. And so a recent study says that the life expectancy for women is now six years longer than it is for men. Wow.

Why is that? Well, there's a few reasons. COVID-19 played a large role. But the gap was widening before that. It's important to note. But it did accelerate significantly. significantly from 2019 to 2021. Men died of the virus more often than women. And that was due to health factors, but also behavior because men are less likely to go to the doctor than women are.

Were there any other factors? Yes, sadly, accidental deaths like car accidents, drug overdoses, homicides, suicides, and deaths related to heart disease. Here's a follow up to a story we mentioned a few years ago on Science Friday about the escaped hippos of the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. What is the latest on these hippos? So these hippos have been living freely in the rivers of Columbia and reproducing. People think now it's probably starting to disrupt the ecosystem. There's more than a hundred of these hippos now. Experts estimate their numbers could reach over 1,000 by 2035 if there's no intervention.

So Columbia is engaging in this sterilization program for these hippos. And it is, I wouldn't say it's necessarily going well. Well, I mean, it would be amazing if it were going well, right? Like, they weigh tons. And I've heard hippos aren't that friendly. Like, how do you even do it? So they're surgically sterilizing these hippos, and it's just, it's a, there's a, it's, there's a, it's, there's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, surgical sterilization has its issues, as well as to the people doing this because these hippos are huge. And there's been a lot of rain in the area. So, they're having trouble baiting the hippos because there's plenty of grass around, which is what the hippos eat. Is this controversial at all? Yeah, not everybody is happy about this. A lot of people don't think it's going to work. They're trying to sterilize 40 hippos a year, and it's already not going well. They've only done three so far.

But also, there's been research back in 2020 that these hippos might actually be beneficial. Most large agent herbivores are now extinct because of humans and reintroducing them. The study used the example of hippos in Colombia, but also camels in Australia and wild boars in North America. are helping to restore these ancient ecosystems. Let's go to the technology world. You have a story about a 3D printed robot hand with a twist. Yeah, this is really cool. Scientists were able to 3D print a robot hand with working ligaments and tendons.

But the really big news here is that it was all in one go. They did not have to print the rigid and elastic materials separately. Oh, that's really cool because that's been a drawback of 3D printing, right? Exactly. Like we know 3D printing has been around for a while, but the materials they can use are limited. The process introduces a lot of imperfections. So the product basically has to be scanned and examined and scraped after every layer. So that limits the kind of materials you can use because anything too soft or malleable will get squished during the scraping process. Right. Okay. Finally, there's something new to look for out in space this weekend. A tool bag? Yes, on the International Space Station, or more specifically outside the International Space Station, two astronauts were performing a routine spacewalk to do some maintenance on their home in space. They were out there for a total of six hours and 42 minutes, but when they got inside, they found they had lost their tool bag. This is why I can't be an astronaut. This is one of the many reasons why I can't be an astronaut because I can never find my keys.

Like, I would be the one leaving the tool bag in space for sure. Yeah, and it's important to note. It's not a big deal in terms of they don't need these tools for anything. And NASA did find the tool bag. And it is not in any way going to threaten any other spacecraft or the international space station. But the fun part is that you can actually see it with binoculars from the earth. I could see it myself. Yes. You can go to spotthestation.nassad.gov. So you can figure out where the ISS will be. in the night's sky wherever you are. And then apparently if you look just before the International Space Station, you can see the bag as a star in the sky and the space station trailing it. You will need a pair of binoculars. But I just think that's hilarious. Okay, everybody, get out your binoculars for this weekend. That's about all the time we have Swapna Krishna, a science journalist based in Philadelphia. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. And that's it for today. We've got a

request for you. If you have a favorite sci-fri story from this past year, let us know, so we can feature it in our end-of-year highlight reel. Send us your suggestion at ScienceFriiday.com slash 2023. Next time, we'll talk about the use of AI and medicine, especially what happens when a chatbot gets trained on dubious medical data. I'm SciFri producer Charles Bergquist. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.