SciShow Tangents - Bonus Backlog Bonanza - Ep. 17

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

This bonus episode was originally posted on Patreon on August 1, 2022 titled "SciShow Samgents: ANAGRAM."Original Patreon description: Listen and play along with the team in this month's bonus episode!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents! And go to https://complexly.store/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on socials:Ceri: @ceriley.bsky.social@rhinoceri on InstagramSam: @im-sam-schultz.bsky.social@im_sam_schultz on InstagramHank: @hankgreen on X

Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents bonus episode. I'm your host Hank Green. It's our special episode of SciShow Tangents called SciShow Samgents because I have no idea what's about to happen. It seemed like you did know what was going to happen. You really launched into it. Oh, thanks. You know what the hardest thing in the world for me is?

What? To go, hello, hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents. I just can't do it. Yeah. Well, do you want me to give you a tutorial? Yeah. OK, so imagine that there is a spider that almost got in your mouth. I just can't do it. Yeah. Well, do you want me to give you a tutorial? Yeah. Okay.

So imagine that there is a spider that almost got in your mouth. Ah, okay. Take that energy and put it into the word hello. I don't want to do it in front of you. Oh. I'm not gonna judge you. All right, I'm just gonna launch into the game

because we gotta go baby, we're lightning round. Okay course of size show tangents We've talked about several scientific things with fun acronyms for names and no scientists love good acronyms as much as space scientists So I've devised That do you know Adam to do you know what scuba stands for it stands for self-contained underwater breathing mechanism? Are so you need did you know that tuba is also an acronym? What does it stand for it stands for terrible underwater breathing mechanism. Or something. Did you know that TUBBA is also an acronym? What does it stand for? It stands for terrible underwater breathing apparatus. That's a pretty good joke.

Yeah, that was. It's one of my favorites. I like that. All right, so I've devised a game to test your knowledge of these acronyms. Oh, you ruined my life now. And have a little fun while we're at it. The game... Should we know these already?

No, no, God no. The game is called Anagram, which is of course an acronym, meaning astronomical names abbreviated and gamified. Rewards await, man. In Anagram, I will present you both with the same acronym and challenge you to guess its meaning for every word you get correct. In the acronym, you get a point and you get a bonus five points for getting the acronym completely correct. Wow. And you'll alternate guessing first, but you'll both be able to hear each other's guesses.

I don't know if that'll work or not. We'll see. My brain is so fried right now. I just edited the Crash Course script. I have no juice. Somebody get me one of those like things that the bikers drink, the gels. The gels.

We gotta get you a big box of gels to keep next to your desk. Man, yes, that would be great for me, I'm sure. Lots of high energy sugar nearby me where I sit all day. You wouldn't go through them all in a day. You could have your decaf coffee and then glucose. Yeah. All right.

So round one, are you ready? Round one is all satellites. Oh, and guess a number between one and five. Ceri. Four. Hank. One. five. Sari. Four. Hank. One. Sari was closer.

Okay. So Sari will go first. Okay. The first one is Astro. What does Astro mean? And it is a satellite. Astro. Astrological satellite.

Safe. Safe. Guess is both. Yeah. To read oxygen. To read oxygen. To read oxygen. To read oxygen. To read oxygen. To read feeling good about my chances. Uh, recording orbiter. Orbit is a good space word.

Well, you both got zero points, unfortunately. I feel like that's going to be common. Yeah. We're rethinking our game a little bit. But I'm going to go with the space tool. I'm going to go with the space tool. I'm going to go with the space tool. I'm going to go with the space tool.

I'm going to go with the space tool. I'm going to go with the space tool. Orbit is a good space for you both got zero That's gonna be common In our game a little bit maybe you need to tell us a little bit about these or these satellites Oh, I even wrote down a little description about each one. So I'll just do that. Okay, so this is a Autonomous space transport robotic. I didn't say space for the second thing. No, nobody said space I thought I said space. You said a satellite. A was here for a satellite. So that's part of the now shuttered Orbital Express program which was conducted by DARPA

to test tools to service satellites from Earth. The next one is ACE and that is a satellite studying solar wind and the interstellar medium. Mm. The Able Climate Emission. All the letters you got. Able Climate Emission. Could be, could be. Sorry. The autonomous celestial energizer.

Gosh, you're just leaving such an obvious word on the table. It is the advanced composition explorer. We're not going to get any of these right. We're thinking. Did you base this game off of the fact that I always try to guess acronyms during tangents and always do badly. Next up, NIR, which is a space probe used to study near-Earth asteroids. NIR.

Near-Earth asteroids is what it's studying and it's called NIR. Is it? Do I get to go first? Sari goes first. Near-Earth asteroid robot. Okay, Hank near earth asteroid Reader Okay, I was kind of scared you were gonna get it all the way, right? So you both got near earth asteroid nice Thanks for the hints

The last word is rendezvous Yeah The last word is rendezvous. Ooh, rendezvous. Yeah. Next up, La Crosse, which is a satellite orbiting and mapping the moon's surface. There is no A, it's just L-Crosse, but I think I would call it La Crosse if I was there. Okay, so it's L-Crosse? Yes, a satellite orbiting and mapping the moon's surface.

What's on the surface of the moon, I wonder hmm. All right, we get a hint L I'm gonna go with Lunar crater Reader rendezvous Orbiter stable satellite Orbiter stable satellite. Interesting. OK. OK. Crater rendezvous orbital stable satellite.

I also was going to go for lunar crater and that's not an acronym. Rock and rock. OK, cool. And rocky orbit. Mm hmm. Sediment. Good one. Yeah, that could And rocky orbit. Mm hmm. Sediment. Good one. Yeah, that could be in there. Station. That's going to take a bit of scoring because. Really? Yeah. How do we do? OK, so, Hank, you got three.

Oh, Sarah, you got two. You both got lunar crater. OK. This one is a bit of a trick. It's lunar crater observation and sensing satellite. So crater is the C and the R. They don't always get it perfect, but they try their best. And I got satellite. And you got satellite. Yes, and you also got satellite.

Why didn't they want to name it LaCosse? I guess it's not as fun They wanted to name it lacrosse after their favorite high school sport that they played because there were little rich kids That was how my high school was. Yeah Okay, how did that was interesting? Yeah, become the rich kid. I don't know man. It's very interesting Yeah, I I don't want to do that ethnography, but I'm sure somebody could. We'll leave it to the experts. That's right.

And finally on satellites, SMART, which is an ESA satellite. Is that what he's saying? You told me this yesterday. Yeah. An ESA satellite studying the moon. SMART. Who's first? Oh, Hank is.

I don't remember. Tuna? Yeah, I think it's me. It's first? Oh, Hank is. I don't remember. Tuna? Yeah, I think it's me. Oh, it's a Sari. Oh, OK. Tuna's got me all lined up in the dock. Spectral. Moon. Nice, nice.

Asteroid. Trying to think of other words that aren't rock for R. OK, spectral moon asteroids random Okay, why not? telemetry? That's a satellite word I think. Hank smart and ESA satellite studying the moon.

All right, so it's ESA. So I'm gonna go with Swedish. Meatballs. Swedish meatballs. Always research. Telescope. Let's see it. Yeah.

Swedish meatballs. Always research. IKEA is getting into the space game. Hank, you're never going to believe it. That's exactly right. No, it is. Small missions for advanced research in technology. I got a point!

You did get research. You did get research. I forgot about that one. So Hank, we end round one. Let's say he has two points. Hank's got four points. Four. Wow. Round two. We end round one. Let's say he has two points. Hank's got four points. Wow.

Round two, space telescopes. So similar to satellites, but they're all telescopes. Okay. Number one is Fuse, an ultraviolet space telescope. Fuse. Hank first. Is gonna stand for fast. ultraviolet space telescope. Fast ultraviolet space explorer.

I forgot how to say that word for a second. Finding ultraviolet star emissions. Nice. I think you think that these are like describing an action more often than they actually are. They're always like verbs or whatever. Yeah. I gotta go more noun heavy. The problem is I panic and I forget every word that starts with the letter F.

Yeah. Total panic. I'm like, I'm like, phantom. Frogs! So Hank, you got two points on that one. What? Oh my gosh! Ultraviolet and Explorer. Oh right. And Zary, you got Ultraviolet. Explorer.

FAR Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. Spectroscopic, of course. Next up, Amanda, a neutrino telescope named Amanda. Ha ha ha ha. And it's Aries first. Yeah, Amanda, nouns, I'm channeling nouns. A neutrino telescope, I will remind you. Okay, yeah, there's no other isn't an innovation

There's no any Amanda You got really mad at me first I did just a little bit. I thought you're gonna throw me off. Um analytic and analytic analytical meteor and neutrino detector awesome. Okay.

Okay. Okay, well a neutrino detector is a huge, I'm not gonna not say that, that's great. That's a big win. I wrote, before Ceri started talking, I wrote all material analysis and then I wrote neutrino detector. And then I'm gonna say analysis again, just for safety.

Oh, that's a good- All material analysis, neutrino detector analysis. Okay. Amanda, sure, okay. Hank, you got two points. Oh, was it for neutrino detector? Sarai, you got two points. Oh, was it for neutrino detector? Sarah, you got three points. Incredible.

So Hank got neutrino detector and Sarah got and neutrino detector. Yes! The answer is Antarctic muon and neutrino detector. All right. So Antarctic, it could have been Swedish, see? Could have been.

Yeah, like that's just another country. Or is it? Is Antarctica a country? No, no, I don't think so. It's just a place. Yeah. Next step. Corot, C-O-R-O-T, a space telescope for detecting extrasolar planets.

Corot. Extrasolar planets. Korat. Extrasolar planets. So exoplanets. Yes. Calibrated. Observation. Hmm. Um, research.

Object transit. That's a lot of good exoplanet words. Yeah. Do they have to be in the right place? No, no, I don't think so. Me and Tuna aren't going to do that. I shouldn't have used analysis twice then. I should have thrown in another word.

Sorry. Corot, a space telescope for detecting extrasolar planets. Celestial Outer Rocky Orbs Telescope. It's never going gonna be rocky. I wanted to be rocks! The letter R appears many more times. The rock will never appear. I'll just give you that. Thanks.

I think that's a little handicap because rock is the only R word I can think of. You better bust out the dictionary. Yeah. So this one is another bit of a trick. You both got... Oh, Hank got one point. And you got no point. So it is convection, rotation and planetary transits.

The planetary is not in the thing. No. It's not core option. So C-O-R-O- skip it, T. Yeah, yeah. All right, next up. Hiparchos, H-I-P-P-A-R-C-O-S, Hiparchos, a space telescope specifically designed to measure distances to stars using parallax.

Parallax. Hiparchos.pparchos. Hipparchos. Heavy, infrared, parallax, planetary. Just wanted everyone to know that I wrote down heavy, infrared already. Is heavy infrared a thing? I don't know.

No, they're photons. Yeah. But there are two words that you'd use in spacey stuff. Yeah. But there are two words that you'd use in spacey stuff. Yeah. So heavy infrared parallax planetary and research comet orbital scope. Hmm. Hey, heavy infrared parallel parallax. Ready. OK, satellite. All right. So it looks like it one or two.

You got parallax. You got parallax and satellite. So stands for and sorry, you got none. I'm sorry. I said parallax. Please infrared and parallax. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Well, and Hank got three because he said satellite. I think that you I think that you may be wrong about infrared being in there.

Well, I shouldn't have said that. You're exactly right. Infrared is not in there. You woke up parallax and Hank got satellite. Yeah. OK. Tuna is going too slow. I'm getting confused. That's the problem.

How dare he try to learn this game. High precision parallax collecting satellite. Oh, the PAR. Oh, precision parallax collecting satellite. Oh, the P-A-R. Oh, precision parallax collecting satellite. High precision parallax collecting. Parallax collecting. How do you collect a parallax? You look at it, you collect it in the ear brain.

Yeah, on a hard drive. Okay. Okay, final. That was a verb. It collects stuff and that was in the name. I've been steered astray. Oh, well. Yeah, Sari, you have every right to protest.

I'm sorry, I won't give you any more hints. Finally, integral, which is a gamma ray space telescope. Integral. Okay, great. Well, let me write integral down. Integral. And that's gonna be gamma ray there in the middle. Okay I'm gonna guess that they went and and did a number another one of these numbers and say that it's international. And that's just the INT. exploratory gamma ray alchemy lab.

Alchemy, okay. I didn't know what the A might be. Okay, international exploratory gamma ray alchemy lab. I don't really like your L very much. I like your GR. Invisible neutron telescope expedition gamma ray atomic logo. Yeah, your L is way better than my L. Yeah. That was a bad L.

A treat. So Hank got four points. What? Wow. And Sarah got two. Wow. So the answer is international. You're exactly right Hank,

except the E was also included in international. International gamma ray astrophysics laboratory. Astrophysics! And what? That's what we're talking about right now, you know? I got my ab. I should have gone with your lab. Take that.

That's a big L as they say. That's what they say now. I deserve it after that behavior. Okay, we got one more round. We're gonna go through it real fast. Okay, we'll try to be quick. Okay, this round is potpourri. So it's a little bit of everything,

but I'll tell you what it is, roughly. First up, Dragon. There is no O. D-R-A-G-N. It is a celestial object and it is another name for a radio galaxy, which is a galaxy with giant regions of radio emissions extending well beyond its visible structure. So a dragon. D-R-A-G-N. Desserted radio, astronomical galaxy near?

And then they didn't know it was near, so they stopped there. Is there a question mark at the end of it? Yes. Is it dragon? Yeah. Dark radio astronomy garden gnome, what I ended up with. Gnome doesn't even begin with a G.

I know it doesn't, but they mess things up, you know? They just pick letters out of the middle. All right, all right. So you both got one point. Okay, from radio. From radio. And the answer is double radio source associated with a galactic nucleus galactic nucleus

That was achievable next up which is in my opinion the best one I am oh and it's a coalition of professional and amateur Meteor researchers, it's an organization a coalition of professional and amateur meteor researchers. It's an organization, a coalition of professional and amateur meteor researchers. I am oh. The International Meteor Organization? Interesting, interesting.

I don't know what else. So International Meteorologist Organization? That's a totally different thing. Yeah. International. Meteorologist organization. That's a totally different thing. Meteorologists are like weather people. They are weather people, not meteor guys. By the way, Sam's laughing. I absolutely biffed this and you got it perfect, Hank. Yeah. So Hank, you get three points plus five points for getting it perfect.

Whoa. It is the international media. Sarah, you just got to go with it. If you if you feel like I think good just yeah She's too proud Hank. She's too proud and Sarah you get two points, but I will remind you that filthy to buy extra. Okay. Yeah We like like I'm running away with it here. Yes, I know. Next up is Macho, which is a celestial object, an observing program, and a catalog. So it's an object in the Milky Way's halo thought to comprise part of the galaxy's dark matter, also a survey to detect these sources through gravitational lensing and a catalog of sources detected by the survey.

So Macho, I think just to simplify things, an object in the Milky Way's halo thought to comprise part of the galaxy's dark matter. Macho. Massive, Aurora, cloud-like, halo object. All right. All right, I got Milky Way, amber, coalesced halo object

Okay, okay, so you got three points. Oh That's way more than one you got Two points halo object halo object. So you got massive. So macho is massive Compact halo object. Oh Compact yes object. Oh, man. Has the compact. Yes, the macho. Next gong. It's an organization that monitors oscillations in the sun.

Gong. G O N G. Is there a normal way to say that word? Gong. Gong. I can't say it. Where'd my piece of paper go? Is it my turn to go first? Yes. OK. Gong. Gong. I can't say it. Where'd my piece of paper go? Is it my turn to go first? Yes. Okay. Gong. Gong. Gong. It's an organization and what do they study? Monitors oscillations

in the sun. Okay. So that O has got to be oscillation. So. Sure. And how big is this organization, Sam? A worldwide organization. Great. So global organization. Oh, shoot. Never gonna go away. Never. Global organization, network group.

No, not organization, global oscillation network group. No, not organization, global oscillation network group. OK, sorry. I'm looking up if this is a real word. I don't think it has to be as an acronym. Oh, yeah. The thing about acronyms. Um, global organization for neutronic gases, neutronic gases. Is neutronic the word you were looking at? Global Organization for Neutronic Gases? Neutronic Gases?

Is Neutronic the word you were looking for? Yeah, I was like, is it real? I don't know. You get four points plus five points. No! Because you got it exactly right. Network Group? It's Network Group and it's not organization.

That's the same thing. It's global oscillation network group. Oh my God. Network and network and a group are the same thing. Network group. I think one of it, because gong, because it's an oscillation. Wa wa wa wa wa, is that why?

No. I don't know. I can't believe, this is embarrassing. No, no, no, no. That's not. Finally, Candles, but spelled wrong, C-A-N-D-E-L-S, Candles. And this was a survey. It was the largest project in the history of the Hubble Space Telescope carried out between

2010 and 2013, and aimed to explore galactic evolution in the early universe and look at the very first seeds of cosmic structure at less than one billion years after the Big Bang. Candles. And this is the last question as well. Oh, that's a lot of fricking letters. That's a lot of letters. I spent so hard thinking of my end for last time only to be trounced by networks. So I'm going to... You guys are in the dictionary.

I truly do. After I stopped editing scripts, my vocabulary has gone down the toilet. Okay. Celestial, argon, noodle, deep space, early light Argon Noodle Deep Space Early Light Survey. Noodle? Noodle is in there, yeah. Yeah, you know, spaghetti-ification, noodle. They'll put anything in these acronyms.

Yeah. Here's what I wrote down. Cosmic Array, this is a bunch of science words. It's Cosmic Ar network dark explorer laser survey. Okay. What? Cosmic array network dark explorer laser survey. Looking for all those words in there. Yeah, this is hard.

Totally is. It's a lot of letters. I don't think Sarie got any. No, she got... I said survey. You got survey. So you got one point, Sarari, and you get two points for cosmic and survey. So this is Candles is the cosmic assembly near infrared deep extragalactic legacy survey. Legacy. That's that's less good than laser. I think as well, but they probably didn't use a laser in this. So there was a two word, but it was near infrared, not the N was the two word, not the D.

So yeah. So at the end of our game, Sari has 17 points. Oh, that doesn't sound so bad. Like that. Bless you. Thank you. I'm not editing this one, Hank. So unfortunately, and Hank has 38.

Oh, wow. You more than doubled Ceri's score. Congratulations. Of a space expert. Well, I'd like to thank my years of reading SciShow scripts, which I in which I say the acronym after having told people

what it is, I think that no one deserves more credit than all of those SciShow scripts. All right. Saria, what's your excuse? You only know one word that starts with R. I only know… The only word that I know that starts with R is rock. I only know verbs. I tried to be an individual in society that homogenizes it all. When Hank said something that's clever.

And it's hot where you are too. It's hot, you're sweaty. Yeah, I'm sweaty. And I just don't know as much about space as Hank. It is not my area of interest. If it was like plant acronyms, could probably do a little bit better, but I don't know as much about space as Hank. It is not my area of interest. If it was like plant acronyms, could probably do a little bit better, but I don't like it. Not really any of those that I could find.

I try to do all science acronyms. There are? They're out there, but you're right, there aren't as many. Space is the easiest one to do. Well, that's the end of, what's this game called again? Anagram. Thank you for playing Anagram with me.

And thank you everyone for listening and supporting us on Patreon. Bye. Bye. Bye.