Stuff You Should Know - How the Moon Works

Episode Date: September 15, 2011

Did you know that science still doesn't know the exact origin of the moon? Do you know how the moon creates high and low tides? Do you know the difference between a waxing crescent and a waning gibbous? You will after listening to this riveting episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HouseStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always is a very reluctant Charles W. Chuckers Bryant. Not always reluctant. No. Always here. With me as always. Sometimes reluctant. Is a reluctant Chuck Bryant. How's it going, Josh? It's going fine for me.

I'm great, dude. I'm going to see Bob Dylan tonight. Are you really? Living legend. With Leon Redbone or Russell? Yeah. Yeah, I'm Russell, right? Yeah, he's opening up, I think. I don't really care about that. I was confusing with Egg or Winner. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Not musically, just they kind of look alike. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's all I have to say about that. Okay. Chuck, you ready? I'm ready. Okay, so back in November 1966. Okay. Are you ready for this? We should probably say first, let me tell you, Chuck, we're going to make it through this, okay? I have PTSD from the Sun podcast. We need to do PTSD. I always forget that. Let me just write that down. PTSD. Yes. And now we're doing the Moon podcast, which really, aside from the orbital

dynamics, has almost no physics to it whatsoever. Yeah, this is, it'll be better than the Sun. Okay. So still a little mind-numbing for me. It'll be okay. We'll make it interesting. All right. So back in November 1966, there was a lunar orbiter called the Orbiter 2. Okay. Because it was the second one. And it was flying around the moon, taking pictures of it for the impending moon landing that the Apollo program was leading up toward, right? Yeah, exciting. And it had taken its last bit of film, last picture, and it actually took what's called the picture of the century or it was at the time. It was this kind of side shot of the moon rather than from above. It was almost like from the side so you could see the elevation and everything. And it just looked like a new

view of the moon. So anyway, the NASA controllers tell Orbiter 2, go ahead and crash land. And it did, on the dark side of the moon, never to be heard from again until like a week ago, when another lunar orbiter, which was taking pictures for the moon-based program, it's not around anymore, it got canceled. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Caught this kind of crater, butterfly-shaped crater that's characteristic of a low trajectory landing. Was that it? And it's exactly where NASA thought it would be. Wow. So there you go, one of the mysteries of the moon solved. That's kind of cool. Yeah, this thing's been sitting there for, you know, 40 years. Was there a chimp or anything? No, not an old chimp. But I mean, just to think of this like

lunar orbiter crashed by itself sitting on the dark side of the moon for 40 years, that's lonely. It's chilling, isn't it? It is. Have you seen the movie Moon? Yes, enjoyed that very much. You know, the guy who directed that, Duncan Jones, that's David Bowie's son. Yeah, Bowie's son. Yeah, imagine David Bowie being your dad. I want to see him perform live more than anything else ever, and I don't think he'll ever do it. Oh, he doesn't perform any longer? No, he hadn't played in, I think his last tour was like 10 years ago or something. And he kind of said, this is it. Come see me. I'll be on my Hawaiian island with him on. Is that he lives in an island? Well, he has a place in Kauai. Nice. I'm sure he'd spend some time there. Very nice. All right, sorry.

So I guess. Good movie though. Can you see we're like really trying to put this off? Yeah. Anyway, yes, the moon is a good movie and the moon is a good planetary satellite to Earth. It does all sorts of cool beneficial things for Earth. Did you know that? I did. It has an influence on Earth. That's true. So let's talk about the moon, Chuck. Should we go all the way back, Josh, to the times of Aristotle? Why not? Aristotle, Josh, as we all know, believed in the geocentric model of the universe. Galileo said, no, no, no, you're wrong. It's heliocentric. And apparently he came to that conclusion by studying the moon. Yeah. He basically was like, the sun is the center of the universe. You jerk. Not the Earth. Right. And they said, you know what? That's heresy. And you're

going to be under house arrest for the rest of your life. Yeah. And he's like, well, I have a lot of wine and cheese in my house. So that's not so bad. And I don't read much anyway. So I don't like the outside world. But at first, you know, and I guess he had a better telescope or something because Galileo saw a lot more detail. It sounds like than Aristotle did. I don't think Aristotle had a telescope. Was that the deal? I think that was you just looking at it. I think Copernicus was the first one to look through a telescope. Okay. Or Galileo was before Copernicus and Copernicus had a nicer telescope. I think Galileo came after Copernicus. All right. Well, then that's the way it went. We're going to get this wrong. We totally are. But continue Chuck. But the point is Aristotle

thought the Earth was the center of the universe and the moon had dark spots and light spots they thought were seas. Right. Maria. Yes. I looked up a bunch of pronunciations on this one, by the way. Maria? Yeah, no, that sounds right. Yeah. And the lighter spots were correctly perceived to be land or terry. Yeah, but it's all land as it turns out. It does turn out. The moon is kind of a boring place. Yeah, you think? I think as a destination, yes, I think it's incredibly boring. Not a lot to do there. No, it'd be cool to go there. I'm sure it's the most thrilling thing in the world to do or beyond the world to do to go to the moon and be on the moon. But just, you know, being back here on Earth and discussing parts of it, like the moon as a destination is kind of boring. What the moon

does, where the moon came from, I think is fascinating. I do too. And despite the fact that they were not seas, they still call the Maria seas. Yes. Sea of Tranquility. Yeah, Mars Tranquility or Mars Tranquillium, etc. etc. Yeah. And the Sea of Tranquility is where the first moon landing took place. Yeah, they thought it looks like a nice place to land. And that was 43 years ago, this month, when we're recording, when this comes out, it'll be last month. But that Buzz Aldrin, right, who never gets mentioned first. Yeah, Neil Armstrong second. How about that? Landed on the moon. Apparently Buzz Aldrin was the first person to urinate on the moon. Oh, really? Yeah, Neil Armstrong didn't. Buzz did while they were there. Not on the moon,

but while on the moon. While on the moon. Okay. Yeah. And you always have to church it up, don't you? Well, I mean, that's disrespectful. He'd be literally on the surface of the moon. I think something probably really bad would happen to his physiology if he tried to pee on the moon. Well, it would float away anyway, right? Yeah, but I mean, he'd just implode. Right, okay. Yeah, vacuum. And since those guys, since Buzz Aldrin first peed on the moon in 1969, for the following three years, 12 other Americans set foot on the moon. Yeah, and you don't hear a lot about that supposedly. And we're as far as we know, the only people to set foot on the moon so far. And they brought back about 842 pounds, which is 382 kilograms of moon rock, moon dust, and

it was studied. And then that's about it. That was all they had. They were like, well, I guess we can bring back some of these rocks. And that's all over. What? Yeah, I told everybody on Earth, I'd bring them something. But there is nothing here. I wonder if any, if they got a little piece of rock, I'm sure they did. Surely. You should be able to ask for that, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, if you're the guy who went and got it. Yeah. They came in. Yeah, exactly. And so since then, you know, since they brought back this moon rock, a lot of these questions that have been around since ancient times were settled, just really in the last like 40 years or so. Like, I mean, we now know, okay, for sure that there isn't water on the moon. Supposedly,

there could be. But we now have a good idea, thanks to the moon rocks, how the moon was formed, which settled a long standing debate. That's right. And yeah, and just being there, they found out a lot of stuff. Like they're like, Hey, this isn't a sea. It's all land. Right. About 15% of it is the dark spots that you see, the Maria, Maria, the Maria. And 85% of it is the is the Terre. Is that Terre? Terre. And that's the lighter parts of the moon that you see. And that's like mountainous. It's crazy. Steep mountains, craters, all kinds of things there on the Terre. Well, yeah, because the earth, the earth was about four billion years ago. There were a lot of meteorites bombarding this neck of the solar system. Yeah. Right. And the earth took as many

as the moon, if not more, it still happens today, every day meteorites hit the earth. But our atmosphere burns most of them up. And the ones that made it through the atmosphere and had made a substantial impact on the earth have been largely covered over by the biogeochemical processes that take place on earth. The moon is utterly devoid of these things these days. So they're just craters. And has been for about the last three billion years. So just about anything that's happened over the last three billion years, right, is just a few meteorites, some impacts here or there. But for the most part, the moon's surface was shaped and about four billion to three billion years ago. And it's remained the same ever since then. Yeah. In addition, they think there were volcanoes at

one point on the moon because they noticed rills like these channel channel like depressions that they think was from lava. They found old lava flows and lava tubes. They said, hey, looks like there were some volcanoes here at one point. Yes. And that accounts for a lot of stuff on the moon. But also some of its composition as well. No soil. No, it has something called regolith. And regolith means basically like blanket over solid. Oh, yeah. Rock, right. So it's really just this kind of fine particulate dust, moon dust, it with mixed with volcanic glass and larger rocks. And it's just covers the surface of the moon. It doesn't have soil because it doesn't have any living organisms that are required to make soil. Yeah. Nothing organic on the moon. Correct. Yeah. So

they brought back these rocks. They found out that the Maria, which is what we said was only 15% the dark spots was primary that primarily that one word that we said over and over on the show. What basalt? Yeah, buzz old. And that is a igneous rock from cooled lava. So again, with the volcanoes and the highland regions, the mountain regions we talked about was mainly an orthocyte and breccia. Yeah. Did you look that one up? I did. Because when there's a CI, CA in Italian, that makes a chest sound, but it's CH makes a sound. So it's backwards from what we might think as Americans. Pretty neat. But correct if you're in Italian. That's right. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number

one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid.

Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo's card out of a piece of marble. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner. Maybe take a shirt off. Shirt comes off like before dessert. I'm Bruce Bozzi. You may not know me yet, but you already know most of my launch dates by their first names and voices alone. That was George and Julia. But believe it or not, my podcast guests see me as more than just a piece of meat, like my thoughtful friend Scarlett. Bruce Bozzi, I love you so much. And I love meeting minds with you. What we do on my new podcast,

Table for Two, is what everyone does when they're at lunch with an old friend. We tell stories. We definitely gossip. James Corden winds up kind of ripping off your set. There you go. And we always go deep. Listen to Table for Two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. What else, Chuck? The Lunar Rocks have very little water and volatile compounds. So they resemble the Earth's mantle. They have very little volatile compounds or water. And then Tracy puts in as if they've been baked a little bit of foreshadowing. That's true. And also, Chuck, they found that the highland areas are much older. The rocks in the highland areas are much older than the maria areas, right? And so now with all of this information, we have a pretty good idea

of how the moon formed. Yeah. Oh, they also had, they had some size, seismometers, and they found that there's no, there's no shifting of the plates going on, right? Tectonic activity on the moon. There are no moonquakes. And they also used magnetometers. And they did not detect any substantial magnetic field at the, around the moon, which means that it's not, it doesn't have a substantial iron core. Right. So they're basically just trying to figure out how much is it like the Earth in some ways. I mean, they want to find out what it was, but they're kind of comparing because some of the old previously thought reasons why the moon was there had to do with it literally spinning off of the Earth. Well, it's significant that moon rocks

are similar in composition to mantle rocks found on Earth. Yeah. Pretty close, which means to a lot of people that the moon has always been connected to the Earth in a lot of people's minds, right? So there's different ways that it formed, but it's always in relation to the Earth almost, except for one. Yeah. So previously to the lunar landing, they had a few ideas. They thought maybe there was the double planet hypothesis, which was the Earth and Moon formed together. Yeah. Because remember in the asteroid mining podcast, we talked about the formation of planets. It starts spinning and then everything just kind of comes together. That's a good easy way to say it. Yeah. The capture hypothesis was the Earth's gravity

captured the moon as it was just cruising by. Right. That's the only one where they weren't related. But the Earth said, hey, we're going to hold you captive now because we like your gentle light that you cast upon us at night time. And then the fission hypothesis, which was the Earth spun so much and so rapidly that a blob of molten Earth spun off and that was the moon. Right. That sounds a little, even in the 60s, I would have been like, really? Well, I mean, think about it. If it's forming and everything's just kind of loose still. Yeah. I guess we didn't know as much back then. So all of these have been kind of shot down, right? That's right. The fact that the moon and the Earth's compositions are not the same

means that they probably didn't form right alongside one another because they should be pretty much the same material. Yeah. The Earth can't possibly capture something as large of the moon as the moon and keep it there. No. And then lastly, Chuck, the Earth has never been known to be able to spin fast enough to spin any part of it off. If it were, we would be the first things off of the Earth that they could spin that fast. Not anybody. Let alone a sizeable chunk. Right. So what they think now is after the 70s, they came up with this thing called the giant impact or theory. Yeah. And that's standing up fairly well, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's this idea that another planet or planetoid or something about the size of Mars early in the Earth's formation came

along and collided with the Earth with such force that it was absorbed into the Earth. Well, it broke off a chunk and then that part filled in the part that was chunked off. Right. It's like, what are those twins where one eats the other and the womb called? Oh, yeah. It's kind of like that. Mean twins. So it's like the Earth has like another planet that really just looks like a teratoma with fingernails or teeth inside of it. Yes. And that one is actually held up. They've done computer simulations and they said, oh, this could have happened. Well, we left off the most important part from that impact. It shot out a bunch of stuff that formed into the moon. Yes. And that was very hot, obviously. And then it cooled eventually. But that's why

the rocks appear to have been baked. Right. That was the foreshadowing. Right. So the idea behind this, like you said, it stood up that enjoys the majority opinion. Right. Agreed. So after this impact as the moon's spinning and forming itself into a spheroid, it's covered in this ocean of magma. Right. And this ocean of magma starts to cool and inside the core is solid, outside magma. It starts to cool and everything kind of switches. The outside becomes solid, the inside's magma. Right. And then after a while, there's this period of bombardment that I talked about of meteorites in the neighborhood. It forms all of the highlands, the craters. Almost every feature on the surface of the moon is formed during this bombardment period. Now, that's when the lava

is eking out through the cracks from the center. That came after that. Okay. So at this point, the moon has a molten core, a solid exterior, and is being bombarded with meteorites. So we're seeing the stuff that we see today happen 3.9 billion years ago. Then after that period, there's a period of volcanic activity all over the moon. So that's when it's leaking up through the cracks. And it leaks up through the cracks in the maria areas, which explains why there's more craters in the highlands than in the maria because the craters were covered over by this basalt, which is so prevalent in these areas. Right. Makes a lot of sense actually. And then lastly, this volcanic activity expelled all of the heat in the moon, turning it into a

dead lifeless hulk that we know and love today. Well, that sounds sad, but I love it in its current state. So I'm actually happy about it. Okay. So let's talk about it in its current state, Chuck. Here's, so there's the moon. It's right there. That's how it got there. Right. That's kind of cool, like you didn't know that before. I didn't until we researched this stuff. All right. So in its current state, Chuck, it's in this orbit around Earth. It doesn't spin on its axis. And it's basically dragged along like, you know, a wheel that's stuck. You can still drag it across the ground. Yeah, it's just not spinning. Sure. This is much the same way, but rather than in a vertical orientation, this is horizontal. The moon is not spinning on a horizontal axis. It's being

dragged around. That's right. And so that's why we only see the one side of the moon, the same side of the moon all the time. The happy side. The side with the cheese. Well, we wouldn't know if the other side was happier. Well, that's the dark side. This is scary side. Yeah. That's that crashed lunar rover or not rover, but a orbiter. Yeah, orbiter two. Orbiter two. So you're talking about the 29. Is it 29.5 days or is it just 29? It's my understanding that it's 29.5. Okay. That's what I thought. Sometimes it is between the earth and the sun. Sometimes it's behind us. So what we're talking about here is the moon phases. That's why you'll see the crescent moon or the half moon or the full moon. Different parts of the moon are lit up by the sun, depending on where it is in

relation to the earth. It's pretty simple. Yeah. And Nido. Yeah. And when it's lit up and when it's not lit up, there's a huge, huge difference in temperature. What was that? Was it a future Rama? It was a future Rama where they had to get back to their transport before the horizon line, the point where the sun was hitting the moon. I didn't see that. Got to them or else it was going to vaporize them. Wow. Because the difference in temperature, the mean temperature in the shadow of the moon, if I may, I know you like stats. Please. The mean temperature in the shadow of the moon is negative 292 degrees Fahrenheit. That is one mean temperature. Negative 180 degrees Celsius. Yeah. In the sunlight, Chuck, the mean, the mean, this is the one that's the average,

right? Or is the median average? Why didn't you say that? The mean surface temperature in the sunlight is 266 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 130 degrees Celsius. Wow. That's quite a difference. Yeah. There's like a 600 degree difference. That's the power of the sun, my friend. Right. Which we've gone over in detail. So over these billions of years, a couple of changes have happened to the moon to move a little further away from the earth and its rotation has slowed some over the years. Yes. Which, you know, that doesn't mean anything to me right now, but it's worth pointing out. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Did you talk about the different phases, like the waning and the waxing and all that? Well, I didn't go over it in that much detail now.

Well, I've always just enjoyed this, right? So do you know what they call a moon that's growing toward full moon and is almost full? That's waxing gibbous? Yes. So remember that one. It's going on its way toward a full moon and there's more moon present than there isn't. There's a waxing gibbous. And then do you know what it's called when it's going toward a new moon and it's a thin little sliver? The waning crescent? Yes. If you remember waning crescent and waxing gibbous, you can name any phase of the moon just by looking at it and impress your friends. That's true, because you also have the waxing crescent first quarter, a waning gibbous last quarter, and everyone's favorite, the full moon. Yeah, the full moon's, that's the money moon. Sure. And

you know, people say that things go wacky at full moons, but I think that we found that that is largely just stories and it's not necessarily been proven like emergency medical emergency rooms are supposed to be wacky and people go crazy in the full moon and werewolves come out. Isn't that backed up though by numbers? Tracy said it's not. Where did you see that? It was somewhere in here. I didn't see it. Well, it's in there. Weird. Or maybe I saw it somewhere else. Yeah. But they said it's pretty much anecdotal, but I thought I had seen that too, where it was backed up by numbers. Well, there is. There's another, I guess, if you're a skeptic, it's a crackpot theory, but there's a bunch of people who believe in the concept of the supermoon. You heard about that?

That sounds familiar. So the moon travels its orbit around the earth is not a perfect circle, it's an ellipse. So that means that there are points where it's as far as it can be away from the earth and as close as it can be. So as close as it can be, it's called perigee and as far away as called apogee and it hits these once a month each, right? Right. So it's not unusual for the moon to be in perigee or apogee and normally when it is, it just means that the tides are higher and lower and we'll talk about tides in a minute. That's right. But if it's in a full moon and it's at perigee, which means that there's more exposed to the sunlight, which really doesn't mean anything, but it's closer. Supposedly, what this happens like once every 19 years, supposedly that's linked

to all sorts of destructive stuff on earth like earthquakes and floods and things like that. You can go back and say, oh, well, the moon, there was a supermoon in 1954. When was the last one? The last one was March 19, 2011. March 11, 2011 was the Japan quake. So people who believe in the supermoon say, there, see, we can go back and find this all the time. And then people who say, if you look for something, yeah, you're linking to unrelated phenomena. That is very interesting. But that's the supermoon. At the very least, it sounds very cool. Super anything sounds cool. Right. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind

the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Step out of piss y'all. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo's carved out of a piece of marble. True. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner. Maybe take a shirt off. Shirt comes off like before dessert. I'm Bruce Bozzi. You may not know me yet, but you already know most of my launch dates by their first names and voices alone. That was George and Julia. But believe it or not, my podcast guests see me as more than just a piece of meat like my thoughtful friend Scarlett. Bruce Bozzi, I love you so much and I love meeting minds with you. What we do on my new podcast, Table for Two, is what everyone does when they're at lunch with an old friend.

We tell stories. We definitely gossip. James Corden winds up kind of ripping off your set. There you go. And we always go deep. Listen to Table for Two on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. So Chuck, I said that we were going to talk about tides and I deliver on my promises. Well, you can't talk about the moon without talking about tides. It's true. And Bill O'Reilly. We mentioned him. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. The moon has a gravitational force. We all know that and it pulls on water in the oceans. It stretches this water out and forms what's called a tidal bulge on the sides of the planet that are in line with the moon. That's the first part. The moon water obviously pulls on the side closest to it,

which causes the bulge toward the moon, pulls on the earth a little bit and drags the earth away from the water from the opposite side. And there's another tidal bulge and the area under the bulge, the areas of the earth under the bulge are high tide. The areas on the thin sides are low tide. It's like clockwork. That's mind boggling. Six hours. Well, 12 hours. The moon pulls tugs on the ocean. It does. Tugs on the ocean toward it, right? And it even moves the earth a little bit. It does. Into the ocean a little more. Said another way, the moon actually pulls water. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. It is. Yeah. And then on the other side, it pulls it away from the water. It pulls the earth away from where the water is. So it's low tide. And yeah,

like you said, that happens every six hours, right? Yeah. And the other cool thing is that also the moon stabilizes the earth's rotation. If it wasn't for the moon, we might end up looking like a wobbly top that's starting to slow down. Yes. Like inception. Yeah. Your favorite movie. So, you know, that top wobbling, Tracy talks about precession, where because of that skew to its axis, the angle of its axis, the polar star changes every like 14,000 years, I think, 26,000 years. So right now, Polaris is the north star. The north star in 3000 BC was called Thubin. Did you know that? No. So we're going to get another one and AD 14,000 Vega will be the pole star. Huh. Isn't that cool? That is pretty cool.

I hope I'm around to see it. I don't know. They're going to have to be some significant advances in longevity research in the next 20 years. So what else do we have, Chuck? Well, we've got eclipses. If you want to dive into that, it's worthy. Take it. When the moon passes between the sun and the earth, occasionally you're going to get that exact alignment of the sun, moon and earth. And that's a solar eclipse. And I don't know if a lot of people know this. When you have a solar eclipse that same month, you're going to have a lunar eclipse as well. Yeah. It's like in the bag. In the bag. But the moon has to be full, correct? Yeah. When the moon is full, a lunar eclipse will occur in the same month as a solar eclipse. Yes, you're right.

Okay. But for the solar eclipse, it's got to be a new moon. Yes, Josh. New phase only. So when you have a lunar eclipse, the moon is new and it's in line between the sun and the earth. And then when it's full 15 days later, 14 days later, it's on the other side of the earth, you're going to have a lunar eclipse. Still lined up. That makes sense. Or lined up again. Yeah. And depending on where it goes into the earth's shadow, either the penumbra, which is like an angled part of the shadow, it's not the full shadow. Or the umbra, which is the full on shadow, it'll either be a partial or a full eclipse. That's right. And kids remember never stare into a solar eclipse. Right. You can stare at a lunar eclipse all night long if you want to.

So we talked about will the moon save humanity? Uh-huh. We talked about lunar bases. And we talked about mining asteroids and fake moon landing. This is like our fourth moony. Yeah. But I think that this should be required listening because, you know, there's, there's this, there's an idea that there's possibly ice that was missed on the moon. There's a couple, been a couple of, um, the Clementine probe in 1994 found evidence of it. Yeah. And then a more recent one said, yeah, that's probably ice right there, which we got there. Well, yeah, it probably got there from like comets or something else, but there's ice on the moon. And if there is, then that means that we have water and fuel on the moon for a moon base,

which is very exciting news. And it's a lot cheaper apparently to, if you had a moon base to send off a rocket from the moon, then it would be from the earth. Plus you can be like, I got a moon base and that's just cool. Yeah. You know, way cool. It sounds so 60s. Unless you see the movie moon and that wasn't very cool at all. No, it was a good movie. All right. Good moon movies. What you got? Well, moon. Okay. Me too. What else is there? Moon raker. Yeah. Paper moon. That's your favorite movie. Yeah. Moon River. That's a song. Yeah, sure. I bet there's been a movie called moon river.

No, I'm going to make it. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Do you think you remember the film? Breakfast at Tiffany's? I love that movie. Well, that's one thing we've got. Okay. Wow. What song is that? Breakfast at Tiffany's. Is that the name of it? Yeah. By that awful band who I hope doesn't listen to this show. Sorry. That was a sidetrack. So, the reason we mentioned that they found what they think might be ice is because that's pretty important because President Bush was gung-ho to go find out and potentially get on the moon again. And Obama came in in 2010 in February and canceled the constellation program. Which I looked into because my first thought was, you know, I'm a big fan of our president and I

thought, well, that stinks. I wanted to go back to the moon. And I think it's worthy to do so. Oh, we will. It'll just be private companies that get there. Exactly. That's what he says, at least, is he ordered a review and found it to be behind schedule and over budget and just not a very lean program. And so, hey, let's extend the International Space Station for about five years, give NASA about six billion bucks, and then see if we can get some private companies to start shuttling astronauts up there into the private sector. Yeah. So, we'll see what happens. Neil Armstrong is against that, but Buzz Aldrin is for it. Really? Yeah. So, I don't know if they're duking it out or what. How do you feel about it? I don't know. I mean, I think if the private

sector could get involved, then that's good. That's companies making money. It is, but I tend to think of the moon as part of the Commonwealth of Humanity. It just seems like you shouldn't apply capitalism to the moon. Yeah, maybe not. But China might get there and set up camp and be like, no, no, no. China will get there. They are spending a significant amount of money. They're building their own International Space Station. Actually, it's just a national space station, because it's just theirs. Yeah. So, yeah, they'll be on the moon. The national space station. Yeah, that's, I mean, do we have an article on who owns space? I know we have who owns the oceans. We did that, but I mean, that's a valid thing. Let's find out. What have China

got up there? They're like, this is ours now. Yeah, you can see it. I got a moon base. All right. We got through that. All right. Well, that's the moon. If you want to learn more about the moon, and seriously, there's some really handy graphs and illustrations in this. Type in moon in the search bar at howstuffworks.com and that brings up listener mail. Hold on there, partner. We are going to plug our new audio book that is available on iTunes. It's called The Superstuff Guy to Happiness. Yeah. Features, interviews, and Josh's niece, a very cute niece, and what else? Great sound design. Yeah. We talked to Eric Wilson, who wrote the book Against Happiness, awesome Wake Forest professor. Yeah, great interviews in

this one. Yeah. We talked to a bunch of great people and just really got into what is happiness, what makes us happy, how can we possibly study happiness, and just came up with some pretty good answers. iTunes. It's worth it. It's worth the $3.99. It is. Or more in Australia. Or if it makes you feel better, divide that $3.99 over the $340 something shows. Oh, yeah, it's a good one. You ain't paying nothing. That's almost just like a penny a show. Yeah. Except in Australia, where it's going to be more like a tough pin to show. Yeah, we're going to work that off over the next couple of years to our Aussie friends. So it's on iTunes, the stuff you should know Superstuff Guy to Happiness. And when you search that on iTunes, it'll probably bring up the

Superstuff Guy to the economy, which is pretty good listen to if you ask me. Agreed. And now that we've done this, and we did it shamelessly. That's right. It's time for Listener Mail again. Josh, we called for a karma off. Send us your karma stories. I'm going to read one. This is from a dude in a band that I'm actually a fan of. Okay. Their name is Fang Island. And they're awesome. And they're based in Brooklyn, New York now, although they're originally from Rhode Island. And Jason Bartell of Fang Island wrote in and said this. I've been enjoying the podcast for a while. I'm in a touring band. I spend way too much time in the band. So I welcome the opportunity to keep my brain occupied. So thanks. And if people wrote in with lots of karma

stories, and if you think I'm just reading this because I'm a fan of this guy's band, then you're right. So I apologize if you think your story was better. He went to college in Providence, Rhode Island, was driving home to New Hampshire one holiday weekend. And nearing the end of the trip, there's a toll there. And I had zero money in my wallet, and I was stuck in line. I was too late. In hindsight, I was probably overly panicked because the penalty for not having enough money at a toll in New Hampshire is probably pretty minuscule. Like they probably would have said, don't worry about it. They're really nice up there, you know? Yeah, you ever been there? Yeah. No, I have not been in New Hampshire, but I assume they're very... Yeah, Vermont. They're all just

like super nice old guys. Nevertheless, I started sweating. My heart was racing. I began scrounging for loose change to no avail. One long shot scenario that crossed my mind was maybe the car in front of me would pay for me for some reason, but I dismissed it. So I barely knew that I had even thought it. But when it came time for me to face the music, it turns out this is exactly what happened. The operator said the car in front of me covered my fare and said to have a nice day. I was stunned. I have no idea still why they paid for me. They even sped up alongside them to give them a thank you. And waved my gun at him and told him to pull over because I wanted to ask him. But they never acknowledged me. Normally, it would be Stone Cold Case of Luck, except that I've

actually done this before for other people in the past when I felt randomly charitable. I realized this is probably the very definition of the simplified new age interpretation of karma that you were talking about. But I was distraught by the almost cute one-to-one ratio of this particular karmic transaction. And that is Jason Bartell of Fang Island, who is a great band. They got a 8.3 review on their debut album on Pitchfork, which is really high. Pitchfork. They're not kind to bands usually. Well, that's not true. They review how they review. But an 8.3 is good. They're not sick of fans. They are not. They will trash your record if they don't like it. So they're awesome. And go see them. They're on tour, I think.

Said they might be coming through Atlanta this fall. Do you want to say their name again? Fang Island. Okay. They opened up for Flaming Lips a lot on this last tour. So that should tell you something about their sound. Very cool. Do they sound like Flaming Lips now? No. I mean, a lot of it's instrumental. I mean, they're just insanely talented. And their self-described sound is, quote, everyone high-fiving everyone. Nice. And he's kind of right. That sounds like how I would describe the Go team. Yeah, they have been compared to them. Although this is like a three-guitar onslaught. Nice. But it's like happy music. It's not like explosions in the sky.

Gotcha. Type of instrumental stuff. I gotcha. And they got words too. It's just not like first chorus type of songs. Are they like lions and scissors? Very unique. Goodness me. That was a plug and a half. Well, if you have a band that you think Chuck likes, he wants to hear about it. I really do, actually. I don't like... Like, what if one of my heroes listens to the show and I'll never know? Or what if it's a new band that you've never heard of yet? Well, that too. Okay. You should contact Chuck.

Like David Bowie. What if he listens? David Bowie does not listen. You're right. You can contact Chuck and me. We're both on the same email address. You just need to direct it toward us at StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast Stuff from the Future. Join HowStuffWorks staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. He calls civil answer for it.

Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I realize I'm the forbidden fruit. So listen and follow WearerU92 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.