'Hey Bill Nye, Why Don't Gas Giants Have Gas Moons?' #TuesdaysWithBill | Big Think

Hey Bill Nye, Why Don't Gas Giants Have Gas Moons?' #TuesdaysWithBill

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It took a very small person to ask a big question, one that planetary scientists pondered for a long time. There are four gas giants in our solar system – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – but why are their moons not made of gas? They’re solid, unlike the planets they orbit.

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BILL NYE :

Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.

In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.

While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”

Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.

Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.

Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Aria: Hi Bill Nye. My name is Aria. My question is where do all moons come from and why do gas giants not have gas moons?

Bill Nye: Wow. That is a great question Aria. Wow. First of all I was alive when people figured out or satisfied themselves as to where our moon came from. And it's generally agreed that our moon was created when the earth was hit with another pretty big thing, another asteroid. And the impact was very hard and the energy of the smashing was converted to heat and both the earth and the moon were hot and molten and they both cooled off and here we are with this other separate thing in orbit around us. Now why do gas giants not have gas moons is a great question and the answer is almost certainly because of gravity.

So when you have these little things that spun off of, let's say Jupiter or Saturn, they were too small to sustain themselves as just balls of gas. The gas shrunk down, gravity pulled it down and formed a solid thing. Whereas on Jupiter and Saturn there's so much spin, so much heat created that these are held in the gaseous state or what we call gaseous state by the energy that's coming out of them, where as the smaller ones cooled off so much that they turned solid. It is just a fantastic question, Aria. And astrophysicists or planetary scientists speculate about this all the time, but what a fantastic thing that you made this observation. The moons of Jupiter, the big ones Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede those big moons are cooled off. They're not gaseous like Jupiter, what they orbit. That is fantastic. Wow. And maybe more will be learned about this.

And I gotta tell you, Aria, it's very reasonable that in your lifetime we will send the right spacecraft to Europa and the moon of Saturn, Enceladus and Titan, and look for signs of life. Instead of being a gas giant, in this one example, Europa is the moon of Jupiter that has twice as much seawater as the earth and that water is under a layer of ice. And I mention it because it's evidence of how ...

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