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Hey, Wowzer fans, Mindy here.
And before we start the show, I gotta let you know that this November, with a special new episode featuring our friends at Circle Round and Terrestrials on Radiolab for Kids,
And don't miss when Elmo from Sesame Street stops by Wow in the World to make us all belly laugh on November 24th.
Oh, but that's not all, Reg.
On December 1st, we are sharing our 250th episode of Wow in the World with all of you.
We think this one is going to be music to your ears.
Literally.
Did I mention it's a musical?
And if you're a member of the World Organization of Wowzers...
Oh boy, do I have a surprise for you.
You can listen to our 250th episode early with me and other members from around the world on Saturday, November 22nd, at 7pm Eastern.
That's right, we are throwing another listening party.
Join us as we dance along to our new songs.
React to the episode with other members in the chat and more.
Grownups.
If you want your wowzer to join this members-only listening party, you can sign up to become a member today at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
Already a member?
Well, you can find the link and password to join the event when you sign in at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
That's it.
It's going to be a November to remember.
But for now, let's get on with the show.
Woo!
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Thank you and welcome to the 92nd Annual Barnyard Award hosted here at the beautiful Old MacDonald Head of Farm Theater.
And now I'm pleased to present to you the winner of this year's coveted Most Sustainable Farm Award and also Best Llama Costume Design Mindy.
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Mindy!
Thank you.
Mindy!
Yeah, I heard you, buddy.
I'm coming.
Mindy!
Mindy!
Mindy!
Guy Raz?
Okay.
Everything's fine.
Mindy, were you asleep?
What?
No.
Yes.
Sorry.
I had my blackout sunglasses on.
You're supposed to be driving this ice cream truck.
Ugh.
Fine, I'll take off the sunglasses.
Whoa, it's nighttime?
When did that happen?
Mindy, the sun set almost 30 minutes ago.
Have you been asleep this whole time?
I've been talking to you about my new high-intensity yoga latis class for the past two hours.
Uh... Anywho, I don't like driving at night anyway.
Too many owls.
Huh?
And where are we even?
Here, grab the steering wheel, Guy Raz, and I'll check the map.
Whoa!
Whoa!
Where did I put that map?
Uh... Ah!
Mindy!
Oh, here!
Got it!
Man, that is huge!
How big is the Earth?
Mindy, I can't see!
I can't see!
The map is blocking my view!
Oh, sorry!
Okay, uh, let me see here.
Where are we on our road trip of roadside attractions?
Let's see here.
We saw the Red Sox that the team was named after in Boston.
Check.
And we saw that famous bell in Philadelphia.
Too bad it was broken.
OK, but where are we right now, Mindy?
I don't know.
You don't know?
No, I can't see our little blue dot moving anywhere on this map.
Moving blue dot?
Mindy, that's a paper map, not a GPS.
Yeah, I knew that.
Okay, Mindy, let's figure out where we are.
Great idea, Guy Raz.
Here, hold the map for a second.
All right, pulling over.
Whoa, Mindy, check out all these places we've visited.
Seattle, New York, San Francisco.
Lizard Lake, North Carolina, Frankenstein, Missouri.
Oh, man, this really has been some road trip, huh?
Yep, and there's still plenty more to see.
Let's just hope the old ice cream truck can hold out for that long.
You know what?
Let's step outside where we have a little more light from the night sky.
Whoa, it's even brighter out here than I realized.
Yeah, I think it must be a full moon.
Good thing Reggie isn't here.
Well, why is that?
So I have this working theory that Reggie is a were-pigeon.
A were-pigeon?
Yeah, like a were-wolf, but instead he's a... A pigeon.
Yeah, I got it.
Man, I wonder if we can also spot the Earth's second moon out here.
Earth's second moon?
Uh-huh.
You know, Earth's other moon.
Uh, Mindy, I don't know how to break this to you, but Earth only has one moon.
It's about...
3500 kilometers, or 2100 miles across, and 380000 kilometers, or 236000 miles, away from us.
And Uh no.
Pretty sure we've got two.
Uh, maybe you're thinking of Mars.
Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos, or Jupiter.
Jupiter has 79 moons.
Nope.
I'm talking about Earth, Guy Raz.
There's that moon up there, the moon, but there's also 2020...
2020 CD3?
Uh-huh.
Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time, on a dark and quiet night not too long ago, an astronomer from the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona gazed up into the night sky and noticed a dim little object whizzing by.
Okay...
The star scientist ran to the phone and called up all of his astronomer friends from across the world and asked them to look up into the night sky too, to see if they could also spot this dim object.
And what did they find?
Well, with the help of his other astronomer friends from around the globe, he was able to predict that this object has been orbiting our Earth forever at least a year, maybe even three.
And an orbit is when an object gets caught in a larger object's gravity and starts spinning around it.
Right, like how Earth and the other planets orbit around the sun.
Or how the moon orbits around us.
Exactoritos.
But unlike the moon, which orbits the Earth pretty much every 27 days, this little guy...
2020 CD3 takes around four months to orbit us here on Earth.
Got it.
But 2020 CD3 is also different to our moon in one other crucial way.
Whoa, what's that, Mindy?
So our moon has what astronomers call a stable orbit.
Oh, I know about stable orbits, Mindy.
It's like that old fairy tale.
Oh, which one?
Hansel and Greta Thunberg?
Uh, no.
Joe White?
No.
Shaq and the Beanstalk?
What?
Princess and the peanut butter.
The three little gig workers.
Little Red Riding Hoodie, Creeping Beauty Puss in Suits.
What is it, Guy Raz?
Goldilocks and the three bears.
Huh?
Well, let me explain, Mindy.
For an object to enter into a stable orbit around a planet or a star, it has to be traveling at just the right speed.
Too fast and the objects go whizzing out into space too slow and the object is dragged into whatever it's orbiting.
But if they were say, rockets from Earth that went up and put a speed that was just right, Then they enter a stable orbit.
And for Earth, scientists have figured out exactly what that speed is.
What is it?
Anywhere between 17,000 and 25,000 miles per hour.
Man, that's fast.
So anything slower than that And it falls into Earth's atmosphere, usually burning up in our atmosphere.
And anything moving faster than that?
Well, it just gets flung off into space like a catapult.
Oh, just like us when we go through revolving doors.
Okay, on three, we're gonna push.
Knock.
Too hard, though!
One, two, three!
Too hard, Mindy!
Wait, where's Mindy?
Here I am!
So...
As I was saying Mindy, if you have an object in our orbit that's going faster than 25000 miles per hour, then it gets flung off into space.
And so those kind of orbits, the ones where they either fall into the planet or get thrown out into space, those must be called unstable orbits, right?
That's right, Mindy.
I knew it.
See, I was reading in the report that those astronomers put out that that 2020's CD3 has an unstable orbit.
It does?
Yeah.
And even though it's been hanging around in our neck of the galactic woods for at least a year or two doesn't mean it's going to stick around forever.
Well, what do you mean?
Well, it's going a little too fast to maintain a stable orbit.
So any day now, 2020's CD3 is going to fling back off into outer space?
You know it.
Huh.
Kind of sad, huh?
Oh, it only just got there.
I know, but it's kind of like this road trip we're on, Guy Raz.
Stopping in all of these amazing cities, seeing the sights, and then just whizzing off to our next destination.
I guess you're right, Mindy.
Of course I'm right.
Hey, did you want to see if we can spot it?
Spot it?
Mindy, I thought you said this was a mini moon.
How are we going to spot it out here with our bare eyes?
We're not going to do it with our bare eyes, Guy Raz.
We're not?
Yes, of course we're not.
I forgot my telescope in the back of this ice cream truck.
Why do you have a telescope in the back of your ice cream truck, Mindy?
So I can see what's coming up ahead on the road.
What?
When you're cruising down the wide open road with a telescope, it's almost like you can see the future.
Uh-huh.
Anyhow, want to help me set it up?
Uh, sure.
Okay, let me just get it out of the back here.
Okay.
Looks like some of this stuff kind of shifted around on the drive over here.
Hmm.
Okay, let's see.
It's got to be here somewhere.
Let's see.
Oh, here it is.
Nope, that's just an empty sprinkles can.
Oh, crumbs.
Mindy.
Okay, okay.
Oh, here it is.
Let's put this up here.
Tripod out.
Yeah.
And now to mount the telescope.
There we go.
All right.
Who's ready for some mini moon spotting?
I am.
All right.
All right.
Let's take a look, Mindy.
What do you see?
All right.
Let's see here.
Oh, I see Orion's belt.
And look, there's Betelgeuse and Bellatrix.
And check it out.
I can even see Mars tonight.
What?
Really?
Really.
You see that star up there with the reddish tinge in it?
Oh, yeah.
But I don't see any mini moon.
Well, it's pretty hard to spot, even if you do have a telescope.
The astronomers who originally spotted it were using superpower telescopes in observatories.
So what are we going to do, Mindy?
Oh, don't worry, Guy Raz.
I invented this telescope myself.
Let me just crank up its power here.
Hold on.
This might take a second.
You see anything?
Not yet.
How about now?
Nope.
What does it look like again, Mindy?
Well, according to the astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey, the mini moon is about two by three and a half meters across, or six feet by eleven and a half feet.
So roughly the same size as your ice cream truck?
Yeah, about the same size as my ice cream truck.
And it should be whizzing across the night sky at a pretty quick pace.
Oh, I think I see something, Mindy.
What?
Where?
Right up there.
Check it out.
Let me see what you're seeing through that telescope.
You see up there, that object moving across the night sky, Mindy?
It's not stationary like the other stars, and it's moving way too fast to be a plane.
Oh, yeah.
I see it, Guy Raz.
Well...
Oh, sorry to break it to you, but that's no mini moon.
Oh, well, how can you tell?
Well, for one, it's blinking.
Oh, yeah, 2020 CD3 doesn't blink, I guess.
Nope.
Remember, the mini moon 2020 CD3 is just a hunk of junk that got caught in the Earth's gravity.
It would be a lot duller than that, and it definitely wouldn't be blinking.
So what are we looking at, Mindy?
Well, it could be a bunch of different things.
But what it probably is, is a satellite.
A satellite?
You mean like the kind of machine that helps give me directions on my phone?
Yeah, that's one example.
But there are a ton of different machines flying around the Earth that help us with a whole bunch of different things like tracking weather patterns.
Or connecting phone calls or looking out into space.
Yeah.
One of the most famous satellites we have orbiting the Earth is called the Hubble Telescope.
Oh, yeah, I know the Hubble Telescope.
It's the largest telescope in space.
It's been helping us take pictures of faraway galaxies for the past 30 years.
You know it.
Huh, so what we're looking at up there is a satellite?
Yep, it could even be the International Space Station.
International Space Station?
Yeah.
Even the International Space Station is considered a satellite, and sometimes, on a clear night, you can see it blinking its way across the night sky.
Cool.
But what we're looking for is what astronomers call a natural satellite.
Right, and I'm guessing that a natural satellite is an object that's orbiting around the Earth that wasn't man-made.
You got it.
Okay, well, let's take one last look through this telescope and see if maybe we can find 2020 CD3.
You know, some astronomers think it might have already left our orbit.
Really?
Yeah, but let's take a look anyway.
You never know, we might get lucky.
Okay, well, let's give it a go.
Let's see here.
Oh, Mindy!
What?
What is it?
Mindy!
What?
Right here!
Mindy!
Mindy!
What do you see?
I think I see it, Mindy.
Our mini moon?
Yes, it's a dark, small object whipping its way across the sky.
Check it out.
Okay, Scooch off.
I gotta see this thing.
Easy there.
Yeah, I think you're right, Guy Raz.
I think that's it.
Well, you better take a good look at it, Mindy.
It might be the last time we ever see it.
What?
Well, didn't you say that it was going to leave our orbit in the next few months?
Yeah.
And that it takes four months for it to make one orbit of the Earth?
Oh, bonger balls, you're right.
Um, we should probably say our goodbyes.
Uh, what?
See you later, 2020 CD3.
I hope you enjoyed your little trip to planet Earth.
You'll always be in our hearts, you cutest little mini-moon we ever had.
Looks like this asteroid's vacation to Earth is about over.
Yep.
Say, Mindy?
Mindy?
What?
You said say Mindy.
What is it?
Did we ever figure out how far away that next town is?
Oh, right.
I almost forgot.
The map is still on the hood of the truck.
Hang on.
Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk.
Let's see here.
Oh, found us.
Okay, so how far away are we, Mindy?
Oh, we're pretty close now.
Not close enough.
Tell me about it.
We still have so many more places to see.
There's, uh, Bengal tigers in Cincinnati.
Mindy!
The lost city of Atlanta.
Mindy!
Chile and Tulsa is supposed to be amazing.
So just for you.
Hey, grownups.
It's Mindy and Guy Raz here from Wow in the World.
Mindy and I have some brand new Wow in the World toys out in the world just in time for the holidays.
Made for the kids who love science and for the ones who don't yet.
From our 100 experiments, that Wow kit to the telescope and astronomy kit.
Our Wow in the World toys help your wowzer learn about their world through play.
Plus, you can hear exclusive audio content from me and Guy Raz to help your wowzer discover even more wows.
Grownups.
Give the gift of wow and wonder this holiday season with our latest Wow in the World toys designed with your curious wowzer in mind.
You can shop our Wow in the World toys at Tinkercast.com slash toys.
That's Tinkercast.com slash toys.
Hi, thanks for calling Wow in the World.
After the beep, get ready to record.
Hi Mindy, I'm Ross.
My name's Lydia and I'm from Yukon, Oklahoma.
My Wow in the World is there is a 1 in 1,461 chance of being a Leaf Day Baby.
I am a Leaf Day Baby.
Say hi to Reggie for me.
Hi, Mindy and Tyra.
My name is Lainey from Ontario, Canada.
I have two wow in the world.
My first wow in the world is that the sky is blue because the molecules of the atmosphere scatter blue light more than other colors.
So when we look away from the sun, more blue is knocked off course into the eye.
My second wow in the world is that some turtles breathe through their butt.
Isn't that bonker balls?
Bye.
Hi, Guy Raz and Mindy.
I'm William from San Antonio, Texas.
And my wow in the world is that everybody sweat, taste, and smells different.
Isn't that crazy?
And hi to Thomas Fingerling, Grandma G-Force.
Oh, yeah.
Sure.
Dennis.
Hi.
Reggie.
And even Static Man.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha. lightning through the phone.
Bye.
Hi, my name is Esme and I wow in the world is that running outside makes you smarter.
Say hi to Grandma G-Force and Thomas Fingerling and Dennis.
Bye.
Hi, my name is Henry.
I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
My wow in the world is that blue whales organs are big enough for you to swim in.
Bye.
I'm Indian Guy Raz.
My name is Preston, and I'm from Allentown, Pennsylvania.
My Wow in the World is an 1830 locomotive lost in a race with a horse.
Now locomotives can go over 300 miles per hour.
Say hi to Reggie, Dennis, Grandma G-Force, and Thomas Fingerling for me.
Hello, my name is Annie.
I live in Palm Beach, Florida, and my Wow in the World is...
Blue ring octopus get their name because when they're mad they turn yellow with blue spots, even though their real color is brown.
So they got their name from getting angry.
Isn't that bonker balls?
Bye, Dennis, a.k.a.
Static Man.
Nobody can know my secret identity.
Oh, really?
Everyone knows?
Well, who told?
Was it you, Annie?
Um...
Bye bye.
End of messages.
Hey everyone, thank you so much for hanging out with us this week on Wow in the World.
And to keep the wow rolling, check out this week's scientific conversation starters at our website wowintheworldcom.
And grownups.
There you can find more info on how your kids can become members of the World Organization of Wowzers shop, our wow shop.
Upload photos and videos to us and check dates for our upcoming live events.
That's wowintheworld.com.
Our show is produced by Jed Anderson.
Who provides the bells, whistles, and silly characters.
Say hello, Jed.
Hello.
Our show is written by me, Guy Raz, and Thomas Van Kalken, who also provides silly characters.
Tom?
Hello there.
Thanks also to Jessica Bode, Anna Zagorski, Rebecca Caban, Kit Ballinger, and Alex Curley.
Meredith Halpern-Ranzer powers the wow at Tinkercast.
Our theme song was composed and performed by The Pop-Ups.
For more on their three-time Grammy-nominated all-ages music, find them at thepopups.com.
And grown-ups, you can follow Wow in the World on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at wowintheworld.
And our email address is hello at wowintheworld.com.
And if you're a kid with a big wow to share with us...
Call us at 1-888-7-WOW-WOW for a chance to be featured at the end of the show.
Also, if you haven't already done so, please subscribe to Wow in the World on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Yeah, leave us a few stars, a review, or just tell a friend about the show.
Thanks again for listening.
And until next time, keep on wowing.
Jinx!
And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
