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Two people claim to know everything about something, but only one knows anything.
I'm a historian, an astronaut or driver's a warion.
If you ask me why, can you trust the answer?
From Moon, Mackey, New Jersey, this is the Big Sam.
And now, here's your host, Deborah Goldstein.
Welcome to The Big Fit, the game show where kids choose between the shining celestial scissory of truth. and the waning, penumbral crater of lies.
I'm your host, Deborah Goldstein, and in this studio today is our sound effects robot Lisa, whose name stands for Live in Studio Audience.
And you're raising your hand, Lisa. Would you like me to call on you?
Okay, you're nodding your head yes, so okay you there in the in the front row you you in the metal suit Thank you.
Lisa, sound effects robot, long time listener, first time caller.
Yes, I don't have a question so much as a comment or rather a comment about a question.
Though the question is not my question, the comma, however, is in fact mine, but the question is not mine, though it is a question that is for me as opposed to for you.
OK, I think I follow what I'm hearing you say is that you've got a listener question you'd like to play for us.
Is that correct? Spot on. And here it is.
Hi Lisa, my name is Kayla and I wanted to know if you could turn into any animal, what animal would you choose and why?
I really like this question so many amazing animals that can swim or fly or climb trees or do all sorts of cool things what's your favorite Lisa.
Yes, tough one, but I would have to pick the most amazing animal of all, the monkey wrench.
I've got a pet monkey wrench named Albert and he is just the cutest. monkey wrench, that's actually not an animal at all.
A monkey wrench is a tool named after the inventor of the monkey wrench, Charles Monkey, a Baltimore mechanic.
Not an animal? No, you use a monkey wrench to turn nuts and bolts.
Oh, I was wondering why he was always trying to twist my toes with his mouth.
Yeah, so do you have a favorite animal then?
So I'm just not sure anything can take the place of Albert the monkey wrench, but I guess a close second would be the mouse.
Oh sure, a mouse, very cute animal, small furry with those long whiskers and squeaky little boys.
Whiskers? I don't know what pet store you got your mouse at, but I think they sold you a dud.
My mouse Kevin doesn't have fur or whiskers or a squeaky voice, but he's super smart.
He always knows exactly where I left off when I'm typing up my notes from my memoir, bestseller.
And sometimes he finds just the right spot on the page that I'm looking at.
It's like he can read my mind. Are he talking about a computer mouse?
Also not an animal. What now? A computer mouse is an inanimate object, a computer input device that moves a cursor around the screen.
So we're talking about another object that has the same name as an animal.
Yes. You would think. humans would have a little more creativity and give everything a unique name.
That would spare us all a lot of confusion.
I agree and we can talk about animals that are not objects another time perhaps when you've sorted out what is animal and what is not so for now.
Why don't we talk about something that's not so confusing, like how our game works?
Good idea. Actually, hold on. oh stop stop chewing on my toes no no bad bad boy bad boy goody bad go to your dog don't look at me like that no yeah good okay good boy lie down Sorry, remind me to feed Albert after the show.
We'll do. So every week we bring on two grownups.
One is an expert, the other is a liar. And it's the job of a human child to help us figure out who is who, because no one can spot a liar better than a kid.
What are we lying about today, Denver? We are lying about the Moon, the large round object that orbits around the Earth, and we're going to learn all about the Moon along with our contestant today.
Who might that be, Lisa? Our human child contestant is a 10 year old who likes to make music and art on the computer.
Oh, I love computers. Nathan Brown. Hi Nathan, how are you?
Good, how are you? Very well. Thank you for asking.
Tell us about what you like to make on the computer.
I like to make digital art and music. Usually when I'm doing art, I have a stylus and this little cool tablet that I use because When you do digital art, it's easier because instead of having all these other colored pencils and you have to color it with like markers or whatever,
With digital art, you have access to all those colors in just a click.
I like that. Yeah, computers are better.
Okay, fair. What kind of things do you make with your computer tablet?
I like drawing anime. Do you have a favorite character or do you make them up?
I kind of make them up, but I'd say that my favorite one is Deku from my hero academia.
Ooh, that sounds cool. Okay, we do want to learn some more about you, Nathan, but we are going to do it playing our game, two truths and a lie.
You, Nathan, are going to share with us two truths and a lie, but we will not know which is which. and we will have to use our critical thinking and maybe a little guesswork to sort fact from fiction.
So Nathan, in no particular order, tell us your two truths and a lie.
I have been to Canada. I grew up in Canada and moved to the United States.
And I like drawing and making art. All right.
So you could be trying to trick us with the two Canadian statements.
What do you think, Lisa? Let's see. One of them was that he grew up in Canada and moved to the United States.
So if he grew up in Canada, then he has been to Canada and therefore those two would necessarily have to be true.
But he could have been to Canada without growing up in Canada.
I'm going to say he did not grow up in Canada and moved to the United States.
He grew up in Canada and moved to space, which is why he's on today's episode.
Lisa's actually correct. Yes, I can't be stopped.
Alright, so explain that to us. So first of all, you have been to Canada, but you did not grow up there and moved to the United States.
That is correct. He lives in space. Do you live in space, Nathan?
Sure. Told you. Well, then he's going to learn all about the moon.
That's for sure. Well, let's welcome our moon experts Lisa.
Can we get some music for our moon experts?
Float on in, float on in But don't bring a comet with you cause they hurt real bad Why did you kill the dinosaurs?
That was kind of a bum of my friend. hahahaha Okay, our first expert is Shannon's.
Jerome, Shannon, please introduce yourself to Nathan.
Hi, Nathan. My name is Shannon. I am a science journalist and I write all about space.
Thank you very much, Shannon. Let's meet our second expert, Grant Folger.
Hi, my name is Grant Folger and I'm an impulseologist from the University of Michigan.
I study craters. Thank you very much. Drop it like a time.
That sound file is out of this world, Lisa.
Those sounds are the super celestial sounds of... HA!
Yes, it's hot seat time. That's when we put our experts on the hot seat while they answer Nathan's questions.
Lisa, who should we put on the hot seat first?
Grant Folger because his initials are GF, which means he probably invented gifts and I love gifts.
Because humans are so confused on how to pronounce gifts.
Some people say gifs and some people say gifs, but it's really pronounced...
Thank you for that clarification. Okay, Nathan, what is your first question for Grant?
Is the moon just a big rock? Honestly, kind of.
The moon was actually formed from debris, from a collision between Earth and its early stages. and a large Mars-sized planetesimal, which is basically like a smaller version of a planet, about 4.5 billion years ago.
The debris loaded off into space, but because of Earth's gravitational pull, it remained in orbit and eventually impacted together. over hundreds of thousands of years to create what we now call the moon.
I like to think of like a cotton candy machine almost.
Do you like swirl it around? and it slowly but surely gathers more and more.
That on like a celestial level basically.
So yeah most everything you find on the moon are things you find in rocks on earth because it was created from those same materials.
The one thing I would push back on there though is that I wouldn't call it just a big rock. way short, but it has such a huge impact on life on Earth, not only in our day to day existence, but in the literal ability for life on Earth to ever have existed in the first place.
Alright, this is for both of you guys. What parts of the moon do you study?
I study all parts of the moon, so part of my job is getting to write about space and writing about the interior of the moon and the surface of the moon, the craters, and the history of what happened there. like the moon civil war.
Exactly. So yeah, as I was saying, I'm an impulseologist, so I study the craters specifically.
There are various different points of interest when it comes to those craters on the crust of the moon, the ones that come to mind are like the lene crater, arguably the youngest moon crater at about 10 million years old.
There's also the Aitken Basin, which is the oldest and the largest one at about 1.5,000 miles.
And because it is so large gravity at the center of that basin is actually a little bit heavier than gravity on the rest of the moon.
There's also my personal favorite crater to explore which is the krasnoff basin which has the distinction of actually being the smallest crater on the moon it's just under 45 miles in diameter.
This is a huge episode for all our Crater fans.
Absolutely, yeah. There's no Crater episode.
This question is for Shannon. If the moon suddenly went away, what would happen on earth?
So what would happen is if it suddenly went away, it would affect all of our tides.
So every time the moon orbits around the earth,
Our gravity sort of tugs on it a little bit, and then the moon chugs on the earth a little bit, and that's what creates all of the tides on our planet.
So if the moon just vanished, we would suddenly not have tides.
It would affect all of life on Earth, all of life in the ocean.
It would be really bad. So we want the moon to stay nearby.
Luckily, it's not going to vanish anytime soon.
Good. The thing I would just jump in there with is that it actually really informs the migration patterns of different sea creatures like fish.
They have that informed by the moon's tidal force on us.
So if we didn't have the moon there, you could have all of these very weird phenomena happening, like fish jumping out of the ocean on mass, things like that.
It would be very, very strange and bizarre.
No, no more sushi. No, definitely not. Okay, Nathan, back to you.
This is for both of you. What do you use to study the moon?
We use mostly telescopes. But actually most of our data comes from all of the Apollo missions that went to the moon in the 60s and 70s.
We collected so many lunar samples, all these rocks, and we still study them to this day.
But we still use telescopes, we still land rovers there, and we have lots of satellites around the moon that are studying it all the time.
Yeah, we do have these rocks that we studied with different tools, the one that we use at University of Michigan is the Parsa fall regolith extractor. that helps us to separate out the individual materials in these moon samples for individual study so that we can look at each individual element that is involved in those little pieces of lunar regolith.
All right, Grant, do you think humans could live on the moon?
Unfortunately, no, I don't think humans could live on the moon.
The moon has an incredibly thin atmosphere.
You wouldn't even really be able to call it an atmosphere.
We call it an exosphere. Which means that gas can easily escape the moon's gravity.
It doesn't stay in its orbit at all. In fact, because there's no atmosphere really, there's no wind, so the footprints of the original astronauts remain there to this day and will remain there indefinitely since there's nothing to really change the surface of the moon.
There's no wind, there's no weather. In fact, actually Apollo 17 asked not using CERN and made sure to spell out his initials EC in the dust before he left.
It was the final mission and he wanted to make sure that there was a little bit of a memory there.
That's all really to say that because there isn't an atmosphere, things that we really need to survive, like oxygen, soil, aren't in large supply.
Not to mention, of course, the extreme temperature shifts going from extreme heats to extreme colds.
It would not be a very nice place to live.
Yeah, I think I'd rather just stay here.
Very good. Those were excellent questions.
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Okay, it's time for the shorts on fire round when our experts have to answer as many questions as they can before time runs out.
Lisa will set a timer for the first expert and then Nathan will ask questions until Lisa's timer sounds.
Then Lisa resets the timer for the next expert to do the same.
Experts, don't let the ticking clock phase you.
Nathan, let's start with Shannon. You can ask your shorts on fire questions now.
How long ago was the moon formed? About four and a half billion years ago is the same time the earth was formed.
It was on a Wednesday. What do we call the type of moon when the moon is full and is as close as it can get to Earth?
We call that a supermoon. What is the source of moonlight?
Our sun reflects it off the surface. Factor fib.
We never see both sides of the moon. That is a fact.
How long does it take for the moon to orbit the Earth?
It's an average of 28 days. During which phases of the moon do we see only a sliver of the moon?
Waxing or waning crescent? What animal jumped over the moon in the nursery rhyme?
Hey diddle diddle. That's a cow. Where on the moon did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land during the Apollo 11 mission? the sea of tranquility.
How many balloon moons will occur in the year 2022?
There won't be any, actually. The next one's going to be on my birthday in 2023.
Please sing the song Moon River and the movie breakfast at Tiffany's.
Oh, I know that. I'm in a pass because I can't think of his name right now.
And time! Time, time, time, time, time, time.
Very good. Okay, Lisa, can you please reset the timer for Grant?
Yeah, you bet I can't. I don't remember how.
Oh, I just remembered. You remember? So go away.
Remember? And I did. Thank you so much.
OK, Nathan, you can ask Grant your shorts on fire questions now.
What do you call the second full moon in a calendar month?
A blue moon. How long does it take to travel to the moon?
Currently about three days. Name an element in the moon's core.
Cobalt Parmesan name one thing that causes moonquakes mostly thermal expansion.
In some rare instances, something like animal flinches.
What were the microscopic creatures that spilled onto a moon when the spacecraft, bearish sheets, crashed, landed in 2019?
Tardy grades. They were George Lucas' inspiration for the Exogorth and the Empire Strikes Back.
Who was the great goddess of the moon? Selena.
It was this lady Heather. No. Factor fib.
The moon is a planet. Fib. It is a natural satellite.
Who wrote the children's book Goodnight Moon?
Pass on that one. What is the point in the moon's orbit where it is closest to Earth?
How powerful is the moon's gravity compared to the Earth's?
About a sixth is powerful. And that is time.
It's all the time. Very good. It's decision time.
Nathan, it's time for you to shoot for the moon and guess which one of our experts is no expert at all.
Nathan, who is our big fibber? I think it's Grant.
Why do you think Grant is our fibber? Some of the answers seemed a little bit fishy and I feel like Shannon did a better job answering the questions.
Alright, let's find out. Will the actual moon expert please say I am the moon expert.
I am the moon expert. Correct. You got it right.
Chan and Serone is a science journalist who writes a lot about planets and moons.
Okay. Time to do some fact checking. Shannon, help us dismantle all the lies Grant told us today.
Grant actually told a lot of truths. I was very impressed by the fipping game.
But there were definitely a few that I remember.
It's a little fishy. Okay, well then let's ask Grant.
Okay, Grant, it's time to give us all the lies you told.
So first off, there's no such thing as an impulseologist.
I don't know if there is an official term for studying craters, but it is not that.
Wow. the Krasnoff Basin that tiny crater doesn't exist.
I just made that up. This is more a theory thing, but it's something that I just sort of riffed on, so it might be kind of true, but mostly false.
The tidal force informing the fish migration patterns.
That was just sort of pulled out of the air.
Yeah, literally fishing. There's also no such thing as the Parsafal Regolith Extractor, and that does not exist.
That sounded so good. There's no tool like that that separates out the different materials of the material.
Oh man. There is actually, but it's not called that.
Okay. Oh yes, Cobalt is not in the moon's core.
That is a lie. They did not spell out the initials on the moon.
That didn't happen. And I don't know if tardy grades were the inspiration for George Lucas for the Empire Strikes Back made that up.
Artimal flinches is not a thing either. So impressive.
Wow, so many lies. Gravity is not slightly heavier in the Aiken Basin either.
Oh, man. No. But time does slow down as you get closer to gravity's core, so.
Whoa. Time slows down. This is so super sci-fi.
I love it. But tardigrades did actually spill out onto the moon, these microscopic things, and if you look them up they look really funky, I would recommend it.
And let's see, you said the Greek goddess was Selena, I think it's Selena.
Yeah, I might have mispronounced that also.
Very possible. And also the author of Good Night Moon, Margaret Wise Brown.
Very interesting person if you look her up.
Also, the person who sang Moon River in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, Audrey Hepburn, and the song actually won Best Original Song for the Oscars that year.
Fun fact. Okay, well, it is time to stop waxing on about the moon.
Thanks to our contestant Nathan, who helped us get to the core of truth.
Thank you to our expert and liar Shannon and Grant, and thanks to Lisa, our occasionally moon-a-tone sound effects robot.
And of course, many thanks to our listeners tuning into the Big Bib where we disparage lies and fact is greater than fiction.
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