April 18, 2024

Water Worlds

55 minutes

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One of the science podcasts I listen to regularly is Astronomy Cast hosted by Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay. In today’s lesson, you’ll hear a short excerpt from Episode 705: Water Worlds - Looking for Life Beyond Earth. First you’ll hear a clip from their podcast, and then I’ll break their speech into shorter fragments so you can listen and repeat. You’ll hear that Fraser Cain in particular speaks quite rapidly. It would be hard to repeat at his speed!

1- Wherever we find liquid water on Earth, we find life.

2- So it makes sense to search for water across the universe, and hopefully, we can find evidence of life.

3- But what about worlds which are completely covered in water?

4- Oceans, hundreds of kilometers deep. Can there be too much water?

5- So this idea of water worlds, I mean, we learned everything we needed to know from that Kevin Costner movie, right?

6- No, no, one of the things that I was thinking about preparing for this show

7- is just how magnificently wrong in pretty much every way that movie appears to have been,
8- except from a climate change perspective.

9- And really, if you want one thing to be wrong, you want it to be the climate change part that's wrong.

10- Yeah, but climate change causes sea levels to rise by a couple of hundred feet in the worst case scenario.

Let's listen to the original podcast excerpt again.

11- Right, no, that's true. It won't eat the entire planet. There will still be soil.

12- The coastlines will be roughly where they were, especially in places that are very mountainous.

13- So it won't be hard where you're trying to find evidence of islands.

14- No, no. But this idea of water worlds, we know they exist here in the solar system, and so we assume that they're out there.

15- So give us sort of like an idea, what is the quintessential water world here in the solar system?

You've listened to the original speakers, you've listened to me, and you've had a chance to listen and repeat. Now listen to the original one more time. Remember: you can't listen too much when you're studying a new language!