UNTANGLING SCIENCE EPISODE 8: THE PLANETS PART II*****

 

By Megan

Link on website (with transcripts): https://www.untanglingscience.com/episode-8-planets-part-ii

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Available until: Unknown

It’s been quite a while since the last episode but it was so worth the wait! Darragh Ennis’ science podcast is informative, it covers a range of subjects, it’s very interesting and it’s funny too. Even if you already know a lot about the subject (which I usually don’t because I’m only eleven), I’m sure you’ll learn new things and find the podcast really enjoyable.

If you haven’t listened to Untangling Science before, it covers lots of different subjects from the different branches of science and if you especially like astronomy there is an episode on the Sun as well as the two episodes about the planets. Other subjects include DNA, atoms and elements and photosynthesis as well as an interview with a PhD student. The episodes are 22-35 minutes and the pace is fairly slow with recaps but the style isn’t patronising and it is impossible not to get caught up in Darragh’s enthusiasm (he made some videos for me and he said I could call him Darragh so I’m not being rude).

Episode 8 is The Planets Part II. In the last episode, Darragh introduced us to Mercury, Venus and Mars. In this episode, we learn about the four gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. For anyone who is wondering where Pluto is, it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 but there should be an episode on dwarf planets in the future.

If you were hoping to go and visit Jupiter, this episode will probably put you right off going but it would be so amazing to have a livestream where you can watch the storms. I don’t like storms very much when they’re outside the house but if they were millions of miles away, they would probably be really exciting. It was good hearing about what would happen if I landed on Jupiter. It sounds scary but I don’t think it’s very likely to happen so it sounded fun too.

I learned loads of new things like what Jupiter’s moons are like. If you look at old astronomy books, Jupiter has 13 moons and Saturn has 10 moons but if you look newer and newer books, the numbers get bigger and they keep overtaking each other. They have 79 and 83 moons (I thought Jupiter only had 82 so there must be a new one!) so Saturn is winning for now. Saturn has a better ring system too. You also find out Uranus’ original name which is quite a funny one for a planet (I know Uranus can sound funny too) even though I like the historical figure it was originally named after. I like the characters Uranus’ moons are named after too. My favourite is Desdemona. There are also some really interesting facts about why Uranus looks the way it does and why Triton isn’t like Neptune’s other moons. There’s also a brilliant fact about the planets and family trees which will be really useful for when I do quizzes.

The next two episodes will be on fungi which sounds really interesting. They are a bit creepy to look at but it’s a podcast so you don’t have to look. Lots of hints about possible future episodes are mentioned in the episodes and Darragh is looking for ideas too. I would love more astronomy episodes, like on stars or moons, or an episode about Earth, especially the centre but I also really love biology and chemistry so it would be lovely to have episodes about different systems of the human body, the way they function and the ways they could stop functioning. It would also be nice to see episodes about animals (as long as it’s not too sad, there are some really sad stories about animals in laboratories) or the elements in the periodic table, how they were discovered and named. Episodes about scientists would be really exciting too.

But anything would be brilliant and I think one of the really good things about this series is that it is so varied and doesn’t just focus on one small part of science. Each episode is something new – but then it links to other episodes in ways you don’t expect and it gives you a really exciting picture of how the universe fits together.