020 Moons and Planets with Francis Nimmo

Francis Nimmo is a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research specialty is understanding the structure and evolution of rocky and icy planets. KMO and Francis discuss: 02:30 – The importance of the James Webb and other telescopes 03:40 – NASA probes, the AI connection, and technical challenges 08:30 – The possibility of finding life and the radiation factor 09:45 – Europa and Enceladus 10:42 – Breaking molecules at fly-by speeds 11:50 – Technology limitations and ambiguity in our search for life 14:40 – The question of independent emergence of life 16:05 – Subsurface oceans 18:40 – Moons 23:25 – Saturn's rings 26:05 – The Kuiper belt and beyond 28:00 – Autonomy and hibernation 29:25 – Gas giants vs ice giants 31:25 – Pluto 35:50 – Mission re-assignment 40:10 – Canned apes and getting to Mars 42:30 – Sci-Fi future we were promised 44:15 – Venus 49:40 – Mercury 53:45 – Comets 56:05 – The Earth 57:40 – Deep Time Francis (The Guest): websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~fnimmo/ Francis Nimmo @ Wikipedia KMO (The Host): Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast