Earth's Ocean Floor Remains a Vast Scientific Mystery

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Steve Kates, otherwise known as Doctor Sky. And I always enjoy listening to Steve and talking to Steve because all the mysteries that are going on, whether it’s in the planet Earth, whether it’s underwater, or whether it’s on Mars or the Moon. Well, Steve, what are we talking about today?

0:19 Speaker 2 Well, good morning, Happy Sunday to you and the listeners. John. We’re going to talk a little bit more between the sky and under the ocean as we talk about things that people can actually relate to. And let’s begin with the highest mountains in the world. We all have heard that Mount Everest, naturally is the tallest mountain in the world.

0:38 It checks in John at twenty nine thousand and thirty one point seven feet tall. Now, if that’s not amazing, we find out that there’s eight other very very high mountains in the Himalayas. Some of them range from twenty six thousand feet almost up to twenty nine thousand feet.

0:55 That’s five point five miles John from the surface of sea level from Mount Everest. But here’s something very sad. Three hundred and forty people allegedly have died since nineteen twenty two China, climb this mountain. It was actually first climbed in nineteen fifty three, and John China claims ownership, at least they say so, of this particular mountain called Everest.

1:18 They call it the roof of the Sky. But there’s other massive mountains around the world. And this is interesting. The tallest mountain in the Western Hemisphere is actually in South America. It’s called Akunkagla, a little over twenty three thousand feet. Then here, if you go to the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, they recently renamed Mount McKinley from

1:40 Mountainali twenty thousand feet. And if you go roughly roughly that is John to the continental United States, we have Mount McKinley a little over fourteen thousand feet. So the point is these mountains that are in the Himalayas. That’s totally incredible, some massive rock the height of some five point five miles above sea level. What an amazing earth,

2:02 don’t you think?

2:04 Speaker 1 It certainly is. But there are bigger mountains underwater, you know, and mountains are all over the place. But you know what the biggest mystery is, and I’ve been told, is what’s down in the oceans. Because we’re exploring Maize, we’re exploring the Moon, but we still don’t know what’s down below.

2:33 Speaker 2 You bring up a good point, John, the actually, if you really want to split hairs and not you and I, but according to many the undersea mountain that of course Hawaii sits on is actually a much taller structure if you were to measure it in height. So you’re right, the mystery of what’s under the oceans. We have more

2:51 knowledge of the Moon and Mars, like you said, than we actually have with the depths of the ocean. So here’s something amazing. We’re finding out that not only we have massive dust storms like here in the Southwestern in summer during this monsoon season, John, is an amazing dust storm called the Sahara air Layer. What’s that. It’s a

3:10 dust storm obviously originating from the Sahara in Africa, traveling around the world as it continues to go west to east, John, it’s the size of the United States if you looked at the whole cluster of dust. And the purpose of this, well, we really don’t know what its main function is, but it’s thought to slow down thunderstorm growth because you can’t

3:31 get the evaporation to go up into the atmosphere to create these water events thunderstorms if you have dust particles in the air. So that’s an amazing thing. We’re just learning more about the Sahara air layer. Totally amazing. Well then we go out, Yeah, go ahead, sir.

3:48 Speaker 1 I mean me. My biggest mysteries are things that can see mise in the moon. Anything any updates on those.

3:57 Speaker 2 Well, John, the exploration of the Moon continues. They found the crater that that booster from SpaceX crashed into the Moon. They’re doing measurements to find out exactly the diameter of it, and that’s a whole nother story. But what we talk about.

4:10 Nothing to really report on Mars yet. We’re waiting for late, late breaking news, big earth shattering news. But the mystery of the week. Let’s go back to what we talked about. How many oceans are there really in the world, and we really know five. The largest one, Pacific Ocean is seventy million square miles, or forty six percent of the

4:29 Earth’s water, and then you have the Atlantic of course, the Indian, the Southern Ocean which is around Antarctica, and the shallowest of all the oceans in the Earth, is the Arctic Ocean up in the north. So not to be repetitive, John, you brought up a very good point.

4:45 We know so little about the undersea world as we comparison to look at these objects like the Moon which we’ve mapped with spacecraft, Mars which we have rovers and spacecraft. So the mystery lies below the Earth a most amazing story to be continued. What lies in the depths of the oceans still one of the great mysteries.

5:05 Speaker 1 Steve Kates, thank you for coming on Sunday morning. I enjoy listening to your show and on Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night in Sunday morning from midnight to two am. And I guess if people miss it, they already type in go to your mini cast or podcasts or your shows and put in Steve Kates and you’ll be able

5:31 to get your shows.

5:32 Speaker 2 Sure. Thank you for the opportunity, John, it’s the most amazing opportunity the Doctor’s Sky experience. As John mentioned, go to the podcast section and you can join part of what we like to call John at Theater of the Mind where we get people hopefully, and I’m sure they have said they’ve told me. Yes, many people like it

5:50 that we learned something new, right John, every time we’re on the air about the great mysteries that are out there in the universe, and even subjects closer to all.

5:59 Speaker 1 Thank you so much.