Digging in the Dirt
Written By: Aaron
(Draft 1 - This was not the final script that aired)

	Pamela: Welcome to another episode of Slacker Astronomy. Each week we bring you a recent news event from the world of astronomy. And when there is nothing new to report, we'll take a week off - as we did last week. What did you do with your time off Travis?
	Travis: Actually, I don't think I did anything, Pamela.
	Pamela: Nothing?
	Travis: Nothing.
	Pamela: For a whole week?
	Travis: Yeah I've been training for a while. At first I slacked off a few hours here and there, then I was wasting entire days and before I knew it, 3 day weekends were dissappearing. Eventually, I was able to throw away an entire week. I feel good! What did you do?
	Pamela: Well, I went shopping and bought a nice watch. Wanna see it?
	Travis: Sure. But the listeners can't appreciate it.
	Pamela: They can wait. Here it is. Isn't it nice?
	Travis: Yeah, pretty good bling.
	Pamela: I've always wanted a watch on a rope that I could swing back and forth like a pendulum. Watch it closely, Travis. Watch as it moves baaaacckk and fooorrthh. Notice how the light reflects off it. And how smooooooth it glides as I swing it baaaaaack and foorrrrtthhh. It can be so relaxing to just watch it swing and swing...and swing... and swing. One can get sooooooo tired watching it go baaaaacckk and fooorrrtthh. Travis... can you hear me?
	Travis: (in a trance voice) Yes, Pamela.
	Pamela: How do you feel?
	Travis: Relaxed.
	Pamela: That's good. Relaxation is terrific. Now I want you to listen to my voice carefully. When I clap my hands, I want you to say "Yankees Rule!". Do you understand me?
	Travis: Yes, say Yankees Rule when you clap your hands.
	Pamela: Very good. Now I'm going to count to 3. When I reach three, you'll wake up feeling great and refreshed and you will remember nothing. 1 -2 -3.
	(back to normal) So ready for the show?
	Travis: yeah. i feel good actually. Having a week off was nice! So let's start the show.
	Pamela: You may hear some street noise in the background of today's episode. That's because we have the windows open here in Travis' apartment.
	Travis: The long winter has finally come to an end for us in the northern hemisphere. We get to start enjoying the warm weather that has probably worn out its welcome in the southern hemisphere, which is now heading into autumn.
	Pamela: So we at slacker astronomy would like to celebrate the Sun by doing more stories on it. The Sun takes up over 99% of the mass of the solar system and yet we often take it for granted.
	Travis: We hardly ever pay attention to it except when it bugs us. Like when our backs are toasted beet red after a day at the beach or when our favorite baseball player loses a routine fly ball in the glare.
	(CLAP!)
	Travis: Yankee's rule!
	Pamela: This is great!
	Travis: Huh? what is great?
	Pamela: Oh, nothing. And despite being so dominant, or perhaps because it *is* so dominant, the Sun is hard to study. Heck you can't even look at it with your naked eyeballs.
	Travis: Much to the rejoicing of the staff and owners of Oakley Sunglasses.
	Pamela: So for today's discovery about the Sun, we had to actually look at the Moon.
	Travis: Scientists at the Australian National University search for pieces of the Sun in lunar dirt. Specifically, they shot a caesium beam at grains of soil taken from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. Caessium beams are often used in highly accurate atomic clocks. But in this case the beam was used to erode very thin surface layers of the dust grains.
	Pamela: By slowly peeling away the layers, the scientists were able to uncover Oxygen isotopes in the soil. Scientists love a surprise, and this striptease surely delivered a happy ending.
	Travis: The Oxygen isotopes discovered do not match those found in other bodies in the solar system. Specifically, the Oxygen-16 isotopes discovered in the soil were much lower than expected.
	Pamela: Oxygen has three naturally occuring isotopes known as Oxygen 16, Oxygen 17 and - take a wild guess? Oxygen 18. An isotope of an element has the same number of protons as a regular atom of the element, but with a different number of neutrons.
	Travis: Hey don't forget our boys of Summer, the Springfield Isotopes!
	Pamela: In 2003 a minor league team in Albequerque held a contest allowing the fans to name the team and the fans voted for the isotopes. So the AAA farm team for the Florida Marlins are now known as the Albequerque Isotopes.
	Travis: Yet another reason why democracy doesn't work. Pamela, I didn't know you knew so much about baseball.
	Pamela: I didn't know you knew so much about isotopes.
	Travis: Isotopes?? I thought we were talking about isoTONERS.
	Pamela: How can Oxygen 16 be a shoe?
	Travis: Easy, I thought it was a shoe line for women - a size 16 in the Oxygen line.
	Pamela: That's a pretty big lady.
	Travis (ghostbusters voice): Bite your head off, man.
	Pamela: So we have these three Oxygen isotopes. Number 16 is the lightest and so the most abundant because it's the easiest to make and most stable. It's found all over the place in the solar system. But in different amounts. The terrestrial planets have a certain amount, and small ancient bodies floating through space have another.
	Travis: It was thought that the amount of Oxygen 16 in the Sun would be similar to one or the other. But, according to these findings, its not. So there is a disconnect between the elemental mix in the Sun and the elemental mix of the early solar system, as inferred from the ancient rocky bodies and the terrestrial planets.
	Pamela: If confirmed, this will mean that early theories of solar system formation will need to be tweaked. Right now it is believed that the Sun was the center of a giant spinning disk of dust and gas that evolved into the solar system over a few million years. So the makeup of the Sun should be similar to the makeup of the rest of the solar system.
	Travis: Measuring Oxygen 16 is tough because there is so much of it. You have to be sure of the origin of the material you are measuring. For example, there is much Oxygen 16 on the Moon because some of the Earth's atmosphere gets deposited on the Moon. That's why it has taken 26 and a half years to analyse this soil. We were waiting for the right toys to be developed.
	Pamela: The Moon actually has a very tenuous atmosphere. It's not like an atmosphere on Earth with weather systems. It consists of particles that bounce along the lunar surface, similar to skipping a stone across water.
	Travis: Some of the particles come from the Earth's atmosphere and some may come from outgassing mechanisms in lunar soil. However, most of it probably comes from the solar wind, which is a constant stream of particles blowing away from the Sun.
	Pamela: It is believed the Oxygen-16 originated from the Sun and became embedded in the soil. A key test of this theory will occur as the Genesis mission findings are analysed.
	Travis: The Genesis mission collected particles from the solar wind and brought them back to Earth last year. They are currently being analysed and results are expected soon. If the Oxyegen-16 levels match that of the lunar soil, then we have independent verification of the theory.
	Pamela: And the ball then gets knocked into the theorists court to come up with an explanation for the difference. But if the amounts differ, then another source other than the Sun has to be found for the lunar soil's Oxygen-16 content.
	Travis: We'll keep you informed in our chit chat shows on the SA Extra feed. Speaking of which, we have a new one up. Check it out to hear us update old stories, read listener mail, and generally waste an hour of unscripted time. And we have a special guest for our latest show too, Dr. Doug Welch. He is one of the authors of the paper behind the show we did about supernova echos in January.
	Flora: Travis?
	Travis: Oh, hi, Flora. What's up?
	Flora: Can you take our the trash? It's stinking up the kitchen.
	Travis: We're recording a show now. I'll do it later.
	Flora: I think you'll do it now. (CLAP!)
	Travis: Yankee's rule!
	Flora: What did you say!?
	Travis: I said, I'll do it later.
	Flora: No, after that.
	Travis: Nothing!
	(clap)
	Travis: Yankee's rule!
	Flora: That! I can't believe you said that.
	Travis: What!!?!?!?
	Pamela bursts out laughing.
	Pamela: Flora, I think I overwrote your previous programming of Travis.
	Flora: Ohhh, you mean the clapping thing.
	Pamela: Sorry about that, you'll have to reprogram him later. Want to borrow my watch?
	Travis: Will someone explain to me what's going on?
	Pamela: Oh nothing, just look at this shiny object. For our writer Aaron and the very relaaaaaxxxeedd and sleeeeppppyyy Travis, I'm Pamela Gay. Clear skies and clear bandwidth. This has been a slacker astronomy, a podcast for you, for fun for the voices in our heads.