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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep716: 12. Mapping the Outer Solar System Guest: Bob Zimmerman. Bob Zimmerman discusses the superficial knowledge gained from Voyager 2's flybys of Neptune and Uranus. He advocates for better exploration of these alien worlds and Mars to understand our solar sys

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2026

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

12. Mapping the Outer Solar SystemGuest: Bob Zimmerman. Bob Zimmerman discusses the superficial knowledge gained from Voyager 2's flybys of Neptune and Uranus. He advocates for better exploration of these alien worlds and Mars to understand our solar system’s complex formation. (12)

1884 DENMARK IRONCLAD

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:29.9

Today. I'm John Bachelor with Bob Zimmerman.

0:48.1

We're exploring Voyager 2's photographs from many years ago.

0:52.2

Bob is studying Neptune and Uranus. What are we looking at here, Bob?

0:56.7

This actually concludes my tour of Voyager 2's two flybys, two flybys, first of Uranus in 1986

1:05.1

and then of Neptune in 1989. And the whole point of this tour over the last few weeks, if you go to

1:12.2

behind the black and just scroll through it, you'll see a lot of cool pictures. The whole point

1:15.9

of this tour was to illustrate that though we had gotten a good look, a quick good look at

1:21.3

Neptune and Jernis's, the planets and their moons, it's a very superficial look. And this

1:27.1

tour would illustrate that.

1:28.9

And so I posted what I think is the best picture that was taken of Neptune's Moon Triton in the last

1:34.6

picture. It's a very cool image. It's a very alien surface. We really have no idea what's going on here.

1:41.3

There's some theories, but this is an alien planet, cold dark,

1:45.0

and composed of materials far different than anything found in the inner solar system. So how

1:49.9

these geological features formed, no one knows. It's a guess because we don't have information.

1:56.7

Uranus is on its side. Neptune is not, right? That's correct. But, you know, that doesn't tell us a lot. It tells us we, but one's alien

2:04.6

and one's alien another because they're so far away from the sun that we're in nether regions

2:10.4

here. So how things go, we just don't know. Do they both have rings? Yes, they both have rings.

2:16.7

And that means those are satellites in there, creating the ring?

...

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