Holiday Lights

For our holiday show, Neil and his comedian co-hosts discuss the constellations of the winter sky, the star of Bethlehem, and the physics of Santa. Seth MacFarlane and other special guests call in to comment on the science of the season.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And I'm also the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. I have two guest hosts with me today. Comedian LeAnn Lourd. LeAnn, thanks for coming back.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 0:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To StarTalk Radio.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were in our first season.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  I was.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we couldn't resist bringing you back. And for the first time. Yes. And his debut appearance, Chuck Nice. Hey, man. Chuck. The newbie. Good to have you. It's good to be had. This is...

• 0:48Speaker 01

  A lot went on off the air, you have no idea.

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have no idea how I got this job. So, this is gonna be like sort of Neil deGrasse Tyson's house party. It's a holiday party. And I'm just gonna sort of be Professor Tyson and just talk about everything I know about the cosmic significance of the holiday season. This is going to be a week-long show. Are you down with that?

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Settle in, cats and kittens.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Settle in, baby.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  We're in delivery.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I am my coach of Iman Herkap. So, let me start out by saying, in the wintertime, we always associate certain constellations and stars of the winter sky. And, by the way, stars are up all year round. It's just whether they're up before you go to sleep. And so, when we talk about winter constellations, we're talking about constellations and stars that are up after your dinner and before you go to sleep. Sweet. Yeah, and so, the most famous of those is Orion. But, we're gonna get back to Orion towards the end of the show, because I have a lot to tell you about. It's the most recognizable constellation out there. Right. But, what I want to lead with, even before that... Is the solstice. Yes. Solstice. Yes.

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lot written about the solstice. First, it's Latin. Right. Sol, meaning sun. Right. Stis, meaning stationary. Remember arm, remember, armistice?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, remember?

• 2:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, remember armistice? If you're a hundred years old, yeah. Uh, armistice, it's stationary arms. No one is fighting anymore. Right. Armistice Day became Veterans Day. Right. Solstice is where the sun stays still. Right. Now, not in any biblical sense where it just stops in the sky. No. What actually happens at the solstice, I don't know if you pay attention, between summer and winter, but what, what goes on is Mm-hmm. every day that you get closer to the winter, the sun's arc in the sky gets lower and lower.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that makes the days? Shorter and shorter.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha. In fact, the shortest day of the year is the solstice, December 21st. And that's typically, we call that the first day of winter, which means every day of winter gets longer. Days get longer in the winter, not shorter. Which takes us to our, my favorite day of the year culminating after that, which would be?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Kwanzaa?

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The equinox. Kwanzaa? Equinox.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  I'm sorry?

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The vernal equinox, right? Isn't that the longest day of the year? No, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. You have to come back for that one. Equinox, vernal equinox is March. That's three months from now. I'm sorry. No, what's the longest day of the year? That would be the, that would be the summer solstice. The summer solstice, not the, not the vernal equinox.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  The longest day of the year technically, gentlemen, is April 15th, which is Tax Day.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the, for the accountants only there. Right, so the summer solstice. So here's what's going on. In the solstice, in, on December 21st, ancient peoples saw the sun get lower and lower in the sky every day, and this worried them. Right. Because when you're agriculturally driven, if the sun goes away, you die. Right. Your crops die. Right. You, there's, you're, you're scared. So a few days later, you figure out the sun is no longer dropping in the horizon. Mm-hmm. On its arc across the sky. It stops and then reverses, and it's on its way back. It has. It takes a few days to figure this out by about December 25th. Right. Ah, well, that's an interesting date for this to happen.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. And so what went on was Christianity, when it wanted to take a foothold among pagan celebrants of the, of the return of the Son after the solstice, they said, well, let's take this uncertain day called the birth of Jesus and put it on a day that everyone else already cares about. And that way, that would increase the likelihood of getting converts to the new religion of Christianity. And so they put the birth of Jesus right on a day where everyone was already celebrating, December 25th. Because nothing sells a religion like a party. I guess. And that's what I'm talking about, you know? And you know something? We've got, I, I have a special link to the Vatican. Do you know that? No, we didn't. I got peeps in the Vatican.

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sweet. You got a hotline to the Pope? I got a hotline, well, not to the Pope, but somebody who has audience with the Pope. Well, that's just as good. There's a colleague of mine, Brother Guy Consolagno. He's an astrophysicist, and I think, I think he's a Jesuit brother. Wait a minute. Yeah, they got him there. I was gonna say. I'm, I'm gonna bring him on. In the Vatican? In the Vatican. In the Vatican. We're calling the Vatican right now. Guy, are you on the line?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  I am indeed, listening to you guys.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Guy, and you're in the Vatican, it's like midnight there right now, correct?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  That's correct. It's just a couple of minutes past midnight.

• 5:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, well, thanks for calling in. And just to, to field our questions, just a few questions, I don't know if I'm the only one that has them, but do they let you believe in Santa Claus at the Vatican?

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Hey, I, anybody who knows the history of religion knows about Saint Nicholas, and how could you not believe in Saint Nicholas, which is of course what Santa Claus really is. Now, maybe all the stories you've heard about Saint Nicholas aren't exactly what you, you know, what the truth is, but then that could also be said about all the stories you've heard about Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and another thing, the, there's all this talk about what the star of Bethlehem might have been astronomically, and you can look at the records and you find out there are a couple of conjunctions of planets, and we'll talk about those later in the program. But while I have you on the line, I just want to know, do you and like fellow astrophysicists at the Vatican commissary argue over stuff like this, over the Christmas holidays?

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Well, actually, we do, because every year, some crazy reporter calls us up and wants to know what the official Vatican word is. There isn't an official Vatican word. We don't know any more than anybody else does.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but you have-

• 6:23Speaker 02

  It's great fun to speculate about it.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you have access to programs that tell you what the planets, stars, and moons were doing, right?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, what would you say was the best guess, or were you just going to say it was divine and go on with the next question?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  You know, for all we know, it could be a divine miracle, for all we know, it could be a pious story. My favorite is a theory that Michael Molnar came up with a few years ago, saying that it was actually the helical rise of a conjunction of planets.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and helical is where a group of planets are together in the sky, and they rise just before the appearance of the sun in the morning sky?

• 6:56Speaker 02

  And that would explain why no one except the astrologers knew what was going on.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because they're the only ones who paid attention to that sort of thing?

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see. And so, but I'm wondering, conjunctions where you have Jupiter in the sky, or Saturn with it, or Venus, even the crescent moon can join them, those are not actually rare. People like to think they are, but they're not.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so if you want to try to pin a not-rare, but nonetheless beautiful event on something that you want to be signified a change in all of religion in the world, you'd think you'd come up with a better cosmic phenomenon than just a conjunction?

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Right, and that's what Molnar has done. He's come up with a whole bunch of these guys, all in helical rise, at the same time, about four or five different things, and all in the same constellation that signified the country of Judea.

• 7:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which constellation was that?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Which would be Aries.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aries, I see. So they got this all figured out?

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, in fact, he's got it all figured out. He hasn't convinced anybody else.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing)

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's kind of what it is to publish your research. You believe it and no one else does.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Guy, thanks for calling in. It's been great to have you. It's been a while since I've seen you back here in New York. But make sure to give me a holler next time you're stateside. And I was checking on your Wiki page, and you have a book on what it is to be a scientist at the Vatican, right? What's that called?

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Well, we've got a couple of ones. The most recent one came out for the Year of Astronomy. It was called "The Heavens Proclaim", and it's the history of all the different astronomy that the Vatican's supported over the years.

• 8:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got you. And the International Year of Astronomy was 2009. That was the 400th anniversary of Galileo turning his telescope to the night sky.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  And for all you've heard, you remember, Galileo was a good Italian and a good Catholic.

• 8:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, is that right?

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he's not often credited with being a religious guy, but of course he was. He just had some disagreements with the Pope.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, he wouldn't have been the first Catholic.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's right. Well, plus, I actually think he was, you know, are you smart or stupid to disagree with the people who have power over you? I don't know. That's something that historians always grapple with.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Again, he wouldn't be the first one.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. So, Guy, thanks for calling in. Guy Consolmagno, and you're a brother in the Jesuit order, correct?

• 9:02Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right.

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the Jesuits are the one who persecuted Galileo?

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Not.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  So, basically, he's doing penance.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Hey, and thanks to them that the Vatican actually pays a bunch of astrophysicists to just do good science.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. Okay. So, there's hope in the world. All right, Guy.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for calling in on StarTalk Radio.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  And have a great Christmas, all you guys.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will do. Thank you.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Bye-bye.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Wow, that was cool. Yeah.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got cool people out there.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  You really do. I gotta give it to you. Oh, my God.

• 9:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you want to find links to his book and more on a biography of Guy Consolmagno, you can join StarTalk Radio's Facebook page, where we'll give information about him. And on our website, we have links to him.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  I learned a new word: heli-ical.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heli-ical.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Which is like the heli-ical rise. Like, that rise was heli-ical. Sounds like it was funny, you know? Dude, you are heli-ical.

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could be another use of the word, "heli-ical".

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Put it on a T-shirt. Right.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a heli-ical moment.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 9:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, H-E-L would be the sun, Helios, and... Uh, if something rose just before the sun, it was a sign that that there was something magical about to happen. And later on, we'll talk about Sirius rising before, the star Sirius, rising before the sun.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  That's a heretical dog.

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a heretical dog.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  You know what, I gotta say, I love when he said that the Vatican, we don't know more anymore than anyone else does. I'm like, wow, really? Can they quote you on that, dude?

• 10:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're gonna save that one.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're saving that one. So a couple of other things, there are people, if they're, if you wanna believe that there was some kind of star that the three wise men saw, and you, they, we, people, religious people have turned to astrophysicists.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the beginning.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To ask us, is there anything that we know of that occurred back then? And so we go through the list. You say, about when was he born? Turns out it was not year zero, you know?

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wonder if Jesus knew that. He wasn't born in the year zero. Typically, three, four, five B.C. is bandied about for when he would have been born.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  When he would have been born.

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so we, so we comb the records of the sky, which we can do, because we have laws of physics that tell us how gravity operates on the movement of bodies in the sky for thousands of years in the future and thousands of years into the past. So it's actually quite an empowerment of the ability to calculate. In fact, scientists are the only breed in the world that can predict with accuracy what's gonna happen in the future.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  What's gonna happen in the future.

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  So scientists are women, is what you're saying?

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing).

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Touching subject, touching subject.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  I thought you meant scientists were Miss Cleo, you know?

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing).

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Call me now.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said with accuracy.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  Oh, with accuracy. Oh, you put a caveat on it, okay.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  See, that's heretical.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  I understand. So wait a minute. So now, since scientists can look backwards.

• 11:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We do.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  In time.

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We do.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  And see events that have transpired in the heavens.

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Are there any events coinciding with the time that we're talking about that may point to a very bright star being in the sky above Bethlehem?

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, here's a, well, a bright, a bright star in the sky would be above everybody in the world if it was.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  True, true. If it's a bright star in the sky.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody's gonna catch it. Wouldn't have to be just above Bethlehem.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, what, my sort of best guess.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Thanks for making me feel stupid.

• 12:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  That's why we're here, man. That's the point of the show.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Back to you Neil.

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, serious, I wanna know.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, one of my best, if I, as I comb through the, the list of candidates, the Chinese kept excellent records of what was going on in the night sky. Back then, the astrologers, who were sort of the court-appointed advisors to the, those who were in charge, they were tasked with trying to understand what forces of the universe might operate on culture. And so they kept really accurate records there. So Chinese astrologers commented on a new star that appeared in the constellation Capricorn in 5 B.C. Now that's right around what we're talking about. That's right around when we're talking about. 5 B.C., so that's around the right year. And it turns out that new stars got the name Nova. Nova's Latin for new. Okay. Turns out, later on, we would learn, basically in the 20th century, we would learn,

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that stars that appear out of nowhere, these are stars, we call them novas as because they're new to you, but they've been there forever and they're dying. So they're exploding. They're exploding their guts into interstellar, into interstellar space. So we're late to the party.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  What we're seeing is the explosion, the death of a star.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The death of a star. And so they caught a new star, a nova, in Capricorn, and we can see the remnants of this with telescopes today. And so, that, that looks to me, there are others where Jupiter and Saturn got together in the sky. Right. And as, as Brother Guy, I'll call him Brother Guy. Brother Guy. Bro. What's up Brother Guy? What's up Brother Guy? As he, as he correctly reminded us, constellations, conjuncions in the sky are not rare. Right. They're common enough, you probably wouldn't pin the birth of your religion on it. Right.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm with my two guest hosts for this holiday episode. I've got LeAnn Lord. Comedian. How you doing, LeAnn? I am excellent. Excellent. And Chuck Nice. Hey. You're with me, man. Yes, I am. Comedian Chuck Nice. Correct. You might have seen him on NBC, The Today Show, and MSNBC. They always bring him on to talk about what's going down. This is true. And like I would know. That's what kills me. But I show up, I don't care. So, this is sort of me hanging out, just reflecting on the science of the season. And one other point I wanted to finish out with after that first segment, if you take Halley's Comet, which comes around about every 76 years, and extrapolate it back, and factor

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  in Jupiter messing with its orbit and things, you find out that Halley's Comet was around in 12 B.C. And the Chinese made a note of a new comet in the sky at that time as well. They didn't call it Halley's Comet, of course. Right. I'm sure it was like Confucius's Comet. The C.C. Yeah. So, C squared. C squared. So, with that, that would have been too early for what other guesses are for the year that Jesus was born. So, they wouldn't, while it was there and something to talk about, they wouldn't. It didn't jive. It didn't jive. So, we've got, so, I want to make this segment about Santa Claus. A little more about Santa Claus. Right on. And I, you know, I don't know if you know, but NORAD tracks Santa. Did you know this? Of course. Oh, you know.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, because they have it on the news. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll get to NORAD in a minute, but guess who I have on the phone? Who? Actually, I'm not sure who I have on the phone. Either Seth MacFarlane or Stewie. I don't know.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  I'm a little tired. I'm a little exhausted. I'm not going to go into this whole thing like this. But, no, it's me.

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seth MacFarlane.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  I'm being lazy today. How are you?

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How you doing, man? Thanks for calling in to StarTalk Radio.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Anytime, anytime.

• 16:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh. You know what I want for Christmas? I want Stewie's plans for his time machine.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Really?

• 16:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 16:22Speaker 04

  You could, you see, you're, you could probably do that yourself.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  That's so true.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know, but his was pretty cool. I, you know, it was working. It was like, and my favorite part of that was, he didn't have a timer, he didn't have a date stamp on where they landed up. And Brian complained, Brian, the, the dog, said, "What? You don't have a ti- a timer on your, on your time machine?" And so he said, "Oh, oh, d- does your time machine have a..."

• 16:51Speaker 03

  That, that indeed is a classic line.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  He's got a way better time machine than me.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, one, one would hope that, that, that your time machine would not have, have all the big funny like, plastic like vacuum, vacuum cleaner looking tubes that, that ours seems to have.

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, but if it's a time machine that no one's ever built before, it's gotta be made out of stuff you had in your garage, I think, right?

• 17:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, it is, it is a little bit of an, of an, of an A-team cobbled together look to it.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and, and, and so, so Seth, on so many of the Family Guy episodes, there's, I, I detect a, a deep representation of science literacy in there. And I, and I know it's coming out of some part of you. What, what, what in your life led you to be, to, to have that as a sort of shared mission statement with making people laugh?

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Well, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's something that, that is, uh, you know, has, has always been important to me and something that, you know, certainly my, my, my parents when I was growing up stressed the importance of rational thought and, uh, you know, questioning everything, asking why things work the way they do instead of just accepting things at face value. Um, you know, like, like yourself, I was a, I was a big, uh, great, great admirer of, of, of Carl Sagan and, you know, kind of devoured his, his writings, um, uh, over the course of my, my childhood and even, even up to this day. And, uh, you know, it's, it's, it, it, it's, it's something that we are, uh, losing touch with very much in,

• 18:23Speaker 04

  in this country. And I think, you know, even in the context of a comedy show, if you can wave the flag of science a little bit and remind people that it's, it's, uh, arguably the most important discipline on the planet, then, then, uh, you know, I think that can only be a good thing.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's important because our, our, our security and our future and our economic health is all wrapped into it.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And more important to our survival is...

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's pretty much everything.

• 18:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's everything.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  And we're done.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Lights the universe and everything.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, you know, your Christmas special, I think everybody, everybody sees your Christmas special and, but I have a gripe about your Christmas special.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stewie goes to the North Pole to have an encounter with Santa Claus. The North Pole has like mountains and trees there, but we know there's just a polar bear on that one ice floe. That's all that's left. I thought you knew this.

• 19:13Speaker 04

  I knew, I knew I was gonna take it from you.

• 19:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I think a lot of people, just in general, don't know that the North Pole has no land. It's just, it's just the Arctic Ocean.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Right, it's frozen over.

• 19:23Speaker 04

  But it doesn't bother you that there's elves and, and man-eating reindeer?

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I was cool with that.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well Seth, we look forward to many, many more years of Family Guy and Stewie just telling it like it is while occasionally sucking his thumb.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Yes. May I do something Neil?

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, Seth, this is something I've just always wanted to say to you forever, and that is, wouldn't it be marvelous if I turned out to be a homosexual?

• 19:55Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  No, seriously, man, I'm asking you, wouldn't it be marvelous?

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the tension that he puts into the ambiguity there.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Ambiguity?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Alrighty then, I must not understand the word.

• 20:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well Seth, thanks for calling in, taking time out of your day in LA to be part of our sort of holiday show here.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  Anytime Neil, anytime.

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Seth, we'll catch more of you another time.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  Alright, sounds good.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks.

• 20:19Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seth MacFarlane.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  That was great, yeah.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's my man, he's my man over there in LA. So let me tell you about Santa Claus and NORAD. Do you know, do you know what NORAD was invented for, okay?

• 20:32Speaker 03

  Now that I don't.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was, it was the, it was the North American Air Defense. At a time when we believed that any invasion, any attacks to us would happen through airplanes flying through the air. And we felt our coasts were covered, Pacific and Atlantic. We were worried that Russia would come to us over the poles.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if they come over the poles, they'd have to fly over Canada. So we said, let's band together with Canada, create a defense system that protects us from anything coming over the poles. Then we learned that, hey, with intercontinental ballistic missiles, these are missiles that don't fly through the air. They leave the atmosphere, fly in the vacuum of space, then re-enter. So they said, hey, we need a more grand name for it. So now it's the North American Aeroface, Aeroface.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Aerospace?

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aerospace Defense.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Not to be confused with Aerosmith.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Or Aero, or Aero Face.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what's funny here is that it was initially to track what was coming back over the poles. And so one thing they do in December is they track Santa Claus.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  But, but, but wait, can we step back a minute? Is, is that why we left out Mexico? She's on her own? We don't care if the attack's coming in that way.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If, if, if somebody's gonna get bombed, they're gonna bomb somebody long before it reaches Mexico. I promise you that.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  I'm just saying.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so what we have here is, uh, Santa, who takes off on New Year's Eve. And NORAD, if you go to their website, NORAD Santa.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It tracks Santa through the air. Now, we should be glad that it tracks it rather than just taking it out of the sky.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Shooting it down.

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thinking, oh, bogey. That would, that would make a bad headline the next day.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  That's pretty cool.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NORAD shoots down Santa by accident.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you have here is a, but you, you had, there's some issues here though, because there's certain, um, you have to think about what Santa has to accomplish.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  In order to make this happen.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  He has, he has a big job.

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's got a big job. Cause you think, how, how many Christians are in the world? There might be, uh, billion, billion and a half. And so, um, how many Christian households might be anywhere between three and 400 million?

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Well, you, you also gotta count the agnostics, who are hedging their bets.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  True.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Do they make the Santa list?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They make the Santa list, okay, add them in.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  And not to mention the Christmas Jews.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Christmas Jews.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  There are a lot of Christmas Jews.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  That's why they're Jew-ish? Is that what we're saying?

• 22:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kind of being Jewish.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  That's kind of.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kind of being a Jew, you're Jew-ish. So, those who have Christmas trees, I would suppose.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, would be the target of Santa's visit.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, this is a lot of people to visit.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He has to travel very fast.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very fast. We're looking at about 2,000 miles per second, which is about 1% the speed of light.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  That's quick.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're talking about some, some awesome reindeer here, and so maybe Santa finds a, a portal through the space-time continuum.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  He would have to.

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, actually, they did in the movie, uh, what's the movie where they go through the door? Monsters, Inc. Each door in a child's room.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was actually a, a, a portal through the space-time continuum.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Connecting the factory to the home. So, maybe this is what he's gotta do. I don't, I, I don't know. But, if you calculate all of this.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's, it's a huge task for Santa to, to do, and NORAD tracks the progress of Santa.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Wait a minute, how can they track something going at 2,000 miles per second?

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not authorized to say.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Just understanding your tax dollars are being well spent, sir.

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  That's all you need to know.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A quick history of that, they, uh, it started in 1955.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Right on.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where a regional, uh, in Colorado where NORAD is, it's in Cheyenne Mountain.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cheyenne Mountain.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yay, Cheyenne Mountain.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's that, that hole in the mountain where they got the big door.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  That's where Stargate is.

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where Stargate is.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 24:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you remember. We'll talk more about that.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Wait.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After the break. But, I wanna, what, what, so in there with NORAD, what they did was, a local Sears in Colorado posted a phone number to call Santa. And they accidentally gave the wrong phone number and it was NORAD.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  NORAD's phone number.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NORAD's phone number.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Wow, somebody got fired.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Accidental, air quotes.

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, from that point on, they decided, well, why not actually turn this into something real? And we have all these tracking mechanisms, these tracking capacities, let's do it for Santa, do it for the country, do it for the world.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  And oddly enough, you can buy all of that tracking, uh, uh, equipment at Sears and Roebuck.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Dot com.

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so if you want to just learn more about all of what we're talking about, you can join us on Facebook. Easy to find us, StarTalk Radio on Facebook. And you can actually follow us in the Twitterverse. Our Twitter handle is StarTalk Radio. So when we come back, we have another phone call with one of my favorite people in the world. Bill Nye will be with us. We'll see you in a bit.

• 25:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I've got with me LeAnn Lohr and Chuck Nice. And LeAnn, you were joking with me recently about the computer voice that's about to tell you the world is going to end, but the voice never acts frightened or anything. Is that, is this concerns you?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  What are you doing, Hal?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Launch Colonial Viper One.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  I think that computer is a little too sexy.

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was about to launch something else.

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was nice, Chuck Nice. That was nice, Chuck Nice, right there. So, anyhow, so with NORAD, so that's what they do. They're responsible for the defense of North America. And they're deep in the mountain that protects themselves from nuclear holocausts where the rest of us die and they'll protect whatever's left and themselves. How do you get that job? And also, also, Stargate.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Stargate.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stargate.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  SG-1.

• 26:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They went through the door.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  They lived in the mountain.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They lived in the mountain. That's right. And I actually had a cameo in Stargate Atlantis. No way.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I had a cameo with Bill Nye. The two of us. Get out. We saw we're on that. And I, and I, my acting talents suck. I just wanted to know.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  But you were fabulous in The Big Bang.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was gonna say, you were the only person there who actually knew what the hell you were talking about.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  I know what this button does.

• 27:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Actually, but I was on, on Stargate Atlantis with Bill Nye, who's a friend and colleague. And I think we have Bill Nye on the line. Bill Nye, Bill, are you there? Neil, greetings. Bill, you're calling us from LA. Thanks for taking time out of your day to be on StarTalk Radio. Are you kidding? For you?

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bill, this is-

• 27:22Speaker 05

  I could see your lips move.

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, this is our holiday show, and so I want to know, Bill, because you're kind of an unusual character out there, in many ways, I'm not going to list them, you know what they are, among them, we want to know, like, what did you ever want as a kid for Christmas? Was it something weird?

• 27:36Speaker 05

  For Newton's birthday, you mean?

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Newton, say, say, what'd I tell you guys? No, okay.

• 27:41Speaker 05

  Uh, so, uh-

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When was Newton born?

• 27:43Speaker 05

  I didn't know it, but one year Santa brought me a bicycle big enough for an adult to ride, and I had reached this point in my life, I had made this transition to adult leg length.

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  And man, I could crank that thing, gosh, it was fun, and so, as you may know, I, I'm down now, I, I'm, I'm okay, I could quit if I wanted, I have five bicycles now.

• 28:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you have bicycles on the brain and then the body right now, plus, I, I happen to know separately that you're a, a big bike enthusiast, and you're buddies with, who's the famous bike guy?

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Neil Armstrong?

• 28:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neil Armstrong.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  I'm not really buddies with Neil Armstrong.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, how about Lance then?

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lance, yeah, buddies with Lance.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  Oh, Lance, Lance.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so you're a big bicycle fanatic, and so you did get a bike for your birthday, but you also said-

• 28:32Speaker 05

  No, no, it was for Newton's birthday.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Newton, so Newton was born on Christmas?

• 28:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I checked the, the, I, I looked at the records, and he was born on Christmas in England, who had not yet adopted the Gregorian calendar, put forth into the rest of the Catholic world in fif- in sixteen eighty, uh, fifteen eighty-four, so, what are you saying, he was born on Christmas, he's really born, like, January fifth or something?

• 28:56Speaker 05

  Fourth, I think.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fourth, okay.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  But, uh, but it's fun. I always claimed that Isaac Newton's mother pr- pretty much was thinking it was Christmas Day, that's my claim.

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so whatever the mom says, that's what it is?

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Or, or either Newton is the Protestant baby Jesus.

• 29:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Protestant-

• 29:11Speaker 05

  Well-

• 29:13Speaker 05

  He made a contribution. He just made some remarkable discoveries.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 29:17Speaker 05

  But he was a significant guy.

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Newton was my man. He discovered the laws of optics and the laws of gravity and the laws of motion.

• 29:25Speaker 05

  And he makes a great computer. Viscosity, Neil. I'm talking fluid mechanics. He was all over it. He was an investigator.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And fluid mechanics and viscosity is all about riding a bike fast and all about Santa trying to deliver presents on Christmas Day fast.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  And he's, but the thing is Santa has something else that I don't think Isaac Newton had.

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 29:45Speaker 05

  He's magic.

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 29:48Speaker 05

  That is a huge time saver when you're gonna go worldwide.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bill, I don't come to you to explain the natural world by saying it's magic, you know?

• 29:55Speaker 05

  The natural world, I think you're talking about Santa Claus.

• 30:00Speaker 05

  And this is a product, I'll claim, and I don't think this is extraordinary, it's a product of humans.

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 05

  Okay, and it's not a bad thing.

• 30:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but I just calculate how fast he'd have to go. He'd have to go 2,000 miles per second and traverse 200 million miles to deliver presents to all the Christian and agnostic and...

• 30:20Speaker 05

  But he's done the, he's done like estimations of house to house?

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, exactly. House to house, and he scattered them all around the world.

• 30:27Speaker 05

  There's another thing, Dr. Tyson.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 30:29Speaker 05

  The guy used to come to my house, he would eat the cookies I left and drink the hot cocoa. Okay, that's... You're telling me he did that at every house?

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why he is so large.

• 30:42Speaker 05

  Well, he's magic.

• 30:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the calorie content of the cookies he eats is greater than the calories he burns getting from house to house. There it is.

• 30:51Speaker 05

  A little bit.

• 30:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how that works.

• 30:53Speaker 05

  Uh huh, huh. Well, who knew?

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Bill, I have to tell everyone, you are Executive Director of the Planetary Society.

• 30:59Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do I still get to call you the science guy in that?

• 31:01Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so do so.

• 31:04Speaker 05

  Uh, so, the Planetary Society, we promote, uh, space exploration.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. And by the way, I don't, I'm not alone to know this, you're not only the science guy, you're the engineering dude too.

• 31:15Speaker 05

  I am, yes.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And these are your, those are your roots and that's, and we feel great to have you out there, just carrying the torch.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Very, very technical, uh, titles, I have to say.

• 31:25Speaker 05

  Our engineers use science to solve problems and what else? Make things. Everything in your world, somebody, somebody thought of it. Came out of somebody's head. How about that microphone? How about these radio signals? Somebody made that up. It's cool. It's exciting.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  And I, I disagree with you there, Mr. Science Guy.

• 31:44Speaker 05

  Uh-oh.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  I, I believe radio signals existed before we did.

• 31:48Speaker 05

  Uh, I don't think so. Uh, I think the-

• 31:51Speaker 03

  How do we receive them from space then?

• 31:53Speaker 05

  I don't wanna get all geeky. Through our magic machines. But I don't think anybody was selecting radio channels a- and, uh, making them into amplitude or frequency modulated signal stuff.

• 32:02Speaker 03

  Oh, you mean that kind? Oh, oh, it's that kind of-

• 32:06Speaker 05

  I say, bring it on.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck Nice just got owned. But if you had to get owned by somebody, let it be-

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Let it be Bill Nye, the Science Guy.

• 32:14Speaker 05

  Into the cosmos. Maybe somebody out there is enjoying the Dick Van Dyke Show.

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:21Speaker 05

  Cause somebody should. Or, uh, or the Bill Nye, the Science Guy Show. I'm just shooting from the hip. Way out there. Picking a random show. They can't quite tell what it is, but, but they wonder.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I would rather they got the, the Bill Nye Show than like Howdy Doody or I Love Lucy as the emissaries of our culture.

• 32:41Speaker 05

  Uh, I think it's too late. But there might be a physical phenomenon that we don't understand. Maybe, maybe the Science Guy got there ahead of it. Maybe there's some crazy, uh, interstellar, uh, you know, in that four percent of the, um, of the dark matter, the dark energy that, that reverses things. And science things end up in front of the storytelling.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be, that, that's a little, that's still a bit fantasy, I think.

• 33:08Speaker 05

  Well, I'm jamming.

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so what you're trying to say is that which we don't know about the universe works in favor of putting the Science Guy signal ahead of I Love Lucy.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  I'm saying-

• 33:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's wishful thinking.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  On behalf of regular people, might I say huh? It's agnostic.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Sir William, as I call you affectionately, Bill Nye the Science Guy, thanks for calling in and being a friend of StarTalk Radio.

• 33:31Speaker 05

  Oh, no, it is we who must thank you.

• 33:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nah, and those of you who are regular listeners know that Bill Nye puts in a minute every now and then to just because he's got a rant and get it off, something off his chest, and we'll be hearing from him, uh, later in the season. So, Bill, thanks for taking time out of your day.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  Thank you. I gotta fly, Bill Nye the Planetary Guy.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. There you go. That's my Bill. Oh.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  How many titles?

• 33:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so you like Science Guy and Engineering Dude. That was what you- Those are, I love those titles. Science Guy, Engineering Dude.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  And those are two separate business cards, completely.

• 34:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, there's another movie that showed, uh, NORAD, and it was Independence Day. No. Yeah, guess what happened in that? Is that what, the aliens? Yeah, they totally took it out. Sweet. Those bastards.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  I have a movie question. Wasn't it in Terminator 3? Isn't that where they went? Uh, at the, at the end? Was that, it looked like it was a Cheyenne-type place.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was, it was a Cheyenne-type place, but I don't think they had like- No, I think that was in New Mexico.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 34:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know where it was, though.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  I'm mixing my geek references. I apologize.

• 34:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you know, we just try to get that, get that. So, when we come back from our break, we have another break, when we come back, I'm gonna tell you about what parts of the night sky are always there in the holiday season, and have you learned much more about it than just to call it a constellation? Okay. In fact, we'll be targeting Orion, Orion the Hunter. Do you know about Orion? I know about his belt. I saw Men in Black.

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe is in Orion's belt. It was, yeah, it was the galaxy. Oh, that's right, sorry. The galaxy is in Orion's belt. On Orion's belt.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  I dated a dude named Orion, but I don't think that's who you're talking about.

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I met someone named Orion.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Did you really?

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, in a restaurant. He was a server. Was, was your guy a server? That is too, that is too far of a magnanimous name to, hello, I'll be, I'm Orion, I'll be your servant.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  I was like, no, let me sit down and serve you.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just like, my name is Caesar, I'll be bringing you your Caesar. Your salad, I'll be bringing you salad. What, what I didn't know is, I mean, I've learned later his name was Orion. I showed him his business card. He, like, convinced, he's Orion, is the guy's name. He said his mother, he said he was of the age where he might have been named Moon Unit or something less, yeah, so he got named Orion. So I said, take Orion any day.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  He dodged a bullet.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to our annual holiday episode. When we come back, we'll be talking about the night sky.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This is the holiday show.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm just sort of waxing on about all the cosmic significance of the season, if I may.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  You please do.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  May I?

• 36:28Speaker 01

  It's your show, son.

• 36:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for example, constellations. People think of winter constellations or summer constellations. You can catch practically any constellation at some time of the night, any day of the year. So what we mean when we say it's a winter constellation is that it's up high in the sky between dinner and when you go to sleep. In the winter.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  In the winter.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Typically. But you can find a winter constellation in the summer. It's just up at like four in the morning when you're not awake. So that's all. You mean when you're not.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was about to say. Comedians have a slightly different schedule.

• 36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, you work the nights.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. 4:00 AM, we call it lunch.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  That didn't come out right. Well, I work the night? Wait a minute. I'm a comedian, Mom, really?

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, one of everyone's favorite constellations, perhaps it's the most recognizable dude in the winter sky is Orion. Orion the hunter.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  A hunter.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Chuck, you said you know Orion's Belt, but then you made a movie reference.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Yes, Men in Black.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  That's the only way I know Orion's Belt. And here's why. The only way I know Orion's Belt is Men in Black. Because when I look up in the sky, I can't see any of those pictures that say that this is the constellation. How? Who came up with these? Like, that's a hunter, that's a bull, that's a pair of scales, there's a lady in a dress. Where the hell did that come from? Because I can't see any of it.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Thank you. I thought I was only one. I could not see it. Thank you.

• 37:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It came from opium. I just want you to know.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Because I think you're right. To me, Orion actually does look like a woman wearing an A-line skirt, holding a credit card. That's not a sword. That is not a sword.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All depends on, yeah, what you're.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  This is a matter of perspective.

• 38:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the Rorschach test for all of us. So Orion is a hunter, sometimes drawn facing forward, sometimes drawn facing away. Okay. So you get different views of his anatomy when this happens.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Ooh. I'm sorry.

• 38:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting. Well, one of them, for example, is Orion's belt is the three bright stars that form a line. Right. It's a distinct pattern in the sky. And Ryan has a sword hanging from the belt, dangling between his legs, which for me, if I were a hunter, that's not where I would carry my sword. I just want to make this point.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Well, not since the dogs are right there.

• 38:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It depends on who you hunt. Well, I don't know. I'm just saying. I'm just saying that's what that is. And so Orion is protecting himself from Taurus the Bull, which is over to his side. Right. And Orion astrophysically is a remarkable part of the sky because it has a lot of cool astrophysical stuff going on in it. For example, Orion's shoulder is called Rigel. And no, no, sorry, sorry. I get the, how can I, excuse me.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  How about the same?

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  What?

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Orion's shoulder. Orion's shoulder is Betelgeuse. We have in a movie called Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse, really? Betelgeuse, and that's how you pronounce it, Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse. And that is Arabic for armpit of the great one, in case you were wondering. Which honestly does not sound so great. Okay.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  And is my nickname for my husband. So, there we go.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars known, so large that if you put it where the sun is right now, it would be larger than the entire orbit of the earth. We would be the cinder orbiting deep within its surface. Sweet. Very sweet. That is cool. It is so. That is a huge star.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  I feel so small.

• 39:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bigger than our entire orbit. That's what I'm saying, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so then you go to his knee. Right. And one of the stars forms his kneecap, and that's the star Rigel, which is a blue supergiant star. Both of those stars will one day explode, become a supernova, and be the brightest thing in the night sky and would even be visible in the day. So you mean, we will be on earth and we will look up in the sky and we will see this star in the, in the midday sun? Yes, yes.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Technically, we will not be here.

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, yes.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  I'm just saying.

• 40:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get your we straight.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  That's a little bit far in the future.

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get your we straight. And where Orion's sword is, that's dangling between his legs, is a region that is a nebula, a cloudy region where stars are being born. It's a stellar nursery.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called the Orion Nebula. Right beneath the sword because he will kill them the moment they are born. So this is Orion in the sky, viewable everywhere on earth over the holiday season. Sweet. Now, the brightest star in the night sky is just off of the side of Orion, it's called Sirius. Right. Sirius. Sirius. Now, there are many things named Sirius, Sirius radio.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Right. Satellite radio, yes.

• 40:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, we're not on Sirius radio. No, we're not. But that's all.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  That's their loss, hello.

• 40:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. Do you know the icon? But they have been calling.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, the icon for Sirius is the little dog.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a little dog, because Sirius is the eye of Canis Major, the big dog. The dog star. It's the dog star. Sweet. It is the dog star, and in fact, the dog days of August are so called because Sirius rises just before the sun during the month of August, the helical rising of Sirius. The helical rise of the dog star, yo!

• 41:14Speaker 01

  That's a callback, y'all!

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dog days. The dog of stars. The dog days of August. Love it. That is cool. And Sirius is popular in many cultures, is the brightest star in the night sky, so if a culture's gonna have it, they're gonna, you know, if a culture's gonna have any star in the sky, that's a likely one, and the Egyptians worship the star. In fact, back when it was heliacally rose before the sun for them, thousands of years ago, signaled the rise, the flooding of the Nile. So in fact, their agricultural calendar begins with the helical rising of Sirius. That, I gotta tell you, that's fascinating, I'm sorry, but I find it fascinating. Oh, yeah.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  And it sounds serious.

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, okay, is that what that is? Sirius. Sirius the dog star. So, these are, those are things you'll see in the nighttime sky, and of course, the moon goes through. The full moon in December crosses the sky higher than any other moon of the year. So, that's what, that's what creates this wonderful glow on the snow-laden landscapes.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  And it's fewer crazy people?

• 42:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And lunatics?

• 42:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're the lunatics at all phases of the moon, so I have come to learn.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 42:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I think we've come to the end of our house party.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  We are at the end of our halalical rise.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in my last minute.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Where's the after-party?

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have to give my tweet of the week.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  Oh, yay.

• 42:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I've been thinking hard about this with Santa and all of this, and I'm wondering if Santa's moving 2,000 miles per second to visit the more than 22 million households to deliver gifts.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, 22 million miles of the half a billion households that he's got to visit. This is, I did the quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, aerodynamics.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Santa ain't gonna make it.

• 43:05Speaker 03

  You mean he can't make it to every house, or?

• 43:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For my tweet of the week, here it goes. For Santa to deliver gifts to all the world's Christians in one night requires hypersonic speeds vaporizing his reindeer and sled.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Oh, man. You killed Rudolph right before Chris Ari.

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been our holiday show, and I want to thank my guests. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.