Cosmic Queries: Defending our Planet, with Bill Nye

The universe is a hostile place. What would we do if a planet-destroying asteroid or comet strike were imminent? Do we have plans in place? Bill Nye and comic co-host Chuck Nice are back to answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about defending the Earth. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-queries-defending-our-planet-with-bill-nye/

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

• 0:01Chuck Nice?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Bill Nye?

  Welcome to StarTalk All-Stars. I'm your All-Star host of the evening, Bill Nye, and I'm here with my co-host, the remarkable and exciting Chuck Nice.

• 0:30Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Bill.

• 0:31Bill Nye?

  And on this episode of All-Stars, Chuck, we're talking about planetary defense.

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 0:37Bill Nye?

  Defending the Earth.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that we need defending.

• 0:41Bill Nye?

  From an asteroid.

• 0:42Chuck Nice?

  Are they defending our honor?

• 0:44Bill Nye?

  No, it's asteroids.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  It's just asteroids.

• 0:46Bill Nye?

  And comets.

• 0:47Chuck Nice?

  And comets.

• 0:48Bill Nye?

  Yeah, which in some level are hard to distinguish, but...

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  The universe is a hostile place.

• 0:53Bill Nye?

  Can be.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 0:54Bill Nye?

  So there is no evidence whatsoever that the ancient dinosaurs had a space program.

• 1:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:01Bill Nye?

  And it was hard on them.

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  Is that because they didn't have opposable thumbs?

• 1:04Bill Nye?

  Well, their hands, their arms are so short.

• 1:06Chuck Nice?

  Just tiny, tiny, tiny arms.

• 1:08Bill Nye?

  On some of them, but...

• 1:09Chuck Nice?

  I would try, but I can't reach it.

• 1:12Bill Nye?

  So, but they may have, I'm not joking, maybe they did have a space program, but it didn't show up in the fossil record.

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  Right. Now, when you think about that, let me just ask you, since we know that that was an event that happened, right? Because, you know, they look at the layers in the Earth.

• 1:27Bill Nye?

  You got, yes, Chuck, you're such a nerd. I love you.

• 1:31Chuck Nice?

  So...

• 1:32Bill Nye?

  Layer of iridium.

• 1:33Chuck Nice?

  A layer of iridium.

• 1:33Bill Nye?

  Comic number...

• 1:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I don't know.

• 1:37Bill Nye?

  Seventy-seven.

• 1:38Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 1:38Bill Nye?

  So seventy-seven's an odd number. It's not that common, so when you find it, and so on and so on.

• 1:43Chuck Nice?

  Right. So here's, here's what I...

• 1:47Bill Nye?

  The following thing.

• 1:48Chuck Nice?

  Following thing that I read, that... That it basically, uh, when we had this cataclysmic collision. Right, then up comes. Comes all this detritus. It's superheated. And then it just rains fire and destroys everything. Is that accurate?

• 2:11Bill Nye?

  Well, yeah, so they, they, they, we, it. Astronomers speculate that the cone. Of the ejecta.

• 2:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 2:20Bill Nye?

  The ejected material.

• 2:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Bill Nye?

  Is bigger around than the diameter of the earth. So gravity pulled it into a big ring of fire or sphere of fire.

• 2:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:30Bill Nye?

  And it was very troublesome.

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  I love when you understate things.

• 2:35Bill Nye?

  So when the, the only animals that made it through were underground.

• 2:38Chuck Nice?

  They were underground animals.

• 2:39Bill Nye?

  And or mostly underground.

• 2:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:42Bill Nye?

  Weird descendant of some subterranean.

• 2:44Chuck Nice?

  Subterranean little thing that crawled up to the surface after everything.

• 2:48Bill Nye?

  Or scurried.

• 2:48Chuck Nice?

  Or scurried up, yes, yeah. In my case, probably scurried.

• 2:51Bill Nye?

  Spry, spryly.

• 2:53Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 2:53Bill Nye?

  Very athletically bounded to the surface.

• 2:55Chuck Nice?

  Or could have been, could have been like cave dwelling animals at the same time.

• 2:59Bill Nye?

  Those, those. Oh, yeah, I'm an expert on cave dwelling. It could be. It's very reasonable. Yes.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool. And I mean, it's a fascinating, uh.

• 3:07Bill Nye?

  Oh, man, it's amazing. So when I was in second grade. Mrs. McGonigal reads to us from a big book. Uh, well, the only, the reason the ancient dinosaurs died is they had small brains. Which is just lame.

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  Isn't that crazy? Cause you have heard people say, people still say that today. Well, the reason they died off is because they weren't intelligent creatures. They had tiny brains and so they couldn't adapt.

• 3:30Bill Nye?

  So make a joke there about what my old boss, right there. But he was alive. Uh, so. Uh, what I'm saying is, it was in my lifetime that this discovery was made. Nineteen eighty, nineteen eighty-three. That, uh, people discovered this layer of iridium, which is almost certainly from an ancient asteroid, which is almost certainly the ancient asteroid that finished off the ancient dinosaurs. They may have been having trouble. With vul- volcanism. So sulfur. Being pumped into the sky from volcanoes in what is now India.

• 4:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:02Bill Nye?

  Where these tectonic plates are colliding. But. They were finished off by a big rock from the sky, or group of rocks from the sky.

• 4:10Chuck Nice?

  Nice, man, God, wow. I mean, it's, it's, it's exciting and fascinating and at the same time it's kinda scary.

• 4:17Bill Nye?

  Yes, we don't want it to happen again. So what we wanna do is deflect an asteroid if it starts coming toward us.

• 4:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, cuz it happened once.

• 4:23Bill Nye?

  Yes. Well, it turns out the Earth, there's all sorts of impact craters if you know what you're looking for.

• 4:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:29Bill Nye?

  So you look at the moon.

• 4:30Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, and the moon, God, what a-

• 4:32Bill Nye?

  You look at Mars.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  What a beautiful little snapshot you have there.

• 4:35Bill Nye?

  Crater festival.

• 4:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:36Bill Nye?

  So, um, it's very reasonable that the same number of impacts per square meter, kilometer, happened here. But the Earth has all these processes. We have tectonic plates, grinding, we have rain, snow, wind. And so these craters get erased over millennia.

• 4:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:58Bill Nye?

  So, um, what we wanna do is detect all the Earth crossing asteroids that have the potential to hit us. And then if we find one, it is to be hoped thirty years out, and we could send out the right spacecraft and give it a little-

• 5:13Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 5:15Bill Nye?

  Except it's in space, there's no sound.

• 5:16Chuck Nice?

  Sounds. There, that was it. That was the sound.

• 5:19Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah. I'm just trying to figure out some more weather-related events I can bring up now.

• 5:24Bill Nye?

  Sound effects.

• 5:24Chuck Nice?

  So I can get you to do those sounds.

• 5:26Bill Nye?

  Can you do the thunderstorm?

• 5:27Chuck Nice?

  There's thunder, there's thunder. Let me see.

• 5:32Bill Nye?

  That's pretty good, Dad. That's very good. Yeah. Alright, so, uh-

• 5:36Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so we've got our cosmic queries.

• 5:37Bill Nye?

  The sound effect, StarTalk Sound Effects Show. Maybe that's coming.

• 5:41Chuck Nice?

  The Sound Effects Fest, coming to StarTalk very soon. Uh, we've got our cosmic queries. Uh, of course, we've gleaned these questions from all over the internet and, uh-

• 5:52Bill Nye?

  All over the cosmos.

• 5:53Chuck Nice?

  All over the cosmos.

• 5:54Bill Nye?

  You can be on Betelgeuse, in orbit around Betelgeuse. If you can get us query-

• 6:01Chuck Nice?

  We will-

• 6:02Bill Nye?

  -onto the internet, roughly in English, we'll do what we can.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 6:06Bill Nye?

  If it comes in in Betelgeusean and we can go to Google Translate-

• 6:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:10Bill Nye?

  -we're in for you, man. We are here for you. And I say man, it could be entity.

• 6:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:16Bill Nye?

  We're here for you, entity.

• 6:17Chuck Nice?

  Or alien.

• 6:18Bill Nye?

  That's where I'm at, with entity.

• 6:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, there you go. Uh, well, this is what Paul Sykes says. Um.

• 6:27Bill Nye?

  Mike?

• 6:28Chuck Nice?

  I, I.

• 6:29Bill Nye?

  Chuck?

• 6:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 6:30Bill Nye?

  Paul?

• 6:30Chuck Nice?

  Paul. You know what? Let's go with Chris.

• 6:32Bill Nye?

  Chris?

• 6:33Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, we always start with a Patreon question, and the reason why we start with a Patreon question is because those people support us directly.

• 6:39Bill Nye?

  Directly, they are, they are patrons.

• 6:41Chuck Nice?

  They are patrons.

• 6:42Bill Nye?

  Start talk.

• 6:43Chuck Nice?

  They are infusing.

• 6:44Bill Nye?

  We love you.

• 6:44Chuck Nice?

  Cash directly to us.

• 6:46Bill Nye?

  You can buy your way onto this show.

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  Boom, that's it.

• 6:49Bill Nye?

  That's what Dr. Nice is telling.

• 6:50Chuck Nice?

  That's exactly right. You can buy your way onto this show, you know, and, uh, you know what? Speaking of buying our hearts, you can also, uh, support us on StarTalkAllAccess.com. Uh, make a subscription and, uh, you will be supporting the show directly that way as well, and we shall forever love you.

• 7:07Bill Nye?

  Way to go, person out there, entity. Read the question, Chuck.

• 7:12Chuck Nice?

  Here's a question, Chuck. Here we go. Uh, uh, Bill, do you believe the biggest threat to humanity is from asteroids? Or is it from humanity?

• 7:21Bill Nye?

  Oh, from us right now. I mean, humans are the big problem. There's a lot of us breathing and burning the same atmosphere, and right now, the world's most influential democracy is run by people who say they don't believe in human caused climate change. I got a feeling that when shoving and pushing comes to shove, that they'll change, but right now it's very troubling. So, yes, humans are the biggest problem. However, one rock from outer space at 11 kilometers a second is very low probability event, but very high consequence event.

• 8:00Chuck Nice?

  So true.

• 8:00Bill Nye?

  Seldom get in a car wreck, but when you do, it sucks.

• 8:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. Right.

• 8:05Bill Nye?

  Seldom get hit with an asteroid, but when you do, man, whoa, man.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  You can't, you can't call State Farm.

• 8:11Bill Nye?

  Or, no.

• 8:12Chuck Nice?

  Allstate or.

• 8:13Bill Nye?

  Oh, yes.

• 8:13Chuck Nice?

  You can't call those guys.

• 8:15Bill Nye?

  Any of those guys.

• 8:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:18Bill Nye?

  Boom, ba bum bum bum bum bum, whatever that, yeah.

• 8:20Chuck Nice?

  That was it. That is, uh, could clearly a very effective ad campaign. Uh, here's, uh, Brittany Mencati. And Brittany.

• 8:28Bill Nye?

  What, what did she do to anger you? Or just make you, fill you with passion? Mencati.

• 8:35Chuck Nice?

  Mencati.

• 8:38Bill Nye?

  Because I think it's probably Mencati.

• 8:39Chuck Nice?

  It is Mencati. Uh, Brittany Mencati says this, hey, uh, Bill.

• 8:46Bill Nye?

  Chuck, Brittany.

• 8:48Chuck Nice?

  I'm a psychology student at the University of Kentucky.

• 8:51Bill Nye?

  Right on.

• 8:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cats. I was wondering if money was not an issue, what would be the very best planetary defense given our current technology?

• 9:02Bill Nye?

  Uh, two things.

• 9:03Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 9:03Bill Nye?

  Invest in a spacecraft, uh, that would be the next to follow on to, well, there's one called NeoWise.

• 9:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:11Bill Nye?

  One, the next spacecraft to look for asteroids. And as the saying goes, finding an asteroid is like looking for a charcoal briquette in the dark.

• 9:20Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I gotcha.

• 9:23Bill Nye?

  It's difficult.

• 9:23Chuck Nice?

  I gotcha.

• 9:24Bill Nye?

  You can do it.

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  Or like finding Chuck nice at night when he's not smiling.

• 9:29Bill Nye?

  Uh, I let you make that joke?

• 9:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you do.

• 9:31Bill Nye?

  Uh, but I'm familiar with it.

• 9:33Chuck Nice?

  I love it. And Bill was just like, okay, and good for you.

• 9:37Bill Nye?

  Well, I, I was brought up.

• 9:39Chuck Nice?

  Not gonna go with you. Not, you're not gonna drag me down that rabbit hole, Chuck?

• 9:43Bill Nye?

  Well, you can do, you guys, you can make that such a joke and I can't.

• 9:47Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 9:48Bill Nye?

  I was brought up in Washington DC.

• 9:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:51Bill Nye?

  Many years ago, when it really was a nice southern racist town. And I've heard a lot of that, but I.

• 9:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:59Bill Nye?

  I do my best, uh.

• 10:01Chuck Nice?

  But see, that's because.

• 10:02Bill Nye?

  Live my life.

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  That's because you are a great human being, okay? And you know, you know the difference between a joke and the fact that, okay, I know he's joking, and a joke and, well, if I say it, it's still offensive because I'm saying it. See, so, you know, I, I, I get what you're saying, though. I, I have a great deal of respect for you for that.

• 10:22Bill Nye?

  Well, I'm playing the hand I'm dealt here. We're more alike than they are different.

• 10:26Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 10:26Bill Nye?

  Now, the other part of the, uh, planetary defense thing that we have to deal with or come up with, the first one is detecting asteroids.

• 10:35Chuck Nice?

  That's a spaceship.

• 10:35Bill Nye?

  Second thing is a spaceship.

• 10:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so the first thing is detection.

• 10:38Bill Nye?

  And detection is probably best done with a spacecraft that's about three quarters of an astronomical unit from the sun. That's about the same distance from the sun as Venus.

• 10:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:50Bill Nye?

  However. What would be styling is if you had it um with a solar sail so it could go around slowly.

• 10:59Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 10:59Bill Nye?

  That would be pretty styling.

• 11:00Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 11:01Bill Nye?

  And then you'd look for all these asteroids that are in the infrared. So here's the thing, even if it's a charcoal briquette in the dark.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:11Bill Nye?

  Chuck Nice, you know, inserted here.

• 11:13Chuck Nice?

  (laughing).

• 11:14Bill Nye?

  Uh, it still glows in the infrared.

• 11:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:17Bill Nye?

  As do you, by the way. Uh, yes, yes. It's like, I can, I can distinguish you from asteroids. Don't worry, I saw the movie Predator. Uh, so you can see the asteroid in the infrared, they glow at about a hundred and fifty Kelvins.

• 11:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:31Bill Nye?

  And that's a hundred and fifty Celsius degrees above absolute zero, so with the right detector, you can detect. And then, uh, that spacecraft would assay or keep track of all these asteroids. And then we'd build a spacecraft to give one of them a nudge. And that would be, this is all kind of existing technology, everybody. But she said, Brittany said unlimited cash.

• 11:53Chuck Nice?

  Unlimited cash, doesn't make a difference, we can do whatever we want.

• 11:56Bill Nye?

  For four and fifty million, five hundred million, we could do the spacecraft, the detector. And then for, uh, give me another number, uh, five billion, we could build a deflector spacecraft.

• 12:08Chuck Nice?

  You know, I have to tell you, with as much money as we waste on other things, that is not a bad.

• 12:13Bill Nye?

  Well, saving the earth from death of everyone, control alt delete for all humankind, yeah, that's well worth it.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  That's kinda worth it.

• 12:20Bill Nye?

  But I've been at that fancy thing, the TED Talk thing.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:26Bill Nye?

  And I mentioned this asteroid problem, and people laugh, ah, ah, ah, it was an asteroid. (laughing). But if it happened, it would really suck, Chuck.

• 12:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it would.

• 12:36Bill Nye?

  It would be a bad old thing.

• 12:37Chuck Nice?

  And the funny thing is, people do laugh, and there's been several, uh, major motion pictures made about it. And people, you know, they, they look at it as folly. But what I always say is, it's already happened, dude.

• 12:51Bill Nye?

  Right.

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  Dude.

• 12:52Bill Nye?

  What don't you get about that?

• 12:54Chuck Nice?

  No, no, so this is.

• 12:54Bill Nye?

  It's already happened. And by the way, in general, there is no business case for a commercial company to make an asteroid deflector.

• 13:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Bill Nye?

  There's just, there isn't a reason to do it.

• 13:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know, I don't see a lot of profit in that.

• 13:09Bill Nye?

  Yeah, however, people do try to raise money to observe asteroids. But that's different from building a spacecraft with no one to sell it to.

• 13:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Cool. What if you were?

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  What if you were an entrepreneur so wealthy that you built your own spacecraft and then you threatened to not use it unless they paid you.

• 13:34Chuck Nice?

  That is so delightfully evil.

• 13:38Bill Nye?

  But it's just unlikely because what is the guy?

• 13:41Chuck Nice?

  That's a long gamble.

• 13:42Bill Nye?

  Want hidden self to get herself to get destroyed too?

• 13:45Chuck Nice?

  Well, no, that's because you know, you know, you have an evil layer that's also sad.

• 13:50Bill Nye?

  That's asteroid resistant. Oh, it's orbiting the earth.

• 13:53Chuck Nice?

  Orbiting the earth. So you can escape to your evil layer. Yeah.

• 13:56Bill Nye?

  Thinking.

• 13:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. All right. Uh, let's go to Nelson SAW. Nelson SAW says, what's the soonest we can detect, uh, detect a likely collision? And what could we do about it in that timeframe?

• 14:08Bill Nye?

  Well, everybody wants 30 years. That's what people want.

• 14:11Chuck Nice?

  Whoa. That long?

• 14:14Bill Nye?

  Yeah. So you deflect the asteroid. I mean, you detect the asteroid. And then you have 10 years to build a spacecraft and then 20 years out there with the spacecraft just gently, except in space, there's no sound. On the asteroid, just giving a little nudge.

• 14:30Chuck Nice?

  It's a little nudge.

• 14:31Bill Nye?

  And so astronaut Ed Lu, uh, who runs the B612 Foundation, which is named after the asteroid that, uh, the little prince lives on. And is an acquaintance of mine and is a Cornelian. Has a patent on the space tractor. This is a spacecraft that is so massive. How massive is it? Its own gravity would, would pull the asteroid.

• 14:58Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 14:58Bill Nye?

  Just ever so.

• 15:00Chuck Nice?

  And that's all you need.

• 15:01Bill Nye?

  That's all you need. So it doesn't cross the earth's orbit when we're there.

• 15:04Chuck Nice?

  Right. Wow.

• 15:06Bill Nye?

  Cross the earth's orbit, just not while the earth's there.

• 15:08Chuck Nice?

  Just not when they're, right. Exactly.

• 15:10Bill Nye?

  How hard could it be?

• 15:11Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 15:11Bill Nye?

  It's rocket science, people.

• 15:13Chuck Nice?

  Nice. Nice. That's excellent.

• 15:15Bill Nye?

  That's you.

• 15:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:16Bill Nye?

  Nice.

• 15:17Chuck Nice?

  Uh, let's go to Sean Harris.

• 15:19Bill Nye?

  Um, Sean.

• 15:21Chuck Nice?

  Sean says, what policies or plans are currently in place to detect incoming threats from asteroids? Is there a foolproof plan to eliminate those threats and avoid death and destruction here on the earth's surface?

• 15:33Bill Nye?

  We caution you, Sean, against anybody ever who tells you it's foolproof.

• 15:37Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 15:38Bill Nye?

  Yeah, we just, but I know what you're driving at. Uh, no, there's, we have this NeoWise spacecraft, NeoWise 2, that are measuring asteroids.

• 15:47Bill Nye?

  Uh, and there are trajectories, but it's not foolproof and the more of that we do, the better. Does that answer the question?

• 15:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that does.

• 15:55Bill Nye?

  You could do more.

• 15:56Chuck Nice?

  You could do more, but.

• 15:57Bill Nye?

  By the way, all the money that's spent in space is spent on Earth. This would be a worthy use of our intellect and treasure, people.

• 16:04Chuck Nice?

  Ah, so true.

• 16:06Bill Nye?

  Make me come over there.

• 16:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh, me.

• 16:10Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Kathy Francois says, how do you, how do you purpose to educate the masses on the importance?

• 16:18Bill Nye?

  You mean propose? I know you're looking up and looking down.

• 16:20Chuck Nice?

  I was, right. What did I say?

• 16:22Bill Nye?

  Purpose.

• 16:23Chuck Nice?

  Did I say purpose?

• 16:23Bill Nye?

  Which must be related to propose, but I'm not etymologically sophisticated enough.

• 16:30Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  How do you propose to educate the masses on an important issue such as this? I mean, StarTalk is an amazing podcast, but everyone.

• 16:38Bill Nye?

  It's the best.

• 16:39Chuck Nice?

  Totally. Okay, but not everyone wants to listen or learn.

• 16:45Bill Nye?

  What'd you say? You know, not everyone wants to listen or learn.

• 16:48Chuck Nice?

  How can we help spread the news to those who are less passionate about science? You know, this is a problem, I think, what, what Kathy says here, I think is a problem for so many science-related issues, which is if you can motivate a mass awareness, then you can actually create a campaign to get those in charge to do something.

• 17:13Bill Nye?

  Chuck, why do you do this podcast?

• 17:15Chuck Nice?

  Um.

• 17:16Bill Nye?

  You're trying to change the world.

• 17:17Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 17:18Bill Nye?

  You're trying to make the world scientifically literate.

• 17:21Chuck Nice?

  In my own little way, yeah.

• 17:21Bill Nye?

  Yes. So, uh, what I would say, Kathy, who is it?

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  Kathy Francois.

• 17:27Bill Nye?

  Kathy, this is what we're doing here, is we're trying to change the world. We're trying to influence people. If you can spread the word about listening to StarTalk Podcast, having the time of your life, then, uh, it'll build in, in, um,

• 17:41Chuck Nice?

  Hmm hmm hmm.

• 17:42Bill Nye?

  Cascade fashion. So, uh, this is why Chuck and I do this job, or this, this is, this activity.

• 17:50Chuck Nice?

  Activity.

• 17:51Bill Nye?

  It is to get people excited about science so that we'll have scientifically literate people, and especially scientifically literate voters, which it is to be hoped will lead to scientifically literate politicians.

• 18:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:02Bill Nye?

  Will make scientifically literately, inform, literately, scientifically informed decisions about our, our use of intellect and treasure so that we can dare set. Save the world. This is StarTalk All-Star Edition. I'm your host, Bill Nye with Chuck Nice. We'll be right back after this.

• 18:27Bill Nye?

  Hey, welcome back. Welcome back. Bill Nye here. Welcome back to StarTalk Cosmic Queries. I'm here with my co-host, the remarkable and exciting Chuck Nice.

• 18:37Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 18:37Bill Nye?

  And this is where we take your inquiries.

• 18:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Bill Nye?

  From anywhere in the cosmos.

• 18:42Chuck Nice?

  Anywhere in the cosmos.

• 18:42Bill Nye?

  And we do our best to provide you with a thoughtful, insightful, insightful thought.

• 18:50Bill Nye?

  About the cosmos and your query.

• 18:53Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 18:54Bill Nye?

  Take it, Chuck.

• 18:55Chuck Nice?

  Couldn't have said it better myself.

• 18:56Bill Nye?

  I had, I had some trouble.

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know, let me, let me just, uh, uh, read this one from Laurel. Laurel Riffle. Here's what, here's, here's what she says. "I don't have a question for you. I just want to thank you for inspiring my generation."

• 19:13Bill Nye?

  Wow.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  "And indirectly inspiring subsequent generations."

• 19:17Bill Nye?

  Oh, I love you Laurel.

• 19:19Chuck Nice?

  There you go, man.

• 19:19Bill Nye?

  Laurel's children.

• 19:21Chuck Nice?

  Just wanted to get that out of the way. I was like,

• 19:22Bill Nye?

  Love you, man.

• 19:23Chuck Nice?

  There's really no place in the show for that, so let's just do it up front and do it.

• 19:26Bill Nye?

  You just put a place.

• 19:27Chuck Nice?

  I had to make a place for that. That's a great, great sentiment.

• 19:30Bill Nye?

  Yes, thank you.

• 19:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay. And then, and you know what? And she is not alone. I have to tell you. Here's the best thing, guys. Going out with Bill Nye and being on the street and then watching people go, "Oh my God. Oh my God."

• 19:43Bill Nye?

  What they mean is, "Oh my entity."

• 19:49Bill Nye?

  And I presume deity.

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh deity. Oh my deity.

• 19:52Bill Nye?

  And all that aside, no, it is very nice.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  It's very, it's very-

• 19:54Bill Nye?

  It's a lot better than "I hate you, you suck." I hear it once in a while.

• 19:57Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Hey, Justin Coats wants to know this. "What level of international cooperation would be required in order to defend the planet from an asteroid or comet? Is it even possible in today's climate of conflict, when the world's governments can't even come together to combat climate change, to get them to come together and combat this threat?" Wow, that's a, that's a pretty deep question, man.

• 20:16Bill Nye?

  No, but the answer is yes. How do you get to the International Space Station? On a Russian rocket?

• 20:20Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:21Bill Nye?

  Okay, how do you explore Mars with the, with cooperation from Japanese Aerospace Exploration, Roscosmos, and European Space Agency? That's how you do things. So there's a lot of international cooperation when it comes to space.

• 20:35Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay.

• 20:36Bill Nye?

  Exploration.

• 20:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh, there you go.

• 20:37Bill Nye?

  So the answer is, yeah, pretty doable. This- But right now, I gotta speculate that the search for asteroids will still be led by the US and National Internet Space Administration.

• 20:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:48Bill Nye?

  NASA. But then the actual deflecting, that'll be a team effort, I think.

• 20:52Chuck Nice?

  So, so, once we identify the problem, which it'll be easier to get people to get on board, once you identify it, right?

• 20:58Bill Nye?

  Oh man, if you had a real asteroid really coming, it'd be really taking a meeting.

• 21:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:02Bill Nye?

  You don't wanna send Bruce Willis, I mean, he's a fine guy, but you don't wanna blow it up. You just wanna give it a nudge, cuz if you blow it up, there's a chance you'll make it worse.

• 21:10Chuck Nice?

  Right. So, just give it a nudge. But you do want an Aerosmith soundtrack while it's happening.

• 21:15Bill Nye?

  Uh, can you provide that?

• 21:17Chuck Nice?

  Uh, not really.

• 21:21Bill Nye?

  Do we have to pay royalties if I whistle that song?

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  No, no, and I knew it was dude looks like a lady too, so not bad. There you go.

• 21:27Bill Nye?

  I did what I could.

• 21:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Alright, J. William Bosch wants to know this. What is the probability that whatever we do could make matters worse?

• 21:37Bill Nye?

  It's funny you should bring that up right after that little commentation that I commented.

• 21:41Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:42Bill Nye?

  That, yeah, you don't wanna make it so that you accidentally have a piece of it that's going even faster and gonna hit the Earth earlier in its orbit, which is apparently a possibility.

• 21:53Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 21:54Bill Nye?

  Only if the asteroid is really close, and there really isn't time to give it a nudge, then you'd blow it up.

• 22:00Chuck Nice?

  That's when you'd blow it up.

• 22:01Bill Nye?

  Yeah, but we just don't wanna do that, everybody, and plus, it takes tremendous amount of energy trying to blow up a rock

• 22:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:07Bill Nye?

  planet.

• 22:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:08Bill Nye?

  It's, I mean, I know people do it in science fiction, but in real life, it's our real space, it's a hard thing.

• 22:13Chuck Nice?

  Um, now, and, and, but this would have to be an asteroid, cuz now, some comets are like marshmallow-y, right?

• 22:19Bill Nye?

  Even worse.

• 22:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 22:21Bill Nye?

  How do you blow up a marshmallow? You're just gonna get more marsh and mellow.

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  More marsh and more mellow.

• 22:26Bill Nye?

  You're not really gonna change anything.

• 22:28Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay, so there you go. Uh, okay.

• 22:33Bill Nye?

  Okay, wait, he was ready, then he, he stopped himself. You guys stumped him somehow.

• 22:38Chuck Nice?

  You stumped me because your name was on a different page, J.D. Prepost. Uh.

• 22:43Bill Nye?

  J.D., what is J.D.'s inquiry?

• 22:44Chuck Nice?

  J.D. says this. "To the great one, Bill Nye, I have been seeing a few stories about ground-based lasers being used to hit asteroids millions of miles away to change their trajectory. Is this tech realistic, or is it even possible?"

• 23:01Bill Nye?

  It's really hard. So, one of the things we are considering... Is putting a reflective surface on an asteroid.

• 23:10Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 23:11Bill Nye?

  So sunlight would hit it and give it a little nudge. The pressure of photons, the momentum of photons, even though they have no mass.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:20Bill Nye?

  They have momentum and it would nudge the asteroid ever so nudgically, nudgingly.

• 23:24Chuck Nice?

  I believe you, uh, you have a little thing called a solar sail.

• 23:27Bill Nye?

  Solar sail has been discussed, yes. Uh, and so trying to keep the beam of a laser on the asteroid, shooting from the earth or the far side of the moon is not trivial. I'm not saying it couldn't be done and you could do it, let's say every month. The moon goes around the earth and you zap it.

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:48Bill Nye?

  For a few earth days or weeks and then the moon would go on the other side and you'd wait. That's possible, but, uh, more likely is to go out there and change the reflectivity of the asteroid.

• 24:00Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 24:01Bill Nye?

  And by the way, one of the things that makes asteroids hard to track is this Jarkowski effect where they reflect sunlight while they're spinning. So some sides of the asteroids are shiny, other sides are darker.

• 24:15Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:16Bill Nye?

  Some sides of the asteroid have po- potholes and don't reflect very well. Other sides of an asteroid might be smoother and more reflective.

• 24:24Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:24Bill Nye?

  So they're spinning very slowly in space. And so they change their directory, uh, directories, trajectories, depending on how light is hitting them and how they're rotating. So it's one more.

• 24:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow, that's a.

• 24:38Bill Nye?

  Just makes it a little tricky.

• 24:39Chuck Nice?

  A little more tricky.

• 24:40Bill Nye?

  And so you gotta track them. You gotta track them good, track them well. I said, track them good for comedic effect. All right, Merians out there.

• 24:48Chuck Nice?

  Track them good.

• 24:49Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 24:49Chuck Nice?

  Am rap. All right, here we go. Uh, Natalie Wilcox says, hi, Bill. Uh, have you heard of the comet research group? Do you believe, as they do, that we need to be paying more attention to the torrid meteor stream and that it poses, uh, a threat to us annually? Also, what do you think about the research regarding the cataclysmic impact events that potentially took place 12,800 years ago? Thank you.

• 25:14Bill Nye?

  Uh, something to be concerned about.

• 25:18Bill Nye?

  But whether or not that specific, specific comet trail that induces that specific.

• 25:26Bill Nye?

  Uh, meteor shower, whether that's a big concern, I'm not an expert on, I don't know.

• 25:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:32Bill Nye?

  Was there a substantial meteoric impact, uh, twelve thousand eight hundred years ago? Sure.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay.

• 25:38Bill Nye?

  We had one at Chelyabinsk that could have been a big deal. We had one in Tunguska, which could have, I mean, if the, if the Tunguska event in nineteen oh eight had landed on Paris, that would be the end of Paris.

• 25:49Chuck Nice?

  That would have been the end of Paris.

• 25:50Bill Nye?

  I mean, that's it, or the, or Poughkeepsie, what did I mention earlier? Kansas City, it would be done. So it, there's nobody in control of this right now. If these, one of these objects comes in, they're very hard to see.

• 26:02Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:02Bill Nye?

  It happens in a moment.

• 26:04Chuck Nice?

  So now, the, uh, how big was the object that came in, uh, just recently?

• 26:09Bill Nye?

  Chelyabinsk?

• 26:10Chuck Nice?

  And, and in Russia?

• 26:11Bill Nye?

  Uh, it was, uh, they people say twenty-five meters, thirty meters.

• 26:15Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 26:15Bill Nye?

  Not even that big, you know, like as big as your, smaller than your house.

• 26:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, that's not a big meter.

• 26:21Bill Nye?

  Apartment-sized thing. It's just they're going so fast.

• 26:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:25Bill Nye?

  They have so much energy that, uh, they're going at least eleven kilometers a second, which is escape velocity, so.

• 26:31Chuck Nice?

  Now, as another question, because, uh, I haven't, I've, I've gone through all of these, and so I don't see anybody ask this, so I'm just gonna ask.

• 26:38Bill Nye?

  Chuck, you're the host of this, the co-host of this show.

• 26:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so I could, I could.

• 26:42Bill Nye?

  So lay it on us, man.

• 26:43Chuck Nice?

  So, um, is there, you know, when this asteroid hits? Okay, of course, the impact, we know what that does.

• 26:53Bill Nye?

  We do?

• 26:54Chuck Nice?

  But, but the first impact is actually with the atmosphere.

• 26:57Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 26:58Chuck Nice?

  So, i- i- it, what exactly does that do?

• 27:02Bill Nye?

  You're such a nerd. I love you, man. So, in the case of Chelyabinsk, you know, there was a sonic boom, or a series of sonic booms.

• 27:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:09Bill Nye?

  Hit the ground. People hear the sonic booms, they look up, they see the streak in the sky. Uh, I mean, rather, they see the secret, tug on it, they see the streak in the sky first.

• 27:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:21Bill Nye?

  And they go, there's a streak in the sky. Well, it's not gonna hit me, I'll relax. And three minutes later, the sonic boom hits the ground and blows out all the windows. And that's why there were so many, apparently a thousand injuries, substantial sutures and stuff.

• 27:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 27:36Bill Nye?

  People standing near glass windows.

• 27:38Chuck Nice?

  All in glass.

• 27:38Bill Nye?

  Very. Strong, uh, sonic boom hit the, the ground and blew all the windows into everybody's face. It was a surprising result that you just wouldn't think of.

• 27:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:49Bill Nye?

  The first time it happened.

• 27:50Chuck Nice?

  It's really interesting. So if you see a streak in the sky, you better get someplace safe.

• 27:55Bill Nye?

  Couple minutes to get out of the glass.

• 27:56Chuck Nice?

  Get out of the glass.

• 27:57Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:57Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 27:58Bill Nye?

  As the old saying goes, by analogy to earthquakes, earthquakes don't kill people. Buildings kill people.

• 28:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:05Bill Nye?

  So, uh, meteorites that, uh, that cause sonic booms don't hurt people. Glass windows hurt people. This is analogy everywhere.

• 28:13Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 28:14Bill Nye?

  Not, you know, this an aphorism, it's not, uh, gonna direct your entire life.

• 28:20Bill Nye?

  Something to think about. See the big streak, there are three minutes, there might be a big sonic boom. It could blow all the windows. It did blow the windows out.

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 28:29Bill Nye?

  Yeah, lead on.

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  All right. Nathan Emly says, hello, Dr. Nye. What are the plans to put into orbit a satellite whose sole job is to watch the skies 24 hours a day in all directions?

• 28:44Bill Nye?

  All directions is the tough part, but NeoWise is a satellite, uh, that does that. And we want to build follow-ons, do more awning of following. But watching 24/7, it does watch 24/7, but not the entire sky. It, it points to different places.

• 28:59Chuck Nice?

  And is that because there's?

• 29:00Bill Nye?

  It's just limitations. Things to do to you. You can't look in every direction at once.

• 29:06Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 29:06Bill Nye?

  Although your wife has eyes in the back of her head.

• 29:09Chuck Nice?

  Ah, there you go. That was it.

• 29:11Bill Nye?

  Anyone?

• 29:13Chuck Nice?

  I was going with my mom, but you know, it's the same thing.

• 29:16Bill Nye?

  Well, they're, they're in.

• 29:17Chuck Nice?

  Been married long enough that it's the same thing.

• 29:18Bill Nye?

  They got, they have slide shows on Tuesdays where they talk about how to mess with you.

• 29:22Chuck Nice?

  Right. Uh, so let me ask you, pardon me.

• 29:26Bill Nye?

  Squeaky situation, yes.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  Is, is there a likelihood of any, of a direction from which an asteroid will come? Or, or will we just be blindsided?

• 29:35Bill Nye?

  I'm not an expert, but I would speculate, uh, no.

• 29:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 29:41Bill Nye?

  Except it's probably going the same direction we are around the sun. Aha. You know what I mean? Right, right. Because the cosmic disk. Mm-hmm. Primordial disk of dust that formed us would have a, a Particular flow. Net direction, so. Here's the thing, everybody, you have a big bunch of cosmic dust four and a half billion years ago, and it has, even if it's dust, it has gravity. In fact, if you've ever observed dust on a bookshelf, one of the little insights that Isaac Newton had. Well, okay. Was that not only does the earth have gravity that's pulling the dust down, the dust must needs have ever so slight bit of gravity that's ever so slight pulling the earth up. Oh.

• 30:26Bill Nye?

  Mutually attracted, right? Mutually attracted. Cosmic dust comes together, it's gonna have, it will not be perfectly balanced. It's like a cloud, there'll be bulges and bubbles. And so it ends up with a net, as we say, angular momentum. It ends up with a net spin. Right. And here we are, that resolves itself into a big disk. People do mathematical models of this, and you get little swirl pools, and that becomes like the planet earth. And here we are. Here we are. Swirling and pooling. And now you know your history. Of. Of how you got here. Of the solar system. The solar system. It really is an amazing insight. So we are made of cosmic dust. We are made of stardust. Mm-hmm.

• 31:08Bill Nye?

  So we are, Chuck, you and I are one of the ways the cosmos knows itself. Sweet. That to me is just. Hey. Gives me the shaky wakes. It makes me feel like I have purpose. Well, Chuck, you don't. Finally. Yeah, fine, yeah. You're like, Chuck, don't, don't start getting crazy. Yeah, yeah. Let's not get carried away, Chuck. I know. The three kids are your purpose, that's what you do. Man, on that one. All right, Steve Andrews wants to know this. If the earth was in danger of an asteroid strike today. Yes.

• 31:40Chuck Nice?

  Could we protect ourselves?

• 31:42Bill Nye?

  I mean, okay, like this afternoon kind of thing?

• 31:45Chuck Nice?

  Well, no, not like we find out today.

• 31:49Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 31:49Chuck Nice?

  Asteroid is on the way. On the way. Um, I don't know. Let, so I'll put-

• 31:55Bill Nye?

  If it's thirty years from now, if we discover it today that it's gonna hit us in thirty years, let's get to work.

• 32:01Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so now I'm gonna say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna modify Steve's, uh, question. What is?

• 32:08Bill Nye?

  It's a friendly amendment.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  What is the, yes, a friendly amendment. What is the absolute shortest window that we could have as an alert to-

• 32:18Bill Nye?

  I think it's less than ten years. I think it's about ten years.

• 32:20Chuck Nice?

  Ten years.

• 32:21Bill Nye?

  There are people, I've been in meetings and seen scientific papers presented on this. It's about ten years.

• 32:26Chuck Nice?

  About ten years.

• 32:26Bill Nye?

  Thirty is way better.

• 32:27Chuck Nice?

  Thirty is better, but ten, we might be able to do-

• 32:30Bill Nye?

  Might have a shot.

• 32:31Chuck Nice?

  Might have a shot.

• 32:32Bill Nye?

  And that's a maybe. That's a maybe.

• 32:34Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Alright.

• 32:36Bill Nye?

  I mean, wow, I mean, so-

• 32:37Chuck Nice?

  I mean, ten years is not a long time.

• 32:38Bill Nye?

  No, yes.

• 32:39Chuck Nice?

  If you think about it.

• 32:40Bill Nye?

  Right.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  You know?

• 32:41Bill Nye?

  No.

• 32:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Bill Nye?

  You can't build a highway, you can't build a big dig in Boston in ten years, let alone build an spacecraft that no one's ever thought of and go out and deflect an asteroid in deep space and get everybody in the world to take your word for it that you're really doing it.

• 32:54Chuck Nice?

  That's wicked high.

• 32:55Bill Nye?

  Especially when you put some explosive on it to give it some pressure wave in space and everybody's taking your word for it that you're putting this enormous nuclear weapon on top of a rocket for the good of all humankind, rather than for some nefarious weaponizing of space.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  I can see where you might have a problem convincing a few people.

• 33:14Bill Nye?

  So you'd maybe need international treaties with normal people who can conduct statecraft in traditional ways.

• 33:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay, and very quickly on top of that.

• 33:24Bill Nye?

  Just thinking out loud.

• 33:25Chuck Nice?

  Do we have in place any international protocol in case something like this happens?

• 33:31Bill Nye?

  Well, we have the International Space Treaty from nineteen sixty-seven.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:35Bill Nye?

  Which mumbles about this.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  [laughing]

• 33:37Bill Nye?

  Well, when it's really time, that's when we're really gonna have to start having agreements. And who's gonna build the rocket? And who's gonna launch it? And who's gonna track it? And who's gonna take responsibility for it? It's all so exciting, as is all of All-Star Star Talk. Uh, and I'm your host, Bill Nye, along with Chuck Nice, and you and I will be back after this.

• 34:03Bill Nye?

  Welcome back, welcome back to StarTalk All-Star Edition. I'm your all-star host, Bill Nye. I'm here with the remarkable and charming Chuck Nice.

• 34:13Chuck Nice?

  Ah, thank you, Bill.

• 34:14Bill Nye?

  And the two of us are gonna do our best to address your cosmic queries. These will be inquiries from anywhere, Chuck.

• 34:23Chuck Nice?

  Anywhere.

• 34:23Bill Nye?

  Anywhere in the cosmos.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 34:25Bill Nye?

  You could be out there, you could be in the icy north polar region of Mercury.

• 34:31Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 34:31Bill Nye?

  And if you can transmit to us a question that's parseable in English onto the electric internet.

• 34:38Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 34:38Bill Nye?

  We will do our, we are right here for you.

• 34:40Chuck Nice?

  Right here for you.

• 34:41Bill Nye?

  You're Korean.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. We will not be able to provide you with thermal underwear, though.

• 34:46Bill Nye?

  Well, you figure if you're there with internet access, you probably have

• 34:50Chuck Nice?

  You're probably good on that, right?

• 34:51Bill Nye?

  Warm clothes.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  Probably good on the

• 34:53Bill Nye?

  And something to breathe.

• 34:54Chuck Nice?

  Something to breathe and some thermals to keep you toasty.

• 34:57Bill Nye?

  So hit us with the, today, by the way, if you're just rejoining us, we're talking about planetary defense.

• 35:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 35:04Bill Nye?

  Keeping the Earth from getting hit with a cosmic impactor.

• 35:08Chuck Nice?

  Fascinating subject.

• 35:09Bill Nye?

  It really is, and it's important.

• 35:10Chuck Nice?

  And important.

• 35:11Bill Nye?

  It's near and dear to us at the Planetary Society, the world's largest non-governmental space interest organization, of which I'm the CEO, because this is our old mission. Carl Sagan, when I was in his class

• 35:21Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:22Bill Nye?

  In the disco era, would talk about the Tonguska event.

• 35:27Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:27Bill Nye?

  Where nineteen, oh, June 30th in the modern calendar, uh, 1908, Tonguska region of Siberia was hit with something. It blew down all the trees in a moment. And if that had happened in a big city, that would be the end of the big city.

• 35:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Bill Nye?

  Be it. And so, since then, uh, long after Carl Sagan's class, uh, Chelyabinsk, also in Russia, got with a big sparky thing.

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:53Bill Nye?

  And a much smaller event, but nevertheless, recorded on countless cameras. And so, it's something to think about. Don't want to get hit with an asteroid.

• 36:00Chuck Nice?

  No, you don't.

• 36:00Bill Nye?

  With that said, Chuck.

• 36:02Chuck Nice?

  And judging from

• 36:03Bill Nye?

  Welcome back to the show, listener.

• 36:04Chuck Nice?

  And those two events make me think that maybe Russia should be a little more involved in this.

• 36:09Bill Nye?

  The thing, keep in mind about Russia, uh, first of all, Let's say we take the Earth and divide it in half by hemispheres. It's gonna hit one hemisphere or the other. It's one and two, then Russia takes up nine time zones. It's a third of the, it's more than a third of the world.

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  Right, so.

• 36:28Bill Nye?

  Or that former Soviet Union, so if it's gonna hit someplace, it's likely to hit.

• 36:32Chuck Nice?

  Likely to hit there, yeah, there or the Pacific.

• 36:35Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah. Fact, not a false.

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 36:38Bill Nye?

  I say true fact, that's a joke, everybody.

• 36:44Chuck Nice?

  Let's go to Anna Bacon, uh, the doomsday shows, uh, shows about asteroids. Let me just start this.

• 36:53Bill Nye?

  Yeah, just do it without the, the breaks between every word. Slow talkers of America.

• 37:01Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, okay, so Anna Bacon says this, the doomsday shows about asteroids always have it hitting the planet. But what would happen if the asteroid passed between the Earth or the moon? Or if it hit the moon instead of the Earth?

• 37:18Bill Nye?

  Well, we've photographed asteroids hitting the moon. I mean, small ones, manageable ones, yeah. And asteroids have passed closer to the Earth than the moon's orbit, that's happened. Twenty twelve, I believe is the last one, so if you like to worry about things, this is great, this is great for you. So far, the ones that have passed that close have been relatively small.

• 37:41Chuck Nice?

  So now, this is, uh, let's take a, like, extinction level size, uh, object, alright?

• 37:48Bill Nye?

  Listen to your fluency, oh, extinction level size, how big's extinction level size in check?

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  Let's, let's, let's go with something like Apophis, alright?

• 37:57Bill Nye?

  Apophis, which is the Greek, named for the Greek god of anxiety.

• 38:02Chuck Nice?

  Which is perfect, uh, and hits the keyhole, barrels towards Earth. Instead, plows into the moon.

• 38:13Bill Nye?

  Uh, I guess it would be troublesome moon wise, but I don't think.

• 38:17Chuck Nice?

  Would that do anything to us?

• 38:18Bill Nye?

  I don't think so, I'm sure, I am sure people have run this computer model. But I don't know it, so I imagine it would just disturb the orbit of the moon. Rather than, it almost certainly would not be catastrophic life ending on the moon because the moon seems to be lifeless. Well, that's a great question. I'm sure people have run that test. And then would it deflect? You know, the moon is slowly spiraling away from us.

• 38:47Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 38:48Bill Nye?

  Could it be hit hard enough to start slowly spiraling toward us?

• 38:52Chuck Nice?

  Huh huh.

• 38:52Bill Nye?

  I don't know. I don't think so.

• 38:54Chuck Nice?

  Like a pool table. That'd be not awesome. What am I talking about? That'd be the end of all of us.

• 38:59Bill Nye?

  Well, not right away. You'd probably have several millennia to give it some thought.

• 39:03Chuck Nice?

  And you know what? And you'd have some really beautiful nights in the meantime.

• 39:06Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and I just shudder to think of all the babies that would. I just can't even.

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:11Bill Nye?

  It'd just be, it would be wild.

• 39:13Chuck Nice?

  All right, all right, here we go. This is Ian Coleman, and Ian says this. Hey, Bill, huge fan here. I was wondering about the possibility of NASA's controversial EM drive being something that could actually work. Apparently, leaks have confirmed that this is the least moving, it's at least moving along well. And they're even saying that it may work. Could we use this in planetary defense?

• 39:40Bill Nye?

  I don't know what an EM drive is. Electromagnetic? What's that?

• 39:44Chuck Nice?

  No, it's, um.

• 39:45Bill Nye?

  Now, there's ion drives, and there's this nuclear weapon idea where you explode a nuclear weapon behind your spacecraft every few seconds for a while to get, and get these pressure waves of particles that push you through space. But I don't know what he means by EM drive, if he means electromagnetic.

• 40:05Chuck Nice?

  No, I think it's supposed to be some kind of, um, new rocket engine.

• 40:10Bill Nye?

  Well, that's why I mentioned the nuclear thing. Then the other one that we're all hot for is uh, solar electric propulsion, SEP, uh, solar electric module. So this is where you have something like xenon in liquid form.

• 40:26Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 40:27Bill Nye?

  Put it in a big scuba tank there on your spacecraft.

• 40:29Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 40:30Bill Nye?

  Use solar power from, from.

• 40:34Bill Nye?

  Photovoltaic panels.

• 40:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:36Bill Nye?

  To make electricity. Ionize, strip the electrons off the xenon, have a grid akin to a window screen. And shoot the xenon out the back of the spacecraft really, really, really fast. And we do that. We have ion drives right now. Just everybody wants to build a big one. A really big one. And it takes a lot of xenon, but the other thing. It takes a lot of electricity and when you get things that big in space, it's just getting everything in alignment is tricky. But here's the idea. Although each atom of xenon or argon or whatever. Inert chem- a gas you're gonna use or. Element you're gonna use. Although it is very low mass, each individual atom, they're going so fast.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:21Bill Nye?

  Twenty-four seven. Out the back of the spacecraft that you can go really, really fast. Much faster is generally presumed than you can with just a regular chemical rocket. Cause it's never stops.

• 41:32Chuck Nice?

  Right. So it's on all the time. That's, that's actually cool.

• 41:37Bill Nye?

  And we use ion drives, but we wanna, people wanna build a really big one.

• 41:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright. Alright, this is Jason Lever. Jason says this. Using asteroids to destroy asteroids.

• 41:50Bill Nye?

  Whoa, that's like so out there.

• 41:54Bill Nye?

  Direct one asteroid, so its gravity nudges another asteroid. That, my friend Chuck, that would be two words. Rocket science.

• 42:01Chuck Nice?

  Rocket science. Yeah. Hardening asteroids in a planetary like orbit, keeping them on a proverbial lease until we need to crash them into an uncoming asteroid.

• 42:10Bill Nye?

  That's hard. That's pretty hard. Another idea for you. For you asteroid buffs. Is go to an asteroid with a big enough solar panel. And yet to be figured out system. To dig up the ice off the asteroid or comet-ary body, comet-like body. Volatil- zap, cook the ice into liquid water and then into hydrogen and oxygen, H2O. Using electricity over months or years.

• 42:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:40Bill Nye?

  Then when you need to deflect an asteroid, you recombine those into rocket fuel.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  And now the asteroid has its has its own rockets.

• 42:49Bill Nye?

  Or you take your rocket from one icy asteroid to the one you want to deflect all out there in deep orbital space.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:57Bill Nye?

  That is rocket science, people. It's cool to speculate, but quite difficult thing to do. Now, you know what is at some level difficult, but at another level so much fun?

• 43:06Chuck Nice?

  What's that?

• 43:07Bill Nye?

  The lightning round.

• 43:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 43:11Bill Nye?

  And the lightning round now has a

• 43:15Bill Nye?

  a rubber chicken with a pneumatic system that makes it crow. Except that's surprising use of that verb.

• 43:25Bill Nye?

  Makes it chicken. Makes it roost, makes it gobble. No, it makes it make a sound.

• 43:32Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 43:32Bill Nye?

  So let's take a question in the lightning round Chuck, who's thoroughly charmed by Edvina the chicken.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  Edvina, I'm such a juvenile person. What can I say?

• 43:41Bill Nye?

  We all are. We're guys.

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  Let's get right to the lightning round with NASA. More likely losing funding, which will likely, um, which will likely happen. Uh, which agency of defense will we see an increased budget for, uh, for like SETI or will Russia or Japan increase, uh, funding to their native program?

• 44:07Bill Nye?

  Well, here's the thing. Uh, without US investment in rockets.

• 44:11Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:12Bill Nye?

  Roscosmos, the Russian space agency doesn't have as many rockets to sell. Don't sell as many rockets. So their agency goes down. Japan is working all the time to maintain its space agency because they have other concerns there. And Japan's populace is shrinking and people there are freaking out about, are we going to have enough workers in the future and so they're going to have to allow immigration? Well, so it's crazy. But with that said, uh, the talk is taking earth science out of NASA and putting it into NOAA. And if they, if it was zero sum, that is to say, if they really took just transferred money rather than slashing, slashing, slashing, everything would be okay. Chuck, what do you think the chances are of everything being okay in the next four years? Let's take another one.

• 44:56Chuck Nice?

  Let's take another one. Here we go. Um, Alan Pulasko says, Mr. Nye, how deep should I build my bunker and how much food and water should I store? Since the only other option is to try to get a front row seat.

• 45:11Bill Nye?

  An asteroid impact?

• 45:13Chuck Nice?

  An asteroid impact.

• 45:14Bill Nye?

  As much as you want. Carry on.

• 45:17Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Uh, Chris Murchison says this, uh, which is more feasible? Trying to figure out how to stop the impact or learning how to survive one?

• 45:28Bill Nye?

  Well, surviving, I think, is a stone drag. I guess that's a pun. I don't think you can survive a catastrophic asteroid impact. Where the ecosystem around the world has been completely upset. A small one that just makes tsunamis, just makes tsunamis and just devastates a few coastal cities. Okay, maybe.

• 45:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:47Bill Nye?

  But a dinosaur killing ancient asteroid type thing, nope. Nope. Carry on.

• 45:52Chuck Nice?

  Forget about it, huh? Wow. There you go. So you really prevention is it or we're just?

• 45:57Bill Nye?

  That's it. Well, sure. Yes. It's a low probability, high consequence event.

• 46:02Chuck Nice?

  Man, man. Woo. John Parker.

• 46:06Bill Nye?

  We shook him up. We shook him up.

• 46:07Chuck Nice?

  You did shake me up, man. John Parker says this, Mr. Nye, would it be feasible to send some oil rigs, roughnecks armed with nuclear warheads and mental training to an asteroid to blow it up? If so, what would be the actual outcome in your opinion?

• 46:21Bill Nye?

  Wouldn't work. We'd get, uh, another piece of asteroid on a different trajectory that would be just as much trouble.

• 46:27Chuck Nice?

  Boom. There you go. James Peters would like to know this. Uh, hey, Bill, can we use sonic technology to break them up?

• 46:37Bill Nye?

  There's no air in space to transmit sounds. However, fluid mechanics is such that the particles coming off a nuclear blast can be modeled, uh, like a sound wave. It's a different thing, but if you're saying really sound.

• 46:50Chuck Nice?

  No real sound.

• 46:51Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 46:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but. A sound wave model.

• 46:55Bill Nye?

  Like that.

• 46:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go. Um, I just gotta read this, just to read it, I'm sorry.

• 47:00Bill Nye?

  Read it, we got a minute.

• 47:01Chuck Nice?

  There we go. Willie Cutzel says, "Hello, Dr. Nye, we need science in Guatemala, please help."

• 47:09Bill Nye?

  Uh, so to that end, the planetary report, we're trying to get it translated into Spanish, so it'll be a little easier for Guatemalan, uh, subscribers to enjoy, both on our website and the paper magazine, so we're doing our best to the north to enable our neighbors to the south to know and appreciate the cosmos in our place within it.

• 47:28Chuck Nice?

  Nice, I'm gonna give that a chicken scream.

• 47:31Bill Nye?

  30 seconds, Chuck.

• 47:32Chuck Nice?

  There we go. Nick Feifield says, "I love you, could we use solar sails, uh, and an army of solar sails to effectively turn a meteor into a space sleigh?"

• 47:44Bill Nye?

  Well, sort of, so what we do is drape solar sail material onto the asteroid and change its trajectory. The other thing we want to do is use lasers powered by sunlight to zap the asteroid and cause it to deflect. That's it for our show on Cosmic Queries of StarTalk, and it's Chuck Nice here with your guest, all-star host, Bill Nye. This has been StarTalk, please keep looking up.