Dr. John Mulchaey on Carnegie Science and the Future of Astronomy (EP 41)

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this interview features John Mulchaey, the 12th President of Carnegie Science and former Director of the Carnegie Observatories. The conversation starts with his early work on galaxy groups and dark matter, then expands into how Carnegie works as a scientific institution, what the Giant Magellan Telescope could unlock for exoplanets and astronomy, how science funding actually works, and why eclipse chasing is still one of the most magical experiences in science. Summary Galaxy groups and dark matter — Mulchaey explains why small galaxy groups matter more than most people realize, and how X-ray observations of hot gas helped make their masses measurable. Carnegie’s model — the interview gets into what makes Carnegie unusual: scientific freedom, long time horizons, and room to pursue surprising questions. The Giant Magellan Telescope — a look at why bigger telescopes matter, what GMT changes, and why exoplanet atmospheres are one of the biggest goals ahead. The bigger picture — science funding, philanthropy, how astronomy has changed, and why total solar eclipses still inspire so many astronomers. Support the show Donate: FFPod.com/donate Follow: @FFPod on X / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook Show NotesJohn Mulchaey leadership bio — Carnegie Sciencehttps://carnegiescience.edu/about/leadershipCarnegie Science appoints John Mulchaey as its 12th Presidenthttps://carnegiescience.edu/news/carnegie-science-appoints-john-mulchaey-its-12th-presidentGiant Magellan Telescope — official overviewhttps://giantmagellan.org/about-us/1993 NASA write-up on Mulchaey’s dark matter result in galaxy groupshttps://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/dark-matter-found-in-a-typical-cluster-of-galaxies/Carnegie Science Great North American Eclipse outreach recaphttps://carnegiescience.edu/yearbook/2024/science/great-north-american-eclipsePerot Museum eclipse partnership recaphttps://www.perotmuseum.org/events/solar-eclipses/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It's very important that we try things that we don't expect to work.

• 0:03Lester Nare?

  Right.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  For just this reason, because this is how big discoveries happen. James Webb is smaller than one of the mirrors of this, one of the seven mirrors of this telescope. And we hit limits with James Webb. I mean, you know, they're doing exoplanet work. It's super exciting with many Carnegie scientists trying to do atmospheres with James Webb. It's just not a very big telescope.

• 0:21Lester Nare?

  Wow.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  And so this telescope will allow you to really get the, the high quality spectra we need. I tell people, and I'm sure you feel this way now, like if you haven't lived through one, you have to see one.

• 0:31Lester Nare?

  Hello, internet. This is your captain speaking, Lester Nare. And this week, we are very excited to share our first guest interview as a part of our collaboration series with Carnegie Observatories, one of the most historically important astronomy institutions in the world that just so happens to be based right here in our backyard in Pasadena, California. Founded by Andrew Carnegie more than a century ago, Carnegie has helped to shape modern science through a culture of independent curiosity-driven research across astronomy, earth and planetary sciences, biology, and more. For this first conversation in the series, our resident PhD Krishna Choudhary

• 1:16Lester Nare?

  sat down with John Mulchaey, president of Carnegie Science and the former director of the Carnegie Observatories for a wide-ranging conversation covering cosmology, dark matter, exoplanets, giant telescopes, science funding, and the future of astronomy. Also, on a personal note here from us at FFP, Krishna recently became a father and will be taking a couple of weeks of family leave and well-deserved time off. And while he's out, we have some great episodes lined up for you, including more interviews and conversations we think you'll be very excited about. As always, we're going to learn about the science from the ground up today

• 2:01Lester Nare?

  because this is from First Principles.

• 2:19Krishna Choudhary?

  So today I'm joined by John Mulchaey, the president of Carnegie Sciences. John, thank you so much for taking your time.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Happy to be here.

• 2:28Krishna Choudhary?

  So I wanted to start by focusing on the science, because that's what we do on the podcast. And you have a stellar career in cosmology, right? One of the things that I was reading about is how you focused on galaxy groups, not just like large galaxy clusters, but sort of smaller galaxy groups, like the kind that the Milky Way is a part of, and trying to characterize the dark matter that's in these galaxy groups. Because it tends to be a bit harder than if you have a giant cluster and you can just like chart the velocities and then do virial theorem, what's the mass?

• 3:05Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 3:06Krishna Choudhary?

  So could you briefly talk about, you know, some of the challenges there? And what your approach was when you were dealing with this problem?

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Sure, absolutely. So I think the clusters get all the attention, right, because they're these big, grand things. I work on clusters a bit.

• 3:21Krishna Choudhary?

  With the gravitational lenses?

• 3:22Speaker 00

  It's hard without the lenses and the big X-ray halos and all this stuff. They're just really, really amazing systems, right?

• 3:27Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  But they're pretty rare, right? I think this is the thing, people don't really appreciate that. Most galaxies actually are in small groups.

• 3:33Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Like the Milky Way in our very small collection. Milky Way is in the local group, which is a very, very small group. But that's a much more typical environment than the clusters that get all the attention. And the nice thing about the clusters, as you mentioned, is that there's lots of galaxies. You can measure the velocities of, you know, 100 galaxies and get a good measurement of the mass of the system, for instance. It's very hard with the group, because you have two or three velocities. And remember, we only measure the velocity away from us. We can't really measure it in the plane of the sky.

• 4:00Krishna Choudhary?

  Because you're doing...

• 4:01Speaker 00

  It's not even... That's right, we can only measure the redshift. And so that's only a velocity... In one dimension.

• 4:07Krishna Choudhary?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  And then if you, you know, say you have three galaxies, those velocities, it's not a very reliable measurement of, of, of the mass of a system.

• 4:15Krishna Choudhary?

  And just to briefly pause, it's true that even with the large galactic clusters, you can only measure this.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 4:24Krishna Choudhary?

  But maybe because there's so many, you kind of do an ideal gas type thing.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 4:28Krishna Choudhary?

  And you're like, oh, you know, equal, equal partition.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  That, that's right.

• 4:32Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  It should be a somewhat random process.

• 4:34Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  If you do enough of them, eventually you kind of, you, you, you aren't losing out, you know? Imagine you have a group and everything's moving in this direction. We wouldn't see a measurement and all right, or, you know.

• 4:44Krishna Choudhary?

  Understood.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  For instance, you know, with three objects, you really cannot measure that.

• 4:47Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  The historic challenge has been, um, because of that, people really had a hard time estimating the mass of these systems. Um, and then in 1993, we made a remarkable discovery when I was in grad school. Um, that, um, these systems also contain hot gas, just like the clusters do, that glows in the X-ray. Um, and that was a really interesting, um, measurement because you can use the temperature of that gas to get an estimate of the amount of mass in the system. And so it was the first really kind of reliable measurement of a mass of a group. And by the way, the masses a- actually were aligned with kind of what you might expect based on the pretty poor statistics we had from the galaxies. But it did demonstrate really for the first time that there was a lot of, like everything in the universe, there's a lot of dark matter.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Um, and so these groups, just like clusters, are really dominated by the dark matter.

• 5:36Krishna Choudhary?

  Ah, and just to, just to follow that thread of logic a little bit more closely, with the X-rays, you get something like the, how much gas there is? Because the gas is glowing in X-ray?

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:48Krishna Choudhary?

  And then from that you get velocity.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  You, well, what you really measure is the temperature.

• 5:53Krishna Choudhary?

  Ah, okay.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  So yes, so you have to the temperature of it. And the temperature is a reflection. So why is the gas hot, right? Why is it emitting in the X-rays and not in the radio or in optical? It's because the gas is being heated by the, basically the gravitational force of the system. And so it, I know you guys talk about hydrostatic equilibrium.

• 6:10Krishna Choudhary?

  Yes.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  This is the same exact thing for here, right?

• 6:13Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  It's the gas falls into the system. It heats to a certain temperature to maintain the gas cloud is basically a hydrostatic equilibrium. And so the temperature of the gas is enough to balance the gravity.

• 6:24Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  It's the same thing that happens in the sun with, you know, the the nuclear fusion pushing outward and the the reason the sun isn't doing this, right, in huge ways is because of hydrostatic equilibrium.

• 6:34Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Same exact argument.

• 6:35Krishna Choudhary?

  Same exact argument. So you get like, you know, the size of the gravitational potential.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  Heats the gas up.

• 6:40Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 6:40Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  So the clusters being more massive have much higher X-ray temperatures.

• 6:44Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, OK.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  Than the groups.

• 6:45Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  And so by measuring the temperature of the group, which you can do with a like Chandra space telescope or something, that temperature then can be directly give you a direct measure of the mass of the system.

• 6:56Krishna Choudhary?

  Right. OK, we we just recently covered a paper in the Astrophysical Journal Letters about the new relics.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:03Krishna Choudhary?

  Like the, you know, they found Cloud Nine.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:06Krishna Choudhary?

  And they did a very similar argument where they looked at the temperature of this gas and then, oh, there's no galaxy there. There's no stars, but it's still there. OK, that's that's all clicking. And so that was in the 90s. And what was it, you know, this is a massive discovery because now you've found a way to measure the mass of smaller groups. And, you know, what was that moment like? Like, was it was it sort of a single moment where you like unblind all the parameters of your model? And you know, you know how they do it now where it's like?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:38Krishna Choudhary?

  Everything's blind and then and then somebody presses a button and all of a sudden H knot pops out.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  It was a very similar moment for us. It was, I should say that we wrote it. So interesting story is we wrote a proposal to use the Rosat X-ray telescope, which was the big telescope in the 90s, the X-ray telescope prior to Chandra.

• 7:58Krishna Choudhary?

  And this was in space?

• 7:59Speaker 00

  It was in space telescope. Yeah, all the X-rays have to be done in space because the atmosphere absorbs the X-rays. Fortunately for us as humans, but not so fortunately, you know, if you're an X-ray astronomer.

• 8:07Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  And so we wrote a proposal saying that we want to look at some groups and see if we see anything there. And the proposal was very poorly ranked. They said, oh, you're not going to see anything. This is just, we don't, nobody really expected to see this gas at the level we see it.

• 8:21Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  And so, but we got lucky because RoS had this weird system where they would rank proposals to A, B, and C, and a very small fraction of the C proposals got through. We ended up getting a C target, and so we ended up getting data that we probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

• 8:35Krishna Choudhary?

  Wow.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  And that was the discovery image. And so it always reminds me, and I always, every time I sit on a scientific panel reviewing proposals, I always remind people, it's very important that we try things that we don't expect to work.

• 8:46Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  For just this reason, because this is how big discoveries happened.

• 8:50Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  I mean, Hubble discovered, you know, the distance to Andromeda. He wasn't looking to measure the distance to Andromeda. He got lucky, right? He found a cepheid variable star up at Mount Wilson, up on the hill. He found this star completely randomly and sent him in a different direction. The biggest discoveries in astronomy, certainly probably all of science, happened from this. And so scientists, we always have, it's very easy to kind of fall into the paradigms of what we know. But we really have to try to break out of it. And so that was an example, and it was hugely exciting, of course. It was a side project for me. It was not my thesis. My thesis was on black holes. This was great. I ended up doing that. But it's what got me my job at Carnegie and probably most of my career was based on this, on this amazing result for these groups.

• 9:32Krishna Choudhary?

  Wow, that's actually such a cool story, to think that you almost didn't have that.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yes, who knows where I would be?

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, probably not here, certainly.

• 9:43Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah. Wow, that's, yeah, that's fascinating, because again, it's like, you know, with science, there's established theories, and then the theories give you expectations, and then there's a tendency to just run after those expectations.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 9:54Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  I mean, and, but if we did, you know, I mean, look at the James Webb stuff, this is, so you guys talked a lot about, you talked about this a lot.

• 10:00Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  James Webb is completely rewriting our understanding of the early universe.

• 10:04Krishna Choudhary?

  That's right.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  When people were designing, thinking about James Webb for the first time in like 1993 was when it really kind of started.

• 10:10Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Is that, you know, people were not, nobody was imagining we were going to find supermassive black holes in formation at the early universe and get, I mean, everything that's coming out of James Webb is, it's all new and surprising, right, at some level? And that's really what's exciting about science.

• 10:24Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, I mean, just speaking of James Webb, before we set up for filming in this room, you guys were having a journal club. And I think they were talking about the bullet cluster.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Yes, another.

• 10:34Krishna Choudhary?

  Yes, one, yeah. Yeah, James Webb had just done some spectroscopic analysis and the the key takeaway that whoever was presenting the paper was like, so the bullet cluster is way weirder than we thought. And it's like, nice.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:44Krishna Choudhary?

  James Webb, at it again.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  At it again.

• 10:47Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah. Um, so that got you this job at Carnegie and you've been here for quite a while.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:53Krishna Choudhary?

  Um, what has that been like? What did, what did you like about Carnegie that you stayed for so long?

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I came here as a postdoc with really no intention. I mean, I thought I would, most astronomers end up in universities or working for NASA.

• 11:04Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  And those are really the two paths for almost all astronomers. And I, I, uh, when I came into Carnegie, I was first of all, very like surprised that I could get a job here. Partly I had this big result that didn't hurt.

• 11:16Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, of course.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  Um, and but I came here and what I really love about Carnegie and what I still love about Carnegie is it, it is a pretty, a pretty unique environment, especially, um, I'll speak as an astronomer, but it's also true in our biology and our earth science, uh, groups at Carnegie. Is the freedom, you know, Andrew Carnegie set organization up with the idea that people, we would hire scientists and let them work on whatever they want.

• 11:38Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  And that's really unheard of. Um, I mean, you know, at a university, you spend a lot of your time teaching and doing all these other things. And of course at NASA, you're very involved in the missions. So to have the scientific freedom you have at a place like Carnegie is really unheard of. And it allowed me to move my career. So even though my thesis was on black holes, as soon as I arrived at Carnegie, six to eight months after this result, I took my career in a very, very different direction, working on these groups. So I'm, everybody will tell you, I'm known for these groups of galaxies.

• 12:04Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  That wasn't even my thesis, right?

• 12:06Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  Carnegie allowed me to really expand in that direction when I came here.

• 12:09Krishna Choudhary?

  That's very cool. And, you know, you've been here, you've, you've done your job as the director of the observatories. Now you've moved up to president.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:19Krishna Choudhary?

  Quite recently.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, within the last year.

• 12:20Krishna Choudhary?

  Within the last year.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:22Krishna Choudhary?

  You know, Carnegie Science is not just an observatory now, though.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:26Krishna Choudhary?

  It's doing biological research.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 12:29Krishna Choudhary?

  Chemistry, all sorts of stuff. So how do you like context switch between, you know, your job as an astronomer and your passion as a lifelong astronomer to now? All of these other different sciences, what's that like?

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Well, I think that that's actually probably the best aspect of the job for me is that in the last year I've got to learn. I'm learning biology as I go. I always tell my our biologists. I took one biology class of my entire life, which was, you know, sophomore year of high school.

• 12:55Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Which was a long time ago and biology is completely different field now. So I really don't know biology at all. So I'm I'm learning it, which is a super exciting. One of the fun things is getting to have conversations with the biologist and understanding what they're doing. I keep giving this story over and over again. I'm gonna tell it again, but I like I recently learned about photosynthesis.

• 13:12Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  You know, we all know about photosynthesis, right? You know, plants take energy in. But photosynthesis is an exceptionally inefficient process.

• 13:20Krishna Choudhary?

  Yes.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  I had not appreciated.

• 13:21Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  And I was talking to, we have.

• 13:22Krishna Choudhary?

  Are you gonna talk about Rubisco?

• 13:24Speaker 00

  No, I'm not, but now you're out of my league. You're gonna get out of my league very quickly. But, you know, a lot of our sciences are working on these things and, you know, they're trying to figure out how, why is photosynthesis so inefficient? And, you know, how can you improve it? And so like to me to learn that, I learned that in the last year.

• 13:37Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  That that's super cool to me. You guys talk about a lot of science. You probably know more broad science.

• 13:42Krishna Choudhary?

  I don't, I don't know much about it, but but that that is a really fascinating.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  And why?

• 13:47Krishna Choudhary?

  You know, because it's been around for what, like a billion years now?

• 13:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:50Krishna Choudhary?

  Like synthetic bacteria have been doing.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Yes, at least.

• 13:53Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah. And they still can't. And I think I was reading just a random tidbit is I was reading this like paper about. You know, why it is that way. And there were some physicists who were trying to answer that question from just a quantum mechanics point of view. And it's literally what they were arguing is that the CO2 molecule.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:10Krishna Choudhary?

  And the oxygen molecule look literally the same.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  That makes sense.

• 14:14Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay, because it's the C, the C is in the center and then there's O's and O's.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  So you just separate.

• 14:19Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah. And then and then there's an oxygen, right? So whatever enzyme is trying to pull apart CO2. Gets confused with oxygen because if an oxygen goes into that active site. You know, it's just oxygen on both ends.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:31Krishna Choudhary?

  And then the so and and the the size is the size difference is really small. And all it has is like that size difference to tell whether it's interacting with a CO2 molecule.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  Oh, that's super cool.

• 14:42Krishna Choudhary?

  So if you just think about it, yeah, it's like, it's the best I can do because my Lego block looks exactly the same to me.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure.

• 14:48Krishna Choudhary?

  You know? But that's a really cool problem that you guys are working on.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  I think it's really interesting, right? It has potentially lots of applications for crops and things of that sort.

• 14:58Krishna Choudhary?

  Right, right.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  But for me, as an astronomer, I mean, it's been super cool to learn about that, learn about Earth science as well. We have a lot of people working. You know, Earth is an amazing planet, of course.

• 15:07Krishna Choudhary?

  Yes.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  You know, everything we know about life on Earth is because is life here on Earth, right? But there's a lot of things that have happened here on Earth that have made got us to this point in time. Earth is very special in some ways. There's probably many Earths out there.

• 15:20Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  But but learning about those processes, you know, understanding why magnetic fields, how do planets get water? We have people working on all these things that are adjacent to astronomy, but not really. And so for me, I'm now now get to learn about all this stuff. But I have to say, the scientists have to teach me this because I'm not, you know, I was very, very focused on the astronomy piece for for the last thirty years prior to this.

• 15:41Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah. And I mean, speaking of other Earths, one of the big things that Carnegie was involved with over the past ten years or so is the Giant Magellan Telescope that should be coming online soon, hopefully, at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. So you've you've been kind of instrumental in that. And one of the big, you know, mandates of that observatory are to, you know, look for exoplanets and look for atmospheric signatures, biosignatures. Could you take me through a little bit about how that telescope started and how it's been going and what your role was?

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Sure. So we've been working on the telescope for quite a long time, over twenty years now.

• 16:25Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, twenty years.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:27Krishna Choudhary?

  I guess these things take a long time.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  They take a long time. I mean, James Webb took thirty years from the beginning to when it launched. And this will be similar for these giant telescopes. I mean, I think the thing, as an astronomer, you know, we all we do is study light, right?

• 16:40Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  And light is always the limiting factor for us. And so the reason bigger telescopes are more interesting in general is because they collect more light. They also give you higher resolution, so the combinations are important. But as soon as our current Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas, which are kind of our main workhorses now, came online around two thousand, people in our Building here started asking the question, well, what's next, right? And the challenge is that, you know, um, you hit kind of a limit with a single mirrors, how big a mirror you can make to keep it, uh, to, to really move into having to keep it shape and

• 17:11Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  Things you need to do. And so that's where the idea of the giant Magellan telescope came up, which is really using seven very large mirrors, each of them about 25 feet across, uh, in a single telescope.

• 17:21Krishna Choudhary?

  Wow.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  But it's huge. It's so it really, the way I always tell people is that you, right now, our best telescopes are about the size of one of those.

• 17:29Krishna Choudhary?

  Right, yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  So you're really increasing.

• 17:31Krishna Choudhary?

  You're doing seven in like a hexagon with one in the center?

• 17:34Speaker 00

  It's one in the center and then in six around.

• 17:36Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  And the, the jump in, in light collecting is just tremendous.

• 17:42Krishna Choudhary?

  Right, because it's going to go like the square.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  That's right. It goes to the square. So it's the area that matters.

• 17:45Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  And, and then also the resolution matters because the resolution is the bait total baseline. So that's much larger.

• 17:51Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  That's like 80 feet or something.

• 17:52Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  And so the combination of that means you're going to get much, you're going to be able to see much, much fainter things. And you're going to be able to get much, much higher resolution. The combination is tremendous. And as we've seen, like with James Webb, anytime you have kind of a new technology, in James, in the case of James Webb, it's the fact that it's a big, it's the first, it's a bigger telescope in space. But also, as you've talked about before, it's an infrared telescope, right? It's the infrared component that really, I think, combined, well, combined with the size that's made it important. But, you know, the James Webb is smaller than one of the mirrors of this, one of the seven mirrors of this telescope. And we hit limits with James Webb. I mean, you know, they're doing exoplanet work. It's super exciting. We have many Carnegie scientists trying to do atmospheres with James Webb. It's just not a very big telescope.

• 18:35Krishna Choudhary?

  Wow.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  And so this telescope will allow you to really get the, the high quality spectra we need to, to study those exoplanet atmospheres.

• 18:43Krishna Choudhary?

  That's right. Yeah. I mean, uh, we were here about two or three weeks ago when we were filming for the Henrietta episode. And one of the things that was striking to me is just how small that signal is of an atmosphere

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:56Krishna Choudhary?

  In front of a star, because the star is just blinding you.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 18:59Krishna Choudhary?

  And then the atmosphere just comes in and like, it's, it's really the, the circle around a tiny dot with a, with a giant flashlight in your face. Um, and, and so I guess the The feature of the Giant Magellan Telescope being so big is that because you the signal is just so much higher, you can actually do that signal to noise.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 19:19Krishna Choudhary?

  You can manage it.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you'll get really high quality spectra. So you know, most of the James Webb stuff that's happening now, a lot of them are pretty big planets. For the most part, things they're big, they're bigger than Jupiter in many cases, right? And that's simply because it's a small telescope. It's not small compared to, you know, a hundred years ago, Hubble would have thought that was an amazing, it's still an amazing telescope.

• 19:36Krishna Choudhary?

  In space?

• 19:37Speaker 00

  But in space, I know, the idea is remarkable.

• 19:39Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, he would have been.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  I mean, it's it's a crazy, it's still an amazing telescope. But it's hitting its limit. They're really, you can't really do the deep sort of spectroscopy that one needs to do. And for that, you just need a lot of photons. And that's all about collecting area. And so that's where something like the GMT will really be very super. And and the interesting thing, other thing about the GMT is the GMT's first light instruments are very, very centered on this exoplanet question.

• 20:04Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, OK.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  So we have two instruments that are being built, one in the infrared and one in the optical to do those atmospheres in extreme detail. So it's going to be super exciting and you're going to be just be able to do many, many more exoplanets. Right now, we're kind of limited to a small number that you can actually effectively do, you know, from James Webb. And this is one of the things Henrietta is trying to do, of course, on a different scale.

• 20:24Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Can we do it from the ground in general? With the GMT, it should be possible, no question, I think.

• 20:30Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, and I mean, this thing is massive. So you're saying like 80 feet across?

• 20:35Speaker 00

  80 feet across, 22 stories high is the dome. That's what I always like to get people. I have a picture, I don't know if you've seen, we can share with you the picture of of it in the in the Rose Bowl, which is great for us.

• 20:44Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  It's in Los Angeles.

• 20:45Krishna Choudhary?

  Please do, we'll we'll show it right now.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Absolutely, we'll show that because that's a really amazing picture, which I give every time I give a talk about GMT. It it it make it dwarfs the Rose Bowl pretty substantial.

• 20:55Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, this is going to be one of the biggest telescopes ever. You're pushing not just boundaries of. Astronomy, but in order to do that, you're going to be pushing the boundaries of like engineering, right?

• 21:08Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 21:08Krishna Choudhary?

  Straight up mechanical engineering and like.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:12Krishna Choudhary?

  Engineering.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  This is the thing I think people don't. So this telescope is expensive, I'm just gonna be honest, you know, these are billion dollar telescopes.

• 21:18Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  Um, there's a reason, it's because of that engineering, right? I mean, it is a one of a kind, so you can't just go on Amazon and order one of these telescopes.

• 21:25Krishna Choudhary?

  Or even the parts.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  No, everything has to be designed, right?

• 21:28Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  And it also has to be in Chile, where we have earthquakes, you know, pretty significant earthquakes, so the telescope is designed to withstand a nine point oh earthquake.

• 21:34Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  There's all sorts of things, it has to have weather and, and you know, it's a twenty two story building that has to rotate and point and, I mean, it's remarkable that you can do it at all, right? Um, but it takes a huge amount of engineering, yeah.

• 21:48Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, that's, that's pretty crazy to think about. Um, so the reality, I wanted to sort of transition into the reality of science funding today and how institutions like Carnegie Science get funding in the first place.

• 22:04Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 22:04Krishna Choudhary?

  Because I, I imagine as the president of Carnegie Sciences, that's one of your big jobs.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 22:09Krishna Choudhary?

  Is, um, where does the money come from?

• 22:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:12Krishna Choudhary?

  So, you know, in the modern day, there's been substantial cuts to the NSF. NASA is cutting its astrophysics budget by a lot. A lot of other institutions are saying that this is kind of an existential crisis for fundamental science, um, for fundamental astrophysics. I wanted to ask you about your opinion, how would you characterize the situation right now?

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's of course an ever changing situation, where we're looking at this, uh, literally every day, it seems like something new is happening on the federal landscape.

• 22:45Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  Um, I mean, I think, uh, at Carnegie, we're a little bit unique, we have, we can weather kind of changes on the federal landscape better than a lot of universities. Universities have really come to really rely on federal funds, right?

• 22:59Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  And so the research programs at universities, almost all of them are funded almost entirely out of that. Carnegie, what Andrew Carnegie did was he set up an endowment that, that funds a significant fraction of, of what we do.

• 23:10Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  So we keep our lights on and things. Things like that, based on this original money, the Andrew Carnegie Cave that we have invested and we spend a small amount every year. So we have kind of a baseline that a lot of universities don't have. Some of the bigger ones have endowments as well, but a typical research university might not.

• 23:24Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  Um, and so for us, federal funding has allowed us to do different additional stuff on top of that, right? So, um, the challenge I think we're seeing is that even though, um, you know, the, the White House has obviously tried to make pretty substantial changes uh on the science front and the funding. Congress has been much more generous and come back and brought that back. I think.

• 23:44Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  One thing I always tell people about science is science is very bipartisan in general. Um, some areas like climate science career or not, but.

• 23:51Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  In general, things like astronomy and earth science.

• 23:54Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  For the most part.

• 23:54Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Are, are, everybody understands the value of them.

• 23:57Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  There's a huge impact, uh, economic impact that comes out of science. Uh, the basic stuff we do here at Carnegie, 20 or 30 years from now may. Lead to some technology we don't know about, right?

• 24:08Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 24:08Speaker 00

  As GMT will lead to new technologies we probably don't know about yet that could make money in the future for the country. So for that reason, it's very bipartisan. So Congress has come back and, and put most of the money back. Like NSF took like a, something like a 6% hit. Look, we wouldn't want to take a hit at all.

• 24:23Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  The 6% is a lot better than 60%, which is the numbers that were thrown around at one point.

• 24:27Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 24:29Krishna Choudhary?

  Insane.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  And so that's the good news. I think the, the thing we don't yet understand is how that money will be appropriated within, for instance, NSF. So we don't yet know. Uh, you know, is all that money going to go into AI research at NSF? It was probably quite likely, or quantum computing. It's not that those things aren't interesting, but you know, traditionally a place like National Science Foundation has funded really basic research. So it funds astronomy. It funds earth science and all these things. And so the question is, will that money flow? Uh, that we just don't know. And so from my perspective at Carnegie, um, my perspective has been we cannot rely on that. We have our endowment, but we do, we need to, we need additional money to really do our science.

• 25:06Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  And so we've put a big emphasis here, which is a lot of my job on philanthropy and going to the private sector to try to bring in money because we need that money to do these big projects.

• 25:14Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  But, um, it's not clear it will come from the federal government.

• 25:18Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, that makes sense. Um, to follow up on that, you know, you say. We're gonna need to find money from private donors and philanthropy, things like that. Like, what is, what is that process like? Is it like that, uh, scene in Wolf of Wall Street where Leo DiCaprio is like, "I have an amazing opportunity."

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Pretty much is, yes.

• 25:38Krishna Choudhary?

  What are you doing in your?

• 25:41Speaker 00

  So that's what I stood most of my time doing. Uh, most of my time is spent, uh, talking to individuals, meeting people, letting them know, uh, what we do at a place like Carnegie.

• 25:49Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  Letting them know why it's important, letting them know how they can contribute to it. So I think the first thing is you, you, it, it turns out a lot of people are very interested in science.

• 25:56Krishna Choudhary?

  Of course.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  For all of us, right?

• 25:58Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Um, this is a good thing.

• 25:59Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, this is a good thing.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, it is a very, very good thing. And, and so for us, part of it is connecting to the people who, who are interested in science, but also the people that have some capacity to really help fund science. So it's convincing people, "Look, there's a lot of great things you can give your money to." Um, but, but you know, we think that there's some things we're doing here at Carnegie that are very special and that we hope people will be interested in. And, and for the most part, we've had pretty good luck on that front. But you know, it is, um, it's, it's a challenging time because there's a lot of really other good, great things people could be funding.

• 26:29Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that's totally fair. And they've got to make choices.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, make choices, yeah.

• 26:34Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah. Um, so you've had a, you've had a pretty illustrious career from, you know, 30 years of astronomy. A lot has changed in astronomy in those 30 years. What are, what are a few things that like really stand out to you about how the landscape of astronomy and astronomical research is different today than when you started out as a graduate?

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's a really great question. Um, the first one, which is, I think, pretty obvious is that astronomy has gone from being about in, single individuals, or sometimes maybe even two individuals, to teams. I mean, I think this is, this is led by things like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, but, um, uh, and other projects like that, that, that bring together hundreds of scientists to work on a set of problems as opposed to an individual scientist working on, on, on their own. You know, so if you go back a hundred years, which is a long time, Edwin Hubble, he, you know, all the papers are Edwin Hubble, end of sentence.

• 27:28Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, single authored astronomy papers.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Single authored astronomy papers. When I arrived in the early nineties, I mean, most of my papers actually are me and one or two other people. So very, not very different than.

• 27:40Krishna Choudhary?

  Wow.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  But that change started kind of late nineties, early two thousands. We've now moved into this, into this realm where like Mike Blanton, our new director here, right? I mean, he led the Sloan Digital Sky Survey four. I'm on the paper with him. I think that paper, I don't know, has, you know, a thousand people or something.

• 27:55Krishna Choudhary?

  Right, yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  Because we all contributed together. So I think that's one aspect that has changed. Is simply, it's gone from being kind of a solo person to, to this immense thing. The other way, it's just a similar sort of thing, also led by surveys like Sloan. But I think even in some very special ways, Hubble, legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope is. The Hubble Space Telescope is really the first project that released its data widely to the public.

• 28:21Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  So I, I had many Hubble programs during my career. I would write a proposal. I get my data, but you know, after a year, my data would go on the public archive. This meant that other people could then, of course, work on the data. That's a very non-traditional model, you know, back in Hubble's day, he kept the data in his office. We still have his data here, stored down in the basement, right? It never was put in any public forum.

• 28:43Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Now there's this, it's a very different world, right? Like the Vera Rubin telescope, right? All that data is going to be public. And so that has opened up astronomy to everybody, including amateurs. There's a lot of amateurs doing really great things. You can, you can go look for exoplanets and, and do all sorts of things. And that's, I think, very different. So astronomy is much more of a, kind of a worldwide community that is to be as well.

• 29:04Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's a great point, especially with Vera Rubin now. They're just, they're going to be announcing data almost every day, once they get their trigger up.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  That's right. It's going to be huge amounts of data.

• 29:14Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  And so it's going to give people the opportunity, but it really means, I mean, you could really be an amateur. I was an amateur astronomer from when I was a little kid. That's how I got into astronomy. You know, out with my telescope in the backyard. If, if I was the kid now, you could, I could actually be doing a research.

• 29:28Krishna Choudhary?

  That's right.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Project as like a teenager, quite easily.

• 29:30Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially with like AI helping you out with like writing code and things like that.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 29:36Krishna Choudhary?

  I can imagine it's, it's actually such a green space now. Didn't even.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Well, I think, and that's the other, of course. AI is the other component of it, right? Is how is AI going to interface with this science? And, you know, I, I barely used Fortran. So I was not, I'm not a computer guy in any sense because that just wasn't what happened when I was younger. But AI is going to really revolutionize the field in ways I think we don't fully yet understand.

• 29:59Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah. Speaking of a computer guy, and you, you just mentioned Michael Blanton.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:05Krishna Choudhary?

  He is succeeding you as the director of Carnegie Observatories. You were the director for quite a while before him. Do you have any advice for him?

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 30:18Krishna Choudhary?

  Because we're going to interview him too, so.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yes, yes. Well, I think I'm very excited to see what he'll do.

• 30:23Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Because, you know, the great thing, Michael's coming from the outside. It's always good to have a good outside perspective.

• 30:28Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  And I say this as a, as a person who was selected inside as president.

• 30:32Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  There's sometimes having an internal candidate is great. But I think since I kind of grew up at Carnegie all my career and was director, you know, I kind of already knew how things work and everything. I think sometimes it's good to have an outside perspective. So I'm very curious to see what he'll do. I think my advice to him is really follow his instincts.

• 30:50Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  And I think there's an opportunity for him to shake things up, and that's always a good thing. So I'm very curious to see what he'll do and what he'll come up with. I mean, I think his role, I, I, I told him this when, when, when I was, made him the offer and tried to convince him to come, and thankfully it worked. I really think he has like the best job in all of astronomy because it's, it's like, he has great resources. He has this Laskoponos Observatory. He has access to all these wonderful things we have here, machine shops and all this stuff, and great astronomers to work with. And the, and the freedom that you won't have anywhere else.

• 31:21Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  So the, what I really want to see come from Michael and the whole group of astronomers is what are the things they're going to come up with next? What are the next ideas? Henrietta is a great example of this, right? That's a little tiny project that has huge implications if that works.

• 31:34Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  And so the thing is, what are the next things like that? And now that's his job, he gets to do that. I have to find the money to make sure he can do it when he, when he has the ideas. I'm really curious to see what he comes up with.

• 31:46Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah, that's going to be great. I'm, I'm looking forward to it. So I wanted to end by asking you about something.

• 31:56Krishna Choudhary?

  That's personally very important to me, which is eclipse chasing.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Ah, yes. Do you, are you an eclipse chaser?

• 32:02Krishna Choudhary?

  I am an eclipse chaser.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  How many have you gone to?

• 32:04Krishna Choudhary?

  I've seen three.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Okay, so I think we're on the same number.

• 32:07Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  You started in twenty seventeen.

• 32:09Krishna Choudhary?

  No, I started, so my dad took me to my first one in two thousand eight in India.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Oh, nice.

• 32:15Krishna Choudhary?

  It was on the banks of the Ganges, the Ganga River.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:18Krishna Choudhary?

  Um, it was absolutely phenomenal. And then in twenty seventeen, I actually organized like a hundred person campsite in Idaho.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  Oh, brilliant.

• 32:26Krishna Choudhary?

  All of my friends and I somehow convinced them, I was like, guys, this is gonna change your life. And they all showed up and it was an amazing.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:34Krishna Choudhary?

  And, and it was like a textbook eclipse because there were no clouds in the sky. It was just, it was, it was honestly amazing. And then, um, I went to Texas.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:43Krishna Choudhary?

  For the most recent one, and I think you were there in Dallas, too.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Dallas, yeah.

• 32:46Krishna Choudhary?

  Um, and, and Carnegie did a big outreach event.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  We had a huge outreach event. And so we partnered with the Pro Museum, which is their new partners for us. And we're gonna continue to work with them. It's a great science museum in downtown Dallas.

• 32:57Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  And so what had happened, the story behind this is quite interesting. We had a total solar eclipse. So twenty seventeen was my first one.

• 33:03Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Because there hadn't been one in the US in so long.

• 33:06Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  And so when I was a kid, there just hadn't been an opportunity. I mean, my parents didn't think of traveling to go see them.

• 33:11Krishna Choudhary?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Um, but so twenty seventeen was my first one. I was in Idaho, too, which was, it was brilliant, beautiful.

• 33:16Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  And then, um, in twenty nineteen, we had one at our site in Chile, Las Cipanas.

• 33:20Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  So that was great.

• 33:21Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, right.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  And so that was the second one I saw, yes.

• 33:24Krishna Choudhary?

  That's insane. So it went over the telescopes?

• 33:27Speaker 00

  It was, it just missed the telescope. So in fact, we had to do the event at the bottom of our mountain.

• 33:31Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  And so we created this giant tent. We had like two hundred people, too.

• 33:34Krishna Choudhary?

  Okay.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  Uh, we created this giant tent in the middle of the desert to take people down there. And it was in the middle of Chilean winter. So I was very nervous about the weather because it can rain.

• 33:42Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  It can, it can be cloudy in Chile, although it's like California, right?

• 33:45Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  We have winter, right? Some days it's beautiful, some days it's not.

• 33:48Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  Uh, but it was beautiful day, so that was great. Mostly beautiful. Oh, yes. No, there's more beautiful than almost anywhere, I guarantee. Um, and so, uh, one of the people that came on that trip, um, is Lyda Hill, who's a philanthropist and actually a funder of the Pro Museum.

• 34:03Krishna Choudhary?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  And Lyda, on this trip. I'm like, Lada, you know, there's gonna be an eclipse in Dallas. I already had my eye on it in 2020.

• 34:09Krishna Choudhary?

  Nice.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  And she said, oh, we have to do something with the schools.

• 34:12Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  She's very, very big on education in Dallas. And so she went back and connected us to the Pearl Museum, which is the Science Museum, very well connected. And she funded us to buy a million of the little glasses. So we handed a million glasses out to all the schools in the area. And a lot of our astronomers went, we went, we visited something like 30,000 students in the end, I think. And the week before. And so a lot of our astronomers were there for a whole week. It was, it was just an amazing experience. I don't know where you were. Were you in Austin?

• 34:39Krishna Choudhary?

  We were, we were in Austin.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Austin wasn't so good.

• 34:41Krishna Choudhary?

  It wasn't so good. We were, um, I actually rented a Airbnb and then again, a hundred of my friends showed up.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:48Krishna Choudhary?

  Uh, to this Airbnb and like totality was happening. And for the first like 90 seconds, there was a cloud. And then we saw the edge of the cloud lean. And there was a, you know, it was on the banks of a river. So you could hear the cheers along the river as the cloud moved. And as it cleared up. And we were like, we, we saw it, we heard it coming 20 seconds before we saw it. And it was, it was an amazing time. Unfortunately, had some trouble with Airbnb because apparently I'm not supposed to have a hundred people.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  Probably not.

• 35:18Krishna Choudhary?

  On the lawn of an Airbnb. So, you know.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Other than that, it was, yeah.

• 35:22Krishna Choudhary?

  Other than that, it was a great time. Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it was similar in Dallas where it eventually cleared up and we were able to.

• 35:28Krishna Choudhary?

  So you did see totality.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  So we just did totality and it was a great experience. So every one of them has been different. I've seen three of them there. Every one of them's different. I'm, so I'm, I'm, I've become a little bit of an eclipse chaser myself.

• 35:39Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm trying to go to as many as I can.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're, they're already thinking of 27, which is the next big one.

• 35:45Krishna Choudhary?

  Right, where is that?

• 35:46Speaker 00

  27 is over Egypt.

• 35:47Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, right.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  It's over, it goes over the, all of North Africa, basically. It goes over Egypt, goes right over the pyramids.

• 35:52Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  And so, and it's six minutes of totality. So that's.

• 35:55Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, that one's super long.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. It's unfortunately, well, maybe it's fortunate. It will be clear because it's August in Egypt. It's, it's like almost a hundred percent.

• 36:03Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  But it'll probably be 110 degrees, but, um.

• 36:06Krishna Choudhary?

  Right.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  It will be worth it to see it.

• 36:07Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, I mean, six minutes is a long time.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 36:09Krishna Choudhary?

  Totality, that's insane.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  I tell people, and I'm sure you feel this way now, like if you haven't lived through one, you have to see one.

• 36:15Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  And everybody always says, oh, I saw the partial. It was 99%.

• 36:19Krishna Choudhary?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Like, it is not the same. It's a completely different experience.

• 36:22Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's one of these sigmoides that's just like super.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  100%.

• 36:27Krishna Choudhary?

  Like, super steep.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Oh, it is. It's crazy. It's crazy. So I so I've become a little bit of an eclipse taster myself.

• 36:33Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  And I know many people, many of our supporters here at Carnegie as well. I've had some of them went to all three of those trips and everybody's asking about Egypt. So I'm like, okay, we're gonna work on it.

• 36:43Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Long ways to go, but it's gonna be pretty spectacular.

• 36:45Krishna Choudhary?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, best of luck on that trip. It's been a great conversation. Thank you for taking the time.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Thank you. I appreciate it.