Cosmic Queries: The Sun and other Stars

The Sun is the star of the show as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions in this solar edition of Cosmic Queries.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson and I have with me in studio my co-host Chuck Niles. Hey Neil. Love it when you're here. I love being here. I feel like we're old, we go way back, but we don't.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just feels that way, I don't know. Yes, I have that effect on people. I'm like a rash. You feel very familiar. So this is StarTalk, the Cosmic Queries Edition. And today we are themed, we've solicited questions. Yes. Some come in unsolicited and we hold those aside and then we call for others and when they fit, we match them up. And so today it's our sun and other stars. Yes, and not like Tom Cruise or Meryl Streep, not those other stars. Unless one of those slipped in, but we had stars in the universe before there were stars in Hollywood. Ah. Just an FYI. Just to let the people know. They took the name from us. Not according to People Magazine. That's why on Hollywood Boulevard, the shape is a star, right? Gotcha, that's correct, that is correct. They're borrowing our word.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shine bright like a diamond. You know what else borrowed our word? Pulsar Watches borrowed our word. That's right, Pulsar. Quasar, you remember Quasar? Quasar Television. Yes, they borrowed, we got that first. That's right, that's right. I'm trying to think of any other cosmic branding. Well, there's like Star, you know, Star Kiss oranges. Star Kiss? It goes on and don't get me started on that. Okay. No, no, there's like... And there's Sunkist? Sunkist, Star Kiss, Moon Glow Bath Beads. Moon pies. Celestial Seasonings, Moon Pie, Milky Way Candy Bar, Mars, you got me started, Mars Bar. Milky Way Candy Bar. The Chevy Nova, except had they known that was a star that just blew up, they might not have... Right, not a name, not a good name for the car.

• 2:00Chuck Nice?

  Please get into this. So anyway.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So you got questions for me?

• 2:04Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do. You haven't seen any of these questions? Or do you know what they are going to say?

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  C- c- culled from the internet and other sources. Might even have a couple of callers. That's good.

• 2:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's great.

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you got?

• 2:13Chuck Nice?

  Let's jump right into it. And let's kick it off at the beginning, okay? And this is from Christopher Lloyd on Facebook. He says, let's start-

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Christopher Lloyd?

• 2:20Chuck Nice?

  Christopher Lloyd, as an actor.

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:23Chuck Nice?

  Christopher Lloyd wants to know, let's start at the beginning. How does something like the sun even form or come into being the way that it is? So in our, in, in the current incarnation, how does that happen?

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, cool. Of course, this happens all the time. Our galaxy has, you know, hundreds of billions of these things called stars. So nature has no problem making these things. And stars made of gas, 100% of gas, and it comes from a gas cloud. We look, now, if we look through the galaxy and didn't find gas clouds, we would wonder, where do these, where are these things born? But we find gas clouds. It's like looking around society and never seeing a pregnant woman, but you see babies all over.

• 3:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd have to wonder, where do babies come from?

• 3:03Chuck Nice?

  Do you know I feel the same way about pigeons? But anyway.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because you don't see baby pigeons?

• 3:06Chuck Nice?

  I never see baby pigeons.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you're not alone. It's one of the big mysteries of life. Where's the little pigeon?

• 3:11Chuck Nice?

  Where's the little pigeon?

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're just, they're just born whole.

• 3:14Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 3:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out of the egg, it's a big pigeon. So either they're born quickly, or, you know, so you have to ask these questions. But society does have pregnant women, and you can judge how long they're pregnant if you take snapshots of the culture. So that's what we do in the universe. We take snapshots of the galaxy at different times, and we find out there are places where there are huge gas clouds.

• 3:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gravity is gathering the gas clouds into, it nucleates. And if you get one part of a gas cloud that's slightly more dense than another,

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  it wins.

• 3:46Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 3:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got more gravity than anywhere else, and then it attracts more gas, then it has even more gravity.

• 3:52Chuck Nice?

  So it's like Mexican food.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I can't, I don't follow the analogy. I'm sorry.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Help me out on that one.

• 3:59Chuck Nice?

  Well, you eat Mexican food and it causes gas, which leads to more gas.

• 4:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see. There you go. I missed that one. Sorry.

• 4:06Chuck Nice?

  That's okay.

• 4:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be the bean part of the Mexican food.

• 4:08Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so if you have slightly more mass, slightly more density in your region of a gas cloud than another, you are more likely to condense first and then you win that contest and all the matter comes to you. Eventually, in the center, as the matter accumulates, it gets hotter and hotter and hotter. It's under pressure.

• 4:28Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gas clouds under pressure get hotter and eventually it triggers thermonuclear fusion and a star is born.

• 4:35Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. Thermonuclear fusion.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 4:38Chuck Nice?

  So it just gets hot, it bursts into flames.

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Busts open.

• 4:41Chuck Nice?

  I am so hot, I'm just gonna bust into flames.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and it's thermonuclear, it's fusion energy. It's not like fire energy.

• 4:48Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, another kind of energy that you derive from the nucleus of an atom rather than from sort of molecules uh breaking apart. Normal fire is just molecules breaking apart that have stored energy that releases it as fire.

• 5:00Chuck Nice?

  Right, this is different.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stars, we say stars burn, but we don't mean burn.

• 5:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We mean that.

• 5:04Chuck Nice?

  They're not on fire.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're thermonucleating.

• 5:06Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 5:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 5:07Chuck Nice?

  Yo, that's fascinating. That's fa- alright, man. Way to go.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that was Christopher Lloyd?

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  That was Christopher Lloyd.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was that their actor, Christopher Lloyd?

• 5:13Chuck Nice?

  Ah, you know, it doesn't say, but let's just say it is.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know my favorite acting role of his? Most adults don't know this.

• 5:18Chuck Nice?

  Is?

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was the hacker on Cyberchase on PBS.

• 5:23Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he had to have kids to know that.

• 5:25Chuck Nice?

  Christopher Lloyd is hacker and uh let's see, Gilbert Gottfried is his, is the parrot.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, no, no, he's the, the little duck.

• 5:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the little bird. Yes.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course Gilbert Gottfried would be the, the duck. Yes.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so there's, it's a show that uh teaches mathematics and science to kids. Yeah.

• 5:43Chuck Nice?

  Fan- yeah, I, that's how I know it.

• 5:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:45Chuck Nice?

  Cause I'm a child who needs to know about mathematics. Hey, let's move on.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, what do you got?

• 5:49Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Jason Klau. This is uh also from Facebook. This is Jason from Facebook.

• 5:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do they say where they're from? I like no one's city.

• 5:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they do. They do.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What city?

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  Um, oh no, he did not say where he is from. Just from Facebook.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The city of Facebook, yes.

• 6:00Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. Okay, this is what he wants to know.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:02Chuck Nice?

  What technological advances would be needed to prevent our sun from expanding? And how close are we to obtaining that technology? And he has an example.

• 6:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude, we're, we're still pulling oil out of the ground.

• 6:16Chuck Nice?

  Oh snap.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude.

• 6:18Chuck Nice?

  Oh snap.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude, give that hope up. Yeah, you better like, what was it? Was it a follow up?

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no. He was like, okay, like the gravity satellite and Doctor Who, episode S O one E O two. End of the world.

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That one.

• 6:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes. I'm gonna say that this guy's a real ladies man.

• 6:38Chuck Nice?

  Just saying. He knows episode numbers from Doctor Who. You know, he is slaying the ladies.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. There is a way to prolong the life of a star. And if we were ever to do that for the sun, because our civilization would somehow outlive the life expectancy of most mammals. The mammal life expectancy is about three million years.

• 6:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And on average, and we're mammals, so unless we figure out a way to beat those odds, we're, we're toast for one reason or another, after on average, three million years.

• 7:06Chuck Nice?

  That's why I love talking to you. Always so uplifting.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun's got another five billion years left. So we'd have to prolong our lives until the sun is ready to die and then prolong the life of the sun. So one way to do that is it's got hydrogen in the center, converting it to helium.

• 7:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the thermonuclear fusion. There's a lot of hydrogen in the outer layers that never makes it to the center. So when the sun runs out of helium, it only runs out of helium in the center. And so what you need is a way to channel helium from the outer layers deep down into the center to give it fresh supply. You do that, the sun could live a hundred billion years.

• 7:38Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No question about it.

• 7:40Chuck Nice?

  So you would basically just have to funnel helium back to the center of the sun?

• 7:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I say helium? I meant hydrogen.

• 7:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, hydrogen.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hydrogen in the outer layers.

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's converting hydrogen into helium. All these outer layers, you bring it back in, you prolong the life of the sun.

• 7:52Chuck Nice?

  Fascinating.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More after this break. You're listening to Cosmic Queries Star Talk. We'll see you in a moment.

• 8:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on Star Talk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. I got with me in studio, Chuck Nice Comic.

• 8:28Chuck Nice?

  That's right. At Chuck Nice Comic on Twitter. That's me.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What? I'm supposed to plug you. All right. Uh, just before the break, we talked about prolonging the life of the sun.

• 8:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And all you have to do is churn fresh fuel, which lives in the outer layers down into the center.

• 8:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we know this works because there are stars that collide with one another. And when you collide, you, you mix your materials. And stars have a fresh birth, simply because all the helium that it collected in the center as, as leftover, uh, byproduct.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All gets mixed back into the star and fresh hydrogen shows up in the middle.

• 9:01Chuck Nice?

  And that's how, and then you have a new, new life to the star.

• 9:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it just seems to me if we have the power to prolong the life of the sun by churning its contents, we have the power to just move to another damn solar system.

• 9:11Chuck Nice?

  Probably.

• 9:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we can do that, move to Mars or to Jupiter's moons, you know what I mean? So there might be other options available than messing with the sun.

• 9:20Chuck Nice?

  Like making the earth a spaceship and just actually leaving.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, keep the whole earth intact.

• 9:24Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hadn't thought about that.

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  And just take it someplace else.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool.

• 9:26Chuck Nice?

  I mean, hey, if we can manipulate the sun, we can do that, right?

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can do that, but you need an energy source on route. So we gotta like get cozy until you get to another, uh, uh, uh, solar system.

• 9:35Chuck Nice?

  To that. I don't think that far ahead in life.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we have another question.

• 9:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's go to the phones, actually. And we have on the phone with us Jared, who is a 16-year-old student. Jared, how are you?

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jared on the line?

• 9:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's on the line.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jared, hello. Now Chuck introduced you as a student, but as at age 16, I would assume you're a student somewhere. Otherwise you're a truant dropout.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, good.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a student at North Cornet High School in, um, Suwannee, Georgia.

• 10:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, cool. Well, welcome to StarTalk. Yeah, so what do you got?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  So my question is, um, in five billion years, when our sun begins to run out of hydrogen, diffuse into helium, do you think that we will be able to prolong its life by somehow adding the planet Jupiter, or any of the gas giants for that matter, um, into the sun?

• 10:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, yes, that's an excellent question. So, um, like in the previous segment, we talked about churning the sun, giving it a fresh supply of fuel. Of course Jupiter and/or Saturn are mostly hydrogen and helium. They have a similar composition to the sun itself.

• 10:38Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if you had a way to cram Jupiter down into the core, yes, you could prolong the sun even further.

• 10:47Chuck Nice?

  So Jared, what do you have against Jupiter, man, if you want to sacrifice it to the sun?

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it would be a sacrifice, wouldn't it?

• 10:52Speaker 02

  No, no, I like Jupiter, especially its moons and their potential for life.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the moons are where the action is, like Europa and Io, all of these are kept warm by the stress of Jupiter's gravity. Its tidal forces are keeping those moons warm well outside of the habitable zone. You know, there's that zone where it's just the right temperature for your liquid water to stay liquid.

• 11:16Chuck Nice?

  Stay liquid.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, not too close, you freeze, not too far away. Jupiter's far enough to freeze, but it's got another energy source not dependent on the sun. So Jared, I'm glad you recognized Jupiter's moons in this. But, so the general solution to prolonging the sun is try to get some fuel down into the center. And you wouldn't have to bring a whole planet there because most of the sun's mass never participates in the thermonuclear fusion going on in the core. So Jupiter itself could, it could work, but I'm betting that if we have, if we're really powerful at solar and geoengineering, that it would be easier to sort of churn the sun's outer layers down into the middle than it would be to readjust Jupiter's orbit,

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  lose a nighttime planet, lose the beautiful moons around it, just to prolong the sun a little longer.

• 12:06Chuck Nice?

  There you go. So we're gonna keep, we're gonna keep the neighborhood the same.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Keep the hood.

• 12:10Chuck Nice?

  We're gonna keep the hood the same, Jared. That's what we're gonna do.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 12:13Chuck Nice?

  All right. Hey, thanks for calling, buddy.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, thanks Jared.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  All right.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 12:16Chuck Nice?

  And, and, and remember, nerds rule, okay?

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  All right, buddy. Take care.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. I, ah, good. We got, so, there's some hope.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  There is hope. I love that.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got high schoolers asking questions like that. We got hope for the world.

• 12:30Chuck Nice?

  Without a doubt. That makes me happy.

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what else you got there?

• 12:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Hey, let's go to Twitter right now, and this comes from at Vincenzo.

• 12:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are people who tweeted at StarTalkRadio.

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  They tweeted at StarTalkRadio and asked a question, and this is

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Vincenzo.

• 12:46Chuck Nice?

  Vincenzo, 1023, at Vincenzo.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet he's born October 23rd. That's my guess.

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  You know, that's a, I would never think that. See, my, I would say there are 1,022 other Vincenzos.

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 13:02Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. How, or could you describe how big the sun would look in the skies of Mercury? So the way we see the sun, how would it look from another planet?

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I, I don't have that off the top of my head, but I can calculate it, okay? So, we are, uh, the Earth-Sun distance is one unit. Let's call it one unit.

• 13:22Chuck Nice?

  Call it one unit.

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We call it one astronomical unit. It actually, we call, right? That's how you get your way around the solar system, right? So, uh, Earth is by definition one astronomical unit. Venus is point seven astronomical units. Mercury is point four astronomical units.

• 13:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Mercury's like, half is, you know, half, basically half the distance. If you, if you're, if you're at half the distance to something, the thing is twice as big.

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  Twice as big.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it's basically

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  So the Vannis point would be a huge yellow ball?

• 13:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, huge, twice as big. All right, we can, when we can quantify it, you don't need adjectives.

• 14:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's twice as big. I'm just saying.

• 14:03Chuck Nice?

  Thanks for making me feel smart.

• 14:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we got adjectives because we can't quantify, right?

• 14:07Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I felt awesomely huge about that. Well, numerically, what was?

• 14:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't go there.

• 14:12Chuck Nice?

  So it would literally be twice as big?

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, a little bit more than twice as big. But here's what's devastating. Uh, light, the intensity of light goes up not as the factor closer, but as the factor closer squared. So if you're twice as close, then the intensity of sunlight will be four times as great.

• 14:31Chuck Nice?

  So So the sun would be twice as big in the sky, but you'd never be able to see it.

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll be four times, yeah, I mean, you'd be vaporized in the heat. Yeah, you'd have other issues than just wondering how big the sun is in the sky.

• 14:45Chuck Nice?

  Gosh, that is fascinating. Well, there you go, Vincenzo. There's your answer. That is, the answer is, don't look at the sun when you're on Mercury.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And another, another issue is you can ask, how far away do you have to be for the daytime sky to be so dim? That you can see the stars of night in the daytime? Now, that question wasn't asked, but this reminds me of that. I've thought about this.

• 15:07Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 15:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you get to like around Neptune, that's far enough away. So that if Earth were at Neptune, you'd see stars in the daytime.

• 15:13Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, because the sun would be so dim and so far away.

• 15:17Chuck Nice?

  Is that the same, um, I'm sorry, is that the same premise as the moon being visible by day? Like, sometimes by day, you see like a full moon or a half moon in the sky.

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so two things, Chuck.

• 15:28Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've never seen the full moon in the daytime?

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  I have.

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  My vision is that good, Neil. Seriously.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You may have seen.

• 15:35Chuck Nice?

  I've had, I've had Lasik surgery, sir.

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You may have been mooned in the daytime? It wasn't like the orb, the orb.

• 15:42Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 15:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so here's the thing, but apart from the full moon, which only comes out at night. Every other phase of the moon appears at some time during the day. The moon is out in the day as often as it's out at night, basically.

• 15:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, contrary to what many people think is what's going on. But yeah, you'd be able to see, the moon comes out in the day, but it's not nighttime.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neptune is thirty times as far away from the sun as Earth is. Thirty AU's, astronomical units. So the sun would be one thirtieth the size and one nine hundredth as bright.

• 16:17Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 16:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thirty squared. So basically, one one thousandth is bright. Yeah, and that's, it's just another, it's just a light, a dim light.

• 16:23Chuck Nice?

  It's a blip. It's a pin, it's a pinhole in the sky.

• 16:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blip.

• 16:25Chuck Nice?

  So now, let me ask you a piece of trivia and you'll tell, you say this full moon never comes out during the day.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never, ever.

• 16:31Chuck Nice?

  Ever, so how about a solar eclipse? Would that be?

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A total solar eclipse is new moon. That's a new moon.

• 16:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're looking at the backside of the moon, which is completely dark, because it's the other side that's lit up, that's coming between you and the sun.

• 16:44Chuck Nice?

  You always have an answer, don't you?

• 16:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because my answers sound like they need a snap at the end. All right, go, we got like 90 seconds.

• 16:54Chuck Nice?

  We got 90 seconds.

• 16:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got another one.

• 16:56Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know what, let me find a quick one. Are we just incredibly lucky to have a sun 400 times bigger than our moon and 400 times farther away? Uh, what are the odds of another star, planet, moon system out there having the same exact setup?

• 17:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's luck.

• 17:09Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God.

• 17:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what he's asking is during a total solar eclipse.

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The size of the moon is basically exactly the same.

• 17:15Chuck Nice?

  Same size.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The size of the sun. So it makes a beautiful, so it's, it makes for a beautiful eclipse watching.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it has very little other meaning or value. Early in the history of the Earth, the moon was closer. Do you know the moon is spiraling away from Earth at about two inches per year?

• 17:28Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you told me that before. That's the only reason I know it.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so, so in the past, the moon was closer and bigger. So for most of Earth's history, the moon was like much larger than the sun.

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You still get eclipses, but you wouldn't get that beautiful sort of corona edge atmosphere of the sun glowing around the out.

• 17:46Chuck Nice?

  Setting that mood lighting for the Earth.

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's so mood lighting for four minutes at a time. So it, it is complete coincidence that that's the case. And, and it won't forever be that way. Uh, as the moon continues to spiral away, it, one day it'll become smaller than the sun in all cases. So you'll get what's called an annular eclipse.

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  An annular eclipse.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, which is, uh, uh, Latin, is it for, uh, ring? An annulus is a ring. And so what happens is the moon doesn't completely cover the sun and it leaves a ring of sunlight around the edge. It's actually, it's also a beautiful thing to behold.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you need filters and things to watch it.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. We'll be back on StarTalk Radio, the Cosmic Queries Edition.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio. We're back. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with Chuck Nice.

• 18:51Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just heard you just co-hosted The View.

• 18:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does this give you like the women credit? Like, what do you?

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  You know, I gotta tell you, Neil, I don't believe anything will ever give me women cred. To be honest, Gloria Steinem could actually breastfeed me and I wouldn't have women cred.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know they allowed men to co-host. There's a special thing.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  Well, they do it on Fridays. So they had a Guy Day Friday and I was the co-host for that.

• 19:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Guy Day Friday.

• 19:18Chuck Nice?

  Guy Day Friday.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll look for you.

• 19:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, it's fun.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so these are Cosmic Queries?

• 19:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 19:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Edition of StarTalk. So the whole hour is given totally unto questions from our fanbase and the listener audience.

• 19:29Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it comes through Facebook and all our social media outlets. And the theme today is our star, the sun, and other stars.

• 19:39Chuck Nice?

  And other stars.

• 19:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's do it. So what else? See, I haven't seen these questions.

• 19:41Chuck Nice?

  You have not seen them. That's my favorite part of this, is that, is that this is the first time you get to hear the questions. So it's like the people are actually asking you the questions.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the spot.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  On the spot.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  Using me as a conduit. So here we are.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if I don't have an answer, I'm gonna tell you. All right, go.

• 19:55Chuck Nice?

  So this is Arlen Kundert. Arlen Kundert from Facebook wants to know.

• 20:01Chuck Nice?

  Are there solar systems of stars? What I mean by this is, is there a system with an upper or a supermassive parent star with orbiting smaller stars, but with smaller stars having planets serving as moons? So each star in the parent system would have its own subsolar system. And no, Dr. Tyson, you can't just say, yes, we call them galaxies. Oh, and because you always want to know where we're from, I'm from Reynoldsburg, Columbus, which is in Ohio, which, first of all, thanks for coming to Wright State in Dayton, Ohio, back in March. It was awesome to hear you speak in person. Please answer my question.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a whole, oh my gosh. So he knew I want to know where people come from. Cause I'm always asking you, I don't know, it's just Facebook.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just Twitter.

• 20:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh, it's hilarious.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So man, he's like covering your ass on this.

• 20:54Chuck Nice?

  Yes, he is. Got me covered.

• 20:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks. And I did give a talk at, at, um, in Ohio. That was, that was a fun day that I spent there. Uh, so they even took me to one of the local pubs. That's always a thing to do.

• 21:06Chuck Nice?

  That's the thing to do.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a college town.

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all right, but that was at like three in the afternoon. So.

• 21:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I hear they got a lot of drinking problems in Ohio.

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, all right. So the, the way it works is, uh, if you look at the night sky, half of the stars you see aren't solo stars at all. They're double, multiple, triple, quadruple star systems.

• 21:25Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 21:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Even, for example, uh, the nearest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri.

• 21:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a multiple star system.

• 21:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The nearest star in that star system is called Proxima Centauri.

• 21:37Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 21:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So you can have multiple star systems. If they are far enough away from one another, then each one could then have its own planetary system. Not a problem.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if they are too close to one another, as the planet comes around the back stretch.

• 21:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Its gravitational allegiance can be compromised.

• 22:00Chuck Nice?

  Ah, so it just doesn't know.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't know.

• 22:02Chuck Nice?

  Which one do I belong to?

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's your daddy?

• 22:04Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 22:07Chuck Nice?

  I wanna go with Proxima, but I can't help myself. Alpha is just so sexy.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can't, so, so you want a system that's far enough away so that the orbits are stable. And, and gravitationally stable, it means you're not perturbed by somebody else tugging on you. So, yeah, you can have these. We haven't discovered them yet.

• 22:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, uh, and in any big, large scale, but yeah.

• 22:33Chuck Nice?

  But it can happen.

• 22:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It definitely can happen.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, fascinating.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 22:37Chuck Nice?

  That is awesome.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, thanks for that.

• 22:38Chuck Nice?

  I, I, I just love the, the fact that we're gonna have a, uh, a solar system of soap opera. I love.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah, it's so, it's a solar system of solar.

• 22:48Chuck Nice?

  It's a solar system of solar systems. I love it. All right. Here's something from Jared Connor.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:53Chuck Nice?

  Also writing to us on Facebook. Dr. Tyson, can solar systems form in the intergalactic medium? If so, could there be planets in those solar systems with intelligent life?

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, so this person has vocabulary.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Intergalactic medium. All right. So what we have is between the planets, we call that interplanetary medium. Between the stars, interstellar medium. And then every collection of stars that we find is. Part of a galaxy. Then there's this void between the galaxies. Could we have stars there? Yes, but our best understanding of all this tells us that these are stars that may have been flung out of a galaxy, typically in a galaxy collision. They're really train wrecks when they happen. And when they do, stars fly hither and yon. So they just escape the train wreck and then they're on their own way? Escape the train wreck and they're on their own. So they're rogue stars, basically? That's the word. They're rogue stars, just the same way you can have planets wandering between the stars. Right.

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We call them rogue planets. Okay. You can have rogue stars cast asunder after a galactic collision. And we have galactic collisions all the time. Uh huh. And so there's no reason why you couldn't. Yes. And these are stars that are basically homeless, in a way. Oh. I know. Do they have signs that say, "We'll shine for food"? They're homeless. Homeless stars? Homeless, uh, galactic homeless stars, yeah. So there's no reason to, but it would be very hard to see them because stars are not dim. Stars are too dim to give us enough light across intergalactic space for us to tell that they're there. Okay, so they're not staying still long enough for us to see? No, you can stay still, but you're one damn star in the middle of a void.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And think about it, when you look out, out of our galaxy? Right. You need awesome telescopes to see only the brightest stars in other galaxies. Otherwise, it's the merged puddle of light from the hundred billion stars themselves. I got you. You're not picking them out one at a time. No, you are not. Ah. You're listening to StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition on our star, the sun, and the solar system. We'll be right back.

• 25:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, in studio with Chuck Nice. Hey. Chuck. It's good to be here, Neil. Love you, man. Love you too, man. All right. This is the StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Right. And the topic is our sun and other solar systems. Absolutely, and we have a phone call. A phoner. Once again, another phoner. Okay. And on the line is Kat from the Boston area. Kat, Boston area, that's very nebulous, Kat. What, what's, all the cities around Boston have women's names. So are you from Beverly, or Lynn, or where are you from?

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Um, I'm from Somerville, and I've never heard a woman named Somerville before.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, neither have I, okay, so you got me on that. Somerville, that's the home, the original home. Yeah. Of, uh, of, what's the ice cream maker, um? Ben and Jerry? The other one. Steve's Ice Cream. Steve's Ice Cream. Steve's Ice Cream was, the, the flagship store was in Somerville, and I ate a lot, I, I gained thirty pounds. Yeah, being at Steve's Ice Cream, yes. So Kat, what do you have? Somerville is Boston stripper name, by the way, Kat. Okay, so what do you have, Kat?

• 26:21Speaker 03

  Uh, my question is basically, um, recently on Facebook, someone had posted asking, why are the effects of gravity, um, shown as a funnel if there's no up or down? And you had mentioned that that's a two-D illustration of a four-dimensional phenomenon.

• 26:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you read my Facebook page?

• 26:37Speaker 03

  Uh, I stalk it a little bit.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna lie to you.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no one stalks anything a little bit. But I just answered that like yesterday or something, so thanks for, thanks for checking it out. Okay, yeah, go on.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  No problem. So, um, my question is just, why then are galaxies and solar systems disc-shaped, or on their own planes?

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent question, and that plagued philosophers for centuries, until the mid eighteen hundreds. Immanuel Kant. Hmm. Immanuel Kant. That doesn't sound good at all. Actually, one of Siri's replies on the iPhone, if you ask her, Siri, what is the meaning of life? She says, "I'm sorry, I can't answer that." Ah, what a joke. Very existential of the, very existential of her. Of the iPhone, yes. So, uh, Immanuel Kant, as, as, and a few others. Tried to ask the question and answer the question, how is it that the entire solar system, the planets and the moons, all orbit in a plane and they orbit in the same direction? Like, what are the odds? What are the odds?

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, alright, so, uh, what they hypothesized was something called, literally, the nebular hypothesis, which has borne out in, in the centuries of observations and data that we've taken since then. And basically, you start out with a massive gas cloud. Mm-hmm. It collapses. As you collapse, you begin to spin faster. This is like what happens with a skater draws in his or her arms. Right. What happens when that happens? They spin faster. That's what happens. So as you spin faster, in the plane of that spinning, the material can't fall in, because like, the centrifugal forces prevent that. Right. Okay? Technically, there's centripetal forces. Centripetal, yes. Yeah, but centrifugal is colloquial. Correct, right.

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so in the, in the axis, uh, uh, in the sort of equator of the spinning, it can't come in because of these centripetal forces. Correct. But top to bottom, it can collapse without hesitation. So what you get is a flattened disk that where everything is orbiting in the same direction. Oh my god, that makes perfect sense! Exactly! That is awesome! Alright, and so, uh, so this dude figured this out in the middle eighteen hundreds, and it's been working ever since. Now suppose, suppose you are moving very slowly in this, and you're not collapsing quickly, you can actually form stars that don't actually collapse into a disk.

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you form star, here, the reason why it sticks to a disk, it's because it's made of mostly gas. Right. At the beginning, and gas can't pass through itself, any more than one hot marshmallow can pass through another hot marshmallow. What happens when two hot marshmallows hit? You get a bigger hot marshmallow, that's all. Well, they stick. They stick to each other. Yes, they stick and become a bigger one. So, so when you have a gas cloud collapsing, it sticks to itself in the plane, and it doesn't collapse within the plane, it stays flat, everything else collapses pancake-style to it. Do you know, our, our galaxy is flatter than a pancake? It's as flat as a crepe, actually. A crepe? We have a delicious galaxy. We are a hundred thousand light years across and about a hundred light years thick.

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we are a thousand to one ratio, thickness to diameter. Wow. And that's basically a crepe. So, yeah, it's a little... Not a pancake. It's not a pancake. Not a... Yeah, it's a crepe. So, Cat, you okay? Were we square? Oh, yeah. My mind is blown. Yeah, that was a great answer, man. Everyone's mind should be blown daily. Yes. So, have some galaxy for breakfast tomorrow. Every time I eat a crepe, I think of our galaxy, actually. That's awesome. You got it. Thanks, Cat. Thank you. All right. Man. Chuck, we got like twenty seconds left. You got a quick one there? Let me see. Here's a very quick one. Before our last segment, go. What would happen if a cubic centimeter of matter was instantly transported from the center of the sun to the earth's surface? Bang. Oh, there's some misinformation out there that somehow we would all vaporize. No, which is mixed with the atmosphere cooled down and it'd be slightly hotter in that area.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The answer is nothing. Nothing.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, a cubic centimeter of sun is not actually that much material. Remember, it's made of gas. When we come back, the final segment of Cosmic Queries, StarTalk.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back for our final segment of StarTalk Radio's Cosmic Queries Edition. I still like to think of it as StarTalk After Hours. Yeah. So, these are questions called from the internet. In the last segment, someone asked about a cubic centimeter of the center of the sun brought to earth. Yes. I think they're worried like earth will explode or something. Right. Turns out that cubic centimeter will be ten million degrees. That's hot. That is hot. No bow to doubt it, okay? But here's... And in the sun, it was undergoing fusion. If you bring it to earth, it's no longer under pressure. That pressure is what contains it, what sustains it, what feeds it. You bring it to earth, it'll heat up the surrounding atmosphere, but it's not going to bring fusion to it. You lost the pressure. It'll come into equilibrium with the atmosphere. Right.

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll be hot in that area briefly. It'll radiate away. And that'll be it. Not even a thing.

• 31:55Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not even a thing.

• 31:57Chuck Nice?

  Not a thing.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, we, a new tradition we have in the final segment is the lightning round.

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  That's what it is.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we have a bell for it.

• 32:05Chuck Nice?

  You have the bell.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it goes, okay?

• 32:08Chuck Nice?

  And that's.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will answer every question as a sound bite.

• 32:11Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we can cram, because I take so long on all the other segments. Try to pack in as many questions as we have. All right? Are you ready?

• 32:18Chuck Nice?

  I am ready, sir.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 32:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. This is from Lewis Moses on Facebook. Do dust clouds around stars cause electrical storms?

• 32:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, electrical storms in, around the star, it's, I, I, I don't know.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so here's what happens. The sun, stars, the sun in particular in this case, uh, gives off what we call a solar wind, which are charged particles. And those particles can enter a dust cloud and ionize the dust cloud or excited and possibly have it, um, uh, trigger a phenomenon similar to what we have on earth, like our aurora.

• 32:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe it, maybe there's aurora in nearby dust clouds to stars. I haven't thought it through, but it's certainly possible.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  All right. This is from Martha Sekreka.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Martha.

• 33:08Chuck Nice?

  Martha.

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:09Chuck Nice?

  What do we know of the star that exploded to give material to form our solar system?

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  I would love to name it.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, do you name something that's dead?

• 33:19Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Long gone and dead that we can't find anywhere.

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  Uh.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's dead and gone, right.

• 33:24Chuck Nice?

  Actually, my great grandmother had a name. Oh, no, I have to go great great, because I actually knew my great grandmother, so.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's not, so five billion years ago, there was a star that exploded, created enrichment, iron, nickel, you know, um, nitrogen, oxygen, a lot of the things we find on earth and in our bodies were forged in a star that came right before us. Uh, yes, it gave its life for, for us, and that's a good thing. Um, and, uh, no, sure, go ahead and name it, but we have no idea where, what, where the remains are. Most of it is just completely gone.

• 33:55Chuck Nice?

  Well, it died.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of it is in, in us ourselves.

• 33:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay, well, it died for us. Let's call it Jesus Star.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. The Jesus Star.

• 34:04Chuck Nice?

  The Jesus Star.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 34:05Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. All right, let's move on. This is from Sarah Ashley Colding. Will the sun burn out before or after we collide with Andromeda?

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, this is a cool one. So the sun will burn out in like five billion years. And we'll, now, the collision with Andromeda is not an overnight thing. We are two huge systems. And we'll start falling towards one another, distort. That'll happen between five and seven billion years from now. So the death of the sun should be our highest priority, not the collision with Andromeda.

• 34:36Chuck Nice?

  Bang! Nicely done. Okay. This is from Dennis B. via email.

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, people might not have known that we're on a collision course with another galaxy.

• 34:46Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, that's...

• 34:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all, I forgot to like...

• 34:48Chuck Nice?

  That's some information that...

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Holy...

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and you're saying that it's going to happen.

• 34:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, but we have other issues before then. All right, go.

• 34:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay, okay.

• 34:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 35:00Chuck Nice?

  Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure playing with you. It's like the Titanic.

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go, from Dennis B. via email. If the sun were to disappear in an instant, how quickly will we on Earth know about its gravity-wise?

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eight minutes and 20 seconds. Next.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If the sun disappeared, we would not know about it at all. We would still orbit. We would still feel its gravity. We'd still feel its heat and warmth and light for eight minutes and 20 seconds. Then all hell breaks loose.

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  What a great movie!

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We fly off, and there's no way you could have known about it, because that information is moving at the speed of light.

• 35:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my...

• 35:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the absence of a sun to the radius of our orbit.

• 35:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that is fantastic.

• 35:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 35:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 35:45Chuck Nice?

  This is from Kelly Smith.

• 35:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, if you can do the math, the speed of light divided into the distance from the sun to the Earth, you get eight minutes and 20 seconds.

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  And the answer is, I can't do the math.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you can. Yes, you can!

• 35:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you can. Here we go. Kelly Smith from Facebook wants to know, wow, okay, I don't know if we could do this in a soundbite, but I'm gonna give it to you. How are neutron stars formed? What is their life cycle?

• 36:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, so, a white dwarf star, which is the sort of the first stage of the death of a star, our sun will become a white dwarf, is held up by what's called... Electron pressure. Electrons can't get it too close to each one another, they'll separate. Right. Alright, it's called electron pressure. Electron degeneracy pressure. But you can overcome that, but you can't be an electron. If you overcome it. You can overcome the electron pressure by cramming the electrons into the protons that are in the nucleus. Gotcha. You cram a negative charge and a positive charge, what do you get? Ah, beautiful fireworks. You get a neutron. The charges cancel, and that's how you make a neutron star. Cramming electrons up the butt of a proton.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so then you get a neutron star far more dense than a white dwarf ever was. In fact, one cubic centimeter would weigh as much as a herd of 30 billion elephants. You had me at cramming up the butt. Alright, we gotta run. This has been Cosmic Queries edition of StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host. Thanks Chuck, nice for being here. Funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, keeping us going. Nice. Thanks to all the listeners for believing in what we're doing. We'll see you next time, StarTalk Radio. As always, keep looking up.