Science Gets Fabulous, with Summer Ash and Emily Rice – StarTalk All-Stars

Cosmic images from distant nebulas and galaxies are decorating leggings, jeggings, jewelry, and more. Explore the science behind the fashion with our hosts, astrophysicists Summer Ash and Emily Rice, who run the STARtorialist blog. Chuck Nice co-hosts. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is StarTalk.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Welcome to StarTalk All-Stars. We're your All-Star hosts. I'm Emily Rice. I'm an astronomer at the College of Staten Island City University of New York and the American Museum of Natural History.

• 0:19Speaker 02

  And I'm Summer Ash. I'm an astrophysicist at Columbia University, where I am the Director of Outreach for the Astronomy Department. And together, Emily and I are the founders of StarTorialist, an astronomy and science fashion blog.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Today, we're here with our co-host Chuck Nice.

• 0:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  And we are going to be answering a bunch of cosmic queries about science and about fashion.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, as a matter of fact. And it's great. You know, we take these questions from all over the internet and everywhere, every property where you can find StarTalk, whether it's Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook, or you name it. Patreon, which is people who actually take the time to give us money, which means that they get priority. Yes, that's right.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  All-star access.

• 1:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes, because just like politicians, we are not above being bribed.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  I wonder if that's the reason why we started an astronomy fashion blog. Maybe.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  We have some things that we would like to plug. Valentino, for example.

• 1:21Chuck Nice?

  So, yeah, I mean, it's very cool that, the funny thing is, people are interested in science as fashion, and we got a bunch of questions that people want to know about that. Let me ask you, how did the StarTorialist even come about?

• 1:35Speaker 02

  That's a great question, Chuck.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Famous origin story.

• 1:38Chuck Nice?

  Is there a famous origin story behind it? Cool. Let me just say, I actually already know it, but I have to do my job. Go ahead.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  We don't even know. This is a funny thing.

• 1:49Chuck Nice?

  I don't know it. That's why I'm asking. Go ahead.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Like, it was kind of, it was kind of always there, I think, bubbling in the background. Like, I remember noticing in graduate school that you could start to buy, you know, clothes with stars on them, and clothes with galaxies, and this, like, galaxy leggings. For some reason, it started as leggings. That I don't understand.

• 2:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  But it seemed to start as leggings.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Fashion always starts, apparently.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12Chuck Nice?

  A lot of fashion starts as leggings. I mean, look at the Middle Ages. I mean...

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Um, I kind of always had it in the back of my head, like, of course, as a graduate student, I couldn't afford a lot of these things, you know, I was buying like clothes off the discount rack. You don't make a lot of money as a graduate student, it's just, you know, but at least you're, you're getting paid a little bit to, you know, study whatever you want to study, which is an awesome thing about graduate school. Um, but I like, and so I, I kind of had it in the back of my head that like, I can't buy everything, but man, I would love to like, kind of keep track of it. So, you know, I can see what I'm missing, have this virtual closet or something like that. Um, and it was kind of in the back of my head for a long time. Um, I splurged on a couple of things here and there, you know, when I graduated and stuff like that. And then I came to New York City and it seemed like the, like, star torial universe, as it were, like exploded.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  It was now, you know, not just a couple of niche places, but on runways and, you know, kind of everyday stores, like, what do you call them, high street stores? Like H and M and Zara and stuff like that.

• 3:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  And so, but I was like, doing so many things, I had this new job and I was like, I can't, you know, I can't do this. And luckily, I don't even remember where the conversation was.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  I feel like it was at the museum and it was probably within the first year that you were there?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, pretty soon.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  And we just discovered that we were both thinking the same thing.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I was like, I'm never gonna do this myself. And Summer was like, let's do it together. And kind of, you know, it's like having a gym buddy or something like that.

• 3:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  And so we came up with this idea.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  I like this.

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, let's hold each other accountable.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  And we, I do remember distinctly meeting at the cafe, the Hungarian coffee shop.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Hungarian coffee shop.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  By Columbia.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  And trying to suss it out.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, flesh out like what we would do and like, kind of.

• 3:54Chuck Nice?

  Hungarian coffee shop?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  It's very good.

• 3:57Chuck Nice?

  Is it really good?

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a Hungarian pastry shop.

• 3:59Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  That's what it's called.

• 4:00Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, Hungary's not really known for coffee, but then again, Turkish coffee. So, yeah, go ahead. That makes sense. Go ahead.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Um, I do remember that.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  As long as everything makes sense.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Somewhat pieced together origin story. Um, but my favorite is, we, so we, and then, you know, so we kind of brainstormed together, got on the same page, and then made a Google Doc of like, all our ideas. And, you know, here's the things that we've seen in various places. Um, but we needed a name. We didn't have a name.

• 4:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Um, and we started making a little. List of like all of these different space puns. And they were pretty, you know, all kinds of like.

• 4:34Chuck Nice?

  Like, like what?

• 4:35Speaker 01

  With like supernova, like kind of.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Coteur and.

• 4:39Chuck Nice?

  Psycho tour.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Supernova.

• 4:41Chuck Nice?

  Then again, psycho tour, if it didn't sound like crazy fashion.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, some of them you gotta say out loud.

• 4:46Chuck Nice?

  Psycho tour, I'll kill you, galaxy. I'll kill you with space.

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  He doesn't need our help to kill us.

• 4:55Chuck Nice?

  Right. That's so true.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  And so we had a whole, actually it would be really fun to like, share the, the whole list of.

• 5:01Chuck Nice?

  I would love to see that list of, uh, the, because the startorial list actually is.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Kind of amazing.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  Like you can't get much, you can't get a, like a, a much tighter sweet spot than startorial list, I mean.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  So what happened was we were still doing this, like, uh, we were both updating the doc and sort of just looking at it every now and then to see what the other person had come up with and adding comments.

• 5:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  And, uh, I was in an office with a couple of other people at Columbia Postdoc Office, and one of my office mates is Josh Peake, who's now, um, an astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute. And we were sitting there.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Hubble Space Telescope, Baltimore, Maryland.

• 5:39Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  And, and I was sharing with him this idea, cause he's a super creative person. And he just turned to me one day and he goes, "Starterialist?" And I was like, "Oh my God, that's it."

• 5:51Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  And I told Emily and we were like, "Done."

• 5:54Chuck Nice?

  And does he get royalties?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Uh, he should.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  He gets our.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  He does.

• 5:57Chuck Nice?

  He gets your undying love and affection and appreciation.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure I sent him one of our favorite, we have a, we have a favorite.

• 6:04Chuck Nice?

  Did the t-shirt say, "I came up with the name starterialist and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

• 6:09Speaker 02

  You do give him shouts out on Twitter. Anytime somebody asks us about that, I just tag him. I'm like, that was all Josh.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  We do give him a lot of credit and I just realized we don't actually have starterialist t-shirts.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:20Chuck Nice?

  Are you kidding me?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  No, I meant another t-shirt.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  I didn't even wear my starterialist necklace.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, we have, we do have necklaces, but those are just kind of like, like our own necklaces.

• 6:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, cause there are some people who may not want to wear the actual space images, but they would wear starterialist because it's such a cool name.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  It is an awesome name.

• 6:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so you might want to look into getting some Star Tori List t-shirts. I'm just saying.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  We're working on it. We're babysitting.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  It's on the list.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  We've got a long list of things that we want to do.

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so now it's Star Tori List and we made sure, you know, we had, and actually I saved the Twitter. It was a Twitter direct message conversation between Summer and I where she was like Star Tori List. And at first I was like, ah, maybe, no, that's it. It took me maybe about three minutes and the timing is probably still there. And then we had to check and like make sure that it was available on, you know, Twitter, Instagram and stuff. Um, and then we launched three, three years ago, almost three years ago. Three years ago in December is kind of when we started. And so astronomers have this big conference every year in January.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  And so we launched kind of in December, like just before that big conference and then had an official

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  Soft launch.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Kind of launch at the conference in January.

• 7:29Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Um, because it was part of, so our tagline for Star Tori List is, uh, where science meets fashion and where scientists get fabulous.

• 7:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Because we also kind of wanted to bring, like, it wasn't just about, like, you know, this, the astronomy pictures on clothing, but it was also about encouraging scientists to like, adopt this kind of fabulousness and like, display their love for science.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Express themselves.

• 7:55Chuck Nice?

  Express yourself, right.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  New fashion and also recognize that, that there's multiple ways to be a scientist. And so you can wear some little thing, or you can wear a lot, or you can embrace it and.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  And the great thing is the more people that embrace a love of science, the more people will want to adopt science. They will want to adopt a love for science because I think that most people feel as though it's such an arcane, uh, esoteric subject that that's for those guys over there.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  People think like, oh, you know, rumpled shirt and dirty jeans and like, you know, tousled hair and you can't care.

• 8:34Chuck Nice?

  And you're writing on glass all the time.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:36Chuck Nice?

  Equations and.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  But it's like, no, you can wear, you know, like this amazing ball gown with a photo of the moon on it and like also be a scientist. Like you, you know, a lot of it is, is, and especially for the inclusion of women in science where it's, you know, much more culturally acceptable for women to like spend time on their hair and time on their makeup and stuff like that.

• 8:56Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  And so it was like women that were into science kind of had to tone that down a little bit because we were afraid that people like wouldn't take us seriously. Cause it's like, oh, well, if you have time to like, you know, do your hair or wear makeup or something like that, then you're not spending enough time doing research.

• 9:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  You know, for some reason. And so we wanted to kind of normalize the fact that, you know, you can care about these other things that might seem superficial or something like that.

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. I mean, and which is, and that, that is a very female thing, believe it or not, or not, not female thing, but that is a, that's a, um, that's a double standard that's directed only towards females.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Not only, I would say, because I think some, some dudes like also care a lot about fashion.

• 9:38Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm not talking about fashion wise. What I'm saying is, if you're a scientist and you're a guy and you love basketball, you're running around spouting stats on players and no one says to you, so when do you have time to do science? You know so damn much about basketball, you must not be in the laboratory enough for, and you know what I mean? Nobody says that. So.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that I agree with, unfortunately.

• 10:01Chuck Nice?

  Unfortunately. I got a heavy sigh out of Emily on that one. All right, let's get it.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Can I just say, another awesome, awesome benefit of, um, this emergence of all of this science fashion and wearable things and things around your house is it's also a really great talking point and it's a really great like conduit to start conversations about.

• 10:20Chuck Nice?

  About science. That's cool.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Cause I wear a scarf, I go get a coffee, somebody's like, that's a cool scarf. And I'm like, well, actually, let me tell you, it's this star cluster and Hubble took this image. And then we start talking about things. And so it's this really great outreach tool.

• 10:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's yeah. You know what? The absolute point well taken, because that is a great, great way to start a conversation about science. And you'll find so many people who actually, once you start talking about science, and they'll show you like secretly how much they're really into it. It's funny, you know. Well, speaking of people who are into it, let's uh, let's, let's go to our cosmic queries. Um, we always start with the Patreon, uh, patron question, and for those of you who support us on Patreon, uh, you know, we will give you priority when it comes to our cosmic queries. Uh, and in addition to that, let me just let you know that anyone listening right now, you can view this podcast in video form on, uh, star talk all access dot com. So everything that we do, you will find on video form on star talk all access dot com.

• 11:14Chuck Nice?

  So you can just, you don't just have to listen, you can watch. Uh, Chris Ri- Ryu or Ryu uh, from Patreon says this, how long do you think it will be before there are civilian astronauts wearing fashionable clothing? Now, I, I'm not quite sure what he means by civilian astronauts. I think.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  We have those already.

• 11:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  So like tourists, space tourists.

• 11:37Chuck Nice?

  Space tourists.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  There's a bunch of people who have gone to.

• 11:39Chuck Nice?

  Paid to go to space.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, paid to go to space.

• 11:42Chuck Nice?

  Right, so.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Lance Bass, Lance Bass never made it.

• 11:44Chuck Nice?

  He did. Trained.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Trained, but he never made it.

• 11:46Chuck Nice?

  But he didn't go, right? The Russians canceled the. No, I think that it did, you. Something happened. It didn't necessarily secure him a, a spot. Right, oh. But you got to go through the training and stuff, but he, he didn't actually make it into outer space.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  But the, uh, the Intrepid Museum that's here in New York City, and you know, in the Space Shuttle Pavilion, they have the Space Shuttle on the aircraft carrier, and they have a Soyuz there.

• 12:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  And the Soyuz came from a space tourist. I forget the guy's name, which is a shame. It wasn't the first one, I don't think, but it was a guy who paid.

• 12:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  To go into the space, like with, with the Russians, and then he came back and they were like.

• 12:22Chuck Nice?

  And that was his capsule.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were like, you want the capsule too?

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  I forget how many millions of dollars it was. Yeah, but you know, for, it's like, you know, you do a skydiving, you know, trip or something like that, and then it's like, oh, and you pay an extra twenty dollars for the DVD.

• 12:36Chuck Nice?

  You want the plane, dude?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can have the capsule. And he donated it to the Intrepid, which I think is just a wonderful story.

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  That's very. Cool, so space tourist, so, so

• 12:45Speaker 01

  There already are space tourists.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  But, and the other thing is that, this, so the space fashion, the kind of start, like, so we do astronomy, like, we're astronomers, but we really, our blog is kind of more even broader to science fashion in general, and especially space travel. I think Summer's an even bigger fan than I am. And one of the awesome things is that, like, the space wear, like, the astronaut outfits, like jumpsuits, and, and space, um, you know, space suits and things like that are coming into fashion.

• 13:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Like, you know, bomber jackets, like, you know, Mike Massimino can be the coolest guy on the street by just wearing his blue astronaut jacket all over the space.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  So it's kind of going the other way, like astro- astronaut fashion is becoming fashion.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like Kickstarter's, like that Beta Brand jacket, you know, using kind of similar materials, like Tyvek, so for really lightweight materials, and similar designs of like the white with red stripes, and with patches and things like that, or with the orange jumpsuits. That was on what runway show was that?

• 13:45Chuck Nice?

  I believe Orange is the New Black. I believe that was the show.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, well, there was, there was NASA stuff, it was, um, oh, it was in Houston, it's a designer that likes Houston, and is based there, and there, she took her influence from both Houston and Texas, like floral and fauna, but it's also mixed with official NASA patches.

• 14:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  And I'm totally, it's totally escaping me right now.

• 14:07Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's cool. We're on our way, basically. We're, we're headed in that direction.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  It's there, yeah.

• 14:12Chuck Nice?

  It's already, it's already happening.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  I got a pair, I got a pair of vans, um, that are practically, like, they're an imitation, um, inspired by the moon boots.

• 14:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  So it's like off-white canvas, it has a big fat blue thing, and then it has a patch for, um, either the US

• 14:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Uh, flag, and it has a remove from flight zipper up the back, like with the red tag.

• 14:37Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Remove before flight. Yeah, it's awesome.

• 14:40Chuck Nice?

  Yo, that's cool.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 14:42Chuck Nice?

  No, well, excellent. Well, there you go, Chris, there's your answer. We are, we are more than on our way, uh, to space fashion everywhere, which is a good thing. All right, let's move on. This is Jack McCormick coming to us from Facebook, and Jack says this. How much more advanced, this is not a fashion question, but this is just We can do it. Yeah, you know, I'm sure you guys can handle this. Uh, this is what he says. How much more advanced are the signal sending devices on our solar system exploring satellites and space telescopes, uh, space telescopes? Compared to Earth Wi-Fi transmitters, NASA gets a signal from Pluto, I lose my signal when I sit in the corner of my kitchen. So

• 15:19Speaker 01

  The thing about that transmitter from Pluto.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  That's exactly what I was gonna say.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  What is it?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  It's like a modem.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  One kilobyte per second?

• 15:24Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 15:24Speaker 02

  It's less than a modem. But things that are in space, first of all, they're built so far in advance.

• 15:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  That they don't have what we have.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Right, the technology surpasses them because they're built so far.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then they also have limited, uh, space on the craft, so there's a size limitation. There's money limitation, there's weight limitation.

• 15:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  So they really try to go with what can work with the mission.

• 15:46Chuck Nice?

  All right, so then why is it, is it just the space is a vacuum and that there's lack of interference? Why is it that something that's one kilobyte, uh, from Pluto, we're getting

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Not losing a signal?

• 15:57Chuck Nice?

  It's not losing a signal, but he's right. If, if I were to, if I were to walk from my living room to my kitchen, I start roaming. What the hell is that?

• 16:05Speaker 02

  You should check with the architect of your building.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  I think it is the, so, like, it's not just the signal coming from Pluto, but it's this awesome thing that we have on Earth called the Deep Space Network.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Big dishes that are spread all over the Earth so that even as the Earth rotates and, you know, certain parts of the Earth face towards or away the different satellites, then you can, and you can monitor this all online, which is super cool. Like, you can go to the Deep Space Network, um, website and see, like, which dishes on Earth are communicating with which satellites and things like that. And so it's because of this.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  It's one of my favorite websites.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's not just NASA, right? It's all of the different space agencies, I believe, share the Deep Space Network.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then you can also see, the antenna will have two different signals, one that does, uh, one that shows that the antenna is sending a signal to that spacecraft, and one that shows that the spacecraft is talking to the antenna.

• 16:54Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  And then you can click on the antenna or the spacecraft and find out more information about it itself. It's phenomenal.

• 17:00Chuck Nice?

  That is amazing.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  It's interactive, it's live.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  And it's live?

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Livestream.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  So it's all the stuff that's happening while you're watching it right then and there?

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they have the same thing up in the control room in JPL. Mission Control has the exact same display up there.

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that is super cool. That is super cool. Well, there's your answer, Jack. It's really the fact that you need a big giant dish in your house

• 17:24Chuck Nice?

  so that you can get any signal that is sent. It's not the signal being sent, it's the way it's being received, you know? And you know what? Now I understand what my wife means when she says, "I just can't talk to you."

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  "You don't get anything I'm saying." "I need a big..."

• 17:42Speaker 02

  You don't have the right receiver.

• 17:43Chuck Nice?

  "I need a big..." "I don't have the right receiver in my head to understand what this woman is talking about." So now I get... Ooh, you have cleared up so much for me. We have to take a break, but we'll be back with more StarTalk All-Stars right after this.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. We are your all-star hosts today. I'm Summer Ash.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  And I'm Emily Rice.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  And we've been talking to Chuck Nice.

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  About stellar fashion and all things staratorial, because Emily and I run Staratorialist, an astronomy and science fashion blog.

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes, yes. And you know, the cool thing is, while we're doing our cosmic queries, of course, where we take all of your questions, those of you who are listening out there, whether you send them to us on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever we are found on the internet. But before we get back into our queries, I really do want to talk about the Staratorialist and your fashions, because you are wearing your fashions right now. And maybe you can describe to the people exactly what you have on. By the way, all very, very cool. I would absolutely wear the hoodie that Emily is wearing. And for those of you who are wondering what this might look like, well, there's a very simple solution to that. You can go to starTalkAllAccess.com, where you can actually see this podcast in video form. So tell me about what you're wearing.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  Emily, you have on this hoodie. And what is on the hoodie first?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  I have this hoodie, it's by Black Milk Clothing.

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Um, who I think is the, the company, at least is the first company that I came across that made the galaxy leggings that we were talking about earlier. But now they make all kinds of things, dresses, hoodies. And so I happened to buy a hoodie because it's a nice and big size and it covers my, uh, star forming region in my belly right now. You can also see on Star, Star Talk, All Stars, All.

• 19:26Chuck Nice?

  Yes, for those of you who are wondering what that means, uh, Emily is with child and about to give birth to something that will totally change our universe.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  So I've heard.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  This one is called, so the, one of the weird things about astronomy fashion is that like the names of things aren't always accurate, but we try to, you know, especially astronomers. Yeah, that's where kind of we come in. We have actually two, um, uh, kind of characters on the blog. One's pedantic astronomer that likes to correct everything. And then we have poetic astronomer that really like loves everything spacey, no matter what it is. And so this one's called like a purple galaxy sweatshirt, but it's actually kind of bluish and reddish and it's actually images of, um, the constellation Orion. Yeah. So we can actually point out like the, the horse head nebula and the flame nebula that are in Orion's belt. I think this is actually the Orion nebula up on my shoulder.

• 20:18Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  So this is a wide field image of something that we can see in the night sky, like a wide field image in the Orion constellation.

• 20:26Chuck Nice?

  Wow. And that particular image is gleaned from where?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  This one I actually don't know. That's bad of me because usually I know, I think this one is not the Hubble Space Telescope because it's, this is a much wider field of view than the Hubble Space Telescope. And so I think this is some kind of ground based telescope and I believe it's also an optical image.

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  And it could even be an amateur image because this is something like this wide of a field of view is relatively, it's even more easily obtained by a small telescope.

• 20:56Chuck Nice?

  Cool, cool. Then you know what? All those things are asked in our queries, so that's, you've touched on some points that we're gonna get to, uh, just to tease for those of you listening. And, um, Summer, what are you wearing? Cause that is, that's really cool.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Would you say it's out of this world?

• 21:11Chuck Nice?

  I would indeed.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  So it's also a hoodie, except that it's, um, it's open in the front and it's reversible.

• 21:19Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  So there's a company, another company that does a lot of the galaxy prints, um, and they're based here in Brooklyn. Um, sorry, we're not in Brooklyn, but they're very close by and they're called Shadow Play NYC.

• 21:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  And so they did a limited release maybe last year or a year and a half ago. Um, and so it's a, it's a proper hoodie and on one whole side, it's a print of what they call Sagan's galaxy.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, they call this one Sagan's galaxy. Also actually a nebula, and this nebula is NGC, oh, 602, I think NGC 602.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I knew you would, I knew she'd have that.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Either the large or the small Magellanic Cloud.

• 21:56Chuck Nice?

  And you got it right, what do you know, see, look at that.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Tucker's fact checking us live.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, and so you can either wear it with the galaxy on the outside and then sort of have this loose fold in over lapel that's black, or you can reverse it and then have the little peak of the galaxy.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Oh, I have this, yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Sort of showing, and Emily actually, I think, has a matching scarf.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I think it's the same image on the scarf, yeah, I brought my scarf along and it's the same image, it's a little bit easier to see on the scarf, yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  So Shadow Play would actually have a series of products with the same galaxy on it.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Kind of the same print on different.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  So they would have a dress top, a shirt top, a scarf on two different sizes.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Here's my favorite part, my favorite part, because this is like a nebula in the, either the large or the small Magellanic Cloud, I can never remember, and so it's this kind of, you know, it's, it's a lot of diffuse gas and you can see individual stars, but then you can also see this tiny little spiral galaxy that's actually a very even more distant foreground galaxy, yeah, and so I just love, you know, the, the combination of stars and galaxies and, and gas and colors and.

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  All put together.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  This whole idea of depth of field too, that space, there's so many things that are out there and they're, they're, they look like they're over, they look like they might be at the same distance.

• 23:13Chuck Nice?

  But they're not.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  That you're seeing a whole range of distances.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  You can just kind of keep going.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  And ages and times and all that cool stuff.

• 23:18Chuck Nice?

  That's super cool.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  I also have, there's another cool company that we know of called, um, they used to be called Jersey Maids and now they're, Yugen?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Yugen Tribe.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Yugen Tribe, um, and they have like a couple different necklace series where they are.

• 23:32Chuck Nice?

  That's a locket.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Magnetic.

• 23:34Chuck Nice?

  That's a magnet, that looked like a locket.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  You can buy a whole set of magnets that are different galaxies and nebulae.

• 23:39Chuck Nice?

  And then switch them out.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  And customize, or they have a solar system one too, where you can just pick your planet.

• 23:45Chuck Nice?

  And you're wearing this pendant and it looks like something from Men in Black, like that should be an actual, like there's, there's a spaceship parked off of our, uh, off of Earth right now, waiting to kill us all so it can get that pendant, that's what that looks like.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  This is actually the Cat's Eye Nebula, isn't it?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  So it's a, and this is a funny thing with nebulae that, um, They call it a planetary nebula, but it's sort of, they used to think that was where the beginning of the process of planets forming started.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  But it's actually the end stage of a star's life.

• 24:16Chuck Nice?

  Oh, so we thought it was the birth and it's really the death.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  It's really the death. They die in spectacular.

• 24:21Chuck Nice?

  It's the Benjamin Button of space. Poor guy.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  It is.

• 24:27Chuck Nice?

  He's such a cute baby that's about to die. Okay, all right, yo, that is super cool. That is all great stuff, man.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  I just like this all the time.

• 24:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, guess what? Who should?

• 24:38Speaker 02

  We kinda do.

• 24:39Chuck Nice?

  You should. I mean, really, and like you say, it looks good and it's also a conversation starter too, so I kinda dig it. Yo, all right, well, let's get back into our cosmic queries. And it's the first time I've ever sung that. I gotta tell you.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 24:54Chuck Nice?

  It felt really good. Cosmic queries. So.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  You should do a jingle. Let's put that on a note.

• 25:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's put it. Exactly. Here we go. You know what? I found this to be a fascinating question from Martin Morriera on Facebook. I'm not sure if he's, I think I know what he's trying to say here. What happens if the Earth is really a flat surface but from space seems round because of the distortion of the gravity that produces on light when it reaches our sight? Is it possible to believe that the entire universe is like a giant 3D flat surface that we understand as round objects because of the gravity? I'm not a flat Earth guy, by the way, just wondering. Now, what he's saying is somewhat obfuscated by a few different things that he's drawing

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  from if I think I understand him. One, the Earth is actually round. It's like a ball. It is a sphere. It doesn't appear to be a sphere. Wait, I should let you guys explain all this. What the hell am I doing?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  You can explain the question, yeah.

• 25:57Chuck Nice?

  But I'm trying to explain the question.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:59Chuck Nice?

  So, but what I think he is trying to do is ask you about what I believe to be the theoretical.

• 26:08Chuck Nice?

  Shape or topology of the universe. Because there are two different universes. There's the real universe, okay. There's the universe that we see. And then there is the theoretical topology of the universe, which is 3D. So can you, can you explain that? Because I don't even think I explained it well. But I think I know what he's talking about.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:30Chuck Nice?

  It, it, does that make sense, what I just said?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Well, your question, your interpretation of the question makes sense.

• 26:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay, then, then let's go with my interpretation of the question.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  You're gonna run with it?

• 26:37Chuck Nice?

  Because I don't want to say to Martin, your question doesn't make any sense.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:41Chuck Nice?

  Your question doesn't make any sense to anybody but me.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  So, can I just take the first part? Just to clarify what you were saying, that there are these two things that we describe as the universe.

• 26:54Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  And one of them is the universe that we see, which we call the observable universe.

• 26:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  And so that one is us here on Earth, looking out in all directions.

• 27:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  And as far as we can see. And so that forms a sphere.

• 27:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Because we're, it's a, it's a full sphere. We're looking all around. So that's, the observable universe does have a geometric shape in 3D space that we can say is a sphere.

• 27:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  But the universe itself, that's a different question. And you can't really conceive it as a 3D dimensional shape. But you can describe it by what happens on different 3D dimensional shapes for space and time. Like, so that's, that's where that flat.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  It's harder to comprehend the kind of geo, the overall geometry of the universe. Because it's really a geometry in, not the three dimensions that we're used to, but the four dimensions of space and time.

• 27:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  And so we think on the largest scales that the universe is actually flat overall.

• 27:52Chuck Nice?

  Overall.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  So unlike the Earth that it, you know, looks flat nearby, and, but is actually round, if you go far enough. The universe, we think, looks flat nearby and is also flat at large distances, at large extents.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Um, but that's flat in three dimensions.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  And not two dimensions.

• 28:12Chuck Nice?

  Right, because when we look out-

• 28:14Speaker 01

  There's three space dimensions of the universe.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Alright, cool, cool.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  That, that describes, and it's because it's flat, because if you went in one direction, you would never come back to where you started.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Which is what the sphere would describe.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:28Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. Okay.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  You could come back to where you started if the universe was a, was, had a spherical topology.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  We could also, and there's even a third option, instead of spherical or flat, the universe at one point, like the other option was, it's sometimes called a saddle, saddle, saddle-shaped topology, more like a pringle, as opposed to a sphere, yeah.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Salty parabola.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Delicious, yes. A delicious salty parabola.

• 28:56Chuck Nice?

  Now I'm hungry, I don't know why.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  We've ruled out that, and we think we've also ruled out the, this, the saddle or pringle shape is called a negative curvature.

• 29:05Chuck Nice?

  Negative curvature.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  The positive curvature is the, the spherical shape.

• 29:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  So we think we've ruled those out, and we think that the universe overall is flat.

• 29:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  But flat in three dimensions of space.

• 29:18Chuck Nice?

  Right. Not flat like you look at a piece of paper, flat.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, because that's flat in two dimensions.

• 29:23Chuck Nice?

  That's flat in two dimensions.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:25Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. Yeah, because we're looking at it in the four dimensions.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  And then there's the four dimensions of space and time, yeah.

• 29:32Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  That's when you start to talk about travel and light moving through space.

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, I, I gotta tell you-

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Aren't we talking about fashion?

• 29:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, let's get back to fashion, but still, that was a-

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Wrapped in space time.

• 29:42Chuck Nice?

  That was still a faci-, yeah. It's a fascinating question, Martin, I mean, yeah, I'm glad we did it. Let's get back to something fashion. Let's, um, let's go to, um,

• 29:53Chuck Nice?

  this comes to us from Google Plus with no name on it. Wow. Sorry about that. Here we go. "I have noticed an increase in space-inspired clothing and have always wondered, why is it always cats and Alexi?" Could it be that cats are our superior beings? The creators of our universe? Observing from inside? What do you think this new fashion trend show, where it will go? I personally love how it spreads science. There you go. Oh, it's from He Who Is Nobody.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  That explains the lack of a name.

• 30:26Chuck Nice?

  There you go, lack of a name, He Who Is Nobody. So, there you go. What is the deal with cats and space?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  What's up with cats in space?

• 30:32Speaker 01

  We've also noticed that. It's such, it's a thing.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Fabulous things to look at. I enjoy cats and I enjoy space.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  And sometimes, sometimes it's also pizza. Sometimes it's pizza on the space background. Yeah. We actually have a special, so we have like days of the week themes for our blog.

• 30:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Like we have Moon Monday or Moon Day. We have Tuesday Shoes Day. So sometimes they're like different, you know, different astronomical objects. Sometimes they're different, like clothing themes for different days of the week. And for Saturday, we not only, we have Saturn Day.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Or Saturnalia.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Saturnalia.

• 31:06Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  That the, of course, the day was named after the planet.

• 31:09Chuck Nice?

  That's what it was.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  But we also have Catter Day.

• 31:12Chuck Nice?

  Catter Day.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  That's a thing on the internet.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  That's a thing on the internet?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  And you think like, oh, you know, a couple, you know, space cat things and, and that'll be done pretty quickly. And, oh no.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  They just keep coming.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  There's lots and lots of, like, there's a whole cast, cat, cat, trus, astronaut?

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  Astronaut.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Astronaut.

• 31:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay. I'm gonna tell you, as a man.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 31:30Chuck Nice?

  That sounds painful.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  It's a cat in a space.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm just telling you right now. The one thing in the world, I'm not signing up for the astronaut program, you know? That's all I'm telling you.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Kitty, kitty, kitty astronaut, I should maybe say.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  I kinda wanna come back of Pigs in Space. Cause I grew up on that and that was kind of amazing.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  That's, yeah.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  We should have Miss Piggy, we should start a Miss Piggy in Galaxy.

• 31:51Chuck Nice?

  Pigs in Space. Well, that's very cool. I'm glad.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Lots of cats and we don't know why. We don't, I think maybe because it's the internet. Yeah. The internet loves space, the internet loves.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  Loves cats. You put the two together and you get cats.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:03Chuck Nice?

  All right. And by the way, I found out that this was actually not from He Who Is Nobody. It's from Snap Shooting. And it came to us, uh, from Instagram.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Okay. Instagram also loves cats.

• 32:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's, that is so true.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  I follow a lot of cat accounts there.

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  There you go. All right, now here's what He Who Is Nobody actually wrote in, which you guys may not be able to answer, but it says...

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Sounds like a challenge.

• 32:27Chuck Nice?

  No, no, it's just the nature of the question, it's really not a challenge.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:30Chuck Nice?

  Uh, "Which garment of Dr. Tyson's do you think best captures the cosmos?" Ahhh.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  I should have worn a different shirt today.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Why?

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Because I have a shirt that is inspired by Neil's star vest.

• 32:47Chuck Nice?

  By his star vest?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  He does have the celestial vest, which has got the... I have a thing with the...

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Personified sort of...

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Neil's not here. Yeah, it's a very, like, it's very 80s, I think. I think it was a thing in the 80s that came from, like, glassware or something with the, you know, the crescent moons with the face in it and the sun with the triangles.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  And it looks like it's hand drawn, it wouldn't be like, it's not like a photo image.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Hapistries or hand drawn, yeah. Which is, I mean, that's iconic, the fact that he's in a Superman comic, wearing that, and, you know, the fact that you can...

• 33:18Speaker 02

  His Lego character has it on it.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  His Lego character, like...

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  Uh, what? Wait a minute, Neil is a Lego character?

• 33:26Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that. Is Neil a Lego character? Let me check the booth.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  It's not an official Lego character.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  You can't buy Neil.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  It's like a custom, you know, how you might buy a custom Star Trek or Star Wars figure. It's a custom Lego figure that this woman named Maya Winstock makes.

• 33:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, that would be so awesome. I just want to hear Neil just singing, "Everything is awesome." Okay.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  So there's another one of our vendors, Pauline Acklin, made a t-shirt that has the vest on it.

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  That had...

• 33:55Speaker 01

  So you can wear the t-shirt, you know, like a tuxedo t-shirt, but it's a Neil Tyson t-shirt.

• 34:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, so it's actually Neil's vest on a t-shirt. How meta is that? That's crazy.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  I like to wear it and say, "Today, the role of Neil Tyson will be played by someone."

• 34:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, cool.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Uh, so we have to take a break.

• 34:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  And maybe when we come back, we can talk about the makeover, the fashion makeover that we would love to give Neil Tyson.

• 34:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, let's do that.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. I'm Emily Rice. And I'm Summer Ash. And thanks to our co-host Chuck Nice for being here.

• 34:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Talking about fashion.

• 34:33Chuck Nice?

  This is fun. I love it. And you know, we've gotten some-

• 34:35Speaker 01

  And science.

• 34:36Chuck Nice?

  Fashion and science.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  They're not two different things. There's this big intersect. Venn diagram.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  They do overlap, fashion and science. And they overlap on what you're wearing right now, both of you, which are wearing really cool, fashion-inspired hoodies, which I gotta tell you, do they have any that are darker? Like, I like it-

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:57Chuck Nice?

  Like, just where it's like, just like a spiral galaxy on the front, or something like that. I could find that, like, in a hoodie?

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yes, we can send it to you.

• 35:05Chuck Nice?

  You can send it to me?

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna buy it. You just made a sale. I'm all about it. I'm telling you.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  I really wish we sold stuff. I know.

• 35:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 35:13Speaker 01

  We're gonna get on that. We're working on it.

• 35:15Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute. You guys just blog about it? You don't actually sell stuff?

• 35:19Speaker 01

  In all our spare time?

• 35:20Chuck Nice?

  Ladies, we have got to talk, okay?

• 35:23Speaker 01

  We're working on it. Like, actually, one of the things that we would like to share with you is that we started to collaborate with some people that are designers. So one of the great things about making this blog is that we've come into contact with a lot of people who make science-inspired clothing and jewelry and things like that. And so we have inspired, mostly jewelry so far? Yeah. Have we done clothing? Like, not yet, maybe? Yeah, I think we're on the border. Holly might be working on something for us. We're on the cusp. But we have a new collection that's coming out very, very soon with Sci Sheik, who is actually an engineering student, an undergraduate student. I think she's graduating in December.

• 36:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  And she does 3D-printed jewelry.

• 36:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cool.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  I'm holding up one now that is actually, do you recognize this?

• 36:08Chuck Nice?

  All I know is this. There are two spheres, one very large, one very small, circles. Because they're not spheres, because they're flat. They're flat. And then around it, there seems to be, like, a pattern that circles the large circle, and then that pattern then proceeds to the small circle and goes around it several times. So, and I gotta tell you, I have an idea, but I don't know what it is.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  It kind of like, it looks almost like an abstract pattern or something like that, like a curlicue or something.

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it almost looks like a treble clef.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  I was gonna say.

• 36:44Chuck Nice?

  It almost looks like a treble clef, or a musical note.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  It actually represents the lunar orbit insertion trajectory.

• 36:50Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  So this is the trajectory orbiting Earth and then going to the moon, orbiting around the moon, that the Apollo astronauts took.

• 36:57Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you can wear it as jewelry. Yeah. It's 3D printed by an amazing company.

• 37:05Chuck Nice?

  And why is it a lunar Earth insertion? Why do they call that the insertion? Where's that come from?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Lunar orbit insertion?

• 37:10Chuck Nice?

  Lunar orbit insertion.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Because you're inserting the spacecraft into the lunar orbit.

• 37:14Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  I believe.

• 37:15Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so that's cool.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. And so I wore this on my StarTalk episode.

• 37:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, nice.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Uh, with a moon t-shirt.

• 37:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, very cool.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can also accessorize in... You can dress all in moon if you like.

• 37:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, all moon if you want. And let me just say that, uh, lunar orbit insertion sounds so, so very dirty. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  StarTalk after hour.

• 37:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's StarTalk.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  StarTalk after dark. StarTalk all, all access.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Coming later.

• 37:48Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead, go ahead.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  So, so she, that's one that she already had, and she teamed up with us and said, "What would you like to see 3D printed that you can wear as jewelry?"

• 37:56Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  And so we picked out some things, we picked out...

• 37:59Chuck Nice?

  You got the Hubble telescope right there. I see that.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Right?

• 38:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  And then this one's a little bit trickier. It's a bunch of little squares, but this means a lot to me. This is the field of view of the Kepler space telescope.

• 38:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I was gonna say, thank God I didn't know that. Cause if I had gotten that, I've been hanging around you guys for too long. Okay? I went into the wrong field, profession, if I actually recognized that as the field of view of the Kepler. I would have, you know, but that's really cool, though. And can you tell me how that represents the field of view of the Kepler, please?

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is actually like by field of view, I mean, this is literally like the, each of the little rectangles is what Kepler uses to collect data.

• 38:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  So you can think of it as the field of view. As like the kind of footprint on the sky that Kepler can observe.

• 38:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Or you can think about it on the opposite sense that this is actually the detector in the telescope.

• 38:54Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  This is like the detector that's collecting all of the photons from the stars.

• 38:57Chuck Nice?

  So it'll be like if, if, if it's outside, it's what it's seeing and if it's inside, then it would be like the CMOS chip on a camera.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 39:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool, yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  And then we also have one that's-

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Another one?

• 39:09Chuck Nice?

  What's that?

• 39:10Speaker 02

  You can also tell me if you recognize it.

• 39:12Chuck Nice?

  Let me see that.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  It's been in the news lately.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I do not recognize that and, uh, and I can't remember. Go ahead.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  It's the James Webb Space Telescope.

• 39:19Chuck Nice?

  That's it!

• 39:21Speaker 01

  It's the primary mirror segments from the James Webb Space Telescope.

• 39:24Chuck Nice?

  Honeycomb mirror segments, yes.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  And they, the telescope is now fully manufactured and assembled.

• 39:29Chuck Nice?

  And when are we launching?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Now they have to do the testing. In October 2018.

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  So two, October 2018, uh, Webb, the Webb Telescope will go. And unfortunately, this is supposed to be, this will be, it's not supposed to be. This will indeed be the most advanced telescope that we have ever put into space.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:48Chuck Nice?

  And it will allow us to see imagery that we've never seen before, right?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And as opposed to Hubble, um, this one is going to primarily look in the infrared. There will be some overlap in the visible wavelengths.

• 40:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  But this one is also going not in Earth orbit.

• 40:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  But it's going to what we call a Lagrange point, which is a stable orbit on the far side of the moon.

• 40:09Chuck Nice?

  Right. That's, wow.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  So there's no repair in it.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  Right. Well, once it's gone, it's gone.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  It's gone. But that's also so because it's infrared, Earth actually radiates in infrared. Like, we sort of give off heat. We have-

• 40:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Some heat, excess heat to give off and it's so it doesn't actually get contaminated or it doesn't-

• 40:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Influence the-

• 40:27Chuck Nice?

  Right, it won't influence the, uh, the imagery that we, that we receive.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:30Chuck Nice?

  Uh, but, okay, cool. Yo, that is all cool, cool.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Stuff that we helped design.

• 40:35Chuck Nice?

  I love it. All right, that is awesome. Let's move on to another query. This one from Ryan Parker coming to us from Facebook. Thank you for writing in, Ryan. Ryan says this, "Are the guidelines for manipulating interstellar images such as the fabulous ones from Hubble, um, we often see contrast-enhanced wildly colored finished photos?"

• 40:56Chuck Nice?

  And wavelengths that we wouldn't be able to perceive with our feeble senses. But is there a point when it becomes too close to fantasy? And by the way, I am writing from um forty five point five to three one degrees north. Uh one twenty two point six seven six five degrees west, just so you know.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  We're pointing our space uh our our spy satellite.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes, right where you are.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Right now.

• 41:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah. Watch out, Ryan. We're watching you. All right. Anyway, I see what he's saying. Some of these, explain to us about the imagery that we see. I mean, more importantly than what he's talking about, the manipulating of these images for fashion purposes. When we see these images, what are we really looking at? And that's, I think that's what he's trying to get to.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:44Chuck Nice?

  And when do we take those interpretations, if they might be called that, too far?

• 41:51Speaker 01

  The the answer is that it varies as to like how realistic it is, something that we're looking at.

• 41:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Um, like he said, there's, you know, there's visible light that we can see with our eyes, and I think that my sweatshirt is is an image taken in visible light.

• 42:04Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Um, but then there's infrared images, infrared light that we can't see with our eyes. And the Hubble telescope also observes it in infrared light.

• 42:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  But we can take that and we just have to take that data, it's real scientific data, and then map it to colors that we can see.

• 42:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Um, and you know, and so some people might say like, oh, but that's not realistic. But it's still real. It's real scientific data. And and I think a lot of the um space agencies that run these space telescopes are very good at doing it in very kind of repeatable, reproducible ways.

• 42:35Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  So, for example, a lot of um the space images come from the Hubble Space Telescope.

• 42:40Chuck Nice?

  Correct, yes.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Very well known, but also the Spitzer Space Telescope. It's less well known. It's an infrared space telescope that was in an, it still is in an earth trailing orbit. Not all of the instruments work anymore, but um it observed images in infrared wavelengths and mid infrared wavelengths longer than our eyes can see. And also the Chandra X-ray telescope works in X-rays, so really high energy photons.

• 43:02Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Um, and all of these, like, you know, because they're also NASA telescopes. All of the data is public, all of the images are public for public use, you know, Creative Commons, like you can put them on stuff and sell them.

• 43:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  These images, which is fantastic for designers. And even some of my favorite images are the same object, the same space object, maybe a nebula or a galaxy, observed by all three different space telescopes.

• 43:26Chuck Nice?

  And are there three different, right, but now would there be three different renderings?

• 43:31Speaker 01

  It'd be three, it'd be, it'd be all the same picture.

• 43:35Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  But there'd be kind of three different, like, color palettes a little bit.

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  And so, for example, this NGC 602 that Summer's wearing, this, this, there's this one version that's just the Hubble image, but then there's another version that also adds the Spitzer observations and the Chandra observations, and it's much more kind of neon, because you usually map the X-ray data, the X-ray photons, to kind of neon blue or purple or pink or something like that.

• 44:03Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  And the infrared images also tend to get, like, bright red or green or something like that. They kind of map the, the, the data that is at wavelengths that we can't see onto particular colors that are representative.

• 44:16Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  And it's an art form as well. There's some people that do this professionally, for astronomers, to make press release images and things like that, and it's just, it's beautiful what they can come up with.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  And I just wanted to add that actually, so those different wavelengths, especially for objects that I like, which are supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies.

• 44:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  The different wavelengths are actually seeing different material.

• 44:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  So, the infrared is also much more sensitive to dust.

• 44:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  And the X-ray is really sensitive to hot gas.

• 44:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  And so, a lot of times, for those images of galaxies in those different wavelengths, you're not actually seeing the same sort of outline or object even.

• 44:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  The emissions coming in different shapes.

• 44:57Chuck Nice?

  Right, because the materials that they're actually being able to see are different.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they're invisible in some of the other wavelengths. So then you put them all three together, and the cool thing about, that's what I love about astronomy too, is that you have to look in all these different ways to see the full picture.

• 45:11Chuck Nice?

  See the full picture, right. And, and so, it's just like, it's so, so, if I might, and I'm, I'm just, I'm spitballing here. Because I'm trying to get my own, this is what I do. I, I, I listen to this stuff. I learn something. No, I learned something and then I see if I'm processing it correctly by what I'm able to make an association. So how I'm able to make the association lets me know, do I really understand you? And so when you're talking about these wavelengths and you're talking about the materials, it's kind of, it's kind of like hypersonic sound versus sound that we can hear. Is it along those, you understand what I'm saying? Like, so it's like, yes, that sound is there. You just can't hear it. But if I were able to get you a different listening device, then you would actually have a representation of what it sounds like to you. But that's not actually the hypersonic sound that you're hearing.

• 45:55Chuck Nice?

  That's your representation of the hypersonic sound, because you can't hear it.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:59Chuck Nice?

  Is that right?

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Like feeling the sound, you know, sometimes there's a bass that's like so low that you can't hear it.

• 46:04Chuck Nice?

  Right, or right, exactly.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Or like a high pitched thing that like you, you can't hear it, but maybe you can see something vibrating.

• 46:10Chuck Nice?

  Vibrating, so this is what it's like, I mean, for me, yeah. So see, so.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Just kind of translate it into.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Both those things are all just spectrums of frequencies.

• 46:18Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  So sound frequency, light frequency, yeah. And so the thing is with the images that match up with the galaxies, you have a picture that's showing you three different things going on in the galaxy too. And so those are my favorite composites.

• 46:31Chuck Nice?

  That's cool. So when you get those composites, it's bringing them all together.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 46:35Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Not just the colors, but it's also like the physical phenomenon that produce these.

• 46:39Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  This radiation that, it's so science.

• 46:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it really is.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  It's like an image on a T-shirt. And it's so rich with science. It's amazing.

• 46:48Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Let's move on.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Uh oh.

• 46:54Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Jess Mink from Facebook says, why are galaxy prints so awesome? They're, they are on everything. Are they real nebulous or an artist's interpretation? Either way, they are awesome.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I got a feeling that Jess is about thirteen. No, I'm joking.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  I would use awesome just as much. I say awesome just as much, even though I know we're not supposed to necessarily.

• 47:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. That's what they say.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  That's the thing. Like, so I actually, I was wearing this actually a couple of weekends ago to visit a friend of mine. And she was like, "Oh, that's awesome. It's space." And I was like, "Yeah, it's a real, you know, it's a real image. Here's the Horsehead Nebula and stuff." And she was like, "Oh, it just looks like a pattern to me." And I realized, I was like, "Oh, like astronomers, I think, have this like sixth sense or something like that where it's like, we can pick out like, you know, that's a real galaxy. We don't always know the galaxy. Sometimes we do. That's a little bit of a party trick."

• 47:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  But like astronomers can distinguish real space from fake space a little bit.

• 47:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Um, and actually, a lot of the things, I mean, our favorite things, I think, are the real space, but also the fake space is pretty nice sometimes. You know, there's a lot like planet-scapes and, you know, kind of different images put together and representative stuff. Um, one of the things that I don't know that I would love to find out is kind of what are, why some things look like space even when they're not space. We need a neurosciences for that. Yeah, I want to do like a psych experiment of like, what people recognize as space versus what they don't think is space.

• 48:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  I have this one dress that I bought at Macy's like several years ago, and it looks like one of the Hubble Deep Fields. And if you don't know what a Hubble Deep Field is, Google it right now. But they're, for most astronomers know, and I think a lot of science buffs knows, science buffs know that they're this, like a dark field with just lots and lots of galaxies

• 48:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  in this field. Um, and there's, there are several different kind of generations of them. Hubble Deep Field, Ultra Deep Field, Extreme Deep Field. And I have this one dress that's, I really think it's just a pattern. It's like a black with a, like a little bit of a splatter pattern and some different colors. But any astronomer looks at it and says, "That's, where did you get that Hubble Deep Field dress?" And I was like, "Macy's, Macy's at 34th Street." Like, it's, I don't think it's the Hubble Deep Field. It could be and just very manipulated, but I haven't been able to actually match it up with any of the Hubble Deep Fields yet. I think it's like somebody saw the Hubble Deep Field and wanted to reproduce it.

• 49:18Chuck Nice?

  As a pattern.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  But didn't actually Maybe. use the physical one to go one to one.

• 49:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  So it's like the same objects, but all just.

• 49:25Chuck Nice?

  Basically, some designer ripped off the Hubble Deep Field. That's basically what it is.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Which you can, it's not even ripped off.

• 49:30Chuck Nice?

  Which is not bad at all. No, I'm not saying, you know.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  It's free to do.

• 49:33Chuck Nice?

  It's not like the Hubble Deep Field has like, you know, attorneys.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  They don't have kids, doesn't have kids to feed or anything.

• 49:39Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, right, you know what I mean?

• 49:41Speaker 01

  But then some of them are, like every once in a while, like I have this pair of leggings that I think are from like Kohl's or something like that.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, you know, it looks like a, you know, a fake space. I thought, oh, like generic nebula or something like that. And then I looked at a particular shape on the leggings and I was like, that looks familiar. And I actually noticed that it was, it's the LH95, I believe, the Star forming region image by Hubble. And I was like, no, it is that same image. It's just very, very manipulated, you know, different colors and, and stuff like that. But it's, so it was like these leggings that, you know, I bought for $8 at Kohl's, like really are a real space image.

• 50:16Chuck Nice?

  A real space image, right.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  And you never kind of know.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  We had such a hilarious time once where there were these leggings that someone was wearing to do yoga in and they posted them on Twitter. And myself and Phil Plait had this whole back and forth going, I think it's this, no, I think it's this.

• 50:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  And we had like this cosmic detective hunt. We finally found it. Yeah, we were joking about.

• 50:40Chuck Nice?

  You actually found it?

• 50:41Speaker 02

  And I found it and I was like, done. Yeah. But you had to keep zooming in and looking at it different ways to match it.

• 50:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  This is the kind of stuff that keeps us up at night if we're not observing.

• 50:50Chuck Nice?

  Well, listen, there are worse things that keep you up at night. And for you, being pregnant, believe me, in just a little bit of time, believe me, something else is going to be keeping you up at night. All right, uh, let's, um, I got, I got one quick, quick question. And it says.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Real quick?

• 51:04Chuck Nice?

  Real quick, because I know we're at the end of our show. And, uh, at Witstep wants to know this. Do you think the designs and fashion and an increase, has increased, uh, female interest in astronomy or in any cosmos field? Do you think that?

• 51:20Speaker 02

  That is our hope.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Well, I think honestly that it doesn't because it doesn't need to, because I think women are already interested in science.

• 51:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Frankly, what I think that this does is this kind of normalizes the participation of women in science.

• 51:34Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  And, you know, and other people, you know, because it's not just women that are interested in fashion, but it.

• 51:38Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  It normalizes this like, you know, having hobbies and being interested in other things and also being enthusiastic about what you do and not necessarily, you know, only wearing like a graph paper shirt and, and dirty jeans or something like that.

• 51:52Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Being willing to to share the cosmos.

• 51:56Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  And not just live in your own little universe.

• 51:58Chuck Nice?

  Well, I have enjoyed this. I think it was awesome for the fact that we were able to talk about fashion and science, which you, when you think about it, you don't really think those two come together, like when you first think about it. But I have to say.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do.

• 52:16Chuck Nice?

  They do. They do in a very big way.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  You've been listening to StarTalk All-Stars. Thanks so much, Chuck, for co-hosting with us today.

• 52:23Chuck Nice?

  Thank you. Awesome.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  I'm Emily Rice. Keep asking questions.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  And I'm Summer Ash. Hubbell got you.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  This is StarTalk.