Cosmic Queries with Bill Nye and Astro Mike

Join guest host Bill Nye the Science Guy, Eugene Mirman and NASA astronaut Mike Massimino as they have a blast answering your questions while Neil’s off working on COSMOS.

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.

• 0:21Bill Nye?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. Bill Nye, the Science Guy here, guest hosting for my beloved colleague Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm here with Eugene Mirman and Mike Massimino, whom we call Mass because it's a complicated name.

• 0:38Mike Massimino?

  It's hard to pronounce Massimino. Yeah, I'm glad, I'm lucky I got it right.

• 0:41Eugene Mirman?

  You can't tell, but I literally just tried and failed and I just give up.

• 0:45Bill Nye?

  That aside, gentlemen, I want to point out, this is Cosmic Queries Edition, StarTalk Radio, so we take your questions out there in the in the land of, yes, the cosmos, which includes the Earth and social media.

• 1:02Eugene Mirman?

  So Earth and up and down.

• 1:05Bill Nye?

  Wait a minute.

• 1:05Eugene Mirman?

  In every direction. Here we go. Here we go. Sebastian Mihalajeh from Romania.

• 1:13Mike Massimino?

  He's got a nickname too.

• 1:14Eugene Mirman?

  I probably am saying it wrong, but you know what? With confidence. Anyway, from Romania, he asks, "Which was the most important breakthrough in the history of electronics?"

• 1:24Bill Nye?

  I think the ability to generate electricity in the first place was a big breakthrough. Instead of just getting it, if I may, just getting it from chemical processes. Is he looking for a transistor?

• 1:33Eugene Mirman?

  I don't know.

• 1:34Mike Massimino?

  We don't know.

• 1:35Eugene Mirman?

  Or is he looking for a starter in an automobile?

• 1:38Mike Massimino?

  Or is looking for fuel cells?

• 1:39Eugene Mirman?

  Fuel cells.

• 1:40Mike Massimino?

  Or...

• 1:41Eugene Mirman?

  Basically electricity and then everything.

• 1:43Mike Massimino?

  Electricity is the big breakthrough, but then there's been some, some very, very interesting accomplishments.

• 1:48Eugene Mirman?

  I just wish you were like tape recorders.

• 1:50Mike Massimino?

  Like the light bulb.

• 1:51Bill Nye?

  Well, for me, the story...

• 1:52Mike Massimino?

  Radio, of course, because we're on radio.

• 1:55Bill Nye?

  Well, the story for me is Michael Faraday. So Michael Faraday is sticking the magnet in a coil of wire and he induces a magnetic field to move a compass at the other end of the table during a lecture, the Christmas lectures in London.

• 2:08Eugene Mirman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09Bill Nye?

  A woman comes up to him and says, "But Mr. Faraday, of what use is it?" And he says... Madam, of what use is a newborn babe? In other words, he knew this electricity had some fantastic properties, but he didn't know what it was.

• 2:24Eugene Mirman?

  He didn't mean that you could eat it.

• 2:26Bill Nye?

  Yeah, newborn babes not that useful.

• 2:28Mike Massimino?

  It's a long time ago. It was a different, it was a different time.

• 2:31Bill Nye?

  But in the course of human history, it wasn't that long ago.

• 2:34Eugene Mirman?

  No, just a little bit ago.

• 2:36Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 2:37Eugene Mirman?

  Just before Hogan's Heroes, I believe.

• 2:40Bill Nye?

  Older reference lost on many of the younger listeners.

• 2:43Mike Massimino?

  I'm pretty sure it was after World War II.

• 2:44Eugene Mirman?

  It probably was.

• 2:44Mike Massimino?

  And this was before World War II.

• 2:46Eugene Mirman?

  It didn't foreshadow World War II.

• 2:49Bill Nye?

  Let's take another question on Cosmic Query Star Talk Radio.

• 2:52Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, Jess Nudalo asks, what's new on the subject of high temperature or even room temperature superconductors? Are we getting any closer to grasping how it works? And will this knowledge in conjunction with 3D printing create a new industrial age?

• 3:10Bill Nye?

  Sounds like he's making a prediction of his own, doesn't it?

• 3:13Eugene Mirman?

  He's like, am I right? What a new thing.

• 3:15Mike Massimino?

  He's a sage.

• 3:16Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 3:17Bill Nye?

  We'll see.

• 3:17Mike Massimino?

  Or maybe she's a sage.

• 3:19Bill Nye?

  3D printing is fabulous and uh...

• 3:21Eugene Mirman?

  What's the, what's the state of uh, superconductors in room temperature?

• 3:24Bill Nye?

  Well, I don't know that though. We have superconductors that work at sort of liquid helium temperatures.

• 3:30Eugene Mirman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:30Bill Nye?

  Everybody wants to get them.

• 3:31Mike Massimino?

  It's kind of cold though.

• 3:32Bill Nye?

  Yeah, 4 Kelvin.

• 3:34Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, 4 Kelvin sounds cold.

• 3:35Bill Nye?

  It is cold.

• 3:36Mike Massimino?

  Even colder than like Canada.

• 3:38Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, so it's like super Canada.

• 3:40Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Bill Nye?

  Uh, but wouldn't it be good if they worked with liquid nitrogen? Wouldn't they, good if they worked with, with frozen water?

• 3:48Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 3:48Bill Nye?

  But it's a long way off as far as I know, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. What I would do, where I, king of the forest, is a vest again in these nano tubes in the um, getting carbon atoms to arrange themselves in these extraordinary tubes where they have very, very low electrical resistance.

• 4:04Eugene Mirman?

  All right. But the 3D printing thing is here.

• 4:08Bill Nye?

  Suppose we 3D printed carbon tubes.

• 4:12Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, could we ever do that? Is that a thing in the future?

• 4:14Bill Nye?

  Seems very reasonable to me, but I'm not a carbon tube printer.

• 4:17Eugene Mirman?

  Have you guys ever 3D printed? I've never done that.

• 4:20Mike Massimino?

  They haven't, and you know, they're affordable now, sort of.

• 4:23Bill Nye?

  You can get them at Staples.

• 4:24Eugene Mirman?

  Really?

• 4:25Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Eugene Mirman?

  Wait, how much are, like, meaning a few thousand dollars?

• 4:29Bill Nye?

  Yeah, less than $2,000.

• 4:30Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, wow.

• 4:31Bill Nye?

  And then you can make your own salt shakers.

• 4:32Eugene Mirman?

  I can't wait to go home and make salt shakers and plastic swords.

• 4:36Mike Massimino?

  Too bad we can't, people can't see this because it's radio, but Eugene's eyes have just lit up. He's ready to get out of here and go buy a 3D printer. But you know, they, they use them, we have them in the labs and the shops at Columbia, for example, and the students learn how to use them and they do incredible things with them.

• 4:51Eugene Mirman?

  The next generation of kids will be like, why aren't you 3D printing that? Why are you going to a store to buy something like this?

• 4:57Bill Nye?

  So it's additive machining. If you've not thought about it, generally when you shape something, you remove material, generally. But this is a process by which you add material.

• 5:08Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, meaning you don't cut out.

• 5:09Bill Nye?

  That's right. It's quite a different idea and you can make shapes that are literally, were literally impossible to make. Here to fore. It's quite a time to be alive. It's exciting.

• 5:19Eugene Mirman?

  It's great. All right. And Sapian asks, what is the most revolutionary engineering challenge that humanity must overcome in the next 20 to 30 years?

• 5:29Bill Nye?

  Well, I'd say it's climate change. So how are you going to do that? I, I would say it's going to be engineering the whole earth. I mean, thinking of the whole earth as a system and getting people to work together to, to manage that system, which would be engineering. Engineers use science to do what?

• 5:47Eugene Mirman?

  Solve problems?

• 5:48Bill Nye?

  And?

• 5:48Eugene Mirman?

  Make things where you can party with?

• 5:51Mike Massimino?

  Break things?

• 5:52Eugene Mirman?

  Create parties?

• 5:53Bill Nye?

  Make things and solve problems. That's it.

• 5:55Eugene Mirman?

  So basically, climate change.

• 5:57Bill Nye?

  That's what I would say.

• 5:58Eugene Mirman?

  Is the greatest.

• 5:59Mike Massimino?

  We're getting, we have a lot of people in the world and a lot more coming and things like water and healthcare and transportation, all those things that are going to face us, engineers need to solve.

• 6:10Eugene Mirman?

  Yes. All right. That's a very reasonable and correct answer.

• 6:14Bill Nye?

  Oh, it's correct.

• 6:15Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah. Okay. Deplorable perception. That is probably not someone's real name. I am guessing that is some form of pseudonym.

• 6:23Mike Massimino?

  Unless their parents were diabolical. Thank you.

• 6:26Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah. So here's his question. I like that. I'm like, it's a guy.

• 6:31Eugene Mirman?

  How will we solve the looming question of energy storage?

• 6:36Bill Nye?

  That's a great question. I am all for the liquid metal batteries. These are batteries that have magnesium floating on a layer of molten salt, essentially table salt, and at the bottom is a layer of antimony or antimony, which is the one that's atomic number 51, I believe, next to tin on the periodic table. And so you pump all this-

• 6:58Eugene Mirman?

  So far, this is all correct.

• 6:59Mike Massimino?

  Where's our fact checker?

• 7:00Bill Nye?

  So you pump in energy and it gets hot. And it's molten. And it works. And it's a battery.

• 7:06Eugene Mirman?

  And it, how long does the storage?

• 7:08Bill Nye?

  Well, as my understanding, as long as it's hot, it's storing electricity. So you'd put these things in the basement of every building, in the basement of every New York skyscraper, at every school and library. You make, you produce electricity with sunlight and so, and wind during the day. You store it underground, you're ready for it all night. And we revolutionize society. And whoever goes into this business gets, dare I say it, rich! It's an opportunity for somebody. If you could, if we could find ways to efficiently store electricity, better batteries.

• 7:40Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Bill Nye?

  We would change the world and make a much higher quality of life for everybody. So we have to move on, gentlemen. I include you, Eugene.

• 7:47Eugene Mirman?

  Thank you.

• 7:48Bill Nye?

  And we'll be back after this. Check us out at www.startalkradio.net. We'll be right back.

• 8:13Bill Nye?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Bill Nye the Science Guy here, guest hosting yet again, the time of my life, with Eugene Mirman and astronaut Mike Massimino, Callum Mas. We're here. He's an engineer. Mike Mas is an engineer. Eugene, you are a-

• 8:32Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, comedian.

• 8:33Bill Nye?

  Comedian?

• 8:33Eugene Mirman?

  I'm, I'm an engineer. But, well, I got a, when I was in eighth grade, I got a negative eight on a math assignment. Just to give you a sense of my knowledge of math and science.

• 8:43Bill Nye?

  So you do understand the number line and you appreciate negative numbers?

• 8:46Eugene Mirman?

  And I appreciate that that is an absurd thing to get.

• 8:49Bill Nye?

  Very unusual. What did your parents say when that happened?

• 8:52Eugene Mirman?

  I think they were disappointed in a teacher that would stick to logic.

• 8:56Bill Nye?

  They defended you?

• 8:57Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, well, I think they wrote him a letter saying he breeds a disgust in math.

• 9:01Bill Nye?

  Did they go and say he deserves at least a minus four?

• 9:04Eugene Mirman?

  It was like, you should give him a zero. He earned it. Alright.

• 9:07Bill Nye?

  Gentlemen.

• 9:08Eugene Mirman?

  Here we go.

• 9:09Bill Nye?

  This is the Cosmic Queries edition.

• 9:11Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 9:11Bill Nye?

  Of StarTalk Radio, and so where we take your questions.

• 9:15Eugene Mirman?

  And eat them.

• 9:16Bill Nye?

  From your Facebooks, your Twitters, all the, the electric, uh, the electric computer questions that the kids send in. Uh, what do you got there?

• 9:22Eugene Mirman?

  Here we go. Julian Razzo asks, what is magnetism? How do magnets work? I know there's those things that stick to your fridge, but the force is all around us and protects us from solar bursts? I like that that's, at the end, it's a question.

• 9:39Bill Nye?

  It's a question?

• 9:40Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 9:40Bill Nye?

  That's, uh, that's true.

• 9:41Eugene Mirman?

  He's in the band Insane Clown Posse. Nevermind, it's a great reference.

• 9:45Bill Nye?

  Really?

• 9:46Eugene Mirman?

  No. But they have a song about magnetism.

• 9:48Bill Nye?

  It was really the early stuff. Now they're just completely overproduced. But that said, yeah, magnetism is, uh, generally thought of as a current, a flow of electrons, which have an electric field, which induces a magnetic field through a term coined by my personal hero, Michael Faraday. All one word, electromagnetism. Now, Mass, you're an engineer.

• 10:13Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Bill Nye?

  You took a lot of physics.

• 10:15Mike Massimino?

  I did. But I'm, I'm just amazed to hear, this is Bill Nye the Science Guy explaining mag- uh, magnetism.

• 10:22Bill Nye?

  Well, as best I can, so.

• 10:23Mike Massimino?

  Yes, we're going with the physics.

• 10:24Bill Nye?

  When we have a permanent magnet, well, when we have a permanent magnet. We think of a virtual current, that is to say, it's as though there's a current flowing in the magnetic material.

• 10:34Mike Massimino?

  Yes.

• 10:35Bill Nye?

  Iron, cobalt, nickel.

• 10:37Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 10:38Bill Nye?

  Or some of these fabulous rare earths, but in the earth, which was, which the questioner referred to, to which the questioner referred, in the earth, we have somehow a spinning giant mass of, by our standards, very large mass of molten iron, which carries a lot of electrons, which are in motion, which induce a current, which creates a magnetic field.

• 11:00Mike Massimino?

  Which is very important for our survival, it keeps our atmosphere in place.

• 11:03Bill Nye?

  It would be a whole nother.

• 11:05Eugene Mirman?

  Our atmosphere is kept here by magnets.

• 11:07Mike Massimino?

  Partially so, yes. If we did not have our magnetic field, we would, in fact, there's some theories, if you look at Mars, which does not have a magnetic field, that why did earth survive?

• 11:16Eugene Mirman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:17Mike Massimino?

  And as far as we know, at least on the surface, there's nothing obvious that's living on Mars.

• 11:22Eugene Mirman?

  If we could fill Mars's core with a hot giant ball of iron that spun, would it spin naturally if it was there?

• 11:29Bill Nye?

  Well, Mars is spinning at about the same revolutions.

• 11:33Mike Massimino?

  If we could get it a magnetic field, it might have had a different destiny.

• 11:36Eugene Mirman?

  Could it create, would an atmosphere be created if a magnetic field was added to it or no?

• 11:41Mike Massimino?

  It might be able to be captured, possibly.

• 11:42Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 11:43Bill Nye?

  So, it's generally believed that since Mars was too, was, is smaller than the earth, it radiated more heat into space, cooled off, solidified, and any molten motion of metal inside, came to a standstill, and then the solar wind, little particles streaming off the sun, stripped the Martian atmosphere away. And while we all sit here.

• 12:06Eugene Mirman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:07Bill Nye?

  Just a couple of weeks ago, I went to Cape Canaveral for the launch of the Maven mission.

• 12:12Mike Massimino?

  Cool.

• 12:13Bill Nye?

  Mars Atmospheric Volatile Evolution spacecraft, it's a tortured acronym, but they're gonna assess the...

• 12:20Mike Massimino?

  It's a cool acronym, oh, Maven.

• 12:21Bill Nye?

  It is a cool acronym.

• 12:22Mike Massimino?

  Maven's pretty good.

• 12:23Bill Nye?

  It's pretty good. They're gonna assess the atmosphere, or learn more about the atmosphere of Mars, and what happened there, why Mars is different from the earth, and that will, I guarantee you, questioner, that will tell us more about us and our, dare I say it, place in space.

• 12:38Eugene Mirman?

  So, so what I'm getting from this is theoretically, we could create an atmosphere on another planet using a great deal of iron and a bunch of various.

• 12:47Bill Nye?

  And scuba tanks.

• 12:48Eugene Mirman?

  Scuba tanks. Basically, scuba tanks, a handful of whales. Alright.

• 12:53Mike Massimino?

  But a magnetic field is very important.

• 12:55Eugene Mirman?

  It's the first step is a magnetic field. Then we do the thing from Search for Spock where we bioengineer a planet. But, okay.

• 13:02Mike Massimino?

  You've got a crazy plan there.

• 13:04Bill Nye?

  That is crazy.

• 13:05Mike Massimino?

  Eugene, but it.

• 13:06Eugene Mirman?

  I have the same plan Kirk had.

• 13:08Mike Massimino?

  But it sounds good.

• 13:09Eugene Mirman?

  It's not that crazy if he did it.

• 13:10Mike Massimino?

  I'm looking at Bill Nye, the Science Guy, just for confirmation on this, but it sounds good.

• 13:15Bill Nye?

  You know, when you start getting into the Star Trek movies.

• 13:18Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Bill Nye?

  There's gonna be some inconsistencies. Terraforming a planet is just not that easy, but.

• 13:22Eugene Mirman?

  It's not, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying, here's a few ways we could do it.

• 13:27Mike Massimino?

  Don't underestimate the magnetic field.

• 13:29Eugene Mirman?

  Exactly.

• 13:30Bill Nye?

  Well said.

• 13:30Eugene Mirman?

  Awesome. Alright, so Lorenzo Alfondo Castanon Gonzalez asks, "I would like to know more about magnetars. Can humanity one day create such a strong magnet? And how much would such a magnet advance technology?" Do you, I don't know what magnetars are.

• 13:50Mike Massimino?

  Do you know what a magnetar is, Bill?

• 13:52Bill Nye?

  No, it sounds like.

• 13:53Mike Massimino?

  If Bill doesn't know, forget it.

• 13:54Bill Nye?

  Well, it just sounds like a.

• 13:56Eugene Mirman?

  A very powerful magnet?

• 13:57Bill Nye?

  A musical instrument that somehow uses magnetism. And if, I guess if one's big enough, you could, you could influence a lot of people.

• 14:04Eugene Mirman?

  It's a deadly theremin.

• 14:05Mike Massimino?

  He's talking about some huge, strong magnet.

• 14:07Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Mike Massimino?

  Obviously, here.

• 14:08Eugene Mirman?

  He definitely is.

• 14:10Bill Nye?

  By the way, we in the skeptic community.

• 14:12Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 14:12Bill Nye?

  Uh, are troubled deeply by people who wear magnets believing that it's going to influence their health.

• 14:18Eugene Mirman?

  Really?

• 14:18Bill Nye?

  There's no evidence.

• 14:19Eugene Mirman?

  Not even on the wrist?

• 14:20Bill Nye?

  Uh, there's, there's no evidence.

• 14:22Mike Massimino?

  Take off your magnet, Eugene.

• 14:24Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, yeah, I know, oh my god, wouldn't I be embarrassed if I was wearing a bunch of magnets?

• 14:28Bill Nye?

  There's no evidence, no evidence at all that we can see.

• 14:31Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Bill Nye?

  No evidence of all, at all, that magnetism affects your health. It's just, it's just so little, just, next time you get an MRI.

• 14:40Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 14:40Bill Nye?

  Magnetic resonance image. Just notice how much magnetism it takes just, just to get a few positrons to move around, just a little bit.

• 14:48Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Bill Nye?

  Takes an.

• 14:49Eugene Mirman?

  Let alone wearing it as a magnet hat.

• 14:51Bill Nye?

  Yeah, it's just not gonna do it.

• 14:54Eugene Mirman?

  All right, well, uh, so that's good to know. Okay, so Jason Hyatt has a question. The Earth has a magnetic field that protects it from space radiation. Is there any reason why a magnetic field could not be used on a spacecraft? Either for the whole ship or as an emergency shelter? An MRI scanner produces a very strong magnetic field. Why not a magnetic field generator, ala an MRI to protect astronauts?

• 15:18Bill Nye?

  That is, what a coincidentally happy question right there. If you had a strong enough magnet, yeah, you could pull it off. But our problem so far is generating enormous magnetic fields takes a lot of energy.

• 15:27Mike Massimino?

  A lot of power you need.

• 15:29Eugene Mirman?

  Really? How much?

• 15:30Mike Massimino?

  A lot.

• 15:30Eugene Mirman?

  Like as much as a, like a, like a coffee maker that's like supercharged?

• 15:35Bill Nye?

  It'd be a little more than that, yeah.

• 15:36Eugene Mirman?

  So like a boat, like a giant boat, a cruise ship?

• 15:39Bill Nye?

  Like a diesel engine on a pretty large, like a tugboat diesel engine.

• 15:43Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 15:44Bill Nye?

  But...

• 15:44Mike Massimino?

  That's more than you would have on your average spaceship.

• 15:47Eugene Mirman?

  Because of how heavy and giant and weird that is.

• 15:49Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, you don't want any big stuff like that.

• 15:51Eugene Mirman?

  You don't want to fly with a truck into space.

• 15:53Bill Nye?

  But just imagine...

• 15:54Mike Massimino?

  Kind of defeats the purpose.

• 15:55Bill Nye?

  Just imagine if we had solar panels big enough and some superconducting situation in the icy blackness of space. And you could create a magnetic field strong enough. That's actually a science fictional kind of cool engineering question. But I think when, at least right now, early in the 21st century, we humans can't crank that out. We can't make such a thing. But who knows what the future holds?

• 16:18Eugene Mirman?

  But if we started doing more space exploration, we would potentially come up with that technology down the line.

• 16:23Mike Massimino?

  It seems like something if you had that much power, it seems to make sense.

• 16:28Eugene Mirman?

  Power.

• 16:29Mike Massimino?

  But there's other, we do other things for, for space radiation.

• 16:32Eugene Mirman?

  Like, uh, suits?

• 16:33Mike Massimino?

  Like, like space suits. Uh, water's a pretty good insulator, actually.

• 16:37Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, really?

• 16:37Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and, uh, shielding, you know, all this, and, and we try to understand how much you, you take. You know, we always wear a dose meter when you go into space.

• 16:44Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, really?

• 16:45Mike Massimino?

  To measure how much radiation you're taking.

• 16:46Eugene Mirman?

  How much are you exposed to? Like, when you went?

• 16:48Mike Massimino?

  It's a pretty good dose. Uh, uh, it, it also depends, it also depends on where you are. Spacewalks, you get more than when you're inside the spaceship. At a higher altitude by where we were at Hubble as opposed to where the space station is.

• 17:00Bill Nye?

  Oh, wow, just a few hundred, a few tens of kilometers make a big...

• 17:03Mike Massimino?

  That's right. In the length of time you're going to be there and if there's solar flares when you're up there. So it's a bunch of factors, but it's nothing. If you fly in space for over a year or so, like some people have a combined over year stay, they have to track it and make sure you're okay. That's when you start getting a little bit curious, but we have astronauts who have flown. Scott Kelly's going to be up for a whole year is the plan. He's already been up over six months in his life and

• 17:28Eugene Mirman?

  So he has to insulate himself in water?

• 17:29Mike Massimino?

  Yes. Yeah, he's gonna be, he's gonna stay out of the sun as much as he can.

• 17:34Bill Nye?

  But when you say water, you jacket the spacecraft?

• 17:37Mike Massimino?

  Well, for example, water can, yeah. So if you have a water bag, like on the space station, you want to get some extra, extra shielding. If you were to line the outside of your spaceship with, with water, for example.

• 17:49Eugene Mirman?

  Do you line the outside or is there a layer of water in the inside?

• 17:51Mike Massimino?

  No, there is no layer of water. I'm saying if you were trying to, if you were worried about a solar flare, for example, in your spaceship, and you had water bags, that would help you.

• 17:59Eugene Mirman?

  That you would just add? So you'd just like?

• 18:01Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 18:01Bill Nye?

  Well, you're taking water anyway. Yeah.

• 18:03Mike Massimino?

  Yeah. So use it as a shielding.

• 18:05Eugene Mirman?

  Can you drink irradiated water? It's not that irradiated?

• 18:08Mike Massimino?

  It's fine. You're not gonna, yeah.

• 18:09Bill Nye?

  No, it's fine. It's great.

• 18:10Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, it's no problem.

• 18:12Bill Nye?

  It's great. Nah, there's nothing better than irradiated water from space. In fact, there's probably a market for it. There's probably somebody who really wants this stuff.

• 18:19Eugene Mirman?

  Pretty cool bar in Brooklyn that sells it. Whole Foods is gonna sell it.

• 18:22Mike Massimino?

  Actually, that's a pretty good question, Eugene.

• 18:23Bill Nye?

  That's not bad.

• 18:24Mike Massimino?

  I'm gonna go ask him when I get back home. Wait a minute.

• 18:26Bill Nye?

  Hold that thought, you guys. We will be back shortly at Star Talk Radio.

• 18:50Bill Nye?

  Welcome back to Star Talk Radio. Bill Nye, the Science Guy here, hosting this week for Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's on radiostical sabbatical, I suppose. Now, unlike many of you, I'm here with Mike Massimino, who flew in space, and we call him Mass.

• 19:08Mike Massimino?

  Yep. That's, that's what they call him.

• 19:10Eugene Mirman?

  We haven't yet, but we do.

• 19:11Mike Massimino?

  I'm an engineer.

• 19:12Bill Nye?

  But you're also an astronaut.

• 19:14Mike Massimino?

  And I'm here in New York City on loan at Columbia.

• 19:17Eugene Mirman?

  I like that you're on loan.

• 19:18Mike Massimino?

  Engineering school. I'm on loan.

• 19:19Eugene Mirman?

  Really like the idea of borrowing astronauts.

• 19:21Mike Massimino?

  There's no late fees, as far as I can tell.

• 19:24Bill Nye?

  And the other voice you hear, of course, is Eugene Mirman, our Providing color commentary.

• 19:31Eugene Mirman?

  Yes.

• 19:31Bill Nye?

  Here on the most visual medium of StarTalk Radio. Now, this is, as you may know, if you're just joining us, this is another Cosmic Queries edition of StarTalk Radio where we embrace your questions.

• 19:44Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 19:45Bill Nye?

  You, the listeners, viewers, wait, you, the listeners, iPodcaster, absorbers, uh, who use your social media to provide us with your cosmic queries. Uh, Eugene?

• 19:57Eugene Mirman?

  Here we go.

• 19:57Mike Massimino?

  Wow.

• 19:58Eugene Mirman?

  Wayne Shaw wants to know, "If one were to warp space to travel a vast distance, would people existing in the space that is being warped between takeoff and destination and destination notice anything unusual?"

• 20:12Bill Nye?

  Well, they don't in the movies.

• 20:14Mike Massimino?

  The people in between.

• 20:15Bill Nye?

  The in-betweeners.

• 20:16Mike Massimino?

  It's like someone's hanging out, so some people on some planet.

• 20:19Eugene Mirman?

  So, so.

• 20:19Mike Massimino?

  We're assuming there's someone else out there that's gonna.

• 20:22Bill Nye?

  I'm charmed by the idea that, of course, since, you know, you're going through a space warp, then of course, you can see whether, you understand that these things, uh, are big fun when you're trying to create a science fiction television show where you really don't have time to have people not speaking English and you gotta get up and down from a planet and travel around various quadrants in the galaxy or galaxies.

• 20:43Eugene Mirman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:44Bill Nye?

  But these things are more theoretical than they are. And so, uh, we will see how people do as they go between extraordinary destinations, uh, through unproven theoretical spaces in space.

• 20:59Mike Massimino?

  Would they notice, I think this person suspects they might have seen something.

• 21:03Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 21:03Mike Massimino?

  Would we notice anything unusual?

• 21:05Eugene Mirman?

  Right, right. This person is like, "I saw something weird at my house."

• 21:08Mike Massimino?

  I saw something unusual.

• 21:10Eugene Mirman?

  All right.

• 21:11Mike Massimino?

  My hamburger special looked a little bit different today than it did the other day. Is it, since someone warped speed through the diner?

• 21:17Bill Nye?

  Well, it's the government.

• 21:18Mike Massimino?

  Something funny's going on here, I think.

• 21:20Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah. So Josh Corona asks, "In the game."

• 21:24Mike Massimino?

  That's a very good science name.

• 21:25Eugene Mirman?

  No, but, uh.

• 21:26Mike Massimino?

  No, Corona's a good science name.

• 21:28Eugene Mirman?

  It's a solid name.

• 21:29Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, okay.

• 21:29Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, "In the game Portal, they have a gun that can create what is essentially a wormhole in a wall with the ability to shoot two holes, one an entrance and the other an exit, i.e. the floor, ceiling, or, right. Is this possible in the laws of physics?"

• 21:44Bill Nye?

  Oh, sure. You'll be fine. Just go get the gun and shoot it this way and then very quickly shoot it the other way before the other hole closes. So, there.

• 21:52Eugene Mirman?

  Good to know. Oh, he has another question. How bold.

• 21:56Mike Massimino?

  I need to stop playing more video games, apparently. I don't know what this kid is talking about, but I got.

• 22:01Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, okay. So he also asks if you had to guess which would could be first achieved first, light speed travel or teleportation?

• 22:09Mike Massimino?

  So teleportation is like they did on Star Trek. You get all like wobbly. Next thing you know, you're somewhere else.

• 22:14Eugene Mirman?

  But haven't scientists already teleported light? Isn't that a thing that somebody did in a lab?

• 22:19Bill Nye?

  Just everybody. First of all, as far as we know.

• 22:23Mike Massimino?

  I'm missing out on something. First it's the portal game where guys shooting holes of worms or whatever it is. Where have I been?

• 22:29Bill Nye?

  Uh, you've been in space on the government payroll.

• 22:33Mike Massimino?

  I've missed out on a lot of things, Bill. Light, some guy teleported?

• 22:37Eugene Mirman?

  No, no person. No person did.

• 22:40Bill Nye?

  Let's start with the first one. Right now, we don't know of any way to send something that has mass beyond up to the speed of light.

• 22:50Eugene Mirman?

  Right.

• 22:50Bill Nye?

  Right now, there may be a whole nother physics yet to be discovered. Perhaps this questioner will be the person that makes the discovery.

• 22:57Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, he's got to stop playing the game portal.

• 22:59Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and go back to physics class. And then the second thing, teleportation where you turn mass into pure energy.

• 23:07Mike Massimino?

  Not me.

• 23:08Bill Nye?

  No, I was gonna say.

• 23:09Mike Massimino?

  They talked about my name.

• 23:10Eugene Mirman?

  Be an example.

• 23:11Bill Nye?

  You can turn Massimino, you can turn Massimino into pure energy, beam him down to what we generally refer to as the planet. And then he's reconstituted. That would be converting mass into energy back into mass could be done, but consider E equals mc squared. It's a tremendous amount of energy to convert even a small amount of mass into something.

• 23:32Eugene Mirman?

  Well, so even.

• 23:33Bill Nye?

  It may happen.

• 23:34Eugene Mirman?

  So maybe just a piece of corn? Still, let's start with something instead of a person.

• 23:39Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Eugene Mirman?

  Or should we start with just one element?

• 23:41Bill Nye?

  Uh, well, I think if you could get anything, a carbon atom would be pretty extraordinary, even hydrogen.

• 23:47Eugene Mirman?

  But in that sense, you're saying teleportation is potentially theoretically possible before.

• 23:51Bill Nye?

  Just shooting from the hip. Yeah. But going faster than light right now.

• 23:55Mike Massimino?

  I'd take either one. How far are you gonna teleport to? See, light speed travel, Eugene, can get you places quickly. I'm not sure about the teleport. How far are we going? We going like an elevator? Or we going to Mars with this?

• 24:07Eugene Mirman?

  I think we might just-

• 24:07Mike Massimino?

  I got a feeling, I got a feeling we need the light speed first.

• 24:10Eugene Mirman?

  It might just be Boston.

• 24:11Mike Massimino?

  Cause if you teleport, so we're gonna, yeah, we have Boston, we can get there anyway.

• 24:14Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 24:15Mike Massimino?

  So I'm gonna teleport you to Mars. You're gonna get this, there's no place to go.

• 24:19Eugene Mirman?

  Right, because there's no restaurants there.

• 24:21Mike Massimino?

  Exactly. I think we need light speed travel first.

• 24:23Eugene Mirman?

  Alright.

• 24:24Mike Massimino?

  Check the place out.

• 24:24Eugene Mirman?

  Well, he's not asking what we need first. He's asking what's more realistic.

• 24:28Mike Massimino?

  I know, but I don't know. I'm not a Swami.

• 24:30Eugene Mirman?

  Sounds like teleportation.

• 24:32Mike Massimino?

  You think so?

• 24:32Eugene Mirman?

  Barely.

• 24:33Mike Massimino?

  That's what Bill says.

• 24:34Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Mike Massimino?

  I'd take either one. I'd rather light speed travel. Let's go fast. Let's enjoy it.

• 24:39Eugene Mirman?

  Alright.

• 24:39Bill Nye?

  Let's punch it.

• 24:40Mike Massimino?

  Let's enjoy the, let's enjoy the ride.

• 24:42Bill Nye?

  This is, uh, StarTalk Cosmic Queries.

• 24:44Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 24:44Bill Nye?

  Uh, we encourage you all to check us out on, uh, www-starTalkradio.net. If you've got SoundCloud, YouTube, iTunes, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, I say, party on. Start with Facebook and just go wild. And of course, when you're listening to StarTalk Radio, stay tuned.

• 25:23Bill Nye?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Bill Nye the Science Guy here, hosting this week, your cosmic queries. Your questions from the cosmos. And I am here with, uh, an astronaut, an engineer, and so far, a gentleman, Mike Massimino.

• 25:38Mike Massimino?

  It's still early, Bill.

• 25:39Bill Nye?

  Call him Mass. And of course, everybody's favorite, Eugene Mirman. Eugene, there you have questions on pieces of paper queries.

• 25:46Eugene Mirman?

  Yes.

• 25:47Bill Nye?

  From the cosmos. Uh, I say pick one.

• 25:49Eugene Mirman?

  Let's do it. David Tarazas asks, what does a rocket push against in space to gain momentum or navigate?

• 25:56Bill Nye?

  Oh, mass. That's your thing.

• 25:57Mike Massimino?

  That's what we do in space. And it's a great question, because if, you know, you don't have any gravity.

• 26:01Eugene Mirman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:02Mike Massimino?

  So when you navigate your spaceship, you need to point it in different directions. There's a couple ways to do it. Um, Hubble Space Telescope, for example, has no fuel onboard, so there's no rocket. How does it turn? It turns with- Someone pushes it? Little kids? No, there's no one there to push it. There's nobody there. You said no fuel, you didn't say no little kids.

• 26:20Bill Nye?

  You didn't say no a lot of them.

• 26:22Mike Massimino?

  It's reaction wheels. No lions. It's what we, it's reaction wheels. What's reaction wheels? Reaction wheels spin, and they have big control moment gyros, which is kind of the same thing on the, on the space station. These things spin, you know, they spin up and they creates a reaction and that reaction creates an opposite reaction. You spin them in a, in a, in a certain ori, in a certain direction and you'll get a reaction in the other direction and the thing will point where you want it. Are they sort of gyroscopes? Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, spinning. That's one way. The other way we did on the space shuttle and on other spaceships do this, in fact, the space station has this on the Russian end. Or what we call thrusters. What is it? It's gas. Yeah. Could be nitrogen, could be something else. Yeah. But just a gas, there we go. It could be just on the Russian end, it could just be- You can't hear them in space. Can't hear it in sp- It's just sadness.

• 27:06Mike Massimino?

  You hear it inside of the spaceship shaking, it is, yes, so. So anyway, you, these, these, these thrusters were released there, again, it'll cause a rea, it'll cause an action. Mm-hmm. Which is the release of a gas. Uh, and a little, a little rocket and then you'll have a reaction the other way. So on the space shuttle, we had large and small thrusters, different, different varieties, all over the spaceship, mainly in the front at the nose and in the back that you would fire to get the correct orientation.

• 27:32Bill Nye?

  Just like you have the steering wheels on a car in the front.

• 27:35Mike Massimino?

  Exactly. You can steer all you want, you're not gonna go anywhere. Your control surfaces do not work because there's no air. When you're coming down on the shuttle, even because it looked like an airplane. Yeah. It will not be active until you pick up atmosphere. So the way you turned and pointed and steered that space shuttle. Yeah. Was with these little, little thrusters that would fire jets. That's the one accurate thing from gravity.

• 27:54Bill Nye?

  But let, let me back up on this, let me back up on this question.

• 27:57Mike Massimino?

  Back up.

• 27:57Bill Nye?

  Is there anything to push against? And the, the whole idea, when you watch the rocket leave the ground, it gives, it gives you the impression that the flames, gases are pushing against the earth. But that's not really what's going on. You're throwing gas, hot gas, out the back of the rocket so fast that, uh, the reaction is the rocket goes off in the other direction. Stand on a skate- skateboard and throw a bowling ball to your best friend, or maybe your enemy. And you will find that the skateboard goes off in the other direction. It works whether or not you're on the earth or in space.

• 28:34Eugene Mirman?

  So basically, the rocket fuel is just the biggest bowling ball we can create.

• 28:38Bill Nye?

  And goes fast.

• 28:39Mike Massimino?

  More or less. All right. And we don't throw it at our enemies.

• 28:42Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, Melissa K. asks, if you had a large enough space sphere of water floating into the space station, could a fish swim in it?

• 28:50Bill Nye?

  Oh, how cool.

• 28:52Mike Massimino?

  Yes, I would, in fact, we've done this with Swedish fish, the candies.

• 28:56Eugene Mirman?

  But Swedish fish don't have to live.

• 28:58Mike Massimino?

  No, but theoretically, I think that would work. Water is, I mean, you could have a tank of water and have a fish floating in there. I would, I don't see why we wouldn't be able to do that. And water itself is, it works just on surface tension, so it doesn't splatter. So if you were very creative, you could get a glob of water and try to get a fish inside of it.

• 29:16Eugene Mirman?

  You wouldn't even need a tank.

• 29:17Mike Massimino?

  No, but you have to be really careful, because as soon as it hits something, it'll splatter.

• 29:21Bill Nye?

  You don't want the fish nosing, nuzzling his or her way out of the sphere of water.

• 29:25Eugene Mirman?

  Right.

• 29:26Mike Massimino?

  But I'm pretty sure there have been experiments with fish in space. And so, yes, this is definitely possible.

• 29:32Bill Nye?

  Because they'd have something to breathe.

• 29:33Mike Massimino?

  It would be a nice Christmas gift, you know? Imagine having a little pet fish floating around. We have to get pets flown, and this would be a good way. So right now, we've had fish as experiments. This would be like a nice little gift.

• 29:45Eugene Mirman?

  What animals have been in space? I mean, with astronauts, not just like monkeys that can't make it back or something.

• 29:50Mike Massimino?

  Right, or the dog, Lika. Uh, it's been, there's been spiders in space. There have been some rodents in space that were used for experiments.

• 29:59Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 29:59Mike Massimino?

  Um, no pets, though. Again, it's all experiments, we need pets.

• 30:03Bill Nye?

  Let me ask you this physics question, Mike, mass.

• 30:05Mike Massimino?

  Yes.

• 30:06Bill Nye?

  Uh, the fish are gonna breathe air dissolved in the water. When you have a glob of water in space, does the air? Bubble its way out, effervescent, or does it stay in there?

• 30:17Mike Massimino?

  It will, it depends. It can stay in there. If you, if nothing's acting on it, it will, it will stay in there. In fact, this is a problem with our drink bags, Bill, when we, when we spacewalk, because you don't want air in your drink bag.

• 30:27Bill Nye?

  No, no air in your drink bag.

• 30:29Mike Massimino?

  So what we do is, when you fill your drink bag, when you fill a bag of water, your drink bag for your spacewalk, it's see-through, you can see that there might be air pockets. We rotate the bag, we spin it, I'm spinning right now, to get the air to-

• 30:40Bill Nye?

  The bucket over your head.

• 30:41Mike Massimino?

  That's right, you spin it to try to get the air to one, to one location, and you suck it out. So you can get air pockets, and you want to get rid of it.

• 30:47Bill Nye?

  With those air pockets, we'll be right back on StarTalk Radio.

• 31:09Bill Nye?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Bill Nye, the Science Guy here, guest hosting, as we take your cosmic queries, uh, on StarTalk this week. And we have come to the last segment of this show, which means, the lightning round, my friends, where we take your questions, from you, the cosmos, and put them on the air for your, let's say, electromagnetic enlightenment. I'm here with Mike Massimino, call him Mass, and, uh, and Eugene Meyerman, Mirman.

• 31:41Mike Massimino?

  You're lucky you got a name like Nye.

• 31:43Bill Nye?

  Yeah, that's all I can do.

• 31:44Mike Massimino?

  You know, if you had a name like, you know, Nyeowitz, or Nikowski-

• 31:47Bill Nye?

  Love you guys, I appreciate your-

• 31:49Mike Massimino?

  You've been spoiled, Bill Nye, that's very, that's a very simple name.

• 31:52Bill Nye?

  It's simple enough, but with that said-

• 31:54Mike Massimino?

  Eugene and I are suffering.

• 31:55Bill Nye?

  Gentlemen, it's the lightning round, we can't, we can't, we've just got to press. Eugene, read one.

• 32:01Mike Massimino?

  So these are supposed to be fast answers, like lightning.

• 32:04Eugene Mirman?

  Marco Horvath, from Bakersfield, he asks, "People that see UFOs claim to see strange lights. Why on earth would a spaceship of an advanced civilization need lights on the outside of their ship?"

• 32:18Bill Nye?

  To see where they're going, like headlights.

• 32:22Mike Massimino?

  I don't know. I, I, I think we need more evidence that these are actually UFOs.

• 32:27Bill Nye?

  Oh, that. Yes. Oh, right. Yeah.

• 32:29Eugene Mirman?

  Yes, the answer is.

• 32:30Mike Massimino?

  I think they're seeing airplanes.

• 32:32Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, yeah, they're seeing other stuff. So that's the answer. Mike Johnson from Barstow, California asks, how close would an alien civilization have to be to discover Earth using the same technology we have here?

• 32:44Bill Nye?

  Oh, that is a fabulous question. Now, just to talk more about me, when I took astronomy from Carl Sagan, this is the first question. Yeah. Did you put it back? No, I was just in the room. I was just one guy. So we had this.

• 32:56Mike Massimino?

  Must have been a fun class.

• 32:57Bill Nye?

  It was cool. So we had this image of this organism eating little organisms, ingesting them and spitting them out.

• 33:04Mike Massimino?

  This is astronomy?

• 33:05Bill Nye?

  Yeah. And it turned out to be an image of a swimming pool taken from a satellite. So you have to get extraordinarily close to really determine whether or not something's alive or, or you'll get fooled.

• 33:15Eugene Mirman?

  Right. But.

• 33:17Mike Massimino?

  I think they need to be pretty close to us.

• 33:19Eugene Mirman?

  All right.

• 33:19Bill Nye?

  Couple meters.

• 33:20Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, we, we just left the solar system now, right? With Voyager. So they couldn't be much further than that, I guess. So hopefully they're just on the other end, but yeah.

• 33:30Eugene Mirman?

  All right. Here's a question from Matthew Brown. Is there a theoretical limit to the size of a sun? I keep seeing graphics comparing our sun to larger and larger solar giants. Just how big can they get?

• 33:42Bill Nye?

  Well, when you get to be a few hundred solar, uh, sun diameters, you become a black hole.

• 33:47Eugene Mirman?

  Really?

• 33:48Bill Nye?

  Yeah. You become a star that has so much gravity, light doesn't escape. A black hole is, in a sense, a star.

• 33:53Eugene Mirman?

  So would you describe it as over a million whales?

• 33:57Bill Nye?

  Uh, yeah.

• 33:58Mike Massimino?

  Big whales.

• 33:58Eugene Mirman?

  That wouldn't be inaccurate, but it wouldn't be the most accurate way to describe it.

• 34:02Mike Massimino?

  Well, you're talking about a big whale.

• 34:03Bill Nye?

  Well, but over a million by a factor of, I guess, 10 to the 19th or something. Yeah.

• 34:09Mike Massimino?

  Like the whale that's hanging from, uh, Neil's museum.

• 34:11Eugene Mirman?

  Exactly.

• 34:12Mike Massimino?

  For those of you who've been to New York City, the American Museum of Natural History.

• 34:14Eugene Mirman?

  So a sun that was too big would just become a black hole. It would collapse.

• 34:17Bill Nye?

  Yeah. Well, that's what apparently it does. They do.

• 34:20Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, great. Now, well, that's all. Now I know how to make a black hole. Thanks.

• 34:25Mike Massimino?

  Look out, world.

• 34:26Eugene Mirman?

  Jason Paisley asks, "When the sun gradually expands, will its expanding mass push Earth farther out of orbit before Earth becomes consumed?"

• 34:37Bill Nye?

  Uh, no, won't push it out, it will absorb it. Yeah, so the Earth would stay about in its same orbit and then the sun will expand to cook.

• 34:48Mike Massimino?

  It's not gonna be a good day either way.

• 34:50Eugene Mirman?

  The sun is an earth eater.

• 34:51Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, it's not, we don't want to experiment with that either to find out.

• 34:54Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, David Loza asks, "What if neuron receptors in the human body were to react at the speed of light?"

• 35:02Bill Nye?

  Uh, well, they react at the speed of electromagnetism between atoms.

• 35:07Mike Massimino?

  It's pretty quick, isn't it?

• 35:08Eugene Mirman?

  But what if we change that?

• 35:10Bill Nye?

  In other words, uh, I get it, this would be, instead of acting, instead of acting, instead of having the...

• 35:17Mike Massimino?

  Diabolical.

• 35:18Bill Nye?

  Instead of having the neurons go at chemical speeds, they would go at light speed. Well, I guess it would be, what's that, a factor of, uh, about a million, maybe, um, it's ten, ten to the seventh, might be ten million.

• 35:32Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 35:32Mike Massimino?

  It's really fast.

• 35:33Eugene Mirman?

  What would be the advantage? Could we run faster?

• 35:35Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, what can we get out of it?

• 35:36Bill Nye?

  I guess we could do everything faster.

• 35:38Mike Massimino?

  Really? Could we think faster?

• 35:39Eugene Mirman?

  A million times faster?

• 35:40Bill Nye?

  It seems to me, yeah, but then it has to be hooked up and there has to be, you have to address capacitance issues and, you know, we are made of a liquid chemical brain.

• 35:48Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 35:49Mike Massimino?

  It'd be tough to enjoy things.

• 35:50Eugene Mirman?

  Speak for yourself, Bill.

• 35:51Mike Massimino?

  We're giving you a minute to take a moment and relax. I just did, take a second and relax.

• 35:57Eugene Mirman?

  All right, here's a question.

• 35:58Mike Massimino?

  Coffee breaks would be like instantaneous.

• 36:02Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, Jacob Seymour asks, "Is the shape of a black hole a sphere with high density in the middle pulling space in toward the center, or is it a flat disk with a point of high density pulling it down in the middle like a funnel?"

• 36:16Bill Nye?

  Uh, I believe it depends. And this is where Neil deGrasse Tyson would be more into this.

• 36:22Mike Massimino?

  This is a Neil question.

• 36:23Bill Nye?

  I'm not an astrophysicist, but...

• 36:25Eugene Mirman?

  I could answer it incorrectly, though.

• 36:26Mike Massimino?

  Go ahead, yeah, go ahead.

• 36:27Eugene Mirman?

  I don't know.

• 36:27Mike Massimino?

  It's an or, take a shot.

• 36:29Bill Nye?

  Well, just whenever you have any asymmetry, this gravity's pulling all this stuff together from extraordinary places in space, they're not gonna come in perfectly evenly, so in general, they will start spinning. Like the ice skater when she pulls her arms in. Yeah. And so you'll often get a disc that is measurable, perceivable, detectable. All right. So the answer, I believe, is it depends. And Neil can get on here and light me up. See, that's a pun. I see. See, because it's a black hole. Get it? You nailed it. That's brilliant. Well, you guys, thank you all for listening to Cosmic Queries here on StarTalk Radio.

• 37:09Bill Nye?

  I have been joined by Mass, Mike Massimino, astronaut who flew in space, and of course, Eugene Mirman. Tune us, turn us up loud on StarTalk Radio. Podcast it. Blast it.