Cosmic Queries Potpourri

It’s time for another episode of Cosmic Queries. This week, Neil deGrasse Tyson answers an eclectic mix of fan questions selected by Chuck Nice, from gravity waves and the Great Attractor, to dark matter and nuclear fusion.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this is StarTalk.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, we don't have a guest today, so that usually means what?

• 0:32Chuck Nice?

  It usually means that we're going to do some cosmic queries.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic queries. These are questions drawn from our listenership and all of our social media.

• 0:42Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I think what happens is that we solicit the questions and sometimes questions don't fit in any category.

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so they all just, it's potpourri.

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  Potpourri.

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't even know what that means, but potpourri.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  It means none of these questions stink.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's...

• 0:56Chuck Nice?

  That's right. It's cosmic queries, potpourri edition, where none of the questions stink.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I've not seen any of the questions.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  No, you have not.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And...

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  Which is not like a test.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, yeah, you're not here to stump me, but if I don't know the answer, I'm going to tell you.

• 1:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know the answer.

• 1:21Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's get, start right off.

• 1:23Chuck Nice?

  So, uh, this is Brian Maroud. I'm hoping I'm saying, you know...

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why you have such issues with people's names?

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  You know what?

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's up with you?

• 1:31Chuck Nice?

  It's actually become a thing now, because people now are online, they're just like, "I just want to see how Chuck butchers my name." I can't wait to see how Chuck...

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mary Smith.

• 1:40Chuck Nice?

  Find out. Mary Snayef?

• 1:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 1:44Chuck Nice?

  Anyway, so Brian Maroud, I hope Brian, that's your name. Yeah, this is what Brian says. "I've seen a lot of infographics lately about ripples in spacetime due to gravity. Are there any spacetime fabric waves caused by the expansion of the universe? Or is the concept of galaxies accelerating away from each other a misnomer in that they're not actually accelerating through space so much as the space between galaxies is getting bigger at an accelerated rate?" This guy's been thinking, man.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Chuck Nice?

  He's been thinking.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's correct. Okay, next question.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love questions like that.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, there you go, Brian. Uh, the answer is yes. How about that?

• 2:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, comma forty-two.

• 2:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, so, uh, the gravitational waves are ripples within the pre-existing fabric of space and time. And you can get these waves if you have galaxies colliding or black holes coalescing and, uh, you, Titanic gravitational events in the universe will trigger ripples through the fabric of spacetime. And we call those gravity waves. And we, uh, right now, we're trying to detect them. The Laser Interferometric Gravity Wave Observatory, LIGO.

• 3:00Chuck Nice?

  LIGO.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  LIGO, L-I-G-O, you can just, LIGO, you can just Google that.

• 3:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is our first attempt to detect these gravity waves first predicted by Albert Einstein.

• 3:11Chuck Nice?

  Now, if those gravity waves were interconnecting, would that be Lego LIGO?

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  I'm just asking. I'm just saying. Like, if you could snap them together, build yourself a little gravity wave castle.

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll get back to you on that one. Good. So, uh, so when you're, things within the pre-existing space can generate, uh, gravity waves. But space itself expands.

• 3:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, when that's expanding. I mean, there may be a way, but not by stuff that's it, something outside of it would probably have to.

• 3:42Chuck Nice?

  So there has to be an event.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An event.

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  That causes this.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Because the, the gravity field is there all the time. Something has to put a ripple in it. And that ripple moves, by the way, at the speed of light.

• 3:53Chuck Nice?

  It's, it makes perfect sense. It's a ripple, just like in a lake or a pond. You need something to drop into the water to break the surface tension to cause the wave.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And the pond is there with or without the ripple.

• 4:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to put in a ripple and observe that.

• 4:04Chuck Nice?

  Boom.

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got it. Bada bing.

• 4:06Chuck Nice?

  Bada bing, bada boom. There you go, Brian. The, um.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, we haven't detected a gravity wave yet. This is a very, gravity waves are very weak. Even when they're strong, they're weak. So, so, uh, these gravity wave detectors are going to detect a disturbance over a given length of space.

• 4:24Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is, uh, about the same magnitude as the width of an atomic nucleus.

• 4:31Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 4:34Chuck Nice?

  That's insane.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Completely fricking insane.

• 4:37Chuck Nice?

  That's insane.

• 4:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is a frontier of technology. The, the, the scientific question is pushing the engineering frontier.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 4:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To make this measurement. And that's what the, the I in LIGO, Laser Interferometric Gravity Wave Observatory.

• 4:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're looking for gravity waves. And if we get good at it, we can detect gravitational disturbances arriving from the Big Bang itself.

• 4:59Chuck Nice?

  Wow. That's pretty cool, actually. Look at that, man. That's, so it's, uh, it's technology. Well, it's actually, it's an answer in search of technology.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, nice. Perfectly worded.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  It's an answer in search of technology.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I'm gonna tell the organ, I'm gonna tell the folks who write the brochures.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sign Chuck Nice. Oh, is that a famous astrophysicist?

• 5:22Chuck Nice?

  If you only knew.

• 5:25Chuck Nice?

  All right. Hey, Brian, man, that was a, a very good question. Thank you for chiming in, my friend. Okay, this is Arthur Colombo Duarte, Duarte. Okay. Here's his question. And by the way, you'll like this. Uh, Arthur says cheers from Brazil. So he's writing us from Brazil.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brazil.

• 5:46Chuck Nice?

  Brazil. But he does not tell us where. Just, you know, it's a big place. Anyway, he says, uh, what do we know about the Great Attractor? And what are your thoughts on what it is or could be? Could it be some sort of dark matter planet?

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these people are doing their homework before they're writing these questions.

• 6:09Chuck Nice?

  They really are, man.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so a couple of decades ago, it might've been in the late eighties.

• 6:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, they're in the research of where all the galaxies are going. Uh, there was a research paper that noticed that there's an entire community of galaxies that are all headed towards one spot.

• 6:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In space. And then you look in that spot in space and there's not an obvious thing to be tugging on them.

• 6:32Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it became to be known as the Great Attractor. And, uh, you expect things to be moving because we're near each other, we'll feel each other's gravity. Uh, we call the, uh, those are called peculiar velocities, it turns out, not because there's anything. Peculiar about them. It's just if you're moving within the fabric of space. That is a very natural speed that you would have. So we found this something called a great attract. That's what it got called and it got a lot of press in its day. And I haven't read up on the latest on that.

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we know that there's dark matter everywhere and dark matter has gravity, just like ordinary matter.

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there is six times as much of it. So we're no longer as shocked when we see things being drawn to one part of the universe or another.

• 7:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because we don't see.

• 7:13Chuck Nice?

  Anything there.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anything there, fully lit galaxies or anything.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Because we know that that happens.

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. You can have now. Can it be a dark matter planet? Not likely. I'll tell you why.

• 7:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because to make a planet, matter, whatever it is that makes the planet has to be able to stick to itself.

• 7:28Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about that, right?

• 7:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What we, all the molecules of the rocks, they're stuck to one another.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Dark matter not only doesn't stick to our kind of matter, it doesn't even stick to itself.

• 7:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's not obvious how you would ever coalesce dark matter into any kind of solid object at all.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would just pass through itself.

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  Pass through itself. So it's not gonna, it's not gonna get together and, and hang out.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And be the evil other planet.

• 7:55Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dark.

• 7:56Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. Right.

• 7:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there a dark matter Earth where, where you have a goatee? Oh, wait, you have a goatee now.

• 8:03Chuck Nice?

  So my dark matter Earth is a good shot. Hmm. Interesting.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool. So it's like, it's like, uh, what's it called here on Earth? And, and there's a place in the ocean where all the floating pollution tends to gravitate.

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just read about that.

• 8:19Chuck Nice?

  And it just comes into this giant trash circle.

• 8:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jack Matt.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  I'm just mad and it's just a big massive, um, you know, swirl of plastic garbage.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. That has nothing to do with dark matter in the universe, but it's still interesting that that happens at all.

• 8:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but I'm saying like this is like that for space.

• 8:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so that's a, that's an attractor.

• 8:39Chuck Nice?

  The attractor.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of itself. Oh, yeah.

• 8:41Chuck Nice?

  Even though, even though, yeah. Even though that's really just ocean currents coming together.

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, confluence.

• 8:46Chuck Nice?

  Deadpooling, it's one little place.

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 8:49Chuck Nice?

  You know, to let us know that we're a bunch of a-holes who are polluting our world.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 8:54Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool. So, no dark matter planet, extremely, extremely unlikely.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 8:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay, because it was just.

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Based on everything we've measured about.

• 9:01Chuck Nice?

  We know.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About dark matter.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  Because it passed through itself, nothing to stick to.

• 9:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got to stick to itself, and then you can make solid objects, yeah.

• 9:07Chuck Nice?

  But the attractor itself, completely understandable, because we know now.

• 9:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, dark matter has gravity, just like regular matter.

• 9:14Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how we know it's there.

• 9:15Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Arthur, man, another great question.

• 9:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:19Chuck Nice?

  People are really living up to the potpourri.

• 9:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Potpourri, alright.

• 9:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  This is Mary Blick, Blickhan, Blickhan, okay? Uh, Mary doesn't tell me where she's coming from.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Mary says, I want to know more about the comet Ison.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 9:38Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. How close did it get to the sun? And how did it survive its trip? I guess it might, but I confess, I just had a hunch. I guess, I guessed it might, but I confess I had a hunch. In other words, she, she knew it would survive. Uh, but comets have been around a long time and seem to survive anything.

• 10:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that is so not the case.

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Comet Ison was a comet discovered a couple of years ago, and it was going, it was heralded as the great Christmas comet. It was a comet that was on the back, on the, on the back end, as it near, it comes around the other side of the sun. Let's remind ourselves, comets have very elongated orbits.

• 10:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They spend a lot of time far away from the sun, and a little bit of time very close to the sun.

• 10:24Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are strongly elliptical orbits. That's why we don't see them all the time.

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We only see them when they visit.

• 10:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They pay the inner solar system a visit.

• 10:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Comet Ison, if you plotted its trajectory, it would come extremely close to the sun. I don't remember exactly how close, but close, like, within a sun's own diameter.

• 10:44Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of it. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 10:47Chuck Nice?

  That's actually very, very close.

• 10:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 10:50Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now, okay, so, and, and, and the sun is.

• 10:56Chuck Nice?

  Big ball of plasma and hot.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hot. And a comet is.

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  Ice and cold.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cold, okay, thank you.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  You were looking at me like, hey, you don't get these two right, you're not coming back. After all this time here, Chuck. If you don't get these two, it's curtains for you, buddy.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A comet is cold, and now you want to bring the comet within one solar diameter of itself. This, this, eh eh, this is not bode well for the comet.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  Guess who's coming to dinner?

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If the comet had survived the other side.

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would have come out with a beautiful long tail because the sun evaporates. It actually sublimes the frozen, the frozen, the ices, turns them into gases. And on the other side was Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it would have been a beautiful comet. And people were touting it and talking it up and, and, but nope.

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun tore a new one in that comet.

• 11:51Chuck Nice?

  Had its way.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun tore a new one. There are images of this. The comet's going in with all perfectly shaped tail.

• 11:58Chuck Nice?

  Hey, everybody. I'm a comet. I'm a comet.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm coming. And I S A is an acronym for International, uh, so, so, Observation Network or something. It's an acronym. Forgive me, I don't have it off the top of my head.

• 12:10Chuck Nice?

  That's okay.

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, uh, it came out the other side and it was a raggedy looking thing.

• 12:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The thing broke apart, it diffused, and just completely disappeared on the other side.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the glowing part, there probably debris there, but no longer was there a comet for us to embrace.

• 12:27Chuck Nice?

  That is awesome.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, man. Yeah. So, yeah, the sun tore a new one. That was the end of the comet. Then there was no, and that all happened like on Thanksgiving Day. All right. So, yeah, and there was no Christmas comet.

• 12:36Chuck Nice?

  So I S A came in and the sun was like, this is my house.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My house.

• 12:41Chuck Nice?

  My house. Don't do this to me in my house.

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So every comet, no matter how close it comes, when a tail gets made.

• 12:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's actually losing some of its own material.

• 12:51Chuck Nice?

  Of course, right.

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So comets have finite lifetimes. They can't go around the sun forever.

• 12:55Chuck Nice?

  Right. So, yeah, so it doesn't make a difference which comet that, so now.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eventually.

• 12:59Chuck Nice?

  Eventually.

• 13:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Comet's gonna die. And in fact, you've heard of, uh, you know, every night, if you look hard and long enough, you'll find a meteor, right?

• 13:06Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shooting star.

• 13:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And occasionally there are meteor showers, right? Which are always at the same time each year. You know what meteor showers are? That, that is Earth plowing through the debris stream of long dead comets.

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whose trajectory crossed the orbit of the earth.

• 13:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh, see, no.

• 13:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is why they happen at the same time every year.

• 13:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's why there are higher rate of these debris particles than in any other random night. So, Ison, I have to check which way its trajectory actually came.

• 13:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whether that will become a new meteor shower.

• 13:42Chuck Nice?

  Because we, we may one day actually plow through the detritus of Ison.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The rocky flotsam and jetsam of Ison.

• 13:52Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I have to check if it's, the orbit has to be sort of near the plane of our orbit. And then it's a whole brand new meteor shower.

• 13:59Chuck Nice?

  So a meteor shower is basically a comet graveyard.

• 14:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 14:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's awful.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's the crap left over.

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After the sun done did its thing.

• 14:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow, wow, that's a, hey, great, great question, another one. All right, let's, uh, let's see if we can get one more in here.

• 14:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before the break.

• 14:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, before the break, here we go. Okay.

• 14:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:21Chuck Nice?

  All right, that sounds good.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can fit another, go, go for it.

• 14:23Chuck Nice?

  All right, here's a, all right, so this is from Gerald. It says, Chuck, is Neil jacked? Or are his shirts just really tight?

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, first, uh, I, in my day, yeah, I was jacked. Yeah, I was like captain of my wrestling team.

• 14:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hundred and ninety pounds.

• 14:48Chuck Nice?

  Wow, you were jacked.

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, I could, I could totally kick some ass, all right? And I wanted to be protector of the nerd set. That's what I thought.

• 14:56Chuck Nice?

  You know what? That makes sense when you think about it.

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was my superhero dream.

• 15:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There'd be, back then, you know, the, the, the tough quarterbacks would be shoving nerds into the locker rooms.

• 15:06Chuck Nice?

  And then you would show up?

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before they would later learn that you needed the nerds to fix your computer, right?

• 15:10Chuck Nice?

  Right. And before they were respected and revered.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And revered and became the richest people in the world.

• 15:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the day, when people were nerd hunting, I was card carrying nerd and I wanted to be the protector of all the nerds of the world. In my own little superhero fantasy, so, yeah.

• 15:25Chuck Nice?

  That's a noble fantasy.

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there'd be like a little bat signal that would go up in the sky and I would land.

• 15:29Chuck Nice?

  What would it be, a pocket protector?

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 15:33Chuck Nice?

  They shine a pocket protector.

• 15:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Later today, it would be like a slide rule. And however extended the slide rule was, that's how, that's how seriously the encounter was necessary. Yeah, so no, I, I, and I study martial arts, and so I was, uh, in my day. So, so somewhere below some layers of fat, a few of those muscles, I think, might still be there.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  There's some muscle memory maybe happening.

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Muscle memory. I'll try to, I asked the trainer, I said, so when am I gonna get my six pack? He said, it's still there. It's just under the fat.

• 15:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I was jacked of like forty pounds ago, and I, if I take it off, I plan to take some off by the end of this year.

• 16:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, maybe we'll, you know, see if any, any remains.

• 16:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Alright, there you go, Gerald.

• 16:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 16:13Chuck Nice?

  There's a, there's your answer.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Well, wait, wait, if you saw the, the shirts recently, yeah, I can still fill a shirt. But, but you, generally I'm sitting at a table and you don't see my belly hanging up or below. You see my upper body, not my midsection.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk. Stay tuned for another segment.

• 16:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. Here's more of this week's episode.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, we are in Cosmic Queries.

• 16:57Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are.

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk, the Cosmic Queries edition, is the way I call it.

• 17:00Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so what do you have?

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  So, we've got questions from all across the internet.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I haven't seen them.

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  You have not seen them, and this one is from Jersey Norrington.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jersey Norrington.

• 17:13Chuck Nice?

  Sounds like, uh, sounds like an anchor.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it sounds like, or a porn name.

• 17:17Chuck Nice?

  Or a porn, yeah, exactly.

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jersey Norrington.

• 17:19Chuck Nice?

  Or an anchor porn man.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anchor porn.

• 17:21Chuck Nice?

  Good evening. I'm Jersey Norrington. Your top story? Bouch, wow, wow. Okay.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was like so nineteen seventy eight porn music track.

• 17:37Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what do you have?

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Why is it that no one talks about iter? And this is what he puts, I T E R. I never heard of it. Uh, so maybe he's right.

• 17:49Chuck Nice?

  Maybe he's right.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 17:51Chuck Nice?

  They're trying to get a fusion reactor to work so it could create an infinite source of energy. I really think that's cool.

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so iter, let me to remember what that stands for. International Thermonuclear Experimenta... What does the R stand for? I don't remember.

• 18:14Chuck Nice?

  Reactor?

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reactor, thank you.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  Fusion reactor.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'll take it.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  I'll take fusion reactor.

• 18:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, and so, uh, you can have fusion.

• 18:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A fusion is the bringing together of small atoms.

• 18:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To make a bigger atom. It turns out when you do that, you get energy.

• 18:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 18:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Up to a point, but you get energy. Bring two hydrogen atoms, make helium, you get energy.

• 18:36Chuck Nice?

  Mmm.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun does that every second of its life.

• 18:38Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 18:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it is very efficient.

• 18:40Chuck Nice?

  Uh, it really is.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just, just back up when, okay?

• 18:43Chuck Nice?

  Turning along.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is, so it takes high temperature.

• 18:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 18:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're fusing nuclei. So thermo nuclear fusion.

• 18:53Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is what that's called.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  Thermoneuclear fusion.

• 18:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, we have mastered thermo nuclear fusion ever since like the, the 50s.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Late 40s, early 50s. It's called a bomb.

• 19:03Chuck Nice?

  Right, I was gonna say, that's...

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What we have not mastered is the control of thermo nuclear fusion.

• 19:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right? Uncontrolled thermo nuclear fusion is called a bomb.

• 19:11Chuck Nice?

  Nagasaki.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun, no, that was, that would be...

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh no, cuz that was a hydrogen bomb.

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that was an atomic bomb.

• 19:18Chuck Nice?

  Atomic bomb.

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Using, and Nagasaki used, uh, your, uh, that one used plutonium.

• 19:24Chuck Nice?

  Plutonium, so where's the hydrogen bomb?

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The hydrogen bomb has never been used in warfare.

• 19:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But those pictures you see with like tiny little ships next to the hole and half the ocean is blown out of, those are hydrogen bombs.

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hydrogen bombs make atom bombs look like, like starter firecrackers. Oh yeah.

• 19:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, there's no contest between the two.

• 19:42Chuck Nice?

  The two of them, huh?

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yeah. When we talk about nuclear power, we're really talking about who's, you know, who's got it. Uh, well, no. Okay, if you're start, the starter kit is to make a nuclear fission bomb, and that's what happened in the Second World War.

• 19:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so that's a nuclear fission bomb.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you take big atoms, make them little, or you get energy by doing that too.

• 20:02Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:04Chuck Nice?

  So then the atomic bomb.

• 20:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is big atoms, in the very specific cases of the Second World War, splitting uranium and splitting plutonium.

• 20:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An element named after the cosmic object Pluto, by the way.

• 20:16Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uranium was named after the planet Uranus. And guess what Neptune was named after?

• 20:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh, the god of the sea?

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neptune. So we have three consecutive elements on the periodic table: uranium, Neptune, plutonium.

• 20:27Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Named after Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. But since Pluto's not a planet anymore, I think it got, it got on the periodic table on false pretense. Just between you and me. Don't get me started.

• 20:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so now what are they gonna call it on the periodic chart? Neil killed me?

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dwarf plutonium. So, so.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  Dwarftonium?

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dwarftonium, there you go.

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  I love it. Alright, so.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Getting back to.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  To fusion, thermal nuclear fusion.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in France, there is a, there's a collaborative project, international project, to try to harness fusion. Because if you did it, and harness it in the way the sun does it, in a controlled way, you have essentially an unlimited, uh, supply of energy.

• 21:06Chuck Nice?

  Of course, yes.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, as they say, too cheap to bill. Personally, I think our electricity is already too cheap to bill, you know why?

• 21:14Chuck Nice?

  Why?

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course you do get electric bill, but you know why it's too cheap to bill?

• 21:16Chuck Nice?

  Why?

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're driving away from your home and you see you left your living room light on, are you gonna stop the car, get out, go, unlock the door, go in and turn out the light?

• 21:24Chuck Nice?

  No, you're not.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That light is staying on until you get home today.

• 21:26Chuck Nice?

  Even if you're a conservationist.

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if you're, you say, nope, I'm a.

• 21:31Chuck Nice?

  That's why I got the old, uh, fluorescent light bulbs.

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  That's why I got fluorescent light bulbs.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, already, we, certainly in America, we treat, the United States, we treat electricity like it is the least of our financial.

• 21:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Priorities, given how we use it. Uh, so, fully lit up malls at night, when nobody's there, for example.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Fully lit up buildings, that light up cities when everybody's going home.

• 21:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody's going home and is asleep. So, so, uh, so this, why is anyone talking about it? Well, we haven't achieved it. Yeah, the day it's achieved, it's gonna be headlines all over the place.

• 22:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 22:03Chuck Nice?

  So do you think it's achievable? Because I mean.

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's in principle. Yeah, you have to control plasma. Here's the problem. The, the, the temperature of the stuff you need to. It has to be high temperature to, to fuse the nuclei together.

• 22:16Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, you're basically talking about having the sun here on earth.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. And it, and it's so hot, you say, okay, oh, how, what vessel are you gonna put it in and carry it from one place to another?

• 22:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here, take this 10 million degree plasma.

• 22:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And go straight home with it. Don't go anywhere else.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So their plasma is actually magnetically responsive. So there are things where you can create a magnetic cavity. Where it's kind of like a magnetic bottle, if you will. And then it sort of bounces off the magnetic field that contains it.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  Kind of like the radiation from the sun does on the earth.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it sees the magnetic field and then.

• 22:54Chuck Nice?

  Goes around it.

• 22:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's precisely the same phenomenon going on.

• 22:57Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you design a magnetic bottle intelligently, then maybe you can have it serve your energy needs by having fusion with it. Fusion within it.

• 23:06Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so, yeah.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, let me tell you something. Listen, and, and I'm just the person who gets very nervous. And Jersey, Jersey, all I can say, man, is this sounds.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jersey, Jersey Wellington?

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  Jersey, Norrington.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Norrington, yes, yes, uh huh.

• 23:22Chuck Nice?

  Anchor porn man. Uh, it sounds really dangerous.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I mean, like, if what you're talking about, if, let's say you have this magnetic bottle.

• 23:31Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the containment field fails.

• 23:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are wiping out, like, I don't know what.

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For, I don't know how many miles around you.

• 23:40Chuck Nice?

  So you design, you design it so it doesn't fail.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Duh.

• 23:47Chuck Nice?

  We have so solved this problem.

• 23:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why you need really good engineers in this world.

• 23:54Chuck Nice?

  There you go, man. All right.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What else you got?

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Let's move on to

• 24:01Chuck Nice?

  Urs von Gergonsver.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Chuck.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm so glad you're not president of a university who's reading the names of the diplomas.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man. And I'd be like, and next guy?

• 24:18Chuck Nice?

  Please come up and get your diploma. Next guy.

• 24:22Chuck Nice?

  And young lady? Please come up and get your diploma, young lady.

• 24:29Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. All right, here, uh, Dear Dr. Tyson.

• 24:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  I love when you talk about the validity of science in movies. One thing that always defies my suspension of disbelief in sci-fi movies is when the character is briefly exposed to space to go between airlocks without some sort of space pressure suit. This happens in both Sunshine and Event Horizon. Is this even remotely possible? Thanks for entertaining me on my commutes.

• 25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Urs, that was cool.

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice. Okay, so, uh, here's the problem when you change the, the, the pressure that your body is immersed in.

• 25:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we learned this, I, I think for the first time, building the Brooklyn Bridge.

• 25:18Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and building the Brooklyn Bridge, a lot of that structure is deep underwater.

• 25:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you

• 25:24Chuck Nice?

  East River.

• 25:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you have these things called caissons, I think they're called, and these are basically huge bubbles. The, the, it's just a, a, if you have a

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know, take like a pot.

• 25:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and then invert it and then submerge the pot.

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've, you've trapped air in there.

• 25:40Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you did.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so if you have little chairs inside that pot, make the pot big enough, you can sit in it inverted, and then you submerge the entire pot, and now you can breathe the air while you're underwater.

• 25:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the deeper you go under the water, the higher is the pressure pushing up against that air.

• 25:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the water that's at your feet.

• 25:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The higher is that pressure, and that can have an effect on your physiology.

• 26:02Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this When they did this to build the Brooklyn Bridge, they discovered this new physiological failure called the bends. Uh huh. And what happens is you can go down there. Mm hmm. That's fine, but it's coming back. Gases that are dissolved in your circulatory system. Right. When your body is then exposed to lesser pressure, begin to escape from you. Okay. And uh, the gases in your lungs, as they expand, you can just exhale that. Right. That's cool. Okay. But suppose the gas is dissolved in your bloodstream. All of a sudden, these pockets of air. Right. Show up inside your bloodstream. That's not good. That's not good. Thanks for concluding that. That's not good. That's not good.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you have to be very careful when you change from one pressure to the other. You have to do it slowly. Right. Or um, non catastrophically. All right. So if you go from one atmospheric pressure into zero atmospheric pressure, space. Right. Um, you're subject to these things that could end up giving you the bends. But if you, if you're not there for very long, generally, you're not there longer than you can breathe. Okay. Right? Right. How long are you in the airlock? For, for a half hour? No. You're in the airlock without a suit on because that was some emergency maneuver you had to do. You're not going to be there longer than you can hold your breath. Correct. All right. So, uh, all, you might get some of the case of the bends, but it's not going to kill you. Your eyes are not going to pop out.

• 27:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You know why your eyes are not going to pop out? Cause it's not an air po- there's not an air pocket behind them, ready to po- pop out your eyes. We're, we're liquid. Right. Right? So when liquid changes pressure, it's all about what are the gases doing within them? Okay. Okay. Now, you want an example of gases coming out of liquid? Yeah. No. Oh, do tell. Do that. Believe me, cause I could think of a few. I know, I know, I know. That's when you go into, "I'm eight years old," brain.

• 27:59Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so the best example is a sealed can of soda.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay, right.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's under pressure.

• 28:07Chuck Nice?

  It's under pressure.

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And, and, uh, let's say, let's take a bottle so you can look in it. It's under pressure. You don't see any bubbles anywhere.

• 28:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pop the lid, all the bubbles escape. Exactly. They were dissolved there until the pressure changed.

• 28:18Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it's whatever is the above atmospheric pressure in it, and then it goes down to atmospheric pressure, the bubbles escape.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  So, so.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to be careful and, and it won't be comfortable, but just get the hell out of there.

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  So now, okay, if I'm in the airlock in the, in, in the event horizon, this ship, okay?

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay. They depressurize.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 28:38Chuck Nice?

  I'm in it.

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you got some, you've got, you've got.

• 28:40Chuck Nice?

  But all I have now is, I held my breath.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 28:44Chuck Nice?

  The airlock opens.

• 28:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 28:46Chuck Nice?

  And now just across, I can push off and get into another airlock, repressurize. Could I do that?

• 28:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, easily.

• 28:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Easily.

• 28:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have your wits about you.

• 28:54Chuck Nice?

  If you have your wits about you.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could be, "Ah!"

• 28:56Chuck Nice?

  You know, that. Which is, now, now that's my home movie.

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, you ain't making it.

• 29:01Chuck Nice?

  That's the real movie right there.

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how people would actually.

• 29:03Chuck Nice?

  Right. It's just like the airlock opens up, just like, "Ah!" No, but you couldn't hear me because I'm in space.

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. Cause in space, no one can hear you screaming in airlock without air. Exactly. It would be silent movie. That'd be funny.

• 29:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The camera picks up, the, what's going on?

• 29:19Chuck Nice?

  Silent scream.

• 29:22Chuck Nice?

  And yes, that's super cool.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is something they did accurately in the movie Gravity.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sound level as they went in and out of airlocks would go from complete dead to slowly you begin to hear it, and then it was a full up volume sound. They did it brilliantly in the movie Gravity. Yes.

• 29:38Chuck Nice?

  So that, so there, listen there, Ursh, uh.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:41Chuck Nice?

  That's a great answer, man. That was very, very cool. It's all about the gas, baby.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And, and in the movie, um, one of the Mars movies, uh, which one? The one that had, uh, name one of the Mars.

• 29:56Chuck Nice?

  Red Planet?

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, uh, it was either Red Planet or Mission to Mars. I think it was Mission to Mars.

• 30:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 30:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, where, uh, the tether doesn't reach him and he doesn't want them to come after him. So he, uh, he, he, so he kills himself.

• 30:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that they don't come after. You know how he kills himself? He lifts off.

• 30:13Chuck Nice?

  So his thing, yeah.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And three seconds later, he looked like he's been dead for 20 years.

• 30:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  That doesn't happen.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you would see him suffocating there.

• 30:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how it really would happen.

• 30:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes, or, or Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't have his helmet on. And his eyes begin to bulge out of his head like one of those little squeeze toys.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've seen those.

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  And, uh.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The pressure relieving, you know, the, the stress relieving.

• 30:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the stress relieving squeeze toy. And that's what his eyes do.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:41Chuck Nice?

  And he's like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. And then all of a sudden he comes.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was great. That, that, that wasn't even a sentence, but you knew it could only be uttered by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 30:54Chuck Nice?

  So you.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How did you pull that off?

• 30:56Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is brilliant.

• 30:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's, that's like every comic's like, every comic does Arnold's, ah, and that's all you have to do to do Arnold.

• 31:07Chuck Nice?

  But, uh, so that's not true then. That, that's the.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you could survive a couple of minutes.

• 31:12Chuck Nice?

  For a couple of minutes.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, just don't stay there long. That's all.

• 31:16Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

• 31:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If our circulatory system were entirely gas.

• 31:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you stepped out into an extremely low pressure environment, yeah, you'd, you'd explode.

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  Like a balloon.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, like a balloon.

• 31:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but we're liquid and so liquid has different reactions.

• 31:30Chuck Nice?

  So there's different properties for liquid.

• 31:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 31:31Chuck Nice?

  And the fact that we're 70% of that, boom.

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Okay. No, we're a hundred, a hundred percent.

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  Are we?

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you're 70% of water.

• 31:38Chuck Nice?

  That's what I mean.

• 31:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 31:40Chuck Nice?

  70% of water.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but the, right, yeah.

• 31:42Chuck Nice?

  But bone is liquid? You could, is bone considered liquid in your body?

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 31:47Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm serious.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk Radio. Stay tuned. More up next.

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back. Here's more of StarTalk.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, just before we begin, this just came across my desk.

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 32:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here, just just in, a couple of people submitted geek pickup lines.

• 32:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I, I, they're kinda lame.

• 32:27Chuck Nice?

  I'll, I'll read them.

• 32:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Here goes one. I, I'll do my best Barry White impression here. Are you the square root of negative one? Because you can't be real.

• 32:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God.

• 32:39Chuck Nice?

  Actually, that's not too bad.

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not too bad.

• 32:41Chuck Nice?

  That's actually not too bad.

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you gotta like be, you gotta remember your like imaginary numbers, the square root of negative. Here's one, um, no, this is totally like calculus geek. I wish I was your derivative, so I could lie tangent to your curve.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's like calculus. Calculus, you're finding the slope of a line.

• 32:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what the derivative is. And so you, you take the, the first derivative of a curve.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like you lay it.

• 33:06Chuck Nice?

  Right there.

• 33:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right there.

• 33:07Chuck Nice?

  Comes across that little point.

• 33:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right there. I got one more here, and then you will go back to our potpourri. Our love is like dividing by zero. You cannot define it.

• 33:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 33:22Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell you, using those lines, you better build a robot girl.

• 33:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, here's one. Hey, baby, are you a graviton? Cause I find myself attracted to you.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Totally geeked out.

• 33:41Chuck Nice?

  Totally.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet, I bet our, our listeners could totally beat these, and so they'll probably better than that. All right. So what do you have?

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's get back to our Cosmic Queries potpourri.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Potpourri edition.

• 33:52Chuck Nice?

  Um, let's, uh, let's, let's, uh, let's see what Jim Scarborough wants to know. Jim says, what is this conservation of information Dempsey puts forth? Why do I keep forgetting things?

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. This is good.

• 34:13Chuck Nice?

  Are you?

• 34:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a great question.

• 34:14Chuck Nice?

  Is it really?

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So, information in the, in the middle 20th century and onward. People, uh, the whole branch of, of research opened up called information theory.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. If something has information, how long will it retain that information? And if it doesn't have the information, where did the information go?

• 34:32Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Information is very different from things like conservation of mass or energy or mass energy. For example, if you have an orange and then I give you a second orange, you have twice as much orange, don't you?

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  I hope so.

• 34:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. If I give you a newspaper, then I give you that identical newspaper, you do not have twice as much information.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  That is true.

• 34:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have the same amount of information duplicated.

• 34:55Chuck Nice?

  But I do have a bathroom for my dog. Now I do.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hope it's a puppy. That's what you're doing with your dog.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  It's true.

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, it's an infirmed dog. So, information theory behaves differently from other kind, I'm sorry. A conservation of information is a different understanding, uh, and a different treatment of information than conservation of mass energy, uh, would be treated. That's all. And so, there's an idea that, uh,

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  can you lose information? What happens to it? And he's saying, if there's a conservation of information theorem, then why is it that he forgets stuff?

• 35:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's a brilliant, it's a brilliant question. Um, what, what happens is what you remembered or thought you remembered becomes other things typically in your brain.

• 35:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just becomes other things. And so.

• 35:47Chuck Nice?

  So it's still there. It's just not what you think it is.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not the same information. It's a total amount of information. Uh, yeah, it's, it's an amount of information that you might be conserving there. But, uh, it's not my research specialty, so I don't know what the latest is that they're all saying about it.

• 36:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It seems to me that if I have a newspaper and I burn it, I got rid of all that information.

• 36:08Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is what happens in book burnings. Uh, civilizations typically take a few steps back because they've lost.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  And when you say civilizations, you mean Republicans. No, I'm joking. No, you don't. I do. You don't. I do. You don't. Well, Jim, there you have it. There is a, there really is a conservation of information and.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, uh, everyone who passed the Jim Crow laws were Democrats.

• 36:33Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just as a reminder.

• 36:34Chuck Nice?

  We, yes, southern democrats, we all know, are now modern day republicans.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you, you just can't generalize over time and space.

• 36:44Chuck Nice?

  I'll give you that.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Chuck Nice?

  All right, Jim, great question, and your answer is early onset Alzheimer's.

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 36:52Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's, uh, let's, uh, let's move on, let's, uh, wow, okay.

• 36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can we join in, in this wow?

• 36:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay, yeah.

• 37:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can sit there and admire the question and leave us, leave us hanging.

• 37:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay, this is Jacob Seymour, and Jacob wants to know, does nuclear fusion occur at the bottom of black holes?

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 37:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man, that's why I was like, wow, wow, really simple, but good question.

• 37:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, yeah, um, uh, I don't know.

• 37:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, it's plausible, it's plausible.

• 37:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because at, at the singularity, which is like the limits of Einstein's equations, where in fact you are literally dividing by zero.

• 37:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, which means we don't have a theory to understand the singularity. We can just say, well, that's the best we got. Come up with something better, right at that singularity.

• 37:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At that point, all matter is at a very dense state. But we do know that the energy created by nuclear fusion.

• 37:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if it occurred at the singularity, would not be enough to do a damn thing to the black hole.

• 37:50Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, black holes are stronger than any nuclear fusion that would occur within them.

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can run the, you can run that, it's why we got the black hole in the first place.

• 37:58Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 37:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The black hole used to be a star.

• 37:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the star was gonna explode, and it didn't. The black hole said, no, you're not.

• 38:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so as the mass of stars, the higher the mass star, the difference, their fate becomes more and more different from what the sun would be. There's a point where a star dies as an explosion, a supernova. If it's more massive than that, it wants to become a supernova, but the gravity overcomes that, and it's black hole gravity, and the whole star collapses down, uh, and implodes within itself. And so, no, you can't.

• 38:31Chuck Nice?

  Every time I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in.

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is what everyone is saying who's stuck in a black hole right now.

• 38:41Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 38:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With that level of frustration, I might add.

• 38:45Chuck Nice?

  I'm so sure. Wow, that was fascinating. Good stuff, good stuff there. All right, let's go with Douglas, Napolitano. And Douglas says.

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, you pronounce his names in a Spanish way, but it's clearly Italian.

• 38:59Chuck Nice?

  Napolitano.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Napolitano.

• 39:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh, come on now.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Napolitano.

• 39:04Chuck Nice?

  Napolitano. Okay, Douglas wants to know this.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like he's from Italy, I mean, from Naples, yeah, yeah.

• 39:11Chuck Nice?

  Douglas wants to know this. Was there space before the Big Bang? Or was space created during the Big Bang? What is the universe expanding into? In other words, is space expanding with the matter and energy? Or is the matter and energy expanding in the space? Man, my head, man.

• 39:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My boy's got some cosmic angst going on. He's getting to sleep, you know.

• 39:37Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell you, it's a nice little conundrum that he's.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, everything that we've come to know and define space to be was formed within the Big Bang. And if we have a multiverse or some prior existing state, out of which our universe spawned, that would be embedded in higher dimensions. And so, normal space is not how you would address that configuration. It'd be higher dimensional space, a four dimensional space, five or 10 dimensions. It's some higher dimensional space in which that occurs. So, we are... So, if space is where there's nothing, then outside of space, you might call that nothing, nothing.

• 40:15Chuck Nice?

  Nothing, nothing.

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Perhaps. So, we have top people working on the nothing, nothing.

• 40:19Chuck Nice?

  That's, gotcha.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Chuck, we are in the five-minute warning zone. This means, you know what that means?

• 40:26Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 40:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The lightning round.

• 40:27Chuck Nice?

  It's the lightning round.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I will answer questions in soundbite mode. To get in as many as we can in the next four minutes.

• 40:34Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This one from Facebook and Paul Bear. Paul Bear wants to know, "How is the gravity of the sun strong enough to hold Jupiter into place, but not strong enough to pull the Earth close enough to eat it up?"

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because Earth is moving faster than Jupiter. And at our speed, at our distance, we are in a safe orbit. If we were moving at the speed of Jupiter, at our speed, at our distance right now, we would fall into the sun.

• 40:57Chuck Nice?

  Boom!

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bada bing!

• 40:59Chuck Nice?

  Boom!

• 41:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bada, oh, oh yeah. There, okay.

• 41:02Chuck Nice?

  There we go.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, good, next. Alright, so every orbit, at every distance from the sun, there is one speed

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that you can sustain and maintain that orbit. Anything less, you fall into the sun. Anything more, you will go to a high, you'll go to a higher orbit.

• 41:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay, rogue planet. Alright, here we go. Uh, also from Facebook, Patrick Clark wants to know this. Dr. Tyson, what do you see as the advantages, benefits of permanent human colonization of other bodies in the solar system? What resources do places like the moon and NEAs hold? And how could we harness and use them efficiently?

• 41:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so NASA has a whole new branch of itself called, uh, I, uh, ISRU.

• 41:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In-situ resource utilization, which is NASA speak for. When you get there, find your own damn food. Build.

• 41:50Chuck Nice?

  Damn, man, that's rough.

• 41:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you gotta look ahead. So is there water there? Is there natural resources? Can you, can you seed the soils in a way to grow plant life? Is there enough sunlight? So, right now, there's nothing like Earth out there. And so if you're gonna go, you're gonna have to bring a whole lot of Cheetos. Something to keep you, keep you fed. Until you, so, uh, the resource, we developed, our species exist on Earth, thriving on researches, resources that are native to Earth.

• 42:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why we are okay here.

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and not okay on the moon, or on Mars. So this is a huge challenge.

• 42:23Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 42:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That we have not yet resolved. Go, next.

• 42:26Chuck Nice?

  Alright, there you have it. The answer is, click your heels, Patrick, there's no place like home.

• 42:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 42:31Chuck Nice?

  Alright, uh, let's see here.

• 42:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That might mean Patrick is wearing ruby slippers.

• 42:37Chuck Nice?

  Alright, Amanda Dean wants to know this. Uh, why are some planets in gas form and some in solid? Does this differ in a binary star system?

• 42:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, turns out, uh, would you say Earth is gaseous? No, because it's mostly rock, and then we have this thin layer of atmosphere on it. Jupiter, if you go deep enough, it has a solid middle.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody's got a solid core.

• 42:58Chuck Nice?

  So basically, we're all the same, it's just more atmosphere.

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More atmosphere, and in Jupiter's case, most of its mass is in the form of gas.

• 43:05Chuck Nice?

  I got a fever, and I need more atmosphere.

• 43:10Chuck Nice?

  Fantastic.

• 43:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More cowbell.

• 43:16Chuck Nice?

  All right, here's the next question. This is from Gene.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, Jupiter has a much higher gravity, so it can hold the very light gases such as hydrogen and helium that we could not hold. Jupiter's mostly hydrogen and helium, very light gases, very fast-moving atoms. They can fly out of a weak gravity field as they did for us.

• 43:33Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 43:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So our atmosphere is denser, heavier than Jupiter's atmosphere. We have heavier molecules in our atmosphere.

• 43:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cool.

• 43:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they don't move as fast, and so they don't escape.

• 43:42Chuck Nice?

  So you sound like a chipmunk on Jupiter.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you so would. Yes. I never thought that through, because I wouldn't, I was not going to think I would get out of my spaceship and open my helmet while I was in the atmosphere of Jupiter. But since you've already thought this through, Chuck, that is exactly how it would happen. Time for one more question. Go.

• 43:59Chuck Nice?

  Made me choke.

• 44:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So all the Jupiterarians are, sound like Mickey Mouse. Go. Go. The native Jupiterarians.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is from Paul F. Aaron Franz, Aaron F. Skie Jr. Okay. How can we tell what far-off planets and the other objects are made of?

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. This was the birth of modern astrophysics. In the late 19th century, we took the spectroscope, the prism, take light, move it through the prism out the other side, it breaks it up into a component colors, and like a rainbow, and in there, you find embedded the fingerprints of the very chemical identity of what it is you're looking at.

• 44:36Chuck Nice?

  Boom!

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bada bing! And so today, we don't just look at pretty pictures of the night sky as Hubble would have you believe, looking at the greatest hits from that telescope. What we do is we take the light, and we slice it, and we dice it, and in that light, we find carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide. We find molecules, atoms.

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for listening to StarTalk Radio. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Many thanks to our comedian, our guests, our experts, and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.