Cosmic Queries Astrophysics Mashup

Delve into this mashup of Cosmic Queries as Neil deGrasse Tyson and an ensemble of comic co-hosts explore the vast wonder of the cosmos including double star systems, black holes, dark matter and antimatter, the Hubble constant, tidal friction, ET, and much more. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-queries-astrophysics-mashup/

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. Hi, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this week in a special mashup edition, you'll hear a mishmash of some of our favorite moments around a specific topic using a range of expert guests and co-hosts. This week, we've got a potpourri of cosmic queries on astrophysics just for you. Check it out.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  William Jesse Miller has a question, and William asks, "How does a planet..."

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's another three-name person.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Another three-name person.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe they're feeling it with my Neil deGrasse Tyson, so they gotta come in with three names.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel that's how they gotta get their entree.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  William Jesse Miller, go.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  "How does a planet have four suns? Wouldn't some stars be ejected? I thought three or more star systems is unstable."

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "How does a planet have four suns? Okay, yeah, sure. So, the universe, if you look up at night, most of the stars you see are not alone. More than half of the stars in the night sky are multiple, double and multiple star systems.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, the solo star like Earth, like our sun, is, I don't wanna call it rare, but it's not the most common case in the galaxy.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And what a surprise that was to the first person with a telescope who looked up and saw, "Hey, that's not one star, that's two. Oh, it must be a chance alignment of a star in the foreground and a star in the background", they said to themselves. Then they looked around and they said, "Wait a minute. Way too many stars are close to each other than statistics, than the randomness of stars in the galaxy should allow. If you just randomly throw stars up on the sky, how often are they that close to one another?

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It should be rare, yet it was common. So, the original research paper did this statistical calculation and concluded, "This must be real. There must be actual double stars up there. Hey, there's a triple star. There's a quadruple star. You keep looking, whoa, we have a whole cluster of stars. A beehive of stars. In fact, there's an actual cluster called the beehive cluster. And all these stars orbiting a common center of gravity." Yes, occasionally you get an ejected star because not all orbits are stable. When you have all this action, but there is what we call a parameter space where you think this through, right? Two stars orbiting close to one another, it's a tight orbit.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you pull one out a little, kind of far, have that orbit, that pair. It's orbiting so far away, it thinks it's orbiting one star.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's stable.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you get a fourth one, pull it far away. Make it so far away, it thinks it's orbiting sort of one gravity field. The questioner is right, Jesse's right. When you orbit really close, the path, what path are you gonna take?

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who are you next to now, something different tomorrow? That could be hugely turbulent, hugely unstable to the orbits within the system. But you can configure a system where you have a whole set of stable orbits and everybody's happy. You know another set of stable orbits? A pair of stars here and a pair of stars there, and those pairs orbit each other.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 3:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Isn't that cute?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Like dancers.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that'd be a double double star.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  A double.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're actual stars in the night sky, visible to the naked eye, that are double double.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  I feel like I'm ordering Tim Hortons coffee. That's great.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now I'm thinking about it, the question was, how does a planet orbit safely around four suns? That's what the question, that's what his question actually asked. I'm talking about how do you get four stable suns to begin with?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, if a planet were among the stars, it's not stable, it'll fly away. Right?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  The planet will fly away.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if the planet is orbiting within the orbits of the stars themselves, it's gonna fly away.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  So you're saying the planet is commitment phobic?

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's totally commitment phobic. It needs one sort of committed feeling.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  So it can't be big love?

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta, it's gotta go in one direction. So in Star Wars, where they had the double sunset planet, the double sunset, those two stars are close enough to each other, and the planet is far enough away from both. So it executes one orbit around both.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 4:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you pull this off.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  But four, not gonna work.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Four, if you can't start moving in and out, what's your allegiance? As you get pulled to one star versus another, and it wreak havoc on the planet, and you just get ejected.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  I have a question from Angie Suave. I love that name.

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's Rico Suave's sister?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Sister, absolutely. And she wants to know.

• 4:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you say it? Rico Suave.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  How sad is it that we know that?

• 4:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, right? That is so sad. We gotta get a life.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  We're lame. We lost our street cred.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  All right. Could we send a probe of some kind into a black hole? I realize it would be destroyed, but couldn't it transmit some relevant data at least for a short time on its approach? And have we already done this?

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have not already. Excellent question. We haven't already done that. We're not close enough to a black hole to even think about that experiment.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Really?

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, the dangerous part is suppose a black hole comes our way. Like first, how would you know it was coming if it's black? Space is black. I know. Well, I'm saying. So what you have to do is you look for the distortion of space around it. Right? So you have a star field. If all of a sudden the star field starts looking like a funhouse mirror?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Run.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Run. Just pack up the planet.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pack up the planet and get the hell out of that solar system because a black hole is on its way. Most of just as a quick aside, most of the black holes we know, we detect from because they're in a binary star system. There's another star adjacent to them being flayed. Love that word.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I do.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A rare word. It means getting skinned alive, by the way.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Very Middle Ages.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're a word person because you tweet word of the week. It's very Middle Ages, right? It's very like the Spanish Inquisition. So a black hole can flay an adjacent star. If it becomes a red giant and its outer shells expand too much, that it'll then remove those outer layers and those layers will descend into the black hole. Our X-ray telescopes detect material descending into a black hole that gets heated on its way down because of the friction of the disk that it makes. It basically gets flushed toilet bowl style.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as it descends down, it releases energy that it has from falling and that energy is very high. It's like X-rays. X-ray telescopes detect black holes in the galaxy. There's none that we know of that are nearby.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Lucky for us.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lucky for us. But if we did send a probe, yeah, we could get some fascinating data on the gravitational field, the radiation field, and we get it all the way until it hit the point of no return, the event horizon.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Clearly.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a poetic term for the place where you're never coming back.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, within the event horizon, even if you could travel the speed of light, it's not fast enough to escape the gravitational field of the black hole.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there you have it.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Is there something, I mean, are there plans to do this? And can we really get some knowledge from this?

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, yeah, we could get knowledge, but I'm saying, there's no plan. I mean, we don't know our own solar system, much less trying to poke around in a black hole.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? It's like, stay out of that, don't play, you know?

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta choose our playpens and our sandboxes.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Don't poke the bear.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't... Until that day comes. If I were, if we were to find a black hole, I'd try to find a way to exploit its gravitational field for the purposes of the production of energy.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be cool, yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Reduce my light bill.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be good.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Uh, I have a question from Gary Ralph.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  And I love this. "Is there dark matter in my bedroom right now?"

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it!

• 7:57Speaker 01

  "Dark energy? Is it inside of me right now? Dark energy is, I guess, but dark matter, I'm not sure about. Also, if the universe is expanding, does that mean that I'm expanding too?" This is a Dexter question.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, golly!

• 8:12Speaker 01

  "Is there dark matter in me right now?"

• 8:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn, I got like, two minutes left, and I gotta like, I don't know that I can answer all three in two minutes, but I'll try.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Uh, dark matter, we don't know what it is, but we know where it, where we can find it. Uh, but I can tell you that if it's in your room, there's not much of it.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dark matter does not interact with our matter, and doesn't interact even with itself. That's assuming that it's matter at all. So you don't have solid dark matter planets.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does it take to make a planet? Matter has to interact with itself, and make molecules, and cling together, and make rocks, and molecule, and people, and places, and things. Dark matter has no such properties. That's why it's diffuse across the galaxy. We have what's called a dark matter halo around our galaxy, and all the dark matter is scattered into this halo. Huge quantities of matter. I don't even know if it's matter, but it has gravity, and is huge. But it's so dispersed, and so, that you, there's not a meaningful amount of it in any localized place that you're gonna find.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Very antisocial.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, very antisocial. And dark energy, that's everywhere you find the vacuum, you have dark energy. The vacuum of the cosmos itself. Yeah, so, and is it when the universe expands, are we expanding with it? The molecular forces that keep your body together? Those molecular forces are stronger than the force that's expanding the universe.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Thank goodness.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So as the universe expands, you don't.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neither does our galaxy.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Well, until you hit middle age, and then it's all downhill from there.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or the solar system.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Alrighty then, moving on.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What else you got?

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Alright, this is from Mikhail Gorbatsky. About the accuracy of the age of the universe and the Hubble constant. How are we able to refine the 12 to 14 billion year estimate to 13.75 billion? Which, that's really rude. Lady doesn't like to tell her age. Does the universe really want you know when that's 13.75? Couldn't we go with the estimate?

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the longest time, in fact, my entire time as an undergraduate and in graduate school, we didn't know the age of the universe by a factor of two. There was some research that indicated that we might be 10 billion years old. Other research that indicated we might be 20 billion years old. And there were whirring camps at every conference. There were the 10 billion year old people, the 20 billion year old people.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  What did that fight look like in the lunchroom?

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the lunchroom? What, what food stuff did we reach to throw at each other? And this all relates to what's called the Hubble constant.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Named in honor of Edwin Hubble, the man. There was a human being that predated the telescope, whose name was Hubble.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  What you say.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, here's an interesting case. He had an affected British accent.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Did he really?

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, he was so fake and wore all these tweety things. He smoked a pipe.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 11:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he was, wait, and he was a misogynist racist. Totally.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Well, if you're gonna be one, you should be the other as well.

• 11:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They go together.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Two for one.

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They often go together. And the good thing about science is that none of that's relevant. What matters is how good was his science. In many other walks of life, you fold all that together and you say the person is reprehensible.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want any part of them. I don't want them speaking to my children. And in science, science distinguishes itself from other activities of the human condition for that reason. Right. It's got nothing to do with culture. That's right. So, he in 1920s discovered that galaxies in the universe were moving away from one another in all directions. And so, you look this, you look one direction, they're moving away from you. Look, another direction is still moving away from you. I want my space. I'm out of here. You need, I need my space. They're not coming towards you in one direction and away from you in another. They're going away from you in all directions. If you plot this up, the line that is drawn has a slope. Okay. The slope of that line is the Hubble constant.

• 12:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you know the slope of that line, you know the age of the universe.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. This week is a special mashup edition. You're going to hear clips from some of our favorite discussions across the StarTalk network. So, let's get right back to it.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. Uh, here's one. So Jesse from Vancouver, Canada would like to know this.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Given that there is an upper limit or upper speed limit to the universe, being the speed of light, and a lower speed.

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not just a good idea, it's the law.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Buckle up, galaxies.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  You never know. Okay.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  And there's a lower speed limit.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, the buckling up. You only buckle up because the car, your car changes speed.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not because it exists at any one speed at all.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Well, it's the change that's pretty.

• 13:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Change is what will kill you.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's why you can be in an airplane going 600 miles an hour at 39,000 feet and they say, "You may now unbuckle your seatbelt."

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Right, because nothing's gonna happen.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. If you maintain your speed, that's not a problem. It's if your speed changes, and that's what your seatbelt is for.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Okay, so, uh, given there's a lower speed limit, which is the absolute zero temperature. Could velocity be considered a dimension like space? Length, width, and depth?

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to ask, where are you gonna go with that? What are you gonna do with that?

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, for example, you can have a speed and then I can slow you down with brakes.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you change dimension? I mean, where are you getting with that? Why?

• 14:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, what is the purpose of even having?

• 14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thinking about it that way.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you wanna, by the way, creative thinking is highly a good thing in this world.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you do so, ask yourself, is there something you will now be able to explain that you couldn't before?

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 14:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because everything we've constructed about velocity and speed and all of this, it's, as Einstein said, or was it his protege? Says, "Space tells matter how to move, and matter tells space how to curve."

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's deep.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  That's a great one.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's deep. So, in that sense, it's not your speed, but it's the gravity that's creating the dimensionality of the fabric of space, and you can move within that. So, we move within the fabric of space. So, the velocity itself is not, there's no cause to think about it that way.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 15:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I applaud the exercise.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's very creative thinking, and your answer, Jesse, is dark matter. I'm just saying.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will never answer one question with something else we don't know anything about.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. See, that's how I do it.

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, people do.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People say, "Oh, can we explain this thing in terms of consciousness?" We don't know what consciousness is, so just back up.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Give it space.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  That's funny. But see, you know what? That's a, that's a great little cheat, though.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is a cheat.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  It's a great cheat.

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a complete cheat.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People do it all the time.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it makes, I mean, listen, 'cause I don't know about this. Well, why don't we think about it in terms of something else we don't know about?

• 15:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, that'll answer it.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  That'll answer it, right? That's very funny.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  All right, this is from Amanda Milligan. And she says, "In every documentary..."

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where's she from? She's from Earth?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  She is from Earth.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  She's just from Earth. "In every documentary I have seen lately, extraterrestrial life is animal."

• 15:59Speaker 02

  How do you think plant life would evolve outside of our own world? Or could there be life that exists that could not be classified as either plant nor animal, but still life?

• 16:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a famous science fiction story, and forgive me if I forgot who wrote it, because I don't come in here with notes in anticipation of questions.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  You don't know these questions, so how could you?

• 16:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. So, so there's a science fiction story where the aliens came upon Earth and saw that we, there's like muscle tissue and they go back to their home planet and says, "They're made of meat."

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the aliens, they're made of some spirit energy, right? And we're made of meat. And another thing that we take for granted, but I can imagine an alien life form that would just freak out. Other than salt, other than salt, animals have to kill to consume food. Other than the consumption of salt. Everything else you eat was once alive, okay? Well, sorry, sorry, sorry. Unless you live off of milk and honey, right? Those themselves were not once alive.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  That's still an animal byproduct.

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As an animal byproduct. You have to kill something. And even the vegetarians are slaughtering carrots.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right? And slicing them, dicing them up, and shredding them.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the fact that we have to kill other life forms on our own planet for our own sustenance could easily be seen as one of the most barbaric things to another civilization where they all absorb energy from their host star.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Right. Yes.

• 17:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you have it.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Because they're absorbing and not consuming, well, they're ingesting.

• 17:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're unlimited source of energy from their sun, just like planets, but plants on Earth.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't have to eat anything. There's some that do, of course, but most don't. The Venus flytrap is carnivorous, and what's that other one that eats flies that smells like?

• 17:52Speaker 02

  A picture plant.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that one, okay, so they're carnivorous. But all the rest are doing just fine with sunlight.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's, that's an awesome way to live, I think. If I were to evolve the human into another form, I'd evolve us with solar panels on our skin.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  Nice. Our skin would be one big solar panel.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that way, getting sunburned, you just recharge your, your energetics.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Yes. I believe they call that Africans.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  I'm just saying. Last I heard, that's why they're black.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  I say they.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  I just said that's why they're black. That's so crazy. All right. Megan Morrissey says, hi. I'm showing for the first time an episode of Cosmos in my high school earth sciences class.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give it up for the teachers of the world.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  There you go. One of my students just asked me if a ship that is designed like a ship of imagination would actually be able to fly into space. Would that be possible? Love your show and thank you.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not authorized to say whether I actually own one of these.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the ship of the imagination on purpose has mobility through space and time. And that mobility is empowered by my thoughts.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are no controls. There's no, plus we had a mini discussion with, with Andruyan, who specified in the script that the ship would be impossibly minimalist.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I would not be wearing a badge, which would imply that I'm captain and you're not.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause you should be able to fly this as well. So, so the ship, no, it exists completely in my imagination as your tour guide. So no, there is no attempt to try to make it real.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As there have been with the Starship Enterprise and other sort of sci-fi creations. So anyway, so yeah, it's not, it's not real or it can even be imagined to be real.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause it exists in my mind.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As your private tour guide.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  All right. This is from Scott and that's all he says is this is from Scott.

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Okay. He says, on your premiere of Cosmos, you mentioned that the moon was pushed away by tidal friction. Can you explain that a little bit further? I had never heard it put like that before.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep. Pushed is a very visual image, but what's really happening is that it's getting flung. Flung is a more sort of physically accurate thing.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's going on is the moon creates a tidal bulge on earth. And so it, the water that's nearest the moon pulls towards the moon. The moon is pulling on earth a little less and the water that's on the other side of the moon is pulling on even less. So all the oceanic waters form this bulge that it's in a direct line to the moon. Okay?

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. It turns out it's not in a direct line to the moon. Because Earth is rotating. And we're rotating faster than the moon is turning around it. So we actually drag this bulge ahead of the moon.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this bulge is actually trying to slow us down. That's why we occasionally add leap seconds to the calendar.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 21:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And because the bulge is ahead of the moon.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The moon feels a gravitational force ahead of it. And so it wants to go faster in its orbit.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by going faster in its orbit, it ascends to higher distances from Earth.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 21:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a cosmic ballet choreographed by the forces of gravity.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Gosh darn it, that was fantastic.

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the moon is spiraling away about five inches a year from Earth. Just because of this flinging effect.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the leading edge of this tidal bulge.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Right. Oh my, that is fascinating. Because it's like the Earth is a container holding this water.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, correct.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  So instead of lining up with the gravitational pull from the moon.

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Because the Earth is a container holding this water and it's spinning.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  The water wants to move ahead.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we're dragging the water ahead of the moon.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  We're dragging the water ahead of the moon.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that costs us our rotational energy to do so.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  That, God.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  That's awesome!

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Oh my God, that's incredible!

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's just physics.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  I know, but I, you know, I don't do that a lot.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I don't do physics a lot!

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you know, you look like a double rainbow guy. Remember double rainbow guy? He comes around the corner of the mountain, it's on YouTube.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two rainbows! And he starts crying? I say, dude, it's physics, okay? Chill out.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh, this is divine. No, it's like, it's lights, alright? So, so I don't mean to take away the beauty of this. By the way, there are other things that are mysteries that we don't understand.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That are even more beautiful. But I'm saying-

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Like women.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are in this tango with the moon.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ultimately, if the, when the moon wins, well, it's not gonna win. Ultimately, the moon wants to slow us down so much that we rotate at exactly the same rate that the moon orbits us.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when that's the case, our tidal bolts will align. We will not be fighting the bolts, and the bolts will not be flinging the moon forward. And the system will be called, will be in what is called a double tidal lock.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Double tidal lock?

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, which was a wrestling move.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Sounds like a out-

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was gonna say, I wanted to invent that move. Well, I used to wrestle.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  The double tidal lock?

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wrestle and I know astrophysics. You know I was trying to invent a double tidal lock wrestling hold, right?

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so what, so what hap- at that point, Earth's day will equal the lunar month.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one side of the Earth will only ever face the moon. Just as today, one side of the moon only ever faces the Earth. Which is why there's never Earthrise on the moon.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's always in the sky if you're on that half of the moon.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is why that famous photo called Earthrise, taken by Apollo 8 in December 1968.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called Earthrise. Cause the Earth was rising over the moon. Why? Well, it's cause they were orbiting-

• 24:07Speaker 02

  On its right.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were orbiting the moon.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they pull up the camera and there's Earth rising. That's how you get Earthrise. But people thought, oh, Earth rises on the moon, just like the moon rises on Earth? Not now. Right.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 24:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not until the moon wins.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, I'm still stuck on double tidal lock, cause I'm trying to figure out, like, do you put your, like, legs around the person's neck? And then you're like hanging off of their back? And then you grab both their knees? And then you like whip it and-

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I got, no, I had, I'll show you, off camera, I'll show you.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never perfected it, but I had, I had the ideas of one. It was good.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  That's pretty cool. Alright, that was-

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause what happens is you face your opponent, and then I swing you till you're out of balance, and then take you down while I'm still facing you. Cause in a double tidal lock, both sides of the orbs are facing one another, no matter what they do.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  So the idea is to get the person still facing you, and then-

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As I swing and take him down, right, yeah.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yo, that's fantastic.

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe get a quick one in before the break.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Alright, here's a good one, man.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah?

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Will this guy look different if we are all standing on another planet? Constellations and such, so if I'm, if I'm on another planet in this solar system, do I see the same sky?

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  What?

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You heard what I said?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  You said yes?

• 25:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so here's, it's a simple answer, okay? So the extent of our solar system is like from, like the sun to Neptune.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get over it.

• 25:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, if you look at the planets, so.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  So it's this, so basically, we're such a small little part.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  We're not gonna change the frame of reference.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, so if you look at the width of the solar system, it's like 10 light hours across.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would take a beam of light 10 hours to cross the solar system. That's big, that's a long time, especially going at the speed of light.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  However, as you look at the nearest stars, the stars that comprise the constellations, they are hundreds of light years away.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 26:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you just shift your head 10 light hours, you know, the stars don't mean, they don't mean a damn thing to the stars. So you gotta start moving among the stars to change your perspective on the constellations for them to take on other shapes.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 26:44Speaker 03

  More Emily Care, boss. At Emily Care. I don't understand what that being, so it's at Emily Care.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  Which is an old age home for only women named Emily. What are the, what are the frontiers of research in astrophysics right now?

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right now, we're looking for dark matter. We don't know what is causing 85% of the gravity of the universe. We don't know what is making the, yeah, yeah. I'm not even done, right? And there's a pressure in the vacuum of space making the universe accelerate.

• 27:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In its expansion against the wishes of all the galaxies that it contains. If you add up dark matter and dark energy, it is 96% of all that is driving the universe. And we haven't a clue what they are.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Dark side is winning. It's Star Wars.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dark side is definitely winning. Winning this contest of knowledge.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Something's out there just pulling.

• 27:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and we don't know what it is. But we can measure it.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  What does that have to do with?

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know. I don't know. We shouldn't even, I've said, we shouldn't even call it dark matter, dark energy. That implies we know it's matter and energy. We don't even know what the hell it is.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  It's evil, though.

• 27:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  We know it's evil. And it's out there and it's pulling.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's dark.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Creating stretch marks on the universe.

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are two, and we're looking for life in the universe. Life on Mars, life in Europa.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  And hawking is like, no.

• 27:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This could be probably microbial. I don't think there's intelligent life lurking in caves on Mars. But the life at all would be a boon to biology.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  They find?

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Water bits on Mars?

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but not intelligent life. That's different. Yeah.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  I think it's a little rude to call them.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a jump.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  I think it's.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a jump to go from oozing water to intelligent life with civilizations.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Well, you haven't been to Hollywood, so your definition of intelligent is not the same as others.

• 28:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I would say that plus on the biological side, which affects the search for life. We don't know how to turn organic molecules into self-replicating life. That transition which Earth did, apparently without any issues.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Any help.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Without any help. Um, so we don't know how to do that yet. So that's an interesting frontier. Once you figure that out, you can better decide what planet it might be happening on.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Hey, well.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  There's your answer.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bring it on.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  Care for only Emilies.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. What else you have?

• 28:52Speaker 03

  What is antimatter? Do we have access to it? That question by Andrew Sinclair on Facebook.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wonder if these are people who have labs in their basement and they want to become like.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  How do I get access to it? You need to buy some Sudafed?

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is antimatter? How do I get my hands on some? Uh, so as far as we have been able to measure.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All particles of matter have an exact replica of those particles. Except they're made of what we call antimatter.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  The doppelganger.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which if they come together, they will completely annihilate and turn into pure energy. And so, and it's not just, we discovered it first. It was not science. Science fiction does some stuff first. We did this first.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. We came up with antimatter, predicted its existence, discovered it.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  How do you discover it?

• 29:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's the product of other reactions. So you have regular matter, you smash particles apart, and in the particle stream you see antimatter. And the antimatter doesn't last very long.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  You see antimatter?

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because then it dilates. Yeah, you know, you see its path through, back there, cloud chambers and things. You see the path that it had traveled.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  What about through soil?

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're still worried you want to store it.

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Very worried about the nuclear reactions going through soil.

• 30:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it is real, and it would be matter, antimatter, uh, engines would be the most powerful engines, the most efficient engines we would ever know how to make if you're traveling through space, because you start with matter and then you have pure energy. And if, you know, your car that you drive, you said a Civic, or you were joking about a Civic. What is it? It's like only 20 or 30% at most of the energy of the gas you put in the engine is going to move your car forward. The rest is dissipated as heat. That's why your car gets hot when you drive it. Imagine if all that energy went in to propel your car. You'd be going 200 miles an hour.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Harnessing energy.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Harnessing energy is all about.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Extended energy.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All about that. Exactly. And if all of your matter becomes energy, you got it. There you go.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Who do you think will win in the race to harnessing antimatter first, us or the Russians?

• 30:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why do you have Russians on the screen?

• 30:51Speaker 03

  So maybe talk about this.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want the Cold War to come back? What, what?

• 30:54Speaker 03

  Well, I don't think it ever left.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, we have more resources than the Ruski's do, so maybe.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  He said it.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe it's us.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  He said it. Dasvidanya.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, let's go to, uh, to a lightning round.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Try to get as many questions as I can, and I'm gonna answer in sound bites.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  Okay, are you ready?

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  Do I say the name of the person?

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do, just read fast.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Okay, what is complete stillness? Would you be slingshotted to the end of time? Would you be ripped completely from existence?

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you were completely still?

• 31:21Speaker 03

  What is complete stillness?

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, complete stillness, as far as I know, would have nothing to do with you traveling through time or being cast out to the edge of existence.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Also the name of a yoga studio.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in fact, nothing is completely still. There are vibrations at all levels, and even at all temperatures, including absolute zero.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Matter vibrates. Next.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  If there...

• 31:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, it just vibrates more if it's hotter. But even at absolute zero, quantum fluctuations create vibrations in matter.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  At the smallest level.

• 31:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. Go.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  If there was no comet to wipe out the dinosaurs, how much harder would it be for mammals and eventually intelligent life to thrive? Could we maybe get intelligent dinosaurs?

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, great question. So here's the thing. Our mammal ancestors were running underfoot to T-Rex. Trying to avoid being consumed as hors d'oeuvres. So if the comet didn't come, the asteroid didn't come, it's not clear, we would have evolved to anything, unless we were on a completely separate continent.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where the dinosaurs couldn't swim and then eat us. Then it's possible that we could evolve intelligence completely separately while there were major dinosaurs existing on another continent. And then when Columbus sets sail. And cross continents.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He would have just gotten eaten. That would have.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  There was like hats on, like, welcome to dinner.

• 32:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  Ever seen the way an iguana looks at you? Like, it knows something. It's like, it could have been us.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  All right. Um.

• 32:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so could dinosaurs evolve intelligence? Not likely. Their brain cavities didn't look like, yeah, too small. Okay, next.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Bunch of jerks.

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, go.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Okay. Is Earth gaining mass from space dust and impact rocks or losing mass from evaporating gases and launching space probes? What effects would this have on GPS satellite?

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent question. So we are gaining three approximate, anywhere between two and 400 tons of meteor dust a day, which vastly exceeds spacecraft that we send out or lost evaporated particles in the atmosphere. So Earth is gaining mass daily. Consequences that would be, uh, it is not any worse than an elephant, uh, collecting a gnat.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Um, wow, is that small?

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's less. It's less than that.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  These questions are more just me trying to, I have no idea what I said when I read it. And just me trying to look like I know what's going on.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, 20 seconds.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Okay. Even if we somehow discovered the tech to travel at or faster than light, would passengers of the vehicle survive?

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so it's not, the issue is not how fast you go, it's what is your acceleration? Acceleration is what kills you. Deceleration is what kills you. All right, so in a plane, you're going 600 miles an hour and you're just fine sipping tea. That's not, the speed doesn't kill you. Speed has never killed you. It's all about acceleration. And I actually wrote a little essay for Motor Trend magazine on acceler.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  Who doesn't get that? Who isn't subscribing to Motor Trend magazine?

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, it's, it's, it's, uh, you know, it's not all about the speed, it's all about the acceleration. Cause that's what you feel and that's the feeling of going fast, whether or not you actually are. That's right. So no, go as fast as you want and enjoy.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Go as fast as you want, uh, from, from Neil deGrasse Tyson. Don't wear a seatbelt and enjoy your life.

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not what I said.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Pretty sure that's what you just said.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fist bump out of this. Eliza Schlesinger.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Well, an issue, huh?

• 34:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are back on StarTalk.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  Back.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Queries Edition. And I got Godfrey here.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  Hey, man.

• 34:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Studio.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  What's up?

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Godfrey tweeting at GodfreyComedian.

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Yes, that's right.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a lot of characters to give up to your Twitter handle.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  Is it?

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  GodfreyComedian.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  It's the only way.

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the only way.

• 34:51Speaker 04

  I wanted to be a-

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could shorten it, just say "God."

• 34:53Speaker 04

  No. Cannot do that.

• 34:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, shall not do that.

• 34:57Speaker 04

  I would say, well, lowercase g.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  Lowercase. Cause they, cause people will come up to me and go, "Oh, do they, and he do it like in an arrogant, do they call you God for sure?" You know what I mean? I'm like, "Yes, they do."

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I say, "Yes."

• 35:11Speaker 04

  "Yes, they do, and you're a sinner. Yes." Are you ready?

• 35:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, wait, wait, so these are cosmic phenomena. I haven't seen the question, so bring them on. Bring them on.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  So I'm bringing you... Let's see what I'm bringing you.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's see what you got.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  I'll see what I got here.

• 35:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got a...

• 35:25Speaker 04

  Joshua Shoop from Twitter.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  "Aliens are so far away, they can see our entire history as it's happening." "Is that why they don't want to come here?"

• 35:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Next question. Well, just let me clarify why that would be the case.

• 35:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, if you are at any distance from anything you're looking at-

• 35:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see it not as it is, but as it once was.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "I see you not as you are, but as you were four billionths of a second ago."

• 35:57Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 35:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So light takes about a nanosecond to go a foot.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  A nanosecond to go a foot, wow.

• 36:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A billionth of a second. So, you're about four feet from me right now?

• 36:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see you as you once were, four billionths of a second ago. So now, let's put, let's put a civilization in Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to ours. That's four light years away. You're four light nanoseconds away from me.

• 36:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alpha Centauri is four light years away, so anybody there- Is watching if they were could get our signals.

• 36:34Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 36:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, they would be seeing earth. Um. What was going on four years ago? There was another campaign for president.

• 36:43Speaker 04

  Obama was smashing, um, uh, that dummy, um.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is he talking about?

• 36:47Speaker 04

  What's that dummy's name? Oh, that Mormon guy. That guy's Dave, uh, uh, uh, no, he's so bad.

• 36:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mitt Romney.

• 36:54Speaker 04

  Mitt Romney, that you could see him getting pummeled.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay, so, so he loses, so they would be watching tho- that the last few weeks of that campaign. Okay.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  Ah.

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, in real time.

• 37:07Speaker 04

  In real time.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As it was unfolding, because the light is just arriving at them at the time.

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now, if you go farther, so, so, here you go, there's there are galaxies that might be six, there is one. Sixty-five million light years away. Why'd I pick that number?

• 37:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the stuff that was happening here on earth sixty-five million years ago is only now just reaching them.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  It's just reaching them?

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just reaching them, so they're gonna say, hey, let's check out Earth TV. The Earth's channel, there you go.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  So.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so that, that's.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  I mean, that's my tyrannosaurus.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that your T-Rex imitation?

• 37:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, so, I'm sure that's what they sounded like, and so.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, they would see the extinction of the dinosaurs, because that's when the asteroid struck.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  Meteor.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A meteor struck.

• 37:56Speaker 04

  A meteor struck.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The size of Mount Everest.

• 37:57Speaker 04

  So that's what they would be seeing.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They would watch that in real time, so, so, there's a lot of interesting history on earth that shouldn't preclude alien visitation. At least, maybe they visited the dinosaurs, and.

• 38:08Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you could ask, why didn't they help him out? You know?

• 38:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know, if they were really checking.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  So, I was thinking they wouldn't come because of Trump. No, nothing?

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't, but that Trump is a very recent phenomenon.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That has not had enough time.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reach any planets beyond our own solar system.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Can you imagine?

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's no understanding of recent current events. To any aliens anywhere in the galaxy.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Uh, I don't wanna trump you, but I go, wrong.

• 38:39Speaker 04

  That's what he did the whole time. Wrong, wrong.

• 38:43Speaker 04

  So that's interesting. I didn't, you would actually see the dying of the din- the extinction of the dinosaurs.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  That is cool.

• 38:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so they would have access, depending on their distance.

• 38:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They would have access. So, uh, what are some events? So let's say, uh, what's a good example? World War I and World War II, uh, pretty tragic times in the history of the earth, seventy, eighty, a hundred years ago. And, um, they might say, these people have messed up.

• 39:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? And say, when we will not come anywhere near. This is, this is the, in summary.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aliens have never visited because according to them, there's no sign of intelligent life on earth.

• 39:22Speaker 04

  Wow. There it is. There it is.

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  That's, that's.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  Okay, I think you nailed that.

• 39:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  I think, okay, I got one.

• 39:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called kneeling it, by the way.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  What'd you say?

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called kneeling. I kneeled it.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  You knee- oh, you kneeled it? Oh.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  Just got.

• 39:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you just, slow? I thought Indians were faster than that.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  No, because I'm looking at you from some light years away.

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, oh.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  And hit me.

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, okay, good comeback. You get one time delay comeback.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  Tacky on.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per show.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  So I'm watching you from a couple.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay, alright. You get one of those per show.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Slow. So maybe people are slow because of light years. They're not really here yet. So there's no such thing as being mentally slow. It's just their perspective is kind of.

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You should stop there.

• 40:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  I have another question.

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic phenomena, bring it on.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  This is by William Morris, Facebook.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  What's a henway?

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About two to three pounds. Next?

• 40:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't, you can't, who are you? What, you think I was born yesterday?

• 40:32Speaker 04

  You just wanted to see that. What's a henway? There's no science behind that, huh? That's it. Next? That's it. What's a henway?

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We should call the first warp drive a henway. So that wherever they land, they say, we gotta fix the henway.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  You gotta fix the henway.

• 40:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could run that joke clear across the galaxy.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  That was awesome.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, Chuck, we are in the five-minute warning zone.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Uh-oh.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This means, you know what that means?

• 41:00Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 41:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The lightning round.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  It's the lightning round.

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I will answer questions in soundbite mode.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get in as many as we can in the next four minutes.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  All right, here we go.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  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?"

• 41:18Neil 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, into the sun.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Boom!

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ba-da-bing.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Boom!

• 41:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ba-da, oh, oh, yeah. There, okay.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  There we go.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. Good. Next. All right. So every orbit, at every distance from the sun, there is one speed.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:42Neil 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. Go.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Okay, rogue planet. All right, 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?"

• 42:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Damn, man, that's rough.

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you gotta look ahead. See, 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, or 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.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why we are okay here.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 42:57Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That we have not yet resolved. Go, next.

• 42:59Speaker 02

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

• 43:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  All right, uh, let's see here.

• 43:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That might mean Patrick is wearing ruby slippers.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  All right, 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?

• 43:20Neil 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. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody's got a solid core.

• 43:32Speaker 02

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

• 43:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 43:39Speaker 02

  I got a fever and I need more atmosphere.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Fantastic.

• 43:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More cowbell.

• 43:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me more atmosphere.

• 43:50Speaker 02

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

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, Jupiter has a much higher gravity, so it can hold the very light gases, such as, uh, 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.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 44:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, so our atmosphere is denser, heavier than Jupiter's atmosphere. We have heavier molecules in our atmosphere. Because they don't move as fast, and so they don't escape.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  So you sound like a chipmunk on Jupiter, on Jupiter.

• 44:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you so would, yes. I never thought that through, because I wouldn't, I was not gonna 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.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  You made me choke.

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So all the Jupiterarians are, are, sound like Mickey Mouse, go, go, the native Jupiterans, go.

• 44:39Speaker 02

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

• 44:49Neil 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.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Boom, bada bing.

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to a Cosmic Queries mashup. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.