Extended Classic: Cosmic Queries - Office Hours

The astrophysicist is in! Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on all things cosmic. Now extended with more questions about Jupiter, brown dwarfs, human intelligence, Isaac Newton, Star Wars, exomoons, and more. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Image credit: Lynette Cook / extrasolar.spaceart.org.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. This particular edition, I'm kinda tired of naming them other things and I think maybe Chuck, my co-host. Hello. The idea came up, maybe we should call these Office Hours. Office Hours. Hmm. Just to get a little academic flavor back in it. Yeah, right on. Okay, let's experiment with that. It's Cosmic Queries. Office Hours officially. Office Hours. Yes, let's do that. Right. Chuck, how have you?

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  Good to be here.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been in Aruba for nine days.

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes, my friend, I was in Aruba for nine glorious days.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sporting a nice tan.

• 0:55Chuck Nice?

  And that, thank you, I've been working on this tan for nine days and 40 years. And, uh...

• 1:03Chuck Nice?

  But I have to tell you, after nine days in Aruba, and I do not mean this in an unpatriotic way at all, I hate America.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 1:14Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm joking, please.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got some beaches.

• 1:17Chuck Nice?

  We do have some nice beaches. I've been to a few nice beaches here in the States, but I gotta tell you, that Eagle Beach, when they call it the second nicest beach in the world, they're not lying.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  The sand is just the right consistency.

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can like the beach without hating America.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  What's that?

• 1:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can like the beach without hating America.

• 1:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, but it increases my love for the beach when I actually juxtapose it against my hate for my own country.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  Which, by the way, people do not write me, "I love this country, this is the best country on the face of the earth," even when I don't agree with what this country is doing, I still love it, okay? So, and all of you need to take a lesson from that, okay?

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do people write to you about that?

• 1:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, people write to me, like, people write, people get very upset, they feel as though somehow we're being political on this show, and, you know, I write them back because I know for a fact, whether it's you or Bill Nye, and I've met... Many of your colleagues that you, especially you and Bill, you are not seeking a political bent, you are not seeking to deliver a political message ever. It is always about critical thought, it is always about the truth, it is always about the science. That is what it's all, and it's always about educating people or getting people to become curious for themselves, so that they go find out for themselves.

• 2:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that works.

• 2:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and so like it really pisses me off when people write and say, "Oh, I like this show before you guys got all political." Just because you don't agree with the science.

• 2:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so it reminds me of the, the moniker that Harry Truman had, they called him, give him hell, Harry.

• 2:56Chuck Nice?

  Give him hell, Harry, yeah.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said, "Harry, why are you always giving people hell?" And he said, "And I just give them the truth."

• 3:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They think it's hell.

• 3:01Chuck Nice?

  Right, there you go. I like that. I just give them the truth they think is hell.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you got a question for me, what do you have?

• 3:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Office hours are open.

• 3:09Chuck Nice?

  Office hours are now open.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:12Chuck Nice?

  I feel like, what is it, Charlie Brown when he used to go see Lucy and see the doctor is in.

• 3:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, oh, flip the sign over, okay.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  Flip the sign over. Alright, so yeah, uh, we've got, uh, our, our queries from all across the internet, and we always start with a Patreon patron question.

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we are that low.

• 3:27Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we. No shame in this game, baby. Give us some money.

• 3:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if I'll ever get over this fact, but okay.

• 3:35Chuck Nice?

  Give us some money.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you support the show, you get your question up first.

• 3:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, you give us some money.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the front of the line.

• 3:40Chuck Nice?

  We, we will be your science whore. Okay, that was too much, Chuck. Take it down a notch. Alright, here we go. This is Kyle Yokum from Patreon who says this.

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kyle Yokum, good name.

• 3:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's a pretty cool name. And he spelled it phonetically for me, so, you know, which it didn't have.

• 3:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He knows you need help. That's good.

• 3:58Chuck Nice?

  That's so true.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, don't F this one up, Chuck.

• 4:00Chuck Nice?

  That's right. So he goes, "My name is pronounced Kyle Yokum, and I..." Oh, I should do it a different way. "My name is pronounced Kyle Yokum, and I'm from Tennessee."

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tennessee, okay, you got it.

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  He says, "It seems statistically impossible for life not to exist elsewhere in the universe, but I try to consider all the possibilities to keep an open mind. If we were able to look throughout all the visible cosmos planets by planet and found no life at all, given our current understanding of the universe, what might be our best scientific explanation for why we..."

• 4:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would be alone. That, so first, let me reaffirm the statistical unlikelihood of that, before I then comment on what happens if it's true. Alright. Keep in mind that if life only began yesterday on Earth, it would have taken four and a half billion years for that to happen. Okay. That's a lot of time. Lot of time. It would make, it would be pretty clear that whatever it is we call life was hard to happen. Mm-hmm. Okay, nature was struggling for billions of years. Right. But that's not what actually happened. We have the ingredients of life on Earth, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, other, and they're all here on Earth as they are everywhere else in the universe. Mm-hmm. Practically everywhere else in the universe. Right.

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are the most common ingredients out there, one for one. Number one ingredient in the universe is hydrogen. Okay. Number one element in life on Earth is hydrogen. Okay. Number two in the universe is helium, but it's chemically inert, can't use it. Right. So, put that, you can breathe it. Right. It's great for parties. It's great for parties, but you don't interact with it chemically. It's good for YouTube videos. So, next in the universe is oxygen. Right. It's the next most abundant element in life on Earth. And then oxygen and the hydrogen come together as water. Right. Okay, and you will also find hydrogen and oxygen in other molecules, but we're mostly water by weight. Okay, next is carbon. We're carbon-based life. Right.

• 6:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, carbon is next in order in life, it is next in order in the universe. So, these ingredients for life on Earth are everywhere. Right, and so the recipe for this is actually the universe itself. Universe itself. Okay. Universe itself, now. So, you have the ingredients, now you need conditions. Right. Okay, so whatever were the conditions on the early Earth, you, we have to ask, were they unique in the galaxy, or are they approximately repeated elsewhere? In our current catalogs, we, we have rising through one or two dozen planets in the Goldilocks zone of their host star. Right. As are we on Earth. Right. So, you have all the base ingredients, and in the tiny little Blip of the universe we have explored in search for planets.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have found one or two dozen planets in their Goldilocks zone. So now you ask, how long would it take? So you look on Earth and the evidence may and recent evidence shows we have possible signatures of life on Earth as early as 4.2 billion years ago.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth only began four and a half billion years ago.

• 7:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but let's even pull that in because that was very recent data and maybe it'll be overturned. Before that, the best evidence puts it at 3.8 to 4 billion years. That means Earth was around for like a half a billion years, then there was life.

• 7:21Chuck Nice?

  Then something happened.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And something happened, all by itself. There it is. Ingredients, the, the, the time.

• 7:27Chuck Nice?

  And the conditions.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The conditions and it's not billions of years, it's half a billion years.

• 7:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So however much challenge we have creating life in the laboratory from simple organic molecules, nature managed to do it all by itself.

• 7:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So hence the statistical unlikelihood of it. But if we go around and search every single planet in the galaxy. Which is more realistic than the whole universe.

• 7:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we gonna travel between galaxies? We don't have to do that yet.

• 7:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We ain't there yet.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But our whole galaxy still. And there's no other life? That would force us to look back to Earth and ask, was there something truly unusual? That happened on Earth? Our star is an odd.

• 8:07Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Location of our planet, the mass of our planet, the fact that there's water, the fact that none of that is, so we'd have to find something that was unusual to enable it happening here and then have it happen nowhere else.

• 8:19Chuck Nice?

  Alien DNA.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  Which of course, uh, negates the entire supposition of this whole question, right?

• 8:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It means it came from somewhere else.

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly, right.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But no, but then if it came from aliens, we'd find the.

• 8:31Chuck Nice?

  You have to find the aliens, right, yeah. So that's why I said it negates the supposition of the entire question.

• 8:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 8:36Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that would, so science would then turn to wondering.

• 8:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What would be sort of uniquely, it would have to be a one in a billion, well however many, no, uh, planets are out there, it would have to be so rare that would have happened one in that many planets.

• 8:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so let's say there's, you know, 10. Billion planet, it'd be one in ten billion chance of something happening.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On Earth.

• 8:58Chuck Nice?

  But, but the same thing is, like you said, all of those planets have the same building blocks.

• 9:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 9:06Chuck Nice?

  That we do.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 9:07Chuck Nice?

  So what could that one thing be?

• 9:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we don't, that's what I'm saying. We don't, science would have to turn to then try to answer that question.

• 9:13Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I got you.

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it would be.

• 9:14Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all.

• 9:15Chuck Nice?

  So we would just have, right. So you would have to isolate that one difference.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's very hard to come up with a strong idea about how and why something is when you only have one example of it.

• 9:26Chuck Nice?

  Right. So it's kind of like when the scientist goes into the, um, laboratory. And he's looking for the recipe for superhuman strength. But he keeps putting together a combination of all these things and he just can't find it. Or at least he'll find, he'll make it, but then the, the subject will explode after like five minutes. So it's super strong. And then all of a sudden, a small dog enters the laboratory and knocks over all the ingredients. And they come together in a little slurry and they start sparkling and he falls down and slips in it. And then he gets up and he's a superhero.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  That's the only.

• 10:06Chuck Nice?

  Hundred billion, that's the thing.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and may I add, that is how the Powerpuff Girls were made.

• 10:13Chuck Nice?

  Are you for real?

• 10:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 10:14Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's a.

• 10:15Chuck Nice?

  By the way, how do you know the Powerpuff Girls, which I love?

• 10:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Powerpuff Girls, you gotta love me some Powerpuff Girls.

• 10:21Chuck Nice?

  I do not know their origin story.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't know their origin story?

• 10:23Chuck Nice?

  I did not, but I do love the Powerpuff Girls because I have, I have a daughter and a younger daughter.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's the father.

• 10:29Chuck Nice?

  Who's a scientist.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the lab, he's in his basement in the lab.

• 10:32Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's trying to mix these ingredients to create the perfect children.

• 10:37Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 10:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The perfect girls. And so he mixes together sugar, spice. And everything nice.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as he stirs it, there's an accident in the lab and Chemical X pours into this ingredient. And then there's an explosion.

• 10:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And out come three adorable little girls.

• 10:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With superpowers.

• 11:00Chuck Nice?

  I had no idea.

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chemical X, the Powerpuff Girl.

• 11:02Chuck Nice?

  X is the power, oh, that's cool.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's what, that's your scenario.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  We have, that is my scenario. That's very cool. All right. Well, there you have it, buddy. Kyle, that's a.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's just, let me just add, because you know where he's going with that, right?

• 11:13Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you might ask, will there be something that will compel scientists to say, oh, God did it? Okay.

• 11:21Chuck Nice?

  Well, yes.

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because this is, you know, fundamental, like.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Many religions would assert that Earth is the purpose of the universe and, and life on Earth, human life on Earth, is the object of God's affection.

• 11:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're in the universe. Okay. So I can tell you that, um, that, I don't know how quickly anyone would start thinking that.

• 11:45Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what I can say is that if life on Earth were divinely created.

• 11:51Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And somehow we're forced to that conclusion.

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It does not force us to any other divine conclusion.

• 11:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 12:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right?

• 12:02Chuck Nice?

  That would be the extent of what you could conclude.

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 12:05Chuck Nice?

  Because you would be able to now isolate the fact that this is indeed a creation. However, what you cannot do is infer from that creation, the intentions of that creator.

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or all the tracks that people have put forth.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That according to their respective religions was divinely revealed.

• 12:24Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You must behave this way and worship on this day.

• 12:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And eat this food.

• 12:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And don't eat that food. And treat each other this way.

• 12:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not the other way.

• 12:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of this is sort of the, the packaging of modern religion, ancient religions as well as modern religions.

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That are not required by the scientist who might be, who might land there if in fact, Earth is the only place with life in the universe.

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  Right. Well, once again, as a scientist, what you would do now is you would have to say, now I need definitive proof that I am supposed to act this way or eat.

• 13:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we need other kinds of evidence.

• 13:03Chuck Nice?

  I need other, I need other evidence.

• 13:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 13:05Chuck Nice?

  Now that the evidence has actually said, yes, we are, this is the one thing, we are the, the, the, uh, ingredient X.

• 13:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chemical X.

• 13:14Chuck Nice?

  Chemical X is God.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, you'd have to also add the fact.

• 13:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also add the fact, and I, I, I posted this during the Super Bowl, where if the football field is a timeline of the universe.

• 13:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where one goal line is the Big Bang and modern day is the other goal line, then the thickness, the width, the thickness of a blade of turf in a far, in the far end zone, equals the time from cavemen to modern day.

• 13:45Chuck Nice?

  Holy crap.

• 13:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so if according to the Catholic Church, which accepts evolution, but asserts that at some point, God breathed a soul.

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  He did something to.

• 13:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Into primates and that would make us humans distinct from other primates.

• 13:58Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would have happened somewhere in.

• 14:00Chuck Nice?

  That blade of grass.

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blade of grass. So my point is, if you're gonna say God created the universe and created humans in his image.

• 14:08Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is what one might find in Christianity, it's, it would be kinda hard to account. And we're the only life in the universe, such that, it'd be hard to say, wha- what?

• 14:20Chuck Nice?

  What is all that other stuff for?

• 14:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, wha- what's, what? You, you got the whole rest of the timeline.

• 14:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If really, all this was created for us, why do we miss out on four bil- you know, on, on thirteen billion years of cosmic history?

• 14:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why, why, why do you wait so long?

• 14:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These, these would be sensible questions that philosophers would ask.

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 14:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and then, well, yeah, and the answer would be because he hasn't, there is no time for him, and so it's no big deal, no matter how long.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got the answer already?

• 14:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the answer is, there's no time for God. Because he is from everlasting to everlasting, therefore, time and space was, exists within him, so he does not have to worry about time or space, because all those things exist inside of him.

• 14:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got your catechism hat on.

• 15:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Preacher, preacher man, go for it.

• 15:05Chuck Nice?

  Listen, I know all this stuff, you know?

• 15:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it, you got the explanation.

• 15:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that, that would be the explanation, you know, so.

• 15:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what I would say, you can flip it and say, uh, if your religion requires that human life is the only life and is the purpose of creation.

• 15:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we do find other life, will you abandon your religion?

• 15:24Chuck Nice?

  Right, now that's a very good question.

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's, just flips the table.

• 15:28Chuck Nice?

  What does that do to the person who believes?

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you find an alien species smarter than we are.

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who can just completely manipulate us and put us in a zoo for their entertainment.

• 15:37Chuck Nice?

  They now become God?

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, depending on what powers they exhibit, if they don't have the powers that your God and your religion assert.

• 15:43Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, you can't then directly say that they're God, or if they look really different from us.

• 15:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're not in God's image.

• 15:49Chuck Nice?

  We're not in God's image.

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:50Chuck Nice?

  Right, and it's very, but, that's funny, yeah.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so just, I just to be fair in that.

• 15:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That rotisserie there.

• 15:56Chuck Nice?

  I got you, I got you. That's good stuff, man.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Almost a whole segment on that one.

• 16:00Chuck Nice?

  I know, we did. And you know what? But guess what? It was really good. I mean, because, Kyle, that's a great question. And quite frankly, I found it fascinating because.

• 16:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had your preacher hat on there.

• 16:10Chuck Nice?

  And listen, these are the things that people, people think about this stuff all the time. And to great peril, for the most part, there's a lot of people who this becomes confusing. And then that confusion leads to anger and.

• 16:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the only issue is if you you take your belief system, then require that others believe it.

• 16:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not the spirit of America where we welcome all religions in their own personal truths. So.

• 16:34Chuck Nice?

  We used to.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You only really have conflict when you are so certain of your religious beliefs.

• 16:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so certain that everyone else is wrong in their religious beliefs, and then you take arms against them.

• 16:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And see, I believe that that comes out of just the opposite, to be honest. It comes out of the opposite sentiment. If you know for a fact you have the truth, then you can rest easy in that truth.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you should be able to, you'd think.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  Right. So.

• 17:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you'd fear nothing.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  Right. Then there is no fear of any new information. There is no fear of varying views and opinions. There's no fear of someone having a differing opinion. You can say, okay, you know.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll just say they all go to hell. You've got plans for them. No, there are places for that. That's all packaged. That's a package deal right there.

• 17:28Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry. Okay.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just ate up like the last two minutes of this. We can't even get another question. How about, why don't you tease the question?

• 17:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so that's what we'll do. We will tease the question. And so this is what Michael Ranger from Twitter would like to know. What's the deal with space dust? He didn't really say it like that, but I just like the way he says it. What's the deal? What's the deal with space dust? Is it dust? Is it gas? Is it rocks? What's the deal?

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good question.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We will get to when we come back to StarTalk Cosmic Queries Office Hours.

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Edition.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, catch you in a minute.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. If you didn't otherwise know by now, I also serve as the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, which is part of the American Museum of Natural History. Chuck Nice tweeting at Chuck Nice Comic. Yes, sir, thank you. Nice. Yes, I am. Nice. So, this is Cosmic Queries Office Hours. Office Hours. Just trying to rebrand it. We'll see if that flies. We'll see what happens. Get a little sign. Put it out there. Right, right. Office Hours. Get one made. The doctor is in, and you are the good doctor. So, let's move back to our queries in the form of a question that we already did. T's one at the end of the last segment. What was it?

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it was from Michael Ranger, and he says, "What's the deal with space dust? Is it dust? Is it rocks? What's the deal?" It was really Jerry Seinfeld. It's really Jerry Seinfeld, coming to us in the form of Michael Ranger. So, there's a lot written on dust, and most of it, if you get into it, it's pretty nasty stuff. Right. It's like slopped off skin cells and dust mites. Right. And it's just cat dander. I heard that most of the dust around your house is just dead skin. It's just dead skin. Dead skin of some sort. Just be glad your eyes are not microscopes. Oh. Because the world would be nasty. It's a nasty little place. Nasty place. So, dust in the universe has a very specific meaning. Okay. So, if you look at clouds between the stars, these are the things that make up

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  some of the most beautiful photographs that you've ever seen from space, especially via the Hubble Telescope. So, those gas clouds... Some are slopped off from stars, others are stellar nurseries, ready to hatch newborn stars deep within. Mm-hmm. Uh, so, yeah, so the, it's what we call it, the interstellar medium. And it can be in a gas estate. Right. With just gas atoms and gas molecules, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, this sort of thing. They can make molecules in the form of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide. Hydrogen makes a molecule with itself, H2, we call it. Stuck up hydrogen. Stuck in with itself.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's not the only one. Nitrogen binds with itself to make N2, oxygen. So that's, we're not alone in this. Right. So, if the gas cloud is dense enough, there'll be pockets of it where the molecules come together and make really big molecules. Okay. Really, really, really big things. Right. And we have a place where really, really big molecules come together. Mm-hmm. That, it behaves differently in the transmission of light from behind it to in front of it. Okay. It absorbs light in a way that turns the light red. And so, we call it reddening. Reddening. Nice. Turns it red, it's called reddening, right? Okay, I got you. So, so, only when it becomes large enough to do that, do we then call it dust. That's all. So, when it gets, okay, I got you.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, these clumps of molecules that come together, that, once they do that. Huge, huge things, right. Once they do that. Once they do that, that's when it's dust. And you have enough of that to affect the optics of the cloud. Right. Then we call that dust. That's it. And it reddens stars behind them. And so, we used to think that certain stars were only red because they were behind these gas clouds. And then we learned about this phenomenon, uh, in the 20th century, by the way. So, it's relatively modern discovery, given the history of astronomy. And so, so, when we say, when I say...

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are stardust.

• 22:14Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is a figuratively and literally true thing. Because you're not gonna form stars and planets. Until these molecules, these atoms become molecules, the molecules become dust. And out of this dust cloud do you condense the planets.

• 22:27Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 22:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but now, a little bit of a loosey-goosey there.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because typically, when you form a planet, stuff heats up again.

• 22:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it can get so hot that it breaks apart all the dust molecules.

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because heat will destroy big molecules.

• 22:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it's, when I say we are stardust. The dust didn't stay intact before it became us. Then it would be supremely poetically true.

• 22:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, um, nonetheless, the, the gas clouds that make star systems. They start out as dust. And so that's why I feel comfortable saying that. So if you wanna take me to the limit, I'll then give you that full explanation.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you just did.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  Right, right, yes. So the dust itself is, is really on a molecular level. It's not the dust that we think of when we see dust.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's way smaller.

• 23:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's not the dust that we see like when you're on a, when a shaft of light is coming through a window in your home and you see these little part, particulates floating in the air.

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be smaller than that.

• 23:27Chuck Nice?

  It's much smaller than that.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's molecules coming together. And by the way, there are ways that molecules stick together that don't involve complete up atomic, uh, uh, uh, electronic bonds.

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when two atoms come together, they're sharing or exchanging electrons.

• 23:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's an electronic, uh, uh, bond. And then, when you get really big, you can have molecules attached together. Just 'cause their shapes fit.

• 23:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or just 'cause there's something.

• 23:53Chuck Nice?

  I found you!

• 23:57Chuck Nice?

  I can't believe we fit together like this, girl!

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are other ways that you can stick molecules together.

• 24:05Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's when that begins to happen, that's when you get.

• 24:08Chuck Nice?

  That's when you get the dust phenomena. Oh, man, that's so cool!

• 24:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 24:11Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dust.

• 24:12Chuck Nice?

  Who knew there was so much in dust?

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, in the very early universe, before we made, before the stars made the heavy elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen.

• 24:20Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The earth, the universe was born with hydrogen and helium primarily.

• 24:24Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the rest came later, in stars.

• 24:26Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the early universe, when they had gas clouds, there would not have been dust. Cause you need all those other atoms to build up and make dust.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Early universe tends to be rather dust free.

• 24:38Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 24:39Chuck Nice?

  Right. So we were much cleaner. Much cleaner back in the day, baby.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Freshly born.

• 24:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we're freshly born. Mmm, got that new universe smell.

• 24:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh, very cool question, Michael Ranger. Alright, let's move on.

• 24:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Office hours are open.

• 24:59Chuck Nice?

  Office hours are still open.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe.

• 25:01Chuck Nice?

  Alright, here we go. Mmm, Gatano, Gatano Maroon. Gatano Maroon wants to know this. Thanks for that name, by the way. Freaking hate your parents.

• 25:18Chuck Nice?

  Uh, it's, he wants to know this, says, uh, "Does time expand the same way and for the same reason as space?"

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's a great question.

• 25:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 25:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, time is a coordinate.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the other coordinates are stretching out. Why can't time?

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  Can't time.

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not?

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we don't have evidence of this. It would've been kinda cool if that were the case.

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just don't have evidence of it. And so, what would the evidence be? When we look out to space, we see things not as they are, but as they once were.

• 25:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause it takes time for light to reach us.

• 25:56Chuck Nice?

  That's the way my wife looks at me.

• 25:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you once were.

• 25:59Chuck Nice?

  As I once was. Thank you, baby.

• 26:04Chuck Nice?

  Please don't ever see me as I am now.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it means if there's anything that was affected by time being compressed in the past.

• 26:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Relative to today.

• 26:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would manifest in the physical phenomenon that we observe. Okay. Okay, so maybe things would happen faster. Right. If time is compressed. Okay. So one second today is stretched out, one second back then is tight. Right. If you want to. But in that way. Yeah, I want to put it that way. So you look back then, no, things are not happening faster. Right. Things are not, everything is still working then the way it works now. Okay. The closest we've gotten to this is a research paper that I happen to be co-author on. Woo. Lead author of whom ended up getting the Nobel Prize. What? Which was a piece of a much larger research project. Hmm. Um, that he did. His name is Brian Schmidt. Brian Schmidt. Yeah, he's an astronomer at, um, Mount Stromlo Observatory, Siding Springs Observatory. Mount Stromo?

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, Stromlo. Oh, Mount Stromlo, okay. I was gonna say, worst name ever. Right. Mount Strom. In Australia. So he headed a team that discovered that the universe was expanding faster than it should have. Hmm. That it shouldn't be, and that was the, the co-discovery of dark energy. Right. Accelerating. Accelerating. And this paper was early work that all came together in his big project to study what exploding stars are doing nearby and far away. So what we have in that paper, the very first measurement ever, is an exploding star far away. Hmm. And an exploding star nearby. Okay.

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They should, according to other, uh, other, for other reasons, be exactly the same in how fast they get bright. And how fast they become dim again. Okay. Star blew up. Right. You can measure this. Right. It was just a regular star, got bright, then it started getting dimmer again. Okay. We know what that should look like. And, cause we've modeled it, okay? So now, we look at the one far away and it doesn't match. We say, how come it doesn't match? Oh my gosh. Is it a different kind of exploding star? Then you invoke Einstein's general theory of relativity to show that since that light has been traveling long ago, the universe has expanded. Mm-hmm.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that time intervals of when stuff happened has been stretched out over that time in the time it took to reach us. If you take that, what we call light curve, invoke Einstein's relativity on it, it stretches to what it needs to be and then it matches exactly the nearby exploding star. In other words, the universe really is expanding. And the ticks on a clock get stretched out while it is moving through the expanding universe. Wow. Holy crap. Okay. Wow. Okay.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's insane. That's what's throwing down. So that's what's going down. But the event itself, we have no reason to presume it happened at any different rate than nearby. Right. Everything we understand about an expanding universe says, this is what will happen to that signal en route. Right, and that's why you need relativity to apply to that. Otherwise you have no handle on the. You wouldn't be able to say, right. Right, right. Wow. Be mysterious things going on. Exactly. Oh my god, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, we were quite proud of that result. The first time, now it's just a routine thing. What an understatement. You know, we were quite proud of. No, but now it's a routine thing. I mean, you just say, oh, the light curve doesn't fit, um, let's see what it needs to be for being at that distance, and then you do that and then it fits exactly. Fits perfectly.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every single time, just fits exactly. Wow. That, that is really. No, you could, you could assert that time was different then, and it didn't change en route here. Okay? Okay. But I would then say, I would say, uh, because the universe is expanding, we expect that to happen. Okay. So, and when it does happen, we're not then looking for other explanations. Gotcha. If we did that in science, you'd be. Well, yeah, you'd never do, you'd never go from any place you are. Go any place, you know, right, right. Stay right there, just looking for other different things that it could be. It could be when what you have is a perfectly fine explanation. And this is already working. Works experimentally and theoretically. Generally, when you have that agreement, you move on. Right. Yeah.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, man, that was a great question. Okay. Hey, Getano, Getano Marone, that was a really. I want you to apologize to Getano's mother. I'm, I'm sorry, Mr. Getano Marone.

• 30:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because you have a simple boring name, doesn't mean everyone else has to. So you have to, so you don't mess up reading their names.

• 31:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, Mrs. Marone, your scion is quite profound and we appreciate their question. All right, let's get to a Jet Kusagi.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where do they say where they did it?

• 31:14Chuck Nice?

  Tweeting tweeting to us from at the fury at the wait at Jet the fury.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the fury, okay.

• 31:20Chuck Nice?

  The fury, how cool is that? Do you think if in the past scientists weren't always portrayed as evil? The public would be less anti-science?

• 31:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  And I mean, like in the movies and television, the scientist is always the bad guy.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Next question.

• 31:42Chuck Nice?

  I should have saved that for the lightning round, I guess.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so first of all, the scientists were not, I don't think that's the biggest problem with the portrayal of scientists historically.

• 31:50Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because there were maybe a third of those scientists were not evil.

• 31:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were co-opted by an evil genius.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or an evil, a, a, a ne'er-do-good-doer.

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  Right, right, ne'er-do-weller.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A new ne'er-do-weller, thank you. So, for example, in, in the old Superman television series.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was always some scientist that was helping the criminal do their work, but was didn't really want to.

• 32:16Chuck Nice?

  That's true. A lot of times the scientist was an unwilling participant.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unwilling participant.

• 32:21Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was even the case in Back to the Future.

• 32:24Chuck Nice?

  That is true.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, the, the, the, the Libyan terrorist wanted Doc to make a bomb out of the plutonium.

• 32:30Chuck Nice?

  Right. And he just wanted the money for his research, so he double-crossed them.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly. And so, as any good scientist should do, if you're given money to make a bomb by terrorists, right?

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, who else did that is of course, um, Iron Man.

• 32:44Chuck Nice?

  That is correct. He denounced.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, he, they wanted him to make a bomb.

• 32:48Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm making a bomb, get out of here.

• 32:50Chuck Nice?

  Right, and then he made a suit.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Escaped with it.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  But that was a little bit more for self-preservation. He needed that suit to get out of there, you know? But then even after that, he was like, I don't want to make weapons anymore.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Chuck Nice?

  I want to do something good with this power source I discovered.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So my issue with the portrayal of scientists is not that they were. More than half the time shown as evil or evil geniuses.

• 33:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's that they were never shown to be completely human in all emotional dimensions.

• 33:19Chuck Nice?

  That is true. They're very one dimensional characters.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it was like, Doc, is the world gonna end or not? And you go behind the lab table and they got the lab coat on and the wire hair. And they say, well, it, it, uh, the, the interaction of the thing, whatever. Give me it in English, Doc.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then someone else translated, and that's all you see, the doc? That's all you see.

• 33:37Chuck Nice?

  That's all you see, right.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all you see. You come in and you leave.

• 33:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The first, the first attempt to flesh out doctors that I know of and that I have seen was in CSI.

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which portrayed scientifically literate, trained people.

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As beautiful people you might want to be.

• 33:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, and they were all hot.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're good looking.

• 34:00Chuck Nice?

  Good looking.

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A, right, smart.

• 34:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  B.

• 34:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They have fully fleshed out characters. They fall in love.

• 34:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They have jealousy. They have kids. They're married.

• 34:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They divorce. Then they become real people, like any other character that storytellers have been sharing with us.

• 34:16Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, I, for me, was the transition that was most important.

• 34:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now make them evil or happy. Who cares?

• 34:23Chuck Nice?

  And that, well, now, now you see more developed scientific characters in everything. Everything.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything, yes.

• 34:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Well, that's cool, man.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 34:33Chuck Nice?

  That's very, very cool. Well, there you go.

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out of time in that segment.

• 34:36Chuck Nice?

  At the Jeff Fury, there's a question, so.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, alright.

• 34:39Chuck Nice?

  There's your answer.

• 34:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, welcome back. You're listening or possibly watching StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Chuck?

• 35:00Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's continue with Cosmic Queries.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we shall.

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, this is a Comic Con edition coming from New York City. Let's do it.

• 35:07Chuck Nice?

  We are here to answer your questions, whatever you'd like to know, uh, relating to the cosmos or maybe anything else, uh? Dr. Tyson is here and wants to answer.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's Dr. Neil to you.

• 35:17Chuck Nice?

  I love how you threaten me with a more casual, formal, formal, hey, it's Dr. Neil to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello, Mrs. Johnson, it's mom to you.

• 35:28Chuck Nice?

  Alright, let's jump right into this, shall we? And um, check out what some people have to ask. And this is Matthew at M. Deguaidio, uh, Deguaidio, says this. What would have to happen to turn Jupiter into a star? Ooh, what a weird, great question.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Jupiter is rare among planets in that it actually gives more energy away than it receives from the sun.

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. And so, this sort of leftover energy from its collapse in the very early days. So, we think of Jupiter, by the way, it has more mass than all the other planets combined, combined. So, you say, well, could that have ever been a star? And if so, we would have had a double star system. So, Jupiter, if it had like 10 times as much mass, it would have been a star.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  So, it needs more mass.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More mass, and it puts more pressure in the core, which makes it hotter in the core, and then it gets to thermonuclear fusion temperatures, and then the hydrogen ignites, and then you get a controlled nuclear fusion reactor.

• 36:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, now, here in America, we can make a nuclear fusion, hydrogen nuclear fusion reaction, but it's not controlled, and we just call it an H-bomb.

• 36:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what a bomb is, a non-controlled.

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  A non-controlled nuclear reaction. That's very cool, actually, yeah. So, then, if that's what happens when it ignites and it becomes this kind of controlled nuclear reaction, what happens to a brown dwarf, then?

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, there's this netherworld between the planet and a star.

• 36:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a brown dwarf is one of the words we use to describe that netherworld. Not quite enough mass to be a full-blown star, but too much mass to be an ordinary gaseous planet. So, that's a whole subcottage industry in my field, in astrophysics.

• 37:12Chuck Nice?

  Lovely.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got top people working on it.

• 37:13Chuck Nice?

  Nice, alright, there you go. How about Jonathan Martinez at JJZ12112 wants to know this. Neil?

• 37:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 37:22Chuck Nice?

  What keeps?

• 37:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he can call me Neil.

• 37:24Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:26Chuck Nice?

  That's Dr. Neil to you. Jonathan, okay. Neil, what keeps you up at night? What keeps you up at night?

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can tell you right now. I lay awake wondering whether humans as a species has sufficient intelligence to actually figure out the universe. We, by our measure, are there any other species on earth that ever had what we would call intelligence? Yeah, some are smarter than others and dolphins have big brains. But we're not thinking that they're intelligent. They're not building radio telescopes. They're still just swimming around. So there's intelligence plus technology, right? So here we are, we're intelligent. Let's figure out the universe. Maybe our measure of our own intelligence,

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  though we think is high, would be low to some alien that has a vastly superior intelligence to us. And maybe it is they who will figure out the universe and not we. So what I lose sleep over is worrying whether we are not even smart enough to ask the questions that should be asked.

• 38:32Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 38:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That deserve an answer.

• 38:34Chuck Nice?

  Now, that is, that is a serious conundrum because if you're not asking the right questions, you can never get to the right answer.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is why I lose sleep.

• 38:41Chuck Nice?

  Damn.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was the whole point of the question.

• 38:43Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 38:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you don't even know what question to ask. Now, imagine you're a dog. Does a dog know to ask? Um, what is the air velocity of your plane when you're flying to New York to LA? Cause I think I might want to get on it and get, visit some friends. They don't even, they don't know how to ask that question.

• 39:01Chuck Nice?

  Underdog, dude.

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember underdog. Okay, underdog could speak English and walk bipedally.

• 39:11Chuck Nice?

  Yes, right.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so, so, yeah, I just, I, I, I lose sleep in our ignorance.

• 39:19Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 39:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's at night, but during the day I bask in our knowledge.

• 39:24Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But don't, don't forget that as the area of our knowledge grows. So too does the perimeter of our ignorance.

• 39:32Chuck Nice?

  Nice. That's wow. Wow. It's like an ignorant pizza. Like the more you know, the bigger it gets.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 39:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but the edge is the connection between what you know and what you don't know.

• 39:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as that edge gets bigger, there's more perimeter of unknown.

• 39:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. This is not encouraging.

• 39:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 39:54Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Um, so this is Jonathan. Um, I'm sorry. This is Denise Pico. Uh, who is at Pico nineteen says, Neil, if you got a chance to only ask one question of Isaac Newton, what would you ask? Wow, that's a good question.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's easy. Okay.

• 40:12Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead. Right.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would say, please come forward into my time and help us and help us solve problems that we are not smart enough to figure out. Cause my boy was smart.

• 40:25Chuck Nice?

  He was a smart guy.

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. That's that. That'd be the one question.

• 40:28Chuck Nice?

  Wait, didn't you say, did I hear you say this once that Isaac Newton was so smart that he figured out something in the universe that he couldn't answer and then had to invent a math to answer the question?

• 40:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 40:39Chuck Nice?

  Is that, did you say that?

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you know, yeah, okay, let me, let me.

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead, fix me. Go ahead. But at least you know I'm paying attention. All right. You said, you said that to me one time.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  B plus for paying attention. So Isaac Newton was asked, why is it that your equation of gravity gives us orbits that are ellipses?

• 40:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is a slightly squashed circle. Why that shape and not some other shape? And he said, I, I don't know. I'll get back to you.

• 41:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he goes home and figures out why it's that shape and not others. And then his friend said, well, how did you figure this out? Well, I had to invent integral and differential calculus to help me. And then now here's the reason why.

• 41:16Chuck Nice?

  Dude, that's amazing.

• 41:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basically on a dare, basically.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome.

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:19Chuck Nice?

  All right, cool. I know it was something like that. I'm glad that you revisited that. All right. Uh, here we go. This is, uh, Billy Chocolas says this.

• 41:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Billy Chocolate?

• 41:28Chuck Nice?

  Billy Chocolas, but not chocolate. Chocolas. He's Chocolas.

• 41:35Chuck Nice?

  Why does the speed of sound always move constant in any density of a fluid, gas or liquid? Intuitively, you may think the large the source per se, the faster it might travel instead of how, how far, uh, there's a spelling thing in here, but so.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Keep telling yourself that, Chuck.

• 42:00Chuck Nice?

  That was wrong, man. Why you gotta throw me under the bus like that, man? Just trying to read and.

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, so the speed of sound is it. So what is the speed of sound? It's the ability of one molecule to vibrate and tell the next molecule what just happened.

• 42:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all that's going on there. All right. I'm a molecule. It goes to you and you go to the next one.

• 42:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And how close packed we are can tell you how fast that can happen. And depending on the medium, so for sound moves very fast in things like steel.

• 42:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you, so put your ear to the railroad tracks. You presumably you're doing this because you don't yet see a train.

• 42:35Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You might hear, so, uh, Native Americans in, in ancient days would put their ear to the ground, listening for the hoofs of a thing. So, so, um, whales can communicate across.

• 42:49Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, that was my whale. I'm sorry.

• 42:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are imitation of, uh, what's her name on?

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  Ellen DeGeneres.

• 42:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ellen Ellen DeGeneres on, on Finding Nemo.

• 43:02Chuck Nice?

  You can't speak whale, but I do.

• 43:10Chuck Nice?

  This man's a PhD.

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So. Um, so that's really all it is. It's not, it's not more complicated than that. And when you don't have a medium that can vibrate and can, and communicate to another molecule, there is no speed of sound because there's no sound, which is why in space, not only can no one hear you scream, no one can hear you explode either. So practically every sci-fi movie in space that has sound.

• 43:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would just be silent movie if they did it accurately.

• 43:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh God, you just, that would ruin Star Wars. You know what I mean? Tie fighters going by going.

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I tweeted once, I was angry. In Star Wars, The Force Awakens, the tie fighters go by in the atmosphere. They made the same sound as it did in space.

• 43:56Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 43:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, no, excuse me, I'm smarter than that. Give me a different sound.

• 44:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's so funny.

• 44:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was pissed off.

• 44:02Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's move on. Tara Sweeney, tweeting at Tara Sweeney, five five five, wants to know this. Is there any effort to find exo moons as well as exoplanets? And how difficult is it in comparison? And I'm going to add on to that, is there any reason to find an exo moon?

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exo, exo, not exo.

• 44:23Chuck Nice?

  Aw, come on, man, it's exo.

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, a moon would be smaller than the, it's hard enough to find, to find a planet.

• 44:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, people are just impatient. Damn.

• 44:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let us find a damn planet first.

• 44:35Chuck Nice?

  Find a planet first.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  You're like, I need the moons now.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, right.

• 44:40Chuck Nice?

  Where's the moon?

• 44:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn.

• 44:41Chuck Nice?

  No, we don't even have the planet yet.

• 44:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got planets around other stars in the galaxy, and now that's not enough for her.

• 44:47Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, maybe it's because there's so much talk about, like, some of them, like Jupiter and all of it's 280 million moons.

• 44:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 44:54Chuck Nice?

  And then, of course.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Up to 290 million as of yesterday.

• 44:57Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. And like Enceladus with Saturn and.

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So here's the thing, if you have a big planet and the moons are much smaller, so they don't leave much of a visual signature.

• 45:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was hard enough finding moons in our own solar system around planets in our backyard.

• 45:12Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 45:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To find moons around exoplanets, maybe that day will come, but it's not anytime soon. A, B, it is, though it's important, no one is thinking about life in the atmosphere of Jupiter, although Carl Sagan had a thought that maybe they're floaters and sinkers and things. It was more sort of a, an exercise in calculating if you can have a, an ecosystem in an unfamiliar kind of environment, holding that one paper aside.

• 45:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's interesting about Jupiter is there are moons that could be more likely to have life than anything else out there.

• 45:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in our search for life, what's surely the genesis of that question is, just because you found a planet, doesn't mean that's the best place you might find life.

• 45:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could be on one of the moons around it, and will we one day find the moons? And perhaps, yes, but it's beyond our current technology if the moons are much smaller than the planets.

• 45:59Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Chuck Nice?

  It's a great question, actually.

• 46:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 46:01Chuck Nice?

  I love it. Okay, um, let's see, Andrew, the Canadian, wants to know, eh? Andrew the Canadian.

• 46:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I heard how you spell Canada. It's, it's C N D.

• 46:12Chuck Nice?

  C N D?

• 46:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's how you spell Canada.

• 46:14Chuck Nice?

  C N D?

• 46:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's C A.

• 46:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, C A.

• 46:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  N A.

• 46:17Chuck Nice?

  D A?

• 46:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. That's my Canadian joke.

• 46:21Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 46:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good, right?

• 46:24Chuck Nice?

  That's not bad.

• 46:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Canadians hold me there. C A, N A, D A.

• 46:28Chuck Nice?

  C N D.

• 46:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you get Canada.

• 46:30Chuck Nice?

  All right, so Andrew the Canadian wants to know this. When the Earth is double tidal locked to the Sun.

• 46:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 46:38Chuck Nice?

  Which, that's a weird thing, because I thought the Earth was gonna be-

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's not gonna, well, go on.

• 46:43Chuck Nice?

  I thought the Earth and the moon were gonna be double tidal locked.

• 46:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Finish it through, go on.

• 46:46Chuck Nice?

  So, when the Earth is double tidal locked to the Sun.

• 46:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 46:50Chuck Nice?

  Will there be weather systems or snow?

• 46:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so imagine there's no moon. So let's just get the moon out of the equation. We would one day become tidally locked with the Sun. I, I, I have to calculate how soon that would be. It could take longer than how much time the Sun has left, and we'd have other issues to worry about as the Sun expanded and became a red giant and engulfed the orbits of Mercury and Venus and rendered Earth a, a burning cinder vaporizing as it descends into the abyss of the Sun's center. Other than that, um, you, you, if, if we tidally locked to the Sun, it means we only show one face to the Sun.

• 47:29Chuck Nice?

  The face of the Sun.

• 47:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the other face, we don't. So one face would be warm, the other face would be really cold. And I would think that neither side is where you'd wanna live. You could live on a, on the, on the, what we call the Terminator. The boundary between the two, we get a little bit of sunlight and a little bit of dark at your, at your choice. But the question was, was not about that. What was it about?

• 47:49Chuck Nice?

  Uh, if we're doubly tidal locked, will there still be snow and will there still be weather?

• 47:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, yeah.

• 47:54Chuck Nice?

  To the Sun.

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you could in principle still have weather. One of the problems is you get water that evaporates off the sunlit side. And it circulates to the back and then freezes and comes out as snow. And then it stays there forever.

• 48:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So all the water would sort of collect on the backside of it. But we'll be very advanced by then. We can just melt it and bring it back.

• 48:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or if we're that advanced, get the hell off of the earth.

• 48:18Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm saying. I'm with that.

• 48:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Find another planet. Okay.

• 48:21Chuck Nice?

  All right. So we only have a few minutes left and uh let us know where you're actually chiming in from here in the comments. I'm actually reading the live stream right here now, just from people who are who are with us. Let's that's us in the picture and that this is actually us watching us. This is so meta right now. So crazy. Okay. Um, here we go.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh Chuck, you look marvelous in the little screen.

• 48:41Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell you something. That is where I always look good is in little screens. Okay. And here we go. Um, who says this? Uh. Oh, I lost them. Sorry.

• 48:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You lost Chuck.

• 48:54Chuck Nice?

  I I lost all the uh stuff. So let's go.

• 48:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go back to the.

• 48:57Chuck Nice?

  What if so let's go to St. Peter. Who?

• 48:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  St. Peter?

• 49:00Chuck Nice?

  Say, yeah, who says this? Would it be more difficult for life to develop on a planet in a binary multi-star system?

• 49:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So very nice.

• 49:07Chuck Nice?

  That's a good question.

• 49:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's the problem. If you have two, a double star system of which most stars in the night sky are double and multiple star system.

• 49:15Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 49:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most so dots of light that you see whip out a telescope, you see two stars, three, four, multiple stars.

• 49:21Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 49:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so most of the stars are that. And in fact, in Star Wars, episode four. The first Star Wars. There's that scene where Luke come Luke comes out and he's in the the the the the desert planet. And he sees the two stars there. And I said, that's by the way, that's the only accurate astrophysics in the entire movie series. So the two stars, I said, somebody finally put a planet around a double star system.

• 49:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they also did it right because if the if the stars are very separated, you can have confused orbital allegiance for what your planet would do. And when it tries to count out its year.

• 49:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 49:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to be confused in an orbital allegiance.

• 50:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 50:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what happens if they're close enough together, then the planet sees one sort of. smeared average gravity and you can sustain one stable orbit so we don't if if if biology requires stability in order to evolve then if the two stars are widely separated you're not gonna have a stable climate plus your orbits are not particularly stable you'll either fall into one of the two stars or you get kicked out so if you're gonna look for life as we know it you want orbits around twice closely orbiting planets at stars or just single star systems that's all cool yeah yeah very good question excellent all right let's uh let's go with

• 50:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  anthony uh rufato that was st peter's question that was st peter yes exactly and by the way tell jesus i say hi um you've you've dedicated a career to bringing astro knowledge to we commoners and for this we thank you what future discovery do you secretly hope is named for you oh I have no such interests or goals to have anything in this world named after me I just want the world to be a slightly better place for me having lived in it and that doesn't require that I be remembered for it it just has to require that it is

• 51:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  so the answer anthony is please name your firstborn Neil deGrasse Tyson and and if i die you know my one of my tombstone did I tell you what a quote from horace mann great educator what's it say uh what I wanted to say is be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity wow it doesn't say be ashamed to die till you got something named after you right that's true scored a victory for humanity and then right I'm good uh my tombstone is going to say you should come down here is really nice

• 52:02Chuck Nice?

  Join me! Join me now! I don't wanna be alone!

• 52:09Speaker 02

  It's cold down here.

• 52:09Chuck Nice?

  It's cold down here! I'm scared! Help me!

• 52:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what was Beethoven doing down there? He was decomposing.

• 52:17Chuck Nice?

  Oh! On that, we're gonna say thank you to Twitter. Thank you to all the people who are watching. And thank you to your own personal astrophysicist.

• 52:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And wait a minute, why did Twitter take away all my fan Twitter bots? Those are some of my best fans!

• 52:37Chuck Nice?

  Now that was funny. You just redeemed yourself.

• 52:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those bots! Bye Twitter bots! I'll miss you!

• 52:46Chuck Nice?

  Alright, until next time, I'll let Neil tell you as usual.

• 52:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, as always, I bid you to keep looking up.