Cosmic Queries – Asteroid Hunters with Marina Brozovic

Neil has his own asteroid?! On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Marcia Belsky answer fan questions about different types of asteroids with Marina Brozovic, orbital dynamicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this is going to be a Cosmic Queries edition. And I've got a guest co-host. She's an old-timer with us, Marsha Beltsky. Marsha, welcome back.

• 0:28Marcia Belsky?

  Thank you so much. It is always so fun to be here. I learn so much. This is my only postgraduate education that I get.

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, is that right? Okay.

• 0:36Marcia Belsky?

  It's an honor to be back.

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great. So since you do agree to keep coming back, it can't be all that bad for you.

• 0:41Marcia Belsky?

  Yes.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So today, we're going to talk about asteroids. And our expert guest is Marina Brozovic. Thank you for joining StarTalk. You work at the Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, California. And presumably, they don't only do jet propulsion. So what is the Jet Propulsion Laboratories? Tell everybody.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  We are specialized in robotic explorations of the solar system. So we run missions, like, you know, there was Cassini on Saturn, and we run Mars rovers. But we also do a lot of science. So a lot of the science work that we do here are asteroids. And to be more specific, we do some very kind of unique work because we work with planetary radars. We work with this very large planetary radar in Mojave Desert in California. So it is really huge dish, like 70 meters in size. And that is not really by design, you know, planetary radar. It's used for spacecraft communication. But when projects or when

• 1:50Speaker 02

  missions are not using it, then... They give us, they give it to, you know, our scientists to observe asteroids.

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you piggyback the, what was the original design of that, of that telescope? Of that radar?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it is, it is, it is part of the Deep Space Network. So NASA, NASA has, you know, you have to communicate with your spacecraft. And so NASA has these big dishes all around the world. It has it in Australia, it has it in Spain, and it has it in Mojave Desert.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Marsha, is it just me, or does like the phrase "deep space network" just sound like the coolest thing ever?

• 2:22Marcia Belsky?

  It is, so all of this is blowing my mind. Like, this is so cool. Yeah, all I know about asteroids is that people on Twitter were speculating that one was about to crash into Earth because they blew up one with a rocket ship. But I don't, apparently Marina told me that's not true. So that's very comforting.

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twitter generally is not true.

• 2:43Marcia Belsky?

  What? Are you serious?

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so Marina, what do we need radar for if we have regular telescopes that can spot asteroids?

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Well, so optical telescopes are the ones that discover asteroids. And, but radar is a follow-up instrument.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just to be clear, an optical telescope specializes in visible light, and a radar telescope is radio.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, yeah, so let's go.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Yes, we are bouncing, so we are kind of bringing our flashlight. You know, optical telescopes, asteroids are being, you know, they reflect some sunlight. You see them as little moving points on a plane of sky. You measure where this little moving point is, fit the orbit, there you go. With radar, there are two things that we do with radar. One is we ping them. So we, you know, bounce off our little flashlight, microwaves, off the asteroid, which gives us exactly, very precise location where it is with respect to us. So line of sight distance. And then we also, I always say, you know, in optical telescopes, asteroids look like speck of lights. And with radar, they become small worlds.

• 3:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just to be clear, that is the original origin of the word asteroid. When, was it Herschel? Who first named them, saw that there was, there were these dots of light moving across the sky, and they were only dots of light, just like regular stars. Because stars are so far away, they're just dots of light. So he described them as star-like. Asteroid. Aster, Latin for star,oid is like. So. They're nothing like stars, but up to an optical telescope, it's just a, it's a star that's moving. That's right, that's exactly right. That's the origin of the word asteroid. Okay, so now, so now, I, I, apparently, you weren't content just knowing it was a dot moving across the sky, were you, Marina?

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, uh, yeah, with radar, uh, so most of the time, we are observing near-Earth asteroids, and they're usually, say, within one-tenth of astronomical unit for from Earth, and they're about at least several hundred meter in size. So they're fairly close and fairly large.

• 4:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So an astronomical unit is, is the Earth-Sun distance taken as a new, as a new yardstick?

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To measure distances, yes.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Yes, that is, that is a kind of a yardstick for us. But I'm saying, so it is, we observe relatively close, and as I said, they are relatively, uh, you know, a large asteroids. Uh, but we are able, you know, so they know to be millions of kilometers away from Earth, and we are able to see something that is six feet in size. We can see surface boulders. It is that level of detail.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  And, and you can imagine.

• 5:23Marcia Belsky?

  And the asteroids, like, I didn't even get ready today, like, don't.

• 5:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know you're, you're.

• 5:29Marcia Belsky?

  I didn't know you were photographing me, yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  We get to, we get to see a lot of little details. Um, so every kind of observing session knows to be like a, uh, like a mini-space mission, because you're flying, you know, there's asteroids coming in our neighborhood, and we pink him with radar and reveal how it looks like. We know, we are very interested always how large it is, because, you know, that is, that is one of the kind of key parameters for planetary defense.

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think?

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think?

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. So.

• 6:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But wait, so I've, I've heard rumors that, that many asteroids might just be piles of rock traveling together, sort of loosely held with, like chewing gum and.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And bailing water.

• 6:16Marcia Belsky?

  Sticky putty.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so please, please fix what I just said. Make it right or make it wrong, but that's, that's, I heard, I heard tell.

• 6:25Marcia Belsky?

  That's what the people are saying.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The people are saying on Twitter is saying.

• 6:29Marcia Belsky?

  Twitter is saying it's just made of gum and rocks up there.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Twitter was right this time because actually, you know, they are rubble piles. We think, you know, anything larger than about, you know, 200 meters is really loosely held together aggregate of rocks of various sizes. So, you know, like small rocks, big rocks, a lot of fine dust, like regoliths. And so, and you actually can see that in space missions. I mean, if you, if you have seen the images of asteroid Benu that NASA's Ceres Rex took, it's rock on a rock on a rock, you know, it's, it's all rocks, just piled up. And if you saw images from the latest DART mission, the one that smashed into the moonlight, you also saw that both of the asteroids, they looked, they had huge boulders of very,

• 7:15Speaker 02

  you know, and, and basically there's aggregates of rocks loosely held together by gravity.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By their, by their own.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  By their own, of course, gravity.

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So even though they're small, we think of small things of having hardly any gravity, but whatever gravity they have, it's enough to, so that they have some kind of shape. Otherwise, you expect the rocks to just drift away.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, that's a good point that you're making because, so there is something interesting that happens. These rocks, when they spin fast, about two hours, very often they end up with a satellite. Because basically, the first two things happen, the kind of the material starts, you know, the, starts kind of traveling toward the equator. And it starts kind of, you know, gravity can't pull it anymore. It starts flying off and then it clumps into a satellite. So, that is, so that is exactly, you know, we know that.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, Marina, I wanted to, I wanted to become a ring. Around the moonlit.

• 8:14Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah.

• 8:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be so cool.

• 8:16Marcia Belsky?

  That'd be cool if our moons could have rings. I've always thought that.

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  They probably have.

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Marina, I want you to work on that.

• 8:21Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And get back to us on Monday morning.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Those are very hard observations. Those would be very, very hard observations because, you know, you would have to kind of really catch it in action. You know, how there is a ring around the asteroid and then it's clumping into a moonlit.

• 8:40Marcia Belsky?

  Wow.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I think we have questions from our fanbase, our Patreon fanbase.

• 8:45Marcia Belsky?

  We do.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Marsha, I haven't seen these. I don't think Marina has seen these either. So you're just pulling these out of the ether right here.

• 8:52Marcia Belsky?

  Yes, keeping you on your toes.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 8:55Marcia Belsky?

  They can't hide the conspiracies because they got to reveal the answers right then.

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So what do you have, Marsha?

• 9:01Marcia Belsky?

  All right. So this first question is from Yanniv from Israel, Yanniv Koss. And it says, "Why do all asteroids look gray? Are they really gray? If so, why? Or are we always just using black and white cameras?"

• 9:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I'd like that.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Marina, we want color here. So what's up with this? What's going on?

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we don't use definitely black and white cameras. There are plenty of spacecraft with the, you know, full color cameras. But asteroids are actually quite dark.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  They have something. So we measure, you know, how dark they are. There's something called albedo. It is how much of the sunlight they reflect. So most of them don't have... They reflect maybe at most about 15 to 20% of sunlight. So they indeed are kind of various shades of gray.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dark gray, it sounds like. Yeah, yeah.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's very dark gray. I mean, if you ever kind of looked at the, you know, some samples of meteors, they know to be quite gray, except there are certain types. There is one type that is really like, almost like a little marble. It's very rare. It's instatite. It's called instatite. And it looks literally...

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Instatite? It sounds like you just made that up to sell on an infomercial.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a new glue. Buy some Insta-Tite.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, on the QVC channel.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's totally from the QVC channel.

• 10:32Marcia Belsky?

  Buy this fancy asteroid.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't believe you now, Marina.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yes, they're, they're, you know, they're perfectly.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  They are beautiful. Yeah, they're beautiful kind of marble white with a little kind of gray, gray specks and they're very pretty. So they're, they're, they're, but they're rare. They have like, you know, like 30 to 60, they reflect about 30 to 60% of sunlight. So there are some of them which are really bright, but they need to be also as a charcoal, you know, the ones that have a lot of carbon, they reflect maybe a few percent of light. So, so yeah, they're mainly, they're merely actually, actually pretty, pretty dark. They don't reflect light.

• 11:08Marcia Belsky?

  Okay, perfect. All right. So let's get another one. Okay. So this is from Jen. They say, hi from Michigan. I've been hearing about the Trojan asteroids lately. Did I hear correctly that they are in Jupiter's orbit? And how can that be? I thought that part of the definition of a planet was that it had to clear its orbit.

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This one, this one.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  That's very good.

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jen did some homework on that one.

• 11:35Marcia Belsky?

  Jen knows her stuff.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Are we going back to Pluto?

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:38Marcia Belsky?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Neil's favorite topic.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Marina.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Back to Pluto.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything lands back at Pluto. And they still can't shake it. Let's get to, we'll get to that answer, right? When we come back on our first break from Cosmic Queries, the asteroid edition with our guest Marina Brozovic from the Jet Propulsion Labs in Diego.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm Roy Hill Percival and I support StarTalk on Patreon, bringing the universe down to earth. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 12:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. We're talking about asteroids with my co-host, Marsha Belsky. Marsha, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 12:41Marcia Belsky?

  Thank you so much, so glad to be back.

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're in a comedy festival coming up in November, November 13th, on Alan Cummings. What does he have to do with this?

• 12:51Marcia Belsky?

  So Alan Cummings owns a cabaret bar in the East Village.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's funny, because I saw him on Broadway performing in the musical Cabaret. So maybe somebody saw that and said, this is, this is gotta, we gotta keep.

• 13:04Marcia Belsky?

  Full circle, yes.

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Full circle, yes.

• 13:07Marcia Belsky?

  He knows how to work his brand.

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 13:09Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah, so it's a really great space. It's at East 6th between Avenue A and Avenue B.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In New York City?

• 13:15Marcia Belsky?

  In New York City, yes, in Manhattan. And I'm doing my hour there. It's called Marsha Belsky Evangelical. And it's on November 12th at 7:30 PM at Club Cummings, which is Alan Cummings' Cabaret Bar. And it's for New York Comedy Festival, so it should be really fun.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And your musical comedies, hilarious.

• 13:34Marcia Belsky?

  Thank you so much.

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, my favorite song, was it 100 Tampons?

• 13:38Marcia Belsky?

  Yes, that's the NASA song. I was, it's so funny.

• 13:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A NASA song called 100 Tampons, that's all I'm gonna say. You gotta go find out where this woman is coming from.

• 13:46Marcia Belsky?

  Yes.

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we have as our guest, our asteroid expert, Marina Brozovic, working at the Jet Propulsion Lab. Could you tell us how you got to where you are? If somebody wants your job, or rather, if someone wants a job like yours, what's your, what's your background?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Well, as I said, I started as amateur astronomer. You know, I've been amateur astronomer since high school and, you know, I studied physics.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just to be clear, Marsha, when you, an amateur astronomer is actually an expert. All right, you would, you would never go to an amateur,

• 14:16Marcia Belsky?

  I was gonna say.

• 14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You would never go to an amateur neurosurgeon or an amateur.

• 14:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Amateur astronomers are experts in the night sky, and they love nothing better than showing off their telescope to whoever will walk by and stop and look through. Okay, so we got amateur astronomers in the house. And then what happened?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  I, you know, went to study physics, and then I did grad school in physics. Then I was a postdoc at Caltech, and Caltech and JPL have very good connections. There is constant transfer of people between the two. And so when the time came, you know, I interviewed for JPL, and I've been here ever since.

• 14:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. So does your paycheck say NASA or Caltech?

• 14:58Speaker 02

  It is really Caltech.

• 14:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I was wondering.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Contractors, yeah. We are contractors.

• 15:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's what I thought.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, JPL and APL Lab. So we are actually contractors of NASA.

• 15:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  APL, Applied Physics Lab.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Applied Physics Lab.

• 15:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back on the East Coast, yeah.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Back on the East Coast. That's our, you know.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very, very excellent.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  But we are NASA Lab.

• 15:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. Okay, so Marsha, that question we left off with, which was, remind me?

• 15:25Marcia Belsky?

  Yes, so this was from Jen from Michigan, and they were asking, is it true that there are Trojan asteroids in Jupiter's orbit? And how can that be? Because they thought that part of the definition of a planet was that it had to clear its orbit.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Pluto is listening to this right now. Okay.

• 15:44Marcia Belsky?

  Pluto, ears are burning.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, that's a very great question. Yeah, Trojans are a very interesting population of asteroids. They are in stability points. So there is actually, you know, imagine this triangle between the Jupiter Sun and this clump that has, that is basically, objects are able to orbit there without Jupiter kicking them. So there is a clump of asteroids, Trojan asteroids along Jupiter orbit that is in front, 60 degrees. And then there is another clump behind, also 60 degrees. And that's where, as I said, they're still orbiting the Sun,

• 16:31Speaker 02

  but Jupiter is never managing to catch up with them, to kick them out. So these are, you know, gravity stability points where kind of Jupiter gravity and Sun gravity are at peace and you can, you can just sit there and also orbit the Sun. And it's very, yeah, it's, it's, they're very interesting because, you know.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they basically collected there, right? Nobody put them there.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  They collected there.

• 17:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just asteroids wandering throughout the solar system found that to be a safe space for them, in a sense.

• 17:04Marcia Belsky?

  Wow. And Jupiter's sitting there trying to swat them away.

• 17:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but it's just, it's just out of reach.

• 17:09Marcia Belsky?

  They're like, ha, ha, ha.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Well, actually, there is, I think, the front groups are, front group of Trojans. So the one that leads 60 degrees, that one is called Trojans. And the one trailing are Greeks. So, so that the object, yeah, the objects in the first clump are named after Trojan warriors and Trojan heroes from mythology. And the trailing one is the Greek camp. And Nezca has actually.

• 17:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Jupiter is trying to keep the peace there, right? Between Troy and Greece.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Well, you know.

• 17:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Roman gods. Much later, a later god is keeping the peace, yes.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Nezca has actually a, a mission called Lucy that is going to explore objects from both of these camps, from Jupiter Trojans. It will first go through, you know, it's, it's in such a, it has such a kind of orbit that is first going to swing through one, one cloud of Trojans.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  And then it's going to go and explore, you know, the other one. And, and there's some really, you know, these, these objects are ancient. They're, they're really telling us something about, you know, how the solar system was built.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what fraction of Jupiter's mass is represented in these trapped asteroids?

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Oh, tiny, that's, that's, I mean, super tiny. When you think about it, actually, what is fascinating, you know, when you look at the main asteroid belt in general, I mean, so we, that's, that's the, uh, main asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter. And there are millions of objects there, uh, actually billions if you really count the small sizes. But if you were to sum up everything, everything in the main belt.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you were to glue them together into one object.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Together. It is less than 1/25th of our moon. And most of that mass is actually in asteroid in dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is about 1,000 kilometers across. So you can imagine, you know, if all that big mass of main asteroid belt is so tiny and Trojans, I mean, if you were to sum up all Trojans, that's really

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's even less. So

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's really tiny.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the idea of clearing your orbit, it just means there's nothing else big to compete with you. It doesn't mean there isn't debris and other junk that could be there as one of the criteria for planethood.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, as I said, I definitely have to go and read up on my, you know, what is the exact definition?

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I can tell you this. Is it Jen? Jen asked this question?

• 19:36Marcia Belsky?

  Yes, Jen from Michigan.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't get me started here. So here's the point. There are other objects around where Pluto is orbiting the sun that have mass that rival Pluto. So Pluto has not

• 19:50Marcia Belsky?

  Oh, because it's so small.

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cleared its orbit in that sense. Right, but you can have junk, junk that doesn't

• 19:56Marcia Belsky?

  So it's about who's the alpha in the situation?

• 20:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Pluto's not the alpha dog, but Jupiter's totally the alpha planet.

• 20:05Marcia Belsky?

  Jupiter is.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Jupiter completely dominates the solar system, absolutely dominates.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, not only its orbit, it's really, I agree. You know, Earth is the size of its storm, you know, its red spot.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now the asteroid belt, so one of the asteroids in there, I have one named after me.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  I guess you do.

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got an asteroid, there's 13123 Tyson.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have it very easy. I mean, you're really kind of almost rhymes. 13123 Tyson.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's easy. I don't have to. That's not a hard thing to remember. And just for people to know, that asteroid is not my password on anything. Okay?

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm not that stupid.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  So yeah, I mean, your asteroid has quite interesting story. Well, first of all, it was discovered by legends in in Field of Asteroid. It was discovered in 1994 by Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, they got asteroid hunting team like no other.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Yes, English majors, both of them.

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh oh, throwing it down. Yes.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they were. I mean, this is this is what this is the power of amateur astronomy. Actually, they both went on to get all possible honorary degrees and awards in the field. I mean, they truly were legends in the field. And so so yeah, 1994, they discovered asteroids called 1994 KA, which will later have your name. And yours is a binary asteroid, you know, you are.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How come I didn't know that?

• 21:40Speaker 02

  You are.

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When did we find? Did you find that? How did you? How did I not know that?

• 21:44Speaker 02

  In 2015, there was I went looking, as I said, I I went to their database. I I went.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did some homework. Okay.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  I know. And in 2015, there was a companion. So you have a primary that is about 11 kilometers in size. So nice size asteroid. Then there is a satellite about four kilometers in size.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  And I can tell you that at least 15% of main belt asteroids are binaries and similarly similar amounts are in in binary or binaries and having near earth population. So they have companions.

• 22:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last I checked, it was not a near earth.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  No, no, no, you are main you are your main belt. I can I can also tell you.

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can verify, just verify for me.

• 22:31Marcia Belsky?

  Neil needed to verify that because imagine imagine the bad press if the Neil deGrasse Tyson asteroid hits.

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know. That would blow up on Twitter, I'm sure.

• 22:41Marcia Belsky?

  You would never live that down. Oh my gosh.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Oh, well, I looked at your orbit, and I really feel like I'm gonna give Forrest a up here.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Your.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, Marsha, just say, doesn't that sound great? I looked at your orbit today.

• 22:55Marcia Belsky?

  I looked at your orbit.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sounds invasive in some way.

• 22:59Marcia Belsky?

  It's in Scorpio right now.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  That you are a little bit eccentric and slightly inclined.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  So. So, yes.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that. I might be inclined in.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. You know, everybody's in plane and you're kind of.

• 23:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  You are kind of.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So inclined means the orbit is tipped relative.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Relatively clear. Yeah, plane of the Earth will be around the Sun.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the solar system.

• 23:23Marcia Belsky?

  Looking up.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And then you have the, you said I'm a little bit eccentric.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Eccentric.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So not quite a, not quite a perfect circular.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  You're not perfectly circular orbits, but yes, it is, yeah, it is, it is actually a very, very cool object.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thank you.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Orbiting a little bit outside orbit of Mars, so inner asteroid belt.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not, it's not hitting Earth. That's all I care about.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  No, I don't know, maybe a couple of million years, you know.

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, don't say that. No, no.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  It takes time. You know, only if all of the movies you have, you know, the something is a main belt, then three weeks later it is on Earth, you know.

• 23:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. They gotta do it within two hours. They gotta do it.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that process takes usually a very long time, you know, it's, it's, we're talking millions of years until the, you know, objects from the main belt space end up migrating into the near Earth space.

• 24:13Marcia Belsky?

  Better hope it crashes into the ocean.

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, then you have tsunamis on the, on the, on the.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Well, look, at that size, 11 kilometers, yeah, that would be.

• 24:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, doesn't matter.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  That would be dinosaurs. I mean, that would be dinosaur size. I mean, that would be chicken lip size. So.

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, exactly.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  You do not want that size anywhere near.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter what.

• 24:32Marcia Belsky?

  That's a risk to have an asteroid named after you. That's the risk.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just the burden I carry, Marsha. This is, this is what I do. So give me another one, see if we can slip another question in before we break again.

• 24:44Marcia Belsky?

  Okay, this is from Connor Holm, from Squim, Washington, from the Pacific Northwest. Hello, hello. It says, "Hi, on average, what percentage of asteroids have moons? Is there an upper limit to how many moons an asteroid can have? I didn't even realize asteroids can have moons."

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, no.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me top that up and say, can, because we learned that you said about 15%, or binary, so maybe if one is big and one is small, we'll say it's a moon. Can a moon have a moon?

• 25:16Speaker 02

  That is, that is a very good question, and if you look in orbital mechanics, there is no reason not to, but it's not going to be stable for a long time. So, so it's probably not going to be very long-lived. But we do have, we do have a triple systems, you know, in both main belt and in near population. They are rare, so you have a, you know, again, central object, which is the largest, and then you have two moonlets orbiting it. And we've found so far, four, only four in near population, so it's small, it's maybe 1%. As I said, those are all lower bounds, because, you know, we can...

• 25:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, you're describing double moons rather than a moon with a moon?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Yes, correct, so triple system. So we have, we have triple systems, but no, we have, we have never found, you know, a, um, you know, that something that moon has a moon, that would be very, very...

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, maybe it's just a matter of definition, because isn't Earth a moon of the sun?

• 26:18Speaker 02

  It is, they're all relative.

• 26:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then Earth has a moon, so...

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yes, they're all relative, yes.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have a moon going around a moon. Everything's a moon. Everything's a moon, thank you.

• 26:28Marcia Belsky?

  Is it, so is the definition of a moon just anything that orbits something else?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, yeah, you're, actually, we usually say natural satellite. We would say that Earth is a natural satellite of the Sun, and our moon is natural satellite of Earth. So it's kind of, you know.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think there were some efforts to tighten that definition. Marina, correct me if I'm wrong. If you, so Pluto has a moon, except the center of mass of Pluto and its moon.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Is outside.

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Outside.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So it's easier to think of Pluto as a double, a double X-planet, a double dwarf planet.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You almost got me to say double planet there, but I'm not. As a double dwarf planet.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  I'm taking notes and recording it to the I O.

• 27:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then as a main planet and a moon going around it. Whereas for Earth, our center of mass is within Earth's surface, between the Earth-moon. So we can think of we being a primary, and then the moon going around us. So is there any talk about where the center of mass is? And if that affects the definition?

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Well, in the case of asteroids, I'm telling you, so all of these binaries that I was, you're dealing with a really large primaries. So the center of mass is always, you know, inside, pretty much inside a primary. And I told you that we did find four equalized mass binaries, but kind of we call them then equalized binary, because they're orbiting the common center of mass.

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  They're rare. Those are very rare objects.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, cool. All right, Marsha, give me one, slip one more in before the break.

• 28:04Marcia Belsky?

  Okay, one more before the break. This is from Kevin Browning. He says, "Hi, from White Deer, Texas. I just recently watched Deep Impact, and I was wondering if the idea of launching nuclear weapons to stop massive asteroids or comets is just Hollywood fantasy? Or has it been something seriously discussed by scientists? Is it feasible? Or is it something that is dated and no longer taken seriously?

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, first.

• 28:29Marcia Belsky?

  Basically, is someone gonna nuke Neil's asteroid if it starts coming towards Earth?

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one's gonna nuke my asteroid. No. So two quick things before we go to break, because I think we'll have to answer that on the other side. Kudos to, what's his name again? Is it?

• 28:45Marcia Belsky?

  This is Kevin Browning from White Deer, Texas.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So kudos to Kevin for choosing the Deep Impact film to reference here and not Armageddon.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where Bruce Willis Saves the World. I did some analysis of Armageddon, and it violates more known laws of physics per minute than any other movie ever made in the history of the universe. So whereas Deep Impact actually had official advisors for it. So kudos to them there. Now, you pronounced the word nuclear, nucular. Is that what he wrote?

• 29:21Marcia Belsky?

  I did? Wait, I, I think that probably is just how I said it. Nuclear.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What did he write?

• 29:27Marcia Belsky?

  He wrote nuclear.

• 29:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The reason why I ask is because George Bush, former governor of Texas, pronounced nucular. And I was, was he just an homage to his former governor?

• 29:37Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I was just checking.

• 29:39Marcia Belsky?

  No, he didn't spell it nucular. I just said that because I'm from Oklahoma. So I thought someone like that, yeah.

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Busted.

• 29:46Marcia Belsky?

  Exactly. My accent came out.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we'll find out about Deep Impact Factor Fiction when we return.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk, Cosmic Queries, all about asteroids. Love it. I got Marcia Belsky here, my co-host. Marcia, what's your, what's your, uh, social media footprint? Where can we find you?

• 30:27Marcia Belsky?

  My social media? Everything is my name, at Marcia Belsky, M A R C I A B E L S K Y. Except for on Instagram, I am at MarciaSky, because I've had that handle forever. But yeah, find me there. I would love that. You know, like Neil said, I do musical comedy. And I also recently wrote a short comedy play called Man and Woman. So I post all of that information.

• 30:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, cool. We can find you there. Okay. And you're from Oklahoma and say nucular. Okay, just wanted.

• 30:56Marcia Belsky?

  And I'm from Oklahoma and apparently say nucular, which I didn't even realize I said it wrong.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just calling you out. Just calling you out. And Marina Brozovic from Jet Propulsion Labs, are you on social media?

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Actually, no. I am one of those, you know.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Misha, you actually get work done during the day?

• 31:14Marcia Belsky?

  Yes.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  I have email. I have email and a phone and some.

• 31:20Marcia Belsky?

  It's so healthy. If I didn't do comedy, I would like to think that I wouldn't be on social media because I can just feel it rotting my brain.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  Okay, I know it's important.

• 31:28Marcia Belsky?

  But also follow me.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, but Jeff Repulsion Lab has an excellent public website for people to visit.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  I know. I know. They have a great educational, yes, great educational sites and a lot of good information.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is it JPL.nasa.gov?

• 31:42Speaker 02

  That is correct.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. Okay, so a lot of good, a lot of good people making those websites. Excellent. So we left off by, who's the guy again?

• 31:53Marcia Belsky?

  We left off with Kevin from White Deer, Texas, Kevin Browning.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He wanted to know.

• 31:58Marcia Belsky?

  Who asked a question about nuclear weapons.

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a couple of things. Let me, let me tune that question for you, Marina. So, other than deflection of an asteroid, which we know was tested with the DART mission, how realistic would nukes be burying them into, in that case, there was a comet that they dug into? And can you comment, if you've seen the film, can you comment on other sort of accurate or badly inaccurate physics that was in it?

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Well, I did see, obviously, I did see Deep Impact and I did see Armageddon. It was a while back, so I think I, I forgot a lot of my complaints.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's to maintain their sanity over all the years.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  I only remember good stuff.

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay. It's a mental health factor.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yes, so, you know, but to make a kind of long story short, I mean, yes, I mean, nuclear devices are a kind of last resort. If something is really big and we don't have much time to react, but in reality, we would have probably decades to prepare and we would probably go with a kinetic impacter, you know, something that DART mission just demonstrated on, on DIBOS system.

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So kinetic impacter, it's moving so fast. That the energy of the, of its kinetic energy is sufficient to create the explosion that you're interested in.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there are two things there. You have to just push it. You don't want, uh, there is a, you know, difference between deflection and disruption. Deflection is you just wanna push it. Disruption is if you hit it too hard and it goes in pieces. And then you have much bigger mess because all of those pieces are heading your way.

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Big mess.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  So it's a big mess. So if you decide to go with that kind of, you know, disruption, then you better give enough energy that all of them, you know, clear Earth. So that is, that you would probably have to do with the multiple kinetic impactors. That is.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or we need a death star. A death star could totally.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. If only that.

• 34:02Marcia Belsky?

  One or the other.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  That would be, oh, well, you know, there is.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just obliterate it. It would, death stars obliterate planets. That's what they do.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:10Marcia Belsky?

  Wait, but that's comforting. You said that likely if there was any like major event that was gonna disrupt Earth with the technology we have now, we'd have decades to.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, as I said, the first, the first and foremost, you have to find them. You know, you have to find them before they find us. That is kind of this cliché.

• 34:28Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  You know, that we've been, we've been repeating, but it's so true. And that's why we have.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Find the sleeping bear before the, the bear finds you sleeping.

• 34:37Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah, oh, my God. No pressure.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  We have these, you know, NASA is funding, a lot of these optical telescopes that are on every clear night going and looking at these, after these, after near Earth asteroids that can potentially endanger Earth and, you know.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but there's something you implied, but I wanna sort of tease out here. And it's that, uh, Marsha, I think Marina said that if we find one, we'll have perhaps 10 years because any, the good thing is that anything big enough to render us extinct is easier to find.

• 35:12Marcia Belsky?

  Right.

• 35:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So.

• 35:16Marcia Belsky?

  That makes sense.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Well, okay, here's the good news. Here's the good news. We are really concerned with things that are larger than one kilometer because those are the ones that really have global consequences, impact of that. And we have found more than 90% of those objects. So we think there may be, maybe several dozens that we still have to find. But there, you know, some of them are not easy because they could have exotic orbits, like they can be very inclined and, you know, and there can be kind of, you know, a lot of times in a bad geometry, so the Earth is on one side and they're behind the sun and you just kind of play this hide and seek for a long time. So, so you know, that's

• 35:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Marcia, those asteroids are sentient, so they know to hide in the glare of the sun.

• 36:00Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah, they're hiding like the ones from Jupiter and we're like, get out of there.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:04Marcia Belsky?

  We want to see you. So what would be like worst case scenario, like shortest amount of time we would have to like prepare?

• 36:11Speaker 02

  But, okay.

• 36:12Marcia Belsky?

  If something huge was hurtling out?

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called kiss your ass goodbye. That's, that's hilarious, yeah.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, as I said, I, it's, it's, it's extremely unlikely that that would happen because as I said, we found more than 90% of that population we are very concerned about, so global consequences. But we still, still have a lot of work between this smaller population. So we think anything, you know, between 140 meters to 1 kilometer, that is, that is pretty serious as well. We found about 50% of that population, so we still have a way to go.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So as the size gets smaller, we have less and less of the total known in our catalogs? Just because they're harder to track?

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Very, very much so. And, and we are, you know, we are also very concerned with this population that is between, say, 50 meters and 140 meters. It doesn't look much, but you know, that is at the level of a city extremely dangerous and, and we really know very small population there.

• 37:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the kilometer sized asteroids are enough to disrupt civilization in some fundamental way?

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Supply chains, transportation?

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, they basically, they would kick so much, so much dust. They would kick so much dust up in the atmosphere that, you know, you would end up that plants would start having problem with photosynthesis and then the whole chain reaction with the, you know, with the food, with food chains would collapse.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Marcia, you know who would really have the problem? Anyone was where it was, where it hit.

• 37:39Marcia Belsky?

  I mean, that's what I'm thinking too. I'm like... And if it hit Manhattan.

• 37:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where the real problem is. That's.

• 37:46Marcia Belsky?

  We have enough telescopes pointed here.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Going back to Neil's asteroid that was discovered in 1994. You know what else happened in 1994? It really kind of started, right? You want to tell us?

• 37:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That wasn't the Shoemaker-Levy nine slamming. So this was the first time we ever witnessed a major comet slamming into another object in the solar system. And it was a comet that broke apart from gravity. Okay, and it was slammed into Jupiter and one piece after another hit. It was and Hubble telescope was just freshened a couple of years earlier. And we turned every ground based telescope to it. In fact, I was at an observatory in Chile. And I took time out of my observing plan to get data on that comet. And you know what was cool? And see, I'm getting all excited. Thanks, Marsha Marina for sending me out to the. So so because it was a comet that broke apart, each piece became its own comet.

• 38:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So each piece had its own tail. It was the coolest thing. And yeah, it slammed into Jupiter, killing all the dinosaurs on Jupiter.

• 38:51Marcia Belsky?

  I was like, poor Jupiter. It doesn't deserve that.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  It was discovered by the same people that discovered your asteroid.

• 39:00Marcia Belsky?

  They are like.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  While you were missing, Carolyn, Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy also discovered your asteroid. And then there was also Gene Shoemaker.

• 39:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gene Shoemaker.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  That he was the third. They discovered it from Palomarque here. Just in the neighborhood. It was like 40 centimeter telescope. And they discovered in 93. And then in 94, it slammed them to Jupiter. It was it was incredible. I mean.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 39:27Marcia Belsky?

  Gosh.

• 39:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, one of the one of the great moments in. And so what I wonder is who was looking at our planet? When that same size asteroid hit Earth and took out the dinosaurs? Was someone else getting excited when they saw that? See, that's what I'm wondering.

• 39:40Marcia Belsky?

  There was some alien civilization. It's like.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  They did not have, you know, dinosaurs did not have space program, but we do.

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you'd know if they had a space program, they'd still be here because they would have totally deflected that asteroid.

• 39:52Marcia Belsky?

  I mean, this sounds like an amazing Pixar movie. Like, should we pitch this?

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dinosaurs with dinosaurs with NASA, right? That's what that is.

• 39:59Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah, and they prevent their own.

• 40:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they said, sort of been done. It's sort of been done. Now, this is this is down the rabbit hole here. But Ice Age Five.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The animated series. Um, I actually have a cameo in that because.

• 40:16Marcia Belsky?

  I was gonna say like.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I otherwise would not know and I wouldn't even known it had five, five, five installations. So apparently they discover, these are like Ice Age mammals. They discover that there's an asteroid headed their way and they want to deflect it. And so I show up inside one of the creature's heads. Uh, Buck Weasel and I'm Neil de Buck Weasel and I'm just in his head.

• 40:39Marcia Belsky?

  Oh my god.

• 40:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Telling him what to think about. And so they, they, so they deflect the asteroid. So, yeah, so the animals have deflected the asteroid. Sentient, um, conversational, smart mammals other than humans have done this in the past. As evidenced by this documentary, Ice Age 5.

• 40:58Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah, Ice Age 5, the well-known documentary.

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's keep going, see if we get a couple more in here.

• 41:04Marcia Belsky?

  Absolutely. Okay, so this is from Dylan. I feel like this kind of leads from what we were just talking about. Um, it's about a different movie. It says, greetings, everyone. Um, I was wondering how you guys felt about the movie Don't Look Up. Is that really how would we would react? And what could you slash we do to have a better outcome? I feel like you were kind of getting into this, that the myth of that movie is how fast it would happen, maybe?

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Marcia Belsky?

  Um, and.

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, a quick earlier point to Marina's notion that we might have 10 years. In, in Armageddon, it was a Texas-sized asteroid.

• 41:43Marcia Belsky?

  I know, I know.

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was within months of, that was within months of hitting Earth. And a Texas-sized asteroid would have been discovered 200 years ago. So, and the government could not keep, there's no way the government can keep it a secret. It's in the fricking sky. See, you got me started on Armageddon. I told you it violated more laws of physics per minute than any other. Let's leave that.

• 42:03Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah, there are a lot of space conspiracies, and I think they are hinged upon the idea that somehow these things could be kept.

• 42:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A secret, the government prevents the whole world from knowing what's in the sky. So, so, um, I assume you saw it. Don't look up.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  I did not, I did not, but I, I, I do, I do roughly know, I do roughly know the premise, so, um, yeah, but, um, going back to what Marsha already started saying, you know, it's, it's, uh, everybody thinks that there is this one telescope on Earth that can observe asteroids, and there is one person that knows how to do asteroid orbit. All that is, you know, public information.

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  And actually, we have this kind of clearing, uh, uh, you know, clearinghouse for, for, for data, where everybody in this world that observes asteroids sends in their measurements.

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's immediately, immediately. And by the way, just, just-

• 42:53Marcia Belsky?

  So it's not some guy in a cave that has to call-

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Information is public. Everybody has access to this data. It's, it's, and we, as scientists, we love to talk. So we, it's possible that we would keep anything a secret.

• 43:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, the government is not competent enough to accomplish any such cover-ups that are displayed in the movies.

• 43:12Marcia Belsky?

  There's no way.

• 43:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and, but, so, one of my most retweeted tweets in the past two years was when I said, uh, I watched the, uh, Don't Look Up, this fictional tale of an asteroid where a scientist warned and people reject the warnings and social media takes it lightly. And, and then I said, by the time the movie was done, I'm certain it was not fiction. It was a documentary, indeed. That, that was how I thought about it. So, yeah, it scared the hell out of me, even though it was a little bit comical, Marina. It was, I've, I've been enough in social media and interacting with the press and with people that so much of what I've seen and felt was pumped up and exaggerated for the movie, but it's all there.

• 43:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They didn't pull that out of nowhere. There was a plausibility to it that, that, that left me a little scared.

• 44:03Marcia Belsky?

  In terms of how we would react to any sort of global catastrophe-

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Marsha, I don't want to be the laughingstock of the galaxy by being the only species with enough intellect to have a space program, but with enough stupidity to not know what to do with it.

• 44:16Marcia Belsky?

  Oh, you know we're already there. You know that if they've been watching us with their telescopes, they're like, these idiots.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop. Don't say that. I don't want to hear that.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Well, you know, we have, every two years, we have this gladiatory defense conference. Where actually you have experts from, you know, from, from scientists to engineers to, you know, space mission planners, to, to even kind of politicians, government officials, even United Nations. Everybody gathers in one spot and then we have this, what do you do? You know, there are people that are negotiating, you know, there are politicians that are going like, okay, who is sending what, you know, who is sending reconnaissance mission? Every spacefaring nation will contribute this. And so there you have.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. If an asteroid is headed for the Indian Ocean and we have technology that could help it, who pays for that mission? Right?

• 45:10Speaker 02

  It'd be a better one. If you want to deflect it, then say it is going to impact country A. But if you want to deflect and save everybody, it is going to, the corridor, impact corridor will have to pass over countries C, D, and E in order to move off the earth.

• 45:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you don't fully execute that.

• 45:31Marcia Belsky?

  And that's what they'd really do.

• 45:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you have other targets. The asteroid has new targets.

• 45:35Marcia Belsky?

  That's probably what would end up happening. They'd be like, oh, let's just send it to this country. Like, yeah.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Those are interesting questions. And those are interesting questions, but that's, I mean, that's why.

• 45:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Geopolitical question.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Many people, that's many people are working on this because, you know, we, we, we need to have, we need to have protocols in place and, and.

• 45:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm delighted that you're on the front lines there, Marina. This is, this is.

• 45:57Marcia Belsky?

  Yeah.

• 45:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got good people doing good stuff, trying to save, save the species.

• 46:01Marcia Belsky?

  I don't get as worried. Yeah. I feel like the difference between that and the global warming though is like, there's no financial incentives for companies to allow an asteroid to hit us. You know what I mean? I feel like we'd get our, our.

• 46:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is so encouraging to hear that. I don't know myself, but think of all the things we do do that reduce our life expectancy every day.

• 46:26Marcia Belsky?

  I know.

• 46:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every day.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  But if I may add, I think that in recent polls, actually, I think that public is very much aware of, you know, the need for us to find all the potentially hazardous asteroids. So I think that the public is that we have kind of public in our corner with respect to this.

• 46:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, go look at the movie Don't Look Up and you will

• 46:50Speaker 02

  I will.

• 46:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reverse that comment.

• 46:55Marcia Belsky?

  It is too believable the way that the public reacts in that movie, yeah.

• 46:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Guys, we gotta land this ship. So anyhow, this has been great, informative, and thank you, Marcia, for sharing your joy and comedic outlooks with us. And Marina, it was a delight to have you on our Rolodex.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  My pleasure.

• 47:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you for being on StarTalk. This has been a StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition: Asteroids. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.