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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what's your mental picture of a typical listener

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Speaker 1: of our show? Oh, that's tough. I think probably there

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Speaker 1: is no actual typical listener. You know, like the average

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Speaker 1: number of children is two point four, but there aren't

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Speaker 1: any actual families with two point four children. It'd be

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Speaker 1: hard to have a point four child. Do you think

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Speaker 1: there's a big range like young and old, short doll? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I hope so. I think so. You know, we probably

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Speaker 1: have atheists and spiritual people. We have scientists and salespeople,

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Speaker 1: we have teachers and students and cartoonists. Emphasis. Well, let's

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Speaker 1: not get too crazy here. Why do you think the

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Speaker 1: audience is so very well? I think probably everybody out

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Speaker 1: there has questions. You know, it's just part of being

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Speaker 1: human to be curious. And if you drive a truck,

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Speaker 1: or design buildings or lead a church, you still want

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Speaker 1: to know answers to the biggest questions in the universe. Yeah, Like,

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Speaker 1: how did a cartoonist and a physicist end up with

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Speaker 1: a podcast Mysteries of the Universe? Hi am for handed.

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Speaker 1: Cartoonists and the co author frequently asked questions about the universe. Hi,

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist. And a professor U

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Speaker 1: c Irvine, and I was pleased at Punch to see

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Speaker 1: our books called out in the New York Times last Sunday.

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Speaker 1: Wait what Yeah? They had an interview with Moe Williams,

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite authors and illustrators, and asked him,

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Speaker 1: what are you planning to read next? And he said

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Speaker 1: he had just finished our book frequently asked questions about

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Speaker 1: the Universe, really enjoyed it and was planning to read

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Speaker 1: We have no idea. Oh my goodness. We got a

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Speaker 1: shout out from a cartoonist about a book about physics

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Speaker 1: that's crazy. Yeah, and he described it as breezy yet

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Speaker 1: content heavy, which I think kind of nails our style. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's better than the being heavy and with greasy content,

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Speaker 1: I guess exactly. And the book itself isn't even that heavy, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: especially if you get the book waste nothing just a

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Speaker 1: feel like crons. Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge

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Speaker 1: Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in

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Speaker 1: which we tackle the heavy questions of the universe. How

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Speaker 1: big is it? How much mass does it have, how

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Speaker 1: does it all work? How long has it been here?

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Speaker 1: And for how long will it keep doing its whole

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Speaker 1: universe thing. We dig into all of those questions because

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Speaker 1: we think everybody is curious about how the universe works,

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Speaker 1: and everybody deserves to understand at least as much as

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Speaker 1: anybody understands. That's right, because it is a pretty mysterious

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Speaker 1: and amazing universe full of questions. Like kind of cartoonists

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Speaker 1: understand the universe? I guess it seems like the answer

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Speaker 1: is yes, if they read breezy but heavy books or

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Speaker 1: write them. I guess right. I think writing them also

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Speaker 1: helps cartoonis understand the universe. Yeah, and translating a physicist

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Speaker 1: for the general audience probably also helps. Yeah. But it

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Speaker 1: is a any incredible universe full of incredible and amazing

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Speaker 1: facts to discover. But it all starts with asking questions first.

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Speaker 1: You've got to ask the question before you can get

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Speaker 1: the answer, right. That's the typical order of things. That

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Speaker 1: is the typical order, And that's exactly why we always

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Speaker 1: embrace the unknown. We know that discovery begins with admitting

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Speaker 1: our ignorance and then diving into it, to asking questions

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Speaker 1: about the things that we don't know, which will lead

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Speaker 1: us down the path to understanding it. And it all

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Speaker 1: begins with asking that first question about the universe. I

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Speaker 1: think there's something about science and scientists that folks out

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Speaker 1: there who aren't practicing scientists might not realize. You know,

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Speaker 1: science isn't some monolithic institution that just like churns out results.

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Speaker 1: Every time you see a result, it's because somebody has

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Speaker 1: decided to dedicate their life to studying. Whether beavers brush

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Speaker 1: their teeth or you know exactly how stars explode. It

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Speaker 1: all comes from one person's individual desire to understand something

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Speaker 1: about the universe. Right. But although it's not an individual effort,

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Speaker 1: it's usually a team effort. Right. We often work in teams,

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Speaker 1: but everybody who's on that team wants to know the

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Speaker 1: answer to those questions. They've decided this is the most

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Speaker 1: important question to be answered, and this is what I'm

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Speaker 1: going to spend my life on. And there is a

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Speaker 1: huge commitment to curiosity. But as you said, Daniel, everybody

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Speaker 1: is a scientist. Everybody can ask questions about the universe.

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Speaker 1: We can all observe it and even run our own

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Speaker 1: experiments in our backyard or garages. Right, that's right. Check

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Speaker 1: with your parents before you create a black hole in

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Speaker 1: your garage, please, or your spouse. Don't create a black

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Speaker 1: hole in your spouse. No, never do that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you're forty year olds, I don't think you need

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Speaker 1: to check with your parents about making a black hole.

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Speaker 1: You might want to check with your city. They might

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Speaker 1: have some kind of ordinance about it. But you know

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Speaker 1: your parents need to give you permission. Are you saying

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Speaker 1: you never ask your parents for advice anymore? They're useless

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Speaker 1: to you now, Well, I ask them for advice, but

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Speaker 1: not permission. I guess. So they're like, or, hey, don't

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Speaker 1: create the black hole. You're like, technically I could, though, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: do you feel otherwise? I feel like if people are

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Speaker 1: telling me that what I'm gonna do is going to

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Speaker 1: destroy the planet, even if I actually have the right

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Speaker 1: to you, so I'm still gonna listen. Well, of course

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Speaker 1: you're gonna listen. I'm gonna listen to their screams as

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Speaker 1: they get sucked into my black hole. Although I guess

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Speaker 1: your parents could technically still guilt you into not doing it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's called an emotional black hole. A bit of a

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Speaker 1: relationship there. But parents and kids all have questions about

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Speaker 1: the universe, and it's especially interesting to hear the questions

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Speaker 1: that children have about the universe because I guess they

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Speaker 1: haven't read as many books as other people exactly, and

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Speaker 1: they come to it with a really wonderful sense of

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Speaker 1: joy and wonder and curiosity, and also stripped of some

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Speaker 1: of the preconceptions that adults have. So often their questions

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Speaker 1: are really the deepest, hardest questions to answer, and so

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Speaker 1: to be. On the podcast, we'll be tackling Listener Questions

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Speaker 1: Number thirty three kid addition. Now, Daniel, are you sure?

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Speaker 1: This is episode thirty three of our Listener Questions series.

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Speaker 1: I'm about sure. Can you count to third? Three? Do

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Speaker 1: we need a kid to come and help us. I'm

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Speaker 1: a particle physicist. I'm used to dealing with like two

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Speaker 1: particles interacting, three particles interacting. Anything about thirties basically infinity

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Speaker 1: for me, right, anything above that is what chemistry? You

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Speaker 1: say that with such derision admiration. Who doesn't like chemists.

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Speaker 1: I'm just overwhelmed by it. I'm not capable of it.

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Speaker 1: That means I'm impressed by chemists. You just don't have

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Speaker 1: the chemistry with chemistry. No, I do not have chemistry

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Speaker 1: with chemistry. It doesn't cause a reaction to you. No, exactly.

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Speaker 1: My son is now taking high school chemistry and I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to help him with his homework. So the last

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Speaker 1: time I studied chemistry was also when I was in

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Speaker 1: tenth grade. So you're like, good luck, I'm like, I

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Speaker 1: hope nothing's changed in thirty years. I'm sure they've invented

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Speaker 1: in new chemicals by now. But anyways, we love taking

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Speaker 1: questions from our listeners, and especially from kids. Kids are

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Speaker 1: the most awesome question askers they are, and we like

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Speaker 1: hearing questions from our kids. We like hearing questions from

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Speaker 1: your kids. So if your kids ask you questions and

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Speaker 1: you don't know the answer, please write to us. We

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Speaker 1: will help you dig into it. Send us any questions.

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Speaker 1: You have two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

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Speaker 1: And so today we have questions from three kids and

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Speaker 1: they range in topics from philosophical questions about the nature

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Speaker 1: of of something this Thor's hammer. I'm looking forward to

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Speaker 1: that one. And also we have a question about lonely stars.

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Speaker 1: So our first question comes from Danica, who is eight

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Speaker 1: years old. Hi, it's me Danica. I'm eight years old,

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Speaker 1: and my question is what does nothing look like? Also,

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Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of your podcast. Um, oh, that's awesome.

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Speaker 1: I like act. She said, Hi, it's meet Danica. Like,

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Speaker 1: I guess we know her, right, I guess so. I

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Speaker 1: mean she has written into the podcast several times and

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Speaker 1: I've answered her questions, so it's nice to hear her

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Speaker 1: voice now. Well, Danica, we love that you listen to

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Speaker 1: the podcast, and it's great to meet you or meet

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Speaker 1: your voice at least for once. And it's such an

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Speaker 1: awesome and deep and difficult question what is nothing and

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Speaker 1: what does it look like? Well, she specifically asked, what

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Speaker 1: does nothing look like? Can we answer as children and

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Speaker 1: just say nothing? Next question? Oh? No, that's how it's

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Speaker 1: usually answer things. It should be a title of our

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Speaker 1: kid edition. If we have no idea, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how you spell that either. Yeah, you will have to

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Speaker 1: come up with some new molecules for that. But it

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Speaker 1: is an interesting and almost philosophical question, what does nothing

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Speaker 1: look like? I guess first of all, what would you

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Speaker 1: describe as as nothing? What is nothing? That's really the

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Speaker 1: heart of the question, what is nothing? And is it

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Speaker 1: even a coherent idea? You know, in philosophy people talk

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Speaker 1: about this question why is there something rather than nothing?

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Speaker 1: And in that case, you have to define really carefully

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Speaker 1: what you mean by nothing, and it has to be

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Speaker 1: something that makes sense, you know, that holds itself together.

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Speaker 1: That is like an option for the universe, that the

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Speaker 1: universe could have been that way rather than this way

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Speaker 1: with things in it. Because I guess there are different

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Speaker 1: levels of nothingness that you can have, right, I could

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Speaker 1: have nothing to do today, or I could have nothing

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Speaker 1: in my pockets, or there could be nothing in front

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Speaker 1: of you that I could see, for example, right, or

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Speaker 1: you could have nothing to say about the topic or nothing.

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Speaker 1: For an answer to this question, I think probably she's

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Speaker 1: imagining physical nothingness. You know, she's in a room. It's

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Speaker 1: got stuff in it, all right, So now empty the room,

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Speaker 1: take all your furniture, all the chairs, all the posters,

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Speaker 1: off the walls, so there's nothing in it, and look around, well,

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Speaker 1: what is in the room. Then in that case, you

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Speaker 1: still have air, right, so ump the air out of

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Speaker 1: the room so that you're in a vacuum now, and

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Speaker 1: I hope you're wearing a suit. I think this is

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Speaker 1: sort of the direction of nothingness she's imagining. Or do

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Speaker 1: you think maybe she's imagining like outer space where there's

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Speaker 1: nothing or like a spot in space out there that

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Speaker 1: doesn't have anything. No planets, no stars, no gas, no dust. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting because nothing is sort of defined by its opposite, right,

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Speaker 1: no thing, so not defining what it is, you're sort

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Speaker 1: of defining what it isn't. So to get to nothing,

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Speaker 1: you have to like remove as many things as possible.

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Speaker 1: So you take out all the stuff, you take out

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Speaker 1: all the air, or as you say, you go out

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Speaker 1: into outer space where that stuff doesn't exist at all,

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Speaker 1: and you look around you. But you know, even out

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Speaker 1: in space there are things. If you are somewhere in

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Speaker 1: our Solar system, even if you're in outer space, there's

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Speaker 1: could be lots of particles around you. There's the solar wind,

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Speaker 1: which is constantly blasting protons and electrons out from the Sun.

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Speaker 1: Of course it's filled with photons because you can see stuff.

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Speaker 1: So even a random chunk of outer space, it still

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Speaker 1: has things in it. Right. But we talked about in

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Speaker 1: the podcast how there are spots in space that are

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Speaker 1: pretty much empty. Right, There are sort of spots in

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Speaker 1: space potentially that they have nothing in them. It's certainly

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Speaker 1: possible to have a chunk of space with no particles

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Speaker 1: in it. You know, you somehow get rid of them,

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Speaker 1: or you find one where there aren't any. It's not

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Speaker 1: required that space have particles in it, but there is

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Speaker 1: another layer two space, right, Those particles in the and

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Speaker 1: our ripples in the quantum fields that fills space, and

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Speaker 1: those fields exist everywhere in space. Even if there isn't

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Speaker 1: a particle in the field, the field itself is there.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean it's there if it's not active,

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Speaker 1: or if it's not rippling or anything, if it's just

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Speaker 1: staying still, is it really there? Yeah. It's sort of

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Speaker 1: like a parking lot. Right. You can have a parking

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Speaker 1: lot that's filled with cars or doesn't have any cars,

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Speaker 1: and you can imagine like, well, if there are no

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Speaker 1: cars in the parking lot, then the parking lot is empty. Right.

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Speaker 1: But a quantum field is a little bit different. These

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Speaker 1: fields that fill space and fill the universe, they can

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Speaker 1: never truly be empty. Quantum fields have a minimum energy states.

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Speaker 1: So every chunk of space has quantum fields in it,

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Speaker 1: and they can never really be at zero energy. So

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Speaker 1: every chunk of space has some energy with it. That's

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Speaker 1: why when the universe expands and creates more space, we

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Speaker 1: say it also is increasing the energy of the universe,

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Speaker 1: because space comes with these fields sort of as a

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Speaker 1: fundamental element of it. That's interesting. Yeah, you're saying that

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Speaker 1: the field, even if they don't have a particle or

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Speaker 1: ripple in them, have some kind of energy, which means

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Speaker 1: they're they're kind of We can get philosophical about what

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Speaker 1: it means for the field to be there if you

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Speaker 1: can't see it, because remember, you can never actually observe

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Speaker 1: fields directly. You can only see fields effect on other particles,

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Speaker 1: sort of like the curvature of space. You can't see it,

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Speaker 1: but you can see its effect on beams of light

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Speaker 1: that curve it. You can't see an electric field directly,

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Speaker 1: but if you put an electron in it, you can

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Speaker 1: see its effect on the electron. So some people argue

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Speaker 1: that fields are just sort of like a mathematical construction.

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Speaker 1: They don't even really exist. Everything is particles, And if

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Speaker 1: you like to go that route, then you could say

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Speaker 1: that every part of space is filled with a low

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Speaker 1: level of virtual particles that are sort of out there,

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Speaker 1: ready to interact with particles you shoot through them. Either way,

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Speaker 1: there's something in space. It's not ever really totally empty,

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Speaker 1: and as far as we know, these fields basically occupy

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Speaker 1: the entire universe, right, is it possible that there's a

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Speaker 1: pocket of space out there without quantum feld We think

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Speaker 1: that they filled the entire universe, and the arguments we

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Speaker 1: have for that are not very specific, but they're sort

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Speaker 1: of broad and powerful. You know. We think that the

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Speaker 1: laws of the universe, the laws of physics, are the

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Speaker 1: same everywhere. We see no evidence for one part of

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Speaker 1: space being different from another part of space. So it

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Speaker 1: would be really strange if some chunk of space just

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Speaker 1: like didn't have a field in it. That would mean

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Speaker 1: it has different physical laws, you know, like electrons can't

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Speaker 1: get pushed by electric fields in that part of space

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Speaker 1: because there aren't any electric fields. Light can't propagate through

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Speaker 1: that space because light is a ripple in the electromagnetic field.

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Speaker 1: That would be really weird. The reason we believe that

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Speaker 1: space is the same everywhere in the laws of physics

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Speaker 1: are the same everywhere, are like well number one, that's

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Speaker 1: the simplest thing. It would be pretty weird to be different.

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Speaker 1: And also there are consequences of that. If space is

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Speaker 1: the same everywhere, then there are symmetries, which leads to

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Speaker 1: conservation laws, like conservation of momentum, and we see momentum

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Speaker 1: is conserved, so that suggests that space is the same everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Sort of a big leap there. So if you want

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Speaker 1: to dig into the details of that argument, we have

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Speaker 1: a whole episode about why is momentum concerned and Other's

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Speaker 1: theorem which makes the connections between those ideas. M I

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Speaker 1: think what you're saying is the quantum field is sort

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Speaker 1: of part of our laws of the universe, or what

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Speaker 1: we think are the laws of the universe, and so

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Speaker 1: to imagine a spotting space without quantum fields is like

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Speaker 1: imagining a space without any laws. Were different laws? Yeah, alright, so, Danika,

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Speaker 1: I guess there is no such thing as space without

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Speaker 1: with nothing in it. But you can also ask if

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Speaker 1: you have to have space, like you can push it

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Speaker 1: one step further and say, well, maybe you get rid

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Speaker 1: of space. Is it possible to have part of the

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Speaker 1: universe without space itself, because that's the way to get

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Speaker 1: rid of the fields, right, right, Because we often say

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Speaker 1: that spaces is a thing, right, it's not space is

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Speaker 1: not emptiness or an empty space. It's like a thing, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And that's something we don't know if it's possible. We

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Speaker 1: did a whole podcast episode about what is space? Where

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Speaker 1: does it come from? Do you have to have it

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Speaker 1: in the universe? And modern thinking is that space itself

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Speaker 1: might be emergent, It might not be fundament rental to

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Speaker 1: the universe, like pies and politicians. You don't necessarily have

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Speaker 1: to have in the universe. It comes out of complicated

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Speaker 1: interactions of other things that do exist. That might mean

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Speaker 1: that there are scenarios where you have a universe that

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Speaker 1: doesn't have space in it, that space itself comes from,

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Speaker 1: like the weaving together of quantum states via entanglement into

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Speaker 1: some fabric that we now recognize as space but didn't

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Speaker 1: always exist. You're saying that there could be and maybe

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Speaker 1: not in our universe, but maybe a universe out there

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Speaker 1: where there's all nothingness then or earlier in our universe.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that space wove itself together at some time in

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Speaker 1: our universe, and before that there wasn't space, And then

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Speaker 1: you can ask like, well, maybe there was something else.

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Speaker 1: There were these quantum states, so that wasn't nothing, but

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Speaker 1: it's not space in the same way, and so you

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Speaker 1: couldn't really look at it, and you can't like look

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Speaker 1: at nothingness if it's not in space. With you, because

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Speaker 1: looking at something requires like shooting light at it or

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Speaker 1: seeing like come from it, or some how probing it.

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Speaker 1: There's no space, then you can't like interact with anything

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Speaker 1: in any way. So it sort of like pulls apart

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Speaker 1: the whole question. Well, I think what you're saying is

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Speaker 1: that space is something, and so if you had a

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Speaker 1: universe without anything in it, would it still even be

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Speaker 1: a universe? Yeah, we don't know if that's possible. But

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Speaker 1: if you were in that universe, you also couldn't look

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Speaker 1: at anything because looking at things requires space. Well, let's

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Speaker 1: say that we give Donka superpowers and she has the

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Speaker 1: ability to do anything with her mind, and she imagined

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Speaker 1: the pocket in front of her, a little blob in

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Speaker 1: front of her that has no space in it. What

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Speaker 1: would that look like to her? Probably just black, right,

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Speaker 1: because nothing would come out of it. Definitely, nothing would

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Speaker 1: come out of it. But I think there might be

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Speaker 1: an inherent contradiction in that definition, right, you're talking about

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Speaker 1: a ball that doesn't have space. You're define in coordinates

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Speaker 1: and location and relationships between coordinates. That's really what space is.

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Speaker 1: So you're like defining a space that doesn't have space

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Speaker 1: in it. Well, I mean, she has superpowers, so she

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Speaker 1: can do whatever. Then asa she creates a little bubble

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Speaker 1: that if you go into it, there is no space

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Speaker 1: in it. Well, she has superpowers, then you know, she

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Speaker 1: can make it look like whatever she wants. It can

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Speaker 1: look like Captain Crunch or ice cream or purple dinosaurs. Well,

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Speaker 1: we still need to follow the laws of physics outside

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Speaker 1: of it, right or at the border of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but if there's no space in it, then nothing can

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Speaker 1: propagate through it, and so nothing could leave it, and

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Speaker 1: so it couldn't look like anything, right, So it would

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Speaker 1: be like if it was just in front of her,

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Speaker 1: it would just look black because no light can come

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Speaker 1: out of it, and any light that goes into it,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of like disappear, right, Yeah, exactly. Maybe

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Speaker 1: a black hole has nothing in it. In fact, we

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Speaker 1: don't know if black holes have anything inside them. It

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Speaker 1: might be that everything that falls into a black hole

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Speaker 1: is sort of smeared onto its surface and they have

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Speaker 1: no interior. All right, Well, I guess that's sort of

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Speaker 1: an answer for Danica then, is that it could look

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Speaker 1: like anything you wanted to, but most likely it would

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Speaker 1: just look black because that's how your brain interprets when nothing,

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Speaker 1: you know, no light enters your eyes, right, so there's nothing,

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Speaker 1: no light coming out of this blob, then it would

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Speaker 1: just look black to you, even though it's not really black.

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Speaker 1: It would just look black to you. It would look

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Speaker 1: like a lack of any signals. And that's how your

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Speaker 1: brain portrays a lack of information. So you're saying it

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Speaker 1: would look like nothing, then I'm saying nothing like that.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you Donicus so much for that question.

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Speaker 1: We're so glad you wrote in with it. And so

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Speaker 1: let's get to our other questions from our other kid listeners,

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Speaker 1: and the next one is about Thor's Hammer, which I'm

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Speaker 1: really looking forward to as far as let's take a

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Speaker 1: quick break, all right, we are taking questions from kid listeners,

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Speaker 1: and surprisingly they're not about asking for more screen time.

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Speaker 1: They already know the answer to that is because it's

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Speaker 1: a podcast, there are no screens. But our next question

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Speaker 1: comes from Grace, who's twelve years old and who lives

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Speaker 1: in Vancouver. Hi. My name is Grace and twelve year

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Speaker 1: old shame Vancouver, Washington. I was wondering if you could

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Speaker 1: help me with Thor's Hammer. It said by some that

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Speaker 1: Thor's hammer is made from the matter of a neutron star.

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Speaker 1: If that's the case, would approximately one point five leers

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Speaker 1: of densely packed neutrons from such a star have enough

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Speaker 1: gravity on its own to even stay together if removed

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Speaker 1: from its original star? Or would it simply fall apart

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Speaker 1: because it doesn't have enough of its own gravity? Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I also have a follow up question. If Thor's

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Speaker 1: hammer stays in one piece, how much gravity would it have.

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Speaker 1: Would the gravity be so great that it would suck

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Speaker 1: the earth around it, becoming Earth's new core? Or would

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Speaker 1: it sit in the corner and collecting more dust? My

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Speaker 1: dad said destroy the earth, but I'd rather it's sit

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Speaker 1: in the corner and collect dust so I don't have

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Speaker 1: to clean often anyway. I bet you can do the

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Speaker 1: math and science can answer the question. Awesome question. Thank

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Speaker 1: you Grays, And the first answer is yes, I would

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Speaker 1: love to help you with Thor's hammer. I feel like

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Speaker 1: we're worthy of lifting meal near. Should we have her

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Speaker 1: ship it to you? Do you have like a UPS

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Speaker 1: number she can use? Oh? My goodness, what would the

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Speaker 1: shipping cost her? Doors hammer? D I guess I can

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Speaker 1: just hold on my hand and hope it comes to me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the true test. I think. Actually UPS has a

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Speaker 1: maximum shipping limit. Remember once my dad tried to order

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Speaker 1: an old fashioned anvil and UPS refused to deliver it

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Speaker 1: because there was so many hundreds of pounds. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: should have to hire a truck for that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, maybe UPS has some restrictions. You know, no explosives,

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Speaker 1: no batteries, no, no magical hammers. Are you saying that

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Speaker 1: the Marvel Cinematic Universe is based on magic instead of science. Well,

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Speaker 1: isn't science at the end? Magic? Magic is everything we

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Speaker 1: haven't yet understood by science. Wait wait what it's magic

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Speaker 1: until you understand it and then it's science. Well this

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Speaker 1: is an interesting question because I do remember hearing or

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Speaker 1: reading that Thor's hammer is made from neutron stars, right.

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Speaker 1: That was in one of the movies where he like

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Speaker 1: there was some kind of factory around a star and

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Speaker 1: he had to like forge a new hammer or new X.

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Speaker 1: I'll trust you on the canon of the Marble Cinematic Universe.

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Speaker 1: I have heard that it's at least as dense as

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Speaker 1: a neutron star. I wasn't sure if it was actually

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Speaker 1: made out of neutron star material or not. Well, I

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Speaker 1: guess let's assume for this question that it is made

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Speaker 1: from a neutron star. That would be a pretty amazing feed, right,

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Speaker 1: that would be pretty amazing since the interior of a

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Speaker 1: neutron star is a very hot, very dense, very unpleasant place,

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Speaker 1: even hotter than California right now. So maybe step us through.

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Speaker 1: What is a neutron star, Daniel? So, a neutron star

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Speaker 1: is a very massive, very dense remnant of the explosion

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Speaker 1: of a star. You have, like a normal star, it's

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Speaker 1: burning in its lifetime, it's gravity pushing in and pressure

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Speaker 1: from fusion going out, and eventually it accumulates so much

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Speaker 1: heavy stuff at its core from fusion that gravity wins

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Speaker 1: and it creates a collapse of the star. This shock

427
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:54,080
Speaker 1: wave rushes in, which then creates very hot, very dense,

428
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:58,080
Speaker 1: very high temperature conditions which ignite fusion very very rapidly,

429
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:00,240
Speaker 1: which then explodes out and you get a sup renew

430
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:02,600
Speaker 1: sometimes and would you have left over at the core.

431
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 1: It's very dense object, this neutron star. They're about ten

432
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:09,879
Speaker 1: to twenty kilometers wide and one to three times the

433
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 1: mass of our sun. Sort of a lot of uncertainty

434
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 1: there in those numbers. But they're incredibly massive for their

435
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,199
Speaker 1: very small sizes. Right. It's one of the, if not

436
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:21,840
Speaker 1: the densist thing in the universe. Like once they removed

437
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 1: from a black hole. Right, Like, if it was any denser,

438
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 1: if anything was more dense than a neutron star, it

439
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,200
Speaker 1: would probably collapse into a black hole. Yeah, a black

440
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:31,120
Speaker 1: hole is the only thing denser than a neutron star.

441
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:33,320
Speaker 1: So somewhere out there there's like a version of Thor

442
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:36,440
Speaker 1: with a black hole hammer that can beat our Thor's hammer.

443
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:40,399
Speaker 1: Oh whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You just gave me some

444
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 1: huge ideas for a comic book storylines. Somebody write that

445
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,720
Speaker 1: thing up. But yes, neutron stars are like one layer

446
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 1: above black holes. They're holding themselves together against the incredible

447
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: gravity that's trying to compress them. If you didn't have

448
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 1: the strong force pushing back out, they would just collapse

449
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 1: into a black hole. But they get squeezed down. All

450
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 1: protons and electrons get squeezed together to form neutrons, and

451
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:05,920
Speaker 1: you get this thing which is mostly neutrons, though we

452
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: dug into on a recent episode, there's like a thin

453
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:10,480
Speaker 1: crust of other atoms, and at the heart of them,

454
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: there's a very strange stuff going on. Stuff we don't

455
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:16,120
Speaker 1: even understand what happened to all the electrons that were

456
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 1: in the stars. They got eaten, right, The proton captures

457
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: the electron and gets turned into a neutron. It's the

458
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 1: opposite of neutron beta decay or neutron decays into a

459
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: proton and an electron. Force an electron back into the

460
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: proton and it converts into a neutron. WHOA, the electrons

461
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:34,920
Speaker 1: got eaten, but doesn't they a total number of electrons

462
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: and the universe have to stay the same. Can can

463
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: you just eat an electron? You can't just eat an electron.

464
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: You have to produce also an electron anti neutrino. In

465
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: beta decay, you have a neutron which goes to a proton,

466
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: an electron and a neutrino or an anti neutrino. You

467
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: have to have an antiparticle there somewhere, and in the

468
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,359
Speaker 1: reverse process you have to produce the opposite particles, So

469
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 1: there's also neutrinos involved. Keep the accounting of the number

470
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 1: of electrons balanced all right? Well? In Grace's question, I

471
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 1: guess if thorce hammer is made out of a neutron star.

472
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:04,919
Speaker 1: I guess then the process would have been that somebody

473
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: went to a neutron star, scooped a bunch of the

474
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,400
Speaker 1: stuff that's inside of a nutron star, and somehow forced

475
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: it into a hammer, which I think she estimates is

476
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,159
Speaker 1: about one and a half liters in volume. So how

477
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: much would that way? Then the density of a neutron star,

478
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: it's such that one tablespoon of that would weigh three

479
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 1: billion tons on the surface of the Earth. That's something

480
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: like two trillion kilograms of mass. So then you break

481
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:34,439
Speaker 1: out your leader to tablespoon conversion and that's about a

482
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: hundred table spoons in a liter and a half, which

483
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: gives you about three hundred billion tons or about three

484
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: hundred trillion kilograms of matter. That's a lot of kilograms,

485
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: I guess. I imagine, how does that compare to like

486
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:52,359
Speaker 1: the mass of the Earth or like the mass of

487
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: the empire state building. Yeah, so it sounds like a lot, right,

488
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,199
Speaker 1: trillions of kilograms is a big number, but you know,

489
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: the Earth is really really big. The Earth has ten

490
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: to the twenty four kilograms, so the Earth is like

491
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: a trillion times more massive. Than Thor's hammer. What about

492
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,719
Speaker 1: like the Empire State building or maybe like your typical mountain.

493
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: So the Empire State Building ways around three hundred million kilograms,

494
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: so that's like a million times less than Thor's hammer.

495
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:23,120
Speaker 1: So Thor's hammer is like a million Empire state buildings. Wow,

496
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: So if you had a million Empire state buildings scrushing

497
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: down to about the size of a coke bottle, that

498
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: would be Thor's hammer. That would be the mass of

499
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: Thor's hammer if it was made out of Nutron's dormitory exactly,

500
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: if it had that same density. Well, that sounds pretty heavy.

501
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: That means Thor is as pretty strong guy as is

502
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 1: I guess Captain America because he lists to the hammer. Also, exactly,

503
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: that super serium is pretty super So then her next

504
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: question is would it hold together? What does that mean? Like,

505
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: would it have enough gravity to hold together? Why wouldn't

506
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: it hold together? Well, if you've taken it from the

507
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: heart of a neutron star, then that neutron star has

508
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: formed under special conditions. It's like being squeezed together by

509
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: all the other stuff around it. There's an incredible amount

510
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: of pressure. It's not just being held together by its

511
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 1: own gravity. It's also all the other stuff. It's like

512
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: if you take something and you put it deep underwater,

513
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure squeezing down on it, helping

514
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: it keep it together. So it's not clear if you

515
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,679
Speaker 1: took it out of the neutron star if it would explode,

516
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: like some things would explode in our atmosphere, but if

517
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: you put them deep underwater, the water would keep them together.

518
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: So I think her question is if you extracted this

519
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:30,919
Speaker 1: from the heart of a neutron star, where it's very

520
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: very high pressure, would it hold itself together or would

521
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:36,640
Speaker 1: it blow up because it is under so much pressure

522
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: in the neutron star. But I guess what if you've

523
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: just formed it outside of a neutron star, Like if

524
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: you just took a million Empire state buildings and scrunch

525
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: them down together to form the hammer, would it hold together? Well,

526
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: the answer is that we don't know, because we don't

527
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: understand how matter organizes itself under crazy pressure. We talked

528
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: in a recent episode about what's inside a neutron star,

529
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: and we think that there's some crazy things that happened.

530
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: We think they formed these weird states called nuclear pasta

531
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 1: where first you get these blobs called nuclear nioki, and

532
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: then they form these rods called nuclear spaghetti, and then

533
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: sheets called nuclear lasagna. And these things are very very strong.

534
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: So these are the neutrons that have assembled themselves into

535
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: this new form of matter, you know, the way like

536
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: particles can make gas or liquid or solid or whatever.

537
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: These are emerging structures from how the little bits are

538
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 1: getting squeezed together and interacting under these crazy conditions. We

539
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: think you form these things called nuclear pasta, but we

540
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: don't know what happens to nuclear pasta if you form

541
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: it just out in space without the crazy high temperature

542
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: and pressure environment in which it was made. One possibility

543
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: is that it can't survive, that it blows up right explodes,

544
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: that it's just an unstable configuration because the particles don't

545
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 1: like getting squeezed that intensely. Another possibility is that it

546
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: is stable, because simulations suggest that nuclear pasta might be

547
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: some of the strongest stuff in the universe. We have

548
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: examples of that, like diamonds. Diamonds you can only form

549
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 1: under very very high pressure, high temperature conditions. Once you

550
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: take them out of there, they're stable. They're like locked

551
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 1: into this configuration that can survive even at the surface

552
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:09,919
Speaker 1: of the Earth, So we just don't know the answer.

553
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: What happens if you make a sheet of nuclear pasta

554
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: and then take it out into low pressure empty space.

555
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: I see, it could be that it blows up, or

556
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: it could be maybe like it forms something like a

557
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: diamond that stays together. I guess if it blows up,

558
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: why would it blow up? Like, why would it matter?

559
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: Like being compressed that much? Is there something about the

560
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: quirks or something that they just don't like being together

561
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: that much? It might be that they do. We don't

562
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,360
Speaker 1: know that they do. It might be that they're very

563
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: happy to get locked into this configuration. We just don't know.

564
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: If they don't, it would be because there's some force

565
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: between them. Right. The reason that things push against each

566
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: other is because their forces between them. You push two

567
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: atoms next to each other, and they will resist because

568
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: their electrons repel each other in the same way. The

569
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: quarks inside those neutrons could be repelling each other as well.

570
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: But we just don't understand the strong force of those

571
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: short distances as those very high intensities well enough to

572
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: know whether it will explode. But if it it, it

573
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: would because the strong force is pushing the individual corps apart.

574
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: All right, Well, the last part of our question is

575
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: how much gravity would Thor's hammer have if it was

576
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: made out of nutron stars. So if we take a

577
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: million empire sage buildings crushed scrunching down into a little cube,

578
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: would we be attracted to it by its gravity with

579
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: the whole Earth sort of collapsed around it? Would it

580
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: start making a black hole? What would happen? It's a

581
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: really awesome question. And so I did a few calculations.

582
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: And you know, here we're talking about something that has

583
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: three hundred trillion kilogram and so the force of gravity

584
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: you feel towards this thing depends on how far away

585
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 1: you are, right, because force gravity goes like one over

586
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: distance squared. And so if you are like a kilometer

587
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: away from Thor's hammer, then you're gonna feel a force

588
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: of two Newton's which is like two percent of Earth's gravity.

589
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,479
Speaker 1: Well that's a lot too. Neutants is like a pound

590
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: of force, right, So if you're a kilometer away from

591
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,239
Speaker 1: Thor's hammer, you would feel it, right, You feel a

592
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: pound of force pushing you towards it. Exactly, You feel

593
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: like two of Earth's gravity towards Thor's hammer. So if

594
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: you drop a ball, it wouldn't just drop straight down,

595
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: it would drift towards Thor's hammer. But still Earth's gravity

596
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: would be the overwhelming force if you're a kilometer away,

597
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:14,239
Speaker 1: and then if you get closer, like say you're a

598
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: meter away from this thing, then you're gonna be feeling

599
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: two million Newton's which is two thousand times Earth's gravity. Remember,

600
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 1: humans can survive like six, seven, eight, maybe ten times

601
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: Earth's gravity, you know, like fighter jet pilots. Very very briefly,

602
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: we're talking two thousand times Earth's gravity. If you're a

603
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: meter away from this thing, so you would get smush basically, right,

604
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: you would get smush, you would become the outer layer

605
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 1: of Thor's hammer. You'll probably get torn into pieces. Right,

606
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: That nuclear pasta would spaghettify you because the forces on

607
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: the back of your head would be weaker than the

608
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: force on your front of your head, so it would

609
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: tear your head apart. So it would not be a

610
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: pleasant experience to be a meter away from them. That's crazy.

611
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: So if I have Thor's hammer and front of it,

612
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 1: it would start to suck everything in around it, right,

613
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: I mean the things a meter away from it would

614
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: get sucked in with two thousand pounds of fourth two

615
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: thousand times Earth's gravity, some more than two thousand pounds

616
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: of force. Yeah, So then all the stuff it gets

617
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: pushed onto it, which would give it more mass. That

618
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: stuff would compress, and then that would attract more things.

619
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: So it would just create a giant vacuum basically on

620
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth. Would suck up mountains too, right, yeah,

621
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: and it would suck Earth up also, right, the Earth

622
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: underneath it is not that dense, so it wouldn't just

623
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: be sucking from the surface, would be digging into the Earth.

624
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: And it's really massive, so I think it probably would

625
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: just sink into the Earth and become part of the

626
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: Earth's core. Oh right, I guess because it's also being

627
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: pulled by Earth's gravity to right. Yes, absolutely, so it

628
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: would start to suck everything around it create a giant crater.

629
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: But then the crater would start moving down towards the

630
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: center of the Earth. Yeah. And as you get very

631
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: close to this thing, the gravity is incredibly intense. Remember,

632
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: gravity goes like one over distant squared And the impressive

633
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: thing about having something so dense is you can get

634
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: very very very close to it. If you're like a

635
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: centimeter away from this thing. We're talking about twenty million

636
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: times Earth's gravity, So the matter very close to Thor's

637
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: hammer would get very powerfully pulled in and very very dense. So, yeah,

638
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: be a runaway gravitational effect. Yeah, and it would probably

639
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,239
Speaker 1: shred matter, which would release a lot of energy to right,

640
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: it would probably and it would also axillary things, and

641
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: so it would be almost like an explosion too. Yeah.

642
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: I think it might have enough energy to break chemical

643
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: bonds and maybe to ionize matter to like pull electrons

644
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: off of their atoms. Definitely not enough to like break

645
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: open the nucleus because tider forces require difference in gravitational strength,

646
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: and the size of the nucleus is just so small

647
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: that gravity doesn't really change very much over the length

648
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: of the nucleus. But yeah, it would shred stuff apart.

649
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: It would create a whirling maelstrum of destruction as it

650
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: sinks into the earth. Wow, would it destroy the earthy

651
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: thing or would it just you know, create a big hole. Well,

652
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: in the end, it's one trillionth of the mass of

653
00:32:57,280 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: the Earth, and so it would sink to the Earth's core.

654
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: In the end, it wouldn't really change Earth's gravity all

655
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: that much. But I'm not sure what would happen at

656
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: the heart of the Earth. It might continue to just

657
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: compress what's going on at the heart of the Earth

658
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: and might eventually just turn the Earth into a black hole. Wait,

659
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: what it can trigger a black hole? If it can

660
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,479
Speaker 1: stay that dense and have that intense gravity, it's going

661
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: to continue to compactify the Earth around it. If you

662
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: teleported Thor's Hammer into the heart of the Earth, then

663
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: the stuff right next to it would get compacted onto

664
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: Thor's hammer. It would be even denser, which would increase

665
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: the gravitational attraction, and so it's a runaway gravitational process.

666
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: It might turn the Earth into a neutron star. Actually, yeah,

667
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: that makes sense, because if it couldn't initially turn into

668
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: a black hole, why would it turn into a black

669
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: hole now? Just because I fed it a little earth

670
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: fed it little as a little a pair of teeth,

671
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: a little moose bush. Either way, it sounds like bad

672
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: news for us, and so um good thing Thori's Hammer

673
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: is not here on Earth. We think exactly, adding Thora's

674
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: Hammer to your living room would not help clean things up.

675
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: Although I guess if it's a fictional universe with magic

676
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: and stuff, then I'm sure you know, the people who

677
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: made the hammer put in some maybe mechanisms for it

678
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: to not suck literally and figuratively, they're gonna really support

679
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: the floorboards underneath Thord's hammer. Yeah, yeah, like somehow it's

680
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: made out of material from a neutron star. But you know,

681
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: maybe it has special you know, enchantments to make it

682
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: all together and also not have that kind of gravity. Well,

683
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: let's hope so. And then one day scientists in the

684
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: Marble Cinematic universe will unravel those enchantments and understand the

685
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: science of them, and then they'll be worthy of lifting

686
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: mule here. All right, Well, thank you Grace for that

687
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 1: awesome question. We think you're a superhero yourself, and so

688
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: let's get to our last question here about Lonely Stars.

689
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: But first let's take another quick break. All right, we

690
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: are taking questions from listeners, and today we have a

691
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: kid edition of our Listener Questions episode, and our next

692
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 1: question comes from Derek, who's nine years old. Hi, my

693
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: name is Derek, and are nine years old. I was

694
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: wondering if there're any stars the universe that are not

695
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 1: part of any gaxy. All right, thank you Derek for

696
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,319
Speaker 1: that awesome question. I wonder what made Derek think of

697
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: stars that are not part of a galaxy. Maybe Derek

698
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: and his family are trying to plan a vacation and

699
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: they're looking for an exotic spot away from everyone else. Yes,

700
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 1: you know, some people just like to be isolated, and

701
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: you had a tough day at the playground. Maybe just curious.

702
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 1: You know, it's a great process to think, all the

703
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,360
Speaker 1: stars I know of our in galaxies, is it possible

704
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: for something else to happen? Could it be that stars

705
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: could form outside galaxies? Just like asking basic questions about

706
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: our assumptions. I think it's a great way to explore

707
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: the universe. And I guess it's kind of interesting because

708
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: at some point in human history, maybe not too long ago,

709
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: we didn't even even know there were galaxies. Right. We

710
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: thought all stars, which is part of the Uni verse,

711
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 1: and there was just a big blob of stars that

712
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: made up the universe. Right. Yeah, just over a hundred

713
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: years ago we discovered the galaxies are a thing. They're

714
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 1: floating in space, separated by vast distances. Rather than the

715
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: whole universe just being sprinkled with stars. That was one

716
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 1: of Edwin Hubble's discoveries. Yeah, and then we realized that

717
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: every star we see in the night sky is actually

718
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: part of a galaxy, of a cluster of stars, and

719
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: if you look closely and far away in the Nice Guy,

720
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: you see other clusters of galaxies. And that's how we

721
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 1: sort of figured out that this stuff in the universe

722
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: sort of organizes itself in galaxies. Right, that's right. Some

723
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: of the galaxies the night skuy are a little tricky

724
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:40,240
Speaker 1: to see, but they're very dramatic, Like the nearest galaxy

725
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: Andromeda is actually huge in the Nice Guy. It's bigger

726
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: than the full moon. It's just not very bright, so

727
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 1: it takes a special camera to take a long image

728
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 1: of it so that you can see it. But it's

729
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 1: really big up there. Yeah. And so I guess Derek's

730
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: question is if you know the stars that we've seen

731
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: the Nice Guy are all in the Milky Way, and

732
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: we see other clusters of galaxies out there, I guess

733
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 1: the question is are their stars that are not part

734
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: of a galaxy? Yeah, it's a great question, and the

735
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: answer is yes, there are stars out there that are

736
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 1: not part of a galaxy. But we don't think that

737
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: they were formed out there on their own. We think

738
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 1: that all stars are made inside a galaxy, but then

739
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: some of them are lost. So like between our galaxy

740
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 1: and the next galaxy, there could be random stars floating around. Yes,

741
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: we think almost certainly there are. In fact that scientists

742
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 1: have seen them. We have spotted some with space telescopes.

743
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: We've even seen one or two go supernova out in

744
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: the depths of space. M interesting, I guess how have

745
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 1: we seen them and how do we figure out they

746
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:39,439
Speaker 1: were not part of a galaxy. Well, you can see

747
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 1: these stars with telescopes like Hubble Detective, the first one

748
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: in seven. You can see that they're out there and

749
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 1: you can see that they're not part of a galaxy.

750
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: Just like literally out between the galaxies. You can tell

751
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: how far away stars roughly by its recession velocity, by

752
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: how fast it's moving away from us, and by measuring

753
00:37:57,600 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: its red shift, and we could also compare it to

754
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 1: near by stuff. So you just see these stars out

755
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: there between galaxies. Yeah, because it's kind of hard to tell, right,

756
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:06,840
Speaker 1: because you just see a little pin point in the

757
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: sky and start to tell if it's really far away

758
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: or kind of close. Yeah, there's this ambiguity between things

759
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: that are really far away and bright or really close

760
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 1: and dim. All you're seeing is that point in the sky.

761
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 1: It can be hard to tell. But we have some

762
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: tricks to figure out how far away things are. One

763
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: is how fast is it moving away from us? Because

764
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: things that are further away from us are moving faster

765
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 1: away from us. Also, we can look at nearby stuff.

766
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: We can compare them to two things that we can calculate.

767
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: We have like sephids, which are these special kinds of

768
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: stars that how will use to figure out how far

769
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: away things are. And then further away we can look

770
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: at type one nice supernova, this kind of stuff. So

771
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: we have a few like reference points this cosmic distance

772
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,359
Speaker 1: ladder to figure out how far away things are. All right,

773
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 1: And so you're saying, if there is a star that

774
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: is not part of a galaxy, you're saying it probably

775
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: wasn't made out there in the empty space between galaxies.

776
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: It was probably made in a galaxy. I guess my

777
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,760
Speaker 1: first question is why do you say that? Why couldn't

778
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:04,439
Speaker 1: a star form by itself in between galaxies? Will star

779
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: formation requires sort of special circumstances. You need a big

780
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: cloud of dense enough gas that has to be cold enough,

781
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: so you need gravity, like gather together a lot of

782
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,840
Speaker 1: hydrogen in one place and then cool it down somehow

783
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: so that the stars can collapse. Remember, star formation happens

784
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 1: when you have a cloud of cold gas and then

785
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: you have a little spot in it that's denser than

786
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: any other spot. That spot now has more gravity than

787
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: everything else, and so we can attract more and more

788
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: stuff to it, and just like Thor's hammer that we

789
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:36,399
Speaker 1: talked about, that becomes a runaway process. It grabs more

790
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:38,959
Speaker 1: and more stuff. So that's happened. You need this big

791
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,839
Speaker 1: cloud of cold gas. And while there is gas out

792
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,879
Speaker 1: there between galaxies is just not dense enough, and it's

793
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: also too hot. The gas between galaxies is moving really

794
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: really fast. It's zipping around a lot. So you need

795
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: dark matter to gather together huge clouds of gas into

796
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: galaxies to create these star formation conditions. Right. I guess

797
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 1: that's what we see right now, that in most of

798
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: the space between galaxies there's hot gas. But I guess

799
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 1: that doesn't maybe tell us that that there couldn't be

800
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: earlier in the universe just a little cloud of gas

801
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: that form into one star by itself, right, is that?

802
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: I mean? Is that possible? Or I guess The same

803
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: question is why didn't the universe have little small pockets

804
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: of cold gas out there in between galaxies? Well, in

805
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,760
Speaker 1: some sense it did, right, Remember the galaxies formed smaller.

806
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: You started with smaller pockets of gas which formed stars,

807
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: and then those merge. So the history we see is

808
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: the formation of a bunch of really small galaxies which

809
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: come together to make bigger galaxies. So in some sense

810
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: it's a definitional thing. You have a blob of gas

811
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 1: which starts to form stars. You call that a baby galaxy,

812
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: and then it merges together with other baby galaxies to

813
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 1: become a bigger galaxy. Can you get a pocket of

814
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: gas which forms a single star? You could, though it's

815
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 1: unlikely because these conditions tend to form multiple stars at once.

816
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 1: These clouds of gas are big enough, and when the

817
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 1: conditions are ripe, they form many stars sort of at

818
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 1: the same time, which is why you see, for example,

819
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: so many binary star systems because stars are formed near

820
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: each other and they're sort of together from birth. But

821
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: it's possible technically to form a single star from a

822
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: cloud of gas that happens to be isolated from everywhere else.

823
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: It's not impossible. So it probably has happened somewhere in

824
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: the universe, right, because I guess when the universe began

825
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: in the Big Bang, it was all kind of random, right,

826
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: there were huge blocks of gas here, but maybe there

827
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: could have been smaller blocks of gas all by themselves

828
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 1: somewhere in the universe. Yeah, it's definitely possible. But if

829
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 1: you're looking at the stars today that exists and are

830
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 1: outside of galaxies, we think the overwhelming likelihood is that

831
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: they were formed inside existing galaxies and then ejected. They

832
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: were kicked out, they were booted, they were voted off

833
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: the galactic island. So it's not like a game of

834
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: musical chairs where all the stars were like, all right,

835
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: everybody find a galaxy, and then there was one star

836
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: that gon trapped without a galaxy. That's the scenario I

837
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:54,839
Speaker 1: was trying to paint. But you're saying it's more like

838
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: everybody got into teams and then the somebody got booted

839
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: out sadly. Yeah, it's more like a corporate merger, you know,

840
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 1: in two big companies get together, they end up firing

841
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 1: a bunch of employees. That's sort of what happens when

842
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: galaxies merge. Galaxies come together, and the stars don't like collide.

843
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: When two galaxies merge, they sort of like orbit each

844
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: other and form a bigger galaxy. And this is a

845
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 1: basic part of how we got the galaxies we have today.

846
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,240
Speaker 1: The Milky Way, for example, we think is the product

847
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: of the merger of several smaller galaxies, some bigger, some smaller.

848
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have like a big galaxy eats a small galaxy,

849
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: sometimes two galaxies the same size. But when this happens,

850
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: though the stars don't often collide, there are sometimes casualties

851
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: because not all the stars then fall into a nice

852
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: orbit around the combined mass of the two galaxies. Some

853
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 1: of them just get kicked out. Well, I'm not sure

854
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 1: nine year olds know about corporate burgers that much. You've

855
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: got to prepare them starting early, man for the realities

856
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 1: of the adult world. I think, what do you mean

857
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: is like if I take a bunch of legos and

858
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: nice mush them against another bunch of legos, some of

859
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: the limbicgo pieces are going to fly out right away

860
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 1: from the bunch of legos that I'm forming, yeah, right,

861
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: And so almost all of the stars of the overwhelming

862
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: majority of them, form some new galaxy, but some of

863
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: them are lost. Remember, like a stable orbit is not

864
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: always that easy to find. We think there are planets

865
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 1: in our Solar system which we're lost because of crazy

866
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: gravitational hijinks by Jupiter, for example. So it's much easier

867
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 1: to lose something out of orbit than to gain something

868
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,800
Speaker 1: in orbit. So when two little galaxies come together to

869
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 1: form a bigger galaxy, most of the stars end up

870
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:28,839
Speaker 1: happily orbiting the new combined galaxy, but some of them

871
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: just get tossed out into space. Well, I think it's

872
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: can definitely relate to that. It's much easier to lose

873
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: their toys and to get new ones. And there's another

874
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: process also where a galaxy can lose stars. Remember that

875
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: at the heart of galaxies there's a huge black hole,

876
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 1: this supermassive black hole, which can sometimes have the massive

877
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 1: millions or billion times the mass of our Sun. It's

878
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: really intense gravity, and we have these amazing movies of

879
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: stars orbiting these black holes and going super fast. Well,

880
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: sometimes those are stable orbits, but also sometimes they're not.

881
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: So if a star comes near the supermassive black hole

882
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 1: the heart of a galaxy, it can get whizzed around

883
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 1: and then just tossed out of the galaxy sort of

884
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 1: like a slingshot, right exactly the way like comets dive

885
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 1: deep into the heart of our solar system, gain a

886
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: lot of speed, and then get thrown back out to

887
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 1: the outer solar system. In that case, it's still sometimes

888
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:21,800
Speaker 1: a stable orbit, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes we lose

889
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: a commet, and could that happen to our son, to

890
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: our start cod we somehow get booted off the Milky Way.

891
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 1: It's possible the Sun is in a pretty stable orbit.

892
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: We're not very close to the center of the Milky Way,

893
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 1: We're not close to the outside. Every thirty one million

894
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,439
Speaker 1: years or so, we crossed the galactic plane. We sort

895
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: of like go around in a circle that takes by

896
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: two fifty million years. Then we also go like up

897
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 1: and down relative to the plane and crossed through every

898
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:49,800
Speaker 1: thirty million years. So it's possible that our orbit around

899
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: the galaxy could get perturbed if we come near some

900
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: other star which like gives us a yank, and we

901
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: end up like falling in towards the center of the

902
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: galaxy and then getting shot out, or in if few

903
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda will merge, and

904
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: definitely some stars are going to get voted off the island,

905
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:08,479
Speaker 1: all right, So to answer Dirk's question, the answer is, yes,

906
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: you can have stars that are not part of a galaxy,

907
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: but they're most likely booted out. But I think it's

908
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: pretty interesting to think that there are stars out there

909
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: floating in the huge empty space between galaxies. I wonder

910
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 1: if some of those stars could have planets orbiting around them,

911
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: and maybe even life around them. Right, imagine being a

912
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: life form looking out into the sky and one of

913
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: these lonely stars. I bet the nice guy would look

914
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 1: pretty differently than it does to us. Yeah, technically it's possible. Right.

915
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: We don't really gain much benefit from being part of

916
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 1: the galaxy. So if you took the Sun and you

917
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: just deposited out in the middle of intergalactic space, our

918
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,879
Speaker 1: lives wouldn't really change that much. All we really need

919
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: to survive is the Sun. But you're right, the night

920
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,839
Speaker 1: sky would look very different because all we would see

921
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:51,279
Speaker 1: would be galaxies. Right now, when you look up, you

922
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:53,959
Speaker 1: see mostly stars in the Milky Way, and a few

923
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 1: little smudges from galaxies. So astronomers evolving on that star

924
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: would think, Wow, the Earth is really weird because everything

925
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 1: else up there is a galaxy instead of a star.

926
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:05,919
Speaker 1: That would be very puzzled. Right, this nice guy would

927
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: just look black with smushes on it, right, exactly. And

928
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: we know that there are a lot of them out there.

929
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:15,360
Speaker 1: Astronomers from Vanderbilt identified more than six hundred stars just

930
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: past the edge of the Milky Way between Us and Andromeda.

931
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 1: These are hypervelocity stars that we think we're ejected from

932
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: the core of the Milky Way, and maybe there are

933
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,840
Speaker 1: planets around them, although you know, the intense gravitational push

934
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 1: of getting whipped around the black hole might make a

935
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,720
Speaker 1: star lose its planets also, that would be a crazy ride.

936
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you Derek for that awesome question.

937
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: And um, I hope you do make it into a

938
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,399
Speaker 1: team in the playground and not lose your toys. That's right,

939
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: And if the Sun is injective from our galaxy, I

940
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: hope we all go along for the ride. All right. Well,

941
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: that answers all three of our listener questions. Thank you

942
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 1: to everyone, especially Danica, Grace and Derek for sending us

943
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,840
Speaker 1: they're awesome questions and for being curious about the universe.

944
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 1: And thank you to their parents for raising the next

945
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 1: generation of science. This well, technically everyone's raising the next

946
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:06,280
Speaker 1: generation of scientists, because everybody's a scientist, right, That's right, exactly,

947
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: So I'm just doing professionally. And thanks for everybody out

948
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 1: there who encourages their kids to ask questions and wonder

949
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: about the world and experience the joy of discovery and

950
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,359
Speaker 1: of confusion. We hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us,

951
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: see you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that

952
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explained the Universe is a production of

953
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,479
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,

954
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

955
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Ye