1 00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:12,080 Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, do you know what our cosmic addresses? Yeah, 2 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:15,800 Speaker 1: it's a one universe lane, isn't it. Well, that's where 3 00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:18,520 Speaker 1: you can send us all your gifts of presence and bananas. 4 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:20,320 Speaker 1: I mean, that's how the aliens know where to find, 5 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:22,599 Speaker 1: is right, that's true. But I actually don't need a 6 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:24,880 Speaker 1: lot of bananas delivered in the mail, So let's not 7 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,080 Speaker 1: encourage people to send us any fresh fruit. No, no, 8 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:29,720 Speaker 1: I think you know what you mean, Like our address 9 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:31,800 Speaker 1: like in the universe, Like if we're here on Earth 10 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,639 Speaker 1: around our star about halfway down the Milky Way. Yeah, 11 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:38,080 Speaker 1: that's enough to get your mail delivered to your house. 12 00:00:38,120 --> 00:00:41,400 Speaker 1: But like, what about the rest of our cosmic context? 13 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:44,360 Speaker 1: I mean, like what's the equivalent of our city or 14 00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:46,360 Speaker 1: zip code? Yeah, And it turns out that we're part 15 00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:50,479 Speaker 1: of a cluster called the Local Group sounds local, and 16 00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:53,239 Speaker 1: then zooming out a little bit where the suburbs of 17 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:56,800 Speaker 1: an even bigger cluster called Virga, and then part of 18 00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:00,800 Speaker 1: a super cluster of a hundred thousand galaxies called Lena Kia. 19 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:03,720 Speaker 1: And then you know, that's actually about as far as 20 00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:06,280 Speaker 1: we've mapped. Wait, we don't know where we live exactly 21 00:01:06,319 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 1: in the universe. We don't know, So if you want 22 00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:11,880 Speaker 1: to order alien bananas, you just gotta put a question mark. 23 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:29,800 Speaker 1: Gonna throw up a flare. I am more handy cartoonists 24 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:33,080 Speaker 1: and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm 25 00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:36,240 Speaker 1: a particle physicist, and I don't like Earth bananas, but 26 00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:40,640 Speaker 1: I'd be willing to try alien bananas. Really, how do 27 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:43,040 Speaker 1: you know they're not going to be worse? You don't know. 28 00:01:43,319 --> 00:01:46,000 Speaker 1: But that's the joy of exploration. I want to land 29 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,120 Speaker 1: on a new planet, to see the new kinds of life, 30 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:50,920 Speaker 1: the new kinds of animals and critters, and taste any 31 00:01:50,920 --> 00:01:55,120 Speaker 1: new potentially delicious fruits. Well, you're welcome to be humanity's taste. 32 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:59,480 Speaker 1: I guess to make sure it's all right, somebody's gotta 33 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:02,480 Speaker 1: do it. I'll probably come down with the alien banana flu. 34 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: But welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, 35 00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:08,320 Speaker 1: a production of My Heart Radio in which we don't 36 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,040 Speaker 1: take any actual trips out into the universe, but a 37 00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:15,440 Speaker 1: mental journey through all the amazing questions and discoveries, all 38 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:17,960 Speaker 1: the things science has figured out and the things that 39 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:21,840 Speaker 1: science is still working on. We think that curiosity belongs 40 00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:24,880 Speaker 1: to everybody, and that you are questions are as fascinating 41 00:02:24,919 --> 00:02:28,200 Speaker 1: and as important as those that scientists are working on 42 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:31,440 Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, because it is a huge universe out there, 43 00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:34,079 Speaker 1: with a lot of places to explore and a lot 44 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:36,880 Speaker 1: of things to discover, and a big question is how 45 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:39,280 Speaker 1: do we fit into all of this? What is our 46 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,639 Speaker 1: place in the universe? And how do we fit into 47 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:48,000 Speaker 1: this giant cosmic ballet of stars and galaxies and dust. 48 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:51,200 Speaker 1: And it's sort of an extension of exploration that humans 49 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:55,320 Speaker 1: have been doing basically forever, since we wondered what was 50 00:02:55,400 --> 00:02:59,440 Speaker 1: over that hill, what's past that mountain, what's over that ocean? 51 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:02,840 Speaker 1: And modern day explorers might wonder like, well, is there 52 00:03:02,840 --> 00:03:05,920 Speaker 1: anything left for me to look for? Thanks to Google 53 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,400 Speaker 1: Earth and satellite technology, we basically know where all the 54 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:11,799 Speaker 1: mountains are and all the little islands you can name 55 00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:14,839 Speaker 1: after your chihuahua. But it turns out there's a lot 56 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,960 Speaker 1: of exploration left to do. Yeah, is there an equivalent 57 00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:20,840 Speaker 1: of Google Universe? Google? Get on it now. Yet it's 58 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:24,400 Speaker 1: mostly a big question mark. But you can look at 59 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:27,880 Speaker 1: maps of our cosmic neighborhood to see what's around us, 60 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,680 Speaker 1: what's nearby? If you just google large scale structures of 61 00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:33,840 Speaker 1: the universe. Wow, does it tell you how much each 62 00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:37,560 Speaker 1: galaxy is worth? Can you figure out the perse square 63 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:40,440 Speaker 1: light here value? You know, even just our solar system 64 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:42,920 Speaker 1: is worth like a gazillion dollars because of all the 65 00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:45,480 Speaker 1: platinum and gold and stuff that you can find in aster. 66 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,200 Speaker 1: So it's basically just infinite. Well, we are still learning 67 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:52,040 Speaker 1: about the basics of where we are in the universe 68 00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:54,960 Speaker 1: and what's kind of around is and so a big 69 00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:58,400 Speaker 1: question is, you know, what can we find? What interesting 70 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:01,520 Speaker 1: things are there in our very own neighborhood here in 71 00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:04,520 Speaker 1: the universe, And it's not something that we can easily 72 00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:08,240 Speaker 1: explore in person. In the old days of exploration, you 73 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:09,960 Speaker 1: would hop in a ship and you would land on 74 00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:13,360 Speaker 1: foreign shores and you would wonder who else was living 75 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:15,440 Speaker 1: there and what kind of fruits did they enjoy. But 76 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:18,359 Speaker 1: these days it's not so easy. The distances are vast, 77 00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:21,600 Speaker 1: the technology is still so primitive. But we have other 78 00:04:21,680 --> 00:04:24,080 Speaker 1: ways of exploring the universe. You mean, we don't have 79 00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:27,360 Speaker 1: those warp drives and teleportation devices yet. Well, you know, 80 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:29,919 Speaker 1: I sent them to the Daniel and Jorge Engineering department. 81 00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:31,680 Speaker 1: So I'm just waiting for the prototype to come back 82 00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:37,320 Speaker 1: last engineer in our team here. But yeah, you're right, 83 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:39,920 Speaker 1: it is kind of interesting that we have to explore 84 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:43,800 Speaker 1: the universe from here. From Earth using telescopes, we can 85 00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:45,839 Speaker 1: actually like go out that far because some of the 86 00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:49,159 Speaker 1: things that we can see are hundreds or millions of 87 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:52,000 Speaker 1: light years away, like the pretty much we might never 88 00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:54,680 Speaker 1: see them in person. That's right, most of these things 89 00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:57,039 Speaker 1: we will never see in person. And most of these 90 00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,960 Speaker 1: things that we're looking at, they don't exist right now 91 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,240 Speaker 1: on the way that we are seeing them, right, we 92 00:05:02,279 --> 00:05:05,480 Speaker 1: are seeing old light that comes to us from them. 93 00:05:05,520 --> 00:05:09,120 Speaker 1: So what's actually happening now out there is not what 94 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:12,400 Speaker 1: we are seeing. Yeah, So astronomers are out there looking 95 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:15,760 Speaker 1: and exploring and checking out what's around us, and recently 96 00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:20,080 Speaker 1: there's been an incredible discovery. Just this past summer, astronomers 97 00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:25,080 Speaker 1: discovered a whole new thing pretty close to our corner 98 00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:28,080 Speaker 1: of the universe here, and it's huge. It's basically the 99 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:33,080 Speaker 1: biggest thing anybody has ever found, and it's shockingly large 100 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:37,599 Speaker 1: and shockingly close. It's basically a literal mind exploder. So 101 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:44,400 Speaker 1: today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question what 102 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:48,520 Speaker 1: is the South Pole Wall and why did they give 103 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:51,400 Speaker 1: it such a ridiculous name south? But yeah, it's a 104 00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:53,560 Speaker 1: little confusing because is it a pole or is it 105 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:58,080 Speaker 1: a wall? Is it a wall of poles? Is it 106 00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:00,280 Speaker 1: a wall around the South Pole? I guess it's south, 107 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:02,800 Speaker 1: but south relative to who, Well, you have a very 108 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:06,400 Speaker 1: northern bias, right, You tend to view the earth is up, 109 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:09,520 Speaker 1: north is up, and so you know, maybe that gives 110 00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:11,480 Speaker 1: you a clue. I was born in the equator, so, Daniel, 111 00:06:11,480 --> 00:06:14,680 Speaker 1: I'm pretty agnasting. I think maybe this time you can 112 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:17,560 Speaker 1: rag on after physicists and how they name things, and 113 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:19,880 Speaker 1: as particle physicists can get a break for a weekend 114 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:23,360 Speaker 1: for once. Yeah, and also, who's paying for this wallt Daniel? 115 00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:29,240 Speaker 1: The Aliens are definitely paying for the wall, yeah, with 116 00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:33,440 Speaker 1: the tariffs. But yeah, so they discovered something huge and enormous. 117 00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:35,400 Speaker 1: I mean, it's like you said, it's the biggest thing 118 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:38,520 Speaker 1: pretty much ever discovered. Is that true. Yeah, it's in 119 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:42,400 Speaker 1: the top five biggest things we know about in the universe, 120 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:46,040 Speaker 1: and of the top five, it's the closest one. So 121 00:06:46,080 --> 00:06:49,200 Speaker 1: it's really kind of amazing that we haven't seen this before, 122 00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:51,880 Speaker 1: that we didn't even know about it before. It really 123 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:55,240 Speaker 1: it makes me feel like, you know, cartographers in the 124 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:58,119 Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds drawing maps to the Earth and like leaving 125 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:00,479 Speaker 1: out America. You know, like how could to be so 126 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:04,080 Speaker 1: ignorant of like an enormous continent that's honestly not that 127 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:07,200 Speaker 1: far away. It'd be like discovering a whole wall of 128 00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:09,720 Speaker 1: poles in your backyard and you're like, where did that 129 00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:13,880 Speaker 1: come from? That's right, I didn't order this online. Yeah, 130 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,680 Speaker 1: so it's a new discovery. It's huge, it's very close. 131 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:20,960 Speaker 1: But we're wondering how many people out there know about 132 00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:25,760 Speaker 1: this south Pole Wall and whether it was discovered recently. So, 133 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:28,080 Speaker 1: as usual, Daniel went out there and ask people on 134 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:31,360 Speaker 1: the internet if they knew what is the south Pole Wall? 135 00:07:31,720 --> 00:07:35,480 Speaker 1: So thanks to everybody who volunteered to share their baseless 136 00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:38,880 Speaker 1: and uninformed speculation with us for our podcast. And if 137 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:41,880 Speaker 1: you would like to be a victim War Future podcast 138 00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:46,120 Speaker 1: to share your unprepared thoughts on difficult questions in physics, 139 00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:49,680 Speaker 1: please write to us two questions at Daniel and Jorge 140 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:51,520 Speaker 1: dot com. Think about it for a second. Do you 141 00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:54,720 Speaker 1: know what the south Pole Wall is? Here's what people 142 00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:56,840 Speaker 1: had to say. Does that have something to do with 143 00:07:56,960 --> 00:08:00,040 Speaker 1: flat earther theory, it's all a man made will but 144 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:04,320 Speaker 1: around South Pole to stop animals or in shooters from 145 00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:06,480 Speaker 1: coming in as a way to preserve this out pole. 146 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:10,880 Speaker 1: Maybe it's some sort of electromagnetic barrier, not just an 147 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:17,640 Speaker 1: obvious structure, something to do with like a magnetic like 148 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:22,640 Speaker 1: the Earth's magnetic field, some sort of barrier for particles 149 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:25,840 Speaker 1: in the sun from the sun. Maybe it's related somehow 150 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:31,680 Speaker 1: to the like Aurora borealis and southern lights. The South 151 00:08:31,920 --> 00:08:40,000 Speaker 1: Pole Wall is a ice fault formation that is incredibly 152 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:45,800 Speaker 1: difficult to traverse on foot or sled or with dogs. 153 00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:50,560 Speaker 1: I have no idea. I am guessing that it is 154 00:08:50,880 --> 00:08:55,880 Speaker 1: a wall, either physical or metaphorical, located in the South Pole. 155 00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:58,520 Speaker 1: The first thing that comes into mind is a big 156 00:08:58,640 --> 00:09:00,600 Speaker 1: rule of ice in the South Pole, like the one 157 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:03,240 Speaker 1: phone Game of Thrones. I'm not sure, but I believe 158 00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:06,760 Speaker 1: there are some I don't know if they're called caverns 159 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:09,520 Speaker 1: or cliffs or something like that, but I believe there's 160 00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:12,800 Speaker 1: some impediment in our way to get to the uh, 161 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:15,640 Speaker 1: to travel freely to the South Pole where the ice 162 00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:19,800 Speaker 1: is all right. It sounds like nobody knew well. I 163 00:09:19,840 --> 00:09:22,280 Speaker 1: think this is a real commentary on the name of 164 00:09:22,320 --> 00:09:25,439 Speaker 1: this thing, right, because everybody keyed in on south Pole 165 00:09:25,679 --> 00:09:29,240 Speaker 1: and wall, right, And I like how somebody said it 166 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:32,679 Speaker 1: was like Game of Thrones, although that wall wasn't the North. 167 00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:35,120 Speaker 1: That's right, Maybe it's the equivalent. Maybe it's for like 168 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:38,360 Speaker 1: the penguin zombie. Well, we physicists, we do like having 169 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:40,320 Speaker 1: symmetry in the universe. So if there's going to be 170 00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:42,080 Speaker 1: a wall in the north, there should be a wall 171 00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:44,720 Speaker 1: in the south, because otherwise you gotta ask why what's 172 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:49,880 Speaker 1: special about North? Right? Yeah, winter is coming? Is there 173 00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:52,680 Speaker 1: another version of our universe out there in the multiverse 174 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:55,640 Speaker 1: in which summer is coming? Well, technically, if it's a 175 00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:58,680 Speaker 1: south Pole wall, it would come in our summer, which 176 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:01,880 Speaker 1: is winter for them. The beauty and power of symmetry 177 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:04,720 Speaker 1: once again displayed. But I guess maybe the takeaway here 178 00:10:04,760 --> 00:10:06,160 Speaker 1: is that not a lot of people had heard of it, 179 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:09,800 Speaker 1: which means it didn't make the news that much. Maybe 180 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,000 Speaker 1: that's right. Most of our listeners are pretty up on 181 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:14,640 Speaker 1: the cosmic news here. Yeah, I think it just didn't 182 00:10:14,679 --> 00:10:18,439 Speaker 1: fall into people's brains. It's an incredible discovery. It's something 183 00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:21,080 Speaker 1: that's fascinating and something it tells us about where we 184 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:24,680 Speaker 1: live in the universe, but it doesn't really actually change 185 00:10:24,720 --> 00:10:27,880 Speaker 1: your day to day life. So maybe people just heard 186 00:10:27,880 --> 00:10:30,160 Speaker 1: about it and filed it away. But honestly, I think 187 00:10:30,160 --> 00:10:31,880 Speaker 1: we should pin most of the blame on the name 188 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:36,720 Speaker 1: of this thing. Wow, I can't disagree with you more, 189 00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:40,679 Speaker 1: Daniel about the naming of things. Finally we're agreeing about 190 00:10:40,679 --> 00:10:43,880 Speaker 1: how the name. All right, let's let's not keep people 191 00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:47,040 Speaker 1: in suspense here. So what is the South Pole Wall, Daniel? 192 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:49,679 Speaker 1: And when was it discovered? So? The South Pole Wall 193 00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:56,319 Speaker 1: is an incredibly huge and immensely vast, gargantuan wall of galaxies. 194 00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:01,080 Speaker 1: I remember that galaxies are not just sprinkled everywhere through space. 195 00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:03,439 Speaker 1: Our Earth goes around our Sun, which is the core 196 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:06,280 Speaker 1: of our solar system, which is one of many solar 197 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:09,640 Speaker 1: systems in our galaxy. But those galaxies are not just 198 00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:13,280 Speaker 1: everywhere in space, sprinkled randomly. They tend to clump together 199 00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:18,080 Speaker 1: into clusters of galaxies, and those clusters of galaxies form 200 00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:22,480 Speaker 1: structures we call superclusters. And then those superclusters are not 201 00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:26,239 Speaker 1: just sprinkled everywhere. They tend to form these enormous structures, 202 00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:31,400 Speaker 1: these walls, these filaments, these sheets that surround incredible voids 203 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,720 Speaker 1: in which there are no stars, no galaxies, no planets, 204 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:37,760 Speaker 1: no people, no podcasts. Yeah, it's weird to think of 205 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:41,200 Speaker 1: space being not random, you know what I mean, Like 206 00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,120 Speaker 1: we're just still looking at the nights guy and seeing 207 00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:47,560 Speaker 1: stars kind of sprinkled kind of randomly and evenly. But 208 00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:51,040 Speaker 1: actually the universe has a lot of structure, like, it 209 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:54,320 Speaker 1: has a lot of things in it, Like everything's kind 210 00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:56,880 Speaker 1: of organized in the way. That's right, Things are organized, 211 00:11:56,920 --> 00:12:00,480 Speaker 1: and it's gravity that's doing the organizing. Gravity is very 212 00:12:00,559 --> 00:12:04,079 Speaker 1: gently but very gradually pulling things together and clumping them. 213 00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:07,079 Speaker 1: And it's kind of incredible that gravity is the thing 214 00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:09,880 Speaker 1: doing this job. Because of all the forces we are 215 00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:14,439 Speaker 1: aware of, the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism, gravity, 216 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:17,520 Speaker 1: Gravity is the weakest, and not by a little bit, 217 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:22,040 Speaker 1: but like by tens of orders of magnitude. But it's 218 00:12:22,040 --> 00:12:24,840 Speaker 1: also the only one that can't be like balanced out. 219 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:28,960 Speaker 1: Electromagnetism can be neutralized with positive and negative forces, but 220 00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:33,719 Speaker 1: gravity always pulls. It can't push, so eventually everything else 221 00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:36,640 Speaker 1: gets balanced out. Is just gravity left over to sweep 222 00:12:36,679 --> 00:12:40,960 Speaker 1: stuff together into stars and planets and galaxies and superclusters. 223 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:45,400 Speaker 1: And then these incredibly immense voids and walls and filaments. 224 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:48,560 Speaker 1: And that's essentially where the exploration is today, is figuring 225 00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:52,480 Speaker 1: out like where is our cluster and our supercluster in 226 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:56,320 Speaker 1: this larger structure, what's around us? Right? Yeah, And what's 227 00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:59,440 Speaker 1: kind of cool too is that these giants, you know, 228 00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:03,440 Speaker 1: super ginormous structures, they're all kind of evidence of the 229 00:13:03,520 --> 00:13:08,080 Speaker 1: quantum fluctuations right at the very beginning of the universe. Right, 230 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:11,440 Speaker 1: there's sort of like the wrinkles or the fingerprints of 231 00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:15,480 Speaker 1: quantum randomness and structure that was in the early universe. 232 00:13:15,520 --> 00:13:20,760 Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Gravity has essentially just exaggerated initial little 233 00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:24,480 Speaker 1: over densities. If you had only gravity in the universe 234 00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:27,720 Speaker 1: was totally smooth, you wouldn't get any sort of structure 235 00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:30,600 Speaker 1: at all, because gravity would pull equally on everything in 236 00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:33,559 Speaker 1: all directions, and you wouldn't get any clumping. You need 237 00:13:33,760 --> 00:13:36,960 Speaker 1: some sort of initial clumping to get things started and 238 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:40,600 Speaker 1: form this runaway effect where gravity makes things heavier and 239 00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:43,640 Speaker 1: then pulls harder, and then makes things heavier which pulls harder. 240 00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:46,439 Speaker 1: And you're right in the very beginning what this comes from, 241 00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:50,520 Speaker 1: our little tiny quantum fluctuations in the very first moments 242 00:13:50,559 --> 00:13:54,080 Speaker 1: of the universe, and basically everything's been derivative from that. 243 00:13:54,160 --> 00:13:57,080 Speaker 1: It's like we had one idea very early on sketch 244 00:13:57,160 --> 00:13:59,679 Speaker 1: the doodle, and everything else is just derived from that. 245 00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:01,800 Speaker 1: And it's amazing. Do you think that you can go 246 00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:07,360 Speaker 1: from like a quantum fluctuation is something that huge sort 247 00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:09,400 Speaker 1: of like you know, like a little baby scar that 248 00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:11,080 Speaker 1: you had as a baby, you still have it as 249 00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:13,160 Speaker 1: an adult. And let's give people a sense for like 250 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:17,440 Speaker 1: how big we're talking about. These structures are like billions 251 00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:20,560 Speaker 1: of light years wide. These are not little things. There's 252 00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:24,320 Speaker 1: not like one galaxy, two galaxies. Remember each galaxy already 253 00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:28,560 Speaker 1: is an incredibly enormous thing. But we're talking about bubbles 254 00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:31,600 Speaker 1: and sheets that are billions of light years on a side, 255 00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:36,840 Speaker 1: and that all comes from tiny quantum fluctuations expanded rapidly 256 00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:40,240 Speaker 1: during inflation. Yeah, because you know, I guess like one 257 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:42,600 Speaker 1: galzi is a hundred thousand light years, and so if 258 00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:45,640 Speaker 1: you put like thousands of them together, then it's literally 259 00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:48,600 Speaker 1: billions of light years. It's billions of light years, meaning 260 00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:50,480 Speaker 1: if you're going at the speed of light, it still 261 00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:52,800 Speaker 1: takes you a billion years to go from one side 262 00:14:52,800 --> 00:14:55,760 Speaker 1: to the other. And so you can imagine the whole 263 00:14:55,880 --> 00:14:58,480 Speaker 1: universe is sort of like a big pile of bubbles, 264 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:01,600 Speaker 1: like a big quantum foam that was inflated from the 265 00:15:01,640 --> 00:15:05,760 Speaker 1: early universe to this incredibly vast quantum foam. And we've 266 00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:09,120 Speaker 1: recently discovered that we're essentially living on the edge of 267 00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:11,960 Speaker 1: one of those bubbles. And we're now looking around us. 268 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:14,120 Speaker 1: We're like, oh, look, there's a bubble over there. There's 269 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,480 Speaker 1: a bubble over there. But we're really just beginning to 270 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:21,600 Speaker 1: map the universe to understand what is our cosmic neighborhood. 271 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:25,000 Speaker 1: We're seeing edges of bubbles here and bubbles merging over there, 272 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:27,920 Speaker 1: and so it's like it's early days, you know, we 273 00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:30,600 Speaker 1: have only just begun to explore. Yeah, and so tell 274 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:33,160 Speaker 1: me about this wall that we just found. This wall, 275 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:35,840 Speaker 1: the South Pole wall. You said it's a ginormous. When 276 00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:38,360 Speaker 1: you say ginormous, is that the technical term or is 277 00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:42,360 Speaker 1: there a number associated? The technical term actually is huge jungis. 278 00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:47,320 Speaker 1: But this one is a billion and a half light 279 00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:51,520 Speaker 1: years wide. Right, So you shoot a photon, you press 280 00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:53,560 Speaker 1: the button on your laser on one side of the thing. 281 00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:57,320 Speaker 1: You wait a billion and a half years before across 282 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,120 Speaker 1: it to the other side. And that's only the part 283 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:02,120 Speaker 1: of it that we've seen so far. It could go 284 00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:04,920 Speaker 1: on more. Yeah, astronomers are not even sure that we've 285 00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:09,840 Speaker 1: seen all of it. So it's a structure of galaxies basically. Right, 286 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:12,400 Speaker 1: it's not like a row of stars. It's like a 287 00:16:12,520 --> 00:16:15,560 Speaker 1: row of galaxies and they're all sort of like sprinkled 288 00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:17,640 Speaker 1: in a wall or or what's going on. That's right, 289 00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:22,480 Speaker 1: it's actually a row of clusters of galaxies. Clusters of 290 00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:26,840 Speaker 1: galaxies are grouped together. They're gravitationally bound. There there's enough 291 00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:30,840 Speaker 1: gravity between galaxies to sort of hold them together into objects. 292 00:16:30,880 --> 00:16:32,560 Speaker 1: That's why we call them a cluster. We don't just 293 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:35,800 Speaker 1: like artificially draw a line and say this is a cluster, 294 00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:38,000 Speaker 1: that's a cluster. We look for things that are holding 295 00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:41,760 Speaker 1: themselves together gravitationally. So this is a wall of clusters 296 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:43,880 Speaker 1: of galaxies, and we call it a wall because it's 297 00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:47,440 Speaker 1: much wider and longer than it is thick, sort of 298 00:16:47,480 --> 00:16:50,800 Speaker 1: like our galaxy. Right, our galaxy is flat, it's like 299 00:16:50,880 --> 00:16:53,920 Speaker 1: a hundred thousand light years across and a thousand light 300 00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:56,960 Speaker 1: years thick, and these things have sort of similar dimensions. 301 00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,960 Speaker 1: There are much much wider and longer than they are thick. 302 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:02,800 Speaker 1: So we called them a wall. Now do you call 303 00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:05,439 Speaker 1: them Do you group them together because they're close to 304 00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:09,440 Speaker 1: each other, or because they're actually kind of gravitationally affecting 305 00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:12,919 Speaker 1: each other, or bound together they are gravitationally holding themselves together. 306 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:16,639 Speaker 1: Remember that the whole universe is expanding. Everything is moving 307 00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:20,119 Speaker 1: away from everything else. That's because space between objects is 308 00:17:20,119 --> 00:17:22,960 Speaker 1: getting bigger. We don't understand it. It's this thing called 309 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,440 Speaker 1: dark energy that's just inflating all of space and increasing 310 00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:30,320 Speaker 1: the distances between everything. But if stuff is near enough 311 00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,320 Speaker 1: to each other and has enough mass, it can resist that. 312 00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:37,680 Speaker 1: It can be gravitationally bound. Like our solar system. Dark 313 00:17:37,800 --> 00:17:40,760 Speaker 1: energy is increasing the space between the Earth and the Sun, 314 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:44,119 Speaker 1: but gravity of the Sun holds the Earth in place 315 00:17:44,119 --> 00:17:47,200 Speaker 1: so that distance doesn't change. So our solar system is 316 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:51,600 Speaker 1: gravitationally bound. Our galaxy is gravitationally bound. It's small enough 317 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,639 Speaker 1: and compact enough that on that scale, gravity wins. And 318 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:57,560 Speaker 1: that's true also on the scale of clusters, and it's 319 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:01,520 Speaker 1: sort of true on the scale of super clusters. Clusters 320 00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:05,679 Speaker 1: of clusters, people argue about whether they're actually gravitationally bound. 321 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,400 Speaker 1: Are they going to hold together in the long term 322 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:11,080 Speaker 1: future of the universe, or is dark energy gonna win 323 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,400 Speaker 1: and tear on them apartment. That's sort of on the edge, right, 324 00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:17,160 Speaker 1: because I guess if expansion is fascin enough or big enough, 325 00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:19,680 Speaker 1: it would even rip our solar system. But I guess 326 00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:21,800 Speaker 1: we're we're lucky that it's not. That's right, We're lucky 327 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:24,320 Speaker 1: that it's not. But we're living in a fascinating moment 328 00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:27,160 Speaker 1: in the universe where gravity has had time to build 329 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:31,439 Speaker 1: galaxies and clusters, and now superclusters have sort of formed 330 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:35,320 Speaker 1: and maybe gravitationally bound, but it's not clear if gravity 331 00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:38,080 Speaker 1: will have time to build those together and really hold 332 00:18:38,119 --> 00:18:41,240 Speaker 1: them together and then build super duper clusters, or whether 333 00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:44,119 Speaker 1: dark energy will tear them apart. So we're living at 334 00:18:44,119 --> 00:18:47,000 Speaker 1: this fascinating moment in the history of the universe. That's 335 00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:50,000 Speaker 1: why there is a maximum size to an object in 336 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,360 Speaker 1: the universe, because any bigger than that, gravity hasn't had 337 00:18:53,359 --> 00:18:56,160 Speaker 1: time to sort of pull it together. And so we're 338 00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,120 Speaker 1: really looking at the biggest things in the universe. It's 339 00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:01,679 Speaker 1: sort of incredible, right. So we found this giant wall, 340 00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:03,760 Speaker 1: and so a big question I have is how did 341 00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,880 Speaker 1: we find it and why didn't we see this earlier? 342 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:09,280 Speaker 1: If it's so big? So let's get into that. But 343 00:19:09,359 --> 00:19:24,600 Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. All right, Daniel, we're 344 00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:29,600 Speaker 1: talking about the South Pole Wall, which is I guess, 345 00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:33,520 Speaker 1: is that where the anti Santa Claus lives? Is that 346 00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:38,280 Speaker 1: defense that it put around into health village? That's right, 347 00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:40,960 Speaker 1: it's his first line of defense against folks coming to 348 00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:44,119 Speaker 1: trying to steal their Christmas presents earlier. He's not as 349 00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:46,720 Speaker 1: or she's not as jolly as the North Pole Santa Claus. No, 350 00:19:46,800 --> 00:19:50,200 Speaker 1: there's South Pole boiling oil, and there's archery, and it's 351 00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:54,640 Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. Just just leave them alone. But anyways, 352 00:19:54,680 --> 00:19:58,120 Speaker 1: they found this summer a giant wall of galaxies called 353 00:19:58,119 --> 00:20:00,040 Speaker 1: the South Pole Wall, and it's huge. It's one and 354 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:04,159 Speaker 1: have billion light years wide. And Daniel, this seems like 355 00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:06,760 Speaker 1: a big thing that we should have seen earlier, but 356 00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:09,760 Speaker 1: we didn't. So I guess what's the history of finding this? 357 00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:11,640 Speaker 1: How do we find it? And why didn't we see 358 00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:14,040 Speaker 1: it before? We didn't see it before because it's not 359 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,280 Speaker 1: easy to spot. We can't actually see it very well 360 00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:20,879 Speaker 1: because there's something in the way and that's the rest 361 00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:23,800 Speaker 1: of our galaxy. If you look out into the sky, 362 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:27,840 Speaker 1: mostly you're seeing stars, and those stars are other stars 363 00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:31,920 Speaker 1: in our galaxy. But remember the galaxy is much wider 364 00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:35,120 Speaker 1: than it is thick, So in most directions you're looking 365 00:20:35,119 --> 00:20:37,360 Speaker 1: out through a little bit of our galaxy and then 366 00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:40,040 Speaker 1: out into deep space where you can see other galaxies 367 00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:42,680 Speaker 1: and stuff. But if you look in just the right direction, 368 00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:45,760 Speaker 1: then you're looking through the galaxy. And on a really 369 00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:47,600 Speaker 1: dark night you can see this. You can see the 370 00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:50,159 Speaker 1: Milky Way, which is the plane of the rest of 371 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:52,800 Speaker 1: the galaxy, and it looks much brighter and sort of 372 00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:56,080 Speaker 1: more smeared out than individual stars because it's a huge 373 00:20:56,240 --> 00:20:59,280 Speaker 1: number of stars that are further away there on the 374 00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:01,560 Speaker 1: other side of the Milky Way, and so they sort 375 00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:04,720 Speaker 1: of add up to this milky spread. And it's hard 376 00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,959 Speaker 1: to see things on the other side of this plane 377 00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:10,280 Speaker 1: of the Milky Way because there are so many stars 378 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:13,280 Speaker 1: and gas and dust in our way. Yeah, we're in 379 00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:14,800 Speaker 1: the way of our view, kind of kind of like 380 00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:17,000 Speaker 1: the back of your head. Yeah, the rest of the galaxy. 381 00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:19,920 Speaker 1: And so they called it the South Pole Wall because 382 00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:23,600 Speaker 1: if you're standing on Earth, it's sort of in the 383 00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:26,640 Speaker 1: direction that the South Pole points. That is, the south 384 00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:29,879 Speaker 1: pole of Earth sort of points towards the center of 385 00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:33,720 Speaker 1: the galaxy. Not exactly, but you know, close enough, close 386 00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:38,240 Speaker 1: enough for astronomical naming committees apparently. Yeah. Yeah, it is 387 00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,080 Speaker 1: pretty amazing to think that we can see the Milky Way, right. 388 00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:43,480 Speaker 1: I mean, it looks like a fuzzy cloud, but it 389 00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:46,840 Speaker 1: really it's like millions of stars kind of all kind 390 00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:49,800 Speaker 1: of joining their light together and causing this glow. Yeah, 391 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:52,120 Speaker 1: it's billions of stars. Right. The Milky Way has more 392 00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:55,280 Speaker 1: than a hundred billion stars in it, and the center 393 00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,440 Speaker 1: of the Milky Ways, where most of them are. There's 394 00:21:57,480 --> 00:21:59,320 Speaker 1: also a lot of gas and dust, so it's just 395 00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:02,280 Speaker 1: very difficult to see through the center of the Milky Way. 396 00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:05,840 Speaker 1: Astronomers called this whole region of the sky the Zone 397 00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:09,240 Speaker 1: of Avoidance. It sounds like something from a video game, 398 00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:12,680 Speaker 1: but it basically means look somewhere else because this part 399 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:15,040 Speaker 1: is hard. Don't look here, you're not gonna be able 400 00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:17,560 Speaker 1: to see much. Yeah, and so we can't actually see 401 00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:20,640 Speaker 1: most of the South Pole wall in the visible light. 402 00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:22,760 Speaker 1: We can't just like look at and say, oh, there's 403 00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:25,960 Speaker 1: a galaxy. There's a galaxy. There's a galaxy, otherwise we 404 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,600 Speaker 1: would have spotted it earlier. You know. It was like 405 00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:31,760 Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties people started to understand that we 406 00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:34,840 Speaker 1: could make a huge three D map of our universe 407 00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:37,840 Speaker 1: and that it had interesting things to look at, and 408 00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:40,520 Speaker 1: that's when we discovered the first of these voids and walls, 409 00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:43,360 Speaker 1: and so now it's you know, forty years later, we're 410 00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:46,679 Speaker 1: finally figuring out one of the biggest structures was hiding 411 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:49,760 Speaker 1: right behind the bulge of the Milky Way. It is 412 00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:52,600 Speaker 1: sort of fascinating that, you know, from our little point 413 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:56,879 Speaker 1: on Earth, just sitting in the spherical ball and looking 414 00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,360 Speaker 1: out at the stars, we can get a three D 415 00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,040 Speaker 1: D view of things, right, because when you look at 416 00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:04,200 Speaker 1: the night sky it looks kind of like two D, 417 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:06,679 Speaker 1: like all the stars are painted on the ceiling. But 418 00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,600 Speaker 1: somehow we're able to get a three D view of 419 00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,479 Speaker 1: what's going on out there, to the point where you know, 420 00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:16,000 Speaker 1: we can make out these super cluster structures. Yeah, it's incredible, 421 00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:18,200 Speaker 1: because of course you're right, we do see it two 422 00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,200 Speaker 1: D image, right, We can't resolve distance. We don't know 423 00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:25,600 Speaker 1: necessarily how far a star is, and this ambiguity there 424 00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,400 Speaker 1: when you look at one individual star, you don't know 425 00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,679 Speaker 1: is it's super bright but very far away, or not 426 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,760 Speaker 1: that bright and kind of close up. So for a 427 00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,280 Speaker 1: long time, that was a big puzzle in astronomy, is 428 00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:40,080 Speaker 1: how to measure the distance two stars. We had a 429 00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:43,800 Speaker 1: whole fun podcast episode just on that topic, and it 430 00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,439 Speaker 1: turns out that it depends on how far away it is. 431 00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,720 Speaker 1: If it's really close by, you can use the equivalent 432 00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:52,119 Speaker 1: of sort of like opening one eye and closing the 433 00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:55,480 Speaker 1: other one and seeing how the image changes to see 434 00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:57,800 Speaker 1: how far away it is. As the Earth goes around 435 00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:00,439 Speaker 1: the Sun, you get two images of the star, and 436 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:02,920 Speaker 1: if it's further away, you have to rely on these 437 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:07,159 Speaker 1: super clever little stars, these variable stars, whose brightness is 438 00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:10,000 Speaker 1: connected to how fast they pulse. And then if they're 439 00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,520 Speaker 1: really far away, then you have to use type one 440 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,159 Speaker 1: a supernova, which is sort of a standard candle. We 441 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:17,800 Speaker 1: know how bright they are because the physics constrains them 442 00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:20,320 Speaker 1: to only be a certain brightness, and so we can 443 00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:22,600 Speaker 1: tell how far away they are. So we have this 444 00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,520 Speaker 1: sort of cosmic distance ladder, but that only works for 445 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,520 Speaker 1: things we can see. Yeah, so the Milky Way is 446 00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,200 Speaker 1: kind of standing in the way of a huge part 447 00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:34,119 Speaker 1: of our field of view. It's blocking it, but somehow 448 00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:36,480 Speaker 1: we were able to see through it is to find 449 00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,359 Speaker 1: this South Pole wall. So how do we look through 450 00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:43,040 Speaker 1: the Milky Way? Well, again, the answer is gravity. Gravity 451 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,400 Speaker 1: is like the most important thing astronomically. It basically controls 452 00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:48,960 Speaker 1: the whole universe. And in this case, what we did 453 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,840 Speaker 1: is we measured how fast some galaxies were moving and 454 00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:56,480 Speaker 1: in what direction to make a sort of cosmic map 455 00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,760 Speaker 1: of the flow of galaxies, and then we use that 456 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,240 Speaker 1: to figure out, like, well, where is there stuff? Because 457 00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:07,639 Speaker 1: gravity affects how things move. So we started from understanding 458 00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,160 Speaker 1: how galaxies are flowing, and then we look for sort 459 00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,200 Speaker 1: of like blobs, like discontinuities, like oh, everything is clustering 460 00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,160 Speaker 1: over here, there must be something there, or these guys 461 00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:19,760 Speaker 1: are flowing fast, and then we expected so they must 462 00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,960 Speaker 1: be pulled on by something. From the velocity of galaxies, 463 00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:27,720 Speaker 1: you can infer where the mass is. But wait, our 464 00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:31,760 Speaker 1: galaxies moving that fast, and we as humans and in 465 00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,600 Speaker 1: such a short period of time, can tell they're moving 466 00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:36,400 Speaker 1: because like, if I look at the stars, they don't 467 00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:38,960 Speaker 1: look like they're moving. That's right. We are not watching 468 00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,440 Speaker 1: galaxies move and like clocking them. It's not like Usain Bolt, 469 00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,240 Speaker 1: where we measure a distance and measure of time and 470 00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,240 Speaker 1: then use that to measure the velocity. Instead, we're looking 471 00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,720 Speaker 1: at the light from those stars and we're seeing how 472 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,040 Speaker 1: the light from the stars is shifted in frequency because 473 00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:57,280 Speaker 1: like the Doppler effect, if something is moving away from you, 474 00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,639 Speaker 1: then light from it will get shifted to longer wavelengths 475 00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,680 Speaker 1: so gets stretched out. And something is moving towards you, 476 00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,560 Speaker 1: light from it will get shifted to shorter wavelengths to 477 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,720 Speaker 1: get blue shifted. And so we can measure the light 478 00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,280 Speaker 1: from these stars and we can see hasn't been shifted 479 00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,159 Speaker 1: away from what we expect because we we know what 480 00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,679 Speaker 1: the light from these stars, from these galaxies should look like. 481 00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,199 Speaker 1: Because stars around the universe are all the same, they 482 00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,600 Speaker 1: admit from hydrogen and from sodium in various lines. We 483 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,199 Speaker 1: can see those lines get shifted, so we can measure 484 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,720 Speaker 1: the velocity of all of these galaxies. So we have 485 00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,280 Speaker 1: this huge catalog of thousands of thousands of galaxies and 486 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:35,280 Speaker 1: we know in which direction they're moving. But wait, I 487 00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,760 Speaker 1: thought the shifting of light only works if it's moving 488 00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:40,840 Speaker 1: away or towards you. How do you tell if it's 489 00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:42,520 Speaker 1: moving to the right or to the left, or up 490 00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,320 Speaker 1: or down. That's true. The red shift and blue shift 491 00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,680 Speaker 1: measures the velocity along a line from us to them, 492 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,760 Speaker 1: and sort of the radial velocity, and so you have 493 00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:54,400 Speaker 1: to use other tricks to try to sort of guess 494 00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,840 Speaker 1: and construct from the motion of all the galaxies nearby 495 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,719 Speaker 1: what these sort of three D map is. But you're right, 496 00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:02,399 Speaker 1: we don't really know a lot about this sort of 497 00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:07,000 Speaker 1: transverse motion of these galaxies. So everything we know is 498 00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:09,680 Speaker 1: is just from that velocity towards or away from us, 499 00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,119 Speaker 1: that's right, and we're we're sort of guessing about everything 500 00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:15,560 Speaker 1: else guessing. You can see these things moving over short 501 00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,359 Speaker 1: periods of time, so you have some idea, but they 502 00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:20,679 Speaker 1: are really far away, so it's very difficult to measure 503 00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,040 Speaker 1: those distances. And also how do we know where they 504 00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:26,320 Speaker 1: are how far away they are? Don't we need like 505 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,000 Speaker 1: a supernova to happen in them before we know, or 506 00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:31,919 Speaker 1: do we have supernova from each of those thousands of galaxies, 507 00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,160 Speaker 1: we have supernova that go out really, really far. That's 508 00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:37,160 Speaker 1: the nice thing about type one A supernova is they're 509 00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:41,000 Speaker 1: they're super bright and they're basically in every galaxy, but 510 00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:43,919 Speaker 1: we don't have one. We haven't seen one necessarily in 511 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,440 Speaker 1: every galaxy. But we have ideas for where other things are, 512 00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:49,199 Speaker 1: so we can place them sort of in a ladder, 513 00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,399 Speaker 1: and we have the most information about the closest things. 514 00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,560 Speaker 1: And so that's why we're starting to map the structure 515 00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:58,480 Speaker 1: of the universe. And we're beginning from the nearby neighborhood. 516 00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:00,679 Speaker 1: That's where we can see for examples, to sephids in 517 00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,320 Speaker 1: some of these galaxies and type of a supernova. We 518 00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,000 Speaker 1: definitely have the most information about the local neighborhood. All right, 519 00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:08,639 Speaker 1: So then step us through, how do we find the 520 00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,160 Speaker 1: South Pole Wall. Did we, you know, gain some sort 521 00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:15,040 Speaker 1: of new trick to look through the milky way or 522 00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,639 Speaker 1: we just got better at it and suddenly it popped up. 523 00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,800 Speaker 1: It's just sort of like being careful and finally analyzing 524 00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:23,480 Speaker 1: the hard bit of the data. You know, if you're 525 00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:25,560 Speaker 1: doing science, you get a bunch of data and the 526 00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:27,760 Speaker 1: first thing you do is you eat the ice cream 527 00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:29,760 Speaker 1: off the top, right, And I said, well, here's the 528 00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:32,760 Speaker 1: easy question to answer, the most exciting one. You do that, 529 00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:35,680 Speaker 1: and people have found cool stuff. They found the Sloane 530 00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,200 Speaker 1: Great Wall, which is as big as the South Pole Wall, 531 00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,280 Speaker 1: but it's further away and it's easier to spot. So 532 00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,040 Speaker 1: they found other structures. But then people started to get 533 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,320 Speaker 1: more comprehensive about their search, and so they looked through 534 00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:50,640 Speaker 1: sort of some gaps, and they noticed there was a 535 00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,840 Speaker 1: gap in our cosmic neighborhood where we didn't understand what 536 00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,680 Speaker 1: was going on. That's because it was behind this zone 537 00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:59,520 Speaker 1: of avoidance. So they decided to look like, well, what 538 00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,640 Speaker 1: is there, and they combined data from a bunch of 539 00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,440 Speaker 1: different surveys slowing Digital Sky Survey and lots of other 540 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:09,880 Speaker 1: surveys to make one sort of mega database of all 541 00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:14,000 Speaker 1: the galaxies called cosmic flows. And so they analyzed this 542 00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:18,840 Speaker 1: hard bit and they noticed that galaxies between us and 543 00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,520 Speaker 1: this region, we're moving away from us faster than you 544 00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:25,800 Speaker 1: would expect from just dark energy, and the galaxies past 545 00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:29,400 Speaker 1: this region we're moving away from us more slowly than 546 00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,880 Speaker 1: you would expect. And so that's suggest right there that 547 00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,240 Speaker 1: there's some like big blob of some moving together. There's 548 00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,080 Speaker 1: some gravity. They're holding it together, pulling on galaxies between 549 00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,440 Speaker 1: us and this blob and slowing down galaxies that are 550 00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:46,800 Speaker 1: past the blob. We saw like this giant, like if 551 00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:48,960 Speaker 1: you're looking at it on a on a radar, you 552 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,000 Speaker 1: would see like a like a flock of birds kind 553 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,120 Speaker 1: of all moving together away from us. Yeah, exactly. So 554 00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,920 Speaker 1: you put together where all these galaxies are and how 555 00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,440 Speaker 1: fast they're moving away from us, and the only way 556 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,360 Speaker 1: to explore in the velocities of these galaxies. They call 557 00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:06,040 Speaker 1: this peculiar velocity, velocity other than the velocity of the 558 00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,960 Speaker 1: expansion of the universe. The only way to explain this 559 00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:13,200 Speaker 1: peculiar velocity, such a quaint term peculiar, is in like local, 560 00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,000 Speaker 1: you know, like as in our velocity and not somebody else's. 561 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,600 Speaker 1: They didn't want to go with weird or or local 562 00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,560 Speaker 1: velocity or something anyway. The only way to explain this 563 00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,640 Speaker 1: peculiar velocity is to say, well, there must be something 564 00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,880 Speaker 1: big there, some new source of gravity. And this is 565 00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,040 Speaker 1: not the first time that we've used gravity to deduce 566 00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,240 Speaker 1: the presence of something. Remember our podcast episode about the 567 00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:41,080 Speaker 1: Great Attractiveate. That's some other like incredible source of gravity 568 00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:45,640 Speaker 1: that's similarly tugging on stuff and changing the peculiar velocities. 569 00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:48,920 Speaker 1: So we know that there must be something there, all right, 570 00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,800 Speaker 1: So we saw something big out there but we can 571 00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,000 Speaker 1: we see it directly, like can we see the glow 572 00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:57,880 Speaker 1: from it, or we can only see the gravity of it. 573 00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:00,960 Speaker 1: We can only see the gravity from most bit little 574 00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,200 Speaker 1: bits of it sort of peek out the sides of 575 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,440 Speaker 1: the zone of avoidance. Then you can't spot it. And 576 00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,600 Speaker 1: then they actually went back through old surveys to say, 577 00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,600 Speaker 1: shouldn't we have seen this before? And it turns out 578 00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,040 Speaker 1: that you can see sort of edges of it in 579 00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,640 Speaker 1: previous astronomical surveys, and so people have been sort of 580 00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:20,560 Speaker 1: like known to look for it and and have been paying 581 00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:23,600 Speaker 1: more attention. They could have discovered this like ten twenty 582 00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,680 Speaker 1: years ago. They saw like the edges of it, the 583 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:28,800 Speaker 1: edges of it sort of peek out past the zone 584 00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:32,240 Speaker 1: of avoidance. The bulk of it, though, is basically invisible 585 00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:36,160 Speaker 1: to us in terms of electromagnetic radiation that we can't 586 00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,880 Speaker 1: see it via radio waves, are infrared or anything because 587 00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,240 Speaker 1: it has to pass through the galaxy. So it's only 588 00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,280 Speaker 1: gravitational information that we have about most of it. But 589 00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:46,960 Speaker 1: that's pretty good, Like if you look up this paper, 590 00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,440 Speaker 1: they're pretty good three D map of the density of 591 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,080 Speaker 1: this thing that shows you like where the galaxies are 592 00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,479 Speaker 1: and where they aren't. It's a fascinating structure. All right, 593 00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:57,720 Speaker 1: Let's get into the shape of this South Pole Wall 594 00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,360 Speaker 1: and why it's important that we found it. But first 595 00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:15,200 Speaker 1: let's take another quick break. All right, Daniel, we're talking 596 00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:20,320 Speaker 1: about the wall south, the Southern Wall that the first 597 00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,120 Speaker 1: man built, or the first Aliens built, I guess to 598 00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,680 Speaker 1: keep out the alien zombies. You know, I'm just kidding. 599 00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:30,200 Speaker 1: We found a giant galactic structure, or a structure of 600 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,360 Speaker 1: galaxies kind of pointing if you look south of the 601 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,000 Speaker 1: Earth towards the South Pole and keep going past the 602 00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,000 Speaker 1: Milky Way out there in space, and it's huge. It's 603 00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,240 Speaker 1: one and a half billion light years wide. And what 604 00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,200 Speaker 1: does it look like, Daniel? Is it like literally a wall, 605 00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,920 Speaker 1: or like a sheet or just like a giant lump. 606 00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:54,640 Speaker 1: This looks like a giant cosmic banana. You're just saying that, Daniel, 607 00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,400 Speaker 1: just saying that. It really does look like a huge banana. 608 00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,000 Speaker 1: What do you mean, like like it's curved. If you 609 00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:02,400 Speaker 1: look at this thing from the paper, it's sort of 610 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:04,720 Speaker 1: long and narrow, and it even has like a little 611 00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:06,520 Speaker 1: thing sticking up at the top that could be like 612 00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,280 Speaker 1: you know, where it's peeled off the giant cosmic banana 613 00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,280 Speaker 1: tree man. So are you saying it looks delicious, is 614 00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,080 Speaker 1: what you're saying. I'm saying you've got to be hungry 615 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,240 Speaker 1: to eat this thing as well. It's huge and it 616 00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,600 Speaker 1: has a lot of potassium, a lot. I'm not joking 617 00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:23,160 Speaker 1: that it looks like a banana. But you know, it's 618 00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:25,520 Speaker 1: sort of like staring at clouds. You can see whatever 619 00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:27,080 Speaker 1: shape you want, and so I guess I just had 620 00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,320 Speaker 1: bananas on the brain in my mind. It's not as 621 00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,160 Speaker 1: much of a wall as is sort of like a 622 00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:35,560 Speaker 1: vast tube, but it's definitely big, and it's incredible because 623 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:39,080 Speaker 1: it's it's also telling us not just where the stuff 624 00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,480 Speaker 1: is that we can see where the galaxies and the 625 00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,680 Speaker 1: stars and maybe the aliens and their bananas are. It's 626 00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,720 Speaker 1: also a map of the dark matter. What what do 627 00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:50,040 Speaker 1: you mean? Well, remember that stuff in the universe is 628 00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,480 Speaker 1: not sprinkled at randomly, right, It's clumped together based on 629 00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:57,840 Speaker 1: the gravitational over densities from the early universe. But most 630 00:33:57,840 --> 00:33:59,680 Speaker 1: of the stuff in the universe is not the kind 631 00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,520 Speaker 1: of stuff that we can see. It's dark matter. There's 632 00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:07,760 Speaker 1: five times as much invisible mysterious matter that's affected by gravity. 633 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,719 Speaker 1: As the kind of matter that we're familiar with and 634 00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,080 Speaker 1: the kinds of matter that we can see tend to 635 00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,960 Speaker 1: line up with the dark matter. Both of them are 636 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,440 Speaker 1: affected by gravity and they pull on each other. So actually, 637 00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,720 Speaker 1: when you look at stars in the sky, they're telling 638 00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,120 Speaker 1: you where the dark matter is, because dark matter has 639 00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,279 Speaker 1: created these like gravitational wells for stars and galaxies to 640 00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:33,320 Speaker 1: fall into into form. So the light matter, the normal matter, 641 00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,279 Speaker 1: is sort of like lights showing you where the dark 642 00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,600 Speaker 1: matter is. I mean, but we think right like, you're 643 00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,120 Speaker 1: assuming that where there are stars, there is dark matter. 644 00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,080 Speaker 1: I mean you're assuming like it's the same kind of 645 00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:50,080 Speaker 1: concentration or ratio between dark matter and regular matter as 646 00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,759 Speaker 1: we have. Yes, and that's something that we've seen. We've 647 00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,200 Speaker 1: measured in lots of different galaxies and we see some 648 00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:57,920 Speaker 1: variation there. There are some galaxies with more dark matter 649 00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,640 Speaker 1: or less dark matter, and we don't full understand that 650 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:03,319 Speaker 1: at all, but roughly we can say that there's a 651 00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,319 Speaker 1: five to one relationship between dark matter and normal matter, 652 00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:11,839 Speaker 1: and certainly on distances this large enormous supercluster sized structures, 653 00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:15,120 Speaker 1: we expect the dark matter to have formed these structures 654 00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,680 Speaker 1: like they just would not have formed without the dark matter. 655 00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,200 Speaker 1: You run a simulation the universe without the dark matter, 656 00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,440 Speaker 1: you just don't get structures like this this early in 657 00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:25,480 Speaker 1: the universe. I feel like you're almost telling me that 658 00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:29,280 Speaker 1: the you know, basically most of the universe is dark matter, 659 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,960 Speaker 1: and it's clumping and doing its own thing, and really 660 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,879 Speaker 1: the stars the bright stuff. Us, we're really just kind 661 00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,279 Speaker 1: of like the bling, you know, like we're just here 662 00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,279 Speaker 1: to tell everyone where the dark matter is. Yeah, we're 663 00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,040 Speaker 1: like those birds that ride on the back of rhinoceroses 664 00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:44,680 Speaker 1: and sort of like pick the worms off of them. 665 00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:47,759 Speaker 1: That's us. Yeah, I mean, call us the bling, call 666 00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:50,200 Speaker 1: us the worm eating birds. Whatever you like. Where the 667 00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:52,680 Speaker 1: frosting on the cupcake. Yeah, kind of right. I mean 668 00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,440 Speaker 1: when you when you talk about the structure of the universe, 669 00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:58,719 Speaker 1: it's really the dark matter structure we're just hanging on. Yeah, 670 00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,160 Speaker 1: we call it normal matter because we're used to it, 671 00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,680 Speaker 1: but it's actually pretty unusual in the universe. It's just 672 00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,320 Speaker 1: five percent of the energy in the universe is devoted 673 00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,520 Speaker 1: to making me and you and cosmic bananas. So that's 674 00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,680 Speaker 1: why it's fascinating to sort of use this light matter, 675 00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:17,799 Speaker 1: this luminous matter to tell us what's actually going on 676 00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,640 Speaker 1: in the universe, and gravity is really the key there. 677 00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,040 Speaker 1: It tells us where the dark matter is. It's also 678 00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:26,600 Speaker 1: telling us about the balance between the dark matter holding 679 00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,920 Speaker 1: stuff together and dark energy trying to tear it apart. 680 00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:32,920 Speaker 1: Except that here we can't actually see the galaxies in 681 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,440 Speaker 1: the stars in the light right like we can only 682 00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,520 Speaker 1: see the gravity, which means maybe this whole wall is 683 00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,399 Speaker 1: just a giant wall of dark matter. We don't really know, right, 684 00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,479 Speaker 1: that's true, We don't really know. Although on the bits 685 00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:46,320 Speaker 1: of it that we do see, the edges of the 686 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,360 Speaker 1: banana that stick out past the zone of avoidance, we 687 00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,360 Speaker 1: can't see luminous stars there. So it would be pretty 688 00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:56,200 Speaker 1: weird to find a massive dark matter wall, But that 689 00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,719 Speaker 1: would be pretty awesome and gives a sense of how 690 00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,400 Speaker 1: big this thing is, Like how any galaxies are in 691 00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:03,680 Speaker 1: this giant wall? Or like how many stars? Do you 692 00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,920 Speaker 1: have a sense? It's trillions and trillions of stars, you know, 693 00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,920 Speaker 1: it's thousands and thousands of galaxies, and each galaxy has 694 00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,040 Speaker 1: billions of stars, and we don't know how big this 695 00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:16,640 Speaker 1: thing is. The thing that's incredible to me is that 696 00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:19,280 Speaker 1: before we discovered this, we had sort of a gap 697 00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:23,239 Speaker 1: in our understanding of the cosmic neighborhood right around this spot, right, 698 00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:25,400 Speaker 1: and people like, well, we don't know what's there, probably 699 00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,360 Speaker 1: nothing interesting. And then they found this great wall and 700 00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,960 Speaker 1: it's basically completely fills that gap. You know, it's like 701 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,920 Speaker 1: it couldn't have been any bigger. You know, there's like 702 00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,080 Speaker 1: a little spot you haven't checked and you open up 703 00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:40,240 Speaker 1: the door and it turns out it's totally full of stuff. 704 00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,160 Speaker 1: We have this giant gap that looks like a banana, 705 00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:45,319 Speaker 1: but we don't know what's inside. Oh wait, it is 706 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:49,680 Speaker 1: a giant banana. The giant banana. And you know, it's 707 00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:53,160 Speaker 1: really important that we understand the shape of the universe 708 00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:55,719 Speaker 1: around us. It really is telling us about how the 709 00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,320 Speaker 1: universe was formed, because it tells us about how this 710 00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,240 Speaker 1: structure has made and it's telling us about the future 711 00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:04,160 Speaker 1: of the universe. Is telling us, is dark matter gonna 712 00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,719 Speaker 1: win and hold this stuff together? Is dark energy gonna 713 00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:10,239 Speaker 1: win and tear this stuff apart? You know, we think 714 00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:13,680 Speaker 1: about this stuff on really long time scales, billions of years, 715 00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,160 Speaker 1: but it's really sort of frothing and dynamical. This is 716 00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:20,040 Speaker 1: sort of like if you watch froth forming or water boiling, 717 00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,040 Speaker 1: but you just watch the first like two milliseconds of 718 00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:26,680 Speaker 1: the movie. We're basically two milliseconds into the movie of 719 00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:30,080 Speaker 1: the universe, of this frothing, bubbling boiler, trying to understand 720 00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,759 Speaker 1: the forces at play. Wow, you mean, like we don't 721 00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,439 Speaker 1: know who's gonna win at the end, but we're still 722 00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,279 Speaker 1: figuring that out looking at the things around us. Yeah, well, 723 00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:40,960 Speaker 1: we know that dark energy, if it continues as it 724 00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,000 Speaker 1: has been, is gonna eventually tear things apart, but we 725 00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,120 Speaker 1: don't know where those fractures are going to happen exactly. 726 00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,279 Speaker 1: Like how much will gravity get to clump together to 727 00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,319 Speaker 1: form structures that will be impervious to dark energy, and 728 00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,480 Speaker 1: then dark energy will just increase the distance between them. 729 00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,960 Speaker 1: How big will those objects be? We don't really know. 730 00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:01,959 Speaker 1: It depends sort of delicately on how much dark matter 731 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,120 Speaker 1: and how much dark energy there is. I mean, like, well, 732 00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,360 Speaker 1: the universe is expanding, but the stuff in it could 733 00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,400 Speaker 1: hold together. Potentially, the stuff and it probably will hold together. 734 00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:13,400 Speaker 1: Our galaxy will hold together, Our cluster of galaxies probably 735 00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,080 Speaker 1: will hold together. Will our superclusters survive or be torn apart? 736 00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,400 Speaker 1: By dark energy. We don't really know will these walls 737 00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,960 Speaker 1: and filaments be pulled apart. Are they even gravitationally held 738 00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,919 Speaker 1: together today? Or are they just sort of near each other. 739 00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:28,960 Speaker 1: These are the questions we don't know the answer to. 740 00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:32,480 Speaker 1: It's like a cosmic battle between the two greatest forces 741 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,080 Speaker 1: in the universe, and we're basically right in the middle 742 00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:37,000 Speaker 1: of We're just here on the back of the rhinoceros 743 00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,320 Speaker 1: picking worms, looking at it like eating popcorn, but instead 744 00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:43,719 Speaker 1: of popcorn, it's it's worm. That's right. Hey, look this 745 00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:48,200 Speaker 1: worm looks like a banana. Al right, Well, it's pretty 746 00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:52,080 Speaker 1: amazing that we are still discovering things that are that big. 747 00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:54,600 Speaker 1: Like you know, if I look at into the sky, 748 00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,280 Speaker 1: how big is this giant wall, Daniel? Is it like 749 00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,400 Speaker 1: like an inch or like a centimeter, or like a 750 00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:01,480 Speaker 1: whole foot as a fracture of the night sky? If 751 00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,160 Speaker 1: you held, I think a banana at arms length. It's 752 00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:09,160 Speaker 1: about that big. No, that's too much of a coinci is, Danny. 753 00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,719 Speaker 1: It goes from the constellation Perseus in the northern hemisphere 754 00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,360 Speaker 1: to the constellation APUs. I can't pronounce this one in 755 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,160 Speaker 1: the far south, so it is really pretty big. And 756 00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,160 Speaker 1: the incredible thing is that it's twice as close as 757 00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:24,759 Speaker 1: the Sloan Great Wall, right, this long great Wall, just 758 00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,320 Speaker 1: as big discovered decades ago. This thing is twice is close, 759 00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,239 Speaker 1: which should make it more obvious. But you know, there's 760 00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,880 Speaker 1: just so much we still don't know about, the pretty local, 761 00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:38,040 Speaker 1: large scale structure and sort of the grand scheme of 762 00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,040 Speaker 1: things in our neighborhood. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's almost 763 00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:44,359 Speaker 1: like we're, you know, explorers. Only a thousand years ago. 764 00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,200 Speaker 1: We didn't know that America was there, or you know, 765 00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:50,600 Speaker 1: Australia was there. Probably I know how many incredible opportunities 766 00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:52,560 Speaker 1: were there to discover things, you just have to hop 767 00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:54,200 Speaker 1: in a boat and sail for a few days. If 768 00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,719 Speaker 1: you had known where to look, discovery is easy. And 769 00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,080 Speaker 1: that's the situation we're in today. We're looking around us 770 00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:02,879 Speaker 1: and we just don't know what's out there. There could 771 00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,200 Speaker 1: be incredible, mind blowing surprises if we just look a 772 00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,480 Speaker 1: little further or look in the places that have been 773 00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,279 Speaker 1: hard to look at so far. Are definitely surprises out there. 774 00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:15,640 Speaker 1: And then remember we've only mapped a tiny little dot 775 00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,040 Speaker 1: of the universe. When we talked about like our Solar 776 00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,439 Speaker 1: System being a tiny fraction of the Milky Way, which 777 00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,120 Speaker 1: is a tiny fraction of our cluster. If you look 778 00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,919 Speaker 1: out even further, it just goes on and on and on, 779 00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,160 Speaker 1: and what we've mapped is a tiny fraction of just 780 00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:32,840 Speaker 1: the observable universe. So most of it is a huge 781 00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,600 Speaker 1: cosmic question. It could be maybe an infinite question mark. 782 00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,040 Speaker 1: It could be an infinite question mark, And it could 783 00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,000 Speaker 1: be that we just have sort of bubbles and walls 784 00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,600 Speaker 1: and voids that go on forever. But it could also 785 00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,560 Speaker 1: be that once you get a sense of those bubbles 786 00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:49,680 Speaker 1: and voids, that you see a larger pattern and that 787 00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:52,279 Speaker 1: could tell you something about the early universe and this 788 00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,640 Speaker 1: quantum foam that generated all of this structure. Or it 789 00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,400 Speaker 1: could be that at that level it's mostly random. We 790 00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,080 Speaker 1: just don't know the answer. Like that's a pretty big 791 00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:03,480 Speaker 1: question to not know the answer to. And maybe once 792 00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,040 Speaker 1: we figure out our address, we can finally get those 793 00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:10,279 Speaker 1: deliveries from the Amazon aliens. That's right, and I want 794 00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:13,800 Speaker 1: them in thirty minutes by drone from across the universe, 795 00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:19,200 Speaker 1: same century delivery. I'll pay extra for that, all right, Well, 796 00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,040 Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that and you've got a little 797 00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:22,960 Speaker 1: bit of a better sense of where we are in 798 00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:26,480 Speaker 1: the universe and what's out there for us to discover. 799 00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:37,680 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, See you next time. Thanks for listening, 800 00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:40,400 Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is 801 00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,960 Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from 802 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:47,719 Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio Apple Apple Podcasts, 803 00:42:47,840 --> 00:43:00,120 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M