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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast am on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: While you just heard from Michael Warner. And now his

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Speaker 1: colleague joins us, Peter Eisenhardt. He's a senior research scientist

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Speaker 1: at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received NASA's Exceptional Scientific

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Speaker 1: Achievement Medal for his work on the Spitzer space telescope

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Speaker 1: as well. Peter, it's an honor to have you on

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Speaker 1: the program. Thank you, George. I'm glad to be here.

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Speaker 1: And you two started off. I bet as a kid

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Speaker 1: loving space, didn't you. I did. I actually was born

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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks before the Sputnik launch in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty seven. Uh. Oh, you know it was sort of

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Speaker 1: program to be interested in space. I guess from from childhood.

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Speaker 1: I just always knew I wanted to explore the universe,

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Speaker 1: and it just seemed like, you know, what else is

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Speaker 1: there to do. There's a little kid during spot Nick

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Speaker 1: and I remember though, everybody panicking, my parents panicking, everybody panicking.

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Speaker 1: This thing was only the size of a basketball, wasn't it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's a lot heavier than in basketball, um,

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Speaker 1: and a little bit bigger. But um, but yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's not that big, and I guess there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of fear about what else would the Russians

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Speaker 1: be able to do us and uh. And of course

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Speaker 1: this led to the rapid growth of NASA and the

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Speaker 1: space program, and I was caught up in that, as

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Speaker 1: I think most people in the country were, And in

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Speaker 1: the end it turned into an exciting time for the

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Speaker 1: whole world when Neil Armstrong finally touched down just fifty

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Speaker 1: years ago. How did you make your way to JPL.

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Speaker 1: I came to JPL from from Ames Research Center in

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Speaker 1: the Bay Area. UM I was working on Spitzer there

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Speaker 1: with with Mike Corner, who heard from earlier. And I

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Speaker 1: guess Mike's going to be back a little bit later.

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Speaker 1: Being interested in astronomy as a kid, I studied it

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Speaker 1: in college, and after after doing my undergraduate work in

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia and a year off in England, um I went

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Speaker 1: to graduate school in Arizona, where the skies are really

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Speaker 1: clear and big telescopes work well. And then I went

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Speaker 1: to work on Spitzer with Mike at AIMS in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty seven. And then a few years later NASA decided

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Speaker 1: that Spitzer, which was then called CERTIFA would be better

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Speaker 1: built by JPL than than by AIMS, And so Mike

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Speaker 1: and I came down here in nineteen ninety with it,

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Speaker 1: and then we've been there ever since. That's fantastic. Now

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Speaker 1: today I'm told that you were last night. You were

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Speaker 1: at the Polymar Mountain area looking through its two hundred

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Speaker 1: inch telescope. That's right. Yeah, it was up till about

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Speaker 1: six am this morning. So if I'm not off a bit,

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Speaker 1: please excuse me. Well, what were you looking at? I

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Speaker 1: was studying infrared stars basically, so stars shine because of

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Speaker 1: the heat that is being generated in their course by

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Speaker 1: by nuclear fusionists, like our fusion bombs going off all

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Speaker 1: the time in the middle stars. But if you make

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Speaker 1: a star that's less and less massive, less than say,

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Speaker 1: eight percent of the mass of the Sun, those fusion

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Speaker 1: reactions can't really get going. And so a puny star

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Speaker 1: like that eight percent or less of the mass of

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Speaker 1: the Sun will shine for a while invisible light just

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Speaker 1: from the heat of its collapse. But then there's no

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Speaker 1: no fusion to replace that that light that's radiating outward,

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Speaker 1: and so it will cool off, and as it cools off,

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Speaker 1: um less and less visible light comes out um and

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Speaker 1: and it's really only detectable and infrared light. And so

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Speaker 1: what I was looking at was candidates were very very

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Speaker 1: small failed stars, basically maybe one percent of the mass

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Speaker 1: of the Sun or maybe even a half a percent

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Speaker 1: of the mass of the Sun, where you could only

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Speaker 1: pick them up in infrared light. UM. So these are

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Speaker 1: these are called brown dwarfs, And we were doing infrared

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Speaker 1: measurements from the ground with the Palmar telescope and and

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Speaker 1: trying to measure those brown dworst to see how far

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Speaker 1: away they were and how hot they were. What would

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Speaker 1: you say is the most exciting thing that Spitzer has

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Speaker 1: found for us? Well, I think there's probably no contest

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Speaker 1: with the trappist one system that Michael mentioned earlier. Just

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Speaker 1: an amazing system of planets around another star. Seven planets

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Speaker 1: earth sized, and several of them at the distance from

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Speaker 1: their star where where liquid water is possible on their surface,

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Speaker 1: so habitable planets only forty light years away from Earth.

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Speaker 1: That's that's pretty exciting, And in fact, the New York

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Speaker 1: Times had that on their front page. So that's I think,

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Speaker 1: without question number one. But but for me, I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: more into the distant universe and so I get quite

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Speaker 1: excited about the the very distant stuff. And you were

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Speaker 1: asking Michael about that how far away could be? And

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Speaker 1: so there's there's a galaxy that Spitzer has studied that

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Speaker 1: is it's ninety seven percent of the way back to

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Speaker 1: the Big Bang. It's way way far back. And so

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Speaker 1: it's just amazing to me that we can pick up

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Speaker 1: light from that early in the history of the universe

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Speaker 1: and see what was going on that that far back

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Speaker 1: in the history. When when we talked Peter about the universe,

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Speaker 1: our universe being thirteen and a half billion years old,

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Speaker 1: why isn't it twenty billion years old? Well, the why

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Speaker 1: is a tough question. I guess I don't have a

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Speaker 1: strong opinion or an informed answer for you on that.

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Speaker 1: I'm more interested in seeing the way things are than

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Speaker 1: in saying why they would have to be that way.

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Speaker 1: So there was a time not so many years ago

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Speaker 1: when astronomers thought the universe was about twenty billion years old.

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Speaker 1: And that's just from measuring the rate of expansion and

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Speaker 1: then going back words saying well, when when was all

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Speaker 1: of that stuff together in the same place and the

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Speaker 1: rate of expansion that we thought we was correct at

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Speaker 1: that time worked out to everything being in the same

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Speaker 1: place twenty billion years ago, but we've now measured that

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Speaker 1: much much more accurately, and so the answer today, to

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Speaker 1: within about a percent of accuracy, is about thirteen point

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Speaker 1: seven to thirteen point eight billion years. Isn't it amazing? Though?

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Speaker 1: To try to think how it all started? I mean,

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Speaker 1: things just don't happen. I mean, there's reason, and there's

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Speaker 1: there's organization, there's there's order to these things, and it's

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Speaker 1: just mind boggling, isn't it. It certainly is mind boggling.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it's easy for those of us who

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Speaker 1: work with these vast distances and times to kind of

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Speaker 1: forget how incredible the subject is the universe is. I mean,

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Speaker 1: life is certainly amazing as well. I would argue that

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Speaker 1: if if there were not life and the universe didn't exist,

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't be asking the question, so that that's not

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Speaker 1: not really a good answer. Um. I certainly don't rule

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Speaker 1: out the existence of God. I think that's up for

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Speaker 1: everybody to decide for themselves. But it's regardless of where

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Speaker 1: there there's some omniscient being out there who's making it

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Speaker 1: all happen, regardless of the why it is still an

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Speaker 1: amazing universe. And that's what excites me is how how

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Speaker 1: amazing the universe? Well, but but even if there's a

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Speaker 1: being like God that made this happen, how did God

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Speaker 1: start exactly right? So you know, we have a quote

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Speaker 1: in our book. Um uh it's it's called some people

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Speaker 1: I think have have heard of a song called Turtles

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Speaker 1: all the way Down. So you know, there's a little

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Speaker 1: quote that starts at chapter about galaxy clusters, which is

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Speaker 1: is a area astronomy I particularly work on, and and

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Speaker 1: it starts off by saying, well, this little old lady

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Speaker 1: says to William James, who had just given a lecture

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Speaker 1: on astronomy, says, your theory that the universe is u

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Speaker 1: is thirteen point seven billion years old and that the

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Speaker 1: Sun is on the outskirts of a galaxy is very interesting,

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Speaker 1: mister James. But I have a better theory. And he asks, well,

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Speaker 1: what's that? He says, Well, we are on the back

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Speaker 1: of a turtle, and oh, well, that's very interesting, but

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Speaker 1: what does this turtle stand on. Well, that turtle stands

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Speaker 1: on a larger turtle, and that's very interesting. But what

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Speaker 1: does this larger turtle Another question. Yeah, well a way

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Speaker 1: ahead of you, mister James. It's turtles all the way down,

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Speaker 1: so so you know it either way. Uh, it's really

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Speaker 1: a philosophical problem. Either way, it's it's hard to answer.

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Speaker 1: You know, if there's a beginning, what was there before

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Speaker 1: the beginning? Or if the universe is endless? You know,

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Speaker 1: how can that be? And you know, I think our

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Speaker 1: minds aren't quite capable of wrapping around all this. We

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Speaker 1: can speculate, but we are coming up with new discoveries

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Speaker 1: all the time, and we are learning more and more

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Speaker 1: that we never would have expected, and sometimes we're realizing

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Speaker 1: that we're not even asking the right question. I would say, Peter,

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Speaker 1: what will technology do for us that we don't even

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Speaker 1: know exists today? I mean, how far will we gain

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Speaker 1: knowledge beyond where we are today, Let's say fifty years

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Speaker 1: from now. Well, that's that's another great question, George. Fifty

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Speaker 1: years from now, I would expect that we will know

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Speaker 1: about life beyond the Earth. I think it's very likely

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Speaker 1: we will know that, and that will be probably as

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Speaker 1: exciting as any discovery ever made, to know that we

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Speaker 1: aren't alone. That's that's my prediction. You can ask me

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Speaker 1: again of course, with this program, we already believe they've

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Speaker 1: been here. But you know what, scientifically, I'd like to

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Speaker 1: find out for sure. Yeah, life is life is surprising,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we're still discovering new forms of life

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Speaker 1: right here on Earth. Life is going to surprise us

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Speaker 1: beyond the Earth, too. But our technology is advancing so greatly,

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Speaker 1: and people really want to know. They really want to know,

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Speaker 1: not just not just from a faked photograph or something

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Speaker 1: like that. They want to know for sure, is there

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Speaker 1: life outside the Earth? And and I think we know,

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Speaker 1: partly because the Spitzer, that it's very very likely. We

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Speaker 1: know that there are chemicals that are similar to those

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Speaker 1: in our own solar system and other solar systems. We

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Speaker 1: know that the structure of those other solar systems is

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Speaker 1: not that different from from ours. In some cases. We

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Speaker 1: know that there are planets where water can this around

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Speaker 1: other stars. Um, it won't be too long before I

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Speaker 1: think we're detecting liquid water around stars, around planets, on planets,

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Speaker 1: around other stars. So you know, this is this is

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Speaker 1: something that taxpayers want to know. Is this something NASA

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Speaker 1: is working on, is something astronomers are working on. And

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Speaker 1: I think the way we're going we're going to have

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Speaker 1: the answer before very long. And I think Peter, that

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Speaker 1: the primordial soup which made up us is probably the

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Speaker 1: same throughout the universe. I think the similarities are endless

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Speaker 1: out there, where other planets may have the same elements.

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Speaker 1: I don't think there's going to be anything specifically different.

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Speaker 1: I think it's all the same. What do you think? Yes,

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Speaker 1: I agree with you, George. There's there's actually good evidence

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Speaker 1: for that. One of the things that we've learned from

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Speaker 1: the from the spectra that Spitzer has taken is that

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Speaker 1: there is, oh, I'm not very glamorous molecule UM, which

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Speaker 1: is a lot like the foot you get from a barbecue.

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Speaker 1: And and there's lots of those soot particles UM in

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Speaker 1: other galaxies uh and, including in galaxies that are billions

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Speaker 1: of light years away. Uh and And so we know

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Speaker 1: the chemistry is similar in galaxies far far away early

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Speaker 1: in the history of the universe. UM. So you know,

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Speaker 1: the chemistry is there, and the planets are there, the

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Speaker 1: stars are there, and and so life is probably there too.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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Speaker 1: one a m Eastern and go to Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: am dot com for more