WEBVTT - "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.440 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.800 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.520 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.680 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.840 and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:17.799 our adversaries. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.720 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:23.520 theories large and small. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.280 Could they be true or are we being manipulated? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:31.760 This is mission implausible. Today we have the bad astronomer, 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.560 Phil Plate. He's an award winning astronomer, educator, and science writer. 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.760 He's worked with NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope team, 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.800 and he's written several well received books. So welcome, feel 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:42.720 glad to have you with us. 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:44.080 Thank you so nice to be here. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.560 So, Phil, you do a lot of work on debunking 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.760 common misunderstandings of science and astronomy and educating people on 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.320 why astronomy is so important. Can you give us just 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.120 some sense and background on your work and the kind 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:56.760 of examples that you talk about. 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:00.040 Well, these days, mostly I'm doing straight science, just talking 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.000 about all the wonderful things that are happening in the universe. 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.760 Basically in astronomy. I do still occasionally have to dip 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.440 my toe into the debunking pool, and this is something 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.960 I used to do all the time. As a matter 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:13.880 of fact, I guess I could say I was a 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.959 professional skeptic, a critical thinker. And it all started in 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.240 the nineties when I started seeing just silly ideas about 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.160 astronomy online. And this was when online was not what 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:30.560 it is today. But I started just debunking these ideas, saying, hey, 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:32.800 you know that's not how this really works. Why does 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.560 the moon look big on the horizon as opposed overhead? 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.399 And read up on how that works. And in two thousand, 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:46.360 Fox TV aired a moon landing denial show called Conspiracy Theory? 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.240 Did we land on the Moon? And you know, if 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.320 they'd been honest and just said yes, it would have 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:51.320 been a very short show. 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.160 It has been estimated that as many as twenty percent 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.680 of Americans believe we never went to the Moon. Is 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:02.040 it really possible that NASA to see the world. According 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.920 to a former astronaut, it's entirely possible. 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.680 Regarding the Apollo mission, I can't say one ercent for 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.120 sure whether these men walked on the Moon. 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.320 I wrote it up on my website and it became 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.600 really popular. That was my first big sort of viral moment, 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.120 and ever since a UFO's moon landing. When it comes 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.880 to science based conspiracy theories or urban legends and that 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.040 sort of thing, that's when I would come storming in. 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.000 I'm going to start up a discript basy talking about 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:38.919 espionage astrology, not astronomy and effectiveness. So let's jump back 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.720 on our time machine. And Hitler was a great believer 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:47.600 in astronomy in the cult and especially Googles, And when 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.800 World War II was just starting, the Nazis, surprisingly enough 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:58.359 took astrology is a war effort and they banned private 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.360 use of astrology. All had to be done by the 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.040 state as part of the propaganda effort. I was actually 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.120 surprised to find that there's been a long history of 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:14.240 using astrology and other bogus science for propaganda efforts that 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.200 sometimes have been quite effective, is as real conspiracies and 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.760 real conspiracy theories to actually further a political agita. And 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.600 I was wondering if your sense of like how astrology 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:32.000 is used to basically they drafting off of real astronomy 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.960 to make political purposes or to to you know, to 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:36.040 make money things. 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.000 If I knew that, I'd be a million well, I know. Yeah. 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.840 So astrology, I mean, just to be clear, is nonsense. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.400 There's no aspect of astrology that works. This has been 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:50.480 tested over and over again, including using tests that astrologers 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.000 themselves have come up with, and then double blind studies 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.480 where they say, here will agree to these rules, and 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.720 then they cast their horoscopes or whatever, and what they 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.000 do is no better than random chance, which is exactly 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:05.640 what astronomer has been saying. But Nancy Reagan used a 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:10.640 personal astrologer to schedule, yeah, quickly, that's right, to make 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:12.920 appointments for Ronald Reagan to meet with people or to 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:17.040 do things or not do things. And this is all 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.719 silly until it's not silly anymore, which is typical of 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:26.160 conspiracy theories and scientific nonsense, pseudoscience or anti science, whatever 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.479 you want to call it. With astrology, you've got a 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.159 pretty good head start because, first of all, astrology has 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.159 been around for thousands and thousands of years. The constellations, 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:39.599 the zodiac, the zodiacal constellations, we base these on the 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.800 Greek constellations. We're already talking about twenty five hundred years 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.279 or so, and most ancient civilizations had their own versions 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.440 of this, the Egyptians and the Babylonians, the Chinese. I 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.279 could just go on and on. So a lot of 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.840 people believe this stuff, and it all kind of boils 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.719 down to people want to remember the hits and forget 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.440 the misses. So you know when they say, my astrologer 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.240 said I was going to to come into money, and 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.720 then I found a twenty dollars bill, and it's like, yeah, 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:05.440 how about all the other times they said you'd come 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.800 into money and nothing happened. You forget about those. Plus 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.039 there's a desire to believe, a desire to sort of 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.880 give up your responsibility about certain things and let whatever 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:17.479 is going on over your head take care of it. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.360 So you've got a big head start. There's leverage with people. Yeah, 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:23.920 you've got a pretty good place to put your crowbar 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.880 and pry things open. And we're seeing that now. People 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:32.840 are believing almost anything they're being told and it's all nonsense. 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.200 But if it's coming from the people you believe and 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.240 the people you have put your trust in, you believe it. 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:43.320 So the British intelligence services knew that the Germans were 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.240 using astrology to their benefit. And so they hired a 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.200 guy called Lewis DeWitt and they actually established inside British intelligence, 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.800 they established a small division form, but they sent him 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.200 to the US where he made all sorts of predictions 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.960 about the Nazis about to fall. And he met in 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.840 Cleveland with a group of American astrologers and it's sort 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.280 of unclear what really happened, but he either bribed them 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:13.159 or persuaded them to begin casting rogue British astrological projections 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.240 to help get the US into the war, you know, 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.320 to push you the US to join World War two. 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:25.279 That is absolutely terrifying and it makes me super uncomfortable 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:27.960 to know. And we are talking World War two and 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.320 Nazis and all of that. So yeah, sure that had 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.240 to be defeated. But that stuff tends to linger. 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:35.440 So why do you think there is so much science 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:36.839 skepticism these days? 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.600 It Waxes and Waynes. In the seventies there was all 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.520 sorts of nonsense, you know, astral projection ESP and all 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:44.440 that kind of stuff, and that kind of went away, 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.080 and then the moon hoax thing was huge for I 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.039 don't know about a year in two thousand and now 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.600 that's basically gone away. It's still out there, but it's 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:54.760 not a big deal. But what we're seeing now in 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.000 the past few years is different. And if you want 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.000 a conspiracy theory, I might posit that there has been 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:05.839 a concerted effort to destroy I can't say anything about 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.560 other countries, but in America, to destroy people's trust in science. 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.480 And this has all come not all, but the vast 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.600 majority is coming from the Republican Party, which is downplaying 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.119 climate change, building up anti vaxxers. You know, anti vaxx 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.120 for a while was kind of a crunchy granola thing. 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.400 There's a whole history of that, and so it was 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.600 a left wing thing, but then it got co opted 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.320 by the right, especially when Gardasil came out, which was 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.520 a vaccine against a type of virus that can give 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.560 you cancer. But there are sexual overtones to that, and 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.360 the right wing took that up in their social case. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.400 And so now this has spread to everything. And there's 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:50.960 not any aspect of science, evolution and versus creationism, because 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:55.880 a lot of these are religious based, and the right 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.800 wing Party of the United States has co opted religion, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.840 and now the GOP denies everything when it comes to science. 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.040 It's horrifying. So it's anti science, but it's also anti expert, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:07.440 anti elite. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.320 Yeah, and that's what makes me think is a concerted 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.560 effort because it's coming at all levels. Right, they're attacking universities, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.520 they're talking about scientists and the elite. That's the perfect 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.000 word of this anti elitism. It's like, oh, you just 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:21.800 think that because you're part of the elite, and it's like, no, 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.120 I just got an education, and you know, I see 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.080 what's going on, and so I see this all the time. 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.880 People argue with me. I go on. I used to 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.040 go on TikTok and leave comments. People would say I 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:34.400 saw this light in the sky and I think it's 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.920 UFO and I'd be like, it's Venus. You're looking right 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:38.640 at Venus and you're looking at the right direction, and 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.520 there it is in this guy. And they're like, no, 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:42.200 it was doing this and this, and what do you know? 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.760 And it's like, been an astronomer for forty years, I 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:46.920 think I know when I see Venus, but they don't 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.319 believe me. So it's mind boggling that people would rather 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.520 believe they're in group than think for themselves. 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.920 Is this something innately human? Or is this something that 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.480 you see sort of different now being pushed by political 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.880 forces or certainly the Russians are doing it. 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.119 What's your sort of sense of this As a scientist, 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.720 I'd say it's both. Sometimes there is an innate need 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:17.800 to find some sort of outside force that is affecting us, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:23.000 and certainly human our brains have evolved to seek out patterns, 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:24.920 and it happens in astronomy all the time. I mean, 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:26.880 you look at it at four stars in the sky 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.679 and say, yes, that's the Great Hunter or a microscope 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.640 or something like that. And so we have the constellations, 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.240 and we see it when you see faces in clouds. 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:37.240 And this is another thing I've dealt with a lot 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.920 in astronomy, because we see rock formations on Mars gas 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.760 clouds in space and they look like things we're familiar with. 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.240 They look like faces or whatever. And so that's a 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.480 fun aspect of this. It's when people start believing that 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:53.880 there's more to it. Coincidences happened. And on the flip side, yeah, 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.040 there are people out there who are absolutely trying to 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:03.480 manipulate others into believing stuff that is clearly wrong. It's 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.120 nineteen eighty four, you know when you deny the evidence 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.240 of your eyes, and that's what's happening now, and so 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:16.720 it's easy for evildoers to use that unbrelative to manipulate 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.560 people into denying the evidence that they think might be 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:25.560 real like science, and believe in something that's incredibly wrong, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:30.720 like ivermectin, Cure's COVID or anything that comes up that 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:32.600 we've seen in the past few years. In the height 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.240 of COVID, I was living in Colorado and I had 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.480 a couple of horses and some goats, and I was 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:38.000 always worried that I was going to go to my 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.920 local feed store and they weren't going to have it 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:42.920 when I needed it, And I thought, this is it 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:48.160 seems that seems silly. But again there's an undercurrent of 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.600 serious trouble here when anti vaxxers are telling people not 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.679 to get the COVID shot, to not worry about polio 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:01.320 and whooping cough and measles and these horrific diseases, and 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.800 it's people say how common is this and they're like, gommin, 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.679 because we have vaccine for them. Why do you think 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:08.120 this is? Oh? 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.520 So, I think bad actors, either for money or for 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.000 political purpose, often try to use fear. Fear works obviously, 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.120 but I'm wondering what should we worry about. And I 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.000 know you've looked at asteroids and things like that. What 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.760 things in science are things that we actually should be 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:22.680 paying more attention to. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.600 Well, in the medical field, I think that's all pretty clear. 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.640 In astronomy about yeah, yeah, well, there's there's lots to 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.800 worry about. When it comes to astronomy. There are a 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.000 handful of things to be concerned about. I say, being 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.760 concerned means maybe we should pay attention to this versus 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.640 worrying like this is going to happen and an asteroid impact, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:50.079 for example, we don't need a gigantic dinosaur killer asteroid 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.960 impact to wipe us out. There are and only be 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.200 worried about that. That is, that's a once in a 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.720 fifty million year event, so that's probably not going to happen. 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.080 And plus those giant asteroids, we know where almost all 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:02.559 of them are, so I'm not too worried about that. 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.720 The other side, on the other side of this, twenty thirteen, 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:10.600 over Russia, there was a nineteen meter asteroids something in 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.040 the size of a big house came screaming in and 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.880 exploded twenty thirty miles up in the atmosphere and caused 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:18.800 a lot of damage on the ground. And if that 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.800 thing had been moving faster, had been bigger, maybe made 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.760 of metal instead of crumbly rock, it would have done 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.680 a huge amount of damage. And those sorts of impacts 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:30.960 happen every couple of decades. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:31.600 Now. 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.880 Luckily, the Earth is very large, seventy something percent of 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:39.439 it is water. What's not water is typically uninhabited. Antarctica 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.439 is a big empty space, so there's a surface area 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.120 of the Earth where these things can come in and 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:47.240 not do any damage. On the other hand, chel Yabinsk 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.640 was a city of is a city of a million 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.079 people or more, and this thing shattered windows and caused 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:58.840 over a thousand injuries. So that happens, how often is 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.920 not too And the small ones we can't really do 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.440 anything about. But the bigger ones that are coming in 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.360 at the size of a football stadium, and those can 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.040 do much more damage over a region as opposed to 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.280 a locality, And those are the kind of things that 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.360 we're looking at more carefully and saying, what can we 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.679 do about that? Smash it with a rocket. We've done this. 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.480 The dart mission not too long ago, slammed a spacecraft 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.800 into an asteroid and moved it. It worked, worked really 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.600 well actually, so if there's something in one hundred meter 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.920 side scale, we can probably prevent that from hitting the Earth. 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.319 Which is when you say we give us a little more. 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.040 I never I don't know about that. Who's we? Was 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:38.240 it humans and humans? 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:42.080 The Dart mission, the Double Asteroid Redirect t Test so 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.920 many acronyms, was a NASA mission that basically approached an 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.640 asteroid and hit it really hard. It was actually the 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:54.000 moon of a small asteroid and changed its orbit, changed 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.760 the orbital period by quite a bit. And the European 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.000 Space Agency is doing a follow up mission called Hero 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.920 which is launching soon, and we'll go there and make 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.080 close up measurements and really see what happened. There are 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.160 a lot of space agencies now India has one China, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:13.400 and it's possible that we can get together and if 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.600 there's something big enough, we can all do something about it. 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.320 Or one country just takes the reins and says we're 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:23.720 going to do this. That is fraught with international issues 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.480 because okay, here's an asteroid coming in. It's going to 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:28.520 hit the US. So NASA's going to launch a rocket, 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.960 we hit it, we change its trajectory, and we find out, oh, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.280 now it's going to land in China. Oh that's a problem. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.000 So given the time skills here, this is something I 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.560 think about. This is something I'm concerned about, but not 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:43.400 something I lie awake in the middle of the night 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.240 sweating about. This is something that we're getting better at 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.400 detecting them and better at figuring out what to do 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:49.640 about them. 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:51.760 All right, let's take a break. We'll be right back. 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:09.560 So Phil, let's talk maybe just a little bit about 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.840 satellite there. I'm assuming they have overt missions, but they 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.360 may have covert missions. And I've read about something called 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.560 the Kessler syndrome or the Kessler effect where killer satellite 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.080 which sort of I guess put badly hit shrapnel in it, 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.960 which destroys other satellites, that creates more shrampnel, that destroys 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.360 our ability to operate in low Earth orbit, which means 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.200 we go back to like manual tie writers and VCRs 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.760 and things like that. So what's your sense now, the 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:43.320 space race and an espionage and national rivalries with using 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.200 satellite technology or modern technology to impact how we all 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:47.760 live today. 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.320 The Kessler syndrome is a real thing, and the idea 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.400 being that, sure, you could have an anti satellite, which 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.560 is basically an explosive device in space, and you pull 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.240 up your satellite next to your enemy's military saturate or 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.720 something blow years up and the shrapnel will shred their satellite. 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.960 The problem is, satellites are orbiting the Earth at eight 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.640 kilometers a second five five miles per second, which is 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.280 very fast, twenty thousand miles an hour, and they're moving 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.800 in a certain direction, typically roughly west east, the same 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.520 direction to the Earth spins, but not always. There are 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.840 some in polar satellites that go north south. But now 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.880 you've got this expanding cloud of debris, thousands of small 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.600 parts and it doesn't matter how big they are iffle 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.360 like a paint moving at twenty thousand miles an hour, 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.160 Slamming into your satellite could destroy it. Huge energy is 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:40.000 involved here. A bullet is small, but it's moving really fast. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.120 That's why it's doing so much damage. If you have 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.640 a thousand pieces a cloud of this debris which is 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.400 now miles across and screaming around in lower th orbit 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.320 at that speed, the odds of one satellite hitting another 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.080 satellite are very low that it's only happened a few times. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.320 The odds of this cloud of debrisating something are much 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.360 much larger, and when they do, they create another cloud 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.400 of debris, which then increases the odds and what you 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.159 get as a runaway effect a cascade. That's what the 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.480 Kessler syndrome is. The movie Gravity with Sandra Bullock and 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.359 George Clooney, was based on this idea. The basic idea 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.960 of that movie was the premise was correct. But yeah, 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.720 this is a very big concern. If we had as 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.040 many satellites as we did twenty years ago in space, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.320 that would be one thing, a few thousand or even 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:29.439 ten thousand. But right now SpaceX is launching thousands of 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.800 Starlink satellites. Then their plan is to launch tens of thousands. 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.680 There are other what they call mega constellations of satellites 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.399 that are being planned, and these things they can fail 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:42.560 and they can hit other satellites. The more you have 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.679 up there, the more likely acclision is. Now there's plans 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:47.720 to diorbit these things. If they start to go wrong, 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.200 they just bring them down, let them burn up. Tens 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.600 of thousands of satellites it's just you have that many 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.480 the chances of a collision go up and up, and so, yeah, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:57.400 this is a concern. 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:59.840 It wasn't there reason reporting that the Russians were looking 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:04.199 at possibly nuclear explosions in space. You could conceivably use 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.280 nuclear weapons in space. It doesn't necessarily kill people right away, 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.000 but it creates these kind of problems. 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.879 We've done this. Starfish Prime was a hydrogen bomb that 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.280 was blown up over the Pacific Ocean in the nineteen fifties, 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.240 nineteen fifty four i think, and it was done to test, Hey, 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.360 what happens when you do this? And it turns out 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:27.280 that you get a tremendous blast of high energy particles 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.440 electrons and gamma rays and things like that that interact 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.800 with Earth's atmosphere and cause an electromagnetic pulse. And this 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:35.080 is the kind of thing where you hear about this 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:36.960 in science fiction all the time. Oh, it's an EMP 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.520 and it blows out our computers. And it turns out, yeah, 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.200 that's what these things do. You have a tremendous pulse 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.280 of energy, it passes through your satellite and it creates 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.920 electric charges inside the satellite that can fry the circuits. 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.119 And this is a decent concern. A good solar storm 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.520 can do this, which is something a lot of solar 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.880 astronomers and engineers are concerned about. The sun blasts off 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.640 these big storms. It's a sensely like detonating a hydrogen 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.399 bomb in space, very similar. So yeah, you can do that. 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.359 I wouldn't recommend it. First of all, it's against international law. 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.480 We've signed the Outer Space Treaty so as Russia, I believe, 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.679 and that makes it illegal to detonate those things in space. 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:15.560 On the other hand, what are you going to do 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.119 about it? Somebody blows up a nuke. The repercussions are awful. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.520 You could blow out a lot of satellites. Military satellites 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:23.879 are hardened typically against such things. But what do you 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.119 do if Russia decides to do that or a rogue 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.080 president of the United States says I'm going to bomb Greenland? 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:31.320 How do you stop them? 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.040 Okay, Phil, we have to talk about UFOs at least 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.800 a little bit. What is your take on the recent 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:44.359 space of sightings of aerial phenomenon or perceived sightings going 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.280 on around in Jersey and let's pretend they're real. What 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:49.879 would we actually see? Scientists and how could we prove 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:54.120 it or verify that there's stuff up there that isn't 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:55.280 just drones through airpor. 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.720 My overwhelming take on this is frustration to see the 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.280 stuff that's been going on for decade and it's just 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.360 the same stuff over and over again, and you cannot 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.320 debunk it is whack a mole. All this new stuff 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.159 is not new. The only thing new about it is 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.800 that these are we're seeing lights in the sky and 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.440 it's probably drones. And I remember thinking when drones started 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:18.399 to become popular a few years ago, I thought I 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:20.760 would hate to be a UFO researcher now because this 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:22.920 is going to destroy anything you can do. It is 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.120 like trying to build an astronomical observatory in the middle 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.040 of a football stadium with all the lights around you. 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:29.159 There's just going to be so many things up in 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.560 the sky now. And watching these videos, you know, everybody's 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.640 taking their videos and posting them online. And I'm looking 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.320 at that and going, that's Venus, that's Jupiter, that's the moon, 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.240 that's an airplane, that's a drone. Those are spotlights. I 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:46.280 see a lot of circling circles of light, five or 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.040 six of them in a circle. Spinning around on a 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:50.879 cloud bank, on a low cloud bank. I'm thinking those 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.960 are spotlights. There's probably a movie theater or somebody trying 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.240 to get somebody's attention, and people are losing their minds 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.639 over the stuff. So this is all nonsense. 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:04.159 But what do we as a scientist, what do we 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:06.639 have that like can actually see the Have we got 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.080 radars that are going up, We've got weather saurights, We've 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.919 got people on the you know, landing airplanes. 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.199 I don't know if there's a concerted effort to observe 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.720 these things and to see what they are. If somebody's 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.160