1 00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:11,360 Speaker 1: Hey, Katie, how's the weather over there? It's a little 2 00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:13,840 Speaker 1: cold now that winter is coming. Well, would you say 3 00:00:13,880 --> 00:00:16,759 Speaker 1: it's still habitable? I mean humans can survive over there. 4 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:21,560 Speaker 1: I moved to Italy, not to Antarctica. Well, you know, 5 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:24,680 Speaker 1: compared to southern California, basically every place that has a 6 00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:28,800 Speaker 1: winter is functionally Antarctica. That's pretty true. I have a 7 00:00:28,880 --> 00:00:34,720 Speaker 1: thick winter survival coat and flares and a bunch of huskies, 8 00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:37,199 Speaker 1: and everyone else is still in their sweaters and scarves. 9 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:40,239 Speaker 1: So I wonder if that means that people like us 10 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:44,880 Speaker 1: from southern California wouldn't make good Martian colonists. I think 11 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:47,760 Speaker 1: if they had a Martian in an out burger, people 12 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:51,400 Speaker 1: from l A would be flocking to Mars. Maybe that's 13 00:00:51,400 --> 00:01:08,680 Speaker 1: a good way to reduce the traffic here in l A. Hi. 14 00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:11,679 Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a professor at UC Irvine and a 15 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:15,240 Speaker 1: particle physicist, and I almost never drive in traffic in 16 00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:18,080 Speaker 1: l A. My name is Katie Golden, and I'm the 17 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:22,560 Speaker 1: host of Creature Feature, and I love bumper to bumper 18 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:25,320 Speaker 1: traffic so I can read all those cool bumper stickers 19 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:27,800 Speaker 1: you guys have. Do you ever get stuck behind a 20 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:30,160 Speaker 1: car that has enough reading material to really get you 21 00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:32,720 Speaker 1: through your commute. Yeah, I mean it's like it's a 22 00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:36,560 Speaker 1: whole journey, especially when they paper different political views on 23 00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:38,320 Speaker 1: the back of the bumper and I try to invent 24 00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:41,200 Speaker 1: a whole interesting story for this individual. Man. How do 25 00:01:41,240 --> 00:01:45,560 Speaker 1: people even survive traffic before podcasts? And Welcome to the 26 00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:49,400 Speaker 1: podcast Daniel and Jorge explain the universe in which we 27 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:52,480 Speaker 1: navigate the traffic of the universe to give you ideas 28 00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:55,960 Speaker 1: about how everything works. We talk about the biggest stuff 29 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,680 Speaker 1: in the universe, the neutron stars, the black holes, the 30 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:01,920 Speaker 1: formations of galaxy. We talked about the earliest stuff in 31 00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:04,360 Speaker 1: the universe all the way back to the Big Bang. 32 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:06,920 Speaker 1: We talked about how the universe will end. We don't 33 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:09,720 Speaker 1: shy away from any question on this podcast. We dig 34 00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:11,720 Speaker 1: into it, we open it up, we spread it all 35 00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:14,400 Speaker 1: around on toast, and we serve it to you. And 36 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:17,320 Speaker 1: my friend and co host Jorge is on a break today, 37 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:20,120 Speaker 1: so we are very happy to have our regular and 38 00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:22,800 Speaker 1: wonderful guest host, Katie. Katie, thanks very much for joining 39 00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:25,600 Speaker 1: us today. Always a pleasure to be here and to 40 00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:29,080 Speaker 1: look into the mysteries of the universe. You said, I 41 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:33,360 Speaker 1: could ask any question right, no matter what, no matter what, 42 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:35,799 Speaker 1: no matter what. But now you got me a little scared. 43 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:38,840 Speaker 1: I want to know when the first butt appeared in 44 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:43,800 Speaker 1: the universe. Do you mean the first behind or the 45 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:47,080 Speaker 1: first Yeah, the first behind, the first tushy? Is that 46 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:49,679 Speaker 1: not appropriate you said anything? I think that's a deep 47 00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:52,760 Speaker 1: interesting question about the nature of the universe. And you know, 48 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:55,280 Speaker 1: was that a good looking but or not? Like you know, 49 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,000 Speaker 1: did butts evolved and then people learned to appreciate them 50 00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:00,320 Speaker 1: or was it the other way around? What came first, 51 00:03:00,560 --> 00:03:03,760 Speaker 1: the chicken or the butt? You know, I don't know 52 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:06,000 Speaker 1: the answer to that question, so off the bat, you've 53 00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:08,480 Speaker 1: already stumped me. But it does open up a whole 54 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:12,519 Speaker 1: other genre of questions about first, you know, when things 55 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:16,080 Speaker 1: first happened in the universe, because I think people see 56 00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:19,400 Speaker 1: sometimes the history of the universe as inevitable, like the 57 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:22,760 Speaker 1: universe started dot dot dot. We are here. But you 58 00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:25,280 Speaker 1: have to remember that there's lots of potential paths for 59 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:28,120 Speaker 1: the universe. There's quantum randomness at the beginning of the 60 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,960 Speaker 1: universe that massively influenced the entire shape and structure of 61 00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:34,440 Speaker 1: the universe. Why we have galaxies here, Why we don't 62 00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:37,360 Speaker 1: have galaxies there? The universe could have been very different 63 00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:40,240 Speaker 1: from the universe that we have today. So it's really 64 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:43,440 Speaker 1: interesting to ask questions about the first time something happened 65 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:45,680 Speaker 1: because it gives you a glimpse into how the universe 66 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:48,560 Speaker 1: might have been. How likely do you think it would 67 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:52,920 Speaker 1: have been that Earth never formed? Like, is it really 68 00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:56,480 Speaker 1: lucky that Earth happened at all? Or was that something 69 00:03:56,520 --> 00:03:59,280 Speaker 1: that seemed bound to happen. Yeah, that depends a little 70 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:01,480 Speaker 1: bit on what you do find Earth. You know, the 71 00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:04,200 Speaker 1: exact details of the Earth, the way it is with 72 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:06,880 Speaker 1: people on it and their butts in their particular shape 73 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:10,400 Speaker 1: and people having podcasts. You know, it's essentially infinitesimal, right, 74 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,440 Speaker 1: It's almost zero. And the other thing to remember is 75 00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:16,680 Speaker 1: that the Earth hasn't been around during most of the universe. 76 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:20,200 Speaker 1: Universe is like fourteen billion years old. The Earth is 77 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:23,159 Speaker 1: only four or five billion years old, so most of 78 00:04:23,200 --> 00:04:28,360 Speaker 1: the history of the universe was earthless. So where would 79 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 1: we go then in that kind of universe? Like, do 80 00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:34,120 Speaker 1: you think there are other earths out there that we 81 00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:36,800 Speaker 1: could just PLoP our keysters right down on? Are Are 82 00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:39,880 Speaker 1: we pretty fortunate to have our Earth. It's still an 83 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:42,640 Speaker 1: open question in science, you know, what those other planets 84 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:45,320 Speaker 1: are like and how earthlike there are. We talked on 85 00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:49,120 Speaker 1: the podcast before about what other planets might be out there, 86 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:51,880 Speaker 1: and in the last twenty years or so, we've actually 87 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:55,120 Speaker 1: seen planets around other stars and even found a few 88 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,120 Speaker 1: that seemed to be earthlike. But you know, by earthlike 89 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:01,680 Speaker 1: we basically just mean a hockey planet that's close enough 90 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:04,719 Speaker 1: to its star that has enough warmth to melt ice. 91 00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:07,280 Speaker 1: We don't really know what those planets are like, so 92 00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:09,320 Speaker 1: we don't know if there are a lot of Earth's 93 00:05:09,480 --> 00:05:12,400 Speaker 1: out there teeming with life, or if we really do 94 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,839 Speaker 1: have a very very special home in the universe. We 95 00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:18,919 Speaker 1: cannot attest to the quality of these off brand Earth. 96 00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:23,400 Speaker 1: Sometimes the generics are even better than the original, you know, 97 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,240 Speaker 1: certainly cheaper. But it makes me wonder could Earth have 98 00:05:27,320 --> 00:05:30,279 Speaker 1: formed earlier in the universe, because you know, the universe 99 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:33,200 Speaker 1: is expanding rapidly and now things are further and further 100 00:05:33,279 --> 00:05:35,400 Speaker 1: apart than they used to be, and so if we 101 00:05:35,480 --> 00:05:38,479 Speaker 1: had been around five billion years ago, we could have 102 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:42,120 Speaker 1: seen a very different kind of night sky. We could 103 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:44,840 Speaker 1: have learned different things about the universe. If we've been 104 00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:47,839 Speaker 1: around in an earlier epoch makes me wonder like would 105 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:51,840 Speaker 1: have been possible for Earth to form five billion years ago? 106 00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: And it raises really interesting questions like could there have 107 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:58,719 Speaker 1: been alien civilizations that, you know, a rose lived and 108 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:02,320 Speaker 1: then burned themselves, all billions of years before life even 109 00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:05,680 Speaker 1: started on Earth. What would you see in the night 110 00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:09,800 Speaker 1: sky like staring up from this early version of Earth. Well, 111 00:06:09,800 --> 00:06:13,560 Speaker 1: the universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating, so 112 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:16,599 Speaker 1: as time goes on, we can see a smaller and 113 00:06:16,800 --> 00:06:20,080 Speaker 1: smaller portion of the universe. Of course, we don't know 114 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:22,320 Speaker 1: how big the universe is at all, so we don't 115 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:24,960 Speaker 1: know what portion we're seeing. But as time goes on, 116 00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:28,799 Speaker 1: things fall off the edge of the observable universe because 117 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:32,160 Speaker 1: it's expanding faster than the speed of light. So five 118 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 1: billion years ago we could see more galaxies, and before 119 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:37,960 Speaker 1: that we could see even more stuff. And so if 120 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:40,599 Speaker 1: we've been around very early in the history of the universe, 121 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:43,240 Speaker 1: we could see things that are now invisible and that 122 00:06:43,360 --> 00:06:46,800 Speaker 1: no human might ever see. So would the sky just 123 00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:50,320 Speaker 1: be dotted with stars and galaxies or even black holes 124 00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:52,839 Speaker 1: that we're not even aware of or never will be 125 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:55,880 Speaker 1: aware of. We don't know what that night sky would 126 00:06:55,920 --> 00:06:58,880 Speaker 1: have held because we will never see what's there. It's 127 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:01,719 Speaker 1: gone for ever we missed it. It's like we showed 128 00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:04,359 Speaker 1: up for the second season of the Universe TV show 129 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:07,359 Speaker 1: and somebody deleted the first season. It's just gone. I 130 00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:10,200 Speaker 1: have this cosmic case of foma right now that I 131 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:13,280 Speaker 1: cannot even begin to describe how frustrating it is. But 132 00:07:13,320 --> 00:07:15,640 Speaker 1: in order to ask these questions about the universe, in 133 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,000 Speaker 1: order to look up at the night sky and wonder 134 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:21,080 Speaker 1: what's out there, you need to have somebody alive, somebody 135 00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:24,120 Speaker 1: intelligent to do that observing. And so that leads us 136 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:27,480 Speaker 1: to wonder about when that could first happen, When you 137 00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:30,800 Speaker 1: could first have sort of intelligent beings gazing up at 138 00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:34,840 Speaker 1: the universe scribbling down notes. Yeah, I mean it seems 139 00:07:34,920 --> 00:07:38,120 Speaker 1: like as long as you have some kind of conditions 140 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:41,680 Speaker 1: that could have life, right, Like I would be happy 141 00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:44,360 Speaker 1: guessing like, Okay, if you you can't have the conditions, 142 00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:47,480 Speaker 1: let's just assume that maybe life could take hold there. 143 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:51,200 Speaker 1: But from what you're describing, this is a lot more 144 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:55,320 Speaker 1: of a chaotic situation than what we might think. Absolutely, 145 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:57,680 Speaker 1: there's lots of stuff to dig into there, and so 146 00:07:57,760 --> 00:08:06,400 Speaker 1: today on the podcast we'll be asking question when is 147 00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:10,280 Speaker 1: the earliest life could have started in the universe? And 148 00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:12,800 Speaker 1: I think what you just said is really interesting, something 149 00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:15,520 Speaker 1: about how assuming if the bits are in place, that 150 00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:19,720 Speaker 1: life will start. I don't think that's necessarily a guarantee, 151 00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:23,920 Speaker 1: but based on our planet Earth and how life seems 152 00:08:23,960 --> 00:08:29,040 Speaker 1: to be so tenacious and end up popping up basically 153 00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:32,080 Speaker 1: anywhere that it can find a niche, I think there 154 00:08:32,160 --> 00:08:33,800 Speaker 1: is a good chance that as long as you have 155 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:38,560 Speaker 1: the ingredients for life and enough time, which that is key, obviously, 156 00:08:38,840 --> 00:08:42,120 Speaker 1: it has a pretty good chance of happening. But this 157 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:45,440 Speaker 1: is all conjecture, and I mean, I'm curious what other 158 00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:48,680 Speaker 1: people think about what's going on and how life could 159 00:08:48,679 --> 00:08:51,360 Speaker 1: have started. It is conjecture, but I like hearing your 160 00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:53,080 Speaker 1: point of view. You seem to be sort of a 161 00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:55,400 Speaker 1: cheerleader for life. You're like, come on, life, you can 162 00:08:55,440 --> 00:08:57,520 Speaker 1: do it. You have the materials. I believe in you. 163 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:00,280 Speaker 1: I'm standing by a little bean sprout with a couple 164 00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:02,679 Speaker 1: of cheerleading pom poms and you're like, go, go, you 165 00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:04,439 Speaker 1: can do it. If you can't do it, then I 166 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:07,160 Speaker 1: don't know. I guess for a lot in the universe. Well, 167 00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:09,080 Speaker 1: it does seem sad, sort of an empty if the 168 00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:11,880 Speaker 1: universe exists with all the materials for life, but it 169 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,080 Speaker 1: just sort of doesn't come together and get started. So, 170 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:17,760 Speaker 1: as usual, I was wondering what people out there on 171 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:21,000 Speaker 1: the Internet thought about when the earliest life could have 172 00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:23,920 Speaker 1: begun in the universe. So I reached out to our 173 00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:27,280 Speaker 1: listeners who were happy to volunteer to answer questions. These 174 00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:30,240 Speaker 1: listeners have had no chance to prepare their answer. They 175 00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:33,520 Speaker 1: just responded spontaneously, so we could get a sense for 176 00:09:33,640 --> 00:09:36,520 Speaker 1: what people are thinking and what they already know. If 177 00:09:36,600 --> 00:09:39,440 Speaker 1: you'd like to participate for a future episode, please don't 178 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:42,079 Speaker 1: be shy. Right to me two questions at dangel and 179 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:44,800 Speaker 1: Jorge dot com and you can hear your off the 180 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:48,600 Speaker 1: cuff speculation on the podcast. So before you hear these answers, 181 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,600 Speaker 1: things to yourself. When do you think is the earliest 182 00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:54,440 Speaker 1: moment life could have begun in the universe? I'm going 183 00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:59,360 Speaker 1: to say at least earlier than last Wednesday. And that's 184 00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:02,560 Speaker 1: from a bio largest folks, right there, she's an authority. 185 00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:06,680 Speaker 1: All right, here's what people had to say the first stars. 186 00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:11,640 Speaker 1: We're really just hydrogen and helium, which is not enough 187 00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:18,400 Speaker 1: to have generated life based components. So I would say 188 00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:22,040 Speaker 1: we would need at least second generation stars in order 189 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:26,640 Speaker 1: to have heavier elements involved. Well, I assume that life 190 00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:29,520 Speaker 1: would need an energy source like we have the Sun. 191 00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:32,560 Speaker 1: So my guests would be that the first life formed 192 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:35,480 Speaker 1: shortly after the first stars did. I'm not quite sure 193 00:10:35,520 --> 00:10:37,760 Speaker 1: when that was, so if I had to guess, I 194 00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:40,320 Speaker 1: would say maybe five million years after the Big Bang. 195 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:43,200 Speaker 1: I know the Earth went through a period of heavy 196 00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:46,200 Speaker 1: bombardment and we couldn't have had life then, you know that, 197 00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:48,240 Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it has to be pretty stable, 198 00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:52,120 Speaker 1: but I don't know when the earliest that would have 199 00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:57,000 Speaker 1: happened in the universe. Oh, let's define life. I would 200 00:10:57,040 --> 00:11:03,280 Speaker 1: define life as of the first molecules, and I would 201 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:08,199 Speaker 1: guess that would be in the first billion years since 202 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:14,000 Speaker 1: the universe began. I would say that maybe somehow life 203 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,600 Speaker 1: could have developed when the universe kind of became cool 204 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:21,000 Speaker 1: enough for it and transparent, so maybe it could have 205 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:24,400 Speaker 1: been around three I think that's about three thousand years 206 00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:26,480 Speaker 1: after the Big Bang is when we first got the 207 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:30,839 Speaker 1: cosmic micreer background radiation. So maybe somehow in that soup. 208 00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:33,960 Speaker 1: There could have been at least you know, single self 209 00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:37,240 Speaker 1: life or something along those lines. I think that the 210 00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:41,920 Speaker 1: earliest life in the universe may have been some kind 211 00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:47,840 Speaker 1: of extraterrestrial in some other galaxy. I don't think the 212 00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:50,840 Speaker 1: life become here in there, life as we know it, 213 00:11:51,320 --> 00:11:56,800 Speaker 1: or life in general. Well, um, I would say life 214 00:11:56,880 --> 00:12:00,160 Speaker 1: in general in some exotic form, and depending what you 215 00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:04,920 Speaker 1: consider life, if complex, you know, self replicating proteins are, 216 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:09,720 Speaker 1: life might have started fairly early on within I don't 217 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:12,840 Speaker 1: know how to do do a million years or so at 218 00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:15,040 Speaker 1: since the beginning of the universe, but life as we 219 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:17,440 Speaker 1: know it takes a long time to evolve. I would 220 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:21,679 Speaker 1: say that requires at least some small number of billions 221 00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:25,520 Speaker 1: of years. I thought that was really interesting. These are 222 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:30,000 Speaker 1: really smart guesses. It seems like people are basing their 223 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:34,120 Speaker 1: guesses on what they think to be going on with 224 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:37,560 Speaker 1: the early universe in terms of how chaotic it is, 225 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:41,800 Speaker 1: you know, what the chemical composition of stars are. But 226 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:44,240 Speaker 1: it's also interesting to hear about what people consider to 227 00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:47,440 Speaker 1: be early in the universe. You know, somebody says pretty 228 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:50,960 Speaker 1: early the first billion years. It's like, wow, man, a 229 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:53,679 Speaker 1: billion years is a long time to wait like, if 230 00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:55,520 Speaker 1: I invite you to party at my house and you're 231 00:12:55,559 --> 00:12:59,240 Speaker 1: a billion years late, do you consider yourself still pretty early? 232 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:03,400 Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's fashionable, right, I don't know etiquette. 233 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:07,440 Speaker 1: That's probably different over there in Italy also, Dad, But 234 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:10,640 Speaker 1: it gives you a sense of just the cosmic scope here. 235 00:13:10,679 --> 00:13:12,440 Speaker 1: And you know, it's really hard to get your mind 236 00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:16,000 Speaker 1: around the length of time we're talking about. Even human 237 00:13:16,080 --> 00:13:18,800 Speaker 1: history is difficult to imagine. You know, think about what 238 00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:21,599 Speaker 1: it was like to live five thousand years ago. I 239 00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:24,280 Speaker 1: think about all the people that have lived between now 240 00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:26,640 Speaker 1: and then, all the times they woke up, all the 241 00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:29,640 Speaker 1: times they scratched their heads, all the arguments, the marriages, 242 00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:33,280 Speaker 1: the divorces, you know, the triumphs and disappointments. That's an 243 00:13:33,280 --> 00:13:36,880 Speaker 1: incredible amount of time. And that's just like the tiniest 244 00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:39,760 Speaker 1: slice of the time the humans have been on Earth. 245 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:42,240 Speaker 1: All right, I'm cross eyed. Now. We can't keep on 246 00:13:42,320 --> 00:13:45,080 Speaker 1: doing this. It seems like a whole heck of a 247 00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:48,320 Speaker 1: lot of stuff cosmically can be going on in a 248 00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:52,160 Speaker 1: billion years? Or is that nothing to a star? Exactly 249 00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:55,360 Speaker 1: a billion years is a very long time for us, 250 00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:58,200 Speaker 1: but for the universe, it's just a little slice of 251 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:00,960 Speaker 1: all the time that has happened. So, you know, try 252 00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:04,320 Speaker 1: to like get your mind around a million years, a 253 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:06,960 Speaker 1: billion years. I don't even know if it's possible to do, 254 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:10,240 Speaker 1: you know, I guess maybe thinking about billionaires, like think 255 00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:13,199 Speaker 1: about Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk how much money they 256 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:16,160 Speaker 1: have compared to how much money you have. And I'll 257 00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:18,920 Speaker 1: give you a sense for like the amount of time 258 00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:21,840 Speaker 1: we're talking about. I do think about that a lot. 259 00:14:22,280 --> 00:14:25,800 Speaker 1: But so in these early stages of the universe, we 260 00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:31,440 Speaker 1: have these vast periods of time that seemed just incalculable 261 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:35,040 Speaker 1: to humans. But in terms of what's going on with 262 00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:39,080 Speaker 1: the universe, are there things happening there that would be, 263 00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:42,400 Speaker 1: in your opinion, prohibitive to life, say, in like the 264 00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:48,040 Speaker 1: first billion years of the universe's lifespan. Absolutely, in the 265 00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:51,240 Speaker 1: very beginning of the universe, things were pretty hot and crazy. 266 00:14:51,360 --> 00:14:52,880 Speaker 1: You know. I think we'll get into it a little 267 00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:56,000 Speaker 1: bit more later, but the first moments of the universe, 268 00:14:56,040 --> 00:14:59,520 Speaker 1: for example, the universe was very dense and very very hot. 269 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:02,400 Speaker 1: You know, you talking about like the inside of a star, 270 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:07,520 Speaker 1: very high temperatures, very high density, crazy interactions constantly. It's 271 00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:11,080 Speaker 1: hard to imagine life as we know it existing at 272 00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:13,640 Speaker 1: least in the very early universe. Yeah, I know some 273 00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:16,440 Speaker 1: very dense and hot people too. But you know, maybe 274 00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:20,120 Speaker 1: we should start with thinking about what life needs with 275 00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:23,160 Speaker 1: the typical conditions are for life as we know it, 276 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:25,880 Speaker 1: and then we can figure out when those things occurred 277 00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:28,320 Speaker 1: in the universe. Oh yeah, I kind of know this one, 278 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:32,800 Speaker 1: at least in terms of the biological aspects of life. 279 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:37,400 Speaker 1: You need water, that's super important. You need some kind 280 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:42,240 Speaker 1: of energy which can be converted into energy that life 281 00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:45,720 Speaker 1: can use. Like I said earlier, you you need some 282 00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:49,160 Speaker 1: time for this to be able to happen, sort of 283 00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:51,880 Speaker 1: like baking. You can't put all the ingredients for a 284 00:15:51,960 --> 00:15:54,320 Speaker 1: cake into the oven, take it out after a minute 285 00:15:54,320 --> 00:15:57,360 Speaker 1: and expect anything other than a chocolate soup. There's no 286 00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:00,600 Speaker 1: like microwave version of the university can say like zapp 287 00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:04,200 Speaker 1: life into existence, right my microwave brownie version of the 288 00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:08,200 Speaker 1: primordial soup. And energy often will mean like something like 289 00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:11,920 Speaker 1: our our son gives the Earth energy. You need there 290 00:16:11,960 --> 00:16:15,200 Speaker 1: to be things that are not too like enough chemicals 291 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:18,480 Speaker 1: going on that can help create these protein chains, or 292 00:16:18,520 --> 00:16:21,720 Speaker 1: maybe even something that is different from how our carbon 293 00:16:21,760 --> 00:16:25,840 Speaker 1: based life form is on Earth, but certainly you would 294 00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:28,960 Speaker 1: need a little bit of stability as well, otherwise the 295 00:16:29,160 --> 00:16:32,680 Speaker 1: chaos and entropy is just gonna knock everything down like 296 00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:35,120 Speaker 1: a bunch of dominoes. So from a physics point of view, 297 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:37,240 Speaker 1: needing an energy source like a star to keep you 298 00:16:37,280 --> 00:16:39,960 Speaker 1: warm makes perfect sense. And you need, you know, a 299 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:42,000 Speaker 1: surface to get to the right temperature, and you need 300 00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:44,400 Speaker 1: enough time. All that makes sense to me as a physicist. 301 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:48,320 Speaker 1: What about the materials though, you were talking about for biochemistry, 302 00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:50,240 Speaker 1: Like what elements do you need and why do you 303 00:16:50,320 --> 00:16:52,800 Speaker 1: need them? Like why do we have carbon and oxygen 304 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:55,040 Speaker 1: and nitrogen? Why do we need all of those elements 305 00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:57,200 Speaker 1: to make life? Why couldn't we have assembled it out 306 00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:00,440 Speaker 1: of just helium and hydrogen. I mean, my under standing 307 00:17:00,520 --> 00:17:05,160 Speaker 1: of it is that carbon is such a powerful base 308 00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:09,680 Speaker 1: for life based on how these molecules can connect to 309 00:17:09,760 --> 00:17:13,000 Speaker 1: one another. You have carbon with its four little arms 310 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:16,280 Speaker 1: that can connect and form all sorts of good molecules 311 00:17:16,359 --> 00:17:19,600 Speaker 1: that can be used for a variety of things that 312 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,520 Speaker 1: life needs. So you need at least are kind of 313 00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:27,879 Speaker 1: earth based. Life needs protein chains to create the d 314 00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:32,080 Speaker 1: n A that is the basic building blocks of all life. 315 00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:36,080 Speaker 1: You need some kind of complex molecule that you can 316 00:17:36,119 --> 00:17:41,680 Speaker 1: create and recreate in order to be a blueprint for 317 00:17:41,800 --> 00:17:46,240 Speaker 1: creating an organism. Otherwise, if you can't have these bonds 318 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:50,440 Speaker 1: that you can easily create and then rearrange and build basically, 319 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:54,119 Speaker 1: like you know, when you think of legos or connects 320 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:57,240 Speaker 1: or whatever you're building thing is of choice. You need 321 00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:01,360 Speaker 1: atoms that are capable of make these connections and being 322 00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:04,120 Speaker 1: built in such a way that is conducive to forming 323 00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:07,920 Speaker 1: something like proteins that are used in DNA. I mean, 324 00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:13,160 Speaker 1: that's that's my limited understanding of atomic scale biology. Well, 325 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:15,040 Speaker 1: the lego example makes a lot of sense to me. 326 00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:17,560 Speaker 1: If somebody just gave you a pile of legos and 327 00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:20,480 Speaker 1: they were only just those little thin one pieces, you 328 00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:22,280 Speaker 1: couldn't really build anything because all you can do is 329 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:24,040 Speaker 1: like stack them on top of each other. You can't 330 00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:26,520 Speaker 1: connect them to other pieces very easily. And if you 331 00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:28,920 Speaker 1: want to make something more complex, you need some larger 332 00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,159 Speaker 1: pieces that you can use to like build out a 333 00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:34,720 Speaker 1: backbone and extrapolate from and build other elements. And so 334 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:36,040 Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense to me that you 335 00:18:36,119 --> 00:18:39,280 Speaker 1: just need like complex enough bits in order to make 336 00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:42,280 Speaker 1: the complexity we have in our life. So our list 337 00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:45,080 Speaker 1: of requirements so far is like an energy source for 338 00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:49,160 Speaker 1: some warmth, some raw materials with enough complexity in them, 339 00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:51,800 Speaker 1: and then just enough time. Yeah, and I think the 340 00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:56,879 Speaker 1: time thing seems pretty important when we're considering the age 341 00:18:56,920 --> 00:18:59,920 Speaker 1: of the universe, because if you have a really chao 342 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,520 Speaker 1: addic system, that's going to cut down on your time 343 00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:04,920 Speaker 1: for anything to happen, right Like, if you have a 344 00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:09,520 Speaker 1: planet that's being constantly smacked in the face with meteors, 345 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:13,280 Speaker 1: it's not going to give whatever life could potentially form 346 00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:16,359 Speaker 1: on the surface enough time to even form before it 347 00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:20,520 Speaker 1: gets just obliterated into more star dust. Absolutely, So I 348 00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:22,960 Speaker 1: want to talk about when that might have all come 349 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:25,560 Speaker 1: together in the early universe, how long it took to 350 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:28,359 Speaker 1: assemble all those bits and give it a time to 351 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:32,080 Speaker 1: cook around and turn into something yummy and fun and hilarious. 352 00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:47,760 Speaker 1: But first, let's take a quick break. All right, we're 353 00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:50,840 Speaker 1: back and we're talking about how early butts could have 354 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:54,960 Speaker 1: formed in the universe, or at least when life could 355 00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:58,719 Speaker 1: have started. And we're casting our minds back well before 356 00:19:58,840 --> 00:20:02,480 Speaker 1: life on Earth, well before our solar system started. We're 357 00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:05,600 Speaker 1: going deep, deep, back into the history of the universe 358 00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:08,960 Speaker 1: fourteen billion years ago. To think about that first moment 359 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:11,280 Speaker 1: when life might have started, and not just as a 360 00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:14,479 Speaker 1: way to explore like what an alternative version of us 361 00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:17,000 Speaker 1: could have been, but there could be life out there 362 00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:19,600 Speaker 1: that began in the very early universe. There could be 363 00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:23,600 Speaker 1: civilizations potentially that began in the very first few moments 364 00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:26,919 Speaker 1: that life was possible and could now be billions of 365 00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:30,639 Speaker 1: years old. Think about how hilarious their podcasts must be 366 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,679 Speaker 1: by now, And why haven't they given me a call yet? 367 00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:35,919 Speaker 1: You know, not even Nina, Well, you know, it just 368 00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:38,560 Speaker 1: takes time. They want your podcast career to like marinate 369 00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:40,879 Speaker 1: for another million years or so, then they'll give you 370 00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:43,480 Speaker 1: a call. Maybe they're offended because I only cover Earth 371 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:48,240 Speaker 1: animals and I haven't covered like bisoork To animals on 372 00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:51,320 Speaker 1: their planet of bisk To. I don't know how your 373 00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:55,359 Speaker 1: advertisers would would feel about these topics. I don't know 374 00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,080 Speaker 1: if the people on Bisok really buy anything so new 375 00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:01,879 Speaker 1: plim Yeah, I can see how that's a problem. So Okay, 376 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:05,040 Speaker 1: we talked about the ingredients we need right like warmth, 377 00:21:05,080 --> 00:21:08,239 Speaker 1: We need the right materials, like we need water, we 378 00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:12,480 Speaker 1: need various chemical compositions to be able to make building 379 00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:17,159 Speaker 1: blocks like DNA. And we need the right temperature, right, Like, 380 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:19,520 Speaker 1: it can't be too hot and it can't be too cold. 381 00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:22,439 Speaker 1: When it's too cold, things are really slow, right, And 382 00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:25,360 Speaker 1: if it's too hot, things are way too fast. Right. 383 00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:29,040 Speaker 1: And I'm sure there are people out there wondering, like, hey, 384 00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:31,280 Speaker 1: why are you guys just talking about life as we 385 00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:33,280 Speaker 1: know it. Well, we'll get there, we'll talk about other 386 00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:36,000 Speaker 1: crazy forms of life, but let's at least begin with 387 00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:38,480 Speaker 1: the kind of life that we're thinking about. So first 388 00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:41,159 Speaker 1: up on that list of ingredients is warmth. Right, we 389 00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,440 Speaker 1: need a star. Essentially, we need something to heat us. 390 00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:47,440 Speaker 1: And in the very early universe, of course, there were 391 00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:49,879 Speaker 1: no stars. Things were very hot and dense. It was 392 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:52,439 Speaker 1: all sort of like the inside of a star. But 393 00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: then things expanded rapidly and things started to cool down, 394 00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:00,439 Speaker 1: and after about three eight thousand years, all the articles 395 00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:04,400 Speaker 1: that were flying around settled down into elements, they neutralized, 396 00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:07,360 Speaker 1: and then you just have these vast clouds of gas, 397 00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:12,480 Speaker 1: almost exclusively hydrogen and helium. So vast clouds of gas, 398 00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:16,040 Speaker 1: and yet no butts yet. Interesting, so far, zero buts 399 00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:19,160 Speaker 1: in the universe. It's a butt cream universe so far, 400 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:21,280 Speaker 1: and those clouds of gas are just sort of like 401 00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:24,520 Speaker 1: cold and floating out there, and some pockets of them 402 00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:27,640 Speaker 1: are a little denser than other pockets because of quantum 403 00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:31,480 Speaker 1: fluctuations in the early universe, and those very gradually start 404 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:34,520 Speaker 1: to gather together because if you have one bit that's 405 00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:37,480 Speaker 1: a little denser, then it has more gravity than the 406 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:39,840 Speaker 1: other bits, and so it wins the tug of war 407 00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:43,280 Speaker 1: and starts attracting more atoms of those gases and more 408 00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:46,760 Speaker 1: and more and more, and eventually you coalesce enough of 409 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,080 Speaker 1: them that you can get enough gravitational pressure that stars 410 00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:52,679 Speaker 1: can start to form and burn. But it's not a 411 00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:56,879 Speaker 1: very quick process because gravity is super duper weak. You know, 412 00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,720 Speaker 1: the gravity of Earth is pretty weak. You can overpower 413 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,760 Speaker 1: just with like your legs. You're overpowering the entire gravity 414 00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,199 Speaker 1: of the whole planet. Yeah, but if you try to 415 00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:10,080 Speaker 1: overpower the gravity to get into space, that's kind of difficult, right. 416 00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:13,159 Speaker 1: So why isn't it easier to get a rocket into 417 00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:16,480 Speaker 1: space if gravity is so weak. That's just because you 418 00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:18,679 Speaker 1: have nothing to push against. If you had a ladder, 419 00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:20,960 Speaker 1: you could definitely climb up into space and it would 420 00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,560 Speaker 1: get easier and easier as you got higher and higher. 421 00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:25,520 Speaker 1: So really the only reason it's hard to get out 422 00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:28,119 Speaker 1: into space is that you have nothing to push against 423 00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:30,280 Speaker 1: once you take that first jump. So if you could 424 00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,439 Speaker 1: just like climb a mountain up into space, it wouldn't 425 00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:35,719 Speaker 1: actually be that hard. So maybe we should do space 426 00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:39,720 Speaker 1: ladders instead of these big, old, fancy rockets. Huh, yeah, 427 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:42,399 Speaker 1: you're joking, maybe, but there really is a technology there. 428 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:44,879 Speaker 1: It's called a space elevator. If you can assemble a 429 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,119 Speaker 1: cable which connects the surfaces the Earth to like some 430 00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:51,000 Speaker 1: huge rock out there in orbit, then you can build 431 00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,480 Speaker 1: an elevator that just climbs that cable. It doesn't take 432 00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:55,840 Speaker 1: nearly as much energy. That would really suck though, if 433 00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:58,760 Speaker 1: you're on the space elevator and someone pressed all the buttons, 434 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,200 Speaker 1: because that would take like years. But there's only two buttons. 435 00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:08,920 Speaker 1: There's Earth and there's space, right, So how long would 436 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:12,160 Speaker 1: it take for a star to form, given that it's 437 00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:16,199 Speaker 1: this really slow, gradual process. We think it might have 438 00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,680 Speaker 1: taken fifty to a hundred million years. And they're not 439 00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,520 Speaker 1: just combating the weakness of gravity. They need to be 440 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,960 Speaker 1: cold enough. Remember that temperature is like a spedometer for 441 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,240 Speaker 1: the particles in a gas. Really high temperature gases have 442 00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:32,280 Speaker 1: particles that are zipping around super fast, and those will 443 00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,359 Speaker 1: resist gravity's tug because they're moving fast enough. So you 444 00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:37,720 Speaker 1: need these clouds of gas to get cold enough that 445 00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:42,359 Speaker 1: gravity can win against their velocity and actually pull them together. 446 00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,560 Speaker 1: So it takes fifty to a hundred million years, we 447 00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:49,000 Speaker 1: think before the first stars start to burn. And so 448 00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,160 Speaker 1: you wait about a hundred million years, right, and you've 449 00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,840 Speaker 1: got a nice star, goat, are we ready to you know, 450 00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,000 Speaker 1: start some life under that stars? There's some kind of 451 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,320 Speaker 1: problem we're going to run into. Well, that gives us 452 00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:03,760 Speaker 1: our first ingredient. Right now we have a source of warmth. 453 00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:06,600 Speaker 1: But if you want a rocky planet to form your 454 00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,600 Speaker 1: life on, while there are no rocks yet, remember the 455 00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:13,160 Speaker 1: universe so far is just hydrogen and helium, and so 456 00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,200 Speaker 1: all you can do our form denser or less dense 457 00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,760 Speaker 1: blobs of hygen and helium in order to make rocky 458 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,560 Speaker 1: planets things that have like iron or even carbon or oxygen, 459 00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:26,680 Speaker 1: so you can make water. Then you need heavier elements 460 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,040 Speaker 1: in the universe, and that happens at the heart of stars. 461 00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,600 Speaker 1: So in our Solar system for example, that's happening at 462 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,720 Speaker 1: the heart of our Sun. It's making heavier and heavier elements, 463 00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,720 Speaker 1: the elements that became the Earth. However, we're not made 464 00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,359 Speaker 1: in our son, of course, they were made in a 465 00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,680 Speaker 1: previous sun that burned for billions of years and then 466 00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,280 Speaker 1: spewed those elements out into the universe. But in the 467 00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,240 Speaker 1: first round of stars, there was nothing else, so you 468 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:54,800 Speaker 1: can't have a rocky planet around those first stars. So 469 00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:57,960 Speaker 1: when we're talking about the Big Bang, and the Big 470 00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:01,480 Speaker 1: Bang happens, it spreads out all of the these elements. 471 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:06,400 Speaker 1: But those early elements were more stuff that stars could 472 00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,200 Speaker 1: be formed out of. And only once you had the 473 00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:13,640 Speaker 1: high energy of the star. Is it because of how 474 00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:16,720 Speaker 1: hot a star is that they can make those new 475 00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:21,000 Speaker 1: denser elements. Yeah, the Big Bang was almost all helium 476 00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,560 Speaker 1: and hydrogen. And then to make the heavier elements, what 477 00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,280 Speaker 1: you have to do is take those atoms and push 478 00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:29,960 Speaker 1: them together, push the nuclei together. And those nuclei don't 479 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,199 Speaker 1: like to come together, like two protons the core of 480 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,080 Speaker 1: two hydrogen atoms. They don't like to come together to 481 00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,560 Speaker 1: make helium because they're both positively charged. They repel each other. 482 00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,199 Speaker 1: So to force them together until they stick together and 483 00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,040 Speaker 1: become a heavier nucleus requires you to have a lot 484 00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,680 Speaker 1: of pressure and temperature, so sort of like the universe 485 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,000 Speaker 1: starts out really hot and dense, and then it cools 486 00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,560 Speaker 1: and spreads out, and then you have to compactify it again. 487 00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,280 Speaker 1: So you can get that really hot furnace at the 488 00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,880 Speaker 1: inside of a star that's capable of generating these heavier elements, 489 00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,760 Speaker 1: and that can only happen inside those stars. So you 490 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,919 Speaker 1: need stars to form to make the raw materials you 491 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,439 Speaker 1: need for rocky planets in later generations of stars. Okay, 492 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,080 Speaker 1: so no stars, no rocks. But once you've got stars, 493 00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,960 Speaker 1: they can start, you know, popping out some rocks, or 494 00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,600 Speaker 1: at least not popping out rocks exactly, but popping out 495 00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:25,960 Speaker 1: the elements that could then congeal and form rocks. How 496 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,800 Speaker 1: long do you think it takes from when a star 497 00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:34,840 Speaker 1: forms and can create these heavier elements to getting let's say, 498 00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,880 Speaker 1: like a small planet. It's really interesting we think that 499 00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,640 Speaker 1: those first generation of stars actually didn't burn for very long, 500 00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:46,040 Speaker 1: like our son is going to burn. Total lifetime about 501 00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:49,600 Speaker 1: ten billion years, which is pretty long. But some stars, 502 00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,160 Speaker 1: we think will burn for billions and billions and billions more, 503 00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,720 Speaker 1: maybe even trillions of years. And the thing that determines 504 00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,560 Speaker 1: how long a star lives is its size. A bigger 505 00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:01,159 Speaker 1: star burns hotter and so it burns through its fuel faster, 506 00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,760 Speaker 1: and a smaller star burns colder, so it doesn't burn 507 00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:07,160 Speaker 1: its fuel as quickly. So we think that these first 508 00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,320 Speaker 1: stars were really huge, like hundreds of times the mass 509 00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:13,240 Speaker 1: of the Sun, maybe even more so they only burned 510 00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:16,280 Speaker 1: a few million years or maybe tens of millions of years, 511 00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:18,399 Speaker 1: maybe even up to hundreds of millions of years in 512 00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,800 Speaker 1: some cases. And so we think that probably it took 513 00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:24,080 Speaker 1: a few hundred million years before you had even those 514 00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:27,359 Speaker 1: elements existing in the universe, you know, to have some 515 00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,239 Speaker 1: like heavier things than helium, but they were at the 516 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:32,359 Speaker 1: heart of those stars. So then you need those stars 517 00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,080 Speaker 1: to die and to explode, to go like supernova and 518 00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,400 Speaker 1: blow out some of those materials into the universe to 519 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,880 Speaker 1: be like compost for the next generation of stars and 520 00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,640 Speaker 1: solar systems that come to form. So probably a few 521 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:49,680 Speaker 1: hundred million years before you have some raw materials, but 522 00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,800 Speaker 1: those raw materials you have some heavier elements, but probably 523 00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,600 Speaker 1: not that much carbon and oxygen. All right, So you've 524 00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:59,760 Speaker 1: got this first generation of stars that were huge and 525 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,840 Speaker 1: really hot and burn bright, but for shorter and they 526 00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:08,160 Speaker 1: explode and they give fuel to other stars to form, 527 00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,720 Speaker 1: as well as spreading out elements throughout the universe. What 528 00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,400 Speaker 1: time are we at. We spent to what was it, 529 00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:16,880 Speaker 1: like a hundred million years for those stars to form. 530 00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,880 Speaker 1: We spent another what was it another hundred million years? 531 00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,640 Speaker 1: A few million, probably a few hundred million years for 532 00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:28,240 Speaker 1: those suns to create. These elements explode, and then it 533 00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:30,920 Speaker 1: would take some time for the news stars to form, right, 534 00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:35,360 Speaker 1: and then take some time for those elements to start 535 00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:41,320 Speaker 1: to cluster into actual rocks, big space rocks. But we 536 00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:44,560 Speaker 1: still don't have, like you mentioned, we don't have carbon 537 00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,800 Speaker 1: and oxygen yet. In order to make carbon and oxygen, 538 00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:51,360 Speaker 1: which are a few steps up the chain using lighter elements, 539 00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:53,680 Speaker 1: you need stars to burn sort of a long time, 540 00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,120 Speaker 1: so then get like really nice and hot at the 541 00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:58,840 Speaker 1: center you have a chance to like walk up the 542 00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,200 Speaker 1: ladder of the periodic table. So for that to happen, 543 00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,800 Speaker 1: you need stars to be a little bit smaller so 544 00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,760 Speaker 1: they can burn longer. Because short lived stars burn really 545 00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,520 Speaker 1: hot and fast and just sort of like convert all 546 00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:12,520 Speaker 1: the hydrogen helium and then explode. And so you need 547 00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,320 Speaker 1: to wait maybe like a billion years after the Big 548 00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:19,600 Speaker 1: Bang for those smaller, longer burning stars to give up 549 00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,520 Speaker 1: all the carbon and oxygen they've been making at the core. 550 00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:25,400 Speaker 1: So now we're like a billion years into the universe. 551 00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:27,280 Speaker 1: We have a bunch of stars, some of them are 552 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,480 Speaker 1: the second generation of stars, and we have enough of 553 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,000 Speaker 1: these rocky materials probably to come together and form planets. 554 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,480 Speaker 1: We have oxygen, we have carbon, but we've already spent 555 00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,000 Speaker 1: a billion years like thing about all of that time 556 00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:43,880 Speaker 1: that's past. It's incredible, you know that all that time, 557 00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,920 Speaker 1: no Woody observed it, Like it's probably impossible for any 558 00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:49,920 Speaker 1: form of life as we know it to have formed. 559 00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,360 Speaker 1: But in that first period of the universe, it's essentially 560 00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,440 Speaker 1: like dark from an intellectual point of view, I mean, 561 00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:57,440 Speaker 1: if you want it done, you can either have it 562 00:30:57,480 --> 00:30:59,480 Speaker 1: done fast or get you can have it done well. 563 00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:04,360 Speaker 1: I got always said, so we need an entire billion 564 00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:10,120 Speaker 1: of years to even have a universe that could possibly 565 00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:17,959 Speaker 1: possibly foster life, like just to have the ingredients necessary 566 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,760 Speaker 1: for a life. But that doesn't mean the ingredients are 567 00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,440 Speaker 1: all in the same place at the same time, right 568 00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,120 Speaker 1: there in the universe kind of floating around, but they're 569 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,360 Speaker 1: not you know, in these neat, little like pots where 570 00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:33,760 Speaker 1: you're cooking life up. That's right. But you know, if 571 00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:37,200 Speaker 1: it's out there, then eventually some solar system will form 572 00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,160 Speaker 1: and you'll have enough of these rocky materials in it 573 00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,960 Speaker 1: that you'll get planets forming around the Sun. How long 574 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,760 Speaker 1: does it take for a solar system to form. We 575 00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,840 Speaker 1: think it takes something like ten million years. It's nothing 576 00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,240 Speaker 1: it needs to see like, you have a cloud of 577 00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:54,000 Speaker 1: stuff and it might just hang out for a long 578 00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,600 Speaker 1: time for billions of years. Like, not every cloud immediately collapses. 579 00:31:57,920 --> 00:31:59,600 Speaker 1: You can look at in the night sky right now 580 00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,880 Speaker 1: and see big molecular clouds in our galaxy that have 581 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,160 Speaker 1: not yet formed stars. You need some sort of like 582 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,200 Speaker 1: trigger either needs to cool down enough to collapse, or 583 00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,520 Speaker 1: sometimes you need like a nearby supernova to come by 584 00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:14,080 Speaker 1: and give a shock wave which creates a collapse in 585 00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:16,320 Speaker 1: the cloud. Is that what we see when we're looking 586 00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,080 Speaker 1: at the Milky Way, these clouds of space stuff? Yeah, 587 00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,719 Speaker 1: our galaxy is still forming new stars in those clouds. 588 00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,240 Speaker 1: Sometimes the two clouds like smash into each other that 589 00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,680 Speaker 1: can create a bunch of stars, or some sort of 590 00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,920 Speaker 1: trigger needs to happen sometimes to collapse these clouds. Otherwise 591 00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,320 Speaker 1: it just takes a long long time for them to cool. 592 00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,920 Speaker 1: And so we think that after the first generation of 593 00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,440 Speaker 1: stars have formed, then the universe is like point one 594 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:44,320 Speaker 1: percent heavy metals. And then our Solo system, for example, 595 00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,960 Speaker 1: is about one percent heavy metal. So still the universe 596 00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:52,800 Speaker 1: is like overwhelmingly like hydrogen and helium, just like one percent. 597 00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,760 Speaker 1: Billions of years have been spent making these heavy metals, 598 00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,280 Speaker 1: and you're still only up to one percent, but that's enough. 599 00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,240 Speaker 1: You can't see it, but I'm through enop double horns 600 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:06,520 Speaker 1: for that heavy metal universe exactly. But that's enough to 601 00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,480 Speaker 1: make rocky planets, like our Solar system is on average 602 00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,400 Speaker 1: about one percent not hydrogen and helium, but there's enough 603 00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,600 Speaker 1: to make a whole Earth, right, like enormous blobs of 604 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,600 Speaker 1: iron and nickel and gold and all the amazing stuff 605 00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,000 Speaker 1: you need to make the complexity of life on Earth. 606 00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,120 Speaker 1: That's enough. So after billion years or so, we think 607 00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,120 Speaker 1: that probably those ingredients are there. And then we get 608 00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,480 Speaker 1: to the really interesting question you were asking earlier, which 609 00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,960 Speaker 1: is like how long do you have to cook it 610 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:35,680 Speaker 1: before it turns into life. You have a rocky planet, 611 00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,960 Speaker 1: you have liquid water on the surface, you have carbon 612 00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:43,120 Speaker 1: and oxygen and nitrogen fluting around. How long before that 613 00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,560 Speaker 1: becomes life? Right? And one of the main enemies of 614 00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:53,400 Speaker 1: life is chaos and the universe, especially earlier on and 615 00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:57,960 Speaker 1: a planet when it's new, is typically very chaotic, right, 616 00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,280 Speaker 1: Like that is one of the defining things of like 617 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,600 Speaker 1: a new planet for me. You just have like boiling 618 00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:12,360 Speaker 1: seas of various chemicals and you know, unstable sort of geography, 619 00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,360 Speaker 1: and so it's kind of hard to have a planet 620 00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,320 Speaker 1: that's not is at a point of its life where 621 00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:24,399 Speaker 1: it's calmed down enough that you could even have these 622 00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:29,840 Speaker 1: delicate chains of proteins come together. But isn't so calm 623 00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,880 Speaker 1: that nothing's happening at all, right, because you need a 624 00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,160 Speaker 1: little bit of chaos, right, You need enough opportunities and 625 00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,440 Speaker 1: need things to bump into each other often enough to 626 00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,520 Speaker 1: the right pieces can like randomly assemble. And of course 627 00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:43,680 Speaker 1: we don't know how that happened. It's still like a 628 00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,160 Speaker 1: big mystery how life started on Earth. But it is 629 00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,319 Speaker 1: really interesting to look at the timing of it. Right, 630 00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,200 Speaker 1: you were saying life is tenacious, it starts. So what 631 00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,759 Speaker 1: do we know about when life started on Earth? How 632 00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,720 Speaker 1: long did that take, Katie, before our rocky planets started 633 00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,160 Speaker 1: having little critters on it? It was a long time. 634 00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:03,120 Speaker 1: It's like billion years, right, yeah, another billion years. Like 635 00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:06,240 Speaker 1: imagine you have this whole rocky planet with all the ingredients, 636 00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:07,759 Speaker 1: you put it in the oven. You gotta wait a 637 00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:12,799 Speaker 1: billion years before life starts. It certainly is weird to 638 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,279 Speaker 1: me to think about it like that because I think 639 00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:19,359 Speaker 1: about the universe itself and it seems so timeless, And 640 00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:23,440 Speaker 1: it took the universe a billion years to get to 641 00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,680 Speaker 1: the point where you have you're starting to maybe have 642 00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:31,480 Speaker 1: conditions where you can have planets and maybe the materials 643 00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:33,080 Speaker 1: you might need for life. But then it took a 644 00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:38,640 Speaker 1: whole other billion years on our planet for the first 645 00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:43,640 Speaker 1: like little life spaghetti is little protein chains to even form. 646 00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:48,160 Speaker 1: It's I don't know, there's something mind numbing about how 647 00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:51,560 Speaker 1: vast that is. Well, think about all the things that 648 00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,480 Speaker 1: have to come together in just the right way, and 649 00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,040 Speaker 1: the likelihood of that happening is very small, So you 650 00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,440 Speaker 1: need a lot of opportunities, which means it could take 651 00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,160 Speaker 1: a long time time On the other hand, as you 652 00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:05,120 Speaker 1: were saying, conditions on Earth weren't really very hospitable in 653 00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,880 Speaker 1: the beginning, you know, the Earth service was like magma, 654 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,640 Speaker 1: and then there was the huge bombardment of asteroids as 655 00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:13,040 Speaker 1: the Solar System was still sort of calming down. We 656 00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,640 Speaker 1: still have some signs of those asteroids, write, like big 657 00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,560 Speaker 1: craters and formations on our planet that are like these 658 00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:23,759 Speaker 1: old battle scars. So from that point of view, life 659 00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:27,640 Speaker 1: started sort of pretty quickly after things calmed down, Like 660 00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,120 Speaker 1: when you have the right conditions, meaning the basic elements 661 00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,840 Speaker 1: and the right temperature, and you know you're no longer 662 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,880 Speaker 1: raining fire from the sky and being dissolved in lava. 663 00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,480 Speaker 1: You didn't have to wait that long after that for 664 00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:41,160 Speaker 1: life to start. And that's just one example, but it's 665 00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:45,359 Speaker 1: sort of suggestive. It suggests that maybe life isn't that 666 00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:47,920 Speaker 1: hard to get started. You got the right ingredients in 667 00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:50,240 Speaker 1: the right place, and maybe just wait a few million 668 00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,319 Speaker 1: years or even a hundred million years, and presto, it 669 00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,040 Speaker 1: will start. Do we know, like when the Earth started 670 00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:59,759 Speaker 1: to calm down, so to speak, like from when the 671 00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:04,279 Speaker 1: Earth formed to when the Earth was no longer so 672 00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:08,040 Speaker 1: jittery and chaotic, that it was just simply too toxic 673 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,920 Speaker 1: of a personality to host life. Yeah, that was a 674 00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:14,879 Speaker 1: few hundred million years exactly, So life really did start 675 00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,359 Speaker 1: on Earth pretty quickly after conditions were hospitable. Something I've 676 00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,320 Speaker 1: always wondered about is whether it might have been possible 677 00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,360 Speaker 1: for life to have started on Earth multiple times independently, 678 00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,160 Speaker 1: like you know, a little colony starting on this side 679 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,520 Speaker 1: of the planet, and another colony maybe using a completely 680 00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:35,640 Speaker 1: different biochemical technology, starting on the other side of the planet, 681 00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:37,680 Speaker 1: and you know weather, it could have been like a 682 00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,600 Speaker 1: massive war and our kind of life one and wiped 683 00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,080 Speaker 1: out the other kind of life entirely the way like 684 00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:45,560 Speaker 1: there are species and geniuses in our own history that 685 00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,560 Speaker 1: we've exterminated. And it could even be something where you 686 00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,640 Speaker 1: have these little pockets of life. They don't even have 687 00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,879 Speaker 1: to have a war, but one of them just kind 688 00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:57,719 Speaker 1: of fizzles out, whereas the other one manages to make it. 689 00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,640 Speaker 1: Because you know why I'm talking about these protein chains 690 00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:04,319 Speaker 1: is that is kind of what is thought to have 691 00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:09,040 Speaker 1: been sort of the first little bits of life where 692 00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:12,240 Speaker 1: you can you need a chain of protein to form 693 00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,800 Speaker 1: DNA that can build an organism, even a teeny tiny 694 00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:22,480 Speaker 1: unicellular organism needs DNA structure. Even viruses, things that we 695 00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,480 Speaker 1: hardly call life at all, needs uh sort of DNA 696 00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,680 Speaker 1: structure in order to replicate itself. So that seems to 697 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,759 Speaker 1: be the key element. And for that to happen, you 698 00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:36,839 Speaker 1: need these protein chains that are not strong, they're kind 699 00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:40,000 Speaker 1: of weakly bonded. And so if you have, you know, 700 00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:44,520 Speaker 1: some rampant molecules zooming around and say a primordial soup, 701 00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:49,120 Speaker 1: they're gonna knock over this delicate protein chain like bowling 702 00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,000 Speaker 1: pins at a bowling alley, and there goes your first 703 00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,960 Speaker 1: attempt at life. And actually, one of the more compelling 704 00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:00,360 Speaker 1: theories I've heard of for why life was able to 705 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,640 Speaker 1: take hold so relatively quickly when you think about just 706 00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:09,680 Speaker 1: the absurd probabilities, is instead of it being a primordial soup, 707 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,680 Speaker 1: it's more of a primordial bak leva where you may 708 00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:18,800 Speaker 1: have these thin sort of sheets of rock and between them, 709 00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:23,279 Speaker 1: these proteins and molecules can kind of get nestled in 710 00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:29,520 Speaker 1: there and start to form these chains without being disturbed. 711 00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,200 Speaker 1: So I could imagine a situation where you have life 712 00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:35,960 Speaker 1: trying to start in different parts of the world and 713 00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,680 Speaker 1: then just getting obliterated by the chaos, and then a 714 00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:43,120 Speaker 1: few places where hey, it's starting to form in these 715 00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,279 Speaker 1: little nooks and crannies of these rocks where it has 716 00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:50,600 Speaker 1: a safe refuge and then manages to reach enough strength 717 00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,840 Speaker 1: that it doesn't immediately get obliterated by other molecules. And 718 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,120 Speaker 1: it's amazing to think about how our little pocketive life 719 00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,759 Speaker 1: won those battles and serve I have. That's crazy chaotic time, 720 00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,680 Speaker 1: and how different life might be on Earth if a 721 00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,480 Speaker 1: different little pocket had survived, if the temperature had been 722 00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,279 Speaker 1: slightly different, or a rocket hit in a slightly different spot, 723 00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:13,759 Speaker 1: we may have had more than one button. So to summarize, 724 00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:16,280 Speaker 1: that means that we think it took about a billion 725 00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,920 Speaker 1: or so years for the basic elements to be in place, 726 00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:24,080 Speaker 1: the carbon, the oxygen, the nitrogen, the rocky planets, the stars, 727 00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,960 Speaker 1: the temperature, and then maybe it took another billion years 728 00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,840 Speaker 1: for things to calm down on that particular planet. That 729 00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:32,480 Speaker 1: means that life might have started in the universe just 730 00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:36,200 Speaker 1: a couple of billion years in. That's something like eleven 731 00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:40,440 Speaker 1: billion years ago. That's billions of years before the Earth 732 00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,400 Speaker 1: even formed, which means that you know, if all this 733 00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,880 Speaker 1: vehiculation is correct. There could be life in the universe 734 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,960 Speaker 1: that's billions and billions and billions of years older than 735 00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,240 Speaker 1: life on Earth, right, because it took ten billion years 736 00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:57,400 Speaker 1: for us to come on the scene. So there's something 737 00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,759 Speaker 1: amazing about the idea of like, not only might we 738 00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:03,760 Speaker 1: not be alone in the universe, but we might never 739 00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,240 Speaker 1: have been alone, like life might have been going about 740 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:11,440 Speaker 1: its business and different select little pockets of luck in 741 00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:14,560 Speaker 1: the universe for all this time. That's right, So let's 742 00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,080 Speaker 1: talk about how life might have formed that's not like 743 00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:20,040 Speaker 1: life as we know it in the universe, and whether 744 00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:22,880 Speaker 1: it might have started in the very very very very 745 00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,760 Speaker 1: early universe, if that was possible. But first, let's take 746 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:42,160 Speaker 1: another break. All right, we're back, and we're marveling at 747 00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:44,680 Speaker 1: how long it took life to get started here on 748 00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,560 Speaker 1: Earth compared to the cosmic sweep of history. Wasn't until 749 00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:52,120 Speaker 1: almost ten billion years into the universe that critters on 750 00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:56,000 Speaker 1: Earth started to squirm and exchange proteins, whereas we've concluded 751 00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,760 Speaker 1: that it might only take a couple of billion years 752 00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:01,839 Speaker 1: for the universe to be hospitable to life as we 753 00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,400 Speaker 1: know it. But of course we're talking about life like 754 00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,160 Speaker 1: we know it was one butt and proteins and DNA 755 00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:09,800 Speaker 1: and RNA and you know, living on a water planet 756 00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:12,959 Speaker 1: and using our kind of biochemistry. That's just the only 757 00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:16,960 Speaker 1: example we've ever seen, to be fair, there are Nigerians 758 00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,360 Speaker 1: on our planet that have more than one. But but 759 00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:24,560 Speaker 1: do you continue, Well, that's a whole other podcast episode. 760 00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:26,160 Speaker 1: But I think that's probably going to be on your 761 00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:30,320 Speaker 1: podcast rather than ours. But I'm looking forward to listening. 762 00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,120 Speaker 1: But it does make you wonder, you know, whether life 763 00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,880 Speaker 1: could exist in other forms, and whether those other forms 764 00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:41,239 Speaker 1: might be conducive to starting even earlier in the universe. 765 00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:44,400 Speaker 1: So I've heard people speculate about building life out of 766 00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:48,320 Speaker 1: other biochemical strategies, you know, using ammonia instead of water, 767 00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:51,920 Speaker 1: using silicon instead of carbon. Do you find those credible, Katie? 768 00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:53,759 Speaker 1: Do you think that was are just science fiction or 769 00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,640 Speaker 1: do you think it might be the way alien life 770 00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,200 Speaker 1: actually works out there in the universe. I mean, I 771 00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:04,400 Speaker 1: think it kind of depends first on how we define life, right, Like, 772 00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:08,879 Speaker 1: that's kind of a tricky question itself. We can't just say, 773 00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,320 Speaker 1: you know, life, because there is currently some debate over 774 00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:15,000 Speaker 1: what we consider to be life, even on Earth. Right So, 775 00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,920 Speaker 1: like a virus. Like we mentioned earlier, a lot of 776 00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:22,359 Speaker 1: people do not consider to be life because they are 777 00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:27,640 Speaker 1: sort of more like these little robots that replicate themselves 778 00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:33,279 Speaker 1: purely through facilitation of other cells, which is very bad 779 00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:36,879 Speaker 1: for us when they try to do that. But then 780 00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:40,839 Speaker 1: you could say, well, okay, but it does reproduce, right, 781 00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:45,480 Speaker 1: and it does consume other material in order to reproduce. 782 00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,720 Speaker 1: Is that not life? And so I think the likelihood 783 00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:52,960 Speaker 1: of their being earlier life and life made out of 784 00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:57,600 Speaker 1: things like silicon and and different types of more unconventional 785 00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:01,200 Speaker 1: molecules depends on what we think, like if we expand 786 00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:04,920 Speaker 1: sort of our understanding of what life is, yeah, and 787 00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:08,080 Speaker 1: going back to our earlier motivation, wondering when there might 788 00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,560 Speaker 1: have been intelligent eyes looking out onto the universe, thinking 789 00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:14,960 Speaker 1: about galaxies and the nature of reality. If you have 790 00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:18,000 Speaker 1: a planet that's got like a single cellular life on it, 791 00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:21,200 Speaker 1: or even just viruses or something, they're not doing any astronomy, 792 00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,960 Speaker 1: they're not doing particle physics, they're not figuring out the 793 00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,200 Speaker 1: secrets of the universe. And so while we paint a 794 00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,200 Speaker 1: picture that the universe might be filled with life even 795 00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,640 Speaker 1: as we know it, that's billions of years old. It's 796 00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:35,160 Speaker 1: also possible that that life is kind of dumb, right 797 00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,600 Speaker 1: like life on Earth started about a billion years after 798 00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,520 Speaker 1: the Earth began, but intelligent life that's pretty recent, and 799 00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:46,520 Speaker 1: that might suggest that it's unusual, that it's uncommon. So 800 00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:48,880 Speaker 1: it might be that there's life everywhere out there and 801 00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:51,399 Speaker 1: then it's been around for billions of years, but it's 802 00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,800 Speaker 1: very rare for them to be intelligent life actually asking 803 00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,920 Speaker 1: questions about the universe. And that's a little sad, you know, 804 00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,960 Speaker 1: to all these creators out there alling along the surface 805 00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,040 Speaker 1: of their planets but nobody looking up, nobody thinking deeply 806 00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,960 Speaker 1: about the nature of their existence. I guess that's kind 807 00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,000 Speaker 1: of sad, But I think it's also you know, when 808 00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:15,200 Speaker 1: you start to have some kind of simple thing, right 809 00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:20,280 Speaker 1: like it all complicated systems start with something really simple. 810 00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:24,640 Speaker 1: And even though it's true that they don't necessarily ever 811 00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:27,600 Speaker 1: create something more complex, there's a lot of luck and 812 00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,319 Speaker 1: a lot of good conditions you need. The existence of 813 00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:34,640 Speaker 1: something simple and dumb often means that eventually you will 814 00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:40,120 Speaker 1: get something complicated and smart. Maybe, And you know, maybe 815 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,800 Speaker 1: it's not so sad. Maybe they're very happy because they're busy. 816 00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:45,520 Speaker 1: You know what they say that the root of all 817 00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:48,600 Speaker 1: suffering is desire, and so maybe those creators are just 818 00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:51,920 Speaker 1: happy being those creators and not thinking deeply about the universe, 819 00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,600 Speaker 1: and maybe there's a lesson there about how to live 820 00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:57,160 Speaker 1: your life. But I like to think about other alternative 821 00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,000 Speaker 1: forms of life, you know, weather for example, you could 822 00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,360 Speaker 1: to have life that forms on the inside of stars, 823 00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:06,520 Speaker 1: whether you know, even without a rocky planet, if you 824 00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:10,319 Speaker 1: could have like patterns in the flow of plasmas that 825 00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:14,120 Speaker 1: are self replicating, right, because it seems like one of 826 00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:19,399 Speaker 1: the defining characteristics of life isn't necessarily the stuff it's 827 00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,040 Speaker 1: made out of, but the fact that the stuff forms 828 00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:27,600 Speaker 1: a pattern that can be replicated and have it increase 829 00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:32,759 Speaker 1: in complexity over time. Right. My understanding of the inside 830 00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:36,240 Speaker 1: of a star is one, it's very hot. I probably 831 00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:40,240 Speaker 1: shouldn't be in there. And two it's just a roiling, 832 00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:46,879 Speaker 1: boiling mess of hot elements being formed and pushed and 833 00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:52,120 Speaker 1: you know, just incomprehensibly hot and chaotic. So how could 834 00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:55,319 Speaker 1: life ever form in such an environment. It would have 835 00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,799 Speaker 1: to be life that's pretty different from life that we 836 00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,040 Speaker 1: imagine it. But we do see some sort of structures 837 00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:04,080 Speaker 1: inside stars, and it's not something we understand very well, 838 00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:06,759 Speaker 1: like even the patterns within our own sun we do 839 00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:10,799 Speaker 1: not understand. But there are these massive currents of convection 840 00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:14,319 Speaker 1: inside the sun, these huge flows of plasma. We know 841 00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:17,120 Speaker 1: they have to exist because they are when generate, for example, 842 00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,160 Speaker 1: the magnetic field of the Sun, which comes because you 843 00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:24,320 Speaker 1: have huge flows of these charge currents. Remember magnetic fields 844 00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:28,160 Speaker 1: come from charge particles in motion, so that definitely happens, 845 00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:30,480 Speaker 1: and you have these big tubes that are controlled by 846 00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,279 Speaker 1: the magnetic field, and so you might imagine in some 847 00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:35,919 Speaker 1: sort of science fiction any way that these currents could 848 00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:39,200 Speaker 1: form and reproduce themselves somehow, but you've got to be 849 00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:42,120 Speaker 1: pretty creative. On a smaller scale, we have actually seen 850 00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:46,480 Speaker 1: particles within a plasma sort of self organized, like if 851 00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:50,120 Speaker 1: you have dust particles inside your plasma, they can sometimes 852 00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,560 Speaker 1: form these like helices that are self organized, and people 853 00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:56,759 Speaker 1: have imagined that you could build more complex structures from them. 854 00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:58,720 Speaker 1: But I think you're right that it's fighting a pretty 855 00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,960 Speaker 1: tough battle. But because there's so much energy that is 856 00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:06,160 Speaker 1: easy to dissociate, to disassemble anything that happens to come together. 857 00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:09,160 Speaker 1: So it's not something that we've really figured out exactly 858 00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:11,600 Speaker 1: even how to ask the question. But I think there's 859 00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:15,280 Speaker 1: an intellectual opening there to imagine how life might exist 860 00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:20,480 Speaker 1: inside stars or in huge flows between stars, even in 861 00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:23,239 Speaker 1: the plasma of the interstellar medium, right, because what we 862 00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:28,359 Speaker 1: talked about with life starting on a chaotic Earth is 863 00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:32,000 Speaker 1: that we potentially had a little refuge. Right, Like the 864 00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:36,000 Speaker 1: primordial soup hypothesis might not really work if the soup 865 00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:40,320 Speaker 1: is too chaotic. But if you have like a primordial pastry, 866 00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:43,719 Speaker 1: a primordial back lava where you have some kind of 867 00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:48,000 Speaker 1: like layers of rock where life can squeeze in and 868 00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,000 Speaker 1: find a little bit of an island of stability, it 869 00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:53,400 Speaker 1: might form. So is there a way for there to 870 00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:57,520 Speaker 1: be a part of a star inside the star in 871 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,279 Speaker 1: this plasma, for there to be a little like refuge 872 00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:05,040 Speaker 1: or island of refuge where there could be some stability 873 00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,440 Speaker 1: inside an unstable environment. It's possible, but it really is 874 00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:11,759 Speaker 1: a lot of speculation, and so it's just something that 875 00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:14,520 Speaker 1: we need to continue thinking about. It's really like an 876 00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:17,200 Speaker 1: intellectual frontier where people are still trying to figure out 877 00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,440 Speaker 1: whether it's possible and whether you could assemble something. But 878 00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,719 Speaker 1: I did really really interesting paper recently thinking about not 879 00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:29,320 Speaker 1: life inside stars, but life even before stars. Like wondering 880 00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,759 Speaker 1: about whether you could use the whole universe as your 881 00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:35,400 Speaker 1: energy source. Remember we said you need some sort of 882 00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:38,399 Speaker 1: energy to keep life warm, right, and so we were 883 00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,960 Speaker 1: thinking about using stars. But the universe actually was quite 884 00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:45,040 Speaker 1: warm in the very beginning, right, The universe was super 885 00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:47,719 Speaker 1: duper hot in the first few moments, but then it 886 00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:51,760 Speaker 1: cooled And now space outside is like three degrees kelvin, 887 00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:55,560 Speaker 1: but it cooled from very very hot to three degrees kelvin. 888 00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:59,279 Speaker 1: That means that at some moment it was around you know, 889 00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:02,479 Speaker 1: three of degrees calvin, which is like you know, room 890 00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:05,400 Speaker 1: temperature for us. So there was a moment when the 891 00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,840 Speaker 1: universe before stars were even formed, when it was just 892 00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:11,799 Speaker 1: like a bunch of big cloud of gas that it 893 00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:15,200 Speaker 1: was about the right temperatures like the room temperature universe. 894 00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:19,759 Speaker 1: And so that's good in terms of the temperature, I 895 00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:22,239 Speaker 1: mean that that sounds nice to me, especially because it's 896 00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:26,800 Speaker 1: cold here right now. But in terms of what the 897 00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:29,440 Speaker 1: building blocks are, like, how would that work out? Right? 898 00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:32,520 Speaker 1: What are we working with in terms of these smallest 899 00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:36,000 Speaker 1: building blocks that could organize into some kind of pattern, 900 00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,480 Speaker 1: It is a real challenge and after. Physicists, however, have 901 00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:42,960 Speaker 1: already labeled this time in the universe around fifteen million 902 00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:45,880 Speaker 1: years after the Big Bang. They call it the habitable 903 00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:49,480 Speaker 1: epic of the universe, just because it's about the right temperature. 904 00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:52,080 Speaker 1: And I think it's funny to sort of imagine yourself 905 00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:55,240 Speaker 1: in that universe, because we think of space is so cold, 906 00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:58,239 Speaker 1: but back then, like space was pretty warm, like the 907 00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:01,560 Speaker 1: whole universe was around own room temperature. But you're right, 908 00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,400 Speaker 1: how could you form life at that time? It's pretty 909 00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,480 Speaker 1: tough because, as we said, basically everything is just clouds 910 00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:10,600 Speaker 1: of gas helium and hydrogen, and so in order to 911 00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:12,720 Speaker 1: get like the heavier elements, you need to make carbon 912 00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:15,920 Speaker 1: and oxygen. They just worn't around. There is a paper though, 913 00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,400 Speaker 1: that suggests that it might be very unlikely, but it 914 00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:22,280 Speaker 1: is possible for those things to happen, for those elements 915 00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:25,440 Speaker 1: to come together, even in those clouds. They did a 916 00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:28,480 Speaker 1: calculation that suggests it's like a one in ten of 917 00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:31,239 Speaker 1: the seventeen chance for these things to just sort of 918 00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:34,200 Speaker 1: like self assemble in these clouds, to get like a 919 00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:38,240 Speaker 1: nucleus of you know, carbon and oxygen and a little blob. 920 00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:43,600 Speaker 1: They're happening and so it could actually be like carbon 921 00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:49,680 Speaker 1: based life just floating in space, in this warm sort 922 00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:52,520 Speaker 1: of space. Do yeah, in this bath, in this like 923 00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:56,839 Speaker 1: universe soup. And I can't emphasize enough how speculative this is. 924 00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,839 Speaker 1: This is not like we think has happened. This is like, 925 00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:03,799 Speaker 1: let's stretch our minds and try to imagine whether it could. 926 00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:07,160 Speaker 1: Let's release as many constraints as possible, and remember that 927 00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:09,919 Speaker 1: the universe is vast and even things that are very 928 00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:13,960 Speaker 1: unlikely could potentially happen. If we're really asking the question 929 00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:16,600 Speaker 1: about the first time life started, then you got to 930 00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:19,919 Speaker 1: really push back and allow for crazy stuff to happen. Now, 931 00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:24,280 Speaker 1: don't back pedal because you said it was this habitable epoch. 932 00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:28,120 Speaker 1: It sounds really nice. I mean, get like some swim 933 00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:30,600 Speaker 1: floaties and an inner tube and jump in there and 934 00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,160 Speaker 1: expect only the best to happen. Yeah, but it was 935 00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:35,279 Speaker 1: a pretty crazy time and there are lots of things 936 00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:38,359 Speaker 1: going on. And so even if somehow you had like 937 00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:40,920 Speaker 1: the formation of these heavy elements in the very very 938 00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,960 Speaker 1: early universe and it was living in this soup and 939 00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:47,080 Speaker 1: somehow life began, it didn't last for very long. Like 940 00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:49,920 Speaker 1: the universe was this temperature for only a couple million 941 00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:52,719 Speaker 1: years because it was still cooling, and so the temperature 942 00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:56,359 Speaker 1: was like dropping right dropping from super crazy hot down 943 00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:58,839 Speaker 1: to very cold as it is today. So it sort 944 00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:02,080 Speaker 1: of passed through this window. And after pass through it, 945 00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:04,960 Speaker 1: you know, then the things would freeze that you couldn't 946 00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,439 Speaker 1: have like liquid water floating out there in the bath 947 00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:10,120 Speaker 1: of space anymore because it would be too cold. So 948 00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:12,080 Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest challenges is just like 949 00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:15,640 Speaker 1: getting it all done within that little window of the 950 00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:19,480 Speaker 1: habitable epic. I guess that's true. But if space is 951 00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:24,040 Speaker 1: big enough, right, and you have this sort of space 952 00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:28,880 Speaker 1: soup in enough area, that does increase the probability, right, 953 00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:31,600 Speaker 1: because even though you don't have as much time, you 954 00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:35,840 Speaker 1: have more stuff to cut, Like you know, you have 955 00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:39,680 Speaker 1: a billion monkeys typing away at Shakespeare. But if you 956 00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:42,600 Speaker 1: have like a trillion monkeys typing away at Shakespeare, you 957 00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:44,839 Speaker 1: can get it done in much less time. And that's 958 00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:47,880 Speaker 1: how you meet your deadlines exactly. So you have to 959 00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:51,520 Speaker 1: sort of imagine a very vast, almost infinite university even 960 00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:54,160 Speaker 1: consider this, and then you have to wonder about how 961 00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:56,719 Speaker 1: long this kind of life could survive. You know, it's 962 00:53:56,920 --> 00:54:00,680 Speaker 1: a very radiation intensive time in the universe, lots of 963 00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:04,120 Speaker 1: photons and X rays and all sorts of stuff banging 964 00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,840 Speaker 1: around that would just tear apart in the delicate structures 965 00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:08,920 Speaker 1: of most kinds of life. But you know, it's a 966 00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:12,560 Speaker 1: fun intellectual exercise, and we do have life on Earth 967 00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:17,520 Speaker 1: that it has some resistance to radiation. Obviously there's a 968 00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:20,160 Speaker 1: limit to it, but things like tarte grades, the little 969 00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:23,440 Speaker 1: water bears that are so cute, those microscopical guys, do 970 00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:29,200 Speaker 1: have some resistance to radiation. So I could imagine, although 971 00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:35,080 Speaker 1: extremely unlikely, maybe you have something that you know, because 972 00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:38,360 Speaker 1: of these selective pressures of having to survive radiation, it 973 00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:43,440 Speaker 1: somehow has some protective measures to prevent itself from being 974 00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:48,040 Speaker 1: just torn apart by little space bullets exactly. And so 975 00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,200 Speaker 1: while I think it's very unlikely this kind of thing 976 00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:52,880 Speaker 1: might have happened, I do think it's really worthwhile to 977 00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:56,359 Speaker 1: push the boundaries of our imagination and wonder how life 978 00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:58,800 Speaker 1: might form, and how it might form differently in different 979 00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:01,920 Speaker 1: parts of the universe, and how long life might have 980 00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:05,240 Speaker 1: been around. Remember, we are late comers to this Earth 981 00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:08,759 Speaker 1: and latecomers to this universe, and so it could be 982 00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:10,640 Speaker 1: that We are not the first ones to the party, 983 00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:13,360 Speaker 1: but we have shown up after all the good snacks 984 00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:17,160 Speaker 1: have been eaten. No, that's the worst thing you've said 985 00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:21,080 Speaker 1: the whole podcast, which just means we gotta make our 986 00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:23,759 Speaker 1: own snacks. Hey, there we go. We gotta take our 987 00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:28,960 Speaker 1: universe stardust and make some rize crispy treats out of it. Exactly. So, 988 00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:31,840 Speaker 1: thank you very much for listening to us speculate about 989 00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:35,520 Speaker 1: the very early universe and casting your mind back across 990 00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:39,040 Speaker 1: this incredible cosmic sweep of history. And thank you Katie 991 00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:41,160 Speaker 1: for coming along on this journey. Thanks for having me 992 00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:43,799 Speaker 1: all right, everyone, thanks for listening. Tune in next time. 993 00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:54,480 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. 994 00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:57,440 Speaker 1: The Universe is a production of my heart Radio. Or 995 00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,439 Speaker 1: more podcast for my heart Radio, visit the i heart 996 00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:04,120 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 997 00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:04,920 Speaker 1: favorite shows.