WEBVTT - Listener Questions #22 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.320 There's a new comment approaching from deep space. Could we 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:13.760 get sick if it's dust gets in our face? 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:19.040 The jewel wasp parasitoid feels around its host brain. How 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.720 did evolution come up with this? It's totally insane. 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:27.240 Scientific theory, model, hypothesis or law. Do these words really 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.040 mean anything or naw? 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.720 Whatever? Questions keep you up at night. Daniel and Kelly's 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:33.800 answers will make it right. 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:38.040 Welcome to another Listener Questions episode on Daniel and Kelly's 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:39.840 Extraordinary Universe. 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:41.680 We've done twenty two of these. 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:55.920 Hello. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.640 I'm Kelly Wiersmith. I study parasites and space, and all 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.160 of these questions today have a bit of biology in them, 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:03.400 so I'm pretty excited about it. 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:06.800 Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'll admit 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:08.840 there's a bit of biology in everything we do. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.800 Oh yeah, but there's not physics in everything we do, 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:12.880 so that's good news. 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.320 Yes, yeah, no, of course there physics is everything. 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:16.920 Yeah. 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:18.560 I guess I should have gone with chemistry, and then 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:20.960 we could have bonded even though we knew we were 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:22.000 wrong exactly. 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.160 Yeah, then we could confirm each other's biases. 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.520 Yep, yep, anyway, I blew it, I'm sor right moving on. 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:28.920 But today we're not here to talk about my biases 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.520 or about your biases. We're here to answer questions from you, 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.600 from people out there wondering how the universe works, trying 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:37.880 to make sense of it and scratching their heads a 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:38.880 little bit, And. 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.000 We try to help you scratch your heads for a 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.800 slightly shorter amount of time. And so if you have 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.040 a question that is keeping you up at night, send 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.960 it to us at questions at Danielankelly dot org. It 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.600 might take a few months for the answers to come 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.320 back to you and go online, but we answer every 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.320 question at least by email, and some of them even 0:01:58.400 --> 0:01:58.720 make it. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.600 On the show because we believe in the value of 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:06.240 human curiosity. I'm interested in particles, Kelly's interested in parasitoids. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.160 But everybody's curious about something. And my favorite thing about 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.880 science is that we're all curious about different things, which 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.120 is why we get to learn about so many different 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.120 amazing things in the universe, even chemistry, and. 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.160 All of the questions that we get I feel like 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.360 are super fascinating and make me think about things in 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.480 different ways. So feel free to help expand our minds 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.239 by getting us to think about a new question. 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.040 That's right, and because this podcast is not just about 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.000 what we're curious about, it's about what everybody's curious about. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.720 So join the conversation. Send us your questions to Questions 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.200 at Daniel and Kelly dot org. 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.600 And our first question today comes from Tim, who lives 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.800 in the greatest of these United States, which is of 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:48.079 course Virginia. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.440 What did we say about confirming our biases today? 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.160 That it's great, That's probably what we said. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.520 All right, let's hear from Tim, who, unfortunately it lives 0:02:58.520 --> 0:02:59.120 in Virginia. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.960 Oh, Daniel and Kelly, it's Tim from Virginia. 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:09.840 I was watching YouTube and watching videos about our newest 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.760 interstellar visitor, Atlas and Omama and. 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:15.760 What was the other one called? 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.000 Not Benue the other one? So anyway, this is Atlas, 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.079 is the third interstellar visitor that we've had in our 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.959 solar system. And they were talking about how it doesn't 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.160 pose a threat to Earth. But I was wondering, if 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.080 it leaves a debris field and its wake, what are 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:40.400 the chances that it has some sort of unknown virus 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.520 or bacteria or like maybe even like their version of 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.240 tartar grades which can survive in space that they just 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.280 deposit in our Solar system. That could possibly if a 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.360 planet goes through its trail, could get scooped up by 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:01.040 a planet and cause problems. Thought it might be a 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.360 fun question for both of you to answer. Thanks for 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:03.840 what you do. 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.000 Bie, Oh, this is a fun question. So not that 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:13.160 long ago you and I talked about umumout no ooh muama. 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:18.880 Recently you and I talked about o muamua and Avi 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.440 lobes hypothesis that it was an interstellar visitor and if 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:24.880 anybody wants more information they can go pull that up. 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.400 Hypothesis is being very generous to Avi. 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:32.720 Yes, yeah, idea while smoking banana peels might be uh. 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.719 Better sensationless nonsense cooked up to sell his book. 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.440 Oh yeah yeah, we are not pulling any punches today. 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.760 And so Daniel remind us what do we know about 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:44.919 these interstellar visitors? 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.160 So most of the comments we see come from inside 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.320 our Solar system. They either come from the Kuiper Belt, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.200 which is a big chunk of rocky, icy stuff out 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.400 there deep in the Solar System, or long period comets 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.520 come even further out from like the Ort Cloud, a 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:07.480 hypothetical never yet observed bunch of icy rocky blobs way 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.560 way way out past Pluto. And so most of the commets, 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:13.520 Haley's comment, and the other stuff that we see come 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.559 from inside our solar system. But you know, our solar 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.599 system is not alone in the galaxy, and every once 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.760 in a while an icy rocky chunk from another solar 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.599 system will drift over and enter our backyard. And until 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.480 this year, we'd only ever seen two of those. Omiamua 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.360 famous because it was the first and sort of surprised everybody. 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.640 We saw it pretty quickly after we turned down a 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.920 telescope capable of finding these things, which is always awesome 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.200 because we didn't know how often we would see these. 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.440 And when you see one immediately you're like, oh, wow, 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:44.880 maybe these aren't so rare. 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.840 Yeah, And I gotta say, one of my favorite facts 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.040 that I've learned while working with you is that the 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.040 ort cloud is a maybe it's a thing that we 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.360 think exists but haven't actually confirmed, and that I think 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.479 was something that you discussed in response to a listener's question. 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.320 And so anyway, love what I'm learning. Keep going. 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.559 So twenty seventeen, we saw O mum it was pretty weird. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.320 It was like a bare object that was either long 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.520 and thin or very flat, and it was rotating weirdly, 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.360 and so the reflections were strange. Lots of speculation about it. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:17.960 In the end, it looks like it was mostly the 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.400 nucleus of a comet that had already lost all of 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.200 its stuff and outgassed a little bit on the way 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.120 out of the Solar System, giving it a little bit 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:29.760 of acceleration. Then in twenty nineteen we saw the second one, Borisov. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.760 This is a bigger object, more like a standard comet, 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.440 had a coma. It was outgassing. Still very cool to 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:39.000 see these things from deep in space. And you know, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.440 this is awesome because, as you say, a lot of 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.400 our knowledge about the rest of the galaxy is hypothetical. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.039 It comes either from just observation or from speculation and 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.080 from models. So to see something come and visit us, 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.160 we get to study in much more detail and learn 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.000 a lot about the rest of the galaxy. And so 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.200 in twenty twenty five we're very excited to see the 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.000 third one, which is called Atlas. 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.160 Well, and you must have been very excited because you 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:07.520 are really into aliens, and oh, Muhamoua was sent by aliens. 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.160 It was an interstellar ship, right, That's what I heard. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.360 You know, there's a lot of really interesting stuff about 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.160 oh muha And it's totally reasonable to ask, like, does 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.080 this look like a natural object or is it weird? 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.680 And could it be artificial? That's totally legitimate, and we 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.800 should be excited and open minded about what we could 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.920 see and all the people out there excited to have 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.320 aliens come visit. I'm definitely near the top of the list, 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:36.840 But we also should be skeptical about it. And those 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.960 claims require a lot of evidence. And there's a lot 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.000 of push by the chair of the Harvard Physics Department 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.080 to call this thing aliens, and he wrote a whole 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.680 book about it, and we did a whole episode about it, 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.840 and there's lots of videos describing in detail how this 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.400 was not an effort sort of primed by scientific integrity unfortunately. 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.520 So we're very sure that oh Muamua is a comet 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.280 and it's and it's interesting and sort of planetary physics 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:04.440 sort of ways, but it's not an alien object. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.400 Okay, got it. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Yeah, 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.480 And so tell me more about the twenty twenty five 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:11.520 Interstellar Visitor. 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.000 Yeah, so this is pretty fresh and new, and it's 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.480 still approaching us right It hasn't reached the closest point 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:19.200 to the Sun that it's going to reach. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:19.360 It. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.760 It's coming into the Solar system still, which is exciting. 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.640 When we found Omuumu was already on its way out 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.840 and moving really fast. So every day it got more 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.640 distant and smaller and harder to image. But this is 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:32.679 coming closer, and so we're getting better and better and 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.199 crisper and crisper photographs of it. So the first images 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.040 we had got of it, you can look these things 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.079 up online. These come from the two meter twin telescope. 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.040 These are ground based telescopes, and they show it like 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.280 a big, fuzzy blob. And from those pictures we couldn't 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.480 really tell what it was or how big it was. 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.440 We could tell it's something around twenty five to forty 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.240 kilometers across, but we didn't know how much of that 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.160 was like the actual thing, and how much of it 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.280 was like a dusty coma or gas being boiled off 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.600 of the surface by the Sun. So those were our 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:05.920 first measurements about it, and we knew where it was 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.040 and how fast it was going, so we could tell 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.560 it was coming from outside the Solar system, but we 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:11.920 didn't yet know what it was. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.960 Is a coma just the like dust and stuff that 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.640 trails behind a comet. 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.000 Yeah, exactly, And most of that comes from the sun, right, 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.360 Solar radiation, the particles, the photons, the electrons, the protons 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.760 that come from the Sun will impact the comet and 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:28.560 boil some of that stuff off, and we'll dig into 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.080 that in a minute. But that's where the comet's tail 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.840 comes from. And the tail should grow as it gets 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.200 closer and closer to the Sun. And so right now 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:38.600 still pretty far from the Sun and the coma sort 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:40.680 of small, but we expect that as it gets closer 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.240 and closer and it heats up and the Sun fries 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.439 it more, it's going to get it longer and longer tail. Yeah. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.400 Can we tell the difference between the junk that's getting 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.480 kicked off because of the Sun and the center of it. 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.160 Is it clear enough to differentiate? 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.280 We can, in fact, And so we have also space 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.760 based imaging. So we have Hubble, we have sphere X, 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.559 which is a deep infrared telescope, and we have James 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:07.199 Webb's based telescope. But before those space telescopes were able 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:08.439 to take a picture of it, there's a lot of 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.400 discussion about what is this thing. It turns out it's 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.559 coming in sort of close to the plane of the ecliptic, 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.360 which is the planet that all the planets are on. 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.400 And so our friend Abvi Lobe made a big deal 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:20.960 about this, and he suggested that this was evidence that 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.520 it was an alien visitor sent intentionally to visit our 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:25.280 solar system. 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:26.760 So he's still on the same kick. 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.280 He is still on the same kick, okay. And he 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.120 saw the fuzz around the object, and he misinterpreted that 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:34.640 to be like motion smears, like if you're taking a 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.400 slow picture of a fast moving object, it will smear, 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.160 because he didn't understand that astronomers already know about that 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.080 effect and build it into their telescopes with tracking to 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.040 avoid motion smearing. So he was arguing that it wasn't 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.079 a comet, that it was a bare object, maybe metallic, 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.440 and the fuzz was from motion smearing. Astronomers told him 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.240 how he was wrong, he mostly ignored them. Again, it's 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.000 not a discussion that's inspired by scientific integrity. He's just 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:00.640 trying to sell his books. And then we've got space 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.320 based telescopes to take a clear picture of it, and 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.920 you can see in those pictures a very bright core 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.760 and a fuzzier coma, so you can tell the difference 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.480 from the coma and from the core, and then SPHEREx 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.079 can do some really cool stuff where they see the 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.280 spectrum of light that comes off of it. So the 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.720 core of it is like two to four kilometers and 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.160 the rest of it is a fuzzy coma. And what's 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:27.920 really fascinating is that that fuzzy coma is mostly carbon dioxide. 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.960 So these things that are from deep space, they have 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.040 rocky cores, but there's a lot of ice on them, 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.520 and there's carbon monoxide ice, carbon dioxide ice, and then 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.520 water ice, and these things evaporate at different temperatures. Carbon 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.960 monoxide evaporates at a pretty low temperature like forty kelvin. 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.760 Doesn't take a lot of solar rays to fry off 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:52.120 all the carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide at about one hundred kelvin, 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.440 and water at hundreds of kelvin. But we don't see 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.000 any carbon monoxide in the coma. So this thing is 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:02.160 probably a combination of CO two carbon dioxide and water, 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.480 and since it's still far out on the Solar System, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.439 it's mostly outgassing the CO two which sublimates on the surface. 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.000 And when it gets closer, we'll probably see some water, 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.080 some water ice turn into steam. 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.200 Is there rock in there too, and that's just not 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:17.880 getting kicked out into the coma. 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.640 Yeah, exactly. Probably there's also rock out there. And you know, 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.400 Avi responds to this and saying he thinks actually the 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.560 thing glows on its own and it's not just reflecting light, 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.920 which astronomers pointed out was just him misreading a plot 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:35.120 in a paper, maybe intentionally, maybe not, who knows. Anyway, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.240 you should mostly ignore all of his nonsense and pay 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.720 attention to the astronomers who actually know what they're talking about. 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:42.920 So it's a fascinating object. We're going to learn something 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.680 about deep space, and you know what things are made 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.120 out of. This thing is probably a chunk of ice 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.920 and rock from somebody else's ort cloud, right, some other 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.920 star has ort clouds, and we snagged a piece of 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.480 it because they lost it. It's going to be really interesting. 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.160 It's not going to come close to the Earth. So 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.000 if you're worried about this thing because it's a bit 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.520 chunk of ice and rockets about the same size as 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.360 the one that ended the dinosaurs. But it's not gonna 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.720 hit the Earth. In fact, when it makes its closest 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.920 approach to the Sun, we're gonna be on the other 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:11.040 side of the Sun. 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:15.360 That's reassuring. I like that, although I'm sure we'll see 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.319 it less well, and that's a bummer, but trade offs. 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.240 All right. So that's the setup. Tim has a really 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.440 fun question. He's wondering, like, what if this thing really 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:25.960 does come from aliens? What if it's like loaded with 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.920 their viruses or alien tartar grades and those things boil 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:31.719 off and they sort of make a path through the 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.280 Solar system and some of them come to Earth. Are 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:35.079 we in danger? 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:37.199 What do you think? 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.240 Awesome question. Yeah, well, we're not gonna pass through any 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.480 sort of dense part of its tail, Like we're gonna 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.319 be on the other side of the Sun when it turns around, 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.679 and it's gonna exit the Solar system. So it's not 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:49.640 like it's gonna leave a long wake that we're gonna 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:53.359 fly right through. But you know, it is leaving particles 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.400 and bits of itself in our solar system, and so 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.120 who knows if this thing actually is from aliens and 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.719 like seeded with all sorts of weird microbes, maybe they 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.240 designed this thing to like explode when it comes close 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.520 to the Sun and spray all of its stuff everywhere 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.760 through the Solar system, in which case some of them 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.880 will come to Earth and could potentially, you know, come 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.840 through the atmosphere and land on the surface and infect 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.320 people's brains and convince them to live in Virginia rather 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.080 than California. I mean, we're talking deep tragedies here. 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.320 Oh give me a break, man, That's where. 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.280 He was going, right. They might even convince them to 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.240 study chemistry. I mean, those aliens, who they're up to 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:30.800 no good. 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.960 I mean that would be a nefarious plot, absolutely so, 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:36.840 But do you think so? Okay, So, when we were 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:38.960 doing our tartar grade episode, which we did a little 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.400 while back, we showed that, yes, tartar grades are like 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.800 resistant to tons of things, but when you expose them 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.920 to the radiation in space, they do kick the dust. Yeah, 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.080 they can't survive that indefinitely, and I would have to 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.600 imagine there's not a lot that could survive in interstellar voyage. 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:56.800 But I guess we can't rule it out. 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:58.680 What do you think it depends? I mean, you could 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.440 survive an interstellar voyage if you're the core of one 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.640 of these objects, right, if you're shielded by a lot 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.960 of ice and rock, then yeah, you could survive the radiation. 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:09.640 You know, whether you could survive being frozen that long 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.640 and your metabolism could restart, you know, I think that's 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.120 a biological question. But I think we've seen that in 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.200 lots of critters here on Earth. So I think it's 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:21.200 plausible for things to be frozen at the core and 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.240 survive the interstellar trip and even the solar wind. But then, 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.840 you know, once it disperses in our solar system, you know, 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.680 then it's vulnerable again. And I think that's the most 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:31.480 dangerous point. 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:33.880 Yeah, when it gets kicked out of the coma or 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:34.840 kicked into the coma. 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.240 Yeah, and less of course they come out in you know, 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.040 tiny little microscopic alien ships, and so they have their 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:42.960 own shielding. I mean, if we're going to speculate here, like, let's. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.040 Go all in, right, let's go lob style. 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.080 Let's pretend we're the chair of the Harvard Physics. 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.560 Department, that would be pretty solid. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.120 Exactly, So Tim, this is a really exciting event. It's 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.840 super fascinating. There's no evidence that it's aliens, like the 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.520 astronomers want to believe that it's aliens, but so far, 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.160 there's nothing that points in that direction. But of course 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:09.760 you don't know. And it could be that it comes 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:11.720 deeper into the Solar system and we learn new stuff, 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.440 in which case we're all very happy to believe that 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.000 it's aliens if the data points that way. And in 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.240 that scenario, it's not going to directly leave a wake 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.800 for us to fly through, but it could disburse stuff 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:24.720 which eventually will come to Earth. I mean, there's a 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.520 lot of cosmic dust that falls to Earth every day, 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.000 so he could contribute to that. We could all be 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:32.520 breathing in bits of an alien package one day. 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.680 Could we have all already breathed in o mua mua bits? 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:37.560 Oh yeah? 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:42.720 Absolutely nice exciting. We are connected through space and time. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:45.920 All right, let's see what Tim thinks of our answer. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:47.880 Is he going to sleep well tonight or not? Let's 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:48.480 find out. 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.720 Hey, Daniel and Kelly, thank you for answering all of 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:52.400 my questions. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.960 I can rest assured now knowing that Earth won't go 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.680 through an alien comments tail and gain a whole bunch 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:00.800 of microbes. 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.400 That will convert us to alien life forms. Keep up 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:03.960 with the good work. 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:25.679 Thank you. All right, we are back when we're answering 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.720 questions from listeners, questions we get every email and also 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.560 questions on our discord. If you love thinking about the 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:34.880 universe and hearing us chat about it, you might want 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.720 to chat with us. We are very active on our discord. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:39.879 If you want to join, it's for everybody who's curious 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.520 about the universe. Go to our website www dot danieland 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.040 Kelly dot org. Well you'll find the link to join 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.280 the discord. So many fun, nice people talking about the 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.080 universe and asking questions. Kelly tell us about this question. 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:54.959 Well, at first, I'd like to just note that we 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.080 also have the best moderators, so you know, another good 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.640 reason to come join us. All right, So Marco from 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:05.080 Discord had this question about parasite manipulation of host behavior. 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.040 And Marco is not just another Kelly sock puppet account. 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.560 I mean, you'll never know, You'll never know. 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.240 Hi, Daniel and Kelly, I have a question about the 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.480 jewel wasp discussed in Ed Young's book An Immense World 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.360 Horrified as an understatement, as is the sentence. I had 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.840 a nightmare about this. In the book, Young describes how 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.800 the jewel wasp feels around for the cockroach brain with 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.560 its stinger, and I keep wondering about the evolutionary mechanisms 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.240 at play here. The wasp doesn't know what a brain is, obviously, 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.520 but how on earth could it have evolved the precision 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:43.400 to accomplish this. I'm well to side This strongly implies 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:45.760 that the wasp has not only absurd command of its 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.399 own body, but the body of the cockroach as well. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.679 There's a ton of evolutionary time to miss the sweet 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.000 spots and the cockroaches back and head and not be successful. 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.240 There's a neat series I've been watching on octopuses, and 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.480 it discusses how these intelligent creed learn everything on their 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.880 own without parental support. Wasps aren't teaching their young where 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.800 to sting, So how does this amazing ability emerge from 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:12.280 this tiny little wasp brain? Just realized I've been listening 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.560 to the podcast long enough to realize the answer is, 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:19.000 we don't know. Thanks for everything, love the show. Can't 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:20.840 wait to hear the answer, all right. 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:22.960 So, first of all, I love that Marco clearly has 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.840 been paying attention and suspects that there's a high probability 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:28.600 the answer is going to be I don't know. 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.439 Good job, Mark, welcome to the forefront of science. 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.359 Everyone great, that's right, And so yes, the answer at 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:38.119 the very end for a lot of these questions is 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.360 going to be we don't know. But let's talk about 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.280 some of the things that we do know first, because 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:44.520 I love this system and I'm going to use it 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:46.320 as an excuse to tell you all about it. 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:48.320