1 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:13,960 Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, have physicists gotten any better at naming their experiments? Well, 2 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:17,639 Speaker 1: let's check in. Here's a paper by the ASK CAP 3 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:22,920 Speaker 1: Rotation Measure and Polarization Investigation Team, also known as ARMPIT. 4 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:26,680 Speaker 1: I don't know what the best part of that is? 5 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:30,640 Speaker 1: Is the ask CAP or the arm PIT. There's also 6 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:37,720 Speaker 1: the background Imaging of Cosmic extra galactric Polarization or bicep alright, 7 00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:42,280 Speaker 1: a mothly acronym. Well, if you're not into the aggressive ones, 8 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:46,720 Speaker 1: then you won't like the balloon born Large Aperture submillimeter 9 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:50,880 Speaker 1: telescope or last. Oh nice, although technically that one should 10 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:55,840 Speaker 1: be blast balloon born. Guest need more? You know, positive, 11 00:00:55,960 --> 00:00:59,200 Speaker 1: upbeat science names. Well, then, what do you think of 12 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:04,920 Speaker 1: the project called Super Huge Interferometric Telescope or s H 13 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:10,080 Speaker 1: I T It sounds like a crappy title. What is it? 14 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:28,240 Speaker 1: Study dark Matter? I am Pammy, cartoonist and the creator 15 00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:31,839 Speaker 1: of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist 16 00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:34,920 Speaker 1: and a professor at U c Irvine, and I'm definitely 17 00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:37,560 Speaker 1: not an astronomer. Why not, Daniel not a fan of 18 00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:39,679 Speaker 1: the stars. I love the stars and I love the 19 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:42,240 Speaker 1: mysteries of the universe. And I am a professor in 20 00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:46,000 Speaker 1: the physics and astronomy department, so I sometimes get emails 21 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:47,960 Speaker 1: that address me as an astronomer, and I wonder what 22 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:51,440 Speaker 1: the real astronomers in my department would think about that. Well, 23 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:54,440 Speaker 1: it's an interesting distinction, right, It's called physics and astronomy. 24 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:57,040 Speaker 1: It's astronomy, not part of physics. You have hit on 25 00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:01,520 Speaker 1: an existential question for astronomers that see them struggling with 26 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:05,040 Speaker 1: every single day. Really they don't know, Wow, they don't 27 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:08,800 Speaker 1: consider themselves physicists. I hesitate to speak for the astronomers 28 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:10,679 Speaker 1: out there, but I definitely know that they feel like 29 00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:13,440 Speaker 1: a different community. You know. It's a different set of skills, 30 00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:16,720 Speaker 1: a different set of questions, a different set of ideas, 31 00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:19,840 Speaker 1: and also like a different set of classes that astronomy 32 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,280 Speaker 1: students and physics students take. Interesting, but fundamentally, you were 33 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:26,160 Speaker 1: both trying to study how things work out there in 34 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:28,600 Speaker 1: the universe, right, Yeah, But I guess all scientists are 35 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:31,720 Speaker 1: right from that point of view, chemists are physicists, biologists 36 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:38,320 Speaker 1: or physicists, but our physicists chemists only physical chemists. Welcome 37 00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:40,720 Speaker 1: to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explain the Universe a 38 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:44,040 Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio in which we believe everybody's 39 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:47,040 Speaker 1: a physicist, even the chemists and the biologists and maybe 40 00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:50,639 Speaker 1: even the sociologists, because we all want to understand how 41 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:53,720 Speaker 1: the universe works. We want to apply our tools, the 42 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:55,720 Speaker 1: eyeballs that are in our head and the eyeballs that 43 00:02:55,760 --> 00:02:58,799 Speaker 1: we can build, to answer the deepest questions about the 44 00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:02,240 Speaker 1: nature of the universe. What is out there on those 45 00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:05,760 Speaker 1: other planets, surrounding those other weird stars, in those other 46 00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:08,640 Speaker 1: swirling galaxies, and what can it tell us about the 47 00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:11,200 Speaker 1: nature of the universe we live in, where it came from, 48 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:13,720 Speaker 1: and how it will all end. Yeah, it is a 49 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:17,480 Speaker 1: swirly universe full of amazing facts and incredible objects out 50 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:19,880 Speaker 1: there doing incredible things that we just want to know 51 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:22,560 Speaker 1: more about. Every time we look at into the universe, 52 00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:25,800 Speaker 1: we discover something new and weird, because the universe is 53 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:29,120 Speaker 1: stranger than fiction. When you think you understood something and 54 00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:31,679 Speaker 1: you point your telescope about it justice sort of double check, 55 00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:35,840 Speaker 1: you find something bizarre, like the Fermi bubbles or astrophysical jets, 56 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:39,240 Speaker 1: or neutron stars or pulsars, or any other sort of 57 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:42,200 Speaker 1: weird surprise that nature has in store. For us. Yeah, 58 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:45,000 Speaker 1: it does all sound like basketball teams. Dan, is there 59 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:48,840 Speaker 1: like an intramural physics department league? That's right. You've gotta 60 00:03:48,840 --> 00:03:52,800 Speaker 1: be able to dunk to get on the astrophysical Jets team. Know, 61 00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:54,440 Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of dunking going on in 62 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:58,840 Speaker 1: the physics league. I gotta be honest, only donuts on coffee. Yeah, 63 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:01,640 Speaker 1: more sort of like Twitter dunking than actual physics dounking. 64 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:03,400 Speaker 1: But that's right. We all want to know. We're all 65 00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:06,880 Speaker 1: scientists in a way. Everyone has curiosity and questions about 66 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:09,480 Speaker 1: the universe, and just asking the questions sort of kind 67 00:04:09,480 --> 00:04:12,040 Speaker 1: of qualifies you as a scientist, doesn't it. Yeah, everybody 68 00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 1: out there is doing science. If you're asking questions about 69 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:18,040 Speaker 1: the universe, remember that science is not some weird institution 70 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:20,479 Speaker 1: in a tall building somewhere. It's just a bunch of 71 00:04:20,480 --> 00:04:24,000 Speaker 1: people asking questions about how the universe works and deciding 72 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:28,080 Speaker 1: to dedicate their lives to answering one particular question about 73 00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:31,040 Speaker 1: the universe. So if you have a question that's burning 74 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:33,680 Speaker 1: deep inside you about the way the universe works, then 75 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:38,440 Speaker 1: maybe you can help push forward the envelope of human knowledge. Yeah, maybe, 76 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:41,960 Speaker 1: like maybe your department should just be called the science department, right, 77 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:45,440 Speaker 1: or I guess you're all, you know, a science part 78 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:47,479 Speaker 1: of being humans, So maybe you should just be the 79 00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:51,320 Speaker 1: human Department. The department that sounds like a John Grisham 80 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:55,560 Speaker 1: novel about science department gone bad, Daniel, you could be 81 00:04:55,560 --> 00:04:58,480 Speaker 1: the John Grisham of physics. You could write thriller novels 82 00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:03,120 Speaker 1: about his conspiracies. We don't tenure anyone, We just take 83 00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:07,440 Speaker 1: ten years to chew them up. There you go, that's 84 00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:12,160 Speaker 1: the tagline for the for your debut, Noveum. That's right, Netflix, 85 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:14,360 Speaker 1: right to me? Please we joke. But that's a little 86 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:16,560 Speaker 1: bit the history of science, right. It all started out 87 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:19,719 Speaker 1: as philosophy, and then when a question becomes sort of 88 00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:22,520 Speaker 1: well enough formed for people to do, experimented buds off 89 00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:25,400 Speaker 1: into its own area of science, and then it splits 90 00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:28,159 Speaker 1: further and further into sub areas. And joke with my 91 00:05:28,200 --> 00:05:30,279 Speaker 1: wife a lot, because while the physics department is the 92 00:05:30,279 --> 00:05:33,279 Speaker 1: biggest department on our campus and on many campuses, that's 93 00:05:33,279 --> 00:05:36,920 Speaker 1: only because they're like nine different biology departments. So all 94 00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:39,520 Speaker 1: in all, these like ten times as many biologists as 95 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:42,640 Speaker 1: physicists on campus. If only they knew you could put 96 00:05:42,680 --> 00:05:45,839 Speaker 1: this all the names in one department title, you know, 97 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:49,599 Speaker 1: like physics and astronomy. Yeah, exactly. Or I guess you know, 98 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:51,919 Speaker 1: we're all part of the universe, so really should just 99 00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:56,680 Speaker 1: be the universe department, or maybe like the university. Is 100 00:05:56,680 --> 00:05:58,919 Speaker 1: that where that name comes from? I have no idea 101 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:02,080 Speaker 1: actually where the word university comes from. May it's an acronym. 102 00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:14,680 Speaker 1: It stands for a university hit internally versus I ran 103 00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:18,800 Speaker 1: out a steam hapway through. Yeah, it's train is resources, research, 104 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:25,320 Speaker 1: science and engineering. Damn, we almost got there. We almost 105 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:27,480 Speaker 1: got there. But it is a pretty wonderful universe, full 106 00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:30,560 Speaker 1: of things to think about and to wonder about, including 107 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:33,440 Speaker 1: all of the amazing light and information that's out there 108 00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:36,279 Speaker 1: for us to see. Exactly. While so much of the 109 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:39,440 Speaker 1: universe is incredible and beautiful just in the visible light 110 00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:41,680 Speaker 1: that our eyes can see, we also know that the 111 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:44,919 Speaker 1: universe looks quite different in other kinds of light, in 112 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:47,960 Speaker 1: light where the wavelengths are too long for our eyes 113 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,760 Speaker 1: to see, radio and infrared, and also in very high 114 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:55,160 Speaker 1: energy photons that are above our visible spectrum, in the 115 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:58,320 Speaker 1: ultra violet and deep into the X ray. Yeah, because 116 00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:00,440 Speaker 1: humans have a sort of a very limited view of 117 00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:02,360 Speaker 1: what we can see out there with light, and it's 118 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:04,680 Speaker 1: almost like the universe isn't just there for us. It's 119 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:06,840 Speaker 1: doing all kinds of things in other parts of the 120 00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:09,760 Speaker 1: light spectrum, just the same way your doctor can see 121 00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:13,200 Speaker 1: very different things about your body using X rays which 122 00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:16,440 Speaker 1: passed through all the soft tissue and reveal the location 123 00:07:16,520 --> 00:07:19,200 Speaker 1: of the bones that they came using visible light just 124 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:22,840 Speaker 1: by looking on the outside. Astronomers can also X ray 125 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:26,200 Speaker 1: the universe by looking at the X ray photons that 126 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:28,840 Speaker 1: arrive here on Earth. Yeah, do they have special like 127 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:31,760 Speaker 1: X ray glasses how you can order from the back 128 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:33,840 Speaker 1: of comic books. You want to see through the close 129 00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:38,520 Speaker 1: of astronomers. Is that what's going on? Yeah, you woul't 130 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:41,920 Speaker 1: like what you see. Probably not all those donuts, not 131 00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:44,640 Speaker 1: a lot of biceps. But we do have very special 132 00:07:44,840 --> 00:07:48,240 Speaker 1: X ray eyeballs that we have built. Since our eyeballs 133 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:50,920 Speaker 1: can't see X ray light, we had to develop special 134 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:54,920 Speaker 1: technology to focus, to shape, to detect these X ray 135 00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:57,960 Speaker 1: photons and to use them to answer deep questions about 136 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:00,640 Speaker 1: what's out there in the universe. You make it sound 137 00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:04,200 Speaker 1: like astronomers have like special implants in their eyeballs that 138 00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:07,200 Speaker 1: give them x ray vision. That's the future man, right. 139 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:10,160 Speaker 1: Just Step one is build a big device that weighs 140 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:12,560 Speaker 1: like a ton and sits outside your body, and eventually 141 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:15,320 Speaker 1: you miniaturize it and implant it right in the brain. Well, 142 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:17,960 Speaker 1: step wants to get your own department, and then you 143 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:19,800 Speaker 1: can order that kind of stuff. That's the goal. I 144 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:23,520 Speaker 1: just want the department of Daniel. There you go, and 145 00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:27,720 Speaker 1: your subject matter is just whatever I want. Maybe actually 146 00:08:27,760 --> 00:08:29,200 Speaker 1: the rest of the department wants me to have my 147 00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:31,200 Speaker 1: own department. I'm gonna get kicked out. You could be 148 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:33,800 Speaker 1: the chair of your own department. You have just a 149 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:36,880 Speaker 1: chair and be the chair. There should be some adage 150 00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:39,120 Speaker 1: like he who has himself his department chair has a 151 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:42,040 Speaker 1: fool for a faculty member. But anyways, there is a 152 00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:44,840 Speaker 1: lot of incredible stuff happening out there in the universe 153 00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:47,439 Speaker 1: in the X ray spectrum. It's not just good for 154 00:08:47,559 --> 00:08:50,280 Speaker 1: looking at your bones or your teeth. Uh. There are 155 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:54,480 Speaker 1: also incredible things happening in stars and neutron stars and 156 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:57,040 Speaker 1: pulsars out there, and even black holes that we could 157 00:08:57,120 --> 00:08:59,840 Speaker 1: learn if we can see better in this part of 158 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:03,280 Speaker 1: the spectrum. Because remember that different parts of the universe 159 00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:06,680 Speaker 1: are at different temperatures, and that something's temperature determined the 160 00:09:06,800 --> 00:09:09,559 Speaker 1: light it emits. Our Sun emits light in the visible 161 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:13,960 Speaker 1: spectrum because its surface is around five thousand kelvin, and 162 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:17,319 Speaker 1: the Earth emits light in the infrared because it is 163 00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:20,400 Speaker 1: much much cooler. And you emit light in the infrared 164 00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:23,440 Speaker 1: because you are also cooler than the Sun but hotter 165 00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:26,200 Speaker 1: than the Earth. And things out there that are super 166 00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:29,880 Speaker 1: duper hot, like the surface of neutron stars or jets 167 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:33,319 Speaker 1: near black holes, they only emit in the X ray. 168 00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:35,040 Speaker 1: So if you look at some corner of the universe, 169 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:37,200 Speaker 1: it might seem dark until you turn on your X 170 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:39,640 Speaker 1: ray eyeballs and then all of a sudden, it's glowing 171 00:09:39,880 --> 00:09:42,480 Speaker 1: very brightly. Yeah. But I think what's also cool is that, 172 00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:45,120 Speaker 1: you know, like our Sun emits both light in the 173 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:47,719 Speaker 1: visible spectrum, but also it emits X rays right like 174 00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,679 Speaker 1: you can look up pictures of X ray what the 175 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:53,200 Speaker 1: Sun looks like with X ray glasses. Yeah, the Sun 176 00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:56,079 Speaker 1: emits all kinds of radiation that our eye can't see, 177 00:09:56,520 --> 00:09:59,160 Speaker 1: from infrared light all the way up to X rays 178 00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:01,720 Speaker 1: and even in articles. We talked recently about how you 179 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:04,120 Speaker 1: could see the Sun in new trinos if you had 180 00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:07,240 Speaker 1: new trino glasses. So while it's true that the Sun 181 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:09,600 Speaker 1: peaks in the visible spectrum that's where a lot of 182 00:10:09,600 --> 00:10:12,959 Speaker 1: its light is emitted, it's not exclusive to the visible spectrum. 183 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:15,200 Speaker 1: It also does produce some X rays and it tells 184 00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:17,080 Speaker 1: a different story. If you look at a picture of 185 00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:20,240 Speaker 1: the Sun in infrared or visible or X ray, you 186 00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:22,680 Speaker 1: see sort of different parts of the Sun. Different things 187 00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:25,080 Speaker 1: are going on. Yeah, And so if the more we 188 00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:27,440 Speaker 1: can see in other parts of the light spectrum, the 189 00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:30,160 Speaker 1: more we can learn about the universe. And so humans 190 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:33,720 Speaker 1: have been building better and better X ray telescopes, and 191 00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:36,600 Speaker 1: as part of our mission to be nicer to astronomers, 192 00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:39,280 Speaker 1: we let them give them really silly names like the 193 00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:42,760 Speaker 1: nicer telescope and I C E R. Yeah. So to 194 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:50,160 Speaker 1: the end, the program will be tagging the question what 195 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:54,360 Speaker 1: does the nicer telescope study? Now, Daniel, isn't the answer obvious? 196 00:10:54,400 --> 00:10:57,960 Speaker 1: Doesn't it study things that the less nice telescopes can study. 197 00:10:58,040 --> 00:11:01,040 Speaker 1: There's a huge rivalry and astronomy between the nicer telescope 198 00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:04,280 Speaker 1: and the meaner telescope to see which is better for 199 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:08,320 Speaker 1: learning about the universe. But then there's the third rivalry 200 00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:11,640 Speaker 1: there with the naughty astronomers. Are you nice, naughty or 201 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:15,920 Speaker 1: net or nasty or mean? You said mean, right, meter 202 00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:19,360 Speaker 1: telescope exactly. We know who's getting the Christmas presents from Santa, 203 00:11:19,640 --> 00:11:23,440 Speaker 1: but who's getting the goods about the universe. No, there's 204 00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:26,040 Speaker 1: nothing nice or mean about the Nicer Telescope. It's just 205 00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:31,319 Speaker 1: a ridiculous acronym. It stands for neutron Star Interior Composition 206 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:35,680 Speaker 1: explore Er. They pulled that are at the from the 207 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:38,000 Speaker 1: end of Explorer to make it nicer. Why not just 208 00:11:38,040 --> 00:11:40,680 Speaker 1: call it the nice Telescope? Why did they have to 209 00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:43,200 Speaker 1: pull up the R from me from the end? I 210 00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:45,600 Speaker 1: have no idea. The nice Telescope sounds pretty good, right, 211 00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:47,360 Speaker 1: but I guess they wanted if you need to win 212 00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,360 Speaker 1: a grand proposal these days, you know, not just nice nicer. Oh. 213 00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:53,560 Speaker 1: I see, it's like two point Oh, it's like nice 214 00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:57,560 Speaker 1: two point oh, next generation of nice Telescope. I also 215 00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:00,160 Speaker 1: like how they skipped the star. They're just like, it's 216 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:02,360 Speaker 1: just not include star in our acronym. I mean, it 217 00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:05,920 Speaker 1: really should be like the Ciser. Now I see why 218 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:07,960 Speaker 1: they skipped the star. Well, I guess they want to 219 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:09,440 Speaker 1: leave room so that the next one could be the 220 00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:12,920 Speaker 1: nicest telescope. Then where do they go from there? You know, 221 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:16,800 Speaker 1: double nice, double nicest, uber nice to go for the 222 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:20,240 Speaker 1: Mother Teresa telescope. I guess they haven't named themselves on 223 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:22,720 Speaker 1: corner of the way the ground based telescopes have. You know, 224 00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:27,280 Speaker 1: they've got an extremely large, ultra large, absurdly large telescope. 225 00:12:27,559 --> 00:12:30,200 Speaker 1: Is that for real? Is there an absurdely large telescope? 226 00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:33,559 Speaker 1: Official name? No, I'm joking. The actual title of it 227 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:37,400 Speaker 1: is called the overwhelmingly Large Telescope. And that's a real title, 228 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:42,800 Speaker 1: of a regular real title. No, that is overwhelmingly crazy. 229 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:45,080 Speaker 1: The biggest telescope that's actually gonna be bilt is called 230 00:12:45,080 --> 00:12:49,080 Speaker 1: extremely large. Overwhelmingly large was a little overwhelmingly large, and 231 00:12:49,080 --> 00:12:54,360 Speaker 1: so it wasn't actually funded. It was overwhelmingly rejected. I 232 00:12:54,440 --> 00:12:57,040 Speaker 1: was overwhelmingly excited about it. But we could learn a 233 00:12:57,120 --> 00:13:00,400 Speaker 1: huge amount about the universe. But anyway, they were under welmed. 234 00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:05,679 Speaker 1: It's certainly underfunded. But this is a new telescope, sort 235 00:13:05,679 --> 00:13:08,680 Speaker 1: of relatively new in the last couple of years that's 236 00:13:08,679 --> 00:13:10,800 Speaker 1: out there studying the X rays that are coming to 237 00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:12,839 Speaker 1: us from other parts of the universe. So we can 238 00:13:12,840 --> 00:13:15,679 Speaker 1: study amazing things and we were wondering how many people 239 00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:19,040 Speaker 1: had heard of this telescope and what it's studying. So 240 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:21,200 Speaker 1: Daniel went out there into the wilds of the internet 241 00:13:21,480 --> 00:13:24,000 Speaker 1: to ask people the question, what do you think the 242 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:27,959 Speaker 1: Nicer Telescope studies? And I'm continuously indebted to those of 243 00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:30,600 Speaker 1: you who are willing to volunteer to answer these questions 244 00:13:30,679 --> 00:13:33,120 Speaker 1: and give us a sense for what people know and 245 00:13:33,160 --> 00:13:35,920 Speaker 1: what they are curious about. If you'd like to participate, 246 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:38,440 Speaker 1: please write to us two questions at Daniel and Jore 247 00:13:38,679 --> 00:13:41,920 Speaker 1: dot com. Everybody's welcome. Here's what people had to say 248 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:47,880 Speaker 1: my guests on what Nicer Telescope Study stands for or 249 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:53,720 Speaker 1: the acronym nicer is Nebula interstellar clinical EFORK research where 250 00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:57,600 Speaker 1: I think we study the actual beauty of nebulas through 251 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:02,640 Speaker 1: a telescope and it's a fact on psychedelic trips, clothing patterns, 252 00:14:02,679 --> 00:14:09,560 Speaker 1: and obsession among humans. Well, this is um my favorite subject. 253 00:14:10,679 --> 00:14:18,040 Speaker 1: No turn stars, so nice will study no tron stars. 254 00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:21,960 Speaker 1: This is what I have until now, not know how 255 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:25,840 Speaker 1: it will work and when it will be on, but 256 00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:30,440 Speaker 1: can wait to find out more. I have no idea 257 00:14:30,560 --> 00:14:36,160 Speaker 1: the Nicer Telescope studies how nice things are or does 258 00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:40,560 Speaker 1: it study ice like the end stands for something I 259 00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:42,920 Speaker 1: don't know, and then ice like does it? Is it 260 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:47,360 Speaker 1: some telescope that's going to find more water on Mars 261 00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:52,120 Speaker 1: or other moons of the Solar System or exoplanets or 262 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:55,680 Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I'll go with that. The nicer 263 00:14:56,160 --> 00:15:02,400 Speaker 1: telescope studies ice on other select soul bodies. Nicer, Well, 264 00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:05,400 Speaker 1: that's gonna be some acronym that's good for funding. So 265 00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:11,920 Speaker 1: how about nearly impossibly cool electromagnetic radiation? I have no idea. 266 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:15,720 Speaker 1: I'm not going to make up some gas of the acronym. No, 267 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:18,600 Speaker 1: I've never heard of it. All right, I'm surprised nobody 268 00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:20,800 Speaker 1: said nice things. I like the person who said it 269 00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:24,920 Speaker 1: studies how nice things are? You can measure the niceness 270 00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:28,600 Speaker 1: of astrophysical objects like, oh, that black hole looks so nice? 271 00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:30,960 Speaker 1: Can you measure that? Are their physical units for that? 272 00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:36,520 Speaker 1: For nicety it's measured in oz. But it is a 273 00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:39,520 Speaker 1: sort of an interesting telescope to talk about, and lots 274 00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:42,640 Speaker 1: of fascinating exploration that it's doing. And so Daniel, maybe 275 00:15:42,640 --> 00:15:45,440 Speaker 1: step us through this again. What is nicer stand for? 276 00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:51,160 Speaker 1: So nicer stands for again? Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, 277 00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:53,520 Speaker 1: which tells you already a little bit about its mission. 278 00:15:53,720 --> 00:15:57,880 Speaker 1: It's designed to understand the interior of Neutron Star. We 279 00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:00,120 Speaker 1: call this thing a telescope, but if you saw to 280 00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:02,960 Speaker 1: this thing, you wouldn't think that's a telescope, right. I 281 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:04,400 Speaker 1: have a picture of here in front of me, and 282 00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:08,000 Speaker 1: it looks like a refrigerator, basically like a box, like 283 00:16:08,040 --> 00:16:11,440 Speaker 1: a refrigerator box. It looks more like a particle physics 284 00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:13,680 Speaker 1: detector because it kind of is. It's it's right on 285 00:16:13,720 --> 00:16:16,720 Speaker 1: the boundary between the kind of devices that astronomers built, 286 00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:20,160 Speaker 1: like classical telescopes, and those devices that particle physicists build, 287 00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:22,880 Speaker 1: which are basically always look like the board ship. Yeah, 288 00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:24,760 Speaker 1: and this one is kind of It looks like a cube, 289 00:16:25,040 --> 00:16:27,320 Speaker 1: and it has a frame and it's got some like 290 00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:29,880 Speaker 1: a grid on one side, so it does sort of 291 00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:32,000 Speaker 1: look like an air conditioning unit that you would see 292 00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:34,440 Speaker 1: sticking out of a window. It does look like an 293 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:37,200 Speaker 1: air conditioning unit. And it's basically just a box with 294 00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:39,280 Speaker 1: a bunch of tubes in it. And the reason it's 295 00:16:39,280 --> 00:16:41,760 Speaker 1: so different from the kind of telescope you imagine when 296 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:43,920 Speaker 1: you think about Hubble or when you go to your 297 00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:47,520 Speaker 1: astronomy night at your nearby university. Is because X rays 298 00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:49,960 Speaker 1: are very very different from visible light in how they 299 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:52,520 Speaker 1: interact with matter, So you need a very different kind 300 00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:55,200 Speaker 1: of system to like gather the light and to bend 301 00:16:55,240 --> 00:16:57,800 Speaker 1: it and to focus it. Because X rays mostly just 302 00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:00,600 Speaker 1: go through stuff like X rays would go right through 303 00:17:00,680 --> 00:17:03,280 Speaker 1: hubble nicely, So even if you had a lens, the 304 00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:05,119 Speaker 1: X rays, which just goes through the glass, that they 305 00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,840 Speaker 1: wouldn't ben necessarily. That's right. X rays, when it hid 306 00:17:07,840 --> 00:17:10,040 Speaker 1: an object sort of head on that way the way 307 00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:12,480 Speaker 1: you might hit a lens, they would just penetrate through 308 00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:16,119 Speaker 1: because they have very high frequency. And remember that while 309 00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:19,440 Speaker 1: air and glass seemed transparent to us in the visible light, 310 00:17:19,640 --> 00:17:23,520 Speaker 1: different things are transparent or opaque to X rays. And 311 00:17:23,600 --> 00:17:26,800 Speaker 1: so while your body is mostly transparent to X rays, 312 00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:28,119 Speaker 1: which is why you can use it to take a 313 00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:31,800 Speaker 1: picture of your insides, the air is mostly opaque to 314 00:17:32,040 --> 00:17:35,399 Speaker 1: X rays. Like our atmosphere blocks almost all X rays, 315 00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:37,720 Speaker 1: which is why all the X ray telescopes have to 316 00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:40,800 Speaker 1: be like on balloons or on or in space. That's 317 00:17:40,800 --> 00:17:43,879 Speaker 1: why this one is attached to the International Space Station, 318 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:46,960 Speaker 1: and so you can't use typical optics to gather and 319 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:50,040 Speaker 1: focus X rays for that reason. Interesting, but can it 320 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:53,160 Speaker 1: focus at all or is it are there any moving 321 00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:54,800 Speaker 1: parts to it or is it just a box with 322 00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:58,560 Speaker 1: little sensors in it. It's mostly a box with collimating sensors. 323 00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:01,120 Speaker 1: So you have these tubes and the X ray hits 324 00:18:01,119 --> 00:18:02,720 Speaker 1: one of the tubes, and at the end of the 325 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:04,960 Speaker 1: tube is a little detector that tells you I got 326 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:08,520 Speaker 1: an X ray. And the idea is that these are collimators, 327 00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:10,320 Speaker 1: and so you can sort of point this thing in 328 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:12,919 Speaker 1: one direction and that limits the focus, so you're not 329 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:15,760 Speaker 1: just getting X rays from the whole universe onto the 330 00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:18,320 Speaker 1: back plane, which is where your detectors are. You have, 331 00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:20,400 Speaker 1: like you know, a bunch of tubes, so you can 332 00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:22,800 Speaker 1: only look sort of in one direction. So that's one 333 00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:26,080 Speaker 1: aspect of these tubes there, collimators. They restrict your field 334 00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:29,200 Speaker 1: of view, so you know what you're looking at. They're 335 00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:31,720 Speaker 1: literally sort of like looking through a tube kind of, 336 00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:33,800 Speaker 1: you know, like a cardboard tube. If you look through it, 337 00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:36,280 Speaker 1: it limits you to only look at one thing in 338 00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:38,280 Speaker 1: front of you. Yeah, and that's the way your eye 339 00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:40,679 Speaker 1: works also, right, The reason that our eyes are in 340 00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:43,840 Speaker 1: set inside our heads and behind a little hole, so 341 00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:45,920 Speaker 1: you can tell sort of where the light came from 342 00:18:46,119 --> 00:18:48,200 Speaker 1: based on where it hits the back of your eye, 343 00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:50,680 Speaker 1: rather than just having light sensitive cells on the surface 344 00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:52,600 Speaker 1: where you can just tell that there is light or 345 00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:55,439 Speaker 1: there isn't light. And so by having these tubes in 346 00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:57,880 Speaker 1: front of your X ray detectors, you can tell when 347 00:18:57,880 --> 00:18:59,399 Speaker 1: the X ray hits detector at the back of the 348 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:01,840 Speaker 1: tube where it came from. And it's a little bit 349 00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:04,160 Speaker 1: better than that because the tubes also do a very 350 00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,800 Speaker 1: small amount of focusing. What do you mean, Well, it's 351 00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:08,800 Speaker 1: hard to focus X rays when they hit straight on, 352 00:19:08,920 --> 00:19:12,080 Speaker 1: but you can do like grazing focusing. If an X 353 00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:15,480 Speaker 1: ray comes in at a very high angle to some surfaces, 354 00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:18,159 Speaker 1: to some kinds of materials, they will bounce off at 355 00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:21,240 Speaker 1: a slightly different angle. So they have these really weird 356 00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:23,520 Speaker 1: kind of they call them lenses, but they're nothing like 357 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:26,320 Speaker 1: what you would recognize that These very special shapes are 358 00:19:26,359 --> 00:19:30,280 Speaker 1: called paraboloids and hyperboloids and their designs. So the X 359 00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:32,560 Speaker 1: ray comes in at a very high angle and then 360 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:36,520 Speaker 1: gets bent very slightly towards your detector, so it's sort 361 00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:38,919 Speaker 1: of like the tube is larger on one side and 362 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:41,080 Speaker 1: smaller on the other, and it just sort of like 363 00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:44,160 Speaker 1: tapers a little bit to gather the X rays down 364 00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:47,399 Speaker 1: to the bottom. So it does have like a focusing lens. 365 00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:49,480 Speaker 1: It's just not made out of glass. It's not made 366 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:52,359 Speaker 1: out of glass. This thing is made out of twenty 367 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:56,360 Speaker 1: four concentric shells of aluminum that are coated in gold, 368 00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:58,840 Speaker 1: and the gold has the right properties to sort of 369 00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:01,840 Speaker 1: change the angle the X rays just a little bit. Remember, 370 00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:04,679 Speaker 1: these are very very high energy photons, so it's very 371 00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:07,919 Speaker 1: hard to bend them at all. Sounds expensive exactly. And 372 00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:10,840 Speaker 1: they have fifty six of these tubes, and on the 373 00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:14,400 Speaker 1: back plane they have silicon detectors that can detect these 374 00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:16,840 Speaker 1: X rays. When X ray smashes into it, it like 375 00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:19,879 Speaker 1: releases an electron that's in the silicon wafer in the 376 00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:22,040 Speaker 1: neck and get picked up by a circuitry. So it's 377 00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:24,800 Speaker 1: basically just like a digital camera on the back plane 378 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:27,840 Speaker 1: that's sensitive to X rays that are focused onto it 379 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:31,800 Speaker 1: by these very gradually tapering tubes. And so these tubes 380 00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:33,600 Speaker 1: are kind of in a box, and this box is 381 00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:36,320 Speaker 1: sort of like attached the to the outside of the 382 00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:38,840 Speaker 1: International Space Station. Yeah, it's got like a little arm 383 00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:40,960 Speaker 1: and it's stuck to the space station and they can 384 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:43,040 Speaker 1: turn it so they can point at different things, like 385 00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:44,920 Speaker 1: a look at this star and look at that star. 386 00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:47,520 Speaker 1: And it's maintained by the astronauts, and it was just 387 00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:50,840 Speaker 1: done recently. It's it's sort of in the last few years, right. Yeah, 388 00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:53,480 Speaker 1: it was installed in two thousand seventeen, So the space 389 00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:55,800 Speaker 1: station has been up there for decades, right, but they 390 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,119 Speaker 1: keep adding to the science mission. It's pretty cool to 391 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:00,520 Speaker 1: have a facility in space where you can all new 392 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,280 Speaker 1: stuff and you can have people maintain it and control it. 393 00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:04,760 Speaker 1: And so this has been up there for the last 394 00:21:04,760 --> 00:21:07,760 Speaker 1: five years and it's done a lot of really interesting 395 00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:10,119 Speaker 1: science already. And it's sort of name with the word 396 00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,199 Speaker 1: neutron star in its name, but it actually sort of 397 00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:16,320 Speaker 1: studies a wider range of X rays, right, what are 398 00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:18,840 Speaker 1: called soft X rays. Yeah, we have a variety of 399 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:21,240 Speaker 1: X ray telescopes. You might have heard of Chandra and 400 00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:24,320 Speaker 1: other space based telescopes that are capable of seeing the 401 00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:27,600 Speaker 1: sky in X rays. But to study neutron stars were 402 00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:30,320 Speaker 1: interested in a very particular kind of X ray, sort 403 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:33,000 Speaker 1: of on the less energetic side of the typical X 404 00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:36,359 Speaker 1: ray spectrum from around two electron volts up to about 405 00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:38,920 Speaker 1: twelve thousand electron volts. And this is what we call 406 00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:41,919 Speaker 1: soft X rays, soft just meaning a little bit lower 407 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:45,840 Speaker 1: energy than like hard X rays m because the hard 408 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:49,320 Speaker 1: X rays have not been approved. But definitely not for 409 00:21:49,359 --> 00:21:52,480 Speaker 1: the Nicer telescope. That's that's for the naughty telescope. That's 410 00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:56,320 Speaker 1: the n C seventeen telescope. Still, hey, that's where the 411 00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:58,720 Speaker 1: art comes from. I mean, that's where they kept R 412 00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:01,040 Speaker 1: at the end. But it does show us some very 413 00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:04,720 Speaker 1: dramatic and incredible things going on in the universe. Yeah, 414 00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:07,080 Speaker 1: and it's not just neutron stars. There's all kinds of 415 00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:10,119 Speaker 1: stuff out there that gives off X rays that reveal 416 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:12,679 Speaker 1: amazing things about the universe. So let's get into the 417 00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:15,560 Speaker 1: things that Nicer is studying. But first let's take a 418 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:31,280 Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're talking about the Nicer telescope, 419 00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:36,320 Speaker 1: the neutron star Interior composition explore ER, which stands for 420 00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,439 Speaker 1: nice sort of you gotta say the error at the 421 00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:41,080 Speaker 1: end of it. You can't just say explore, you gotta 422 00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:46,320 Speaker 1: say explore er. Acronyms. I guess there are no laws 423 00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:48,960 Speaker 1: or rules about acronyms. Right, you can pretty much do 424 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,439 Speaker 1: whatever you want. You can grab letters, ignore letters, right, 425 00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,480 Speaker 1: why not? If there are any rules in astronomy is 426 00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:57,040 Speaker 1: busy breaking them. There are some really ridiculous acronyms out there, 427 00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:00,840 Speaker 1: the rebels the astronomy community. That's why they need their 428 00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,119 Speaker 1: own department. I feel like there's this trend in science. 429 00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:04,679 Speaker 1: Every time you come up with a new idea, it 430 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:06,600 Speaker 1: needs a name and an acronym, so you can like 431 00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,680 Speaker 1: brand it your cool new idea, what happened to name 432 00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:13,200 Speaker 1: in it after yourself? May you're encouraged to do both, 433 00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:17,000 Speaker 1: like make an act like Champ could be a pretty 434 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:24,600 Speaker 1: cool heterogenetic amazing monitor, convolutional high altitude mechanic. There you go. 435 00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,320 Speaker 1: I am a mechanical engineer. Yeah, all right. So this 436 00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:29,800 Speaker 1: is a telescope out there up there, attached to the 437 00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:32,320 Speaker 1: International Space Station, and it's made out of a little 438 00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:36,959 Speaker 1: tubes that can collect X rays from specific points in space, 439 00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:41,520 Speaker 1: and it's been studying all kinds of things, including neutron stars. So, Daniel, 440 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,480 Speaker 1: what is a neutron star? A neutron star is a 441 00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,680 Speaker 1: super fascinating object. It's basically the remnant of a massive 442 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,840 Speaker 1: super giant star that collapsed. Remember that stars burned for 443 00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,840 Speaker 1: a long time because they have very hot interiors, and 444 00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:58,000 Speaker 1: they have the fuel needed to perform fusion, like to 445 00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:00,840 Speaker 1: squeeze hydrogen together in to heat hum and then squeeze 446 00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,160 Speaker 1: that helium into something else and then squeeze that into 447 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,240 Speaker 1: something else, and they get heavier and heavier and heavier, 448 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,439 Speaker 1: where the byproducts of fusion produced the byproducts of the 449 00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:11,400 Speaker 1: next round of fusion until they no longer can until 450 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,000 Speaker 1: they're making iron, which cools the star down and causes 451 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,200 Speaker 1: it to collapse. So eventually gravity wins its battle against 452 00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,160 Speaker 1: fusion and collapses the star. And depending on the mass 453 00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,879 Speaker 1: of the original lump of stuff you started with, you 454 00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:25,879 Speaker 1: can get a black hole if you have enough stuff, 455 00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,440 Speaker 1: or you can get a neutron star, which is just 456 00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:32,360 Speaker 1: this really hot, very dense clump of matter left over 457 00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,000 Speaker 1: the core of a star after it has collapsed. Yeah, 458 00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:37,120 Speaker 1: it's it's sort of like one half step up from 459 00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:39,000 Speaker 1: a black hole, right, Like, we we had a whole 460 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,040 Speaker 1: episode about neutron stars, and they're just kind of like 461 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,159 Speaker 1: what happens when light is just almost compressed enough to 462 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:47,760 Speaker 1: make a black hole. There are various ways that you 463 00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,920 Speaker 1: can resist the pole of gravity. Right, a burning star 464 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,800 Speaker 1: resisted by producing all this energy that puffs out its 465 00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,560 Speaker 1: outer layers and prevents it from collapsing further. Once gravity 466 00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,119 Speaker 1: has overcome bath, there's like another threshold, which is this 467 00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,480 Speaker 1: electron to generously threshold. The electrons don't want to get 468 00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,840 Speaker 1: squeezed together as closely as gravity wants to squeeze them, 469 00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,119 Speaker 1: and they resist. But if you add more mass to it, 470 00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:11,080 Speaker 1: it can overcome even that and then produce a black hole. 471 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,760 Speaker 1: It's like the last holdout. It's like matters, last line 472 00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,920 Speaker 1: of defense. Yeah, and but they do they inevitably become 473 00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,720 Speaker 1: black holes or can they you know, resist becoming a 474 00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:22,919 Speaker 1: black hole forever. Neutron stars, we think are stable. They 475 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,280 Speaker 1: can resist becoming a black hole unless they gather more mass. 476 00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:29,480 Speaker 1: There's a maximum mass to the neutron stars, we think, 477 00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,000 Speaker 1: but that's not something we understand very well. Like we 478 00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:35,280 Speaker 1: have pretty basic questions about neutron stars, like how much 479 00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,040 Speaker 1: mass is in a neutron star, how big can they get, 480 00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,800 Speaker 1: or how wide are they? We know that neutron stars 481 00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,800 Speaker 1: are super duper dense. They have like one and a 482 00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,000 Speaker 1: half times the mass of our sun. Squeezed into an 483 00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,280 Speaker 1: object with a radius of like fifteen kilometers, but we 484 00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:52,560 Speaker 1: don't really know what the boundaries are, like, can you 485 00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,560 Speaker 1: get a two solar mass neutron star or does it 486 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,560 Speaker 1: collapse into a black hole? Mm hmm, interesting, I guess 487 00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:00,720 Speaker 1: maybe a question is if they are sort of close 488 00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,840 Speaker 1: to black hole and they're not effusing anymore, meaning exploding 489 00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,800 Speaker 1: in giving of light, how do we like know where 490 00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:09,800 Speaker 1: they are, how do we find them? And have we 491 00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,600 Speaker 1: actually seen one? We have seen neutron stars, but you're right, 492 00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:14,639 Speaker 1: they are hard to see because they don't glow in 493 00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:18,399 Speaker 1: the visible But the incredible gravity means incredible temperatures and 494 00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:22,000 Speaker 1: incredible pressures, and under those conditions they tend to produce 495 00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:24,600 Speaker 1: X rays. So the surface of a neutron star has 496 00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:28,439 Speaker 1: this crust. It's really incredibly intense environment, and as that 497 00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:32,000 Speaker 1: crust like rubs and bumps and has star quakes, it 498 00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:35,000 Speaker 1: produces flashes of light X rays that we can see 499 00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,800 Speaker 1: with our fancy eyeballs on the International Space Station. Interesting, 500 00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:40,679 Speaker 1: and it has like a shiny coat to it, you know, 501 00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,560 Speaker 1: like most stars in mid light sort of from the insides, 502 00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,560 Speaker 1: but this one, you're saying, neutron stars in mid light 503 00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,359 Speaker 1: and X rays on the surface. Yeah, that's the prevailing model. 504 00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:54,240 Speaker 1: Although we don't really understand what's going on with neutron stars. 505 00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,159 Speaker 1: One of the core questions is like what is the 506 00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,480 Speaker 1: state of matter and the inside of neutron stars. It's 507 00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,800 Speaker 1: a situation that's so hot and so dense that all 508 00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,320 Speaker 1: four forces come into play. I mean usually gravity, which 509 00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,760 Speaker 1: is the weakest force, can be mostly ignored when you're 510 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,640 Speaker 1: talking about like forces between quirks, But inside a neutron star, 511 00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,280 Speaker 1: there's so much mass that gravity is as powerful as 512 00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,920 Speaker 1: the strong force, and you need to take into account 513 00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,520 Speaker 1: all the different forces if you can understand the nature 514 00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,960 Speaker 1: of what's going on in there. You know, we think 515 00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:27,960 Speaker 1: about like the neutron has three quarks and they're hanging out. 516 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,440 Speaker 1: They've got gluons bound together. It's a happy little thing 517 00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:32,719 Speaker 1: you can last for a long time. Or protons are 518 00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:34,879 Speaker 1: very similar. But now take a bunch of those and 519 00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,480 Speaker 1: squeeze them all together. It's like you've got this ocean 520 00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,480 Speaker 1: of quirks that are floating around, creating this weird new 521 00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:42,680 Speaker 1: kind of thing. You could almost even think of it 522 00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,120 Speaker 1: as like one enormous particle, right because you're saying, it's 523 00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,840 Speaker 1: like they're squeezed so much that all of their usual 524 00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,640 Speaker 1: bonds don't work anymore, right, Like the bonds that key 525 00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:55,680 Speaker 1: electrons and protons and quarks together, all of that kind 526 00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,560 Speaker 1: of turns into a giant soup of stuff. Yeah, the 527 00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:00,879 Speaker 1: same forces are at a right, you still have the 528 00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,840 Speaker 1: strong force and the weak force, but their typical patterns, 529 00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,520 Speaker 1: the way that quarks form into a proton and make 530 00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:09,720 Speaker 1: a stable little package, those patterns are no longer relevant 531 00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:12,439 Speaker 1: because you have all these other forces on the outside 532 00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,960 Speaker 1: pulling them apart, and so we don't have an understanding 533 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,480 Speaker 1: of what's going on inside that. That's why Nicer has 534 00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,679 Speaker 1: the word interior composition in it, because we want to 535 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,879 Speaker 1: really understand what's going on on the inside of the 536 00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:27,320 Speaker 1: neutron star. It's a very strange environment and not something 537 00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:29,359 Speaker 1: that we typically see, and so we don't have a 538 00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:31,440 Speaker 1: lot of ways to probe it. We can't create those 539 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,480 Speaker 1: conditions here on Earth, right, and they start of maybe 540 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,040 Speaker 1: even start to get into the up to the boundary 541 00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,040 Speaker 1: of our knowledge about physics, right, Like, that's when you 542 00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,480 Speaker 1: start to questions things like how much is our things 543 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,680 Speaker 1: quantum and how much are they special relativity. Yeah, describing 544 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:48,760 Speaker 1: it as on the boundary of what we understand is 545 00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,360 Speaker 1: probably generous to our understanding. This is well beyond something 546 00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,760 Speaker 1: that we can model. We're trying to use the equations 547 00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,240 Speaker 1: of general relativity to describe what's going on on the 548 00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:59,040 Speaker 1: inside of the star. But you're right, we know they're 549 00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,560 Speaker 1: probably quantum of X there, and so that's why it's 550 00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:03,560 Speaker 1: a great way to test these things to say, like, 551 00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:06,920 Speaker 1: is it possible to understand the impact of quantum gravity 552 00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:11,000 Speaker 1: and the gravitational interactions between particles. Are those necessary to 553 00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,440 Speaker 1: understand what's going on inside there? Or do you just 554 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,480 Speaker 1: need a really really big computer. And so we're trying 555 00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:18,320 Speaker 1: all sorts of different kind of things to like build 556 00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:20,280 Speaker 1: up models of what might be going on in the 557 00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,400 Speaker 1: inside of the neutron star. Unfortunately, we can't see the 558 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,400 Speaker 1: inside of the neutron star. We can only see the 559 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,040 Speaker 1: outside of it, but those X rays that are produced 560 00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,840 Speaker 1: by the outside give us clues about what might be 561 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:33,240 Speaker 1: going on on the inside. Right, really just want to 562 00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,280 Speaker 1: know if it's nice inside as well as the outside. 563 00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:39,920 Speaker 1: Is it a candy coating around like a sour center, 564 00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,240 Speaker 1: or is there like chocolate inside? Could be on the 565 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,520 Speaker 1: naughty list or the nice list. One thing we really 566 00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,520 Speaker 1: want to understand about the inside of neutron stars is 567 00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,240 Speaker 1: like what is the pressure, what is the density? What 568 00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:52,720 Speaker 1: is the speed of sound on the inside of a 569 00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,720 Speaker 1: neutron star? Because in very very dense environments, a speed 570 00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,840 Speaker 1: of sound can be up to like the speed of light. 571 00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,720 Speaker 1: Remember early on in our you and bursts, when things 572 00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:02,760 Speaker 1: were very very dense, we think the speed of sound 573 00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:06,120 Speaker 1: was about half of the speed of light. Imagine that. 574 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,440 Speaker 1: And so in these environments we just don't know very 575 00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,240 Speaker 1: basic things about that, Like how does a neutron star 576 00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,600 Speaker 1: ring after there's a star quake on its surface? You know, 577 00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,320 Speaker 1: how do those sound waves penetrate and bounce around on 578 00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,800 Speaker 1: the inside? Wow? Like what happens if you like ring 579 00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:21,760 Speaker 1: a neutron star? Kind of Kerman And a lot of 580 00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,240 Speaker 1: these questions about the pressures and the densities determine what 581 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:29,080 Speaker 1: masses and radii are allowed for a neutron star. Like 582 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:30,960 Speaker 1: if you have one model of the pressure and the 583 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,680 Speaker 1: density and how all these things are interacting, then you 584 00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,600 Speaker 1: have a relationship between the mass and the radius. Imagine 585 00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,560 Speaker 1: a graph of like mass versus radius and neutron stars, 586 00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,320 Speaker 1: you can't have neutron stars. Just like anywhere in that graph, 587 00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,920 Speaker 1: there's like a line through that plane where neutron stars 588 00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:49,000 Speaker 1: are allowed. They always fall along some line, and that 589 00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,240 Speaker 1: line is determined by the relationship between the pressure and 590 00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,360 Speaker 1: the density and all that stuff going on inside the 591 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,040 Speaker 1: neutron star. So if we just knew, like what are 592 00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,800 Speaker 1: the masses of these neutron stars, what are their radii, 593 00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:01,760 Speaker 1: we can know a lot about what was going on 594 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:04,040 Speaker 1: on the inside, right Because I guess what you're saying 595 00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:05,400 Speaker 1: is that you know, when you look out into the 596 00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,040 Speaker 1: night sky with just your eyes, you see stars shining 597 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:11,520 Speaker 1: with your eyeball, but if you had X ray glasses, 598 00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:14,240 Speaker 1: you would also see some of these sources of X 599 00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,200 Speaker 1: rays that you you know or do you think are 600 00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:19,000 Speaker 1: neutron stars that were pretty sure are neutron stars you have. 601 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,360 Speaker 1: We can see this stuff around them that suggests there 602 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:23,680 Speaker 1: used to be a super giant star there, and then 603 00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:25,720 Speaker 1: we can look for X rays at the core and 604 00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,040 Speaker 1: that suggests that a neutron stars there. And I guess 605 00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,040 Speaker 1: the physics that that are going on inside of them 606 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,240 Speaker 1: are so extreme that we don't know a lot about them, 607 00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:34,680 Speaker 1: And so that's why you want to look at them 608 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:36,480 Speaker 1: with a telescope like this one. Yeah, and if we 609 00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,240 Speaker 1: could measure what are the masses of all these neutron stars, 610 00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,520 Speaker 1: what are the radio of all the neutron stars, then 611 00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:43,640 Speaker 1: we would have an idea of what might be going 612 00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,040 Speaker 1: on inside them, because those two are very closely connected. 613 00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:48,160 Speaker 1: You want to take like a survey, like a survey 614 00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,080 Speaker 1: like if you're wondering how do the bones work inside 615 00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:53,200 Speaker 1: an elephant? Like how do you even hold that thing up? 616 00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:54,840 Speaker 1: If you had a sense for like how big can 617 00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,200 Speaker 1: elephants get, it will give you a cluse to like, well, 618 00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,600 Speaker 1: how did that bone system work? And so we want 619 00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:01,640 Speaker 1: to know like how big can neutron stars get? What 620 00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,600 Speaker 1: neutron masses are allowed and not allowed? Now give us 621 00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,200 Speaker 1: an idea of like the composition the various layers of 622 00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,680 Speaker 1: the neutron star. Yeah, well, now you just grope zoology 623 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 1: into physics as well. They're all physicists in the end, right, 624 00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,640 Speaker 1: the physics of elephants. Next they'll be building an elephant collider. 625 00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:20,080 Speaker 1: That would be fun. Oh boy, you'll get in trouble 626 00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:22,520 Speaker 1: with the animal rights activists. I'll just call it the 627 00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:26,960 Speaker 1: nicer collider and it'll be fine. You call it the 628 00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,680 Speaker 1: animal Cruelty collider. Maybe I don't think they'll put you 629 00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,120 Speaker 1: in the nice list with Santa Daniel non intentional collisions 630 00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,640 Speaker 1: of elephants research. There you go, nicer. Well, neutron stars 631 00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,440 Speaker 1: start just one thing that the nicer telescope can study. 632 00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,800 Speaker 1: You can also study other incredible stars out there in 633 00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,640 Speaker 1: the universe. Right, that's right, that's because neutron stars are 634 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,400 Speaker 1: so weird. They have like various categories of neutron stars 635 00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,480 Speaker 1: that do even weirder things than just like exist as 636 00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,720 Speaker 1: crazy high temperature and pressure, these weird blobs of matter. 637 00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,120 Speaker 1: We have stars like pulsars, which are a special kind 638 00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,280 Speaker 1: of spinning neutron star. Interesting like a neutron star can do, 639 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,160 Speaker 1: can have different flavors to it, like they can do 640 00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:07,440 Speaker 1: different things. We talked about on the podcast once the 641 00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,200 Speaker 1: really weirdest stars in the universe, and some of the 642 00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:14,200 Speaker 1: stars in that category are things like magnetars and pulsars. 643 00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:19,360 Speaker 1: So magnetars are neutron stars with incredibly intense magnetic fields. 644 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:21,920 Speaker 1: You know, we have a magnetic field on Earth because 645 00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,800 Speaker 1: of the swirling currents inside the Earth that we think 646 00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,840 Speaker 1: generate that magnetic field. And our star has a magnetic field, 647 00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:31,200 Speaker 1: but those are nothing compared to the magnetic fields generated 648 00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:35,640 Speaker 1: by these magnetars, which are really incredible. It's because kind 649 00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:37,720 Speaker 1: of like a neutron star is spinning, right, and sort 650 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:39,600 Speaker 1: of sort of like when you have a magnet spinning, 651 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:44,880 Speaker 1: it generates crazy magnetic fields. Yeah, that's exactly right. And magnetars. 652 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,840 Speaker 1: We think that the magnetic field comes from the spinning 653 00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,960 Speaker 1: and that it powers this incredible electromagnetic radiation the X 654 00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,120 Speaker 1: rays and then gamma rays that come from this magnetic 655 00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:58,600 Speaker 1: field coupled with the spinning, and these magnetic fields are 656 00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,240 Speaker 1: just really incredibly tents that there can be like a 657 00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,680 Speaker 1: hundred million times stronger than any man made magnet, like 658 00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:09,440 Speaker 1: a trillion times more powerful than our magnetic field here 659 00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:11,640 Speaker 1: on Earth. And so you're hoping that maybe with the 660 00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:14,560 Speaker 1: telescope like this you could um study those magnetic fields. 661 00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,080 Speaker 1: Would you be able to see like images of the 662 00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,000 Speaker 1: magnetic field or get a sense of what they're doing. 663 00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:21,880 Speaker 1: What we want to do with nic areas try to 664 00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,680 Speaker 1: understand the source of these magnetic fields and how it 665 00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,280 Speaker 1: affects the crust on the magnetic field. Recently, Nicer saw 666 00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:31,640 Speaker 1: a magnetar and was able to watch a star quake 667 00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:34,760 Speaker 1: in action. There are these hot spots on the surface 668 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,600 Speaker 1: of the magnetar, as like the bits of crust are 669 00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:41,319 Speaker 1: rubbing against each other or breaking and falling inside down 670 00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,000 Speaker 1: into the like a crazy neutron star lava on the 671 00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:47,480 Speaker 1: internal parts. Each of those hot spots emits X rays. 672 00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,080 Speaker 1: But this thing is spinning, right, so sometimes those hot 673 00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:52,319 Speaker 1: spots go around the back of the star and so 674 00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:54,279 Speaker 1: you can no longer see the X rays. So the 675 00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,399 Speaker 1: X rays are sort of periodic, and they're periodic because 676 00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,000 Speaker 1: the star is spinning, and so as they come into view, 677 00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,239 Speaker 1: you see a spike from X rays. They watched this 678 00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:05,239 Speaker 1: starquake in action. They saw this neutron star with like 679 00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:08,000 Speaker 1: three huge spikes and then two of the spikes sort 680 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,960 Speaker 1: of emerged together into one bigger spike. So you can 681 00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:12,840 Speaker 1: get a sense for like what was going on on 682 00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:17,719 Speaker 1: the surface of this incredible object super far away. Wow. Well, 683 00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,880 Speaker 1: first of all, I just like the word starquake. Pretty good, 684 00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:24,000 Speaker 1: cool idea. And the second um, I guess we can 685 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,160 Speaker 1: get images of these stars with our telescope, Like can 686 00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:29,799 Speaker 1: we actually see see these magnetic fields? Are we just 687 00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:33,080 Speaker 1: getting like one train of X ray photons and then 688 00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:35,600 Speaker 1: inferring kind of what's happening from that. Yeah, we do 689 00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,160 Speaker 1: not have great spatial resolution. Remember the structure this telescope 690 00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,279 Speaker 1: is not like a great optical telescope the way Hubble is. 691 00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:45,399 Speaker 1: It just got like fifty six different channels. And so 692 00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:47,400 Speaker 1: what we're getting is like just as you said, it's 693 00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,400 Speaker 1: like a train of X rays and we see the 694 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,080 Speaker 1: energies go up and down. We can measure the energy 695 00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,000 Speaker 1: of the X rays as they come in. So at 696 00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,440 Speaker 1: any given time slice, you have like a spectrum in 697 00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:58,879 Speaker 1: the range that nicer can see, and you can see 698 00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,680 Speaker 1: peaks at various eve lengths, and then those peaks go 699 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:05,239 Speaker 1: up and down in time as the magnetar spins. And 700 00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,480 Speaker 1: so really we just have like a single train of 701 00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:10,759 Speaker 1: X rays from each star. We don't have great spatial resolution, right, 702 00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,040 Speaker 1: I guess with fifty six tubes, it's it's like a 703 00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,799 Speaker 1: seven by eight pixel image kind of. It's like it's 704 00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:19,160 Speaker 1: a bit it's retro. Yeah, they usually use a game 705 00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:24,239 Speaker 1: Boy to visualize these kinds. You could, right, we'll be 706 00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:26,520 Speaker 1: cutting it in the eighties. Yeah, so there's a little 707 00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:29,279 Speaker 1: bit of imagination required. We can't see these surfaces, but 708 00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:31,799 Speaker 1: we can tell that there are hotspots there, and so 709 00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:33,880 Speaker 1: we can infer like the physics of what might be 710 00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,319 Speaker 1: going on in this stark break. Al Right, Well, NICE 711 00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:39,640 Speaker 1: is also standing other kinds of neutron stars and other 712 00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:42,360 Speaker 1: kinds of stars and incredible things happening out there in space, 713 00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,200 Speaker 1: and so let's get into them. But first let's take 714 00:36:45,280 --> 00:37:00,200 Speaker 1: another quick break. All right, we're talking about NICE or 715 00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:03,239 Speaker 1: the telescope. It's I think it's the nicest telescope out there. 716 00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:05,520 Speaker 1: Is there any reason not to call it the nicest? Well, 717 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:07,920 Speaker 1: the folks I know that work on the nicer telescope, 718 00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:10,960 Speaker 1: there's some of the nicer people like some of the nicer, 719 00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:14,160 Speaker 1: but they're not the nicest. I mean that's for the 720 00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,719 Speaker 1: next project, right, will remove some of the meaner people 721 00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,640 Speaker 1: in the collaboration, and then will upgrade to the nicest collaboration. 722 00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:26,640 Speaker 1: You purify the nicest, will purge. Boy, you're not getting 723 00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,640 Speaker 1: on the nice list. No, it's a wonderful community people 724 00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,439 Speaker 1: who work on X rays, and they've been very nice 725 00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,279 Speaker 1: to me. Well, we talked about how this telescope is 726 00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,719 Speaker 1: gonna study neutron stars and magnetars, but it's also going 727 00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:43,160 Speaker 1: to study pulsars, which are pretty amazing. Yeah. Pulsars are 728 00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,880 Speaker 1: another variety of neutron stars. They're ones with this magnetic 729 00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,719 Speaker 1: field accelerates charged particles and basically creates a beam that 730 00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,520 Speaker 1: goes up the top and the bottom of this star. 731 00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:57,280 Speaker 1: So imagine like a huge just like flashlight being shown 732 00:37:57,280 --> 00:37:59,120 Speaker 1: out from the top of the star and the bottom 733 00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:02,239 Speaker 1: of the star into the universe. It comes because this 734 00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:04,880 Speaker 1: thing is spinning and it's got this magnetic field, and 735 00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,760 Speaker 1: particles that are released from the surface get like swept 736 00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,560 Speaker 1: up in this magnetic field and shot out, sort of 737 00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,279 Speaker 1: like the inverse of the Northern lights. You know, how 738 00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,040 Speaker 1: particles from the Sun come to the Earth and get 739 00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,319 Speaker 1: funneled up to the north and the south poles by 740 00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:22,040 Speaker 1: our magnetic field. We were emitting radiation from the service, 741 00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:23,840 Speaker 1: it would also get funneled up to the north and 742 00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,279 Speaker 1: south poles and shot out in terms of two beams. Yeah, 743 00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,719 Speaker 1: it sort of looks like like a lighthouse, right like 744 00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:32,919 Speaker 1: when you think of a traditional lighthouse that um, it's 745 00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:34,840 Speaker 1: like a you know, something at the top of a 746 00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,760 Speaker 1: tower that shines basically two spots lights, uh, and opposite directions. 747 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,520 Speaker 1: That's kind of what a pulsar is. And if those 748 00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:46,400 Speaker 1: spotlights don't actually align with the spinning of the star itself, right, 749 00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:49,880 Speaker 1: they're slightly out of alignment, then where the spotlight points 750 00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,960 Speaker 1: changes as the star spins. Right, if you're shone a 751 00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,480 Speaker 1: flashlight straight up, I mean you spun, you wouldn't change 752 00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:58,719 Speaker 1: what you're shining your flashlight at. But if your fly 753 00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,560 Speaker 1: flashlight is pointed a little bit down or sideways than 754 00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,160 Speaker 1: as you spin, you're gonna be hitting a different spot 755 00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:07,719 Speaker 1: in the sky. That's why a pulsar pulses, because it's 756 00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:11,680 Speaker 1: sweeping across the universe, and only when it's beam hits 757 00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:13,719 Speaker 1: the Earth do we see it. So when we look 758 00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,520 Speaker 1: up at the sky, we see these pulsars blinking very 759 00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,480 Speaker 1: regularly as they whip around, and that beam passes the 760 00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:22,319 Speaker 1: Earth right, kind of like a lighthouse, right, Like, if 761 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,400 Speaker 1: you're far away from a lighthouse, it looks like it's blinking, 762 00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:26,200 Speaker 1: but once you get up close you can see that's 763 00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:30,040 Speaker 1: actually like a flashlight that's spinning around. Yeah, and these 764 00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,000 Speaker 1: are some of the most powerful accelerators in the universe. 765 00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,279 Speaker 1: Power the particles that come from these things are just 766 00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,960 Speaker 1: really crazy high energies. It's amazing. So what do we 767 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:40,440 Speaker 1: know about how they work? We don't know a lot 768 00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:42,520 Speaker 1: about them because we don't know all about neutron stars, 769 00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:45,480 Speaker 1: and these are like weird intense neutron stars that we 770 00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:48,600 Speaker 1: understand even less. But we can try to use nicer 771 00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:52,200 Speaker 1: to study them. Because sometimes these beam of particles doesn't 772 00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,200 Speaker 1: make it all the way to Earth. Sometimes it gets 773 00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,600 Speaker 1: bent by like a wiggle in the magnetic field and 774 00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:00,480 Speaker 1: comes back to the star itself and can create hots pots. 775 00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,520 Speaker 1: So it like sort of shoots the beam and it 776 00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:06,040 Speaker 1: gets bent back around and like zaps itself. Wait, what 777 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:07,800 Speaker 1: what do you mean, Like it bends the light or 778 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,560 Speaker 1: it bends like a stream of particles. It bends like 779 00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,080 Speaker 1: the stream of particles, I mean pulsars emit in lots 780 00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,399 Speaker 1: of different frequencies, can also shoot electrons and all sorts 781 00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:18,640 Speaker 1: of other particles and lots of things are swept up 782 00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,600 Speaker 1: in these magnetic fields. But ultimately it creates like when 783 00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,359 Speaker 1: it looks you're saying, like the beam of particles shoots up, 784 00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,560 Speaker 1: comes around, hits the star again and then admits a 785 00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:30,600 Speaker 1: bunch of X rays. Yeah, that's what we can see. 786 00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:33,120 Speaker 1: We see those X rays from hot spots on the 787 00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,280 Speaker 1: surface of these pulsars that are created by this beam 788 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:39,719 Speaker 1: like bending back around and hitting the surface, creating those 789 00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,520 Speaker 1: hot spots, and so we can try to map those 790 00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:44,759 Speaker 1: hot spots and try to understand like, what's going on 791 00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:47,360 Speaker 1: on this crazy pulsar. Right, Well, I guess what's interesting 792 00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:48,759 Speaker 1: is that, I mean that this is what you think 793 00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,040 Speaker 1: is going on? Right, Like, we never we don't actually 794 00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,320 Speaker 1: have a picture of one of these pulsars up closed 795 00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,200 Speaker 1: to see these this bending and stuff. There's all just 796 00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:58,560 Speaker 1: kind of a little bit from our models of what 797 00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:00,760 Speaker 1: we think is going on. It's a lot of inferring 798 00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:02,920 Speaker 1: from models. Yeah, we have a computer model for what 799 00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,760 Speaker 1: we think is going on, and that predicts a certain 800 00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:07,440 Speaker 1: distribution of X rays. And then we go up there 801 00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,879 Speaker 1: and we say, what this thing is emitting something very 802 00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,520 Speaker 1: different from any of our models. Can we come up 803 00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:14,960 Speaker 1: with a model that explains it, and then can we 804 00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,400 Speaker 1: try to apply that model to other neutron stars and 805 00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,600 Speaker 1: how well does it work? So you know, we're really 806 00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:22,080 Speaker 1: at the very beginning of an era of neutron star 807 00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:25,200 Speaker 1: astronomy trying to understand what's going on inside these things. 808 00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,200 Speaker 1: Like the fact that these pulsars sometimes shoot up particles 809 00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,239 Speaker 1: that make it to Earth, and sometimes they bend back 810 00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:33,160 Speaker 1: around to hit the pulsar itself. Means that the magnetic 811 00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,920 Speaker 1: field is probably much more complicated than just like having 812 00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,479 Speaker 1: two poles. It's like knotted entangled in some weird way, 813 00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:41,759 Speaker 1: sort of like the way that the surface of our 814 00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,600 Speaker 1: Sun emits these coronal mass ejections, which then sometimes bend 815 00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:47,840 Speaker 1: back around and hit the Sun. You get these loops 816 00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:50,480 Speaker 1: of plasma right right, but those we can see kind 817 00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:53,400 Speaker 1: of what the naked eye or telescopes, but for the 818 00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:55,879 Speaker 1: neutron stars, were just kind of imagining it for now 819 00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,520 Speaker 1: until we get the nicest telescope and always send a 820 00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:03,520 Speaker 1: fleet of cartoonists over there to draw what's going on 821 00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,600 Speaker 1: on the surface of these stars. That's a lot cheaper 822 00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:10,200 Speaker 1: than a couple of billion dollars, but nicer would actually 823 00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,760 Speaker 1: help you on a mission into deep space because nicer 824 00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:17,040 Speaker 1: can see X rays from these pulsars. Remember once we 825 00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,600 Speaker 1: talked about how to navigate deep space, and as you 826 00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:24,120 Speaker 1: move away from like NASA's Deep Space Network, you have 827 00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,239 Speaker 1: to figure out another way to figure out like which 828 00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,239 Speaker 1: star you're near, where you are in the galaxy and 829 00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,880 Speaker 1: because pulsars are so regular and each one has its 830 00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,640 Speaker 1: own like fingerprint. Then by measuring the pulses from pulsars, 831 00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,239 Speaker 1: you can use X rays as a like way to 832 00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,719 Speaker 1: infer where you are in the galaxy. And Nicer can 833 00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,759 Speaker 1: actually do that. They have a system on it called Sextant, 834 00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,399 Speaker 1: which is another crazy acronym, which can do this sort 835 00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,359 Speaker 1: of X ray navigation. They actually tried it. They can 836 00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,680 Speaker 1: use pulsars to figure out where we are in the galaxy. 837 00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,480 Speaker 1: It's like you're using the blinking lights of the universe 838 00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:01,080 Speaker 1: to guide you through space. Yeah, exactly, astrophysical lighthouses for real. 839 00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:03,399 Speaker 1: It's not just a metaphor. I'll make sure to bring 840 00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:07,000 Speaker 1: one on my next space board. But it's interesting you're 841 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,920 Speaker 1: saying almost like its own field, right, or like you know, 842 00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,160 Speaker 1: you're an astronomer, You're you're studying neutron stars. I'm not 843 00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:15,759 Speaker 1: saying they're ready to have their own department yet, but 844 00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:19,120 Speaker 1: absolutely there's a whole field of neutron star astronomy. People 845 00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,120 Speaker 1: who just study neutron stars all the way from people 846 00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:24,839 Speaker 1: writing computer codes to model what's going on inside them, 847 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,640 Speaker 1: to people designing telescopes to look at them, to people 848 00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,439 Speaker 1: analyzing the data, people writing machine learning codes to try 849 00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,000 Speaker 1: to understand what we can learn about the inside of 850 00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:36,920 Speaker 1: neutron stars based on the patterns of X rays. It's 851 00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,399 Speaker 1: a huge field, and I guess astromine stars. So would 852 00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:45,440 Speaker 1: they technically be called neutron astronomers or astronomers, new astronomers 853 00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:51,719 Speaker 1: or not nasty stron nastronomers? Nice astronomers? Maybe nice? There 854 00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:56,719 Speaker 1: you go, nice, they're the nicest. Well. But also this 855 00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:00,000 Speaker 1: telescope doesn't just study neutron stars. You could also study 856 00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,160 Speaker 1: the kind of the opposite of a star, which is 857 00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:05,560 Speaker 1: a black hole. Remember that. Functionally it's an X ray telescope. 858 00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:07,759 Speaker 1: We built it to see X rays that come from 859 00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:10,400 Speaker 1: neutron stars in this particular region, but it's not limited 860 00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:13,560 Speaker 1: to just studying neutron stars. It can also see anything 861 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,320 Speaker 1: else in the universe that generates X rays in this 862 00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,800 Speaker 1: frequency range. And one of those things are black holes. 863 00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:22,680 Speaker 1: Remember that black holes. While they're black, and they're these 864 00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:27,040 Speaker 1: incredible pinpoints of space where light cannot escape. The region 865 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,279 Speaker 1: around the black hole is a very intense environment with 866 00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:33,680 Speaker 1: a huge amount of gravity and very high temperatures. And 867 00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:37,080 Speaker 1: before things fall into the event horizon, they get super 868 00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,360 Speaker 1: duper hot and can emit crazy amounts of light, including 869 00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:42,560 Speaker 1: X rays. Yeah, that's kind of the only thing we 870 00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:44,720 Speaker 1: can see about black holes, right, is this stuff falling 871 00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:47,440 Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, and that stuff, these pockets of gas 872 00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:49,799 Speaker 1: and dust that are swirling around before they fall in. 873 00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:53,120 Speaker 1: They can get crazy hot. We're talking about like a 874 00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:57,440 Speaker 1: billion celsius. It's like one point eight billion degrees fahrenheit. 875 00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,960 Speaker 1: It's just really incredible the velocity of these articles. So 876 00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,319 Speaker 1: when they're at these temperatures, they tend to emit in 877 00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:06,680 Speaker 1: the very high frequency range, meaning X rays. And we're 878 00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:09,319 Speaker 1: very curious about the nature of these particles, what's going 879 00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,600 Speaker 1: on just before they fall into the black holes, because remember, 880 00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,440 Speaker 1: not all the particles in the accretion disk actually make 881 00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,359 Speaker 1: it into the black holes. Black holes sometimes have very 882 00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:22,040 Speaker 1: powerful magnetic fields, just like magnetars. Sometimes these particles don't 883 00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:24,560 Speaker 1: end up in the black hole. They get swept up 884 00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:26,880 Speaker 1: by the magnetic field and shot out the top or 885 00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:30,879 Speaker 1: the bottom, creating these huge astrophysical jets, things that are 886 00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,799 Speaker 1: much much bigger than the black hole itself. And you 887 00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,879 Speaker 1: need something like nice or to study the X rays 888 00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,359 Speaker 1: because there could be things happening around a black hole 889 00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:43,080 Speaker 1: that you can't see with the sort of visible light 890 00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,200 Speaker 1: right with the naked eye. Yeah, because these things are 891 00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:47,279 Speaker 1: so hot they don't really emit in the visible light. 892 00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:49,600 Speaker 1: The X ray is the right spectrum to see them 893 00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:52,719 Speaker 1: in because of their incredible temperature. And so this lets 894 00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,279 Speaker 1: us do things like look right at the edge of 895 00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:58,400 Speaker 1: a black hole's event horizon and image the particles that 896 00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:00,759 Speaker 1: are just about to fall in or were just about 897 00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:03,399 Speaker 1: to get shot out the top or the bottom into 898 00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,960 Speaker 1: those jets. So they've done this recently. They've looked at 899 00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:09,960 Speaker 1: like the black hole corona, this environment just past the 900 00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:12,600 Speaker 1: edge of the event horizon where the particles are like 901 00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:14,960 Speaker 1: about to fall in or about to get shot out 902 00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,480 Speaker 1: into the jets. And they've done this before for like 903 00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:20,680 Speaker 1: super massive black holes at the hearts of galaxies, but 904 00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,439 Speaker 1: they hadn't never done one for a stellar mass black hole, 905 00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:25,600 Speaker 1: like a black hole that's just the collapse of a 906 00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,880 Speaker 1: normal star. Interesting, but I guess don't things near the 907 00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,480 Speaker 1: surface of a black hole kind of get stretched out right, Like, 908 00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:34,400 Speaker 1: don't things kind of get red shifted? And wouldn't that 909 00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,920 Speaker 1: make it hard to see what an X ray telescope 910 00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:39,560 Speaker 1: good point in the vicinity of a black hole, there 911 00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:43,000 Speaker 1: is gravitational red shifting, so things do get moved down 912 00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,040 Speaker 1: to lower and lower frequencies. So that means that if 913 00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:49,000 Speaker 1: these things are still X rays after they got red shifted, 914 00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,239 Speaker 1: they must have been ridiculously high frequency. But that's also 915 00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,239 Speaker 1: why we have a big spectrum of observing devices like 916 00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,880 Speaker 1: the James Webb telescope that just went up. It's going 917 00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,839 Speaker 1: to be looking in the infrared to look specifically, are 918 00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,320 Speaker 1: things that have been massively red shifted because they're old, 919 00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:07,520 Speaker 1: or because they're moving really really fast, or because they 920 00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:10,360 Speaker 1: went through some gravitational redshift, like the vicinity of a 921 00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,640 Speaker 1: black hole. Right, it's almost like you need like several 922 00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:17,040 Speaker 1: different glasses to study what's happening in these extreme environments, right, 923 00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:20,120 Speaker 1: Like you need a regular magnifying glass, you need an 924 00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:23,160 Speaker 1: X ray glass, you need a infrared pair of glasses. Yeah, 925 00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:25,800 Speaker 1: just the same way we use various senses to understand 926 00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:27,920 Speaker 1: the nature of the world around you. If you only 927 00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:30,359 Speaker 1: had vision, or if you only had hearing, you might 928 00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:32,840 Speaker 1: have a very different sense of the world that you 929 00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:35,880 Speaker 1: are embedded in. And so we want as many different 930 00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:38,600 Speaker 1: senses as possible to understand the universe and all of 931 00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,000 Speaker 1: its different colors and sounds. Right. It's sort of like 932 00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,279 Speaker 1: three D glasses, right, Like you want one eyeball to 933 00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:45,799 Speaker 1: see one thing, you want the other eyeball to see 934 00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:48,080 Speaker 1: something else, and then that gives you a more complete 935 00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:50,600 Speaker 1: picture of what's going on. Because we're trapped here on Earth, 936 00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,960 Speaker 1: we can't go and visit those stars very effectively, and 937 00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:56,560 Speaker 1: so we want to take advantage of as much information 938 00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:58,919 Speaker 1: as we can that makes its way here to Earth. 939 00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,680 Speaker 1: And it would be crazy to ignore a whole channel 940 00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,399 Speaker 1: of information in the X ray that's telling us so 941 00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,680 Speaker 1: many things about a hidden part of the universe. Yeah. 942 00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:10,480 Speaker 1: And I guess it's thanks to telescopes like these that 943 00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:12,799 Speaker 1: we can that we even know there's stuff going on 944 00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:16,160 Speaker 1: in those other frequencies. Yeah. And we have a whole 945 00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,160 Speaker 1: generation of new devices going up along a broad set 946 00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:21,400 Speaker 1: of these wavelengths, and each one is going to tell 947 00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:23,759 Speaker 1: us a different story about what's going on out there, 948 00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,319 Speaker 1: and then we try to piece that together into a 949 00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:28,480 Speaker 1: whole model of the universe. And that's in the end, 950 00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,200 Speaker 1: what physics is, right. We take what we see out 951 00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:33,040 Speaker 1: there in the universe and try to stitch it together 952 00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:37,400 Speaker 1: into one grand story that explains everything that describes the 953 00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,640 Speaker 1: heart of neutron stars and the flapping of butterfly wings 954 00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:44,919 Speaker 1: and the collisions of elephants. He just locked me there. 955 00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:50,359 Speaker 1: You had me at the collision of stars with the butterflies. Yeah, 956 00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:52,880 Speaker 1: you know, the vortices created by butterfly wings are not 957 00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:55,720 Speaker 1: something we understand very well. The whole group of people studying, 958 00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:59,960 Speaker 1: like how do insects fly? It's really pretty complicated fluid dynamics. 959 00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:02,160 Speaker 1: I see, and you need X rays for that. You 960 00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:03,640 Speaker 1: don't need X rays for that. But this is an 961 00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:05,919 Speaker 1: example of the kind of picture we're trying to build 962 00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:09,000 Speaker 1: up about the universe. Physics is not just about neutron stars. 963 00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:12,160 Speaker 1: It's about understanding how the universe works and stitching together 964 00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:16,280 Speaker 1: everything we see into one holistic picture of the fundamental 965 00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,359 Speaker 1: nature of the universe. Oh, I see, god it you're 966 00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:21,800 Speaker 1: trying to co opt the other place. It's all physics, 967 00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:25,160 Speaker 1: and that's where I'm going. You want all the funding 968 00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,319 Speaker 1: until you get sucked up by the math department and 969 00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:30,759 Speaker 1: then you're in trouble. Then't even relevant to reality, man, 970 00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:35,080 Speaker 1: They exist in the realms of what might be. They're 971 00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,960 Speaker 1: not so nice, they're not a size as astronomers. I 972 00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:39,840 Speaker 1: don't know if math has good acronyms or not. I 973 00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,040 Speaker 1: haven't dug into that. I think, well, they only deal 974 00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,840 Speaker 1: with the letters, so I guess any equation can be 975 00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,080 Speaker 1: an acronym. Yeah, maybe their acronyms are like all Greek 976 00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:52,280 Speaker 1: and Hebrew letters mathcronyms. Yeah, they don't even care about words. 977 00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:55,960 Speaker 1: All right, Well, again, it's all pretty cool to think 978 00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,759 Speaker 1: about all the things that humans are doing to look 979 00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:01,120 Speaker 1: at the universe around this. You know, it's sort of 980 00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:05,000 Speaker 1: screaming at us, shining us, raining upon us with information 981 00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:07,440 Speaker 1: about what's going on and how it works at the 982 00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,799 Speaker 1: molecular at the quantum level. And all we need are 983 00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,000 Speaker 1: like the right pair of glasses, the right tools to 984 00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:16,839 Speaker 1: kind of see and get this information. And we need 985 00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:19,960 Speaker 1: folks who are so passionate, it's so interested, so curious 986 00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,600 Speaker 1: about one question about the universe that they spend their 987 00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,319 Speaker 1: career designing things like crazy X ray telescopes that can 988 00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:30,000 Speaker 1: help us understand the nature of the heart of neutron stars. 989 00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:32,120 Speaker 1: And they also need help with their acronyms. So if 990 00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:35,239 Speaker 1: you're good at that, also joined the team. Just make 991 00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:39,279 Speaker 1: sure you're nice about it. All right, Well, we hope 992 00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,879 Speaker 1: you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, see you next time. 993 00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:52,560 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. 994 00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:55,440 Speaker 1: The Universe is a production of I heart Radio. For 995 00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:58,560 Speaker 1: more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the i heart 996 00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,960 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple pod Guests, or wherever you listen to 997 00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:03,000 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.