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Speaker 1: Ay, Daniel, what do you think would happen if something

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Speaker 1: in the night sky suddenly did something totally new, like

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Speaker 1: wiggling and shaking or dancing around something doing the flaws

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Speaker 1: the star flaws. I mean, like, what happens if a

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Speaker 1: star suddenly started doing something it had never done before? Oh?

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Speaker 1: You know what, I would think that this would be

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Speaker 1: an amazing opportunity to learn something new about the universe. Nope,

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Speaker 1: this is an amazing opportunity for a major discovery. Only

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Speaker 1: we're talking about discovering aliens. Hi'm JR. I a cartoonists

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Speaker 1: and the creator of PhD Tomics. Hi. I'm Daniel Whitson.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and I really really want to

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Speaker 1: believe in aliens. You're an alien enthusiast or an alien

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Speaker 1: or a professional alien believer. I'm a believer enthusiast. I'm

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Speaker 1: enthusiastic about people who believe in aliens who do it professionally.

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Speaker 1: Is somebody out there paying people to believe in aliens?

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Speaker 1: Because I want to sign up for that or maybe

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Speaker 1: that's this job right here? Well, welcome to your weekly

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Speaker 1: career conspiracy advice podcast. Daniel and Jorge explain the Universe

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio, in which we talk

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Speaker 1: about all of the amazing and crazy things about the universe.

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Speaker 1: We explain to you how the universe really works, on

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Speaker 1: the stuff that's happening out there in the center of

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Speaker 1: stars and here on Earth and inside the tiny little

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Speaker 1: particles in your fingertip. That's right. All the things that

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Speaker 1: we can explain about the universe, and all the things

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Speaker 1: that we cannot currently explain about this weird and mysterious universe,

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Speaker 1: only some of which we chalk up to aliens only

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Speaker 1: some Do you have a giant column in your physics organization.

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Speaker 1: I'm only allowed to declare aliens two times a day,

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Speaker 1: So if I would already used that explanation twice in

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Speaker 1: one day, then I'm going to come up with actual

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Speaker 1: physics theory to explain what I'm seeing. Oh no, you

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Speaker 1: actually have to work. Yeah, you know, like, oh, that

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Speaker 1: program didn't work. Must be the aliens. That's right, My

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Speaker 1: my Latti is too cold. Aliens latte's who drinks lattees anymore? Man?

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Speaker 1: That's so a pre alien bam milk. When the aliens come,

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Speaker 1: I wonder what kind of coffee beverage they will like.

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Speaker 1: Hopefully not human coffee. Are you saying like human milk?

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Speaker 1: Like they don't want cow milk or almond milk, they

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Speaker 1: want like human milk. We don't want to hopefully theyn't

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Speaker 1: want to brew us, is what I'm saying. I see, Well,

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Speaker 1: I think I'd rather be a you know, on a

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Speaker 1: human dairy farm than on a human coffee human coffee.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, like, let's not go into let's not

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Speaker 1: go into free podcast. That's right, human lactose free podcast. Please.

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Speaker 1: I think most people would vote for that, that's right.

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Speaker 1: But you know, if we're talking about discovering aliens, then

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Speaker 1: that's mostly about looking out into the universe and seeing

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Speaker 1: some crazy stuff. And you know, we haven't yet, of course,

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Speaker 1: discovered aliens, but we have learned a lot of amazing

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Speaker 1: stuff just by looking out into the night sky. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think the way we would discover something like

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Speaker 1: that is by looking at the sky and then seeing

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Speaker 1: if weird things happen, like if you know, suddenly things

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Speaker 1: change or things things happen that don't seem natural. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We talked once on the podcast about a really strange

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Speaker 1: star that seemed to be obscured. It was almost like

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Speaker 1: somebody was building a huge superstructure that was blocking the

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Speaker 1: light between that star and us, like a Dyson sphere.

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Speaker 1: And that's the kind of thing that you might see

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Speaker 1: if you keep looking into the universe and watching stars

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Speaker 1: and looking for sort of unnatural phenomena, right, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: those phenomenon can lead to pretty interesting scientific discoveries, even

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Speaker 1: if they're not about aliens. Or that's right. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty seven, we saw a supernova go and that was

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Speaker 1: the first time and sort of modern astronomy thing, we

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Speaker 1: got to watch a supernova happen. Not in real time,

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Speaker 1: of course, it happened, you know, thousands and thousands of

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Speaker 1: years ago, but the light from it arrived here on

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Speaker 1: Earth in seven and we learned a tremendous amount about

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Speaker 1: supernovas and how they work and what happens by getting

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Speaker 1: to watch that one. Really, it was only seven that

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Speaker 1: we saw our first supernova or I guess maybe with

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Speaker 1: a telescope. Yeah, that was the first one that that

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Speaker 1: came in the era of our modern awesome telescopes. So

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Speaker 1: astronomers saw a few supernova earlier this century. We have

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Speaker 1: records of supernova's sort of like in the Antarctic ice

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Speaker 1: where they deposited all sorts of crazy radiation um going

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Speaker 1: back hundreds of years. But it's sort of modern supernova

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Speaker 1: watching when was the first really sort of big science

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Speaker 1: supernova And we should do a whole podcast episode about

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Speaker 1: what we learned about science from that one supernova. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I see. So that's the kind of thing that astronomers

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Speaker 1: do is they look at this guy and they kind of,

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Speaker 1: you know, to check all the marks there and on

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Speaker 1: their list of how how things should act. But then

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Speaker 1: if they see something new, then that's something worth exploring more, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And that's something sort of fundamentally different about astronomy and

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Speaker 1: astrophysics than the rest of physics. Like a lot of

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Speaker 1: us in physics, we make experiments happen. I want to

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Speaker 1: know what happens when a proton smashes another proton, Well,

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Speaker 1: I go and I do it. I smashed two protons together.

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Speaker 1: But if an astronomer wants to know what happens when

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Speaker 1: you crash one galaxy against another one, you can't build

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Speaker 1: a galaxy collider, right, that's sort of even practical. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they just watch it happen in the universe. They look

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Speaker 1: out into the universe to see their experiment happening. Wow,

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Speaker 1: did you just call a whole field of physics tush potatoes?

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Speaker 1: Is that basically what you're saying. And like those guys

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Speaker 1: who sit around in their couches in Hawaii looking up

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Speaker 1: at the sky and wait for things to happen, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the equivalent is like, if you had some other physicists,

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Speaker 1: you're like, I really wish this experiment would happened. Maybe

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Speaker 1: I'll just sit in my living room and wait and

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Speaker 1: see if it happens in front of me. That's basically

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Speaker 1: the plan, as opposed to particle physicists who in danger

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Speaker 1: of the whole human race by building things that mike

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Speaker 1: create black holes, And don't you rather study a nice

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Speaker 1: little black hole close to home than one super far

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Speaker 1: away you can barely see. I think I would rather

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Speaker 1: stay away from black holes as much as possible. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: that's good to know. It's a very powerful couch that

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Speaker 1: they're sitting on. They get to see the entire universe

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Speaker 1: and the amazing things that basically anything you want to

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Speaker 1: watch happen is happening out there somewhere in the universe.

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Speaker 1: Neutron stars are crashing into each other and all sorts

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Speaker 1: of strange galaxies exist. They can't make things happen, but

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Speaker 1: you know, they have a view to one of the

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Speaker 1: greatest test of experiments in the history of the universe.

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Speaker 1: It's quite a drama going on out there in the universe.

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Speaker 1: And so today we are going to be talking about

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Speaker 1: one such discovery or one such phenomenon that we're seeing

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Speaker 1: out into the next guy that is kind of weird, inexplicable,

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Speaker 1: almost and totally we're and might be who knows, of

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Speaker 1: some weird alien origin. It might be. I think almost

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Speaker 1: anything can be categorized as potentially of alien origin, which

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Speaker 1: is one reason why I love that explanation. But this

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Speaker 1: is something that's been capturing the minds of astronomers and

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Speaker 1: even popping up in the news media recently. There's something

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Speaker 1: weird happening with one of our favorite stars in the sky.

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Speaker 1: That's right. So today on the program we'll be tackling

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Speaker 1: the question, is beetle jews blowing up? That's right, And

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Speaker 1: we don't mean blowing up on social media. It's not

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Speaker 1: going viral um. But you know, just like anything that's

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Speaker 1: blown up on social media, you do have to wonder

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Speaker 1: is it about to die? And so we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about the star beetle Juice, right, not the Broadway

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Speaker 1: play musical, not the movie with Michael Keaton, the the

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Speaker 1: original beetle Juice, that's right, And not some weird new

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Speaker 1: beverage that Gwyneth Paltrow is pushing on people. When you

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Speaker 1: squeeze beetles um as to stimulate your alkaline intake in

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Speaker 1: the morning. I think her beetles are sustainably and humanely squeeze.

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Speaker 1: They're gently massaged to get a little bit of one

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Speaker 1: drop of juice out of each beetle every day. But

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Speaker 1: it's not it's not actually beetle juice. It it's actually

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Speaker 1: a different spelling. It's or is it Uh? It's kind

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Speaker 1: of an old word, right, it's I think it's Isn't

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Speaker 1: it originally like the name of a demon or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it comes from Arabic, I think. And so it has

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with beetles or juices. Um. It looks

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Speaker 1: like you might pronounce it like beatel goose or something,

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Speaker 1: but it's pronounced beetle juice. Yes, it's just just go

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Speaker 1: with that. Beetle goose. That sounds like the name of

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Speaker 1: my character. And d and D or something. It's like,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like a different Qwyneth Paltrop product. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: roll my forty seven sided diet. He cast a spell

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Speaker 1: from my wizard beatel Goose while you're playing with Gwinne Paltrow.

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Speaker 1: I don't think Paltrow plays D and D. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I shouldn't say. You

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Speaker 1: never know. Maybe she listens to the podcast No. But

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of people have been watching this

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Speaker 1: star and noticing something really strange happening with it recently.

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Speaker 1: And that strange thing is that it's actually dimming, right.

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Speaker 1: It's like somebody is slowly turning it down. You imagining

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Speaker 1: some sort of cosmic dimming switch, and somebody on the

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Speaker 1: wall of the universe there's a giant mob who's playing

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Speaker 1: with the dimming switch. Alien dat out there or may

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Speaker 1: it's connected to the universal Alexa. You know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: Nobody's like Alexa dim No. Bill Juice is a huge star.

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Speaker 1: It's an enormous, super giant red star and it's very

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Speaker 1: bright in the sky. It's one of the used to

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Speaker 1: be one of the ten brightest stars in the sky,

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Speaker 1: and now it's been dropping. It started in October. It's

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Speaker 1: been dimming, dimming, dimming, and nobody knows why. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: we were wondering, and it sounds pretty recent October. That's

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Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty recent Oh yeah, we are topical

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Speaker 1: on this show. Yeah, I mean months. I mean to

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Speaker 1: a physicist that's like on the dot. I don't know

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Speaker 1: how to respond to that. Maybe a few months you

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Speaker 1: will come up with a response. Give me till October.

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Speaker 1: I'll come back with a really clever comeback. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: you go. There's something involving how cartoonists are always on deadline.

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Speaker 1: That's right, we are. Yeah, And so it's a recent development.

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Speaker 1: And so we were wondering how many people out there

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Speaker 1: knew that one of the stars in our sky, a

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Speaker 1: famous one, even beele Juice, is actually dimming. So I

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Speaker 1: walked around campus and I asked students at UC Irvine,

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Speaker 1: fresh back from their holiday break, if they knew what

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Speaker 1: beetle Juice was the star, if they had heard it

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Speaker 1: was dimming, and if they were worried about a potential

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Speaker 1: supernova that could fry their eyebrows off. And so here's

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Speaker 1: what people had to say. I think I've heard of

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Speaker 1: it before, but I don't know I remember much about it.

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Speaker 1: Did you know that the star appears to be dimming

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Speaker 1: in the night sky? No, I didn't know that I

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Speaker 1: have yet. Did you know that it's dimming dramatically? I

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Speaker 1: did not. Are you worried about it? Not really? No? No? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Did you know that it's dimming in the sky dramatically? No?

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Speaker 1: Does that make you worried? Should I be a red star? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a bright red star? Yeah. Um, I guess I'm

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Speaker 1: a little bit worried. I think I've heard of it,

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Speaker 1: but like, I have no idea anything about it. Did

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Speaker 1: you know that it's dimming in the sky, like right

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Speaker 1: now it seems to be fading. Does that make you worried?

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Speaker 1: Not too much, because I know like stars die and

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Speaker 1: stuff all the time, but it's still a little concerning

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Speaker 1: star view juice. No. Sorry though, No, so you didn't

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Speaker 1: know it was dimming in the sky. Does that make

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Speaker 1: you worried? I mean, it doesn't sound like something that's

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Speaker 1: worrying for me. It's just found something very interesting now

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Speaker 1: that you brought it up, So I would want to

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Speaker 1: know a little bit more about it and what it is,

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Speaker 1: and maybe then I could decide if it's worrying when

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Speaker 1: they're dimming, doesn't just mean their light is going away.

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Speaker 1: So that started that galaxy is or universe or whatever

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Speaker 1: it represents. Been that for a while. So I don't

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Speaker 1: really think it affects us much unless there's something I'm

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Speaker 1: listening al right, not a lot of concerned or even

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Speaker 1: a lot of people who had heard of this star. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I thought there was going to be sort of more

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Speaker 1: penetration in the sort of general student population about this

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Speaker 1: incredible astronomic event that's happening above our heads every single night.

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Speaker 1: And we had a bunch of listeners to the podcast

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Speaker 1: right in and ask us, hey, can you talk about

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Speaker 1: what's going on with Beetlejuice explaining to us. So I

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Speaker 1: was expecting the students that have maybe heard about it,

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Speaker 1: but maybe they were too focused on the start of

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Speaker 1: classes and all their new homework assignments, right or I

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Speaker 1: imagine most college students now weren't even born when the

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Speaker 1: movie Beetle Juice came out. That might be an issue also,

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Speaker 1: But even when I told them about it, they seem

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Speaker 1: to feel like, you know, hey, this is a supernova.

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Speaker 1: It's going to happen somewhere super far away, so I'm

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Speaker 1: not too worried about it. There's maybe a supernova involved here.

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Speaker 1: But the main mystery is that Beetle Juice you're saying

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Speaker 1: recently in October started dimming like it was one of

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Speaker 1: the brightest stars in the universe, and then suddenly it

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Speaker 1: wasn't as bright. Yeah. People just watch these stars, you know,

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Speaker 1: And some stars burned constantly. They're just pretty stable. There's

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Speaker 1: just like a huge fire and going off in the

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Speaker 1: sky and burning at the same brightness. But other stars

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Speaker 1: are sort of variable stars, and they wiggle, they go up,

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Speaker 1: they go down, they go brighter, they get dimmer. It's

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Speaker 1: like not a not a stable process, like it's it's

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Speaker 1: going through some motions. Yeah, And you know when you're

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Speaker 1: looking at a fire, sometimes the fire burns brighter as

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Speaker 1: it gets to a good bit of fuel, and then

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Speaker 1: it dims out a little bit. We can talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit more about the physics of that in a

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Speaker 1: little bit, But people have been watching Beetle Juice for

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Speaker 1: like more than a century and taking some pretty detailed

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Speaker 1: measurements of its brightness, and starting in October nineteen, it

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Speaker 1: started to dim and people thought, oh, it's just going

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Speaker 1: into one of its dimming phases. But then it just

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Speaker 1: kept dimming and dimming and dimming, and now it's dimmer

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Speaker 1: than it has ever been seen before and more than

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Speaker 1: a hundred years. Okay, so it has dimmed before, but

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Speaker 1: now it's dimming more than ever. Yeah, used to sort

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Speaker 1: of wiggle up and down a little bit here and there,

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Speaker 1: but now it's much dimmer than it ever has been. Wow.

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Speaker 1: And how do we notice this? Like, are there people

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Speaker 1: looking at every star in the sky all the time

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Speaker 1: or is there a dedicated Beetle juice grad student and telescope.

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Speaker 1: We assigned one student per star, and that's just your job.

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Speaker 1: And you've got to hope that you know something interesting sky,

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Speaker 1: that's right, otherwise you'll never graduate. Um, that's sort of

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Speaker 1: my problem with astronomy. I mean, I was always interested

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Speaker 1: that I do a personal one, which is when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid, the thing that attracted me to science

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Speaker 1: and the physics was astronomy. I was like, wow, look

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Speaker 1: at the night sky is amazing. And I got a

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Speaker 1: telescope and I looked at a star. But then after

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Speaker 1: a few minutes, you're just sort of like looking at

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Speaker 1: a dot in the sky. It's not that exciting. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's not that often that anything interesting happens. And so

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Speaker 1: as opposed to when you smash point particles, you're looking

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Speaker 1: at things that are not points. Exciting stuff happens every

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Speaker 1: twenty five nanoseconds. So yeah, you have stuff blowing up.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty dramatic in comparison. But you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: mean to impugne any astronomers. I love astronomy and astronomers,

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Speaker 1: and I'm glad that there's lots of different fields of

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Speaker 1: science and different personalities to go into each different fields

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Speaker 1: just not my personal choice. But there are people who

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Speaker 1: do watch the sky and they look for things like supernova.

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Speaker 1: We're always watching to see more supernova coming because they

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Speaker 1: help us measure the size of the universe and its expansion.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, we have surveys that are constantly watching. This

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Speaker 1: guy just scanning out there looking for things that changed,

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Speaker 1: Like it takes a picture and then takes another picture

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Speaker 1: and compares the two pictures to see if anything is changed. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are these very general surveys, and that's how you

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Speaker 1: discover things like a new planet or you know, Omuamua

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Speaker 1: is something that's coming towards the Earth. But in this case,

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Speaker 1: I think Beetle Juice is a star of interest because

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Speaker 1: it's so big. It's so huge, it's coming near the

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Speaker 1: end of its life, and it has a really interesting

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Speaker 1: pattern of variability. M hmmm. Alright, let's get into more

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Speaker 1: details about our friend Beetle Juice and what could maybe

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Speaker 1: be happening to make it dimmer. But first let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break, all right, Daniel, So, Beetle Juice, one

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Speaker 1: of the brightest stars, or what used to be one

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Speaker 1: of the brightest stars in the sky, has been dimming recently,

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Speaker 1: getting less and less bright, and nobody knows why that's happening. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And there's lots of different kinds of stars out there

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Speaker 1: in the sky, and some of them burn for billions

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Speaker 1: of years and some just for millions of years. And

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Speaker 1: what we're doing is looking at all of them and

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Speaker 1: trying to understand, like, how many different ways is there

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Speaker 1: to be a star? And you know, there are a

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Speaker 1: lot like the star that is our sun, it's not

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Speaker 1: even one of the most typical stars in the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: And some of them are crazy, and Beetlejuice is one

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Speaker 1: of the most extreme stars out there. Really all right,

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Speaker 1: tell me about beetle juice. Let's get into that a

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Speaker 1: little bit. What do we know about beetle juice and

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Speaker 1: how is it different than our son? Well, first of all,

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Speaker 1: beetle juice is huge, Like, it's about twenty times the

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Speaker 1: mass of our Sun. Twenty times. Yeah, it's an enormous

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Speaker 1: amount of stuff, So we should call it beetle huge.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it likes when you call it that,

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Speaker 1: you know, big old, huge beetle, huge beetle juice. It's

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Speaker 1: been trying to cut back recently on the amount of

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Speaker 1: amount it's on the keto astronomical diet. Yeah, and it's

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Speaker 1: not just huge in terms of mass, like twenty suns

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Speaker 1: is a lot of stuff. It's actually physically just the

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Speaker 1: volume is enormous. It has a diameter of close to

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Speaker 1: a billion miles. Wow, and that's much bigger than our sun. Right, Like,

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Speaker 1: if if if something that big was in our solar system,

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Speaker 1: it would probably take up most of the space. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: If you put beetle juice in place of our Sun,

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Speaker 1: then Mercury, Venus, Earth, mars Um, even up to Jupiter

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Speaker 1: would be inside the radius of the Sun. Right, So

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Speaker 1: that would like a little juice. Beetles not good. So

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Speaker 1: it's huge. It's huge, and and why is it that big?

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Speaker 1: It's just that that's how it happened to be put together. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the size of a star just depends on you know,

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Speaker 1: the sort of the clumps of stuff that are around

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Speaker 1: to form it, and the dynamics of it, whether it

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Speaker 1: breaks off to form its own little cloud and stuff.

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Speaker 1: That's something that people are still really trying to understand

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Speaker 1: is how stars form and what makes stars form. And

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Speaker 1: we have parts of the galaxy where stars are still

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Speaker 1: forming and parts where they're not forming anymore. And that's

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Speaker 1: not something we understand very well. But what we do

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Speaker 1: know is sort of the connection between the size of

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Speaker 1: the star and how long it's going to live. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: you mean how bright it is or how big it is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the larger the star, the sort of bigger it is

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Speaker 1: than the brighter it burns, and the shorter it's life.

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Speaker 1: Like our sun is billions of years old and we

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Speaker 1: expected to keep burning for another few billion, but beetlejuice

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Speaker 1: is only eight and a half million years old. It's

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Speaker 1: like a baby. Really, what but you can have a

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Speaker 1: star that young and wait and you're you're tip telling

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Speaker 1: me it's near the end of the end of its life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: stars this size only burn for like eight point six

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Speaker 1: or eight point seven million years, people think. And this

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Speaker 1: one it's at eight point five million. Wow. So these

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Speaker 1: things burn bright and they burn hot and they're huge,

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Speaker 1: but they just don't last as long in the universe.

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Speaker 1: Like the Sun is sort of the the turtle of stars.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna keep burning for a long time after Beetle

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Speaker 1: Juice blows. Interesting, it's kind of like a career in

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Speaker 1: Hollywood for a Hollywood star. I think, Actually, in Hollywood

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Speaker 1: it's better to be small, isn't it isn't the thin

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Speaker 1: still in Well? I mean you burn bright and then

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Speaker 1: and then nobody cares about you. Yeah, yeah, I think

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00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:32,440
Speaker 1: that's probably a good analogy. All right. So that's beetle juice.

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Speaker 1: It's different, it's bigger. It's beetle huge. And where can

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Speaker 1: I find beetle juice? Is it on constellation that I know? Where?

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Speaker 1: Where could I find it if I wanted to see

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Speaker 1: it from Earth? Yeah, it's sort of a Hollywood star

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Speaker 1: because not only is it one of the brightest stars

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Speaker 1: in the sky, it's in one of the most famous constellations.

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Speaker 1: It's in the Orion constellation, so it's a big one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's um, it's not that close to the Earth.

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Speaker 1: It's like six hundred and twenty five light years away.

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Speaker 1: But I think that's kind of close, isn't it. Isn't

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Speaker 1: it close fair and relatively astronomical distances? That depends. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean the galaxy is, you know, a hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: light years across, so yet in our neighborhood. But there

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Speaker 1: are other stars that are, you know, four or five

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Speaker 1: ten light years away, So there's definitely a lot of

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Speaker 1: stars that are closer. And it's not just in the

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Speaker 1: Orion constellation. I think, isn't it like the central one? Like,

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Speaker 1: if you look at the three stars that make up

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Speaker 1: the belt, isn't Beetle Juice one of them? The middle one?

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Speaker 1: I think the managers of the careers of the other

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Speaker 1: stars argue about which is sort of the most important

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Speaker 1: star in a come on, Beetle Juice is of the

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Speaker 1: Arian constellation, Let's be honest. I mean, I think that

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Speaker 1: without beatle Juice wouldn't really be Ariyan, you know, wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have that same magic to it. Um. But people differ,

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00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:47,639
Speaker 1: but it is. It is one of the ones in

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Speaker 1: the belt, right like, and that's pretty recognizable in the

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Speaker 1: night sky. If you see three stars pretty evenly space,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the Orion constellation. Yes, so Beetle Juice doesn't

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00:21:57,760 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 1: provide part of the belt, but it's critical. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's the top left shoulder of Ride, and that's his

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00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,160
Speaker 1: throwing shoulder, I think, and you know he's a hunter,

401
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:06,399
Speaker 1: and so I think people just can make a pretty

402
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:10,720
Speaker 1: good argument to being sort of a foundational star. And

403
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Speaker 1: that's why I'm not in a strong war with any reason.

404
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:18,480
Speaker 1: Number I love musum number. You don't even need to

405
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Speaker 1: count them. Really, I would just cartoonists. I would just

406
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:25,360
Speaker 1: draw it wherever. Yeah, exactly. We'll fact check that later.

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Speaker 1: All right. So then you guys noticed that it started dimming,

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Speaker 1: and so that's kind of weird, right like, starts on

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Speaker 1: just suddenly Dim't like that so much. Yeah, well it's

410
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 1: sort of weird, but it's also sort of not weird.

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Speaker 1: And so to understand how weird it is, we have

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Speaker 1: to know what the context is. It turns out there's

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Speaker 1: a huge population of stars out there, like a good

414
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Speaker 1: fraction them are variable, Some of them do dim and

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Speaker 1: brighten and dim and brighten. And these are stars we

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Speaker 1: call them variable stars. Yeah, you mean there's a lot

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00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 1: of stars out there twinkling. Well, twinkling is actually because

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Speaker 1: the light is being mitigated by dust and atmospheric effects

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So that's what causes twinkling. But

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Speaker 1: there are stars that if you were like in a

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Speaker 1: spaceship near them, you would notice them brighten and then

422
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: dim and brighten and dim. And some of those stars

423
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: played in a really important role in our understanding of

424
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 1: the universe. And I guess that would be weird of

425
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,480
Speaker 1: our sun did that as well. Yeah, that would be

426
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: really weird because every years we're like, yeah, like solar seasons. Yeah,

427
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 1: there are some solar seasons, like the sun has eleven

428
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: year magnetic cyclum cycle, I think, whereas magnetic field flips

429
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: every eleven years, and there are seasons when there's more

430
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: solar wind and less solar wind. But these effects are

431
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,439
Speaker 1: very small compared to what we're talking about. You know,

432
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: the Sun doesn't significantly brighten and dim compared to what's

433
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,120
Speaker 1: happening in these other variable stars. It's really noticeable effect.

434
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 1: And so we talked about these stars, these sephids recently,

435
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: these are the stars that pulsate. All right, let's get

436
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 1: into that, and like, what could be happening with beetle jews,

437
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:01,360
Speaker 1: because you guys know is it's dimming and that's kind

438
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 1: of unusual and it could mean some pretty um dramatic things.

439
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 1: So what are some possibilities for what could be happening

440
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 1: to beetle juice? All right? Well, I have sort of

441
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: three categories of explanation for what might be happening to

442
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,399
Speaker 1: beetle juice? Okay, and there you're gonna tell tell us

443
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 1: in order of how alarmed we should be. Yeah, so

444
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 1: the most boring possibilities, right, and then we got them

445
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: maybe more exciting crazy ideas, and then we got the

446
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: alarming everybody builds a bunker and starts to live underground

447
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: for the next time of years situation. Everybody start eating

448
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 1: beetle juice and praying to the greeneth paltry demons out there,

449
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,119
Speaker 1: that's right, or invest in lentil futures. All right, So

450
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: what are the three possibilities that could be causing beetle

451
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: juice to go dimmer? Right? Well, the first thing to understand,

452
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 1: as we've mentioned, is that some stars just do this.

453
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: They are variable stars. Now some of them when this happens,

454
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: usually it's very regular. So the stars we talked about before,

455
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: their stars called set fids. They pulsate and it's very regular.

456
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: In fact, the key thing about sefids is that how

457
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 1: fast they pulsate tells you how bright they are at

458
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: the source. And that's a key thing to knowing like

459
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 1: how far away the star is, because you have to

460
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: know how far bright it is at the source compared

461
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 1: to how bright it is here. That's how you how

462
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: far away it is. So you make a bunch of measurements.

463
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 1: You measure how often it gets dimmer and brighter and

464
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: dimmer and brighter. It does it sort of like a clock,

465
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,239
Speaker 1: and that tells you something about how bright it is

466
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: over there near the star. So it's it's really key

467
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: for those stars that they are very regular, right, they're

468
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: variable and something happening inside them to make them pulsate.

469
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: And these are not stars that are rotating. It's not

470
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: like a flashlight swinging through the universe that's just flashing

471
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: over us. It's really like a like a pulsating reaction

472
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:48,400
Speaker 1: kind of. Yeah, it's a radial pulsation, so no matter

473
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:50,640
Speaker 1: where you are around the star, you would see going

474
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: brighter and dimmer. Beetle Juice is not one of these

475
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: very regular stars. It's not a sefid. It has some

476
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: variation and it it goes up and it goes down,

477
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,160
Speaker 1: but it's not like a talk Okay, so I see.

478
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: So it's normal for a star to change to like

479
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: get brighter and dimmer. But you say, most stars sort

480
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: of do it on a clock like regularly, but Beetle

481
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: Juice maybe is different. Yeah, Beetle Juice has sort of

482
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 1: two different cycles that people have been noticing over the

483
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: last few decades. It's got like a long cycle that

484
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 1: takes about six years to go up and down, and

485
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 1: it also has sort of a shorter cycle that's less

486
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: than a year. And so we don't know what's going on.

487
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: We don't have an explanation for how Beetle Juice has

488
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: these two weird cycles in it. You're saying that it

489
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 1: might be two kinds of aliens interfering with the star,

490
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: fighting inside the star star. It's a star war, right

491
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:43,239
Speaker 1: the beet Juice. And for those of you who are

492
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: interested in, like how can that happen? How can a

493
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 1: star burn more brightly and dimly? Remember that it's not

494
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 1: just that the star itself is like burning hotter or colder.

495
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,199
Speaker 1: It's about the light we're seeing from the star. And

496
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: so sometimes what's happening inside the star can make like

497
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 1: the outer shell of the star more opaque because it

498
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 1: changes it from like helium too to helium three. Or

499
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: it can make a contract which makes it heat up,

500
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: or can make it expand which makes it cool down.

501
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,640
Speaker 1: So all this stuff can happen to a star. It's

502
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: not just about how hot and bright it is. It's

503
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: about like the shells and the layers and the folks

504
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: who study this have these amazing models of these enormous

505
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 1: cosmic fusion explosions that they can Frankly, it's blows my

506
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 1: mind that they can understand them at all. So it's

507
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: like if you're standing next to the Sun, you wouldn't

508
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: see it get bigger or smaller, you just see it

509
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: get brighter and dimmer. Well, if you're standing next to

510
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: one of these stars that is variable, then they know

511
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: they do expand and contract. Certainly they do. They do,

512
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 1: and the outer shell of the star can become more

513
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,360
Speaker 1: opaque or less opaque, and so what you see from

514
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: far away is just of course it's brighter or dimmer,

515
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: but it's a lot of really complex stuff going on.

516
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: It's not just that the star gets bigger and hotter

517
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 1: and smaller and colder, but it's all about sort of

518
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: the mechanics of the reaction inside the star, like the

519
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: reacting sort of lean one way but then leaned the

520
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: other way, and you know, things sort of are constantly influx, yeah,

521
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: sort of slashing back and forth, not in a stable situation.

522
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: But Beetlejuice has these two cycles, sort of the shorter

523
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:13,719
Speaker 1: one and the longer one, and so you know, the

524
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 1: most boring explanation for what's happening Beetle Juice is that

525
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: it might just be sort of the combination of these

526
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: two different cycles happening at the same time that both

527
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,160
Speaker 1: are sort of in their dimming mode. I see, it's

528
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: just like a low point in its career as a star. Yeah, precisely,

529
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: But it doesn't really explain it because Beetle Juice has

530
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: these two cycles that are like on a year and

531
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: a six year timeline, so you would expect to see

532
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: those things sort of line up more often than every

533
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: hundred years. Oh, I see, so there's something else going

534
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: on here. I think there's probably something else going on.

535
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: There's something else to learn. Um, there could be another

536
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: longer time scale variation that's happening. It could be these

537
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: two things when they do line up in some way,

538
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: they sort of like accentuate each other, you know, but

539
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 1: we don't understand them mechanism, the physics behind either one,

540
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: and so it's hard to just to know specifically what

541
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: might make this happen. All right, So that's possibly a

542
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: is that it's just a normal cycle of a you know,

543
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: hormonal cycle of a teenage star with crazy moods. Um.

544
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: But then there are other possibilities, some of which we

545
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: might want to be concerned about. So that's sort of

546
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: like taking the normal, boring stuff and saying, maybe it's

547
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:28,719
Speaker 1: a little weird, but there's other really weird stuff that

548
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: does happen to stars that could be explaining this. And

549
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes stars don't just burn happily. They have

550
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: like you know, indigestion and you get like an enormous

551
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: eruption and it's stuff into space a starbourb yeah, or

552
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: you could have like a star quake or like cracks

553
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: on the surface of the star and internal stuff shoots

554
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: out and you could get an enormous eruption of plasma.

555
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: So you know, it could be that that's what happened.

556
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: It happened on the other side of the star, and

557
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: it's dimming as a result. This is really just really speculative.

558
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: Stars are not um these constant balls of fire there.

559
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: They can have big events. They can have big events,

560
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: especially big stars that tend to be more dynamic and

561
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: more violent and started near the end of their life.

562
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 1: They get to be a little bit less predictable as

563
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: the fires is sputtering out, kind of like that older

564
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: uncle you have, that's just the one who's no longer

565
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: invited to Thanksgiving. That's a lot of weird starburbs. At

566
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: least now he puts on pants every time he comes

567
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: to dinner, Right, that's an improvement. At least when it

568
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: adjects star material, it has pants on. Yeah. Or it

569
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: could just be some really weird thing happening with the

570
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: magnetic field of the star. You remember, what we're seeing

571
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: is dimming. That doesn't mean that the star is dimmer.

572
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: You could also mean that there's some like it's ejected

573
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: some matter, which then cool, and it's now blocking our

574
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: view of the star. It could just be winking at us.

575
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 1: It could be winking at us. Yeah, or of course,

576
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: you know, my favorite explanation is that there's you know,

577
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: some awesome civilization out there that's like building some structure

578
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,719
Speaker 1: between us and beetlejuice. Or really they've just now closed

579
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: the blinds since since October. You know, it's a long

580
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: construction project, and maybe they've just now started to know

581
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: ramp this thing up and uh and turn on their

582
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: dicen sphere or whatever. Maybe it's aliens burping too or

583
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,239
Speaker 1: and or flirting with us. Maybe that maybe maybe it's

584
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: alien uncles, you know, and they're grumpy they didn't get

585
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: invited to Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know. But anytime something

586
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: happens in the night sky that's sort of rapid, that's

587
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: unusual and changes quickly, then you've got to wonder, you know,

588
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:41,719
Speaker 1: is that a sign of sort of intelligent life, of

589
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: somebody's being like activist and constructing something, actively changing the

590
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 1: way the universe is organized, not just sort of watching

591
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: it happen. Okay, so I'm getting that idea a for

592
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: what might be happening to beetle juice is just a

593
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: normal phase in its cycle. Idea number two is that

594
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: maybe it's some kind of event that's happening like a quay,

595
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: or a starbourb or um an ejection, or or an

596
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: aliens and or all of those things at the same time.

597
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: Aliens causing a star quake because of their burping, that's right,

598
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: while flirting with you. All right, let's get into the

599
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: third idea for what might be happening to to beetle juice,

600
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: which might be an explosive idea, a cataclysmic finish to

601
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: beetle juices run on the Hall of Fame, that's right,

602
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 1: not just a burb but a big boom perhaps, don't

603
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: you all don't we all want to end our career

604
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: so like mel Gibson exploding in a firing disaster with

605
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: a big racist grant. Yeah, sounds like a great way

606
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: to go, beetlejuice to your astronomical racist uncle. All right,

607
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break first, All right, So beetlejuice

608
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: is dimming. It used to be like the number one

609
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: to start in the universe, but now it's stock has

610
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: gone down, Daniel, Yeah, and it's not the number one

611
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: bright star in the universe, right, so I see, and

612
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: if to us to my universe, yeah, to our to

613
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: the Jorge universe. It was one of the times we

614
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: all live. We're all just big players on your stage, sir.

615
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. But yeah, and we're trying to

616
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: figure out what could explain that, and we talked about

617
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: the sort of boring ideas, but there is one more

618
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: sort of explosive possibility. All right, sounds exciting. What else

619
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: could be happening to beetle Juice. Well, remember that Beetle

620
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: Juice is a massive star and it's near the end

621
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: of its life. And what happens to really big stars

622
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: when they go out is you often get a supernova.

623
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: So some stars, when they get old, they go into supernova.

624
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: And you're saying this dimming could be like a sign

625
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, if Beetle Juice is about to go,

626
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,719
Speaker 1: then you know, the last few hundreds or thousands of

627
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: years before it goes supernova could be a little more volatile.

628
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: It could be hard to predict. And you know, Beetle

629
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: Juice is expected to last, you know, up to maybe

630
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: another hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, years. But there's a

631
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: lot of uncertainty in these predictions for when it will

632
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 1: go supernova, right, I mean it's it's like it's eight

633
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 1: and a half million years old, what's plus or mine

634
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: is a hundred thousand years? Yeah, it's basically months. Yeah,

635
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's seventy five in star years, right,

636
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: it's been retired for a while, and it's sort of,

637
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: you know, ready to go. Yeah. I mean that's kind

638
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: of why I'm always late with my deadlines, to be honest, Daniel,

639
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: because you're waiting for what's a hundred thousand years in

640
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of the universe? Nothing three months to

641
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 1: a physicist, years to a cartoonist. Yeah, there you go.

642
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 1: Just wait for me to go supernova. Yeah, and um,

643
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: but there's not too much to worry about here for

644
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. One is, when we've seen supernova,

645
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: the stars don't usually dim just beforehand. Usually they get brilliant,

646
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:58,839
Speaker 1: they like ramp up to the explosion. Yeah, they ramp

647
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: up to the explosion, and so dimming is not usually

648
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: a precursor of a supernova. So you don't really have

649
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: to worry. Now we don't know because we haven't seen

650
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 1: a lot of stars like this this close ghost supernova.

651
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: We don't have a huge amount of data. Um, we

652
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 1: just have one, right then, do you say? Or we've

653
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: seen many over the years. We've seen a few supernova

654
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 1: over the years, and we've seen a lot of the

655
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: type one A supernova recently and so and since then,

656
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: we've gotten much better capturing supernova and seeing more of them.

657
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:27,879
Speaker 1: So we don't but we still you know, we're talking

658
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: about hundreds of of examples, maybe thousands, so this could

659
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 1: be a weird one. You're not sure it's none of

660
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: them have dim right before exploding. Yeah, it's not a

661
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 1: typical thing for a start to do just before it explodes.

662
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: It's not gathering its energy, kind of like a do

663
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: kidding in Street Fighter, too finish him. We know that

664
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: was the wrong that was the wrong thing. That's the

665
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: wrong fighting again, but good try, good try. I always

666
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: wondering why we can't have Street Fighter versus Mortal Kombat,

667
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: you know, like sort of the epic balance, the epic challenge.

668
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:00,919
Speaker 1: I would buy the video that vidego. But the other

669
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 1: reason not to worry is that Beetle Juice is sort

670
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: of far enough away that even if it were about

671
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: to go supernova, we'd be pretty safe. Okay, it wouldn't.

672
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: We wouldn't again roasted by this explosion. No, it's six

673
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty light years away, so if there were

674
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: a supernova then we'd be good for six two years.

675
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: That's what you're saying. No, it's not about that. It's

676
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: not about the time difference. It's just about the fact

677
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: that the further you are away from the explosion, the

678
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:31,760
Speaker 1: less you feel it. It's why in the movies everyone's

679
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: always running away from the explosion, right, because the further

680
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 1: you are away, the more the energy, the temperature, the heat,

681
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: all the radiation has had had chanced to dilute, to

682
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: diffuse over a larger volume. We but what would we

683
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: see when we see it go bright? Or will we

684
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: see like a big fun explosion? What will we see? Well,

685
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,359
Speaker 1: it's really fascinating. The first thing you would see from

686
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: a supernova is not the light. You would actually first

687
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: see the new trinos. Interesting if you can see nedrinos, Yeah,

688
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 1: and we can see neutrinos because we have neutrino detectors,

689
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: And fascinatingly, you might wonder, like, how can neutrinos get

690
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 1: to Earth before photons. Right, Photons travel at the speed

691
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:15,720
Speaker 1: of light, being because they travel backwards in time. That article.

692
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: Neutrinos do not travel fast in the speed of light.

693
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: They do not travel backwards in time. They travel almost

694
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,800
Speaker 1: at the speed of light. But they are emitted first

695
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 1: from the supernova. And the reason is that is that

696
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: the supernova sort of happens from the beginning out and

697
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,479
Speaker 1: the neutrinos can penetrate the star. They can. Neutrinos made

698
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 1: in the middle of the star can make it out

699
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: of the star, whereas light made in the middle middle

700
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: of the star gets absorbed by the star. So the

701
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: supernova sort of makes neutrinos first, and then you don't

702
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 1: see light from the star until the shock wave of

703
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: the supernova has hit the surface of the star and

704
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 1: then it starts to glow. Oh, I see, like the

705
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: explosion has to make it through the star before it

706
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:01,359
Speaker 1: actually makes it out. Yes, so we see newtrinos here

707
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: on Earth from the supernova before we see the light

708
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: from it, which is kind of awesome. It's like a

709
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 1: pre warning system. Are you trying to argue for more

710
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: funding for a neutrino detectors? You get about two or

711
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: three hours notice, So it's not that much, you know,

712
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 1: And what do you do in two hours to organize

713
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: your life? I'm gonna order more Palter products, all the

714
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: ones I've always wanted to order, or and or play

715
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: um Sweet Fighter. But so first, we've see an enormous

716
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: amount of neutrinos. And also things people probably don't understand

717
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: is that most of the energy of supernova is not

718
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: emitted in the form of light. Most of it comes

719
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: out in the form of neutrinos and then in ejecting

720
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: the mass of the star. So while we would see

721
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: a really bright light here on Earth, like the star

722
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: could be as bright as the full moon in the

723
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 1: sky when it eventually does do supernova, that's just a

724
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,760
Speaker 1: tiny fraction of the energy it's released. Oh I see,

725
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: But isn't that the stuff that can actually kill you? Though?

726
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: It can kill you because the light that's emitted from

727
00:38:59,960 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: the star comes along and it's an X rays and

728
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: X rays are pretty deadly, but beetle juice is far

729
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,399
Speaker 1: enough away that by this time the X rays get here,

730
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,879
Speaker 1: they'll be dilute enough that our atmosphere can mostly absorb them,

731
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 1: so you don't really have to worry, I see, But

732
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 1: then it doesn't shoot other things too. Yeah, most of

733
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: the mass of the star is actually blown out also,

734
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: and so Beetle Juice, which is hugely massive star. Remember

735
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: it's twenty times the mass of the Sun. It will

736
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: blow out something like ten to the sixty protons. Ten

737
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: to the sixty protons. Yeah, it was actually disintegrate, and

738
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: I mean some of it will be left behind to

739
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: form a neutron star or black hole, but somebody like

740
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: half the mass of the star will get blown out

741
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: into space. And so if you're two year that thing,

742
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: you're just gonna get riddled with tiny little proton bullets, right,

743
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,880
Speaker 1: which are super dangerous, right, they are dangerous. Yeah, and

744
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 1: you know we are constantly being hit by proton bullets

745
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: from our own star, not because it's coming supernova. It's

746
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: just a normal thing for a start to do. But

747
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: these will be come at a much higher velocity the

748
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,760
Speaker 1: solar wind the protons just from our sun coming about

749
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: four fifty kilometers per second, which seems pretty fast, but

750
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:11,879
Speaker 1: from a supernova, these things would come at like ten

751
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers per second. But again, we don't have anything

752
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: to really to worry about because Beele Juice is far

753
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: enough away that the flux will not be very high,

754
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: and our magnetic fields should be strong enough to protect us. Remember,

755
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 1: charge particles get bent by magnetic fields, and so we

756
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:29,359
Speaker 1: have this force field that prevents charged particles from sort

757
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 1: of raining down on us, so we don't have to

758
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,480
Speaker 1: worry about it. But it is. It would be sort

759
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: of interesting, right because I think you're telling me that

760
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: Beetle Juice, if it goes supernova, which you don't now

761
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: tomorrow sixty years, when it goes supernova, it would be

762
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: kind of like the closest supernova to Earth ever. Yeah,

763
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: it would be the closest one ever to Earth. Um

764
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 1: And you know, there have been supernova in the past,

765
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:59,760
Speaker 1: and there may have been one closer Earth in the past,

766
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: but if so, they could have like sterilized all life

767
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: on Earth, and so we're on the watch out for

768
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: nearby supernova's. This one would be the closest one to Earth,

769
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: which would be sort of spectacular from the point of

770
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: view of astrophysics, but not close enough to fry us.

771
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: Will we would we see it in the nice sky?

772
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: We're like, would it look cool? What did you see

773
00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: an explosion? Or would you just see the star get brighter.

774
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,800
Speaker 1: From our point of view. You might see what the

775
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: telescope from interesting features because Beetle Juice is not only

776
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: one of the brightest stars in the sky, it's one

777
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: of the biggest, and so it sort of takes it

778
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: the largest area in the sky of any star in

779
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: the night sky. When a star goes supernova, it makes

780
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: this ring and explodes out. It's like not just like

781
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: a Michael Bay movie. It's beautiful, and so you might

782
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,760
Speaker 1: be able to see that with the telescope in your backyard.

783
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 1: Plus it would be really bright. It would be as

784
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: bright as the full moon. So that should be pretty cool.

785
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: And it could happen at any moment, or maybe we

786
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: would see it. We could see it at any moment.

787
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 1: But technically if it happened, it would already have happened,

788
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: right because it's so far away. Yeah, this thing is

789
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty light years away, and so anything

790
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 1: we're seeing today happened six hundred and fifty years ago. Um,

791
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: so we can blame it on whoever was live on

792
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: that back then, from whatever they did to trigger it.

793
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: And um, so we're looking into the past for sure. Um,

794
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: but it could happen anytime, right, we don't really understand

795
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: how these stars work. I think most astronomers think it's

796
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: more likely to happen in a hundred thousand years than tomorrow.

797
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 1: But you know, astronomers also weren't expecting Beetle Juice to

798
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: dim this much, so it's not like they really understand

799
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: the insides of the star that well. Alright, so it

800
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 1: sounds like our mystery why Beetlejuice is going dimmer is

801
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: tbd to be determined. I mean, we don't really have

802
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: a good explanation for it. But it's happening, and it's

803
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 1: happening right now. It's going dimmer. Yeah, it's probably not

804
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: a signal that aliens are coming. It's unlikely that it's

805
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,479
Speaker 1: going to go supernova tomorrow or next week or next year.

806
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 1: But it's very likely that we're going to learn some

807
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: interesting astrophysics. We're gonna learn about how these enormous cosmic

808
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: furnaces blow and how they burn and how they change.

809
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: And so astronomers will keep watching and see is it

810
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,359
Speaker 1: going to keep getting dimmer? Is it gonna go brighter again?

811
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: It's like everybody wants to know the answer to this.

812
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: This question that the end of this story, and every day,

813
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 1: every week they keep watching it just to see, like,

814
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: what's it gonna do today. It's exciting. It's really amazing

815
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: to me. That's something like a son a star. I mean,

816
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: it's so bright, but we we don't really know what's

817
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:29,880
Speaker 1: going on inside of it or uh, you know, all

818
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: the mechanisms inside and what makes it burn or or

819
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 1: dim like this. Yeah, well, it's amazing to me that

820
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 1: you would think we could understand it. I mean, it's

821
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: like ten to the fifty eight protons. I can hardly

822
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 1: understand what happens when two protons interact with each other.

823
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: It's incredible to me that plasma physicists and astrophysicists can

824
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: do the magneto hydrodynamics to understand a system like that.

825
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 1: It's crazy to me. It's impressive. I'm in all of

826
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: those folks. Yeah, pretty good for some cone potatoes, Pretty

827
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: good for some conj preatos. Turns out, sit on your

828
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: couch and think about the universe. You can learn some things, yeah,

829
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 1: and be very comfortable at the same time. And they

830
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: probably have the best snacks astronomers, really good snacks. The

831
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 1: best day of late all the time drink lattes made

832
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: out of coffee beans and alien milk. You mean, like

833
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: the green milk in that Star Wars movie. I don't

834
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about, but every milk that's not

835
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: cow milk tastes like alien milk to me. My wife

836
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 1: likes this macadaemia nut milk. I can't even all right, well,

837
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 1: um lactic products discussions aside um galactic galactic and galactic

838
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,280
Speaker 1: discussion side. It's it's all coming together, the milk away,

839
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: the milk in your coffee. It's all part of the

840
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: part of the same crazy universe and the same crazy podcast.

841
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:56,759
Speaker 1: So keep watching the skies and we'll keep learning about

842
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: the universe. Thanks for joining us, See you next time. Yeah,

843
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: before you still have a question after listening to all

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Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to

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00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

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00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or

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00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

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Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio from

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00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: more podcast from my Heart Radio. Visit the I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows.