1 00:00:08,240 --> 00:00:10,280 Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you ever think we should explore the 2 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:14,360 Speaker 1: universe with all five senses? Well, I'm definitely a fan 3 00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:17,800 Speaker 1: of looking out into space. Yeah, but we have other senses. 4 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,640 Speaker 1: Have you thought about what space smells like? Well, astronauts 5 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:24,680 Speaker 1: report that space smells a little bit like a barbecue. 6 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:28,639 Speaker 1: Really does it taste like barbecue? Also, I don't know, 7 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:31,640 Speaker 1: maybe frozen barbecue, I guess. Well, I hope it doesn't 8 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:35,200 Speaker 1: feel like barbecue. Space is not that saucy it turns 9 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:37,839 Speaker 1: out or sound like barbecue. That would just be the 10 00:00:37,880 --> 00:00:41,239 Speaker 1: sound of aliens preparing their barbecue grills. Well, I just 11 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:46,000 Speaker 1: hope we're not on the menu. Talk about first contact first, 12 00:00:46,000 --> 00:01:04,399 Speaker 1: of course, of course I am more handmade cartoonists and 13 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 1: the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a 14 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:10,160 Speaker 1: particle physicist, and I do love me a barbecue. So 15 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:13,039 Speaker 1: it really smells like barbecue space? It does. Actually, we 16 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:16,520 Speaker 1: had to listener question recently about what space smells like. 17 00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:19,920 Speaker 1: And they're a bunch of really interesting organic molecules out 18 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,640 Speaker 1: there in space that like cling to space suits and 19 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:25,000 Speaker 1: then release themselves when you come back inside, And they 20 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,840 Speaker 1: smell like sometimes like sulfur, sometimes like barbecue. What does 21 00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:31,120 Speaker 1: it mean? Like the astronauts would go out into space 22 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:33,200 Speaker 1: on a spacewalk and then when they come in they 23 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:36,160 Speaker 1: smell like barbecue. Yeah, exactly, when they open up their 24 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:38,600 Speaker 1: helmets again after they've come back in, the stuff that's 25 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:41,039 Speaker 1: stuck to their space suit now goes up their nostrils 26 00:01:41,080 --> 00:01:44,080 Speaker 1: and it smells a little bit like barbecue. Guess technically 27 00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:47,440 Speaker 1: barbecues are part of the universe. So yeah, the universe 28 00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:50,280 Speaker 1: does smell like barbecue, as it does smell like other things. 29 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:54,200 Speaker 1: Our barbecue universe. Welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge 30 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:56,960 Speaker 1: Explain the Universe, a perlection of I Heart Radio in 31 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,240 Speaker 1: which we use all sorts of absurd food analogy used 32 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:03,360 Speaker 1: to explain to you what the universe is like. Is 33 00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:06,640 Speaker 1: it goopy and saucy? Is it chewy and stringy? Can 34 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:08,960 Speaker 1: you bite right through it? But really, we want to 35 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:11,880 Speaker 1: make sure that you understand the nature of the universe, 36 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,960 Speaker 1: the things that scientists are thinking about, the things that 37 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:17,600 Speaker 1: we are mentally chewing on, and the things we have 38 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:20,840 Speaker 1: not yet been able to digest. That's right because even 39 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:24,000 Speaker 1: analogies are part of the universe, and so it's a 40 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:27,120 Speaker 1: broad topic that we are discussing here Daniel and Jorge 41 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:32,400 Speaker 1: explain bad analogies with other worse analogies. Yeah, it feels 42 00:02:32,440 --> 00:02:35,480 Speaker 1: like we just be compounding the problem there. But it 43 00:02:35,639 --> 00:02:38,920 Speaker 1: is a pretty interesting universe out there, and there's a 44 00:02:38,919 --> 00:02:41,040 Speaker 1: lot going on. Like if you just sit there in 45 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:43,200 Speaker 1: space and you float, you can smell things, you can 46 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:45,960 Speaker 1: feel things, I'm sure radiation hitting you, and you can 47 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:49,000 Speaker 1: see definitely a lot out there in the universe. Absolutely, 48 00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:52,480 Speaker 1: and we are continuing to invent new ways to interrict 49 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:56,320 Speaker 1: with our universe. And basically every time we do, we 50 00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:00,080 Speaker 1: find something shocking, we discover something else out there the 51 00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:03,240 Speaker 1: universe we didn't even know existed. Yeah, I mean, we're 52 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:05,280 Speaker 1: just sitting here in one corner of the Milky Way, 53 00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:08,079 Speaker 1: which is sitting in one corner of the observable universe, 54 00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:11,320 Speaker 1: and we're getting a lot of signals from everywhere. Basically, 55 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:13,600 Speaker 1: anything that gives up light, we get that light, and 56 00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:17,120 Speaker 1: we detected with our telescopes and our antennants. Exactly we 57 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:20,800 Speaker 1: are drowning and information from the universe, much of which 58 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:24,560 Speaker 1: we didn't even know existed until recently. For example, most 59 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:27,760 Speaker 1: of astronomy has been done using visible light. Light that 60 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:30,400 Speaker 1: you can see with your eyes and even maybe enhanced 61 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:33,560 Speaker 1: with telescopes, but there are really interesting signals in X 62 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:36,080 Speaker 1: rays and on the other side of the spectrum down 63 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:38,360 Speaker 1: to radio waves, you can also look at all the 64 00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:42,240 Speaker 1: particles that are washing over us, neutrinos and other crazy 65 00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:45,560 Speaker 1: sources of information about what's going out there in the universe. 66 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:50,000 Speaker 1: And recently we added gravitational waves to our toolkit for 67 00:03:50,240 --> 00:03:53,080 Speaker 1: listening to the universe. And each of these tells us 68 00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:55,760 Speaker 1: something different about the nature of the universe because different 69 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:58,680 Speaker 1: stuff out there emits in different ways. Some of it 70 00:03:58,720 --> 00:04:02,760 Speaker 1: gives off light, some radio waves, some gravitational waves. Each 71 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 1: one can tell us something different about what's out there 72 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:07,440 Speaker 1: in the universe. What sense would you use, Daniel to 73 00:04:07,480 --> 00:04:11,280 Speaker 1: describe detecting gravitational waves, Like, what what sense do you 74 00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:14,400 Speaker 1: need to detect gravity? Do you feel it? Do we 75 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:16,680 Speaker 1: hear it, do we see it? You would feel it 76 00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:19,400 Speaker 1: technically because it's a space quake, right, It's like a 77 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:24,480 Speaker 1: shaking of space itself. Space contracts, it expands into wiggles, 78 00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:27,240 Speaker 1: So that's really what's happening. And a lot of science 79 00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:31,040 Speaker 1: communication about gravitational waves, though they talk about listening to 80 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:35,159 Speaker 1: the universe they talk about like the chirp of black holes. 81 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:38,080 Speaker 1: I think that's a tiny bit confusing because we're not 82 00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:41,159 Speaker 1: using our ears to hear these things. We're not getting 83 00:04:41,279 --> 00:04:45,159 Speaker 1: sound waves from gravitational waves. What they've done is taken 84 00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:48,760 Speaker 1: the frequency of those waves, transform them into sound waves, 85 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:52,560 Speaker 1: and then listen to them. We're feeling the gravitational waves. Yeah. 86 00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:56,000 Speaker 1: I like thinking about gravitational waves as the shaking of space. 87 00:04:56,600 --> 00:04:58,480 Speaker 1: All right, Well, there are a lot of things out 88 00:04:58,520 --> 00:05:01,760 Speaker 1: there giving of a light and signals and gravity, and 89 00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:03,960 Speaker 1: for the most part we sort of know where it's 90 00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:07,120 Speaker 1: coming from over or what's making these signals. But sometimes 91 00:05:07,120 --> 00:05:10,760 Speaker 1: there are surprises. There are almost always surprises, and a 92 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:13,359 Speaker 1: lot of times these things are picked up by accident. 93 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:16,400 Speaker 1: Somebody develops a new kind of antenna or a new 94 00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:18,560 Speaker 1: kind of telescope and looks out of the universe the 95 00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:21,760 Speaker 1: first time, maybe looking for one thing and finding something 96 00:05:21,839 --> 00:05:24,839 Speaker 1: totally different, and then puzzling over and wondering like, huh, 97 00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:28,159 Speaker 1: what's making all that light or emitting all that radiation? 98 00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:31,000 Speaker 1: And those are fascinating clues that tell us about something 99 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:33,360 Speaker 1: new out there in the universe, or something we knew 100 00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:36,240 Speaker 1: about that's doing something we didn't know about. Yeah, and 101 00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:39,960 Speaker 1: there is one particular signal out there that is basically 102 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:42,600 Speaker 1: all around us. You can hear it in every direction, 103 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:44,839 Speaker 1: but we don't know what's making it. It's sort of 104 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:49,440 Speaker 1: this weird, unexplained phenomenon exactly, and it's also got a 105 00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:53,680 Speaker 1: hilarious name to it. Oh does it in physics? How surprising? 106 00:05:54,640 --> 00:06:00,000 Speaker 1: I'm shocked, hilarious and some ways misleading? Well do they? 107 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:07,240 Speaker 1: On the podcast will be tackling the question what is 108 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:10,880 Speaker 1: the space roar now, Daniel? Is it like a roar 109 00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:13,080 Speaker 1: like a lines war or is it more like a 110 00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:17,960 Speaker 1: cat's meo like rare like is the universe caddie or 111 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:20,520 Speaker 1: is it you know, not had its morning coffee yet? 112 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:24,120 Speaker 1: What is the universe's attitude exactly? Does the universe need 113 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:26,840 Speaker 1: to go to therapy? Like, dude, chill out, somebody give 114 00:06:26,839 --> 00:06:30,800 Speaker 1: the universe some valium? What's definitely cool and chill We've 115 00:06:30,839 --> 00:06:33,760 Speaker 1: I think we've established that. Does it got kind of 116 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:37,760 Speaker 1: hot sometimes? Yeah? Exactly. Roar is a pretty funny name. Really. 117 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,560 Speaker 1: I would have called this the space hiss, the space 118 00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:44,080 Speaker 1: his his yeah, exactly, like the space buzzes. Yeah, the 119 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:46,320 Speaker 1: space buzz That would have been a great name for it, 120 00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:51,800 Speaker 1: the space hum um. That makes it sound like alien music, 121 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 1: you know, like Gregorian alien chance, the space whistle while 122 00:06:55,640 --> 00:06:58,839 Speaker 1: you work. Yeah, exactly. I think all of those would 123 00:06:58,839 --> 00:07:03,480 Speaker 1: have been more accurate name than the space raw. Now 124 00:07:03,520 --> 00:07:05,960 Speaker 1: I see now you're calling it. I would spell that 125 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,600 Speaker 1: differently than r O A r oh. Yeah, that's more 126 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:12,040 Speaker 1: like the space meal. Yeah. But anyways, it is a thing, 127 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:15,440 Speaker 1: the space roar, and it's kind of a big mystery 128 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:17,520 Speaker 1: in physics, and we were wondering how many people out 129 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:20,360 Speaker 1: there knew what it was or had heard of it 130 00:07:20,800 --> 00:07:24,000 Speaker 1: or been I don't know the subject of its attitude. 131 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:27,640 Speaker 1: So thanks to everybody who's willing to guess at the 132 00:07:27,720 --> 00:07:31,440 Speaker 1: true nature of something poorly named by astronomers. If you 133 00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:34,480 Speaker 1: were willing to participate for a future episode, please write 134 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,440 Speaker 1: to me. Two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. 135 00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:40,640 Speaker 1: I like how you just totally through astronomers under the 136 00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:44,120 Speaker 1: bus there. You could have said physicists. You definitely specifically 137 00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:46,600 Speaker 1: said astronomers there. Yeah. Well, I feel like they are 138 00:07:46,680 --> 00:07:49,480 Speaker 1: the target of your criticism more often than other kind 139 00:07:49,520 --> 00:07:55,600 Speaker 1: of physics. Mr particle man, are you serious? Yeah? We 140 00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:59,040 Speaker 1: got strange names. We got charming names. But you know, 141 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:02,800 Speaker 1: astronomer is there. Maybe let's call them more creative with 142 00:08:02,880 --> 00:08:06,880 Speaker 1: their names. Remember that whole episode about space centaurs. Let's 143 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:10,120 Speaker 1: not hear me raw about this topic any longer. Alright, 144 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:12,120 Speaker 1: let's not hiss about it all right? Well, as usual, 145 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:14,440 Speaker 1: Daniel went out there and ask people what they thought 146 00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:17,160 Speaker 1: the space roar was. To think about it for a second. 147 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:20,120 Speaker 1: If someone ask you, what would you say? How would 148 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:23,120 Speaker 1: you answer? Here's what people had to say, saying, as 149 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:26,239 Speaker 1: it's called aurora, I imagine Scott to do with sound waves, 150 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:30,280 Speaker 1: and I think they might come from all directions in space. 151 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:34,400 Speaker 1: The space roar sort of reminds me of a tiger 152 00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:38,240 Speaker 1: or Allian. But in our universe, I think that the 153 00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:42,200 Speaker 1: space roar could be like an explosion. Maybe it could 154 00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:45,480 Speaker 1: be compared to the Big Bang, and maybe this explosion 155 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:48,680 Speaker 1: was the beginning of something. I don't know if it 156 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:52,720 Speaker 1: could have been the beginning of a galaxy. The spice role, 157 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:58,040 Speaker 1: I'm fairly certain is aliens. Probably it can only be 158 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:03,040 Speaker 1: radio waves since nobody can scream with us, who wouldn't 159 00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:07,200 Speaker 1: hear it? Because you avoids, the sound cannot travel, So 160 00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:11,400 Speaker 1: the space road can be in radio We always talk 161 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:15,880 Speaker 1: about light and energy being transmitted through space, but a 162 00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:18,599 Speaker 1: lot of what happens in the universe also produces or 163 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:22,560 Speaker 1: could produce sound if there was something to convey that sound. 164 00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:25,400 Speaker 1: So is this some sort of accumulation of that? I 165 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:28,000 Speaker 1: have no idea, all right, I like this idea of 166 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:33,960 Speaker 1: a space tiger or a space lion when alien space tiger? Yeah, 167 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:36,760 Speaker 1: that was basically your answer. Yeah, and some people assume 168 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:39,720 Speaker 1: it has something to do with radio waves or at 169 00:09:39,800 --> 00:09:42,520 Speaker 1: least some sort of waves that we're getting out there 170 00:09:42,559 --> 00:09:45,840 Speaker 1: from the universe. Yeah, totally solid response there. Yeah, but 171 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:48,280 Speaker 1: technically can you get sound from space? I know in 172 00:09:48,360 --> 00:09:50,600 Speaker 1: space no one can hear you scream. But is that 173 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:54,199 Speaker 1: because you're wearing a helmet or because you can't transmit sound? Right, 174 00:09:54,320 --> 00:09:57,800 Speaker 1: Anything where you describe something we get from space in 175 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,360 Speaker 1: terms of a sound is usually playing the same trick 176 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:04,000 Speaker 1: we talked about with respect to gravitational waves, where you're 177 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:06,800 Speaker 1: getting some other kind of wave and all waves have 178 00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:10,120 Speaker 1: a frequency, and then you transform that wave into a 179 00:10:10,160 --> 00:10:12,520 Speaker 1: sound wave so you can listen to it. This is 180 00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:16,720 Speaker 1: no different than like taking radio waves or X rays 181 00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:19,640 Speaker 1: from space which you can't see visually, and then just 182 00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:22,200 Speaker 1: shifting them in the spectrum so that you can see 183 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:24,880 Speaker 1: them like a false color image. So no, you can't 184 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:30,040 Speaker 1: actually hear any sounds from space because sounds are mechanical waves. 185 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:33,920 Speaker 1: They require like air shifting or something banging into something else. 186 00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:38,000 Speaker 1: So we can't hear anything technically from space, right. But 187 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:41,760 Speaker 1: space isn't completely empty, is right. It's not a perfect vacuum. 188 00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:45,600 Speaker 1: There's a little bit of gas and hydrogen everywhere, isn't there? No, exactly, 189 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:47,920 Speaker 1: there are some particles out there, and so you can 190 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:51,320 Speaker 1: imagine there are some like waves in the solar wind, 191 00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:54,800 Speaker 1: for example, oscillations that happened, like the sun has a 192 00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:57,920 Speaker 1: period of eleven years, where like there's lots of ups 193 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:00,440 Speaker 1: and downs in the radiation it emits. So you can 194 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:04,000 Speaker 1: imagine waves propagating in that medium, and perhaps you can 195 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:07,160 Speaker 1: imagine actually listening to them. So yeah, there are ways 196 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:10,920 Speaker 1: you're right for sound to propagate through not totally empty space. 197 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:13,760 Speaker 1: But space is also not empty in another way. We 198 00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:17,000 Speaker 1: always talk about space being filled with quantum fields, and 199 00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:20,600 Speaker 1: those fields can propagate waves, and for example, that's what 200 00:11:20,640 --> 00:11:23,720 Speaker 1: a photon is. It's a wave in the electromagnetic field 201 00:11:23,760 --> 00:11:28,000 Speaker 1: in otherwise empty space m sounds good, so they can 202 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:32,559 Speaker 1: hear you scream in space from radiation burning. Probably if 203 00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:35,280 Speaker 1: you scream in light, then yes, people can hear you scream. 204 00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:38,040 Speaker 1: All right, So there's this big mystery in physics called 205 00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:41,360 Speaker 1: the space roar. Now, Daniel step us through this. What 206 00:11:41,559 --> 00:11:45,400 Speaker 1: is the space war? The space roar is a totally weird, 207 00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:50,560 Speaker 1: unexplained source of radio from space, And that's why they 208 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:52,840 Speaker 1: call it the space roar because it comes in the 209 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:56,600 Speaker 1: radio spectrum, which is a spectrum where we often listen to. Right, 210 00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:59,400 Speaker 1: you might even be hearing this podcast on the radio, 211 00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:03,240 Speaker 1: which means it's and transmitted using radio waves. So because 212 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:07,160 Speaker 1: we associate radio waves with sound often, I think that's 213 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:10,000 Speaker 1: why I got this name, the space roar. But basically 214 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:13,800 Speaker 1: it's unexplained source of radio waves from space, I guess, 215 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:16,080 Speaker 1: meaning that if you turn on your radio, you would 216 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:19,280 Speaker 1: technically be able to listen to this roar, right, yeah, exactly, 217 00:12:19,679 --> 00:12:22,360 Speaker 1: it is coming in through the radio waves. You need 218 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:26,080 Speaker 1: a radio antenna. And remember that radio waves are just 219 00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:30,800 Speaker 1: another part of the electromagnetic spectrum. All of these are photons. 220 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:32,640 Speaker 1: You could call all of it light if you want, 221 00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:35,000 Speaker 1: but they're all just part of the same wiggling of 222 00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:38,760 Speaker 1: electromagnetic fields. In the center of the spectrum, there's visible light. 223 00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:42,240 Speaker 1: Above that there's UV light, and then X rays. Below it, 224 00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:45,559 Speaker 1: there's infrared light, and below that are radio waves. So 225 00:12:45,800 --> 00:12:49,280 Speaker 1: radio waves are just photons with a very very long wavelength. 226 00:12:49,360 --> 00:12:51,760 Speaker 1: And you know, as we were saying earlier, for centuries, 227 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:54,839 Speaker 1: people were doing astronomy only by looking at visible light, 228 00:12:55,080 --> 00:12:57,000 Speaker 1: the light you could see with your eyes, and of 229 00:12:57,000 --> 00:12:59,839 Speaker 1: course there's a lot of fascinating information about stars and 230 00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:01,840 Speaker 1: the universe you can see you just with your eyes 231 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:05,320 Speaker 1: or gathering more of those visible moutons into a telescope. 232 00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:08,360 Speaker 1: But in the ninet thirties it was this amazing discovery 233 00:13:08,400 --> 00:13:11,360 Speaker 1: that you could actually listen to the sky using radio 234 00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:14,240 Speaker 1: waves also, and that there was a huge source of 235 00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:17,679 Speaker 1: radio waves coming to us from space. How did we 236 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:20,920 Speaker 1: discover that it wasn't through like actual radios. No, it 237 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,320 Speaker 1: was a really interesting accidental discovery by this guy Jansky. 238 00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:27,640 Speaker 1: He was hired by the Bell Telephone Company. They wanted 239 00:13:27,679 --> 00:13:30,520 Speaker 1: to beam radio signals across the Atlantic, and they were 240 00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:34,400 Speaker 1: worried that thunderstorms would generate radio interference, so they hired 241 00:13:34,520 --> 00:13:37,440 Speaker 1: him to like listen to the radio spectrum carefully and 242 00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:39,960 Speaker 1: see if you could understand these forms of interference. So 243 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:43,839 Speaker 1: he built basically a huge radio telescope, the first radio telescope, 244 00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:46,400 Speaker 1: just to gather radio waves, and he heard a lot 245 00:13:46,480 --> 00:13:51,600 Speaker 1: of stuff that he couldn't explain as coming from Earth. Interesting, 246 00:13:51,679 --> 00:13:55,560 Speaker 1: totally unintended, totally unintended. It was like a fascinating little 247 00:13:55,600 --> 00:13:58,400 Speaker 1: piece of science. He heard this weird hiss he couldn't explain, 248 00:13:58,520 --> 00:14:00,679 Speaker 1: and actually he discovered that it was related with the 249 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,160 Speaker 1: rotation of the Earth, which is how he knew it 250 00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:06,160 Speaker 1: wasn't coming from the Earth. It's like seeing something in 251 00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:08,320 Speaker 1: the sky. You see it once a day, so you 252 00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:11,040 Speaker 1: know that, like as the Earth is turning, it's appearing 253 00:14:11,160 --> 00:14:13,520 Speaker 1: in the sky. But he was looking at the sky 254 00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:15,840 Speaker 1: in a different spectrum, right, He was looking at the 255 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,080 Speaker 1: sky in the radio waves, and what he was actually 256 00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:22,960 Speaker 1: listening to was radio emissions from the center of the galaxy. 257 00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:25,320 Speaker 1: And so here was like a whole new way to 258 00:14:25,960 --> 00:14:28,560 Speaker 1: listen to this guy to look out at the universe. 259 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:31,960 Speaker 1: Nobody ever thought that there are natural sources of radio 260 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,600 Speaker 1: waves out there in the universe, and by listening to 261 00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:37,280 Speaker 1: them we could tell what's going on. And the whole 262 00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:40,560 Speaker 1: field is hilarious sort of because nobody really did anything 263 00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:43,280 Speaker 1: about it until at ten years later, when this guy 264 00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:47,280 Speaker 1: outside Chicago built the world's first radio telescope by himself 265 00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:50,960 Speaker 1: in his backyard, and he was basically the only radio 266 00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:55,200 Speaker 1: astronomer in the world for about ten years. A pioneer, 267 00:14:55,360 --> 00:14:59,440 Speaker 1: A pioneer absolutely in his backyard. This thing is huge. 268 00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:02,360 Speaker 1: It's one of these big dishes. So Jansky's first one 269 00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:04,520 Speaker 1: was just like a string of antennas on a big 270 00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:07,760 Speaker 1: wheel that he could turn and then whever. He built 271 00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:10,680 Speaker 1: the first dish to sort of like concentrate radio waves 272 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:12,920 Speaker 1: and collect them together. And that's the sort of radio 273 00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:15,880 Speaker 1: dish that we have now. Like Arisibo until recently was 274 00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:19,040 Speaker 1: a big radio telescope, and we have other big radio telescopes. 275 00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:21,360 Speaker 1: You can see them. They are these huge dishes, and 276 00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:25,480 Speaker 1: they have to be big because radio has very long wavelengths, right. 277 00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:27,760 Speaker 1: I guess it's sort of like you know, maybe astronomers 278 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:29,600 Speaker 1: at the time we're still busy trying to figure out 279 00:15:29,640 --> 00:15:32,160 Speaker 1: what they were seeing in the visible light spectrum, and 280 00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:35,720 Speaker 1: so nobody thought to look in other wavelengths. Yeah, exactly. 281 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:38,360 Speaker 1: There's still plenty of astronomy to do invisible lights. People 282 00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:40,400 Speaker 1: are still doing it now, but you know, there's a 283 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:42,960 Speaker 1: lot of spectra out there, and the universe looks different 284 00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:46,480 Speaker 1: at different spectrum. You know, different things glow at different temperatures. 285 00:15:46,560 --> 00:15:49,000 Speaker 1: Some things are very bright in the UV and very 286 00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:51,680 Speaker 1: dark in the visible light, or they're very strong radio 287 00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:54,200 Speaker 1: emitters and they're very quiet and invisible, and so it's 288 00:15:54,240 --> 00:15:57,120 Speaker 1: sort of like looking at the universe in color instead 289 00:15:57,160 --> 00:15:59,760 Speaker 1: of in black and white. You can see different things 290 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,359 Speaker 1: light up in different things being dark at different frequencies, 291 00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:06,360 Speaker 1: and so it's sort of like extra colors to the universe. 292 00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:08,640 Speaker 1: It's really a great way to sort of understand what's 293 00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:11,520 Speaker 1: out there, right right. It's a great romantic line. And 294 00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:15,080 Speaker 1: hear you're glowing in the X rayspector, all right, So 295 00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:17,880 Speaker 1: that was a bit his that he heard back then. 296 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:21,240 Speaker 1: But now we're hearing a roar and it's sort of 297 00:16:21,320 --> 00:16:24,040 Speaker 1: unexplained to what's the history of this roar when we 298 00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:27,680 Speaker 1: first started listening to it or seeing and who did it. 299 00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:31,560 Speaker 1: So there's an experiment developed called the arcade instrument. Arcade 300 00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:34,520 Speaker 1: is one of these tortured acronyms that stands for absolute 301 00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:39,520 Speaker 1: radiometerr for cosmology, astrophysics, and diffuse emission. But it's basically 302 00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:43,600 Speaker 1: a really sensitive radio antenna attached to a balloon and 303 00:16:43,640 --> 00:16:46,080 Speaker 1: it goes up into the atmosphere and it listens to 304 00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:49,880 Speaker 1: radio waves. And they're trying to really accurately measure these 305 00:16:49,880 --> 00:16:52,760 Speaker 1: sources of radio waves because they want to understand things 306 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:55,360 Speaker 1: like the very early universe. They want to listen to 307 00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:58,280 Speaker 1: the cosmic background radiation and detect to see if, like 308 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:00,840 Speaker 1: the first stars in the univer gave it a little 309 00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:03,600 Speaker 1: bit of hot spots here and there. So they launched 310 00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:06,879 Speaker 1: this probe something like ten fifteen years ago, and it 311 00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,600 Speaker 1: was one of the most sensitive probes to radio waves, 312 00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:13,480 Speaker 1: and they heard this crazy hiss that they couldn't explain. Wow, 313 00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:15,240 Speaker 1: where did they launch it? Was this one of these 314 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:18,760 Speaker 1: like antarctic balloons or was it outside Chicago, also the 315 00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:21,560 Speaker 1: epicenter of radio astronomy. It was launched from a spot 316 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:25,320 Speaker 1: in Texas. NASA has a scientific balloon facility there, and 317 00:17:25,359 --> 00:17:27,360 Speaker 1: this thing is not just like a normal balloon. It's 318 00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:30,040 Speaker 1: one of these like massive weather balloons, and as it 319 00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:32,479 Speaker 1: goes up it gets really really big. And this thing 320 00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:36,440 Speaker 1: went up to thirty seven kilometers above the Earth's surface. 321 00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:39,560 Speaker 1: All right, So then they send out this balloon and 322 00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:41,800 Speaker 1: they I guess we're able to point it. Can they 323 00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:44,640 Speaker 1: pointed around, and that's when they heard this roar. They 324 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:46,960 Speaker 1: can't point it. It just sort of like floats around. 325 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:49,199 Speaker 1: They don't steer it. But it has a bunch of 326 00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:52,560 Speaker 1: antennas on it, so you can get directional information about 327 00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:54,760 Speaker 1: the signals you're picking up based on like when they 328 00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:57,439 Speaker 1: arrive at the instruments. It's sort of like parallax or 329 00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:01,040 Speaker 1: like binocular vision, and so they and tell where things 330 00:18:01,080 --> 00:18:03,159 Speaker 1: are coming from. And so you know, they saw a 331 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:05,560 Speaker 1: lot of the expected stuff in the radio. You can 332 00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:08,600 Speaker 1: see the Sun, you can see the galactic center, you 333 00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:12,000 Speaker 1: can see Jupiter, you can see other galaxies that are 334 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:14,919 Speaker 1: putting out radio waves, and that's sort of what they expected. 335 00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:18,720 Speaker 1: But they also found this sort of like overall signal, 336 00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:22,479 Speaker 1: this uniform HIS that nobody had ever heard before, and 337 00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:27,199 Speaker 1: it's much much stronger than anything they expected. Interesting. All right, 338 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,800 Speaker 1: let's getting too a little bit more in detail of 339 00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:32,280 Speaker 1: this his, and then let's talk about where it could 340 00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:34,240 Speaker 1: be com firm and what it could be. But first 341 00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:48,520 Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. All right, we're talking about 342 00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:54,320 Speaker 1: the space roar, a mysterious signal that the arcade instrument 343 00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:59,080 Speaker 1: detected on a balloon kilometers up in the sky. Now, Daniel, 344 00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:02,400 Speaker 1: this is different than the cosmic microwave background radiation, right, 345 00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:05,600 Speaker 1: the CMB r F. That's right, This is different from 346 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:10,400 Speaker 1: the CMB. No are we're not living in the marvel universe. 347 00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,560 Speaker 1: The CNB does emit in the radio. Right. Part of 348 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:16,080 Speaker 1: the CMB is in the radio spectrum. It's a bit 349 00:19:16,119 --> 00:19:19,160 Speaker 1: of confusing terminology here because sometimes waves in this part 350 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:22,840 Speaker 1: of the spectrum are called radio sometimes they're called microwaves. 351 00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:26,480 Speaker 1: Through the same thing. Essentially, anything longer than a millimeter 352 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:28,480 Speaker 1: you could call a radio wave, or you could call 353 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:30,520 Speaker 1: it a microwave. So you could also call it the 354 00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:34,919 Speaker 1: cosmic radio background m So it is sort of like 355 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:39,040 Speaker 1: the cosmic microwave background, but it's just at a different wavelength. Yeah, exactly. 356 00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:42,040 Speaker 1: They were looking for at the slightly longer wavelength portion 357 00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:44,680 Speaker 1: that's not as well studied. Because what they wanted to 358 00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:47,680 Speaker 1: understand was can they see like the heat the light 359 00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:50,520 Speaker 1: put out from some of the first stars in the universe, 360 00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:53,280 Speaker 1: which would have emitted in the radio. That was sort 361 00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:56,600 Speaker 1: of their scientific goals, like measure this part of the 362 00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:59,879 Speaker 1: spectrum really really accurately, and then study it for hints 363 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:02,800 Speaker 1: about the formations of the first stars, which they hoped 364 00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:05,880 Speaker 1: would leave a little fingerprint on this part of the universe. Oh, 365 00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:07,960 Speaker 1: I see. They sent that Bluna up to study the 366 00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:12,600 Speaker 1: CMB specifically, but in the radio wave wavelength, Yeah, exactly, 367 00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:16,200 Speaker 1: and to study sort of the longer tails of the CNB, 368 00:20:16,359 --> 00:20:19,960 Speaker 1: which people haven't studied as precisely using like Kobe and 369 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,800 Speaker 1: Plunk and w MAP and those other satellites. So it 370 00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:26,560 Speaker 1: has a slightly different sensitivity than other instruments. So sort 371 00:20:26,560 --> 00:20:29,440 Speaker 1: of the first time people looked with this precision at 372 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:32,359 Speaker 1: this part of the spectrum. All right, So then I 373 00:20:32,359 --> 00:20:35,160 Speaker 1: guess they expected to hear like a background his but 374 00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:38,240 Speaker 1: what they found was not quite what they were expecting 375 00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:41,440 Speaker 1: to find. Yeah, they expected to find the CMB, as 376 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:43,720 Speaker 1: we talked about, that's part of the spectrum. They also 377 00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:46,520 Speaker 1: expected to hear sort of like a diffuse background, you know, 378 00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:48,840 Speaker 1: like all the galaxies that are out there they admit 379 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:51,359 Speaker 1: in the radio, especially if they have a strong black 380 00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:53,600 Speaker 1: hole at their center, they're gonna be giving off a 381 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:55,840 Speaker 1: lot of radio waves, So you expect sort of just 382 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,639 Speaker 1: like a diffuse source of noise out there in the 383 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:02,320 Speaker 1: universe in radio waves. But they heard this hiss. That's 384 00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:05,400 Speaker 1: not The CMB comes at a different wavelength, and it's 385 00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:08,560 Speaker 1: much much stronger than what you would expect just from 386 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:11,920 Speaker 1: like all the galaxies emitting. It's like six times larger 387 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,600 Speaker 1: than what we can explain. Wait, why can it be 388 00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:18,080 Speaker 1: the CMB. Well, we know the CMB pretty well. The 389 00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:20,600 Speaker 1: CMB is what you expect from like a two point 390 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:23,840 Speaker 1: seven degree kelvin black body emitter, So we know it's 391 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:26,320 Speaker 1: spectrum and we know it's intensity. And this is just 392 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:29,760 Speaker 1: much bigger than the CMBs. That's not consistent with what 393 00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:32,880 Speaker 1: you would expect from the CMB, I see, And it's 394 00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:34,879 Speaker 1: much bigger than what you would expect from just a 395 00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:38,800 Speaker 1: general like din of the universe, like the general radio 396 00:21:38,840 --> 00:21:42,240 Speaker 1: wave background of the universe. Yeah, exactly. And it's the 397 00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:45,080 Speaker 1: most sensitive instrument in this area. And it also has 398 00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:48,399 Speaker 1: an absolute calibration, which is the reason we first heard it. 399 00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:51,199 Speaker 1: Most of the radio balloons and other things listening to 400 00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,480 Speaker 1: this part of the spectrum before would always just do 401 00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:56,280 Speaker 1: a relative calibration that would like listen to two points 402 00:21:56,440 --> 00:21:59,119 Speaker 1: and look, for example, at radio from the center of 403 00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:02,280 Speaker 1: the galaxy relative to just sort of like an average direction. 404 00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:06,399 Speaker 1: So previous experiments couldn't detect like an overall background noise 405 00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:09,560 Speaker 1: because they were always like measuring relative to the background noise. 406 00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:12,240 Speaker 1: This is the first experiment that can actually measure the 407 00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:16,080 Speaker 1: background noise itself because it has an absolute calibration on it. 408 00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:18,359 Speaker 1: And so this is the first time we realized that 409 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:20,840 Speaker 1: the background noise that Din you were talking about is 410 00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:23,439 Speaker 1: just much larger than what we can explain. You know, 411 00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:25,960 Speaker 1: It's like if you walked into a room expecting there 412 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,080 Speaker 1: to be ten people in there, but instead there's the 413 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,840 Speaker 1: noise from sixty people. You're like, where's all this noise 414 00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:36,200 Speaker 1: coming from? Mysterious Yes, something out there in the universe, 415 00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,159 Speaker 1: like this one. They calibrated by I guess shielding it 416 00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,560 Speaker 1: completely or just having like knowing their instruments so much 417 00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:46,320 Speaker 1: that they know what no radio emissions would sound like 418 00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:49,440 Speaker 1: this thing they shielded. They cool it down to two 419 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:54,200 Speaker 1: point seven degrees kelvin using super fluid liquid helium, which 420 00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,640 Speaker 1: is pretty awesome, and then they also have a device 421 00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,280 Speaker 1: on there which gives out a known signal, so like 422 00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:01,720 Speaker 1: it has its own little calibrator on it, which they 423 00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,600 Speaker 1: can calibrate absolutely, like they know what they should be 424 00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,280 Speaker 1: hearing from this, So rather than just using the sky 425 00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,359 Speaker 1: to calibrate where you're sensitive to background noise in the sky, 426 00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:13,280 Speaker 1: they have their own little calibration source. This is like 427 00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:15,679 Speaker 1: a little add on thing they did to make it 428 00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,240 Speaker 1: more sensitive so they could like calibrate it more precisely. 429 00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:20,840 Speaker 1: And what they discovered is like, oops, the background from 430 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:23,600 Speaker 1: the sky was much bigger than what everybody had thought, 431 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,280 Speaker 1: and nobody had been sensitive to it before because nobody 432 00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:29,199 Speaker 1: else had done their own calibration. I see now, is 433 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:31,840 Speaker 1: this coming from a particular direction or it's like it's 434 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:35,640 Speaker 1: coming from everywhere. It seems to be coming from everywhere, right, 435 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,119 Speaker 1: It's really weird. It comes from all directions and we 436 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:42,400 Speaker 1: don't know yet, like is it coming from our galaxy 437 00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:46,320 Speaker 1: or is it coming from other galaxies. It's really confusing. 438 00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,840 Speaker 1: If it was coming from other galaxies, to be pretty surprising, 439 00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,439 Speaker 1: wouldn't it, because they're so far away that that signal 440 00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:54,760 Speaker 1: should be pretty weak by the time it gets here, 441 00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:57,919 Speaker 1: So it would be a pretty big source at those galaxies. 442 00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,359 Speaker 1: It would be you know, some of those galaxies really 443 00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,719 Speaker 1: pump out radio waves all galaxies put out radio for example, 444 00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:07,680 Speaker 1: like Andromeda, it puts out ten to the thirty two watts. 445 00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,640 Speaker 1: Like that's just a huge number. It's hard to wrap 446 00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,040 Speaker 1: your mind around. You know, your light bulb was like 447 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:16,120 Speaker 1: fifty watts or a hundred wats. Andromeda puts out ten 448 00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,200 Speaker 1: to the thirty two watts, you know, and it's all noise. 449 00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:22,000 Speaker 1: It's not even like playing good music or anything. But 450 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,640 Speaker 1: that's actually a fairly quiet galaxy. Some of the galaxies 451 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,800 Speaker 1: out there, like Signus A, it puts out a million 452 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,679 Speaker 1: times as much radio energy. So these galaxies, you're right, 453 00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,240 Speaker 1: they're really far away, they're millions of light years away, 454 00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,119 Speaker 1: but they're still very loud in the radio, which just 455 00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,800 Speaker 1: tells you how intense they are. Could those be the 456 00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:43,840 Speaker 1: source of this space war? Are well, that was the 457 00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:46,719 Speaker 1: first ideas that people thought, Oh, well, you know, maybe 458 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,040 Speaker 1: the galaxies are louder than we thought, but we can 459 00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,560 Speaker 1: listen to the individual galaxies. We can tell basically how 460 00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,760 Speaker 1: loud galaxies are. In order to explain it with galaxies, 461 00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,439 Speaker 1: you need to just like add more galaxies because you 462 00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,800 Speaker 1: need this like diffuse emission not just from individual galaxies, 463 00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,679 Speaker 1: but there sort of isn't enough space to add more galaxies. 464 00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:06,920 Speaker 1: Like if you just said, what if there are a 465 00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,440 Speaker 1: bunch of galaxies out there we didn't know about somehow, 466 00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:11,760 Speaker 1: then you'd have to like pack them into the universe 467 00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,800 Speaker 1: like sardines. And so you can't really explain this just 468 00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:19,040 Speaker 1: by like adding more galaxies. M So it can't be galaxies. 469 00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:22,439 Speaker 1: Could it be something specific, like you know that just 470 00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:24,520 Speaker 1: happens to be like a like a pulsar aimed at 471 00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:26,920 Speaker 1: us or something like that, or a quasar. It's coming 472 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,199 Speaker 1: from all directions, right, So what you need is like 473 00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:33,159 Speaker 1: a very large population of something, all of which is 474 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,600 Speaker 1: emitting these sources and emitting sort of like noise to write, 475 00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:40,560 Speaker 1: like not any frequencies in specific. Yeah, well down here 476 00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:42,720 Speaker 1: in the radio. But exactly, it's not like a spike. 477 00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:44,600 Speaker 1: It's not like a very narrow peak. And you know, 478 00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:47,000 Speaker 1: and maybe we should talk about like why things emit 479 00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,080 Speaker 1: radio because that helps us understand what it is that's 480 00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,800 Speaker 1: generating this sound. All right, Yeah, what makes things emit 481 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,040 Speaker 1: radio waves? Well, we have a few sort of categories 482 00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,520 Speaker 1: of things that can make radio waves. One is just 483 00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,639 Speaker 1: things being hot. You know, everything in the universe gives 484 00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:05,280 Speaker 1: off radiation. It's called black body radiation depending on your temperature, 485 00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,520 Speaker 1: and things that are really hot give off higher frequency radiation, 486 00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,760 Speaker 1: you know, for example, like X rays and ultra violet 487 00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,680 Speaker 1: light from really really hot things. Things like the sun 488 00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:18,200 Speaker 1: give off in the visible spectrum. Things like cool clouds 489 00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,879 Speaker 1: of gas and dust give off in the infrared. But 490 00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,440 Speaker 1: things also emit in the radio. So like big dark 491 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,320 Speaker 1: dust clouds out there in space that are really pretty cold, 492 00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,560 Speaker 1: they glow in the radio spectrum. That's one source of 493 00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:35,240 Speaker 1: radio waves. Another source comes from just like magnetic fields, 494 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,199 Speaker 1: charge particles. When they move to a magnetic field, they 495 00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,520 Speaker 1: get bent, like for example, when the solar wind hits 496 00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,719 Speaker 1: the Earth's magnetic field, you get the Northern lights. Right. 497 00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:48,159 Speaker 1: The particles are emitting light when they bend, because anything 498 00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,440 Speaker 1: that accelerates, anything that turns in a magnetic field has 499 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:53,680 Speaker 1: to give off a photon to do that, and if 500 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,560 Speaker 1: things have the right speed, then those photons are radio waves. 501 00:26:57,640 --> 00:26:59,639 Speaker 1: And so if you have charged particles moving through a 502 00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,440 Speaker 1: magnetic field, you're gonna get photons, and sometimes those photons 503 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,320 Speaker 1: are radio waves. But maybe my favorite stories of radio 504 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,240 Speaker 1: waves is that it turns out that there are sort 505 00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:15,920 Speaker 1: of natural molecular lasers out there in space, natural molecular lasers, yeah, exactly. 506 00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,280 Speaker 1: You know, a laser works when you have light passing 507 00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,919 Speaker 1: through a resonant cavity as material in it that can 508 00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:22,800 Speaker 1: sort of amplify it. And we don't want to go 509 00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,200 Speaker 1: in detail into the physics of lasers, but there are 510 00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,240 Speaker 1: sometimes out there in space these dense pockets of molecular clouds, 511 00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,960 Speaker 1: and if life passes through them at the right frequency, 512 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,120 Speaker 1: it can become a mazer, which is basically a laser, 513 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:38,280 Speaker 1: but in the microwave spectrum. And remember microwaves and radio 514 00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,200 Speaker 1: waves basically the same thing. And so sometimes out that 515 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:46,600 Speaker 1: there are these basically radio lasers just sort of naturally occurring. Wow, 516 00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,399 Speaker 1: so there could those be what's causing these space war No, 517 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,040 Speaker 1: we don't think those things happen often enough to explain 518 00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,720 Speaker 1: the space roar, and there wouldn't be coming in every direction. 519 00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,200 Speaker 1: Those things typically come from like dense clouds inside our 520 00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,240 Speaker 1: Milky Way. But these emissions don't would follow the pattern 521 00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,960 Speaker 1: of the Milky Way, right, Like, they don't lie along 522 00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,720 Speaker 1: the plane of the Milky Way. Remember, the Milky Way 523 00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,120 Speaker 1: is a flat disk, and so if these things were 524 00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:13,480 Speaker 1: coming from our galaxy from something in our galaxy. You 525 00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:15,480 Speaker 1: would expect it to be like in the disk of 526 00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:17,679 Speaker 1: the galaxy, and that when you pointed your intent is 527 00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,000 Speaker 1: away from the galaxy, it would get fainter, but it doesn't. 528 00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,760 Speaker 1: It seems to be in every direction. So either the 529 00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,000 Speaker 1: Milky Way has some like new structure in it that 530 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,800 Speaker 1: tends to be like a spherical halo around us that's 531 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,040 Speaker 1: meeting this, or it's coming from somewhere outside the galaxy. 532 00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:37,840 Speaker 1: Like it doesn't seem to get louder when you sort 533 00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:39,960 Speaker 1: of listen towards the center of the galaxy. It's like 534 00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,240 Speaker 1: pretty even all around this. It's pretty even in every direction. 535 00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:45,440 Speaker 1: And that's why they call it this space roar, because 536 00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:49,120 Speaker 1: it's just like filling space with this sound right right. 537 00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:53,280 Speaker 1: Trying to make a statement, but to me, it's really 538 00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,480 Speaker 1: exciting because it's like a puzzle. It's like something out 539 00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:59,000 Speaker 1: there is giving off this radiation and we don't have 540 00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:01,520 Speaker 1: an explanation for it, and that tells us that it 541 00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:03,880 Speaker 1: has to be something new, and we're about to learn 542 00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:07,120 Speaker 1: something new about the universe. Something in the universe has 543 00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,800 Speaker 1: been screaming at us forever and we only recently heard it. 544 00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:12,800 Speaker 1: And so that to me is exciting because it makes 545 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,080 Speaker 1: us be creative about what could possibly be out there. 546 00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,880 Speaker 1: Is it's something we're familiar with that screaming in a 547 00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,920 Speaker 1: way we didn't expect, Or is it something totally new 548 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:25,800 Speaker 1: out there that's creating this crazy radiation? Right? And I 549 00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,560 Speaker 1: guess they're pretty sure it's not a technical issue, right, Like, 550 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,160 Speaker 1: they've calibrated this pretty good. They have calibrated this pretty good. Exactly. 551 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:34,320 Speaker 1: They were really surprised to see this, and so they 552 00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,400 Speaker 1: spent a long time. This is not like an aha 553 00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,880 Speaker 1: moment one evening. You know, they did this flight in 554 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,440 Speaker 1: over the last several days, but they spent months and 555 00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:46,240 Speaker 1: months and months analyzing this data, removing background noises, removing 556 00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:50,360 Speaker 1: other background noises, checking for sources of mistakes and uncertainty, 557 00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:54,360 Speaker 1: and calibration and cross checking and redouble cross checking, because 558 00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:56,400 Speaker 1: you know, it takes a lot of guts to publish 559 00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:58,800 Speaker 1: a paper like this to say there's something we don't 560 00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,800 Speaker 1: understand in our ata. Your fear at night when you 561 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:03,280 Speaker 1: wake up in the the middle night you're like, wait a second, 562 00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:05,280 Speaker 1: did I remember to check for this thing? Is that 563 00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:09,040 Speaker 1: you overlooked something simple that you're making a mistake. It's exciting, 564 00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,760 Speaker 1: right to say we found something new we don't understand, 565 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:15,200 Speaker 1: but it's also a little terrifying. So they definitely crossed 566 00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:17,120 Speaker 1: their tea s and dot of their eyes. These are 567 00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,240 Speaker 1: very careful folks, especially this one, because the discovery is 568 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:22,880 Speaker 1: not very specific, right. I mean they're basically saying, hey, 569 00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,040 Speaker 1: we're getting a lot more noise in our instrument than 570 00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,880 Speaker 1: we think we should, which normally just means that you 571 00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,840 Speaker 1: you're not doing it all right, right, But here they're 572 00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,360 Speaker 1: saying that this could be something new in the universe. Yeah, 573 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,720 Speaker 1: they're pretty sure this is actual signal from space and 574 00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,480 Speaker 1: not just an artifact of their instrument. And you know, 575 00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,160 Speaker 1: this is a very carefully engineered instrument, like they are 576 00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,160 Speaker 1: flying liquid helium up in a balloon, like they spent 577 00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,440 Speaker 1: a lot of time designing this thing. I read the 578 00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,840 Speaker 1: design paper and it's very detailed. These folks definitely did 579 00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:54,040 Speaker 1: their homework, and so I certainly believe that this is 580 00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,640 Speaker 1: a signal from space, which now lets us wonder about 581 00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:58,959 Speaker 1: you know, what is it? You know, another aspect of 582 00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,120 Speaker 1: writing a paper like this when you see a new 583 00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,840 Speaker 1: signal from space, because you're sort of putting it out there, 584 00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,880 Speaker 1: and you're not naming the source of it. You'd love 585 00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:09,120 Speaker 1: to see a new signal from space and at the 586 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:11,720 Speaker 1: same time explain it because you're like, wow, look a 587 00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:14,760 Speaker 1: new signal and we discovered something. To here's the explanation. 588 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:17,480 Speaker 1: That would be like a complete scientific story. Instead, you 589 00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:19,520 Speaker 1: just sort of published the experiment and then go, I 590 00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,280 Speaker 1: don't know, and then everybody gets to play with it. 591 00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,800 Speaker 1: But it sort of opens the door for somebody else 592 00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,600 Speaker 1: to come in and explain your discovery, right right, Yeah, 593 00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,680 Speaker 1: it's very open and collaborative. That's pretty cool. Alright, So 594 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,160 Speaker 1: it can be other galaxies because there aren't enough galaxies 595 00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,719 Speaker 1: to make up this background roar, and it's it's probably 596 00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:43,080 Speaker 1: not a magnetic field or the cosmic microwave background radiation. 597 00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:45,680 Speaker 1: So the question is what could it be. Let's talk 598 00:31:45,720 --> 00:32:00,320 Speaker 1: about that, But first let's take a quick break. All right, 599 00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:05,560 Speaker 1: we're talking about the space roar or rower otherwise known 600 00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:10,720 Speaker 1: as the cosmic radio background always kind of yeah, part 601 00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,880 Speaker 1: of it exactly. Yeah, yeah, So we tacked off a 602 00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:15,280 Speaker 1: couple of things that it can't be can be galaxies, 603 00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,320 Speaker 1: it can't be magnetic fields potentially, so what could it be? 604 00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,640 Speaker 1: Daniel Well as usual, we have a spectrum of possibilities 605 00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:26,120 Speaker 1: ranging from like pretty boring to totally bonkers slash exciting. 606 00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,320 Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess we're gonna start with the boring and 607 00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:32,120 Speaker 1: build up to the bonkers one. Absolutely, so sort of 608 00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,200 Speaker 1: the most boring explanation is that maybe there are just 609 00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,520 Speaker 1: more magnetic fields than we thought. Remember, when charge particles 610 00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:43,080 Speaker 1: fly to magnetic fields, they bend, and bending means acceleration, 611 00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:45,760 Speaker 1: and when any charged particle accelerates, it has to give 612 00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:49,000 Speaker 1: off a photon. That's just basic conservation of momentum. You 613 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,920 Speaker 1: can't move in one direction without pushing something else off 614 00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,720 Speaker 1: the other direction, and that's usually a photon. So if 615 00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,240 Speaker 1: magnetic fields out there are stronger than we thought they were, 616 00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:00,640 Speaker 1: then there's gonna be more of this kind of radiation 617 00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,360 Speaker 1: from charged particles then we thought. And if they're sort 618 00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,680 Speaker 1: of everywhere, then charged particles everywhere are going to be 619 00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,960 Speaker 1: basically roaring at us. And remember, we did an episode 620 00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:14,280 Speaker 1: about whether or not space itself is magnetized, because we've 621 00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:17,480 Speaker 1: been discovering as we've been trying to measure magnetic fields 622 00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,520 Speaker 1: through the universe, that magnetic fields are kind of everywhere, 623 00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,160 Speaker 1: Like there's definitely one from the Earth and the Sun 624 00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,120 Speaker 1: and Jupiter, and even our galaxy has a magnetic field. 625 00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,160 Speaker 1: But recently we discovered that there are magnetic fields between 626 00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,160 Speaker 1: galaxies and between galaxy clusters, and there might even be 627 00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:36,840 Speaker 1: magnetic fields out there in the huge voids where there's 628 00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:40,080 Speaker 1: just nothing. So it might just be that space has 629 00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,240 Speaker 1: more magnets than we thought, which leads to more particles 630 00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:45,760 Speaker 1: of roaring at us. Right, Maybe the universe it's just 631 00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:49,080 Speaker 1: more attractive than we thought. Yeah, it has a certain 632 00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,360 Speaker 1: glow to it, basically, right, Yeah, exactly more active than 633 00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,440 Speaker 1: we thought, you know, and it's more magnetic. There's more 634 00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,080 Speaker 1: things that you can't really quite see that are happening 635 00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,480 Speaker 1: in there. And you know, you need to and redients 636 00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,840 Speaker 1: to make a roar from magnetic fields. You need the 637 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:05,560 Speaker 1: magnetic field, and then you also need the particles. And 638 00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:07,840 Speaker 1: as you were saying, space is not empty, right, There 639 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:11,920 Speaker 1: particles everywhere, even between galaxies. In fact, like something like 640 00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,840 Speaker 1: half of the stuff in the universe is the intergalactic plasma, 641 00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:19,160 Speaker 1: this stuff between galaxies. So there are a lot of 642 00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:21,799 Speaker 1: particles out there flying through these magnetic fields, and if 643 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,480 Speaker 1: they are larger than we expect, that could be the 644 00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:26,600 Speaker 1: source of the space roar, right, but do we know 645 00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:29,919 Speaker 1: what's causing these magnetic fields or what would cause the 646 00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,440 Speaker 1: magnetic fields to be that's wrong for it to generate 647 00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:34,920 Speaker 1: this roar. We definitely do not know the source of 648 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,040 Speaker 1: these magnetic fields, which is sort of like awesome and crazy. 649 00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,560 Speaker 1: That's something that's basic as like the magnetic field of 650 00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:43,719 Speaker 1: the universe can't be explained. People are talking about like 651 00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:48,120 Speaker 1: weird unknown mechanisms inside galaxies or between galaxies. But my 652 00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:52,120 Speaker 1: favorite possible explanation for what's causing these magnetic fields is 653 00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,160 Speaker 1: that maybe they are primordial, maybe they date from the 654 00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:59,160 Speaker 1: origin of the universe itself. That when the universe was created, 655 00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:02,120 Speaker 1: some energy just sort of like slipped into a magnetic 656 00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,360 Speaker 1: field and then got stuck there. So it's like leftover 657 00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,760 Speaker 1: energy from the Big Bang captured in the magnetic field 658 00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:13,520 Speaker 1: still around. I see it's in the DNA of the universe. Yeah, 659 00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,320 Speaker 1: it could be. It could be. People have forever assumed 660 00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:20,400 Speaker 1: the default configuration should be like no magnetic field, no stuff, 661 00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,560 Speaker 1: no moving charges, no magnets, no magnetic field. But it 662 00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:26,680 Speaker 1: might just be that the baseline situation for the universe 663 00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,279 Speaker 1: is to have magnetic fields in it. So if you 664 00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,000 Speaker 1: find that stuffing interesting, check out our whole episode about 665 00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:36,680 Speaker 1: is space magnetized? All right, And that's a vanilla explanation 666 00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,200 Speaker 1: that some other universe is inherently magnetic to a super 667 00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,080 Speaker 1: high degree than we thought was possible. What's our next possibility? 668 00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,560 Speaker 1: Next possibility is stuff happening. You know, we talked about 669 00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,840 Speaker 1: that's a technical term, stuff happening. Isn't that just the 670 00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,319 Speaker 1: column definition of physics. Physics stuff happens. Yeah, but in 671 00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:02,560 Speaker 1: this case it'd be exciting stuff of happen physics, Exciting 672 00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,359 Speaker 1: stuff happens. Yes, it's exciting. Stuff is happening out there 673 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,560 Speaker 1: in the universe. And in this case it might be 674 00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:11,000 Speaker 1: galaxies dancing around each other and eventually merging. You know, 675 00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:15,040 Speaker 1: these galaxies are sources of radio because their black holes 676 00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,759 Speaker 1: and because the big clouds of gas and dust that 677 00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,759 Speaker 1: are in them. And it might be that when galaxies 678 00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:25,080 Speaker 1: merge that that merging forms some turbulence, and that turbulence 679 00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,040 Speaker 1: sort of like gets these clouds of gas and dust 680 00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,640 Speaker 1: to emit in the radio waves louder than they otherwise would. 681 00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:33,840 Speaker 1: And so it could be that there's part of this 682 00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:38,160 Speaker 1: process of galaxy merging that we don't quite yet understand. Oh, 683 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:41,040 Speaker 1: I see, it could be something normal happening, but that 684 00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,279 Speaker 1: when it happens at an extreme level, we just don't 685 00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:46,080 Speaker 1: have a good model for it. So maybe that's what's 686 00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,399 Speaker 1: generating these waves. Yeah, instead of having more galaxies out there, 687 00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:52,960 Speaker 1: the same number of galaxies, but have them do something 688 00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:56,080 Speaker 1: different from what we expected. So maybe there's more of 689 00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:58,640 Speaker 1: these mergers happening than we thought, where the mergers are 690 00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,560 Speaker 1: more turbulent than we thought, and that's what's giving off 691 00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,279 Speaker 1: this roar. So not new stuff, but old stuff doing 692 00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:09,200 Speaker 1: new and exciting things, teaching old galaxies and new tricks physics. 693 00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,719 Speaker 1: Stuff happens in any ways, all right, So it could 694 00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,239 Speaker 1: be merging galaxies. Well what else could it be. It 695 00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,799 Speaker 1: could also just be something new out there in the 696 00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,919 Speaker 1: universe that's giving off radio emissions that's not on our 697 00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:24,319 Speaker 1: list of things we understand. You know. It could be 698 00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,839 Speaker 1: not stars, It could be not the centers of galaxies. 699 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,680 Speaker 1: It could be you know, not black body emission. It 700 00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:34,120 Speaker 1: could be some new source of radio emission that we 701 00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:37,680 Speaker 1: somehow have missed all this time. Yeah, we somehow have missed, 702 00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:40,439 Speaker 1: and people have even connected it. For example, to our 703 00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,120 Speaker 1: favorite universe mystery, which is dark matter. I hate. It 704 00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:47,360 Speaker 1: might be that dark matter is out there and that 705 00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,080 Speaker 1: it can annihilate with itself. Remember, dark matter, we know 706 00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,680 Speaker 1: is something massive that's out there, but we don't really 707 00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:57,200 Speaker 1: know what it's made out of. One hypothesis for dark 708 00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:00,360 Speaker 1: matter is that it's the really heavy particles that mostly 709 00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,640 Speaker 1: just sit around and do nothing. But it's sort of 710 00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,160 Speaker 1: hard to explain how you get dark matter and how 711 00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:07,319 Speaker 1: you have the amount of dark matter that we have 712 00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:09,759 Speaker 1: in the universe if there's no way for dark matter 713 00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,560 Speaker 1: to be created or for it to annihilate itself. So 714 00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:14,719 Speaker 1: people have thought of this idea that maybe dark matter 715 00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:19,640 Speaker 1: sometimes bumps into itself and then annihilates, just like particle antiparticle. 716 00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,040 Speaker 1: Maybe there's dark matter anti dark matter, and sometimes it 717 00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:26,400 Speaker 1: bumps into itself and then turns into for example, normal 718 00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:31,200 Speaker 1: matter like electrons and positrons. I see. So maybe all 719 00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:33,080 Speaker 1: this dark matter, because there's a lot of dark matter 720 00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:35,879 Speaker 1: in the universe, maybe that's what's causing this glow. That's 721 00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,120 Speaker 1: the idea, and that would make sense because dark matter 722 00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,120 Speaker 1: is pretty diffused out there. We're sort of surrounded by 723 00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,120 Speaker 1: it in a halo and in our galaxy. That would 724 00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:46,280 Speaker 1: sort of make sense. That would make a lot of sense. 725 00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:48,919 Speaker 1: So in more detail, the mechanism is that these dark 726 00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:53,240 Speaker 1: matter particles annihilate and then create these electrons and positrons. 727 00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,680 Speaker 1: But because dark matter is heavy, like it's much heavier 728 00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:59,120 Speaker 1: than electrons or positrons, these particles would be created with 729 00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,279 Speaker 1: sort of a lot of energy. They'd be flying through 730 00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,959 Speaker 1: the universe and when they hit magnetic fields they would 731 00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,640 Speaker 1: bend and then they would give off some radio waves. 732 00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:09,080 Speaker 1: And so it could be as you say that this 733 00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,680 Speaker 1: is sort of a signal of a lot of dark 734 00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:15,360 Speaker 1: matter surrounding the galaxy and giving off these electrons and 735 00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:18,839 Speaker 1: positrons which then roar at us. Dark matter we know 736 00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,919 Speaker 1: there's five times as much of it as normal matter, 737 00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,440 Speaker 1: and as you say, it's not spread through the galaxy 738 00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:26,239 Speaker 1: in the same way the normal matter is. It tends 739 00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,239 Speaker 1: to make up this big halo it surrounds everything, and 740 00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,960 Speaker 1: it's fluffy and diffuse, it's not as clumped, and so 741 00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:35,399 Speaker 1: that would be a good explanation. Wow, So basically dark 742 00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:37,759 Speaker 1: matter would not be dark, that's what you're saying. You 743 00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,160 Speaker 1: would have to rename it, or would you continue with 744 00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,239 Speaker 1: this incorrect name. It would still be darker, it just 745 00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,759 Speaker 1: wouldn't be quiet, right, to be like screaming matter. See 746 00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:49,520 Speaker 1: now you're mixing the metaphors there, Daniel. It's giving up light, 747 00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,879 Speaker 1: but you're saying it's not quiet. It's so much fun 748 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,520 Speaker 1: to mix your metaphors and put silly names on things. 749 00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,120 Speaker 1: I see why astronomers are tempted. I see you just 750 00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,160 Speaker 1: threw them under the bus again. No, and now I'm 751 00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,279 Speaker 1: joining them. I'm saying, you know what, I get it 752 00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:06,839 Speaker 1: all right. So it could be dark matter. That would 753 00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:09,440 Speaker 1: be pretty exciting and pretty far out there. But it 754 00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:12,400 Speaker 1: gets been wilder, it gets even wilder. I was reading 755 00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,360 Speaker 1: some sort of bonkers ideas that there could be alternate 756 00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,600 Speaker 1: universes out there, right. This is like the multiverse theory, 757 00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,280 Speaker 1: the idea that our universe is not the only universe 758 00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:24,160 Speaker 1: as out there, there are other universes out there, and 759 00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,040 Speaker 1: that these universe sort of echo with ours, and there 760 00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,600 Speaker 1: are even ways for our universe to communicate with those universes, 761 00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:34,520 Speaker 1: for like radiation to slip from our universe to their universe. 762 00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:38,600 Speaker 1: And there's this crazy idea, this fredkin Wolf fram automaton, 763 00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,439 Speaker 1: which spreads across multiple universes that like lives in more 764 00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,600 Speaker 1: than one universe and gives off radio signals, and so 765 00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,440 Speaker 1: the idea is like, maybe this could be evidence of 766 00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:53,720 Speaker 1: other universes. WHOA, yeah, like you're seeing like the shadow 767 00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,600 Speaker 1: or the glow of other universes that are sort of 768 00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:59,439 Speaker 1: on top of ours, right, yeah, exactly, And I don't 769 00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,640 Speaker 1: want to be too click baby, Like this is total 770 00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,319 Speaker 1: speculation and it's not a prediction. Like if this is 771 00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:06,560 Speaker 1: an idea that had been invented before we heard it, 772 00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,439 Speaker 1: and somebody said, I think there are multiverses out there, 773 00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,200 Speaker 1: and you can prove it if you hear this particular thing, 774 00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:14,160 Speaker 1: go out and look for it, and then we found it. 775 00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:16,439 Speaker 1: That would be convincing. But you know, once you see 776 00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:18,200 Speaker 1: it and you don't know how to explain it, and 777 00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:22,000 Speaker 1: then later you cook up a crazy multiverse explanation for it, 778 00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:24,840 Speaker 1: it's sort of less convincing as an explanation. It's always 779 00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:28,879 Speaker 1: more impressive to predict something than to postdict something. Right, 780 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:32,000 Speaker 1: But isn't that technically the same thing, Daniel. It's like 781 00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,920 Speaker 1: it just depends on the order in which you do it, 782 00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,279 Speaker 1: but it's still the same sort of connection, right, I 783 00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,239 Speaker 1: don't know I think the order sort of matters, Like 784 00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:41,520 Speaker 1: you know, naming lottery numbers after they've picked the lotteries 785 00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,600 Speaker 1: a lot easier than before. Right, it's sort of the 786 00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,440 Speaker 1: same deal like telling the past. It's a lot easier 787 00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:50,680 Speaker 1: than telling the future. So I think order matters. Yeah, right, right, 788 00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:52,640 Speaker 1: But I guess what I mean is that they could 789 00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:55,440 Speaker 1: still be right. Just because they came up with it afterwards. 790 00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,800 Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that they're wrong. Absolutely. They could still be right, absolutely, 791 00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,319 Speaker 1: But it's not really like is for their theory. You know, 792 00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,360 Speaker 1: it's not that hard to come up with a theory 793 00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,839 Speaker 1: that describes what you see. What's hard is to come 794 00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,399 Speaker 1: up with a simple theory that explains what you see, 795 00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,000 Speaker 1: which means it's capable of making predictions. That's what science 796 00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:14,080 Speaker 1: is about, and it's predicting the future, not just describing 797 00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:17,000 Speaker 1: the past. So you're right, we can't rule out this idea. 798 00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:18,160 Speaker 1: The only way to rule it out as to do 799 00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,520 Speaker 1: future experiments to compare against their predictions. So it could 800 00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:23,640 Speaker 1: totally be that we live in a multiverse and that 801 00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,239 Speaker 1: the space war is you know, a sound from these 802 00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:30,760 Speaker 1: other universes or radio emissions from these common overlapping elements 803 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,520 Speaker 1: of our universes could totally be but you know, I 804 00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,520 Speaker 1: don't oversell it right, right, I wonder if it could 805 00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,600 Speaker 1: it be something more mundane, like could it just be 806 00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,960 Speaker 1: I don't know, like radaways coming from our technology, Like 807 00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:44,040 Speaker 1: could it be just human noise? Or I guess you 808 00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,759 Speaker 1: would hear it only coming from Earth. Yeah, exactly, it's 809 00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:49,200 Speaker 1: not connected to the Earth, right. It seems to be 810 00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:52,880 Speaker 1: coming from every direction and it's independent of the orientation 811 00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,560 Speaker 1: of the Earth. And also one of the reasons they 812 00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:57,680 Speaker 1: launched this thing on a balloon was just sort of 813 00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:00,880 Speaker 1: trying to get away from earth bound sources of noise. 814 00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,120 Speaker 1: You know, the Earth is very loud in their radio 815 00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,120 Speaker 1: these days because there's so many cell phones and radio 816 00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,359 Speaker 1: emitters are basically everywhere. A good place to do radio 817 00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:11,600 Speaker 1: astronomy is like on the dark side of the Moon 818 00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,799 Speaker 1: because it's shielded from the Earth, but it's kind of 819 00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,160 Speaker 1: hard to get there. So launching a balloon into space 820 00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:19,560 Speaker 1: is a good way to sort of insulate yourself away 821 00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,520 Speaker 1: from a lot of sources of earthbound noise. Well, I 822 00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:24,520 Speaker 1: think I got a Daniel, what is it? I think 823 00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,880 Speaker 1: it's cell phone signals from aliens. Like we just happened 824 00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:29,920 Speaker 1: to be in the middle of a couple of you know, 825 00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:33,759 Speaker 1: intergalactic alien cell phone towers, and that that's what we're 826 00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:37,879 Speaker 1: listening to. I can't believe nobody else has suggested that idea, Right, 827 00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,640 Speaker 1: it's obvious, and I came up with it before getting 828 00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,640 Speaker 1: in my hands into the data, so technically accounts. Well, 829 00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:47,520 Speaker 1: then the question is, why are these aliens roaring at 830 00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:49,759 Speaker 1: each other? Like what's going on? Can't you guys just 831 00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,560 Speaker 1: calm it down? You know, what's the cosmic equivalent of 832 00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:56,080 Speaker 1: like knocking on your ceiling with the broomstick. Well, they're 833 00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,320 Speaker 1: just talking on the phone, exchinging emojis and and memes, 834 00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:01,360 Speaker 1: and you know, we just don't know how to decode it. 835 00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,560 Speaker 1: That's all. Well, we're busy here trying to listen to 836 00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,520 Speaker 1: the origins the universe and understand, you know, the heating 837 00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:08,520 Speaker 1: of the first stars, and they're just like chatting with 838 00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:12,560 Speaker 1: each other and we can't make out these cosmic signals. Yeah. Yeah, 839 00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,839 Speaker 1: Well that's what life is all about, learning to live 840 00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,319 Speaker 1: with your neighbors, your fellow sentien beaks. All right, So 841 00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:23,160 Speaker 1: it's a big mystery in astronomy and physics. There's this 842 00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:25,960 Speaker 1: big roar. So it's still a mystery. And so what 843 00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:27,919 Speaker 1: are people doing about it than you? Well, of course 844 00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,959 Speaker 1: they are proposing new projects, spend more money to gather 845 00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,840 Speaker 1: more data. There's this plan for a new version of 846 00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,319 Speaker 1: the Arcade experiment that's gonna be much bigger. It's gonna 847 00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,759 Speaker 1: have five hundred gallons of liquid helium, which is going 848 00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,280 Speaker 1: to allow it to be even colder and say more sensitive, 849 00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,319 Speaker 1: like more data. Maybe we can look for some variations. 850 00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,360 Speaker 1: Maybe we can see if it's a little bit stronger 851 00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,520 Speaker 1: in one part of the sky than somewhere else. So 852 00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:52,759 Speaker 1: that's one possibility that we could just sort of like 853 00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,400 Speaker 1: get more resolution on the problem that might give us 854 00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:58,160 Speaker 1: a clue. We also have ground based instruments, and now 855 00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:01,720 Speaker 1: that Arisibo is in the past, unfortunately, that's the most 856 00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:05,080 Speaker 1: powerful radio telescope in the world is in Green Bank, 857 00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:07,759 Speaker 1: West Virginia, which is the beautiful instrument. You should google 858 00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:09,399 Speaker 1: it and check this thing out and you can make 859 00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,440 Speaker 1: very precise maps of the skies and these radio frequencies. 860 00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,840 Speaker 1: Again to look for patterns, right, because even the costing 861 00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:19,680 Speaker 1: microwave background has patterns to it, right, and those patterns 862 00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,960 Speaker 1: are important. There's a huge amount of information encoded in 863 00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,120 Speaker 1: those patterns. So we're just the very beginning of understanding 864 00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,560 Speaker 1: this other map of the sky and what's in it 865 00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:31,759 Speaker 1: and what it means. Cool alright, So maybe expect more 866 00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,600 Speaker 1: in the coming years. But in the near future it's 867 00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:37,040 Speaker 1: going to be a big mystery. We are bathed in mystery. 868 00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:39,920 Speaker 1: There's a huge source of rad of waves that is 869 00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:41,960 Speaker 1: coming from all over space, and we don't know what 870 00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:43,959 Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, we won't know for a little while 871 00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,520 Speaker 1: until we hear more rare in the meantime, Universe, we 872 00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:51,160 Speaker 1: hear you, We hear you roaring, We respect you, we 873 00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,319 Speaker 1: get it. May chill out a little bit, exactly. We're 874 00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:56,520 Speaker 1: doing our best to figure out what you're roaring is 875 00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,440 Speaker 1: all about. Maybe it's the universe hitting the brewstick and 876 00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,120 Speaker 1: we're seeling at us because we're being too noisy exactly. 877 00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:04,400 Speaker 1: Maybe we should learn to shut up too many podcasts. 878 00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:07,120 Speaker 1: And on that note, thanks for listening to this one, 879 00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:17,600 Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, See you next time. Thanks for listening, 880 00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:20,320 Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is 881 00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,879 Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from 882 00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:26,960 Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple 883 00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,120 Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,