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Speaker 1: The Earth sits in a cosmic shooting gallery, and the

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Speaker 1: universe has us dead in its crosshairs. Feeling nervous yet

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Speaker 1: This is a quote from doctor Phil plates two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight book Death from the Skies. On today's show,

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Speaker 1: Daniel and I have the distinct pleasure of interviewing Phil

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Speaker 1: about why space could annihilate humanity or at least make

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Speaker 1: our lives super duper uncomfortable for quite a long time.

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Speaker 1: But don't worry. We're limiting our conversation today to threats

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Speaker 1: from space that we can do something about, kind of,

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Speaker 1: So hopefully this episode won't keep you tossing and turning

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Speaker 1: in bed too much tonight. All right, here we go.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 3: I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist and a professor you see, Irvine.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kelly Weener Smith, and I sometimes stay up at

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Speaker 1: night wondering if things are gonna kill my kids.

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Speaker 3: And my question for you today, Kelly, is how much

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Speaker 3: do you share those concerns with your kids?

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Speaker 2: Do you lead them to.

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Speaker 3: Believe that the world is a safe and fuzzy place

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Speaker 3: or do you want them to understand the truth.

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Speaker 1: I fall somewhere in between. I talk to them about

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Speaker 1: bullies at school, Like, there will always be bullies, let's

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Speaker 1: be honest about that. How do you deal with those

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Speaker 1: sorts of things? But I will tell her about wars

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Speaker 1: that have happened in the past, and I have mentioned

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons because I was writing about them so much

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Speaker 1: and she overheard Zach and I talking about them. But

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Speaker 1: I don't think I would specifically be like, and what

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Speaker 1: about meteoroids. I think we just enjoy the bright lights

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Speaker 1: in the sky and then I kind of leave it

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Speaker 1: at that, so somewhere in between what about you.

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Speaker 3: I try to share everything with my kids, and I

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Speaker 3: try to tell them that science is our way to

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Speaker 3: understand the universe better, which means knowing the wonderful things

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Speaker 3: and also knowing the existential threats and potentially developing the

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Speaker 3: technology to save ourselves. So trying to end on a

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Speaker 3: positive note.

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Speaker 1: So my oldest is ten. Your kids are both older

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Speaker 1: than that. When your kids were ten, were you this

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Speaker 1: honest with them or did you sort of like scale up?

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Speaker 3: I believe in total honesty with my kids. I answered

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Speaker 3: their questions about reproduction and Santa Claus and everything whenever

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Speaker 3: they asked them. Yes, And so far they're not serial killers.

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Speaker 3: So we'll see what happens.

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Speaker 1: Oh solid, So I wouldn't have guessed that. My daughter,

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Speaker 1: she said, is there Santa Claus? And I said, do

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Speaker 1: you really want to know? And she said no, and

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Speaker 1: we left it at that, and so I think she knows.

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Speaker 1: And then I sat her down and we had the

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Speaker 1: where do babies come from?

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Speaker 2: Talk?

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Speaker 1: And at the end I had like drawn diagrams because

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm a biologist. And at the end she

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Speaker 1: was like, Mom, this this was awful. Well sorry, maybe

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Speaker 1: your funny father should have done it instead of your

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Speaker 1: biologist mother. But anyway, I'm honest about some things. I

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Speaker 1: guess us.

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Speaker 3: All right, Well, then, welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe,

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Speaker 3: in which we talk about all of the amazing things

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Speaker 3: in the universe, the things that can kill you, the

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Speaker 3: things that probably won't kill you, and the things that

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Speaker 3: we're working very very hard to stop from killing you.

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Speaker 3: We want to think about all of those amazing things.

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Speaker 3: We want to explain them, we want to understand them,

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Speaker 3: we want to marinate in the joy of them, because hey,

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Speaker 3: it's a wonderful universe.

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Speaker 1: And today we have a death from this guy's expert

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Speaker 1: joining us doctor phil Plate. We're excited about that, but

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Speaker 1: we wanted to know first, what do the people on

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Speaker 1: the street think is most likely to kill us when

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Speaker 1: those risks are coming from space? So let's hear what

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Speaker 1: they had to say.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 3: I walked around a sunny irvine and asked folks, what

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Speaker 3: thing in space is most likely to hurt us down

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Speaker 3: here on Earth. Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 1: A creation, uh, asteroid SATOI like an asteroid, like a

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Speaker 1: big rock, like a planet that follows. I don't know, aliens,

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Speaker 1: the Sun coming too close.

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Speaker 2: Biologically logical things like microscope.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, just things that are not meant to be here.

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Speaker 2: Cool? All right?

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Speaker 3: What do you think the chances already to happen in

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Speaker 3: our lifetime?

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Speaker 4: Not likely?

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Speaker 3: Pretty safe medior meteor Okay, what do you think the

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Speaker 3: chances are of that happening?

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Speaker 2: You gotta be slim because the universe is so vast,

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Speaker 2: especially our Milky Way galaxy, But thinking it probably could happen,

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Speaker 2: I mean we get meteors, you know, meta showers, everything.

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Speaker 2: I guess is that would think that's the biggest problem. Radiation?

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Speaker 3: What makes radiation in safe? Sun?

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Speaker 4: One of those comets falls down, may create a fire,

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Speaker 4: or if it's the big stone, it could destroy what's underneath.

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Speaker 4: Do you think that's likely. No, not for a while.

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Speaker 2: You don't worry about it too much.

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Speaker 4: No, The problem is here we don't see the skies

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Speaker 4: because of the pollution. Some parts of the world you

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Speaker 4: can see the commets move at night, but here we don't.

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Speaker 2: You better find out than the asteroids anything else. Gamma rays,

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Speaker 2: gamma rays, what makes gamma rays? Distant supermodents, solar flares,

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Speaker 2: space debris from like satellites.

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Speaker 1: And stuff, a meteor radiation from the Sun. Should it

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Speaker 1: decide to have a little heart, I mean, if the Sun,

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Speaker 1: you know, really got over and it exploded.

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Speaker 2: But that's a pretty far out their chance. But that

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Speaker 2: would be a little catastrophic, I think, yeah. Non.

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Speaker 3: So how worried are you guys about it?

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Speaker 2: Not very not at all. You know, you can't change,

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Speaker 2: but it can't change. I think I'd be more worried

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Speaker 2: about an earthquake. But yeah, I mean, if we thought

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Speaker 2: if aliens came and we could visit, but I'm sure

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Speaker 2: they would look at us and go, that's sure.

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Speaker 4: They're probably stuff that we put up there in the

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Speaker 4: first place.

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Speaker 1: Asteroids as well, radiation in the sun. I can only

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Speaker 1: imagine what it was like for someone to have you

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Speaker 1: walk up to them and be like, how is space

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Speaker 1: gonna kill you? And I like, did they think you're

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Speaker 1: a crazy person? But anyway, we had some pretty interesting answers.

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Speaker 1: Aliens came up more than I thought. I didn't expect

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Speaker 1: an answer to include the word fart. Maybe you interviewed

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Speaker 1: a biologist without knowing it. What did you think about

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Speaker 1: these answers?

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Speaker 3: I thought there were a pretty good summary of things

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Speaker 3: to worry about. My favorite answer was the unknown, because

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Speaker 3: the more we learn about the universe, of course, the

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Speaker 3: more we understand how little we know, which means there

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Speaker 3: could be things out there that are dangerous or amazing

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Speaker 3: or both that we haven't even yet discovered.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's still plenty of things to worry about.

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Speaker 1: Don't worry, and let's start talking to her. Here's what

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Speaker 1: you should worry about, experts. So let's get started with

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Speaker 1: our interview, all right, So, doctor Phil Plait is an astronomer, author,

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Speaker 1: sci fi dork, TV documentary talking head, a science enthusiast,

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Speaker 1: and my husband and I have known him for years,

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Speaker 1: so I can also say he's a genuinely wonderful human being.

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Speaker 1: He writes the Bad Astronomy newsletter, and today he's going

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Speaker 1: to tell us about way space could kill us.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, Phil, Thank you, and hey, you

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Speaker 2: didn't mention that I I'm acknowledged in a Hugo Award

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Speaker 2: winning science for right.

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Speaker 1: We gave you the credit for any mistakes that we make,

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Speaker 1: and you were a really great sport about that.

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Speaker 2: Right. Well, I found that to be very funny. Zach

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Speaker 2: and Kelly, of course, wrote a city on Mars, and

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Speaker 2: I basically told him it was all wrong, and so

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Speaker 2: they made fun of me in the book.

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Speaker 1: That's right. That's how much we appreciate the opinion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's pretty much all the steps that

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Speaker 2: happened there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pretty much pretty much. How's Virginia treating you today?

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Speaker 2: Humidly? Humidly? Is that a is that an adverb? It's

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Speaker 2: actually quite nice this week, but it's been really hot

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Speaker 2: and humid. And I lived in Colorado. I'm used to hot.

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Speaker 2: The summer's there get baking, but we don't keep a

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Speaker 2: lot of water in the air there, and I forgot

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Speaker 2: I grew up in Virginia, so it's it's weird coming back,

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Speaker 2: all the smells and the sounds.

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Speaker 1: It's like, oh yeah, I remember that, and the spiders.

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Speaker 2: It's nice.

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Speaker 3: So when Virginia is nice, it like approaches California weather

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Speaker 3: for example.

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Speaker 2: Sure, I lived in California too, so look I can

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Speaker 2: get into it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So Daniel and I have an ongoing debate about whether

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Speaker 1: Virginia or California is better. And I am one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent in the Virginia side. Do you want to weigh in?

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Speaker 3: There's no debate. All weather is measured by how close

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Speaker 3: it is to California. That's the metric.

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Speaker 2: Depends on where you are in California. I've been to

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Speaker 2: Sacramento in the summer, and let me tell you something.

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Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. That's not a great place

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Speaker 2: to be in the summer.

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Speaker 3: I have a no truth Scotsman approached that, and that's

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Speaker 3: basically not California.

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Speaker 1: Oh. When I looked at California, I was in Davis,

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Speaker 1: which is like, yeah, right outside of Sacramento. But everyone

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Speaker 1: should follow Phil's Instagram account because he posts great photos

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Speaker 1: of the amazing birds and moths and butterflies that we

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Speaker 1: have out here, which I think pretty much steals the deal.

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Speaker 1: For Virginia.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all squishy stuff. Though I don't really understand

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Speaker 2: any of that.

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Speaker 1: Oh you don't have to.

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Speaker 2: It's like, ooh, pretty bug. And I figure, you know what, Kelly,

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Speaker 2: I'll tell me what it is.

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Speaker 3: Well, no matter how good the weather is down here,

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Speaker 3: we're actually here today to talk about the weather in

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Speaker 3: space and how bad that can get.

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Speaker 1: Oh oh, very good. Thank you for getting me back

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Speaker 1: on track, because you know, if you give me a

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Speaker 1: chance to talk about moths, that's the avenue I'm going

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Speaker 1: to go down.

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Speaker 2: So I know.

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Speaker 1: All right. So, Phil, you wrote this great book that

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Speaker 1: I read back when it came out, and then I

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Speaker 1: had the pleasure of rereading this weekend. And you start

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Speaker 1: the book by talking about meteors, meteoroids and meteorites. And

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Speaker 1: I got to tell you, every time I write about

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Speaker 1: these things, I have to look up the difference because

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Speaker 1: it does not stick in my fixed goull. So can

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Speaker 1: we start there? What's the difference between these three?

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Speaker 2: The difference is a definition, and definitions are I wouldn't

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Speaker 2: say squishy, but I wouldn't cleave unto them very closely

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Speaker 2: in science, because they get you in trouble when you

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Speaker 2: see a shooting star in the sky, a blaze of

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Speaker 2: light whipping across the sky really quickly. That phenomenon is

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Speaker 2: called a meteor That is the luminous glow. The object

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Speaker 2: doing the glowing besides the air is a little tiny

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Speaker 2: piece of rock or or something like that, and that

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Speaker 2: is called the meteoroid. And so if you think of

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Speaker 2: it like asteroid, it's the solid bit. If it hits

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Speaker 2: the ground, it's called a meteorite. And then this is

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Speaker 2: where things get difficult, because what if you catch it

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Speaker 2: and it doesn't touch the ground. What if it hits

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Speaker 2: an airplane and you're sitting on the airplane and they

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Speaker 2: rescue you and everybody's fine in this scenario, but it

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Speaker 2: never hits the ground, is it still a meteorite? And

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Speaker 2: if you ask a meteoriticist, which is a real thing,

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Speaker 2: about this, they'll just glare at you. It's like asking

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Speaker 2: an astronomer about astrology. It's basically a shut up you

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Speaker 2: kind of a look. But that's in general what those

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Speaker 2: three things are.

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Speaker 3: And what about the ocean. If it splashes down in

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Speaker 3: the water, is it a meteorite, then.

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Speaker 2: It's a meteorological find I'm trying to think of a

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Speaker 2: good pun there.

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Speaker 1: We're missing it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would assume that if it hits anything and

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Speaker 2: then you're holding it in your hand, it's a meteorite.

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Speaker 2: But then at some point we're going to go into

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Speaker 2: space and we're going to catch up with these things

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Speaker 2: and be able to, you know, pluck them out of space,

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Speaker 2: and then what is it? It's it never really hit anything.

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Speaker 2: So this is what I mean. When you start getting

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Speaker 2: into the nitty gritty of definitions, you always get in trouble.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, nature doesn't care that humans like to categorize things. Yes,

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Speaker 1: But the most important jargon term in the book, or

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Speaker 1: perhaps the most important drugon term I've ever seen that

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Speaker 1: I hadn't heard of before, is pancaking. Yes, what does

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Speaker 1: pancaking mean? Because it made me smile.

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Speaker 2: It's a real thing and it's descriptive. Actually. So you

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Speaker 2: have a rock out in space and it's just floating

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Speaker 2: around out there, and then it's doing its own thing

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Speaker 2: orbiting the Sun, and then it looks up and it's like, oh,

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Speaker 2: look at this gigantic blue planet in my way. As

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Speaker 2: it approaches Earth or really any planet that has an atmosphere,

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Speaker 2: it's moving extremely quickly and we are talking about, oh,

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Speaker 2: twenty kilometers per second, so seventy thousand kilometers an hour,

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Speaker 2: forty thousand miles an hour whatever. I don't know how

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Speaker 2: many furlongs per per second that is, but you know

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Speaker 2: you can do the math. And when it encounters atmosphere,

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Speaker 2: a couple of weird things happen, And by weird, I

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Speaker 2: mean these go against what we're used to living on

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Speaker 2: Earth and just walking around and being humans. One is

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Speaker 2: that rock we think of as being solid, but it's not.

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Speaker 2: If you compress it, it can change its shape without

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Speaker 2: shattering if you apply the pressure the right way. The

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Speaker 2: other thing is that the atmosphere, which you can walk through,

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Speaker 2: run through, do whatever, is actually pretty thick, and when

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Speaker 2: you're traveling through it faster and faster, the amount of

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Speaker 2: air resistance you feel goes up extremely rapidly. And so

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Speaker 2: if stick your hand out the window of a car

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Speaker 2: that's driving down the highway, you feel that wind it's

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Speaker 2: pretty strong. Well, now imagine instead of going one hundred

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Speaker 2: kilometers an hour down the highway, you're doing seventy thousand

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Speaker 2: kilometers an hour through the atmosphere. That's a lot of pressure,

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Speaker 2: and it compresses the rock and the rock flattens perpendicular

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Speaker 2: to the direction of travel. You're basically squishing it with

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Speaker 2: the air, and it forms a flattened disc and that's pancaking.

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Speaker 2: And eventually, and by eventually, I mean in a very

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Speaker 2: small fraction of a second, that will cause the rock

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Speaker 2: to break to crumble. And now instead of one meteoroid,

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Speaker 2: you have lots of little meteoroids, and they're all making

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Speaker 2: their own little way through the atmosphere, burning up as

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Speaker 2: they do it. I'll add that, contrary to common perception,

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Speaker 2: it's not friction through the atmosphere that heats these things.

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Speaker 2: There's actually not a lot of friction. They're compressing the

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Speaker 2: air in front of them very very rapidly. And when

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Speaker 2: you compress a gas, it heats up. That's a really

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Speaker 2: basic ninth grade chemistry lesson. You compress a gas, it

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Speaker 2: gets hotter, and when you compress it a lot, it

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Speaker 2: gets really really hot. So that's what's happening. These things

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Speaker 2: are heated up by the compression of the air in

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Speaker 2: front of them. It melts off the rock, a lot

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Speaker 2: of it. It vaporizes and leaves that trail behind it,

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Speaker 2: which for some reason scientists call a train, not a

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Speaker 2: trail a train. Why are these words so similar because

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Speaker 2: we like to confuse people, I think. And then eventually

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Speaker 2: it burns up, and this whole thing usually happens in

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Speaker 2: under a second or two.

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Speaker 3: So the energy goes from the kinetic energy of the

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Speaker 3: I'm gonna say the wrong word meteoroid, yes, which is

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Speaker 3: then compressing the air in front of it. And I

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Speaker 3: was really into what you were saying about how compressing

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Speaker 3: something heats it up, because to me that was always

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Speaker 3: a little bit of a brain scramble in chemistry, like

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Speaker 3: why is compressing something heated up? And the way I

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Speaker 3: finally thought about it was like, if you're pressing on something,

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Speaker 3: like you put gas in a box and you squeeze it,

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Speaker 3: you're adding energy. You're like bouncing those particles in another direction,

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Speaker 3: You're turning them around earlier and earlier. But in this scenario,

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Speaker 3: it's the meteoroid doing that right. So it's like the

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Speaker 3: meteoroid itself is compressing the air in front of it,

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Speaker 3: using its kinetic energy to heat up that air, and

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Speaker 3: then that air heats up the meteoroid and vaporizes it.

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Speaker 3: So it's like, yes, that's fascinating.

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Speaker 2: That's basically it and the amount of kinetic energy is huge. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: kinetic energy depends on the mass of the object. That's more,

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Speaker 2: and it's velocity squared. So even a little tiny thing

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Speaker 2: the size of say a grape, when it's moving at

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Speaker 2: seventy thousand kilometers an hour and sometimes faster, that has

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Speaker 2: a lot of energy. And you're decelerating it from that

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Speaker 2: speed to essentially zero a couple one hundred kilometers an hour,

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Speaker 2: not very fast when it finally slows down and air

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Speaker 2: resistance doesn't slow it anymore, and then it just falls

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Speaker 2: at terminal velocity. So you're dropping this thing from seventy

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Speaker 2: thousand kilometers per hour to zero in a couple of seconds.

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Speaker 2: It's a vast amount of energy that you're extracting from

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Speaker 2: this thing. It actually heats the air so much the

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Speaker 2: air glows too, so you're melting of meteoroid, vaporizing it

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Speaker 2: and heating up the air. The air gets excited and

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Speaker 2: a little elements in it and start giving off light,

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Speaker 2: and you see this thing zipping across your sky. And

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Speaker 2: the bigger the piece, the more energy it gets, the

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Speaker 2: brighter it gets, and the faster the piece, the more

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Speaker 2: energy it has. The upper limit to the velocity typically

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Speaker 2: depend on orbital speeds around the Sun. If you have

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Speaker 2: something orbiting the Sun opposite the Earth and it hits

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Speaker 2: us head on, and so it's moving twice as fast

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Speaker 2: as something that has to catch up to us roughly,

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Speaker 2: and so those tend to have more energy.

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Speaker 3: And as more energy mean it's more likely to vaporize

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Speaker 3: in the atmosphere, or that it's more likely to make

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Speaker 3: it to Earth and kill us.

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Speaker 2: Gosh, that's a good question. And that all depends on

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Speaker 2: size roughly and a composition. So like when you go

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Speaker 2: out and see a meteor shower like in the August

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Speaker 2: Perseids or the Geminids a favorite of mine in December,

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Speaker 2: these are great meteor showers. These are little bits of

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Speaker 2: rock that come off a comet. And we found out

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Speaker 2: because we visited comets now that the rocks on these

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Speaker 2: things are incredibly fragile. They're very friable. As they say,

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Speaker 2: if you were to pick up a rock on a comet,

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Speaker 2: you could crush it in your hand easily. It would

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Speaker 2: be like less structural integrity if I can borrow a

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Speaker 2: star trek term than like styrophoam, so you can just

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Speaker 2: crush this thing. And so this stuff burns up really,

351
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Speaker 2: really easily, and a lot of asteroids are made of

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Speaker 2: rock and metal, and metal is a lot tougher and

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Speaker 2: turns out that weirdly, although metal asteroids are far more

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Speaker 2: rare than rock asteroids, most of the meteorites we find

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Speaker 2: are metal because they make it to the ground better.

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Speaker 2: So I have a bunch of metal meteorites. I collect them,

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Speaker 2: and so I've got a pile of them someplace in

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Speaker 2: the house. I still have an unpacked. It's been a year,

359
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Speaker 2: and at some point I'll have them up on display

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Speaker 2: and they're cool. They're black from the heat of their passage.

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Speaker 2: They're very dense. Because they're metal, they can have beautiful

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Speaker 2: crystal patterns when you cut them open. It's a really

363
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Speaker 2: fun thing to collect meteorites, although it's now extraordinarily expensive,

364
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Speaker 2: and I don't do it anymore. I did it when

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Speaker 2: it was a lot easier. Now I can't afford it anymore.

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Speaker 1: When our daughter was born, you gave us one and

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Speaker 1: a copper light, which we still had.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, the copper light was your wedding I think, oh,

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Speaker 2: that makes sense, if I'm not mistaken. I gave that

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Speaker 2: to you both because it seemed to right, fossilized dinosaur.

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Speaker 1: Poop from an iguanadon. They're both cherished items in our home.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, meteoroids can come from chunks of comets or

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Speaker 1: chunks of asteroids. Are those the two places that it

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Speaker 1: comes from? Yes, okay, got it? And how often do

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Speaker 1: these things make it to Earth?

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Speaker 2: All the time? The Earth is hit by a lot

377
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Speaker 2: of this stuff all the time, and I've seen different

378
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Speaker 2: numbers that are off by a factor of ten, but

379
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Speaker 2: they tend to average out to between fifty and one

380
00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:37,959
Speaker 2: hundred tons per day. And that's a lot. I mean,

381
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Speaker 2: when you first hear that, you're like, oh my god, Yeah,

382
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Speaker 2: that's a that's a disaster. And it's like, well, you know,

383
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Speaker 2: here we are. We're not commonly hearing about, you know,

384
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Speaker 2: houses getting wiped out by asteroid impacts. It's made up

385
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Speaker 2: of little, tiny pieces and there's zillions of them, and

386
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Speaker 2: it's spread out over the Earth, which is, you know,

387
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Speaker 2: this immense planet with a lot of surface area, three

388
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Speaker 2: quarters of which is water. Polls people tend not to

389
00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:04,680
Speaker 2: live at, so you know, we don't see a lot

390
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:07,320
Speaker 2: of this stuff coming in. And since most of it

391
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Speaker 2: is small, it's not a big deal. Once a month

392
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Speaker 2: on average you get something bigger about the size of

393
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Speaker 2: an easy chair. And when those things come in that's

394
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Speaker 2: usually terrifying. Pieces might hit the ground, it might not,

395
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Speaker 2: it might totally burn up, but it's so bright. It

396
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:26,800
Speaker 2: can shine almost as bright as the sun. And if

397
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Speaker 2: you're out at night and you're just like dude, doo

398
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:30,080
Speaker 2: doo dooo, doing your thing, and then all of a

399
00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:33,359
Speaker 2: sudden the skylights up around you, it's amazing. And you

400
00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:36,080
Speaker 2: can find zillions of videos of this on YouTube.

401
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Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing to me that this happens so often.

402
00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:41,639
Speaker 1: But like people getting hit, you can name the people.

403
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:44,200
Speaker 1: It happened so rarely. Like Ann Hodges had a really

404
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:46,040
Speaker 1: bad day. You talked about her in your book What

405
00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:46,720
Speaker 1: happened to her?

406
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Speaker 2: Yeah? Ann Hodges lived in Silacaga, Alabama, And do I

407
00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:53,920
Speaker 2: have that right Alabama in the nineteen fifties. I believe

408
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,320
Speaker 2: she was a renter or in a house and a

409
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Speaker 2: chunk of rock punched through the roof and landed. It

410
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Speaker 2: hit her dresser, as I recall, I believe it hit

411
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Speaker 2: her radio and destroyed. It bounced off and whacked her

412
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Speaker 2: on the side. And there are photos of her online

413
00:20:10,080 --> 00:20:13,000
Speaker 2: you can see it where she has a bruise that's

414
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Speaker 2: about the size of a dinner plate on her side.

415
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Speaker 2: It's really astonishing. And people say, my god, who was

416
00:20:19,359 --> 00:20:21,200
Speaker 2: hit by meteorite? And it's like, well, she wasn't hit

417
00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:26,200
Speaker 2: directly by a meteorite, and it wasn't moving thousands of

418
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Speaker 2: kilometers an hour when it hit her. It was in

419
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Speaker 2: free fall. It probably slowed down to, like I said,

420
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Speaker 2: a couple of hundred kilometers an hour, you know, highway speeds,

421
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Speaker 2: and then fell and it's dense enough it's chunk of

422
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Speaker 2: rock to pierce the roof and hit her and you

423
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Speaker 2: know it's still moving. You don't want to have somebody,

424
00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:43,639
Speaker 2: you know, whip a rock at you as hard as

425
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Speaker 2: they can. But that's what basically happened, and it left

426
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Speaker 2: a huge bruise on her side. And the reason I

427
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:52,040
Speaker 2: mentioned that she's a renter is because the person who

428
00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:56,840
Speaker 2: owned the house claimed that the meteorite was theirs, and

429
00:20:57,119 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 2: she said it was hers, and there were lawsuits and everything.

430
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,560
Speaker 2: It was a mess, and there are laws about this now.

431
00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:06,879
Speaker 2: And I'm of the opinion it's like, yeah, you know,

432
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Speaker 2: if I own the house, but it hit my renter

433
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:12,880
Speaker 2: might want to split the money. Maybe that's the thing

434
00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:15,320
Speaker 2: to do. I don't think back then they were worth

435
00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:17,600
Speaker 2: as much as they are now. But yeah, if you

436
00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:19,760
Speaker 2: were hit by a meteorite and you could prove it

437
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:21,440
Speaker 2: and it's not you know, a hoax or a fraud

438
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:24,680
Speaker 2: or something, that chunk of rock would be worth a fortune,

439
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:26,040
Speaker 2: you'd be set. Well.

440
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:27,919
Speaker 3: The thing that makes me think of is is this

441
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:30,320
Speaker 3: an opportunity for the courts to weigh in on whether

442
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:33,399
Speaker 3: it's a meteoroid or a meteorite? You know, because it

443
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 3: didn't hit the ground right hit the dresser, and you know,

444
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:38,200
Speaker 3: lawyers love definitions.

445
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:41,919
Speaker 2: I feel that the way the courts are going these days,

446
00:21:42,040 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 2: I am so happy to let them declare what is

447
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,879
Speaker 2: scientific and what isn't now or I could walk into

448
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:50,879
Speaker 2: a lava lake. That might be more fun.

449
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 3: I bet Clarence Thomas has undisclosed gifts of meteorites from donors.

450
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:57,119
Speaker 3: That's my guess.

451
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:01,080
Speaker 2: I bet he doesn't. Ually I don't know if I

452
00:22:01,080 --> 00:22:02,640
Speaker 2: take that bet, because if I bet on the yes

453
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:04,440
Speaker 2: he does, I would make sure to send him one

454
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 2: and then I'd win.

455
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:06,919
Speaker 1: Very strategic.

456
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,919
Speaker 3: I like it, but I think there's something fascinating. You

457
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:13,720
Speaker 3: mentioned about how these larger ones are rareer. There's like

458
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:15,560
Speaker 3: some basic math there that when you look out in

459
00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:20,680
Speaker 3: the universe is like fewer bigger things and more small things, right,

460
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,639
Speaker 3: And that sort of protects us, that like mathematics protects

461
00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 3: us because you say, there's zillions of tiny particles and

462
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 3: little bits of dust hitting the earth, but the bigger stuff,

463
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:32,040
Speaker 3: the stuff that can actually hurt us, is much rarer.

464
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:35,240
Speaker 2: Right. That's just a law of nature. If you take

465
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 2: a rock in your backyard and whack it with a

466
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:40,760
Speaker 2: hammer and it cracks, you'll get two big pieces and

467
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 2: a couple of medium sized you know, slivers, and then

468
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 2: a ton of dust. Right. So that's always what happens

469
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:49,639
Speaker 2: with nature. When you form things a certain way, you

470
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 2: get a handful of big things and a ton of

471
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 2: little things. And our atmosphere protects us from most of

472
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 2: that stuff, you know, if you don't have an atmosphere,

473
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:00,760
Speaker 2: you know, look at the moon. The moon is literally

474
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:04,440
Speaker 2: saturated in craters in some spots where if a chunk

475
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:07,160
Speaker 2: of rock hits the moon, it'll actually erase more craters

476
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:10,000
Speaker 2: than it will create. So they're everywhere, and who knows

477
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:13,400
Speaker 2: how many billions of craters there are. There are over

478
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:18,159
Speaker 2: a million bigger than about a mile across, So I

479
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 2: mean that's a lot, and that's a mile, that's you know,

480
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:24,200
Speaker 2: a couple of kilometers. That is an immense crater. And

481
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:26,479
Speaker 2: if you start talking about ones that are the size

482
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 2: of you know, a parking lot or a dinner plate,

483
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:33,199
Speaker 2: there may be hundreds of billions of them. I wouldn't

484
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,000
Speaker 2: even know how many. But our atmosphere protects us from

485
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:39,159
Speaker 2: the little guys, and so you tend to get a

486
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 2: smallest crater on Earth because you need a certain sized

487
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:44,959
Speaker 2: chunk of rock to be able to make it through

488
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,160
Speaker 2: our atmosphere and impact the ground. The other problem there

489
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 2: is we have erosion where the Moon doesn't. Really the

490
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 2: Moon has erosion, it's just very slow. But on Earth

491
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,439
Speaker 2: we have an atmosphere, we have wind, we have water,

492
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 2: and the craters get erased over short periods of time,

493
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,160
Speaker 2: unless they land in interesting places like Arizona, where there's

494
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 2: a meteor crater. I've been there. That's an amazing place.

495
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 2: Or the crater's so huge that it can last a

496
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 2: couple of billion years, and we've seen evidence of those

497
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 2: as well. But we only know of a couple of

498
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,439
Speaker 2: hundred on Earth because of erosion, and that's because our

499
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:21,160
Speaker 2: atmosphere protexas. So yeah, it takes something a few meters across,

500
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 2: like look at the one in Russia in twenty thirteen.

501
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 2: Came in over chel Yabinsk town of about a million

502
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:30,239
Speaker 2: people and lit up the sky. It was brighter than

503
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 2: the sun, made a shock wave that shattered windows. Those

504
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 2: videos are incredible. That thing was nineteen meters across sixty feet,

505
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 2: so the size of a house, and it was very

506
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 2: crumbly rock. This was not like a chunk of quartz

507
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 2: that you'd find in your backyard. This was something that

508
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 2: if you punched it, it would disintegrate. And it came in

509
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 2: burned up, I can't remember the exact numbers, twenty thirty

510
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 2: kilometers above the surface and slowed down so violently that

511
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,719
Speaker 2: it released all of its kinetic energy as a burst

512
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 2: of light and sound, which is an explosion. And so

513
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 2: this thing blew up, created an immense shock wave, and

514
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 2: that thing touched down and that's what shattered all those windows.

515
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 2: So you know, if that had been made of metal,

516
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 2: it would have made it to the ground and done

517
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 2: some real damage.

518
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 3: Imagine what it must have been like to see one

519
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 3: of those things ten thousand years ago when you have

520
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 3: no understanding of the cosmos or you're placing it, or

521
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 3: how anything works. I mean talk about like inventing a

522
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 3: religion or a spiritual moment.

523
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 2: Right, need to change mylin crew that if I saw

524
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 2: one now, I'd crack my pants. Are you kidding? That's

525
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 2: just terrifying.

526
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: I love that we went to the same place. I

527
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 1: don't know if you caught that. I said I'd need

528
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: to change my loincloth and you said.

529
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a better line. You can use

530
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 2: that one. Edit me out there, leave.

531
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: Them both all right, So this would all be petrifying.

532
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 1: But let's take a quick commercial break and then we'll

533
00:25:51,080 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: talk about if there's anything that we can do about it.

534
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: And we're back. Okay. So Phil and I both agreed

535
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: we'd soil ourselves if we saw a giant meteoroid coming

536
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,120
Speaker 1: towards us. Phil, is there anything that we can do

537
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: about this? How much advance notice do we need? What

538
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: are our options here?

539
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:27,960
Speaker 2: Nothing? Oh? Wait, no, that's not right. Thinking five years ago,

540
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,919
Speaker 2: a few years ago, there's nothing you could do. Our

541
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 2: first warning would be you'd look up and see this

542
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 2: bright lightness sky and go hey, what's that? And before

543
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 2: you could finish that sentence. You're in a lot of trouble.

544
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 2: When it comes to small ones like to chill Yabinsk

545
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 2: one from twenty thirteen that blew up over Russia. Again,

546
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 2: not much we can do because that's so small. That

547
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 2: objects like that are incredibly faint and it's very difficult

548
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 2: to spot them far enough in advance that we can

549
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 2: do anything about it. Now, for bigger ones, and we're

550
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,239
Speaker 2: talking about ones that might have a global impact. These

551
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 2: are ones that are one hundred meters across or bigger

552
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 2: the size of a football stadium or larger. Those we're

553
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 2: starting to get a handle on. We have a lot

554
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 2: of big telescopes and step one is to find them,

555
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 2: And we have telescopes searching the skies. We're doing a

556
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 2: decent job about that. NASA's about to launch in a

557
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 2: few more years a spacecraft that's going to scan the

558
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 2: skies and really do a good job of finding all

559
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 2: of these smaller objects. It's called ANEO Sentinel Near Earth

560
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 2: Objects Sentinel. It's a very cool mission.

561
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 3: But where are these things coming from? I mean, we

562
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 3: have telescopes looking for stuff, But tell us about where

563
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 3: these things are from. Are they just coming from deep

564
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 3: deep space like Omuamula? Are they coming from our own backyard?

565
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 3: Are they falling off the Moon?

566
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 2: Like?

567
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 3: What's the source of these things?

568
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 2: Oh, the vast majority of them are coming from our

569
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 2: Solar system. They're coming from comets and that tends to

570
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 2: be smaller stuff. Or they come from the asteroid belt,

571
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 2: because the asteroid belt has all these big rocks in it.

572
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 2: Some of them are hundreds of kilometers across. They occasionally

573
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 2: whack into each other create shrapnel, and then that stuff

574
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 2: goes off on its own orbit around the Sun and

575
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:10,160
Speaker 2: eventually hits Us or Jupiter, or Mars or the Moon.

576
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 2: So that's where most of this stuff is coming from.

577
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 2: Some of it is on very elliptical orbits, so it

578
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 2: gets very close to the Sun and that means that

579
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 2: if it's coming from that direction, we can't see it.

580
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 2: That's because it's you know, the Sun's up during the

581
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 2: day and that makes it hard to observe. The beauty

582
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 2: of this NASA mission is that it's going to be

583
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,120
Speaker 2: in an orbit closer to the Sun and we'll look

584
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 2: back toward the Earth and we'll be able to see

585
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 2: some of these objects that are coming in from that direction.

586
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 2: We also need telescopes that sort of orbit ahead and

587
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 2: behind us so that we can scan the whole sky.

588
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 2: But that's sometime in the future. But in the meantime,

589
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 2: you know we're going to find the vast majority of

590
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 2: these things. The next step is what are you going

591
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:50,479
Speaker 2: to do about it? And for a long time we

592
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 2: weren't sure. Then in two thousand and five, we hit

593
00:28:55,680 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 2: a small comet with a spacecraft sam into That was

594
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 2: the Deep Impact Mission. Apparently a coincidence that it was

595
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 2: that the movie had the same name.

596
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 3: Didn't They slam it with a piece of metal like

597
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 3: the size of a washing machine or something.

598
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a piece of copper, and they did

599
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 2: that on purpose because when you get this flash of

600
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 2: light and all this gas, all this material vaporizes, you

601
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 2: can analyze to see what's in it. And you know,

602
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 2: if you see a lot of copper, you ignore that,

603
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 2: you say that's from our impactor. Everything else is part

604
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 2: of that rock that we hit. So that was pretty clever.

605
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 3: Actually, well, I always thought that was a fun variation

606
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 3: and like throw the kitchen, think at it, like, no,

607
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 3: throw the washing machine at it.

608
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 2: It's like throw, you know, thousands of melted down pennies.

609
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: I think is how that worked. I actually don't know

610
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 2: where they got the copper from. That would be an

611
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 2: interesting thing to find out. May have come from Virginia.

612
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 2: Virginia has a lot of copper we're used to. A

613
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, NASA launched this mission called the

614
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 2: Double Asteroid Redirect Test, and they slammed a spacecraft into

615
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 2: the moon of an asteroid because asteroids can have moons.

616
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 2: Even though this asteroid, called Ditamos, is mall and I

617
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 2: don't have the number off the top of my head,

618
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 2: it's a few hundred meters across, they discovered it has

619
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 2: a moon, which they called dimorphose, and that was upsetting

620
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 2: to me. I wanted them to call it epididymos, because

621
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 2: of course you did, because a funny epididymos, but also

622
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 2: it's correct. Epi means external are outside of, and so

623
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 2: it's a moon outside of the asteroid. Nobody likes my puns.

624
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 2: I love Phil, thank you, I appreciate that. And so

625
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 2: they slammed the spacecraft into the moon because we knew

626
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 2: how far the moon was from the main asteroid and

627
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 2: how long it took to orbit, and by hitting it

628
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 2: you could directly measure how much the orbit was changed.

629
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 2: If you hit just a plain old asteroid orbit in

630
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 2: the Sun, you have to wait months and years before

631
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 2: you can really see how much it spat up or

632
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 2: slowed down. But with a moon it was almost instantaneous,

633
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: and they found out that it had a twelve hour

634
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 2: orbit that changed by about a half an hour, which

635
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 2: was way more than they expected, which is good news

636
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 2: because that means that if you see one hundred meter

637
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 2: wide rock heading towards Earth and we hit it with

638
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 2: a spacecraft, we can divert it. And the earlier you

639
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 2: do this the better. Right, it's not like you're attaching

640
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 2: a rock to this thing and shooting it off at

641
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 2: high speed. You're changing the velocity a little bit, and

642
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 2: so the earlier you do that, the more time it

643
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 2: has to move out of the way. So really what

644
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 2: you want to do is identify these things decades in

645
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 2: advance and then do this. If this mission was amazing

646
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 2: because they did it, not just that it worked. I

647
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: mean we figured it might work if it hit, but

648
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 2: it hit that was amazing. That's not an easy thing

649
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 2: to do to hit a target that's small when you're

650
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 2: screaming across space at thousands of kilometers an hour. And

651
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 2: it worked perfectly. It was an amazing mission.

652
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 3: It's always easier to like knock a sniper's rifle than

653
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 3: to like swat the bullet out of the air. You

654
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 3: know when it's almost hits you. But it trus some planning,

655
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 3: right like they thought about this. NASA doesn't work quickly.

656
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 3: This is probably like a ten year mission to go

657
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 3: up there and knock this moon. We're not going to

658
00:31:57,520 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 3: have that much time. If we see a rock coming,

659
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 3: we're lucky enough to spot it on its way and

660
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 3: we have months, what plans do we have to like

661
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 3: scramble and melt down more pennies or whatever to save

662
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 3: the Earth? Does Virginia have enough copper for that?

663
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 2: I don't know. That sounds like a good movie. Send

664
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 2: in your pennies to save the Earth. It depends. You

665
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 2: got to remember everything's in motion, and I mean that literally,

666
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 2: there's all these things. There are millions of these objects

667
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 2: orbiting the Sun. Some of them we know about, and

668
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 2: we actually know about most of the ones that get

669
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 2: close to the Earth that are big enough to do

670
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 2: serious damage. We're doing really well at finding them, categorizing them,

671
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 2: and saying, Okay, if they're not going to hit us

672
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: for the next hundred years, we're not going to sweat them.

673
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 2: And every month there are a few more that come

674
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 2: onto the list that are like, well, these are getting

675
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 2: a little closer than i'd like. Typically, as you observe

676
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 2: them more and more and the orbit gets defined better,

677
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 2: we realize they're going to miss. You think about it.

678
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 2: The analogy I like is an outfielder in baseball and

679
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 2: you're standing there. You're an outfielder, you got your glove

680
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 2: and you're standing there and you're looking to see the

681
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 2: pitcher throw the ball. And as soon as the batter

682
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 2: hits the ball, you have one second to look at

683
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 2: the asteroid, to look at the baseball, and then you

684
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 2: have to close your eyes and then now catch it,

685
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 2: you know, six ten seconds later, well you can't. You

686
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 2: only got a glimpse of where it was headed. You

687
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 2: only have a general, vague idea. But if you keep

688
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 2: your eye on the ball, you can, you know, maneuver

689
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: and figure it out and get you really really get

690
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: a beat on it and then catch it. It's the

691
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 2: same thing with asteroids, If you observe them for a

692
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 2: day or two, that orbit's very fuzzy. You don't really

693
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 2: know where it's going. But you observe them over and

694
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 2: over and over again, you refine that orbit more and

695
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 2: more accurately. And that would be great if the Moon

696
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 2: didn't exist, if Jupiter didn't exist. But the planets and everything,

697
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 2: they're pulling on these things. So even when you know

698
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 2: the orbit, you've got to keep observing all of them

699
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 2: to be able to predict them in the future.

700
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 3: That was going to be my question, like, isn't the

701
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 3: system fundamentally k Like you get a little bit small

702
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 3: mistake here is going to lead to a large mistake

703
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 3: down the road. Is that what limits our predictions to

704
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 3: like one hundred years fifty years instead of like a

705
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 3: million years.

706
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 2: Well, what you call chaotic I call job security. Yeah,

707
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 2: I mean, you're absolutely right. We could observe an asteroid tonight,

708
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 2: observe it for the next ten years, nail down its orbit,

709
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 2: wait ten years, and then it's like, oh, it's not

710
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:23,399
Speaker 2: where we thought it was going to be. It's like, oh, yeah,

711
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 2: it's in an orbit that brings it near Jupiter and

712
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,320
Speaker 2: the gravity of that beast yanked it into a new orbit.

713
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 2: So that's why you've got to keep observing these things.

714
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 2: And the amount of time you need an advance depends

715
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 2: on a lot of stuff, including how big it is.

716
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 2: If it's a big monster, you might need a thirty

717
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 2: or forty years after you move it for it to

718
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:46,839
Speaker 2: move into a safe orbit, or you might just need

719
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 2: that much advance warning because look, you know, just hitting

720
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 2: it with a single spacecraft's not going to do it.

721
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 2: We might have to hit it repeatedly. We might have

722
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 2: to detonate a nuke near it. It's not armageddon. You

723
00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 2: don't dig a hole into an asteroid and blow it up.

724
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 2: That turns you one problem into millions of slightly smaller problems.

725
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 2: It's not a great solution. But if you blow up

726
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:08,760
Speaker 2: a nuke next to it, it'll vaporize the surface material,

727
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 2: which then expands very rapidly and acts like a rocket

728
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 2: and pushes on the asteroid. The only problem is blowing

729
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 2: up a nuke in space is literally illegal. It's against

730
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 2: international law. So we'll have to figure it out. You know,

731
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 2: if we're going to save the Earth, maybe maybe people

732
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 2: will be able to suspend that law. But even then,

733
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 2: It's like, there are a lot of things you have

734
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 2: to do to have this sort of infrastructure in place,

735
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: and we don't. So if we saw something heading our

736
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 2: way that's going to hit us and say less than

737
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 2: ten years, there may not be much we can do

738
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 2: about it.

739
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: If you think about governments trying to coordinate on a

740
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: ten year timescale, I think you should just like figure

741
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 1: out where you're going to bury yourself and call it

742
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: a day. There's no way it's going to happen.

743
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 2: Oh, and it's more complicated than that, even because imagine

744
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 2: now just to pick two governments. Let's say China in

745
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 2: the US, and China builds the navigation system, and we

746
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 2: have the rockets, and so we launched this and it

747
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 2: hits the rock but not dead center. It hits it

748
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:05,399
Speaker 2: like just off center. And it turns out the path

749
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 2: gets changed just so much that instead of hitting China,

750
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 2: it hits the US.

751
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 3: Oh accidentally.

752
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

753
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of issues here that have to

754
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 2: be ironed out.

755
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. Geopolitically, everything gets complicated when it has to do

756
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: with space.

757
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 2: Yeah.

758
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I'm going to try to combat this East

759
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 3: Coast negativity with a little California sunshine I mean, aren't

760
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 3: there other things that we can do other than just

761
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 3: like hitting it with a rock or nuking it. I

762
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 3: read about some folks in Santa Barbara working on lasers

763
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 3: to like oblate one side of these things to make

764
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 3: it more reflective, or also to release some gas. Do

765
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 3: you think those things are realistic at all?

766
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 2: Kind of these things have never been tested. But one

767
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 2: thing is too. Yeah. You launch a satellite, maybe something

768
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 2: that has enormous solar panels, so it gets a lot

769
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 2: of electricity, and that can power a powerful laser, and

770
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 2: you aim it at the asteroid and vaporize the surface,

771
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 2: and that takes the place of the nuke, you know,

772
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 2: instead of a gigantic explosion. Now you're more gently vaporizing

773
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 2: the surface and very slowly pushing on the rock. That way,

774
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 2: that should work, but it would take a lot of time,

775
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 2: and we don't really have that technology yet. People are

776
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 2: working on it, but I don't know if we have it.

777
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 2: A simpler one is to simply paint one half of

778
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 2: the asteroid white, and sunlight has a pressure. It's quantum mechanics.

779
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 2: It's very complicated, but sunlight hitting an asteroid actually does

780
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 2: apply a very gentle force, and asteroid spin usually slowly,

781
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 2: but not always so. If you paint it one half

782
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 2: of it white or in stripes like an orange peel,

783
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 2: every other orange peel is black and one's white. On

784
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 2: the asteroid as it spins, you wind up getting this

785
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 2: force that is applied on the asteroid that can push

786
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 2: it into a new orbit. But that is incredibly slow.

787
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 2: If we have one hundred years warning, something like that

788
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 2: might work. Otherwise, Yeah, we're kind of have to resort

789
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 2: to these more violent things. The other one, which I

790
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 2: quite like is quite elegant, is a gravity tractor or

791
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 2: a gravity tug, where you have a spacecraft that's massive

792
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 2: and you kind of park it next to the asteroid

793
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 2: and very very low thrust engines then move the spaceship

794
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 2: and the gravity of the spaceship pulls on the asteroid,

795
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 2: and the math of this works. If you just let

796
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 2: the spaceship sit there, the asteroid in the spaceship will

797
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:27,280
Speaker 2: gravitationally attract each other and they'll crash into each other slowly.

798
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 3: Chaos for the wind, right, this is using chaos in

799
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 3: our favor kind of.

800
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, in this case, you're just very slowly,

801
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 2: very gently just caressing the asteroid, just nudging it using

802
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,839
Speaker 2: the force of gravity, which is very weak. And again

803
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 2: that's quite slow, but if you have a few years,

804
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 2: that would work, and that technology exists. We do have

805
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,760
Speaker 2: spacecraft with very low thrust engines, so that is something

806
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 2: the B six twelve Foundation, which is a wonderful group

807
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 2: of scientists and engineers, are investigating using an ion drive,

808
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,439
Speaker 2: a low thrust drive to tug an asteroid of the way.

809
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 2: Super cool.

810
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 1: So I promised at the intro before you were on

811
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 1: here that we were going to talk about threats that

812
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:09,919
Speaker 1: we could do something about. And I'm wondering if maybe

813
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 1: I didn't completely deliver on that promise, because these are

814
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: things that we could maybe do something. How optimistic are

815
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: you if there was something coming towards us that we

816
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 1: could solve the problems or does it completely depend on

817
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: what it is and how big it is and how

818
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: fast it is.

819
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of like getting rid of fossil fuels

820
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 2: and replacing it with solar power. Right fifty years ago,

821
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 2: that would have been a joke because solar panels were

822
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 2: very expensive and there weren't that many. But over time

823
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 2: the price has dropped and so now the growth is

824
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 2: becoming almost exponential, and there's a kind of a crossover

825
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 2: curve between the use of solar panels going up and

826
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 2: the use of fossil fuels going down, And so it's

827
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 2: similar to that, right. Our technology is getting better. We're

828
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 2: getting better at finding these things, we're getting better at

829
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 2: thinking about how to get rid of them. Our technology

830
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 2: for building rockets is better, and it's a matter of time.

831
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 2: We're kind of throwing the dice here, I would say,

832
00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 2: and this is just a sea of the pants estimate.

833
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 2: Don't you know, put any money on this or anything.

834
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 2: But I would say that if we do not get

835
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 2: hit by a large asteroid in the next one hundred years,

836
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 2: I think we will probably have the technology in place

837
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: to prevent any large impact forever. What does that mean,

838
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 2: you know, is chel Ya being's large one? Well, if

839
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 2: it were made of metal, it would have been bad.

840
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: And so those happen every ten to twenty five years,

841
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 2: every fifty years. So we might get a couple of

842
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,839
Speaker 2: big ones between now and then, But I'm not talking

843
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 2: about those because those really are kind of small. I'm

844
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 2: talking about ones one hundred meters across or bigger. Right now,

845
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: it's not, but eventually our technology will be good enough

846
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:36,280
Speaker 2: that those will no longer be a threat.

847
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: So I'm feeling pretty good about my grandkids.

848
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 3: Then sure, it means we're also sort of in the

849
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,720
Speaker 3: most terrifying period of history, right because like, until now,

850
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 3: we didn't really understand how dangerous the cosmos was and

851
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 3: that it could at any moment rain down death upon

852
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 3: us and in one hundred years will be protected from that.

853
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 3: But there's like this window between understanding the danger and

854
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:58,840
Speaker 3: being able to do anything about it that we realize,

855
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, we're basically naked in the face of

856
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 3: death from space.

857
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a death from the sky season we're living

858
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 2: in the middle of right now. Yeah, you know, it

859
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:10,240
Speaker 2: wasn't that long ago where this threat wasn't taken seriously,

860
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 2: even in my lifetime. But then with the Dinosaur Killer,

861
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 2: when that in the eighties was starting to be understood

862
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 2: that that was caused by an asteroid impact, yeah, people

863
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 2: started taking it more seriously.

864
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,319
Speaker 3: And then after Comet Shoemaker Levy, I think people were

865
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 3: also like, wow, that stuff actually can happen like in

866
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 3: our lifetimes.

867
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 2: That's right. That was a big comet that broke apart

868
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 2: and hit Jupiter. They broke apart into like dozens of

869
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 2: pieces and hit it over and over again, and the

870
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:40,399
Speaker 2: mushroom cloud from the explosions could be seen from Earth.

871
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 2: I saw the black scars. I mean, Jupiter doesn't have

872
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,919
Speaker 2: a surface, but that material from the explosion settled down

873
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 2: on the tops of clouds and was visible for weeks

874
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 2: and months, and I saw it through a small telescope.

875
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 2: It was pretty terrifying.

876
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,359
Speaker 1: On that note, try not to get too scared. We're

877
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: going to take a break and we'll be right back

878
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 1: with something else to worry about.

879
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 3: All right, We're back, and we are trying to keep

880
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 3: an optimistic point of view about the future of humanity.

881
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 3: I've had kids, I know Kelly's had kids, and so

882
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,360
Speaker 3: we're voting with our game meates that humanity will survive

883
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 3: and it will be worth being alive on Earth for

884
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 3: many years to come. Let's hope that science doesn't prove

885
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 3: that wrong. We're here talking to Phil Plait about the

886
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 3: dangers from space, and we've talked about the dangers that meteoroids, meteorites,

887
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 3: meteorites and meteor everythings can do to us. Now let's

888
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 3: talk about something much brighter.

889
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,879
Speaker 2: Oh, Wow, that's a good segue. Now let's talk about

890
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 2: the Sun. Okay. First of all, don't look at the Sun.

891
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 2: Just it's amazing that I have to say this sometimes,

892
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 2: but that big, giant, glowing thing in the sky, don't

893
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 2: look at it. It's going to hurt you. It gives

894
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 2: off light that is so intense it can actually damage

895
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,759
Speaker 2: your retina. And so the Sun is the source of

896
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 2: all warmth and light on the Earth. But it's also

897
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 2: dangerous just in that sort of trivial way, and it

898
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 2: turns out it's dangerous in a lot of other ways.

899
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,760
Speaker 2: It's fundamentally a star, and stars have a lot of power.

900
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:24,720
Speaker 2: The amount of energy the Sun generates in its core

901
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 2: and I believe if I get this number right, it

902
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 2: is a one hundred billion one megaton nuclear bombs every second.

903
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 2: One hundred billion one megaton bombs every second. Yes, it's

904
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 2: a lot of energy, and you don't want to get

905
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 2: too close to it. And the Sun is immense, It

906
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,240
Speaker 2: is very, very big. It is eight hundred and sixty

907
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 2: thousand miles across one point four million kilometers and that

908
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 2: is a lot of room for a lot of danger.

909
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 2: And the problem here is in the form of magnetism. Magnets.

910
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 2: You think magnets. You have a horseshoe magnet in school,

911
00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:58,319
Speaker 2: and you put it under a piece of paper and

912
00:43:58,360 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 2: you shake iron filings on it, and you get those

913
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 2: really cool patterns. And it turns out magnets are super

914
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 2: dangerous when they're a million miles across the sun generates

915
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 2: a magnetic field that's very powerful inside it's basically under

916
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 2: its surface. It's extremely complicated. There are two reasons is complicated.

917
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 2: One is it Magnetism is unbelievably complicated. Daniel Jackson, did

918
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 2: you have to do? Jackson?

919
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 3: I have nightmares of cross products and integrals. Absolutely.

920
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 2: Yeah. I can see your eyelid twitching. Oh my god.

921
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 2: This is a grad school level electromagnetism book that I

922
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 2: got my PhD. Thirty years ago, and I still get

923
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 2: sweat on my brow when I think about it. Was

924
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 2: the hardest course.

925
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 3: My qualifying exam was given to me by JD. Jackson,

926
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 3: and he asked my questions about rotating spheres of charge

927
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 3: and I just about melted into a magnetic puddle.

928
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 2: Oh. I would again walk into a lava lake rather

929
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 2: than do that. The equations that govern magnetism are unbelievably complex,

930
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 2: and and you start with very simple concepts and it

931
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 2: immediately jumps into ridiculous amounts of calculus and super advanced calculus.

932
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 2: So that's one reason. The other thing is that the

933
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 2: Sun is a giant ball of ionized gas. It's very hot,

934
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:17,879
Speaker 2: the electrons are stripped off the atoms inside of it,

935
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 2: and that by itself is very complex. The motions inside

936
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:24,720
Speaker 2: the Sun, it's hot in the center, cooler the surface.

937
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 2: Hot material rises, the cooler sinks, and that's hydrodynamics, which

938
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 2: is another extremely complicated field of physics. So if you

939
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 2: mix these two, it's nuts. It's really hard. So simplifying

940
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:41,280
Speaker 2: because you gotta the Sun makes these magnetic fields inside

941
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 2: of this material. It's rising and falling it gets to

942
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 2: the surface, and you can think of it as like

943
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 2: a magnet with all these like magnetic field lines coming

944
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 2: out of it, like those drawings you see of like

945
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: the doughnut shaped lines around the Earth, and you get

946
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 2: thousands or tens of thousands, maybe millions of them inside

947
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 2: the Sun, all like that, and they're rising and falling

948
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 2: all the time, and when they get to the surface

949
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 2: they prevent they basically the magnetic field lines from one

950
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 2: spot versus the next, this other tower over there rising

951
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 2: and falling. Those magnetic field lines can connect and interfere

952
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 2: with each other and they trap the gas in them,

953
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 2: and then the gas can't fall back down into the sun.

954
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:18,760
Speaker 2: So you've got this cooling material sitting on the surface

955
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 2: of the sun. Cooler material not as hot, doesn't emit

956
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 2: as much light, so you get a dark spot on

957
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 2: the sun, a sun spot. So a sunspot is a

958
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 2: magnetic phenomenon. But sometimes those magnetic field lines get really

959
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 2: tangled up and they have a huge amount of energy

960
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 2: involved in them. Whenever we talk about magnetism, everything is

961
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 2: an analogy, and I hate that because it's not always accurate,

962
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 2: but it's not a bad way to think of it.

963
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 2: So imagine you take something like a really really really

964
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:47,279
Speaker 2: strong spring and it's really really hard to bend, and

965
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 2: yet you bend it, and you bend it as tightly

966
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 2: as you can, so it's now forming a loop. And

967
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:54,919
Speaker 2: then somebody takes a blowtorch and blows off the top

968
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 2: of it. What happens, Well, I think's going to snap,

969
00:46:57,840 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 2: and it's gonna snap so hard it could kill you.

970
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 2: It's gonna really a lot of energy. And it's the

971
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 2: same thing with these magnetic field lines. They have a

972
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 2: huge amount of energy stored in them. They tangle up,

973
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 2: they can snap and release that energy, and when they do,

974
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 2: you can get a solar flare and that can release

975
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 2: millions of megatons a billion megatons of energy all at once,

976
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 2: Gamma rays, X rays, all this high energy radiation, subatomic

977
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 2: particles moving it just under the speed of light. These

978
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 2: go flying out into space. They can come to Earth.

979
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,720
Speaker 2: We have enough time, We got like four more hours, right,

980
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 2: So this is what we call space weather. This material

981
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 2: comes scream into Earth, interacts with our magnetic field. These

982
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 2: particles then get funneled into our atmosphere where they hit

983
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 2: the molecules and atoms in our air, blow off their electrons,

984
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 2: and when those electrons recombined, the atoms glow and we

985
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 2: get an aurora. So that's where the aurora comes from.

986
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 2: It comes from this stuff from the Sun, which is

987
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 2: great until you get a really powerful storm and then

988
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:59,440
Speaker 2: you start getting interactions between the magnetic field of this

989
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 2: material coming from the Sun the Earth's magnetic field. It

990
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 2: generates currents, electric currents in the Earth itself. This can

991
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 2: overload power grids take down high transmission lines, and this

992
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 2: happened in Canada and Quebec in nineteen eighty nine. A

993
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,400
Speaker 2: powerful solar storm connected with the Earth created a huge

994
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 2: current under the granite in Canada and North America and

995
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 2: the United States, and there was so much that it

996
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 2: overloaded power lines. In Quebec had a blackout that lasted

997
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 2: for several days. Because once you blow a transformer, you're screwed.

998
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:31,319
Speaker 2: It takes a long time to repair those things. A

999
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 2: really big storm from the Sun could cause widespread blackouts

1000
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 2: over Most of North America were more susceptible to it

1001
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 2: because of geology, but there's no place on the planet

1002
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 2: that's really safe. Now. The Sun doesn't do this very often.

1003
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 2: We see in the historical record that, yeah, there have

1004
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 2: been some big storms from the Sun that could do this,

1005
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 2: but they happen every few centuries or something like that,

1006
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 2: maybe every few thousand years. But eighteen fifty nine was

1007
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 2: the first one ever seen, and because we had the

1008
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 2: tech chnology at that point to detect it. Then in

1009
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:06,240
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, another one that was that powerful also erupted

1010
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:08,839
Speaker 2: off the Sun, but it missed us. So you know,

1011
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 2: take those two as an average, it's one hundred and

1012
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 2: sixty years something like that between them. That's not long

1013
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 2: enough for me, because if those things hit us huge

1014
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 2: power outages, they can blow out satellites and basically erase

1015
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 2: our technological civilization.

1016
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 3: You describe these things as solar storms, which makes me

1017
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 3: think of storms on Earth, which are notoriously hard to predict,

1018
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 3: even like a week out. Is the same physics making

1019
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 3: it difficult to predict solar storms. You know, are we

1020
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 3: struggling to understand what's going on inside the sun which

1021
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:41,280
Speaker 3: limits our ability to predict how often these things bubble

1022
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 3: up and create these crazy conditions on the surface.

1023
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 2: That's right, and it's a good analogy. If you live

1024
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:49,280
Speaker 2: in the Midwest and they say there's a tornado warning,

1025
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 2: I can never keep these right. I think a warning

1026
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 2: is when conditions are good for tornado formation, and a

1027
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 2: tornado watch is when one is seen. I may have

1028
00:49:57,520 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 2: that backwards, Kelly is saying I have that backwards, so okay,

1029
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 2: but either way, I mean, you can use radar and

1030
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 2: look at the clouds and say, well, conditions are good,

1031
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 2: and then somebody sees one and it's like, okay, this

1032
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:09,439
Speaker 2: is trouble. It's the same sort of thing with the Sun.

1033
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:12,720
Speaker 2: The way we can see the magnetism in the sun.

1034
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:14,759
Speaker 2: There are several different ways to see it, but one

1035
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 2: obvious one is just looking at sunspots. And a lot

1036
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 2: of these sunspots are very magnetically active, and you observe

1037
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 2: them with special kinds of telescopes which can measure the

1038
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,320
Speaker 2: kind of magnetic activity they have because they are different

1039
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 2: kinds and some kinds are more prone to storming than others.

1040
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 2: We have one on the Sun facing us right now

1041
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 2: as we record this that I was looking at and

1042
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 2: I'm like, hmmm, it's not a powerful sun spot, but

1043
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 2: it's pretty active and it's doing stuff on the Sun's surface.

1044
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 2: There's all kinds of activity going on around the sun spot.

1045
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 2: It may not flare. It just hard to really say.

1046
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 2: But then we have astronomical satellites in space that observe

1047
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 2: the Sun, telescopes on the ground that observe the Sun,

1048
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 2: and when a flare goes off, we get a warning,

1049
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,440
Speaker 2: and if it's a big one, we have a few hours,

1050
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:03,359
Speaker 2: which is usually all you need. The military can shut

1051
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 2: down satellites. The electrical grids can divert electricity from one

1052
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 2: place to another, The real problem here for power is

1053
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 2: that we built our grid in the fifties and the

1054
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:16,720
Speaker 2: population of the United States was like under one hundred

1055
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:19,080
Speaker 2: million people something like that. Now we have three times

1056
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 2: as many people the grid. These power lines, which were

1057
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 2: never used at capacity until recently, I have full flow

1058
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 2: through them, and if you add more electricity to them,

1059
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 2: they heat up, they can melt, they can snap, and

1060
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 2: so that's the problem. You have to redirect electricity so

1061
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 2: that areas with a lot of traffic will get their

1062
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 2: electricity from different places. Still, it's kind of half assed,

1063
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 2: and it would be better if our grid had more substations,

1064
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 2: more lines, more insulators. Even better would be if we

1065
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 2: get our power locally, like solar panels on your house.

1066
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 2: Then you don't really have to worry about stuff like

1067
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 2: this as much because your power won't get interrupted, because

1068
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 2: if the grid goes down, it's like I got power,

1069
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 2: I'm good.

1070
00:51:57,360 --> 00:51:59,240
Speaker 1: And so the reason things were so bad in Canada

1071
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 1: in the eighties was because they didn't turn off the

1072
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 1: power because they didn't know what was coming, because we

1073
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 1: didn't have detection.

1074
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:07,880
Speaker 2: That was part of it, but also it's the geology

1075
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 2: of the area. There are places where it's easier to

1076
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:15,840
Speaker 2: create a flow. It's called a geomagnetic induced current or GIC.

1077
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 2: And there's some places on Earth where you get bigger

1078
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 2: currents than others, and the North American Plate basically is

1079
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 2: a really really happy place to make electricity bad for us.

1080
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 2: But if you get a really big solar storm, it

1081
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 2: affects us more than other places, so that's bad. So

1082
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:33,800
Speaker 2: it's a confluence of events there. You know, we can't

1083
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 2: prevent the sun from doing anything. It's the sun. One

1084
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,359
Speaker 2: hundred earths can fit across the width of a sun.

1085
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:42,800
Speaker 2: You could fill it with a million earths. It is

1086
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:45,879
Speaker 2: an immense object. So we're not telling it what to do.

1087
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,280
Speaker 2: All we can do is change how we defend ourselves

1088
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 2: from them. And so if we gird the grid, which

1089
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 2: is a great bumper sticker idea, if we put money

1090
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 2: into infrastructure, we can prevent a lot of the problems

1091
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 2: for happening if we go to more local sources of electricity,

1092
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 2: and that could be you know, cities even using solar power,

1093
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:09,239
Speaker 2: or houses using solar power. The more local you are,

1094
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 2: the better. Battery storage is a good thing too, because

1095
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 2: then if the grid goes down, you still have power

1096
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:16,439
Speaker 2: for a while. So we can't prevent the Sun from

1097
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:18,879
Speaker 2: doing it. All we can do is prevent ourselves from

1098
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,759
Speaker 2: suffering the worst of it, and that's something we absolutely

1099
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 2: can do. We just have to make up our minds

1100
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 2: and open up our wallets.

1101
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad we're managing to end on a high note.

1102
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:30,200
Speaker 1: So I partially delivered on that promise.

1103
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 2: Oh, let's talk about nearby supermomen Yeah.

1104
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 1: Wait, the final high note we're going to talk about

1105
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 1: is your incredible recent book Under Alien Skies, which the

1106
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:44,880
Speaker 1: asteroid chapter I totally laughed at and enjoyed the scenario.

1107
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: The chapter on Saturn was absolutely beautiful.

1108
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 2: Thank you.

1109
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:50,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us all about Under Aliens? Guys, what's the

1110
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:52,160
Speaker 1: premise and where can folks get it? So?

1111
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 2: Under Alien Skies was an idea I got a long

1112
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 2: time ago. I wrote an article for Astronomy magazine in

1113
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties. Kids ask your parents about the nineties,

1114
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 2: And the idea was because I would take my telescope

1115
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:08,360
Speaker 2: out to public places and show people things. And a

1116
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:10,719
Speaker 2: question I got a lot was, you know, if I

1117
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 2: look at a picture from Hubble, which was up even then,

1118
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:15,839
Speaker 2: you know, would it look like that if I were there.

1119
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 2: When I looked through a telescope and I were looking

1120
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 2: at Saturn, what would it look like if I were there?

1121
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 2: And it turns out that that's an interesting question because

1122
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:24,919
Speaker 2: some things you look at a picture of the Moon,

1123
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 2: you know you see is what you get. But when

1124
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:30,719
Speaker 2: you look at a picture of a galaxy or a

1125
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,840
Speaker 2: gas cloud or a nebula, they're very different if you

1126
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:36,600
Speaker 2: were up closer, even inside them, versus what you would

1127
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 2: look at from outside them. And so that was sort

1128
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:41,840
Speaker 2: of the idea. Then I realized, if I want to

1129
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 2: write a book, I really have to talk about what

1130
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:47,720
Speaker 2: it's like to actually be there, And so I wrote

1131
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 2: a chapter on the Moon, and it's all about you

1132
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:53,840
Speaker 2: are now on the Moon. What do you experience? You know,

1133
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 2: there's no air, the sun is up for two weeks

1134
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 2: at a time and sets for two weeks at a time.

1135
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:00,720
Speaker 2: What does the Earth look like? What does the landscape

1136
00:55:00,719 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 2: around you look like? What's low gravity like? And so

1137
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,239
Speaker 2: I had a chapter on the Moon and Mars. A

1138
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:08,280
Speaker 2: late comer to that idea was writing about asteroids and comets,

1139
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 2: because as we learn more about them, it turns out

1140
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 2: it's not at all what you expect it's not at

1141
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,319
Speaker 2: all like the movies Armageddon a Deep Impact if you've

1142
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 2: seen those. These are very very fragile objects. And if

1143
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 2: you approached an asteroid and tried to land on it,

1144
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:24,120
Speaker 2: it's a good chance you'd fall straight through the surface.

1145
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 2: It would be like jumping into a ball pit. And

1146
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 2: that cracked me up. I was not expecting that to

1147
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,600
Speaker 2: be true until we sent a probe to an asteroid

1148
00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:34,680
Speaker 2: to actually grab a sample and come back, and when

1149
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 2: that probe touched down, it started sinking into the surface.

1150
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:40,400
Speaker 2: And so each chapter of this book starts with a

1151
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,799
Speaker 2: little science fiction y like short story of somebody or

1152
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 2: you being at this place and experiencing it, And that

1153
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:50,719
Speaker 2: chapter opens with an astronaut who is I'm going to

1154
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 2: land on this asteroid and basically sinks into it and

1155
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 2: has to be rescued by their partner.

1156
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: That cracked me up. I was like, Ah, that would

1157
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:58,320
Speaker 1: be me. I would make that mistake.

1158
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, me too. It's fun to write about us

1159
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 2: because it's not just you know, I'd then Saturn and Pluto,

1160
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:06,680
Speaker 2: and then what's it like to orbit red Dwarf Star,

1161
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:10,400
Speaker 2: a very small, cool red Dwarf Star, a binary system

1162
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 2: like star Wars, Tattooine is a binary star, and it

1163
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 2: turns out there's all kinds of things going on with

1164
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 2: that that you don't expect, And then I didn't expect.

1165
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 2: I do a lot of math for this book, a lot.

1166
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 2: It's not in the book. It's all hidden, it's all

1167
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,799
Speaker 2: hidden in my descriptions. But I had to like think

1168
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 2: back to some stuff I did in grad school and

1169
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 2: work out some a couple of equations from first principles.

1170
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:34,959
Speaker 2: That was exciting, something I haven't done in thirty years.

1171
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:37,359
Speaker 2: I used the equation from grad school that I still

1172
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 2: remembered and then did it and it's like, well, that

1173
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 2: number's not right. So then I had to go, well,

1174
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:42,759
Speaker 2: how did we get this equation? So I had to

1175
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:45,759
Speaker 2: redrive it. It took a couple of days. Then I

1176
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:47,840
Speaker 2: just wound up writing about how that works. So it

1177
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,080
Speaker 2: was fun, you know, getting near a black hole, watching

1178
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 2: stars form, being in the side of a star cluster.

1179
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 2: It was fun because of the science, but it was

1180
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:59,040
Speaker 2: more fun because of my imagination. You know. I'd lie

1181
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:01,759
Speaker 2: in bed at night going to sleep and think, oh,

1182
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 2: so I'm floating over this thing, you know, and just

1183
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:07,120
Speaker 2: what would I see? Just not think about it, just

1184
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,239
Speaker 2: kind of experience it in my head and you know,

1185
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:12,359
Speaker 2: I'm turning and what would happen if this happened? And

1186
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 2: that became so much fun. And then I've got to

1187
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:17,080
Speaker 2: put all of that in the book and describe it

1188
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 2: and tell the truth about this stuff versus the misconceptions

1189
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 2: that a lot of us have. So it was hugely

1190
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:22,080
Speaker 2: fun to write.

1191
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 1: I think the fun that you were having really came through.

1192
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: It read like something that had been fun to write,

1193
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: and so it was fun to read.

1194
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 2: Well thank you.

1195
00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So if somebody wants to, first of all,

1196
00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:34,919
Speaker 1: they can buy your book anywhere and you read the audiobook.

1197
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. I narrated under Alien Skies, which was fun. It's

1198
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 2: the first time I've ever done that. I tried to

1199
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 2: do that for my last book, but they were like, no,

1200
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:43,440
Speaker 2: we're going to get a pro. But now I've done

1201
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 2: Crash Course Astronomy and a bunch of TV shows and stuff,

1202
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 2: and I was like, come on, I got this and

1203
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:49,960
Speaker 2: said I auditioned and they were like, oh, yeah, sure,

1204
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 2: go ahead. So I did it and it was tremendous.

1205
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 2: It was really great because the story has a lot

1206
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 2: of personal anecdotes in it, so that was a lot

1207
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 2: of fun to do.

1208
00:57:56,800 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: Awesome And so if folks want to find other you

1209
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,320
Speaker 1: mentioned Crash Course Astronomy, which you did. You do all

1210
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:04,160
Speaker 1: kinds of awesome stuff. So if anybody wants to keep

1211
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:06,160
Speaker 1: in touch with the various things that you do, how

1212
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:06,760
Speaker 1: would they do that?

1213
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 2: Let's see under Alienskies dot Com is where you can

1214
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 2: get the book. My other books are on Amazon, Death

1215
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 2: from the Skies and Bad Astronomy. Also two to the

1216
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:18,880
Speaker 2: seventh Nerd Disses, a book I wrote with Zach Winersmith,

1217
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:21,560
Speaker 2: a series of nerd insults, one hundred and twenty eight

1218
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 2: of them less and these are all available where you

1219
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 2: get books. Crash Course Astronomy is a forty six part

1220
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 2: crash course. Like John and Hank Green, I did that

1221
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 2: for them on Astronomy. That's on YouTube and you can

1222
00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:35,920
Speaker 2: find me. Just type Phil Plate into whatever search engine

1223
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 2: you like these days and you'll find me. I'm on

1224
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 2: Blue Sky and Instagram and the fetiverse and all the

1225
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 2: usual places.

1226
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:45,720
Speaker 1: All right, on that note, thanks so much for coming

1227
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 1: Phil and chatting with us about the various ways that

1228
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 1: we might all die in the near term and what

1229
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: we can maybe sort of do about it or our

1230
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: grandkids can do about it. It's been a lot of fun.

1231
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:57,120
Speaker 2: Just too There's so many more. Oh my gosh, that's right.

1232
00:58:57,160 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 1: Yes, check out Death from the Skies if you want

1233
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 1: to really not be able to sleep at night.

1234
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:04,760
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Phil, Thank you, Kelly, Thanks Daniel.

1235
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1236
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:16,680
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you.

1237
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 3: We really would. We want to know what questions you

1238
00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 3: have about this Extraordinary Universe.

1239
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 1: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1240
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 1: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

1241
00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: back to you.

1242
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:30,280
Speaker 2: We really mean it.

1243
00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 3: We answer every message. Email us at Questions at Danielandkelly.

1244
00:59:35,160 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 1: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

1245
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 1: We have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on

1246
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: all of those platforms. You can find us at d

1247
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 1: and K Universe.

1248
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:46,720
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