Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, I got a question for you that
Speaker 1: connects our two favorite things.
Speaker 2: Ooh, is it about sleeping or taking a nap?
Speaker 1: No, it's about physics and food.
Speaker 2: H you mean are other two favorite things? All right?
Speaker 2: What's the question?
Speaker 1: Question? Is what astronomical object out there in the universe
Speaker 1: would you most want to taste like?
Speaker 2: Would I prefer to take a bite out of a
Speaker 2: black hole or a yellow star?
Speaker 1: Exactly? Chocolate versus banana?
Speaker 2: Wait? A black holes made out of chocolate? Is that
Speaker 2: what you're saying.
Speaker 1: That's what we're trying to find out.
Speaker 2: I see you're the mastermind in this evil scheme or
Speaker 2: tasty scheme, one of the two. I guess in either case,
Speaker 2: I'd rather just take a nap.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm horim my cartoonists and the author of Oliver's Great
Speaker 2: Big Universe.
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor
Speaker 1: at UC Irvine, and I do want to know what
Speaker 1: a black hole tastes like?
Speaker 2: Isn't that sort of a strange question to ask what
Speaker 2: a whole tastes like? When did did you just leave
Speaker 2: you with an empty stomach?
Speaker 1: Maybe it actually be kind of a great diet you know, like,
Speaker 1: take a bite of a black hole. It's like negative bites.
Speaker 2: Oh, I see, we just suck out your ords and
Speaker 2: you would weigh less. Yeah that works. I mean I
Speaker 2: think that's all the rage in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Now this is the physics ozembic exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean it's a philosophical question, like what
Speaker 2: does nothingness taste like?
Speaker 1: But a black hole isn't even nothing, right, it's super
Speaker 1: dense something.
Speaker 2: Well, there's things in the black hole, I guess, But
Speaker 2: is in most of a black hole nothingness or I guess?
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know.
Speaker 2: That's the point.
Speaker 1: That's the deepest question in modern physics, which I want
Speaker 1: you to take a bite out of.
Speaker 2: You mean, the biggest question in modern physics. This is
Speaker 2: what the black holes take?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: But then here's the problem. If you do get this data,
Speaker 2: isn't it very subjective? Though? It's not really objective data,
Speaker 2: is it?
Speaker 1: It's still data?
Speaker 2: Like I might be like, hey, it's delicious, but then
Speaker 2: you know, other people might disagree.
Speaker 1: It's still data. We still want to know what's inside
Speaker 1: a black hole. It's like when you look at an
Speaker 1: amazing chocolate cake, it looks like chocolate on the outside,
Speaker 1: But what if it's secretly vanilla on the inside. The
Speaker 1: only way to know is to take a bite. So
Speaker 1: we want to learn about what's inside a black hole,
Speaker 1: maybe we just have to take a bite.
Speaker 2: But I guess what I'm saying is like having a
Speaker 2: person take a bite wouldn't really tell you what's inside.
Speaker 2: What if it's something I've never tasted.
Speaker 1: Before, But what if it's just vanilla?
Speaker 2: That would be the most boring result there, like literally,
Speaker 2: but anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain
Speaker 2: the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: In which we encourage you to take a big, juicy
Speaker 1: bite out of the universe. We hope the universe tastes
Speaker 1: better than just vanilla. We hope that it's filled with
Speaker 1: all sorts of weird stuff we never anticipated, things we've
Speaker 1: never encountered before. That's just the way reality rolls. It's
Speaker 1: filled with all sorts of amazing things for us to discover,
Speaker 1: to understand, and to explain to you.
Speaker 2: That's right. It is a tasty universe, full of interesting
Speaker 2: and fascinating flavors and sometimes a lot of mysterious flavors.
Speaker 2: Flavors that make you want to go, Uh, what is
Speaker 2: this that I'm eating? What is it that I'm smelling?
Speaker 2: What is this made out of?
Speaker 1: And we know that listeners to the podcast are the
Speaker 1: ones who are curious about the nature of the universe.
Speaker 1: You listen because you have a deep itch to understand
Speaker 1: how the universe works, and we want to reach out
Speaker 1: and scratch that itch for you. And that same mitch
Speaker 1: will lead you to ask questions about how everything works.
Speaker 1: When ideas don't fit together in your mind, or when
Speaker 1: you read something that just doesn't make sense to you,
Speaker 1: you wonder, how does this all work? Is it possible
Speaker 1: to understand xyz? And we encourage you to reach out
Speaker 1: to us with your questions to questions At Danielandhorge dot
Speaker 1: com we write back to everybody that's ray.
Speaker 2: You can send in your questions and sometimes we'll pick
Speaker 2: those questions to answer on the podcast or at least
Speaker 2: talk about the question. Sometimes would you talk about the
Speaker 2: questions without getting to an answer.
Speaker 1: Well, sometimes we give an answer and you say that's
Speaker 1: not really an answer, that's just a description, and then
Speaker 1: we get into the philosophy.
Speaker 2: I guess in either case, it's an answer technically.
Speaker 1: Depends on what really is an answer anyway, man, there's
Speaker 1: a deep question in philosophy.
Speaker 2: But in either case, we talk about questions.
Speaker 1: We do. We play your questions, we talk about them.
Speaker 1: We hope to give you as much of an answer
Speaker 1: as we can. Not every question in science has an answer,
Speaker 1: but we want to take you at least to the
Speaker 1: forefront of human understanding and ignorance so you can share
Speaker 1: in our confusion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes the answer is choco lily smooth, and
Speaker 2: sometimes the answer is a little spicy, little piquant.
Speaker 1: Either way, we love hearing your questions, we love answering them,
Speaker 1: we love talking about them. Please do keep sending them in.
Speaker 2: And also, I should say I'm a little offended at
Speaker 2: your negative comments about vanilla. It is one of my
Speaker 2: favorite flavor.
Speaker 1: You're the one who said that would be the most
Speaker 1: boring outcome to a black hole. I didn't say vanilla
Speaker 1: was boring.
Speaker 2: Well, what I mean is like, if the flavor of
Speaker 2: something as complex and mysterious as a black hole, it
Speaker 2: just came down to one flavor. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: vanilla would be the best case scenario, but it's not
Speaker 2: the most complex as so you could.
Speaker 1: Get it'd be pretty fascinating though. If black holes tasted familiar,
Speaker 1: you took a bite of a black hole, you're like, hmm,
Speaker 1: tastes like pineapple, that would be very surprising.
Speaker 2: Let's break this down, Daniel, how would you even taste
Speaker 2: a black hole because you can't take a scoop of
Speaker 2: it out of the black hole, right, it's the whole
Speaker 2: point of a black hole. Well, you'd have to go
Speaker 2: It's the only way to taste a black hole, is, Yeah,
Speaker 2: is to go inside of a black hole. That's the
Speaker 2: only way to sample what's inside of a black hole. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But then you could never get out. You can never
Speaker 2: even if you find out what it tastes like, you
Speaker 2: could never tell anyone unless the other person is there
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 1: You could take a bite of a cosmic pineapple. Maybe
Speaker 1: singularities taste like cherries, who knows, But yeah, you'd have
Speaker 1: to be inside the black hole to even take that bite, and.
Speaker 2: You could only tell people who are in the black
Speaker 2: hole with you.
Speaker 1: Right, the first real black hole club is you don't
Speaker 1: talk about black hole.
Speaker 2: No, you could, but then only people in the club
Speaker 2: can find out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, very secret.
Speaker 2: There's like a warmhole in the middle. I guess you
Speaker 2: could yes, transmit that information, or.
Speaker 1: If it's possible to encode the information in the pattern
Speaker 1: of hawking radiation, like some theories of quantum gravity suggest,
Speaker 1: then maybe you could tell everybody else what black holes
Speaker 1: taste like.
Speaker 2: Oh so wait, the first rule of a black hole
Speaker 2: is not that you can't ever get out of the
Speaker 2: black hole.
Speaker 1: You already broke the rules quantum mechanics. Less you break
Speaker 1: all sorts of rules. Man, it's wonderful. But anyway, we're
Speaker 1: here to answer other people's questions, not talk about the
Speaker 1: flavor of black holes.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I imagine this is a question for a
Speaker 2: lot of people. I mean, you brought it up.
Speaker 1: I did, Yes, I did bring it up.
Speaker 2: You're curious about it.
Speaker 1: But I'm still not taking about that black hole. I'm
Speaker 1: sending you up.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll take more of it like a slurp. That's
Speaker 2: these more cautious.
Speaker 1: Well, I was inspired to think about tasting things by
Speaker 1: the phrasing of our first question.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, because today on the podcast we'll be
Speaker 2: tackling listener questions. Number fifty six Taste Edition. Is this
Speaker 2: the extra Spicy Edition, Extra Heavy Meal Edition? These are
Speaker 2: pretty heavy questions. We have a question here about a
Speaker 2: neutron star, about gravitational pressure, and about orbital dynamics. These
Speaker 2: are not light subjects you would have these appetizers.
Speaker 1: Know this is all heavy duty stuff.
Speaker 2: This is main course material here. Yeah, we like to
Speaker 2: answer questions here from our listeners, and so let's get
Speaker 2: down to our first question, and this one is from
Speaker 2: Drew Hi Daniel Jorge.
Speaker 3: I was listening to some of the older episodes and
Speaker 3: neutron stars kept coming up, and it seems like we
Speaker 3: always talk about a tablespoon or teaspoon of a neutron
Speaker 3: star material and how heavy and massive.
Speaker 2: That would be.
Speaker 4: And it got me to thinking, what would happen if
Speaker 4: we actually took that tablespoon or teaspoon of neutron star
Speaker 4: and dumped it into one of our oceans, And what
Speaker 4: would happen if we did it on land. I assume
Speaker 4: heat would be a major factor, but either way, that's
Speaker 4: my question.
Speaker 1: Let me know.
Speaker 2: Thanks. All right, this sounds like a terrible idea, which
Speaker 2: is why I'm glad you're asked us first. I'm glad
Speaker 2: he's not an experimental physicist who decided to try this
Speaker 2: out before asking anyone.
Speaker 1: And I love the impossible visual of this, you know,
Speaker 1: a teaspoon of neutron star dumping into the oceans. As
Speaker 1: if you could like hold a teaspoon of neutron star,
Speaker 1: like the spoon would be strong enough, or if you
Speaker 1: were holding it you might be like tempted to lick
Speaker 1: it or something.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's what the question is all abouts.
Speaker 2: If you want to know what would happen could you
Speaker 2: take a teaspoon of a neutron star and what would
Speaker 2: happen if you brought it here to Earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question, and it really guessed at
Speaker 1: the heart of some mysteries of modern physics.
Speaker 2: All right, well break it down, Daniel. What is a
Speaker 2: neutron star?
Speaker 1: First of all, a neutron star is one of the
Speaker 1: possible end states of stars. Stars are big balls of
Speaker 1: gas that are compressed by gravity to a state where
Speaker 1: they can perform fusion at their core, creating heavier elements
Speaker 1: and also a lot of heat and radiation. But eventually
Speaker 1: that fusion runs out of fuel and gravity wins, collapsing
Speaker 1: the star. You can either get a white dwarf, which
Speaker 1: is like a really heavy lump of stuff, or you
Speaker 1: can get a neutron star if it's even heavier where
Speaker 1: it overcomes some of the degeneracy pressure and squeezes the
Speaker 1: electrons and protons down into neutrons, or if you have
Speaker 1: even more mass than gravity, totally wins and creates a
Speaker 1: black hole. So a neutron star is incredibly dense remnant
Speaker 1: of a star?
Speaker 2: Does it have to be the remnant of a star?
Speaker 2: You can make a neutron star potentially.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, you can make a neutron star. Step one
Speaker 1: is make a star.
Speaker 2: I mean, not necessarily star. I mean you could just
Speaker 2: take material and squeeze it down enough, and you potentially
Speaker 2: might make a neutron star.
Speaker 1: Right if you had like civilization HARDISHEV level three type
Speaker 1: abilities to do stellar engineering or something, then in principle, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can make one without making a star. But I
Speaker 1: think the recipe would be gather a star amount of
Speaker 1: material and let gravity squeeze it down into a neutron star.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could speed up the process by applying some
Speaker 1: external pressure.
Speaker 2: And why do we need the Kardashians for this, because
Speaker 2: they're so dense.
Speaker 1: So many jokes I'm not going to make there about
Speaker 1: the masses of various Kardashians. No Kardashev level of three.
Speaker 1: Oh Kardashev.
Speaker 2: Yes, I see, yes, you said that kind of fast,
Speaker 2: all right, So then a neutrons are is basically like
Speaker 2: kind of the heaviest or the densest thing you can
Speaker 2: have potentially in the universe before it turns into a
Speaker 2: black hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Remember that gravity is very powerful, but
Speaker 1: it's also super duper weak, so it's possible to overcome
Speaker 1: the effects of gravity, like you can overcome the effects
Speaker 1: of Earth's gravity is just by jumping. Your muscles are
Speaker 1: stronger than all the gravity on the Earth, And so
Speaker 1: the reason everything in the universe doesn't collapse into a
Speaker 1: black hole is because its structural strength can overcome gravity.
Speaker 1: So the Earth doesn't collapse into a black hole the
Speaker 1: size of a peanut because the strength of its material
Speaker 1: is more powerful than Earth's gravity.
Speaker 2: I mean, like the individual particles are repelling each other
Speaker 2: enough to fight the squeezing.
Speaker 1: Of gravity exactly. But as things get more mass, if
Speaker 1: you overcome the ability of those four resist So if
Speaker 1: you added enough mass to the Earth, for example, then
Speaker 1: it would overcome its structural strength and it would get
Speaker 1: squeeze down into something like a white dwarf. If you
Speaker 1: add even more mass than you overcome the next barrier
Speaker 1: and you get a neutron star. So each of these
Speaker 1: kinds of states represents overcoming one of these barriers in
Speaker 1: the battle against gravity, which it eventually will win and
Speaker 1: turn things into black holes.
Speaker 2: Now, wait, are you saying a neutron star is not stable,
Speaker 2: like it'll eventually collapse or can you have a neutron
Speaker 2: star lasting for a long time?
Speaker 1: Now, we think neutron stars are stable, but there are
Speaker 1: black holes out there, and eventually the black holes will
Speaker 1: just eat everything.
Speaker 2: Now, when you have a neutron star, did you just
Speaker 2: have the neutron star or is it like a giant
Speaker 2: cloud or blob of stuff with the neutron star in
Speaker 2: the center.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of the material from the star is
Speaker 1: blown out. So often you have like a nebula with
Speaker 1: a neutron star at its heart, and.
Speaker 2: It's called a neutron star because basically all of the
Speaker 2: material in it has basically kind of degenerated to be neutrons.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You start out basically with protons and electrons and
Speaker 1: weaze them together and they do inverse beta decay into neutrons.
Speaker 2: You mean the electrons just disappear or they merge with protons.
Speaker 1: They merge with protons to make a neutron, So like
Speaker 1: a neutron will decay into a proton and an electron,
Speaker 1: and there's some neutrino accounting you've got to take care
Speaker 1: of also. But if you squeeze things down, the inverse
Speaker 1: can happen, and you can convert a proton and an
Speaker 1: electron into a neutron. But we don't actually know the
Speaker 1: state of matter inside a neutron star because it's so intense.
Speaker 1: The pressure is so great that gravity is powerful and
Speaker 1: the quantum forces are powerful, so both of those things
Speaker 1: are at play, and that's not something we know how
Speaker 1: to reconcile. So the heart of neutron stars really are
Speaker 1: getting at questions of like quantum gravity situations where you
Speaker 1: need to understand quantum mechanics and gravity.
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, are you saying that we don't know if
Speaker 2: neutron stars are made out of neutrons.
Speaker 1: We know there's a lot of neutrons in there, but
Speaker 1: as you get towards the center and the pressure gets
Speaker 1: really really high, we don't really know. If you can
Speaker 1: call them neutrons anymore because the neutrons get squeezed so
Speaker 1: closely together that like the difference between the quarks and
Speaker 1: one neutron and another neutron becomes artificial, and it might
Speaker 1: become like a cork gluon plasma. We talked about it
Speaker 1: in another episode. You might even get things like nuclear
Speaker 1: pasta weird new forms of matter that quarks and gluons
Speaker 1: can form under extreme pressure.
Speaker 2: And what would that pass the taste like very dense
Speaker 2: vanilla mint.
Speaker 1: Pineapple, I hope not squidd ink maybe.
Speaker 2: Or nothing or nothing because it's a neutron star.
Speaker 1: One of the fascinating things that matter can do is
Speaker 1: under high pressures, it can form new states. Like if
Speaker 1: you take carbon and you squeeze it with really high pressure,
Speaker 1: you get a diamond. But it doesn't always revert when
Speaker 1: you lower the pressure, Like you make a diamond, you
Speaker 1: bring it up to the surface of the Earth, it
Speaker 1: doesn't explode back into carbon. It retains that pressure. What
Speaker 1: we don't really know is what happens when you make
Speaker 1: neutron star stuff and then you take it out of
Speaker 1: the neutron star and put it somewhere else, like on
Speaker 1: Drew's teaspoon. Is it like a diamond of neutrons star
Speaker 1: material or does it explode back into a bunch of
Speaker 1: protons and electrons?
Speaker 2: Mmm, I feel like we skip the step there. So
Speaker 2: I guess first of all, the scenario drew withstinol was
Speaker 2: staying a teaspoon of a neutron star. So, since this
Speaker 2: is almost the densest stuff in the universe, how much
Speaker 2: does that teaspoon weight?
Speaker 1: So a teaspoon of neutron star material has the mass
Speaker 1: of like ten to the twelve kilograms. That's like a
Speaker 1: trillion kilograms. It's like a thousand times the mass of
Speaker 1: the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Speaker 2: Whoa, And this is like from the surface of the
Speaker 2: neutron star the center or is this just kind of
Speaker 2: like an average scoop.
Speaker 1: This is like an average scoop. It gets more dense
Speaker 1: at the core and less dense at the edge. But
Speaker 1: this is like roughly in the middle. But this stuff
Speaker 1: is like ten to the fifteen times denser than the Sun.
Speaker 1: It's really incredible. It's like ten to the seventeen kilograms
Speaker 1: per cubic meter.
Speaker 2: So the one teaspoon of neutron star you said weighs
Speaker 2: how many pyramids.
Speaker 1: Like about a thousand times the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Speaker 2: Wow, in one little tiny teaspoon. So first of all,
Speaker 2: I mean, let's forget the fact that it might be
Speaker 2: hard to take a scoop of a neutron star. But
Speaker 2: just bringing it to Earth, I mean you'd be carrying
Speaker 2: a huge amount of weight in this very small space, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it would probably be really hard to just like hold it.
Speaker 1: Up, very hard to accelerate it and to bring it
Speaker 1: to Earth and to gradually lower it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, because it'd be sort of like balancing a
Speaker 2: thousand pyramids onto a little tiny point, right. It would
Speaker 2: probably break or crush anything you try to set it.
Speaker 1: On exactly, and if you accidentally dropped it while you
Speaker 1: were in orbit, it would plumb it towards the surface
Speaker 1: of the Earth and cause a lot of destruction.
Speaker 2: M because it has a lot of mass, right.
Speaker 1: It's very strong gravity.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's say Drew brought a teaspoon of this stuff,
Speaker 2: brought it to Earth, and I think maybe the biggest question,
Speaker 2: as you said, is what would happen to that teaspoon
Speaker 2: when you first take it out of the nutron star?
Speaker 2: Because it was it's super dense because the forces in
Speaker 2: the neutron star are squeezing it together. When you take
Speaker 2: it out of the nutron star and nothing is squeezing
Speaker 2: that together, does it just explode or expand the.
Speaker 1: Short answer is that we don't know, because we don't
Speaker 1: understand the dynamics inside a neutron star. They are all
Speaker 1: sorts of theories for what's going on inside of it,
Speaker 1: nuclear pasta quarklow and plasma, other weird forms of matter.
Speaker 1: People are writing papers about this every day. Actually do
Speaker 1: a little bit of research on this topic myself, and
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of question marks because it's combining
Speaker 1: two of the hardest things in physics, general relativity, which
Speaker 1: is very difficult to do any calculations with, and the
Speaker 1: strong nuclear force, which is a huge headache to do
Speaker 1: any calculations with. So now you want to understand what's
Speaker 1: happening when these two things are both doing their thing,
Speaker 1: it's almost impossible. So we really just don't know. But
Speaker 1: I suspect that whatever is formed there is not stable,
Speaker 1: that if you suddenly transport it to Earth, you like
Speaker 1: build a wormhole between the center of the neutron star
Speaker 1: and Drew's kitchen and you got a tea spoons worth
Speaker 1: of material, they would not be stable that it would explode.
Speaker 2: Right, because there's all this stuff squeezing it together and
Speaker 2: suddenly nothing squeezing it together. So potentially it might explode.
Speaker 2: But as you said, it could also maybe be like
Speaker 2: a diamond, where it is super squeeze carbon, but it's
Speaker 2: somehow clicked into place, and diamonds don't explode.
Speaker 1: Diamonds do not explode.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's true, and so how bad would it be
Speaker 2: for this thing to explode here on Earth?
Speaker 1: It would be really really bad. Material with that density
Speaker 1: has really high kinetic energy, like the particles inside of
Speaker 1: it are whizzing around with incredible velocity kinetic energy.
Speaker 2: Why does it necessarily have kinetic energy?
Speaker 1: Well, think about how it was formed. You took a
Speaker 1: thousand pyramids of gizo's worth of hydrogen, for example, as
Speaker 1: a big diffuse gas, and you squeeze it down to
Speaker 1: a t spoon. To do that, you're pushing on it.
Speaker 1: If you have walls, for example, every time you're pushing
Speaker 1: those walls closer and closer, you're pushing on those particles.
Speaker 1: So applying that pressure to squeeze this down pushes on
Speaker 1: all the particles and now they have very very high energy.
Speaker 2: Right, that's find you maybe form a neutron star. But
Speaker 2: what if I take my a neutron star and I
Speaker 2: freeze it before taking a scoop out of it? Did
Speaker 2: I just blow your mind?
Speaker 1: Hm? I love the idea of like deep freezing a
Speaker 1: bit of neutron star, and then you could like deep
Speaker 1: fry it, and then you could take a bite out of.
Speaker 2: It, deep freeze the neutron star, yet the whole star,
Speaker 2: and then you take a scoop.
Speaker 1: I think it's impossible to cool down a neutron star
Speaker 1: because of the quantum mechanics of neutrons. The issue is
Speaker 1: that neutrons are fermions like electrons and other particles. You
Speaker 1: can't have two of them in the same state, and
Speaker 1: so that creates a minimum temperature for neutron stars because basically,
Speaker 1: if you have one neutron in like a really low
Speaker 1: energy state, then you can't have another one. The next
Speaker 1: one has to get into the next high energy state,
Speaker 1: so there's like a minimum energy.
Speaker 2: What would happen if you tried to freeze a neutron star.
Speaker 1: You just couldn't get that neutron into a lower state, like,
Speaker 1: they just don't go into that lower state if it's
Speaker 1: already occupied. It's like trying to get two electrons into
Speaker 1: the same state of hydrogen. No amount of cooling will
Speaker 1: get them that low. The electrons will just refuse to
Speaker 1: do that. They won't give up the energy.
Speaker 2: They can't sort of like maybe how you can't freeze
Speaker 2: an atom technically, right, at some point the electrons are
Speaker 2: still orbiting around the nucleus.
Speaker 1: And this actually touches on the topic of our next question.
Speaker 2: All right, So, continuing with the scoop of a neutron star,
Speaker 2: you're saying it would have a lot of compressed energy
Speaker 2: in there, and so when you take away the gravity,
Speaker 2: maybe all that energy would be released.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And the amount of energy is really incredible.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of calculation. It's more energy than
Speaker 1: the sun emits of second. It's about equivalent to one
Speaker 1: billion atomic bombs.
Speaker 2: WHOA, that would be bad news for all of us.
Speaker 1: Yes, very very bad news for everybody. Neutrons are very dangerous.
Speaker 1: They are hadronic particles and if they go through you,
Speaker 1: they don't have electric charge. But they're basically just like
Speaker 1: tiny bullets and they can really do a lot of damage.
Speaker 1: And if you have a bunch of neutrons really high
Speaker 1: compressed and then they explode with high speed, you have
Speaker 1: like ten to the thirty eight neutrons traveling at some
Speaker 1: significant fraction of the speed of light. It's an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of energy deposited everywhere. And so you might wonder like, oh,
Speaker 1: is it going to drop through the Earth or whatever. No,
Speaker 1: it's just going to explode and basically vaporize a huge
Speaker 1: chunk of the Earth.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you know, if you are able to
Speaker 2: get it front the neutron star to the Earth, it
Speaker 2: must be sort of stable though, right.
Speaker 1: It depends like maybe you used a wormhole. So you
Speaker 1: just like open up a wormhole between the center of
Speaker 1: the neutron star and Drew's kitchen and then a little
Speaker 1: bit leak through.
Speaker 2: Oh I see if you just use magic is what
Speaker 2: you're saying.
Speaker 1: Wormhold or not magic. I think it's probably impossible to
Speaker 1: take a spoonfull of neutron star and transport it through
Speaker 1: space to Drew's kitchen. I think that's probably impossible.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess either way, it's bad news.
Speaker 1: It's bad news and the rest of us. It would
Speaker 1: be like a huge asteroid hitting the Earth, something like
Speaker 1: several thousand times the devastation of the dinosaur killer that
Speaker 1: hit sixty five million years ago. So definitely bad news.
Speaker 2: Like maybe at the scale of the asteroid or rock
Speaker 2: that created the Moon perhaps.
Speaker 1: Or more maybe not that dramatic, but almost that scale. Yes,
Speaker 1: Like the Earth would look different. You could see it
Speaker 1: from space for sure, bad news for Drew and all
Speaker 1: of his neighbors and the rest of us on Earth.
Speaker 2: I see, all right, well, I guess the answer for drewis, Hey, Drew,
Speaker 2: maybe you should eat the teaspoon before you bring it
Speaker 2: to Earth.
Speaker 1: Don't order a teaspoon of neutron star on Instacart please.
Speaker 2: That's right on wormhold card. Exact age would not be good.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks Drew for that question. Let's get to
Speaker 2: our other questions here today. We have questions about gravity
Speaker 2: pressure and about orbital dynamics, say said heavy stuff. We'll
Speaker 2: get to that, but first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: We're taking listener questions here today, and our next question
Speaker 2: comes from Nol from Perth.
Speaker 5: Good day, Daniel, and Hi, this is Noel from Perth, Australia.
Speaker 5: I was sitting here thinking one day I wonder if
Speaker 5: matter under extreme pressure can ever be stopped. What I
Speaker 5: mean by that is, is there ever a point where
Speaker 5: we have so much gravitational pressure that all movement of
Speaker 5: matter can be frozen in time? Is that possible? Would
Speaker 5: love to hear your answer on this one. Thank you
Speaker 5: very much and love hearing your podcast. Cheers mate.
Speaker 2: See all right, gooday to two nol or good eight.
Speaker 2: I guess technically I'm not quite sure I understood this question.
Speaker 2: What do you think nol here is asking.
Speaker 1: I think Noel has heard that you can't cool matter
Speaker 1: down so that things actually stop forever, like absolute zero
Speaker 1: is impossible in quantum mechanics. But he's wondering if instead
Speaker 1: you can use pressure. You could just like squeeze stuff
Speaker 1: down so that it stops moving.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: I see, so we're talking kind of about the same
Speaker 2: question we talked about just now in the other question, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is like, what's the coldest that you can get something,
Speaker 2: especially if it's super dense like a neutron star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's probably also wondering, like is matter moving
Speaker 1: inside a singularity inside a black hole? Oh?
Speaker 2: Really? That's in here also it's a very dense question.
Speaker 1: He's wondering about the extremes of gravitational pressure, are you I.
Speaker 2: See, I see. Well, I guess I wouldn't necessarily associate
Speaker 2: extreme pressure with things stopping. In fact, I kind of associate,
Speaker 2: you know, the intense gravity inside of the sun to
Speaker 2: like fusion and things just getting hotter and hotter, or
Speaker 2: like we talked about the neutron star, just gets hotter
Speaker 2: the more you compress it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like if your toddler is going crazy
Speaker 1: and you lock them in the room, They're not necessarily
Speaker 1: just going to calm down. They might just bounce off
Speaker 1: the walls. Same thing happens if you take an electron
Speaker 1: and try to squeeze it down to a smaller and
Speaker 1: smaller space.
Speaker 2: Well, let's maybe start with the concept that he talks about,
Speaker 2: which is getting things to stop. And I guess what
Speaker 2: he means is like cooling things down or squeezing them
Speaker 2: so much where they don't have any kinetic energy or
Speaker 2: they're not moving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he talks about it being frozen in time, so
Speaker 1: no kinetic energy. So you want to simultaneously squeeze stuff
Speaker 1: down plus pull out that kinetic energy. Somehow cool it
Speaker 1: and squeeze it at the same time.
Speaker 2: What do you think frozen in time means doesn't change
Speaker 2: over time at all?
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, that's just not moving. I think he's interested
Speaker 1: in absolute zero essentially, like finding a path to getting
Speaker 1: things completely frozen.
Speaker 3: Mmm.
Speaker 2: I see, But absolute zero does exist right in the universe.
Speaker 1: Absolute zero does exist, But quantum mechanics tells us it's
Speaker 1: impossible for anything to actually be stopped because that would
Speaker 1: violate some basic principles. There's a minimum amount of energy
Speaker 1: everything has to have in the universe according to quantum mechanics.
Speaker 1: So you can't actually ever get material to absolute zero.
Speaker 2: Like anything that has matter or substance to it, you
Speaker 2: can't freeze it down to zero. Is that things that
Speaker 2: are always going to be jiggling a little bit or
Speaker 2: moving or having some sort of minimum energy just from
Speaker 2: having the minimum quantum property.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And there's a few ways to think about that.
Speaker 1: One is in terms of the uncertainty principle, Like if
Speaker 1: something has zero energy, then you know its location and
Speaker 1: you know it's momentum both zero and you know both
Speaker 1: of those perfectly well, and that violates the uncertainty principle.
Speaker 1: So the uncertainty principle tells you if you locate something
Speaker 1: in one position, you squeeze it down super well, then
Speaker 1: the uncertainly on its momentum is infinite. Right, So essentially,
Speaker 1: squeezing something down to just one location you give it
Speaker 1: infinite temperature. So that tells you you can't. Another way
Speaker 1: to think about it is just in terms of the
Speaker 1: solutions of quantum fields, like what are quantum fields? These
Speaker 1: things that fill space and they vibrate, but if you
Speaker 1: look at the mathematics of them, they can vibrate in
Speaker 1: various ways, but they can never have zero energy. That
Speaker 1: configuration with the field has zero energy is not a
Speaker 1: solution to the wave equations. The wave equations require a
Speaker 1: minimum amount of buzzing in these fields at all times.
Speaker 2: But then no, I guess is imagining a scenario where
Speaker 2: maybe you squeeze things so much that they can't move anymore. Like,
Speaker 2: for example, if you take a gas and you squeeze it.
Speaker 2: As a gas, it's moving, all the particles in it
Speaker 2: are moving a lot, but as you squeeze it, maybe
Speaker 2: it turns first into I guess, liquid hydrogen, which makes
Speaker 2: the molecules there moveless, and then you keep squeezing it,
Speaker 2: you'll actually get like hydrogen ice, right, and then the
Speaker 2: atoms are almost not moving at all, maybe they're still vibrating.
Speaker 2: And so the question is, maybe if you keep squeezing
Speaker 2: beyond solid, can you actually make the molecules and the
Speaker 2: atoms in there stop?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's sort of a fund mental question. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you put quantum mechanics aside and just
Speaker 1: think about like the classical universe, where everything has like
Speaker 1: a location and path through space and time, then there's
Speaker 1: no issue. You could take something, you could squeeze it down,
Speaker 1: you could give it zero energy, not a problem at all.
Speaker 1: If you think of tiny particles, is just like little
Speaker 1: grains of sand. Right. The issue really is with quantum
Speaker 1: mechanics that these particles are not little grains of sand.
Speaker 1: They follow different rules, so they do all have minimum energy,
Speaker 1: and they have uncertainty on them, and they also follow
Speaker 1: these other rules like the poly exclusion principle. If you
Speaker 1: have a big pile of electrons, you can't squeeze them
Speaker 1: all down to zero energy because they won't be in
Speaker 1: the same energy level. Fermions will not allow another fermion
Speaker 1: in the same energy level, the same quantum state. So
Speaker 1: there's a minimum energy to all those electrons. That's sometimes
Speaker 1: called electron degeneracy pressure. It's one of the things that
Speaker 1: keeps a white dwarf from collapsing, for example.
Speaker 2: But I guess maybe, just as a matter of exercise,
Speaker 2: let's maybe follow Knowle's reasoning here and let's just keep
Speaker 2: squeezing things, right, So if you squeeze things more, they'll
Speaker 2: get solid. Then eventually they'll turn into neutron stars, right,
Speaker 2: which is what we talked about in the previous question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Then be neutron stars. And now we're already
Speaker 1: beyond level of knowledge because we don't know what's going
Speaker 1: on inside a neutron star. Maybe there's nuclear pasta, maybe
Speaker 1: there's weird new kinds of crystals, maybe weird neutron diamonds.
Speaker 2: We just don't know, right, So is it possible that
Speaker 2: inside of an entrance star things stop, like things click
Speaker 2: into place in such a way that they kind of
Speaker 2: have zero energy.
Speaker 1: I think the most correct answer is to just say
Speaker 1: we don't know, because it depends on the details of
Speaker 1: quantum gravity, like what happens to particles when you're under
Speaker 1: really intense pressure and really intense gravity. We just don't
Speaker 1: know the answer to that. We need a theory of
Speaker 1: quantum gravity that tells us how to do gravitational calculations
Speaker 1: for particles. So we're just speculating, and it might be
Speaker 1: that there are some theories of quantum gravity that reveal
Speaker 1: the universe is very different from the way that we expect.
Speaker 1: That we can't just extrapolate our quantum rules down to
Speaker 1: very very high pressures and very high densities.
Speaker 2: Any like, if we keep squeezing something, maybe at some
Speaker 2: point the Heisenberg uncertainty principle doesn't work. M m like
Speaker 2: extreme gravity is maybe Heisenberg takesification.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, let me say it this way. General relativity says, yes,
Speaker 1: that's no problem. You can squeeze things down to infinite
Speaker 1: density and zero velocity. That's the singularity at the heart
Speaker 1: of a black hole, for example. CIS says No, as
Speaker 1: you squeeze things down, they get higher and higher energy,
Speaker 1: and so it's impossible to get things down to zero velocity.
Speaker 1: But the crux is which wins at these very high
Speaker 1: I densities. What's actually going on inside a black hole?
Speaker 1: As you've pointed out, many times. I'm biased towards quantum mechanics,
Speaker 1: and I suspect that we can extrapolate from quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: and think that whatever is going on at the heart
Speaker 1: of black holes or in neutron stars or in Nole's
Speaker 1: kitchen is going to be more like quantum mechanics than
Speaker 1: like general relativity. But I could be wrong, and it
Speaker 1: could be very surprising, and it could be more gravitational,
Speaker 1: more classical than we expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm definitely in the vanilla camp. I
Speaker 2: think vanilla wins at the end, meaning like maybe general
Speaker 2: relativity wins at the end, and maybe things do freeze
Speaker 2: and then stop moving, right, yeah, or you know, at
Speaker 2: some point you make a black hole if you squeeze
Speaker 2: things enough, which technically does freeze time. Right, isn't time
Speaker 2: frozen on the surface of a black hole? And definitely
Speaker 2: just inside of a black hole, is in time technically frozen.
Speaker 1: M Yes. Absolutely. Then again, we have all sorts of
Speaker 1: reasons why we think general relativity must to be wrong
Speaker 1: and can't be an accurate description of what's going on
Speaker 1: in the universe. But again, it's a big open question.
Speaker 1: We don't know the answer to these things. And we
Speaker 1: could certainly be wrong. All we can do right now
Speaker 1: is extrapolate from quantum mechanics, or extrapolate from general relativity,
Speaker 1: or wait until some genius combines the two and gives
Speaker 1: us a picture of quantum gravity.
Speaker 2: Mmm, so somebody makes neopolitan ice cream out of a
Speaker 2: black hole? No, but with the black hole, don't we
Speaker 2: know they look like that. Time stops on the surface
Speaker 2: of a black hole, so it wouldn't that technically freeze things?
Speaker 2: As Noel suggests.
Speaker 1: Time stops at the event horizon for a distant observer.
Speaker 1: For somebody falling into a black hole, time doesn't stop,
Speaker 1: and you can continue to do your dance, or eat
Speaker 1: your ice cream, or take a bite out of whatever
Speaker 1: else you see inside the black hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but to us, they would appear frozen.
Speaker 1: To us, they would appear frozen. Yes, but again that
Speaker 1: violates quantum mechanics. So who knows if it's really true?
Speaker 1: But yes, general relativity allows things to freeze to zero velocity.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, no, I guess that's the answer for you.
Speaker 2: Daniel doesn't know. Nobody knows on that angel question of
Speaker 2: what's going on inside of a black hole, because that's
Speaker 2: the ultimate I guess a squeezing of things due to
Speaker 2: gravitational pressure.
Speaker 1: I feel like as this podcast goes along, more and
Speaker 1: more the questions have the same answer, which is, we
Speaker 1: don't know because we don't know quantum gravity.
Speaker 2: Gosh, why did you just fix that? Daniel, let's figure
Speaker 2: it out. What are you doing spending time on this
Speaker 2: podcast when you can be solving the biggest question we have?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, just before we recorded this, I was eating
Speaker 1: some pineapple cake and trying to think deeply about the
Speaker 1: nature of condensed matter. But I didn't quite figure it out.
Speaker 2: It didn't work. Huh. Just gonna have to keep on trying. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure your doctor will have something to say about that.
Speaker 2: All right, well, thanks for that question. Now, now let's
Speaker 2: get to our last question. This one is about orbital
Speaker 2: dynamics and shared atmosphere, so let's explore that out there
Speaker 2: in space. But first let's take another quick break.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 2: We're askering listener questions here today, and our last question
Speaker 2: here comes from Joe Hey.
Speaker 6: Daniel, and Jorge. I had a question about something I
Speaker 6: saw on the show Foundation, where a planet and its
Speaker 6: moon shared an atmosphere, and I was wondering if that's
Speaker 6: actually possible. I look forward to hearing what you guys
Speaker 6: have to say.
Speaker 2: All right, cool question. That's a fun show. Do you
Speaker 2: watch that show, Daniel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I read all these books and I watched the show.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun and I love that scene
Speaker 1: that he's talking about.
Speaker 2: So I read all the books several times when I
Speaker 2: was younger, and I was very excited about the show.
Speaker 2: Loved the first season. Second season, I was like, I'm out.
Speaker 2: It just deviated a little bit too much from the
Speaker 2: books for my day. So I guess this is thank
Speaker 2: be a spoiler, but I'm probably not gonna watch it,
Speaker 2: so I guess we can talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this doesn't really spoil any of the plot. It's
Speaker 1: just a really cool, clever scene. One of the things
Speaker 1: I liked about the show is that it did dv
Speaker 1: from the books. It sort of lives in the same
Speaker 1: universe as the books, but doesn't just take those storylines,
Speaker 1: which I thought.
Speaker 2: Was creety, You mean it has the same foundation exactly.
Speaker 1: It's fundamentally the same universe.
Speaker 2: Except people have crazy superpowers.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, But here Joe's talking about a really striking
Speaker 1: scene where there's a herd of some kind of animal
Speaker 1: and they take a running leap off of a hill
Speaker 1: and they land on a moon that's orbiting very very
Speaker 1: close by. So there's like continuous atmosphere between the planet
Speaker 1: and its moon, so that you can jump from one
Speaker 1: to the other.
Speaker 2: What how big is this moon in this planet, like
Speaker 2: sort of Earth size or what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. I don't remember the details.
Speaker 1: It was definitely pretty big in the sky. So this
Speaker 1: is a real size planet and a real size moon,
Speaker 1: I mean big enough to have an atmosphere.
Speaker 2: So it's more like a dual planet, kind of like
Speaker 2: a twin planet sort of.
Speaker 1: One of them was definitely smaller than the other, so
Speaker 1: I'm sure astronomers would have a fun time arguing about
Speaker 1: whether one was the moon or they were binary planets.
Speaker 2: To be like, that's not a moon. So then in
Speaker 2: the show, there's a planet with a large sized moon
Speaker 2: that is orbiting around the planet, but it's so close
Speaker 2: that you can sort of jump between them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Now there's two things here, like one is this technically possible?
Speaker 2: Like can you have a moon that big orbiting that
Speaker 2: close to a planet? And the other question, I guess
Speaker 2: is would they share an atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So the first question has to do basically
Speaker 1: with gravitational tidal forces, because if you just think about
Speaker 1: the planets as points, there's no reason why they can't
Speaker 1: orbit super duper close to each other. Like gravity works
Speaker 1: really far away, gravity works really close together. You can
Speaker 1: get two things close together and orbiting. The reason it
Speaker 1: might not work is because of the tidal forces.
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, you're saying, technically it's possible, like our Moon
Speaker 2: could orbit really close to us enough for us to
Speaker 2: jump to it potentially.
Speaker 1: Potentially if you ignore the tidal forces. The tidal forces
Speaker 1: are the crux of the issue.
Speaker 2: But something that big orbiting wouldn't it have to be
Speaker 2: going super duper fast, Like what are the orbital dynamics there?
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, the closer you get, the smaller the radio
Speaker 1: is the higher of the velocity. So if you were
Speaker 1: like orbiting the Earth one meter above its surface, you'd
Speaker 1: have to go very very fast, where you could be
Speaker 1: moving more slowly if you were further away.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen a YouTube video about this,
Speaker 2: which I know is not the most reliable source, but
Speaker 2: I think at some point like you wouldn't get a
Speaker 2: stable orbit like at some point the Moon would start
Speaker 2: to spiral in and fall to the Earth. Maybe there's
Speaker 2: no actual orbit that could make that work.
Speaker 1: Well, the equations are pretty simple if you're talking about
Speaker 1: just two points, and if you're ignoring things like drag
Speaker 1: and tidle forces, then you can have orbits at any stage,
Speaker 1: Like you could have two grains of sand orbiting each
Speaker 1: other in deep space very close together.
Speaker 2: But wouldn't they be going super duper fast or wouldn't
Speaker 2: the orbits be like super stretched out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they certainly could. But if again, if it's just
Speaker 1: two points with no drag, no friction, no tidle forces,
Speaker 1: then the math is pretty simple.
Speaker 2: All right, so it sounds like it's possible, but you're
Speaker 2: saying tidle forces would make this impossible exactly.
Speaker 1: You can calculate the gravity between two points. That's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: But now take one of those things and say what
Speaker 1: if it's not a point, what if it has real
Speaker 1: size to it? You know, inflate it from a point
Speaker 1: to like a basketball or a moon or whatever. Now,
Speaker 1: part of that thing is closer to the object that's orbiting,
Speaker 1: and part of it's further away. You have like the
Speaker 1: near side and the far side. Because gravity depends on distance,
Speaker 1: those two pieces are now feeling different amounts of gravity.
Speaker 1: The closer side of the Moon feels Earth's gravity more
Speaker 1: than the far side of the Moon, for example, and
Speaker 1: that's the tidal force. The difference between the strength of
Speaker 1: gravity on one side and the other is effectively a
Speaker 1: force pulling that object apart.
Speaker 2: So there would be a force on the Moon splitting
Speaker 2: it into two.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. And that's why as you approach a black hole,
Speaker 1: for example, the tidal forces can pull you apart because
Speaker 1: in really intense gravity, the difference between the force on
Speaker 1: your feet and the force on your head can be
Speaker 1: enough to overcome the structural integrity of your body. And
Speaker 1: this is why, for example, some planets have rings and
Speaker 1: some planets have moons, because if the stuff is too
Speaker 1: close to the planet, it's within some limit called the
Speaker 1: Roche limit, then the tidal forces of the planet would
Speaker 1: tear apart any moon and turn it into rings.
Speaker 2: M So I guess if this moon is not you know,
Speaker 2: stick enough or dense enough or strong enough, it would
Speaker 2: break apart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so it depends on the structural strength
Speaker 1: of the moon. Like if you have a moon made
Speaker 1: of water. It's much easier to tear apart than if
Speaker 1: you had a moon made of diamond, for example. So
Speaker 1: it's not just like a hard and fast limit around
Speaker 1: any object. You have to take intoccount lots of different things.
Speaker 1: It's a rough guide, so it depends on the masses
Speaker 1: of the planets and the rigidity the satellite. But I
Speaker 1: looked into a few calculations, and if you had two earths,
Speaker 1: for example, and estimating what their structural integrity are, the
Speaker 1: two earths could orbit each other as long as the
Speaker 1: surfaces were more than one thousand kilometers apart.
Speaker 2: What which is very little, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a sixth of the radius of the Earth. Wow,
Speaker 1: so you couldn't jump a thousand kilometers, but a thousand
Speaker 1: kilometers is not that far. The Earth would be really
Speaker 1: big in the sky.
Speaker 2: Well, you would only need to jump five hundred kilometers
Speaker 2: because then you would get sucked into the gravity of
Speaker 2: the other planet.
Speaker 1: That's true. But if you jump five hundred kilometers and
Speaker 1: you got stuck there, you'd be like right between the
Speaker 1: gravity of the two I guess that would be kind
Speaker 1: of cool.
Speaker 2: Also, well, it would be kind of unstable, Like how
Speaker 2: fast would these two earths be orbiting around each other.
Speaker 2: Did you calculate that?
Speaker 1: I didn't calculate that, But it would be very very.
Speaker 2: Fast, super duper fast.
Speaker 1: Right, We're duper fast exactly because they have to avoid
Speaker 1: falling into each other.
Speaker 2: Right, That's what I was trying to say earlier, Like,
Speaker 2: at some point these orbits get unreasonably fast.
Speaker 1: I guess there could be a limit at the speed
Speaker 1: of light, right, So there might be some radius at
Speaker 1: which things need to go faster than the speed of
Speaker 1: light to avoid falling in and then there's no orbit.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what you're referring to earlier.
Speaker 2: Or you know, at some point you're just spinning too fast,
Speaker 2: everything would fly off the surface of the Earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: Or that you wouldn't be able to hold an atmosphere maybe, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The atmosphere is definitely an issue also because an atmosphere
Speaker 1: provides drag, right, And so if the Earth has an
Speaker 1: atmosphere and the other Earth has an atmosphere and they're
Speaker 1: that close together, then they're going to be dragging on
Speaker 1: each other. They're not just flying through empty space conserving
Speaker 1: their kinetic energy. They're losing energy the same way that
Speaker 1: like the Iss loses energy as it goes around the
Speaker 1: Earth because it's not in very high orbit, and so
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of drag there and has to
Speaker 1: constantly like bump itself up to avoid falling into the Earth.
Speaker 1: We have an atmosphere and the other Earth has an atmosphere.
Speaker 1: We're orbiting each other that close, we're going to be
Speaker 1: dragging on you each other a little bit.
Speaker 2: Okay, but it sounds like you're saying it is kind
Speaker 2: of possible if this Moon is made out of diamonds
Speaker 2: and it's okay that it's going so fast. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: we don't have such a need for an atmosphere between
Speaker 2: these two planets.
Speaker 1: But there's also maybe a solution there, like if you
Speaker 1: could end up in like a geosynchronous orbit and get
Speaker 1: tidal locking, like imagine the Moon is basically always above
Speaker 1: the same spot on the Earth, you're not actually dragging
Speaker 1: through the atmosphere. And if you get tidal locking, so
Speaker 1: they're not spinning a relative to each other, the two
Speaker 1: faces of the objects are facing each other constantly, then
Speaker 1: you could imagine having an atmosphere. You wouldn't be dragging
Speaker 1: through that atmosphere. The atmosphere would be spinning with the
Speaker 1: combined Earth Moon system.
Speaker 2: So if the Moon is made out of diamonds and
Speaker 2: we're tidally logged, meaning that the atmosphere is spinning around
Speaker 2: with the Moon, then you're saying it's possible. But even
Speaker 2: if you're going super super fast like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: wouldn't that blow away the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: If you want to be really close, then you can't
Speaker 1: be in geosynchronous orbit at the same time. But if
Speaker 1: you were willing to get a little bit further away,
Speaker 1: so the Moon was always above the same location in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, then it wouldn't be moving through our atmosphere,
Speaker 1: so it wouldn't be blowing away all right.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like the answer is, yes, it's possible.
Speaker 1: I think it is possible. I think it's very unlikely
Speaker 1: for it to happen, though. I think this wouldn't form naturally.
Speaker 1: You'd have to like capture a moon that would have
Speaker 1: to come at exactly the right orbit because it need
Speaker 1: be perfectly circular. You know, if it goes like elliptical
Speaker 1: at all, then it's going like in and out of
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. It's going to be dragging. So this seems
Speaker 1: very very unlikely to ever see in the universe, even
Speaker 1: if you could make all the equations work.
Speaker 2: Oh, I see you were saying another possibilities that maybe
Speaker 2: this moon is more like a visitor every once in
Speaker 2: a while, Like it's in a very elliptical orbit, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it's really far away, and sometimes it comes really
Speaker 2: close enough for you to maybe jump from one to
Speaker 2: the other.
Speaker 1: Now I was actually saying the opposite. I was saying
Speaker 1: that in order for this to be stable, it have
Speaker 1: to be almost perfectly circular orbit, because if it's elliptical
Speaker 1: and it comes that close, then it's going to be
Speaker 1: dragging through the atmosphere. What you want is a really
Speaker 1: stable setup that never changes, and to get a the
Speaker 1: circular orbit is very challenging. You basically have to capture
Speaker 1: a moon in exactly the right situation.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you mean by like having a constant
Speaker 2: bridge between the two planets, But maybe I mean I
Speaker 2: haven't seen the show, but maybe this only happened once
Speaker 2: in a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, Like again, if you had a Kardashev
Speaker 1: level three civilization, you might be able to engineer this,
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't expect to find this naturally happening in
Speaker 1: the universe.
Speaker 2: What if you're a Kardashian level seven planet.
Speaker 1: And your whole planet is made of chocolate cake.
Speaker 2: You can have a lot of hot air perhaps, all right, well,
Speaker 2: I guess he asked for Joe is Yeah, the show
Speaker 2: got something that is plausible, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you are a Kardashian level seven civilization and you
Speaker 1: have moons made of diamonds, if you got that much bling,
Speaker 1: then yeah, you might be able to pull it off.
Speaker 2: And things are kind of perfectly locked in and spinning
Speaker 2: slow enough, and it's not spinning fast enough to blow
Speaker 2: away your atmosphere. It's potentially possible.
Speaker 1: It is potentially possible. Yeah, good luck, Joe.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess the problem is he would have to
Speaker 2: jump up a lot. All right, Well, that answers all
Speaker 2: of our questions here today. Thanks to everyone who asks questions.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much to everybody who shares your curiosity. It's
Speaker 1: the reason why we do this podcast, and it's the
Speaker 1: reason why science moves forward. It's our combined curiosity as
Speaker 1: a human species that lets us explore the universe. So
Speaker 1: thanks everyone for your support.
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us. See
Speaker 2: you next.
Speaker 1: Time for more science and curiosity. Come find us on
Speaker 1: social media, where we answer questions and post videos. We're
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