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Speaker 1: Hey, Kelly, do you guys get really nice dark skies

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Speaker 1: out there on the science Farm. Yeah, we totally do.

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Speaker 1: We're far enough away from civilization that we get really

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Speaker 1: awesome dark skies at night. Oh that's so nice. So

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Speaker 1: what kinds of things your kids like to see up

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Speaker 1: in the dark skies? Well, we've got this app and

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Speaker 1: we like to try to figure out where the I S.

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Speaker 1: S is, but usually we miss it. And so what

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Speaker 1: we do get lucky and see sometimes that they love

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Speaker 1: is shooting stars, which, like, of course, because all kids

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Speaker 1: love seeing shooting stars. I find that kind of amazing.

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Speaker 1: What shooting stars? No, it's amazing to me that kids

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Speaker 1: like shooting stars. What's not to like? I don't know

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Speaker 1: the part where you explain to them how each one

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Speaker 1: is like a huge flaming bulletz screaming across the cosmos

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Speaker 1: that could land anywhere on Earth, devastating people. I like

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Speaker 1: to keep the level of existential dread and the family

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Speaker 1: to like a minimum. And so you're officially never invited

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Speaker 1: to come look at the night sky with my family.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like your family can't handle the truth, at least

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Speaker 1: about shooting stars. Hi, I'm Daniel, I'm a particle of

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Speaker 1: physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and every shooting

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Speaker 1: star makes me nervous. Hello, I'm Kelly Wainer Smith. I'm

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Speaker 1: a parasitologist and adjunked with Rice University, and shooting stars

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Speaker 1: don't make me nervous unless I'm talking to Daniel and

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Speaker 1: he's ruining them for me. And that's the job of physics,

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Speaker 1: ruining everything. Since right, that's right, that's right. Well, we joked,

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Speaker 1: But the job of physics is to tell us the

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Speaker 1: truth about the universe. Who reveals to us exactly the

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Speaker 1: nature of the cosmos that we live in? And so

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,

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

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Speaker 1: about exactly what is out there in the universe, what's

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Speaker 1: going on beyond the borders of our atmosphere, outpassed the

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Speaker 1: Solar system, outpassed even the edge of our galaxy, into

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Speaker 1: the deepest mysteries of the cosmos. Where did it all

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Speaker 1: come from, how does it all work, what's going to happen?

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Speaker 1: And will we survive it? My usual co host Org

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Speaker 1: is on a break today, so we are very happy

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Speaker 1: to be chatting with Kelly, who apparently doesn't worry about

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Speaker 1: death from above at all. Well, you know, I guess

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Speaker 1: I worry about it. No, you're right, I don't think

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Speaker 1: about it too much unless I'm talking to my physicist friends,

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Speaker 1: or unless I'm I'm talking to people who are thinking

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Speaker 1: about trying to mind the asteroids, which requires being able

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Speaker 1: to move them. That makes me nervous. But I can

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Speaker 1: just look up at the night sky and enjoy it

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Speaker 1: and not think too hard about it. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: I can't look at sushi without overthinking it as a parasitologist.

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Speaker 1: So we all have our blind spots, or the spots

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Speaker 1: where we too hard. Unless it's really old, sushi is

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Speaker 1: unlikely to blow up in your face or cause a fireball. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: you're You're probably pretty safe from those particulars. But somehow

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Speaker 1: growing up and being an adult in this universe means

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Speaker 1: understanding just how crazy and dangerous and chaotic the universe is.

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Speaker 1: Just like when you learn that every surface is covered

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Speaker 1: in microoves of some kind. Now we are learning that

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Speaker 1: our spaceship Earth is also constantly bombarded with rocks from space.

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Speaker 1: So do you remember the first time you looked at

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Speaker 1: a shooting star and thought, oh, that could be bad

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Speaker 1: as opposed to like, were you a child with wonder

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Speaker 1: in your heart, Daniel, or were you born a physicist? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I was a child with wonder in my heart.

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Speaker 1: And then my father told me that those shooting stars

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Speaker 1: are actually rocks from space that are hurtling towards us,

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Speaker 1: burning up in the atmosphere, and sometimes they actually land

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Speaker 1: and explode. Is there one in particular that you heard

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Speaker 1: about that that made you nervous about this that you remember? Well,

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Speaker 1: I grew up part of the time in Arizona, and

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Speaker 1: so we visited Meteor Crater, and so we had a

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Speaker 1: very like visceral example of how rocks from space really

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Speaker 1: can come all the way down to the surface and

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Speaker 1: create huge explosions, which leaves DNS in the Earth's surface

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Speaker 1: for thousands or millions of years. And do you remember

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Speaker 1: like having a profound moment of oh, shoot when you

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Speaker 1: looked at that. I do, and ever since then, when

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Speaker 1: I look at shooting stars, I'm wondering, like, who's that

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Speaker 1: one going to hit? You know, It's sort of like

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Speaker 1: we're in a shooting gallery and we're like, oh, look

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Speaker 1: at all the fancy bullets. See that's funny. Like I think,

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Speaker 1: for the at least the first twenty years of my life,

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Speaker 1: I lived in this amazing state of complete oblivion, and

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Speaker 1: so you know, like, for example, in preparation for this episode,

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Speaker 1: I was looking up some comment impacts that happened in

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Speaker 1: the past, and I don't remember hearing anything about Shoemaker Levy,

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Speaker 1: for example, do you remember when that hit? I do

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Speaker 1: remember Shemaker Levy because I was doing one of my

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Speaker 1: first research internships that summer and the guy I worked

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Speaker 1: with had a super high speed camera and a telescope,

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Speaker 1: so we actually hooked up his high speed plasma imaging

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Speaker 1: camera to a tels Go hoping to take pictures of

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Speaker 1: the fireballs when they erupted off of Jupiter. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was definitely very aware of that. I was excited.

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Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, let's blow up Jupiter and did

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Speaker 1: you get the footage that you all wanted? We didn't

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Speaker 1: actually because the night we were observing she Maker Levey

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Speaker 1: hit on the back side of Jupiter, so we didn't

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Speaker 1: actually get to see it. So I don't even remember

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Speaker 1: that it hit on the back side. But it was

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Speaker 1: also a funny lesson in early days of science communication

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Speaker 1: on the NASA website because when Shoemaker Levy came into

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Speaker 1: the Solar System, it got broken up by title forces.

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't just like one big comment. It was

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Speaker 1: this train of comets, like twenty three or twenty four

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Speaker 1: of them, and so of course astronomers named them A, B, C, D, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: So boring. Yeah, And then when the first one hit Jupiter,

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Speaker 1: they called that the A spot, and then when the

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Speaker 1: second one hit Jupiter, they called that the B spot.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I think they got to F

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Speaker 1: that they realized what are we gonna call where the

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Speaker 1: G one hits? And so on the NASA website there

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Speaker 1: was like pictures of F spot and then the G

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Speaker 1: impact site and then the H spot. You got to

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Speaker 1: think these things through all the way before you name

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Speaker 1: it a spot, think about what happens. Anyway, this was

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Speaker 1: very visceral to me, and it made me realize, like, wow,

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Speaker 1: space really is not empty. Space is filled with stuff.

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Speaker 1: And this is something we've been talking about on the

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Speaker 1: podcast for a while, not just that space has huge

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Speaker 1: rocks that might end human civilization, but space is not empty.

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Speaker 1: On lots and lots of levels, you know from like

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Speaker 1: tiny particles, the solar wind is a huge stream of

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Speaker 1: protons and electrons that are put out by the Sun.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't just make light. And we've talked on the

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Speaker 1: program a lot about neutrinos. The Sun pumps out zillions

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Speaker 1: and zillions of neutrinos. So even from the particle point

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Speaker 1: of view, if you go out into space, you're inundated

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Speaker 1: with radiation. And then take a step up to like

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Speaker 1: micro meteorites, you fly spaceship or spend time on the

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Speaker 1: I s S, you have to really worry about your

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Speaker 1: little life bubble getting hold by one of these high

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Speaker 1: speed moving pebbles. Well, yeah, then you gotta worry about

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Speaker 1: the new trinos too, right, Didn't those cause the Carrington

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Speaker 1: event on Earth? So sometimes they those cause problems down

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Speaker 1: on Earth as well. The solar wind definitely causes problems

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Speaker 1: on Earth. It can fry satellites and in cases of

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Speaker 1: really big coronal mass ejections, it can also make like

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Speaker 1: telephone and electrical wires spark here on Earth. It's not

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Speaker 1: due to the new trinos. Those interact so weakly that

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Speaker 1: they can pass through like a light year of lead

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Speaker 1: without having any effect. But the high energy, electrons and

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Speaker 1: protons and photons from one of those events can really

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Speaker 1: cause damage here on Earth. We actually had a whole

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Speaker 1: episode about just what to do if that happens. But

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Speaker 1: space is filled with this stuff, right, It's not like

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Speaker 1: when you go out there, it's just total emptiness. It's

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Speaker 1: not actually that's safe out there in space. It's sort

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Speaker 1: of contrary to what I think a lot of people's

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Speaker 1: view of spaces in their mind's eye. But so like

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Speaker 1: when I was younger, I watched a lot of movies,

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Speaker 1: like I watched Was It Armageddon with Bruce Willis and

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Speaker 1: Ben Affleck, And so I'm pretty sure that any of

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Speaker 1: these space based problems we can probably figure out. Well.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting also to see how Hollywood reacts to science.

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Speaker 1: You know, when Shoemaker Levey came into the Solar System,

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Speaker 1: it was a wake up call for the human race,

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Speaker 1: for NASA, for scientists, for everybody. Until then, people hadn't

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Speaker 1: really understood the dangers of these comments. You know, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't until like the mid sixties that we understood that

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Speaker 1: the surface of the Moon had craters because there were

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Speaker 1: so many impactors, And it wasn't until a few decades

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Speaker 1: ago that we understood that, you know, the dinosaurs had

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Speaker 1: been wiped out by a large impactor, But it was

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Speaker 1: Shoemaker Levy that made it real that main people think,

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Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this just happened to our neighbor Jupiter,

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Speaker 1: it could also happen to us. And that's when NASA's

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Speaker 1: like planetary protection program really took off. And that's when

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Speaker 1: Hollywood realized, oh, here's a whole new topic for a movie.

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Speaker 1: And that's why you got two big movies What was

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Speaker 1: at Armageddon and Deep Impact that came out like in

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Speaker 1: the same year about the same top because there was

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Speaker 1: this sort of human awakening of the danger. So based

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Speaker 1: on our timing of awakening to this danger, didn't the

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Speaker 1: hypothesis that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs? Didn't that predate

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Speaker 1: Shoemaker Levee or were we just not quite sure about

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Speaker 1: it at that point that predated Shoemaker Levee. But you

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Speaker 1: know that was sixty five million years ago. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: our our understanding of it as a problem, right exactly,

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Speaker 1: But we understood that it was so long ago it's

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Speaker 1: probably a really rare event might come every few million years,

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Speaker 1: not something we have to worry about. But Shoemaker Levee

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Speaker 1: happening like right now basically means that's not that uncommon.

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Speaker 1: It might be that their commentary impact every few decades

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Speaker 1: in the solar system or every hundred years. It's much

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Speaker 1: more immediate than this like ancient thing that happened a

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Speaker 1: long long time ago. And I think that really brought

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Speaker 1: the danger into focus for people. So if I had

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Speaker 1: to guess, like, so, I know, Hollywood has made it

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Speaker 1: seem like, you know, maybe sometimes we can solve these problems,

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Speaker 1: But based on how humans are dealing with the risk

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Speaker 1: of climate change, I'm going to guess that we're also

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Speaker 1: not doing much to deal with the risk of risk

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Speaker 1: of asteroids. Is that about right? Are we just sort

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Speaker 1: of crossing our fingers and hoping it will work out?

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing you watch don't look up recently, and I

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Speaker 1: didn't make you enthusiastic about human about humanity's ability to

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Speaker 1: confront existential crises. I'm not sure it was optimistic before,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, you're right, the movie didn't help too much. Well,

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Speaker 1: there is a lot of conversation about whether that movie

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Speaker 1: is about climate change or actually about an asteroid impactor,

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Speaker 1: But you might actually be pleased to learn that since

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Speaker 1: that day, humanity really has woken up to the danger

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Speaker 1: and there's a broad and vigorous effort to figure out

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Speaker 1: where these rocks are, how much danger we're in, and

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Speaker 1: try to do something about it. Oh, let's talk about that.

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Speaker 1: Side note. I think that just yesterday there was news

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Speaker 1: that an asteroid we had discovered two hours earlier that

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Speaker 1: was pretty big, was about two hits, which doesn't make

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Speaker 1: me feel like we're as on top of it as

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Speaker 1: maybe i'd like. Yeah, there are definitely some holes in

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Speaker 1: our protection system, and so we'll dig into in detail,

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Speaker 1: and on today's episode we'll be asking the question can

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Speaker 1: we defend Earth from deadly space rocks? Subtitle Does Kelly

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Speaker 1: need to tell her kids the truth? Kelly will not

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Speaker 1: be doing that. The pandemic has been enough of an

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Speaker 1: existential threat. Maybe when they're eighteen. Are you saying that

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Speaker 1: your kids don't listen to the podcast? Is that what's

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Speaker 1: going on here? Oh? No, they definitely listen to the podcast,

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Speaker 1: but just maybe not this episode. I'll email your husband

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Speaker 1: a link to it. Then. So the idea is that

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Speaker 1: waking up to the crazy dangers of our solar system,

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Speaker 1: understanding that space is not empty, but filled with death

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Speaker 1: bullets that might impact us. There's not nothing that we

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Speaker 1: can do about it. We can actually wake up as

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Speaker 1: a species and try to confront this danger, and so

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Speaker 1: we thought it'd be fun to explore what we know

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Speaker 1: about these asteroids and comments how dangerous they actually are

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Speaker 1: and the status of the Earth Protection system. This is

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Speaker 1: an easy one. It's obviously to send versus this up

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Speaker 1: there with a reflect even if they don't want to

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Speaker 1: go send them up there. Well, there's no correct answer,

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Speaker 1: it's just what do you think is the best way.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a laser laser best way to break

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Speaker 1: up an incoming asteroid. I think would be too probably

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Speaker 1: not to blow up a nuclear weapon like an Armageddon,

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Speaker 1: so not to do it Bruce Wall's style, I would

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Speaker 1: say to send a spaceship that could give it a

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Speaker 1: slight nudge and then it could deviate slightly from its

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Speaker 1: original path and miss the Earth. I don't think there

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Speaker 1: really is a good way to break up an incoming asteroid,

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Speaker 1: especially as they can really vary on how solid they

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Speaker 1: truly are, one big glob of iron and rock or

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Speaker 1: a big old pile of pebbles, And if you don't

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Speaker 1: do it right, all the pieces still hit the Earth,

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Speaker 1: so you still get all of that energy into our atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: which is not a good thing for us. Far better

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Speaker 1: to just find the best way to move it, which

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Speaker 1: also will probably vary based on its makeup. The best

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Speaker 1: way to break up an incoming asteroid would be to

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Speaker 1: hit it with another one of similar size. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to take a page out of the war Games playbook

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Speaker 1: and guess that the best way to break up an

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Speaker 1: incoming asteroid is not to do so, because if you

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Speaker 1: do break it up, you have a bunch of fragments,

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Speaker 1: some of which may still hit Earth with enough mass

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Speaker 1: and velocity to be quite dangerous. And I assume that's

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Speaker 1: why you're trying to break one up in the first place.

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Speaker 1: If you really did have to break one up, though,

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Speaker 1: I would guess the best way would be too Drill

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Speaker 1: as deep a whole as you possibly can down to

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Speaker 1: the center. Anyway, insert a nuclear weapon or something like that,

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Speaker 1: and the blow that sucker up. The best way I

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Speaker 1: can put it is slowly, because if you blast an

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Speaker 1: asteroid it can turn into a lot more little pieces,

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Speaker 1: but that can still make significant damage. Now you have

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Speaker 1: ten problems to deal with instead of one. So I

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Speaker 1: don't know if it's like with kind of a laser

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Speaker 1: that isn't too powerful, too totally blasted, but kind of

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Speaker 1: too corroded away, so then you can maintain it as

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Speaker 1: one asteroid, but then keep it shape. Well, if you

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Speaker 1: could fling another asteroid at it and hit it like

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Speaker 1: a billiard ball and send it another direction, that'd be great.

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Speaker 1: It's my understanding. If you just blow it up, then

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Speaker 1: you have a bunch of little pieces raining down on

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Speaker 1: earth that might not be little enough. I don't think

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Speaker 1: you really want to break it up. I think you

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Speaker 1: want to push it off course, not break it up.

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Speaker 1: Then you just get told with a bunch of stuff.

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Speaker 1: So it seems like a common thread here is that

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Speaker 1: you don't want to blow up asteroids because you're gonna

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Speaker 1: cause more trouble that way, And it was it was

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Speaker 1: interesting to see that so many people that sort of

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Speaker 1: honed in on that theme, And to be honest, I

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Speaker 1: don't know if that's true or not. It maybe it

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Speaker 1: depends on how big your blast is and how far

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Speaker 1: away you are, but it does seem like everybody has

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Speaker 1: some idea of how to tackle this problem. In their

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Speaker 1: heads already, and I was happy to see that at

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Speaker 1: least one person had watched the movie that I had watched.

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Speaker 1: Is it Armygeddon with Bruce Willison Ben Affleck? Is that

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Speaker 1: what it was called? Don't we even remember which is

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Speaker 1: which anymore? You're probably right and probably seeing those two

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Speaker 1: movies is what everybody knows about asteroids and commentary impact.

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Speaker 1: That's probably the amount of research people have done. And

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Speaker 1: so we can thank Hollywood, I guess, for at least

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Speaker 1: educating the public about the dangers and maybe misleading them

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Speaker 1: about the possible solutions. That's how it always works, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if they had legitimate science advisors on those movies.

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Speaker 1: I know these days they try to reach out to

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Speaker 1: experts in the field to consult, but back in the nineties,

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Speaker 1: I have the and they're probably just winging it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think there's probably someone in it, and I think

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Speaker 1: even today they don't even always listen to their experts.

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Speaker 1: So you've you always got to be a little critical

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Speaker 1: when you're watching a movie. Okay, so where are these

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Speaker 1: things coming from? Could they be coming from anywhere in

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Speaker 1: space or do they tend to like start in certain areas,

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Speaker 1: and those are like more likely to produce deadly space rocks.

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Speaker 1: I think something that would surprise people is that most

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Speaker 1: of the deadly space rocks are basically our neighbors. If

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Speaker 1: our rock comes and hits the Earth, it's not likely

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Speaker 1: to be coming from like deep deep space, another solar system,

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Speaker 1: or somewhere else randomly in the galaxy. Instead, it's much

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Speaker 1: more likely to come from somewhere here in our Solar system.

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Speaker 1: And to understand why, you have to go back to

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Speaker 1: the very formation of the Solar system. Remember, before we

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Speaker 1: have our Sun and all of the planets, everything was

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Speaker 1: basically just a huge cloud of gas and dust, rocks,

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Speaker 1: bits left over from other solar systems that had burned

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Speaker 1: and made mistakes and made silly movies and lied to

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Speaker 1: their children about dangers. Hey pretended that Santa Claus and

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Speaker 1: the tooth ferry existed, all this kind of stuff, and

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Speaker 1: then you know, those solar systems came to an end,

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Speaker 1: and their debris was the fodder for our Solar system

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Speaker 1: to have this huge cloud of stuff which then gathers

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Speaker 1: together gravitationally. Most of it, of course, is still hydrogen,

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Speaker 1: because that's what was created in the big bang, and

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Speaker 1: fusion in the heart of stars has turned a little

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Speaker 1: bit into heavier elements, but still hydrogen is the dominant

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Speaker 1: thing in the universe, and so you get the Sun,

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Speaker 1: which has most of the hydrogen in the Solar System,

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Speaker 1: and then the formation of other stuff. You get the

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Speaker 1: planets where you get these like little gravitational seeds that

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Speaker 1: accrete other stuff. But not everything ends up inside a

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Speaker 1: sun or a planet, and that's why you have, for example,

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Speaker 1: the asteroid Belt, which is a huge collection of rocks

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Speaker 1: basically between Mars and Jupiter that never formed into a planet.

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Speaker 1: So how many potential Earth killing things are out there,

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Speaker 1: it's a great question. We aren't exactly sure because these

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Speaker 1: things are hard to see. Remember, asteroids are dark, they

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Speaker 1: don't glow like a star, So if you're going to

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Speaker 1: see one, you have to see it because life has

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Speaker 1: gone from the Sun, hit the asteroid and then bounce

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Speaker 1: back exactly into your telescope. So it's only when this

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Speaker 1: thing happens to reflect light right back to Earth that

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Speaker 1: we can see it. So the good news is that

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Speaker 1: the bigger it is, the easier it is to see.

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Speaker 1: And NASA has been tracking these things for a few

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Speaker 1: decades pretty carefully, and they're pretty sure that they've seen

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Speaker 1: all the really big ones, and then as you go

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Speaker 1: smaller and smaller on the scale, they get less and

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Speaker 1: less certain. But they have these goals to see, like

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Speaker 1: of all the objects greater than a kilometer, or of

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Speaker 1: all the objects greater than five kilometers. But as you said,

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Speaker 1: they're sometimes surprised, like when one of these things came

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Speaker 1: into the skies over Chelivinsk. This was a twenty meter

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Speaker 1: object that came really fast. It was small enough that

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Speaker 1: nobody knew it existed, and it created a huge explosion.

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Speaker 1: Two thousand people were hurt, buildings were shattered. So it's

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Speaker 1: definitely possible that there are ones out there that we

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Speaker 1: have not seen. The dash camp videos on that thing

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Speaker 1: are crazy. Do we know that that came from the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt? Like, if something you know, makes its way

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Speaker 1: to Earth, can we back calculate where it started from? Yes,

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Speaker 1: Because of all the dash cam videos, we can calculate

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Speaker 1: the trajectory of this thing, and then we know its

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Speaker 1: mass and its velocity and its angle, and so we

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Speaker 1: could figure out where it came from. And so that

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Speaker 1: definitely came from somewhere in the asteroid belt. And there's

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Speaker 1: a huge number of objects out there's just way too

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Speaker 1: many to track now at Cheliabinsk, like explosion is never

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Speaker 1: going to end the human race, right. It could kill

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Speaker 1: thousands of people, would be a terrible disaster, but it's

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Speaker 1: not like a planet killer. You know, it's not going

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Speaker 1: to tear the planet in half, or it's not going

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Speaker 1: to cause the kind of devastation that would like wipe

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Speaker 1: out humanity. But still, you know, you definitely don't want

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Speaker 1: to lose two thousand people because you didn't notice something,

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Speaker 1: So you want your planetary defense shield to be pretty robust.

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Speaker 1: The interesting thing about the asteroids is that there's a

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Speaker 1: huge variety of these sizes. Like the asteroid belt itself,

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Speaker 1: half of the mass is in just four objects. Like

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Speaker 1: one of the things in the asteroid belt is a

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Speaker 1: dwarf planet called Series. I've heard of Series. Are there

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Speaker 1: other dwarf planets in the asteroid belt or is that

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Speaker 1: the only one? There are four objects that have like

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Speaker 1: half the mass. Series is the biggest one. It's like

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Speaker 1: almost a kilometer wide, and then it drops down pretty

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Speaker 1: quickly after that. But even if you add up all

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Speaker 1: of the mass of all of the stuff in the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt. It's not that much. It's only like four

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Speaker 1: percent of the mass of the Moon. Still, though, you

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Speaker 1: don't want to get hit by an object that's like

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Speaker 1: four percent the mass of the Moon, Yeah, that would be.

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Speaker 1: And so how like do those things tend to stay

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Speaker 1: put or are they getting like kicked out pretty often?

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Speaker 1: It's a great question because you might wonder, like, why

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Speaker 1: are these things there? Why don't they just pull together

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Speaker 1: into like a new planet, right, And so you have

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Speaker 1: to understand all the forces on these things. So number

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Speaker 1: one of the reason that they haven't just formed their

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Speaker 1: own planet, you know, and declared independence from the Solar

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Speaker 1: System or whatever, is that these things are being tortured

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Speaker 1: by Jupiter. Right. Jupiter is such a massive planet. It's

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Speaker 1: so much bigger than everything else that it's gravity really

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Speaker 1: controls that sort of middle Solar System region, and there

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Speaker 1: are tidal forces on these things, you know, anything that

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Speaker 1: gets big enough near Jupiter. Jupiter's gravity pulls on the

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Speaker 1: closer part of it harder than it pulls on the

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Speaker 1: further part of it, which basically pulls it apart. And

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Speaker 1: so jupiters forces are constantly disrupting what would otherwise be

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Speaker 1: a nice steady formation of a new planet in the

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Speaker 1: asteroid belt. So these things have been whizzing around for

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Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of years, maybe billions of years. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: they do bounce into each other and then you know,

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Speaker 1: they careen off into the inner Solar System. They can

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Speaker 1: also just fly around in a nice stable orbit for

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Speaker 1: you know, billions of years and not bother anyone. And

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Speaker 1: you know, I feel like, now that you and I

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Speaker 1: have recorded a nice number of episodes together, I feel

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Speaker 1: like the answer now just about any astronomy question of

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Speaker 1: why is it like that, the answer is Jupiter. Why

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Speaker 1: is this weird thing happening? Probably Jupiter that's the go

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Speaker 1: to answer. Jupiter is such a bully in the Solar

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Speaker 1: System because of its gravity affects every right. There may

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Speaker 1: have been like another planet like Nepportunity Urinus, that was

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Speaker 1: tossed out of the Solar System by Jupiter. It's crazy,

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Speaker 1: and we had that a whole fun episode about how

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Speaker 1: Jupiter might have been formed in the outer Solar System,

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00:22:12,119 --> 00:22:16,159
Speaker 1: migrated in, came back out because it was saved by Saturn. Like,

431
00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:20,159
Speaker 1: the story of our Solar system is really incredible and dynamic.

432
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 1: It's not just like a bunch of rocks, calmly floating

433
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 1: in space the same way forever. You know, this chaos,

434
00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:30,840
Speaker 1: there's intrigue, there's backstabbing, there is it's totally wild, and

435
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 1: especially in the very early part of the history of

436
00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: the Solar System. We think that the asteroid belt used

437
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 1: to have a lot more mass to it, but something

438
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: like nine percent of it was lost in the first

439
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:44,399
Speaker 1: hundred million years because things banged into each other and

440
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:46,679
Speaker 1: then fell into the Sun or got ejected from the

441
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,720
Speaker 1: Solar System. So the asteroid belt we have today is

442
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:52,399
Speaker 1: like a shadow of the very early asteroid belt we

443
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: had in the history of the Solar System, which is

444
00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:56,240
Speaker 1: probably lucky for us. I don't think we would have

445
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 1: wanted to have been around when all the chaotic stuff

446
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: was flying around, and that's the heavy bombardment period of

447
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: the Solar System, and we think that Earth, before its

448
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:07,400
Speaker 1: current atmosphere was formed, was just like rained down by

449
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:09,880
Speaker 1: these death rocks. Yeah, I'm glad I missed the death

450
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 1: rock period. It would have been hard to convince your

451
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 1: children it wasn't happening if you lived back then. Yeah, yeah,

452
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 1: you know, it's nice to be able to lie to

453
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:18,640
Speaker 1: your kids and You're right, that would have that would

454
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 1: have made it harder and maybe not lie, you know,

455
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 1: sugarcoat the truth. You go preserve their childhood innocence. Something

456
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 1: else that surprised me about the asteroid available and reading

457
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: about it is that it's not just a collection of

458
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: rocks between Mars and Jupiter. There's two clumps of rocks

459
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: that are co orbiting with Jupiter. They're like in Jupiter's orbit,

460
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: but one of them is trailing and one of them

461
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 1: is leading Jupiter. How and how much stuff is in that?

462
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 1: Not that much, but because there are astronomers involved, they

463
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: have silly names. So one group called the Greeks and

464
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:50,640
Speaker 1: the other one is called the Trojans, And I guess that's,

465
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:52,640
Speaker 1: you know, a play on the fact that we name

466
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: all of our Solar System planets after Greek gods. So okay,

467
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:58,480
Speaker 1: So I'm working on this book about space settlements, and

468
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 1: so whenever I read about the as Red Belt, I

469
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: am reading about people who are interested in mining the

470
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,199
Speaker 1: asteroids because there's cool stuff in those asteroids. Can you

471
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:08,880
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what's in those asteroids

472
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 1: and like how common the good stuff is? Yeah, the

473
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: asteroid belt is made from the same stuff as the

474
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 1: rest of the Solar System. It means that there's a

475
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,920
Speaker 1: lot of carbon, there's a lot of silicon. There's also

476
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,199
Speaker 1: a lot of metal and so as I'm sure you know,

477
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 1: some of those asteroids have like huge nodes of platinum

478
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 1: or other rare earth metals that could be pretty useful

479
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 1: for a space based industry. Do you find any of

480
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: those schemes for mining asteroids to be plausible at all?

481
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: That's gonna be a short chapter in your next book,

482
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:42,159
Speaker 1: right space mining? Will it work? No? Maybe eventually, and

483
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,439
Speaker 1: it will support some settlements, but I'm not seeing a

484
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: near term potential. But check out my book for more information.

485
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 1: It's only a few pages long. We find a way

486
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: to draw it out, that's what authors do you know?

487
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: I see it's just like no, like five pages of nos.

488
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 1: I don't think my editor would let that slide. There

489
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,639
Speaker 1: are a narrow you know, maybe taking water from the

490
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: asteroids and selling it to the I S S or

491
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 1: two moon settlements. That might be a like, you know,

492
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: in a couple of decades feasible, But in the very

493
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:18,959
Speaker 1: near term, I don't think it's going to work out economically,

494
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 1: So very naively, why not if I'm up in space

495
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,199
Speaker 1: and I need to build something, why shouldn't I just

496
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,199
Speaker 1: go get iron from some near my asteroid instead of

497
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: like lifting it off the surface of the Earth. Well,

498
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: so the problem is for starters, you said, if I'm

499
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 1: up in space trying to build something, which hasn't happened yet,

500
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,159
Speaker 1: and so like, I mean, we've gone up to space

501
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,920
Speaker 1: to assemble things that are pre exists that we built

502
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: on Earth. You know, like we've assembled the I S S.

503
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: And there have been some groups like Made in Space

504
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 1: that three do some three D printing and stuff in space.

505
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: But like it's gonna take a while before we can

506
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,640
Speaker 1: really get these settlements started. There's a lot we don't

507
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: know about how the human body responds to microgravity or

508
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 1: to the spit or radiation in space. And then there's

509
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: a lot we don't know about how to actually get

510
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:03,239
Speaker 1: these asteroids. So you know a lot of them are

511
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: rubble piles. They're not just like this big dense thing.

512
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: How do you collect a rubble pile where if you

513
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: try to land on it, you're just going to sort

514
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: of smooth it out and push it away, And then

515
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: how do you extract or in space? Or are you

516
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 1: just going to bring the asteroid and drop it to Earth.

517
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: Probably not a great idea. There's just a lot of

518
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: problems that need to get solved before this becomes something

519
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,640
Speaker 1: that we need and something that we actually can do. Wow.

520
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: Way to bring the harsh reality down to my dreams there, Kelly. Well,

521
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: you know, I guess we're taking turn. I was expecting

522
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: to get a little bit of that, you know, childhood

523
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: innocence protection you offer your kids. But I guess that's,

524
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: you know, an umbrella only for your family. You're a

525
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: grown adult, Daniel. I can deal with it. I can

526
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: deal with it. Okay, Well, now that I've had an

527
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: opportunity to crush your dreams, let's take an uplifting break,

528
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we'll talk about some of

529
00:26:52,119 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: the risks that are farther out in the Solar system. Okay.

530
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: I hope you didn't have too many existential crises during

531
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: the break. But we're back, and now let's talk about

532
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: the Kuiper belts, and we talked about the asteroid belts.

533
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: Risks are looking for us in the Kiper Belt. So

534
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: fortunately I survived that break. No large objects from space

535
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: crash landed on my house. So I'm still here to

536
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: talk about future dangers. And some of the most dangerous

537
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: objects in the Solar System are not in the asteroid belt.

538
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: They come from further out. So the Kuiper Belt is

539
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: a source of short period comets ice balls that orbit

540
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:39,879
Speaker 1: the Sun with a period about less than two hundred

541
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 1: years or so. And these are basically little things that

542
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,360
Speaker 1: never formed a planet. But they're much further out there,

543
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: like past Neptune there between thirty and fifty AU. Remember

544
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: AU as the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

545
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like a second asteroid belt, but

546
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,120
Speaker 1: it's further out and more dangerous. You you're suggesting these

547
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: things are more danger is because they come from further out,

548
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: which makes them harder to spot. Right. Things that are

549
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: further away are harder to see, so we can't track

550
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: them as well. And because they come from further out

551
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: there going faster when they do come into the inner

552
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: Solar System. Imagine like rolling a rock down a hill,

553
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 1: it's gonna go pretty fast. Instead roll that rock from

554
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: like the top of a mountain. Then by the time

555
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: it gets to the bottom, it's gonna be going super

556
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: duper fast. So the Earth moves around the Sun like

557
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: thirty kilometers per second, and asteroids typical velocities like forty

558
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,440
Speaker 1: kilometers per second. But comets can be going much much faster,

559
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 1: seventy to a hundred kilometers per second, and that translates

560
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: into kinetic energy, which means more destruction if they do hit.

561
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: So I heard you use asteroiding comets. So we've got

562
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: the asteroid belt which has a lot of asteroids, and

563
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: so does the Kiper Belt have more comets then? Yeah,

564
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: it's just a name thing. If it comes from the

565
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: asteroid belt, we call it an asteroid. If it comes

566
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: from the Kuiper Belt, we call it a commet. There's

567
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: also a difference in the makeup because as the Solar

568
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: system formed, the amount of UF in various parts of

569
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: the Solar System was different, and so for example, in

570
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: the inner Solar System you don't have as much ice

571
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: and water a lot of that was vaporized, whereas in

572
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,479
Speaker 1: the outer Solar System, before the Sun could vaporize, it

573
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: is frozen into crystals and it could participate in like accretions,

574
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: So things that like started to gather together and gravitationally.

575
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: Who are also able to gather ice as part of

576
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: their makeup, which is why the ice giants Neptune and

577
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: urine Is are out there in the outer Solar System.

578
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: You don't get ice giants between Venus and Mercury, for example.

579
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: So the things in the Kuiper Belts are more like

580
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: snowballs and the things in the Asteroid Belt are more

581
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: like rocks. Interesting, okay, And then we talked about series

582
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:42,959
Speaker 1: the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, and I know,

583
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: poor Pluto is now merely a dwarf planet. Are there

584
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: other dwarf planets and the Kuiper Belts because we have

585
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: now exhausted my knowledge of dwarf planets. There are lots

586
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: of dwarf planets. And that other thing is the whole controversy,

587
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: people realizing, oh, Pluto's not that special. Yes, we love Pluto,

588
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: it has a heart on it, all that stuff, but

589
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: it's just one of lots of these objects deep into

590
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: Solar System where things didn't form into larger masses. And

591
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: so I think if we made Pluto a planet, than

592
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: any time we found another object that size, and we're

593
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: going to find a lot, that would be adding another

594
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: planet to the Solar System. And that's I think the

595
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: argument for drawing the line before Pluto. But the point is,

596
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: as you say, there's a lot of stuff out there,

597
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,239
Speaker 1: and you might wonder again, like, well, why doesn't this

598
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: form into big planets? Like there's no Jupiter out there

599
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,479
Speaker 1: in the deep Solar system to prevent these guys from forming.

600
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: The answer is just mostly time and space. As you

601
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: get further out from the Sun, the density of stuff

602
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: drops and the space between it grows because you're just

603
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: getting more and more space as radius cubed, and so

604
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 1: it takes longer for stuff to come together. Gravity is

605
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: pretty weak, and so this stuff just takes a long

606
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: time to come together. Wasn't deep impact about something coming

607
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: from the Piper Belt. So this deep impact the moving

608
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: from Hollywood, which I think was in response to seeing

609
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: Shoemaker Levy impact Jupiter, and then Hollywood responded by making

610
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: an actual mission to a comet and calling it deep Impact,

611
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: so you know, having the whole like Hollywood science cycle there.

612
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: So this is their super cool mission because it went

613
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: out and visited a comet and basically punched it in

614
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: the face to see, like what's going on? And I'm

615
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: just glad they weren't like aliens hiding inside that comet,

616
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: you know, observing us and being like WHOA. I imagine

617
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: like aliens on a steak out, you know, eating pistachio nuts,

618
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:36,239
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden Nasa comes out and

619
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: punches them in the face. What the heck man? Totally unnecessary?

620
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: I know you could have just said high. Anyway, as

621
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: far as we know, there weren't any aliens hiding inside

622
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: the comet temple one. And when they punched it, they

623
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: learned a lot about what these things are made out of.

624
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: Turns out, these things, or at least this one, was

625
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: a lot more dusty and less icy than they expected.

626
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: Like the stuff that's on it is not as much

627
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: ice and sand, more like baby powder. It's like this

628
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: really really fine dust that this thing is made out of.

629
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: And so does that make it less dangerous for us?

630
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: What is the implication for me of what you just said, Daniel,

631
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: That's what I'm wondering. It's a good question. It doesn't

632
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: matter that much if it's made out of baby powder

633
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: or sand. What matters is like how much it's holding together,

634
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: because when it hits the atmosphere, if it breaks up

635
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: into thousands and thousands of small pieces, then that kinetic

636
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: energy is spread over a larger area, so you're less

637
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: likely to have like one big one that's going to

638
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: land in the Pacific Ocean and cause a mile high tsunami.

639
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 1: Better if it's like a rubble pile that gets spread

640
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: out by some impact or or something else. Doesn't really

641
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: matter that much if it's baby powder or sand. But

642
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: so that sounds like the exact opposite of what the

643
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: people who called inset. Yeah, people who are worried about

644
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: getting these dangerous fragments, but it's actually much much better.

645
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: Like would you rather be shot by an armor piercing

646
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: bullet or a shotgun? You know, you have like lots

647
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: of very small pellets which will embed them cells in

648
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: your skin, but are less likely to go all the

649
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: way through and in the same way, the Earth can

650
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: absorb a pretty big hit. That's what shooting stars are, right.

651
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: We're constantly getting hit by lots and lots of small

652
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: rocks and they briefly heat up the atmosphere. Much better

653
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: to be hit by lots and lots of fragments than

654
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: it is to be hit by one big one. Okay,

655
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: that makes sense, all right, So we've got the asteroid

656
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: belt and the Kuiper Belt. That's all the like you know,

657
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: human killer locations in the Solar System, right. Unfortunately, No,

658
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 1: there's one more source of death out there in deep space,

659
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: and that's my favorite part of the Solar System. Actually,

660
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: it's the Ort Cloud. This is well beyond the Kuiper Belt.

661
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: It's another cloud of I see many planets and objects.

662
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: This is much much further out. In fact, that so

663
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: far from the Sun that you can almost think of

664
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: it as sort of like transitional out into deeper space.

665
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: This is like two thousand to like a hundred thousand

666
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: a U. So we're talking about like you know, one

667
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: or two light years from the Sun. There's actually two

668
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: layers of Orc cloud is like an inner Taurus and

669
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: then an outer sphere that the Sun is just like

670
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 1: barely holding onto. Thanks son for holding onto a human killer.

671
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: That sounds really far away. Is there a lot of

672
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 1: stuff out there that could get us? It's very far away.

673
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: It's like a thousand times further than the Kuiper Belt.

674
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: But they think that it's got like trillions of objects

675
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: in it, each of which are bigger than a kilometer,

676
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: and they're probably billions of things bigger than twenty kilometers. Remember,

677
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:35,240
Speaker 1: anything bigger than like five kilometers is basically an extinction

678
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: event if it hits the Earth. So there's a huge

679
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: amount of stuff. If you add it all up, it's

680
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,279
Speaker 1: like five times the mass of the Earth. So it's

681
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 1: much much more massive than the asteroid belt or the

682
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: Kuiper Belt. So I'm definitely not telling my daughter about

683
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: these existential risks, and I'm kind of feeling like you

684
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: shouldn't be telling me about these. The other scary thing

685
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: about them is that when they make comments because you know,

686
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: like a nearby star comes by and disturbs them and

687
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: one of them falls into the inner Solar System, those

688
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: comments are very very long period comments. It could be

689
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: like thousands of years. What that means is that we

690
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: might not have seen it before. Like some comments we

691
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 1: see every seventy seven years or every five years. We

692
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: know what we see it, we can track it, we

693
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: can predict where it's gonna go. There could be a

694
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: comment out there that goes around the Sun every nineteen

695
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: thousand years and we just haven't been doing astronomy that long,

696
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: so we've never seen it. And the first time we

697
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: see it might be when we discover, Oh my gosh,

698
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: this thing is on a collision course for Earth, and

699
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: how much lead time on something like that would we have.

700
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: It depends a lot on how good our telescopes are

701
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: and how lucky we get, because these things are pretty

702
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: dark and moving pretty fast, and so it might just

703
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: be months. If we're lucky, it would be years, but

704
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: it might just be months. All right, Well, on that

705
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: dark note, let's take another break, and when we come back,

706
00:35:51,840 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the possible scale of devastation. All right.

707
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: I hope everybody had a nice break and we're beat

708
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: to talk about the scale of devastation. So okay, tell

709
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: us a bit about what we know about how awful

710
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: these things can be, all right, and I'll try to

711
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: match your upbeat tone when we're talking about planet wide catastrophes. Yeah. Yeah, Well,

712
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure. All we can do is

713
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,720
Speaker 1: estimate based on what we've seen and the smaller ones,

714
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 1: you know, things less than a meter for example, we

715
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 1: see this all the time, like every day. Basically, things

716
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: that are less than a meter hit the top of

717
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: the atmosphere and make shooting stars. And Kelly tells her

718
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 1: kids nice fantasy stories about the universe. They are pretty

719
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: and then as you get bigger, like if something gets

720
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: to be about five meters wide, we think one of

721
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:56,320
Speaker 1: these things hit the atmosphere about once every five years.

722
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,080
Speaker 1: So already just five ms wide. You know, this is

723
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 1: of an apartment or something. It's getting pretty rare, just

724
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,400
Speaker 1: every once in five years. The problem is that something

725
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: that big has a lot of mass, and so it

726
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: actually delivers an enormous amount of energy to the upper atmosphere,

727
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:14,399
Speaker 1: but the damage is constrained to the upper atmosphere, because

728
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: I don't feel like every five years I'm hearing about

729
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: massive scary asteroid related events. It's mostly constrained to the

730
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: upper atmosphere, but it releases as much energy as an

731
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 1: atomic bomb. The unit here is like the power of

732
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. So this is like one

733
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 1: Hiroshima every five years. Usually this explodes like somewhere over

734
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: the Pacific, and so it doesn't really matter. It doesn't

735
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 1: affect anybody, and it doesn't affect the satellites because they're

736
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: above where the atmosphere is, and so the big boom

737
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 1: is below them. Is that right? Yeah? And then as

738
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 1: you get bigger, so if you have one like twenty

739
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: mes y and that's about the size of the one

740
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,799
Speaker 1: that hit Chill that comes about every fifty years, and

741
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: that's the power of like thirty Hiroshima's So when that

742
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: blew up over that city, it was an enormous explode,

743
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: like we're talking about equivalent to a nuclear attack. So far,

744
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 1: we've been super lucky that when these things have fallen,

745
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: they've fallen in relatively like uninhabited areas. So like Chilabinsk,

746
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:13,719
Speaker 1: I'll never say it, right, but that was in Siberia, right,

747
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: and like in a low population area. Yeah, but you

748
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: know not the windows were shattered. Two thousand people were hurt.

749
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: There was an event in earlier part of this century,

750
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: Tunguska in eight which flattened hundreds of square miles of forest.

751
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: If you look at these pictures, has all these trees

752
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: just like lying straight down. It's incredible. That's also Siberia,

753
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: isn't it, Yes, exactly, Siberia is big, and so it's

754
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: going to take a lot of hits. All right, So

755
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: so how about let's let's go up a level. What

756
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 1: happens when you get up to the next level of devastation, Well,

757
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,479
Speaker 1: if you go up to like a kilometer We think

758
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: these will impact the Earth about once every five hundred

759
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: thousand years, and it's good that they're that rare because

760
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 1: these things contain about as much energy as three million horosiumas.

761
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: Is that an extinction level event? That's crazy? It might be.

762
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: It's ride on the edge. If you go up to

763
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: like five thousand meters like five kilometer wide rock, it

764
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: should come about every twenty million years, and yeah, then

765
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 1: we're all toast. If it hits in the water, you're

766
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: getting like a mile high tsunami and an incredible amount

767
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: of vapor in the atmosphere, which is going to cause

768
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: a runaway greenhouse effect. If it hits on land, you're

769
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: gonna get super volcanoes, You're gonna get incredible amount of dust.

770
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: It's not going to be fun for anybody. Is one

771
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: of those scenarios better than the other? It was probably not.

772
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: Probably both. You're just dead and that's that. Are you

773
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: imagining some scenario where like you have to choose where

774
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: you're like, Kelly, where do you want this thing to hit?

775
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 1: The Earth is waiting for you? Well, you know, as

776
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: as a person who lives on a farm, you encounter

777
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: a lot of preppers and you find yourself talking about

778
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: scenarios where like could I survive this? Could I survive that?

779
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 1: Like under what you know parameter range? Do I have

780
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 1: a chance? And I think in general Zack and I

781
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 1: are probably just goners because we could never defend ourselves.

782
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: But you know, I do wonder these things sometimes, but

783
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: it sounds like probably one way or another we'd be gonners. Yeah,

784
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 1: if it's big enough, you be gone. If it's smaller,

785
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: you know, like a one kilometer rock, I think you

786
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: probably prefer it to land in fairly shallow water. Shallow

787
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 1: so you don't get like a mile high tsunami, but

788
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: some water so it absorbs a little bit of the

789
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: impact and doesn't just throw up as much dust into

790
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. So if you have to pick, maybe you know,

791
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:24,879
Speaker 1: send it to the Mediterranean. Got it? But I guess

792
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 1: you don't usually get to pick so for these extinction

793
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 1: level events. So you did mention that whether our ability

794
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: to know that they're coming depends on things like you know,

795
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: how how big they are and have what you know,

796
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: if they're dark or easy to see. When we're talking

797
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: about extinction level events, do we like definitely can we

798
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: definitely see those coming. Well, we have a heads up,

799
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: So there's good news and there's bad news. I'll give

800
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:46,479
Speaker 1: you the good news first, and then you can shut

801
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: your ears for the bad news if you choose. The

802
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: good news is that we've been working pretty hard on this,

803
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: and NASA thinks they know where all the planet killers

804
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: are and that none of them are going to hit

805
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: the Earth in the next few hundred years. So that's

806
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,879
Speaker 1: the good news. Because the bigger ones are easy to see.

807
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: They tend to reflect more light and so be visible

808
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: in our telescopes. The bad news is that the most

809
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: dangerous ones are the comets, and those are harder to

810
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 1: see because they come from further out. They're less predictable.

811
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: We might not see one at all before we discover

812
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: it's on a trajectory for the Earth. Like these asteroids,

813
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: we get to watch some wizz around the Sun for

814
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 1: years and carefully plot their trajectory, which allows us to

815
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: predict for hundreds of years in the future where they

816
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: might go. Common it might be the first time we

817
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,359
Speaker 1: see it is when we discover it's headed towards the Earth.

818
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Okay, so say we see it for

819
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: the first time, what are our options has NASA planned

820
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: for that too. You gotta walk back the existential dread

821
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:45,280
Speaker 1: now NASA has planned for that. And I actually spoke

822
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 1: to Steve Chelsea at JPL, who is one of the

823
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 1: people in charge of this for the planet, and he said, quote,

824
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: if you're responsible for protecting the Earth from asteroids, there's

825
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: three things to keep track of, the first one is

826
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: to find them early. In other two don't really matter

827
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: very much. And you just told me it's hard to

828
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: find the most dangerous ones early. So I thought you

829
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: were supposed to be making me feel better and you've

830
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: done the opposite. I'm just glad that the Planetary Protection

831
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:18,839
Speaker 1: Officer has a sense of humor about it. You know,

832
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: even if it's some dark humor. We'll all be chuckling

833
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: right before our demise. But it really does matter when

834
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: you see these things, because the earlier you see them,

835
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: the easier it is to protect the Earth. If you

836
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: can just like deflect this thing a tiny bit when

837
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,240
Speaker 1: it's really still very far away, it'll just miss the Earth.

838
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: You know. Imagine somebody shooting a bullet at you, but

839
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: they're shooting it at you from like a thousand miles away,

840
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 1: very tiny breeze sideways will deflect the bullet and it'll

841
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: miss you, Whereas if somebody standing right in front of

842
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: you and attacking your point blank, that would be much

843
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: much harder to deflect that bullet. So if you see

844
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: something coming and it's still like a year or ten

845
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: years away, then the tiniest little push will send it

846
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 1: on another pass and it will miss the Earth. How

847
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:06,439
Speaker 1: do you deflect an asteroid? How do you deflect an asteroid? Exactly? Well,

848
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: we got ideas and a lot of this is determined

849
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: by this formula that tells us how much deflection we need,

850
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: and it's about three and a half centimeters per second

851
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: of velocity divided by the number of years you got.

852
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: So that means if the thing is ten years away

853
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:25,439
Speaker 1: from hitting, you only have to deflect it like three

854
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: and a half millimeters per second. That's a tiny change

855
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 1: in its velocity. But if it's one month away from hitting,

856
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: then you have to deflect it like thirty centimeters per second,

857
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 1: which is a lot more. We're talking about a big,

858
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: massive rock, and especially since Chi was a surprise, I'm

859
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,399
Speaker 1: guessing that you often don't have years, or I guess

860
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 1: it just depends. We hope that we will have years,

861
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: but yes you might not. And even in the case

862
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 1: of the asteroid belt, like their projections that none of

863
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 1: the planet killers are likely to hit the Earth, that

864
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: assumes that there aren't you know, collisions or surprises. They're like,

865
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,799
Speaker 1: these things can be very hard to pick far out

866
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:03,399
Speaker 1: into the future. The sort of error band grows very

867
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,400
Speaker 1: quickly because of nonlinearities. This one gets near to that

868
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: one and tugs them this other one, and then you know,

869
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: chaos reigns and all of a sudden, the trajectories have changed.

870
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: So something we've got to keep a constant eye on

871
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: to see if things have changed. But we might have

872
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: a lot of warning. You know, the dinosaurs had a

873
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:21,799
Speaker 1: lot of warning. They actually reconstructed the likely path of

874
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 1: the impact or that wiped out the dinosaurs, And it

875
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: has this funny loop in it where it looks like

876
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: I made a near miss past the Earth the first

877
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,760
Speaker 1: time around, went through this gravitational keyhole and went around

878
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: the Sun and came back and then slammed into the Earth.

879
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: And it was so close that they think if you

880
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 1: had looked up, you could have seen it from the

881
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth. And they did nothing about it.

882
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 1: I don't understand. It's their fault. You know, they were

883
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:46,799
Speaker 1: busy telling their children it's nothing to worry about, and

884
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 1: so you know they weren't prepared, you know, trying to

885
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: decide where to go with that. Do you want? It's

886
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: not fair to victim blame, But it is possible for

887
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: us to potentially deflect an asteroid if we have enough time.

888
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 1: So what what would that look like? So say we

889
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 1: decide we've got some time, we're going to try to

890
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,879
Speaker 1: deflect this asteroid. What would we How would we do that?

891
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: So there's a few really fun ideas. One of them

892
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 1: is called gravity deflection, and this is sort of like

893
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: a gravity tractor. The idea is that gravity pulls on stuff,

894
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:19,759
Speaker 1: and so if you could get something else near the asteroid,

895
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 1: it's gravity would tug on the asteroid. So just like

896
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: launch a heavy blob of metal, put it near the asteroid,

897
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: and it's gravity will tug it off course so that

898
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: it doesn't hit the Earth. But I mean, that's going

899
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 1: to have to be an incredibly heavy blob of metal, right,

900
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: Like how big are we talk? Could we? I mean,

901
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: I guess if you load how many times you could

902
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 1: you have to load? Starship to make that happen, well,

903
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 1: it's a trade off. It either has to be very

904
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 1: very heavy or you need a lot of time. It

905
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:48,319
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be that big. If you get this

906
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: thing up there ten years before it hits the Earth,

907
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: you can have a several hundred ton object and it

908
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 1: could really change the path of this object. But that's

909
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:59,280
Speaker 1: the key thing. This gravity tractor is a very very

910
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: gentle ish It's very expensive and we take a long

911
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: time to work, so you can need like years of

912
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: lead time. So we have gone out two asteroids and comments,

913
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: so we at least have the technology to like get

914
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: to these far off places in the Solar System, but

915
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,399
Speaker 1: not very quickly is the problem. Like we can send

916
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: these things out there, but you know they like passed

917
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,400
Speaker 1: by Venus and do a gravitational slingshot. We're not really

918
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:25,399
Speaker 1: in a hurry. We want to get them out there

919
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 1: with like minimal cost. When you're in a hurry, it's

920
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: a very different problem, and you want to minimize the

921
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,839
Speaker 1: time it takes for your system to get there, and

922
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: that's not something we're currently great at. That sounds to

923
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: me like a pretty clever method which hopefully we could

924
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: pull off you know, but like Armageddon showed me that

925
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: what you really want to do is blow stuff up.

926
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: So what what are what are our options for blowing

927
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: stuff up? Well, there are a few options there. One

928
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:51,359
Speaker 1: is not to blow it up, but just like knock

929
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 1: into it, like shoot a big rocket of at it,

930
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: you know, ten kilometers per second and bang into it,

931
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 1: and that might be enough like moment them to change

932
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: its course. Again, it depends on how early it is

933
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,479
Speaker 1: in its trajectory. If it's about to hit next week,

934
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: that's gonna have no useful effect. If you're talking about

935
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: something that's gonna hit in a few years, it could

936
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: really change the path of the rocket. Have we ever

937
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: tried this or tried something like it to sort of

938
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 1: get a handle on how it would work. Yeah, NASA

939
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: actually launched the double Asteroid Redirection test called DART, which

940
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 1: is a kinetic impact or spacecraft. They launched in November one,

941
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 1: and it's going to hit this thing called dimorphous undred

942
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 1: eighty meter wide minor planet Moon. It's going to hit

943
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,800
Speaker 1: in October of twenty twenty two, when this thing is

944
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: pretty close to the Earth. So we can turn our

945
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: telescopes and watch and see what happens, and I'll give

946
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: us a sense for like, well, what happens when you

947
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: bang basically a big bullet into an asteroid? Oh, that's awesome.

948
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 1: And presumably they were careful enough to do this far

949
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:54,680
Speaker 1: enough away that it's not going to cause any problems.

950
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: Presumably they know what they're doing. Well, I don't know.

951
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 1: That's a pretty big if scope sometimes a though, NASA

952
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: has got a good track record, So all right, we'll

953
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: go with it. Are there any more like sort of

954
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: futuristic methods? I guess fusion rockets? That's pretty futuristic, right,

955
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: How about how about more futuristic methods. One of my

956
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: favorite methods is the laser method. The idea being if

957
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: you could shine a really powerful laser at one side

958
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 1: of the rock, it would melt ice and sublimate gases

959
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:23,720
Speaker 1: from that side of the rock, basically creating a rocket

960
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: to push it sideways. So build a huge, powerful laser

961
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: and just zap the rock. That's pretty cool. Can you

962
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: use zap the rock with something other than a laser,

963
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: because you probably need a pretty powerful laser to pull

964
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:37,400
Speaker 1: that trick off, although I guess not. If you're the

965
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: fart the sooner you catch it. The more time you have,

966
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: less powerful the laser needs to be. I'm catching on,

967
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: you're catching on. But they have a plan to build

968
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: this system in space and it would rely on ten

969
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:52,280
Speaker 1: kilometer wide solar panel system. So now we're doing solar

970
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: power in space, and the idea is that you can

971
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: then zap these asteroids and send them off course. Of course,

972
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: the other worries Now you're building a huge space laser,

973
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: and you know, some hackers take control of it and

974
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:08,239
Speaker 1: write their name on the Washington Monument or something existential

975
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: threats about. But you don't have to build a laser.

976
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: You could also just take advantage of the fact that

977
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 1: the Sun is out there in space and shooting out

978
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 1: a huge amount of energy. Oh okay, and so it's

979
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 1: shooting out a bunch of energy, but you know, the

980
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 1: aspirin has been moving the comment or the comment has

981
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: been moving in this world where the Sun exists, and

982
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: so you'd have to focus the energy right to to

983
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 1: get it to move off track. Yeah, So imagine the

984
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 1: way you take a magnifying glass and you use it

985
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: to like fry a small object. You build a huge

986
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: lens in space and you focus the Sun's energy on

987
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 1: this thing, and that can change its course, not in

988
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 1: the sense that you're trying to blow it up again.

989
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 1: All you need to do is heat up a little

990
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: edge of it so it creates a small rocket to

991
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 1: push it sideways, and then it goes off course. And

992
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: that might sound a little bit impractical. You're gonna build

993
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: this huge space lens and pointed at this thing. One

994
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 1: of my favorite ideas involve wrapping half of the asteroid

995
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 1: in foil, because you're right that they've already taken into

996
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:07,439
Speaker 1: account the fact that the Sun is pushing on this thing.

997
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: But if you change how much energy it absorbs, if

998
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: you change how much momentum kick the Sun's light gives

999
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: it by making it more reflective, you're basically turning this

1000
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: thing into a solar sale and that can send it

1001
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: off course. So just wrap it an aluminum foil. Okay,

1002
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: So this is where asteroid mining is going to take off.

1003
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: You know, they're finally going to be able to get

1004
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:28,360
Speaker 1: the money by saying we're going to save the world

1005
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: by going to the asteroids to get the aluminum will

1006
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:33,359
Speaker 1: coat the asteroid that's coming to get us, and then

1007
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 1: suddenly everybody's going to be totally on board with us,

1008
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 1: and maybe that will save money because it would be

1009
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: expensive to shift the aluminum up from Earth and if

1010
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: you could get an asteroid's worth of it. Anyway, we've

1011
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: solved the asteroid mining problems. What about nuclear weapons? Since

1012
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 1: we're talking about existential threats, all right, I think that

1013
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: you're desperate to blow this thing up, all right. So

1014
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 1: there's two categories. There's deflected and then there's destroyed. And

1015
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:55,920
Speaker 1: deflected is better if you can do it early because

1016
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 1: it requires less explosive and less energy and cheaper in general.

1017
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 1: But you're right, if it gets close enough, then you

1018
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:02,759
Speaker 1: got to just blow it up. And so people have

1019
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: done actually a bunch of studies of like what's the

1020
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 1: best strategy. Do you actually want to drill in deep

1021
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 1: and blow up a nuclear weapon or do you want

1022
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:12,200
Speaker 1: to blow up the nuclear weapons sort of near it?

1023
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 1: Because if the thing is like a rubble pile, as

1024
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:16,800
Speaker 1: you were saying before, blowing up a nuclear weapon in

1025
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 1: the middle of it might not change its profile that much. Instead,

1026
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:21,839
Speaker 1: you might want to like blow it up on the

1027
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: outside so it tends to disperse it more so you

1028
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,279
Speaker 1: get more of a shotgun effect on the Earth's atmosphere

1029
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: instead of an impact or so. There are people whose

1030
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:34,719
Speaker 1: job it is, presumably to model nuclear explosions on asteroids

1031
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: and like how that's going to impact the direction of

1032
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: the like resulting rubble, And I, you know, if I

1033
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: had life to live over again, that sounds like a

1034
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: really fun job. Remember that everything we learned in science

1035
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:51,279
Speaker 1: is the product of somebody being so curious about it

1036
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 1: that they decided to spend their life asking that particular

1037
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:57,840
Speaker 1: question and finding the answer. I was reading a thesis

1038
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:01,319
Speaker 1: last week from JOHNS. Hopkins and the chanical engineer who

1039
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 1: spent his thesis studying how to blow up these asteroids

1040
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 1: and doing hyper realistic simulations of what would happen when

1041
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: you injected a nuclear weapon, how far down they would

1042
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 1: have to go, and he actually found some surprises. He

1043
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: thinks that the asteroids are probably stronger and tougher than

1044
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:19,840
Speaker 1: we have thought, and they would require more energy to

1045
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: be shattered. And he was modeling like how the cracks

1046
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 1: would move along the surface and whether they would make

1047
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: it all the way to the other side, and the

1048
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:29,400
Speaker 1: effects of gravity of like pulling this thing back together

1049
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 1: at the same time. It's a really complicated process and

1050
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: I'll note that all sounds bad for asteroid mining as well.

1051
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:37,800
Speaker 1: There's another thing you can do if the thing is

1052
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:39,840
Speaker 1: gonna hit and you want to blow it up without

1053
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: using the nuclear weapons. This actually reminds me about something

1054
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 1: you brought up the other day about one time we

1055
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:48,280
Speaker 1: put a bunch of copper rods into space. Some folks

1056
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,800
Speaker 1: have this idea of laying out a series of rods

1057
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,880
Speaker 1: in space in front of the path of the asteroid.

1058
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,240
Speaker 1: And the idea is the asteroids already moving really really fast.

1059
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 1: You don't need to shoot it with something else moving fast.

1060
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:04,240
Speaker 1: You just basically put a bunch of bullets in space

1061
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:06,439
Speaker 1: in front of it. And from the asteroids point of view,

1062
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: it's like those bullets are coming at the asteroid. So

1063
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: if you sort of create this spray of rods in

1064
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 1: space between us and the asteroid, when it passes through,

1065
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 1: it might get shredded and I will break it up,

1066
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:20,400
Speaker 1: and then you end up with again a lot of

1067
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: small bits instead of one big one. Well, I'm personally

1068
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 1: hoping that this question does not come up in my lifetime.

1069
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 1: Do we have the option and I think I know

1070
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: the answer to this one. Do we have the option

1071
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,800
Speaker 1: of abandoning ship if something is definitely going to destroy

1072
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 1: Earth and we can't make it go away. Because at

1073
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: the beginning of don't look up, some of them are

1074
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:40,320
Speaker 1: able to abandon ship. Well, I think Elon Musk probably

1075
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 1: has those plans, but for the rest of us, we

1076
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: don't really you know, there's no realistic way to get

1077
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: six billion people off the Earth in a short amount

1078
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,799
Speaker 1: of time and let them live in space or colonize

1079
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 1: Mars like. We are decades or hundreds of years away

1080
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:57,359
Speaker 1: from being able to do that. So unfortunately, there really

1081
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 1: isn't an option of abandoning ship. People would like us

1082
00:53:59,920 --> 00:54:03,759
Speaker 1: to have colonies on Mars so that humanity survives if

1083
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:05,879
Speaker 1: something does impact the Earth, and you know, I see

1084
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: the logic in that argument, but it also means that

1085
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: everybody else who's on Earth is going to die in

1086
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 1: that scenario, so I think there's kind of a big

1087
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 1: hole in that plan. I also think we're decades or

1088
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,839
Speaker 1: hundreds of years away from the Martians not dying when

1089
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 1: the Earthlings die, because Martians are going to require resupply

1090
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 1: trips from Earth for a long time before their self

1091
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: sustaining and autarctic, So I think they're gonners too. They'll

1092
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 1: just watch as Earthlings die and then they will slowly

1093
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 1: fade away. So I think that everybody is a If

1094
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 1: you will, I totally agree with you. And so what

1095
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: we really need to do is it invest a little

1096
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:43,280
Speaker 1: bit more in telescopes. You'd be surprised at the tiny

1097
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:46,719
Speaker 1: amount of resources devoted to this. There's like a telescope

1098
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:49,760
Speaker 1: in New Mexico and one near Tucson, and a couple

1099
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: of very small satellites. But you know, with more satellites

1100
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: and more telescopes, so we could see more of these things,

1101
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:57,000
Speaker 1: and then we would have more time to respond if

1102
00:54:57,000 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 1: we did see one of these guys headed for Earth.

1103
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 1: So why do you think we aren't investing more in this?

1104
00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 1: Like it's it's clearly scary stuff. People can see shooting stars,

1105
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:08,920
Speaker 1: so they can like it shouldn't be hard to convince

1106
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: them that there's stuff that's bombarding our atmosphere and as

1107
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 1: it gets bigger, it can cause a problem. Why don't

1108
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 1: we invest in this? I think it's for the same

1109
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:17,800
Speaker 1: reason that people let stuff fall apart on their house.

1110
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: As a civilization, we're moving from crisis to crisis, and

1111
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:23,080
Speaker 1: if it's not the most important crisis in front of

1112
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 1: you right now. Then it doesn't get attention, and so

1113
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 1: it's sort of theoretical and maybe it's gonna happen, but

1114
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 1: we don't need to deal with it today. Fine, let's

1115
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:33,680
Speaker 1: deal with it tomorrow. And so far tomorrow has income.

1116
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 1: There have certainly been lots of crises in the last

1117
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: couple of years to deal with. Yeah, we got plenty

1118
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:41,840
Speaker 1: on our plate, exactly. All right, Well, here's hoping we

1119
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: all decide to invest in science. Though. I'm sure that

1120
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:46,200
Speaker 1: the money that we spend on those telescopes to protect

1121
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 1: ourselves would probably also teach us a lot about the

1122
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: world that we live in, So it would be a

1123
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:54,200
Speaker 1: good investment in lots of ways. Yea science, yea science.

1124
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: And for those of you making long term plan we

1125
00:55:56,680 --> 00:55:59,360
Speaker 1: do know that a rock called a popus, which is

1126
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:02,880
Speaker 1: three seventy wide, is due to make a very close

1127
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 1: pass by the Earth on Friday the thirteenth in April nine.

1128
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:10,359
Speaker 1: So playing your camping trips, maybe by then Ada will

1129
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:12,960
Speaker 1: be old enough for me to explain what's happening to her.

1130
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: We can, we can check it out. As you've seen

1131
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: your happy birthday in the underground bunker, you have built.

1132
00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:21,640
Speaker 1: That's right, that's not quite her birthday, but yeah, yeah,

1133
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 1: maybe I'm not sure. We'll try try to tie that

1134
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 1: to celebrating a birthday party. We'll see, all right. Well,

1135
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:30,320
Speaker 1: thanks everybody for coming along on this ride of curiosity

1136
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:33,279
Speaker 1: as we learn about the dangers that are out there

1137
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 1: in space and what science has done and can do

1138
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 1: to potentially protect us. Thanks very much, Kelly for joining us,

1139
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:42,799
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening. Everyone, all right,

1140
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:53,279
Speaker 1: tune in next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that

1141
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of

1142
00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. For more podcast from my heart Radio,

1143
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 1: visit i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

1144
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:07,040
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H