Life May Only Be Able to Exist in this Part of the Galaxy, with David Kipping

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So, what's this I hear that an exomoon was recently discovered?
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It seems like over and over again, someone sees something
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which looks like evidence of life, and then six months later,
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a theorist comes along and says, oh, by the way,
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I've got to think of a way of doing that
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without life involved.
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But that doesn't make them right.
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Doesn't make them right.
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And that's not weird to have a brown dwarf orbiting
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a star.
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No, loads of those.
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So this is the first time we found basically a
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triple system. If someone on your exoplanet waves to you,
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you don't have any problem with that, but that's not
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what you're after. You're looking for any kind of life
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at all.
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So you could have, for billions of years, life just
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thriving in between the stars.
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That is dope. Space fact. 1995, we discover the first
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authentic exoplanet. A planet orbiting another exoplanet. living star. So,
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anyone born from 1995 onward, I now declare each one
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of you to be Generation X. O planet.
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O planet.
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This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Got
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with me Chuck Knight, baby. Yeah, what's up?
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What's up, Neil?
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Chuck, baby. Hey. All right. This is going to be
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a Cosmic Queries. Oh, okay. Good. With one of our
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favorite people out there in the hood. That's right. The
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boy band of astrophysics.
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All right.
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A boy band of one. A heartthrob, no doubt. We
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have the one, the only, David Kipping. David, welcome back
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to StarTalk.
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I don't deserve the introduction, but I.
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Will take it. Thank you. Very kind. And I have
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to announce that you're based in Columbia University, which is
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up the street a couple of miles, and you skateboarded here. Yeah.
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call the thing with the single wheel oh uh that's
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a that's a unit a unicycle literally yes yes uh
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hoverboard style yeah yeah so you are associate professor of
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astronomy uh up in columbia that's where i got my
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phd at columbia university and you are the host of
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Cool World podcast.
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Cool World's YouTube show and a podcast.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Cool World. The same. Same name, Cool Worlds.
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Yeah, I always find people get confused. I say, even
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when I just had a YouTube channel, and I'd say,
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I'd describe to people, like, oh, so tell me about
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your podcast. I'm like, no, no, that's a different, a
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podcast is a different thing, at least in my mind.
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It's a different medium, yeah.
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Yeah, so we have a main, where I do like
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these kind of mini documentaries about space and universe and
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things I'm working on, and then we have the podcast.
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So it's the Cool World podcast and YouTube channel.
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You got it.
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There you go. So Dave, you study exoplanet.
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That's right, yeah.
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Last I checked, we were rising through 6,000 of these
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things in the catalog.
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Wow.
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Pushing 7,000. I've stopped counting at this point. But I'm
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old enough to remember when there were none. Okay.
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Right.
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Back in the day. Well, they were there. But we've
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got to get right to it. We're presumably an exoplanet
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to aliens orbiting some other star.
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Right.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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But we have a moon. So, what's this I hear
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that an exomoon was recently discovered?
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Yeah, there was in the news recently CD35, a load
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of letters, B. Just call it CD35B for short.
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CD, is that the name of the catalog it came from?
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That's the catalog. I have no idea what the CD
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is supposed to stand for, but that's the boilerplate name
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going around. And what's interesting about this object is it's
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a brown dwarf.
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Okay.
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That orbits a M dwarf star. And around that brown dwarf,
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they see evidence for a companion. And the question is,
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is that a moon or is that a planet?
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So a brown dwarf, again, is not quite a star,
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a little too massive to be a planet.
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So this is an object which is in between the
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mass of, say, 13 Jupiter masses to about 80.
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Okay.
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And 80 is the point where you have enough mass
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for hydrogen fusion to happen, so you can shine like
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a star. But below that, you can actually still have
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enough mass for deuterium fusion to occur, but there's hardly
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any deuterium, so it's not a very efficient process.
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So you're like a reality star.
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Yeah, you're on that C tier.
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Like, I was big on Bravo for a while.
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Right, so you know that people who storybound us get
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kind of edgy about that kind of stuff because they're like, no, no,
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it's not a failed star. It's an overachieving planet. So
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it depends how you frame it.
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So says the therapist. I was going to say. I'm
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going to tell you the truth. I'd rather be Jupiter.
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I'd rather be Jupiter.
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King of the planets.
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That's right.
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Just king of the planets instead of the overachieving, not
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quite a star. You have a red-blooded star, a almost star,
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not quite a star. too much to be a planet thing.
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Right. And that's not weird to have a brown dwarf
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orbiting a star.
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Loads of those.
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So this is the first time we found basically a
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triple system. An object orbiting an object orbiting the object
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where two of them are not stars.
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Well, not quite because we have binary stars.
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Right. No, I'm saying this is what two of them
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are not stars. He said two of them are not stars. Yes.
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It sort of depends on how you think of the
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brown dwarf because some might say the brown dwarf and
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the star is kind of a binary star system.
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Yeah, but you can't, you just eliminated that possibility by degrading.
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It to a not quite star overachieving planet. So did
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it make the news because we don't really know what
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to call it? It's not that it was some major
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astrophysical bit of enlightenment?
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No.
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Is it just who ordered this kind of thing?
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I think it's a bit of both. I mean, first off,
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there is an object almost identical to this one that
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we discovered before. It's like HD 206 something, something or other.
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That's a very similar configuration. They used a different method
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to find it, and they're not as confident. So they
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say this is a candidate object around a brown dwarf
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around a star. The authors of this paper are much
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more confident. They're like, this is legit. This is definitely
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something there.
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And so who's lead author on this?
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Kevin Hoy. So it's a Chilean group using the VLT,
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taking observations. And they're able to measure the wobble, the
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Doppler wobble of this object. And that's where they get
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this evidence for. But if you turn to the IAU definitions,
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they're actually pretty clear. And they say that this thing's
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a planet. Anything in orbit of a brown dwarf is
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a planet according to those definitions. Now, we can argue
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about those definitions, but Oh.
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So it doesn't then say, suppose the brown dwarf is
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orbiting something else.
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It doesn't say anything about it. It says, actually, specifically,
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no matter how it formed, what it's doing, what color
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it is, whatever it is, if it's between 1380 Jupiter masses,
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it's a brown dwarf, and anything in orbit of that, again,
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doesn't really matter, is always a planet.
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Wait, but suppose I have a binary brown dwarf orbiting
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the main star. You can't call that a planet.
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No, then it's a binary brown dwarf.
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Yeah.
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Because they actually do have a, it's a footnote of
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if it's less than one over 25 mass ratio, then
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it's a binary. So this object is one over 37
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mass ratio. So that's in moon category right there. Planet category,
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I'd say. There is no moon category in the IAU definition.
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The IEO says there's no word moon or satellite anywhere
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in this document. So that's why there's an ambiguity here. Yeah,
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I think so.
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We should bring the Pluto haters back because they know
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how to- They know how to get things done. Yeah.
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Without a doubt. Yeah. You know. Okay. So is it
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something to be excited about or is just something to
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add to the catalog?
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I think it's definitely an exotic object. I look for exomoons,
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as you know, and for me, the reason why I
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do it is because I want to understand how common
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is the Earth-moon system, how common are the moons around Jupiter,
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how common is us, our backyard, where do we come from?
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And this object, as cool as it is, doesn't really
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speak to anything familiar to that which we have in
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the solar system. So it's an exotic object.
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That's the rub right there. I love it. It doesn't fit.
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The way you originally described it, it's very exotic. Yes. Yeah,
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that's what makes it exciting. Which is cool. I like
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a bit of exotic.
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Yeah, but I also want to understand our story.
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How did this Chilean group discover this exomoon?
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I think this brown dwarf was already known, and they
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were able to separate the light from the brown dwarf
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and the star using a chronograph, and then they were
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able to measure the Doppler shifts of the light from
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that brown dwarf.
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Wow.
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So it's kind of similar to how we discover with
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the first exoplanet around 51 Pegasi b that was just
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a star by itself and we saw the Doppler lines
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here it's harder because you've got two sources of light
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so you have to do that separation disentangle that first
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and then you can actually look for things around the
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brown dwarf.
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Wow so but they had to know to think to
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do that in the first.
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Place yeah yeah it's not easy work yeah.
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So now you recently submitted for publication a paper that
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explores life on exoplanets, but that's quite the cottage industry. It's,
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you know, not a few months go by before another result.
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We found some chemistry in the atmosphere that means there's
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life on the surface because you can't see the surface. Right.
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It's too small, too distant, too dim. Right. But the
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chemistry pops out. So what are you how are you
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adding to that conversation?
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You know, I was just frustrated as someone interested in
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the search for alien life that we keep seeing so
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many false starts, right? So you've had, you go all
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the way back when I was a kid, I remember
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Bill Clinton stood on the White House lawn talking about
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the Allen Hills meteor.
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Yes.
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As evidence for life. And of course that evaporated. We've
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had recently K218b, this evidence of dimethyl sulfide that everyone
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got excited about could be life. And again, it's been
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challenged and we had venusian phosphine. So we just seem
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to have like time and time again.
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Dimethyl sulfide and it's also dimethyl disulfide, right? I think
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there were two. Yeah.
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Well, the original claim is just DMS, but now they
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think there's that as well.
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So on Earth, phytoplankton... Okay. The boys that do photosynthesis-
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The basis of everything here. The basis of everything.
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Right.
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They're the ones that give us these dimethyl sulfides. Yeah.
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And so if you're going to find that on another
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planet- It's possible. So then that's headline making- That's really cool, that.
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So has that been retracted, that discovery?
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It's not been retracted, but other authors have come up
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with other ways you could plausibly expect to have this
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atmosphere without necessarily life being involved.
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And you want a strong result. So this is the.
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Kind of frustration I have. It seems like over and
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over again, someone sees something which looks like evidence of life.
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And then six months later, a theorist comes along and says, oh,
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by the way, I think of a way of doing
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that without life involved.
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But that doesn't make them right.
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Doesn't make them right.
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All right. So have you found a way to make
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an airtight argument here?
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Well, I tried to point out two things. One is
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that as we plan these new observatories, like the Habital
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Worlds Observatory, which will be the successor, hopefully, to James Webb,
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another multi-billion dollar telescope we're planning right now. We have
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to confront the reality of this epistemic problem that will
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be persistent, I think, for generations to come. And I
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suggest that one strategy could be kind of what we
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do in YouTube space of A-B testing. So instead of
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just looking at a bunch of things and saying, how
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often do I detect dimethyl sulfide? How often do I
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detect it by a signature? Split your group into two
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categories and accept that there will be some number of
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confounders in these two groups. But hopefully you can design
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these two groups such that the confounder rate is the same,
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but the life rate is somehow different. If you can
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do that, I'm not saying it's easy to do that,
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but if you can do that, you can solve this
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problem cleanly, statistically. And that's kind of the whole premise
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of my paper, that we need to think about the strategy,
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not just the technology, but really how we even approach
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this question.
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So is that similar to, because I remember back during the,
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was it the Challenger disaster? any disaster, they bring in
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all the evidence and then come up with a conclusion.
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What I always think they should do is they should
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bring in only half the evidence and see what you conclude.
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And then you add to it and see if the
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conclusion remains. Yeah, if the last bit of evidence is
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what tips it, then it means most of the evidence
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wasn't really pointing to that result. Yeah. And in science,
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you want the more evidence to align with what your
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thoughts were. Right. Otherwise, go home.
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Yeah. I mean, in statistics, we call that cross-validation.
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Cross-validation. Okay.
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When you block out some of the data, you do
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all your fits on the... the data you have, and
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then you uncover your hand and ask which one actually works.
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And that's like the true discriminatory test of which one
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is working.
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Okay. That's cool, man. So this will be a way
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to keep people on notice.
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I think it's an important question. It's the question we
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all care about, right?
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Yes, of course.
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I think it's where there's life out there, and I
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just want to get an answer before I die, right?
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I hope that HBO succeeds.
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This is a major motivation of science. Yeah. I want
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to get it done before I die. Before I die. Right.
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00:13:06.899 --> 00:13:09.139
Don't worry. When you die, Jesus will tell you all
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the answers. We like to.
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days at the link on the screen and in the
317
00:14:30.990 --> 00:14:36.460
video description. Stay informed, stay protected, and stay curious, but
318
00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:38.159
just skeptical enough.
319
00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:41.240
This is a Cosmic Queries. You have a huge fan
320
00:14:41.259 --> 00:14:45.539
base out there among our followers. And so, Chuck, you
321
00:14:45.590 --> 00:14:49.929
got it lined up? I have them right here. Okay.
322
00:14:49.950 --> 00:14:51.990
And you haven't seen these questions, right? They're coming right
323
00:14:52.029 --> 00:14:55.309
out of the blue for you. Cool. Good for, yeah,
324
00:14:55.389 --> 00:14:56.389
that makes three of us.
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00:14:57.970 --> 00:14:58.389
Okay.
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00:14:58.570 --> 00:15:01.450
And these are our Patreon supporters who have given us
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00:15:01.450 --> 00:15:02.649
$ 5 a month.
328
00:15:02.809 --> 00:15:06.190
Right, which qualifies you to be able to submit your query.
329
00:15:06.210 --> 00:15:10.330
All right, here we go. This is Andor Klump. who says,
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00:15:10.750 --> 00:15:11.909
Dear Dr. Kipling, Dr.
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Tyson, Lord Nice.
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00:15:13.269 --> 00:15:13.529
Kipping.
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00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:18.700
Kipping, sorry. I said Kipling. Oh, I made you quite literary,
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00:15:18.740 --> 00:15:20.039
didn't I? Kipling and Ginger. Exactly.
335
00:15:20.100 --> 00:15:20.600
I say, oh boy.
336
00:15:20.679 --> 00:15:22.440
Anyway, Dear Dr. Kipling, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice. LHS 1140B
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00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:37.809
has a confirmed atmosphere. 48 light years away.
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00:15:38.360 --> 00:15:42.399
If microbial life lives there under ice or in its ocean,
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00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:45.539
what would be the very first sign we would detect
340
00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:47.320
from this distance?
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00:15:47.620 --> 00:15:50.970
Greeting from Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
342
00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:55.879
And so if I remember from the news. 1140 is
343
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a rocky planet, right?
344
00:15:58.309 --> 00:16:00.389
Well, we're not sure. That's a good question. We're actually
345
00:16:00.429 --> 00:16:00.809
not sure.
346
00:16:01.230 --> 00:16:01.610
Oh, really?
347
00:16:01.629 --> 00:16:01.809
Yeah.
348
00:16:01.929 --> 00:16:04.269
So actually, it's probably almost certainly not rocky, to be
349
00:16:04.289 --> 00:16:04.750
honest with you.
350
00:16:04.789 --> 00:16:05.690
Really? Okay.
351
00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:07.769
It's about five and a half Earth masses.
352
00:16:08.129 --> 00:16:08.570
All right.
353
00:16:08.730 --> 00:16:11.850
But it's 1.7 Earth radii. Okay. So when you do
354
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the math, that gives you a density that is actually
355
00:16:14.590 --> 00:16:15.450
similar to that of the Earth.
356
00:16:15.490 --> 00:16:16.909
Sounds like it. Right.
357
00:16:16.929 --> 00:16:19.980
So that's why all the news was, rocky planet found.
358
00:16:20.039 --> 00:16:20.159
Right.
359
00:16:20.179 --> 00:16:21.539
So you might think that's rocky. But the problem with
360
00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:26.080
that is, is that that's... That's compressed density, right? There's 1.7
361
00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:28.820
Earth radii squeezing all that self-gravity. So if you kind
362
00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:31.100
of relaxed it, it means that the stuff that it's
363
00:16:31.139 --> 00:16:34.600
made of must be lighter than rock. It can't just
364
00:16:34.639 --> 00:16:35.279
be pure rock.
365
00:16:35.340 --> 00:16:37.919
It can't have squeezed in that way. Correct.
366
00:16:37.980 --> 00:16:41.299
So it's probably some rock and then something on top,
367
00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:44.419
like a big envelope of gas or maybe an ocean
368
00:16:44.500 --> 00:16:45.980
or something in between, like ice or something.
369
00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:50.659
So something's confounding those blunt calculations and confusing how to
370
00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:51.159
interpret them.
371
00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:53.070
I mean, it's a challenge because we have nothing in
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00:16:53.090 --> 00:16:55.289
the solar system to point at and say, oh, that's
373
00:16:55.370 --> 00:16:56.309
what it must look like.
374
00:16:56.330 --> 00:16:58.409
Again, there's a problem. There you go. Right. The solar
375
00:16:58.429 --> 00:16:59.529
system is not a thing.
376
00:16:59.590 --> 00:17:00.970
It's in between Earth and Neptune.
377
00:17:01.149 --> 00:17:01.549
It's okay.
378
00:17:01.590 --> 00:17:03.210
And we just don't really know what those things are.
379
00:17:03.220 --> 00:17:05.059
Does that nullify the inquiry here?
380
00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:08.619
No, it's at the right distance from its star, potentially
381
00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:12.519
for liquid water, if it has water. It's in the
382
00:17:12.539 --> 00:17:17.210
Goldilocks zone. And it's small, so it seems like it
383
00:17:17.250 --> 00:17:19.930
would be potentially possible that it could have had a
384
00:17:19.930 --> 00:17:23.690
water delivery. It's not a gas giant. So if it
385
00:17:23.779 --> 00:17:26.500
has life on it, which I think is possible, it's
386
00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:28.119
not an Earth-like planet. I want to be clear about that.
387
00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:30.299
It's not an Earth-like planet, but it could still have
388
00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:32.599
life nevertheless. And then maybe we could look for things
389
00:17:32.619 --> 00:17:36.140
like phytoplankton, like this dimethyl sulfide signature that we talked
390
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:38.690
about earlier. We could look for oxygen. You could look
391
00:17:38.710 --> 00:17:40.369
for methane. You could look for some of these gases.
392
00:17:40.789 --> 00:17:42.309
But then it kind of comes back to that original
393
00:17:42.329 --> 00:17:45.460
question of like, well, then how are you sure that
394
00:17:45.500 --> 00:17:48.319
if you see methane, that really is life? So that's
395
00:17:48.359 --> 00:17:49.440
just an unsolved question.
396
00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:51.839
So here's what I want to know. All right.
397
00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:54.539
Just has really nothing to do with this. Just because
398
00:17:54.579 --> 00:17:56.589
you said something that triggered me. All right.
399
00:17:57.089 --> 00:17:59.710
When Goldilocks zone, right? Yeah.
400
00:18:00.390 --> 00:18:03.650
The star that creates the Goldilocks zone. You said the
401
00:18:03.710 --> 00:18:08.990
right distance. Does that distance change on the size of
402
00:18:09.009 --> 00:18:12.779
the star and the age of the star and do
403
00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:17.819
stars burn cooler when they get older, increasing or decreasing
404
00:18:17.859 --> 00:18:19.099
the Goldilocks zone?
405
00:18:19.420 --> 00:18:21.200
Yes, yes, and no, is the short answer to those
406
00:18:21.220 --> 00:18:25.240
three questions. Wow, there you go. That was easy.
407
00:18:25.279 --> 00:18:29.700
Yeah, I wasn't tracking it to be that efficient in
408
00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:30.339
my reply.
409
00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:32.420
Yeah, we're done, next one. No, yeah, all stars, this
410
00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:34.309
is actually an M dwarf, so it's a small star.
411
00:18:34.329 --> 00:18:36.470
I'm not sure if it's exact mass, but it's less
412
00:18:36.490 --> 00:18:38.359
than half the mass of the sun. So that's why
413
00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:40.440
it has this red dim light. That's why it's in
414
00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:45.309
the LHS catalog because it's nearby, but it's not a
415
00:18:45.329 --> 00:18:47.109
visible star. It's not a naked eye star. You can't
416
00:18:47.170 --> 00:18:48.390
see it with a naked eye, so you have to
417
00:18:48.410 --> 00:18:52.809
take telescopes to detect it. But it is nearby. The star,
418
00:18:52.950 --> 00:18:56.519
because it's less luminous than the sun, means this Goldilocks
419
00:18:56.539 --> 00:18:59.359
zone is much closer. Much closer, right. And yeah, as
420
00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:00.519
it ages... And importantly.
421
00:19:01.250 --> 00:19:04.809
For these cooler stars, cooler, there's thousands of degrees, the
422
00:19:04.890 --> 00:19:08.730
Goldilocks zone is not only closer, it's narrower. Okay. Okay. Okay.
423
00:19:08.750 --> 00:19:11.660
So the hotter stars get bigger Goldilocks zones. Right. So
424
00:19:11.700 --> 00:19:15.539
these are, in the statistics of Goldilocks planets, this matters. Okay. Yeah,
425
00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:16.039
of course.
426
00:19:16.059 --> 00:19:16.299
Yeah.
427
00:19:16.339 --> 00:19:16.680
Okay.
428
00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:19.789
As it ages... the godlock zone will actually move out
429
00:19:19.930 --> 00:19:22.349
usually for main sequence stuff. So it should, as the
430
00:19:22.410 --> 00:19:26.049
sun is increasing luminosity, it was about 30% less luminous
431
00:19:26.210 --> 00:19:27.690
four billion years ago than it is today. I think
432
00:19:27.710 --> 00:19:29.650
that's roughly about right. So that means the godlock zone
433
00:19:29.690 --> 00:19:31.930
is moving out. We used to be on the outer
434
00:19:32.009 --> 00:19:34.210
edge of the godlock zone and now the earth is
435
00:19:34.250 --> 00:19:36.130
on the inner edge, which is why we're so sensitive
436
00:19:36.150 --> 00:19:38.750
to CO2, right? If it wasn't, if we were two
437
00:19:38.769 --> 00:19:40.670
billion years ago, we could have probably polluted a lot
438
00:19:40.710 --> 00:19:42.490
more and not worried about it. But because we're on
439
00:19:42.509 --> 00:19:44.009
the inner edge of the habitable zone now, we have
440
00:19:44.049 --> 00:19:45.210
to kind of worry about this a bit more.
441
00:19:45.470 --> 00:19:46.319
Yeah, a lot more.
442
00:19:46.700 --> 00:19:46.980
Yeah.
443
00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:49.569
Wow. We'll go back four billion years.
444
00:19:49.630 --> 00:19:49.849
Yeah.
445
00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:54.799
One. Yeah, let's go on. Here we go. This is
446
00:19:55.599 --> 00:20:07.490
Alejandro Guardado. He says, he says, hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice,
447
00:20:08.089 --> 00:20:14.420
and Dr. Kipping. Alejandro here from Washington State. Hello. Or
448
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:18.509
should I say, hola. That is not what's in there. No,
449
00:20:18.549 --> 00:20:27.160
it's not. Oh, God. Okay, he says this. Let me
450
00:20:27.180 --> 00:20:32.740
stop messing around. I'm sorry. I got to agree. That's
451
00:20:32.779 --> 00:20:36.180
what Alejandro should sound like. If he don't sound like that,
452
00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:37.549
he should take some lessons.
453
00:20:37.619 --> 00:20:41.210
I just see him sitting around drinking an espresso with
454
00:20:41.470 --> 00:20:42.430
Antonio Banderas.
455
00:20:42.450 --> 00:20:46.509
Yeah, exactly. That's who I'm asking. All right, here we go.
456
00:20:46.569 --> 00:20:47.329
This is what he says.
457
00:20:47.950 --> 00:20:51.240
My question is, in our search for life in the universe,
458
00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:53.980
why does it matter if aliens are intelligent?
459
00:20:54.779 --> 00:20:57.259
Should the search... for.
460
00:20:57.160 --> 00:21:01.799
Intelligent life be simplified to just life? Would this simplification
461
00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:04.380
lead to less fear in our society about aliens and
462
00:21:04.420 --> 00:21:06.519
lead to advances.
463
00:21:06.009 --> 00:21:10.789
In the search? Thank you for always keeping me curious. NASA,
464
00:21:11.130 --> 00:21:14.269
in the day, used to have interest in the search
465
00:21:14.289 --> 00:21:18.069
for life. Okay. Which included the search for intelligent life. Okay.
466
00:21:18.430 --> 00:21:20.589
And then it ended up in the sights of William
467
00:21:20.609 --> 00:21:24.490
Proxmire for the Golden Fleece Award, which was given to
468
00:21:24.589 --> 00:21:28.849
agencies who do research on public money for things that
469
00:21:28.890 --> 00:21:32.759
he judges is a waste of money. Golden fleece. Okay?
470
00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:36.180
And so NASA, in the search for intelligent life, he
471
00:21:36.220 --> 00:21:42.759
viewed that exercise as completely beyond the pale. And so NASA,
472
00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:47.200
in response, separated the search for life, which is of
473
00:21:47.259 --> 00:21:50.160
interest to everyone, biologists and everybody, from the search for
474
00:21:50.180 --> 00:21:55.220
intelligent life. And in that separation, they forfeited the search
475
00:21:55.240 --> 00:21:58.069
for intelligent life. And that was picked up by SETI. Right. Okay.
476
00:21:58.089 --> 00:22:01.269
So there's a whole SETI Institute, which is privately supported. Yes.
477
00:22:01.690 --> 00:22:05.250
And so kind of in response to this, They are
478
00:22:05.470 --> 00:22:10.670
two separately funded activities. Now, if someone on your exoplanet
479
00:22:10.710 --> 00:22:12.809
waves to you, you don't have any problem with that,
480
00:22:13.329 --> 00:22:15.230
but that's not what you're after. You're looking for any
481
00:22:15.269 --> 00:22:16.089
kind of life at all.
482
00:22:16.230 --> 00:22:18.609
I think, I mean, I would especially be interested in
483
00:22:19.089 --> 00:22:21.430
life that was technological. I try to avoid the word
484
00:22:21.470 --> 00:22:24.089
intelligent because we may not even have intelligent life here.
485
00:22:24.650 --> 00:22:29.029
But technological life, I think, is something we could look for.
486
00:22:29.069 --> 00:22:32.190
And it's pretty interesting if that's out there. It does
487
00:22:32.470 --> 00:22:35.039
answer a different question because it's one thing to say, okay,
488
00:22:35.059 --> 00:22:37.920
a planet has some kind of life, microbial life. But
489
00:22:38.019 --> 00:22:41.299
what if in the evolutionary chain that gets from there
490
00:22:41.339 --> 00:22:43.740
to something like us, there is what we call a
491
00:22:43.779 --> 00:22:47.579
great filter, some point, which is a bottleneck, which makes
492
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:50.549
it incredibly unlikely that the animals ever develop past a
493
00:22:50.589 --> 00:22:53.369
certain point or something. So if we discover technological life,
494
00:22:53.410 --> 00:22:55.589
then it would prove that, oh, there is no great filter.
495
00:22:55.630 --> 00:22:57.819
It's just a smooth track all the way. And it
496
00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:00.920
would make the so-called Fermi paradox even more puzzling.
497
00:23:01.180 --> 00:23:04.079
So what you're suggesting is just one other example would
498
00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:09.380
show that however narrow that bottleneck is, it's not so
499
00:23:09.460 --> 00:23:12.329
narrow it would have only produced one example of technology
500
00:23:12.349 --> 00:23:15.490
in the universe. Right. So if you have another example...
501
00:23:15.089 --> 00:23:16.670
One independent.
502
00:23:17.109 --> 00:23:20.910
example of either life or technology would be enough to say, look, hey,
503
00:23:20.930 --> 00:23:24.000
the universe has done it twice completely independently.
504
00:23:24.380 --> 00:23:26.299
And life has been on Earth for three and a
505
00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:29.259
half billion years. For two and a half of those
506
00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:31.779
billion Three and a half billion, it was just single-celled organism.
507
00:23:32.259 --> 00:23:35.660
So if you're throwing a dart at planets with life,
508
00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:38.099
and if Earth is any measure of that, you're probably
509
00:23:38.140 --> 00:23:42.339
going to hit a planet with microorganisms. Right. More likely
510
00:23:42.359 --> 00:23:47.230
to do that. That's some of the dart statistics on this. But, okay.
511
00:23:47.690 --> 00:23:52.529
And would one sign of technology be smog? Yeah.
512
00:23:53.210 --> 00:23:58.230
I mean, that'd be depressing, wouldn't it? I think the advantage,
513
00:23:58.319 --> 00:24:02.480
the beauty of a techno signature is that some of them,
514
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:06.720
not all of them, not smog, could be unambiguous. If
515
00:24:06.740 --> 00:24:09.380
you get, like in the film Contact, where Jodie Foster
516
00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:12.920
has the headphones on and gets the transmission and you
517
00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:15.529
can unpack it and there's this engineering plan of how
518
00:24:15.549 --> 00:24:19.009
to build a machine. There's no way that's random chance.
519
00:24:19.029 --> 00:24:23.680
Someone's engineered that. Whereas if we detect a gas, so
520
00:24:23.859 --> 00:24:27.259
that would be slam dunk. There's definitely aliens. If you
521
00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:31.160
detect dimethyl sulfide in an exoplanet atmosphere, people are going
522
00:24:31.180 --> 00:24:33.680
to argue about that for years and decades to come.
523
00:24:33.940 --> 00:24:35.660
So that's the advantage of technology.
524
00:24:35.700 --> 00:24:38.940
They're not going to argue over engineering. Exactly.
525
00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:45.240
Like if they send you IKEA directions, it's a done deal.
526
00:24:46.109 --> 00:24:48.529
How to put together your table. Right.
527
00:24:48.609 --> 00:24:50.829
And then at the end of the directions, it says,
528
00:24:51.230 --> 00:24:56.980
don't worry if there are pieces left over. Oh, wow.
529
00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:00.359
That's really cool. And I love that. Technical life. That's
530
00:25:00.380 --> 00:25:01.160
the way to go.
531
00:25:01.259 --> 00:25:02.099
All right. Here we go.
532
00:25:02.140 --> 00:25:05.940
Larry Chan says, I'm Larry Chan from NYC, and I'm
533
00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:10.059
a science fiction writer. Once humanity travels to other star systems,
534
00:25:10.339 --> 00:25:13.109
planets will most likely be named after the gods of
535
00:25:13.289 --> 00:25:14.130
ancient times.
536
00:25:14.190 --> 00:25:14.890
For example.
537
00:25:16.049 --> 00:25:22.509
Tirua and Cataquil were Native American gods. After the list
538
00:25:22.549 --> 00:25:26.500
of gods reaches its limit, how would we name exoplanets?
539
00:25:27.059 --> 00:25:33.599
I suggest naming them after characters of classical literature. For example, Ahab,
540
00:25:33.619 --> 00:25:39.490
the Mad Hatter. Tom Sawyer, Alice Liddell, et cetera.
541
00:25:39.509 --> 00:25:41.170
I love that. And there's no shortage of those. No,
542
00:25:41.190 --> 00:25:43.269
there isn't. Of those names. Right. You know, we had
543
00:25:43.289 --> 00:25:48.990
a similar challenge when asteroids were discovered. How many are there? Well,
544
00:25:49.009 --> 00:25:53.869
there's at least 10. All right. And they were initially named. Well,
545
00:25:54.230 --> 00:25:56.589
the first asteroids we thought were planets. So they're named
546
00:25:56.650 --> 00:25:59.490
after Roman gods, as are the other planets. And then
547
00:25:59.529 --> 00:26:03.400
we discovered there's some other category of object, but there
548
00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:09.619
was an urge to name them after feminized versions of people.
549
00:26:10.740 --> 00:26:14.500
So there's an asteroid not called Mozart, but Mozartia.
550
00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:15.599
Okay.
551
00:26:15.619 --> 00:26:17.559
So that was a little weird because it was the
552
00:26:17.799 --> 00:26:21.559
feminine would be the diminutive variant of a planet name. Gotcha. Okay,
553
00:26:21.579 --> 00:26:25.299
because they're asteroids, right? So then you quickly run out
554
00:26:25.339 --> 00:26:27.640
of names, although there's still a lot of names. I mean,
555
00:26:28.220 --> 00:26:30.349
there's a lot of names. People name after their pet.
556
00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:32.460
There's an asteroid Santa.
557
00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:33.309
Okay.
558
00:26:33.589 --> 00:26:35.410
People love observing that on New Year's Eve.
559
00:26:35.589 --> 00:26:35.750
Right.
560
00:26:35.849 --> 00:26:37.630
Okay. A friend of mine did that and he showed
561
00:26:37.650 --> 00:26:40.119
me the data. When you have... Nerd friends, that's the
562
00:26:40.140 --> 00:26:41.160
kind of stuff you do.
563
00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:44.380
I kind of think we should just call them GPS coordinates.
564
00:26:44.859 --> 00:26:47.069
You give me a number and then I know exactly
565
00:26:47.289 --> 00:26:49.430
where to go and look at it. Because if you
566
00:26:49.450 --> 00:26:51.950
gave me a name like go to Aurelius or something,
567
00:26:51.990 --> 00:26:54.579
I'm like, well, I don't know anything about that star
568
00:26:54.599 --> 00:26:56.740
just from that name. I'd like to get some information
569
00:26:56.779 --> 00:26:57.640
about the star.
570
00:26:57.900 --> 00:26:59.700
As you may know, the moons of Uranus that are
571
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:04.660
all named for... fictional characters in Shakespearean literature, of which
572
00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:08.299
there are plenty enough to get you going. So another thing,
573
00:27:08.519 --> 00:27:13.500
they wanted to name, largely successfully initially, all of the
574
00:27:13.759 --> 00:27:17.809
asteroids whose orbit cross Earth's orbit which puts us at risk.
575
00:27:18.490 --> 00:27:22.650
They're named after evil gods. That's awesome. Yes. Now that
576
00:27:22.710 --> 00:27:25.329
makes sense. Yeah. So one of them is Apophis. Right.
577
00:27:25.529 --> 00:27:29.559
The Egyptian god of death and darkness. And there are
578
00:27:29.579 --> 00:27:33.200
plenty of, you know, in the polytheistic realms, there's no
579
00:27:33.259 --> 00:27:36.859
shortage of these. Well, there is a shortage because there's
580
00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:40.509
hundreds of thousands of asteroids that'll do this. So that's
581
00:27:40.549 --> 00:27:40.910
the problem.
582
00:27:41.089 --> 00:27:43.569
But you go to literature, you've got Sauron.
583
00:27:43.630 --> 00:27:44.130
Sauron!
584
00:27:44.170 --> 00:27:45.930
That's what I'd be doing.
585
00:27:45.950 --> 00:27:50.819
Yeah, I love that. Well, hey, hey, there you go. Yeah,
586
00:27:50.839 --> 00:27:54.210
but I think David is right. At some point, The
587
00:27:54.269 --> 00:27:56.440
coordinate on the sky uniquely identifies it.
588
00:27:56.710 --> 00:27:56.890
Right.
589
00:27:57.289 --> 00:27:59.450
And you know what we can do? Were you an
590
00:27:59.509 --> 00:28:00.410
amateur astronomer at all?
591
00:28:00.869 --> 00:28:03.250
As a kid, not at a high level.
592
00:28:03.549 --> 00:28:05.750
Yeah, yeah. I was a pretty high level amateur astronomer.
593
00:28:05.789 --> 00:28:10.900
So there are a lot of objects discovered by an
594
00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:15.799
amateur would later get a catalog designation. But then you
595
00:28:15.819 --> 00:28:16.720
would carry both names.
596
00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:17.500
Right.
597
00:28:17.559 --> 00:28:19.259
I was going to say, you have the coordinate as
598
00:28:19.299 --> 00:28:21.690
the name and then in parentheses underneath.
599
00:28:21.710 --> 00:28:24.210
Or in quotes. Or quotes. There's Tabby Star.
600
00:28:24.349 --> 00:28:24.509
Yeah.
601
00:28:24.589 --> 00:28:24.809
Right.
602
00:28:24.829 --> 00:28:27.690
There's Barnard Star. Right. Barnard Star is another one of
603
00:28:27.710 --> 00:28:28.650
these stars that's nearby.
604
00:28:28.670 --> 00:28:28.779
Right.
605
00:28:29.279 --> 00:28:31.619
And Barnard first studied it, but it's got a catalog name.
606
00:28:31.960 --> 00:28:33.480
So I think that's how you do it. If there's
607
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:36.059
a reason to have a name because of its properties
608
00:28:36.099 --> 00:28:38.500
or because of who discovered it, you do it, but
609
00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:41.359
you still need the unambiguous identifier. Okay.
610
00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:41.740
Yeah.
611
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:42.700
All right. All right.
612
00:28:42.940 --> 00:28:45.329
Hey, well, thanks a lot there, Larry. That was a
613
00:28:45.349 --> 00:28:48.529
good question. Okay, let's go to Mary Rose. Mary Rose says,
614
00:28:48.769 --> 00:28:52.849
hello to all at StarTalk. This question is coming to
615
00:28:52.910 --> 00:28:57.519
you from the tiny island of Malta in the Mediterranean.
616
00:28:57.539 --> 00:28:58.480
I want to be there.
617
00:28:58.559 --> 00:28:58.859
Yes.
618
00:28:58.940 --> 00:29:03.339
Invite us. What's your name again? Mary Rose. Mary, invite
619
00:29:03.380 --> 00:29:03.700
us all.
620
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:07.400
Yes, we'll be right there. Hope you got room for
621
00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:10.789
a sleepover. Okay, she says, David.
622
00:29:11.660 --> 00:29:14.160
What has been the most surprising find for you so
623
00:29:14.200 --> 00:29:17.380
far in the study of exoplanets? Thank you, Mary Rose.
624
00:29:17.480 --> 00:29:18.299
I love that.
625
00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:22.200
Yeah, that's a great question. There are many things that
626
00:29:22.220 --> 00:29:25.759
we've discovered which blew our minds. I think what we
627
00:29:25.799 --> 00:29:28.220
kind of expected, I mean, this is a little bit
628
00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:30.509
before my time, is that we'd find other solar systems
629
00:29:30.529 --> 00:29:31.970
which looked like our solar system.
630
00:29:31.990 --> 00:29:32.230
Right.
631
00:29:32.369 --> 00:29:34.109
This is the template, everything would look the same.
632
00:29:34.130 --> 00:29:34.549
Of course.
633
00:29:34.569 --> 00:29:35.549
And I think the greatest.
634
00:29:35.589 --> 00:29:36.250
Oh, the hubris.
635
00:29:36.589 --> 00:29:36.869
Yeah.
636
00:29:37.769 --> 00:29:39.349
We are the default.
637
00:29:39.509 --> 00:29:39.769
Mm-hmm.
638
00:29:40.190 --> 00:29:42.150
Out we're actually kind of weird. And most solar systems
639
00:29:42.210 --> 00:29:45.130
look very different. So I think it's a very vague answer,
640
00:29:45.170 --> 00:29:48.380
but to give some examples, mini Neptunes, which we talked
641
00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:52.980
about with this LHS 1140, that's the most common type
642
00:29:53.019 --> 00:29:55.259
of planet. In the universe.
643
00:29:55.559 --> 00:29:55.839
What?
644
00:29:56.259 --> 00:29:57.380
And we do not have one.
645
00:29:57.460 --> 00:29:58.940
And we don't have one. We don't have one of those.
646
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:00.069
That ain't right. That ain't right.
647
00:30:00.200 --> 00:30:00.380
Yeah.
648
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:02.089
That's weird. That ain't right.
649
00:30:02.109 --> 00:30:03.170
That's kind of strange.
650
00:30:03.210 --> 00:30:05.950
How many is a mini Neptune? It's in between about-
651
00:30:05.970 --> 00:30:07.880
What fraction of Neptune's mass would that be?
652
00:30:08.690 --> 00:30:11.299
Well, it's in between about two and four times the
653
00:30:11.319 --> 00:30:13.779
size of the Earth, so that's about half the size
654
00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:14.160
of Neptune.
655
00:30:14.180 --> 00:30:17.059
Yeah, so super Earths. Yeah. Oh, super Earth. Is super Earth,
656
00:30:17.099 --> 00:30:18.720
is that the same as a mini Neptune? We don't know.
657
00:30:18.740 --> 00:30:21.160
The other thing, because people argue about the name. Some say,
658
00:30:21.319 --> 00:30:22.359
you can't call it super Earth.
659
00:30:22.380 --> 00:30:22.700
We don't know.
660
00:30:22.740 --> 00:30:23.380
It's rocky.
661
00:30:23.660 --> 00:30:24.940
You shouldn't call it mini Neptune. David, I didn't write
662
00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:25.880
you on a show for you to say that you
663
00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:27.779
don't know. You're the expert here.
664
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:28.440
We don't know.
665
00:30:29.809 --> 00:30:31.869
That's how you know he's good. That's right. There it is.
666
00:30:31.890 --> 00:30:32.250
That's it.
667
00:30:32.390 --> 00:30:37.009
But I think that diversity- is surprising they're circumbinary planets
668
00:30:37.029 --> 00:30:39.210
you know like the Tatooine like you heard in Star
669
00:30:39.230 --> 00:30:41.470
Wars like George Lucas imagined that and everyone just thought
670
00:30:41.490 --> 00:30:43.619
he was crazy but we now know that that's a
671
00:30:43.710 --> 00:30:44.480
very common.
672
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:46.700
Thing do you think he really knew or did he
673
00:30:46.740 --> 00:30:48.079
just think it was cool no.
674
00:30:48.359 --> 00:30:53.259
No no but I do it's the only science in
675
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:56.980
Star Wars That's as good as it gets. Oh, my God.
676
00:30:57.059 --> 00:31:01.369
It's downhill from there. It is downhill. Oh, that's just awful.
677
00:31:01.390 --> 00:31:07.250
It is totally downhill from there. That only worked because
678
00:31:07.769 --> 00:31:11.730
of the distance to the planet relative to the distance
679
00:31:11.769 --> 00:31:15.950
between the stars. So that the planet sees two stars.
680
00:31:16.130 --> 00:31:19.079
That's the double sunset. The famous scene, the double sunset.
681
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:22.059
Those have to be so close together that the planet
682
00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:25.910
thinks they're one source of gravity. Because if they were
683
00:31:26.170 --> 00:31:29.849
more separated and the planet is trying to figure out
684
00:31:30.309 --> 00:31:33.990
where to go, how to orbit, you get a chaotic trajectory.
685
00:31:34.109 --> 00:31:36.079
That's the three-body thing, right? It's a three-body problem. That's
686
00:31:36.099 --> 00:31:38.420
a three-body problem. You lose the stability, either falls into
687
00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:40.579
one of the planets or escapes. So that one was
688
00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:45.619
correctly shown with the two stars coming. together and we
689
00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:48.900
can judge what that distance that planet was. So you
690
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:50.569
can create stable orbits that way. So that's the only
691
00:31:50.589 --> 00:31:51.769
way that works. So that's good science.
692
00:31:52.069 --> 00:31:54.250
And just to add, we call that a P-type orbit.
693
00:31:54.609 --> 00:31:56.910
Because you can have a binary star where they're close together,
694
00:31:57.130 --> 00:31:59.799
like Tatooine, that goes around the two close together on
695
00:31:59.819 --> 00:32:02.710
the outside. That's a P-type orbit, planet type. Or you
696
00:32:02.730 --> 00:32:05.130
can have the binary stars widely separated and the planet
697
00:32:05.150 --> 00:32:05.809
goes round and round.
698
00:32:05.970 --> 00:32:08.730
Oh, that's also a stable orbit. That's an S-type. What
699
00:32:08.789 --> 00:32:09.609
does the S stand for?
700
00:32:09.970 --> 00:32:10.369
Satellite.
701
00:32:10.630 --> 00:32:13.710
Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right. That's very cool. But then
702
00:32:13.730 --> 00:32:16.519
you don't get two sunsets. No. That was cool. Okay.
703
00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:20.059
So here's what I want to know. I read that
704
00:32:20.119 --> 00:32:23.299
one of the most common things that we never consider
705
00:32:23.500 --> 00:32:26.670
with planets is are rogue planets that in the formation
706
00:32:26.690 --> 00:32:29.829
of solar systems, so many planets are flung out of
707
00:32:29.849 --> 00:32:32.470
the solar system so stable orbits can be achieved by
708
00:32:32.509 --> 00:32:33.410
the rest of the planets, right?
709
00:32:33.430 --> 00:32:34.349
Yeah, they just got out of dodge.
710
00:32:34.390 --> 00:32:35.470
Just get out of here.
711
00:32:35.549 --> 00:32:39.859
So how common would it be if we were able
712
00:32:39.930 --> 00:32:44.059
to see them? Would we just see planets wandering around
713
00:32:44.900 --> 00:32:47.180
Like they lost from the home.
714
00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:52.740
Homeless planets. They were homeless, and then they became rogue planets. Oh, well,
715
00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:54.200
that sounds a lot more badass. It's a little bit
716
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:58.960
more badass. Only none of y'all. So, David, the numbers
717
00:32:59.019 --> 00:33:01.680
I remember are that our solar system might have started
718
00:33:01.700 --> 00:33:04.430
with as many as 30 planets, coming down to the
719
00:33:04.650 --> 00:33:08.289
eight that we now have. So that tells us that
720
00:33:08.349 --> 00:33:10.549
maybe there are more rogue planets around. than there are
721
00:33:10.569 --> 00:33:11.589
planets with homes.
722
00:33:11.869 --> 00:33:15.029
Right. Yeah, this is a really hot area in astrophysics
723
00:33:15.069 --> 00:33:18.630
right now, rogue planets. So you could get a PhD
724
00:33:18.670 --> 00:33:20.230
right now doing this. It's a hot topic.
725
00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:20.950
Right on.
726
00:33:21.079 --> 00:33:23.900
But you're right. It's thought the solar system had more planets.
727
00:33:23.940 --> 00:33:26.950
Some of them merged together. It's really thought there was
728
00:33:26.970 --> 00:33:29.529
a fifth giant planet. There's a lot of evidence for that.
729
00:33:29.609 --> 00:33:32.960
It's actually really difficult to keep Neptune stable unless there
730
00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:36.779
was another Neptune-like planet in the solar system in the past.
731
00:33:36.839 --> 00:33:40.519
So it's not canonical, but it's widely accepted that it's
732
00:33:40.599 --> 00:33:42.420
likely true there was a fifth giant planet in the
733
00:33:42.460 --> 00:33:45.509
solar system in the past that got ejected out into space.
734
00:33:45.569 --> 00:33:47.650
And that's how you keep the outer solar system stable.
735
00:33:48.069 --> 00:33:49.630
So there should be a ton of those. And the
736
00:33:49.710 --> 00:33:54.119
Roman Space Telescope, which is coming up, It's going to
737
00:33:54.380 --> 00:33:58.720
be the perfect machine using microlensing to detect a whole
738
00:33:58.839 --> 00:34:01.019
host of those. So we're expecting thousands of those to
739
00:34:01.059 --> 00:34:01.460
be found.
740
00:34:01.559 --> 00:34:03.759
Wow. So this is where you have a star in
741
00:34:03.779 --> 00:34:05.809
the background. Ideally, it's a dense star field like the
742
00:34:05.849 --> 00:34:08.210
center of the galaxy. Of course. And you just watch
743
00:34:08.309 --> 00:34:13.309
for any starlight that gets brighter. It's not an eclipse, okay?
744
00:34:13.710 --> 00:34:16.820
It gets brighter. Why? Because the light going on either
745
00:34:16.969 --> 00:34:19.920
side of the planet, you can't see the rogue planet,
746
00:34:19.940 --> 00:34:22.360
of course, because nothing's illuminating it. It's in the middle
747
00:34:22.380 --> 00:34:23.239
of frickin' nowhere.
748
00:34:23.260 --> 00:34:23.500
Right.
749
00:34:23.539 --> 00:34:26.230
And there's a planet behind it. Pathways of that star's
750
00:34:26.269 --> 00:34:31.730
light going around the planet come back and join magnifying
751
00:34:31.750 --> 00:34:34.849
light the brightness of the star itself. Because a sight
752
00:34:34.889 --> 00:34:36.969
line would have gone and missed you. This light line
753
00:34:36.989 --> 00:34:39.269
would have missed you. They get bent into your view,
754
00:34:39.769 --> 00:34:41.829
adding to the brightness of the object. It's gravitational lensing.
755
00:34:41.849 --> 00:34:44.849
So it's gravitational lensing for rogue planets. But it's only
756
00:34:44.889 --> 00:34:48.159
a tiny amount, and that's why we call it micro lensing. Yes, yeah, yeah.
757
00:34:48.360 --> 00:34:52.159
There's enough of a variation in the travel of the
758
00:34:52.260 --> 00:34:54.239
light for you to determine that?
759
00:34:54.820 --> 00:34:56.420
You mean in terms of the magnification?
760
00:34:56.440 --> 00:34:57.760
The magnification, yeah.
761
00:34:57.840 --> 00:34:59.800
It's very small, but Roman's a very precise telescope.
762
00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:00.420
Holy crap.
763
00:35:00.440 --> 00:35:02.449
The real trick is that these are very rare events,
764
00:35:02.989 --> 00:35:05.769
so you'd have to observe millions and millions, even billions
765
00:35:05.789 --> 00:35:09.409
of stars simultaneously to have a chance of detecting one
766
00:35:09.750 --> 00:35:11.250
per day or so, right? And that's kind of the
767
00:35:11.289 --> 00:35:12.079
rate they want to get to.
768
00:35:12.090 --> 00:35:12.750
One per day, yeah.
769
00:35:12.909 --> 00:35:14.659
That's the power of Roman. I mean, you probably know
770
00:35:14.679 --> 00:35:16.159
the numbers better than I do, but the field of
771
00:35:16.199 --> 00:35:18.679
view is like 10 times Hubble or something, or 20
772
00:35:18.679 --> 00:35:19.400
times Hubble.
773
00:35:19.639 --> 00:35:21.440
That can boost your statistics.
774
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:21.599
Yeah.
775
00:35:22.159 --> 00:35:23.900
If the star gets brighter and dimmer, how do we
776
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:25.420
know it's not the star doing that?
777
00:35:25.599 --> 00:35:28.780
Because usually the star repeats that. Whereas a microlensing event
778
00:35:28.880 --> 00:35:33.099
is singular in time. Plus it has an exact profile. Oh,
779
00:35:33.139 --> 00:35:35.699
it would be singular because the planet is on the move.
780
00:35:35.739 --> 00:35:37.280
The planet's on the move. It's on the move. It's
781
00:35:37.409 --> 00:35:41.429
on the move. Oh, crap. And the profile of the
782
00:35:41.489 --> 00:35:44.449
brightness and the dimming is you know that in advance
783
00:35:44.769 --> 00:35:47.530
because of Einstein's general relativity. So let me ask you, David.
784
00:35:47.570 --> 00:35:52.150
That's wild. David, Earth... retains some of its heat of formation,
785
00:35:53.050 --> 00:35:57.510
and it's got heat from radioactive decay within the crust.
786
00:35:57.849 --> 00:36:00.489
If Earth left the solar system, there would still be
787
00:36:00.530 --> 00:36:03.840
a source of energy within it. Some life would not
788
00:36:03.880 --> 00:36:07.320
care that we no longer have the sun to sustain it.
789
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:12.739
How many of these rogue planets still have energy within them?
790
00:36:13.219 --> 00:36:16.179
and therefore might still have life, making no reference to
791
00:36:16.219 --> 00:36:18.780
the sun, because life in the bottom of the ocean,
792
00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:21.320
never seen the sun ever. Anyway, they're all blind.
793
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:23.860
It's possible. I mean, people have speculated about that recently.
794
00:36:25.030 --> 00:36:27.489
If you have moons, it's even better, right? Because moons
795
00:36:27.530 --> 00:36:29.210
can have tidal heating. Think about Io.
796
00:36:29.369 --> 00:36:29.690
Right.
797
00:36:30.130 --> 00:36:34.329
Io is a volcanic world. Lots of energy there. Europa
798
00:36:34.329 --> 00:36:35.030
2 probably has.
799
00:36:34.949 --> 00:36:35.289
A liquid ocean.
800
00:36:35.309 --> 00:36:38.010
And by tidal heating, you mean like a subtle stretching
801
00:36:38.070 --> 00:36:39.409
and contracting of the.
802
00:36:39.710 --> 00:36:43.219
Yeah, so as multiple moons interact with each other, it
803
00:36:43.300 --> 00:36:45.809
causes sometimes the moons to plunge a little bit deeper
804
00:36:45.849 --> 00:36:48.849
into Jupiter's gravitational field, sometimes a little bit further out.
805
00:36:49.139 --> 00:36:50.400
And so it's like a squash ball. It kind of
806
00:36:50.420 --> 00:36:53.119
gets stretched and squeezed like a piece of dough. So
807
00:36:53.460 --> 00:36:55.539
that's probably what happened to these moons. And so you
808
00:36:55.559 --> 00:37:01.059
could have, for billions of years, life just thriving in
809
00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:02.039
between the stars.
810
00:37:02.099 --> 00:37:05.239
That is dope. Yes, totally dope. That is unbelievable, man. Well,
811
00:37:05.260 --> 00:37:07.889
it's totally believable. That's what makes it dope. Wow. Yeah.
812
00:37:07.949 --> 00:37:10.550
And in fact, look at the bias thrust upon us
813
00:37:10.630 --> 00:37:13.329
by biologists. Right. Saying the sun is the source of
814
00:37:13.409 --> 00:37:14.690
all life in the world.
815
00:37:15.230 --> 00:37:15.670
It's crazy.
816
00:37:16.090 --> 00:37:18.599
The source of most life, but there's life doing the
817
00:37:18.639 --> 00:37:21.300
backstroke at the bottom of the ocean thriving off of
818
00:37:21.320 --> 00:37:24.900
geothermal energy. And so it's not that life needs the sun,
819
00:37:25.099 --> 00:37:27.679
it's that life needs energy. And if you find a
820
00:37:27.699 --> 00:37:28.989
way to get the energy, that's why we're looking for
821
00:37:29.010 --> 00:37:37.369
life on Europa, another tidally heated moon of Jupiter. Right. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Wow,
822
00:37:37.389 --> 00:37:40.599
that's so cool, man. So what's the difference between Europa
823
00:37:40.739 --> 00:37:42.780
and Io in their tidal heating?
824
00:37:43.559 --> 00:37:44.519
In terms of the amount of energy?
825
00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:44.739
Yeah.
826
00:37:44.940 --> 00:37:46.960
Well, Io is on the inside. It's close to Jupiter,
827
00:37:46.980 --> 00:37:48.500
so it gets the real brunt of it.
828
00:37:48.539 --> 00:37:49.139
There you go.
829
00:37:49.219 --> 00:37:52.199
Europe is, I think, number two, right? So it still
830
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:53.480
gets heated, but not as much as Io.
831
00:37:53.619 --> 00:37:58.400
Okay. But Io is so significant that there's volcanoes on it. Yes. Yeah. Right.
832
00:37:58.500 --> 00:37:59.579
It's liquefied the rocks.
833
00:37:59.599 --> 00:38:01.719
Oh, you can see it coming out into space right
834
00:38:01.739 --> 00:38:02.619
from Io. It's crazy.
835
00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:04.409
Yeah. It's cool. Pop quiz.
836
00:38:04.909 --> 00:38:07.969
How many miles above the Earth's surface does the International
837
00:38:08.030 --> 00:38:09.969
Space Station typically orbit?
838
00:38:10.900 --> 00:38:11.559
That's right.
839
00:38:12.260 --> 00:38:16.260
It's about 250, which also happens to be the number
840
00:38:16.280 --> 00:38:19.949
of reasons to choose T-Mobile. Here's an excellent reason. They
841
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842
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843
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It sounds like a no-brainer. Another great reason? It's fast
844
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and easy to set up too. Plug it in and
845
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:38.659
you're online in virtually no time, with no appointment, no
846
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847
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Those are just a few reasons.
848
00:38:41.699 --> 00:38:46.039
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849
00:38:46.099 --> 00:38:49.880
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850
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within 30 days of cancellation.
854
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:06.880
All right, this is Peter Jacobs, and Peter Jacobs says,
855
00:39:07.420 --> 00:39:12.610
G'day to David, Neil, and the applaudable, laudable, audible, oh
856
00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:14.469
my lordy, lordy, lord nice.
857
00:39:14.690 --> 00:39:15.409
What? Yeah.
858
00:39:15.949 --> 00:39:22.289
Peter Jacobs here from Mooloolaba.
859
00:39:20.050 --> 00:39:24.349
In sunny Queensland, Australia. Okay. I'd like to get me
860
00:39:24.369 --> 00:39:29.130
some dimmies. Okay. All right. He says, thinking of the
861
00:39:29.289 --> 00:39:32.510
Fermi pad. quite the intro to this. Did you make
862
00:39:32.530 --> 00:39:34.159
that up or did you write that? No, this is written.
863
00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:34.900
I don't know sometimes.
864
00:39:34.920 --> 00:39:37.420
I was just doing a terrible Australian accent.
865
00:39:37.460 --> 00:39:39.539
That's all I added to that. Sometimes I don't know
866
00:39:39.559 --> 00:39:42.320
what it is. No, I'm ready to break them. Okay. Okay.
867
00:39:42.340 --> 00:39:42.940
Go on. Okay.
868
00:39:43.239 --> 00:39:46.820
He says, thinking of the Fermi paradox, how close can
869
00:39:46.860 --> 00:39:52.639
we get to Sag A before ambient radiation from surrounding
870
00:39:52.699 --> 00:39:56.559
stars would make life impossible? And would pulsars, quasars and
871
00:39:56.599 --> 00:40:00.320
colliding black holes sterilize their galaxies?
872
00:40:00.619 --> 00:40:04.829
Oh, wow. So the amount of radiation coming out of
873
00:40:04.889 --> 00:40:08.130
a pulsar or pulsar. A collision. Sagittarius A is the
874
00:40:08.449 --> 00:40:10.590
supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy. Right.
875
00:40:10.789 --> 00:40:15.010
And it is a rockin', rockin', sockin' place. Yeah. And
876
00:40:15.050 --> 00:40:17.719
other galaxies, it's even more severe than ours in terms
877
00:40:17.780 --> 00:40:20.760
of just the flux of high energy radiation. So do
878
00:40:20.960 --> 00:40:25.079
you guys think about- That's wild. Let's soften this just
879
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:27.199
a little bit. Okay. Some stars give off a lot
880
00:40:27.219 --> 00:40:31.530
of UV radiation. Like the blue stars, the bluer stars.
881
00:40:31.769 --> 00:40:34.809
And UV is hostile to life. So are you thinking
882
00:40:34.849 --> 00:40:40.280
about life on planets that orbit high mass, high temperature stars? Yeah.
883
00:40:40.679 --> 00:40:42.860
But it's a great question. And I think it touched
884
00:40:42.900 --> 00:40:46.179
on an idea called the galactic habitable zone. So you
885
00:40:46.219 --> 00:40:48.309
can have a habitable zone around a star. but there
886
00:40:48.329 --> 00:40:50.690
might also be a haptozone in our own galaxy.
887
00:40:50.710 --> 00:40:53.639
Okay, and that would be a radiation problem for you
888
00:40:53.800 --> 00:40:55.440
if you're a little too close to the center.
889
00:40:55.739 --> 00:40:59.920
Not necessarily just radiation. It could be metallicity, the metallicity
890
00:40:59.980 --> 00:41:00.800
of the galaxy changes.
891
00:41:00.820 --> 00:41:02.019
I don't know what metallicity is. It's jargon.
892
00:41:02.039 --> 00:41:06.650
He's now got to explain the jargon. So it's the
893
00:41:06.710 --> 00:41:10.469
heavy atomic elements. Basically, in astronomy, anything heavier than hydrogen
894
00:41:10.489 --> 00:41:11.929
and helium, the two things that came out of the
895
00:41:11.949 --> 00:41:14.489
Big Bang, are a metal. And that's what you're made
896
00:41:14.530 --> 00:41:15.010
out of primarily.
897
00:41:15.030 --> 00:41:18.090
Chemists hate that. Because we call everything metals. Is it
898
00:41:18.130 --> 00:41:18.650
metal rich?
899
00:41:18.710 --> 00:41:18.969
Yeah.
900
00:41:19.190 --> 00:41:23.929
If it has carbon, it's considered a metal. And chemists
901
00:41:23.949 --> 00:41:24.329
hate that.
902
00:41:24.389 --> 00:41:28.570
So the whole universe is one big headbanger's ball.
903
00:41:29.070 --> 00:41:32.550
A metal man! Okay, so you have the radiation in
904
00:41:32.570 --> 00:41:35.760
the center, and you need enough heavy elements.
905
00:41:36.340 --> 00:41:37.000
To make planets?
906
00:41:37.019 --> 00:41:38.880
To make planets and people. Yeah.
907
00:41:39.039 --> 00:41:41.440
And you need, I mean, when you really look around
908
00:41:41.480 --> 00:41:45.050
Sagittarius A star, you've seen some of these animations they've
909
00:41:45.090 --> 00:41:48.039
reconstructed of the star paths. they're on top of each other.
910
00:41:48.059 --> 00:41:50.340
So planets wouldn't even be stable.
911
00:41:50.420 --> 00:41:50.860
Yeah, okay.
912
00:41:50.880 --> 00:41:52.880
These stars... Yeah, there's.
913
00:41:52.320 --> 00:41:55.960
Like these loop orbits and it's what won the Nobel Prize. Right.
914
00:41:56.039 --> 00:41:59.079
That the observations confirming the black hole in the center
915
00:41:59.099 --> 00:42:02.349
of the galaxy by tracking these orbits shared the Nobel
916
00:42:02.389 --> 00:42:06.510
Prize with our guy, our physics guy, Roger Penrose, who
917
00:42:06.610 --> 00:42:10.130
showed early the mathematical rigor of why you would get
918
00:42:10.170 --> 00:42:12.090
a black hole in the first place. Interesting. A perfect
919
00:42:12.110 --> 00:42:16.079
combination of theory and observation there. So there's other parameters. So.
920
00:42:16.760 --> 00:42:20.400
So you've got to form a planet. With the right ingredients. Yeah,
921
00:42:20.420 --> 00:42:22.920
you've got to have a stable orbit around those planets.
922
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:25.659
And then the radiation environment has to not sterilize you.
923
00:42:26.039 --> 00:42:28.639
And obviously, if there's lots of stars around... and say
924
00:42:28.860 --> 00:42:31.690
one in a thousand stars go supernova, then the chances
925
00:42:31.769 --> 00:42:34.250
are if you're in a busy neighborhood, if you're in Manhattan,
926
00:42:35.050 --> 00:42:36.650
you're likely to have one of these guys go.
927
00:42:36.590 --> 00:42:38.090
Off at you. So you don't even want to be
928
00:42:38.110 --> 00:42:41.489
around another star that blows up. Yeah, okay, yeah, cool.
929
00:42:41.510 --> 00:42:44.010
That's funny because I read that one of the reasons
930
00:42:44.710 --> 00:42:48.300
for life here is the fact that we're in a
931
00:42:48.460 --> 00:42:50.880
suburb of the Milky Way galaxy.
932
00:42:50.900 --> 00:42:52.019
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's true.
933
00:42:52.059 --> 00:42:54.579
And we also don't, you know, our orbit is more
934
00:42:54.599 --> 00:42:57.019
or less circular. It doesn't like have an eccentric, but
935
00:42:57.039 --> 00:42:58.599
we plunge towards the center.
936
00:42:58.409 --> 00:42:59.150
And come back out.
937
00:42:59.250 --> 00:43:01.110
So we're in a nice neighborhood.
938
00:43:01.130 --> 00:43:06.440
We're about two thirds of the way up.
939
00:43:06.769 --> 00:43:07.929
We don't have to commute into the city.
940
00:43:07.969 --> 00:43:16.909
We've been redlined from early on. We're in the Carroll Gardens.
941
00:43:17.829 --> 00:43:22.690
Milky Way. So we're about two-thirds of the way out.
942
00:43:23.090 --> 00:43:26.110
And I hadn't appreciated, yes, we're in a basically circular orbit.
943
00:43:26.630 --> 00:43:31.840
So we don't risk changing neighborhoods and surviving the consequences
944
00:43:31.860 --> 00:43:36.119
of it. And one full orbit is a couple hundred
945
00:43:36.159 --> 00:43:40.260
million years. So that's at our distance. Plenty of time. Well, no,
946
00:43:40.280 --> 00:43:45.900
but evolutionarily, that works for us. That's pretty stable. Yeah. Gotcha.
947
00:43:45.940 --> 00:43:49.739
All right. Wow, that's all cool stuff, man. Damn. Yeah,
948
00:43:49.780 --> 00:43:53.659
you do some cool stuff, man. I think it's called
949
00:43:53.780 --> 00:43:58.030
the cool laboratory. Oh, that's right. Cool laboratory. All right.
950
00:43:58.150 --> 00:44:01.610
There we go. This is Mike Landers. He says, hi, Dr. Tyson, Dr. Kipping,
951
00:44:01.650 --> 00:44:06.210
Lord Nice. This question comes from San Francisco. If we
952
00:44:06.280 --> 00:44:10.820
eventually detect an unambiguous technosignature or biosignature, do you think
953
00:44:10.900 --> 00:44:13.619
it might belong to a civilization that is already extinct
954
00:44:13.659 --> 00:44:16.269
by the time the signal reaches us, making our first
955
00:44:16.309 --> 00:44:19.869
contact essentially... An archeological dig.
956
00:44:19.889 --> 00:44:23.110
Oh, I like that. So how far away are your stars?
957
00:44:23.349 --> 00:44:27.719
For SETI, for technosignatures, we can search across huge spans
958
00:44:27.760 --> 00:44:30.760
of the galaxy. I mean, you can span tens of thousands,
959
00:44:31.079 --> 00:44:32.880
even 100,000 light years in some extreme cases.
960
00:44:32.900 --> 00:44:35.920
So they could easily have gone extinct. But your stars,
961
00:44:36.219 --> 00:44:38.550
your cool stars, those are not that far away.
962
00:44:38.570 --> 00:44:41.409
For biosignatures, it's things that James Webb were observing and
963
00:44:41.550 --> 00:44:45.579
trying to get signs of atmospheres. Those are nearby. So
964
00:44:45.699 --> 00:44:48.539
those are tens, 20 light year, 30 light years away.
965
00:44:48.619 --> 00:44:52.550
Okay. So if presumably civilization takes so much longer than
966
00:44:52.550 --> 00:44:55.650
30 years to establish that a 30 year delay is
967
00:44:56.230 --> 00:44:59.050
not some major. It's not prohibitive of you.
968
00:44:59.070 --> 00:45:02.289
But the technosignature doesn't have to be like an active beacon.
969
00:45:02.369 --> 00:45:04.650
It could be one of the coolest ideas I've ever
970
00:45:04.690 --> 00:45:07.889
heard for a technosignature is the idea of putting shades
971
00:45:08.130 --> 00:45:11.190
in space that orbit the sun and they would be
972
00:45:11.309 --> 00:45:14.570
artificial transits. So like put a giant triangle. space, like
973
00:45:14.590 --> 00:45:17.969
a sheet of aluminum. And as it transits the sun,
974
00:45:17.989 --> 00:45:21.329
it would create a very strange eclipse to alien observers.
975
00:45:21.349 --> 00:45:23.690
They'd be like, hold on, someone's put a triangle around
976
00:45:23.710 --> 00:45:24.989
that thing. That doesn't occur in nature.
977
00:45:25.179 --> 00:45:27.639
That's a space Dorito. Exactly.
978
00:45:27.719 --> 00:45:30.260
You'd be like, that's weird. That shouldn't be there. And
979
00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:33.699
that thing would be stable for millions, billions of years
980
00:45:33.900 --> 00:45:37.280
long after we're gone. So we could leave a relic
981
00:45:37.679 --> 00:45:41.260
that would Betray our presence. And you could even have
982
00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:43.199
interesting signals there. These are the Easter Island heads.
983
00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:47.880
Oh. Yeah. The civilization left them there. Right. And it's
984
00:45:47.900 --> 00:45:52.119
been argued that you come upon the island and they're
985
00:45:52.139 --> 00:45:55.840
looking at you still. Right. Yeah. If you leave some
986
00:45:56.260 --> 00:45:59.480
purposeful relic. A monument. A monument. That's the word.
987
00:45:59.500 --> 00:46:03.639
The pyramids are a communication from another civilization to us
988
00:46:03.889 --> 00:46:07.519
through time. Mm-hmm. And we too have the opportunity with
989
00:46:07.559 --> 00:46:12.349
a time capsule of some kind to communicate to future civilizations,
990
00:46:12.429 --> 00:46:15.409
perhaps even future, I think the most likely contact.
991
00:46:15.670 --> 00:46:18.369
He's not saying the pyramids were left by aliens. No.
992
00:46:18.389 --> 00:46:19.250
I just want to.
993
00:46:19.469 --> 00:46:21.250
A human civilization.
994
00:46:21.269 --> 00:46:26.300
Left by basically an extinct human civilization. Ancient Egypt is
995
00:46:26.340 --> 00:46:29.619
no longer with us. They're descendants, but they're not building
996
00:46:29.639 --> 00:46:30.320
pyramids anymore.
997
00:46:30.820 --> 00:46:33.980
My provocative claim is that the most likely alien contact
998
00:46:34.179 --> 00:46:36.260
we will ever have, not really a contact, but a
999
00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:38.219
way of them knowing that we're here, is that we
1000
00:46:38.260 --> 00:46:41.179
could leave something like the voyage, like the golden record,
1001
00:46:41.219 --> 00:46:43.800
like the pioneer plaques. We could leave something like that, perhaps.
1002
00:46:43.610 --> 00:46:44.030
On the moon.
1003
00:46:44.670 --> 00:46:48.070
And maybe in 500 million years from now, another advanced
1004
00:46:48.110 --> 00:46:52.210
civilization will emerge and discover that on the earth. So
1005
00:46:52.269 --> 00:46:56.639
it will be a non-human intelligence, not alien, but still
1006
00:46:56.719 --> 00:46:59.599
non-human that evolves after us. And they pick this up
1007
00:47:00.099 --> 00:47:02.739
and they realize, oh, we are not the only ones
1008
00:47:02.760 --> 00:47:03.300
to ever develop.
1009
00:47:04.500 --> 00:47:04.800
Right.
1010
00:47:04.820 --> 00:47:05.539
I think that's more likely.
1011
00:47:05.559 --> 00:47:09.519
But that would imply that there isn't a continual awareness
1012
00:47:09.639 --> 00:47:12.769
of a previous civilization. Are you referring to an apocalyptic Earth?
1013
00:47:13.050 --> 00:47:17.190
We all die, civilization disappears, and then some other intelligence
1014
00:47:17.230 --> 00:47:19.269
evolves later and discovers that Earth used to.
1015
00:47:19.250 --> 00:47:20.829
Have- It doesn't have to be an apocalypse, but yeah.
1016
00:47:20.849 --> 00:47:24.929
We fade out maybe just gradually. There's evolution. Species very
1017
00:47:24.969 --> 00:47:28.719
rarely last longer than a million years. So eventually- we
1018
00:47:28.739 --> 00:47:31.840
change into something else and some other future civilization emerges.
1019
00:47:31.860 --> 00:47:34.679
I think there's mammal species around a million. Other species,
1020
00:47:34.699 --> 00:47:36.800
I'm not sure. Yeah. It's rare.
1021
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:39.280
There are some, but it's unusual for a species to
1022
00:47:39.300 --> 00:47:40.019
last that long.
1023
00:47:40.739 --> 00:47:42.760
Believe me, we're not going to make it. We're not
1024
00:47:42.780 --> 00:47:43.699
looking good right now.
1025
00:47:43.900 --> 00:47:46.380
We don't even have to worry about whether or not
1026
00:47:46.420 --> 00:47:48.380
we're going to make it to a million years.
1027
00:47:48.559 --> 00:47:49.139
Come on.
1028
00:47:50.500 --> 00:47:53.480
So I think relics are a cool way. There's a
1029
00:47:53.480 --> 00:47:57.809
whole thing called artefaceti, which is The question asker should
1030
00:47:57.829 --> 00:47:58.829
definitely look into it, yeah.
1031
00:47:58.929 --> 00:48:01.710
Great question, man. So, all right, here we go. This
1032
00:48:01.769 --> 00:48:04.369
is Aidan Rodriguez, who says, Hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice,
1033
00:48:04.550 --> 00:48:09.320
and Dr. Kipping. Greetings from Panama City, Panama, the country
1034
00:48:09.619 --> 00:48:12.960
that gave the world the Panama Canal. I've been a
1035
00:48:12.980 --> 00:48:14.420
fan of you guys for many years, and I'm a
1036
00:48:14.440 --> 00:48:17.059
Patreon supporter now. My question is, could life exist on
1037
00:48:17.079 --> 00:48:20.679
a planet with much stronger gravity than Earth, say, two
1038
00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:21.869
or three times stronger?
1039
00:48:22.030 --> 00:48:22.449
If so.
1040
00:48:23.289 --> 00:48:26.429
Also, would it evolve in an atmosphere with much higher
1041
00:48:26.610 --> 00:48:32.170
pressure than ours? Thanks so much. Keep up the amazing work. Yeah,
1042
00:48:32.429 --> 00:48:33.369
that's pretty wild.
1043
00:48:33.389 --> 00:48:35.889
That's a great question. I think the immediate challenge is
1044
00:48:35.929 --> 00:48:38.110
how would you engineer a planet to have two or
1045
00:48:38.159 --> 00:48:42.619
three times the gravity? Because as you increase the gravity...
1046
00:48:42.920 --> 00:48:46.570
a planet will naturally accumulate gas around it as it's forming.
1047
00:48:46.670 --> 00:48:49.010
So you're going to turn into a gas giant, basically.
1048
00:48:49.110 --> 00:48:51.329
Even only three times the gravity?
1049
00:48:51.710 --> 00:48:52.969
I think by three times, yeah.
1050
00:48:53.309 --> 00:48:53.829
Really?
1051
00:48:53.869 --> 00:48:55.610
I don't think there's any super-Earths that are more than
1052
00:48:55.630 --> 00:48:56.739
like 1.7, 1.8.
1053
00:48:56.739 --> 00:49:01.199
So super-Earths are just slightly more muscular, but not multiples.
1054
00:49:01.719 --> 00:49:02.559
I did not know that.
1055
00:49:02.579 --> 00:49:03.599
I don't think you get that extreme.
1056
00:49:04.239 --> 00:49:05.059
Oh.
1057
00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:09.469
And at that point, all the fluid that has accreted
1058
00:49:09.690 --> 00:49:11.190
puts a pressure on the surface that.
1059
00:49:11.409 --> 00:49:13.550
And so the pressure would be super huge too. Right.
1060
00:49:13.590 --> 00:49:15.139
And what, yeah, so the pressure would be high. I mean,
1061
00:49:15.179 --> 00:49:17.949
it is cool. You could probably have 1.5 times earth gravity,
1062
00:49:17.989 --> 00:49:20.860
no problem. And what's interesting. I think about these things.
1063
00:49:20.880 --> 00:49:22.599
Everyone would weigh 50% more. Unfortunately.
1064
00:49:22.860 --> 00:49:24.559
Just so you know. Everyone would be on a Zempik. Oh,
1065
00:49:24.579 --> 00:49:25.239
I hate Zempik.
1066
00:49:27.199 --> 00:49:30.400
Just here's the thing. Most of us are already weigh
1067
00:49:30.400 --> 00:49:32.480
50% more. So if you want to know what it
1068
00:49:32.500 --> 00:49:35.920
feels like to be on such a planet, there you are. Yeah. Okay.
1069
00:49:36.320 --> 00:49:38.119
Now you want to feel like it's back on earth,
1070
00:49:38.619 --> 00:49:41.480
lose that one third, your body weight, and then you're
1071
00:49:41.519 --> 00:49:42.699
back to what it is on earth.
1072
00:49:42.780 --> 00:49:44.110
But let me tell you something cool about weight though.
1073
00:49:44.139 --> 00:49:46.269
Look at what's behind you. The Saturn five.
1074
00:49:46.309 --> 00:49:46.590
Yes.
1075
00:49:46.969 --> 00:49:50.170
Now, if you made the gravity 1.5 times heavier, that
1076
00:49:50.210 --> 00:49:52.829
thing's not getting up. And so if you think about
1077
00:49:52.849 --> 00:49:55.750
the rocket equation, Which one.
1078
00:49:55.829 --> 00:49:57.369
Does all the time? You think about the rocket equation.
1079
00:49:57.389 --> 00:49:58.030
Of course, yes.
1080
00:49:58.230 --> 00:49:59.670
That thing would have to be the size of a pyramid.
1081
00:49:59.889 --> 00:50:04.570
You'd have to lose 99.99999% of your mass as fuel.
1082
00:50:05.030 --> 00:50:07.559
So it's thought that Super Earth might be a prison,
1083
00:50:08.079 --> 00:50:11.340
that civilization might be trapped there. They can never get
1084
00:50:11.440 --> 00:50:14.719
off them because the gravity is so strong. They can't
1085
00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:15.260
have a space station.
1086
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:19.719
They'll invent wormholes. Don't be so Earth-Gingo. Right.
1087
00:50:20.159 --> 00:50:22.539
But there's no natural progression the same way that we've enjoyed.
1088
00:50:22.559 --> 00:50:26.920
Maybe there's just so much smarter. Dude, little Timmy in
1089
00:50:26.960 --> 00:50:29.880
preschool just designed a new wormhole. Right. Let's use that
1090
00:50:29.940 --> 00:50:32.340
one instead of the other. So, no, that isn't interesting.
1091
00:50:32.840 --> 00:50:38.420
Given our engineering flight technologies, we would not be able
1092
00:50:38.460 --> 00:50:41.449
to launch from an Earth that's one and a half times.
1093
00:50:41.469 --> 00:50:43.090
Look at that. You know what else I think about?
1094
00:50:43.139 --> 00:50:47.610
If we were Venus, you would never know. there was
1095
00:50:47.650 --> 00:50:50.369
a night sky with stars in it. Right. Because Venus
1096
00:50:50.429 --> 00:50:54.610
is a thick, dense, opaque atmosphere. There's a tarp over Venus.
1097
00:50:55.070 --> 00:50:57.170
It's a tarp. It's a whole tarp. So let me
1098
00:50:57.269 --> 00:50:59.710
end on something that I wanted to even start with,
1099
00:51:00.329 --> 00:51:05.030
this notion of unknown unknowns. Yeah. Because on Venus, like
1100
00:51:05.070 --> 00:51:09.000
I'm saying, I know that tarp will prevent anybody from
1101
00:51:09.079 --> 00:51:11.280
seeing anything about the universe. There'd be no astronomy. No
1102
00:51:11.320 --> 00:51:13.280
one would have ever thought it up because when you
1103
00:51:13.300 --> 00:51:16.199
look up, you just see clouds. Okay, so to them,
1104
00:51:16.239 --> 00:51:20.139
an unknown unknown is, it could be a universe beyond
1105
00:51:20.179 --> 00:51:23.880
your planet. We don't have that problem here. Is there
1106
00:51:24.019 --> 00:51:28.059
some unknown unknown that we don't even know we don't
1107
00:51:28.119 --> 00:51:33.219
know that puts us in a prison that another planet
1108
00:51:34.050 --> 00:51:35.010
freely escapes from?
1109
00:51:35.630 --> 00:51:38.389
That is a truly frightening thought, Neil. And it reminds
1110
00:51:38.429 --> 00:51:43.949
me of how in cosmology, cosmologists often take for granted
1111
00:51:43.969 --> 00:51:47.670
the fact we live now, but were we to emerge 10,
1112
00:51:47.670 --> 00:51:50.829
maybe 100 billion years in the future, when the universe
1113
00:51:50.849 --> 00:51:53.940
has expanded so much, you would not see the galaxies at.
1114
00:51:53.940 --> 00:51:56.159
A certain point. The galaxies would have expanded beyond our horizon.
1115
00:51:56.460 --> 00:52:00.519
And so you'd think the Milky Way was the universe,
1116
00:52:00.699 --> 00:52:03.519
and you would never know all of that which is
1117
00:52:03.579 --> 00:52:06.139
out there. I think that's an amazing coincidence.
1118
00:52:06.159 --> 00:52:10.030
In the time of Einstein's relativity, that's what anybody thought.
1119
00:52:10.679 --> 00:52:12.349
To him, the universe was all the stars in the
1120
00:52:12.389 --> 00:52:15.869
night sky of our Milky Way galaxy. So have you
1121
00:52:16.010 --> 00:52:18.809
thought about a missing chapter in our book of the
1122
00:52:18.889 --> 00:52:20.900
universe that we don't even know is not there?
1123
00:52:21.099 --> 00:52:22.940
How can you think about that, but you do not know?
1124
00:52:23.139 --> 00:52:26.179
It's impossible, but it's certainly possible. But we just, we
1125
00:52:26.219 --> 00:52:27.340
can't imagine what that might be.
1126
00:52:27.659 --> 00:52:32.099
Wow. Okay. That we're just blithering idiots. I was going
1127
00:52:32.119 --> 00:52:38.000
to say, one thing is for sure, we're stupid. Thank you, Chuck. So, David,
1128
00:52:38.039 --> 00:52:39.380
how can we find you? Remind us.
1129
00:52:39.960 --> 00:52:42.179
You can find me on the Cool Worlds YouTube channel.
1130
00:52:42.659 --> 00:52:43.500
It's just called Cool Worlds?
1131
00:52:43.579 --> 00:52:46.170
Yeah, Cool Worlds. It's just called Cool Worlds. And I've
1132
00:52:46.210 --> 00:52:47.670
also got a pod, so you can go to the
1133
00:52:47.710 --> 00:52:49.610
Cool Worlds podcast.
1134
00:52:49.969 --> 00:52:53.670
And revenue from that drives your lab, isn't that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1135
00:52:53.730 --> 00:52:57.150
We have donors, like you have your startup patrons. We
1136
00:52:57.190 --> 00:53:00.250
have patrons, but... all of that money is just used
1137
00:53:00.269 --> 00:53:02.650
for research, actually. So that's kind of fun that you
1138
00:53:02.670 --> 00:53:06.250
can pledge your money to go to real discovering, hopefully,
1139
00:53:06.269 --> 00:53:06.710
new planets.
1140
00:53:06.750 --> 00:53:09.679
And as more and more research money is evaporating, that
1141
00:53:09.909 --> 00:53:12.139
funding model becomes more and more significant.
1142
00:53:12.420 --> 00:53:12.820
I think so.
1143
00:53:12.880 --> 00:53:16.329
Thank you, Doge! Yeah. Until the day you get the
1144
00:53:16.369 --> 00:53:18.550
phone call from somewhere else saying, we got a lab
1145
00:53:18.590 --> 00:53:19.170
for you here.
1146
00:53:19.469 --> 00:53:22.849
Which is probably, yeah. And, you know, with that accent,
1147
00:53:22.949 --> 00:53:26.210
he's like, see ya, bitches. No, I'm joking.
1148
00:53:27.309 --> 00:53:29.590
Yeah. We already know, we already have colleagues who have
1149
00:53:29.610 --> 00:53:30.309
been cherry picked.
1150
00:53:30.349 --> 00:53:32.829
Yeah, because this is a real problem. You guys better write,
1151
00:53:33.269 --> 00:53:37.019
you know, reach out to your congressmen. Reach out to
1152
00:53:37.079 --> 00:53:39.880
your senators and let them know that you want science
1153
00:53:39.980 --> 00:53:41.340
funded in this country.
1154
00:53:41.360 --> 00:53:41.760
Chuck for president.
1155
00:53:41.780 --> 00:53:45.119
And that the power of the purse still resides in
1156
00:53:45.179 --> 00:53:49.159
the Congress and not the executive branch. And that you
1157
00:53:49.199 --> 00:53:52.280
won't stand by and allow for science to be defunded.
1158
00:53:52.639 --> 00:53:55.889
Okay? So, that's it. Thank you, Chuck. No worries. Are
1159
00:53:55.929 --> 00:54:00.849
you just smart enough? So true. Funny you should say that, Neil.
1160
00:54:02.230 --> 00:54:04.670
That's the name of my special, which is right here
1161
00:54:04.690 --> 00:54:07.630
on the StarTalk YouTube channel. Check it out. Just smart enough.
1162
00:54:08.030 --> 00:54:11.230
It's easy to find. It's right there. All right. So thanks, David.
1163
00:54:11.409 --> 00:54:14.030
My pleasure. Thank you. For skateboarding. Anytime.
1164
00:54:14.449 --> 00:54:14.869
Anytime.
1165
00:54:14.889 --> 00:54:17.550
For one-wheeling over here. 40 blocks south.
1166
00:54:17.570 --> 00:54:21.159
And saving the planet with your water bottle and your
1167
00:54:21.260 --> 00:54:21.659
one wheel.
1168
00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:25.619
That's right. He's still exhaling CO2, though. Yes.
1169
00:54:25.900 --> 00:54:26.500
Still working on that.
1170
00:54:26.539 --> 00:54:26.610
No.
1171
00:54:28.230 --> 00:54:31.420
All right. This has been Star Talk, another Cosmic Queries edition.
1172
00:54:32.219 --> 00:54:36.400
Cool Worlds edition. Ooh, yeah. Until next time, we bid
1173
00:54:36.440 --> 00:54:37.679
you to keep looking up.