Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - What are zombie stars?

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Daniel and Jorge talk about stars that die, and then come back to shine again!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want or gone.

Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate. Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hood of you. I take it all. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming it?

I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me, I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No such thing. From tips for healthy living to the latest medical breakthroughs, WebMD's Health Discovered podcast keeps you up to date on today's most important health issues. Through in-depth conversations with experts from across the healthcare community, WebMD reveals how today's health news will impact your life tomorrow.

It's not that people don't know that exercise is healthy. It's just that people don't know why it's healthy. And we're struggling to try to help people help themselves and each other. Listen to WebMD Health Discovered on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Jorge, do you think we should try to make physics cool? Hmm. Isn't that an oxymoran? Or do you mean, like, connected to, like, the latest fad in the culture? Yeah, I was wondering if it might not be too late to ride the wave of the popularity of zombies. Hmm. Well, zombies in popular culture just keep coming back, like real zombies. So why not?

You don't think that they've, like, jumped the shark already? I mean, the Walking Dead came out, like, 10 years ago. Well, that show definitely jumped the zombie shark. But, no, it's had a little bit of a shark. Renaissance lately. Well, then maybe it's a perfect time for physics to get into the zombie game. I don't know if that's such a good idea, man. Well, you know, we're experts at like giving new, confusing meetings to words that people already understand. You know, we did it for color or for spin, for flavor. Now it's time to do it for zombies. Uh-oh. Are you writing a movie called Quantum Zombies or Attack of the Zombie Quarks? I am now. Dun, dun, dun, run!

Hi, I'm Porham, a cartoonist, and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I have never finished a zombie movie. What do you mean? You've never finished making one or finished watching one? How many zombie movies have you tried to make? I have made zero zombie movies. I have finished watching. zero zombie movies. None of the above. Really? Why not? They just haven't been any good or you don't like the zombie genre? I haven't seen one yet that really clicks for me. You know, usually it's just ridiculous. The science isn't well explained. The zombies are slow and

shuffling or the action is all the same like boom, blow up a zombie's head. Boom, blow up a zombie's head. It's just the same thing over and over again. Oh man, you just haven't been watching the right zombie movies. Tell me what are the right zombie movies. Give me Jorge's top zombie movies. Well, I have a bit of an undead relationship with the zombie genre. What do you mean? Your love for it died and then came back? Yes, kind of. I can't stand them.

I hate them. And yet, I can't stop watching them. I am fascinated by the whole genre. You're slowly shuffling towards them. Even as you say, no, no, stop. Well, I can tell you're a zombie new because the sort of the latest flavor of zombies, they're fast and they're lethal. Oh.

Ferocious, yeah. Can they hold a conversation? Now they can. What? Zombies get lines now? It must be the zombie union has really done some negotiating. Yeah, there's something I'll call a half-beat if you're watching the latest Netflix zombie show. What did you say? A half-beat? A half-beat, like a zombie, but a half-zom That sounds like something in a quantum superposition of human and zombie. It does sound like something a physicist would come up with for a zombie show. But anyways, welcome to our podcast.

Daniel and Jorge Explain the Zombie Universe, a production of I-Heart Radio. In which we hope to infect your brain with the crazy virus that is reality, all of the amazing things that are out there in the universe that we understand and all the incredible things that are out there in the universe that we do not yet understand, things that are blowing up and things that are blowing our minds. We think about all of it. We talk about all of it. We joke about all of it and we joke about all of it to you. That's right. We want to bring back from the dead that fascination you had as a kid about the universe and everything in it, about how everything seemed amazing and wonderful and mysterious. We like to talk about all of those things that you can still see out there

when you look out into the night sky. And so if I've never lost my love for the universe, does that mean that I'm still dead or I've always been a zombie? How does that work? It means you haven't turned into a zombie. A physics zombie. That's just in my future, huh? Well, if you get bitten by a physicist. Although if you get bitten by a radioactive physicist, maybe that's a whole different genre altogether. Then you get that physicist's proportional intelligence or something? Well, it's hard to go down from where you. Well, then I'll try not to get bitten by a radioactive cartoonist. But, you know, I'm not the first person to think about the idea of combining quantum mechanics and zombies.

That's right, yeah. It's a big part of the Marvel universe now, at least in the Marvel multi-universe. Yeah, that's right. It's something called the quantum virus, a virus that originated in the quantum realm and can turn his host into a quantum zombie, whatever that is. I'm surprised you watched that episode of What If? I didn't say I watched that episode. He's still a little internet Googling. Oh, I see.

Oh, I see. You did no research for this episode today. Minimal, minimal research. Surface-level zombie research. As much zombie research as I could stomach. That was a great episode. I think the original Ant-Man went into the quantum realm and somehow got infected by a quantum virus and then turned into a zombie.

And then when he came back, everyone turned into a zombie. All the superheroes turned into zombies. is the quantum mechanics. It's just the virus came from the quantum realm. That's it. Do you need more? Well, what more do you need? You say the word quantum and it shuts down to conversation. You know, that's exactly how my son described it. After we watched a Marvel movie together, he said, do people just say quantum when they mean you won't understand the science? Wow. And what did you say? I said, that's exactly what they mean. And usually it means they don't understand the science, so they can't explain it to you. Well, it's kind of interesting because now the

Marvel Universe is all about the multiverse, right? Which could be a quantum idea. Yeah, well, there's millions more universes, so millions more ways to make money. And they mix it up with zombies. So you can see a zombie Captain America taking on a zombie Iron Man. Do zombies go to the movies, I wonder? Are these just for human audiences? Only if it's a brainy movie.

Well, we are going to try to apply our brains to this universe and to understand whether things out there can die and maybe even come back to life. because there are so many strange things out there in the universe. Every time we look deeper in the universe, we find something weird, something bizarre, something strange, something we never expected to see. Yeah, it is a pretty bizarre universe and sometimes things sort of come back to life almost, sort of like zombies. Everything in the universe has a second act.

And speaking of rebirth and birth, I want to take a moment to wish a very special 35th birthday to one of our listeners, Agnesh Sabulchi, have a very happy birthday. Agnish and a very nice week visiting your family. In fact, you are made out of stuff from a star that once exploded and sprayed those heavy elements out into the cosmos. So everything that you were made of was once part of a burning star. So in that sense, we are all cosmic zombies. Are you saying, Daniel, that our son, like us right now, we're the sequel?

We're not the original production? Yeah, we might not even be the sequel. We could be the third generation or the fourth generation. We did an episode about how many generations. generations of stars there might be and how many generations of stars there might have already been. We could be a mixture. Some of our elements could have been in two or three stars already and others could still be fresh from the Big Bang. So we are like a zombie casserole. Are you saying we're the reboot? We're this slightly warmed up remake, exactly, the unimaginative cash in

of intellectual property strip mining. I guess all of Hollywood is full of zombies kind of. That's Shuffling about, trying to eat your brain. Every canceled TV show eventually comes back to life. With a younger cast, better-looking cast, usually. Sometimes, I think there's a new Jurassic Park movie coming out that has the original cast from the first movie. I'm amazed those folks are still alive. Or maybe they're not. Maybe they're zombie versions.

Maybe the dinosaurs are zombies. Oh, my goodness. You just gave me an idea. Dino zombies. I'm sure somebody in Hollywood has pitched that to somebody else already. Let me call it the Discovery Channel. Then we'll have a shared universe with the shark natos and the alligator hurricanes. I'm already looking forward to the zombie dinosaur tornado sequel crossover event.

That's right. Those would be the quantum dinosaurs on these. No. No, God, no. They'll be both brilliant and terrible at the same time. Don't collapse the wave function at your own peril. It's called the Heisenberg-Hollywood principle. But anyways, it is a pretty interesting universe full of life cycles.

Things that have come into being and then explode or fade away, but then they have a way sometimes of coming back in this universe. And apparently it happens also with stars. That's right. Stars have lots of different ways to live out their life cycle. They can burn on for trillions of years if they're very small, or they may very rapidly burn up their fuel and end in a cataclysmic explosion,

a supernova that tears it apart. And you might think that a supernova will always kill a star, would shred it from the inside and destroy any chance of its future burning. But that might not always be the case. So today on the podcast, we'll be tackling the question. What is a zombie star? Now, Daniel, is this a star that's a zombie that's also like a Hollywood star? That's right.

This is a zombie whose career is really on the rise, an A-list zombie. Was that supposed to be a zombie pun? Yeah, exactly. You know, we resurrected their career from the dead. You know, for example, John Travolta, he is a zombie career, right? No, these are astrophysical objects, not folks in Hollywood. This is not, after all, an entertainment podcast as much as we'd like it to be sometimes. So zombie stars, is that the official physics term or is that just what you're calling them?

I did not invent this term. This is a term that exists in science. This is the term that was coined by astrophysicists. And as you learn, I think it's actually a pretty good description. Interesting. And are these related to Z bosons? Is that what the Z and the Z boson is? Zombie bozo.

No, that's what zombies exchange when they meet each other. No, this has nothing to do with Z bosons. Though it would be awesome if you could form a star purely out of Z boson. So that would be a very weird kind of matter. Interesting. And then it dies and becomes a ZZ boson star. Or it maybe turns into a different kind of quark. Then it'd be the zzzi top quote.

And I don't even know where this is all going. But anyways, we're wondering how many people out there had heard of this term, a zombie star, and whether or not it's met it out into the public like a zombie virus. So Daniel went out there into the wilds of the internet to ask people, what do they think is a zombie star? So thank you to everybody who volunteers to answer these questions for us on the podcast. It's super helpful. If you're out there and you've been listening to the podcast for a while

and you would like to hear your own voice on the podcast. Please, don't be shy. Just write to me to questions at danielandhorpe.com, and I'll let you know how to participate. Think about it for a second. What comes to mind when you think of a zombie star? Here's what people have to say. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that a zombie star is a star

that continues to live by sucking material, sucking mass out of a nearby star. They can be killed with a neutron bullet to the head. The zombie stars, I think it's the type of remnant star after a supernova. Zombie stars, I suppose, are stars that have used up all of their stellar material but have stayed small enough to not explode or become black holes. And so they maybe are brown dwarf stars that perhaps crash into another star of enough mass. that the whole thing will reignite in a way reanimating a dead star like a zombie.

Zombie stars are stars that blew up and went cold and then gobbled up some, yeah, some new materials like new maybe they went through a field of gas or something of hydrogen and reached critical mass again and fired up again and yeah, now they are once dead but alive again. like rogue dead stars that didn't collapse into a black hole. I have no idea, but I'm going to guess that it has to do with a star dying and not exploding or turning into a black hole. Maybe its mass is not massive enough to create a singularity. And so that star just burns out and just stays out there dead and circling a galaxy.

Stars just wandering the universe that don't have, you know, a stable place where they exist. Maybe stars that appear to be dead, but then they come back to life or something to do with the cranberries, of course. There are stars which were dead. So after they were supernova, they somehow start capturing material. come alive again, but that would be close to what quasars are, but quasars are for black holes. No idea. Stars that are dead, but still produce light. All right. It seems pretty much everyone knew exactly what you were talking about, Daniel. That's a very powerful thing about the word zombie. It's like everyone knows what that means. Yeah, I think it's actually a well-named phenomena in astrophysics right i don't really believe that they actually call these zombie stars show

show me the paper all right we'll include a link to the paper in the show notes so that everybody can verify it for themselves that i've not fabricated this but if i did fabricate it then i should get the credit for naming these things zombie stars so in fact yeah sure i'm happy to take the credit this was my brilliant idea wow yeah i feel like you're gaslighting me now you're both asserted that you came up with it and that you didn't come up with it. That's right. It's quantum credit. It's quantum plagiarism. No, but everyone seems to sort of kind of know what you're talking about, or at least I think they have an idea what you're talking about, like a star that dies and then comes back to life. Daniel, step us through here. What is a zombie star? How do you define a star

that dies and then comes back? Yeah, so a zombie star is exactly that. It's a star that sort of survives its own death. And you might be wondering, well, you know, how do stars die what does that mean well the most spectacular way for a star to end its life or to die is to blow up is to go supernova that's when a star's gravity can no longer contain it and it erupts and sprays its material out into space and is extraordinarily bright for a very brief amount of time right but there i think there are several kinds of into supernovas right and one of them it actually happens when it runs out of fuel and gravity takes over right that's right there's a couple of different varieties of supernova. Actually, there's lots of different varieties, but sort of two major

categories. The one that people typically think about is called a core collapse supernova. That's when you have a star that's like 10 to 100 times the mass of the sun. So a really big, massive star. And at the heart of the star, remember, what's happening is fusion. We squeeze together hydrogen to make helium. And then if it's a big enough star like these guys, that helium then gets fused to make something heavier. And then that gets fused to make something heavier. And if you keep going far enough, you get all the way up to iron. Problem is when you fuse iron, it doesn't make any more heat. It doesn't fuel the star.

It doesn't continue the burning. It sucks up heat. So it cools the star down. So now all of a sudden, this balance between the energy of fusion pushing out on the star and gravity pushing in is disrupted. And the star very suddenly collapses and then has this shockwave outwards. So that's a core collapse supernova. And these are really dramatic and they can like trigger the formations of new stars as

a shockwave propagates through the universe, it's really pretty incredible. That's the core collapse type of supernova. That's one kind. The kind we're interested in today is actually not that kind. It's from a star that didn't make it to supernova. And then later on gets the material that it did. So that's called the type 1A supernova, which is different from this core collapse kind of supernova. I see.

So we're talking today about the type 1A. And sometimes that type 1A can turn into a zombie. So step us through. what's happening in a type 1a supernova. So a type 1a supernova is when you have a lower mass star. The one that's on its own could never become a supernova. So you have like less than eight times the mass of the sun. And this thing goes through its normal life cycle, maybe becomes a red giant.

It burns the hydrogen, burns the heavier stuff. But it doesn't have enough mass, for example, to burn carbon inside of it. So the carbon that's inside of it, it just accumulates like ash. And what happens in these stars is that you get a gravitational collapse when it runs out of fuel when it can no longer burn because now it's just like filled with carbon at its core, you get a gravitational collapse, but you don't get a supernova and you don't get a black hole and you don't get a neutron star. What you end up with is a white dwarf. A white dwarf is something that's no longer fusing. It's just like a big hot lump of stuff sitting out there

in space. It's like a mix of oxygen and carbon. But again, it doesn't have enough mass to keep going. And so most white dwarfs just sit out there and they can sit in the universe for a million billions, some people think trillions of years, just sort of glowing and not fusing until eventually they become black dwarfs. So that's a typical life cycle for a star like that. But sometimes something intervenes. If one of these white dwarfs is actually a member of a binary system, meaning there's another star nearby, then they can start to steal some of the material from that other star and that can trigger a supernova. They can give it enough material to get it like over that hump to collapse into a supernova.

All right. That was kind of a lot there. But it sounds like it's sort of like a star not much bigger than ours. Like only eight times bigger than our sun. And then that kind of happens in the same way as the other stars that do supernova. It runs out of things to fuse together. It just doesn't have enough gravity. And so it collapses.

And then it just simmers there, you're saying. Well, what happens is that it collapses, but not as a supernova. It just sort of like becomes a white dwarf. And it just sits there hot, glowing into the unit. universe until its neighbor, this binary star, maybe that one becomes a red giant or gets too close. And then the white dwarf can steal some of the mass from its neighbor. Now the white dwarf otherwise would just sit there happily, but when this new material accumulates to the surface of the white dwarf, then it pushes it over the limit, the gravitational limit for a stable

white dwarf, and then it collapses. So it's like you didn't have enough mass to go for collapse from the beginning, like a typical core collapse supernova, but instead you got like a late second helping and this extra stuff you steal from your binary partner that lets you collapse to a supernova and this is a type 1a supernova and it's famous because it's helped us understand like the shape and the acceleration of the universe. I see so this only happens in binary star systems like a star systems with two stars in it or more. It almost only happens with binary star systems probably not exclusively but yeah that's the best way to accumulate some extra material. So then you have this white dwarf which is just like a ball of oxygen and carbon just simmering,

just glowing there from the heat. And then you're saying like the other, its partner star somehow falls in or gets sucked in or what happens to it? Yeah, these two things can be near each other. And remember a binary star system eventually they get closer and closer and even merge. Sometimes you can have them even like one goes inside the other star. But eventually these two stars in the binary system get close enough that the white dwarf can steal some of the material from the other one.

You've probably seen these artistic renditions, you know, if you have two stars, one much bigger than the other one and the smaller one, having this like trail of material accumulating from the bigger star. I see they're like rotating around each other, but eventually over time, the orbit collapses and it starts to suck it in to the bigger one, which is the white dwarf. Exactly. And if the white dwarf gets enough material, then it can actually go supernova. And it's really fascinating because these white dwarfs are very regular. Like there's a very specific critical mass at which a white dwarf will get triggered to go into one of these type 1a supernova. And that makes it very nice to study because that critical mass is like a basic feature of the physics. It's the same everywhere in the universe.

And that means that these type 1a supernova are very regular. They're sort of easy to standardize. It's a simple relationship between the light curve, like how much light is emitted per time and the true brightness, which is one of the things that allows us to calibrate them to say, oh, we know how bright it was at its source, and so we can figure out how far away they are. And that's why they played such a crucial role in extending our distance ladder and helping us understand how far away

some of these distant galaxies are. I think you're saying that this process for the supernova through the white dwarf is very repeatable. Like it always kind of happens at the same time or at the same point in the life cycle of the star. Yeah, as soon as this white dwarf accumulates enough mass and gets over this threshold,

boom, that's when it goes supernova. And so that's very repeatable, exactly. And so this supernova is really pretty incredible process. You know, it's a supersonic propagation of energy out of the heart of the star. You know, the explosion is happening faster than the speed of sound inside the star. And so it builds up this shockwave, which propagates out at, you know, some like significant fraction of the speed of light. It can be going like 10,000 kilometers per second through this stellar material. That's like more than 5% of the speed of light.

Mm, wow. All right, well, let's get a little bit more into detail of what's happening when this thing collapses. And let's talk about how that gives rise to zombie stars. But first, let's take a quick break. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, At 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight that's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious.

Well, wait a minute, Sam, maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on. on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Now hold up, isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate.

Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor and they're the same age. And it's even more likely that they're cheating. He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meets. So do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his professor or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call

it right then. And I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation. And I just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff Podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran,

and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. Don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head.

Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hola, it's Honey German, and my podcast, Grasias Come Again, is back. This season, we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment with raw and honest conversations

with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't auditioned in like over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters

sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing Vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles, and all the issues affecting our Latin community. You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know, I'm me.

But the whole pretending and cold, you know, it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new season of Grasas Has Come Again as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, we are back from the dead here, talking about zombie stars, stars that come back from the dead. And we talked about how you said that these come usually in binary star systems where one of them turns into a white dwarf, meaning it runs out of fuel, it collapses, it's simmering there, and then it sucks the mass from its partner star. And somehow that gives it enough, I don't know, juice to explode? What's happening there? Like it increases, it was nice and stable and simmering, but now it has extra mass.

Yeah. Well, the white dwarf is stable. And to understand how it becomes unstable and turns into a supernova, you have to understand what the forces are at play. So pushing it in, of course, is gravity. Gravity is compressing it. It's very dense. It's very heavy. So there's a lot of force inwards. What's pushing out. What's keeping this thing from collapsing into a black hole or something else is actually quantum mechanics. This thing is super dense. But the electrons that are inside the white dwarf, they don't like to overlap with each other. Electrons are a special kind of particle. They're called fermions that don't like to be in the same quantum state as any other fermion. So they don't like to overlap and they resist. And that's what keeps white dwarfs from collapsing. But that's not infinite. If you put enough gravitational pressure on this thing, it will eventually collapse into a supernova and maybe leave you at the heart with a black hole or a neutron star.

So what you need is more gravity. What you need is more mass. So if you add an extra helping of stuff to your white dwarf, then it will actually collapse and create a supernova. But I guess what's keeping the electrons from collapsing into each other? You're saying they don't like being together because of quantum gravity, but what's the actual force there? Is it like electromagnetic forces kind of repelling each other apart?

Yeah, that's a really fun question. Like what force is actually at play keeping electrons apart? You know, and you don't have to think about everything in physics has happened as requiring a force. You know, this is just something that like quantum mechanically is suppressed. Electrons don't like to do this. You can overcome it by squeezing these things down and basically having the electrons being captured by the protons that are also inside the star, converting them into neutrons. And so then you can avoid the electron degeneracy pressure.

But that takes a lot of energy, a lot of gravitational pressure to basically push the electron inside the nucleus so it gets captured and gets converted into a neutron. That's not an easy thing to do. It takes a lot of gravitational pressure. All right. So then you had this white dwarf. It was sitting there happily. It got more stuff. Now it's so heavy that it collapses, like gravity kind of overcomes this repulsion and it collapses.

And then how does that lead to an explosion? Well, it collapses, which is an implosion, right, which creates incredible density at the core. And that triggers basically a thermonuclear explosion. So what happens there is that all of a sudden you do have the conditions you need to create carbon fusion. Remember, the white dwarf died because it accumulated all of this carbon at its core. And it wasn't big enough and hot enough to create the temperature necessary. to fuse carbon. So it sort of stopped. And then all of a sudden, boom, you have incredible pressure from this implosion, this shockway that's traveling inwards because the gravitational

collapse. And that does create the conditions needed for carbon fusion. And all of a sudden, all that carbon goes up in just like, you know, days. So instead of taking millions or billions of years to burn all of it, it's like a huge bomb goes off instead of a self-sustaining reaction. Wow. Yeah, it's like you burn the entire sun in like a matter of a few days. Yeah. It's so much energy that it basically unbinds the star. It just blows it up out into space and disperses its material over a huge region. Sometimes it just blows everything out into space. So that's really like the death of a star. Or at least one particular death of this kind of binary star. And you say when it explodes, when this kind of star explodes, the type 1A, that's the kind that we use as standard candles, right, as to kind of measure how far galaxies are. Yeah, because they do so in a very predictable way, the light curve has a very distinctive shape. And so we can spot it like, oh, that one's a type 1A.

We know what happened there. And because the shape of the light curve is easy to relate to the true luminosity, like the actual brightness. So if you look at the light curve, you can say, oh, it's one of these type 1A. It's one of those type 1A. So you can know exactly how bright it actually is. Sort of similar if you remember to how we first measured cosmic distances, which were these sephids, these variable stars, where their period was related to their brightness. So you could measure the period of their variability

and you could use that to deduce how bright they were of the source. That's always what you want to do to understand how far away something is is understand how bright is it really if you were right next to it. And then you can compare that to how bright it appears here on Earth and you can know how far away it is. Right. I think what you're saying is that this type of supernova, it almost always explodes with the same brightness.

Like you don't have this kind of supernova for a small white war, It only happens for a very particular size of a white dwarf. And when it happens, it always happens at the same brightness, which means you can tell where it is. Almost. There's one little wrinkle there, which is they're not all exactly the same brightness. But you can tell how bright they are by how rapidly they emit light and then fade away. So the shape of that light curve over time tells you what the brightness is. So it's not exactly that they're all the same brightness.

But you can figure out how bright they are by measuring this light curve. I see. All right. So that's one way for a star to die. And you're saying this is the kind of explosion, this kind of death of a star that leads to a zombie star? So this kind of explosion destroys a star. That star is dead, dead and never coming back. It's like a big, down with a big cloud of dust and gas. Yeah, exactly. But what we noticed about 20 years ago is that that's not always what happens.

Sometimes when you have a type 1a supernova, it doesn't actually destroy the star. It explodes a little bit differently and it leaves behind something that has enough stuff to keep glowing. So it can sort of like, have a supernova and still survive. Wait, what? So it collapses. It creates incredible fusion in the middle. It explodes from that, but not completely. Like it doesn't all disperse.

It stays there and no black hole is foreign. That's right. It's sort of like it tries to go supernova, but doesn't quite make it. So this peculiar kind of supernova comes from the same sort of basic setup. You have a white dwarf in a binary star system. It accumulates some mass. But for reasons that are not fully well understood, it doesn't actually trigger the same kind of supernova.

It triggers sort of like a halfway supernova. It does definitely induce a collapse. And there's some carbon fusion that's happening at the core, but not enough to like really ignite it. So it like blows up a little bit, sends out a huge amount of light, but not quite a full on type 1a supernova. And it leaves behind something which can still burn. Oh, so basically it just collapses. It doesn't actually explode that much. It does create carbon fusion and that does create a ripple through the star, but the key is that that ripple is not super sonic.

And so it doesn't create a shockwave. And that's key. Think about what happens as you row your boat through a lake, right? You leave ripples and those ripples pass through the lake. If you're driving a motorboat, for example, you're going super fast. You're going faster than the speed of your ripples, then you create a wake because all those ripples are catching up to each other. They're adding up at the same place. And so that's what happens in a type 1A supernova is the explosion is.

super sonic so creates this incredible shockwave which blows up the star in a type 1a x supernova this weird version of a type 1a it doesn't quite make it doesn't go super sonic and so it sort of heats up the star it gets bright but it doesn't actually blow it up see now you're confusing me now you're saying it's called a 1a x shouldn't have been like a 1a z it should totally have been a 1a z oh i think they must have labeled it 1a x because when they saw these, they were like, hold on a second, this is really weird. Type 1A supernova are usually super regular and predictable. Here's a weird version. So they like X for like X files. So this is like the X file star. And so what's the difference? Like what made this one explode in a different way than the

other ones? They're not 100% sure, but one theory is that it depends on the kind of stuff that the white dwarf is accumulating. Like if your binary star, the companion, the one that's feeding you this extra material that triggers you that has a lot of helium instead of just a lot of hydrogen then that might set off a different kind of reaction they might only make carbon fusion happen within a specific bubble of the star it doesn't trigger it well enough but the truth is we don't really understand the process of a supernova well enough to predict it and to understand it and to disentangle it so it's sort of like a puzzle we need to figure this out we don't know why it didn't blow up like the other ones yeah we don't know what we do know is that they look different right so these things

are less bright. They're still really dramatic events, but they're not as bright as type 1a supernova. The stuff that flies out of the star is much lower velocity. So you're still like exploding part of the star. You can send out like half the mass of the star. This thing is not just like a little burp, right? It is a big explosion. And they also look different like there's more helium lines in these stars than in typical type 1a supernova. So it's definitely something different happening and something different going on. But we don't understand the process of a supernova, well enough to really pin it down. Well, but you're saying then it doesn't explode as violently then as a regular type 1A

supernova, which means it leaves behind some stuff, it leaves stuff that can still burn. It leaves stuff that can still burn. And this is an incredible object, this zombie star, because it's very small, it's very hot. It might be like only the size of our moon. You know, this is a tiny little astrophysical object. It's blown away, a huge amount of its stuff in this sort of like half-formed, supernova, but it can still burn because it's dense enough and it's hot enough to glow. So they think that carbon fusion still happens on the inside, but in a more sustainable way,

in a way that doesn't explode the star. Wait, what? So it's not just like a hot thing that glows from being hot. It's actually doing fusion in the middle. And it's only the size of the moon. You can have a sun, the size of the moon? Yeah, it's come back to life, man. It was fusing and it collapsed into a white dwarf and then it's fusing again.

It can't do it forever, right? Because it's a pretty small lump of stuff relative to other things in the universe. But the conditions that forced it to collapse can get carbon fusing. And what you need is temperature. So if it gets hot enough inside there to fuse carbon, that generates this heat that you need to keep it going.

Right. But I guess what keeps the star burning? If it's only the size of the moon, where is all the gravity coming from to keep the fusion going? Well, it's sort of ignited, right? In order to have that kind of carbon fusion, you just need really high,

And that temperature is now coming from the carbon fusion itself. So it's the kind of thing like once you've gotten it started, it's easier for it to keep going. In many stars, you just can't get carbon fusion started because you never reach that temperature. But in these zombie stars, you like cross that threshold because of this collapse and that ignites the star. And then it can burn its carbon, even if there wasn't originally enough carbon to trigger that temperature just from gravitational pressure. Oh, I see. So it's like a self-sustaining fusion reaction. No gravity neither.

Well, gravity is still holding it together, but it didn't need the gravity to trigger the carbon fusion. But once that's happening, then it can keep going, exactly. So these are really fascinating objects because they're weird, right? Because they're different from the kind of type 1A supernova that you typically see. Well, it's kind of weird that you're calling it a zombie star because it's sort of not undead. It's like it's a lively star. It's burning. You know, it might be even insulted if you call it a zombie.

Right. Oh, I see. You're saying zombies are not back to life. They're undead. Is that the distinction? I'm not sure what I'm saying. I'm saying like our sun also came from a dead star maybe, but we don't call it a zombie star. It's just a new star.

That's true. I guess this is more closely connected to its progenitor than the sun is. The sun came from just like a big cloud of gas and dust that swirled together to form the solar system. This is like a white dwarf that's pretty closely connected to the original. I mean, in the same sense, we're all zombies because we're all made out of organic material that's definitely been used in other beings. But you call it a zombie a zombie because it's like the same body. So this is like the same body of the original star that was fusing. That's sun corpse, he's saying.

It's a reanimated corpse. And therefore, that's a zombie. Exactly. It's lost some of its mass. You know, part of its face has fallen off. But it's still capable of shuffling around and entertaining you. And eating sun brains? What does it eat?

Carbon? Yeah, well, I guess so. Carbon is the brain of the sun, you know, and carbon is the basis of organic life here on earth. Earth. And it's also at the heart of the star. It would eat brains. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Each star brains, yeah. All right, well, let's get into how common they are in the universe and where we've seen it and what does it all mean? But first, let's take another quick break. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their new. Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice. system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight

that's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her.

Now, he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Now, hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate. Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor, and they're the same age. And it's even more likely that they're cheating. He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him?

Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him, because he now wants them both to meet. So, do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his professor or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I had this, like, overwhelming sensation that I had to call her right then. And I just hit call. Said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation.

And I just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. Stuff Podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission.

Don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. and I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.

Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, got you.

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum. the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are talking about

zombie stars, stars that have come back from the dead. And so we talked about how some stars sort of try to explode, but they sort of only half explode, I guess, because they don't have to write ingredients to explode into a supernova. And so you just kind of get a little bit of a dead corpse of a star, but it's still burning, still shuffling about. Exactly.

It's like a quantum star because it's both exploded and it's survived. Wait, now you're just confusing things. There's no quantum superposition going on here. No, there's no quantum superposition. No, it's like half of the star is blown up and the other half has decided not to. So it's more like a divorce star because, you know, the different halfs couldn't agree on what to do. Oh, man.

That's a different kind of Netflix show, I feel. We should maybe stick to one genre before we confuse people. It's a zombie star. It's not a divorce zombie star. It's not a zombie relationship. It's just a zombie star. Isn't there a Netflix show about married zombies? There have been movies, yes.

As you can see, I'm an expert on zombie. You are, apparently. You know all of them. There have been a movie about zombie romances. Oh, boy. Well, anyway, I love zombie stars, even if I don't love zombie movies. Well, that's because you haven't seen one up close or in the middle of the night. I'll consider it.

All right. Well, let's talk about how common they are. How often do we see these zombie stars? Are we, like, surrounded by zombie stars everywhere? Or is this kind of a rare thing? Well, it's sort of an interesting paradox because we know two things about them. On one hand, we haven't seen very many of these things. Only like 100 Type 1AX supernovae.

which lead to zombie stars have ever been seen. The first one was spotted about 20 years ago. So that's not a whole lot. You know, we've seen a lot more type 1A supernova than that. On the other hand, based on, you know, frankly, speculative models for how this happens, if we understand what's going on inside supernova and we don't, then these calculations suggest that this should happen more often than you imagine that like the full type 1A supernova should fail to trigger in like 20 to 30% of the cases.

But I guess it's all based on whether or not the companion star has the right ingredients. So how do we know what these companions have out there? We don't know for sure. But, you know, we do know a lot about what is out there in the universe based on how stars glow. You can look at the light that comes from a star and you can tell mostly what's made out of, what it's hydrogen, helium mix. Because remember that different kinds of materials, different elements like to glow at different frequencies because they can absorb and emit photons that match.

the various vibrational and rotational and orbital energy levels of that element. So you can tell how much helium and how much hydrogen there is in a star based on how it glows. And so we have some idea for how common it is to have like a very helium-ish star. And that lets people do these calculations. But, you know, it's totally speculative. And it conflicts with some of the data. The data says, look, we haven't seen that many of these things. Either there's a lot of them out there we haven't spotted or maybe something's wrong with the calculation.

I see. Because we've only seen kind of a few tens of these, right? Like a hundred of these zombie stars, we've only, that's how many we've seen. But you're saying we should, we should see more. Exactly. We should see more. There should be more of them. Again, if our theory about how this happens is correct.

Or maybe it's not. And, you know, this is the process of science. We see something new. We go, what does that work? We put together a model for maybe what makes it. And then we look at the consequences of that. We say, well, if this model is true, what does it predict about how many more we should see and where we should be able to find them.

And so let's go look. If we don't find them, that means we've got to go back to the drawing board and come up with a different model for how this happens. I think what you're saying is that we might be surrounded

by zombie stars, but maybe they're hiding. Is that what you're saying? Sounds terrifying. They're waiting for nighttime, right? Isn't that they do? Yeah, that's right. They're waiting for you to go to sleep.

For them to shine their zombie light on me. We should be careful about talking about scary things because I think some people listen to this podcast as they're falling asleep and we don't want to give them bad dreams. Unless they're fans of zombies.

movies, in which case they'll sleep very happily. Maybe. You could be a fan of zombie movies without being a fan of having zombies in your dreams, I think. Like, do you want to star in a zombie movie? No, I just want to dream about zombie stars.

But that is kind of what might be happening, right? There might be a lot of them, and they might be hiding somehow. Or maybe this failed collapse happens a lot, but maybe we just don't see it. Like maybe it collapses and not flows up. Exactly. It might be that happens in a different way that we imagine.

And one challenge is that we haven't ever seen one of these in our own galaxy. Remember, the type 1A supernova are so bright that we can see them in distant galaxies. In fact, that's why they're so powerful and so useful because they can shine a light about how far away really, really distant galaxies are. The interesting thing is that we've never seen one of these type 1AX supernova. We've never seen a zombie star in our own galaxy until very, very recently. I guess you just made me think of a question, which is like if we haven't seen one in our galaxy, then how do we actually know they happen? Like you see a bright flash in a distant galaxy and then, but then you can't see the zombie star, can you?

It's too small. Yeah, the zombie star itself is too small to really see, to make out in detail. But you can see that the type 1AX supernova has happened. You can see the light curve. That's really bright. It's not as bright as a type 1A supernova like 10 times less luminous, but it's bright enough to see in other galaxies. And actually, one time, they caught a Type 1AX supernova happening accidentally. They were looking for Type 1A supernova, of course, as they usually do.

And so they were using Hubble to take pictures of one that had recently happened. And then shortly afterwards, there was a Type 1AX supernova that happened in the same region of space in this distant galaxy. So they were able to go back because they happened to take pictures of it before it exploded and to see the progenitor, the thing that created. created this Type 1AX supernova. So it helped give them a clue about how this happens. But I guess you haven't actually seen these zombie stars, right?

You've only seen like a failed flash, but you're sort of speculating that it leaves behind a zombie star. Exactly. These zombie stars are not bright enough to see directly. But in this case, it's cool because you can see the binary star system. And you can see that the other star in that system is actually a bright blue helium star right next to a white dwarf. And then we see a type 1a X supernova has this characteristic shape that's different from a type 1a supernova. And so it doesn't have enough energy to like totally destroy that star. But we see that the progenitor, this white dwarf, is no longer there.

So it's fascinating because they could see it like before it happened. That's not something we've ever seen for a type 1a supernova. We've never taken a picture of a star system before it went type 1A, which is one of the challenges for understanding how these things happen. Wait, so you're saying we've never seen a zombie star in our game. galaxy. Isn't that weird? Yeah, it is kind of weird. And again, it goes to our lack of knowledge about what forms these things. Some people speculate that it might depend on the age of the galaxy, that only in galaxies of a certain age does this kind of thing happen because maybe you get more

helium stars. But there's just a lot of speculation in the literature about why this might happen. Recently, people saw something that they think might be a Type 1AX supernova. And that's very close to the center of the galaxy. There's this thing there called supernova remnant Sagittarius A East. So it's very close to the black hole of the center of our galaxy. And the light that's coming from it looks consistent with what you would expect from a type 1aX supernova. The supernova itself was actually seen on earth like 900 years ago and is recorded in history. At the time, of course, they couldn't tell that it was a type 1AX supernova. But now by looking at like what's around it and how it affected the stuff nearby it,

they're speculating that that might have been a Type 1AX supernova and it might have left behind a zombie star. Whoa. Wait, we saw it here from Earth. There's records of it? Exactly. In 1181 AD for 185 nights, this supernova lit up the sky and Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded it in history.

So something we know happened. And we can look at the remnant. It's very close to the center of the galaxy. And then we can look at stuff nearby and say like, what shockwave has impacted on that stuff nearby, what it's the velocity of the stuff moving through space. When they do the calculations, it looks like it's consistent with a Type 1AX supernova

having exploded there like 9 hundred years ago. I guess maybe it's a good thing that we haven't seen a supernova in our galaxy, right? Like if there was a supernova nearby, we'd get fried. Yes, supernova release a huge amount of energy, a huge amount of radiation. And so if one of them was too close, absolutely it could sterilize half of the planet. Fascinatingly, though, most of the energy of a supernova is actually carried out in neutrinos. Like 99% of the energy released in a supernova comes as neutrinos, which of course hardly interact with us. Even that 1% though that's left over,

if the supernova is close enough is enough to sterilize an entire planet. So are we lucky then that the one near the center of the galaxy was a failed supernova? You know, like if it had been a real supernova, would it have affected us? It would have been brighter. And so would have been more dramatic, but even that one is still pretty far away. The center of the galaxy is like 20,000 light years away. So not close enough to really cause any damage here on her. I guess also too far for the zombie to come eat us. I don't know. It's had 900 years. Well, in a way, it's kind of funny because these zombie stars happen because one star eats another star. Oh, that's true. Yes. One star is feasting off the brains of another star and that's what brings it back to life. Yeah.

That's the lesson, I think. Do not eat brains. You might turn into a zombie. Or if that's your aspiration in life, eat away. That's right. If you endeavor it to be a zombie star, that would make you an Z-list star, I guess. All right, well, what does it all mean? I guess it means that we still don't quite understand supernovas that well. I thought it was something that was pretty well understood and modeled, but it sounds like there are still a lot of questions about how it happens and in which way it can happen.

It's a rapidly moving field, and we're always developing better and better models, which have gone from like 2D to 3D to much more realistic. And now with our impressive computational power, we're making more and more detailed models. But it is very tricky because we're talking about something that's happening very fast, very high density and very high intensity. And so the modeling is difficult to get right. We're talking about the strong nuclear force. We're talking about incredible gravitational forces.

And so it's difficult. And, you know, our measurements are limited. We can see a few things about them here from Earth. But it's not easy to understand like what's going on inside the supernova. And actually a lot of that information is. carried by neutrinos, which can reveal what happened on the inside of the supernova, but neutrinos are so difficult to observe. So it's a real challenge for us to model and for us to understand. Right. And it's also, I think, it's sort of this difficult intersection for physics

of quantum mechanics and gravity, right? Like, it's almost like you're looking at the heart of a black hole. It's like when these supernova happened, the pressure and the gravity, it's all sort of mix us together. So that's something we don't understand. Yeah. And it's very short, and kind of rare. And even easier problems, we still don't understand, like what's going on inside a neutron star. Neutron stars are everywhere and they last forever and they glow steadily in the x-ray. And still we don't understand sort of the equation of state like what's going on in terms of the pressure and the density and the speed of sound and the inside of a neutron star. So supernova is harder because it's short-lived, it's higher intensity and there are fewer of them.

And so we have a lot of work to do to understand what's going on at the heart of these things. Seeing the weird ones, the extremes are really helpful because they help you understand the boundary conditions. Like, why didn't this one go type 1A supernova? Why didn't that one? These are like examples of ones that survived and came back to tell us a story. So they're really useful clues that tells what triggers a type 1A supernova and what doesn't. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And I guess also the problem is there are a lot of physicists who hate zombies and so they won't even touch this stuff, right?

Like, I'm surprised you even finished that paper, Daniel. Anything for the podcast, Ben, anything for the podcast, except actually watching zombie movies. That is a line I'm on cross. I can send you a long list of required zombie genre, things to watch. If you want to catch up, if not, you can just run faster. All right. And listeners out there, tell us what is your favorite physics zombie movie? That's a subgenre, I guess?

I hope so. I mean, apparently these things got a renaissance. You would watch those then. Yeah, sure. If there's a physicist involved, you would watch it. Exactly. Maybe the physicist becomes a zombie. zombie. And then she has her best ideas. And that's when her career really takes off.

Oh, yeah. She becomes a zombie star in the physics community. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed that thinking about what happens out there in the cosmos and what doesn't happen in the cosmos and what kinds of interesting new types of stars there can be and are being born every day. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit, and push your gameplay beyond limits with Intel Core Ultra processors. That's the

power of Lenovo with Intel inside. Maximize your edge by shopping at Lenovo.com during their back-to-school sale. That's Lenovo.com. LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged.

Terrorism. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone.

Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate. Maybe. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast. podcast and the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.