StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries about Cosmic Phenomena

Episode Date: January 27, 2017

It’s time for another episode of Cosmic Queries! Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomes first time comic co-host Godfrey to ask fan-submitted questions about photons and tachyons; Einstein, black holes and multiple universes; comets, aliens, and so much more.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Today we're doing a fan-favorite edition of Cosmic Queries. And I got with me, I've never had him before, Godfrey! Hey, man! Godfrey! What's up?

Godfrey tweeting at Godfrey Comedian. Godfrey Comedian. You didn't use your last name, Donchima. Donchima. Donchima. Okay, that's fine. It's't use your last name, Danchima. Danchima. Danchima. Okay, that's fine. We don't have to go.

It's too long. Too long, too weird. Too weird. It can sound Japanese sometimes. Danchima. Danchima. Danchima. The bathroom's two doors down.

I don't know that. I'm stupid. If I'm constipated, I use my last name. We get an email with sending it to you on that one. When I need an extra push, I go, Okay. Okay. That was not one of the Cosmic Queries.

If we start out with scat jokes at the beginning, there's no place to go after that. Anyhow, it's cool having you on, man. Thanks. Listen, I've been watching your shows. I see you on Bill Marshall, Real Time. I'm not a hot air on. I just try to put the air on. But it's great.

But you know how you step in. You say a little thing. Let the scientists talk. Bam. I'm like, I'm proud of that man right there. That's right. He's articulate and smart. Thank you. I got a fan out there proud of that man right there. That's right. He's articulate and smart. Thank you.

I got a fan out there. And your Cosmos, it's awesome because I used to watch Cosmos with my dad, with Carl Sagan. Oh, yeah. He took over the reins. And then when I saw you were a 14-year-old kid, you met Carl Sagan. He gave you his number. His phone number. Yo.

So I had people say to me, I should have told him that the bus really couldn't come through and I had to spend the night in Cornell because he gave me the phone number in case the bus back to the city didn't happen. No, but I was too honest back then. You were too honest. Oh, my. Were you, like, was he, like, the nicest dude ever? He was very polite and very, he was, it was almost, he cared.

I mean, that's really it. He cared about the trajectory of others who would come behind him. Not enough people do that in all the professions. It's called comedy. Yeah. All my friends suck. Hey, man, can you tweet for me? I don't know.

Might take my followers. Yeah, that crap. But Carl was like, wow. Yeah, he was a genuine person. Man, he could have at least given you his turtleneck and his jacket, too. That would have been sweet. Just his elbow patches. Just his elbow patches were awesome.

And you said, because we were talking before we started the show, and I thought that he was a guy who said billions and billions of stars. He only said the word once at any time. And Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson was the one who doubled up on him. Imitating him with a wig. No, I can do Johnny Carson, right? All right, let me hear.

Okay, watch. I did not know that. Wow, good stuff. Carl Sagan. Here I go, watch this. Wow. Billions and billions. And then Ed would go, ho, ho, ho.

No? No? Can I get some Johnny Carson fan love? Okay, for everyone over 60, that was Johnny Carson's invitation. You know there's a 60-year-old man going, I like that boy. That boy does Johnny Carson. Okay, go ahead.

So we got some, this is a Cosmic Queries edition on cosmic phenomena. I haven't seen the questions before. Pulled from our fan base. And so you got them. You have the steering wheel. Yes, I do't seen the questions before. Okay. Pulled from our fan base. Yes. And so you got them. You have them. You have the steering wheel.

Yes, I do. So let's bring it on. Okay. Hmm. I'm going to read one from a Patreon. Patreon. These are, oh, yes. Yes. So these are people who support the show.

And so basically they extort our setup to get their questions asked first. I thought the Patreon was a name, like an alien name. Oh, no. Because you guys are Cosmos, so I thought it was like. The Klingons, the Patreons. They were like, I am a Patreon. My name is. This guy's name, it's a little annoying.

Okay, well. Kyle, why'd you have to spell your name like C-Y-L-E? So it looks like Sile. Well. But it's Kyle. Trying to be individual. Trying to be special. You know, like when Christina, it's with a T and a K.

It's all K. Here we go. Okay, here's a Patreon. Kyle Yoakum. He's from Tennessee. All right. So I think I'm going to use an accent for this one. Okay.

That's Texas more than Tennessee. Well, okay, what's this now? What's this? That's, uh... This. Exactly. As long as you than Tennessee. Well, okay. What's this now? What's this? That's. Exactly. As long as you don't know where it is. I don't like how you specify my thing. I spent some time in the South. I got some.

All right. Here we go. How's that one? That's Ranch, Texas. Okay. Tennessee. I'm from Tennessee. Yeah, there we go.

I'm from Tennessee. Okay. Here we go. Kyle Yoakum. Here's the question. All right. Ready? Here we go. All right, go. I'm from Tennessee. Okay, here we go. Kyle Yochum. Here's the question. All right, ready? Here we go. Okay.

The math of Einstein's equation shows nothing can reach the speed of light if it has mass. But if we discovered a mass-less particle that could be accelerated beyond light speed and travel backwards in time The instant it did would it begin to decelerate again since acceleration? required Forward movement in time and going backwards in time would be the reverse If so, it seems it would just be stuck at exactly light speed If so, it seems it would just be stuck at exactly light speed. Could this be why photons are always traveling at that speed?

Wow. That was weird. Yeah, there's a lot in there. There's a lot. But it seemed like he was repeating something that was obvious. But no, but obvious to whom, too? something that was obvious but no but obvious to whom too he said like he said would it reverse it's almost like he said the incident did would it begin to decelerate like that's almost like a common sense okay so the way the way it works on the other side okay would you cross over please tell einstein's equation so anything with mass cannot accelerate to reach the speed of light

okay that's not that it's never been seen, nor is it theoretically possible. Right. And we've tried it. So we have experimental evidence, theoretical foundation, and the like. Yes. So things that travel the speed of light have no

mass at all, like photons, which he correctly noted. Right. Okay. So now, we, my brethren of decades ago, my academic brethren, hypothesized a particle that lives faster than light. So it doesn't have the problem of accelerating to the speed of light because it just lives faster than the speed of light. Wow.

Okay. So if you have such a particle, what would happen to it? Well, it would live backwards in time. And we call this particle tachyons. Wow. From the Greek tachyos meaning fast. Like a tachymeter is the same root. So that'd be like Usain Bolt's tachyathlete. Tachyathlete. Tachyathlete.

Tachyathlete. Yeah, there you go. We finally got it. Tachyathlete. So the word T-A-C-Y-H-Y is a common root when people want to refer to things going fast, where speed is the measure of things. So we hypothesize that there might be a particle called tachyons. Now, tachyons are really cool if you think about it, because if I sent it to you now, you would have gotten it before I sent it. Wow.

So that's kind of cool. It is. Yeah, yeah. So you can imagine. So I before I sent it. Wow. So that's kind of cool. It is. Yeah, yeah. So you can imagine. So I've thought about this. Okay. Here's an interesting scenario if you could text via tachyons. What?

So I see you walk. Yeah. And you. Okay. Okay. So there's a banana peel in your path. Okay. Okay?

So I don't want you to trip on it. Okay. Okay? So, but you already tripped on it. Okay. So I send you a tachyon message that you get in the past. Right. Okay, you got that?

Are you with me? Okay. Okay? Yeah. So I send you a text and i say watch out for the banana peel i'm already on the ground and then your your smartphone jiggles right you pick it up yeah read the text yeah and then you're no longer looking where you're stepping right and you slip on the banana well that depends on your phone package.

I mean, if you got Sprint. So it may be that changing the past might not be possible. Because the very act of me trying to interfere with you stepping on the banana peel is what actually made you step on the banana peel. You were not paying attention to the banana peel because you were reading the text that I sent you to not step on the banana peel. You were not paying attention to the banana peel because you were reading the text that I sent you to not step on the banana peel. So are you saying that, is it true that everything happens at the same time? Well, so there's another way to think about that. You know what I'm saying?

So if you have like a yardstick, you can say all the numbers are on that yardstick at the same time. They're all just there. Right. You can be 8 the numbers are on that yardstick at the same time. They're all just there. Right. You can be eight inches, 30 inches, right? They're just there. They're there. So imagine a timeline that's just there.

You're born on one end. You die on the other end. It's just there. It's there. That's it. And wherever you could jump in, jump out. Right. Join yourself at any part of your lifetime.

Right. So therefore, in a sense, your tie-bind, when viewed from a higher dimension, is all happening at the same time. Whew. Deep. I think I kind of got there. Well, not just that. So, so, so, so.

This is tacky on thinking. Yes, exactly. It's tacky on, you want tacky on brain. This is how you do it. Yes, it's tachyon. You want a tachyon brain, this is how you do it. I already thought about it yesterday. I already thought about it. Except the timeline has to be thought of in the higher dimension that allows you to see the entire timeline all at once. That's the only point. In our current dimensionality, we are prisoners of the present.

Yes. Forever transitioning between our inaccessible past and our inaccessible future. Okay. Then we just live in the present. That's what it is. That's all we can do. All we can do. But a higher dimension being would say, hey, just rejoin.

Who would that be? Buddha? Not from any images I've seen illustrating him. There's a higher dimensional being. And who would that be, though? This is what I want to know. You want to know if it's human. We're talking from a human perspective.

Now, who's this higher being? It'd have to be maybe the Dalai Lama if he meditates to a certain point. Okay, so if you meditate. the Dalai Lama if he meditates to a certain point okay so if you meditate but what I wonder is that if meditation is happening interior to your brain and not objectively verifiable by others outside of your brain so so if so if you if your mind experiences it yes then you go back in time in your mind sure but we're talking about a physical reality, not a neurological reality. And meditation is all about your neurological reality.

Okay. But don't you need, isn't mind and body the same thing or no? No, because we can pith your brain and your body. The things we can do to your mind and your body is just still there. That's true. I can take out this part of your brain and you can't speak. This other part of your brain, you can't recognize faces. True. This other part of your brain, you lose your appetite.

I can do, we know enough about the brain to know how to, what the causes and effects are. Let me tell you something. Here's the reason why we don't know a lot about the brain. You want me to tell you why? Okay, you got this. I got this. You got this. What is it? I got this. What is it? I got this.

What is it? The reason why we don't know, we still have mysteries about the brain is because we're using the brain to try to think about it. So why would the brain give you that secret? Come on. The brain's like, I'm not going to give you all my stuff. So you're asking a very deep question. Yeah.

And the mind. Yes. Understand itself. We don't know. And guess what? What you just thought about, the mind gave you. So as I think about it, we are assemblies of atoms and molecules. Okay.

In this universe. Right. That the universe itself created. Right. And we're on a mission to decode and understand the very operations of the universe itself. Okay. So, as has been said before, we, in a way, are a pathway for the universe to figure itself out. Wow.

That's heavy. So, the fact that we can even approximate some of what is real in the universe gives me hope that our mind can figure out our mind. I think there would have to be something outside the mind to figure out the mind. Probably to do it best, for sure. You have to. Right now, we're kind of grogging along. It's like an unborn child deducing the nature of its mother. You can't do it because you're inside.

Exactly. No idea what your mama looks like. Unless you have one of these mirrors that you can stick out. Wow. That would be scary. You have like an alien vagina? Jesus. Sorry.

Vagina is a proper word. It's scientifically proper. If a hand came out to look at it, oh, goodness. Wait, so here you go. So on the other side of the speed of light, all the properties of tachyons include, last I checked up on them, that it would take an infinite amount of energy to slow them down to the speed of light. Wow. And they're capable of infinite speeds.

So if you want to take Einstein's equations and flip them to the other side, knowing you can't pass through the speed of light, these are the properties of what's going on. That's heavy. That's fast. What is it, 186,000 miles per second? 282 miles per second. Wow. Is that pretty good? That's very good. Oh, yeah! Godfrey!

I know I'm not you, but I thought I got a love number right. Three significant figures in the speed of light. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Take it. That was a good one, Yoakum. Take it.

That just took most of this segment. How about this one? This is pretty simple. A radio farmer from Facebook. How much space is there inside a black hole? Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Well, okay. Farmer from Facebook, how much space is there inside a black hole? Ooh. Ooh.

Well, okay, so you can measure the volume of the event horizon of the black hole. One of the most poetic terms ever. It's amazing. Given what it does to you as you go this one way, you don't come back. This is the zone within which there is no return. Yes. The event horizon. The event horizon. No, you say it. We've got to be soft there is no return. The event horizon. No, you say it, we gotta be soft.

The event horizon. And now, after hours, the event horizon. One man, in a world. In a world. Starring Samuel Jackson. Yo, where's that black hole, man? Of course it needs Samuel Jackson. I don't know.

I can't see a There is no complete movie. I can't see a damn thing. So you can measure the volume of the event horizons very cleanly. But, but, for reasons that remain a little bit mysterious to me, when you run the equations, Einstein's equations of what happens inside of a black hole, it births an entire other space-time. Okay. An entire other universe. So if you can survive the fall into a black hole, what you will see is the entire future history

of the universe you came from unfold before your very eyes because time slows down for you and everything else would look like it's moving fast. Okay. And the entire future history of your universe unfolds before your very eyes and another universe opens up in front of you. So that the black hole as a portal to an entire other, what we call space-time continuum, entire other universe,

that comes out of Einstein's equations, the same equations that give us the structure of our universe. So no one's gone into Tesla this because you're coming back out. No, you're not coming back out. But everything else about his equations work, so it gives us high confidence that maybe this is happening there too. That's why we talk about there's some variance of multiverse thinking where every black hole is just a conduit to a whole other universe.

You think it's a whole other universe? We have this interconnected war end. Isn't it just stars being swallowed up? It'll swallow stars. And it becomes more massive. Never planets, though. It'll swallow anything that comes near it. It comes near it.

Anything. And nothing comes back. Nothing comes back. We don't know. There's something called Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation. Yeah, Hawking radiation. So Hawking, Stephen Haw back. Nothing comes back. Well, there's a way. We don't know. There's something called Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation. Yeah, Hawking radiation. So Hawking, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Hawking, he's famous, legitimately famous for a whole

lot of reasons. Yeah. One of them was he calculated that the energy field surrounding the black hole, you remember equals MC squared? Yeah. That's the equivalence of mass and energy. Yes. And that energy field can spontaneously

create particles right particle pairs matter and antimatter pairs one of which falls back into the black hole the other escapes into space okay so a black hole can essentially evaporate very slowly particle by particle evaporate by this phenomenon so that it can lose mass through its energy field because mass and energy are one and the same. And so this is called Hawking radiation. So yes, do come out, but in a very different state than you went in. Wow. We've got to take a break.

When we come back, more Cosmic Queries. Awesome. With Godfrey on star brain hurts we are back on star talk cosmic queries edition and i got godfrey hey man studio what's up godfrey tweeting at godfrey comedian yesian. Yes, that's right. That's a lot of characters to give up to your Twitter handle. Is it? GodfreyComedian.

It's the only way. That's the only way. I wanted to be a... You can shorten it and just say God. No. I cannot do that. Thou shalt not do that. I would say, well, lowercase g. Lowercase.

Lowercase. Because people will come up to me and go, oh, do they... And they do it like in an arrogant way. Do they call you God for sure? You know what I mean? I'm like, yes, they do. I say, yes. Yes, they do.

And you're a sinner. Yes. Are you ready? So these are cosmic phenomena. I haven't seen the question, so bring them on. I haven't seen it. Bring them on. So I'm bringing you.

Let's see what I'm bringing you. Let's see what you got. Let's see what I got here. Get up. Joshua Shoop from Twitter. Okay. Aliens are so far away they can see our entire history as it's happening. Is that why they don't want to come here?

Yes. Next question. Just let me clarify why that would be the case. Yes. If you are at any distance from anything you're looking at, you see it not as it is, but as it once was. I see you not as you are, but as you were four billionths of a second ago. Whoa. So light takes about a nanosecond to go a foot.

A nanosecond to go a foot. A billionth of a second. So you're about four feet from me right now. Right. I see you as you once were, four billionths of a second to go. So now let's put a civilization in Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to ours, that's four light years away. Right.

You're four light nanoseconds away from me. Right. Alpha Centauri is four light years away. You're four light nanoseconds away from me. Alpha Centauri is four light years away. So anybody there is watching, if they could get our signals, they would be seeing Earth. What was going on four years ago? There was another campaign for president. Obama was smashing that dummy. What's that dummy's name? Oh, that Mormon guy. Mitt Romney.

You could see him getting pummeled. Okay, so he loses. So they would be watching the last few weeks of that campaign. In real time. As it was unfolding. Because the light is just arriving at them at the time.

Wow. Okay. So now, if you go farther, so here you go, there are galaxies that might be six, there is one, 65 million light years away. Why'd I pick that number? Yeah. Because the stuff that was happening here on Earth 65 million years ago is only now just reaching them. It's just reaching them?

Just reaching them. So they're going to say, hey, let's check out Earth TV. The Earth channel. I'm sure that's what they sounded like. And so they would see the extinction of the dinosaurs because that's when the asteroid struck.

The meteor struck. The meteor struck. The meteor struck. The size of Mount Everest. So that's what they would be seeing. They would watch that in real time. So there's a lot of interesting history on Earth that shouldn't preclude alien visitation. At least maybe they visited the dinosaurs. And then you could ask, why didn't they help them out? You know, if they

were really checking. So I was thinking they wouldn't come because of Trump. No, nothing. But Trump is a very recent phenomena that has not had enough time to reach any planets beyond our own solar system. Can you imagine? So there's no understanding of recent current events to any aliens anywhere in the galaxy. I don't want to Trump you, but I go, wrong. That's what he did the whole time. Wrong, wrong. So that's what he did the whole time wrong wrong so that's interesting i didn't see you would actually see the dying of the dinos the extinction of the dinosaurs yeah yeah that is so so yeah so

they would have access depending on their distance okay they would have access so uh what are some events so let's say what's a good example world war one and world war two uh pretty tragic times in the history of the Earth, 70, 80, 100 years ago. They might say these people have messed up. Right. Right, and say

we will not come anywhere near. This is, in summary, aliens have never visited because, according to them, there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.

There it is. Yeah. All right. I have another question. Cosmic Phenomena, bring it on. This is by William. I have another question. Cosmic Phenomena, bring it on. This is by William Morris. Facebook. Okay.

What's a henway? About two to three pounds. Next. You can't. What, you think I was born yesterday? I just wanted to see that. What's a henway? There's no science behind that, huh? That's it. Next. That's it. What's a henway? There's no science behind that, huh? That's it.

Next. That's it. What's a henway? We should call the first warp drive a henway so that wherever they land, they say, we got to fix the henway. We got to fix the henway. What's a henway? You could run that joke clear across the galaxy. That was awesome.

What a jackass. Well, I'm old enough to remember F Troop. F Troop, that's Larry Storch. Larry Storch. And what was it? It was like the cavalry. Right. And the Indians, right?

Right. In the Wild West. And the name of the tribe were the Hakawi Indians. The Hakawi? The Hakawi. And I think in the first episode. You remember the first episode of F Troop. Damn.

So I think so. I think I'm remembering this correctly. In the first episode, the cavalry meets this tribe. And they say, who are you guys? And the Indians say, where the heck are we? That's hilarious. The Indians say that. They say, no, they didn't know where they are because they got lost.

The Indians did. They got lost. They say, where the heck are we? And they say, oh, you're the Hickari. No, who are you? Where the heck are we? We're the Hikari. No, who are you? Where the heck are we? We're the Hikari Indians. I think that's how that happened in the very first episode.

The Hikari Indians. Yes. I just caught that again. I'm telling you, I'm eight years away. The Hikari Indians. It took you a full 12 seconds. I was like, the Hikari, because the way you said it. Because that's how they said it all the rest of the episodes.

But it's F Troop. It's a sitcom. Okay. It's a sitcom, man. That's good. What's the Henway? You knocked that out. Yeah, so if I invent a warp drive, it's the Henway warp drive.

Henway warp drive. I like that. Is that how they sound? Wait, how do hens? Yeah. Hens? Hens are the... No?

I don't... That sounds better. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, here we go. Ray Clark, Facebook. Okay. If the moon were to somehow be blown apart, would Earth end up with a set of Saturn-like rings?

Yes. If not, what would happen? Yes. Yes. Temporarily, we would have a ring system. An awesome... Awesome. Yes, using awesome the way God intended awesome to be used.

Oh, yeah. It would be awesome if you could pass the salt. No, no. In my day, we used awesome when we discovered the cure to polio. We used awesome when we walked on the freaking moon. Do you believe that? I don't know. We were talking about that.

Do you believe that they landed? I just want to know. You're asking the wrong. I'm just saying, man. The astronauts should have been black because we would have been more excited. about that do you believe that they landed i just want to know you're asking the wrong saying man the astronauts should have been black because we would have been more excited upon landing yes there's a houston we have just landed on the moon yeah baby yeah that's how we do baby forget the cosmonauts we did it first baby oh i'd be like this. No? That's one small step for a man. Come on. You land on the moon, you go one small step for a man.

One giant step for a man. It's like when the white dudes score a touchdown, they just give the ball to the ref. When we score, we're like, yeah! Shake something. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I think the emotions that would come about among people who would rejoice in having just landed on the moon

are incommensurate with how you might react in the face of disaster if you face that on your journey. If the oxygen tank blows, holy shit, what am I going to do? Oh, my God. Okay? That's the same person who lands on the moon. Oh, my gosh, I landed on the moon. Yeah. So you need people with ice in their veins.

Yeah. And Neil Armstrong was just such a person. Okay. Yeah. Well, all right. I guess, but I just. He's landed on the moon, and he's running out of fuel. Okay?

I don't know if you knew about, and he's running out of fuel. Okay, do you know about that? I don't know if you knew about this. He was running out of fuel. Because where they were going to land, there was like rocky, and it was not smooth, and he was worried that the lunar excursion module would tip. Yeah. So he starts going sideways. Okay.

Using very little fuel that's left. And so Houston is saying, you got to land that puppy. No, I'm still looking. And he's monitoring how much it is. You know what his heartbeat was? It was like 85 or something. I mean, it was some low heartbeat that any of us get just when we're irritated that we're waiting in line or something. So, no, these were a very special set of the right stuff.

Okay. It was truly the right stuff. How long did it take to get there? Three days. It was three days? Yeah, three days. In the ship? Yeah, well, how old was he?

Drinking Tang. I'm just saying, drinking Tang and sitting there. Three days. Yeah, three days. Three days. Okay. All right. I'm glad you explained it to me because I was doubting it.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, you asked me if I believe it. One doesn't need to believe when confronted with evidence. Okay. That's all. Ooh, that's deep. Yeah. Wow. I should tweet that, shouldn't I? believe when confronted with evidence. Okay. That's all. Ooh, that's deep. Wow. I should tweet that, shouldn't I?

Yeah, you should tweet it. You should tweet it, yes. July 21st, my birthday. So it would always show the anniversary of the landing. They would show, you know, landing and moon the day before that. Well, July 21st was the date of the newspapers that reported it. Right. That's my birthday.

July 20th is the big deal. Yes, the big deal. Okay. So, the big deal, Neil. You're Neil Day!

A lot of Neils. We're both Neils. We're both Neils. Okay. So, boom. Did I even answer that question? What was it?

What was the question? It was that, would the Earth end up with rings? Oh, yeah. We would end up with rings, but the particles are not stable. Why? Because they'd be hitting one another, and they'd be falling.

And they have energy from the explosion. Some would escape. Others would come back to Earth. So we wouldn't have, like, our own little rings like Saturn? Saturn's ring system is, in fact, not stable. It's not stable. No, no, no. It's a temporary feature.

In fact, there's good evidence to suggest that the dinosaurs, if they had telescopes, had they looked at Saturn, would see no rings at all. Why is that? Because the ring system, different calculations give different numbers, but millions of years is a common number that I've seen for the life expectancy of the ring system of Saturn, which meant they would not have formed yet at the time of the dinosaurs. So, you know, things collide. Stuff happens. Stuff happens. Just because it didn't happen in your lifetime doesn't mean it's not happening in the universe. So, yeah, Earth would have a beautiful ring.

It would be beautiful. You think it would be better than Saturn's? Saturn used to be my favorite planet. It still is. It's my favorite planet. Oh, Saturn's a tough competition. Yeah. No, because Saturn's big. Saturn's big. Give me some big rings. Saturdays would be my favorite planet It's my favorite planet It's easy to be his favorite No, because Saturn is big Give me some big rings

Big rings, big rings, okay You good? You good on that? I got another one Okay, here we go By the way Tides would be greatly reduced At that point That's true

A whole lot of other things would change about Earth. Women wouldn't be so moody. That's right. It's the period, right? We're sending you all the mail. Wouldn't it affect the menstrual cycle every 28 days? No, because the phase of the moon is not 28 days. Oh, wait.

Oh, what is it? Waxing and waiting. What is it? Yeah, waxing and waiting is moon is not 28 days. Oh, wait. Oh, what is it? Waxing and waiting. What is it? Yeah, waxing and waiting is 29 and a half days. Okay. It does not match the average menstrual cycle of women. Okay. Therefore, you cannot credit or blame the moon for any periodicities in the human female.

So it's just me being a shitty boyfriend? Consider also that there are plenty of other mammals whose menstrual cycles are very different from a month. They're mammals, too. What other mammals? I'm not an expert on this. Dolphins, right? I'm just saying that mice, just look at your mammal list. Mice, okay.

I'll just look at any New York apartment for the mice. There's nothing magical about a month. Nothing magical about a month. Okay. Relative to menstrual cycles. That's all I'm saying. Okay. I thought that, you know.

I thought I was on to something. If it's not an exact match, that means they go out of phase yearly. So this is not a thing. Okay. Wow. All right. I like that. We can send him all the mail that we get on this.

Would it affect all our moods, though? Because they say the moon is full moon. It's affecting our moods. Okay, if you live in a city, I don't know how you can justify that, given the fact that at night street lamps are brighter than the full moon. True. And you don't talk about your moods being affected by street lights or what brand of bulb is used.

Cortisol levels are up. Sure, but you can't credit or blame the moon for that. It's because we illuminate our nighttime lives. That's true. That's true. You're right. Are brighter than the full moon. You know how you know this?

You can only barely read under a full moon. So you come in at night, you put on brighter lights, and you can read just fine. That's true. So people want to blame the universe for all kinds of stuff that's happening in their lives?

No. It's just you. It's just you. You're high and you're crazy. Just blame it on your ass. And Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. Right.

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves. Hey! Tweet, man! I'm just saying. That's, man, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I like that one.

Another one? All right, well, if it's fast. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I love this because I'm always a fan of this. This is Dan Fisher, Facebook. If comets eject their gases into space, do we know of any dried-up comets, the ones that exhausted all of their gas reserves?

Yes. Nice question. Yes. So comets are a mixture of ice and rock. And the ice, when it comes near the sun, gets heated, and then it evaporates, or technically speaking, it sublimes when you go directly from a solid to a gaseous state. I'm loose in my vocabulary, and I just say it evaporates. But sublimation is the correct chemical term. You've seen sublimation with dry ice?

Yes. You ever see dry ice? It doesn't melt. Right. It's solid, and then it's not there anymore. Right. It all, it's all. Yes.

Okay. So with comets, every time it comes around the sun, it loses some of this, some of its ice. And eventually, you can have a comet that's just a ball of debris moving around the sun and it's no longer a comet. It's just a ball of debris.

And we'll just call it an asteroid at that point. And there are many asteroids we think were once comets that are just dead right now. I mean, they're living asteroids, but they're dead comets. Like retired comets that are just dead right now. I mean, they're living asteroids, but they're dead comets. Like retired comets? That's a better word. They're like, I don't do that anymore.

Oh, man, now I'll let you young boys go around and around. I used to be. And then the other comets say, you used to be the man at one time. Halley's Comet. What's happening, brother? Yeah, you can slap him as he goes by. What is that? 76.1 years. Is that the truth about Halley's Comet? What's happening, brother? Yeah, you can slap him as he goes by. What is that? 76.1 years.

Is that the truth about Halley's Comet? It's Halley's. 76.1 years it comes? Its time around the sun varies depending on what Jupiter does to it. Okay. It could be 74 years, 77. It averages 70. So do you believe that Mark Twain was born and died in Halley's Comet when it came in return?

We don't have to believe it. It's a fact. It's a fact. Yeah, and when things are Comet when it came in return? We don't have to believe it. It's a fact. It's a fact. And when things are facts, you don't have to. You don't have to believe. Your human belief system to accept them. You said Jupiter. Remember the Jupiter effect?

Remember that? That big deal? That's another segment. Oh, okay. I didn't know. When we come back. That's another segment. The man is on fire.

He's lit up. I'm like a comet, man. I can't get enough. He wants more. All right. When StarTalk returns, more Cosmic Queries. This is still StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I serve as the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Nice. And, yeah, it means I have the keys to the sky. I want to go. You want to go? I'll invite you. Come on, man. Let's go now. I want to go now.

Godfrey, you've got a comedy special on Showtime. Showtime, yes. What's it called? It's called Regular Black. Uh-oh. All right, here we go. Regular black. The reason why I call it regular black

because when I, growing up in Chicago, uh, my African American friends, they heard my parents talking. Okay. And they, my parents have thick accents.

Thick Nigerian accents. Oh yeah. And then they were like, yo man, where you, where your, uh, parents from?

I said, oh, I'm Nigerian. They were like, oh, we thought you were like regular black.'m nigerian they're like oh we thought you were like regular black okay like regular you know like we from mississippi kentucky we thought you were regular no but what you should have said was i am african-american oh that would have been oh that would total that would have told that just nothing they could say. Nothing. There it is.

That's where that title comes from. Cosmic queries. Cosmic phenomenon. What do you have? Go. The controversies of naming celestial bodies. What's the controversy? What's the controversy? It's Rick Roberts asking. No, there's no controversy.

There's no controversy. Next question. No. I'm going to tell you. I'm going's no controversy. There's no controversy. Yeah, next question. Okay. No. Like, do they back? I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you. You ready? Okay.

So, planets are named for Roman gods. Okay. Okay? Right. Asteroids were formerly named also for Roman gods when people thought they were planets. Okay. Then, after the first few dozen asteroids were discovered in the asteroid belt, they said, these aren't planets.

These are something else. We need another word for them. And even though on the sky they kind of look like a star because they're little and you can't see like a surface on them because they're so little, there's like a point of light, so they're kind of star-like, but they're not stars. They're asteroids. Star-like.

I didn't know that. I didn't know that. You didn't know that. That's why you come on. That's why we do this. So what would hemorrhoid be? They're out near Uranus. Ast-like? Find the hemorrhoids near Uranus.

You got that? I like that. What? I'm dealing with grasses is quick, baby. He's a tacky comedian. You said near your anus. That was perfect. I'm just trying to.

I know my universe. You said an amroid that's ass-like. Near your anus. You just did a whole booty joke. Scientifically. That justifies the booty joke. We got science in there. Science vocabulary.

Okay, so asteroid. So then when too many of those got discovered, then we just gave up. And they're named after any person, place, or thing. Okay. So there's a... Initially, they were named after feminized things and objects. So there's an asteroid Mozart, Mozartia.

Mozartia? Yeah, that's to feminize it because the asteroids are only named after feminine, the original asteroids are named after feminine gods. Wow. Roman gods. Okay. So now, then they just gave up because there's too many asteroids. So, because there's hundreds of thousands of asteroids.

And so there's an asteroid named after me called Tyson. No. Yeah. Not Mike Tyson? I said it's named after me, so why would it be named after Mike Tyson? Okay. I mean, asteroid. Oh, you're saying there's an asteroid named Tyson, and I'm claiming that it's named after me.

Wondering if it's named after Tyson chickens or Tyson Beckford. Tyson Beckford. That would be a handsome asteroid. That's a handsome asteroid. That would be chocolate black. Chocolate black. Woo. It's sexual chocolate.

Sexual chocolate asteroid. Am I doing it like a... Sorry. Sexual chocolate. Soakes are chocolate. So, all right. So, there's asteroids named after person, places, things, and pets. Okay. There's even one named after Santa.

All right. So, asteroids have the most diversity in what they have been named. Because there's so many of them. There's so many of them. Thank you. Just run out of all the gods there ever was. All right. So, moons of them. There's so many of them. Thank you. Just run out of all the gods there ever was. All right. So moons of planets.

Like Jupiter. Any moon of any planet. Yeah. Jupiter is named after the Greek gods that played a role in the life of the Greek counterpart to the Roman god after whom the planet is named. So Jupiter has one of its moons is Ganymede. Ganymede was the manservant of Zeus. Okay. And Zeus is the planet is named. So Jupiter has, one of its moons is Ganymede. Ganymede was the manservant of Zeus. Okay.

And Zeus is the counterpart to Jupiter. Wow. So these two nomenclatures are homage to the Roman and Greek traditions that have influenced Western science. What about Io? The growth of Western science. Io is a character in Jupiter's life. I don't remember all they were, but they're there.

You look them up, they're there. Okay, that's right. Now, there's more to this answer than I think either of you knew, right? Yeah. Okay, so now, okay, so you got that. So it turns out Herschel, William Herschel, was the first person to discover a planet. The first person. This is the planet beyond Saturn.

For most of human civilization, there was only Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Six planets. In fact, most of the time there were only five because we didn't know Earth was one of them. Ah. It was just Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Okay. Okay? So Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Okay. Okay? So,

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, five, plus the sun and the moon were counted as planets. Planets from the Greek meaning wanderer, which means you move, if you wait long enough, against the background stars, and there were seven wanderers that were known to the ancients. And this is where we get the names for the seven days of the week. So what day is named after the sun? Sunday. After the moon. Monday. Monday.

And in our culture, it's a mixture of Roman and Norse mythologies, but each of those gods corresponds with the controlling God over those seven entities. Okay. So then Copernicus comes around, discovers that we're one of these planets because we go around the sun like everybody else, and we're not in the center with everything going

around us. So they're complicated things, just so you know. All right. He had the coolest name, though, out of all of them. Nicholas Copernicus. Nicholas Copernicus. That's tight. Not Galileo Galilei?

Galileo Galilei looks lazy. That looks lazy. Okay, because it's the same thing. Copernicus. Nicholas. Yo, Copernicus. Yo, that's hot. That's a rhyme waiting Okay, because it's the same thing. Copernicus. Nicholas. Yo, Copernicus. Yo, that's hot.

That's a rhyme waiting to happen. It's like a rapper's name. Rap happens. Everything surrounds me, baby. Copernicus, baby. What's up, Cap? Okay. I don't know. Keep working on that and come back.

We'll hear how that goes. Kepler. Kepler's tight. Yo, Hannes Kepler. Ooh, that's Kepler he's badass he was the first person to ever write down an equation

that described physical reality wow he wrote Kepler's laws of planetary motion that was in early 1600s

so we've only had mathematics describing the universe for 400 years okay and he basically birthed that so getting back

to the names so because because Herschel was the first to discover a planet, no one had a tradition of naming planets yet. Because they hadn't been discovered yet. Everyone knew these things in the sky. So there was no tradition yet. So he just named it after his principal funder, which was King George.

thunder, which was King George. So for many decades, the enumeration of the planets of the solar system was Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and George. And George? Yes, planet George. Wow. So now that's kind of... That's so me. That's so gangster.

That's gangster. Name it George. I gave you the money. Don't try it. I want to be a planet. This didn't last. Internationally, it didn't last, but they had to be nice to the Brits because they discovered

it. So as an recompense, the moons of Uranus, rather than, this is the only exception, rather than being named for Greek characters in the life of the Greek counterpart to the Roman god after whom the planet is named, Uranus's moons are named after fictional characters in Shakespearean literature.

Oh, okay. So that's homage to... One? Ago? There might be one. I don't know. There's like 60. Othello? Can I get an Othello? I will go check on that. We've got Miranda, Puck, Oberon.

They're a lot from A Midsummer's Night Dream. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Okay. That's there. Okay. And lastly, stars are no longer really named anymore. Most of the stars that have names have Arabic names.

Oh, wow. So the Arabic tradition is also more or less the same. Okay. Okay. So, you know, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.

I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. And lastly, stars are no longer really named anymore. Most of the stars that have names have Arabic names. So the Arabic tradition is also preserved in the modern reckoning of the names of things. And after a certain while, we just number them in a catalog. Comets are named after their discoverers or people after whom the discoverer wants to name them. But they're named after people exclusively. Okay. I know only Edmund Halley. Yeah, Halley's talking. Haley's or Halley's?

It is Halley. Haley is Bill Haley in the comments. Whoa, we got a rock around the rock tonight. That messed with the proper pronunciation of Edmund Halley for decades. Sure was a shake, rattle and roll. Around the sun. Hey. We got to go lightning round.

Three minutes left. Okay. Lightning round. Boom, boom, boom. Do it. Okay. Okay. These questions are too long.

This is Petey J. Craigle. Okay. Here's a shorty. How does life come from non-life? Oh, sorry. We have no idea! That is a biological frontier. How do you go from

organic molecules to self-replicating life? That is a fascinating frontier in biology, and we look forward to the solution to that in the coming years. Next! Okay, here is Rafael Alves. He's from rio de janeiro brazil how is it possible that the further we look into the

observable universe we see the cosmic microwave radiation the oldest light in the universe assuming that it comes from matter beyond our observable universe doesn't it mean that the universe expanded faster than the speed of light after the Big Bang if the universe is roughly 13.75 billion years old how could the oldest photons have traveled around 45 to 47 billion light years towards Earth? How come our 13.75 billion year old universe is 93 billion light years across?

How is it possible? Because the universe can, the fabric of the universe can expand faster than light. There is no law of physics preventing that. The speed of light limit is anything traveling within the space that is self-expanding.

That cannot travel faster than light. The fabric of the universe itself can travel without a problem. And yes, the early universe did expand faster than the speed of light itself. This is not a contradiction. We've got time for one more. Okay. Give it to me.

Peter Murdock, is there any way to tell how large the universe is? As more light reaches over time, we see more, but if the universe was finite, could this stop happening? And if so, what would that look like? I love that question. You know why? Because I think about it all the time. Oh. Yes, because there's an

expanding horizon. It's a time horizon horizon and in a billion years we will see a billion light years more of this universe because that's an extra billion years that that part of the universe had to reach us okay okay so now because in other words if we're only 14 billion 13.8 billion years old where's the light from something that's 14 billion from 15 billion years away from us it hasn't had time to reach us yet wait a billion years then that comes and you see that part of the universe now watch what happens if in 16 if in 16 billion years age nothing starts coming to us that would mean the horizon has washed over

the last bit of matter in the universe. And there'll be no more cosmology left to be revealed. Because... And that would be then the literal edge of all the matter in the universe. Done. That has not happened yet, which is why there is still something called cosmology, where we can look far out and see the birth of the universe itself.

Oh! Godfrey, thanks for... Thank you for... Oh, this is... So you... My brain hurts. You are no longer a Cosmic Queries virgin. Welcome...

No, I'm not. Welcome to the company. So I just got banged. Big banged. Godfrey, you're on Showtime. I'm going to find you after I pay my bill for Showtime. They're paying the bill for you. The cosmos is.

No, no, no. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This has been StarTalk and Cosmic Queries Edition. And until next time, I bid you keep looking up.