StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries – Astro-lore with Moiya McTier

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

Is it time to update the constellations? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Matt Kirshen dive into astrophysics, folklore, and our ancient connection to the stars with astrophysicist Moiya McTier, Ph.D. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.Thanks to our Patrons Viny Adomonis, Thomas Blankenhorn, Weston Daniel L., Lauren Scott, and Aaryan Kukar for supporting us this week.Photo Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

You have to think about the fact that not everyone in the world is going to see constellations the same way. Depending on where you are, you might not be able to see constellations. Or if you're on drugs, then you'll see them differently. Or if you're on drugs, yeah. Not everybody sees them. Can't forget to mention the drugs. I'm certain that the Greeks were on something for half the constellations that they had. Oh my God, they must have been.

They must have been. People back then, I'm sure, were doing so many drugs. Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Ever popular with all of our audiences. And I got with me my co-host today, Matt Kirshen.

Matt, welcome back to StarTalk. Thanks, Neil. It's good to see you. So, Matt, you're a host of Probably Science. I was a one-time guest on there. Absolutely. Call me. I'm waiting for you to call me back. I will. I'd love you to come back. Still one of our most popular episodes.

Okay. So today, our topic is like folklore in astrophysics. It's like, and how do they relate? And who connects a line between modern or even ancient astrophysics and cultures and folklore? This is like, there aren't many people who do this. And when you think about it, you know, the sky was really accessible to everyone at all times forever, right?

I mean, unless it was cloudy, but cave dwellers saw the night sky. So of all the sciences, modern astronomy and, of course, astrophysics would have connections that maybe other sciences don't. So if anyone is going to tackle this, it's going to be on StarTalk. And we have an expert in this in the name of Moya McTeer. Moya, welcome to StarTalk. Hi, Neil. Thanks for having me. This is a goal of mine. It has been for a long time. I'm really happy to StarTalk. Hi, Neil. Thanks for having me. This is a goal of mine.

It has been for a long time. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you. So you're an astrophysicist, a folklorist, and a communicator. I love that that can be a title today because it's so necessary to move information and knowledge and wisdom from one place to another that requires communicators. And so you have your own podcast, right? Podcasts.

Because I'm busy. Excuse me. Excuse me. Okay. Podcasts. Tell me their names. So the one that is my favorite brain baby, probably just because it's oldest, is called Exolore. It's a portmanteau, actually,

of exoplanets and folklore because the whole shtick of the show is building fictional worlds based on facts and science. Usually that means I start with some astronomical difference, like what if this planet didn't orbit a star?

And we know that those types of planets exist. They're called rogue planets. There are probably tens of thousands of them out there. Or what if a planet had two suns? Or what if it got hit with asteroids all the time? And then we just imagine the consequences of that difference. My other podcast is more straightforward, more obviously about science, and it's called Pale Blue Pod. It's actually quite new. It just launched in November, and it's a show for people who are— November 2022.

Of 2022, yeah. So it's a little baby. And it is a show for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but still want to be its friend. And I have taken some notes on your show and the way that you do things. I have a comedian co-host. Her name is Corinne Caputo. She's very funny, very smart. But the whole vibe of the show is extremely cozy. We want to make space feel very warm and familiar for people.

Oh, so the microphones are closed. They say say welcome to we get very asmr about it yeah yeah yeah yeah both of you just then like there are some listeners you got properly tingly right then and you're welcome oh yeah oh yeah this is the universe yeah Oh, yeah. This is the universe. Yeah. I love it.

I love it. So tell us about your, this strand, this thread that, multiple threads that you've woven to connect astrophysics, which was one half of your major in college, to folklore. Yeah. Let me tell you a bit about how I came to major in both of those things. Because you might know this, Neil, having gone to Harvard yourself, but there's a pre-approved list of double majors at Harvard, and they're normal things like government and econ or psychology and computer science. physics, and folklore mythology, not on that list of stuff that Harvard administrators thought people would want to study together. So I actually had to do some negotiating and go to the heads of both departments, which are very small. They're two of the smallest departments at Harvard. And I said, you can't afford to lose bodies. Let me study both of you, and then everyone wins. So they did. They did let me study both of them, but only after I gave a list of potential

thesis topics that I could write. Because when you do a double major at Harvard, you have to write a thesis that sits at the intersection of your two fields. What I ended up doing was writing a science fiction novel that was set on a real exoplanet that I studied. I characterized it with data from Kepler. And I... The Kepler mission to find exoplanets, right? Yes, yeah. So we have a very good data set there. Well, it was K2.

So the data was a bit noisier than from the Kepler primary mission. But the plot of the novel was kind of an allegory or like a parallel to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. I got to go to Hawaii. I talked to the protectors, the people demonstrating on Mauna Kea when the 30 meter telescope conflict was happening. And that was a really fun project.

But it's taken me many years to figure out. You were in the middle of total cultural turbulence. It was a fun project for you? Yes. I like talking to people. I like hearing their sides of things. Yeah, just to catch some people up on that. So the largest, the plans to build the largest telescope in the world

in the best observing site of the world, which is in the big island of Hawaii, met resistance from indigenous communities who viewed the mountain as sacred in a way that should not allow this kind of construction. And so it was very, it's fascinating cultural, political confrontations that unfolded. And you just drop yourself in the middle of it. Damn.

So you wrote a novel, interesting, in place of, but that was your thesis. It was my thesis, yeah. I had the creative part and then I also had an appendix with all of my research notes and conclusions attached to it.

That's a brilliant way to stitch those two together. Thank you so much. Great. But you have, was that published? No, it's in a Google Drive somewhere up on my website that people can read.

No, somebody's got to make a movie out of that. I mean, I'd be so down. Calling all Hollywood. If anyone wants to approach me for TV or movie rights to Lion Hoards, please, please let me know. Yes, definitely. We'll make that happen. Yeah. And you have another book?

I do. Yeah, this book, my most latest book. You're just out of control. You know what, Neil? I'll make that happen. Yeah. And you have another book? I do. Yeah, this book, my most— You're just out of control. You know what, Neil? I like to stay busy. Okay. All right, go on. This latest book is called The Milky Way, An Autobiography of Our Galaxy.

Please pay close attention to that word, autobiography, because this entire book is written from the point of view of our Milky Way galaxy. It tells its story from its birth to, you know, what might happen when the universe ends. It talks about its life,

its adolescence, and how it feels to make stars. It talks about the galactic neighbors that it has. Wait a minute, how about the collision

with Andromeda? What does that feel like? Tell me. So, in the book... Did you like it? Tell me. It in the book. Did you like it? Tell me. It hasn't happened yet. So the Milky Way is going.

Oh, it's only an autobiography up to today. Up to today, yeah. Oh. And so the Milky Way looks forward to it. How does it feel about to merge with Andromeda? How does it feel about that? Oh, it is quite excited. So in the book, I frame galactic mergers as like romance almost or, you know, like interpersonal relationships.

And so there are minor mergers and major mergers. Minor mergers happen between galaxies where one is much more massive than the other. And so I think of those as little flings. Wait, wait, wait. So we, those who study this this call that galactic cannibalism when a big galaxy eats a little one. But you're calling them romances.

That's such a different take on the situation. You know what, Neil? Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive? Like sometimes the galaxies are eating each other and at the same time

it's romantic. So like whatever. Okay, all right. And then it happens to be in sex world. Sometimes the female eats the male afterwards. You know, it, like, whatever. Okay. All right. And then it happens to be in sex world. Sometimes the female eats the male afterwards. You know, it's like... Yeah.

Like, galaxies are just praying mantises. Oh, yeah. It bites your head off. But no, the merger, the eventual merger between Andromeda and the Milky Way will be a major merger because their masses are much more similar. And that's more like a marriage.

So, for billions of years, the Milky Way and Andromeda have had this long-term courtship. They've been sending love notes back and forth to each other in the form of hypervelocity stars where they encode their messages into the spectra of the stars.

And it's very nerdy and very cute. Wow. Wow. Okay, so this just came out in 2021. Is that correct? 2022, just this just came out in 2021. Is that correct? 2022, just a few months ago in August. Oh, this came out mid-2022, just to emerge from COVID. Very nice. Okay.

So we'll look for that. Damn. Damn. It's a good story. It's very sassy. I feel like I should prime people. The Milky Way has a healthy ego, and some might say it's a little condescending to us humans. But, like, who wouldn't be?

Look at us. We're so tiny. Every alien would be condescending. Exactly. That's clearly the case. Yeah. Clearly. And one last question.

So we got your astrophysics, we got your folklore, and what about your science communication, science education part? What do you think is missing that you can bring to it? Ooh, I think the folklore connections that I can help people make are really important because I know that people will feel better about learning science if they can connect to it personally

and one of the strongest personal connections. Or culturally, I guess. Yeah, culturally or personally. I was getting there. Like the cultural connection is a great way to make it feel more personal. People might grow up hearing stories and legends and myths from their grandparents, from their elders. And if you can learn about science

and tuck it into what you've already heard from your people, then it makes it a lot more familiar. Got it. Got it. So that's a gap that needs filling. Very good. I think so, yeah. And I'm not a comedian like Matt, but I think that sometimes I can make people laugh. And so I try to bring that into my SciComm too.

into my SciComm too. There's been some movement within planetariums to do that, especially in planetariums that have access to indigenous communities in the Southwest, in Australia. If you go to Australian planetariums,

there's an Aboriginal storytelling that's often folded in to the show. And they have such beautiful stories. I mean, they have cave paintings and cultural evidence and like oral storytelling that talks about astronomy going back like 60,000 years. It's a really, yeah, old knowledge base.

There's a book called Dark Emu. Do you know about that? Oh, I haven't heard about the book, but I do know about the Emu constellation. Yeah, so the Emu, the Dark Emu. So, Matt, obviously you know about this. I do not. The Western cultures typically describe what they see based on the existence of a star and a pattern or sources of light. But if you look at the dark lanes within our own galaxy,

the Milky Way across the sky, there's a stretch of darkness that looks like an emu. Okay. So it's the absence of light. They go by the shape of the negative space rather than the shape of the... The shape of the negative space.

They have both, but yeah, that particular constellation is negative space. As a design person would say, yeah, negative space thing up there. The look of the stars,

because, you know, like you say, it was the thing that was accessible always, but more accessible then than it was now. Because I grew up in London.

We were talking about this just before the show and you both live in New York now. Because I grew up in London. We were talking about this just before the show, and you both live in New York now. And if you look up, you don't see much in the way of stars on account of all the light. But the first few times... That's why we have a planetarium. Exactly. Yeah, you have to

artificially build it in a building inside the city. But the first few times I've been somewhere, I've been to a mountainous place or a desert, so someone that's really in the middle of nowhere and then suddenly looked up

on a clear night and just gone, oh, now I get why they were always writing poems and songs. And suddenly, this blanket of stars that looks truly...

Because when I grew up, it's like, oh yeah, there's a star, there's another star, there's another star. And then you go somewhere that's properly remote, like it would have been everywhere thousands of years ago.

Right, you're not assaulted by the sky. It's not like, yeah, it is. It's absurd. This thing that appears after nightfall is ridiculous. And I think the last number I saw was that 80% of the sky is affected by light and air pollution now. So 80% of people around the world are not seeing the same sky that our ancestors saw. And that makes me really sad because I think that makes people lose a big point of connection that we could have with the universe.

A cosmic connection. Well, this is supposed to be cosmic queries. connection well this is supposed to be cosmic queries and so but i delighted in learning everything about you there moya so that when the questions come in well i mean people were cued that you were going to be our guest and with that expertise so matt i load up the questions and we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back we're going to dive right in to moya mcte's expertise, astrophysics and folklore with StarTalk. Hi, I'm Chris Cohen from Haworth, New Jersey, and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

Please enjoy this episode of StarTalk Radio with your and my favorite personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. We're back, StarTalk Cosmic Query. We're talking about astrophysics and folklore with Moya McTeer, who studied both in college and professionally, and she is now a freelance podcaster and communicator, author of a book, The Milky Way, an autobiography of our galaxy written by the Milky Way itself

because, Matt, she's the Milky Way whisperer, right? Yes. I love the idea. Moya knows what the Milky Way whisperer, right? Yes. I love the idea. Moya knows what the Milky Way feels. I do. Actually, if you look at the title page, it doesn't say, by Moya McTeer. It just says, via.

I merely channeled the Milky Way. That's right. You were just channeling it. Perfect. The Milky Way. It's great when publishers can go along with that. The book written by the Milky Way with its galaxy-sized brain.

There you go. There you go. So, let's bring, we're Cosmic Queries. Matt, from our Patreon. Yeah,

the questions are, this is, again, because of the subject matter, the questions are all over the place. There's some straight astronomy questions and there's some

folklore questions. I'm going to start with this one because it ties into what we were talking about just before the end of the first segment. Stephen Murphy from Atlanta says, constellations have always been a good way to identify where stars are, but they are hard to remember

and teach in the modern world where few know Latin and mythology. Can Ursa Major just be the big bear? Would you make the archer Hawkeye instead of Sagittarius? It would take some getting used to, but so did Pluto not being a planet. Oh, I love it.

I love it. So, Moya, I'm going to rephrase that question to ask you, why don't we just update all the constellations to modern mythologies or modern things we care about? That's a great question. Yeah, have like the, I've checked this because I like ice cream. There's some that looks like an ice cream cone. And so we have conus major and conus minor, for example, or have like the smartphone for any rectangle that's up there. So what do you say about why are we so anchored to what people

were thinking 2000 years ago? Why didn't make it relevant to today? Oh, God, there's so much here. So, first of all, if you want to start renaming the constellations, you have to take it up with the IAU, the International Astronomical Union. They are this organization that's in charge of naming stuff officially in space. And they have designated 88 official constellations in the sky. And I emphasized official there because there's a difference between constellations and asterisms to a modern astrophysicist.

A constellation is the region of the sky, like the physical area that we have broken up the sky into, and there are 88 of those. Asterisms are the shapes that you can make by connecting dots between the stars, and there are an infinite number of those. So you can choose to rename your constellations. You can choose to focus on Conus Major or Minor. You can make an iPhone constellation.

You can just draw connections between whatever stars you want. No, no, no, Samsung would totally, Samsung would get into that because they make the Samsung Galaxy. Galaxy, yeah, they would love that. That's like a total sponsoring opportunity for a new constellation drive. But go on. But, I mean, you can make up your own constellations. I think that that would be a really cute, like, date idea or just, like, something to do with your friends.

Go out stargazing and come up with new names and new constellations and new stories to go along with them. But the constellations that we do have, the asterisms that we mostly talk about today, come to us from Greek mythology. And so they have these 2,000 years worth of traction. Like, they have dug themselves into our cultural memory. And before that, they came from Babylonians. And before that, they came from Babylonians. Like the crab and the bull constellations, both just pulled right from Babylonian mythology. That would be Cancer and Taurus.

Yeah, yeah. So even the Greeks were using more ancient constellations and asterisms than what they were making up. So I think we're just following in the grand tradition of using the names that have come before us because it would be really difficult if everyone actually did come up with their own names. You wouldn't be able to talk about it across cultures.

You wouldn't have the shared culture. Exactly. About that. Interesting. Because a lot of them are, you know, the ancient Greeks called constellations katastorizmoi, which meant placed by the gods. They believed that a lot of these constellations were messages intentionally put into the sky by their deities to teach us whatever we needed to know. Like the story of Orion.

Human ego just knows no bounds. I know. I mean, life was rough 2,000 and 3,000 years ago. I imagine it was pretty comforting to know that if you lived, I don't know, a heroic or at least a notable enough life, that maybe the gods would immortalize you by putting you into the sky as a constellation. That's what happened to Orion.

So I have a fast constellation story that hardly anyone knows. It's not that it's secret. It's just hardly anyone knows it. When we rebuilt the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and we got our new projector from Zeiss, and they were going to have the constellations built in that you can turn on and off whenever you're showing the night sky. We use that in addition to our digital projector that takes us anywhere in the universe. Point is, we create the 88 constellations. We hired an artist to give a modern sensibility

to the illustrations. Yes, it's still Hercules and it's still Orion, but it has a modern hand as he draws it, right? It's not these Renaissance curly constellations that you might see in old maps. Anyhow, do you know that Gemini, in almost every constellation illustration, are shown as two infants, okay? Okay. Two babies.

They're twins, okay? However, in Greek mythology, they were like adults, okay? They were like full-grown people. But the reason why they were always drawn as babies is because the stars, for you to fully flesh out a human being, they have to be very close to each other. And the only way you could really pull that off is by drawing babies. But the illustrator was gay.

And he said, I'm drawing two full-grown men who are going to be really close to each other on the sky. So in the Hayden Planetarium, our Gemini constellation are two full-grown men, with overlapping shoulders arms around each other i love that so much so so this was his his little you know he didn't twist history he made it real and just said let's try to put a little wokeness into the night sky and so that's in the hayden planetarium's star theater i love that that's in the Hayden Planetarium's Star Theater. I love that.

That's amazing. And one of the things we learn in folklore is that every new telling of a story, every new presentation of this folkloric knowledge is just as valid as what came before. It's not that you're changing. You're just, you're evolving. You're accreting, accreting new insights. Yeah.

Okay, so next one. Matt, I love these. All right. Okay, so next one. Matt, I love these. All right. Well, you mentioned Orion. FX Flynn says, Moya, I was struck last week. From where? Do we know where they're from?

I don't know where FX is from, but Moya says, Moya, I was struck last week by the magnificent sight of Mars atop Orion as it laid due south. Oh, here we go. It is actually mentioned in the thing. As it lay due south of my location in

Vermont, so not too far, just up the road from you. During the wee hours of the morning, God of War above the Hunter, I immediately wondered if this combination featured in any of the Inca histories we've collected. You know, William Sullivan's Secret of the Incas, Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time. Here's hoping this particular combination is only remembered

for its dramatic combination of bright red, orange, and bluish white points of light and nothing else. Wow. I love that. So the question I think, Moya, would be, was Orion a hunter in other cultures? And is Mars the god of war in other cultures? That's a great question. Juxtaposed on the sky, you know, that could mean war.

Yeah. Yeah. The God of war over the hunter. In a lot of cultures, remember, not all cultures are going to place the stars that we associate with Orion into the same constellation. So I know that there are cultures in South America where the three stars of Orion's belt are like three brothers fishing in a canoe together and have nothing to do with Orion. I mean, they're still hunting, but it's different. I guess so. I love, sorry, side note,

but I love that in every culture still, wherever they are, growing up on completely different sides of the world, independently, they've still thought to just look at the stars and draw pictures between them. Draw. Yeah.

What patterns do they make? I mean, it was the main source of entertainment that we've had for hundreds of thousands of years. They didn't have HBO, right? They didn't have streaming services. I guess it's the same as looking at clouds, but the clouds, these clouds don't move.

These clouds stay the same every night. Correct. They do move. I mean, they would look at the differences between the fixed and the moving stars, actually. So the stars in Orion, those would be fixed because they're moving with each other as a whole. And it does really look like the sky is spinning around the Earth. But then there are wandering stars, which is where our word planet comes from, because the planets and the moon and the sun

were these points of light that appeared to move relative to all of the stuff in the background, like Mars would have been a wandering star. So no, not every culture saw Orion as a hunter, although many of them did if they could see the Pleiades. That's an interesting thing, because so many cultures around the world saw the Pleiades. That's an interesting thing because so many cultures around the world saw the Pleiades, this little cluster of seven stars, as like seven sisters or seven, I don't know, swans.

They associated them with very feminine qualities. And because Orion is pointing towards the Pleiades, a lot of them also said that Orion was hunting those sisters. You have to think about the fact that not everyone in the world is going to see constellations the same way uh depending on where you are you might not be able to see constellations but um or if you're on drugs

not everybody can't can't forget to mention the drugs i I'm certain that the Greeks were on something for half the constellations that they had. Oh, my God. They must have been. They must have been. People back then, I'm sure, were doing so many drugs. That's my headcanon for the ancient world. Here's a question for you. Pegasus, a very northern constellation, for us to make a horse out of it is actually upside down.

So we knowingly made an upside down constellation. I'm just wondering, in the Southern Hemisphere, did they, what, how do they? They have flipped. Because some are upside down, right? So do they think of upside down constellations or is everything right side up to them? I don't know that for specific Southern cultures, but I mean, upside down is just a matter of reference. I can't imagine many cultures in the past would have intentionally assigned a constellation to be upside down unless they had traveled

to another hemisphere, identified it as the same group of stars, but in a different orientation, and then went back and was like, whoa, they see this differently. Because Pegasus does look, it's got some stars that resemble a horse's head. It's got that angle and the arc. But it is completely upside down.

And Pegasus, the constellation zone, has only room for half the horse. So it's an upside down flying half a horse. And somebody had to think that up. I'm just saying. At least it's the front half. That's a better half of the Pegasus. Yeah, if it was the horse's ass, that's a whole other...

Can I ask you... That's a different mythology right there. Totally different. Can I ask you a quick question? This is a question that comes from Matt Kirshen from Los Angeles, California. Oh, wait, are you a Patreon member? Is Matt Kirshen a Patreon member? I'm going to check the files right

now. You're only going to have to have your rights revoked. I'll give you a hall pass for this one. I just wanted to... Am I right in thinking constellations, the stars are not necessarily anywhere near each other? Or are they... Yes. Okay, so...

Short answer, yes. So there isn't sort of astrophysics relevance to constellations other than helping to know where things are. Because the two stars could be in completely different clusters. That's a great question. Huge difference.

I think, Moira, that would be a naive... If you just approach this whole subject naively, you would say, this is a constellation. It must be something scientifically relevant about this area of the sky, right? Yeah. Why wouldn't anyone think that? If you don't spend a lot of time thinking about the three-dimensional nature of space, it is really easy to assume that this tableau of pictures we see in our night sky is made up of stars that are all physically clustered together. But there is that third dimension of distance that we have to think about.

So the stars might look close to each other in 2D, but they might be very distant from each other in that third dimension. Except for the Pleiades, which you mentioned, which is a cluster. It is a cluster. Yeah, that's true. I did a research project in grad school on identifying moving groups of stars by their chemistry. And we looked at the Pleiades cluster. But those... Right, so in rare cases,

they are related, but that's not, those are the exceptions, right? Yes, most of the time they are separate. So that question was from Matt Kirshen of Los right? Yes, most of the time they are separate. So that question was from Matt Kirshen of Los Angeles? Yeah, and I'm sure Matt's very grateful for that answer. I'm going to quickly squeeze in this quick question because you did mention the ancients being on substances and Gina Martin from North Carolina just hit, said, I just hit my THC pen, so bear with me. But Gina wants to know about dark matter

and wonders if dark matter could actually be the matter that escapes from black holes. The question then goes on for a little bit, but I'm just going to cut it short to there. Well, let's hold that for the break.

We're going to take a quick break when we come back to segment three of Astrophysics and Folklore on StarTalk with our expert, Moya Mateer, when we come back.

We're back. Star Call. Cosmic Queries. Moya McTeer knocking it out with... We're trying to find out how people think about the night sky and what the relevance of that is to science and culture with Matt Kirshen. And Moya, where do we find you on social media? I've made it easy for you because I know my name isn't that easy to spell.

I'm GoAstroMo on everything. Love it. GoAstroMo. Yes. Whoa. I picked it in 2014 and I felt weird about it then, but now I kind of love it. Yeah, yeah. It's your moniker.

So, Moya, M-O-I-Y-A, and McTeer is what it sounds like, but go Astro Mo. I love it. Thank you. I love it. So, let's keep this up. Oh, one thing I wanted to add to that previous segment, when the questioner commented on Orion and Mars, what was implicit there is that the star Betelgeuse,

which is Orion's upper shoulder, is a red giant star. So you have the red hue of that star near the red hue of Mars. And so I think that's contributed to the thrust of that question. Yeah. Because there's a lot of action, red action, over in that part of the sky.

And we all know that red means angry. Yeah, yeah, blood. So when we see it in the sky, then the gods are angry. Exactly, exactly. All right, Matt, keep them coming. Oh, so just before the break, Gina wanted to know about dark matter and whether it could actually be the matter that escapes from black holes. Oh, yeah.

And then the THC started to kick in and the question continues. Wow, Gina, I hope you're having a great time. And I'm going to tell you, we don't know what dark matter is either. As scientists, we have a lot of hypotheses. There are things we're trying to test out. But most of what we know about dark matter

is how it behaves, not what it's made of. We know that dark matter is something that can, not what it's made of. We know that dark matter is something that can interact with other stuff gravitationally, so it can feel this gravitational tug, but it doesn't interact with light, so you can't see it. You can't touch it. You can't, you know, if you shine a light through it, the light's just not going to know it's there. Is it stuff coming out of black holes? Probably not. I'll tell you now, that is not one of the leading hypotheses. There were people several decades ago who thought maybe dark matter was just a bunch of little black holes, because we can't see black holes, but they also interact with stuff gravitationally. So maybe

dark matter is just like a big clump of tiny little black holes. But it doesn't seem like that's likely. Plus, if they were coming out of black holes, the mass of a black hole would be dropping. Yeah. We don't really see that either. Right, right. And so that was a question that came out under the influence of THC?

Yeah, but I think it was pretty good. And also, just while we're talking about black holes, Molly Jebson says, who's an American university student living in Paris, says, I'm fascinated by white holes, and I recently read that a white hole singularity exists in the future, and a black hole singularity exists in the past. What does that mean?

Was THC involved in that question? Yes, it sounds like it. It was not. Molly was aspecific as to what was influencing that question. It could have just been a sheer wonder of the universe. Yes. That is a force of THC unto itself, right?

The wonder of the universe. So, Moria, what do you know about white holes? I know very little about white holes. I was just going to say we're beyond my realm of expertise here. All I know is that it's like a mathematical opposite of a black hole. Yeah. If a black hole absorbs everything or brings everything in, not actively, it's not like a vacuum sucking. But if that's what a black hole does, then a white hole should

be the opposite. It's where stuff comes out. Wait, Moya, someone once told me that there's no such thing as gravity. Earth sucks. And I've believed it ever since. Are you saying, are you trying to disavow me of this understanding of gravity? Come on now. I like to hold multiple truths in my head at the same time.

All right. All right. Matt, keep going. All right. Well, I'm going to combine these two questions so I think this is getting back more onto home territory

for both of you. So Marcus Gustafson from Sweden and also Dylan who's a physics undergrad between the two of them, ask what are the methods used to map the size of the Milky Way and where are we

located within it? And also Dylan, who's the physics undergrad, says I'm wondering how we map the Milky Way. How do we observe something if we're currently in it? Do we just assume our looks from other galaxies? Wow. Yeah. Plus, Moya, every star we see in the night sky is in the Milky Way, right?

So tell us what's going on there. I mean, colloquially, we say, see that band of light? That's the Milky Way. Yep, we do say that. As though that's something separate from the stars that are around us. So why don't you unpack that for everybody? Absolutely. Yeah. So one thing that I bring up a lot in my new podcast, Pale Blue Pod, is that we are not separate from space. It's not that we're here on Earth and then there's the Milky Way out there. We are a part of the Milky Way. The Earth is a part of it. We are a part of it. So I just wanted to get that out there first. Mapping the Milky Way. That's something we've been trying to do for hundreds of years.

I do think it's really interesting that we only realized there were other galaxies out there a hundred years ago. The great debate in the 1920s was all about, are we alone or are there other island universes? And it turns out there are. So that's recent. But we did know that we were in a collection. That was island universe used in the context of a galaxy. Of other galaxies, yes. Right, not as a separate, not in the multiverse sense. Correct.

Right. Yes. They were not having a great debate about the multiverse theory in the 1920s. But we did know long before that that we were in this collection of bright points of light. And so the earliest map of the Milky Way was done by the Herschel siblings, Caroline and William. And that was back in the 1600s where they made some very simplifying, inaccurate assumptions that one, they could see all of the stars in the Milky Way. We now know that we can't. We actually can't see most of the stars in the Milky Way. And that we were in the center of it.

Like they assumed we were in the center of it. So what they did was look out at the night sky and map the bright points of light, assuming that they were all like the same size. And so they tried to figure out the distance to them using their brightness because they were all the same size. Again, lots of very bad simplifying assumptions.

But they came up with this map of the Milky Way that just looks awful. But I encourage you to look it up. That was the first attempt. These days, what we're doing is using much stronger telescopes and much better assumptions about how things should be distributed throughout the Milky Way. We've made observations of other spiral galaxies, so we have an idea of what the rough shape should be. But you're right, it is pretty hard to take a picture of a house when you're inside it. Like, we don't, it's hard for us to get a full view of what the Milky Way looks like, but we have models, we have telescopes that can see through the dust, so we now have a better view

of the center of the Milky Way. We know where we are in the Milky Way because we can see that there is more light in one direction than there is in the other. So yeah, it's a matter of meticulous mapping over time and trying to make sure our assumptions aren't as wild as they were in the 1600s. Is it as hard as an unborn child figuring out what his mother looks like? I think it's easier than that. Okay. I do think, because there's no… They need, like, remote mirrors, you know, to look outside the, you know.

I think that they're, like, the baby, the unborn baby could learn about the distribution of organs, but it would have no idea what, idea what the mother's face looked like. Right. I feel like we have a pretty good understanding of what the Milky Way's face looks like because there's not much variation. Really. When you

boil it down to the different body parts of a galaxy, there's not that much diversity. So we have a pretty good idea. Right, cool. All right, Matt, keep it coming. All right, well, we have a question about... And plus, I mean,

depending on how many questions you have, I might want to go into lightning mode. And this will put Moya to the test. Yes, we've got... Does she have sound bites in her? This is like a great test of the educator. All right. If we go into lightning mode,

I'm going to have to do some editing on some of these questions because this is a subject that people have gone deep on with the questions. People have really like, people have written like mini essays. They babbled on and on about it. Okay.

Well, they're very excited about it. But so the artist formerly known as James Smith from Indianapolis, I remember that name from previous episodes, says, Dr. Moyer, astrology is a very popular subject these days. I think it's fair to say there is a popular subject all days.

But James says, do people believe that the stars are influencing their lives because of tradition or do you think it's because they have something to blame their rational behaviors or even their great luck on?

Who are the first to see the stars for more than what they truly are? I'd actually say for less than they truly are as well. I love that. I love that question. And Moya, wouldn't modern astrology be considered folklore by your definitions? I do. I do consider it folklore.

We are creating folklore and mythology in the modern day. I think both of those reasons resonate with a lot of astrology practitioners, people who follow it. They need something to reason. They have been told that the stars dictate events in their lives. And I think it's very comforting for them. I think a lot of people use it

as a way to feel connected to the universe larger than ourselves. Okay. As a scientist, I don't follow it. I don't believe in it. As a folklorist, I love looking back at ancient astrology to see the real and practical ways that humans knew the sky did dictate their lives. Okay.

So you would distinguish then astrologers of 500 years ago who didn't know any better. And that was like the best way to account for their reality. Yeah. Versus today, where we actually do know better, yet they're still doing it. Yes, I would distinguish them. I think that ancient astrology was extremely practical. It had to do with when were you planting your crops? When were you moving because of seasonal flooding and stuff like that?

There were also people who read information from the sky that was less practical. I think it's pretty agreed upon by folklorists now that ancient Babylonians were among the first to not just track the motion of stuff in the sky, but to assign divine meaning to it, by which I mean they had priests, they had astrologer priests who spent their lives learning how stuff in the sky moved because that was their way of interpreting the will of their gods. And if there was an eclipse or something, they wouldn't go to war. Or if there was some alignment of planets of these wandering stars in the sky, then that would tell them how they needed to make, make i don't know government decisions in that time um you think that'd be a badass business card yeah astrologer priest and astrophysicist that's that you know you're in charge of everything that's kind of the business card i have like people assume that because i

studied the universe and because i studied folklore that I just know how everything works. Yeah, you're just totally plugged in to everything that matters. You're a scientist. Matt, we got to totally do lightning round. All right, lightning round. Next question. I'm going to have to summarize this question

because Edwin J. Roldan from Lancaster, Pennsylvania asks, what's your opinion on whether the next Mars mission should have life detection experiments on it? The Mars lander didn't contain a life detection test, but the Viking did. Yeah, back 45 years ago, there were some ambiguous results from the Viking landers.

And so you think about exoplanets a lot, Moria. And if you think of Mars as a kind of an exoplanet, because we're looking and we might have life, except we can also go there, what do you think should be the priorities for the upcoming rovers? Yeah, I think that if there was kind of cloudy evidence before, let's try and clarify that evidence cloud. As long as there aren't other instruments that would do better science,

if it's not going to take up space, then yeah, let's put something on there that could try and detect more directly evidence of life. All right. I like that. Keep going. Matt. All right. I'm combining another couple of long questions and I'm going to cut them very short. Jim from Brooklyn and also James Bennett, both asking about photons coming from stars. So James says, where does the energy of the photons go that have been redshifted due to the expansion of the universe? And Jim wants to know if I stand out in the dark I can see Vega shining brightly.

Photons from Vega are hitting my retinas but it's also true if I'm 10 feet from my left 30 miles out to sea or floating in interstellar space. So all these photons are coming from the same star. So basically how many of these photons are coming off the scenes? A lot of photons and what's the deal with that? And then it goes on to questions

about dark energy matter, but I think you've answered that already. There's a million photons. So many photons. One of my favorite things about light is that it's isotropic. If you have a source of light, photons are going to be coming off of it in all directions. And as they spread out, they're still going to hit you even if you're 10 feet to the left or somewhere in the middle of the ocean. It's all one of the millions of photons coming from that same star. Millions. So many photons. I feel like that is very separate from the first question you asked. So the first question was what happens to the energy of the redshifted photons?

Yeah. I mean, so the redshift of the universe only happens on very large scales. When we're talking about Vega or other stars within our own galaxy that we're seeing, they are not being redshifted away from us because of the expansion of the universe. It's light from very distant galaxies that are being redshifted from the expansion of the universe. Neil, do you want to talk about where that energy goes? Oh, yeah, sure. There's still the same amount of energy. It's just now diluted. Okay.

So the total energy is still there, but it's now spread over a much larger volume. It's now spread over a much larger volume. And so when you dilute the energy, the photon you detect, okay, has lower energy, but the total energy of all of space remains the same from what had been put into it from the beginning. So we think of energy density in the way you can think of matter density. Some things are more dense than others. You know, a brick is denser than a balloon. So when you stretch out the universe,

things just get less energy dense. But you're not losing any energy to some secret place. It's more diffuse. There you go. All right, Matt, go for it. So, Sandra Pagliani, who, like many of the questioners, says nice things about the podcast

first, and then says, can you possibly explain ghosts? Well, can't we hear the nice things? I want to hear the nice things. Oh, I know.

We'll just skip over that. I thought we were in a lightning round, Neal. No, sorry. We didn't have time for the whole. Except for when people say nice things.

Oh, there's been a bunch of nice things that various people have said. Sandra said, my favorite podcast of all time. Someone else who I can't remember now said, thank you for all the science and the humor.

People say lovely things about you and the show. Okay, I think they're doing that just to get their question answered. Maybe true, but that's where he works. But Sandra says, could you possibly explain ghosts with physics? Since we can only perceive a specific range of the frequency spectrums

when it comes to sound and light, we base our reality on these limitations. Could it be that what we call, quote, ghosts is residual energy from past that is reaching us now, filtering into our current state of reality for a brief moment? Frequences can create resonances of various harmonic intervals, so some of those

frequencies can be picked up by humans, dot, dot, dot, possibly. Wow. And, Moya, ghosts, aren't they part of folklore? Ghosts are absolutely part of folklore. Yes. Look, I have never learned anything in any of my science classes that told me ghosts couldn't

exist. Oh. Oh. I see what you did there. There not a chapter why ghosts don't exist i've never read that textbook um but i i like i said before i like to hold two truths in my mind at the same time i i would love a world where ghosts and magic and these other folklore things exist. That's why I study them. I like to inhabit that world. Science can't explain most of that yet.

So maybe one day there will be a textbook that says definitively whether or not ghosts exist because of physics. But until I read that book, science is real and also ghosts could happen. Oh, okay. What about Frankensteins? No. Oh, that is science, yes. That is a mad scientist. What about vampires?

What about... Draculas. Yeah, the list. I got a list ready to come. I know. They're specifically calling it Frankensteins just to annoy the many pedants

who listen to this show. Yeah, to're specifically calling it Frankenstein just to annoy the many pedants who listen to this show. Yeah, to get away from the Frankenstein versus Frankenstein's monster thing. Yeah, Frankenstein was just a human. He was just a scientist. So, yeah, that exists. The Dr. Frankenstein, yeah. There actually are some very interesting scientific ties to the origin of a lot of these folkloric figures.

I've been listening to some podcasts recently about where the various myths about vampires came from because there are animals that suck blood. There are animals that will dig up graves. There are reasons why you might find these stories very present throughout the world. Oh, with natural causes is what you're saying. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, this is, so I didn't get a chance to say this in the first segment, but the main interest I have in this intersection between science and folklore is that I really do believe there are two sides of the same coin. And that coin is something you can buy understanding of the universe with. People weren't just making up stories for the fun of it most of the same coin. And that coin is something you can buy understanding of the universe with. People weren't just making up stories for the fun of it most of the time. Ancient humans were observing the world around them and coming up with explanations that fit into their worldview. And as we scientifically progressed and we gained tools and we had accumulated knowledge over thousands of years, then our worldview shifted away from magic and gods and folklore.

But there's still use. There's still value in the stories and the observations that people made. So what you should do is write a book of today's folklore that one day science will have something to say about. Yeah, I'd love that. Yeah, all the little superstitions, then maybe in a hundred years, scientists will be like,

oh, that's why that happens. All right. Well, we'll hope to get you back on this show before a hundred years from now. Please. When we have that, Moya, it's been a delight to finally meet you. Matt, great to have you here.

Always great to be here. All right. You've been watching, possibly listening to StarTalk Cosmic Queries, our folklore edition. Loving it. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Keep looking up.