StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries: Space and Science with Bill Nye

Episode Date: May 25, 2014

Guest host Bill Nye the Science Guy and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer your most intriguing questions about space and science, from asteroid deflection and life on exoplanets to the Large Hadron Collider and climate change. 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. Hello, hello, Bill Nye the Science Guy here, sitting in for Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm your guest host for this week's StarTalk Radio, and our guest this week, everybody, is none other than Chuck Nice. Hey, how are you, Bill? Well, now that I'm here with you, I'm fabulous. You know what, Bill? You had me at, I'm Bill Nye. So, it's great to see you. It's great to, of course, the word see

Is something you have to imagine on the radio The most visual medium But my understanding, Chuck Yes Is you have some questions That our listeners have provided Absolutely This is what we call our cosmic queries

And you do not know the questions I have them here in front of me On my little tablet device I'm feeling the drama. And what we do here is we just allow our listeners to submit any question that they would like. And when I say any, I mean indeed any. I believe you. And my understanding now, these questions are submitted on the electronic internet on those computer machines that the kids are using.

And so they've not only, you've got a Twitter handle. Yes. You have a photo. You have sort of a visual. Yeah. You know, what's funny is this is the first time I've actually used my tablet to access the questions, which means that I am able to see not only the questions, but I'm able to see the Twitter handle, their profile pictures.

Some of them are coming in from Google Plus, some of them from Facebook. So I literally have either an avatar or a picture of the person who's asking me the question. You have a picture that they've chosen to send you. Yes, a picture. Like, I'm pretty sure this cat didn't ask our first question. You never know. A cosmic cat. Yes. So try the first question. All right, let's jump right into this, Bill. This one is from uh google plus and this is michelle rivera and michelle wants to know this what's the closest that any comet has come to earth and what was it named and when did it come close also what's your favorite ice cream uh well we'll finish with the ice cream uh but the i think that my understanding the closest comet would have been comet holly comet holly yeah back in 1910 i believe that uh people

that you could read at night by the light by the light of the comet yeah so it is reported and so then you could argue uh if you want to which is fun that perhaps the impactor that uh became uh the the uh chelyabinsk bolide the glowing thing in the sky over russia last year or maybe you could say what about uh the tanguska event blowing down trees for hundreds of kilometers in every direction that's coming real close when you actually hit us. Let's go back to that one, okay? Because the other stuff I've heard, now go back to Tanduska? Tanduska.

Tanduska. That was a party, 1908, June 30th, as reckoned in the modern calendar. Okay. You know, back then, even Russia, because of their historical affiliations with certain religious organizations. They didn't agree on what calendar to use. But in the modern calendar, it's the 30th of June, 1908. Something hits the Earth's atmosphere so hard. How hard did it hit?

So hard that it blew up, knocked down trees, hundreds of kilometers. Just like Chelyabinsk. Just a shockwave. Yeah, only more so. And I remind you, last year in Chelyabinsk, there's so much insurance fraud. How much insurance fraud is there? There's so much. People have dashboard cameras, right, driving around in the car.

So there were dozens, hundreds of videos of this thing streaking through the sky. Everybody runs up to the window to watch it. And then three minutes later, whack, the sonic booms hit the ground. Yeah, and all the windows shattered. And you had a lot of documentation because you're right, everybody does use dashcams. Now, hold it. There was one more part of that. Here's the other part.

What's your favorite ice cream? It's vanilla. Vanilla is genius. People say vanilla is boring. I go, are you kidding? Vanilla is perfect. It's a perfect flavor. It doesn't get any better than vanilla.

Not for me. Right. And you know most flavors are nothing but vanilla with something added to it. It's a perfect flavor. It doesn't get any better than vanilla. Not for me. Right. And you know most flavors are nothing but vanilla with something added to it. My point. I was about to bring up my point. What is strawberry ice cream? It's just vanilla with strawberries. Yeah.

Well, the word just vanilla, I got to remind you. Well, okay. I'm sorry. Just careful there. Please, by no means did I mean to diminish vanilla. But I'm not going to get in a fist fight in the ice cream flavor bar. If you want to enjoy your chocolate, chocolate chip, if you want your mint chocolate chip, if you want your peppermint stick, knock yourselves out.

Okay. Because it's more for me. It's more vanilla for me. All right. Fantastic, man. Let's move on. And let's grab another question here. And this one is from he calls himself red king

all right coming to us from google mr nye which occupation would best fit for a student majoring in aeronautical engineering and minoring in music theory what a weird and not weird combination at all well it depends what you want to do if you really dig rockets right i gotta point out that music theory. What a weird and not weird combination at all. Well, it depends what you want to do. If you really dig rockets, I got to point out that the biggest, a significant problem in rocket launching are the acoustic waves, the acoustic energy in the flame tunnel, the flame duct. Okay.

And so to me, acoustics and sound music theory are related uh intimately are smoochifying so uh i encourage you to find smoochifying a little nibonic uh coinage i uh recommend that you pursue aerospace professionally and you keep playing music for kicks because we need you. We want you to take us this Red, what's his name? Red King. Red King. Red King, and I say he, Red King, he or she, want you to take us to Mars. Well, Red King is a guy.

Well, he has a guy. Has a guy. It's a male designation king. Yeah. You know, Red Queen could go either way, though. I'm glad you said it. Yes. I'm glad you said it. Yes. I'm glad you said it.

Indeed I did. Hey. Okay. Not that there's anything wrong with it. You started it. I did start it, but you know what? That's quite all right, man. There was no goalie on that punchline.

There you go. Let's move on to Aaron W. A-A-R? No, not Aaron. Aaron. E-R-I-N. E-R-I-N. Aaron W.

And Aaron wants to know this. What, if any, is the best way to present scientific fact in a way that won't make people super defensive i'm thinking specifically of anti-vaccination crowd but anyone can have irrational beliefs and fake science basically how do you how do you not get people po'd well in the face of science the thing about vaccinations is uh they are proven to work you everybody enjoys his or her pasteurized milk and the other thing to remember, not only are vaccinations designed to protect your kid from diseases, but they're designed to protect my kids from your kids. Vaccinations work. And that this very well-known woman associated spuriously her kid's vaccination with autism

with the same time he or she was diagnosed with autism, is wrong. It's bad science. It's been disproven. And I hope her views are discredited soon enough. Meanwhile, Chuck, we'll be back after this. Welcome back. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Bill Nye here, guest hosting for my beloved good buddy Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I'm here being interrogated by none other than chuck nice who's got your

questions submitted on that electronic computer internet with the electric computer machines that the kids using and he can see your avatar yes for the first time when you when you put in the question we know what you want to look like that's right we know who you are now and uh we actually know who uh mark siegert is and or sigert'm not particularly sure. Don't want to mess that up, Mark. But he's got a pretty cool question here for you, Bill. With the majority of stars in the universe being red dwarfs and the majority of planets revolving around red dwarfs is there any chance of life on those particular planets and if yes will it be completely different will plants or microorganisms be able to use the much weaker solar energy so a different take on photosynthesis, basically, would there be? I say there'd have to be. That's what I would say.

And the reason I would say that is there's so many stars. When people throw around the expression billions and then billions and billions, it's really beyond imagining for most people. Now, you know, when I was young, people speculated that there would be a planet around every hundred stars, one in a hundred stars. Just one planet for every hundred stars. Then of those, how many of those would be Earth-like? You take another fraction.

Well, it turns out Kepler Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, apparently every star is a star system with planets. Now, why would, you know, why would, just a quick aside, why would the assumption be made that one planet for every hundred stars when our sun is a star and we clearly have eight planets around our sun? Well, we were just dealing with it, man. Nobody knew. You didn't have a Kepler space telescope.

We were jamming i'm talking about frank drake and carl sagan and our our predecessors predecessors okay go ahead so continue the chances of there not being life when you have billions of planets just it seems extraordinarily low that is to say the chance of there not being anything just got to be vanishingly small. There has to be something out there. Just because we have green plants, which reflect green light mysteriously, that doesn't mean somebody else who hasn't had asteroid impacts, who didn't have all this sulfur or whatever the heck, cadmium, whatever else we might have on the iridium. Right. After the impact from the kill the ancient dinosaur, who knows what plants came up with or what living things came up with. There's got to be something out there. And if you meet somebody who says he or she has never wondered

if there's anything out there, they're lying to you. They're lying. They're lying. We already know. We don't need a test. We just know you're a liar. So you know what? If I ever encounter anyone who says,

I've never really thought about it, I'm just going to call them a bald-faced liar right out. What else can I not trust you about? All right. So that's cool. So there you have it. What a great answer because yes and yes. There'll be life there. And are those organisms out there wondering about you and me?

Now that's a different story wouldn't they wonder the same things where did we come from are we alone those two questions maybe they're not wondering maybe they already know the answers could be chuck that's not my strongest material. Thank you for your validation. That was good stuff, though. I like it. I like it. You're silly, and I didn't know that about you. It's fantastic.

Looks aren't everything. All right. Let's move on and get to Richard Moeller. Rich. Rich. Moeller. Richard Moeller is a- What's his avatar look like?

I got to tell you- It's none of my business. You know what? He looks like an accountant. Nope. I tell you, Richard is a family man. He's in the picture with his son or a child. I was going to say. A child. Because I have made assumptions with facts

not in evidence. That's right. He is with a child. It's not your kid. It's not my kid. Clearly. I don't take pictures with my kids. That you know of. Yeah. Alright, I don't take pictures with my kids. That you know of. Yeah. Alright, so here's what Richard wants to know. Since people at the equator go faster

relative to people closer to the poles, do they age more slowly? It seems to me I've done this calculation in physics class. For real? Yeah. Okay. They do, but it's not much. So it's insignificant. much so it's insignificant oh it's insignificant for sure but when you get into these um thousands of billionths things do not add up

right gotcha but it's a cool question and astronauts age ever so slightly more slowly than you and i do just by being up there by being in orbit by being in orbit okay fantastic now the astronauts of the very near future if we can use this term or go into where the sky is dark 100 kilometers the uh carmen limit the carmen limit uh they're going to go up and down without going in orbit they will be slightly younger oh by the way when you're in a jet airplane flying around the continent around the world you're going your time is passing ever so slightly more slowly slightly more slow and for those of you who take physics and have not computed that i encourage you to do that because it's fun and then the other thing that's just used to rivet me was there was

a question what is the attraction but uh and then in parentheses, gravitational, between a 70-kilogram boy and a 60-kilogram girl? In parentheses, gravitational. Boy, that was a titillating science problem right there. Gravitational constant times mass one, mass two over the distance between them squared. And that's gravitational. Because the other computation is squared. And that's gravitational. That's gravitational. Because the other computation is boobs. I am shocked.

Absolutely shocked. And fascinated. Absolutely. All right, let's move on to Vardan Narazay. Oh, man. Well, just do your best. Vardan, I'm really sorry that I'm about to butcher your name like this. But you're not a native speaker of Hindi or Urdu.

Right. So it's Nazaretian. Nazaretian. Nazaretian. But Varden is our buddy. That's right. Yeah. So what is the best way to utilize an asteroid deflecting tech without actually having to use a spacecraft if possible

like something uh a space station on the moon that will deflect asteroids there may be a tractor beam some tractor some type of similar technology so is is vardy just kind of he or she is jamming watch it too much star trek or is is is this i don't think you can watch too much star trek that's so true but you're right about that i've tried i i haven't i'm haven't overdosed yet the thing i'm fine i could quit if i wanted the thing is uh as soon as you say we're going to have something on the moon to deflect it that's it's going to involve a spacecraft yeah so the correct the question's uh trickily worded but i think uh having a tractor beam is technology beyond us right now however uh you may recall tom swift and his repellentron skyway tom swift jr he had repellentrons which would be beams that would repel objects.

Instead of that, taking it one step less farther into the future, you could use Earth or moon-based lasers to zap the asteroid, if you could find it, and aim it with such precision and keep the beam narrow enough, and cause the material on the asteroid to volatize, to ablate, to burn off, to eject. And then the momentum of the ejected material, fabulous Latin word, the ejecta, would then have you potentially, hypothetically, imaginationally, would have enough momentum to deflect the asteroid. We only need to change, typical asteroid might be going 20 kilometers a second. 20 kilometers a second. And we got to deflect it about two millimeters a second, about a 10 millionth of its momentum, a 10 millionth of its delta V, of its V has to be changed, of its velocity and direction, speed and direction has to be changed.

So this is, that's not a bad uh insightful thoughtful insight however uh the problem is going to be an international one just finding the asteroids is a huge deal and it is chuck yes only as far as anybody can reckon the only preventable natural disaster i am delighted that vardy's out there thinking about this. Go get him. Vardy is doing a great job thinking about it. Go get him. So you're saying basically it would be more, is it more feasible to repulse than it is to guide? Yeah. Okay.

But still, great that you think about it. But they're co-interrelated together between themselves. I got you. That is to say, puns intended. In that deflecting one is going to involve changing its velocity, changing its speed and direction somehow. Either you smack into it or you get something with mutual gravity to tow it off course. Right. Or what we at the Planetary Society are all hot for is volatizing the surface with space-based lasers.

That's awesome. Laser B spacecraft. I got to tell you, that's the first time I've ever heard that, and I think it's fantastic. That's awesome. Laser B spacecraft. I got to tell you, that's the first time I've ever heard that and I think it's fantastic. That's good. You keep thinking about that and we'll be back

right after this. Welcome back. Bill Nye here, guest hosting on StarTalk Radio for my beloved buddy, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I don't want you all to be jealous, but I'm sitting here with Chuck Nice. Oh, Bill. Eat your hearts out, people. But I'm sitting here with Chuck Nice. Oh, Bill. Eat your hearts out, people.

But you can join us by audio, by sound, because Chuck has some thoughtful insights that you have provided him. That is to say some questions. That's right. Some cosmic queries. Some cosmic queries. And we have taken questions from all over the internet, whatever source that we are a part of and our listeners. Now, as far as you know. As far as we know. All of these questions.

Yes. All over the internet. All over the internet. Are from Earth. Is that right? As far as I know. And I cannot confirm nor deny that. Yes. Except in my limited understanding of where they, from where they come, which would be, from what I know, the internet. On Earth. On Earth. That's all I know. But it could be. Let's move on to Madison Barnes. And Madison has also included a picture. Now, I'm pretty sure this is his child because it's an infant and he's laying on the bed with it and he looks really happy. Then again, by that description, maybe it's not his child.

I was going to say, are you associating with that? Is it completely unrecognizable to you as a parent? As a parent, you're right. It's completely unrecognizable to me. 16 miserable years. Yes, there you have it. And most of them because of the children, Bill. I know.

I know. It's, what is it insanity is a hereditary you get it from your kids that's right absolutely all right here we go from madison barnes and madison wants to know this finding the higgs boson uh with the lhc was an amazing achievement what are we looking for next with the lhc and is there a bigger and better accelerator being built to succeed it wow uh interesting large hadron collider as far as i know there is not one being built if i were king of the foot is we would build a bigger one right because these people the atom smashing people my physics colleagues they cannot get enough of smashing.

They love smashing, and they learn something every time they smash. Right. So what I guess everybody wants to do is reproduce those results of the Higgs boson finding, which gives everything, apparently, gives everything mass. What I want to know, what we want in science is to find laws or rules or theories that make predictions that are true. The things they predict are true here on Earth and they're true deep in the cosmos. Gotcha. So if there's all this dark energy and dark matter flying around out there, six times the mass of everything we can observe, well, isn't some of that stuff here? And would we find it by smashing things with even more smashness, perhaps? And so, yes, I would like to build a bigger collider

and look deeper, but this is a civilian... You know, as a mechanical engineer, I took a lot of physics. I know what you're thinking. Did you put it back? No, so that aside, it just seems to me what we see deep in the cosmos we should observe here. And I'm pitching right now here on StarTalk Radio, R with a circle, copyright Bill Nye. Darkons.

Darkons. Particles of dark. Particles of dark. Physics people, they love their particles. They can't get enough of particles. They got their neutrons, their protons. Are they really particles? Or did we just imagine them? There's photons.

Are they really particles? Or is this sort of a way of thinking about things? And so maybe there are particles of dark energy that interact with dark matter. Darkons. Darkons that interact with everything we know and see and that discovery would, dare I say it, Chuck, change the world.

That would change the universe. It would change our perception of it. Our understanding of the universe. Actually, the universe would remain exactly the same. As far as we know. As far as we know. Unless there's that extraordinary chance that we could build a collider big enough to change things. Yes.

Like they do in the movies. Well, that was an insightful question, I have to say. Nice job. You don't have to sound so surprised. Well, you know, I... Just because the guy's got a kid doesn't mean he can't think. You know what? Okay, I had a joke there that I certainly cannot say.

All right. Well, you said just because he's got a kid doesn't mean he can't think. They're saying it about you. Don't worry. That's right. I'm saying it about myself it's a little late for the thinking part uh here we go let's go with you're embarrassing me dad you've been in my house i've heard tell eric of uh valde wants to know this bill okay so thinking

about relativity and how time does funny things when something is super massive or moving fast, I have in my kitchen a stove and a microwave, each with a respective clock. I have synchronized the clocks and after a few weeks noticed that the microwave is running four to five minutes faster. So my question is, is my microwave moving faster or slower through the universe, or is it denser than a stove, Eric? I would say neither. Neither. They're moving at pretty much exactly the same speed through the universe, but there's different circuitry running the clocks. Now, back in the day, this would be three and a half years ago, the power company was

required to count a number of cycles of 60 cycle power a week. They no longer have that requirement, although by long tradition, most power companies do. So what you are witnessing is an artifact of the circuit design. And so we'll see in the near future if the next generation of these appliances includes clocks that are coordinated with global positioning satellites. And that is a fantastic system. I hope you'll think about it because we'll be back right welcome back. Bill Nye here, guest hosting for my beloved Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I'm here with none other than Chuck Nice.

Hey, Bill. Who, with his electronic tablet machine, is wrangling your brilliant questions, which you sent to us on the internet. And I just want to remind everybody the thing that Chuck seems to be fascinated with. Of course, he's fascinated with your questions. But I can tell he's looking at your avatars, your little pictures. I have to tell you. And this next gentleman, which is Danny H., is tweeting to us from.

You know it's a guy? Yes. See? Unless the bottom of this picture reveals something quite shocking, this is a guy. Well, we'll get to it. Okay. Okay, so Danny wants to know this. Gravity can affect light, as in General Rel.

General Rel. Gen Rel, we call it, apparently. But can it affect strong nuclear force, or do black holes already do that? Black holes certainly affect light. Right. And the strong nuclear force, I think, I'm not an expert on this, I think is independent of photons. I mean, that's one of its deals.

Light is comprised of photons. Photons can affect electron orbitals, but I don't think they can get in there to the strong nuclear force. Now, perhaps in coming weeks, our beloved Neil will have a great deal more to say about that. But I think photonic interactions don't happen inside between quarks and baryons, heavy particles in atomic nuclei. With that said, the stuff that goes on in black holes is not very well understood. With that said, the stuff that goes on in black holes is not very well understood. So maybe things are torn apart and photons take on a new something that we don't understand inside black holes.

Gotcha. Investigating black holes, tricky business. I would say so. I would say so. Can't see them. What about that? Flying blind, huh? Is that how it works?

Yeah. There you go. All right, Danny. Hey, there you have it, man. The answer is pretty much not really. Probably not. Probably not. Almost certainly not. Yeah.

Okay. All right. So this one is from at old man Carson. And this is Jonathan Carlson at old man. Carlson wants to know if you want to send him an email. Yeah. If you want to tweet Jonathan, it's at old man Carlson wants to know. If you want to send him an email. Yeah. If you want to tweet Jonathan, it's at Oldman Carlson. And maybe that's an old picture because he looks like a very young man.

If in the double hole electron experiment, E goes through walls and I'm made of E, why can't I go through walls? Maybe you'll be able to, but making yourself out of E is the big difficulty. Therein lies the... Electric field. There's the rub, huh? But once again, our heroes on Star Trek, they do it all the time. Absolutely. You can transport down into, if there's a cavern a couple miles underground.

Yes, yes. Go right there. And when you get couple miles underground. Yes. Yes. Go right there. No problem. And when you get there, everybody will speak perfect English. Exactly. It's amazing. That is the cool thing. However, now, that's very funny.

That's true. They all speak perfect English. Well, it's a big time saver when you uh when you're gonna do a tv show hey guess what it's in the united states for audiences that are native speakers english it's the business language of the universe people of aerospace it is that's for sure oh cool now when you travel around the world go to the astronautical congress and what have you as i have yes everybody speaks english because nasa, you know, and Boeing. Right.

McDonnell Douglas just established this. The Wright brothers just established this so far back. Exactly. That it's going to be, but who knows what the future holds? Who knows what your children will be speaking when they run their own software companies, Mandarin and Cantonese and Urdu. Are you hinting at the inevitable decline of our great empire, Bill? No. But the developing world is developing.

The developing world is developing. So are you saying that we might have to learn Cantonese or Mandarin? Well, Cantonese it would be because Mandarin is. What have you. Tonal languages. And so this is not a bad thing. It's a thing. When you meet people from Europe, they routinely speak two or three languages because they have to okay and that's not neither here nor there but you know you can drive

all the way across the country of france in six or seven hours you drive six hours out of here you barely get to buffalo i was gonna say yeah six hours away we're not even in pittsburgh yeah it's not that we're all bad it's that the U.S. turned out to be this huge country So do we have one more question? Because the break's approaching I feel the excitement You know what? I'm going to give you this question

But you might have to answer it after the break Whoa, whoa, whoa Because I think you're going to need some time for this But this is what AtRTFeely wants to know Climate change deniers drive me crazy How can we convince them that the data is real and not some scam? I'll tell you right after this. Hey, hey, Bill Nye here, guest hosting for my beloved,

my good friend, Neil deGrasse Tyson here on StarTalk Radio. I don't want you to be jealous. Yes, I'm here with Chuck Nice. And he is all that, ladies. He is nice. Now, Chuck, we had a question right before the jealous. Yes, I'm here with Chuck Nice. And he is all that, ladies. He is nice. Now, Chuck, we had a question right before the break. Yes, we did. And R.T. Feeley wanted to know, climate change deniers drive me crazy.

How can we convince them that the data is real and not some kind of scam? Well, here's the thing about the scam. Conspiracy theories are lazy. Wouldn't it be nice if there were someone in charge screwing things up on purpose? But actually, things are screwed up just sort of by accident. We got 7 billion people living on a planet where the atmosphere is just this thick.

If you could drive straight up on some crazy road with some crazy car, you'd be in outer space in an hour and a half. The way people drive in New York, you'd be there in 45 minutes. So, conspiracy theories are not very good explanations for things, especially something as complicated as climate change. I encourage you to read The Hockey Stick by Michael Mann.

Full disclosure, paperback version. I wrote the foreword. Now, Chuck, it's time for the lightning round. Yes, it is. You have the bell there. And what we are going to do is We are going to zip through these questions as quickly as possible Let me remind you

This installment of the lightning round is powered by our good friends Over at GE You should head over to their YouTube page and take a quick look At some of the cool things they're doing Quick, right after this segment www.youtube.com Slash GE Alright, let's move on to the lightning round And Segment www.youtube.com slash. GE. Yeah. All right.

Let's move on to the lightning round. And there you go. Let's start with Rachel Pomeroy at Rachel Palm. She wants to know this. We know some things can be ignited with light. Can anything be ignited with sound? Oh, yeah. Really?

Sure. What? You get it vibrating at its natural frequency. If it's something that's going to fatigue, you ever try to straighten out a paper clip and it gets warm? It gets hot. Take a rubber band, stretch it, stretch it, stretch it. It gets hot. You can get it hot enough to burn. Whoa.

That was awesome. All right. This is at Corbin Bonspod. Okay. This is Daniel. This is his name. He actually sent this to you because you're at Science Guy, right? Okay.

So he wants to know, at Science Guy. Here we go. Really? That's a question? I lost the question on my tablet. Here we go. Let's go. Could we build a space elevator to the moon's pole from the Earth's pole?

A space elevator to the moon's pole from the earth's pole a space elevator a very difficult business because the moon is going around the earth it's orbiting although because uh even though it's a little liberation if say it faces the same face to us it's an eigen value if you're scoring along with us a proper value so it rotates once while every month so you're going to have to have a pivot you're going to have to have a pivot. You're going to have to have something like a cowboy's wrist with his lasso. Excellent. The answer is no.

Yeah. Yes, it's no. This one is from At One Guilty Pleasure. Also for you. This is straight to you, Bill. Is it possible that dark matter is the excrement of a black hole? He's being

funny, but I know what he's asking. It's pretty funny. It could be. Things that fall into a black hole come out another part of the universe at another time. Have they been modified? The things that fall in? Has the stuff turned into dark stuff? Has it stuff turned into dark stuff?

Right. Has it become comprised of darkons? Darkons. Awesome. So the answer is maybe. Maybe. Maybe. A clear maybe.

That's right. Okay. Let's go. It's lightning, Chuck. Let's go. Let's go. Here we go. This one is from Mark, and he wants to know this. Can we protect a spaceship with an artificial magnetic field the same way it's around our Earth?

Hypothetically. People talk about this quite a bit. If you had a huge power source, by power I mean electricity power source, some reactor with a Stirling engine and a generator out there on your spacecraft, spacecraft, you could maybe make a magnetic field so powerful that you would deflect the solar wind and all those particles and cosmic rays that could, maybe not cosmic rays, the things that could cause you trouble. Ah, the radiation. Could be. The radiation could be deflected around your ship.

Ah. So the answer is? Yes. Yes. Number one, shields up. Okay. This one from at- Shield four is bucklings.

Shield four is always trouble. Lead on. This is from at Laura Lee Biology. Can Bill comment on Hawking's new claims regarding event horizons? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's apparently things that fall into black holes may not come out at another part of the universe at another time. You may be a way to get the energy back.

That's the way I understand the paper. Gotcha. And she asked, can I comment? I did. I mean, ignorantly. Fantastic. Alright, this one from at CJ Robinson wants to know this. What would happen to our atmosphere if gravity was turned off for one minute?

So no gravity on Earth for one minute. What would the effects be? We remind you, inertia is a property of matter. So I guess if we turned off the gravity for a minute, everything would continue to spin through space for a while. But then you'd start getting a lot of outgassing, random collisions. The atmosphere would be warmer than space, so those molecules would bounce off each other and disappear forever. Whoa.

Okay, so we're running out of time. We're down to the wire. This is from Scott Avion, and he wants to know, what advice can you give a new science teacher from K-12 trying to really engage their children and get them excited about sciences. Oh, that's a fabulous question. Chuck, what was your favorite thing about your favorite teachers? They made me want to learn.

They're passionate. They're passionate. So, Guy, what's his name? Scott. Scott, let your passion come through. And we'll see you next time on StarTalk Radio. I'm here with Chuck Nice, and we have had nothing but fun. Thanks for listening.