StarTalk Radio - Expanding Our Perspectives, with Susan Sarandon

Episode Date: December 11, 2015

Ready to have your perspectives expanded, cosmically and otherwise? Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomes actress and activist Susan Sarandon, exoplanetary scientist Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer, astrophysicist Dr. Emily Rice, Bill Nye and co-host Maeve Higgins. 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. Welcome to the Hall of the Universe of the American Museum of Natural History. I'm your personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And tonight on StarTalk, we are featuring my interview with Susan Sarandon. We all know her because she's an Academy Award winning actress. She is a humanitarian and she's an all-around free thinker who's deeply invested in the big picture. So let's do this.

Woo! I've got with me my co-host, Maeve Higgins. Hi. Maeve, welcome back to StarTalk. Thank you. Always great to have you, professional comedian. Yep. And as always, we bring on an expert guest

to help carry the content. And I have with me a friend, a colleague, Dr. Emily Rice. Thanks for coming to StarTalk. Thanks for having me. And you thought I was geeky with my ties. She's got like planetary nebula on her shirt. Raising the bar, we call it. Raising the bar.

In fact, that's the Helix Nebula, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, I wore this for you. This is the Helix Nebula. Thank you. We wanted to that's the Helix Nebula, if I'm not mistaken. I wore this for you. This is the Helix Nebula. Thank you. We wanted to rebrand the Cosmos Nebula. Wait, wait. Okay, wait. Can I get a little, because I knew which nebula that is?

What's its new NGC number? I know my nebulosities. I just want you to know. Back up. And what about, do you know what the rocket is? You mean the space shuttle? Which one? Yeah, yeah.

You got it. On your necklace. So, yes, I'm not the, believe it or not, I'm not the geekiest of my community of fellow astrophysicists. So, Emily, I'm going to draw on your perspectives during this program as we feature my interview with Susan Sarandon. My high point memory of her is as... In Tell Man Louise? No, in Rocky Horror Picture Show, of course. She's Janet in Rocky Horror Picture Show.

She's Janet in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Damn it, Janet. She's also an activist and a humanitarian. And she was appointed in 1999 to be UNICEF's goodwill ambassador. And so she's also active in LGBT issues. I guess we have a Q on there now, LGBTQ. And she's also an advocate for marijuana legalization. But if you add it all together, this is a broadening of people's acceptance and understanding of who and what we are as people. And some years ago, she actually came to this institution, the American Museum of Natural History, because

her son had his birthday party here. It was a child. And if you're a kid, you can come here and have a birthday party. It's cool. It's cool. So she came, and I met her for the first time then. And I brought to that party, I have meteorites in my office, so I brought one. Humble brag. I don't mean to show off or anything. And did they just land there, or did you... In my office, yeah.

Yeah, I put in an order for where they would land, you know. Guided, the lojack found my office. And so when she came to my office, it was one of the first things she remembered, was that I produced this meteorite. Let's check it out. This is what I brought to your son's birthday party. Because if you have a birthday party at the museum,

we got to do, take you places you haven't been before. Exactly. So, what'd you feel that? So, does this mean, ah, it's heavier than the Academy Award? It's pretty heavy. Excuse me! But this, so we're made-

Is that how you compare? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that's heavy. So we're made of stardust, right? Yes, as is this. So this is part of me and you. This is forged in the hearts of a dying star. Of a dying star. Yes.

Well, I'm not dying, but... And this is mostly iron. And this is mostly iron. And so it is likely that the very same star that created this iron created the iron that's in this as well as the iron in your blood. See, I find that really cool. So you have a kinship with the cosmos on its deepest level. So meteorites, a reminder. First that Earth moves in a shooting gallery.

That's my first thought when I think of meteorites, because we get hit by them. But also, there's a colleague of mine who did a calculation, and it turns out that if you add up all the iron in the hemoglobin of all the residents of the New York metropolitan area, it's about the same amount of iron as we have in that meteorite. So just even thought to calculate that, that was cool. And so it's a literal reminder, a scientific reminder that we are stardust and that we've come from the same points of origins. So I'm impressed that she was impressed by that because she prompted that memory within me for me to bring out the meteorite. And Emily, would you agree that this is a powerful stuff?

Yeah, yeah. To hold a meteorite, to know that that came from outer space. I mean, it's one thing to tell people, you know, we're star stuff. Somebody said that, right? Carl, I think was his name. Carl who? Okay, you know, Carl Sagan made this famous, we are star stuff.

To think about it as one thing, but to hold it. And she like went down a little bit. You can see that on the clip because it's so heavy. Way more than her Academy Award, yes. It's heavier than you expect because we're used to earth rocks, which also have magnesium and silicate and things in them. But this is iron that sank to the middle of an asteroid

way back in the day. And so it's way heavier than we would expect for an Earth rock. And so people take it and, like, don't expect it to be so heavy and to hold it out of space. So is that when people who, like, weigh a bit more than they look? Is that because they've got more... You know when people, I've got big bones, like they say stuff like that?

Yeah, yeah, this meteorite has... It's a big-boned meteorite, yes. So, but it's one thing to hold a meteorite has, it's a big boned meteorite. So, but it's one thing to hold a meteorite and you say this is from space, but you have to be told that you're connected to it. It's not an obvious fact because it clearly looks otherworldly. Alien, yeah. Yeah, alien. So to appreciate the fact that there's a lot of sweat equity that went into that discovery. So as an educator, no one feels that sense of spiritual connection to the cosmos until they're taught that, right?

This must be what you found in your classes. Yeah, like even one of the most recent meteorite impacts, right? The meteor crater in Arizona that was created only 50,000 years ago. Yeah, that's recent impact, cosmically. Remember, we got an astrophysicist in the house. Recalibrate. Okay, the recent impact of 50,000 years ago. The recent impact, we remember it.

I thought you were talking about, like, 2013. And I was like, I didn't hear about that. Is she talking about Tucson? And even that one, we didn't know for a long time whether it was actually made by a meteorite impact. There was debate among the geologists for a little while whether it was some kind of volcanic activity, something under the crust or something. It was only relatively recently, maybe 100 years ago, that they started to find enough of the pieces left over to prove that it was from a meteorite impact. And then you had that scar.

But that was still taken until the 1960s before everyone just agreed what it was from a meteorite impact. And then you have that scar. But that would still take until like the 1960s before everyone just agreed what it was. It was meteor, until then officially everyone called it Meteor Crater. Yeah, now it's... And before then it was Beringer Crater. It's still Beringer Crater. It's still Beringer Crater. Officially, but Meteor Crater.

But to you and me, we call it Meteor Crater. Oh yeah, oh yeah. So Susan Sarandon, already in this sort of conversational baptism in my office, I know she's already thinking deeper, broader thoughts. And she's got a passion for space. And I didn't know this, but she actually recently linked up in a live video call with the Italian astronaut, Samantha Cristoferetti.

I've got to put in the... Can you help me? Yeah. Al dente. Al dente. That means outdoors. Outdoors. In Spanish.

Samantha Cristoferetti. Cristoferetti. Who was the first female astronaut from Italy and had a conversation with her on board the International Space Station. Susan spoke to Samantha in space. And that left a strong impression on her. Let's check it out. When she described, you know, finally getting up there and looking down on Earth and she took, I could see Earth through the Coppola.

Yeah, that was a relatively recent addition to that. That was spectacular. Changes the outlook. She said, well, this is what's interesting, is that because we have technology to kind of show where we are in the scheme of things. Cosmic perspective. Couldn't say it better. Cosmic perspective.

She said it made it so clear to her how important our tending of the Earth environmentally was, that for her that was such a huge, huge thing to be able to look down and understand that we have to join forces and that we have to all be aware and the interconnectedness of everything. And I think that what science can do

is just to see all that water and to see how insignificant we are and how significant the future is. Yeah, so I think the psychologists call it the overview effect. And it can change you. Does it change the astronauts permanently? Yes. Well, basically, yes. So when she comes back to Earth, she's like, it doesn't matter that he didn't text me back. And then like three days later, she's not going to be like, where's the half and half?

Yeah. So I don't know how it manifests in everyday social, but it can definitely put your brain in a new place. That's what I try to convey to my students is this sense of wonder. And, you know, I hope we don't have to put everybody in space to get this because it's going to get really expensive. There's the extraordinary for being in space.

And then there's the ordinary that when juxtaposed with the extraordinary can make some indelible uh memories first first of all just let me make it clear samantha is it holds is holds the record for the longest single space flight by a woman which was 199 days 199 days it's like three years on it what's that it's like three years on a different planet yes but on earth it's that's so's like three years. On a different planet, yes. But on Earth, it's... That's so nice. On Earth, it's a little less than two-thirds of a year.

Yeah, yeah. So here's the first Italian woman in space. And this was a topic that came up in my conversation with Susan. Just the challenges facing women in science. Yeah, yeah. People have hypothesized, is it discrimination? Is it just old men or just, you know, is there a stereotype?

I mean, I don't know that all this has been resolved, but we know it's a problem in need of attention. And then it had me wonder, maybe is there any value in completely freeing ourselves from thinking of gender in that way at all. I just wonder that sometimes. Because gender shapes the conversation. And maybe gender is not what we think it is.

And coming up, we'll discuss redefining our entire perception of gender at all on StarTalk. We're back on StarTalk. Right here beneath the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. And we're featuring my interview with Susan Sarandon, and she's a humanitarian, as you know, she's an actress. And we're talking about expanding our perspective. Something she's a humanitarian. As you know, she's an actress. And we're talking about expanding our perspective, something she's good at in many ways

and in many dimensions. And one way is from outer space. Another way is to try to do that right here on Earth. Another way is to think about gender in ways that have not been traditional. Historically, there's men and women, and that's kind of it. But she's a card-carrying geek herself, and she wants to share science with everyone regardless of gender. Regardless. And so I asked her about blurring the lines so that gender

may no longer be a barrier to participating in science. Let's find out how she reacted to this idea. I do think that the difference between men and women is really great. And so in terms of problem solving or imagining or empathy or any of those things, to have both genders, and now we're getting genders that are transgenders. Right, right, right. The crayon box is even bigger and everyone can, you know, color outside the line everywhere. What crayon are you?

I'm many. I'm a melted down version of a few. But I think it's great. You don't freak me out in elementary school. I mean, I'm old enough to say this, right? You know, you open up the Crayola box and there's a crayon called flesh. Ooh and it didn't match you. Yeah so here I am wondering, this is a world that didn't have me in mind to enter it. Wow. So then if you were a kid that's in the wrong body

imagine what you're feeling when you look in the mirror and you're going oh my god why are they calling me that when that's not what I feel? Yeah. Yes, that's a whole frontier. And you've been active in that. I mean, we need people to keep that going, keep the freedoms. Well, but also freedom, it so opens up everybody's definition of who they are and what they can be if you're not.

You're right. It opens you up. It opens up if you're not described by your genitals. That's a much bigger definition, right? Right. So how fabulous that men can embrace their female side more and the same with women can embrace their masculine side. That can only make for a better world. Well, that's just the bigger story of why be constrained by anything at all even

nationality or religion or anything yeah so often we try to contain everyone oh you're that therefore you can or can't do this and uh maybe have you been contained in any way or well i was like or pigeonholed? Like categorizing everything since I was tiny. Oh, it's just in us. Well, I think so. I mean, I'm relearning things now as I get older, like about, say, about transgender. Like I was one of the people that like Caitlyn Jenner, I was like, oh, like I didn't think much about that before. Like it took that for me to see that interview

where she talked about her transgender experience. Right, right. Because when I was a baby, I was like, boy, girl, red, blue, you know. Uh-huh. I mean, I probably didn't even say that out loud. But do you know what I'm saying, clumsily, is like that I...

It's how we learn, I guess. It's a shorthand. We have to simplify things. Like, that's the way that we under, the world is so complex and there's so much going on that, you know, from a very, very young age, that's how we have to, that's what we have to do to understand.

We have to simplify things. There are things that we don't simplify because they don't come simplified. There's a whole range of height that people have. We don't put that into two categories. There's a range of weight. There's a lot of things that people have. We don't put that into two categories. There's a range of weight. There's a lot of things that come in ranges. And so I don't think it's hard to think about a spectrum. And in fact, Emily and I have a colleague who may have a unique perspective

on this topic. And it's Rebecca Oppenheimer, who is the department chair of astrophysics here at the museum. And we have her standing by live on video, Paul, right now. You guys, you can put that up. Oh, there she goes. Hey, Rebecca. How are you? How are you doing? Thanks for staying up late for this. Hey, I'm always late. I'm an astronomer, right? I guess so. Stupid comment of mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The nighttime is our friend, is our place. It's when we get our best ideas and our best innovations.

Exactly. So from your point of view, what does gender mean today? This word is really complicated. And the questions you ask are, you know, you can ask one person and get a different answer. But let me give you my perspective. Gender and sex are not the same thing. Gender is a sense of who you are. Whereas sex is perhaps what your birth certificate says, perhaps something else. It's very complicated, and I don't think it can be summed up very quickly in such a short

conversation. But I will say this. Those of us who identify along a certain binarity of gender, say, for example, I identify as a woman, I am a woman, experience life differently than they would as a man. And I've, I spent a large fraction of my life putting on an act pretending to be a man, which was interesting, but rather unpleasant. Interesting, but rather unpleasant, I have to say. So did we hire into the department 15 years ago Benjamin Oppenheimer, or did we hire Rebecca Oppenheimer? You hired, well, my legal name at the time was Ben Oppenheimer, but I was a woman. So we hired a woman. We didn't know it yet.

I knew that when I was... You knew it. We didn't know it yet you knew it we didn't know it yet but you knew it i knew it when i was six or seven i knew my name back then i knew everything about it but i had no sense of how to articulate it no one talked about this in the 70s it just wasn't something that came up except with jerry springer and then it was, you know, a parody and really rather nasty stuff that he put on his screen. So what you're, not to put words in your mouth, but what you're suggesting is that there is a fluidity there not recognized by people who have the urge to bin things into discrete categories.

And if that's the case, then it's meaningless to speak of one gender or another, and maybe we should abandon the entire idea. Yes and no. I always had a sense of who I was. However, I'm just one of many billions on this planet, and many, many others feel quite differently from me and what i'm finding actually it's a very interesting thing it ties into some of what emily was saying earlier um that science actually may not be simply about classifications and emily

you and i have published on this subject ourselves. Not about people, though. Well, yes, not about people, but objects that we observe. So much easier to understand, I think. And we've noticed that there's a greater diversity than we ever imagined out there before. I just want to emphasize, you just said it briefly, but I have to say that in our field, in astrophysics, by the way, we have a conversation that includes three astrophysicists in this moment. I don't know that TV is... And we're talking about gender. Has that ever happened in history of television? But that we, a big part of our field is understanding

the categories of objects we observe through a telescope. And if you've only observed a few, you have an urge to just make two or three categories. You observe many more. You say, wait a minute, there are nuances. I need six categories, ten categories. And then you realize there are no categories. It's a continuum. Exactly. And we see this in our field.

We're finding with planets, the words have almost no meaning. And in fact, as you look at the parameters that they exhibit, how they're different, what their atmospheres are, and as we move on to new types of planets over and over again, they don't fall into normal categories. And this is the exciting thing. I don't find it threatening. I find it really exciting. Wait, wait, but Pluto's still a dwarf planet.

Just to make sure. You didn't change that. Just to be clear. Well, there may be other subclassifications of Kuiper belt objects. Zing. So be it. Let's have fun with it and see what's out there. And I think the same is true of human exploration and social science. With gender comes deep questions

about a person's most innate sense of who they are. So basically, we have to broaden our understanding of the range of how the world manifests, not only in the rest of nature, but in humanity itself. And to me, scientific thought is one of the best ways to do that, because we're trained as scientists to question everything. Yet at the same time, we also have to admit when we are simply wrong. And when we're wrong, that's a fact. We can't prove anything, but we can disprove things. Well Rebecca, thanks for taking time. We'll catch you in the corridors. Keep you all in line with

the budget. She is chair of the department, I'd say. So thanks Rebecca for piping into StarTalk. Thank you, Neil. All right. So, up next, more on the expanded perspective that derives from my conversation with Susan Sarandon and why she thinks Carl Sagan had his view of the world expanded in more ways than just looking through telescopes. We'll find out when StarTalk returns. Welcome back to StarTalk from the Coleman Hall of the Universe of the American Museum of Natural History. And I've got Maeve Higgins, my comedian co-host. And I have Emily Rice, a friend and colleague.

Emily, thanks for being on. Yeah. Excellent. And so in my conversation with Susan Sarandon, it was clear that she likes opening doors of opportunity. She likes gaining a cosmic perspective in whatever way that can be provided. And that's when I learned that she's a strong supporter of the legalization of marijuana. And so she argues the world would be a better place if people smoked weed instead of drank alcohol. So this is a completely

defensible point. And it came up in the conversation. And again, this show is about how my conversation with her comes to stimulate perspectives you might not have had before. And so in this, she reflects on the relationship between Carl Sagan and marijuana, how it may have helped him achieve the cosmic perspective. Let's check it out. In the book, Botany of Desire, they quote Carl Sagan, who wrote a book, not using his name, where he goes on and on. There's one episode, one chapter in that book that talks about the fact that all of these plants exist and always had and animals do them and why are they there for us any kind of plant that gives you some kind of

psychedelic experience but he talks about how marijuana specifically because we have so much distraction and so much coming in sight smells right smells, right now, talking to you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that what marijuana does is help you be present. And these days, with everybody on there, various, I mean, everyone walking down the street is holding a, it's crazy, or devices, that people are having a harder and harder time being present. And so I thought it was interesting as a scientist that he felt this need for us to be able to focus and to get rid of some of the stuff that was coming in every now and then. Obviously, Carl Sagan was in high all his life.

Yeah, so people extol the virtues of it, and it's becoming more and more legalized in the country. What's the latest count here I have? Was it 23 states? What is it? Washington, D.C. So this is going on and on, and it looks like it's not going back. Susan Sarandon just sold me two speedballs outside the planetarium. Is that right?

Okay. I think it was her. I don't know. It's making the show so interesting. So, Emily, you have any reflections on this? Not really, actually, because my parents might be watching. It's not legal in New York, right? Not yet.

No, they don't enforce it. It's kind of, it's not legal yet, York, right? Not yet. No, they don't enforce it. It's kind of, it's not legal yet, but they also have said, I think the police have said that they won't ticket or something like that. Did they decriminalize it

or something? Was that what it was? Not officially. Okay. But the unofficial policy is, I think. I'm not up on all the latest laws. Yeah, this is also not a,

they covered it on Saturday Night Live. I might have it in my notes. You keep talking. Talk them on yourselves while I check my notes. Oh, the universe is my drug. Like, that's the, you know, I want the same thing, kind of. Like, I want a different perspective, like a broader perspective, a changed perspective.

But that's the universe for me as an astrophysicist, which is kind of amazing. Like, just to think about, you know, I have my own little research area and that's honestly the hardest thing to think about. But when I talk to my colleagues about their research on black holes or on galaxies or on these nearby stars, it's just like, these objects are thousands, millions of light years away. They don't exist anymore, some of them, because the light has taken so much time to reach us. We know all of these amazing things as if these things were right next to us and we could like test them in a lab. Sometimes if I have a drink with my colleague, maybe we're complaining about work, maybe we complain about our budgets,

and then we're like, we're doing astronomy for a living. We're magicians, practically. It's so awesome to be able to study the universe like this. But do you think that Carl Sagan, is that true about Carl Sagan and that botany? I don't know. I mean, I don't have first-hand knowledge of this. All I know is from what she told me

and from what others have rumored. I've heard that story before. Yeah, and his biographers have said this. So, I mean, I don't, the times I've met him, I don't think he was high. He was channeling the universe

as good educators will do yeah and so if that was the consequence of a marijuana induced perspective I would not have known it at the time because you kind of get that for free anyway from the universe itself but now we get it from Carl maybe he was high yeah yeah but I think she was saying that he concentrate it made him concentrate more or like be less distracted not necessarily be like, whoa, just be like, focused. I like that pantomime. One little start. So this show is about expanding perspectives.

And what we did was we went out to our fan base to ask if they had any questions regarding expanding perspectives and they sent in questions to us through our various social media sources and Maeve you have these questions yep so you're going to ask them of me yeah the directed to me it turns out you don't know they you don't know these questions I do not know what they are and if I don't have an answer I'll'll just say I have no idea. Are you high? No, that's not what I'm saying. So this is what we call StarTalk's Cosmic Queries. So I welcome these, and these are people from all around the world. Yeah.

We have quite a broad base, and I'm happy to learn every time we get a question from yet another distant land. Yes, this distant land is Old England. Old England, okay. My enemy. No, no. Maeve, a native of Ireland. Yes, okay. Wasn't England everyone's enemy at some point? Totally. Yes, yes. Of course. Okay, so this question comes from Matt Eli in London, England. He asks, is there a moment that sticks out in your memory of when you have witnessed someone else's cosmic perspective expanded when they weren't seeking it but it happened? Yes.

It happened to Mike Massimino. And he described it on StarTalk. He probably described it at other times. But I got him to tell me on StarTalk. Mike Massimino, the astronaut. He's an engineer, an astronaut, and he was one of the people who went to fix the Hubble telescope. But while he was in space, space walking, fixing the Hubble telescope, he looks down to Earth.

He is stupefied by that view as Earth rotates past. And he says to himself, am I in heaven? And is that Earth? And then he remembered he came from earth and then said to himself, that's heaven. And he teared up in the retelling of this revelation he had that his home planet is what he and the rest of us need to think of as heaven. That was a mind-broadening cosmic perspective that I saw unfold right in front of me, because at the end of that explanation, he was in tears.

Oof! On that note, coming up, we're going to ask Susan Sarandon about the movie roles that might have shaped her cosmic perspective when StarTalk returns. Welcome back to StarTalk. Right here beneath the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, for which I serve as director. It's kind of cool to have the keys to the planetarium.

So cool. I don't mind telling you. That's just cool. I think about the cleaner in here. Oh, they have the keys too, yes. Damn. I thought I was special, but you're right. So tonight we're featuring my interview with Susan Sarandon,

and she's open-minded, she's broadly perspected. Is that a phrase? Does that work? And she tried, it said she tries to contribute to society in meaningful humanitarian ways. She's a, in fact, she's a United Nations humanitarian and an activist for women in science, and of course she's an Academy Award-winning actress. All of the above. Leave some for the rest of us. I know. Great combination.

One of her films, we got to talking about her films, one of which was The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which she starred in as the unforgettable character, Janet. Damn it.

Damn it, Janet. And so, if you don't remember The Rocky Horror Show, we actually have a clip from the movie. I don't know how much we get to show this legal, but whatever it is, our people said it's okay. Let's remind us what Rocky Horror looks like.

Check it out. The game has been disbanded. My mind has been expanded. It's like Frankie's landed. It's just so sincere. Wow. Susan Sarandon. There she is as Janet.

That was towards the end of the film. And that's a film that challenged, it was mid-70s when it came out, I think 1975 perhaps, 76, around there. And it was a little early for how much it packed into one cinematic expression of transvestite, transgender, homosexuality, all this spectrum of sex and gender that now everybody's talking about in the news, that all got covered. It's about being yourself, being what you want to be without the judgment of others.

Now, while you're not supposed to be in judgment of others, I will stand in judgment of you at this moment, Maeve, for wearing nothing cosmic. Oh, I know. Flanked by the helix nebula. I can hook you up. And I've got rainbows on my tie. So you said you could help.

How do you help her out? Yeah, I have a fashion blog, an astronomy fashion blog. What? What? That's cool. An astronomy fashion blog? There's a fashion blog, an astronomy fashion blog. What? What? What? An astronomy fashion blog. There's a universe full of astronomy fashion out there. It's really amazing. But I can't buy it on your blog. You can't buy it on our, we kind of curate

on the blog. You're an aggregator for all of the stuff that's out there. Yeah. And we accept donations, samples, Valentino especially, if you're watching. I will do reviews. You will review? Oh, absolutely. And we accept donations, samples, Valentino especially, if you're watching. Yeah. I will do reviews. You will review?

Oh, absolutely, yeah. Fashion reviews. Sure, yeah. So am I on there? You are on there, yeah. I don't know. With my cosmic converse that you were jealous because they didn't come in your size. You have converse all-star sneakers. Yes.

White that have been painted, that have been. No, no, they're real. They're made by the company. Made, and it's an image. The image is NGC 602. Yes. White that have been painted, but that have been... No, no, they're real. They're made by the company. Made, and it's an image. The image is NGC 602. Yes. That one. The new general catalog, 602.

Yep. A fuzzy object. It's probably a galaxy. Fade fuzzy. It's a star-forming region in the small Magellanic Cloud. Oh, sorry, yeah, so, okay. Is what it is. This is like dirty talk between astrophysicists.

This is so dirty. It's hot. This is... So, this has gone to extreme limits. My co-executive producer of StarTalk wore a dress at the Emmy celebrations in Los Angeles. Designed by Valentino. Yeah, they have a whole collection. That was hewn from the cosmos itself.

was hewn from the cosmos itself. Gorgeous. Which has accurately drawn constellations and labeled as such. There's the Big Dipper, there's Cassiopeia, there's Ophiuchus, we have Saturn, we have the Big Dipper, we have galaxies, we have Saturn. So give it up for Star-torial Hawthorne.

She's always the one yelling in my ear if I'm behind schedule or she's the one. So anyhow, when we return to StarTalk, we'll pick up my interview with Susan Sarandon. When we chat about awe in the digital age, is it

still possible? Or has the progress of science ruined it for us all? On StarTalk. We're back. StarTalk. The American Museum of Natural History, right here at Central Park West in New York City. Which contains the Hayden Planetarium, which is sitting above our heads as we speak. Woof!

Yes. So, welcome back, Maeve. Maeve Higgins. Thank you. And how long have you been in the States now? For like almost two years. Well, a year and a half. A year and a half.

From? Venezuela. From Ireland. Welcome stateside. Yeah, thank you. Across the pond. And Emily, great to have you as a colleague. I moved here from upstate.

That doesn't count. Yeah, sorry. Too exotic. Did I ask? No. So just evidence that I'm not the geekiest one out there. She's wearing a nebula in space, just so you know. Is it geeky or is it geek chic?

It's geek chic, for sure. Yeah, yeah. So we're featuring my interview with Susan Sarandon, and we got to talking. You know, she came to my office, and the conversation, it goes organically, and I never know in advance where it's going to go. And so that's why we do it ahead of time.

We get the best parts, and we slot them in. And in this part, we talk about the state of awe in modern times. Is it there? What has science done to it? Has it increased it? Has it decreased it? Of course, I think it has increased, but that's what I brought into the conversation. Let's just find out and see where it goes. There's a saying, one of the edicts from Arthur C. Clarke, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Cool. Yeah.

So that's true on all levels, right? But I think a lot of technology has robbed us of our awe, actually. You think so? Yeah, because you look at a picture now that's amazing, and you go, yeah, but that was Photoshopped. People even think the pictures on the moon of the astronauts were Photoshopped. We have so many skeptics. You could be Photoshopped right now. You might not even be talking to me.

Who knows? Yeah, I will not divulge whether or not that's true. Well, touch hands, E.T. See? There. So, Maeve, as a comedian, do you guys joke about any of this? Well, just as a person, I'm really easily awed. You are. Like, when she was saying that, I was thinking, yeah, I'm impressed by, like, vending machines that can bend.

No, not just vending machines. No, but one thing. Don't finish that sentence. Leave it right there. I'm, not just bending machines. No, but one... Don't finish that sentence. Leave it right there. I'm impressed with bending machines. With the robotic arms and the suction. No, the ones with like cheeseburgers, like hot things in them. Did you ever see one of those?

I don't... See? They're incredible. Sorry, sorry. You can get it. If I'm eating a cheeseburger, okay, it's not coming from a vending machine. So you need to spend more time in America to know where to get your hamburgers, okay?

So you're impressed that food can come out of a machine hot? Hot food, you press a button, it's like a real vending machine that you would get chips from. But instead it's like all these burgers, and they taste disgusting, but the novelty value, it's truly awesome. You just press a button. It's hot. Okay, Maeve, Maeve, Maeve. You have to see one of these to truly. Maeve, Emily and I study the birth, life, and death of the universe.

And I ask you a question about awe, and you tell me a machine that heats a nasty hamburger leaves you in a state of awe honestly you talk about stupefaction you should see me standing in front of one of those machines first of all it's like this the choice you can get cheeseburger regular hamburger pickle no pickle all these things then you just put in you just put in your they're so cheap as well a dollar and then you just press a button and whichever one often they just get jammed at the end but you keep going and eventually you get a kind of a flattened burger out of a machine

don't have to talk to anyone no one needs to know you're eating a burger. You can go for a second lunch afterwards. Okay, I'm a little older than you, but when I was growing up, people were awed by the fact that we walked on the moon. Yeah, that's so spectacular, but I mean... But! No, there's no but in that sentence! Back on the ground, you're hungry. But it's not but in that sentence. Back on the ground. No. No. Back on the ground, you're hungry. That's the talk of but. It's not a vending machine. We need to do it again.

That's the thing. We didn't live through this. Are you post-Apollo or pre-Apollo? Post-Apollo. Post-Apollo birth. Post-Apollo. And that's a thing. Like, we have, why should we believe it, frankly?

Do it again. That's what I, I want to do it again. I want to look at the moon while people are walking on the moon. People, not just white dudes, but people. Send them up there. One of my favorite things right now to do, and you need technology to do this, is to know when the space station is going overhead. You can get like an app on your phone, where is the space station?

I use it all the time. NASA websites, yeah. It's amazing. You see a little, you know, it's hard. You sit there and you're like, oh. Just to be clear, it's not when the space station is overhead. It's when it's overhead and visible. And visible, yeah.

So it's got to be overhead during twilight where you are in darkness, but it is high up enough so that it is still receiving sunlight reflecting it down to you. Yeah. And it's different for different places on Earth. So I did this the other day, and we watch it. You know, at first you're sitting there and you're like, Oh, I feel kind of like an idiot. Like I'm on my front stoop, you know, like staring there waiting for, you know, something

Santa Claus or something like that. But then you see it, it's a really bright thing and it starts to move. And you're like, there's people up there right now having coffee. It's amazing. And this one in particular, it was maybe 1030 at night or so. And it went away. It went like it went high up above and then it was a bright, it was bright. And then it was just gone. And I thought about it. Yeah. I was like, that was sunset. I was just waving it at astronauts on the space station as they were experiencing sunset. It was, it was so, and we could do this. That's what I'm talking about. Okay? But burgers are pretty good too, in fairness.

Maeve, Maeve, do we, here, Maeve. You should have asked Emily first. We gotta go to commercial, but when we come back, of course, I'm going to find out where in the universe Bill Nye the Science Guy is, and he will send us his next dispatch on his understanding of how science can expand all of our perspectives. Next on StarTalk. We're back on StarTalk. And featuring my interview with Susan Sarandon.

And we're talking about opening our minds and opening our sense of how we see and perceive the world. And any time we have any subject running down on our show, I've got to catch up with my friend Bill Nye the Science Guy. Let's find out what his take is on broadening one's perspective. Check it out. Science is the best idea humans have ever had.

Just look at that skyline. All of those shapes came out of somebody's head, and the people who designed all that, they did it with science. Look at this bridge and these cables. It's like a series of elegant spider webs. But with all due respect to my spider friends, okay, I don't have any friends who are spiders. Nevertheless, this is more complicated than anything that comes out of an arachnid, reptilian, or serpentine brain. No, this has got stones and cables and air.

Oh my. And I often wonder how the world would be different if our leaders, if politicians, could get a perspective of all this from way up there. Or better yet, up there in outer space. I think looking down at the world from above makes you think very differently about the whole place and all the creatures that live on

it. Because when it's all said and done, the cosmos rules. Back to you, Neil. Bill, from the Brooklyn Bridge. I think he's just being a tourist, right? Because he's new to New York. So this notion of thinking more broadly about life, the universe, and everything, of course, Susan Sarandon has kind of been all about that, her professional life, in many different ways, not purely astronomically, of course. She's been a UN ambassador, and she's a big fan of using science to inform perspectives, just in general. And it's nice to have that kind of advocate in someone that influential. So let me just introduce you to my final clip with her, where we talk about

bringing a cosmic perspective down to earth. So a cosmic perspective is a point of view you don't otherwise get, and it's handed to you by the universe. But of course, there are many people who would assert whole other experiences by other means, right? Well, the idea of having something that takes you out of your narrow, self-involved, ego-based experience and encourages you to let go of all the things you're worrying about because you now see it doesn't really matter because the cosmos is so much bigger and you have no control over it. So to be able to access a different perspective, however, if you can do that by being able to be up in space and look down and get this rush,

I mean, just about everybody that gets shot up there comes back with a different perspective. They're changed. This is another way to think about where you came from, Mother Earth, where you are, what's further out there. And I can say that essentially every one of my colleagues in astrophysics thinks this way and feels this way. More importantly, feels that way. None of us are ever going to lead legions of armies into battle to fight over a line in the sand.

It is not within us to do that. Okay. Now, if you get there, we should take the whole UN and just shoot them up into space and have them see, and they'll come back. Oh my gosh.

They'll come back and party. They'll come. That would be an interesting movie plot. Right. When the General Assembly is meeting, you just launch the United Nations, the entire bloc, into space. So this perspective, not enough people have that point of view.

I mean, I think it's clear. I'm not sure that all astronomers do. We squabble over data and things like that. I've heard stories about... But we're not shooting each other. We're not shooting each other, no. We're not threatening death. And we do know how to party, so...

Totally. That's definitely true. We're not supposed to let people know that, I don't think. No, I think we do. It's a recruiting tool, frankly, I think. We want more people to be scientists. We party as much as we science. But we can't party like there's no tomorrow

because we know there's another several billion years left in the universe. The Andromeda galaxy is going to collide with our galaxy in four billion years. Yeah, there's a lot of them that kind of put things into perspective. So if I can offer some summative reflections. This cosmic perspective, which we associate with being in space, yes, it changes you. And you have committees in the United Nations discussing the peaceful uses of outer space. There are outer space treaties that discuss if we're in space, we need to treat one another kindly.

And I think this is a noble exercise, and it may even be a successful one. However, I actually have very low confidence that that would succeed. Because on Earth, people kill each other over nothing. And so we say, oh, but in space, we'll all be nice to each other? How about this? Let us not have wars on the surface of the Earth first. But there's no doubt about it. Once you get to space, where there's unlimited resources, unlimited energy,

space has the potential to be the most peaceful place in the universe. And that is the hope with which I end this episode of StarTalk. And as always, I, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, bid you to keep looking up. Thank you.