StarTalk Radio - Explosive Queries with Terry Crews

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

What does it take to truly thrive on Mars? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Terry Crews answer grab bag questions about Mars, magnetic fields, photons, Hot Ones spicy wings and the entropy of muscles. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/explosive-queries-with-terry-crews/Thanks to our Patrons Jack Walker, Anastasia Kirkpatrick, Skywatcher, Zuber Singh, Jennifer Long, Jared Thomas, David, Adam Rothas, Marius Calin, TeeH, Cedrick Sauls, Lana Abel, RosebeforeHoes, Christina Hagopian, Jerry Agrinzoni, Kassper, Sarah & Oliver, Kenneth von Smellsmore, and Matthew Young for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I gotta do this. Oh my god. But here's what happened. Here's what nobody told anybody. Did you fly into New York to do it? I did. Okay, because I just took the subway, okay? Afterwards, I go home.

Two hours later, I had explosive... Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. And today is a special edition of Cosmic Queries. Coming to you from the hearth of Terry Crews.

Terry Crews. Wait, let's get the hearth going. What are you talking about? Let's get this going. Here we go. There we go. Oh, now it's real hearth. Now we got a hearth going.

Fireside chat with Terry Crews. So Terry, you're my co-host for this episode. I love this, man. And we go back, so this should be fun. This is good, man. This makes my pectorals percolate. I don't even know how to react. It's so good. Watching react. It's so good.

Watching your- It's so good. I love, love learning about science. I love having my mind blown. And you just always, every time I talk to you, you expand my brain. Well, you're living in the right part of the country. You took up residence in Pasadena, like near Caltech. That's right.

JPL. California Institute of Technology. Caltech. JPL, a branch of NASA. So if there's any, you'll get it osmotically as it comes through here. Yeah, exactly. I just feel smarter being here. No, this is good.

And we'll get to the questions in a minute. But I can't channel surf without seeing you on NBC talking about America's Got Talent. America's Got Talent. You were hosting that. I'm hosting it 19 seasons. And every week you got some kind of new flashy suit. Oh yeah, well that's part of the whole thing. Let me tell you, the suit is its own character. Yes.

People would be disappointed if I just came out in a gray suit. I'm ready for the suit to just walk off of your body and do its own dance. That's right. That's right. Listen, I love this show. We just wrapped our 19th season. That's crazy. I've been hosting six of them. Okay, but I'm looking at it

and I say, who are these people? What species are they? Are they human? The stuff they do. It's amazing. First of all, last season, we had a dog that was the most incredible dog i've ever seen in my life the dog's name was rhythm that's a cool name oh it was but the dog danced on beat without looking at the the owner ronnie not even prompted it was unreal i was like

i thought it was a man in a suit for a while. I was like, you gotta be, you're lying. It's the best dog act I've ever seen. I always have my brain just blown every time because I think I've seen it all. You know what I mean? You're like, I've done a lot. Until you realize you haven't. You have not seen it all. No, I ain't.

No, I ain't. There's no limit to human capability. And then I realized we got 8 billion people in the world. That's a lot of people with a lot of talent. That's it. Some of which is waiting to be discovered and i wonder do i have a talent that could work on on agt you know first of all you can say no i don't know no no no first of all you don't know until you try okay i i did

not know that i could act until i was 30 years old oh 30 i never attempted acting uh-huh before i was 30 and i did not know it was my destiny so okay you might get on there and try something and go wait a minute so you you we collected questions yes we went to our fan base and we said neil's hanging out with terry do you have questions for them when they came they came in lots of questions you got them which is really but we picked the best of the best. Let's come right off the top. Let's do it. All right. Let's start with, here's Julia Lind.

And she didn't list where she's from. Oh, witness protection. That's what it is. Yeah. We don't want to. Okay. Julia Lind from somewhere on Earth, we presume. Okay.

Okay. She's come with the questions here. It's, hello, Dr. Tyson et al. Is there a possible way to generate an artificial magnetic field on Mars so that it can have a thicker atmosphere and protect colonists on the surface from radiation? It's a two-part question. Wow, this is deep. It's a two-part question. People thinking all about it. Right.

So. And do you want me to go on? Go on. So, go ahead. Is there a technology that we could theoretically develop, or would we be better off trying to build underground colonies on Mars? Yeah. So, what she knows is that here on Earth, we have a magnetic field. Not very strong, but we have one. That's why compasses, anybody remember what a compass is? Yeah.

Okay. Old school. Old school. Old school. one that's why compasses anybody remember what a compass is yeah yeah okay old school old school old school uh we have a magnetic field and when dangerous charged particles come from the sun we call it the solar wind they see earth's magnetic field and then they channel themselves away and funnel in at the poles and they collide with our atmosphere and render it a glow, causing the aurora. So when we see the aurora, that's the atmosphere and our magnetic field shielding us from harmful radiation.

Wow. Okay. So if we lose our magnetic field, the radiation just comes straight in wherever it hits. Mars, we may have once had a magnetic field. It does not any longer. So if you pitch tent, you're susceptible to this flux of high energy particles. So she was correct to wonder, will we just have underground colonies?

Yeah. All right. And then I'd wonder, well, then what the hell is the point of being on Mars? We'll live underground here. We'll be basically the ants of Mars. The worms, you know, whatever. You know, like, what's the point of being on Mars. You live underground here. We'll be basically the ants of Mars. The worms, you know, whatever. You know, like, what's the point of that? Yeah.

Just consider that almost anything will protect you from those particles. Like the roof of a house. Yeah. Okay? So if you could just, the shielding doesn't have to be elaborate. It just has to have some kind of shielding.

And there's a whole branch of NASA. Well, there's a branch that studies the sun and a subdivision of it that specializes in space weather. We call it space weather, which is when is the solar wind coming? Because it correlates with explosions on the sun. Yeah. It's not just at any time. Yeah. So as the sun goes through cycles, it goes through intense periods

and then it acquiescent. It's an 11-year cycle. So as it pumps up, we get more warnings about explosions on the sun. And as it drifts off, there's fewer. And we know when

a pulse of these particles is going to hit us because it takes time to get from the sun to Earth or to Mars. So we just have a warning sign. Is that any different from saying thunderstorms this afternoon?

Yeah, like tornado warning. Tornado warning, bring an umbrella, but this would be a special solar wind umbrella. Right, right. And so I don't see it as an impossible thing to overcome. That is cool. And maybe you create some local magnetic field and direct the particles off to the north and south of you, your little city in a bubble.

Whatever. I mean, engineers figure this stuff out. I love this. I'm not worried about it. I mean, you know, that is a wonderful thing to say about the magnetic field. It's protecting us. It's protecting us. It's so beautiful.

Oh, yeah. But this is another thing I got to add on to this question. I heard. That's allowed. That's allowed. I want to because it's so fascinating. I heard that the magnetic field was actually reversed at one time in the Earth's history. Oh, yeah.

Woo. That's exciting. North was south and south was north. Okay. Now, I don't want to blow your mind. Okay. Hit me. Okay.

Really? I love this. I love this stuff. Mine should be blown at least once a day. That's a quote of mine. I'm just saying. Okay. You ready? least once a day. That's a quote of mine. Yes. I'm just saying. Okay, you ready? Hit me.

Okay. We're about the same. I'm a little older than you, but we're approximately the same age. When we were growing up, the North Magnetic Pole was in Northern Canada. It was never where Santa is. Whoa. Okay? So Earth's magnetic pole is shifted from our rotation poles.

I don't know if you didn't know that. I did not know this. And it's not stationary. It moves. It's moving. Hang on. Hang on. So when we were growing up, it was kind of meandering in the Canadian, you know, that

whole northern area of Canada where there's just islands and lakes and things. That's where it was. Which meant that if you were up in Canada, you couldn't use a compass to find north because it could be south of you. That's right. Okay? So it's no good way farther down and you get a kind of right. Good Boy Scout books would have a correction table depending on where you were in longitude. Incredible.

Relative good Boy Scout books. Now watch. You check it lately. That North Pole has been moving and it is now passing the North Pole on its way to Siberia. What? Wait. Yes, yes. And pretty soon, it'll be Putin's North Pole.

You're kidding. Okay. All right. The boy controls enough in the world. That's a tilt. The tilt meter just went, I can't believe it's moving. On top of all that, the magnetic field is getting weaker. And we think it's going to get weaker and weaker until it goes away.

And then when it comes back again, it'll be in reverse. Because it flips every time. Oh, my God. Now, check this out. You know how magnets work, right? The plus attracts to the minus. Yes. Okay, so opposites attract.

That's right. You've heard that. Okay. If you have a compass with a little needle and there's a north side of the compass, that would point to our north magnetic pole. However, that is a north needle on the compass yeah why should north point to north it's not supposed to i know which means earth's south magnetic pole is in our north because all north magnets point to it yes right that's we're going to point into the opposite oh my goodness so

you've always been told that's where our north magnetic pole is that south magnetic pole is in our north so okay so now so so we're going to lose the the field and then it will come back in reverse then all your compasses will point the other way we worry that when the magnet field goes away to flip again but this is called a dynamo effect when it goes away and flips that while it's not there will it put all of us at risk yeah so we go back in the fossil record because it's flipped before and if you go to the points where it has flipped there's no periods of mass extinction so if it wreaked havoc it was not global catastrophe right so i'm not so worried about it that's deep yeah will our electronics still work?

Yeah, because the magnetic field is not that strong. So it's no Y2K event. Not even was that an event. Yeah, right. Remember correctly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I wasn't worried. So the threat is not good.

Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Oh, by the way, everyone thought like Y2K, everything would break. Yeah. But keep in mind the way we celebrate time, it's midnight in 24 different hours in sequence.

True. It doesn't all happen at once. That's right. That's right. Okay? So it's not like the whole world blows up at once. Yeah. Even if that were going to happen.

It would blow up time zone by time zone. It would be one at a time. So people get confused when they say, oh, the magnetic axis is going to flip. They think it's our rotation axis, and then they freak out. I love this. So I got to tell them, no, chill. It's just a magnetic.

It has happened before. It's going to happen again. Man, Neil, you blew my mind on the first question. With the first answer. I'm Kais from Bangladesh and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. So Terry, I don't know if you realize the people who ask us these questions, they're part of our Patreon patrons.

So they get to ask questions in our Cosmic Queries. So all of them are patrons. I love that. So check it out. What's next? All right. Next is Sandra Pink. Sandra here from Singapore.

Singapore. All right. I can't wait to visit Singapore. I was here a couple of years ago. I heard a. All right. I can't wait to visit Singapore. I was here a couple of years ago. I love it. I heard nothing but great things. Thank you for doing what you do, inspiring and making everyone's lives just a little bit better every day. Nice.

Question. Mr. Cruz has so many muscles. Yes, thank you. Sandra, you're the best. Stop jiggling your pecs. I'm sorry. Okay. Back to science.

I bet that's illegal in three states. And muscles are so hard to build and maintain. In the cosmic sense, how important are muscles? And why do we need to work so hard for them if they are so important to our survival? Is this entropy? Ooh. Oh. Ooh.

I like it. okay so there's a lot of speculation about like the strong man in the tribe because what does that person do goes out and gets the the food okay they walk back with an elk yeah yeah exactly okay and they're the man i the man, and I brought back the food. Okay? And there's further speculation that that person has almost mythical significance in the tribe, and everybody wants to mate with that person. Because if you don't want to mate with that person, then you don't have offspring that could possibly do that in the future, and you'll just die. You'll be a dead end in the jungle.

And very hungry. And very hungry. And very hungry. That's it. Okay. So people have speculated that this accounts for the fascination we have with famous people because whatever was that urge to want to make babies with who brought back the food,

today you don't need to do that because there's a grocery store down there. So what became of that urge? It's still there within us. Right. Deep, deep. And there's the person on the silver screen. Yeah.

That's the person who I want to mate with or I want that to be my friend. There's an urge. Connection. Even though they're a total stranger. Yeah. And they could be a total asshole. Doesn't matter. Yeah.

Okay? So muscles have that role. But there are other roles that muscles don't really serve. Okay. So muscles have that role, but there are other roles that muscles don't really serve. Okay. So I don't know if everybody had muscles, you know, is that, does that work? You know, so maybe some people out of a group need the muscles for the tribe and, you know, others need to be able to climb trees nimbly maybe to get the fruit. Somebody needs to swim swim you surely know

how to swim but if you have less fat as you surely do you're less buoyant yeah okay people who have very sinewed muscles are less buoyant in the water now olympic swimmers of course are very sort of lanky they don't look like you yeah no very different body not at all okay i've seen that yeah you've seen that but long distance swimmers typically have a little more fat on their bodies like you. Yeah, no, not at all. Very different bodies. Not at all. Okay. I've seen that. Yeah, you've seen that. But long distance swimmers typically have a little more fat on their bodies, which gives some buoyancy so that the energy you're putting into swim is not only to keep you afloat,

it's to actually push you forward. Because if you're gonna sink, some of your energy has to go into not sinking. I love what you're saying because it shows that the muscle is skill-oriented to what you need. Yes, it doesn't have to be big. Right. Just skill-oriented to what you need. Yes, it doesn't have to be big. Right. Just skill. It's not about big.

That's correct. Yes, I love that. And are you quick? Can you catch the rabbit? Yes. And some big, muscular person is not catching the rabbit. Oh, listen. First of all, being big, I've seen for years big guys in the gym who can't do anything.

They can just lift weights. They're just big. You know what I mean? I have a perfect example. I thought I was strong, and I had a mover one time, little guy. I mean, he's just like a normal guy. And there was a box I couldn't move. I was literally like, hey, man, you're going to need to bring some other views.

And no, I got it. And he picked it up and walked out the door. And I was like, oh. I like the fact that you benchmarked other people's abilities to your own ability what what this is you said i can't do this he must need help uh i totally told him i was like you you better get your friend yeah and he was like no no i got it and he picked it up and walked out the door and i realized something i said this is what he does that's what he does all his muscles are configured for that. Everything is configured for moving.

Yes. I'm not. I'm a celebrity. Yeah. I don't move anything. You're a celebrity body. I love it. You pop your pecs.

That's it. That's it. That's it. Thank you, Sandra. Oh, this is great. Yeah. So entropy is disorder. And generally, we like living in what is ordered and we put energy into a system to order it

so that we can function within it. But we have to get that energy from somewhere else. Yeah. Things don't get ordered for free. Wow. Okay. So we get our energy from the food and the food gets its energy. If it's an animal, it ate plants.

The plant got its energy from the sun. Wow. So ultimately we are all solar powered. I love that. That's hot. That is really, that is beautiful, man. It's beautiful. You know, I tend to lay out in the sun and I do feel better after I do that.

Not too crazy, but you know. But I think that's right. Communing with the cosmos in that way. It's a way to keep me grounded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, give me some more. All right, go we have will mansell brown hello dr tyson mr cruz new patron here nice another patron my name is will mansell brown and i'm from north hampshire in the uk northamshire yeah so north uh northamshire north Northamshire. Yeah, I got to say it right. They staple it all together. Yeah, they do. They do.

I'm not from there. I'm not from the UK. Let's see. My question is, photons are massless, however, are given a mass equivalent based on their energy. Yes, they do. Does this mean that gamma rays are affected more by the curvature of space than radio waves due to there being a higher mass equivalence? Many thanks, and I love the show.

Wow, okay. So there's a lot going on there. Yes, it is. So the mass equivalent, you have the energy of the photon. You plug it into E equals MC squared. You plug it in. The E is for energy.

You put in the energy, and on the other side is M, mass, times C squared. That's the speed of light squared. That's just a constant. You look that up, plug it in. So energy and mass are related in this way. So what he's wondering is, if it has no mass, would it still respond to gravity? And if it does respond to gravity, do the higher mass equivalent photons respond more?

That's the question. Okay. Now that's very Aristotelian and Aristotle got a lot of physics wrong. Okay. Okay. You know what Aristotle said? I'm a little bit paraphrasing. He said, heavy things fall to earth faster than lighter things in proportion with their

mass. He didn't use the word mass, but in terms of their weight. Yeah. That's not true. Like a rock and a feather. Well, a feather's different. Fine. That's true with a feather because a feather is doing this.

But get a heavy rock and a light rock. Right. They fall down at exactly the same rate. That's right. Exactly the same rate. Yep. That is way more profound than most people appreciate. Okay?

Mm-hmm. That is way more profound than most people appreciate. Okay? The gravity is pulling more strongly on the heavier object. But it takes more force to accelerate the heavier object at the same rate as the lighter object. So they fall at the same rate because Earth is pulling more strongly on the heavier object. Okay. So let's back up. So I have a something light, everything's on wheels and something massive and something not mass, but the same force on each thing on the low mass object,

it's going to scoot along real fast. Right. And the heavy ones are not going to go very fast. Okay. So if the force of gravity were the same on every object, you're putting the same force, then the lighter things would go faster. Right. The force of gravity is stronger on the heavier object. Yeah. Because if the heavier object and the lighter object are both accelerating at the same rate, something's pushing that harder.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More power. So they all show up more. Yep. Okay? Okay.

Yeah. So they all show up. More. Yep. Okay. So even though gamma ray photons have higher equivalent mass than radio wave photons, because the whole electromagnetic spectrum can be thought of as photon, even though they have more mass, they're each attracted to gravity at exactly the same rate. Wow.

Wow. Wow. It's, by the way, that's called the equivalence principle, advanced by Albert Einstein in 1915. And it's one of the most profound advances in human understanding of the universe that there ever was. Because everyone thought something's heavier. Right. It would go. In fact, the dudes went to the moon.

They brought a hammer and a feather. On the moon, there's no air. So the feather is not doing this. Had the hammer, the dudes went to the moon. They brought a hammer and a feather. On the moon, there's no air. So the feather is not doing this. Had the hammer, the feather, let go. They fell at exactly the same rate. Yes, yes. And that's the moon pulling on them, but it's just how gravity works. That's right.

Yeah. So everything will respond the same. I love this. Because it doesn't matter how much it weighs. It's cool. This is another thing I want to follow up on. I love this stuff. I heard we all have our own gravity. Yes. Yes. That's cool. This is another thing I want to follow up on. I love this stuff. I heard we all have our own gravity.

Yes. Yes. That's incredible. That is amazing. Yes. I thought it was just people because people liked me. Yes. You know what I mean?

So if I put you out in space and I had like a marble and I gave it just the right speed in just the right direction, then it would go orbit around you. Whoa. No, no. A marble. probably like a poppy seed. Yeah, yeah, maybe something like that. Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so we can make at least some of the universe orbit you.

Your ego needs it. I know, I know. Listen, my wife believes I have my own gravity. It's called narcissism is what it's called. So the real way to say it is you and the earth attract each other. Yes. That's great. That's what's going on.

That's it. That is so beautiful. So if you jump out off a cliff and you fall to earth, what's actually happening is you and earth are falling towards each other, except you're doing most of the moving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Earth will come up just a little bit.

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Dude. Oh, good. Okay will come up just a little bit. I love that. Yeah, yeah. Dude, that's so good. Okay, keep going. Here we go. Samuel Tomka. Excuse me, Samuel Tomka.

Hello, Neil and Terry. Samuel here from Slovakia. Nice. All right. I'm embarrassed as an American, just a geographically ignorant American. I was asking someone from Slovakia, like, what was Slovakia before?

It was Slovakia. Because growing up, I don't remember hearing that. Yeah. Right? And she said, oh, it was part of Czechoslovakia. You know what? Duh. Yeah, yeah. She's like, duh.

Well, then I asked another stupid question. I said, well, Sam, what was the rest of Czechoslovakia? Oh, that became the Czech Republic. Okay? Yeah. Makes all the sense in the world. It's like, okay, duh. Connect the Czech Republic. Okay. Yeah. It makes all the sense in the world. It's like, okay. Connect the dots here.

But yeah, believe me, I would ask the same question. Okay. I have a question. If humans settled on a low gravity planet, would skipping leg day have an entirely different meaning or would we have to invent new exercises just to keep our legs from shrinking? Keep the fun and education going. Love you guys. I love it.

People, I've been accused of skipping leg day a lot. I can give two answers to that. Okay. One of them is if you want to maintain the physique that you would have had on earth, yeah, you're going to have to exercise way more. And you have to use exercises where you can add resistance beyond just lifting things off the ground you need like pulleys and things and so that's if you wanted to do that but if you will forever be living on that low gravity planet you don't need the big muscles anymore you know you

don't and i heard you get taller yes in you get tallest if, do you know that astronauts that do spacewalks, which NASA calls extravehicular activities, I'm trying to get them, dude, just call it spacewalk. Yeah, yeah. Extravehicular. EVAs they call them. Okay. So astronauts have spacesuits, depending on how tall they are when they're launched, two to three inches taller for their spacewalk than they do for when they're launched, two to three inches taller

for their spacewalk than they do for when they launch. Oh my goodness. Because in zero G, they grow. They just grow into it. If you're six feet, you can grow two inches. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. I want to go to space.

I'm going to look amazing when I come back. So your vertebrae- Terry, you're six, seven. Yeah. No, it's not. So it doesn't keep going. Oh, yeah. So your vertebrae expand because you it's not so it doesn't keep going oh yeah so your vertebrae expand because you don't have gravity compressing them yeah and you get a couple extra inches so they can't spacewalk in the same suit that they launch in oh my goodness yeah i bet you zero

gravity is good for my skin too it's good for everything everything everything i love it yeah everything just kind of floats there yeah so like i, if you don't need your muscles, they will atrophy. If you never need your muscles, should we care that they atrophy? That's right. I don't know. That's right. But if you ever want to come back to Earth, you better be ready for that. And the astronauts come back to Earth, and they got all kinds of machines up there so

that they lose their muscle mass. Yeah, because you can get really hurt. And you can still lose bone mass. There's still an unsolved problem, the bone part. But you can be a blob in space. That would be great. You can be a blob in space, and your heart won't even know the difference. That's amazing.

Because it's not pumping against gravity. That's good. Yeah. You don't want to clog your arteries. But you can be chubby, but if your arteries were still clear, your heart won't even know. This is a great question. That was a great question. Okay. clear your heart won't even know this is a great question that was a great question okay daniel frank hey guys love the show he doesn't say where he's from but uh Daniel Frank.

Hey, guys. Love the show. He doesn't say where he's from, but... Another witness protection. Yeah, another witness protection. If one was able to stop time, is it true that you wouldn't be able to see anything because the photons would freeze too?

Can we make an exception to that? You know, I don't know if I have a good answer for that. No. Because to the photon, there is no time. You might have heard that the faster you go, the slower time ticks. This is relativity. And in the limit, at the speed of light, time stops. Photons, which exist at the speed of light when they are emitted at whatever wherever they

came from my phd thesis was on the center of the galaxy which is 30 000 light years away and when i capture those photons for me watching them they took 30 000 years but if you're the photon the instant you left the center of the galaxy, you hit my detector. You're right there. In the same instant. Yeah. So if there's zero time, I don't know what effect that would have on the photons. Right.

Because they don't ever have time. Yeah, they're outside of time. In a way, they're outside of time in that sense. So I'd have to think more about it. I don't have a good answer for that. I feel like a fish floating in water. Doesn't know it's in the water. Doesn't know it's in the water, so to speak. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And that's weird. That's really wild. Would a photon know that time had stopped? That's a whole other deep question. Oh, we just opened a wormhole. My brain just went. eh, eh, eh. Tilt, tilt.

Yeah, yeah, so I don't know. I love this. Oh, by the way, that was a very dated comment you made. You said tilt, tilt. I did, I know. Oh my gosh, Terry. Pinball wizard. Pinball.

Pinball wizard. I know, my kids would be like, what are you? If you try to influence the ball, you hit your hips into the machine. If you do that too much, the game craps out on you, and it says tilt. Well, I tell my kids, I'm like, I'm trying to read. I want to make myself so interesting. I could read the phone book. It'd be wonderful.

And they're like, what's a phone book? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Oh, man. You're already not interesting. Oh. All right. You should have a few more in there. Yeah're already not interesting. All right. You should have a few more in there. Yeah, it's more.

This was Mickey Pastillo. Mickey from Omaha here. Omaha. Which flavor on Hot Ones was the hardest for each of you? Thanks. You were on Hot Ones? I was on Hot Ones. So was I.

Oh, my God. Oh, I was high on Hot Ones. It made me. Literally, I've never been on drugs. I've never been drunk before in my God. Oh, I was high on hot ones. It made me, literally, I've never been on drugs. I've never been drunk before in my life. Okay. Dude, I was hallucinating. Oh.

It was so painful. Okay. That I started to see double. I spent six years in Texas starting out a complete wimp and leaving where I could eat a jalapeno pepper and not tear. So I had some bit of, I don't want to call it training, but life experience. So there were 10 of them. Where did you start crapping out?

Oh, man. I went all the way. You went all the way. The last dab hurt so bad. Okay. Now, you have to understand, too, because I do intermittent fasting. That was my first meal of the day. Ouch.

That made it triply... I would say it amped everything up. Take a minute, tell everybody what Hot Ones is in case they missed it. Hot Ones is a show that you basically taste different hot wings at different levels. Buffalo wings. At different levels of heat. The sauce was from mild all the way to the most intense heat you could ever taste. To mega death.

Yeah. Where these ghost peppers, they have all these names for each one of them. And some of them are not even found in nature. Yes. They became this contest. They genetically modified peppers that were like, oh my God, like nuclear. Is that what our GMO scientists are coming up with? Chernobyl level.

Yeah. And so I think the premise is you're allowed to talk about your projects to him, but only if you can get through the sequence of heat. I heard another experiment where it's hard to lie when you're doing something else. So they would make you hold a ball, bounce a balloon in your hand, and then they ask you questions, and you can really tell who's lying and who's not. Interesting, I never knew that.

And I think that's the premise behind Hot Ones. Because everyone there is really honest. You have to think through all of what's going on in your face. And you know they're honest, because they're people who otherwise have their relationship with a camera and it goes completely out the window. I was screaming.

I literally had to yell just to keep my brain from just like, okay, or running out of the room. I knew I wanted to stay in it, but I was like, it's hard. So I was good up to eight out of the 10. And then nine was pretty severe. I already knew you're not supposed to touch it with your lips because then your lips get, you can't feel your lips. They give you a little milk and all that stuff. Yeah, I did ice water, but milk would work too.

But I went to 10 and then I took a double dose because I said, I got to do this. Oh my God. But here's what happened. Here's when nobody told anybody. Did you fly into New York to do it? I did. Okay.

Because I just took the subway. Okay. Afterwards, I go home. Two hours later, I had explosive diarrhea. Okay. Two hours later. Now, suppose I was on an airplane. Suppose I was in a taxi.

I'm in my own bathroom, thank you. And it was on the floor. If you never got drunk, this never happened to you in college. In college, you put your cheek on the bathroom tile just to feel the coolness. Yeah. Because you're just. Okay. I heard about people doing that.

Yeah. This is what it was. And so, yeah, that was my final chapter of my experience. Who was the sequel? Hot twos. Hot number twos. Okay, that's really disgusting. Oh, I'm just starting a show like that.

But it was one thing you do once in life, I think. Yeah, yeah. I would never do it again. That show got syndicated. I think it's on Hulu. Oh, and listen, I know yours went viral. Mine went viral. Yeah, it went viral, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. And listen, mine, I know yours went viral. Mine went viral.

Yeah, it went viral, yeah. Oh, people want to see people they know in pain. They do. Oh, look, they're celebrities. They're just like us. They hurt, too. I was in tears. I was crying.

It was crazy. Okay. So, Terry, we've got time for one more question. You got it. You got it. Here we go. And I'm sorry. We had like hundreds of questions came in.

This is so awesome. Sorry, but we just pick them here it. Here we go. And I'm sorry, we had like hundreds of questions came in. This is so awesome. Sorry, but we just pick them here. This is beautiful. The last question is from Riley Ruffin. Hello, Dr. Tyson and Mr. Cruz. Riley Ruffin here from Illinois. All right. I must say, Mr. Cruz, I love your acting.

Thank you. Really a big fan. My question is related to the edge of the observable universe what observations have been made and can you describe what it looks like i have heard that there appears to be some type of haze is this true and can you tell us more about it it's a purple haze oh man we writing songs right now. I like it. So, a couple of things.

Talk to me. The age of the universe is in our way. The age. Yeah. So, there's a horizon beyond which we cannot see because the universe isn't old enough for light from objects beyond that horizon to have reached us yet. That's the horizon.

It's not completely different from the horizon at sea where you're at a ship and you see the horizon. Are you saying to yourself, is that the edge of the universe? No, there's probably ocean beyond that. Right. And if you sort of sail towards it, more ocean comes into view and you bring your horizon with you. Yeah.

That's kind of, the horizon is not an absolute thing. That's true. It's relative to you and you are in the center of your own horizon. The exact center. Okay. Now, it turns out, as we look out into the universe, we see the universe younger and younger and younger and younger until we see it just shortly after the Big Bang itself.

Right. So technically, that's not quite a horizon. It's a time horizon more than it is a space horizon because you can't see before the Big Bang. And so if you wait a few billion more years as the universe continues to expand then there'll be a place a space horizon beyond which you cannot see and if you travel that direction again you can take your horizon with you so the real question is do we really know how big the actual universe is do you know how big the actual ocean is? Not really.

No. Unless you keep sailing until you hit land. That's right. But if you're in the middle of the Pacific, that's a lot of sailing. You have no idea. You have no idea. So generally when we speak of the universe, it's how big is the observable universe? Yeah.

We got to contain it because what's beyond that, we don't know. No reason to think it's completely different. No reason to think just beyond your horizon horizon there's something very different from the water that you're witnessing up until the horizon no reason to think that so too with the universe beyond a an observable horizon no reason to think the rest of the universe is fundamentally different from what's within our own horizon and so by the way everyone sees themselves as the center of the universe. That's true. That's true.

Which means there is no center of the universe. Yeah. And one of my most retweeted tweets, I guess it's X now, it was very simple. I said, because the universe has no center, it means you can't be it. Oh, now I'm disappointed. Now I'm very disappointed. I always thought I was the center of the universe.

But you know what? I got to add one more thing. What's so crazy is looking at how endless it is out there, I often wonder, is it as endless in here? Meaning, is there an end as you go inside as well?

Inside the mind? Inside the atom? Inside this atom. Okay, for a while there, people suspected, because they wanted it to be true, that you see the sun and you see planets orbiting the sun. Yeah, it's like a, are we an atom? Exactly. So when we first cracked the atom, they said, wait a minute,

there are electrons going around the nucleus. So we borrowed the same vocabulary. We don't call them orbits, but we call them orbitals. Okay, same idea, right? It's something, and they said, well, if that's what it is, what happens if we go into the nucleus of the atom? Will it be that again? And then that again? Is it that all the way down? No, it's something and they said well if that's what it is what happens if we go into the nucleus of the atom will it be that again and then that again is it that all the way down no it's not it's just not there's atoms and then there's us and this universe and you know not to get too

pop culture on you but in men in black there was the galaxy on the belt of Orion. I don't know if you remember that. Orion was a cat. Okay. And it had a neck thing. Yes, I remember that. And in there was this sort of transparent ball. And inside that ball was the entire universe that we are living in.

And it's just this little dangly thing on the neck of a cat. It's fun to think that and write stories about it, but it doesn't look like that's the case. Because different laws of physics apply to the large scale universe than the small. And if it was the same thing all the way down, you'd see repeated. That's true. I think. The rules don't stay the same.

They don't stay the same. They're very different. Very, very different. So it's a fun thought. This is great. I love this, man. I love this. I could do this all day.

I love it. Let's make a deal. Yes. Any future time I'm in Pasadena, we'll fire up the hearth and we'll do this again. Let's do it. Let's do it. I love it. Okay.

The permanent Pasadena date. Absolutely. Absolutely. Or I'll meet you at Caltech. No problem. I'll walk over there. No problem. Just quick.

You had a very successful memoir because your life was so interesting. You shared some of it with me on a previous time you've been on the podcast just what your struggles had been from pro football and you were not quite homeless but you were destitute yeah for a while and and how fortunes can change if you keep confidence and you and you have to understand what role failure needs to play yes there are people ready to give up and i say no that that should be the force that drives you forward listen the book was called tough and it was about it still is it's on shelves yeah it's about finding your true power and literally it's really the power of choice choice you know the only thing you can control is you that's it that's so simple that it's deep it's you that's it that's so simple that it's deep yeah it's and wait it took me years to find that out because i was a professional victim i mean looking at all the circumstances of different

things and we all know people like we all you did hey your fault and how come i didn't because you didn't professional victim i like that phrase dude everything revolved down to my choices and i realized that and that really opened the way it was like you said it's so simple it's deep yeah simple doesn't mean easy no no it doesn't it doesn't that's the big thing a lot of people think simple and easy is the same thing it doesn't and one last thing i was i was channel surfing and there's like the animated Everybody Hates Chris. Did I hear your voice still in there? Listen, you did. Am I in a vent? You did.

It just came out. I'm so, so happy. Everybody Hates Chris. Everybody still hates Chris. Because that's the sequel. It's a sequel. It's an animated sequel. And it literally-

That's audacious. It picks up where the live action show left off. And you got all the characters come back. All the characters were... Except for... We lost one. Well, Tyler James Williams is an adult.

So a lot of those kids grew up. So we have new voice actors for the kids. But a lot of the characters who were adults at the time did come back. Yourself included. Me, Tashina Arnold,

Chris Rock, Jackie Harry. Yeah, of course, Chris Thomas. Right, right. It's amazing. And Chris is the narrator because it's his life. It's his life. Okay, we're looking forward to that. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and of course, Chris Thomas. It's amazing. And Chris is the narrator, because it's his life. It's his life.

Okay, we're looking forward to that. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and of course, star host with shiny suits on AGT. Yeah, and don't forget Killer's Game. Killer's Game. My movie is going to be out on demand. I did a movie with Dave Bautista where we were like assassins.

We had our own app where you could, it's like the Uber for assassins. What? It's an action comedy by the way so have a great time dial up an assassin comedy okay you can get a you can get an assassin anytime just uber you know it's kind of like oh yeah look at this okay you rate your assassin job give them a friendly face give them a friendly face and i'll give them like don't f*** with me i'll kill your face Give him a friendly face.

Give him a friendly face. And I'll give him a like, don't f*** with me, I'll kill you face. That's how you do it? I've been doing this forever. All right. We out. Terry, love you, man. Love you.

I love you, brother. You're the man. This has been another edition of StarTalk Cosmic Queries with special guest co-host Terry Crews. I love you guys. All right. Until next time, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson bidding you to keep looking up.