StarTalk Radio - Lost in Space Game Night

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

How far did Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the moon? How many monkeys named Albert have been to space? Neil deGrasse Tyson, comedian Paul Mecurio, and Senior StarTalk Producer Lindsey Walker find out the answers on this Game Show Edition of Startalk celebrating the release of our new book, Lost in Space: 5,000 Facts for Navigating the Universe.NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/lost-in-space-game-night/Thanks to our Patrons havok, David Leeper, Silver Starsoul, Keith Homan, Alexander, Stacey Aldrich, Aral Kubali, Remi van Compernolle, Heel Our Soles, Kevin, Jack Topping, Andrew Schmelzer, Justin, pavan krishna, Mary Thomas, JohnForrest, DigitalDream, ricky zamudio, Josh MacCallum, Joe Widner, Janice Green, Will, Padrig de Roiste, Kathy Sydor, Max Heppermann, Zen Space Pirate, Patricia Nicely, Rob, Christian van Nimwegen, Johan Tivéus, Jonathan Woody, LONEWARRIOR, Anne Cosnow Awh, Preet Panda, Bill, Fidel Morla, Emily McKnight, Clem Maurer, Howard Hale, Ben Meighan-Carey, Kent Thompson, Ari Zelanko, Darryl Odom, jeff kolander, Jerome McCollom, Juan Bavaresco, and Maria for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of StarTalk Radio ad-free and a whole week early.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Eildegrasse Tyson, you're a personal astrophysicist, and today is a special edition of StarTalk, because once again, StarTalk has collaborated with National Geographic Books to release our latest installment titled Lost in Space. Five thousand facts to navigate the universe. And this is being held by my co-author, Lindsay, Nix Walker. Lindsay, hello. Hello.

Hello, middle name Nix, N-Y-X. That's right. Not K-N-I-C-S. No. Nix. No, no. I had it before Nix were cool. So. Nick's is mythological Nick is a Greek goddess She's supposedly The only goddess that Zeus feared She is born of chaos

And gave birth to dreams Oh damn That's heavy stuff That's heavy stuff Paul Yes Hey dude Also

A Greek mythology Name God of pizza delivery Good to see you guys Well welcome back to start talking Congrats on the book Thank you Very happy for you

Thank you. Lindsay carrying your ass, as usual. So, you cooked up this episode. I had nothing to do with this. I'm excited about this. She put stuff together. I don't even know what I'm doing. This is a StarTalk team effort.

We've never done this before. This is StarTalk Chaos Edition. We have a wheel here. It's called Wheel of Neal. Take it for a spin. And when it lands on something, can you spin it a little bit more enthusiastically? Thank you.

Exactly. This is an assisted living facility. Show some energy. Higher lower. Higher lower. Now, are we winning something at the end of this year? Do I get something? Do I get a watch maybe?

Like a nice watch from my friend Neil? Free tour of the museum. Yes. I have, on this card, numbers and facts. You have to tell me if the next number is higher or lower than the first number. To start, you're going to guess this number. The distance and feet that Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the moon. 280 feet.

Great guess. The moon's gravity is lower, will stay airborne longer. He's got a puffy suit, but he likes golf. Right. So. And did the question include explain why? No. I'm going to say 350 feet.

Okay, you're both wrong. It is less than that. It is 120 feet. What? I thought he hit it like 100 yards. I thought he hit it like a football field. Oh, you know, it could be. When you're on a smaller cosmic object, the horizon is

closer to you. But what does that have to do with how? Because when you hit something a certain distance, it's like, that's halfway to the horizon. But if the horizon isn't very far, your brain misinterprets what just happened. But who calculated that number? It's an actual number. They looked where the thing hit the moon. Shouldn't theory go farther if you are not wearing a puppy space suit? But he had a huge space suit on him. This is Apollo. One of the Apollo missions. They had gigantic space. And it was one-handed. Right. If there were a word for non-golfer, it would be me. Yeah, you know what's saying?

Is this number higher or lower than 120? The wind speed in miles per hour. At Uranus's equator, higher or lower than 120? It feels like it should be greater than 120. I'm going to go greater. 175 miles per hour. So I don't know this number, but Uranus has tipped on its axis, like a lot. And so the equator,

gets direct heat from the sun. It's got to be much higher than that. The sun drives convection and other air movement. Okay, I want to correct my answer, please. I'm going to say 500 mile an hour. It's actually 560 miles per hour top speed. What? Wait, this is rigged.

I'm out. I'm out. Goodbye. Yeah, I got better things to do. I got a dog walking business now. I lost my job at the late show. There's just tremendous turbulence, because different parts of that planet are being heated maximally at different times.

And that does nothing but create ground winds. The number of times Uranus has orbited the sun since its discovery. So let's see, we're about 200, roughly 250 years. It would be greater than 560. We're doing math in his head. That's dangerous. This is me calculating a tip. I want to say that it's higher than that.

I would give you a number of 870. Wow, that's a great guess. The number is three. Oh! I don't like you anymore. You are my favorite. I think I might have said two, yeah. Number of Earths that could fit across Jupiter's diameter.

I got this. I know. I'm right now. I'm going to say four. I actually don't remember. I think it's 11. Is it 11? I think it's around 10.

It's higher. It's 10 or 11. 10 or 11. Okay. Yeah. It is that big. Jupiter has blemishes bigger than Earth. If we were Jupiter and we were reorganizing the solar system trying to decide who to kick out because it doesn't make planet status, there would only be four planets in the solar system.

And that would be Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. And everything else would just be. Little. Debris. Little. Jupiter is more bigger. compared to Earth, then Earth is compared to Pluto. I hate that that's grammatically correct also.

Okay, last one. Last one. I'm getting this one. I can feel it. Is this higher or lower than 10 or 11? Number of monkeys named Albert sent up in rockets by the USA in the 40s and 50s. Number of monkeys. Named Albert specifically. In the 40s and 50s?

Yeah. Let him answer first. There were a lot. named Albert? Named Albert. Do we know why Albert? Einstein, I guess. Oh, that's good.

Maybe. I actually don't know. Maybe. That'd be insulting to Einstein, especially since he was still alive at the time, if it's in the 40s or 50s. So, I'd be pissed off if you're making naming chimps after me.

It's like sending donkeys up named after Neil. How many asses were sent up? How many astrophysicists? Yeah, exactly. Fewer than 11. You can't send. 11 Alberts in a rocket. 15.

To higher than 11. Higher than 11. I'm sitting lower than 11. Six. Which is... There's still too many. Too many. Which is still too many.

The chimps are like, come on, guys. Spoiler alert, none of them made it. Actually, the last one made it up and down, but then he died two hours later. The rest of them died. You see this fact? This is why the... are going to take over the earth. The first monkey, Albert the first,

he was actually the first mammal to reach outer space. The first mammal. That was in the 40s, I assume. The four humans, that's right. Plus, I thought all these original animals that went to space were female. That was my understanding. Oh, maybe.

Is there a reason they were female? Very good reason. Oh. Because when men pee, it goes. Yeah. Yeah, but the pee's coming out of a thing, whether it's a thing or another thing, and then it's like, why?

But it doesn't get aimed. Otherwise. Okay, next category. We need some music. Taboo it. So we're playing a version of taboo it. Taboo it. We're gonna taboo it.

And all the taboo words are in my black hole. Yes. You can say anything but the word on the card. Okay. One minute on the clock. One minute on the clock. It starts now. It's fast. Fastest thing in the universe.

the universe. Speed of light. Speed of light. Oh! Oh! Oh! A dog. You're a dog.

It's a big issue in orbital dynamics. And... Quantum mechanics. And there's a TV show with the name. A problem in orbital dynamics. You can't solve it. Oh, three body problem. Three body problem.

There you go. Okay. I was gonna say that. Okay. You were nowhere near that. This is a thing that's not silver, but, and it's on the side of a space jet. Gold. The emblem.

Platinum. Titanium. It's on the side of a ship. Dice. Dice. Fuzzy dice hanging from the ship. The gold pioneer plaque. Oh.

I got it right here. Wait, we both said gold. That's what this is. I should have held this up. Oh. That's not allowed, though. Oh. This is one way that the everything will end.

One of the ways that everything will end is called the, the Apocalypse. The internet. It's a scientific, it's an astronomical concept and it is a way that. The big crunch. The Big Bang. Big Bang redone. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

The heat death. Yes! Okay. Okay, this, in, this is the, oh my God. Oh my gosh, a gaseous planet is festooned by this. Festoon, I don't even know what that word mean. It is, can I say that, encircling one of the gaseous planets. Rings.

Rings. Of... Saturn. I don't know if that's allowed. I die cheap both times. Wait. No! This is one of the, and a certain number.

Round. Sister. Oh, seven sisters. There's a number. It's round. It's orbited by other. It's round. Moons. Jupiter. There's more than five, less than ten.

Planets. Planet. Planetary bodies. I need one particular planet. Jupiter. Mars. Venus. Mercury.

Earth. The nine planets. The planet X. Planet nine. That's it. Oh, my God. Wow. You were both took a long time.

All right, here we go. Here we go. I think they all got lost in the black hole. That's a hard one because I can't say nine and I've got to say a number. That was a hard one. And then a planet is such a vague, general, you know. In your mind, yeah. Okay, thank you.

Here, okay. Space fact. The planet Uranus is knocked on its side, tilting 98 degrees from vertical. And as it rotates, depending on what time of year it is, one side just always faces the sun, and the other side faces deep space.

Put a thermometer there. It is the coldest spot of any planet in the solar system. If you like that fact, you can find 4,99 more in Lost in Space. 5,000 facts to help navigate the universe. Latest collaboration between StarTalk and National Geographic Books. Lost in Space is now available for pre-order wherever books are sold. I remember when we compiled these facts.

It took a long time. 5,000. 5,000 facts. A lot of facts. Yeah, it's not approximately 5,000. It's exactly 5,000. Why did you guys pick 5,000? No, they picked 5,000.

We wanted 3,000. And they said, no, we can't do it unless it's 5,000. The publisher? Yes. Wow. I was partial to 1,000. And they said, no, we can't sell a book. We only have 1,000 facts.

So they pulled it out of their ass. I don't know where they got this number. But you put 3 and then the other two are made up, right? Because who's going to check after 3. All I had was 3,000. We wanted all facts. Facts to be Stark-Tocyan in DNA. And you have to say, oh, Neil, what do you mean by that?

Yes. What do you mean by that? Ask me the diameter of the sun. What's the diameter of the sun? About 8604,000 miles. I'm sorry, that is wrong. So now let's stark-tify that. Ask me the question again.

Diameter of the sun. That's a statement. Well, we're just being loose here. If you take 100 Earths and put them side to side, you'll span the width of the sun in space. I like the non-star talker better. I don't have a whole day. This is a game show. We can rotate you off the stage.

Do you realize this? Does it cover, I would imagine, the way StarTalk episodes do, a plethora of topics from quantum mechanics to... Almost everything you can dream of. Just back to the dream thing. Favorite facts from the book? Project Osma. Do you know about Project Osma? Do you not.

That is the name of the first official search for life in the universe. For intelligent life. For intelligent life, that's right. And it was named by Frank Drake, the Frank Drake, who of the Drake equation. But do you know the Drake equation? I thought it was the Cakes family, the Drake Cakes family that made the variety of a nephew of the original. A variety of desserts that we've all enjoyed as children.

So the Drake equation, he pondered. what questions you'd have to ask to shape your search for life, intelligent life in the universe. And he said, well, who would look for intelligent life? It's going to be on a planet? Then he said, if it's going to be on a planet, it's got to be on a planet that's not too close, not too far, in the Goldilog zone. What fraction of stars with planets have planets in that zone? And it has to have life at all. What fraction of stars with planets in the Goldilog Zone have life?

That life has to have civilization. What fraction of planets would stars, the life, that's civilization? Now, civilization is not enough because you want to talk to them through space. Right. We had the Roman Empire. If you sent radio signals to the Roman Empire, you would think nobody was here. So they have to add an extra little tech dimension to it, that you're communicating via radio waves through space. You're whittling away with all of these parameters that you're correct.

You have the big number of how many stars in the universe and you start taking fractions. He came up with that equation, which organizes our knowledge and even our ignorance of the likelihood of life out there, which with whom we can have a conversation. Take it from there. Osma was the real and true heir of Oz, Princess Osma, and Wizard of Oz. The author of the Wizard of Oz, El Frank Baum, he supposedly communicated with this mystical land full of exotic beings through radio, using a radio. And so Frank Drake's name to search for Wizard Buzz. I don't know how to follow that fact with a favorite fact, because that's a good one. That is amazing because it's very personal to her.

It also revealed two things that we didn't know. I wouldn't even try if I were you. As we are assembling the periodic table of illness. Oh, my God. Can you talk like a real person? Can you just do it the way she did it? Oh, my God. Why don't you stand up and go, oh, that's weird.

As we were assembling the Periodont Table of Elements, because Mendelayev figured out that it's periodic. It's not just a sequence of elements. They have properties that repeat rhythmically, right, from top to bottom. Right. And as we're going through discovering elements, there was a hole in the periodic table. He said, there's got to be an element there. No one had ever found it. no one even knew a way to look.

But how could he assume that? Maybe it's sort of chicken or the egg. Maybe the universe said, we're not filling that hole. Right. Okay? Right. Maybe. But he...

He doesn't think he's on a fool's errand. He's going for it. He had enough confidence in the success of the elements that were already in place that he said, let's look for it some more. Okay. And still didn't find that. So they said, okay, well, how many protons should it have? Let's make it.

So they went into the lab at a particle accelerator and made this element. It is the first artificially created element. But wait, how could that have any legitimacy if they made it, that they just made it up? Aren't we in the universe, too? Yes. So therefore, we created an element in the universe. Okay. Right.

I forgot. Good point. Never trust an Adam. They make up everything. They make up everything. All right. Okay. That's a dad joke safe for elementary school. Exactly.

So, what's the word for things that you make in modern civilization? There's a word for it. It's so common you don't even remember why we use that word. It's called tech. Tech is human-made contributions to civilization. Tech. The name of that element is Tech-E-C-M. Ah.

Oh. Can I drop a book? Yeah, I like Lindsay's fact better. Don't make me slapping. Good spin. Yoda style. Oh, what is this? Yes.

You have to find a fact in this book and read it as Yoda would. Spring tides. This is in the section on tides. Is that a foreign language? What do you say? Spring tides. especially high they are drink full or new moon

when earth the moon and the sun align twice per month they occur that's my Yoda well done here's the thing I understand you better as Yoda than it's you and if I lose

I'll pull out my lightsaber and cut off both of your heads This is way more embarrassing than when I knew this was happening. Millions. It's like you're trying to talk after you've been to the dentist and we're all numbed up. Okay. Okay, go. Now it's current. What's the cat? What's the topic?

Millions of asteroids and one dwarf planet call it asteroid belt home. They do. Well done. That's good. Well done. Paul, was the dwarf planet that resides with the asteroids in the asteroid dog? It's not Pluto, is it? No, it's Ceres.

Okay. So while Pluto got demoted from planet to dwarf planet? Yes. Series got promoted from asteroid to dwarf planet. Ah, so they're on a level playing field. They're on level, yeah, yeah, very cool. Pluto can't be happy about that. Four point, four point billion years ago.

outer solar system location forming gravity strong Jupiter may have flung series but who directs your one-man show Frank Oz and who is the voice of Yoda Frank Oz so that was the worst Yoda I ever heard I want to report you to him Frank I'm sorry and you must die Say good. Oh. This is for the honor of Frank Oz. I thought I did it pretty lousy. Yeah, that was pretty lousy.

That thing's sick as hell. Oh, who won? Gallery. You did. I'll take it. Vote in the comments, yes. It's really terrible spinning the wheel. Draw it.

Draw it. Yeah. Okay. I didn't give anybody permission to use my hat. So what's going to happen? You're going to pull a prompt from your own hat, please. Did you know a monkey peed in that hat in space?

Don't tell us. Don't show us. Okay. You have to draw it. You have to draw it. Have to draw it? Yeah. Oh, okay.

He's very emphatic. I'm trying not to look at it. I'm worried because he's like really like knew exactly what he wanted to draw. I think this is going to be pretty accurate. The first man on the movie. Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong.

Yeah. There you go. Wow. Point for Neil. And apparently he had no eyes, ears. Well, you're looking through a visor and you can't see through the visor. What number were you going to drop? How do you know the visor was gonna do?

I'm number one. Oh, no, that would have been too easy, but can I have this for a second? What happens in space that your right arm gets swollen like that? Too much golfing. That's, there's something wrong there. There's something wrong there. All of the iconic. pictures of the first moon landing is not of Neil Armstrong, they're of Buzz Aldrin because

Neil was on camera duty. This is a quote attributed to him, and when I met him, this was consistent with what he would have said, although I didn't re-verify it. He said, whenever he feels the urge to exercise, he just lays down on the couch until that urge goes away. Neil Armstrong says that? Yes. Yes. I'm going to draw. You should not let us see it while you're drawing it. Why not? Because then we're kind of cheating and coming ahead of that. No, that's all right. You can be in on the process. You can like guess as I'm going. Maybe I need to do some more stuff. I'm a cellular manipulation. It looks like a, it looks like Jerry Garcia with sunglasses. These look like two bow ties. Grateful dead. Oh no, come on. Radio waves.

No, I got this. Protons and neutrons. Well, guess. Wait. What is it? Proton neutron intercourse. This is hydrogen fusion. It's so close.

No. It's not hydrogen fusion? No, he was very close. When he said intercourse, he's closer? Yes. Then anything I just said? Yes. Yes, which means I win.

Woo-hoo! I win! This game is over. Oh, shoot. I should do something like this. Okay, it's quantum entanglement. Exactly. Entanglement is the way I described.

things with my wife that we do. So it's all the same. It's that's, you want to have a night of entanglement. She's like, yeah, sure, why not? Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, did you see it? No. No. It's... Can you do that in a way the camera sees it so that people can participate with it? Apple core. That's right. That's fission. Oh, I have no... Cells of vision. Cellular mitosis. Focus on what this is.

It's two things. It's this and it's this. Okay? And if you want, I'll take that away and I'll draw it a little straighter. Oh, it's the... It's like the separating of the tectonic plates. It is asteroid belt. Oh.

Duh. What is the rubbing of the head? That's a belt. And that's an asteroid. Oh, I see. And you see, and it's moving toward Earth. Okay. Deliver me.

This is, how is it? That is, all right, here we go. Oh, charades. Charrades. Charrades. In the same sort of vein, we have to act out a prompt on a card. We, and we can't use. words and I don't think we can use props. No, you can't use props. No, no props. You can't use

sounds either. Was this in my office? It's like it's an urn. Is it like a dead body in here? Yeah, it's from the 11th century. It's worth $8 million. Don't break it. Can I make sounds? No. No words? No. Only acting. How's that? You can make non-word sounds. Oh, I can. Okay. Oh, okay. Meow. Cat. Feline. Blind.

What's his name? Blind as a cat. Blind as a bat. Happy cat. It's the cat. Is he dead or alive? That's his freaking name. My mind is blank right now.

This is the best day of my life watching you do this. It's not. Death, dead. Death of a salesman. My God. Damn, y'all. What's the wrong with you? I knew what I was.

I gave the best imitation of a Stroudonage's cat that ever was. Oh, I'm sorry. That was, yeah, too much. Asteroid impact. Yes! Wow. I didn't even have a chance on that one. Yeah, what a coincidence that the person who wrote the book knew the answer.

Asteroid impact. Oh, okay. Well done. Okay. That was good. Take you another one? Yeah. Oh, he looks confident. belt,

Asteroid belt. Asteroid belt. Ah! It all comes back. Nice. Wow. I thought you were taking your pants off. I know.

I'm like, wow. I'm glad you recognized I was reaching for my belt. Yes, exactly. I'm like, what is going on? This is a kid show, everybody. Oh. Time, clock, hands,

time commitment. Running through time, time, travel, time travel. Time, speeding up. Speed of light. It's late for a bus. A ton dilation.

Oh! What was this? Okay. What was this? I was running faster than light. The squishy thing, sucking. Amoe molecule manipulation. Sun, here comes the sun.

SPF 50. A sheer... Aliens coming from space. Ninja. Magnetic force. Force of nature. Sticky. Gravity, drop.

Gravity. gravity attack super massive black hole a super massive black hole yeah and super that was the worst supermassive black hole that I've ever seen okay well let's see you do it

yeah a monkey in space yeah exactly oh okay uh uh uh um

Alien. It's floating through space. We're on a spaceship, rocket ship. Zero G, zero gravity. Flight, space flight, rocket, rocket. Space flight, rocket. Astronaut. Astronaut.

You didn't say a word. Hold on, hold on. The game caught holder, Lindsay here, okay. So astronaut, that was the, that was it? Yeah. All that was supposed to be astronaut? Yeah, Mr. Super Massive Black Hole.

He acted out an entire play for us. Yes, I'm going this, I'm doing like, okay, okay, okay, here we go. Swimming through space time. swimming through this. There's the ocean of space. It's a universe. It's a cosmos.

It's a giant fabric of space to him. It's an amoeba. Octopus. What's going on? What are you doing? Oh. It's a turtle all the way down. The septipus.

The aliens and arrival. Spaghettiification. Oh, no. That was the worst spaghetti. No, this is spaghetti. Just because you're Italian, as you wiggle your fingers, doesn't mean everyone else thinks it's spaghetti. Are you doing spaghetti then?

Go ahead. Are you spaghetti? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, okay. That's the last bit of spaghetti. You eat spaghetti like a six-year-old? Yeah. It's funner that way.

How many times away after that's spaghetti? So you go into the black hole, you start as a whole being, and then you, like, spigatify. Yeah, you don't become 20 strands of spaghetti. Become one thin strand of spaghetti. Who invited you on this show? You could have. You don't become pasta. What do you think?

I'm Joel Cherico, and I support StarTalk on top. Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Mold it. So what happened? How do you play this? So, each of us pick your Play-Doh. All right. Okay. I'm going yellow. Okay, I'm going green.

All right. And then we pick up this is Prado. Yeah, the old school. The edible Play-Doh. Oh, yeah. This is lunch, by the way. There's literally no budget on the show. This is lunch. Kids would eat it. It's like a salty. I love the machine. So now I grab a thing.

We have to mold what's on our card. Yeah. Okay. All right. Two, go. I feel like a sculptor. I should be in a studio smoking a cigarette. With a beret?

With a beret and a bottle of cognac and my lover. A glass of cognac. And my lover lying. Lying naked for you to draw? Yes, exactly. That's the only way I work. That's my inspiration. Oh, my God.

I am so going to win this. I can feel it. Okay. You want to start with mine? Yeah. Okay. That looks like a whale. It looks like a whale.

That is a whale. That's a whale. Hey, this is it dropped the whale moment right there. Did you show the camera before you just broke the nose on the whale? Let's see. I did hold it up. There we go. Okay, hold that up.

That is my whale. Okay. Look at that. That's really beautiful. Paul. Paul, that's beautiful. It's a beluga. It's in the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.

His name is Albert. Solar system. Pancake. Oh! The Voyager plaque. Yeah! Well, it's Voyager. You know, you had fingernails to help you do that.

That's true. Otherwise, I'd be cooked. I needed a little like thing. You have total fingernails. I was also sneaking a little peek at that. Yeah. I'm trying to remember how. Try making a blowhole with no fingernails.

Very challenging. Okay, ready? That's a hand. Oh, galaxy. Milky Way. Spiral galaxy. Spiral galaxy! Ah, nice.

Well done. But you don't need to do that with your hand. It's a new dance move. What are you? A Vegas magician? And tell us about the spiral galaxy. I will. So,

spiral galaxies are where most of the stars are born in the universe, because they still have gas. There are the galaxies that are elliptical. They ran out of the gas, and so they're just stars. And why the spiral? Are they sort of feeding off each other? It's very flat.

Flattered than a flapjack. And that spin is what's called a density wave. And the gas is moving through this density wave, collapsing, making stars. Okay. And so that gives us the spiral. The spiral pattern is the pattern of newly born stars. And we don't know why that is that pattern. It just is.

We just know... No, because it's rotating. The inner parts are rotating faster than the outer parts. And then once it's fully formed, they move away from it? No, no, it's a static pattern. You know what it's like? It's like rubber necking on the freeway. Do they still call it that?

Rubbernecking? Yeah. Yeah. So you're driving and you slow down, you don't even know you're slowing down, you're looking out at the accident, whatever. But then you continue through. Right. Back at your previous speed.

Correct. A helicopter view of that. shows a concentration of cars where that event is. Right. But that's not a static set of cars. Their car is moving into and out of that. Okay. Okay.

Just like there's stars moving into and out of it. But while they're in there, you can be born, but then you keep going. And you move out, you can move out of it at some point. Yes, yes. So it's a density wave. What determines that you move out of it? Because you're moving faster than the wave itself. Do some die and are not able to move out of it?

You don't stop moving just because you die. That's very profound. You're a ballistic projectile in a galaxy. Your corpse is moving just as fast as your crib. Then I know how I want to go. I don't want to be cremated. I want to be shot up dead into the universe and float around. This is very exciting.

I love that we both got this. So on the Voyager records, the golden records that were sent in 1977, this is what they look like. But on the record, it was an actual record. And there was 55 greetings in 55 human languages. But playing in the background of all of those greetings is humpback whale songs. Because they had just discovered like five years before that humpback whales sing. Forms of communication, right.

And so just in case aliens could decipher whale songs better than human. Who's to say they'll first land on land? If 70% of Earth's surface is ocean, they'll land it. They'll say, Earth is primarily water. Let's land there. And they land there. And if they already value brains, who's got the biggest brains in the world? Whales.

This is the distance and direction to pulsars in the Milky Way galaxy. Okay. That set of pulsars can only be in those distances and in those directions from our location. So this is instructions for the aliens to triangulate on where we are in our galaxy. So it's a GPS that we... They will triangulate exactly where we are. We place that pin there? No, no, no, no.

This is... We're looking around. Okay. That's like saying, if the Empire State building is two miles that way, and Jersey is half a mile this way, and Times Square is four blocks that way, where does that place you? Okay. That's the triangulation. So if all these pulsars are at those distances and in those directions, where does it place you? There aren't that many pulsars in the galaxy.

So aliens would know this. So they would find out where we are. This is our turn to dress. But we discovered that pulsar? No, we know all these pulsars. They're in our catalog. Okay. Okay.

All of them. Okay. So, we gave our return address to aliens. Through Voyager. Through this diagram. Okay. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. But now you wouldn't give your email to a stranger in the street.

Who's your species? Would you? I trust aliens more than my species. Oh. I choose the alien. I gave my email to Wayfar and they will not stop. I don't need patio furniture. I'm good.

I don't have a patio. Stop. So we have at the bottom here. A representation of the solar says not to scale. So this is the sun over there on the left. Then Mercury, Venus, Earth, a line coming from Earth, which is the trajectory of this spaceship that's carrying this. It passes Jupiter and Saturn.

There's Uranus Neptune and Pluto. Which should not be. At the time this plaque was conceived. Pluto was a planet. They'll come to our sector of the galaxy. They will see this solar system and say, that only has eight planets. That can't possibly be where we're looking.

Right. Let's keep moving. So Pluto becomes the savior of civilization. He's assuming ill intent on the aliens. That's what I'm saying. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Sorry, that was implicit. Sorry, sorry, I'm assuming evil aliens.

Wait, so there's going to be probing in the whole thing? I think they come. want them, we want to correct that so that they come and they know that we want to communicate with them. We want to connect with that. You don't give your email address to strangers in the street. Now, Lindsay says she trusts aliens more than fellow human. Big time.

This is why... I know what we're capable of. This is your negative view of things is what's keeping civilization from moving forward. Yes. Yeah. You run the Hayden Planetarium with that

dark matter mind of yours. and this is why we're going to be stuck with each other for the rest of our lives. Wow, that's hard hitting right there. Yeah, he got you. Lindsay, I was delighted to be co-authors with you on this book. Likewise. This is really fun. And NetGeo, they're the ones that make it beautiful.

We give it the content. And they have designers. And that's not the first time they've done this. They've done it with us before, and they do this for almost their entire catalog. And that's what distinguishes what they create from what other publishers do. A lot of people who don't know this about Neil, but when he's really stressed out, he sucks his stomach. Very childish. And then this is evil Neil. Hello. Welcome to StarTalk. Okay, and I have to, now I'm going to close a show, so you've got to do it while I close the show.

You ready? Okay. Okay. This has been another episode of StarTalk, a special edition, showcasing Lost in Space I'm here with my co-author Lindsay Walker Until next time I bid you to keep looking up

Now you're creeping people out That's me That'll work