StarTalk Radio - Summer Skies

Episode Date: July 6, 2009

Have you ever wondered why the sky is blue? We have too, and so we’re giving you the long-awaited answer, along with more exploration into the mysterious celestial sphere up above. It’s above our heads every day, conveying its lightest and darkest moments, giving hints about the universe around us, and allowing us to learn by looking up…but are we really looking? In this episode of StarTalk, host Neil deGrasse Tyson is joined by co-host and comedian Lynne Koplitz to ponder the many questions, stories, legends, and phenomena of the sky. But first, we just can’t talk about the sky without “Bill Nye the Sky Guy.” We hear a little from Bill about Jupiter’s opposition to the Sun during summer, and the importance of stargazing, as he encourages us to make some time for the sky in our lives. Next on the horizon, Neil and Lynne dig through ancient legends of the night sky, as they invite us to imagine the sky as “Cave TV” before we had the real thing. Neil educates us on the meaning of the word “Planet” in ancient Greek, and Lynne discovers a mistake that may have been the reason all of her wishes on stars haven’t come true. You’ll also hear why marrying an astronomer means you’ll always know where they are at night…like a bartender. The second half of the show gets even more fascinating when “Astronomer Extraordinaire” and News 12 Meteorologist Joe Rao takes a seat. Joe, the ultimate sky expert, answers questions even Neil can’t answer concerning the sky during eclipses, hurricanes, rainbows, shooting stars, the brightest skies of summer, the white skies of winter, and everything in between. Joe also debunks the assumption that you must look away or even stay inside during a total eclipse, while highlighting that the moment of total eclipse is actually the only point when it is safe to look. He tells us about the Great American Eclipse on August 21st, 2017 (In fact, Joe was also our guest on “Cosmic Queries: The Great American Eclipse” the week before it happened!) And before we end, there’s revelation in the air (and a little precipitation) when we unearth the “Creepy Cloud”, A.K.A the Mammatus Cloud, one that was seen over CitiField (shown above) after a heavy thunderstorm that lit up the sky. Feeling enlightened? There’s more where that came from. Listen now for all of the “SkyTalk” you could ever wish for on a star.NOTE: All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/summer-skies/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm getting some new secrets. 3.3, 7.6, but I... Our universe is filled with secrets and mysteries, leaving us with many questions to be answered. Now more than ever, we find ourselves searching for those answers as the very fabric of space, science, and society are converging. Here, for the first time, these worlds collide. As we give you the knowledge that breaks the barrier

between what is science and what is merely pop culture. This is StarTalk. Now, here's your hosts, astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Lynn Koblitz. Star Talk. We're back, Lynn. Hello, Neil. We have a great show. Guess what? It's summertime, but you probably knew that.

I know. We're deep into July now, and I love July. I love July. I love July in New York. It's a lot of fun. Why? What do you do? Because everybody, the men are so distracted by all the breasts that are out. It's just hilarious.

You can almost make taxi cabs wreck. So do you have like notches on your bras for how many taxi cabs you wrecked? I have notches on my bras for lots of reasons, Neil. Let's get on with the science, shall we? Well, excuse me. My goodness. What are we going to talk about? Well, I just wanted to say, well, the summer,

people like the summer because the days are long and you get to have long evening, I mean, long sort of twilight. But actually, the night is short in the summertime. The nights are much longer in the winter. And actually, astronomers night is short in the summertime. The nights are much longer in the winter. And actually, astronomers prefer the winter skies because they're crisp and clean and clear and there's hardly any humidity. I think they feel longer in the summer because you're outside longer. Well, that's it.

You sit out on the porch. Porch? We sit out on porches in the south where my people from. Your people? Yeah, we don't have porches in New York. We have stoops. Stoops. You do sit on the stoop or you go to the roof.

And so this is about the summer skies. And we're going to have one of my favorite guests of all time. He's going to come on later. I'll tell you about him in a few minutes. Okay. But usually I feel incomplete unless we begin by hearing from our friend and buddy. Bill Nye's sky guy. Bill Nye's sky guy.

You know, I can't begin until he starts us off. He's like the starting gun for us. He really is. So let's see what. He's our shower. Let's see what Sir William Bill Nye has to tell us about the summer skies. Hey, hey, Bill Nye the science guy here. If you're like many of us here at StarTalk, you live north of our Earth's equator. It's summer up here.

It's the time of year to be outside in the evening for some star and planet gazing. This year, the sun will be on one side of Earth and Jupiter on the other. By long tradition, astronomers say we're in opposition. The orbit of Earth and Jupiter conspired this summer to make Jupiter brighter in our night sky than it has been since the fall of 1999. Now this would be just another one of those celestial things, but keep in mind that you, just like Galileo, can observe the cloud bands of Jupiter and see the four big moons zipping around for yourself. Get a modest telescope and try it. It may just change your life a little. 400 years ago, it changed the world. The warm, long days of summer can be full of activities and very busy.

But in the evenings, have a look up. This is Bill Nye, the Science Guy, and here's hoping that this summer, you make some time for the sky. I now feel complete. Make some time for the sky. Well, we're going to. We're going to. Did you know, Lynn, Bill mentioned Jupiter, but if you look at the original classical planets,

in the old days in ancient Greece, the word planet meant wanderer. Really? They looked up at the night. They looked up. That's right. Well, it still means wanderer. Planitos means wanderer.

Planitos. Planites, yes. And so what's a wanderer? They looked at all the objects of the night sky that moved against the background sky. And there were seven of them. There was Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the sun and the moon. I love how you rattled those off. You're so proud.

I'm totally proud. You know this. You know the planetos. The planetos. And those seven wanderers are traceable to the names we give to the seven days of the week in the Roman mythology and Norse mythologies. And so we name the seven days of the week after those original seven planets. And it wasn't until Copernicus we said, well, wait a minute. Like Earth is one of these objects that goes around the sun.

Like Sunday and Moonday. No, Moonday. Yeah. Sun is named. Yeah. So you want to take a quiz? Sunday is named after? The sun.

Moon Day. The moon. Moon Tuesday. Actually, it's a Norse god, Tews. Tews? Yeah, yeah. I would have known that. That was a trick question.

Okay, sorry. Wednesday, Woden's Day. Yeah, so those- Okay, those make no sense. Woden's Day? What is that, a planet? Planet Woden? You haven't-

Okay, let's get on something else. Okay, well, just so you know, those are gods in Norse legends that are the counterparts to the gods in Greek and Roman legends. That's how that happened. What Bill Nye was saying, that is interesting, but what Bill Nye was saying was he was talking about looking at Jupiter. And I know I remember this as a kid, too. So sometimes when we think we see a star, we're seeing a planet, right? Oh, yeah, especially right after sunset, the stars come out. And the first ones you see typically are not stars.

They're going to be planets. Because the planets are brighter, typically, than what the stars are. Really? Really. So when you, the first star I see tonight, be careful because that's why your wishes aren't coming true? Oh, yeah. If you wish on a planet.

If you wish on a star. I wish on Jupiter. Yeah. So, Lynn, that's why your planets have't coming true? Oh, yeah. If you're wishing on a planet. If you're wishing on stars. I wish on Jupiter. Yeah. So, Lynn, that's why your planets have not been coming true. My dreams? I mean, your wishes are not coming true because you're wishing on planets. That's the problem. Well, I do tend to pivot and make a couple dreams.

Is that allowed? I wish on the first star I see from the right, the first star I see from the left. Is that allowed? This can't be allowed. I make my own rules. So, you got that. And, by the way, this star stuff, people have been thinking about stars forever. Long before we had modern civilization, people were looking up.

Well, before we had TV, people had nothing to do. What else are you doing at night? Well, there's one other thing you could do. After that 15 minutes is over, then what do you do? All right. So you go outside and you look up. And it's nighttime. There's no lit cities. There's's nighttime. There's no lit cities.

There's no pollution. There's no distract. There's no HBO. You just go out and you look up. And the night sky greets you. That was cave TV. Yes, it was. I like that.

The sky was cave TV. And at the time, so they made up stories about put their legends and gods and culture onto the sky. They probably did that with clouds too though. Well, clouds came and went. We used to do that as kids. Like you would lay on your back and try and guess what you saw. And they all look like Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, didn't they? Yeah, and then in college you partake in some party activities and do the same thing.

So the problem with clouds is they come and go. So they don't have a permanence across culture and time. The sky, the stars are there. And so you could pass stories from one generation to the next. And before the era of literacy and before people had any other meaningful kind of entertainment, you had the night sky. And however rich your storytelling was, you'd be more likely to have your story remembered. And so what we have today is this repository of mythological stories that comes down from ancient peoples.

Okay, but aren't there some stars and some, like the Big Dipper, you can always find it. But there are some things you can't find. I've seen things with you that you're like, look at that constellation of Copernicus, Copernicus. Is that what I sound like to you? Well, whatever. But constellation of Capricornicus and Capricornicus. Is that what I sound like to you? Well, whatever. But then I try to find Capricornicus and I can't find it.

But I'm like, well, there's a dipper handle. You're not talking about Cassiopeia, maybe. Not Cassiopeia. There was some other one we saw with you a couple years back, and you were like, this comes by every five years. No, okay. Well, some stars you see all the time. They're called circumpolar stars.

These are stars that move around. Well, all stars move around the North Pole star called Polaris. But depending on your latitude on Earth, you'll see stars all the time in the night sky. That's why you can always see the Big Dipper from most places in the United States. Yeah, and there's a Little Dipper, too, right? There's a Little Dipper, too. Much less interesting, it turns out, than the Big Dipper. The stars are not as bright, and it's much harder to notice if you're not looking for it. You'll never stumble on the Big Dipper. The stars are not as bright and it's much harder to notice if you're not looking for it.

You'll never stumble on the Little Dipper, but the Big Dipper is majestic and you see it and, you know, I'll tell you something about the Big Dipper. That's what we call an asterism, which is a subset of more stars that actually make a constellation. And they're 88 in the night sky. And you know how I remember the 88? Because there are 88 keys

in a piano. And the 88 keys in a piano make music and the 88 constellations make a zoo. Because it's animals and creatures and centaurs. I'm so confused right now, I can't even tell you. Why? Because you went from piano to zoo to the dipper. 88 keys on a piano, 88 constellations in the sky. Oh, okay.

Fine. 88 constellations in the sky, 88. Exactly. And the constellations, all kinds of animals and creatures. And they'll hear it. The Big Dipper is part of Ursa Major, the big bear. Oh, okay. Yeah, here's a cute part about it.

So all illustrations of it have to sort of connect the dots. And when you do so, the bear has this long bushy tail, which is the handle of the Big Dipper. And then you say, oh, that's just a bear with a bushy tail. And then you pause for a minute and think, wait a minute, bears don't have big bushy tail. They just don't have to. They have little stubby nubs that you can't even see because it's hidden in their hair. They don't have tails. So it's this whole big sort of tapestry of fiction up there that is the expression of people's fantasies about what they either feared or loved in the world or what they imagined that or that that they praised okay but did they ever go here's my did they ever go out and look at it and say

okay it's gone now the bear is the the tail like that constellation's not there when did they start recognizing that things weren't always there no the constellations they're there forever for as long as a human lifetime multiple that Stars are there longer than human civilization. Oh, they are? Oh, yeah. It's the planets that move back and forth. What do you think they thought meteorites were? No, meteorites as a concept wasn't until the 1800s.

Shooting stars. They thought there were stars falling out of the sky. It was profound ignorance of how the world worked. It was before the era of science. That's what I thought they were. You're listening to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, with my co-host, Lynn, Lynn Coplitz. Do you know our toll-free number is 1-877-5-STARTALK.

Check out our website at startalk.net, where you can send us an email, or in fact, you can tweet us if you're a Twitter generation. I'm sorry. That just makes me laugh. I'm so beavis in my head. I just hear tweet. just makes me laugh. I'm so Beavis and Mudhead. I just hear tweet. It makes me laugh. Tweet.

Tweeted. You can tweet us at StarTalkRadio, all one word, of course. You know what's really cool about the old days in Rome? They had an eye test. Before they had spectacles to correct your- I was going to say that's cool. We have eye tests now, Neil. Let me finish the sentence.

I'm sorry. They had eye tests. They wanted to find out whether they'd put you in the army. And so they'd look up at a pair of stars that are part of the Big Dipper. In the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper, there's a double star system. It's actually a multiple star system. But from the eye, you can see two stars, Miser and Alcor. Those are the names of those two stars.

If you could tell that there were two stars there, you were good enough with your eyesight to be drafted into the Roman army. And if you couldn't see it, they wouldn't take you. Okay. If you could tell there's two stars there, you're good enough to be drafted in any army. I mean, that's, I can't see that. Well, yes, you, next time I'll, I haven't ever showed it to you. Next time we're out on the stars, I'll show you those two stars. And 20, anybody with 20, 20 vision will see it.

You think when, when guys are trying to like get lucky and they take a girl driving to look at the stars, what do you think is the most common thing that they try and look for? Is it the Big Dipper? If they're trying to show off? That's the one that's easiest. Because everyone's always trying to show off. Well, I'm not you because you're different. You're like, look at the tail of the donkey.

Well, there are no donkeys among the 88. Or whatever it is you know. But you can show people like, those are the two girls holding hands. Yeah, no, it's cool. It's a lot of legends. And so astronomers got that evening rap. What do you think normally guys look for? You think astronomers have that evening rap?

That's Niels Barry White. Hey, baby. Check out the constellations. Because we got, you know, there's a saying, always marry an astronomer because you know where they are at night. So you ever hear that one? Yeah. We got you covered.

Same thing with a bartender. But all right. But let's keep it serious. I got to know. It's a serious guest. We have a serious guest. We're going to come to him in like a minute. I'll just tell a quick story.

I was in Brooklyn. Excuse me. I was in my office, and I got a phone call from a woman from Brooklyn. Yes. And she sounded old, and it's like she'd been there her whole life. And she said, there's something glowing outside my window. What is it? Okay, first of all, Neil, I love you, but she was from Brooklyn.

She was like, there's something glowing outside my window. What is it? Are you Dr. Tyson? That's actually exactly what she sounded like. And I said- I'm concerned. So I said, okay, well, where is it in the sky? She said, oh, it's like three inches above Marty's Deli.

And I said. It's above Marty's Deli. I don't know how many inches. I haven't been able to see in years. It's glowing. All right. So I tried to tell which way is New Jersey, which way is Manhattan, where's the East River. And I finally figured out she was looking at the planet Venus.

And I thought to myself, how could this, she just noticed this now. The woman's like 90, 80, 100 years old. I've got my bags packed. I think it's like cocoon. They're coming for me. So here's what happened. So I said, it's Venus. How long have you lived there?

She said, my whole life. I said, how come you haven't noticed this? She said, there used to be a building outside my window and they just tore it down and now i can see the sky and it's beautiful and now i can die we're gonna take a break and when we come back a friend and longtime colleague joe reo who's like patron saint of amateur astronomers and the senior meteorologist for news 12 in Westchester. We're going to bring him on the show. I got questions for him, too, because it's stuff I can't even explain.

And I turn to him any time there's stuff I don't know. We'll be right back on StarTalk. Whether you're a space cadet or a rocket scientist, we want to hear from you. The phone lines are open. Call now. This is StarTalk. Welcome back to StarTalk.

I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, joined by my comedian co-host, Lynn Coplitz. Lynn, welcome back. Hello. In this segment, we're going to bring on a longtime friend and colleague, and he's an associate up at the Hayden Planetarium, and he's a meteorologist, a senior meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, and it's Joe Rao. Joe Rao, welcome to StarTalk.

Hi, Joe. Welcome. I'm overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by that introduction. So, Joe, just before we bring you in, let me just tell the audience that you can find us at startalkradio.net. That's online. And you can tweet us at Startalk Radio. So, Joe, welcome to the show. It's great to be.

I used to hang out in this area many, many years ago when I was like an intern at Channel 2 in New York back in the 70s for the weather guys who used to work there. So you were a weather dude for decades. Well, professionally since 1978, but I've been really interested in the sky, both weather-wise and also astronomy-wise. Plus astronomers are, weather is a problem. Did you see that movie Anchorman? Was it like in Anchorman back then? Slapping the skirts on the hiney? I'll tell you what I did. When I used to come down here to Channel 2, I used to give the on-camera weather caster,

the weather guy, the magnets. Did you? Did they put the sun up? Yeah, exactly. But back in the 70s, we didn't have the fancy chroma key that we have today or the plasma screen. You had magnetic maps. You had a magnetic sun or something. Yeah, exactly.

You put the sun up on the thing. And sometimes, you know, one night he was— Don't tell me the sun had a smiley face on it because then— I'll tell you that the sun had it. And sunglasses, too. Sunglasses, too. One time the sun fell down, fell off right in the middle of a weathercast. And, you know, the weathercaster— I might as well mention the guy's name,

Alan Casper, who's now doing the weather on a radio station in New Jersey. He said, well, I guess that only proves one thing. The barometer must be falling. Oh. Oh, that Alan. He's so quick. He's known for that, you know. So let me tell you, Joe, we want to know, we just want to clue our viewers in.

By the way, let me establish the fact. I get questions all the time, hundreds of emails a day, a subset of which are about the night sky with intricate questions about what's up, what's down, and I send them over to you, Joe. I want you to confirm that on the air right now. That's absolutely true. I get all kinds of stuff from Neil. Emails,

phone messages. As much as I know about the night sky, it is a subset of what this man knows, and that's why he's on the show. And that's why when Neil can't put up with these women from Brooklyn, these crazy women from Brooklyn who are saying, what's going on with the man? He sends them over to me. I'm worried about the night sky.

We're in the studio. So, Joe, what's in store for viewing stars and planets and constellations and eclipses? What's going on this summer? Interestingly, and— Give me your top hit list. If someone were going to check off the list, what would it be? Well, this month, the International Space Station,

which, of course, is still under construction, 240 miles above the surface of the Earth, going around the Earth at about 17,000 miles per hour. A lot of people still don't realize that you can see that and also a number of other satellites. See it with the naked eye. See it with the naked eye. Excuse me, the unaided eye. And this particular month.

Oh, you scientists. You dirty birds. This particular month, because of the various geometrical circumstances or whatever, the space station is visible both in the pre-dawn sky in the early morning hours, if you care to get up, let's say, at 4 or 5 in the a.m. Before the sun. Before the sun. I'm going to miss that one. Too bad.

If you don't plan to get up that early, later on in the month. Wait, wait, wait. Lynn, you can just stay awake. Or I could just tape it. Tee-vo it. She's going to T-vo it. Lynn is probably watching the Inside the Eyelid show. All right. The space station is passing over.

That's absolutely right. But later on in the month, after a few weeks, the space station will then be visible, like let's say around the 20th or 25th of July. It'll be visible across the United States in the evening hours, right after sunset. So if you don't care to get up in the wee small hours of the morning, you can wait until later. What does it look like, Joe? Can you tell us the space station? It looks like a huge star with kind of a yellowish-white tinge.

When you say huge, you mean bright. Very, very bright. Brighter than any, unmistakably bright compared to anything else in the sky. There's nothing that you can mistake the space station for. It looks like a star that's taken leave of its senses and has decided to move to a different part of the sky. You're definitely getting phone calls on that. They're coming for me!

Say goodbye to my daughter! My bags are packed! And it is very, very bright. In fact, it's so bright, it's gotten to be so large now. Well, it's been getting brighter over the years as we assemble pieces. It's getting bigger, of course. As I said, it's been getting brighter over the years as we assemble pieces. It's getting bigger, of course, as I said, it's still under construction, but the solar panels that they've added on in recent years reflecting the sunlight up in space, it has now gotten so large and so bright that you can even

see it in the, just even before the sun goes down or even after the sun has come up. So what you're saying is it could normally be visible in broad daylight except it's too bright, right? I mean, that's the problem. The sun is out, competing with it. But I mean, like, you know, in the first half hour after sunrise or in the first half hour before sunset, if you know exactly where to look in that daytime blue sky, you'll be able to see it as

a white speck of light moving across the sky. Again, it's gotten to be that bright. So how can we, it'd be hard to give times on the air right now, but is there – you have a blog that – Well, probably the best thing to do, I think, is to go to a website that specializes in giving you this information, and that would be heavensabove.com. Actually, it's heavens-above.com. Okay.

And so you can dig out what's visible in the night sky from there. From there, but specifically you can get out what's visible in the night sky from there. From there. But specifically you can get an idea as to when this moves across. So they call it Heaven Above. It really should be HardwareAbove.com. It's more romantic than the subject deserves. True. You know, when I was a kid, we didn't have all this fancy stuff that people have now. All you had was the sky.

I lived in Florida. The sky was the deal. I mean, eclipses, meteor showers. I mean, those are things we lived for. I mean, when you knew there was going to be a meteor shower, you were allowed to stay up late. You grabbed a lawn chair. Everybody got ready. So you're into looking at celestial streakers.

Yes. So to speak. So what do you have for us in the way of meteor showers this summer? Well, probably one of the best. That's what I want to know. What are the things that my niece is thinking? One of the best is coming our way in the month of August, the so-called Tears of St. Lawrence. Because Neil was talking about how they made up stories of the nighttime sky.

Back in 258 A.D., there was a saint by the name of Lawrence who was griddled to death on a hot grid iron. In fact, supposedly. What did he do bad? That's a great story for my nieces. Thanks a lot, Joe. I really appreciate it. So then what happened was this man was griddled to death on a hot iron, and these are his tears. He found out that the local politicians were rather unscrupulous and were stealing from the townspeople. And so they said,

you know, keep your mouth shut, but he didn't. And as a result of that, they punished him by putting him to death. His martyrdom is on August the 10th each year. And believe it or not, supposedly, according to the story, as he was being, you know, griddled on this hot iron, he says, I'm roasted on one side. Now, if you want me to completely roast it, turn me over and I'll be done on the other side as well. Can we change the name? Can we call him like

Farrah's Tears of Joy? Like now that everyone has come together and she's happy in heaven. Is it just coincidence that he was griddled on the same day as the meteor shower?

Or did they time it for that? The people who watched the sky and who looked up at the sky noticed that there was an unusual preponderance, an unusual amount of shooting stars that appeared around the 10th of August every year. And they looked up and they told stories. They said, well, what possibly could that be? They said, oh, that's probably the fiery tears of St. Lawrence. They could have said it's his dripping blood, but that would have been less.

No, I don't think so. All right, now this is great. What else do we have said it's his dripping blood, but that would have been less. No, I don't think so. All right. Now, this is great. What else do we have that I can tell my niece is about? I'm already having to change the tear story. We have a meteor shower in August, which is an awesome one. Wait, wait. So at its best, what is the, how many do you get? You can, if you have a nice dark sky, free of any light pollution, city lights, if you're

out in the country, out at the shore, looking skyward, you could see perhaps as many as 60 or maybe even 80 per hour how many do you remember seeing when when you were in florida as a kid yeah i mean i think the most i remember is maybe eight or ten just in the whole night but yeah i mean like you see any big ones too but you yeah yeah but you see them falling like sometimes at the same time so you'd hear all the kids yelling like i see one i see one that's interesting time. Yeah. So you'd hear all the kids yelling like, I see one, I see one. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting also that, you know, back, you know, years ago when I used to join groups and we'd specifically, you know, take one section of the sky to watch as we were counting. We used to do that too. And we were counting these shooting stars.

And we'd bring a tape recorder and we'd always know the faint ones or the dim ones from the bright ones by listening to the recording thereafter. If you saw one that went like that, you you say, oh, I saw one like that. But if there was one of those really large ones that looked like a Roman candle or a skyrocket that left a trail behind it for a few seconds, whoa, did you see that? Oh, my. You know, and you knew. So the volume level correlated with brightness.

Precisely. Precisely. Can you see more of a, excuse me, but can you see more of a shooting star with a telescope? Well, I tell you, if you were lucky enough to be looking through a telescope, remember a telescope is concentrating on a very, very narrow section of the sky. Right. So you'd have to be like winning the lottery to have a meteor zip through that little. How cool would that be?

It's quite. But I'll tell you what, if you see a really bright one and leave a trail that's hanging behind it for, let's say, 10, 15, 20 seconds, you could probably get your telescope or binoculars up and you could see the trail. And as – But probably better with binoculars because you have a wider field of view. Right, exactly. Yeah. And what's interesting is that you could see the trail being distorted by those high-level winds at 50 and 60 miles up getting bent into all kinds of weird shapes. Lynn, did you know there was a gaffe in Carl Sagan's movie Contact where Ellie Arroway as a child is calling her father and she's looking through a telescope and saying, come

on, Dad, it's beginning. And she's looking through the telescope and she's telling him that the meteor shower is beginning. But she ain't seeing it. There's no way she would be seeing it. There's no way she's seen it through the telescope. Well, here's another thing that I saw as a kid that we were obsessed with, and still I'm frankly a little obsessed with, were eclipses.

Well, do you plan to go to China later in the month? Everybody's going to China, it seems. I do enjoy their food, but probably not. Yeah, the food comes to us, apparently. Wait, Lynn, which eclipse did you see? Do you remember? Just tell us what year. I just remember.

No, I will not because you'll know my age. What I know is we used to do the thing Let me finish. We used to do the thing where we would poke the hole in the paper because they said that if you look at an eclipse it will burn your eyes. Is that true? Well, not the eclipse. It's just the sun. The sun is

dangerous to look at all the time. But when the newspapers or the radio and television stations say, hey, there's going to be an eclipse of the sun tomorrow, everybody all of a sudden, you would, I mean, like, you don't stop in the middle of the street. I've never seen one. I've never looked. I've been scared. I looked through the paper with the little hole. Well, yeah, that's the best way.

Well, yeah, you don't look through the hole. You let the sunlight... No, you put the hole, right, you put the paper. Like a pinhole camera kind of set up, yeah. Yeah. But the thing is that the incredible rise in eye, you know, people who report eye damage during an eclipse is because they want to see the eclipse. But it's not the eclipse that's causing the eye damage. It's the sun. The sun is very, very brilliant, and you're not supposed to look at it at any time for any long length of time lest you, you know.

Joe, we hear these actually exaggerated accounts. Sorry. People overreact to that warning, right? I've heard people say, stay indoors during solar eclipses because you'll, like, burn to a crisp. And the sad part about that, Neil, is the fact that when the sun – if you're in the path of a total eclipse of the sun, one of the greatest, most spectacular – Songs ever written. I see. The Carly Simon song.

Turn around. Well, you know, if you ever have a chance in your lifetime to see a total eclipse of the sun, that those moments, those few moments when the sun is totally eclipsed, you can look directly at the sun because, you know, the sun isn't there. The sun isn't there. The photosphere, you get to see the beautiful corona. But the thing is, is that people are under the impression that the total phase is probably the worst time to look at it. And people run to their homes or hide in the bed during this period when the sun is absolutely extinguished.

Hidden behind the moon. Lynn, I just want you to know that if you even say where you were when you saw the eclipse, he knows enough about eclipses to know exactly what year that happened. Because eclipses happen in all different places. So we already nailed your age. We didn't have to here for a long time. We already got your age. And I have a million other questions.

Oh, I'm 41. And we got to take a break. We're here with our special guest, Joe Rao, in the studio. He is astronomer extraordinaire, senior meteorologist up in News 12 Westchester. Lynn, we'll be back in a minute. I have questions about the sky. Can we keep Joe to the next segment? Well, can you say? I'm not going anywhere. Well, he's good. He's good to go. We'll take a break.

The future of space and the secrets of our planet revealed. This is StarTalk. This is StarTalk. Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm your host, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The tutor there is Lynn Koblitz, professional comedian and actress. And we're joined by a special guest in the studio, Mr. Joe Rao. He's a patron saint of sky watchers. And I don't know if he's ever been called that before, but he's a patron saint of sky watchers.

And I don't know if he's ever been called that before, but he's my patron saint of sky watching. And he's a senior meteorologist in Westchester at News 12. So, Joe, thanks for being with us here today. Thanks for staying longer into this segment. I'm happy. Before we proceed, I just, you know, I teased you a little bit before on the other segment about China. And on June, on June, we're already out of June, July 22nd of this month. Day before my birthday.

We're going to have the eclipse of the century. What? The longest total eclipse of the sun that's going to occur in this century. But unfortunately, if you want to see it. Me bending over to blow out my candles. Oh, no. Unfortunately, you have to go to either India or China or some of the South Islands of Japan where the shadow of the moon will be crossing. And I must tell you that there are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people from this side of the world who are planning to go to China or to India or to be on cruise ships off of Japan to see this spectacular sight in a few weeks. That's in just a few weeks. Yeah, I'll catch it.

I'll TiVo it. Like you said, I'm going to be there. Well, I mean, if they're all going to China, I guarantee you they're going to take pictures. But, you know, you don't have to wait. This country is in the midst of an eclipse drought. We have not had in the contiguous, the 48 United States, a total eclipse of the sun since 1979. But take heart, not too much longer now, eight more years, and those eight years will go by very, very quickly. On August the 21st, are you writing this down in your calendar, Lynn? No, because I want to get to another question, Joe, when you keep talking about eclipses of the sun, and I have something important to ask you.

August 21st, 2017. But keep talking about it. August 21st. 2017. 2017. Okay, I am going to write that down. She 21st, 2017. But keep talking about it. August 21st. 2017. 2017. Okay, I am going to write that down. She is writing it down. Let the record show.

2017. It's going to be really spectacular. It's going to go coast to coast. I'm going to tell my nieces that. That's awesome. It's going to go from Oregon all the way through the middle of the country. It's going to go over St. Louis

and then it's going to exit the country at Charleston, South Carolina out into the ocean. So, Joe, there was a day when that was an issue, that it would take that long to reach us, but now we have, like, airplanes and things, so we can, like, travel to the shadow rather than waiting for the shadow to come to us. That's right. But unfortunately, there are some of us, for example, that are not able to go to China

or to India this month, so we'll just have to sit and wait and wait for the shadow to come to us, which will be, again, in about eight years. If you want to send us email, just do so through our website, startalkradio.net. And you can tweet us at Startalk Radio. Now, can we tell Joe, can I say something real quick? Lynn, you're our host here. I know, but I see you two are so excited. I don't want to interrupt.

You get two boys together who are talking about. Our own heavenly bodies, yes. About your own heavenly bodies, and you get excited. But part of why we're doing the Summer Sky Show is because I was a kid raised in Florida, and I'm kind of obsessed with skies, Joe, and people listening. And I was talking to Neil about it, and I was saying how I just get obsessed with it. And now that I travel so much as a comedian, I've noticed that skies are different everywhere I go. And I had been in Phoenix.

And I got in at night. And it was the strangest thing. It was the first time I realized. And I came in at night. And I woke up in the morning. I had a gig to go to. In typical New Yorker fashion, I'm on my cell phone. I'm not paying attention.

And all of a sudden, I look up, and it was twilight. It was unbelievable. I'd never seen anything. There must have been eight colors in the sky, colors I'd never even seen, like navy blue. I was like, what is this? And it was really amazing. So then you had a cosmic moment.

Yeah, but my question is about the different skies in different places. And I just want to talk about that. So, Joe, twilight in Phoenix, it's desert versus twilight in Florida or L.A.? Well, obviously, I mean, in Florida, it's a very humid climate, a moisture-laden climate, as opposed to Arizona, the desert southwest, which has much less in the way of moisture. And so you get kind of a different coloration of the sky there, kind of a cleaner views of the colors of the sky. So the moisture kind of muddies the view, you're saying. Yeah. You get more of – I guess you get more of a – what's the word I'm looking for? Schmutz?

Schmutz, okay. The sun – you know, you see the sun go down in Florida. It goes down like a big red ball because it's being – the light is being attenuated by all of the humidity and all of the schmutz that's in the air, as opposed to out in the desert southwest where the air is drier and a lot cleaner, and you get more of a vivid coloration of oranges and reds and pinks and cobalt blues and saffrons. It is pretty awesome. And now the twilight at night, wait, is twilight daytime, morning, or night? No, they can both be twilight. It's dawn and dusk.

You know what it is? My mom calls it rabbit dark. What is rabbit dark? When I was a kid, it was called rabbit dark because that's when all the rabbits come out. Like right at that 7 o'clock time. That would kind of depend on where you live. In New York, it would be mugger's dark in New York. Right, okay.

If that's what you're talking about. Mugger dark. Mugger dark. Rabbit dark. But that's what my mother always called it. Or like the kids say, look, when the streetlights come on. It's that time. Yeah.

And in fact, unfortunately, if you live up in, let's say, Canada, especially central and northern Canada, there really is no- Or fake America. There's no real darkness during this time of the year because twilight lasts all night. The sky never gets truly dark up in northern. Yeah, that's the other thing, Joe. Wait, so Joe, you're saying at midnight it's still twilight is what you're saying if you go far enough north. If you go to a place like Edmonton, for example, Alberta, Canada, it always is a little bit light even during the middle of the night because twilight never ends up there.

Yeah, which is weird, too, because have you ever been there or like Alaska where everybody's wearing fleece and they're unattractive and you can see them. Because it's twilight all night long. You're like, really? If any place needed dark, it's this place. To all of the people who are now listening to us in Alaska, we apologize. They know. They have mirrors. So here's the thing, too.

I noticed when I was in Alaska that the twilight, you know, it stayed until about 11 o'clock, and it really affected me emotionally. Do you think that's just me, or is that a thing? Did it depress you? What was your problem? Yeah, it was weird. Well, because I'm one of these people, I can tell, I can kind of feel it. I mean, you're a meteorologist, but Neil tells me I'm nuts.

But I can feel when it feels like it's going to rain outside. Well, yeah, some people have that ability. They say, my bones are creaking. It's true. You know, sometimes it changes. Joe, is that true? Joe, to answer here and now on StarTalk, are you telling me people's bones can tell whether it's going to rain?

There are some people who— I got a bad hip. Isn't your body fluids wetter than any air that's wrapped around your body to determine if it's going to rain? That just sounds weird. All I can tell you is I've met people— Riders on the storm. Joe, that's Ivan, our producer, being covered. All I can tell you is that there are people who I've met who say,

they ask me, what's the forecast? And I tell them why. Is it going to rain soon because I feel it in my bones? I've got a crick in my bones. You guys, you're scientists. I'm telling you, don't you watch movies? The animals start going nuts when the storm's coming? Well, because they hear the thunder and they don't understand it

because they don't have science. I think it's because they feel it. Now, here's a good question. Why is the sky blue? Should I get into Raleigh scattering, or should I just? If you do, she'll let you know about it. So go ahead. No, because everywhere I've lived, there's not always blue sky.

You know what I mean? In Florida, there's very blue sky. Like in Florida, there's very blue sky. In New York, there's very blue sky. You don't get to look at it a lot. I mean, down in Florida, you have what might be called a tropical sky because if you get the flow of air from off of the ocean, that helps to, in a way, cleanse the atmosphere as opposed to, let's say, a place like New York or Los Angeles where you've got all that smog because everything is kind of like there's not much motion of the air. And so all of that industrial pollutant just sits there for days and days on end. So if you're below that smog, you have to look through the smog to then judge the color of the sky. Right.

Right? Right. But if you're not below the smog, like if you're above it. Sometimes when you're above it, if you're in a plane. You can see it. Well, I mean, you can even see it. There are times like even here in New York when I'm on, let's say, the Whitestone or Throgs Neck Bridge and I'm looking over toward New York City. Even I look high above me and it's a beautiful blue sky.

I look toward the city and it looks like there's like a brown dome over the city during these times of what's called a temperature inversion when it actually gets warmer. It's supposed to get colder as you go higher up into the atmosphere, but sometimes in certain cases the temperature is warmer as you go up, and it acts like a giant lid, so to speak, and traps all the pollutants. That's nasty, Joe. That's nasty. I mean, people's bad breath and everything just stays there. If other planets, like Mars is full of methane and everything, then is there smog on other planets?

Well, Mars has a very, very thin atmosphere, so I don't think you'd have to worry about smog there. About Venus or... Well, Venus is the runaway greenhouse effect, right? Yeah, each planet's got its own story to tell. Just to remind people, we're listening to Joe Rea, who's our special, Lynn and my special guest today. He's not only sort of patron saint of Skywatchers,

he's a meteorologist, and that's the source of our questions right now. Because Lynn grew up in Florida, where there's a lot of weather in Florida. Did you ever experience a hurricane down in Florida? Oh my gosh, are you kidding? My mother used to track hurricanes. We had a hurricane closet that had just special food

just for the hurricane. And the strangest thing was it had like maraschino cherries,, like, sardines. And to me, like, hurricane equaled, like, cocktail party. I never quite understood why all of that was in. So you can't touch that. That's why the hurricane. Like, well, obviously we're going to die with a smile on our face.

We're still waiting for the first one this year. The first one on the list in the Atlantic and Caribbean is Ana, A-N-A-8. So we'll see when she decides to. And she begins with an A because you go alphabetically, if I remember correctly. Correct, but not all 26 letters. I think there are five. Well, I know there are five letters. I think like Q, for example, is not representative and X.

I've seen tornadoes. I've been on the highway when a tornado was. How about a water spout? Next time. Where did you grow up? In Sarasota, Florida. You saw tornadoes in Florida? We were in Alligator Alley and we saw a tornado. And the warning... Talk about an eerie, weird sky.

This is a thing, too. Why is it that skies get so eerie before storms? You know how sometimes in Florida, especially... Where did the green come from? The green. This is a question I have about the green. Now this, in Florida, you get lots of electrical storms.

You know that, Joe. Right. But you also get just these weird little showers that come out of nowhere. Like it's sunny. Then there's a shower. And then the shower's over. Lynn, it was only showering over your head. No, I'm not Eeyore.

It's not like that. But no, there's no, really, out of nowhere, there's just a little shower. But, and I've never experienced this. Don't mind me. I just have a shower. Stop it. I'm okay. I'm as happy as I can be.

I'm happy. No, wait. So there's a, the one thing I have noticed in Florida and never noticed it anywhere else is that after this little weird shower, everything gets bright green, like Emerald City green. And sometimes there's a rainbow. Well, I can understand the rainbow. The rainbow, of course, is caused by the departing storm and sunlight shining through the raindrops to create that rainbow effect. But as far as the green is concerned, I've seen green skies in advance of a thunderstorm.

But I don't recall ever seeing green skies on a deporting plane. I don't mean the sky. I mean everything looks kind of green. Everything looks extra bright green. Green tinge. Aren't we all going green now? It's fashionable to go green. We'll get back to green.

We've got to take a break. We might talk about rainbows too. And definitely rainbows. One of my favorite cosmic or sky objects. You're listening to StarTalk Radio. Find us on startalkradio.net and call us at 1-877-5-STARTALK. We're here with Joe Rao and I'm here, Neil deGrasse Tyson, with your co-host, Lynn Coplitz. Back after a break.

Bringing space and science down to Earth. You're listening to StarTalk. Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, with Lynn Copland, my favorite comedian of all time, and our special guest, Joe Rao. Joe, Lynn put it to you. She said, why is the sky blue? And you just dropped the ball, and I'm going to hold you to it.

I think I interrupted him. Okay. As I mentioned before, the official term is called Raleigh scattering, but to put it in the most basic terms, because we have an atmosphere and we have very tiny particulate matters that are up in the atmosphere as well, the sunlight bouncing off these tiny little particles, these dust particles, they are of a shorter wavelength. So short waves or short wavelength of light is more along the lines of

a bluish coloration. Now, when the sun is high in the sky, we see those short waves. When the sun is down low and it is traveling, those beams of light from the sun are traveling through a longer stretch to our eyes, to a longer wavelength, then we see a reddish coloration at sunrise and sunset. So when the sun is low and those light rays are traveling for a very long stretch to you, those long wavelengths look red. When the sun is higher up in the sky, there's shorter wavelengths of light. The light is taking a shorter path here. Well, what about when the sky is really white, like in a winter sky? Not when there's snow,

but you know how sometimes the sky is just white? Well, that's probably because you're looking at the sun or you're looking at the sky through a layer of maybe high or mid-level cloud. Seriform clouds give that milky appearance, that whitish appearance of the sky. Seriform? Well, not maiden form, but ciriform. Okay, ciriform. But they look like one big, I was going to say a dirty word, one big old cloud, right?

Right. In advance of a major storm, especially in the wintertime, you get these high, thin cirrus clouds. They look like the tails of a horse, mare's tail clouds. Right. cirrus clouds. They look like the tails of a horse, mare's tail clouds. And as you get closer to the storm, the clouds begin to get into more of a layering effect until finally that, you know, literally the whole sky is covered by one layer of high or mid-level clouds, 15, 20, 25,000 feet up. And it gives that white effect that you just mentioned. We had a creepy cloud that was actually in the paper recently. Was it in the Times?

What was in the Times? That creepy cloud, that storm that happened in New York. A few nights ago, they photographed it over Yankee Stadium. It was this creepy cloud. You don't have cloud formations called creepy cloud? A creepy cumulus. Oh, I know what you're talking about. And this was actually over, I think, Citi Field. Yes, yes.

Right, the mammatus clouds. And I saw that. What was it? It's a special kind of cloud that is, it almost looks like a bunch of cotton balls. Cotton balls dangling from below. Exactly, exactly. And at that time of day, you had sunset colors on the underside of the cloud. And this type of cloud is usually seen at or immediately after a very strong thunderstorm,

sometimes even a thunderstorm that is in the Midwest, sometimes produces tornadoes. And in this particular case, just before the ballgame started last week at Citi Field, there was a hellacious thunderstorm, and in its wake it left behind these mammatus clouds, or mama clouds, if you will. So could they have meant that a tornado was coming?

No, this is in the aftermath of the storm. They usually see after a storm passes by. But as I said, sometimes in the Midwest when they've had thunderstorms with tornadic activity, in the aftermath you do see these strange cotton ball-like clouds in the sky. Is there really such a

word as tornadic? I mean, tornadic weather. I don't know what the other is. If Joe Rao says that it is, don't question us. But I gotta tell you, I saw those clouds

when I saw them on television. I was watching the Met game and they showed those clouds and I said, you know,

I won't say what I said initially when I saw that. And I ran outside and I saw them for myself outside my office. I said,

my goodness, it's unbelievable. Well, let me ask you, can I ask a rainbow question? Yeah storms go through, yeah, so as storms go through, they give you rainbows. So you must have had a lot of them in Florida, Lynn. Oh, well, you know, I really couldn't believe Ivan, our

producer, had never seen a rainbow. Ivan, you have to get out more. Growing up in, he's also he also cries a lot. But as a kid, I remember not only seeing rainbows, but seeing double rainbows often. Right. Usually the most common type of rainbow is the kind that gives you the 22-degree bow, if you will.

But on occasions when the atmosphere is exceptionally clear and you don't have very much in the way of haze, you'll see a secondary bow that extends outward to about 46 degrees. And the other thing that's of interest to rainbow lovers is the fact you can never see a rainbow in the middle of the day. Why? Because the rainbow is a function of sunlight shining through raindrops. So if you've got the sun way up here in the sky, let's say at like noon or one o'clock, and it starts to rain, and the thunderstorm is now departing, and the last raindrops are falling, where's the rainbow going to be? It's always opposite to the sun in the sky,

so the rainbow is going to be down by your feet. So you have to get that sun at a... So it's early morning or twilight. It's twilight time. In the late afternoon, or it's kind of rare to get thunderstorms in the morning, but it's possible. Now, what is a rainbow exactly, before we go? Well, the raindrops act like little prisms. They break the light up into different colors

and the arc, actually a rainbow is a complete circle, if you will, of color. I've seen complete circles when I was on Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls. Right, and you can create a rainbow yourself. If you don't want to wait for a thunderstorm, just get out your garden hose and put it on a fine spray, stand with your back to the sun, turn the spray on, and you can create a rainbow yourself. If you don't want to wait for a thunderstorm, just get out your garden hose and put it on a fine spray.

Stand with your back to the sun. Turn the spray on. And you can create a marvelous rainbow. Oh, that's a good one. So if I was having a wedding, which I probably won't ever, Mom, calm down. But if I was having a wedding, could I create a rainbow for it? Could you create a rainbow? You could do that so long as you have your audience or your guests standing in the right spot relative to the sun or relative

to whatever light source. So you just need a fancy sprinkler system to do this. That is such a bridezilla thing. I want a rainbow. A big rainbow. I'm not getting married unless I'm a big rainbow. And the pot of gold, Joe? Can the bride go to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

She can go to anywhere she wants to go after she gets married. Last question, and then I'll let you ask the last question. We're running quick on time here. Do they have rainbows on other planets? That's a good question. I've never even considered that. Joe, you let me down here, Joe. See, I'm smart.

I ask good questions. If you don't satisfy Lynn, you ain't coming back here. It rains sulfuric acid on Venus. That would be an interesting trick to see whether or not you can get a rainbow. Sulfuric acid rainbow. Sulfuric acid rainbow, the stuff that's in your car battery. Can you get on that for me, Joe? I'll try it.

Bring it back. Thank you for being such a wonderful guest. Joe. Thank you for inviting me here. You're like the man, Joe. It was very fun being here. Can we call you with more rainbow questions? Can we call you with more questions about all these things?

You could call me anytime, Lynn. Anytime you want. He's flirting, I think. I feel it. I feel it. So, Lynn. Yes, sir. How have you been?

I'm fine. We're about to end the show. Do you have anything bugging you? Yeah, I do. Remember, I'm your private astrophysicist. Joe, just so you know, and people at home, they've decided to let me ask Neil one question at the end of the show every day so I can learn. I watched Nurse Jackie again.

Okay. And I'm obsessed. And they were talking about matter and antimatter and looking for the God particle. What is the God particle? I couldn't understand it on Nurse Jackie, so I'm hoping you can explain it. A God particle is a proposed particle that we don't know if it exists yet, but we have good reasons to think it's there. And the biggest accelerators in the world that smash

particles together, we're hoping that out of the train wreck of smashed particles will reveal this one particle whose properties endow other particles with mass. You mean it makes it all stick together?

It gives them mass. It is a measure of how much resistance they have to be set into motion. No wonder that was important to Nurse Jackie. So they've been calling that the God particle. It gives meaning to all particles in the cosmos. Thank you, Neil. Yes, we'll give you one question a week. And yes, you are listening to StarTalk, funded by the National Science Foundation. And I'm joined every week by Lynn Koplitz, comedian, actress, co-host.

I am Neil deGrasse Tyson, thanking Joe Rao, who's been our wonderful guest today. Thank you, Joe. Joe, we'll have to get you back. Thank you. You're listening to StarTalk.