StarTalk Radio - Things You Thought You Knew – Sonic BOOM!

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Where does the wind come from? What is a sonic boom? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice explain things you thought you knew about sonic booms, daily temperatures, and how wind works.  NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here:  https://startalkmedia.com/show/things-you-thought-you-knew-sonic-boom/ Thanks to our Patrons ShrubPuncher, Tim James, Jesse Doucette, Joshua Horton, Andrew D, Bree Fouss, Richard McEnery, Zachary Dubner, Jacob Gartung, Koltan Kaboozo, Ryd, Madison Kramer, Samantha Garcia, Lothar Erkens, Stonemason_stargazer, Rafael C, Bryan Klopenstine, Jeremiah Morgan, Andy Wilson, textilewhiz, Andreas Bjørn Hassing, Phyllis Bernstein, Jeff Patton, DustyRock Creations, Michael Sherman, Vishal, Jeff Otterman, Bill Rodawalt, Nika, Mx Self-Destruct, Britt Michels, Grace, Joe Stallone, Aj Huerta, Tim Reddy, Anna Grasser, Jimmy Sy, Chuck, Mark Okonsky, dru Ravyn, Courtney K, MICHAEL DRIVAS, Kamaria Mosley, Shubham Lakhani, Shawn Luff, langc2427, Peter Hirst, Hybrid Robotix, Cindy Durston, Leonardo TMNT, I.Scream143, Chris Hill, Matt Schifferle, Alina Gatria, Dom, Diane Jones, Shvan Karim, John Holton, Austin Christensen, CM, Rocka Darkoda, Jim Dostie, Joan Flaherty, John Bete, Phil Martell, Graham, Ted, Adam Elkins, JohnRoberts, Xander, J DOUGLAS ARMSTRONG, Brandon Bell, Susan Kraft, Skip Sanders, sankar, Davis, Doug Hall, Remi Paquet, Steve Hale, Cristina Alina, raul, Glen Rosenthal, LosNeimeiers, physicsquestions123, Resonance Gaming Network, Arda Sems, Matthew Mergens, Aaron Rhea, Jake, daHrnyPhyscn, Ardis Graham, Estevan Rios, Glen Phelps, Vince T, Ceals McBeals, David O., Krys Wylie, Aleks Magi, Emily Butler, and Chris 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.

Hello, StarTalkians. Neal here. Coming up, we have another Things You Thought You You knew episode. This time, we're talking about sonic booms, day and night temperatures, and wind. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. I've come to shed some more light on that which is mysterious in this world. Yes, yes. The stuff you thought you knew, but you didn't know. That's what you thought you'd know.

So I just thought I'd talk about Sonic Booms. Okay. What do you think of that? Can we go there? Nobody doesn't love a Sonic boom. Nobody doesn't love a Sonic. Yeah, that's one of the best, most popular video games. That Sonic.

That Sonic, I tell you, that hedgehog is something else. So we can talk about Sonic Boom. So here you go. Ready? So let's take an airplane. That's a good choice here. And generally, airplanes make noise. And so you'll hear the noise and you'll look up and you see the plane coming.

Right. And then receding. All right. The fact that you heard the plane and looked up and then you see it approaching means the sound got to you ahead of the plane. Okay. Yes. Right? The plane is not where you are yet.

It's down, it's down the, down the road a bit, right? So you hear it. So the sound is going at the speed of sound. And in regular air, they call it 700 miles an hour. So it's around there. 700 miles an hour. And the plane is still in like, what, four something? Yeah, 500 miles an hour.

So the sound is emanating in front of the plane relative to the plane relative to the plane. plane at 200 miles an hour. Nice. Okay. All right. Not a problem. No. This is very easy. This is not hard to understand. All right. So let's ask the question. Because, by the way, there's 700 miles an hour is the speed of sound in air. Right. And typical sort of sea level type air. All right. That's the speed of sound. Now, suppose the plane flew a little faster. Let's let it go 600 miles an hour. Okay. All right. Well, the sound going in front of it is now moving. front at only 100 miles an hour faster. Right, because it's not going to increase because it's the speed of sound.

Down in air. In air. Okay, so what that means is the plane will be a little closer to you before you notice that it's there. Right. Okay, because it didn't have a chance to get too far ahead. All right, because the plane is like right coming up behind it. But it's still moving away from it at 100 miles an hour.

That's still pretty fast. That's fast. How about 650 miles? an hour. So now, wait a minute. Now it's only, okay, how about 680 miles an hour? 690. Wait a minute. What happens if you go 700 miles an hour? What happens to the sound you're trying to admit in front of you? Well, you can't admit it's right with you. It's right with you. It is with you. So here's the sound you're trying to push forward and it's moving forward. It's 700 miles and out, but so are you. So that plane approaches you. You don't even know it's there.

You don't even know to turn around and notice it. Right. Until it is directly overhead. And then the sound from the, the sound hits you and the light from the plane hits you. And there you are. He's, oh, there's a plane overhead. Right. Well, it's right there above you. Right. Let's keep going. Let's not stop there. Now I have a go 750 miles an hour, 800 miles an hour. Oh, by the way, we have words for this. If you go to the speed of sound, Mach 1. Nice. So now you have punched through this, quote, sound barrier.

It's not really a barrier, but we used to think it was one. You punched through and now the sound lags behind. Right. All right. So now the faster you go beyond Mach 1, Mach 2 would be how fast? Twice the speed of sound. Twice the speed of sound. So 1,400, 15,00.

If you go twice as fast, then you are leaving the sound behind you. Right. And all the sound that you are making is now snowplowed into this cone that comes out away from your vessel. So it's like your plane made a wake

of nothing that is being filled, with the sound that you left behind. Correct. And on the edge of that is all the sound that would have spread out through space ahead of you. And now it's all compressed behind you. Oh. And so now that plane flies overhead.

You don't know it's there. Right. As a matter of fact, you won't know it's there because it didn't... It didn't make a sound. It didn't... It didn't... Brilliant, Chuck. I'm glad you're a fast study there.

So there it is directly overhead. You don't even know to look up. Right. And it goes because it's well ahead of the sound it's making. So where's the sound it's making? Well, it's way behind. And it's all been snowplowed into this wall of sound moving forward at the speed of sound. Wow.

So the plane is now downstream from you. And you say, hmm, that's odd. That didn't make a sound. Bam! The sonic boom hits you. It's, oh, it's all the, it's like the, like the big ball of sound. It's a wall of sound. It's a wall of sound.

It's compressed because the plane left it behind. And all the sound that it would have made that you would have heard ahead of it is now all behind it in a wall. And it all got plowed into itself. That as it passes. over you is a sonic boom. Oh, man. And the higher up the plane is, the more delayed that is the sonic boom.

You'll come up here, Sonic Boom, look up, where's the plane? It was way down, way downstream. Now, so turns out anything that goes faster than sound will make a sonic boom. Okay. So it turns out a whip, the crack of a whip, is the tip of the tip of the tip of the whip moving faster than the speed of sound. Oh, sweet. It's a mini sonic boom. We used to do in the locker room, you get a like a rat tail with a rat tail with a towel. So the sonic boom comes about. So the material, this would be true with a whip as well, as it flings forward and you start retracting it

before it fully flings forward. And the rapid change of direction there is the thing moving just faster than the speed of sound and you hear a crack. It's very small. It's a sonic crack, I guess, not a sonic boom. So that's what a sonic boom is. And I love me some sonic boons, but we, you know, we had the, no, we did. We've never had a commercial, a commercial supersonic plane in the United States. But Europe did. And you know what that was? That French plane. The French plane. Yeah, the Concorde. SST. Licka good. And that was a collaboration, I think, with England. And so we would fly to London and to Paris to New York. But we didn't have one of those planes. Right. We didn't have. So how are we going to compete with that? Here's what we do. We say, we don't like sonic booms over our residences. So if you want to fly your plane over continental United States, you have to fly subsonic. Well, what's the point of that? Okay. So you didn't have these planes going to L.A. They all went to New York, basically. Right.

And I would have been great if we can all fly supersonicically. So the concern was you're having a nice peaceful afternoon, a picnic, and then sonic booms are just coming across. I think the novelty would probably wear off quickly, is my sense of this. Now, a quick little story before we end, there's the Salisbury Cathedral. I think this is a true story. I read about it long ago, but I haven't seen more written about it, so I don't know. maybe it's apocry cathedral, one of the oldest cathedrals in the world, has one of the oldest clocks in the world. And I visited that when I visited Stonehenge when I was a kid, because the

Stonehenge is in the Salisbury Plains of southwest England. So anyhow, the Royal Air Force, it's a very underpopulated area. So the Royal Air Force was doing maneuvers there, and there were sonic booms that they were making all the time. Conservatives were worried, conservatives were worried that these sonic boom would jiggle the cathedral and damage it. Okay. So we got some acoustic engineers that did some measurements. And sure enough, there's serious sonic boom energy coming into the cathedral. And then someone said, gee, I wonder how much vibration comes from lower C on their organ, on their pipe organ.

So they tested the low notes on the pipe organ. And it was more energetic than the sonic booms coming across. something. So that was the end of that conversation right there. Okay. That could be apocryphal, but it's a fun story. What it means is just in general. If you think something is causing something, look for anything else that could swamp that effect. And if you find something that does, then formulate another question. So now, when a sonic boom of a meteor coming into our atmosphere... That's why you'll never know. The people say, oh, look, here it comes. No, you don't know until it's too late, until it already hits.

So is it the boom that is breaking windows or is it the movement of air itself? Because it just... It's the same thing. It's the same thing. It's a shockwave. It's a shockwave. It's a shockwave. That's correct.

And you know, something else? It's cool. Okay. Okay. You know, the speed of light drops when it goes into transparent solid materials. So speed of light is lower in glass. It's even lower in diamond. Right.

Okay. Now, suppose you have a particle that you send through that material that goes fast. than the speed of light. Because you can do that. There's no rule against it, right? It's not my fault the light is slow. That's not my fault. I'm obeying Einstein.

I don't care that we're in glass or in diamond or in water. Okay. So it turns out when particles do that, they make a kind of sonic boom of their own, but it's not sonic. It's light. A light boom. Yeah, it's a light boom.

Oh. It's a light boom. Well, that sounds delightful. And so it's a similar phenomenon, but it's happening sort of electromagnetically. And it admits its own kind of radiation for having done so. So it's a more general phenomenon and a principle. Shockwaves, it's all part of the same discussion of going faster than the medium wants you to go. And there you have it.

That's very cool. Well, you know, a light boom, you know, in production is a stand that you hang a light on. Oh. I guess so. That's a really boring version of the definition of the word. I was going to say, like, your light booms are way better than mine. Way cooler than the sound guys' booms. Right, right, right.

Hi, I'm Ernie Carducci from Columbus, Ohio. I'm here with my son Ernie because we listen to StarTalk every night and support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Chuck. Yes. What time of day is the sun the highest in the sky? Oh, I don't know. High noon.

High noon, yeah, high noon. And unless it's day like savings time and then it's like one o'clock. Okay. What's the hottest time of day? Normally around three o'clock. Why isn't it when the sun is at its highest? Why are you doing this to me? I'm just trying to...

What is this? Why are you grilling? No, let me think here. When the sun is at its highest point in the sky, it is maximally heating the earth in that moment. Well, then that makes sense because if it's at that point that it starts to maximally heat the earth, then it would take a little longer for the earth to actually, no, that don't make no sense. I take it back. I'm trying to think here. Why would it be?

Because every moment after that, it's heating the earth less. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. until sunset when it's not heating the earth at all, not your side of the earth at least. Right. So, okay, so I want to explain. Well, so my explanation was correct. Okay, yeah.

But not for why. Not for why. Yes, but no. Yes, but no. I got you. All right, here it goes. It was a valiant effort. Okay.

So, but every. The sun emits a lot of bands of light, but primarily emits light in the visible part of the spectrum. And we all know that those are the colors of the rainbow. Yes. One of my favorite stories, and it's not. a story. One of my favorite recountings that you have done, and I believe you did on the first season of Cosmos, was the scientist who was measuring the light and then outside of the spectrum that he was recording, there was a temperature change. And he knew then, because of that, that there had to be

a light that we don't know or see that is making this change. I love that. I just love that recounting. And he said it in his very sort of 18th century flary called it light unfit for vision. Light unfit for vision. Is that cool? Yeah. So he discovered infrared light and it was William Herschel. William Herschel. Yes.

All right. So here's a thing. So the sun emits infrared, which we can't see. It emits ultraviolet, which we can't see. And both of those are bands of light outside of the bands we do see. So it's red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. All right? Roy G. Biff.

And the sub. Roy G. And the sun peaks right there in the middle between yellow and green. All right. So more energy comes from the sun right there in yellow and green than in any other part of the spectrum. All right. The fact that you can see the sun through the atmosphere means the air is not absorbing any of that energy. Well, if the air is not because you can see the sun, it got through the atmosphere.

to the bottom, to the base of the atmosphere where your eyeballs are. So now what? So the light comes all the way through. It's not getting absorbed by the atmosphere. It hits the ground. And the ground absorbs the sunlight. Ah. Not the air.

Uh-huh. Okay. So now the ground absorbs the yellow light and the green light and the blue light and the red light. Absorbs it all. That heats the molecules on Earth's surface. then the molecules re-radiate that same energy but in a different part of the spectrum. Interesting. It re-radiates it as infrared.

And the infrared gets absorbed by the atmosphere. So there's a time delay between when the sun is slamming us with visible light. And when Earth's surface responds back with. infrared, heating the air. Now you put the thermometer in the air. You say, oh, the temperature is going up. Did it go up at high noon? No.

Took a couple hours. Wow. For that to build. That, so I had, see, kids, this is why you got to go to school. This is why you got to go to school. So you can actually learn things the proper way to learn them. I'm not done yet. Okay.

Get out. So, if that's the case, that means the first. farther away you are from Earth's surface. Right. The cooler it's going to be. Right. You ever go from sea level to a mountain top? Oh, God, yes.

It's lovely. Okay. Temperature is dropped. What a refreshing climb. Okay. You'd say, no, I've never hiked it. I'm taking the tram, but I'm not hiking it. So generally, it's cooler on mountaintops because it's farther away from the general

earth surface that's there. Not only that, if you go up in an airplane, Well, forget it. If you ever looked at the temperature gauge that sometimes they show in the front of the, you know, at the bulkhead, you'll see the temperature drop. It'll be 40 below zero. Yeah, exactly. Just a few miles up.

Why is it so cold up there? Is it because you're closer to space? No. No, it's because you're farther away from where the sunlight is actually due in the heating and that's right above the Earth's surface. In fact, in meteorology, there's a rule about how high above Earth's surface you have to put the thermometer so that everybody can get a consistent reading. Interesting. It's not it's not directly above the ground. You got to pull it up a little so there's some mixing of the air so that everybody

can get a nice, consistent, sensible reading of the temperature. I love that. I'm not done yet. Oh, get out. Okay, so now watch. Infrared. Do you know what traps infrared? Greenhouse gases. Uh-oh. Do you know what the predominant number one greenhouse molecule? in the atmosphere is? Water vapor. Water vapor. Yeah. The water molecule.

Okay. So let's do an experiment. Let's take away the water molecules from where you are. There's a word for such places. What are they called? Deserts. Deserts. Thank you.

So the temperature rises in mid-afternoon in the desert. Then the sun sets. What happens to that heat that the ground had accumulated from the sun? It gets re-radiated as infrared. Does it get trapped? No. It escapes. And the nighttime temperature in the desert plummets.

Yes. And that is the weirdest thing about the desert is you will die of a sunstroke during the day and you will die of overexposure at night. Hypothermia at night. Hypotermia at night. You got to be ready for a 40 degree range of temperature from maximum heating in the afternoon, maximum warming of the air,

to when everything just radiates away. And by the way, when there's no sun, you're just losing heat. So therefore, the coldest time of the day is when? I'm going to say in the, well, the coldest time of the day? Of the 24-hour day. When is it? 12th midnight or 3 o'clock in the morning, 3 o'clock in the morning.

No, no. Just before sunrise. Oh, yeah, because there's been no sun all that. no sun. It's been cooling off the whole time. Take a look at temperature plots. All right. Exactly. Okay. It'll peak in the mid-afternoon and it'll, no matter where you are, it'll do that. And then it'll go to its lowest point just before sunrise and then the sun starts giving

you the energy again. See, I got to stop overthinking things because I'm talking to you and I'll start overthinking. I get basic questions. I'm not trying to, these aren't trick questions. I know. Okay. But it's still, yeah, but you're right. Yeah, the sun has not been present. all that time. It makes sense that just before the reappearance of the sun, that would be the coldest time. Correct. And I got to correct something that people have gotten wrong. Okay.

They'll say, when is the darkest time of night? Just before the dawn. No, see, that's bullshit. Okay. That's bullshit. Okay. Sorry. All right. Anytime it is not twilight, you are basically equally as dark the entire night. No matter what. So you want, pick midnight if you want, fine. Right. But that whole time, you are good to go. None of this, the darkest is just before dawn.

Just before the dawn. Yeah, it's just bullshit. Right. Yeah, right. Exactly. That's what I say is the darkest in the room just before I turn on the light. Well, it was dark that whole time before you turn on the light. Right.

Exactly. Yeah. All right. So, but wait, I'm not done. There are certain places like Hawaii and Iceland where, the range from the high to the low temperature in any 24-hour period is very narrow. Check out the climate data for those two places. I know this for a fact, but go ahead.

And so why? Oh, I don't know. I just used to stay in Hawaii for a bit. I spent a few months living there. Yeah, be like 76 in the daytime and maybe 68 at night. Yeah. You know, and so that's because they're in the middle of the oceans. and the ocean has very high humidity that stabilizes the flow of the heating between day and night.

Oh, I got you. It slows it down. So you heat your, so I've done this even as a New York City resident. Okay. The way you want to minimize the temperature drop is you have a perfectly sunny day. Then at sunset, moist clouds come in. then they'll trap the heat you have to hold the heat overnight that's hot i mean that's cool i mean that's great so this is why you get huge temperature swings it in the deserts why you don't

in humid climates the tropics and of course in island nations it's also why it's hotter a couple hours after the middle of the day, then right at the middle of the day, and one other thing. The day of the year where the arc of the sun is longest and highest in the sky is the first day of summer, June 21st. That's right. Chuck, what is the hottest month of the year, at least in the northern hemisphere? August. Yeah, it's not June.

It's not even really July. It's August. So for the same reason, climatically, what goes on in a daytime cycle, actually goes on in a seasonal cycle. So well. You have maximum ground heating in June, but there's a lag between the ground heating and the ground responding to this. And seasonally, that takes a couple of months to build. Not to mention the ocean temperatures in those areas too.

Also delayed. Right. Also delayed. Wow. Super cool, man. There you have it. I thought this was going to be a boring one. I did. I don't want to let you down here.

And I didn't title this one. This is like the temperature during the day. Okay, we need a better. We need a better title than the temperature during the day. Right. And why it's cold when you're up in it. How about fun with Fahrenheit? Oh, I like that.

Fun with Fahrenheit. Fun with Fahrenheit. And so, like I said, when you're in an airplane, you were so far away from the ground, the ground had no chance of heating the air you're flying in. Right. And so it could be 40 below up at five miles up where you're flying at 30,000 feet. And one final thought?

Go ahead. Okay. Do you know the temperature, the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales? Correct. You know, they're different, right? But do you know they actually cross on a graph? I did not know that. Okay.

Because I thought they were running parallel. Yeah, they're not parallel. No, no, it's Celsius is parallel to Kelvin, but Celsius is not parallel. Parallel to Fahrenheit. So, so, so for example, what is it? Boiling water is what Fahrenheit? 212. And it's 100 Celsius.

What's the temperature difference? What's the degree difference between those? 112 degrees. On Celsius, what temperature does water freeze? Zero. On Fahrenheit, what temperature does it freeze? Oh, 32. So what's the temperature difference there?

That's only 32 degrees. So the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit is shrinking as you get colder. Closed. Okay. There is a temperature where if you plotted this, those two graphs cross. Cross? That makes sense. Which means at that temperature, they're equally each other numerically.

And that temperature is exactly 40 below. Nice. So when I say, oh, it's 40 below and you say, oh, was it Fahrenheit or temperature? I might just mess with your head and say, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. this gotta matter. And then I say, do the math. And there's a little formula to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius.

And if you put in one temperature, you get the other, if you put in 40 for one of them, but minus 40, minus 40 comes out the other side. So it's an equation at that point that gives you the same answer going in as coming out. It's very cool. Yo, man, I'm getting a t-shirt that says, I'm 40 below because I'm cool anywhere, baby. Yeah. Celsius or Fahrenheit.

I'm ice cold anywhere. All right. Ask me where Wynn comes from. Oh, I know. It's my uncle. And, uh, dude thinks it's funny. He's kind of rude. Doesn't make a difference if we're at the table or not.

It's terrible. Doesn't apologize or nothing. Doesn't apologize and nothing. Sometimes he's proud of it. Not cool. Not cool. Not cool. Okay.

asking about meteorological wind. Oh, okay. Where does meteorological wind come from? I will quote Ogdenash. Ogden Nash. Yes, yes. The playful poet. Ogden Nash.

Wind is caused by trees waving their branches. That guy was stupid. That's stupid. Let me tell you right now, I do not know where wind comes from. I'm going to be honest, I don't know where wind comes from. But I know this much, it don't come from trees waving. Hey, how y'all doing? How would you know?

Because, and I'll tell you why. This is an important, this is a bit of science here. Okay. You own, how do you, when it's windy out, trees are swaying. Right. So how do you, how would. you test what the cause and effect is of that? Because two things.

One. When could be caused by fast spinning anemometers? Okay? The weather veins. It could be, you know. It could also be caused by a butterfly, flapping its wings in Japan. A big butterfly.

Mothra. Mothra. The Mastro approaches Tokyo. No, the, The reason is because I hear the wind and then I see the tree move. So that means the wind was there before. The world ain't about what sequence you obtained data. The wind didn't hit your ear first and the tree's waiting for it to get through your head and then hit it.

Sometimes it does. Sometimes I hear the wind and then I see the tree move. I'm like, something came by me. Something came by me and moved that tree. those are the trees a quarter mile away could be all right so no this is very

it's actually very simple okay you have wind which is a re-adjustment of air pressure it's really what's going on okay so I don't see you say it like that means you say it like that just explained it to me I'm sorry okay

No, what you have is basically a readjustment of air pressure. That's all. That's what it is. That's all. We're done here. Done. No. Thanks.

So it's the unequal heating of Earth's surface. Oh, now that makes sense. That's what it is. Okay. That's cool. And so, if it's warmer in one place than another, and plus Earth is rotating, so these factors conspire so that if air ever rises, well, that wouldn't cause wind as we know it because wind goes horizontally to the surface. But if you have rising air, because it just got heated,

what has to happen next? You don't create a vacuum blow. Well, you do, but then what happens? You have falling air. Sorry, yes. If air rises, you'll also have falling. air. That's true in total. But the pocket of the pocket of atmosphere directly below where the air had gone up. Okay. What happens there? Oh, it has to be filled. It's got to be filled. So you get an updraft. It gets filled from the sides. Right. Oh. It gets filled from the sides. Sweet. Yes. Oh my God. That's how it works. Yes. That's so cool. Yes. Yes. Okay. I'll tell you, Earth is tricky. Earth got some tricks.

Earth got some tricks. So you have rising air. It creates a partial vacuum, which is a pressure difference. And then other air says, we have to fill that gap. Let's go there. And so there it goes. Okay. Nice. So if you look at hurricanes, for example, very, very low pressure in the middle.

You have heated. warm, warm, moist, what we call unstable, if air is unstable, it rises, okay?

In that low pressure system, all the clouds in the neighborhood want to go there. Sweet. Everything wants to go to the center

of a hurricane. It's the cloud nightclub. Yo, man, you're going to the eye tonight? You're going to the eye?

Yo, you know, you know, I heard the eye is going to be hot tonight. You know, So all the clouds try to come in, but then Earth's rotation sort of veers them to the right,

no matter which way they're trying to head into the front entrance of the eye club. They veer to the right. And so you have this circulation while the clouds are trying to get to the middle. And this gives you that spiraling storm. That spiral effect. and everybody trying to get into the middle. And so hurricanes have famously fast winds because of this, like hundreds of miles an hour in the fastest of them.

Fastest of them. Now, if you have air that is descending, air that descends, first it won't make a cloud. Okay, so descending air is like generally clear skies. Deserts have descending air. Oh, okay. Now, there's certain parts of the world where the descending air is so sort of total and is sort of gently descending. And it can go out the sides, but if the area of the descending air is large enough, then there's no sideways wind.

Wow. These areas of Earth's surface, especially over the ocean, are called the doldrums. That's the club that nobody wants to go to. Sorry. You got the hurricane eye and got the Dolgium. Exactly. It's like, man, I couldn't get into the eye last night. Now I got to go to the doldrums.

The doldrums. So the doldrums are regions of Earth's surface where all the wind has ceased. And if you happen to be a sailing ship that wanders, into the doldrums. Wow. Oh my gosh. That's bad stuff. That's it.

That's it. Many a ship have just given up the ghost in the doldrums. Because you can't move. And if they don't have oars, there's no wind, nothing. Nothing. And they eat up their food supply. They eat each other, whatever, and that's it. Wow.

It's like the great wind garbage patch of the ocean. Like the plastic patch It just accumulates it goes nowhere It's the wind version of it that way Yeah that's terrible It's a fascinating disturbed analogy It is Oh that's terrible though

Now a couple of things A couple other things So Mars has famously Large windstorms And we call them dust storms because the wind picks up the dust. You know, the Martian surface dust. Yeah, yeah. And so you can see this.

In fact, when it happens, it cloaks the Martian surface. And so our telescopes and space probes, we can't see what's at the bottom. It's basically one of these like sandstorms you've read about in the desert. But it's like a dust storm on Mars. Or it's a very clever cloaking device that the Martians use to stop us from looking at them when they're doing stuff on the surface of Mars. Yeah, exactly, Chuck. But do you remember the face on Mars?

Listen, do you remember the face on Mars? So it was back in the 70s. There was like the famous face on Mars. It was like some kind of a structure that had eye sockets and nose and a mouth. And it looked like a huge. It was huge, huge. And we got a couple of photos over during the Viking. Viking missions and everyone said, we gotta go back. Clearly there's life there. Okay. By the way,

if there's life and that represented it, it would have to be life that had sort of a simian face. Like, most life on Earth doesn't have a face. So that would be weird if life on a whole other planet had a humanoid face. That would just be weird, okay? Just saying. But lobsters don't have, did we notice the lobster monument that was there? No, because we're only looking for stuff that looks like us. All right. So we went back and you saw, and we had better higher resonant. And you saw a hint of like where the eyebrows were in the mouth, but it was mostly sort

of good. And people said, the Martians knew we were looking at them. Yeah, right. Covered it up. They covered it up. With their Mars dust. Here's my point. The Martian atmosphere is one one hundredth, the thickness of Earth's atmosphere.

Oh, that's terrible. That's barely an atmosphere. So it's barely any atmosphere. So if you move that air a hundred miles an hour, you ain't got, it's like a, it's like an infant trying to blow out a birthday candle, you know, just.

It's like, I'm giving up. And that's why the whole scene in the movie The Martian where they can't leave, they're trying to leave the planet. Oh, don't do it. Windstorm. A dust storm is coming.

Come on, man. And the rocket is rocking. Come on. It's rocking back. And they take off and they get. And they got to leave Mart Watney on the surface because they're afraid they'll topple over from the wind. Oh, man. Another movie ruined.

Thank you, Neil. No. Yeah, that can't happen then, right? That just can't even happen. Yeah, yeah, it's not happening. It might be dusty and you can't see. Yeah. But you're not blowing over any spaceship with one one hundred.

It's also not going to pick up a rod, a metal rod, and spear you with it because it's not going to do that either. Yeah, it's not tornado speed. Right, right. So the point is, Mars is also an unevenly heated planet. And that's why you get this. Correct, correct. All right, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I got to ask you this now, all right? And this is off the explainer chart, but I got to do it, okay? I know that you know him. So did you ask him about that when he wrote this? Are you talking about Andy Weir? Andy, yeah. Did you actually ask him? I got all up in his situation.

But then what I said was, what I said was, okay, Andy, so much else in that novel, later the movie, was so well, calculated and thought through. I'm going to give you a whole pass on this one. Oh, okay. Because without it, he's got no story. Yeah, he's got, he had to do, it was, it was poetic license for a Mars hurricane

so he could get to the rest of the story. Yeah, so I gave it to him because he did the rest of his homework. See, I'm not totally evil, a commentator. I will cut you some slack. If you're an artist, as Mark Twain said, first get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure. Okay. That's Mark Twain's edict.

So I'm all in on that. By the way, Venus is very evenly heated over its surface, and we think it has hardly any winds there at all. Nice. Yes. Yeah. It's a refreshing 900 degrees. No.

You would vaporize, but ignoring that complication. No wind needed. No wind needed. It's so easy. It's so even. It's not a dry heat. It's an even heat. It's an even heat. You're good.

That's the joke I heard about hell, they say. You know, you ask some evil person. How's hell? Yeah, yeah, it's hot, but it's low humidity. So we're fine. That's funny, actually. Chuck, we got to end it there. This is a windy, starting off with your uncle.

Yes. had a windy, a windy explainer for Star Talk. Dad, bitch up. Always a pleasure. Neil de Gras Tyson here. Keep looking up.