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Why didn't we evolve around a red dwarf star? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you believe in luck? Do you think
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: you're a lucky person? I'm not sure. I guess I'm
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: pretty happy with how things have turned out. Oh yeah,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: But was that luck or was it inevitable? I'm sure
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of randomness involved. I guess I'd
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: have to study the multiverse to see how often Daniel
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: gets to be a physics professor. But wait, is that
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the lucky outcome. Wouldn't the lucky outcome be the one
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: where you get to be a movie star or a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: billionaire or maybe a billionaire movie star physics professor. That's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of titles there. It might cause the universe
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to collapse on itself, physicists always ending the universe. We
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: might have caused it, but it doesn't mean it's our fault.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a logical contradiction. Wouldn't that also collapse
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the universe into a puff of logic? Hi am Jorhanmay,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm doing my best to understand the universe without
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: collapsing it. You're doing your best. I feel like your
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: best is not enough, like I guarantee is not enough.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe you should look into that before doing it. I'll
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: check with my legal department. I'll do twice my best
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: time of that still not enough. Ending the universe twice
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: is still ending the universe. Maybe it's like negative signs.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: You know, if you do it twice, it comes back.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: But then are you going to be a physics professor again?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Are we going to be that unlucky? Maybe when everything
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: snaps back, that's when I get to be a billionaire.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: But anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio, where we try our
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: best to make sense of this crazy universe. When you
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: look out there in the cosmos and try to understand
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the way things are, the way things might be, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: how it all can possibly make sense. We do our
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: best to cram this incredible, giant, fantastical universe into our
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: tiny little primate brains and squish it all around until
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: it makes sense to us and hopefully makes sense to you. Yeah,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it is an amazing universe, or maybe an amazing multiverse,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: or might be more than one universe out there, But
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: at least the one we're in. It seems pretty amazing,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: pretty awesome to explore and to ask questions about, and
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: to wonder about the logic of it. Yeah, as we
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: look out into the universe, we wonder why is it
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: this way and not some other way? Why are we
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in this part of the universe and not some other
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: part of the universe? Are we lucky that we ended
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: up here? Was it just a fluke or is it
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: pretty common our experience of the universe? Is the universe
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: guaranteed to be logical? Daniel? Do you think is it
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: logical that the universe is not logical? Yeah? A guarantee
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: itself rests on logic, and so if the universe is illogical,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: then it cannot provide any kind of guarantees at all.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Philosophically speaking, we don't know why the universe makes sense
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to us at all, Like, why is it even possible
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to describe it in terms of pretty simple mathematical stories.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: We don't know, But we do know that it seems
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: to work, and it works really really well. Well, the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: universe is random, right at the quantum level, things are random?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Is random the same as logical. Well, that's a really
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: interesting point. Because even if quantum mechanics is random, it's
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: still also logical, Like quantum mechanics makes very specific predictions
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: for the probabilities of different things to happen, even if
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: it doesn't actually pin down what will happen. So quantum
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: mechanics being random doesn't mean it's like crazy, you're out
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: of control. It still makes very specific predictions about what
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: can and cannot happen and the probabilities of those things happening.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Right although technically acquantic to quantum physics, like a pink
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: unicorn could technically appear in front of me out of
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the boob right now, or in front of any of
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: us right now, right and that would be logical. According
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to physicists, that would be logical, even though it would
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: also be fantastical. And that's something we're always trying to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: understand about the universe. We see what happens to us,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: we wonder was that just a random, lucky fluke, or
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: is that the kind of thing we expect to see
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in the universe. And there's this overriding principle in science
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: called the Copernican principle, which argues that our experience is
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: not weird, that everywhere in the universe is the same,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and nothing is special anywhere, and so when we look
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: out into the universe, we tend to try to explain
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: what we see without resorting to lucky chances and random flukes.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: But lucky flukes is why we're here, Daniel, Lucky flukes
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: are the best. Well, every individual person, of course, has
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: an almost astronomically tiny chance of ever existing with all
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of their constituent details. But what we don't know is
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: what are the chances of any person existing? You know,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: one of the deep questions in the universe is what
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: are the chances for life evolving, for intelligent life to evolve?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Are we unusual or are we common in the universe?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And we'd like to be able to explain our existence
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: here without resorting to a one in a trillion chance
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of all of this is happening. Well, it seems like
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: there's a sort of a fine line between illogic and
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: unlikeliness or as you said, improbability. Yeah, that's right, and
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: often we can tell the difference, you know, we have
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: just this one example of our lives and the part
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of the universe that we can see. And often we
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: look out into the universe and we see stuff that
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: seems weird, that seems like a weird coincidence, and we
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: want to try to explain it. We don't want to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: just like brush it under the rug and say, hm,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that's random, seems weird. I guess sometimes you just get lucky.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: We'd like to understand if there's something else going on,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: something deeper behind it. But you know, there isn't always
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: an explanation, like, for example, the sun in the moon
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: take up about exactly the same space in our sky,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: which allows for very dramatic eclipses, and that's just a coincidence.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Sometimes coincidences happen, but sometimes they do have deeper explanations
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that we can look for. Yeah. So one way we
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: try to explore the logic of the universe is by
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: coming up with situations in our minds or that maybe
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: we get hints at out there of events or things
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that seem to break the logic of the universe. And
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: these are paradoxes. Yeah. One very famous paradox is the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Fermi paradox, which says where are all the aliens? You know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: if the galaxy is really really old and actually filled
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: with stars and planets, then maybe it should also be
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: filled with aliens, and why haven't we seen any of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: them yet? Why haven't they sent us messages? This is
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: called the Fermi paradox because if you accept all of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: those assumptions, then we should have heard from aliens, and
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: yet we haven't. So paradoxes are fun because they make
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: you re examine those assumptions to say, well, we haven't
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: heard from aliens, then which of those assumptions must be wrong?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And what does that tell us about the universe. Well.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Another famous paradox is the grandfather of paradox. Right, This
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: idea that if you go back in time and you
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: somehow prevent your grandfather from giving birth or making your
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: father or mother haven't, then that creates an illogical consistency
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: because then how could you have existed to them prevent
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: your grandfather from doing that. That's one of the most
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: famous logical paradoxes, right, And that's like something that doesn't
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: make sense logically, but it could maybe happen. Well, we
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: don't know if that could maybe happen exactly. That's one
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: of the paradoxes inherent in time travel. It's the kind
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of thing that makes people wonder like, well, what are
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: we overlooking? Is there something in time travel which would
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: prevent that from happening. And there are various ideas about
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: cosmic censorship that might prevent paradoxes from cropping up if
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you could actually achieve time travel. So you're right, it's
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a really interesting idea and it focuses your thinking on
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the issues to say, well, what can we do to
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: prevent this paradox from happening, because, as you say, the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: universe seems logical, and so anything that creates a contradiction,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a logical contradiction, we don't think that that could exist.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: The universe can't exist in two states that disagree with
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: each other simultaneously. Yeah, so there is another interesting paradox
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: out there. Then maybe the challenges the logic of us
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: being here in the first place, or at least of
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: our son being here in the first place. Yeah, asked
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the question basically of why we're not looking up into
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: our sky and seeing a different kind of star than
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the one that we have, or stars plural. So today
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: on the podcast, we'll be asking the question what is
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the Red Dwarf paradox? The real Red Dwarf paradox is
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: why don't more people watch the show The Red Dwarf.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Is that a show? I've never seen it? Is that
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: a show? Oh my gosh, it's like one of the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: most hilarious can't be science fiction shows ever. I've never
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: heard of it. Where does it er? I think it's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: on the BBC, but you can find it online. Is
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it really hilarious show? Sort of in the vein of
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Definitely not hard science fiction. Well,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the paradox maybe, is how come I've never shown I mean,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I've seen several seasons of Doctor Who. There you go, Yeah, well,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: maybe it only exists in another multiverse, and that's proof
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: that I came from another universe. You do seem out
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: of this world, Daniel, you mean out of my mind.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: But so, the Red Dwarf paradox apparently is a thing.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I had also never heard of this, the paradox or
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the show before coming into this episode. But it's sort
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of like a thing that physicists talk about, right. It
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: is a thing that physicists and biologists and basically everybody
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: who's curious about why we ended up on this rock
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: around this star. Fundamentally, we're always asking the question, is
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: our experience unusual? Do we have to resort to shrugging
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: our shoulders and saying, well, I guess we were just lucky,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: or is there a reason that our experience is this
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: way and not some other way? And in this particular case,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: we're wondering about why our star is one of these
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: yellow stars instead of a red dwarf star. Well, this,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: like you said earlier, this sort of seems similar to
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the Fermi paradox, which is sort of this idea that
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: we should have been contacted or seen aliens right now,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: but we haven't, given the size of the universe. But
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like those are not really logical paradoxes, right Like,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: strictly speaking, it's not a logical there's no logical contradiction here.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It's just like an unlikeliness. Yeah, that's true. I mean,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the set of assumptions, when you combine them, suggest that
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: it would be very unlikely for us to not be
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: contacted by aliens. So either we're just unlucky or there's
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: some other reason one of the assumptions that goes into
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: it is wrong. And so you can always explain these
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: things away and say, oh, well, maybe it's just one
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a million chance, and that's what it is. But you
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: can also sometimes make progress by digging into those assumptions
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and saying, is one of those wrong, let's take another look.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: You mean, it's sort of like a tool to examine
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: our assumptions about the universe, or as someone else might
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: come complete guesses. Yeah, but it's a basic part of science.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: You know, anytime you think you have an understanding of
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the universe, you then think about what the consequences are.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: You know, if the universe is this way, then I
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: should be able to prove it by seeing this thing.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: And if you don't see that thing happening, then you wonder, well,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with my idea of the universe? When we thought, oh,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the universe would make more sense if it had Higgs
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Boson in it, let's go look for it, and we
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: found it. Now, if we hadn't found it, then we
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: would have to go back and re examine those assumptions
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that suggested it does exist and wonder which one of
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: them were wrong. All right, Well, this red dwarf paradox
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: basically just real quickly in a nutshell. It kind of
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: asked the question that you asked earlier, which is, why
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: isn't our star a red dwarf. Our son is a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: nice yellow or white I guess technically white ball of fire.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: It's not a red, it's not a dwarf, and so
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what the paradox is about. Yeah, that's
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: about it all right. Well, as usually, we were wondering
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: how many people out there had asked themselves this question,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: why isn't our son different? Why isn't it a red dwarf?
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So thanks very much to everybody who participates in this
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: segment of the podcast, and we would love to hear
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: your voice out there. Those of you who have been
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: listening for a while but haven't yet chimed in, please
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: write to us to participate to questions at Daniel Horge
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: dot com. So think about it for a second. Have
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you ever asked yourself on a nice sunny day, why
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: our star isn't red? Here's what people had to say.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I feel like thybe it's too big, big to be
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a red dwarf. That's it. I really don't know the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: answer to this one. I would just imagine that it
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't have enough mass to either collapse into itself a
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: form a black hole or become a red giant. I
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: don't know all a son didn't follow his diet and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: has eaten a lot, so it's too big to become
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: a red dwarf. I think the main reason our star
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: isn't a red dwarf is just because it's something has
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: to do with like the amount of mass it has
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: in the beginning and when it begins, because some stars
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: go supernova and some stars just white doors. I don't know,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I get mixed up. Maybe our son is not old
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: enough to be a red dwarf. Maybe it still has
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of fool to be larger and right, dar,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think that our star is supposed to be
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a red dwarf. I think that it may someday be
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a red dwarf given enough time, But I think that
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: it's not quite yet reached that phase of stellar evolution.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: All right, A lot of interesting answers here, I like
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the one about the Sun not following a diet, yeah,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: or the one about it not being old enough. But
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I am disappointed nobody brought off Superman. I mean these answers,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: what does Superman have to do with the Sun being
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: yellow or red? You don't know. I don't know, Yeah,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you don't know. Some basic mythology about Superman. I spent
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: all my time watching the show Red Dwarf instead of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: reading Superman comics. Well, there you go. That's a multiverse
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I don't want to live in. So tell us what
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a Superman have to do with red stars. Yeah, it's
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a basic part of his mythology. So in the original comics,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: he grew up in a planet with the red sun,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and so when he comes to Earth, he has all
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: these superpowers because our son is not red, it's yellow,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and somehow that gives him his superpowers somehow. Wow, you
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: just yadda yadded over all the crucial elements of it. Yeah, somehow,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: you know, like how physicists do somehow the Higgs boson
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: is created in architectors. That's exactly what I wrote in
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the paper. Yeah, that was it basically. I mean, you
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: use more words and formulas, but there's not much difference
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: between Action comics in the Journal of Physics. I'm sure
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that Action Comics hired some physics consultants to work out
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the details, and there's somewhere in there archives there are
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: formulas explaining how the yellow sun gives Superman his special powers.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: What does that mean that Superman doesn't have those powers?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: In the dark. Well later on, it's sort of it's
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: sort of like he acts like a battery, kind of
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: like he needs to recharge, he needs to sunbathe they
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to get his superpowers. I see. So kryptonite isn't his kryptonite.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: It's sunscreen. That's his kryptonite in the long run. Yes, okay, fascinating. Well,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: let's dig into this red dwarf paradox and how it
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: might affect Superman, I guess, or all of us, because
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it'd be great if we were all Superman and women. Well, actually,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: what the redware paradox suggests is that most of the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: universe is basically Superman, because one thing that's really interesting
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: about the universe is that most of the stars out
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: there in the universe are red stars, not yellow like ours.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: All Right, well, let's dig into this topic and this
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: red dwarf paradox, and it's starts with the basics. What
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: is a red dwarf star? Daniel, So, a red dwarf
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: is just a kind of star. Remember that a star
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: is a huge ball of gas and it's squeezed down
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: by gravity, so at its core it's hot enough and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: dense enough for fusion to happen, which is where the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: light comes from and why the star burns at the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: temperature at the core, and therefore the temperature at the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: surface depends on the mass of the star. The more
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: gas you have, the higher temperature and pressure you have
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: at the core of the star, and so the higher
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the temperature at the surface, and so the different color
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of the star. Remember that everything in the universe glows,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and how it glows depends on its temperature. Our sun
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: is a surface temperature of five or six thousand degrees kelvin,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and so it tends to glow in our visible spectrum.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Bigger stars are hotter, and so they tend to be bluer.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Smaller stars are colder, and so they tend to be redder,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and so a red dwarf star is a smaller, colder
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: star that tends to be redder than our star. M
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I guess maybe can you explain why smaller means lower temperature?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Is it because when you're smaller, you don't have as
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: much fusion, if at all, inside the core of the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: gas cloud. There's definitely a close connection between the size
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: of the star and its internal temperature, and that's just
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: because of gravity. Like more mass means more gravitational pressure,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: which means higher temperature. We once topped our way through
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: that thought experiment of like taking a big blob of
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: gas and squeezing it down. Squeezing it down heats it
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: up because you're basically applying pressure which pushes on all
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: those molecules, turning them around to focus them back towards
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the center. You imagine like a big box containing cold gas.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: As you can strict that box, you're pushing on all
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the molecules that would have otherwise escaped, so you're giving
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: them more and more energy. So as you squeeze down
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: harder and harder, you're speeding up all those molecules, you're
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: making them hotter and hotter. So a bigger blob of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: stuff has more gravitational pressure, which means a higher temperature.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Something like Jupiter, which is also a ball of gas.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It does squeeze its gas in the middle, but it
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't radiate light like this star of Sundust, did it.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: It does not. You're right, there's a minimum mass in
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: order to create the conditions for fusion. Fusion is hard. Remember,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: what you're doing is squeezing together two protons which have
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a pretty powerful force repelling them. Right, they're both positively charged.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: You don't like to get together, So to get the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: protons close enough together to fuse to make helium, you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: have to overcome that. So you got to squeeze them really,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: really hard. And so if you don't have enough gravitational pressure,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you haven't raised the temperature enough, then fusion just doesn't happen.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So there's a minimum threshold above which fusion happens and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: below which it doesn't. So Jupiter is below that threshold
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: by like a factor of ten. In order to get
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Jupiter to have fusion to ignite at its core, you'd
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: have to add like nine more Jupiter's worth of mass
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to get it to that threshold. Red dwarfs are stars
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: that are just above that minimum threshold, like eight percent
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of the mass of the Sun. It's like the minimum
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: amount of stuff you need to get fusion going. So
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: red dwarfs are like basically the smallest fusion reactor you
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: can have. So red dwarf is a star in the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: sense that it has fusion inside of it. If you
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: don't make it to the threshold fusion, like if you're
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: like point ninety ninety nine below the fusion limit, would
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you still glow or did you just be like a
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: giant gas planet like Jupiter. You'd be a giant gas
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: planet like Jupiter. You wouldn't have fusion, but you would
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: still be kind of hot. Even just having that much
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: mass and that pressure makes you kind of hot. Like
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the core of Jupiter is not cool, right, it's very
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: high density, high temperature, just not high enough to be fusion. Now,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: because you're pretty hot, you are going to glow. You're
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: gonna glow very deep in the infrared, and you're not
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: going to be nearly as bright as stars that actually
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: have fusion happening in them. All right, well, I'll take
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: being kind of hot, but not being hot, although being
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: cool it's also pretty cool. These stars are really fascinating,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: these red dwarfs, and they're kind of cool. As we say, so,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: they tend to radiate in the red region, and they're
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: also really really dim, Like these things are not nearly
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: as bright as our sun. As a star gets bigger,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: it gets hotter, and then the fusion happens faster, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: so they get brighter and brighter, which is why like
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: really big massive stars starts like one hundred or two
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: hundred times the mass of our sun burn really brightly,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: very blue, and don't last for very long. They can
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: burn out just a few million years. Stars that are
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: about the size of our sun last for billions of years.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: But if a star is smaller and cooler, it doesn't
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: burn as bright, it's much dimmer. It can actually last
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: much much longer. So a red dwarf can last for
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: longer than the age of the universe, or even much longer. WHOA,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I guess, because it's got like the heat on low
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: basically right, it's like it's got just enough gravity to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: make fusion, but not enough to like burn a lot
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of it, So it's just burning a little bit in
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the center of it like a candle, more like a bonfire,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and there's something else going on like the heart of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: these red dwarfs. Because they're cooler, the way the heat
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: gets mixed around in their core is a little bit
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: different than in our star. Like at our star, a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: lot of the heat transfer is what we call radiative transfer.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Like fusion happens, and photons zoom out and the energy
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: gets dispersed through the star towards the outside by radiation.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Right these photons are flying out and so the outer
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: parts of the star get hotter and hotter, and helium
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the fusion product tends to fall towards the core in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: our star, and that's actually a problem for our star
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: because that helium tends to sort of put out the fusion,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and so then fusion only happens on the outside of
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the star. But in a red dwarf it's a little
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: bit different. Remember it's not as bright the outside of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: a star. What do you mean for a star like
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: our sun near the end of its life, as it
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: accumulates helium at its core, most of the fusion will
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: not be happening at its core anymore. Instead, it'll be
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: happening on the outer layers of the star, which is
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: one reason why our sun will grow eventually become like
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a red giant. It'll puff out to have like a
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: radius the size of Earth's orbit, because the fusion will
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: be happening like in the outer layers, and the core
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: will be the sort of cooler helium. But a red
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: dwarf won't have that problem. A red dwarf mixes in
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a different way because there's not so much radiation produced
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: at its core, so there tends to be more convection
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of the plasma like mixes more thoroughly, so you don't
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: get this accumulation of helium at the core, and it
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: can basically just sort of like burn steadily for a
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: long time. This tends to prolong the fusion. It's another
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: reason why these red dwarves last a really long time.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And we don't know because the universe isn't old enough,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: but some calculations suggest that a small star like ten
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: percent the mass of our sun could last for ten
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: trillion years. WHOA, that's like ten thousand billion years, right,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that's ten thousand billion years, or almost a thousand times
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the current age of the universe. Like some of these
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: red dwarfs that were created very early on in the universe,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: they could be less than one one thousands of the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: way through their life cycles so far. By lasting, you
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: mean like sustaining fusion at their core, yeah, exactly, because
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: eventually they will burn through their fuel and these things
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: will become blue dwarfs and then white dwarfs. Eventually, the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: life cycle of one of these red dwarves, we think
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: ends with it basically becoming a cooler blob of heavier metals,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: probably helium. Sounds like the cosmic version of the tortoise
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: in the hair there that's slow and steady kind of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: wins the race. Yeah, exactly. So really big stars burn
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: really brightly but don't last for very long, and really
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: small stars burn cooler, but they last forever almost And
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: this is really useful when we're looking out into the
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: universe trying to understand how recently stars were made. If
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: you're looking at a part of the universe and you
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: see blue stars, you see hot, bright young stars, that
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: means stars must have been made recently. If all you're
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: looking at our redder stars, then you know that it's
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: pretty old because all the hot young blue stars have
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: already burned out. So it's a really helpful lever for
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: understanding what's going on out there in the universe. So
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: they're like looking at TikTok only stars there. All right, Well,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: that's what a red dwarf is. Until the big question
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: is why isn't our star a red dwarf? And would
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: we all have superpowers if it were? So let's dig
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: into that, But first let's take a quick break. All right,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: we're talking about the red dwarf paradox. Basically, why isn't
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: our son a red dwarf. I feel like this is
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: an insensitive question, Daniel. I mean, how would our son feel?
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should have asked it the other way, to say,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: why is our star so special and wonderful? Yeah, there
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: you go. That sounds better. Maybe it should be the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: yellow sun bonus situation. There you go straight from our
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: pr department. But our son is kind of special. I mean,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: if you look out in the universe, our son is
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: not the most common kind of son. Instead, like seventy
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: five percent of the stars in the galaxy are red dwarves.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: These things like dominate the galaxy. Most of the stars
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: out there are red dwarves, not yellow stars like ours.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: What do you mean dominate? What kind of numbers are
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: we talking about? So three quarters of all stars in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: our galaxy are red dwarfs. It's like overwhelming. M Well,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. So three quarters of the stars
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in our galaxy are red dwarves, but they don't look
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: red when you look out into the night sky. Yeah,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: this is really fascinating. Most of the stars in the
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: galaxy are red dwarves, but none of the stars you
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: can see in the sky with the naked eye are
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: red dwarfs. And The reason as that these red dwarfs
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: are pretty dim. Remember they can be like ten thousand
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: times less bright than our sun, and so they're all
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: over the place. They're out there. But the stars we
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: see in the sky are not red dwarves. We see
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the bright ones, the rare ones. MM. Interesting. So I
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: guess if you looked at the sky with maybe like
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: an infrared glasses, or if you could see into the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: lower frequency light spectrum, then you might see a whole
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: bunch more stars when you look at the nice sky. Yeah.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: In fact, that the closest star to us, Proximus Centauri,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: is a red dwarf. It is like twelve point five
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: percent the mass of the Sun. You can't see it
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: with the naked eye, even though it's the closest star
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: to Earth. Most of the stars so you're looking at
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: in the sky are what we call like FK or
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: G type stars instead of red dwarfs. Well, it's super interesting.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: So I guess animals I can see that have night vision,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: basically I can see infrared more that would they look
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: out into the nice sky and see a totally different
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: picture than we would. Wow, that's a super fascinating question.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess we'll have to have an
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: animal on the podcast as a guest, our first animal astronomer,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and ask them all about what they see. Yeah, sounds good.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Which animal would that be? An anteater? Of course for Ucia. Now,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: but we have built infrared eyeballs, right, James Webb. Remember
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: is an infrared telescope. It specializes in seeing in the infrared.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And we have lots of other infrared facilities that can
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: see these spectra, and so we have, of course observed
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: these stars. We look out into the universe and notice them.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: That's how we know that they are there. But it's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: really interesting to me to think, like, not only is
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: our star not a red dwarf, but none of the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: stars we see are red dwarfs, even though they dominate
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the universe. I guess maybe the first question I would have,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and I imagine anyone would have, is why is the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: universe mostly made out of red dwarves? Why is it
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: seventy stars in the galaxy are red dwars? Why isn't
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: it more distributed? Yeah, it's a really cool question. There's
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: this concept in astronomy called the initial mass function, which
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: tries to describe basically how much stuff a star gets.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: You know, ask the question like, if you're forming a star,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: how much stuff are you likely to get? What's the
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: distribution of the mass of stars, for example, and what
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: turns out to be like a power law, You're much
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: much less likely to make a big star than a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: small star. And you know, as gas clouds are sort
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of coming together and forming stars, you're just less likely
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to grab a bigger blob of stuff. You're more likely
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: to form multiple smaller stars than a single larger star
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: because it's just how gravity works out there in space
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: in a gas cloud. Yeah, it's actually quite complicated because
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: it involves not just gravity but also where metals are
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and how they're distributed. Imagine this big gas cloud where
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: gravity pulls things together to make stars depends on where
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: you have little bits of density to start with, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the universe is mostly hydrogen, but it's also sprinkled with
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: a bunch of metals, right, the metals from previous stars
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: that burned and fused these heavy things and then sprayed
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: them out into the universe. So we think that also
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: as time goes on and the universe gets more and
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: more metallic, less hydrogen and more heavy stuff, that the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: size of stars decreased, like the first generation of stars
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: will be weirdly call type three. We think these were
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: all really really big, hugely massive stars, like three or
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: four hundred times the mass of our sun, and they
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: burned out really really quickly. But while they burned, they
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: also made some heavier metals, So the next generation of
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: stars got seated with more overdensities because you have this
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like spray of little dots of metal to start more
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: stars and sort of collapsed more easily into these cold blobs.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: So it's a complicated interplay with like the temperature of
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: these gas clouds and the distribution of where the metal
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: seeds are to start these things, and there's a lot
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: of uncertainty. People aren't really sure exactly what the shape
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of this initial mass function is, but we are sure
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: of the overall trend that bigger stars tend to be
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: more rare and smaller stars more common, and that's why
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: we have more small stars than big stars. M Interesting.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I wonder what that was like when we first discovered
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that effect that most of the stars in the universe
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: are red dwarfs, Because I imagine we looked that into
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the sky and saw a bunch of starts and thought, oh,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that's pretty neat. But then we looked at the universe
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: at a different kind of line, and so I'm lean, boom,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: there's like a three times more stars than we thought
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: there were. Yeah, exactly. It's one of my favorite things
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: about a start, me that every time we build a
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: new kind of instrument and look out into the universe,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: we discover, Wow, there's a lot more going on than
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: we thought. It's like a whole other universe out there
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: filled with these red dwarves. We've been looking mostly at
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the rare stuff and not at the common stuff, not
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: at the typical stuff, and it turns out that our
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: sun is not one of the usual ones. And that's
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: sort of the core of the red dwarf paradox. It's like,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: if most of the stars out there are red dwarfs,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and they live much much longer than our kind of star,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: then why did we happen to evolve around one of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: these rare, shorter lived stars instead of one of the
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: more common, longer lived ones. So that's the basic red
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: dwarf paradox. It's like, why didn't we get to evolved
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: or come up in a star that's the red dwarf
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: because there is three times more common than our kind
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of star, They're five times more common, and on average
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: they outlast our star by twenty So like, either it's
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: a one in one hundred chance, or maybe there's a reason,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's an explanation why life can't happen around red
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: dwarves or it's less likely around red dwarves. One thing
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: we do know is that red dwarves tend to have
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: planets around them, just like our kind of star. And
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: so it's a fun question, like is there life around
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: red dwarves? Are we an unusual kind of life? Is
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: everybody else out there in the universe? Superman? Are all
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: their planets called Krypton? That is what does this day
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: up at night wondering about. But this is an interesting scenario.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: You're saying that most red dwarfs are kind of just
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: like our stars. They can have planets orbiting around them.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: What would their sun look like to someone living at
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: a planet like that, Well, if you're at the same
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: distance from that red dwarf as we are from our sun,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: then of course there'd be a lot dimmer, right and colder, right, Yeah, exactly,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: dimmer and colder. It'd be dark and chilly. Of course,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: you could be closer up and then you'd be brighter
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: and warmer. But the star itself also would look different.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: The star itself is colder, which means it's light is redder.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: So you look in the sky, you wouldn't see like
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a yellow or white sun. You see like a pale
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: orange or a red disc in the sky. It would
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: be a very different experience. Well, I wonder if it
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: would be different, you know, because you would have to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: be closer to the star to get the same warmth
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: as us. So it is possible for there to be
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: a planet I run, a red dwarf that feels like
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: our situation here, and you'd be closer to it, so
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: would be just as warm and maybe just as bright
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: as our sun is to us, wouldn't it. Yeah, you
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: could definitely have a planet in a habitable zone where
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: water is liquid at the surface and it's about the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: same temperature as Earth. But it would look different in
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the sky, right, It would still be red instead of yellow.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Though if you evolve on that planet, then who knows
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: what your experience of red is. Yeah, that's what I mean, Like,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: it would only look red if a human went over
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: there and landed on that planet. But to some species
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that evolved there, it would just look like white light,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: or it would be what they call white light, because
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: they would maybe see a different, totally different spectrum of light.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: The visible spectrum would be you know, shifted it over,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: but they would call that white light, right. I don't
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: know what they would call it, but you're totally right
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: that it's very likely that their visible spectrum would be
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: different from ours because ours evolved in response to the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: light that happens to be here on Earth. What we
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: call visible is no coincidence. Peaks around the light that
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the sun puts out our sun, and so it makes
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense, as you say, for aliens around
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: a red dwarf, for their visible sensitivity to peek around
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the light emitted by their star instead of ours. Whether
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: they would call that white or not, I'm not sure
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: what they would experience it, what would their art be like?
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You know, I guess what I mean is like what
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: we call white light is just light that has all
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the frequencies in our visible spectrum. Like that's our experience
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of white light. And so if you're growing up in
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: that red dwarf planet, you know, your eyes would probably
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: evolve to also interpret, you know, everything that's in your
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: visible spectrum to be you know, the white or what
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: we would call white. And so you know, they wouldn't
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: know they're in a red planet. That's interesting. And if
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: they tend to paint like all their walls white, we
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: show up to visit, there would be like, why is
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: everything painted red? You guys have like a red sun.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: It's not enough. You'll also have to paint all of
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: your walls red, right, That's what I mean. Or if
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: they came to our planet, they'd be like, why is
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: everything blue? You guys are nuts. That's not blue. That's
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: not white. That blue. We say, we just got the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: blues because we didn't get to grow up around a
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: red dwarf. We got the yellow dwarf blues. Yeah, and
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: so our star is not a red dwarf. It's a
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: different kind of star. It's bigger. We have a G dwarf. Wait,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: it's still a dwarf. Well, you might not be surprised,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of disagreement about what to call them.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Some people call it a yellow dwarf or a G
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: type or a G dwarf, but it's part of a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: category of stars F, G, and K, where those letters
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: just indicate basically the mass of the star and therefore
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: it's temperature. So every star that has a mass of
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: our sun within about ten percent we call a G
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: type or G dwarf. And then there are F type
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and K type that can be like a little bigger
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: or a little hotter or whatever. Lots of famous stars
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: like Alpha Centauri, for example, is also a G type star. Interesting, well,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I like our star. It's pretty nice and sunny for
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: us here. Maybe my next question is like, why is
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: this a paradox? I feel like maybe you're stretching the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: definition of the work because it doesn't feel like a
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: logical inconsistency. It just feels like a philosophical question, like
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: why did we happen to live around a star that represents,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: you know, the fifteen percent of all the stars in
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the universe. I think it's called a paradox because it
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: asks a basic question. It says, if it's true that
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: these stars are just as likely to have life as ours,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: then it's much more likely that we would have evolved
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: on a red dwarf instead of a G type star.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And so you have to either say all right, something
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: very unlikely happened, or there's a reason. This an explanation
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: is to again just a tool to dig into all
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of those assumptions. In this case, it's not like ridiculously unlikely.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: We're talking about it's like a one in a hundred chance.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: If life is equally like need to evolve around G type,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: F type K type and red dwarfs, then it's like
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: a one one hundred chance to not end up evolving
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: around a red dwarf. And that's not crazy. You know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: one and one hundred chances happen, But it's an invitation
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: to dig deeper. And for those of us who want
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: to understand the universe, these are opportunities. These are clues
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: that say maybe there's something else going on. All right, well,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: let's dig into what could be going on there. What
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: kinds of assumptions are we making about life here on
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Earth and what life could be like around a red
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: dwarf planet. So let's tag into that. But first let's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: take another quick break. All right, we're talking about Superman.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite Superman storyline, Denny? The one where Daniel
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: didn't know that Superman required sunlight to work. You didn't
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: know Superman was big on solar energy. The one where
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Superman makes a crossover on my favorite TV show, Red Dwarf.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: That might happen. You never know, You know, all these
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: companies keep getting bought out by other companies. That's right.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: If DC buys the BBC and we have the DC
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: BBC extended Universe, maybe it'll happen. Right the DBC. We're
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: talking about red dwarves, and apparently our star, the one
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: we see during the day, is not the most common
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: type of star in the universe. It's only maybe fifteen
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: percent of all it's kind, It's only fifty percent of
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: all the stars out there in the galleys in our galaxy.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Most of the stars seventy stars in the galaxy are
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: red dwarves, which are different, smaller, cooler, And so maybe
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: a question you can ask is like, why isn't our
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: star a red dwarf? I guess I'm wondering what we're
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: really asking here. We're asking why our star is not
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: a red dwarf? Or are we asking why we're not
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a species that grew up around a red dwarf? Yeah?
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: The second one we're asking is it just chance that
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: we haven't evolve not in the most likely situation, or
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: is there a reason or we misunderstood where life is
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: possible and likely. I guess that's a weird question to ask,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: because the answer could be both. Right. It could be
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: that there's equal chances of a species growing up around
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: any star, but we just happened to be one one
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of the ones that grew up around a yellow star. Yeah. Absolutely,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: it certainly could be both, and it could also just
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: be chanced. Those coincidences do happen. But we've made a
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: lot of progress in science just by pushing this basic principle.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: The Copernican principle is saying, let's never assume that there's
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: something special or weird about our situation. Let's try to
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: describe what we see under the assumption that no place
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: is special. And that's been very useful. It's not a
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: hard and fast rule, but it's guided our thinking and
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: helped us make discoveries. All Right, Well, if you apply
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: that principle, what would be some of the answers to
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the red poarf paradox. Well, one way you could reduce
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the unlikeliness of the paradox is to think about how
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: fast life does evolve into intelligent life. One thing we're
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: saying is that these red dwarfs is five times as
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: many of them, and they last twenty times is long.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: It seems to suggest that you're like a hundred times
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: more likely to revolve around a red dwarf than our
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: kind of star. But that is actually making some assumptions.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: That's assuming, for example, that life might take a long
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: time to evolve. You know, that's very unlikely, and so
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: these Red Dwarfs, because they last longer and they're more
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of them, they're basically like buying more lottery tickets, and
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: so they're more likely to win. But instead, if intelligent
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: life evolves pretty rapidly, it doesn't take very long to evolve,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: then the fact that Red Dwarves happen to live longer,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: have longer lifespan doesn't necessarily help them. And so in
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: that scenario, instead of being like one hundred to one,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: it's more like five to one odds. It's just basically
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the relative rates of occurrence that determines your likelihood of
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: being around a Red dwarf or a yellow star. I
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: guess maybe I'm not quite sure I understand that argument.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: If you are around longer, if a red Dwarf is
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: around longer, which it is, As you say, can we
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: get even less longer than the eight of the universe
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't make it more likely that it has or at
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: some point in its history will have life. Then let's
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: say our star. If life is really unusual or it
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: takes a long time to evolve, then yes, But say
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: life happens really quickly when it does. Right, then the
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: fact that the red Dwarf is going to last for
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: trillions of years means that civilization gets to live longer
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: around its star. But it doesn't mean that it's twenty
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: times as likely to evolve around one of those Why not?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I guess you know you're assuming that life is sort
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: of a certainty if you have a certain set of conditions.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: But maybe it's a probability thing for life to occur,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: right like if you need to roll the die and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: get a certain number to get any kind of seed
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: of life when you're around your star, then the longer
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: you are, the more times you get to throw the die.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: You're assuming it's a certainty, but it's not right. It's
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: maybe chance base it maybe is right. But what we're
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: doing here is we're examining which assumptions could possibly explain.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: It's what assumptions will we have to change in order
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: to explain what we're seeing. You're totally right that if
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: it's like rolling the dice and it's very unlikely, then
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the more times you roll the dice, the more odds
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: you have, and so then you would be much more
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: likely to evolve around a red star. But if it's not,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: if it's basically certain it happens pretty quickly, then you
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: would expect life to happen around red dwarfs only five
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: times as often as around yellow stars, because that's the
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: relative rate of their occurrence, and the time wouldn't be
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: a factor. And that could be the case, right, it
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: could be five times more Kryptonians and Earthlings out during
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the universe. There certainly could be. And we also don't
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: really know, you know, how common is life? How long
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: does it take to evolve? We think that on Earth,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: life itself evolved pretty quickly. There's like fossil records going
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: billions of years back, so we think it didn't take
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: very long for life itself to evolve, although intelligent life
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: is much more recent development, and so it might be
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that life is very common in the universe and all
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: those red dwarfs are teeming with little bacteria. But intelligent life,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you know, people making podcasts and writing comic books and
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, is more rare. We just
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: don't know the answer to those questions. Well, if it
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: is more rreer, then having five times more stars and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: being around longer would make that so much more likely
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: that they have intelligent life, right exactly. Yeah, so this
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: isn't a great answer to the question, but it changes
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the probabilities, right, the likelihood and the time it takes
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: for intelligent life to evolve does change how likely you
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: are to evolve around a red star or a yellow dwarf.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: So then how does this resolve the paradox? I don't
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: think it totally resolves the paradox, But if we did
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: live in a universe where intelligent life emerged very, very rapidly,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: then our situation wouldn't be as unlikely. It'd be like
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: a one in five chance instead of a one in
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: one hundred chance. So it reduces the tension a little bit.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I see, all right, it makes us less of a miracle,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: yeah exactly, We're less a little less weird. All right, Well,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: what are other possible resolutions to this paradox. Well, it
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: might be that it's not as easy for life to
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: evolve around red dwarfs, Like maybe red dwarfs are not
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: as habitable as yellow stars. There are more differences between
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: red dwarfs and yellow stars than just their brightness. Because
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: they're so much smaller, they tend to have different sort
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of behaviors, which might make it harder for life to
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: evolve around them. Like what kinds of behaviors? Well, for example,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: we talked earlier about how to be in the habitable zone,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: you would have to be much much closer to the star, right,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: because the star is much dimmer. In that scenario, you're
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: more likely to be tidally locked to the star, which
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: means that like one surface of the planet is always
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: facing the star. Tidal forces are really just gravitational forces.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Gravity hinds to tug on the closer bit harder than
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: on the further bit. If you can elongate the planet
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit, then it prevents the planet from spinning
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the way. For example, the same side of the Moon
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: is always facing the Earth, and so if you're on
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a planet really close to your star, you might be
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: tidally locked and That means that one half of the
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: planet would be super duper hot and the other half
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: would be super duper cold, and biologists disagree about whether
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: that's more or likely or less likely to evolve life.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Does that assume a planet the same size as Earth.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: What if you're a smaller planet or what if you
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: have some spin to begin with? Yeah, smaller planet would
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: be less likely to be tightly locked. That's true, And
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: it's not guaranteed that all these planets would be tightly locked.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: You right, If you have a lot of spin, you
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: might be able to avoid it. But more of these
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: planets would be tightly locked than, for example, earthlike planets
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: around a yellow dwarf, so it might complicate the evolution
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of life. Another issue with these stars is that a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: lot of red dwarfs tend to be what we call
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: flare stars. Unlike the Sun, which burns pretty steadily and
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: you know it has some flare ups and some deviations
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: in its brightness, red dwarfs can sometimes vary dramatically in
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: their brightness. A flare star is something that can be
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: like two or five or one hundred times as bright
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: as it normally is all of a sudden for a
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: little while and then sort of calm back down. They
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: don't tend to burn as steadily. Well, you're saying red
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: dwarves tend to flare up more than our kind of start. Yeah,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: red dwarfs tend to be more variable than yellow stars.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I thought they were more like moderate and steady. It's
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: a subject of intense debate, and we're not sure we understand.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: But remember that a lot of stars out there are
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: also binary stars, and so these red dwarves might be
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: in binary systems, and interactions between the magnetic fields of
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the two stars can interfere with what's going on inside
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the star and like heat it up briefly and cause
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: it to burn hotter for a short period. So it's
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: not something we understand very well. But the stars that
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: we have studied, most of the flare stars, tend to
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: be these red dwarves, and that would be pretty unpleasant
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: for life. If all of a sudden the Sun is
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: like a hundred times hotter than it usually is. M
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you might have to leave that planet right or at
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: least like put your son in a spaceship and send
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: it to another planet. It's like a yellow sun. Perhaps
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: that sounds like a great idea for a comic book.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: You should copyright that, like fifty years ago. Let's go
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: back in time to your grandfather and tell him that idea.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: That's right, it's called the Superman I had the idea
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: for Superman Paradox. So why are you wasting your time
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: on this podcast? You just be counting your money because
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I'm stuck in this multiverse, Daniel. I could be a
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: billionaire cartoonist instead, I'm just a cartoonist. Just a cartoonist. Yeah,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: so flare stars would make it harder for life to
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: evolve for at least lifelike hours. You know, maybe that
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: kind of environment would lead to totally different kinds of
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: life that are less sensitive to radiation. Or maybe they'd
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: have to burrow underground where it might be safer and
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: they could still somehow tap into the heat of the sun.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: M right, because we don't like we assume that you
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: need day and nighttime cycles to thrive like we do, right,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Like you need a good night's sleep. Of course you
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: need nighttime for that. But maybe not right, Like, maybe
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: it could be even the opposite, Like maybe life flourishes
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: better if there's no nighttime. Yeah maybe, and maybe it's
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: great to have like super duper hot summers every few
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: hundred years. You know, things get fried to a crisp,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: but the strong survive. Who knows. There's one more issue
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: with life developing around these red dwarfs is that in
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: the systems we have studied so far, we see fewer
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: large gas giants, basically fewer Jupiters. So, you know, we
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: are very happy to have Jupiter or solar system because
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: it's big, and it's gravitational, and it tends to protect
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: us from comments and asteroids. Sometimes it sweeps these things
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: out of the inner Solar system, But in systems with
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: red dwarf stars, we tend to see fewer of these jupiters,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: which might mean that they're not as protected from asteroids,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: so it might mean more big impacts like the ones
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that wiped out the dinosaurs. I see. We don't see
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Jupiter size planets around those other solar systems, But I
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: wonder if they have their own version of Jupiter. Right,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: I feel like a red dwarf system would be very
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: similar to ours, just kind of scaled down. So maybe
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: you have to scale down your expectations for what a
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Jupiter would be like. Yeah, as long as they're being
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: hit by mini asteroids and maybe it's cool. And remember, also,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: being hit by an asteroid isn't all bad. I mean, sure,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: lots of things die, but it also can make room
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: for all sorts of new evolution like mammals and humans.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Doesn't necessarily have to be a planet wide extinction event.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: But I guess you're saying that life around a red
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: dwarf isn't necessarily rosier than or it might be less
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: rosy than technically, both metaphorically and physically speaking than life
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: around a yellow start. Yeah, you might be wearing rose
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: colored glasses, but there might actually be fewer roses, or
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: at least the situation would be different. And if we're
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: making a simple argument about the likelihood for life to evolve,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: this sort of undermines sense as well. The conditions we
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: know are quite different, and so life might be less
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: likely to evolve in those scenarios. On the other hand,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: it could also be more likely. Right, maybe life in
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: the universe prefers that situation to ours. We just don't know.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, then what's another or maybe the last
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: possible resolution to this paradox? The last sort of idea
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: people have to explain this is that maybe there aren't
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: as many earthlike worlds around these red dwarfs as we think. Remember,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the red dwarfs, they're hard to study because they're small
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and they're dim. Most of the ones that we study
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: are like the really big versions of them, sort of
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: on the upper edge of red dwarfs. A lot of
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: the red dwarfs that are out there, most of them
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: that are out there, are smaller. It's not just true
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: that there are more red dwarfs than yellow stars. There
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: are more small red dwarfs than bigger red dwarfs. So
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: most of the red dwarfs out there are the ones
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: that we have trouble seeing. So our calculations are estimates
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: about like how often there's an earthlike planet inhabitable zone
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: around these things. Those could just be wrong, and it
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: might be that most of the red dwarves out there
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: don't have planets the way our stars do. They're just
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: sort of too hard to study. Right now, we're like
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: extrapolating into the unknown, well beyond what we really have
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: confidence in, I see, because we haven't. We don't actually
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: know what the planets around those smaller red dwarves are,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: like yeah, or how many there even are right. So
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: we're making these assumptions. We're extrapolating from our situation and
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: from the few examples we have been able to study
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: about red dwarfs. But that's an extrapolation, and that could
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: be where we're going wrong. Maybe only the red dwarves
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: have these kind of planets, and most of the ones
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: out there, which are most of the stars in the galaxy,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: don't have them. M that would make it less weird
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: that we exist around a yellow star. And fortunately we're
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: going to learn more about this soon. In twenty thirty five,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: we hope to be launching a new space telescope called
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: have X, which is going to specialize in studying planets
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: around stars, even dimmer stars. It's going to be super
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: awesome with this like four meter sized mirror enough star
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: shade to block out the light from the stars, and
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: it's going to help us understand where are the planets
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: in the galaxy? Are they mostly around yellow stars? Are
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: they also around red stars? Are they also around the smaller,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: more variable red stars. What's life like over there? That's
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. So a big telescope just to look at
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: planets might even looking at star. It's just totally dedicated
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: to looking four aliens. Basically, it's really amazing technology. This
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: thing it has a star shade. This thing that fits
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: in front of it floats in space. It's bread from it.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: It's like a two component thing. The second piece is
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: just there to block out light from stars. Right, Mostly
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: telescopes are focused on stars. This one specifically has a
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: blind spot for stars because it wants to see the planets. Cool. Well,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: that will go up in twenty thirty five, and I'm
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: sure we'll do an episode when we get to that point.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: If we're still alive, if neither of us are billionaires
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: by the end, if an asteroid hasn't hit us, or
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Superma's income, or other aliens wearing their rose colored glasses
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: having come to tell us all the secrets of the universe. Well,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: wouldn't they need blue colored glasses. It's a blue flower,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: a violet violet. There you go, violet colored glasses. Let's
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: just hope they bring violets and not violence. All right, Well,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I think this is an interesting question to think about,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: you know. It against kind of makes you wonder how
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: rare it is for us to be here, or maybe
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: how common it is. Either way, it's kind of a
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: fun question to think about. It's all part of this
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: journey looking out into the universe and wondering why it
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: is the way that it is, and is our corner
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: of it weird or not? Yeah? Are we superman or
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: are we just regular earth Links? They're never talking about
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: what what happens if you go from the yellow sun
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: to a red sun? Do you get weaker? Maybe they
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: have a comic book where earth Links go to their
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: planet and they're called Underman underwear Man. Maybe, well, I
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: think no one's already taken Captain Underpants. Every idea is
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, there you go. Maybe you can go
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: back in time. All right, Well, we hope that made
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: you think about your life and how likely it is
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: for you to be here, and how appreciative we should
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: be every time you go outside and feel the warm
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: rays of our sun and wonder about those aliens out there.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Are they also enjoying a yellow star? Or is everything
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: on their planet red? Or is what they call red
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: actually yellow? Thanks for joining us, See you next time.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.