Latest / Stuff You Should Know / SYSK Selects: How the Sun Works

Transcript

SYSK Selects: How the Sun Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Chuck bringing you this week's S
0:04
Speaker 1: Y s K Select and we are going there. People. Well,
0:09
Speaker 1: Josh actually doesn't even know I'm picking this one yet,
0:11
Speaker 1: so he might be mad. But what you were about
0:14
Speaker 1: to hear is the legendary How the Sun Works episode. Uh.
0:19
Speaker 1: And if you haven't heard us talk about this over
0:21
Speaker 1: the years, then you haven't listened to many episodes or
0:24
Speaker 1: heard many interviews with us, because this one has gone
0:27
Speaker 1: down and stuff you should know lore as uh, what
0:31
Speaker 1: we call our worst episode ever because it was so
0:35
Speaker 1: hard and we were so in over our heads and
0:38
Speaker 1: we were clinging to the cliff side by our little
0:42
Speaker 1: nubby fingers during the entire podcast and got a lot
0:46
Speaker 1: of it wrong. And so, uh, instead of burying this thing,
0:51
Speaker 1: I chose to highlight it this week. So, without further ado,
0:56
Speaker 1: from January two thousand ten, are amazing episode How the
1:04
Speaker 1: Sun Works. Enjoy m Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
1:17
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
1:25
Speaker 1: the podcast. I am Josh Clark. That's Chuck Bryant. Charles
1:32
Speaker 1: Charles W. Bryant is not very happy right now. I'm
1:35
Speaker 1: gonna handle this, okay, Chuck the whole thing. This disclaimer. Okay,
1:41
Speaker 1: as we prove with our large Hadron Collider podcast, Chuck
1:45
Speaker 1: and I are not physicists. By the way, it doesn't
1:47
Speaker 1: shoot light. No, we found out speaking of light, we're
1:52
Speaker 1: about to talk about sun. Yes, And I just want
1:55
Speaker 1: to say that Chuck and I are not astrophysicists either.
1:58
Speaker 1: There's a couple of guys who like to drink some
2:00
Speaker 1: beer and you know, just talk. Just wrap. I thought
2:04
Speaker 1: I was an astrophysicist until I read the Sun article
2:06
Speaker 1: and then my brain melted and newsed out of my ears.
2:08
Speaker 1: You're an astrophysicist. You're way off, way off. So we're
2:13
Speaker 1: going to talk about the sun. If we get any
2:16
Speaker 1: of the um you know, theory, if we get the
2:19
Speaker 1: theory of relativity, and actually no, we can't screw that
2:22
Speaker 1: one up. It's too famous. If there's a little thing
2:24
Speaker 1: here there and you're an astrophysicist, please feel free to
2:27
Speaker 1: send it's an email correcting us. We love that. Um
2:30
Speaker 1: that's the first time we've ever called for corrections before.
2:34
Speaker 1: I think this one's appropriate. So let's let's let me start. Chuck,
2:38
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of the sun? Yes, Josh, I
2:42
Speaker 1: wish we had more of it these days here in
2:44
Speaker 1: cold it is, it's a little chilly. If you'll notice
2:47
Speaker 1: it's snowed here, Chuck. I feel notice though, after a
2:50
Speaker 1: couple of days of sunlight the snow receded. Yes, do
2:53
Speaker 1: you know why? Uh? No, radiation Okay, heat, yes, yeah,
3:00
Speaker 1: energy from the sun. Right. The Sun, which, Josh, is
3:05
Speaker 1: one of over one hundred billion stars. It's just a
3:08
Speaker 1: star it is, and not even like a giant star either.
3:11
Speaker 1: It falls a little above average size. Did you know that?
3:15
Speaker 1: Should we talk about the size? Yeah? Because if there's
3:18
Speaker 1: one thing I can do is read stats. Yeah, this was.
3:21
Speaker 1: This is a very stat heavy article, so it should
3:23
Speaker 1: be up your alley, Josh. The Sun's radius is about
3:26
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty two thousand miles. Yeah, it's a
3:29
Speaker 1: hundred nine times the radius of the Earth. Yes, one
3:32
Speaker 1: on nine exactly, which I was like, Wow, that means
3:35
Speaker 1: that it has a two hundred and eighteen times a diameter.
3:39
Speaker 1: No that's not true. Still one on nine. It's constant. Uh,
3:43
Speaker 1: And I like this. NASA. NASA broke it down, our
3:45
Speaker 1: good friends at NASA into something that I understood, which was,
3:49
Speaker 1: if you think of the Earth, um the width of
3:52
Speaker 1: an ordinary paper clip is the Earth's radius. Let's say,
3:55
Speaker 1: then the Sun's radius would be roughly the height of
3:57
Speaker 1: a desk. And I know this one about one hundred
4:00
Speaker 1: steps from each other. Is that what you're gonna say
4:03
Speaker 1: it was? That's all right? Hey? So yeah, that kind
4:06
Speaker 1: of puts it in a perspective. The Sun's a hell
4:08
Speaker 1: of a lot bigger than the Earth, much much bigger,
4:10
Speaker 1: and it's pretty far away, right, how many miles did
4:13
Speaker 1: you say? Eight light minutes? Which is actually, chuck, apparently
4:17
Speaker 1: ninety two million miles and change. And to put that
4:21
Speaker 1: into perspective, other stars are light years away, not eight
4:25
Speaker 1: light minutes away. And since this is a stat bonanza,
4:29
Speaker 1: can I take a shot at one? So you said
4:31
Speaker 1: that the uh, the Sun was how many light years?
4:35
Speaker 1: Twenty five thousand light years from the center of the galaxy. Yes,
4:38
Speaker 1: it takes about two hundred and fifty million years for
4:41
Speaker 1: the Sun to uh do one revolution around the galaxy?
4:46
Speaker 1: Can we stop here? I feel really good about it
4:48
Speaker 1: so far. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good. To check. Let's
4:51
Speaker 1: soldier on, shall we Yes, the Sun is a G
4:54
Speaker 1: two type star based on its temperature and the wavelengths
4:58
Speaker 1: of light that it minutes, right, and it's about four
5:01
Speaker 1: and a half billion years old, uh, which makes it
5:04
Speaker 1: a population one star. Apparently there are two types of
5:07
Speaker 1: stars as far as age classification goes. I didn't know
5:10
Speaker 1: that population one star are the younger stars, which include
5:13
Speaker 1: our sun. Population two stars are older, and they think
5:16
Speaker 1: that there was a third population, but none of them
5:19
Speaker 1: are around anymore. Population three. Right, they should just go
5:22
Speaker 1: ahead and just claim that why not exactly, We wouldn't know.
5:25
Speaker 1: We'd be like, oh, nobody would ever know. Right. Well,
5:27
Speaker 1: luckily NASA is very honest and forth right. Thank thank you, NASA,
5:31
Speaker 1: Thank you. So yeah, check the Sun we said, is
5:34
Speaker 1: about four and a half billion years old um, and
5:37
Speaker 1: they think it's about humanity arrived at about the halfway
5:41
Speaker 1: point in the Sun's lifetime. It's got about five billion
5:45
Speaker 1: more years worth of UM fuel, which is good news,
5:49
Speaker 1: it is, because yeah, at the end of that run,
5:51
Speaker 1: it's not good news for us. No, we'll get to that.
5:53
Speaker 1: That'll be the grand finale. How about that? Exactly? All right? So, Chuck,
5:57
Speaker 1: what is the Sun? What should we talk about the
5:59
Speaker 1: parts of the Sun or I just want to talk
6:02
Speaker 1: about the fact that it's a big you know, ball
6:05
Speaker 1: of gas. I think we should mention that because if you,
6:08
Speaker 1: if you talk about what the Sun is, I think
6:10
Speaker 1: it's easier to understand it's different components and then in
6:14
Speaker 1: turn what it is. Okay, well, it's made up entirely
6:17
Speaker 1: of gas josh, which is really weird because gas generally
6:21
Speaker 1: doesn't form a ball and have an atmosphere and all
6:24
Speaker 1: that stuff. I know why though, why because of the
6:26
Speaker 1: extreme gravity. Yeah, and heat and heat right holds everything together, right,
6:32
Speaker 1: which is crazy. So this extreme this extreme heat actually
6:36
Speaker 1: uh takes this gas and converts it into what is
6:40
Speaker 1: technically a fourth state of matter. You've got solid liquid
6:43
Speaker 1: gas and plasma. Plasma, and plasma is a type of
6:46
Speaker 1: gas um that behaves in a way where it's um
6:50
Speaker 1: it responds to magnetism. Right. Generally people just say that
6:55
Speaker 1: it's gas, but unless you want to get really technical,
6:57
Speaker 1: and you'll call it plasma. Yeah, that's what nassas it is. Like.
7:00
Speaker 1: Scientists only sometimes will even call it plasma. Right. So,
7:04
Speaker 1: the core, which we'll talk about in just a second.
7:07
Speaker 1: But the core is so dense thanks to the force
7:09
Speaker 1: of gravity that um it makes up two of the
7:13
Speaker 1: Sun's volume, but it counts for half of the density
7:16
Speaker 1: of the entire Sun. Right, and so the the gravitational
7:20
Speaker 1: field in the core is so strong that it pulls
7:25
Speaker 1: hydrogen atoms together in a nuclear reaction, a fusion reaction,
7:31
Speaker 1: which is where everything begins. Yes, this is what everything
7:35
Speaker 1: is accounted for for the Sun, right. Yeah. And a
7:37
Speaker 1: fusion reaction, just if you guys don't know, is when
7:40
Speaker 1: two atomic nuclei joined together and create a new nucleus.
7:45
Speaker 1: And so the key um, the key element, I guess,
7:50
Speaker 1: uh in the Sun's nuclear reactions, because that's all it is.
7:53
Speaker 1: It's not it's not burning like we consider like a
7:55
Speaker 1: wood fire to be burning. It's burning like a It's
7:59
Speaker 1: a huge nuclear reaction basic the sunnets right, um. But
8:03
Speaker 1: the key element is a helium four. When helium four
8:07
Speaker 1: is created, um, the it has actually less mass than
8:11
Speaker 1: the two I think hydrogen atoms that originally began that
8:15
Speaker 1: set off this chain reaction that led to the creation
8:18
Speaker 1: of helium four. And since matter or energy can either
8:21
Speaker 1: be created nor destroyed, it has to be displaced. Right.
8:24
Speaker 1: So under Einstein's theory relativity, which we won't screw up here,
8:28
Speaker 1: energy equals mass times of speed of light squared. You
8:31
Speaker 1: can describe how much energy is created. Right, So when
8:36
Speaker 1: the mass is displaced, when the helium four atom is created, right,
8:41
Speaker 1: the mass is this placed, it's created, it transfers into energy. Right.
8:46
Speaker 1: I'm wondering how many of our commuters right now switch
8:50
Speaker 1: this off and just put on Howard Stern, Like my
8:53
Speaker 1: fingernails are bleeding. I'm hanging on just barely right now, thanks, buddy.
8:58
Speaker 1: So are you all right? So Chuck, that's the core,
9:29
Speaker 1: that's the center of the sun. Yes, it extends to
9:33
Speaker 1: of the Sun's radius, just so you know how big
9:35
Speaker 1: that is. And it's hot, hot, hot kelvin, which is
9:39
Speaker 1: really hot. Trust u um. And uh, that's at the center,
9:44
Speaker 1: like you said, it's the radius. What's outside of that?
9:48
Speaker 1: Just outside of that is the radiative zone. Is how
9:52
Speaker 1: you pronounce that one? Either that or radiative radiative radiative
9:57
Speaker 1: that extends about of the Sun's radius from the core, right, Okay,
10:03
Speaker 1: So uh, these helium four atoms are created, and remember
10:07
Speaker 1: they create energy or they displace energy. Right when they
10:12
Speaker 1: lose their mass translation energy, that energy starts traveling outward
10:16
Speaker 1: and it hits the radiative zone, and they are they're
10:20
Speaker 1: generally um. The type of energy that's created can be
10:23
Speaker 1: gamma rays, X rays, whatever, But technically all of these
10:28
Speaker 1: are um light waves. So they're carried in these discrete
10:31
Speaker 1: little packets called photons, right, Yes, they're carried by the photons.
10:35
Speaker 1: And uh, the photon travels only about one micron, which
10:39
Speaker 1: is a millionth of a meter, before it's absorbed by
10:42
Speaker 1: a gas molecule. Right. Okay, So then this photon which
10:45
Speaker 1: is absorbed by the gas molecule, heats the gas molecule up,
10:49
Speaker 1: and then the photon or the gas molecule spits out
10:52
Speaker 1: another photon, which is technically the same one because it's
10:56
Speaker 1: the same wavelength as the original photon, right, and then
10:58
Speaker 1: it shows another micro until it's absorbed by another gas molecule. Right.
11:03
Speaker 1: So this keeps going on and on and on, and
11:06
Speaker 1: by the time the photon escapes from the radiative zone, uh,
11:11
Speaker 1: averages about a million years from the time it was
11:15
Speaker 1: I guess created. You could say from the creation of
11:18
Speaker 1: that helium four adam a million years for one photon
11:22
Speaker 1: of light to travel this uh this short distance. Yeah,
11:26
Speaker 1: that would be ten to the twenty five absorption and
11:28
Speaker 1: re emissions taking place. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a
11:31
Speaker 1: lot of zeroes. Yeah, um, it's actually uh, I think
11:36
Speaker 1: exactly maybe twenty six. So once it escapes the radiative zone,
11:41
Speaker 1: it hits the convective zone right right, and that is
11:44
Speaker 1: the final thirty percent of the Sun's radius basically, right. Uh.
11:49
Speaker 1: It takes a little while for that same photon to
11:52
Speaker 1: escape that area, right, A hundred thousand to two hundred
11:56
Speaker 1: thousand years to reach the surface of the Sun. Yes,
11:59
Speaker 1: what's crazy is this. Once it escapes, Once that one
12:02
Speaker 1: photon escapes services Sun, it takes eight minutes to reach
12:05
Speaker 1: the Earth's surface because remember where it's light minutes away,
12:09
Speaker 1: and its light travels at the speed of light, so
12:11
Speaker 1: it takes eight minutes. But the sunlight that's hitting us
12:14
Speaker 1: when we go outside are made up of photons that
12:18
Speaker 1: were created more than one point two million years ago.
12:21
Speaker 1: I can't even comprehend that. Awesome. That is really really cool.
12:24
Speaker 1: So we've got all these ancient photons bouncing office. But
12:27
Speaker 1: let's get back to the convective zone, right, Okay, this
12:29
Speaker 1: is uh, this is this area made up of these
12:33
Speaker 1: alternating areas of rising and cooling gas. Right as NASA
12:38
Speaker 1: once again breaks it down, a little easier. It's boiling
12:40
Speaker 1: convection cells basically, right, it looks like a pot of
12:43
Speaker 1: boiling water, except these are gas plasma. No, there's only
12:49
Speaker 1: the Sun. Only the Sun. Okay, chuck. So we have
12:51
Speaker 1: the three parts of the Sun. We have the core,
12:53
Speaker 1: the radiative zone, and the convective zone. Right, and now
12:56
Speaker 1: we've reached the atmosphere. The Sun actually has an atmosphere.
13:00
Speaker 1: Yes it does, Yes, it does. And that's made up
13:02
Speaker 1: of three parts as well, right, correct, the photosphere, the chromosphere,
13:06
Speaker 1: and my favorite, I think everyone's favorite, the corona. I
13:09
Speaker 1: like the corona, which can only be seen in an eclipse. Yeah,
13:13
Speaker 1: corona gets all the press, it does, so, Joshua. In
13:15
Speaker 1: the photosphere we are is that where we are it
13:18
Speaker 1: is hot. That is the lowest region in the atmosphere,
13:20
Speaker 1: or Sun's atmosphere, and that is the region that you
13:25
Speaker 1: can actually see from Earth. That's where you can start
13:27
Speaker 1: to see things. Right. And actually the photosphere is what
13:30
Speaker 1: gives the Sun. It's kind of round crisp edge because
13:33
Speaker 1: as as um as you travel outward to the outside
13:37
Speaker 1: of the photosphere, the gas is cooler, which creates that
13:40
Speaker 1: crisp edge we see for the Sun right, has an
13:43
Speaker 1: average temp of about fifty eight hundred kelvin, and it
13:46
Speaker 1: is two hundred and forty miles wide. Right, that's big.
13:52
Speaker 1: It is big. After that is the chromosphere, right, Yes,
13:55
Speaker 1: that's outside the photosphere. Obviously, it's about my els above
14:01
Speaker 1: the photosphere, right, and that's about degrease kelvin. So obviously
14:05
Speaker 1: you'll notice that it's getting cooler, you know, as you
14:07
Speaker 1: expand outward, right, but it's still they think it's heated
14:10
Speaker 1: by the photosphere and this this churning gas, the convection
14:15
Speaker 1: cells are still present in the chromosphere as well. So
14:19
Speaker 1: basically the what what we're seeing so far is the
14:22
Speaker 1: Sun is this nuclear reactor that at its core, gravity
14:27
Speaker 1: is pushing things together and then they're exploding outward. Right. Okay, Okay,
14:32
Speaker 1: I'm with you, But actually I I sort of mispoke
14:34
Speaker 1: because it actually the temperature does rise across the chromosphere,
14:38
Speaker 1: and it can rise up to ten thousand kelvin, which
14:40
Speaker 1: is even hotter than the photosphere beneath it. Uh. And
14:44
Speaker 1: then we have the corona chuck your favorite. Yeah, that's
14:47
Speaker 1: the final layer, Josh, and it extends several million miles
14:50
Speaker 1: outward from the photosphere and you can see this. In fact,
14:53
Speaker 1: I think they first discovered the corona during the first
14:56
Speaker 1: solar eclipse. They were like, what the hell is that? Exactly?
15:00
Speaker 1: How hot does that one? Josh? It's a two billion
15:03
Speaker 1: degrees kelvin actually, which again it's very hot. Yeah, so
15:06
Speaker 1: it's not actually cooling as it goes out. Word, I
15:08
Speaker 1: completely misspoke. No, it's it's that's the I think that's
15:12
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why the Sun has these different
15:15
Speaker 1: features like sun spots and solar prominences, which we're about
15:18
Speaker 1: to talk about, is because these um cooling and heating
15:21
Speaker 1: raising and rising and lowering convection cells are kind of
15:26
Speaker 1: competing with one another, and they actually create the magnetism
15:30
Speaker 1: that UM the plasma is attracted to or responds to,
15:34
Speaker 1: I should say, right, And I don't feel too bad
15:36
Speaker 1: because the article even says that no one knows why
15:38
Speaker 1: the corona is so hot. No, because you would think
15:40
Speaker 1: it would be cooler. But and there are hotter places
15:43
Speaker 1: than others because the cooler spots are called coronal holes. Uh,
15:47
Speaker 1: they're also let's talk about sun spots, chuck, Okay, sun
15:51
Speaker 1: spots are UM these areas of magnetic activity along the photosphere, right,
15:57
Speaker 1: darker and cooler. Right. Um, they always appear in pairs
16:00
Speaker 1: as far as I know, although I think they can
16:02
Speaker 1: appear singularly, but it's very uncommon because it's a monopole. Right.
16:06
Speaker 1: Like I said that, there's that um that convection activity
16:10
Speaker 1: that actually creates the magnetic fields around the sun, right right,
16:14
Speaker 1: And so when sun spots appear, generally they appear in
16:17
Speaker 1: in pairs because one represents magnetic north and the other
16:20
Speaker 1: represents magnetic south. And along these magnetic fields, other solar
16:25
Speaker 1: activity can occur. Right, You've got solar prominences, which is
16:28
Speaker 1: actually an arc of uh. I think particles and radiation
16:34
Speaker 1: that can extend, uh, I think a thousand kilometers outside
16:37
Speaker 1: of the Sun's atmosphere. Right, Yeah, they can, and they
16:40
Speaker 1: last for two or three months. It's like a temporary thing, right.
16:43
Speaker 1: And these things are it's kind of like um, an
16:47
Speaker 1: arc of electricity, except a lot bigger, right right. Uh.
16:51
Speaker 1: And every once in a while they erupt into coronal
16:54
Speaker 1: mass ejections, right, which is my next band name? Is it?
16:58
Speaker 1: Coronal mass ejection? That's give? Uh? Can we? I got
17:02
Speaker 1: one more thing on sun spots, which I thought was
17:03
Speaker 1: really cool is you know, they break through their magnetic
17:06
Speaker 1: fields that breakthrough the surface, but they can only enter, exit,
17:11
Speaker 1: and re enter through other sun spots, which I thought
17:13
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. That is pretty cool. They also occur
17:16
Speaker 1: on eleven year cycles, right, yes, the solar cycle a
17:19
Speaker 1: full cycle, a full solar cycles twenty two years, so
17:22
Speaker 1: every eleven years that either peaks or troughs. And what's
17:26
Speaker 1: interesting is, um, you know, everybody's like the world's gonna
17:31
Speaker 1: and I think we mentioned this in our twenty twelve podcast.
17:34
Speaker 1: That is the predicted peak of the solar cycle maximum
17:39
Speaker 1: that we're in. So you've got these sun spots, the
17:43
Speaker 1: sun spot activity is gonna pick up. When sun spots
17:46
Speaker 1: pick up, Solar prominences pick up. When there's more solar prominences,
17:49
Speaker 1: there's more coronal mass ejections. When there's more coronal mass ejections,
17:53
Speaker 1: the Earth is inundated with um uh radiation and radioactive articles. Right,
18:01
Speaker 1: they hit the Earth's atmosphere and actually mess with the
18:04
Speaker 1: magnetic field. This accounts for the Aurora borealis and Australia's right, right,
18:09
Speaker 1: and um When enough of them hit the Earth's atmosphere
18:12
Speaker 1: and they actually ionize, they interfere with our electrical activity, right,
18:17
Speaker 1: calls like blackouts, right, which is why a lot of
18:19
Speaker 1: people think that will have all these catastrophes. Right, that
18:23
Speaker 1: makes sense, But really it's just part of a twenty
18:26
Speaker 1: two year cycle of the sun. So calm down, are
18:29
Speaker 1: your minds exactly know? The mines don't think that? That's right? Josh? Yes,
18:34
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the color of the sun
18:36
Speaker 1: real quick. Yeah, because this is a cool little fact
18:38
Speaker 1: that I bet most people don't know, because most people
18:40
Speaker 1: say the sun is yellow or orange. Not true. The
18:43
Speaker 1: sun is actually white. Sunlight is actually white. Do you
18:47
Speaker 1: know why it changes the atmosphere? Oh? Yeah, The atmosphere
18:50
Speaker 1: acts as a filter for the setting sun and that's
18:53
Speaker 1: when it changes its color. Well, and it is white.
18:56
Speaker 1: It does appear white, but it's actually made up of
18:58
Speaker 1: all the colors of the spectrum, which is why you
19:01
Speaker 1: can take a prism and um shoot sunlight through it
19:04
Speaker 1: and it spreads into the different colors and you have
19:08
Speaker 1: pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album cover. Right.
19:11
Speaker 1: I got another couple of cool facts. Rotation of the sun.
19:15
Speaker 1: Everyone knows it makes a complete rotation in about a month.
19:18
Speaker 1: But because it's a gas. Basically, it's different parts rotate
19:22
Speaker 1: at different rates. So gas near the equator takes twenty
19:25
Speaker 1: five days to rotate, let's say, and gas at higher
19:28
Speaker 1: latitudes may take as many as like three more extra days. Right,
19:31
Speaker 1: pretty cool. So it's rotating at different rates. It is
19:34
Speaker 1: because it's a ball of gas, exactly. And I got
19:37
Speaker 1: one more You ready for this one about the vibration. Yeah,
19:41
Speaker 1: this is pretty cool too. I thought I had no idea.
19:43
Speaker 1: The sun vibrates constantly like a bell that is continuously struck, right,
19:47
Speaker 1: creating sound ways. But there's two minutes between intervals, yes,
19:52
Speaker 1: and ten million individual tones at the same time, So
19:55
Speaker 1: we we could if our hearing was I guess different.
19:59
Speaker 1: I don't know if better is the right word, but
20:01
Speaker 1: if we had a different type of hearing, we would
20:04
Speaker 1: be able to hear the vibrations coming off of the
20:07
Speaker 1: Sun because actually do hit the Earth. But like I said,
20:09
Speaker 1: in two minute intervals the slowest distance between intervals time
20:15
Speaker 1: wise that humans can hear a second. So it's it's
20:21
Speaker 1: constantly making a sound, we just can't hear. It just
20:23
Speaker 1: leads me to the question, if the sun makes a
20:26
Speaker 1: sound while it's vibrating, can you hear it. I bet
20:30
Speaker 1: those blue people in Avatar can hear it. Now, you
20:34
Speaker 1: still haven't seen it. I'll never see that movie. You
20:37
Speaker 1: should never. You're gonna be that guy. Yeah, okay, that's fine.
21:12
Speaker 1: I got a couple of other stats for you, Josh,
21:14
Speaker 1: if you're into it. Well, not a fewer than five
21:17
Speaker 1: percent of the stars in the Milky Way are brighter
21:19
Speaker 1: or more massive than the Sun, but some are more
21:22
Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand times is bright. Isn't that crazy? Yes,
21:25
Speaker 1: that is pretty cool actually, And if you go in
21:28
Speaker 1: the other way, some stars are less than one ten
21:31
Speaker 1: as bright as the Sun, which is kind of nuts.
21:33
Speaker 1: But really, I mean stat wise that we have a
21:36
Speaker 1: fairly mediocre sun. Yeah, it does the trick, though, Yes,
21:39
Speaker 1: it does s the trick, and it should for about
21:41
Speaker 1: the next five billion years. Like we said, they or
21:44
Speaker 1: the Sun is middle aged right now, right, it's about
21:46
Speaker 1: halfway through. Sure, it's starting to look into wearing treck
21:50
Speaker 1: suits all the time out in public exactly. Um, and uh,
21:53
Speaker 1: after about five billion years, it's going to run out
21:57
Speaker 1: of fuel, Yeah, run out of hydrogen. And what happens then, Well,
22:01
Speaker 1: that density of the core is going to remain, but
22:03
Speaker 1: it's not going to have the fuel to create these
22:07
Speaker 1: um nuclear reactions, which remember we said that the Sun
22:11
Speaker 1: is a bunch of nuclear reactions. This gravity smashing things
22:15
Speaker 1: together and then the energy escaping. It's this constant pushing pull. Well,
22:19
Speaker 1: when it runs out of fuel, there's gonna be nothing
22:21
Speaker 1: but pull. There won't be any push any longer, right right,
22:24
Speaker 1: which is bad news for the core. Right. But before
22:27
Speaker 1: this happens, when this, when this kicks off, Chuck, it's
22:30
Speaker 1: going to turn into a red giant. And this red
22:33
Speaker 1: giant is you know how the Sun just kind of
22:35
Speaker 1: heats the earth. Yes, well that's not gonna happen. I mean,
22:38
Speaker 1: it'll heat the earth, but it's also going to vaporize
22:41
Speaker 1: it when it turns into a red giant, which is
22:43
Speaker 1: the bad news for us. Well, we probably won't be around.
22:46
Speaker 1: We'll be long gone. There'll be no trace of humanity
22:48
Speaker 1: anywhere in five billion years. In no way I would
22:51
Speaker 1: think not. I don't know that we have that much
22:52
Speaker 1: staying power. Um. And so the Sun is going to
22:56
Speaker 1: vaporize the Earth, which is probably pretty wicked cool this.
23:00
Speaker 1: See when that does happen, Um, after that, the core
23:04
Speaker 1: will be Then the core will turn into carbon. I
23:07
Speaker 1: must spoke earlier, right right, which is cools cools it down, right,
23:10
Speaker 1: and then as it cools, it will turn into a
23:12
Speaker 1: white dwarf, and then a black dwarf eventually, Yes, and
23:16
Speaker 1: then it'll just be some hulk that won't even resemble
23:20
Speaker 1: our sun anymore. Right, And once this whole process starts,
23:23
Speaker 1: it's gonna take uh several billion years to even complete
23:27
Speaker 1: that process. So now it happens overnight or a probably
23:31
Speaker 1: about ten billion years from now, the Sun will just
23:33
Speaker 1: be this massive hulk of carbon, right, like my brain
23:37
Speaker 1: is right now. Not so massive that can we be
23:39
Speaker 1: done now? I think? So? Okay, I mean there's a
23:42
Speaker 1: lot more. We didn't even touch on solar wind and
23:45
Speaker 1: things like that, but we leave it up to the
23:47
Speaker 1: listener to pursue these. Yeah, sure, the listener or stuff
23:52
Speaker 1: from the Science Lab or soon to be forthcoming sister
23:56
Speaker 1: podcast with the esteemed Robert Lamb and his esteemed editor
24:02
Speaker 1: Alison louder Milk, And then we can just talk about noodling. Yeah,
24:06
Speaker 1: we'll go back to what we do best. It's just
24:08
Speaker 1: bumpkin stuff, So Chuck, Josh, I can barely get it out,
24:12
Speaker 1: I know. The listener, May I feel so defeated. I'm
24:19
Speaker 1: just gonna call this the best part of this podcast.
24:24
Speaker 1: Uh this is on human Experimentation, and we actually, as always,
24:29
Speaker 1: if we put out a call for some random weirdness,
24:32
Speaker 1: there's someone out there that listens to the show that
24:34
Speaker 1: has been there and done that. Remember the kid whose
24:36
Speaker 1: father used him as a human shield. Why? Uh So
24:41
Speaker 1: I've got this one from Rebecca and she says this.
24:44
Speaker 1: I just listened to the podcast on Human Experimentation. It
24:47
Speaker 1: was thrilled that you featured something I can relate to
24:49
Speaker 1: because I'm a former NASA human test subject. We just
24:53
Speaker 1: talked about NASA. I know, weird funny how that works.
24:56
Speaker 1: In two thousand six, I spent three months in a
24:57
Speaker 1: bed at a negative six degree tilt. Isn't that crazy?
25:02
Speaker 1: The effects of the human body at that angle are
25:04
Speaker 1: very similar to what an astronaut goes through after spending
25:07
Speaker 1: extended periods of time and space, which makes me wonder
25:10
Speaker 1: how they figure that out? You know, because they're NASA,
25:13
Speaker 1: that's the answer. Eventually, NASA hopes to take that information
25:17
Speaker 1: they got from my time in bed to help astronauts
25:20
Speaker 1: stay in space longer and travel further. From the Earth
25:23
Speaker 1: and one day even land on Mars. As a test subject,
25:26
Speaker 1: everything I did, from surfing the internet, eating, reading, even
25:30
Speaker 1: using the bathroom was at an angle tilt. Five days
25:34
Speaker 1: a week, I was wheeled to a lab where I
25:35
Speaker 1: was attached to an elaborate pulley system that pulled me
25:38
Speaker 1: onto a treadmill. What that was bolted to the wall.
25:42
Speaker 1: I walked, jog and ran a few miles a day
25:43
Speaker 1: to help my body avoid muscle atrophy. Of course, uh not.
25:46
Speaker 1: Everyone selected for the study was so lucky, though half
25:49
Speaker 1: of them did not get to run in this on
25:51
Speaker 1: this unique contraption, so they were just in bed the
25:54
Speaker 1: whole time. The date of the engineers got from my
25:57
Speaker 1: running will help NASA figure out what types of exercise
26:00
Speaker 1: astronauts will have to do to uh experience like long
26:03
Speaker 1: extended trips into space. So while I didn't love everything
26:06
Speaker 1: about it, going to the restroom, for example, it is
26:09
Speaker 1: a thrilling thing to have been a part of. I'm
26:11
Speaker 1: a huge fan and I'd like to learn neat stuff. Rebecca,
26:16
Speaker 1: did you have that last part? No? No No, no, she
26:17
Speaker 1: said that, Okay, yeah, more neat stuff. Well, thanks, Rebecca,
26:21
Speaker 1: hats off to you for helping our astronauts. She didn't
26:24
Speaker 1: mention if how much she got paid, if at all,
26:26
Speaker 1: but I mean, and she did NASA's deep pockets, buddy,
26:28
Speaker 1: that's what I hear. Yeah. Well, if you have any
26:30
Speaker 1: stories about developing bed sores for the greater good of
26:33
Speaker 1: advancing human knowledge, you can send in an email to
26:38
Speaker 1: stuff Podcasts at how stuff works dot com. For more
26:48
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is that how
26:51
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
26:54
Speaker 1: out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com
26:57
Speaker 1: home page