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Will A Gamma Ray Burst Kill You? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, Jorge, do you worry much about things from space
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: coming to kill you? Not until right now? Why should I? Well,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: it depends. It depends on what. Well, if there was
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: nothing you could do to prepare for or prevent it,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: would you still want to know? Yeah? I think so.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It'd be nice to know. Um, so you can get
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: my things in order, and you know, get a couple
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: of finish that TV series I I've been watching. In
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that case, I highly recommend you pay attention to this
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: episode of our podcast because it's going to prepare you.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Why should I listen to the episode or finish my
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: TV series? I'm confused? What should I do? Daniel? I imagine, Well,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we're recording this episode. You do sound this tracked sometimes? Well,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I say, she'd multitask exactly. There's a you know, death
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: from space is coming, so you've got to get stuff done.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I feel like the universe is huge and there's there's
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a million things out there that can kills instantly at
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: any time. Are you saying there's something in particular I
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: should be worried about. Stay tuned find out. Hi. I'm Borhand.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: piled Higher and Deeper or PhD comics. He's also a
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: shill for big banana corporations, but you'll hear more about
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: that later. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: part time podcast host and amateur baker, and also a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: shill for Marvel Comics and DC whatever. Man, I'm totally
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a DC guy. That's why he sold out to Marvel,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: because it's the most successful, more successful franchise. Well, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: am still waiting for that check, by the way, for
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: selling out to Marvel. I think I think they're waiting
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: for um Tony Stark design it. Yeah. Well I was
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: fact checking their Pin Particle episodes and I sent them
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a long list of corrections and never heard back. So
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm maybe they don't want to hear from me anymore.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I know the scientific advisor of the at My Movies.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He's a buddy, so I could we could just have
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the whole podcast with him, really, because I got a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: few things to say about the pin particle and the
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: quantum realm. Now he's a quantum physicist. Are you sure
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you're you're off for the for the challenge? Well, he's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: either right or he's wrong. There's no in between, right, No,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: he is, he's both. No, he's right and wrong at
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the same time. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, this is our podcast,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio, where we talk about all the amazing and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: mysterious things are that are out there in the universe
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that may or may not kill you instantly. That's right.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: That Sometimes we talked about the real universe. Sometimes we
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: talk about the Marvel universe, or the DC universe, or
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the Banana universe, whatever is interesting today. Yeah, and so
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: today on the podcast, we are going to talk about
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a very interesting topic. That's right. Today's topic is gamma
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: ray bursts. A bunch of listeners wrote in and asked
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: us to explain gamma ray bursts. What are they? Can
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: they kill us? Can they really turned Bruce Banner into
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the Hulk? What's going on? Please break it down? Wait,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: gamma ray births. I thought we were talking about Billy
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: ray Cires. I thought, isn't that the weird thing from
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: space that we were No, Billy ray Cirus. His career
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: is based on getting irradiated by gamma ray bursts. That's
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the connection. He used to be a mild mannered singer,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and then he got gamma rays and now he's like
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: crazy Billy ray Cirus, all right, and so gamma rays
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: are involved. I totally made that up. That is completely fabricated.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I apologize to Billy ray Cirius and all of his
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: fans for implying that the mere mortal could not have
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: written that music the hokey pokey. So he didn't write
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the hokey pokey anyway. But but gamma rays do play
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a big role in the Marvel universe, right, because back
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: when gamma rays were the crazy thing people were worried about.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: It showed up in comic books all the time. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: that's how Bruce Banner got turned into the Hulk. That's right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And I'm surprised you know this fact about the Marvel universe.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I thought you were a d C guy. Well, you know,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Marvel is not paying me, so I figured i'd do
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: some research. So yeah, so he he gets irradiated by
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: gamma rays and some kind of accident and that's what
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: turns him into the Hulk. And so these are like magic,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: mysterious raise right, that's right. And you know, I gotta
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: wonder about this origin story the Hulk, Like, do you
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: think they're trying to make it seem like it's his fault?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Like crazy scientists just wants to learn about the universe,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't care about the risks to humanity gets irradiated, Like
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: is that like a moral punishment like tisk tisk, You
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be playing with these forces you don't understand. Yeah,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: for sure. Wait are you saying that comic books can
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: have like literary you know, secret mess it is and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: thieves and they're definitely there's definitely literary. I don't know
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: if it's so secret though. I just wonder about like
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: how is interpreted at the time, you know, like our
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: scientists like the leading edge, they're bringing us into the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: atomic age, look at all the wonderful things we're getting
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: out of science, or is it like I'm kind of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: scared of science. Scientists don't seem trustworthy, look at all
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the crazy stuff they're doing. I think it was a
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to be kind of a take on you
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: know Dr jackl and Mr Hyde, you know, the scientists
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: who's trying to understand things and playing maybe with things
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: he doesn't quite fully understand, and then he he gets
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: turned into a superhero and into a multiple near franchise
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: we kind of worked out for the scientists. Yeah, so
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the lesson is everybody should do crazy radiation experiments in
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: their basement, right, you know what? Gamma rays do feature
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a lot in comics from a long time ago, and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: they are a real thing. Gamma rays really are a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: real thing, and gamma ray bursts are a real thing,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and so we thought it'd be fun to do an
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: episode where we explain it. Um. It turns out that
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: they are quite a scientistic puzzle. Um. For a long time,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: physicists have not understood where they came from and what's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: generating them. And should we be worried about them? Yeah?
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Should we worry about them exactly? And are we all
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: going to turn into the Hulk? And how do you
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: feel about that anyway? And should you watch your TV?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I don't, Well, you mean, what happens if you turn
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: into the Hulk and you have all those TV shows recorded?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Do you think the Hulk likes to watch the same
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: TV show as you do? Do you need like separate
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: tvrs for when you're in Hulk mode when you're not
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: in Hulk mode? You know, I don't think the Hulk
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: would get past, you know, the pilot episode of most
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: TV shows. You know, you'd probably smash the TV right away.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: No stars from no unnecessary dialogue. That sounds like how
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: my son reviews in most television shows really pretty much
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: talking too much talking. Where is the action? Exactly exactly?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: They sound pretty cool. Gamma rays, right, gamma rays. I
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: mean it sounds like some sort of new kind of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: ray energy, Yeah, exactly. Does it have a positive connotation
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to you, like, oh my god, look at this amazing
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: source of energy, all the good we can do for
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the world, or does have a negative connotation like is
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: this a weapon that's gonna kill me? I think it
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: just sounds like something out of science fiction, you know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: like if you called it, like, um, puppy dog rays,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, Oh, that's cute, it's safe. What you
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: called it? Like? You know whathero can I can't let
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that go. I can't let it go. What if a
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: scientist is experimenting with puppy dog rays and gets irradiated,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: what kind of superhero does he turn into? The UK puppy,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: The hush puppy goes around licking everybody, snuggling with them.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: The husky, the husky. There you go, husky exactly, the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: green husky, which sounds pretty adorable. But no, yeah, they
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: sound mysterious. They sound revery sci fi, right, like gamma
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Like all you have to just pick a Greek letter
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and marry it to like a scientific physics term and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: you have something sci fi. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now you're right.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: It does stay fit. But the cool thing about it
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: is that it's actually also science e Like, there's are
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting science behind gamma ray bursts. Yeah,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and a big mystery, right, there was a big mystery
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: about them. Yeah. Yeah, So I was wondering what people
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: knew about gamma ray bursts. Were they worried about them?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Do they know what they mean? Do they know what
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a gamma ray is at all? So, as usual, Daniel
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: went out there and asked people on the street, random strangers,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: what they thought a gamma ray was. And these interviews
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: happened partially on the campus of you see, Irvine, and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: also partially at the Irvine Spectrum. So you're gonna get
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a selection of students and random people. What's the Irvine Spectrum?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: What's the Irvine Spectrum? Oh my god, how do you
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: not know about that people like you in in Orange County?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Is it like the range from Dark Based Dark Baby.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I never realized the dramatic irony of Irvine calling anything
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a spectrum because there is no spectrum. You're right, um, No,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: it's a big mall here in Irvine. People actually like
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: fly here from Japan, stay in a hotel and just
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: shop of the mall and then like fly back. It's crazy. Really,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: is it like a fancy or is it like a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: mega Minnesota Malvey America's I'm not the right person to
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: evaluate malls. I spent as a little time in them
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: as possible. I was there because my kids were in
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: spring break and I took them to a movie, And
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: while they were in the movie, I interviewed people about
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Gamma rays. You didn't go into the movie with them, No, No,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I stood outside looking like a weirdo, asking people weird
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: science questions. All right, well, those of you at home,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: think about it for a second. If you if a
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: random physicist approach you outside of a movie theater in
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: a fancy mall and ask you, what is the gammerie,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: what would you say? Good? Step away, ster, You'd say,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't fly here from Japan, just to answer your
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: questions security security. One fascinating thing is that on campus
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a U s I nine nine of people will answer
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: my questions, whereas it the spectrum, only like one in
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: ten are willing to answer questions. Really huh yeah, I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: wonder whether that why that is. I don't know. So
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: here's what people had to say. First question is have
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you ever heard about gamma ray burst? Do you know
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: what that is? No? No, I don't know, but I've
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: heard of it because they definitely has to do something
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: with UV light. It's like a sun ray. I'm assuming
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: it's just I know that it modifies like your DNA
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: or something. I could just blast your DNA and that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: could cause some damage to you, like severely. Yeah. Yeah,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: so that's about it, but not too into a Gamma
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: rebers a kind of game or I don't know. Yes,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: but the star explodes and it will admit a lot
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: of frequency of photons and the country a large exposure
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: identific because it will be high. I will make Gamma
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: explosion something okay, and it's a something to worry about.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think it will be that powerful that makes
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: us worry. It depends on how close the stories Honestly,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you, all right, because I have something
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: with stars or m it's when the sun explodes or something, right,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: something is it's something to worry about, I would seem
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: so yeah, alright, so pretty binary response. Right. Most people
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: didn't know or they knew all about it, Yeah, exactly
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of people have never heard about them, or
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: like it tickled something in their brain maybe, but they
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: were not able to say anything concrete about it. But
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: some folks clearly had done some reading. Yeah, but nobody
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: mentioned the Hulk. No, nobody mentioned the Hulk. Um though
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I've been bulking up recently, so I sort
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: of digging for compliments there. But no, I didn't get me.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Did you paid yourself green as well? Know that? And
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you're not allowed to be green and irvine. It's only
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: beige allowed. Oh, the beige Hulk. That would be the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: irvine version. So that's sound. They sound pretty mysterious. Gamma rays, um,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: so what are they done? And let's break it down
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: for people? What are gamma rays? So in the end
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of gamma ray is not as exotic as it sounds.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: It's just a kind of photon. So remember photons are
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the particle that carry electromagnetic radiation. So all light you know,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: radio waves to visible light, to X rays and all
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the way up to gamma rays, they're all just photons
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: of different frequencies. They're just light wiggling at different wavelengths.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: And we called different parts of the spectrum different things
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: because they were discovered different times, and we treat them
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: differently or the qualitatively different. But in the end, they're
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: all just parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. So wait, did
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: they think before that they were different, like a different
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: kind of ray or particle or was this before they
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: even knew about particles. Yeah, before we even knew about particles,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and we knew about rays, like we had cathode rays
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that in X rays, and we didn't
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: understand for a long time that rays were particles. And
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and later they unified a lot of these different things
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: um and understood them all just be parts of the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: same thing. So they just thought it was like a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: just like a different kind of ray, Yeah, like a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: different kind of beam of something. Yeah, because particles at
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: different energy, photons at different energy act really different. You know,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: photons that are the visible wavelength, you can see them.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: They look green. For example, photons that are high enough
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: energy to penetrate through you and give you a picture
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: of your bones. You know, we call those X rays. Uh,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: they're just photons of a higher energy. But qualitatively they
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: seem different, right, And so before we understood a lot
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: more about how things worked, they we treated them like
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: different things. But that's that's the whole goal of physics, right,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: is to take a bunch of disparate phenomena, things that
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: don't seem related, and discover that they're actually connected. They're
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: all just different parts of the same thing, different sides
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: of the same die. I guess they thought there were
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: different things because they they're made differently, right, Like you
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: make cather raise one way and you make visible light
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: another way, and you make gamma rays different way, and
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: so they thought, hey, these are just different things that
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: come out when you do these other things. Yeah, you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: make them differently, and they behave differently, Like one of
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: them can penetrate through the wall and the other one
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: can't write. And so if you don't have a microscopic
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: understanding of it, it makes sense to categorize them differently. Um,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: so it's pretty cool later when you stitch it all
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: together and realize that these are all just different flavors
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: of the same thing, or different colors quite literally of
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the same thing. And gamma rays specifically are the very
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: very high edge of that spectrum. So anything that's you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: like a million times more energetic than a visible photon,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: you call it a gamma ray. It's not like a
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: hard cut off and not like a little below and like, sorry,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you don't get to be a gamma ray. You know,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: it's sort of a rough thing, um, but there's no
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: upper limit. It's like a it's like a soft definition. Yeah,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that's what point does it? And the photon become trying
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: from a regular photon to ama. Well, you know, I
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: think photons would be insalted be called regular photons. You know,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: they're all special Okay, they all can do something that
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: no other photon can do. That's right. Sorry, they're all bright,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: shining points of light. Yeah. I mean, is there's some
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: colors that you like more than others? Or hey are
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: you you know, are you a colorist? But I've worked
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: with a lot of colorists. Yeah, that's true. You are
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a cartoonists. You should be pro color man um. Yeah,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: so you got radio waves the very very low edge,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and then you got um infrared right just below what
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: we can see. Then you've got the visible spectrum. The
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: radio waves are the bottom. Radio waves are the very
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: longest wavelengths are the lowest energy. Exactly the way you
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: said at the bottom makes it sound judgmental. You know,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: radio ways are awesome, they're super powerful and fantastic and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the reasons we can see black holes and stuff like that. Um,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, radio waves are at the bottom in terms
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of energy. Then you get infrared, then you get the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: visible spectrum. Then you get X rays, right, and then
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you get there just above the ultra violet, you get
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: X rays and then you get gamma rays. So emorys
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: are the hardest, fastest, most energetic kind of photon you
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: can have. But they're all photons, Like, they're all the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: same particle through just kind of vibrating differently or the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: different wavelength or sizes. What's the difference. Yeah, they're all photons.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: They all travel at the speed of light. But the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: difference is the frequency, right, how often they are wiggling. Right. Remember,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: photons are vibrations of the electromagnetic field, right, and they
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: oscillate and the speed at which they oscillate that gives
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: you the frequency. Right, how many times per second do
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: they go up and down? Does they let the magnetic
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: fields go up and down? And they're all moving at
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the speed of light? One radio photons moving at the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: same speed as a gamma ray photon. That's right. If
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: you had a race, and you had a source of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: radio waves and a source of gamma rays, and you
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: shot them at each other, they would have different energies
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: but move at the same speed. They all travel at
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the speed of light, even if they have different energies.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: That feels kind of weird, right, because you're used to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: thinking of energy and speed is closely connected. But this
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: is something different. They have no mass and they travel
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: at the speed of light. Um, they all have the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: same speed, but they have different energies, which means they
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: have different frequencies and different wavelengths. Right. The wavelength and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the frequency are closely connected. Higher the frequency, the shorter
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the wavelength. And uh yeah, let's talk about that a
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: little bit more. But first quick break. Okay, so gamma
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: rays are photons, but they have not just a little bit,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: but a lot more energy than the regular photons that
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: we see every day. That's right, a million times, that's yeah,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: that's a lot. It's a lot. If I shot gamma
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: rays at you, they would deposit a lot more energy
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: in you than normal light, right, And also they can
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: penetrate into you much further, like, well it would, they
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: would deliver a million times more energy. Right, You need
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a million photons to be equal to one gamma ray
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: photon exactly. And so gamma rays are dangerous. They can't
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: turn you into the Hulk probably, but they could give
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you cancer, right, they can shatter your DNA and and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: all sorts of crazy stuff inside your body. You don't
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: want gamma rays, Okay, So they're just regular photons, but
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: they're they're just an upper spectrum of light, that's right,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: they're the high ended spectrum. They are dangerous, much more
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: dangerous than normal light because they can damage your DNA, right,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: they can. They can cause errors in DNA which get copied,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and that's a big source of cancer. So what they
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: are is not very mysterious, right, Like we can make
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: them here on Earth, that's right, Yeah, exactly, we can
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: make gamma rays here on Earth. Um and gamma rays
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: are produced by radioactive elements all the time, right, they're
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: just high energy photons from radioactive decays. So there are
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: gamma rays around one of them just hit you right now. Um. Yes,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: So gamma rays themselves not mysterious. We know all about them.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: We can make them. Um. The question is what out
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: there might be making gamma rays. And that's the fascinating
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: part of the story. That's um the interesting mystery, right
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: is that we know the gamma rays are produced when
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: we do experience with with nuclear weapons. Right, you do,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you blow up a nuclear bomb, You're gonna produce a
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: lot of gamma rays. So when in the Cold War,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: when we had trees with with with the Russians saying
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: no testing or whatever, we sent up a bunch of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: satellites to verify that they weren't testing trying to detect
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: gamma rays from nuclear explosions. And um, I don't know
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: if they found that. They haven't released that. But what
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: they did discover is a bunch of gamma rays not
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: coming from the Soviet Union, not coming from somewhere else
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: on Earth, not coming from the mountain volcano layer of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: some evil villain, but instead coming from deep in space.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: So the mysteries that we're getting bombarded by gamma rays,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: but we don't know, we didn't know really came from. Yeah.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And the really fascinating thing about them is that it's
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: not like a continual source. It's not just like you know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the solar wind where it's just like constantly coming. They
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: come in bursts. And that's really interesting because it you
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: think like something happened, something created this, like some big
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: event occurred and must have produced this burst, right, And
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that's a clue. It's like, what's going on out there
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: seems feels like a message or a clue about something
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: fascinating that's happening somewhere else in the universe. So what
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: do you mean by a burst? Like we we suddenly, um,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: suddenly we're washed by a bunch of gamma rays and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: then it stops. Yeah, and it's exactly like a huge
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: pile them come all at once, you know, it's like
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: a big flash in the sky, like quite literally a
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: big flash in the sky. And then the other fascinating
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: thing is that there are two kinds is like short
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: gamma ray bursts. One that ones that last much less
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: than a second, like less than half a second, and
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: then there's ones that last like twenty or thirty seconds,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: um and it's not like a continuous range. It's not
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: like you know, every gamma ray burst is you know, um,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: some somewhere less than thirty seconds, and there's a smooth distribution.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: There's like two bumps if you made histogram, like a
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: lot of them. A lot of them peak at like
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: zero point three seconds, and a lot of them peak
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: it like the earty seconds. So there's definitely two kinds
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of bursts happening. It kind of sounds like Morse quote exactly,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: some very slow message. That's the exciting thing, Right, you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: don't know what's creating this. You don't know is out
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: there making it, and it could be anything. It could
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: be like some new kind of star you never saw before,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: or it could be some bizarre galactic race sending you
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: messages over decades, right, who knows? Planet Hulk. Yeah, because
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: it's they're not very common. It's not like they're happening
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: all the time, you know. Um, these days are estimated
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: that we about what about one per day hits the Earth.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: So we first to take these with cold warp satellites. Yeah,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: exactly what do people think, Like, did they think was
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a glitch or at first they had no idea they're like,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: what you know. First, I'm sure they thought, are the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Soviets testing and outer space? Maybe they're already at the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Moon or something. Right, Um, we could tell they were
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: coming from out of space. Yeah, we could tell they
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: were coming from outer space. Absolutely, we could tell the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: direction of And you know, they didn't release a lot
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of details because all this in nation comes from like
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: classified satellites. Um, as scientists, we sometimes wonder, like we
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: spend all this money trying to get satellites up in
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: space to answer scientists scientific questions, but the budget for
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: defense is much bigger, and there's a huge network of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: defense satellites listening for stuff and telescopes and all sorts
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and we wonder sometimes like could we use
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that network for science, Like it's so much bigger and
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: more powerful. Of course it's not designed to do science,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: but sometimes it can accidentally do signs, and that's what
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: happened here. So we don't know a lot of details
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: about the technical capabilities of these Department of Defense satellites.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: But after a few years, the d D realized, Okay,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: this is not Russian's this is something weird and interesting
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: from outer space, and so they declassified this data and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: shared it with the scientific community, and that's what they
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: used to discover what they were. Yeah, that was the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: first hint. And then the scientists were like, we have
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: no idea, what is this. Let's study it some more
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and there's a lesson. They're also folks like if the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: government did discover aliens, they would probably turn it over
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to the scientific community to help them figure it out. Right,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: that's basically what happened here, right. Weird enough Hollywood movies, Daniel,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and they always try to cover it up. Yeah, I
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: should be a consultant in some of those Hollywood movies
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: because I have better ideas. So then the scientific community said, well, wow,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: we have no idea what could make this And it
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: was really it was a puzzle for a long time.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: So um, because it's it's uh, they knew it wasn't
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: coming from the sun, right, And these these weren't just
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: like a little small burst. These are really bright bursts, right,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: that's right, They're really bright. And so the first thing
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you do in astronomy when you see a signal you
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: don't know what it is, you try to figure out
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: where it's coming from. Right, you pointed in the sky,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: if you can connect it with something in this in
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the sky, then you think, oh, it's came from there, right,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: pretty simple stuff. So they know it didn't come from
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the Sun. They also didn't seem to be coming from
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: anything in our galaxy. Like we know where we are
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: relative to the galaxy, and so some signals being generated
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: by some like new kind of star or some activity
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: in our galaxy, it's going to be mostly coming from
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the direction of the center of the galaxy or the
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: plane of the galaxy. Right, But these things were coming
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: from every direction, like random directions. So suggest that's not
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: something happening in our galaxy, but something coming to us
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: from other galaxies. Wow. So for something to be that
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: far away and for us to feel it and to
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: get so many of these photons, it's like at the source,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: it must be huge, right, Like it must be like
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a huge bright explosion. Yeah. Absolutely, It's kind of scary
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to think about because these gamma ray bursts they're like
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: as powerful as like a star, you know, when when
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: they hit us, the light from the gamma ray burst
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: is about as much energy as the life from a
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: star in our galaxy. Right. But but if it but
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: if it came from really far away then, I mean
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that must have and it probably sprayed that much in
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: all directions. Right, Well, we actually don't know about that.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: We don't know um that much about how they're made,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: So it could be like um like blaze oars and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: pulsars that they're concentrated in in some directions, like along
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the magnetic polls. But whatever it is, they're super bright
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: at the source because remember, other galaxies are crazy far away,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Like other stars are far away inside our galaxy, but
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: other galaxies are like an order of magnitude further away.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: So to even see those galaxies as hard, you have
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to add up all the hundreds of billions of stars
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in those galaxies just to see them. So to see
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: one object from that galaxy being as bright as a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: star in our galaxy, I mean you have to do
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the math. That's crazy, Um no, you I think, yeah,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: you were telling me earlier. You did the math, and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: it's about one million trillion times brighter than the Sun exactly.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: That's how far away these things are. In order for
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: us to see them as bright as a star in
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: our galaxy, they have to be a million trillion times
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: brighter than the sun. But that's a fun thing to say,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: isn't it a million trillion? Like say axillion? You know,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I don't even bother. I don't even know how many zeros.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: It is a lot like bony swoops of ice cream?
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Would you like a million trillion? Just a whole bunch
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: more than more than a million. It's it's a million
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: times a trillion. It's a million times a trillion times
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the Sun, which is already really bright. You know. That
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: means there's stuff going on in the universe out there
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: all the time. That's a million trillion times brighter than
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the Sun. Yeah, exactly. And so we think they come
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: from other galaxies. But that's a bit of a puzzle, right,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Like why only from other galaxies and not from hours? Um,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: how are they? What are these things that are making
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: these gamma ray bers? How can they be so crazy powerful?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: You mean we should be if they were common in
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: our galaxy, we would be getting them a lot more
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: from the sides of the galaxy, right, like we would notice. Yeah, well,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: either they don't happen very often, in which case it's
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: more likely to see them from other galaxies than from ours, right,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: because there are more other galaxies than ours, right, um,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: or our galaxy is different from other galaxies in some way,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: which is why we don't see them from our galaxy. Well, well,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I was You were telling me also that there's more
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: energy in one second of these gamma ray burs than
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: possibly all the energy that our Sun will give in
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: its entire life. That's right, It's a huge amount of energy.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: This is one of the funnest things about space and
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: about astronomy, right, it's just the crazy numbers, you know, like,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: can you wrap your mind around how much energy is
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: going to be put out by the Sun over billions
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of years. I don't think it's possible for humans to
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: grasp this kind of stuff. I mean, even just the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: time scale billions of years. You know, it's hard for
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: humans that live for such a flicker to understand and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: then integrate all the energy of this million earth ball
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: of fire and then focus that all into one second.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's uh, it burns a hole in my mind.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It turns into the Hulk. Yeah, exactly. If you took
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the Earth right and you collided it with the anti Earth,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: like a antimatter version of the Earth, right, so you
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: converted all of the mass from the Earth into energy.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's crazy powerful. Right. For example,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: if you collided to raisins out of raisin and an
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: anti raisin, it would have as much energy as a
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon. Right, So it's a huge amount of energy
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: is stored in a raisin. Now imagine doing that for
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: the Earth. Right, You'd have to do that for a
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: hundred copies of the Earth to get as much energy
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: as is stored in these gamma ray bursts. What if
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: you collide a hulk in an anti hulk they both
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: get piste off. Yeah, dude's mash it's each each other
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and and anti smash they would you know up as well?
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but you are generating a huge list
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of great ideas for the next Marvel movies. I hope
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you're you're patenting these? Yeah yeah, Mark Ruffo will call me.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, So okay, let's so let's get into what
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: could be generating these game ray bers and are they dangerous?
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: But let's take a quick break. All right, So we're
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: talking about gamma ray berths, which are different than Billy
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: ray shires. We've established that and that they're also just
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: regular photons but super highly energetic, and we're getting these
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: crazy births from out of space. So, Daniel, what could
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: be causing these births? What could be out there making
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: these that we were feeling them so so um energetic
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: here on Earth. Well, the short answer is we don't
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: really know very well. We have now recently some hypotheses
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that might work, but the truth is we don't really
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: know um. And remember, there's two kinds of gamma ray bursus,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the short and the long. Short last less than a second,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and the long last like thirty seconds. And the best
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: guesses these days are that the short ones are due
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to neutron stars that are in a binary system, so
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: they're orbiting each other, and when they do this, they
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: lose energy slowly so that they rotate around each other
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and get closer and closer and closer and eventually collide.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: And this is exciting stuff astronomically, because we recently saw
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: like gravitational waves coming from neutron star collisions and we
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: confirmed that like all of the gold in the universe
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: is probably made in neutron star collisions and all sorts
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of crazy stuff. But the we think it might also
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: produce these gamma ray bursts because it's a huge amount
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: of energy and if you read the details about it,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it's crazy. That means that there's a short birth. Right,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: there's their point three seconds long, and you're saying they generate, Like,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: that's how fast these neutron stars are crashing into each other,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the whole thing that's about point three seconds. No, it's um.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: The bursts itself, they think comes from the crust of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the neutron stars um being crushed by the gravitational pressure
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: from the other neutron stars. Remember, if you're close to
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: a really heavy object, you get these tidal forces because
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: gravity acts differently on things further away and closer up,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: so you basically they get massaged. So two neutron stars
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: are like massaging each other just before they collide, which
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: is making the crust of them um basically shake and crack.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: So you're getting these like earthquakes on the surface of
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: neutron stars just before they collide. That might be generating
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: these crazy fast bursts of gamma rays. I mean, it
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: sounds like science fiction, right. If I pitched that to Marvel,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: they'd be like, that's sorry, that's too far out there,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: But we think that's actually happening. It's really like you're
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: colliding to suns. Right, you're exactly. They get neutron star
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: taking a neutron star and used to smash them together
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and in that point three seconds it explodes, right. Yeah,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But I have to remind you that our previous episode
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: about neutron stars, you complain that neutron stars aren't really stars.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: They should just be called neutron balls because they don't glow. Okay,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: so when you smash the balls together, that's where you
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: get there. And I have to say a lot of
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: our listeners on Twitter agreed with you that they should
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: be called balls. Yeah, exactly, they should be demoted from
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: starts to balls. Yeah. You sound surprised that people on
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Twitter agree with me. I'm surprised that people it's on
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Twitter agree with anybody. Congratulations, you've unified social media with overalls.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. We have located a few of them, like
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: neutron star collisions. We can see in other ways. Right,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: we can see them from their gravitational wave emissions that
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: that's pretty rare, but we can see them from the
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: bright flashes of visible light that they produce. And so
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the Trick has been watching these things for years and
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: basically constructing dedicated satellites that are looking for these things.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: And the key is that they don't last very long.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: So what you want to do is as soon as
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you see one, you've got to point all your good
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: telescopes at it. So the science community become much better
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: at that building dedicated telescopes that look for these things,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and then everybody swivels over to look at it at
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the same time, which gives you a good review of it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: But you only have points three seconds, yeah, exactly. You
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: gotta be fast, um for these really fast ones. And
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: so some of these telescopes are all hooked up, like
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the firm me tell lescope that's orbiting the Earth has
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a gamma ray burst detector and when it's when it
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: finds something and it immediately sends a message. And then
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: telescopes on Earth point in that direction and try to capture, um,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you know, the last bits of the of the burst
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: before it disappears, and also to capture anything else coming
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: from that direction. And that's where we got these clues.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: We started watching the guy more carefully and seeing what
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: else was coming from the direction of the gamma ray bursts,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: and that gave people ideas about what could be happening
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that could be causing them. So you get an idea like, oh,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: maybe it's neutron stars, in which case we should see
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: this and that and the other thing also, And then
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: they started to pick those things up. Okay, so that's
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the short birds, that's where they we think they come from.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: What about the long burst, the thirty second ones? Yeah,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the long bursts come from super duper supernova's right? Um? Yeah,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: super duper supernovas. Is that the technical that like a
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: million trillion supernovas, that's a super duper ice cream sunday.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: You know, the technical term is a hypernova hypernova? Yeah,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: oh man, but I prefer superduper supernova because it sounds
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: better than supernova. So they're not just a supernova. They're
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: like extra special, the extra special, extra big big implosions.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And this is still something that's not very well understood. Um,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: you know, why do some supernovas produce gamma ray bursts
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: and some don't. But they did this modeling and they said, Okay,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: if there is a big supernova, then we expect that
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: after the gamma ray bursts, we should see a bunch
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of X rays because the gas nearby the supernova is
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: going to collide and then emit, and so they did
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: some complicated modeling and made predictions, and in fact they
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: see this afterglow, after the after these long gamma ray bursts,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: they see X rays. So those are slightly lower energy
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: photons in the spectrum that they expect if it was
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: a supernova. So it partially answers the question because it
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: tells us these long gamma ray bursts probably come from
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: these crazy hypernovas. But we have hypernovas in the Milky Way,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: and there's lots of hypernovas and not that many gamma
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: ray birsts. So is it like a special kind of
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: hypernova or only in some cases, or that's the kind
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: of thing. They're still trying to figure out what you're saying,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: we need another term special super duper supernova, all hypernovas
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: are special or he I don't know why you have
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: to be so judgmental today. What's next? Or you can
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: have to call go for like hyper special, extra cool,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: super califragilistic on top super dupernova. Yeah, so it's it's
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: still a puzzle. We don't understand it, right, we don't
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: understand why they made Sometimes um, some people think that
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that if a supernova collapses like in a certain way,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: then it creates this cloud of stuff around it which
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: absorbs the gamma rays and other times the gamma rays
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: poked through and then shoot out everywhere else. But it
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: would make sense that a supernova or killernova or hypernova
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: or whatever could generate this much energy because that's a
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: huge event, right, these massive stars imploding, So that that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: definitely could explain it. I feel like next time you
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: should start a little bit more modestly so that you
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: have room to grow. You known, you discover something big
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: is called like a modest nova or like a just
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: a regular note, you have room to grow. No, I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: like going the way McDonald's went for their drink sizes.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: You know, you start with medium, which is already huge,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and then you escalate. Um. Yeah, exactly, And so that's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a that's probably what's causing it, but we don't really
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: understand it in detail, and it's important that we understand
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: it because we want to understand, like, is one of
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: these things going to happen in the middleky way? How
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: often are these things going to be hitting us? Do
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: we have to worry? So it's important to understand this stuff. Yeah,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: it's weird that there would be things that were not
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: we can't quite explain out there. Yeah, exactly, especially things
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: that could kill us. Right, So it's like, I think
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: it's worth funding politicians out there with the purse strings,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe by one less fighter jet and to
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: pay for another telescope to look at gamma rays. Wait,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: so could these things kill us? Or I think you're
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: telling me earlier that you know, if the right concentration
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: hits us at the right moment, it could really fried
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: and turns into toast. Yeah, exactly. The key is how
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: far away it happens, right, So, gamma ray bursts from
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: other galaxies, we're far enough away that by the time
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: it gets here, you know, those gamma rays are filling
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: out a sphere that's the size of the distance between galaxies.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: So it's a huge number of gamma rays, a lot
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: of energy, but it's spread out over a huge sphere.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: If a gamma ray burst happens nearby, yikes, you know,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a gamma ray burst could basically sterilize an entire solar system.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: If it happened nearby, that would be pretty we would
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: literally be toast. We would what what would the Earth
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: look like? Well, it would be like a flash sunburn,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: wouldn't it Like half the Earth would be okay, but
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: the other half would be toast. Yeah, exactly half the
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Earth would be totally fried and the other half would
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: be okay. Um, yeah, that that's exactly what happened. And
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: it depends again on the intensity. If it's really really intense,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: you know, then it's going to get down to the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: atmosphere and we're all gonna either get fried or get
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: cancer or die pretty quick. Um. If it's slightly less intense, right,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: our atmosphere does protect us. The ozone and the atmosphere
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that protects us from gamma rays. Like
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: focus you out there wondering, we're getting hit once per
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: day from these gamma rays from other galaxies. Why don't
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: we all have cancer already? Well, some of us do
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: have cancer, and some of that is because of gamma rays,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: but mostly the atmosphere protects us. And so if it's
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: not too close, then our atmosphere will protect us. But
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere has a limit, like the gamma rays they
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: use up the ozone. So if you have a really
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: big burst of gamma rays from pretty nearby, not not
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: close enough, that it's going to fry you instantly, but
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: it might use up a lot of the ozone and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere and they will be sort of left unprotected
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: for a while until the ozone builds back up. So, um,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: that could be a bad situation. Well, I think it was.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to think that maybe you were saying that
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: maybe these these could be the limiting factors in in
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: how life how widespread life could be in the universe, right,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Like these are basically kind of a like a check
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: on life in the universe. Like, if we didn't have
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: gamma ray burst, maybe there would be more life out
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: there in the universe. Yeah, it's actually interesting because it
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: goes both ways, right, Like some galaxies, if they have
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of these stars that are going supernova and
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: making these gamma ray bursts, then it's pretty hard to
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: get life started because it's just so much crazy radiation.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, you also need a bit of radiation, right, Remember,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: like having a particle fly through and change your DNA
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: is a key element to evolution. It allows us to
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: explore the evolutionary landscape by adding random mutations. So if
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: you had zero radiation, then you wouldn't then evolution wouldn't
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: be as effective. Really, Yeah, you need some amount of
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: revolution depends on gamma ray bursts. Well, you know, how
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: does evolution work, right? You need your children to be
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: slightly different from you. Right, they're not just a combination
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: of units that happened randomly through biological processes like it.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Really you're saying really needs radiation from out of space. Well,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: you know there's two main sources there. This transcription errors,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: like when the DNA gets copied there there are mistakes
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: that are made. But also, yeah, radiation plays a role
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: as well, and so, um, you have a slower rate
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of mutation if you didn't have gamma rays, if you
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: didn't have radiation, and so you could explore different evolutionary paths. Um,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: not as quickly if you didn't have radiation. So you
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: want just the right amount of radiation, right. So I
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: think what you're saying is a physicist here is making
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: a statement that basically we're we're all hulk. That kind
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of what you're exactly like every human being is kind
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of like the Hulk. It's not about being the Hulk,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: it's about the radiation you absorbed along the way. Yeah. Um,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: but so far, the closest gamma ray burst we've ever
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: seen is like a hundred and thirty million light years away,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: which is still really really far away, which is in
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: another galaxy. Right, Yeah, that's in another galaxy, and if
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: one happened in our galaxy, that would be tough. But
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: we think, I mean, the current estimacies are all really
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: really rough. But is that there's like one gamma ray
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: burst per galaxy per thousand years. I remember, there's a
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: lot of stars in the galaxy, right, hundreds of billions
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of stars, so for one of them to give a
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: gama ray burst every thousand years means it's a pretty
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: rare event. And that makes sense. So the reason we
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: haven't seen any from our Milky Way is probably just
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that hasn't happened yet. So wait, if we get an
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: extra special super duper supernova in the Milky Way, that's it, right,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: we're toast. Well, it depends. The Milky Way is a
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: big place, so if it happens in the other side
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: of the Milky Way, it's a big difference than if
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: it happens like next door. Um. Also, we think that
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: these gamma ray bursts are directional, that they happened, that
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: they fly out in jets from the supernova, just like
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: from the pulsars and quasars we talked about. So it
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: might not even be aimed at us. It could happen
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: next door and we could be fine, or it could
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: fry us. Like it it's abused these gamma rays in
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: one direction and we might get lucky. Exactly. We're basically
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: playing cosmic Russian roulette all the time. So we brought
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: it back to Russias crazy. We brought crazy Russian led exactly. So, Um,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: so we don't really know the details of how gamma
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: ray birsts are formed that we have a lot better
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: understand than we did a few decades ago. Um, we
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: don't know how often they happened. We just sort of
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: hoping that one doesn't happen. But to me, the crazy
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: thing is that gamma ray bursts travel at the speed
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of light, and that is an important consequence. Yeah, because
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't see it coming right Exactly. You can't possibly
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: have any warning, right unless you can predict that a
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: star is going to go super new but and give
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: off a gamma ray burst. You're not gonna watch every
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: single star and try to predict which one. Um, there's
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: no advanced notice right. The first thing you hear about
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: a gamer ray burst is when it's washing over you
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and frying your DNA, So there could be one on
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: its way right now. How does that make you feel?
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Makes me feel a little crazy toasty? Well, I think
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: you know, it seems like, um, there are many surprises
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: out there in the universe, and we should be ready
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: for them, and we should be excited for them, and
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: we should appreciate the being here in the life we
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: have because you know, it could really literally be snuffed
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: out in a second at any time. That's true. And
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you know, most of these cosmic mysteries just help us
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: understand what a beautiful and crazy place this universe is.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Very few of them are actually going to kill us,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: and so don't worry about it too much, folks. And
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do anyway, So don't worry about it,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: that's right. Just relax, lower your heart rate, the sun
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: is coming down. Just be at peace, like Bruce Bank.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: There you go, exactly. We're all Bruce Banner, see you
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: next time. If you still have a question after listening
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one Word, or
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: the Universe is a production I Heart Radio. For more
• 44:07
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• 44:10
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