Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Classic episode - When will the sun explode?

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Classic episode - When will the sun explode? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:04
Speaker 1: All the stars in the universe are constantly exploding nuclear bombs.
0:09
Speaker 2: That's a little frightening.
0:12
Speaker 1: Well, go out there and warm your toes on the
0:14
Speaker 1: you know, the thermonuclear fire of a huge bomb that's
0:18
Speaker 1: constantly exploding. That sounds cozy.
0:20
Speaker 2: It's like a contain and continual explosion.
0:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to see a nuclear bomb go off,
0:26
Speaker 1: Go outside and look at the sun. I mean, not directly.
0:28
Speaker 2: Don't hurt yourself. You just made this advice. I shall
0:33
Speaker 2: attract that previod advice. Yeah, we'll ask them to edit
0:36
Speaker 2: it up. Hello, I'm Jorhek and I'm Daniel, and this
0:50
Speaker 2: is our show. Daniel and Jorge explain the universe.
0:53
Speaker 1: Explain the entire universe, especially all the stars inside of it. Now,
0:59
Speaker 1: I notice, Jorge, every time you introduce your our show,
1:02
Speaker 1: you're about to say the universe, and then you have
1:06
Speaker 1: to correct yourself and you're like, no.
1:07
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, we're still bitter about that. You know.
1:12
Speaker 1: My real job, you know, is as a particle to exists.
1:14
Speaker 1: And I have five thousand collaborators. And when we write
1:17
Speaker 1: a paper, we put everybody's name on the paper. And
1:20
Speaker 1: the policy has put everybody's name alphabetical by last name,
1:24
Speaker 1: regardless of who contributed more or less or whatever. Somebody
1:28
Speaker 1: decided they didn't want to have the argument. Let's just
1:30
Speaker 1: make it alphabetical.
1:31
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
1:32
Speaker 1: And what that means is that there's some grad student
1:34
Speaker 1: who's first author on like every paper.
1:36
Speaker 2: Wow, it's like him or her at all.
1:39
Speaker 1: And it's sort of make some famous and also sort
1:41
Speaker 1: of infamous because people grumble about it. No pressure, no pressure.
1:46
Speaker 1: That's right in the Glaring Spotlight. But you know, today's
1:50
Speaker 1: episode actually relates to that, to Glaring Spotlights, because today
1:54
Speaker 1: we're talking about something very close to home. We're talking
1:57
Speaker 1: about how long the sun is going to live?
2:04
Speaker 2: How long do we have before it burns out or
2:07
Speaker 2: explodes or snuffs out?
2:09
Speaker 1: How many more projects can Daniel and Jorge or Jorge
2:12
Speaker 1: and Daniel do arguing about order until life on Earth
2:16
Speaker 1: is extinguished? Yeah, because the star is gone.
2:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you have time to clean out your garage
2:21
Speaker 2: or do that thing you've always wanted to do? Right
2:24
Speaker 2: that sequel to We Have No Idea, our book now
2:27
Speaker 2: available from Penguin Random Pass.
2:29
Speaker 1: That's right. So if you're currently procrastinating doing something you
2:33
Speaker 1: should do, then you're actually going to learn something today
2:35
Speaker 1: about how much time you have left to procrastinate?
2:38
Speaker 2: Right? Yep? So yeah, let's jump in for we as
2:42
Speaker 2: usual asked people on the street how long they thought
2:46
Speaker 2: that the sun would keep burning, And so the question
2:49
Speaker 2: is how long do you think the sun will keep burning?
2:52
Speaker 1: Play along at home, think of your answer, and then
2:54
Speaker 1: listen to these random on the street interviews. How long
2:58
Speaker 1: do you think our sun is going to continue to
3:00
Speaker 1: burn for?
3:01
Speaker 2: How long?
3:02
Speaker 1: I think a few billion years? I don't know millions, No,
3:07
Speaker 1: not millions, sorry.
3:09
Speaker 2: Probably a long time. I hope a long time.
3:11
Speaker 1: So like, doesn't this affect your plans? Come on, you
3:14
Speaker 1: should know this?
3:16
Speaker 2: All right? Well, I guess the first thing is that
3:18
Speaker 2: nobody seemed really concerned.
3:21
Speaker 1: That's right. Nobody's rushing home to finish up something before
3:25
Speaker 1: the sun snuffs out or explodes.
3:26
Speaker 2: Nobody's like, what the sun's gonna stop burning? At some point,
3:29
Speaker 2: everyone seemed to know about the idea that the sun
3:32
Speaker 2: won't shine forever.
3:34
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good point. I never even considered that
3:36
Speaker 1: that I would be the one informing people by asking
3:39
Speaker 1: the question that the sun was not gonna last forever.
3:42
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what what are you saying? No, everybody
3:47
Speaker 1: seems to know that already, but maybe nobody seemed concerned
3:50
Speaker 1: because everybody's answers were very far off in the future.
3:53
Speaker 1: Nobody said, I don't know ten years or one hundred years.
3:56
Speaker 1: Everybody's like random big number. Everybody feels like it's just
3:59
Speaker 1: so off off in the future, it doesn't matter.
4:03
Speaker 2: Well, let's maybe take a step back, like how the
4:06
Speaker 2: stars to inform, right, Like I imagine out in space,
4:08
Speaker 2: there's stuff like dust and little bits of rock, and
4:13
Speaker 2: at some point the gravity pulls them together, like there's
4:16
Speaker 2: some nearby each other until they clump together, and first
4:18
Speaker 2: it's a giant rock, and then it's an even bigger rock,
4:21
Speaker 2: and then it just gets more massive, and at some
4:23
Speaker 2: point what happens.
4:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's not mostly rock. Stars are mostly made
4:27
Speaker 1: out of gas, mostly out of hydrogen. So in the
4:30
Speaker 1: Big Bang, most of the stuff that was formed after
4:33
Speaker 1: the Big Bang was hydrogen, a little bit helium and
4:35
Speaker 1: a few heavier elements, but mostly you just have huge
4:38
Speaker 1: clouds of gas formed in the early universe, Okay, and
4:41
Speaker 1: then gravity takes over and gravity slowly pulls those things together,
4:45
Speaker 1: as you said, and accumulates these gas clouds and then
4:49
Speaker 1: those gas clouds get pulled together by gravity, and they
4:52
Speaker 1: get squeezed together more and more until it gets denser
4:55
Speaker 1: and denser, and eventually it gets squeezed together by gravity
4:59
Speaker 1: enough that it starts to burn. And by burn, I
5:01
Speaker 1: mean fuse. I mean you have like nuclear bombs going
5:03
Speaker 1: off because of the pressure inside these big clumps of hydrogen.
5:07
Speaker 2: Right, but what do you mean they get dence and
5:08
Speaker 2: denswer like just more and more hydrogen atoms just kind
5:12
Speaker 2: of bunch up because they're all attracted to each other
5:14
Speaker 2: by gravity.
5:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of about like a runaway process. I mean,
5:17
Speaker 1: if you had a perfectly smooth universe filled with hydrogen atoms,
5:21
Speaker 1: then no one would want to go anywhere because you'd
5:23
Speaker 1: be tugged in every direction at the same strength.
5:25
Speaker 2: Right, everybody would be attracted to everybody else equally.
5:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like a good party, right, universe party,
5:30
Speaker 1: we're all attracted to each other.
5:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, created it's just a big by swinger party.
5:37
Speaker 1: That's right. Hey, you know the analogy works because we're
5:39
Speaker 1: going to talk about fusion.
5:40
Speaker 2: And fission, so and thinks are going to get hot.
5:43
Speaker 1: You don't want your relationship to go super heova later
5:46
Speaker 1: on in relationship advice from an astrophysicist.
5:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they were just knocking out that to that advice,
5:53
Speaker 2: children go out and look at the sun. People have
5:55
Speaker 2: explosive relationships. This is our last episode by guys.
6:01
Speaker 1: Right, So, but there were little areas in the universe
6:04
Speaker 1: early on that were a little denser than others, and
6:06
Speaker 1: that's just because of quantum fluctuations. And then those areas
6:10
Speaker 1: were heavier because there's a little bit more stuff. Heavier,
6:13
Speaker 1: you have more gravitational pull than anywhere else. So then
6:15
Speaker 1: you start to attract more stuff, and the heavier you get,
6:18
Speaker 1: the denser region becomes, the more gravity it has, the
6:22
Speaker 1: stronger its ability to pull more stuff in, and then
6:24
Speaker 1: it gets heavier and heavier, and it's a runaway process
6:27
Speaker 1: where pretty soon it's accumulating stuff faster and faster.
6:29
Speaker 2: So you can imagine like at some point a giant
6:31
Speaker 2: ball of really compressed gas, right, Like maybe at the
6:36
Speaker 2: edges it's not as compressed, but in the middle, it's
6:38
Speaker 2: just everything's trying to push it together, right, But it
6:41
Speaker 2: doesn't immediately fuse because hydrogen atoms are also repelling each
6:45
Speaker 2: other at the same time, right, Like they're attracted by gravity,
6:48
Speaker 2: but they're repelling each other by other forces.
6:50
Speaker 1: That's right. Fusion is not easy to pull off. I
6:52
Speaker 1: mean we're trying to do it in experiments all the
6:53
Speaker 1: time here on Earth.
6:55
Speaker 2: Like it's like trying to squeeze two mantic together that
6:57
Speaker 2: are on the same polarity, right.
6:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, trying to make two kids share one ice cream
7:01
Speaker 1: or something.
7:02
Speaker 2: That's not a good idea. But the repelling they're being
7:07
Speaker 2: attracted by gravity, repelling by electronic forces. But at some point,
7:11
Speaker 2: if you get them close enough, then another force kicks in, right,
7:14
Speaker 2: And that's what kind of fuses them together. Is that true?
7:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's when you access the strong nuclear force,
7:19
Speaker 1: and that fuses them together, and the strong nuclear force
7:23
Speaker 1: very strong then therefore its name. And when you do that,
7:26
Speaker 1: you release a huge amount of energy.
7:28
Speaker 2: And so that's what all of the energy is coming from,
7:30
Speaker 2: is just these hydrogen atoms fusing together.
7:33
Speaker 1: That's right. Almost all the light from all the stars
7:35
Speaker 1: in the universe is from hydrogen fusing together and creating
7:39
Speaker 1: all that energy and shooting it out into space.
7:42
Speaker 2: But is it like a kind of like a chain reaction,
7:44
Speaker 2: like you know, like a nuclear bomb, Like one explosion
7:47
Speaker 2: causes the next explosion. Is that what's happening inside a
7:50
Speaker 2: star or is it just just the pressure just kind
7:53
Speaker 2: of makes it like popcorn, It just makes all these
7:55
Speaker 2: kernels pop up up.
7:57
Speaker 1: So on Earth, it's a chain reaction you're thinking of
7:59
Speaker 1: like fission. Fission is the opposite process. And you break
8:03
Speaker 1: a nucleus up and it sprays out and stuff. I'm here.
8:05
Speaker 1: You just have a huge blob of hydrogen in the
8:08
Speaker 1: core and it's being squeezed by the outside and everything
8:11
Speaker 1: around it, and it gets really hot. And you know
8:13
Speaker 1: that's true of every object, like even the Earth. What's
8:16
Speaker 1: at the center of the Earth. It's not cold at
8:18
Speaker 1: the center of the Earth. It's hot, and it's hot
8:20
Speaker 1: for lots of reasons, but one major reason is that
8:22
Speaker 1: it's being squeezed by gravity. All that rock in the
8:25
Speaker 1: center of the Earth is being squeezed by all the
8:27
Speaker 1: rock on the outside, and it gets turned into lava. Right.
8:30
Speaker 1: Why is lava hot Because it's been squeezed by gravity.
8:33
Speaker 1: Gravity is pretty powerful if you give it enough time
8:35
Speaker 1: and stuff.
8:37
Speaker 2: So our cloud of hydrogen it just kind of suddenly ignites,
8:40
Speaker 2: or does it kind of like burns begins to burn slowly,
8:44
Speaker 2: like does the stargo like fish or is it? Is
8:46
Speaker 2: it kind of a long process?
8:48
Speaker 1: No? I think it It ignites pretty quickly once it
8:50
Speaker 1: gets going, And what happens depends on how big it is.
8:55
Speaker 1: So if you have a huge blob of gas, right
8:57
Speaker 1: and it forms an enormous ball of hydrogen, then it
9:03
Speaker 1: can burn really brightly and not for very long. If
9:05
Speaker 1: it's smaller, then it doesn't get to be big enough
9:08
Speaker 1: to burn like you know, like the Earth or Jupiter
9:10
Speaker 1: or something. Jupiter is like a star that never got
9:13
Speaker 1: started because it just wasn't big enough for the core
9:16
Speaker 1: to start burning.
9:17
Speaker 2: Oh, you need more stuff to basically weigh down and
9:21
Speaker 2: squeeze the middle.
9:22
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, the core of Jupiter is not being
9:24
Speaker 1: squeezed enough. I mean, it's massive gravitational pressure. You would
9:28
Speaker 1: not like it. It. Do not recommend it as a
9:30
Speaker 1: destination for your vacation, right, But yeah, that's right. There
9:35
Speaker 1: are some common sense warnings on this show. But it's
9:40
Speaker 1: not hot enough to start nuclear fusion.
9:44
Speaker 2: Okay, so then things say squeeze and you got a
9:47
Speaker 2: sun it Suddenly you have this big ball of gas
9:50
Speaker 2: that's burning in the middle.
9:51
Speaker 1: That's right, and it's burning through nuclear fusion. It's turning
9:53
Speaker 1: hydrogen into helium. Okay, cool, and I want to talk
9:56
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that, but first a quick break.
10:07
Speaker 2: That's how stars are born, not just in Hollywood. And
10:12
Speaker 2: and then it just keeps burning for a long time, right,
10:14
Speaker 2: until all the hydrogen turns into helium.
10:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. You have fuel and you burn
10:19
Speaker 1: that fuel, and when you've done burning that fuel, you're done.
10:23
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is that the output of fusion
10:26
Speaker 1: is helium, right, And so what happens is that you
10:29
Speaker 1: accumulate helium at the core of these stars, and then
10:32
Speaker 1: if it keeps going, if it gets big enough, then
10:35
Speaker 1: it can start to fuse helium.
10:37
Speaker 2: Oh and then that it's like it goes into secondary
10:41
Speaker 2: fuel burning mode.
10:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's burning helium because you can fuse helium
10:45
Speaker 1: into the element with number four, which I embarrassed and
10:48
Speaker 1: can't even remember. Is that?
10:50
Speaker 2: Okay, So we're talking about what happens to a star
10:53
Speaker 2: and at some point it makes it turns all the
10:55
Speaker 2: hydrogen into helium and eventually into iron, and that's kind
10:59
Speaker 2: of when that's kind of when a supernova happens, right.
11:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it doesn't necessarily happen to have to be
11:04
Speaker 1: a supernova depends on the mass of the star. So
11:08
Speaker 1: let's talk just to be specific about a star like hours,
11:11
Speaker 1: you know, the sunk and any object that's like about
11:14
Speaker 1: up to eight times the mass of the Sun is
11:16
Speaker 1: going to have an experience like our sun. And so
11:18
Speaker 1: what happens is it starts to burn hydrogen like we said,
11:21
Speaker 1: and then the hydrogen gets the core gets burned up
11:23
Speaker 1: and you get helium, and then you start to burn
11:25
Speaker 1: the hydrogen on the shell, and then the star starts
11:28
Speaker 1: to grow. It gets bigger, like physically larger in space.
11:32
Speaker 1: And the reason is that you're now burning the hydrogen
11:34
Speaker 1: on the outside and that the burning there is pushing
11:37
Speaker 1: stuff out. It's like the radiation pressure is making it grow.
11:41
Speaker 1: So the Sun will keep burning and then it'll expand
11:45
Speaker 1: and it'll cool, so it'll start to get larger and
11:48
Speaker 1: it'll turn into a red giant so giant meaning it
11:51
Speaker 1: gets bigger and red because it changes color.
11:54
Speaker 2: Because the color is related to the temperature, right, like,
11:56
Speaker 2: the cooler it is the red Like it's kind of counterintuitive,
12:00
Speaker 2: the colder it is the star is the redder it is.
12:02
Speaker 2: But then the hotter it is the bluer it looks.
12:04
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, and that's related to the wavelength of those lights.
12:08
Speaker 1: That light. Yeah.
12:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like if you could you press fast forward on
12:12
Speaker 2: life on Earth, you would see the Sun is this
12:14
Speaker 2: yellow dot. But eventually you'll see it grow and grow
12:17
Speaker 2: redder and then grow and eventually we'll take over ourn
12:20
Speaker 2: entire sky and at some point it'll just snuff us out.
12:24
Speaker 1: That's right. Eventually we will be in the sun. Earth
12:28
Speaker 1: will just get like eaten up by the Sun. Yeah exactly.
12:32
Speaker 1: But that's again billions of years in the future. It's
12:34
Speaker 1: like three billion years in.
12:35
Speaker 2: The future, three billion years. Yeah.
12:37
Speaker 1: And so before but before we even get snuffed up,
12:40
Speaker 1: you know, it'll get pretty hot and we wouldn't want
12:42
Speaker 1: to be around anyway.
12:43
Speaker 2: Oh I see.
12:44
Speaker 1: So first the ocean's boil and then we get snuffed up.
12:47
Speaker 1: Yeah wow. And then that's that's like the last phase
12:50
Speaker 1: before the Sun dies and then it's mostly used up
12:53
Speaker 1: its fuel and you know, it's like a fire. You
12:55
Speaker 1: use up the fuel and then the fire goes out.
12:57
Speaker 2: So everything turned to iron.
12:59
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not every star that can make iron, right,
13:02
Speaker 1: it depends on the size of it. Mostly iron is
13:03
Speaker 1: made in much bigger stars. So our star is not
13:06
Speaker 1: big enough to make iron, so we'll probably make helium
13:08
Speaker 1: and a little bit of lithium and a few other things.
13:11
Speaker 2: Oh I see. So some stars are bigger, so they
13:13
Speaker 2: have more pressure so they can cook iron, but ours
13:17
Speaker 2: cannot exactly.
13:18
Speaker 1: Ours is not by far one of the biggest stars
13:20
Speaker 1: in the universe. It's relatively modest. Yeah, okay, And then
13:25
Speaker 1: when it burns off all the hydrogen sort of on
13:27
Speaker 1: the outside, then it'll go out, and what we'll be
13:30
Speaker 1: left with is something they call a white dwarf, which
13:32
Speaker 1: is basically just meaning a big cool blob, something that's
13:36
Speaker 1: not burning anymore of what it's just sort of the
13:39
Speaker 1: leftover stuff. You know, you have enough elements there to
13:42
Speaker 1: sit there there. It's hot and so it's sort of glowing,
13:45
Speaker 1: but it's not actually burning anymore. And you'll have some
13:47
Speaker 1: helium and maybe some lithium and just be like a
13:50
Speaker 1: dense blob, but it won't be bright the same way,
13:53
Speaker 1: and it'll cool and eventually become a black dwarf, which
13:56
Speaker 1: means basically a big lump of.
13:58
Speaker 2: Rock, like just a giant meat right.
14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, though mostly made of like frozen.
14:02
Speaker 2: Helium, frozen helium for real.
14:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because mostly what mostly what the Sun is
14:07
Speaker 1: is burning hydrogen into helium. And again, some of that
14:09
Speaker 1: helium will get burned into heavier stuff, but most of
14:11
Speaker 1: it won't, I think.
14:12
Speaker 2: And so this is going to be like a giant
14:14
Speaker 2: ice ball the size of what.
14:16
Speaker 1: Oh, you'll be small, You'll be smaller than the current Sun.
14:19
Speaker 1: Oh I see, it's just the core. Yeah, just the
14:21
Speaker 1: core is left over because all the other stuff is
14:23
Speaker 1: blown out when it turns into a red giant. But yeah,
14:26
Speaker 1: some significant fraction of the mass of the Sun is
14:28
Speaker 1: going to end up left over as a white dwarf
14:30
Speaker 1: and then a black dwarf. Yeah, exactly. And you know
14:33
Speaker 1: that has a future. It could be that that then
14:36
Speaker 1: gets clustered together later on and becomes part of a
14:39
Speaker 1: new star. You know, a lot of the stuff that's
14:42
Speaker 1: in our star and in the Earth used to be
14:45
Speaker 1: inside of a star. And so you know, everything that
14:47
Speaker 1: we're that we're made out of is a remnant from
14:50
Speaker 1: a star that died. So if it wasn't for stars
14:53
Speaker 1: and these fusion furnaces making the heavier elements, then there
14:57
Speaker 1: wouldn't be anything else to make stuff out of. It
14:59
Speaker 1: would all just be hid helium. And so it's gravity
15:02
Speaker 1: squeezing this stuff together over billions of years that makes
15:05
Speaker 1: the heavier elements, and mostly in the bigger stars that
15:07
Speaker 1: you get up to like iron. You know, the bigger
15:09
Speaker 1: stars can do more exciting stuff. Like our sun is
15:11
Speaker 1: not going to go supernova, it's just not big enough.
15:13
Speaker 1: But a bigger star could have enough mass that it
15:16
Speaker 1: collapses and it pushes it together and it can create
15:18
Speaker 1: a supernova and then two weird things, either a black
15:22
Speaker 1: hole or a neutron star, which I think is one
15:24
Speaker 1: of the weirdest things in the universe. So it's more
15:27
Speaker 1: of an implosion than an explosion. Actually yeah, yeah, yeah,
15:31
Speaker 1: it's pretty crazy stuff.
15:32
Speaker 2: So you're saying that's when the heavier elements get mate, right.
15:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, in some of these supernovas, because you have heavy
15:38
Speaker 1: stuff flying around and it collides and it forms even
15:43
Speaker 1: heavier stuff, yeah right. And then but the heaviest stuff,
15:46
Speaker 1: like we were saying earlier, gold and all that stuff
15:48
Speaker 1: gets formed when two of those remnants collide, Like say
15:51
Speaker 1: you have one really massive star lives its whole life,
15:54
Speaker 1: has a great time, blows up, turns into a neutron star,
15:58
Speaker 1: and another one does the same thing, and then the
16:00
Speaker 1: two neutron stars are orbiting each other, and eventually, because
16:03
Speaker 1: they're so massive, they pull each other together and they
16:05
Speaker 1: collapse and they collide into each other, and it's in
16:08
Speaker 1: that collision that you can form the really heaviest stuff.
16:11
Speaker 1: So all the super heavy metals in the universe are
16:14
Speaker 1: made when neutron stars die.
16:16
Speaker 2: Wow, and that's why they're so rare, so that you
16:18
Speaker 2: need these crazy events just to make gold and titanium
16:22
Speaker 2: and all these elements.
16:23
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that's right.
16:25
Speaker 2: But it's crazy that we have that stuff on Earth.
16:27
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I.
16:28
Speaker 1: Know, we have it here on Earth, and it's like
16:29
Speaker 1: the leftovers these incredible cosmic events that happened billions of
16:33
Speaker 1: years ago and then got sprayed out into the universe
16:37
Speaker 1: with enough time for them to like have a whole
16:39
Speaker 1: new life. You know. I love that everything in the
16:41
Speaker 1: universe is getting recycled, right, Like our solar system didn't
16:44
Speaker 1: even start forming until you know, five billion years ago,
16:48
Speaker 1: which is nine billion years into the party. Right.
16:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about that, but first let's take a
16:54
Speaker 2: quick break.
17:03
Speaker 1: Right now. Is when the sun is like looking over
17:04
Speaker 1: that hot, sexy sun in the next solar system.
17:07
Speaker 2: And looking to buy a corvette.
17:08
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's wondering, like do I look like a big,
17:11
Speaker 1: fat red giant and tell me I still look small,
17:14
Speaker 1: like a nice little yellow dwarf.
17:17
Speaker 2: Tell me I'm so hot.
17:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And one thing that I think is really
17:20
Speaker 1: interesting is that the smaller star is the longer it lives.
17:24
Speaker 1: The bigger star is the shorter it lives. And the
17:26
Speaker 1: first stars in the universe were massive, they were incredible,
17:30
Speaker 1: and so they didn't live for very long. Like those
17:32
Speaker 1: first stars we talked about, none of those are around anymore.
17:35
Speaker 1: None of the stars that are in the universe now
17:37
Speaker 1: are first generation stars. They're all second, third, fourth generation,
17:41
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff.
17:42
Speaker 2: All the stars were seeing the night sky in like
17:44
Speaker 2: the pictures of galaxies.
17:45
Speaker 1: They're all None of those are among the first stars
17:49
Speaker 1: that were formed about one hundred million years that's the
17:51
Speaker 1: Big Bang. Yes, it's only recently people scientists even saw
17:55
Speaker 1: the light from those first stars. It's really hard to see.
17:58
Speaker 1: You have to use the infrared because the universe was
18:00
Speaker 1: so dense back then. But yeah, our star is made
18:02
Speaker 1: out of leftover bits from other stars earlier that burned
18:05
Speaker 1: and exploded.
18:07
Speaker 2: Wow. And recombined, right, and eventually you're saying, our big
18:11
Speaker 2: ice ball of the sun is going to recombine with
18:14
Speaker 2: something else maybe and form.
18:16
Speaker 1: But you can't do this forever, you know, Like there's
18:19
Speaker 1: a limited amount of hydrogen, and you need hydrogen to
18:23
Speaker 1: have these reactions to start. Eventually things get yeah, things
18:26
Speaker 1: get denser and denser, and you run out of fuel.
18:29
Speaker 1: So like think about the Milky Way galaxy. It's got
18:32
Speaker 1: enormous blobs of hydrogen gas. Still it's still making stars,
18:36
Speaker 1: but eventually it's going to run out, and then it's
18:39
Speaker 1: going to stop making stars. And those stars are going
18:41
Speaker 1: to burn for a while, but they're not going to
18:42
Speaker 1: burn forever.
18:43
Speaker 2: So eventually everything's going to be like iron and heavier.
18:47
Speaker 1: Metals, yeah, yeah, and then things will get dark.
18:50
Speaker 2: Things are going to get rocky.
18:51
Speaker 1: Things are going to get rocky, that's right. But some
18:54
Speaker 1: of these stars, some of these stars are going to
18:55
Speaker 1: burn a long time. Like there are stars that have
18:57
Speaker 1: lifetimes of trillions of years.
18:59
Speaker 2: But that's not up us. So in five billion years,
19:01
Speaker 2: we got to figure something out.
19:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to figure out how to find get
19:05
Speaker 1: to another star. And we got less than you know,
19:08
Speaker 1: three ish billion years to figure that out.
19:10
Speaker 2: Oh man, so we have to jump to another start
19:15
Speaker 2: that that is burning and or just learn to live
19:19
Speaker 2: in dark kind of right.
19:22
Speaker 1: Well, you know, fusion is not impossible. You know, we
19:24
Speaker 1: can copy the energy source of the stars if if
19:28
Speaker 1: we we don't necessarily sarily need a star, right, we
19:31
Speaker 1: could power ourselves through our own controlled fusion if we
19:34
Speaker 1: if we could figure that out.
19:35
Speaker 2: But do we have enough hydrogen or water to last?
19:38
Speaker 2: Does that long? Yeah? Yeah?
19:41
Speaker 1: I mean the Sun is massively inefficient, right, Like most
19:44
Speaker 1: of the energy of the Sun gets thrown off into
19:45
Speaker 1: space and then and not even use. So we wouldn't
19:48
Speaker 1: need anything nearly as big as the Sun to power
19:50
Speaker 1: human civilization.
19:51
Speaker 2: So we could just go out there grab some of
19:53
Speaker 2: that hydrogen floating around, or go to Jupiter maybe grab
19:56
Speaker 2: all that hydrogen create our little mini sun here.
19:59
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, oh wow. Well, you know, if you're living
20:01
Speaker 1: out in space, you don't have to worry about pollution, like,
20:03
Speaker 1: so you can just do fission, which is much easier,
20:05
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of that stuff floating around, and you know,
20:08
Speaker 1: you get radioactive waste to just jettison. You're already in space,
20:11
Speaker 1: so who cares, right, Interesting people used to think the
20:13
Speaker 1: ocean was too big and you could just pollute it
20:15
Speaker 1: forever without consequences. We know that's not true, but it
20:18
Speaker 1: is true of the universe.
20:20
Speaker 2: You say that now you're never going to fill.
20:21
Speaker 1: The universe with garbage. Yeah, I get you. Think in
20:23
Speaker 1: a billion years, people are gonna say, I can't believe
20:25
Speaker 1: they filled space with junk. Man, you're responsible.
20:28
Speaker 2: You're gonna be like, don't throw don't throw plastic bags
20:31
Speaker 2: out into space because the space dolphins are gonna.
20:34
Speaker 1: It kills all those cute space animals.
20:37
Speaker 2: Space dolphins, space dolphins joking on your cosmic ways?
20:42
Speaker 1: Why is that funny, Hardy, I don't think that's funny
20:44
Speaker 1: at all, and I think you're a jerk for laughing.
20:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sorry, Cool. Well, that's that's kind of interesting, that
20:52
Speaker 2: the idea that maybe we will never leave our solar system.
20:55
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll just figure out how to make our own
20:57
Speaker 2: little mini sons to keep us warm.
20:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:00
Speaker 2: Absolutely, wow, I think we could do that. Right until then,
21:03
Speaker 2: I guess we're sunscreen.
21:06
Speaker 1: That's right, And don't worry too much about the sun
21:08
Speaker 1: burning out. We have bigger problems to figure out than
21:11
Speaker 1: whether the sun is going to explode. You've got lots
21:14
Speaker 1: of time to work on that problem. Do you have
21:18
Speaker 1: a question you wish we would cover, Send it to us.
21:21
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
21:23
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge One Word,
21:28
Speaker 1: or email us to feedback at Danielandjorge dot com