Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / What if the asteroid hadn't killed the dinosaurs?

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What if the asteroid hadn't killed the dinosaurs? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Jorge, what did you want for your birthday when
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: you were nine? I'm pretty sure I wanted legos because
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I think throughout most of my childhood that's all I wanted.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: What do I do? Yeah? Probably legos? That or having
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: my own bedroom. Did you want legos so you could
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: build your own room. I wanted my own room so
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't have to share my legos? Oh? So are
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you saying that nine year old Jorge didn't want answers
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to some big science questions. I think Jorge in the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: third grade didn't know what science was, So probably my
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: biggest science question would be what is science? So you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: weren't wondering about aliens and black holes? I did probably
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: have a question about the universe back then? What was that? Well,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: what's the biggest thing you can build out of legos?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm going online after this to buy you
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a bunch of legos. Done, I'll take it. It's on
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the record. You know my address. Did they make a
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: entire universe set for legos? I'm thinking of adding to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: our house, so I think we'll we'll just make it
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: out of legos. Did you send me save on constructor materials?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Hi'm r Hammack, cartoonists and the creator of PhD Comics. Hi,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm not great
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: at building real things out of legos. Really, you never
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: play with them as a kid. No, I play with
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: legos all the time, but I always end up making
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: weird abstract stuff rather than like ships or dinosaurs or
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: you know, cartoon characters. I would have thought as a
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: future particle physicist, all you would do is build stuff
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and then smashing together. Is there another reason to make legos?
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Then knocking them down? That is the joyful part. Now,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the joys putting them together, right, seeing how everything fits together,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: that's part of the wonder Well, there is a wonderful
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: connection between legos and particle physics because it turns out
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: that our universe follows the lego principle. It's made of tiny,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: little interlocking pieces, and everything that's unique about you is
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: how those pieces are put together, not the pieces themselves.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Are quarks also painful when you step on them, by
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: excellent absolutely, since legos are made out of quarks, it's
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: really the quarks that you're stepping on at three in
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the morning. But welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: explain the university production of I Heart Radio, in which
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: we knock down everything about the universe and break it
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: up in the tiny, little lego sized pieces so that
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: we can explain it to you. We tackle black holes
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and neutron stars and galaxies and the tiniest of little particles.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: We tear all of it apart and show you what
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it's made out of, the pieces that we understand and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the pieces that we are still puzzling over. Yeah, because
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: it is a pretty wonderful universe, very complex, very interesting,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: very fascinating to see how it all sort of fits together,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: because it does seem like sometimes somebody put it together
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: using some kind of instruction manual. It does sometimes, and
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: it makes me wonder if we ever do figure out
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: what the smallest thing is, what that will sort of mean,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you know, what we will learn from that philosophically, how
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: we will interpret that if the universe is made out
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of strings or tiny little foaming bits of space or
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: something else entirely, Eventually we'll be faced with the question,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: what does that mean about the universe? Yeah, because there
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: might be a tiny little particle at the end of
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: everything that everything is made out of and Daniel, I
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: think if you ever discovered I think you should call
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: it with some sort of acronym that spells out lego,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: because that would be just so wonderfully ironic, maybe like
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: light energetic gluon ob oreo oreo. You can't call a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: particle an oreo because oreos have something inside them, so
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: it can't be fundamental. Oh boy, you can go in
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: loops like maybe oreos are then made out of legos,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and legos are made out of oreosa. Our oreos and acronym.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I just wonder because I always see them capitalized. Hey,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you're right, Yeah, what does oreo stand for? Another secret
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of the universe uncovered here? Yeah, listeners out there educated
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: us what does oreo mean? But it is a wonderful universe,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and you know, as human beings, we sort of can't
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: help as we look at it. We can't help but
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: wonder about it and ask questions about it. You know,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: we see things that we don't understand, or see things
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: that are maybe seem unexplainable, and you have to ask,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: why is it the way that is or how does
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that work? Yeah, and we are surfing along on this
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: incredible wave of scientific knowledge. People a hundred years ago
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: do so much less about the universe than we do,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and people in a hundred years will know exponentially more
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: about the universe than we do. So every year that
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: goes by, we gain more and more insight into this crazy,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: bonkers universe. And all you have to do is sit
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: back and enjoy the wave, or you can come join
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: us and pitch in to create that knowledge. Yeah, there's
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: a lot we know and a lot we don't know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and people have questions. And by the way, I should
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: give a shout out again to our book. Frequently ask
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: questions about the universe, which is out down people can
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: get it, and we answer all kinds of amazing questions
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: in it for you. That's right, And for those moments
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: on our podcast when we're he says, Oh, that's tricky
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: to do on a podcast. I wish I could scribble
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: on a piece of paper. Well, the book is a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: bunch of pieces of paper. A lot of them have
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Jorges hilarious scribbles on them. Because don't forget he's not
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: just a podcaster. He's also a cartoonist. Just a cartoonists, yes,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: but yeah, we askewer all kinds of awesome questions in it,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So please support the podcast. Get a book for yourself
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: when you read over the holidays, or for a friend,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: or maybe as a leg gift to that special love
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: when you totally forgot about. Or if you're building an
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: extension to your house and you need some building materials,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: order a bunch of copies. Yeah, they staged pretty well, right,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the rectangular they're sort of brick like they're made out
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of dance matter as well, that's right. But yeah, people
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: have questions, and we get so many questions on the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: podcast here through social media that we couldn't fit them
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: all in one book, and so we like to answer
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: those questions here on the podcast live. That's right. We
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: encourage you when you are thinking about the universe and
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: wondering how something works to write to us two questions
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: at Daniel and Jorge dot com. I can usually answer
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: people's emails in less than a day and give them
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: a clear answer about their question. Sometimes the question is
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: so good that I want to talk about it on
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the podcast. When we ask listeners to send in audio
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of themselves asking their question. Yeah, so to be on
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the program will be tackling listener questions. Number twenty two
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: twenty two. Have we actually recorded twenty two of these
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: listener question episodes? We have in our more than three
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: hundred fifty episodes that we've done so far, we've done
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: twenty two listener question episodes, which means we've answered like
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: sixty six questions on the air. Wow. And the questions
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: keep on coming, right. They come into your inbox every day. Absolutely,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: we get dozens of questions every single day, and they're
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a joy to read because it shows me that people
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: out there are thinking. They're using physics to try to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: understand the universe. They're taking the ideas we are giving
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: them and trying to apply them elsewhere and saying, hey,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: how come this doesn't work? Or I don't get it?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: What happens when the ship turns around in the twin paradox.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So if you're confused about something or you see something
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: in physics you don't understand, please don't be shy right
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to us. Two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: We love your emails. Do you ever get questions about legos?
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Which color should I use? Next door? Have you seen
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: my four by one piece? Have you seen my lego
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: model of the fundamental particle of the universe. No, but
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I think we should have a contest. We should have
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: listeners send in pictures of their most physics Lego creations. Interesting,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So email those to us two questions at Daniel and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Jorge dot com, and we'll post our favorites online. And
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you can't just have like one little piece in the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: middle there and say it's like a model the fundamental
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: particle of nature. That's that's right, or just a black
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: picture and say hey it's a black hole. Yeah, it's
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a dark matter. That's an empty picture, and then and
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: just say it's dark matter, lego, that's right. In this
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: episode is airing just after Christmas, so I hope that
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: all of you folks out there have been lucky and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: gotten some nice pile of new Legos for Christmas and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: can make something physics see out of it and send
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: us a nice snapshot. Yeah. So we'll be answering questions
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: from listeners here today, and we have some awesome questions
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: about asteroids and dinosaurs and black holes, the cane stars
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: and and that's all just one question or maybe two questions,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and also aliens of course, what's happening in proximusentri So
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: these are awesome questions, and we'll start for this first
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: one from Spencer from Melbourne, who, by the way, is
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: having a birthday right now. That's right, December twenty ninth
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: is Spencer's birthday, So happy birthday, Spencer. He's in Melbourne, Australia.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: But does that mean that if it's decembery here, it's
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: actually already December twenty nine in Australia. Yeah, but three
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: years in the future, because those Australians are ahead of
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: their time. That's right through the wormhole. We are also
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: communicating with Spencer's and seventy five birthday parties. Yeah, well
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: we should record his next like three birthdays here right
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: now so you can just replay them. So happy ninth birthday, Spencer,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and happy tenth birthday, Spencer. And happy eleventh birthday that's right,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and happy seventy fifth birthday. I hope we're all still
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: around by Yeah. I doubt it though, unless we moved
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to Australia and they have that fasting technology. That's right,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Australia is going to deflect the asteroid, but only from Australia.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: They're gonna send it our way instead. Yeah, but happy birthday, Spencer,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and thank you for listening to the podcast. We hear
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: you're a big fan and we have your question here
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: that's really awesome and it's about asteroids and dinosaurs. Hi,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Daniel and j Hi. My name is Spencer. I live
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: in Australia and um eight years old. So I have
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: this questions for you. So, um, what would happen if
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the asteroid that killed the Donna Shaws missed us? And
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I really love your podcast and I can't waite to
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: hear your answer. Oh so awesome. Thank you Spencer. That's
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: such a great question. I feel like that's a plot
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: of a movie, the voice of a future scientist, I
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: love it, or a science fiction author. Yeah maybe, Yeah,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I think there's a job for you at Marvel. They
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: have a whole show called What If Agents. Somebody get
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: out there and get Spencer on contract. Well, it's a
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: great question, and his question is what would happen if
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the aster right that killed the dinosaurs had actually missed
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the Earth? That's a pretty big one, right, like would
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: we still be around? Even? It's a wonderful idea to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: think about because it really shows you how our existence
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: depends on a huge sequence of random events. Things that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: might have gone slightly differently and could have had very
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: very different outcomes. It's really amazingly improbable that we are
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: even here. Yeah, it's sort of a crazy coincidence that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: we're all here right now the way we are right now.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Like any sort of small event in the past could
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: have changed the course of history or even the course
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of your life exactly. And you might imagine that, you know,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: things would have roughly gone the same way. But there
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: are moments in evolution of life and in our cosmic
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: history when very small changes would lead to very large
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: differences in the outcome. And this is a great example,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: because for that asteroid to hit the Earth, it had
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: to be on exactly the right trajectory, a tiny little
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: deviation earlier on like a hundred or a thousand years
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: earlier in its history, and it would have missed the Earth,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and the Earth could have had a totally different history.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So like some little rock bouncing against that asteroid a
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: thousand years before it hit totally determined the future of
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: life on Earth. Yeah, all right, Well, let's get to
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: answering Spencer's question. And I guess, first of all, Daniel,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. That's the prevailing theory these days,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: we think that a piece of rock from the outer
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: part of the asteroid belt, something about the size of
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Mount Everest, hit the Earth around sixty five million years ago,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: traveling around thirty kilometers per second. So that's an incredible
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: amount of energy to deliver to the surface of the Earth.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Thirty kilometers per second. That's faster than the speed of sound, right,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that's that's super fast. It's super fast, and it would
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: have caused incredible shock waves. And you know, rocks are
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: hitting the atmosphere all the time. Every time you see
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a shooting star, that's a rock hitting the atmosphere. But
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere slows them down and there's friction, and that's
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: where they heat up and they burn and they turn
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: into flames. And a huge number of them never hit
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: the ground because they melt. They vaporized before they hit
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the ground. But if you're big enough to serve that,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: only your outer edges vaporized and the core actually hits
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth. And this one was definitely
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: plenty big to hit the surface and cause a huge
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: amount of damage. Yeah, it came with a ton of energy.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, like much much bigger than the Hiroshima bomb
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: or any of those nuclear bombs we have yet. It
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: has the energy equivalent of ten billion Hiroshima bombs. So
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: it was an enormous, devastating impact and delivered an incredible
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: amount of energy to the atmosphere and also to the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: surface of the Earth itself. Yeah, and it hits somewhere
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: in the Yucatan Peninsula, right, which is in Mexico. Yeah,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it hit in the Yucatan, which is really interesting and
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: had a big role in its effect on life on
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Earth because the water there is fairly shallow. If it
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: had hit a few minutes earlier or a few minutes later,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: like if it had gone deep into the Atlantic or
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: deep into the Pacific, it would have had a very
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: different effect on life on Earth. So it hit fairly shallow,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: which means it didn't throw up like a huge amount
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of water, just like a maybe a hundred meter high tsunami.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: It's just pretty small for such a big impact. But
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: it did throw up a lot of sulfur into the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: atmosphere because the rocks right there, it's a carbon layer
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: with a lot of sulfur, So it threw up a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: huge amount of sulfur into the atmosphere, which caused a
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: lot of problems for life on Earth. I guess maybe
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: a basic question is, like how do we know these things?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I know that you can see the creator there and
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: that you cannot peninsula, but how do we know like
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that's the creator that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: landed in. You know, like, how do we know that's
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the one? And how do we know you know, when
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: it hit and and how big it was. These are
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: great questions, and it's been a while. It's been taken
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: like decades to really put the story together. It's always
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: going to be a little bit circumstantial. But you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: we know that there was a die off around sixty
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: five million years ago. When you look at the fossil record,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: seventy of all species when extinct around sixty five million
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: years ago, so clearly something happened. And then we also
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: see evidence for this impact, which we can date to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the same time using you know, geological layers. We can
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: see time pass as you dig down deeper into the earth,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and we see this creater and it's not just like
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a big hole in the ground. It looks like a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: crazy impact, like there are rocks that only form uncertain
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: circumstances like incredible high energy events. This thing called shocked quartz,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: for example, only happens when there's a huge impact, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: so there's a layer there that is evidence of an
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: enormous impact right around the same time. How interesting, when
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the asteroids hit the Earth, it actually kind of transforms
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: some of the rock that was there, or part of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the rock that came with the asteroid, like made new
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: kinds of rock. Yeah, rocks that you only see under
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: like devastating impacts. And so it's a pretty clear signature
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: that there was a devastating impact right around the same
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: time as a huge die off. We can time these
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: things pretty well, but it's sixty five million years in
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the past, and so you know, the uncertainty of these
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: things is like a few thousand years by now, which
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: seems small compared to you know, millions of years, but
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: it's still pretty big. So we're pretty sure that these
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: two things are aligned, but you know, we never know
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: for sure in science, right six is five minut in
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: years is a long time, And I guess the other
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: question is how do we know that that it passed
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: by the Earth once before? Like that's the part of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the theories that this asteroid actually sort of did a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: drive by before it hit the Earth, like it was
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: checking us out. Maybe. Yeah. When we went to JPL
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to talk to the team there that watches asteroids constantly
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: to make sure this is not about to happen to us,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: they told us that that's the theory, that this asteroid
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: didn't just like come straight out of the asteroid belt
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and hit the Earth. You know, it does a bunch
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: of orbits before it actually hits the Earth. And in
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: one of their reconstructions, they think that it made a
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: really near miss one time when it run around the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Sun and then it looped around again and came back
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and hit the Earth, which means that if you had
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: looked up in the sky as a dinosaur, you might
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: have seen it. And if you had been like a
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: dinosaur scientist, you might have had some like years warning,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: which means, you know, you could have done something. So
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: this comes from, you know, it's a little bit speculative,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: but they have an idea for where it came from
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: in the outer asteroid belt and how big it was
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and where it hit and its velocity, so they can
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: sort of like backtrack its trajectory. And this is one
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: of those possible scenarios. Yeah, I bet they did see it,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and I bet the conversation when some something like meaning
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: like I have these little hands in front of me,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I can't do anything with them set the t rex. Yeah,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: they didn't really have like dexterous fingers which allowed them
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to develop technology and send emails to get stuff done,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: because we all know that's how you get stuff done
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in this world is sending email and that's why. Anyways,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: so Spencer's question. Back to Spencer's question, his question was
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: what if that asteroid had not hit the Earth? Like,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: what if it had missed us? What would have happened
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: to Earth? To the history of Earth. I guess, first
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of all, with that rock, do you think would still
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: be flying around? And would it sort of eventually hit us? Oh? Yeah,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that's a fun question. What if it hit us later on? Right?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I think the Spencer's question is like what if it
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: missed entirely? If that hadn't happened, what would be the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: future of Earth? But you can imagine also it's of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: different scenarios where you know, waits a few more years
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: or a few more thousands of years and then hits
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: us and probably has similar impacts. It's really fun to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: think about, and I like to think about not just
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: whether it hit the Earth, but like if it had
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: hit the Earth in a different place. Because when it
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: hit in the Yucatan, it threw up all this sulfur
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: into the atmosphere, which caused incredible dust and acid rain.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: They were like shock waves magnitude twelve, earthquakes and volcanoes triggered.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And it would have been different if it had hit
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the Pacific, for example, because that would have absorbed a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: lot more energy and you would have gotten more tsunamis
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and fewer earthquakes. For example, you've gotten like a five
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: kilometer high tsunami, which would have been pretty amazing. Yeah,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: like a five kilometer a tall wave of coming at
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you that would have probably taken out most vegetation and
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: animals in most coasts around the world. Yeah, So people
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: speculated that maybe larger dinosaurs would have survived if it
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: had hit in the Pacific or in the Atlantic. But
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: because it hit in the Yucatan and threw up all
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: this like burning ejecta into the sky that started wildfires
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and everything all over the Earth, that it spelled in
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: media doom for those guys. But let's talk about what
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: it would have happened if it had missed entirely. And
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: this is a really active area of discussion among evolutionary
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: biologists because some of them think that the dinosaurs were
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: sort of already on their way out, that the climate
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: was cooling and the dinosaurs were not well adapted, and
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: so some scientists argue that at the end of the Cretaceous,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the dinosaurs had been declining already for forty million years
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: and that mammals were on the ascendants. Interesting, so like
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: maybe dinosaurs were about to be extinct anyways, or at
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: least the larger ones, right, Is that what you mean
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: by dinosaurs or do you mean like all dinosaurs? No,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I mean just the large ones, because you know, dinosaurs
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: technically not extinct. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs, so all
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the birds out there are dinosaurs. So we're really just
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: talking about the large non avian dinosaurs, right right, the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: cool ones, big ones with big teeth and horns. This
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: is sort of like you know, your TV show quits
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: before it gets canceled, you know, by the network or something.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: So it might be that the dinosaurs were sort of
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: on the way out, that the t rex is and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the Bronchosaurus is and all those guys. We're not going
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to last until present day, right, But is there something
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: about dinosaurs and wouldn't have survived the change in climate?
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Like is it just not sustainable to be that big?
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Is that what you mean? I think it's more a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: question of competition. You know, are the dinosaurs or were
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the mammals better adapted to the climate as it was cooling.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: And there's one scientist, Mike Benton, a paleontologist at Bristol University,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: who argues that there's evidence that mammals were really rapidly
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: diversifying just before this happened, and so they were sort
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: of poised to fill a lot more niches than the dinosaurs.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: So it's really all about competition. But most evolution of biologists,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I think disagree and argue that dinosaurs are very, very
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: adaptable and then no matter what would have happened to
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the climate, they would have found a way to survive.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, one piece of evidence for that is that
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: there are still twice as many species of birds as
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: there are mammals today. So dinosaurs, including birds and their ancestors,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: were very, very adaptable, and then those survived the asteroid, right, Like,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: something about that asteroid killed those big dinosaurs was maybe
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: like a sped up version of what was going to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: happen anyways over millions of years. It could be. But
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: if it happened more slowly, then those bigger dinosaurs could
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: have potentially survived, though they would be changed. So if
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the asteroid hadn't hit the Earth and t rexes and
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: all those guys had survived, we wouldn't see t rex
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: is walking around today looking the way the fossil reconstruction does.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: The same way. There's lots of animals from the past
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that we don't see walking around today because they're extinct
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: or because they have adapted. You know, horses don't look
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: anything like they used to, for example, right, Yeah, maybe
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: like there would be small t rexes running around or
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: small you know, pterodactyls flying around, like small versions of them. Yeah,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: And so people have gone back and looked at like
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the history of the Earth's climate and thought about how
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: that might have affected the dinosaurs. If the asteroid hadn't
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: hit so fifty five million years ago, for example, things
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: got really really hot. You got eight degrees celsie is
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: hotter than it was today, and there were rainforests spanning
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: much of the planet, so dinosaurs would have to adapt
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: it to that. And then thirty five million years ago,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: things got colder and draw fire, and instead of rainforest,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: you had grasslands covering most of the earth, and that's
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: why we have things like elk and deer and all
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: sorts of fast four footed mammals evolved. So you know,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: dinosaurs would have had to adapt it to all of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: those and we might have had very different, very interesting
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: new kinds of dinosaurs evolved in response to these climate changes. Interesting,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: so they would have stuck around and they would have
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: adapted and evolved, and I think it's sort of inevitably
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: maybe had a showdown with mammals, right, Like, that's sort
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of like maybe more of a direct competition with mammals,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: maybe a big dinosaur mammal war. Now you're writing your screenplay,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I can hear it. Something that's really interesting that I
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: didn't realize is that dinosaurs weren't around to see flowers.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Like flowering plants evolved after dinosaurs, and flowering plants are
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: easier to survive on because there's like a dense packet
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of nutrition there either in the fruits or in the
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: seeds or whatever. So dinosaurs might have evolved in response
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to that. They could have been smaller, for example, they
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have to be so big, and that's one reason
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that our ancestors survived. You know, they were like swinging
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: in the trees, eating fruits, and so it's interesting to
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: wonder like, would dinosaur have evolved to fill that niche,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: you know, like the dinosaur version of a monkey. What
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: would that have looked like? Would they have been competition
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: with you know, our ancestors. It's fascinating. Yeah, yeah, all right,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: let's talk about a little bit about what that might
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: mean for humans, and let's answer other questions from listeners.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, we
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: are answering listening to questions, and our first one was
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: about dinosaurs and what would have happened if the asteroid
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that killed them had actually missed the earth, and we
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: talked about how they would have adapted maybe and lived
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: with mammals. But do you think, Daniel, that that wouldn't
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: have meant no humans or do you think humans might
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: have still evolved with dinosaurs. It's really hard to say,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: because there are no evidence of dinosaurs living in the
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: evolutionary niche that humans take, you know, or that our
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: ancestors took, sort of like living in trees, eating fruits,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: swinging around. There really aren't any dinosaurs, but then again,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: they weren't around when fruits and flowering plants evolved, so
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: who knows how they would have responded or if they
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: would have figured that out. Are you saying the humans
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: evolved intelligence because they could eat bananas despite eating bananas? Well,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that's a competing theory. I have my own theory about
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: human evolution here. But yeah, it takes like a lot
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of dexterity to climb trees and to swing around them,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and that gives you dexterous fingers, which allows you to
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: manipulate your environment and develop tools and do all sorts
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of crazy things dot dot dot intelligence. Right, So I'm
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: not saying bananas are responsible for physics. Bananas are tricky
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: to peel. I mean not everyone can peel them easily. Yeah,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: but do all animals actually peel them? When they do,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they just chop down beneath the skin. Also, well, the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: only intelligent once peel, which is what I'm saying. I see,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that's the intelligence us, right, there. But I guess another
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: cool scenarios that dinosaurs could have evolved intelligence and maybe
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: they would have been like the primary species on Earth
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and developed spaceships and internet and phones. It's one of
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: those deep questions what forms can intelligence take and what
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: makes it evolve? Something we see about life on Earth
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: is that life on Earth started fairly shortly after it
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: was possible, like life has been around a long long time.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Once the earth cooled and the chemistry was around, it
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: didn't take that long for life to kick off, but
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: it did take billions of years for intelligence to evolve,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: which might suggest that it's rare or difficult or unlikely.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: But you know, we're extrapolating from one example, so we
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: don't know if another species might have developed intelligence, or
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: if it would have taken another billion years for dinosaurs
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to become intelligent, or you know, maybe something else would
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: have happened. Another afteroid would have come and killed everybody,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: and then the slugs would have become intelligent. Who knows,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and everything would have been a lot slower. That sounds great, Actually,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I bet slugs don't send him an emails. I bet
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: they just sit in the couch all day. Into physics
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: all right, well, thank you Spencer for that awesome question,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that big what if question? And again, happy birthday. So
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: we'll get to our next question here, and this one
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: is from Corin, who is eleven years old. Hy Daniel Joy.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: My name is Julian love the show. Thank you so
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: much for making it. Um. My son Corne recently asked
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: me a question that I did not know how to answer,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: so I was really hoping you could help. How do
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: we know that black holes come from the Kyne Star?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Awesome question? Thank you Corne and Dad. That's so great.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Did you guys listen to the podcast together? That is wonderful.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I really enjoy hearing people out there supporting the next
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: generation of curious scientists. So thank you all your parents
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and teachers of course for encouraging thinkers of the next generation. Yeah,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: so this one is a pretty tricky question and it's
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit technical, but Corn wants to know how
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: do we know that black holes come from the Kayne Stars? Like,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you know, we black holes are so mysterious, we barely
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: have a picture of them. They were mostly theoretical for
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: a long time, Like how do we know their origin
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and how do we know where they come? From It's
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: a great question, and it's important to think about what
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: we do know and how we've drawn these conclusions, because
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: sometimes we led astray. Sometimes we don't actually have evidence
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: for something, we assume it's true, and then we discover, oh,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that was a big mistake. It turns out that the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: universe works in a totally different way. So it's really
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: good idea to go back and examine what we do
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: know and how we know it. And it's especially tricky
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to understand how things in the universe turn into other
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: things because it usually takes a long time. It might
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: take a million years or a billion years for a
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: start to burn out. So how do you learn about
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: how this thing happens. You don't have a billion years
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: to watch something, right, You can't just watch a star
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: for a billion years until it turns into a black hole.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: It's pretty tricky to figure this stuff out. There would
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: be a long PhD. I mean, that would take you
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: billion years just to get that degree. But we do
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: have another tool, which is that we can look out
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: into the universe, and we can look further and further out,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: which means we're looking further and further back in time.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Because remember light travels at a finite though dizzy lee
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: fast speed, and that means that as we look further
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: out into the universe, we're looking further back in time.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: So we can sort of like rewind and fast forward
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: movies of the universe to see what happened. You can
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: never look at one object at different slices in time,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: but you can look at different populations and you can
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: see how things on average evolve. Right. It's like you
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: can see a whole group of people are a little
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: town of people, and you can see, oh, there are babies,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and then there are also a little slightly bigger humans,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and then slightly bigger humans, and then there's humans again
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: wrinkles and seem to get old. And then so you
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: sort of piece it together and say, okay, I think
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: these humans go from babies to old people exactly. And
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: we can't follow one individual person in that analogy through
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: their whole life, but we can sort of piece that
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: story together by seeing different slices from sort of different villages,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and that story tells us that there is this evolution
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of stars, that stars are formed, we see that, and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: that they burn for a long time, that they expand,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and that they collapse and sometimes make supernova and all
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: those things we see again, not from an individual star,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: but we can see different stars at various points in
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: their evolution. And sometimes we look at what happens after
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: a supernova and we see this incredible cloud of stuff,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: this rememnants of the supernova blowing out most of its contents.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: But at the heart you can see something dark and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: something massive right there where the star used to be. Right,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: And I think we've actually seen sort of seem supernovas
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: right like throughout our history. We've sort of seen a
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: few of them and also at least see them as
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: just as after they happen. Yes, we can see supernova happen.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: It's incredible because they're very short lived, right, They burn
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: like brighter than the entire galaxy that they're in, and
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes they last a few days, sometimes a few weeks,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: but there are these very brief moments in time. Then,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: of course we can't wait around for the black hole
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to form or to show it's as evidence, but we
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: can look somewhere else from the universe, somewhere where we
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: think a supernova happened recently, and we can tell a
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: supernova happened because we see, for example, these clouds of
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: gas and dust shooting out from the center at very
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: high speeds, which is the kind of thing that only
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: happens in a supernova. So we see, oh, here's the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: supernova that happened a thousand years ago or a million
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: years ago, And we can look at the heart of
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that and ask, is there a black hole right there
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: at the heart of this cloud that came from a
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: dying star? Yeah, and sometimes you can see it, right,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I mean you don't see it directly, you don't see
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the black hole and like a picture of it, but
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: you see it kind of tugging on the things around it,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: but without any sort of bright light coming from it exactly.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: And we did actually once recently see a black hole
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: that had just been born. There's this supernova called a
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: T two thousand eighteen c o W, which is known
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to astronomers as the cow. Is that like the goat,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: but different accomplishment level? That's right, there's a different acronym
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: there for cow. And this was very dark at the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: center and then suddenly it became very very bright. So
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: this is like a supernova remnant, and at the heart
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of it was dark and then all of a sudden
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: it turned on and was very very bright. And that's
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: actually counterintuitively evidence for a black hole, because what happens
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: in a black hole is that while it itself doesn't
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: give off light, the gas and the dust swirling around
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: it and the accretion disk get very very hot and
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: they can admit a lot of radiation, very very bright
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: sources of X rays, for example. And so what they saw,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: they think, is this black hole sort of turning on
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and giving off these beams of X rays from a
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: secretion disk. So that's a pretty good evidence of seeing
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: a black hole form after the death of a star. Wow,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: so you can actually we've actually seen this baby black
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: hole and saw that it came from a star that imploded. Yeah,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: and it makes sense because if you keep looking around
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: long enough, you should capture a star basically every stage
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of its life cycle. And so if you look at
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: enough stars, you'll see these things. For me, you'll see
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: black holes. For me, you'll see supernovas at all different stages.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: It really pretty fun. And on top of that experimental evidence,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: you know, seeing all these things at different stages, we
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: also have a model. We have a theory for how
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: stars form, and we can do this in simulation, we
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: can say we know what the laws of physics are.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: We think we understand the starting point for stars, what
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: should happen according to the laws of physics, And when
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: you do those calculations, you get a supernova and then
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: you get a collapse and you get a black hole.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: And the black holes that are formed are about the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: size of black holes that we see out there in
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: the universe. So the story sort of all hangs together.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: There's you know, little bits of it that are circumstantial.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: You can't actually see the whole life cycle of a star,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: but we try to tell a complete scientific story and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: probe it from lots of different angles, and it mostly
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: hangs together. Yeah, you mean, like we can sort of
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: think about how a star works and predict what's going
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: to happen, and some of sometings a black hole will form,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and you can also sort of see these evidence of
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: them out there, and so it matches what you predict
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and it also matches what do you see right now. Yeah,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and we can also see when a black hole doesn't form,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: because if there's not enough mass to make a black hole,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: then instead it will make a neutron star as other
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: very very dense object, but not quite a black hole.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: It's part of a gray hole. Yeah, And we see
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: those also, and that helps us validate, like in general,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: our understanding of stars and how they die and how
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: they collapse, so we can predict not just when it
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: makes a black hole, but when it fails to make
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a black hole, and our models also describe that pretty well.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: All right, well, I think that answers the question. We
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: can predict that they come from the king and collapsing stars,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: and you can also see them out there that have
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the black holes that have come from collapsing stars and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: some that came a long time ago from the king stars.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get into our last question. But first
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: we'll do the side question here, Daniel, and this one
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: is sort of about your emotional state. Did this one
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: come from a reader or your your parents? This one
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: came from a listener here it is. Hey, guys, it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Daniel from the UK. Here. I've been thinking a lot
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: about this recently, and I thought who better to ask
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it too? Then you, guys. I mean, you've got a
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: lot of podcasts You've thought about the universe and fast
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: get all the various questions that no one knows the
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: answers to and I'm just thinking, do you ever get
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: a bit sad and depressed that you probably won't be
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: alive long enough to find out some of these big answers?
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Are there aliens? What they like? What stark matter? What's
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the meaning life? You know? What's inside a black hole?
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Does the universe ever end? I don't know. I'm excited
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: for the future and to see what we discover, but
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: also occasionally, you know, true in the extertential crisis, I'll
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: be a bit bummed out about the fact I probably
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: won't be alive to find out a lot of these things. Cheers,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: all right, great question, thank you, And yeah, Daniel, it's
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: sort of an interesting question. I guess are they concerned
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: about you, do you think, or are they worried that
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you're leading an unhappy life? I think they're just sort
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of capturing the feeling of living in primitive times. You know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: we know that we know so little about the universe,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and we hope that our Greek grandchildren in their great
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: grandchildren will know more. And that's exciting, but it's also
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: sort of frustrating because we know the information is out there.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: We know humans eventually will probably figure this stuff out.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Somebody will know the answers to these questions that keep
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: us up at night, and yet we probably will not
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: or we may not, depending on how smart the next
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: generation is, and that is sort of frustrating but exciting. Well,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the question is sort of like, are you sad that
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you mind in your lifetime because you devoted your life
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: to answering some of these big questions, Like are you
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit sad that you may not know the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: answers by the end of your life? Like you may
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you may never know the answers. Well, I'm planning to
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: invest in cryogenics so that a year before I die,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I can just freeze my body and then thought every
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: hundred years or so instead of good an update on
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the physics. But if you did right before you die,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: you would just be dying fifty years into the future.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: That's right. I'll spend my last year sort of like
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: surfing through the future learning about what happens in physics.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: You want to spend the last year of your life
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: in school, is what you're saying. I've spent all of
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: my life in school so far. I'm in like of
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: hundredth grade right now. Yeah, and I guess you haven't
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: had enough. It sounds like a premise for a show
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: called Futurama exactly. So it's really fun. But you know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: even if we get the answers to those questions, then
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: our descendants who know those things about the universe, they're
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: going to have new questions. Because we know the answers
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: to questions that people puzzled over five hundred years ago.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: We know those things definitively, but we're still tortured with
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: new questions about the universe. So it's not like this
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: ever going to be a moment where we're like, Okay, yeah,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: we got it. We have it figured out. Because we
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: are curious, because we wonder, and because we explore, they're
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: always going to be more things to wonder about. And
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I also kind of get this answer. What's fun for
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you for scientists, for all of us who sort of
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: think about these things is sort of the asking of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the question. You know. It's like it's the journey, not
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the destination. Like it's fun just to be part of
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: this moment in time we're asking these questions and learning
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: more about it. It's almost like if you actually found
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: out the answer, it would be not as fun anymore.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Depends on what the answer is. But yeah, often the
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: joy isn't asking the questions, because we certainly ask a
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: lot more questions than we get answers. So the sign
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: that you're a scientist, it might be that you like
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: asking questions and puzzling over them, not necessarily just getting
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the answers. All right, Well, we'll get to our last question,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and it's it's an interesting one about maybe sending your
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: in laws to another planet. So we'll get into that,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: but first let's take another quick break. All right, we're
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: answering listener questions today here on the podcast, and we've
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: gotten some awesome questions, and we've talked about some awesome
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: answers here about dinosaurs, asteroids and black holes and collapsing stars.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: And our last question comes from Nick. Hello, Daniel and
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Jorge and all the guests hosts. I really appreciate the podcast.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: My question today is if we could put someone on
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: a planet near another are, for example approximates Centauri, and
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: have them try to detect the civilization on Earth with
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: current Earth technology, would they be able to thank you
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: very much asking for a friend. I guess if you
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: could banish someone to another planet like a Proximus Centauri,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: and Nick wants to know could they find this with
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: current Earth technology? Like, do you think he's asking if
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: they would be out there forever or lost? Or is
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: there a sort of an easy way to get back
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: to Earth. I don't think he's thinking at all about
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: sending one of his friends or your in laws to
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Proximates Centauri. I think he's wondering about if there are
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: aliens on Proximates Centauri, would they have discovered that we
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: exist if they had sort of like earthlike technology? Oh?
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I see, I see all right, yeah, so like if
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: there is already somebody there, maybe your future in laws.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: You never know, right, I mean life takes interesting turn
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes they could be futured in laws. How would they
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: find this? I guess? Yeah, it's a fun question because
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: we don't know where the aliens might be, and so
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: it's worth asking should we have heard from them or
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: should they have discovered us? So it's an important sort
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: of thought experiment. If there were aliens there, shouldn't we
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: have heard from them? Because you know, there are only
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: four light years away, which means if they knew that
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: we are here, it wouldn't take very long for them
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: to send us a message back. Right. It's actually the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: kind of conversation we might be able to have much
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: better than discovering aliens across the galaxy, where it takes
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: fifty years to send a message. These are basically our neighbors,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: and so it's important to wonder whether or not they
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: would even know that we are here. I see. Well,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: let's maybe break it down a little bit. What is
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Proxima Centauri. It's a it's a nearby star or a
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: nearby planet. It's a nearby star. It's a red dwarf,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and it's got two planets that we've discovered around it,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and it's only three point seven light years away. It's
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the closest star to our sun. So if there's any
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: place we'd like to discover friendly aliens, then it's Proximus
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Centre because it's very close by. And then there are
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: other stars almost as close by, but this one edges
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: out the other ones, and it's the closest I see,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and these planets are sort of habitable, you think, all right, yes,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: so there are two planets out there, Proximus Centaurri B
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and Proximates Centauri C. One of them, Proximate B, is
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: orbiting within proximates habitable zone, meaning that like the temperatures
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: are right for liquid water to exist on its surface.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: But you know, Proximus Centauri is actually a flare star.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: It gets like brighter and darker, and so it's not
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: really clear whether any aliens could survive there. Interesting, and
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: so it's it's the closest basically outposed or like non
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: empty space that is the closest to us in our galaxy, right,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: that's right, right, Well, the question is if they have
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: if there are aliens, if you put a scientist there
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: with Earth technology, or if there are aliens they're living there,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: could they find us? Would they know we're here? And
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: three point seven light years away is not that far, right,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Like if I shine a flashlight in their direction right
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: now tonight, it would get there in four years. It
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: would get there in four years, and some of those
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: photons from your flashlight would actually hit Roxima B. And
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: so that's pretty exciting because your flashlight sends out light
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: in a cone, and that cone expands, so when you
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: get really really far out, that cone is really really wide,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: so your flashlight would cover like the entire Solar system
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: out there in Proxima b every point in that solar
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: system could potentially see your flashlight, but of course it
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be very bright anymore because it would have spread
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: out so much. Right, Well, what you could use maybe
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: a laser. You could use a laser. And so that's
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: exactly the issue is that we could send signals to
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Proximates Centauri using Earth technology and they could discover it
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: if it was sent intentionally. Right, So, if we on
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: purpose sent a message to Proximates Centauri that was focused
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: saying like we want to beam a whole bunch of
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: light right at this one place, then yes, we could
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: send a message that they could discover. But if we're
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: just sort of like sending signals out into space generally,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: then it'd be much harder to discover it because those
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: signals would die off very very rapidly. You mean, the
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: way we're like broadcasting TV signals and radio signals out
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: there and into the atmosphere and out into space. Like
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: that's not focused, right, Like that's just going everywhere, and
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: so that would get diluted pretty quickly, exactly. And if
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: they have technology and Proximus Centauri like we do, you know,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: a dish like Aricibo or something. They only see those
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: kinds of signals if you were within about a light
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: year of the source. So to detect signals from Earth
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: using a dish like Aricibo, you'd have to be within
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: about a light year of Earth. So if you had
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a dish like that on Approximus Centauri, we'd have to
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: send signals that were like sixteen times stronger in order
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: for an aero Cibo on Proximus Centauri to pick them up. Interesting,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: or I guess maybe the hope that they have a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: bigger receiving dish, right, Yeah, maybe they have a sixteen
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: times bigger dish than they could see us. But next
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: question was sort of like with current Earth technology, and
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: so if we sent a directed message there, then they
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: could definitely pick it up. If we have no idea
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: that they're there and we're not sending them many messages,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: which is sort of like blathering out into the universe,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: then it's unlikely with current Earth technology they would even
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: know that we are here. I see, So they can't
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: eaves drop on us that what you're saying, they can
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: which off of our Netflix subscription, that's right, And the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: latency from there is terrible. Yeah, they're barely just watching
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: season one of Springer things buffering, buffering, buffering for four years.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: All right, well, I guess that's sort of talking to them.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: But could they see us? Like we can see we
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: can sort of see them, right, we can see these
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: planets out there, and you can actually sort of almost
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: take pictures of it, right, it's not just being detected
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: by the gravity there. Could they see us? And could
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: they take a picture of us almost? Like these are
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: the closest planets and so if we use Earth like technology,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: we can tell that those planets are there. And now
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: we can make some measurements of what's in the atmosphere
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: of those planets, Like we don't yet have telescopes that
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: are powerful enough to directly take pictures of them. That
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: we will in about ten or fifteen years, but currently
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: what we can do is like see how the light
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: changes as it passes through the atmosphere of those planets
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and use that to get estimates for what's in the atmosphere,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and like is their methane? Is there oxygen? Are there
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: signs of life in that atmosphere? What's the weather like
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: on those planets? Interesting? Yeah, they could tell that we
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: are polluting our atmosphere and not doing a great job
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and maybe decided not to con visit us. Yeah, but
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: it's not easy to just look at the atmosphere and
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: conclude that life exists. People used to think, well, all
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you need to do is see oxygen, because oxygen is
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: evidence of life. But now we have lots of ideas
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: for how you can make a lot of oxygen on
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: the surface of a planet without life. And we recently discovered,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: for example, phosphene on Venus, or people thought we did.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: That was thought to be like clear evidence of life,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: but now it turns out that that wasn't such a
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: strong discovery. So it's a really vibrant and fast moving
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: field of study. Right now, what can you learn about
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: potential life on the surface just from understanding the atmosphere.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: But in about ten or fifteen years, some of these
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: other devices like the thirty meter telescope where the giant
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Magellan telescope will turn on, and those will give us
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: much better resolving power and they might be able to
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: take direct pictures and give us a set for what's
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: going on on those planets. Right, Yeah, that would be cool.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I wonder if we could also send a probe, right
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: like four light years away, you know, maybe fifty years
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: we could send something there that reaches there. Right, Yeah,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: it's possible. It would take a long time because a
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: probe like that would have to accelerate to a good
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: fraction of the speed of light to get there in
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: fifty years, but it would be pretty awesome. The most
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: distant probe we have ever sent only recently left the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Solar system, so it takes a long time. Though our
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: technology has improved a little bit. Yeah, just make them faster,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I guess. So this is kind of us sort of
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: talking and seeing each other. But it turns out that
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: maybe we've actually heard from Proximus centaurians. Right. There's a
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: story of a famous signal that came from there recently. Yeah,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it said help, we're Jorges in laws and he trapped
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: us here on Proximus centar. No. No, it's more like, hey,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: we want to meet this horhe we have some good
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: prospects for him here. This was a fun story, though
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: it was a brief excitement. Last year they collected some
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: signals at the Park's telescope in Australia and it's part
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: of the Breakthrough Listen project, which is looking for evidence
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: of life in the universe by listening for potential signals.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: They are scanning lots of frequencies and looking for potential
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: technological signals, and people got really excited for a few
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: weeks that maybe we had heard something. And it's a
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: really difficult problem to know how to scan radio signals
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: for signs of life, because we don't know what that
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: life would be like. We don't know whether it be
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: a technological civilization, and we don't even know if they
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: would use radio, how they would structure a message. It's
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: a hard thing to do, but there are some basic
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: things to look for if you want a message that
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: comes not from Earth, and one of those, for example,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: is to see that there are shifting frequencies. You know,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: if you send a message from something that's in motion
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: that has a velocity, then the waves from that object
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: get shifted by the Doppler shift, because, like if it's
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: coming from Proximates Centauri, that planet is going around it's star,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and so it's moving away from us and then towards us,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: and away from us and then towards us. So a
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: message from there should have that kind of Doppler shift
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: as that planet goes around the star. Or maybe even
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: a different kind of Doppler shift as the planet is spinning,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: if the message actually comes from the surface. So they
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: look through all the information to get from the telescope,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: and they actually found one that seemed to have the
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: right Doppler shift. Interesting, I see, because you want to
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: make sure that it's not a signal that's coming from
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the star right, which is shining brightly. If you see
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: something that looks like it's coming from something that's moving
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: around the star, then you're like, hey, that came from
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: the planet, and planets don't usually have bright sources, so
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: it might be technology from these ailings, that's right. And
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: then the second thing they do is they make sure
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: that it really is coming from that direction. So they
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: take the telescope and they pointed in another direction sort
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: of like off of the target, and they hope that
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: the signal disappears, and then they turn it back towards
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the target and the hope that the signal reappears. And
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: so this one also survived that test, so it had
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: the right Doppler shift and it seemed to be coming
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: from that direction. You know, it only appeared when we
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: were pointing towards proximates centauri. So people kind of excited
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and they start digging into the details, like what is
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: this message? Is there information in it? Can we decoded?
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: There was a moment we thought maybe we had heard
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: a signal from the aliens. And it must be really
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: exciting but also difficult to work in this field where
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: every day could be the day that you like change
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the history of humanity by hearing from aliens or not.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: You know, it must be hard to maintain your excitement
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: every time it's either a big discovery or a big disappointment.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: But you know that's that everyone is at the work
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: right every day you go to work, it could be
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the day you come up with the brilliant ideal that
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: changes the world. It could be. And so what they
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: found when they dug deeper into the signal is they
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: actually discovered a bunch of other signals in their data
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: which looked almost exactly the same And we're clearly not
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: coming from Proximus centauri because they picked up these other
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: signals and pointing in other directions. So what they discovered
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: is that it's some weird kind of interference. I think
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: it's still not totally understood, but it might be some
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: weird kind of connection between some are kind of signal.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: It's the aliens here on Earth that are giving you signal,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: not the ones in Proximus sentari. But for a moment
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: we thought maybe we had heard something from intelligent technological
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: civilizations on our neighboring star. That would have been awesome.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: And I guess my question is, is Proximus centaur is
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: everyone they're a centaur like? That would be pretty cool,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the whole planet of half horse people. It's Proximus centauri.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: So there's center adjacent. They're approximately center like person, not
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the perfect balance. Yeah, you gotta go to like asymptotic
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: centauri to get to you know, almost get fully centaurs,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: that's right, or O G Centauri for the for the
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: true stuff, maximum Centauri. That's where you gotta go. Ultimate Centauri.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: There you go, best centaur. Al right, well, I think
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: that answers nixt question and the answer is cut someone
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: in approximate centauri fines And the answer is yes. But
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you need to be pretty focused on listening for us,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and you need to be pretty focus on sending a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: signal here like it can just sort of happen by accident,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: at least with current Earth technology, that's right. And with
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: technology that we'll have in a dozen or so years,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: we might be able to see the surface of those
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: planets and see what's going on and learn something about
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the surface of another planet. Would you go there, Daniel?
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Would you pick up and you know, right before you die,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: so that you wouldn't have to waste your time here?
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Would you go there? No? I really don't like travel.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I don't even really like being on an airplane, So
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: spaceships no, thank you. Would you'd be asleep and you'd
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: be almost dead anyway, I would say, why not? Right?
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: M I guess it depends on the snacks n see
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: did you eat while you're sleeping and they stuff up
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: your nose while you're taking your nap? And the peanuts
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: they feed me bananas without even peeling them. Oh boy.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: But let's move on here and thank everyone for sending
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: their questions. We love answering these questions. We love tapping
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: into your curiosity and getting us to think about these
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: crazy scenarios and wonderful mysteries about the universe. That's right,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: So please continue to send us your wonderings and your
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: questions and your puzzles to Questions at Daniel and Jorge
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: dot com. We can't get enough. Yeah, we hope you
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, See you next time.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: The Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart
• 50:29
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• 50:33
  Speaker 1: favorite shows. Ye