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You just fall in, okay, because it's gravity

which is pulling you in. It's gravity,

right. It'll just, you can't not fall in it. But because it has more gravity than Earth does, if you let it go, it and Earth would fall towards each other and Earth would lose. It would eat the entire Earth systematically. Wow.

Yes. It'll break apart Earth and just chew it and burp it. And that's it. Oh. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition Grab Bag. Chuck, that's your favorite category.

Gotta love the grab bag, man. All kinds of good stuff all up in the grab bag people just reach for whatever they want

You put your hand and you don't know what you're gonna pull out. That's right

It's like it's

like right to it.

It's it's star talk bingo

and it's all patreon members $5 a month get you access all right that's do it

here we go let's start off with waste no time no time we're jumping right into it Kate Warsaw Poland here lately I've been wondering about the Fermi paradox. Do you think it could be possible we have found no advanced civilizations or have not been found because of the speed of light? Could they just be too far away? Or could it be that they have done to their planets what we are currently doing to ours and they're just all dead

okay all right so let me remind people about the Fermi paradox Enrico Fermi he was an Italian-American physicist in 20th century physicist a brilliant guy and he did an actual calculation on the back of an envelope, as we call it. So, it wasn't some grand chalkboard calculation, just he made some estimates and he said, all right, I know the speed of light is fast, but let's say they have a civilization that can go maybe 1 fifth the speed of light, some fraction of this 10% the speed of light. I'm not, is that asking too much? Too much. Alright, that's not too much.

Alright, but let's say 10% the speed of light. How long would it take you to cross the galaxy? The galaxy is a hundred thousand light years across. So if you go 10% the speed of light, it'll take you 10 times that. So it'll take you a million years.

All right, that sounds long, but hang on a minute. That's not where you're first going to go. You're going to go from our star system to the nearby star system. Okay. Okay?

And then you're going to pitch tent, grow civilization, and now you're gonna launch again. And then, but now you're not just gonna go to 1 more, you're gonna go to 2 more. Okay? And then each of those 2 will go to 2 more each. That goes to 4.

To 8, to 16. And so your civilization spreads out rapidly, exponentially, all right, and you'll get to nearby stars in 10, 20, 30, 50 years, all right, and you just have a new civilization there and they send out 2 more, 2 more probes. What he concluded was, if any sensible assumptions you make, the whole galaxy and all available planets can be colonized within a few million years. Okay. That is short compared with the lifetime of the galaxy.

That's

nothing. So it's nothing. So would Johnny come lately here? Suppose you had an advanced civilization that started 5000000000 years ago at the birth of the Sun, a whole other star that's been around, all right, then they could be all over the galaxy and we don't see them, where are they? Okay, so then everyone is saying well how come we don't see them?

Yes, 1 of the reasons are they could be just like us and destroy their own planet, okay, they're so smart they figured out how to destroy themselves. That's 1 example. Another 1 is space travel is just too hard.

It's just hard.

You can move around to your moon. They're stupid.

God, this is hard. No 1 told us it'd have to be so hard. God, We keep trying to go to space, and we can't. It's just too hard, okay? It's so crazy.

Weeping aliens across the galaxy.

Exactly. Can't do it. So, all right, So that's 1 of the reasons. Another 1, this is my favorite of them, is that whatever genetic profile, whether or not they use genes, whatever is in you that wants you to colonize planets, if that's driving your entire civilization, and you go this way, and you get 2 planets, and you get 2 planets, there'll come a time where we both want the same planet.

Exactly. Why do they have, why is their planet so much nicer than our planet? We all started at the same time. I don't understand it. Why is their planet so much better?

You know we should do, you know, I'm just saying guys, what we should do? We should go over there and take that planet. We should take that planet. Okay. Now wait a minute.

Just because- That's colonization in a nutshell.

Yes, there you go.

Now, now, listen, just because we're on planet Caucasoid and they're on planet Negro doesn't mean that we're doing it just because of that. Chuck.

All right. So if that's the case, then the whole system will implode, which kind of happened with European colonists. England had colonies, France had colonies, Spain had colonies, Portugal had colonies, Dutch had colonies, and you reach a point where there's not enough land to go around and they fight each other for control of that land.

Right.

Okay? So we saw that play out on Earth's surface, if you have this expansionist mentality. So it could be that whatever is the urge that would want to make that happen in the first place has the seeds of its own unraveling.

Wow, so the curiosity that brings you to want to branch out And the drive, more importantly, is the thing that is your undoing, because that same drive caused you to lust for the very things that you want to achieve in others. Like I'm the only person that can have this, cause I want to do this. Damn.

And I wouldn't call it curiosity so much as hegemony. Ooh, yeah, great word, yes. SAT word.

Ooh, I

like it. Are you hegemonous? You know, just the need to conquer

and to

control. This is a thing. But there's a third category or fourth, I lost track. This is my favorite, you ready? Go ahead.

They have come to Earth and they tried to visit and they saw all of the space debris orbiting Earth and they said, uh-uh. They were like,

that's Sanford and Son planet. That's the Sanford and Son planet. We got... What you say?

You say those aliens are black? They say, mm-mm. Mm-mm.

Look at all that junk in their front yard. Nobody would have come see this. Why would we want to go there?

So there's that. Well, I got another 1, right? So I take full credit for this 1. They have visited, but they accidentally landed during Comic-Con.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Okay, that is just- Nobody noticed. That is so silly, but

it's so funny. They're like, listen, we kept saying, take me to your leader. People would laugh at us and go, good 1, good 1. And love the costume. And then they would walk away from us.

What is, what's wrong with these people? What's up

with that? Yeah. Yeah, so I think that 1, that's the most fun 1 for me to think about. That's super cool. Or they rather than destroy us, which is every movie wants them to do, They phoned home and said, on earth, they're just like us.

Right. Or nothing to

see here. From the Comic-Con experience.

Could be

that. Oh yeah, nothing interesting. Nothing to see here, you know? So those are the prevailing, there might be others, those are the ones I carry with me. Okay.

For Solutions to the Fermi paradox. Fantastic. Why they're not here. Awesome.

All right, let's go to Omar Marcelino and Omar says Hello, dr. Tyson and Chuck Omar here originally from the boogie down Bronx

Oh Bronx in the house

living in Texas now my son Roman who was 7 wants to know this from you. Dr Tyson If you had a chance to see only 1, would you rather see dinosaurs live and roaming the planet or aliens?

Oh, what? Oh, aliens. Because I already know about dinosaurs.

Exactly.

I got, you know, we see them in the movies and they're pretty good. We have good bones and good archeological. So I'm gonna have to pick aliens only because even though I'd love me some dinosaurs, we already have pretty good representations of them in movies. We've got their fossil bones. We've got good archeological evidence.

And so, aliens, totally.

Yeah. Aliens. Yeah, definitely. You know, cause-

And if it asked me to take it to our leader, I ain't taking it to the White House.

I'm sorry.

I might go to Washington, where the National Academy of Sciences meets.

That's cool.

And bring him to a meeting.

I would take him to Beyonce. That'll mess with his head.

All right, very cool. Next question.

This is Brendan Gambasi or Gambushe. He gave me a phonetic spelling.

Helping you

out. Gambushe from Lansing, Michigan. He says, hello, Dr. You can't

pronounce Michigan.

You got the guy's name. I got the guy's name finally right, and then I messed up the state. Isn't that something? Michigan. Michigan.

Yeah, Michigan.

All right.

Okay, he says, hello, Dr. Tyson. I am interested in knowing what your favorite astronomical discovery of all time is. And Lord Nice, what is your favorite thing that you've learned on StarTalk? I love that.

I love it. That's hilarious.

I love it. So my favorite is the fact that the discovery that we, all life on earth and earth itself owes its chemical origins to stars that have exploded after having manufactured them in its core that exploded scattering that enrichment across the galaxy reaching pristine gas clouds that would form a next generation of stars and planets, 1 of which was ours. That discovery was in 1957 in a research paper by 4 authors. 1 of them is a couple that were married, Burbage Burbage, Fowler and Hoyle. And that is basically the origin of the element.

It's a spiritual gift of modern astrophysics to civilization for us to now be able to tell you we are not just figuratively so we are literally stardust Wow and not only that as we are alive in this universe, because we contain stardust, the universe is alive within us. Ooh. That is my favorite astronomical discovery. Nice.

All right.

Chuck, what's your favorite thing you've learned?

Well, I just learned right there No, everything is my favorite thing that I've learned on this really Oh God, yes, I tell people all the time that my job is to take a master class in astrophysics with the world's foremost science communicator. And like, who could have a better job than that? Like, that's amazing, right?

Okay, so you want a diploma or something? You're bucking for a certificate of commission.

You know, it'd be kind of cool if I could get a little certificate, just, Chuck is not as stupid as you think. That's what my certificate would say.

Okay. Very cool.

Hey, I'm Roy Hill Percival, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Bringing the universe down to earth, this is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

All right, Chuck, let's keep this going.

All right. Keep the

party going. Keep the ball

of wax rolling. Here we go. This is Matt Berg. He says, greetings.

Wait, wait, keep the ball of wax rolling? What?

Yeah, man.

What balls of wax roll? What, what? Where did that come from?

I don't even wanna. What is that? It's just something that comedians used to say when they were MC shows, all right guys, let's keep this ball of wax rolling. And I have no idea.

Wax, it's not a thing that wax does.

If you put it in a ball, it does.

Well, then any ball would roll.

It doesn't

have to be wax. Okay, fine, go on.

This is Matt Berg. He says, greetings, Dr. Tyson, Lord, nice. Matt Berg here from Sheboygan Falls Middle School in Wisconsin, 1 main-

Middle school.

Middle school, yes, sir, buddy. He says, 1 of the main concepts we discussed in my middle school class is the importance of basing final conclusions on scientific evidence that is gathered A student and I were talking about the expansion of the universe and she asked that if the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, doesn't that in essence make part of the universe essentially inaccessible? Just as our seeing inside a black hole is impossible, thereby prohibiting us from ever gathering the needed information to make a final conclusion, especially back to the original singularity. If I understand this correctly, and this is indeed true, The fact that we are losing access to the evidence makes me feel very, very uneasy. Could you please, please make me feel better by telling me that I'm wrong?

Help! Chuck, what's...

We don't know why he had all that emotion at the end of the letter.

I took a little liberty. A poetic license.

By the way, 3 quarters of the way through that, we did not know whether that person was a student or a teacher. No, we didn't. We didn't. I said, damn, if a middle school student

is asking that.

If a middle

school student was asking that. Right, right.

OK, so everything. Tell me the person's name again.

This is Matt Berg.

Matt Berg. Matt, yeah, Matt, everything Matt says is correct. There you

go, Matt. Next question. Sorry, sorry, bro.

We are losing, we are losing the universe as it expands beyond our horizon. Damn. And in the limit, if the acceleration of the expansion continues, then every single galaxy in the night sky will expand beyond our visible horizon, leaving our galaxy and the stars within it alone in our own observable universe.

Look at that. We'll be an island galaxy.

An island galaxy, and as far as we would know, an island universe. Why would there be anything else?

In

fact, that's what we used to think. We used to think all the galaxies were just fuzzy little things within the Milky Way. And Hubble, 1926, says, whoa, these fuzzy things are flying away. They can't be within our own galaxy. They're other galaxies.

So, if the day that comes, where all the galaxies have expanded beyond our horizon, we will return to what we thought the universe was like before Hubble. Just our own galaxy and that's it. So yeah, It's where the galaxy is thinning out get over

it. Look at that. Just like your hair Matt These are just the harsh realities of life my friend

All right,

this is Jesse McIntyre and Jesse says, hey, nunchuck and Dr. Tyson, Jesse, the farmer, you called me nunchuck. I guess I'm nunchuck.

All right.

I guess I'm got to get ready to get flung around by Bruce Lee.

Yeah, you're a martial arts weapon. Yes.

All right. This is Jesse the Farmer from Duval, Washington here. Regarding quantum entanglement, if information is instantaneous regardless of distance, is the bridge between the 2 particles possibly an Einstein-Rosen bridge? Well, anyway, love the show and get learnt. Yes.

Boom. There you go.

And just to bring closure to that, I think I mentioned this in another episode, I was having lunch with Brian Greene, an author of The Elegant Universe and several other books that followed that. Friend of the show. And a brilliant educator, co-founder with his wife of the World Science Festival held annually in New York. Cool. And so, what he told me was, these, in the vacuum of space, we've known that there are these things called virtual particles.

Because quantum physics says you can't have 0 energy anywhere. That there's fluctuations in the space-time fabric, quantum fluctuations that will always give you a little bit of energy. You'll never be pure 0. There are people who want to tap that vacuum energy and like propel themselves with it. We don't know how to do that yet, or if ever.

But, point is, these virtual particles pop in and out of existence from that energy, equals mc2, then they come back together again, okay? Okay. So, when they pop into existence, they are quantum entangled. And then they return, no longer quantum entangled. There's been some thinking lately to suggest that These 2 quantum entangled particles are connected by a wormhole, such as the EP bridge that he mentioned.

That's a wormhole, okay? It's just a fancier name

for a wormhole. So if that's the case,

and these particles are happening everywhere, it may be that wormholes are themselves the fabric that stitches the space-time continuum. Oh look at that. That the wormholes that connect entangled particles. Right. Is the medium of the space-time continuum and that's a profound new thought

that's that's

what that's my new thought for the month

that's amazing

that's yes

crazy by the way

that's crazy it's crazy it's

crazy we have

to be stitched somehow it's the wormholes mm-hmm

amazing that is fantastic oh I'm so glad you asked that question, Jesse McIntyre. That was amazing. All right,

Farmer, what kind of farmer is it? Washington's growing apples or grapes 1 or the other.

True, some, what is it?

How's that for a stereotype?

Very good pinots, right? Or Oregon?

Yes, yes, yeah. Washington pinots and yeah. And Chardonnay.

Yeah, very cool. Alright, my first query ever guys. He says, this one's kind of been annoying at me. Regarding black holes, how can matter fall into the singularity or even pass the event horizon at all? If someone approaching the event horizon would see for the first time the rest of the universe speed up infinitely and black holes don't last for an infinite time due to Hawking radiation, shouldn't any matter falling towards the event horizon either be instantly turned into Hawking radiation in its own time frame or simply ride the event horizon down as the black hole evaporates away neither 1 of these would allow you to go to the singularity which is something physics can't currently explain anyway love listening to you guys keep up with this incredible show

and who asked this question

this is Colin Brum

okay Colin Brum Chuck gave you attitude for the end of that question physics can't explain anyway

well you know there I see these kind of like comments sometimes where people really think- I'm just

saying, you up there, nobody gave you permission to give attitudes to the question. That's because

a lot of people think that the singularity is a BS concept. They think like,

oh no,

they think it's cheating. They think it's cheating.

No, it's the edge of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Right. And we need another theory to extend it.

Right.

So, it's not cheating, it's just, it's our ignorance. There you go, right. We're very candid about it.

See, and I love that. You can be ignorant of something and go to the edge of knowledge, but then you just say, I'm at the edge of knowledge. We need something else here now. Yes. If We step over this line, shit doesn't, I'm sorry, stuff does not work out anymore.

So we need something else. I think that's brilliant. That's 1 of the things I love most about every time we do this show.

And just, and it's occasionally said that the singularity of a black hole is where God divided by 0. Remember, you're not supposed to divide by 0. You can't

divide by 0. You can't divide by 0. Don't do that.

So, here's the thing. If you fall towards a black hole, you're just gonna fall in. You don't stop anywhere, you just keep going. If we try to watch you fall in, that's a different story. But you, you and your time frame, time is ticking just like normal for you.

So no, you're not held up. But as you cross the event horizon and you go down towards the center of the black hole, you will see the entire future history of the universe unfold before you.

Right.

And If you don't come out the other side, an interesting question is there, you will get Hawking radiated while you're watching the future history of the universe play out.

Right.

That can't be comfortable. Yeah.

Yeah, I

don't know which words, the spaghettification falling in, or the Hawking radiation atom by atom as you come out.

Right.

Yeah.

So yeah, so it's all about frame of reference.

Yes, yes.

It's all about frame of reference. It's, yeah, so you get, if you try to look at

it like you're not without the frame of reference Then you're screwing the whole thing up right exactly you're combining your cross combining frames of reference And you can't do that

can't do that.

It doesn't work out. You don't get a coherent understanding of what's going

on there you go

Right okay.

All right here. We go now. This is Dre Ademenko. Dre Ademenko, he says, a mirror shows a reflection of whatever is in front of it. What does it reflect if we put a second identical mirror directly in front of it with

100%

precision We've all seen the infinite tunnel of mirrors in the public bathrooms when they're facing each other but it's impossible to look directly at the center because the object or the person is in the way what would we see at the center darkness a void a parallel universe this is really bending my mind man okay if if who's the who asked this again this is Dre Adamenko

Dre if you manage to do this it will create a rip in the space-time fabric of the universe. Look at that. So I don't recommend it.

You will destroy us all, Trey.

That's what will happen. Hehehehe. Um, So, what would be there? So, I let me just think this through I haven't thought about this before So if they're exactly front and back there'll be some light that comes in from the side, but that'll reflect off to the other side Okay, and it won't go in line with the mirrors. They're exactly facing each other and there's no light in that path, then it should just be completely dark, with nothing to reflect, ruining your funhouse mirror phenomenon.

It would just go dark. As it already is, if you look at the multiple mirror reflections, the farther in the mirror you see,

the dimmer it gets. The dimmer it gets, that's right.

That's correct, because it has less light to... To reflect back and forth. To reflect black all that many times. Right. So it gets darker and darker and darker, but in this case, there's no reason why it wouldn't just be dark right off the top.

Right. Because there's no light there.

There you

go. Now, I've never done the experiment, but using my knowledge of reflections and physics, that would be my answer.

Super cool. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be cool to

see, you know. So what you might do is get a two-way mirror. Oh. And then put, they put a laser through, you know, when it comes through and you'll still get a reflection. See what happens.

I don't know.

There you go.

Yeah.

So there's your homework.

Okay. Trey,

got a little homework to do, buddy. Okay. Yeah. All right. Here we go.

This is Piotr Torunski.

Mm hmm. Torunski.

Think so. Okay. You know, and it's Piotr from Poland. So maybe it's just, maybe that's Polish way of saying Peter I'm gonna call you Peter boy

Okay,

he says hey, dr. Tyson, what's up Chuck My question concerns the shape of the universe if we know that the universe is ever Expanding does that mean it has an edge If the Big Bang happened in all places at once, does maybe then the universe keep expanding more like a ball? So without a clear edge? If so, would that ball be in some higher dimension? Thanks, and love the show, Peter,

or Piotr, from Poland. So, so excellent question. So first of all, the universe, when we speak of its size, it's to our horizon, and that's 14 billion light years away. Now, that edge is today farther away than that because it's been expanding for 14 billion years. Right.

Since then. Okay so if you look at the actual diameter of the full universe, it's not an observable diameter, but you can calculate it. Last I checked, it was something like 92, 94 billion miles in diameter, right? The universe today. Okay.

Beyond the horizon, there's no reason to think there isn't more universe.

More universe. Right.

Yeah, just like a ship at sea. There's probably more ocean just beyond your horizon. Okay? Eventually you hit land, great, but until then, you're not saying all I can see is the entire ocean. No 1 is saying that.

All right. So now, the question was, what's outside of that, the expansion? Well, we don't know for sure, but the multiverse, which is what you get for free when you bring quantum physics to general relativity in Einstein, you get a multiverse that's pumping out universes. And there are different levels of multiverse, but the simplest is that it's outside of our horizon.

There

are other bubbles of universes. So that doesn't require a higher dimension to embed them. It's just, just imagine, how would you do this? A big rubber, expanding rubber sheet, but you have these circles that you draw, and each circle, in that circle is an expanding circle, that's a universe.

Right.

And then another universe over here. So, the space-time would enclose multiple universes that are expanding. That can happen too. Right. But there are higher level multiverses that require embedding in higher dimensions.

And you can do that. You can have infinite universes that don't overlap.

Right. Yeah.

You know how to do that? Did I tell you how to do that?

You watch Rick and Morty? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yes. That's how you do that. No, no. So let's take it down a few dimensions. So let's say the universe is a flat sheet of paper.

OK. OK? 2 dimensions instead of 3 spatial dimensions. Make that sheet of paper infinitely large. Right.

Okay? Now take another sheet of paper, put it above it and make that infinitely large. We have 2 infinite sheets of paper that do not intersect.

Right.

They don't touch each other.

They never touch.

So, because they're embedded in a higher dimension, they're two-dimensional.

They are literally parallel universes.

Oh, there you go. So we take our universe and embed it in a higher dimension, we could be infinite sitting right next to another infinite universe, and never the twain would meet. Wow. That being said, there are people who are looking for universes that go bump in the night. Is there a signature in our universe in this direction that looks a little different from this direction.

Is this bruised in any way? All right? Did we get knocked by another universe passing through, passing by? There are people who have looked, they haven't found any anomalous features in the edge of our signatures. Super cool.

Yeah. God.

You just gotta love this stuff, man. What the hell is wrong with people?

I love this.

People, y'all can't love this. OK, This is Zach Stein. He says, hello, this is Zach. I'm a first time caller from Kentucky. Oh, first time caller.

Yeah. Long time listener, first time caller. Okay. He says, how does scale pertain to the multiverse and quantum theory? If the rules of physics could change in a different universe could this be factored into changes in scale we already see this in quantum mechanics could the same thing happen as we move up in scale in any other direction

okay so scale I don't know if I fully understand the question, but I can tell you this. When we figured out planets going around stars, we said, that's cool, okay. Then we would later learn about atoms that have electrons. And they say, well, we've been down that road before. We've got planets going around stars, electrons going around nucleus, so is that, is it that all the way down?

Is it that all the way up? Is this things orbiting other things? Turns out no, it's not, it's very, very different, That's why we don't say electrons orbit We say they move in orbitals. We borrowed the word I added an al at the end So electrons exist in orbitals not orbits, so it's not it's not scalable in that sense You don't it's just not just a big version of something little or little version of something big. Plus, there are other issues, right?

So Chuck, if you had to scratch your head, because you got a head itch, show me how you would do that, Just do it. Okay, there it is. Scratch your head. Yep. Okay.

You did that like a monkey does it, you know? Pinky finger.

I thought I was being dainty.

Okay. Do you have lice? Just let me know. So, you have an itch in your head, and you responded within a fraction of a second, okay? If you were, if things just scaled, and you were the size of a galaxy, okay, and just make it bigger, if you were the size of a galaxy, and your head itched, you'd have to send the signal from your head to your brain, to your fingertip, and then move your fingertip to scratch your head.

Right. Okay? That can't happen any faster than the speed of light.

Exactly.

So the galaxy is 100, 000 light years across. So the signal to get to your fingertip and then come back and scratch your head would take 200, 000 years to scratch your head. Right. That's not particularly helpful if you got an itch.

Yeah, it's not very efficient.

Right, right, right. So we're thinking big creatures that if they existed, itching is not a thing, okay? So, my point is, things just don't scale the way you might want them to. Otherwise, it would make for a very easy nesting doll universe, all the way down and all the way up. So, that being said, it is possible for other universes to have slightly different laws of physics.

Yes, that is possible, and that would change everything. And if you come upon such a universe, do not knock on its door. Send in something else, okay? Send in a gerbil or something, I don't know. Nobody likes rats.

Send in a rat and find out what happens to the rat. All right? If it collapses into a pile of goo, or explodes with his guts all over, or it, you know, comes back with 3 eyeballs, you know, I don't know. Depending on the laws of physics, many, very many things can be different.

Wow. But there you go, that's very cool.

Well, and By the way, in the Cosmic Queries book, book, okay? That's 1 of the installments of the StarTalk book series in collaboration with National Geographic. In that book, there's an entire chapter. There's an entire chapter on how the universe will die. And it has all the ways.

And it describes how the multiverse gives us all these different combinations of size laws of physics and the like so it's a it's a fun read so check it out

very cool very cool

yeah Mm-hmm.

All right, let's go to Renee Skirp. Renee says, hello. Hypothetically speaking, could you walk on the rings of Saturn? Again, hypothetically. Ha ha ha!

If you were to land on Jupiter or a gas giant would you just fall straight to the core can't wait to hear the answer thanks Renee

all right so here's what'll happen a Saturn's rings are not a thing There's just like countless particles orbiting Saturn. Okay, so you can't take your car and drive on Saturn's rings like it's a racetrack, okay? And it's not a surface. And all the gravity points towards Jupiter. So no, you cannot walk on, not even hypothetically, can you walk on Saturn's rings.

Not even hypothetically,

dang. Not even hypothetically, sorry about that.

So disappointing.

So now you wanna land on Jupiter or Saturn, you get to the outer surface, but it's gaseous, and you keep falling, and you keep falling, and you keep falling, until you and the surrounding gaseous have the same density. Right.

Then you'll just float there. Oh, just like in your own water.

Yeah, yeah. You finally, you'll get to a place under pressure.

Under pressure.

Where you'll just be buoyant in there.

Yeah, when I, the little bit of scuba diving I've done, if you wanna get to a certain depth, you have to wear weights. Add weights.

You gotta have weights. Exactly.

Just for that reason, you know?

You scuba dived before? Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I enjoy it immensely. It's a lot.

Okay, what does scuba stand for?

Oh God, you would do this to me. Dude, I'm... I know it's an acronym, hold on. Dude, dude. Oh God, no.

You got me, man. Subway. Oh,

crap. Crap, crap, crap. I can't remember. Self-contained

underwater breathing apparatus. Yes. There you go.

Doggone it. Got me. Got me. Okay, just to atone, what does laser stand for?

Oh man, I can't believe you did this to me.

I'm just trying to help. I'm trying to give you just save face here.

Okay.

Light amplified,

stimulated emission. Wait, what's the R? Stimulated emission. What's the R? Damn it.

I'm losing my mind.

Light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation.

Radiation, okay, I should have known that.

All right, you're O for 2, you need 1 out of here. Okay, what does AM stand for? AM and PM, Am

Am stands for staticky radio. No

Okay, you win,

okay

Trying to help you out here am and p.m. You don't am

I don't really know, I'm terrible at these. You use it every day. I know. AM and PM. I do.

Okay. So, after midnight and I don't know, post-morning? I don't know.

Maybe we'll do 1 with abbreviations. We'll do an explainer 1 day.

We should because let me tell you something, I use all this stuff. Here's the problem, I read these things, you know, and then I just forget. You know why?

Because you never say them. Plus you need context to understand. Once I teach you AM and PM, you'll never forget it. I promise. Okay.

I'm not gonna look it up. And I don't do Google. When I don't know

something, I

don't do the whole like, let me run to Google. I'm like, okay, I gotta look it up and I gotta read it, you know? But like, laser, I've, you know, I'll read that a million times and I still won't remember it. And scuba, when I first scuba dived, I had to of course look up, you know, that's the first thing they make you learn. Before you ever put the tank on and go into the pool, which is where you learn is the pool.

But yeah, you gotta learn. But I'm interested for AMP and I'm

not gonna look it up. So. We'll do it. Yeah,

the AMP, there's AM and FM.

AM, right. XM radio. Those all stand for things. All right,

let's do it. We'll do that. That'll be fun. That's a fun 1

So did we did I finish answering that question?

Yeah, you did, because basically the answer is no. You can't walk on the rings of Saturn, and no, you can't, you cannot fall to the center of a gas giant. You're gonna at some point reach a place of buoyancy and you're gonna be stuck there.

Correct. And there is a place we think Jupiter has a solid core very far down.

Right. But you'll be crushed before you get there.

Was it a solid core or a thick? Yeah, you're long dead. You're

long dead before you ever reach it.

Is it a solid? There's like an earth mass of solid stuff in the center of Jupiter. Yeah.

Oh, I did not know that. Yeah. Jupiter is that big that inside it's pregnant with a little earth.

That's awesome. That's awesome. It's a tootsie roll. Yeah, tootsie pop. Mm-hmm.

That's great.

Last question. 1 more real quick. Oh,

Right. Here we go. Let me find 1 that

quick 1.

Okay. All right, here we go. This is Bruce Ryan Bruce Ryan says this what's up gents Bruce Ryan here from Alexandria, Virginia Suppose there was a small black hole with an event horizon the size of a basketball floating in front of you. What would happen if you put your hand through that event horizon? Would it suck your entire body through?

Or would you just lose your hand or something? Eww! Eww! Kind of wild in a way, I like that question.

Eww! Eww! I don't know if it'll just bite off your hand or if you'll fall into it. What I do know is that if you let go of it, okay? By the way, that basketball-sized black hole would have more mass than the entire Earth.

So what would really happen is you'll fall in. You'll just fall in, okay? Because its gravity

will just pull you in.

It'll just, you can't not fall in it. But because it has more gravity than Earth does, if you let it go, it and Earth would fall towards each other and Earth would lose. It would eat the entire Earth systematically. Yes. It'll break apart Earth and just chew it and burn it.

And that's it.

I'm telling you right now, this Earth, child, this Earth is delicious. I don't know who sent out for Earth, but I'm telling you right now, you need to call Uber Eats and get some of this Earth. Saturn, Saturn, have you had this Earth?

Actually, the black hole wouldn't have to lick its fingers, because it's all going straight down

the hole. It's just going straight down

the hole. It's just going straight down the hole. It's not even finger-licking good. It's like

swallow good. There you go.

Well, that's all the time we got, Chuck. Oh man, that

was fun. That was a lot of fun.

Yeah, Grab Bag, that was. All right, always good to have you here.

Always a pleasure.

Checking this out. This is Star Talk, Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Keep looking up. You're watching Star Talk.

I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. Keep looking up.