Should We Nuke An Asteroid? | Cosmic Queries with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Marina Brozovic

[@StarTalk]

Did you know Neil had his own asteroid?

[@jestermoon]

Really? What is it called?

[@frogz]

Did you know Marcia Belsky has the word SKY in her name?

[@frogz]

@@jestermoon Apothis ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) also NDT's email password used to be 13123Tyson, dunno bout the asteroid's password though

[@abhilash_p]

Wow! Tyson 13123 asteriod

[@mollybell5779]

No, that is great to know. Also great to know his password of choice. 😂🤣

[@xFersureMatt]

I love marina! Bring her on again. She's someone very relatable. I love her seriousness and academic view on everything.

[@fymcgee]

Loved marina! Her passion is just so evident in this video, one of my favourite guests I've seen on star talk!

[@miighankurt1930]

Agreed and it was not cool to annoy her with the other not funny comedian lady and her anti-intellectual book title and baggage.

[@TheRealSkeletor]

@@miighankurt1930 "nucular"

[@existencemystery]

Beilve the bug or skin eaten, The c%%%%%%v33333333333, flowing waters, magic, 4youngersgrouporanoynces that need to be made h%%p garbage by bayneking , ~~|\\|the 16 highangels with swords, battle, the unique creatures on islands,

[@alanbrady420]

In an alternative universe Neil is watching me talk about cosmology 😲

[@Anuchan]

In an alternate universe I am a rat watching a fire ball heading toward a group of T rexes and thinking, This is my chance to take over.

[@Thestunnaj]

@@Anuchan but fortunately it was not

[@alanbrady420]

😂😂

[@stanlenhart7259]

if that's the case, iam soo not here!‼️‼️💥⚠️⚠️

[@johnyepthomi892]

You wish 😂

[@user-jg6bd7se8u]

I love how yall make such complex topics off the cuff and funny! Thank you for sharing it with us!

[@randomdazz]

Neil and many of his guests have a tallent for that - that comes naturally from their personalities - it makes science fun again :)

[@bigwill123ism]

Great guest. Enjoyed the conversation with her!

[@srinyacharya]

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the Carl Sagan of our generation. He has got an extraordinary capability of explaining complex things about the cosmos in a way that even an elementary school student can understand. Keep doing what you do. Thank you for making science "cool" for the kids !

[@stuffmatters]

😂

[@jmanj3917]

Absolutely. Just pick one that is likely to help us understand certain things, like density variations or wtvr.

[@EnlightenedEyes11]

Why did you cut her off when she was talking about the "double asteroids!" That was so fascinating! 😭

[@christophelombardi7810]

Great Cosmic Queries, as usual. One question, though: how can we be certain of what percentage of the total number of a given size of asteroids we have found? I'm sure Marina Brozovic's claims in that regards are founded in scientific facts and calculations, but it's just that, from a very basic logical standpoint, how can we know the full amount of something (and fractions thereof) if we haven't yet found all of it? I just wished that Neil or Marcia had asked Marina to clarify that point.

[@traildude7538]

It's two things: extrapolation from what we have seen, plus mathematical analysis that leads to computer models of the solar system -- and it's amazing what can be learned from models.

[@rich.and.rare.100]

Well in a video about measurements he said that u can never really get an exact measure of something maybe that helps idk

[@DaBlondDude]

I hope Marina will be back answering more questions and sharing information 😀 I didn't hear a direct response to "can we nuke it" but I think I heard (beyond it being a last resort) that hitting a comet, etc TOO hard could merely multiply the problem?

[@michaelccopelandsr7120]

Neil and Chuck for 2024

[@davidbryant2872]

One of my favorite episodes!

[@leeFbeatz]

Much love superheroes 🙏😊💯 y’all are the bomb💯💯💯

[@daviddorais6071]

When my birthday comes around I have started to say I've completed an ORBIT; and when New Year's happens I wish everyone a Happy New Orbit.

[@gekylafas]

4:27 Well, actually, "aster" is Greek for star, not Latin. Star is "stella" in Latin, hence words like stellar etc. And -oid is again from Greek (actually, just the -id [-ειδής] part means "like"). Just saying. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid#Terminology

[@LA-mz2jx]

Opa!!!

[@davidmanning7052]

Marina Brozovic is beautiful and unworldly intelligent! Wow.

[@SprinklerGuru2024]

Congratulations on hitting 2 million Subscribers!!!

[@fraliexb]

They make Neil's asteroid pair like a house with a detached garage.

[@StarTexaspets]

Should send all our nukes to space tbh. Aliens already know to stay away lol

[@bobbyauvil9885]

Neil, a question a little off topic: could the number of satellites in orbit adversely effect the radiation belt surrounding our planet? Haven’t radio/cellular waves been shown to push the radiation away, and, if so, couldn’t that be heating the planet up? Just something I’ve been thinking on…

[@loidzpc4237]

Very rare occasion, or none at all, that a person would tell you, "Your orbit is a little bit eccentric and slightly inclined!" So COOL, Neil!!

[@seeyanexttuesday23]

When are we going to see Neil on an 8-hour podcast with Lex Fridman? 🙏

[@ndowroccus4168]

I tell you what….NDT knows when to drop the “Hey wanna learn something real quick” Perfect when he dropped “Asteroid” origin story. Sooooo cool Neil!❤️🍀

[@glike2]

Great episode and asteroid anxiety chilling

[@jayvincent1865]

I absolutely love the fact this brilliant woman has nothing to do with social media. We're a rare breed..

[@danoconnell1833]

This might be my favorite Star Talk. Fun, informative, engaging participants ... perfect!

[@meliferra1913]

Don't get me wrong. I love StarTalk. I can't get enough of it. I especially love the astronomy episodes. Whatever it is up above, I'm listening and learning. It is a wonderful thing that we are actually blessed enough to to have this program. It speaks volumes to us, literally. We are reading, listening and learning. Emphasis: We do appreciate every guest and every cohost and Dr. Tyson, the host. I get so much from this program that I think it is an excellent idea to support it financially. (Let them be.. . just there in orbit where they belong. Nature has its way).

[@cleverusername9369]

Don't get you wrong about what? You didn't say anything disagreeable.

[@ChartreusianInfusion]

It’d be worth it just to see how all the nuke-chasing UFOs would react and for the UFO footage alone.

[@starwatcher9900]

I always like to hear the words cosmic queries

[@artandcraft403]

I learn more with your videos that all that I have learned at school.

[@mikotagayuna8494]

Marina: Asteroids can be various types of grey. *Anastasia Steele has entered the chat*

[@dulynoted2427]

We need something that'll detect the next Oumuamua. Maybe also have a defense built on the moon.

[@seantlewis376]

This is one of the most fun Star Talk episodes I've seen.

[@RobertSoul123]

Technically it's Cosmic Queries, I think

[@mateuszz1277]

Great video! 👍 Trojan and Greeks are in the Lagrange points of Jupiter. Are there some similar asteroids in Earth Lagrange points?

[@regahj]

I was wondering the same thing. Yes is the answer. Two have been identified. The larger one was just discovered two years ago (in December 2020).

[@Ikonicre_Moonshield]

Mercury has none, Venus 1, Earth has 2 (both L4 ahead of Earth), Mars has 14, Saturn has none (though its moon Tethys does), Uranus has 2, Neptune 24.... Jupiter has over 11000 recorded Trojans... 😂

[@tarmstrong9906]

If they broke a big asteroid heading straight for earth apart, and the asteroid is two decades out, seems like the outer piece's could possibly go wide of earth, depending on each individual direction of the pieces after breaking apart. Seems like that would change the asteroids direction. The slow nudge would definitely be best. Both seem very hard to do, the later harder.

[@traildude7538]

The hard part would be even knowing if the asteroid in question was suitable for splitting; the ones that are just rubble heaps would scatter, the metallic ones would be hard to split, so the targets for which this would be feasible would be the rocky and carbonaceous ones. Then you'd need to set your explosives to be just the right amount to achieve the split. All of this would really mean sending a mission to analyze the asteroid in every way possible since we'd need to know its density, consistency, makeup, how well it holds together... a lot of information, just to prepare the real mission. I imagine that in the future we'll have special space stations in Earth's Lagrange points with ships ready to go whenever a dangerous asteroid was found -- ships capable of implementing whatever diversion might be judged best.

[@brianupsher6675]

The key to nudging it is you don't have to move it much if you catch it early enough. A change of 1 degree could amount to thousands of miles over the course of a decade.

[@traildude7538]

@@brianupsher6675 At the speed asteroids move, a deflection of just 1 minute of arc could amount to thousands of miles! If I feel more alert later I might do the math.... This is a side-angle-side problem, so the amount of deflection ought to be x = L(tan θ), where θ is the angle of deflection, L is an arbitrarily chosen path length, and x is the total sideways deflection over that path length. So let's use L = 1,000km and if I'm doing my numbers right then θ = 1/216000 which is roughly 4.6 ee-5 or 0.000046. So.... if I did that right then the defection over a thousand kilometers is 0.803 meters. So to get a deflection of a kilometer, the asteroid has to travel 1.245 * L, or 1,245,000km. A typical asteroid should travel that far every 69 seconds. Flip the numbers around and we find it takes a comet about 56 seconds to travel 1,000km. Thus a deviation of 1,000km will taken of almost 70,000 seconds, or about 807 days = 2 years 77 days. So in a decade, the asteroid will have been deflected ~4,500km. Of course this is based on linear motion and not elliptical, but the numbers should be close enough to give the idea: a very tiny nudge a kilometer before impact gives a lot of deflection. To look at it another way, start with the Earth's radius, that being the maximum amount of deflection to make an asteroid miss Earth. The radius is 6,380km, but that's the radius to the surface, and we don't want the asteroid to graze the surface, so let's add a few hundred kilometers and round to 6,600km as the maximum distance of deflection to cause a miss. This yields a course correction requiring 14 years and seven months lead time. To shorten that we need a bigger deflection or more time. A bigger deflection is the only variable we really have control over because there's no way to say "We're going to see a dangerous asteroid fifteen years before it hits"; we might see it only three years out, or even less. So how to get a bigger deflection? Send a rocket with power to apply continuous acceleration is the quick answer, but since asteroids rotate and tumble that's actually rather difficult even without considering the fuel supply! The only solution I see is for the interceptor to use a laser to vaporize a point on the surface, and just travel along, aim the laser at the center of the visible asteroid, and just keep that aiming point, ignoring the rotation. This reminds me of a story I came across where an asteroid was deflected using solar power. Obviously at the time of interception of the asteroid that power will be minimal, but the closer the asteroid gets to the sun the greater the power, so they had to calculate the power curve and the resultant acceleration of the asteroid and the resulting deflection to determine how big the solar arrays should be.

[@andreanderson8639]

36:48 Rail gun! #theexpanse

[@subhanusaxena7199]

Great shout out to Eugene Shoemaker. Do watch the Nightwish video Shoemaker about him

[@kflicted]

[@nappingkitty4567]

What a great conversation! A great guest.

[@petersage5157]

Neil: "Twitter, in general, is not true." Also Neil: "Hold on, let me tweet this..."

[@obiwanshinobi87]

It's true.. we love showing off our telescopes.. but now I can call myself an expert because Neil said so!

[@Ranveer_Singh_sangha03]

Marcia i think forgot to turn on light 😅

[@TheGreenSweater]

Marina

[@grannyshata9659]

hey Neil

[@4460532800218528]

I think the better question should be; can we capture some of these near earth asteroids, study and mine?

[@grannyshata9659]

hey Chuck

[@frogz]

hey chuck, you're missed every episode you arnt in!!

[@Thisandthat8908]

Who would have known that Shoemaker/Levy were such big Mike Tyson fans! On a sidenote: JPL also does really good full size documentaries on their youtube channel. And not like shouty dumbed down TV docus.

[@xneapolisx]

Anyone remember that line from the Chevy Chase movie "Vacation"? His son in the movie asks his teen cousin, "You got Asteroids?" (the old video game). To which his cousin responds, "No, but my dad does, can't even sit on the toilet some days" 😜😜😜

[@TRUSTME183]

I’d love to see you do a live podcast on ASTEROIDS💯% I’d go round for round with anyone that needs to know about #APOPHIS

[@SpottedHares]

If I remember correctly during the Orion program they determined that nukes put as little as 10% of their energy on target. So they made some specialty nukes that put around 86% of their energy on target. Granted this is still highly classified so the accuracy is highly debatable.

[@joehebert789]

Highly classified but freely available on a KZbin comment thread. #soundslegittome

[@CheeseWheelEnthusiast]

@@joehebert789 Source? Just trust me bro.

[@joehebert789]

@@CheeseWheelEnthusiast What am I trusting your with? You haven't made any statement in this portion of the thread.

[@H3LLS4NG3L]

@@joehebert789 Bro. Trust Him.

[@CheeseWheelEnthusiast]

@@joehebert789 Read my name and then OP's name and then you'll realize that a very classic and widely well known internet joke just went waaaay over your head.

[@LuckyPig]

A common misconception of numerous scientific terminology were Greek roots are mistaken for Latin too often to overlook. The actual suffix is -id (e.g. Cepheid) from the greek - and not latin - "είδος" which means kind (genus in Latin) as in "related to" and not oid were the o is from a preceding vowel part of the main term.

[@Hectorfriedmansolutions]

We should attach vacuum engines to it and guide it away.

[@fluid1614]

Really cool episode

[@P4V3LS]

10 points for animations!

[@zak9129]

Nice job!

[@auturgicflosculator2183]

I think more pertinently, should we nuke asteroids into Earth orbit so we can mine them with less travel distance?

[@TheGreenSweater]

You can and should try.

[@lucianilie2397]

Deffinately! Make sure it's as close to Earth as possible first! You guys are great at Nukes, you got this. :p

[@dunderwood4444]

Tyson 13123 #RESPECT Bless up from Brooklyn

[@StarTalk]

Thanks, D Underwood!

[@RobertSoul123]

@@StarTalk You know this guy?

[@alexandertaylor2951]

Love your content man. I have to take issue though with something you commented on on Twitter. The scene from the new top gun movie where a pilot ejected from vehicle at mach 7 or so...there is no way to know what the altitude was or what atmospheric pressures would be faced in a situation like that. Sure...those speeds at ground level would be deadly to any pilot. EVOS though, happen regularly. I think in some situations that The Pilot could survive such an extreme event. Let me know what you think. I'm going to subscribe to the channel. Really like this content! 👍💯

[@martyspencer1]

Jupiter is such a big boi that even Neil doesn’t dare demote it!

[@IIIZeldaIII]

Hello, my name is Nathan Quinn, I am a quantum physicist, and I do solemnly approve this message.

[@IIIZeldaIII]

(I'm not credited for my quantum theory yet though)

[@F_L_U_X]

22:18 Pluto*

[@DudleyCreekStudio]

The content exceeds the production values. There should be a balance.

[@michaelccopelandsr7120]

Happy Birthmonth to all October babies. People born in October don't have birthdays. We have Birthmonths.

[@andyf4292]

would a nearby nuke explosion / or a Orion type pusher charge actually be more effective than a direct hit?

[@longlostkryptonian5797]

I saw Don’t Look Up and thought “do they even deserve to survive?”.

[@TheGreenSweater]

Brownian motion

[@PhonePhreak3z]

Great episode!

[@joehntr3]

Depending on size and make-up how far in advance would we need to react to deflect an asteroid?

[@mattevans-koch9353]

So now I have to worry about Dr. Evil making a DART mission to push Neil's asteroid into an impact path with Mars. Man, it just never ends. What's next? Electric Cars and trucks?

[@fraliexb]

Jupiter and Sun "Trojan and Greeks" asteroids sound like la Grange points.

[@traildude7538]

Thinking of corporations and asteroids, I can see companies deciding to try to catch an asteroid on a collision course with Earth so they could mine it.

[@williampeek7943]

Gene Shoemaker was not an English major. He was a Geologist who founded the field of Lunar Geology.

[@amb3cog]

Great show. Loved both the ladies. Marcia is so dang cute!!!

[@MrGreasem]

Could an unmanned craft stitch some form of web at an orbital intersection, catch an asteroid, swing behind it and fire a booster that is attached to a gimbled tethering configuration in uniform direction (pulse-firing the booster, for example) How would physics determine whether a cable could be light enough and strong enough in space to resist tearing away from the tether? Or, what about a reel and hook that is gently set in front of the asteroid with line paid way out to collide at perpendicular attitude, and where a rotation by the craft around the asteroid, at the end of the line is part of the alignment process for tugging with timed booster?

[@MrGreasem]

What about a high speed collision using an airbag warhead?

[@teeing9355]

Good video

[@daviddorais6071]

My friend Debbie Byrd has an asteroid named after her, and frankly I'm surprised she's never appeared on Star Talker.

[@quinstoni]

I saw the #short about the earths liquid core generating a magnetic field and the little part at the end about mars not having a magnetic field. So I was wondering how it still has two moons in orbit around it?, I understand that orbit is like infinite freefall and i know mars still has gravity but its not self generated, unless i am confusing gravity with a magnetic field?

[@rich.and.rare.100]

My question is why is this not available to the public I wanna see what an astroid looks like in detail just like how they see it

[@krotenschemel8558]

Wait wait wait. Near 38:00 there's talk about 90% of the larger Asteroid having been found and 50% of the smaller ones.... so how do you know how many you are missing?

[@tangkai616]

The scariest movie for Niel who ask us to always keep looking up is Don't Look Up.

[@richarddudley1318]

Nuking an asteroid? Seems like a recipe for aliens

[@domenicdinello107]

What would happen if our moon got hit by an asteroid and a second question have other planets been hit by asteroids?

[@B1u35ky]

Startalk: after hours

[@TheGreenSweater]

Sleepy time snacks

[@ddpwe5269]

Rick and Morty just did an episode where Dinosaur's came back, but super intelligent and peaceful.

[@ddpwe5269]

That's fascinating that they know HOW many asteroids there are, but not WHERE they are!

[@markvenicio8386]

This is my favorite podcast because teaches how to move away from my space mole lol 😂

[@BeamMonsterZeus]

Asteroid: "but why tho"

[@alexanderlittlejohn7136]

Quick, some I needs to make a movie where it's the cold war, and the arms race turns to fight asteroids that come plummeting to earth.

[@meejinhuang]

No. The key is to slowly change its trajectory and not to blow it up. Many satellite probe impactors would work better.

[@JumperXxXCables]

I imagine that at this current time that a nuclear bomb destroying an asteroid is feasible. Reason being is that the propulsion relies on O2 to work. So the propulsion would have to be reconfigured in order to work. Am I correct in this thinking?

[@randomdazz]

We could also say the sun / solar system itself is a moon of the Milky Way - and The Milky way is a moon of the universe itself - and the universe could be a moon of the Multiverse

[@H4WK6969]

We're not allowed to set off nukes in space, if the galactic federation found out our planet would get yeeted.

[@kekokid72]

Today co host did a good job but am I the only one who gets a little disappointed when Lord Nice isn't here

[@ahmedflamenco19]

We Want Chuck.

[@NeroThacher]

(Lovingly and with due respect) I disagree with the statement that Jupiter dominates the solar system. It easily is the 'alpha-planet', but i can think of another 'cosmic body' that dominates Jupiter.

[@NeroThacher]

(The Big 'Burny Boi of Life' in the centre if that wasnt obvious)

[@nikosntirlis2039]

I will have to correct Neil 😋 Star in Latin: Stella Star in Greek: Astir So, "asteroid" means "like a star" and it comes from Greek, not Latin+otherwise it would be "stellaoid").

[@dalton6173]

Also under that definition the sun would technically be a moon of the black hole at the center of the Galaxy and everything in this galaxy would be a moon of that black hole.

[@dillonbledsoe7680]

The lady's drawers behind her looking cracked open messes up my focus 😆

[@gr8potatosaurusofthunderfart]

30:00 omg the Earth's moon is a moon moon moon