The Time Neil Was Almost Struck By A Meteorite

Neil deGrasse Tyson recalls a story of an almost deadly brush with fate he had one night while looking up. He recounts it as "the most alarming thing he's seen in the night sky." This and much more in this StarTalk+ video.
What would alien inhabitants of the Andromeda Galaxy see if they looked in our direction? Can they see our galaxy with the naked eye? What about planets? How come some, like Uranus, rotate in the opposite direction? Neil explains all this and more to comedian Russell Peters in a discussion that is equal parts hilarious and mind-bending.
From an episode of Cosmic Queries, "Everyday Astrophysics": • StarTalk Podcast: Ever...
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0:00 - The Joys of Ignorance
0:59 - How Aliens Would See Us
1:32 - The Most Distant Thing You Can See With the Naked Eye
2:50 - The Most Alarming Thing Neil Saw in the Night Sky
4:46 - Why Some Planets Rotate in the Opposite Direction
5:03 - The Right Hand Rule
6:04 - The Most Important Discovery
7:50 - Stargazing on a Mountaintop

[@YoungGandalf2325]

If Neil looks up into the night sky and appears surprised, you'd better run for cover or start praying.

[@josephdonais4778]

Being an agnostic I'd say pray. There is a better chance of surviving than running.

[@BLOXKAFELLARECORDS]

Brilliance has no price tag.

[@jaylittleton1]

On describing the quantity of stars in a galaxy, I propose we adopt a new unit of measurement: The Sagan. Beelieuns and beelieuns of stars.

[@TheRealQueres]

I love the edits, and the background music.... this just adds to the excellence of the show ! Superb !! 👌🏾

[@RobertWrayGuitar]

Think about how long that meteorite traveled for you to witness it's death.

[@OO-un8ks]

The amount of amateur astrophysics learning tools with technology are awesome

[@ryanbarry899]

What astrophysicist wouldn’t get a rush from that? Cool stuff

[@AnarchoReptiloidUa]

Great vid. Thank you for your work. 👍👍👍

[@Laserblade]

It is also magical to see the stars at night from the middle of the Pacific with no Moon. It's like walking in space - how the night sky looked to the ancients.

[@robertwhitemoto]

Totally agree about the mountain top!

[@mikal]

I wasn't hit by a meteorite, but I once was almost hit by flaming, falling fireworks that were launched from a lake in Chicago. Literally they were falling on the beach and lighting people's blankets on fire.

[@LightDiodeNeal]

Superb, 10.1 stars! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[@mollybell5779]

Decades ago, up in Maine, saw a meteor that streaked across the sky as a fireball, as it broke up into flaming pieces. I'll never forget it.

[@brucecook502]

I've seen meteor showers before but I don't remember ever seeing exactly what Neil described. Pretty amazing

[@michaelccopelandsr7120]

🎶"We've only just begun..."🎶

[@Becizzle]

Can you talk about Proxima Centuri B? Life on that planet? Intelligent life?

[@Lance-lightning]

I thought Uranus was tilted on it's side rotating at a right angle to the orbital plane.

[@SheSweetLikSugarNSavage]

Hmmm so there really is no eye piece on those huge telescopes? That's disappointing, but expected. I always wondered where would they place an eyepiece for viewing, because those observatories, like the ones in the canary islands are so huge and yet so very fragile. I just assumed, or envisioned that images coming through them would have to come to a computer for viewing. ❤

[@BenjySparky]

Neil, you rock! Peace

[@Bl00dMalice]

7:01 - His comment reminds me of the Sophons' from Three Body Problem. The fact that human development was accelerating so quickly, that by the time they would reach Earth to invade it humanity would already be more technologically developed than they and would destroy them. Hence their fear. That aside, while I understand Dr. Tyson's take that any time is an amazing time to be alive, you have to accept that humanity's development is accelerating quickly and I think that's what he was getting at, albeit expressed not so eloquently, haha. So it would have been interesting to have heard the explanation for the acceleration. It kind of reminds me of Moore's Law with transistors. Is humanity going to develop faster than we can keep up with? It's already been difficult for people to adapt to a world with generative AI, for instance. Imagine developments coming out faster and faster... crazy. So yes, I can see how people in the past could have appeared "dumber" to him than people today but that's not the reason, of course, haha.

[@SheSweetLikSugarNSavage]

❤❤❤ I swear when he talks about the universe its absolutely Majickal. He'll go off and say something crazy from time-to-time, but no one quite aligns the cosmos the way he does. Anyone else screws it all up with nonsense, and delusional equations they don't understand in their own mind, yet alone trying to explain to you. If the universe had extra material left over from its dark matter. It probably cut a piece off, and sent it down to earth and said, "Here take this piece, and make it a astrophysicist. He'll be able to listen to me and the stars...✨and by the way shield his true name, and call him Neil...The Star Talker"

[@IrresistibleWitch]

What he saw was a spaceship

[@kevinim300]

unbelievable wow

[@Masterdebater87]

On the "most important discovery" topic, Russell seems to be describing our rate of intellectual development as a graph or "exponentially", which is also how I see it, kind of mirroring the curved growth rate we see in tech advancements and such. But Neil seems to dismiss that as an optical illusion and implies that our development is actually a consistent "speed", not an acceleration. Admittedly mine and Russell's perception is purely that, but it seems pretty obvious that our rate of knowledge (definitely not to be confused with wisdom) is accelerating over time, not staying constant. Is there a scientific principle behind Neil's rebuttal? Or was he just taking an opposing perspective to extend the segment, as anybody could do on any subject I suppose

[@paulsmith9192]

What's the music?

[@KMcK567]

Unless someone picked up a meteorite and threw it at you or a meteor bounced off the earth and flew toward you, you were almost hit by a meteor, not a meteorite.

[@OO-un8ks]

What if the finite point of data whether cosmic or computer virtual data is wiped by the very definable etching of wiped data in the inter-matter non-dimensional web of interconnected ideas of what it is itself, the description of recombinable stuffs from each of the versions within unique yet repeated without unique interactions from the matter, the matter then recombines and desyncs reach factor of Uniqueness from afar as a reaction sense graphically and visually and and wave energy and it's completed

[@bored9260]

i had a dream about aliens… crazy it was like starring at their version of Galileo… they discovered radio sounds, but they did not discover how to interface with it… so they explain it as a theocracy government it was the universe speaking. sadly they had no telescopes on that planet and the civilization lost a great mind and the item became a relic that no one could explain. then we figured out how to travel deep space and meet up with the civilization who look exactly like us but a fraction more heavier in density. if they would make it back to our planet their evolution would make them 1/8 heavier then us…

[@bored9260]

but they metabolize the same thing and look like us.

[@anthonyshiels9273]

Why is Venus "upside down"?

[@bored9260]

i feel bad for him as it is a lost opportunity to look into a scope. 😂

[@bored9260]

im bortle 5.7 now i can make out the milky way with the naked eye.

[@mholm4962]

If aliens sees us now 2 million light-years away they will probably see how we are living in caves right about now! Which also means that they might visit us 2 million years from now.

[@thefareplayer2254]

7:46 “Those idiots back in 2019! What the hell did THEY know?” Uhhhhhhh, hits differently than I think Neil intended it.

[@tackytick4706]

Please no background music. I love the rest.

[@MarcoCurrin-qg1fy]

You already did all the math you were just looking at it wrong. I’ll show you.

[@smartbutuneducated8637]

E=mc2 I ask this. c is a constant with a mathematical definition and we translate that to verbal description. If you question C physics loses it S**t by verbal associations if what C means rather than saying math C means something just we translated things incompletely. Why does this not come into the perception?

[@andrewklonowski9899]

🎉

[@stephenpahl7538]

90 degrees (sideways) or 180 (upside down) degrees Neil, you said 90 degrees _ 1 point on my score card

[@outtathyme5679]

Didn’t it burn up many miles above you?

[@megatedassaultituary6783]

that guy is so full of it, gotta love his confidence though lol stop putting random people on a pedestal folks

[@SheSweetLikSugarNSavage]

Neil....! You were almost hit by a what? 😂 it was the final moments of your life huh boo?🤣🤣 he's hilarious ☄

[@MarcoCurrin-qg1fy]

Ok we start in the middle of infinity, the creator has fractured part of its’ soul to create a human soul attached to the creator’s soul…now we insert this IDEA/thought of the creator- down into the middle of infinity and CAUSE time along with space to be disrupted creating gravity as we are separated partially from the creator, which IS EVERYTHING BEING INFINITY…now to have free will the creator must allow us to choose in life as it >only< rebalances the entire universe. NOW humans learn to CREATE THOUGHTS in the middle of infinity which AGAIN spreads time and you call it space…. So as the creator is infinitely everywhere that is exactly why the universe grows in all directions in all directions. The thoughts we create in the middle of infinity occur AFTER our soul and BEFORE light created….. so it’s in the middle of creation somewhere that we create thoughts (1) then we create DARKNESS (2) you say your in a womb, THEN we create LIGHT(3) ->YOU say your born. NOW we create the world the ones before us see, this is done by overlapping the older ones view thru the creator to the younger 1/2 gods… in each child ( it’s why you see many cards creating lines in the double slit light experiment/and as you doubt being a 1/2 god you only see “ONE” CARD YOUR VIEW) WE see a body thing after the dark time and space form that you call peripheral vision.. but only 1/2 180degrees in the place you call earth that is actually 1/2 infinity after light created--close your eyes to see the OTHER BIGGER HALF OF INFINITY…. There hasn’t been any light created there yet cause your mind IS IN THE FUTURE. Your soul is with god even further past the future…..called ->infinity😇 That took what ? 2024 years and a lot of death/suffering to find out YOUR HALF GOD ALMIGHTY TWO EYES WE HAVE NO TAIL NO MORE NO MORE Quantum entanglement, dark energy, schroder’s cat, irrational number Pi……WOW …….WOWWY WOW Love Christopher Walkens’.