Transcript: Episode 66: Saving Earth from Other Worldly Impact

Guest: Charles Blue

Tracking Near-Earth Objects, DART, tabletop defense games, and Starship Trooper conspiracies. The Rabbit Hole of Research crew heads to the Basement Studio to ask what happens when you look up.

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joe: [00:00:00] Hey. Welcome back to the rabbit hole of research down here in the basement studio. We’re all crewed up. You’ve got me, Joe,

nick: you got Nick.

joe: you got Nick.

geo: Nick Georgia,

joe: we’ve got Georgia.

mary: you got Mary.

joe: And we still have Mary leaning way back from the microphone, so,

nick: look,

geo: but the good news is she came back.

joe: did? Yeah,

she come back. 

mary: I knocked on the door and you let me in 

joe: so we did. Yeah. 

mary: you know. Sorry about

nick: that. There was a little hesitation there.

joe: Yeah, It’ll probably seem like a bigger gap because I think there’s some episodes in between where

geo: Oh, right, right.

joe: Nevertheless, that’s all the podcast magic. We also do have a guest with us because today pretty excited to talk about this topic, planetary Defense, saving Earth from other worldly.

Impact And so

Charles: Hi, Charles Blue. I am actually a science writer by, I won’t say training. I don’t know if you can ever be fully trained for that, but I’ve been [00:01:00] doing it now for about 35 years in some way, shape or form. Much of it in astrophysics, engineering, a little bit of biophysics. And most recently for three years at NASA and I did have a little stint in the.

Science Mission Directorate, which includes the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, PDCO. And if you wanna hear the coolest job title in the world is Planetary Defense Officer. I just, I love the fact that somebody at NASA has that title. So yeah I worked with the team for a while got to help out with one of something called the tabletop exercise, which is when they sort of do the what if scenarios of a potential potentially hazardous object that is going to get way too close, like actually enter the atmosphere and how that would be responded to.

So I’ve had the pleasure of learning about it, talking to these people, and I’m happy to give you the information I know, but I do have to say I’m [00:02:00] speaking. As myself, as a independent citizen who just happens to be a bit of a duffer on topics. And anything I say beyond what is referenced in my, my publicly available resume is , purely speculation on my part.

So I’m not speaking on behalf of any organization, but I’m delighted to talk about a really cool topic.

nick: I think this is the first time we have had a disclaimer 

joe: I know. Yeah. It’s 

nick: It’s like, you can’t

geo: You know 

joe: didn’t have a 

geo: what? We should have a disclaimer like that every 

joe: I should disclaim myself too. I don’t know. It’s

like,

I’m not speaking for any No, yeah.

No, that very good. Oh, 

yes. 

Charles: had some people that I’ve worked with get in trouble for not saying

joe: really? Oh, wow. There it is. This is, 

we are we’re stepping up here.

geo: Yeah.

joe: Well, yeah, they get going. I have my open if you guys like,

geo: what if we said no?

joe: I don’t know. I’m

why I offered that up as

nick: I don’t know.

geo: option,

joe: but I feel like I should, I feel like that’s

a good host. We we’re in the story time and we go, what are we gonna, let’s do you guys wanna do this again?

geo: And then there’s that one [00:03:00] kid that goes, no,

joe: Yeah.

See you’re out 

nick: me.

geo: sorry. Or

joe: us.

mary: is it done? 

joe: we done?

Yeah. Okay. 

mary: All right. But I know, scientists, being very scrupulous, , you want to make sure that you don’t talk out, out of turn and, make it clear that, 

geo: well, 

mary: necessarily your opinion, but it’s. It’s gonna be fun to talk to about, especially because I wanna hear about all the cool near, near misses that we haven’t heard about.

You’re gonna tell us about those right? 

geo: first we have to let Joe do his 

joe: know. Are 

mary: he gave us the option not to. So we said no, right? Oh no. Okay. Darn it. 

joe: to nod and say

Yes. That’s 

mary: Okay.

joe: Yeah. I mean, come on here,

but you’re showing me up. All right. I’m just gonna go.

geo: Okay.

joe: Somewhere out there in space, there was a rock on a collision course with Earth. It’s and Earth has the scars to prove it. 66 million years ago, something came out of the sky and ended the age of the dinosaurs. 115 years ago, [00:04:00] something exploded over a remote Siberian forest with the force of a thousand Hiroshima bombs.

And in 2013, while scientists were busy tracking a completely different asteroid, doing a close fly by a rock nobody had seen coming, emerged over a town in Russia and put 1500 people in the hospital, mostly from broken glass. We got lucky. We kept getting lucky.

But luck

isn’t

a plan to have a plan. We need to see it coming. Whoever sees it would have to decide whether to tell anyone. Countries with the technology to act would have to agree on what to do. And once the plan is in action, hope that our best intentions don’t accidentally make things worse. NASA has proven it can actually move one, and makes saving earth look easy.

But what would really happen when the universe stops missing? And we have to rely on more than Handwaving to save us from Armageddon.

geo: Oh, [00:05:00] nice.

mary: Damn.

Charles: That’s a great lead in.

joe: very good. Thank you.

geo: I’m so glad we did skip it.

joe: right.

mary: I think it was fine.

I’m just 

joe: Yes.

Charles: don’t know how I can possibly improve on that,

mary: Okay. 

joe: No. Yeah so

I mean, 

I think I’ll throw it 

to you, Charles, just to maybe to expand on it and maybe give, what would we be defending ourselves from? What are, what should we, , there’s a lot of terms out there, , asteroids, meteors, comets, 

geo: alien ships.

mary: Alien, 

joe: Alien ships?

Yeah, that’s, yep.

nick: I heard alien shit. You know,

joe: Let’s start with the actual factual, then we’ll get into Isha. 

mary: NASA here. All right. 

joe: we’re, what’s an area 

51?

mary: We’re gonna go, right? We’re gonna go right there. Okay.

Charles: The same thing that’s in the basement of the Alamo

mary: Yes,

Charles: Peewee spike.

joe: please, Charles.

nick: that’s.

Charles: But that’s a great question. You know, that’s one of the things that people who are in the planetary defense community [00:06:00] are very careful to say. We’re not looking at comets and asteroids. We’re looking for potentially hazardous near earth objects, NEOs so they could be things like something they could be an asteroid.

These things could be metallic really hard.

hard, dense, they could be carbonaceous, they could be any of the mixes that you can get that form the asteroids that are out there in the solar system or maybe from a different solar system. But also we have these comets, which are essentially dirty snowballs.

They can come from far out in, beyond the kuer belt out, out in the ORT cloud. And, unlike some of the comets that have these regular periods, like Haley’s Comet these things could be, they’ve never been here before. So, how soon we detect them is really an important question.

So really if it’s anything that’s out there that is somehow gonna make its way into the inner solar system, the idea is to find it, [00:07:00] catalog it, track it. See, is there even a remote chance? And I will say one of the reason that I can get to sleep at night is knowing that as far out as calculations go, which is about a hundred years, there’s really nothing that has been discovered in catalog that poses a significant, that poses a risk.

Certainly there are smaller things, but we’re talking about something that’s say up to a kilometer which will give Earth a really bad day if it were to enter the atmosphere. But currently, you know, at least for the people in the planetary defense community, they don’t go to sleep and feel like, gosh, I hope I don’t

get 

joe: it. Yeah. 

Charles: by an asteroid.

joe: So I mean, you mentioned something interesting and that was size, so you said that like kilometer wide, it we got it. They’re all tracked. There are things smaller, so should we worry about those smaller things that could slip through or appear too late, and we’ll probably get into some of our defense mechanisms that we can use, [00:08:00] but, , is that something

Charles: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you mentioned the bins asteroid, and this is one that blew up over Chilean’s, Siberia. There, there really wasn’t a considerable amount of warning on this. We’re talking the order of hours that something was you know, being tracked. And when this thing exploded in the atmosphere, you mentioned the how powerful it was.

And yes, people got injured. That’s because there was this massive bright flash in the sky. So what’s the first thing people do? Well, they go look out the window. So they’re putting their face right up to the window, and then there comes the pressure wave, and suddenly you got glass flying everywhere. So when you see a bright flash.

I think it’s pretty cool, but get away from the window. 

There, there are things of all sizes and the Earth is constantly accumulating dust size grains. Tons of it per day is actually, you know, running into earth or earth is running into it as it goes around. So it’s a constant stream and you can get things from the size of sand grain [00:09:00] to something the size of the, what was some of the Simpsons, the head of a chihuahua to, to things that are much bigger.

But when you’re talking about things that are like up to the size of, let’s just say a hundred yards you’re talking about something that would. Really be dangerous to something along the order of a city. So yeah and those things are obviously harder to find the bigger they are, the easier they are to spot.

So, you run everything from, yes, you’re gonna have a bad day in this localized region to, it’s gonna be a bad day on a seaboard, or it’s gonna be a bad day for everybody on the northern hemisphere, depending on the size.

joe: And that’s how, oh,

nick: if 

you guys notice something coming, do you give that area that you think it’s gonna hit warning, or is it just like a We’ll see how they turn out.

Charles: Mercifully. There, that hasn’t been an issue. So it, it hasn’t happened. But the idea is that keeping things [00:10:00] quiet is not. It’s impossible because it’s not one group, it’s not one organization. This is a global network. The data are instantly uploaded to

nick: and they’re all working together

joe: Databases.

Charles: There is, it’s a really great community of researchers and observers who try and like, keep that flow of information going because obviously as Earth turns, you’re not gonna be looking in one direction.

You wanna have other telescopes around the globe being able to track and study this thing. And also we’ve got, you know, detections being made by satellites in space by, by other ground-based observatories. So it’s not something that you’re gonna be able to keep quiet. It’s not like, what was on was it Deep Impact or the

joe: What else? Armageddon? Yeah. Yeah.

Charles: Armageddon, that was, 

yes, it was, it. Yeah, it, so, there there’s no hiding it because it’s not one government or one agency that’s tracking [00:11:00] these things. 

geo: I mean, but 

joe: that gets into though, would when do you tell the public, because if something, let’s imagine something’s coming or you think something’s coming, the headlines could get really sensational and then it’s not, was it Apophis? I think that was that the one that it was like, oh, this might hit Earth and then people freaked out.

It was kind of big splashy headlines and then really, more refined calculations. It was like, no, this is, it’ll get close, but it, we’re in no, pretty much zero danger of anything happening. And so you have this kind of cry wolf moment where, if it happens too many times, and people, guess it’s not happening all the time, 

but people,

They don’t pay attention to it. And , should they, maybe it’s like kind of one of those things

geo: Or there’s panic, right? Right.

joe: Or panic. That could happen too. So is there a

Charles: tell you what, let me, this is a great transition into a little exercise that NASA and other organizations do every two years or about every two years, and this is called the tabletop exercise, which is [00:12:00] you get all the invested parties. This is from various government agencies, different science organizations from other countries into a room.

And you say, okay, here’s the scenario guys. We’ve got this object and we discover it and we’re observing it, and we get some initial data just as it goes behind the sun and we lose it.

geo: Mm-hmm.

Charles: be able to see it again, but it’s gone. But from that initial observations, there’s a 10% chance that it might hit Earth.

And this, again, this is an exercise hypothetical. None of this stuff exists, but it helps people say, okay, what are we gonna do? And that’s interesting data. So yeah, that would not be withheld. There would be

nick: So what’s the time span with that? They would have like in that 

Charles: this one. It’s a mul in that scenario, it was a multiple year time span.

So, there was enough time to say, okay, we’re gonna wait till we can actually get telescopes on it again, see where it’s at. [00:13:00] And then this tone of uncertainty of what might happen gets clearer and clearer until finally you say, okay, the chance of a. Entering into Earth’s atmosphere is getting a bit stronger.

That’s when you also have to say, okay, now what do we do about it? Is this big enough that it’s going to be a global catastrophe? Is it something that might be a danger to a small area? And what you really wanna be able to do is say, okay, well it’s going to hit the earth. Most of Earth’s surface is water.

joe: rain, right. Yeah,

Charles: yeah. So if this thing is on the order of a kilometer, yeah, you could get some tsunami and coastal problems from it, but it’s not going to be. A major danger. Like something is gonna be hitting like, oh, let’s the last one, the last tabletop exercise you saw this potential cone of it going across the east coast of the United States, and it was right in the middle of, it was Washington DC And I’m like, I wonder if they planned it that way.

No, that was just kind of the random, like the way the dice felt. But I was like, [00:14:00] wow. 

joe: yeah. 

mary: Let him crash.

nick: That’s right.

joe: Yeah.

geo: some daydreaming

joe: yeah,

geo: happening.

joe: I,

Charles: You can cross your fingers and hope, but

geo: That’s what darn.

joe: it’s,

Charles: A lot of the planning is how do we better track what it’s doing? And that could be by launching a something that is many of the other planetary emissions from NASA is like, okay, let’s get up close to a comment. Let’s get up close to an asteroid.

We’ve got the psyche mission that’s heading out to that asteroid,

joe: Yeah.

Charles: but do you have enough time to do it?

geo: speaking of.

mary: of

geo: Washington, DC like I know that there has been cutbacks, like with weather people analyzing weather in different 

mary: organizations 

geo: and departments. I mean, is there any chance that this department will 

joe: cuts to nasa?

I mean, I think 

the budgets have been hit all over. I don’t know if Yeah.

geo: And no pun intended.

joe: Yeah, 

nick: just hoping that we don’t get hit with,

joe: But yeah, so

geo: I don’t 

joe: know.

what 

Charles: it’s, [00:15:00] yeah that’s a tough thing to say. I mean, at the moment fortunately this is not, again, just nasa, it’s a multinational. Program, but NASA does have a really strong role to play in it partly because of the instruments it can bring to bear. there there’s really some wonderful ground-based absurd, but this is also National Science Foundation as

joe: Yep, that’s right. Yep.

Charles: the four meter dark energy camera at Sierra Tolo and Chile is perfectly designed to look for these dark, distant objects. I, my favorite one is it found a very distant planet like body out past Pluto that they nicknamed Didi that distant dwarf. I just thought that was just a cool name.

But it can also, these things are also really good at looking at stuff that are coming from like the sun side. So you, when you have that really narrow timeframe where you can actually look for eos near earth objects. Inside the orbit of Earth, inside the orbit of Venus, which are really hard to spot.

The something [00:16:00] like the the Blanco telescope in Chile is good at that. And also space observations. Hubble does it from its data, not directly looking for them, but the singles are in the data. And there’s also a new mission that I believe is supposed to be launching in the next year or two that is specially designed to look for these things and study them because it’s been a

joe: So, Charles, can you you know,

Charles: yeah, go ahead.

I’m sorry.

joe: 20 the kind of strike that happened, the explosion in 2013, it was missed because it did come from the sun side and that’s why. So can you maybe expand on that? What’s the difficulty of something seeing something coming from the sun?

Like you 

geo: haven’t you ever tried to drive and that sun’s hitting in the wind?

I mean, it’s hard.

mary: Are

joe: I put my hand up? Can we do that? Just like the space

hand, block the glare? No. So, yeah. ’cause you 

would imagine things would be, 

yeah, go 

ahead. I, I. 

If you

Charles: yeah, you would think that it’s like, oh it’s all bright and wa and clear. We should be able to see this. No problem. Well, actually no, because pointing a [00:17:00] telescope in the direction of the sun is kind of a defeats the purpose. It really

mary: yeah. Right, right, right. You just

joe: wash out 

this, the detector is kind of it. Yeah. Okay.

Charles: right. And it just makes it a very difficult thing to do in the planet. And the tabletop exercise, the idea was you know, we’re like so many things that you’ve got orbital dynamics. Sometimes they’re a, they’re visible, sometimes they go on the other side of the sun. So you have to kind of wait for it to come around.

That particular non just pulled it up, but the exercise was looking at an. An asteroid that had a 72% chance of hitting Earth in approximately 14 years. And that’s a nice lead time. But on the other hand, that’s only 14 years. So we have to know what to do about it. And it’s it’s question of who’s gonna take the lead?

How fast do we have to launch? How long will it take orbitals to get to this thing?

nick: Yeah.

joe: If you’re doing [00:18:00] di 

I was gonna, 

oh, I was 

gonna, I

geo: was gonna ask what are some of the ways you,

joe: can I ask one thing before that? ’cause I think, ’cause it, I think that’s good. What should we do? But I think one of the things you mentioned was that, let’s say it’s gonna come, it’s gonna smash into the ocean.

72%. It’s gonna hit the ocean. It’s just gonna be some tsunamis, all these 12 countries, we, you know, I don’t, no one cares about, you know, or 

nick: I mean,

joe: I’m just 

saying,

nick: Philip Joe,

joe: you. well, geopolitically they might be. I’m not saying I don’t

care, but I’m just saying

that the,

you know, when you now have to go 

and say, well, let’s now send rockets, let’s launch things to def and we’ll get to Georgia’s question, like the things we can do if you’re in a country with the technology and it’s not gonna affect you, I mean, do you have any, I mean, is that talked about like, oh we feel 

we should spend 

tax dollars to 

do 

X or Y, I mean, is that a consideration or does it come up in these tabletop kind of scenarios or

Charles: to make the estimate of where it might actually hit on earth. If you’re waiting to find that out, [00:19:00] it’s too late to launch a mission. So like, if you discover, oh, okay, we finally got the calculations, yes, it’s gonna land directly in

nick: East,

Charles: Podunk, some city. In the center of the United States. Well, by the time, you know that there’s no chance of doing anything about it.

So at that point it becomes the issue of how do you handle things from it used to be fema. We don’t know what FEMA anymore to deal with

joe: a different

Charles: yeah what can you do 

joe: yeah. 

I’m saying if this was gonna hit 

somewhere that isn’t, are

geo: are you saying you kind of do a cost 

joe: Yeah. Right. So if it’s not us, it’s not a US territory. 

It’s you know,

group of 

geo: said, this is not just us, this is.

joe: Right. But if it’s gonna hit the ocean, I mean, that’s a scenario.

Like you, you’ve kind of, now you know it’s gonna come in 12 years. You think it’s gonna hit somewhere in the Pacific. There’s not a lot out there, but it might cause a tsunami that then rolls, you know, or is that 

still taking too much of a chance? Like it’s, you better do something.

Charles: there’s no, it would be [00:20:00] far too difficult to figure out where it might strike earth at that point. And again, with 72% chance that little bit of it that 28% uncertainty, there’s so much that you just can’t calculate as far as where on earth. So if you’re waiting to find out if it’s really going to be a risk to your country before you send anything up, it’s too late.

So, yeah, the idea is you would have to marshal resources, you’d have to make the decision what to do well in advance of really knowing where it is. And that’s 72% chance of something big hitting Earth. Yeah, I think you wanna, I think you wanna put some money 

into that.

nick: Yeah. Yeah. 

joe: Yeah.

And 

hopefully you have political 

cooperation. Right. And that gets into George’s question of what options are available, 

what 

can be done?

Right. 

geo: Like we shoot it out the, or do we get 

joe: like, the dart 

geo: or do we get like a group of old retired men to 

joe: where are we going Army getting, 

nick: Or do we get a bunch of trash and then shoot that rocket of trash to deflect it?

mary: Use

joe: [00:21:00] missiles?

nick: Futurama, no.

Charles: Yeah, I know. I think, you know, a giant slingshot

mary: that’s 

joe: right. Yeah.

geo: right. Yeah.

Charles: Wonderful thing about this, particularly you if you’ve got years the angle of deflection that needs to be done is so incredibly small compared to what you would need to do if it were a month out. So really there, there’s several things you can do, but some of them can be fairly seemingly. Not all that impressive. If it were something that is gonna be doing a couple of orbits that gets close to the earth and eventually starts to zero in on it, well, you know what, if you just paint one side of it a little brighter than that extra albedo would give it a just a little bit of push, push it right out of the way.

If it’s something though that you really need to give a push to, if we are saying we don’t have that much time, but we have enough time to marshal something. Yeah. You were mentioning this the dark impact, and this was an a, a kinetic [00:22:00] impact or it was basically let’s hurl something really hard at it and see what happens.

And this was done by an asteroid that actually had another, like, like a moon. This was the asteroid moonlit was dim

joe: Dior, yep. And

Charles: The idea was just to hit that and see if it changed the orbit. And it did. It was a brilliant success. And it, to your listeners, you can actually see the video of this thing getting closer and this little dot getting bigger and suddenly no signal.

And then you hear everybody in control room just cheering, like cheering for losing the signal. No, precisely.

geo: Wow.

Charles: And there’s been some, there’ve been some really intense reviews of what happened. Both ISA is sending a probe there to get a really close look up, look at it to isa, the European space agencies sending probe.

They’re gonna be able to see really kind of what happened to it. Some of the debris that came off of it. Well, it’s possible some of that’s gonna be hitting Mars, but it’s not like it’s a risk anything on [00:23:00] Mars. ’cause this is considerably smaller than the stuff Mars normally gets pummeled with.

geo: Mm-hmm.

Charles: But things you’re finally, you’ve got a test case of one, which is.

nick: really 

joe: nice, right.

Charles: So much better than zero. And the tech, the technology works and if we needed to have it getting something up there that, that is just sheer force hitting it. Nothing that sophisticated about hitting something with a spaceship. We’ve done that unintentionally a fair few times in the past.

joe: yeah. You have that. 

Charles: But yeah.

joe: yeah, I was gonna say, the other, is like conventional nuclear weapons that you, you see that portrayed in Hollywood. I know there’s risk of putting it into one. One is to put it into the actual asteroid and then detonate, and the other is to get it close and detonate.

One’s probably a better idea than the other 

nick: are these plausible options?

geo: ho hand, William Holly?

joe: yeah, I’ll it looks like they’re considered, but 

I don’t know. 

Charles: [00:24:00] They have been considered, and it certainly is a viable option if it’s necessary. I mean, if you don’t have enough time to get an impactor up there and you need that you need more than like the force of a, a VW bug hitting a hunk of rock. You need something that’s gonna be a nuclear blast.

Yeah,

yeah That’s the, 

joe: what would the size 

difference be? Would it be, you know, at this size range we can use the VW bug at this size range. We need to, hit it with something considerably larger. Is there, is that part of the consideration or is it you

Charles: That’s part of the cons. That’s absolutely part of the consideration. Other is, what is this thing made out of it?

One of the reasons why when they’re doing the table exercise, it’s like, yeah, we can like send up all these things. We can set up an impact. Or maybe if it’s necessary, we’ll put a warhead on it, but we don’t know what it’s made out of.

So there was a sample came that came back from the asteroid. Benu. Benu is just a rubble pile. It is fluffy, it’s loosely compacted. [00:25:00] When the Cyrus Rex mission actually just grabbed a hold of a hunk of it to bring it back, so much was blown off the surface and they realized this is a real loose collection of rubble.

Well, you hit that with an impactor. It’s. Probably gonna blow a park. You hit it with a a nuke maybe that will have something different. So you have to figure out what this thing is. If it’s pure iron, that’s different than something that’s rocky as well. So getting a mission there first to look at it, it’s like, oh, okay, we couldn’t tell this from earth.

Now this thing is this type of object. Yeah. That is really important to know. I mean, if it’s, again, if it’s mostly ice maybe an impactor is not going to be the most effective thing. Maybe you need something like the heat from a nuclear blast to melt a bit of the side of it. So it changes its trajectory.

But again, so much of what you need to do is based on how much time you have. The more time, the more options.

joe: That’s, I was gonna say the other, [00:26:00] but the nuclear option, we do have a, isn’t a nuclear space treaty. We’re not, you’re not allowed to actually have nuclear weapons in space. So to, to use this option, you would have to come to some geopolitical discussion.

Or you have a secret nuclear platform that was in the movie Meteor, I think a

Charles: Mer. Oh, yeah. I actually got stuck in the front row of that when it played in my hometown, tilting my head up. I was like, oh, I had a headache for a week. But yes, that, if you haven’t seen Meteor, it’s actually a, an excellent sort of

joe: I was just.

Charles: deep impact Armageddon type movie.

joe: Yep. I was just watching it just a little bit ago. Yeah. And and that came up 

and I was like, oh, look at that. This came out, I

Charles: when did that come out? Like It would’ve been like late seventies

joe: it was 79, I believe. It had Sean Connery and Henry Fonda.

Henry Sean Connery was the scientist, and Henry Fonda was the. President.

nick: I can’t see

mary: Oh man. He is

nick: a scientist. Like [00:27:00] I look at that man, and I don’t go, he’s a 

mary: scientist.

joe: scientist. 

geo: Is that because you’re thinking of like, Zardos?

Charles: If you could see him in Zardos can see him in anything

joe: Yes.

geo: What were you gonna say, Mary?

mary: was just gonna, yeah I thought it was like a fun little side diversion rabbit hole. Yeah. Into no, de definitely not 

joe: but in 

mary: like, media depictions are there any favorite media depictions that you have besides media depictions besides media that you enjoy?

Charles: I got Gotta say I. I loved Don’t Look Up

joe: Oh, yeah. Very it wasn’t about the asteroid. It was about,

yep.

geo: Right. oh, that was so

you,

mary: yeah.

joe: Yeah. And

mary: Mm-hmm.

Charles: but again, the, the end result of it was like sitting there, having dinner, having a toast, and suddenly vaporize, like, yeah, probably pretty close to it.

geo: Right. And I, and just everybody’s reaction and their attitudes. It was so [00:28:00] appropriate.

joe: how it goes.

Alright. 

nick: I’ve got a very important question.

mary: Yes.

joe: a list? 

I do.

nick: I don’t want the list. No. Yes, your honor. That’s not even close. If you guys discover that there is some kind of life form on the media or whatever.

Charles: my God. Or if it’s like some sort of like tip technology that came from another solar system is passing through.

nick: Would you that would be cool. I would love to have that problem.

is this just something you can’t disclose? Like

geo: maybe it’s like, how big is that organism if it’s just like a little teeny, tiny organism

nick: what if it’s

venom? 

mary: Well, some something Charles you might not know, but we’re all obsessed with the movie The Thing. So this probably, you know, this probably fe features a lot into why we’re asking you about these things,

Charles: I think

mary: but creatures from

Charles: a movie that tank, for a movie that tanked at the box office that has legs, it is so good.

mary: is. Yeah.

joe: a, it wasn’t understood at the time, I think [00:29:00] people thought it was one thing and it came out and it was, you know,

mary: Are we five for five for the thing? 10 out you better be, 

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 

joe: don’t 

mary: we go. Yeah.

Excellent. Still be the, 

geo: he’s just gonna turn it off.

mary: there’s a 

joe: there’s a

bust of John Carpenter here,

so,

I it’s a, that’s

geo: not to mention your thing 

joe: and 

a thing. Yeah. So it’s

a, 

nick: golden 

mary: book. Yeah.

joe: Just, you know,

mary: ish,

nick: Joe tried to model his life that way.

mary: Mm-hmm.

Charles: I can, I could take a little bit of a digression on that. And I did mention this the asteroid benu and the samples that came back from a Cyrus Rex. As people are analyzing this, it really is incredible how many organic molecules, complex organic molecules have been detected in the sample.

And I’m not the first to propose it or think about it, but the parent body of this thing was likely out in the distant solar system 4 billion years ago, had a lot of radioactive material in it, so it was able to have some semi-liquid [00:30:00] water. And the fact that these things like all the base bases nuclear basis of DNA a and cytosine were all detected in this.

So it’s. And also it was shown that it was in this acquiesce environment. It had some other elements to it that suggests that it could have been packed with organic type molecules. Wouldn’t it have been interesting that the plant, the original body, had enough water and heat that it may have produced?

Life. And then that’s a real speculative thing to say, but it is interesting how much the universe really wants to create the building blocks of life and to find it. And that just shows that

it’s it. Who knows what type of life

joe: that adds to the I

see. 

geo: can I say

joe: The, I Well, you go ahead.

geo: Would that be an extreme, a 

joe: It would be. 

mary: But 

joe: I was gonna, I was gonna say

though, that is one theory of panspermia, right? [00:31:00] Is that the building blocks of life actually originated extra terrestrially and arrived on Earth through asteroid meteor strikes.

Bringing organic material into Earth. And then that was the spark that led to more complex, organic, , RNA world the RNA soup kind of theory, and then what we consider modern life. So finding some of these samples now adds a little more a credibility to these theories of the start of life and how that could have been much more universal.

And if it can happen here and in other planets with similar, 

nick: goldilock, Goldilocks,

joe: the Goldilock zone it might 

also 

Charles: you don’t even need a gold zone so much. I mean, if you’ve got something like Ence or Europa, which have sub. As oceans, maybe that is you certainly wouldn’t have looked at it as gold galone. And we’ve got Mars and Venus technically in the Goldlock zone,

joe: That’s right. Mm-hmm.

Charles: Not a great place to be.

It. It’s, and if you go back a little bit further, we’re talking about asteroid [00:32:00] impact back during the Haiti in period. This is very early in Earth’s history. It could have been that there were some, you know, life existing there, and then it got completely wiped out. So the impact that it created, the moon that was a situation where it would have sterilized the planet.

nick: right.

Charles: But to really cr to make a nurturing environment at the time, it required massive asteroid impacts, perhaps to keep this reducing environment quote, reducing it. It’s good for certain chemistry to create organic molecules. And it was quite likely that Earth’s atmosphere was only mildly reducing, only mildly good at creating complex or getting molecules until it gets smacked by some really large asteroids during this heavy bombardment, nearly history of earth.

Not enough to sterilize it, but to keep reenergizing this atmosphere. So this thought that, you know, we need to [00:33:00] be wary of asteroid impacts, yes, absolutely, but we should also be kind of grateful for them in a way, because that may have helped to kickstart life on earth in the first

place. 

joe: probably led to us having, talking on this podcast because 

if the dinosaurs ain’t getting wiped out, mammals may not be the dominant species on, or if we 

geo: that might have been the better thing for earth, but not for us in the podcast.

joe: Yeah.

Charles: Here’s a little bit of a science writer history in my part, and that is back in the day, back when I was kind of a wet behind the earth science writer, I was working for the American Geophysical Union. And we had this little press conference about the detection of a impact in the Chub area.

The, essentially the smoking gun the impact from the the asteroid that was the end of the dinosaurs. That was really a bad day for a lot of reasons, because if it had not hit that [00:34:00] area, if it had either landed on land or if it went into the ocean, you know, the deep ocean, yeah, it would’ve wiped out phenomenal amount of life.

But it may not have been end of the dinosaurs because this thing hit in this limestone area that was not too deep underwater. So it vaporized this, it created an amazing amount of just. Toxic chemicals that also went up into the atmosphere. So it wasn’t just the initial impact, it was now we’ve got an atmosphere that’s chockfull of sulfur pared coals and the materials that were thrown up from hitting this particular type of rock.

So it was really a unique set of circumstances. Five seconds later when the earth would’ve turned and it came down elsewhere, there still might be Velociraptors running around Chicago. Well, we wouldn’t be around,

but you know it. 

joe: that area, that’s the, that was that the Gulf of Mexico area. Is that, 

Charles: Yeah. It’s off the Yucatan [00:35:00] Peninsula. Yes. And actually it was discovered before it was sort of announced at science conferences because the oil companies that we’re drilling for going, well, we’ve got all these fractured rocks here. Yeah, it looks like this big type, like something was there, but eh, we don’t care.

No oil. So we’re gonna go somewhere else.

geo: Oh, wow.

joe: There you go. Gotta make that money.

geo: I 

nick: mean,

mary: his name.

joe: Gotta get there. 

mary: I wanted to ask about, oh, go ahead.

Charles: go ahead. yeah, yeah. 

mary: I wanted to backtrack a little bit because Yeah, exactly. Ep beep. You were talking about something called the ORT cloud. And I just for folks, it what is the ORT cloud?

Charles: there’s a lot more to this solar system than you could possibly imagine. But this is kind of like the very outer edges of what would kind of be the solar system. And we’re talking about a light year away. So this is really out there. But [00:36:00] beyond Neptune and beyond the other like icy bodies like.

Pluto and Aris and all the rest of things that are out there that are big, icy things and small, icy things. There is this distant area where some of the comets that we observe are, and we see this around like proto-planetary discs. If you the observations from the alma telescope and others that are seeing really young forming solar system see these same things as well out beyond the planets.

There is this it’s not even in the plane of the galaxy. It’s sort of like this shell of icy bodies that we’re just kind of part of the formation of the solar system, but they were too far out to really kind of get in with the main planet forming process. So that exists, it’s out there. And will we ever be able to see it directly?

Eh, it’s pretty far out there in dim, but, hopefully, you know, something will get out there eventually, but yes, that is part of the solar system is [00:37:00] perhaps the most distant 

particle part 

of the solar system and some of the comets that come our way that we haven’t seen before, that aren’t like the regular returning ones are likely coming from the org cloud.

joe: Okay. Interesting.

mary: Oh, I, is that, is the OR cloud the same as the heliosphere I was reading about like heliosphere, like, You like protective barrier.

Charles: is, yeah. The heliosphere is, there’s the helio pause, and that’s about the point when the pressure from the solar wind is. It hits the point where the interstellar medium kind of outweighs it. And the Voyager spacecraft has passed beyond that. So it is kind of outside, they call it technically a, leaving the solar system because it has passed beyond the heliopause.

It’s gotten to the point where the density of stuff out there isn’t from our sun, but it’s from the interstellar medium. And this is not really related to that because it’s not related to [00:38:00] the difference in pressure from the

sun versus interstellar medium, but it is technically part of the creation process that made the sun and the earth and the other elements in our solar system. So same parent, same parent collapse of dust and gas that formed our Sun created that it’s just really distant, leftover icy building blocks.

mary: Nice. Oh, okay. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. I just, I think it’s amazing just how our solar system has these natural, barrier we’re sort of in this bubble, so to speak.

Charles: Indeed we are. Yes. And as a matter of fact the, our solar system, few others are kind of in this region of the Milky Way galaxy that is not quite as dense as others. So going back billions of years, I, sorry, I don’t have the number in front of me, but it’s likely that there was a supernova explosion that kind of cleared out this area, or perhaps a series of them.

And when you look [00:39:00] at stellar nurseries, these supernova explosions sometimes can be the kick necessary to jumpstart the collapse of dust and gas to form new solar systems. So one star dies more are born.

geo: It’s 

Charles: but yes. 

geo: yeah.

Charles: Yeah. But here we are in the, in our solar system. And yes, our sun does kind of push out this interstellar medium.

But it’s not a protective shell. It’s just a bubble. The protective shell is earth’s magnetic field. And let’s, hoping that doesn’t go anywhere in the near future.

mary: Okay. Is that also like the magnetosphere? Is that the same? Is that what that is too, or, yes. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Charles: We yeah. We the power of earth’s magnetic field to protect us from ev the suns radiation and also stuff in space. There was a gamma ray burst in a very distant galaxy, and the force of that was enough to actually push [00:40:00] down on Earth’s, magnetic field. So 

the universe is a pretty dangerous place and it really, once you dead, I hate to say it, but but it is earth’s magnetic field that has you know, made it kind of safe to live on.

If you take a look at our nearest celestial neighbor when it comes to stars, you’ll at Proximus Ari that is a red dwarf star and red dwarfs, unlike our Sun they don’t have quite the layers like, you know, we have the mantle and the core on earth. These stars are small and they churn and they mix so well that they can create these solar flares that completely strip atmospheres off planets.

So when you hear that there’s a planet in the habitable zone around a red dwarf.

joe: it

Charles: depends because

the, this, you may be getting just the right amount of normal heat but these things are really quite dangerous when it comes to things like solar flares. So yeah. Complex relationship [00:41:00] of planets and their hosts stars.

geo: Wow.

mary: like as the Star Ages then, is it like, it would be like provided like an extra, would there be like an extra level of danger for like the planets around it? Right. You know, possibly.

nick: right? 

Charles: it, well, yes. Eventually you know, come back in, what, 3 billion years? I’m trying to

get that

mary: I’m setting 

Charles: our sun gets We 

mary: timer now. Okay. All right.

Charles: Earth will actually be inside of the

joe: Yep. 

Charles: We, where 

you’re sitting now will be in the outer area of our sun, but things like red dwarfs they burn.

There are fuels so slowly that some of the smallest ones could burn for longer than the current life of the universe. We’re talking, you know, 14 billion years of just slowly being stars.

We’re in the one we’re at.

Yeah. Just sip 

nick: what better way?

Charles: rather than gulping.

nick: Yeah, it’s a nice little sipper for the drink.

joe: I was gonna,

Charles: Yeah.

joe: something that Nick had raised in Georgia [00:42:00] about these, you know, kind of asteroids and what was in them life or other, but you know, there are

mary: Superman 

companies. Superman. 

joe: companies

mary: Yes.

Superman

joe: Starting up to mine asteroids to go out and, ’cause they have valuable resources that, or at least commodities that on earth we value.

geo: Oh, can we 

joe: so if you go, 

geo: with them?

mary: them? 

joe: potentially, but if you 

go mining 

and there’s an accident, can you change a trajectory? Now

mary: Now 

joe: that

wouldn’t 

give us enough time. That makes sense.

Charles: It everything kind of makes sense and, you know, if you want to

be like, blowing things up on the surface of an asteroid to get a few rocks good on, I would not wanna be the insurance company on that

particular situation, but it is 

joe: it’s that planned for it. My question like the tabletop, are you guys, like company XS mining, the there was asteroid that was 24 carat gold or whatever. So someone decides to go up, send some rovers up there, [00:43:00] land starts 

drilling into it. Part of Was 

geo: that part

of, was that part of the Don’t Look Up?

joe: They 

had

Charles: That was kind of part 

joe: part of

it. Yeah, they

did have 

some sort of

mining. So, but that was yeah,

mary: Also,

geo: I think that was in the.

mary: the,

geo: For 

joe: For All of Mankind. They had, it, right? Yeah. They captured an asteroid that had, I forget which, you 

geo: Yeah. 

mary: kind 

joe: rare earth element in it, but it would, it could create a potential hazard, right?

I mean that’s,

nick: well, mining in general I think would have some kind of side effects of,

joe: I mean, if you push the asteroid now into the path of Earth, Wow. Unintentionally 

geo: somebody uses poor judgment when it comes to making lots of money.

mary: Wow. 

joe: No one ever does that.

Charles: Never in the history. Well, it’s kind of funny because one, one of the joys I have in life is to read some stuff in the news that I look at and just shake my head ruefully. And you never know where this stuff originally comes from, but at the launch of the psyche spacecraft, which is on its way to the, this asteroid which is kind of cool because [00:44:00] it is sort of what the core of a planet should be like.

So this is like the metal core of a planet that planetesimal planetary body that kind of got blown apart. We have a mission headed to that, and for reasons I can’t understand, someone somewhere threw out a monetary figure for how much that metal would be, and it’s in the like hundreds to thousands of quadrillions of dollars of iron, nickel, gold, platinum, and 

joe: yeah 

Charles: it’s, 

joe: yeah. So a couple companies started to mine asteroids, I think. I think one might be the funk now, but it was 

you know, that was

their, it didn’t work out so well. No, but that was their plan. They go up there and, harvest

mary: somebody was being purely cynical and saying, listen, don’t cancel this project.

Look how much money you could get. You know, that kind of thing. I don’t know the possibility.

geo: the We can bring the asteroid into our orbit and then mine it for [00:45:00] forever.

nick: We have the asteroid crash into earth.

joe: That’s right. Yeah. In

the ocean.

you can guide it into the ocean. 

Now in, in the 12 countries that get the tsunami, Hey, you know what, but we got now giant hunk of, , rare earth metal 

kind of here.

Right. So can

we not even you know? 

geo: metal,

joe: Yeah. 

geo: other

planet metal.

Charles: getting in it is gonna be kind of tough. I mean, these things are you know, two and a half, three and a half times the more than earth’s distance from the sun. So it’s a bit of a you know, the idea of these asteroids being a gold mine is, it’s kind of fun. You know, it’s like, I wouldn’t mind getting a, you know, a big hunk of that.

But it’s just

joe: yeah.

Charles: scientifically the engineering aspect of it, I just, I can’t.

joe: This.

Charles: I don’t think we’re there yet. But it is a, it is an idea and you know, the idea of why, let’s take a look at the moon. That’s easier to get to and it’s not gonna run into the earth. So maybe that would be a, [00:46:00] I think that would be 

joe: First target.

Charles: First.

Yeah. Let’s ing let’s make it

easy on 

geo: made of cheese though. 

joe: Yeah. It’s just cheese. 

geo: Right? Wallace and Gro Wallace.

Charles: Common

bear. 

geo: Wallace

and Grommet has have verified that. So,

nick: so.

mary: so That’s right.

So, 

nick: quick question

Charles: I love it. Love it. Yeah.

That 

nick: scenario tables.

Charles: Tabletop.

nick: you tabletops? Tabletops, yes. Is it essentially just like a game for everyone, but like a more serious version of it?

Like, are you guys just out there drinking beers and 

joe: you like,

you You

need, a 14, uh, 

nick: can I join? Is what I’m really

geo: asking? 

Or are you asking, is this something that we could all play like on our own? Like

Charles: I honestly I brought my 20 sided die, but did not need it. 

nick: You needed the a hundred sided 

joe: we’ll hit DC or Chicago. 

Come on.

Charles: oh, and I tell you I roll a one no matter what I do, but

mary: I’m bu okay.

Charles: there is one, it’s, it was very interesting in the fact that you don’t control the the physics. You don’t [00:47:00] control what’s going to happen. You control how you respond to it policy wise.

And that’s really kind of the important thing is there’s the, our limited ability to change the solar system is yeah. Our ability to do that is really small. Our ability to do something with politics, well, that’s harder, but it could be done basically getting past that it’s. I think though that, that, you know, if I’m to speculate about the future, I think our ability to track these things is just going to get phenomenally better.

There was a

joe: if funding stays

Charles: well funding stays, but there is one that I in June of 2028 NASA is planning to launch and it, you know, it all looks good for something called neo surveyor. And this is going to be the first space-based 

telescope that 

was originally designed specifically to make discovering and categorizing these [00:48:00] hazardous, potentially hazardous objects.

So suddenly we’ve got capabilities that we never had to really. Identify a potential impact threat. I think that’s brilliant, that we’re actually making that investment, that it’s being built, that it’s playing for launch in about two years from now. There was something called I’m completely drawing a blank, but that’s just, that’s life with

joe: yeah, no, 

Charles: was, there, there was a previous mission that did look for these things as well, but it wasn’t designed for that. It was kinda like, oh, this telescope has lost its infrared capabilities. Well maybe we can use it for looking for asteroids. And it really did have a phenomenal boost to identifying them.

But again, it was sort of off market usage. And this one will, will be specifically designed to make that, you know, an observing powerhouse. So what we’ll find from this, you know, the science will get, will be amazing. I [00:49:00] think it’s gonna be a genuine I don’t wanna say relief, but going to bed three years from now realizing that we really do have a good handle on this, but we have something now that is going to be amazingly beneficial.

And that is the Vera Rubbin telescope. This thing is taking the entire sky about every three nights in high resolution, high depth, and it’s unlike other telescopes which kind of hone in on specific objects. Okay? We’re gonna spend three nights, we’re gonna observe this particular distant star system. Now this is creating sort of a movie of the universe.

It’s showing how things change over time from supernova, gamma ray bursts to anything going across the sky that. Could be a near Earth object. So this is up, it’s running it’s making phenomenal observations. The data is a [00:50:00] fire hose of content.

nick: Is that something like we can see, or is it just for you guys?

Charles: No, Absolutely. You

can take a look at the the data.

mary: pay 

joe: It. 

We’ll

nick: put the link to that 

joe: Yeah, we can. Yep. Yep. And the dash will do that too. The DART will put that up

Charles: Yeah. Please do. Yeah. But that’s actually being kind of run by something called No Lab, which is the NSF funded ground-based observatories, and named after Vera Rubin, who is credited with as one of the discoverers of dark matter.

joe: Mm-hmm. 

Charles: Funny thing, I actually got a butt dial from her back in the day.

geo: Oh wow.

Charles: I,

geo: That’s awesome.

Charles: My my phone number was up on a website and she was trying to reach someone and she goes, hello, this is Vera Rubin. Can I speak

to? And I’m like. Okay. Totally geeking out on the phone. 

joe: You’re

geo: wait just a minute,

joe: Yeah. Charles, 

question. Go ahead. 

Charles: Yeah, go ahead.

nick: Oh.

joe: No. Alright. Finish your thought again.

Charles: Well, I’m just saying the Reen Observatory is in the, is in Chile.

It’s [00:51:00] outta sight with a number of other astronomical observatory. So it is one of the best sites on earth. The atmosphere is dry, it’s clear it has specific ocean on one side and the Andes. So what you’re looking at is really if you wanna look and see the entire universe and see if there are these near earth objects, track them, categorize them, as well as any transient thing happening in space. is going to be, you know, really, I think it’s just going to change observational astronomy in the years coming, because it will bring. To astronomers and people who are just fascinated in it. The ability to look at data in a way that we’ve never been able to view. This is the universe as it’s changing, as we’re observing it and we can finally take a look at that data.

So yeah, anything going across the sky, it will see it.

nick: Hell yeah.

joe: I was gonna ask this follow up. What. What timeframe do we need to take action? You could say a hundred years out, [00:52:00] great. But what’s, the closest timeframe? Are we talking

nick: the least amount of time

geo: That you could are we, we can actually mount of defense, realistic defense, not, you know, Hollywood style.

joe: It could be range you don’t gotta pin it down, like to the day that’s 

Charles: I really wish I had something better, but you know, again, the longer, the better is always great. But if we have, if we have a heavy lift vehicle that can get first something to get out there and take a look at it, it’s really remarkable. I will say for the commercial launch companies that are out there, the amount of launches they can do in a year is phenomenal.

Psyche Spacecraft was launched on a Falcon Heavy, and again it’s putting it out in that direction. But here’s the thing, it’s not a direct trip. This has to do these gravity boosts. It has to come back around the earth, make a couple of passes till it finally gets to where it’s going to need to be.

So this was launched [00:53:00] in cycles launched 2024. It’s gonna get there. 2028

joe: Okay, 

so that’s four 

Charles: let’s say. Yeah, design build. Unless you really have something like let’s say the SLS, the space launch system that’s going to launch the the Artemis two, you know, if you get something that heavy, yeah you can sort of power through some of it a bit, but

uh, 

joe: have nothing to sitting there waiting, like, just kind of just in case, like break glass just in case you’re gone. Like, so, okay.

nick: so like a year 

Charles: if we, if we had one in 

joe: Yeah. 

Charles: Yeah. not a lot you can do there, there are also speculations of things like if you had a ground-based lasers and you

could, 

if it were making a pass by Earth before it came around 

again,

geo: laser 

joe: directed weapons. 

geo: Oh

Charles: Or just hitting it and the heat from this

joe: Would move a little bit.

Charles: The, just a nudge at the right amount of time is fantastic. 

joe: And I was gonna, this brings me to I do have my list and I want to get to it ’cause I like going through it, but one 

of my favorite 

we talked about this as the Starship [00:54:00] Troopers and especially the movie, not the novel but the movie 97 movie and the bugs are accused of launching the asteroid, which hits Earth

from

other, halfway across the galaxy.

It was, I close several solar systems away.

And during our discussion I just kept thinking about it and it was turning in my head that to. Launch a rock 

and hit Earth travel through 

the 

universe,

and then hit Earth is is you know, and then I, the conspiracy theory was 

that we actually allowed that to hit Earth because we wanted to go to war.

Right. Because it was a political sa, it was a 

military satire. Are you leaning that way? Are you buying into the 

conspiracy?

Charles: oh. oh. I absolutely, a hundred percent. Now, if you can send Starship troopers off to another planet, but you can’t push an asteroid. Oh, please. Yeah. No, it was

joe: So they would just take, have seen that.

Charles: a false [00:55:00] flag. 

joe: Buenos Aries city killer, 

Asteroid probably we, we should would’ve seen and we would’ve deflected and, moved along. 

My other favorite theory is that it hit when I forget her name, change the flight plan of the ship.

mary: Mm-hmm. 

joe: And that hit

the asteroid, that sheared off the communications deck, that tipped it enough to actually hit Earth so that the bugs actually didn’t, it was actually, that

was the

tip. 

So, all right. So I’m conspiracy theorying now

Charles: I like that. No I’m a hundred percent behind you on that. I was like, oh, come

mary: I think we’ve, I’ve established that. Yeah. We all have, I think we all have impeccable taste in movies, I think when we’ve discovered this about this too. So we all love Starship Troopers. Come on. Now

joe: I’m gonna segue 

into my list, which I always promise, and yeah, because

I did I put this together, but it’s the, I try to go back and find the oldest references to some of these kind of ideas and fictional literature, and I’m always surprised, like sometime how far you go back and the state of knowledge.[00:56:00] 

nick: Is 

geo: I

joe: Is It was not. No. Really? Or maybe 

I didn’t, that didn’t 

come up with my 

list,

nick: so you’re just wrong. Okay. Got

mary: I’m

joe: am wrong.

but have 1833 the Comet by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. And this was a poem depicting the terror and pain caused by an approaching comment. So that was coming because this was still a time where these kind of astrological events were, still, you know, people didn’t understand them fully and it was some paranoia.

And it was in 1839, the conversation of Aero and Charman by Edgar Allen Poe. And this was a short story told from the afterlife by two souls, recounting the destruction of Earth by a comet.

mary: What was the name of the does story again? 

joe: The conversation

of and Shean.

mary: Charman Charmian. Oh, okay. I have to look that one up in my yeah, my door stop that has all of his stuff in it.

Its great. 1893. All right.

joe: LA

mary: Ladu,

joe: The End of the World by [00:57:00] Camille Ion translated to English in 1894 as Omega the last days of the world. And actually it was interesting ’cause he was a scientist. He was a French astronomer and wrote about a comet strike that hits earth. And the physical consequences and humanity psychological and philosophical response to a certain extinction.

It was later adopted into a movie in 1931.

geo: It’s

also a really good beer

joe: And it’s a very 

good

beer,

That’s right. Like, you know, 19.

geo: throw that in. 

joe: Yep.

1887 you had The Star by HG Wells, and that was about a rogue star inter solar system causing cata, catastrophic tidal waves, earthquakes climate disruption. And then 1920, you had the Comet by WEDB Du Bois.

It was a short story about a comet striking New York remarkable in his time because it was about a black protagonist and using the catastrophe as a lens for examining race in America. ’cause he was like one of the last people alive and interacting

mary: with,

joe: People. [00:58:00] So

mary: really

joe: good. And so then you go on 1933 When Worlds Collide, that was a collision course with Earth in a rogue planet, 

you had Lucifer Hammer in 77 Larry Nivan and Jerry Pero, and by the same two authors, Footfall. And these were really a lot of science and really good science about a one was about a comet impact on Earth and the other one was about an alien kind of aliens use asteroids to modify Earth’s environment so that they can take over.

So you use, it’s dual purpose. 

One 

Catastrophic, wiping out humanity. And then landing and , terraforming Earth or extra terrestrial forming, I don’t know what you would call it in. And then Hammer of God by author Clark.

And so that was one of the most scientifically serious kind of treatments of planetary defense and something that Clark worked out kind of actual mechanics and things like that. So. 

And then you go 

into film and tv early 19 hundreds you had The Comet there’s a lot of [00:59:00] stories called the Comment.

They weren’t very 

creative 

with these days.

nick: Just makes it easier.

joe: just, 

Charles: But accurate. That’s a

nice

joe: And That was,

nick: You know, what you’re getting into.

joe: It

was by the Edison 

Film Company. It was one of the first films depicting an apocalyptic comet impact. So that was released during the 1910 appearance of Haley’s Comet. You had 1916.

Charles: Oh, good. Good story on that too, is that there was quite a, his, there, there was a hysteria on Earth because of the 1910 Haley’s comic that. Spectroscopic observations of its tail detected signage and gas, which is related to cyanide arsenic in the comet’s tale. And that created a panic on Earth that has Earth passed through the tail of this comet.

It would’ve caused death, you know, snuffing out of all life on the planet

mary: Oh wow.

Charles: sensational things. I think. I think there were socialites in New York who actually had a comet party or something like that. But yeah, that was a that, that was a,

joe: yeah. Be more terrifying. Yep.

Charles: yeah.

joe: no. [01:00:00] So in 19 16 Burden’s underg Gun Danish film, I know my Danish isn’t as good as it my English, but 

mary: you 

give 

nick: one more time?

joe: It 

was known in

English

as The End of the World. And so that was the same kind of idea about a comment, Haley’s comment When Worlds Collide, the kind of film a adaptation.

1979, we mentioned this one. Meteor Sean Connery Henry Fonda. And, the US and Soviet, they have been secretly building nuclear kind of platforms in space, and now they have to admit that they were doing this to kind of take out a Meteor 97, jumping ahead, the Starship Troopers.

geo: you had to throw that

joe: 98 was a 

banner year for 

planetary kind of defense with both deep impact and Armageddon.

And both were scientifically flawed. Maybe, Deep Impact might have had a little more scientific grounding, but,

nick: oh, I thought you were gonna say 

joe: It didn’t

have it didn’t have probably, you know, both were just cinematic[01:01:00] 

geo: that’s a new word.

joe: summer block that serious. 

And it’s interesting, Deep 

Impact had Robert Duval, who recently passed away and Armageddon had Bruce Willis as their kind of their lead stars.

nick: RIP Bruce Willis.

joe: And then you had you know, then we go through seeking a friend for End the World. More focusing, I think Charles had brought this up on humanity in the face of kind of the final weeks leading up to the impact Greenland in 2020. Don’t look up in 21 and Moon Fall in 2022. And I haven’t seen that one.

The moon is knocked out of orbit and falling towards Earth. Nonsense. Tons of handwaving,

But kind of interesting

geo: Interesting. What what would happen

joe: if a big, you know, a moon size thing hit Earth. I mean, 

mary: would, it’d 

joe: probably

be 

the end of us all. I don’t know. Is 

that true? Am I

Charles: Yeah, no, that, that’s what you call a non-viable event.

geo: so

nick: we shoot a nuke at that?

Charles: I do have a funny personal story on Deep Impact. This has to [01:02:00] do with the world of science communication, but Seth’s Schack, who works at the City Institute, he’s an astronomer there, been involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Way back in his career, he was hired as the science advisor for Deep Impact, and he is looking over the script and they asked him specifically, does this sound right? Would a scientist say, excuse me, Dr. But recent calculations based on this particular trajectory shows a bo lag with a 94% chance of intercept at this particular point.

And Seth responded to the guess it was the producer, and said, no. They would say, Bob, there’s a goddamn big rock. headed this way. Unfortunately Seth Edit did not make it in the movie, but I still love it.

joe: Yes. I,

geo: I

mary: they missed it. They missed out on that 

joe: you know, scientists speak and it’s, no, it just usually cuts to the point.

It’s, um, I, 

mary: Well, yeah.

joe: and I missed Nick. I didn’t leave you out ’cause I like to mention video games, but I had two on my

nick: what do you have 

joe: 1979 [01:03:00] Asteroid. 

Yep.

geo: Oh, there you go. Yes, of course.

joe: and went my lunch

Charles: money. 

mary: one 

joe: I didn’t know was Planetary Annihilation where

it’s a strategy 

game where you 

players crash moons and planets into other, each others as weapons. 

And it kind of, project Thor 

was used or the, you know, the Rods of God extraterrestrial weapon. And that was kind of inspiration 

geo: What year was that?

mary: that? And

joe: was 

2016, so pretty recent. So I didn’t know if

nick: know. That one

joe: can play that. And just the Rods of God, that was the idea that you could use telephone pole sized tungsten rods put ’em in space and then drop them 

and just use gravity to generate kinetic impact , enough to destroy a city.

And so, and this was a real, I think the Navy and the was it the sixties? Actually with Jerry per Pernell, who 

was the author of football, co-author football in it First Hammer kind of was developing. He was a Navy officer, was [01:04:00] developing. This as a technology, as a kind of a weapon.

As real,

As a real weapon. Yeah. A lot of 

problems

is, It’s hard to 

get 

that much tung in, up into space,

mary: works. 

So 

it worked

geo: So it worked as fiction, 

Charles: probably cheaper not to do

that, 

joe: right. Yes.

Charles: science is

joe: Yeah. 

Yeah. 

nick: But like the idea 

joe: yeah. No, right. 

I mean, the targeting is a little, 

’cause if you’re in a major conflict, you gotta wait for Earth to rotate around to drop this thing.

So you’re like,

nick: the planning behind

joe: there 

nick: I’m all for it.

joe: something, 

we’re gonna do. 

geo: now

nick: No, if someone wants to do that, I think it should be acceptable.

joe: Someone goes to the bathroom and gets to push a button, no, man, that’s another, you know, so,

mary: But yeah,

geo: I wanted to change the subject if it’s appropriate at this point.

joe: point.

I don’t, sure.

geo: I wanted to ask you more about science communication and how you ended up in this field.

And I just, I, we try to bring in science here on our podcast. And sometimes we’re much [01:05:00] more successful.

nick: Wait, we have 

joe: do.

Science is in, we bring

in a science. But go ahead,

Charles. 

mary: glad you asked that because I was also curious too, I think like what a cool job, , I mean to be able to explain science to people.

Charles: And it’s fun too. I really enjoy it. I, it’s a long story and I could never recreate my career even if I tried. But it, it started way back when in the 1970s. I was always interested in geology and my my grandparents lived right in the middle of the anthracite region of Pennsylvania.

So from a young lad, I was out there picking up fossils of terrifies and phyco. And you pick up any piece of shale, it’s just packed full of fossils. And I was fascinated by this. So I did undergraduate at Dickinson and did all things Spanish and geology. But one of the field trips we took was to strip mine outside of Schmo in Pennsylvania where they removed the top layer and it created this gorgeous anticline.

This folded. Bit of rock [01:06:00] after they stripped the coal off, that was plunging down into the water and it looked like the back of a whale. So they called it the humpback anticline, but along the walls there were cite nodules, there were tree trunks, and it was just packed full of this, that, and washers and cars that people drove out there to, you know, ditch and shoot guns at.

But thought it was really amazing. So I was working as a. Lowly editor indexer at the American Geological Institute. They had a magazine called Earth Science, and I flippantly said, boy, I’d love to write for that someday. And they said, well give it a shot. So I went back out to the well, black Anticline, took some pictures, wrote a few things, and by God they published it.

I had no, it was gobsmack and I said, oh, I like this a lot better. So, went in and got a degree in a communications degree at American University and got lucky. I just kind of, I think my passion for science is what allowed me to convince [01:07:00] people who, whether I was truly worthy or not, that I would be a great publicist for geophysics.

And it was kind of downhill from there. Did a lot of work in engineering, but I. What really took me down this astronomy path was the National Radio Astronomy Observatory was looking for a public information officer. So I had the background in communication and I had the background in engineering, and it’s like, well, that’s a nice combination.

Sure. Come out here and do it. And it was fantastic. That’s really where I think I learned

nick: virtually

Charles: everything I know about the universe, because every day it was like taking a small course in planet formation or how stars form or what is the nature of these high velocity clouds that are smacking into the plane of the Milky Way galaxy, forming new stars.

And let’s look at the back of the cosmic microwave background radiation. How can we detect that with satellites? So every morning it’s like spring of my step, ready to learn more [01:08:00] about it, and it got me where I am. So it was more of a. place, right time, and just unquenchable desire to not shut up about it.

When I learned something, it’s like my parents had enough, please stop. 

joe: Yeah.

Charles: but it it taught me that if you can say something interesting about science and make it so approachable that there’s no jargon necessary, it captivates a lot of people and it’s been a blast.

joe: yeah.

Yeah.

I think especially this time, you know, being a scientist

trying

to do this and communicate and have fun with it and we bring in a lot of pop culture, as George said we try to, we get off track because it is fun. And yet we have fun talking about conspiracies of Starship Troopers.

But

mary: but

joe: I think the other thing we 

I think what’s missing a lot right now in this period of time is people’s curiosity. And I [01:09:00] think it’s, that’s something that as a communication science communicator. How do you see that going and getting people, getting that across people to be curious about their world?

I think that’s, that feels like that’s changing a little bit. 

Charles: Okay. I gotta say it, it seems to get beaten out of people at a certain age. Boy, you know, if you go to these science festivals, they are so targeted at the very young, and anyone who’s middle school or older they’re set aside in this participatory role that it’s, you have to supervise, you’re a chaperone, but the hands-on things really aren’t for you.

And. That’s a problem. So you and I we met at the science fiction

joe: we did. Yep. 

Mars con 

Charles: amount of people who really love science but don’t have degrees in science, this is a place where it’s like, okay let’s talk about how it’s pop culture. If you go to something like Dragoncon, you know, 85,000 of your closest friends packed together with no deodorant, but they get [01:10:00] around, I think they get around 12,000 butts in the seats for the science part only.

So one, well, I’ll self-promote, but it’s not really a thing yet, but I have the idea and have them pitching and am starting to build a little momentum for a fandom convention for Science and Engineering. So it’s,

let’s, Let’s get people involved having a good time. Let’s have all the fun stuff like the dances and the parties and.

geo: Right?

Charles: Science is always like, oh, the science track. You’re down that hallway to the left. Go behind the water cooler down in the basement. Yeah. And let’s put it on the main stage. And I think anyone who just wants to have fun with it and learn, if you go to a science conference, it’s great stuff, but it’s really hard to unpack it all.

So let’s 

unpack it and 

joe: if you’re coming if you’re coming at it, so I focus, I a lot of stuff. I do. My thing was to focus on adult science, and I have a story, and I’m not gonna tell it, but I [01:11:00] realize like you’re just saying, Charles, that adults A, their science knowledge is low, but they’re, they, and then their curiosity can hover.

And then you got people whose curiosity is high, but then they feel shy about getting into and talking about science.

nick: yeah. It’s intimidating

it, 

joe: It’s like, 

oh, 

geo: I don’t know anything about science. And

nick: and what you and I have talked to people about like science stuff, and they’re like, yeah, it’s just so intimidating. But coming to our podcast, they’re like, oh, you guys make it easier to compose and like,

joe: Yeah. Think about it and ask questions and get involved. And I think you’re right. I think it’s, it would be nice to,

geo: I think that there is an issue with scientists in general. Like just, they, just 

specifically 

you, Joe.

No, I’m kidding. But getting so high up in your field and you’re basically just talking to each other about, and there is a lot of lingo, there is a lot of, you know, things that other people wouldn’t understand. And you [01:12:00] just, you’re in that world, but you don’t think, oh, maybe I should be letting other people that aren’t.

Here know about this. And so the whole idea of communicating those kind of ideas and thoughts, that’s just so important. You know what I 

joe: Yeah. And it’s hard.

, even, talking about scientists communicating with non-scientists, but even within disciplines of science. The jargon is so steeped that it’s sometimes hard to communicate with other scientists. Just another discipline. So a biologist,, which I’m a cell biologist and a physicist their terminology and their jargon is so off that it doesn’t work.

And it’s really nice to see programs at the undergrad, graduate level start to have co sponsors where your PIs your principal investigator your boss, your mentor is one’s from biology, one’s from physical science, chemistry, 

And I and that way

then you start to develop new language to communicate.

But 

it’s really not even, it’s within the science 

community. And [01:13:00] then it’s even harder then to go out because, you know, you’re at some point and you’re just used to talking, , it’s like texting now with a teenager, like the, 

Charles: If you don’t know it, you’re 

not 

joe: right. Yeah. So that’s kind 

Charles: it’s really interesting too. One thing I’ve also noticed, if you go to let’s say you’re an astronomer. You’ve got your PhD, you know your stuff, you go to the American Astronomical Society meeting your specialty. Maybe in, say let’s say supernovas. You walk into a session on let’s say pulsar timing arrays.

You’re lost. You can’t understand a thing. You’ve got a PhD in astronomy. You’re an astronomy talk, and the language that’s being used is impenetrable. So that’s the problem is problem precision is so important in science, but precision is the enemy of understanding

joe: Mm-hmm.

Charles: the more precise, the fewer people you’re talking to.

So how do you beat that? Well, 

joe: Yeah. 

geo: And figuring out what is the point? What is the needed thing to be [01:14:00] said? And we 

Charles: I’ve got a, I’ve got a question. I got a question for anybody sitting around the table, what is the coolest thing you have ever heard about the university? Something that you’ve read or heard or saw? What’s one thing you were like, okay, that is really cool. Can you name something that just blew your mind when you heard about it?

nick: I’m gonna start off. I absolutely loved learning about Supernovas when I was younger, and just space in general has always been a. You know, overshadowing thing that I love reading about. So that’s why like, talking to you right now is just like a, 

joe: it’s 

nick: of the higher points for me right now, but just the idea of a star coming to its death and fully exploding the rest of its energy out is, has always been so fascinating to me.

joe: Yeah.

nick: What about you?

Charles: And I have. Yeah. Yeah. What? What is like, it doesn’t even have to be astronomy. Is there something about the natural world science that you just like, wow, that’s really cool. I like [01:15:00] that.

geo: I don’t think I could think of like a specific thing that makes sense right now, but 

joe: the, our guest is asking

geo: we,

joe: of questions now.

geo: we did go it, we did go see Neil. Neil. Oh my gosh. 

joe: Like, Christ. 

geo: Yes. And it was at like Chicago Theater and it was so cool. And we took our two sons and well, one was very young and he did fall asleep, but

Charles: I fall asleep in his talks too. But

geo: But our older son was pretty engaged about it. And I just remember that feeling of feeling and this sounds horrible, but feeling very insignificant, you know, like realizing how huge the universe,

Is and how tiny we are, and just that perspective of it. But at the same time, something really cool about that too.

Yeah.

Charles: well there’s a follow on question that I can give and I don’t wanna, if you wanna answer that question initially, but when I’m talking to an audience, particularly if I lucky enough to get to a [01:16:00] school, I’ll ask that question and then I’ll follow on and go. Okay. If there’s one thing you ever really wanted to know about space, you wanted to really know about it, what do you want to know? And you see like the sea of smiles and hands shoot up and we have to capture that. So again, starting with what did you learn that was really cool. If you could know one thing about the universe that would just be cool, what would you like to know? And I would always be sure to at least try and answer in some way of those questions or say, wow, we don’t know, but wouldn’t it be cool if you found that out?

joe: Right. Yeah.

nick: Were 

geo: Were you gonna say something to 

joe: Yeah. 

mary: oh yeah. Oh gosh. So many. But one of the things that I think about is you, are we alone in the universe? , I always like to think about those things. , talking about Neil deGrasse Tyson when he did the Cosmos redid the Como Cosmos series.

And there the part where he was talking about the black holes [01:17:00] or pe you know, talk, even people talking about different theories of what, what maybe , lies on the other side of the black hole. And it may be that like, it just, maybe, forgive me if I get this wrong, but there might be another universe on the other side of that black hole.

Like it could be , like we are. Like wherever we’re at, we’re on the, I don’t know like there could be like another universe on that, , something very fairly mundane. You get to the other side and like Neil deGrasse Tyson sitting in a parking lot. It could be this, who knows, , but I just

Charles: just came out on that too,

mary: Yeah. Oh,

Charles: blew my mind when I ran it too.

mary: Oh, wow.

Charles: yes if you get to it, like the very, very center of the black hole, this thing that’s like a point so dense that it has no shape and time doesn’t exist, that just

totally screws up a whole bunch of physics thoughts.

But the newspaper says no. See, that’s actually the wormhole to the other universe. So information isn’t lost. We don’t break the rules of physics. [01:18:00] This is it. You look at it and go, you know, it fits in with physics and it, there’s no reason to say it’s impossible, no evidence to support it. But

nick: There’s a

mary: non-zero chance possibly. Yeah, that’s right.

Charles: not as, there’s a non-zero 

joe: that’s right. We gotta do it.

mary: Yeah. 

nick: me my suit and 

joe: all right, we’re we’re coming up to the end of this. so we probably should wrap 

any 

Charles: virtually every topic in the scene or

joe: I

know. Yeah, right. We’re, we’ve 

done it all. 

mary: Okay. Well, I, you know what I mean?

I’m saving, I wasn’t saving a question, but I did have a question about 

joe: till the end. to 

mary: waited very, the very end

joe: It seems a very 

weighty thing. 

mary: you know, the other, and Ira unravel another universe. But I do, I did wanna ask about the telescopes that, that we use to, to monitor this activity.

I know some of the telescopes are welcomed by the countries that are there. And some of them, sometimes. Like I’m thinking of in ho Hawaii, there was, [01:19:00] so there are and I wanted and I wanted you to talk about that a little bit, about,, sometimes the telescopes are not wanted by the people that live there.

Charles: And I have a very direct relationship with that. I was working for the 30 meter telescope when they were selecting between Chile and Monica and Hawaii. It was Hawaii is one of the best sites in the world to study the universe. It also is the most sacred point of this particular culture.

So I will say there was a lot of weight put on astronomy from, you know, the essentially forcing Hawaii to become part of the United States to long history of just colonialism and. Past pe past observatories back in the day, who would bulldoze over the the poos, which were the, these the cider cones?

Or if there were shrines erected, oh, well we need to put [01:20:00] another table. We will just go through that. And, 

joe: Yeah.

Charles: now the idea is let’s work together. Let’s try and be as caring and cultural as possible to provide value. But it just doesn’t look, you know, Hawaii doesn’t look like it’s on the table.

Other. Countries, Chile thinks of it as it’s an industry and it’s a heck of a lot better than another copper mine. And they love to have it there. And it’s another great spot. You know, Spain, you’ve got tenor reef that has observatories there. You know, it’s still very well received. But even in the United States, continental in the United States, you have the national optical astronomy observatory in say New Mexico, but that’s not it.

Arizona yeah, it is on land that is owned by the one of the native tribes there. And the rules to get on it are very strict.

Um, and you really do try to be very sensitive about that and culturally aware that you are being allowed to do this. [01:21:00] And

geo: Right.

Charles: you know, even things like that mountain over there, don’t take a picture of it. Okay, you can take a picture of everything else, but not that. So knowing that in advance is a huge help. But yeah, it’s, but and you can, if you’re interested in telescopes, go out and see one. There are so many that have great visitor center from radio telescopes in West Virginia to, again the ones in Arizona.

They have visitors programs here. The ones in Chile have visitors programs, and it’s

joe: Field trip to

Charles: mind blowing to see them in person. Really

mary: Oh, I’m sure. Yeah.

That’s awesome.

joe: So kind of, wrapping up Charles do you have any last thoughts? I mean, we, like you said, we’ve covered a lot of, went 

down a lot of rabbit

holes. But if

you

have a last kind of parting comment we will give you the final say.

Charles: Sure, yeah. Final say is all of this is because of public support and investment, [01:22:00] and that’s not a guarantee. The fact that something like trying to find an asteroid that might wipe out all life on earth seems kind of silly, that you have to worry about funding being taken away from that. So other people can get tax breaks on their second

yacht, but

really everything we can do to really instill in people that this is really the best use you could ever have for your resources. For the long term you know, yeah, go science and it’s not cheap, but it pays for itself a thousand times over.

mary: Well, that’s right. Your job is,, God bless the science communicators. Right. To be able to articulate why we, have well-funded people on one side, and we also need someone. If you don’t articulate, if science communicators don’t articulate that point, then that vacuum gets filled by other people who have other ideas, I guess, or other, you [01:23:00] know.

Yeah. Or agendas. Agendas. Yeah.

Yeah.

geo: Yeah. 

Charles: Yeah. 

joe: Cool. 

Charles: That’s it. I take it as a responsibility and a privilege.

mary: Oh, thank 

nick: you so much for being here with

geo: and I’d like to know, like, could you be on our call a friend list?

Charles: Is that Oh, the phone A friend. I swear 

if I 

ever got into 

Truvia program, I would be dead. Yeah. It’s been, it is been a, it’s been a delight. You guys are great. We gotta get together. Have a nice glass of wine

joe: we will. That’d be awesome. Yeah. So you have me, Joe?

nick: Yeah, I got Nick.

joe: We’ve got Nick Georgia. We got Georgia.

mary: You got Mary.

nick: And

joe: We got Mary.

And

we

nick: we went down some Space. Holes 

joe: Look Stay curious. 

nick: Bye-Bye.

joe: love y’all.

Cheers.

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

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