What Happens When The Speed of Light Is Broken? | Q&A 427

Why don't they just charge the shell of the spaceship to repel radiation? What happens when something breaks the speed of light? What weird thing did James Webb recently find? And in Q& A Plus, what's up and what's down in space? All this and more in this question show. It's time for the question show. Your questions, my answers. As always, review our questions on my channel. If questions pop into your brain, just write it down. I'll gather them up and I will answer them here. This is Japanese H-II transfer rocket. I am at the Nagoya Science Center in Japan, the last day of our trip in Japan before we make our way home. All right, let's get into questions.

— L. B. Turner, I read that where James Webb found a large galaxy that has no rotation, couldn't that just be a cluster of small galaxies, something hard to distinguish at such a great distance? — So, this is an observation by James Webb of a galaxy seen early on in the universe. And around us today, we see galaxies that are large and mature and have slowed down. They've accumulated a lot of material. They sort of reached their rotation speed. But, it's expected that the earlier galaxies as they're funneling in gas and dust to build stars, will be spinning a lot more rapidly. And they've found an example of a galaxy that doesn't seem to be doing that. It is behaving like a more mature galaxy that you would see later on in the universe. And I guess the question you're asking is, could it just be a cluster of small galaxies? I mean, I would have to see the actual images of the galaxy and know what they were looking at, but you can absolutely tell a galaxy versus a cluster of other small galaxies. And you know, the way astronomers can measure the rotation rate of a galaxy is that you're essentially looking at the two halves of the galaxy and then you're measuring the red shift or blue shift of the stars that are on that. So, you know the overall red shift of the galaxy, you know how fast this galaxy is moving away from us in general. And then you're looking at one half of the galaxy and you're seeing what speed the stars are added or subtracted from that red shift. And then you're looking on the other half of the galaxy and seeing what that is added or subtracted from the red shift. And you can literally measure the rotation rate of the galaxy in addition to the fact that this galaxy is accelerating away from us, which is just absolutely incredible. And so, you wouldn't get that kind of behavior from a cluster of galaxies that were orbiting around each other and they were individually spinning. This is the only something you can see from a large galaxy that is rotating.

Doogal, how much protection would an electrically charged hull of a spaceship provide? So, back to the idea of radiation protection for astronauts. The why don't they just answer that people give is, "Well, why don't we just put an electromagnetic field around a spacecraft? This is how the Earth is protecting us from the radiation in space. Why don't we just do the same thing? We have power, we can run electricity in this grid around the spaceship, and then we should be able to redirect the cosmic rays so that they don't cause damage. " And it theoretically would work. The problem is that the amount of energy that's required, the infrastructure required to generate a magnetic field that is strong enough to deflect cosmic rays is would weigh more than just having hull plating, than just having millimeters centimeters of steel around your spaceship. That in the end, just raw mass is the cheapest and the most mass efficient way to go about it. Now, there have been a ton of it. Like, people have been trying to crack this problem since the 1950s. Like, as soon as they figured out the danger of the Van Allen belts. As soon as they figured out the dangers of cosmic rays. People said, why don't they just use a magnetic field? And there is just like if you do a search for an artificial magnetosphere through the literature, you will find papers back into the 60s, 70s, 80s, people have built prototypes. NASA has awarded NIAC grants for artificial magnetospheres. I have interviewed several scientists working on reviewed papers. We have reported a ton on this. And the end, the European Space Agency recently did a big study on it. And again, like I said, NASA has done studies on this. The answer always comes back, we just don't have the technology to do this. It is just not efficient. And you've got all of the risks and the dangers of you relying on some kind of electromagnetic gizmo to protect you from space radiation when you don't have to worry that much if you're just surrounded by say your water that you're going to drink with anyway. You know, if you just run all of the water inside your starship, your gray water, your black water, your drinkable water, you run it in this region around where the crew is going to be, you're going to be able to get some protection from that. 1 m of water protects you entirely from uh from radiation. So, I wouldn't be surprised. So, so people have thought about, well, could you make it really small magnetic toroid that the crew could sleep inside? And then you would have the amount of time that you spend you know, because the magnetic field falls under this inverse square law. That the larger the magnetic field that you're trying to generate, the more energy that you have to try and generate. Well, if you can generate a very small magnetic field, maybe one that is just big enough to hold a human being, then maybe you can protect a person from space radiation. But as soon as you come out of your little magnetic field, then you're back to square one and you're not safe from the radiation. So, this is a big problem. Nobody has a solution. And every idea that you can think of has there is a paper that explains why that idea didn't work, unfortunately. And it would be great. And I think, you know, the solution is probably some kind of Aldrin cycler where we build a battleship, right? We build a very big spaceship that has the proper amounts of insulation from space, that you do have a crew component that is surrounded by a sphere of water that's a meter thick and you're constantly replenishing this water and you're having to maintain the velocity of your spaceship. You're always bringing more material to the spaceship. And that's how, you know, it's something that can be that the astronauts can be inside and can be protected from the radiation. And then when you get to Mars, then you enter the atmosphere, you land on the surface of the planet, and then you immediately dig a hole. You do not want to be out there on the surface of Mars. Like I was just watching For All Mankind, and they have these little habitats. These little I don't know, they look like little hexagonal huts, cabins. Anyone out there for years and years is going to be bathed in radiation. Like cancer rates are going to skyrocket. They have [snorts] greenhouses with corn growing inside. Well, people have done studies and found that in fact, you can't grow plants in a greenhouse on Mars, that the radiation is going to kill your plants. You've got to build your greenhouse underground. And then you light it with LED lightings, similar to what they have to do in Antarctica, right? So, the reality of what it's going to be like to live on Mars is going to be very different than what science fiction has told us because there are just these immutable laws. All of this radiation out there that we just can't avoid. It's time to shout out all the new $5 patrons and above. Eddie Christensen, Harry Kelly, Rick Miles, Lewis, Maya, Greg Dutra, Yextiny, Mike Daisley, Johnny Langren, and Josue Anderson Araujo. Join the club at patreon. com/universetoday.

Kagmar, can you describe the optical sonic boom when a particle moves through matter at the speed of light? So, are you talking about Cherenkov radiation? Is that the thing that you're talking about? So, a thing that happens is that, you know, we have cosmic rays that are moving at almost the speed of light. And when they hit the atmosphere, they crash into the atmosphere and they generate radiation. And the radiation is moving through a medium. In this case, it's moving through uh the atmosphere. And that the particle is now going faster than the radiation can and you get this blue glow. And you can see this in nuclear reactors that you see this blue glow in the reactors because you're getting this radiation that's shifting to the blue as it's attempting to make its way through the medium. One of [snorts] the cool things about There are these Cherenkov detectors. So, these telescopes are set up on the surface of the Earth and they're watching for cosmic rays and other particles to crash into the atmosphere. Now, normally, these particles would just be completely destroyed. They'd be broken up as they hit the atmosphere, but they strike particles in the atmosphere and they break up and they send this cascade of particles that are then going down in this kind of cone underneath where the cosmic ray hit the atmosphere. And the really amazing thing about this is that they're still moving at relativistic speeds. They're experiencing time dilation. And so these particles should have decayed. Like they're generated as the particles strike the atmosphere, they should have decayed, but because they're experiencing time dilation, from their perspective, they have a longer lifespan and they're able to make it all the way down through the atmosphere and strike the detectors. There was a great post that Ethan Siegel did a couple of weeks ago about Cherenkov radiation sort of explained how Cherenkov radiation works. It's really good. I apologize I don't have it handy, but it's really cool.

cool. RebuxFleetfoot, I'm not a religious person, but sometimes I wake at night angry at God. Did he make this so complex on purpose? Well, if you're not a religious person, then there is no God and that the universe is not complex on purpose. The universe is just complex. And the fact that we when you think about how we all won the genetic lottery. Like you are the result of an almost like incomprehensible number of life forms that came before you. Each of which was so successful that it was able to live long enough to find a mate and produce an offspring. Then that offspring found a mate and produced an offspring. And that mate You are the result of an incalculable number of winners, of fighters, of people who go out there and take on that world and they pluck what they want. They make their own destiny. And so life is difficult. You know, people always say, "Oh, we live in this universe that was perfectly designed for life. " But absolutely not. We live in this hostile universe. Almost all of the volume of space is inhospitable to human life. All of the planets in the solar system are inhospitable to human life. That [snorts] even planet Earth, if you go up above it a certain altitude, inhospitable. You go below the surface of the Earth, inhospitable. You go to into the oceans, various places, inhospitable without good gear. That the actual places where you could just be dropped randomly and survive, even on planet Earth, is pretty small. We live in this universe that's trying to kill us. That 99% of the species that have ever existed on planet Earth have gone extinct. And here you are, one of the winners. You know, you are the result of all of this success. And it just shows that even though this universe is complex and scary and kind of hostile, we can dig out a kind of an incredible life for ourselves in this world. And the universe doesn't owe us anything. Right? We should It's not supposed to be simple. complicated. It just is. It just we are in the universe that we are in. We have the life that we find ourselves with. And uh it's sort of amazing. And then the question is, what are we going to do with it, right? What are the connections, the relationships are going to make with the people who are meaningful to us? What are the things that we're going to learn? How are we going to give back? make the lives of other people better? How are we going to uh enjoy what life has to offer to us? Uh there is so much wonder in the small and the big, in the people that we meet, the things we can learn. It's incredible. So, you are a winner. And now, you've got to pass this on. Get up there and win. You are destined for it. Justin Darkholme, what do you

think of Dr. Tyson's comment, "The universe is not obligated to make sense? " Yeah, I think that's exactly it, right? I mean, I think that if you are religious, then your whatever religion, whatever worldview your religion gives you, tries to help you make sense of what appears to be a hostile universe. Right? Like, "No, no, it's not hostile. Actually, God loves you and there's a plan for your life. And there's a purpose. All you got to do is just do the right things and then you'll be right by God and things are going to work out for you. " All right, that's the religious perspective. Well, you know, whatever. Zeus is Get you right by Zeus. Zeus loves you. Uh you'll live on in the afterlife and you'll go to Valhalla. I know I'm mixing my mythologies. But, the universe is just is. And what is incredible is how much we are able to uncover its secrets bit by bit through a careful, patient, objective scientific study of the world around us. And we have no idea. And yet we are living in this time the fruits of the scientific discovery that we have done because I think you take that attitude. You're like, "Okay, fine, universe. You want to be that way, right? If hostile and hide your secrets, then we're coming for them. And we're going to live figure this out no matter what you try to do. We can take it and we can take more. " But we're going to figure it out in the end. That is the attitude that I think you want to have. And so, yeah. Yeah, Tyson is exactly right. Did you know you can watch the same video with no ads and get a bonus question over on Patreon completely for free. We call it Q& A Plus. This week's bonus question, what's up and what's down in space? I'll put a link in the show notes. All right, those are all the questions that we had this week. Thank everyone who joined me for the live show. Everybody put your questions into the YouTube comments. By the time you're watching this, I will be back in Canada. Thank you, Japan, for hosting me and giving us incredible sites, amazing food. I really appreciate it, and I know I will be coming back, probably sooner than later. Now, I'm going to talk about why we do human spaceflight. But first, I'd like to thank our patrons. Thanks to Abe Kingston, Andrea Preddy, Brian Body, Caradon, Chuck Hawkins, Commander Billik, Dark Figment, David Giltinan, David Matth, and for all the reading and math for toddlers, Eric Lindstrom, Evan Doty Pro, James Carr, Jerry Madden, Jim Burke, Jordan Young, Josh Holtz, Marcel Sits, Mike Purcell, Norse Space, One Step Animals Dot Org, please follow my nephew at Vbrick 6994, Ring Kaidu, Richard Williams, Sean Sargent, Stephen Filer Monthly, Team 49, Telus Canada, Vlad Sheplin, Wolfgang Lotz, and Zeldabor Galactic Defender. These supporters are at the Master of the Universe level, and all our patrons. All your support means the universe to us.

So, this comment came from Seattle Pioneer. Human spaceflight is about ego and vanity. Space exploration is done far more efficiently with robots. So, I agree with you that if you want to do science, there is no reason to send humans to space. And I get a little frustrated when people say that the main reason that they're sending humans to the moon, or they want to have a mission to Mars, is they want to be able to do science. Yes, humans do science. We saw that with the Apollo missions. They brought back rocks, but robots can bring back rocks, too. It is really about whether you're there to do science, that's what we and the robots, or whether you're there to send humans, because that's what human exploration is. That the challenge of us sending humans off planet to another world, that is worth doing, and that is worth doing with humans. And that is why we do it. And you don't need any justification. Why do you climb a mountain? Because it's there. Why do you go traveling in Japan? Because it's here, because you want to experience it. And we want humans to experience traveling to other worlds. And yes, it's expensive and yes, there is some ego involved say this is a thing that humanity can do. This is the best of us. In the classic words of JFK, we do it because it's hard because it brings out the best in humanity. And this is why human space exploration will always be important. And as long as we don't try to tangle up the reasons and just be like we explore because we can, then it's worth doing. All right. Thanks everyone and we'll see you next week.