Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - In the Footsteps of Carl Sagan: Neil Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium

Episode Date: August 23, 2004

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Astrophysicist Neil Tyson walks in the footsteps of Carl Sagan on Planetary Radio. Hello everyone and welcome back to a brand new edition of our show. I'm Matt Kaplan, back from a vacation that included New York City, where I got to talk to Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium. We'll visit with him in just a couple of minutes. Of course, we'll also get a What's Up update from Bruce Betts that includes his latest space trivia contest.

Let's start with a quick review of what's happening around our solar system. Dunes on the ground and clouds in the sky, just a typical winter day on Mars, where the Mars Exploration rovers continue their treks. Spirit has found even better evidence of once ample surface water in Gusev Crater, while Opportunity has now added something scientists are calling popcorn to the famous blueberries it discovered months ago. Both probes are getting a bit cranky and lethargic in their old age, but appear to be healthy enough for much more action. And Mars now enjoys its own multinational

communications network. The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has received data from both of the NASA rovers below. This second test of UHF transmitters and receivers has paved the way for further cooperation as still more probes head to the Red Planet. Where do you go to find helicopter pilots that can snag a returning spacecraft out of mid-air? Well, NASA went to Hollywood. High over Utah on September 8th, two so-called stunt pilots will attempt to grab the sample return capsule dropped back to Earth from the Genesis spacecraft. Scientists are anxious to open that capsule and study particles of the solar wind

captured by Genesis. And Cosmos 1, the Planetary Society's solar sail, has reached another milestone. The fully tested electronics package has been delivered and is ready to be integrated into the first-of-its-kind spacecraft. Cosmos 1 is on schedule for launch by a Russian booster late this year or in early 2005. You can get the details of these and many other stories on the web at planetary.org. I'll be right back with Neil Tyson. the news articles called Mercury the densest planet in the solar system, but I thought Earth was the densest. Which one is true? It all depends on what your definition of density is. According to your chemistry teacher, density is a physical property of matter defined as how much mass fits in a certain volume. Every substance on Earth has a known density under standard conditions of temperature and pressure. In fact, the density of water under standard temperature and pressure is what originally defined the metric unit of the gram. One gram

is equal to the mass of one cubic centimeter of water. The common materials that make up planets are rock, which has a density around three times water, and iron metal, which has a density around seven times water. According to this definition, mass per unit volume, the Earth is the densest planet in the solar system and is about 2% denser than Mercury. So why were they saying Mercury was denser? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. Neil Tyson was reluctant to become head of the famous Hayden Planetarium. Like most scientists, this astrophysicist wanted to keep doing research. But the Hayden made him an offer he couldn't refuse when they said they'd create an astrophysics department for him in the facility.

Now he enjoys the best of both worlds, uncovering the mysteries of the universe and sharing them with the public at one of New York City's most popular and exciting attractions. We visited just a few days ago. Neil Tyson, thank you for inviting us into your office and for spending a few minutes with us on Planetary Radio. It's a pleasure to have you come to New York

and to share my office with me. And share your, what I called a few moments ago, your palace of wonders, my second visit here. Now we've seen both of the shows, the one narrated by Tom Hanks and the one narrated by Harrison Ford, in this amazing place, the Hayden Planetarium. What is the relationship of the Hayden Planetarium

to the Rose Center? It's a little tricky. Historically, of course, it's the Hayden Planetarium to the Rose Center? It's a little tricky. Historically, of course, it's the Hayden Planetarium, founded in 1935. And that's what it had been until the year 2000, when, in a complete renovation and reconstruction, we reopened as the Rose Center for Earth and Space, containing the Hayden Planetarium. And so it's a much more sort of ambitious concept than simply a dome with a space show.

There are exhibits. There are all manner of offerings that go on outside of the space show. In the old days, you would come and just see the space show. It would end, and then you would leave. Here, it would end, and you would stay because there's much more to grasp in the universe. And there is much, much more going on. When my family was here last time, we did the entire Powers of Ten walk around this huge sphere that we're sitting right outside of, which had to have been partly inspired by the old film from the Eames brothers, Powers of Ten.

Interesting that you comment on that. Just to alert your listeners, our planetarium dome, we architecturally completed it into a sphere. And that sphere looks like it's floating in the middle of the space. It's because it's supported in a cantilevered way off to the side. So you can walk underneath the sphere as though it's floating above your head, as a sphere might be in space. We want your visit here to be otherworldly, not only in content, but architecturally. Given that, one of the exhibits that we're quite proud of is the walk around the sphere, where the sphere gets used as not only the housing for

the theater, but as an exhibit element, where you compare the relative sizes of things in the universe. On one side, it's the full extent of the visible universe, and as you walk around the sphere, the sphere then becomes the galaxy, and there are some models of other objects and orbs on the railing, and the scale continues to shrink right on down through planetary sizes, all the way on down through humans, down to the nucleus of an atom. And you ask whether it was inspired by Charles and Ray Eames. The Charles and Ray Eames film was in fact fact, inspired by a book by a Dutch author where it's the first sort of book version of an exposition of powers of ten, and that was back in the 1950s.

But even before that, the chair of the astrophysics department at Princeton, upon visiting this museum, the American Museum of Natural History in the 19-teens, sent a letter to the chairman of the museum saying, we know so much about the universe now, it's time to make an exhibit where we can put the relative sizes of things on display. And I have that original letter. So that's the earliest reference to Powers of Ten as an exhibit. That's marvelous. I've learned something.

And that's appropriate because you are an astrophysicist turned educator. Do you think of yourself as an educator? Is that your work here as the director of the Hayden? Well, since we opened the Rose Center for Earth and Space, what was very important to me and to others, you don't want to open a brand new, a spanking brand new facility and then not have the intellectual foundation to support it. Without it, you have nothing more than a World's Fair pavilion, where a few years later you part the curtains and no one's there. So part of the facility was to create a brand new department of astrophysics. So I get to stimulate not only my scientific research curiosities, but as director of the Hayden Planetarium, there's the entire pedagogical dimension of this position. And the two go beautifully together.

At the end of the week, I feel fully spent, giving all that I can possibly give of myself, not only to research but to others. By the way, just as others had done for me when I was a kid, I came here, my first intellectual role model was the director of the Hayden Planetarium back when I was a teenager, early teen, like 12, 13. So it's that debt that I feel that I owe to others, knowing that scientists and educators in the past had given their time to me.

How did you end up as the director of the Hayden Planetarium? Well, I was really minding my own business in the manicured lawns of the campus of Princeton University. I was a postdoc there. I had just gotten my Ph.D. at Columbia. And, you know, I started getting these phone calls from trustees. Let's have lunch at the Yale Club, you know, this sort of thing. And it was why? Well, they wanted to get my views on what should happen to the Hayden Planetarium because it was growing long of tooth. The

attendance of the rest of the museum was rising, simultaneous with the attendance of the planetarium dropping. They said, would you like to come and help to shape this? Do you want to be director? And I said, no, that's professional suicide. You don't go to research astrophysics to become director of a planetarium. I said, I'll do it if you, like, commit's professional suicide. You don't go to research astrophysics to become director of a planetarium. I said, I'll do it if you commit to a department. They said, oh no, we'll do that later. I said, well then, I'll help you, but I'm not going to leave my position at Princeton.

And so I helped at the beginning, and then they committed to a department, and then I was offered the directorship. I guess they liked my ideas about what to do, and we brought in some very creative architects and exhibit designers, and what we have here is the result of that collaboration. I remember reading about this facility when it opened,

that at night your supercomputers in the basement or someplace similar, the time on them is sort of leased out to get additional research done. Is that still taking place? That's still taking place. We have sort of mini supercomputers that drive the space show during the day, and those are tasked with astrophysical modeling. One of our faculty worries a lot about what clouds are doing between the stars. These are the clouds that make new stars and make planets.

These are his research goals, and the computers, doubly tasked after hours, become his research tools. So I see it as a very efficient use of resources. Clearly, those colleagues of yours, and this conversation is great evidence of this, those colleagues of yours saw you as scientists, conversation is great evidence of this. Those colleagues of yours saw you as scientists, but also as communicator, much like our founder, co-founder of the Planetary Society, Carl Sagan. And we should mention in the interest of full disclosure that you are the vice president of the Planetary Society, but you obviously have those skills. Well, first, let me comment on being vice president of the Planetary Society. I think I missed a board meeting or something, and then I got voted into that position. It's not a position you

run for, I don't think. But I'm happy and proud to serve. I'm also not unmindful of the fact that so much of what I do, or rather so much of the public acceptance of what I do, comes about because of brickwork laid by Carl Sagan. And he took a lot of flack from his colleagues for showing up on Johnny Carson and appearing in some other public venues. Now that's not only common for me and my colleagues, but it's even expected. And so someone had to sort of be first, and that was surely Carl Sagan. I'm in his footsteps in what I do. But I'd also like to say that he made it possible for not only a singular person to follow him, but for many to follow. So just look at the bookstore, at how many books on the universe are written by professional scientists, written for the public.

Go back 20 years, that wasn't the case. So I'm part of a very regal tradition in astronomy to bring the cosmos down to Earth. We need to take a quick break. If it's okay with you when we come back from this, I want to talk about what it means to be communicating the wonders of the universe, which we seem to be discovering new ones every week nowadays. Hourly. Hourly. to be discovering new ones every week nowadays.

Hourly, hourly. To have that as part of your job. And then also what you're doing in other media, a book, a TV show. But we'll do that when we come back. You're here, I'm here. Our guest is Neil Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. And we'll be back with him right after this message. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure

in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds and we're building the first ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration

in the Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds.

Neil Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, is our guest. We're sitting in his office with an interesting painting behind us. Oh, of course, it's Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. I joke with people, I say the Museum of Modern Art had a garage sale. I got it for $2 million. It was a steal. We were just saying before the break. There's something else on my desk.

Yeah, what do you got? It's a little lamp. Let's spin around here. A little Saturn lamp that I made when I was in seventh grade. Oh, no kidding. You push down the rings, and a little light bulb sitting at the top of the north pole of Saturn turns on. So I made that in woodshop in seventh grade. Nice job.

It's been my desk lamp ever since in school and in graduate school and professionally. Don't you need to get a little, like, one-inch Cassini model now that you can glue onto the ring there? You know, I hadn't thought of that, but that's my next job tomorrow. Yeah, because I know you've got spare time. Glue all the spacecraft that are headed towards it, the flotilla that we've got going out there in the solar system. Well, obviously you were a master of other trades and other media, because I want to talk about that a little bit. You pointed out to me the book sitting on the table here, The Sky is Not the Limit.

I guess this just came out? Yeah, this is the paperback version of my memoir, The Sky is Not the Limit, Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist. And I think it's a pretty quick read. I mean, my life, Doubleday first approached me several years ago to write a memoir. And I said, do you know something about my life expectancy that I don't? Because I like to think I have a few more years before I'm memoir material. And they said, oh, no, you know, you just finished the Roe Center. And this paperback edition

includes my service in Washington, where I served on two commissions, one to study the health of the aerospace industry and the other to study the future of America in space, the Moon to Mars Commission. So it's got a lot of material in there that's sort of very relevant to going forward as a space-faring nation. Should be a fun read for our listeners. The other thing that's going to happen, I think something like a month after this radio show airs, is another departure for you, again, following in the footsteps of Carl Sagan, and that's television. Talk about Origins. Yeah, I'm hosting a miniseries.

You said a master of other shows. I'm not master of it. This is like my first foray into it. I'm hardly master of it, but it was certainly fun foray into it. I'm hardly master of it. But it was certainly fun. It's a four-part miniseries called Origins. And there's a separate episode on different aspects of Origins, of the cosmos, of galaxies and stars, of the Earth and of life. And there's also a major section on the search for ourselves and the universe, the search for other intelligence. So cosmic origins is an emergent scientific theme that was not possible to think about in the way we now do only until very recently. What we have are chemists, biologists, astrophysicists, geologists, paleontologists in the same room at the same time sharing their expertise to answer the question, what is the origin of life? You can't, what is the origin of life?

You can't answer what's the origin of life without looking up at the asteroids that take out life every 100 million years. You can't think about geology on Earth without understanding the evolution of solar systems. And so there is a collaboration in progress that the public doesn't know about. And that's what we highlight in this series. And it airs on PBS Nova. They're trying to broaden their profile, really trying to stay current and very real and relevant.

And these are the first steps of many that they're taking to make that happen. It premieres September 28th and 29th. They're cramming all four episodes on two consecutive nights. And it happens to be the two days before the first presidential debate. So I don't know if people will be so sick of it, of presidential politics, they need an escape, or whether they'll be in so anticipation of it that they're not going to watch the series. I don't know. But I think we always need a dose of the cosmos whenever we can get it. I have to say, we never get political on this show,

but it was nice to hear Teresa Hines Carey in her speech mention Cassini and Galileo by name, and she even knew where they were. Totally. What that tells me is that the cosmos is not simply something conducted by scientists in lab coats. It's not simply the object of affection of scientists. The discoveries of the cosmos have worked their way into popular culture. Just look at the reaction to the suggestion. All the administrative NASA said was,

maybe we're not going to fix the Hubble. And you saw the response by not only the scientists, but the public. There were op-eds and debates on TV. And I said, my gosh, Hubble doesn't belong to the astrophysicist. It doesn't even belong to NASA. It belongs to the public. The public has taken ownership of cosmic discovery. And when I came to that sort of revelation

about the state of the frontier of science, I said, we've got to keep feeding the public because they're hungry and thirsty for it. And that's just the beginning. And you said before our break that these advances are coming hourly. This has got to be an extremely exciting time to be in the business or all the businesses that you're in. There's so much that is incredibly exciting just beyond our little thin layer of air. Yeah, we live in a universe that's not only expanding but accelerating. And this worried some people because they felt like the universe was out of control. Now, why they thought they would ever control the universe at all is beyond me.

But by the way, the Origins series comes with a companion book that I co-wrote with Donald Goldsmith, who's a longtime veteran of these things. He wrote the companion book to several TV programs in the past. And so I look forward to that coming out. Now, one of the challenges, as you noted, is how do you keep it current? Well, we took the subjects that have some shelf life in this collaboration. You hope.

We hope, that's right. So there's certain things like, what is the origin of the chemical elements in the human body that's traceable to the explosive remains of stars that have given their lives to the galaxy to enrich it with chemicals that then become planets and people. That's an example of science of high shelf life that we make a big point of in the book. Here I teach, I run a course, a program here called This Just In, a once-a-month update on cosmic discovery.

And when we first conceived of this course, I thought, okay, I'd have to scramble to get material to fill the hour of presentations. And I'm finding that I can't talk about two-thirds of what actually happens in the previous four months. I have to whittle it down. So I joked when I said the news was coming hourly, it's daily that we're getting results from the frontier of cosmic discovery. So we will watch for origins, you said, September 28 and 29 on PBS, part of the NOVA series. Yeah, it's two hours, 8 to 10 on each of those two nights.

And anybody who comes to New York City, I can personally recommend a visit to the Hayden Planetarium, the Rose Center. This, I'll say it again, palace of wonders that you've built here. We learned that on somebody's tourist list, the Rose Center supplanted the Statue of Liberty as like one of the 10 things you got to do before you leave New York. Statue of Liberty was on the list, but it was not like one of the things you had to do. So we were all very happy about that. I'd say that's a good sign, not only for you guys but for Americans, that it's been elevated to that level in popularity in a city that has no shortage of things to see.

That's right. And, of course, not to belittle the Statue of Liberty. It's a very important icon, a very important symbol. But visiting it doesn't really give you more to talk about for having visited New York compared with visiting the Rose Center for Earth and Space. You're better off taking a boat ride around Liberty Island and then coming back and spending the rest of your day here.

Thanks very much, and I look forward to a time when we can have you back on. Good luck with the show, and good luck with The Sky is Not the Limit. His memoir, that's Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is the director of the Hayden Planetarium here in New York City. Thanks very much for joining us for a few minutes here on Planetary Radio. It's a pleasure and come back. I promise I will. I'm Emily Lakdawalla back with Q&A. According to the usual definition of density, the Earth is denser than Mercury. There's a problem, though. Mercury isn't being treated fairly in this equation. The Earth is nearly 20 times as massive as Mercury is.

The more massive you are, the more powerful your gravity is. Under the force of gravity, the Earth submits its insides to crushing pressure. The pressure inside the Earth is so high that the atoms making up its mass get shoved closely together, making the metal in its core nearly twice as dense as the same material would be at the Earth's surface. With less mass and lower gravity, Mercury can't squeeze itself as tightly. So Mercury's lower density hides the mind-boggling fact that nearly half of Mercury's volume is in its metal core, while the Earth is only one-sixth metal core by volume.

To put it another way, if you were able to cancel out the effects of gravity, Mercury would be far denser than the Earth. Why is Mercury so dense? That's one question that Messenger hopes to answer when she arrives at Mercury in 2011. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at Mercury in 2011. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio.

Time for What's Up with Dr. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. And I often say welcome back, but you should be saying that to me. Yes, sir. Welcome back, Matt. Hey, how was your vacation? It was great. I had a really nice time, and I hope no one minded. I hope everybody loved that we replayed that show last week with Ray Bradbury's birthday. But we had a great time.

It was a family vacation in the Northeast. Just missed you, apparently, in Boston at the SETI event that the Planetary Society sponsored. Yes, indeed. We had two events having to do with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. One, a technical session with basically almost all the leaders of doing SETI research in the world meeting one day, and then the next day, a public symposium that was very well attended with many of the same people talking. Well, I wish I could have been there, but I was there just like three days before you

is when I left Boston. Could you still feel the SETI residuals? No, I didn't. But I do hear, sitting at the Planetary Society, and in their honor, I did bring you a present. Really? Yeah. Mini pretzels. Hey, mini pretzels.

Thank you. Gosh. They don't give you much on America West anymore. Pretzels. Thank you. Gosh, I'm touched. They don't give you much on America West anymore, but pretzels and a few peanuts. But there's the nice little bag. I haven't opened it, I promise. Oh, I'm touched. You've never brought me a gift before, Matt.

Well, we'll try not to make a habit of it. Thank you. Yeah, well. What's up, Bruce? Apparently there's a spending limit on gifts you can bring me. Hey, I hear we had some people who saw the Perseid meteor shower that let us know one of those things we told people to look for good stuff up there recently

we'll keep you informed of future meteor showers but what you can look for in the night sky easily now actually there are a couple planets and it's going to be for you pre-dawn people out there looking before dawn you can see Venus incredibly easily in the east. It's the brightest star-like object up there. And you've got Saturn moving from its lower left to its upper left over the course of the next week or so. So go out there and check them out.

You can actually see quite the relative position difference from one day to the next over the next couple weeks. And they draw fairly close together in the night sky. Also, great objects to take a look at with even a small telescope. You can see Saturn's rings, and you can see that Venus is in a crescent-like phase or getting there. Good stuff. On to this week in space history. On August 28, 1993, seems like just yesterday, Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid Ida on its way to Jupiter and discovered its little moonlet dactyl. Chobby said, I just enjoy saying. Let's move on to random space fact.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory, one of the three great space-borne telescopes up there, part of NASA's Great Observatory Program, flies 200 times higher than Hubble at its farthest point from the Earth. It has a very elliptical orbit, goes much, much, much, much farther from Earth. Actually, more than a third of the way to the moon to get away and avoid interference from the Earth. And does spectacular X-ray data and imaging. Good stuff. On to the trivia contest. What comet's debris is associated with the Perseid meteor shower?

How'd we do, Matt? We did great. A lot of entries and a lot of first-time entrants this time around. And we know that you had to wait a long time to find out, but here is our winner. It is Alan Dietrich, one of those first-timers. Alan Dietrich from Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, not British, but British Columbia. I was in

Canada for the first time, not British Columbia, but the French part on the other side. I was in Quebec and had a wonderful time and hope to make it up to British Columbia sometime. Maybe I can drop in on you at Qualicum Beach. Alan, but you better be wearing your Planetary Radio T-shirt, Alan, when I do. Thanks for entering.

You're going to start scaring people. You're promising to just drop in on me. Randomly. I'm just going to drop in. That's right. That's really one of the goals is to be random about it. All right. For our next trivia contest, we move on to Venus.

What was the first lander to return images from the surface of Venus? First lander to return images from the surface of Venus? Go to planetary.org slash radio to find out how to enter our contest, and you, too, can be wearing your Planetary Radio t-shirt when Matt Kaplan sneaks up on you and says hi. Listeners have until Wednesday, September 1st. Wednesday, September 1st at noon to get us the answer to this new trivia question. And we will eagerly look forward to reading one of your names on the air. And you will be the winner of that next Planetary Radio t-shirt. Fabuloso.

Hey, when you go out there and do look up in the night sky and see stuff, do like some of our listeners have been doing. Drop us a line. Tell us what you see. You know, we just like to make sure that the things are still up there that we promise. And I guess that's about it there, Matt. Look up in the night sky, everyone, and think about airline pretzels. Thank you, and good night.

I'm just going to have a few right now. Go ahead. Go ahead and crunch one loudly. That's Bruce Betts, the director of Projects for the Planetary Society, who joins us each week, usually without snack food, here on Planetary Radio. Oops, I got some on the microphone. That's it for this time. Join us again next week for more news of our solar system and beyond.

Take care, everyone.