Plus, stephen welcomes Neil Degrasse tyson. Featuring jon batiste and stay human. And now, live on tape from the ed sullivan theater in new york city, its Stephen Colbert cheers and applause cheers and applause stephen hey, everybody how are you . Welcome, mark. Hey good to see you. That was good. Chris, fantastic. People love when bad things happen to dogs. They love it audience Stephen StephenStephen Stephen. Stephen hey, come on no, you audience Stephen Stephen stephen thats nice. Welcome. Welcome to the late show. Please have a seat, everybody. Thats very nice. Welcome to the late show. I am your host, Stephen Colbert. cheers and applause listen to that, listen to that. That is a friday crowd right there jon its friday, oh, oh, stephen these people have come through storms. Jon they come through a lot. Stephen they have come through giving up on going to the gym after new years. cheers and applause jon yup, yup, aint going. Aint going. Stephen anyway, t. G. I. F. , in ways i have never meant before, because i wasnt sure wed make it to the end of the week, given how the of week started with the thermonuclear tweet threats. All week long trump used his twitter feed to just lash out in every direction. So, whats up with grandpa cranky pants . laughter apparently, its because trumps infuriated that his legal team has been offering shifting timelines about when the russia investigation would end. Ah, so frustrating. I get that. Its like the cable company. They say youre going to get indicted between noon and 3 00, and youre waiting around until 5 00 p. M. Like, when are they going to perpwalk me already . Just do it applause jon just like the cable company, just like them. Stephen heres the deal. His legal team he has a whole bunch of lawyers his legal team told him that muellers investigation would be over by the end of 2017. Sir, im just as disappointed as you are, but for a slightly different reason. laughter and we, all of us out here, us sane people watching this, knew that what they were saying was just spin, but trump believed it, just like he believes the selective good news they put in front of him. Now hes angry and nervous and hes got that shiny button on his desk telling him he can make all of his problems go away. Luckily, our inhouse news network, real news tonight, is ready to reassure our troubled leader. Welcome to real news tonight. Im jim anchorton. And im jill newslady. Our top story the Robert Mueller investigation is going to be fair. And its over. Well, soon. When . Practically now. Maybe in three more sleeps. I love sleep. Theres no f. B. I. There. And donald trump can rest easy because Robert Muellers investigation is basically done. Yeah, hes free to go back to being our big, strong president. You know, jim, i wish i was a cheeseburger so he would desire me. Mmm, give him that beef. Up next a rare, real news tonight correction it turns out steve bannon is not good. Hes bad. Very bad. We regret the error. Stephen thank you for your service, guys. Solid. cheers and applause the only ones i believe. They are only ones i believe at this point. cheers and applause you guys remember last summer when we had the brief and glorious reign of former White House Communications director and guy who knows a guy who can take care of your wife problem, anthony scaramucci. Well, the mooch served the white house for just 11 days, but hell be remembered forever, mostly for saying that steve bannon could drain his own swamp. Listen, we might be seeing a lot of the mooch, because hes reportedly bragging of a possible return to the white house. Oh, please oh, please come back. But it may not happen because rumor has it that last year, when the mooch was on his front stabbing world tour, the president earnestly asked people in the white house, is he on drugs . laughter i have a followup question did he bring enough for the whole country . laughter because i could use a Little Something to take the edge off for the next three years. And there were some big changes in the u. S. Senate this week. Two new democratic senators, including doug jones, were sworn in by antigay warrior mike pence. Check on the expression of senator jones son, who happens to be gay. Oh, oh, yes. cheers and applause i dont think pence is going to need sunscreen for a while because hes getting a whole lot of shade. laughter jimmy, can i see that again . That look could not be more searing laughter i stand corrected. cheers and applause there was also there was also a major announcement from utah senator and ventriloquist dummy plotting against his master, orrin hatch. After much prayer and discussion with family and friends, ive decided to retire at the end of this term. Stephen well, thats positive. cheers and applause thats positive, yeah. Now the reason the reason that this is news is that donald trump was trying to get hatch to run for reelection. Hes only 83. Thats the prime of your 80s. Jon right, yeah. Stephen trump is terrified that hatch will now be replaced by former g. O. P. Nominee and man daydreaming about toast, mitt romney. Thats right, romneys back, baby and i couldnt be happier. Sure, back in 2012, i made a lot of jokes about him, but thats because romney seemed square and boring. But now he seems square and boring cheers and applause heres how we know that mitt is serious about running, because right after hatch announced his retirement plans, romney changed his location on twitter from massachusetts to holladay, utah. Oh, come on, mitt. At least wait until senator hatchs body is cold. All right, were there. laughter now, my first guest tonight is Neil Degrasse tyson. You guys like neil tyson . cheers and applause incredible. My favorite guest. Hell be out here. Hell be out here in just a little while. cheers and applause maybe two, three acts or something. Incredible. Which is great. I always love having him out here because theres a lot of space news out there. For one, a Japanese Company is planning to put a billboard on the moon. Now, you wont be able to see the billboard from earth. The Company Wants to use it for moonsurface photo ops, and hopes to attract corporations looking to show off their logos with earth in the background. Now, im not sure if they know this, but you know where else you can get photos with earth in the background . Earth. laughter its kind of hard to avoid. But this is a huge milestone humanitys first ad in space. Ever since our ancestors first raised their eyes to the firmament, they dreamed of traveling to the stars and declaring to the cosmos, charmin, enjoy the go. laughter i just have if there are bears who poop in space. I dont know. I just have one problem with this Japanese Companys plan it should be americas plan. Unfortunately, we actually have a law banning obtrusive space advertising. Thats too bad. We all remember the historic moment when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. That can save you 15 or more on your car insurance. Stephen weve got a great show for you tonight. cheers and applause Neil Degrasse tyson right over there. Stick around. Neil new year, new phones for the family. Join tmobile, and when you buy one of the latest samsung phones get a Samsung Galaxy s8 free. Plus, unlimited family plans come with netflix included. What does life look like during your period . Its up to you, with tampax pearl. You get ultimate protection on your heaviest days and smooth removal for your lightest. Tampax pearl and pearl active. For upto 100 leakfree work outs. Befoto treat her frequent 24hr heartburn. Claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. Now, she can have her cake and eat it too. Nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for allday, allnight protection. Can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn . Take off for mexico with expedia. One click gives you access to discounts on thousands of hotels, cars and things to do. Like the occidental at the xcaret destination for 32 off. Everything you need to go. Expedia. band playing cheers and applause stephen welcome back, everybody ladies and gentlemen my first guest tonight is the beloved astrophysicist, author, and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of natural history. Please welcome, my friend, Neil Degrasse tyson cheers and applause good to see you. cheers and applause stephen neil. Beautiful i love the stars. Stephen just for you, my friend, just for you. Love what youve done with the place. Stephen thank you very much. Thank you. Stephen now, on the old gig over on the other network, you were the guest i had more than any other guest. Really . Stephen yeah you know, you know that could it be that i live nearby, so i was a cheap date . Stephen could it be we moved the studio some place close to you so we could be near you, neil . I just found out youre also youre holding a vast lead on anybody else on this show. Youve been on nine times. Nine times cheers and applause number two. Do you know who number two is . No. Stephen john oliver. Is that right . Stephen at six. Oh, okay, okay. Stephen but thank you very much. But the universe is vaster than anything else in the universe. laughter stephen what . What does that mean . Dont preblow my mind. Dont preblow my mind before im ready for it. We have a lot of interview here. Theres a lot in the universe to talk about, relative to anything else in the universe. Stephen first of all, happy new year. Thank you, happy new year to you. Stephen now, does the new year have any particular astronomical significance . No. Stephen why not . Not, not stephen weve gone around the sun right, weve gone around the sun once. But the place where we return to, theres nothing special or interesting about it. Its a completely arbitrary spot on the calendar that we have chosen to celebrate the new year. Plus its i think its a little weird that we all celebrate that instant that the ball drops, and then one hour later, they celebrate exactly the same thing, and then an hour later, an hour later they do that 24 times around the world. Stephen i know how clocks work, neil. laughter the world is not celebrating the same moment. Its kind of its odd to me as an astrophysicist. But thats fine. Its culture and thats how we do it. Stephen could you be more Neil Degrasse tyson right now . So you live you live to suck the joy out of other peoples traditions. No, no. Stephen what do you love . What is worth celebrating . If its not new years almost every other holiday in the year has some astronomical basis. The chinese new year, the jewish new year, ramadan, easter, lent stephen toyotathon. laughter all of it all of it. Theres something saturnalia. Christmas stephen what does saturnalia have . Saturnalia, its back in the winter where the sun is getting lower and lower in the sky each day and worry that maybe it will never come back. Stephen is saturn getting higher in the sky . No, but saturn is the god you pray to and celebrate. Saturnalia is where everything flips, the master serves the slaves, the slave gives commands. Its an interesting roman tradition that is long gone. Stephen all right. But im just saying its in that time of the year where the sun is basically reborn, so its solstice celebrations. And christmas was put there to be a good place to sort of bring in all the pagan worshipers, who were already celebrating that time of year. Stephen and it worked. It worked, oh, yeah. Stephen we won. Now laughter so, 2018, whats got you excited for 2018 . laughter we won. What are you talking about . We won. Whats got you excited wait, just to be clear. Stephen okay. You not only won there. Stephen yeah. You won the calendar race, too. Stephen huh . The worlds calendar is the gregorian calendar after pope gregory put that into place in 1582. The previous julian calendar was messing up in the year. Stephen it was off by like by ten days and the pope said, weve got to fix this. Stephen the pope fixed it . Well, pope jesuit scientists, jesuit priests were the academic order of the catholic youre catholic you should be teaching this, okay . laughter stephen im aware of my religion. laughter okay so theres a vatican observatory to this day that at the time, before telescopes were invented, these jesuit priests were put into the service of figuring out why the calendar was shifting in the year. Stephen am i correct in saying that it was a Catholic Priest who first proposed the idea of the big bang . Yes, george lematre, yes, the big bang itself, using einsteins equations. Einstein could have done it, but he did enough. Stephen he was busy. Laid down the equations. Other people calculated with his equations and he deduces the history of the universe must have started with the big bang. Stephen wow. Okay. So, going to 2018 so catholics have been in there in multiple stephen you dont have to tell me. laughter okay. Stephen im team r. C. Now team Roman Catholic . Stephen yes, okay. applause now youre youre walking footnote, Neil Degrasse tyson. laughter i didnt think you brought people with you on that comment. So i was just helping it out. Stephen you were with me. cheers and applause okay. No, no, thats not how you ask it. Who was not with him . applause see . There you go. Stephen i feel betrayed. laughter all right. So, 2018, let me get to the second question of the interview. In 2018, what mystery are you most interested in science cracking . Or what do you think we are likely to learn this year that were close to figuring out . In my field, the good thing about it is, generally we make discoveries when a mission is launched. Okay, sure. Stephen so we so we know when to begin to expect discoveries. Stephen whats the big mission that is reaching its fruition . The mission now is to try to understand dark matter and dark energy more than we currently do. Stephen okay. We know its there, but its a complete mystery. We dont understand the origin of 85 of all the gravity of the universe. Its not black holes, comets, stars, planets its none of the above. Stephen so the math says there should be more there, but we cant see it . Right, so its actually missing gravity rather than missing mass im sorry, its gravity with no known source. Stephen which is what i said. Which is what i said a moment ago. I like to think of it as dark gravity. Stephen dark gravity . Its really dark gravity. Stephen wow. Is really what it is. Then then theres some mysterious pressure in the vacuum of space. Stephen what do you mean . Which we call dark energy. But we should just call it fred and wilma i joke about this. Because we dont know what they are. Stephen so, wait dont give it a name that makes people think we know what it is, because we dont actually know what it is. But it is there, weve measured it. Its a mysterious pressure in the vacuum of space forcing the universe to accelerate in its expansion. And ive written about this because i lose sleep over this fact laughter can i share this . I dont want to be blamed stephen i doubt i could stop you. laughter . I dont want to be blamed if you cannot get to sleep tonight. Stephen do it. Ill be okay. Okay, so, this dark energy in the future will render the universe so large, having accelerated so significantly, that all the galaxies of the night sky will have accelerated beyond our horizon. Stephen what . All the galaxies are the source of our knowledge of cosmology, of the big bang. Everything we know about the history of the universe comes to us from these galaxies. If they accelerate beyond our horizon, the next generation of cosmic explorers will only have the stars of the milky way to think about. And i so, theres an there would have been an entire chapter of the universe ripped from their view. And they will be trying to contemplate an understanding of the universe without a significant part of what its past was. And so i lose sleep wondering, today, was there some previous chapter ripped from the universe itself . And here we are laughter and here we are, you know, touching the elephant, not knowing that in fact theres an elephant standing there. Or maybe theres the shadow of the elephant, and the elephant has been moved. We dont know what we dont know. And this leaves me awake at night. I lose sleep over that. Stephen i am not going to get a wink. cheers and applause thats crazy. Hold on. Weve got to take a break. Well be right back with more Neil Degrasse tyson, everybody. cheers and applause theres Nothing Better than sharing a smile. Get a lays smile bag today and well make a donation to operation smile. To everyone else, ieveryone else. But on the inside, i feel chronic, widespread pain. Fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. Fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. Lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. Im glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. 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Take me where i want to be. Let me dream, oh, let me dream. applause stephen welcome back, everybody. Were here with our friend Neil Degrasse tyson. Lets talk about something smaller in a way, but in sort of mentally, another thing that will keep you up at night and kind of make your brain explode is you know, im scared when you pull stuff out. Stephen like this . You know what this is. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stephen okay. So recently, into our solar system, above the whats it called, the plane of the ecliptic . Sure. Stephen okay. Where the planets go around from a