So the very ingredients that comprised life are traceable to stars. They gave their live lives billions of years before we arrived. Rose so we are starred in. We are not only figure difficultly but quite lit reallyly stardust. Rose Neil Degrasse tyson for the hour, next. F funding for charlie rose has been provided by additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from the wnet studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Neil Degrasse Tyson is here, many know him as the most powerful nerd in the universe. He calls himself simply a servant of science. He is the long time direct are of the hadeon planetarium in new york and also the host of a new talk show on the National Geographic channel called star talk, it combines science culture and comedy to help bring the universe down to earth. Im pleased to have Neil Degrasse tyson back at this table. Welcome. Thank you charlie. We go way back. My first time was like in the 90s. Rose we started in 1991. I feel like im in the family. Thank you. Rose so congratulations on star talk on television. Yeah we are all very happy about that. And were pretty sure we think its the First Time Ever there being a science talk show on television. Rose good for you. We think it is precedent. We didnt do it for that purpose, but it just turned out that way. Rose what i like about it in reading about it they came to you and wanted you to do a television show. You said why dont you just bring the little cameras into my radio show and that will be just fine. Exactly i said keep it simple. I dont want to do anything more. But there was some budget to do some set dressing and part of that is we film in the hall of the universe of the American Museum of natural. Rose cant get better than that. I get to announce that from the hall of the universe who knows where this is. From the room of dark curtains. Rose yeah thats right. You have come to the deep hole and im here in the deep hole. Youre down youre so but its still structured the same. And we have a comedian. I have a guest. Rose that would be you. I happen to think the universe is completely hilarious. But i have someone who thinks that way professionally. And the theres a main guest who is typically from pop culture. That is the real difference here between what you might otherwise expect for a science talk show. My guests are many. Same guests you see turning into late night talk show circuits but im asking them different questions. Im asking about them about their nerdhood, about their science teachers in their life that they liked or hated. Find out how science and technology has impacted their livelihood. Rose youre not looking for people of pop culture who happen it like science. Youre liking just simply for people who are interested in having a program. It matters that you have heard of them. Because then you will take an interest in them from the beginning. And then you learn these extra things about them. Like i said do they have a nerd underbelly that wouldnt reveal itself in anybody elses interview. Rose how do we define a nerd underbelly . Oh its if they want to break into a fight about which captain they preferred in star trek, okay. Or did you know did hans solo shoot first you know. Or did you know there are these nerd questions drawn from the nerdiverse, from the geekiverse and so i think there are many people who have hidden interests. Or maybe theres an ember that just needs to be fanned and then it will ignite and then youll see and feel and hear all of their interests that they express about science. Rose is it the fact that people are simply curious about things they dont know about, and curious about the future . We were kuns every one of us to a person was deeply curious about our environment as children. Scientists tend to not ever lose that, and they stay curious their whole lives. I think other people get it beaten out of them. They get it worn out of them. And so i am in search of that soul of curiosity that i think continues to lurk in all adults. Rose so what happened . Do we tamp it down do we in a sense what happens if you are in a class and you say oh lets what let me go to the window. No, sit down, its not time. Do your lesson. Rose they talk rather than engage. Exactly. And our School System tends to be reward people who obey people who do exactly what theyre told. People who hand things in on time. Those are the those are the honor the best students as we have come to define them. If the student who is distracted by the butterfly could be the next great naturalist but that doesnt get rewarded in school. Because you should be studiesing for this curriculum that weve established for you. So i think we should do it all but dont suppress. Yes, you need a curriculum yes, you need exams. But if you see energy in a student being expressed by questioning their environment that should be nurtured and not somehow declared that its out of line. Rose is that you as a kid. It was so me as a kid. No, i think teachers i had energy in the classroom, there was a sixth grade teacher who noticed that i had all this energy social energy bordering on disruptive. And i had an interest in the universe, all my book reports were on what the moon was like and mars and the Space Program. Rose even then. Yeah, starting at age nine but it didnt really gel until age 11 fifth or sixth grade. And then and then the teacher noted for me that the hadeon planetarium the local planetarium in new york, had classes on the universe. And i started taking these classes after hours. That can get you tired right. After school you go to do another thing. And that kind of tapped me down in the class. But now i had a whole new universe literal and figure difficult universe to devote my energies to. Rose when did you know that what you wanted to do was be an astrophysicist. At age nine a first visit to the planetarium. Rose did it for you . That put something in my veins. I dont know, to this day i still think it was the universe who called me and not i who called it. Rose really sm. And so i said wow this is and of course, growing up in the bronx there arent many stars visible anywhere in new york especially not the bronx at the time. And so the sky in the planetarium was magical to me. I didnt even think it was real. I thought it was a hoax. Ive seen the sky from the bronx. And this is not it. Therefore, it must be a hoax not knowing that, of course its portraying the real sky. By age 11 then i had the answer, that i had the answer to that annoying question that adults asked children. What do you want to be when you grow up. Rose and your question was. Astrophysicist and that kind of ended ended the conversation pretty quickly. But i have been on a mission ever since. Rose you have said before that when you go outside you always look up. Oh yeah yeah. Rose and too many of us dont do that. I did that even back when it was kind of dangerous to do that. Because prepooper scooper laws you have to rel look down every five seconds. So i would risk i would risk the incident just for looking up. And any time, especially at night but also in the daytime, i will look up to see what the moon is doing. Moon is up in the daytime as much as it is as night contrary to many people. Rose do we see it . Oh, yeah its harder to see it. It is visible but the sun is so some nant that the moon does not call attention to itself in the daytime as it does at night. You look for the moon what phase is it. At night i check for what planets are coming out. And the most beautiful time of night, you know photographically speaking is twilight. There is the guy twilight the curtain of twilight colors the sun just set the upon becomes more apparent. The first stars you see generally arent stars they are planets because they are brighter. And i always joke with people if you ever do starlight star bright make a wish on the star and your wishes dont come true because you have been wishing on planets. Rose you were off course from the beginning. So right now, in this season. Venus is quite striking over in the Western Skies after sunset. And when viewed from new york city its kind of over new jersey, and you would confuse it with planes coming in out of newark airport. So if your western horizon was near an airport you have surely seen venus and thought it was an airplane, that is how bright its light is reflected. Rose have you ever wanted to write a Science Fiction novel . Yes. However i dont have talent at writing. I wish i did. Im happy to. Rose would you have a story. Ive got a story. Its ready to go. Rose it just needs a good writer. Ive got a good story and coy advise on such a story. But in terms of Character Development and emotions, i dont have the experience writing certainly not writing it. And probably also not thinking it. Rose but you would know a story that would be compelling. I have one in mind right now. I am happy to tell it. Rose okay, tell me. Okay, so the world is at war. Okay . Rose you mean the world we know is at war. The world that we know is at war. And in some very disruptive way, not with large weapons but regional battles everywhere. And people are choosing sides. And then an asteroid is discovered. Rose tell us what an asteroid is. An asteroid craggy chunk of rock, in varying sizes there are countless tens of thousands of them probably hundreds of thousands of them. And they orbit between mars and jupiter most of them. Some of them have wayward orbits. They cross the orbit of the earth. Some, like in thousands of them. You do the math you learn that earth and these asteroids will collide with one another guaranteed eventually. So what we want to do is keep track of all the earth crossing objects. And monitor them. Ideally you want to like put lojack on them or something, where are you now at this time, 10 p. M. Do you know where your killer asteroid asteroid is. So once we do that we learn there is an asteroid that could render us all extinct. So at that moment everyone who sees other humans as their enemy then come together and see the asteroid as their common enemy. And the Technology Bits that have been developed all around these countries of the world, there is a bit in the future, so that formally developing countries are now technologically able and they have been developing their technology to fight wars, we find that we have to assemble pieces of all these technologies. Rose we develop a common front. Not only a common front but we need different pieces of technology for the deflection device that we put together. And we all and then we all sing kumba ay. Rose but you could make this so real that oh, yeah, heads of state come into play. The conflicts not only within countries but between countries. Run with that. Rose but go back to the science though you could make the science so this is real you could make this as a real possibility. Yes. So the science would be not only in the threat of the asteroid and finding it and searching it. The Space Mission to deflect it, the tools you would use to engage that deflection. If something doesnt exist you can go into the laboratory, see the pressure on them to invent something that will work. And you find out that i have a piece of this. But now i have to go to my enemy that inventedded some other piece that comes together to make the whole thing work. So it can be quite dramatic. And maybe we can have a little piece of the asteroid still hit earth. Because you have to flood a city or something otherwise hollywood doesnt buy it. You have to destroy some city. I remember in arm geto armageddon they managed to save earth but some hit earth. One decapitated the capitol building. They were aiming for major human mondayments around earth. Movps of earths surface is ocean. They will probably hit the social. And you can still get to destroy the city with a tsunami. Rose what was the last big one that came to earth. Two years ago february in russia. Two years ago one the size of this studio traveling 40,000 miles an hour, collided with earths atmosphere above the town of in the euro mountains of. Rose what would have happened if it hit the center of manhattan island. Well, so so that that happened to explode about 20 miles up okay 20, 25 miles up. And thats high enough so that that energy gets deposited into the atmosphere and dilutes before it reaches earths surface. But even so that was enough of a shockwave to shatter essentially every single window in the city while people were looking out their window to wonder what the light was that they had just seen. Light travels faster than sound. So they see this bright light, the light of the explosion, look out their window, the shockwave comes. Lacerated faces hands and skin. 1600 people were injured. That was a shot across our bow. The universe telling us asking us how is your Space Program coming. Rose so if that if that happened over manhattan it would have shattered manhattan you have a different problem when you shatter windows because then the windows fall. And they become these sabres sharp sabres descending to the street possibly hurting or killing people pedestrians. Rose so has the United States or any other country done a lot because they learned the lesson that happened with that asteroid two years ago. More people are talking about it. But that asteroid we didnt know it was coming until it was two late. You pite have three minutes of evacuation time of your city. That one was not large enough to catch it farraway. Rose and if we catch one far enough away, we shoot it down with something. No, thats the macho way. Are you a macho man. Shoot. Blow the sucker out of the sky. Rose i think theres with a movie like that. I think i heard of those movies. The kinder gentler way is to deflect it. Rose how do you deflect it . Well, there are some interesting plan tas are out there. They are all on paper. Nothing has been built. Nothing has been funded to make this happen. So one way to do it is you take your spaceship let me borrow your outliner. If that is the asteroid, you can bring your spaceship fearby and just park it there. And they will feel one another and want to drift towards one another because of their mutual gravity but you dont let that happen. You for a little ret ro rockets to prevented that and the act of doing so slowly tugs the asteroid out of harm away. You dont have to destroy it, just make sure on its route it doesnt hit earth any more. And it is there to hurt you another day but if you get good at this its just like shooting, you know, pool cues. You just knock them out of your way so that it doesnt. Rose so thats one of the theories. That is one way to do it. And you can monitor your progress. If we just go and blow this thing out of the sky you know, here in america were really good at blowing stuff up. And less good at knowing where the pieces will go when youre done. So its very messy to try to explode the asteroid. You dont know will it break into two pieces now you have to evacuate both coasts. You know its a challenge. So by the way this is exists and works on paper. The engineers have worked this out. But there is no plan in place. There is no sneerl collaboration in place to fund this. Suppose its headed for the indian ocean. Do you tell all the indian ocean countries oh you have to fend for yourself. If we have the most advanced Space Program at the time . So then should we pay for it. If you tax everyone like as part of their gdp the way the membership at the u. N. Is taxed. And then do you hand that money to the most abled country who can deflect it . And heres another one. Lets say its headed for the United States and we deflect it and the deflection fails and now its going to hit europe. How what do you do . This so all these problems. Rose we could put this in the movie too. Yeah, exactly. You are still thinking hollywood. Rose no. What are the most important questions unanswered for you . Thats a great question. And i have an unorthodox answer for you, okay. For me the greatest question and it will sound like a copout but its not. I really feel this and think this. For me the greatest Unanswered Questions are those questions we dont even yet know to ask. Because they only manifest upon reaching some next frontier of ignorance. And so yeah i want to know what dark matter is. Its 85 of the gravity of the universe. We have no idea what is causing it. We shouldnt even we dont even have the right to call it dark matter because that implie its matter. Rose i thought there was we have top people working on this with top equipment. So i get that. But at this moment we dont know what it is. And it doesnt interact with. Rose whats the most likely answer . I have a preferred answer. Rose what is the preferred answer . Thats my preferred answer. Particle physicists they want to say it is particles. Because theyre particle physicists. Gods particle. Well the hicks bosan is very powerful if you want to be a particle, that is the one you be, you grant mass to other particles. I grant thee the mass that you will measure for it. So theres dark energy. The universe is accelerating in its expansion against the wiferns of graphity. We dont know what is causing that. We dont know how you went from organic molecules in early earth to animated life. That is a transition that is on the frontier. Rose say that again. How do you go from lifeless organic molecules. Rose which is chemistry. Chemistry, organic to selfreplicating life. Based on those organic molecules. Were not there yet. Rose we dont know that either. And we dont know if it was around before the big bang. So these are great questions. Rose are we working on it. We have top people working on it and i will put you on my speed dial if you want to know the latest. Rose okay, so what is dark matter. We dont know. Rose we dont know that. We should call it dark gravity. Rose thats one of the big questions. Yes it is. Rose and the other one daring energy, we dont know what that is, what was around before the big bang how did life get here from nonlife. Rose what was the big bang. The beginning of the universe. Rose i know that, but what was before if you turn the clock back what you will notice about the universe is that it was smaller and hotter for every day you turn the clock back. Rose smaller and hotter. And so you run the clock all the way back and you learn that the entire universe was in the same place at the same time. And at extremely high temperatures in the trillions, you know trillion is the highest number anyone has any comfort with. But the temperature was much hotter than that. And so when you have these temperatures you,ed thing sun table and it