Carl Sagan explains cosmic rays and neutron stars

[RasmusLastname]

A knife through warm butter? I think you're doing it wrong...

[RasmusLastname]

Every second they're penetrating me? They should've at least taken me to dinner first..

[musicsesame]

Is there so connection to the extended daylight found in the Alaskan area?

[pater429]

Runnnn dude

[goog2k]

Carl Sagan said, "We are star stuff" and "a way for the cosmos to know itself."

All the atoms on earth and in our bodies came from supernova that blew up over 5 billion years ago.

Aren't we all just walking, talking stardust -- this cosmos become AWAKE and looking back at itself? -- and aren't we intimately connected to it all?

We are this wonder called life become AWAKE. Please enjoy the dance.

And ultimately, nothing separates us from others in this grand mystery. Please be kind.

[bunkmasterflex]

@goog2k Does that make David Bowie More or less special? just teasing

[goog2k]

@bunkmasterflex David Bowie is special - as are you.

In fact, you are extra special. Appreciate. . . . . in the dance . . . .

[rocke4444]

Would his ball of dense matter really go all the way through the earth or is it just a visual device?

[GoblinXXX]

@rocke4444 It would happen as Carl described it. So kids, do not try this at home.

[jamieball]

I just finished reading "Pale Blue Dot" .. Fantastic book! Carl Sagan is the best.

[knowpassword]

Fantastic,,,!

[SSVCloud]

"The incident might make an agreeable break in the routine of the day." I love Carl Sagan.

[ozymandiasride]

ILY carl sagan

[boxa888]

nice! i show a basic model harnessing cosmic rays as this but i show all the information freely! i base my on the tesla radiant energy patent, the first real free energy device harnessing the energy from positive and negative cosmic rays emminating from the suns and high energy sources millions of miles away!, its just a insulated metal plate connected to a discharge circuit which is further grounded. tesla talked of a device

[Borridd]

He was holding uranium ore?

So that's how he got cancer..

[mnagmobile1]

@Borridd I was thinking this too... but I think the counts are very very low... I doubt it was refined uranium =p Because not only is that deadly to handle, but also probably not that easy for someone like even Dr. Sagan to get his hands on ;) But I'm no expert on this... maybe someone here knows a little more.

[puncheex]

@Borridd: Aw, nuts. Handling refined uranium, even plutonium metal is inconsequential, though you want it to be plated with something so it leaves you with no poisonous residue or bursts into flame. All either emits is alpha particles, which are stopped by a sheet of paper. The problem occurs if they are vaporized and wind up inside you lungs, where the alphas can destroy cells. He likely got cancer in the traditional manner.

[STEPHENWRAYSFORD33]

Brilliant video. It should be shown in every science classroom.

[ThePipersNicks]

I want to read a book lit by the light of a supernova.

A Carl Sagan book. LOL!

[cellovid]

Tell you what.... I'm hoping that betelgeuse will go in our lifetimes..... not a good thing for anybody in betelgeuse's neighborhood, but it would be AWESOME to see it!

[slashingraven]

The ultimate pyrotechnics display.

[opiates]

I would LOVE to see that. His explosion will outshine the moon.

[AstralOpeth]

it may have already blown up. its so many light years away (i dont know how many exactly) that its exploding light may be traveling to us right now... but if it hasnt blown up yet i doubt anyone living right now will see it. Too many light years away.

[cellovid]

Obviously. Here's a treat: the oil tanker "Betelgeuse" exploded off Bantry Bay, Ireland, 31 years ago today, unfortunately killing about 50 people. Not to make light of that sad event, I'll still say that perhaps the two Betelgeuses are entangled!! In other words, maybe the star went on that day too! Wouldn't do us any good, though, because Betelgeuse "The Larger" is 640 LY away.... we'd have to wait for the show! Oh well.

[SupernovaNL]

@cellovid betelgeuse will not go in our lifetime....

Cause we would've seen it already isn't it ?

time, time, time.... Time is an earthly concept... Time is relative... Something WE HUMANS have generated trough the ages of time....

[cellovid]

@SupernovaNL :

Betelgeuse could be seen to explode tomorrow, if the actual event took place at the time in the past that would coincide with the information arriving here tomorrow. Keep your eyes peeled.

[puncheex]

@SupernovaNL: Sure it could. What if it started fusing stuff into nickel 635 years ago? Giants like Betelgeuse only have about a day after that to stagger on before the core starts collapsing. 640 years later, you'll find out about it.

[jamieball]

@cellovid Yes that would be quite the sight.. It would be so amazing to see the evolution of a planetary nebula..

[tibby499]

@cellovid or the Rigel superstar...

[thesparitan]

@cellovid Fuck those aliens, I want to see a supernova.

[AstralOpeth]

read Contact. Great book. you'll learn tons of new words too! lol =P

[ThePipersNicks]

I'd love too. I've watched the series a couple times. I also read "Pale Blue Dot" That was very good. I didn't want it to end :)

[AstralOpeth]

Cosmos was an awesome series. i havent read Pale Blue Dot. is it fiction or non-fic?

[ThePipersNicks]

Non fic, about space exploration past and future, and good detail about our solar system.

[AstralOpeth]

awesome ill have to check that out. ive read a few books on stuff like that. such as Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, Lawrence Krauss' Hiding in the Mirror, and 2 of Michio Kakus books. i love that stuff!

[Kostly]

"very deep sense, tied to the cosmos"

Will Science and spirituality finally (grudgingly?) merge, in some fashion, in order to discover the theory to "everything"? Science seems to confine itself to sets of data, numbers and computations of those numbers.  Able to conceive of the "infinite concept" (which in itself is utterly unfathomable), humans have NOT limited their natural spiritual mind. Resistance to "religion", in part, I believe, because religion sought to control the masses.

[Kostly]

Control the masses with "faith" and no questioning. Science sought to set the human mind completely free of those bonds and ignorances. The spiritual mind is irrepressible in a natural state. I believe that given a certain amount of time, the human mind will always find it's way to the idea of "God". But, in the end, science succeeded in completely freeing our minds from the surly bonds of "faith". Yet, if you really think about it, science will never be able to explain everything.Faith, too.

[Kostly]

ET life is another thing. They are out there and they've come to this earth and have done things here on Earth. Example, NAZCA, Peru. The top of a mountain, there in the middle, perfectly sheared of it's peaks for a goo 2 miles along it's ridge. Totally flat and at such an angle that makes it perfect for landing air vehicles. On top of this created "bluff" are seemingly infite criss crossing lines perfectly straight from one point to another. Large drawings only seen from the air, circa?

[Kostly]

Throughout human history there have been depictions of "astronauts". Definitely, to me, confirming "contact" with "us". Watch out for 2012. A turbulent cosmic alignment predicted by many, including the first and possibly second proponents, Mayan Civ and Nostradamus. If you know anything about cosmic physics you know that gravity is like a "web" connecting everything in the Universe. You also know that the web can be pulled tighter based on vicinity to other celestial bodies or certain...

[Kostly]

alignments of those celestial bodies. If there is a pole realignment there will be widespread geomechanical cataclysmic events across the globe. Including "sloshing" of the ocens, crust shift, tectonic scraping and "a cleansing" of massive proportions. We'll survive. We'll adapt.  Good luck!

[EricNyhmfan]

@Kostly Maybe they just loved the idea of flying and going to the moon so they write it down and eventually it becomes a legend because someone screwed up the retell and said it really happened.

[childofreletivity]

well thing is science is very different like you said and religion seems to just repel science but what sort of religion you'r talking about though XP

[boxa888]

nikola tesla discovered the cosmic rays 30 yrs before hess and even told their propagation and where they came from! please make sure you know that everyone, i even made a simple devices tesla made that can harness these rays for energy production!

[Deshara218]

7:30

It is important to note here that this is assuming that the Earth's mass is greater than the star. In reality, if the star were "brought" to the earth and "let go", the earth would be utterly crushed into it.

[puncheex]

@Deshara218: Ah, no. Star stuff is just plain atomic stuff, just like here on Earth. I think you are referring to degenerate matter (what white dwarves are made of), neutronium (what neutron stars are made of), or black holes, which go pretty much the way they want to go.

[ThePsychoReturns]

Think I heard some Pink Floyd at the very beginning.

Fucking awesome.

[wehckk]

Yes it's in the original. Does anyone know the name of the song though?

[ThePsychoReturns]

"One Of These Days".

[ponka007]

soon a new marvel hero "Cosmic man" will come heheh

[n1a1s1i1m]

this "ball" (7:12 - 7:17) cannot emerge in china, because as it passes the core, or earth's center of mass by, the gravitational field is reversed, which brakes the little ball. ofcourse, the inertia can be taken care of by the friction of matter beyond the core.. It would just tend to the core, which is earth's center of mass and is remarkably associated with earth's gravitational field...

[twilight1138]

The gravity is reversed, as you said, and brakes the ball so that is stops exactly when reaching the opposite of the point it was dropped from, ready to fall down again and repeat the process.

I assume from what he said that friction would be small comparing with the huge gravity force caused by the extreme density of neutron star matter (10^14 times denser than earth matter (average value)), taking 100000s of travels to stop the "ball".

[n1a1s1i1m]

Okay, so I agree that earth's gravity cannot brake it to a considerable extent. but how do we assume the ball once through the earth would not have the velocity to escape earth's graviational field?

[twilight1138]

Because if we assume the Earth has spherical symmetry, the gravitational potential is the same everywhere at the surface of the earth.

On the other hand, mechanical energy must be conserved (I'm ignoring friction here), which means that wherever the gravitational potential is the same, the speed is also the same. If we dropped the ball at zero speed at the surface, whenever the ball reaches the surface again its speed will be zero.

[Atomicskull]

All this is irrelevant because without the colossal gravity of a neutron star a small piece is going to expand back to the density of normal matter. The reason neutron star matter is so dense is because the star is no longer fusing hydrogen. No energy output = nothing counteracting gravity. Put enough matter in one place with nothing to counteract the force of gravity and it will crush down into a superdense sphere.

[puncheex]

@Atomicskull: Ummmm, no. Neutronium is, because it was hugely compressed from the outside, compressed enough to break the electron orbitals to create degenerate matter and enough to force the electrons to fuse with the protons, creating solid neutrons. A chunk of neutronium doesn't have the gravity field to breakdown into a black hole, though it is closer than anything else, and if too much comes together in one place, then sssssshunk--ssssssuuuuuucccckk­kkkk......

[fjelly0]

Of course.

And also it would also seriously distort

the earth itself!

[str33twarrior22]

it would be cool if cosmic energy could give human beings powers. lol

[ORACLE063]

they do, its called mutation but remember mutation is a "luck of the draw" power. one mutation could produce a gimp arm. One might produce a different, super computer like, part of the brain.

lolol

[deeniel]

what's up with the pink floyd song in the beginning? is it there in the original video? If sagan was a floyd fan, I'd be very happy

[eliteobserver]

Omg, that's the rock that gave him cancer!

[eliteobserver]

PENETRATING!

[GuruGulu]

This might sound silly but is there a very slim chance that cosmic rays give humans super powers?

[duderseb]

Through evolution who knows, anything can happen.

[opiates]

@GuruGulu It's very possible. Genetic power is one of the most awesome forces on this planet and it's mind numbing the things that we know it can already produce.

[eprang24]

ONE OF THESE DAYS!

[boxa888]

cool video,

hey check out my cosmic ray device made by tesla 100yrs ago. it takes the cosmic rays and turns them into energy!!!. its a slow process but its another energy source for sure!! thank you

[boxa888]

cool video,

hey check out my cosmic ray device made by tesla 100yrs ago. it takes the cosmic rays and turns them into energy!!!. its a slow process but its another energy source for sure!! thank you

[TaYLOR182MEST]

awesome stuff