Return to Venus with David Grinspoon

23:51You know, it was kind of infused like that.

23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson:Because the harder I pull the bow, the safer I feel. Nice. As we aim arrows to each other. The harder we each pull, the safer we feel. Yeah. So, of course, there is speculation about alien life going back in some of the other future literature of the past, but not in this sort of Apollo propaganda stuff that we're talking about. So let's go back in time 120 years or so, or even a little earlier, and we get to Jules Verne from Earth to the Moon. And he gives how many hours it takes, and he comes pretty close. Wow. Yeah, I don't know how he figured that out. Earth to the Moon in like 96 hours or something, which is a little longer than it actually takes, but it's close enough, you know.

24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson:In the ballpark. I mean, really good, yeah. What intrigues me is that if you go far enough back, before we knew anything about the moon or anywhere, everybody presumed that since Earth is a planet and we have life, that every other planet would have life. And so from Earth to the moon, portrayed moon beings. Right. And no one is wondering, well, can they breathe the non-air? Do they, you know, no one is asking that question. And so just the fact that we are a planet and have life opened the floodgates for imagining every other planet to have life. When did planetary scientists discover that Venus has a runaway greenhouse and you're not going to imagine life thriving there?

25:16Yeah, it's pretty recent, really. It wasn't until people started to wonder in the 50s because they saw this excess microwave radiation they couldn't explain. And they thought, well, could that be from a super hot surface that with, you know, with basically the advent of radio astronomy after World War II that made that possible. But it wasn't until the first mission to Venus, which was Mariner 2 in 1961, that it was demonstrated that Venus was hot and definitely unearthlike. So throughout the whole time of really the 20th century up until the space age, there was a lot of speculation that Venus was probably pretty earthlike.

25:54A lot of scientists thought that and could have life.

25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson:Well, it's approximately the same size as Earth. It has the same surface gravity. A little closer to the sun. Sorry, so it's a little hotter. That wouldn't hurt anybody. Yeah. And it's completely covered with clouds. And so they deduced that correctly. They said, oh, it's covered with clouds. And, well, what are clouds made out of? Water. So, therefore, it's probably a swamp planet. And that was what people thought it was. Yeah. Now, what about Mars? Wasn't there a point where they thought Mars was a thriving society from all the canals? And they thought, well, they had to be made by someone. Because nature makes channels.

26:34Humans make canals. Right. That makes sense. Yeah, so they thought they saw all these linear features, which couldn't possibly be natural because there are all these straight lines going across Mars. Of course, Percival Lowell popularized this, and he was a very persuasive guy around the beginning of the 20th century. And he was so persuasive that a lot of other people saw the canals too. They were like, oh, yeah, we see them. And it took years to realize that the canals weren't there, basically from close appearances of Mars and better telescopes and cameras. But the interesting thing is that even after the canals went away, the idea of life on Mars sort of scientifically supported did not go away.

27:18And people thought there was evidence for vegetation. Mars' surface changes with basically what we now know are seasonal patterns of windblown dust. But you see these changes in color and brightness. And they thought, oh, that's seasonal vegetation patterns. And then even in the late 1950s, there was an observation of chlorophyll in the atmosphere of Mars that was published in Science Magazine. Turned out to be wrong, but there's so much wishful thinking where people would say, aha, there is plant life on Mars. And again, it was pretty recent. It was really once we started going there with spacecraft that these visions kind of vanished in favor of the more realistic, very alien conditions that you find on these planets.

28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson:And just to be clear, the older you get, the more recent, the 1960s. Oh, yeah. I'm just saying, it was 60 years ago recent to you. Right. Because 60 years before that was the year 1900. Oh, my God. Okay. So, but it was so much believed so widely that that's how Orson Welles was able to pull off the radio broadcast that put everybody into a panic. Wait, wait. So, no, but it's before that because it was Percival Lowell's published work on Mars and its canals that spawned War of the World to be written in the first place. Right. War of the Worlds was written right after that got published. Okay. Within five years, H.G.

28:47Neil deGrasse Tyson:Wells wrote War of the World because canals on Mars, that's headlines. Right. In 1895, that's headlines. And so H.G. Wells writes it and these are like evil aliens from Mars sucking our brains out. Then we still have 30 years whenever the radio broadcast, which is based on H.G. Wells' story. Okay. People confuse H.G. Wells and Orson Welles. Orson Welles. No relationship. Orson did the radio broadcast. The radio broadcast. And he did it on Halloween Eve. Right. And not Halloween though, but the Eve of Halloween. Right, Mischief Night. You're taking it? Mischief Night. Oh, is that right? Makes sense.

29:22Neil deGrasse Tyson:Okay, okay. Makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so everyone's primed for this. Yeah. And I think that might've been the first evil alien trope. Yeah, well, you know, the other thing that H.G. Wells was really influenced by, definitely Percival Lowell, but also the recent stories he had heard about the Tasmanians basically being wiped out by Europeans from Australia. He mentions that in his book. Oh, yeah. What had happened when a, quote, you know, technologically superior civilization encounters a, quote, more primitive civilization? And it's not good for the for the for the for the lesser. And and and so that also led to this trope of the evil invading superior aliens that, you don't stand a chance against.

30:09Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah, but no, you missed a point there. Very true, but there's a nuance, which is, in his book, he's trying to justify why these Martians wanted to kill us all. And he said, should you be surprised by this, given that we exhibit that same behavior to ourselves? Wow. That's a great point. You got You got no argument. How are you going to come out of that? You got no way to come out of that argument. So, David, I didn't know that others also saw the canals. But if they did, that's a form of a mass delusion. Because Percival Lowell has like the best telescope and he's rich and he's on a mountaintop.

30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson:He's got great observing conditions. He sees it. You don't want to not see it because how could you not? If you don't see it with your crappier telescope, you're not in the books, right? So if they really are there and you did see it, second, you still get talked about, right? Right. Right. So. Yeah, no, it's it's funny. There is a literature of other people mapping the canals and saying, well, Lowe's position for this one is just a little bit off. It's really over here. And it's a complete delusion. And this is because nobody has photography yet. Right. There's not. Let's look at the photograph.

31:23Neil deGrasse Tyson:Right. It's everyone's eyewitness testimony of what they think they see. Wow. Yeah. So this is an evidence of the susceptibility of even scientists to the power of suggestion, the power of your own bias. and Leonardo yes once said go ahead the greatest deception men suffer is of their own opinions yes ooh that's that's gosh he knew this yeah well that's why he was so brilliant yeah he was like I will not even fall prey to me that's beautiful yes give me give me give me give me well that was his opinion so David that's a perfect segue to this da Vinci mission. Please catch us up on what's going on.

32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson:We're finally going back to Venus. Yes, yes. It's been a long journey for already. We haven't even left the ground, but for those of us who've been advocating and agitating for new Venus missions. And the good news is that we have several Venus missions, two American missions, da Vinci and Veritas, which is an orbiter, which very much complements Da Vinci, which is an entry probe that descends down through the atmosphere to the surface. And then there's also a European mission and an Indian space agency potential mission. So a lot of agencies are getting into the game now. But the one I'm most excited about because I'm on the team and very involved with is this Da Vinci mission, which, if all goes well, will launch in the 2031 time frame now.

33:00As you probably have heard, NASA's had a little bit of turmoil with the budget. You think? A little bit, yeah.

33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson:Didn't you used to have a job with NASA? Oh, yes. Until fairly recently, I was the senior scientist for astrobiology strategy at NASA. Yeah, okay. Totally useless. Yeah. What a hoax. A terrible hoax. I'll tell you what we need. And if I still had that job, I wouldn't be able to talk to you about some of the things I can talk to you about now. You should have kept them on. I'm free. I like loyalty and things. But yeah, I'm still very fond of and close to NASA and working with NASA on a lot of projects. I no longer am a NASA employee at the moment. But Da Vinci is very much a NASA mission, which is still moving forward and being built.

33:50You know, there's some question, as with a lot of projects right now, about the future schedule and viability. But right now, nobody's told us it's not happening. And we're pretty optimistic about, you know, we know that Congress is very supportive of maintaining this mission. A lot of it's built. We have an entry sphere and some of the instruments are already built. And, you know, it's a very challenging engineering problem to drop something into that intense environment of the Venus atmosphere and have it survive to the surface.

34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson:Quantify intense. OK, well, in the upper clouds where the mission starts, we drop it into the atmosphere in a parachute. and in the upper clouds where it starts to operate, it's actually more or less the same temperature and pressure as the surface of Earth, like in the room you're sitting in now. That's sort of the middle upper clouds of Venus. But as you drop down, it gets hotter and hotter to the point and higher and higher pressure to the point where when you reach the surface, it's 900 degrees hotter than the hottest self-cleaning temperature on your oven. Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit. And it's almost 100 times the surface pressure of Earth.

35:05So crushing pressure, searing temperature. And by the way, those clouds you drop through are made out of concentrated sulfuric acid, like battery acid. So you have to be able to withstand all these crazy environmental factors. And we know how to do it. This thing is well engineered, but it has to be done very carefully and you have to use some expensive materials.

35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson:So are the data you're collecting, is it atmospheric data or are you going to do stuff when you get to the surface as well? Both. A lot of the important part of this mission is involving measurements of the atmosphere that have never been made before. Because, again, we haven't been able to operate that much in the Venus atmosphere because it's so forbidding. So we've never had modern instrumentation, never had 21st century instruments that can really tell us exactly what those gases are made out of, exactly what the isotopes are of hydrogen and what the rare gases are, all these things that really can be diagnostic of the history of the planet.

36:03We've never measured them well and the radiation going down. But we're also going to do really cool things with the surface. We have an imaging system where we do the first ever descent photography, like really high resolution stereo descent photography of this very mountainous area where we're going to land.

36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson:It's always cool when you can see the ground come closer and closer. Yeah. You've seen those famous images from like the ranger program of the moon, right? Where they get closer and closer and closer and then the thing crashes. We're going to do that for Venus, except again with 21st century cameras. And it's never been seen before. And this is going to be a very dramatic mountainous region with really cool and revealing topography, not just in the visual wavelengths, but also in the infrared. So we'll be able to tell what the minerals are there. But you're not going to crash. Well, we are going to crash.

36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson:You are? Oh, wow. Okay. Yes. You are going to crash. Well, we're going to reach the surface. We don't say, we don't use that word. We don't use the term crash, yeah. We use euphemisms. But in fact, we're not designed to operate on the surface, although it's possible. In other words, the mission will be considered a success if we reach the surface, but we could survive for a while. It's very similar to, you remember the Huygens probe on Titan? Yeah. Where it was only designed, if it reached the surface, it would have been considered a success. But it lasted for another 45 minutes on the surface and did some really cool stuff.

37:37So we have the opportunity to do that. But if we actually make it to the surface, then we've satisfied all our - I don't understand something.

37:44Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah. Venus has gravity. You drop it into the atmosphere. It's going to reach the surface. What do you mean if it reaches the surface? Oh, sorry. If it's functioning. Oh, okay. Thank you. If it's talking to us. Yeah, got it. Well, if you need more money to be put in the budget, all you have to do is name the project the Donald J. Trump Venusian Ballroom Construction Project. There you go. Yeah, but solid gold does not survive at those temperatures. Just one, if I add a geopolitical comment here. You mentioned that India also has Venus on its sights. ISRO, so Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO.

38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson:And the United States does not want to be left out of where people are going in the solar system. Absolutely. So it's easier for us to declare we want to go somewhere if other countries are going to. So it's the space race all over again. It's always about that. Right, it's always about that. So I wouldn't put it past our motivations to realize that the list of other interested parties added a little flame under our rear end to try to go. Yeah, and I wouldn't put it past me and my colleagues to remind our representatives that like, oh, by the way, our competitors are doing this, so we better not mess with our budgets.

39:12Right, right. And on a non-geopolitical note, just a political note, you know, people could stop voting for representatives who want to give tax cuts to billionaires instead of funding the stuff that will advance us as not only a nation, but as a species. I mean, that's just a thought. You can just hang on to that thought if you want. This has been a public service now. Comedians against billionaires. What can I say? You know, you will never meet a comedian billionaire. That is for sure.

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42:04Price and coverage match limited by state law.

42:14Neil deGrasse Tyson:So, we remember from a few years back the assertion that there were what was the molecule in Venus's atmosphere that may be evidence for life thriving within the atmosphere. What? Will you be? Phosphenes, I think they were. And we had you on to talk about that result. Go dig that out of our archives, those of you who are archived dumpster divers. But how much credence is given to the idea that life could be completely thriving within an atmosphere and not require a surface at all? Well, there's a range of opinions about that. And I've been a proponent of that we have to keep an open mind about that.

42:57But, you know, there are people who will point out, you know, one of my colleagues, Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center, a great astrobiologist. We love Chris McKay.

43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah. Yeah. And Chris doesn't agree with me about the prospects for life on Venus. And what he says is like, why aren't the clouds green? Meaning on Earth, if you could have life in the clouds so easily, then why aren't the clouds green? And that's an interesting objection. objection, but it may be that there's some characteristics of the Venusian clouds that are more suitable for life than Earth clouds. But if they were green, it would mean some chlorophyll photosynthesizing life. Well, I mean, his point is that life is so opportunistic that anywhere on Earth where you can have life, it's abundant.

43:42You do. So why are our clouds full of life if you can have life in clouds? Didn't you just give the answer to that when you said life is opportunistic, which means if it's easier not to have life in the clouds here, then the life will take advantage of the opportunity that's available, which is life everywhere else. But if there were no other choice, then perhaps life would manifest itself in the cloud.

44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson:No, that's not how life works. You don't think? No. Not at all. Life goes everywhere it could possibly go. Any place it could possibly go. Yeah, because you always want to find some niche where your predators can't get to. You know, there's a lot of pressure to just It's like live in new places if you can. So then in that - We have life forms living at the bottom of the ocean where there's hot vents coming out. Yes, and sulfur and all kinds of terrible stuff from volcanic - And they're doing the backstroke. And they're chilling down there. They're just chilling. Yeah. So in that case - Actually, they're hot.

44:34Yes. So then what would happen in Venus that would be the difference where life could exist? Would the pressure create some kind of difference? Well, one difference is that on Earth, clouds are not a very stable environment. They don't last. They come and go. They evaporate. They literally dissipate. Very thin gathering of water vapor. On Venus, Venus is covered with a permanent global cloud deck. So the clouds of Venus are almost like the oceans of Earth in terms of the stability of the environment. Okay. Well, that's a good reason. Yeah, that's my main answer to that point that Chris makes. But, you know, there's other objections like all that acid, you know, could life really thrive in sulfuric acid?

45:20No, I don't mean that kind of acid. The kind that makes you hear voices. No, I mean all that sulfuric acid. But, you know, the more we study life on Earth, the more we find that life thrives in these extreme environments we didn't anticipate. And people have been sort of playing around with that alternative chemistries of life that could possibly survive. So I think, you know, it's just an interesting unknown. And there have been some observations. Neil, you mentioned the phosphine. That's controversial. Did we really see phosphine in the Cods of Venus? Which if we did, it's hard to explain.

46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson:And who gives you phosphine? What life form gives you phosphine? So on Earth, it's weird things like rotting fish, you know, and it's like it smells terrible. It's just this sort of byproduct of actually kind of decomposing life. It's you know, it's a hydrogen rich molecule. So it's it's what we call a reduced molecule, which is common in biological materials, but not common in an atmosphere like Venus that's full of more oxidized and acidic materials. So it's not something you'd expect on Venus. You expect there to be phosphorus, but it to be bonded with oxygen or some other compounds. If it's bonded to hydrogen, there's something weird going on.

46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson:That would be oxidized rather than reduced is the pairing of those words. Exactly. For me, what's intriguing about Venus is you can pre-choose a pressure and a temperature that might be good for your life in a particular layer of that atmosphere. Right. And this is why the surface temperature is irrelevant if you can find a nice cozy place at a stable layer in the atmosphere that you can call home. Makes sense. Well, right. And where that cloud deck happens to be, that stable, thick cloud deck I was mentioning, is at a place where the temperatures are moderate and the pressure is moderate. Moderate to humans, yes.

47:25But you can legitimately call that surface pressure uninhabitable, even not just being sort of human centric or Earth centric, because almost no complex chemistry can survive there. Like no organic molecules, nothing that is bonded to anything else basically can survive there. It's so hot, it just rips molecules apart. So that seems even if you're not being sort of Earth centric, it seems like that kind of temperature would be very hard for anything to live in.

47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson:So what do you fear most going forward with budget, with culture, politics? Is there in terms of the health of the search for life in the universe? Oh, man, what do I fear most? Well, I'll answer that in a roundabout way. Here's something that gives me hope, which is that last year we launched the Europa Clipper mission. Love it. Yeah. And if you think about the timescale, it's going to get to the Jupiter system in the early 2030s. It's on its way there. It's been launched. They can't stop it. Well, amusingly, it's on its way back to Earth now for a flyby, but it's going to Jupiter. You mean a gravity assist?

48:32Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yes, exactly. So I think about that and I think, well, OK, by the early 2030s, we'll have a different administration, presumably. We'll have different leadership, but there will be a NASA. There will be a science team. We'll be operating that mission. Somebody will be here. And, you know, so there's the timescale of these these projects that we do in our field gives one a certain perspective. They outlast administrations and government figures. Now, that's also a reason to be scared because things can be canceled and so forth. So the fear that's the flip side of that is my worst case scenario is things go so wrong that by the time Clipper gets to the Jupiter system, there is nobody here operating it.

49:19And that's a nightmare for me, but I don't think that's going to happen. It's more a source of hope because whatever happens, it's not going to be so bad and we will have a mission and we'll get through this and we'll keep exploring.

49:31Neil deGrasse Tyson:Plus, if I can add, NASA has 10 centers that reside in eight different states. Yeah. And those states variously vote four red, four blue, five red, three blue, five blue, three red. So NASA is embedded in our political landscape as no other agency is. And so— Everybody loves it. And everybody loves space. Yeah, everyone is looking up. All it means is if you love NASA or hate NASA, you cannot deduce what their political leaning is based on that alone. Based on that alone. Right, right. And just to put nuance to what you said, Europa Clipper is not just going to Jupiter. It's going to Europa. Well, it's going to make 50 close passes by Europa from its perch orbiting Jupiter.

50:16Yes, Europa is the place we're going to be looking at.

50:19Neil deGrasse Tyson:That's where the action is. Yeah. Hey, let me ask you now. I know you're a planetary astrobiologist, and this is not planetary because I want to talk about an asteroid. But I just read about some of the findings from Bennu. and one of it was, I think that they had, they found 14 amino acids and RNA and we know that those are the building block proteins of life. So that we're on the same page. Yes. Bennu is an asteroid that's the size of the Empire State Building. Okay. It is on a collision course. Well, it has an orbit that crosses Earth's orbit. Its next close approach will be in 2182. Right.

50:57Neil deGrasse Tyson:We went there with the mission OSIRIS-REx. OSIRIS-REx, right. Which did a touch and go. Yes. grabbed some of the material. And came back. It came back and deposited back here on Earth. That's badass. And we analyzed it and leading to what you just described. That is badass. Now pick it up with. All right. So what I want to say to you as planetary astrobiologists is, what are these implications of finding these building block proteins of life? Does it just mean that that stuff is in our solar system and no big deal? Or does it mean that, you know, the likelihood of life is more likely someplace else?

51:33What does it mean? It's really profound. You know, they didn't find proteins. They didn't find RNA. But what they found was all of the stuff you need to make proteins in RNA. The amino acids that make proteins, the nucleotide bases that make RNA and DNA. And they found sugars now, too. And that's all the basic stuff you need for life. Well, what kind of sugar did they found? Domino. A couple of different sugars. I'm not remembering which ones. I think ribose was one of them.

52:07Neil deGrasse Tyson:It was. Absolutely. Yeah. It absolutely was. And these are molecules that have built in them quite a bit of chemical energy where you can set stuff into motion if you wanted to have some serious chemical action. Very nice. Yeah. So there's a couple of really amazing implications. One is, I mean, remember this asteroid Benno was just kind of chosen because, as Neil said, it's coming close to Earth, but it was also convenient to get to. So there's nothing about it that's different from like thousands of other carbonaceous, primitive, carbon-rich asteroids out there. But it happens to be full of the stuff of life.

52:43What this implies is that when the planets were young, they were all being sprinkled with the ingredients for life, not just Earth, but all of them were being plastered with this stuff that's sort of like the kit, you know, the recipe, just add water, you know. And it implies not just our own solar system, but probably elsewhere. I mean, again, you know, we have to extrapolate, but there's nothing that we know about the chemistry of our asteroid belt that's probably different from that around other stars. And so it implies that the stuff of life is all over young planets in the universe when they've just formed.

53:20But the other weird thing is you can ask, so why didn't it progress to life in this asteroid? Why don't you have proteins and RNA? You have the kit, but the kit has not been assembled there. So it also tells you something about that the progress of those materials towards life is not inevitable in every environment, that you need the right environment, but the stuff is everywhere.

53:47Neil deGrasse Tyson:You have the kit, but not the caboodle. Right, right. You need the caboodle. You need the caboodle. Nice. So, David, let me ask you some just completely out of left field questions here. Remind us, you play an instrument. What instrument is that? Mostly guitar. And it's jazz guitar? Well, funk and... Oh, funky smooth. Excuse me, funky smooth. So if aliens visited us, would you play your guitar for them? Would they be able to hear it? And would they want to kill you or hold your... How might they react to your music? Yeah, boy, that's a great question. I would love to have the chance to try. It could be a tough audience.

54:31Neil deGrasse Tyson:that's a tough crowd in Close Encounters of the Third Kind musical notes were a fundamental part of the communication it's a really cool question because there's a lot of dimensions to that question if you start to think about it because what is music why is it that every culture on earth finds it important and valuable to put together sequences of frequencies and rhythms and do this thing that we call music and is it possible that that's so built into what it means to have consciousness and a brain and a culture, that that would be something that would be shared by extraterrestrials. I don't think it's impossible, but it gets to these deep questions.

55:09First of all, what is music and why is it so universal? And second of all, how does it relate to our experience as conscious beings? And is that something that might truly be universal beyond just this planet?

55:21Neil deGrasse Tyson:But you didn't mean why is music universal? You meant why is music earthwide? Yes, yes, universal on earth. On Earth. And could it be universal? Could it be universal capital U? Right. Yeah, and that presumes that the aliens have a sense of hearing, for example. Not necessarily. Maybe they actually would experience the vibrations of the music. I mean, that's what our ears are doing. We do sonifications of other kinds of data, right? So could we take our music and convert those patterns into whatever they could? If they sense the vibrations, you would call that hearing, I think. Yeah, you would.

55:55Neil deGrasse Tyson:You would. But what David's saying is that we have sonified other forms of data. Correct. And, in fact, we did a whole show on the sonification of images. That's right. Right. Yeah, from Chandra. Yeah, the X-ray. From the X-ray telescope. Yeah, we featured Kim Arkan's work on that. Yes, absolutely. On stage, actually. Fascinating stuff. Yes, yes. Yeah, but like I'm saying, if they had the receptors all over their body and they were receiving the vibrations that way, as we just have it in one little portal called our ears. I mean, presumably they have some kind of senses. It's hard to imagine some cognitive being.

56:32And whatever senses they have, they can perceive patterns and rhythms and so forth. And so there's got to be some way to play our music for them, even if it's not just like - Well, I'll tell you this, Dr. Funky Spoon, if you play for them and the response is, all right now, all right, oh yeah, yeah, that's my jam, And guess what? You have done some great work for for bringing us together. I think it's worth a try. Yeah. Yeah.

57:00Neil deGrasse Tyson:He would be the ambassador. But actually, I think there's probably more appropriate like Sun Ra, you know, or George Clinton with his mothership. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you call it? Afrofuturism. I've never thought of that, but if aliens come, we should definitely introduce them to George Clinton and the Mothership Connection. You know, the mothership, it's in the National Museum of African American Art here in Washington, D.C. They actually got that as one of their artifacts, so we can take them over there. Does the museum still exist? Not for long.

57:48I don't understand it.

57:53As of today, I believe it does, but there's no telling about next week.

57:57Neil deGrasse Tyson:Well, I got to go check it out then. Oh, it's fantastic. So, David, I think we've run out of time here. Wow. But like I said, it's always good to check in with you. Dr. Funk is Boone! And where do you perform in Washington, D.C.? You got a hovel there? There's a few different places. One of our favorite places to play is a VFW post called Hell's Bottom in Tacoma Park. Just because it's like it was rated one of the 10 best dive bars in Washington, D.C. by the Washington Post. And it's just like a really friendly neighborhood place. And we play there basically the first Wednesday of every month with the Groovadelics.

58:33Neil deGrasse Tyson:The Groovadelics. Right on. That feels very 1960s. I like it. Yeah, yeah. There's a number of places around town. If you're in D.C. and you want to catch us, the best thing to do is go on Facebook to the Groovadelics webpage and we post stuff on there. Excellent. And you're on social media as Dr. Funky Spoon. That's right. Correct. D.R. Dr. Funky Spoon. D.R. Very nice. You got it. Yep. All right, dude. We love you here, man. Always great to see you guys. We love you here. All right. Chuck. Always a pleasure. All right. Yeah. We got to have him every week. Yeah.

59:11Dr. Funky Spoon is always a good time.

59:13Neil deGrasse Tyson:It's always a good time. This has been StarTalk, our astrobiology Dr. Funky Spoon edition because we get a whole fresh look on astrobiology anytime we talk to this man. That's right. Neil deGrasse Tyson here for StarTalk. As always, keep looking up.

59:41eczema is unpredictable but you can flare less with epglis a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema after an initial four month or longer dosing phase about four in ten people taking epglis achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.

1:00:26or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EpGliss. Before starting EpGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EpGliss and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Prime Day is June 23rd through the 26th. These deals are so appealing like portable steamers for steaming. Whoa, did I just sing soprano? I think I'm breaking into song. Epic deals on AirFryer.

1:00:59I can't stop seeing shop. Epic deals this prime day, June 23rd through the 26th. I think that's it. Nope. There's more. Smart glasses.