Ep 613 - Solar System Part 1 (feat. Nate Marshall)

Summary

Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast

Episode 613 – Solar System Part 1 (feat. Nate Marshall)

Date: May 7, 2026
Hosts: Matt McCusker (B), Nate Marshall (A)
Theme: The Solar System, especially the science, philosophy, and mythology of the Sun

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Overview

This episode, with Shane out for the Netflix Is A Joke Festival, sees Matt and Nate take the show in a new direction: a full hour exploring the Sun. They blend comedic riffing with surprisingly deep dives into astronomy, debunking solar myths, and tracing how much (and how little) adults really know about our star. Along the way, they touch on everything from streaming company wars to why the Sun freaks them out, how girl scientists dominate space discovery, and whether the Sun is conscious.
This is Part 1 of their Solar System series; Mercury and Venus will follow on Patreon.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Streaming Wars & the Solar System

• Shane's away at the Netflix comedy festival; Matt and Nate riff on the absurdity of streaming brands (“Hulu Does Hilarious,” “Hulu’s Laughing Now”) and their battles for stand-up rights.
• [00:44] A (Nate): “We learned about the planets when we still had an extra planet.”
• Pluto’s demotion: Matt and Nate lament the “dick move” of removing Pluto from planetary status, joking it was to simplify the school curriculum.

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2. Why the Solar System? Adults Are Ignorant!

• [04:44] B (Matt): “The average adult is kicking around… a total ignoramus in terms of the solar system.”
• Matt describes researching the Sun and realizing how little adults remember or understand.
• Shout out to "girl scientists" for many of the recent discoveries in planetary science.

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3. The Gender Voting Tangent (Comic aside; not political content)

• Matt riffs about online debates over women’s suffrage as a tangent, defending "girl scientists" and listing the logical fallacies in these arguments, keeping the tone comedic and satirical.
• [09:45] A (Nate): “We need some babes… to tell us about outer space.”
• Returns to the theme: Women are advancing space science, and we'd suffer without their contributions.

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4. The Structure of the Solar System Segment

• Matt sets up the journey: starting with the Sun, then each planet in order (with a mini deep dive into planetary names/mythology).
• Briefly discusses why Earth isn’t named after a Greco-Roman god.

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The Sun: Deep Dive

[13:09–58:37]

I. Basic Facts and Scale

• Distance: 93 million miles from Earth – Matt learned this from a Wu-Tang song.
• Size: 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the Sun; you could fit all planets inside with “plenty of room.”
• Surface Temperature: About 5,500°C (10,000°F).
• Core Temperature: 15 million°C (27 million°F).

Memorable Moment

• [14:39] B (Matt): “If the sun were a hollow ball, you could fit every planet in the solar system inside of it and still have room.”

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II. The Corona Paradox

• The Sun’s Structure: Core (hottest), surface, and then the corona (outermost layer).
• The corona is paradoxically hotter (over 1 million °C) than the surface, violating basic thermodynamics.
• [16:34] B: “The corona violates the law—basic, basic physics. People still don't know why.”
• Leading theory: Electromagnetic field lines snapping in microflares heat the corona.

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III. Journey to the Sun & Solar Probes

• Parker Solar Probe (NASA, 2018): got within 6.1 million km of the Sun’s surface.
  • Shielded by 4.5-inch carbon; inside stayed room temp at 1,400°C in the corona.
• Mercury is still 46 million km from the Sun at its nearest.
• [19:51] B: “You really feel pretty fucking dumb… try to think about this shit.”

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IV. States of Matter & Plasma

• As you ascend the Sun’s temperature ladder, matter transforms:
  • Water freezes (0°C), boils (100°C)
  • Lava: 1,000°C
  • Steel melts: 1,500°C
  • Sun’s surface: 5,500°C
  • Corona: 1–3 million°C
  • Core: 15 million°C
• At the core: pressure is 250 billion times Earth’s atmosphere, matter is plasma—atoms shattered into a “soup” of nuclei and electrons.

Memorable Analogy

• [20:41] A (Nate): “Is that kind of a laser beam? I don't know. I'm going video games.”

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V. Nuclear Fusion: How the Sun Shines

• Hydrogen nuclei fuse under intense heat and pressure, forming helium and releasing energy (gamma rays).
  • The process: temperature overcomes electrostatic repulsion; pressure forces nuclei together.
• [33:10] B: “When people do atomic bombs, they're harnessing the power of the stars.”
• The core’s explosion equals 90 trillion nuclear warheads per second, every second, for billions of years.
• [30:59] B: “Every second you look at the Sun is 90 trillion nuclear warheads just going.”

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VI. Energy Journey: Gamma to Light

• Those gamma rays don’t reach us directly; they bounce inside the Sun for 17,000 years, gradually weakening.
  • Escaping as UV rays—then, 8 seconds to reach Earth and make sunlight.
• [49:23] B: “Every time you stand in the sunlight, the light hitting you—17,000 years old and has been stepped down.”

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VII. Solar Flares & Earthly Impact

• Solar flares result from magnetic field lines snapping.
• Carrington Event (1859): Largest known Earth-directed flare, set telegraph wires on fire worldwide.
• Solar flares today could wipe out the internet (“clean break, all search history destroyed”).
• Aurora Borealis seen as far south as Cuba during Carrington.
• We’re currently in a high-solar-flare period (11-year cycle).

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VIII. Is the Sun Conscious? (Cosmic Philosophy)

• Discusses panpsychism—the idea that consciousness might be a physical field, like gravity.
  • If a human brain's sparks are consciousness, why not a star’s electromagnetic dance?
• [53:14] A: “I have that thought sometimes, whether... the solar system is a higher form of life that we just don't understand yet.”
• [53:20] B: “If life exists on Earth and grows out of Earth, what the f*** is Earth? … What's the Sun?”

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IX. Ancient Mythology & Naming

• Most planetary names = Roman/Greek gods; the English word “sun” traces back to Norse “Sol” (a sun goddess chased by the wolf Sköll in myth).
• Sunday is literally named for this sun goddess.
• Julius Caesar claimed Venus (the "horny god") as his ancestor.
• [57:58] A: “Hits us. It feels good when it hits.”
• [58:00] B: “Feels awesome. It powers your body, dude… That’s why I do ride my blanket tank top all the time.” (on getting sunlight for testosterone).

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• [03:57] B: “The more I learned about [the Sun], I’m not lying, I had a panic attack in your office researching about how the sun works.”
• [16:34] B: “The corona violates the law—basic, basic physics. People still don't know why.”
• [24:11] B: “The biggest solar storm that hit Earth… was so strong that it set telegraph machines on fire.”
• [33:10] B: “When people do atomic bombs, they're harnessing the power of the stars.”
• [49:23] B: "Every time you stand in the sunlight, the light hitting you—17,000 years old and has been stepped down."
• [53:20] B: “If life exists on Earth and grows out of Earth, what the f*** is Earth? … What's the Sun?”
• [57:58] A: “Hits us. It feels good when it hits.”
• [58:00] B: "Feels awesome. It powers your body, dude… That’s why I do ride my blanket tank top all the time.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–01:30: Streaming companies and stand-up special branding
• 02:00–03:30: Pluto’s demotion; why it bums them out
• 04:44: Case for solar system ignorance in adulthood
• 06:39–10:46: Girl scientists, comic tangent on women’s rights/voting and science advancements
• 13:09–14:39: The journey begins: Sun facts, scale, and how Matt learned from Wu-Tang
• 16:33–19:51: The Sun’s paradoxical corona; Parker Solar Probe; what would it feel like to approach the Sun
• 20:11–23:50: What extreme temperature/pressure does to matter; the plasma state
• 24:11–25:54: Solar flares, Carrington Event, and possible effects on modern technology
• 28:34–34:38: The Sun’s core: size, pressure, 90 trillion warheads per second
• 38:23–42:58: Nuclear fusion explained, E=mc², and the journey of energy from core to sunlight
• 48:46–51:11: The energy's journey: 17,000 years trapped, then 8 seconds to Earth
• 51:08–52:56: The Sun’s self-regulation and solar flare cycles
• 53:01–55:00: Cosmic consciousness – could the Sun or planets be alive?
• 55:55–58:00: Sun mythology: Norse “Sol,” etymology, Julius Caesar and Venus
• 58:00–58:42: Preview of Mercury and Venus (Patreon tease)

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Tone & Style

• Signature blend of high-energy riffing, self-aware dumb questions, and surprisingly accurate science.
• Playful, irreverent, sometimes juvenile (jokes about streaming, voting, sex and testosterone), but maintains curiosity and respect for subject matter.
• Frequent tangents tied back to the solar theme.

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Conclusion: Episode Takeaways

The Sun is far more than a glowing ball in the sky:
It’s a cosmic engine balancing nuclear fury and gravitational embrace, older and stranger than we ever realized. Modern science (including girl science, shoutout) barely scratches the surface. Matt’s comedic panic at the realization is balanced by respect—even reverence—for the Sun and its working. The episode ends with the mythic echo: we should all “go back to sun gods… or at least just look at it and get stoked.”

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Next up: Mercury and Venus, exclusively on Patreon.
“Thank you for joining me for the series into the planets. But we have to slide to the Patreon… What the hell? I've been doing this for a while. Exactly an hour on the sun!” — Matt (58:36)

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Transcript

[A]

Wild, wild west.

[B]

Hey, what's up, everybody? We're here. This is a breaking episode. It's going to be a solo cast. Solo cast asterisk. Obviously I have Nate here, but Shane's away. Netflix is a joke festival, which is. That'll be fun. So it'll be pretty much wrapping up by the time you guys see this. However, I don't know, maybe Hulu will do one too. I like when the streaming giants get silly in the comedy space, you know? Huh?

[A]

They start gonna start battling.

[B]

I mean, yeah, they're all. The streaming giants are battling. That's all they do is battle each other.

[A]

I didn't know they were battling for stand up rights now. Oh, yeah, I guess. Who's doing those specials?

[B]

Hulu Does Hilarious or Hulu's Laughing Now?

[A]

Those are both terrible names.

[B]

Hulu's Laughing Now. You don't like Hulu's Laughing Now?

[A]

I hate that. I hate Hulu.

[B]

I think the streaming giants are just on the next level with the branding.

[A]

They might just be getting. I'm a dumbass. They know what they're doing.

[B]

They paid. Hulu's Laughing Now. Dude, that's. I saw that and I literally cracked up. I say these guys know comedy like none other.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Also, Amazon does not have comedy specific branding. I'm. I would like to propose to Amazon. Ah, Mazon. Hey, come on, come on. Let me, let me know. You guys think in the comments. Like subscribe. Yeah. So, yeah, this week I was sitting here, I was going, the hell should we talk about, man? You know, it's like political stuff. No, the war pretty much political stuff. No, I don't want to talk about that.

[A]

Bombers, Big bombers.

[B]

Yeah. You know what? I just. I was like, you know, it would be sick to actually get into at nobody. I haven't heard anyone talking about at all. It's the solar system, you know what I'm saying?

[A]

Can't beat space, this dude.

[B]

The planets. Here's the thing. We learned about the planets when we were little boys.

[A]

We learned last. Learned about the planets when we still had an extra plan.

[B]

Let me get it. Let me get a camera.

[A]

We still had an extra planet the last time we learned about planets.

[B]

You're talking Pluto.

[A]

I'm talking Pluto.

[B]

Yeah. So I haven't got. I haven't got to Pluto yet, but I'm kind of. I was. I'm a little salty. We've nixed Pluto. It's like, what. What was it? It's not hurting anybody. Was that. Was that like a coalition of fat science Teachers who were like, we don't feel like covering. Like, why would they drop.

[A]

I think literally just didn't fit into the curriculum. They were like, we can't get this all the way through the year. We gotta knock one off.

[B]

I mean, what. What a dick. That was definitely some astro. Whatever they're called. Astro. Not an astrophysicist, but, like, just like a space.

[A]

Yeah, Space scientist.

[B]

Whatever they're called. Definitely just being like, you know, technically, it doesn't count. It's just like, dude, what the.

[A]

It's. It's a. It's a big ball and it rotates around the sun. Let it be a planet.

[B]

Yeah, what's. What's your problem? Big. It's technically just like an exo. But it's like, dude, it's a planet, man.

[A]

My theory is Saturn's not a plan.

[B]

I mean, what's your problem with gas giants?

[A]

It's a gas giant.

[B]

You can't talk. There's several gas giants.

[A]

But is it you.

[B]

Where Saturn's rings come from?

[A]

I want to say Uranus, but that was just me being. That was just me being.

[B]

If you're going to bring that attitude to the fucking solar system discussion, you're going to get ejected. Dude. Dude, filming you like this makes me want to call the cops on you so bad. Excuse me.

[A]

You can't do that. You can't sit there.

[B]

Karen.

[A]

Cam.

[B]

Excuse me. We'll see. Might I call the cops on 8? By the end of the solar system? We'll see. All right.

[A]

Are we. Is there a direction we're going, or did you just inside out?

[B]

Nope. Starting from the sun.

[A]

Starting from the sun.

[B]

I almost. I almost skipped the sun.

[A]

That.

[B]

That's the craziest part. I was. I was going to do this. Talking to Sean about it. I was like, sean, what do you think about this? And I was like, you know what, dude? I gotta. I gotta cover. I'll start from the sun and move on, but I'm like, I gotta cover the sun. That'd be crazy to do the solar system and not cover the thing it's named after.

[A]

I tell y' all a thing I don't talk about much. The sun freaks me out, bro.

[B]

I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, I didn't know much about it. The more I learned about it, I. I'm not lying. I had a panic attack in your office researching about how the sun works, and I got into, like, the. The nitty gritty of it. Yeah, I, for real, at one point, had to, like, stop and just, like, Sit down and take some breaths. Because the sun, I mean, it gets. It cuts you down to the base. The bare fundamentals.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To where you're like, what? Even what? Okay, so this is where light comes from. And it's like.

[A]

I hope I'm not jumping the gun, but the fact that it could like blow up at any time. Well, I know it's not like, close.

[B]

The sun has maintained equilibrium for four and a half billion years. And it's pretty much. It'll. It will continue to maintain equilibrium. The problem. Solar flares. Oh, yeah, solar flare.

[A]

Another scary thing.

[B]

We'll get into solar flares as well. No, no, no, no. You're eager. You're eager. Before you're disruptive. Now you're eager. We. We've gone a full Dangerous minds arc in 30 seconds. This is amazing, but I will say this. It's like, here's why I wanted to do the solar system, because, like, we learned about it as boys. But that was so long ago and so much stuff has come out about the planets. Like all the. You learned about the planets. Planets, I'm not going to say is wrong. But a lot of new details have come out. Yeah. So every. The average adult is kicking around. I'm not, I'm not coming for people, but a total ignoramus in terms of the solar system. People. Like, no one knows about how all these planets work, including myself. So, you know, I. While, you know, while we were out here just kind of messing around in high school, drinking college, people were. Yeah, a lot of girl scientists too, by the way. Were working hard.

[A]

That kind of seems like girl science, actually.

[B]

Yeah, it kind of. Dude, it's dominated. There's a lot of guy scientists, obviously, but there's a ton. A lot of these discoveries are girl scientists.

[A]

Astrology, then the, then the solar system. It's like a clear pat pipeline.

[B]

Yeah. The horoscopes, like you got to go all the way in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You need to know what's up with the cloud layer of Venus, which actually there was a discovery by girl scientist. Big discovery by girl scientist. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Sick of giving all your money to big wireless? Mint Mobile has high speed data, unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. And it's 15 bucks a month for the first three months. Like your money. Mint Mobile is for you. Shop [e-mail] drenched upfront payment of 45 for 3 month. 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 per month. New customer offer for the first 3 months only full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra cement mobile for details.

[A]

Just nice.

[B]

That's crazy because right now on YouTube people are trying to take. There's a decent argument people are making to take voting rights away from women. People want to remove women's suffering. I watched a whole debate on it the other day and the line of thinking is, if women, we'll get to the outer space in a second. But this is important because I'm protecting girl scientists. Girl space scientists, right to vote. But they're trying to say that since women can't be drafted into the war, then they have no right to be able to vote, which could essentially send men who have no choice to go fight in the war that they're exempt from. Essentially. It's not fair. You shouldn't be able to wield political power in a system that asks more of men. Men should have more political power, which I say obviously is a fair position. But I think you would be stripping the women's vote via girl logic, which is. It's not fair.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Only a girl cares about if something's not fair. That's girl logic. As a guy, you can't be like, yeah, it's not fair. It's like, well, now I'm taking your vote too because you're being a girl. If you want to keep. That's the thing. It's just a vicious cycle. You can't be like, it's not fair

[A]

if you act like a girl. We also take your right to vote.

[B]

I mean, it has to be across the board because why, why can't girls vote? Because act like girls. But you're acting like a girl to take the vote.

[A]

Also.

[B]

It's, it's when I see the debate, it's like, okay, you can make as clear, concise point about it. No one's, it's like no one's ever going to do. It's not going to happen.

[A]

Yeah. On that platform.

[B]

For real. For real. I mean, you could stand on it all.

[A]

Never get again.

[B]

Like the. Yeah, well, no. The one guy that I've watched has his wife pilled on the no vote for women. She's fully with it and it's like, dude, again, do your thing, live your life, I don't care. But let's be honest, it's never going to fucking happen. They're never going to do it.

[A]

Is he a politician or is he like.

[B]

He's like a debater.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He's a good debater too. He's a. He's a very, very solid debater. Forget his name. But he. Yeah, I was watching the whole thing and, like, it's just one of those things where it's like, it sounds sick. Obviously you're on your channel. You're like, here are the reasons you're watching. You're like, yeah, we're gonna fucking do it. We're gonna take their vote away. I mean, dude, it's. It's just never going to fucking happen. It's like, it's. It's just. It won't do. No one, nobody. The country, no country can possibly withstand that amount of the nagging would be crazy, dude. Like, let's be honest.

[A]

Divorce rates would go through the roof. If you are a dude who goes, I agree with this. You're done. You're not getting pussy. You lay a lot of.

[B]

Again, this guy has got his babe. She's on board. That is a fudgeing rarity.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. He's got the, like the. The 1 percenter of. Of babes.

[B]

I know when babes. Your babe might be like, yeah, I could see that. And then just like on a random Tuesday, be like, I can't believe I can't vote.

[A]

Soon as a period.

[B]

You said it was fine. We watched the YouTube debate. We both agreed that guy was right. They're never going to go along with it. It's. It's just one of those things where it's like, dude, like, you can. You're kind of like chasing your tail. You can, you know, whatever. But that's. And then after doing all this outer space research, I'm going, dude, women are dominating.

[A]

We need some babes.

[B]

We need these babes to fucking look. Tell us about outer space again. I don't know if it's all of them, but a lot of these discoveries are from babe scientists. While we've been just absolutely around the entire time.

[A]

We will, if. If we take away the right to vote, they're going to stop focusing on science, is going to try to get their right to vote back. We can't do it.

[B]

I don't know. Could, though. If we did take the vote, we could get. There might be some humble babe action. Like almost like. Like reuniting right after a breakup.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Could be best behavior. We could have best behavior.

[A]

I do like the idea of women acting right.

[B]

I would just vote. I'd be like, just tell me. I'll vote however you want. I don't even care.

[A]

We get double votes.

[B]

Tell me, babe. I'll vote for whatever you want. I Don't fucking care. And also too like this, the nuts and bolts of blocking the vote. I mean, it's like what. The only option. You'd have to physically hold. You'd have to literally physically hold them back. They would flood the voting booths.

[A]

We would also have so many trans women. Like women. I just thought about that. Or we'd have to. We'd have to. We'd have to go down that rabbit hole. It'd be a whole different thing because they would. They would definitely spike trans. I know you'd have to have.

[B]

No, you'd have to have the FBI female body inspectors. That'd be the only way. But either way, I don't want to get mired down in politics. I want to talk outer space. Because it would be. Dude, I'm saying it'd be a sad sight if like, you know, you're there. They actually. You passed a law on this Handmaiden's tale world. The only way you could stop women was by. You'd have to have like a security force like Scrappy do holding their heads while they. And that would bum me out. I'm trying to cast my vote for the Republic. I'm seeing women get scrappy, dude, just non. That would be. That would piss me off. Some of them good girl scientists that are enlightening us about space. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. The regular season's done and the NBA playoffs are here. Time to get in on the action with Prize Picks, a preferred partner of the NBA NBA and Space B Space A. Download the Prize Picks app today and use code Drench to get $50 in lineups after you play your first five dollar lineup and during the playoff during the playoffs, make a five dollar lineup with a live NBA pick for a shot at the Do It Live sweepstakes trip to the NBA Finals. That's a rough one. More info can be found on the Prize Picks promos board. Prize Picks, a preferred partner of the NBA. So either way, I mean, the long story short is that new details have emerged about the solar system. Very juicy details. Yeah, like comment subscribe below in the chat. So, okay, okay, so we got. You got everything out of the way again. The plan was start closest to the sun and work out and go, you know, and work. But then it was like, dude, let me hit the sun. And actually this was Sean's idea in. While we're doing the planets, we're going to do kind of a mini deep dive into why they have that name. What the name says about the Planet. Does that actually match up with the physical characteristics? Because, like, all of them are named after basically Greco Roman gods. Oh, except for Earth. Except for Earth, Yeah. I'm talking Rome a little bit. Except for Earth, weirdly enough. Why. Why did Earth get. I mean, I guess probably because we're standing on it. You know, it doesn't get a cool God.

[A]

We might have already had it named. You know, we might have already been calling it Earth.

[B]

Just Earth. Earth all. You could name Earth after a God, really, because it was like, you know, the gods were supposed to be in the heavens and. Yeah, whatever. Unless you believe in like. So, okay, before we talk planets, let's talk sun. Okay. And basic facts. This is the stuff I already knew before I researched. Sun is 93 million miles away from Earth. I know that one. That was. I learned that from a Wu Tang song from Triumph. It's literally in the song, which is kind of crazy. That's like some dude smoking Sherm. The projects would have. Yeah. Literally been teaching a prim ass white boy like myself about the solar system.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's what happened. That's how I started my love for outer space. And now I've joined the lineage of great teachers because I've actually smoked Sherm on accident before.

[A]

So that's the only Sherm mix. How do you get.

[B]

It's just pcp.

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

Just wet. Yeah, it's just. I accidentally smoke sharing myself, so that's how I've just. Following a great lineage of teachers. Just smoking Sherm once and twice. Feel like, weird. During. It was sick. Yeah. Yeah. Fluid. I, like, literally flew up a staircase. It's awesome. I could breathe flames out of my mouth. But then I got, like, deeply paranoid that these babes were trying to poison me. Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I could have kissed them. Oh, that was too. Shermed out.

[A]

Yeah, that's.

[B]

That's the life of a astronomer like myself. So. Okay, so let's go. Size of the sun right off the bat, how big is the sun? In relative terms, 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun.

[A]

That's crazy.

[B]

It's. Dude, it's massive. It's the sun. If the sun were a hollow ball, you could fit every planet in the solar system inside of it and still have room.

[A]

Like, a lot of room, Right?

[B]

Yeah. It's up how big this the sun is. Like, just to get a glimpse. You see it every day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You just don't even think about it. Oh, son. 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun. How hot is the sun exactly depends on where you measure at the core. The sun is 15 million degrees Celsius. It's fucking hot as shit. So we'll get into exactly what that means is that you hear that it's almost abstract. The surface of the sun is only air quotes about 5,500 degrees Celsius. John, can we get some conversion?

[A]

Surface.

[B]

The surface of the song. There's a core, there's the inner core, where like the, you know, we'll get into what's happening in there. And then there's like an actual body of the sun. Okay, that's only 5,500 degrees, which is like pretty low compared to the core. Kind of weird. Google how many degrees? 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. What's the surface in Fahrenheit? If it's 15 million degrees Celsius, that's got to be. I don't know. Celsius throws me off because it's close at some points and super there it probably is. I think it's probably 30. 30 million degrees. 30 million degrees, dude. Let's. Well, we'll wait for the official numbers to come in. Here's the weird part. So the surface core is 15 million degrees. Surface is 5. 500 million, 5,500 degrees Celsius. Okay, so it's 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. You know, whatever. We'll stick to Celsius. That's what scientists, they, they love libs, love Celsius, obviously. So the outer atmosphere. So there's. There's a core of the sun, there's its surface. Then there's an outer atmosphere of the sun called the corona, which paradoxically reaches over 1 million degrees Celsius, which violates.

[A]

Is hotter than.

[B]

Hotter than the body of the sun, not hotter than the core.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, okay.

[B]

But according to, I believe, the law of thermodynamics, it's supposed to get colder the further you move away from a hot thing. The corona violates the law. Basic, basic physics. People still don't know why. Yeah, that's pretty wild. And the corona, this is kind of weird. It actually extends because it's like a, you know, there's the core, there's the body. The corona is like the. What you see when there's an eclipse. There's that, like, light around the moon. That's the corona. It goes on for millions of miles and it's a million degrees for millions of miles. And then it actually peters out into the solar winds that basically go through the entire solar system and then they Stop after Pluto for a planet formerly known as Pluto.

[A]

So when we're getting heat hitting our planet, it's corona that's gotten here. Is that what kinda.

[B]

We'll get to that. Okay, okay, okay, we'll get to that. Luckily, our atmosphere. Well, yeah, we'll get to that. It's not technically the corona, but the light coming out of the sun, which, you know, is kind of a bug out in and of itself. But that's. That's where interstellar space starts, is when the sun's solar wind finally stops. Somewhere after Pluto. Yeah, the solar wind stops and you're in interstellar space properly, which again, is kind of like, weird to think about. So, yeah, there's a thing called the corona paradox. We'll get into kind of theories into why that might be. But again, it's like it's. It's completely wrong. It's 50 million degrees and it's like 5,500 degrees. And then it goes to 1 million again outside, away, further from. You're like, what the hell? So now I'm sure you've thought about this, like, what would happen to you if you, like, just try to get towards the sun.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And in reality, you would just burn up so fast. But here's the thing. We had have because we, like, you know, how do you think. How do they know the Sun's core is 15 million degrees? We can't get close enough to measure it. So they do a thing where they. There's a couple methods. I don't really understand them, but there's like, ways you can look at light signatures and the certain colors coming off give you like, you know, this is how hot this is. This is how hot this is. There's also. They like the neutrinos that bounce out of the sun, hit the ground, and they somehow, like, collect those and measure those. But still I'm like, I don't know. I'm taking it with a grain of salt. There's no way you can actually measure without the direct probe. NASA in 2018 launched a Parker solar probe. And they got within in 2024. About 6.1 million kilometers to the Sun's surface was close. So they're in the corona. So they were able to theorize how hot it would be. And then they actually sent this probe into the corona. That could verify, like, okay, our models were correct.

[A]

No, I'm assuming there was no camera or nothing. No pictures that got sent back.

[B]

I don't think so. I. This thing was a. I mean, it was basically a Bullet. It traveled about 692,000 kilometers an hour. Fast as any human made object it's ever moved. So they just fucking. It had a carbon heat shield about 4 1/2 inches thick that kept everything inside at room temperature even as it like hit temperatures at like 1400 degrees Celsius. So now I'm going like, oh, that's why too. The corona is. It's kind of thinned out. So like it is technically a million degrees. But the particles I think are so thinned out that like it doesn't feel as hot. That's why they're able to get in there. So I don't know that. That's a little confusion, a little confusing, but it's still like the only thing

[A]

my brain can even like compare that to is like when humidity makes things feel hotter than it is.

[B]

It's you, you don't. You really feel pretty fucking dumb.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Try to think about this shit. But it's like, you know, if you try to really comprehend how hot these temperatures are, there's. There's nothing. You know, like molten metal is thousands of times cooler than the sun's coolest part, which is the surface.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's like, it's almost abstract. So it's like in the way to think about this is like as you go up the temperature ladder, you don't just get more hot. As you get to like, you know, things like 15 million degrees. It literally alters what the matter fundamentally is so he changes. Literally. Like when you go. When you get to the sun's core, it turns into plasma, which is a whole different state of matter. It's like solid gas. Liquid plasma is just like a soup of particles because everything just breaks down.

[A]

Is that kind of a laser beam? I don't know. I'm going video games. I'm going video games. Because you got plasma guns all the time.

[B]

So let's just. So again, like the whole idea of imagine yourself floating towards the sun, how close can you get before you're destroyed? I mean in terms of, in terms of pure radiation and heat, you're dead. Unprotected human tissue would be destroyed long, long, long before getting anywhere near the surface. Obviously, if you could even preserve yourself. Parker solar probe. Like we said, you got the closest for context. Mercury, which we'll get to. The closest planet is still about 46 million kilometers from the sun at its nearest point. So it's like halfway between Earth and Mercury is like the halfway point between here and the sun. So yeah, with the general scientific like Consensus is that without shielding, you would not survive much closer than Mercury's orbit. So, and here, here's the scale for reference. Determine temperatures. Zero degrees Celsius. Water freezes. 100 degrees Celsius. Water boils. Thousand degrees Celsius. Lava, Molten rock. That's, that's what lava is. 1500 degrees. Steel melts. 3500 degrees. Tungsten melts. This is the highest melting point of any metal. It's using light bulb filaments. 55 degrees CEL. 5,500 degrees Celsius. The surface of the sun and anything that exists as a solid or liquid is already just long gone. 1.1 to 3 million is the corona temperature. 15 million degrees is the core of the sun. Yeah. Which is kind of nuts. And then here's. So like we said, the surface of the sun is cooler than the area outside the corona, which, you know, we already, we already talked about that. But again, this is a big paradox. Science physicists are like, they have no idea. They don't really know. However, the leading theory on the corona paradox, why the outside area of the sun is hotter than the body of the sun. Again, just including the core, which is just literally nuclear. They think that the massive heat shift around the corona is due to electromagnetic fields snapping together in like, you know, in tiny, tiny increments. And each of the realignments generates heat and like micro flares. So it's similar to a big solar flare. Yeah, that originates on the sun's surface, but in the corona they're thinking like this is happening on a tiny level, but just like billions of them every single second.

[A]

So it turns into a big ass thing kind of.

[B]

Yeah. So like, it kind of collectively heats. It's more so like electromagnetic heat than technically heat from the sun. But it is coming from the sun because the sun's core does generate electromagnet or does like dictate the movement of electromagnetic lines. It's. Dude, electromagnetic is so, so weird. So it's like, think of like, you know, we talked about solar flares, obviously. So solar flares, I think originate because there's like, you know, the core is doing all this crazy shit. It gets so hot that the electromagnetic fields get all like whacked out. So then like, they're getting all whacked out coming from, you know, the core of the sun. They hit the sun's body and as the sun's rotating, the electromagnetic lines just twirl together. Yeah. And they get so tense, like toilet rubber band together. And eventually they just snap.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Just fire off like a massive thing of heat and energy. And the biggest solar storm that hit Earth that we know of was the Carrington event, 1859. It was so strong that it said telegraph machines on fire. Yeah. So those old Morse code lines were all. We're all connected by copper wires. So everyone was just working on them and out of nowhere, people got like, shocked.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like some of them burst in flames.

[A]

I think it was all over the.

[B]

It just. It just. That energy got absorbed by those copper wiring connecting them all together so that some of them burst into flames. Other operators were just like, ow. Just got shocked.

[A]

Did it hit the whole planet or.

[B]

Whole planet?

[A]

Like a chunk of like.

[B]

I think it hit the whole. I think it up like the. I think it up anywhere that had that.

[A]

Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.

[B]

Also the weird thing was the energy from the solar flare after they. They had unplugged some of the machines, like what the going on with these? And they were still powered. No, plug in. The energy from the solar player flare actually powered the machines for a time being afterwards. But they were just. They were just off. They were off. But they were on.

[A]

But they were on.

[B]

You couldn't turn them off. They had too much juice. Yeah. So. And the cool thing too was the. The solar flare was so intense that the, you know, like the aurora borealis you can see from like the poles. Yeah, you could see that in like Cuba. It just lit up. The electric whatever that is, like hits the sky and bounces. Colors bounce off of the atmosphere and it just. There was like an aurora borealis visible. Something like it. Visible all the way down.

[A]

Silver lining to that chaos. Because aurora borealis is like one of my bucket list. See that in person things.

[B]

It'll be sick. Although the weirdest part was it was so bright that. That it happened in the middle of the night. So people woke up in the middle of the night thinking it was daytime. So they kind of popped up like, oh, man, birds. Birds even got tricked. Birds started singing like it was nighttime. They came being like, what the three in the morning? Why is it so bright? Yeah, it just looked completely up. The weirdest thing is, if such a solar flare happened today, it would destroy the infrastructure of the entire Internet. Yeah, trillion. It would cause trillions of dollars in damage. The Internet would go down as far as I know.

[A]

That's terrifying.

[B]

Plus side, search history destroyed. Destroyed everyone. Clean slate.

[A]

That'd be so mad.

[B]

We're talking if we get a big enough solar flare, it could destroy now would destroy the entire Internet.

[A]

Dude.

[B]

Clean break.

[A]

But what about my bookmarked favorites, bro,

[B]

you gotta let them go. You could find them again. You'd have to create, recreate them.

[A]

Yeah, that would be the real thing because they, they would be gone.

[B]

They would just be gone. They would exist in your heart and you would have to write them down like, like one of those ancient Greek historians.

[A]

A lady would come on her face.

[B]

Who's the lady that's always getting like, having sex in the shower with like wet makeup on her face?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Michaels.

[A]

Gianna Michaels.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, you have to write about, you have to sing her song. You make the bards.

[A]

I would definitely.

[B]

This is a story of Ms. Michaels.

[A]

You had a Michaels and Pinky with. I. I'd sing to the heavens.

[B]

Yeah. They'd have to live on through you. So. And this is, this is why we're talking solar flares. That has to do with the leading theory on why the corona is so much hotter is like, you know, that's how massive flare works of like just the twisting and breaking of electric magnetic fields. When they reconnect it, like generates a ton of heat and energy that I think that's what powers a solar flare. But again, who knows? We don't know. Electromagnetic fields are, they're actually a very, very spooky subject in and of themselves. They're, they're. I mean, fields are non physical, like objects that somehow affect physical objects. Yeah, very, very spooky, man. Very spooky. So also to just how big. We talked a little bit about just how big the sun's corona is. So it's like, all right, the diameter of the sun's visible surface is about 864,000 km, which if you were to take a radius of that half the circle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Guess how big it would be. 432,000 kilometers. Anyway, pretty sick. The corona starting at the end of the sun's surface extends for like we said, 3 to 5 million miles, raging at roughly a million degrees, which again, asterisk that because apparently they were able to probe it and it was only 14, you know, only 1400 degrees Celsius. So maybe that was like the outer, outer reaches. I don't. Oh, yeah, you know what? It probably was because they weren't even. Yeah, they had got to like the outer reaches of that. Maybe they're in salt. Because the corona of the sun that goes off the body extends for 3.5 million miles at a million degrees and then thins out into the solar wind that we talked extends all the way out To Pluto and beyond. So this, the technically speaking, the whole solar system is located inside of the sun.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm gonna get pushed back because I'm gonna say, dude, that's the, you can't include. Solar winds. Was like, hey man, I didn't write the rules. The girls girl rules. Sorry I didn't make them.

[A]

Actually, you're still up in space now

[B]

if you really want to take away their vote, you can amend the solar winds and be like, no, it does not extend all things. All right, so we covered the surface in the corona, I think, pretty well. What about the core, the churning powerhouse of the sun? The core is where? Yeah, I mean, dude, like, the surface is cool and all the corona's pretty cool. You know, paradoxical, whatever. The core.

[A]

I don't think I've ever heard about the core, bro.

[B]

You, I, I'm. If you want to cover your ears, I don't blame you.

[A]

It's freaky.

[B]

You'll never look at the sun again the same way. So the core makes up the innermost 25 point percent of the Sun's radius. So 25% of the sun size is the radius. Not obviously including solar winds and all that stuff, but don't let that fool you. 25% of the sun is still enormous. The core alone is roughly twice the diameter of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. So it's massive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you have this massive ball. It's 15 million degrees Celsius. And again, we've already established the corona is 1.3 million degrees. The core is five to 15 times hotter than that. And like we said, every step up the temperature ladder changes what matter fundamentally is. So once you get into the core, you're, you're like, you're just complete. You're beyond what any physical matter on Earth is. Basically, you're, you turn into plasma. And the pressure, this is fucked up. If you think about it. The pressure of the core, it's 250 billion times Earth's atmospheric pressure. And pressure is not gravity. It doesn't mean you weigh like 250 billion times more. Yeah, it's like if you were, you know when you're underwater, when like submarines go thousands of feet and they get crushed. Yeah, dude, like if you did like a couple hundred thousand times bigger, you're crushed in 250 billion times atmospheric pressure. It'd be like being like 10 billion feet underwater. Like, it's unfathomable how much it grows. It's crushing, it's containing an explosion which the core Essentially is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The core's explosion is equivalent to 90 trillion nuclear warheads going off every second already for 4 billion years. Slated for another roughly 4.5 billion years more. Every second. Every second you look at The sun is 90 trillion nuclear warheads just going.

[A]

We're just looking at it like, damn, it's a pretty day out there, dude.

[B]

It's so, it's insane. So, okay, 2250 billion times Earth's atmospheric pressure. And again, it's being crunched down by gravity. The sun contains 333,000 times the mass of Earth and all of that mass is gravitationally attracted to its own center. I don't really know. That's how gravity works. So if you have a big ball like Earth or the sun, it's like the weight. So you have like, you're standing on France, all of France, from the surface down to like all the shit underneath it is pressing on the core. Then you have China, that's also somehow pressing into the core as well. And every place is just crunching down on the core. So the, the core of the, the sun is just fucking massive amounts of gravity containing this never ending explosion that just kind of repowers itself over and over. So every layer of the sun is sitting top on the, on top of the layer below it. I mean, it's the most extreme pylon ever. Just all the way down to the core, like we say. And the temperature, so it's the temperature, by the way. So we're saying about like the, the, you know, 150015 million degrees changing what matter fundamentally is, it's from two things. It's from the temperature and it's from the pressure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the temperature gets the particles moving fast enough to overcome the repulsion. Because you have like, say you have hydrogen, a hydrogen nucleus seems another hydrogen nucleus. So it's just sitting there like this. They're repelled like magnets. Like think about two magnets. You can't get them to touch each other. You're sitting there like, you know, I can't do it. So the heat gets the particles moving so fast that the electrons, since it's plasma, the electrons fall away. Now we have the soup. The electrons are just floating here and there. There's no order to any of these things. And the neutrons are just going like this. And then they get hot enough, they get fast enough, and they get close enough to each other to overcome the repulsion.

[A]

That's love.

[B]

So like, dude, like if you threw a magnet so fast, it is love.

[A]

It's true.

[B]

It's like if you threw the magnet so fast, which I've actually seen one of my boys do this one time, you throw the magnet fast enough, it would just go and would actually connect. However, the connection is nuclear. It's like particle fusion. So it's what powers nuclear bombs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the pressure, so it's like the temperature gets moving fast enough to overcome the repulsion, but then the pressure gets them close enough for the strong nuclear force to grab them together. So. And this is the core, is the only place in the solar system where both conditions are met at once, which is why fusion only happens in the center of stars and nowhere else. It really is. When people do atomic bombs, they're harnessing the powers. Yeah.

[A]

That's crazy.

[B]

It's the power of the stars.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And here. Yeah, so. And the cool part is the same gravity.

[A]

That's kind of badass. We're just harnessing the power of stars on the planet. I didn't mean to cut you off.

[B]

It's cool. It's certainly, it's terrifying. It's really scary.

[A]

We did kind of do that, though.

[B]

I know. I mean, shout out to us, obviously, but yeah. The same crushing gravity is what keeps the whole system stable. The fusion at the core. And we'll get into exactly what fusion is, is nuclear fusion is constantly trying to blow the sun apart. So. And again, like we said, 90 trillion nuclear bombs per second exploding gravity is just hugging around it, just. No, brother. Just holding it all together. And these two forces, these two massive forces have been pretty much perfectly balanced for 4.6 billion years, like we said. Turns out we get another 5 billion in the bank. So we're chilling on the sun for 5 billion more years. The sun's a controlled explosion that gravity won't let escape. And fusion won't let collapse in on itself. So the fusion also is pushing out against gravity, wanting to just crunch it all in.

[A]

I wonder if it'll be like, signs. I mean, obviously we won't be here for, but, you know, 400 billion years from now, will the sun, like, feel or look different? You know what I mean? Because we've lived it, we've experienced it for such a short period of time. We don't even, I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. They claim, they claim that it's been relatively stable, but it's like, you know, again, I, I, I'm like, okay, we'll see. Okay, girl scientist.

[A]

We'll see.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames Moms are no stranger to chaos. And some of your craziest moments together. Pure comedy in hindsight. That's why an aura frame makes the perfect Mother's Day gift. They capture the. Not just the memories, but the chaos you cause along the way. Personalization requested. Please talk for 10 to 15 seconds about a chaotic moment your mom had to handle. Especially something you caused that was stressful at the same time but you both laugh about now. For example, like that family road trip where I somehow got us lost. What chaos did I cause? Well, one time, I mean, I don't know if you know what a Mad Libs thing is, but it was a. It's like a word puzzle. Not a word puzzle. It was like a story, but you got to fill in all the words. I don't know. You know what it was that was bad because I. I put nothing but like butthole and penis.

[A]

My mom found.

[B]

I got mad. But I. I signed someone's yearbook one time. I was in seventh grade and I signed an eighth grade boys yearbook and I said, dear Joey, I hope you get butt this summer. And his mom called my mom and my mom called the school and told me that my dad was going to beat my ass when I got home. And I just sat in dread all day and waited and yeah, my dad beat my ass and it'd be nice if we had a picture. I could put on an aura frame. That'd be a very beautiful memory. Moments like that are priceless and priceless. Now you can immortalize them. Aura Frames keeps your favorite memories alive with unlimited photo and video storage. Preload your photos before it even ships. Personalize it with a message and share the laughs effortlessly through the free Aura app or even just by texting photos straight to the frame. Name number one by wire cutter. You can save on the gifts mom love by visiting Aura frames.com for a limited time. Listeners can get 25 off their best selling Carver Matte frame with code MSSP. That's a U R A frames.com promo code MSSP. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Also guys, I have the. I have some new tour dates coming up. I'm. I'm actually kind of pumped to announce them. They'll be summer into pretty much winner. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. But the big one right now. Toronto. Sold out. Thank you guys. Canada, you guys rule. And then the Riviera Theater, Chicago, Illinois. I'm going to check right now guys. I think, I think tickets are almost gone. I'm not just saying that, but we have about. We're a week out. And I, I believe, last time I checked, I was at like 90% sold. So. Yeah. So I'm looking right now. It's making me click to make sure I'm not a robot. Whatever. There's not a lot of tickets left, guys. I can say that for a fact. So get them if you want to come. It's going to be a close one. So that's it. Chicago. And that is. Sorry, I should say the date for that. That is going to be May 16, I believe. I don't know. So that. Yeah, May 16, it's being. Microphone's being a piece of. So come on, come on, we'll get it. We'll get into fusion because again, we kind of touched on it. But how it happens is really cool. So, like, you know what actually happens to these, you know, molecules or like hydrogen particles at 15 million degrees? So again, at a few thousand degrees, molecules break apart into atoms. At around 10,000 degrees Celsius, atoms, this is when it becomes plasma. Atoms themselves start to break down. Like we said, electrons get stripped away because it's like you have, remember the science thing, you have a nucleus, which is like a, I think a proton and a neutron, and then it's circled by electrons.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And luckily, hydrogen has no proton. No, hydrogen has no neutrons or something. So it's just a proton. That's why they have like the proton collider thing. That's what they're trying to replicate. Did you ever hear of the Higgs boson particle collider?

[A]

No.

[B]

They have these things underground and they're trying to get particle fusion. They try to shoot them at such speeds that they can overcome that natural resistance and actually collide.

[A]

And scary to just around with.

[B]

These girls are out of control.

[A]

Blows up. Oh, my God.

[B]

Yeah, it's actually pretty freaky. But at 10,000 degrees CEL, 10,000 degrees Celsius, matter stops becoming matter in any recognizable sense that we know and becomes plasma, which we said is a soup of free electrons and bare atomic nuclei. So it's like the nucleus not surrounded by their revolve, you know, the electrons that are spinning around it. Again, this is a fourth state of matter between solid, liquid and gas. So that's at 10,000 degrees Celsius, the core is 15 million degrees. So you're so far past plasma that the nuclei, the proton and neutron, in the case of hydrogen, just the proton, like we said, themselves are being slammed into each other hard enough to fuse. And like we said, it's because the electrons are stripped away from the heat, leaving the protons again, not being possibly charged, but still to repel each other like magnets. The repulsion between these protons is called the column barrier, in case you're wondering. So that's the. The barrier that keeps protons from kind of slamming. But now, like we said, the heat has the protons going so fast, they overcome the repulsion. And so then as they do this, they just. Boom, slam into each other. These are two hydrogen nuclei colliding and merging, transforming in a flash in a nuclear. You know, a miniature nuclear explosion.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Transforming to form helium in the process. So the. You have a hydrogen hydrogen, which, by the way, two hydrogen. One hydrogen, I think is heavier than a helium.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But when the two come together, which you would think, oh, the helium is going to be heavier, the helium's lighter than these two guys that just crash together. So because the helium is fundamentally lighter and the loss of weight. Right. So you have, say, a hydrogen weighs one pound or they don't. But let's say for the sake of numbers, two hydrogen nucleuses weigh one pound each. They slam. Now they weigh, like, collectively. I don't know, whatever the it Is, they've lost 0.7%.

[A]

They get smaller, though.

[B]

Yeah, they're. They're lighter than those. So you start off with two things weighing something. They collide. You're left. You have the leftover. The helium is like the ash of a cigarette. It's like a leftover component of this reaction that had nuclear reaction. That tiny little bit of weight that's lost is then transferred into the energy that basically becomes light. So those particles colliding in the 15 million degrees in the core is what generates the sun's light. But it's happening over and over and over and over, over and over. Just boom, boom, boom, boom. Every second it's. And there's this light blinding flashes of gamma rays, which you don't want to. Yo, I know you think you're tough, but you do not want a gamma ray at all.

[A]

Put me on the gamma.

[B]

You did not want. Again, it's. It's that. That little. The hydrogen nuclei. This is important. Colliding and merging, transform into helium, which is like kind of the body of the sun. Yeah. Boom. White flash. But that just, like, infinitesimal part of the mass that's lost becomes a force that becomes a gamma ray, which is, like, really weird to think, like, if you took a tiny bit of weight of this thing single, you know, I don't know what it weighs. Probably not even like 0.1 pounds. That would become a intense burst of light energy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is what. You know, it's trying to think of how to explain this. So. So the fusion of two particles, again, which is because of heat and pressure, transmutes the hydrogen into helium. We already. We already said that. And it loses that little bit of weight that just becomes light, pure energy. And here's how I try to think of it. So it's like when the protons collide in nuclear fusion, they turn into helium, which we said is the byproduct of the reaction. And the reaction is a massive explosion of energy relative to the size of the tiny bit of weight that was lost. So, like, think of it this way. If you multiply something's mass. Right. I'm just. This is how I kind of figured it out. If you multiply something's mass by the speed of light, and then multiply that number by the speed of light again, you'll see how much energy has been converted in the process. So this is just think, like, you know, E for energy, M for mass, and let's do C for the speed of light, and square that you get. I think it's like E equals MC squared. Whoa. Oh, dude, that's crazy. That's Einstein's theory, actually. That's what. I had no idea. That's what E equals MC squared is. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Was.

[B]

It's just accounting for how much. How much mass converts. How much the tiniest amount of mass converts to, like, light energy, basically.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It's Einstein's theory of special relativity. It's a crazy case of parallel thinking, honestly. But I just. I was like, oh, yeah, that's how that works. So going back to the sun, the

[A]

dude's sitting there by himself and just figuring that all out for the first time. Yeah. He'd just be like, I'm him.

[B]

He's definitely him. Yeah. I think, though, there was a guy who figured out, what is it? Magnetism and electricity are part of the same thing. Yeah. And that came first, which was also like, what the.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think that they say that's what kind of like, helped Einstein be like, oh, okay. And he kind of piggybacked off that. He basically alley ooped Einstein.

[A]

Was that. That's not Tesla, right?

[B]

No, no. I forget the guy's name. The guy who discovered electromagnetism. Another beast. That was a big one, dude. That was crazy. To somehow be like, no, they're the same thing. Because it's like electricity and magnetism. You can't have one without the other. The one produces electricity and the other one produces magnetism. And there it's a self sustaining field.

[A]

A thing that I've noticed. This is a little sidetracked, but like we're talking, you're talking this. I. Because we're talking about how beast these guys are. I've kind of. I don't know if it's Instagram or the Internet has. I always pictures like smart dudes. I didn't even see you doing it. I was just.

[B]

Smart dudes as dorks.

[A]

And like now you're starting to see like sometimes like nerds are kind of just cool, you know, smart people.

[B]

They used to be cool. Einstein was cool.

[A]

Yeah, he used to like, I see stuff that he seemed like he was kind of him back in the day,

[B]

like he wasn't like. Well, you know what it was though, those early physicists and those type of guys, they would look at this outer space and be like, they took almost like a religious perspective. They'd be like, God. God's mysteries are so tight now. Scientists are like cold and objective and they're like, they talk like robots.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They lost all their swag.

[A]

I see.

[B]

They lost their swag when they stopped being like, this is so beautiful, dude. How do I fit into this beautiful tapestry now they're like, well, the forces are impersonal and cold and dark and

[A]

they turn on the guy who, who tries to go back to that other. They go like, no, that's not what we do now. We can't write peer review papers on that.

[B]

That I know. How can you quantify that? It's like, dude, shut the up, dude. That's why Einstein got and you didn't. So anyone know Michael Faraday? What the hell? Huh? I think it's Ernest Mock. What? Lorenz is who Einstein built directly off. Did he? Maybe it was, I don't know. But either way, we'll leave that like comment below. Figure that out. So going back to the sun. That is a good point. Why Einstein was the man. I, I do think they just lost their respect for, you know. Yeah, they took, they stopped taking a poetic view towards nature. They just started being like, yeah, yeah, it's bunch of math. It's just math. Going back to the sun. So nuclear, nuclear fusion is constantly happening at the core. Hydrogen nuclei, slamming, fusing gamma burst. And this is what sunlight is. And then leftover helium, the body of the sun. So the sun, by the way, through fusion, is converting 4 million tons of mass into energy. Gamma rays, every single Second, and this isn't like burning a log. This is physically. You know, that's like. You burn it, it's like it's light. This is physically converting mass into like traveling light beams. You know, a fire is just kind of like. Oh, it's like a candle just kind of hovers. That's more of a chemical reaction.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is fundamentally taking mass and going light beam flying out. So in gamma rays too, by the way, here's a cool thing too. The gamma rays don't just blast out of the reaction and hit us. Because if they did, we'd be like. We would be. Gamma rays are in terms of energy rays, like gamma X rays, all that. They're the king daddy of energy rays. They have no mass, no charge. It's just pure energy moving at the speed of light. So. And you think, okay, what's the fuck's the big deal about that? So, okay, so let's just get into this thing. First, the gamma ray. Because if. Well, let's just say if it hit you, you're like a gamma ray goes. A UV ray hits your skin and it gets trapped. You get a little sunburn maybe, but your body's like, okay, let's kind of repair that. A gamma ray would go right through you.

[A]

Like, I see a hole in my body.

[B]

Wouldn't be a hole, but it would pass through you. But it would sever anything it touched in terms of, like, your DNA cells. So it goes through you and just severs your DNA. So if you got hit with a full body dose of gamma, all your. All your DNA strands would just be severed instant like. Like that. So anything, huh?

[A]

Do you vape? That sounds like you.

[B]

You don't vaporize. You're just. You'll just be there like nothing happened. But all of a sudden you'd be like. Like your bot. All your body's natural intelligence just goes offline and you become what's called a walking ghost. And you just slowly die. Like, you die in like two minutes.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

Because your body, all your bodily processes are just like. What the was that? They just stop working your lines of DNA to shred. So that your DNA is what's telling all your cells what to do. Yeah, that just goes down. And then you go, oh, I don't feel so good. Two minutes later, toast. So that's what's happening in the sun's core. Now here's the cool part.

[A]

We have those kind of weapons.

[B]

The gamma would. Dude, that would suck getting hit with gamma. So the core, you would think, like, oh, okay. So that light hits the core, the hydrogen, you know, or hydrogen hits each other, turns into gamma, the hydrogen turns into helium. That's like the energy process, the energy exchange or whatever that gamma, those gamma rays produced by the particle fusion. It gets trapped in the sun's core. It just, it can't get out. It goes, bounces around. Guess how long it bounces around for?

[A]

I guess million years.

[B]

17,000.

[A]

Seven.

[B]

Okay, 17,000. You should have went low for record. Just go low next time. Better. But no, but. So if those exceptions escaped, we'd be toast. Yeah, somehow. And the sun's already kind of nuts right now. But the gap, the energy it produces, it holds it inside of itself and just kind of, it bounces around on a weird 10 to 17,000 year journey inside of the core where it's slowly degraded into like lesser and lesser forms of energy, basically. So it's like gamma all the way towards like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Now it comes out as UV light. As soon as it escapes the core and hits the, you know, basically surface of the sun.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It takes eight seconds to get to Earth. So it bounces around for let's say 17,000 years. And then it gets to the, the sun's surface and it's 8 seconds. Hits you right in your face. Get a little tan as UV and you get a little tan. You know, white boys like me get a little crispy, but so yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy, man. AL it's like every, every time you stand in the sunlight, the light hitting you. 17,000 years old and has been stepped down. It kind of is set up for black people originally. So white people might be from Yakub, but it, it was, it's kind of just like held in the sun and then shot out at like the perfect that we need for here for plants and people and you know, all that other stuff.

[A]

That's fire.

[B]

Pretty beautiful. Yeah, pretty beautiful. Pure gamma, dude.

[A]

Don't want no parts of that.

[B]

You don't want that, dude. You just, you just don't, you don't want anything literally, like we said, just malfunctions. Everything gets you up, curious. But yeah, dude. And then like we said before, the sun, this is actually kind of cool too. The sun somehow sun basically self regulates. So like we said before, the, you know, the outward pressure of a fusion is kind of trying to explode the sun just out into the, into the solar system. But the size of the sun itself is kind of crunching it down in on itself.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So here's the thing when fusion speeds up, the sun expands. So the sun, it's like, okay, the thing is starting to explode. But the sun expanding expands the core too, which then naturally cools the core down. And so like we said, the heat is what gets the particles moving faster.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So when the core expands, the particles slow down ever so slightly. So fusion slows down. So then the sun contracts again because everything cools down.

[A]

So it's like breathing.

[B]

It's, it's literally self regulating.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's just, it's expanding. It's been doing this every, for 4 billion years, keeping itself in perfect balance, making the light just perfect for us. Pretty wild. However, so it's doing this all the time. But then within that kind of like breathing kind of thing, every 11 years it's on, it's on a, it's been on a cycle like this forever. Every 11 years it has solar flares cycle. So we're, we're in a period of high solar flare flares right now. So every, like we said, that's from just electromagnetic fields just twisting, twisting, twisting and snap and they go and shoot out. So it's like you have there, it's always solar flaring, but every 11 years it's like high solar flares. And then every 11 years, next 11 years like low solar flares.

[A]

Okay, so we're in high times right now.

[B]

We're in high, we're in high solar.

[A]

Is it supposed to longer, is that supposed to last the high times?

[B]

Like I don't know which where we're at in it, but okay, you know we're probably just say we're in the middle, we got like five more years. And apparently the flares do have. I should have researched this. I did not. But they do have like a measurable effect on like people's like thinking and stuff like that. So they can like, they can get you. It might be why we're all a little crazy right now. We're in heavy, we're in heavy solar flare. Hopefully you know we're on time for. I've said it before, I think 20, 30 onwards going to be chill as my prediction. Now if I check solar flares right now and it lines up with that. I'm just going to run with that. So yeah, that's another mystery. It's like okay, the sun is a self regulating, it has like rhythms and stuff that it does. And also like we said obviously it's held a perfect balance for 4.6 billion years with like really no room to mess up. Like, if it, if it got, like, just a few degrees cooler or hotter, I mean, life on Earth is toast. So it's like, it doesn't have a huge window of error. If the sun goes off just a little bit, we're.

[A]

We're cooked.

[B]

So brings me to my next question. Is this unconscious?

[A]

I was for real. I was sitting here whole, and then I was sitting here holding in, saying something about that, because I was literally. I have that thought sometimes. Whether or not, like, planets and like, in the solar system is a higher form of life that we just don't understand yet.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I mean, if life is. Exists on Earth and grows out of Earth, what the is Earth?

[B]

That's what I'm saying. What's the sun? Dude, I don't know, dude. Here. My thing is that. So if you, if you're, if your brain produces consciousness, your brain is just a bunch of, like, electrical sparks flying around in, like, water and tissue. Why can't the sun. Dude, you have electromagnetic fields, you have water, you have heat. I mean, the sun doesn't have water, but you know what I'm saying, There's, there's like, water on the planets. You have heat, you have electromagnetic fields. I mean, dude, why not? Dude, I don't know. I don't know. So the, the people, there's people that say that consciousness, this is like the idealists or like panpsychics. They say that consciousness is like a field, just like gravity or electromagnetism. It's just present, and then we just, you know, pick up on it. Just like gravity crushes us. There's like a field for consciousness. You have the right stuff, you tap into the field. I could be the sun. The sun could be conscious. I don't know. However, I think regardless of how you feel about it, something like a religious reverence is due for the sun. After I learned about it, I was like, we need to go back to sun gods, dude, or at least just look at it and get stoked. I, I, ever since I look at it, like, dude, I got into just how, like, the sun puts out these, like, whatever it is, radiation. And our eyes are designed to actually see radiation. Like, if, if our eyes weren't designed, we couldn't pick up on light. Basically, we have, like, light sensors in our eyes. And I just, like, I was here typing and I was like, wait, so do we see light? Or does light let us see? And I was just like, getting all wrapped up on if we even see light in the first place. And I Had I took a knee by my computer, I was like, dude, just chill. Go outside. Dude, it's up.

[A]

There's a. It's a dumb. This is dumb as. But it's a cart. In the show Invincible, there's a whole scene where they go into this room and you can't see anything because of. Because. Because they're exactly what you're talking about. They. It's like a certain. They have a certain kind of light on in the room that our eyes aren't made really to be able to pick up on.

[B]

Fuck.

[A]

And then they had. They, like, they like, give him a needle that injects. In the show, they give him a needle that injects something that makes his eyes be able to see this new type of light. It's kind of what you're saying.

[B]

No, exactly. Well, there's also a. There's also a ton of. Yeah, like. Like infrared wavelengths that we can't see. Yeah. So there could be, like, going on that we. We just. We'll never be able to see it. And it was bugging me out, dude. But here's the thing, too. It's like, you know, people. People back in the day would look up at the sun. This is. This is, you know, the rest of the solar system. Look at the sun and all the planets and just be like, dude, these are gods. They like, really truly thought. They're like, oh, they'd be like, just kicking around the morning and they just see like, Venus and be like, oh, there's the horny God. Yeah, there's my babe. There's my baby.

[A]

Horny guys in the sky.

[B]

So even the. The term. So we're going to get into kind of the. Try to get into the. Somewhat into the etymology of the planets. So the term sun, they. They, you know, there's like, stuff went back and forth being like, yeah, actually the sun in the English language has no connection to the gods. Like, you know, Mercury, Venus, all those are, like, easily traceable. So they're claiming the sun has no connection in the English language to the gods. But then I, you know, I started doing a little digging and it actually, it does actually. So it's like. So this. The term sun in English can be traced back through the proto Indo European language family to a relation with the Norse deity Soul, which is actually Latin for the. So that did have a sun God in Rome, actually became the official God of, like, some of the late Roman empires. It was like the. It was called the Undefeated sun. Yeah, it was a minor God in the Roman Pantheon. And during the fall of Rome, some people were like we call sun God is our God because actually Julius Caesar called Venus the horny God to be. He claimed to be descended from the horny God, which is pretty sick. And everyone had to be like, yeah dude, for sure you're the horniest guy.

[A]

So the.

[B]

The actual term sun in English, it can be traced back to the Norse deity Soul, also called. Also called Sula. Soul back then was a goddess, literally the sun itself, which would race across the sky being chased by a hungry wolf. Near the hungry wolf's name Skull. Skull. And a racing the hungry wolf was trying to eat the sun, which is why they thought the sun went across. And at Ragnarok, the apocalypse skull would catch and eat Soul. And during eclipses, it was thought that Skull got himself a little bite of her. But the chase continued. And actually Sunday, believe it or not, is actually named after this ancient sun babe. Huh? So pretty sick. Pretty sick. So that you know my friends and haters is the deal with the sun. And it would be crazy. I almost skipped over the sun. I almost skipped over the sun. But oh man, just think all the nuclear fusion going on in there. The perfect balance of light being trapped, honed to perfection, released. It's. I. I just thought it was sick.

[A]

Hits us. It feels good when it hits.

[B]

Feels awesome. It powers your body, dude. If you don't get enough sun, you don't produce tests. That's why I do ride my blanket tank top all the time. So from the sun now we move on to Mercury. And you know, Mercury is the actually should. We'll slide to the Patreon. Let's slide to the page. Yeah, let's slide to the page. We're at an hour. Oh yeah, we're good. Guys, thank you for joining me for the series into the the planets. But we have to slide to the Patreon. We have be a place as a baby that probably promise you I wasn't planned. I just goddamn. That was. You know. What the hell? I've been doing this for a while. Exactly an hour on the sun. Who would have thought? Nate. Thank you, Sean.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

We're sliding the Patreon. We're going to do Mercury and Venus. If you don't want to join, don't join.

[A]

Whatever.

[B]

I don't care. Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's secret podcast on Spotify. Do it.