Cosmic Queries – Astro-lore with Moiya McTier

Summary

StarTalk Radio: Cosmic Queries – Astro-lore with Moiya McTeer

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guest: Moiya McTeer (Astrophysicist, Folklorist, Science Communicator)
Co-Host: Matt Kirshen
Date: July 3, 2026

Overview:

In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson explores the deep interconnections between astrophysics and folklore with guest Moiya McTeer, a Harvard-trained astrophysicist and folklorist. The conversation navigates how humanity’s interpretations of the cosmos have influenced stories, myths, and even modern science communication, blending science, history, humor, and personal anecdotes. The episode also features a series of "Cosmic Queries" from listeners, spanning topics from constellation naming to dark matter, ghosts, and the mapping of the Milky Way.

---

Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Moiya McTeer: Astrophysics Meets Folklore

• Background and Unique Academic Path:
  • Moiya describes how she double-majored in astrophysics and folklore at Harvard, negotiating for this rare combination ([06:06]).
  • Her undergraduate thesis was a science fiction novel set on a real exoplanet, intertwined with themes from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement ([07:11]).
  • “I got to go to Hawaii. I talked to the protectors, the people demonstrating on Mauna Kea when the Thirty Meter Telescope conflict was happening… I like talking to people. I like hearing their sides of things.” – Moiya McTeer ([07:43]).
• Books and Podcasts:
  • Podcast: Exo Lore – fictional worldbuilding rooted in real science.
  • Podcast: Pale Blue Pod – makes astronomy cozy and approachable ([04:04]–[05:01]).
  • Book: The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy— the galaxy narrates its own life story, with sassy, egotistical humor ([09:17], [11:43]).

2. The Role of Folklore in Science Communication

• Cultural Connection & Accessibility:
  • Moiya emphasizes using folklore to personalize science and build cultural bridges:
    • “People will feel better about learning science if they can connect to it personally… if you can learn about science and tuck it into what you’ve already heard from your people, then it makes it a lot more familiar.” ([12:14]).
  • Neil discusses Indigenous astronomy and Aboriginal sky lore in planetariums ([13:07], [13:24]).

3. Folkloric Interpretations of the Night Sky

• Constellation Naming and Evolution:
  • Q: Why don’t we update constellations to modern symbols or names?
    • Moiya: The official 88 constellations, established by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), serve as sky “regions,” while “asterisms” are the informal connect-the-dot shapes, fully open to reinterpretation ([21:40]).
    • “Every new telling of a story, every new presentation of this folkloric knowledge is just as valid as what came before. It’s not that you’re changing, you’re evolving it.” – Moiya McTeer ([26:40]).
  • Neil tells of the Hayden Planetarium's choice to depict Gemini as two adult men, aligning with the original Greek myth rather than the Eurocentric baby imagery:
    • “I’m drawing two full grown men who are gonna be really close to each other on the sky… in the Hayden Planetarium, our Gemini constellation are two full grown men, like with overlapping shoulders, arms around each other.” ([25:34]).
• Culture-Specific Myths:
  • Orion: Different cultures assign different stories to Orion’s stars (e.g., three brothers fishing in South America), not necessarily a hunter ([28:02]).
  • The Pleiades: Universally seen as “Seven Sisters,” often with feminine attributes, Orion sometimes depicted as hunting them ([28:57]).
  • Southern Hemisphere: Upside-down or differently interpreted constellations ([30:32]).

4. Cosmic Queries – Listener Q&A

Selected questions with timestamps and responses

a) Should Constellations Be Renamed for Modern Times?

• [21:05]
  • Suggestion to rename constellations to relevant modern icons.
  • Moiya explains the rigid IAU framework for constellations, the difference between constellations/asterisms, and the profound cultural “traction” of ancient names.

b) Are Stars in a Constellation Actually Near Each Other in Space?

• [32:00]
  • Moiya: Constellations are mostly 2D projections; stars can be vastly separated in space.
  • Exception: True open clusters like the Pleiades ([33:16]).

c) Mapping the Milky Way from Within

• [42:42]
  • How do we know the Milky Way’s shape from inside it?
  • Moiya addresses historical and contemporary techniques, from the Herschels’ early (and flawed) maps to modern telescopes and data from observing other galaxies.
    • “It’s pretty hard to take a picture of a house when you’re inside it… but we have models and telescopes that can see through the dust.” ([43:52]).
    • Neil’s analogy: “Is it as hard as an unborn child figuring out what its mother looks like?” ([45:46]).

d) Is Dark Matter Stuff Escaping Black Holes?

• [33:43], [39:37]
  • Moiya: Unlikely; current leading hypotheses do not support this idea.

e) What Are White Holes?

• [41:19]
  • Neil explains: the mathematical opposite of black holes; theoretical constructs, not observationally confirmed.

f) Modern Astrology as Folklore?

• [47:02]
  • Moiya: Yes, modern astrology is part of folklore—“we are creating folklore and mythology in the modern day.”
  • Ancient astrology was practical (crops, floods, etc.), later evolving into more symbolic/divine interpretation.
    • “I think a lot of people use it as a way to feel connected to the universe larger than ourselves.” ([48:03]).

g) What About Ghosts?

• [53:58]
  • Moiya: Science doesn’t definitively disprove ghosts.
    • “I would love a world where ghosts and magic and these other folklore things exist. That’s why I study them. I like to inhabit that world. Science can’t explain most of that yet, so maybe one day there will be a textbook that says definitively whether or not ghosts exist because of physics. But until I read that, science is real. And also ghosts could happen.” ([54:59]).

h) The Intertwining of Science and Folklore

• [56:30]
  • Moiya’s central philosophy: “Science and folklore are two sides of the same coin… Ancient humans were observing the world around them and coming up with explanations that fit into their worldview… there’s still value in the stories and the observations that people made.”

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Folklore as Science Communication:

  • “I know that people will feel better about learning science if they can connect to it personally… The cultural connection is a great way to make it feel more personal.” – Moiya McTeer ([12:14])

• On Modernizing Storytelling:

  • “Every new telling of a story, every new presentation, is just as valid as what came before… You're evolving it.” – Moiya McTeer ([26:40])

• On Constellation Art and Inclusivity:

  • “In the Hayden Planetarium, our Gemini constellation are two full grown men, like with overlapping shoulders, arms around each other.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson ([25:34])

• On Ancient Perspectives:

  • “Back then, ancient humans were observing the world around them and coming up with explanations that fit into their worldview.” – Moiya McTeer ([56:43])

• On Ghosts and Science:

  • “I’ve never learned anything in any of my science classes that told me ghosts couldn’t exist.” – Moiya McTeer ([54:36])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:31 – Show begins: Neil, Matt, and welcoming Moiya
• 03:27 – Moiya’s background (astrophysics + folklore double major)
• 04:04 – Moiya’s podcasts: Exo Lore and Pale Blue Pod
• 09:09 – Book: The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy
• 12:14 – Importance of folklore for science communication
• 13:24 – Indigenous sky stories & "Dark Emu"
• 21:05 – Query: Should constellations be renamed in modern times?
• 25:34 – Gemini constellation: the Hayden Planetarium’s unique depiction
• 28:02 – Orion & Pleiades: multicultural star stories
• 32:00 – Are stars in a constellation related in space?
• 39:37 – Query: Is dark matter stuff escaping black holes?
• 42:42 – How do we map the Milky Way?
• 47:02 – Is astrology modern folklore?
• 53:58 – Could ghosts be explained by physics?
• 56:30 – Moiya’s view: Science and folklore as twin tools for understanding

---

Tone & Style

The episode maintains the playful, inquisitive, and inclusive tone characteristic of StarTalk Radio, blending incisive scientific insights with humor and cultural perspective. Moiya’s warmth and enthusiasm infuse the discussion with accessibility and a sense of wonder, while Neil’s analogies and Matt’s comic asides provide humor and relatability.

---

Conclusion

This episode stands out as a lively, thought-provoking exploration of the connections between humanity’s stories of the stars and the cutting-edge science exploring those very same objects. The blending of astrophysics with the folklore lens offers listeners new tools to connect with and understand both the universe—and our place within it.

Transcript

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hey, Start talkians Neil here. You're about to listen to an episode specially drawn from our archives to serve your cosmic curiosities. The archives run deep. If you enjoy this, take a peek at the full catalog on your favorite podcast platform. There's a lot there to tickle your geek underbelly. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition, ever popular with all of our audiences. And I got with me my co host today, Matt Kirschen. Matt, welcome back to StarTalk.

[Matt Kirschen]

Thanks Neil, it's good to see you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So Matt, you're a host, probably science. I was a one time guest on there.

[Matt Kirschen]

Absolutely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Call me, I'm waiting for you.

[Matt Kirschen]

I will, yeah, I'd love you to come back. Still one of our most popular episodes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so today our topic is like folklore in astrophysics. It's like and how do they relate and who connects a line between modern or even ancient astrophysics and cultures and folklore. This is like there aren't many people who do this and when you think about it, you know, the sky was really accessible to everyone at all times. Forever, right? I mean, unless it was cloudy. But caves, cave dwellers saw the night sky. So of all the sciences, modern astronomy and of course, astrophysics would have connections that maybe other sciences don't. So if anyone is going to tackle this, it's going to be on StarTalk. And we have an expert in this in the name of Moya McTeer. Moya. Welcome to StarTalk.

[Moya McTeer]

Hi, Neil. Thanks for having me. This is a goal of mine. It has been for a long time. I'm happy. Oh, my gosh, I'm really happy to be here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thank you. So you're an astrophysicist, a folklorist, and a communicator. I love that, that that can be a title today because it's so necessary to move information and knowledge and wisdom from one place to another. That requires communicators. And so you have your own podcast, right? What's it?

[Moya McTeer]

Podcasts. So I'm busy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Excuse me. Excuse me. Okay, podcasts, tell me their names.

[Moya McTeer]

So the one that is my favorite, Brain Baby, probably just because it's oldest, is called Exo Lore. It's a portmanteau, actually, of exoplanets and folklore, because the whole shtick of the show is building fictional worlds based on facts and science. Usually that means I start with some astronomical difference, like, what if this planet didn't orbit a star? And we know that those types of planets exist. They're called rogue planets. There are probably tens of thousands of them out there. Or what if a planet had two suns? Or what if it got hit with asteroids all the time? And then we just imagine the consequences of that difference. My other podcast is more straightforward, more obviously about science. And it's called Pale Blue Pod. It's actually quite new. It just launched in November, and it's a show for people who are in

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

November 2022 of 2022.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah. So it's a little baby. And it is a show for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but still want to be its friend. And I have taken some notes on your show and the way that you do things. I have a comedian co host. Her name is Corinne Caputo. She's very funny, very smart. But the whole vibe of the show is extremely cozy. We want to make space feel very warm and familiar for people.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, so the microphones are close and say, welcome to Pale Blue Pod.

[Moya McTeer]

We get very ASMR about it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Kirschen]

So both of you just then, like, there are some listeners who got properly tingly Right then. And you're welcome.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is the universe.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love it. I love it. So tell us about your. This strand, this thread that. Multiple threads that you've woven to connect astrophysics, which was one half of your major in college, to folklore.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah. Let me, let me tell you a bit about how I came to major in both of those things. Because you, you might know this, Neil, having gone to Harvard yourself, but you. There's a pre approved list of double majors at Harvard and they're, they're normal things like government and econ or psychology and computer science, surprisingly, astrophysics and folklore, mythology not on that list of stuff that Harvard administrators thought people would want to study together. So I actually had to do some negotiating and go to the heads of both departments, which are very small. They're two of the smallest departments at Harvard. And I said, you can't afford to lose bodies. Let me study both of you. And then everyone wins. So they did. They did let me study both of them, but only after I gave a list of potential thesis topics that I could write. Because when you do a double major at Harvard, you have to write a thesis that sits at the intersection of your two fields. What I ended up doing was writing a science fiction novel that was set on a real exoplanet that I studied. I characterized it with data from Kepler and I.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Kepler mission to find exoplanets, right?

[Moya McTeer]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So we had a very good data set there.

[Moya McTeer]

Well, it was K2, so the data was a bit noisier than from the Kepler primary mission. But the plot of the novel was kind of an allegory or like a parallel to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. I got to go to Hawaii. I talked to the protectors, the people demonstrating on Mauna Kea when the thirty Meter Telescope conflict was happening. And that was a really fun project, but it's taken me many years to figure out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, you were in the middle of total cultural turbulence and it was a fun project for you?

[Moya McTeer]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Moya McTeer]

I like talking to people. I like hearing their sides of things.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Just to catch some people up on that. So the largest. The plans to build the largest telescope in the world in the best observing site of the world, which is in the big island of Hawaii, met resistance from indigenous communities who viewed the mountain as sacred in a way that would. Should not allow this kind of construction. And so it was very. It's fascinating cultural political confrontations that unfolded and you just drop yourself in the middle of it. Damn. So, so, so you wrote a. You wrote A novel. Interesting. As. As in. In. As a. In play in place of. But that was your thesis.

[Moya McTeer]

It was my thesis, yeah. I had the creative part, and then I also had an appendix with all of my research notes, and that's a brilliant way to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

To stitch those two together.

[Moya McTeer]

Thank you so much.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Great. But you have. Was that published?

[Moya McTeer]

No, I. It's. It's in a Google Drive somewhere up on my website that people.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Nobody's got to make a movie out of that.

[Moya McTeer]

I mean, I'd be so Hollywood. If anyone wants to approach me for TV or movie rights to lion hordes, please, please let me know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes, definitely. We'll make that happen.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you have another book?

[Moya McTeer]

I do, yeah. This book, my most out of control. You know what, Neil? I like to stay busy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. All right, go on.

[Moya McTeer]

This latest book is called the Milky Way An Autobiography of our Galaxy. Please pay close attention to that word, autobiography, because this entire book is written from the point of view of our Milky Way galaxy. It tells its story from its birth to what might happen when the universe ends up. It talks about its life, its adolescence, and how it feels to make stars. It talks about the galactic neighbors that it has. Most of it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait a minute. How about the collision with Andromeda? What does that feel like? Ooh, tell me.

[Moya McTeer]

So in the book, did you like. Hasn't happened yet. So the Milky Way is going.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, it's only in an autobiography. Up to today.

[Moya McTeer]

Up to today, yeah.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Oh.

[Moya McTeer]

And so the Milky Way looks forward to it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How about to merge with Andromeda? How's it feel about that?

[Moya McTeer]

Oh, it is quite excited. So in the. I frame galactic mergers as, like, romance almost, or, you know, like interpersonal relationships. And so there are minor mergers and major mergers. Minor mergers happen between galaxies where one is much more massive than the other. And so I think of things.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait, wait. So we, those who study this, call that galactic cannibalism when a big galaxy eats a little one. But you're calling them romances. That's such a different take on this situation.

[Moya McTeer]

You know what, Neil? Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive? Like, sometimes the galaxies are eating each other, and at the same time, it's romantic. So, like, whatever.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, all right.

[Matt Kirschen]

That's happens in the insects world sometimes. Sometimes the female eats the male afterwards. You know, it's like, yeah.

[Moya McTeer]

Why? Galaxies are just praying mantises. The merger, the eventual merger between Andromeda and the Milky Way will be a major merger because their masses are much more similar, and that's more Like a marriage. So for billions of years, the Milky Way and Andromeda have had this long term courtship. They've been sending love notes back and forth to each other in the form of hypervelocity stars where they encode their messages into the spectra of the stars. And it's very nerdy and very cute.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow. Wow. Okay, so this just came out in 2021, is that correct?

[Moya McTeer]

2022. Just a few months ago in August.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, oh, this came out. Oh, mid-2022. Just. Just to emerge from COVID Very nice. Okay, so we'll look for that. Damn. Damn.

[Moya McTeer]

It's a good story. It's very sassy. I. I feel like I should prime people. The Milky Way has a healthy ego. And some might say it's a little condescending to us humans, but like, who? Who wouldn't be? Look at us, we're so tiny.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Every alien would be condescending.

[Moya McTeer]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Clearly the case. Yeah, clearly. And one last question. So we got your astrophysics, we got your folklore, and what about your science communication, science education part? What. What do you think is missing that you can bring to it?

[Moya McTeer]

Ooh, I think the folklore connections that I can help people make are really important because I know that people will feel better about learning science if they can connect to it personally. And one of the strongest.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Personal connection.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, Culturally or personally. I was getting there. Like, the cultural connection is a great way to make it feel more personal. People might grow up hearing stories and legends and myths from their grandparents, from their elders. And if you can learn about science and tuck it into what you've already heard from your people, then it makes it a lot more familiar.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Got it, Got it. So that's a gap that needs filling. Very good.

[Moya McTeer]

I think so. Yeah. And I'm not a comedian like Matt, but I think that sometimes I can make people laugh. And so I try to bring that into my scicom too.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There's been some movement within planetariums to do that, especially in planetariums that have access to indigenous communities in the southwest. In Australia. If you go to Australian planetariums, there's a aboriginal storytelling that's often folded in to the show.

[Moya McTeer]

And they have such beautiful stories. I mean, they have cave paintings and cultural evidence and oral storytelling that talks about astronomy going back like 60,000 years.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In fact, there's.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah. Old knowledge base.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There's a book called Dark Emu. Do you know about that?

[Moya McTeer]

Oh, I haven't heard about the book, but I do know about the emu constellation.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah, the emu.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The dark Emu. So Matt obviously know about this, the sky. The Western cultures typically describe what they see based on the existence of a star and a pattern or sources of light. But if you look at the dark lanes within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, across the sky, there's a stretch of darkness that looks like an emu. So it's the absence of light.

[Matt Kirschen]

Oh, they go by the negative. The shape of the negative space rather

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

than the shape of the shape of the negative space.

[Moya McTeer]

Both, but. But yeah, that particular constellation is, as

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

a design person would say, yeah, negative space. Well, also just thing up there, the

[Matt Kirschen]

look of the stars, because, you know, like you say, it was the thing that was accessible always, but more accessible then than it was now because I grew up in London. We were talking about this just before the show. And you both live in New York now, and if you look up, you don't see much in the way of stars on account of all the light. But the first few times that I.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's why we have a planetarium.

[Matt Kirschen]

Exactly. First, yeah, you have to build. You have to artificially build it in a building inside the city. But the first few times I've been somewhere like, you know, I've been to like a mountainous place or a desert, so someone that's really in the middle of nowhere and then suddenly looked up on a clear night and just gone. Oh, now I get why they were always writing poems and, and songs and like this is suddenly this blanket of stars that looks true. Because when I, when I grow up, it's like, oh, yeah, there's a star, there's another star, there's another star. And then you go somewhere that's properly remote, like it would have been everywhere thousands of years ago.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You're not assaulted by the sky.

[Matt Kirschen]

Yeah, it is. It's absurd. It's this, this thing that appears after nightfall is ridiculous.

[Moya McTeer]

And it's. I think the number, the last number I saw was that 80% of the sky is affected by light and air pollution now. So 80% of people around the world are not seeing the same sky that our ancestors saw. And that, that makes me really sad because I think that makes people lose a big point of connection that we could have with the universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A cosmic connection. Well, this is supposed to be cosmic queries. And so. But I delighted in learning everything about you there, Moya, so that when the questions come in, I mean, people were cued that you were going to be our guest and with that expertise. So, Matt, load up the questions and we're a quick break and when we come back, we're going to dive right in to Moya McTeer's expertise, astrophysics and folklore. When start talk with her,

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[Moya McTeer]

Hello, I'm Vicky Brooke Allen and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're back. StarTalk, Cosmic Query. We're talking about astrophysics and folklore with Moya McTeer who studied both in college and professionally. And she is now a freelance podcaster and communicator, author of a book, the Milky Way An Autobiography of Our Galaxy written by the Milky Way itself. Because, Matt, she's the Milky Way whisperer. Right.

[Matt Kirschen]

I love the idea that Moya knows

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

what the Milky Way feels.

[Matt Kirschen]

I do, actually.

[Moya McTeer]

If you look at the title Pa, it doesn't say by Moya McTeer, it just says via. I merely channeled the Milky Way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's right, you were just channeling it. Perfect.

[Matt Kirschen]

The Milky Way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's great when publishers can go along with that.

[Matt Kirschen]

With that, the book written by the Milky Way with its galaxy sized brain and it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go, There you go. So let's bring we're cosmic queries, Matt from our Patreon support.

[Matt Kirschen]

Yeah, the questions are, this is again because of the subject matter. The questions are all over the place. There's some straight astronomy questions and there's some folkloric questions. I'm going to start with this one because it ties into what we were talking about just before the end of the first segment. Stephen Murphy from Atlanta says constellations have always been a good way to identify where stars are, but they are hard to remember and teach in the modern world where few know Latin and mythology. Can Ursa Major just be the Big Bear? Would you make the Archer Hawkeye instead of Sagittarius? It would take some getting used to, but so did Pluto not being a planet.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, I love it. I love it. So, so, so Moya, I'm going to rephrase that question to ask you. Why don't we just update all the constellations to, to modern mythologies or modern things we care about?

[Moya McTeer]

That's a great question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Have like the, there's some, I've checked this because I like ice cream. There's some that looks like an ice cream cone. And so we have Conus Major and Conus Minor, for example. Or have like the smartphone for any rectangle that's up there. So what do you say about. Why are we so anchored to what people were thinking 2,000 years ago? Why don't make it relevant to today?

[Moya McTeer]

Oh God, there's so much here. So first of all, if you want to start renaming the constellations, you have to take it up with the iau, the International Astronomical Union. They are this organization that's in charge of naming stuff officially in space. And they have designated 88 official constellations in the sky. And I emphasized official there because there's a difference between constellations and asterisms. To a modern astrophysicist, a constellation is the region of the sky, like the physical area that we have broken up the sky into. And there are 88 of those. Asterisms are the shapes that you can make by connecting dots between the stars. And there are an infinite number of those. So you can choose to rename your constellations. You can choose to focus on conus, major or minor. You can make an iPhone constellation. You can just draw connections.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

No, no, no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Samsung would totally. Samsung would get into that because they make the Samsung Galaxy.

[Moya McTeer]

Galaxy. Yeah, they would love that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's like a total sponsoring opportunity for a new constellation drive. But go on.

[Moya McTeer]

But I mean, you can make up your own constellations. I think that that would be a really cute, like, date idea or just like something to go out stargazing and come up with new names and new constellations and new stories to go along with them. But the constellations that we do have, the asterisms that we mostly talk about today, come to us from Greek mythology. And so they have these 2,000 years worth of traction, like they have dug themselves into our cultural memory. And before that, they came from Babylonians, like the Crab and the bull constellations, both just pulled right from Babylonian.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That would be Cancer in Taurus.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, yeah. So even the Greeks were using more ancient constellations and asterisms than what they were making up. So I think we're just following in the grand tradition of using the names that have come before us. Because it would be really difficult if everyone actually did come up with their own names. You wouldn't be able to talk about it across the country.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You wouldn't have the shared culture.

[Moya McTeer]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

About that.

[Moya McTeer]

Interesting, because a lot of them are. You know, the ancient Greeks called constellations katastorismoi, which meant placed by the gods. They believed that a lot of these constellations were messages intentionally put into the sky by their deities to teach us whatever we needed to know. Like the story of Orion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Human ego just knows no bounds.

[Moya McTeer]

I know. Well, I mean, life was rough two and 3,000 years ago. I imagine it was pretty comforting to know that if you lived, I don't know, a heroic or at least a notable enough life, that maybe the gods would put you, immortalize you by putting you into the sky as a constellation. That's what happened to Orion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I have a fast constellation story that hardly anyone knows. It's not that it's secret, it's just hardly anyone knows it. When we rebuilt the Rose center for Earth and Space and we got our new projector from Zeiss and they were going to have the constellations built in that you can turn on and off whenever you're showing the night sky, we use that in addition to our digital projector that takes us anywhere in the universe. Point is, we create the 88 constellations. We hired an artist to give a modern sensibility to the illustrations. Yes, it's still Hercules and it's still Orion, but it has. He has a modern hand as he draws it. Right. It's not these, these renaissance curly constellations that you might see in old maps. Anyhow. Do you know that Gemini in almost every constellation illustration are shown as two infants?

[Moya McTeer]

Okay, okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Two babies. They're twins. Okay. However, in Greek mythology, they were like adults. Okay. They were like full grown people. But the reason why they were always drawn as babies is because the stars, for you to fully flesh out a human being, they have to be very close to each other. And the only way you could really pull that off is by drawing babies. But the illustrator was gay and he said, I'm drawing two full grown men who are gonna be really close to each other on the sky. So. So in the Hayden Planetarium, our Gemini constellation are two full grown men, like with overlapping shoulders, arms around each other.

[Moya McTeer]

I love that so much.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm so this was his little, you know, he didn't twist history. He made it real and just said, let's try to put a little wokeness into the night sky. And so that's in the Hayden Planetarium's star theater.

[Moya McTeer]

I love that. That's amazing. And one of the things we learn in folklore is that every new telling of a story, every new presentation of this folkloric knowledge is just as valid as what came before. It's not that you're changing, you're just. You're evolving it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You're accreting. Accreting new, new insights. Yeah. Okay, so let's. So next one. Matt, I love these.

[Matt Kirschen]

All right, well, since you mentioned Orion, Fx Flynn says Moya, I was struck last time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

From where? Do we know where they're from?

[Matt Kirschen]

I don't know where FX is from, but says Moya, I was struck last week by the magnificent sight of Mars atop Orion as it laid you south. Oh, here we go. It is Actually mentioned in the thing as it loot. As it laid you south of my location in Vermont, so not too far, just up the road from you during the wee hours of the morning. God of war above the hunter. I immediately wondered if this combination featured in any of the Inca histories we've collected. You know, William Sullivan's Secret of the Incas Myth, Astronomy and the War against Time. Here's hoping this particular combination is only remembered for its dramatic combination of bright red, orange and bluish white points of light and nothing else.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow, I love that. So. So the question, I think Moya would be, was Orion a hunter in other cultures? Or because. And is Mars the God of war in other cultures?

[Moya McTeer]

That's a great question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Juxtaposed on the sky, you know, that could mean war.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, yeah, the God of war over the hunter in a lot of cultures. Remember, not all cultures are going to place the stars that we associate with Orion into the same constellation. So I know that there are cultures in South America where the three stars of Orion's belt are like three brothers fishing in a canoe together and have nothing to do with. Yeah, with Orion, the hunt. I mean, they're still hunting, but it's different, I guess.

[Matt Kirschen]

So I love. Sorry, side note, but I just. I love that in every culture still, wherever they are growing up on completely different sides of the world independently, they've still thought to just look at the stars and go and draw pictures between them. Draw, yeah. Go like, what are they? What happens? Do they make.

[Moya McTeer]

I mean, it was the main source of entertainment that we've had.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They didn't have Age of years. Right. They didn't have, you know, streaming services.

[Matt Kirschen]

It's the same as looking at clouds. But the clouds, these clouds don't move. These clouds stay the same every night.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct?

[Moya McTeer]

They do move. I mean, they would look at the differences between the fixed and the moving stars, actually. So the stars in Orion, those would be fixed because they're moving with each other as a whole. And it does really look like the sky is spinning around the Earth. But then there are wandering stars, which is where our word planet comes from. Because the planets and the moon and the sun were these points of light that appeared to move relative to all of the stuff in the background. Like Mars would have been a wandering star. So, no, not every culture saw Orion as a hunter, although many of them did. If they could see the Pleiades. That's an interesting thing. Cause so many cultures around the world saw the Pleiades, this little cluster of seven stars, as like Seven sisters or seven, I don't know, swans. Like, they associated them with very feminine qualities. And because Orion is pointing towards the Pleiades, a lot of them also said that Orion was hunting those sisters. You have to think about the fact that not everyone in the world is going to see constellations the same way. Depending on where you are, you might not be able to see constellations, but.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Or if you're on drugs, they'll see them differently. Not everybody sees drugs. Can't force. Certain. I am certain that the Greeks were on something for half the constellations that they did.

[Moya McTeer]

Oh, my God. They must have been.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They must have been people back then,

[Moya McTeer]

I'm sure, were doing so many drugs. That's my headcanon for the ancient world.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Here's a question for you. Pegasus, a very northern constellation for us to make a horse out of. It is actually upside down. So we knowingly made an upside down constellation. I'm just wondering, in the Southern hemisphere, did they. What did. How do they.

[Moya McTeer]

They have flipped.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Cause some are upside down. Right. So do they think of upside down constellations or is everything right side up to them?

[Moya McTeer]

I don't know that for. For specific Southern cultures, but, I mean, upside down is just a matter of reference. I. I can't imagine many cultures in the past would have intentionally assigned a constellation to be upside down unless they had traveled to another hemisphere, identified it as the same group of stars but in a different orientation, and then went back and was like, whoa. They see this differently, right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because Pegasus does. Look, it's got some stars that resemble a horse's head. It's got that angle and the arc, but it is completely upside down. And Pegasus, the constellation zone, has only room for half the horse. So it's an upside down flying half a horse, and somebody had to think that up. I'm just saying.

[Moya McTeer]

At least it's the front half that's the better half of the Pegasus.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, if it was the horse's ass, that's a whole other.

[Matt Kirschen]

Can I ask you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a different mythology right there.

[Moya McTeer]

Totally different.

[Matt Kirschen]

Can I ask you a quick question? This is a question that comes from Matt Kirschen from Los Angeles, California.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Oh, wait.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Are you a Patreon member? Is Matt Kirschen a Patreon member? I would check the files right now,

[Moya McTeer]

have your rights revoked.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'll give you a hall pass.

[Matt Kirschen]

I just wanted to. I, I. Am I right in thinking constellations? The. The stars are not necessarily anywhere near each other, or are they?

[Moya McTeer]

Yes.

[Matt Kirschen]

Okay, so they. They.

[Moya McTeer]

Short answer.

[Matt Kirschen]

Yes, they so there is sort of, there isn't a sort of astrophysics relevance to constellations other than helping to know where things are. Like, because the two stars could be in completely different clusters. Could be.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a, that's a great question.

[Matt Kirschen]

Huge differences.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I, I think Moir, that would be a, a naive. If you just approach this whole subject naively, you would say this is a constellation. It must be something scientifically relevant about this area of the sky.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right?

[Matt Kirschen]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If you, why wouldn't anyone think that?

[Moya McTeer]

If you don't spend a lot of time thinking about the three dimensional nature of space, it is really easy to assume that this, this tableau of pictures we see in our night sky is made up of stars that are all physically clustered together. But there is that third dimension of distance that we have to think about. So the stars might look close to each other in 2D, but they might be very distant from each other in that third dimension.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Except for the Pleiades, which you mentioned, which is a cluster. That's an actual.

[Moya McTeer]

That's a cluster. Yeah, that's true. I did a research project in grad school on identifying moving groups of stars by their chemistry, and we looked at the Pleiades cluster.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. So in rare cases they are related, but that's not. Those are the exceptions, right?

[Moya McTeer]

Yes. Most of the time they are separate.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that question was from Matt Kirschen of Los Angeles.

[Matt Kirschen]

Yeah, and I'm sure Matt's very grateful for that answer. I'm going to quickly squeeze in this quick question because you did mention the ancients being on, on substances and Gina Martin from North Carolina just hit said, I just hit my THC pen, so bear with me. But Gina wants to know about dark matter and wonders if dark matter could actually be the matter that escapes from black holes. The question then goes on for a little bit, but I'm just going to cut it short to there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, let's hold that for the break. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, segment three of astrophysics and folklore on StarTalk with our expert Moya Matir. When we come back,

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're back. Star calling cosmic queries. Rory McTeer knocking it out with what we're trying to find out how people think about the night sky and what the relevance of that is to science and culture. With Matt Kirschen and Moya, where do we find you on social media?

[Moya McTeer]

I've made it easy for you because I know my name isn't that easy to spell. I'm Goastro Moe on everything.

[Matt Kirschen]

Love it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Go Astro Mo.

[Moya McTeer]

Yes. I picked it in 2014 and I felt weird about it then, but now I kind of love it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, it's your moniker. So Moya M O I Y A and McTeer is what it sounds like, but go Astro Moe. I love it. I love it. So let's keep this up. Oh, one thing I wanted to add to that previous segment when the questioner commented on Orion and Mars, what was implicit there is that the star Betelgeuse, which is Orion's upper shoulder, is a red giant star. So you have the red hue of that star near the red hue of Mars. And so I think that's contributed to the thrust of that question because there's a lot of action, red action over in that part of the sky.

[Moya McTeer]

And we all know that red means angry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Blood.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Moya McTeer]

Red is blood in the sky. Then the gods are angry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. Exactly. All right, Matt, keep em coming.

[Matt Kirschen]

Oh. So just before the break, Gina wanted to know about dark matter and whether it could actually be the matter that escapes from black holes.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Kirschen]

And then the THC started to kick in and the question continues.

[Moya McTeer]

Wow, Gina, I hope you're having a great time. And I'm gonna tell you, we don't know what dark matter is either. As scientists, we have a lot of hypotheses. There are things we're trying to test out, but most of what we know about dark matter is how it behaves, not what it's made of. We know that dark matter is something that can interact with other stuff gravitationally. So it can. You can feel this gravitational tug, but it doesn't interact with light. So you can't see it, you can't touch it, you can't. You know, if you shine a light through it, the light's just not going to know it's there. Is it stuff coming out of black holes? Probably. Probably not. I'm going to. I'll tell you now, that is not one of the leading hypotheses there. There were people several decades ago who thought maybe dark matter was just a bunch of little black holes because we can't see black holes, but they also interact with stuff gravitationally. So maybe dark matter is just like a big clump of tiny little black holes. But it doesn't seem like that's likely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. Plus, if they were coming out of black holes, the mass of a black hole would be dropping. Yeah, we don't really see that either. Right, right. And so that was a question that came out under the influence of thc.

[Matt Kirschen]

Yeah, but I think. I think it's pretty good. And also, just while we're talking about great black holes, Molly Jepson says, who's an American university student living in Paris, says, I'm fascinated by white holes. And I recently read that a white. White hole singularity exists in the future and a black hole singularity exists in the past. What does that mean?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Was THC involved in that?

[Moya McTeer]

Yes.

[Matt Kirschen]

It was not. Molly was aspecific as to what was influencing that question. It could have just been a sheer wonder of the universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. That is th. A force of THC unto itself.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The wonder of the universe. So Moya, what do you know about white holes?

[Moya McTeer]

I know very little about white holes. I was just going to say we're beyond my realm of expertise here.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All I know is that it's like a mathematical opposite of a black hole.

[Moya McTeer]

If a black hole absorbs everything or brings everything in not actively, it's not like a vacuum sucking. But if that's what a black hole does, then a white hole should be the opposite. It's where stuff comes out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, Moya. Someone once told me that there's no such thing as gravity. Earth sucks. And I've believed it ever since. Are you saying. Are you trying to disavow me of this understanding of gravity? Come on now.

[Moya McTeer]

I like to hold multiple truths in my head at the same time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, all right. Matt, keep going.

[Matt Kirschen]

All right, well, I'm going to combine these two questions, so I think this is getting back more onto home territory for both of you. So, Marcus Gustafson from Sweden, and also Dylan, who's a physics undergrad, between the two of them, ask, what are the methods used to map the size of the Milky Way and where we are? Where are we located within it? And also Dylan, who's the physics undergrad, says, I'm wondering how we map the Milky Way. How do we observe something if we're currently in it? Do we just assume our looks from other galaxies?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow. Yeah. Plus Moya. Every star we see in the night sky is in the Milky Way. Right. So tell us what's going on there. I mean, colloquially, we say, see that band of light? That's the Milky Way.

[Moya McTeer]

Yep.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We do that as though that's something separate from the stars that are around us. So why don't you unpack that for everybody?

[Moya McTeer]

Absolutely, yeah. So one. One thing that I bring up a lot in my new podcast, Pale Blue Pod, is that we are not separate from space. It's not that we're here on Earth. And then there's the Milky Way out there. We are a part of the Milky Way. The Earth is a part of it. We are a part of it. So I just wanted to get that out there first. Mapping the Milky Way, that's something we've been trying to do for hundreds of years. I do think it's really interesting that we only realized there were other galaxies out there 100 years ago. The great debate in the 1920s was all about, are we alone, or are there other island universes? And it turns out there are. So that's recent. But we did know that we were

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

in a collection that was island universe used in the context of a galaxy of other galaxies.

[Moya McTeer]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. Not as a separate. Not in the multiverse sense.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Moya McTeer]

Yes. They were not having a great debate about the multiverse theory in the 1920s, but we did know long before that that we were in this collection of bright points of light. And so the earliest map of the Milky Way was done by the Herschel siblings, Caroline and William. And that was back in the 1600s, where they made some very simplifying, inaccurate assumptions that, one, they could see all of the stars in the Milky Way. We now know that we can't. We actually can't see most of the stars in the Milky Way and that we were in the center of it, like, they assumed we were in the center of it. So what they did was look out at the night sky and map the bright points of light, assuming that they were all like, the same size. And so they tried to figure out the distance to them using their brightness because they were all the same size. Again, lots of very bad simplifying assumptions, but they came up with this map of the Milky Way that just looks awful, but I encourage you to look it up. That was the first attempt. These days, what we're doing is using much stronger telescopes and much better assumptions about how things should be distributed throughout the Milky Way. We've made observations of other spiral galaxies, so we have an idea of what the rough shape should be. But you're right, it is pretty hard to take a picture of a house when you're inside it. Like, we don't. It's hard for us to get a full view of what the Milky Way looks like. But we have models, we have telescopes that can see through the dust. So we now have a better view of the center of the Milky Way. We know where we are in the Milky Way because we can see that there is more light in one direction than there is in the other. So, yeah, it's a matter of meticulous mapping over time and trying to make sure our assumptions aren't as wild as they were in the 1600s.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Is it as hard as an unborn child figuring out what its mother looks like?

[Moya McTeer]

I think it's easier than that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Matt Kirschen]

I do think.

[Moya McTeer]

Cause there is no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They don't need, like, remote mirrors, you know, to look outside the.

[Moya McTeer]

You know, because I think that they're like the baby. The unborn baby could learn about the distribution of organs, but it would have no idea what, like, the mother's face looked like.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Moya McTeer]

I feel like we have a pretty good understanding of what the Milky Way's face looks like because there's not much variation, really, when you boil it down to the different body parts of a galaxy. There's not that much diversity. So we have a pretty good idea.

[Matt Kirschen]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Cool. All right, Matt, keep it coming.

[Matt Kirschen]

All right, well, we have. I have a question. We have a question about.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And plus, I mean, depending on how many questions you have, I might want to go into lightning mode.

[Matt Kirschen]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And this will put Moya to the test we've got. She have sound bites in her. This is like a great test of the educator.

[Matt Kirschen]

If we, if we go into lightning mode. I'm gonna have to do some editing on some of these questions because this is a. This is a subject that people have gone deep on with the questions people have really, like, people have written like mini essays and because they babbled on

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

and on about it.

[Matt Kirschen]

Okay, well, they're very excited about it, but. So the artist formerly known as James Smith from Indianapolis, I remember that name from previous episodes, says Dr. Moya. Astrology. Astrology is a very popular subject these days. I think it's. I think it's fair to say there is a popular subject all days. It. But James says, do people believe that the stars are influencing their lives because of tradition, or do you think it's because they have something to blame their rational behaviors or even their great luck on? Who are the first to see the stars for more than what they truly are? I'd actually say for less than they truly are as well.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love that question. And Moya, wouldn't modern astrology be considered folklore by your definitions?

[Moya McTeer]

I do. I do consider it folklore. We are creating folklore and mythology in the modern day. I think both of those reasons resonate with a lot of astrology practitioners. People who follow it, they need something to reason. They have been told that the stars dictate events in their lives, and I think it's very comforting for them. I think a lot of people use it as a way to feel connected to the universe, larger than ourselves.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Moya McTeer]

As a scientist, I don't follow it. I don't believe in it. As a folklorist, I love looking back at ancient astrology to see the real and practical ways that humans knew the sky did dictate their lives.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so you would distinguish then astrologers of 500 years ago who didn't know any better. And that was like the best way to account for their reality versus today, where we actually do know better, yet they're still doing it.

[Moya McTeer]

Yes, I would distinguish them. I think that ancient astrology was extremely practical. It had to do with when were you planting your crops, when were you moving because of seasonal flooding and stuff like that. There were also people who read information from the sky that was less practical. I think it's pretty agreed upon by folklorists now that ancient Babylonians were among the first to not just track the motion of stuff in the sky, but to assign divine meaning to it. By which I mean they had priests, they had astrologer priests who spent their lives learning how stuff in the sky moved, because that was their way of interpreting the will of their gods. And. And if there was an eclipse or something, they wouldn't go to war. Or if there was some alignment of planets of these wandering stars in the sky, then that would tell them how they needed to make, I don't know, government decisions in that time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Matt, you think that'd be a badass business card? Astrologer, priest, and astrophysicist, you're in charge of everything at that point.

[Moya McTeer]

That's kind of the business card I have. People assume that because I studied the universe and because I studied folklore, that I just didn't know how everything works.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, you're just totally plugged in to everything that matters.

[Matt Kirschen]

You're a scientist, Matt.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We gotta totally do lightning round.

[Matt Kirschen]

All right, lightning round. Next question. I'm gonna have to summarize this question because Edwin J. Roldan from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, asks, what's your opinion on whether the next Mars mission should have life detection experiments on it? The Mars lander didn't contain a life detection test, but the Viking did not.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, back 45 years ago, there were some ambiguous results from the Viking landers. And so you think about exoplanets a lot, Moya. And if you think of Mars as a kind of an exoplanet, because we're looking and we might have life, except we can also go there. What do you think should be the priorities for the upcoming rovers?

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, I think that if there was kind of cloudy evidence before, let's try and clarify that evidence cloud. As long as there aren't other instruments that would do better science. If it's not gonna take up space, then, yeah, let's put something on there that could try and det more directly. Evidence of life.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, I like that. Keep going, Matt.

[Matt Kirschen]

All right, I'm combining another couple of long questions, and I'm going to cut them way very short. Jim from Brooklyn and also James Bennett, both asking about photons coming from stars. So where James says, where does the energy of the photons go that have been redshifted due to the expansion of the universe? And Jim wants to know if I stand out in the dark, I can see Vega shining brightly. Photons from Vega are hitting my retinas. But it's also True if I'm 10ft from my left, 30 miles out to sea, or floating in interstellar space. So all these photons are coming from the same star. So basically, how many of these photons are coming off there seems a lot of photons. And what's the deal with that? And then it goes on to questions about dark energy and matter. But I think you've answered that already.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There's a million photons.

[Moya McTeer]

So many photons. One of my favorite things about light is that it's isotropic. If you have a source of light. Photons are going to be coming off of it in all directions. And as they spread out, they're still going to hit you Even if you're 10ft to the left or somewhere in the middle of the ocean. It's all one of the millions of photons coming from that same star.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Millions.

[Moya McTeer]

So many photons. I feel like that is very separate from the first question you asked.

[Matt Kirschen]

So the first question was, what happens to the energy of the redshifted photons?

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, I mean, so the redshift of the universe only happens on very large scales. When we're talking about Vega or other stars within our own galaxy that we're seeing, they are not being redshifted away from us because of the expansion of the universe. It's light from very distant galaxies that are being redshifted from the expansion of the universe. Neil, do you want to talk about where that energy goes?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah, sure. There's still the same amount of energy. It's just now diluted. Okay. So the total energy is still there, but it's now spread over a much larger volume. And so when you dilute the energy, the photon you detect. Okay. Has lower energy, but the total energy of all of space remains the same from what had been put into it from the beginning. So it's. So we have. We think of energy density in the way you can think of matter density. Some things are more dense than others. You know, a brick is denser than a. Than a balloon. So when you stretch out the universe, things just get less energy dense. But you're not losing any energy to some secret place.

[Moya McTeer]

It's more diffuse.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go. All right, Matt, go for it.

[Matt Kirschen]

So Sandra Pagliani, who, like many of the questions, says nice things about the podcast first, and then says, can you possibly explain ghosts?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Can't we hear the nice things? I want to hear the nice thing. We'll just skip over that.

[Moya McTeer]

I thought we were in a lightning round, Neo.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, except for the way people say nice things.

[Matt Kirschen]

There's been a bunch of nice things that various people have said. I just said my favorite podcast of all time. Someone else, who I can't remember now, says, thank you for all the science and the humor. People say lovely things about you and the show.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. I think they're doing it just to get their question answered. Say, you say nice, maybe true, but strategy.

[Matt Kirschen]

But Sandra. Sandra says, could you possibly explain ghosts with physics? Since we can only perceive a specific range of the frequency spectrums when it comes to sound and light, we Base our reality on these limitations. Could it be that what we call, quote, ghosts is residual energy from past that is reaching us now, filtering into our current state of reality? For a brief moment, frequencies can create resonances at various harmonic intervals. So some of those frequencies can be picked up by humans? Possibly. Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And Moya ghosts, Aren't they part of folklore?

[Moya McTeer]

Ghosts are absolutely part of folklore. Look, I have never learned anything in any of my science classes that told me ghosts couldn't exist.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ooh, ooh, I see what you did there. There's not a chapter why ghosts don't exist.

[Moya McTeer]

I've never read that textbook.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

But

[Moya McTeer]

like I said before, I like to hold two truths in my mind at the same time. I would love a world where ghosts and magic and these other folklore things exist. That's why I study them. I like to inhabit that world. Science can't explain most of that yet, so maybe one day there will be a textbook that says definitively whether or not ghosts exist because of physics. But until I read that, that book, science is real. And also ghosts could happen.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Kirschen]

What about Frankenstein's.

[Moya McTeer]

Oh, that is. That is science. Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What about vampires?

[Matt Kirschen]

What about Draculas?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, the list. I got a list ready to come

[Matt Kirschen]

to Popes specifically calling it Frankenstein's just to annoy the many pedants who listen to this show.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, get away from the Frankenstein versus Frankenstein's monster thing. Yeah. Frankenstein was just a human. He was just a scientist. So, yeah, that exists.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Dr. Frankenstein. Yeah.

[Moya McTeer]

There actually are some very interesting scientific ties to the origin of a lot of these folkloric figures. I've been listening to some podcasts recently about where the various myths about vampires came from. Cause there are animals that suck blood. There are animals that will dig up graves. There are reasons why you might find these stories very present throughout the world.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, with natural causes, is what you're saying.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is so. I didn't get a chance to say this in the first segment, but the main interest I have in this intersection between science and folklore is that I really do believe they're two sides of the same coin.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

And.

[Moya McTeer]

And that coin is something you can buy understanding of the universe with. People weren't just making up stories for the fun of it. Most of the time, ancient humans were observing the world around them and coming up with explanations that fit into their worldview. And as we scientifically progressed and we gained tools and we had accumulated knowledge over thousands of years, then our worldview shifted away from magic and gods and folklore. But there's still use. There's still value in the stories and the observations that people made.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what you should do is write a book of today's folklore that one day science will have something to say about.

[Moya McTeer]

Yeah, I'd love that.

[Matt Kirschen]

Yeah.

[Moya McTeer]

All the little superstitions. Then maybe in 100 years scientists will be like, oh, that's why that happens.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, well, we'll hope to get you back on this show before 4, 100 years from now, please, when we have that. Moya. It's been a delight to finally meet you, Matt. Great to have you here.

[Matt Kirschen]

Oh, it's great to be here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. You've been watching possibly listening to StarTalk Cosmic Queries, our folklore edition. Loving it. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Keep looking up

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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