Now I feel the need for a T-shirt that says "contains 2ppm colliding neutron star material synthesized on the rim of a black hole before surfing a wave of neutrinos into the nebula that would eventually collapse into our solar system".
@@MrPopPopDrop yup. *_Yours!!!_* _just messing with ya. ya just left it out there. ...Ya know _*_someone's_*_ gonna hit ya up._ _(at least th kinda people I know....)_ ........✌
Really funny! But actually most atomic bombs (all of them really) use plutonium 239 (in combination with tritium) which is an artificially created element in nuclear reactors from uranium 238.
As an isotope geochemist, I find it hard to explain how surreal this all is - surreal to learn that nucleosynthesis happens quite differently than we all thought. Upheavals in scientific knowledge like this are rare. Our collective vision of a fundamental process has been fundamentally changed. Even better, the new story is far more amazing than the old one. Wow.
I also find it beautifully surreal to consider that scientists were able to trace back most of earths short-half-life materials to a single neutron star collision. We can get so caught up in our short lives on earth.. all the greedy politics and our imagined divisions.. I like to use realisations like this one, to put it all into perspective.. and see that we are just a blip, a footnote of a much larger cosmological story. All of humanity, everything we are so consumed by, could be wiped from existence by a minor cosmic event. Viewpoints like these make me wonder why everyone can't just chill the fuck out, and work towards something great
Sure, it's still the r-process. But that process is (primarily) happening somewhere else than we had thought. The supernova picture was so firmly ingrained into my imagination - and the imagination of many in the general public. Bringing neutron star collisions into that picture is not a small change. Also, the "bump" in platinum group element a abundance that we observe in our solar system suddenly makes a lot more sense. We can thank LIGO/VIRGO for that.
Hey Brian, I’m an aspiring geochemist as well. Currently studying geology at the City University of New York, I was wondering if it’s possible we could talk. Geologists around here are rare and it’s not often I find someone that has specialized in the same field I hope to be part of. I have a few questions about the industry, if it’s at all possible I’d love to hear back from you. All the best, Marc.
I've been around long enough to hear "we are star stuff", many times, and in many different forms and implications. Then I heard "we are supernova stuff", which was a little more. Then I heard "we are hypernova stuff" and, "we are colliding neutron star stuff" Well, I guess they're all still stars for the most stuff, but when it comes down to it, I think there is still more to the story. I predict we will soon be hearing "we are black hole stuff".
They can also give you free electricity as they bombard the earth's surface even as far as hundreds of meters below the earth's surface. I'm not going to list the metals required to complete the process however I will say that if two dows were created no matter there dimension with these elements which must be 30 in one and 32 in the other dow and place a light bulb on top of both dows it will illuminate until of course the life of the filament reaches its end 1452 hours whatever. So now you know another use. They may also mutate things to a small degree.
@ungratefulmetalpansy notice how they claim to have this knowledge but wont actually say how to do it, or do it themselves. Sounds like pretty much everybody that claims to have special knowledge to me.
@@Miranox2 Our only hope is to form a society of scribes to toil in obscurity for generation after generation. Brothers and Sisters of the Writing of the Big Number, hallowed be thy digits.
Oh man, this episode has blown my mind! It turns out that it is indeed incredibly rare to have a habitable planet formed with an abundance of heavy elements essential for life.
I want to thank this show for massively leveling up my astronomy understanding! Thanx to your episodes, I have been lucky enough to be friend a top notch astronomy professor from UCSB! I’ve been given the most recent curriculum astronomy book and have a chance to sit in on some classes next quarter! Not bad for a guy who never really went to college😅
The LIGO gravitational waves discovery has turned into so much more - now neutron stars created the periodic table! Amazing year of exponential learning this episode was so worth waiting for!
The Grumpy Cat part was the part I understood the most. Actually, the more I watch your videos, the more the pieces of the universe are coming together in my brain. Really fun stuff. Thank you!
Now, given that the margin of error is about 6oo LY, I'm wondering if we can find any likely candidate BHs. Given how rare NS mergers are, I'm guessing that BH mergers are even rarer still.
Humanity: Screaming and rioting before falling silent as the earth slowly spirals into the event horizon. Meanwhile, on the atomic scale: Hey man, is that atom # 123,272,469,319,473,425? It's been _ages_ since I've seen you!
I like the fact that this channel not only recognizes memes, but also is truly part of meme culture. One of the things that made me subscribe to this channel are the funny remarks at the end, i swear to god the one where he calls someone while "stealing" someones comment as an idea for a book still gets me
This video made me so happy to be alive and have consciousness. We are the universe observing itself. What a beautiful idea. Thanks PBS Spacetime! Much love
The next time an old stick in the mud says how things were when they were young tell them that back then we didn't know that everything higher than 44 on the periodic table was made in neutron star collisions so viva la progress. I think of Louis Armstrong singing about children who would learn much more than he would ever know and how wonderful that makes the world. When I was born nothing had landed on Mars. When my father was born Hubble hadn't discovered the distance to Andromeda. The scientific march forward is one of the few things that gives me hope for the future.
So these atoms, formed from just outside the event horizon, billions of years ago, recombined to form me and can attempt to comprehend its creation? *DOPE*
"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the Weather." -- Bill Hicks
So does it mean that we were very lucky to have a nearby neutron star collision to deliver us precious heavy elements in our solar system? If most of other star systems did not have that, I suppose it adds up to the Fermi paradox solution.
It's certainly part of the equation. Only certain pockets of stars would have been so seeded by heavier elements, and then you're counting on those elements to actually come together in appreciable amounts in a solar system of an appropriate configuration. Depending on how rare this seeding is, and how variable even the product of such seeding would be, it can significantly cut down the number of possible viable systems.
"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the Weather." -- Bill Hicks, another dead hero
@@quimicalobo61d It's super fun and hugely nostalgic for me, I'd suggest finding a nice server and making some friends or grabbing some buddies and giving it a try!
Neutron Star alchemy could be a Great Filter of the Fermi Paradox - that low metallicity intelligent life would be condemned to an eternal stone age without the Bronze & Iron ages that we stumbled into on Earth.
If that includes iodine, then there would be no complex life on that planet, period. Does that make you guys happier to know that those aliens are in fact more likely to be microbes?
Luc Fauvarque if there's no one else in the Galaxy (yet) then it's a great opportunity for a "first!!111". But if there are lots of those pesky aliens then it's probably fine too.
This is what was going through my head the whole video until ~10:00 when he says neutron star collisions would occur approximately one per 20 million years. I was guessing they were a million times more common. If that rate was consistent, then there would only have been about 700 in the history of the galaxy... only 700 miniscule pinpoints in the galaxy for complex life to arise. Of course the rate of these collisions would have been higher, long ago, but how many would there be, really? 2000? 5000?
Actually, it could be on the other side of the Milky Way by now. It was between 650 - 1300 ly at the moment of the accretion of our solar nebula. Since then, our solar system revolved at least 20 times around Sagittarius A* - i.e. the center of our galaxy. Due to different radial speeds, the resulting black hole and our Sun could have drifted apart tens of thousands of light years. Or it could be even a lot closer (12 ly), but without an accretion disk to feed on, it would be invisible for our detection efforts.
There's no doubt a metric for determining which type of kersplosion is yuger - merger vs. nova. I'd tend to guess super novae are, but the neutron star merger is freakin' kewl.
I guess what he means, having a lot of heavy elements makes it easier to evolve on a technical level (technicaly advanced complex). Since we can assume that the universe might not be very homogenues, it is not far fetched to believe that it might have an influx on it... Edit: I'd like to add, that my thought came out of the fact, that the fermi-paradox is aimed at high-tech civs. Edit 2: And let us not forget, that a high (or low/non existant) background radiation due to heavy radioactive elements can and will have an impact on over biologic lifeform, esp. over billion of years of evolution. Edit 3: Changed "alot" to a lot since i forgot to press the spacebar.
There is both the effect on the development of complex life, and (perhaps even more importantly) the effect on the development of technology to consider.
It's true, medians and averages are confoundingly not the same thing... at all! I'm always mixing them up and mathematically it can make a huge difference.
@@PeterB12345 not only in the mathematical sense, but also in a physical sense. Average lifetime and halflife are two different concepts in radioactive physics, having separate definitions.
@@thevoicestoldmetoagain4627 They made a post on the community tab 2 weeks ago talking about their next video (I don't think it was meant to be this one).
@@theHusky2490 Yea but that short video doesnt really count for much if ya ask me. And i agree that this probably isnt the video related to that short clip they gave us.
Hadn't thought about the cmd as infrared before. That's funny! Space wouldn't be the freezing vacuum it is today, it'd be quite warm for hundreds of millions of years. I wonder what that would've done to planet formation and weather patterns. The goldlocks zone would have to be much further from stars, but then you don't have the light from the star as a useful energy source anymore. Answer to the fermi paradox? Space had to cool down enough that starlight became useful on a higher proportion of planets. Pushes the time till sentient life can happen further forward. Add in maybe not enough heavy elements for a while and maybe that's part of the answer? Who knows.
Planets weren't forming until billions of years later. There was no iron or silicon or oxygen. Indeed it's possible that planet formation only became common in the second half of the universe's life, Earth could be quite an old world.
Could we incorporate the Neutron Star merger hypothesis into the Drake equation? That way we would "only" need to trace back every heavy metal enriched nebula to look for alien civilizations.
It puts an important constraint on time, along with supernovae explosions. The first stars couldn't have had planets and the following generation would have had few. 2/3 of the universe's life might have passed planetless. And different types of galaxies have different patterns of metal enrichment, as well as it varying within a galaxy. (The outer disk tends to have less, the core more but with sterilizing explosions every few millennia.)
You're assuming complex life can only happen when elements heavier than Iron are present. Considering anything past Calcium only amounts to 0.85% in our bodies (in mass, btw), I think that's a pretty wild guess right there
@@ajv336 Not sure that's the specific assumption, though. Sure, the assumption is based on our own history, but there are a number of elements that have been a part of our civilization since almost the beginning that are heavier than iron.
It's depressive to acknowledge that even with the most advanced futuristic alien-like tech, humans will never be able to approach the event horizon of a black hole, but it's jaw dropping to realize that 1/10 of a gram in each and one of us has already been there :O
No, it could not. Heavy elements aren't directly necessary for Life. And also he never claimed we were lucky. These events are not rare on galactic timescales.
I'm not sure if the little "Quantum Mechanics forbids that" at the end was an intentional reference to his own meme status but I liked it all the same haha
Matt you're alive!!! Thank God for that, was beginning to worry.... Next time you take a couple of weeks out, could you post a little message saying you're ok? 🤓
So glad you did this episode! Been waiting since the LIGO neutron star merger detection. Your explanations strike a great balance between technical detail and good narrative. Another great writer, Walt Whitman, had this to say 164 years ago: “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars...”
good one. Couldn't help but imagine the ghost of Carl Sagan watching this video in awe as to how far we've come in so little time. LIGO on paper seems just shy of impossible- yet we made is work within 25 years of Sagan's death. .
13:14 Correct me if I'm wrong, but mean free path scales linearly, density scales cubically -> 100^3 lower density means 100 longer MFP, not million times longer.
I was thinking along the same lines, is it possible that the heavier elements formed in a nutron pair merger seeding a solar system before said system star begins it's life, are part of the prerequisite for initial life to evolve such a amoeba.
But rare under what perspective? If you ask a galaxy if it expects to get it's next dose of neutron star merger in the next billion years, I think it'd likely answer "yes."
Very likely yes. These elements are generally not essential to life. So them nbot being available shouldn't be a major showstopper. Having said that, there are some side effects (no magnetic field on the planet, lower radioactive environment (-> lower mutation rate)) that may still be negatively affected. But of course nobody knows for sure.
I just explained this very conversation to my family, while having breakfast in a Denny's, two weeks ago. I held up the glass salt shaker and said:" To think, parts of these were formed in a neutron star collision billions of years ago and drifted through space to recombine here and eventually be found on a table at Denny's. Bet those atoms didn't see that coming." Family: "So what'ya having?" Sigh.
I'm used to it... My fam, looking at the salt blankly: "Do we all have to wait for the next collision or do you wanna pass it over?!" Or worse, the ignorant health fanatic: "Salt is so *bad* for you, fam!" x]
Hey, Matt! Here is the topic for some popularization of astronomy on Space Time channel. Nebulas: a lot of videos tells us the heavy material about the ways they are created (which is awesome), but not enough videos visualize it in a way, that they are so dim, that the person located in the center of it will not even see the difference. Nobody stresses it enough, that things we see in astronomy can't be seen by the human eye. With this realization, I have a lot of respect to an effort that's been put to enormous amount of data..
I love your videos, but you guys really should get someone to look over the closed captions in your videos. R process becomes "our process" and such. It must be confusing to the deaf/hard of hearing. Hell, I'll do it.
Caption submissions are disabled for this video, so I guess I'll mention some corrections here. 1:38 "our process" should be "r-process" (this is repeated several times) 1:44 "that destroy missiles" should be "that this story misses" 3:20 "are protists" should be "r-process" 4:55 "group" should be "goop" 4:56 "destabilizers" should be "destabilizes" 6:33 "getting the mountains of the galaxy" should be "getting them out into the galaxy" 7:41 "they'll formed" should be "they were formed" 10:25 the URL-looking thing should be "that make up you" 10:34 "LEED Silver Gold" should be "lead, silver, gold" 11:54 most of the names got mangled 12:51 "reaiiy annive" should be "re-ionized" 13:00 "realization" should be "reionization" 13:02 "a tree nation" should be "at recombination" 13:05 "realization" should be "reionization"
@@jesseruderman5121 Additional corrections: 2:13: “low mass star” should be “lower mass stars” 2:20: “our protest” should be “r-process” 3:35: “cause of massive stars” should be “cores of massive stars” 3:39: “a density” should be “at densities” 5:12: “hopelessly unstable once” should be “hopelessly unstable ones” 5:15: “beat a decay” should be “beta decay” 5:23: “hour process” should be “r-process” 6:27: “neutral start collisions” should be “neutron star collisions”
You must have changed cameras or the operator because this one looks way more sharp than usual. I don't want to come off as a bellend but on previous videos you can see the green screen stuff way sharper than Matt. Keep up the good work, you are the only physics channel that actually caters to physicist, instead of just laymen.
i am a total "layman" in therms of physics as I didn't study it and just am interested in it and satisfy that need by reading up a bit on it and watching some vids. However, I understand most of the things discussed in these videos. Is this what a real physics channel feels like?
@@hazardeur it goes in to topics that aren't as often explored and Matt isn't afraid to show us the mathematics. I think this is as close as a real physics channel, alonng with 3blue1brown,minutephyics,mathlogger,60 symbols and, others. Simply put they aren't using analogies but instead prefer to focus on the math. Kurtzergat is more towards layman who want a nice story with pictures.
@@wintervenom123 Ok makes sense, thank you! I actually do know (and love) Kurzgesagt but I can appreciate the more detailed channels like this here just as well
does the r-process happen at all on supernovae ? because considering how rare neutron star collisions are, does that means that the abundance of rare elements on planets can vary drastically, to the point there are planets with no rare elements at all ? or are they common enough to spread rare elements uniformly through a galaxy even without the help of supernovae ?
Danilo Oliveira Thinking about the same thing. How frequent are these events? Frequent enough to have all these elements on most planets? Or are we a rare exception and most planets don’t have much heavier elements? In the later case, it is a nice addition to the Fermi-paradox.
@@juzoli I'd hazard a guess they happen frequently enough that over a long period of time (billions of years) you would end up with enough of that material being spread throughout a galaxy.
The estimated rate of neutron-star mergers is once every twenty million years in the Milky Way. There was a recent paper that argued that 80% of the r-process elements in the Universe come from an even rarer event: a collapsar supernova. While these events are rarer, they would transform a greater percentage of the total mass involved into r-process elements although there are physicists who dispute this hypothesis. Based on the cosmological principle, at the largest scales, these elements should be evenly distributed, but that does not mean that there can't be a great deal of local variation. While I can't speak for r-process elements, there have been a couple of studies involving elements necessary for life on Earth. One study of planetary nebula PNG 135.9+55.9 showed that it had an oxygen abundance less than 1/50 that of our solar system. There is another study I remember reading about phosphorus. It is the eleventh most common element on Earth, but it only makes up 0.0007% of all matter in the Universe. In comparing two nebulae, Cassiopeia A and the Crab Nebula, it was found that the ratio of phosphorus to iron in the former to be about 1 to 1.057 compared to about 1 to 12 in the latter; furthermore the ratio found in Cassiopeia A is about 100 times the average ration of the Milky Way as a whole. While these are not r-process elements, I would imagine the same scenario applies. Not every neighborhood is created elementally equally, and that may be a contributing factor to the Fermi Paradox. At the very least, if life exists elsewhere, the chances of it sharing a similar chemistry to ours are much lower.
@@curtisshaw1370 that is very interesting, I had no idea lighter elements could very like that. is Phosphorus created by nucleosynthesis ? I would imagine it to be very well distributed because of how many massive stars there were in the early universe.
Massive stars were abundant in the early universe, neutron stars collision were rather common. (and Galaxies werent that big) The amount of short-gamma flashes tells us how popular those collisions are. Now i wait for collision with white dwarf.
@@garethdean6382 Well, intuitively, I would think it would be less material generated simply because there's only 1 neutron star in that process instead of 2. I wonder about the efficiency of the process... I'd think that with a smaller black hole, the efficiency of elemental synthesis would increase because less of the material would be devoured.
It would depend. As far as I'm aware nobody's tried to model this, but a small black hole could indeed eject a lot of material as 'jets'. Of course bigger holes might be more common and they could swallow the neutron star more easily. As it is hardly any material escapes anyway.In a double merger maybe a few thousand Earth's worth out of a pair of stars multiple times heavier than our sun. That's not even an 0.1% survival rate.
@@garethdean6382 apparently it's called a kilonova... Don't know why Matt didn't tell us that -_- Anyway, there's gotta be a more efficient way to tear the things apart.
Can you use the time and distance of the neutron star collision to find candidate black holes for being the remnant of our Solar System's heavy elements?
I was wondering this too, but I suspect that between how difficult non-feeding black holes are to see and the chaotic nature of galactic orbits over the time scales needed, it's probably not possible given current technology. Far-future telescopes gathering more high-resolution data paired with faster super-computers to process it all might be able to upgrade that to a "maybe" though.
@@QuantumLeaper25 I still think that black hole that was the "founder of our solar system" would be in our region of the galaxy. It might be hard to find, but just knowing it's out there is awesome
@@nmarbletoe8210 Our protostar might have moved through the neutron star explosion cloud in a different direction and with a different speed. I guess that black hole may have crossed the whole galaxy or even merged with the supermassive black hole.
Well thank you very much! Finally the explanation that I've been waiting for ever since the news came out that Ligo / Virgo had measured the collision. I actually know one of the scientist of that measurement and the person was unable to explain me how exactly such a collision creates the heavier elements. I was indeed wondering if the process was by capturing neutrons or if perhaps the pure amount of energy that is released creates particles via E = mc2.
I am constantly in awe of our universe. It seems that the ultimate goal of the atomic nuclei formed inside of the chaotic and unimaginable destruction of stars is to be discovered and understood. If I am 1/10th of a gram of neutron star collision material, then that 1/10th of a gram must feel happy I know where it came from.
the moment you realize you're a massive amalgamation of cells that are amalgamations of molecules that are amalgamations of elements made in the cores of stars smashing into the cores of other dead stars
