1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,560 Speaker 1: Okay, before we start, I want you to just for 2 00:00:02,640 --> 00:00:05,480 a second visualize something with me. And this isn't some 3 00:00:05,599 --> 00:00:09,119 fantasy scenario. This is your actual life. Think about this morning, 4 00:00:09,560 --> 00:00:15,119 the whole intricate, fragile ballet of your routine. Right, the 5 00:00:15,199 --> 00:00:19,239 alarm clock, the coffee exactly, the alarm on your smartphone, 6 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:22,359 which you know is synced to a satellite orbiting the Earth, 7 00:00:22,399 --> 00:00:23,320 a satellite. 8 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:24,280 Speaker 2: That needs a ground station to function. 9 00:00:24,519 --> 00:00:27,839 Speaker 1: Then the coffee maker, which is drawing power from a 10 00:00:27,879 --> 00:00:30,760 grid that stretches across an entire continent. 11 00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:32,560 Speaker 2: A grid that has to be balanced second by second. 12 00:00:32,679 --> 00:00:36,520 Speaker 1: And your commute, which relies on traffic signals on GPS, 13 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:40,159 on a fuel supply chain that is so perfectly timed 14 00:00:40,159 --> 00:00:43,439 it's almost magic. It all feels incredibly solid, doesn't it. 15 00:00:43,439 --> 00:00:47,200 Speaker 2: It feels permanent. That's the psychological baseline we all operate from. 16 00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:50,439 We just assume that tomorrow is going to look, you know, roughly. 17 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:52,960 Speaker 1: Like today, because there are systems in place, right. Yeah, 18 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,000 we think there are safeguards. We assume there are, exactly. 19 00:00:56,079 --> 00:00:59,200 We confuse what's normal with what's safe. But I've been 20 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,320 digging through this huge stack of reports you sent over, 21 00:01:02,679 --> 00:01:06,239 the papers from the National Academy of Sciences, the data 22 00:01:06,239 --> 00:01:09,000 from the UK Met Office, some of these old historical 23 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:11,640 logs from the eighteen eighties, and then all the recent 24 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:14,280 near miss reports from NASA and the essay. 25 00:01:14,439 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 2: It's quite a rabbit hole, it is. 26 00:01:16,239 --> 00:01:19,680 Speaker 1: And that feeling of solidity, that permanence, it's just it's 27 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:21,159 completely evaporating for me. 28 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:22,640 Speaker 2: Yeah, it tends to do that when you look at 29 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:24,840 the raw data, not just the summaries. 30 00:01:25,359 --> 00:01:28,599 Speaker 1: Welcome to Thrilling Threads. I'm your host, and today we 31 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,879 are pulling on a thread that, it turns out, holds 32 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:35,319 our entire civilization together. And what we're finding is just 33 00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:37,319 how fraid that thread actually is. 34 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:38,239 Speaker 2: It's incredibly afraid. 35 00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:41,719 Speaker 1: The whole premise we're exploring today is it's simple, but 36 00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,480 it's also really disturbing. We love to think humanity survives 37 00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:49,719 because we're smart, because we're adaptable, technologically advanced. 38 00:01:49,359 --> 00:01:51,439 Speaker 2: The masters of our own destiny, right. 39 00:01:51,319 --> 00:01:54,120 Speaker 1: But this material, all of it, it suggests a totally 40 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:55,879 different driver, something else. Entirely. 41 00:01:56,280 --> 00:01:59,319 Speaker 2: It suggests that for the last say, one hundred and 42 00:01:59,359 --> 00:02:02,200 fifty years of high tech development, and maybe even for 43 00:02:02,239 --> 00:02:06,079 the last ten thousand years of civilization, our primary survival 44 00:02:06,120 --> 00:02:10,479 strategy has been luck. Luck, just pure dumb blind luck. 45 00:02:10,639 --> 00:02:12,879 Speaker 1: That is such a hard pill to swallow for a 46 00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:16,919 species that prides itself on being in control. So today 47 00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:20,000 we're going to analyze a whole series of events. We're 48 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:25,520 talking solar storms, invisible asteroids, cometary fragments, gamma ray bursts, 49 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:29,400 the whole cosmic menagerie where the difference between business as 50 00:02:29,479 --> 00:02:33,240 usual and literally the end of the world as we 51 00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:36,719 know it wasn't our engineering, it wasn't diplomacy, it. 52 00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:38,960 Speaker 2: Wasn't a plan. It was just a matter of hours, 53 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:41,159 or a few degrees of rotation. 54 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:42,879 Speaker 1: Or just the fact that the Earth was in a 55 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:45,719 slightly different part of its orbit at that exact moment. 56 00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:48,840 Speaker 2: We are floating through a cosmic shooting gallery. That is 57 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:51,919 the reality. And for the longest time, we've been attributing 58 00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:55,719 our survival to this bulletproof vest that we aren't actually wearing. 59 00:02:55,919 --> 00:02:58,120 Speaker 1: So let's frame the mission for what we're doing here. 60 00:02:58,159 --> 00:03:00,479 We aren't here just to scare out everyone for the 61 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:00,879 sake of it. 62 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:01,879 Speaker 2: No, that's not the point. 63 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:05,360 Speaker 1: The point is to shatter this illusion of invulnerability. We 64 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:07,520 want to look squarely at the blind spots in our 65 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:10,680 planetary defense. And it turns out the biggest ones are 66 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:13,840 the ones staring us right in the face every single day. 67 00:03:14,039 --> 00:03:17,360 Speaker 2: And we have to ask the really uncomfortable question. You 68 00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:19,879 can go to a casino and you can win ten 69 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:22,199 hands in a row, you can win one hundred, but 70 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:24,039 can you win forever? Right? 71 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:26,080 Speaker 1: Because the house always wins, and. 72 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,680 Speaker 2: In this case, the house the cosmos. It eventually calls 73 00:03:29,719 --> 00:03:31,840 your bluff. It always does. 74 00:03:32,039 --> 00:03:34,439 Speaker 1: So let's unpack all of this. I think we have 75 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:36,560 to start with the most obvious threat, the one we 76 00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:38,319 literally see every single. 77 00:03:38,159 --> 00:03:40,680 Speaker 2: Day, the Sun, our volatile neighbor. 78 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:43,039 Speaker 1: It's the source of all life. But according to these 79 00:03:43,080 --> 00:03:45,759 papers from the National Academy of Sciences, it's also a 80 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:49,120 loaded gun pointed directly at our head. And we came 81 00:03:49,159 --> 00:03:53,439 incredibly close to taking a bullet in July twenty twelve. 82 00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:57,360 Speaker 2: The twenty twelve event is it's probably the most significant 83 00:03:57,360 --> 00:03:59,639 what if in all of modern history. I don't think 84 00:03:59,639 --> 00:03:59,960 that's anas. 85 00:04:00,639 --> 00:04:03,759 Speaker 1: I remember twenty twelve so vividly. The whole cultural conversation 86 00:04:03,879 --> 00:04:06,599 was obsessed with the Mayan calendar. Right, the world was 87 00:04:06,639 --> 00:04:08,039 supposedly ending in December. 88 00:04:08,120 --> 00:04:09,520 Speaker 2: It was a joke, it was a meme. 89 00:04:09,759 --> 00:04:13,639 Speaker 1: Blockbuster movies, internet jokes, end of the world parties. 90 00:04:13,599 --> 00:04:17,319 Speaker 2: A massive, massive distraction. While the entire world was looking 91 00:04:17,360 --> 00:04:20,759 at this ancient stone calendar and laughing, the real apocalypse 92 00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:23,480 was brewing ninety three million miles away. 93 00:04:23,639 --> 00:04:27,120 Speaker 1: On July twenty third, twenty twelve, the sun didn't just 94 00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:30,240 have a little flare. It unleashed a monster. 95 00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:32,319 Speaker 2: It was a monster, a true monster. 96 00:04:32,439 --> 00:04:36,079 Speaker 1: This was a coronal mass ejection a CME. Now, for 97 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:39,319 anyone listening who might get this confused with a solar flare, 98 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:42,199 can you help us distinguish the two, because they're very 99 00:04:42,199 --> 00:04:43,439 different things, right, they. 100 00:04:43,319 --> 00:04:46,079 Speaker 2: Are critically different. Think of a solar flare as the 101 00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:48,759 muzzle flash of a gun. It's a brilliant burst of 102 00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:52,160 light and radiation X rays UV that gets here in 103 00:04:52,199 --> 00:04:54,360 eight minutes at the speed of light. It can mess 104 00:04:54,399 --> 00:04:56,519 with radio, but it's not the main threat. 105 00:04:56,600 --> 00:04:57,560 Speaker 1: Okay, So that's the flash. 106 00:04:57,639 --> 00:05:00,240 Speaker 2: The CME is the bullet. It's the actual cannibal. It's 107 00:05:00,279 --> 00:05:04,560 a massive tangible cloud of solar plasma. We're talking protons, electrons, 108 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:07,839 billions of tons of matter, and crucially, it carries its 109 00:05:07,879 --> 00:05:09,600 own embedded magnetic field with it. 110 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:12,639 Speaker 1: And on July twenty third, the Sun ejected an absolutely 111 00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:13,800 enormous amount of this. 112 00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:17,439 Speaker 2: Material, billions upon billions of tons a shotgun blast of 113 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:18,519 magnetized plasma. 114 00:05:18,519 --> 00:05:20,519 Speaker 1: And the speed was just off the charts, wasn't it. 115 00:05:20,639 --> 00:05:24,160 Speaker 2: The velocity was staggering. The data that was later analyzed 116 00:05:24,199 --> 00:05:27,079 by the scientists sheer Nass and his colleagues confirmed it. 117 00:05:27,720 --> 00:05:30,399 This storm was traveling at speeds over six point seven 118 00:05:30,439 --> 00:05:31,439 million miles per hour. 119 00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:33,360 Speaker 1: I can't even get my head around that number. 120 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:38,279 Speaker 2: It's almost incomprehensible. A typical CME takes you know, two, three, 121 00:05:38,319 --> 00:05:40,879 sometimes four days to get to Earth. We get a 122 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:43,680 decent amount of warning. This thing was so fast it 123 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:46,279 would have cut the travel time down to under nineteen. 124 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:47,839 Speaker 1: Hours, so less than a day's warning. 125 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:50,920 Speaker 2: Best case scenario. Yeah, we would have seen the flash 126 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:52,600 and then we have known the bullet was on its 127 00:05:52,600 --> 00:05:53,920 way and you were coming in hot. 128 00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:57,319 Speaker 1: The reports all say this one rivaled the famous Carrington 129 00:05:57,399 --> 00:05:58,920 event of eighteen fifty nine. 130 00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:01,839 Speaker 2: It did. In some metrics, it was even stronger. 131 00:06:02,560 --> 00:06:06,399 Speaker 1: We always hear about Carrington. It's the historical benchmark, but 132 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:11,279 the stories sound almost quaint now. Telegraphs sparking operators getting shocks, 133 00:06:11,319 --> 00:06:12,639 papers catching fire. 134 00:06:12,519 --> 00:06:14,639 Speaker 2: Right I don't know the telegram from London didn't get through. 135 00:06:14,879 --> 00:06:16,639 Speaker 1: It's a good story, but it feels like it's from 136 00:06:16,639 --> 00:06:17,279 another world. 137 00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:21,000 Speaker 2: And that's the danger. It's the danger of historical comparison 138 00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:25,160 without context. In eighteen fifty nine, the global internet was 139 00:06:25,199 --> 00:06:29,399 a single copper wire stretched between wooden poles. The world 140 00:06:29,519 --> 00:06:32,000 ran on steam, coal, and muscle, so. 141 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:34,920 Speaker 1: If a telegraph office burned down, it was a local problem. 142 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:37,279 Speaker 2: It was an inconvenience. You send a message by horse. 143 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:39,759 The global economy didn't grind to a halt. 144 00:06:39,959 --> 00:06:42,560 Speaker 1: But if you take a Carrington level event and the 145 00:06:42,600 --> 00:06:45,319 twenty twelve storm was at least that powerful, and you 146 00:06:45,439 --> 00:06:49,000 drop it on our twenty first century civilization, you're not 147 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:50,480 talking about slow internet. 148 00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:53,199 Speaker 2: Are you. No, we are talking about the total instant 149 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:56,519 frying of the high voltage backbone of the global power grid. 150 00:06:56,560 --> 00:06:58,399 Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the mechanics of that. Because I 151 00:06:58,439 --> 00:07:01,120 think people here frying the grid and they assume a 152 00:07:01,199 --> 00:07:03,319 fuse blows, a breaker trips, and a guy in a 153 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:04,759 truck comes out to flip a switch. 154 00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:07,439 Speaker 2: This is not that not even close. It comes down 155 00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:11,920 to something called geomagnetically induced currents or GICs. When that 156 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:16,040 giant magnetic cloud from the Sun slams into Earth's magnetic field. 157 00:07:16,439 --> 00:07:20,040 Our field shakes and compresses like a bell. That rapidly 158 00:07:20,079 --> 00:07:24,279 fluctuating magnetic field on the surface induces a powerful electrical 159 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:26,279 current in the Earth's crust itself. 160 00:07:26,319 --> 00:07:28,319 Speaker 1: The ground becomes electrified in a way. 161 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:32,480 Speaker 2: Yes, and electricity always takes the path of least resistance. 162 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:36,240 Speaker 1: And what's the path of least resistance Across a continent. 163 00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:39,160 Speaker 2: Are thousands of miles of high voltage power lines. They 164 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:42,839 act like giant antennas, so you get these massive surges 165 00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:46,839 of quasi DC current, hundreds even thousands of ampers flowing 166 00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:49,240 up the ground, wires and street into the guts of 167 00:07:49,240 --> 00:07:50,560 the high voltage transformers. 168 00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:54,079 Speaker 1: And these transformers they're the big ones, right, the size 169 00:07:54,079 --> 00:07:56,240 of a house that you see at substations. 170 00:07:55,720 --> 00:07:58,639 Speaker 2: Exactly, the extra high voltage ones that EHV transformers. They're 171 00:07:58,639 --> 00:08:01,079 the lynchpins of the entire system, and they have a 172 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:05,079 fatal flaw. They're designed to run on alternating current ACA. 173 00:08:05,439 --> 00:08:07,839 When you dump a massive amount of direct current DC 174 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:11,480 into them, their magnetic core instantly saturates saturation. 175 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:13,000 Speaker 1: What does that mean in physical terms? 176 00:08:13,319 --> 00:08:16,680 Speaker 2: It means the iron core can't handle the magnetic flux anymore. 177 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:19,639 It's like a sponge that's completely full. The energy has 178 00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:20,759 to go somewhere. 179 00:08:20,399 --> 00:08:21,120 Speaker 1: And where does it go. 180 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:24,360 Speaker 2: It escapes as stray flux into the metal components that 181 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:27,959 aren't supposed to see it, the copper windings, the structural 182 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:32,759 steel tank. It creates incredible hotspots, instantly raising the temperature 183 00:08:32,879 --> 00:08:34,080 by hundreds of degrees. 184 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:37,440 Speaker 1: So the transformer literally cooks itself from the inside out. 185 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:41,200 Speaker 2: It melts itself. Yeah, the insulation paper inside the windings 186 00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:46,080 burns or chars. The cooling oil can decompose into explosive 187 00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:49,559 gases like hydrogen and acetylene. The whole thing can literally 188 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:53,279 explode or just slump into a multi ton slag heap. 189 00:08:53,399 --> 00:08:55,159 Speaker 1: It becomes a giant paper weight, a. 190 00:08:55,159 --> 00:08:58,159 Speaker 2: Very very expensive paper weight. And here is the real picker, 191 00:08:58,240 --> 00:09:00,960 the part that makes this a civilist station level threat. 192 00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:03,039 What's that You can't just go to home depot and 193 00:09:03,039 --> 00:09:06,360 buy a new seven hundred and sixty five killable transformer. Right. 194 00:09:06,559 --> 00:09:08,200 Speaker 1: These are custom built machines. 195 00:09:08,240 --> 00:09:11,000 Speaker 2: They are the spoke engineering marvels. They take twelve to 196 00:09:11,039 --> 00:09:14,000 eighteen months to manufacture, and that's during normal times. There's 197 00:09:14,039 --> 00:09:17,320 a global manufacturing bottleneck. Most are built in places like 198 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:19,039 Germany or South Korea, so there's. 199 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:22,039 Speaker 1: No strategic reserve of these things sitting in a warehouse somewhere. 200 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:24,720 Speaker 2: Absolutely not. They're too big, too expensive, They are built 201 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:27,639 to order, They weigh hundreds of tons and are incredibly 202 00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:28,759 difficult to transport. 203 00:09:28,919 --> 00:09:31,559 Speaker 1: So if the twenty twelve storm had hit us and 204 00:09:31,639 --> 00:09:34,720 we lost let's say three hundred of these key transformers 205 00:09:34,759 --> 00:09:36,519 across North America, you. 206 00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:40,879 Speaker 2: Don't have power in the affected regions for years, not months. Years. 207 00:09:41,159 --> 00:09:43,480 Speaker 1: Just play that out for me. The National Academy of 208 00:09:43,519 --> 00:09:47,559 Sciences report did a scenario analysis on this. What does 209 00:09:47,639 --> 00:09:49,799 day one look like day seven? 210 00:09:50,039 --> 00:09:53,679 Speaker 2: Day one is confusion. The lights go out everywhere almost instantly. 211 00:09:54,240 --> 00:09:57,080 Cell towers have battery backups that might last, you know, 212 00:09:57,120 --> 00:09:59,080 four to eight hours, then they go silent. 213 00:09:59,279 --> 00:10:01,320 Speaker 1: The Internet is gone, gone, so. 214 00:10:01,320 --> 00:10:04,799 Speaker 2: All communication collapses immediately. But that's just the start. The 215 00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:07,399 real problem is the cascading failure of all our other 216 00:10:07,519 --> 00:10:11,000 interdependent infrastructures like water. Water is the first to go. 217 00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:14,639 No electricity means no water pumps. Most cities only have 218 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:17,519 maybe twenty four hours of water in gravity fed towers. 219 00:10:18,039 --> 00:10:20,039 After that, the taps run dry and. 220 00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:22,159 Speaker 1: You can't flush toilets, sanitation. 221 00:10:21,679 --> 00:10:26,159 Speaker 2: Collapses, disease becomes a huge risk very quickly. Then there's fuel. 222 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:28,480 Speaker 1: Gas station pumps are electric. 223 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:30,360 Speaker 2: Right, so you can't pump the fuel out of the 224 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:33,080 underground tanks, which means the trucks stop. 225 00:10:32,919 --> 00:10:34,960 Speaker 1: Running and the trucks deliver the food, and. 226 00:10:34,919 --> 00:10:37,919 Speaker 2: Our grocery stores operate on a razor thin, just in 227 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:41,759 time inventory system. The shelves are empty in forty eight 228 00:10:41,799 --> 00:10:42,679 to seventy two. 229 00:10:42,519 --> 00:10:46,039 Speaker 1: Hours, so within three days. Let me get this straight, 230 00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:49,200 you have no water, no food coming in, no fuel, 231 00:10:49,480 --> 00:10:51,519 no transportation, and no way to. 232 00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:54,480 Speaker 2: Call for help, and no banking. The financial system is 233 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:58,679 entirely digital. Your credit cards are useless, the ATMs or bricks, 234 00:10:59,039 --> 00:11:01,120 your bank account bound is just a number on a 235 00:11:01,159 --> 00:11:05,200 server that you can't access. The ecomomy ghost to zero instantly. 236 00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:08,720 Speaker 1: The NAS report estimated the cost at two trillion dollars 237 00:11:08,799 --> 00:11:10,240 in the first year alone, and. 238 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:13,120 Speaker 2: That's a massive low ball. That's just the hardware damage. 239 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:16,600 How do you quantify the cost of civilization itself ceasing 240 00:11:16,639 --> 00:11:21,039 to function? The report uses the phrase starving war zones, 241 00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:24,000 and that's not hyperbole. That is the logical conclusion of 242 00:11:24,039 --> 00:11:25,200 the logistics it's. 243 00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:27,440 Speaker 1: The inevitable result of pulling the bottom block out of 244 00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:28,159 the Jenga tower. 245 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:29,320 Speaker 2: The entire thing comes down. 246 00:11:29,519 --> 00:11:33,360 Speaker 1: So this storm in twenty twelve, it was that powerful, 247 00:11:33,519 --> 00:11:36,879 It was that dangerous. Why are we here? Why am 248 00:11:36,919 --> 00:11:39,000 I talking into this microphone on a working computer? 249 00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:40,600 Speaker 2: One word? Luck? 250 00:11:40,919 --> 00:11:42,679 Speaker 1: Be specific? How much luck are we talking about? 251 00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:46,480 Speaker 2: The storm? That shotgun blast of plasma. It tore through 252 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:49,039 Earth's orbit at the exact point where our planet had 253 00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:50,799 been just nine days earlier. 254 00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:52,200 Speaker 1: Days. 255 00:11:52,399 --> 00:11:55,600 Speaker 2: Think about that Earth is orbiting the Sun at sixty 256 00:11:55,679 --> 00:11:58,799 seven thousand miles per hour, a nine day difference in 257 00:11:58,840 --> 00:12:02,120 our position in that orbit. It's a cosmic rounding error. 258 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:05,159 It's nothing. It's less than a single degree of separation. 259 00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:07,440 Speaker 1: So if that eruption on the Sun had happened one 260 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:08,399 week sooner. 261 00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:10,919 Speaker 2: While that active region was still rotated to face us. 262 00:12:10,799 --> 00:12:13,039 Speaker 1: We would be living in a pre industrial age right now, 263 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:15,480 but with eight billion people who don't know how to 264 00:12:15,519 --> 00:12:17,000 farm or find clean water. 265 00:12:17,159 --> 00:12:20,320 Speaker 2: Precisely, we didn't dodge the bullet. The gun was fired. 266 00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:22,679 The bullet passed right through the space our head was in. 267 00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:24,720 We just happened to have bent down to tire our 268 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:27,799 shoe with that exact mell asecond That is what's so terrifying. 269 00:12:27,840 --> 00:12:31,639 Speaker 1: It implies zero agency. We didn't outsmart it, we didn't 270 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:33,840 engineer a solution. We just weren't there. 271 00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:36,639 Speaker 2: We were lucky. And the Sun has done this before 272 00:12:36,879 --> 00:12:39,960 multiple times. The sources you read point to the Great 273 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:43,039 geomagnetic storm of May nineteen twenty. 274 00:12:42,759 --> 00:12:44,720 Speaker 1: One, right, the New York railroad storm. 275 00:12:44,759 --> 00:12:48,320 Speaker 2: That's the one. A monstrous sunspot ten times the diameter 276 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:51,240 of Earth rotated a view and just started firing off 277 00:12:51,279 --> 00:12:53,000 CMEs for three days straight. 278 00:12:53,279 --> 00:12:56,080 Speaker 1: And the magnetic impact was just as severe as Carrington. 279 00:12:56,279 --> 00:12:59,120 Speaker 2: Right in some ways, yes, the induced currents were so 280 00:12:59,279 --> 00:13:03,039 strong that telegraph voltages spiked to thousands of volts. 281 00:13:03,240 --> 00:13:06,279 Speaker 1: Thousands of volts on a line designed for what a handful. 282 00:13:06,519 --> 00:13:09,279 Speaker 2: It was lethal. Switchboards in New York City literally burst 283 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:12,759 into flames. A railroad switching station burned to the ground, 284 00:13:13,159 --> 00:13:16,240 an entire telephone exchange in Sweden was destroyed by fire. 285 00:13:16,440 --> 00:13:18,720 Speaker 1: And the auroras were visible everywhere as far. 286 00:13:18,679 --> 00:13:21,600 Speaker 2: South as Texas and Samoa, places that should never ever 287 00:13:21,639 --> 00:13:23,080 see the northern lights. 288 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:26,120 Speaker 1: But again in nineteen twenty one, the world kept turning. 289 00:13:26,279 --> 00:13:29,679 It was a bad day for telegraph operators. But civilization 290 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:31,080 didn't collapse. 291 00:13:30,840 --> 00:13:33,159 Speaker 2: Because in nineteen twenty one we didn't have a glass 292 00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:37,279 jaw yet, we weren't critically dependent on fragile microelectronics or 293 00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:40,519 massive continent spanning synchronized power grids. 294 00:13:40,799 --> 00:13:42,399 Speaker 1: So the sun threw a punch that would be a 295 00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:44,080 knockout blow today, but. 296 00:13:44,039 --> 00:13:46,480 Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty one we were a primitive fighter. It 297 00:13:46,519 --> 00:13:48,240 was just a glancing blow. We shook it off. 298 00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:52,080 Speaker 1: It's that technology paradox again. The more advanced and interconnected 299 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:55,399 we become, the more vulnerable we are to this specific 300 00:13:55,559 --> 00:13:56,320 kind of threat. 301 00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:59,519 Speaker 2: We've built a civilization that is hyper sensitive to the 302 00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:03,120 magnet mood swings of our own star, and we haven't 303 00:14:03,159 --> 00:14:05,360 bothered to harden the grid to match that risk. 304 00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:07,960 Speaker 1: We're driving a Formula one car on a road full 305 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:08,960 of cosmic. 306 00:14:08,600 --> 00:14:11,320 Speaker 2: Potholes, whereas in nineteen twenty one we were in a 307 00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:12,480 solid axle tractor. 308 00:14:12,679 --> 00:14:17,720 Speaker 1: Now, speaking of technology and misinterpretation, there is a story 309 00:14:17,759 --> 00:14:21,000 in these files that I found genuinely chilling. It combines 310 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,320 solar physics with the absolute height of Cold War paranoia. 311 00:14:24,720 --> 00:14:27,000 The nineteen sixty seven incident, Ah, yes. 312 00:14:27,279 --> 00:14:29,879 Speaker 2: The Cold War solar flare. This is where the indifference 313 00:14:29,919 --> 00:14:32,960 of the Cosmos almost tricked humanity into committing suicide, just. 314 00:14:32,879 --> 00:14:36,159 Speaker 1: Set the stage for US. May twenty third, nineteen sixty seven. 315 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:38,080 The world is on a knife's edge. 316 00:14:38,120 --> 00:14:40,240 Speaker 2: It's about as tense as it ever got. The Vietnam 317 00:14:40,279 --> 00:14:43,039 War is raging, tensions between the US and the USSR 318 00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:46,679 and an absolute peak. Strategic Air Command has nuclear armed 319 00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:49,720 B fifty two bombers in the air twenty forty seven. 320 00:14:49,759 --> 00:14:51,000 On airborne alert. 321 00:14:50,879 --> 00:14:55,159 Speaker 1: The doctrine is mutually assured destruction. You launch, we launch. 322 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:57,120 Speaker 2: And the whole system depends on early warning. 323 00:14:57,320 --> 00:14:59,480 Speaker 1: And then the early warning system goes blind. 324 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:05,120 Speaker 2: Pecifically, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System or BMWs. These 325 00:15:05,159 --> 00:15:08,720 were three colossal radar sites in Alaska, Greenland and the UK. 326 00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:13,399 Their entire job was to spot soviet ICBMs coming over 327 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:14,279 the North Pole. 328 00:15:14,159 --> 00:15:16,799 Speaker 1: And suddenly all three of them go haywire. 329 00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:19,600 Speaker 2: They get jammed, the screens just fill with noise, with static. 330 00:15:19,639 --> 00:15:20,360 They're blinded. 331 00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:23,159 Speaker 1: Now, if you're a general and a bunker in Cheyenne 332 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:26,440 Mountain in nineteen sixty seven and all three of your 333 00:15:26,519 --> 00:15:29,679 forward facing radars go down at the exact same time. 334 00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,600 Speaker 2: You don't think, hmm, I wonder if there's an atmospheric anomaly, 335 00:15:33,039 --> 00:15:34,679 you think one thing, and one thing. 336 00:15:34,559 --> 00:15:36,159 Speaker 1: Only, a coordinated attack. 337 00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:39,759 Speaker 2: Bandard military doctrine, you blind the enemy's eyes right before 338 00:15:39,799 --> 00:15:43,519 you launch a nuclear first strike. It's the logical, terrifying 339 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:44,159 first step. 340 00:15:44,279 --> 00:15:46,960 Speaker 1: So the commanders assumed the Soviets were jamming their radar 341 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:51,039 frequencies to hide an inbound wave of missiles exactly. 342 00:15:50,679 --> 00:15:54,000 Speaker 2: And so they prepared for war. The alert levels went up, 343 00:15:54,399 --> 00:15:58,480 the engines on nuclear bombers were spun up. We were minutes, 344 00:15:58,799 --> 00:16:02,919 maybe less, from launching a full scale retaliatory strike against 345 00:16:02,919 --> 00:16:04,840 an attack that wasn't actually happening. 346 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,799 Speaker 1: The doomsday clock was literally ticking down in real time. 347 00:16:07,879 --> 00:16:08,879 What stopped it. 348 00:16:08,799 --> 00:16:12,080 Speaker 2: A miracle of perfect timing and a very new, very 349 00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:15,120 obscure branch of the Air Force, which was the solar 350 00:16:15,159 --> 00:16:18,919 forecasters at NORAD. They had only just started monitoring the 351 00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:20,240 Sun's radio output. 352 00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:22,039 Speaker 1: This was a brand new, feel, brand new. 353 00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,240 Speaker 2: And they had observed a massive solar flare earlier that day, 354 00:16:26,279 --> 00:16:28,679 one of the largest of the solar cycle. And they 355 00:16:28,759 --> 00:16:30,879 knew something the generals didn't, which. 356 00:16:30,679 --> 00:16:34,679 Speaker 1: Was that solar flares meet powerful radio waves exactly. 357 00:16:34,759 --> 00:16:37,519 Speaker 2: It's called the solar radio burst. The Sun was screaming 358 00:16:37,559 --> 00:16:40,159 across the entire radio spectrum, and it just so happened 359 00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:42,759 to be screaming on the exact frequencies used by the 360 00:16:42,759 --> 00:16:43,960 BMEWS radar. 361 00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:45,519 Speaker 1: So the Soviet jamming. 362 00:16:45,279 --> 00:16:47,759 Speaker 2: With the Sun, it was just cosmic static. 363 00:16:47,399 --> 00:16:49,279 Speaker 1: And they managed to get that information up the chain 364 00:16:49,279 --> 00:16:49,879 of command in. 365 00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:52,000 Speaker 2: Time, just in the nicked time, they made the call 366 00:16:52,159 --> 00:16:54,440 stand down. It's not the Russians, it's the Sun. 367 00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:57,759 Speaker 1: We almost nuked ourselves into oblivion because the Sun burped 368 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:00,159 and our own paranoia filled in the blank. 369 00:17:00,559 --> 00:17:05,759 Speaker 2: It's the most terrifying intersection of cosmic volatility and human psychology. 370 00:17:05,839 --> 00:17:09,319 It shows how little margin for air we have when 371 00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:11,759 we misunderstand the environment we are operating in. 372 00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:14,599 Speaker 1: Okay, So the Sun is the big obvious threat. It's 373 00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:16,680 the threat we can see. But let's pivot now to 374 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:19,599 the threats we don't see. The sources call them the 375 00:17:19,839 --> 00:17:23,759 invisible rocks asteroids. Now I have to play the skeptic 376 00:17:23,799 --> 00:17:25,519 for a second here. I feel like we've gotten better 377 00:17:25,519 --> 00:17:28,920 at this. NASA has a Planetary Defense Coordination Office. We 378 00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:32,519 have projects like pan Stars and the Catalina Sky Survey. 379 00:17:32,839 --> 00:17:36,599 We track near Earth objects NEOs, we do I feel 380 00:17:36,599 --> 00:17:38,759 like if a genuine city killer was on its way, 381 00:17:38,759 --> 00:17:40,799 we'd know there'd be a press conference, we'd have a 382 00:17:40,799 --> 00:17:43,559 plan with some of the dart mission or something to nudget. 383 00:17:43,839 --> 00:17:46,200 Speaker 2: That is the comforting narrative we tell ourselves, it's what 384 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:48,599 we want to believe. But the case study of asteroid 385 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:53,599 twenty nineteen, okay, it blows that entire narrative right out 386 00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:54,079 of the water. 387 00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,839 Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen. Okay, the name is so innocuous. Everything's okay. 388 00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:02,200 Speaker 2: It was decidedly not okay. On July twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, 389 00:18:02,599 --> 00:18:05,480 this rock swept past the Earth. And when I say 390 00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:07,799 swept past, I mean it was a hair's breadth in 391 00:18:07,839 --> 00:18:10,279 cosmic terms, just forty five thousand miles away. 392 00:18:10,359 --> 00:18:13,119 Speaker 1: Okay. For context, the Moon is about two hundred and 393 00:18:13,119 --> 00:18:16,759 forty thousand miles away, right, and the geosynchronous satellites that 394 00:18:16,839 --> 00:18:19,960 carry our TV signals and weather data are at twenty 395 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:20,920 two thousand miles. 396 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:23,519 Speaker 2: This thing threaded the needle. It flew right through the 397 00:18:23,559 --> 00:18:26,079 space between our critical satellites and the Moon. It was 398 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:27,400 deep inside our backyard. 399 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:30,200 Speaker 1: And how big are we talking here? This wasn't some pebble, right. 400 00:18:30,119 --> 00:18:32,359 Speaker 2: No estimates put it at up to four hundred and 401 00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:35,039 twenty seven feet wide. That's a forty story building moving 402 00:18:35,039 --> 00:18:36,559 at tens of thousands of miles an hour. 403 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:38,480 Speaker 1: And the impact energy you're. 404 00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:40,680 Speaker 2: Looking at something in the neighborhood of ten megatons of 405 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:42,039 TNT ten megatons. 406 00:18:42,079 --> 00:18:45,319 Speaker 1: The bomb that destroyed Hiroshimo was fifteen kilotones. 407 00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:48,079 Speaker 2: So this is hundreds of times more powerful. This is 408 00:18:48,079 --> 00:18:51,519 the definition of a city killer. If twenty nineteen ACAD 409 00:18:51,599 --> 00:18:55,559 hit a major metropolitan area London, New York, Tokyo, that 410 00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:58,960 city is not damaged, it's erased gone. The crater is 411 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:02,759 miles wide. The airburst flattens everything for tens of miles around. 412 00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:04,440 Speaker 1: And this is the part of the story that I 413 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:06,920 cannot wrap my head around. We didn't see it coming 414 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:08,680 until it was practically on top of us. 415 00:19:08,799 --> 00:19:12,000 Speaker 2: That's the horror of it. We didn't see it until 416 00:19:12,240 --> 00:19:15,000 mere hours before its closest approach. 417 00:19:15,319 --> 00:19:18,680 Speaker 1: How is that possible? How does a global network of 418 00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:21,720 billion dollar telescopes miss a rock the size of a 419 00:19:21,759 --> 00:19:23,839 football stadium until it's waving hello? 420 00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:27,160 Speaker 2: It's because of the blind spot the sun. It approached 421 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:28,799 Earth from the direction of the Sun. 422 00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:31,920 Speaker 1: Can you explain the physics of that why does that 423 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:33,240 make it invisible to us? 424 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:37,559 Speaker 2: All of our big optical survey telescopes work on contrast. 425 00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:41,519 They need to see a relatively faint, bright object moving 426 00:19:41,559 --> 00:19:44,839 against the black background of space at night. Okay, you 427 00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:47,720 cannot point a sensitive telescope anywhere near the Sun during 428 00:19:47,759 --> 00:19:51,359 the day. It would instantly destroy the optics, and even 429 00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:53,920 if it didn't, the object would be completely lost in 430 00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,440 the Sun's glare. It's like trying to spot a single 431 00:19:56,519 --> 00:19:59,240 black fly buzzing in front of a giant stadium searchlight. 432 00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:01,079 While you're share directly into the beam. 433 00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:03,279 Speaker 1: You're completely dazzled. You can't see a. 434 00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:06,839 Speaker 2: Thing, You're totally blind. Twenty nineteen, ok was hiding in 435 00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:10,160 that daylight glare. By the time Earth's orbit carried it 436 00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:12,759 into our night sky, where our telescopes could finally pick 437 00:20:12,759 --> 00:20:14,480 it up, it was already passed us. 438 00:20:14,519 --> 00:20:17,559 Speaker 1: So on July twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, while I was 439 00:20:17,599 --> 00:20:20,839 probably drinking a coffee and worrying about some stupid email, 440 00:20:21,039 --> 00:20:23,440 there was a rock with the power of a massive 441 00:20:23,519 --> 00:20:26,920 hydrogen bomb skimming our atmosphere and no one on Earth knew. 442 00:20:27,039 --> 00:20:29,559 Speaker 2: And if its trajectory had been just a tiny fraction 443 00:20:29,599 --> 00:20:32,000 of a degree different. There would have been no warning, 444 00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:35,720 no sirens, no breaking news alert on your phone, just 445 00:20:35,759 --> 00:20:39,119 a flash brighter than the sun and then a shockwave that. 446 00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:42,920 Speaker 1: Makes me feel incredibly small and powerless. And the sources 447 00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:45,559 are clear. This isn't some freak, one off event. This 448 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:49,200 blind spot is a known and terrifyingly regular problem. 449 00:20:49,319 --> 00:20:51,920 Speaker 2: It is. Just look back at asteroid forty five eighty 450 00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:54,440 one Silippius in nineteen eighty nine. This one was even bigger, 451 00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:57,079 a one thousand foot wide mountain of rock. 452 00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:59,160 Speaker 1: One thousand feet Okay, so now you're graduating from city 453 00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,160 killer to regional catastrophe. 454 00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:03,720 Speaker 2: Oh way beyond. The impact energy for as Sclepius is 455 00:21:03,799 --> 00:21:06,240 estimated at six hundred mega tons six hundred. 456 00:21:06,319 --> 00:21:09,920 Speaker 1: The largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, the Sovietsar BOMBA, was 457 00:21:10,079 --> 00:21:11,200 fifty megatons. 458 00:21:11,559 --> 00:21:14,480 Speaker 2: This is twelve times bigger than that. If Asclepias had 459 00:21:14,559 --> 00:21:17,440 hit the Pacific Ocean, the tsunamis would have been biblical. 460 00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:22,640 You're talking about the complete annihilation of the coastlines of California, Japan, Australia, 461 00:21:23,079 --> 00:21:24,440 tens of millions. 462 00:21:24,039 --> 00:21:25,839 Speaker 1: Dead, and the mist distance on that one. 463 00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:28,119 Speaker 2: This is the part that gives you chills. It passed 464 00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:31,039 through Earth's orbit at the exact spot where our planet 465 00:21:31,039 --> 00:21:32,680 had been just six hours earlier. 466 00:21:32,799 --> 00:21:35,000 Speaker 1: Six hours Earth moves. 467 00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:37,880 Speaker 2: Through its orbit at roughly sixty seven thousand miles an hour. 468 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:43,000 Six hours is nothing. It is a cosmic blink. It's 469 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:45,680 like you're sleep walking across a ten lane highway at 470 00:21:45,759 --> 00:21:50,000 night and a silent electric semi truck brushes the fabric. 471 00:21:49,599 --> 00:21:51,079 Speaker 1: On the back of your coat and you don't even 472 00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:51,519 wake up. 473 00:21:51,599 --> 00:21:52,759 Speaker 2: You don't even know what happened. 474 00:21:52,839 --> 00:21:54,880 Speaker 1: And did we see that one coming? Did we track it? 475 00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:58,559 Speaker 2: Nope? The astronomers Henry Holt and Norman Thomas discovered it 476 00:21:58,599 --> 00:22:00,680 on March thirty first, nine eighty nine. 477 00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:01,680 Speaker 1: But when did it pass us? 478 00:22:01,839 --> 00:22:03,000 Speaker 2: March twenty second. 479 00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,400 Speaker 1: So they found it nine days after the near miss. 480 00:22:05,519 --> 00:22:07,720 Speaker 2: We only saw the bullet hole in the wall behind 481 00:22:07,759 --> 00:22:10,160 us after the shot had already been fired. We were 482 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:12,000 looking at the event in the review mirror. 483 00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:15,880 Speaker 1: It's the exact same pattern nineteen eighty nine, twenty nineteen, 484 00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:18,400 And it just happened again, didn't it. In twenty twenty three. 485 00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:22,880 Speaker 2: Asteroid twenty twenty three NT one last July, a two 486 00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:25,200 hundred foot asteroid so bigger than the one that created 487 00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:29,559 Tunguska passed within sixty thousand miles of US, again, completely 488 00:22:29,599 --> 00:22:32,519 missed by NASA, missed by the European Space Agency, missed 489 00:22:32,519 --> 00:22:33,599 by the amateur networks. 490 00:22:33,799 --> 00:22:36,440 Speaker 1: Let me guess the sun blind spot. 491 00:22:36,279 --> 00:22:39,160 Speaker 2: The exact same mechanism. It was discovered by an observatory 492 00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,039 in South Africa two days after it had already passed us. 493 00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:43,960 Speaker 1: So it's like the gun went off right next to 494 00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,319 our ear twice in the last five years, and we're 495 00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:47,519 still not wearing your protection. 496 00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:51,119 Speaker 2: It proves that despite our AI, despite quantum computing and 497 00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,480 our rovers on Mars, we have a fundamental gaping hole 498 00:22:54,519 --> 00:22:57,519 in our shield. If the threat comes from the sunward direction, 499 00:22:57,960 --> 00:22:59,599 we are effectively defenseless. 500 00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:01,640 Speaker 1: It's like playing Russian Roulette, but you don't even know 501 00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:03,480 the gun is pressed to your temple until you hear 502 00:23:03,519 --> 00:23:04,599 the chamber click empty. 503 00:23:04,799 --> 00:23:07,559 Speaker 2: That's the reality of the solar apex approach, and it 504 00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:11,480 is a statistical inevitability that eventually one won't miss. 505 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:14,759 Speaker 1: Okay, we've covered the sun trying to fry us, and 506 00:23:14,839 --> 00:23:18,359 invisible rocks trying to crush us. But the deeper we 507 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:23,720 go into these source materials, the stranger and frankly more biblical, the. 508 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:25,480 Speaker 2: Threats become things get weird. 509 00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:29,039 Speaker 1: Section three covers what you call deep space monsters. And 510 00:23:29,079 --> 00:23:32,640 there's one story here, the Bonilla Observation of eighteen eighty three, 511 00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:36,079 that feels like it belongs in a Victorian horror novel. 512 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:38,079 Speaker 2: It's one of the most fascinating cold cases in the 513 00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:42,400 history of astronomy. You have Jose Bonia, a respected Mexican astronomer, 514 00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:43,920 at the Zakatika's. 515 00:23:43,279 --> 00:23:45,279 Speaker 1: Observatory, and he's doing routine work right. 516 00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,279 Speaker 2: Totally routine. It's August twelfth, eighteen eighty three. His job 517 00:23:48,319 --> 00:23:50,920 for the day is to observe and sketch sun. 518 00:23:50,839 --> 00:23:54,000 Speaker 1: Spots, and then the routine stops being routine. 519 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:57,119 Speaker 2: Abruptly he starts seeing these objects crossing the face of 520 00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,480 the sun. They're not sunspots. They're described as dark, fuzzy 521 00:24:00,519 --> 00:24:02,680 bodies surrounded by a sort of mist. 522 00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:04,039 Speaker 1: And not just one or two. 523 00:24:04,319 --> 00:24:06,640 Speaker 2: No, that's the shocking part. He counts four hundred and 524 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:08,599 forty seven of them over a period of two days. 525 00:24:08,759 --> 00:24:11,079 Speaker 1: Four hundred and forty seven. That's not an object, that's 526 00:24:11,079 --> 00:24:12,880 a fleet, an armada. 527 00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:17,119 Speaker 2: He was meticulous. He documented everything. He even managed to 528 00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,960 take some of the first ever wet plate photographs of 529 00:24:20,039 --> 00:24:23,200 these objects translating the sun. But when he wrote up 530 00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:26,279 his findings and sent them to the prestigious scientific journals 531 00:24:26,279 --> 00:24:27,119 in Paris. 532 00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:31,440 Speaker 1: Let me guess the European scientific elite weren't exactly receptive 533 00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,359 to a major discovery coming from a Mexican astronomer. 534 00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,839 Speaker 2: They ridiculed him. They laughed him off completely. The official 535 00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,640 explanation from a French journal was that it must have 536 00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:46,480 been high altitude bird migrations or dust on his telescope lens. 537 00:24:46,759 --> 00:24:50,319 He was dismissed. The observation was basically forgotten for over 538 00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:51,279 a century. 539 00:24:51,079 --> 00:24:53,400 Speaker 1: Just filed away as a curiosity. Oh the day at 540 00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:55,240 rained geese in Mexico exactly. 541 00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,279 Speaker 2: But then fast forward to twenty eleven, a team of 542 00:24:58,319 --> 00:25:02,000 researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico decide to 543 00:25:02,039 --> 00:25:05,759 pull Barnia's old data out of the archives and reanalyze 544 00:25:05,759 --> 00:25:07,839 it with modern computers and modern techniques. 545 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:08,519 Speaker 1: What did they find? 546 00:25:08,799 --> 00:25:09,880 Speaker 2: They looked at the parallax. 547 00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:12,759 Speaker 1: Explain parallax for us, How does that prove it wasn't 548 00:25:12,759 --> 00:25:13,599 a flock of birds. 549 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:17,480 Speaker 2: Parallax is the apparent shift in an object's position when 550 00:25:17,519 --> 00:25:20,920 you view it. From two different locations. If Bonia was 551 00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,599 seeing birds or dust inside our atmosphere, the parallax shift 552 00:25:24,599 --> 00:25:27,319 would have been huge, meaning only he could see them. 553 00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:31,480 The calculation showed these objects had almost no parallax, which. 554 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,680 Speaker 1: Means they had to be incredibly far away. 555 00:25:33,759 --> 00:25:36,359 Speaker 2: They had to be in space beyond the atmosphere. 556 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:37,119 Speaker 1: So what were they? 557 00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:39,359 Speaker 2: The twenty eleven study concluded it was the only thing. 558 00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:44,000 It could be a massive, recently fragmented comet, a billion 559 00:25:44,039 --> 00:25:46,799 ton comet that had shattered into hundreds of large pieces. 560 00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:49,759 Bonia was watching a river of cosmic debris flow past 561 00:25:49,759 --> 00:25:50,440 the Earth. 562 00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,079 Speaker 1: A river of rocks. And how close did this river come? 563 00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,599 Speaker 2: This is the truly terrifying part. The data suggests the 564 00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,640 fragments passed between three hundred and five thousand miles. 565 00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,359 Speaker 1: From Earth three hundred miles Wait a minute, the International 566 00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,160 Space Station orbits that are around two hundred and fifty miles. 567 00:26:05,319 --> 00:26:08,359 Speaker 2: Yes, this was a razor shave. Some of these fragments 568 00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,240 might have passed through what we now consider low Earth orbit. 569 00:26:11,079 --> 00:26:13,240 Speaker 1: And it wasn't one rock, it was a stream of them. 570 00:26:13,599 --> 00:26:16,960 If Earth's orbit had intersected with that stream, it wouldn't 571 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:17,279 have been. 572 00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,319 Speaker 2: A single impact event. It would have been a global 573 00:26:19,319 --> 00:26:23,640 bombardment like what think of the Cheguska event in Siberia 574 00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:27,240 in nineteen oh eight. That was a single, relatively small 575 00:26:27,279 --> 00:26:30,519 object that exploded in the air and flattened eight hundred 576 00:26:30,559 --> 00:26:35,240 square miles of forest. Now imagine three thousand Tunguska events 577 00:26:35,279 --> 00:26:39,160 going off simultaneously all over the daylight side of the planet. 578 00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,160 Speaker 1: That's an extinction level event, without question. 579 00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,480 Speaker 2: Global firestorms from the re entry heat, it's the ozone 580 00:26:46,559 --> 00:26:50,720 layer being chemically destroyed. It's a nuclear winter from the 581 00:26:50,839 --> 00:26:53,680 dust kicked into the stratosphere that would last for decades. 582 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:55,880 Humanity would have been decimated. 583 00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,599 Speaker 1: And the most insane part is that we watched our 584 00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,960 own funeral procession flowty took pictures of it and dismissed 585 00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:02,759 it as birds. 586 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,440 Speaker 2: It highlights our own observational arrogance. We assume if something 587 00:27:06,519 --> 00:27:08,599 that world ending were happening, you would be obvious, we 588 00:27:08,599 --> 00:27:11,200 would know. But we stared the grim Reaper right in 589 00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:11,799 the face. 590 00:27:11,599 --> 00:27:13,599 Speaker 1: And the laught and it really speaks to the unique 591 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,559 danger of commets, doesn't it, As opposed to asteroids. 592 00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,119 Speaker 2: It does. Asteroids are mostly rocks that live in the 593 00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:22,759 inner Solar System. Their orbits are relatively stable and predictable. 594 00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,599 We can track them over years decades. Comets are different 595 00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:28,319 beasts entirely like. 596 00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,839 Speaker 1: Comet Hyacutech in nineteen ninety six. 597 00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,359 Speaker 2: High Coutech is a perfect example. It was a spectacular 598 00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,839 comet for anyone watching from Earth, but the Ulysses spacecraft, 599 00:27:37,079 --> 00:27:40,519 which was out exploring the Solar System, found something terrifying 600 00:27:40,519 --> 00:27:41,039 about it. 601 00:27:41,039 --> 00:27:41,559 Speaker 1: Its tail. 602 00:27:41,839 --> 00:27:45,160 Speaker 2: Its tail was the longest ever discovered, three hundred and 603 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,880 fifty million miles long. It was so vast it wrapped 604 00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:50,720 halfway around the inner Solar System. 605 00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:51,759 Speaker 1: And Earth flew right through it. 606 00:27:51,839 --> 00:27:54,440 Speaker 2: We passed directly through the tail. We didn't even know 607 00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,000 it at the time, not until they analyzed the magnetic 608 00:27:57,079 --> 00:28:00,519 data from Ulysses months later. Now at his tail is 609 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,119 just ionized gas and fine dust. It's completely harmless, but 610 00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,359 it shows the scale. It shows the sheer scale of 611 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:09,480 these objects. And hier attack was a long period comet. 612 00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:11,480 It came from the Ort cloud, that's. 613 00:28:11,319 --> 00:28:14,480 Speaker 1: The deep freeze at the outermost edge of the Solar System, right. 614 00:28:14,799 --> 00:28:17,839 Speaker 2: Way way out there. These are itsty bodies that get 615 00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,039 nudged by a passing star and start a long, slow 616 00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,599 fall towards the Sun. They come in on highly elliptical orbits, 617 00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:26,319 picking up incredible speed. 618 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,119 Speaker 1: If we don't get much warning, by the. 619 00:28:28,039 --> 00:28:30,839 Speaker 2: Time we can see them, they're already moving incredibly fast, 620 00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:34,400 and they're already close. We might have months of warning, 621 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:38,000 maybe a year, not the decades we'd need to mount 622 00:28:38,039 --> 00:28:39,519 a serious deflection mission. 623 00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,799 Speaker 1: So if a big, long period comet nucleus was found 624 00:28:42,839 --> 00:28:44,640 to be on a direct collision course. 625 00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,559 Speaker 2: There is no Bruce Willis solution. There's no secret rocket 626 00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,799 sitting on a launch pad ready to go. We would 627 00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:51,759 just watch it get closer. 628 00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,240 Speaker 1: No, Bruce Willis. That is a profoundly sobering thought. 629 00:28:55,359 --> 00:28:57,079 Speaker 2: But if you want to talk about the ultimate bolt 630 00:28:57,119 --> 00:28:59,920 from the blue, the ultimate threat you can't see, can't predict, 631 00:29:00,039 --> 00:29:02,920 and can't defend against, we have to talk about gamma 632 00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,480 ray bursts GRBs. 633 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:06,640 Speaker 1: The death rays from deep space. 634 00:29:07,079 --> 00:29:10,359 Speaker 2: They are, without any hyperbole, the most powerful explosions in 635 00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,319 the universe since the Big Bang. They happened when a 636 00:29:13,319 --> 00:29:16,039 truly massive star, many times the mass of our Sun, 637 00:29:16,279 --> 00:29:19,200 collapses at the end of its life into a black hole. 638 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:23,039 Speaker 1: And it doesn't just explode outwards, It fires these beams exactly. 639 00:29:23,119 --> 00:29:25,880 Speaker 2: Its rotational energy focuses most of the blast into two 640 00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:30,680 tightly colimated, relativistic jets of high energy gamma radiation. There 641 00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:31,839 were literal beans. 642 00:29:31,599 --> 00:29:33,400 Speaker 1: Of death, and we had a close call, or at 643 00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,039 least a significant event very recently, the one they called 644 00:29:37,079 --> 00:29:37,519 the boat. 645 00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:42,640 Speaker 2: We did October ninth, twenty twenty two astronomers detected GRB 646 00:29:43,039 --> 00:29:46,279 twenty two to one zero zero nine A. It was 647 00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:50,240 so powerful, so much brighter than anything ever recorded, that 648 00:29:50,279 --> 00:29:53,519 they nicknamed it the boat the brightest of all time? 649 00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:54,599 Speaker 1: How much brighter are we talking? 650 00:29:54,799 --> 00:29:57,240 Speaker 2: It was seventy times brighter than the previous record holder. 651 00:29:57,599 --> 00:30:00,359 It completely saturated the detectors on our space til scopes. 652 00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:01,200 Speaker 1: Where did it come from? 653 00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,680 Speaker 2: A galaxy two point four billion light years away? 654 00:30:03,759 --> 00:30:06,440 Speaker 1: Two point four billion That is a distance my brain 655 00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,799 simply cannot process. Surely from that far away? Is just 656 00:30:09,839 --> 00:30:11,160 an academic curiosity. 657 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,799 Speaker 2: It's harmless, you think so. I mean, the light from 658 00:30:13,799 --> 00:30:16,640 that explosion has been traveling since before there was complex 659 00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,039 life on Earth. But the energy in that beam was 660 00:30:19,079 --> 00:30:23,279 so focused and so unbelievably intense that when it hit Earth, 661 00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,599 it physically altered our planet's atmosphere. 662 00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:30,279 Speaker 1: Wait what it changed our atmosphere? From two billion light 663 00:30:30,319 --> 00:30:30,920 years away. 664 00:30:31,319 --> 00:30:36,200 Speaker 2: Yes, it had enough energy to significantly ionize the upper atmosphere. 665 00:30:36,599 --> 00:30:39,960 It measurably changed the electron density in the Earth's ionosphere 666 00:30:40,039 --> 00:30:43,319 for hours. It triggered lightning detectors on the ground. It 667 00:30:43,359 --> 00:30:45,319 shook our entire magnetosphere. 668 00:30:45,359 --> 00:30:48,559 Speaker 1: So what here is pretty obvious. What if one of 669 00:30:48,559 --> 00:30:49,880 these goes off closer to home? 670 00:30:50,119 --> 00:30:53,960 Speaker 2: That is the ultimate nightmare scenario. If a GRB like 671 00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:57,279 the boat were to occur inside our own Milky Way galaxy, 672 00:30:57,359 --> 00:31:00,759 say within five thousand or ten thousand light years, which 673 00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:03,319 is our cosmic neighborhood, and the jet happened to be 674 00:31:03,319 --> 00:31:06,200 pointed directly at us, it wouldn't just ping our sensors. 675 00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,599 Speaker 1: It would sterilize the planet absolutely. 676 00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,759 Speaker 2: The wave of gamma radiation would flash fry the daylight 677 00:31:11,799 --> 00:31:14,039 side of the Earth and more importantly, would rip the 678 00:31:14,079 --> 00:31:16,000 ozone layer to shreds instantly. 679 00:31:16,119 --> 00:31:17,680 Speaker 1: And without the ozone layer. 680 00:31:17,599 --> 00:31:21,240 Speaker 2: The Sun's unfiltered UV radiation pours in. It would be catastrophic. 681 00:31:21,279 --> 00:31:23,680 It would break down DNA and surface life, causing mass 682 00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,960 cancers and mutations. It would kill the phytoplankton in the oceans, 683 00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:28,960 which are the base of the entire marine food chain 684 00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,039 and produce a huge amount of our oxygen. 685 00:31:31,119 --> 00:31:33,240 Speaker 1: It would be a mass extinction from a direction we 686 00:31:33,319 --> 00:31:34,440 never even thought to look. 687 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,240 Speaker 2: We are sitting in a galaxy that is effectively a 688 00:31:37,319 --> 00:31:42,640 mine field of these slumbering hypergiant stars, and our survival 689 00:31:43,039 --> 00:31:45,720 is entirely dependent on the random chance of which way 690 00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:47,839 their jets are pointing when they finally go off. 691 00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,319 Speaker 1: If the stars pointed one degree to the left, we 692 00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,119 might see a pretty new nebula. If it's pointed directly 693 00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,279 at us, we become fossil records for some future intelligent 694 00:31:57,359 --> 00:31:58,319 species to find. 695 00:31:58,440 --> 00:31:59,319 Speaker 2: That's the game we're in. 696 00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,039 Speaker 1: You as you list all these near misses twenty twelve, 697 00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,480 nineteen twenty one, twenty nineteen, eighteen eighty three, twenty twenty two, 698 00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,400 it's easy to start feeling like we have some kind 699 00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,920 of plot armor, like the universe can throw its worst 700 00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:12,119 at us, but will always just. 701 00:32:12,119 --> 00:32:13,960 Speaker 2: Scrape by the invincibilities. 702 00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:16,640 Speaker 1: Salla sie exactly. But the final section of these source 703 00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,839 materials suggests something very different. It suggests our luck has 704 00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:21,759 run out before catastrophically. 705 00:32:21,799 --> 00:32:25,440 Speaker 2: Section four the ancient scar We carry the evidence of 706 00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:27,720 a past apocalypse in our own DNA, and. 707 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:31,920 Speaker 1: This is the Toba Supereruption, roughly seventy four thousand years ago, the. 708 00:32:31,839 --> 00:32:35,240 Speaker 2: Toba supervolcano in what is now Indonesia. This wasn't just 709 00:32:35,279 --> 00:32:38,240 a big eruption. This is the largest volcanic eruption of 710 00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,240 the last twenty five million years. It was apocalyptic on 711 00:32:41,279 --> 00:32:45,559 a planetary scale. It blew nearly three thousand cubic kilometers 712 00:32:45,599 --> 00:32:47,359 of rock and ash into the sky. 713 00:32:47,559 --> 00:32:50,240 Speaker 1: But the sources you sent mentioned a possible solar connection 714 00:32:50,279 --> 00:32:51,759 here that I'd never heard before. 715 00:32:52,039 --> 00:32:55,880 Speaker 2: It's a newer theory. It's still controversial, but it's incredibly compelling. 716 00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,839 Some paleoclimatologists and solar physicists are looking at the core 717 00:33:00,359 --> 00:33:05,480 between deep solar minimums, periods of very low solar activity, 718 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,240 and an increasing cosmic rays hitting the Earth. 719 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:09,880 Speaker 1: How would that trigger a volcano? 720 00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,279 Speaker 2: The theory is twofold. The increased cosmic rays might seed 721 00:33:13,359 --> 00:33:17,160 clouds causing dramatic climate shifts, or, and this is the 722 00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,079 more speculative part, the muons generated by cosmic rays could 723 00:33:21,119 --> 00:33:25,359 potentially trigger instabilities in large silica rich magma chambers that 724 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:26,599 are already prying to blow. 725 00:33:26,839 --> 00:33:28,880 Speaker 1: So the Sun going quiet might have helped pull the 726 00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:30,519 trigger on the Earth's biggest volcano. 727 00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:33,839 Speaker 2: It's possible it was a synchronized hit, a perfect storm 728 00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:38,279 of solar inactivity and geological pressure reaching a tipping point. 729 00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:41,440 Speaker 1: And the result for our ancestors, for early Homo sapiens, 730 00:33:41,559 --> 00:33:43,160 was nearly the end of the story. 731 00:33:43,319 --> 00:33:47,079 Speaker 2: It was. Genetic studies of modern human DNA from all 732 00:33:47,119 --> 00:33:50,559 over the world show a clear bottleneck. Right around this time, 733 00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,680 the diversity of our genes collapses, which indicates that the 734 00:33:54,759 --> 00:33:56,119 human population crashed. 735 00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,319 Speaker 1: We were reduced to a tiny, tiny. 736 00:33:58,079 --> 00:34:01,640 Speaker 2: Group, frighteningly tiny. It's very of course, but some of 737 00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,640 the genetic models suggest the total human population on the 738 00:34:04,759 --> 00:34:07,599 entire planet was reduced to as few as three thousand 739 00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:09,559 to ten thousand breeding individuals. 740 00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:13,159 Speaker 1: Three thousand people. That's not a species. That's a small town. 741 00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:15,039 That's the crowd at a high school football game. 742 00:34:15,199 --> 00:34:17,599 Speaker 2: We were, for all intents and purposes, on the endangered 743 00:34:17,639 --> 00:34:21,760 species list. We were one bad winter, one new plague, 744 00:34:22,079 --> 00:34:24,679 or one prolonged drought away from total extinction. 745 00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:27,840 Speaker 1: It really puts our whole modern world into perspective. We 746 00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:31,039 look around at eight billion people, at skyscrapers, at the Internet, 747 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:33,079 and we forget that every single one of us is 748 00:34:33,119 --> 00:34:36,519 a direct descendant of that tiny, ragged band of survivors 749 00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,360 who just barely scrape by. 750 00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,800 Speaker 2: We aren't the chosen ones who are destined to rule 751 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:46,000 the planet. We are the leftovers. We're the descendants of 752 00:34:46,039 --> 00:34:48,280 the few who managed to crawl through the great filter. 753 00:34:48,519 --> 00:34:50,679 Speaker 1: So let's try to bring all this together. We've gone 754 00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:53,519 through the physics of doom. We've melted the grid, we've 755 00:34:53,559 --> 00:34:57,079 dodged city killing rocks, we've been missed by cosmic death rays. 756 00:34:58,039 --> 00:35:01,159 What does this all mean for the person listening right now? 757 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:02,639 What's the synthesis here? 758 00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,119 Speaker 2: I think the first and most important takeaway is about 759 00:35:05,119 --> 00:35:09,400 the illusion of safety. We have this deep, powerful psychological 760 00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:11,840 need to believe that someone. 761 00:35:11,519 --> 00:35:13,119 Speaker 1: Is in charge, that there's a plan. 762 00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:18,039 Speaker 2: Right. We think NASA, the government, the military, they've got 763 00:35:18,039 --> 00:35:20,360 this handled. They see the threats, they have a plan 764 00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:21,199 to mitigate them. 765 00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,159 Speaker 1: But the data we've just talked about shows they are 766 00:35:23,199 --> 00:35:25,400 almost always reacting, not being proactive. 767 00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,559 Speaker 2: Finding an asteroid nine days after it nearly hit us 768 00:35:28,639 --> 00:35:31,440 isn't a plan, It's an autopsy of a near miss. 769 00:35:32,039 --> 00:35:35,400 We have to accept fundamentally that our systems are reactive 770 00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:39,239 and often completely blind to the biggest and fastest threats. 771 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,719 Speaker 1: Which leads to the second point, which is more philosophical, 772 00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:43,320 the indifference of the universe. 773 00:35:43,679 --> 00:35:46,559 Speaker 2: That's the real philosophical weight of all this. The universe 774 00:35:46,599 --> 00:35:48,920 isn't malicious. It is not trying to kill us. 775 00:35:49,039 --> 00:35:51,599 Speaker 1: It's not a bond villain sitting there stroking a cat 776 00:35:51,639 --> 00:35:53,679 and plotting our demid No, and. 777 00:35:53,599 --> 00:35:56,599 Speaker 2: In some ways that's much scarier. It's simply indifferent. The 778 00:35:56,639 --> 00:35:59,960 Sun throws a cme because of the physics of magnetic reconnection. 779 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,159 It has no idea that a species on the third 780 00:36:03,159 --> 00:36:06,960 planet has built a fragile electrical guid It doesn't know 781 00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:08,159 and it doesn't care. 782 00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:10,840 Speaker 1: And you can't reason with indifference. 783 00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:13,400 Speaker 2: You can't negotiate with it. You can only harden yourself 784 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:13,840 against it. 785 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:16,159 Speaker 1: And we've done the absolute opposite, haven't we, which is 786 00:36:16,199 --> 00:36:18,400 the technology paradox Exactly. 787 00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:22,519 Speaker 2: We have built a global civilization that is exquisitely tuned 788 00:36:22,559 --> 00:36:26,400 for efficiency, but that has made it incredibly fragile to disruption. 789 00:36:27,159 --> 00:36:31,280 We have systematically traded resilience for convenience at every single turn. 790 00:36:31,639 --> 00:36:34,440 Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty nine, a Carrington event was a light 791 00:36:34,519 --> 00:36:38,320 show and a few burnt telegraph offices. We were resilient 792 00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:39,400 because we were simple. 793 00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,800 Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, that same event is a civilization 794 00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:47,559 ender because we are complex, and our complexity breeds cascading fragility. 795 00:36:47,639 --> 00:36:50,800 Speaker 1: We've built a beautiful, intricate house of class in. 796 00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,960 Speaker 2: A neighborhood where the kids are constantly throwing rocks. 797 00:36:53,639 --> 00:36:56,400 Speaker 1: And that leads finally to the Casino analogy. 798 00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,199 Speaker 2: It's the only one that really fits. We are playing 799 00:36:59,199 --> 00:37:03,039 a game of cosmic Russian Roulette, and we've had an 800 00:37:03,079 --> 00:37:06,400 amazing winning streak. Twenty twelve was a win, twenty nineteen 801 00:37:06,559 --> 00:37:10,239 was a win. But probability and statistics are unforgiving. You 802 00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,840 cannot win forever. The house always wins, The house always wins. 803 00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,599 The question isn't if another Carrington level storm will hit us. 804 00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:21,000 The question isn't if another city killer asteroid will line 805 00:37:21,039 --> 00:37:23,519 us up in its sights. It is strictly and only 806 00:37:23,639 --> 00:37:24,639 a matter of when. 807 00:37:24,639 --> 00:37:27,360 Speaker 1: And when could be tomorrow, it could be in one hundred. 808 00:37:27,159 --> 00:37:29,119 Speaker 2: Years, or it could be happening right now while we're 809 00:37:29,119 --> 00:37:31,800 recording this. The light just hasn't reached us yet. 810 00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,519 Speaker 1: On that cheerful note, let's leave the listener with a 811 00:37:34,559 --> 00:37:37,400 final thought to chew on throughout this whole conversation, we 812 00:37:37,519 --> 00:37:40,679 kept coming back to these tiny time frames nine days, 813 00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,239 six hours in the grand scale of the cosmos thirteen 814 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,239 point eight billion years, What is six hours? What is 815 00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:48,920 nine days? 816 00:37:49,079 --> 00:37:51,719 Speaker 2: It's less than a rounding er, It's a fraction of 817 00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:55,400 a nanosecond on the cosmic clock. We are missing extinction 818 00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:59,599 by margins that are, for all practical purposes zero. 819 00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:01,920 Speaker 1: Well, here's my question to you listening to this on 820 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:05,039 your phone, powered by that grid, safe and sound in 821 00:38:05,079 --> 00:38:09,400 your daily routine. We have survived this long by being small, 822 00:38:09,519 --> 00:38:14,360 and mostly by being lucky. But is luck a sustainable strategy? 823 00:38:14,679 --> 00:38:16,360 Is that something we can bank our. 824 00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:18,400 Speaker 2: Future on a gambler's fallacy? 825 00:38:18,519 --> 00:38:22,039 Speaker 1: And knowing what you know now about the grid, about 826 00:38:22,039 --> 00:38:24,480 the fragility of the water pumps and the food trucks 827 00:38:24,519 --> 00:38:27,679 and the digital economy, how would you really survive if 828 00:38:27,679 --> 00:38:30,079 our luck finally ran out? If the lights went out 829 00:38:30,119 --> 00:38:32,599 tomorrow and didn't come back on for a year or longer. 830 00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:33,639 Are you ready? 831 00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,679 Speaker 2: Because preparation is the only real antidote to a bad 832 00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:37,480 roll of the dice. 833 00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:40,039 Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on thrilling freads. I encourage you 834 00:38:40,079 --> 00:38:42,440 to dig into these sources yourself. They are equal parts 835 00:38:42,599 --> 00:38:45,840 terrifying and fascinating, and leave your answer in the comments below. 836 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:47,519 We want to know what you think. We'll see you 837 00:38:47,519 --> 00:38:47,920 next time.