Exploring the Euclid Mission with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jason Rhodes

What are dark energy and dark matter? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice learn about the Euclid Mission and our latest efforts to uncover the secrets of The Dark Universe with JPL Researcher, Jason Rhodes.

If dark energy is spreading out and getting thinner, how do you get more of it? Learn more about dark energy as a property of spacetime, how we verify dark energy, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope set for launch in 2027. Discover how the Nancy Grace Roman and the Euclid Space telescope will help us find out more about the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

Could there be black holes made out of dark matter? We discuss how scientists deal with only using images of the distant past and whether agencies collaborate or are competitive with each other. What is the Great Attractor? Find out about this fascinating feature of our Universe. Why do we assume dark matter is matter? What is space? Are dark energy and dark matter good names for these phenomena?

What happens when gravity waves collide? Learn about an European Space Agency mission, LISA, that will put lasers in space to detect gravitational waves. What methods did Euclid use to explore dark energy? Plus, why is it called the Euclid mission? Does it have anything to do with geometry?

Thanks to our Patrons Florian Mueller, Bartek Moryc, Lorena Pereira, Leon Helmink, Stephan Marty, sam jones, and Phillip Berryhill for supporting us this week.

NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.

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About StarTalk:
Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!

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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction: Euclid Mission
2:02 - What is Dark Energy?
10:23 - Telescopes on Space Balloons
16:00 - Could There Be a Black Hole Made of Dark Matter?
19:39 - How Are Scientists Dealing with Outdated Images?
23:30 - What is The Great Attractor?
27:11 - Why Do We Assume Dark Matter Is Matter?
33:46 - Gravitational Waves Colliding
37:02 - How Will Euclid Explore Dark Energy?
40:49 - What Does the Euclid Mission Have to Do with Geometry?

[ev]

Hi just finished “astrophysics for people in a hurry” and I loved it

[pgkhan]

“Dark energy is the name we give to our ignorance of what’s causing our universe to expand faster and faster over time.”

I think Jason Rhodes just gave the simplest definition of dark energy I’ve ever heard.

[Nefville]

Jason is an amazing science communicator. Its a rare thing to find someone who 1 knows the answers but 2 can actually translate them into something the public like me can digest. Top marks!

[dimitri]

One of the best dark matter/dark energy discussions I've heard. Great job.

[tj_enju]

In the past three years Ive taken it upon myself to solve my communication/social skills problems and it has been a daily struggle ...its NielDeGrass 's show but Sir Chuck is who Im here for.

[alexaales]

hello Neil, my personal astro physicist, every night when i walk my dog for the last time of the day and i look up to the stars (living in a small village where the sky is not light polluted) and being amazed every time i think of you cause you taught me so much! thank you for that! you will always be in my heart for the influence you had on my life! your epitaph has already been fulfilled so don't drive yourself nuts 🙂!

[keep-ukraine-free]

Another great episode. I loved that Lord Nice shows us he's quite smart, even though he couldn't do a Ph.D. as Neil and Jason could.
From only osmosis, without textbooks, Doctro Nice has learned so much in just 2 years - showing _he's also_ very smart! Loved this!

[julianheller]

Been listening to every episode these last years and from all discussions of dark matter/energy, this one was the most complete, comprehensive, and informative one.
Amazing responses by the Jason.

[messier]

I bet it's so awesome to be both of yalls friends. The learning and the jokes are awesome ! & at the same moment, have our minds blown from the crazy facts by Mr.Tyson. The fact that he takes the time to learn and read published scientific papers, then tells it to us in a way that is very paletable for the masses is underrated, & I am honored to be alive in a time of podcasts to watch Star Talk. Thank You Guys! I highly respect you two and I highly recommend to watch all episodes. Have a great day everyone.

[waterashwagandha]

happy birthday dr. Tyson i love you & i am so thankful for you 💗💗

[alanhehe]

Always entertaining and informative!!
🔥

[nilo]

Jason is such a nice man for taking this time to help us understand what the cutting edge of technology is doing right now to help humanity understand the Universe.

[mainman]

There was a study on perception for which some humans that were blind, but could receive a surgery to gain sight, were asked to feel some objects like marble and different dice before their surgeries. After, they were asked to identify the objects based on sight. It was concluded they could not reliably distinguish between the objects. Its mind blowing to think most of the universe is outside of human sense perception so most of reality is probably like the objects in the study. We can have good models and descriptions but our minds likely just can’t actually conceive of ‘what it really is’ or ‘what is really happening’. Dark matter, dark energy, forces, atoms, electrons, spin, the power of a star, the shape of spacetime, the scale of the universe type of stuff is probably way beyond our imagination. We’re just lucky math works so well cuz humans have near 0 intuition for most of what ‘is’ in the universe. Existence is weird 😶‍🌫️

[Phoca_Vitulina]

This was such a great ep! Also I love Chuck so much, like he's such a great co-host and always has thoughtful and/or comedic input, and was really impressed by his calling out inequities women face/faced in science <3

[jmanj]

0:21 Alright! Yay, it's Chuck!

I mean that, too.

I know that I bust his chops a bit, but it comes from a positive orientation.

I like Chuck, and I'm happy to see it whenever he actually remembers something that was covered on an earlier show. It's great to watch the doctor's teaching methods as they bear fruit in front of me.

Also important is that I take my comic relief seriously, too, and Chuck is, hands-down, the best comedic pick for learning this stuff from Dr. Tyson.

Another huge asset is the extent of Chuck's knowledge prior to his Star Talk days. He brought with himself plenty of room for storing the newest, the latest, the greatest; and, also, the stuff that humanity has known for thousands of years...

Mecurio and Kerchner (sp?) do a good job of staying funny and asking sharp questions, like Chuck does.

Oh, and Merman is a hoot, but...he's...maybe not as "sharp", scientifically speaking, as is Lord Nice.

And, No; That was not a mistake by my auto-correct, either...I deliberately typed that last section...

It is what it is, so take it for whatever it is that you want it to become.

Just so we're all on the same sheet of paper, the same slide, wtvr... 😅

[bonk]

For the last idk how many months i ve been listening to neil while sleeping..dude is a legit asmr.

[rambletonne]

Really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you to all involved. I learned a lot.

[MattCayen]

I heard in a french conference that they called it dark matter because we can predict it yet we cannot see it. Space being dark, that matter must be dark. What a fascinating subject

[willasd]

What if it's like air in a room. You can say as the room gets bigger you'd assume there is more air in the room. Unless only the room itself is expanding but it's a sealed space so there isn't actually more air. Instead the air within the room is getting stretched and thinner as the room keeps expanding 🤔🤔
Maybe gravity in space getting stretched is actually like a rubber band getting stretched and like a rubber band there is a constant force trying to return it's form back to the original state and that force is what we define as "dark energy".
And like the rubber band, the force will either keep getting stronger as it stretches or the thing getting stretched will snap.

[sabotagesabotage]

Y’all should do an episode on Mondays and Thursdays so we have something to look forward to in such desperate times. Also, Can a Planck length be expressed or understood as the minimum amount of space required for the mechanics of reality and or the Planck length measurement itself to exist within? Dark matter and dark energy are not real, they are probabilities, sold to you to fund research into the unknowing, but the more we split the hairs, what’s underneath was proven all along through religion and alchemical symbolism. That’s why so many physicists will tell you we’ve already discovered everything in the nature of reality, just fix the decimals and zeros depending on the outcome of a particular probability.