StarTalk: Bringing the Universe Down to Earth
StarTalk: Bringing the Universe Down to Earth

StarTalk

Science, pop culture, and comedy collide on StarTalk! Astrophysicist and Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, celebrity guests, and scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up! Click here for more information.

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  • How do you build a telescope to study something you can’t see? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Paul Mecurio sit down with Jason Rhodes, senior research scientist at JPL, to explore the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and its search for answers on dark energy and dark matter.

    This is an artist’s illustration of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope spacecraft against a starry background. The Roman Space Telescope is a Hubble-sized telescope planned for launch in the mid-2020s. It will revolutionize astronomy by building on the science discoveries and technological leaps of the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.
  • How big can bugs get? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Negin Farsad sit down with entomologist, Jessica Ware, to dig into the extraordinary world of bugs, insects the size of navel oranges, how they invented flying and so much more.

    This image shows an about 1.6 inch (4 cm) large male Yellow-winged Darter (Sympetrum flaveolum) from the side.
  • What does it look like beneath the surface of the sun? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice discuss the heliosphere, the Parker Solar Probe, and solar storms with heliophysicist Lika Guhathakurta.

    Solar flare Mid-level
  • Could there be a hidden planet lurking beyond Pluto and Neptune? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice tackle a wide-ranging grab bag of fan questions covering Planet 9, galaxy shapes, dark matter, the odds of getting hit by a meteorite, and more!

    Planet nine, artistic rendering in crescent phase with milky way background and sun in background as greatly overexposed -11.5 magnitude star in Ophiuchus
  • Does time always move at the same rate? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice break down things you thought you knew about time dilation, gravity assists, the north star, and your zodiac sign.

    This striking image was captured using a fish-eye lens, giving it the distinctive look of a circular window, peering into a different world. Here the landscape at the [/public/teles-instr/lasilla/ La Silla] observatory in Chile can be seen wrapped around the edge, with the constellations of the Zodiac splashed across the early morning sky.
  • Could spacetime curve in the opposite direction and produce a repulsive field instead of gravity? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice tackle fan questions about photons, heat death, gravitational waves, neutron stars and more with astrophysicist Michelle Thaller.

    This artist's impression illustrates the merger of two neutron stars, which produces the remarkably brief (1- to 2-second) yet intensely powerful event known as a short gamma-ray burst.
  • How do you get entangled particles? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice unpack the experimental side of entanglement, superposition, and the quantum underpinnings of our universe with experimental physicist, Sean Hodgman.

    he NIST process for "purifying" an unusual property of quantum physics called entanglement involves illuminating two pairs of beryllium ions (charged atoms) with a series of ultraviolet laser pulses.
  • What type of planets orbit black holes? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Negin Farsad sit down with Mordecai-Mark Mac Low to crack open the mysteries of galaxy collisions, dark matter, and the massive planetary systems around black holes.

    This is a composite photo, assembled from separate images of Jupiter and Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, as imaged by the Wide Field & Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), aboard. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
  • What would happen in a world with too much oxygen? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice break down how rocks actually float, warm blankets, and why oxygen isn’t actually flammable.

    Lahemaa National Park. Hauaneeme bay at Pärispea village.
  • Have aliens already secretly visited us? Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with Steven Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp to discuss their new film Disclosure Day, alien contact, and why Spielberg believes there’s more out there than meets the eye.

    Image of an iris overlaying a UFO