Learn about what it looks like when galaxies collide with one another; how to measure how sleepy you are using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale; and how much damage space junk the size of a pencil eraser can do. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Our Galaxy Is Headed for a Collision, and New Research Shows What It Will Look Like — https://curiosity.im/2RDDhZU Measure Your Sleepiness with the Epworth Scale — https://curiosity.im/2Df297c Check Out the Damage That Space Junk the Size of a Pencil Eraser Can Do — https://curiosity.im/2DfxRkM Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about what it looks like when galaxies collide with one another; how to measure how sleepy you are using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale; and how much damage space junk the size of a pencil eraser can do.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/measure-your-sleepiness-what-happens-when-galaxies-collide-and-space-junk-damage
CODY GOUGH: Hi, we've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about what it looks like when galaxies collide with one another, a scale for measuring how sleepy you are, and how much damage space junk the size of a pencil eraser can do.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. The Milky Way Galaxy is on a crash course with the Andromeda Galaxy. Dun, dun, dun. But it's not going to happen for several billion years, so not too much to worry about. What's exciting though, is that astronomers just found a bunch of other merging galaxies that'll help them predict what will happen when the big collision comes to our corner of the galaxy.
ASHLEY HAMER: I like this story because not only is it merging galaxies, it's merging black holes. So it's super epic.
CODY GOUGH: Such a fan of black holes. And this has to do with Black holes because at the center of many galaxies is--
ASHLEY HAMER: A supermassive black hole.
CODY GOUGH: Supermassive black hole--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, there's probably a song. There's got to be a Supermassive Black Hole song, right?
CODY GOUGH: It's by Muse.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cool.
CODY GOUGH: I've seen them perform it live.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't know those things.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, it was in the Twilight soundtrack.
ASHLEY HAMER: Muse actually has a lot of cosmological themes in their songs, right? That's the thing.
CODY GOUGH: It might be. I'm just glad that you totally skated over the fact that I knew that it was on the Twilight soundtrack.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, I was--
CODY GOUGH: That didn't even register.
ASHLEY HAMER: I had a fact I had to share. I needed to bulldoze over everything else.
CODY GOUGH: That's fine. I'm OK with that. Moving right along, galaxy mergers are actually really common. In fact, the Milky Way probably swallowed some smaller galaxies over the years. What's interesting about galaxies merging is how the black holes at the center of them act. Black holes have huge gravitational fields after all, so it's fun to watch what happens when you put two ginormous black holes next to each other.
For this new study published in Nature, astronomers looked at dozens of nearby galaxies using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Hawaii's WM Keck Telescope. And they spotted about 20 galaxies in the middle of mergers. By in the middle I mean in a late stage of the merger process. That's when they're obscured in gas and dust. And they're pretty hard to see. This is actually cool for astronomers because previous studies only saw collisions that were about 10 times further away from each other. The key to success was using Hubble's X-ray data and then Keck's infrared eyes to see through the dust and gas that was blocking the view. But what's really surprising is that out of nearly 500 galaxies surveyed, roughly 17% of them had merging black holes in their centers. Astronomers used to think the latest stages of mergers would be pretty much impossible to see because simulations suggested the merger would take relatively little time at least in galactic terms. The next step for scientists is to use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to launch in 2021. When it finally gets to space, astronomers think they'll be able to measure the mass and growth rates of the black holes that are closest to it. One of the study's authors said, quote, "With these observations, we can begin to explore the fraction of objects that are merging in the youngest, most distant regions of the universe, which should be fairly frequent," unquote. In the meantime, we'll just be here hanging out, waiting for our galaxy to collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in super, super slow motion.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's like that scene from Austin Powers.
CODY GOUGH: Austin Powers? Yes, I almost wrote that in the script. We're the same person.
ASHLEY HAMER: How drowsy are you right now? There are a couple of ways to measure your sleepiness, and they could help you figure out if you need to get more shut eye. I don't want to give anything away, but I think there's someone in this podcast studio who's a little drowsy.
CODY GOUGH: What's funny is I didn't actually score super high on this scale, but I am definitely tired.
ASHLEY HAMER: I actually scored fairly high on this scale.
CODY GOUGH: Well you can't sit through a movie without falling asleep.
ASHLEY HAMER: Exactly. Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Have you told your doctor this?
ASHLEY HAMER: I haven't. Should I?
CODY GOUGH: I don't know. We'll have to do some research on--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, we will.
CODY GOUGH: --how common it is to fall asleep in movies.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, everyone gets drowsy during the day sometimes, especially if you happen to be up late the night before. Like I think Cody was.
CODY GOUGH: Yep.
ASHLEY HAMER: But the Epworth Sleepiness Scale isn't designed to test your drowsiness at a particular day and time. Instead, the goal is to gauge your overall sleepiness in the larger context of your life. And you can take the test yourself right now. All you have to do is rate your chance of dozing off in eight different situations.
Give each situation a score of zero if there's no chance you might not off, one if there's a slight chance, two for a moderate chance, and three if you always seem to doze off in those situations. Then, just add up the numbers. Come on, play along at home. On a scale of zero to three, rank your chance of dozing off in the following scenarios.
CODY GOUGH: You can just add up the numbers in your head as you go along.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it's pretty simple. So, sitting and reading, watching TV, sitting inactively in a public place, e.g., a theater or a meeting, as a passenger in a car for an hour without a break, lying down to rest in the afternoon when circumstances permit, sitting and talking to someone, sitting quietly after a lunch without alcohol, and the final one is in a car while stuck for a few minutes due to traffic.
Now, score yourself. Zero to five means you have below average daytime sleepiness. 6 to 10 means it's higher than average. 11 to 12 means it's mildly excessive. 13 to 15 is moderately excessive. And 16 to 24 means you are severely excessively sleepy during the day. So, how'd you do? If you scored above a 16, then you might want to get a little more sleep, or see a doctor if you're having some serious issues.
CODY GOUGH: We were going to talk about the Epworth Sleep Scale on Curiosity today anyway. But by total random happenstance, today's episode is sponsored by Purple Mattress, better sleep, better you or more like better sleep, better not feeling sleepy during the day. The Purple Mattress will probably feel different than anything you've ever experienced because it uses this brand new material that was developed by an actual rocket scientist. It's not like the memory foam you're probably used to.
ASHLEY HAMER: The Purple material feels unique because it's both firm and soft at the same time. So it keeps everything supported, but it still feels really comfortable. It's also breathable, so it sleeps cool. It ends up giving you this zero gravity-like feel, so it works for any sleeping position.
CODY GOUGH: With Purple Mattress, you can get a 100-night risk-free trial. And if you're not fully satisfied, you can return your mattress for a full refund. You'll also get free shipping and returns, free in-home setup, and old mattress removal. And it's backed by a 10-year warranty, so you have one more reason to sleep easy.
ASHLEY HAMER: You're going to love Purple. And right now, Curiosity Daily listeners will get a free Purple Pillow with the purchase of a mattress. That's in addition to the great free gifts they're offering sitewide. Just text curious to 474747. The only way to get this free pillow is to text curious to 474747.
CODY GOUGH: That's C-U-R-I-O-U-S to 474747. Message and data rates may apply.
There's about 6,300 tons of junk in Earth's orbit. That's a lot of debris. And a recent simulation showed just how dangerous some of that junk can be. The answer is a lot. You can see the actual picture of this on our full write-up on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But let me paint a picture in the theater of your mind right now.
A speck the size of a pencil eraser traveling at orbital velocity can punch a hole in a chunk of aluminum. And the hole would be 5 inches deep. That is very dangerous. And it's not just a straight hole like if you drilled a hole in the wall. It leaves a small crater. This was from an object that only weighed about half an ounce. And it punched a 5-inch deep crater in solid aluminum.
Tiny trash in orbit can be so destructive because in order to keep from falling to the ground, it has to be orbiting at about 17 and 1/2 thousand miles per hour. And while this aluminum damage was just a simulation, this kind of stuff isn't completely hypothetical. In 2016, a paint chip left a spiderweb crack in one of the windows of the International Space Station. In that same year, the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A satellite was hit by a millimeter-sized chunk that left a dent 100 times bigger than itself.
The big pieces of junk can be tracked, and orbiting satellites can be moved to higher or lower orbits to avoid them. But the small pieces like flecks of paint and other articles less than 4 inches in size are a lot harder to track. We've just got to make a best guess for them and plan accordingly. But this kind of danger makes a heck of a case for the universe's first trash collector.
ASHLEY HAMER: Read about today's stories and more on curiosity.com.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
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