Hey, Wowzer fans, it's Guy Raz and Mindy here, and Mindy, can you believe we have our very own Wow in the World STEM toys? I know! And look! and have our Look at little Oscar! Aw, you're using my catchphrase! We are so excited to share our Wow in the World STEM toys with the future scientists in your life. And now you can find our toys at select Walmart locations near you and online at walmart.com.
to the light-up terrarium, there's something for every Wowzer in your world to play and tinker with. Wow in the World STEM Toys now available at Walmart. That's it. And now let's get back to the Wow. Hey, Wowzer fans! Mindy and Guy Raz here, and before we start the show, summer break is almost here. And if you're looking for an adventure that the whole family will love, we've teamed up with our friends at Atlas Obscura.
create trips designed for families to explore the WoWs of our world. That's right! The first WoW in the World family starts at the end of June and there's still a few more spots left so why not join your fellow Wowzer fans on an exploration of the ancient Mayan temples and the pyramids of Tulum in Mexico or if you're looking for some Wow winter your family can discover the pyramids of Giza and ride
in egypt in december all of our wow in the world family tours come with an adventure toolkit t-shirts a journal and postcards and the best part grown The planning is already taken care of. But I love planning Mindy, spending hours online, searching for the best locations, the best deals.
I know you do, Guy Raz, but a lot of busy grown-ups don't really have that kind of time these days. So our friends at Atlas Obscura have planned experiences that will wow your family each day of your trip, and we've put together some audio surprises. prizes, and daily missions for you, too. Grownups, if you want to learn more about the Wow in the World family tours, visit tinkercast.com slash trip. That's tinkercast.com slash trips. That's it. Now, back to the show.
Okay, Reg, I'm ready. You ready? Timer set. Okay buddy, count me down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, how'd I do? Only six?! Oh, man! You sure that was the whole 30 seconds? We're never going to win the annual NPR hot dog eating competition if we keep going at this rate. Alright, you know what? Let's do it again. Ready? Three... Three, two, one, go!
Good morning, Guy Ross. Hey, Mindy, I was just... What's going on in here? What do you mean? What do I mean? Mindy, your entire gingerbread kitchen is filled with hot dogs. Well, not just... Hot dogs, Sky Ross. I mean, we've got veggie dogs, turkey dogs. Go Furky Dogs! I've even got a hound dog back there! What? But why, Mindy? Why do you have so many hot dogs? Well, Reggie and I are training for the annual NPR hot dog eating competition and... Hot dog?
eating competition? Yeah. Grandma G-Force has held the title for the last 12 years, but she can't make it this year because she's got her improv class that night. I see. So Reggie's trying to get me up to speed on the ancient art of speed eating. So, how's it going? Well, to be honest, not great. I mean, no matter how soggy I make these buns, hoping the dogs will slip down faster,
He just wants to barf everything back up. Well, maybe you just need a good coach. Or maybe I should just listen to everyone's advice and leave it for the professional competitive eaters. Wait. Did you just say coach? Uh, well... Hi, Roz. Are you a former competitive eater turned coach? No, no, not me, Mindy. Then who? Well, I'm talking about the big... in the universe. Is it a hippo? You mean a hungry, hungry hippo? Now, although, Mindy, hippos do eat around 40 kilograms or
88 pounds of food every day. 88 pounds? That's like 200 cheeseburgers a day. Mindy, the champion eater I'm thinking of... Much bigger. Like an elephant? No, wait, a polar bear. No! Blue whale. Those things are massive. even bigger, Mindy! Well, what's bigger than a blue whale? Mindy, I'm talking about a ginormous Galactic Guzzler! Galactic? I know what you're talking about. That's right, and you can forget about cheeseburgers because these bad boys They eat up entire stars for breakfast.
Man, you're right, Guy Raz. I mean, who better to learn about the ancient art of competitive eating... than a galactic giant who's been doing it for billions of years! Exactly! Well, what are we doing standing around here for? Come on, get your buns in gear! We gotta get going! Uh, get going where? To the black hole. Wait, we're actually going to visit a black hole? Yeah. Well, I was thinking we might just go to your gingerbread library and read about black holes in a safe place.
Oh yeah, so about that, it's not a library at the moment. I temporarily turned it into a ball pit room, only the balls are actually made out of water balloons. What? Besides, why would we want to read about black holes when we have a fully almost functional time machine that could literally take us anywhere in time and space? Well, you know, books can also transport you to
places and to distant times. Yeah, books kind of are the best, but they're not nearly as much fun to drive. Well, you don't drive You don't okay fine. Let's go visit a black hole machine or as I like to go The WOW Machine! Okay, now let me just open this door here. Okay, after you. Oh, and be careful, Guy Razor, there might still be... Whoa! Here, let me help you out. Mindy, why is there mayonnaise all over the floor? Well, I only just gave the time machine a fresh coat this morning. I don't...
Uh, yeah. Why? Well, for one, I didn't want to get it all over my sandwich. Plus, it helps us slip the time machine through the space-time continuum more easily. Less friction that way. Right. Okay, now just follow my lead guy, Roz, and just slide through the mayonnaise from foot to foot like you're ice skating. Just like me, okay? Here we go. Okay. And... And swish. And swish. And swish. And come on, we're almost there.
And swish and swish and... Whoa! There we go. Whoa! Nice finish, Kairos. Hop in, buddy. All righty. Wait, wait. Your feet on the mat! We're not savages! Oh, it's fine. I've got my time-traveling slippers on already. You're time-traveling celebrity. All right, let me just get... Shoes off!
Let me just plug in the coordinates. By the way, which black hole are we going to, Mindy? Huh. You know what? I have no idea. Well, there are a lot we could choose from. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. Well, yeah, because black hole come in all shapes and sizes, and how heavy they are determines what kind of black hole it is. Wait, so there are small, medium, and large black holes? That's right, and they all have special names.
Like what? Well, the smallest black holes we know of are called primordial black holes. and scientists believe These black holes are as small single atom oh and atoms are those teeny tiny building blocks that make up everything including us everything and these kinds of black holes are basically as small as it gets but remember Mindy black Really really heavy And these primordial black a single atom. heavy as a mountain Wow okay so what's next well next up our medium-sized black
And they're called stellar black holes. And they're the most common type of black hole in the universe. So, how big are they? Well, Mindy, these black holes are about 10. or 18 kilometers wide. Wow, that's like 176 football fields wide. Yeah, so pretty big, but still much smaller than say a city yeah it might be smaller than a city but if a single atom can be as heavy as a mountain then how heavy are these black holes well these as much as
That's Mindy. We still haven't talked about... massive black Supermassive black holes? Yeah, and I guess the name kind of gives it away, but these black holes are... Supermassive! our entire What? Oh, sorry. That was the sound of my mind blowing. Anywho, you were saying? These supermassive black holes are usually found and due to their enormous gravity... Because the heavier something is, the more gravity it has. because of their gravity. the other stars in that galaxy to orbit or
go around it. Oh, so like how the Earth's gravity causes the moon to orbit around us. That's exactly right, but just on a much, bigger scale. So does that mean that the galaxy that we're in also has a supermassive black hole at the center? Correctamundo, Mindy. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has a supermassive massive black hole right at the center called Sagittarius A. Hmm, that
That's interesting because I'm a Sagittarius. Uh, Mindy? But I wouldn't describe myself as having a type A personality. Mindy, this has nothing to do with your horoscope. Really? You sure about that? Uh, no. Anywho, so Sagittarius A, which coincidentally... Nothing to do with your star sign. Ahem. It's just a hop, skip, and a 25,640 light year jump away. Well, it sounds like the place to be. I guess you...
those coordinates into the machine. Aye aye, Captain. Is that an eyepatch? No. Alright, buckle your seatbelt. Here? Wee! Wow. I hate to admit it, Mindy, but you were right. This interstellar trip was smooth as butter. Um, I think you mean smooth as mayonnaise. I can't believe it's not butter. Believe it, Guy Raz. All right. Let me just open up the blinds here so we can see the black hole with our own eyeballs.
These things always get jammed! The strings are all messed up! We can't get these things to open evenly! I'm almost tingled up in them! There! Man, I knew we shouldn't have put mini blinds in this thing! What? Twuff! Ah, Mindy, what? I think the time machine moving. Uh, I think the gravity from the black hole is dragging us in. Okay. Okay, don't panic. Uh, quickly, Mindy, before we get stretched out like a piece of spaghetti. Um...
I know. Hang on one second. I need to go grab something downstairs. Downstairs? Wait. I'll be right back. This time... Hi! Did he hurt? What is that? So this, it's a cosmic anchor. I got it years ago at that garage sale that Reggie had. And I never thought I'd have a use for it up until now. Give me one back. Open up! Open that! Sure. I'm just gonna throw it up in there. Alright, now close the hatch!
That should do it. Are you sure that thing's going to hold us, Mindy? Yes, of course I'm not sure, Guy Raz. But this should keep us in one place long enough for us to see this black hole in action. Ah, great. Whoa, look at that circle. A circle of swirling light, Gyroz! I thought black holes were meant to be... well... Well, they are, Mindy. That circle of light you're seeing star that it's It zooms a star. It rips it apart and all the material and spins around the outside
Event horizon. Event horizon? That's right. The event horizon is the center of the black hole and the point at which the... disappears. Oh, I got it. It's like when you drain your bathtub and then all of that dirt and water finally just disappears down the drain. Exactly! And that leftover stardust that circles around the outside of the event horizon
is called an accretion disk. Accretion disk? Yeah, I'm just going to call it Bob for simplicity's sake. So as all of this gas and other material from the star spins around the black hole, faster and faster and really really hot because of friction is the heat that gets made when you things together really, really fast.
how you rub your hands together when it's cold outside to heat your hands up. Okay, but how does this heat get all bright? Well, some of that heat energy gets converted or changed into Other types of energy, like x-ray energy and light energy, trillions of miles across where it can then be picked up by our satellites and radio telescopes... on Earth. Oh, yes! And Guy Raz, scientists actually have a special name for this. They do? Yep. They call it a quasi-stellar object.
Quasar for short. And quasars are the brightest objects in the entire universe. That makes total sense, Mindy. Because from Earth, these super bright objects, even though they're millions of miles away, Well, they often look like stars in the night sky. Wow, and so that's what we're looking at right now? That's right. I can't believe we're the first people to ever see a black hole. What do you mean? Well, because black black holes don't reflect any light back into space
It's almost impossible for us to see them back on Earth. They just get lost in the background. Kind of like when you had that black cat parade in the middle of the night. Yes, exactly like that. You could hear them. couldn't see them against the black night sky. So if scientists have never actually seen a black hole before, how do they even know there was one at the center?
of our own galaxy. Well, the same way they find any black hole. They just watch how the stars around it move. Huh? Remember how you said that black holes Especially supermassive black holes are really, really heavy. Yeah. Because of that, they have a lot of gravity. Meaning that other objects orbit or circle it. Kind of like how Earth and the other planets orbit the sun because of the sun's gravity. Yeah, so what scientists look for are stars that seem to be orbiting a dark spot in space.
are not seeing the black hole itself. seeing how that black hole's gravity is affecting the stars around it? Now, you want to see this bad boy suck up a star? Suck up a star? Mindy, you know, that can take hundreds of millions of years, right? I mean, I have to be in bed by 8 p.m. I know, I know. You need your beauty rest. But lucky for you, we are in a time machine. All I have to do is push a couple of buttons here.
Pull a few levers, crank a few knobs, and we can just fast forward this old house! Wow! Look at Batman! are as a prototype. About to get slurped up like a piece of... Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What was that? Jed, can we back it up a notch? Sure. Hey, Roz, did that black hole just burp? Well, kind of. I think what we just saw was the black hole ejecting some of that stardust back into the universe. And it didn't even say excuse.
Well, it doesn't happen that often, Mindy. Only once every hundred million years or so. Well, that's still no excuse for bad manners. Well, in the grand scheme of things, Mindy, these little cosmic burps are happening all the time, all the time. around us. In fact, earlier this year, scientists from the University of Colorado, well, they saw a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy, burp, not But twice. Really? Where? In a galaxy about 800 million light years away called SDSS J1354+.
One, three, two, seven. Man, they couldn't have come up with a catchier name for it? Oh, they have one. They call it J1354 for sure. Right, so how did... the black hole burp. They did it using two very special space telescope. Oh, I know Hubble. It floats in orbit around the Earth and it's used to distant galaxies. That's right. They all another telescope called
X-ray Observatory. And that telescope can detect some of the energy given off by those quasars we talked before oh yeah the light and x-ray energy that these supermassive black holes give off when they're sucking up stars right and when these researchers pointed their telescopes toward this quasar they saw two bubbles of gas coming from the black hole. One had traveled about 3,000 light years away
center of the black hole and the other had moved out about 30,000 light years from the black hole. So what does that mean? Well from all this information the researchers were able to calculate Based on how far each of these gas bubbles had traveled, These two burps had happened about 100,000 years apart. Wait, 100,000 years apart? Guy Raz, you just said that these burps happen every 100 million years or so. So how...
How come these two happened so close together? Well, the scientists think it's because sometime in J1354's history, it collided with another galaxy, which means that there was a lot more material floating around inside. And a lot more for the black hole to chew through. Exactly. Well, maybe that's the secret, Guy Raz. The secret to what, Mindy? The secret to winning the NPR hot dog eating contest.
Maybe, just maybe, if I burp my way through it, I'll be able to keep old Grandma G-Force's unbeaten streak going. I'm not sure. How it works, Mindy. Well, there's only one way to... Find out. Not in the time machine, Mindy. We can't even open a window in here. Sorry, Guy Raz. I'm just warming up my belch bone. Belch bone? Ah, yeah, I'd give that one a ten. Let's get out of here.
I can do that at the same time. Mindy! Excuse me, Guy Raz. I'm ready for takeoff. Let me just plug in the dates. And here we are. Landed! Alright, now I'm gonna look out the window here. Looks like we made it just in time, Gairaz! Look at all those buns! I'm in these! Hot dog buns, Gairaz! Come on! Welcome everyone. NPR hot dog eating contest.
At this time, we're going to ask that all participants, all contestants, please report to the stage as we are about to begin. Jeez Louise, Gairos! We have a time machine! You couldn't have plugged in a couple of extra minutes for me to warm up! Sorry, Mindy, but you better Hurry up before you get disqualified. Quick, Ira Glass already has all his hot sauces ready.
It's a dog-eat-dog world. One dog is a hot dog, and the other dog is me, Ira. Get up on stage, Mindy! Okay, okay, I think I got this. Run, run, run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Hi, my name is Mindy, and I'm here for the competition, and my grandma is G-Force. Okay, thank you for just pulling out the chair here, sitting down, taking a deep breath. Okay, ladies and gentlemen. start your metabolic engines This one's for you, Grandma G-Force. What? Again?
Wow in the world, we'll be right back. Grownups, this message is for you. That's it. Back to the show. Hi, thanks for calling Wow in the World. After the beep, get ready to record. Hi, Roz. I'm Sylvie and I'm 9. And I'm Asa and I'm 11. And we're from... Our wow in the world is that black holes are actually invisible. Because if they were black, that would mean that light would be bouncing off them. But light can't escape black holes.
Hi, Mindy. Hi, Gar-Ross. My name is Nora, and I'm from San Jose, California. My wow in the world is when people were traveling west because they wanted a better life and covered wagons. There is still this rock today, and we call it the Oregon Trail. That's my wow in the world, and I really, really love your show. Hi, my name is Alice, and I live in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I am 10 years old.
My wow is that last September, we had two Category 5 hurricanes in 12 days. Bye, Mindy and Guy Ross. I love your show. Hi, my name is Elsie. I'm seven years old. I live in Santa Barbara, California. My wow is that pigeon moms produce milk for their young, except they're not mammals, they're birds. Hi, my name is Gulliver and... My hometown is Homer, Alaska, USA and my wow in the world is that robots are a real thing right now.
My name is Josh, and I live in Santa Clara, California. My law in the world is that tomatoes were considered poisonous until the 1870s. Bye. I love your show. My name is Sophia from M.L. Washington. is five and a half years old. My bar in the world is that a wood tree frog Alaska can freeze, stop its heart, and thaw, and hop away in the spring. Bye. Hi, Roz. I love your... We love your show. Oh, you're very funny. End of messages.
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