The Milky Way: An Autobiography with Dr. Moiya McTier (#250)

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2022

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Astrophysicist and folklorist Dr. Moiya McTier channels The Milky Way in this approachable and utterly fascinating autobiography of the titular galaxy, detailing what humans have discovered about everything from its formation to its eventual death, and what more there is to learn about this galaxy we call home. After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching one hundred billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, The Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All one hundred billion stars and fifty undecillion tons of gas of it. It all began some thirteen billion years ago, when clouds of gas scattered through the universe's primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other. They succumbed to their gravitational attraction, and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born. Since then, the galaxy has watched as dark energy pushed away its first friends, as humans mythologized its name and purpose, and as galactic archaeologists have worked to determine its true age (rude). The Milky Way has absorbed supermassive (an actual technical term) black holes, made enemies of a few galactic neighbors, and mourned the deaths of countless stars. Our home galaxy has even fallen in love. After all this time, the Milky Way finally feels that it's amassed enough experience for the juicy tell-all we've all been waiting for. Its fascinating autobiography recounts the history and future of the universe in accessible but scientific detail, presenting a summary of human astronomical knowledge thus far that is unquestionably out of this world. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3QsPfnT Find Moiya on Twitter: https://twitter.com/goastromo Find Moiya on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goastromo/ Find Moiya on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@goastromo 📺 Watch my most popular videos:📺 Neil deGrasse Tyson https://youtu.be/1kxgK6J4S5Y Michio Kaku: https://youtu.be/3to9ymn-XKI Sir Roger Penrose: https://youtu.be/AMuqyAvX7Wo Jill Tarter https://youtu.be/O9K9OBd3vHk?sub_confirmation=1 Sara Seager Venus LIfe: https://youtu.be/QPsEDoOTU6k?sub_confirmation=1 Sabine Hossenfelder: https://youtu.be/sh98cwRkzAA Be my friend: 🏄‍♂️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list; just click here http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php ✍️ Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php 🎙️ Listen on audio-only platforms: https://briankeating.com/podcast.php Join Shortform through my link Shortform.com/impossible and you’ll receive 5 days of unlimited access and an additional 20% discounted annual subscription! Can you do me a favor? Please leave a rating and review of my Podcast! On Apple devices, click here, scroll down to the ratings and leave a 5 star rating and review The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast https://apple.co/39UaHlB On Spotify it’s here on @audible_com it’s here and other ways to rate here: https://briankeating.com/podcast Please join my mailing list; click here https://briankeating.com/list for your chance to win real space dust!! A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/ Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome everybody to what promises to be another phenomenal episode of the
0:09.1	Into the Impossible Podcast featuring yours truly Dr Brian Keating the Chancellor's
0:14.4	Distinguished Professor of Physics at the Une University of California San Diego
0:18.4	was such an August title you might think I'm quite serious buttoned up professorial even unctuous but today you will hear me laugh as never before when my friend and colleague Dr moya michterre two-time guest on the Into the Impossible
0:33.0	podcast brings her irreverent, delightful, but brilliant insights to our
0:38.1	podcast on the occasion of her phenomenal new book entitled The Milky Way, an autobiography of Our Galaxy.
0:46.4	What the heck? How can a galaxy write an autobiography? Quite strange, right? Well, you're about to find out, our galaxy is full of sass snark and
0:56.4	tell all details about its cosmic neighborhood, what it's comprised of, and even more,
1:02.4	where the universe is heading to in the distance. of is an
1:13.2	astrophysicist with a PhD from the Columbia University and the city of New York
1:15.2	as well as an undergraduate degree in astronomy and
1:19.4	folklore from a little university called Harvard in the upper northeast quadrant of the United States of America.
1:26.2	We have a lot of international listeners.
1:29.7	So this episode is about her new book, which I was delighted and honored to endorse on the back,
1:35.4	along with past guest, Stephen Alexander, past guest and future guest, Sean Carol,
1:39.7	who's coming back on the show, talk about his new book called The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, and past guest
1:45.2	Paul Sutter, who was also a guest on the Into the Impossible Podcast.
1:49.2	So anyway, these great intellects, as well as yours truly have endorsed this book and I do commend it to your
1:56.3	attention it's a delightful easy to read beach read for these waning dog days of
2:00.8	summer there's still plenty of time and you might really enjoy listening to it on audio.
2:05.8	So we'll have links to all that in the show notes below, and for now I do want you to enjoy this unique perspective from a unique scientist, science
2:14.8	communicator, a folklorist, and really an all-around polymath and that is
	...

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