Quasar Quirks & Sky Surveys with Matt O’Dowd

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Chuck Nice** (0:36)
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**SPEAKER_1** (1:31)
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**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:08)
Chuck, I love having Matt O'Dowd back on.

**Chuck Nice** (2:10)
Definitely.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:11)
Catch us up on Quasar, on the Vera Rubin Telescope, on big data and AI.

**Chuck Nice** (2:16)
Yeah, and I found out that Vera Rubin is actually not a sandwich.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:23)
Coming up on StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, got with me Chuckie Nice. Chuckie, baby.

**Chuck Nice** (2:46)
Hey, what's happening?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:46)
How you doing?

**Chuck Nice** (2:47)
Doing well.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:48)
You know what edition of StarTalk this is?

**Chuck Nice** (2:49)
Which one would that be?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:50)
The Matt O'Dowd edition.

**Chuck Nice** (2:52)
Oh, well, that's always good.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:56)
Matt O'Dowd, welcome back to StarTalk.

**Matt O'Dowd** (2:58)
Such a pleasure to be here. It's my favorite subject.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:00)
Oh, yes, it would be. I got you an associate professor up at CUNY, Lehman College.

**Matt O'Dowd** (3:06)
Exactly.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:06)
Yeah, and that's right across the street from my high school.

**Matt O'Dowd** (3:10)
The Bronx High School of Science, don't I know it?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:12)
Oh, wow. It was, yeah. Oh, yeah.

**Chuck Nice** (3:14)
Is it at a feeder school, too?

**Matt O'Dowd** (3:16)
I think the Bronx High School of Science go to straight to the Ivy League.

**Chuck Nice** (3:21)
They go straight to the Ivy League, huh? Yeah. Oh, well.

**Matt O'Dowd** (3:24)
But some of them do.

**Chuck Nice** (3:25)
That's CUNY's law.

**Matt O'Dowd** (3:26)
Some of them come and hang out. Yeah, it's a good relationship.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:29)
We can hang out there. We've been known to hang out. Okay.
And you're a research associate here at the museum.

**Matt O'Dowd** (3:34)
Exactly.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:34)
Yes. And you're a host and writer of one of just the coolest YouTube channels, just PBS Space Time.
I just so appreciate the work you put into what's on it, how you deliver it, and you're just so casually smart.

**Matt O'Dowd** (3:53)
Casually smart? But I work very hard to be that casual.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:56)
This is what I'm saying. The effort I see and I feel the effort, all behind you just being casually smart in those videos.

**Chuck Nice** (4:05)
It's like those $800 rock star haircuts.

**Matt O'Dowd** (4:09)
To make it look like you've just gone out of bed. But you just spend 12 hours at the salon, exactly. That is the perfect metaphor for PBS Space Time.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (4:17)
So you have a research specialty in quasars, if memory serves. Is that correct?