Space Facts That Remind Us We're Part of Something Bigger

Bright Side

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Transcript

00:00:00You're flying through space, dodging stars and black holes.

00:00:05Your speed is so great that you can get from one galaxy to another in just a few minutes.

00:00:10Sound far-fetched?

00:00:11Well, all this can become a reality because NASA has already tested the technology that

00:00:16might allow us to travel faster than the speed of light.

00:00:19Let's look at the space fleet people have now.

00:00:22To fly into space, we use conventional rockets, carrying tons of fuel and oxygen.

00:00:27These two substances get mixed and ignited.

00:00:30Fire bursts out of the rockets.

00:00:32The exhaust gases move downward, and the rockets move upward, as if pushing off of them.

00:00:37That's how jet propulsion works.

00:00:39This way, we can make the rocket move at almost 5 miles per second.

00:00:43At that speed, you could cross the United States from coast to coast in a mere 8.5 minutes.

00:00:49But if we talk about space, that's very slow.

00:00:54A trip to a neighboring planet, like Mars, takes about 7 months.

00:00:58And a trip to the edge of the solar system would take about 35 years.

00:01:02That's how long it took the Voyager space probe, launched in 1977, to get there.

00:01:07But we want to travel between stars and galaxies.

00:01:10And the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away from our home.

00:01:16That would take about 73,000 years to get there.

00:01:19That's longer than intelligent human civilization has even existed.

00:01:24And if you wanted to travel across the whole Milky Way galaxy, which is 100,000 light-years

00:01:29wide, it would take you about 1.7 trillion years.

00:01:33By comparison, the entire universe is 14 billion years old.

00:01:38People just travel too slowly.

00:01:40But even at the speed of light, it would still take 4.2 years to travel to the nearest star.

00:01:46And you'd spend 2.5 million years to get to the nearby Andromeda galaxy.

00:01:50But we can't accelerate like this.

00:01:53That's because the laws of physics say that an object with mass can't travel at the speed

00:01:57of light.

00:01:58A photon of light has an infinitely small weight.

00:02:01But if you want to accelerate even a tiny grain of sand to that speed, you'd need an

00:02:05infinite amount of energy, maybe even more than the entire universe has.

00:02:10But scientists might have found a way around the laws of physics.

00:02:15To create thrust, you need to push off of something.

00:02:18Ships need water.

00:02:19Planes push off of the air.

00:02:21Planes use the fuel they burn.

00:02:23But this thing, the M-drive, works in a different way.

00:02:27A powerful magnetron, like the one in your microwave, sends waves into this cone.

00:02:32It's a resonator.

00:02:34It makes the waves inside bounce off of one of the walls and hit the others.

00:02:38As a result, we have a weak force at the narrow end of the cone and a strong force at the

00:02:43wide end.

00:02:44And if we analyze this powerful force, we'll see that it is directed toward the wide end

00:02:49of the cone.

00:02:50So, the thrust will be in the opposite direction.

00:02:53Now let's make this model much, much larger and put the M-drive on a spaceship.

00:02:59The narrow end of the cone faces up.

00:03:01The wide end is turned downward.

00:03:03The magnetron starts to work.

00:03:05The resonator creates thrust and the rocket takes off.

00:03:08It makes no noise and doesn't emit any harmful gases at all.

00:03:12This mechanism can accelerate the rocket much faster than we do with tons of fuel.

00:03:17In theory, we could even reach the speed of light.

00:03:20Sounds great, but in reality, it isn't.

00:03:24Although the inventor of this device tried to prove the M-drive works, no independent

00:03:28experiment around the world has shown positive results.

00:03:32NASA sponsored the construction of such a machine in a laboratory, but it didn't create

00:03:37any thrust during the research.

00:03:39Another option that would allow us to travel much faster than the speed of light is the

00:03:43Alcubierre bubble.

00:03:44A Mexican scientist has figured out a way to use the general theory of relativity without

00:03:49breaking the laws of physics.

00:03:52Let's say we have a spaceship on a space-time blanket, and it needs to make a trip to the

00:03:56other end of the blanket.

00:03:58Instead of just moving from point A to point B hundreds of thousands of light-years away,

00:04:03the ship starts pulling the blanket toward itself.

00:04:06As the spacecraft folds the blanket, point B moves toward it.

00:04:11Now the ship needs to travel a much shorter distance to point B.

00:04:14It makes a quick trip, and then straightens the time-space blanket back to normal.

00:04:19Voila!

00:04:20So such a spaceship doesn't need powerful engines that will burn tons of fuel and oxygen.

00:04:24It would move in a kind of bubble.

00:04:27But the hardest part is creating such a bubble.

00:04:30To do this, we would need an amount of energy roughly equal to the mass-energy of all of

00:04:35Jupiter.

00:04:36That's more than we can produce on Earth.

00:04:38And still, scientists are planning to test this technology on a small space probe the

00:04:42size of Voyager.

00:04:44This experiment might last for decades, or even centuries.

00:04:48Now scientists are trying to reach at least 20% of the speed of light using a laser.

00:04:53And they're planning to get to Proxima Centauri in about 30 years.

00:04:57It's likely to happen like this.

00:04:59A mothership will launch from Earth.

00:05:01It'll carry thousands of fingernail-sized space probes.

00:05:08After reaching orbit, the mothership will launch the probes into space.

00:05:12Each probe will then deploy a sail, a thin, reflective piece of material the size of

00:05:17a parking lot.

00:05:18Then people will focus a powerful laser beam from Earth directly onto the probe's sails.

00:05:24This will give them an acceleration 1,000 times as strong as the acceleration of free

00:05:28fall on Earth.

00:05:30One by one, the probes will launch and head for their destination.

00:05:34We won't even have to maintain that laser beam all the time.

00:05:37If you turn off the engines of a regular ship on the water, it'll start to lose speed due

00:05:42to friction with the water.

00:05:43But space is an almost perfect vacuum.

00:05:46There's literally nothing there.

00:05:48So there's no friction.

00:05:49All we have to do is accelerate the probes to the needed speed.

00:05:53At 20% of the speed of light, these probes could reach the sun in just 40 minutes.

00:05:58But instead, they will head for the star Proxima Centauri.

00:06:02After about 30 years of travel, four more years will pass before we get a signal from

00:06:06the probes.

00:06:07There are several exoplanets in the system, and some scientists hope to find at least

00:06:12traces of life there.

00:06:14But this sail technology can be used in space even without a powerful laser.

00:06:18We can use the sun.

00:06:20If we create a sail the size of a soccer field and unfold it in space, it'll start catching

00:06:25the sun's rays.

00:06:26And since the surface of the sail is reflective, the rays will bounce off the sail.

00:06:31This will create thrust and propel the spacecraft.

00:06:34One disadvantage of this technology is that we can only use it inside the solar system.

00:06:39In cold interstellar space, the sail won't be able to catch the sun's rays or solar wind.

00:06:45Another candidate for faster-than-light travel is an ion thruster.

00:06:49Like a conventional rocket, a spacecraft with ion thrusters would be propelled by gas ejected

00:06:55outward.

00:06:56Only in this case, the gas would be ejected not because of fuel combustion, but because

00:07:01of an electric field.

00:07:02We'd need to create a powerful electric field inside the engine.

00:07:06Particles of gas passing through this electric field would get accelerated and ejected outside.

00:07:12This would create thrust.

00:07:13And although the acceleration in such an engine would be many times weaker than in a conventional

00:07:18rocket, the ion engine would be able to reach higher speeds.

00:07:22NASA was planning to build an ion-powered spacecraft to fly to Jupiter.

00:07:26Ion engines consume a lot of energy, so the ship was to be equipped with a nuclear reactor

00:07:31and lots of solar panels.

00:07:33Eight large engines were supposed to accelerate the spacecraft to about 56 miles per second.

00:07:39At this speed, the trip from New York to London would take one minute.

00:07:43So far, this technology has been actively tested on different space probes, but it can't

00:07:47provide a solution to how to travel faster than the speed of light.

00:07:51Perhaps people will still be able to travel between galaxies in conventional rockets,

00:07:55but they'll need to use some sort of shortcuts called wormholes.

00:07:59So, back to our space-time blanket.

00:08:02Point A lies at one end, and point B is at the other.

00:08:06Instead of traveling across the entire blanket for millions of years, you could simply fold it.

00:08:11Then point B will be right above point A, and you can quickly get there through a short

00:08:15tunnel between them.

00:08:17Such tunnels are called wormholes.

00:08:20Some scientists believe that wormholes can be inside black holes.

00:08:24But there are two problems here.

00:08:26The nearest black hole is 1,500 light-years away, so a trip there would take eons.

00:08:32The second problem is the hole's gravity.

00:08:35Black holes have the strongest gravitational pull of any object in the universe.

00:08:39Their gravity can crush any spacecraft.

00:08:42That's because the gravitational force increases with every inch you move closer to the black

00:08:46hole's center, and the force affecting the nose of the spaceship will be much stronger

00:08:50than the force that affects the tail.

00:08:52The spaceship will stretch out like spaghetti and get torn apart.

00:08:56But there's a theory claiming that a spacecraft or even a person can survive falling into

00:09:01a black hole.

00:09:03But only if the black hole is supermassive, like the ones that lie in the centers of galaxies.

00:09:08They can be millions and billions of times heavier than the sun.

00:09:12But even though they're heavier, they're also bigger in size.

00:09:15This means gravity probably doesn't increase so fast there.

00:09:19You or your spacecraft might not turn into spaghetti, and might even get to see what's

00:09:23at the heart of the black hole.

00:09:27In space, no one can hear you scream.

00:09:30Or is that, in space, no one can hear ice cream?

00:09:33Well, either way, we know that no supernovas, crashing asteroids, and burning planets make

00:09:38a sound in space.

00:09:40Or do they?

00:09:42What if you actually can hear something out there?

00:09:45Well, let's see.

00:09:46Okie dokie, back to middle school.

00:09:50Sound is a mechanical wave originating from vibration.

00:09:53What exactly does that mean?

00:09:55The simplest example is guitar strings.

00:09:58Let's pluck one of them.

00:09:59It starts to vibrate.

00:10:01The atoms inside the metal string begin to push and beat the atoms of the air around

00:10:05them.

00:10:06So now, atoms are constantly pushing each other until they reach our ears.

00:10:10It's like a wave from a pebble thrown into a pond, and it happens very quickly.

00:10:15At a speed of about 761 miles per hour.

00:10:20Then our eardrums begin to vibrate at the same frequency.

00:10:24And the little bones inside our ears transmit this vibration to the brain.

00:10:28The brain then does its magic, recognizes the pattern, and turns it into sounds.

00:10:34Great!

00:10:36Now we know that we need some particles to create sound.

00:10:39And we can find these particles in gases, liquids, and solid substances.

00:10:44And what about space?

00:10:46Nope, it's almost a perfect vacuum.

00:10:49And you've probably already heard that there's no sound in space because it's a vacuum.

00:10:54But what does it actually mean?

00:10:56Well, a vacuum is a perfect void.

00:10:59It's an area completely devoid of matter.

00:11:02It means there's nothing there.

00:11:04Yeah.

00:11:05Despite all those celestial bodies in space, there's actually no air in between them.

00:11:10No atoms, no particles, nothing.

00:11:12Nada.

00:11:13Zippo.

00:11:15Almost.

00:11:16To be honest, the perfect vacuum doesn't really exist.

00:11:19We can't get rid of atoms for good.

00:11:21But space is very close to this notion.

00:11:24On average, there are 15 to 80 atoms per 1 cubic inch.

00:11:28This may sound like a big number, but keep in mind that these atoms are tiny, and the

00:11:33void distance between them is huge.

00:11:36For comparison, 1 cubic inch of air contains about 16,000 atoms.

00:11:41So of course, with such a low density, these atoms can't push each other.

00:11:46Even if the vibration is very strong, like, I don't know, a supernova, they still won't

00:11:51be able to do that.

00:11:53So, movies have been lying to us.

00:11:56All these epic space scenes actually take place in an awkward silence.

00:12:00Who would've guessed?

00:12:04But don't get upset.

00:12:05What if I tell you there are, in fact, some ways to hear sound in space?

00:12:11First of all, there's still sound on other planets.

00:12:14If there's an atmosphere on a space body, or at least something like gas, water, or

00:12:19a solid surface, there will be sound.

00:12:22In our case, the atmosphere becomes completely silent at about 60 miles above the Earth's

00:12:28surface.

00:12:29That's where the sky stops being blue and a black starry veil begins.

00:12:35In any case, we'd have to land on another planet, or at least get close to its atmosphere

00:12:40to hear something.

00:12:42But whatever it is, it would sound very different.

00:12:45Let's take our favorite Venus as an example.

00:12:48The atmosphere there is very dense.

00:12:51Scientists jokingly call it a thick chemical soup.

00:12:54No thanks.

00:12:55So, if you somehow manage to stay alive and speak there, your voice would be very different.

00:13:01It would become much louder, and it would sound DEEPER.

00:13:06So if you want a pleasant baritone, you know what to do.

00:13:11I wonder what would happen if Earth had a denser atmosphere.

00:13:14What would we hear then?

00:13:16Well, you can vaguely imagine that if you've ever been in the water.

00:13:21Water is very dense.

00:13:23Sound moves there much faster and better compared to the air, at a speed of almost a mile per

00:13:28second depending on the water temperature.

00:13:32So if you sit in an empty room with no sound sources, you won't hear much, right?

00:13:37Now dip your head in the water and check out how the same silence sounds here.

00:13:42It's not quiet at all.

00:13:44Even if you ignore the ever-present sounds of the water itself, you'll immediately notice

00:13:48how well you can hear your own body, how your blood pulsates in the veins, how your heart

00:13:54works, the slightest movement of your fingers.

00:13:56Kinda creepy, isn't it?

00:13:59This gives us an idea of what would happen to us on a planet with a denser atmosphere.

00:14:03And that's just crazy.

00:14:05We would hear everything.

00:14:07From scurrying animals to the movement of tectonic plates.

00:14:11Ah, come on, you'd probably say.

00:14:13It's obvious that there's sound on other planets.

00:14:16But didn't you say we can hear something in open space?

00:14:20Actually yes.

00:14:21For example, in a cloud of dust.

00:14:23You can find space dust almost everywhere in space.

00:14:26It may be the remains of a star or something else.

00:14:30And in these places, everything is a bit denser than usual.

00:14:34This means there are probably dust clouds where particles are very close to each other,

00:14:38which means they can produce sounds.

00:14:41Of course, those will be very quiet and transmitted over a very short distance.

00:14:47But it's better than nothing, right?

00:14:50Plus, we already have one real space sound recorded.

00:14:54It came from the Perseus galaxy, which is located 250 million light-years away from

00:14:59us.

00:15:00NASA recorded it in 2003.

00:15:03Those of us music geeks will want to know that it's a B-flat, 57 octaves below middle

00:15:09C on the piano.

00:15:10You'd have to add another 660 keys to the left on the keyboard.

00:15:15But its frequency is so low that the human ear, unfortunately, can't hear it.

00:15:21Besides that, we can only hear something inside spaceships.

00:15:25These are small pockets of air, after all.

00:15:28In a spacesuit, you would hear sounds very well too, including your breathing or blood

00:15:33circulation in a spacesuit.

00:15:36But two astronauts, flying side by side, wouldn't hear each other, even if they got very close

00:15:41and shouted very loudly.

00:15:43It's quite funny if you, being an astronaut, bumped into something, it would be very loud

00:15:48for you, but your friend wouldn't hear anything.

00:15:50That's why astronauts use radio devices.

00:15:57Now purely theoretically, if you could somehow crawl out of your spacesuit and survive, you'd

00:16:04be able to hear the chatter and noises going on inside the spaceship.

00:16:08But how?

00:16:09So, look, we have some air inside the spaceship, and it transmits sound.

00:16:14It reaches the metal casing and gets through it.

00:16:16And then, if you leaned against the ship, preferably touching it with your elbow or

00:16:21knee, the sound would be transmitted to the brain directly through your bones, ignoring

00:16:26the ears.

00:16:27Yes, our bones conduct sound.

00:16:31That's how, for example, deaf people listen to music.

00:16:34It's called bone conduction.

00:16:36It's used in some headphones and some other technologies.

00:16:40You can do a little experiment.

00:16:41Hold your fingers over your ears.

00:16:43Connect them properly so that you really don't hear much.

00:16:46Then try to touch a sound source.

00:16:48It can be anything vibrating.

00:16:50For example, a speaker playing music with some part of your body where the bone is close

00:16:55to the skin.

00:16:57Now watch the miracle happen.

00:16:59You can hear the sound not through your ears, but directly in your brain.

00:17:03But please, don't repeat this experiment in open space.

00:17:06You know, ice cream, haha!

00:17:09Now you've probably heard about things like the sounds of space, where you can listen,

00:17:14for example, to the sounds made by the Sun or different planets.

00:17:18How do we record these ones?

00:17:20Easily.

00:17:21There is another way to hear sound in space – electromagnetic waves.

00:17:26In other words, a radio.

00:17:28Radio is the same form of electromagnetic radiation as light.

00:17:32These waves can travel in a vacuum without any problems.

00:17:36Both transmitters work that way.

00:17:39An astronaut says something to their friend.

00:17:42The sound waves turn into radio waves, reach the other person, and are then converted back

00:17:47into sounds.

00:17:49And this is how we get so-called space sounds.

00:17:52Our planet is actually very loud in that regard.

00:17:55We're sending a huge amount of radio waves into the Universe, all radio signals we've

00:18:00ever listened to.

00:18:02It's a pity that they travel only 110 light-years away from us.

00:18:06But you know, I think it's good that we don't hear everything that happens in space.

00:18:11Imagine if sound could easily travel through the Universe?

00:18:14We would hear everything, from solar flares to nearby supernovas.

00:18:19Horrifying, right?

00:18:21So maybe we're just lucky.

00:18:22Hey, remember, in space, you can hear ice cream!

00:18:26Chocolate!

00:18:27Vanilla!

00:18:29The Earth has three main layers.

00:18:32Two parts of the core, the dense, hot inner core, and the molten outer core.

00:18:38Then comes the mantle, and then follows the thin crust, the surface that supports life

00:18:43as we know it.

00:18:45At least, that's what we thought, because now scientists found a new mysterious layer

00:18:50located deep within the solid inner core.

00:18:53Earth's inner core is approximately two-thirds the size of the Moon, and made of nickel and

00:18:58solid iron.

00:19:00It's burning hot.

00:19:01The temperature at the center of our planet is the same as at the surface of the Sun.

00:19:06The outer core can reach almost 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

00:19:12It's difficult to explore it, because we can't go there, and it's like looking through a

00:19:16really dirty window of 3,200 miles of molten metal and rock.

00:19:21But we can rely on laboratory experiments on heated pressurized rocks, signals from

00:19:26seismic waves, and computer models.

00:19:30When an earthquake hits, it sends out seismic shock waves.

00:19:34Those waves travel through layers at a different speed, depending on the direction they go

00:19:38and the material they move through.

00:19:41In the new study, a team of scientists set a data set of 100,000 deep earthquakes, some

00:19:47of them went over 60 miles below the surface.

00:19:50When an earthquake happens on one side of our planet, scientists track its waves all

00:19:55along to the other side.

00:19:57Waves change when they come to the other side, so scientists try to understand the materials

00:20:01these waves have passed through.

00:20:03They found a new layer in the core of our planet thanks to earthquakes.

00:20:08Normally, shock waves travel along the equator, but down below, they digress, and there are

00:20:15But down below, they digress and go into different directions, about 60 degrees to the side.

00:20:21When waves pass through the inner core going from north to south, they will travel more

00:20:25quickly than waves going through the core parallel to the equator.

00:20:29It's important to understand the core because it creates our magnetic field, which in turn

00:20:35protects the planet from things like solar winds that are charged particles coming from

00:20:39the sun.

00:20:41In the 1960s, we discovered the Earth pulsates every 26 seconds.

00:20:46It's like clockwork, a giant heartbeat.

00:20:48The ground is slightly shaking, but we mostly don't feel it.

00:20:52Researchers can still track it.

00:20:55Some of them think the continental shelf comes as a huge wave break under the oceans.

00:21:00For example, the highest part of the North American continent falls off into a deep abyssal

00:21:05plain.

00:21:07One theory says waves hit this spot, producing regular pulses.

00:21:12It's like having all kinds of drums.

00:21:14You hit them with your hands and accidentally slam that one spot that produces the right

00:21:19harmonic bang to rattle our entire planet.

00:21:23If this theory is true, we're lucky there are no more spots like this that can shake

00:21:27the Earth.

00:21:29Other scientists believe the pulsation happens because there's a volcano near the critical

00:21:34spot.

00:21:35The island of Sao Tome in the Bight of Bani.

00:21:39You're walking, running, and jumping, but when you stop, it always feels like you're

00:21:44standing still.

00:21:46In reality, you're moving even when you're perfectly still because our planet is always

00:21:51on the move.

00:21:52Depending on where you're at, you could be spinning through the universe at more than

00:21:561,000 miles per hour.

00:21:59If you're on the equator, you'll move the fastest.

00:22:02Let's say you have a basketball spinning on your finger.

00:22:05Check the ball's equator.

00:22:06A random point on it has farther to go in just one spin than any point near your finger.

00:22:13That means the point on the equator is moving more quickly.

00:22:18The Earth is a planet that recycles all the time.

00:22:21The ground we're walking on is recycled.

00:22:24Our planet's rock cycle turns rocks of one type into another.

00:22:29That's a cycle that goes on and on.

00:22:32The depths of our planet are filled with magma.

00:22:35As magma is going out onto the surface, it hardens into rock.

00:22:41Tectonic processes like volcanic activity, earthquakes, mountain building, and all of

00:22:46the other processes that shape the surface of our planet bring that rock to the Earth's

00:22:50surface.

00:22:52When the rock is on the surface, erosion shapes it and shaves its bits off.

00:22:57Those small particles then get deposited.

00:23:00All the pressure coming from above compacts the particles into sedimentary rocks, like

00:23:05for example, sandstone.

00:23:08Sedimentary rocks can also end up deeper and deeper under the Earth's surface.

00:23:13Since there's a lot of heat and pressure, they get cooked into metamorphic rocks.

00:23:19They can go back to the surface once again, or even end up being re-eroded.

00:23:24Sometimes the crust plates are pushing one under another, and this way, rocks can transform

00:23:29into magma once again.

00:23:33We've explored only 5% of the ocean so far.

00:23:36The ocean itself, as well as life below the seafloor, is still a mystery.

00:23:41The sediments that are underlying our oceans are home to different microorganisms that

00:23:46exist even at depths of 1.5 miles beneath the seafloor.

00:23:51There are microbes hidden deep inside volcanic rocks below the seafloor off of the parts

00:23:56of the Pacific, hidden under 870 feet of sediment.

00:24:01The biosphere under the seafloor is growing extremely slowly compared to life on the surface.

00:24:07Cell division happens every 10 to 1,000 years.

00:24:12Something's different about the Earth's axis.

00:24:16Climate changes and melting glaciers, mostly in the regions like the Himalayas and Alaska,

00:24:22made the axis shift.

00:24:25Our planet has two kinds of poles.

00:24:27Are the south and north magnetic poles?

00:24:30They affect things such as drift and navigation.

00:24:35The axis that the Earth is spinning around is another kind of pole.

00:24:39It shifted a little bit over time, but we don't know exactly why.

00:24:44Researchers realize there are moving masses of water, pushing the Earth's axis eastward.

00:24:50Take a basin of water as an example.

00:24:52If you're moving it back and forth, sloshing makes the water move its weight all around.

00:24:57A similar thing is happening on a planetary level.

00:25:02No matter how large an earthquake is, no human could ever feel an earthquake on the opposite

00:25:07side of the Earth, although some people claim they did.

00:25:11In 2013, there was one near the Kuril Islands with a magnitude of 8.5.

00:25:17It went around 400 miles deep.

00:25:21It was so strong, people in Australia reported they could feel the ground shaking.

00:25:27The strongest earthquake happened in Chile in 1960 with a magnitude of 9.5.

00:25:35The rupture zone stretched from 311 miles to almost 620 miles along the country's coast.

00:25:42Earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or higher can't happen.

00:25:46The magnitude depends on the length of the fault where it occurs.

00:25:49The longer the fault, the bigger the earthquake.

00:25:53A fault is a break in a part of the planet's crust.

00:25:57It has rocks on both sides, and they move past each other.

00:26:00We haven't found a fault long enough to generate earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or more.

00:26:06If it happened, it would extend around most of our planet.

00:26:09An earthquake with a magnitude of 12 would require a fault larger than our planet.

00:26:16One side of our planet is getting colder than the other.

00:26:20The Earth has a system that keeps it warm from the inside, a red-hot liquid interior

00:26:25deep below the surface.

00:26:27It spins and, at the same time, generates a magnetic field and gravity.

00:26:33That way, the Earth's core holds the atmosphere closer to the planet's surface.

00:26:38The Earth also absorbs heat from the Sun, mostly on the surface.

00:26:42The heat doesn't spread equally on all parts of the Earth.

00:26:46One side of the planet, the Pacific hemisphere, is losing heat more quickly than another,

00:26:51the African hemisphere.

00:26:53This happens because land traps more heat than the surface under the ocean.

00:26:58The seafloor is way thinner than the landmass.

00:27:01Also, the temperature caused by the heat coming from inside the Earth is getting lower because

00:27:06of huge amounts of cold water above it.

00:27:09Clouds are not just like some fluffy distant pieces of cotton.

00:27:12They weigh more than a million pounds and help regulate our planet's temperature.

00:27:18If you take all the water droplets in clouds and bring them to the surface, you could cover

00:27:23the planet with a liquid layer as thin as a human hair.

00:27:27It doesn't seem like a lot, but this water is crucially important for climate.

00:27:32We'd have warmer temperatures if it weren't for the clouds.

00:27:37When you look at photos taken from spaceships or the International Space Station that show

00:27:42sunlit objects like Earth or the Moon, something seems wrong.

00:27:47Space looks too empty.

00:27:49No magical scenery of a nighttime sky full of stars.

00:27:53It would be incredibly boring to go stargazing in space since the sky is always dark.

00:27:59During the daytime, the sky on our home planet is blue because of the diffusion of light.

00:28:04It happens when sunlight goes through the atmosphere.

00:28:07But if you were on the Moon or somewhere else in space, there would be no atmosphere

00:28:11to spread this light around.

00:28:12That's why the sky there would always appear black.

00:28:17But it doesn't mean less bright out there.

00:28:19If you were looking out the window of the space station, you'd see just as much direct

00:28:23sunlight as you would gazing out of your apartment window during a cloudless day.

00:28:28Maybe even more.

00:28:30When taking a picture on a sunny day, you'll probably use a short exposure, together with

00:28:35the narrow aperture setting on your camera.

00:28:37This way, just a short burst of light will get in.

00:28:40That's similar to how our pupils contract in sunlight so that they don't have to deal

00:28:44with too much light.

00:28:46And since it's just as bright up there in space, the process is the same when you take

00:28:50pictures of sunlit objects there.

00:28:53Using short exposure, you can get good, bright pictures of Earth or the surface of the Moon.

00:28:58But it also means there will be no stars in the picture.

00:29:02Even up there, stars are relatively dim.

00:29:04They don't emit enough light to show up in photos taken with such settings.

00:29:09Our home planet has a blue sky that slowly transforms into a beautiful orange-red palette

00:29:14at dusk and dawn.

00:29:16But if you ever get a chance to watch a sunset on Mars, you should expect the opposite, an

00:29:21orange-brown daytime sky that gets a bluish tint at sunset.

00:29:26First of all, Mars is farther away from the Sun than our planet.

00:29:30So when you're looking at the Sun from the Martian surface, of course, it looks fainter

00:29:34and smaller.

00:29:35And not just that, the Sun observed from Mars is just a bluish-white dot surrounded

00:29:40by a blue halo.

00:29:42The thin atmosphere of the red planet contains large dust particles.

00:29:46They create an effect called Mie scattering.

00:29:48It occurs when the diameter of particles in the atmosphere is almost the same as the wavelength

00:29:53of the scattered light.

00:29:55This effect filters out the red light from the Sun's rays.

00:29:58So only the blue light would reach your eyes on Mars.

00:30:03How come Earth doesn't have rings?

00:30:06All gas giants in our solar system, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have such rings,

00:30:12whereas the rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars don't.

00:30:17There are two theories about how rings can appear around a planet.

00:30:21They might be just some material left from the times when the planet was forming.

00:30:25Or they may be the remains of a moon that got destroyed by a collision with some space

00:30:29body or torn apart by the strong gravitational pull of its parent planet.

00:30:34The gas giants formed in the outer regions of our solar system, while all the rocky planets

00:30:39are in the inner part.

00:30:40So maybe the inner planets were more protected from potential collisions that could have

00:30:44formed their rings.

00:30:46There are also more moons in the outer regions of our solar system, which could be another

00:30:51reason why the planets there have rings.

00:30:54Also, bigger planets have stronger gravity.

00:30:57That means that they can keep their rings stable after they form.

00:31:01Some experts believe Earth used to have a ring system a long time ago.

00:31:05A Mars-sized object might have collided with our home planet, which probably created a

00:31:10dense ring of debris around it.

00:31:13Some scientists think that this debris formed not a ring but what we know today as the moon.

00:31:20There's probably a giant planet lurking at the edge of the solar system, far beyond Neptune.

00:31:26Let's call this mysterious hypothetical world Planet 9.

00:31:30If it does exist, it's probably similar to Uranus or Neptune, and 10 times more massive

00:31:35than our home planet.

00:31:37It's likely to circle around the Sun, but in the outer reaches of the solar system,

00:31:41about 20 times farther than Neptune.

00:31:45Another interesting theory says that Planet 9 could actually be a black hole the size

00:31:49of a grapefruit that warps space in a similar way a large planet would.

00:31:56Even though we once thought it was a rare substance in space, water exists all over

00:32:01our solar system.

00:32:02For example, you can often find it in asteroids and comets.

00:32:06It's also in craters on the Moon and Mercury.

00:32:10We still don't know if there's enough water to support potential human colonies if we

00:32:14decide to move there, but some amount of water is definitely present there.

00:32:19Mars has water at its poles, too.

00:32:22It's mostly hidden in the layers of ice and probably under the planet's dusty surface.

00:32:27Europa, Jupiter's moon, has some water, too.

00:32:30This is the most likely candidate we know about to host life outside Earth.

00:32:35There's probably a whole ocean of liquid water under its frozen surface.

00:32:39It might actually contain twice as much water as all of Earth's oceans combined.

00:32:46Neptune is unexpectedly warm, even though it's 30 times as far from the Sun as our

00:32:50planet and receives less sunlight and heat.

00:32:53But it still radiates way more heat than it gets.

00:32:56It also has way more activity in its atmosphere than you'd suspect, especially if you compare

00:33:01it to its neighbor, Uranus.

00:33:04Both of these planets emit the same amount of heat, even though Uranus is much closer

00:33:09to the Sun.

00:33:10No one knows why.

00:33:12Neptune has extremely strong winds that can reach a speed of up to 1,500 miles per hour.

00:33:18Can they produce this heat?

00:33:20Or maybe it's because of the planet's core or its gravitational force?

00:33:25There's a monster black hole hurtling through space at a speed of 5 million miles per hour.

00:33:31Scientists located it with the Hubble Space Telescope.

00:33:34They believe it weighs as much as a billion suns.

00:33:37It was supposed to stay put in the center of its home galaxy.

00:33:41Some gravitational forces are pushing it around.

00:33:44At one point, this black hole is going to break free from its galaxy and continue roaming

00:33:49the universe.

00:33:50Luckily, it's still 8 billion years away from us.

00:33:54Solar storms are so powerful that they could leave us in complete darkness.

00:33:59Back in July 2012, the strongest solar storm in over 150 years narrowly missed Earth.

00:34:07Solar mass ejections, or CMEs, are large bubbles of ionized gas.

00:34:12They tore through our orbit back then.

00:34:15If they had caught our planet in the crosshairs, we would have literally been in the firing

00:34:19line.

00:34:20We'd have faced solar matter hurtling towards Earth, damaging computers and causing power

00:34:24outages that would have lasted for months.

00:34:28A surprise solar storm hit us on June 25, 2022.

00:34:32One photographer even managed to capture stunning bright auroras that flashed across the dawn

00:34:37sky in Calgary, Canada, and lasted for 5 minutes.

00:34:41They were caused by the storm.

00:34:44Vampire stars are a real thing.

00:34:46They're part of a binary star, and they can literally drain the life out of the other

00:34:50star in the system.

00:34:52They do it to keep burning for a longer time.

00:34:55It works like this.

00:34:56A smaller star with a lower mass steals its sibling's hydrogen fuel to increase its

00:35:01own mass.

00:35:03This vampire star then becomes hotter.

00:35:05Plus, its color changes to striking blue.

00:35:08This way, it looks much younger.

00:35:10How sneaky!

00:35:13The color of the universe is dubbed cosmic latte.

00:35:16The light coming from our galaxies and stars within them, as well as clouds of gas and

00:35:21dust in the observable universe, have a specific color.

00:35:25It's an ivory tint, pretty close to white.

00:35:28The universe is beige because there are a bit more areas that produce green, yellow,

00:35:33and red light than those that emit blue.

00:35:37Hey MythBusters!

00:35:39Today we're debunking some classic space myths.

00:35:43Hop on the next space shuttle and let's get to the bottom of these tales once and for

00:35:47all!

00:35:50Picture this.

00:35:51You're floating weightlessly in space, sipping on a cup of delicious hot chocolate, when

00:35:56a peculiar thought pops into your head.

00:35:58Can you scream in outer space?

00:36:01And if yes, would anyone hear that scream?

00:36:04If you've watched the movie Alien, then you know the answer to this one.

00:36:11You can't hear sounds in outer space.

00:36:13It's not that sounds don't exist, it's just that you can't hear them.

00:36:18There's no one better to clarify this myth than Chris Hadfield.

00:36:22He's been on a couple of spacewalks during his life as an astronaut.

00:36:27And once you're out there in the darkness of space, you can't hear anything.

00:36:35But hey, just around the corner is a massive ball of explosion, aka the sun.

00:36:41We just can't hear the explosions happening because there's no medium for sound to travel

00:36:46through.

00:36:47It would be quite uncomfortable for an astronaut though if they could hear all the noises going

00:36:51on in outer space.

00:36:54Now imagine you're zipping through space, feeling like a futuristic superhero, when

00:36:59a shooting star passes by your side.

00:37:02But wait, is it really a star?

00:37:04Unfortunately, shooting stars are not stars at all.

00:37:08They are small space rocks known as meteoroids, entering Earth's atmosphere and creating a

00:37:14stunning light show.

00:37:16Oh, and since we're debunking myths, let's head straight for another one.

00:37:21You've probably heard that meteors only crash into Earth on extremely rare occasions, like

00:37:27once every dinosaur extinguishing apocalypse.

00:37:31That's not true.

00:37:33Scientists estimate that about 48 tons of meteoritic material fall on Earth each day.

00:37:39But almost all of this material is vaporized in Earth's atmosphere.

00:37:43The bright trail we see in the night sky is what we popularly call a shooting star.

00:37:48Next time you make a wish upon a shooting star, remember, you're actually hoping on

00:37:52a tiny piece of space debris.

00:37:54It's not so romantic after all!

00:37:59Can we or can we not fly into the stratosphere on air balloons?

00:38:03Apparently, we can!

00:38:05The Earth's stratosphere starts relatively close to the ground, about 7 or 8 miles up

00:38:10from the Earth's surface, but it continues a long way up.

00:38:15If you were to fly yourself all the way into the stratosphere with some type of air balloon,

00:38:20just make sure you have really good equipment at hand.

00:38:23You'll need a special suit and some breathing devices, because air starts to get pretty

00:38:28thin the higher you get.

00:38:30Of course, if you do go all the way up, you need to get a picture of the Earth's curvature.

00:38:35So take a chest harness with you where you can put a special camera or something like

00:38:39that.

00:38:40And how about you live stream the whole thing?

00:38:43Would be a first!

00:38:46Imagine it's been 102 days since you left Earth.

00:38:49You've adapted well to life in outer space, but something weird is happening to your body.

00:38:55You're getting taller.

00:38:57How is that even possible?

00:38:58Don't stress about it, it's completely normal.

00:39:02The truth of the matter is, you're not getting taller.

00:39:04This is what happens to your body when it's not under the effect of gravity.

00:39:09Our body has natural space between vertebrae and joints.

00:39:13On Earth, this space is almost completely squeezed due to the force of gravity.

00:39:18But in space, your body gets some time off of the pushing force of gravity and begins

00:39:23to stretch more and more.

00:39:26So yes, astronauts can grow up to 3% taller when they're on long missions.

00:39:31And here's a curiosity, NASA has that all covered when they're tailor-making spacesuits

00:39:35of course.

00:39:36This way, astronauts will always have extra space in their suits.

00:39:41Once astronauts are back on Earth, the anti-gravity effect will wear off.

00:39:45So maybe they'll spend a few days wearing capri pants before it fits perfectly on their

00:39:49bodies again.

00:39:52Never have I ever pictured an airplane door bursting open mid-flight and a bunch of passengers

00:39:57being sucked into the atmosphere like flying feathers.

00:40:00Well, I'm betting most of you have had similar thoughts when getting inside a plane.

00:40:05Now imagine if this were to happen in outer space.

00:40:09Common knowledge says that if an astronaut is sucked out of an airlock, this person would

00:40:13be burnt to a crisp.

00:40:15Brace yourselves, because this is not only true, but the reality of it is way worse.

00:40:21According to astronaut Chris Hadfield, this is what would happen.

00:40:25The part of your body in the shade of the sun would experience temperatures of negative

00:40:29418 degrees Fahrenheit, while the part of you getting sunlight would burn at around

00:40:35480 degrees Fahrenheit.

00:40:38Your lungs would collapse, and your blood would start to boil like tea water.

00:40:43So you would burn, freeze, lose your ability to breathe, and boil.

00:40:48Yikes!

00:40:50How many times have you heard that astronauts have to work out every second of every day,

00:40:55otherwise they'll pass out?

00:40:57This is a complete myth.

00:40:59Remember we talked about gravity earlier?

00:41:02Due to the lack of gravity in outer space, our bodies don't have to do any heavy work.

00:41:07Our torsos don't have to sustain the weight of our heads, and we don't have to make any

00:41:12effort to move our legs because, essentially, there's no walking in outer space.

00:41:18Now imagine living like that for 6 months, or even a year of your life.

00:41:24Your muscles could turn into jello.

00:41:26That's why astronauts work out.

00:41:28They'll strap themselves and run on a treadmill, or they'll do some weightlifting in a special

00:41:33machine.

00:41:35This way their muscles won't feel the lack of gravity too much.

00:41:38They do need to keep hydrated though.

00:41:42You know what?

00:41:43If I was an astronaut, I'd ask NASA if I could take my super soft water flask up into space

00:41:49with me.

00:41:50You've probably heard that space smells like burnt steak or barbecue sauce.

00:41:55Now as much as this sounds absurd, this myth is more true than it is false.

00:42:02Astronauts obviously can't smell space when they're in it because they can't take off

00:42:06their helmets.

00:42:07They usually smell it once a space vehicle docks and they open up a hatch.

00:42:11Apparently, what causes this smell is the presence of hydrocarbons that float around

00:42:16in space.

00:42:17Who would have thought, huh?

00:42:20Hey smart people, let me ask you a question.

00:42:23Do you really think that if astronauts fly at the speed of light, they won't age a single

00:42:27second?

00:42:28I knew you'd say no!

00:42:30Let's get a few things straight.

00:42:32First of all, we haven't figured out how to operate vehicles at the speed of light.

00:42:37This would require an immense amount of energy and we don't have the technology to do that.

00:42:42Second, even if we managed to send a human inside a spacecraft that traveled at the speed

00:42:48of light, this person would still age.

00:42:51They would age differently than the people who remained on Earth, that's a fact, but

00:42:55they would still age.

00:42:56Do you lot really think there's such a thing as immortality?

00:43:00Nah.

00:43:01If you've seen the first Avatar, then you certainly remember that humans only managed

00:43:05to get to Pandora because they traveled in cryosleep.

00:43:09In other words, they froze their bodies, put them in a cryo bed, and traveled for years

00:43:14without aging.

00:43:15Yes, this sounds amazing, but we still don't have the technology to do that.

00:43:20Our bodies are mainly made out of water, right?

00:43:23And when you freeze water, it expands.

00:43:26That's why you should never leave soda cans unattended in your freezer.

00:43:30Right now, if we froze a person's body, the water inside of it would expand, harming tissues

00:43:35and organs.

00:43:36So, no, we can't cryosleep our way into interstellar travel.

00:43:41Not yet at least.

00:43:43Here's a crazy thought.

00:43:45What would happen if an astronaut took a drone with him on one of their spacewalks?

00:43:50Unless it's a NASA-designed drone, maybe the thing would freeze and burn like humans

00:43:54would if they went into space without a suit.

00:43:57But hey, a person can dream, can't they?

00:44:03Earth's magnetic field hides a fascinating story.

00:44:06It turns out that it's getting weaker day by day.

00:44:10In fact, it's been doing so for the last 3,000 years.

00:44:15And if this trend continues, we could be in for some trouble within a millennium.

00:44:22What's the big deal?

00:44:23Well, picture this.

00:44:25Magnetic north becomes south, and vice versa.

00:44:29Pretty wild, right?

00:44:31When this happens, our planet's protective magnetic shield might weaken, allowing more

00:44:35cosmic rays to hit us.

00:44:39These high-energy particles from the universe can cause electronic malfunctions in our satellites

00:44:44and produce elements that could be harmful to us.

00:44:48The last time a polarity reversal occurred was between 772,000 and 774,000 years ago.

00:44:57Thankfully, humanity has some pretty smart people on the case who are investigating the

00:45:02history of Earth's magnetic field.

00:45:05They take cores of sediments from the seafloor and study the magnetization of fossils to

00:45:10figure out when these reversals occurred in the past and when they might happen again.

00:45:17Another group of researchers is studying the South Atlantic Anomaly, SAA, a vast region

00:45:22of Earth's magnetic field that is about three times weaker than the field at the poles.

00:45:29Using data from multiple satellites, they are trying to figure out what's causing the

00:45:33SAA and how it might change in the future.

00:45:37This could give us a glimpse into how a weakened magnetic field can affect our satellites and

00:45:42our planet.

00:45:44Sure, our generation won't be here to witness these changes, but it does make you wonder

00:45:49what that planet might look like upside down.

00:45:52Magnetically, that is.

00:45:56NASA's astronomers have also announced that in 4 billion years, the Milky Way galaxy is

00:46:01going to get a major glow-up.

00:46:04After a cosmic collision that will shake things up.

00:46:07I'm not talking about a small fender bender here, I'm talking about a titanic collision

00:46:12with our neighboring Andromeda galaxy.

00:46:16Humanity will have to hold on to its space helmet for this one because the sun might

00:46:20get flung into a new region of the galaxy.

00:46:24However, our Earth and solar system probably won't be seriously affected.

00:46:29Sounds difficult to believe, so how come?

00:46:33NASA's Hubble Space Telescope did some hardcore measurements of Andromeda's motion.

00:46:39Although the galaxies will plow into each other, the stars inside each galaxy are so

00:46:44far apart that they won't collide with other stars during the encounter.

00:46:49However, the stars will be thrown into different orbits around their new galactic centers.

00:46:56According to simulations, our solar system will probably be tossed much farther from

00:47:00the galactic core than it is today.

00:47:03Set your telescopes aside, you don't need to start counting down the years.

00:47:07This event is likely scheduled in about 4 billion years, so chances for us to witness

00:47:13it are zero.

00:47:16Saturn is losing its rings.

00:47:19Thankfully, we won't be here to witness this sad event either.

00:47:22Apparently, the rings are being pulled into Saturn as a dusty rain of ice particles, all

00:47:29under the influence of Saturn's magnetic field.

00:47:32According to NASA's research, the ring rain is draining an amount of water products that

00:47:37could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool from Saturn's rings every half an hour.

00:47:43The entire ring system will likely be gone in 300 million years.

00:47:49Scientists believe we should consider ourselves lucky to witness Saturn's ring system at all,

00:47:54as it seems to be in the middle of its lifetime.

00:47:57But if you think about it that way, that rings around planets are all temporary, there's

00:48:01a chance we've just missed out on the giant ring system of Jupiter, or those of Uranus,

00:48:08and Neptune.

00:48:10These planets have only thin ringlets around them these days.

00:48:16Scientists have long debated whether Saturn was formed together with its rings, or if

00:48:21the planet acquired them later in life.

00:48:25The new research favors the second scenario, indicating that they are unlikely to be older

00:48:30than 100 million years, while Saturn itself is around 4.5 billion years old.

00:48:38What caused the rings to appear in the first place?

00:48:41Well, there are a few theories.

00:48:44One of them suggests the rings could have formed when small, icy moons in orbit around

00:48:49Saturn collided.

00:48:50Perhaps their own orbits were messed up by a gravitational tug from a passing asteroid

00:48:55or comet.

00:48:58Who knows what humans might end up looking like in the future.

00:49:01It's unlikely we'll see any major changes in our lifetime.

00:49:05But let's take a journey to the future and ponder what we might evolve into.

00:49:10Will we become cyborgs with all sorts of cool machine implants?

00:49:14Or maybe we'll become a hybrid species of biological and artificial beings.

00:49:20To understand our future evolution, we gotta take a peek at our past.

00:49:26A million years ago, Homo sapiens didn't even exist.

00:49:30There were a few other similar species though, like the Neanderthal.

00:49:35Fast forward to today, and humans have become taller and sturdier.

00:49:39Maybe in the future we'll become smaller to conserve energy, as it's predicted that

00:49:44our planet will get more crowded.

00:49:48Speaking of crowded planets, living in these new conditions means we have to adapt, and

00:49:53fast.

00:49:55We're constantly interacting with lots of people, and remembering names is becoming

00:49:59a crucial skill.

00:50:01Luckily, technology might help us out with brain implants that will improve our memory.

00:50:08In the future, we might also have more noticeable technologies as part of our appearance.

00:50:14Imagine having an artificial eye with a camera that can read different frequencies of light.

00:50:22While predicting a million years into the future is pure speculation, we can use bioinformatics

00:50:27to make some predictions about the immediate future.

00:50:32Demographic trends suggest that urban areas will become more genetically diverse, while

00:50:36rural areas will become less diverse.

00:50:40And what about space?

00:50:42If we end up colonizing Mars, our bodies could change due to lower gravity.

00:50:47We will have longer arms and legs, or even insulating body hair like our Neanderthal

00:50:52cousins.

00:50:55In the future, our moon is also going to witness some dramatic changes.

00:50:58We'll miss these ones too.

00:51:01In about 5 billion years, things are going to get really interesting in this corner of

00:51:05the universe.

00:51:06For now, the sun is chilling in its main sequence phase, just burning hydrogen like nobody's

00:51:12business.

00:51:13In the future, during the red giant phase, the sun is going to puff up like a balloon

00:51:17until its atmosphere reaches out and engulfs our beloved Earth and moon.

00:51:23Our natural satellite, which is already moving away from Earth, is going to get warped around

00:51:28the sun's influence.

00:51:29Its orbit will get all wonky and it'll end up closer to Earth during the new moon phase

00:51:35than during the full moon.

00:51:37And that's not even the worst part.

00:51:41If left alone, the moon would keep on moving away from Earth until it'll need almost 50

00:51:46days to orbit us.

00:51:50As the sun continues with its own journey, its atmosphere will drag on the moon and cause

00:51:55its orbit to decay.

00:51:57Eventually, the moon will get torn apart into a stunning ring of debris circling Earth.

00:52:03We're talking about all its mountains, craters, and even the footprints and flags we left

00:52:08there.

00:52:09All scattered throughout the debris field.

00:52:13There's a chance the sun will shed enough mass to spare Earth and the moon from total annihilation.

00:52:19Or if we're really lucky, the sun will lose 20% of its mass and we'll be safe and sound.

00:52:25It's all just theory right now.

00:52:26We haven't seen a red giant star during this phase.

00:52:31The universe itself might go completely dark one day too.

00:52:35Scientists can't predict it with absolute certainty, but they can make some educated

00:52:39guesses.

00:52:40Right now, our universe is 13.77 billion years old, and it's still churning out new stars

00:52:46left and right.

00:52:49It's said that eventually, after about 1 trillion years, the last star will be born.

00:52:56That final star will be a little guy, a red dwarf, just a fraction the size of our sun.

00:53:03These stars are champs at living long lives, slowly sipping on hydrogen to keep their fusion

00:53:08reactions going.

00:53:10But even they can't last forever.

00:53:12Fast forward about 100 trillion years, and the last light will go out.

00:53:19The universe will be dark and lonely.

00:53:21But thankfully, we won't be here to watch it all fade away.

00:53:29Our good ol' solar system is actually a pretty bizarre place, what with all its out-of-this-world

00:53:34phenomena that we humans haven't managed to explain yet.

00:53:39There are rumors that a gigantic undiscovered planet is hiding behind Neptune, volcanoes

00:53:44on Pluto spew ice, and a colossal canyon on Mars can accommodate the whole U.S. territory

00:53:51and most of Cleveland.

00:53:53Well, let's figure out if it's true by talking about the most mystifying solar system

00:53:58facts.

00:54:00The solar system is 4.6 billion years old.

00:54:03So old, it's a senior solar system.

00:54:06Scientists came to this conclusion after they studied the oldest material they managed to

00:54:10get a hold of, and by that, I mean meteorites, of course.

00:54:14You won't be able to wear a hat on Venus, ever, and just try to stand on your feet.

00:54:20The planet is insanely windy, its upper winds blow 50 times faster than the planet rotates.

00:54:26What's more, these fierce winds never stop and can get even stronger with time.

00:54:32Wanna get away?

00:54:33You'll have to travel 11 billion miles away from Earth before ever leaving the solar system.

00:54:39Take your Google Maps with you.

00:54:41You probably heard of methane gas, a byproduct of natural processes such as volcanic activity

00:54:48and cows.

00:54:49Anyway, this gas is not only a part of the Martian atmosphere, but also the thing that

00:54:54confuses astronomers to no end.

00:54:57The thing is that the volume of methane on Mars keeps wavering, and scientists just can't

00:55:03figure out where it might be coming from.

00:55:06Can there be cows on Mars?

00:55:09As you may remember, Pluto used to be a planet, but was stripped of this title in 2006.

00:55:14Later, it was reclassified as a dwarf planet.

00:55:18Gee, make up your mind!

00:55:20But the most unexpected fact about this celestial body is that its diameter is smaller than

00:55:26that of the US.

00:55:27See for yourself – the greatest distance across the country from Maine to Northern

00:55:32California is about 2,800 miles.

00:55:35As for Pluto, it's only 1,473 miles across.

00:55:40The planet Uranus rotates on its side, and astronomers have no idea why the planet has

00:55:48chosen such an unusual position.

00:55:51The culprits could be ancient mega-powerful collisions, but so far it's just a theory.

00:55:57By the way, this is the only planet laying on its side.

00:56:01Our Sun is insanely massive.

00:56:03Want some proof?

00:56:04Well, 99.86% of all the mass in the Solar System is in the mass of the Sun, in particular

00:56:12the hydrogen and helium it's made of.

00:56:14The remaining 0.14% is mostly the mass of the Solar System's 8 planets.

00:56:21Earth might not be the only tectonically active planet in the Solar System.

00:56:26Astronomers have spotted some landforms looking like cliffs on Mercury.

00:56:31If it's so, the tectonic activity could explain the rapid shrinking of the planet.

00:56:37In most sci-fi movies about space, the main character gets into an asteroid belt and must

00:56:42dodge countless rocks that threaten to damage their spacecraft.

00:56:46Well, sorry to disappoint, but that's nothing like the real thing.

00:56:50The only asteroid belt astronomers know about is located between Mars and Jupiter.

00:56:56There are thousands of asteroids in this region, but they're so widely spaced that the chance

00:57:01of collision is next to nothing.

00:57:03Ah, you just ruined it.

00:57:06Sorry.

00:57:07Behind the orbit of Neptune lies the mysterious Kuiper Belt, filled with massive icy objects.

00:57:14The most curious thing about this space formation, though, is that scientists can't explain

00:57:18the pattern of its movement.

00:57:21The only explanation they have is that Neptune might be hiding a ginormous planet from our

00:57:26sight.

00:57:27This hypothetical planet has already got the name Planet 9, and all we have to do is wait

00:57:33until its existence is confirmed.

00:57:36Or not.

00:57:38Volcanoes on Earth are as different from those on Pluto as fire and ice, and I mean it.

00:57:44While we have volcanoes spilling lava on our planet, the volcanoes on Pluto spit ice.

00:57:50When frozen water expands, and this enormous pressure builds up until one day, bang, the

00:57:56ice erupts.

00:57:57In the process, a new cryovolcano gets formed.

00:58:02One of Saturn's moons, Lapidus, has a unique color – it's two-toned.

00:58:07One of its hemispheres is light, and the other is eerily dark.

00:58:11Scientists haven't figured out this mystery yet.

00:58:14There's another weird thing about Pluto, or rather, about its atmosphere.

00:58:18First, it rises way higher above the surface of the dwarf planet than, for example, the

00:58:24Earth's atmosphere.

00:58:25What's more, the atmosphere on Pluto has more than 20 layers, and all of them are super

00:58:31cold and very condensed.

00:58:33We live inside the Sun.

00:58:35No, I don't mean that we're inhabitants of the red-hot ball of light approximately

00:58:4093 million miles away.

00:58:42The thing is that the Sun's atmosphere stretches far beyond its visible surface, and our planet

00:58:48is right within its reach.

00:58:50In fact, it's the gusts of solar wind that create the breathtaking phenomenon known as

00:58:56the Northern and Southern Lights.

00:58:59The ocean on Jupiter is larger than any other on the rest of the Solar System's planets.

00:59:04But wait!

00:59:05It's not the type of ocean you're thinking about.

00:59:08The one on Jupiter isn't made of water.

00:59:10This mesmerizing thing consists of metallic hydrogen, and its depth is a staggering 25,000

00:59:17miles, which is almost the same as the circumference of the Earth.

00:59:22The Sun's atmosphere is hotter than the surface of the star.

00:59:25While on the surface, the temperature reaches 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the upper atmosphere

00:59:31heats up to millions of degrees.

00:59:34Scientists suspect that explosive bursts of heat from the Sun may have something to do

00:59:38with this unique phenomenon.

00:59:41People came to know about Saturn's beautiful rings in the 1600s, but only recently, it

00:59:46became apparent that Saturn isn't the only ringed planet.

00:59:50Like all the gas giant planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Jupiter have rings of their own, but they're

00:59:56thin and almost impossible to see.

00:59:59As for Mars, Venus, and Earth, they're made of rocky materials and have no rings whatsoever.

01:00:05Our Solar System isn't the only one in the Milky Way Galaxy.

01:00:09Far from it.

01:00:10The galaxy we live in houses about 100 billion solar systems.

01:00:14And if that's just our galaxy alone, can you imagine how many there are in the whole

01:00:20universe?

01:00:21At any given moment here on Earth, you can stumble across a rock that's arrived from

01:00:26Mars.

01:00:27After scientists analyzed the chemical content of some meteorites found in the Sahara Desert,

01:00:32Antarctica, and other places on our planet, they came to the shocking conclusion that

01:00:37they have a Martian origin.

01:00:40Since Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, many people simply assume that it's

01:00:44also the hottest.

01:00:46And that's where they get it wrong, because, in fact, Venus, which is about 30 million

01:00:51miles further from the Sun than Mercury, is way hotter.

01:00:55The thing is that Venus has an incredibly thick atmosphere, which is 100 times denser

01:01:00than the one we have on Earth.

01:01:02On top of that, this atmosphere consists almost entirely of carbon dioxide, also known as

01:01:08a greenhouse gas.

01:01:10These factors make the temperatures on the planet rise to a staggering 875°F, which

01:01:17is hot enough to melt lead.

01:01:19As for Mercury, its maximum temperatures reach only 800°F.

01:01:24Jupiter's moon, Lo, exists in never-ending chaos due to hundreds of smoking volcanoes

01:01:30on its surface.

01:01:32If you ever visit this place, send me a postcard.

01:01:35No, you'll see the smoke from these volcanoes billowing up high into Lo's atmosphere.

01:01:41The most enormous volcano in the whole Solar System, at least that we know of, is on Mars.

01:01:47The size of this monster is almost as great as the state of Arizona, and its height is

01:01:52as big as that of Mount Everest.

01:01:55How did it grow this huge?

01:01:57The answer is simple – there's much less gravity on Mars in comparison with our planet.

01:02:04Even if you're a tiny celestial body, you can still have a moon of your own.

01:02:08Hey, it's not that hard.

01:02:10In 1993, the Galileo probe was traveling past a miniature asteroid that was no bigger than

01:02:1620 miles across, and discovered the little thing had a 1-mile-wide moon.

01:02:22Since then, astronomers have found tons of moons orbiting minor planets in our Solar

01:02:26System.

01:02:28The valley called Valles Marineris on Mars is more than 10 times larger than Earth's

01:02:34Grand Canyon.

01:02:35And it's another thing that puzzles astronomers.

01:02:38After all, Mars isn't a planet with active plate tectonics.

01:02:43On the surface of Jupiter, there's a weird region that's called the Great Red Spot.

01:02:48Recently, astronomers have concluded that this spot is actually a storm that's been

01:02:53raging on the planet for centuries.

01:02:56But some 20 years ago, scientists noticed that the red region started to shrink.

01:03:01Nowadays, it's just half the size it used to be.

01:03:05And still, the spot is 1.5 times bigger than Earth.

01:03:09How about you?

01:03:10Do you know any other unusual facts about our Solar System that I've missed?

01:03:15Our moon could be hiding way more pockets of water than scientists used to think.

01:03:20Its surface has something called cold traps.

01:03:23These are areas that are in permanent shadow.

01:03:26If you could stand near one of the moon's poles, especially the South Pole, you'd see

01:03:30such shadows all over the place, 15,000 square miles of them.

01:03:35There are tiny cold traps that are only 0.4 inches wide.

01:03:40And there are hundreds and thousands of bigger ones.

01:03:43These regions are in eternal darkness and might have even gone without the slightest

01:03:48ray of sunlight for billions of years.

01:03:51For now, scientists think they're hiding much more than we thought, including small

01:03:55patches of ice no bigger than a penny.

01:03:58But still, something astronauts could use to drink or for their rocket fuel.

01:04:04The majority of the water could be stored in glass or somewhere between grains on the

01:04:08surface of the moon.

01:04:10One theory says 15,500 square miles of the lunar surface could have the capacity to store

01:04:17water.

01:04:18No one can prove it until someone goes there in person or sends rovers that would dig under

01:04:23the surface.

01:04:24The moon is not entirely white and devoid of color.

01:04:28Apollo astronauts that landed there in 1969 said the moon was a bit brownish.

01:04:34Later studies showed some dark lunar areas display hints of brown and blue.

01:04:41Highland regions are yellowish with faint traces of pale and pink.

01:04:45Colors are not the same everywhere because of different amounts of various metals that

01:04:49are present on the moon, like titanium or iron in the surface minerals.

01:04:55Our eyes are not sensitive enough to pick out such differences from this distance.

01:04:59But the majority of the lunar surface consists of minerals that are naturally gray, and that's

01:05:04mostly the color we see from our planet.

01:05:08When you're in space, you can't walk on the ground.

01:05:11No gravity, so no need to wear shoes.

01:05:15That's why astronauts mostly wear socks, or eventually add another warmer pair if they're

01:05:19cold.

01:05:21But something strange might happen to your feet while you're up there.

01:05:25First, if you have calluses, they may fall off after some time.

01:05:30One astronaut described his experience and said the bottoms of his feet became very soft,

01:05:35while the skin on the top of his feet became very rough, like alligator skin.

01:05:40He engaged the top of his feet to get around when he was using foot rails on a space station

01:05:45where they stay.

01:05:46It's not easy up there.

01:05:48Astronauts on the International Space Station, ISS, have to use foot rails and loops to remain

01:05:53steady.

01:05:55When they have to do regular things, like just getting a haircut.

01:05:58When they want to do training, they can strap their feet into sneakers on the exercise equipment.

01:06:04It's essential for them to exercise way more than they'd have to on Earth, around two hours

01:06:09each day.

01:06:10Because the human body isn't used to moving or performing any actions we normally do without

01:06:15gravity, that kinda holds us together.

01:06:18Plus, if you stay in space for a longer time, you can lose much of your bone and muscle

01:06:24mass.

01:06:25For example, you can lose almost 20% of your muscle mass if you spend only 11 days in zero

01:06:31gravity conditions.

01:06:33But if you were up there, there's no point in using weights, right?

01:06:38Zero gravity affects them, too.

01:06:41Instead, astronauts mostly use a device outfitted with two small canisters that create a vacuum

01:06:47and allow them to pull against a long bar.

01:06:50On the ISS, you can also use a bike and a treadmill.

01:06:55Did you know that NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen that you could write with

01:06:59in zero gravity?

01:07:00A pencil is not the best solution for space travel.

01:07:04They have a habit of breaking and shattering, which can leave graphite dust behind.

01:07:08Also, they're wooden, which brings a high risk of fire in the pressurized, oxygen-rich

01:07:14capsule.

01:07:15That's why even such an everyday thing as a pencil can be life-threatening in space.

01:07:21So they had to develop the space pen.

01:07:24It writes crisp and clean, and can't rely on gravity to make the ink flow.

01:07:29Instead, it uses compressed nitrogen to force ink out of the nozzle.

01:07:34This way, you can write while you're floating upside down, or even submerged underwater.

01:07:40Even when they're up in space, astronauts still face everyday things, like that unpleasant

01:07:45itching sensation on their faces.

01:07:47They can't just satisfy it while in their spacesuit.

01:07:49They need to improvise, so sometimes they scratch the spot with a microphone attached

01:07:55inside of their helmet.

01:07:57Sometimes they attach patches of Velcro inside their helmet for such things.

01:08:01One of the most complicated issues with space trips is how to protect astronauts from space

01:08:06radiation.

01:08:08Our body has not evolved to handle proton storms and cosmic rays coming from the sun.

01:08:14Of course, spacesuits and the rest of the equipment are essential.

01:08:18Some research also showed an antioxidant-rich diet that usually includes a bunch of vegetables

01:08:23like spinach, tomatoes, and beetroot is promising when it comes to reducing the bad effects

01:08:30of radiation.

01:08:31Astronauts didn't always wear white spacesuits.

01:08:34During NASA's first manned spaceflight project, called Project Mercury, they had silver suits.

01:08:40But none of the astronauts went out and explored the vacuum of space back then.

01:08:45Silver is not a good color for that, because spacesuits have to be highly reflective.

01:08:50White is the best for that.

01:08:52That color is the most effective for reflecting radiation while in outer space.

01:08:57We're on Earth, which means the atmosphere is like a shield that protects us from 77%

01:09:02of radiation coming from the sun.

01:09:04But astronauts don't have such protection up there, and this means they're very vulnerable

01:09:08to severe sunburn and extremely high temperatures.

01:09:12A white spacesuit helps, the same way as white paint on your walls helps you keep an entire

01:09:17room cooler.

01:09:18A lighter color will absorb 35% less heat.

01:09:23White is not the only color in their closet.

01:09:26When heading into space or coming to Earth, they sometimes wear a bright orange suit.

01:09:32It's a color that attracts attention, so if anything goes wrong during landing, and astronauts

01:09:37have to quickly leave their ship, the rescue crew will spot them more easily.

01:09:42But times are changing, so today we have more sophisticated tools to locate astronauts that

01:09:48need help, such as GPS trackers and transponders, so suits don't have to be orange anymore.

01:09:55Floating through space.

01:09:57Everything's peaceful, and you're enjoying the magnificent view of the dark and quiet

01:10:01infinity filled with billions of stars, planets, comets, suns, moons, and so many other things

01:10:07we'll probably never even discover.

01:10:0995% of our universe still remains a mystery to us, but at least the view is awesome.

01:10:16But it's only good if you're tethered.

01:10:18What if something goes wrong on your spacewalk and you detach?

01:10:22The whole scene goes from a beautiful dream to a nightmare in a second.

01:10:26But don't worry.

01:10:28NASA has designed a special jetpack called SAFER, Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue.

01:10:34It fires compressed nitrogen from 24 thrusters, which is how it can steer the astronaut back

01:10:39to safety.

01:10:41In theory, you could vent some gas from your suit, too.

01:10:45Or maybe throw a tool in the opposite direction, which is how you'll push yourself forward.

01:10:50But it's tricky, because you'd need to throw it precisely in line with your center of mass.

01:10:56Otherwise, you'll just start uncontrollably spinning.

01:10:59And before you know it, you'll become so disoriented, you'll have no idea where to go, even if you

01:11:04could.

01:11:05But SAFER will automatically detect rotation and use its jets to help you stay oriented

01:11:11towards the safe spot.

01:11:13It took scientists 10 days to teach a goldfish to drive a car.

01:11:17They taught it to move its own tank towards a certain target, and in return, the fish

01:11:22gets a treat.

01:11:24This research could help us navigate through space one day.

01:11:27There has to be some mapping happening in our minds.

01:11:30That's how we potentially link our body parts and movements to changes we go through when

01:11:35we're in space.

01:11:36That's how we'll know how far we can extend our arm to reach for a cup of coffee without

01:11:40going too far and knocking the coffee over.

01:11:44The movement control is not the same as under the force of gravity.

01:11:48And we need to be sure if such maps in our brain differ between sea and land, or if it's

01:11:52something universal.

01:11:54So when I say scientists taught a fish to drive, that basically means if the fish saw

01:11:59a target, it should touch the wall of the tank facing the desired direction.

01:12:05That way, scientists could guide the wheels and move them where the fish wanted to go.

01:12:15No one will hear your cry in space, or something like that.

01:12:19We've all heard this famous chilling phrase, and it's actually true.

01:12:23Space, for the most part, consists of a giant nothingness.

01:12:27There's a lot of, you know, space in space.

01:12:30But this doesn't mean there are no sounds in space.

01:12:32In fact, there are plenty of them, and some of them can even make you shiver.

01:12:37Let's take a look at the scariest space sounds.

01:12:40First of all, how are cosmic sounds even recorded?

01:12:44Sound is just the vibration of molecules.

01:12:46When you scream, you make the molecules push each other furiously until they reach the

01:12:50ear of the person you're yelling at.

01:12:53Then these vibrations get transmitted to the brain, and we recognize them as something

01:12:58that you might need to apologize for.

01:13:00In other words, to hear something, we need molecules.

01:13:04And that's where things get complicated.

01:13:06There aren't any of them in space.

01:13:08The entire universe, almost completely, consists of a vacuum.

01:13:11No, not a hoover.

01:13:13Absolute nothingness.

01:13:14However, the wizards from NASA still record space sounds somehow.

01:13:19So how do they do it?

01:13:20The thing is, there are some types of waves that don't care about molecules.

01:13:25We regular folk can't perceive them without some special devices.

01:13:29These waves include, for example, radio waves.

01:13:32We'll need a radio or something like that to recognize them.

01:13:35And that's exactly what NASA's satellites do.

01:13:38They catch random radio waves.

01:13:41Thanks to their heroism, we can find out how different cosmic bodies sound.

01:13:45These satellites record a variety of waves, fluctuations of plasmas, magnetic fields,

01:13:51and other, you know, stuff.

01:13:53And then scientists from NASA transform all this into normal soundtracks.

01:13:58But some of them sound quite frightening, to put it mildly.

01:14:01Let's take our magnetic field, for example.

01:14:04It surrounds our planet like an invisible shield, protecting us from all sorts of nasties,

01:14:09like radiation and solar winds.

01:14:12At the same time, we can neither see it, feel it, nor hear.

01:14:15Oops!

01:14:16Well, the last one is outdated.

01:14:18Scientists from the Technical University of Denmark took magnetic waves recorded by the

01:14:23ESSA Swarm satellite.

01:14:25They converted them into an audio track, and got a pretty creepy result.

01:14:33Now to be honest, it sounds more like an eerie entity stalking you in the middle of the night.

01:14:38And if you remember the maps of Earth's magnetic field, it starts to feel like a spider

01:14:43crawling nearby.

01:14:45And this isn't the first strange sound that we caught on Earth.

01:14:49Recently, we caught another weird radio emission from space.

01:14:53Scientists found out that the repeating signal came from somewhere very far away, like billions

01:14:58of light-years away from us.

01:15:00Such fast radio bursts usually lasted no longer than a few milliseconds, but this one was

01:15:05unique.

01:15:06It lasted about 3 seconds, basically thousands of times longer than usual.

01:15:10And at the same time, the signal was very precise, so much so that scientists even compared

01:15:16it to a heartbeat.

01:15:19Scientists believe that this signal is caused by pulsars, or neutron stars.

01:15:24One time, Nikola Tesla caught something similar.

01:15:27But unfortunately, at that time, we didn't know about such things as pulsars, so Tesla

01:15:32was sure that he had caught a message from some extraterrestrial life.

01:15:36It's a pity that the truth turned out to be much more boring.

01:15:40But let's move on from the Earth to the Moon.

01:15:43In 1969, the astronauts of the Apollo 10 mission, the spacecraft that made the final test flight

01:15:49to the Moon, flew past its surface.

01:15:51And then they caught some strange signals coming from the dark side of the Moon.

01:15:56The side that we never see because the Moon is tidally locked to us.

01:16:00The sound was so weird that the astronauts weren't even sure whether to report it to

01:16:04NASA.

01:16:05They were afraid they wouldn't be taken seriously, and maybe even not allowed to participate

01:16:10in the next space missions.

01:16:12Here's what it sounded like.

01:16:17But according to NASA, it's not some creepy extraterrestrial music at all.

01:16:22These may just be some radio waves that affected each other because of their proximity.

01:16:27Although the astronauts who heard it for the first time probably felt a little creeped

01:16:31out.

01:16:32Let's move to the other planets.

01:16:34Now 40 years ago, scientists actively explored the surface of Venus.

01:16:38They sent as many as 10 probes there, which were supposed to capture audio and video shooting

01:16:43from the surface.

01:16:45Now we know what Venus, which could easily destroy us at any attempt to even get close

01:16:49to it, sounds like.

01:16:52Horrifying.

01:16:53And you wouldn't expect anything else from the most dangerous planet in the Solar System.

01:17:00Unfortunately, Venus is even more toxic than the average Twitter user.

01:17:05So these probes didn't last too long.

01:17:08They heroically arrived on a planet and soon broke down.

01:17:12Next one is Jupiter.

01:17:14This space giant, which is 11 times larger than the Earth, never fails to scare us.

01:17:19One of NASA's probes, Juno, flies around Jupiter every few weeks.

01:17:23The probe is moving at a tremendous speed – 130,000 miles per hour.

01:17:29One day, Juno caught one of the strongest invisible signals it had ever encountered.

01:17:34This was the point at which the mad solar wind came into conflict with the magnetic

01:17:39field of Jupiter.

01:17:40It kind of sounded like a cosmic boom.

01:17:43The original sound lasted 2 hours, but it was compressed to a few seconds.

01:17:48It actually sounds more like a collision of a sea wave and a rock.

01:17:53But here, in terms of horror, Jupiter surprisingly loses to one of its small moons, Ganymede.

01:17:59In 2021, the Galileo space probe flew past Ganymede, and during its flight, it received

01:18:06a rather strange recording.

01:18:12These sounds are satellite radiation, and it's unclear whether it sounds like a cozy

01:18:17sunny day in the jungle, or like thousands of bats waiting for you in the night.

01:18:23Next one is Saturn.

01:18:25This signal was caught by the Cassini-Huygens Automatic Interplanetary Station, which was

01:18:29launched into space in 1997.

01:18:32When flying past Saturn, Cassini recorded a pretty scary sound.

01:18:39This terrifying cry of thousands of souls is actually just some radio waves.

01:18:43They aren't too different from what the auroras emit on Earth.

01:18:47A little later, Cassini received another recording, the sounds made by lightning and thunderstorms

01:18:52on Saturn.

01:18:53They sound pretty interesting too.

01:18:58More like popping corn or a Geiger counter, right?

01:19:01That's just because these lightning strikes have a crazy frequency.

01:19:05Moving on from the Solar System to outer space.

01:19:08The famous Voyager 1 was launched back in 1977, and continues to send us data even 40

01:19:15years after its launch.

01:19:17In 2012, it left the Solar System and entered interstellar space.

01:19:22And then, while abandoning its home, Voyager 1 detected the sound of plasma waves.

01:19:28The original recording lasted 7 months, but fortunately, scientists felt sorry for us

01:19:33and reduced it to 12 seconds.

01:19:37It isn't really eerie, but is still kind of unsettling.

01:19:41And although it feels like nothing can beat Saturn's horrors, let's end this tournament

01:19:45with one of the scariest objects in the Universe – a black hole.

01:19:50This sound was recorded by the Chandra Space Telescope.

01:19:53While studying a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Perseus, they discovered something

01:19:58strange.

01:20:00Some undulating movements appear from the center of the cluster.

01:20:04They spread out in all directions, like circles on the water.

01:20:08Scientists have suggested that this was caused by a supermassive black hole.

01:20:13The thing is, black holes don't always devour space objects entirely.

01:20:17Sometimes they kind of spit them out.

01:20:20This causes vibrations of gases, which we can convert into soundtracks.

01:20:25What's interesting is that the oscillation of each such wave actually lasts about 10

01:20:30million years.

01:20:31You're just listening to a very accelerated recording.

01:20:35Scientists have reduced the delay between oscillations by about 144 quadrillion times.

01:20:41So let's check it out.

01:20:44This is probably the eeriest sound from the whole list.

01:20:47Imagine a basketball spinning on someone's finger.

01:21:07A point near the middle of the ball takes longer to spin back to where it started than

01:21:11the spot where your finger is.

01:21:13Earth spins in much the same way.

01:21:15People in the center of Africa are turning at 1,000 mph as the planet rotates, while

01:21:21anyone at the South Pole doesn't really move at all, other than rotating in place.

01:21:26At the same time, we're all moving forward through space equally fast, since the planet

01:21:31is also hurtling around the sun at 67,000 mph.

01:21:35The temperature at the boundary of our planet's inner and outer core is 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:21:42That's as hot as the surface of the sun.

01:21:44And the pressure there is 3.3 million times the atmospheric pressure at sea level.

01:21:50Two or three years ago, an asteroid was pulled into Earth's orbit and started to travel around

01:21:55the planet.

01:21:57Even though it's no larger than an average car, it's still a big deal.

01:22:01Out of more than one million asteroids astronomers know about, it's only the second one to orbit

01:22:06our planet.

01:22:07Called 2020 CD3, it's our temporary mini-moon.

01:22:12It won't be with Earth for long, though.

01:22:14The asteroid is following a random orbit and is slowly drifting away.

01:22:19Temporarily captured objects, such as 2020 CD3, are rare.

01:22:24They need to have a specific direction and speed to be caught by Earth's gravitational

01:22:28pull.

01:22:29Otherwise, they either crash into the planet or fly in another direction.

01:22:35The movement of galaxies and clusters billions of light-years away from us suggests there's

01:22:40some enormously massive body outside the visible universe.

01:22:44After billions of years, the expansion of the universe will make the space so sparse

01:22:49that we won't be able to see the stars in the sky at all.

01:22:53The moon isn't a perfect sphere.

01:22:55It's shaped like an egg.

01:22:56Plus, the satellite's center of mass is a bit more than a mile off its geometric center.

01:23:03Even though Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, it still has snow.

01:23:08Not what you'd expect.

01:23:10It snows metals and rains acid.

01:23:13Not a great vacation spot.

01:23:16Saturn is mostly composed of hydrogen and helium, with some traces of methane, ammonia,

01:23:22and water.

01:23:23But it contains more sulfur than Jupiter, which gives the planet a smog-like orange

01:23:28hue.

01:23:30On Earth, sound waves make air molecules vibrate, which is why we're able to hear sound.

01:23:36Other planets and moons allow sound to travel through mediums like their atmospheres and

01:23:39oceans too.

01:23:41In space, though, it's said that there is no sound, since there aren't any molecules

01:23:46to vibrate and deliver sound waves.

01:23:48However, not all researchers agree on this, given that space isn't just a desolate vacuum.

01:23:54In between the emptiness, there are clouds of gas and other stray particles.

01:23:59So, depending on where you are, sound waves can be possible.

01:24:05Astronomers know for sure that the universe is growing bigger, and the speed at which

01:24:09it's ballooning is increasing all the time.

01:24:12But if the whole thing is swelling into something bigger, then it must have some kind of an

01:24:17edge, right?

01:24:18It's unlikely that people will ever find out, but if so, then what would it be?

01:24:23A ginormous brick wall and then nothing?

01:24:26An abyss that leads to nowhere?

01:24:29The most common theory is that the universe is shaped in such a way that it can't have

01:24:33an edge, but it's not the only idea.

01:24:36Another theory is even more difficult to comprehend.

01:24:39The universe is, indeed, infinite, and our part of it isn't that unique.

01:24:45It means that somewhere out there, there's another you, or rather, other you.

01:24:51One of them is just a bit shorter, another wears their hair in a different way, and the

01:24:56third one is identical to you in all possible ways.

01:25:00There's also a theory about a multi-universe that consists of many smaller universes, and

01:25:05the universe we live in is just a tiny bubble among other similar bubbles.

01:25:11Those scientists who support this idea are also sure that bubble universes can come into

01:25:16contact with one another, then gravity starts to flow between them, and when two or three

01:25:21universes connect, a big bang occurs, just like the one that created our home universe.

01:25:29Neptune is the windiest place in the solar system.

01:25:32Clouds of frozen methane are whipped across the planet at a speed of 1,200 miles per hour.

01:25:38Neptune's core is solid and consists mostly of iron and some other metals.

01:25:43Its mass is 1.2 times bigger than that of Earth.

01:25:46The temperature inside reaches 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:25:51Astronomers also believe that at a depth of 4,500 miles, there might be a diamond layer

01:25:57where it's raining diamond crystals.

01:26:00On Earth, people are used to a beautiful sunset that's painted in hues of orange, red, and yellow.

01:26:06On Mars, however, the normally pinkish-red sky turns blue as the sun goes down under the horizon.

01:26:13It's because Mars is much farther away from the sun than Earth, making the sunlight less intense.

01:26:19The fine dust in the Martian atmosphere absorbs the blue light and gets rid of the warmer

01:26:24colors that you typically see on Earth.

01:26:26Whether it's blue or yellow, both sunsets look spectacular.

01:26:31At around a quarter of the size of Earth, the moon is pretty enormous relative to other

01:26:36satellites out in space.

01:26:38There's nothing quite like this situation anywhere else in the solar system.

01:26:42Pluto has a moon that's almost half as big as itself, but it's more like a twin than a satellite.

01:26:48There are more than 150 moons in our solar system, and Earth's is the fifth largest out of the whole lot.

01:26:56There might be a labyrinth of lava tubes on the moon.

01:26:59Not long ago, astronomers received the results of an underground lunar topography.

01:27:05They discovered a massive cave under the satellite's surface.

01:27:08About 30 miles long and 60 miles wide, the cave's likely to be the result of 3-billion-year-old

01:27:14volcanic activity.

01:27:16After streams of lava hardened, they created a thick, hard crust on the outside.

01:27:21But inside, lava kept flowing, melting the rock, and forming tunnels and caves.

01:27:27Countless pits in the moon's surface discovered by NASA might be the openings to lava tubes.

01:27:33We can't dig up most of Earth's gold.

01:27:3699% of it ended up in the center of the planet several billion years ago, attracted by the

01:27:41iron in Earth's core.

01:27:43We're talking about 1.6 quadrillion tons of gold here.

01:27:48That's enough to coat the entire planet's surface in 1.5 feet of the stuff.

01:27:52And if all those meteorites hadn't later smashed into the ground, bringing extra amounts of

01:27:57gold, it would be even rarer.

01:28:00Not so long ago, astronomers discovered a massive blob of some mysterious substance.

01:28:06It was hidden underneath the surface of the moon's far side.

01:28:09Its mass was the same as that of a pile of metal five times larger than the Big Island

01:28:15of Hawaii.

01:28:16The enigmatic something lies almost 200 miles beneath an enormous crater that appeared on

01:28:21the lunar surface billions of years ago.

01:28:24The blob likely has something to do with a super collision.

01:28:28It might be the metal core of the object that hit the moon back then.

01:28:33Scientists can't wait to lay their hands on the discovery.

01:28:36It could explain lots of things about the South Pole-Aitken crater, the largest known

01:28:41in the solar system.

01:28:42If it was on Earth, its oval-shaped basin would stretch from Washington, D.C. to Texas.

01:28:49In 2011, astronomers discovered an enormous water reservoir simply floating in space around

01:28:55a supermassive black hole called a quasar.

01:28:59Floating water vapors have been found throughout the universe, but they aren't that common.

01:29:04This particular reservoir holds around 140 trillion times the amount of water in the

01:29:09Earth's oceans.

01:29:10It's one of the oldest, largest, and, at more than 12 billion light-years away, one

01:29:15of the farthest things known to humankind.

01:29:20Astronauts in space can lose about 1% of their muscle mass each month.

01:29:24To prevent this, they have to stick to an exercise regimen that lasts two hours every

01:29:29single day.

01:29:31The Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are going to meet in 3.75 billion years.

01:29:38They're moving toward each other at a breakneck speed.

01:29:41When the two galaxies collide, they'll form a huge elliptical galaxy.

01:29:46I won't be around then.

01:29:48Have you ever looked up at the night sky and tried to count all the stars?

01:29:52Yeah, good luck!

01:29:54Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 100 billion stars, but other estimates put it at over

01:30:00200 billion, since calculating the exact amount is an almost impossible task, even for astronomers.

01:30:07As for the entire universe, there are at least a billion trillion stars.

01:30:12That's one with 21 zeros after it.

01:30:15For comparison, that means there are more stars in space than there are grains of sand

01:30:20on all of the Earth's beaches.

01:30:22Venus has exceptionally high temperatures, hot enough to melt lead.

01:30:27It's the hottest planet in our solar system, with a high-pressure environment and super

01:30:30strong winds.

01:30:33The winds there are 50 times faster than the planet's rotation.

01:30:37It's getting stronger over time, and scientists don't know why.

01:30:41But they did find something interesting in the planet's clouds, a potential sign of decaying

01:30:46biological matter.

01:30:48Could there be life then?

01:30:50Not quite, since Venus has a dry, windy atmosphere and doesn't have enough water for life to

01:30:55develop.

01:30:58Rings around other planets are more common than we thought.

01:31:01Saturn's rings are the most famous and spectacular ones.

01:31:04They partially consist of reflective, sparkly water ice.

01:31:08And you can't see anything like that in the rest of our solar system.

01:31:11Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune have ring systems too.

01:31:16And those most likely consist of dust and rocky particles.

01:31:19And not just planets.

01:31:21Astronomers found out rings were around one asteroid as well.

01:31:26Speaking of rings, why do you think that Earth doesn't have them?

01:31:30Gas giants have rings, while the rocky ones don't.

01:31:34Two theories explain how rings form.

01:31:37They could be the remains from the times when planets were forming.

01:31:41Or they could be leftover material of an impact that destroyed an unknown moon, or gravity

01:31:46broke apart this moon of its parent planet.

01:31:51It's not clear why only the gas planets have rings.

01:31:54They formed in the outer area of our solar system, while rocky planets only in its inner

01:31:59circles.

01:32:00Maybe a good clue.

01:32:01Maybe these inner rocky planets had just better protection from strong impacts that

01:32:06could have formed rings.

01:32:07Also, there are more moons in the outer solar system.

01:32:12And there are more rings there.

01:32:14Another thing may be that bigger planets have a bigger volume, so a ring system can remain

01:32:18stable there.

01:32:21Some theories even say that Earth used to have a ring system.

01:32:25A long, long time ago, our planet collided with a Mars-sized object, which most likely

01:32:30resulted in a dense ring of particles and debris.

01:32:34But our story was a bit different than the outer planets.

01:32:37And those rings probably combined and formed the moon.

01:32:43Do we know the shape of the universe?

01:32:45Einstein had a theory of general relativity.

01:32:49It said that the universe could be in one of these three forms, closed like a sphere,

01:32:54open like a saddle, or flat like a piece of paper.

01:32:59Its shape determines whether it's infinite or not, and whether it will expand forever

01:33:04or maybe collapse at some point.

01:33:06The shape of the universe depends on its density and rate of expansion.

01:33:13One of the best ways to determine its shape is to use something called the cosmic microwave

01:33:17background.

01:33:18It's the relic afterglow, something that's left of the Big Bang.

01:33:23Sound waves that were moving through the universe in its early stages produced quite small spatial

01:33:27variations in the temperature of its faint light.

01:33:30The result of these studies showed that the universe probably expands in all directions,

01:33:35which means it's flat.

01:33:40How come our sun is hot while the moon is cold?

01:33:44The sun gives off heat because its core is extremely hot.

01:33:47In there, the pressure is pretty high.

01:33:50The hydrogen turns into helium.

01:33:52That's how the sun creates light and heat.

01:33:55The solar light and heat are enough to light up our days on Earth as well as support life

01:34:00here, even though the sun is around 93 million miles away from us.

01:34:06The moon is not hot because it doesn't have an atmosphere, so it can't absorb sunlight

01:34:10as our planet does.

01:34:13Its surface gets very hot in the daytime, about 210 degrees Fahrenheit, but since there's

01:34:18no atmosphere, the temperature drops extremely during the night to negative 279 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:34:26The sun is hot, no doubt there, but the space around it is very cold.

01:34:30Heat is the energy objects store inside of it.

01:34:34Temperature is how we measure if something is hot or cold.

01:34:38So when you transfer heat to certain objects, its temperature goes up, take it away, and

01:34:42the temperature goes down.

01:34:45You can transfer heat in three different ways, convection, conduction, and radiation.

01:34:54Convection works within gases and liquids and conduction is for solids.

01:34:58The temperature only affects matter.

01:35:01Space doesn't have enough particles.

01:35:03It's nearly a complete vacuum, which means transferring heat is not effective.

01:35:08The only way to do it is through radiation.

01:35:11When the heat coming from the sun falls on an object in the form of radiation, the atoms

01:35:15that make up that object will absorb energy.

01:35:19This energy moves the atoms and makes them produce heat throughout this process.

01:35:25In space, temperatures of the objects stay the same for a long time.

01:35:29Cold objects stay cold and hot ones stay hot.

01:35:33If you place anything outside of the Earth's atmosphere and expose it to direct sunlight,

01:35:39the sun will heat it to about 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:35:44Objects in outer space that surround our planet and don't receive sunlight directly are at

01:35:4850 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:35:50The temperature is like this because there are molecules that escape our atmosphere,

01:35:54so the sun heats them.

01:35:57We used to think that water was really rare in space, but now we know there's water ice

01:36:02across our entire solar system.

01:36:04For starters, you can usually find water on asteroids and comets.

01:36:09It's also in craters on Mercury and the Moon that are in permanent shadows.

01:36:14On Mars, you'd find ice at its poles, under the surface dust and in frost.

01:36:19It might not be enough to support human colonies up there, but it's still something.

01:36:25Some other bodies in our solar system also contain ice, like the dwarf planet Ceres and

01:36:30one of Saturn's moons.

01:36:32Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, could be one of the most likely candidates we know about

01:36:36that could contain life.

01:36:38It probably has an entire ocean under its frozen and cracked surface.

01:36:43It could have twice as much water as all oceans on our planet together.

01:36:47Titan, the biggest of Saturn's moons, also has a liquid cycle, but it's not water.

01:36:52Its cycle moves materials between the surface and the atmosphere.

01:36:56At first, it sounds like the water cycle we have on Earth.

01:37:00Immense lakes on Titan are filled with ethane and methane.

01:37:04There's a chance they're over a layer of water.

01:37:08Neptune is about 30 times as far from the Sun as we are.

01:37:12Of course, it gets significantly less light and heat than Earth, but it also radiates

01:37:16way more heat than it's generating.

01:37:19There are more things happening in its atmosphere, especially if you compare it to its neighbor,

01:37:25Uranus.

01:37:26Uranus is closer to the Sun, but it still radiates the same amount of heat as Neptune.

01:37:32The winds on Neptune are insanely strong, 1,500 miles per hour.

01:37:37No one still knows why.

01:37:38It could be a gravitational contraction, energy coming from its core, or the Sun.

01:37:43I hope we'll eventually find out.

01:37:47Can you imagine hot ice?

01:37:50It exists just 33 light-years away from us, on one exoplanet.

01:37:55This planet consists of different water elements and they form burning ice.

01:38:00The ice there is solid because of pressure, but the surface temperatures are extreme and

01:38:04go up to 570 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:38:08That's how the water stays super hot and comes off as steam.

01:38:12Picture putting ice in your coffee when you want to heat it up.

01:38:17When you stargaze, it's almost like you're looking into the past.

01:38:21Pillars are really far away and it takes longer for their light to reach our planet.

01:38:26So it's possible some of them have already run out of fuel and aren't alive anymore.

01:38:31The pillars of creation are a good example.

01:38:33This is part of a region 7,000 light-years away from us called the Eagle Nebula.

01:38:40These are clouds of gas and dust in the shape of pillars.

01:38:44Scientists first discovered it in 1995, but in reality, a supernova explosion destroyed

01:38:49these pillars that were at least 6,000 years ago.

01:38:53So the 1995 image shows these pillars from 7,000 years ago.

01:39:00Mars has the biggest volcano in the solar system that we know of so far.

01:39:05It's bigger than the whole state of Hawaii and 100 times larger than the biggest volcano

01:39:10on Earth.

01:39:12The red planet seems so quiet, but once upon a time, large volcanoes dominated its surface.

01:39:19Volcanoes on the red planet can probably grow so big because gravity there is a lot weaker

01:39:23than down on Earth.

01:39:25Also, the crust on our planet is moving all the time, and the Martian crust probably stays

01:39:32still.

01:39:36So once they explode, stars aren't supposed to come back to life.

01:39:40Some of the stars somehow have survived the great supernova explosion.

01:39:45Such zombie stars are pretty rare.

01:39:47Scientists found a really big one called LP40365.

01:39:51It's a partially burnt white dwarf.

01:39:55Now, a white dwarf is a star that has burned up all of the hydrogen, and that hydrogen

01:40:01was previously its nuclear fuel.

01:40:03In this case, the final explosion was maybe weaker than it usually is, not powerful enough

01:40:08to destroy the entire star.

01:40:11It's like a star wanted to explode but didn't make it, which is why part of the matter still

01:40:15survived.

01:40:16One of those zombie stars used to be a white dwarf or just left over from an explosion.

01:40:22It gobbled up too much from another star and, surprisingly, managed to explode once again.

01:40:31If you manage to go to the Moon one day and see fresh footprints, that doesn't mean

01:40:35there's someone else there with you.

01:40:38Footprints or similar marks can last for a million years over there, because the Moon

01:40:42doesn't have an atmosphere.

01:40:44There are no winds, not even a breeze, that can slowly erase those footprints.

01:40:49In outer space, you'd be strong enough to weld two pieces of metal together with your

01:40:53own hands.

01:40:54Okay, it has nothing to do with your strength.

01:40:57You could just press them together with no effort, and that's it.

01:41:01Oxygen in our atmosphere makes a thin layer on the surface of the metal.

01:41:04It's like a barrier, which is why such a trick is impossible on Earth but perfectly

01:41:09logical in outer space.

01:41:15If you ever go to space, don't take off your spacesuit unless you're on a spaceship.

01:41:20Air in your lungs would expand as well as the oxygen in the rest of your body.

01:41:24You'd be like a balloon twice your regular size.

01:41:27Good news, the skin is elastic enough to hold you together, which means you wouldn't explode.

01:41:33Small comfort, huh?

01:41:35If you watch a very touching movie in space and start crying, your tears won't run down.

01:41:41They will gather around your eyeballs.

01:41:44Your eyes will get too dry, so you'll feel like they're burning.

01:41:47Any exposed liquid on your body will vaporize, including the surfaces of your tongue.

01:41:52Speaking of burning, there's one thing fire can't do in space.

01:41:56Fire can spread when there's a flow of oxygen, and since there's not any in space.

01:42:02If the fire breaks out in a rocket, you can simply turn off the ventilation system, and

01:42:06voila!

01:42:07It can get more complicated if there's intense smoke, sparking, and material melting in conditions

01:42:13of reduced gravity.

01:42:15Regular foam fire extinguishers we use on Earth are useless here because they release

01:42:19foam randomly.

01:42:21Researchers are developing a fire extinguisher that will put out fires by using sound waves.

01:42:26The bigger the sound intensity, the bigger the flame they can put out.

01:42:29But the astronauts might end up deaf if their frequency is too high.

01:42:38A black hole is not like some starving monster that wanders around and has gravity so strong

01:42:43nothing can really escape it.

01:42:45When something comes close to the point of no return, which we also call the event horizon,

01:42:50it disappears, no way back.

01:42:53Quantum physics claims nothing can really destroy data, so it's a true paradox.

01:43:00Stephen Hawking was the one with the idea of how black holes don't really have event

01:43:04horizons.

01:43:05Maybe they have apparent horizons.

01:43:07Those trap things for some time only.

01:43:10After that, the trapped energy will somehow get away, but in a different form.

01:43:14When something goes into a black hole, it changes shape and gets stretched out just

01:43:18like spaghetti.

01:43:20It happens because gravitational force is trying to stretch an object in one direction

01:43:24but at the same time squeeze it in another.

01:43:27Like a pasta paradox.

01:43:29Speaking of, a black hole that's as big as a single atom has the mass of a really

01:43:33big mountain.

01:43:35There's one at the center of the Milky Way called Sagittarius A. It has a mass like 4

01:43:42billion suns, but luckily it's far away from us.

01:43:46There are more than 23,000 pieces of so-called space junk bigger than a softball floating

01:43:52above our planet at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour.

01:43:57And there are 500,000 pieces in general, some of them the size of a marble.

01:44:02Space waste is generally debris made up of natural particles called meteoroids and artificial

01:44:08particles like things we make on the Earth.

01:44:12Meteoroids orbit the Sun, while the majority of human-made debris orbits our planet.

01:44:17For example, we launched almost 9,000 spacecraft around the world, from satellites to rocket

01:44:24ships.

01:44:25Even the tiniest pieces can damage a spacecraft at such high speeds.

01:44:28Galaxies, planets, comets, asteroids, stars, space bodies are things we can actually see

01:44:34in space, but they make up less than 5% of the total Universe.

01:44:40Dark matter, one of the biggest mysteries in space, is the name we use for all the mass

01:44:44in the Universe that's still invisible to us.

01:44:51There's a lot of it.

01:44:53It may even make 25% of the Universe.

01:44:56Dark energy makes the rest of the 70% of the Universe.

01:45:01Scientists don't know much about it, but they think dark energy could be behind the increasing

01:45:05expansion of the entire Universe, while dark matter slows it down.

01:45:10Dark matter doesn't interact with us in any way that we know of, nor does it interact

01:45:14with itself.

01:45:15If it did, we might be able to find dark matter galaxies, dark matter planets, or such objects.

01:45:23Astronomers have found the largest hole we've ever seen in the Universe.

01:45:26It's the giant void that spreads a billion light-years across.

01:45:29They found it accidentally.

01:45:32One of the research team members was a little bit bored and wanted to check out how things

01:45:36were going in the direction of the cold spot.

01:45:39That's an anomaly in the Cosmic Microwave Background Map, or in short, CMB.

01:45:45It's a faint glow of light that falls on our planet from different directions and fills

01:45:49the Universe.

01:45:50It's been streaming through space for almost 14 billion years as the afterglow that occurred

01:45:55after the Big Bang.

01:45:57Instead of CMB, they realized there's a giant area way colder than they'd expected.

01:46:03The team started tracking radio signals, but there were no radio sources in that whole

01:46:08volume.

01:46:09That means there are no galaxies or clusters, and since it's so cold, there's no dark

01:46:14matter either, or regular matter.

01:46:16So it really doesn't matter.

01:46:18The giant void is empty, and researchers think it could consist of dark energy.

01:46:23Light can still pass through it.

01:46:24It's not the only void in space, but it's the biggest one we've found.

01:46:29The area around a star is habitable when it's not too cold or too hot for liquid water to

01:46:35exist on the planet surrounding it.

01:46:37Let's say our planet was where Pluto is.

01:46:40It's too far from the Sun, which means our ocean and big parts of its atmosphere would

01:46:44freeze.

01:46:45But if the Earth was in Mercury's place, we'd be too close to the Sun, and the water on

01:46:50our planet would evaporate.

01:46:52Such habitable area is called the Goldilocks zone, so you can see where planets are located

01:46:57and assume if they have a chance for life on their surface.

01:47:01But Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, definitely breaks the rule.

01:47:05It's outside of the Goldilocks zone, but still kept warm.

01:47:08Not from the Sun directly, but Jupiter and its moons that actually pump energy into Europa.

01:47:14Europa changes its shape as it circles around Jupiter.

01:47:17It's similar to tides rising and falling on our planet.

01:47:21Water on the Earth changes its shape as a response to the tidal forces of our Moon.

01:47:25When the same happens with a solid object, the object is stressed.

01:47:29That's how you pump energy into that object.

01:47:32It's like you're playing racquetball.

01:47:34You hit the ball around a couple of times before you start playing like you're warming

01:47:37it up.

01:47:38You kinda distort the ball every time you smack it.

01:47:43The surface of Europa is frozen, but it has cracks in the ice.

01:47:47You can see ridges in the ice where there's a crack.

01:47:49Then those flying chunks shift and refreeze.

01:47:52You'd see a similar thing if you could fly over the Arctic Ocean in the wintertime.

01:47:57There are ice sheets constantly breaking and refreezing.

01:48:00So Europa can't completely freeze.

01:48:03Scientists think there could be an ocean of liquid water under the icy surface.

01:48:08Europa is not the only moon where this is happening.

01:48:10Another of Jupiter's moons, Io, is also warm because of such tidal forces.

01:48:15Io also has volcanoes erupting from within all the time.

01:48:19So it's not only that the Sun warms the space bodies and pumps them with energy.

01:48:24Many experts agree the Universe might come to its end about 3 to 22 billion years from

01:48:29now.

01:48:30It's expanding all the time, which means it formed from a compact state.

01:48:34If it has a beginning, it's probably going to have an end as well.

01:48:38Yeah, I won't be around for that.

01:48:40One other popular theory says the growth will slow down, and gravity will become the powerful

01:48:45force that will make the Universe shrink.

01:48:48That will lead to complete chaos.

01:48:50Galaxies, stars, planets, space bodies, they will all move, collide, and, you know, destroy

01:48:56one another.

01:48:57It's like the reverse Big Bang.

01:48:59Huge chaos, but this time, everything collapses.

01:49:02Well, on that cheery note, always stay on the Bright Side of life!

01:49:11It's normal for planets to be a bit tilted on the side.

01:49:15The Earth is tilted at a 23-degree angle.

01:49:18That's why we have seasons.

01:49:19It's summer when the part of the world where you are leans closer to the Sun.

01:49:23It works the opposite way too.

01:49:25It's winter when you lean away from it.

01:49:27But Uranus is tilted more than normal.

01:49:30It lies at a 98-degree angle, which has a huge effect on its seasons.

01:49:34Each season on Uranus takes 21 years to play out.

01:49:38Something to think about the next time we complain that winter lasts forever.

01:49:43Here on Earth, we measure distances in minutes and hours, maybe even days.

01:49:48It takes 10 minutes to walk to your best friend's house, or 15 minutes to drive to your favorite

01:49:52cafe.

01:49:53But in space, it's different.

01:49:55It's vast, which means we measure how long it takes to get to a certain point in years,

01:50:00or in most cases, light years.

01:50:02So, if you want to walk to the Moon one day, that would take you 9 years to span the 239,000

01:50:09miles.

01:50:10Perhaps you'd like to take a ride to the nearby star, Proxima Centauri.

01:50:14Maybe if you kept the pedal to the metal at a constant speed of 70 mph, you'd get

01:50:19there in about 356 billion hours, or around 40.5 million years.

01:50:25Trust me, after the first 20 million years, you'd be second-guessing yourself as to why

01:50:29go there in the first place.

01:50:31Mars contains the biggest valley, Valles Marineris, we've discovered so far.

01:50:36It's a pretty impressive system of canyons, 2,500 miles long.

01:50:41It's 5 times longer than the Grand Canyon.

01:50:44Researchers first spotted it back in the 1970s.

01:50:46A bank of volcanoes located on the other side of the canyon ridge probably helped form this

01:50:51valley.

01:50:53We haven't discovered a planet completely made of diamonds yet, but on some planets,

01:50:57it actually rains diamonds.

01:50:59On Jupiter and Saturn, gas giants of our solar system, lightning storms turn abundant methane

01:51:05into soot, which we also know as carbon.

01:51:08The soot falls and transforms into graphite.

01:51:11The graphite transforms into diamonds with a diameter of about 0.4 inches.

01:51:17Before you start figuring out how to book a diamond-collecting field trip, know that

01:51:21these diamonds don't last.

01:51:23After they enter the planet's core, they melt.

01:51:26Ever notice how when you're stargazing two nights in a row at the same time, let's

01:51:30say 9pm, the stars stay in the same place, but the moon doesn't?

01:51:35There are two reasons for that.

01:51:37First, it depends on what time you go stargazing.

01:51:40For instance, if you go outside at 8pm, and tomorrow you look for it at 11pm, you'll

01:51:45see the moon in two pretty different places.

01:51:48In this case, even the stars take different places in the sky since our planet is spinning.

01:51:53As you know, it takes 24 hours for it to make one full circle.

01:51:57That means, from our point of view, it seems like both the sky and everything up there

01:52:01is just moving around us one time per 24 hours.

01:52:05In the same way, the sun changes its position, rising and setting every day.

01:52:10So, if you went outside two nights in a row at the same hour, in most cases, you'll

01:52:15have to wait for an extra half hour or more until the moon gets back to the same position

01:52:19as the night before.

01:52:21The stars are pretty much standing still.

01:52:23It seems like they're moving, but that's because the Earth is spinning.

01:52:27But the moon is actually moving around our planet and goes through different phases.

01:52:31For example, a new moon is when it's completely dark in the sky.

01:52:35A full moon is when its day side is facing the Earth.

01:52:38It takes approximately a month for it to finish one circle around the Earth.

01:52:43Maybe you'd be luckier on a diamond-collecting expedition on this next planet, 40 million

01:52:48light-years away from Earth.

01:52:50Scientists used to call it a super-Earth.

01:52:52Now a super-Earth is generally a planet way bigger than ours.

01:52:56This planet, for example, is double the Earth's size.

01:52:59It's so close to its star that it makes a full circle around it in less than 18 hours.

01:53:04Which means a year there is pretty short.

01:53:07Since it's so close to its star, its temperature goes up a whopping 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:53:14Because of the heat, in combination with the planet's density, scientists have the theory

01:53:18that its core is made of carbon in the form of graphite and diamonds.

01:53:23Over 10 years ago, astronomers discovered a huge water vapor cloud.

01:53:28It was 12 billion light-years from our home planet.

01:53:31That cloud is the biggest source of water we know of.

01:53:34It's also the oldest, dating back to when the Universe was only 1.6 billion years old.

01:53:39Now it's 13.8 billion years old.

01:53:42Man, if only I had started a savings account 12 billion years ago!

01:53:46With compound interest, I'd have made quite a pile of cash by now.

01:53:51But I wasn't around then.

01:53:52Anyway, this cloud is so large it holds 140 trillion times the amount of water in all

01:53:59the oceans on our planet.

01:54:00This cloud kind of feeds a black hole.

01:54:03It may also contain enough gases, such as carbon monoxide, to encourage the black hole

01:54:08to grow 6 times bigger than it is at the moment.

01:54:12The average temperature of our planet is about 57 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:54:16And the highest temperature ever measured was 134 degrees.

01:54:19Sound too hot?

01:54:21Well, on Venus, it can go up to 900 degrees, which makes it the hottest planet in our solar

01:54:26system.

01:54:27It's not hot enough to melt steel, though.

01:54:29It would need to be higher by 2,500 degrees to get there.

01:54:33But it's hot enough to melt lead.

01:54:36And it's way too hot to sustain life, at least not in any form that we know.

01:54:41Venus is not even the closest to the Sun, it's Mercury.

01:54:44But it has a super-thick atmosphere that traps greenhouse gases.

01:54:48It's like you covering yourself with a pretty thick blanket in the middle of the summer.

01:54:52Now we're used to seeing volcanoes spewing hot molten lava.

01:54:56After all, that's what they mostly do on Earth.

01:54:59But in space, volcanoes tend to spew methane, water, or ammonia.

01:55:04And these materials freeze as they erupt, and eventually transform into frozen vapor

01:55:09and something called volcanic snow.

01:55:11I'm talking about cryovolcanoes here.

01:55:14You can find them on Jupiter's moons, Io and Europa, Saturn's moon, Titan, and Pluto.

01:55:20These volcanoes are especially active on Io, which has hundreds of vents.

01:55:24NASA vehicles have even captured some of these erupting in real time.

01:55:29Plumes of frozen vapor coming out of them extended for about 250 miles.

01:55:33Hey, by the way, they just discovered another moon around Jupiter that might actually be

01:55:39good for farming someday.

01:55:40It's named EIEIO.

01:55:44Now what exactly happens to the light after it disappears inside of a black hole?

01:55:49Well, photon is a particle of light.

01:55:51The event horizon is the boundary of a black hole.

01:55:54When something, say, a photon, crosses the line and enters those boundaries, it can't

01:55:59escape anymore.

01:56:01But it doesn't mean a black hole destroyed it.

01:56:03It pulls the photon in rapidly towards its center, where an enormous mass is packed into

01:56:08an infinitely small space.

01:56:10But we're not sure what happens to photons in such extreme conditions.

01:56:15It's still one of the biggest mysteries.

01:56:17Does a black hole destroy the light or not?

01:56:20Saturn has 82 moons we know about, 53 confirmed and 29 more that are still on the waiting

01:56:26list to be confirmed as actual moons before they get their official names.

01:56:31And one of the coolest moons might be a 914-mile-wide hunk of rock called Aepetus.

01:56:38It's dark on one side and bright on the other.

01:56:40Its lighter half is 20 times more reflective than the other one.

01:56:44As it turned out, the bright side is ice.

01:56:47The dark side is a bit more complicated.

01:56:49One theory says it's dark because of particles coming from another moon, the one named Phoebe.

01:56:55Another theory says it could be because of heat.

01:56:58Since the moon is rotating really slowly, its dark material is absorbing heat, which

01:57:03makes it even darker.

01:57:04Now, how big do you think a black hole can become?

01:57:07In theory, we can't find an upper limit to its mass.

01:57:11But astronomers believe the ultramassive black holes, or UMBHs, located in the cores of certain

01:57:17galaxies are mostly up to 10 billion solar masses big.

01:57:21Recently, they even discovered these UMBHs physically can't grow much more than this

01:57:26because, in that case, they would start to disrupt the accretion disks that feed them.

01:57:32That way, they would kind of stuff the source of new material.

01:57:36Most people picture the universe as somewhere between aquamarine and pale turquoise.

01:57:40Even some researchers thought that was the case.

01:57:43They managed to determine the cosmic color by combining light from more than 200,000

01:57:48galaxies within 2 billion light-years of our planet.

01:57:51But the real color is actually closer to beige.

01:57:55Researchers got it all wrong because there was a bug in the software.

01:57:58No, really?

01:58:00It converted the cosmic spectrum into the color our eyes would see if we were exposed

01:58:04to it.

01:58:05The team defined this color as a cosmic latte.

01:58:09Make that a double-shot low-fat large-to-go, please.

01:58:29The sun's heat is beneath our feet.

01:58:33Scientists have figured out that Earth's core is actually as hot as the surface of

01:58:36the sun.

01:58:37Around 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:58:40One of the reasons it's so incredibly hot down there is because Earth is still shedding

01:58:44heat from when it was created billions of years ago.

01:58:48Also, when an object as big as Mars slammed into the young Earth, it not only created

01:58:53the moon, according to one theory, but melted the surface of the planet.

01:58:57A lot of that extra heat is probably still stored inside the core.

01:59:02But there's no need to worry.

01:59:03The planet's core is harder for us to access than it is to probe the surface of Pluto.

01:59:08In fact, chances are we may never develop technology that could physically reach the

01:59:13core.

01:59:15There's no air on the moon.

01:59:17But then how can it be rusting?

01:59:20Scientists have discovered the presence of hermitite on the moon, and it's a kind of

01:59:24rust.

01:59:25A special NASA research instrument examined the light reflected off the moon's surface.

01:59:30It turned out that the composition of the satellite's poles was very different from

01:59:34the rest of it.

01:59:35The moon's surface is dotted with iron-rich rocks.

01:59:39But without oxygen and liquid water, rust can't appear.

01:59:43Solar winds add to the mystery.

01:59:45They bombard the moon with hydrogen, and hydrogen makes it much more difficult for hermitite

01:59:50to form.

01:59:52Even though the moon doesn't have an atmosphere, it still has some trace amounts of oxygen.

01:59:57Its source is our planet's upper atmosphere.

02:00:00Earth also protects the moon from almost 100% of solar winds, although not all the time.

02:00:07And even though our natural satellite is bone dry, there might be water ice in the shadowed

02:00:11craters on its far side.

02:00:16A day on Uranus lasts 17 hours, 14 minutes, and 24 seconds.

02:00:21But get this, the planet has a tilt of around 98 degrees, and that makes a season on the

02:00:27gas giant last 21 Earth years.

02:00:32Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos.

02:00:35In the next 30 to 50 million years, Mars' gravitational forces will tear Phobos apart,

02:00:41and it will likely result in the formation of a ring around the planet.

02:00:48The Earth is the densest in the solar system.

02:00:50At the Earth's center, there's a core that takes up 15% of the planet's volume.

02:00:56It consists of two parts, the outer and the inner core.

02:01:00The inner core is a solid ball made of iron and nickel.

02:01:04Its radius is 760 miles, which makes 20% of the entire Earth's radius and 80% of the moon's

02:01:12radius.

02:01:13The 1500 mile thick outer core is liquid.

02:01:16It also consists of iron and nickel, but it's not under enough pressure to be solid.

02:01:24Mars houses the biggest volcano in the solar system.

02:01:27While everything seems to be calm on Mars nowadays, in the past, some sort of force

02:01:32caused enormous volcanoes to form and erupt.

02:01:35One of these volcanoes is Olympus Mons.

02:01:38It's 16 miles tall, which is the height of three Mount Everests, and 374 miles across,

02:01:45making it about the size of Arizona.

02:01:48The volcano grew to such a gargantuan size because of the weak gravity on Mars and the

02:01:53lack of tectonic plate movement.

02:01:57Gravity is not the same everywhere.

02:02:01The rocks, metals, and other minerals and substances that make up the planet are packed

02:02:06into the ground more tightly in certain places than in others.

02:02:10This has surprising consequences.

02:02:12Gravity varies slightly depending on where you are.

02:02:15You weigh 0.5% less standing at the equator than you do at the poles.

02:02:21In most cases, that's a difference of less than one pound.

02:02:24How high up you are also has an effect, so if you were at the top of Mount Everest, you'd

02:02:29also weigh slightly less.

02:02:31Just don't look down.

02:02:34Earth's toughest living thing is so small you can't see it.

02:02:39Water bears, also known as moss piglets, are cute little creatures with eight legs and

02:02:43squashed up heads that are less than a hundredth of an inch in length.

02:02:47Despite their microscopic stature, they can basically survive anywhere.

02:02:52They prefer bits of wet moss or the bottom of a lake, but they won't complain if you

02:02:57put them somewhere really uncomfortable.

02:02:59They can endure extreme cold and incredible heat, and survive both huge pressure and high

02:03:05radiation.

02:03:07Some of the little bears once even managed to survive unprotected in outer space for

02:03:11ten days without a problem.

02:03:14That is tough.

02:03:15They handle all these things by rolling up into a ball and hibernating, which reduces

02:03:20their need for oxygen and food.

02:03:24The moon's gravity is about 17% of that on Earth.

02:03:28If you weighed 200 pounds on our home planet, on the moon, your weight would decrease to

02:03:32a mere 34 pounds.

02:03:34You would also be able to carry stuff six times heavier than what you can carry on Earth.

02:03:39It would also be easier to walk on the moon's surface, but it would be more dangerous, too.

02:03:45Your feet, inside a heavy spacesuit, would sink into the lunar soil up to six inches

02:03:50deep.

02:03:51But, let's imagine you decided to skip the tedious process of walking by leaping through

02:03:55the air.

02:03:56Then, you'd likely lose control of your jumps in no time.

02:04:00Plus, the moon's surface is littered with deep craters.

02:04:03It would be a tough feat to avoid all of them.

02:04:07You can see solar eclipses because even though the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun,

02:04:12it's also 400 times closer to Earth.

02:04:15So it's perfectly capable of obscuring the star.

02:04:18But, in 50 million years, I won't be around then.

02:04:22The moon won't be able to block the sun completely because of the satellite's changing orbit.

02:04:28A full NASA spacesuit costs an unbelievable $12 million.

02:04:33Yeah, I can believe that.

02:04:3570% of this hefty sum is for the control module and backpack.

02:04:42At the very center of Uranus, there's a rocky core, small, just half the Earth's mass.

02:04:48Compared to other planets, Uranus' core is rather cool, 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:04:54An ice mantle surrounds the solid core, and that's the largest portion of the planet,

02:04:59about 80%.

02:05:01It's also not the ice you might be thinking about.

02:05:04It's a hot, dense fluid made up of water, ammonia, ice, and methane,

02:05:09sometimes referred to as a water-ammonia ocean.

02:05:13Uranus' atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium,

02:05:16but it has its blue-green color because of methane gas that absorbs the red light.

02:05:24The ocean on Jupiter is larger than any other in the solar system.

02:05:28But unlike Earth's oceans, it's made not of water, but of metallic hydrogen.

02:05:34The ocean's depth is a mind-blowing 25,000 miles.

02:05:38That's almost the same as the distance around Earth.

02:05:42Venus is a champ when it comes to volcanoes.

02:05:45The planet has about 1,600 major ones, but none of them is known to erupt.

02:05:55There's a supermassive black hole 250 million light-years away from us.

02:06:00It hums the deepest sound ever detected from any object in the universe.

02:06:04It's 57 octaves lower than the Middle Sea on your piano.

02:06:09That's one quadrillion times deeper than what we can hear.

02:06:16Mercury is a few billion years old.

02:06:18In 2016, scientists discovered some abnormalities on the planet's surface,

02:06:23showing that it's getting smaller.

02:06:25After more research, they found out that Mercury hadn't finished cooling down yet.

02:06:32There are planets that aren't bound to any star orbit

02:06:35and aimlessly wander through outer space.

02:06:40Among the most spectacular-looking space objects are pulsars.

02:06:44Pulsars are a type of neutron star.

02:06:47They shoot out some of their material almost at the speed of light.

02:06:50Regular pulsars spin at a reasonable speed,

02:06:53between one-tenth to 60 times per second.

02:06:57But millisecond pulsars can spin at an impressive 700 times a second,

02:07:02which is way too fast for the human eye to even process.

02:07:05As they spin, they emit a beam of radiation from their axis

02:07:09that looks like the light from a lighthouse.

02:07:12Astronomers can notice pulsars when they face Earth,

02:07:15since it looks like a light being shined on our planet.

02:07:18When the light shines elsewhere, the pulsar can't be seen.

02:07:24Our sun is insanely massive.

02:07:27Want some proof?

02:07:2899.86% of all the mass in the solar system is the mass of the sun.

02:07:34In particular, the hydrogen and helium it's made of.

02:07:37The remaining 0.14% is mostly the mass of the solar system's eight planets.

02:07:46Saturn's rings are very thin compared to its size.

02:07:49If you had a scale model of the planet that was 3 feet wide,

02:07:52the rings would be 10,000 times thinner than a razor blade.

02:07:58Even though Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system,

02:08:01it still has snow.

02:08:03But not what you'd expect.

02:08:04It snows metals and rains acid.

02:08:07Not a great vacation spot.

02:08:17The profession of an astronaut is probably one of the most intriguing and mysterious out there.

02:08:24But have you ever wondered about the details of their everyday life?

02:08:27Like what's going on under those bulky spacesuits?

02:08:31I mean, some people seriously believe that astronauts wear paper underwear.

02:08:35Others are sure that a lack of gravity allows the grime to just float away.

02:08:39If only.

02:08:41The thing is, astronauts don't do laundry.

02:08:44At all.

02:08:45In 2011, NASA commissioned a washing machine for the International Space Station.

02:08:50Was it a joke?

02:08:51In any case, astronauts couldn't use it for apparent reasons.

02:08:54Delivering water to the ISS just to do laundry sounds outrageous and super costly.

02:09:00So, astronauts can only dream of freshly laundered linens and other stuff.

02:09:05Instead, fresh clothes get delivered to the station from Earth just like any other supplies.

02:09:11Unfortunately, it happens not that often since the price of launching literally anything

02:09:16into space is exorbitant.

02:09:18So, astronauts have to wear their clothes for way longer than they would otherwise do

02:09:24on Earth.

02:09:25The only thing that makes this situation a bit better is that astronauts tend to lose

02:09:29some of their sense of smell in space.

02:09:32When interviewed, some astronauts admitted wearing, for example, the same pair of shorts

02:09:37for months and only changing their underwear once every three or four days.

02:09:42It's probably not surprising that astronauts dress not to impress but for comfort and convenience.

02:09:49Their typical attire usually consists of short-sleeved shirts and long cargo pants.

02:09:55Those are regular clothes we wear on Earth, nothing special.

02:09:58But when they leave the climate-controlled insides of the ISS, of course, they need special

02:10:03clothes.

02:10:04By that, I mean those very chunky spacesuits.

02:10:08They protect astronauts from insane temperature swings ranging from 250 degrees Fahrenheit

02:10:13in the sun to minus 250 degrees in the shade.

02:10:18But even with all this protection and cooling tubes wicking away body heat, spacewalks tend

02:10:23to cause astronauts to work up a sweat.

02:10:26Wearing an EVA, which stands for Extravehicular Activities, can mean hours of hard work.

02:10:33And don't forget that astronauts often wear layers to stay warm and pressurized.

02:10:38And these layers include an inner form-fitting item of clothing that resembles long underwear.

02:10:43This item is often reworn and even shared.

02:10:47And since there are no washing machines on the ISS, you get the point, right?

02:10:52An interesting fact, there is a specially trained person who smells every single thing

02:10:56that astronauts take with them into space.

02:10:59It's done to protect them from unpleasant or toxic odors.

02:11:04The thing is that you can't really air the room out there in space if you don't like

02:11:07how it smells inside.

02:11:09That's why NASA is very careful about what kind of odors can pass through.

02:11:14At the same time, nothing can prevent the smells that appear already on the ISS.

02:11:20Anyway, spacesuits and what's underneath them are used again and again.

02:11:25And soon you start worrying not only about bad smells but also about hygiene and health

02:11:30problems.

02:11:31An alarming possibility of biocontamination arises.

02:11:35It includes bacteria, body fluids, and other foreign substances.

02:11:39It gets worse if we think about longer missions, for instance, to the moon.

02:11:44At the same time, it's totally impractical to wash spacesuit interiors on a consistent

02:11:49basis.

02:11:50Water is too valuable on the ISS to waste it on something so mundane.

02:11:56That's why NASA, along with the European Space Agency and other organizations, asked specialists

02:12:01to develop fabrics that could solve the problem of biocontamination in suits.

02:12:06You see, during the shuttle program conducted by NASA, spacesuits were supposed to be used

02:12:11on quite short two-week trips.

02:12:14But then, astronauts started living on the ISS for much longer periods of time.

02:12:19That's why the spacesuits' lifespan had to be extended up to six years.

02:12:23No wonder microbes became a much more worrying issue than before.

02:12:29So more than a decade ago, a team of experts began to research different methods of getting

02:12:33rid of microbes and bacteria dwelling in spacesuits.

02:12:37They cut textiles in two-inch squares and put them in petri dishes and grew a few species

02:12:41of fungi and bacteria on these samples.

02:12:45Some of the fabrics they used were infused with copper.

02:12:48This substance has impressive antimicrobial properties.

02:12:52When bacteria touch this element, their cell walls and membranes get destabilized.

02:12:57The metal's ions damage microbes, making them more vulnerable.

02:13:02NASA scientists also tried using textiles treated with silicone and silver.

02:13:06The latter turned out to be as toxic to germs on contact as copper.

02:13:12After observing the stuff that had grown on the fabrics for the past 14 days, the researchers

02:13:17discovered that only one compound had managed to keep bacteria and fungi at bay.

02:13:22It was a solution of silver molecules normally used for disinfecting hospital dressings and

02:13:27other stuff.

02:13:29But the ions of this metal turned out to be too good at their job because they got rid

02:13:34of everything, literally.

02:13:37And total sterility could do more harm than good.

02:13:40We need a balanced ecosystem consisting of millions of microorganisms to keep our organs

02:13:46and skin healthy.

02:13:48In 2022, NASA hired U.S. companies Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to develop the next

02:13:54generation of spacesuits.

02:13:56And soon, a prototype suit appeared.

02:13:59It was designed to be used during the Artemis III mission.

02:14:02The main goal of this voyage is to land a crew at the south pole of our natural satellite.

02:14:08These spacesuits are supposed to use textiles with antimicrobial properties that can potentially

02:14:12reduce biocontamination.

02:14:15The cooling system of these suits will also add biocides in its water loops, which will

02:14:19help prevent microbial buildup.

02:14:22Now let's talk about spacesuits in more detail.

02:14:26To begin with, there are actually two main types of spacesuits.

02:14:30You've probably seen the advanced crew escape suit, aka the orange suit, aka the pumpkin

02:14:36suit.

02:14:37Astronauts wear this full-pressure suit during takeoff, or rather, liftoff, since we're

02:14:41talking about a spaceship.

02:14:43Spacesuits are irreplaceable for those who are heading for super high altitudes.

02:14:47There, the pressure is so low that people can't survive without a special protective

02:14:52suit.

02:14:53And while air crews wear partial-pressure suits, space crews have to be protected by

02:14:57full-pressure suits.

02:14:59After all, they travel way, way higher.

02:15:02The suit is also equipped with lots of things that can help an astronaut survive emergencies

02:15:07during a spaceship launch or landing.

02:15:09A regular pumpkin suit is stocked with flares, medications, survival gear, a radio, and a

02:15:15parachute.

02:15:16So, in short, astronauts couldn't live through the process of leaving Earth without the orange

02:15:22suit.

02:15:23But why did its designers choose this hue?

02:15:27The main reason for picking the orange color is that this hue is one of the most visible

02:15:31for search and rescue, including very probable sea rescue.

02:15:36As for EVAs, their purpose is different.

02:15:39Astronauts wear these suits when they set off on spacewalks.

02:15:43It can protect them from the severe conditions of outer space, with its extreme temperatures

02:15:47and near-vacuum.

02:15:48Plus, the spacesuit can prevent small debris from hurting space travelers.

02:15:54You've probably noticed that EVA suits are much bulkier than the orange ones.

02:15:59That's because they have many layers of insulation and heavy protective fabric.

02:16:03They also contain breathable air, drinkable water, and temperature controls.

02:16:08Now, every time an astronaut goes on a spacewalk, they use a tether that ties them to the space

02:16:14station.

02:16:15And in case the tether breaks, the EVA suit has a backup system.

02:16:19This system includes small jet thrusters which can be controlled from the station with the

02:16:23help of a joystick.

02:16:26As for the color, first of all, white reflects the heat of the sun better than other colors,

02:16:31and astronauts don't get too hot.

02:16:33Plus, the white color is the best when it comes to spotting the tiny dot of an astronaut

02:16:38against the vast expanse of black space.

02:16:41Another curious detail.

02:16:43While white spacesuits protect astronauts from getting too hot, they can't prevent

02:16:47them from getting too cold.

02:16:49And that's when special gloves come into play.

02:16:52They have special heaters which keep astronauts' fingers cozy and functioning.

02:16:57That's it for today!

02:16:58So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your

02:17:02friends.

02:17:03Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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