Intriguing Space Facts That Will Warp Your Reality

  • 3 months ago
Dive into intriguing space facts that will completely warp your reality! From astonishing discoveries to mind-bending truths, get ready for a cosmic journey that will leave you amazed and awestruck. Don't miss out!
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/

Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV

Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en

Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit:
http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00:00A sound from space? When up there in space, no one can hear you talk, laugh, or scream.
00:00:07Or at least that's how the saying goes. People can't hear anything in space, due
00:00:12to its condition. Still, if you have the right conditions, like the hot gas that surrounds
00:00:17the black hole located at the center of Perseus, space can be quite noisy.
00:00:24That's the galaxy cluster 250 million light years away from us.
00:00:29Researchers caught an actual sound of space. Waves rippling through the plasma gas in Perseus.
00:00:36They first realized black holes generate acoustic signals in 2003. But this is the first time
00:00:42they brought these signals to the human ear. And wow, this sounds terrifying.
00:00:48Canyons filled with liquid on Titan. Almost a decade ago, NASA spacecraft discovered
00:00:54deep canyons on one of Saturn's moons, Titan. They're about a half mile wide and they
00:01:00kinda look like the Grand Canyon, but they're filled with liquid hydrocarbon. This was the
00:01:05first time we came upon evidence of canyons and channels filled with liquid on Titan.
00:01:12Our solar system is full of small particles and bigger rocks that circle the sun, the
00:01:17same way as planets. Sometimes it happens, some of them change trajectory, which is why
00:01:22falling pieces of debris strike the planets. Most of the meteorites and comets originate
00:01:28in our solar system. Some from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, while others
00:01:34come from the Kuiper belt that's located beyond the orbit of Neptune.
00:01:39But five years ago, scientists found something unusual. A red, elongated floating space rock
00:01:46called Oumuamua. It could be more than 3,000 feet long, but its size still wasn't the
00:01:52most impressive part. It was the first interstellar object we saw passing through our solar system.
00:01:59It means it formed and came outside of it. It was traveling way faster than asteroids
00:02:06and comets from within our solar system. No one knows where this weird object came from.
00:02:12Many many years ago, when it started its journey and sailed away from its parent planetary
00:02:17system, the stars weren't in the same position as they are today. So it's hard to pinpoint
00:02:22where Oumuamua ran away from. The rock could have been on its journey for billions of years.
00:02:30Solar Termination Events Our sun is not just a flaming ball of gas
00:02:35we see in the sky. It's actually a pretty complex network of towering plasma fountains,
00:02:41magnetic fields, and blobs of unusual matter 500 times bigger than our own planet. And
00:02:47then, there are solar termination events. When it comes to its activity, our sun goes
00:02:53through a natural cycle of troughs and peaks. Approximately every 11 years comes the time
00:03:00when the sun is more active than in other periods of the process. As the cycle goes
00:03:05to the end, there are fewer emissions and sunspots. That's because magnetic fields
00:03:11are weakened at that point, and they collide along the sun's equator. This results in
00:03:16enormous tsunamis of plasma. They pass across the solar surface for weeks. These are the
00:03:23most powerful storms in our solar system. They twist, snap, and lash out into space
00:03:29and seriously affect our power grid. As they wake, large spots start to form on the sun,
00:03:36close to strong magnetic field lines. Usually, that's when the cycle begins all over again.
00:03:43No one still knows why exactly they form. Also, we're not sure if this only happens
00:03:49at the end of the cycle, and knowing more about this could help us prepare for raging
00:03:54solar storms better.
00:03:57Tsunamis on Mars. It appears the shorelines under the Martian surface formed because of
00:04:03two enormous tsunamis. Mars has something that's probably the longest landslide in
00:04:09our entire solar system. The rocks rolled down the mountain probably billions of years
00:04:14ago. They fell into the water and caused a gigantic wave that rushed across the Martian
00:04:20landscape. As the tsunami was getting bigger, the rocks scraped all along the solid ground
00:04:27beneath them, and these sandy waves left their prints on the shoreline, not so close to Olympus
00:04:33Mons. That means it's possible the waves traveled a couple of hundred miles. This supports
00:04:40the theory that Mars once had an ocean, hidden below its dry desert surface.
00:04:46Sure, Oumuamua was cool because it was the first object we've seen coming from outside
00:04:51of our solar system. It's past us now, so it's not possible to study it anymore. But
00:04:57something else came from outside our solar system after Oumuamua. A comet called Borisov.
00:05:06It came with a tail over a hundred thousand miles long.
00:05:11Teams got the first images of Borisov in 2019. A bright white glow was surrounding
00:05:17it. And that was one of the first signs where scientists realized this comet wasn't from
00:05:22our solar system. They tried to collect as much information as possible because they
00:05:28remembered how quickly Oumuamua got away. Borisov came from a freezing place, as cold
00:05:35as the Kuiper belt. One theory says it may have originated around a red dwarf, which
00:05:41is the most common type of star in our galaxy, the Milky Way. But unfortunately, Borisov
00:05:47was also very fast. So fast that they only managed to see it a couple of weeks before
00:05:53it passed by our planet. By now, it's almost out of our solar system.
00:06:00Finding new planets is always such a thrill. Just like it was in 2017, when a group of
00:06:05researchers discovered Super Earth. It's an exoplanet, which means it orbits a star
00:06:11outside of our solar system. This one has a mass almost three times that of our planet.
00:06:17And it's only 21 light years away. It orbits M dwarf star, and it manages to make a full
00:06:24circle in only two weeks. So that's how long the year is on this planet. It's closer to
00:06:30its star than Mercury is to our sun. But M dwarf stars are cooler than our sun, so it's
00:06:37possible this planet still has water. Super Earth is generally a term for planets
00:06:43that are lighter than ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune, yet more massive than Earth.
00:06:49They can be made of rock, gas, or even a combination of both. The one they discovered in 2017 is
00:06:57especially interesting because this type of planet can also hold some form of life.
00:07:03Leroy Chao is an astronaut who commanded the International Space Station back in 2005.
00:07:10This one time, during his final spacewalk, some pretty unusual lights caught his eye.
00:07:16It looked like five lights flying near him. They were in the shape of a pyramid since
00:07:20one light was a bit further ahead. Chao immediately called one of the crew members
00:07:26who was also out there at the same time, taking a spacewalk. He asked his colleague
00:07:31if he saw the flying objects, but apparently he didn't. Researchers were intrigued by
00:07:36this story, so they examined satellite images to see if that was the thing Chao saw. One
00:07:42of the options was that Chao had seen fishing boats off the coast of South America. With
00:07:47bright lights, they wanted to attract squid. But since it was twilight time, the rotation
00:07:53of our planet may have made them appear to fly by.
00:07:58Neutron stars slamming into each other. After a massive star comes to its end in a strong
00:08:03supernova explosion, its core falls apart. Then it forms the densest form of matter we
00:08:09know about in the whole universe, called a neutron star. In only a couple of the first
00:08:15few seconds after a regular star begins transforming into a neutron star, the energy there is equal
00:08:22to the total amount of light all stars in the universe emit, at least the part we can
00:08:27observe, which is still a lot. It's hard to determine their real size, but picture
00:08:32it this way, the length of Manhattan with 1.5 times the mass of the sun. If a star here
00:08:39were any denser, it would just collapse and form a black hole. Scientists captured two
00:08:45of these stars colliding a couple of years ago, and such impacts are extremely powerful.
00:08:51They create gravitational waves that lead to a ripple in space-time, but they produce
00:08:56heavy elements like platinum and gold.
00:09:00No one will hear your cry in space, or something like that. We've all heard this famous chilling
00:09:05phrase, and it's actually true. Space, for the most part, consists of a giant nothingness.
00:09:11There's a lot of, you know, space in space. But this doesn't mean there are no sounds
00:09:16in space. In fact, there are plenty of them. And some of them can even make you shiver.
00:09:21Let's take a look at the scariest space sounds.
00:09:25First of all, how are cosmic sounds even recorded? Sound is just the vibration of molecules.
00:09:31When you scream, you make the molecules push each other furiously until they reach the
00:09:35ear of the person you're yelling at. Then these vibrations get transmitted to the brain,
00:09:40and we recognize them as something that you might need to apologize for. In other words,
00:09:46to hear something, we need molecules. And that's where things get complicated. There
00:09:51aren't any of them in space. The entire universe almost completely consists of a vacuum. No,
00:09:57not a hoover. Absolute nothingness. However, the wizards from NASA still record space sounds
00:10:03somehow. So how do they do it? The thing is, there are some types of waves that don't care
00:10:08about molecules. We regular folk can't perceive them without some special devices. These waves
00:10:14include, for example, radio waves. We'll need a radio or something like that to recognize
00:10:20them. And that's exactly what NASA's satellites do. They catch random radio waves. Thanks
00:10:25to their heroism, we can find out how different cosmic bodies sound. These satellites record
00:10:31a variety of waves, fluctuations of plasmas, magnetic fields, and other, you know, stuff.
00:10:37And then scientists from NASA transform all this into normal soundtracks. And some of
00:10:43them sound quite frightening, to put it mildly. Let's take our magnetic field, for example.
00:10:49It surrounds our planet like an invisible shield, protecting us from all sorts of nasties,
00:10:54like radiation and solar winds. At the same time, we can neither see it, feel it, nor
00:11:00hear. Oops. Well, the last one is outdated. Scientists from the Technical University of
00:11:05Denmark took magnetic waves recorded by the ESSA swarm satellite, they converted them
00:11:10into an audio track, and got a pretty creepy result. Now, to be honest, it sounds more
00:11:19like an eerie entity stalking you in the middle of the night. And if you remember the maps
00:11:24of Earth's magnetic field, it starts to feel like a spider crawling nearby. Eww.
00:11:30And this isn't the first strange sound that we caught on Earth. Recently, we caught another
00:11:35weird radio emission from space. Scientists found out that the repeating signal came from
00:11:40somewhere very far away, like billions of light-years away from us. Such fast radio
00:11:45bursts usually lasted no longer than a few milliseconds, but this one was unique. It
00:11:50lasted about 3 seconds, basically thousands of times longer than usual. And at the same
00:11:56time, the signal was very precise, so much so that scientists even compared it to a heartbeat.
00:12:04Scientists believe that this signal is caused by pulsars, or neutron stars. One time, Nikola
00:12:09Tesla caught something similar. But unfortunately, at that time, we didn't know about such things
00:12:15as pulsars, so Tesla was sure that he had caught a message from some extraterrestrial
00:12:20light. It's a pity that the truth turned out to be much more boring.
00:12:25But let's move on from the Earth to the Moon. In 1969, the astronauts of the Apollo 10 mission,
00:12:31the spacecraft that made the final test flight to the Moon, flew past its surface. And then
00:12:36they caught some strange signals coming from the dark side of the Moon, the side that we
00:12:41never see because the Moon is tidally locked to us. The sound was so weird that the astronauts
00:12:47weren't even sure whether to report it to NASA. They were afraid they wouldn't be taken
00:12:52seriously, and maybe even not allowed to participate in the next space missions. Here's what it
00:12:57sounded like. But according to NASA, it's not some creepy extraterrestrial music at
00:13:06all. These may just be some radio waves that affected each other because of their proximity.
00:13:12Although the astronauts who heard it for the first time probably felt a little creeped
00:13:16out. Let's move to the other planets. Now, 40 years
00:13:20ago, scientists actively explored the surface of Venus. They sent as many as 10 probes there,
00:13:25which were supposed to capture audio and video shooting from the surface. Now we know what
00:13:30Venus, which could easily destroy us at any attempt to even get close to it, sounds like.
00:13:39Horrifying. And you wouldn't expect anything else from the most dangerous planet in the
00:13:44Solar System. Unfortunately, Venus is even more toxic than the average Twitter user.
00:13:50So, these probes didn't last too long. They heroically arrived on a planet and soon broke
00:13:55down. Next one is Jupiter. This space giant, which is 11 times larger than the Earth,
00:14:02never fails to scare us. One of NASA's probes, Juno, flies around Jupiter every few weeks.
00:14:08The probe is moving at a tremendous speed, 130,000 miles per hour. One day, Juno caught
00:14:15one of the strongest invisible signals it had ever encountered. This was the point at which
00:14:20the mad solar wind came into conflict with the magnetic field of Jupiter. It kinda sounded like
00:14:26a cosmic boom. The original sound lasted 2 hours, but it was compressed to a few seconds. It
00:14:33actually sounds more like a collision of a sea wave and a rock. But here, in terms of horror,
00:14:39Jupiter surprisingly loses to one of its small moons, Ganymede. In 2021, the Galileo space probe
00:14:47flew past Ganymede, and during its flight, it received a rather strange recording.
00:14:57These sounds are satellite radiation, and it's unclear whether it sounds like a cozy,
00:15:02sunny day in the jungle, or like thousands of bats waiting for you in the night.
00:15:08Next one is Saturn. This signal was caught by the Cassini-Huygens Automatic Interplanetary Station,
00:15:14which was launched into space in 1997. When flying past Saturn, Cassini recorded a pretty
00:15:20scary sound. This terrifying cry of thousands of souls is actually just some radio waves. They
00:15:28aren't too different from what the auroras emit on Earth. A little later, Cassini received another
00:15:34recording. The sounds made by lightning and thunderstorms on Saturn. They sound pretty
00:15:39interesting too. More like popping corn or a Geiger counter, right? But that's just because
00:15:47these lightning strikes have a crazy frequency. Moving on from the solar system to outer space.
00:15:53The famous Voyager 1 was launched back in 1977, and continues to send us data even 40 years after
00:16:00its launch. In 2012, it left the solar system and entered interstellar space. And then, while
00:16:08abandoning its home, Voyager 1 detected the sound of plasma waves. The original recording
00:16:13lasted 7 months, but fortunately, scientists felt sorry for us and reduced it to 12 seconds.
00:16:21It isn't really eerie, but it's still kind of unsettling. And although it feels like nothing
00:16:27can beat Saturn's horrors, let's end this tournament with one of the scariest objects
00:16:32in the universe – a black hole. This sound was recorded by the Chandra Space Telescope.
00:16:38While studying a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Perseus, they discovered something
00:16:43strange. Some undulating movements appear from the center of the cluster. They spread out in
00:16:49all directions, like circles on the water. Scientists have suggested that this was caused
00:16:55by a supermassive black hole. The thing is, black holes don't always devour space objects entirely.
00:17:02Sometimes, they kind of spit them out. This causes vibrations of gases, which we can convert
00:17:08into soundtracks. What's interesting is that the oscillation of each such wave actually
00:17:14lasts about 10 million years. You're just listening to a very accelerated recording.
00:17:19Scientists have reduced the delay between oscillations by about 144 quadrillion times.
00:17:26So, let's check it out. This is probably the eeriest sound from the whole list.
00:17:32Nothing too loud or wild, but there's something dark and disturbing about it.
00:17:37Now, those were the scariest space sounds captured by NASA. To be fair, most of them
00:17:42sounded creepy simply because they're radio waves, but it's still fun to get spooked sometimes.
00:17:48When you look at photos taken from spaceships or the International Space Station that show
00:17:53sunlit objects like Earth or the Moon, something seems wrong. Space looks too empty. No magical
00:18:01scenery of a nighttime sky full of stars. It would be incredibly boring to go stargazing in space,
00:18:07since the sky is always dark. During the daytime, the sky on our home planet is blue
00:18:13because of the diffusion of light. It happens when sunlight goes through the atmosphere.
00:18:18But if you were on the Moon or somewhere else in space, there would be no atmosphere to spread
00:18:22this light around. That's why the sky there would always appear black. But it doesn't mean less
00:18:29bright out there. If you were looking out the window of the space station, you'd see just as
00:18:34much direct sunlight as you would gazing out of your apartment window during a cloudless day.
00:18:39Maybe even more. When taking a picture on a sunny day, you'll probably use a short exposure,
00:18:45together with the narrow aperture setting on your camera. This way, just a short burst of
00:18:50light will get in. That's similar to how our pupils contract in sunlight so that they don't
00:18:55have to deal with too much light. And since it's just as bright up there in space, the process is
00:19:00the same when you take pictures of sunlit objects there. Using short exposure, you can get good,
00:19:06bright pictures of Earth or the surface of the Moon. But it also means there will be no stars
00:19:11in the picture. Even up there, stars are relatively dim. They don't emit enough light to show up in
00:19:17photos taken with such settings. Our home planet has a blue sky that slowly transforms into a
00:19:24beautiful orange-red palette at dusk and dawn. But if you ever get a chance to watch a sunset on Mars,
00:19:31you should expect the opposite, an orange-brown daytime sky that gets a bluish tint at sunset.
00:19:37First of all, Mars is farther away from the Sun than our planet. So, when you're looking at the
00:19:42Sun from the Martian surface, of course, it looks fainter and smaller. And not just that,
00:19:48the Sun observed from Mars is just a bluish-white dot surrounded by a blue halo.
00:19:53The thin atmosphere of the red planet contains large dust particles. They create an effect
00:19:58called Mie scattering. It occurs when the diameter of particles in the atmosphere is almost the same
00:20:03as the wavelength of the scattered light. This effect filters out the red light from the Sun's
00:20:08rays. So, only the blue light would reach your eyes on Mars.
00:20:14How come Earth doesn't have rings? All gas giants in our solar system, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
00:20:21and Neptune have such rings, whereas the rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars don't.
00:20:28There are two theories about how rings can appear around a planet. They might be just some material
00:20:34left from the times when the planet was forming. Or they may be the remains of a moon that got
00:20:38destroyed by a collision with some space body, or torn apart by the strong gravitational pull
00:20:43of its parent planet. The gas giants formed in the outer regions of our solar system,
00:20:48while all the rocky planets are in the inner part. So, maybe the inner planets were more
00:20:53protected from potential collisions that could have formed their rings.
00:20:57There are also more moons in the outer regions of our solar system, which could be another reason
00:21:02why the planets there have rings. Also, bigger planets have stronger gravity. It means that they
00:21:09can keep their rings stable after they form. Some experts believe Earth used to have a ring
00:21:14system a long time ago. A Mars-sized object might have collided with our home planet,
00:21:20which probably created a dense ring of debris around it. Some scientists think that this
00:21:25debris formed not a ring, but what we know today as the moon.
00:21:31There's probably a giant planet lurking at the edge of the solar system,
00:21:35far beyond Neptune. Scientists call this mysterious hypothetical world Planet 9.
00:21:41If it does exist, it's probably similar to Uranus or Neptune, and 10 times more massive than our
00:21:47home planet. It's likely to circle around the Sun, but in the outer reaches of the solar system,
00:21:52about 20 times farther than Neptune. Another interesting theory says that Planet 9 could
00:21:59actually be a black hole the size of a grapefruit that warps space in a similar way a large planet
00:22:04would. Even though we once thought it was a rare substance in space, water exists all over our
00:22:12solar system. For example, you can often find it in asteroids and comets. It's also in craters on
00:22:19the moon and Mercury. We still don't know if there's enough water to support potential human
00:22:24colonies if we decide to move there, but some amount of water is definitely present there.
00:22:30Mars has water at its poles too. It's mostly hidden in the layers of ice and probably under
00:22:36the planet's dusty surface. Europa, Jupiter's moon, has some water too. This is the most likely
00:22:42candidate we know about to host life outside Earth. There's probably a whole ocean of liquid
00:22:48water under its frozen surface. It might actually contain twice as much water as all of Earth's
00:22:53oceans combined. Neptune is unexpectedly warm, even though it's 30 times as far from the Sun
00:23:01as our planet and receives less sunlight and heat. But it still radiates way more heat than it gets.
00:23:07It also has way more activity in its atmosphere than you'd suspect, especially if you compare
00:23:12it to its neighbor, Uranus. Both of these planets emit the same amount of heat, even though Uranus
00:23:19is much closer to the Sun. No one knows why. Neptune has extremely strong winds that can reach
00:23:25a speed of up to 1,500 miles per hour. Can they produce this heat? Or maybe it's because of the
00:23:32planet's core or its gravitational force? There's a monster black hole hurtling through space at a
00:23:39speed of 5 million miles per hour. Scientists located it with the Hubble Space Telescope.
00:23:45They believe it weighs as much as a billion suns. It was supposed to stay put in the center of its
00:23:50home galaxy, but some gravitational forces are pushing it around. At one point, this black hole
00:23:57is going to break free from its galaxy and continue roaming the universe. Luckily, it's still 8 billion
00:24:03years away from us. Solar storms are so powerful that they could leave us in complete darkness.
00:24:10Back in July 2012, the strongest solar storm in over 150 years narrowly missed Earth.
00:24:17Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are large bubbles of ionized gas. They tore through our orbit back
00:24:25then. If they had caught our planet in the crosshairs, we would have literally been in the
00:24:30firing line. We'd have faced solar matter hurtling towards Earth, damaging computers, and causing
00:24:35power outages that would have lasted for months. A surprise solar storm hit us on June 25, 2022.
00:24:43One photographer even managed to capture stunning bright auroras that flashed across the dawn sky
00:24:48in Calgary, Canada, and lasted for five minutes. They were caused by the storm.
00:24:54Vampire stars are a real thing. They're part of a binary star, and they can literally drain the life
00:25:00out of the other star in the system. They do it to keep burning for a longer time. It works like
00:25:06this. A smaller star with a lower mass steals its sibling's hydrogen fuel to increase its own mass.
00:25:13This vampire star then becomes hotter. Plus, its color changes to striking blue. This way,
00:25:20it looks much younger. How sneaky! The color of the universe is dubbed cosmic latte. The light
00:25:28coming from our galaxies and stars within them, as well as clouds of gas and dust in the observable
00:25:33universe, have a specific color. It's an ivory tint, pretty close to white. The universe is beige
00:25:41because there are a bit more areas that produce green, yellow, and red light than those that emit
00:25:46blue. Our Sun is an average-sized star, and still, it could fit 1,300,000 Earths. The star
00:25:57is also 333,000 times as heavy as our planet. NASA has translated radio waves created by planets'
00:26:06atmospheres into audible sounds. That's how astronomers found out that Neptune sounds like
00:26:11ocean waves, Jupiter like being underwater, and Saturn's voice resembles background music to a
00:26:19horror movie. Here on Earth, it's bebop jazz. Now I made that up. The Sun's surface is scorching hot,
00:26:27but a bolt of lightning is 5 times hotter. Earth gets struck by 100 lightning bolts every second,
00:26:35which results in 8 million lightning strikes a day and around 3 billion a year. Shocking.
00:26:43If you manage to go to the Moon one day and see fresh footprints, that doesn't mean there's
00:26:48someone else there with you. Footprints or similar marks can last for a million years over there.
00:26:55Because the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere. There are no winds, not even a breeze,
00:27:00that can slowly erase those footprints. Astronomers have found the largest hole we've
00:27:06ever seen in the Universe. It's the giant void that spreads a billion light-years across.
00:27:13They found it accidentally. One of the research team members was a little bored
00:27:17and wanted to check how things are going in the direction of the cold spot.
00:27:21That's an anomaly in the Cosmic Microwave Background Map, or CMB for short. It's a
00:27:27faint glow of light that falls on our planet from different directions and fills the Universe.
00:27:32It's been streaming through space for almost 14 billion years
00:27:36as the afterglow that occurred after the Big Bang.
00:27:41So, you fall right into the heart of the black hole and prepare for a sad end. Well,
00:27:46you don't have to. Falling into a black hole won't necessarily destroy you or your spaceship.
00:27:53You have to choose a bigger black hole to survive.
00:27:57If you fall into a small black hole, its event horizon is too narrow,
00:28:01and the gravity increases every inch down. So, if you extend your arm forward, the gravity on
00:28:07your fingers is much stronger than on your elbow. This will make your hand lengthen,
00:28:11and you'll feel some discomfort. Rather significant, to be honest.
00:28:16Things change if you fall into a supermassive black hole, like the ones in the center of
00:28:21galaxies. They can be millions of times heavier than the Sun. Their event horizon is wide,
00:28:27and the gravity doesn't change as quickly. So, the force you'll feel at your heels and at the
00:28:32top of your head will be about the same, and you can go all the way to the heart of the black hole.
00:28:38This myth is busted. If you watch a very touching movie in space and start crying,
00:28:45your tears won't run down. They will gather around the eyeballs. Your eyes will get too
00:28:51dry so you'll feel like they're burning. Any exposed liquid on your body will vaporize,
00:28:57including the surfaces of your tongue. Speaking of burning, that's one thing fire can't do in space.
00:29:03Fire can spread when there's a flow of oxygen, and since there's not any in space, well…
00:29:10Once they explode, stars aren't supposed to come back to life.
00:29:14But some of the stars somehow have survived the Great Supernova Explosion.
00:29:19Such zombie stars are pretty rare. Scientists found a really big one called LP40365.
00:29:27It's a partially burnt white dwarf. A white dwarf is a star that burned up all of the hydrogen,
00:29:33and that hydrogen was previously its nuclear fuel. In this case, the final explosion was
00:29:40maybe weaker than it usually is, not powerful enough to destroy the entire star. It's like a
00:29:46star wanted to explode but didn't make it, which is why part of the matter still survived.
00:29:53If you ever go into space, don't take off your spacesuit unless you're on a spaceship.
00:29:58Air in your lungs would expand, as well as the oxygen in the rest of your body.
00:30:03You'd be like a balloon, twice your regular size. Good news, the skin is elastic enough
00:30:09to hold you together, which means you wouldn't explode. Small comfort.
00:30:14When something goes into a black hole, it changes shape and gets stretched out just like spaghetti.
00:30:20This happens because gravitational force is trying to stretch an object in one direction,
00:30:25but at the same time squeeze it into another, like a pasta paradox. Speaking of, a black hole
00:30:32that's as big as a single atom has the mass of a really big mountain. There's one at the
00:30:38center of the Milky Way called Sagittarius A. It has a mass like for a billion suns,
00:30:45but luckily it's far away from us. If you made a big boom on an asteroid,
00:30:51you'd never be able to hear its loud sound. Yes, we often hear the sound of spaceships and battles
00:30:57in space in the movies, but that's just a myth. Sound is a wave that spreads because of the
00:31:03vibrations of molecules. A person claps a few feet away from you, the sound wave begins to
00:31:09push the first air molecule next to the clap, then the second, third, and so on, until the wave
00:31:15reaches your ear. So, to spread sound, we need molecules like air or water. In our atmosphere,
00:31:22sound waves spread out just fine, but space is a vacuum, so it's nothing here. You can clap
00:31:29your hands loudly there, but there just won't be any molecules that can vibrate and carry that
00:31:34sound. So, to carry on a conversation, you'd either need a radio or really good lip-reading skills.
00:31:42Meteoroids orbit the Sun, while the majority of human-made debris orbits our planet.
00:31:48For example, we launched almost 9,000 spacecraft around the world from satellites to rocket
00:31:54ships. Even the tiniest pieces can damage a spacecraft at such high speeds.
00:32:00Galaxies, planets, comets, asteroids, stars, space bodies are things we can actually see in space,
00:32:07but they make up less than 5% of the total universe. Dark matter, one of the biggest
00:32:13mysteries in space, is the name we use for all the mass in the universe that's still invisible to us,
00:32:20and there's a lot of it. It may even make 25% of the universe. Dark energy makes the other
00:32:2670% of the universe. Hmm, that adds up to 100, right? Now, let's look at the Moon. It always
00:32:34looks at us with one side. This means the Moon has a dark side, and the Sun's rays never get there.
00:32:41Well, that's a myth. The whole point is that the Moon is gravitationally locked to the Earth.
00:32:47There are days and nights there too. It's just that this rotation is perfectly aligned with the
00:32:52rotation of the Earth. So, whenever you look at the Moon, you only see one side. Although there
00:32:58are days when the Sun shines there too, so it's not the dark side, it's the far side. And we even
00:33:05have pictures of this place. And there's one of the biggest craters in our entire solar system,
00:33:10the South Pole-Aitken Basin. It's as wide as two states of Texas. Yeehaw!
00:33:17One myth that turned out to be untrue is that people have never actually been on the Moon.
00:33:23This is the original space suit of the first astronauts who were there. Look at the sole
00:33:28of the shoe. Some people claim there's no way they could've left footprints like this there.
00:33:33Actually, they could. On the Moon, the astronauts wore extra boots over their suits,
00:33:38and their soles matched the footprints on the Moon perfectly.
00:33:42Now, the astronauts didn't need them when they left the Moon and tossed them when the Moon walk
00:33:47was over. They left a lot of stuff there too. They even tossed the armrests of the seats in
00:33:53the lunar module to reduce the weight. Now, counting all the Apollo lunar missions,
00:33:58the total weight of rubbish on the Moon is approximately 187 tons, including several
00:34:04lunar rovers, spacecraft debris, six lunar modules, and all the experiments left behind.
00:34:10That's like three Boeing 737s. Another myth about the Sun is that it's yellow.
00:34:16Let's send you into space for this one. You look out the window, and… it's white!
00:34:21The Sun only appears yellow to us through the filter of our atmosphere. The composition of
00:34:26the air and its thickness just distorts the light of the star. But stars do come in different colors.
00:34:33Cooler stars have bright orange and red colors. These are usually very old stars,
00:34:38older than our Sun. But young and very hot stars are bright blue.
00:34:43The Sun is about in the middle of this spectrum.
00:34:47Oh, one more myth about asteroids. We need to fly a little farther than Mars' orbit.
00:34:52Whoa, we're in an asteroid belt, and we constantly have to dodge giant rocks and blocks of ice.
00:34:59We got in some dense asteroid clouds. Not true.
00:35:03The fact is that space is huge, and the distances are incredible. All the rocks and debris in the
00:35:09asteroid belt are only 4% of the weight of the Moon, so there really aren't that many of them
00:35:16there. To understand the dimension of the emptiness in space, look at the collision
00:35:21of two galaxies. There are billions of stars in each of them. If we mix them up, it's unlikely
00:35:27there will be any collisions even here. It's normal for planets to be a bit tilted
00:35:35on the side. The Earth is tilted at a 23-degree angle. That's why we have seasons. It's summer
00:35:41when the part of the world where you are leans closer to the Sun. It works the opposite way,
00:35:46too. It's winter when you lean away from it. But Uranus is tilted more than normal. It lies
00:35:51at a 98-degree angle, which has a huge effect on its seasons. Each season on Uranus takes 21 years
00:35:58to play out. Something to think about the next time we complain that winter lasts forever.
00:36:05Here on Earth, we measure distances in minutes and hours, maybe even days. It takes 10 minutes
00:36:10to walk to your best friend's house, or 15 minutes to drive to your favorite cafe.
00:36:15But in space, it's different. It's vast, which means we measure how long it takes to get to a
00:36:20certain point in years, or in most cases, light-years. So, if you want to walk to the
00:36:26Moon one day, that would take you 9 years to span the 239,000 miles. Perhaps you'd like to take a
00:36:32ride to the nearby star, Proxima Centauri. Maybe if you kept the pedal to the metal at a constant
00:36:38speed of 70 mph, you'd get there in about 356 billion hours, or around 40.5 million years.
00:36:46Trust me, after the first 20 million years, you'd be second-guessing yourself as to why
00:36:51go there in the first place. Mars contains the biggest valley,
00:36:54Valles Marineris, we've discovered so far. It's a pretty impressive system of canyons,
00:37:002,500 miles long. That's five times longer than the Grand Canyon. Researchers first spotted it
00:37:06back in the 1970s. A bank of volcanoes located on the other side of the canyon ridge probably
00:37:12helped form this valley. We haven't discovered a planet completely made of diamonds yet,
00:37:17but on some planets, it actually rains diamonds. On Jupiter and Saturn, gas giants of our solar
00:37:23system, lightning storms turn abundant methane into soot, which we also know as carbon. The
00:37:30soot falls and transforms into graphite. Further graphite transforms into diamonds with a diameter
00:37:36of about 0.4 inches. Now, before you start figuring out how to book a diamond-collecting
00:37:41field trip, know that these diamonds don't last. After they enter the planet's core, they melt.
00:37:47Ever notice how when you're stargazing two nights in a row at the same time, let's say 9pm,
00:37:52the stars stay in the same place, but the Moon doesn't? Well, there are two reasons for that.
00:37:58First, it depends on what time you go stargazing. For instance, if you go outside at 8pm,
00:38:04and tomorrow you look for it at 11pm, you'll see the Moon in two pretty different places.
00:38:09In this case, even the stars take different places in the sky
00:38:13since our planet is spinning. As you know, it takes 24 hours for it to make one full circle.
00:38:18That means, from our point of view, it seems like both the sky and everything up there is just
00:38:23moving around us one time per 24 hours. In the same way, the Sun changes its position,
00:38:29rising and setting every day. So, if you went outside two nights in a row at the same hour,
00:38:35in most cases, you'll have to wait for an extra half hour or more until the Moon gets back to the
00:38:40same position as the night before. The stars are pretty much standing still. It seems like they're
00:38:45moving, but that's because the Earth is spinning. But the Moon is actually moving around our planet
00:38:51and goes through different phases. For example, a new Moon is when it's completely dark in the sky.
00:38:56A full Moon is when its day side is facing the Earth. It takes approximately a month for it to
00:39:02finish one circle around the Earth. Maybe you'd be luckier on a diamond-collecting expedition on
00:39:07this next planet, 40 million light-years away from Earth. Scientists used to call it a super-Earth.
00:39:13Now, a super-Earth is generally a planet way bigger than ours. This planet, for example,
00:39:18is double the Earth's size. It's so close to its star that it makes a full circle around it in less
00:39:24than 18 hours, which means a year there is pretty short. Since it's so close to its star, its
00:39:30temperature goes up a whopping 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the heat, in combination
00:39:37with the planet's density, scientists have the theory that its core is made of carbon in the
00:39:42form of graphite and diamonds. Over 10 years ago, astronomers discovered a huge water vapor cloud.
00:39:49It was 12 billion light-years from our home planet. That cloud is the biggest source of water we know
00:39:54of. It's also the oldest, dating back to when the Universe was only 1.6 billion years old.
00:40:00Now, it's 13.8 billion years old. Man, if only I had started a savings account 12 billion years ago!
00:40:08With compound interest, I'd have made quite a pile of cash by now, but I wasn't around then.
00:40:13Anyway, this cloud is so large it holds 140 trillion times the amount of water in all the
00:40:20oceans on our planet. This cloud kind of feeds a black hole. It may also contain enough gases,
00:40:26such as carbon monoxide, to encourage the black hole to grow 6 times bigger than it is at the
00:40:32moment. The average temperature of our planet is about 57 degrees Fahrenheit, and the highest
00:40:37temperature ever measured was 134 degrees. Sound too hot? Well, on Venus, it can go up to 900
00:40:45degrees, which makes it the hottest planet in our Solar System. It's not hot enough to melt
00:40:50steel, though. It would need to be higher by 2,500 degrees to get there. But it's hot enough
00:40:56to melt lead. And it's way too hot to sustain life, at least not in any form that we know.
00:41:02Venus is not even the closest to the Sun, it's Mercury. But it has a super-thick atmosphere that
00:41:07traps greenhouse gases. It's like you covering yourself with a pretty thick blanket in the
00:41:12middle of the summer. Now, we're used to seeing volcanoes spewing hot molten lava. After all,
00:41:18that's what they mostly do on Earth. But in space, volcanoes tend to spew methane, water, or ammonia.
00:41:25And these materials freeze as they erupt and eventually transform into frozen vapor and
00:41:30something called volcanic snow. I'm talking about cryovolcanoes here. You can find them on Jupiter's
00:41:37moons Io and Europa, Saturn's moon Titan, and Pluto. These volcanoes are especially active on
00:41:43Io, which has hundreds of vents. NASA vehicles have even captured some of these erupting in real
00:41:49time. Plumes of frozen vapor coming out of them extended for about 250 miles. Hey, by the way,
00:41:56they just discovered another moon around Jupiter that might actually be good for farming someday.
00:42:02It's named EIEIO. Now, what exactly happens to the light after it disappears inside of a black
00:42:09hole? Well, photon is a particle of light. The event horizon is the boundary of a black hole.
00:42:16When something, say, a photon, crosses the line and enters those boundaries, it can't escape
00:42:21anymore. But it doesn't mean a black hole destroyed it. It pulls the photon in rapidly towards its
00:42:27center where an enormous mass is packed into an infinitely small space. But we're not sure what
00:42:33happens to photons in such extreme conditions. It's still one of the biggest mysteries. Does a
00:42:38black hole destroy the light or not? Saturn has 82 moons we know about, 53 confirmed and 29 more
00:42:46that are still on the waiting list to be confirmed as actual moons before they get their official
00:42:51names. And one of the coolest moons might be a 914-mile-wide hunk of rock called Aeapetus.
00:42:59It's dark on one side and bright on the other. Its lighter half is 20 times more reflective than
00:43:04the other one. As it turned out, the bright side is ice. The dark side is a bit more complicated.
00:43:10One theory says it's dark because of particles coming from another moon, the one named Phoebe.
00:43:16Another theory says it could be because of heat. Since the moon is rotating really slowly,
00:43:21its dark material is absorbing heat, which makes it even darker.
00:43:26Now, how big do you think a black hole can become? In theory, we can't find an upper limit to its
00:43:31mass. But astronomers believe the ultra-massive black holes, or UMBHs, located in the cores of
00:43:38certain galaxies are mostly up to 10 billion solar masses big. Recently, they even discovered
00:43:44these UMBHs physically can't grow much more than this because, in that case, they would start to
00:43:50disrupt the accretion disks that feed them. That way, they would kind of stuff the source of new
00:43:56material. Most people picture the universe as somewhere between aquamarine and pale turquoise.
00:44:02Even some researchers thought that was the case. They managed to determine the cosmic color by
00:44:06combining light from more than 200,000 galaxies within 2 billion light-years of our planet.
00:44:12But the real color is actually closer to beige. Researchers got it all wrong because there was a
00:44:18bug in the software. No, really? It converted the cosmic spectrum into the color our eyes would see
00:44:25if we were exposed to it. The team defined this color as a cosmic latte.
00:44:30Ooh, make that a double-shot low-fat large to go, please!
00:44:44On August 20, 1977, the most ambitious space mission took off from Earth. The main goal of
00:44:51Voyager 2 was to study the outer Solar System up close. It became possible because of a rare
00:44:57alignment of planets. Voyager 2 was supposed to study all the gas giants of the Solar System –
00:45:03Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Astronomers also hoped it would be able to find and explore
00:45:09the edge of the Solar System. Since Voyager 2 was built for interstellar travel, the probe was
00:45:14equipped with a large 12-foot-wide antenna. It allowed the spaceship to send the data it gathered
00:45:19back to Earth. During its journey, the space probe discovered a 14th moon of Jupiter. Voyager
00:45:262 was the only spaceship to study all 4 giant planets from up close. It was the first human-made
00:45:32object to fly past Uranus, where it found 2 new rings and 10 new moons. Voyager 2 also flew by
00:45:39Neptune and noticed its great dark spot. That's a colossal spinning storm in the planet's southern
00:45:44hemisphere. The storm is the size of Earth and moves at a speed of 1,500 mph. These winds are
00:45:51the strongest ever recorded on any planet of the Solar System. In the history of space exploration,
00:45:57only 5 spacecraft have managed to leave the gravitational pull of the Solar System.
00:46:02Those were Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and New Horizons. People launch thousands of
00:46:09objects into space. These objects easily overcome Earth's gravity. But the Sun is around 300,000
00:46:16times as massive as our home planet. That's why its gravitational pull is way more difficult to
00:46:21find. Even more impressively, Voyager 2 is the second human-made object in history to reach
00:46:28the space between stars after passing through the heliosphere. That's a bubble of magnetic
00:46:33fields and particles produced by the Sun and protecting the Solar System. Two years after
00:46:39its launch, Voyager 2 started transmitting the first images of Jupiter. The space probe provided
00:46:44scientists with much-needed information about Io and Europa, some of the largest of Jupiter's moons.
00:46:50Then the space mission passed by the gas giant itself. The distance between the spacecraft and
00:46:55the planet was around 400,000 miles. That's when the probe noticed some changes in the shape and
00:47:01color of the great red spot. It's an enormous, long-lived storm system, like a hurricane on Earth,
00:47:07but much, much larger. Two years later, Voyager 2 reached Saturn. It discovered spokes and kinks
00:47:14in some of the planet's rings. While the spacecraft was flying behind and up past the gas giant,
00:47:20it passed through the plane of Saturn's rings. At that time, Voyager's speed was around 8 miles
00:47:25per second. For several minutes, the probe was hit by thousands of micron-sized grains of dust.
00:47:31This kept shifting the probe's direction, and its control jets had to fire many times to stabilize
00:47:36the vehicle. After Voyager 2 explored Uranus and Neptune, it headed out of the solar system.
00:47:44Its instruments were put in low power to save energy. In August 2007, the spacecraft passed
00:47:50the terminal shock. It's the boundary marking the outer limit of the Sun's influence. Here,
00:47:56the solar wind slows down. In the summer of 2013, the probe reached interstellar space.
00:48:03Now, when it comes to sending and receiving signals in space, there are three factors you
00:48:08should keep in mind – distance, power, and time. The farther away a spacecraft is, the farther a
00:48:15signal has to travel before it reaches it, and the longer it takes for the signal to catch up
00:48:19with the spacecraft. And when it finally gets there, it's extremely weak. Another problem is
00:48:25that once the spacecraft is launched, it can't be upgraded. It's literally stuck with the technology
00:48:31it was outfitted with. Plus, such spaceships as Voyager 2 are powered by radioactive fuel. When
00:48:37special material radioactively decays, it releases heat that gets converted into electricity.
00:48:43Unfortunately, the more material decays away, the less power the spacecraft has for receiving and
00:48:49transmitting radio signals. Despite this issue, we haven't lost the connection with Voyager 1 and 2.
00:48:56That's because new and more powerful technologies appear on Earth. Signals people send can reach
00:49:01much farther than before. That's why it was possible to stay in touch with Voyager 2,
00:49:06which entered interstellar space in 2018 and has already traveled almost 12 billion miles
00:49:12away from Earth. But in March 2020, the main piece of equipment that allowed scientists to
00:49:17exchange signals with the spaceship was switched off. After the communication with the spacecraft
00:49:23stopped, NASA spent around 11 months upgrading its deep space network and installing new hardware.
00:49:29The DSN is an international array of huge radio antennas that help astronomers on Earth
00:49:35communicate with interplanetary missions. These antennas are located in California,
00:49:40Madrid, and Canberra. The one used to keep in touch with Voyager 2 is a 230-foot-wide dish
00:49:46in Canberra. This is the only equipment that can send commands that can reach the probe.
00:49:51This antenna, known as DSS-43, started operating in 1972, 5 years before Voyager 2 and 1 were
00:49:59launched. At that time, it was only 210 feet across. Since then, the dish has received a
00:50:05lot of repairs and upgrades, but these 11 months were the longest the antenna was offline.
00:50:11In October 2020, the antenna was finally ready for a trial after all the upgrades and repairs.
00:50:17The mission operators sent a set of commands to Voyager 2, and after many months of radio silence,
00:50:23the spacecraft returned the signal. The probe confirmed it had heard the call. After that,
00:50:29the spacecraft carried out the commands. While the dish was offline, the mission
00:50:34operators could actually receive scientific data and health updates from Voyager 2.
00:50:39Astronomers kept getting data from interstellar space, the region outside the Sun's heliosphere.
00:50:45But they couldn't send any commands to the probe, since it had traveled too far away from Earth.
00:50:50The upgraded antenna received two new radio transmitters, and it was done just in time.
00:50:56One of the transmitters, that was used to communicate with Voyager 2,
00:50:59hadn't been replaced in almost 50 years. The antenna also got new cooling and heating equipment
00:51:05and other electronics necessary to support the advanced transmitters.
00:51:10Now, a curious thing about the Deep Space Network is that its radio antennas are positioned in a
00:51:15very precise way. They're spaced equally around the globe. This way, almost any spacecraft can
00:51:21stay in touch with at least one facility at all times. But Voyager 2 is an exception. In 1989,
00:51:28it made a close flyby of Triton, Neptune's moon. It was the only close encounter people had with
00:51:34the 8th planet of the Solar System and its moon. By the way, Triton is the largest known object
00:51:40that is believed to be born in the Kuiper Belt. That's a donut-shaped ring around the Sun full
00:51:45of icy objects. Voyager 2 discovered Neptune's ring system and its tiny inner moons.
00:51:51The probe also gathered a lot of amazing information about Triton.
00:51:55For example, it became clear that the moon is covered in cryovolcanoes. Instead of spewing
00:52:01molten rock, these volcanoes spit ice consisting of water, ammonia, and methane. When the New
00:52:07Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto more than 25 years later, it discovered the same phenomenon
00:52:13on the dwarf planet. Anyway, to make this detour, Voyager 2 had to travel over the gas giant's
00:52:20North Pole. But this changed the probe's trajectory, deflecting it southward relative to the
00:52:25planes of the planets. Since then, Voyager 2 has been moving in that direction. And now,
00:52:31the spacecraft is so far away that it's out of reach of the radio antennas in the Northern
00:52:35Hemisphere, those in Madrid and California. This makes DSS-43, which is located in the Southern
00:52:42Hemisphere, the only dish powerful enough in broadcasting just the right frequency to send
00:52:47commands to Voyager 2. Voyager 1, the probe's faster-traveling twin, didn't change its trajectory.
00:52:54After passing by Saturn, it took a different path. That's why now it can easily communicate
00:52:59with the two facilities in the Northern Hemisphere. The upgrade the Canberra Deep
00:53:04Space Communication Complex has gone through can also benefit other space missions. For example,
00:53:10the Mars Perseverance rover that landed on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021.
00:53:16The dish will also be crucial for exploring other planets and the Moon.
00:53:20Venus most likely used to be covered with oceans, from 30 to 1,000 feet deep. Also,
00:53:30some water was locked in the soil of the planet. On top of that, Venus had stable temperatures of
00:53:3568 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, which, you have to admit, was quite pleasant and not that different
00:53:42from the temperatures on Earth nowadays. So, what I'm getting at is that for 3 billion years,
00:53:47right until something irrevocable happened 700 million years ago,
00:53:51Venus could've been habitable. But now, it's not.
00:53:56The Moon is the second brightest object in our sky. At the same time, among other astronomical
00:54:02bodies, it's one of the dimmest and least reflective. Our natural satellite only seems
00:54:07bright because it's so close to Earth. For comparison, our planet looks much brighter
00:54:12when you look at it from space. It's because clouds, ice, and snow reflect way more light
00:54:17than most types of rock. Triton, Neptune's moon, has all its surface covered with several layers
00:54:23of ice. If this satellite replaced our current moon, the night sky would get 7 times brighter.
00:54:31Neutron stars are some of the smallest, yet most massive objects in space.
00:54:36They're usually about 12 miles in diameter, but are several times heavier than the Sun.
00:54:41Oh, and they also spin about 600 times per second, far faster than your average figure skater.
00:54:49Saturn is the least dense planet in the Solar System. It has one-eighth the average Earth's
00:54:55density. And still, because of its large volume, the planet is 95 times more massive than Earth.
00:55:02A transient lunar phenomenon is one of the most enigmatic things happening on the Moon.
00:55:07It's a short-lived light, color, or some other change on the satellite's surface.
00:55:12Most commonly, it's random flashes of light. Astronomers have been observing this phenomenon
00:55:18since the 1950s. They've noticed that the flashes occur randomly. Sometimes,
00:55:23they can happen several times a week. After that, they disappear for several months. Some of them
00:55:28don't last longer than a couple of minutes, but there have been those that continued for hours.
00:55:34The year was 1969, one day before Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. One of the mission participants
00:55:41noticed that one part of the lunar surface was more illuminated than the surrounding landscape.
00:55:46It looked as if that area had a kind of fluorescence to it. Unfortunately,
00:55:51it's still unclear if this phenomenon was connected with the mysterious lunar flashes.
00:55:56Trash isn't just a problem in Earth's oceans, cities, and forests. There is a thing called
00:56:01space junk, which is any human-made object that's been left in space and now serves no purpose.
00:56:07There's also natural debris from meteoroids and other cosmic objects.
00:56:11There are currently over 500,000 pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth at speeds high enough
00:56:17to cause significant damage if they were to collide with a spacecraft or satellite. NASA does
00:56:23its best to track every single object to ensure that missions outside Earth can reach their
00:56:28destination safely. Our Sun is insanely massive. Want some proof? 99.86% of all the mass in the
00:56:37Solar System is the mass of the Sun, in particular the hydrogen and helium it's made of. The remaining
00:56:440.14% is mostly the mass of the Solar System's 8 planets. The Sun's temperature is hotter than
00:56:51the surface of a star. The surface temperature reaches 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but the upper
00:56:56atmosphere heats up to millions of degrees. If someone could dig a tunnel straight into the
00:57:02center of the planet and out the opposite side, and you were adventurous enough to jump into it,
00:57:08it would take you 42 minutes to fall to the other side. You'd speed up as you fell,
00:57:14reaching maximum speed by the time you reached Earth's core. After the halfway point, you would
00:57:19then fall upwards, getting slower and slower. By the time you reached the opposite surface,
00:57:25your speed would be back to zero. Unless you managed to climb out of the hole,
00:57:29you'd immediately start falling again, back down, or up, to the other side of the planet.
00:57:35This trip would go on forever, all thanks to the weird effects of gravity.
00:57:39Hey, might be a fun way to spend an afternoon!
00:57:43There might be more metals, for example, titanium or iron, in lunar craters than astronomers used
00:57:50to think. The main problem with this finding? It contradicts the main theory about how the
00:57:55Moon was formed. That theory says that Earth's natural satellite was spun off from our planet
00:58:00after a collision with a massive space object. But then, why does Earth's metal-poor crust
00:58:07have much less iron oxide than the Moon's? It might mean the Moon was formed from the material
00:58:13lying much deeper inside our planet. Or these metals could've appeared when the molten lunar
00:58:18surface was slowly cooling down. Or maybe, as they've been saying for centuries, it's made of
00:58:23green cheese. Earth could've been purple before it turned blue and green. One scientist has a theory
00:58:31that a substance existed in ancient microbes before chlorophyll, that thing that makes plants
00:58:37green, evolved on Earth. This substance reflected sunlight in red and violet colors, which combined
00:58:43to make purple. If true, the young Earth may have been teeming with strange purple-colored
00:58:48critters before all the green stuff appeared. The highest mountain in the Solar System is
00:58:54Olympus Mons on Mars. It's three times as high as Mount Everest, the Earth's highest mountain
00:59:00above sea level. If you were standing on top of Olympus Mons, you wouldn't understand you
00:59:05were standing on a mountain. Its slopes would be hidden by the planet's curvature.
00:59:10Astronomers have found a massive reservoir of water in space, the largest ever detected. Too
00:59:17bad it's also the farthest, 12 billion light-years away from us. The water vapor cloud holds 140
00:59:23trillion times as much water as all the Earth's oceans combined. What are we supposed to do with
00:59:29that information? Venus spins at its own unhurried pace. A full rotation takes 243 Earth days,
00:59:37and it takes the planet a bit less than 225 Earth days to go all the way around the Sun.
00:59:43It means a day on Venus is longer than a year. There's very little seismic activity going on
00:59:49inside the moon. Yet many moonquakes, caused by our planet's gravitational pull, sometimes happen
00:59:55several miles below the surface. After that, tiny cracks and fissures appear in the satellite
01:00:01surface, and gases escape through them. Hey, they sometimes escape from me too!
01:00:08Mars is the last of the inner planets, which are also called terrestrial since they're made up of
01:00:13rocks and metals. The red planet has a core made mostly of iron, nickel, and sulfur. It's between
01:00:19900 and 1200 miles across. The core doesn't move. That's why Mars lacks a planet-wide magnetic
01:00:26field. The weak magnetic field it has is just 1,100% of the Earth's.
01:00:34When the planets in the Solar System were just starting to form, Earth didn't have a moon for
01:00:39the longest time. It took 100 million years for our natural satellite to appear. There are several
01:00:45theories as to how the moon came into existence, but the prevailing one is the fission theory.
01:00:51Did somebody go fishing and caught the moon? Actually, no. The fission theory proposes that
01:00:58the moon was formed when an object collided with Earth, sending particles flying about.
01:01:04Gravity pulled the particles together, and the moon was created. It eventually settled down on
01:01:09the Earth's ecliptic plane, which is the path that the moon orbits. So, looks like the green
01:01:14cheese is off the table now. The largest single living thing on Earth
01:01:20turns out to be a mushroom in Oregon. This enormous honey mushroom lives in Malheur National Forest
01:01:25and covers an area of 3.7 square miles. It could be as much as 8,500 years old.
01:01:32You could be forgiven for missing it, though, since most of it's hidden underground.
01:01:38When the roots of individual honey mushrooms meet, they can fuse together to become a single fungus.
01:01:44Which explains how this one got so big. If you could gather all that mushrooming stuff into one
01:01:50big ball, it could weigh as much as 35,000 tons. That's about as heavy as 200 grey whales. Hey,
01:01:58that's a whale of a mushroom. The largest asteroid in the Solar System is called Vesta,
01:02:04and it's so big that it's sometimes even called a dwarf planet. A trip to the nearest star,
01:02:10apart from the Sun, would take you 5 million years on a commercial airplane.
01:02:14That's what I call a long-haul flight. Space isn't supposed to be black. There
01:02:19are stars everywhere. Shouldn't they light up everything around? Well, you don't see
01:02:24stars wherever you look because some of them haven't existed long enough for their light to
01:02:29reach Earth. A day on Uranus lasts 17 hours, 14 minutes, and 24 seconds. But get this,
01:02:37the planet has a tilt of around 98 degrees. And that makes a season on the gas giant last 21
01:02:44Earth years. Some scientists believe that our planet used to have an additional satellite.
01:02:50According to their research, a small celestial body about 750 miles wide orbited Earth like
01:02:57a second moon. It most likely crashed into our main satellite later on. Such a collision could
01:03:03explain why the two sides of the moon look so different from each other,
01:03:07one being heavily cratered and rough. Or it could be the green cheese.
01:03:17At a distance of 640 light-years from the Sun, scientists discovered planet WASP-76b,
01:03:24where it rains iron. The planet is very close to its Sun and always turn to it in the same side.
01:03:30The term is tidally locked. The temperature on the sunny side is so high that metals melt and
01:03:36evaporate there. The other half of the planet is cool enough so that metals condense again and fall
01:03:42down as rain. Speaking of tidal locks, our Moon is the same way. There's no dark side to our satellite,
01:03:49it's just always turned to us with one side. When the Moon happens to be in between the Earth and
01:03:54the Sun, what we call its dark side becomes brightly lit. We just can't see it from our
01:04:00planet. Figures. A recent study claims that the Moon has a tail. And every month, it wraps around
01:04:07our planet like a scarf. A slender tail made up of millions of atoms of sodium follows Earth's
01:04:13natural satellite. And our planet regularly travels directly through it. Meteor strikes
01:04:19blast these sodium atoms out of the Moon's surface and further into space. You won't believe it,
01:04:24but the Moon seems to be shrinking. Earth's natural satellite is now 150 feet smaller than
01:04:30it used to be hundreds of millions of years ago. The reason for this phenomenon might be the cooling
01:04:37of the Moon's insides. It could also explain the quakes shaking the surface of our planet's natural
01:04:42satellite. Astronomers have recently found out that Mars is seismically active. Mars quakes occur
01:04:49there on a regular basis. For several days every month, the Moon remains between the Sun and our
01:04:55planet. That's when Earth's gravity picks up that sodium tail. Our planet drags it into a long stripe
01:05:01that wraps around its atmosphere. This lunar tail is totally harmless. It's also invisible to the
01:05:07human eye, 50 times dimmer than what you can perceive. But on those rare days, high-powered
01:05:14telescopes can spot its faint yellowish glow in the sky. The tail looks like a gleaming spot that's
01:05:20five times the Moon's full diameter. Turns out there are plenty of planets in the Universe,
01:05:26and even in the Milky Way galaxy, that have liquid or frozen water on them.
01:05:30The closest one is within our solar system. It's Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Scientists are
01:05:36almost sure that, underneath its frozen surface, there's an actual ocean of water. But it's too
01:05:43soon to be hyped about possible life on such planets. Liquid water is only one of many things
01:05:48that have to come together for life to appear on a planet. A star in the galaxy GSN 069 is likely to
01:05:56turn into a planet the size of Jupiter in the next trillion years. It might happen because of the
01:06:01star's regular encounters with a black hole. First, astronomers noticed unusual X-ray bursts
01:06:07that were strangely bright. They went off every 9 hours. After studying this phenomenon for some
01:06:14time, the scientists realized it was a star moving in a unique orbit around a black hole.
01:06:20The dazzling flashes? It was the material getting slurped off the star's surface by the black hole.
01:06:26It turned out that over millions of years, the black hole had already transformed the red giant
01:06:31into a white dwarf. And the process isn't going to stop whatsoever. Astronomers have found some
01:06:37traces of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. On our planet, this gas, colorless and flammable,
01:06:44is often found where microbes live. No wonder a new theory suggests that there might be life on
01:06:49Venus. But even if there was some life on the evening star, it could have only appeared in
01:06:55its atmosphere. Probably no living organism would be able to survive the planet's extreme
01:07:00environment. Venus's surface is extremely dry, there's no liquid water on the planet,
01:07:06and the pressure there is 90 times greater than that on Earth's surface. The temperatures often
01:07:11rise higher than 900 degrees. That's hot enough to melt some metals. As for vacations there,
01:07:17I'll pass. In fact, there's a place millions of light-years away where there's a whole floating
01:07:23space cloud made entirely of water. There's so much of it that we could fill all our oceans 140
01:07:30trillion times over. Slightly more than what we need. Water on Earth is actually a puzzle
01:07:36shrouded in mystery and covered with riddles. The most popular theory is that it was brought
01:07:41to our planet by icy comets and asteroids that left behind not only mighty craters,
01:07:46but the liquid substance thanks to which we can now thrive. But in space, there's a whole
01:07:52lot of organic matter, and under specific conditions, it could yield so much water,
01:07:57it would be enough to fill our oceans thousands of times over. Researchers conducted an experiment
01:08:03in which they heated this organic matter and obtained clear water and oil. If this is confirmed
01:08:09in future studies, it could mean that even oil appeared on Earth not only thanks to fossilized
01:08:14remains of living beings, but came from outer space as well. And yet, there might just be about
01:08:216 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone. The latest data has shown that
01:08:26every fifth Sun-like star can have at least one planet in its habitable zone. And not just any
01:08:32planet, mind you, it has a rocky core and surface, and it's of comparable size to the Earth. Being
01:08:39inside the habitable zone of its star, such a planet would have high chances of becoming home
01:08:44to living creatures, microbes at least. And if there are billions of these planets in our galaxy,
01:08:50you could safely say that at least one of them is not only habitable, but inhabited already.
01:08:56And now, multiply this by the number of galaxies in the Universe, also considering that many of
01:09:02them are much bigger than the Milky Way. This gives us billions upon billions of Sun-like stars
01:09:08and Earth-like planets, and some of them are surely more like ours than others. And get this,
01:09:14we might be able to walk upright because of supernova explosions. About 2.5 million years
01:09:19ago, a supernova sent cosmic rays to our planet. They triggered a series of electrical storms in
01:09:25the Earth's atmosphere, which turned into thunderstorms. Those, in turn, caused wildfires
01:09:31in Northeast Africa, where our earlier ancestors lived. Fires turned the forest area into a savanna,
01:09:37the atmospheric pressure changed, and our ancestors had to stand on two legs to survive.
01:09:43The biggest explosion since the Big Bang was registered in 2019.
01:09:47This happened in the Ophiuchus Cluster, which unites thousands of galaxies. According to
01:09:52scientists, the blast was equal to 20 billion billion, that's 18 zeros, megaton explosions
01:09:58happening once a millisecond for 240 million years. I'll have to trust that, my math is not
01:10:04that good. In 2019, NASA's InSight lander, whose goal was to study the interior of Mars,
01:10:11registered the first Mars quake ever. These quakes were coming fast, about two per day.
01:10:17Most of them were tiny, you wouldn't even feel them if they happened on our planet.
01:10:21So far, more than 300 Mars quakes have been detected. Those are the first quakes on any
01:10:26space body other than Earth and the Moon. Another mysterious phenomenon discovered
01:10:31by the mission was bizarre magnetic pulses. They occurred every midnight around the lander.
01:10:37It's still unclear what those pulses were. Maybe after midnight, they're going to let it all hang
01:10:42out. Or something. Pluto's atmosphere rises much higher above the surface of the dwarf planet than,
01:10:48let's say, Earth's. It also has more than 20 layers, all of them freezing cold and extremely
01:10:54condensed. Remember the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth? Hey, I wasn't around then.
01:10:59But who could forget? There might've been another space show that ended badly for at least 75% of
01:11:05all life on our planet in the past. Roughly 360 million years ago, a supernova explosion occurred
01:11:12about 65 light-years away from us, and the cosmic rays sent by it swept away the ozone layer of our
01:11:19pretty blue ball. Wow, tough neighborhood. Many people would like to fly into space.
01:11:28Zero gravity, a stunning view of Earth from one side, and the boundlessly frightening black area
01:11:33from the other. Yeah, it's all cool. But don't forget that this journey can turn into a nightmare.
01:11:40Lack of oxygen, floating in outer space, and staying in a spaceship for a long time without
01:11:45understanding when you can return home. This last thing happened to a Russian cosmonaut.
01:11:51His stay in space is one of the longest in the world. 33-year-old flight engineer Sergey Krikalev
01:11:58spent 311 days in zero gravity on the Mir space station. But that's not the most interesting part
01:12:04of this story. Sergey's long journey began on May 18th, 1991. That day, he boarded a transport ship
01:12:12and went into space to the Mir space station. On May 20th, the docking with the station was
01:12:17completed. There, together with another engineer, Sergey performed his space duties. They went on
01:12:23spacewalks several times, did repairs, took care of the station, and conducted scientific experiments.
01:12:29When you have company and a lot of work, living in space is not so hard. But things got worse
01:12:35on the day when Sergey was supposed to return home. According to the plan, the mission should
01:12:40have lasted for five months. A new astronaut was supposed to replace the old ones. The transport
01:12:46ship had finally docked with the station. But on October 10th, only one astronaut returned to Earth.
01:12:52Sergey was left alone at the Mir station. He continued to work as the sole flight engineer
01:12:57of the crew. The station couldn't remain empty. They had to send someone to replace Sergey.
01:13:02He wasn't ready for such a long stay in space. He hadn't trained for it. But there was no choice.
01:13:08He couldn't just leave the station. One month passed. They informed Sergey that he would return
01:13:14home soon. But something happened that no one expected. They contacted Sergey and said he
01:13:20couldn't return, since the country that promised to bring him home no longer existed. During this
01:13:25time, a big crisis began in Russia. The cosmonaut's return was impossible, since no one had the money
01:13:32for it. Just imagine Sergey's condition. You were hundreds of miles from home, in black outer space,
01:13:39completely alone, and have no idea how many days you have left to be there.
01:13:44The days passed slowly. Weeks, then a month passed. It would have been much easier if being in space
01:13:50was not harmful to your health. But in conditions of zero gravity, the human body takes serious
01:13:56damage. First, it's a weakening of the muscles. The body doesn't receive the necessary load it needs,
01:14:02and the muscles are constantly in a relaxed state, leading to dystrophy. Yes, astronauts do a set of
01:14:08exercises every day, but this is not enough to keep the body in shape. In addition to muscles,
01:14:14bones begin to weaken, and a person becomes weak. Even after six months of such a life,
01:14:20any astronaut needs a long time to get back into their previous shape after returning home. Also,
01:14:26there's a lot of radiation in space, which is dangerous for people. It comes from several
01:14:31sources at once. The main radiation comes from the Sun. On Earth, we're protected from it,
01:14:37thanks to the planet's magnetic field. Almost all radiation accumulates in the upper atmosphere
01:14:42and doesn't reach us. This accumulation of radiation in the atmosphere is also bad for
01:14:47astronauts. But the worst radiation is the galactic one. It comes from distant stars and galaxies,
01:14:54and has a powerful effect on all living things. Radiation provokes many unfavorable conditions
01:15:00and destroys the body at the cellular level. Now, all spaceships and the ISS are equipped
01:15:06with shields and coatings that reflect radiation. But still, it doesn't provide 100% protection.
01:15:13In space, the astronaut's immune system changes. There are no conditions under which immunity
01:15:19could improve. It seems that there's nothing wrong with the absence of many bacteria and microbes,
01:15:24but the body's defense is weakening. A person becomes more vulnerable to microbes that can
01:15:29be brought by another astronaut. You also have serious food restrictions. Food in tubes doesn't
01:15:35contain as many useful vitamins as it does in natural products. Without vitamins, the body
01:15:41weakens even more. And sometimes, astronauts have to go on spacewalks, which aren't easy.
01:15:48A spacesuit is a huge and uncomfortable outfit. It constrains your movements and puts pressure
01:15:54on your body. Work in space can last up to several hours. During this time, you sweat a lot. One of
01:16:01the suit's filters may be broken, and all the fluid released by your body can spread throughout
01:16:06the suit and reach your face. Your eyes may water. The drops could interfere with your vision.
01:16:12Thousands of dangers can await an astronaut during a mission in outer space. Imagine that you do some
01:16:18repairs and something goes wrong. The wrench jumps off the bolt and it flies out, for example. You
01:16:24try to catch it and unconsciously push off from the ship. You catch the bolt, but your body is
01:16:29already flying away. You have nothing to hold on to. But fortunately, you have a safety rope. Anyway,
01:16:36it can break off from your spacesuit because you attached it incorrectly. As soon as the rope
01:16:41breaks, your body changes the angle of flight. Now you're not just flying away. Your body is spinning
01:16:47at this moment. The Earth and black space flash in your eyes. So you get it. There are definitely
01:16:54risks, but nothing like that happened with Sergei. All astronauts spend many hours training to be
01:17:00ready for any troubles. They gain good physical shape and lose it during the mission. Add to this
01:17:06the psychological factor. Your body weakens. You don't breathe fresh air. You can't see your friends,
01:17:12and you don't have the opportunity to return home. A small layer of wall separates you from the cold
01:17:18vacuum of space. All this causes stress, which also weakens your immunity and harms your nervous
01:17:24system. Fortunately, astronauts also get through serious psychological training. They can maintain
01:17:30self-control in the most stressful situations. But when you're alone in space for more than six
01:17:36months and don't know when you'll return, you can get seriously nervous. Fortunately, Sergei didn't
01:17:42panic. He performed his daily duties, trained, and of course, missed home. A month later, he received
01:17:49the same response. We can't bring you back yet. The country is in a difficult situation. He felt
01:17:55worse every day. His strength was leaving him. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to survive. The most
01:18:01interesting thing is the station had a capsule developed to return to Earth, but Sergei didn't
01:18:07use it because no one would have served the station. Russia sold the station seats to other
01:18:12countries. Also, they hoped to sell Mir. This meant that Sergei had to keep the station working.
01:18:20Sergei's mission lasted twice as long as planned. As a result, he spent 10 months, or 311 days,
01:18:28in space and set a world record. During this time, he flew around the Earth about 5,000 times.
01:18:35Finally, he received the long-awaited message. He's coming home! Germany paid about 24 million
01:18:42dollars for a ticket to the station. They were going to replace the astronaut. Krikalev got
01:18:47into the capsule and flew to Earth. Many people were waiting for his return down there. The cosmonaut
01:18:53landed, and everyone rushed to help him. He looked very thin, sweaty, and exhausted. Four men helped
01:19:00him out of the capsule. They helped him stay on the ground, gave him a fur coat, and brought a
01:19:05bowl of broth. It seemed that such a flight would leave an imprint on his life forever. But the
01:19:11cosmonaut's mood was excellent. Two years later, he went into space again and became the first
01:19:17Russian cosmonaut to fly on a NASA shuttle. And two years later, he was one of the first to live
01:19:24on the ISS. In 2005, he made his sixth and last flight. He went to the ISS, where he spent about
01:19:32six months, after which he returned home on the lander. After this flight, he set a world record
01:19:39for the total duration of stay in space at 803 days. Only 10 years later, someone managed to
01:19:46break that record. But that's a different story. People stop their cars on the highway, get out of
01:19:53them, and lift their heads in wonder. In the cities, everyone takes to the streets. Balconies
01:19:59and rooftops of houses are full of people staring at the moon in shock. It's red. Some people scream
01:20:06that it's the end of the world. Some seek shelter. Indeed, the usual white moon now looks like it's
01:20:13been doused in red paint. There's no need to be afraid if you see such a thing. On the contrary,
01:20:19enjoy the view. Because you have witnessed a rare astronomical phenomenon. This is a total lunar
01:20:25eclipse. Here's the sun. It's in the center of our solar system. Mercury, Venus, and here's Earth
01:20:33and the moon. The Earth takes 365 days to orbit around the star. At the same time, the moon
01:20:39revolves around the Earth and completely orbits our planet in 27 days. The Earth creates a shadow
01:20:46zone, and sometimes the moon passes through it. The shadow is cone-shaped and gradually narrows.
01:20:52The moon is 238,000 miles away. That's like nine lengths of the equator. At this distance,
01:20:59the width of the shadow is about 2.6 times the width of the moon. When the moon is in this zone,
01:21:06direct sunlight doesn't reach it. That is, it should have disappeared. But instead, it becomes
01:21:13red. All because the sun's rays pass through the Earth's atmosphere. They scatter, and most of the
01:21:19blue light disappears. But the red and orange rays continue and hit the surface of the moon.
01:21:26Voila! You see a phenomenon called the blood moon. By the way, this curvature of light occurs
01:21:33at sunsets and dawns. The atmosphere scatters the blue light, and you see a red and orange sky.
01:21:40If you were standing on the surface of the moon during a total lunar eclipse,
01:21:44planet Earth would be exactly between you and the sun. So, you would be able to observe the
01:21:49solar eclipse. The surface of the Earth would become entirely dark for you. All you'd see
01:21:55would be the sun's corona illuminating the edges of the planet. The Earth from the surface of the
01:22:00moon is almost the same size as the moon from the surface of the Earth. Such a red eclipse of the
01:22:07moon is rare, because several factors must coincide. One of them is that the moon must be
01:22:13full. Usually, you can see two total lunar eclipses a year. In 2038, you'll be able to see four such
01:22:20eclipses. And the eclipse itself can last up to 108 minutes. But this is rare, and the last time
01:22:28such a long blood moon was seen was in 2000. Many years ago, people didn't know so many facts about
01:22:34our satellite, and the sight of a red moon frightened them. It was a bad sign and a harbinger
01:22:40of trouble. People who knew the schedule of eclipses could take advantage of it. For example,
01:22:46Christopher Columbus had an astronomical almanac and knew when the next lunar eclipse would occur.
01:22:53He frightened the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands when he predicted the red moon.
01:22:58Once upon a time, the moon used to be a red ball of lava. This was way back in time, 4.5 billion
01:23:05years ago. Now this is our solar system. It's full of dust and asteroids. They're constantly
01:23:11bumping into each other, playing space billiards. This is Earth. It's just beginning to cool off
01:23:17from the constant asteroid and comet impacts. But then, Theia appears on the horizon, a planet the
01:23:24size of Mars. It had a chaotic orbit and was approaching Earth in a spiral. A collision was
01:23:31inevitable, and at one point, one of the biggest crashes in our solar system occurred. Theia struck
01:23:37the Earth at an angle. It ripped out part of the Earth's crust and threw it into space. The Earth,
01:23:43in turn, absorbed part of the planet that rammed it. The debris from the collision circled the Earth
01:23:48for a long time. They were a kind of ring, almost like Saturn's. Debris in orbit collided and piled
01:23:55up around a common center of gravity. And that's how the Earth got the moon. There's a theory that
01:24:01this collision helped give birth to life on our planet. Theia hit the Earth at a perfect angle.
01:24:07If the crash had been head-on, both planets would likely have been destroyed in a massive explosion.
01:24:14If the impact had been tangential, then there wouldn't have been enough debris in Earth's orbit
01:24:19to form the moon. But we got the lucky ticket. The moon stabilized the Earth's rotation. The
01:24:25collision shattered the planet's solid crust and allowed oceans to form. Remember, water is the
01:24:31basis of life. When the cores of Earth and Theia merged, we got a powerful magnetosphere. This
01:24:38protects all living organisms from solar radiation. The moon, along with the sun, controls
01:24:44the tides. Its gravity seems to draw water to it from the Earth's surface. The sun does the same
01:24:50thing. That is, if we imagine the Earth as a ball of water, there would be two mountains, one on the
01:24:57moon's side and one on the sun's side. And as the moon moves around the Earth, this mountain of water
01:25:03moves with it. If you were in the open ocean with a tape measure, you would see that the
01:25:08moon is attracting water to itself by about four to six inches. The moon is gravitationally locked
01:25:15with the Earth. That's why it's always turned to us with one side, like Mercury and the sun. But
01:25:21the moon doesn't stand still. It's gradually moving away from our planet, about 1.5 inches a year.
01:25:28Not quickly, but in about 600 million years, it will have shrunk in our sky so much that we won't
01:25:34be able to see lunar eclipses anymore. Do you see this crater? It's Tycho. It's visible during a
01:25:40full moon because of these bright rays that extend thousands of miles from its epicenter.
01:25:45This is the youngest crater on the moon. Scientists say it appeared there due to a
01:25:50meteorite impact about 109 million years ago. At that time, dinosaurs were roaming the surface
01:25:56of our planet, and they may have seen the impact. It was most likely accompanied by a big explosion
01:26:03and looked like a salute in the night sky. Humanity loves to explore the moon. We've sent
01:26:09a bunch of missions there. A total of 12 people have set foot on the surface of the moon.
01:26:14The gravitational force there is six times less than on Earth. So if the average person on our
01:26:20planet weighed about 180 pounds, on the surface of the moon, the scales would only show 30 pounds,
01:26:26like the weight of an average dog. That's why the astronauts moved, jumped, and fell so strangely there.
01:26:34And you would be six times stronger on the surface of the moon. Here on Earth, the average person
01:26:39could lift about 130 pounds. But on the moon, you could raise a big motorcycle or a grizzly bear.
01:26:47The surface of the moon is covered with regolith. This is the lunar dust that covers the solid
01:26:52ground. Such dust is good at preserving footprints. Here's the most famous footprint, which gave birth
01:26:58to many crazy theories. Here's the footprint, and here's the shoe that left it. But the shoe is
01:27:05completely flat. This is explained simply. The astronauts wore extra boots for walking on the
01:27:11lunar surface. They have exactly the kind of sole that left these marks. In addition to the footprints,
01:27:17we left many fascinating objects on the moon. Several lunar rovers, a golf ball, flags, and
01:27:23human waste. There's also a lot of broken satellites and rocket parts. All in all, about 413,000
01:27:31pounds of human-made objects are there. That's the weight of three passenger planes or 31 adult
01:27:37elephants. In the future, we plan to resume missions to the moon. New landers will explore
01:27:43the surface of our satellite to find natural resources there. It's also a great place to test
01:27:48new rovers. We're even going to build something like the International Space Station in the moon's
01:27:53orbit, the Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway. It'll be a convenient platform for exploring our satellite
01:28:00and launching spacecraft into distant space. If you start from here, the spacecraft won't need
01:28:05to spend almost all its fuel to overcome the force of Earth's gravity. So, such a station would save
01:28:11fuel and money. Scientists hope that we'll be able to mine water from the moon's surface. It's been
01:28:18proven that there's ice there, mostly at the bottom of craters where the sunlight doesn't reach.
01:28:23Perhaps we'll send a rover there that can drill down a few feet into the surface, searching for
01:28:28water. Humanity already has the technology to build a full-fledged colony there. It would take up to
01:28:34three days to get there. We just need to get enough solar panels and building materials to the moon.
01:28:40There's no atmosphere on the moon, so potential lunar inhabitants would be defenseless against
01:28:45solar radiation. We would have to build houses underground to provide protection. Modern 3D
01:28:51printers will help make construction easy and fast. However, food and water supplies can only be
01:28:57maintained by constant supplies from Earth. The same goes for oxygen. Each rocket launch costs
01:29:03millions of dollars, so for now, colonization of the moon is in question. The moon could also become
01:29:10an object for space tourism. Imagine a spaceship launches from Earth. Three days on the road, and
01:29:16you're orbiting the moon. The lunar module undocks, and you land on the surface. You ride the rover,
01:29:23explore the craters, then return to the lander. The engines start. The lander returns you to orbit.
01:29:29You dock with the ship and return to Earth. Sounds like some pretty great plans for a week's vacation.
01:29:36Hey MythBusters! Today we're debunking some classic space myths.
01:29:40Hop on the next space shuttle, and let's get to the bottom of these tales once and for all.
01:29:47Picture this. You're floating weightlessly in space, sipping on a cup of delicious hot chocolate,
01:29:53when a peculiar thought pops into your head. Can you scream in outer space?
01:29:58And if yes, would anyone hear that scream?
01:30:11It's not that sounds don't exist, it's just that you can't hear them.
01:30:15There's no one better to clarify this myth than Chris Hadfield. He's been on a couple of space
01:30:21walks during his life as an astronaut, and once you're out there in the darkness of space,
01:30:27you can't hear anything. All you hear is silence. Complete silence. But hey, just around the corner
01:30:35is a massive ball of explosion, aka the sun. We just can't hear the explosions happening because
01:30:41there's no medium for sound to travel through. It would be quite uncomfortable for an astronaut
01:30:46though if they could hear all the noises going on in outer space. Now imagine you're zipping
01:30:53through space, feeling like a futuristic superhero, when a shooting star passes by your side. But wait,
01:31:00is it really a star? Unfortunately, shooting stars are not stars at all. They are small space rocks
01:31:07known as meteoroids, entering Earth's atmosphere and creating a stunning light show. Oh, and since
01:31:15we're debunking myths, let's head straight for another one. You've probably heard that meteors
01:31:21only crash into Earth on extremely rare occasions, like once every dinosaur extinguishing apocalypse.
01:31:28That's not true. Scientists estimate that about 48 tons of meteoritic material fall on Earth
01:31:35each day. But almost all of this material is vaporized in Earth's atmosphere. The bright
01:31:41trail we see in the night sky is what we popularly call a shooting star. Next time you make a wish
01:31:47upon a shooting star, remember you're actually hoping on a tiny piece of space debris. It's not
01:31:52so romantic after all. Can we or can we not fly into the stratosphere on air balloons? Apparently,
01:32:02we can. The Earth's stratosphere starts relatively close to the ground, about seven or eight miles up
01:32:08from the Earth's surface, but it continues a long way up. If you were to fly yourself all the way
01:32:14into the stratosphere with some type of air balloon, just make sure you have really good
01:32:19equipment at hand. You'll need a special suit and some breathing devices because air starts to get
01:32:25pretty thin the higher you get. Of course, if you do go all the way up, you need to get a picture
01:32:31of the Earth's curvature. So take a chest harness with you where you can put a special camera or
01:32:36something like that. And how about you live stream the whole thing? That would be a first!
01:32:43Imagine it's been 102 days since you left Earth. You've adapted well to life in outer space,
01:32:49but something weird is happening to your body. You're getting taller. How is that even possible?
01:32:56Don't stress about it, it's completely normal. The truth of the matter is, you're not getting
01:33:01taller. This is what happens to your body when it's not under the effect of gravity.
01:33:06Our body has natural space between vertebrae and joints. On Earth, this space is almost
01:33:13completely squeezed due to the force of gravity. But in space, your body gets some time off of
01:33:18the pushing force of gravity and begins to stretch more and more. So yes, astronauts can grow up to
01:33:253% taller when they're on long missions. And here's a curiosity. NASA has that all covered
01:33:31when they're tailor-making spacesuits, of course. This way, astronauts will always have extra space
01:33:37in their suits. Once astronauts are back on Earth, the anti-gravity effect will wear off.
01:33:43So maybe they'll spend a few days wearing capri pants before it fits perfectly on their bodies
01:33:47again. Never have I ever pictured an airplane door bursting open mid-flight and a bunch of
01:33:54passengers being sucked into the atmosphere like flying feathers. Well, I'm betting most of you
01:34:00have had similar thoughts when getting inside a plane. Now imagine if this were to happen
01:34:05in outer space. Common knowledge says that if an astronaut is sucked out of an airlock,
01:34:10this person would be burnt to a crisp. Brace yourselves, because this is not only true,
01:34:15but the reality of it is way worse. According to astronaut Chris Hadfield, this is what would
01:34:21happen. The part of your body in the shade of the sun would experience temperatures of negative
01:34:26418 degrees Fahrenheit, while the part of you getting sunlight would burn at around 480 degrees
01:34:34Fahrenheit. Your lungs would collapse, and your blood would start to boil like tea water. So,
01:34:41you would burn, freeze, lose your ability to breathe, and boil. Yikes! How many times have
01:34:49you heard that astronauts have to work out every second of every day, otherwise they'll pass out?
01:34:55This is a complete myth. Remember we talked about gravity earlier? Due to the lack of gravity in
01:35:01outer space, our bodies don't have to do any heavy work, our torsos don't have to sustain the weight
01:35:07of our heads, and we don't have to make any effort to move our legs because, essentially, there's no
01:35:13walking in outer space. Now, imagine living like that for six months, or even a year of your life.
01:35:21Your muscles could turn into jello. That's why astronauts work out. They'll strap themselves and
01:35:27run on a treadmill, or they'll do some weight lifting in a special machine. This way, their
01:35:33muscles won't feel the lack of gravity too much. They do need to keep hydrated though.
01:35:39You know what? If I was an astronaut, I'd ask NASA if I could take my super soft water flask up into
01:35:45space with me. You've probably heard that space smells like burnt steak or barbecue sauce. Now,
01:35:53as much as this sounds absurd, this myth is more true than it is false. Astronauts obviously can't
01:36:00smell space when they're in it because they can't take off their helmets. They usually smell it once
01:36:06a space vehicle docks and they open up a hatch. Apparently, what causes this smell is the presence
01:36:12of hydrocarbons that float around in space. Who would have thought, huh? Hey smart people, let me
01:36:19ask you a question. Do you really think that if astronauts fly at the speed of light, they won't
01:36:24age a single second? I knew you'd say no! Let's get a few things straight. First of all, we haven't
01:36:31figured out how to operate vehicles at the speed of light. This would require an immense amount of
01:36:37energy and we don't have the technology to do that. Second, even if we managed to send a human inside
01:36:43a spacecraft that traveled at the speed of light, this person would still age. They would age
01:36:49differently than the people who remained on Earth, that's a fact, but they would still age.
01:36:54Do you lot really think there's such a thing as immortality? Nah. If you've seen the first Avatar,
01:37:00then you certainly remember that humans only managed to get to Pandora because they traveled
01:37:05in cryosleep. In other words, they froze their bodies, put them in a cryo bed, and traveled for
01:37:11years without aging. Yes, this sounds amazing, but we still don't have the technology to do that.
01:37:17Our bodies are mainly made out of water, right? And when you freeze water, it expands. That's why
01:37:24you should never leave soda cans unattended in your freezer. Right now, if we froze a person's
01:37:29body, the water inside of it would expand, harming tissues and organs. So no, we can't cryosleep our
01:37:36way into interstellar travel. Not yet, at least. Here's a crazy thought. What would happen if an
01:37:44astronaut took a drone with him on one of their spacewalks? Unless it's a NASA-designed drone,
01:37:49maybe the thing would freeze and burn like humans would if they went into space without a suit.
01:37:55But hey, a person can dream, can't they?
01:38:03Houston, we've got good news. A group of select humans is being interviewed to hop on board the
01:38:07first commercial vacation to outer space. The space agency has given you a survey to answer.
01:38:13They want to know what you would pack on this space adventure. Depending on your answers,
01:38:17you just might be one of the chosen ones. Now how about we take a look at that list together?
01:38:25Pencils. I guess I never would have thought of that, but it makes sense. Legend has it that the
01:38:32U.S. spent millions of dollars trying to design a pen that worked in space. You know, since the
01:38:37lack of gravity is a huge, I mean, inescapable factor of life in outer space, pens don't work.
01:38:44The ink won't flow down as it does here on Earth. It turns out that pencils will do the trick.
01:38:49This way you can play word puzzles with the other space tourists, or even make some drawings of your
01:38:54adventure. You'd never forget to pack a toothbrush, of course. According to veteran astronauts,
01:39:00toothbrushes are so simple, yet their technology is enough for space. If you were to squeeze a
01:39:05water bottle inside a spacecraft, the molecules of water would float around in small bubbles.
01:39:10But if you wet your toothbrush, it naturally holds the water in it, keeping it moist to
01:39:14receive your toothpaste. Oh, I was going to say funny socks. Glad that you beat me to it.
01:39:20Here are two things. First, there's not a lot of walking that goes on in space.
01:39:25People don't tend to touch the ground too much up there. And second, space isn't the best place to
01:39:30showcase your fashion style. Astronauts tend to use special clothes while they're out there,
01:39:35and it will be no different for you as a space vacationer. So socks will keep your feet warm
01:39:39and fuzzy, but they'll also speak for your fashion interest. Maybe one day you'll wear a smiley face
01:39:45sock, while the other day you'll go for a Grinch-themed one. Of course, socks are pretty
01:39:49helpful on board an aircraft. They'll make you slide through stuff more easily.
01:39:53Next time I go to the convenience store, I'll remember to buy some wet wipes for your space
01:39:57travel. Experienced space travelers do love them. And it wasn't even NASA that invented them, huh?
01:40:03Since water is a no-go inside a spaceship, the best option is wet wipes. Better yet,
01:40:08if they're scented. Astronauts even use different kinds of wipes. They buy the disinfecting ones,
01:40:14and the ones to use on their bodies. Just make sure you know how to tell the difference between
01:40:17them when you're up there. There's a popular myth that says that NASA invented Velcro.
01:40:22But the truth is, we tend to think that everything that's used in space was invented by NASA for a
01:40:27very intelligent and specific purpose. It wasn't though. Velcro was invented for mundane reasons
01:40:33back in the 1950s by a Swiss company. They were adopted by space travelers because they work as
01:40:38anti-gravity props. They don't erase gravity, of course. But you can glue Velcros into daily stuff,
01:40:44and then hang them on the Velcro attached to the spaceship's walls. It's a very smart system.
01:40:49But best to take your own pair, right? If you're spending a long time in outer space,
01:40:54photographs from back home might come in handy. Choose them well though. Since the spacecraft
01:40:59isn't all that big, the rest of the people on board will know which pictures you decided to
01:41:03bring along. Best to keep that Harry Styles poster back in your earthly bedroom, right?
01:41:08Just bring real pictures of people that you know and love. Did I hear pizza?
01:41:14A huge part of traveling and exploring new places is being able to taste different flavors of food.
01:41:20In outer space, that's a bit more complicated. But hey, at least you can take some pizza with you.
01:41:26Well, actually, you'd have to have it delivered to you in a cargo ship.
01:41:30This way, ingredients would come fresh and ready to eat. It wouldn't be the first time that people
01:41:34in space tried eating earthling junk food. Some astronauts have even eaten crepes and hot dogs.
01:41:39Perhaps the best part of this pizza party would be that your food could float.
01:41:43Now isn't this a super nice way to enjoy some earth delicacies?
01:41:47Hmm, as much as I understand your desire to pack a toilet with you on this space trip,
01:41:51that's virtually impossible. I mean, I understand you. Some people are attached
01:41:55to the toilets in their homes. And a space toilet is far from the ideal experience.
01:42:00But NASA has been improving their toilet system. And it's the best it's been over the years.
01:42:05So that will have to do. Here's something I would take as well. A laptop. But what good
01:42:10would it do in outer space, you might ask? Apparently, there is internet all over the
01:42:15International Space Station. So even if you're not spending most of your trip docked at the ISS,
01:42:20you could enjoy some Netflix on the days you spend over there. There is internet all over
01:42:25the ISS apparently. Crazy, huh? And speaking of leisure, I love that you would take a yo-yo.
01:42:30I'm not sure how efficient it would be in space, since there's no gravity to bounce it back and
01:42:34forth. But it would be nice to see how a yo-yo reacts in a gravity free environment.
01:42:40Oh, I love jigsaw puzzles. This would definitely be on my list as well. Imagine trying to build a
01:42:45jigsaw puzzle that keeps floating in the air. Maybe you'll have to create a system to avoid
01:42:50the separate pieces floating aimlessly through the spacecraft. But imagine once you finish that
01:42:55turtle puzzle, it will look like it's swimming around the craft. You can't pack a window,
01:42:59but they sure are an important part of life in outer space. Let's keep in mind some of the rules
01:43:04of the trip. Each traveler will have the opportunity to do one spacewalk during their
01:43:09time in space. This is already huge. Consider yourself lucky. Some elite astronauts only get
01:43:18to do one spacewalk during their entire career. That is so because spacewalks are risky and
01:43:23require a lot of training. But you'll get your training once you're up there. The thing is,
01:43:27all other days you'll be stuck inside a floating tin can. So windows will come a long way.
01:43:35They'll help to remind you where you are. They'll give you some perspective of space and earth.
01:43:39Of course, you should take your camera. How else will you be able to register for this
01:43:43once in a lifetime experience? Just make sure it works inside an aircraft or the ISS and you're
01:43:49good to go. Hmm, coffee. Don't worry, you don't need to pack your own. Up until recently,
01:43:55astronauts had to rely solely on instantly brewed cups of coffee when they were in space.
01:44:00But you're lucky that coffee experts have already solved this issue.
01:44:03Nowadays, there's the ISSpresso machine. The machine itself is similar in size to an earthling
01:44:10espresso machine. But to drink it, space travelers have to use a zero gravity coffee cup together
01:44:15with a straw. If you try drinking it regularly, you wouldn't get hot coffee to hit you directly
01:44:20in your face. Instead, the coffee would be glued to the bottom of your cup. I have to say I really
01:44:26stand this invention. Last but not least, why not pack your guitar with you? I noticed you were
01:44:32missing a musical instrument. If this was a conventional flight, you might have to pay
01:44:36extra for luggage. But since it's all included, don't be shy and take your guitar. Astronauts
01:44:42such as Chris Hadfield take their musical instruments with them when they're in space.
01:44:46He even became famous for his version of Bowie's Space Oddity, up to the point that Bowie himself
01:44:51told him he lived Chris's version of it. It helps to pass the time, but it's also great for
01:44:56socializing. Can you imagine a pretend bonfire happening in the void of space? I can. And it
01:45:02looks super cool. Well, I think you're set to go. I'll personally call NASA and ask them to
01:45:07pick you as one of the lucky space travelers. See you in outer space, amigo. Have you heard
01:45:15about a diamond star that could put all the riches on earth to shame? Or how about twinkling stars
01:45:21with surfaces made of solid iron? So let's take a look at these weird stars and try to unravel
01:45:28their mysteries. There's a star in the Centaurus constellation that was nicknamed Lucy in the Sky
01:45:35with Diamonds. Yes, it was named after a Beatles song because it basically is a Beatles song.
01:45:42You see, the star was discovered to have a massive diamond at its core.
01:45:47Now, you may be wondering how big this diamond really is. Well, it's estimated to be about 10
01:45:53billion trillion trillion carats. That's a one followed by 34 zeros. To put that into perspective,
01:46:01the Hope Diamond, which is one of the largest diamonds on earth, is a measly 45.5 carats in
01:46:07comparison. Can you imagine the size of the ring you could make with this star diamond? And it's
01:46:13about the same mass as our sun. But don't get too excited about the prospect of owning this
01:46:20diamond just yet. Even if you were Jeff Bezos, you wouldn't be able to afford it. According to
01:46:26Ronald Winston, CEO of Harry Winston, Inc., the diamond is so big that it would likely depress
01:46:33the value of the market. So you'd have to settle for a much smaller diamond engagement ring.
01:46:38One interesting thing about the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds star is that it's incredibly dense.
01:46:44In fact, it has the mass of the sun crammed into an object only a third the diameter of earth.
01:46:50That's like trying to fit an elephant into a shoebox. And yet, despite its massive size,
01:46:57it's actually quite cool. With a core temperature of only about 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
01:47:04it's actually quite cool. With a core temperature of only about 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
01:47:09by comparison, the core temperature of our sun is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.
01:47:18Since the discovery of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, several other crystallized stars
01:47:23have been found, some with diamond hearts the size of earth. It just goes to show that the
01:47:28universe is full of surprises, and you never know what kind of treasures you might find out there
01:47:34in the vast expanse of space. And this isn't the only weird star we've discovered so far.
01:47:42There are many strange, unexplained things in outer space.
01:47:48For example, let's take Vega. Vega, also known as Alpha Lyrae, is a bright star located in the
01:47:55constellation Lyra. It's one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and is easily visible
01:48:01to the naked eye from most parts of the world. Now, Vega may look like a beautiful, bright star
01:48:09to us Northern Hemisphere folks, but little do we know, it's hiding a secret. It's actually
01:48:15quite squashed. You see, Vega's high spin rate causes it to bulge at the equator,
01:48:23kind of like a cosmic belly. It rotates once every 12.5 hours, which is pretty fast for a star,
01:48:30and it throws material out around its waistline. It's almost like the star is hula-hooping.
01:48:36This material is further from the center of the star, so it experiences less gravity,
01:48:42causing it to cool and darken, leading to a gravity darkening effect.
01:48:47So Vega is basically a cosmic fitness guru's worst nightmare. Although for us stargazers,
01:48:53it still looks round because we're looking at it from Earth's pole end. However, if we saw it from
01:49:00a different angle, we'd get a very different view, one that might make us wonder if Vega has been
01:49:06sneaking some cosmic donuts behind our backs. But while we might joke about its equatorial
01:49:13But while we might joke about its equatorial waistline, there's no denying that Vega is still
01:49:19one of the brightest and most fascinating stars in our galaxy.
01:49:25But if you want something actually bright, then how about a supernova?
01:49:32Supernovas are giant space booms that occur when stars reach the end of their life cycle.
01:49:39It's like the grand finale of a firework show, but on a cosmic scale.
01:49:43They release more energy in a few seconds than our sun will produce in its entire lifetime.
01:49:51And this is exactly what happened to the next star of our show. This celestial object with a
01:49:57weird name, IPFT-14HLS. But there's a catch. It isn't your average supernova. Even though this
01:50:06star made a blast in 2014 and started to fade away like usual, recently it made an unexpected
01:50:14comeback and brightened once more. Talk about a dramatic entrance. And if that wasn't enough,
01:50:22this thing continued to fade and brighten at least five times in total, which is a bit like a yo-yo.
01:50:29It's like the star just couldn't make up its mind about whether it wanted to stay bright
01:50:33or fade away into the abyss.
01:50:37Also, when scientists measured the supernova's spectrum,
01:50:41they found that it was evolving 10 times slower than other stars.
01:50:46Maybe it's a supernova that just wants to enjoy its golden years.
01:50:52All in all, this object is a real mystery.
01:50:55But this is not the only star suffering from the two-in-one syndrome. At first glance,
01:51:01MY Camelopardalis appears to be a fairly common star. But after a closer look,
01:51:08astronomers concluded it was actually two stars in one.
01:51:14These two stars are orbiting each other at over 600,000 miles per hour.
01:51:20It's a contact binary star system, which means that the stars are so close together
01:51:26that they share a common envelope. In other words,
01:51:30they're so close to each other that they're practically smooching.
01:51:35These celestial Romeo and Juliet are one of the most massive known binary stars out there.
01:51:41Each of them individually weighs in at a whopping 32 and 38 solar masses, respectively.
01:51:50Astronomers also think that they might be on the brink of a stellar merger,
01:51:54which means that one day they might just combine into one giant superstar.
01:52:00Wow, who knew space could be so romantic?
01:52:06Next, introducing another long name, HD 140283, also known as Methuselah's star.
01:52:14This little guy in the constellation Libra has been around for a while,
01:52:19and by a while, I mean a really long time.
01:52:22Actually, scientists used to think it was older than the universe itself.
01:52:29Just imagine if it turned out to be true. But eventually, they figured out that it's actually
01:52:35around 14.8 billion years old, a peer of our universe. That's still pretty impressive, though.
01:52:42This star is so old, it remembers when the Milky Way was just a baby galaxy.
01:52:49But despite all that, this star still has some life left in it.
01:52:54It's just starting to expand into a red giant,
01:52:57which is kind of like when you hit your 30s. Talk about aging well.
01:53:04But if all these things are somewhat comprehensible,
01:53:07then how about a star that was literally named WTF star by scientists?
01:53:13No, I'm not kidding. At least, it used to be.
01:53:16Now, it's called Tabby's star. It also has a more scientific name,
01:53:21but that one is a bit of a mouthful.
01:53:25But what's really bizarre about this star is its irregular dimming.
01:53:29For some reason, it doesn't glow like a normal star,
01:53:33but blinks as if someone turned on and off a flashlight.
01:53:37And it's not just a little dip, we're talking up to a 22% drop in light.
01:53:42So it's not because it sometimes gets blocked by a planet or something.
01:53:48Scientists have come up with all sorts of explanations for this strange behavior,
01:53:53from comets to dust to even an extraterrestrial megastructure.
01:53:58That's right, but before your imagination runs too wild,
01:54:01it's important to note that the most likely explanation is just plain old dust.
01:54:07Perhaps the star is surrounded by some kind of dust cloud,
01:54:10and sometimes it prevents us from seeing it clearly.
01:54:15Although this explanation is still not 100% confirmed,
01:54:19there are still plenty of mysteries surrounding Tabby's star.
01:54:23One thing's for sure, it may be a bit of an oddball, but that's what makes it so fascinating.
01:54:30So there you have it, folks.
01:54:32We're left in awe of the incredible diversity and strangeness of the cosmos.
01:54:37There's so much more to discover out there,
01:54:40so let's keep exploring and keep being amazed by the wonders of the universe.
01:54:45Wow, the James Webb Telescope has been fully deployed!
01:54:49If you're interested in astronomy or space,
01:54:51you've got to be excited about the James Webb Space Telescope.
01:54:54Here's why.
01:54:56For starters, it's huge.
01:54:57How huge?
01:54:58The primary mirror of the JWST is over 21 feet wide.
01:55:03The Hubble Space Telescope, the previous largest eye in space,
01:55:06has a mirror of about 7 feet, 10.5 inches.
01:55:09By comparison, if you placed the two telescopes side by side,
01:55:13it'd be like putting a horse next to an elephant, and elephants are enormous.
01:55:17There's a perfect reason why the Webb, as it's affectionately called, is massive.
01:55:22It has to be huge, because it's not an optical telescope
01:55:25in the traditional sense that most telescopes are.
01:55:28The JWST is an infrared telescope.
01:55:31It sees heat.
01:55:33Infrared light has a longer wavelength than visible light,
01:55:37so it needs a larger mirror to focus that light.
01:55:40So what do we have here with the James Webb Space Telescope?
01:55:43We have two never-before things going on.
01:55:47We have incredible technology and incredible science missions.
01:55:51Both the missions and the technology are out of this world cutting edge.
01:55:56The Webb is a classic example of engineering in the service of science.
01:56:00Because of its greater light-gathering power,
01:56:02the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to take images of things
01:56:06that we were never able to see before, but have always wanted to see.
01:56:10Things like exoplanets, and the first galaxies in the universe,
01:56:13and stars and planets forming inside nebulae.
01:56:17And you can bet that there'll be plenty of surprises, too.
01:56:20The James Webb Space Telescope has several technological tricks up its sleeve,
01:56:25which promise to provide its greatest scientific discoveries.
01:56:28The Webb has a coronagraph, and a very special coronagraph at that.
01:56:33The coronagraph is the tool that will allow the first real pictures of exoplanets.
01:56:39The coronagraph blocks out the bright pinpoint light of stars,
01:56:42which we already know have planets orbiting around them.
01:56:45Without the coronagraph, the starlight would make things too bright to see these planets,
01:56:50because planets are hundreds of thousands of times dimmer than the star.
01:56:53But with the coronagraph blocking the starlight, the exoplanets come into view.
01:56:58And the JWST coronagraph can block the light from up to 100 stars at once.
01:57:04We can expect a swarm of exoplanets.
01:57:07This brings us to the next high-tech gadget the JWST has up its sleeve,
01:57:11a no-slit spectrograph.
01:57:13Usually, an ordinary spectrograph will have a slit
01:57:16to allow a sliver of light to enter and be diffracted.
01:57:20Diffraction is the scattering of light to reveal the spectrum of the light's component wavelengths.
01:57:25But the James Webb Space Telescope's work is so sensitive
01:57:29that a sliver of light would overwhelm the optics.
01:57:32So a no-slit spectrograph was installed.
01:57:35The starlight gathered from the big mirror is sent into a fiber-optic cable
01:57:39to send only a single spot of light into the spectroscope.
01:57:43And that's where the grism takes over.
01:57:46Sir Isaac Newton used a prism to discover the spectrum of sunlight.
01:57:50Roy G. Biv, as you may recall.
01:57:52But the Webb uses a grism.
01:57:55That's a compound word, like smog, which is smoke and fog.
01:57:59A grism is a graded prism.
01:58:02That means it has itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny groups that diffract the spot of light
01:58:06the big mirror sends down the fiber-optic cable and into the spectrograph.
01:58:10The science of reading a spectrum of light is called spectroscopy.
01:58:15By analyzing the spectra of light from the exoplanets,
01:58:18the JWST will determine what gases are in the planet's atmospheres,
01:58:23as well as their density and even their temperature.
01:58:25It's an incredible advance in our knowledge.
01:58:28We'll be able to tell if a planet has oxygen or nitrogen or methane
01:58:32and other gases that may or may not indicate that the planet is habitable.
01:58:37Another Earth, perhaps.
01:58:39Presently, the JWST is parked in its permanent location.
01:58:44Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits the Earth,
01:58:47the James Webb Space Telescope orbits the Sun.
01:58:50It orbits the Sun at one of the gravitational balance points
01:58:53between the Earth-Sun system.
01:58:55It just stays there without having to use much or any fuel to hold its position.
01:59:00So as the Earth orbits the Sun,
01:59:02the James Webb remains parked at a spot that is also orbiting the Sun.
01:59:07There are five gravitational balance points between the Earth and Sun.
01:59:11They are called Lagrange points.
01:59:13After their discoverer, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, in the 18th century,
01:59:17the Webb is parked at L2, the second of the five Lagrange points,
01:59:21which lies 932,000 miles out into space, way beyond the Moon.
01:59:27All this to observe a spot of infrared light.
01:59:30But first, the engineers must get, or acquire, that spot of light.
01:59:35To get a spot of infrared light,
01:59:37the 18 hexagonal mirrors had to be unfolded from their position
01:59:41inside the Ariane rocket that sent the Webb into space.
01:59:45Once the mirrors have unfolded,
01:59:46their positions must be adjusted to microscopic-level accuracy
01:59:50so that all 18 mirrors produce a single image.
01:59:54Several tiny motors are attached to each mirror segment to make these adjustments.
01:59:58These motors, which must be activated individually,
02:00:01will gradually pull the honeycomb-like mirror segments into alignment.
02:00:05It's a critical part of the mission and takes months to complete.
02:00:09To align the mirrors to produce a single spot of light,
02:00:12the James Webb Space Telescope can't be jiggling around.
02:00:15The telescope must be kept absolutely motionless,
02:00:18and that requires two other cutting-edge technologies,
02:00:21the sunshield and the cryocooler.
02:00:24In space, direct sunlight is very hot, and shadow is very cold.
02:00:30Therefore, the James Webb Space Telescope brought along its own high-tech sunshield.
02:00:35It's huge, too, as big as a tennis court huge.
02:00:38Comprised of five individual layers of Kapton film only a millimeter thick,
02:00:43each layer of the sunshield has to be remotely deployed individually
02:00:47using a system of eight motors and 139 actuators with thousands of parts.
02:00:53The purpose of the sunshield is to help the JWST stay cold.
02:00:57The colder, the better.
02:00:59And colder is what the cryocooler is for.
02:01:02Temperature can be measured three different ways.
02:01:04In degrees Fahrenheit, where water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212.
02:01:09In degrees Celsius, where water freezes at zero degrees and boils at 100 degrees.
02:01:14But neither of these thermometers have a starting point.
02:01:17So Lord Kelvin, in the 19th century, devised a third temperature scale,
02:01:22the Kelvin scale, which starts at absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible.
02:01:28The onboard cryocooler will cool the JWST to just seven degrees Kelvin,
02:01:34seven degrees above absolute zero.
02:01:37At this temperature, virtually all heat from motors is removed,
02:01:41and the telescope will be able to focus the light to a point without any noise,
02:01:45basically any motion interfering with the quality of the image.
02:01:49Finally, after all this incredible technology functions remotely as planned,
02:01:54we are almost ready to observe the infrared images from the giant,
02:01:57multi-segmented mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope.
02:02:01Almost ready.
02:02:03A telescope can collect all the light it wants,
02:02:05but in the end, it must also be able to detect what it's collected.
02:02:09If the light is not detected, it's not truly observed.
02:02:13Enter the piece de resistance, the infrared detectors.
02:02:17The Webb has 15 of them.
02:02:19The specially fabricated semiconductor material produces a slight electrical charge
02:02:23when struck by a photon of infrared light.
02:02:26The Webb's infrared detectors can produce a million pixel high-def image.
02:02:31A few of the detectors can produce a four million pixel image.
02:02:35They must be durable enough to last 10 to 20 years without warping or corrupting,
02:02:40all while working at seven degrees above absolute zero.
02:02:43In themselves, the infrared detectors on the JWST are an engineering marvel.
02:02:49But what are they going to take pictures of?
02:02:52Ah, the missions of the JWST.
02:02:55Well, they're cutting edge too.
02:02:5770 of the first 280 target observations are exoplanets.
02:03:01Is there another Earth?
02:03:03Which exoplanets seem habitable?
02:03:05The Webb telescope will provide detailed spectroscopic analysis
02:03:09of the atmospheres of thousands of known exoplanets.
02:03:12For the first time, we will see images of exoplanets as they appear in infrared light.
02:03:18Cosmology, the study of the universe, is perhaps the primary mission for the Webb.
02:03:23Galaxies receding away so fast that their light is stretched into the infrared
02:03:28will be a prime target for observation.
02:03:30Hundreds of hours of observations are necessary to collect the faint infrared light
02:03:35from these first galaxies formed after the Big Bang.
02:03:38The JWST will give us a picture of what the infant universe looked like.
02:03:43Astronomers will learn new information about the dark energy
02:03:46that is driving the expansion of the universe,
02:03:49and what role, if any, black holes play in the formation of galaxies.
02:03:54Star formation in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies
02:03:57is also part of the mission of the James Webb.
02:04:00By imaging hundreds of solar systems forming around newborn stars,
02:04:04astronomers will establish a definite history of solar system development.
02:04:08Now fact will replace theory,
02:04:10and a big step forward will be taken in our understanding of space.
02:04:15The James Webb Space Telescope is a bold endeavor
02:04:18that will mark an epoch time in scientific history.

Recommended

1:47
I
Up next
Martian Moon Deimos In High-Res - UAE Hope Probe Observations
Space.com
0:41
OTD In Space - October 16: NASA Launches 1st GOES Weather Satellite
Space.com
1:08
Signs Of Dying Star Consuming A Planet Detected
Space.com
15:46
ONE QUEEN in an ALL WOLF School!
Aphmau Minecraft
9:20
Dinosaurs Looked Nothing Like We Believed
Bright Side
16:00
10 FRIENDS on one HALLOWEEN BLOCK!
Aphmau Minecraft
3:04:54
60+ Intriguing Space Facts That Push the Boundaries
Bright Side
2:02:18
Fresh Space Facts to Twist Your Reality
Bright Side
2:09:39
The Largest Planet in the Universe + Other Astonishing Space Facts
Bright Side
2:05:26
Space Facts That Will Inspire You to Look Up
Bright Side
2:01:42
Space Facts That Will Blow Your Spacesuit Off
Bright Side
2:03:26
Space Facts That Make You Want to Be an Astronaut
Bright Side
2:09:49
These Space Facts Will Remind You How Small We Are
Bright Side
2:01:54
Is Oumuamua Artificial? + 40 Intriguing Space Facts
Bright Side
2:17:07
Space Facts That Remind Us We're Part of Something Bigger
Bright Side
2:18:27
85 Space Facts That Will Launch Your Mind
Bright Side
1:59:37
This Star Escaped Black Hole's Grasp + 100 Space Facts
Bright Side
2:03:28
What If the Moon Fell to Earth + 88 Space Facts
Bright Side
2:00:09
Black Hole That Shouldn't Exist + 99 Wild Space Facts
Bright Side
2:06:05
50 Space Facts That Will Astonish and Astound You
Bright Side
2:05:03
The Weirdest Stuff in Space: Cool Facts You Need to Know
Bright Side
2:02:49
75 Space Facts That Will Intrigue and Astonish You
Bright Side
16:38
Shocking Hidden Truths and Details You Need to Know Today!
Bright Side
3:09:53
Space Facts Marathon Had Me Glued to My Telescope All Night
Bright Side
2:04:25
Facts That Make You Realize We're Wonders of Weirdness
Bright Side