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Experts: Life on Proxima B Could Be Unlike Anything We've Ever Imagined!
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it would take between 1,000 and 81,000 years for a spacecraft to reach Alpha centor if we used conventional propulsion plus astronauts would have to deal with the countless risks of the mostly unexplored interstellar medium but there might be a way out of this seemingly hopeless situation GRS scale spacecraft that rely on lasers when it comes to traveling through space one of such Concepts is called the swarming Proxima centuri and it has recently been chosen for the NASA Innovative advanced concepts program you see traveling through Interstellar space is a question of speed energy and distance Proxima centuri sits 4.25 light years away from the solar system that's 25 trillion miles which is incredibly far away for comparison the farthest distance ever traveled by a spacecraft is 15 billion miles from Earth Voyager 1 has been moving in outer space for more than 46 years reaching a maximum speed of over 38 mph traveling at the speeds that we can allow at the moment will make Interstellar Transit exceptionally long and totally impractical and don't forget about the energy requirements such a journey would demand anything other than a tiny spacecraft weighing a few grams doesn't look feasible but the solution might have been found bouncing photons off of a laser sale could solve the speed problem but since a single Photon doesn't have much momentum a lot of them are needed and since even in a couple of decades we probably won't have a lot of power available the thrust will be weak that's why the mass of the probes has to be minuscule not tons but grams The Proposal suggests using a 100 gaw laser Beamer boosting thousands of tiny space probes with laser sails to a speed of 10 to 20% of the speed of life this Mission concept might be ready for development around midcentury then the probes could reach Proxima centuri as early as 2075 the researchers involved in the project have already demonstrated how a fleet of a thousand spacecraft could deal with the difficulties of interstellar travel while maintaining Communications with Earth at the same time the 8-year roundtrip time lag caused by Interstellar distances and general rela ity makes it impossible to control the swarm of the probes from our planet that's why the fleet must possess a great degree of autonomy when it comes to navigation and deciding what data should be delivered to Earth one more is Su is the cost of such a mission the greatest expense will be the Lasser ra while the tiny Probus might be reasonably cheap to produce the scientists believe that their project can be developed with a budget of $100 billion it's not so much much compared to the usefulness of such a mission which is likely to be astronomical how come Red Dwarf Proxima centor which is a member of the alpha centor star system has an earthlike Planet orbiting it Proxima centor B it's the closest exoplanet to Earth its mass is similar to that of our planet and it travels in the habitable zone of its parent star which means there might be water in this world as well as an atmosphere rich with oxygen this planet might Harbor life or it could be a dry Rock in any case it's a promising Target in the search for alien life unfortunately we can't detect the planet's bio signatures because our usual methods for detecting them don't work with Proxima centor B most exoplanets are discovered and explored through the transit method where a planet regularly passes in front of its parent star and we see a recurring dip in the star's brightness that's how we know that the planet is there but Proxima centor B isn't a transiting Planet it was discovered by a different method when we look at the light coming from Proxima centuri we can notice that the gravitational pull of Proxima centuri B makes the star wobble a bit that's how astronomers found out that the planet was there they also managed to estimate its size and mass but no one can figure out much more than that hopefully a swarm of tiny space probes will help us solve this mystery [Music] Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet in the solar system more than 1,600 and a day on Venus measured by how long it takes to rotate once on its axis takes longer than the time it takes to complete a full orbit of the sun wow and that's just Monday an extreme greenhouse effect warms the planet surface up to 87° F hot enough to melt out L winds there reach the speed of 450 mph in the middle Cloud layer faster than the speediest tornadoes on our planet the pressure on Venus's surface is 90 times higher than that at sea level on Earth what a great place for a vacation huh and recently this incredible place has become even more intriguing in the toxic venutian atmosphere there's something that might mean the existence of life unfortunately scientists haven't had a chance to collect any microb specimens or snap any pictures of Life there but they've discovered a chemical called phosphine and it's a big deal if it's not some previously unknown chemistry that produces the gas then there must be a kind of microbial life involved in the process phosphine is made up of three atoms of hydrogen and one atom of phosphorus this gas is toxic to any normal life form that needs oxygen including us humans on our planet phosphine can be found in places with no or little oxygen for example marshes and swabs the gas is created by complex mixtures of bacteria living there they can also be produced industrially the weirdest thing is that phosphine isn't supposed to be in Venus's atmosphere at all this gas needs precise pressure and temperature and tons of hydrogen to form it wouldn't be all that surprising to find it on Saturn or Jupiter the famous gas giants but on Venus totally unexpected there's no way phosphine can be produced naturally on this planet tiny amounts of it can be created during volcanic eruptions lightning storms minerals blown up to the surface or meteorites entering Venus's atmosphere but it's not nearly enough to explain what the astronomers have observed it would only make one 10,000th of the phosphane the telescope saw but let's start from the very beginning in 2017 a group of scientists led by James Greaves from Cardiff University started to use the James Clerk Maxwell radio telescope in Hawaii that's a mouthful the main idea was to search for phosphine gas it would be a sign of Life on Venus when the data came back and the researchers analyzed it they were shocked the phosphine signal was powerful the team checked the results several times they wanted to make sure no other substance mimic the presence of phosphine gas so now does it mean there's life on Venus well not necessarily if this gas is created by some mysterious organisms it's a big question how they survive on Venus on our planet some microbes can thrive in the environments with the acidity of 5% but no more on Venus though clouds are almost entirely made of acid and even though they have a rather Pleasant temperature of 86° f these clouds contain more than 90% of sulfuric acid DNA amino acids proteins life components on Earth would be dissolved there in the blink of an eye the surface of the planet is too hot for any kind of complex molecules to make up life the venutian atmosphere is almost 50 times as dry as the driest place on our home planet there's a theory that microbes might hide in scarce water droplets floating in the atmosphere but it hasn't been proved yet right now the research team's waiting for more telescope time they're going to look for other gases associated with life but even if they find more evidence life forms on Venus will be made up of building blocks absolutely different than those on Earth or they might be protected by a sulfuric acid resistant shell it can be made of such substances as sulfur wax graphite or something else we can't imagine of course some experts question the idea of Life on Venus they think the gas might be produced during some geologic or atmospheric processes happening on the planet but the supporters of both theories agree on one thing the discovery is extraordinary interestingly astronomers have always tried to find Signs of Life on giant planets icy moons or even closer on Mars but they've never seriously considered Venus if additional telescope observations and future space missions confirm that phosphine is produced by living organisms we can be in for a bunch of exciting surprises then people would know of a planet with an alien biosphere well alien to us and this planet would be just next door to earth now speaking of visiting Venus though would it be possible for people to land on this planet after all robots are already tooling around the red planet surface on the proide Venus is closer to Earth than Mars but it also has much harsher conditions the planet is hotter than Mercury even though Venus is almost double the distance from the Sun the temperatures are higher than the melting point of many metals and some of them like lead or bismuth can fall as snow on the highest mountain peaks if you set foot on the planet you'll find nothing but Barren Rock giant basaltic Plains are littered with volcanoes and mountains in some places the surface melts because of the heat underneath after it releases some of it the rock solidifies again if people ever go to this planet they will most likely build floating cities in the Clouds of Venus's atmosphere spere at about 31 Mi above the surface the conditions like the pressure and gravity are similar to those on Earth the temperature is rather manageable too at around 167° F think Death Valley California on a really hot day the atmospheric pressure is half of what we have at sea level on our planet if you went outside you'd be fine without a pressure suit the pressure you'd feel would be the same as at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro Plus this Colony would be protected from the sun's radiation better than one on Mars if the atmosphere was the mission's final destination Landing a spacecraft or rather making it hover in the air would look very different the idea is to use an airship in the upper atmosphere for long periods of time the Airship wrapped in an arrow shell would enter the planet's atmosphere at a speed of 24,000 ft per second in the next 7 Minutes its speed would drop to around 50 00 ft per second after that a huge parachute would open it would slow the spacecraft down even more and then things would get a bit hectic the arrow shell not needed anymore would drop away the Airship would then inflate itself all the while hurling through the atmosphere toward the planet surface its speed would be at least 330 ft per second it would get larger and larger and its drag and lift would increase soon the parachute wouldn't be needed anymore the crew would get rid of it and the Airship would fill with air completely if everything went as planned it would stop 30 Mi above Venus's surface after that the Airship would travel around the planet it would be moved by the wind which can reach a speed of 220 mph at the top of the cloud layer if you decided to move closer to the surface though you'd have to be extremely careful the wind in the middle layer can get twice faster the Airship could be filled with a breathable mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases such a combination would be less dense than the venutian atmosphere it would provide the needed boyancy you know to stay up there Venus is famous for its super dense clouds these clouds make the planet shine bright enough to be seen from Earth Venus reflects more than 75% of the light that comes from the sun this reflective Cloud layer exists thanks to a haze of sulfuric acid droplets in the atmosphere and they gather exactly at the height where they Airship would float luckily people already have a method to overcome the problem of acidity a few materials for example Teflon and some types of plastic have an amazing acidic resistance they could protect the outsides of the ship so let's say you needed to work on a platform outside then you'd be able to do it wearing only a chemical Hazard suit and carrying necessary oxygen supply ooh sounds like fun huh yeah me neither [Applause] you're gazing up at the night sky wow for much of our history we've been looking for life among these stars and the planets near them but space has eyes too and there's someone out there looking at us maybe scientists claim that at least 29 distant planets may be watching us right now so comb your hair and smile we've so far identified at least 1,715 neighboring star systems in the Milky Way that can detect our planet with conventional telescopes these stars are located in our galaxy so if they were to point their telescopes at our sun sooner or later they would see a small dot that passes between our home star and the Observer this is called a Transit it's a method of detecting planets in astronomy for example you can observe Transit phenomenon right at home with a telescope you have to point it at the Sun and wait then you'll see Mercury that's the closest planet to the Sun and now you see it as a small dot Mercury Transit process can last about 5 hours and this phenomenon happens about 14 times in a century you'll be able to observe the next transit on November 13th 2032 mark your calendar likewise you can observe Venus the second planet from the Sun but because it's farther away its transits are less frequent the last one was in 2004 and 2012 the next pair of transits is expected in 217 and 2125 hey I won't be around then so these star systems have the opportunity to observe our planet but long range telescopes work a little differently actually The Observer will not see a black dot with the sun in the background the telescope will measure the brightness of our star when Earth begins its Transit between the Sun and the Observer the telescope will record a slight drop in the brightness of the star because our planet is blocking the path of the sun's Rays those far away scientists of extraterrestrial civilizations will be able to calculate this drop in brightness and determine the size of our planet but not all 1700 plus star systems may have extraterrestrial life scientists have narrowed it down to 29 planets near some of these Stars they're potentially habitable that means these planets are roughly earthlike in size and within the habitable zone of their host star that means they're not too close to the star so it's not too hot for a potential life the water doesn't evaporate there like in a Boiling Pot and they're not too far away away so it's not too cold and the water doesn't freeze into thick sheets of ice and since water is the basis of life we can assume that Civilization might exist there theoretically these planets could have seen Earth transits in the last 5,000 years so while we were building the Pyramids of Giza or Stonehenge an extraterrestrial civilization may have been watching us one of these planets is only 11 light years from our home near the Ross 128 star a red dwarf in the constellation Virgo there's an exoplanet about twice the size of Earth and right in the habitable zone of its host star theoretically the inhabitants of this planet could see Earth Transit the sun on a regular basis for 2,000 years but about 900 years ago the planet lost its position and can no longer continue observation the other planet where Earth can be seen transiting is 12 .5 light years away near the star called Tea Garden the window for observing our planet will open there in about 29 years we're betting heavily on the trapist one star system it hosts at least seven exoplanets almost like our solar system and four of them are in the habitable zone of the star but they won't be able to start observing Earth until 16th centuries from now but we can try to make contact with these planets right now they're all close enough to us to pick up our radio signals radio waves can travel through space at the speed of light and our planet has been emitting radio signals continuously since 1895 so we're like noisy neighbors in the radio spectrum if there's a planet somewhere with an intelligent civilization within 125 light years of us our radio noise would have already reached them the only problem is it would take about the same time to get a response from that Civilization the other problem with radio is that any civilization uses it for a relatively short period even now on Earth we use Bluetooth and fiber optics more than radio except for maybe traffic reports and over time all the radio noise we create will simply disappear also radio communication assumes that an extraterrestrial civilization is Advanced enough to use this technology but who knows maybe there are life forms in space that are really different from ours our radio signals already could have reached that planet but its inhabitants simply aren't capable of receiving them and the moment these life forms build antenas to receive the signal will no longer emit them but we don't lose hope and we even send encrypted radio signals into space to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations in 1974 we sent the aasbo message into Interstellar space if some civilization can decipher it they'll get a rectangle like this it has all the information about Humanity at the top is our number system then the atomic numbers and then our DNA which is pictured below then a human being itself of course below is a diagram of our solar system earth the third planet from the Sun is slightly elevated this is how the extra terrestrial civilization will understand which planet this message came from below is a diagram of the aasbo radio telescope itself another option how to deliver a message to a distant planet is to literally send a mail delivery there it could be a space probe and we've already done that these are voyagers 1 and two they were launched in 1977 and are still operational in 2012 Voyager 1 became the first ever human-made object in interstellar space it travels to distant stars and carries a message written on a golden record the disc contains greetings in 55 Earth languages a lot of music from different parts of our planet different sounds like ocean noise human voices and animal sounds in addition there are 116 images on the record these are pictures of people and Earthly landscapes in these pictures there's information about the sun and our DNA the record case contains instructions and a needle to play the record there's also a map of our Galaxy's Pulsar so that astronomers from an extraterrestrial civilization can find our solar system the main disadvantage of sending a message this way is time Voyager 1 will reach its first stop the galise 445 star in 40,000 years Voyager 2 will reach the Ross 248 star in 42,000 years and in about 296,000 Years it'll pass Sirius the brightest star in the night sky I can't wait also an extraterrestrial civilization can detect us with calculations and formulas all it takes is a little observation of the Sun in Star systems with planets the host star doesn't stand still it rotates around a small orbit this is because the heavy star attracts the planet but the planet also has its own gravity and resists this shifts the star a little and causes it to orbit around an extraterrestrial civilization can calculate the shift of the Sun and determine the mass of the planets near the star using such a method astronomers were able to find 548 exoplanets now suppose we made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization near the closest star Proxima centuri there's indeed an exoplanet there but radiation from the host star would destroy any life forms but imagine we still got a return signal it would be the slowest chat in history because our message would take 4.2 years to reach the planet and we'd have to wait another 4.2 years to get a response and so we arranged to meet this civilization doesn't know how to fly into space so we have to take the first step although though Proxima centuri is the closest star to our solar system it takes about 73,000 years to travel there by conventional rocket so we have to learn to travel at the speed of life but even then it would take 4.2 years to travel there imagine if we found extraterrestrial life on the other side of the Milky Way our galaxy is 100,000 light years wide so the journey from edge to edge would take 100 millennia so we either have to cheat the laws of physics or transfer all of human civilization to a giant spaceship that will travel from star to star for thousands of years and when it launches from Earth only the great great great great and many more greats of the first crew will be able to see another star system from the spaceship portal hey can you move your head I'm trying to see out the window one of the biggest questions that has been tor string the minds of astronomers and common folks is why haven't we found aliens yet you'd think with a universe so big and filled with tons of stars and planets we'd have already bumped into some extraterrestrial neighbors by now this question was first asked by famous physicist enrio fmy during a lunch with his fellow scientists they were chatting about UFO sightings and aliens and suddenly fmy asked where is everyone it seemed like a casual comment but it sparked a huge debate if the universe is packed with stars planets and the possibility of alien life how come we haven't seen any yet this discussion gave birth to something we now call the fairy Paradox it goes like this based on what we know there should be Advanced alien civilizations out there perhaps even many of them they'd likely have technology that could allow them to travel across space or at least send us signals to let us know they're there but here's the kicker to despite all of our technology and all the searching we've done we haven't found a single shred of solid proof that these Advanced civilizations do exist so where are they over the years a lot of theories trying to explain this Paradox have seen the light of day let's talk about some of the most interesting ones the rare earth hypothesis claims that Earth might just be super rare and planets like ours with life are incredibly uncommon in this case we could be the only planet in the the Milky Way harboring life or at least intelligent life we might also be the first intelligent civilization in our galaxy to reach this level of development in other words we could be Pioneers however unbelievable it may sound at the same time it's not very scientific to rely on a rare Chance some people think that maybe Advanced civilizations were once here but left the Milky Way perhaps they developed the technology of interstellar travel enabling them to fly between galaxies or they could use other exotic ways like wormholes hypothetical structures connecting disperate points in SpaceTime maybe they found more interesting and pleasant places to live far away from us one sad possibility is that when a civilization becomes too advanced it ends up destroying itself whether through War environmental destruction or something else it could be that most civilizations don't last long enough to reach out to others now imagine an advanced civilization being wiped out by a disease before they could even start exploring stars in other words it's possible that civilizations just don't survive long enough to meet others another hypothesis not very flattering to us what if these aliens are using technology that we just don't understand maybe they're communicating in ways we can't detect like using signals beyond our current understanding of physics scientists are discussing such possibilities but haven't found any any yet aliens might also be intentionally avoiding us they could be out there but staying Silent not so eager to reveal themselves until we're ready speaking of being ready some people think that aliens could be waiting for us to reach a certain level of development before they make contact maybe they don't want to interfere with our growth until we're more advanced advanced civilizations could also go into virtual realities and if they can live in digital worlds they might stop caring about exploring the physical unit Universe why bother another wild idea is that some civilizations might go into a type of hibernation waiting for the universe to cool down because it might be more energy efficient to do so and last but not least there's this creepy possibility that our entire universe is a computer simulation and aliens are hidden from us on purpose it's something like a video game that doesn't reveal all its Secrets at once until you get to the next level now let's talk about the odds of Life out there we know that in just our galaxy The Milky Way There are probably around 20 billion planets that are roughly Earth sized and located in the habitable zone which means they're just the right distance from their stars to have liquid water but how many of these planets actually have life could it be most of them just a few or almost none and out of the planets that do have life how many host intelligent beings with technology in the 1960s a scientist named Dr Frank Drake tried to estimate the number of civilizations in our galaxy that could contact us he came up with a famous equation later called the Drake equation it looks complicated but the idea is pretty simple it helps us calculate the number of intelligent civilizations based on things like how many stars are born each year how many have planets how many planets could support life and how long a civilization might last here's what it looks like let's look into this equation in more detail n is the number of intelligent civilizations that could contact us R is the rate of star formation in our galaxy FP is the fraction of stars with planets NE is the average number of planets per star that could support life f is the fraction of those planets where life actually develops fi is the fraction where intelligent life arises FC is the fraction of civilizations that can and want to communicate L is how long these civilizations last before they disappear the problem is we don't know the exact values for most of these factors so when we plug in numbers which we know with large errors we get answers with very large errors too depending on the values the number of civilizations in our galaxy could be anywhere from almost zero to tens of thousands right now the best estimate we can come up with gives us a very small number close to zero in other words even though our galaxy is huge it's possible we're all alone here or nearly alone one big reason we haven't met any aliens yet is that even if they do exist we might not be able to visit them at least not with our current technology the speed of light is a hard limit in physics meaning nothing can travel faster than it this makes Interstellar travel super slow the situation could be better if there were exotic ways of travel such as wormholes and warp drives one day they may turn out to be real but so far there is little hope for that even if we can't meet Aliens face to face there are still ways we might discover them one of the biggest projects is called seti search for extraterrestrial intelligence seti scientists use huge telescopes to listen for radio signals from distant planets if an alien civilization is sending out signals we might be able to pick them up and if we have a very powerful telescope we might use it to take super detailed pictures of distant planets maybe even earthlike ones hundreds of light years away this could give us a whole new way to search for signs of alien life in any case even though we haven't found aliens yet the search is far from over whether it's through new technology better understanding of physics or just listening to the Stars we might one day find that we're not alone in in the universe until then the question where is everyone keeps sparking curiosity chances are we're going to find life beyond Earth by 2035 and there's no need to travel to a galaxy far far away our Milky Way galaxy is full of totally suitable environments don't get too hyped up though we're talking about microbes or chemical markers not Hollywood like green humanoids even so when we finally find traces of life it will change how we see our place in the universe NASA's Kepler space telescope discovered something incredible almost every Star has planets and many of these planets might be habitable rocky planets like Earth and Mars are even more common in our galaxy than gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter also we already know that our galaxy is very rich in water there's water in interstellar clouds where stars and planets form in the deis fre discs around other stars in comets just everywhere what's really hard though is finding life itself ideally to finally find it we need to land on every single planet out there and literally check under each Rock but thanks to the newest research we can at least narrow down the search to potentially habitable Worlds the James web Space Telescope a super powerful telescope that was launched into space in 2021 is on to this it checks the atmospheres of nearby super Earths rocky planets that are a bit bigger than Earth it searches for Life related gases chemicals that can only be produced by living things and they already found some clues for example they detected signs of such a chemical on a planet called k218b this planet is 120 light years away which is pretty close on a space scale this planet is in the goldilock zone which means a Zone around the star where the temperatures are just right for liquid water to exist it orbits a red dwarf star the smallest type of star there is such stars are a bit fainter than our sun it will take about a year to check if these hints of Life are real if so it would mean that life is much more common than we previously thought but even if it's not there are 10 more Goldilocks planets on their list to study the James web Space Telescope is a very very cool tool but it has limits it can't detect small earthlike planets due to their size to fix this NASA plans to launch another tool the Widefield infrared survey telescope this one will be even better at spotting such planets and Life rated chemicals and also we have the seti project seti stands for search for extraterrestrial intelligence this project has been on a hunt for extraterrestrial creatures since the 1980s they also believe that we'll find signs of life within the next 10 years not so long ago they started a super big and cool project it's called Cosmic and it uses an array of radio telescopes in New Mexico you might have seen those in the movie contact Cosmic allows scientists to listen to hundreds of thousands and potentially millions of star systems at the same time if there are any interesting signals scientists can check them right away instead of waiting for weeks or even months the signals themselves are often very sudden and short but Cosmic can detect even the shortest ones that last Nan seconds Cosmic can also help with other research like studying mysterious and unexplained fast radio bursts or even Dark Matter this is the biggest and most powerful tool for searching for extraterrestrial life we've ever created but it's not enough to just listen why don't we reach out ourselves NASA has sent some signals into deep space in 2002 their deep space Network sent a signal to the Pioneer 10 satellite but there was an obstacle in the path a white dwarf star 27 light years away from Earth if there's a planet around this star perhaps the signal reached them too if there are any intelligent species there we could receive a reply by 2029 the DSN keeps sending powerful Transmissions into space these signals will bump into 222 Stars within the next three centuries maybe someday we'll receive a reply from somewhere far away but why haven't we received a response yet there are about 200 billion galaxies in the universe each with around 100 billion stars if just 1% of those Stars had one planet that's still two 200 quintilian possible planets and we can narrow it down even further if the chance of them having life is one in a trillion that would still leave us a few hundred th000 planets so where is everyone this is a famous question known as the firmy Paradox the first possibility isn't that terrifying it's possible that the universe is full of life but this life isn't intelligent in our traditional sense some planets might have microbes birds or space dinosaurs this is called the Great filter Theory it suggests that there are certain filters that life has to overcome in order to become intelligent and maybe other species just haven't overcome them yet think about it life on earth started in the ocean then crawled onto land Diversified into many forms went extinct in massive events five times evolved again and eventually led to to humans we built societies developed healthc care and only then started searching for another life there's another idea called the guian bottleneck hypothesis which suggests basically the same thing while it might not be too hard for basic life to start it's incredibly tough for that life to survive and thrive over long periods Venus might have had oceans and earthlike conditions too but something went wrong its oceans boiled away way because of a runaway greenhouse effect now it's sterile Mars also had liquid water on its surface once and both the moon and Mercury had thick atmospheres for a short time meanwhile Earth has had liquid water on its surface for almost its entire existence it's super rare and remarkable for a planet to hold temperatures from 32 to 22° F for millions of years so maybe it's a mistake to look for intelligent life especially the one that uses the same technology as we do it evolved under completely different conditions after all that's also where the so-called Drake Equation comes in it's a formula that gives us a chance to calculate the potential of Life becoming intelligent on a planet to calculate the result we need to know several variables how many stars there are how many of them have planets the chance of these planets having life and and so on unfortunately we don't know these numbers yet and the result might be insignificant but let's assume that there is at least one other intelligent species why haven't we met yet there might be many reasons maybe they don't think we're interesting enough or maybe the problem is with us perhaps we keep missing their signals or maybe we miss the entire species itself the universe is insanely huge and ancient it's over 14 billion years old if we compress Earth's entire evolutionary history into a 24-hour Day Life starts at 4:00 a.m. dinosaurs go extinct at 11:40 p.m. humanlike creatures appear 2 minutes before midnight in this analogy humans have existed for just 77 seconds and are technology capable of detecting extraterrestrial life is even newer less than a second with such vast distances and time spans the chances of us existing at the same time as other civilizations are slim if their civilization lasted only a few Millennia we could easily miss them entirely but that doesn't mean we should give up our search scientists were worried that Earth's radio signals had dimmed over time but a recent study showed that it's actually the opposite the numbers of our satellites keeps growing and this makes our planet more detectable by the end of the decade we could have a 100,000 satellites making Earth incredibly bright in the radio spectrum if there is an advanced civilization out there they will easily spot us even from very far distances astronomers are super optimistic about it there is a high chance they'll find extraterrestrial creatures while you and I are still around the search for et is on it's most definitely on with the successful launch of the James web telescope the search for Earth likee planets has become a riveting topic of worldwide attention apart from the James web telescope other tools are being used to find good earthlike candidates the test satellite and the Kepler Telescope are at the Forefront of searching for other Earths after we first clear the air of a few pesky philosophical questions we'll take a close look at these two searches and what the James web telescope hopes to find so why are we searching for earthlike planets well because we can incredible advances and Earthbound telescope technology have enabled Ultra precise observations of Starlight which led to the earliest discovery of exoplanets as planets go around Stars there's a gravitational interaction between the planet and the star they pull each other the planets pull upon the star will cause the Starlight to wobble back and forth ever so slightly as the planet or planets orbit the star this has always been the case but the wobble of the staright was never able to be detected because Starlight always twinkles you know twinkle twinkle Etc Adaptive Optics inside telescopes is the technological breakthrough that first enabled astronomers to find exoplanets by taking the twinkle out of Starlite mechanical springs on the underside of telescope mirrors bend the mirrors ever so slightly to neutralize the Distortion the twinkle caused by Starlight passing through Earth's atmosphere without the glimmer of Starlight the slight wobble caused by planets pulling gravitationally on the stars is observed able the bigger the Wobble the more planets it's called the astrometric method of exoplanet detection isn't that a mouthful whole star systems and literally thousands of exoplanets were inferred to exist around nearby Stars by analyzing the wobbly patterns of Starlight but the planets themselves could not be seen suddenly our solar system was not unique anymore astronomers got giddy over the inescapable conclusion that probably every Star had planets it became impossible not to ask the poignant question is the earth unique or are there other Earths what's the big deal about finding earthlike planets anyways well considering all the financial resources the developed countries are spending on finding earthlike planets it can be said without a doubt that it's definitely a big deal including the launched James web telescope which cost 10 billion the Kepler space telescope which cost $550 million and the test satellite which cost $200 million the investment in finding earthlike planets is certainly eyebrow raising now if you keep in mind that these costs are just for the hardware and to get a sketch of the full magnitude of the search you must also include the salaries of a team of data miners PhD analysts and postgrads all across the globe in universities National Space agencies and private institutions we will conclude that finding another Earth is truly an immense undertaking now suppose we find one then Earth is not alone anymore it's not that we can actually go to any of these planets anytime soon Interstellar travel requires some breakthroughs in physics and technology and well we aren't there yet but knowing that there are planets out there in the Milky Way that are like Earth in all the essential respects like liquid water oxygen and habitability will make space less foring more welcoming more exciting to study and explore it may also give us more pride in our home planet and make us all better earthlings the triple Mission looking for other Earths the Kepler Telescope the test satellite and the James web telescope use distinct approaches to find exoplanets and the synonym test tells us what that method is the T stands for transiting and that's the key to the whole exoplanet search e stands for you guessed it exoplanets the target of the excellent investigation of another Earth s stands for survey because Tess looks at hundreds of thousands of nearby stars and S stands for satellite because Tess is orbiting Earth unlike the James web Space Telescope which will orbit the sun when a planet passes in front of a star that is called a Transit the planet will block some of the light coming from the Star this decrease or dimming of the star can be measured the dimming of Starlight tells lots of things about the planet by knowing how bright the star is and how much the star's light was dim by a transition in front of the star we can tell how giant the planet is or how close it is but we won't know which is it big or is it close until the planet's orbit is also tied it means our test satellite must take long duration videos of the Stars ooh video of the Stars Hollywood should like that the test satellite doesn't have a telescope it uses four CCD cameras to stream live long duration videos of as many stars as possible hundreds of thousands of stars why so many well because for a Transit of a planet to be observed it must pass directly between the test satellites cameras and the star if the planet is not on the exact line of sight angle between the star and Tessa's cameras it cannot be seen because it will not cut off any star lights planetary transits are rare for example Venus passes across Earth's view of the sun only every couple hundred years yet Tessa's cameras are seeing many planetary trans it among the hundreds of thousands of stars it takes streaming long duration videos of and you know what that means it means there must be hundreds or thousands of times more planets than are observed by the transiting method it is therefore an inescapable conclusion that every Star has planets planets are everywhere and now the James web Space Telescope with its giant 21t 4in wide mirror is entering the search it is a technological Marvel a wonder of the modern world a miracle of advanced engineering anticipation is reaching a fever pitch but with the heightened anticipation comes an almost equal amount of trepidation and some things can still go wrong before the James web Space Telescope returns its first pictures after the Hubble Space Telescope for example was launched in 1990 a repair Mission had to be launched in 1993 the mirror on the Hubble was not very well ected and its pictures were very blurry astronauts had to go up and execute a spectacular space walk to fix the mirror after the fix the pictures Hubble sent back were more precise than it was ever designed for this is how an improved model appeared that cannot happen with the James web telescope the Hubble orbits the earth and is accessible to astronauts the James web Space Telescope orbits the Sun and is well beyond the moon out of the reach of astronauts because their there is no spacecraft equipped to carry him there it cannot be manually fixed if something goes wrong adding to the challenges the James web Space Telescope has only one onboard camera to inspect any damage it may suffer or mechanical malfunctions that might develop in the harsh environment of interplanetary space any remote fixes will need to be done blind from Earth the James web Space Telescope is now fully deployed the at mirror segments will need to be aligned to produce a single image this critically important process will take several months to complete once the telescope is fully deployed 70 of the first 286 observation assignments of the telescope Target exoplanets using data from previous exoplanet searches it will not have to waste time searching for exoplanets their locations and orbits are already known the James web telescope will go right after them the James web Space Telescope is not an optical telescope in the same sense as the Hubble Space Telescope or any ordinary telescope that sees visible light it sees infrared light the pictures of planets are expected to be bright dots somewhat fuzzy if they have atmospheres the Spectra of the planets will yield the most information about the exoplanet any gases around an exoplanet will absorb some Starlight as the Starlight passes through the planet's atmospheres Suppose there is methane in the planet's atmosphere oxygen or carbon dioxide the gas is that most indicate life in that case the James web telescope will be able to pick them up by spectroscopic analysis an entire portrait of the exoplanet can be formed from the infrared information its temperature ranges atmospheric content the likelihood of liquid water and even the probability of life and that's a big deal the James web Space Telescope has other missions to perform too it's assigned to examine star formation and Planet formation in nebula in the Milky Way understanding how solar systems form is part of the search for another Earth by detecting infrared light the James web Space Telescope will appear to the farthest away galaxies galaxies whose visible light gets blocked by dust and gas these distant galaxies were formed shortly after the big bag Galaxy formation is an essential mission for the James web telescope these most disting galaxies are accelerating away so fast that the light they emit is stretched below the frequency of the visible spectrum into the infrared the great telescope can see these previously invisible galaxies we hope to learn about the mysterious dark energy that is causing the universe to expand at an ever increasing velocity hope is high that the James web Space Telescope will significantly expand our knowledge of this amazing Universe we all live in okay quick space riddle why is the search for life in the the universe like a tree because you're always looking for a place to plant it you know plant it plant it okay settle down anyway water is the basis of life in any part of the universe so potentially inhabited planets must have liquid water on them to support life an incredible number of circumstances must come together for this the planet must be in the habitable zone of the star then the temperature and atmospheric pressure on the planet surface will be suitable for simple life forms to begin to evolve a little closer to the star and the water will evaporate leaving no chance for oceans and seas to form this is what happened on Venus it has a size and mass similar to the Earth but it's too close to the Sun and no life can exist on its surface too far from the star and the planet becomes too cold water can only exist in the form of ice on the surface and there just might be liquid water deep below Neptune is one example of this in addition the planet must be solid and have an atmosphere that protects it from solar radiation and allows living organisms to breathe in our galaxy alone there are countless Stars really you can't count on them near each one of them may be a planet they're called exoplanets and some of them may be in the habitable zone and have everything for life to form on them from a list of 4,500 known exoplanets scientists have identified 24 that can be superhabitable this is the type of planet that is suitable for the Existence and evolution of life even more than the earth such planets must be twice as massive as the Earth and 1.3 times larger a bigger size means stronger gravity and a denser and warmer atmosphere this will ensure a greater diversity of all living organisms on the planet in addition we should pay attention to the host star around which the superhabitable planets will orbit and there should be a McDonald's nearby ideally it should be smaller than the Sun and have a lifespan of at least 15 to 30 billion years for comparison the lifespan of the sun is under 10 billion years and it took about 4 billion for complex life forms to appear here Stars such as the sun can simply run out of fuel before life can develop on its exoplanet scientists suggest focusing on dwarf stars they're smaller and less luminous than the Sun but their lifespan can be between 20 and 70 billion years this will give living organisms enough time to develop and evolve climactic conditions on superhabitable planets will also be different the average temperature should be 8° F higher than on Earth and there should be more water in the form of clouds liquid and humidity these conditions are the most favorable for biodiversity so the whole planet would be looking like tropical forests on Earth all 24 candidates for the title of better than Earth hey are more than 100 light years away from us and with the Advent of the new generation of telescopes we'll probably be able to find out exactly if there is life there and if the conditions there are suitable for humans now let's take a look at the potentially inhabited exoplanets T garden B it's an exoplanet that orbits a red dwarf star about 12 light years away from the solar system typically red dwarfs can emit flares that blow away the atmosphere of the planets in its orbit but this host star is calm and relatively passive T garden B has almost the same mass as the Earth it makes a complete circle around its star in about 5 days yep you got it right a year on tea garden B is less than a week on Earth hold on your hats the furthest potential inhabited planet is Kepler 1638 B it's in the constellation signis about 3,000 light years away from us it belongs to the super Earth class it's twice as wide and four times as heavy as our home planet the gravity on it will feel much stronger even a normal jump will be much harder for you than on Earth although if this planet is really inhabited local life is used to such conditions LHS 1140b this planet is very Rocky and solid although its size is only 40% larger than the earth it's seven times as massive it has a strong gravity of 3.25 GS for comparison when you take off on an airplane you experience an overload of about 1 and 1/2 G's so on on this planet you'd barely be able to stand on your feet because of its large mass this planet has a thicker atmosphere and because of the greenhouse effect its temperature can be above 19° F and it rotates around its star quite quickly it makes a full circle in just 24 days and now let's look at the constellation Aquarius here's an ultra cold dwarf trapist one a small planet orbits in its habitable zone it's three times lighter than the earth its temperature is similar to ours but the gravity is half as weak but we would still feel comfortable there remember the people that went to the moon there the gravity is only 16% of the Earth's that's what makes the astronauts move so funny Kepler 452b is in a system that resembles the older sister of ours the hostar is only 11% older than our son and is almost 2 billion years old older the exoplanet itself is 6 1/2 billion years old compared to 4 1/2 billion of earths but these sisters are very far from each other if you travel at the speed of the New Horizon spacecraft it will take about 26 million years to get there so bring a big lunch this is the closest exoplanet to us Proxima centari B it orbits the Red Dwarf Proxima centuri which is the closest a star to the sun this planet is just 4.2 Lighty years away from us its size and mass are very similar to those of the earth it probably has an icy structure like Neptune although Proxima centari is the closest star after the sun we can't see it with a naked eye because it's too dim so all these planets including the 24 that scientists have recently found are in the habitable zone of their host stars and and in theory we can colonize them and make them suitable for human life in the future but here we'll have to solve one big problem even the nearest exoplanet is too far away for us today our modern rockets can fly at five times the speed of sound and even at such speeds it will take us more than 100,000 years to get to proximus centari on one of them well we need to come up with something a bit faster to travel to a a new home on one of these exoplanets and perhaps scientists already have the answer warp drive ooh this is a piece of technology that will allow us to manipulate space and time it creates a kind of a bubble in which the normal Laws of Motion don't work so the spacecraft will be able to significantly exceed the speed of light and this isn't science fiction Humanity already has such technology although just in theory yet it's aluer warp drive and no I didn't make that up since no object that has mass can travel at the speed of light we need to do one trick the spacecraft has to move by compressing the space in front of it and expanding it behind it thus not only the ship is moving but also the space time inside this warp drive bubble and the maximum speed can be 10 times that of light but to warp the SpaceTime the ship must be incredibly large and to power it will need the amount of energy close to what the whole planet of Jupiter generates still recent calculations of NASA's jet propulsion lab show that the ring around the ship which should create the so-called warp field shouldn't be perfectly round as it was thought before it can be more donut shaped ah Donuts this will greatly simplify the design and construction and will make it possible to test this technology on a spacecraft the size of a Voyager 1 Pro even though it still seems impossible scientists are already saying that there is hope and while we don't know what technology will be used in 2069 NASA plans to launch its first Interstellar mission to explore potentially habitable planets outside of our solar system various rumors say that the speed of light can be achieved with Laser Technology if the probe is very small it can be launched to the alpha centari star at almost the speed of light there are also two other alternatives to power spaceships these are nuclear energy and energy from matter and antimatter collisions oo these Technologies are still a mystery to humanity though well for the time being stay [Music] tuned 2022 and 23 have been Landmark years for discovering new fascinating worlds last year NASA surpassed 5,000 confirmed exoplanets the list is incredibly diverse it includes Rocky super Earths gas giants like Jupiter ice giants like Neptune and so on and this is just the beginning there might be more than a trillion exoplanets in our galaxy alone but the most important question is how many of them are habitable you know for us are there there any planets on this list that could have life on them or that could be a future home for us of course there are and in 2022 2023 we found as many as five of them so buckle up and hang on for a wild ride beyond our solar system the first planet on our list is Wolf 1069b a boring and stodgy designation so I'll simply nickname it Wolfie because hey who's going to stop me NASA a new study conducted by 50 star ey astronomers confirms something awesome this exoplanet Wolfie which is located just 31 light years away from us could potentially be a rocky World in other words theoretically it's a habitable planet the team behind this discovery used a technique called radio velocity to detect the exoplanet this is a way scientist study the movements of stars and planets it's as if when you're playing catch with a friend as they thr throw the ball to you you can see it coming closer and closer it's kind of like radial velocity when a planet is moving towards us it makes the stared orbits appear to be coming closer to us when the planet is moving away from us it also makes the star look more distant scientists can use this information to figure out what the planet is doing and how big it is and that's how they found Wolfie this exoplanet is estimated to be the Earth's size and about 1 and A3 times the mass of our planet it's orbiting a red dwarf star who all call Wolfie's Mama but here's the real kicker Wolfie orbits within its star's habitable zone which means it's a prime candidate for liquid water to exist on its surface that's like hitting the exoplanetary jackpot ooh wish I had a ticket the study estimates that if Wolfie does have an earthlike atmosphere temperatures could rise as high as 55° F which would mean liquid water could pull on the planet's day side but here's the catch the exoplanet is tidally locked to its star meaning that the same side always faces the star just imagine one side of the planet is always Bast in the warmth of its star while the other is in Eternal Darkness like Middle School just kidding the team behind the discovery believes it's a prime candidate for further studies but we'll probably have to wait another 10 years for answers until then we'll just have to keep searching the skies with our telescopes and crossed fingers our next planet is toi 700e H what's a good nickname NASA has just discovered a new planet that's set to take the galaxies by storm or shall we say by orbit I'll nickname it toys were us it's almost the size of Earth most likely has liquid water on its surface and it's only 100 light years away we're not talking about a road trip of course but this is close enough in the grand scheme of things toys were us is the fourth planet in its system and it's got a bit of a short orbit just 28 days to Circle its star well at least you would have a birthday every month hooray this time the discovery was made using the transit method planets themselves are incredibly small and hard to attack but when a planet is in front of its star it blocks some of the light coming from it making it look a little bit dimmer as soon as the planet moves away the star gets brighter again so to find the planet scientists watch very carefully to see if the star's brightness changes if it does that means there's probably a planet playing hideand-seek with us and that's how they discovered toys were us the test mission discovered it it discovered 66 new exoplanets and 2,100 more candidates waiting to be confirmed Tess has been very busy creating Imaging for 75% of the sky talk about efficiency toy is where us is located in the optimistic habitable zone between planets C and D but it may be tily locked just like Wolfie so we might have to settle for a one-sided Water World the discovery of toys were us is a promising Prospect for future followup observations and it demonstrates the potential for tests to find even smaller exoplanets in the future who knows it may find a new home for Humanity Among the Stars one day or at least a new vacation spot next we have twins GJ 1002b and GJ 1002c the Galaxy just got a little bit closer to us with the discovery of two exoplanets which I'll nickname Hansel and grle that are just a stone throw away from our solar system that's right these two earthlike planets are located less than 16 light years away which is just a hop skip and a jump in space terms for comparison Proxima centuri B is the closest Earth Mass exoplanet at 4.2 Lighty years away so these two new neighbors are among the closest to us they both orbit a red dwarf star with barely 1/8 the mass of the sun it's quite cool and faint but that's okay since both planets are very close to it Hansel takes 10 days to orbit its star while grle takes just over 21 days even more birthdays I guess the discovery was made by an international scientific team and was no small feed the team had to work together with two instruments espresso and carmenes the result a cafe lat nah what they got were measurements so accurate you could practically count the number of craters on the planet surfaces the big deal is the planets are located in the habitable zone of their star and are just the right size making them excellent candidates for future atmospheric studies the lead author says nature seems bent on showing showing us that earthlike planets are very common with these two we now know seven in planetary systems quite near to the sun who knew our neighbors could be so friendly in conclusion the discovery of Hansel and gredle is a giant leap for human kind so let's all raise a glass of H2O or whatever they drink on exoplanets and celebrate it the last planet on our list is LP Bob this super Earth located about 98 light years away is roughly 40% larger than our home planet moreover it has a twin which I'll nickname Ray which is up to 75% larger than Earth more space is always good right the two planets orbit around the red dwarf star unfortunately Ray is quite hot to the touch with an estimated temperature of 253° f so don't touch its sibling Bob is located in the habitable zone of its star making it a prime candidate for the potential of life but let's remember that the actual temperature of the planets depends on their atmospheres it's possible that Bob being the outermost planet has a runaway greenhouse effect making it more like Venus than Earth so it might be too hot to be habitable at all but let's not lose hope yet the James web Space Telescope launched in December 2021 is on the case with its cuttingedge technology and Powerful instruments including spectrographs it can peer into the atmospheres of exoplanets and reveal which ones might be habitable so let's see what it discovers this planet has been listed as the second most favorable habitable zone terrestrial planet now it's on the list with seven other earthlike planets all about 40 light years away from us maybe they'll become our new homes in the future maybe we should fix the home we have but until then enjoy this moment and celebrate all these new discoveries who knows how many more planets we'll find in the future considering how much technology develops each year thousands millions meanwhile Bob and Ray anel and grle toys Were Us Wolfie and her mama will all be out there waiting for us you take off from Earth and park your spacecraft somewhere near the moon you're now almost 240,000 Mi away from your home planet that's almost 100 widths of the United States now you take out a giant hammer and an enormous chisel using the robotic arms of your spaceship you place the Chisel at the Earth's north pole and strike its head with the hammer Earth splits open like an eggshell and you see it another planet it's Thea and it's hiding inside our planet like a yolk in an egg you'd need to go back in time 4.5 billion years to find out how it got there this beautiful nebula will soon become our solar system colored dust and various space debris are slowly coming closer toward the Common Center soon this jigsaw puzzle of debris becomes too heavy and dense the temperature inside the giant is rising soon it gets so high that it triggers a nuclear Chain Reaction Another Second and Bam there's an explosion so powerful that the shock waves travel far into dark space and the blinding Flash from this blast can be seen from the other side of the Milky Way galaxy when the dust clears a little you can see that a bright light is still shining at the very center of the explosion this newborn star is the sun it weighs as much as 333,000 Earths if the sun was a bucket you'd need 1.3 million earth-sized planets to fill it you're interested in a small object over there 93 million mil away from the Sun this pile of rocks and hot lava is Earth right now now the planet is busy forming its core while the oceans of lava are gradually cooling down but a few tens of million years after the sun's birth you notice a strange object hurdling toward Earth it's Thea this small planet was born at about the same time as Earth and now it's following a crazy spiral trajectory at enormous speed scientists believe Thea was kind of a ball Jupiter and Venus played with Venus was pulling Thea in One Direction then and Big Brother Jupiter pulled it back but the sun makes up 99.8% of the mass of the entire solar system that's why the star sets its own rules it makes Thea move in almost the same orbit as Earth so they inevitably come closer and closer to each other until they become Nextdoor neighbors we see that Thea is the size of Mars and as wide as the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Portugal a collision can't be avoided Thea is traveling toward Earth at nearly 9,000 mph that's 11 times faster than the speed of sound if the smaller Planet crashes into Earth at a particular angle Earth will most likely be torn apart as well as Thea itself the Collision will cause a huge blast visible on other planets even on a bright day nothing will be left but some burning dust and debris even if Thea touches Earth only lightly it'll still knock out a chunk of our planet the size of Australia but the collision with Thea happens at a perfect 45° angle it strikes the Earth at tremendous speed the explosion literally vaporizes huge amounts of rock and the shock wave sends the remaining debris into Earth's orbit a huge crater is formed at the impact site soon it gets filled with boiling lava the remnants of Thea and the ejected fragments of earth begin to orbit our planet according to one version these fragments form Two Moons at first they travel together but one day they get too close to each other and Collide forming one large space body the other Theory claims that all the shards start being pulled by the remnants of Thea sometime later they form the moon as we now know it at that point in the past though it's just Red Hot Rock and lava the collision at this angle slightly tilts our planet and accelerates its rotation it's because of Thea that we have different seasons and 24 hours in a day Earth has lithospheric plates these are enormous solid pieces that make up the crust of our planet after the collision with Thea they start to break and crack it causes carbon a primary component of all known life on Earth to start moving all over our planet so Earth gets some kind of metabolism after a few hundred million years the first living creatures start to appear on our planet over nearly 4 billion years simple single celled organisms have been evolving into the life you see today according to scientists such a collision is a very rare event the probability that somewhere out there there's a planet like ours that has survived the same catastrophe is extremely small this may be the reason why we are yet to find traces of other civilizations out there in space meanwhile the remains of Thea are still here on Earth of course it doesn't look like an entire planet stuck inside our own most of the fragments have melted and blended into the Earth's crust if you take the top layer off our planet you'll see two huge lava blobs the size of entire continents they're right below Africa and the Pacific Ocean presumably these are the remains of Thea they didn't mix with Earth's mantle because of different densities it's like mixing water and oil in a glass the oil will always float up over the water and create an even layer on top of it but if you raise those lava patches up to the surface they'd be 100 times higher than Mount Everest other remains of Thea might be on the moon the Apollo space missions brought back many soil samples for analysis scientists have concluded that the Moon is very similar to Earth in structure people could drill deep down and take samples there then they'd analyze the blobs from Earth if their structure matched it'd be 100% proof that Thea did hit Earth 4.5 billion years ago and that's how we got the moon but for the time being Thea remains somewhat mysterious scientists are still not sure that the planet actually existed the whole idea perfectly fits the model of the moon's creation but in fact this incredible Collision may have never happened hop on the bright side of life together with our brand new te's hoodies and more click the link to pick your choice now you travel 41 Lighty years away from Earth to the Planet 55 kry e it's about twice the size of Earth and eight times heavier you take out your giant hammer again and use it to hit the Chisel the planet cracks and you see it's a giant Diamond the temperature on this planet is tens of times higher than that of earth and its soil is rich in carbon the heat puts a lot of pressure on this carbon its structure changes first it turns into graphite some more pressure and graphite turns into diamond on Earth diamonds form at depths below 60 M where the pressure is 50,000 times greater than on the surface the temperatures there rise over 1,000° which is as hot as fire diamonds are rejected closer to the surface in volcanic eruptions still people have to dig mines 1500 ft deep to find these beautiful gems the golden jubilee diamond is the biggest cut and faceted diamond on Earth it weighs as much as a chocolate bar and is the size of a hamster its price is about $12 million now imagine a diamond the size of an entire planet you decide to fly back to the solar system your destination is Jupiter's moon Europa it's as wide as the distance between Seattle and Houston and its mass is less than 1% the mass of Earth its surface is enclosed in an icy crust it's about 19 Mi thick but what if you crack this crust with your giant hammer wow Europa is completely covered in water it's freezing here three times colder than at the North Pole on Earth the water turns into ice almost instantly but the ocean beneath the surface is still liquid Europa interacts with Jupiter gravitationally just like the moon with Earth this creates tidal forces and heats europa's core the core melts the ice around it the result is a huge ocean 2 to three times larger than all of Earth's oceans combined scientists believe that water is the basis of life it may mean that life may exist on Europa there could be thermal Springs just like at the bottom of our oceans the water there is probably much warmer and even though the pressure and temperature in such places are likely to be extreme simple bacteria may live there Europa is almost the same age as Earth this means there's been enough time for living organisms to appear and evolve who knows maybe some Advanced civilization is already blooming under this crust of ice they may be building big cities and dreaming of conquering space right now but the only thing people can do at the moment is send a probe to Europa and find out if life is possible there this is Neptune the next stop is Pluto stand clear of the closing doors please one day with top-notch future Technologies One Stop from Neptune to Pluto won't see much further than Time Square from Bryant Park today there are huge ice mountains on Pluto valleys that go further than your eyes can see 160 m large craters almost as big as the largest one on earth and no life the reasons are obvious the long distance between Pluto and the sun guarantees freezing temperatures on that dwarf planet it also ensures a trip of a few billion miles plus it's smaller than the moon so it would get crowded very soon if people started dwelling there still there's one reason which makes life there not that far-fetched the sun has a lifespan and Cycles within it our solar system used to be nothing but a cloud of gas and dust as a result of a gravitational collapse at the center of this Cloud the gas and dust started gathering in specific denser places these pulled more and more matter as time went on and something called conservation momentum made the mass start rotating and heating up because of immense pressure later there appeared a disc similar to what Saturn has but it was made of entirely different substances and right in the center there was the ball that eventually became the Sun a protostar is a young star that's still Gathering its mass and that's exactly what the sun was before the temperatures and pressures inside of it lighted up its core millions of years later it became the sun we see every day but it won't stay this way forever it will heat up even more and eventually get bigger and denser turning into a red giant it may one day get big enough to swallow up Venus and Mercury chances are it might swallow even planet Earth even if it doesn't devour our planet the sun might get close enough to touch us well if this happened life on Earth wouldn't be possible but then in just a few minutes the sun loses about 40% of its mass and shrinks about 10 times what it used to be it's not as bright and indeed not as hot as it used to be by this moment Earth will have already been deserted people might want to start traveling around base or settle down on another planet where life is sustainable like the exoplanet Kepler 62f which by the way is even bigger than Earth while all of this was happening Pluto was changing before every resource was frozen inside of the dwarf planet water gases like methane carbon monoxide you name it but as the sun was reaching its peak Luminosity Pluto was slowly warming up and losing a lot of what it had to the vastness of space at the same time an atmosphere formed up if the atmosphere gets thick enough it would create favorable life conditions then instead of spaceships a tiny percentage of us would be able to set up colonies on the dwarf planet the temperature is comfortable there almost t-shirt weather it even resembles Earth a tiny bit Canyons filled with water beautiful endless Fields with trees and lots of space to run around and mineral water pockets on the ground good enough to drink Pluto's rotations are different than Earth's an earth day is 24 hours and sometimes it still feels like it never ends but on Pluto a whole rotation around the sun takes 153 hours because it's pretty far away from the Sun after several hours without sleep we get tired and our eyes get red it means we'd have to take several naps throughout the day on Pluto a year on Pluto equals 248 Earth years unless we come up with some sort of technology to get us to live that long our entire lifespan would be less than half a year on the dwarf planet so houses on Pluto might need to be equipped with cryo Chambers whenever you feel like dreaming for a long time you jump in it and wake up 50 Pluto days later on the dwarf planet there are also seas and beaches so it's just like a tiny Earth far away from the actual Earth the food on Pluto could be tastier we might find a way to make the ingredients more Savory and even try to grow them faster during the trip you plant a carrot and 2 days later it's ready to be in your salad there could also be new ingredients for our salads on Pluto maybe 2 m tall mushrooms we've never seen before the animals we would take with us on the trip would get released into their new home forever and with time they would evolve and adapt to their new environments the law of the Jungle could change a bit too Lions might not be Kings anymore deer are their antlers are twice the size of what they used used to be but to be fair so are the deer most of the animals that were already here used to live underwater but with time the amphibian started shifting to the surface just like Earth at the beginning of Life Pluto could only be a temporary home though once the sun has finally reached its Final Phase Pluto would get Frozen and lifeless again people instead would need to try to find a planet that stays in the goldilock zone of another galaxy the goldilock zone is the exact proper distance from the Star like the sun where the temperature is perfect for the water to stay liquid it's the rule scientists search for when looking for other planets that can sustain life we can try setting new colonies on one such planet or even try to set up our own artificial home not exactly a planet or a spaceship but a combination of both something huge built right in space say a wheel with gravity everywhere we go so we don't fall off it would float in space toward the new exoplanet capable of fitting enti States in this whole trip might happen just because the sun first grew too much and then having reached the culmination of its life cycle it would finally become a white dwarf it's going to be a pretty long journey and entire Generations will be born here you'll have a choice sleep your way through the Journey until humans finally reach their new exoplanet or enjoy the trip in this fantastic spaceship there's all you need on board malls bigger than those on Earth large futuristic cities even places to farm Fields with rich soil made artificially and finally after a long journey the exoplanet it's even somewhat better than Earth the planet is Giant and has more continents the continent's center isn't as far from oceans which means there aren't as many desert areas though the sun of this planet is an orange dwarf it's not as hot as our yellow dwarf sun today it's a bit smaller but here's the kick orange dwarfs live somewhat longer they remain stable for between 15 billion and 45 billion years despite that this new planet is full of rainforests because the planet itself is warmer it means more biodiversity and creatures we've never seen before but even if nothing out there is suitable we could try and terraform this planet instead if we take Mars as an example we could create a greenhouse effect by Smashing icer comets and releasing ammonia in them making the planet warmer we could also start planting trees we'd probably need some Earth soil to do that or we'd have to modify mars' soil to be similar to ours sooner rather than later the atmosphere would be close to the one we have on Earth we'd be able to breathe too because of the trees then we can melt Mars's polar ice caps and voila water the problem is the solar winds and sun explosions that might strip it of an atmosphere just as quickly as we can create one if not faster it has no magnetosphere either which means it can't protect us from radiation so long-term Mars wouldn't be a good choice maybe out there in the vastness that is space there is a perfect Planet waiting for us we'll start with one of the most recent and shocking discoveries of 2020 perhaps our solar system has life beyond Earth this is Venus the second planet from the sun and the sister of our home planet it's called so because it has a similar size and mass but the conditions on it are simply terrible the temperature on its surface reaches 890 de fight because of the Greenhouse Effect and the atmospheric pressure on it is as strong as if you were 3,000 ft underwater but in this hostile World there can actually be life for many years there have been discussions on this subject in 2007 scientists discovered there once had been an ocean on Venus that is in the distant past there could have been some form of life but in the fall of 2020 there was an epic argument in which scientists tried to find out whether life on Venus exists right now in September the discovery of a new life marker on Venus was announced the alma telescope in the atakama desert found found phosphine gas above the planet and the amount of this gas suggested that it may have been produced by certain microorganisms but already in October the data was analyzed again and the new results indicate it was an error so today we consider Venus to be uninhabited once more but who knows maybe soon we'll get new data and new disputes will arise in scientific circles and while some scientists are scratching their heads and still concentrating on Venus others have looked into distant space and discovered 24 planets on which life can exist and on all of them living conditions are much better than on Earth such planets are called super habitable these super planets must be 1.3 times larger than the earth and twice as massive thus they will have stronger gravity and as a consequence a denser and warmer atmosphere so the climate on superhabitable planets must be similar to the tropical climate on Earth this will ensure the maximum diversity of living organisms the host star of such a planet must be a red dwarf they're much smaller than the Sun and not so bright but their lifespan can reach 70 billion years for comparison the lifespan of the sun is seven times shorter and it's already passed half of it slow slow and steady wins the race it will give enough time for potential life to develop and evolve and here's a suitable planet for the title of superh habitable Kepler 1649c in 2020 it was named the most similar planet to Earth it's only 6% larger than our home World it orbits a red dwarf a quarter the size of our sun the planet is in the habitable zone of the star and makes a complete circle around it in 19 18.5 days the climate on Kepler remains a mystery it's known to receive about 75% of the light we get from the Sun so the temperature on its surface may be close to Earth's but we still don't know the composition of the atmosphere and other necessary conditions for life to appear there the next Discovery is one of the most amazing spectacles ever seen by Humanity it's the Collision of a star with a black hole in September 20 2019 scientists began watching how for 6 months a sunlike star was being spaghettified light from this event traveled 215 million light years and we saw a star about 860,000 Mi wide slurped up by a black hole this black disc is so heavy that it has incredibly strong gravity nothing can leave its gravitational field and now we see a star slowly approaching it first first the glowing light layers of the star begin to stretch towards the black hole it looks as if the star is simply unrolling like a ball of thread then we see this hot plasma lingering at the edges of the black hole and it may seem these particles are now orbiting it but it's just an illusion this ring of light is called The Event Horizon the black hole curves not only space but time as well this close to it time slows down to the Observer it looks as if the light near the edge of the black disc has almost stopped but in fact it has long been absorbed by the dark abyss when a black hole eats a certain amount of star material it starts spitting it out powerful beams of energy are ejected at speeds of over 6,000 m/s this is the light that attracted scientists attention in the end the black hole has completely absorbed about half of the star and spit out the other half into space and even though we watched this process for only a couple of minutes it was happening for 6 months and here is one of the youngest planetary systems that Humanity has ever observed Au microscopi it's so young there's still a disc around it from the debris this system was made of but this time we don't even hope to find life here the host star of this exoplanet continually emits radiation flares that would wipe out any form of life from the planet's surface the planet that orbits this dangerous star is called Au mckb and it's just a newborn baby by astronomical standards it's so close to its star that it makes a complete circle around it in 8.5 days the age of this planet is only 12 million years so at the time Au MCB was born mastadons walked on the surface of our planet and Meadows and savanas were covering the Earth's face so you and I can consider ourselves oldtimers because the age of the Earth is almost 4.5 billion years the next Discovery took place in early 2020 and it's very similar to a landscape from Science Fiction it's a planet with two suns well more precisely it doesn't orbit around a single star as we are used to in our solar system but around a binary star system toi 1338 the first big star is like the sun the other is a red dwarf which is three times smaller these Stars completely Circle each other in a little over 14 days the planet that orbits these stars is the size of Saturn which is much larger than the earth although the sunsets and sunrises there look incredibly beautiful this planet is unlikely to be suitable for any form of life it's outside the habitable zone of its host Stars so it probably doesn't have liquid water mysterious radio signals from outer space have also been received in 2020 we're talking about fast radio bursts scientists recorded such signals before but recently they have managed to prove that they are repeated after a certain period of time the new data have forced the scientists to come up with a very bold theory that their Source may be a magnetar a magnetar is a neutron star that is small and has a huge mass compared to ordinary stars like the Sun but they have the strongest magnetic field in the entire universe their lifetime is very short though only 1 million years but what baffled scientists the most this year was discovering that the Moon is rusting corrosion needs oxygen and water to take place but the moon doesn't have its own atmosphere to have both the main Theory says the solar wind is to blame it moves at great speed and scrapes oxygen from the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere the wind continues to carry oxygen molecules through space and eventually they reach the surface of the Moon and cause metal ore to rust by the way the signature red color of Mars was created because of the rust for a long long time there was an atmosphere and water in combination with iron on its surface it triggered a long process of rusting which has lasted since ancient times another stunning Discovery was found on the surface of the Moon with a stratospheric telescope it's an aircraft that carries a telescope the plane raises it to an altitude of 8 m and this allows it to have a picture quality comparable to that of space telescopes and with the help of such an usual Observatory scientists were able to find water on the surface of the Moon water molecules were found in one of the largest craters on the visible side of the satellite but the number of water molecules is still extremely small there the Sahara Desert has about 100 times more water than the surface of the Moon among all the planets of the solar system our Earth is unique since it's the only one that has developed life but what if we got a competitor what if a second Earth appeared out of nowhere then there would be two different scenarios the first is the destruction of both planets the second has an unexpected but pretty logical ending but let's start with the catastrophic scenario the second Earth with the same conditions could only exist if it received absolutely the same amount of sunlight as our planet the orbit that our Earth follows is perfect for getting the necessary amount of solar heat if we were a little further away the entire surface of our planet would resemble Antarctica and if Earth were a little closer to the Sun we'd all live in a huge desert inhabited by very few living beings so for the second Earth to be identical to ours it would need to follow the orbit of our planet two massive objects can exist close to each other the union of Earth and the moon is a great example but if the second object was as heavy and huge as our planet there wouldn't be enough space for both of them the gravity of Two Earths would be a huge problem the Two Worlds would Collide because they would be pulled toward each other this process would last for hundreds of millions of years and in the end the two planets would transform into one giant world and their remnants would be flying around the newly formed Planet resembling the rings around Saturn or one of the planets would push the other out of its orbit in this case one of the earths would hurdle toward the Sun and burn like a match in its atmosphere it's also important to remember that Earth is moving at a speed of 67,000 mph at all times this is more than 80 times faster than the speed of sound and now imagine two huge planets that are flying toward each other at such a speed even a microscopic organism living in the mouth of a volcano wouldn't stand a chance to survive the Collision Of Two Earths even the moon would be Torn to Pieces by the blast wave but let's imagine that Earth's twin is following another orbit somewhere between Mars and Earth even in this situation people's lives would change Forever by the way the theory that Earth might have a twin appeared long ago scientists of the past believed that the second planet could be hiding on the opposite side of the sun thanks to Modern Technologies and astronomy we know this Theory isn't true otherwise our telescope sces and other equipment would have already caught some signals from this planet scientists study space objects thousands of light years away from us so they would definitely notice another world in the neighborhood but anyway let's imagine that the second Earth does exist and we've discovered it recently the entire field of astronomy and astrophysics will immediately receive hundreds of billions of dollars in funding the study of Earth's twin will become a priority goal for people experts will put forward hundreds of hypothesis about what the second earth looks like and what's happening there the planet is almost at the same distance from the Sun as we are this means the weather must be the same there soon scientists find out that Earth's doppelganger has liquid water and continents but they aren't like ours their shapes and location are different most likely life exists there too but what is its origin there's a hypothesis that life on our planet appeared thanks to amino acids brought here by a meteorite it's highly improbable that the same thing happened to another world life most likely emerged there in a completely different way perhaps the fish didn't get out of the water on that planet and the first intelligent creatures appeared in the ocean these could be amphibians with scales and fins or octopus-like Monsters with huge tentacles fish on the second Earth could have come out of the water and grown limbs but what if they didn't like walking on the ground then this world might be inhabited by intelligent bird people or life could have originated deep in the soil then Evolution would create humanoid moles or highly developed worms to find out for sure scientists send a Rover there a similar Mission to Mars was a success so there shouldn't be any problems with this one people on Earth are waiting what will the Rover find on the other side it will take several years for the ship to get there strangely 2 days after the launch it returns but wait this is not our space probe all this time the inhabitants of the second Earth have been watching our planet too at one point they also sent a probe it's made of the same materials as ours it has a camera and a recording device but people are worried because the Rover looks similar to a mechanical spider can it be that giant tarantulas live in that world scientists understand that that we need to communicate we send our guests a radio signal with some information about our civilization they catch this message and send their own it contains strange symbols that resemble scratches linguists all over the world are trying to decipher it meanwhile astronomers send the guests a recording of human speech a few days later our satellites catch a message from our space neighbors with their voices scientists are about to play the recording the whole world is listening with baited breath and it's a growl a terrible an absolutely incomprehensible growl it has pauses and an unusual Rhythm but it's nothing resembling human speech the whole planet is panicking all countries are preparing for an invasion the most important thing now is to build Shields to protect the planet no one can decrypt the message it's possible that our neighbors can't understand us either people make a last attempt to establish some contact we send a video to explain to our guests with the help of gestures and signs that we only want peace and collaboration the answer doesn't take long to wait our satellite receives their video file scientists play back the recording and it's shocking we see dinosaurs in robotic suits life on the second Earth has been developing in the same way as on our planet but the infamous colossal meteorite didn't fall there over millions of years of evolution dinosaurs have have become sensient in the video they're growling and pointing with their claws at the picture of our Earth then they start growling even more loudly and is it laughter the recording ends people consider this the announcement of the invasion several years have passed during this time scientists have exchanged messages with Dinosaurs several times and it seems we're beginning to understand them it turns out that the reptiles also want peace they say that their planet was once inhabited by humanoids similar to humans but a massive flood wiped them away dinosaurs managed to survive and evolve into intelligent beings it will take many years before people set foot on their planet and when this happens Humanity will feel relieved realizing that we're not alone but what if there was no intelligent life on the second Earth people would also be happy we would know that we'd always have another home perhaps we'd start exploring Earth's twin right away or begin mining its resources to replenish ours in any case our lives wouldn't change immediately because that land would be too far away from our planet dozens of generations would pass before people begin settling on the second Earth our homeland Planet would be losing more and more resources so everyone would want to move to a new world in the beginning only the richest would be able to do it but with time space travel would become cheaper people would probably invest a lot of of money to build a paradise on the second Earth if this happened we'd be visiting this world during our vacation to breathe fresh air and enjoy nature in any case the human population would grow this means that sooner or later the second Earth would become as loaded as the first one and then people would start searching for a new home Among the Stars by the way if any life exists on a planet similar to ours it's likely to look like octopuses there's even a theory that o puses came to Earth from some other world any animal has several evolutionary stages of development for example elephants and mammoths descended from one common ancestor 5 to 6 million years ago looking even further almost all mammals evolved from one ancestor they shared with reptiles each species has been changing over millions of years but not octopuses they suddenly appeared on a family tree from the point of view of evolution squids would have to evolve into octopuses Millions of years from now but look they're already here besides octopuses are incredibly smart their genetic code is much more diverse than the human one they may be visitors from another planet that is similar to ours but of course this is only a hypothesis hop on I've prepared a tour around Earth's fellow planets let's start with Mercury the smallest planet in the solar system during the day the temperature on the surface of this planet can reach 800° f and during the night it can drop to - 290° F the temperatures here are so extreme because the planet has no atmosphere instead of it mercury has a thin exosphere that's one of the reasons why Mercury is not habitable the temperatures and solar radiation are too extreme for any organism to survive there now let's imagine there's a way to live on Mercury then what would life there look like Mercury surface resembles that of the Moon Over time meteorite left lots of marks on it unlike the moon's surface Mercury is grayish Brown now look up the sun on Mercury would appear almost three times as large as it does on Earth the sunlight would be almost seven times brighter I wonder what type of sunglasses people would wear if we lived there can life appear on this planet in the future don't get your hopes up it's very unlikely now how about landing on Venus you might think the hottest planet in our solar system is mercury since it's the closest to the Sun but in reality this title goes to Venus what is it that makes Venus boil the biggest reason is its atmosphere it's made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide the atmosphere is so thick that it leads to the planet warming up non-stop basically the gases in the atmosphere prevent thermal radiation from leaving Venus so the planet simply can't cool down the water on its surface constantly turns into vapor if the surface of Venus was food then its atmosphere would be the microwave that's why the temperatures in this world can go up to 87° fhe what would it be like to live on Venus on Earth seasons change because of the planet's tilt but Venus doesn't experience any significant changes throughout the year things are pretty constant at night and during the day too and what about the view of the sky the clouds on Venus appear yellow or bright white they're mostly made of poisonous sulfuric acid but then why does Venus appear reddish orange when you look at it from Earth talking about the true colors of planets can be a tricky business the Hue of a space body might be different when you look at it from another planet if we traveled all the way to Venus a reddish brown surface would welcome us the molecules of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid block sunlight coming into Venus's surface hence the reddish orange color of the planet oh and did you know that Venus is often called Earth's twin both planets are nearly equal in size both have relatively young surfaces and thick atmospheres with clouds plus the orbit of Venus is also the closest to Earth that might raise a question about the possibility of Life on Venus I'm sorry to break the news but nope Venus is not habitable the next destination is Mars unlike Venus Mars has Seasons due to the planet's tilt on its axis it also has a the secondary seasonal effect caused by its highly elliptical orbit the southern hemisphere has colder Winters and hotter Summers than those in the northern hemisphere the average temperature on Mars is 80° F but temperatures can also range from the poles to the equator and they can change very dramatically within a single week still not that bad compared to the previous two planets huh is Mars habitable the number one thing a living organism should worry about out here is space radiation Earth has a magnetic field and a thick atmosphere to protect its surface from radiation Mars has neither the planet's gravity is 1/3 of Earth's so weaker gravity and a thinner atmosphere make it harder for any living being to survive on the red planet in 2013 NASA reported an ancient freshwater lake that could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life this is evidenced now that liquid water once flowed on Mars This confirmation suggests that Mars could have had the necessary environment to support life but what happened to the water on Mars the most popular explanation is that the planet's atmosphere became too thin and cold to keep liquid water on Mars's surface The Disappearance of water might also be related to the loss of early magnetic fields or the reason might be the red planet's size Mars is probably too small to keep water so for now Mars is not habitable but you know scientists keep sending missions to Mars maybe they'll find some new information let's wait and see now Jupiter have you ever wondered what it might be like to live on the biggest planet in our solar system Jupiter's environment is an unlikely place to support life the temperatures on this planet and its composition are too extreme for any organisms to appear there Jupiter has layers of gas mostly hydrogen and helium these gases fill the entire planet quite literally there is no solid surface on the planet gases go all the way to the core below the surface they become liquid and turn into plasma because the atmospheric pressure there is way more intense than any place on Earth to put it into perspective an organism on Jupiter has to resist 1,00 times more atmospheric pressure than it would on Earth can a living being survive in such conditions un likely Jupiter is completely uninhabitable but hey have you heard that its Moon Europa might be a possible habitable zone change of scenery Saturn it's the second largest planet in our solar system like Jupiter Saturn is a gas giant ball mainly consisting of hydrogen and helium what about temperatures on Saturn it's freezing plus there are extremely powerful winds there the winds in Saturn's upper atmosphere reach the speed of 1,000 600 ft per second let's compare them to storms on Earth to have a better understanding the strongest hurricane ever recorded on Earth was moving at 350 ft per second so the answer to the question is there life on Saturn seems pretty obvious Life as we understand it doesn't exist there the next stop is Uranus one of the largest ice giants Uranus's atmosphere is dominated by ice but it's not the only reason that causes the planet's blue color it's also the methane in the atmosphere it absorbs red light and reflects blue the same goes for Neptune Uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system the temperatures there can be as low as371 de fenhe life on earth needs sunlight to get energy but there's nothing on Uranus that can produce any energy for life forms to thrive the bottom line is Uranus doesn't have the environment to sustain life heading for Neptune the second ice giant what is there on the planet furthest from the Sun obviously it's incredibly chilly there's neither a source of energy that bacterial life can exploit nor a source of liquid water currently scientists believe it's unlikely to find life on Neptune because of such unfriendly conditions so what makes our planet so livable and I'm not just talking about human life I mean any living organisms even microbes life requires very special conditions to exist all living beings need some sort of food water and the right temperature to develop the atmosphere is a vital element humans for instance need oxygen to breathe and they can only survive in temperatures that aren't extremely hot or cold another thing is gravity all the other planets I've mentioned don't have exactly the same conditions as Earth life there would probably be different than what we have here all living beings on earth have a adapted to our atmosphere and life forms elsewhere would need to be able to survive in that planet's conditions is that Earth you can see at a distance right just look at it floating in space hanging out with its Planet buddies you spot orange red Mars and Jupiter with its asteroid belt even tiny Pluto is there all these planets keep their distance from each other moving along in their own orbits they're not very social you see but that's a good thing it would cause nothing but trouble if they started to bump into each other but even though there are others Earth is the only planet we know that has life and we've even figured out why it's because it was lucky enough to appear in the best spot in our solar system in the goldilock zone scientists say the key ingredient for life is water but well there's water on Mercury this planet has deposits of water ice at its South and North Poles but only because those places never see the light everywhere else water simply evaporates from the surface of the planet Mercury is way too close to the Sun Pluto has some water too astronomers even think the dwarf planet might be up to 30% water but it's frozen unlike Mercury Pluto's too far away from the Sun which is why all its water is in the form of ice but Earth hovers in a perfect spot called the habitable zone it has the right temperature for the water to remain liquid and for all forms of life to flourish but what if Earth was the only planet in the solar system no Mars no Jupiter no Mercury no Venus things might have turned out a little different than what we're used to remember that massive asteroid that hit the Earth around 66 million years ago well without Jupiter and its asteroid belt our planet would be constantly hit by meteorites and asteroids and some of them would be just as big as the one that caused all that sorrow to the dinosaurs these Rocky fellas would be roaming around in space with no one and nothing to stop them and if Earth was the only planet out there it would also be their only target but that's not all look at all this huge space Earth would have all to itself it means our planet would have an opportunity to travel a bit it could even choose to leave the goldilock Zone but then would life on the planet still be the same so let's say earth started drifting away from the Sun then it'd soon get too cold on the planet picture a place where the sun doesn't shine anymore dark cold covered in ice and snow all year round that would be our Earth if it traveled further from the Sun if this happened our cities would start to look very different right now Earth is full of Life come to any park and you'll see green trees and grass everywhere there will be people walking sitting on the benches enjoying the sun you'll definitely spot someone playing soccer or frisbee on the parks Lawns there will be people resting on their blankets soaking up the Sun a few people will be reading their books looking relaxed and happy back in space you see Earth again the planet is still in its favorite spot that's why life is so beautiful down there but wait is it moving our planet is definitely further from the Sun now has it changed things for Earth it actually looks a bit Bluer now down there Famous Golden California is not so golden anymore it's gloomy and dark much like like all other places on Earth New York is covered in ice even in the hottest places the temperatures are now below freezing including tropical destinations like the Bahamas after a while liquid water turns into ice the oceans now look like giant skating ranks except there's no one to skate there since the planet has become way too cold to support life okay then what if instead of drifting further away from the sun earth moved closer with people still aboard who the temperatures here are crazy too hot to handle the climate would be getting hotter and hotter natural disasters would start to occur more often hurricanes and floods would be a common thing on earth now and pretty soon the planet would get too hot for people to handle particles from the Sun would become a serious threat the atmosphere would be struggling to protect Earth from solar radiation but this Shield would be growing weaker liquid water would be nowhere to be found anymore maybe only in underground deposits Earth would look a bit like Mars all Rocky and Barren the Mississippi River would dry up and leave behind a huge Canyon all the oceans would be gone too at the moment the Mariana Trench is the deepest known place on Earth it's incredibly hard to reach its bottom because of the immense water pressure there but without water trips to the deepest spot on Earth would be possible it would help people uncover some more of Earth's Secrets if people still lived on the dry and scorching hot planet that is in other words if someone was to explore Earth after the planet had moved closer to the Sun everything would be completely different but what if Earth didn't move at all and everything remained the same the only difference there would be no other planets around us it would change the way people explore space sure there would still be navigation communication and weather satellites and maybe space telescopes but there wouldn't be any other space objects close enough for people to send missions there this would affect the future too if people had no desire or opportunity to go to space they would invest in their home planet they would build Sky cities instead of looking for other planets to colonize these days if you get a state-of-the-art telescope you'll see distant stars and other planets the better the telescope the more detail there is for you to see but with no other planets out there the picture of space wouldn't be so exciting Stars would still be visible and you might even spot a meteorite or two and you'd definitely see the moon but that's about it space agencies would mostly be focused on keeping Earth secure mainly because asteroids would become fre qu visitors to protect the planet scientists would have to figure out ways to get rid of them like a massive laser beam when turned on it could go all the way to the moon and even further instead of building Rockets to explore space SpaceX and NASA would be in the asteroid clearing business people wouldn't even think of trying to contact other civilizations if there were no planets similar to Earth they would consider it a wasted effort this means no radio signals being constantly sent out to space a curious fact in February of 2008 the beetle song Across the Universe was beamed into deep space it was done to celebrate both the song's 40th anniversary and NASA's 50th anniversary in the 70s people also sent a radio signal out into space it contains some basic information about humans and the solar system but it was more a feat of strength for technology than an attempt to contact any alien buddies we might have with no planets around the world of sci-fi would change too there would be no more movies about deep space exploration no massive spaceships and Rockets would appear on the big screen and since there would be no expeditions to other planets no Rovers would be sent to space to look for signs of life and explore new worlds like what the Rovers on Mars are doing right now people would concentrate more on their own planet for example they would begin to explore its insides new technologies would allow us to dig much much deeper all the way through Earth's crust and further and doesn't a trip to the planet's core sound exciting instead of astronauts there would be explorers of the deep underground new Drilling Technologies would be invented to make the digging process more effective there would be new types of vehicles they would be created to drill and protect explorers from the enormous underground pressure while exploring the world under the planet surface people would likely find absolutely new life forms those would be mysterious creatures that evolved to survive in the dark in extreme temperatures and with barely any food it certainly helped people understand more about their home planet
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