NASA Confirms James Webb Found Major Evidence of Planet 9’s Existence Yet

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Look at this giant donut-shaped region far away from Earth, beyond the orbit of Neptune. We're talking about a distance of more than 2.5 billion miles. It's the Kuiper Belt, and something eerie and bizarre is happening there.

[00:00:16]Dwarf planets and other small objects dwelling there refuse to cluster together. Instead, they follow particular [music] orbits, which is weird. The reason might be a large mysterious planet hiding beyond Pluto.

[00:00:30]Its gravity might be messing up the orbits of those Kuiper space bodies.

[00:00:38]Hear me out.

[00:00:39]Our solar system is made up of the sun and everything that goes around it because of the star's strong gravity.

[00:00:45]This includes the eight main planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

[00:00:54]There are also smaller things like moons, asteroids, and Pluto.

[00:00:59]For a long time, people thought Pluto was the ninth planet, but when it was reclassified as a dwarf planet, scientists started looking for a new Planet X. Did they have a thing about odd numbers or what? And guess what?

[00:01:13]Some really think there might be a big icy planet hiding far, far away beyond Neptune.

[00:01:20]This mystery planet is often called Planet [music] Nine.

[00:01:25]Now, Planet Nine hasn't been seen yet, but scientists think it might be out there because of some tiny faraway space rocks called ETNOs that move following bizarre, confusing paths.

[00:01:38]These paths seem to be grouped together and tilted in a way that doesn't happen by chance. This could mean there's a hidden planet pulling them into place with its gravity.

[00:01:48]If Planet Nine is real, it might be five to 10 times heavier than Earth. It would also be super far away, hundreds of times farther from the Sun than Earth is.

[00:01:59]Over the years, scientists have guessed different distances for its orbit. And the newest guess in 2025 says it could be about 290 times farther from the Sun than Earth.

[00:02:11]There are some cool ideas about where Planet Nine came from. It might have started as a big [music] planet that Jupiter once kicked out of the inner solar system. Or it might have come from another star or even wandered around space on its own before getting caught by the Sun's gravity.

[00:02:29]Even though scientists have looked really hard using powerful telescopes, no one has actually seen Planet Nine yet. And so far, its existence is still just a theory.

[00:02:41]But recently, a group of researchers tried something clever. They used data from two special space surveys called IRAS and Akari.

[00:02:50]These two looked at the sky in invisible light, far infrared, about 23 years apart.

[00:02:57]Which is helpful because Planet Nine is supposed to move very slowly.

[00:03:02]The team focused on a special list from Akari, which is better at finding faint moving things in space.

[00:03:10]They guessed how bright Planet Nine might be and how fast it might move based on how big, far away, and cold it could be.

[00:03:19]Then they looked for matching blips in the sky that were seen by both IRAS and Akari. But not in the exact same spot.

[00:03:27]That's because a real [music] planet would have moved a little over 23 years.

[00:03:31]And they indeed found 13 possible matches that could be Planet Nine.

[00:03:37]Their estimations were based on how far away the object seemed to be, 500 to 700 times farther from the Sun than Earth, and how heavy it might be, which is 7 to 17 times Earth's mass.

[00:03:51]After looking very carefully at all the images, they narrowed it down to one really good candidate. The two detections weren't in the same spot in both surveys, and the way they appeared in the Akari map matched what you'd expect from a slow-moving object. It showed up on one date and wasn't there 6 months earlier. But, of course, there was a catch.

[00:04:14]Apparently, the old data isn't good enough to figure out the exact path of the potential planet.

[00:04:20]So, the team wants to do new follow-up observations using a special camera called DECam, which is really good at spotting faint moving objects.

[00:04:30]That way, they can find out if this candidate is really Planet Nine.

[00:04:35]Additionally, it can help us learn more about how our solar system works and how it formed.

[00:04:41]If Planet Nine is ever discovered, it would totally change the way we understand our solar system. It could explain why some far-out space rocks in the Kuiper Belt tilt weirdly. [music] The thing is, most planets go around the Sun in a flat-ish circle, but those far-away objects are tilted about 20°.

[00:05:01]>> [music] >> Planet Nine might be the reason why.

[00:05:04]Next, we'd probably find out why those tilted objects seem to [music] point the same way. Their orbits are grouped together in one direction. A big hidden planet's gravity could be herding them like sheep.

[00:05:18]There are also some strange tilted objects super far away. They don't make sense unless something big, [music] like Planet Nine, is tugging on them.

[00:05:27]A few space rocks orbit the Sun backward between the big planets, which is kind of the wrong way.

[00:05:33]That's super weird unless something big is messing with them.

[00:05:37]Some far-out Kuiper Belt objects keep crossing [music] Neptune's path and haven't been flung away.

[00:05:43]That's because Planet Nine might be helping keep their orbits stable over a long time.

[00:05:50]Another cool thing is that if Planet 9 existed, it would be a super-Earth, a kind of planet we see a lot around other stars, but we don't have in our solar system yet.

[00:06:02]So, finding one here would make our solar system more like the others out there.

[00:06:08]Throughout history, people have been wondering if there could be hidden planets far beyond Neptune, even before Pluto was found.

[00:06:18]Back in 1880, a guy named George Forbes guessed [music] there might be two unknown planets way out there. One about 100 times farther from the Sun than Earth, and the other [music] about 300 times farther.

[00:06:33]He thought these mystery planets might be pulling on some comets and changing their orbits, kind of like how Jupiter does with the comets near it.

[00:06:42]In 2004, scientists found a weird little world called Sedna.

[00:06:47]It had a strange path around the Sun that didn't seem to be affected by any of the known planets.

[00:06:53]It's closest point to the Sun, called perihelion, is way too far for Neptune to be the reason.

[00:07:00]This made some scientists wonder if Sedna got pushed into its path by a hidden planet, maybe even something as big as Earth or bigger.

[00:07:09]Others thought maybe it was a star that flew by a long time ago, or another star that formed near ours.

[00:07:17]Then, in 2014, another odd object was discovered. It had a very similar orbit to Sedna, which made people even more suspicious that there could be something big out there messing with their paths.

[00:07:31]This kicked off a new round of the Planet X or Planet 9 hunt.

[00:07:36]At a meeting in 2012, a scientist named Rodney Gomes said that maybe there was a big hidden planet around 1,500 times farther from the Sun than Earth.

[00:07:47]He thought it could explain the orbits of other odd objects like some far out comets and centaurs, small bodies that wander among the giant planets. [music] At that time, those who supported the Planet Nine theory believed [music] that if it existed, it would move around the Sun in a huge stretched out circle called [music] an elliptical orbit.

[00:08:08]It would be about 400 to 800 times farther from the Sun than Earth is, about 13 to 26 times farther than Neptune. [music] If it really had that kind of orbit, it would take around 10,000 to 20,000 years to go around the Sun just once.

[00:08:25]Plus, >> [music] >> if it indeed orbited the Sun, it wouldn't follow the same flat path as the other planets. Its path would be tilted by about 15° to 25°.

[00:08:36]The farthest point in its orbit, called aphelion, [music] would be in the direction of the Taurus constellation.

[00:08:42]As for the closest point, it would point [music] towards Serpens, Ophiuchus, or Libra.

[00:08:48]As for the composition of Planet Nine, it would [music] probably be a lot like Uranus or Neptune. It would have a thick atmosphere made of hydrogen and helium, [music] and it would be super cold, -375° Fahrenheit.

[00:09:02]Its core would be made of iron, and its middle layer would be full of rock and water ice.

[00:09:07]At the same time, if [music] the planet was smaller and denser, then it might be more like Earth with a rocky surface instead [music] of a gassy one.

[00:09:16]According to a scientist named Mike Brown, if Planet Nine was real, a space probe would reach it in about 20 years if we used a powerful slingshot path around the Sun.

[00:09:30]At the edge of our solar system, there's a cold and mysterious region known as the Oort Cloud.

[00:09:36]It's a hypothetical vast area of icy space objects surrounding the Sun.

[00:09:42]It's believed to lie far, far away from our star, from 2,000 to 5,000 astronomical units.

[00:09:50]For comparison, Pluto's orbit carries the planet between 30 and 50 astronomical units from the Sun.

[00:09:57]And there, in this freezing emptiness, a rogue planet may be hiding right at the moment. At least, that's what new research has recently suggested.

[00:10:08]Rogue planets are called this way because they don't orbit around any star.

[00:10:13]They wander the galaxy alone, totally untethered. Without stars, they don't have days or nights, only eternal darkness.

[00:10:24]Rogue planets are usually [music] kicked out of their planetary systems, doomed to a solitary existence of circling the center of the galaxy on their own.

[00:10:34]Of the thousands of planets scientists have detected outside of our solar system, only a dozen or so are starless and cruising on their own.

[00:10:43]At the same time, there might be billions or even trillions of rogue [music] planets wandering around our galaxy.

[00:10:51]If these estimations are true, it might mean that the Milky Way contains [music] more free-floating planets than stars.

[00:10:58]Anyway, in 1907, one astronomer started a search for Planet X.

[00:11:04]It's a hypothetical giant planet moving around the Sun beyond [music] the orbit of Neptune.

[00:11:09]The scientist was convinced that this planet existed [music] because he had observed some irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.

[00:11:18]His idea led to the discovery of Pluto [music] in 1930.

[00:11:22]But the dwarf planet was too small to have any serious gravitational impact on the orbit of Neptune, let alone Uranus. [music] These days, the Planet X theory is largely considered to be discredited. [music] But it hasn't stopped astronomers from searching for planets in the far reaches of our solar system.

[00:11:44]And shockingly, [music] a new study claims there might be one or even more out there.

[00:11:50]But much, much further away than predicted.

[00:11:54]An international team of scientists [music] has recently simulated the unstable celestial mechanisms of early solar system.

[00:12:03]They've discovered that there's a possibility that a few planet-sized [music] bodies might have come to rest in the Oort Cloud.

[00:12:11]You see, >> [music] >> about 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was just forming, it was a hectic and unsettled [music] place.

[00:12:21]Gravity sent debris from the cooling protoplanetary dust cloud hurtling around like cosmic tennis balls.

[00:12:28]From time to time, large chunks [music] of this debris, even planet-sized ones, were sent flying far enough to escape the Sun's [music] gravity altogether.

[00:12:38]Such pieces of debris turned into rogue planets.

[00:12:42]Researchers have seen such space wanderers [music] in distant exoplanetary systems.

[00:12:48]But according to them, there's a 0.5% [music] chance that one or more of those wayward planets formed in the solar system and ended up in the Oort Cloud after drifting away [music] from the Sun.

[00:13:01]At the same time, it's slightly more likely that a rogue Neptune-like planet was snagged by the Sun's gravity from another planetary [music] system. And then, this planet came to rest somewhere in the Oort Cloud.

[00:13:16]The chances that this scenario is true reach 7%.

[00:13:21]If this turns out to be the case, then a space body similar to Planet X >> [music] >> might indeed be out there on the outskirts of our solar system.

[00:13:31]The only problem is that it would still be too far away [music] to have any impact on Neptune's orbit.

[00:13:37]In any case, most researchers are convinced that the Oort [music] Cloud is made up of a collection of way smaller icy objects.

[00:13:46]But given the distance to the Oort Cloud and its enormous size, we may never really figure out what is lurking out there.

[00:13:58]Let's see. There's Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Phaeton, Jupiter.

[00:14:07]Wait, hold on. What Phaeton am I talking about? Well, let's see.

[00:14:13]It was the beginning of the 19th century and the asteroid belt hadn't been discovered yet.

[00:14:18]In the year 1801, one man named Giuseppe Piazzi spotted the largest asteroid in the solar system, Ceres.

[00:14:27]At that time, people believed that there was a planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter and Ceres seemed to fit the bill.

[00:14:35]But the next year, another astronomer, Heinrich Olbers, found one more space body following a similar orbit. It was an asteroid which was later called Pallas.

[00:14:46]This discovery helped Olbers to figure out that these two space objects could be fragments of a planet. The discovery of two more asteroids, Vesta and Juno, seemed to confirm [music] this theory.

[00:14:59]It was believed that the planet, which was named Phaeton in the 20th century, appeared in the early days of the solar system and was later destroyed >> [music] >> and its debris formed the asteroid belt.

[00:15:10]Olbers' idea was called the disruption theory. To astronomers at that time, it seemed obvious that the planet once collided with a large space object, which led to its demise.

[00:15:22]The most likely candidate was Nemesis, a a hypothetical red or brown dwarf orbiting our sun.

[00:15:29]Another theory claimed that Phaeton could have gone through an internal cataclysm, which could have broken the planet into pieces. There was one more idea. Phaeton could have come too close to Jupiter and got torn apart by the gas giant's immense gravity.

[00:15:45]These days though, astronomers don't believe in the disruption theory anymore. A new idea has replaced it.

[00:15:52]It's known as the accretion theory. It claims that the asteroid belt is all that is left of the protoplanetary disk.

[00:16:00]Supposedly, this disk had been originally orbiting the sun even before the planets formed. Unfortunately, because of Jupiter's gravitational forces, it never managed to coalesce into a planet.

[00:16:12]But, what is this asteroid belt we keep talking about? This region is located between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

[00:16:20]Tons of asteroids and even minor planets are found there. Some of them can sometimes migrate or even get thrown out of the asteroid belt to the outer solar system.

[00:16:30]The four largest asteroids in that area are Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea.

[00:16:37]They make up half the mass of the entire belt.

[00:16:41]As for the rest of the mass, countless smaller bodies make up for it.

[00:16:45]In loads of sci-fi movies about space, the main character gets into an asteroid belt and has to try hard to get away from countless rocks threatening to smash their spacecraft.

[00:16:57]Well, it has nothing to do with the real thing.

[00:17:00]Even though there are thousands of asteroids in this region, they're so widely spaced that the chance of collision is next to nothing.

[00:17:08]Hey, but it's a movie, right?

[00:17:11]Anyway, when the asteroid belt was forming, some objects started to come together and form what we know as protoplanets.

[00:17:20]But the gravitational pull that was caused by the formation of Jupiter made such collisions too rough, and instead of forming large space bodies like planets, asteroids shattered.

[00:17:32]Astronomers think that as a result of such collisions, more than 99.99% of the original mass of the asteroid belt was lost in the first 100 million years of the history of the solar system.

[00:17:46]Only the largest asteroids have enough gravity to get a spherical shape.

[00:17:51]Small ones are just often piles of rubble loosely held together by gravity.

[00:17:57]And the tiniest objects in the asteroid belt resemble dust, so small they are.

[00:18:02]And all these objects, giant and tiny, orbit the sun.

[00:18:06]There are several types of asteroids, depending on their composition and albedo, which is the proportion of light or radiation reflected by a surface.

[00:18:15]The main types are carbon asteroids, which have a very dark surface, silicon ones, you can also call them stone asteroids, and metal ones.

[00:18:26]The first two types account for around 75% and 17% of asteroids that we know about.

[00:18:33]For the first time, the asteroid belt was crossed by a spacecraft in 1972.

[00:18:38]It was the Pioneer 10 space probe. The spaceship managed to refute the theory that the belt was filled with dust that could easily damage all gadgets on board. It didn't happen. And since that time, eight more probes have traveled through the asteroid belt.

[00:18:54]And now, I'm going to tell you some cool facts about the solar system itself.

[00:18:58][music] Try to count how many of these facts you've known before, and write your answer down in the comments below.

[00:19:05]The solar system is a staggering 4.5 billion years old. Scientists came to this conclusion after studying meteorites, the oldest material they managed to find.

[00:19:17]But, our solar system isn't the only one in the Milky [music] Way galaxy.

[00:19:21]The galaxy we live in houses about 100 billion star systems. And if it's just our galaxy alone, what can we say about the whole universe?

[00:19:32]Now, our sun is also insanely massive.

[00:19:35]Here's the proof. 99.86% of all the mass of the solar system is the mass of the sun, in particular, hydrogen and helium [music] that it's made of. The remaining 0.14% is mostly the mass of the solar system's eight planets.

[00:19:52]Oh, by the way, contrary to popular misconception, outer space isn't a perfect vacuum.

[00:19:59]It contains not only stars and planets, but also clouds of interstellar dust, space plasma, and cosmic rays. Those are atom fragments dashing from the outskirts of [music] the solar system.

[00:20:11]Now, one phenomenon astronauts should worry about while exploring space is cold welding.

[00:20:18]If two pieces of the same [music] kind of metal touch in space, they bond and get permanently stuck together, kind of like galaxy glue.

[00:20:27]It doesn't happen on Earth since water and air keep pieces separate.

[00:20:32]You can see solar eclipses [music] even though the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun, it's also 400 times closer to Earth. So, [music] it's perfectly capable of obscuring the star.

[00:20:44]But, in 600 million years, the moon won't be able to block the sun completely because of the satellite's changing orbit.

[00:20:53]Behind the orbit of Neptune, there is the mysterious Kuiper Belt filled with massive icy objects.

[00:21:00]The most curious thing about this space formation, though, is that the scientists failed to explain the pattern of its movement. The only explanation they have is that Neptune might be hiding a ginormous planet.

[00:21:13]>> [music] >> This hypothetical planet has already got the name Planet Nine, and all we have to do is wait until its existence is confirmed, [music] or not.

[00:21:23]The ocean on Jupiter is larger than any body of water on other planets of the solar system.

[00:21:29]>> [music] >> But, it's not the ocean you think about.

[00:21:32]The one on Jupiter isn't made of water.

[00:21:34]This mesmerizing thing consists of metallic hydrogen.

[00:21:38]And its depth is around 25,000 mi, which is actually almost the same as the circumference of Earth.

[00:21:47]Now, people got to know about beautiful Saturn's rings [music] in the 1600s.

[00:21:52]But now, we know that Saturn isn't the only ringed planet.

[00:21:56]All the giant gas planets, [music] Uranus, Neptune, and Jupiter, have rings of their own. But, they're thin and almost impossible to see.

[00:22:04]As for Mars, Venus, and Earth, they're made of rocky material and have no rings.

[00:22:10]At the same time, Saturn's moon Rhea might have a ring system consisting of three narrow bands.

[00:22:17]If astronomers manage to confirm it, it'll be the first time for people to discover rings around a moon.

[00:22:24]Oh, and Mars might get a set of rings of its own in the next 70 million years.

[00:22:30]The red planet's largest moon, called Phobos, is orbiting closer and closer to the planet. One day, it's likely to get broken apart by the gravitational pull of the red planet and turn into a ring that can last for millions of years.

[00:22:44]And another cool fact about Mars, you've probably heard of methane gas, a byproduct of such natural processes as volcanic activity and cow emissions.

[00:22:55]Anyways, this gas is not only a part of the Martian atmosphere, but also the thing that confuses astronomers to no end.

[00:23:03]The thing is that the volume of methane on Mars keeps wavering, and scientists just can't figure out where it might be coming from.

[00:23:11]Can there be life on Mars? Can there be cows on Mars?

[00:23:18]Okay, here you are in the middle of the ocean. It's endless, but you can't see it because there's a thick fog all around you. Dense clouds hide the huge but dim sun. Is it day or night? You don't know. There's only a gray haze around you. You're alone. Even if you try to swim down, after several hours, you still won't be able to see the bottom of the ocean. And that's a typical water planet for you.

[00:23:45]I know, sounded kind of dark, but it's not that bad. These water worlds are more interesting than they may seem, so let's take a look at them.

[00:23:54]The ocean planet is a planet that consists, as you might have guessed, mainly of water, ice, and maybe some rocks. Think of the Earth's oceans, its horrifying depths, the Mariana Trench, and all that. And now, can you guess how much space all the water on Earth takes up? 0.025% exactly. Now, just try to imagine a world of 40 to 60% water.

[00:24:19]If you dive in there, the depth can exceed 60 mi. Compared to that, the 6-mi depth of our Mariana Trench sounds like nothing. And yeah, the pressure there will be enormous. It can reach up to 20,000 Earth atmospheres, very crushing.

[00:24:35]Now, it may sound scary, but it still would be great to find out more about these planets. Fortunately, according to scientists' calculations, there may be a lot of such planets in our galaxy alone.

[00:24:47]Well, you don't have to go far. You can find these water guys even in our solar system. Not planets, of course, but moons. Jupiter has Ganymede and Callisto, and Saturn has Titan and Enceladus. The ocean can reach up to 30% of the mass of these moons. Although it isn't clear whether these oceans are covered with a thick crust of ice.

[00:25:08]But we've discovered quite a few full-fledged ocean planets. This is because the conditions in which these planets may exist are very specific. For example, this planet should be somewhere six to eight times larger than the Earth. If it's smaller, it'll have a rocky surface. But if it's bigger, it'll turn into a gas giant.

[00:25:28]At the same time, it must be in the habitable zone of its star. A little further and the planet immediately turns into an icy giant or a cold super-Earth.

[00:25:37]So yeah, these guys are very picky.

[00:25:40]We first started exploring these planets back in the 1970s. However, since then, we've found only a couple of them. But they're still very interesting. The first planet is Gliese 1214b.

[00:25:53]It was the very first ocean planet that we discovered. Initially, the scientists noticed only a small dim dot. This dot turned out to be the red dwarf star Gliese 1214.

[00:26:04]>> [music] >> An unremarkable, completely ordinary star that's five times smaller than our sun and 300 times dimmer.

[00:26:12]Scientists wouldn't worry about it at all. But back in 2009, they noticed that this star had one single planet. And this planet turned out to be quite strange. [music] This super-Earth was two and a half times bigger than our Earth and six and a half times heavier. But at the same time, it had a very, very small density and about the same gravity as our planet. In other words, [music] there were almost no rocks and metals on it.

[00:26:38]But it wasn't a gas giant, either. So there was only one option left. It was covered in water and ice. And that's how we discovered the first ocean planet.

[00:26:49]Well, actually, we can only assume that it consists of water. That's what the mathematical calculations say. In reality, this planet is quite confusing.

[00:26:57][music] It's difficult to explore and so far scientists haven't been able to find anything there. No hydrogen, no helium, no water, nada. That's because the outer layer of the atmosphere of this planet is very dense and it perfectly hides its composition. But even so, it's probably a water world.

[00:27:17]Gliese 1214b is very close to its star.

[00:27:21]It's only 0.014 astronomical units away, which is less than the distance between the moon and us. The year there lasts about 36 hours [music] and the temperatures, to put it mildly, are just wild. Scientists suggest that the average temperature there can reach 250 to 535° Fahrenheit. Woo, that's hot.

[00:27:42]Remember the creepy description from the beginning? Well, actually, spending time on Gliese 1214b would be a little different, more like swimming in a steam boiler. Because of such gigantic temperatures, the ocean on the surface will be constantly in a state close to boiling without actually reaching it.

[00:28:01]So, imagine that you're descending to the surface of this planet, flying through clouds of steam and then you suddenly find yourself in the water.

[00:28:10]What? But when did it happen? Well, that's because the boundary between steam and water on Gliese 1214b will be very blurred. Of course, you won't be able to swim to the bottom of this ocean, but most likely this bottom is covered with a very thick layer of so-called hot ice. It's like regular ice, but it doesn't really care about the laws of physics. So, it just doesn't melt even at gigantic temperatures and the thickness of this ice can reach as much as 3,000 miles. So, that's it for the creepy Gliese 1214b and not an Airbnb in sight. Now, although we can't 100% guarantee that it's a water world, we still have another candidate for this position.

[00:28:55]A newly discovered planet called TOI-1452b.

[00:29:00]This planet, located in the Dragon constellation, is almost 100 light-years away from us. It was discovered using the TESS telescope by a group of researchers from the University of Montreal. This planet also belongs to the class of super-Earths. It's seven times larger than our planet, but 48 times heavier. Again, all this is at a very low density. Because of this, scientists have suggested that almost the entire planet consists of a giant ocean. Here, we were a little luckier.

[00:29:31]This world won't be just a giant puddle in some thick ice. On this planet, there's probably a rocky surface deep under the water, just like in a typical ocean. Don't get too excited, though.

[00:29:42]This ocean will certainly be very different from what we're used to.

[00:29:46]TOI-1452b also orbits a small red dwarf. And not even one, but two at once. At the same time, if the previous planet was close to its sun, then this one, on the contrary, is very, very far away. It's two and a half times farther from its stars than Pluto is from the sun. And it moves at great speed. A year there lasts only 11 days.

[00:30:10]But, we still don't know many things about this planet. We'll probably get some new information when scientists observe it from the James Webb telescope. Well, that's it. Wait, did you expect something else? All right, all right. I know the question that bothers you the most. Can there be life?

[00:30:28]Well, this is a difficult question. We all know that water means life. And besides, these planets are in the habitable zones of their stars. So, potentially, yes, there might be life.

[00:30:40]Not some full-fledged civilizations, of course, but bacteria, fish, and some creepy giant monsters. I mean, you know, why not? However, this is very unlikely.

[00:30:51]Water alone isn't enough to create life, even though it's very important. There should also be some microelements and some minerals. And unfortunately, for most water planets, the composition will only consist of water and very thick ice. There won't be any minerals there.

[00:31:07]But, don't give up. There's still some probability. First of all, there are meteorites and comets. They can bring the necessary minerals to the planet.

[00:31:17]The more often they crash into it, the higher the probability that they'll bring something like this into the ocean and thus create life. Secondly, TOI 1452b actually has these minerals. Yes, we don't know how deep the rocky bottom is located there. But, if it exists, then surely something could have originated there. Let's hope that new research with powerful telescopes will allow us to find out the truth. And who knows? Maybe one day we'll be able to visit such a planet ourselves.

[00:31:51]>> [music] >> Dark, mysterious, cold space. Comets, asteroids, planets, stars, [music] and something that's lurking over there, far beyond Pluto. Yep, this could be the ninth planet of our solar system, the one people have been wondering about for centuries. IRAS, which stands for the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, collected interesting data back in 1983.

[00:32:14]It could be proved that Planet Nine [music] is hiding there. No one knows if it really exists, but this discovery [music] helped to build a model to understand this potential planet better.

[00:32:25]And in 2016, scientists found out that some small space objects in the Kuiper Belt were orbiting a bit oddly. The Kuiper Belt is the outer area of of solar system. It's a ring in the shape of a donut filled with leftovers from the times when our solar system was forming. You can find this donut beyond Neptune.

[00:32:44]The objects in that region of space have weird orbits, almost as if a big body with strong gravity is pushing them away. Knock knock, Planet Nine again.

[00:32:54]The theory says it might be five to 10 times the mass of our own planet and up to 20 times further away than Neptune.

[00:33:01]The astronomical unit equals the distance between our planet and the sun.

[00:33:05]Pluto is approximately 40 astronomical units from the sun, but Planet Nine, if it exists, is 400 to 800 astronomical units away. It would take 10,000 to 20,000 Earth years for this mysterious planet to make a single circle around the sun. This makes it harder for us to catch this space body.

[00:33:25]There's a theory Planet Nine may have formed between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune, similar to the rest of the gas giants in our solar system. [music] The gravitational force of one of the two huge planets probably kicked it out of its orbit. Oh, no. Then Planet Nine could get [music] ejected further away from the eight planets we know about. It ended up as some sort of icy weight, quite small at the beginning. But, as time went [music] by, Planet Nine has cleared its orbit of frozen pieces of rock and dust and finally formed into a real [music] planet.

[00:33:57]Another theory says that this could be a planet another star lost on its way while it was passing near our solar system. In any [music] case, Planet Nine probably doesn't reflect that much sunlight since it's so far away. And astronomers [music] aren't sure where exactly they should look for it. Space is dark, mysterious, endless, [music] obviously. But, if we do find Planet Nine, it will be the first solid proof there are more planets in our solar system than we thought. [music] Moving on to an interesting exoplanet located only 90 light years away from us. An exoplanet is generally a planet located outside our solar system. This one has an atmosphere with water clouds.

[00:34:36]>> [music] >> One year there lasts 24 Earth days, and the planet travels around a red dwarf star, [music] which is way dimmer and smaller than our sun. That's why, even though the planet is eight times closer to its star than we are to our sun, the temperature there is similar to that on our planet. This exoplanet has a size similar to Neptune. It's also less dense, which means [music] it's mostly made of gas, unlike Earth, which is made of rock. The average temperatures there is 140°, which makes it one of the coolest small exoplanets we've ever discovered.

[00:35:08]>> [music] >> And the cooler the exoplanet is, the bigger the chance we'll find clouds in its atmosphere.

[00:35:14]Researchers have discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, but all of them have been found within the Milky Way, at least until now. For the first time, astronomers may have spotted a planet outside our galaxy.

[00:35:28]They called it M51 ULS-1.

[00:35:31]The planet is located in the Whirlpool Galaxy, a distant spiral galaxy 28 million light-years away from us.

[00:35:38]There was once a huge but pretty young star that [music] got stuck in a gravitational dance with something that could be a dense neutron star, the collapsed core of a giant star, or a black hole. The star's dance partner had incredibly strong gravity. It was feeding on the star, greedily ripping away its plasma. Then something unusual happened. An unknown, maybe even Saturn-sized object [music] passed by and blocked this confrontation from our solar system. Now, no one can see what is going on. But [music] this could potentially be the farthest planet we've ever discovered.

[00:36:14]There's a newly discovered planet outside our solar system. As large as Jupiter, it orbits [music] two stars.

[00:36:20]And as we can observe it from our planet, it crosses in front of them both. The full circle around these two [music] stars, which means 1 year, takes approximately 200 Earth days.

[00:36:31]On the day of the discovery of the previous planet, [music] scientists also found it had an unusual companion. It's an [music] extra-hot Jupiter with an ultra-tight orbit around its star. The year there lasts only 1.9 Earth days.

[00:36:46]This planet has a weirdly shaped orbit.

[00:36:48]Also, it travels in the opposite direction from the rotation of its star.

[00:36:52]If you could travel 57 light-years away from our planet, you'd see something pink lurking in the darkness. As you get closer, it becomes [music] bigger and more fascinating. Yep, it's a magenta-colored planet.

[00:37:05]A few billion miles away from its sun, this guy is one of the youngest planets scientists have discovered. It's only 100 to 200 million years old. It's made of pink gas, similar to our Jupiter. So, if you could fly closer to its surface, this gas would envelop you like a thick fog.

[00:37:23]You're coming closer and going deeper, and the gas is becoming darker, getting a reddish shade. And look at the planet's core, it's super hot. Because of its high temperature of 460° [music] F, this planet is like an oven. The heat is the reason the planet glows so brightly.

[00:37:40]You'll also notice the sky is hazy pink with clouds made of [music] droplets of frozen water, similar to ours.

[00:37:47]There's another exoplanet half as massive as Earth, which is one of the smallest planets we've ever found outside our solar system. It has a diameter of 5,600 miles. For comparison, Earth's diameter is 7,900 miles.

[00:38:01]The planet in question is mostly made [music] of iron, similar to Mercury.

[00:38:05]Mercury has a massive iron core and a very thin crust, which makes it an oddball in our solar system. At its early stages, it collided with some space body at least once. That collision [music] pulled its outer layers away, which is why only the firm iron core remained.

[00:38:22]Maybe this exoplanet participated in a huge space crash, too.

[00:38:26]That's what probably took away the planet's mantle and left mostly [music] its iron core. Or maybe this is just a remnant of a gaseous planet that used to be the size of Neptune.

[00:38:37]The atmosphere of the planet could be blown [music] away by, let's say, a huge amount of radiation coming from the star. This planet is only 31 [music] light years away from us, and the day there is less than eight Earth hours long. The planet is only a little bit bigger than Mars. People aren't likely to ever settle in that place because of its extreme temperatures [music] that go up to 2,700° F. There might even be molten lava on the side of the planet that faces its star.

[00:39:04]Such temperatures are high enough to evaporate any atmosphere. So, this planet might have had one in the past.

[00:39:11]Generally, gas [music] giants like Jupiter can't support life because they have extreme weather conditions, temperature, and pressure. And there are no building blocks that might create [music] life. But smaller terrestrial planets, such as, I don't know, Earth, have more key ingredients like oxygen and liquid water. Plus, they have more temperate weather and other conditions.

[00:39:32]And still, not all of such planets support life, of course.

[00:39:36]It's not easy to find a planet [music] with similar conditions as the ones we have on Earth, or at least the conditions that would allow life to develop [music] there. But meet Kepler-22b, one of our most promising findings. It's 600 light years away from us, twice bigger than our planet, and with temperatures of about 72° [music] F.

[00:39:55]This is a so-called super-Earth. It's a category of planets unlike any we have in the solar system.

[00:40:01]>> [music] >> They're more massive than Earth, but still lighter than ice giants, such as Uranus or Neptune. Super-Earths can consist [music] of rock, gas, or a mixture of these two.

[00:40:11]Kepler-22b is within the habitable zone of [music] its parent star, which is less bright than our side. The planet probably has a rocky core. It may have an [music] ocean, but it doesn't host any life. At least, we don't know about it yet.

[00:40:29]Look at this fascinating planet. It looks as if it's burning. It must be hotter on its surface than in the middle of Death Valley.

[00:40:37]The ground is parched, cut by giant cracks.

[00:40:41]There's not a drop of water in this boiling world.

[00:40:45]Now, it's the same planet, but it looks like a totally different place.

[00:40:49]Everything is frozen. The temperatures are so low, there isn't even a tiniest chance that life could survive on this planet.

[00:40:58]This bizarre world [music] is called HD 20794d, and it's located 19.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Eridanus.

[00:41:09]This planet is a super-Earth. This term means that it is larger than Earth, but smaller than such ice giants as Neptune.

[00:41:17]What makes this planet especially interesting is its unusual orbit, >> [music] >> which moves it in and out of its star's habitable zone, the region where temperatures might allow liquid water to exist.

[00:41:30]Now, we haven't seen this [music] unusual planet directly.

[00:41:34]Astronomers detected it by measuring tiny wobbles in its [music] star using two powerful instruments, ESPRESSO and HARPS, located at telescopes in Chile.

[00:41:45]These instruments measure radial velocity, which is the small movement a star makes as a planet's gravity tugs on it. The larger the wobble, [music] the more massive the planet.

[00:41:56]Later, astronomers analyzed the data and figured [music] out that the planet in question has a mass around six times greater than Earth's.

[00:42:04]It orbits a star, [music] which is slightly smaller and dimmer than our sun.

[00:42:10]What makes this star unique is that it is bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye, unlike many other stars that host exoplanets.

[00:42:18]You won't be able to see them without a telescope.

[00:42:21]The star system has been observed for over 20 years. Astronomers have long suspected it had multiple planets.

[00:42:29]In 2011, scientists discovered two other super-Earths orbiting the star every 18.3 and 89.6 days, respectively.

[00:42:40]For some time, researchers thought they had found a third [music] planet with an orbital period of 40 days. Later, they realized they had made a mistake.

[00:42:50]But recently, after [music] reanalyzing years of data, astronomers have confirmed that the third planet does exist, and it's our extreme HD 20794d.

[00:43:02]A researcher from the University of Oxford played a key [music] role in identifying the planet.

[00:43:09]He used a special computer algorithm called YARARA [music] to separate the planet's weak signal from the background noise. It helped him confirm that the planet truly existed and was pretty unique.

[00:43:22]Unlike the planets in our solar system, [music] which have mostly circular orbits, the newly discovered one follows a highly elliptical, [music] stretched-out orbit. It takes 647 days to complete one trip around its star.

[00:43:36]That's just 40 days shorter than Mars's orbit [music] around the sun.

[00:43:41]At its furthest point, the planet is twice the Earth-Sun distance, >> [music] >> which makes it an icy world far outside the habitable zone.

[00:43:50]At its [music] closest point, it moves inward to 0.75 AU, where it enters the habitable zone where liquid water might exist.

[00:43:59]This extreme [music] movement creates truly bizarre seasons.

[00:44:03]For some part of its orbit, HD 20794d [music] is frozen like an icy wasteland. As it approaches its star, temperatures rise and ice likely melts forming [music] temporary oceans.

[00:44:17]The planet then experiences a short scorching summer.

[00:44:21]It is so hot that the water on its surface might evaporate [music] into the atmosphere.

[00:44:27]Shortly after, the planet moves away again.

[00:44:30]It triggers a [music] gloomy fall with rains followed by a deep freeze in winter.

[00:44:36]In other words, the planet switches between extreme cold [music] and intense heat, which makes it a very unpredictable place for life.

[00:44:45]If any life [music] forms exist there, they certainly need to adapt to dramatic changes in temperature and environment.

[00:44:53]Why does the planet follow such a mind-boggling orbit?

[00:44:57]It might be a leftover effect from events billions of years ago when the planetary system was still forming.

[00:45:04]At some point, another large planet may have disturbed the orbit of our extraordinary friend.

[00:45:10]Another possible explanation is that a giant planet once existed in the system and its gravity pushed HD20794d [music] into an elongated path. Later, this giant planet may have been ejected from the system [music] leaving the smaller planet in its current orbit.

[00:45:30]This theory makes sense because the two other planets in the system, B and C, have more normal circular orbits.

[00:45:37]The discovery of this planet is so exciting because [music] it challenges what we know about habitable planets.

[00:45:44]Most planets in the habitable zone stay [music] there permanently, but HD20794d only passes through it.

[00:45:52]Scientists want to know if such [music] a planet could still support life even briefly.

[00:45:58]So, future telescopes will study the atmosphere [music] of this planet looking for signs of water, gases, or even life.

[00:46:06]Another super-Earth that might have the right conditions [music] for life orbits a star 137 light-years away.

[00:46:14]In space terms, this is considered relatively [music] close.

[00:46:18]A light-year is around 6 trillion miles.

[00:46:21]The planet is called TOI 715b, [music] and it's about 1.5 times the size of Earth.

[00:46:29]Unlike HD20794d, [music] it's permanently located in the habitable zone.

[00:46:36]Look, that's what astronomers think [music] the planet might look like.

[00:46:40]TOI 715b orbits its star [music] very quickly, completing a full orbit in just 19 days.

[00:46:48]But even though it's close to its star, it may not be extremely hot, all because its star is a red dwarf.

[00:46:57]That's a type of star that is smaller and cooler than our sun.

[00:47:01]This means TOI 715b could have a milder temperature compared to other exoplanets that orbit closer to hotter stars.

[00:47:12]NASA discovered the planet using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

[00:47:17]This space telescope finds planets by watching for small dips in a star's brightness, which happens when a planet passes in front of it.

[00:47:26]Since red dwarfs are smaller and dimmer than the sun, planets passing in front of them are easier to detect. [music] Astronomers are planning to study the planet further using the [music] James Webb Space Telescope.

[00:47:40]This powerful telescope, located 1 million miles away from Earth, >> [music] >> can analyze the atmospheres of distant planets.

[00:47:49]If TOI 715b has an atmosphere, JWST could help scientists determine what [music] gases are present in it and whether such conditions could support liquid water or [music] even life.

[00:48:04]One more promising world for our search for extraterrestrial life is an extremely dense super-Earth >> [music] >> in the K2-360 system.

[00:48:14]An international team of researchers [music] from Japan and Europe has discovered this remarkable multi-planet system orbiting a sun-like star located 750 light-years away.

[00:48:26]This system has two [music] planets, including one of the densest rocky planets ever found.

[00:48:33]The K2-360b is a rocky super-Earth about 1.6 times the size of Earth but with a mass [music] 7.7 times greater. This makes it as dense as lead.

[00:48:46]The planet orbits its star incredibly fast, completing one full orbit in just 21 hours. It's the densest [music] known ultra-short-period planet with well-measured properties.

[00:48:58]As for its sibling, this is a much larger outer planet [music] with at least 15 Earth masses.

[00:49:05]It takes 9.8 days to orbit its star.

[00:49:09]Sadly, since it does not pass [music] in front of its star from our viewpoint, scientists cannot determine its exact size.

[00:49:18]The unusually dense planet [music] might be the core of a much larger planet.

[00:49:22]Over time, intense radiation from its parent star may have blown away its outer layers, leaving behind only its [music] dense rocky core.

[00:49:32]So, in fact, this planet could show us what might happen [music] to some planets that are too close to their stars.

[00:49:39]Astronomers think that the planet [music] may have moved inward over time due to interactions with its larger companion planet.

[00:49:47]One possibility is high eccentricity migration, where a planet's [music] orbit becomes highly stretched out due to gravitational interactions before gradually becoming more circular near the star.

[00:50:00]Another theory is that the planet's spin and axial tilt can cause its [music] orbit to become more circular.

[00:50:07]Such planets are rare, and finding one with a massive outer companion can help scientists refine their [music] theories about how planets form and evolve in extreme environments.

[00:50:18]With its help, [music] we might also understand how rocky planets evolve and what happens to planets that get too close to their stars.

[00:50:29]For what seems like ages, scientists have been hunting for another Earth, perhaps to find cosmic neighbors, or maybe just to have a backup planet for potential relocation in case we can't turn this one around. Now, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, they might finally have a strong candidate. It's called Trappist-1e, and it's located 40 light-years away.

[00:50:52]1e orbits a small star called Trappist-1.

[00:50:56]It's an intriguing system that has seven Earth-size planets, all of which are nicknamed with letters from B to H.

[00:51:04]Well, 40 light-years won't be reachable anytime soon, that's still close, well, in space terms at least. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 100,000 [music] light-years across. So, compared to that, 40 is like a walk down the driveway. Or [music] at least will be if our spaceships achieve a speed close to the speed of light, just like in the movies. Remember, a light-year isn't a measure for time, it's how far light can travel in 1 year, which is close to 6 trillion miles, which [music] is a lot of zeros. So, multiply that by 40, and you get the location of Trappist-1. So, bring a big lunch.

[00:51:44]T1 is a red dwarf, a type of star that's basically like a dimmer and smaller version of our sun. It's only a bit bigger than Jupiter.

[00:51:53]Among this family, 1E sits in the star's sweet spot, [music] the so-called Goldilocks zone. Not too hot, not too cold, and a distance where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface if it has the right atmosphere.

[00:52:07]Perfectly habitable, at least for creatures resembling Earth's residents.

[00:52:12]However, it's not just located at just [music] the right distance, which is a huge plus. 1E also happens to be a rocky planet. Its size and mass are close to Earth's, which suggests it has a similar density and structure, as well as [music] similar gravity, meaning no cool jumps like on the moon.

[00:52:31]Now, Webb has [music] picked up hints that there could be an atmosphere. The planet might be wrapped in gases like nitrogen, [music] carbon dioxide, and methane.

[00:52:40]We have such a mix over here, too.

[00:52:42]Earth's air is built from the same elements.

[00:52:45]Atmosphere matters. Mars lost most of it. Venus has too much, and Earth got it just right. That's why we have cozy weather and oceans. If 1E really does have something similar, it could mean clouds, rain, and maybe even seas, the stuff that would make Earthlings feel at home.

[00:53:05]However, here is where it gets interesting.

[00:53:08]>> [music] >> We mentioned that 1E is a red dwarf star, and that makes it dim, hundreds of times dimmer than the sun.

[00:53:15]If you were standing on 1E, the star would look way bigger in the sky than our sun does here, but it would glow red and dull. It would be like living under a never-ending sunset. You might think, [music] "Sweet, it would be romantic."

[00:53:29]Until it gets old. I mean, cold. It has to be freezing, right?

[00:53:34]After all, how can such a faint star provide enough heat for life the [music] way our sun does? Well, funny enough, you won't need super winter resistant jackets. The trick is distance.

[00:53:46]TRAPPIST-1e orbits extremely close to its star, just about 3% of Earth's distance from the Sun.

[00:53:53]If the planet were sitting where Earth is, it would be a ball of ice. But, being so close also means that its year is only around 146 hours.

[00:54:02]>> [music] >> That means it takes six Earth days for 1e to resolve around T1.

[00:54:08]Celebrating birthdays every 6 days sounds like a great deal, huh? That's a lot of cake.

[00:54:14]But, wait. Does that mean that each season would last about 36 hours? No, because the planet is almost certainly tidally locked. That means one side bakes in endless daylight, and the other side is stuck in eternal night. Not exactly Earth 2.0. Without an atmosphere, you'd get a scorched wasteland on one side and an ice cube on the other.

[00:54:37]>> [music] >> But, with an atmosphere, the air can spread the heat around, smoothing things out. [music] In theory, the comfiest spot might actually be the twilight strip between day and night, the so-called [music] terminator line. Again, a permanent sunrise or sunset. Instagrammers would love it.

[00:54:55]Red dwarfs are actually the most common stars in our galaxy, [music] making up about 70% of all the stars we know about. And, they live practically forever. Our Sun is projected to last 10 billion years. Red dwarfs [music] could go on for trillions. That's more than enough time for life to develop.

[00:55:14]However, the short straw is that red dwarfs are kind of feisty. They erupt with powerful flares that blast out intense radiation. So, for planets orbiting so close, those flares can strip away atmospheres and sterilize the surface.

[00:55:30]>> [music] >> It's like having a dream house with a beautiful view near a dynamite factory.

[00:55:34]Oops.

[00:55:36]That's what makes TRAPPIST-1e so exciting. If it does have an atmosphere, [music] it would mean it's somehow resisted billions of years of flare activity. And it might not be the only one. There could be plenty [music] of exoplanets like this out there.

[00:55:52]Now, you may be wondering how scientists could possibly know what's going on with a small planet that's so far away.

[00:55:59]Well, they study light using [music] a technique called transit spectroscopy.

[00:56:04]When TRAPPIST-1e passes in front of its star, the light filters through its edges, revealing clues about its air.

[00:56:11]Repeat enough [music] times, and we start to see what it's really like. As one of the most important features of the James Webb telescope, it doesn't just snap pretty pictures. It dissects that light into thousands of slices, each revealing a different clue.

[00:56:26]It's also great when you remember that 1e is just one of seven planets that orbit so close. So, scientists [music] have a lot to study in that part of the universe.

[00:56:36]Each transit gives them a little more data, and after enough passes, they can start to rule things out. No thick hydrogen blanket? Check. No Venus-style [music] carbon dioxide swamp? Looking that way.

[00:56:50]What's left is a planet that might just might have something closer to Earth's [music] atmosphere.

[00:56:56]In other words, nobody's sending probes to TRAPPIST-1e anytime soon. But with telescopes like Webb, [music] we can already peek at its air from across the galaxy.

[00:57:07]If you follow space-related news, you are already aware that 1e isn't the first so-called Earth-like planet that reached headlines.

[00:57:15]Astronomers have been teasing us with candidates for years, and each one comes with a but. As in, however, not your butt.

[00:57:25]For example, Kepler-186f.

[00:57:28]Back in 2014, it was the first Earth-size planet spotted in the habitable zone of a star. People were really excited. NASA even made a sci-fi style travel poster. The catch? Oh, well, just one minor thing, the fact that it's about 500 light-years away.

[00:57:46]Even if we build a spaceship that could cruise at a tenth of light speed, which we can't, it would still be a 5,000-year-long trip. Then there's Proxima Centauri b.

[00:57:57]This one is close, just 4.2 [music] light-years away, orbiting the nearest star to our sun.

[00:58:03]On paper, it's a dream. However, >> [music] >> its star is even moodier than T1.

[00:58:08]Proxima exhales massive radiation flares regularly, which makes everything unpredictable [music] and unstable.

[00:58:16]And then we have K2-18b.

[00:58:19]The James Webb telescope [music] actually spotted methane and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere, gases which might hint at biological activity.

[00:58:28]Sounds great, except the planet is more like a mini Neptune, probably wrapped in thick gas layers and unlikely to have a solid surface to stand on.

[00:58:38]The bottom line? When compared to all these, TRAPPIST-1e looks like the most [music] promising one, close enough to study, rocky enough to stand on, and sitting in a sweet spot where liquid water could exist if conditions line up.

[00:58:54]Of course, we still need more data. 1e could turn out to be a barren rock. But the bigger story [music] is that we're getting better at this. A few decades ago, we didn't know if other solar systems even existed. Now, we've found over [music] 6,000 exoplanets, with more getting added almost every week. Odds are, plenty of them will be rocky, Earth-sized, and orbiting in the Goldilocks zone. Maybe we can't go there, but they could mean the discovery [music] of extraterrestrial life. That's the exciting part. Every time or the next generation of telescopes take a look, we inch closer [music] to answering the big question. Are we alone or is the universe full of neighbors? Hey, get your dog off my lawn.

[00:59:42]>> [music]