The James Webb Space Telescope has identified several Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars, including TOI-715b, which orbits a red dwarf star 137 light-years away and receives 40-85% of Earth's solar energy, making it a prime candidate for potentially supporting liquid water and life.
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James Webb Just Found a Fully Habitable Planet With Someone LOOKING BACK
Added:The James Webb Space Telescope, an astounding piece of equipment built to outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, [music] has made a terrifying and amazing discovery that might completely change our perception of the universe.
[music] It has successfully detected a faint glow coming from a staggering 7 trillion miles away. Can this glow be shining city lights coming from some mysterious extraterrestrial world galaxies [music] away from us? Well, let's start from the beginning. A few years ago, NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope helped us spot [music] a family of seven rocky exoplanets orbiting the same star. This star is known as Trappist 1. And recently, [music] our new infrared powerhouse, the James Webb telescope, has measured the temperature of one of those distant [music] worlds. It was a planet called Trappist 1b.
Unfortunately, [music] it turned out that this Earthlike planet was totally uninhabitable. Astronomers took James Webb's mid-infrared [music] camera called MIRI and looked at the planet's thermal emissions. We can picture the [music] whole process as scientists using heat sensing terminator vision. The results were quite disappointing. Trappist [music] 1b turned out to be scorching. Its average temperature was around 450° F. That's as hot as in an oven. Plus, the planet most likely doesn't have any atmosphere. At the same time, [music] this discovery was another record-breaking first for the telescope, which had already produced some newsworthy results by that time. It was the first time researchers [music] detected any form of light emitted by a small and relatively cool exoplanet similar to the rocky [music] planets in our own solar system. No previous telescope had enough sensitivity to measure such dim mid infrared light. When seven Trappist 1 exoplanets [music] were first discovered, the astronomical community was ecstatic. That's because all [music] those far away worlds were about the size of our home planet and located in their stars habitable zone. [music] It's the region that is just the right distance away from a star for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface.
Thus, the planetary system became the best place to look for rocky planets with an atmosphere. But don't get too excited yet. These planets aren't likely to become new worlds for humans to explore. Mostly because the Trappist one planets [music] are totally out of our reach at the moment. They're just too far away at a whopping 235 [music] trillion miles away. Their star is also much smaller and redder than our sun.
It's classified as [music] an M dwarf star. In our home Milky Way galaxy, there are twice as many of such stars as there are stars like the sun. [music] And they're also twice as likely to have rocky planets orbiting them. It's probably not surprising that astronomers are very interested [music] in such stars. They're the main targets for seeking potentially habitable planets.
And it's also way easier and more convenient [music] to observe rocky planets around such smaller stars. But there's a catch. M dwarfs are more active than our sun. [music] They frequently flare and spew high energy rays which are likely to be extremely damaging to planet's atmospheres and any forms of extraterrestrial life. When researchers examined Trappist 1b [music] before, their observations weren't sensitive enough to determine whether this world had an atmosphere or if it was [music] just a barren rock. But now we know the planet is tidily locked to its star, which means that [music] one of its sides always faces the star while the other is stuck in perpetual darkness. The latest simulation suggests that if this [music] planet had an atmosphere, its temperatures would be much lower since the air would redistribute [music] the heat around both sides of the planet. Unfortunately, the James Webb [music] telescope recorded much hotter temperatures than needed for such a favorable scenario. It indicates [music] the absence of an atmosphere and knocks the planet off our list of possibly habitable worlds. But the main [music] excitement here isn't actually the features of Trappist 1b.
The main takeaway [music] is that James Webb is capable of making such kinds of measurements. It'll help us explore the atmospheres and temperatures of many other distant worlds.
A new super Earth has been [music] spotted by astronomers and it's quite intriguing. This planet called TOI715b is about 1 and a half the size of Earth which is why it's called the super Earth. It's also relatively close to us in space terms, only 137 lighty years away. For comparison, most exoplanets are hundreds of light years away. And all the interesting stuff like black holes and nebulas are usually more than thousands of light years away from us.
So [music] could it be habitable?
The habitable zone is an estimate of where a planet might have the right conditions [music] for liquid water.
This is what we call some distance from the star where the temperatures on the planet should be okayish and water should stay liquid on its surface. It's not super precise because it depends on a bunch of factors like the type of star, how reflective [music] the planet is, its size, and so on. Also, just being in this zone isn't enough for water to actually be there. The planet also needs the right kind of atmosphere and a few other things. So, we invented a stricter definition in 2014, the conservative habitable zone. It's a more precise term to finding the best candidates that have liquid water.
Otherwise, we get too many potentially habitable planets that are not actually habitable at all. The CHZ is based on how much energy a planet gets from its star compared to Earth. If a rocky planet gets between 40 to 85%, it's considered to be in the CHZ, no matter how far away it is from its star. These planets have a higher chance of being habitable. And yes, TOI715b is located there.
This super Earth orbits the Mtype star, also called red dwarf. It's a star that's much smaller and cooler than our sun, about a quarter of the sun's size and mass. But if the planet is located in the habitable zone, it's actually a better option for life. Red dwarfs live much longer than our sun, a yellow dwarf. This also means that they have more time to form little creatures on their planets. And this red dwarf really is older than our star. Our sun is 4.6 billion years old. And this star is 6.6 billion years old, give or take a few hundred million. It doesn't have much magnetic activity, so it's not dangerous. [music] It doesn't flare up like younger red dwarfs. These flares can be [music] super strong and might even hurt planets by taking away their atmospheres.
Although some planets around it do have thinner atmospheres, it seems like this red dwarf has already gone all out.
These red dwarfs are where we're looking for planets that could support life right now. Our super Earth is really close to its star, zooming around it in just 19 days. Since the star is small and the planet is so close, the planet passing in front of its star happens a lot and looks really clear. This makes it easy for telescopes like the James Web to study its atmosphere without needing too much time.
Now, speaking of the James Web Space Telescope, it's bringing us into a new era of understanding distant planets beyond our solar system. Imagine being able to see what gases make up the air on a planet millions of light years away. James Webb will help us to find worlds that could support life. Right now, it's trying to figure out whether TOI 715b has an atmosphere. If it does, its atmosphere might be easier to spot compared to a planet that's drier and denser. And then we might get even more height because it would look like a good place for life. On top of all that, there might be [music] another planet in this system also in the habitable zone.
We're not sure whether it's really there. It's just a candidate with a crazy name. But if it turns out to be real, it would be about the size of Earth. Also, it would be the smallest planet in the habitable zone ever spotted by the test telescope.
Now, another cool thing about TOI 715b is that it cannot just have water on it, but be an entire water world. An ocean planet is a type of planet that has an ocean covering its surface or has subsurface oceans. They might not have much dry land because the water can cover everything. Sometimes the entire planet can be covered in other liquids like lava or ammonia. When it comes to planets outside our solar system, we can't see surface water directly with our current technology. Instead, scientists look for water vapor in the atmosphere as a hint there might be liquid water below. And of course, we wonder if these planets can have life.
hopefully not in the form of Leviathanike monsters. Our models show that planets with oceans might be pretty common in our galaxy. This means there could be lots of ocean worlds out there waiting to be discovered.
But the most important part about TOI 715b is that it's in the so-called small planet radius gap. If we give the planets a lineup, there will be those that are bigger and smaller than Earth.
But there's a sudden gap in planets that are about from 1 and 12 to two times bigger than ours. Where are they? This gap is interesting to scientists because it tells us something about how planets form [music] and change over time. It's not that planets don't form in this size range. They actually start off larger and then lose some of their mass, like a balloon gradually deflating. Perhaps it happens because of how they orbit their stars, with stars blowing away some of their mass as they dance around it, as our sun does with gas from comet tails.
This gap holds a lot of mystery, and planets like our new super Earth are clues that could help us unravel it. We aren't sure whether it exists around red dwarfs. Maybe it's a gap in how dense these planets are rather than in their actual size. So studying our discovered planet is even more interesting. It'll help us learn more about distant stars and their planets.
Now, I mentioned tests a while back.
NASA's test transiting exoplanet survey satellite has been in space for 6 years now and has been incredibly successful.
NASA launched tests because we already found over 5,000 planets orbiting other stars, mainly thanks to the Kepler telescope. But Kepler mostly found large planets, not necessarily like Earth. We decided to focus tests on finding smaller Earthlike planets around nearby bright stars, making them easier to study with future telescopes.
Here's how it works. The camera observes stars and looks for changes in their brightness. If the brightness suddenly drops for a while and then gets back, it could mean there is a planet passing in front of it. But stars can dim for other reasons too. For example, flaring up or having dark spots on their surface, which is why we need to be careful with this data. Test shows us the size and orbit [music] of these planets. Then ground telescopes help determine their mass. With these three parameters, we can figure out what the planets are made of and if they're rocky like Earth or gassy like Jupiter. Yeah, you want to avoid Jupiter after taco night.
One example of TESS's discoveries was the TOI700 system. There it discovered its first ever Earthlike planet, TOI700D.
This exoplanet also orbited a red dwarf and it's even closer to us about 100 lighty years away. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be habitable because the temperatures there are crazy. [music] Another big discovery was made in the AU microscopy system. test discovered a planet about four times the size of Earth and another nearly three times Earth's size. This system has become a key area for studying how stars and planets form and change over time. TESS has also spotted a variety of other exciting finds, including supernova, hot worlds, and so on. And as it enters its sixth year, we can only expect more exciting findings to come.
Well, we may finally know where to look for an advanced space civilization. And even more importantly, we now know how to spot one. Something called a Dyson swarm can help us. [music] Let's say a super advanced civilization lives somewhere out there, trillions of light years away from us, enjoying their incredible technology. But to power all those black hole power stations and antimatter [music] production plants or whatever gadgets they play with, they would need immense amounts of energy. Simple sources like solar panels or fuel wouldn't be enough anymore. [music] So instead, this civilization builds millions or even billions of separate structures around its star. Basically, they would [music] try to catch most of the energy coming from the star. It probably wouldn't be one giant sphere around it. That's just way too hard to build. A giant cloud of energy collecting satellites makes a lot more sense. But how could we spot something like that from Earth? Well, the best targets might not be stars like our sun. You see, building a Dyson swarm around something like the sun is a tricky engineering problem. The amount of raw material alone would be enormous.
Red dwarfs might be much better places to look for Dyson [music] swarms and the civilizations that could build them.
Now, red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Milky Way. They are small, dim, and they live for an incredibly long time. Look, the sun will survive for about 10 billion years, but some [music] red dwarfs can keep shining for trillions of years. The [music] universe itself isn't even old enough for that yet. That's exactly the kind of star an advanced civilization would want, one that keeps producing energy for an incredibly long time. Besides, red dwarfs have another advantage. They're small. A Dyson swarm around a red dwarf wouldn't need to be very big. [music] It could orbit just a few million to a few dozen million miles from the star, much closer than Earth's 93 million miles from the sun. Such a system would be easier to control and keep running. But there may be an even better place to [music] look for Dyson swarms, white dwarfs. It's something like the final version of a star like the sun. Once the star runs out of fuel, most of it drifts away into space. What's left is a tiny, super dense core. It's about the [music] size of Earth, but it still contains almost the sun's entire mass. Since white dwarfs are tiny, you wouldn't need to build a huge Dyson swarm around them.
The whole thing could orbit much closer to the star, [music] which means less material and less construction. Besides, white dwarfs are still warm, and they can keep giving off heat for billions of years. There's another important thing.
[music] Red and white dwarfs are really stable. They don't flare like big stars.
That makes them perfect targets if you're looking for Dyson swarms. [music] But the trick is finding them. A Dyson swarm wouldn't completely hide a star, but it would catch the starlight and then release that energy again as infrared [music] heat. From Earth, it wouldn't look like a normal star.
Instead, astronomers would see a strange object giving off a very unusual infrared signal. That's the kind of signature researchers are actually searching for right now. And if they find it, it could be the first proof that a much more advanced civilization exists [music] somewhere in the galaxy.
But what would a Dyson swarm actually look like? It's supposed to collect a star's energy. But it can't just make that energy disappear. Physics doesn't allow that. Every bit of energy received from the star has to go [music] somewhere. So in the end after powering cities, quantum computers, interstellar spacecraft and whatever an advanced civilization uses, the leftover energy would be released as heat. And this could help us. Normally a star shines mostly in visible light. It means you can see it in the night sky with your own eyes. But if a Dyson swarm wrapped around most of it, a lot of that light wouldn't be able to get out. Instead, the swarm itself would glow in infrared light, basically heat radiation. Imagine putting a giant blanket around a light bulb. The bulb's energy just doesn't disappear. The blanket simply absorbs it and warms up. A Dyson swarm would basically do the same thing, just on a massive scale.
This means we should look for something much colder than a regular star. A typical red dwarf has a surface temperature from 3,100° F to 6,700°.
But the temperature of a Dyson swarm could be from - 370 to,300° F. [music] And that's a huge difference.
Things that cold usually don't sit right next to a star. So, if astronomers saw something that looked like a star but is way colder than it should be, that would be really weird and [music] interesting.
But temperature isn't the only clue.
There's also dust. A lot of stars have dust and debris around them. [music] When scientists look at their light, they can usually spot chemical fingerprints [music] from stuff like silicates.
But a Dyson swarm wouldn't really have those signs. [music] It would look weirdly clean, like it was made on purpose and not formed naturally.
And there's one more potential giveaway.
[music] A real Dyson swarm probably wouldn't be a perfect shell. Building a full sphere around a star would take an insane amount of material. Most scientists imagine trillions of separate pieces orbiting the star instead, [music] which creates gaps. While moving around, these pieces would block sunlight. That's why the stars brightness might go up and down in weird ways. Dip and then get brighter, then dip again. Not like normal planets, dust clouds, or star activity. Scientists are already searching [music] for these kinds of signals. The James Webb Space Telescope is perfect for it because it's built to pick up infrared light. But it's not the only tool we can use.
Scientists have already used data from NASA's Wise Space Telescope to search millions of stars for possible Dyson swarms.
>> [music] >> In 2024, researchers working on project faceto [music] examined about 5 million stars and they spotted several objects that look pretty unusual. Later, scientists found a natural explanation for one of the candidates. It was a super massive black hole that lined up almost perfectly behind the star, but several others still remain unexplained. [music] Nobody says we found mega structures built by other civilizations yet, but astronomers now know what to [music] look for. A star that's too cold, unusually clean, and behaving in bizarre ways. Now, if we ever found a Dyson swarm, [music] it wouldn't just mean finding another civilization. It would tell us something about how advanced they are. You see, there's [music] a theory that all civilizations can be divided into several types. A type one civilization can use all the energy available on its home planet. That's why it's often called a planetary civilization. It can [music] collect, store, and manage energy on a global scale to power its cities, technology, and growing population. We're not there yet. People are still working toward that level. A type two civilization takes things much further. Instead of using the energy of a planet, it uses the energy of an entire [music] star.
That's why it's called a stellar civilization.
One way this could work is exactly the Dyson swarm. The civilization with access to that much energy would be incredibly difficult to destroy. If a giant asteroid or even a moonsized object was heading towards its planet, it could simply destroy the threat long before the impact. Such a civilization might even be able to move its entire planet to a safer orbit. Then comes type three. A type three civilization doesn't just control the energy of a planet or a star. It can use the energy of an entire galaxy. At that [music] point, the inhabitants wouldn't look like us. They could be part biological and part machine. [music] They might create self-replicating robots that spread from star system to star system, building new colonies across the galaxy. Now, even then, they wouldn't be completely unlimited. The laws of physics would still apply. Distances between stars are enormous, and crossing a galaxy is a serious challenge. Unless, of course, they've discovered a way around that problem. And if they have, they'd be operating on a level that's almost impossible for us to imagine. [music] Now, beyond type three, the scale becomes purely theoretical. A type four civilization would be able to use the energy of an entire universe. A type five civilization could potentially draw power from multiple universes. [music] Type six and type seven civilizations would have the ability to manipulate space, time, and perhaps reality itself on cosmic scales. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
Now, for years, planets with two suns felt like science fiction, something that only worked in Star Wars with those famous double sunsets on Tatooine. But now astronomers think those worlds may actually be real and not just one or two of them. Scientists have found 27 possible planets orbiting two stars at the same time. Along the way, they also spotted some other Star Wars worlds, too.
Some worlds in the saga seem too extreme, but space actually has planets like that. For example, there are worlds like Kepler 10b and Kepler 78b. These planets orbit so close to their stars that their surfaces are literally melted rock. They're not a bit warm. [music] We're talking about lava oceans. The ground is constantly reshaping, the crust trying to form and instantly getting torn apart again. If you stood there, which you absolutely [music] wouldn't survive, it would be like standing next to a furnace where the floor under your feet is boiling.
[music] Even the chemistry there gets interesting. Those places [music] might be packed with heavy elements like iron, which means that in theory, it's the kind of world a mining company would love. [music] In practice, it would be like trying to mine inside an active volcano vent. This planet is just like Mustaphar from [music] Star Wars. The place where Anakin and Obi-Wan had a lava duel. Now, let's visit another extreme world that basically looks like O. A frozen empty planet where there's nothing but snow, wind, and survival problems. [music] In real life, we've found exoplanets that feel pretty close to that vibe, too. One example is this distant [music] world. It floats more than 20,000 lighty years away. It orbits a dim red dwarf star, [music] so it barely gets any heat at all. The result, well, [music] isn't nice. Temperatures drop below about minus 370° F. That's colder than most natural environments we know of. The planet is a frozen rock drifting in near darkness. So, if Hoth had a real twin, this would be it. Then there's Bespin, the gas giant with floating cities like Cloud City. In Star Wars, [music] it's kind of romantic.
Giant clouds, platforms, a whole civilization living in the sky. In reality, gas giants are usually the complete opposite of friendly. Most are just huge balls of hydrogen and helium with no solid surface at all. But astronomers have found some that sit in a more interesting zone. One example is 47 Ursa Majorus B. It's a gas giant, but its orbit puts it in a range where temperatures could be around 41° F.
That's not even cold. It's just, [music] you know, cool. And if a planet like that had the necessary kind of atmosphere layers or floating structures, sky habitats wouldn't sound totally impossible. Not likely, [music] but not pure sci-fi either. When you line all of this up, it gets kind of suspicious. Most of our style lava worlds are real. Pul style frozen wastelands exist, too. Even bestin- like gas giants can sit in comfortable temperature zones. So, what if Star Wars [music] didn't just invent these environments, but borrowed them from real life? After all, some of those really existing worlds are too weird even for sci-fi, like circumbinary [music] planets. Those are planets that orbit two stars at the same time. Astronomers have now confirmed more than 6,000 exoplanets. That's a huge [music] number, but fewer than 20 of them are circumbinary.
Imagine our Earth trying to circle two suns instead of one. The orbit [music] would get very tricky very fast. This is probably why discoveries of such planets are so rare. Now, most planets are found using something called the transit method. It's quite simple. You watch a star and if [music] a planet crosses in front of it, the star gets a tiny bit dimmer. It's not a big blackout, [music] more like someone briefly moving a coin across a distant flashlight. From that tiny dip in light, scientists can figure out size, orbit, and sometimes even what the planet is made of. But this method has one big [music] issue. It only works if the planet's orbit lines up just right with our point of view. If the orbit is tilted [music] or chaotic, which is common in binary systems, the planet might never cross the star from our angle, so we just won't see it.
That's why binary star systems are tricky. That's [music] not because they're rare. In fact, most stars in the universe probably live in systems with two [music] or more stars. But planets in those systems tend to have unstable or complicated orbits. So detection gets even harder. And still astronomers have managed to catch a few. One of the first big ones was Kepler 16b. It sits about 250 light years away and is roughly the size and mass of Saturn. It orbits two stars instead of one, but surprisingly it does it in a stable way. The way this planet was discovered is kind of subtle.
One of the scientists who worked on it explained that we had never actually seen the planet directly. We've only seen changes in brightness, tiny dips in the combined light of the system. Based on that pattern, scientists [music] reconstructed what must be passing in front of the stars.
There's also another detection trick for [music] binary systems. Instead of just looking for dips in light, scientists now watch how the [music] two stars move around each other. In a stable binary, their [music] motion is predictable. But if something else, like a planet, is [music] tugging on them, the rhythm gets off slightly. We can see small timing chips and weird wobbles. That's a clue that something invisible is there.
Researchers have recently tested this idea on data from nearly [music] 1,600 binary systems with the help of NASA's test telescope. They found 27 systems that [music] might contain planets, and more than half of the candidates were likely smaller than Jupiter. But these are still maybe detections. To confirm them, scientists need more data, like deeper light analysis [music] and follow-up observations.
Now, even experts are cautious here.
when scientists [music] explain that a lot of our knowledge about exoplanets comes from the planets that are easiest for us [music] to detect. In other words, we're not seeing a full picture of the universe and there could be many more strange or hidden worlds out there that our current methods [music] simply miss.
Then there's another problem. Planets and binary systems might not survive long. Some studies suggest two main outcomes. Either the planet [music] gets pulled too close to its parent stars and is torn apart by gravity or it gets flung out of the system completely. In both cases, the planet [music] is a goner. So even if circumbinary planets are more common than we think, they might not stick around long enough for us [music] to easily find them. That's why researchers are now trying new methods. Because right now the big issue is how many planets likely hide in plain sight simply because our tools aren't designed to see them. But we can detect other cool planets [music] orbiting single stars and some might even be suitable for colonization like a planet candidate called GJ887D.
It's not too far from Earth just 10.7 lighty years away.
Scientists call it a super Earth because it's bigger [music] than our planet and heavy enough to have strong gravity and a thick atmosphere. Another great thing is that its parent star doesn't flare up much. Big stellar flares can blast away a planet's atmosphere. So, the fewer flares there are, the better chance a planet has of holding on to air, water, and maybe even life. Another potentially habitable exoplanet is Gleei [music] 667 CC. It's just 22 lighty years from Earth. This planet is around 4 times as massive as ours and completes one orbit around its host star within 28 days. In other words, a year on this Earthlike planet is 13 times shorter than a year on our planet. Luckily, the star is a cool [music] red dwarf. So, the exoplanet most likely lies in its habitable zone, [music] an area around a star where a planet could have liquid water. But there's still a chance that this world might be regularly baked by the flares from its parent [music] star.
And that's the thing, the more planets we discover, the less our solar system looks normal. Worlds with lava oceans, twin suns, and giant storms may not be rare at all. And we've just started looking.
We have finally found out where our planet came from, and it's a revolutionary discovery. [music] Earth might feel solid under your feet, but it started in a very different way. [music] Billions of years ago, space around the young sun was packed with dust, rock, [music] and metal fragments, flying at high speed. Everything was colliding, breaking apart, and sticking back together. And from that mess, Earth slowly started to take shape. But the big question has always been where all that material actually [music] came from. Was Earth built mostly from nearby debris in the inner solar system? Or were some of its ingredients carried [music] in by comets and distant asteroids?
The process that built Earth is called accretion. That's basically a slow but brutal version of a snowball [music] effect. Small particles clump together and form bigger rocks. Those rocks crash into each other, merge, and grow even larger. In massive high-speed impacts, things [music] melt, shatter, and fuse again.
Over time, about 30 to 40 million years, enough material piled up to form a young planet. Stuff that didn't get used in the process ended up as asteroids and meteorites.
Scientists wanted to figure out exactly what kind of material built Earth and where it originally came from. If Earth's building blocks came from across the solar system, then our [music] planet isn't just local. It's a mix of material from different regions of space. To understand that, they looked at something called isotope anomalies.
Tiny chemical differences inside rocks.
Every chunk of space material has a unique signature based on where it formed. That's because the dust that created those rocks came [music] from different ancient stars. Each leaving behind slightly different chemical patterns. By reading these patterns, scientists can trace where a rock came from. They compared [music] chemical fingerprints across different samples, meteorites that landed on Earth, fragments [music] from the asteroid Vesta, and even pieces of ancient Mars.
You see, [music] space rocks fall into two different groups. One group is rich in carbon and often contains water.
These rocks come from the outer solar system, far from the sun. The other group has much less carbon. [music] Such objects form closer to the sun in the inner solar system. This [music] split likely happened very early when Jupiter was forming. As Jupiter grew, its gravity became extremely [music] strong and started to block material from moving freely through space. The gas [music] giant acted like a barrier between the inner and outer solar system. Because of that, material from far away couldn't easily reach the inner [music] region where Earth was forming.
Studies showed that almost none of that outer material ended [music] up in Earth. This means our planet was built mostly from nearby material about 4.6 billion years ago. [music] And even though Earth contains many different elements, most of them came from the same region.
The planet races through space. Its orbit is unstable, like a pool ball gliding across the [music] table, looking for a target to collide into.
Only this ball is the size of Mars and it's going 9,000 mph.
Boom. It crashes into another planet.
This Mars-sized object was called FIA.
And what it smashed into was Earth.
The impact released 100 million times more energy than the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. The planetary collision threw tons of solid material from both objects out into space, but only one of the bodies survived. The was obliterated [music] and then swallowed entirely by early Earth. But that debris didn't go flying endlessly into the cosmic void. No, something crucial happened. All those solid chunks gathered into a cloud. Gravity squished it together, pressing more and more. And in the end, our moon was born. So goes the theory.
At the time of the impact, the solar system was just forming. And this rendevous of epic proportions probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for a newly formed Jupiter, throwing Thea off its orbit and straight into Earth.
Our young planet withstood the blow.
Time passed. [music] Earth evolved. Its surface will become unrecognizable over [music] the next 4.5 billion years. It's hard for the human mind to understand this vast amount of time. So, we'll squeeze it all into one day. If midnight is when Earth first formed from gas and dust that remained after the sun's [music] creation, the next 4 hours show a lifeless planet, red hot, covered in lava, constantly [music] bombarded by asteroids, and as you know by now, even a whole other planet. Yet, life finds a way. The first cells appear. It's 4:00 a.m. on the clock.
>> [music] >> At 2:08 p.m., we see the first single cellled organisms form. It's not until 8:28 p.m. that sea plants appear.
[music] 20 minutes later, what's this?
Jellyfish. After them, the planet flourishes with different fish, reptiles, insects. The forests grow at 10:30 p.m. Between 10:56 and 11:40, dinosaurs roame the Earth. The giant lizards [music] ruled our planet for less than 1 hour.
A minute before the dinosaur's extinction at 11:39 p.m., the first mammals begin to run around the planet.
At 11:58 and 43 seconds, humans appear.
In the cosmic scale of things, we've only ruled this planet for 1 minute and 17 seconds. So, here's the main question baffling scientists. Why didn't life on Earth ever stop? It had every chance to cease. Why didn't our planet become like Venus or Mars? They both once had an atmosphere and oceans. Today, they're lifeless deserts. Forget about complex scientific concepts and theories of the universe's structure. Our little rock and all its inhabitants are just incredibly lucky.
Professor Toby Tyrell at the University of Southampton used computer programs and climate simulations to solve the puzzle of why asteroid collisions in ice ages didn't turn our little rock into a lifeless wasteland. The research team took not 10, 100, or 1,000 virtual planets similar to Earth. They used 100,000 for the experiment. And every single one of those 100,000 were simulated a hundred times. They exposed these virtual planets to different phenomena. They were bombarded by asteroids, [music] frozen, exposed to epic eruptions of super volcanoes that blacken the skies and block the surface from the sun's rays. Just 9% or 8,700 of them were successful one time in 100 simulations. Of that group, 4,500 planets remain inhabited 10 times. Only on one planet out of 100,000, life didn't stop all 100 times. If life is a lottery, Earth got extremely lucky. In 2009, the unique Kepler telescope was launched into [music] space. Its task, search one patch of the night sky or [music] 150,000 stars for rocky earthlike planets. Over 9 years in service, it ended up surveying more than 500,000 [music] stars. In all that time, with all those observations over nearly a decade, Kepler discovered [music] 2,600 possible Earthlike planets. The weird thing is most of them are a type you can't find in our own solar system. There's something between the size of Earth and Neptune. But back to the real Earth. If you go far from the city and look up at the sky, you'll see an ocean of stars.
If you're lucky and it's a clear night, with an unaded eye, you could count a maximum of 2,500 points of light. Yet, there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. [music] Some estimates put the numbers of stars in the Milky Way up to 400 billion. So, where's this giant range coming from? Well, counting stars isn't exactly an easy job.
Scientists obviously don't number each one [music] individually. 1 2 3 and so on. You know how long it takes to count just 1 billion? Over a hundred years.
Now multiply that by 400. Instead, they look at [music] small patches of space and use some complex scientific formulas to make educated guesses of how many stars there are in total. You can do a similar experiment yourself. Imagine a bucket filled with 10 lbs of rock, sand, soil, and other items. [music] Your job? Understand how many rocks are in that mix. We'll count only those rocks that are visible to us from above.
Get a rough estimate of their volume and weight. What percentage of the total we can see and with some calculation you can get a number. Is it [music] exact?
Nah. Why? Because you can't know if the rocks in the bucket are spread evenly throughout or if they're all about the same size throughout. What if the ones at the bottom, if there are any, are bigger or smaller than your sample view?
They could have completely different weights and volumes. That bucket is our Milky Way galaxy. And the rocks you are counting are stars. The point?
Scientists [music] can't know for sure how many stars there really are. Maybe 100 billion or perhaps four times that.
Of those, 4 billion are like our sun.
With our own galaxy, the most accepted estimate for planets that could potentially support life is 300 million.
though, as the tradition of scientific inexactness goes, that number could be up to 5 billion or more. Either way, lots of real estate to choose from.
And that's just the Milky Way. But get this, it's just [music] one of 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe. The most recent research [music] puts that number 10 times higher, something like trillions of galaxies in space, [music] and we've only studied less than 10% of them. As for how many stars there are in the universe, scientists put it at one septillion. That's one followed by 24 zeros. Again, it's all [music] estimates because we can't know for sure. So far, one thing is clear. Our Earth is the only place in the universe that we know of where there's life. And this planet has done everything it can to change that. Over the past 540 million years, more than 20 [music] major extinction events have occurred. The last one was 66 million years ago. Yep, it was the one that took out the dinosaurs and 75% of all life on this planet for that matter. An object 7 mi across in diameter smashed into our planet. It was going 120 times faster than the fastest car today. Over 900,000 miles all around the impact site, everything caught fire.
A huge tsunami swept across the world's oceans. Billions of tons of dust and sulfur rose into the sky and blocked the sun's warm rays. A global cooling came to Earth. A little over 200 [music] million years ago, there was a lesserknown extinction event that wiped out half of all life on the planet. Most likely volcanoes or an asteroid strike are to blame. Other theories say the movement [music] of tectonic plates triggered another ice age. At that time, huge crocodiles [music] ruled the Earth.
They disappeared and new animals entered the arena of history, dinosaurs. But the worst this planet has ever seen was the Perian Triacic event about 250 million years ago. 80% of marine life, 70% of land animals and plants, all gone.
Volcanoes spewed out a colossal amount of lava where modern-day Siberia is, but it affected the entire planet.
Around 445 million years ago, the dominant life form on our planet was marine invertebrates. [music] There was only one continent, Gondana, and plants were just starting to flourish on land.
But something happened that took out 75 to 85% of all living organisms. It could have been an ice age, rising temperatures, or a more daring theory.
Some think it could have been a huge star exploding 6,000 light years from Earth. It launched a jetlike gamma ray birch that ripped across space, and poor little Earth happened to be in its path.
It burned off the ozone layer instantly.
Yeah, we kind of need that thing to protect us. Case in point, no matter how much this planet or even the universe tries to wipe out life on Earth, which is here in the first place from unbelievable odds, life always finds a way.
[music] The only life that we are certain about so far in the entire universe [music] is on planet Earth. Whether that life is intelligent is, let's say, arguable. But anyway, it's not surprising that we're tirelessly searching for life on other planets. So far, [music] they've discovered more than 4,000 of them. But what's even cooler, NASA has compiled a new list of [music] 24 planets that aren't just Earthlike, they're better.
The conditions on them are so good that they're more comfortable than on our planet. [music] So, let's examine some of them. KOI 5715.01.
H. Let's be koi, shall we? This wonderful planet is in the constellation Signis. And why is it so wonderful?
Well, our sun is a yellow dwarf. And sorry, son. Even though you're not bad at supporting [music] life, there are some stars that can do it better.
Nothing personal. The planet Koi 5715.01 [music] orbits near an orange dwarf. Orange dwarfs are stars slightly smaller than our sun and have a little lower luminosity. Uh, did you like the alliteration there? Anyway, don't worry.
It doesn't mean we're going to live in complete darkness.
>> [music] >> In fact, if the planet is found closer to the sun and it has a thicker atmosphere, it may even be lighter and more colorful than on Earth. Now, our sun has a very short lifespan. [music] Right now, it has 7 to 8 billion years left to live, a little longer than Earth's age, but orange dwarfs can live from 45 to 70 billion years. This is great not only because we'll be able to hang out on this planet longer, but also because the planets around these stars have more time to form life. Now, ideally, we would need to find a planet next to an orange [music] dwarf that is about 7 billion years old. It's very likely there will be at least some organisms there. Koi 571501 is about 5.5 billion years old. Yeah, it may not seem mature enough, but that's okay. Neither do I. Our Earth is a billion years younger, and that didn't stop us. The planet is quite close to its star and is in a habitable zone. One year there lasts 190 days. Imagine going to elementary school and already getting a driver's license.
It's almost two times larger than the Earth. The average temperature [music] there is 52° F, which is slightly less than ours, 57.
But it mostly feels warmer there because strong gravity helps it [music] hold on to heat in the atmosphere longer. It's a little too far away though, like 3,000 lighty years from Earth, which is about 18 quadrillion [music] miles. Yep, better bring a really big lunch with you. Koi 310.01.
This planet is found next to the star [music] Koi 2010.
This planet sounds like a very pleasant world. The average temperature on this planet is 67°. So, a little warmer than ours, but that's a good thing.
Scientists believe that on a perfect planet, the temperature should be just about 10° hotter than on Earth. The more heat there is on the planet, the more comfortable it is to live there. Also, the higher chances of developing life.
The radius of this planet is nearly 1 and 1/2 times larger than Earth. There's some atmosphere, although we're not yet sure about its composition, but it's probably like the Earth's. Scientists [music] think that we'll find an ocean there, and it can cover up to 60% of the surface, which is also cool. In a perfect world, water and land should be distributed more evenly than on our planet. A little more land means a little [music] more territory and resources, right? But listen, this planet is actually very [music] similar to the Earth. The semblance is so striking that scientists believe we have an 84% [music] chance to find life there. Of course, not necessarily an intelligent life, but at least some animals. Wouldn't that [music] be cool?
Now, what do you think they could look like? H very Earthlike planet, but with stronger gravity. [music] Well, if someone lives there, they're probably big, but have a small height and strong little legs. [music] Sounds adorable and scary. But we won't be able to find out the truth anytime soon. So far for us, these planets are microscopic dots in space. We only have some dry, boring data about them and don't even know what they look like. We'll have to wait until we can find a way to get closer to these planets. Kepler 186f.
This is also one of the best candidates for having life. This rather acute planet was nicknamed the Earth's cousin because it does have a strong resemblance. Anyway, these two planets are like sisters, not twins. Kepler 186f rotates near a red dwarf. [music] Red dwarfs are stars even dimmer and smaller than orange dwarfs. Yeah, they'll also live for a very, very long time, but their luminosity is also quite low. However, Kepler 186f is closer to its star than were to our sun. So, it shouldn't be too dark there. Well, at least not nightlike dark. The sky on this planet is sure to be an unusual shade of red like sunsets on Earth. What do you think? Would you like to live on a planet with an eternal sunset? The size of this planet is about the same as Earth. Not bad, not perfect. Why so?
Because the coolest planets are those that are bigger than Earth and have stronger gravity. Now, you'll probably say, "But wouldn't it be harder to walk there [music] and even harder to get out of bed on Monday?" Of course. But on the other hand, this planet [music] will pull the atmosphere better. The atmosphere will be thicker and denser.
This means more protection from the scary space stuff, more oxygen, and more heat. Not to [music] mention the fact that the bigger planets have more space to settle. Awesome, right? But of course, the Earth's size is also an excellent choice. Another cool fact is that the tilt of Kepler 186F is about the same as ours. It means that there should be stable seasons and a normal dayight cycle. Do you know how important the tilt of the planet is? Let's look at Mars. Mars is also in fact found in the habitable zone of our sun. But its tilt is very unstable. And as a result, the entire ocean that could have been on it once now completely dried up. Today it's just a red desert and there's no life there. At least not as far as we know.
But you see how important these tiny details are. This planet is also quite far away from us, 490 light years.
[music] It's about three quadrillion miles. So yeah, we're just going to keep waiting for intergalactic travel.
Kepler 62E and 62F.
These planets were called the most Earthlike before we discovered Kepler 186f. They're very comparable to our home. Kepler 62E is about 1 and a half times larger than Earth and Kepler 62F is just slightly smaller than that.
They're located in the constellation Lyra, which is about 1,200 light-years away from us. They both also orbit a red [music] dwarf. One year on Kepler 62E lasts about 122 days, even less than on that first planet we talked about.
Scientists believe that both 62E and 62F are sort of water worlds. Warm places mostly or even completely covered with water. If there is land there, it's probably just some islands. H a world consisting entirely of islands. A fantasy dream for some, think Hawaii, and a nightmare for others, think Megalodon. But if you're a fan of ancient marine [music] animals, just imagine how gigantic they could be there. Still, there are many things we don't know about this planet. Does it have a surface? What about its composition, density? One day, maybe we'll be able to answer these questions.
And so, that's it for the super Earths.
Of course, the original list is much longer, and you can go check it out on the internet. Now, the best thing about all this is that these are planets that are [music] better than the Earth. But we also know thousands of other exoplanets that are just close enough to ours. And the odds are a few of them have at least some form of life. But they're very, very far away. So, we have no way to check it out right now.
Perhaps down the road, we'll find some [music] cool creatures on many of them.
For decades now, scientists have been discovering new planets outside our solar system. By 2023, we've found more than 5,000 of them. And many of these exoplanets could potentially even have life. Now, if you're ready for a wild ride through space, let's find out what potentially habitable planets we've discovered in the last few years.
LP890-9B and LP890-9C.
Buckle up because we're heading to LP890-9, a red dwarf star located a whopping 105 lighty years away from Earth. This star is quite cool compared to our sun in terms of temperature, of course. It has a temperature of about 4,700° F. Now, this little guy may be small, but it's packed with surprises. For example, [music] two exoplanets orbiting around it.
Moreover, both of these planets are likely terrestrial, meaning they are rocky, just like Earth.
First up, we have LP90-9b, [music] which was discovered in 2022 using the test telescope and later confirmed by the Speculus Telescope. This planet is a super Earth, [music] weighing in at about 13 times the mass of our own planet. It's also slightly bigger than Earth with a radius about 1.3 times larger. And if you thought Mercury's orbit around the sun was quick, just wait until you hear about LP890-9b.
It takes about 3 days to complete one lap around its star. Imagine falling asleep in freezing winter and waking up in hot summer. But the real showstopper here is [music] LP890-9C.
This one was discovered by the Speculoose Telescope. [music] It's a bit further out from the star and takes a leisurely 2.5 times longer to orbit than [music] LP890-9b.
It's also a bit larger than Earth.
But its real claim to fame is its location within the habitable zone of its star. That means it could potentially have liquid water on its surface and a climate suitable for life.
Now, this planet [music] becomes a prime candidate for studying its atmosphere using the James Web Space Telescope.
But hold on, it's not all sunshine and rainbows for LP890-9C.
It's also really close to its star, meaning it's full of radiation that could potentially make it less habitable. And to top it off, it's tidily locked, just like our moon. That means one side of the planet is always facing the star and is incredibly hot, while the other is always in the dark and really cold.
Scientific models suggest that this planet could be more like Venus in terms of its atmosphere and climate. And Venus is, you know, isn't known for being human friendly. But despite these challenges, LP890-9C is still a fascinating exoplanet worth studying further. Who knows what secrets it may hold? Let's move on to the next candidates.
GJ 10002B [music] and GJ 10002 C.
An international team of scientists led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrophysica Deanaria has found two [music] Earthlike planets just 16 lighty years away from our solar system. They both orbit [music] a red dwarf star called GJ 10002. Our sun is a yellow dwarf, which [music] means that GJ 10002 is much cooler and fainter than our own sun. But that's okay. Both planets are very close to its star, so it shouldn't be too cold or dark on them.
These [music] planets, called GJ 10002b and GJ 10002C, are both in the habitability zone of their star, meaning they could potentially support life.
Also, both of them have masses similar to that of Earth.
GJ 10002b is the inner planet and takes about 10 days to orbit its star, while GJ 10002C takes a little over 21 days.
These planets are great candidates for studying their atmospheres and could even be targets for future missions to search for signs of life. The most important thing is that these two planets could potentially support life.
And that's pretty cool. Plus, the fact that they're located so close to us means that we might be able to visit them someday. Well, maybe not us personally, but you know, and maybe one day we'll even [music] find some extraterrestrial life on one of these planets. Now, that would be out of this world. But moving on to the next one, Kepler 1649C.
Kepler 1649C, also known as the lost exoplanet, [music] was rediscovered in 2022 by scientists using data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft.
This exoplanet [music] is located about 300 lighty years away from Earth and orbits a small, cool star called Kepler 1649. It's about the same size as Earth.
And just like the previous ones, it's located in the habitable zone of its star. [music] Initially, the data about this planet was discarded. A special computer program called Robo Better written to automatically sift [music] through the volumes of Kepler data labeled this candidate as a false [music] positive. In other words, the program thought it was just some kind of an error or interference. Fortunately, the researchers double [music] checked such things and when rechecking the data, they managed to rescue poor Kepler 1649C.
Now, we know that this is a terrestrial planet just like Earth. And if it really does contain water, there could even be life there. But don't pack your bags just yet. There are still many unknowns about Kepler 1649C.
For example, we don't know what its atmosphere is like or what kind of surface it has. It's also possible that the planet is tidy locked, just like LP890-9C.
That would be uh unpleasant.
That's why Kepler 1649C is definitely worth further study. Maybe it turns out to be a perfect place for us to set up a vacation home in the future. Just make sure to bring plenty of sunscreen since the planet is pretty close to its star and things could get pretty toasty.
Kepler 1638b.
This exoplanet is located about 5,000 lighty years from Earth in the constellation Signis. It's also located in the habitable zone of its star. It was discovered in 2020 by the Kepler spacecraft through the process called transiting. They basically take a bunch of photos of the star at different times. After that, the programs analyze these photos and look for small spots and dots on [music] them. These tiny dips in brightness may mean that a planet was passing by the star. Kepler 1638b is a [music] bit of an oddball compared to most exoplanets we've found so far.
It's about four times the mass of Earth and has a radius about 2 times that of Earth, making it a super Earth exoplanet. [music] Its orbital period is about 260 days, which is quite close to our Earth. And that's great. Finally, at least somewhere winter and summer [music] will flow normally. Kepler 1638b could have some liquid water there.
That's why it's also a good candidate for further study to see if it could potentially support life. Let's hope that we'll find out more about this planet in the future. And finally, the last one, [music] Kepler 438b.
Kepler 438b is an exoplanet located approximately 640 lighty years away from Earth in the constellation LRA. It was discovered in 2015 by the Kepler Space Telescope. One of the most interesting things about [music] Kepler 438b is its size and location. It's about [music] the same size as Earth and also orbits within the habitable zone of its star.
But there are a few catches. For [music] one, Kepler 438b orbits around a red dwarf star, which are known for their high levels of solar radiation and flare-ups. [music] This could make the surface of the planet too hostile for life. as we know it. In addition, Kepler 438b has a much shorter year, only around 35 Earth days long. This could lead to extreme temperature fluctuations on the planet's surface. But maybe it's home to some hearty extraterrestrial life forms that have adapted to its unique conditions. Or maybe not. Either way, it's definitely worth keeping an eye on. This is a small list of exoplanets that we've discovered in recent years. Now, with the use of new technologies, we'll be able to find new exoplanets much more often. Let's hope that at least a few of them will really be inhabited.
Perhaps we've all stopped to think at one point about what it would be like to live on another planet. I know I've had days like that. Got to get away. And maybe even interact with other types of creatures [music] that already live somewhere else in space.
These days, such ideas sound more like something from a science fiction book.
But in the future, permanently changing your address to another [music] planet might turn out to be mandatory.
Think of the stars in our solar system as a battery. Billions of years from now, its energy will be gone. Without its light and warmth, life on Earth can't exist. When you think about it this way, we have to hope that future humans will [music] have found some other place to live by then. Thankfully, there's good news.
Recently, scientists at NASA have announced that they have found a new planet that might be able to support life. They call it TOI700E.
E is roughly the same size as Earth, [music] and it's located in a region of space where scientists think water could exist in its liquid form, which is crucial for the development of life.
This planet is not the only one, though.
[music] Close to it, there's another promising planet which they call TOI700D.
But this one is further away from its star. Because of the distance from the main source of light, planet D lies in a special area called the conservative habitable zone.
In simple terms, scientists aren't sure whether life might exist on this one, but they don't exclude such a possibility.
Planet E is in the optimistic zone, which means that it's possible that it has water and even an atmosphere. Hey, at least we have some options. The two planets are in a solar system that's only 100 light years away from Earth, which is considered pretty close in space terms. NASA found these planets by watching the light from the star and measuring how it moves when a planet passes in front of the star. This is the first time that NASA has found a solar system with [music] multiple planets that could have life. So far, scientists have found over 5,000 exoplanets, and they think there could be at least 10,000 more.
Specialists at NASA are looking into the ways to figure out if any [music] of these planets could harbor life. But they also say we might find forms of life we don't expect to see and that we should be open to other possibilities.
That's because we only know about what life can be by looking at our own planet.
Sure, everything sounds enticing so far, but don't pack your bags just yet. As appealing as these new planets might sound, there's still one problem.
Getting there. Scientists have been researching for decades how people can stay in space and thrive for long periods of time. And history tells us it's no easy project.
Back in 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit our planet. To circle Earth a mere three times, he had to go through months of technical and physical preparations.
These days, advanced technologies help us investigate Mars better. And scientists have figured out that there is water and materials on the red planet that may be useful to people. It has sparked the idea of sending people to Mars to live there just to begin with.
The first manned Mars mission is scheduled for the late 2030s or early 2040s if everything goes well. The plan is for this to be a round trip. But even if NASA manages to plan everything well, the roundtrip journey will still take about 500 days. It all depends on Mars and Earth's positions in their orbits around the sun.
One of the biggest problems with living on Mars is gravity. For starters, [music] the astronauts will arrive at the red planet after months of living in microgravity. [music] It means it could take them a lot of time to physically get in shape before they could start exploring.
That's because living in microgravity conditions heavily affects the human body. It might mean loss of bone and muscle mass as well as a shift in the normal movement of body fluids which tend to go upward. This can lead to pressure on the eyes and even problems with people's eyesight.
But Mars is right here in our own solar system. What about planets that are light years away? The answer is still up for debate. It may sound cool to travel really fast, like at the speed of light.
So far, scientists believe it's not possible. Sure, we may have been able to create airplanes that travel faster than sound. I mean, supersonic aircraft, but it's not the same. There's quite a difference. Actually, light is about a million times faster than sound.
Traveling at the speed of light would mean we could go from Earth to the moon in 1 second, or from Los Angeles to New York in less than the blink of an eye.
But what stops us, though? Some say it's energy. It may be possible to make something go really fast, but it'll take a whole lot of energy. In this case, engineers will need to find new ways to make things move in space. Right now, rockets use fuel that is similar to the gasoline you use in your car, but that's not very efficient when it comes to space travel. Other ways to push a spacecraft include using electric or magnetic forces. One promising idea is using a solar sail, which is like a large thin sheet of plastic that can be pushed through space by sunlight.
Some spacecraft have already used solar sails, and scientists think they could go up to about 10% of the speed of light.
If other planets in our solar system turn out to be inhospitable, and we can't invent spaceships that move fast enough, we might [music] still have a choice. Secret option C. It was first proposed by a scientist who wrote an interesting study about a special type of planet. It suggests that we might not need spaceships to move around and escape problems on our own planet.
We could use planets that are not orbiting a star. They're called rogue planets. Ooh. Instead of gravitating toward a star, these lonesome space objects simply drift alone through space doing their own thing.
Think about it this way. Moving to Mars is like moving to an already furnished house. Regardless of how nice it would be, you would still have to adapt to it.
You'd have to get used to how much light gets in through the windows every day and to climbing up and down the stairs to get to the living room.
Moving to a rogue planet means we'd start from scratch, building our own house from the ground up, perfectly adapted to our needs.
Free floating planets are usually seen as cold, dark, and not suitable for life. But if they have underground resources, they can be useful. They offer a constant surface gravity, a lot of space and [music] resources. They can also provide water and protection from space radiation. If we become an advanced enough civilization, we might be able to control the planet and even create new types of energy. So, the next question would be where we could find such a rogue planet. It's hard to know how many of these there are in the universe, but scientists have found a bunch of them in one region of the Milky Way galaxy.
Some rogue planets have been kicked out of their own solar systems because they were bad. No, not really. It was because of gravity, while others might have formed on their own.
Either way, we don't want rogue planets to get too close either, at least not in the near future.
The chances of a rogue planet entering our solar system are extremely low. But if it did, it could mess things up for us. Depending on its size, a rogue space object might divert other planets off of their course around the sun, which could alter their exposure to light and warmth. And if it crashes into the Earth, well, then that would be a bad thing, too.
We've discovered Kepler 22b, a small exoplanet in the Signis constellation.
Seems like nothing important, right? But it's actually a big deal. This is [music] the first planet located in the habitable zone that was found by the Kepler telescope.
In other words, there may be water on this planet, and if there's water, there may be [music] life. Kepler 22b can become our new potential home. So, let's take a closer [music] look at it.
Actually, discovering new planets is not easy at all. Not all of them can be seen through our super cool telescopes, even the almighty Hubble. Sometimes, the stars are so small and dim that it's really hard to find them on a map.
The same thing happened with Kepler 22.
[music] In such cases, scientists have to use a special method. First, they take a bunch of photos of the star in different periods of time. Then they look at them and think, "Hm, are there any dark dots on this star somewhere?" And if they find one, that might be a planet.
These photos actually help us to discover some very important stuff. Like first [music] of all, this planet exists. Secondly, here is its size, radius, and proximity to the star. And finally, will we be able to live there?
Now, we know that Kepler 22b is very similar to our planet and could potentially become a second Earth. It's also very close to us, only 635 lighty years away. Yeah, it's about 3 quadrillion miles, but this is one of the closest options.
Kepler 22, the star of Kepler 22b, is a yellow dwarf. It's very very similar to our sun. The same size, the same radius.
Even the age is almost the same. 4 billion years. The difference is only in luminosity. It's about 20% dimmer than the sun. So no matter how [music] much you strain your eyes, you won't see this star in the night sky.
The planet Kepler 22b is about 2.4 times larger than our Earth. And that's pretty good. More radius means more potential water and space to live. Although going from one city to another would take a while. It's scary to even imagine a 3-day long plane flight.
We don't know the [music] exact mass of this planet, but scientists think it's bigger than Earth's. Actually, the [music] mass of Kepler 22b can be up to 36 times greater than that of our planet. What does it mean? Vigorous gravity. If the planet is 36 times heavier [music] than Earth, then gravity there will be about six times stronger.
Can you barely lift 20 lb of potatoes?
Try 120.
Not to mention that you yourself [music] can become much heavier on that planet.
You'll have to get incredibly pumped up just to walk there. You have to literally turn yourself into a bodybuilder just to get to work.
The worst thing is that with such gravity, it'd be incredibly difficult for plants to survive there. They'd need at least a little freedom to rise up from the ground. And animals. Our dogs and [music] cats would have to turn into little balls of muscle to survive there.
But if this planet has its [music] own animals or other inhabitants, we can roughly imagine what they may look like.
They probably have a lot of legs to make moving easier. They aren't really [music] tall, but they're very massive and extremely strong. H muscular giant spiders could be worse. I guess the good news is that this is all unconfirmed information. If we're very lucky and gravity there turns out to be just a bit stronger than Earth's, then of course it'll be much easier to live there.
The next thing we know about Kepler 22b [music] is that it's about 15% closer to its star than we are to the sun. If Kepler 22b existed in our solar [music] system, it would be located somewhere between Earth and Venus.
Does that mean [music] we're all going to burn? No, silly. As I mentioned before, the star [music] Kepler 22 is pretty cold, just some 10,000° F. And that's why we can [music] assume that the temperatures on Kepler 22b will be about the same as we have on Earth. If the planet orbits its star the same way Earth orbits the sun, which we don't actually know, [music] Kepler 22b can rotate around its star on its side. Like for example, Uranus. [music] What? Didn't you know Uranus is actually lying on its side? [music] Also, look at its rings. Yes, Uranus also has rings like Saturn, but they're vertical. The universe is truly a mysterious place.
So, if Kepler 22b is really something like that, then the weather on the planet will [music] be, to put it mildly, not very good. Incredibly cold winters will be regularly followed by hot summers. [music] And just like with tidily locked planets, we'd be able to live more or less comfortably only on the narrow piece of land between these [music] two crazy sides. Let's hope that this is not the case and the planet rotates normally.
But it's not all that bad. Studies show that there may be an ocean on Kepler 22b. You already know that water means life. But in this case, [music] it's also a big plus because a planet covered by an ocean always has more stable [music] temperatures. The water absorbs some of the heat and distributes it evenly across the planet. The hot parts cool down [music] and the icy ones warm up.
By the way, that's exactly what happened to Earth billions of years ago. When our planet [music] started getting its first little puddles, our beloved moon helped these puddles to spread all over the planet. [music] Thanks to this, a burning horror that used to be our Earth turned into a cute little [music] ball full of life.
So, if Kepler 22b has water but no atmosphere, [music] scientists think that the average temperature there could be around 12° F. But if there's also an earthlike atmosphere, then the temperature can reach 72° F. [music] That would be nice.
And finally, 1 year there is equal to 290 Earth days, [music] about 9 months.
The planet has no natural satellites, so unfortunately, we'd [music] have to say goodbye to a beautiful view of the moon.
On the bright side, we'd probably be able to see the sun as a distant little [music] star. We could admire it in the night sky, remembering our home. Well, not hiding from giant spiders.
And this [music] is all that we know at the moment. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to explore such planets. So, there's a lot of very important data that we don't know. For example, what kind of planet is this anyway?
Yep. We're missing the most important information about Kepler 22b. We don't know if [music] it's a rocky planet or not. And if not, then all the previously mentioned information [music] means nothing.
It may turn out to be a gas planet or a planet covered with gas but with a solid core like Neptune or a water world covered with a giant ocean.
In this case, it better be a water planet. Then at least we could build some kind of underwater city there. We could filter the water and eat fish until we evolve into an amphibious species. Does it even count as evolution if we go back to our roots?
Scientists, however, think that Kepler 22b may turn out to be a Neptune-like [music] planet. Some astronomers have even assigned the planet to a category of many Neptunes. Yes, this is a [music] real planetary category, but this hasn't been proven yet.
But even if, fortunately for us, Kepler 22b turns out to be a rocky planet, we still don't know what the atmosphere is like there, [music] does it exist at all? What if it turns out to be something like the atmosphere of Venus, which is more toxic than your ex? Then we'd have to dig deep underground to somehow survive on this planet. And then we'd have to come up with a heat source because it's pretty cold underground.
Yeah, let's hope this won't be the case.
There are many possibilities with Kepler 22b. So far, we don't have a clear answer, but let's hope that scientists will find it before we load the first people into shuttles and send them to conquer Kepler 22b. That would be awkward if it turns out to be a gas planet or something like that.
Colonizing other planets [music] is like the ultimate cosmic adventure. It's a challenge that's captured the imagination of humans for [music] centuries, and it's something we've always dreamed of doing.
One of the most popular candidates for [music] this role is Mars. And this isn't surprising. Mars is a rocky planet that is similar to Earth in many ways, and it even has evidence of water on its surface. This makes it a prime candidate [music] for human colonization. Many scientists and engineers are working on plans to send humans to Mars and establish a permanent settlement there.
But what about the other candidates?
[music] There are many planets and moons in our solar system. So why not colonize something else? For example, series.
Aries is the ultimate [music] cosmic treasure trove. It's a dwarf planet, not a full-fledged one, just like Pluto.
It's located in the [music] asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This dwarf planet is the closest to the sun and it's adorably tiny. The entire [music] planet is about the same size as the state of Texas.
So [music] why choose it? Because series may be a rich source of valuable resources.
The surface of series is covered [music] in craters and other geological features. And scientists believe that beneath its surface, it has a thick layer of water ice, which means that deep underground, [music] it may have an ocean of liquid water. If this is true, series could be a valuable resource for future space missions. It could potentially provide a source of water for human exploration of the solar system.
So, can we colonize it? And if so, how do we do that?
Actually, many scientists and space enthusiasts have proposed this idea. To colonize series, we'd have to use the same methods used to establish colonies on the moon, Mercury, [music] and the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.
Don't worry, it's not that hard. We just need to figure out how to adapt [music] to a very thin atmosphere to extreme temperatures and pressure and well, all the other nasty stuff.
But let's [music] stay hopeful. At the end of the day, it all comes down to resources. We'll need water, minerals, silica, and other raw materials. All this would help us to create a self-sufficient colony. And luckily, series is full of these things.
So, first of all, we could locate the places of residence inside the craters of series. [music] We could build domes there that would protect us from all sorts of dangerous things like radiation.
We could also mine regalith in the asteroid belt. Regalith is a residual soil that appears [music] as a result of cosmic weathering of the rock.
Basically, it's something like the surface layer of soil on the moon.
Why do we [music] need it? Well, because we could use it to 3D print the base layers next to the ice so that our bases [music] would be located near the water.
We could then use these base layers to print other structures like houses.
We could also collect [music] ice and organic molecules to create water. And by combining water [music] with regalith, we would get soil in which we could grow plants and food. Wonderful.
There's also another option. A colony could be created underground. That is right next to the icy crust of the planet.
Now, if in the future we'll be some kind of super cool scientists, [music] we could try to accelerate the rotation of series, which sounds crazy, but would be pretty beneficial. [music] It would help us to create artificial gravity inside the underground colonies.
And speaking of gravity, [music] all of these things may sound cool, but let's discuss the difficulties that lie ahead of us during colonization.
To colonize series, we would need to [music] overcome a number of challenges.
To begin with, we need to develop technologies that will help us even get to series. We need some kind of ships that would be capable of long flights [music] into deep space. For them, first we need to create some kind of nuclear thermal or nuclear electric traction and maybe an even more advanced type of fuel.
Then we'll also need technology to help us sustain life [music] in this small rocky world. That is tools to extract and use local resources.
[music] Also, since there's no atmosphere on series, we would have to wear space suits and live [music] in pressurized habitats.
And this is only the beginning. Living on the planet itself won't be an easy task either. For example, what about extreme temperatures or radiation or the mentioned incredibly weak gravity?
The latter is definitely one of the biggest problems. The gravity of Saras is only 3% of the Earth's. You wouldn't want to accidentally fly into outer space while playing football, would you?
But the fact that any jump [music] could send you on an endless journey isn't the only problem. Even if you somehow stay on the surface of the planet, you'll experience the same symptoms and problems as astronauts who hang out on the International Space Station. For example, loss of muscle mass, decrease in bone density, deterioration of vision, problems with the cardiovascular system. Wow, who would have thought that gravity is so important? [music] So therefore, if we wanted to survive on Saras, we would need either a bunch of doctors or some kind of artificial [music] gravity. And don't even get me started on how low gravity will slow down production [music] and work.
And of course, we can't go anywhere without discussing money. Colonizing Cirrus would cost us a huge expense, especially taking into account all of the above.
And yet, despite all these things, [music] Saras still stays one of the best candidates for colonization.
For example, Saras [music] contains lots of methane and ammonia. They can be used as a manufactured fuel or a nitrogenous gas. Or you can just mine it there in order to colonize Mars and Venus.
Even [music] low gravity has its advantages. Thanks to it, it will be very easy to launch spacecraft [music] from series. We'll waste much less fuel, which means that transportation from series to other planets would be much cheaper and more efficient.
So, even if doesn't become [music] our permanent residence, it can become a good transport hub, something like a spaceport.
We could use [music] it as a base for mining all sorts of useful things from the asteroid belt. Then we could transport all these [music] resources back to Mars or Earth. And it can also become a refueling station [music] for ships traveling further beyond the solar system. Sounds cool and pretty sci-fiish, doesn't it?
But it seems that any attempts to create a permanent base in the asteroid belt will have to wait. Colonizing other planets is a difficult and complex task.
It'll require the cooperation and expertise of many different people. And it will involve developing new technologies [music] and overcoming many challenges.
Before we go to series, we need to build infrastructures on the moon, Mars, and somewhere in between. Otherwise, any attempts to colonize it would be prohibitively expensive and would most likely fail before future missions could even reach it.
But the more colonies we create, the more likely it is that sooner or later we'll build another one on series. This would not only open the asteroid belt to economic exploitation, [music] it would also serve as a stepping stone to the outer solar system. This in turn could [music] lead to colonizing the moons of Jupiter and beyond.
In other words, [music] the rewards of colonizing series could be great. Not only would it allow us to explore and understand this fascinating world, but it could [music] also provide us with valuable resources that could help us to further explore and settle the solar system. Life on series would likely be challenging but exciting as humans would be making a new home [music] for themselves and exploring the mysteries of the universe. Just imagine all the new planet themed restaurants and shops we could have. Welcome to Siri, where [music] everything is out of this world.
So, if you're a [music] fan of cosmic treasure hunts, series is surely a rich and rewarding destination. Just make sure you bring some weights on your feet so you don't fly anywhere.
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