1 MINUTE AGO: Vera Rubin Telescope Captured Unexpected Structure in Deep Space

[00:00:00]It's 3:00 a.m. Suddenly, a radio telescope beeps. The monitor shows a violent massive burst of energy where it shouldn't be. The scientist spills [music] his coffee, scrambles to hit record, and zooms in on the source, but finds nothing. Just silence. [music] Was this a glitch or some cosmic coincidence? Actually, new research argues that this is exactly what first contact might look like.

[00:00:27]Science fiction [music] has been preparing us for meeting ETs for decades. Since we can't travel through space yet, we kind [music] of hope they'll come to us. Hopefully in peace without the laser weapons. But astronomers shrug and say this is highly unlikely. So they've built better telescopes and asked a better question.

[00:00:46]If life exists [music] out there, what would actually jump out on our screens?

[00:00:53]That brings us [music] to the streetlight effect. It's the simple idea of searching for your lost [music] keys under the lamp post, just because that's where it's easiest to see. Scientists do the same thing with the universe. They catch the stuff that's easiest to detect, >> [music] >> not what's most common. This is how the first planets outside our solar system were discovered [music] in 1992.

[00:01:15]For years, astronomers stared at sun-like stars hunting for Earth-like planets [music] and found nothing.

[00:01:21]Instead, the first exoplanets showed up orbiting a pulsar. When a giant star [music] runs out of fuel, its core gets squeezed into an incredibly dense chunk of matter that spins unbelievably fast.

[00:01:34]When rotating, it can aim a radio beam our [music] way like a space lighthouse.

[00:01:39]Every time the beam crosses Earth, we detect it like a pulse. Thump. Thump.

[00:01:45]Thump.

[00:01:46]That's why it got the name pulsar.

[00:01:49]Turns out it was just spinning, but we kept the name. The timing of pulses stays so precise that it works like a cosmic stopwatch. So when a nearby planet tugs on a pulsar, that perfect timing wobbles.

[00:02:02]The pulses might arrive a bit too early or a bit too late. That's how astronomers found [music] the surrounding planets.

[00:02:11]That's the streetlight effect on a cosmic scale. The idea is that we will only notice intelligent life if it does something loud that sets off alarms or breaks some rules.

[00:02:21]A Columbia astrophysicist [music] named David Kipping gave the idea a name, the Eskaton hypothesis.

[00:02:29]Eskaton [music] comes from Greek and points to the end, like the final chapter. The idea is that when we finally find [music] signs of intelligent life out there, it probably won't be during peaceful times. It will be because something went [music] wrong.

[00:02:45]Some one-of-a-kind situation for them. A moment so loud it rips through the background static of the universe and reaches all the way over here.

[00:02:55]Calm civilizations don't show up on radar.

[00:02:58]>> [music] >> A world that runs on clean energy and keeps its tech quiet could last a million years and we'd never know it was there.

[00:03:06]But what if they did something big and messy just [music] to survive?

[00:03:11]Maybe they fired up a planet-wide laser array to nudge an incoming asteroid off course. [music] Or maybe they're testing some super advanced technology.

[00:03:21]Whatever the noise, [music] even if it lasts for just a few seconds, it could hit radio dishes across [music] the galaxy like a flare.

[00:03:29]Yes, all of that sounds like science fiction, but that's exactly why [music] we'd notice it. But here's an interesting question. Have we already detected such a signal?

[00:03:39]There is one candidate that fits this profile perfectly. It remains the most [music] famous unsolved mystery in the history of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

[00:03:49]In 1977, Ohio's Big Ear telescope caught a radio surge about 30 times stronger than the background, [music] and a volunteer spotted it in the printout. He highlighted the signal's intensity reading, 6 E [music] Q U J 5, and scribbled down "Wow" next to it. Which is how the event got its popular name.

[00:04:12]The signal lasted exactly 72 [music] seconds. This duration is significant because it matched the time it took [music] for the Earth's rotation to scan across that specific point in the sky.

[00:04:24]The signal [music] didn't fade away.

[00:04:26]The telescope simply looked past it.

[00:04:29]However, when astronomers returned to that spot, >> [music] >> nothing was there.

[00:04:34]They've listened for nearly 50 years, but the signal never repeated.

[00:04:38]>> [music] >> In the science world, things that can't be repeated usually get tossed aside as mistakes. It's important to be careful because false alarms happen pretty often.

[00:04:49]There's a famous false alarm that still makes astronomers cringe.

[00:04:53]At the Parks Observatory in Australia, [music] telescopes kept picking up weird chirpy signals starting in the late '90s.

[00:05:01]For 17 years, nobody could figure them out. People blamed [music] lightning, space weather, and space invaders.

[00:05:09]But in 2015, they all figured it out.

[00:05:12]The strange signal was coming from the microwave in the break room.

[00:05:16]If a hungry scientist pulled the door open before the timer hit zero, it leaked a tiny burst of radio waves that looked [music] exactly like a signal from deep space.

[00:05:26]17 years of mystery >> [music] >> for a disappointing reveal.

[00:05:30]But the Wow signal didn't behave like that. It didn't look like a satellite, a plane, [music] or any kind of interference, and they definitely made sure it wasn't a kitchen appliance.

[00:05:40][music] It came from deep space near the constellation of Sagittarius.

[00:05:45]>> [music] >> If we apply Kipping's Escaton theory, this might be what we need to prove life outside our planet.

[00:05:52]The Wow signal could have been an engine flare from a colony ship trying [music] to escape a disappearing world.

[00:05:59]Or it could have been a rare natural radio event that just happened to [music] hit us at the perfect moment.

[00:06:05]The Wow signal grabbed attention because it reached us in [music] radio waves, but Kipping's theory also asks, "What if a civilization gives itself away in a completely different way?

[00:06:15]>> [music] >> Not with sound, but with pollution."

[00:06:19]Clues that technology, not nature, caused something are called technosignatures. [music] Think of them as leftover traces. If you walk into a house that smells of [music] fresh paint, you can assume someone was there recently.

[00:06:33]Astronomers use the same logic with planets. They scan distant exoplanet atmospheres for chemicals that shouldn't exist naturally.

[00:06:42]The biggest target is a family of chemicals called CFCs.

[00:06:47]For decades, humans filled the air with these gases because they were cheap and useful. We used them in spray cans and cooling systems until scientists realized they were bad for the ozone layer.

[00:06:58]That's why CFCs are such a big deal.

[00:07:01]Nature doesn't make them.

[00:07:03]These chemicals are 100% artificial. So, if we point a telescope at a distant planet and find its air is full of CFCs, it would be the vital clue astronomers have been waiting for.

[00:07:16]>> [music] >> It could mean someone intelligent is down there, and they're polluting their world on an industrial scale.

[00:07:24]Besides radio waves and chemistry, [music] you might be able to spot a civilization if they're doing something cool with light.

[00:07:31]In 2015, astronomers watching a star about 1,400 light-years away, nicknamed Tabby's [music] Star, noticed something that seemed impossible.

[00:07:41]When a Jupiter-sized planet a star, it blocks about 1% of the light. But this star suddenly dimmed by 22% and it wasn't one clean dip, either.

[00:07:52]>> [music] >> The brightness kept plunging in weird uneven chunks with no tidy repeatable schedule. That's something huge getting in the way.

[00:08:00]For brief moment, scientists hoped for a Dyson swarm.

[00:08:04]That's a hypothetical mega structure made of solar panels and wrapped around a star to capture its energy.

[00:08:11]Sadly, later studies lean toward dust clouds instead. But Tabby's star still grabs attention.

[00:08:18]>> [music] >> We keep asking, "Where is everybody?"

[00:08:21]But for decades, we could only watch a tiny slice of the sky at a time.

[00:08:25]>> [music] >> That's about to change with telescopes like the Rubin Observatory that will sweep the entire southern sky every few nights, over and over. Like a giant security camera for the universe.

[00:08:38]If something flickers, flashes, or suddenly vanishes, we won't just get one blurry screenshot. We'll have the replay.

[00:08:45]Finally, what if we are the loud ones?

[00:08:49]We tend to think Earth is noisy because of our TV shows and music, but those signals fade fast.

[00:08:56]Our real scream is planetary radar.

[00:09:00]We blast massive radio beams into space to map asteroids. Some researchers estimate that these shouts could be detected from as far as 12,000 light-years away.

[00:09:11]That's very far. But in space terms, it isn't even the backyard. If we really want to get someone's attention, we need to get way louder.

[00:09:23]>> In 2017, a strange object was spotted in our solar system. It had the shape of a long tube, similar to a pancake. No known asteroid or comet we've seen looks like that. It's exterior was also peculiar.

[00:09:37]It was at least 10 times [music] more reflective than the average stuff that flies through space, with some saying it had a surface similar to polished metal.

[00:09:46]When it went past the sun and left our reach, it accelerated faster than what our gravity could account for.

[00:09:53]At first glance, it was like this thing had a rocket strapped to its back.

[00:09:57]This unusual visitor even got a [music] special name, 'Oumuamua. It comes from Hawaiian and translates to scout or visitor from a far-away land. And because of its characteristics, [music] scientists soon began to wonder if this was at last a visit from otherworldly creatures. [music] Before they went full on with the science fiction suppositions, astronomers gathered the information they were sure about, starting with the fact that 'Oumuamua must have come from another solar system. There must have been some unfortunate event in its home system that led to its ejection.

[00:10:33]What they didn't know was that this was a comet or asteroid. They're both celestial objects orbiting a sun, but they have distinct compositions and behaviors.

[00:10:43]Comets are composed primarily of ice, dust, and rocky material, often referred to as dirty snowballs. When a comet approaches the sun, the heat causes the ice to vaporize, releasing gas and dust particles into space. This creates a bright glowing tail that can extend for millions of miles.

[00:11:01]Comets generally have elliptical orbits, often taking them from the distant reaches of our solar system closer to the sun.

[00:11:11]Asteroids, however, are mostly made of rock and metal. In our neighborhood, they are remnants of the early formation of the solar system and are typically found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

[00:11:23]Unlike comets, asteroids [music] do not develop tails when they approach the sun, as they have no ice. Their orbits generally follow more circular paths compared to comets.

[00:11:34]By all accounts, 'Oumuamua should be a comet because it seems to come from a different location in the universe. Yet, it doesn't exhibit the typical signs of cometary activity.

[00:11:46]'Oumuamua lacks a tail and does not spew out gas as it passes by. Not like me.

[00:11:52]Even though it behaves like a comet, it looks more like an asteroid.

[00:11:58]Now, another big question is how scientists even managed to spot 'Oumuamua in the first place.

[00:12:03]Considering the vastness of space and time in the galaxy, [music] it's remarkable. Stars have lifetimes spanning millions or billions of years, and the formation of a solar system takes hundreds of millions of years.

[00:12:16]Even the fastest objects take [music] tens of thousands of years to travel from one star to another. In contrast, humans have only been observing the skies with telescopes for around 400 years, a tiny fraction of cosmic time.

[00:12:31]And it's only in recent decades, [music] even years, that we've had the technology to detect and track fast-moving, dim objects. Either rocks like these are abundant [music] or we've been incredibly lucky with our detections. Or it simply wanted to be seen.

[00:12:49]Now, another question that was asked was where such objects could come from. It's highly unlikely that 'Oumuamua came from a mature, stable solar system. That's because [music] such systems don't eject enough material to fill up the galaxy.

[00:13:03]Occasionally, a random rock might get flung out, but it can rarely travel so far. Young systems, however, act differently. In these chaotic environments, collisions, mergers, and migrations are happening everywhere.

[00:13:18]Plenty of tiny rocks roam around, perfect candidates for ejection.

[00:13:22]The solar system that kicked 'Oumuamua out must have had a planet similar to Jupiter. Its massive size and gravity could influence other objects in the system, causing potential ejections.

[00:13:34]But, not all solar systems develop Jupiter-sized planets. Often, massive planets end up close to their stars, becoming hotter versions of Jupiter.

[00:13:44]These planets, snugly orbiting a sun, are less likely to eject debris.

[00:13:49]Now, Neptune-like planets may play a role, too. While not as massive [music] as Jupiter, they tend to call the outer regions of solar systems their home. Our solar system has the Kuiper Belt, >> [music] >> a reservoir of comets in its outer reaches. During a solar system's early stages, interactions between Neptune-like planets and debris are common.

[00:14:09]Finding Neptune-like planets in other systems has been challenging, though.

[00:14:13]Our methods for detecting exoplanets work better for massive objects close to their stars, making it difficult to spot Neptune counterparts farther out.

[00:14:26]Oumuamua was also linked to a peculiar theory about how life came to be in the universe, panspermia. Now, that's a hypothesis that suggests that life exists throughout the universe and can be distributed between planets by various means, such as asteroids, comets, or even spacecraft. It says that life must have originated in one location in the universe and then spread to other celestial bodies.

[00:14:52]Fans of the panspermia [music] theory have suggested that such interstellar objects could potentially carry tiny microbes, those building blocks of life, between star systems. If such objects were to impact [music] a planet or a moon, they could transfer these materials and seed the celestial body with life.

[00:15:11]For now, there is no evidence [music] to support the theory that this comet in particular has transported life between star systems.

[00:15:21]After years of research, the overall consensus became that Oumuamua was indeed a comet. The reason why it moved so strangely is because it might have frozen hydrogen on its surface that reacts when touched by sunlight. The closer it got to our sun, the faster it became, releasing that hydrogen and also changing its path through our solar system.

[00:15:42]Its color also supports this theory.

[00:15:45]It's red, which might mean it's been hit [music] by cosmic rays for a long time.

[00:15:50]The longer it was touched by those rays, the more [music] hydrogen it gathered in the process.

[00:15:55]But, since they can't be completely sure, astronomers have a plan to follow this visitor. One idea is to send a mission to check it out. It's already far away from us, >> [music] >> but it may not be too late just yet. We may be able to send a probe fast enough to catch up [music] with the comet. The plan was named Project Lyra and aims to use the Earth's orbit and that of Jupiter to bounce out a probe far enough to reach Oumuamua. If it works, it will be the fastest space [music] device we've sent out in the universe.

[00:16:27]One potential trajectory of the space [music] probe involves the gravitational pull of our planet and that of Jupiter as a lasso effect, but not Ted Lasso.

[00:16:37]The probe will leave our planet and reenter [music] Earth's orbit before sending it to meet with Jupiter's pull.

[00:16:42]It will be sent back near our planet a second time, where it will be ejected with enough force to reach the comet.

[00:16:51]Project Lyra also aims to follow a second far away visitor named Borisov.

[00:16:57]This one was discovered by an amateur astronomer and now bears his name.

[00:17:01]What's interesting about it is that it's, well, spotless.

[00:17:05]Similar to our experience with Oumuamua, we haven't seen anything like Borisov before either. Studies of the light coming from [music] its cloud of dust and gas show it's very clean compared to other space objects. After it was first noticed in August 2019, astronomers studied its path through our solar system and concluded it came from another star, too. But Borisov gave us more time to study it because we spotted it earlier in its journey through our neighborhood.

[00:17:34]Researchers used advanced telescopes to look at the dust coming off Borisov.

[00:17:39]They found it's throwing off over 400 [music] lbs of dust every second. They also found Borisov has more carbon monoxide than comets from our solar system usually do.

[00:17:50]But the amount isn't the same everywhere on the comet. This tells us the space object probably started forming near its home star before moving away, maybe because of larger planets in its system.

[00:18:02]The light from Borisov is way more polarized than light from other comets we've seen, and its cloud is super smooth. This tells us Borisov has never interacted with another star.

[00:18:18]>> 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.

[00:18:31]>> [music] >> It has successfully detected a faint glow coming from a staggering 7 trillion miles away.

[00:18:37]Can this glow be shining city lights coming from some mysterious extraterrestrial world galaxies away from us? Well, let's start from [music] the beginning.

[00:18:46]A few years ago, NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope helped us spot a family [music] of seven rocky exoplanets orbiting the same star.

[00:18:55]This star is known as TRAPPIST-1.

[00:18:57]And recently, our new infrared powerhouse, the James Webb Telescope, has measured the temperature of one of those [music] distant worlds. It was a planet called TRAPPIST-1b.

[00:19:07]Unfortunately, [music] it turned out that this Earth-like planet was totally uninhabitable.

[00:19:13]Astronomers took James Webb's mid-infrared camera, called MIRI, and looked at the planet's thermal emissions.

[00:19:20]We can picture [music] the whole process as scientists using heat-sensing Terminator vision.

[00:19:25]The results were quite disappointing.

[00:19:27]TRAPPIST-1b turned out to be scorching.

[00:19:30]Its average temperature was around 450° F. That's as hot as in an oven.

[00:19:36]Plus, the planet most likely doesn't have any atmosphere.

[00:19:40]At the same time, this discovery [music] was another record-breaking first for the telescope, which had already produced some newsworthy results [music] by that time.

[00:19:48]It was the first time researchers detected any form of light emitted by a small and relatively cool exoplanet similar to the rocky planets in our own solar system. No previous telescope had enough sensitivity to measure such dim [music] mid-infrared light. When seven TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets were first discovered, the astronomical community was ecstatic. That's because all those faraway worlds [music] were about the size of our home planet and located in their star's habitable zone.

[00:20:17]It's the region [music] that is just the right distance away from a star for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface.

[00:20:23]Thus, the planetary system became the best place to look for rocky planets with an atmosphere. But don't get too excited yet.

[00:20:30]>> [music] >> These planets aren't likely to become new worlds for humans to explore. Mostly because the TRAPPIST-1 planets are totally [music] out of our reach at the moment. They're just too far away at a whopping 235 trillion miles away. Their star is also much smaller and redder than our sun.

[00:20:47]>> [music] >> It's classified as an M dwarf star. In our home Milky Way galaxy, there are twice [music] as many of such stars as there are stars like the sun. And they're also twice as likely to have rocky planets orbiting.

[00:20:58]It's probably not surprising that astronomers are very interested in such [music] 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. They frequently [music] flare and spew high energy rays, which are likely to be extremely damaging to planet's atmospheres and any forms of extraterrestrial [music] life.

[00:21:24]When researchers examined TRAPPIST-1b before, their observations [music] weren't sensitive enough to determine whether this world had an atmosphere or if it was just a barren rock. [music] But now, we know.

[00:21:35]The planet is tidally locked to its star, which means that one of its sides always faces [music] the star, while the other is stuck in perpetual darkness.

[00:21:44]The latest simulation [music] suggests that if this planet had an atmosphere, its temperatures would be much lower since the [music] air would redistribute the heat around both sides of the planet.

[00:21:53]Unfortunately, the James Webb telescope [music] recorded much hotter temperatures than needed for such a favorable scenario.

[00:22:00]It indicates the absence of an atmosphere and knocks the planet off our list of possibly habitable worlds.

[00:22:06]But the main excitement here isn't actually the [music] features of TRAPPIST-1b.

[00:22:10]The main takeaway is that James Webb is capable of making such kinds of measurements.

[00:22:15]It'll help us explore the [music] atmospheres and temperatures of many other distant worlds.

[00:22:30]>> A giant is hiding in the sky.

[00:22:33]Kipu is the biggest thing we've ever found in the nearby universe. It's been messing with our understanding of the universe for years, and we've just discovered it. Kipu is dense, powerful, and dangerous to ignore. If we don't understand structures like this, we might be reading the universe completely wrong.

[00:22:52]So, what exactly is it?

[00:22:55]It's not [music] a solid object like a planet or a star, and it's not a single thing. It's a super structure, basically an entire region of the universe.

[00:23:04][music] A tangled mess of matter spanning a huge amount of space stitched together by gravity. Kipu is made up of an enormous web of galaxies, galaxy clusters, [music] or giant groups of galaxies, gas, and dark matter. It's like a super highway with galaxy clusters being the cities, filaments being the roads, and dark matter being the invisible infrastructure holding it all together.

[00:23:30]This giant stretches across 1.3 billion light-years. That means if you traveled at the speed of light, it would still take you 1 billion 3 million years just to cross it. Kipu also holds 200 quadrillion solar masses, even though it only takes up 13% [music] of the observable universe.

[00:23:49]The name Kipu comes from the [music] Incan system of knotted cords used to record things called kipus. It was like a writing [music] system. In that system, each knot, color, and twist told a story, numbers, [music] taxes, harvests, and so on. So, when astronomers saw this colossal [music] structure in space, long, tangled, and branching like space cords, they named it after this language of knots. Plus, the shape of the space reminded scientists of those threads. There's a long central filament, and the smaller ones are branching off the sides. What's even more fascinating, Kipu isn't alone.

[00:24:27]When scientists mapped this part of the universe, they found [music] five of these massive structures.

[00:24:32]They aren't just sitting there, either.

[00:24:34]They formed over billions of years through gravity slowly pulling matter together.

[00:24:39]All told, all those giants hold nearly half of all the galaxy clusters in that region, 30% of all the galaxies, and a quarter of all the matter in the observable universe.

[00:24:51]The team that found Kipu used a clever trick. They searched for X-rays coming from galaxy clusters. These clusters aren't just full of galaxies, they're also filled with super hot gas. That gas is so hot, it glows in x-ray light, [music] which we can't see with our eyes, but special telescopes can.

[00:25:09]If there's a lot of that x-ray glow, it means there's a huge amount of matter, galaxies, gas, and dark matter all pulled together by gravity. That's where the densest, most [music] crowded areas of the universe are.

[00:25:23]So, by following the x-ray glow, [music] the scientists could draw a map showing where the biggest cosmic structures, like KBC, were hiding.

[00:25:31]Why does any of this matter? Because these mega structures mess [music] with everything.

[00:25:37]First of all, they warp the cosmic microwave background, the ancient light left over from the Big Bang. It's a faint glow of [music] light that fills the entire universe. After the Big Bang happened and our world was created, it emitted its very first light and signals that still haven't completely weakened yet.

[00:25:55]The leftover radiation is still coming to us, even after 13.8 billion years.

[00:26:02]By studying this ancient [music] light, scientists can learn what the early universe looked like, and KBC ruins it for [music] us.

[00:26:10]These mega structures hold so much gravity that they bend and [music] distort this ancient light as it passes through them.

[00:26:17]That's called the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. These warps [music] add noise to the original signal, and now it's harder for us to get a proper, clearer understanding of what the baby universe looked like and how it expanded.

[00:26:30]They also mess with the Hubble constant.

[00:26:33]The universe is constantly expanding, and the Hubble constant tells us how fast it's growing. In other words, how quickly galaxies are moving apart from each other.

[00:26:43]But giant things in [music] space, like KBC, have so much gravity that they pull nearby galaxies toward them, messing up the way those galaxies move. This makes it harder for [music] scientists to measure the universe's true speed of expansion. They can't tell if a galaxy is moving because of the universe growing or just because it's being pulled by something huge nearby.

[00:27:04]And finally, there's gravitational [music] lensing.

[00:27:08]Light in space travels constantly, but it doesn't always follow a straight line. If the space gets distorted, [music] like by gravity, then the light traveling through the space will get bent and distorted, [music] too.

[00:27:21]Gravitational lensing is when light from far away galaxies get bent because it passes by something super massive, like Kipu here.

[00:27:29]That huge [music] gravity pulls on the light like how a heavy ball can bend a sheet.

[00:27:34]And since light delivers information to us, literally makes us see what things look like, this bending distorts how we see galaxies. [music] The images of galaxies end up looking stretched, brighter, or we can even find an entire galaxy in the wrong place.

[00:27:51]It's like looking at our universe through a warped magnifying glass. If we're not careful, we could misread those distortions and get the wrong idea about what our world looks like.

[00:28:02]Luckily, we didn't just drop these mysterious superstructures out of nowhere. Astronomers suspected that something like that should be out there.

[00:28:09]They just didn't know for sure.

[00:28:11]Our best model for the universe is called Lambda-CDM.

[00:28:15]It says universe started with the Big Bang, is still expanding, and is mostly made of mysterious stuff, dark energy and cold dark matter, the CDM part.

[00:28:26]We can't see or touch these [music] things, but we know they exist because if they didn't, our universe would literally break apart. This model matches what we do see, like galaxies forming, how stars move, and the overall shape of the universe. So, even if some puzzle pieces by themselves are still a mystery, they match the actual picture.

[00:28:47]And this model actually predicted things like Kipu.

[00:28:51]When scientists ran simulations using that model, they saw similar structures [music] forming, giant cosmic webs of galaxies tied together by gravity.

[00:29:01]Kipu matched those predictions in real [music] life. This also means that Lambda-CDM is matching real life once again, thank heavens. No huge surprises here.

[00:29:11]But now that we actually found it, it's the largest known structure in the observable universe.

[00:29:17]There was another giant before Kipu, [music] the Sloan Great Wall. That one was discovered in 2003 and was believed to [music] be one of the largest structures ever found. And it's still an absolute monster. The Sloan Great Wall stretches over 1 billion light-years across. It's called a wall, but it's not like a wall you'd find on Earth. It's also a vast cosmic web made up of thousands of galaxies and gas connected by dark matter.

[00:29:46]What makes both Kipu and the Sloan Great Wall so surprising [music] is that they literally seem too big to exist.

[00:29:53]According to the Lambda-CDM model, >> [music] >> structures that huge shouldn't be common, especially at the time they formed.

[00:30:00]How do these giants form so fast in a universe that's supposed to be growing, expanding, and smoothing over time? And if we keep [music] finding more of them, that would be completely insane. It could mean there's something deeper going on in the way our world is built.

[00:30:15]It's all part of our crazy Copernican journey, a long series of discoveries where we just keep getting humbled by the universe.

[00:30:23]>> [music] >> Every time we find something like this, we realize even more how we're not [music] the center of everything.

[00:30:30]First, we learned the Earth wasn't the center of the solar system. Then we found that the solar system is just one speck in a galaxy. Now, even galaxy superclusters, which we believed to be the biggest, are being dwarfed by structures like Kipu and the Sloan Great Wall.

[00:30:46]But also, [music] these structures won't last forever.

[00:30:49]Kipu is temporary. Over billions of years, gravity will tear it apart, breaking it into smaller pieces. Some parts [music] will collapse into tighter clusters, others will drift apart.

[00:31:01]Right now though, it's one of the most important structures [music] in the known universe. It shapes how galaxies form. It bends light, making it super important [music] for us to decipher. It literally messes with our understanding of the cosmos.

[00:31:20]>> The James Webb Telescope, or [music] JWST, is like the ultimate intergalactic paparazzi. It takes pictures of some of the most famous celebrities in the universe.

[00:31:31]Stars, galaxies, [music] exoplanets, you name it. The James Webb Space Telescope will snap a photo.

[00:31:40]So, if you're a fan of cosmic celebrities, let's take a look at some of these best star-studded photos.

[00:31:47]The Carina Nebula.

[00:31:49]The image of the nebula with the beautiful name Carina was published on July 12th. JWST captured a beautiful view of the nebula, located about 7,500 light-years from Earth. Nicknamed the Cosmic Cliffs, it is, in fact, a hotbed of young stars, some of which are several times larger than our sun.

[00:32:11]The Carina Nebula is a celestial spectacle located in the southern constellation Carina.

[00:32:17]It's really huge, approximately 260 light-years across.

[00:32:22]Massive stars within this nebula are so bright and hot that they create a glowing cloud of gas and dust around them.

[00:32:31]The Carina Nebula also contains swirling clouds of gas and dust where new stars are being born.

[00:32:38]The gas collapses under its own weight, becomes hotter and denser, and all this eventually leads to the creation of new stars.

[00:32:48]However, the Carina Nebula isn't just some peaceful place of star formation.

[00:32:53]It's the site of some of the most destructive events in the universe, >> [music] >> which create massive shock waves that obliterate everything in their path.

[00:33:02]Very chaotic and cool.

[00:33:05]The Stephan's Quintet.

[00:33:07]This photo was also posted on July 12th.

[00:33:11]Stephan's Quintet is a visual group of five galaxies located at a huge distance from us.

[00:33:17]About 290 million light-years in the constellation of Pegasus.

[00:33:23]It's like a cosmic family reunion. All these galaxies are related to each other and interact with each other in some interesting ways. They're pulling [music] and tugging on each other with their gravity, constantly exchanging gas and dust.

[00:33:38]This interaction is causing some of the galaxies to collide and merge, which can create all sorts of cool effects like bursts of star formation and supernovae.

[00:33:50]Thanks to JWST, we were able to see shock waves, >> [music] >> tidal tails, and other amazing details about these galaxies. Their interactions create a stunning sight that we can see in this photo.

[00:34:06]Jupiter.

[00:34:07]And here's our old giant friend. This image was published by NASA on August 22nd.

[00:34:13]Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and it's known for its many moons and its beautiful swirling clouds.

[00:34:22]But it also has a system of rings. Just like Saturn, which are made up of tiny particles of dust that orbit the planet.

[00:34:30]These rings are much smaller and less visible than Saturn's, but they're still pretty neat.

[00:34:35]Jupiter also has auroras, which are colorful light displays that occur in the planet's atmosphere. They're caused by charged particles from the solar wind interacting with Jupiter's magnetic field. Just like on Earth, they can be seen near the poles of the planet. But these auroras are much brighter and [music] more intense than ours. We can even see this crazy light show from space.

[00:34:59]And now, we were finally able to capture this dazzling [music] sight. JWST's photo shows the auroras of Jupiter, its rings, and even two moons, Io, Amalthea, and Adrastea. It's amazing how bright and clear they are on this photo.

[00:35:18]The Cartwheel Galaxy.

[00:35:20]NASA released this image [music] on August 2nd. This photo shows us the Cartwheel Galaxy and its companions.

[00:35:27]The Cartwheel Galaxy gets its name from its shape. It kind of looks like a cartwheel, doesn't it?

[00:35:33]This is a giant swirling mass of stars, gas, and dust, which is located [music] in the depths of space.

[00:35:41]It's shaped like a pinwheel with long spiral arms. These arms are held together by the gravity of the central region, which is home to a supermassive black hole. But the Cartwheel Galaxy is a bit different from its spiral relatives. It has formed when a smaller galaxy collided with a larger one, creating a shock wave that rippled through the gas and dust.

[00:36:05]We'll definitely have to visit this galaxy someday. It's sure to be a wild ride.

[00:36:12]Spiral Galaxy M74.

[00:36:15]And here comes another spiral galaxy.

[00:36:18]NASA released this image on July 22nd.

[00:36:21]JWST had to peer through thick layers of dust and gas to see this beautiful star cluster.

[00:36:29]M74 belongs to a special class of spiral galaxies known as the grand design galaxy.

[00:36:36]This means that its spiral arms are noticeable and clearly outlined.

[00:36:41]All sorts of amazing things are happening inside of spiral galaxies.

[00:36:46]Supernovas, stars being born in clouds of gas and dust, and many other cosmic wonders.

[00:36:52]The glowing gas and dust, the bright stars, and the swirling patterns of the spiral arms >> [music] >> make them some of the most striking objects in the universe.

[00:37:01]Well, we can clearly see it on the example of M74.

[00:37:07]The Tarantula Nebula.

[00:37:09]This image of the nebula with a creepy name Tarantula was published on September 6th.

[00:37:14]>> [music] >> The photo covers as much as 340 light-years across. This is a huge distance. Thanks to this image, astronomers have discovered new young stars that were previously shrouded in dust.

[00:37:28]The Tarantula Nebula is located 160,000 light-years away from us in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

[00:37:37]It's the largest and brightest [music] star-forming region in the local group, the galaxies nearest our Milky Way.

[00:37:44]It's named after its shape, which looks like a bit like the legs of a big tarantula. It's a vast region of space about [music] 1,000 light-years across, and it's home to some of the most massive and luminous stars in the universe.

[00:37:57]One of the reasons why the Tarantula Nebula is interesting to scientists is its composition. Its composition is close to the region of stars of the cosmic noon, the so-called state of our universe when it was only a few billion years old. At that time, star formation was at its peak.

[00:38:18]Thanks to the Webb telescope, we can study this galaxy better and find [music] out what our universe was like at its peak.

[00:38:27]Neptune's [music] rings.

[00:38:29]This photo was published on September 21st, 2022. In this photo, we can even see six small moons next to the planet with Triton shining brightly in the upper left corner. You didn't think it was the sun, did you?

[00:38:43]And yep, [music] Neptune has rings, too.

[00:38:45]They're like the ultimate cosmic accessory. They add a touch of glamour and style to the planet.

[00:38:51]But unlike some earthly bling, these rings are made of small particles of dust rather [music] than diamonds and gold.

[00:38:59]There are five known rings around Neptune: the Galle, Le Verrier, Lassell, [music] Arago, and Adams rings.

[00:39:07]Scientists think that these are relatively young, much younger than our solar system, and much younger than, for example, Uranus's rings.

[00:39:16]They were probably created when one of Neptune's inner moons got too close to the planet and was torn apart by gravity.

[00:39:23]We haven't seen Neptune's rings so brightly since Voyager 2 flew past it back in 1989.

[00:39:30]So, this is a great opportunity to take a closer look at these rings.

[00:39:37]The Pillars of Creation.

[00:39:39]This photo was published on October 19th.

[00:39:42]The Pillars of Creation became famous thanks to the Hubble telescope, but this photo is very lush and much more detailed.

[00:39:50]These columns, located in the Eagle Nebula, are about five light-years tall, which is really, really long.

[00:39:58]And they look like some majestic rock formations, only much more transparent.

[00:40:04]Just like a typical Hollywood movie set, they're full of action and special effects. They're home to some of the most dramatic processes in the universe.

[00:40:12]The gas and dust are collapsing under their own gravity, forming clumps that will eventually become stars. The place is full of intense radiation, jets of high-energy particles, and supernovae.

[00:40:26]It's like a cosmic version of Survivor.

[00:40:28]And if this wasn't creepy enough, here's another photo published by NASA on October 19th.

[00:40:35]They shared it right before Halloween.

[00:40:37]Here, the pillars resemble an eerie hand reaching for something.

[00:40:44]Anyway, all these photos give us a truly awe-inspiring sight. They remind us of the incredible complexity of the universe and the amazing things that are happening even in the darkest [music] and most remote corners of the cosmos.

[00:40:58]Let's hope that the James Webb telescope will continue to amaze us in the future.

[00:41:04]>> Our solar system is full of mysterious objects that come from, well, everywhere. In October 2017, researchers in Hawaii spotted a mysterious thing that they dubbed 'Oumuamua. This means a visitor from a faraway land in Hawaiian, or that's a really big cow.

[00:41:23]It followed an escape orbit. It literally escaped from its planet's gravitational pull, like throwing a ball into space never to return. This meant that this weird thing arrived from somewhere outside of our solar system.

[00:41:37]There were tons of theories about what it was, from a simple asteroid to an extraterrestrial spacecraft. Scientists even thought it was a chunk of nitrogen ice from a Pluto-like planet. Its strange shape only added to the mystery.

[00:41:51]The big changes in the light curves showed that this thing could be either elongated like a tube or more flat like a pancake. This thing was unlike anything we've seen before. 'Oumuamua didn't behave exactly like a comet or an asteroid. Comets are icy and form bright tails when they pass near the Sun, while asteroids are basically just rocks [music] and don't form tails, 'Oumuamua has no tail and doesn't release gas like me. But, it's not your average rock, either. Its surface is very shiny, almost like polished metal.

[00:42:24]When it passed by the Sun, it sped up like it had a rocket on it, and it wasn't the Sun's gravity that gave 'Oumuamua [music] the sudden boost.

[00:42:32]Scientists aren't sure what caused it.

[00:42:35]So, what [music] in the world was that thing?

[00:42:39]After years of study, scientists now think that 'Oumuamua is probably a comet with frozen hydrogen on its surface.

[00:42:46]This hydrogen reacted with sunlight, speeding up the comet and changing its path. 'Oumuamua likely got all that hydrogen from being exposed to tons of cosmic rays for a long time. It got some nice red tint from them, as well.

[00:43:01]'Oumuamua was a visitor from a young, chaotic solar system where collisions and migrations happen all the time.

[00:43:08]Such systems often toss many small objects around. It might have been pushed out by a planet like Jupiter, whose gravity is so insanely strong that it can fling huge things into outer space. The same thing often happens with comets here.

[00:43:23]'Oumuamua already left our solar system, although similar objects visit us sometimes, about once per year. To learn more about these mysterious guests, astronomers plan to send a probe to chase 'Oumuamua. We'll use Earth's and Jupiter's orbits to slingshot it fast enough to catch up with the comet. But, some of the unexpected visitors stayed a bit longer.

[00:43:47]In October 2019, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope [music] took a picture of a bluish comet trailing dust and gas. It was already in the solar system at the time, around 260 million miles away from Earth, somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. We saw the glowing dust surrounding it, but we couldn't yet see its nucleus, since it's way too small. Well, small is relative here. The thing is about 3,200 ft across, which is like the length of nine football fields.

[00:44:16]In March 2020, Hubble images showed that a small fragment of the comet broke away from the nucleus. That means that the comet is very active, unlike 'Oumuamua.

[00:44:28]As we observed it further, we found that the nucleus is a loose mix of ice and dust particles. Its surface is also very similar to others, with rough areas and smooth blankets of icy dusty debris.

[00:44:41]The comet was discovered by an amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov. So, it got the name Comet 2I Borisov.

[00:44:48]Congratulations. Scientists quickly confirmed it came to us from outside our solar system. And this thing sure was an enthusiastic tourist. It traveled at a breakneck speed of about 110,000 mph.

[00:45:02]That's fast enough to circle the Earth four times in just 1 hour. This visit was fascinating for several reasons.

[00:45:10]Most comets in our solar system come from the Kuiper Belt [music] or the Oort Cloud. The Kuiper Belt is a region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune. It's like a big distant ring around the Sun, filled with many small icy objects. All of them are ancient leftover pieces from the time when our solar system was still very young. The Oort Cloud is much farther. It's like a giant bubble around the solar system, also filled with super old icy objects. Most long-period comets come from there. But where did the Comet 2I Borisov come from? We still don't know for sure. Scientists say that it likely formed in another star system, which could be either younger or older than our solar system. Would be weird if there was a third option, NASA. Anyway, it might have been kicked out from its home system, just like 'Oumuamua.

[00:46:00]Although Comet 2I Borisov is too small to hold on to its own atmosphere, it developed a coma when it approached the sun. Now, coma is a funny name for that beautiful glowing cloud of gas and dust that surrounds the comet's nucleus. It forms when the sun's heat causes the comet's ice to vaporize, releasing dust and gas into space.

[00:46:21]This one was friendlier than 'Oumuamua >> [music] >> and gave us some more time to study it.

[00:46:26]As a result, we learned more about its cool unique traits. For example, it had never interacted with another star.

[00:46:33]But, unfortunately, Borisov had to leave, too. Now, it's on a path that will take it back into interstellar space. However, there are many more visitors to come, and you might have heard of this one.

[00:46:46]The Great Comet of 1996, that's what we called the Comet Hyakutake.

[00:46:52]It was also named after the astronomer who discovered it, Yuji Hyakutake. In a beautiful coincidence, it was discovered on New Year's Eve.

[00:47:01]On March 25th, 1996, this thing passed by incredibly close to Earth, only about 0.1 astronomical units away, a bit farther than the moon. It passed over the North Pole. This made it one of the closest comet encounters in 200 years.

[00:47:19]It was visible worldwide, and it looked very bright and beautiful in the sky, stretching out widely. And it didn't stay for one night only. It got more and more visible during March, becoming one of the brightest objects in the night sky by the end of the month. The comet only fully faded by the end of May.

[00:47:37]It's a long-period comet, which means it takes hundreds of years to orbit the sun. The last time it visited was about 17,000 years ago, and now its orbital period increased to 70,000 years. But, don't be upset. There are other comets that will brighten our days and nights.

[00:47:54]Besides, some space objects prefer to stay around for longer.

[00:48:00]Now, there's this asteroid with a multi-syllabic name that to pronounce is above my paygrade. This name in Hawaiian means the mischievous one of Jupiter.

[00:48:09]Luckily, scientists had mercy on us and dubbed it BZ A. Speaking for all the other narrators, thank you.

[00:48:17]It's a small asteroid, only about 1.8 [music] mi in diameter. You can guess from the name that it shares an orbit with Jupiter. But, there's a cool catch.

[00:48:26]The asteroid moves in the opposite direction, which [music] is known as a retrograde orbit.

[00:48:31]The unusual asteroid was discovered on November 2014. It orbits the Sun for about 11 years and 8 months, sometimes passing inside and outside of Jupiter's orbit. It's been this way for at least a million years, and it will remain so for about a million more. But, why does it move so unusually?

[00:48:53]BZ might actually be an interstellar immigrant. Perhaps it passed by our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago, around the time when the Sun was just forming. Then, it got captured by gravity, but saved its opposite orbit.

[00:49:08]Or, maybe it came from the Oort Cloud.

[00:49:10]Then, it could get its weird orbit from the mysterious Planet Nine, a hypothetical planet that's believed to exist in our solar system far beyond Jupiter. In any case, this asteroid gives us more [music] insight into the history of the solar system and how organic materials can travel to us from outer space.

[00:49:29]Now, at any given time, there are thousands of objects in our solar system that come from outer space. They stay here for different lengths of time, but sometimes we get lucky and they end up teaching us a lot about interstellar space.