Earth-Like Planet Found And Scientists Detected Something Human-Like

[00:00:00]Ah, consider the rogue planet, the cosmic wanderer that nobody wants to take home. Basically, a rogue planet is a planet that has been ejected from its own star system [music] and is now floating aimlessly through space like a cosmic loner.

[00:00:16]These planets aren't just a theory.

[00:00:18]Scientists have actually detected some in our galaxy. In fact, estimates suggest that there may be lots of these cosmic nomads floating around the Milky Way. And they aren't just small rocky worlds like Earth. Some of them are actually massive gas giants, many times larger than Jupiter. These behemoths could potentially have their own moons and even their own mini systems orbiting around them.

[00:00:43]For example, one of the most famous rogue planets we know of has a complicated name. Here, you read it for yourself. [music] It's located about 80 light-years away from Earth and it was discovered in 2013.

[00:00:57]This rogue planet is estimated to be around six times the mass of Jupiter and is believed to be around 12 million years old. And yes, just because these [music] cosmic loners don't have a star, it doesn't mean they're super cold. They can still generate heat and light from their own internal processes. Some may even have magnetic fields and auroras just like Earth.

[00:01:19]In other words, rogue planets could potentially be habitable if they have the right conditions. So, what would life on such a planet look like? And could we potentially live in such a world? Well, living on a rogue planet can be a lonely existence. They have no warm sun to bask in, [music] no cozy atmosphere to cuddle up in, and no cosmic neighbors to have barbecue with.

[00:01:44]That's why we'd have to get creative.

[00:01:47]Let's start with the most obvious problem. We'd have a hard time without light and heat. So, how do we fix this?

[00:01:54]Well, we'd probably have to invest in some really fancy space heaters and wear fashionable super warm space suits. Or we could invent a whole new way to generate electricity without relying on solar power. For example, how about using geothermal energy? Now, that's hot stuff.

[00:02:13]Each planet has an internal source of heat. Without it, they would all be nothing more than cold lifeless rocks floating through space.

[00:02:22]This internal heat can be harnessed and used to power everything from homes to factories to spaceships. It's like having a hot tub big enough to power an entire city.

[00:02:32]>> [music] >> And that city, most likely, will be located underground, closer to the heat source.

[00:02:38]And as for light, well, we'd probably have to build some really bright flashlights. Or maybe even learn to genetically engineer some bioluminescent organisms to light up our homes. Just imagine, [music] space bases overgrown with neon mushrooms and plants.

[00:02:55]By the way, speaking of plants, plant life would be pretty hard to come by without a star. So, what would we eat?

[00:03:02]Well, we could use the same geothermal vents that we talked about or some chemical reactions to sustain ourselves.

[00:03:09]And hey, maybe we develop a taste for sulfur-rich foods or we'd start fermenting our own drinks from the bubbling volcanic mud. Yum.

[00:03:20]But besides food, we have a more important problem. Living on a rogue planet would be breathtaking, literally.

[00:03:27]We'd have no air.

[00:03:29]You see, not all rogue planets have good stable atmospheres. It all depends on their size, composition, and other things. But even if our new home does have an atmosphere, it may be incredibly thin and unstable.

[00:03:43]We'd have no pretty blue skies or dramatic sunsets to admire. Instead, we'd be staring out into the infinite void of space, where the stars would be brighter than [music] ever before.

[00:03:54]And forget about weather patterns.

[00:03:56]Without an atmosphere to create them, we'd have no rain, no snow, and no thunderstorms. And that's just some minor problems. What's worse, [music] the temperature on the planet would be wildly fluctuating, swinging from unbearable heat to unbearable cold. It would be like living in an oven that's always being turned on and off.

[00:04:16]And finally, we'd be exposed to all kinds of space debris and cosmic radiation. So, if you don't want to get crispy, you might want to invest in some serious SPF.

[00:04:28]So, how do we fix it? Well, we'd have to find a way to generate our own oxygen and probably create something like a space age biosphere.

[00:04:37]For example, we could grow some plants that could produce oxygen. Or we'd learn to filter the air like a high-tech air purifier.

[00:04:45]Finally, we have the last most important problem, >> [music] >> finding water. And here's where the underwater oceans come to our aid. Now, we're really diving deep into the possibilities. Nyak nyak.

[00:04:58]But seriously, scientists suggest that some of these planets may indeed have underwater oceans. It would be like living on a giant water balloon that's been buried underground with the ground beneath your feet made of ice and rock.

[00:05:12]In other words, we could just tap into these underground oceans. They could provide us with a source of water for drinking, farming, and manufacturing.

[00:05:20]Maybe even with some other resources and materials we've never seen before. And by the way, who knows what kind of strange creatures might be lurking in those underground seas?

[00:05:31]But don't worry. Even if we don't have any underground oasis, there are also other options. We could get some water from comets, ice mining, and even from the atmosphere, the one we just created before.

[00:05:45]Finally, we need to find and mine some resources to build our homes and other stuff. And a rogue [music] planet might not have the same kinds of resources as a planet that orbits a star.

[00:05:56]It's like trying to find some treasures in a desert. Not exactly a sure thing.

[00:06:01]We may have to rely on resources from nearby asteroids and things like that.

[00:06:06]And if we want to extract resources from the planet itself, we might need to drill down through miles of ice and rock. But hey, if you're up for the challenge, there'll always be a chance you'll strike it rich on a rogue planet.

[00:06:19]And who knows? Maybe you'll discover some new resources that are even more valuable than gold or diamonds.

[00:06:26]Great. Looks like we've solved the most important problems. Now, there may be other small difficulties. For example, we'd also have to deal with some seriously long days and nights, depending on how fast our planet was rotating.

[00:06:40]And we wouldn't have a normal regular day-night cycle. The rotation of our planet could be wildly unpredictable.

[00:06:47]>> [music] >> Maybe we'd have weeks-long nights followed by weeks-long days, which could really mess with our sleep schedules. We might have to develop some really strong coffee to keep us going through those long dark nights. But hypothetically, we can adapt to all these things and overcome all the challenges. [music] And now, finally, welcome to the rogue planet, where the sun never rises, but the adventures never end.

[00:07:13]Thanks to our advanced technology, we've managed to create a comfortable and habitable environment in this once [music] barren world.

[00:07:20]The sky above us is now a beautiful shade of blue, filled with fluffy white clouds and the occasional flock of flying creatures. Don't ask.

[00:07:29]As we venture out from our underground habitat, we're greeted by a world that's full of surprises. Strange plants and animals have adapted to the unique conditions of this planet. Some with bioluminescent features [music] that glow in the dark. And be careful if you want to go swimming in the underground ocean. They might be home to some bizarre creatures who want to feast on Well, we'll come back to that.

[00:07:53][music] Hmm, maybe.

[00:07:55]As you can see, we've created sprawling cities and thriving communities powered by the planet's geothermal energy.

[00:08:02]We also created a bunch of artificial light sources that keep things bright throughout the dark chilly nights.

[00:08:09]Of course, we still have some problems with navigation and timekeeping, but things aren't as dull as they used to be, are they?

[00:08:16]Overall, living on a rogue planet would definitely have its challenges, but it could also be a pretty exciting way to experience the universe. And who knows?

[00:08:26]Maybe someday we'll find such a planet [music] and actually turn it into a bustling intergalactic metropolis someday.

[00:08:33]But until then, let's enjoy and tidy up our dear Earth.

[00:08:39]The only life that we are certain about so far in the entire universe is on planet Earth. Whether that life is intelligent is, let's say, arguable.

[00:08:48][music] 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 24 [music] planets that aren't just Earth-like, they're better.

[00:09:06]The conditions on them are so good [music] that they're more comfortable than on our planet. So, let's examine some of them.

[00:09:13]KOI [music] 5715.01.

[00:09:16]Hmm, let's be coy, shall we? Huh, this wonderful planet is in the constellation Cygnus. And why is it so wonderful?

[00:09:25]Well, our sun is a yellow dwarf. And sorry, sun, even though you're not bad at supporting life, [music] there are some stars that can do it better.

[00:09:33]Nothing personal.

[00:09:35]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. [music] Uh, did you like the alliteration there?

[00:09:49]Anyway, don't worry. It doesn't mean we're going to live in complete darkness. 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.

[00:10:02]Now, our sun has a very short lifespan.

[00:10:05]Right now, [music] 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 dwarf that is about 7 billion years old. It's very likely there will be at least some organisms there.

[00:10:36]KOI 5715.01 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.

[00:10:50]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.

[00:11:02]It's almost two times larger than the Earth. The average [music] temperature there is 52° Fahrenheit, which is slightly less than ours, 57. [music] But, it mostly feels warmer there because strong gravity [music] helps it hold on to heat in the atmosphere longer. It's a little too far away, though, like 3,000 light-years from Earth, which is about 18 quadrillion [music] miles. Yep, better bring a really big lunch with you.

[00:11:29]KOI 3010.01 [music] This planet is found next to the star KOI-2010.

[00:11:37]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.

[00:11:46]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.

[00:12:00]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 think that we'll find an ocean there, and it can cover up to 60% of the surface, >> [music] >> 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 more territory and resources, right? But listen, this planet is [music] actually very similar to the Earth. The semblance is so striking that scientists believe we have an 84% chance to find life there. Of course, not necessarily an intelligent life, but at least some animals.

[00:12:42]Wouldn't that be cool?

[00:12:44]Now, what do you think they could look [music] like? Hmm, very Earth-like planet, but with stronger gravity. Well, if someone lives there, they're probably big, but have a small height and strong little legs. Sounds adorable and scary.

[00:12:57][music] But we won't be able to find out the truth anytime soon. So far for us, these planets are microscopic dots in space.

[00:13:06]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.

[00:13:15]Kepler-186f.

[00:13:18]This is also one of the best candidates for having life. This rather cute planet was nicknamed the Earth's cousin because it does have a strong resemblance.

[00:13:27]Anyway, these two planets are like sisters, not twins. Kepler-186f rotates [music] near a red dwarf. 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.

[00:13:46]However, Kepler-186f is closer to its star than we're to our sun. So, it shouldn't be too dark there.

[00:13:53]Well, at least not night-like 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 [music] sunset?

[00:14:06]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. [music] And you'll probably say, "But wouldn't it be harder to walk there and even harder to get out of bed on Monday?" Of course. But on the other hand, this planet will pull the atmosphere better.

[00:14:28]The atmosphere will be thicker and denser. This means more protection from the scary space [music] stuff, more oxygen, and more heat. Not to mention the fact that the bigger planets have more space to settle. Awesome, right?

[00:14:41]But of course, the Earth's size is also an excellent choice.

[00:14:45]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 day-night cycle. Do you know how important the tilt of the planet is?

[00:14:59]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 is 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. That's about 3 quadrillion [music] miles. So, yeah, we're just going to keep waiting for intergalactic travel.

[00:15:34]Kepler-62e and 62f.

[00:15:38]These planets were called the most Earth-like before we discovered Kepler-186f.

[00:15:44]They're very comparable to our home.

[00:15:46]Kepler-62e is about 1 and 1/2 times larger than Earth, and Kepler-62f is just slightly smaller than that.

[00:15:55]They're located in the constellation Lyra, which is about 1,200 light-years away from us.

[00:16:00]They both also orbit a red dwarf.

[00:16:02][music] One year on Kepler-62e lasts about 122 days, even less than on that first planet we talked about.

[00:16:12]Scientists believe that [music] both 62e and 62f are sort of water worlds, warm places mostly, or [music] even completely covered with water. If there is land there, it's probably just some islands. Hmm, 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 animals, just imagine how gigantic they could be there.

[00:16:42]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.

[00:16:53]And so, that's it for the super-Earths.

[00:16:56]Of course, the original [music] 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 [music] that are better than the Earth.

[00:17:06]But, we also know thousands of other exoplanets [music] that are just close enough to ours. And the odds are, a few of them have at least some form of life.

[00:17:17]But, they're very, very far [music] away. So, we have no way to check it out right now. Perhaps, down the road, we'll find some cool creatures on many of them.

[00:17:28]So, we might be getting closer to finding a massive icy planet beyond Neptune's orbit. Yeah, sorry Pluto, still not you. Recently, some universe mapping using data from a telescope in Hawaii eliminated about 78% of the possible locations for this mysterious Waldo from space.

[00:17:47]Some people call it Planet Nine, while others prefer Planet X. Either way, it's been causing controversy since its existence was first proposed, and that is mainly because no study so far can answer the big question, does it really exist? If discovered, Planet Nine would rank as the fifth largest planet in our solar system with a mass 10 times that of Earth. It's also theorized to be gaseous, like Uranus.

[00:18:15]The initial study on Planet Nine, dating back to 2016, suggests that this colossal new planet orbits the Sun 29 times farther out than Neptune, which sits at about 2.8 billion miles. As a result, the Planet Nine would take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete a single orbit around the Sun.

[00:18:37]If confirmed, this yet-to-be-understood world would dominate a region larger than any other known planet in our cosmic neighborhood.

[00:18:46]These are all intriguing hypotheses, [music] but without a single piece of evidence or observation to back them up.

[00:18:53]Before dismissing this as a wild guess, it is important to note that these researchers relied on complex mathematical modeling and computer simulations to speculate about the planet's characteristics, cuz [music] that's what they do.

[00:19:08]The hypothetical presence of this planet would explain various mysterious features located beyond Neptune.

[00:19:14]We are specifically talking about the Kuiper Belt, a huge donut-shaped region filled with icy debris leftover from the formation of the solar system, including comets and dwarf [music] planets like Pluto.

[00:19:28]What happens is that the six farthest objects in the Kuiper [music] Belt exhibit elliptical orbits that are all oriented in a similar direction within physical space and tilted at approximately [music] 30° downward relative to the orbital plane of our eight known planets.

[00:19:44]What's strange here is that despite [music] their distinct orbital velocities around the solar system, they maintain this alignment. The likelihood of such alignment occurring randomly is extremely low, around 0.007%.

[00:19:59]So, here comes Planet Nine, a hypothetical massive celestial body that offers a plausible explanation for this strange phenomenon, potentially exerting gravitational influence to shape these orbits.

[00:20:14]The initial theory didn't hold up for long, facing accusations of observational bias and calculation errors. Then, in 2017, another study popped up, sparking back the idea that maybe Planet Nine is out there after all.

[00:20:30]This time, Spanish astronomers tried a novel approach, focusing on observing extreme trans-Neptunian objects. These celestial bodies orbit the sun in highly stretched elliptical paths with average distances exceeding 13 billion miles.

[00:20:47]The research suggests that the distances between these objects' nodes and the sun might provide clues to Planet Nine's location.

[00:20:54]You see, these nodes are the points where celestial bodies' orbit intersects the solar system's plane. When these objects reach these points, they're more likely to interact with other solar system bodies, potentially causing significant changes in their orbits or even collisions. So, if the trajectory of these extreme trans-Neptunian objects remains stable, everything's fine. But, if it's not, well, that's a sign that something else, something big, is messing with their path. And that's exactly what the research found. There is something unseen out there throwing these objects off course, and that something could be a planet chilling at a distance between 300 to 400 times farther from the Sun than Earth.

[00:21:40]To this day, the study of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects is the strongest evidence we've got for Planet Nine's existence. And if you're still not convinced by this theory, know that strange motions like these have led to planetary discoveries before. Neptune, for instance, was spotted because Uranus's motion didn't quite agree with the predictions of Newtonian gravity.

[00:22:04]But, the deflection of its orbit could be explained if it was caused by a pull of an undiscovered planet. And just like that, we discovered Neptune.

[00:22:16]Now, the year is 2021, and there's all this buzz about Planet Nine again. After correcting some old guesses, studies are now leaning towards the idea that this mystery world follows an epic loop around the Sun every 7,000 years. That is massive news because it means this planet might be closer than [music] we ever thought, making it easier for our telescopes to spot it. The paper also suggests there is a whopping 99% chance that the funky orbits of these distant objects are all because of this unseen planet, not just some cosmic coincidence.

[00:22:52]Now, the odds of this whole situation being a fluke are down to a one in 250 chance, which is much better than the one in 10,000 chance back in 2016.

[00:23:02][music] All these optimistic numbers have brought us to where we are today, keeping our hopes and working on better equipment to continue the mission of spotting Planet Nine. As mentioned earlier, researchers in Hawaii created some kind of treasure map utilizing the Panoramic Survey Telescope [music] and Rapid Response System to eliminate 78% of its locations. This is great news >> [music] >> considering how challenging it is to find a planet-size needle in a cosmic haystack. But unfortunately, Planet Nine's presence remains a ghost in the dark outer [music] reaches of our solar system.

[00:23:41]Enthusiasts are still convinced of its existence [music] and believe it is only a matter of time before we celebrate the discovery of Earth's new cosmic cousin. They're putting their hopes on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is currently under construction in Chile, and is scheduled to begin science operations in late 2025.

[00:24:01]Over the course of 10 years, this observatory will scan the entire southern hemisphere sky every few nights with a 27-ft fast-moving telescope equipped with the largest digital camera in the world.

[00:24:14]>> [music] >> The idea is to catalog everything in the solar system reaching out to and beyond Neptune and tracking the movements of millions of celestial objects including space junk, asteroids, comets, and stars.

[00:24:27]>> [music] >> If Planet Nine is indeed out there, this next-generation telescope could be the one to find it.

[00:24:35]The existence of this mysterious planet is far from being universally accepted in the scientific community.

[00:24:41]That is simply because Planet Nine isn't the only explanation for the strange phenomenon occurring beyond Neptune.

[00:24:49]One theory suggests that a group of distant objects such as [music] dwarf planets, comets, and moons might be collectively influencing the orbits of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects.

[00:25:00]Others believe that a black hole is behind all this. These compressed masses are some of the densest objects in the universe, potentially [music] capable of affecting the orbits of other masses, like how this supposed ghost planet nine is believed [music] to be doing.

[00:25:17]Another bold perspective suggests that our current understanding of the laws of gravity is flawed, actually incomplete.

[00:25:25]This theory, [music] known as modified Newtonian dynamics, proposes that these distant [music] icy objects exhibit strange behavior, not due to influence from another planet, but rather because [music] the immense gravitational field of the Milky Way is influencing them.

[00:25:41]However, even supporters of this theory acknowledge that it is too early to draw firm conclusions, and much more extensive research is still required.

[00:25:52]While we continue our relentless hunt for planet nine, some astronomers have taken it a step further, suggesting the existence of a hypothetical planet 10.

[00:26:03]This world has a mass and size like that of Mars or Earth, >> [music] >> and is located on the edges of the Kuiper Belt.

[00:26:10]But, the thing is, if this alleged planet 10 is indeed as small as scientists believe, it might not have enough gravity to clear its orbit of debris. And that is pretty similar to what happens with Pluto, being one of the reasons why it got into trouble back in 2006.

[00:26:27]So, yeah, it's better not to get too excited. This supposed planet 10 might end up classified as another [music] dwarf planet. TrES-2b, or not to be, is a planet where night never ends. And it's not your regular night with stars shining in the beautiful skies. Here, it's pitch dark and scorching hot. TrES-2b is a gas giant, roughly 1 and 1/2 times more massive than Jupiter, and its surface [music] absorbs light better than charcoal. It might also have a faint dark red glow because of its burning air, which is as hot as fresh lava.

[00:27:03]Lovely.

[00:27:04]In the star system of 55 Cancri, there are five planets, four of which are gas giants similar to Jupiter and Saturn.

[00:27:12]But, the fifth one, or rather the first because it's closest to the star, [music] is different in a most horrible way.

[00:27:20]55 Cancri e is so close to its sun that half the planet's surface is a literal ocean of molten lava. The other half is in eternal darkness because it never sees the sun. The planet is always turned to its star on one side, and between the scorching [music] and the dark, there's the twilight zone, a thin strip of gloomy nothingness. That's a getaway spot.

[00:27:44]HD 189377b, ha, I'm not going to say that again. Is the only exoplanet in the orbit of [music] its star, and at first glance, it looks quite pretty. Blue and white swirls making up wondrous patterns on the surface. But, these pleasant colors actually [music] come from hard silicate particles in the planet's atmosphere, which means it rains glass here. But, the worst is that winds reach the speed of 5,400 [music] mph, or almost Mach 7.

[00:28:16]Well, for comparison, the fastest wind speed on Earth was 254 [music] mph, over 20 times less. Thus, the glass falling from the sky travels horizontally at hypersonic speeds, [music] shredding everything in its path. Better duck.

[00:28:33]The next system, whose name I won't even try to pronounce, [music] um, this one, has three exoplanets, which are all being slowly destroyed by their own star. It happens because that star is not a regular, it's a [music] pulsar, a rapidly spinning core of an exploded star. It creates powerful electromagnetic pulses in several directions while rotating at several thousand times per second. As a result, the planets orbiting this deceased star are slowly being eaten away and will eventually disappear entirely.

[00:29:06]Kepler-70. Hey, I can say that one. Is a hot blue dwarf star that exploded into a red giant some 18 million years ago.

[00:29:15]At the time, it was orbited by at least two planets. The closer of which was a Jupiter-like gas giant. Its name was Kepler-70b and it still exists. But the overgrown star consumed it and transformed it into a blazing hot rocky world. Right now, it's one of the hottest planets ever discovered. Its temperature is higher than the surface of our sun. It was lucky to survive spending [music] time inside the star, but it's evaporating now and will probably be no more in the near future.

[00:29:45]WASP-12b is one of the weirdest and saddest planets out there.

[00:29:51]The enormous gravity of its star, [music] combined with the planets consisting mostly of gas, result in the star slowly devouring its protege. Uh so, pal, like uh what's eating you? My mother. [music] WASP-12b has already taken the form of an egg, stretched toward [music] its merciless sun, and it's unable to do anything with its condition. In another 10 million years, the planet will inevitably [music] succumb to the voracious star's appetite. Hey, you asked.

[00:30:21]If you ever wondered what it's [music] like to walk on ice and hot coals at the same time, Gliese 436b [music] is a planet that would give you a vivid example. Being extremely close to its sun, [music] the Neptune-size exoplanet boasts temperatures hotter than a blazing oven. And yet, it's covered in [music] ice, which burns incessantly.

[00:30:42]This ice is much denser due to the enormous gravity [music] of the planet, staying solid even under extreme conditions and not melting away.

[00:30:52]No list of frightening worlds could [music] do without mentioning Venus, the Earth's evil twin.

[00:30:59]The second planet from the Sun has an atmosphere so thick and full of clouds [music] that its surface is much hotter than that of Mercury.

[00:31:06]Volcanic eruptions constantly thrash Venus. Its gravity is almost 100 [music] times stronger than ours, and those clouds I mentioned are not made of water, but of sulfuric acid, which [music] condenses and rains down on the ground, adding to the inferno. But even if you were brave or crazy enough to try to pass through these clouds, you probably couldn't. The winds up there are as strong as some of the most powerful hurricanes back on Earth.

[00:31:34]Here we have a very long name for a very, very cold planet. Although the host star is not too far away, it's a small and rather cool red dwarf, whose light and heat barely even reach the planet.

[00:31:47]The temperatures out there fall as low as minus 370°, which is only marginally warmer than absolute zero. The exoplanet is thus dark, gloomy, and covered in eternal ice that never thaws. I thought I thaw that somewhere.

[00:32:03]Still, if it has a rocky core, >> [music] >> it might generate some heat. So, there's a chance that deep below the frozen surface, some unknown alien things might lurk.

[00:32:14]Dimidium, located roughly 50 light-years away from our solar system, is a planet hostile to any living thing on many accounts. It's tidally locked to its sun, which means one of its sides is always [music] facing the star, while the other is always turned away. The hot side is heated to over 1,800° [music] perpetually blown over with winds reaching 600 mph, and that's winter.

[00:32:40]Well, actually I don't know that.

[00:32:42]>> [music] >> Despite Demidium being a gas giant, it has a large amount of iron in it, which [music] melts and evaporates in the atmosphere creating clouds. And when those cool down, they fall on the surface in the infernal rain of molten iron. That'll test your [music] metal.

[00:32:59]Oxygen is usually viewed as an element that might bring life to a planet, but this is definitely not the case for [music] Osiris. Scientists were shocked to find oxygen on this planet, or rather around it, because it's eight times closer [music] to its star than Mercury is to the sun. This extreme distance makes Osiris a living melting pot where anything that could burn will.

[00:33:22]>> [music] >> It's also responsible for a very short orbit of the planet around the star. A year on Osiris is [music] just 3 and 1/2 days on Earth. To boot, the atmosphere of the planet is constantly [music] blown and melted away by the heat from its sun. Vacation? Nah, let's keep looking.

[00:33:40]Corot Exo-3b [music] is neither as hot nor as cold as some of the others on this list, but it's terrifying in its own more insidious way. It's a gas giant similar in size to Jupiter, yet 20 times denser. This makes this exoplanet's gravity [music] weigh down on everything on its surface 50 times more than it would on Earth.

[00:34:01]Stepping on it would be your ultimate doom because you'd be immediately crushed by the density of its atmosphere.

[00:34:08]Corot 7b is another oven-like world. Its day-to-day temperature is over 4,000°.

[00:34:15]Combined with [music] the rocky surface, it presents an infernal landscape. The rocks on the ground bubble and boil evaporating in the atmosphere where [music] they cool down and eventually fall back on the surface in a brimstone rain. The saddest thing about Corot 7b is that it might have once been a gas giant whose atmosphere melted away from the heat, leaving only the scorched core.

[00:34:38]>> Tired of waiting for colonization? Does the Earth seem way too boring with all its problems and mosquitoes? Well, have no fear. It's time to take matters into your own hands and build your own planet. But before you start reaching for the cosmic glue and glitter, there are a few things you'll need to consider. Let's start our ultimate DIY project.

[00:35:02]First of all, we need to choose a location. Every planet has to orbit a star, right?

[00:35:07]>> [music] >> In a cosmic buffet, every star has its own unique flavor. To keep things organized, [music] astronomers use the so-called stellar classification system.

[00:35:19]The massive stars are the divas [music] of the cosmos. They're huge, bright, and are always stealing the spotlight. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. They have a short lifespan, burning out super fast like a candle. They also have huge gravity. So, be careful that your [music] planet doesn't get sucked in.

[00:35:40]The dwarf stars, on the other hand, may be small, but they make up for it with their stamina. They can burn for trillions of years, which means that their planets have plenty of time to develop life.

[00:35:53]>> [groaning and screaming] >> Super hot stars are blue or white ones, while the cold stars are usually red or orange. Yeah, seems like it should be the other way around, [music] but we're not the ones making the rules.

[00:36:06]So, what do we choose? Well, the planets around the blue and white stars could be scorched [music] and fried like a crispy chicken nugget. On the other hand, with cool red stars, our planet may turn into an ice ball.

[00:36:22]If that's your preference, then sure.

[00:36:25]But you can always pick a nice middle ground, a yellow star like our sun, for example. Not too cold, not too hot, but just right.

[00:36:35]Now that you've picked the star, let's [music] start building the planet.

[00:36:40]The heart of the planet is its core. The core creates a magnetic field, an invisible force that protects the planet from harsh cosmic rays and charged [music] particles. If it weren't for this field, the planet would be fried by the star's radiation, like a well-done burger.

[00:36:58]But, the magnetic field [music] isn't always a force for good. On some planets, like Jupiter, it's so strong that it creates super intense radiation belts and some [music] crazy weather. If you were hoping to use a compass to find your way around on such a planet, forget it. The magnetic field would have the needle spinning [music] like a breakdancer on caffeine.

[00:37:20]So, if you pick a small, light core, the planet will have less protection from solar radiation, like tanning without sunscreen. On the other hand, larger cores can generate more heat, which can lead to more volcanic activity and earthquakes.

[00:37:37]The best option is a medium-sized core made mostly of iron and nickel. Enough to keep the bad things away, but not too strong to turn a planet into a cosmic hot potato.

[00:37:49]Once the heart [music] is in place, we can move on to the next step.

[00:37:53]Oh, getters. Uh sorry. Planets are like onions. They have layers.

[00:38:00]Most planets have three main layers: the core, the crust, and the mantle.

[00:38:05]>> [music] >> The core is the filling, as we've already discussed. The mantle is like a hot and gooey layer of caramel between the crust and the core. And the crust is like a thin layer of icing on a planetary cake, covering its surface.

[00:38:22]But, not all planets are built the same way. Because of that, we have tons of options.

[00:38:29]First up, we have the gas giants, the big boys of the universe. In our solar system, it's Jupiter and Saturn. They don't have a crust at all. They're basically huge balls of gas, like hydrogen and helium, hence the name.

[00:38:44]Next, we have the ice giants, like Uranus and Neptune. They're like younger, cooler siblings of gas giants.

[00:38:52]These planets don't really have a solid surface, [music] but it's not pure gas, either. They're made mostly of water, ammonia, and methane ice.

[00:39:03]There are also ocean worlds.

[00:39:05]>> [music] >> And no, they aren't made of pure water.

[00:39:08]They do have some kind of solid surface, but it's located so deep, and the ocean on their surface is so huge, that it kind of does look like a giant water drop.

[00:39:20]Finally, we have terrestrial planets, like the Earth. They're made mostly of rock and metal. These planets have a surface to stand on, and usually come with a cool mineral collection.

[00:39:33]And let's not forget about the dwarf planets, the small, but mighty.

[00:39:38]Pluto is probably the most famous one, but there are others in our solar system, Eris, Ceres, Haumea, and so on.

[00:39:46]>> [music] >> They're the scrappy underdogs of the planetary world, always trying to prove their worth, but never making it to full-fledged planets.

[00:39:55]Which type do you like the most? Gas giants are probably the coolest ones, with their enormous sizes, crazy winds, and scary lightning.

[00:40:05]We also need to create an atmosphere.

[00:40:07]>> [music] >> It's the outer layer of a planet that plays a huge role in its climate and weather. It's also the planet's ultimate protector. Did you know that 90 to 95% of meteors burn up in the Earth's atmosphere? Imagine what would happen if they didn't.

[00:40:24]Dense and hazy [music] atmospheres, the ones you'll find on places like Venus, have thick layers of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. In other words, it's not a planet but an oven. It's so hot that you could cook a pizza on its surface in no time and get [music] cooked yourself.

[00:40:43]Next, we have thin and wispy atmospheres >> [music] >> like on Mars. The thin layer of carbon dioxide makes its surface pressure about 1% that of Earth's. On planets like these, you could fly like a superhero if you had a good enough jetpack.

[00:41:01]Then we have mixed atmospheres like the one on Earth. The layers of nitrogen, oxygen, >> [music] >> and other gases create the perfect conditions for life as we know it. It's also where we get to enjoy sunny days, [music] rainbows, and of course, water.

[00:41:17]And last but not least, exotic atmospheres. You'll find them on planets like Neptune where the layers of hydrogen, helium, and methane [music] create a blue-colored world that looks like a giant marble. They're super weird [music] and unusual, so just perfect for creative planet builders.

[00:41:37]Almost done. The final question is, would you like your planet [music] to have life on it? In that case, there are some things you should consider.

[00:41:46]For example, it should be located [music] in the habitable zone. This is the sweet spot around a star where conditions are just right for liquid water to exist on the surface. Make sure your planet isn't too close or too far from its star.

[00:42:01]And don't forget about the temperatures.

[00:42:04]For example, you'll want a good amount of oxygen for a planet to be nice and warm, but not too much that everything spontaneously combusts.

[00:42:13]Of course, we need some water, but not too much, and a stable climate. You don't want your planet to be going through extreme swings in temperature or moisture. That's a recipe for extinction, not evolution. Oh, and the orbit should be stable so that there are no major astronomical events that could throw things off.

[00:42:35]As you can see, this type of planet is very picky. No wonder it's so hard to find extraterrestrial life.

[00:42:43]Anyway, now that we've finished messing around in the planet creation editor, how do we even build it?

[00:42:50]Well, how about terraforming? [music] It's when we deliberately alter a planet's atmosphere, temperature, and other conditions to make it habitable for humans and other Earth-based life forms. For example, we could release greenhouse gases on Mars [music] to warm up the planet and create a thicker atmosphere.

[00:43:10]But, this method is more like polishing a monstrosity that was given to you by a character randomizer. What about building from scratch? That's something straight out of sci-fi. But, maybe in the future, we could do that using large-scale 3D printing or nanotechnology.

[00:43:27]We could create the basic structure and then add all the necessary conditions for life to exist.

[00:43:34]Of course, all this is still purely theoretical. But, while creating a planet artificially is [music] still a long way off, there are many creative ideas and concepts being explored by scientists and sci-fi writers. Who knows what the future might hold for the possibility of creating new worlds?

[00:43:58]Let's see. There's Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Phaeton, Jupiter.

[00:44:08]Wait, hold on. What Phaeton am I talking about? Well, let's see.

[00:44:13]It was the beginning of the 19th century and the asteroid belt hadn't been discovered yet. In the year 1801, one man named Giuseppe Piazzi spotted the largest asteroid in the solar system, Ceres.

[00:44:28]At that time, people believed that there was a planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter and Ceres seemed to fit the bill.

[00:44:36]But the next year, another astronomer, Heinrich Olbers, found one more space body following a similar orbit. It was an asteroid, which was later called Pallas. This discovery helped Olbers to figure out that these two space objects could be fragments of a planet. The discovery of two more asteroids, Vesta and Juno, seemed to confirm this theory.

[00:44:59]It was believed that the planet, which was named Phaeton in the 20th century, appeared in the early days of the solar system and was later destroyed and its debris formed the asteroid belt. Olbers' idea was called the disruption theory.

[00:45:14]To astronomers at that time, it seemed obvious that the planet once collided with a large space object, which led [music] to its demise.

[00:45:23]The most likely candidate was Nemesis, a hypothetical red or brown dwarf orbiting our sun.

[00:45:30]Another theory claimed that Phaeton could have gone through an internal cataclysm, which could have broken the planet into pieces. There was one more idea. Phaeton could have come too close to Jupiter and got torn apart by the gas giant's immense gravity.

[00:45:46]These days though, astronomers don't believe in the disruption theory anymore. A new idea has replaced it.

[00:45:53]It's known as the accretion theory. It claims that the asteroid belt is all that is left of the protoplanetary disk.

[00:46:01]Supposedly, this disk had been originally orbiting the Sun even before the planets formed. Unfortunately, because of Jupiter's gravitational forces, >> [music] >> it never managed to coalesce into a planet.

[00:46:13]But, what is this asteroid belt we keep talking about? This region is located between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

[00:46:20]Tons of asteroids and even minor planets are found there. Some of them can sometimes migrate or even get thrown out of the asteroid belt to the outer solar system.

[00:46:31]The four largest asteroids in that area are Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea.

[00:46:38]They make up half the mass of the entire belt.

[00:46:41]As for the rest of the mass, countless smaller bodies make up for it.

[00:46:46]In loads of sci-fi movies about space, the main character gets into an asteroid belt and has to try hard to get away from countless rocks threatening to smash their spacecraft.

[00:46:58]Well, it has nothing to do with the real thing.

[00:47:01]Even though there are thousands of asteroids in this region, they're so widely spaced that the chance of collision is next to nothing.

[00:47:09]Hey, but it's a movie, right?

[00:47:12]Anyway, when the asteroid belt was forming, some objects started to come together and form what we know as protoplanets.

[00:47:21]But, the gravitational pull that was caused by the formation of Jupiter made such collisions too rough and instead of forming large space bodies like planets, asteroids shattered.

[00:47:33]Astronomers think that as a result of such collisions, more than 99.99% of the original mass of the asteroid belt was lost in the first 100 million years of the history of the solar system.

[00:47:47]Only the largest asteroids have enough gravity to get a spherical shape.

[00:47:52]Small ones are just often piles of rubble loosely held together by gravity.

[00:47:57]And the tiniest objects in the asteroid belt resemble dust, so small they are.

[00:48:03]And all these objects, giant and tiny, orbit the Sun.

[00:48:07]There are several types of asteroids, depending on their composition and albedo, which is the proportion of light or radiation reflected by a surface.

[00:48:16]The main types are carbon asteroids, which have a very dark surface, silicon ones, you can also call them stone asteroids, and metal ones.

[00:48:27]The first two types account for around 75% and 17% of asteroids that we know about.

[00:48:34]For the first time, the asteroid belt was crossed by a spacecraft in 1972.

[00:48:39]It was the Pioneer 10 space probe.

[00:48:41][music] The spaceship managed to refute the theory that the belt was filled with dust that could easily damage all gadgets on board. It didn't happen. And since that [music] time, eight more probes have traveled through the asteroid belt.

[00:48:55]And now, I'm going to tell you some cool facts about the solar system [music] itself. Try to count how many of these facts you've known before, and write your answer down in the comments below.

[00:49:06]The solar system is a staggering 4.5 billion years old. Scientists came to this conclusion after studying meteorites, >> [music] >> the oldest material they managed to find.

[00:49:18]But our solar system isn't the only one in the Milky Way galaxy.

[00:49:22]The galaxy we live in houses about 100 billion star systems. And if it's just our galaxy alone, what can we say about the whole universe?

[00:49:33]Now, our Sun is also insanely massive.

[00:49:36]Here's the proof. 99.86% of all the mass of the solar system is the mass of the Sun, >> [music] >> in particular, hydrogen and helium that it's made of.

[00:49:46]The remaining 0.14% is mostly the mass of the solar system's eight planets. [music] Oh, by the way, contrary to popular misconception, outer space isn't a perfect vacuum.

[00:49:59]It contains not only stars and planets, but also clouds of interstellar dust, space plasma, and cosmic rays. Those are atom [music] fragments dashing from the outskirts of the solar system.

[00:50:12]Now, one [music] phenomenon astronauts should worry about while exploring space is cold welding.

[00:50:19]If two pieces of the same kind of metal touch in space, they bond and get permanently stuck together, kind of like galaxy [music] glue.

[00:50:28]It doesn't happen on Earth since water and air keep pieces separate.

[00:50:33]You can see solar [music] eclipses even though the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun. It's also 400 times closer to Earth. So, it's perfectly capable of obscuring the [music] star.

[00:50:45]But, in 600 million years, the moon won't be able to block the sun completely [music] because of the satellite's changing orbit.

[00:50:54]Behind the orbit of Neptune, there is the mysterious Kuiper Belt filled with massive icy objects.

[00:51:01]The most curious thing about this space formation, [music] though, is that the scientists failed to explain the pattern of its movement. The only explanation they have is that Neptune might be hiding a ginormous planet.

[00:51:13]>> [music] >> This hypothetical planet has already got the name Planet Nine, and all we [music] have to do is wait until its existence is confirmed, or not.

[00:51:24]The ocean on Jupiter is larger than any body of water on other planets of the solar system. [music] But, it's not the ocean you think about. The one on Jupiter isn't made of water. This mesmerizing thing consists of metallic [music] hydrogen.

[00:51:39]And its depth is around 25,000 miles, which is actually almost the same as the circumference of Earth.

[00:51:48]Now, people got to know about beautiful Saturn's [music] rings in the 1600s, but now we know that Saturn isn't the only ringed planet.

[00:51:57]All the giant gas planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Jupiter have rings of their own, but they're thin and almost impossible to see.

[00:52:05]>> [music] >> As for Mars, Venus, and Earth, they're made of rocky material and have no rings.

[00:52:11]At the same time, Saturn's moon Rhea might have a ring system consisting of three narrow bands.

[00:52:18]If astronomers manage to confirm it, it'll be the first time for people to discover rings around a moon.

[00:52:25]Oh, and Mars might get a set of rings of its own in the next 70 million years.

[00:52:31]The red planet's largest moon, called Phobos, is orbiting closer and closer to the planet. One day, it's likely to get broken apart by the gravitational pull of the red planet and turn into a ring that can last for millions of years.

[00:52:45]And another cool fact about Mars, you've probably heard of methane gas, a byproduct of such natural processes as volcanic activity and cow emissions.

[00:52:56]Anyways, this gas is not only a part of the Martian atmosphere, but also the thing that confuses astronomers to no end.

[00:53:04]The thing is that the volume [music] of methane on Mars keeps wavering, and scientists just can't figure out where it might be coming from.

[00:53:11]Can there be life on Mars? Can there be cows on Mars?

[00:53:17]As scientists continue to explore the vast expanse of the universe, they've made some incredible discoveries that have left them with more questions than answers.

[00:53:26]From a scorching super-Earth to a football-shaped world, the exoplanet discoveries of 2022 are truly out of this world.

[00:53:35]>> [music] >> So, hold on tight. The future of exoplanet discoveries is looking brighter than ever.

[00:53:41]Number one, new type of exoplanets.

[00:53:44]Red dwarfs make up over 70% of all stars in space. [music] So, in September of 2022, scientists decided to take a closer look at the small worlds orbiting them.

[00:53:55]What they found was amazing. New type of exoplanets that were made of half rock and half water, either in liquid or ice form. The researchers suggested that these [music] planets likely arose from icy material and were born far away from their stars, past the ice line, where surface temperatures are freezing. But, they later migrated closer in to where the astronomers [music] detected them.

[00:54:20]This discovery could have huge implications in the search for life in the cosmos.

[00:54:25]>> [music] >> Though these planets are loaded with water, they might not be covered in oceans. Who knows? [music] Maybe one of them will be the next Earth 2.0.

[00:54:34]Number two, Jupiter-size world.

[00:54:37]Imagine a planet so massive and mysterious. It's like a hidden Jupiter in our galaxy. Well, we just discovered [music] one of those orbiting a star just 379 light-years away. Just We've named it the TOI 2180b, and it's got everyone talking. Why?

[00:54:57]Well, for starters, this planet [music] takes a whopping 261 days to orbit its star, which is much longer than most distant gas [music] giants we've come across so far. But, that's not all. The temperature on this world is surprisingly [music] mild, averaging at a balmy 170° Fahrenheit. For comparison, the temperature on Jupiter and Saturn is around minus 280°.

[00:55:20]It's like a bridge between the giant exoplanets we've found and our Jupiter.

[00:55:25]But, the question remains, how did this planet get to be so different?

[00:55:29]Scientists are still trying to figure that out. Let's hope that we get some answers soon.

[00:55:34]>> [music] >> Number three, the Hulk planet.

[00:55:37]This world is a place where the surface is covered in molten magma and the year lasts just half a day. Welcome to TOI 1075b, an [music] exoplanet that's been dubbed the planet Hulk by scientists.

[00:55:52]Located 200 light-years away, this [music] super-Earth is one of the most massive ever discovered. Its proximity to its parent star causes its surface to reach scorching temperatures of 1922°.

[00:56:05]It's so hot that any form of water would evaporate instantly [music] and the air would be filled with vaporized rock. But, it's not just the heat that's impressive, it's also [music] its size. TOI 1075b is nearly 10 times the mass of Earth, making it one of the most massive super-Earths ever discovered.

[00:56:25]But, the mystery doesn't stop there. The planet's orbit takes [music] just 14 and 1/2 hours, making it one of the shortest orbital periods ever recorded for a planet of its size. What an exciting addition to our catalog.

[00:56:39]Number four, three [music] doomed planets.

[00:56:42]Astronomers made a shocking discovery of three planets that are circling [music] in a dangerous dance next to the slowly fading stars. Just a decade ago, scientists never even imagined such planets could exist.

[00:56:56]These [music] gas giant planets, similar in size to Jupiter, orbit way too close to their slowly fading stars. [music] They're basically walking on the edge.

[00:57:05]Take one of them for example, dubbed TOI 2337b.

[00:57:10]Its orbit will likely send it hurtling straight into [music] the fiery arms of its host star in less than a million years. Well, I won't be around then.

[00:57:18]>> [music] >> As these stars enter their final days, they're pulling in nearby planets like a black hole, altering their orbits [music] and potentially causing catastrophic collisions. And as these planets get closer to their stars, their atmospheres [music] heat up and swell, leading to some mind-boggling differences in density.

[00:57:38]But, despite the doom and gloom, studying these worlds could give us valuable insights into the evolution of our own solar system.

[00:57:46]Number five, planet with a barium's atmosphere.

[00:57:50]These are two hot blazing planets, each with an atmosphere made of the heaviest element ever found in an exoplanet, barium. These planets, known as WASP-76b and WASP-121b, are ultra-hot gas giants called super-Jupiters that orbit incredibly close to their stars. These planets are basically like giant balls of fire with one side facing the star cooking at temperatures hot enough to vaporize iron and other metals. But, as the hot iron vapor is blown into the planet's cooler night side, [music] it turns into liquid and falls as iron rain.

[00:58:27]And these planets held a special surprise for us. Barium is a heavy metal, about two and a half times as heavy as iron. And yet, scientists were [music] able to detect it in the upper layers of these planets' atmospheres.

[00:58:40]This is truly a mystery and a puzzle we're still trying to solve. Imagine >> [music] >> landing on a planet like this and looking at this rain of iron in the heavy barium in its skies. That would be [music] awesomely horrifying.

[00:58:54]Number six, the football planet.

[00:58:57]Get ready to have your mind blown, space enthusiasts, [music] because we've just discovered the ultimate football-shaped planet, and it's unlike [music] anything we've ever seen before. Meet WASP-103b, the ultra-hot exoplanet that's more [music] than a thousand light-years away from Earth.

[00:59:14]This gas giant is so close to its parent [music] star that its shape is being stretched by the intense gravitational forces.

[00:59:22]But, this isn't just a fun shapeshifter.

[00:59:25]It's also a valuable scientific discovery. By studying the planet's passes across its star, we were able to measure its deformation for the first time ever. It's like taking a snapshot of a planet in motion and it's giving us insights into the extreme conditions that these planets can endure. This is truly a great discovery. Number seven, a zodiacal light. Are you ready for a cosmic ghost story? Scientists and high school students in China have uncovered a spooky phenomenon on three distant exoplanets. It's called zodiacal light, a glow that's similar to the one seen here on Earth during sunset. But this isn't just some eerie light show. It could hold clues about the makeup of these potentially habitable worlds.

[01:00:11]Imagine watching the sunset from a dark spot on Earth and instead of darkness, a triangle of light appears. That's zodiacal light. It's caused by sunlight reflecting off [music] dust particles that fill the solar system, the remains of asteroids and comets. A team of researchers analyzed 47 [music] potential habitable exoplanets named Kepler-69c, Kepler-1229b, and Kepler-395c, [music] all super-Earths, had signs of this light. This discovery is more than just a spooky [music] phenomenon. It could reveal information about the presence of asteroids and comets in these exoplanet systems, which could be difficult to detect otherwise. [music] So, that's pretty neat.

[01:00:56]Number eight, a planet with silicate clouds. Introducing VHS 1259b, [music] not a home video recording system, but a strange and exotic [music] world shrouded in mystery and wonder. A place where the clouds are made of sand and the sky is forever red. This isn't the stuff of science fiction, but a real-life discovery made by the brilliant [music] minds at NASA. This is a brown dwarf exoplanet that's making waves in the astronomical community.

[01:01:26]It's way too massive for a planet, nearly 20 times the size of Jupiter, but it's not quite a star. It's something in between, a cosmic enigma that defies definition. But, what's really crazy about VHS 1256b is its atmosphere.

[01:01:43]Scientists have discovered that this strange [music] world is cloaked in thick clouds of silicate grains, similar to sand.

[01:01:50]It's the first time this kind of cloud has ever been detected on an exoplanet, >> [music] >> and it's a discovery that's sure to change the way we think about the universe and the possibilities of life beyond our world. And there you have it, folks. The year 2022 was filled with incredible discoveries and groundbreaking [music] findings in the world of exoplanets. But, this is just the beginning. As scientists and researchers continue to explore the vast [music] expanse of space, we can only imagine what other wonders await us. So, let's keep looking. Who knows what secrets the stars hold for us next?

[01:02:27]>> Our universe is full of both amazing and terrifying things. You already know about quasars, black holes, dark matter, and so on.

[01:02:36]But, how about the horrors of space that you haven't even heard of? Would you like to visit [music] the most bizarre worlds in the universe? And it's not me who made this list, but NASA themselves.

[01:02:48]Welcome to the galaxy of horrors, NASA's [music] awesome Halloween collection.

[01:02:53]Please join me on a journey to some planets and tell me which ones [music] you would consider the most horrible.

[01:02:59]Buckle up.

[01:03:02]Our first destination is a gas giant [music] called TrES-2b.

[01:03:07]It's located 750 light-years away from us. If we used a regular spaceship, it would take us about 10 million [music] years to get there. TrES-2b orbits a yellow dwarf, a star similar to our sun.

[01:03:19]>> [music] >> It also weighs about 1.5 times more than Jupiter.

[01:03:23]So, what's so special [music] about it?

[01:03:26]Well, if you're afraid of the dark, you definitely don't want to visit this place. It's the planet of eternal [music] night, the darkest one of all the planets known to us. But, it's not that far from its star, [music] so why is that? The thing is, the surface of TrES-2b reflects light even worse [music] than coal does. Because of this, it seems that there's no light at all.

[01:03:49]If you were flying [music] across the surface of this planet, it would be like walking with a blindfold on your eyes.

[01:03:55]>> [music] >> Oh, wait. Actually, there is some light.

[01:03:58]An eerie deep red glow surrounds the surface of the planet. [music] This glow is created by the burning atmosphere, which makes TrES-2b a scorching planet.

[01:04:09]The air there is even hotter than lava.

[01:04:11]Oh, but if you think that was bad, let me show you the next place of our horror journey. NASA wasn't beating about the bush while nicknaming this one.

[01:04:22]Now, we're not just talking about one planet, >> [music] >> but three at once. They're also located quite far away, 2,300 light-years from the sun. We would have reached them by ship in about 35 million years.

[01:04:35]All the planets are in [music] the constellation Virgo, and each is extremely light, much lighter than the Earth. These three exoplanets [music] are called Poltergeist, Draugr, and Phobetor. Huh, cool names, huh? It's because each of these [music] planets is about to become a ghost soon.

[01:04:53]The thing is, they don't revolve around a star, but around a pulsar.

[01:04:57]Pulsars are rotating neutron stars with an extremely powerful magnetic field. In simple words, these are [music] the stars that exploded one day. After the explosion, they usually emit such a powerful pulse that that causes the star to rotate [music] at an unimaginable speed, several thousand rotations per second.

[01:05:16]>> [music] >> At the same time, they constantly emit electromagnetic pulses that affect everything around them.

[01:05:23]So, you've [music] probably already guessed what's happening with our zombie planets. They're slowly, gradually being destroyed under the gigantic influence [music] of radiation. One day, they'll disappear without a trace. Ghost-like planets [music] orbiting an undead star?

[01:05:39]Yeah, zombie world is a fitting name.

[01:05:42]It's also not surprising that scientists nicknamed [music] this pulsar Lich, despite the long official name. Well, at least these guys stick together on their final dance.

[01:05:54]This planet has a long name, so bear with me. HD 189733b.

[01:06:01]This gas giant is 65 light-years away from us. It would have taken around 1 million years [music] to get there on a spaceship.

[01:06:08]HD Well, this planet is slightly more massive than Jupiter and orbits its star, an orange dwarf, all alone. At first glance, it may seem friendly, a pleasant blue color and curls on the surface. Kind of resembles a summer sky or foam on sea waves, [music] right? Oh, looks are very deceptive, my friend.

[01:06:30]This planet has a pleasant cobalt blue color due to the hazy [music] blowtorched atmosphere. This atmosphere contains silicates that condense when heated. In other words, the clouds on this planet have [music] rain made of glass. Yes, it rains hot glass shards here. Oh, and if that's not enough, there's a raging [music] wind on the surface, which is moving at a speed of 5,400 mph. Just to compare, the fastest wind on Earth had a speed of 254 mph, about 20 times [music] weaker.

[01:07:02]And because of this, hundreds of thousands of glass shards rush horizontally across [music] the planet's surface at breakneck speed. I really don't envy anyone who would want to try to land there.

[01:07:13]By the way, this isn't the only example of strange rains in our universe. For example, [music] it rains molten iron on the planet Demedium. Or let's take so-called carbon planets. Their existence [music] hasn't yet been proven, but if they do exist, there would be tons of black poisonous clouds and it would rain pure gasoline and hot liquid asphalt. Oh, and also raindrops would explode upon touching the surface.

[01:07:40]Eh, nothing special.

[01:07:42]The next planet though is actually really strange. It didn't just revolve around its star, it lived inside the star.

[01:07:52]This cosmic miracle is called KOI-55b or Kepler-70b.

[01:07:57]This planet is very far away from us, 4,000 [music] light-years. It would take about 70 million years on a spaceship. It's twice as light as Earth and fully rotates around its star in just a couple [music] of hours.

[01:08:10]A long time ago, it was an ordinary Earth-like planet [music] about the size of Jupiter. It was peacefully and calmly orbiting its red dwarf star, KOI-55.

[01:08:20]But everything changed about 700 million years ago. Perhaps you've heard that in a couple billion years, our sun [music] will begin to expand into a huge star absorbing everything in its path. Well, this is the fate of red dwarfs. Sooner or later, they increase turning into incredibly hot blue giants. The same thing happened with KOI-55. [music] This star began to increase in size and heat up in temperature, gradually turning [music] into a blue white giant.

[01:08:48]It was ready to devour its nearest planets, but KOI-55b didn't care about it. When the star reached it, this planet just settled inside. And moreover, after some time, it left its star, simply returning [music] to the new orbit. How was that even possible?

[01:09:06]Life inside its star turned KOI-55b [music] into a red-hot round stone. It's one of the hottest planets we've discovered [music] so far. The temperature on it reaches 12,000° F.

[01:09:18]It's hotter than the sun, which is, let me remind you, an actual star.

[01:09:22]And for some reason, it's still [music] alive and lives as if nothing happened.

[01:09:27]Unfortunately, sooner or later, [music] the planet will disappear anyway. It's slowly evaporating itself due to the incandescent atmosphere. But still, [music] it somehow managed to survive the journey through the star, which isn't typical for regular planets, to put it mildly. I envy this willpower.

[01:09:46]However, not all planets are so lucky.

[01:09:49]Some are gradually being destroyed by [music] their stars, and there is even an entire system among them.

[01:09:56]This last planet is a sad loner. It's located 870 light-years away from us.

[01:10:02]The journey by ship to it would take about 25 million years. This planet is about 1.5 times more massive than Jupiter.

[01:10:10]This is a very sad, dark planet, a doomed gas giant, which is very similar to hot Jupiter, orbits its star all alone. At the same time, it's located [music] so close to its star that its orbital period takes just 1 day. Of course, because of this proximity, >> [music] >> the star gradually absorbs WASP-12b.

[01:10:31]The scorching heat of the star is slowly destroying and devouring the planet's atmosphere. The planet has only around 10 million years left.

[01:10:39]But what's more interesting, [music] because of this stretching, WASP-12b acquired the shape of an egg. It doesn't even resemble an actual planet [music] anymore.

[01:10:49]It's also very hot. The surface temperature of the gas giant reaches 4,000° [music] F.

[01:10:55]Also, a spectrograph of cosmic origin, or COS for short, found that the planet exchanges matter with its star. They're located so close that they give each [music] other part of their chemical elements. This is a common phenomenon in closely spaced binary star systems, but this is the first time scientists have seen this in a star-planet relationship.

[01:11:15]What a unique system.

[01:11:19]To be honest, if I was guaranteed complete security, I'd be excited to visit at least some of them. What about you? Please let me know in the comments.

[01:11:29]Imagine all the planets from the solar system had a meeting and decided that Earth should move to another galaxy.

[01:11:36]Then what?

[01:11:37]>> [music] >> Well, my friends, if Earth got kicked out of the solar system, let's just say we'd be in for a bumpy ride.

[01:11:46]As you may know, each planet occupies its own orbit in relation to the sun, guaranteeing the perfect functioning of our solar system. But, it wasn't always like this, though.

[01:11:58]Billions of years ago, planets and asteroids kept constantly bumping into each other. It took some time before each planet found its own personal orbit, and our system took the formation it has today.

[01:12:13]Now, as you may know, the most important organizing factor of the solar system [music] is gravity. Gravity attracts every piece of matter to every other piece of matter in the universe, and the bigger the mass, the bigger the gravity.

[01:12:29]The sun makes up 99.75% of all the mass in the solar system.

[01:12:35]>> [music] >> It's precisely the sun's gravitational pull that has kept Earth on a steady and reliable path.

[01:12:42]But, it wouldn't [music] take a surreal interplanetary meeting for Earth to go rogue. This is an actual possibility, and unlikely, but real one.

[01:12:54]For instance, if any rogue planet or star were to travel close to the solar system, its gravitational force could mess up our planetary organization. And did you know that this is actually happened before?

[01:13:09]Some 70,000 years ago, a red dwarf passed through the Oort Cloud and messed things up.

[01:13:18]The Oort Cloud is an outer circle of space debris located on the edge of our solar system. It lies far beyond Pluto and the Kuiper Belt and surrounds the Sun in a giant spherical shell.

[01:13:32]Apart from [music] the eight planets and the Kuiper Belt, there is another asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

[01:13:40]Now, scientists expect another red dwarf to pass by our solar system. It's an orange star from the constellation of Serpens Cauda. Astronomers to pass near the Sun in about 1.29 million years at [music] a distance of about 99 billion miles.

[01:13:59]This star has [music] about 60% of the mass of the Sun, which would be enough to cause a great disturbance in our system.

[01:14:08]Once the star entered our system, we'd be able to see [music] it in the night sky without any equipment. It would be like watching a small orangish dot appearing in the sky.

[01:14:20]Over the months, it would grow bigger and bigger until we'd see it during the daytime. At a certain point, it would become so big and bright that we wouldn't [music] be able to look at it directly.

[01:14:31]Just like people say we shouldn't do with the Sun, but we look at it directly anyways, right?

[01:14:38]At this moment, [music] the night sky would fill with an eerie red glow. And after a few months, the orange star would start shrinking again, >> [music] >> turning smaller than the sun. But then, wait, the sun is turning smaller, too.

[01:14:53]Well, yes.

[01:14:57]The passing of Gliese [music] 170 took Earth out of its orbit, and its gravitational force pulled us out of our natural [music] alignment.

[01:15:06]Now the Earth will roam through the solar system until it [music] reaches outer space.

[01:15:13]So, what would happen with our planet if this were to really happen?

[01:15:19]First, the Earth would leave what is known as the Goldilocks zone, also known as the habitable zone. It's a rather narrow part of the solar system where human [music] life can thrive. What's its success secret? Water in a liquid state.

[01:15:35]Astronomers have discovered that Mercury also has water, but only in its northern and southern poles, >> [music] >> where light never reaches.

[01:15:45]Pluto, the dwarf planet at the rear end of the solar system, is 30% water, but much of it is hiding under a thick layer of ice.

[01:15:55]If the Earth ever did leave its privileged place orbiting the sun, it would travel around the galaxy at its [music] orbital speed of 67,000 mph.

[01:16:05]That's 1,000 times faster than a cheetah can run. Pretty fast, huh?

[01:16:11]So, in about [music] more or less a month, humanity would see the red giant Mars on the horizon. By then, we would be getting around 44% of the sunlight we once had.

[01:16:24]If someone wanted to [music] begin a new civilization, this would be the perfect moment. With reduced sunlight, it would be more difficult [music] for plants to continue doing photosynthesis. So, most of the flora on our planet would begin to perish.

[01:16:40]A few days after leaving Mars's orbit, >> [music] >> our planetary spaceship would face its first challenge, traveling through the asteroid belt. It's a collection of small, rocky, metallic bodies. [music] They're basically leftovers from the Big Bang that created our solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

[01:16:59]So, in a way, it's almost like we were traveling in time, right? Luckily for us, the distance between one asteroid and the next is about 600,000 miles. So, after passing one asteroid, it might take us a while before running into the next.

[01:17:17]If we make it through this journey intact, then we'll see the first gas giant in our galaxy, Jupiter.

[01:17:24]>> [music] >> Up until this moment, our loyal moon has been following us as we travel inside the solar system.

[01:17:32]>> [music] >> But, uh-oh. Jupiter's huge mass might steal our moon away from us. After all, Jupiter's gravity is twice as strong as Earth's. If our moon did join Jupiter's orbit, it [music] would be no less than its 80th moon. A bit too many moons, if you ask me.

[01:17:52]At this [music] point in our travels, the Earth's atmospheric temperature would have fallen drastically to around [music] -229° Fahrenheit. So, life on Earth would only be possible in very [music] specific places.

[01:18:07]Most of our planet's water would be frozen at this point, but only on the surface. Thanks to the Earth's core activity, it would heat our oceans from below, allowing heat to escape and maintain some water in the liquid state.

[01:18:21]In fact, the Earth's core would remain active [music] for billions of years after it has left orbit. In this scenario, microbes living near hydrothermal vents would thrive.

[01:18:33]But, perhaps some life would also be possible [music] near the heat provided by thermal vents above the surface in places like Yellowstone Park.

[01:18:44]A great option for humanity would be to build cities deep underground. This would be our best bet if we wanted to keep human life on planet Earth.

[01:18:54]10 years after our departure, we would be deep into the interstellar voyage.

[01:18:59]We'd be over 2.8 billion miles from the Sun. Our solar system would be nothing but a distant memory.

[01:19:07]If you were still living on Earth at that point, then you'd probably be coexisting with great technological advancements. Humans could build entire underground cities using geothermal energy.

[01:19:19]Maybe we'd even discover how to turn ice into power [music] and create a sustainable and abundant system for fuel.

[01:19:27]Ice would also be our main source of water. And by then, the transformation [music] process wouldn't be as expensive.

[01:19:36]Underground crops would thrive, [music] but some plants would be better than others. Moss, fungi, and algae would be some great alternatives as they are much easier to farm and grow in large numbers.

[01:19:49]This would mean that [music] most of our diet would be plant-based as it might be hard to keep grazing animals under the ground. Humanity could go on living thousands of years this way.

[01:20:01]If Earth happened to pass by some star with a habitable planet, we might even attempt to make a home on another planet.

[01:20:08]Spaceflight would become easier without the atmosphere in the way. So, yep, the idea of venturing into other planets would [music] no longer seem too surreal in this scenario.

[01:20:20]The only [music] thing that we would rather not happen to us is Earth running into a black hole.

[01:20:26]If that happened, let's just say we'd all be turned into spaghetti.

[01:20:31]Not literally, but we would go through a process that is called spaghettification.

[01:20:36]In this case, planet Earth and everyone still living on it would be vertically stretched up to the point of, well, vanishing.

[01:20:45]But that's the subject of another video.

[01:20:47][music] Fortunately, even if all this could be true, we wouldn't be caught by surprise.

[01:20:53]Thanks to scientific and technological advancements, >> [music] >> we would be able to predict if a star were to pass too close to our home planet. And even if we couldn't stop a star, [music] we would most certainly manage to do everything to prepare.

[01:21:07]So, who knows? Maybe the future generations [music] will be watching this video surprised at how precisely we figured the future out.