What If You Traveled Outside Of The Solar System?

Unveiled

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00:00Up to Neptune, the solar system has a diameter of about 5 billion miles.

00:06Up to the Oort cloud, it's more than 5 trillion miles.

00:10But once you break out of it, there's so much more to explore.

00:14The Milky Way hosts upwards of 200 billion other star systems.

00:21So where are you going first?

00:27What exactly constitutes a solar system?

00:29Well, aside from the obvious requirement of a star, a solar system consolidates more than

00:33just planets revolving around a ball of hydrogen and helium.

00:37Anything influenced by the star's gravitational pull is part of the system, and this includes

00:41asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and natural satellites.

00:45Estimated to be more than 4.5 billion years old, our sun breathes life into the wider

00:50solar system.

00:51While our corner of the universe is big enough to keep NASA busy for the foreseeable future,

00:56it's but one sliver of a larger galaxy known as the Milky Way.

01:00Technically, to us, there is only one solar system, as other clusters are referred to

01:04as stellar or star systems, but estimates suggest that there are approximately 200 billion

01:09stars in the Milky Way.

01:11The galaxy's almost incomprehensible size puts things into perspective, but the Milky

01:15Way is merely one small town.

01:17In fact, the Hubble Telescope has established the existence of at least 100 billion galaxies.

01:23So, how exactly is the universe structured?

01:26If someone were to leave the solar system, would they soon encounter a new collection

01:29of planets orbiting another ball of fire?

01:31Eventually, possibly… but not before some serious voyaging.

01:36Collectively known as the interstellar medium, the space separating star systems begins where

01:40a sun's magnetic field stops influencing its surroundings, and it chiefly consists

01:44of gas and dust.

01:46Because, regardless of what it seems, space isn't truly a vacuum, although the density

01:50varies wildly from area to area.

01:53In the grand scheme of things, the solar system is miniscule.

01:56Nevertheless, human ingenuity has yet to advance far enough to allow for a safe voyage into

02:00interstellar space.

02:02Due to the vast distances being calculated, we use astronomical units to actually measure

02:07space, with one AU equivalent to the average gap between Earth and the sun, which is approximately

02:1293 million miles.

02:14Entering into only the first stretch of interstellar space means travelling farther than 120 AU,

02:20and even then the sun's gravitational pull continues to wield some effect for roughly

02:24another 100,000 units.

02:26Given that humans have made it to the moon but no further, with trips to other planets

02:30still seeming a far-off dream, getting people into interstellar space seems an impossible

02:34goal.

02:35However, while a manned shuttle isn't currently on the cards, two spacecraft have successfully

02:40crossed into the interstellar, Voyager 1 and 2.

02:43Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has been flying away from the sun towards the great unknown

02:48for decades.

02:49After completing its primary mission by 1980, conducting flybys of Jupiter, Saturn and Titan,

02:55it just kept going and going… until, in 2012, it became the first human-made spacecraft

03:00to enter the interstellar medium.

03:02Six years later, Voyager 2 repeated the same staggering feat, although it's important

03:07to note that even these crafts have only actually left the heliosphere, which is essentially

03:11a bubble created by the sun's solar wind, and not the entire solar system itself.

03:16Using Voyager 1 and 2 as blueprints, it'd take more than 30 years to travel the 11 billion-odd

03:22miles necessary to reach the interstellar medium… but that's assuming the human

03:26body could somehow withstand the 38,000 miles-per-hour velocity sustained by Voyager 1.

03:31Say science does find a way for humans to complete such a journey, though… what sights

03:36can an astronaut look forward to?

03:38Putting aside the technological process needed to amass the necessary momentum to actually

03:42leave the solar system, the route involves crossing the asteroid and Kuiper Belts towards

03:46the heliosphere's outer layer.

03:48Ranging from Mars to Jupiter, the asteroid belt is unsurprisingly home to the majority

03:52of the solar system's asteroids.

03:55With the number of drifting stones in the thousands, you might think that this portion

03:58of the journey would coincide with quite a bit of turbulence… but, luckily, the asteroids

04:02are dispersed over such a massive area that avoiding a direct hit should be fairly simple.

04:07The Kuiper Belt covers the area past Neptune and, alongside other dwarf planets, includes

04:12Pluto.

04:13Like its predecessor, the Kuiper is sparsely littered with floating objects, although many

04:17tend to be frozen due to the sun's weakening rays once you get this far out.

04:21Following the belts, the spacecraft steadily begins to approach the heliosphere's outer

04:25layers.

04:26On average, Pluto is around 40 AU away from the sun, but the heliosphere stretches on

04:30for another 80 units.

04:32It's essentially a protective bubble created because our star exudes charged particles

04:36as solar wind, and the heliosphere is how far they stretch.

04:40Beyond this point, the sun does continue to exert a force on objects, but the particles

04:44are less densely packed, and the bubble breaks up… which takes us to perhaps the first

04:49significant roadblock on this ultimate road trip… a stream of gas known as the Termination

04:53Shock.

04:54This layer coincides with the sun's solar wind colliding with the interstellar wind

04:58on the other side.

04:59It's where the sun's influence truly starts to diminish.

05:03According to NASA, Voyager 1 crossed this threshold at approximately 94 AU.

05:08The Termination Shock leads into the heliosheath, which is the heliosphere's outermost layer.

05:13Theoretically, this area should be the most volatile of the lot, marking the point when

05:17the interstellar wind begins to match the sun's power, making conditions almost impossible

05:21to predict.

05:22Picture the solar system as a boat sailing across a sea of gas, and the heliosheath is

05:27the bow thrusting against the waves, taking most of the force.

05:31Finally, we reach the heliopause, which is the final, final border separating the heliosphere

05:35and interstellar space.

05:37At this point, the solar and interstellar winds emit equal but opposing pressures, causing

05:42the sun's particles to flip inwards towards their source of origin.

05:45It's a point of no return for most of anything linked to our solar system.

05:49With the heliopause in the rearview mirror, astronauts can look forward to drifting through

05:53empty, seemingly endless space before ultimately entering the solar system's true final layer,

05:59the Oort Cloud.

06:00Believed to consist of comets requiring approximately 200 years to orbit the sun, astronomers believe

06:05the Oort Cloud commences at a distance of 1,000 astronomical units from the sun and

06:10stretches on for approximately 100,000 units.

06:13If Voyager 1 required 35 years to leave the heliosphere, the spacecraft has to continue

06:17moving forward at the same speed for roughly another 250 years to reach the Oort Cloud.

06:23By now, assuming that we A, somehow had the technology to take us this far, and B, had

06:27devised some way of stalling our natural ageing process so that we're still alive by the

06:31time we break the Oort Cloud, our minds and bodies will have gone through some major transformations.

06:36Earth's atmosphere protects against the sun's radiation, and an astronaut's body

06:41tends to weaken after only a couple of months away from the planet's surface.

06:44So, in reaching the heliopause, astronauts would risk exposure to an immeasurable amount

06:49of radiation over an incredible time period.

06:52Even with some kind of radiation immunity medicines or technologies, and even though

06:56they would be steadily moving away from the sun, any interstellar astronaut will have

07:00had to have gone some form of adaptation to their surroundings.

07:04Throw into the mix infinitely heightened concerns over muscle atrophy and bone mass decline,

07:08inevitable challenges regarding mental health and unknowable problems linked with the endless

07:13isolation, and you end up with a traveller almost unrecognisable from that which had

07:17set off.

07:18Assuming you somehow managed to enter interstellar space in one piece, the Oort Cloud should

07:22take around 30,000 years to traverse.

07:25Of course, the painstaking commute could be avoided if we managed to develop a viable

07:29method of travelling at light speed.

07:30In fact, taking into account that the sun's rays need a bit more than eight minutes to

07:34hit Earth, a shuttle travelling at the speed of light should be able to leave the entire

07:38solar system in less than 600 days.

07:41Whichever way you get there, with the solar system finally behind you, the question becomes

07:45what's next?

07:46The Alpha Centauri system is adjacent to ours and houses three stars, with the red star

07:51Proxima Centauri being the closest.

07:53So, that would be your next port of call.

07:56But here's hoping you're not running low on fuel and you're still somehow keeping

07:59old age at bay… because getting there, even at light speed, would take another four years.

08:05Travel at anything less than light speed, and you're talking centuries.

08:08What would you see on the way?

08:10Unsurprisingly, we're low on first-hand accounts, but the light from Proxima Centauri

08:14would always be in your sights, growing brighter day by day.

08:17If humans ever were headed that way, then chances are they'd be bee-lining for the

08:22exoplanet Proxima Centauri b, as it's the closest exoplanet to us and it orbits within

08:27a potentially habitable zone.

08:29So, if there's life outside of our solar system, then here would be a good bet to host

08:33our closest neighbours.

08:35And from there, if we've advanced enough as a species to survive such a monumental

08:38trip, then the entire universe is ours to explore.

08:42The Milky Way is, after all, simply one member in a cluster of large and dwarf galaxies.

08:47Andromeda is the nearest similarly-sized galaxy to ours.

08:51So, if we ever could go galaxy-gallivanting, then we'd wind up in Andromedan territories

08:55next.

08:56That said, Andromeda is estimated to be around 2.5 million light-years away from us, so we'd

09:02have to improve on even light-speed travel to stand even a slim chance of seeing it.

09:06Right now, it feels like the farthest of far-off dreams.

09:10What do you think?

09:11Is there anything we missed?

09:12Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you

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