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From massive asteroid impacts to runaway climate collapse, science has mapped out several ways Earth could one day face its end. Some threats unfold slowly over centuries, while others could strike with little warning. The real question is which danger is most likely to come first—and how close we may already be.
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00:00So, in the end, will the sun be to blame for destroying our planet?
00:04Or how about a huge meteorite?
00:07Or some kind of disease?
00:10Probably not.
00:12It seems that life will disappear for a very unexpected reason.
00:16Humans, animals, insects, fish, and most microbes will be wiped off the face of the Earth because of oxygen.
00:23Or, more precisely, because of its absence.
00:27Recent research has shown that the number of freshwater reservoirs, with very low or no oxygen levels in coastal areas,
00:34is increasing worldwide.
00:36Over the past 65 years, four times more oxygen-deficient waters have appeared in the world's oceans.
00:42What does it all mean?
00:44It's likely that life on Earth will vanish much sooner than the sun's energies dries up all the oceans.
00:50The end is likely to come in a little more than 1 billion years.
00:54But this doesn't mean that the planet will disappear too.
00:58The period when Earth is filled with oxygen will make up just about 20-30% of the total lifespan
01:04of the planet.
01:05So, we're just temporary guests here.
01:08Just think how long that is.
01:101 billion years.
01:11The first Homo sapiens appeared only about 300,000 years ago.
01:16That is, the entire history of humanity occupies less than a half a million years.
01:21So, relax.
01:22A billion years won't pass very fast.
01:25By that time, humans won't be on Earth anymore.
01:28We might master space travel and find a new planet in the vast depths of space.
01:33But why can we lose air?
01:35As the sun heats up, the planet gets warmer and warmer.
01:38And this heat breaks down carbon dioxide, the gas which is necessary for all plants to photosynthesize.
01:45Without carbon dioxide, they can't produce oxygen.
01:48With a drop in carbon dioxide levels, the methane content will increase.
01:53And this gas is quite harmful to us.
01:55Now, this all sounds logical, but this is a secondary reason for the lack of oxygen.
02:00The real problem is something else entirely.
02:03As the sun becomes brighter, it will begin to heat rocks on Earth, such as granite and basalt.
02:09These rocks will start to break down faster.
02:12When they collapse, they take carbon dioxide from the air, which warms our planet.
02:17If there's less carbon dioxide in the air, Earth should become colder.
02:21But there's a problem.
02:23The sun will shine more, and its heat will outweigh this cooling effect.
02:27So, even if rocks take away carbon dioxide, the sun will blaze so much that Earth will still become extremely
02:34hot.
02:35Next, when the sun shines more intensely, it, along with other natural factors, contributes to the breakdown of granite and
02:42basalt.
02:43These rocks mix with carbon dioxide in water to make carbonates, which go deep into the Earth.
02:49This takes carbon dioxide out of the air, which means plants can't make as much oxygen because they need carbon
02:55dioxide to do that.
02:57Besides, volcanoes release gases, which also reduce the amount of oxygen in the air.
03:03So, the sun, by destroying rocks, affects what happens inside Earth and controls how much oxygen there will be in
03:10the air.
03:11In about 1 billion years, the sun will become so bright that no rocks will be able to save Earth
03:17from its heat.
03:18And the escaping gases will halt photosynthesis and oxygen production.
03:22And then, our planet will return to the state it was in about 2.4 billion years ago.
03:29To the time when the Great Oxidation Event began.
03:32And this event was much more important than, say, the first Olympic Games or the appearance of humans on the
03:38planet.
03:39Billions of years ago, there was almost no oxygen on Earth.
03:43Instead, there was a soup of gases, such as nitrogen, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, and others.
03:50Yes, we have these gases in the atmosphere today, but there used to be a lot more of them than
03:55the past.
03:56It was difficult for any form of life to originate in such conditions.
04:00But, after some struggle, it succeeded.
04:04At first, Earth was inhabited by the simplest bacteria, including cyanobacteria.
04:09They learned how to make oxygen using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.
04:13These bacteria worked for millions and billions of years, and made so much oxygen that it began to accumulate in
04:20the air.
04:21This was what we now call the Great Oxidation Event.
04:25It was like a great celebration of life, because with oxygen, new living beings could appear.
04:31But, by the way, cyanobacteria didn't learn photosynthesis, because they were like, oh, let's make oxygen, it's so cool.
04:38No, oxygen was just a by-product.
04:42Cyanobacteria wanted only one thing, to get as much energy as possible.
04:46And for this, they learned photosynthesis.
04:49It helped them store energy using sunlight.
04:52They used special pigments to absorb light, and the result of this process was the release of oxygen.
04:57This had been going on for hundreds of millions of years.
05:00And then, at some point, they made too much oxygen.
05:04This oxygen started to spoil other gases that had been there before.
05:08For example, it ate a lot of methane.
05:11Because of this, Earth cooled down a bit, and the Ice Age began.
05:15But that's another story.
05:17In short, in a billion years, we risk going back to that difficult time.
05:22But let's hope that we'll manage to move to another planet on our spaceships, or come up with some other
05:27solution.
05:28And what'll happen to our home planet next?
05:30Next, will new life be able to originate there without so much oxygen?
05:35Well, it's possible, but it'll be much more difficult.
05:38This will require another source of energy besides the sun.
05:41It can be, for example, hydrothermal vents.
05:45And, by the way, there are ecosystems on Earth that use this type of energy.
05:50You can find one of them in the Movil cave in Romania.
05:53Imagine a place where there's little oxygen.
05:56It's dark.
05:57The sun's rays don't reach there.
05:59Over millions of years of evolution, a unique and slightly creepy life has developed in this cave.
06:05It was first discovered in 1986, and scientists are still exploring this place.
06:10The entrance to the cave is just a small hole in the ground.
06:14A narrow tunnel goes deep underground.
06:17Inside the cave, the air is filled with hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide.
06:21And there's half as much oxygen there as on the surface.
06:25A human can't stay there without a special mask.
06:28But for local forms of life, this is home.
06:31And they feel great there.
06:33There are several dozen species living in the cave.
06:36And many of them aren't found anywhere else on Earth.
06:39Here you can see strange little monsters.
06:42White snails.
06:43White spiders.
06:44Centipedes with long whiskers.
06:47Transparent shrimp.
06:48And even unknown species of leeches.
06:50Since there's no light in the cave, all these creatures don't need eyes.
06:55They're blind.
06:56But they have long sensitive antennae and paws that allows them to navigate in the space.
07:02They also have no colored pigment.
07:04So all these bugs and spiders are either white or transparent.
07:08But if there's so little oxygen there, and nobody does photosynthesis, then how does all this life survive?
07:15It's all thanks to the unique bacteria autotrophs.
07:19They absorb carbon dioxide and produce nutrients.
07:22These bacteria are food for other organisms.
07:25And those, in turn, become food for larger creatures.
07:28So a whole food chain has been built in the cave, which provides all the inhabitants with food.
07:35Evolution has created a unique ecosystem that exists separately from the rest of the world.
07:40It's like a small universe that has developed according to its own rules.
07:44However, this universe is not expanding.
07:47Because all living beings here can't live away from hydrothermal vents and autotrophs.
07:52Otherwise, where would they get their energy from?
07:56But let's imagine that the sun cools down, almost all the oxygen disappears,
08:01and the entire planet gets covered with hydrothermal vents.
08:04It's dark, and the air is filled with methane, CO2, and other substances.
08:10And somehow, life begins.
08:12Even people appear at one point.
08:14What would they look like?
08:16Pale, thin, and blind creatures with very long arms that help them navigate in space.
08:21They have pets, large centipedes or cockroaches that move silently on the ground.
08:27People are also quiet because they don't have lungs filled with air to scream.
08:33There's silence in the world.
08:34People communicate through touch.
08:36No one travels.
08:38Everyone lives separately next to their hydrothermal source.
08:41The whole world has turned into a horror movie in a billion years.
08:54In the late 1950s, everyone was captivated by space exploration.
09:00But there was a group of rebels who wondered not what's out there, but what's down there.
09:05This team called themselves the American Miscellaneous Society.
09:10Yes, that's their real name.
09:12And they started one of the biggest projects ever.
09:15Project Mahalo.
09:16Joyful and determined, they had no idea what a nightmare they started.
09:22First, let's understand what the project was about.
09:25You probably know that Earth is like a giant onion.
09:29If you cut it in half, you'd see it's made of layers.
09:32Each one is different from the next.
09:35The crust is what we all stand on.
09:37It's incredibly thin, like the skin of an apple.
09:40It's made of tectonic plates, almost like puzzle pieces.
09:44And they float on the layer beneath.
09:46That layer is the mantle.
09:48It's mostly solid, made of rock.
09:51But these rocks flow and move very slowly.
09:53Just a little bit over thousands of years.
09:56They're also incredibly hot.
09:59Thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.
10:00So it's a bunch of scorching stones moving around like caramel syrup.
10:05And when the mantle moves, the tectonic plates above move as well.
10:11Usually, this movement is slow and harmless.
10:14We don't even notice it.
10:15But sometimes they can bump into each other, get stuck, and so on.
10:19And when they do, they send such horrifying vibrations through the ground that they're hard not to notice.
10:25These vibrations are called seismic waves.
10:29In 1909, a Croatian scientist, Andrija Morhorovicik, noticed something weird.
10:36Turns out, at a certain depth, seismic waves suddenly speed up.
10:42He didn't yet realize that he stumbled upon a boundary between the crust and the mantle.
10:46It became known as the Moho Boundary.
10:50Now, try to guess what the Project Mahalo guys decided to do.
10:55It was during a meeting of the National Science Foundation.
10:59Everyone was discussing current scientific progress.
11:02Suddenly, Walter Monk, a geophysicist and oceanographer,
11:06casually threw out a take that shocked the room.
11:09Why not drill all the way down to the mantle?
11:12His idea was outrageous.
11:16Drill through the ocean floor, deep into the planet's skin,
11:20reach the Moho, and see what it's all about.
11:23Never mind the fact that the ocean is crazy deep with crushing temperatures and violent currents.
11:29Super bold, but not entirely out of nowhere.
11:32If we start from the ocean floor, the Moho lies just about 3 to 6 miles below it.
11:38It's much easier than starting from land.
11:40That would require digging from 10 to 60 miles deep.
11:44That made the oceans the best bet for reaching it.
11:48Monk wasn't the only one.
11:49Harry Hess, one of his colleagues, was just as excited about the time.
11:54At the time, people didn't know much about plate tectonics.
11:58Hess was one of the founders of that theory,
12:00believing that the world is made up of giant moving plates.
12:04To him, it was great.
12:06Drilling to the mantle would give him evidence to prove that theory.
12:10They became a team and found more like-minded scientists.
12:14They combined the most brilliant minds in Earth science.
12:17Roger Revelle, Maurice Ewing, and Arthur Maxwell.
12:21They called themselves miscellaneous because there were all sorts of scientists in the team.
12:27Poor guys didn't know that their playful name would later come back to haunt them.
12:32But the NSF was dumbfounded by their idea at first and rejected it because, duh, it would be a nightmare
12:39to pull off.
12:40So, our team secured $50,000 just to make a plan.
12:44Then, they presented the official banner.
12:48Luckily, science was on the rise and there were rumors about other countries trying their own deep drilling projects.
12:55So, the AMS got the green light this time.
12:58The plan consisted of three phases.
13:01Phase 1. Do a drilling test.
13:03Check how things are going.
13:05Phase 2. Build an intermediate drilling vessel.
13:09Phase 3. Keep going until they reach the Moho.
13:12And they got a funding of a whopping $2.5 million.
13:17And finally, in March and April 1961, the project finally began.
13:24Phase 1 took place off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico.
13:28They used a converted barge called CUS-1 and some insane brain moves to make it work.
13:34Originally, CUS-1 was made for drilling oil offshore.
13:38It was one of the best things we had for drilling in deep water.
13:41But a catch was that it could only go a few hundred feet down.
13:45And remember, we need at least three miles.
13:49The team had to come up with something revolutionary.
13:52Dynamic positioning.
13:54It's a tech that allowed the ship to stay perfectly still in the middle of the ocean.
13:58Even without an anchor.
14:00It worked like this.
14:02They dropped six buoys into the water, forming a circle around the ship.
14:06These buoys sent underwater echoes to help the ship understand where it's located.
14:11Using motors and a joystick, the crew could keep CUS-1 right in the center of the circle.
14:17And surprisingly, they started making progress.
14:20Even though ocean drilling is incredibly hard, they drilled through thick layers of sediment and reached an astonishing 600 feet
14:28below the seafloor.
14:29About two statues of liberty.
14:32And the seafloor itself was almost 12,000 feet deep.
14:35This was just the beginning.
14:37Deep down, they stumbled upon tons of basalt, a type of volcanic rock.
14:43It doesn't surprise us now, but for that time, this achievement was groundbreaking.
14:48Turns out, they got through Miocene Age sediments.
14:52Rocks formed millions of years ago.
14:54This discovery told us so much about the history of our planet.
14:59Now, the entire world held its breath.
15:02Even the famous writer John Steinbeck, the author of East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath, got caught up
15:09in the excitement.
15:10He joined the project and wrote a dramatic article about it for Life magazine.
15:15He wrote that we knew less about the ocean floor than we knew about the moon.
15:20That line stuck.
15:21The biggest surprise was that President John F. Kennedy sent a telegram congratulating the team.
15:28It's like the space race turned into inner space.
15:31And, for a brief moment, it looked like they just might do it.
15:36But years later, Walter Monk said that the very success of Phase 1 doomed the project.
15:43The early triumph raised expectations sky-high.
15:46From the start, the miscellaneousness of this society led to tons of disagreements, logistical hurdles, and the costs just kept
15:55rising.
15:57When the NSF realized just how successful the project was, they took over in 1961.
16:03The original society became just an advisor, and this completely screwed things up.
16:11One of the scientists said that it was a lengthy and unattractive trail of bickering, bitterness, and short-sightedness.
16:18They wouldn't even decide what exactly they wanted to do, and whether they even want to reach the moho.
16:25After that, the project found the new contractor company, Brown and Root.
16:29But it was a political decision, not a scientific one.
16:33Brown and Root had no experience in deep-sea drilling at all.
16:36Poor scientists had to suffer because this company didn't understand the project's goals and how hard it is.
16:43Some scientists even quit because of how annoying that was.
16:47As a result, when they calculated how much it would actually take to reach the moho,
16:52it turned out to be about $1 billion by today's standards.
16:56This shocked absolutely everyone.
16:58The public was mocking them, which didn't help at all.
17:01Some articles called it Project No-Hole and gave titles like How NSF Got Lost in Mo-Hole.
17:09The final blow happened in 1966.
17:12The project's most loyal supporter, Albert Thomas, passed away.
17:16Plus, the situation in Vietnam was escalating.
17:19As a result, the project was stopped after eating up tens of millions of dollars.
17:25What's even worse, this giant, impossible idea took the funding from smaller and achievable things.
17:33But it wasn't entirely for nothing.
17:35Project Moholo pioneered a new deep-sea drilling technique, which is now standard.
17:41They also inspired many new, similar, smaller ideas.
17:45And science just kept going since then.
17:47In May 2023, scientists finally achieved this dream.
17:51They actually pulled up rocks, not even from the moho boundary, but from the mantle itself.
17:57They got them from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
18:00So maybe one day, we'll be able to drill all the way down there.
18:07So listen up.
18:08One day, our sun will cool down and turn into a white dwarf.
18:12But this is not the worst thing for Earth.
18:15Before the star cools down, it will grow to an incredible size and arrange Ragnarok for us.
18:21Now, in case you don't know, Ragnarok is the fire apocalypse from Nordic mythology.
18:26So our star will burn down absolutely everything on our planet.
18:30But hey, don't worry, there's good news.
18:33This one day will come in 5 to 7 billion years.
18:37The bad news, though, is that almost all complex life on Earth will become extinct much sooner.
18:43Maybe in a quarter of a billion years.
18:45But there's a small chance that our planet will be ruled by octopuses.
18:50Yeah, I know, this is too much news for the first few seconds.
18:54So let me break it all down for you, one thing at a time.
18:58We all hear about people destroying nature and polluting our planet.
19:02This is all true.
19:04But even without our intervention, the vast majority of living creatures on the planet will disappear,
19:10including ourselves.
19:11The reason is natural disasters and weather change.
19:14It sounds terrible, but it's not new to Earth.
19:18Scientists have found out that there have already been 5 mass extinctions.
19:23The last one happened about 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs disappeared.
19:28But life went anyway and took on many different forms.
19:32The sixth apocalypse may occur within the next 250 million years.
19:37Conditions on Earth at this time will be unsuitable for mammals because the level of carbon dioxide will be twice
19:44as high.
19:45This will happen because the sun will release 2.5% more radiation, and it'll get too hot on Earth.
19:52The temperature in most parts of the planet will reach between 104 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit,
20:00and the entire land will turn into one supercontinent.
20:03In regions with high humidity, the temperature will be even higher, and of course, under such conditions,
20:09it will be difficult for people to walk in the park and play frisbee with dogs.
20:14No one will play with anyone at all.
20:17Let's hope we'll have colonized other planets by this time.
20:21Increasing solar fluxes will lead to a sharp loss of oxygen in the atmosphere.
20:25This means that in about a billion years, our Earth will look like the lifeless place it was about 2
20:32.5 billion years ago.
20:34That is, before the Great Oxidation Event.
20:37At that time, the air was filled with methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases.
20:43And the planet was inhabited by the simplest bacteria.
20:47Some of them learned how to make oxygen from sunlight and carbon dioxide.
20:51Throughout billions of years, they made so much oxygen that it became enough for the birth of new, more complex
20:58forms of life.
20:59And it seems we will return to these prehistoric times.
21:03Now, humans can't exist in such conditions.
21:06But some complex life forms hiding in the dark depths of the ocean
21:11might be able to adapt to the changed atmosphere and become the masters of Earth.
21:16These complex life forms are octopuses.
21:20There are many species of these animals.
21:22Some live in coastal areas, while others dwell in the deep waters of seas and oceans.
21:27And some species may be able to survive and create a new civilization.
21:33But why octopuses?
21:35Because they're some of the most intelligent creatures on Earth,
21:39and probably the most intelligent creatures among all the inhabitants of the dark depths.
21:45Octopuses can use surrounding objects as tools.
21:48For example, they can wear a coconut shell for protection or shelter.
21:53In laboratories, they've used various objects to complete mazes.
21:57These animals often escape from their water tanks to visit octopuses in nearby tanks.
22:03Yes, they have high intelligence, but not in the human sense.
22:07Their intelligence is more like a computer.
22:09You see, octopuses have neurons not only inside their brains, but also inside their eight tentacles and large eyes.
22:17It's like a big data center, and their limbs sense the environment in exceptional detail, as if they were the
22:24brain.
22:25Not only their intelligence, but also their physiological properties might help the octopus survive if the apocalypse strikes.
22:33Its body has no skeleton.
22:35It can squeeze through any hole, slip past any obstacle.
22:40And their eight highly developed limbs allow them to intelligently interact with their surroundings.
22:46Crows can bend pieces of wire with their beaks.
22:49They can throw stones into the water to raise the water level and get food.
22:53But they only have one beak.
22:55An octopus with its tentacles has at least eight times more possibilities.
23:01They don't have spines, so they'll most likely build a civilization not on land but underwater,
23:07where it's much more convenient to move with such a body.
23:10To build a civilization, they'll need to find cheap energy.
23:14For example, hydrothermal underwater springs, or tides in coastal areas.
23:20This will be a difficult task, but it won't be the most challenging thing for creating cities.
23:25It's very difficult for them to maintain social connections.
23:29By their nature, they are loners, who usually form groups of several individuals.
23:34But this is not enough to carry out large-scale construction of underwater urban areas.
23:39Parents pass on culture, history, upbringing, and moral guidelines to their children.
23:46They spend a lot of time and effort on education.
23:49Octopuses don't do this at all.
23:52The female octopus passes away shortly after laying eggs.
23:55The male octopus has only one mating relationship in its entire life
24:00and passes away shortly after the female is fertilized.
24:04So, in a sense, octopus cubs are born orphans.
24:08It's not surprising that it's difficult for them to build social connections.
24:13Over the past 50 to 100 million years, octopuses have not developed a collective feeling.
24:19And it's difficult to imagine that it will suddenly appear in the future.
24:23Perhaps something will encourage them.
24:25Who knows?
24:27Some scientists who study octopuses have noticed that,
24:30over the past 10 years, some octopus species have shown certain social skills.
24:35Some live in groups of 10 or more individuals.
24:39If humanity doesn't ruin the lives of these animals by fishing and dumping garbage into the ocean,
24:45then they have a good chance of succeeding in conquering the planet.
24:49But if they fail, then the next candidates might be nematodes, those little white worms.
24:56Well, let's hope octopuses win.
24:58They seem cuter.
25:01They also may achieve a technological breakthrough much faster than we think.
25:06Because when you have eight arms, you work much better.
25:09Imagine these octopuses leaving Earth and flying to another galaxy, where they meet us humans.
25:15Do you think we could become friends?
25:18So let's say octopuses become a highly developed civilization that builds cities in the oceans.
25:24But they, just like humans, will have to think about colonizing other planets because of the upcoming Ragnarok.
25:31The Sun keeps heating up and getting bigger, don't forget.
25:34Our star is currently in the most stable phase of its life.
25:38It has been in this phase for the last 4.5 billion years.
25:42But after another 5 billion years or so, the hydrogen in its core will start running out.
25:49And then the fun will begin.
25:50As hydrogen fusion slows, the core begins to contract.
25:55As the core gets smaller, it heats up until it can kick off another round of nuclear reactions,
26:01fusing helium into heavier elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.
26:07Eventually, the Sun will turn red and be so gigantic that it will swallow up Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth.
26:15So, it may be Ragnarok not only for our planet, but for the whole solar system.
26:21No matter how tough octopuses are, they won't survive such a disaster.
26:26Earth is likely to burn down completely.
26:29Maybe it'll look like the Moon, or it'll completely disappear.
26:33What will happen to the Sun next?
26:36Its energy will run out sooner or later.
26:39Then it will shrink to the size of Earth and turn into a white dwarf.
26:43When a star goes out, it ejects a huge amount of gas and dust.
26:48Only the cooling core remains.
26:50All those outer layers will be floating in space, forming a beautiful nebula.
26:55And our solar system will become unrecognizable.
26:59Well, in some ways, it can sound pretty sad and scary.
27:03But hey, look at the bright side.
27:06Yeah, pun intended.
27:07It's going to happen in 5 to 7 billion years.
27:10So, relax.
27:12Humanity has been living on Earth for about 40,000 years.
27:16If we compress the entire history of our planet into one 24-hour day,
27:21then the history of people will be equal to one second.
27:24If we achieve such a development in 40,000 years,
27:29what'll happen in 100,000 years?
27:31In a million years?
27:32In a billion years?
27:34It's hard to predict.
27:35So, how about going to the park and enjoying the sun at its best?
27:39Yeah, bring some sunscreen.
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