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Astronomers have spotted a strange object speeding through the Milky Way, while new research reveals why Mars became a barren desert. These groundbreaking discoveries could reshape our understanding of the universe!
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00:00At breakneck speed, this mysterious object is zipping through our galaxy.
00:04It's moving at a staggering 1 million miles per hour.
00:08That's so fast it might potentially escape the Milky Way altogether.
00:12While scientists are trying to understand exactly what this space weirdo is,
00:17we're going into space to learn more about it.
00:19The object is currently moving at a distance of 400 light-years away from Earth.
00:24Let's have a closer look and try to figure out if it could be a runaway probe.
00:30Nah, it's way too large for that.
00:31The object is around 30,000 times the mass of Earth and 8% of the mass of the Sun.
00:37What a giant!
00:39Such a size places it in a category that Dr. Darren Basco,
00:43an astronomy lecturer at the University of Sussex,
00:45describes as somewhere between a star and a planet.
00:50Stars moving at such extreme speeds are super rare.
00:53Only one or two out of every thousand local stars travel so incredibly fast.
00:58So, if one day you found a star moving as rapidly as our cosmic enigma,
01:04you'd see it leave our home Milky Way galaxy in just a few tens of millions of years.
01:09In terms of space and cosmic distances, it's a blink of an eye period of time.
01:15After all, such stars can live for tens of billions of years.
01:19Even though the mysterious object is only moving at 0.001% of the speed of light,
01:26it's still potentially fast enough to eventually break free from the gravitational pull of our galaxy
01:32and fly into intergalactic space.
01:35Let's put this speed into perspective.
01:38J1249 is traveling 2.6 times faster than the fastest space probe ever launched.
01:45I'm talking about the Parker Solar Probe.
01:48The Parker Probe reached this speed in June 2024 while looping around the Sun.
01:56J1249 was discovered by citizen scientists volunteering for NASA's Backyard Worlds Planet 9 project.
02:04These volunteers sift through online images taken by NASA's Wide Field Infrared Explorer and NEOWISE missions.
02:11They're looking for anything interesting.
02:14Three of those volunteers spotted a faint, fast-moving object as it moved across WISE images.
02:21When they realized what they were looking at, they were incredibly excited
02:26but thought someone had already reported the space object.
02:29But surprisingly, that wasn't the case.
02:33At the moment, most scientists believe that CY's J1249 could either be a low-mass star or a brown dwarf.
02:41That's a type of star that is larger than a planet but too small to support nuclear fusion in its
02:47core, like our Sun does.
02:49In other words, such stars don't have enough mass, and their cores can't burn their star fuel, radiating starlight.
02:56That's why brown dwarves, often referred to as failed stars, are smaller and cooler than the Sun.
03:02They even have complex, planet-like atmospheres, which have clouds and molecules, for example, H2O.
03:12Anyway, to confirm or disprove this theory, astronomers continued to observe the object with the help of ground-based telescopes.
03:19Soon, they found out that the object had an unusual composition, with much less iron and other metals,
03:26compared to typical stars or brown dwarves.
03:29It allowed NASA to claim the unthinkable.
03:33J1249 could be one of the oldest stars ever found in our galaxy.
03:38Okay, that's certainly a game-changer, but why is this potential star moving so fast?
03:44The research team has a few theories.
03:46For example, the object might be the remains of a binary star system, where its companion, a white dwarf,
03:54exploded in a supernova after pulling too much material from J1249.
04:00Another possibility is that our mysterious traveler may have originated from a cluster of stars
04:05that dispersed after coming across two black holes.
04:10According to experts, one way to get to such extreme speeds is to fall toward an object and miss it.
04:17Such gravitational slingshots are how space probes are accelerated to extreme speeds,
04:22which allows us to explore the solar system up close over reasonable timescales.
04:28The same technique could also explain the speed of J1249.
04:34The star could have been born in the crowded center of our galaxy.
04:37Then, it might have fallen toward a star, missed, and in the process, was accelerated to extreme speeds.
04:48Well, let's leave astronomers to search for more evidence to confirm this exciting theory.
04:53Meanwhile, we're heading further, to the binary star system 55 Cancri.
04:58It lies 41 light-years away from Earth and hosts an amazing planet, 55 Cancri e, also known as Janssen.
05:09This is a scorched super-Earth, 8 times the mass of our planet, and it orbits its star in just
05:16over 17 hours.
05:18Yep, the year on this planet is shorter than one day on Earth.
05:22Plus, it's 25 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun.
05:28No wonder the planet's surface reaches blistering temperatures of 4,350 degrees Fahrenheit.
05:35That's hot enough to melt nearly any known metal.
05:38Back in 2010, a study found out that the host star of 55 Cancri e had an unusually high carbon
05:45-to-oxygen ratio.
05:47If this ratio was also true for the planet, it would mean that 55 Cancri e might have huge quantities
05:54of carbon.
05:55And the coolest thing? It would be in the form of diamonds.
05:59It'd make this space body a literal diamond planet.
06:03Sadly, some follow-up studies discovered that the carbon-to-oxygen ratio on the planet was less extreme than originally
06:10thought.
06:11It makes the idea of a diamond-encrusted world less feasible.
06:15On the bright side, planets don't always have to match the composition of their host stars exactly.
06:21If some other process topped up the carbon on 55 Cancri e, it could still be the most precious planet
06:27known in the universe.
06:29Definitely worth a visit.
06:32But let's leave the diamond planet behind and fly to Vega,
06:36which holds a special place as one of the brightest and most important stars in the sky.
06:42The brightest of other stars is measured against the brightness of Vega on a special magnitude scale,
06:48where Vega's magnitude is zero.
06:51A star with a magnitude of 1 is 2.5 times dimmer than Vega,
06:55and a star with a magnitude of negative 1 is 2.5 times brighter.
07:01Vega is also a pole star, although not at the moment.
07:05Right now, Earth's axis points toward Polaris, the north star.
07:11But Earth's axial tilt draws a circle over 26,000 years,
07:15and Vega will again be the pole star in about 12,000 years.
07:19Just you wait.
07:20But the coolest thing about Vega, which sets it aside from other stars,
07:24is that it's not shaped like a perfect sphere.
07:27Unlike the sun, which rotates slowly and is almost spherical,
07:32Vega spins very fast, completing one rotation in just 12.5 hours.
07:37And it causes it to bulge at the equator, taking on an egg-shaped appearance.
07:43And now, get ready for the most dangerous encounter of them all.
07:47But first, I must warn you.
07:49Even though space is unimaginably vast, it's populated extremely sparsely.
07:55The universe's average density is equivalent to 6 protons in 35 cubic feet.
08:01But some areas, known as voids or supervoids, contain even less matter.
08:06These regions are enormous and can span 30 to 300 million light-years.
08:12And there's almost nothing there.
08:15There are also places in the universe where time and space are distorted
08:19in ways that challenge our human comprehension,
08:22like binary black hole systems,
08:25where two massive black holes dance around each other before eventually merging.
08:30As they spiral closer,
08:32they release immense gravitational waves that ripple across space-time.
08:37The first detection of such waves
08:39was made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory in 2015,
08:45when it recorded the final collision of a black hole pair.
08:48In the final 20 milliseconds before the merger,
08:52the black holes released more gravitational energy
08:54than the total energy emitted by all the stars in the observable universe
08:58during the same period.
09:01But that's not all the universe has to offer.
09:04Once you start exploring,
09:05you can come across exoplanets,
09:07like Korot 7b,
09:09where rock clouds form and send pebbles raining from the skies.
09:13Or KELT 9b,
09:15the hottest known planet with surface temperatures reaching 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
09:20Or TRES 2b,
09:22the darkest planet ever discovered.
09:25It absorbs over 99% of the light it receives,
09:28making it blacker than coal.
09:31So, as you can see,
09:33in the vast, almost incomprehensible scale of the cosmos,
09:37mysterious, fast-moving objects,
09:39strange planets and immense voids
09:41serve as a reminder of how much we have yet to learn about the universe.
09:48Like the little engine that could,
09:50NASA's Curiosity rover has been bravely crawling over Gale Crater on Mars,
09:55trying to see what could have happened billions of years ago
09:58that made the planet a red desert.
10:01And it looks like it might have finally stumbled upon something.
10:05While life seems impossible on Mars now,
10:08eons ago,
10:09it may have been a world more like Earth,
10:11with a thick atmosphere,
10:12water,
10:13and maybe even life.
10:15And it seems things changed just recently.
10:18Studies show that just 3 billion years ago,
10:21the northern hemisphere of Mars
10:23might have hosted a stable ocean.
10:25On Earth,
10:26the Archeon eon was in full swing.
10:29Volcanoes were going crazy,
10:30and life was taking its first steps.
10:32Life was also perhaps taking its first steps on Mars.
10:36No, not a frozen wasteland like Antarctica,
10:39but in a body of water like an Earth ocean.
10:43And this Earth-like climate extended Mars' habitable period
10:46by about 500 million years more than we thought before.
10:51In other words,
10:52there was a half a billion years where it was exactly like Earth,
10:55with conditions just right for life to start forming.
10:59But then,
11:00something happened that changed things forever.
11:03The atmosphere thinned,
11:05Mars lost its oceans,
11:06and became the cold, desolate place we see today.
11:09It's been a mystery for a while,
11:11but now,
11:12curiosity stumbled upon something interesting in the Gale Crater.
11:16A vast basin on the Martian surface,
11:19where billions of years ago,
11:21water once flowed freely.
11:23It found carbonates,
11:24stuff that can tell us all about the ancient Martian climate.
11:28There are minerals that form when carbon dioxide,
11:31or CO2,
11:33dissolves in water,
11:34which means that,
11:35to create them,
11:36you need two things,
11:37a nice thick atmosphere,
11:39and liquid water.
11:41Now, on Earth,
11:42CO2 is super important,
11:43because it helps trap heat from the sun in our atmosphere.
11:47This keeps our planet warm enough to support life.
11:50Plants eat it during photosynthesis to create oxygen,
11:53which humans and animals need to breathe.
11:55On Mars,
11:56the presence of CO2 shows that there really was some kind of climate system.
12:01When CO2 starts dissolving in water,
12:04it reacts with certain minerals in the ground,
12:07like calcium or magnesium,
12:09and creates carbonates.
12:10That's kind of how seashells form in oceans here on Earth.
12:13But instead,
12:14it's happening with rocks on Mars.
12:17And this discovery is huge.
12:19These carbonates act like fossils of the planet's ancient climate.
12:23They store information about what Mars was like long ago.
12:27By studying them,
12:29scientists can get a peek into Mars' past
12:31back in the day when water was present.
12:34They can tell us how the Martian atmosphere has changed over time,
12:38show whether the atmosphere was warm or cold,
12:41or if there was a lot of water around,
12:43and what happened to the planet in general.
12:45Luckily,
12:46Curiosity can study this stuff right there.
12:49It has the sample analysis
12:51at Mars' intunable laser spectrometer.
12:54Those are like Mars' forensic tools.
12:56The SAM is a mini-lab on wheels,
12:59and is capable of heating Martian rock samples
13:01to extreme temperatures.
13:03There are two ovens
13:04that can heat samples to about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
13:08This intense heat causes rocks
13:10to release gases trapped inside,
13:12the ones that are like ancient fingerprints of Mars,
13:15atmosphere.
13:16Once they're released,
13:18the TLS analyzes them in detail,
13:21breaking them down to the tiniest parts.
13:23And what the scientists discovered
13:25blew away all our previous assumptions
13:27about Mars' habitability.
13:29Turns out,
13:30it's not just about Mars once being wet,
13:33but there was something that led
13:34to the gradual drying and cooling of the planet.
13:37In other words,
13:38Mars' water didn't just disappear.
13:41It evaporated quickly under extreme conditions.
13:44So, what happened to it?
13:47Astronomers produced two possible explanations.
13:50The first one says that Mars went through periods
13:53where it was sometimes wet and sometimes dry.
13:56The water didn't last a long time.
13:58It may have appeared in short bursts,
14:00with periods where it would dry up and then return.
14:03The second possibility is more intense.
14:06The water that was there was incredibly salty and cold.
14:09So, instead of being liquid,
14:11it was mostly frozen in ice.
14:13This would have made the planet
14:14way too harsh for life as we know it,
14:17since the conditions would have been too extreme
14:19for anything to survive.
14:21Both possibilities sadly mean
14:23that Mars wasn't cozy and full of life in the past
14:26like some hoped.
14:27Well, at least, not on the surface.
14:29That doesn't mean underground life couldn't exist, though.
14:33This one is still a possibility.
14:35And to find more,
14:36we must keep looking for hints of water now.
14:39Actually, after years of exploring Mars,
14:41scientists have just made a mind-blowing discovery.
14:45Deep beneath the rocky surface of the Red Planet
14:47lies a hidden reservoir of liquid water.
14:50Real water this time.
14:52Not the frozen ice caps or vapor in the atmosphere,
14:55though it's miles below the Martian crust.
14:58This breakthrough comes from data
14:59collected by NASA's InSight lander.
15:02This guy spent four years
15:04listening to the subtle tremors of Mars.
15:06You know, Marsquakes.
15:07And it analyzed over 1,300 of them.
15:11Thanks to this,
15:12scientists were able to map out
15:14how seismic waves move through the planet.
15:17And it revealed pockets of liquid water
15:19buried 6 to 12 miles underground.
15:22Not just one lake, but puddles.
15:25So, they used the same methods
15:27we here on Earth use
15:28to find underground water,
15:30oil, and gas.
15:31And they were able to piece together
15:33the Martian underground system.
15:35You see, as the water disappeared and dried out,
15:39some of it escaped into space
15:41when Mars lost its thick protective atmosphere.
15:44However, this discovery shows
15:46that much of the water didn't disappear.
15:48It just sank deep underground,
15:50where it still lies today.
15:52So close, but out of reach.
15:54That's a huge step forward.
15:56Water is the most important molecule
15:58when it comes to shaping the destiny of a planet.
16:01And also,
16:02even though we said that Mars
16:03wasn't filled with life before,
16:06this doesn't take away the possibility
16:08of it having life now.
16:09If liquid water still exists deep underground,
16:13could there be some little microbes
16:15hiding there as well?
16:16Life as we know it can't survive
16:18without liquid water.
16:19And now, with this,
16:21the idea of life on Mars
16:23has become more plausible than ever.
16:26There's a catch, though.
16:27While this water may seem like a jackpot
16:29to future Mars colonization plans,
16:32it's not going to be easy to reach.
16:34To say that drilling six miles deep into the crust
16:37is no small feat is an understatement.
16:40Just so you know,
16:41here on Earth,
16:42the deepest we've drilled
16:43is about seven and a half miles.
16:45It was in the Kola Superdeep Borehole Project.
16:48And this project pushed current technology to its limits.
16:52Intense heat, pressure,
16:54equipment failures,
16:55you name it.
16:56With Mars, that would be even crazier.
16:59It has a much colder environment,
17:01extremely thin atmosphere,
17:02and lack of infrastructure.
17:04That would make any drilling mission
17:06extremely difficult.
17:07To reach water reservoirs
17:09buried so deep on Mars,
17:11we would need specialized drilling equipment
17:13that would somehow get delivered there.
17:15It should also be able to handle extreme cold,
17:18low pressure,
17:19and different gravity.
17:20Oh, and it should all operate remotely
17:23and preferably not break,
17:25all while it needs tons of energy.
17:28Yeah.
17:29Now, it's possible that we would only be able to do this
17:32in the future when we'll have automated systems
17:34or astronauts on Mars.
17:36That's not a quick task for even the most ambitious billionaires.
17:40So, for now,
17:42what these reservoirs hide is a mystery.
17:44But at least,
17:45it's not the only one.
17:47As we mentioned,
17:48Mars hides one of the greatest secrets
17:50beneath its frozen southern pole,
17:52another buried vast lake of liquid water.
17:55The radar revealed it
17:57as it scanned the ice cap in this region.
18:00Hey, just don't make me pronounce it.
18:02Now, it's weird that it managed to stay liquid
18:04with such low temperatures.
18:06It's probably because of the geothermal heat
18:09beneath Mars' surface.
18:10And life could be there, too.
18:12So now,
18:13they're thinking about probing this lake first.
18:15That would be much easier.
18:18Curiosity's work is incredible.
18:19And it keeps helping us peel back
18:21the layers of Mars' ancient climate,
18:24giving us new pieces to the puzzle
18:26of what happened to our neighbor.
18:27And this could help us avoid similar mistakes
18:30in the future.
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