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From 4G on the Moon to a terrifying black hole twin, space is full of surprises. Discover the latest breakthroughs that are reshaping our understanding of the universe!
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00:05about a century ago people envision the 21st century as a time filled with quirky inventions
00:11they weren't far off the mark we're now one step closer to establishing an actual settlement on
00:18the moon before we can create a new home up we need to find a way to stay connected beyond
00:24just
00:25transportation and shipping being able to send a simple text even something as casual as hey how
00:32are you is essential we can't move to the moon if we're cut off from earth let me spill some
00:38tea
00:38a lunar 4g network is currently being developed the company leading this initiative is none other
00:45than nokia's bell labs the company bought by the world famous finnish company that started out as
00:51a paper mill in the 19th century and later ventured into the cell phone industry creating iconic
00:57devices long before apple launched its first phone once the network is completed it will be loaded
01:04onto a lander deployed and connected using specialized radio equipment but don't think
01:10this is just a fun experiment it has significant purposes the lunar outpost rover one of the vehicles
01:16involved in this mission will thoroughly explore an area known as the shackleton connecting ridge
01:23another rover the micro nova will investigate a lunar crater in search of ice when they discover ice
01:31and capture images this information will be first transmitted to the lander and then relayed to earth an
01:38unprecedented achievement in history moreover the importance of a reliable phone connection cannot be
01:48overstated currently astronauts communicate via radio but nasa aims to establish a lunar communication
01:55system capable of supporting high resolution video effective communication during space missions is as
02:02crucial as food and water and with this new lunar 4g technology video calls on the moon could soon become
02:10a reality
02:11plus thanks to lunar 4g we'll be able to track how the endangered species sent to the moon are doing
02:20oh sorry i completely forgot to mention something important as more species edge closer to extinction today
02:27scientists are collecting samples from animals plants and other organisms to store in bio repositories around the globe
02:36unfortunately the conditions on earth are far from ideal for these modern day noah's arcs
02:42hence the decision to build one or two vaults on the moon makes perfect sense
02:48on the moon there is a permanently shadowed region at its south pole
02:52it may seem like a fortunate coincidence but some lunar craters may meet the criterion of temperature
02:59negative 320 degrees fahrenheit which is precisely what we need for long-term cell storage
03:06initially the plan was to construct the vault in lava tubes that run beneath the moon's surface
03:11but that would have posed significant risks this design requires a special solar-powered cooling system
03:18and any accidental loss of power could be catastrophic
03:23resulting in the destruction of all the samples
03:27however if we built it in a forever frozen shadowed area the vault wouldn't need any energy or human maintenance
03:33bingo
03:35it sounds almost too good to be true and indeed there are several complications
03:40for instance
03:41dust is an omnipresent issue on the moon
03:43infiltrating everything
03:46if the storage requires seals
03:48a dust mitigation system must be developed which has not yet been created
03:53so for now it remains a theoretical concept rather than a practical solution
03:5940 50 feet why don't you turn around and let them get a view from there
04:05i know you want to learn about real things not just concepts
04:08here's something real for you the moon is full of human waste carefully packed into bags
04:16according to estimates there are around 96 of these bags you'd probably prefer to never open
04:21but you never know what exactly is hidden inside it could be any product of the human body out there
04:27so if we ever make it to the moon and you accidentally stumble upon a mysterious bag
04:32my advice is to resist the urge to open it instead you can hand it over to scientists
04:38they say they're eager to get their hands on them
04:42humans are incredible in a rather unfortunate way
04:46we haven't even established a proper settlement on the moon yet
04:49but there's already around 200 tons of junk scattered about
04:54it piles up there as if it were a teenager's room rather than a celestial body
05:00alongside those rather unappealing human waste bags you'll also find cameras drills towels brushes
05:07rakes a multitude of other technical items and surprisingly a falcon's feather
05:13i'll explain that in a moment
05:15at the end of apollo 15's final moonwalk david scott pulled out a falcon's feather and a hammer to
05:22demonstrate galileo's theory that in the absence of air resistance different objects fall at the same rate
05:30amidst all that junk there's an actual piece of art so we could say that the moon if it doesn't
05:35have the very first art museum at least boasts a small exhibition the crew of apollo 15 took a 3
05:42.5
05:43inch tall aluminum figure to the moon created by a belgian artist it's called the fallen astronaut
05:49and it was laid on its side with a plaque listing the names of astronauts and cosmonauts who contributed
05:55to exploration but the list of odd objects on the moon doesn't end there if you ever find yourself in
06:02need of cash you can find it on the moon since a stack of two dollar bills was simply forgotten
06:08there
06:08yep a lot of material has been collected since 1969 when humans first stepped on the moon
06:20our natural satellite was first seen in a telescope in 1609 but what about its true age to understand
06:28that we need to start with how the moon first formed back in the mid 80s a conference in hawaii
06:35brought together a bunch of scientists to figure out where the moon came from they came up with a
06:41pretty cool idea the moon probably formed with the stuff that our planet earth donated
06:47picture this a mars-sized object crashed into the early earth flinging molten materials into space
06:54which eventually came together to become the moon we see today this theory clears up a lot of
07:00mysteries for instance it used to baffle folks why the moon has such a small iron core the answer is
07:08simple it formed from earth's outer layer which isn't rich in iron and that pale crust of the moon
07:15it's just minerals that floated to the top when the molten moon cooled down at first the moon was super
07:21close to earth but it's been slowly drifting away at about two inches a year even while you're watching
07:27this video figuring out when this all went down though is a bit tricky the apollo astronauts brought
07:35back a bunch of moon rocks which helped scientists estimate their ages the oldest ones are around 4.35
07:41billion years old which is about 200 million years after the solar system kicked off
07:49so here's the thing there's no exact date for when the moon formed but there are several interesting
07:56theories one idea is that the age of these rocks could mean the moon is around 4.35 billion years
08:02old but some scientists who look at how planets form think that most of the material in the early
08:09solar system came together way before that 200 million year mark they argue that a big impact that
08:16created the moon happening that late seems pretty unlikely which means the moon could actually be older than
08:223.5 billion years another interesting thought is that the moon might have gone through some serious
08:29heating events as it moved away from earth this is similar to what happens on eo one of jupiter's
08:35super volcanic moons the gravitational pull from a bigger body can stretch and compress a smaller one
08:41generating heat like when you squeeze a rubber ball the rocks on both eo and the moon warm up this
08:48way
08:48rocks have radioactive elements that act like internal clocks helping scientists figure out
08:55their ages the catch is if the moon heats up too much it resets those clocks and only starts keeping
09:01time again once it cools down so those rocks that are about 4.35 billion years old might not actually
09:08mark the moon's birthday they could just indicate a time of tidal heating this suggests once again that the
09:16moon had to have formed even earlier than that scientists think there might be a huge onion chilling
09:23somewhere out there in space not an actual one but it's something even crazier these are stars stacked
09:31inside each other layer upon layer these fascinating objects called gravastars could even be cousins of black
09:39holes but most importantly they might hold the key to understanding some of the most mysterious puzzles
09:45in the universe dark energy and even other dimensions let's start with gravity over a century ago
09:55albert einstein helped us understand how gravity works turns out it's not just something that pulls
10:02things on earth and makes apples fall on newton's head it's much wilder it's about warping the very fabric
10:10of existence itself let's say you toss a heavy ball like a bowling ball onto the middle of your bed
10:17what happens to the sheets they dip don't they they stretch and sag around the ball now if you roll
10:25a
10:25smaller ball like a marble across the bed it doesn't move in a straight line anymore instead it starts
10:32circling the heavy ball rolling closer and closer as if the heavy ball is pulling it in that's gravity
10:40but instead of bed sheets we're talking about the fabric of space and time itself or space time for
10:47short heavy objects like planets and stars make dents in space time and moons planets or even light
10:54move along these dents gravity is the curve that tells them where to go in that case you can guess
11:02that black holes are like the ultimate heavy balls the heaviest in fact the gravity is so strong it shrinks
11:10them making them smaller and smaller so tiny they can fit in the palm of your hand but with the
11:16mass of
11:17several suns some of them are like holding over 40 billion solar masses in your palm it's ridiculous
11:25but they basically create a bottomless pit in space-time with insane gravity this area around them
11:32called the event horizon is the most horrifying thing ever it's a point of no return once something
11:40gets there it can never escape being eaten when something falls past the event horizon it can't climb
11:46back out not even light which is why they seem like well black holes but gravistars there's something
11:55much weirder just like black holes they're probably very compact but instead of being tiny pits of
12:02endless gravity they might have something wild at their core dark energy this is one of the universe's biggest
12:11mysteries dark energy this invisible mysterious something that seems to be pushing the universe apart
12:18faster and faster it's like a polar opposite of gravity while gravity tries to pull things together
12:24to slow down the expansion of the universe dark energy is trying its hardest to make our world even bigger
12:32luckily dark energy has been winning so far otherwise we'd all be in some deep pit
12:38but if we can explain the gravity with balls then what exactly is dark energy a force an energy field
12:47something else we have no idea scientists have seen its effects they know that it's incredibly spread
12:54out everywhere but they can't tell you what that thing even is but if it's trapped inside of gravistars
13:01maybe we'll finally discover the truth this name stands for gravitational condensate stars gravistars were
13:11dreamed up by two physics professors paul mazur and emil motola in 2006 they tried to think what else
13:19besides black holes could happen when a massive star collapses on itself that's how they created this
13:27alternative think of it this way gravity pulls everything inward making super heavy objects like
13:33stars shrink in size the more the star shrinks the denser it gets and its gravity grows stronger after some
13:41point it can cross a critical threshold and become a black hole but what if there was dark energy inside
13:49to
13:49counteract this at the core of a gravistar there could be a region filled with false vacuum or dark energy
13:58this energy would push outward fighting the gravity it's like the unstoppable force meets an immovable
14:04object thanks to this the star core doesn't collapse into a black hole sounds wacky we don't know what dark
14:13energy even is so how can it fill up anything but luckily even if scientists can't fully explain dark
14:21energy they still have strong mathematical models to check how it works in our universe so they decided
14:28to test this theory here's where things get even weirder the new theory says that gravistars might not be
14:36simple lone objects instead they could be stacked one inside another each one is like a layer with
14:43its own dark energy bubble inside surrounded by a thin skin of matter the outermost shell would hold
14:50a smaller gravistar inside it and that one could hold an even smaller one and so on it's like a
14:57series
14:57of balloons one inside the other the air pressure in each one of them is stable evenly spread out thanks
15:04to that none of them deflate they coexist without one popping or collapsing the others in the case of
15:11gravistars the air is dark energy and the rubber is the shell of matter surrounding it it sounds crazy
15:18but it actually makes this whole idea more realistic a single gravistar might have a very thin shell of
15:25matter but the thicker they are the more likely it is to exist in a stable way and finally the
15:32coolest
15:33part about them is that they could explain one of the biggest mysteries of our world how universes are
15:39born when a star collapses into a gravistar the matter could theoretically implode through the center
15:47and create a new dimension this would connect these objects to the big bang itself some scientists even
15:56speculate that dark energy could be the energy exchanged between our universe and a child universe that's
16:02created created from a gravistar of course these are all just speculations for now
16:08but where are all those gravistars and how do we test this well physicists aren't sure either
16:15they're more of a what if thing than an actual object that they discovered those two professors just
16:21tried to imagine what would happen if gravity and dark energy worked together like this
16:27for now the ligo a big observatory which detects ripples in space time hasn't found clear evidence
16:34of gravistars another problem is that gravistars would only be stable in specific cases for example
16:41if they spin too fast or their shell will be too thick they might start to wobble or break apart
16:47eventually though it could actually take billions of years plus even if we don't see them right now
16:54remember that this is exactly what happened to the black holes themselves when einstein published his
17:01groundbreaking theory of general relativity another scientist carl schwarzschild took his equations and
17:07found a solution to them and that's when he realized if gravity becomes incredibly strong the light wouldn't
17:15be able to escape and this could create a sort of hole in space einstein even thought that this sounds
17:23too weird to be true it took many years for us to confirm black holes existence and we finally took
17:30a photo
17:31of one just a couple of years ago you might remember that blurry picture that blew up online it was
17:38sagittarius
17:39a star an incredible super massive black hole in the center of our galaxy milky way so that's why
17:47scientists approach gravistars so seriously and since all the math checked out which means that these
17:53objects are actually possible in real life now we just need to see if there's somewhere out there
18:01what's interesting is that they'd probably look like regular black holes they could emit high energy
18:07radiation as they consume matter they might even produce something called hawking radiation a type of
18:13energy that escapes from black holes in other words it would be nearly impossible to tell the difference
18:20but gravistars have a small trick up their sleeve if their shell is transparent to light they might bend
18:26light in a slightly different way than black holes do so maybe if they check the way light is bent
18:32around the mysterious object they could spot the difference and even if it turns out that gravistars
18:40don't exist in our reality they're still valuable to science they still taught us more about gravity black
18:47black holes and the limits of relativity
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