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In this thought-provoking video, we dive into the groundbreaking claims of an astrobiology expert who believes he has discovered extraterrestrial life, and we confront the chilling reality of a black hole located on Earth. Join us as we explore these intriguing phenomena and their implications for our understanding of the universe!
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00:00Hey there, Earthling! If you think you're special because you live on the only habitable planet out there, think again.
00:08What makes a planet suitable for life? A whole bunch of factors, like the planet itself, its neighbors, and the
00:15star it orbits.
00:16A habitable planet is basically one that can sustain life, with things like access to water, energy sources, and nutrients.
00:24Earth, for example, is in the sweet spot, known as the habitable zone, where it can have liquid water on
00:31its surface.
00:32But just being in this zone doesn't automatically mean a planet is habitable.
00:37Factors like crazy levels of radiation can make a planet uninhabitable, even if it has the right temperature.
00:44So, the bottom line is, we need water, something to orbit, and a set of nutrients of chemical origin that
00:51can be found in Mendeleev's Periodic Table of the Elements, or those funky snacks you buy.
00:58Look at this exoplanet called K2-18b.
01:03The term exoplanet doesn't mean that it's exotic.
01:06It just states that this planet is located outside the solar system.
01:10Most planets need to orbit something, unless we're talking about rogue planets, that are basically planet-sized things floating around
01:18in space, but not orbiting around any star or brown dwarf.
01:22Instead of our sun, K2-18b orbits a red dwarf, called K2-18.
01:29It's not your average star you can see with the unaided eye in the night sky.
01:33This one is hard to observe because of its low luminosity.
01:38K2-18b is indeed a planet far, far away.
01:42It's located 38 parsecs away from Earth.
01:45One parsec is somewhere around 19 trillion miles.
01:49Hey, you do the math.
01:51Hint, lots of zeros.
01:53K2-18b is a sub-Neptune, meaning that it has a smaller radius than Neptune.
01:59However, it's much bigger than our humble abode.
02:02It's about 2.6 times the radius of Earth.
02:05As for the weight, K2-18b is way chunkier than Earth.
02:09It's about 8 times as massive.
02:11It takes 33 days for this planet to go around its star, and it gets just about as much starlight
02:17as Earth gets from the Sun.
02:20This planet has a light intensity of 1.28 times greater than Earth and has an equilibrium temperature of 28
02:27degrees Fahrenheit.
02:28Nope, it doesn't mean that K2-18b feels like New York in January.
02:34It only gives us an idea of the theoretical temperature put there.
02:38The planetary equilibrium temperature is basically the temperature a planet would have if it was perfectly balanced in terms of
02:46radiation.
02:46It's when the amount of heat leaving a planet is the same as the amount of heat coming in.
02:53Now, the trillions of miles that set us apart aren't a problem for potent telescopes,
02:59such as the Kepler Space Telescope that discovered this planet,
03:02and the James Webb Space Telescope that is studying its atmosphere now.
03:07In 2019, scientists announced that they had found water vapor in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b,
03:15which sparked widespread interest toward this outlandish world.
03:18Four years later, the Webb Telescope detected carbon dioxide and methane swirling in the air of this guy.
03:26Carbon dioxide is basically our best friend here on Earth.
03:29Humans need it to breathe properly and keep our blood pH in check.
03:33And plants love this stuff too, because it helps them make oxygen through photosynthesis.
03:39Obviously, we can't survive without it.
03:41Without methane either.
03:43However, this little gem got some scientists buzzing with excitement even more,
03:48due to the discovery of some funky dimethylsulfide gas molecules in its atmosphere.
03:54In 2023, scientists from the University of Cambridge spotted carbon-based molecules like methane and carbon dioxide
04:02hanging out on K2-18b with the help of JWST.
04:07This could mean that this exoplanet might feature a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a watery surface.
04:14There's a potential whiff of dimethylsulfide, or simply DMS, in the mix.
04:19On Earth, this stuff is usually linked to life, since it's normally produced by photoplankton in the oceans.
04:25The fact that we're picking up hints of DMS on K2-18b is like finding a golden ticket in the
04:32cosmic chocolate bar.
04:34Hey, kind of gives you the willies now, doesn't it?
04:38Why is DMS so important, you ask?
04:41Well, it's a bit of a superhero on our planet, playing a crucial role in the sulfur cycle
04:46and even affecting our climate by helping clouds form.
04:50And spotting DMS on other planets could be a sign of life similar to ours.
04:57Looks like this planet is a nice spot, with its not-that-rough temperature and all the right nutrients to
05:03keep us alive.
05:04So, what's your take on its overall look?
05:07It probably took the planet a good few million years to come together.
05:12While things might heat up deep down underground, it shouldn't make a big difference on the surface.
05:17Some experts believe it could be home to a water or molten lava ocean,
05:22with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere resembling a gas giant like Uranus or Neptune.
05:28Now, this one doesn't really match our Earth's standards, since our atmosphere is mostly made of nitrogen.
05:35If there's an ocean, it's likely under a thick layer of ice and rock, which could mess with the planet's
05:42climate.
05:42Once things get really hot, the line between the ocean and the sky blurs.
05:47We're not totally sure if there's a liquid ocean on K2-18b, and it's tricky to see one from afar.
05:54Just looking at the planet's size and weight won't give us the answer.
05:59The whole liquid-water-ocean thing is up in the air.
06:03Initially, we thought water in a supercritical state was most likely.
06:07But new observations point toward a liquid ocean.
06:11Suspicious gases like hydrocarbons and ammonia might be moving from the air into the water if there's an ocean,
06:18which could mean no clear line between the sky and the sea.
06:22But some experts say a molten rock ocean could be doing the same trick.
06:27Others think a gas-rich mini-Neptune setup could explain things too.
06:32The Hubble Space Telescope did some snooping and found that K2-18b is rocking an atmosphere filled with hydrogen.
06:41They think there might be some water vapor hanging out there too, but it's a bit of a mystery.
06:46Apparently, the James Webb Space Telescope got a peak and saw less than 0.1% water vapor,
06:53possibly because the planet has a dry stratosphere vibe going on.
06:58As for ammonia, it's nearly non-existent in that distant world.
07:03Methane and carbon dioxide seem to be dominant in the atmosphere, making up about 1%.
07:09But don't expect to see any other carbon oxides crashing the party.
07:14Their concentration is just a guess at this point.
07:18The atmosphere of K2-18b is just a small fraction of its total mass, around 6.2%,
07:25and has probably got a similar vibe to Uranus and Neptune.
07:30Haze-wise, there's not much going on, and water clouds are a bit of a mystery.
07:35They're probably icy, although there's a chance for some liquid water clouds too.
07:41Now, besides water, the atmosphere could also contain some ammonium chloride,
07:47sodium sulfide, potassium chloride, and zinc sulfide clouds,
07:52depending on what the planet is into.
07:54And it seems like things might get a bit turned up high in the atmosphere,
07:58with the temperature inversion causing a stratosphere situation.
08:02Just your average day in outer space.
08:04So far, scientists have come up with several climate models this planet might have.
08:10For example, some of them think that there's the same temperature across the whole planet.
08:15Unless the planet is spinning super fast,
08:18and the temperature difference between the poles and the equator is minor.
08:22But these are all speculations at this point.
08:25The amount of radiation K2-18b gets from a star is similar to what Earth gets.
08:31The temperature on the planet might be anywhere from really cold to pretty warm.
08:36Whether it can support life depends on its atmosphere and clouds.
08:41Scientists think microorganisms from Earth could survive there, even with all the hydrogen.
08:47But it's still hard to tell if there's life on K2-18b,
08:50because the gases we usually look for might not work in its atmosphere.
08:55Scientists think the James Webb Space Telescope
08:58might be able to detect different markers of life on the planet with enough observations.
09:04Well, well.
09:05We have been miscalling Uranus all this time.
09:08Actually, astronomers say we should be pronouncing it like Uranus, not Uranus.
09:13I can't say a different stress changes much, though.
09:16However, things could have been different.
09:18Initially, Uranus was supposed to have the majestic king-like name of George,
09:23because astronomers wanted to name it after King George III.
09:26In the end, they changed their minds.
09:29And now, well, it's the punchline of every joke.
09:33If you take the total cost of launching a mission and divide it by the weight of the cargo,
09:38you'll see some pretty mind-blowing figures.
09:40According to specialists, back in 2016,
09:43it used to cost $10,000 to send just one pound of cargo into space.
09:48But now, prices have gone through the roof.
09:50Cygna spacecraft's cargo costs over $43,000 per pound,
09:55while SpaceX's new carriers come in at around $27,000 per pound.
10:00Remember how hard it is to pay $5 for water at airports?
10:04Now, a bottle of water in space would cost somewhere between, oh, $9,000 and $43,000.
10:11And that's only to have it delivered in space.
10:14Now, as for water in space, well, it used to be considered a super-rare thing.
10:19But in reality, there's water ice all over our solar system,
10:23so you don't have to buy those overpriced 43K water bottles.
10:27It's hanging out there in comets, asteroids,
10:30and even in hard-to-see craters on Mercury and the Moon.
10:33We're not sure if there's enough water in these places to support colonies of people, though.
10:38Mars also has ice at its poles, hiding under the surface dust and frost.
10:43Even smaller celestial bodies, like Saturn's moon Enceladus and dwarf planet Ceres, have ice.
10:50NASA scientists think there might be a chance of finding life on Jupiter's moon Europa.
10:55There might be liquid water beneath its icy shell.
10:58Europa, even though it's a lot smaller than Earth,
11:01might have an ocean deep enough to hold twice as much water as all the oceans on our planet combined.
11:07In 2009, scientists exploring a massive cloud of dust and gas in the center of our galaxy
11:13stumbled upon a fascinating surprise.
11:16They found ethyl formate within the clouds.
11:19This chemical is responsible for the delightful flavor of raspberries and has a rum-like scent.
11:25Furthermore, another nearby region is brimming with ethyl alcohol,
11:29the same type found in many beverages.
11:31In fact, there is enough alcohol in this region
11:34to provide every person on Earth with 300,000 pints of beer every day for the next billion years.
11:42Now, believe it or not, we do have a black hole on Earth.
11:46The thing is, creating an in-lab black hole was a sort of indispensable thing to do.
11:52Studying black holes in real space remains a distant dream,
11:55so it was only possible to create one to experiment with in a lab.
11:59A group of scientists in the Netherlands wanted to explore the mysterious Hawking radiation theory
12:04proposed by the iconic Stephen Hawking.
12:07Using atoms to mimic an event horizon,
12:10they orchestrated electrons, causing a surge in temperature that resembled flat spacetime.
12:16As particles moved through quantum fluctuations,
12:18a ring of infrared radiation appeared around the lab-grown black hole,
12:23mirroring Hawking's idea.
12:24So, if you totally understood what I just said,
12:28could you please explain it to me?
12:31Now, it may sound insane, but you can totally be allergic to the Moon.
12:36Long story short, it was the final Apollo mission,
12:39and they brought back more rock samples than ever before.
12:42Plus, they had the first and only pro-scientist on the Moon, Jack Schmidt.
12:47He was a geologist, and his rock samples helped scientists learn more about the Moon's magnetic field
12:53and volcanic history.
12:55During the expeditions, it became evident that Jack Schmidt was allergic to moon dust.
13:00The gritty, sticky powder clung to his suit and his skin,
13:04causing irritation in his sinuses, nose, eyes, and throat
13:08for a couple of hours after he took his helmet off.
13:12Meanwhile, neutron stars are extremely dense,
13:15being basically just a bunch of neutrons squished into a super-small space.
13:20If you had just a teaspoonful of this stuff,
13:22it would weigh more than the entire human population combined.
13:26And to match the density of a neutron star,
13:29we'd all have to squeeze into the space the size of a sugar cube.
13:33No thanks.
13:35When it comes to outer space,
13:37we tend to think that Earth and the Moon are pretty close together.
13:40But in reality, you can actually squeeze all the other planets of our solar system
13:45between Earth and the Moon.
13:47The average distance between them is about 240,000 miles.
13:51If you added up the diameters of the seven planets,
13:54you'd still have some room to spare, about 5,000 miles.
14:00In 2011, scientists made a groundbreaking discovery
14:03of a massive reservoir of water in space.
14:06This water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in Earth's oceans,
14:12could provide each person on our planet with a planet's worth of water 20,000 times over.
14:17This reservoir was located near a massive black hole
14:20drawing in matter and emitting energy, known as a quasar.
14:24The water was formed by energy waves colliding hydrogen and oxygen atoms together,
14:29and it was found around 12 billion light-years away.
14:33So, when the Curiosity Mars rover snapped its very first sunset picture in 2015,
14:39scientists were practically doing backflips from excitement.
14:42Turns out, sunsets on the red planet are anything but red.
14:46They're actually a stunning shade of blue.
14:49According to NASA, the reason behind this phenomenon is that the dust in Mars' atmosphere
14:54is like a magical filter that lets blue light shine through
14:58while blocking out those warm tones like yellow, orange, and red.
15:03Well, Venus is a slow spinner compared to Earth.
15:07It takes this planet 243 days to make a full rotation,
15:11and it spins in the opposite direction.
15:13But even though Venus takes longer to spin around,
15:16it zooms around the Sun in just 225 days because it's located so close.
15:22So, believe it or not, a year on Venus is actually shorter than its day.
15:29So, you might think that the night sky should be full of stars with no dark spaces at all.
15:34This idea is known as Olbers' Paradox,
15:37named after German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers.
15:41He thought that if the universe was infinite, unchanging, and timeless,
15:45then we should see stars everywhere we look.
15:48But it turns out that the universe is not infinite, unchanging, or timeless.
15:53Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is actually expanding,
15:56and the leftover radiation from the Big Bang
15:59tells us that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old.
16:03Think of all the birthday candles.
16:05Ooh!
16:05So, the reason we don't see stars in every direction
16:08is because some stars are just too far away,
16:11or they haven't been around long enough
16:13for their like to travel all the way to us.
16:18During the Apollo 16 lunar mission,
16:20Ken Mattingly, the command module pilot,
16:23had a bit of a scare when he realized his wedding ring was missing.
16:27The whole crew frantically searched the spacecraft for it,
16:30but no luck.
16:31Finally, on day 9,
16:33while Mattingly was on a spacewalk,
16:35the ring was spotted floating out the hatch door.
16:38Charles Duke Jr. tried to grab it, but missed.
16:41Luckily, it bounced off Mattingly's helmet into Duke's hands.
16:45It's cool they found the ring,
16:46but there are many other things people left up there.
16:49There's even a toothbrush floating around somewhere.
16:54Mercury is already the tiniest planet in our solar system,
16:57not counting Pluto, of course,
16:59and the second densest after Earth.
17:01And believe it or not, it's actually shrinking and getting denser.
17:05For a long time,
17:07scientists thought Earth was the only planet with tectonic activity.
17:10But that all changed when the Messenger spacecraft flew by Mercury,
17:15giving us a detailed scan of the whole planet.
17:17In 2016,
17:19Messenger discovered these cool cliff-like formations called fault scarves.
17:24Since they're still relatively small,
17:26scientists think they're pretty new,
17:27suggesting that Mercury is still contracting 4.5 billion years
17:32after the solar system began.
17:35And around 10 years ago,
17:38Australian astronaut Luca Parmitano
17:40went through a near-drowning experience during his spacewalk
17:44due to a water leak that went unaddressed.
17:46Nobody knew how it happened
17:48and why Luca ended up having water in his helmet.
17:51NASA was investigating the issue for months,
17:54but they were unable to determine the exact cause of the water
17:58entering Luca's helmet.
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