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In this captivating video, we delve into the exciting discoveries made by astronomers as they identify three planets that exhibit perfect conditions for life. We also explore a fascinating phenomenon that occurs exclusively on Saturn, shedding light on the planet's unique characteristics.
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00:00Very recently, astronomers have found three potential super-Earth planets orbiting a somewhat close orange dwarf star.
00:08The term super-Earth is used to describe a planet beyond the solar system with a mass higher than that
00:14of Earth,
00:14but below those of the ice giants of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune.
00:20An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Shweta Dalal from the University of Exeter,
00:25found that the exoplanets were orbiting star HD 48498, which is located around 55 light-years away from Earth.
00:34The planets travel around their star in 7, 38, and 151 Earth days, respectively.
00:40The study describing these findings appeared in the journal MinRAS on the 24th of June, 2024.
00:47The coolest thing here is that the outermost exoplanet candidate orbits in the habitable zone of its host star,
00:53and the conditions there might be comfortable enough for liquid water to exist on the surface without boiling or freezing.
01:01Such habitable regions around stars are also known as the Goldilocks zone,
01:06and are believed to be ideal for potentially supporting life.
01:10Another reason this discovery is so important is that the orange host star is like our Sun.
01:16But since it's an orange dwarf, it produces less radiation than our yellow dwarf star.
01:21It's also the closest planetary system to host a super-Earth in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star,
01:27which makes this discovery super exciting.
01:30It can help us move forward in our quest to locate habitable planets around solar-type stars.
01:35Who knows? Maybe this planet will be our new home one day.
01:40These potential super-Earths were detected thanks to the HARPS and Rocky Planet Search Program.
01:46Throughout a decade, the team taking part in this research has collected nearly 190 high-precision measurements using special equipment.
01:54By analyzing the spectrum of light coming from a star, astronomers can figure out whether it's moving toward us,
02:01this is known as blue shift, or away from us, that's what we call red shift.
02:06And still, to make sure their findings were correct, the team used lots of different methods and comparative analysis.
02:13Everything confirmed their conclusions.
02:15There, indeed, are three planetary candidates with minimum masses ranging from 5 to 11 times the mass of our home
02:22planet.
02:23The team also believes that the proximity of the star, together with the outermost planet's favorable orbit,
02:30can make this system a great target for future studies.
02:33Hopefully, further research will open doors for our understanding of planetary systems
02:38and the potential of life outside our solar system.
02:42Scientists have already discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets, which are planets outside the solar system,
02:49since the first such world was confirmed orbiting a sun-like star in 1995.
02:55To find those distant planets, astronomers use different equipment,
02:58like NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, launched in 2009.
03:03Its mission was to find as many Earth-like planets dwelling in the Milky Way galaxy as possible.
03:07But it's not the only instrument used for searching exoplanets.
03:12Anyway, now let's look at the most exciting and promising of these worlds.
03:18Gliese 667 cc is a mere 22 light-years from Earth.
03:23But even though it seems close, it's still around 129 trillion miles away from us.
03:28The planet itself is around 3.8 times as massive as Earth
03:32and completes one orbit around its host star within 28 days.
03:37In other words, a year on that Earth-like planet is 13 times shorter than a year on our planet.
03:43Luckily, the star is a cool red dwarf, so the exoplanet most likely lies in its habitable zone.
03:49But there's still a chance that this world might be regularly baked by the flares coming from its parent star.
03:55Which is not cool on many different levels.
04:00Kepler 22b is way further away than the previous world, more than 600 light-years away from our planet.
04:07It was the very first Kepler planet found in the habitable zone of its star.
04:11This world is larger than Earth.
04:13It's about 2.4 times our planet size.
04:16Sadly, we still don't know whether this planet is rocky, liquid, or gaseous.
04:20The orbit of Kepler 22b is similar to Earth's.
04:24It takes the planet 290 days to orbit its G-class star, which is kind of like our sun.
04:30But this star is smaller and colder than ours.
04:34Another Kepler planet, this time it's Kepler 69c.
04:38It lies a whopping 2,700 light-years away from us.
04:43This world is also almost 70% larger than Earth.
04:46Researchers know nothing about its composition.
04:49But they've found out that the planet needs 240 days to complete one orbit.
04:54This makes its position in its system like that of Venus in our solar system.
04:59At the same time, this world might be more habitable than Venus,
05:03since its host star is a bit less luminous, 80% of our sun.
05:09TOI 733b is a recently discovered world.
05:13It was found in 2023.
05:14It's out there, 245 light-years away from Earth,
05:18and needs just 4.9 Earth days to complete an orbit around its star.
05:23But the coolest thing about this planet is that it might have a massive ocean.
05:28According to scientists, the planet is likely to be completely covered with water.
05:32Does that mean there could be life on the super-Earth?
05:35Time will tell.
05:39GJ1214b is located 48 light-years from Earth.
05:42This planet is a super-Earth, almost 3 times bigger in diameter,
05:46and 8 times heavier than our home.
05:48It orbits around its red dwarf star faster than you can binge-watch your favorite series,
05:53finishing a complete loop every 38 hours.
05:56But it's not just the planet's size or orbit that's out of this world.
06:00It's pretty hot out there, with mind-melting 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:06But the coolest thing is that this planet is practically drowning in water.
06:10The sizzling temperatures and crazy high pressures on GJ1214b create some cool materials like hot ice and super-fluid water.
06:20Super-fluidity is something that happens in liquid helium when it's almost as cold as it can get.
06:26On Earth, water totally missed the memo about being super-fluid
06:30because it needs ridiculously low temperatures and off-the-chart pressures to pull off that trip.
06:35Still, there's not much use in super-fluid water.
06:38Even if you try it, you'll just get dehydrated.
06:42The super-Earth that's closest to us was discovered in 2016, and it's called Proxima Centauri b.
06:49It's located a mere 4 light-years away from Earth and has a mass remarkably similar to that of our
06:54planet.
06:55A year on Proxima Centauri b is short.
06:58It only takes the planet 11.2 days to complete a circle around its central star.
07:04Scientists discovered this world after they noticed that its parent star was slightly wobbling.
07:08They hadn't been sure what exactly had been happening there until they realized Proxima Centauri b's gravity
07:15probably produced pulls and tugs that caused these wobbles.
07:19Although the exoplanet is traveling in the habitable zone of its star, Proxima Centauri,
07:24it is exposed to extreme ultraviolet radiation, all because it lies very close to its parent star.
07:31Also, none of the telescopes that are currently working and exploring exoplanets
07:35are positioned well enough to capture the light from the atmosphere of this super-Earth.
07:40Most things there are still a mystery to us, even though we're talking about a planet that's really close.
07:47Super-Earth TOI-715b orbits a red dwarf, a star smaller and cooler than our Sun.
07:55At the moment, such stars remain prime candidates for finding habitable planets orbiting them.
08:00Those miniature rocky worlds have far closer orbits than those circling around stars like our Sun.
08:06But since red dwarfs are small and cool, the planets don't risk anything when crowding closer.
08:11They're still safely within a star's habitable zone.
08:15Experts say that TOI-715b might have once had an atmosphere thicker than that of Neptune.
08:22And now, the planet could be in a transition state where it's losing its atmosphere.
08:26To confirm this suspicion, scientists need to do more research.
08:30And they might finally learn whether this planet is a watery terrestrial planet.
08:36Attention, attention!
08:38Something very exciting is going on on Saturn.
08:41It's called a spoke season.
08:43And no, the planet isn't turning into a giant gaseous wheel.
08:47Let me tell you more about this phenomenon.
08:51Each year, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope devotes some of its time to observing Saturn, a gas giant, like me, the
08:59second-largest planet in the solar system.
09:01And this space body always has something new to surprise us with.
09:05For example, look at one of the latest images of the gas giant.
09:09See those smudgy spokes?
09:10They mean that Saturn's spoke season is starting.
09:13Like our planet, Saturn is tilted on its axis.
09:16That's why it has four seasons.
09:19But since the orbit of the gas giant is much larger, each of these seasons lasts about seven Earth years.
09:25Keep this in mind.
09:26It's important.
09:27Now, the next thing we need to talk about to understand the concept of the unique spoke season on Saturn
09:33is the equinox.
09:35On Earth, it's the moment when the Sun is exactly above the equator of the planet, and day and night
09:41are of the same length.
09:42But on Saturn, it's something a bit different.
09:45An equinox occurs when Saturn's rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun.
09:50And even though equinoxes on Saturn happen every spring and fall, just like on our planet, they actually occur very
09:57seldom.
09:58Roughly once in 15 Earth years.
10:00That's why astronomers are so excited about this event.
10:03Now look.
10:04There are two smudgy spokes in this ring.
10:07It's called ring B on the left of the picture.
10:10They resemble the spokes on a bicycle.
10:12The shading and shape of spokes vary.
10:14They may seem dark or light.
10:16It depends on the angle and illumination.
10:19Sometimes, they might look like blobs instead of something with a classical radial spoke shape.
10:24They also don't last long.
10:26But more and more will start to appear the closer we're to May 6, 2025.
10:31That's when the autumnal equinox on Saturn will occur.
10:35But what causes the spokes?
10:37Astronomers think it might be the gas giant's magnetic field.
10:40When a planetary magnetic field interacts with the solar wind, it creates an electrically charged environment.
10:47On Earth, this results in northern lights, also called aurora borealis.
10:52And if we speak about Saturn, the tiniest icy ring particles might get charged too.
10:57And it probably temporarily levitates these particles above the larger boulders the rings consist of.
11:03For the first time, the spokes in Saturn's rings were spotted by NASA's Voyager mission.
11:09It happened in the early 1980s.
11:11At the time, we didn't know that these spokes were a seasonal phenomenon.
11:16Voyager 2 just passed by the planet and then sped on.
11:19To figure out what these spokes were and how they functioned, astronomers needed a space telescope that could observe Saturn's
11:27rings from afar.
11:28Like Hubble.
11:29The latest equinox on Saturn occurred in 2009.
11:33At that time, NASA's Cassini space probe was traveling around the gas giant.
11:38It sent many amazing images back to Earth.
11:41They quickly proved that the spokes weren't caused by gravitational interactions with Saturn
11:45or the influence of the gas giant's moons or small moonlets, which make up the planet's rings.
11:51It was the year 2005 when Cassini confirmed that the spokes were related to Saturn's magnetic field.
11:59That mission was finished in 2017.
12:01Now, Hubble keeps its long-term monitoring of the changes on and around Saturn.
12:06Despite all the observations, astronomers still can't predict the beginning and duration of the spokes season.
12:12Luckily, Saturn's prominent rings are a perfect laboratory for studying this phenomenon.
12:17Because even though other gas giants in the solar system also have rings, those are not so visible.
12:24And scientists don't know whether spokes occur on those planets.
12:27But these spokes aren't the only exciting space phenomenon.
12:31Our solar system is a fascinating place.
12:34That's why.
12:35If you were standing at the Martian equator barefoot, your feet wouldn't get cold.
12:40The temperature there would feel like on a sunny spring day on Earth.
12:43But you'd have to wear a hat.
12:45At the height of your head, it would be freezing cold.
12:49Now, Venus spins backward, compared to most other planets in the solar system and the Sun itself.
12:54One of the explanations astronomers have come up with is a collision with some solid object,
13:00for example, an asteroid, that happened in the past.
13:04Jupiter's moon Io has hundreds of volcanoes, which makes the satellite the most volcanically active object in the solar system.
13:11The moon also has a weird yellowish surface.
13:14It looks blotted and resembles a pepperoni pizza.
13:17Yum!
13:18Europa, one of Jupiter's four biggest moons, is covered in ice.
13:23This ice shell can be 10 to 15 miles thick.
13:26It also has some smooth patches.
13:29So, if you're into ice skating, you would like it there.
13:31If you lump together all the known asteroids in the solar system,
13:36their total weight would still be smaller than 10% of the mass of our moon.
13:41Scientists believe that Mercury might still have a partially molten core.
13:46It could explain why Mercury has a magnetic field, even if it's just 1% as strong as Earth's.
13:52Mercury's core takes up around 42% of the planet's volume.
13:56Mercury also has wrinkles.
13:58When its iron core was cooling, the planet's crust contracted.
14:02It made the surface of the planet uneven.
14:05These wrinkles are called lobate scarps.
14:08The biggest of these scarps can be hundreds of miles long and up to a mile high.
14:14Uranus is the only planet in the solar system to rotate on its side.
14:19The reason might be an ancient mega-powerful collision with an Earth-sized object.
14:24But so far, it's just a theory.
14:26Mars might get a set of rings of its own in the next 70 million years.
14:31Its largest moon, called Phobos, is orbiting closer and closer to the planet.
14:36One day, it's likely to get broken apart by the gravitational pull of the red planet
14:41and turn into a ring that can last for millions of years.
14:44I won't be around then, so I'll just take their word for it.
14:48Scientists think that the moon's surface has more craters than Earth's
14:51because it doesn't have so much natural activity going on.
14:55Winds, rains, earthquakes, and erosion keep altering the surface of our planet.
15:00But the moon has almost no weather to change its appearance.
15:04Saturn is the most flattened planet in the solar system.
15:08It's squished at the poles, and any point on the equator
15:11is about 4,000 miles farther from the center of the planet than the poles.
15:15The Hubble Space Telescope weighs almost as much as two male African elephants
15:20and is as long as a big school bus.
15:23Yeah, that's a launch I'd love to see.
15:25Two elephants in a school bus.
15:27It's made almost 1.5 million observations since it was launched in 1990.
15:32Astronomers have used this data to write about 15,000 scientific papers.
15:38Everything on Earth and everything people can see in space,
15:41with the help of telescopes, is normal matter.
15:43It's made up of atoms and molecules and adds up to less than 5% of the universe.
15:49Almost 68% of the universe is dark energy,
15:53and the remaining 27% is dark matter.
15:56Does that really matter?
15:58As a matter of fact, it does.
16:00Saturn has a mysterious vortex swirling over the planet's south pole.
16:05The whole thing resembles an enormous hurricane-like storm,
16:08measuring almost 5,000 miles across.
16:11That's two-thirds the diameter of Earth.
16:13What confuses astronomers is that, although the phenomenon looks like a hurricane,
16:18it doesn't behave like one.
16:20Saturn is also the only planet in the solar system that's less dense than water.
16:25In other words, if you found a bathtub huge enough to fit this gas giant,
16:30it would float there like a rubber duck.
16:33Earthquakes on the Moon don't occur as often as on our planet.
16:36But when they do, it happens closer to the center of the satellite.
16:41Scientists think moonquakes might be caused by the gravity of Earth and the Sun.
16:46One of Saturn's moons, Iapetus, has bizarre two-tone coloring.
16:51The difference between the Moon's two hemispheres is great.
16:54One of them is light, and the other is eerily dark.
16:58Scientists haven't figured out this mystery yet.
17:00Now, the only asteroid belt in the solar system astronauts know about is between Mars and Jupiter.
17:07There are thousands of asteroids in this area.
17:09They're irregularly shaped solid objects of different sizes,
17:13but all of them are way smaller than a planet.
17:16Scientists have analyzed the chemical content of some meteorites
17:20found in the Sahara Desert, Antarctica, and other places.
17:23Some of the rocks turned out to have a Martian origin.
17:26Others arrived from the Moon or the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
17:31Ooh, space rocks.
17:33So, we can also say, space rocks.
17:36Yeah, we could say that.
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