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Explore the chilling mysteries of space with these spine-tingling stories and unearthly objects that reveal the sinister side of the cosmos.
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00:00About a third of all grown-ups have a snake phobia, but if you decide to become an astronaut not
00:05to have to deal with them, it might not be a great idea.
00:09According to Story Musgrave, there are snakes in space.
00:13Musgrave is one of the most experienced astronauts in the world right now.
00:17He is the second astronaut who managed to go on six space flights and fly on all the space shuttles.
00:25With that much experience and time in space, he has to have one or two space horror stories in his
00:31career.
00:32Once on a space mission, he looked out of the window and saw something resembling a snake.
00:39Musgrave said it was six to eight feet long and looked like a snake, but many people don't believe his
00:45story.
00:46They claim it was some trash floating in space or something that had detached from the spacecraft.
00:52But the astronaut went on another mission and saw the creature again.
00:56The first time he spotted it, it could be some detached piece from the spacecraft.
01:01But what are the chances of that happening twice?
01:05He gave many interviews in which he explained these crazy encounters.
01:10Let's hope those snakes stay in space and don't come crashing down on Earth.
01:15If they are real, of course, snake rain would not be fun.
01:22As we all know, space is like a giant vacuum chamber with zero air and sound can't travel there, making
01:30this story even more terrifying.
01:32To communicate, astronauts have a special system in their suits to exchange information.
01:38Young Lee Wei shared his terrifying experience, and it's hard to believe it actually happened.
01:44You would be terrified if you were alone at home and someone started knocking on your door at night.
01:50Of course, if you weren't expecting anyone.
01:53Imagine the same scenario, but you're in space.
01:56You hear some knocking.
01:58You have nowhere to run.
02:00You're trapped in a metal can, floating into nothingness.
02:04Young was sitting in his spacecraft, minding his own business,
02:08when he suddenly heard knocking coming from outside.
02:11How is it possible?
02:13Sound can't travel in space.
02:15The noise was unique.
02:17The astronaut described it as if someone had been knocking on an iron bucket with a wooden hammer.
02:23Lee Wei looked outside, but to his surprise, there was nothing there.
02:27He investigated a bit more, but couldn't find the source of the sound.
02:31When Young returned to Earth, he was eager to tell scientists about what had happened.
02:37But he could not recreate the sound.
02:40To add fuel to the fire, his colleagues, who were on the same mission from 2005 to 2008,
02:46said they had also heard knocking similar to what Young had reported.
02:51This is still a mystery.
02:53Nobody knows what happened then.
02:55Maybe it was just spacecraft noise, like those your house randomly makes.
03:03We've already mentioned that sound can't travel in space, but that doesn't stop weird noises.
03:09The Apollo 10 mission was one of the most significant space missions ever.
03:14So, astronauts had to ensure everything was perfect before they went on a moon exploration journey.
03:20Three people were on that mission.
03:23Thomas Stafford, Module Pilot John Young, and Lunar Module Pilot Eugene Cernan.
03:29They had to do tons of gear tests for the upcoming Apollo 11 missions.
03:34The astronauts were circling the moon when they heard music coming from somewhere.
03:38It wasn't like Ed Sheeran's concert.
03:41It was more like constant loud screaming.
03:44Then, it was quiet whistling.
03:47They were terrified.
03:49Imagine being in space for the first time and hearing weird noises.
03:54The sounds lasted for a whole hour.
03:58The astronauts had never heard anything like that before.
04:02The sound was otherworldly and creepy.
04:05When they returned to Earth, they didn't know if they should tell someone about their experience, because it was hard
04:11to believe.
04:12Michael Collins, an astronaut from the Apollo 11 mission, later shared that he had also heard this sound.
04:19But there is a kind of logical explanation for this.
04:23Engineers from NASA said that the sound that they had heard had been caused by the interference with the communication
04:29system.
04:30So, you can relax and throw your tinfoil hat in the trash.
04:34But before you do that, Al Worden, an astronaut from the Apollo 15 mission, said that this explanation was unlikely.
04:42So, we might never find out what really caused the sound.
04:49Leroy Chow was the commander of the International Space Station in 2005.
04:55When it comes to space, he's seen a lot of things that can send chills down your spine.
05:00One encounter he and his crew had will live on in their head, rent-free forever.
05:06Chow was sitting in the space station doing his job when he suddenly spotted light from the corner of his
05:11eye.
05:12He took a closer look, and it resembled an upside-down V, floating and glowing in space.
05:19Leroy later explained that he hadn't been scared by the object.
05:22But, quite the opposite, he was extremely excited to see it, even though he had no idea what it was.
05:30His crew also saw the strange object.
05:33Chow was convinced he was visited by something not from Earth.
05:37His team could also vouch that, indeed, they saw something unexplainable.
05:42The information about this encounter is all over the Internet, and many people are skeptical.
05:49It could have been anything.
05:51There are more than 10,000 satellites in space right now.
05:55It could have been a satellite floating in space.
05:59Another theory is that those were lights reflecting from a fishing boat on Earth.
06:04But, who knows?
06:05There may be another logical explanation for this phenomenon waiting to be discovered.
06:14Horror stories don't stop there.
06:16This one is hard to believe, and it's up to you to figure out if it's true.
06:21Astronaut Alan Bean was the fourth individual to set foot on the Moon's surface.
06:26When he was on the Apollo 12 mission, he claimed he saw a unique shape on the Moon.
06:31It was shiny and shaped like a shoe.
06:35It's hard to know what he saw because he passed away in 2018.
06:40Chinese lunar rover, Yutu-2, also discovered some shiny substance on the Moon.
06:46Scientists say it was something gel-like.
06:49It could be a glaze that formed when something impacted the Moon's surface,
06:53like a meteorite or something else.
06:56But in the future, we might find a better explanation for this strange find.
07:03This may sound wicked, but many countries send animals to space before humans follow them.
07:09Take Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey, Ham the Chimp, and many more.
07:15Many of these animals returned to Earth safely and lived happily ever after,
07:20like Ham the Chimp, that lived for 26 years.
07:23But some weren't so lucky.
07:26Astronauts are still creeped out when they see animals floating in space.
07:30Imagine seeing something like that in a dark vacuum.
07:33No matter how tough you are, after that, you will be afraid of your own shadow.
07:39This may be sad, but it was an essential step in space exploration.
07:46The following horror story comes from space engineer Moussa Manorov.
07:52This guy came across something that made scientists confused.
07:56He was shooting a video of space when he accidentally filmed some shiny object flying in the distance.
08:03The thing had a cylindrical shape,
08:05and Manorov thought it was something that had detached from the spacecraft.
08:09But he was unsure because it moved in a unique way.
08:14When you think of a creepy space story,
08:16the first thing that comes to your mind is some creature crawling on the spacecraft.
08:21Or some weird object flying in space.
08:24But all those things are highly unlikely to happen.
08:28When somebody asked Chris Hadfield what the scariest thing about space was,
08:33he said it was asteroids.
08:35There are thousands of them in space,
08:38and the spacecraft is constantly getting hit by them.
08:42Chris said that he had always heard sounds from asteroids hitting his spacecraft.
08:47He also mentioned that the spacecraft's solar panels were covered with holes.
08:52And you never know whether a giant asteroid will come and hit your spacecraft.
08:59Now, are there real-life space monsters?
09:02Well, of course, there are no huge beasts made of stars that are flying through the universe.
09:07However, there are some things in space that truly remind us of things from our nightmares.
09:13The first one is the Eagle Nebula,
09:16also known as Messier 16 or Star Queen Nebula,
09:20a wonder located in the constellation Serpens.
09:24This dazzling nebula was discovered in the 17th century
09:28and earned its nickname from the visual impression it creates.
09:31If you look at it, it resembles a giant eagle flying through the universe.
09:36It's a young star cluster.
09:39Located super far away, about 5,700 light-years away from Earth,
09:44the Eagle Nebula spans a region of about 70 by 50 light-years in size.
09:49For comparison, our entire solar system is only 2 light-years long,
09:54with the distance between the Sun and Pluto being only around 5 light-hours.
10:00This enormous nebula is home to more than 8,000 stars.
10:04One of them is especially bright.
10:07It's a duo of massive stars, one about 80 times heavier than our Sun.
10:12And the nebula is actively creating new ones.
10:16Every day, the gas and dust in there are being compressed
10:20by the intense radiation and stellar winds
10:23from hot, massive stars within the cluster.
10:26This triggers the birth of new stars.
10:29And finally, in the heart of this nebula
10:32lie the iconic Pillars of Creation.
10:35These are vast columns of dust and gas
10:38seen in blue, red, and green hues.
10:41They serve as active stellar nurseries.
10:44The dark clouds slowly draw together to birth the stars of the future,
10:49shaping the rich and complicated materials found in the universe.
10:53Pillars of Creation stretch about 4 to 5 light-years.
10:57So, about twice as big as our entire solar system.
11:01The Eagle Nebula is remarkably interesting to astronomers.
11:05It's a wonderful place for us to study the stars' birth and evolution.
11:09The grandeur of this place is amazing.
11:13However, it's more fascinating than frightening.
11:16Unlike the following monsters.
11:21Quasars.
11:22Captivating powerhouses fueled by supermassive black holes
11:26at the heart of galaxies.
11:28These black holes are millions to billions of times the Sun's mass.
11:32Matter spirals into them, forming a luminous accretion disk.
11:38Gravity within generates intense energy across the spectrum,
11:42making quasars shine brilliantly.
11:44Sometimes, they can even outshine entire galaxies.
11:49These cosmic monsters have been intriguing astronomers for years.
11:53Quasars have the appearance of regular stars,
11:56but have incomparable levels of energy.
11:58Their name comes from quasi-stellar radio sources.
12:02They're radiating across the spectrum.
12:04Radio waves, visible light, ultraviolet light,
12:08x-rays, and gamma rays.
12:10We've been catching their signals for many years,
12:12but first glimpsed them only in the 1960s.
12:16Quasars are one of the most ancient objects in our universe.
12:20Their light, traveling billions of light-years,
12:23helps us to learn more about the universe's early days
12:25when these monsters were aplenty.
12:28They gradually dimmed over time,
12:30so we can only imagine how brightly they looked back then.
12:34One of the most iconic of them is Quasar Colossus.
12:38It's not one monster.
12:40It's a giant group of 73 quasars.
12:43Together, they're spanning 4 billion light-years
12:47and outshine 100 million Milky Ways.
12:50Something like that is impossible for us to even imagine.
12:56Our next monster is called a pulsar.
12:59When a big star goes out of its fuel, it goes boom.
13:03What's left behind that is a neutron star,
13:05which has a mass several times that of our sun,
13:08but crammed into a sphere as small as a city.
13:12They're super dense.
13:14Sometimes it teams up with some friend, like a companion star.
13:17If the companion shares its stuff with a neutron star,
13:21things can go wild.
13:23The extra material might make the neutron star collapse,
13:27becoming even denser.
13:28In that case, it would turn into a so-called quark star.
13:33But if it doesn't happen, the neutron star goes a different route.
13:37This immense density means that the protons and electrons in the star
13:41collapse into each other,
13:43forming a sea of neutrons,
13:45particles without an electric charge.
13:48This is when the so-called pulsars are born.
13:52Now, pulsars come with an incredible magnetic flare.
13:57These stars boast magnetic fields
13:59trillions of times more powerful than Earth's.
14:02The fun begins when this super-magnetized pulsar starts to spin.
14:07It's not a leisurely twirl.
14:09Pulsars can rotate hundreds of times per second.
14:13They're the fastest objects in the entire universe.
14:16As the pulsar whirls around,
14:18it shoots out beams of electromagnetic radiation.
14:21These beams act like lighthouses,
14:24sweeping across the universe with each rotation.
14:27If the Earth happens to be in the path of one of those beams,
14:30astronomers detect pulses of radiation.
14:34That's where the name pulsar comes from.
14:38There's someone closely related to pulsars,
14:41the zombie stars.
14:43Sometimes, even after the star reaches the end of its life
14:46and goes supernova,
14:48it doesn't fade away entirely.
14:51Some matter might remain.
14:52In that case, it transforms into a celestial zombie.
14:57These zombie stars often appear in pairs,
14:59with one star giving in to its smaller companion.
15:03It acts like a vampire,
15:05feeding on other nearby stars.
15:07It drinks up hydrogen to come back to life.
15:10When it grows to the size of a planet,
15:13it bursts into a brilliant supernova again,
15:16destroying the star it fed on.
15:19Zombie stars aren't fussy eaters.
15:21They go beyond devouring stars.
15:24One of them is in the Virgo constellation,
15:26and it doesn't just munch on stars.
15:29It gobbles up the energy and stuff from its planets.
15:32And just like actual zombies are always on the go to find more food,
15:37these stars travel through galaxies.
15:40Recently, we found another one of them in a faraway galaxy.
15:43It's been traveling and evolving over the years,
15:47getting brighter.
15:48And this show started millions of years ago,
15:51back in the age of dinosaurs.
15:53Studying them can help us better understand
15:55how space objects work in wild conditions.
15:58It also helps us reveal secrets about fundamental particles
16:03and explore the physics of super-dense stellar leftovers.
16:09Now that we've met zombies,
16:12there are also cosmic vampires.
16:14Blue straggler stars defy aging
16:17by sucking life from their neighbors.
16:19They appear younger and bluer than their ancient companions
16:22because of that,
16:24confusing poor astronomers about their true age.
16:27Scientists studied 21 blue stragglers
16:30in a faraway, 7-billion-year-old star cluster.
16:34That's when they made a breakthrough.
16:36They assumed that it was because of mergers or collisions.
16:40But then scientists revealed these sneaky stars as thieves,
16:44feasting on nearby stars to stay forever young.
16:48While this discovery explains most blue stragglers,
16:51a few remain mysterious,
16:53which means they probably have varied origins.
16:57researchers plan to use the Hubble Space Telescope
16:59to detect their hidden companions
17:01and learn more about them in the future.
17:06Our final monster is an electric leviathan.
17:10In 2011, astronomers stumbled upon a colossal jet
17:15spewing out of a galaxy with a funny name, 3C303.
17:20It's 2 billion light-years away.
17:23What made this discovery truly electrifying
17:26was the electric current it carried,
17:28an insane 1,018 amps.
17:32For comparison, a regular light bulb can barely reach 1 amp.
17:36This is equivalent to a trillion lightning bolts.
17:39This jet, powered by a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core,
17:44extended over 150,000 light-years,
17:47surpassing the Milky Way span.
17:49This faint galaxy, first observed in the 80s,
17:53was hidden from us for a long time.
17:56We only discovered it thanks to catching different wavelengths.
18:00Typically, jets emerge from galaxies with active supermassive black holes.
18:05Only around 10% exhibit matter-spewing jets.
18:09The secret to the record-breaking current of this little galaxy
18:13lies in the hyperactivity of its black hole.
18:17This black hole creates a super-robust magnetic field,
18:20and this magnetic field creates this electrical leviathan.
18:25So, not only do we find the universe's highest electrical current,
18:30but it also marked a rare opportunity to study one of these large jets.
18:36Scientists keep making their equipment better to study in more detail
18:39so we can learn more about them in the future.
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