- 12 hours ago
Jupiter has always been one of the most stable and predictable planets in our solar system, but recent observations are raising new questions about what's happening beneath its turbulent clouds. From unusual changes in its massive storms to unexpected atmospheric behavior, researchers are closely monitoring developments they didn't anticipate. Are these simply natural fluctuations on a giant gas planet, or could Jupiter be entering a phase we've never witnessed before?
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00:09Scientists studying Jupiter have noticed something unusual happening to its most famous feature.
00:15The Great Red Spot, a massive storm that has been raging for centuries, is changing.
00:22Observations from NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescopes show that the storm is shrinking,
00:27becoming more circular, and behaving in ways that researchers did not expect.
00:33The Great Red Spot is not just any storm.
00:37It is the largest and longest-lasting storm ever observed in the solar system.
00:42It has been continuously tracked since at least the 1830s, and possibly even earlier,
00:48based on historical observations from the 1600s.
00:52At its largest, the storm was big enough to fit three Earths side by side.
00:58Today, it has shrunk significantly and is now about 16,000 kilometers wide,
01:04which is still large enough to swallow Earth, but much smaller than it used to be.
01:10Scientists have been tracking this change for more than a century.
01:13In the late 1800s, the Great Red Spot measured over 30,000 kilometers across.
01:20Since then, it has steadily decreased in size.
01:24To understand what is happening, researchers have been studying the storm in more detail than ever before.
01:30One of the most important sources of data comes from NASA's Juno spacecraft,
01:35which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016.
01:38Juno revealed that the Great Red Spot is not just a surface feature.
01:44It extends deep into Jupiter's atmosphere, reaching depths of about 300 to 500 kilometers.
01:51That makes it more like a massive atmospheric structure than a simple storm.
01:56At the same time, scientists noticed something unexpected at the edges of the storm.
02:02Portions of the outer cloud layers appear to be breaking off.
02:06This process, sometimes called flaking, involves pieces of red material peeling away from the storm
02:13and drifting into the surrounding atmosphere.
02:17This raised an important question.
02:19Is the Great Red Spot slowly disappearing?
02:22The answer is not so simple.
02:25Even though the storm is shrinking, it remains extremely powerful.
02:29Wind speeds inside the Great Red Spot can still reach up to 430 to 680 kilometers per hour.
02:38That makes it far stronger than any hurricane on Earth.
02:42Researchers believe that interactions with nearby smaller storms may play a key role in its behavior.
02:48These smaller vortices can either feed energy into the Great Red Spot or disrupt its outer structure, causing parts of
02:57it to break away.
02:59In other words, the storm may be losing size, but not necessarily losing strength.
03:05Another unusual feature is its color.
03:08The Great Red Spot has changed in appearance over time, sometimes becoming darker and more intense, and at other times,
03:17fading to a lighter orange.
03:19Scientists think this color is caused by chemical reactions involving sunlight, ammonia, and other compounds in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
03:28Changes in these chemical processes could explain why the storm's color varies over time.
03:35There is also growing evidence that storms on Jupiter are not permanent.
03:40Observations show that large atmospheric features can form, evolve, and eventually disappear.
03:47This suggests that even the Great Red Spot may not last forever.
03:51Some models indicate that if the current trend continues, the storm could keep shrinking over the coming decades.
03:59However, predicting its future is difficult, because Jupiter's atmosphere is extremely complex.
04:06The planet is covered in powerful jet streams that circle it at high speeds.
04:11These jet streams help stabilize large storms, but they can also stretch and reshape them over time.
04:18Recent data shows that Jupiter's atmosphere is layered and dynamic, with multiple storm systems interacting at different depths.
04:27This makes it difficult to determine whether the changes we are seeing are part of a long-term decline or
04:33just a temporary phase.
04:35What is clear is that the Great Red Spot is not as stable as scientists once believed.
04:42Even a storm that has lasted for centuries can change.
04:45NASA and other space agencies continue to monitor Jupiter closely, using spacecraft and telescopes.
04:53Each new observation helps scientists better understand how extreme weather systems behave on gas giant planets.
05:02For now, the Great Red Spot is still there, still active, and still one of the most recognizable features in
05:10the solar system.
05:11But the changes we are seeing suggest that even the largest and longest-lasting storms can evolve.
05:18And one of the most iconic features on Jupiter may be slowly entering a new phase.
05:26Hey, Space Buffs! Just how well do you know our solar system?
05:32Guess the planet! It's more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined.
05:37It's covered with striking swirls and stripes, which are actually windy clouds of cold ammonia and water, floating in an
05:46atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
05:49Still no clue? Then look at this!
05:51It's the infamous Great Red Spot, a giant storm larger than our home planet that has been raging for hundreds
05:58of years!
06:00Right you are! This cloudy world is Jupiter!
06:04And the main question is, is this planet our enemy or friend?
06:10NASA's Juno Orbiter is exploring this gas giant at the moment, sending us tons of useful data.
06:17Jupiter is so big that 11 Earths could fit across its equator!
06:22If our planet was the size of a grape, Jupiter would be a basketball!
06:27The gas giant is the fifth planet from the Sun, orbiting around 484 million miles away!
06:35And even though for us Earthlings, our blue-green world seems to be the most important among all the other
06:42planets, we live in Jupiter's solar system!
06:45After all, it accounts for 75% of the mass of all the planets in our star system!
06:51And it's also 318 times more massive than Earth!
06:57And whatever Jupiter wants, Jupiter gets!
07:01Jupiter wants to throw stuff across the solar system? No problem!
07:06After all, this gas giant doesn't have its immense gravity for nothing!
07:10It yanks material from the asteroid belt, stopping poor space rocks from forming anything larger than Ceres,
07:17the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system!
07:22Jupiter is hungry, it gobbles up comets, asteroids and whatnot!
07:27Jupiter is bored!
07:28It hurdles everything it manages to capture on wayward trajectories!
07:33This gas giant must have caused a lot of destruction over the course of its life, which is around 4
07:39.5 billion years!
07:43But here's the thing!
07:44Some scientists think that we might owe our very existence, and the existence of our planet,
07:49to Jupiter's protective gravity!
07:52It may sound confusing, but by greedily swallowing up dangerous space objects,
07:57this planet vacuums the solar system!
08:00Other astronomers don't agree with this theory!
08:03They claim Jupiter is a hooligan, bothering peaceful and safe comets and sending them to unexpected places!
08:11You see, some of the most dangerous objects in our solar system are long-period comets!
08:17Those are huge chunks of ice and rock coming from the depths of the Oort cloud, which lies far beyond
08:23Pluto!
08:25Some of them get pushed into the inner solar system, where they dash past the Sun!
08:30There's a chance that the most devastating extinction on Earth was caused by a long-period comet!
08:37As such comets make their way through the solar system, they likely interact with Jupiter's gravity!
08:44The gas giant pushes them this way and that, consuming some of them like delicious ice rock burgers!
08:50But does Jupiter push such comets out of their dangerous orbit so that they don't smash into Earth?
08:56Or does this gas giant actually divert the trajectories of the comets that would otherwise miss Earth?
09:03No one knows!
09:06Astronomers sometimes call Jupiter a failed star!
09:10The gas giant indeed contains a lot of helium and hydrogen!
09:14The material stars are mostly made of!
09:17But the planet's mass isn't enough to start a fusion reaction in its core!
09:22And that's exactly how stars produce energy!
09:25They fuse the atoms of hydrogen together under extreme pressure and heat and create helium!
09:33In the process, they also release light and heat!
09:37Jupiter could start a nuclear reaction and become a star only if it was 75 times its current mass!
09:47Paradoxically, if Jupiter even got more massive, it would also get smaller!
09:53This additional mass would make the planet denser, and it would cause the gas giant to start pulling it in
09:59on itself!
10:01Astronomers are almost sure that even if Jupiter was 4 times its current mass, it would still remain the same
10:08size!
10:10Jupiter has between 80 and 95 moons!
10:14But one of the most popular ones these days is Europa!
10:19Imagine a still, frozen world!
10:22It's ancient, about 4.5 billion years old!
10:26It's barely heated by the rays of the sun and covered with a thick layer of ice!
10:32This world is smaller than our moon, but a bit larger than Pluto!
10:36That's what Europa, the sixth satellite of Jupiter and one of the biggest moons in the solar system looks like!
10:43And the coolest thing about this far away place, it might host life!
10:49Astronomers consider Europa to be one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for new forms
10:55of life!
10:57All because this moon has a huge saltwater ocean with a depth of 40 to 100 miles!
11:03Yes, it is hidden under a layer of ice that is estimated to be from 10 to 20 miles thick!
11:11But it's still potentially habitable!
11:14Astronomers claim that plumes of water erupt from cracks in the ice shell and release the contents of the moon's
11:21ocean into space!
11:24For a long time, scientists have been wondering about Jupiter's X-ray auroras!
11:29What causes them?
11:31It seems like the 40-year-old mystery has been solved!
11:35Jupiter's breathtaking X-ray auroral emissions are triggered by electrically charged particles called ions!
11:42They crash into the gas giant's atmosphere, and here's the result!
11:48But astronomers couldn't understand how those ions got to the atmosphere in the first place!
11:54But recently, they've seen the ions surfing Jupiter's magnetic field all the way down to the planet's atmosphere!
12:03Astronomers have received this data thanks to NASA's Juno spacecraft and ESA's XMM-Newton telescope, situated in Earth's orbit!
12:14Now, on our home planet, auroras are only visible in a belt surrounding the magnetic poles, between 65 and 80
12:22degrees latitude!
12:24Anything beyond 80 degrees, and auroras disappear!
12:28But Jupiter's X-ray auroras are much more inconsistent!
12:33They pulsate regularly poleward of the main belt, and sometimes, they're different at the north and south poles!
12:42Scientists have figured out that this pulsation is caused by the fluctuations in Jupiter's magnetic field!
12:49You see, when the planet rotates, it drags behind its magnetic field!
12:54Struck by the particles of the solar wind, it gets compressed!
12:57This heats the particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field, and they start moving along the magnetic field lines, producing magnificent
13:07auroras!
13:09Another feature Jupiter is famous for is its Great Red Spot!
13:14An enormous storm raging in the southern hemisphere of the gas giant!
13:20Its top parts tower more than 5 miles above the surrounding cloud tops!
13:25The storm is more than twice as wide as our planet!
13:28At the edges of the storm, the wind speeds reach 270 to 420 miles per hour!
13:36That's faster than Earth's tornadoes!
13:39The hot gases in the planet's atmosphere are always moving, rising, falling, and swirling!
13:46Just like on our planet, when cooler and hotter gases mix and merge into one another, they form giant circling
13:53storms!
13:55Astronomers think that once, several enormous storms could have come together, creating the Great Red Spot!
14:02And now, it keeps raging by constantly drawing cool gases from below and hot gases from above!
14:09Plus, this monster of a storm absorbs other, smaller vortices!
14:13They make the spot even more powerful!
14:18Several theories try to explain why the storm has its trademark color!
14:23It varies from whitish and pale salmon to orange and brick red!
14:29Some scientists believe the answer lies below the Great Red Spot, closer to the planet's surface!
14:35A colorless layer of ammonium hydrosulfide might be reacting with the cosmic rays or the UV radiation coming from the
14:43Sun!
14:43This somehow gives the spot its pretty red color!
14:47But so far, it's just a theory!
14:50Astronomers have been observing the Great Red Spot since the 1830s!
14:55And for the first time, the storm was spotted in 1665 and described as the permanent spot!
15:02In other words, the storm is almost 400 years old!
15:07Strangely, it's been shrinking in size since the beginning of the 21st century!
15:11In 2019, it began flaking at the edges, with small pieces breaking off and vanishing!
15:18If this process continues, by 2040, the Great Red Spot might become circular!
15:25Or, it may simply disappear!
15:30Scientists keep finding new planets they call super-Earths!
15:34It's a class of more massive planets than Earth, but way lighter than ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune!
15:41Super-Earths can be made of rock, gas, or a combination of these two!
15:45They are often twice or even up to 10 times bigger than the Earth!
15:50They're interesting to study, but kinda too far away from us!
15:54They're pretty common outside of our solar system, together with other interesting planets like mini-Neptunes!
16:00Those can also be gas dwarfs, ice giants, or huge rocky bodies!
16:05But again, we don't have anything like that!
16:07But something we do have that those other solar systems don't?
16:12Jupiter!
16:13It's the biggest and heaviest object that orbits our Sun!
16:16This king of planets possesses a powerful force to dominate our solar system!
16:22Jupiter is notorious for eating planets!
16:25A protoplanet slammed into it about 4.5 billion years ago, when Jupiter was still a young planet in its
16:32early stages!
16:33This protoplanet was 10 times heavier than Earth, and was made of ice and rock!
16:38The collision was huge, Jupiter's core broke apart, and helium and hydrogen mixed with denser materials!
16:45Through time, the heavy material settled back into the dense core, which is what we see today!
16:51And if it swallowed a planet before, it might keep doing it as well!
16:55We suspect our solar system used to have many more large planets than it has now!
17:00For example, it's kinda empty around Mercury today!
17:05Similar areas around many other central stars are definitely more packed with intermediate-mass planets, with the size between Earth
17:12and Neptune!
17:13Our solar system was a chaotic place at its beginnings!
17:17Young stars were surrounded by swirling disks of dust and gas, and planets would form out of that debris, something
17:24like trees when they're springing up from the ground!
17:26Small, rocky planets would form in the strong heat and light close to stars, while gas giants would form farther
17:33out, where temperatures were lower, which means they could preserve more gassy materials!
17:38And, even though planets in our solar system seem pretty stable and peaceful today, following their orbit, they weren't that
17:46calm before!
17:47Some planets didn't have a circular orbit! They had oblong, more eccentric paths!
17:53It took them swinging first toward their stars, and then farther away!
17:57It was like they had been thrown off kilter by the gravity of other planets on their way!
18:02There's something called the Grand Tack Theory!
18:05It explains things happening in the first few million years when our solar system was forming!
18:10At some point, Jupiter, one of the key players here, may have been pulled in closer by our central star!
18:16After that, it went back and took a huge cloud of debris!
18:21It was like a sailboat when it tacks around a buoy!
18:24This kinda messed with planets that were in the process of formation!
18:28After Saturn was fully formed, our close neighbors in the solar system cleared out a little!
18:33But if the idea about Grand Tack is correct, Jupiter had grabbed everything in its way, and its migrations had
18:41caused more collisions in this area!
18:44Jupiter might have delivered some of the water that now fills the oceans we have on our planet!
18:49It shepherds plenty of asteroids!
18:52From time to time, it sends some whizzing into interstellar space, or amongst the planets in our solar system!
18:58It may have even taken part in the dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago!
19:03When the huge space rock hit the Earth, it left a crater off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in
19:08Mexico!
19:09It all caused earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis that made a huge impact on all animal and plant life on
19:17Earth!
19:17No one knows where it came from!
19:19We're not even sure if it was an asteroid or a comet!
19:23One theory says it may have been a comet that came from the Oort cloud, which is made of icy
19:28debris and is located somewhere at the edge of our solar system!
19:31It could have been bumped off course by Jupiter and its powerful gravitational force!
19:37This way, our solar system was like a pinball machine, where Jupiter, the biggest planet, kicks incoming comets into orbits
19:44that send them closer to the Sun!
19:46When these comets are near the Sun, they can go through strong tidal forces that break them apart and eventually
19:53create shrapnel-like pieces of a comet!
19:55That event was a point when our mammalian ancestors started to rule!
20:00That means without Jupiter, there might not be us either!
20:04Nor the Earth!
20:05It seemed like our biggest planet came swinging in, destroyed older planets, and cleared the way for smaller worlds like
20:12ours!
20:13Jupiter may have been the reason why we can't find Planet 9 right now!
20:18Scientists believe it exists, and they think it could be hiding somewhere beyond Neptune, but not Pluto!
20:24There are three zones in our solar system, the inner planets, outer planets, and whatever there is beyond!
20:31The mysterious planet could be the size of the Earth or Mars!
20:35It swirled among the gas giants before they eventually swept it toward the outer parts of our solar system, or
20:41even somewhere into deep space!
20:43Jupiter has stripes because of differences in temperature, atmospheric gas, and chemical composition!
20:48Scientists used to think the only reason for these different colors was the mighty atmospheric wind and materials circulating between
20:56layers of the atmosphere!
20:57Now we know the light-colored stripes, or so-called zones, show us where the gas rises!
21:03When the stripes are dark-colored, they're called belts, and can tell us where gas is sinking!
21:08Jupiter's moons could also be why the planet is stripy, because they're tugging on its atmospheric convection cells!
21:15At the center of Jupiter, there's a dense liquid core made of helium and metallic hydrogen, together with dissolved heavier
21:23elements!
21:24As we go further from its center, the temperature and pressure inside the planet drop off!
21:29That way, the liquid interior gives way to gases from the atmosphere!
21:34Again, mostly helium and hydrogen!
21:37No one knows how deep this liquid-gas boundary lies, but the planet is probably fully liquid, a couple of
21:44thousand miles under its cloud tops!
21:46Jupiter would still be bigger than some other giants, like Saturn, if we could strip its gases!
21:51Jupiter is sometimes even called a failed star, although that's not quite correct!
21:57It's mostly made of hydrogen, like regular stars, but it's still not massive enough to start thermonuclear reactions in its
22:04core, which would eventually turn it into a real star!
22:07In theory, every object could be turned into a star, if you only add enough matter to it!
22:13If there's enough mass, the temperature and internal pressure will increase and start thermonuclear reactions!
22:20So, to turn Jupiter into a star, such as the Sun, you'd have to make it one thousand times more
22:26massive!
22:27But, to form a cooler, red dwarf, you'd only need 80 Jupiter masses more!
22:32That way, Jupiter won't spontaneously become a new star of our solar system!
22:37But, if many space objects with similar mass collide with it, or, in other words, if Jupiter eats them, then
22:44maybe!
22:45You never know!
22:46But, in theory, if it could become a massive star, it would have stopped other planets from forming in stable
22:53orbits!
22:53It would have also increased the radiation that the surface of those planets get, which is why it would be
22:59really hard for life to develop in our solar system!
23:01Jupiter is the planet that spins the fastest in our solar system!
23:06It only needs 10 hours to make a full rotation on its axis!
23:10Even though it's huge, more than 300 times bigger than the Earth, and 2.5 times more massive than the
23:16rest of the planets in our entire solar system together!
23:19But, if it got more massive, it would shrink!
23:22More mass would make Jupiter denser, which means it would begin pulling in on itself!
23:28So, it could get 4 times its mass, and would still be the same size!
23:34Uh-oh!
23:35Hurricane alert!
23:36Everyone's hiding!
23:37The speed of the wind outside is more than 75 miles per hour!
23:41Seems like a lot!
23:42But, this storm is moving at 400 miles per hour!
23:46Wait!
23:47Do such speeds exist?
23:48Yep!
23:49But, to see a storm that fast, you'll have to travel to Jupiter!
23:53So, let the journey begin!
23:56The planet is huge!
23:58Almost 1,300 Earths could fit into this gas giant!
24:01It's also incredibly hot, with the temperatures reaching about 43,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the planet's core!
24:09Unfortunately, you can't land on Jupiter's surface because, well, being a gas giant, it doesn't have any solid surface!
24:16But, you can go deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere!
24:19Look at these thick brown, yellow, red, and white clouds passing by!
24:24They're what make the planet look colorful and kind of striped!
24:28If you continue descending toward the center of the planet, you'll see its atmosphere, mostly made up of hydrogen and
24:34helium gas, becoming liquid!
24:36It happens because of immense atmospheric pressure!
24:39The planet's core itself is a mysterious object!
24:42Scientists still haven't figured out whether it's a molten ball of thick liquid or a solid rock 14 to 18
24:49times the mass of Earth!
24:51Anyway, exploring Jupiter isn't the main goal of your trip!
24:55No!
24:56You've arrived here to see the Great Red Spot!
24:59It's an enormous storm raging in the southern hemisphere of the gas giant!
25:03Its top parts are towering more than 5 miles above the tops of the surrounding clouds!
25:08The storm is 1.3 times wider than our planet!
25:11In 2017, NASA's Juno space probe managed to collect lots of data about the red spot!
25:18And it turned out that this monster of a storm goes more than 200 miles down into the planet's atmosphere!
25:25That's 30 to 100 times deeper than any ocean on Earth!
25:29But these measurements are most likely imprecise, and the storm's true roots can be reaching even deeper!
25:35The Great Red Spot is colder than the rest of the atmosphere!
25:39And keep in mind that Jupiter's temperatures are minus 234 degrees Fahrenheit in the upper cloud layers!
25:47On the other hand, the closer to the core, the hotter it gets!
25:50Mysteriously, the highest temperatures ever recorded on the gas giant occurred in the atmosphere right above the Great Red Spot!
25:59There, the heat reached 2,400 degrees!
26:02This temperature is higher than that of lava on our planet!
26:06Astronomers believe that the turbulence caused by the storm might produce gravitational and sound waves that can be responsible for
26:13the superheating!
26:14But the storm itself is warmer at the bottom than at the top!
26:19People have been watching the moving vortex on Jupiter for more than 150 years!
26:24Some time ago, astronomers predicted that it would gradually slow down and become smaller or disappear entirely!
26:31But that turned out not to be the case!
26:33After having analyzed all the data received with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers were baffled to discover
26:41that the winds at the outer boundaries of the storm had actually picked up speed!
26:46The change in the wind speed is no more than one and a half miles per hour during one Earth
26:51year!
26:51It's a tiny change, but however small the difference is, it still means a lot!
26:57The wind speed at the edges of the storm can reach a mind-boggling 400 miles per hour!
27:03That's faster than Earth's tornadoes!
27:05At the same time, if you found yourself at the center of the Great Red Spot, you wouldn't be too
27:10impressed!
27:11The winds there move way more slowly!
27:14Scientists faced lots of challenges when they were trying to understand the mystery that was the Great Red Spot!
27:20It's unclear what fuels the storm!
27:23Can it be the nature of the storm's home planet?
27:25Since it's a gas giant, Jupiter doesn't have any solid ground, so there's no friction, which might be the only
27:32thing that could make the storm weaken!
27:34The hot gases in the planet's atmosphere are always moving, rising, falling, swirling, just like on our home planet, where
27:43cooler and warmer air mix and merge into one another, forming giant circling storms!
27:49Astronomers think that once, several enormous storms could have come together and created the Great Red Spot!
27:55And now, it keeps going by constantly drawing cool gases from below and hot gases from above!
28:02Plus, the storm might be absorbing other smaller vortices!
28:06This makes the Great Red Spot even more powerful!
28:09Unfortunately, thick clouds on Jupiter don't allow astronomers to see what's going on in the planet's lower atmosphere!
28:16Scientists have been speculating on what may hide beneath the Great Red Spot for decades!
28:22Is it a massive volcano?
28:24Unlikely!
28:25Jupiter is mostly made up of gases, and it doesn't have a crust that could crack, letting lava escape from
28:31the planet's interior!
28:32There are also a few theories explaining why the storm has its trademark color!
28:37It varies from whitish and pale salmon to bright orange and brick red!
28:43Some scientists believe the answer lies deep below the Great Red Spot, closer to the planet's surface!
28:49A colorless layer of gas might be reacting to the UV radiation coming from the sun!
28:54This is probably what gives the storm its red color!
28:57But so far, it's just a theory!
29:00Hey, your guess is as good as mine, huh?
29:03Jupiter isn't the only planet that can boast having a giant storm!
29:07Another one, as wide as our home planet, rages on Saturn!
29:11It's called the Great White Spot!
29:14How clever!
29:14The storm has a tail of white clouds encircling the entire planet!
29:19It occurs every 30 years or so!
29:21The storm, indeed, starts as a spot!
29:24But then, it starts stretching and stretching!
29:28Astronomers have figured out that the Great White Spot is actually a huge system of thunderstorms!
29:33At the top of the storm, lightning can flash more than 10 times per second!
29:38But the main mystery about the Great White Spot is where it gets its energy from!
29:43Some scientists think it may be powered by the sun!
29:46Others argue that the storm's cloud pattern only makes sense if there's an internal source of heat that can power
29:52the winds!
29:53Anyway, severe storms on different planets of the solar system aren't the only space mystery that makes astronomers scratch their
30:00heads!
30:01Let's move to Pluto, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, and explore its atmosphere!
30:07It rises really high above the surface of the planet, and has more than 20 layers, all of them freezing
30:13cold and extremely condensed!
30:15By the way, our Moon also has some sort of an atmosphere.
30:19Called an exosphere, it consists of helium, neon, and argon.
30:24It's 10 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere!
30:28While traveling through space, watch out for black holes!
30:31Whoo!
30:32A black hole is a place where gravity is so strong that even light can't get out!
30:37But black holes can sometimes behave like a massive galactic volcano!
30:42From time to time, they flare up!
30:44Sounds like me!
30:45But instead of spewing lava, they produce enormous amounts of energy!
30:49And this phenomenon leaves gaping holes in the surrounding material and gas!
30:54A short while ago, scientists discovered one of the largest craters in the universe!
31:00Radio and X-ray telescopes detected a supermassive black hole that threw a temper tantrum many, many years ago!
31:07It happened in a galaxy cluster about 390 million light-years away from Earth!
31:12The crater this event left behind could fit 15 Milky Way galaxies!
31:17Yeah, I can't get my head around that either!
31:20During your space voyage, think twice before landing on unknown planets!
31:25Otherwise, you may end up in a place like K2-141b!
31:30That's a planet outside of our solar system!
31:32At first glance, it's not that different from Earth!
31:35It has liquid oceans that evaporate, form clouds, condense, and get back to the surface's rain!
31:41But instead of water, it rains rocks!
31:44The surface of this exoplanet is covered with lava seas dozens of miles deep!
31:49The temperatures on the K2-141b reached 5,000 degrees during the day!
31:55That's toasty enough for the magma in the oceans to vaporize into the atmosphere!
32:00Then, supersonic winds, which can move at the speed of 1 mile per second, carry this rock vapor into the
32:06planet's night sign!
32:07The vaporized magma cools down, becomes liquid again, and falls as a rocky rain!
32:14Uh-uh! Not a vacation spot! Too hot! I'll pass!
32:179a야!
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32:173
32:172
32:182
32:183
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