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Join us as we delve into the captivating world of Mars and uncover the truth behind this enigmatic planet.
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00:08How many people do we need to create a new civilization?
00:12And not on Earth, but on Mars and in limited conditions.
00:16And if we create this colony and send them off, what problems will they face?
00:21How can they survive that far away from home without any support?
00:24A recent scientific study sheds light on these questions, so let's take a look at it.
00:32Alright, so you want to colonize Mars, right?
00:35Well, it's not an easy task.
00:37Mars is the fourth most distant planet from the Sun and the seventh largest in the solar system.
00:43This lonely red guy is very similar to our Earth.
00:47Moreover, before it became a boundless desert, it could well have even looked like Earth now.
00:53Millions of years ago, there was water, oceans, plants, and who knows, maybe even life.
01:00It would be nice to put all these cool things back there.
01:03No wonder we've been talking about colonization of this planet for a very long time.
01:08Now, SpaceX claims that their proposed interplanetary spacecraft could deliver 100 people to Mars.
01:15The owner of the company, billionaire Elon Musk, talked about creating a fleet that could provide a constant flow of
01:22resources to Mars.
01:23But, how realistic are all these fantasies?
01:27Actually, not very much.
01:29Before sending people to Mars, we need to solve a number of issues.
01:33For example, the incredible radiation exposure, toxic soil, low gravity, low temperatures, and all sorts of other nasty things.
01:43And this is just the beginning.
01:45It will take at least a couple of decades to create a vehicle that can actually successfully land on Mars
01:51and return back.
01:53But let's do a thought experiment and imagine that we've finally decided to colonize Mars.
01:58How will things turn out?
02:00Recently, scientists published a new study on this topic.
02:04This study is called Minimum Number of Settlers for Survival on Another Planet.
02:09The author is Jean-Marc Salotti, professor at the National Polytechnic Institute of Bordeaux in France.
02:15His article was published in the Scientific Reports Journal.
02:19As you might have guessed, the study was trying to find out how we could colonize another planet.
02:24How many resources do we need?
02:26How should this colony live?
02:28What kind of work should they do?
02:30And how long will it take?
02:32And, of course, exactly how many people do we need for all of this?
02:37Let's try to answer that.
02:38Now, imagine that we've moved into a wonderful future.
02:42Well, not really.
02:43A terrible future, actually.
02:45In his study, Salotti suggested that life on Earth was threatened by some catastrophic event,
02:51so the only way for humanity to survive is to go to Mars or some other planet.
02:57In this imaginary scenario, unfortunately, the supply and delivery from Earth was interrupted, or even gone.
03:04Now, the colony has to support itself somehow.
03:07Well, here's where we already stumble upon a bunch of problems.
03:11For example, we're not sure how well the people in the colony will work together.
03:16Hey!
03:18Will they communicate with each other like normal human beings?
03:22Will they share their time and resources as they should?
03:26Humans are constantly ruining things for other humans.
03:29I can even bet that it was their fault we had to flee to Mars.
03:32But even if we forget about that, how about organizational issues?
03:40What equipment do we have?
03:42What will we use to extract resources?
03:44What skills would we need?
03:46You know what?
03:47Who cares?
03:48In our case, these things don't matter.
03:51All that we know is that the colony doesn't have a lot of initial resources and equipment,
03:56and the human factor is absolutely unpredictable.
04:00So, the chances of survival are pretty low.
04:03But we need to survive somehow.
04:05In this case, Salotti describes two things that will have a huge impact on our survival.
04:15These things are essentially variables in a mathematical equation.
04:19The first one is the availability of local resources.
04:23Basically, it means water, oxygen, and all sorts of useful chemical elements.
04:28These resources should be somehow mined and easy to use.
04:32Fortunately, we're not starting from scratch.
04:35We already know a lot about Mars.
04:38What resources are there?
04:40How can they be used for life support, agriculture, and industrial production?
04:44The colony is lucky because all this has been studied at various seminars and published in reports and books over
04:51the past years.
04:52Thanks to this, we know what will be available to our colony.
04:56For example, we know that gases could be extracted from the atmosphere and minerals from the soil.
05:02On Mars, we could provide such things as iron, glass, and even organic compounds.
05:08The most important problem here is the service life of the equipment that our new Martians start with.
05:14They'll have to get as many materials as possible before the tools break.
05:18Keeping them in good condition will be almost the most important task.
05:23The second thing is the production capacity or the speed of work.
05:27We have a specific list of things we need to do, make some tools for example.
05:32And all this must be produced in sufficient quantities before the literal deadlines.
05:38Solotti says that the most important thing here will be the so-called sharing factor.
05:44Imagine one person trying to survive on Mars.
05:46They would have to do all the tasks on their own.
05:49They would need to find or build their own system for supplying drinking water, oxygen, and electricity generation.
05:56We've already seen how this played out in the movie, The Martian.
05:59This task wasn't easy at all.
06:02There's always not enough time and all this is just too much for one person to handle.
06:07Unless you're Matt Damon of course.
06:10So, surprisingly, we need a fairly large colony.
06:13This significantly distributes the burden.
06:16Each person spends less effort, gets tired less, and as a result, the efficiency and speed of work grow.
06:24This is where the sharing factor comes into play.
06:27Now we need to calculate this number.
06:29If we want, for example, to build something, how many people do we need to do this quickly and efficiently?
06:35How can we optimize the work as much as possible?
06:39Well, it depends on the needs of these people, on available resources, random things like weather, and so on.
06:45But in general, this number can be estimated and calculated using some mathematical functions.
06:52Solotti tells in more detail about these functions in his article.
06:56You can read it yourself if you're interested.
06:58But in general, he describes five areas that need to be taken into account when calculating this number.
07:04These areas are ecosystem management, energy production, industry, buildings, and the human factor.
07:13The human factor includes such things as the upbringing and education of children, sports, games, music, and so on.
07:21In the end, it all comes down to two things.
07:24How much time we have and how well the people in the colony will work with each other.
07:29So, what was the result of all these calculations?
07:32In the end, Solotti found out that we would need at least 110 people to successfully survive on Mars.
07:39This is the minimal number needed to create a self-sufficient civilization.
07:44And it will be better if we don't take too many people with us.
07:48The more people we take on the spacecraft, the more difficult it will be to predict the results.
07:54After all, as we've already said, humans are always ruining things for other humans.
07:59So, it's better to stick with about 110 people.
08:04Of course, this is a rough estimate.
08:06And there are a bunch of different assumptions and uncertainties.
08:09But even this number is already very useful.
08:12Now the scientists know how many people is a minimum for colonization of another planet.
08:19Colonizing other planets is a very complex issue.
08:22And it will take us a very long time to resolve it.
08:24It's very unlikely that we'll fly to Mars in the near future.
08:28This task may take several decades or even a century.
08:32Therefore, the best solution would be to try our best to save Earth until we can begin to conquer other
08:38planets.
08:41Uh-oh. Something is nearing the surface of the planet.
08:44It looks like a fireball hurtling closer and closer at a truly incredible speed.
08:50Soon, it becomes obvious that the collision is inevitable.
08:54Bam!
08:54The impact leaves a huge crater.
08:56It evaporates thousands of cubic miles of solid rock.
09:00And it also sets off a series of terrible natural disasters.
09:04Yeah, I know what you're thinking.
09:05You believe I'm talking about the catastrophic collision that occurred around 66 million years ago on Earth.
09:12You know, the one that's responsible for the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs and three-quarters of other life forms
09:18on our planet?
09:19But no.
09:20The disaster I'm talking about happened on a different planet.
09:24Scientists think that our close neighbor, Mars, once experienced the same catastrophe that struck Earth.
09:30It happened around 3.4 billion years ago.
09:33An asteroid collision might have caused a mega-tsunami on the red planet, similar to the one that caused the
09:40chick's lube impact on Earth.
09:42Scientists have identified an impact crater on Mars that was probably left by a comet or asteroid collision with the
09:49surface of the planet.
09:50Most likely, the space body landed in an ocean in the Martian northern lowlands.
09:55And the impact was so powerful that it caused a mega-tsunami.
10:01Before the latest studies, the exact location of the impact crater wasn't verified.
10:06It was just a theory.
10:08To confirm it, a team of astronomers simulated a comet and asteroid collision in the area where they supposed the
10:15impact crater was.
10:16They even named this crater Paul.
10:19Paul is 68 miles across and lies in a region that is almost 400 feet below the supposed sea level.
10:26Anyway, the simulations formed several craters of the same size as Paul.
10:31One of the simulations claimed that these craters had been left by a five-mile-wide asteroid that had encountered
10:38strong ground resistance.
10:40The other simulations showed that the craters had been caused by a bit smaller asteroid that met a weaker ground
10:46resistance.
10:47But according to both simulations, the impact crater was almost 70 miles in diameter.
10:53And the collisions produced mega-tsunamis up to 900 miles away from the center of the impact site.
10:59The simulations also helped scientists estimate the height of the tsunami.
11:04It was about 820 feet tall, almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower.
11:08The authors of the study also suggest that the Paul crater might be similar to the Chicxulub impact crater on
11:16our planet.
11:18The Chicxulub asteroid, as we now know it, is believed to come from the outer reaches of the solar system.
11:25This space body was at least 6 miles across.
11:27It crashed into the shallow seawaters near the Yucatan Peninsula.
11:32This splashdown was so powerful that it left its signature on the entire face of the planet.
11:39In 2021, researchers found out that the collision had carved mega-ripples into Earth's crust in the region of modern
11:47-day central Louisiana.
11:49An even newer study suggests that the asteroid also triggered a tsunami so devastating it eroded seafloor sediments half a
11:57world away.
11:58The team of scientists remodeled the events of the first 10 minutes after the impact.
12:03And the model showed that the asteroid had produced waves up to 30,000 times greater than one of the
12:09largest tsunamis people have ever recorded.
12:11The Indian Ocean tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004.
12:15The collision displaced so much water that it created a wave almost a mile high.
12:21That's like two Burj Khalifas, which is the tallest construction in the world, stacked one on top of the other.
12:28And, of course, all that empty space didn't stay empty for long.
12:32The ocean gushed back to fill the crater.
12:34But in the process, it only ricocheted off the crater's rim, which produced even more waves.
12:40After that, tsunami waves that were more than 33 feet tall traveled around the world at a speed of 3
12:47feet per second, lashing at all coastlines on their way.
12:51Imagine a three-story building rushing up to you.
12:54No wonder the largest and fastest-moving waves occurred near the impact area in the open waters of the Gulf
13:01of Mexico.
13:02Those rose more than 330 feet tall, which is taller than the Statue of Liberty,
13:07and moved at a speed ten times greater than more distant tsunami waves.
13:13But back to the Red Planet.
13:15Some experts think that not one, but two mega tsunamis could happen on Mars.
13:20They could be triggered by a pair of meteor impacts that were several millions of years apart.
13:26Between these two collisions, Mars went through a period of climate changes.
13:30As a result, liquid water on its surface turned into ice.
13:34In other words, the first asteroid impact most likely produced waves composed of liquid water.
13:40And the second tsunami was probably formed by rounded chunks of ice water.
13:45By the way, the largest asteroid to have ever crashed into Earth might not actually be the one that ended
13:51dinosaurs.
13:53A much more catastrophic collision likely happened about 3.5 billion years ago.
13:58New evidence scientists found in northwestern Australia suggests that the asteroid I'm talking about was 12 to 18 miles across.
14:08It struck Earth at an immense speed, releasing an unimaginable amount of energy.
14:13Now, this made me think.
14:15What if something like that happened these days?
14:18More than 30,000 objects that are circling Earth these days could potentially crash into our planet.
14:23NASA considers around 1,500 of them to be potentially hazardous.
14:28These space rocks are the remains left after the solar system was formed some 4.6 billion years ago.
14:35For example, in 2004, astronomers discovered a huge asteroid nearing Earth.
14:41The first observations showed that the chance of the space rock hitting our planet was less than 3%.
14:48The asteroid was named Apophis.
14:50It's more than 1,200 feet across and weighs about 20 million tons.
14:55It's supposed to streak across the sky on April 13, 2029.
14:59Apophis will pass at a distance of 19,000 miles away from Earth's surface.
15:04But even though this space rock might miss our planet in 2029,
15:08it doesn't mean it won't return 15 years later in 2036.
15:14If such an object hits our planet, the consequences will be unpredictable.
15:19They can vary from shattered glass and broken windows to most life forms getting wiped off the face of the
15:25Earth.
15:26And it'll probably affect the Internet.
15:28Now, that last thought is truly scary.
15:31But luckily, modern technologies are likely to help us avoid any catastrophic consequences.
15:37Experts have developed several ways to prevent a real-life disaster movie from happening.
15:42For one thing, we could use a spacecraft to knock this visitor from outer space off its course.
15:48Or it could somehow be blasted into pieces.
15:51Scientists could also slow the thing down with the help of concentrated sunlight.
15:56Or people could tug it away with a gravity tractor.
15:59That's a theoretical spacecraft that can influence objects in space without touching them.
16:04In sci-fi movies, a huge asteroid often sneaks up on Earth and turns out to be a nasty surprise
16:11to astronomers.
16:12It hurtles toward our planet at breakneck speed and gets discovered just weeks or even days before the collision.
16:20In reality, scientists are constantly watching all large objects in Earth's neighborhood.
16:25It means there would be plenty of time to do something before the inevitable happened.
16:30There are three kinds of missions scientists could prepare at short notice.
16:35Type 0 – when a heavy spacecraft hurtles toward the intruder with one single goal – to knock it off
16:41its course.
16:42In this case, astronomers would have to rely on the already available information.
16:47The Type 1 mission would involve a scout.
16:50It would be launched first to get more close-up information about the space rock.
16:55Only after that, the main spacecraft would be launched.
16:58With more precise information, its journey would be way more productive.
17:03And if scientists chose the Type 2 mission, they would send a scout and a small spacecraft at the same
17:09time.
17:10The spacecraft would knock the asteroid a bit off its course.
17:13Then the scout would collect all the necessary information.
17:16Based on this data, the spacecraft would finish its job with a more fine-tuned second push.
17:24If none of these methods worked, people could try going deep underground or even build a shelter on the ocean
17:30floor.
17:31But in this case, we'd need to find sources of energy that could help us survive for at least several
17:36decades.
17:37Plus, people would have to create a life support system that could somehow keep air and water fresh.
17:42Offer advantage.
17:42So we stayed around to 20.
17:43You
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