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Interesting facts about the solar system!
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00:00Electronic satellites suddenly go out of control.
00:04There are voltage surges across the globe.
00:07In some places, there's a complete blackout.
00:10Scientists have little data on this incredible solar behavior,
00:14so we're still unable to accurately predict how or when exactly the next geomagnetic storm will happen.
00:21One such event took place back in July 2012, but thankfully it missed us.
00:27Not by far, though, by a mere nine days.
00:31Just to give you a glimpse of what nearly happened, I need to explain some astronomical basics.
00:37A solar storm is a series of effects we feel here on Earth after certain events occur on the Sun.
00:43Our star is nothing more than a huge ball of molten gases that are constantly moving around,
00:49so these events happen more often than you'd think.
00:53For a solar storm to begin, our Sun needs to emit bursts of energy.
00:58They're in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
01:02These two phenomena send electrical charges and waves of magnetic fields toward the Earth
01:08at an astonishing speed of about 3 million miles per hour.
01:13When these solar storms reach our planet, we can see northern lights display in locations close to the Arctic Circle.
01:20But they can also mess up satellites or other types of electronic communications.
01:26Some of these solar storms can be dangerous.
01:29And back in 2012, we came close to experiencing a very powerful one that could have had a serious outcome.
01:36The most powerful in as much as 150-plus years, based on research done by astronomers.
01:43But how did we manage to escape it?
01:46Did we have something to do with it, or was it just a pure coincidence?
01:52What we do know is that one of those coronal mass ejections did hit the Earth's orbit in late July
01:582012.
01:59Our planet had already left that specific location as it was on its scheduled trajectory around the Sun.
02:07So, you might be asking yourself at this point, what if it didn't miss us?
02:12Turns out, these intense solar storms are dangerous to all sorts of technological objects.
02:18Given we are now literally surrounded by electric objects, from our phones to our cars,
02:24try to imagine what would happen if they all stopped working all of a sudden.
02:28And here's how they work.
02:30Solar storms start with an explosion, or a solar flare.
02:34Then, x-rays and UV radiation travel to our Earth at the speed of light.
02:39Some of the side effects?
02:41Well, they can include radio blackouts and GPS navigation errors.
02:46The effects can continue as minutes, or at times hours later, energetic particles reach our atmosphere.
02:53They move only a bit slower than the speed of light,
02:56but they can electrically shock the Earth's satellites and damage their components.
03:01Lastly, about a day later, clouds of magnetized plasma reach us as well.
03:07They can cause huge power blackouts, more or less paralyzing everything with an electrical plug.
03:14We might not even be able to flush our toilets, since most water supplies in cities use electric pumps these
03:20days.
03:22The effects of these geomagnetic storms would be different around the world, though.
03:26Solar storms are curious by themselves, but why do they affect some locations on Earth more than others?
03:34Based on recent research, geology has a lot to do with it.
03:38But I need to take you back a bit to paint you the bigger picture.
03:42Buckle up, because we're taking a trip in the time machine.
03:46To a time when the Moon didn't even exist, yet.
03:494.6 billion years ago, our solar system looked a lot different than it does now.
03:56And that's putting it lightly.
03:57Hundreds of new planets began to form around the new Sun.
04:01Planets like our own Earth, Venus, or Mars were still hurtling around the cosmos.
04:07Back in the 1970s, an astronomer named Donald R. Davis developed a theory
04:13that said the Moon was born when another planet hit a newly formed Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.
04:20He also indicated that it might have been the size of Mars, and later named this planet Theia.
04:28It's difficult to imagine what that impact might have looked like, even with the equipment we have these days.
04:34The astronomer suggested the giant impact hypothesis, trying to piece together this mystery.
04:40After running into our planet, the outer rocky layers of both Earth and Theia were projected into a circle of
04:47cosmic matter.
04:49Out of this debris, what we now know as the Moon was born.
04:53The Earth's core has apparently consumed Theia's iron core.
04:57That is, if it had any.
04:59Our planet also got into the position it occupies today.
05:03This way, it became more susceptible to geomagnetic storms.
05:08Back then, there was little to no information as to what might have happened to Theia,
05:13apart from giving us our only natural satellite.
05:16It took several years for a series of scientists to come up with an exciting new idea
05:21that revolutionized what we knew about our planet.
05:24What was left out of Theia is hiding under two continent-sized layers of rock deep within our planet.
05:33This theory is also one of the only explanations for why the Moon is so dry and doesn't have much
05:39of an iron core.
05:41But why is geology so important when it comes to geomagnetic storms?
05:45Well, that's because recent data revealed that the type of rocks below your feet
05:51can affect how well your city adapts after powerful geomagnetic storms.
05:57Some types of rock, like sedimentary rocks, for example,
06:01generally have more space filled with water, which makes them electrically conductive.
06:07Other types of rocks are denser and have more resistance when it comes to electricity.
06:12Whenever such a storm happens, people living in the New England highlands
06:17may have a higher risk of experiencing major disruptions.
06:21At the same time, those in the mid-Atlantic coastal plain have less to worry about
06:26simply due to what's hidden beneath their cities.
06:29How did we know how scary these storms are?
06:32Well, this wasn't the first time it happened.
06:36Solar storms have dazzled the astronomer community for many years now.
06:40The most iconic event of this magnitude was the Carrington event,
06:44which happened way back in September 1859.
06:49It gave us a sneak peek of what the power of the sun is, to say the least.
06:53They named it after an English astronomer, Richard Carrington,
06:57who witnessed the solar flares himself.
07:00The power of that solar storm was something humans had never experienced before.
07:04The strong geomagnetic storm caused northern lights as far down south as the territory of Hawaii.
07:12On the morning of September 1st, 1859,
07:16Richard Carrington made his way into his private observatory,
07:19located outside of London.
07:22He opened the observatory dome to have a complete view of the sky
07:26and directed his telescope to the location of the sun.
07:29He saw a bunch of huge dark spots that gleamed on the surface of our star.
07:35Shortly enough, Carrington noticed two enigmatic areas,
07:39intensely bright and full of white light bursting out from the sunspots.
07:44They disappeared five minutes later,
07:46but the effects carried on all across the Earth's surface.
07:51At first, later in the night,
07:54telegraph communications all around the world started to malfunction.
07:58Flashes of light started to burst from telegraph machines,
08:02disturbing the operators and even setting papers on fire.
08:06Brightly colored auroras started to appear in the nighttime skies all over the world,
08:11making confused birds chirp at night.
08:14Some people even began their daily activities,
08:17since they mistakenly thought the day had already begun.
08:21These days, our planet is laced with a mega-information web,
08:25so the impact of such a solar storm would be even messier.
08:30Back in the 1800s, the telegraph system was just starting out,
08:35but this Victorian Internet was an important way of sending news and private messages.
08:40Even in the United States,
08:42telegraph operators had noticed local interruptions
08:45because of thunderstorms and northern lights before.
08:48But the Carrington event and its effects were something they had never seen before.
08:54A lot of telegraph lines in North America became useless.
08:58One telegraph manager based in Pittsburgh
09:01even recalled that the currents flowing through the wires were so strong,
09:05their platinum contacts were in danger of melting.
09:09Another example was that of a telegraph operator located in Washington, D.C.,
09:14named Frederick W. Royce,
09:16who was hurt as his forehead touched a ground wire.
09:20Samples taken from the Earth's icy locations
09:23tell us that the Carrington effect was twice as big
09:26as any other solar storm experienced in the last 500 years.
09:31It's very difficult to imagine what the impact of a storm of that magnitude might be today.
09:37But, based on a 2008 report drafted by the National Academy of Sciences,
09:43it might cost us between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in damages.
09:47There are things we can do individually to help reduce the amount of damage, though,
09:52like buying a generator or installing a backup energy supply.
09:56This can be either a solar panel or a wind turbine.
10:01More so, we can equip our houses with surge protectors
10:04that connect to our electrical panels
10:06and can save us from lightning and other power surges.
10:10The simplest solution of them all?
10:12Just unplug all the devices you're not using at any particular moment.
10:17If they aren't connected to a power source,
10:19they can't be affected by any surges.
10:22So Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos.
10:26And apart from the bizarre shape,
10:28there's nothing remarkable about them, except for one thing.
10:33Not so long ago, scientists discovered a strange phenomenon on the surface of Phobos,
10:38and they still can't find any explanation for it.
10:42What is this phenomenon?
10:44And what does it tell us about the history of our solar system?
10:48Let's find out!
10:50American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos and Deimos back in 1877.
10:56Did you know that all the planets in our solar system are named after Greek and Roman deities?
11:02For example, Mars or Aries is the famous deity of war.
11:07That's why the satellites of this red planet were named after the sons of Aries, Phobos and Deimos.
11:13These beautiful names actually have creepy meanings.
11:17Fear and horror.
11:20In 1971, NASA's Mariner 9 telescope took the first pictures.
11:26That's how we found out that these guys weren't at all like our moon.
11:30They had this weird shape, a strange and unstable orbit.
11:35Moreover, there are no other moons in the solar system that move as close to their parent planet as these
11:41two.
11:42Well, they are its suns after all.
11:45But even though they are very close to Mars,
11:48if you were standing on the surface of the red planet, you would hardly be able to see them.
11:54That's because the curvature of Mars hides Phobos and Deimos from view.
11:59Even if you were somewhere on the equator, Phobos would look like an ordinary asteroid to you,
12:04and Deimos would look like a star.
12:07All because these satellites are basically crumbs compared to our moon.
12:12They're the smallest and least bright moons in the entire solar system,
12:15which is ironic considering they're mighty names.
12:19Anyway, it seems that everything should be pretty clear with these two satellites.
12:23But nope, there's a problem.
12:26You see, scientists reconstruct the history of space based on the traces found on different space objects.
12:33Dents, scratches, cracks, all these things can tell us what happened billions of years ago.
12:39For a long time, scientists were sure that, just like their Greek prototypes, Phobos and Deimos were twins.
12:47But then, NASA's Viking orbiter took new photos of the satellites.
12:51And that's when they discovered a significant difference between the two.
12:57The entire surface of Phobos was covered with huge grooves.
13:01Those were a series of long, deep pits, stretching from one end of Phobos to the other.
13:08You may say, what's the big deal?
13:10All space objects have this kind of stuff on them.
13:13And yeah, there are other satellites with similar grooves and scratches.
13:16But none of them has as many as Phobos.
13:19It's completely covered in grooves.
13:22And they're huge, up to 12 miles long and 660 feet wide.
13:27And that's not all.
13:29Some of these grooves intersect with others.
13:31This means that Phobos has experienced not one, but many traumatic events.
13:37But what exactly happened to it?
13:39Actually, scientists are still not completely sure.
13:42However, they have a few ideas.
13:45And these theories can tell us not only about the past of Phobos, but also predict its future.
13:52Theory 1. Asteroid Impact
13:54Well, the first suspect is quite obvious.
13:57There's a large, almost 6-mile-wide crater on Phobos.
14:01It's called Angeline Stickney.
14:03It was named after the wife of Asaph Hall, the scientist who discovered the satellites.
14:08Adorable.
14:09So that's what the first theory sounds like.
14:12Once upon a time, an astronomical body crashed into Phobos.
14:16The impact was so strong that it left a large crater.
14:20And the effect of the collision left a bunch of grooves everywhere on Phobos.
14:25It sounds logical at first.
14:28However, scientists have noticed a flaw in this theory.
14:31They learned that these grooves actually formed not inside the crater, but next to it.
14:37So, it wasn't a collision that created them.
14:40Besides, what about those grooves that intersect with the others?
14:43Or is it just a big cosmic coincidence?
14:46Well, the search for truth continued.
14:50Theory 2. It's all because of space debris.
14:54Yes, there's a difference between these two theories.
14:56In this case, the grooves aren't a direct consequence of the collision.
15:00Rather, it goes something like this.
15:04Something crashed into Phobos.
15:06This impact caused a bunch of rocks to be thrown into space.
15:11Some of them were lost in the universe forever, but others were small enough to be pulled back to Phobos.
15:16Passing next to the moon at a steep angle, they would crash into it, jumping away, and so on.
15:22And since the gravity of Phobos is very weak, perhaps they couldn't stick to it.
15:28In other words, these rocks were continuously pulled toward and pushed off of the satellite for many, many years.
15:36This theory explains the intersecting grooves.
15:39It's because the rocks were constantly falling into those places.
15:43It sounds quite logical, but there's another problem.
15:46We don't see any boulders on Mars or on the surface of its moons.
15:50But all this debris was supposed to get trapped by gravity and remain somewhere in the planet's orbit.
15:56This or simply become part of Phobos.
16:00In other words, if this were true, we'd find evidence of this theory under layers of dust.
16:06But that didn't happen, so this explanation didn't satisfy astronomers either.
16:11Therefore, they continued to look for the culprit.
16:14Maybe the grooves have nothing to do with Stickney Crater at all.
16:18Maybe the real culprit is something else, something even more powerful.
16:24Could it be Mars itself?
16:28Theory 3.
16:30Mars is a twist villain.
16:31The previous theories imply that Phobos and Deimos were originally pieces of Mars.
16:38Like, once upon a time, they broke away from it and became satellites, just like our Moon.
16:43But what if that wasn't the case?
16:46Observations made by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor show that Phobos and Deimos are made up of elements which are mainly
16:54found in meteorites and asteroids.
16:56So, what if Phobos and Deimos are asteroids?
17:02There's an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
17:05Given the size, shape, and composition of Phobos and Deimos, scientists have suggested that once upon a time, they belonged
17:12to this belt.
17:14However, one day, they flew out of it, and then gravity pulled them to Mars.
17:20This phenomenon is called asteroid capture.
17:23It's very strange, though.
17:26Yeah, the asteroid capture isn't uncommon, but these two have been flying next to Mars for, what, billions of years?
17:33It's weird that their orbits have remained the same.
17:35In addition, the atmosphere of Mars is very rarefied, and because of this, it could hardly capture any asteroids.
17:43In theory, they should have separated from Mars at the first opportunity.
17:48However, this didn't happen.
17:50It means that somehow, they got stuck, and Mars immediately began to destroy them.
17:58Yep, an unexpected twist.
18:00In this version, Mars turns out to be a villain.
18:03By studying the past, we've found some evidence of future crimes.
18:07The mysterious grooves of Phobos could be caused by tidal forces between Mars and Phobos.
18:13The Moon and Earth also exchange these, slightly distorting each other.
18:19But, since Phobos is much closer to Mars, the impact of gravitational forces is much stronger.
18:26In other words, the gravity of Mars is gradually destroying Phobos.
18:31Every 100 years, the satellite gets 0.7 inches closer to Mars.
18:36It also shrinks as much as 6.5 feet, becoming even more fragile and weaker.
18:42The smaller it gets, the more the tidal forces impact it, creating strange grooves and scratches on Phobos.
18:50Yep, somewhere in 30 to 50 million years, Phobos will either collide with Mars or disintegrate and turn into a
18:58bunch of small rocks.
19:00And then Mars will also have rings, like Saturn and Neptune.
19:04That's why Phobos is called the doomed Martian Moon.
19:09Anyway, these are all only theories, but the dramatic backstory of Phobos gives us an idea of how dynamic extraterrestrial
19:16objects can be.
19:18The more we learn about them, the more we discover about the secrets of the origin of not only Mars,
19:24but also other objects in our solar system.
19:28If one day we really colonize Mars, studying its moons can help us a lot.
19:33Let's hope that the upcoming MMX mission will reveal some of the most exciting secrets Mars' moons are hiding.
19:42Let's face it, as stars go, our sun is actually, well, pretty boring.
19:47Come on, there's nothing unusual about it.
19:50There are millions of similar yellow dwarfs in the universe.
19:53And yet, we love it.
19:55After all, it's the only star we have, and it gives us life.
19:58However, it wasn't always like that.
20:01Once upon a time, the sun had a twin, possibly an evil one.
20:06Hmm, what happened to it?
20:07Well, let's find out.
20:09Now, this here is a giant molecular cloud.
20:12They're also sometimes called dark nebula.
20:15Here, there are many interstellar clumps full of gas, dust, and piles of stars.
20:20These clouds have no clear boundaries and often take weird, crazy forms.
20:25You can even see some of them with the naked eye.
20:28Look at the clear sky at night.
20:30They look like dark spots all across the bright Milky Way.
20:33And this is exactly where our sun was born about 4.5 billion years ago.
20:39The sun originated from one of these molecular clouds.
20:42Billions of years ago, waves of energy were passing by here.
20:46They collected all this material and compressed these clumps into dense nuclei.
20:51That's when a protostar was born.
20:54This young protostar was a ball of lukewarm hydrogen and helium.
20:57And then, millions of years later, the temperature and pressure inside the balls increased.
21:03As a result, a star was born.
21:06The sun.
21:07But not everything in this molecular cloud has turned into the sun.
21:11The remaining materials began to revolve around the new star.
21:14And, as you might have guessed, they gradually turned into planets, including our Earth.
21:20This is how our solar system was created.
21:22But, it's quite possible that this is not the whole story.
21:26And that, at the same time, along with our star, another one was born.
21:31The lost twin of the sun.
21:33Made from the same materials under the same conditions.
21:37But, why do we think that it exists?
21:39Well, recently, scientists have launched some statistical models to find out more about the birth of stars.
21:45And, these models have shown that many stars appear, not individually, but in clusters.
21:50Or, at least with one sibling.
21:53After more research, scientists confirmed that, yep, most stars formed inside molecular clouds are born with a companion.
22:01Sometimes, these companions stay together.
22:04For example, a small star will revolve around a large one.
22:07They can even form double, triple, and other star systems.
22:11And, sometimes, their paths may diverge forever.
22:15This probably happened to our sun, as well.
22:17It could have had a sibling, too.
22:19Perhaps, not even one, but a whole cluster of little brothers and sisters.
22:24And, one bigger twin with a similar mass and other characteristics.
22:28But, if that's the case, then where are you, our lost twin?
22:33Well, we have one hypothesis.
22:35And, according to it, this twin may not be as good as it seems.
22:39In the 1980s, scientists began to notice a certain pattern in the Earth's history.
22:45Approximately every 27 million years, give or take, large-scale extinctions occurred on our planet.
22:52Pretty strange, right?
22:54Every 27 million years in the history of Earth, some kind of catastrophe occurred that changed its biosphere forever.
23:01As if something, as scheduled, cyclically, caused them.
23:05Then, an astronomer, Richard Muller, suggested that there may be something that caused the events.
23:11A certain celestial body.
23:13According to him, it could be a dwarf star that we can't see because of how dim it is.
23:19It could be located about one and a half light-years away from us.
23:22This star rotates around the Sun in a huge orbit.
23:26And, it approximately takes a whopping 27 million years for it to finish its orbit.
23:31And, when it gets closest to the Sun, it starts to cause complete chaos.
23:36While approaching us, this troublemaker changes the trajectories of comets in the Oort Cloud, or the Kuiper Belt.
23:43As a result, all these comets start to rush straight toward us.
23:47Then, they crash into the Earth and cause mass extinctions, just like it was with dinosaurs.
23:52This hypothetical star was named Nemesis.
23:56It's the name of the ancient Greek deity of retribution.
23:59What is it taking revenge on us for?
24:01No idea.
24:03Perhaps it didn't like the fact that, once upon a time,
24:06the Sun took away almost all the dust and gas from a molecular cloud.
24:10The Sun became a fairly large star.
24:13But, the twin remained dark and small.
24:16Moreover, in the end, it was forced to fly away in the middle of nowhere.
24:20Anyone would be annoyed by something like this.
24:23Scientists have put forward various hypotheses about what the mysterious Nemesis is.
24:29Perhaps it's a brown or a red dwarf.
24:31The remnants of a star that has completely depleted its fuel.
24:35Or maybe, it's not a star at all, but a rogue planet more gigantic than Jupiter.
24:41Well, whatever it is, its existence isn't particularly pleasant for us.
24:46However, all our attempts to find the culprit, unfortunately, failed.
24:51At the moment, we still haven't found any signs of Nemesis.
24:55Recent studies have called into question the theory of regular mass extinctions.
25:00If you look more into fossil records, you'll notice that these catastrophes occurred rather randomly,
25:06rather than on a clear schedule.
25:08Now, scientists doubt if Nemesis may actually exist.
25:11They also say that any star moving in a similar orbit would be very unstable.
25:17And it's very unlikely that it could have survived for that long.
25:21But, despite the lack of clear evidence, Nemesis had become quite famous online.
25:26Many articles in news still mention it in different contexts.
25:30They like to write off any dramatic events taking place in the world,
25:34like asteroid falls, tsunamis, and so on, on this mysterious star.
25:38So now, all this may seem like a typical urban legend.
25:42But let's not forget about something important.
25:45Even if Nemesis itself doesn't exist, it doesn't mean that the sun didn't have a twin.
25:51First of all, everything we talked about at the beginning is still relevant.
25:55Most stars aren't born alone.
25:57The probability that our sun also had a sibling is still very high.
26:02Secondly, there may be evidence of the existence of this lost twin,
26:06and is probably somewhere in the Oort cloud.
26:10This is a huge cloud in the outer limits of our solar system.
26:14It consists of a bunch of comets and other cool rocks.
26:17Now, scientists believe that this cloud stores various remnants and fragments
26:21of everything that remained after the birth of our solar system.
26:25It's like a huge museum of our past.
26:28So, in this Oort cloud, scientists have noticed something interesting.
26:33Basically, this region seems to be too heavy.
26:37What the Oort cloud actually looks like doesn't correspond to our current models
26:41of the formation of the solar system.
26:44It's too heavy because there are some remnants of something in it.
26:48So, there used to be something in the solar system that we don't know about yet.
26:53But when scientists included a possible second sun in their calculations,
26:58it fit just right.
26:59Like a missing piece of a puzzle,
27:02the lost twin perfectly matches the gap in the weight of the Oort cloud.
27:06So, yeah, the sun almost certainly had a twin.
27:09But what happened to it?
27:11And where is it now?
27:13Unfortunately, this star is most likely already very far away.
27:17Probably, after their birth, the sun and daughter...
27:21Okay, sun 2.0...
27:23Spent only a couple of million years together.
27:25And then they had to separate completely.
27:28Now, this second twin may be hundreds of light years away from us.
27:32It can be anywhere in the Milky Way.
27:34And yeah, theoretically, we could find it.
27:37But that would be quite difficult.
27:39To do this, we need to find all the stars similar to our sun,
27:43about the same age, all over the Milky Way galaxy.
27:47And even if we make a list of these stars, what's next?
27:50We have no way of knowing which one was really the twin of the sun.
27:54So, the lost twin will most likely remain lost.
27:58And our sun will remain forever lonely.
28:01Ah, what a sad story.
28:02But cheer up.
28:04For us, it's probably the best.
28:05If we had two suns, perhaps the solar system would never have become what it is now.
28:11Our planet might not exist at all.
28:13And that means that there might be no life.
28:16So, we probably should be grateful for the sun sacrifice.
28:20On the other hand, our sunsets would look like the ones they have on Tatooine.
28:25Cool.
28:25Cool.
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