Have you ever seen a science fiction movie about Mars and its scary dust storms? Just how dangerous are these things, and should future Martian explorers be worried? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Susie Murph - @susiemmurph Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE&feature=youtu.be Brave explorers trek across the red dunes of Mars when a dangerous dust storm blows in. In moments, our astronauts are blasted by gale force winds and driving sand, reducing visibility to zero. The brave heroes stumble desperately through the driving onslaught, searching in vain for shelter from the catastrophic conditions. One is blown into a ravine, or right to the edge of the cliff, requiring a dramatic rescue and likely a terrible terrible sacrifice and important parting words showing the true mettle of our heroes. “Tell my Asuka… printed body pillow… I loved her…” Will they make it? Why the heck would anyone land on that dusty irradiated death trap? Actually, a better question might be “Why do writers lean so hard on this trope?”. I’m looking at you Andy Weir. Martian dust storms don’t just come from the fevered imagination of the same sci-fi writer who gave us a lush Venusian jungle, Saturnalian lava flats and Moon floor cheese. These dust storms are all too real and they drive at serious windspeeds. NASA’s Viking landers clocked them at 100 km/h during dust storm season. Which is a thing on Mars. The landers sheltered enough from the big storms that they probably didn’t experience the greatest winds they’re capable of. Scientists have seen evidence that sand is shifted around on the surface of Mars, and the regolith requires high wind speeds to pick it up and shove it around. Dust devils spin up across the surface, and rotate at hurricane speeds. When the wind is above 65 km/h, it’s fast enough to pick up dust particles and carry them into the atmosphere encasing the planet in a huge, swirling, shroud. Freaked out yet? Is this dangerous? It sure sounds dangerous. Apologies to all the fearmongering sci-fi writers, but actually, it’s not that dangerous. Here’s why. First off, you’re not on Mars. It’s a book. Second, it’s a totally different experience on Earth. Here when you feel the wind blasting you in the face, or watch it dismantle a house during a tornado, it’s the momentum of the air particles hammering into it. That momentum comes from air particle density and their velocity. Sadly, the density of the atmosphere on Mars is a delicate 1% of what we’re used to. It’s got the velocity, but it just doesn’t have the density. It’s the difference between getting hit by a garden hose and a firehose with the same nozzle speed. One would gets you soaked, the other can push you down the street and give you bruises. To feel a slight breeze on Mars similar to Earth, you multiply the wind speed by 10. So, if the wind was going about 15 km/h here, you’d need to be hit by winds going about 150 km/h there to have the same experience. It’s not impossible for winds to go that fast on Mars, but that’s still not enough wind to fly a kite. To get it off the ground your mission buddy holds the kite, and you run around in the dumb Martian sand like a try-hard ass. It would fly for a second and then crash down. You’d wonder why you even brought a kite to Mars in the first place because it’s NEVER windy enough. Boo hoo. Youre Mars kite doesn’t work. Good news! You’re on Mars! Bad news. It was a one way trip. Good news! A wizard has made you immortal! Bad news. The wizard has brought to life the entire fictional cast of the Twilight series and they’re also there and immortal. Have fun brooding with your new dorky friends, FOR ETERNITY. What I’m saying is you could stand on the red planet restaurant patio and laugh at anything the weather system could throw at you. That is unless, you’re solar powered. Mars gets regular dust storms. From time to time, they can get truly global. In 2001, a storm picked up enough dust to shroud the entire planet in a red haze. Temperatures went up as dust helped trap heat in the atmosphere. This storm lasted for 3 months before temperatures cooled, and the dust settled back down again.

On Sunday, May 31st, 2020, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley docked with the International Space Station. This was a tremendous accomplishment for SpaceX and NASA, giving the United States the capability of launching its own astronauts, and no longer relying on its Russian partners. This was the 5th time that US astronauts went into orbit on a new kind of space vehicle, following in the footsteps of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle. Our Book is out! https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/ Audio Podcast version: ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio Weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg Support us at https://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at https://www.universetoday.com/ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain Twitter: https://twitter.com/universetoday Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Instagram - https://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com References: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/ccp-press-kit/main.html https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2020/05/27/historic-launch-pad-39a/ https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2020/05/31/international-space-station-welcomes-first-spacex-crew-dragon-with-nasa-astronauts/ https://www.space.com/2811-nasa-places-500-million-bet-firms.html https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/news/COTS_selection.html https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/the-trampoline-is-working-spacex-returns-human-spaceflight-to-america/ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/ccp-press-kit/dm1.html https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2019/12/ https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/index.html https://spaceadventures.com/space-adventures-announces-agreement-with-spacex-to-launch-private-citizens-on-the-crew-dragon-spacecraft/ https://www.universetoday.com/144791/nasa-is-going-to-add-a-commercial-module-to-the-space-station/ https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2020/04/06/boeing-to-fly-second-uncrewed-orbital-flight-test-for-nasa/

Join Fraser for a live questions and answer session about all things space and astronomy 📰 EMAIL NEWSLETTER Read by 60,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads. Subscribe Free: https://universetoday.com/newsletter 🎧 PODCASTS Universe Today: https://universetoday.fireside.fm/ Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: http://www.astronomycast.com/ 🤳 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter: https://twitter.com/fcain Twitter: https://twitter.com/universetoday Facebook: https://facebook.com/universetoday Instagram: https://instagram.com/universetoday 📩 CONTACT FRASER frasercain@gmail.com ⚖️ LICENSE Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) You are free to use my work for any purpose you like, just mention me as the source and link back to this video.

What are the risks of returning samples from Mars? What happens if you bring two stars together? Which galaxies can be seen with the naked eye? What is the system behind naming stars and exoplanets? All this and more in this week s Q&A! 00:00 Start 01:19 [Tatooine] Can we bring viruses from Mars? 07:42 [Coruscant] What is the maximum size limit for black holes? 12:03 [Hoth] What happens when two stars come together? 15:26 [Naboo] What to expect from Artemis 2? 17:32 [Kamino] What are my thoughts on Artemis 2 crew? 20:57 [Bespin] How are stars and planets named? 23:43 [Mustafar] Which galaxies can be seen with a naked eye? 25:53 [Alderaan] What it feels like standing on an asteroid being destroyed? 28:38 [Dagobah] Will NASA land on an asteroid? 30:58 [Yavin] How cold is it in space? 33:25 [Mandalore] Can we bring our sun to another star? 37:03 [Geonosis] Lunar probe flying with springs? 📰 EMAIL NEWSLETTER Read by 55,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads. Subscribe Free: https://universetoday.com/newsletter 🎧 PODCASTS Universe Today: https://universetoday.fireside.fm/ Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: http://www.astronomycast.com/ 🤳 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter: https://twitter.com/fcain Twitter: https://twitter.com/universetoday Facebook: https://facebook.com/universetoday Instagram: https://instagram.com/universetoday 📩 CONTACT FRASER frasercain@gmail.com ⚖️ LICENSE Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) You are free to use my work for any purpose you like, just mention me as the source and link back to this video.

Did James Webb already reach its full potential or is there more to come from it? How does TESS compare to Kepler? Can we use Starlinks as a giant space-based interferometer? Can we rip a black...

China is planning a Mars Sample Return Mission. James Webb tracks water moving towards planets. The Hubble Tension has gotten even more tense. 🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/univ...

In this QA, I explain why only gas giants have rings, if it would be possible to cool down Venus, what would it take to build a generational ships and more... Here s my interview on Space Junk about the Fermi Paradox: https://anchor.fm/spacejunk/episodes/The-Fermi-Paradox-and-The-Great-Filter-w-Fraser-Cain-e44uff 00:29 Are rings only limited to gas giants? 02:30 If we blocked the light on Venus, would it cool down? 04:34 What would it take to build a generational ship? 06:20 Do airplanes avoid telescopes? 08:16 Examples of reused spacecraft designs. 10:17 Could we breath an alien atmosphere? 12:02 How do they evacuate ISS? 13:21 What is the cost of the Hubble Space Telescope? 15:12 Are we unique in the Universe? 17:10 Can t astronauts wear weights? 18:37 Research into weaponizing asteroids? 20:23 Dig caverns on the Moon or Mars? Our Book is out! https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/ Audio Podcast version: ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio What Fraser s Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Instagram - https://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com

Have you ever seen the beautiful auroral displays in the high latitudes? These are the Northern and Southern Lights. But what dark physics wizardry is going on to make this happen? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Susie Murph - @susiemmurph Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE&feature=youtu.be If you live in the high latitudes, like Alaska, or New Zealand, you ve probably had a chance to see an aurora. Here in Canada, we call them the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis, but the lucky folks in the far southern latitudes see them too. On a good night, you can see flickering sheets of light that dance across the night sky, producing an amazing display of colors. You can see green, red and even yellow and purple ghostly displays. So what causes the Northern Lights? They’re produced as our planet moves through the chemtrails emanating from the womp-rat sized exhaust ports of Planet X. Originating in the Bush-Cheney administration during a failed co-invasion attempt of the lizard people from the hollow part of the flat earth and aliens from John Carpenter’s THE THING. They cause diabetes, gluten sensitivity, itchy bun noodles and homeopathy and herald the coming of the Grand Nagus of MMA-UFC-ENTJ-LOL-WTF-BBQ. That is, if you believe everything you read on the internet. Auroras are in fact caused by interactions between energetic particles from the Sun and the Earth’s magnetic field. The Earth is filled with liquid metal, and it rotates inside turning our planet into a giant magnet. Invisible magnetic field lines travel from the Earth’s northern magnetic pole to its southern magnetic pole. This is why compasses point north, they’re following the field lines produced by this giant metallic spinning goo core. Or as I like to call it “The Planetary Shield Generator”, which should not be confused with the giant whirling metallic debris field orbiting the Earth which is our “Alien Invasion Shield”. Which you can learn about in another episode. So why would we need a Planetary Shield, you might ask? It is because we are perpetually under assault by our great enemy, the Sun. Our Sun is constantly releasing a flurry of energetic particles right at us. These particles are electrically charged and driven to Earth by the Solar Wind. When they encounter the Earth’s magnetic field, they’re forced into a spiral along the magnetic field lines. Eventually they collide with an oxygen or nitrogen atom in the Earth’s atmosphere and release photons of light. So, thanks to the spinning magnet goo core, our planetary shield converts these particles into beautiful night time displays. Although there can be auroras almost any night in the highest latitudes, we see the most brilliant auroral displays after large flares on the Sun. The most powerful flares blast a hail of particles that’s so intense, auroral displays can be seen at mid and even low-latitudes. It sounds dangerous, but we’re perfectly safe here, beneath our protective atmosphere and magnetic field. You might be amazed to know that auroral displays can even make sounds. People have reported crackling noises coming from the sky during an aurora. Even though the auroras themselves are at very high altitudes, the particle interactions can happen just a few hundred meters above the ground. People have reported hearing claps and crackles during an aurora, and this has been verified by microphones placed by scientists. If you could get high up into the atmosphere, I’m sure the sounds would be amazing. The interactions between the Sun and our planet are just another gift we get from the night sky. If you ve never seen an aurora with your own eyes, you really need to add them to your bucket list. Organize a trip to northern Europe or Alaska and get a chance to see this amazing display of nature. Have you ever been lucky enough to see the Northern Lights? Tell us a story in the comments below. Thanks for watching! Never miss an episode by clicking subscribe.

People are always worried that alien civilizations will detect the transmissions from our old radio shows and television broadcasts, and send in the invasion fleet. But the reality is that life itself has been broadcasting the existence of life on Earth for 500 million years. Blame it on the plants. In addition to filling the atmosphere with oxygen, plants give off a very specific wavelength visible in infrared radiation. It’s the kind of signal that other civilizations could search for as they’re scanning the galaxy. It’s what we’ll be looking for too. But don’t just blame the plants. Other forms of life have been giving off signals too, signals we can search for as we discover new exoplanets and wonder if they have life there. Information on ESA s ARIEL mission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCTGIxmM-e4 Audio Podcast version: ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio What Fraser s Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com References: https://www.nature.com/articles/365715a0.pdf https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/asteroid-bound-spacecraft-finds-signs-life-earth https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1907/1907.05245.pdf https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/07/exoplanet-evolution-astronomers-expand-cosmic-cheat-sheet https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~kchance/EPS238-2014/refdata/Seager-red-edge-2005.pdf https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1905/ https://arielmission.space/ https://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/earthshine/

Black Holes? Dark Energy? Dark Matter? Alien Life? What are the biggest mysteries that still exist out there for us to figure out? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Susie Murph - @susiemmurph Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE&feature=youtu.be “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don t know.” These are the words of Albert Einstein. I assume he was talking about Minecraft, but I guess it applies to the Universe too. There are many examples: astronomers try to discover the rate of the expansion of the Universe, and learn a dark energy is accelerating its expansion. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft finally images Saturn’s moon Iapetus, and finds a strange equatorial ridge - how the heck did that get there? Did the Celestials forget to trim it when it came out of the packaging? There have always been, and, let’s go as far as to say that there always will be, mysteries in astronomy. Although the nature of the mysteries may change, the total number is always going up. Hundreds of years ago, people wanted to know how the planets moved through sky (conservation of angular momentum), how old the Earth was (4.54 billion years), or what kept the Moon from flying off into space (gravity). Just a century ago, astronomers weren’t sure what galaxies were (islands of stars), or how the Sun generated energy (nuclear fusion). And just a few decades ago, we didn’t know what caused quasars (feeding supermassive black holes), or how old the Universe was (13.8 billion years). Each of these mysteries has been solved, or at least, we’ve a got a pretty good understanding of what’s going on. Science continues to explore and seek answers to the mysteries we have, and as it does it opens up new brand doors. Fortunately for anyone who’s thinking of going into astronomy as a career, there are a handful of really compelling mysteries to explore right now: Is the Universe finite or infinite? We can see light that left shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years in all directions. And the expansion of the Universe has carried these regions more than 45 billion light-years away from us. But the Universe is probably much larger than that, and may be even infinite. What is dark matter? Thanks to gravitational lensing, astronomers can perceive vast halos of invisible material around all galaxies. But what is this stuff, and why doesn’t it interact with any other matter? What is dark energy? When trying to discover the expansion rate of the Universe, astronomers discovered that the expansion is actually accelerating? Why is this happening? Is something causing this force, or do we just not understand gravity at the largest scales? There are supermassive black holes at the heart of pretty much every galaxy. Did these supermassive black holes form first, and then the galaxies around them? Or was it the other way around? The Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, and the expansion of the Universe has continued ever since. But what came before the Big Bang? In fact, what even caused the Big Bang? Has it been Big Bangs over and over again? Are we alone in the Universe? Is there life on any other world or star system? And is anyone out there we could talk to? Shortly after the Big Bang, incomprehensible amounts of matter and antimatter annihilated each other. But for some reason, there was a slightly higher ratio of matter - and so we have a matter dominated Universe. Why? Is this the only Universe? Is there a multiverse of universes out there? How do I get to the Whedonverse?

We know that in space, no one can hear you scream. But what would things sound like on another planet? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Susie Murph - @susiemmurph Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE&feature=youtu.be When humans finally set foot on Mars, they’re going to be curious about everything around them. What’s under that rock? What does it feel like to jump in the lower Martian gravity. What does Martian regolith taste like? What’s the bitcoin to red rock exchange rate? As long as they perform their activities in the safety of a pressurized habitation module or exosuit, everything should be fine. But what does Mars sound like? I urge all future Martian travelers, no matter how badly you want to know the answer to this question: don’t take your helmet off. With only 1% the atmospheric pressure of Earth, you’d empty your lungs with a final scream in a brief and foolish moment, then suffocate horribly with a mouthful of dust on the surface of the Red Planet. But… actually, even the screaming would sound a little different. How different? Let me show you. First you just need to take your helmet off for a just a little sec, just an itsy bitsy second. Here, I’ll hold it for you. Oh, come on, just take your helmet off. All the cool kids are doing it. What about Venus? Or Titan? What would everything sound like on an alien world? We evolved to exist on Earth, and so it’s perfectly safe for us to listen to sounds in the air. No space suit needed. Unless you didn’t evolve on Earth, in which case I offer to serve as emissary to our all new alien overlords. You know sounds travel when waves of energy propagate through a medium, like air or water. The molecules bump into each other and pass along the energy until they strike something that won’t move, like your ear drum. Then your brain turns bouncing into sounds. The speed of the waves depends on what the medium is made of and how dense it is. For example, sound travels at about 340 meters/second in dry air, at sea level at room temperature. Sound moves much more quickly through liquid. In water it’s nearly 1,500 m/s. It’s even faster through a solid - iron is up past 5,100 m/s. Our brain perceives a different sound depending on the intensity of the waves and how quickly they bounce off our ears. Other worlds have media that sound waves can travel through, and with your eardrum exposed to the atmosphere you should theoretically hear sounds on other worlds. Catastrophic biological failures from using your eardrums outside of documented pressure tolerances notwithstanding. Professor Tim Leighton and a team of researchers from the University of Southampton have simulated what we would hear standing on the surface of other worlds, like Mars, Venus or even Saturn’s Moon Titan. On Venus, the pitch of your voice would become deeper, because vocal cords would vibrate much more slowly in the thicker Venusian atmosphere. But sounds would travel more quickly through the soupy atmosphere. According to Dr. Leighton, humans would sound like bass Smurfs. Mars would sound a little bit higher, and Titan would sound totally alien. Dr. Leighton actually simulated the same sound on different worlds. Here’s the sound of thunder on Earth. Here’s what it would sound like on Venus And here’s what it would sound like on Mars. Here’s what a probe splashing into water on Earth would sound like. And here’s what it would sound like splashing into a hydrocarbon lake on Titan. You might be amazed to learn that we still haven’t actually recorded sounds on another world, right up until someone points out that putting a microphone on another planet hasn’t been that big a priority for any space mission. Especially when we could analyze soil samples, but hey fart sounds played and then recorded in the Venusian atmosphere could prove incredibly valuable to the future of internet soundboards.

Since the energy required to fuse iron is more than the energy that you get from doing it, could you use iron to kill a star like our sun? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Susie Murph - @susiemmurph Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE&feature=youtu.be A fan favorite was How Much Water Would it Take to Extinguish the Sun? Go ahead and watch it now if you like. Or... if you don’t have time to watch me set up the science, deliver a bunch of hilarious zingers and obscure sci-fi references, here’s the short version: The Sun is not on fire, it’s a fusion reaction. Hydrogen mashes up to produce helium and energy. Lots and lots of energy. Water is mostly hydrogen, adding water would give more fuel and make it burn hotter. But some of you clever viewers proposed another way to kill the Sun. Kill it with iron! Iron? That seems pretty specific. Why iron and not something else, like butter, donuts, or sitting on the couch playing video games - all the things working to kill me? Is iron poison to stars? An iron bar? Possibly iron bullets? Iron punches? Possibly from fashioning a suit and attacking it as some kind of Iron Man? Time for some stellar physics. Stars are massive balls of plasma. Mostly hydrogen and helium, and leftover salad from the Big Bang. Mass holds them together in a sphere, creating temperatures and pressures at their cores, where atoms of hydrogen are crushed together into helium, releasing energy. This energy, in the form of photons pushes outward. As they escape the star, this counteracts the force of gravity trying to pull it inward. Over the course of billions of years, the star uses up the reserves of hydrogen, building up helium. If it’s massive enough, it will switch to helium when the hydrogen is gone. Then it can switch to oxygen, and then silicon, and all the way up the periodic table of elements. The most massive stars in the Universe, the ones with at least 8 times the mass of the Sun, have enough temperature and pressure that they can fuse elements all the way up to iron, the 26th element on the Periodic Table. At that point, the energy required to fuse iron is more than the energy that you get from fusing iron, no matter how massive a star you are. In a fraction of a second, the core of the Sun shuts off. It’s no longer pushing outward with its light pressure, and so the outer layers collapse inward, creating a black hole and a supernova. It sure looks like the build up of iron in the core killed it. Is it true then? Is iron the Achilles heel of stars? Not really. Iron is the byproduct of fusion within the most massive stars. Just like ash is the byproduct of combustion, or poop is the byproduct of human digestion. It’s not poison, which stops or destroys processes within the human body. A better analogy might be fiber. Your body can’t get any nutritional value out of fiber, like grass. If all you had to eat was grass, you’d starve, but it’s not like the grass is poisoning you. As long as you got adequate nutrition, you could eat an immense amount of grass and not die. It’s about the food, not the grass. The Sun already has plenty of iron; it’s 0.1% iron. That little nugget would work out to be 330 times the mass of the Earth. If you gave it much more iron, it would just give the Sun more mass, which would give it more gravity to raise the temperature and pressure at the core, which would help it do even more fusion. If you just poured iron into a star, it wouldn’t kill it. It would just make it more massive and then hotter and capable of supporting the fusion of heavier elements. As long as there’s still viable fuel at the core of the star, and adequate temperatures and pressures, it’ll continue fusing and releasing energy. If you could swap out the hydrogen in the Sun with a core of iron, you would indeed kill it dead, or any star for that matter. It wouldn’t explode, though. Only if it was at least 8 times the mass of the Sun to begin with. Then would you have enough mass bearing down on the inert core to create a core collapse supernova.

What is this thing we keep hearing about - the Higgs Boson, and why is it important? Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Susie Murph - @susiemmurph Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE&feature=youtu.be It’s been said that the best way to learn is to teach. And so, today I’m going to explain everything I can about the Higgs boson. And if I do this right, maybe, just maybe, I’ll understand it a little better by the end of the episode. I’d like to be clear that this video is for the person whose eyes glaze over every time you hear the term Higgs boson. You know it’s some kind of particle, Nobel prize, mass, blah blah. But you don’t really get what it is and why it’s important. First, let’s start with the Standard Model. These are essentially the laws of particle physics as scientists understand them. They explain all the matter and forces we see all around us. Well, most of the matter, there are a few big mysteries, which we’ll discuss as we get deeper into this. But the important thing to understand is that there are two major categories: the fermions and the bosons. Fermions are matter. There are the protons and neutrons which are made up of quarks, and there are the leptons, which are indivisible, like electrons and neutrinos. With me so far? Everything you can touch are these fermions. The bosons are the particles that communicate the forces of the Universe. The one you’re probably familiar with is the photon, which communicates the electromagnetic force. Then there’s the gluon, which communicates the strong nuclear force and the W and Z bosons which communicate the weak nuclear force. Mystery number 1, gravity. Although it’s one of the fundamental forces of the Universe, nobody has discovered a boson particle that communicates this force. So, if you’re looking for a Nobel Prize, find a gravity boson and it’s yours. Prove that gravity doesn’t have a boson, and you can also get a Nobel Prize. Either way, there’s a Nobel Prize in it for you. Again, this is the Standard Model, and it accurately describes the laws of nature as we see them around us. One of the biggest unsolved mysteries in physics was the concept of mass. Why does anything have mass at all, or inertia? Why does the amount of physical “stuff” in an object define how easy it is to get moving, or how hard it is to make it stop? In the 1960s, physicist Peter Higgs predicted that there must be some kind of field that permeates all of space and interacts with matter, sort of like a fish swimming through water. The more mass an object has, the more it interacts with this Higgs field. And just like the other fundamental forces in the Universe, the Higgs field should have a corresponding boson to communicate the force - this is the Higgs boson. The field itself is undetectable, but if you could somehow detect the corresponding Higgs particles, you could assume the existence of the field. And this is where the Large Hadron Collider comes in. The job of a particle accelerator is to convert energy into matter, via the formula e=mc2. By accelerating particles - like protons - to huge velocities, they give them an enormous amount of kinetic energy. In fact, in its current configuration, the LHC moves protons to 0.999999991c, which is about 10 km/h slower than the speed of light. When beams of particles moving in opposite directions are crashed together, it concentrates an enormous amount of energy into a tiny volume of space. This energy needs somewhere to go so it freezes out as matter (thanks Einstein). The more energy you can collide, the more massive particles you can create. And so, in 2013, the LHC allowed physicists to finally be able to confirm the presence of the Higgs Boson by tuning the energy of the collisions to exactly the right level, and then detecting the cascade of particles that occur when Higgs bosons decay. Because the right particles are detected, you can assume the presence of the Higgs boson, and because of this, you can assume the presence of the Higgs field. Nobel prizes for everyone.

Black holes are the most impressive objects in the Universe, but when happens when they crash into each other is absolutely mind-bending. They distort space and time itself, sending ripples out into the Universe. Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Follow us on Tumblr: http://universetoday.tumblr.com/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer Edited by: Chad Weber Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcoZNrSveE The sign of a truly great scientific theory is by the outcomes it predicts when you run experiments or perform observations. And one of the greatest theories ever proposed was the concept of Relativity, described by Albert Einstein in the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to helping us understand that light is the ultimate speed limit of the Universe, Einstein described gravity itself as a warping of spacetime. He did more than just provide a bunch of elaborate new explanations for the Universe, he proposed a series of tests that could be done to find out if his theories were correct. One test, for example, completely explained why Mercury’s orbit didn’t match the predictions made by Einstein. Other predictions could be tested with the scientific instruments of the day, like measuring time dilation with fast moving clocks. Since gravity is actually a distortion of spacetime, Einstein predicted that massive objects moving through spacetime should generate ripples, like waves moving through the ocean. Just by walking around, you leave a wake of gravitational waves that compress and expand space around you. However, these waves are incredibly tiny. Only the most energetic events in the entire Universe can produce waves we can detect. It took over 100 years to finally be proven true, the direct detection of gravitational waves. In February, 2016, physicists with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, or LIGO announced the collision of two massive black holes more than a billion light-years away. Any size of black hole can collide. Plain old stellar mass black holes or supermassive black holes. Same process, just on a completely different scale. Let’s start with the stellar mass black holes. These, of course, form when a star with many times the mass of our Sun dies in a supernova. Just like regular stars, these massive stars can be in binary systems. Imagine a stellar nebula where a pair of binary stars form. But unlike the Sun, each of these are monsters with many times the mass of the Sun, putting out thousands of times as much energy. The two stars will orbit one another for just a few million years, and then one will detonate as a supernova. Now you’ll have a massive star orbiting a black hole. And then the second star explodes, and now you have two black holes orbiting around each other. As the black holes zip around one another, they radiate gravitational waves which causes their orbit to decay. This is kind of mind-bending, actually. The black holes convert their momentum into gravitational waves. As their angular momentum decreases, they spiral inward until they actually collide. What should be one of the most energetic explosions in the known Universe is completely dark and silent, because nothing can escape a black hole. No radiation, no light, no particles, no screams, nothing. And if you mash two black holes together, you just get a more massive black hole. The gravitational waves ripple out from this momentous collision like waves through the ocean, and it’s detectable across more than a billion light-years. This is exactly what happened earlier this year with the announcement from LIGO. This sensitive instrument detected the gravitational waves generated when two black holes with 30 solar masses collided about 1.3 billion light-years away. This wasn’t a one-time event either, they detected another collision with two other stellar mass black holes. Regular stellar mass black holes aren’t the only ones that can collide. Supermassive black holes can collide too. From what we can tell, there’s a supermassive black hole at the heart of pretty much every galaxy in the Universe. The one in the Milky Way is more than 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun, and the one at the heart of Andromeda is thought to be 110 to 230 million times the mass of the Sun. In a few billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda are going to collide, and begin the process of merging together. Unless the Milky Way’s black hole gets kicked off into deep space, the two black holes are going to end up orbiting one another.

In this week s questions show, I tackle all the questions about James Webb generated by the videos we did this week. Can it be refueled? How can it see the entire sky? Is the delay a blessing? And more... 00:30 How will JWST run out of propellant? 03:12 Are there spacecraft that could service JWST? 05:00 Can JWST only see half the sky? 08:21 Is the delay a blessing in disguise? 10:58 Why not construct it in Low Earth Orbit? 13:09 Could we build a copy? 14:29 Could JWST use gravitational lensing? 15:55 Will JWST image black holes? 17:52 Is the telescope an antique? 18:49 Should we look or explore? 20:52 Could it find vegetation? 22:00 Is James Webb already a failure? Want to be part of the questions show? Ask a short question on any video on my channel. I gather a bunch up each week, and answer them here. Our Book is out! https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/ Audio Podcast version: ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio What Fraser s Watching Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbJ42wpShvmkjd428BcHcCEVWOjv7cJ1G Weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg Support us at: https://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: https://www.universetoday.com/ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Instagram - https://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com

In this week’s question show, Fraser answers questions about dark matter black holes, the magnetospheres of exoplanets and whether the Earth is increasing or decreasing in mass. Brian Koberlein s article about the Earth s Mass: https://briankoberlein.com/2015/12/15/is-earth-gaining-mass-or-losing-mass/ Support us at: http://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: http://www.universetoday.com/ Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+universetoday/ Instagram - http://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt... Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

As I’m recording this video near the end of 2019, the total number of confirmed exoplanets stands at 4,104. We’ve come a long way since the discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star back in 1995 with 51 Pegasi b. And the reality is that the race to find new exoplanets is only accelerating. New ground and space-based telescopes are turning up planetary candidates at an increasing rate. New techniques will find planets in entirely new ways. The bottom line is that over the next few decades, this mere 4000ish will multiply by orders of magnitude. So let’s run the clock forward and try to calculate what the future holds for exoplanets. How many worlds will we know about 3 decades from now, in the year 2050? Our Book is out! https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/ Audio Podcast version: ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio Weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg Support us at https://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at https://www.universetoday.com/ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain Twitter: @universetoday Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Instagram - https://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com References: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.12114.pdf https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mooreslaw.asp http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/51_peg_b/ https://sci.esa.int/web/plato/-/42276-summary https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/habex/ https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013A%26A...556A.133S/abstract https://sci.esa.int/web/gaia/-/58788-detecting-exoplanets-with-astrometry https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.01348.pdf

A new system found with 7 Earth and Super-Earth Sized planets, the remains of another planet inside the Earth, and it’s time to replace your wallpaper again with this new image of the Crab...

In this week s questions show, I explain if we d be able to see a nuclear bomb explode on the Moon, have we already passed the Great Filter, and where we could put DNA to keep it safe in the Solar System. Read Amber s biography on NASA s Website https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/meetTheTeam/people/straughn.html Follow Amber Straughn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/astraughnomer 00:22 Could we see a nuclear bomb on the Moon? 02:18 Have we already passed the great filter? 05:28 Where could we put our DNA to keep it safe? 07:52 Could rogue planets explain dark matter 09:12 Will Betelgeuse create a nebula? 10:35 ET will use quantum mechanics? 12:04 What if there isn t water on the Moon? 14:00 Low metal stars with planets? 16:20 Could we use neutrinos to communicate through the Moon? 18:19 Why bother astronomy when we should be studying the Solar System? 20:46 Would it be worth it to have Starlink to have more telescopes? 24:35 Will James Webb be good for Solar System objects? Want to be part of the questions show? Ask a short question on any video on my channel. I gather a bunch up each week, and answer them here. Our Book is out! https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/ Audio Podcast version: ITunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-guide-to-space-audio/id794058155?mt=2 RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/audio Weekly email newsletter: https://www.universetoday.com/newsletter Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg Support us at: https://www.patreon.com/universetoday More stories at: https://www.universetoday.com/ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universetoday Instagram - https://instagram.com/universetoday Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEItkORQYd4Wf0TpgYI_1fw Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com

In this week s questions show, I talk about the stars we can see with our own eyes. Are they special? How long does it take solar flares to reach Earth? How will crimes on Mars be prosecuted? 00:00 Start 00:39 What types of stars can we see? 02:07 How long does it take for a solar flare to reach us? 04:19 Will I watch Foundation? 05:39 Crimes on Mars? 08:31 How will future spaceships slow down? 11:06 End of the Earth conspiracy theories 14:22 Will today s children live long enough to see interstellar flight? 16:41 Is an Earth-Mars cycler feasible? 19:13 Should we build a giant telescope on the Moon? 22:27 What does space look like, from space? 25:13 Could we see 4th dimensional beings? 28:04 What elements are in the solar winds? 28:48 Will Starship have to launch from the ocean? 31:05 Are there stars forming right now? 33:43 Should we land on Mercury? Want to be part of the questions show? Ask a short question on any video on my channel. I gather a bunch up each week and answer them here. Our Book is out! https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Today-Ultimate-Viewing-Cosmos/dp/1624145442/ 🚀 OUR WEBSITE: ════════════════════════════════════ https://www.universetoday.com/ 🚀 PODCAST LINKS: ════════════════════════════════════ RSS: https://universetoday.com/audio iTunes: https://universetoday.com/itunes Spotify: https://universetoday.com/spotify 🚀 EMAIL NEWSLETTER: ════════════════════════════════════ Read by 50,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads. Subscribe Free: https://universetoday.com/newsletter 🚀 OTHER PODCASTS: ════════════════════════════════════ Weekly Space Hangout: Weekly news roundup with Fraser, special guests, and other space journalists. RSS: https://www.universetoday.com/feed/wshaudio/ iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/weekly-space-hangout-audio/id836926769 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/ Astronomy Cast: Award-winning, long-running deep dive into space and astronomy with Fraser and Dr. Pamela Gay. RSS: https://astronomycast.libsyn.com/rss/ iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/astronomy-cast/id191636169?mt=2 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHI67dh9jEO2rvK--MdCSg 🚀 JOIN OUR COMMUNITY: ════════════════════════════════════ Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday 🚀 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA: ════════════════════════════════════ Twitter: https://twitter.com/fcain Twitter: https://twitter.com/universetoday Facebook: https://facebook.com/universetoday Instagram: https://instagram.com/universetoday Twitch: https://twitch.tv/fcain 🚀 CONTACT FRASER: ════════════════════════════════════ Email: frasercain@gmail.com 🚀 LICENSE: ════════════════════════════════════ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) You are free to use my work for any purpose you like, just mention me as the source and link back to this video.