WE JUST DISCOVERED NEW PLANETS THAT COULD HOST LIFE !!!!

• 2022 and 2023 have been Landmark years for discovering new fascinating worlds last year NASA surpassed 5 000 confirmed exoplanets the list is incredibly diverse it includes Rocky super Earths gas giants like Jupiter ice giants like Neptune and so on and this is just the beginning there might be more than a trillion exoplanets in our galaxy alone but the most important question is how many of them are habitable you know for us are there any planets on this list that could have life on them or that could be a future home for us of course there are and in 2022 2023 we found as many as five of them so buckle up and hang on for a wild ride beyond our solar system the first planet on our list is Wolf 1069b a boring and stodgy designation so I'll simply nickname it Wolfie because hey who's gonna stop me NASA a new study conducted by 50 starry-eyed astronomers confirmed something awesome this exoplanet Wolfie which is located just 31 light years away from us could potentially be a rocky World in other words theoretically it's a habitable planet the team behind this discovery used a technique called radio velocity to detect the exoplanet this is a way scientists study the movements of stars and planets it's as if when you're playing catch with a friend as they throw the ball to you you can see it coming closer and closer it's kind of like radio velocity when a planet is moving towards us it makes the star at orbits appear to be coming closer to us when the planet is moving away from us it also makes the star look more distant scientists can use this information to figure out what the planet is doing and how big it is and that's how they found Wolfie this exoplanet is estimated to be the earth size and about one and a third times the mass of our planet it's orbiting a red dwarf star who I'll call Wolfie's Mama but here's the real kicker Wolfie orbits within its star's habitable zone which means it's a prime candidate for liquid water to exist on its surface that's like hitting the exoplanetary jackpot ooh wish I had a ticket the study estimates that if Wolfie does have an Earth-like atmosphere temperatures could rise as high as 55 degrees Fahrenheit which would mean liquid water could pool on the planet's day side but here's the catch the exoplanet is tidally locked to its star meaning that the same side always faces the star just imagine one side of the planet is always best in the warmth of its star while the other is in Eternal Darkness like Middle School just kidding the team behind the discovery believes it's a prime candidate for further studies but we'll probably have to wait another 10 years for answers until then we'll just have to keep searching the skies with our telescopes and crossed fingers our next planet is toi 700e hmm what's a good nickname NASA has just discovered a new planet that's set to take the galaxies by storm or shall we say by orbit I'll nickname it toy were us it's almost the size of Earth most likely has liquid water on its surface and it's only 100 light years away we're not talking about a road trip of course but this is close enough in the grand scheme of things toys where us is the fourth planet in its system and it's got a bit of a short orbit just 28 days to Circle its star well at least you would have a birthday every month hooray this time the discovery was made using the transit method planets themselves are incredibly small and hard to attack but when a planet is in front of its star it blocks some of the light coming from it making it look a little bit dimmer as soon as the planet moves away the star gets brighter again so to find the planet scientists watch very carefully to see if the star's brightness changes if it does that means there's probably a planet playing hide and seek with us and that's how they discovered toys were us the test mission discovered it it discovers 66 new exoplanets and 2100 more candidates waiting to be confirmed Tess has been very busy creating Imaging for 75 percent of the sky talk about efficiency toys where us is located in the optimistic habitable zone between planets C and D but it may be tidally locked just like Wolfie so we might have to settle for a one-sided Water World the discovery of toys whereas is a promising Prospect for future follow-up observations and it demonstrates the potential for Tess to find even smaller exoplanets in the future who knows it may find a new home for Humanity Among the Stars one day or Middle East a new vacation spot next we Twins gj1002b and gj1002c the Galaxy just got a little bit closer to us with a discovery of two exoplanets which I'll nickname Hansel and Gretel that are just a stone's throw away from our solar system that's right these two Earth-like planets are located less than 16 light years away which is just a hop skip and a jump in space terms for comparison Proxima Centauri B is the closest Earth Mass exoplanet at 4.2 light years away so these two new neighbors are among the closest to us they both orbit a red dwarf star with barely 1 8 the mass of the sun it's quite cool and faint but that's okay since both planets are very close to it Hansel takes 10 days to orbit its star while griddle takes just over 21 days even more birthdays I guess the discovery was made by an international scientific team and was no small feat the team had to work together with two instruments espresso and carminis the result a cafe latte what they got were measurements so accurate you could practically count the number of craters on the planet's surfaces the big deal is the planets are located in the habitable zone of their star and are just the right size making them excellent candidates for future atmospheric studies the lead author says nature seems bent on showing us that earth-like planets are very common with these two we now know seven in planetary systems quite near to the Sun who knew our neighbors could be so friendly conclusion the discovery of Hansel and Gretel is a giant leaf for humankind so let's all raise a glass of H2O or whatever they drink on exoplanets and celebrate it the last planet on our list is LP 890-9c which I'll call Bob this super Earth located about 98 light years away is roughly 40 percent larger than our home planet moreover it has a twin which I'll nickname Ray which is up to 75 percent larger than Earth more space is always good right the two planets orbit around the red dwarf star unfortunately Rey is quite hot to the touch with an estimated temperature of 253 degrees Fahrenheit so don't touch its sibling Bob is located in the habitable zone of its star making it a prime candidate for the potential of life but let's remember that the actual temperature of the planets depends on their atmospheres it's possible that Bob being the outermost planet has a runaway greenhouse effect making it more like Venus than Earth so it might be too hot to be habitable at all but let's not lose hope yet the James web Space Telescope launched in December 2021 is on the case with its Cutting Edge technology and Powerful instruments including spectrographs it can peer into the atmospheres of exoplanets and reveal which ones might be habitable so let's see what it discovers this planet has been listed as the second most favorable habitable zone terrestrial planet now it's on the list with seven other earth-like planets all about 40 light years away from us maybe they'll become our new homes in the future maybe we should fix the home we have but until then enjoy this moment and celebrate all these new discoveries who knows how many more planets we'll find in the future considering how much technology develops each year thousands millions meanwhile Bob and Ray Hansel and Gretel toys where us Wolfie and her mama will all be out there waiting for us have you ever thought about Earth itself as an intelligent well not creature but maybe an entity like it has a mind and some survival instincts of its own when said like this it sounds like you're about to watch a fantasy movie where the planet we walk and live our daily lives on will suddenly wake up realize it doesn't like us that much after all and just go crazy hope not but we're not actually talking about such scenarios more of the idea that the collective activity of life like microbes and plants can change a planet and give it a life of its own it's like the planet has a green mind the metaphor of Earth as a living planet makes sense creatures across the globe crawl swim walk and fly through the uppermost layers of Our Land Ocean and Sky plants cover much of our world plus there are viruses and bacteria in the water soil and even atmosphere now imagine all the living things on earth like plants animals and microbes as a giant team working together they have different jobs but they all do their thing to make the planet a better place to live for example plants make oxygen that we breathe and animals help pollinate flowers together they form the biosphere which is like the Earth's team of life that's where the idea of planetary intelligence comes in just like individuals and groups can be intelligent so can an entire planet researchers believe we should measure the planet's intelligence by its ability to keep itself going forever and just like how humans need to work together to survive a planet's collective intelligence is measured by the capacity of all the life on it to work together towards this same goal it's like the planet is a complex system that knows how to take care of itself like forests they can share nutrients through their secret underground networks of fungi this helps all the trees stay healthy we can obviously learn a lot from forests if we jump into the fantasy Universe while looking for intelligent conscious planets we definitely choose MoGo from Green Lantern it's a specific planetary entity that can do things like changing its weather and altering gravity plant growth or some other surface conditions or how about the stunning Pandora from Avatar do you remember the fascinating scenes of Flora and Fauna there with organs that might remind you of tentacles they enable creatures to Interlink with each other on a neural level it's like the entire planet is like one giant brain with many smaller trees creatures and its other pieces has its cells [Music] we're far from that but it's still nice to imagine at the moment our civilization is in the stage scientists named an immature technosphere that means we're still too focused on using technology that doesn't always do good for our planet we don't have a planetary intelligence or a collective understanding of what needs to be done to do better for our planet instead we're all just doing our own thing I mean we're not at the worst stage researchers have come up with four stages of Earth's past and future to explain how planetary intelligence could impact the long-term future of humanity the first stage is what we call the immature biosphere it's when life first started on Earth billions of years ago only microbes were there on the bare land without any vegetation there wasn't any Global feedback which means these microbes couldn't yet affect Earth its atmosphere or other systems in any way the second stage is the mature biosphere which was 2.5 billion to 540 million years ago when stable continents formed and the biosphere started to have a strong influence on the Earth the third stage known as immature technosphere is where we are now with interlinked systems of communication technology Transportation electricity and computers that draw resources from Earth's systems and affect the biosphere the fourth stage also known as the mature technosphere is where Earth should aim to be in the future it it means technology will benefit the entire planet we'll use sustainable forms of energy like solar power planetary intelligence is the sign of a mature planet and researchers are trying to figure out how we can move towards it so things we do on an individual level do matter the collective activity of life like microbes or plants can change a planet and make it more than just a lifeless rock floating in space through the biosphere our home planet kind of figured out how to host Life by itself billions of years ago and it's still going now we need to figure out how to have a similar kind of self-maintaining system but this time with the technosphere it's hard to imagine planets could generally become sentient like Pandora or some other imaginary conscious world out there there are a few reasons for that first planets form based on how different materials like rocks gases and liquids gather around a new star it's like you have a big family gathering where everyone brings different ingredients to make a delicious dish and just like how these ingredients won't suddenly turn into a living being the materials that make up a planet won't just turn into self-aware creatures on Earth after billions of years of complex chemical reactions some molecules started to replicate themselves and carry information that's how life on our planet began and Earth is the only such example we have here's the second reason imagine you have a big Garden where you plant a lot of mushrooms or bacteria hoping they'll become really smart and help you take care of the garden but mushrooms and bacteria don't have brains like we do it's not like they need it anyway having a big brain is really expensive for animals too it takes a lot of energy to keep it running so animals only become as smart as they need to be to survive and thrive in their environment dogs and cats are pretty smart because they need to be able to avoid danger and find food they don't need human kind of intelligence for things like building houses creating art or inventing new technologies so it would be hard to bring all living beings and plants to the same level of intelligence the third reason why it would be difficult for a planet to become sentient is the main rule of the animal kingdom life is all about survival of the fittest every creature is competing for resources like water food and space but not only do different species compete against each other but individuals within the same species also fight just think of how fiddler crabs fight for territory on the beach or how wolf packs fight over prey or me when I see an empty spot on a crowded Beach this kind of competition is not a good base for Global cooperation [Music] there are a couple of exceptions to this rule for example ants they may not be the brightest creatures on the planet but when they come together in colonies they can achieve amazing things like Gathering food that's way bigger than them building nests raising Young And even farming in fact they act like a super organism called a hive mind where every ant works together towards a common goal insects like bees and ants are very altruistic and work together to ensure their Queen reproduces if one large ant colony took over our whole planet it could act as a single mind and work towards the colonies and planets interests until they run out of resources but in reality it's hard to imagine any organism even a super organism could reach such a level of self-awareness and consciousness number five how could we keep in contact when it comes to communication ants use pheromones and humans use nerves both of these methods work well for small organisms but when it comes to a giant planet-sized entity it would be hard to make such communication fast and efficient so communication within a planet-sized entity would be much slower than what we have in our homes like our computers or smartphones oh well we'll just continue dreaming about Pandora you know rotation is a funny thing not haha funny but kind of strange not only can't you feel it everything does it from galaxies to atoms the universe is taking us for a spin strangely it was more difficult to prove that the Earth is rotating than it was to prove that the Earth is revolving around the Sun way back in 1610 Galileo the father of experimental science provided the first proof that Earth and all the other planets revolve around the sun Galileo showed in his telescope that Venus was going through phases like the moon the only conclusion possible was that Venus was revolving around the Sun Case Closed planets revolved but it wasn't until 241 years later March 31st 1851 to be exact that Leon Foucault proved that Earth was rotating Foucault installed a giant pendulum from the 220 foot high ceiling of the pantheon in Paris that's a lot of Peace an assembly of scientists and journalist watch as the floor turned beneath the giant pendulum the Earth turns they shouted mostly in French another strange thing about rotation is that although the Earth is rotating at a constant speed the surface of the Earth is moving at all different speeds at all different latitudes the same is true for every planet and star at the Equator the surface of the Earth is moving the fastest at 1037 miles per hour that's much faster than the speed of sound which is a mere 761 miles per hour halfway from the equator to the North or South Pole at 45 degrees latitude the Earth is rotating at 733 miles per hour standing at the North or South Pole it would take you 24 hours just to turn around one time and that's both boring and cold one result of these differential rotational speeds of Earth is that it creates belts and bands not only in the atmosphere but also on the surface of the Earth Jupiter of course is famous for the belts and bands and its clouds caused by the giant planet's rapid rotation of about 28 000 miles per hour the belts and bands on Earth's surface are somewhat overlooked but we've got them too we have white ice at the North and South poles and between the two poles there are alternating belts and bands of dry sandy desert and moist green vegetation this essential geography can be seen most clearly when we view the Earth rotating in space space agencies use the differential rotation of the earth to their advantage they launch their Rockets as close to the equator as possible Nasa uses Cape Canaveral near the southern tip of Florida and the esa the European space agency uses the Guyana Space Center in French Guiana South America almost exactly at the equator because the land under a rocket near the equator is rotating at a greater speed it gives the rocket a boost into space that launch sites near the poles cannot provide you always want to save fuel you know speaking of Jupiter as I did about three paragraphs ago the axis of rotation of the big planet is even less inclined than that of the sun the sun is tilted at an angle of around six degrees while Jupiter is only tilted three degrees Jupiter stands almost perfectly upright which combined with a great speed at which Jupiter is rotating its entire day is less than 10 hours it turns Jupiter into a giant gyroscope Jupiter's gyroscopic stability combined with its massive gravity gives stability to the whole Solar System Jupiter prevents chaos factors from disrupting the orbits of the other planets in other words without Jupiter rotating like a stable gyroscope the solar system could never have stayed intact for the billions of years that it has exoplanet solar systems are showing signs of Chaos in their orbits they could use a gyroscope like Jupiter to hold them together rotation is the real hero here as for the sun its differential rotation has a big effect on its sunspot activity sunspots are spots or patches that sometimes appear on the sun's surface usually at Mid latitudes in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun as sunspot activity increases on the sun sun spots begin to move closer to the Equator fuson spots are ever seen near the poles with differential rotation the gases at the equator of the sun are moving faster than the gases at the sun's poles this differential motion of the gases twists the magnetic field lines in the sun causing them to snap sunspots are magnetic eruptions Rising through the surface of the Sun purling electrified gases far into space and emitting intense ultraviolet radiation often in the direction of the earth uh oh well have no fear Earth's differential rotation protects us not only does our Earth rotate differentially on its surface but also down into its Center studies of seismic readings of shock waves from earthquakes indicate the metallic core of the Earth is rotating slightly faster than the surface of our planet scientists think that the differential rotation of Earth's magnetic core within the slower rotating metallic liquid creates the magnetosphere arising from Earth's poles and extending far out into space this magnetosphere keeps earth safe from electrified gases from the Sun hurray for rotation far out now the 9.0 Mega quake in 2011 off the coast of Japan rearrange the mass of Earth crust and cause the rotation of Earth to speed up the day got shorter and not much shorter 1.6 millionths of a second but we are accustomed to seeing the Earth's rotation slowing down the Earth rotating through the tidal action of the moon's gravitational effect on the oceans drains kinetic energy from the Earth's rotation causing the planet to slow down each day is becoming longer about 2 thousands of a second longer well I need to adjust my watch leap years we all know are when we add a day to the calendar every four years on February 29th to straighten up Earth's yearly rotation around the Sun taking 365 and one quarter days but leap seconds are added to the clocks every so often to synchronize our clocks with the slowing rotation of the earth and allow the Earth to catch up with our clocks as if the Earth is concerned about our timepieces 27 leap seconds have been added since 1972. the last leap second was added on December 31st 2016 and made the clocks read 659 60 PM yeah I didn't notice either but the sun's rotation has unexpectedly been speeding up recently usually it takes 86 400 seconds for the Earth to rotate as measured by an array of atomic clocks in different locations on Earth and coordinated by a special service in Paris yes they pay people for that July 19 2020 was the shortest day ever recorded a whopping 1.46 milliseconds less than the usual eighty six thousand four hundred Cad Zeus if this keeps up for another five years they may have to add a negative leap second to synchronize our clocks to Earth's increasing rotation computers and satellites won't like to see their clocks read January 1st at zero o'clock and they say time can't go backward at least the Earth hasn't started rotating backward or stop rotating altogether that would be catastrophic everything would crash forward at whatever differential speed it was rotating on Earth yet that appears to be what happened to the planet closer to Earth Venus Venus rotates very slowly backward in retrograde and that is very unusual how so you ask well there are several theories to why Venus rotates in retrograde motion while all the other planets rotate in prograde or forward motion liquids inside a rotating sphere like a planet have a lot of inertia that's why when you take an egg from the fridge for example and try to spin it it won't spin the liquid inside is just sitting there its inertia is resisting your attempt to spin it however if finally after many turns you manage to get the raw egg to rotate it's hard to get it to stop spinning if you do pick it up and put it back down the egg will start rotating again because the inertia of the liquid inside it is still going forward you only stop the shell from spinning something like this may have happened to Venus wait a minute Venus backspin tennis hmm I think there's a connection here somewhere we know that on Venus the planet one day is longer than one year it takes longer for Venus to slowly rotate around backward one time then it takes Venus to orbit the sun once but Venus is slowing down dramatically and by 6.5 minutes in the last 25 years if there still is liquid inside Venus and the movement continues we might see Venus completely stop spinning backward and start rotating forward again ah come on Venus let's get with a crowd business of retrograde and pro-grade rotation has got has gotten of mystery to it it seems that everything tends to rotate in pro-grade motion if you shape your right hand like a ball and stick your thumb up to indicate North then curl your wrist towards you that's prograde motion your fingers on the left side of your hand are moving towards you black holes solar systems galaxies atoms Stars Etc all seem to rotate pro-grade depending on which angle you view them from experiments at the Large Hadron Collider indicate that subatomic particles spin toward the left program is starting to look as if we may be in a left-handed Universe then why is it so hard to find a left-handed manual can opener or measuring tape I don't know it's a mystery