A JOURNEY BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM. THE MOST BIZARRE OBJECTS

ever since making appearance on the face of the earth man has painstakingly been learning about everything around but even now several hundreds of thousands of years later we still cannot claim with certainty that our nearest space objects have been studied well enough and probably the process of studying them will continue for many a century as we look further from our system we can observe objects that really defy our understanding and i invite you to join me on a journey to several of these we will fly by myra talk about brown and black dwarves take a look at canis venetici the methuselah star the exoplanet's glieser 832c and last but not least witness the most tremendous explosions that have ever taken place in the observable universe a fascinating journey is up ahead let's get started cosmo the first in outer space most stars in the milky way slowly revolve around the center of the galaxy their appearance is rather recognizable and their speed is approximately the same as that of interstellar gas our sun for example passes through the local interstellar cloud at a speed of about 25 kilometers per second but myra really stands out in this respect as it whizzes through gas in interstellar space at a speed of 130 kilometers per second as a result of such staggering propulsion the shed material is blown back thus forming the unique tale we can marvel at this tale is the feature that makes myra one of the most peculiar stars in the cetus constellation the tail of this star was discovered in 2007 with the help of the galex orbiting ultraviolet space telescope a group of astronomers received high quality ultraviolet light images of mira where the tail made up of gas and dust can be clearly seen at first this tail formation rather perplexed the scientists as the star had been under observation for over 400 years and no tail had been spotted before but the riddle was soon solved only ultraviolet images were able to reveal the tail and only regular photos had been taken before the length of the tail reaches 13 light years which is three times the distance from the sun to the closest star proxima centauri as i've already mentioned it was formed by material being shed in the course of the star's movement through space every 10 years myra sheds approximately as much material as the mass of our earth by estimating the length of the tail and the star's velocity the material found at the very tip of the tail was gauged to have been dumped as long ago as about 30 000 years as for the total mass of the material shed so far it may be as much as three thousand earth masses marvelous as it is the tail isn't the only feature that singles out mira among other stars another feature it has is a bizarre formation that can also be seen in images beamed back from the galax telescope it most likely originated as a result of myra's speed with which it travels through the molecular cloud a kind of bow we can see in front would have been accumulated in the many years as a result of the stars material at the front colliding with particles of interstellar gas that makes myra resemble a boat cutting through water only myra cuts through space instead most of the shed material is made up of atoms of hydrogen once shed they gradually lose their impetus and release the energy in the form of ultraviolet rays and it is these rays that were captured by the galax telescope we know mira as a binary pulsating variable star in its maximal luminosity periods it flares up to be the brightest star in its constellation but even with its luminosity at its lowest it can still be seen through regular binoculars the best time for observing it from our earth is october and november billions of years ago this object used to be a yellow dwarf and today myra's stellar travels are coming to an end as it is now in one of the final stages of a star's life speaking about its system it comprises two stellar companions mira a a red giant and myra b a white dwarf both objects are about 417 light years away from our earth and the distance between the companions themselves is 70 astronomical units the first component in the system is a pulsating variable star with the average apparent magnitude 3.5 depending on the phase however the value may fluctuate between 10 and 2. just to compare the apparent magnitude of sirius is -1.46 the mass of the system's first component is approximately 1.2 that of the sun interestingly its radius is 360 times that of the sun the reason for such impressive dimensions and a comparatively small mass lies in the fact that since mira a is a red giant its average density may be thousands of times less than that of water just to compare the average density of the sun is slightly bigger than that of water besides a star hitting the red giant phase gets a massive growth spurt and with a mass comparable to that of the sun may in theory grow to the size of the earth's orbit the surface temperature on mira a reaches 3000 degrees kelvin the luminosity of the star meanwhile is nine thousand times that of the sun as for its supposed age it is estimated to be six billion years the red giant is not massive enough to go supernova at the end of its life cycle instead it is going to expel its outer envelope and gradually turn into a white dwarf the expanding outer envelope forms a planetary nebula which will later on be dispersed in space around it as for the second component mira b it is a white dwarf already as this object is located close to mira a by space standards it attracts material dumped from the outer layers of the red giant in this manner a hot accretion disk was formed around mirabi and since mata is shed onto it at irregular intervals mira b is a variable star too its apparent magnitude fluctuates between 9.5 and 12. [Music] thus both components in the system are variable stars or variables other stars in the universe whose luminosity depends on physical processes taking place in their vicinity also fall into the same category it is important to study these objects in order to understand the nature of stellar evolution as variable stars are more often than not at a turning point in their existence in fact the phenomenon of myra is a perfect demonstration of how objects reaching some milestone or rather in their life may conceal a number of great riddles myra's unusual features allowed scientists to use it as the prototype for a special classification for such like objects that got the name mira type stars or mira variables celestial objects of this variety are pulsating variable stars of late type spectral classes with the values for their apparent magnitudes ranging from 2.5 to 11. mira variables are giants that shed their router envelope in the course of several million years and eventually turn into white dwarfs mostly mira type variables shouldn't be heavier than two masses of the sun although they may be thousands of times brighter than the sun on account of their expanded outer layer the pulsation of these objects occurs due to regular contraction and expansion of these stars this also causes changes in the radius and temperature resulting in variable luminosity as for the chance of planets possibly hiding somewhere in these stars orbits only one myra type variable boasts an unconfirmed planetary system are leonis in the leo constellation it goes without saying that the information about myra possessed by science today is rather sparse we really have no clue if there are planets or some equally amazing space objects located close to it but it is safe enough to say that this star is yet to hit the headlines and for all we know it may happen literally at any moment it may be hard to imagine but our sun which is relatively small for a star is heavier than any of 95 percent of stars in the universe there are also such things as red dwarves 11 times lighter than our host star however they're actually not the lightest objects out there in the wide range between gas giants and the smallest stars in the universe there are some fascinating objects known as brown dwarves or dwarf stars to understand their nature let's have a look at how a star is born according to modern scientific theories stars and brown dwarves originate in the same star nursery when nebulae made up of interstellar gas gradually contract under the influence of gravitational forces pressure and temperature inside the gas increase the enormous nebulae disintegrate into a great number of proto-stellar discs and each of them has a chance of becoming a fully fledged star at some point its destiny depends on how much matter the young star will manage to capture if the mass of a protest star is over 8 of that of the sun thermonuclear reactions are bound to start in its interior nuclei of light elements like hydrogen deuterium helium or lithium blend together emitting a great amount of heat this heats up the interior of the future star even more and more and more matter is involved in these processes this unleashes a chain reaction which may persevere for billions of years until the substances fueling it are totally depleted and so and youth star is born somewhere light years away from us and can probably be observed in the sky its future depends on its mass and chemical composition most of its life cycle will be spent in the main sequence phase later the star is likely to turn into a white dwarf or alternatively a neutron star or a black hole but what if the mass of the forming protest star is smaller then the gravitational pressure will not be enough for the heat produced by the thermonuclear reaction to increase the star's temperature to the point when it is able to sustain the burning process without additional help from other sources nuclear fusion will still take place but the heat emitted during the process will not be enough for the star to flare up instead the object will slowly decay until the substances necessary for thermonuclear reactions are depleted it's worth mentioning that every kind of reaction requires a certain temperature to initiate nuclear fusion if the star's temperature is lower nuclei will not be able to get closer and will be mutually repelled by coulomb force the celestial object we're looking at today is what is known as a brown dwarf in space interestingly in spite of their name not many of them are actually of a brownish hue if we could look at them with a naked eye we would most likely see them crimson orange or even black the color depending on the surface temperature the hottest brown dwarfs have a temperature not higher than 3000 degrees kelvin which corresponds to a faint red glow most of them are much colder from 300 to a couple of thousand degrees kelvin the peak in their radiation is in the infrared range which is invisible to the naked eye just to compare the coolest star's surface temperature is about 4000 degrees kelvin by radiating heat into its environment a brown dwarf gradually depletes its energy and cools off thermonuclear reactions in its interior die down and the object turns into a ball of compressed gas it will cool off gradually and will resemble a gas giant of impressive dimensions after its heat is slowly dissipated a brown dwarf may in theory cool off to as little as four or five degrees kelvin the background temperature of the universe's relic radiation however the temperature of the coolest space objects of this variety that have been discovered are about 300 degrees kelvin there are several celestial objects that may yet earn the title of a brown dwarf one of them is wise 1828 plus 2650 it is in the lyra constellation and is 47 light years away from the sun it is considered the coldest brown dwarf to have been discovered although astronomers make scientific contributions every day and perhaps we will soon hear of still cooler objects a brown dwarf's dimensions are usually comparable to those of jupiter while its mass is several dozen times that of jupiter for example the object choro 3b in the constellation aquila about 2 200 light years from the earth is similar to jupiter in its diameter but is 22 times heavier a space object qualifies to be called a brown dwarf if its mass is approximately 12 and a half to 80 times that of jupiter objects heavier than that are red dwarves those lighter than that are sub-brown dwarfs super jupiters and planimos it goes without saying that such small and dim celestial bodies are practically impossible to see with a regular telescope the existence of these fascinating objects was predicted back in the 1960s although even special infrared detectors were unable to spot brown dwarves for a long time many years passed before the first brown dwarf had been detected the great event took place in 1995. the find was an object dubbed teda 1 a rather hot celestial body for its class it is located in the constellation taurus approximately 400 light years away from the sun its surface temperature reaches 2700 degrees kelvin and its mass is 55 times that of jupiter or 5.2 percent that of the sun in the years that followed a great number of other celestial bodies of this class were discovered about 100 of them were detected within as little a radius as 60 light years from the sun the total number of brown dwarves in our galaxy is estimated at 50 to 100 billion which accounts for about a quarter of the overall number of stars in the milky way the brown dwarf closest to the earth is just nine light years away from the sun brown dwarves are rather cool objects by stellar standards that is why they may contain complex compounds like methane as for the temperature of the coolest main sequence stars it is so high that electrons leave their nuclei and thus the substance turns into scorching plasma even the simplest two atom molecules like hydrogen cannot endure this harsh environment there may be planets orbiting brown dwarfs the first satellite of this kind was detected in 2004 it orbits 2m1207 a comparatively warm brown dwarf in the constellation centauri which is 64.6 or 209 light years away from the earth this planet is rather large its mass is four times that of jupiter can the planets orbiting brown dwarfs be habitable it is positive that the chances are slim but theoretically it is feasible since brown dwarves are much cooler than stars their habitable zone is narrower concentrating closer to the parent dwarf also it should be noted that the eccentricity of the satellite planet's orbit should be low that is practically ideally spherical in shape since a brown dwarf is constantly in the process of cooling its habitable zone gradually shifts closer to it according to some estimates a rather heavy and hot dwarf may sustain conditions suitable for life on its satellite planet for as long as 10 billion years but of course there are admittedly many other objects in the universe which are definitely more favorable for cultivating life the term stellar evolution in astronomy refers to the sequence of changes that a standard goes throughout its entire life this process largely depends on the object's initial mass and may take anything from several million to tens of billions of years as a rule a star originates from a cloud of code low pressure interstellar gas due to gravitational instability the cloud compresses and eventually slowly assumes a spherical shape during the compression process the gravitational field energy is transformed into heat and radiation with the temperature of the young star gradually going up the duration of this stage depends directly on the star's initial mass with the heaviest stars it may take about a hundred thousand years and with the lightest ones the phase may last up to several billion years our sun's mass for instance is comparatively small and so it remained in this first phase for approximately 110 million years in the next phase after a sufficiently high temperature has been reached to the core thermonuclear fusion takes place inside the star and the compression ceases after this the processes taking place at the core become the star's only energy source and thus a young star which is also called a protester becomes a main sequence star this is the starting point for calculating a star's age as this phase accounts for approximately ninety percent of its life cycle our sun for example will remain in the main sequence stage for approximately eleven and a half billion years a star enters its main sequence stage its chemical composition is still very close to interstellar environment and is 91 hydrogen at the same time the process of hydrogen transforming into helium is constantly in progress inside the star as a result the core compresses and gains in density which gradually increases the rate of chemical reactions it leads to noticeable changes in the star's properties for example the luminosity of our sun in the main sequence stage accounted for only 70 percent of its luminosity today by the time the stage is over the luminosity is going to be 2.2 times that of today it should be mentioned that not all stars make it to the main sequence stage the exceptions known to science today are referred to as code and hot subdwarves these objects are very similar to main sequence stars but they do differ from them thus by contrast sub dwarves are not rich in heavy elements and are not so luminous the final phase for main sequence stars also depends on their mass generally a star either discards its outer coat thus becoming a white dwarf or goes supernova to later become a neutron star or a black hole a supernova is a phenomenon when a star's luminosity dramatically intensifies with great amounts of energy released during the process after that the flare slowly fades this explosion is accompanied by emissions of great amounts of matter from the outer coat the remaining mata in the core of the star god supernova generally forms a compact object either a neutron star or a black hole apart from everything else the matter released in the course of a supernova event contains products of thermonuclear synthesis it is thanks to these elements that the universe is able to evolutionize chemistry wise if a star's mass doesn't quite reach eight sun masses however this main sequence star will end up being a white dwarf that is an object which is a hot celestial body of small dimensions and a high density for instance in the case with our sun when the time comes for it to go through this phase it is going to become a hundred times smaller than it is now white dwarfs do not generate energy and are luminous only on account of their high temperature even though the hottest white dwarfs surfaces may be as scorching as 70 000 kelvins due to their small size their luminosity is not that great as for their average density it is almost a million times that of the regular density of main sequence stars these objects consist for the most part of a plasma of nuclei and electrons and a completely devoid of thermonuclear energy sources which is why they gradually cool off and assume a red hue sirius b is the closest white dwarf to us that we currently know of and it is 8.6 light years away this object's mass is give or take that of the sun and is considered to be one of the most massive white dwarfs known today its volume is a millionth of that of the sun and its dimensions are identical to those of our earth sirius b is believed to have become a white dwarf approximately 120 million years ago with the initial mass of the star in its main sequence phase having been five sun masses today it is posited that these objects account for three to ten percent of the overall stellar population of our galaxy according to different estimates over 97 percent of the stars known today are eventually destined to become white dwarfs as time goes by these objects are bound to cool off and fade eventually all celestial bodies of this variety will become black dwarves which implies that they will completely cease to emit any visible light this process takes scores of billions of years that is why to date science hasn't had a chance to observe any of these objects the universe is considered to be too young to have produced any black dwarves at this point but scientists have already managed to spot objects quite similar to them whose temperature has gone down lower than 4000 kelvins these objects are white dwarfs wd0346 plus 246 and sdss j110 217 a black dwarf is what most stars look like at the final stage of their revolution its mass is quite identical to that of a white dwarf according to today's models demonstrating cooling of these bodies white dwarfs formed in the course of the evolution of the first generation of stars are supposed to have a temperature of approximately 3 200 kelvins and to appear as rather dim objects for all we know these celestial bodies could be part of the universe's hidden mass components for a white dwarf to cool off to the temperature as low as 5 kelvins it may take approximately 1 quadrillion years in theory when black dwarves cool off completely the process of dark matter annihilation becomes very important for their existence this phenomenon hasn't been directly observed in the universe yet although it is thought that in the course of annihilation particles of dark matter will form ordinary photons and emit light visible through a telescope without allowing for this phenomenon black dwarves are believed to cool off and fade to the point where their temperature equals the background temperature of the universe however in theory thanks to the energy derived from dark matter annihilation black dwarves may well continue to radiate energy for a considerably longer period and thus enjoy their luminosity longer the process of dark matter annihilation in these objects is thought to continue for as long as the galactic halo remains whole and that means for over a septillion years after that dark matter annihilation gradually ceases and only then will black dwarves cool off completely it is likely that mankind will never be able to discover objects of this kind as the main period of their life takes place in the face and the life of our universe which will come after the one we are in at the moment the period we live in is a starry park that is the period where stars are still born quite actively this epoch will last up until the point when the galaxies will deplete all of their interstellar gas after that it will be the turn of low mass stars like our sun to fade following that a long period of disintegration will begin when white brown and black dwarves are the main objects populating the universe at the next stage the epoch of black holes all matter in the universe will be transformed into elementary or subatomic particles with the remaining black dwarves getting sucked in by black holes or completely disintegrating the final stage in the life of the universe is supposed to be the epoch of eternal darkness where there won't be any energy sources whatsoever in space the overall temperature in the universe will reach absolute zero space will gradually expand and in the light of the last and rare black holes in about one google years our world will come to its gloomy end by that time all traces of what was once the human civilization would have become nothing however if we can influence the process of the universe's evolution in any way the course of its life may be significantly altered just imagine what a stupendous portion of our cultural heritage would never have been around a great number of myths and legends have to do with the stars it goes without saying that any travels to other stellar systems would be out of the question even a few light years is an overwhelming distance for man even at this point of our scientific progress as for covering several hundred million light years the mere thought is no more than just a fanciful dream it would take man inventing extremely powerful and advanced telescopes to be able to see that the sun was not the only star in our universe but would they ever be invented there is no way of finding it out especially if we take into account the fact that it is stars themselves that have always been a powerful stimulus for man to try to get to the bottom of the nature of the universe chances are that a bleak dark sky would never have fascinated people and as a result no modern devices and equipment for observing space would ever have been developed in one of our previous videos i've already told you about gargantuar and cosmic voids or else i take it you would have heard about these voids a large-scale expanses of space that are almost or completely devoid of galaxies or galaxy clusters these enormous objects take up about 50 percent of the observable universe the average void measures approximately 40 megaparsec or 130 million light years however the diameter of champion voids may reach several hundred million or even a billion light years these extra large voids are rather predictably referred to as supervoids the density of matter in these regions is much less than in other areas of the universe and accounts for less than ten percent of the average density in meta galaxy voids are the largest formations among the large-scale structures of the universe on a par with galactic filaments or thread-like formations cosmology today explains their existence by diversity of matter when the universe was formed one of the largest voids ever discovered is the canis veneticis supervoid spotted in 1988 this supervoid is the second largest void known to science today with a diameter measuring a staggering 300 to 400 megaparsec or a billion light years the canis venetici supervoid is located 1.5 billion light years away from our earth interestingly just 17 galaxy clusters are located in this area of mind-boggling dimensions and this is extremely little for such an incredibly enormous expansive space all the 17 clusters are gathered within a comparatively small area by space standards namely within a measly 150 million light years if any gravitational interaction between them does take place more advanced technologies are called for to detect it the diameter of the canis venetici supervoid accounts for approximately one percent of that of the observable universe it could easily accommodate ten thousand galaxies identical to the milky way in terms of dimensions who knows perhaps there are life forms on a planet hidden somewhere in these 17 clusters however there is no way light from our sun will ever reach those parts and any interaction with potential inhabitants of those parts of the universe is effectively out of the question now what is a billion light years the history of multicellular life forms on our earth starting from primitive celentarate animals counts just over 800 million years in other words life on our planets evolved from colonies of protozoans to humans in the time a photon traveled from one edge of the supervoid to the other it takes some stars less time to complete their entire life cycle from getting born to going supernova or finishing life in an alternative way actually covering this distance in a spaceship romantic as it is sounds like a recklessly eccentric idea in order to understand what space inside a void is like you have to think of a deep physical vacuum it may contain interstellar gas clouds independent star clusters or even galaxies but most of the supervoid contains nothing the name is self-explanatory of course space expenses are for the most part vacuum just to give you an idea about the proportions there is a cubic centimeter of dense stellar matter to thousands of cubic kilometers of space but even this space is not completely empty a mark of a hundred kilometers above ground is the accepted limit of the earth's atmosphere at this height the atmospheric pressure is so small that it becomes comparable to that of solar wind however there is no clearly defined transition to space and even several hundred kilometers above the earth's surface that can be found an extremely small amount of gas molecules from our atmosphere seemingly negligible these molecules still manage to slow down artificial satellites orbiting our planet as a result many of them have to regularly adjust their orbit in order not to lose their momentum and not to have to get back to earth prematurely gas concentration is much lower the further we are from a planet but even beyond our solar system and away from any star or planet there will always be at least a few molecules of hydrogen in every cubic centimeter of space in addition to that there will be solar wind in space a current of high energy subatomic particles emitted by the sun and of course other things have to be reckoned with like radiation of distant stars relic radiation and neutrinos subatomic particles particularly hard to detect the vacuum inside the void is deep to such a point that there is less than half a molecule of matter for every cubic centimeter of space besides all sources of radiation are so remote from it that the density of their radiation is quite negligible compared to relic radiation as a result all that remains is undetectable neutrinos and the cosmic microwave background as i've mentioned before there is something else to be found inside the incredibly vast expanses of the void apart from deep vacuum there are also clouds of interstellar gas the future nursery for stars and galaxies secondly dark matter is supposed to be found inside supervoids but today's methods of detection are hardly adequate for studying it it should be noted that the overwhelming majority of voids detected so far are located hundreds of millions of light years away from the solar system in essence what we are observing now is the distant past of these formations only one void lies relatively close to the local group of galaxies among them the milky way and is referred to as the local void its diameter measures approximately 180 million light years and the distance between the sun and the void center is about 90 million light years the boaters void is another large formation about 700 million light years away from the sun the diameter of this void measures approximately 330 million light years which is about 0.35 percent of the diameter of the observable universe the boaters void was discovered in 1981 by a group of scientists headed by robert kirschner with theoretical arguments in favor of the existence of supervoids having been formulated 20 years previously the supervoid is thought to have been formed as a result of several smaller voids blending together just 60 galaxies have been pinpointed inside the boaters void by now although such staggering expanses could easily have accommodated about two thousand speaking about the most mysterious void in the universe it lies three billion light years away from the sun it is known as the cmb cold spot or the iridonous supervoid this supervoid is a champion even by supervoid standards with a diameter measuring 1.8 billion light years it may easily have accommodated 18 000 galaxies similar to the milky way the iridonous supervoids temperature is from 70 to 150 degrees micro kelvin colder than the average cmb temperature of the universe today's theory of the universe's origin cannot give a definite explanation to this fact this so did not fit into the accepted theory in cosmology that at first the measurements were dismissed as faulty and the equipment was blamed only after several years of scrupulous measurement were the readings finally accepted a great number of explanations including rather extravagant ones were offered concerning the strange temperature properties one hypothesis has it that the anomalously low cosmic microwave background in the iridonous supervoid is a result of the influence of supermassive chunks of dark energy according to another hypothesis this area is what is left of another universe that had existed before hours be it as it may there is disappointingly no definite answer yet as i've already mentioned the universe is over 13.8 billion years old so how can it possibly contain a star older than itself for more than a hundred years astronomers have been observing a strange star 190 light years away from the earth in the constellation libra it travels at a speed of about 1.3 million kilometers per hour but its most peculiar feature is its age hd140283 is considered one of the oldest stars in the universe known to science today in the year 2000 scientists tried to estimate its age they were guided by data that had been collected by the hipparchus satellite launched by the european space agency and thus they got the figure of 16 billion years the generally accepted age of the universe was 13.8 billion years which had been confirmed by observations the discrepancy between the two values prompted a lot of debate how can a star be older than the universe or else how can the universe be younger than a star as for its unusual name the star was dubbed after a biblical character methuselah who according to scripture lived to be 969 years old the star methuselah is clearly genuinely old it is none other than a sub giant consisting mainly of hydrogen and helium it contains a negligible amount of iron which may only mean that this object was formed before iron had become such a widespread element but how can a star be about 2 billion years older than the environment it finds itself in it appeared to be a perplexing paradox astronomer howard bond and his colleagues from pennsylvania state university proceeded to double check the value of the star's age they too were struck by the fact that methuselah had been born before the universe in their task they had to go through 11 observational data sets collected in the period from 2003 to 2011 by the fine guidance sensors of the hubble space telescope the sensors measure stars positions distances and radiation energy it is possible to produce precise results in estimating the age of an object by studying its parallax and using spectroscopy and photometry according to bond not knowing the precise distance to hd140283 remained one of the reasons the age may have been gauged wrongly the distances had to be scrupulously measured in order to calculate the object's luminosity with a view to estimating the object's age the brighter the star the younger it actually is the scientists were also studying the parallax and keeping watch on the star's position in the sky for a year theoretical models also left a lot to be desired the scientists were uncertain as to the precise rate of nuclear reactions and couldn't put their finger on the role of diffusion of certain elements in the star's outer layers that is why the team considered the possibility of a faster thermonuclear synthesis if the star really burned faster than ordinary ones do then it was supposed to be really younger than previously estimated bond added that oxygen at hd140283 also had to be reckoned with the ratio of oxygen to iron was rather high and in the first millions of years of the universe's evolution there wasn't that much oxygen around this was another piece of evidence confirming methuselah's younger age eventually the value bond and his colleagues produced was 14.46 billion years plus minus 800 million years this of course is significantly less than 16 billion but still more than the age of the universe not counting the margin of error of 800 million years according to robert matthews a british physicist from aston university in birmingham who wasn't on the research team the estimates may have been corrupted by both accidental and systematic errors the most precise up-to-date value of the star's age was in conflict with the age of the universe calculated using relic radiation the conflict could be resolved only by giving the result the larger margin of error in later research the star was gauged to be still younger in 2014 a study titled sequel was published where the authors lowered the estimate of methuselah's age to 14.27 billion years but admittedly there was still the margin of error of seven eight hundred million years strangely the star's age still beat that of the universe according to bond the similarity between the values of the age of the universe and its oldest star proves the consistency of the big bang theory besides the values were produced by different methods of analysis thanks to meticulous observations the results are not as scattered as they were in the 1990s when ancient stars were estimated at 19 or even 20 billion years at least now the inaccuracies do not clash with the accepted models robert matthews however maintains that the issue is anything but solved as recently as in july 2019 scientists participated in an international cosmology conference at the calvary institute for theoretical physics in santa barbara california where they analyzed studies of the universe's supposed age judging by the galaxy's nearest to us the universe is several hundred million years younger than suggested by the results of relict radiation calculations moreover for all we know our universe may turn out to be just 11.4 billion years old and the new estimates shouldn't be casually dismissed after all one of the authors was a nobel prize laureate astrophysicist adam reece from the space telescope science institute sdsci the conclusions are drawn on the concept of the universe's expansion suggested by edwin hubble back in 1929 the expansion of the universe is a fundamental concept in the big bang theory if the universe has always been expanding shouldn't there be a starting point for the process that could be calculated according to the latest data the rate of expansion is in fact 10 percent higher than suggested by planck according to planck's team the rate of the universe's expansion is 67.4 kilometers per second per megapasc the latest measurements produce the value of around 73.74 kilometers per second per megapasc rhys maintains that there should be a difference between the real rate of expansion today and the rate implied by the physics of the early universe firstly it is obvious that accepted theories have to be seriously questioned and secondly there is the dark matter and dark energy riddle since the hubble constant produces a bigger value for the rate of expansion it suggests that the universe is younger than we think the 67.74 constant corresponds to the age of 13.8 billion years the 73 or even 77 constant corresponds to the age of not more than 12.7 billion years quite recently a study was published in the science magazine which claims the hubble constant to be 82.4 it should be mentioned it's a well-reputed magazine the 82.4 constant corresponds to the age of 11.4 billion years either way the star hd 140283 still appears older than the universe matthews believes this is a task to be handled by cosmologists rather than astrophysicists to define the age precisely it isn't stars that have to be studied but more complex structures of the universe so why would the universe appear younger than this one star matthews suggests at least two possible explanations as is so often the case with the history of science the end result is likely to turn out to be a combination of the two versions in short there may be observation errors caused by something we do not fully understand and also there may be some blanks in our knowledge of the universe's dynamics for example the dark matter force which as it were has been in charge of the expansion of the universe for billions of years is still rather baffling to us thus the age paradox could well be accounted for by dark energy variations and changes in the expansion rate according to theorists all this may have to do with the fundamentals of the nature of gravity in particular the causal set theory which leads us to believe that by measuring gravitational waves we may get to the bottom of the paradox gravitational waves are hard to measure just to give you an idea they were first detected as recently as in 2015. astrophysicists stephen feeney from the flatiron institute believes that a major scientific breakthrough on this front may take place in the next thousand years and the bizarre phenomenon of the age of hd140283 is bound to reveal larger and more scientifically complex things that are yet to be discovered and explored today we're able to access a lot of information about space objects discoveries in astronomy and studies of prominent scientists it is quite within our power to share this information and bring as many inquiring minds up to date as possible this is a kind of landscape one would see in the least harsh part of a planet dubbed by scientists as super earth and the closest potential candidate suitable for searching for alien life forms but let's be consecutive the recent past heralded a boom in discovering exoplanets there are four thousand three hundred seventy exoplanets discovered in over three thousand planetary systems so far in addition to these more than 3 000 objects are awaiting confirmation of their exoplanet status most of them are large bodies gas giants super jupiters and super earths this is accounted for by technical features of the technologies used for the purpose it is easier to look for massive bodies with a short orbital period than to try to spot smaller planets similar to the earth or mars in terms of dimensions there are among exoplanets those that may realistically harbor life there are dozens of these objects scattered in space and they understandably draw scientists close attention today we're going to look at one of these objects which is an exoplanet dubbed gliese 832c in fact this exoplanet is one of the most likely places where alien life forms will eventually be detected this exoplanet orbits a star called glieser 832 which lies 16 light years away from the sun and is part of the gru's constellation gliese 832 is a dim red dwarf whose luminosity is just point seven percent of that of the sun both its mass and diameter are approximately two times smaller than those of the sun and its temperature reaches about three thousand three hundred degrees kelvin that is the reason why the habitable zone of this planet is within quite a short range from its star due to tidal forces the planets lying in the habitable zone of gliese 832 will be tidally locked to their star that is will face the star with one side only just as it is the case with the moon and the earth and mercury and the sun there are two confirmed planets orbiting glieser 832 the jupiter-like planet glieser832b was discovered first astronomers announced the event in 2008. with the mass two-thirds out of jupiter the planet orbits parents start a distance of an average 3.4 astronomical units completing a full orbit every 9.4 earth years the discovery of the other confirmed planet glieser 832c was announced in 2015 by an international team of scientists headed by robert wittenberg it got an exceptionally high rating for its similarity to the earth 0.81 to be more exact which instantly attracted both scientists and reporters it was also nicknamed the second earth even though the two planets parameters are rather different either way this is one of the planets closest to the earth with such a high earth similarity index the mass of glieser 832c is five and a half that of the earth it takes the planet 35 earth days to complete a full orbit around its parent star moving at a distance of an average 0.16 astronomical units this is six times less than the distance between our earth and the sun its orbit's eccentricity is rather high with the planet regularly leaving the habitable zone and then re-entering it this must cause sharp temperature leaps and drops on its surface gliese 832c is estimated to receive approximately as much energy flux from its parent star as does the earth from the sun the average surface temperature on the planet is 253 degrees kelvin or 20 degrees celsius below zero it is also suggested that due to the atmosphere which is likely to be quite dense the temperature on the planet may be considerably higher however it is not easy to claim this with certainty as gliese 832c lies quite close to its star and so chance's eye is firmly tidally locked to it in this case there should be a substantial temperature difference between its sunny side and shadow side which should regularly cause hurricane winds if the atmosphere really is dense it's worth mentioning that in 2017 following observations astrophysicists from the university of texas at arlington the usa put forward the hypothesis that there may be a third planet in the glieser 832 system its mass could be 1 to 15 earth masses and it could follow a stable orbit around the center of the system 0.25 to 2 astronomical units away from it at the moment the planet is being searched for let's imagine what gliese 832c would look like assuming life were possible on this planet first of all we wouldn't help noticing its gravity which would be strikingly higher than that on our earth since the planet's diameter is not yet known the gravity force cannot be calculated exactly still it would be a rocky planet similar to our earth and earth-like planets in terms of its density so its gravity force would be likely to reach two to four hundred percent that of the earth this would lead to the relief leveling out meaning that the mountains would not be so high and the ocean is not so deep this in its turn would enhance the area of warm water which is favorable for life due to a dense atmosphere and in comparatively dim sun the landscape on gliese 832c would be of a reddish hue and in general the planet would be submerged in semi-darkness since the planet is likely to face its star with the same side at all times the temperature on the sunny side should be high and the temperature on the shadow side quite low in the ring-like area at the border between them the temperature should be moderately comfortable although due to regular heating of the planet the atmosphere would be constantly in turmoil which should result in strong winds in addition high objects of relief potentially able to dissipate some of the force of hurricane air currents fail to form on account of high gravity conditions as the orbit of gliese 832c is small and elongated seasons on this planet should change every week it will be winter on gliese 832c at the furthest point from its parent star and summer at the closest approach the tilt of the rotational axis with respect to the ecliptic plane will not be of such importance as it is in the case of the earth the change of season will depend exclusively on the planets getting closer to or away from its parent star the most favorable conditions for life to develop on gliese 832c are likely to be in the ring-like area at the border between the light and the dark sides of the planet it is here that most liquid water will accumulate and rain down from clouds formed on the warm side ice caps on the dark side will also melt in the border zone thus supplying still more water it goes without saying that it is water that is key to developing life the change of seasons will be likely to play the same role as lunatides in our earth with areas alternately submerging and re-emerging this process of water getting mixed with substances dissolved in it is a good prerequisite for life to originate and develop there is a good chance of life originating in water and probably staying in it without later spreading to land the ocean reduces the effect of gravity and protects its potential inhabitants from sharp temperature changes and hurricane winds as for frequent and sharp changes of seasons hypothetical organisms on gliese 832c may learn to lapse into a state of anabiosis in order to weather unpleasant or those short periods of high and low temperatures alternatively they may choose to emigrate to a comfortable temperature zone from the sunny side to the shadow side and back again for example if a space probe ever reaches the surface of gliese 832c to investigate the area what would it see there assuming life did originate on this planet as the gravity forces are rather strong there the potential inhabitant should be a thick set chunky figure boasting a robust skeleton and powerful muscles plants on gliese 832c would be dark in order to attract as much light as possible they should also be quite low and likely to be creeping or moss-like with strong roots able to stand winds it is highly likely that rather than chlorophyll some other molecules should be important for photosynthesis the planet's dense atmosphere may become a habitat for bizarre life forms floating in air currents single-celled microorganisms for instance may float in this dense atmosphere following air currents while capturing light and nutrients dispersed in the air because of a dense atmosphere high clouds and a dim sun the surface of gliese 832c would be a rather dark place life forms would have to adapt to these conditions vision would probably not play the decisive role in their existence if it evolved at all alternatively its spectrum may be limited to the infrared range be it as it may all these speculations remain conjectures and ideas even though they're based on good physical laws and assumptions i wonder which of these suggestions you would call realistic and which of them bordering on fantasy or perhaps gliese 832c is not habitable at all let us know in the comments and let's keep in touch to begin with let's define what the big bang actually is and estimate how much power may have been released in this process the concept of the phenomenon referred to describes the accepted cosmological model of the genesis and early life of the universe namely the beginning of the universe's expansion after an undefined period of being in the state of singularity the state of singularity is the state of the universe when the density of energy was large and the space-time curve was sharp these figures reached the planck values the big bang on the other hand is said to have been the starting point for the process of this energy getting released this event can't have been anything like a dynamite stick going off an empty space besides it took place literally everywhere at the same time and it's hardly possible to pinpoint the epicenter it is indeed hardly possible to say with certainty how it really happened and what it looked like but one thing is clear this was an ultimate event of enormous proportions we're talking about an explosion that is considered to have given birth to the entire universe in the centuries of the history of space observation science hasn't registered any other event similar in its proportions however as our technologies became more advanced scientists came to realize that there is some events taking place in deep space which are powerful to such a point that it appears that all existing models need to be questioned one of these breakthrough discoveries was gamma ray bursts or grbs the term traditionally refers to large-scale energy emissions in space which in fact are an everyday occurrence in the cosmos gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful of explosions known to science taking place in space shockingly the energy released in a few seconds is tantamount to that released by the sun in the course of 10 billion years it was next to impossible to register gamma-ray bursts for 30 years even though some attempts revealed a rather exact location of a source sources were always scattered and didn't repeat in one place a burst didn't leave any traces whatsoever and the best scientists could do was to identify some really remote galaxy where a burst was registered only in 1968 was it possible for scientists to put their finger on the phenomenon of gamma-ray bursts all thanks to the veiler satellites of the us air force whose mission was detecting possible nuclear tests in the atmosphere according to today's views gamma ray bursts occur when massive stars go supernova and collapse to black holes a powerful stream of charged particles bursts out from the hole's vicinity on interacting with magnetic fields and cosmic radiation these particles produce gamma rays as a result this stream of gamma rays is powerful to such a point that such events are easily detected by satellites even though they may have taken place several billion light years away on the other hand they can't be registered by earth-based telescopes on account of the atmosphere which actively absorbs these rays the amount of energy released in the course of a gamma-ray burst may reach acceptant decilion ergs if an event of such tremendous proportions were to take place close to a planet it would be tantamount to an atomic bomb exploding in every hectare of the sky of course all living things would almost certainly die instantly a gamma ray burst is capable of exterminating any life within the radius of tens and even hundreds of light years and seriously affecting biospheres of planets within the radius of thousands of light years thankfully they occur a bigger distance away from us for example one of the most powerful gamma-ray bursts ever detected dubbed grb-180720 is more than 4 billion light-years away from us this means that its light has traveled to our earth for about one third of the universe's age as for the amount of energy in this gamma-ray burst it fluctuates between 200 to 1000 billion electron volts just to compare the energy of visible light is in the range from one to three electron volts at a distance of tens of thousands of light years a gamma ray burst like that is practically harmless but one out of a hundred of thousand flares in a galaxy may occur close enough to a planet to pose a threat speaking about a threat to our own planet scientists are still at odds if an explosion like that may dramatically affect it for example according to some calculations gamma ray bursts are really capable of seriously and noticeably affecting the earth's fauna every several hundred million years and one of these flares may have been the cause of a major mass extinction event however science is more keen on investigating the nature and origin of such bursts today it is posited that as a rule gamma-ray bursts occur following the collapse of a really massive star or else when two neutron stars merge and collapse together to a black hole a gamma ray burst event doesn't much differ from a supernova event in this respect as both of them involve a gravitational collapse of a star's core the difference lies in the consequences in the case with a star-going supernova a hard layer of matter's shed which travels with a speed of 10 to 30 kilometers per second as for a gamma-ray burst something emitting gamma-quanta travels practically at the speed of light an event like that isn't likely to occur anywhere close to us be it as it may a great number of events of a similarly large scale occur in the cosmos and they may well take place comparatively close to us one of these could be a star-going supernova a phenomenon when a star's apparent magnitude intensifies 10 to 20 times this process is the ultimate destructive event taking place at the end of some star's evolution and is accompanied by the release of great amounts of energy a supernova event is accompanied by emissions of substantial amounts of matter from the star's outer layer in interstellar space if the star's mass before the explosion was more than eight sun masses a compact object is formed from the remaining matter of the star this object is called a neutron star if the star's mass was more than 40 sun masses it is positive that a black hole appears after the explosion as for the composition of these emissions there's a large percentage of thermonuclear synthesis products the remains of the process taking place throughout the star's entire life cycle it is thanks to such supernovae that the universe in general and every galaxy in particular chemically evolved it goes without saying that what i've told you about the nature of these events is largely theoretical assumptions man hasn't observed these processes from up close and therefore cannot make definite statements about their nature nevertheless thanks to the development of astrophysics science is advancing impressively far ahead revealing things unheard of in the past and who knows as time goes by we will probably get closer to understanding much more complex matters the list of puzzling celestial bodies in space around us may run endlessly the reason for that is that science is still not able to give a definite answer to how fundamental things that the universe is made up of actually work the discovery of yet another bizarre object is a rule rather than exception and until we find the key to our understanding of the nature of all anomalies lurking in space the solutions of mysteries in the universe will continue to elude us and the thing that will remain for us to do will be to keep getting back to them trying to give them some description [Music] you

Channel: Kosmo

Views: 829,483

Keywords: universe, unusual objects in the universe, fascinating objects, space, cosmos, void, journey around the universe, Mira, Brown dwarf, Black dwarf, Supervoid, The Methuselah star, Gliese 832 c, Hypernova, film, video, popular science, astronomy, cosmo, kosmo, milky way, Solar sistem

Id: 1un3ETuq0oU

Length: 67min 25sec (4045 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2020