New Exoplanet Discoveries - Could They Be Better than Earth? | What If

foreign s in the universe Earth is clearly the best for life right wrong Earth may be great but scientists have discovered a few worlds that could be even better for life behold koi 5715.01 most of the contenders on our super habitable planet list aren't the ones you could visit anytime soon they are very far away the top spot is held by one 3 000 light years away from our solar system koi 575.01 would appear to satisfy the most basic requirement for supporting life it exists in the Goldilocks zone of its star so conditions wouldn't be too hot or too cold for a key life supporting ingredient to exist on its surface liquid water but it would also check off many boxes to be considered super habitable the planetary system it belongs to could be five and a half billion years old which would make it around 1 billion years older than our own solar system and the planet would almost fit the size requirement when looking for super habitable worlds scientists keep their eyes peeled for planets that have a mass up to one and a half times of our planet and they should be about 10 percent larger too this size difference would help the planet retain heat and if its average temperature was about 5 degrees Celsius higher than Earth's well this planet could have even richer biodiversity now being almost double the size of Earth koi 571 5.01 might overshoot this condition a bit besides studies indicate that this planet is actually colder than Earth but there's still hope with the right atmospheric composition a strong greenhouse effect could raise temperatures to the desired level and as far as super habitable worlds go well we're just getting started approximately 2 700 light years away is Kepler 69c this super Earth could be around 7 billion years old this puts it perfectly in the estimated five to eight billion year old age range for super habitable planets this range is based on the three and a half billion years it took for a complex life to appear on Earth so the best chance for finding life could be on a planet a little older than us only this exoplanet could be a little too big to be super habitable it has a mass almost four times that of Earth a rocky planet this big could have a single colossal continent that would have huge deserts in its Center but the coastline Washed by Kepler's ocean could be your perfect spot to move to our next Super Earth shares a similar name Kepler 1126b except it would be located ever so slightly closer to home yeah this planet is about 2073 light years away and it belongs to a system that is seven and a half billion years old it also orbits a yellow dwarf star much like our own only Kepler 1126b is two and a half times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun but that's no big deal because the star Kepler 1126b orbits is cooler than ours so the habitable zone would exist in a Range much closer in proximity to it if you aren't feeling this nearness to a scorching hot star there's another Super Earth on our list and it's at a reasonable distance from home speculos 2C is located only 106 light years away not that its proximity gives it any kind of advantage it would still take you well over 200 000 years to travel to this super Earth and that's if you moved at the speed of NASA's Parker solar probe the fastest probe ever launched speculos 2C does look promising though it's about 40 percent larger than Earth there's also the potential for it being a rocky planet just like ours now despite the fact that it also exists in a habitable zone it's red dwarf star is still very small it's only about 15 percent the size of our sun so this planet orbits around its star at a very close distance and this close distance could mean that speculos 2C is tidally locked to its star this super Earth takes eight and a half days to make one full rotation on its axis as well as one orbit around its star that would leave one side of the planet in constant daylight and the other in Endless Night this means that life could be possible in The Terminator Zone the thin strip of land between the two sides we just need to get a better look to find out for sure [Music] thank you 635 light years from where you are sitting way out there in outer space lies a planet the first planet to be discovered within the habitable zone of a sun-like star its name is Kepler-22b when a planet is located within a star's habitable zone it means there's a chance that liquid water exists on its surface and where there's water there's also the possibility of life human life how long would it take to get to Kepler 22b what would the weather be like over there and why would you need to get jacked before arriving on this new planet this is what if and here's what would happen if you live on Kepler-22b Kepler-22b is what scientists call an exoplanet it's a planet outside our solar system spotting an exoplanet like Kepler-22b is often not easy the bright glare of the Stars they orbit tends to keep them hidden from our telescopes what did scientists come up with to get around it looking at the stars themselves to see if they can find anything unusual about them they spotted Kepler-22b using What's called the transit method they watched Kepler 22 the star this exoplanet orbits around and noticed that its brightness changes over time that was because Kepler-22b was blocking the star's light with this scientists were able to learn both the size of 22b and how it orbits and it looks like this distant Space Rock could become our next home okay but what do we really know about Kepler-22b its mass is 36 times that of Earth with a radius of two and a half times larger than ours one year on Kepler-22b is 290 days it's also located 15 percent closer to its star than we are to the Sun if Earth scooched over that close to our star you'd be fried Kepler-22b on the other hand is lucky to have a son that is remarkably similar to ours but also smaller and cooler this close proximity to its star allows the planet to receive about the same amount of sunlight as we get over here the temperature on Kepler-22b could be about 15 to 22 degrees Celsius similar to Earth's Spring weather and quite habitable if you ask me but our galaxy can be a cruel place and not everything is good news some models suggest Kepler-22b is rotating on its side kind of like our very own Uranus this may sound insignificant but it adds potentially deadly complications this would mean that it's North and South poles are shrouded in either Darkness or sunlight for half a year and this ain't simply a matter of whether you're a daytime or a nighttime person a world like Kepler-22b spinning on its side means that temperatures could change from boiling to freezing which wouldn't be great for human life I know what a bummer but don't despair yet because our galaxy is also big enough to include some hope studies suggest that Kepler-22b might be covered in an ocean 50 meters deep and that ocean would be able to act as natural climate control keeping the wild temperatures at Bay you see an ocean can store heat in the summer and release it during the winter which results in a mild climate like you needed another reason to live close to the water but hold on how would you even make it all the way to Kepler-22b I mean even if you were traveling at the speed of light it would take you 635 years your best bet could be to hibernate through the trip inside a device that preserves your body way past its natural lifespan like cryogenic sleep NASA has already developed a cryosleep chamber that can lower an astronaut's body temperature to as low as 32 degrees Celsius this would trigger natural hibernation during which catheters would provide your body with nutrients and remove any waste but even in cryosleep it would be quite the long risky trip this leads us to the most dangerous part about this journey All That Remains Unknown about Kepler-22b for starters we still don't really know what gravity is like there it could be twice as strong as our planets if that was the case a 10 kilogram sack of potatoes would now weigh 20 kilograms and your body would also factor into the mix is your current weight 75 kilograms well good luck suddenly dealing with 150 kilograms of you and just for safety settlers such as yourself would need to bulk up really bulk up only through intense strength training would you increase your chances of being able to walk on Kepler-22b and once you got jacked on Earth you'd have to figure out ways to preserve that muscle through all 635 years of light speed travel but humans aren't the only life form that would be affected by a stronger gravity plants brought from Earth for oxygen and nutrition might not survive on Kepler-22b when you try growing them there and if you brought any animals with you they'd need to step up the evolution process higher gravity could lead to creatures developing additional legs to move around it could also determine the location and size of internal organs but the Mysteries don't end there scientists still don't know for sure that Kepler-22b is even a rocky planet it might be gaseous similar to Neptune or it could be entirely covered with water if you and the other first settlers woke up from your cryo sleep and found yourself on a gas planet yeah that would be a downer you wouldn't have a solid surface to even land your ship not to mention a place to set up camp in that case you and your crew would need to figure out how to build a cloud city orbiting the planet if you landed on an ocean planet a submarine town would be in order discovering Kepler-22b is a rocky planet would be hitting the jackpot then right well not so fast Venus is also made of rock and yet its dense atmosphere consisting of greenhouse gases makes it uninhabitable with scorching temperatures far too hot for liquid water if this was also the situation with Kepler-22b our only chance at thriving on this exoplanet would be to employ robots that could build underground shelters the place where maybe just maybe the temperature might be cool enough for you to bear it just goes to show you that a prime location is no guarantee for human survival and as exciting as it might seem to find other worlds to inhabit our own Earth Remains the perfect Habitat for Humanity this is a planetary emergency evacuation please remain calm and board your space shuttles you know even though Humanity might not have to leave the Earth in your lifetime we should start preparing early on not only could it take centuries to set up the relocation program it would take generations to move to a potential new home that right there is Proxima Centauri b or just Proxima B it's the closest potentially habitable planet out there its temperatures are in the bearable range and it could have just the right breathable atmosphere we only have to get there how long would our journey last how many people would we send to populate the new world successfully and what if it turned out that Proxima B wasn't as habitable as we thought this is what if and here's what would happen if we relocated Humanity to Proxima B when astronomers started finding planets outside our solar system or exoplanets we realized that there are many worlds out there that meant that Earth doesn't have to be our home forever and that we don't have to die with our planet when the sun engulfs in some five billion years from now [Music] that we've found over 4 100 exoplanets we've learned something rather disappointing not all exoplanets are good for humans to live on most of the worlds we've encountered are either ice giants like Neptune or gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn only 161 of those planets are terrestrial like Earth and when it comes to sustaining human life being terrestrial isn't quite enough Proxima B is very promising it orbits a red dwarf star called Proxima Centauri in a system with three stars in it Proxima Centauri is small it only has between seven and a half and fifty percent of our son's Mass that's a good thing because the Red Dwarf Proxima Centauri is so much smaller than our yellow dwarf Sun it burns at a lower temperature it takes stars like Proxima Centauri much longer to burn through all of their hydrogen Supply because of that Proxima Centauri has a lifetime of trillions of years while our sun has a 10 billion year expiration term that alone makes Proxima b a good candidate for relocation that and the fact that its orbit lies in Proxima centauri's habitable zone that means there's the potential for liquid water and comfortable surface temperatures if we're lucky Proxima B would have an atmosphere that we could breathe if it does the surface temperatures would be in the range of 30 degrees I don't know about you but I'd move there right now I just need to warn you that there are a few problems a trip to Proxima B would be long and very dangerous Proxima B might be the closest habitable exoplanet we've got but that doesn't mean it's close the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri is about 4.3 light years away that means that if you could travel at the speed of light it would take you 4.3 years to get there nothing we've built so far can reach that kind of speed realistically a trip to Proxima Centauri in a space shuttle would take 165 000 years give or take that's right some of the colonists would be born in transit some of them would never see the Earth some of them would never see Proxima B they'd just live their lives aboard the spaceship and die in space how many humans would we need to send on a mission exactly [Music] well according to some calculations 98 people would be just enough their descendants would arrive at Proxima B with enough genetic diversity to populate the entire planet and that's accounting for possible cases of infertility inbreeding and sudden deaths in those calculations the crew would be traveling on something faster than a space shuttle their mission to Proxima B would only take 6 300 years but don't be surprised technology is constantly improving right now a scientific and technological program called breakthrough initiatives is looking at how we can get in the neighborhood of Proxima Centauri within one generation their project starshot is working on an ultralight unmanned probe that would reach the star system in just 20 years now I definitely need to sign up but again Proxima B is really far away it's so far that we can't even see if it has an atmosphere it might just happen that we would arrive at a frozen planet with surface temperatures of minus 40 degrees and even if it has an atmosphere it might not be the right one we might still enjoy warm temperatures but we'd be doing that in spacesuits with oxygen tanks or Proxima B could be tidally locked to Proxima Centauri meaning that one of the planet's sides would always face its star and the other side would be plunged Into Darkness space flight itself could bring some unpleasant surprises spending an entire lifetime in a zero gravity environment would lead the crew members to lose muscle and bone density they'd be constantly exposed to space radiation their microbiomes immune systems and Physiology would all be different from ours they wouldn't be the same kind of humans as we are they would change their values and culture they might forget all the farming techniques we'd teach them to sustain themselves in space and on their new planet they might change their mind about the mission altogether and just turn their spaceship in a different direction who knows they might even come back to earth and take revenge for all those years they were forced to spend in space if that happens I'll be asking for a refund sending anyone on a mission like this is a huge risk we'd need to design and build a vehicle choose the space Travelers very carefully Supply them with all the food and water and make sure they could become self-sustaining we'd have to design new propulsion navigation hibernation and life support systems and we have no way of knowing if Proxima B is actually habitable well now I don't really feel like going there do you [Music] just north of the Martian equator lies of 45 kilometer wide impact crater that scientists believe may have been the site of an ancient Lake here at jazero Crater scientists theorize that it's frozen soil may contain the most significant discovery of humankind life on February 18 2021 NASA's perseverance Rover started searching this crater to find out if we're truly alone what is the likelihood of Life on Mars what would these Martians look like and how will we send samples back to Earth this is what if and here's what would happen if we discovered Life on Mars as Scientific American puts it it would take a near miracle for Mars to be sterile astrobiologist Chris McKay at Nasa believes that Earth and Mars have been sharing materials for billions of years kind of like using your roommate's spice rack what I thought you said it was communal comets or large meteorites that have hit Earth may have also sent debris onto Mars a tiny fraction of this debris on Mars could have carried the same microbes that kick-started Life as We Know It On Earth but what would this alien life look like many scientists agree that whatever life on Mars we might find would need to be incredibly robust with the combination of radiation and freezing temperatures on Mars could any life form survive such a harsh environment as far-fetched as it sounds microbiologists have discovered many organisms that thrive in extreme environments the tardigrade or water bear is a highly resistant extremophile it can withstand heat cold pressure radiation and even a complete lack of oxygen there are also certain types of bacteria on Earth that rapidly produce spores when faced with hazardous conditions the bacteria can then hibernate during an extended period of drought and withstand intense ionizing radiation a team of one thousand geologists chemists physicists and biologists worldwide have drilled 4.8 kilometers into the Earth and discovered robust life forms Mars has a similar geological past to Earth so looking underground could be a great place to start by drilling into the gizero crater we could encounter spores associated with a relatively recent geological era and on future missions to Mars we may dig deeper and uncover fully vegetative microbes to find Rock's apples that might support life NASA's perseverance Rover uses an array of lasers called a super cam it can study the surface of Mars at a distance one of the lasers will heat a rock sample and vaporize it this creates a plasma that can be analyzed to understand its Elemental composition another laser will reveal which compounds are in the dirt if the super cam detects organic molecules or elevated concentrations of elements like nitrogen or phosphorus the Rover will head over to take a closer look it will then scan the soil in Greater detail to detect any organic material hiding in the dirt NASA's team on Earth has only one shot at picking the right spot to gather these samples with limited space on board the Rover only a few dozen samples can be collected so no pressure and fingers crossed if all goes well NASA plans to bring back samples known for preserving biosignatures on Earth biosignatures are faint molecular traces left behind by microbes billions of years ago once the samples are collected NASA and the European Space Agency plan two missions to get them back to Earth this involves blasting tubes of rock and soil samples into orbit to be collected by another spacecraft and then return to Earth whoa this looks kind of fun if perseverance's mission is successful the discovery of Life on Mars would be as groundbreaking as the discovery of DNA in 1543 Copernicus boldly shook the status quo with his theory that the planets orbited the Sun his discoveries completely changed our world view no longer putting Earth at the center of the universe discovering life beyond Earth could be just as powerful but not finding any life could raise more questions is the earth truly special are we alone out here even if we don't discover Life these Martian Rock samples will allow chemists to study the geochemistry mineralogy and foundational Bedrock materials of Mars in detail this could provide us with essential insights into the climate history of Mars and help us better understand Earth's climate as well in 1976 two Viking Landers became the first spacecrafts from Earth to touch down on Mars they too probed for life in the Martian soil and the results are still debated to this day one experiment indicated that the Martian soil tested positive for metabolism on Earth this would almost certainly suggest the presence of life but another related experiment found no trace of organic material whatsoever While most scientists have not reconciled the conflicting results the consensus is that there's no conclusive evidence of Life on Mars but several researchers disagree recent discoveries of terrestrial microorganisms surviving outside of the ISS indicate that life may be resilient enough for Mars and methane in the Martian atmosphere could be a sign of microbial methanogens a type of microorganism that produces a significant amount of methane stinky aliens mind you it's possible that life on Mars didn't have the right conditions to start at all or maybe it died off from an Extinction event similar to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs or it's even possible that we might end up finding life that was accidentally brought to Mars by one of our many Rovers let's hope this perseverance Mission doesn't turn into a 2.7 billion dollar face palm if Mars is your bag well have you ever thought about setting up shop there with recent developments in rocketry colonizing Mars might be possible in our lifetime [Music] could there be an even better planet for us than Earth scientists are searching for a super habitable world that wouldn't just rival Earth but be a place where life could Thrive even more easily and they're looking at exoplanets how would we discover earth 2.0 what would make an exoplanet habitable and how long would it take to get there this is what if and here's what would happen if we discovered Earth 2.0 you wouldn't be able to find an exoplanet by looking through a telescope all you'd see is the bright glare of the Stars they orbit NASA built the Kepler Telescope to discover exoplanets and before it ran out of fuel the Kepler Telescope surveyed our region of the Milky Way galaxy its technology uses the transit method to find planets hundreds of light years away how it measured the fluctuation of light coming from distant Stars when a planet transits or passes in front of a star the star isn't as bright so the Kepler telescope uses that to detect exoplanets this is not an easy thing to do but during its nine year lifetime the Kepler Telescope confirmed the existence of 4367 exoplanets could any of them be Earth 2.0 if you're a long time fan of what if you've probably heard this before but Earth is a very special place and even if a planet is deemed to be habitable it doesn't mean that it resembles Earth very much a habitable planet is a rocky planet located in the habitable zone allowing water to stay on the planet's surface in its liquid form that's it Venus and Mars are habitable planets but they are definitely not like Earth so let's talk about three major conditions that we'd look for when searching for an even better version of Earth first it would need to have sunlight our Sun's lifespan is about 10 billion years and it took 4 billion years for anything more complex than the simplest life form to pop up on our planet but k-type dwarf stars have lifespans of about 70 billion years so if we found an exoplanet orbiting a k-type star there would be more time for life to evolve and live on it the second major condition is temperature Planet that's too hot or too cold wouldn't be able to host the life forms we'd need to survive but if we find a Planet that's a mere five degrees warmer than Earth and it has more water we could be looking at Earth 2.0 covered in a lush biodiverse rainforest the third major condition we'd be looking for is size gravity retains a planet's atmosphere and there's a direct relationship between gravity and a planet's size so if we find a Planet that's only one and a half times larger than Earth it would be able to hold on to its interior heat and maintain its atmosphere for a longer time but bigger isn't always better while earth-sized exoplanets are usually Rocky about 50 percent of the exoplanets larger than Earth are gas giants and if an exoplanet is too small it would likely be Barren like Mars so are there any exoplanets out there that meet these requirements okay I found a planet that could be super habitable Kepler 1649c could be a contender to become Earth 2.0 it's 300 light years away and orbits a red dwarf star it gets sunlight but only 75 percent as much as Earth so it might be a bit cooler there and there wouldn't be any seasons on Kepler's 1649c a full orbit only takes 19 and a half Earth days so we'd need to get used to that oh and it could be tidally locked which means one side of the planet constantly faces its sun while the other side faces space also living on a planet that orbits a red dwarf star could be risky sometimes red dwarf stars send out massive flares dousing an orbiting planet in UV light and creating huge temperature fluctuations if we decide that Kepler 1649c is worthy of becoming Earth 2.0 well using our current technology it would take at least 2 000 years to reach this Earth 2.0 and since this planet is so far away we only know about its size the distance to its star and the makeup of its atmosphere so we could pack up humanity take the multi-generational trip to Earth 2.0 and discover that it's more like a Neptune 2.0 uh yeah there's no way we could survive on a gas giant we need much more information before we send humans to any possible Earth 2.0s so right now NASA is developing a tiny probe to travel at one-fifth of the speed of light it could greatly expand our knowledge of exoplanets and we shouldn't limit ourselves to looking just at exoplanets a moon receives direct solar energy from its star and the planet it orbits reflects solar energy toward it so maybe a moon could be more suitable for human life than an exoplanet the most Earth-like planet in our solar system is Titan Saturn's largest moon so if we want to save thousands of years of traveling maybe Titan could make a good second home for us [Music] 627 million kilometers from Earth underneath the cold Seas of Europa a horrifying and vastly intelligent creature lurks can our human Minds even comprehend such an alien creature uh actually yeah it turns out it's a lot like an octopus can Europa support life would we go looking for it and how crazy do we sound right now this is what if and here's what would happen if octopus-like creatures inhabit Europa okay we promise you we haven't completely lost our minds the idea of octopus-like creatures inhabiting Europa comes from open University professor of planetarian Space Science Monica Grady he says that says that below europa's ice sheets aliens that resemble octopuses May dwell that gets the imagination reeling let's argue for a second that this theory is correct Europa is one of Jupiter's 79 known moons and is only 627 million kilometers from Earth it's covered in ice 24 kilometers deep with the possibility of liquid water underneath this ice protects Europa from solar radiation and asteroid impacts that's all well and good but here's the kicker it's it's europa's ocean floor has hydrothermal vents and sodium chloride in the water what does that mean well in short their significant ingredients needed to support life Europa contains the essential ingredients needed for life water chemistry and energy water is the big one because it dissolves nutrients for organisms to eat transports chemicals within living cells and allows those cells to eliminate waste and Europa isn't exactly lacking in the water department the ocean beneath the crust contains more water than Earth's oceans and to argue the alien idea more there may be a rocky seafloor that could Supply chemical nutrients to living organisms and in this case it's the octopus now octopuses are weird there's no arguing that I mean we did a whole video on it but some scientists say that because the evolutionary step from the nautiloid is so fuzzy the only reasonable explanation is that they're extraterrestrial does that mean that they came from Europa if the news broke that we had octopuses swimming up there on Europa how would we react well it would spark a massive push for new space missions if intelligent life like octopuses are as close to us as Jupiter what else is out there may be a push to search for planets that could support humans but here's the downside the more we venture into space the greater the risks I'm talking about bringing something back now I'm not talking about the xenomorph here I'm talking about a harmful microbe or virus that may be harmful to human health or even our ecosystem we would need to put some serious thought into the pros and cons of regular space travel we would also need to have advanced protocols and laws to prevent contamination of both Earth and other planets because we deal with quarantines so well right so are there octopus-like creatures living on Europa I mean maybe [Music] we still think that octopuses are Earthly even if they're a little weird but even if there aren't any tentacled alien neighbors we won't know until we look humans need to continue exploring space I mean it is the next step we are growing in numbers in mental capacity and definitely in curiosity but what if we didn't need to go looking for these alien octopuses what if they're already here thousands of light years from Earth there could be another planet hospitable to life Kepler 69c and you're about to travel to this alien world to see that life with your own eyes what would it be like to make this Epic Journey so far across the universe what kind of planet would you be likely to find upon arrival and if you did discover Life what would it look like this is what if and here's what would happen if there's life on Kepler 69c located 2 383 light years from Earth in the cygnus constellation is a potential super Earth at least that's what it's often referred to as Kepler 69c is an exoplanet about 1.7 times larger than our planet and it could also be around three and a half times more massive but there's a catch we don't really know if this planet is located within the habitable zone of its star if it's too close kepler-69c would be too hot for liquid water to exist on its surface if it's too far from its Sun well then it would be nothing more than a frigid world what we do know is that Kepler 69c orbits its star about 40 percent closer than Earth orbits the Sun and that could mean that it isn't actually a super Earth it could be a super Venus so if you traveled all the way here would you find life or a thick scorching atmosphere boiling every drop of water on the planet before you begin your journey to Kepler 69c there'd be one very important thing to keep in mind it's far away almost 600 times further away than Proxima Centauri our closest neighboring star even if you could travel say one percent of the speed of light you wouldn't get there anytime soon at this speed you could whip around Earth in just over 13 seconds but to get to Kepler 69c well that would take you about 238 000 years to even make this trip possible you'd need a super Advanced hibernation pod you know you don't want to grow too old and die before you could even get to your destination am I right well hibernation technology that could help you sleep for over 200 000 years doesn't exist yet but hey this is what if anything's possible by the time your ship makes its arrival any life that may exist on Kepler 69c today could evolve or Advance into something entirely different think about it this way 300 000 years ago humans were just beginning to create stone tools and Spears and look at you now making a trip across the Galaxy looking back at the planet you left behind who knows what changes would happen to our human civilization during your trip no matter what it's way too late to turn around now based on the planet's distance from its star we know that Kepler 69c receives a similar amount of sunlight as Venus and despite being more massive than Earth it has a relatively low density all this means is that instead of metals this rocky planet is made of silicate and carbonate minerals that could make things a little complicated you see with all these minerals in the crust Kepler 69c could have a really thick atmosphere and to make matters worse this atmosphere would be composed mostly of carbon dioxide oh did you choose the wrong super earth to travel to yeah if Kepler 69c is anything like Venus it would be a pretty hot planet all because similar to Venus its clouds would trap the Heat and create an extreme greenhouse effect Kepler's 69c's atmosphere would be caught in an endless cycle of getting thicker and hotter but nobody said this world should be habitable for you oh no once you took off your helmet you'd instantly melt and suffocate like I said life on this planet would be completely different from what you'd imagine as you made your approach you'd find surface temperatures as high as 475 degrees Celsius and the atmospheric pressure would be over 90 times that of Earth at sea level it would be like being 900 meters deep in the ocean except you'd be on dry land with conditions like this you'd likely not find anything resembling an ocean here just like on Venus the high temperatures would boil away all the water whatever life you could potentially encounter on this planet it would need to be able to survive in these brutal conditions or it would have to exist somewhere else besides the surface one place you could Discover Life on Kepler 69c would be up in the clouds around 50 kilometers up temperatures would be much much cooler they would range from about 30 to 70 degrees Celsius and with its low density this planet could have a surface gravity that would be just over 70 percent of what's found on Earth this weaker gravity could allow life forms to thrive in the sky where Kepler 69c is most hospitable life could just be floating freely in the atmosphere this would be another way in which this planet could have far more in common with Venus than with Earth probes around Venus have picked up traces of a gas that could be a potential sign of life phosphine if you discovered phosphine in kepler-69c's atmosphere it could be the result of bacteria that don't require oxygen to survive but be ready to hold your nose this smelly gas has an odor similar to decaying fish on Earth the bacteria that produce phosphine often live in swamps or Wetlands but on Venus or kepler-69c this bacteria could exist in the thick oxygen-less atmosphere itself so in the end you may have traveled a very very long way to find the smallest and stinkiest of Life Farms now on the upside you've just discovered extraterrestrial life this not so little piece of equipment could change astronomy forever and it could be about to find alien life maybe in a matter of days what is this powerful new tool how could it detect life in far away [Music] let's find life what would happen next this is what if and here's what would happen if the James Webb Telescope found alien life the James Webb Space Telescope launched into space on December 25th 2021 its mission to study the history of our universe from the Afterglow of the Big Bang to the formation of solar systems like our own this large infrared telescope is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble telescope it has 18 separate mirror segments made of ultra lightweight beryllium these unfold and adjust to form a six and a half meter primary mirror now that the web telescope has reached its destination one and a half million kilometers away from the earth it should be able to see into the past of our universe it could be the key to discovering alien life unless they find us first if you were looking for signs of Life on distant exoplanets you wouldn't look for little green aliens you'd look for biosignatures in other words characteristics in a planet's atmosphere that could be evidence of life in the past or present imagine an alien astronomer From A Distant Galaxy pointing a telescope toward Earth the biosignatures they make note of are the presence of oxygen and methane in our atmosphere without life forms breathing these two gases in and out these elements would react with others and disappear so the James Webb Telescope will look for the presence of oxygen and methane too first you need to detect the presence of an exoplanet around a distant star you could do this through the transit method as a planet passes in front of a star you'd observe its light slightly diminishing after that planet passes in front of its star many times you'd have enough data to take measurements of its atmosphere you'd be able to see how much light goes through its atmosphere and you could determine what atmospheric elements exist there based on the way the light disperses with a telescope as powerful as the web you could gather enough data after a planet has passed its Star as few as five to ten times yeah so after only 20 hours of investigating a planet you could detect conditions for life but then what 100 for sure gonna die well you probably wouldn't go public with this information right away you'd probably want to follow the confidence of Life detection scale commonly referred to as cold this is an approach that scientists at Nasa are looking to establish it would set up a new framework for discussing how close we are to finding life beyond our planet the scale would have seven levels level one would be the detection of Bio signatures as more data is collected you'd climb the scale to level seven at this point you'd likely find alien life and that's when the whole world freaks out and Powerful aliens being down to conquer our planet right not exactly if we discover Life using the web telescope it would be more than likely that we are the powerful intelligent beings the bombshell announcement of alien life would be a lot less dramatic than the movies suggest it could take decades be prepared for a slow progression of countless mini announcements and remember that the distances between Earth and exoplanets of Interest are vast so if you decided to take an Interstellar trip to one of those like the exoplanet trappist-1e it would take you decades but scientists believe that this planet may have atmospheric conditions similar to ours or at least similar to the Earth two and a half to four billion years ago so maybe we could find microscopic life there a discovery like this would elicit many different reactions for you it could be a dream come true but for others it could be concerning it could affect your entire understanding of life in the universe we might not be alone in the universe scientists from all over the world have their eyes and ears wide open trying to detect signals of life beyond our planet but we're a bit tired of just sitting and waiting so hop on our spacecraft because today you have a very important mission to search for alien life how would we prepare for this journey what kind of life would we be looking for and what would happen if we found it this is what if and here's what would happen if we went on a search for alien life so far we've detected over 4 000 exoplanets in our galaxy and there may be as many as trillions to make your Expedition easier you'd need to consult with NASA first NASA has developed the confidence of Life detection scale or cold to measure progress in life detection research the scale has seven levels ranging from signal detection to follow-up studies once life beyond Earth is confirmed first you'd need to look for Bio signatures this is physical evidence of past or present life on another planet such as chemical compounds or molecules that indicate biological processes if an alien astronomer was taking measurements of Earth they'd look for oxygen and methane those are biosignatures that indicate life on our planet if you're a Celestial technology geek you might scan for techno signatures these are signs showing the negative uses of technology that cause artificial air pollution this means aliens could figure out we exist because of all that smog we send into the atmosphere embarrassing right now that you know what to look for where would you look for it you could start this search in our own Cosmic backyard alien life could be hiding on the subsurface oceans of Europa one of Jupiter's moons or deep beneath the surface of Mars ground telescopes have already detected methane on Mars sending probes to measure surface levels that already puts you on the second level of the cold scale or you could go further and look for alien life on rocky planets outside our solar system you'd need to locate planets orbiting a star in its habitable zone that's the area where a planet is not too close to the star and not too far allowing for temperatures to be just right for liquid water to form scientists have already done the hard work for you here using the Kepler object of Interest exoplanet archive researchers identified systems that might have rocky planets that meet the criteria they found 24 super habitable planets and one of them is very promising koi 5715.01 is roughly 1 billion years older than Earth which means it's had enough time for life to develop scientists estimate that the best chance of discovering life is on planets between five and eight billion years old that makes koi 5715.01 a perfect candidate now while it's a bit cooler than our planet it could support life if it contained enough greenhouse gases okay so let's say you detected bio signatures on koi 571 5.01 now you've got yourself a potentially habitable exoplanet NASA would then have to confirm that there were no measurement errors and that the planet really has the potential to host life The Next Step would be to predict what type of source could generate such a signal scientists would need to confirm this signature couldn't have come from a non-biological Source once that was done you'd be on level 4 of the cold scale at this level scientists would test the signal with other Advanced measurement methods NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope would confirm the exoplanet contains a strong signature for life and you would be able to proudly say you found alien life and then scientists would be able to kick-start follow-up studies at level 7. that means you'd now be ready to fasten your seat belt and see these aliens for yourself but how would you get there yeah that's when things get tricky koi 5715.01 is located almost 3 000 light years away from us that's 700 times further away than Proxima Centauri the closest star to our solar system if we used developing ionic propulsion engines it would take over 55 million years to get there you'd have to make use of some futuristic Solutions like a laser sale this technology uses ultra thin mirrors to capture the momentum of light from stars and then uses this momentum to push a spacecraft to high speeds if you managed to build laser sails with diameters of 320 kilometers you might be able to reach koi 571 5.01 in about 8 500 years setting aside the fact that you wouldn't live that long what would you find once you got there alien life could be extremely complex or very basic and the alien's appearance would depend on the world they evolved on things like gravity density and the amount of energy given off by its star they would probably have something that resembles fingers or tentacles to build tools and since two legs and two arms are more efficient than four legs the aliens might have evolved to walk upright you want to invite them for a stroll well first you'd need to figure out their form of communication and it might be a little more advanced than speech or writing they might just exchange pheromones or even use telepathy and finally you'd want to know how they reproduce we can't be sure if alien reproduction happens by seeding fishing or egg laying so maybe it's best to leave the romantic stuff here on Earth while your journey to find alien life might be successful in our hypothetical story in reality it's still very far-fetched with technology evolving to detect signals from outer space we might be able to identify them at some point but there would still be the issue of getting to them what good does it do knowing something is out there if we can never see it up close I mean unless aliens were already living inside Earth but that sounds like a story for another what if [Music]

Channel: What If

Views: 2,179,989

Keywords: what if, what happens if, science channel, science TV, TV show, live stream, hypothetical scenario, cosmos, space, space documentary, alien documentary 2023, Alien life, Exoplanets, Astrobiology, SETI, UFOs, Are we alone in the universe?, Alien civilizations, Alien encounters, astrobiology, nasa ufo, interstellar, many worlds, exploration, Aliens inside earth, Gliese, kepler 22b, are we alone in the universe, ancient aliens, james webb space telescope, TOI 700 e, nasa, educational

Id: FD-zTrRWoM8

Length: 64min 35sec (3875 seconds)

Published: Thu May 11 2023