What If Earth got Kicked Out of the Solar System? Rogue Earth

the night sky seems peaceful and orderly but in reality stars are careening through the galaxy at speeds of hundreds of thousands of kilometers per hour not bound by static formations but changing neighborhoods constantly fortunately space is big and so the stars of the milky way are very unlikely to hit us unfortunately they don't have to hit anything to make us have a really bad time on earth and there are already stars starting to get very close [Music] to understand how dangerous stars are to us we need to talk about gravity gravity attracts every piece of matter to every other piece of matter in the universe you are attracted by an atom a million light years away and vice versa luckily this force gets weaker over distance and it also depends on how massive something is so things that are close and are very massive are more attractive winning the cosmic tug of war this way massive things define how smaller things behave around them the sun makes up 99.75 percent of all the mass in the solar system and so it shapes the behavior and orbits of everything else in it billions of years ago after the sun was born the solar system was a chaotic and dangerous place as the planets were formed from countless little pieces that collided constantly but over the eons a stable balance emerged today most planets and asteroids have settled into safe and predictable orbits we have the inner and outer planets the asteroid and kuiper belt and at the edge the oort cloud a giant sphere of comets orbiting slowly in cold storage we really don't want this balance to be disturbed if another star came too close to us its gravity would pull on everything in the solar system like a spoiled toddler messing up the pleasant order of the planets and asteroids and comets this isn't some imaginary danger some 70 000 years ago a red dwarf brown dwarf binary system passed through the or cloud and messed things up it might even have sent a deadly onslaught of asteroids our way but it could take two million years until those visitors from the orc cloud arrive in the inner solar system but there's a much bigger problem on the horizon gliese 710 a red dwarf with about half the mass of the sun is currently headed towards the solar system in about a million years it'll pass through the york cloud and become the brightest star in the night sky a close flyby like this would unfold over hundreds of thousands of years disrupting the orbits of millions of objects in the oort cloud considerably if we're unlucky it will trigger a new period of planetary bombardment similar to the early solar system the night sky could be filled with comets and asteroids raining down on the inner solar system the larger ones could cause dinosaur level mass extinctions and would be bad for the stock market but it could get much worse the galaxy is an intense place and stars get close to each other regularly so it is possible that a star could come much closer and not just pass us but fly directly through the inner solar system this would be very bad in the extreme the chance of another star colliding with the sun is astronomically unlikely but that isn't what we're worried about if another star were to pass by about as close as the earth is from the sun it could easily eject the earth from the solar system the odds of such an event are estimated to be around one in one hundred thousand in the next five billion years small but not absurdly so as we discussed in another video there seem to be billions of rogue planets doing their own thing in the galaxy and this is one way to make them so if this were to happen with an average red dwarf what would happen on earth kicking earth out of the solar system as the star enters the solar system a small orangish dot appears in the sky that grows bigger and bigger for months eventually becoming visible during the day it would get bigger and much brighter than the moon too bright to look at directly the night sky would be filled with an eerie red glow after a few months it would start shrinking again but so would the sun over a few years the sun slowly grows smaller in the sky and with it warmth and light start to dissipate all around the world as the days turn dark the final winter of humanity would begin the polar ice caps begin to grow and spread while plants shrivel and die forests freeze and animals die in droves as the earth passes the orbit of mars the average surface temperature has plummeted to near minus 50 degrees celsius from space earth begins to look like an icy moon the blue green surface becoming the pale grey white of death as global infrastructure breaks down people huddle together indoors burning what they can for warmth as the temperature continues to drop counting the days until they'll be out of food which no longer grows everybody living at the surface is living on borrowed time by the time earth reaches jupiter's orbit surface temperatures sink to minus 150 degrees celsius lower than the coldest ever recorded temperatures in antarctica needless to say by now almost everyone is dead without the energy from sunlight to evaporate water clouds don't form and the water cycle stops the polar ice caps eventually touch at the equator and the oceans become covered in a thick layer of ice as more and more of its heat leaks out more water freezes onto the bottom of the ice sheet the concentration of salt in the deep ocean grows poisoning most animals that survived here although around hydrothermal vents communities of extremophiles might adapt even to these circumstances deep below the surface some bacteria would not notice much of any of this as they're still kept warm by the radioactive decay of elements in the earth's core as the earth reaches the orbit of pluto and the kuiper belt the sun is still the brightest star in the sky but it's one among many with stars now visible during the day the temperature is now barely 40 degrees celsius above absolute zero below the freezing temperature of the gases in the atmosphere a weird spectacle enjoyed by no one unfortunately unfolds as the atmosphere turns into nitrogen and then oxygen snow over a few years it's deposited into an icy 10 meter thick sheet all over the planet's surface with only a thin whisper of gas remaining the frozen corpses of flora and fauna are buried beneath them as earth leaves the solar system it becomes a rogue planet traveling alone through the dark lifeless and in solitude but weirdly enough there is hope humanity would not be surprised by this potential extinction event we'd notice it thousands of years in advance there's not a lot we could do to stop a star but we could prepare most of us would perish but a few million could survive in huge artificial complexes powered by geothermal and nuclear energy possibly even fusion if we can learn to use the ice around us for power here humanity might survive for hundreds of thousands of years at some point we would become used to our circumstances and new generations would watch documentaries in disbelief about the time we had our own star and could walk the surface of earth and at some point we might decide to look for another home if the earth were lucky enough to pass by another star with a habitable planet we could try to make a fresh start the space flight oddly enough would become very easy without the atmosphere in the way so it's not unthinkable that the last survivors would leave earth behind and try again on a new planet around a new star maybe one day thousands of years later the descendants of humanity will tell legends about earth's ancient past stories of our lost home of a mysterious icy planet floating alone and empty through the dark of space so basically the key to humanity's survival is learning about what we'll be dealing with well we'd better get cracking then our friends from brilliant are the perfect coaches on the way to becoming more science savvy brilliant is a problem-solving website and app that makes science accessible in a practical way more than 60 interactive courses give you the tools to crack problems in maths logic and engineering all by yourself instead of a classic lecture format brilliant uses storytelling code writing and hands-on problems to keep you entertained and engaged this way a small daily challenge can build up to real long-term understanding of science and achieving your stem goals in a nutshell brilliant surprises you and keeps you on your toes all while sneaking some knowledge into your head without your really noticing write up our annie really to get a fresh perspective on science go to brilliant.org slash nutshell and sign up for free and there's an extra perk for kurtz out viewers the first 200 people to use the link get 20 off their annual membership which lets you view all the daily problems in the archives and unlock every course brilliant helps you end your day a little smarter still the best preparation for the future we can think of [Music] [Music]

Channel: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Views: 9,463,054

Rating: 4.9468131 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: gLZJlf5rHVs

Length: 9min 46sec (586 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/regman231]

Amazing. So glad nuclear energy was mentioned. Until that I was thinking this was rather pessimistic. It will also likely be the key source of energy if we ever leave this rock

[u/SuccMeAss0]

Kurzgesagt is the definition of r/mealtimevideos

[u/[deleted]]

There is some odd sense of existential dread I feel hearing about these time scales and events that not only I can't control and are so far into the future.

I can't really say why though...

[u/daniel5151]

If you're looking for a high-budget sci-fi action flick with the same premise, check out The Wandering Earth (2019).

In the year 2061, the aging Sun is about to turn into a red giant and threaten to engulf the Earth's orbit within 300 years, forcing the nations of the world to consolidate into the United Earth Government to initiate a project to migrate the earth out of the Solar System to the Alpha Centauri system 4.2 light-years away, to preserve further human civilization. Enormous planetary thrusters running on fusion power, known as the Earth Engines, are built across the planet to propel the Earth.

[u/gnarlin]

Reality is depressing. Life is a fluke. Intelligent life (if we can call ourselves that) looks like a rounding error.

[u/notquite20characters]

I identify with the monkey holding the smartphone in the intro.

[u/Alternative-Layer919]

The 1% would certainly survive..!! That’s the rest of us ☝🏼

[u/imalivent]

This scares me even though I know it’s never gonna happen to me

[u/Claudia_Days]

Even if we all died out the Micro organisms living below earth’s surface would have a possibility of surviving. Earth would crash into another planet and start the process of Evolution all over again.