What If Earth Orbited UY Scuti?

[Music] have you ever seen a sunrise like this before one so bright that you couldn't leave your house without sunglasses and you'd want to avoid Sun Tanning at all costs well of course you have it because that's not our son it's the largest star that we've ever discovered uy scuti and if it were to replace our Sun it would change a lot more than just the amount of sunscreen you'd have to put on how long would it take for our planet to orbit this massive star what would that do to our seasons would we even survive a single orbit this is what if and here's what would happen if earth orbited uy scuti to say that uy scuti is huge would be an understatement it's one of the largest things that the human race has ever discovered to put it in perspective it's about 1,700 times larger than our Sun if you were to fly a Boeing 777 airplane around uy scuti it would take over 1,200 years to make the trip so would a star this gigantic even fit into the center of our solar system [Music] before we can answer that we need to get to know you why scooty a little better discovered by German astronomers in 1860 UI scooty is located in the Scouten constellation about 9,500 light-years from Earth it's a pulsating star that swells and shrinks periodically usually shining about four hundred thousand times brighter than our Sun if UI scooty took our Suns placed in the center of our solar system it would engulf everything as far out as the orbit of Saturn that includes all of us here on earth so maybe it's better to leave that huge star where it instead we could just move the earth to the orbit of uy scuti but we'd have to be careful how close we place our planet to this gigantic star to be habitable we'd have to put our planet in orbit about one-and-a-half trillion kilometers away from uy scuti at this distance it would take about ten thousand years for earth to complete just one orbit around the celestial body that would change our entire concept of life as we know it each season would last 2,500 years that means that entire civilizations could rise and fall without ever seeing more than one season for most people summer might be something they've only heard about through legends in case a perpetual winter isn't bad enough don't forget that the orbit around uy scuti would be located right in the middle of the Milky Way where cosmic rays and light from other stars would shine bright enough to keep our sky blue all day and night on top of that UI scooty would be pulsing out extra heavy radiation about every 740 days and things would only get worse the longer we stay there you see uy scuti is a red giant which means it's a lot closer to its death than our Sun is about 40 times closer to be precise when it does die it's expected to explode with the force of more than 100 supernovas a supernova is the explosion of a star and it's the largest explosion that takes place in space so the force of 100 stars exploding would obliterate everything nearby even if the earth was far enough away to survive the blast without the star there would be no heat and no light and life couldn't survive on earth without those two things so once again what if has killed off the entire human race maybe it's a better idea to leave earth where it is and appreciate how lucky we are to orbit our Sun well until it explodes but that's a story for another what if [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: What If

Views: 3,250,283

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, mysteries, what if cosmos, what if earth, the biggest star, astronomy, space, earth's orbit, what if earth changed it's orbit, the largest star, universe, scutum constellation, giant stars, uy scuti, uy scuti vs sun, uy scuti supernova

Id: E9lXjAkymN4

Length: 4min 47sec (287 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2020