What If You Fell Into Neptune?

oh hey i was just playing with my webby before we dive into today's episode we wanted to let you know that we now have youtube memberships support our show and receive awesome perks click on the join button below and choose your tier now back to our regularly scheduled programming [Music] it's big it's blue and it will tear you apart well if you happen to drop into one of its giant earth-sized storms as calm and breath-taking as it may appear on the surface neptune is a dangerous and violent place so who's up for a field trip why do neptune's rings clump in certain areas what treasures are hiding beneath its atmosphere and where could you survive the longest this is what if and here's what would happen if you fell into neptune in 1989 nasa's voyager 2 spacecraft whizzed past neptune five years later we captured incredible images of this planet 4.3 billion kilometers away from earth with the hubble space telescope although it might look like a fun place to bring your yacht neptune's oceans aren't quite the same as the ones here on earth about 80 percent of the planet is made up of an icy substance consisting of water methane and ammonia so where exactly should we take the plunge how about that big dark spot over there let's not get ahead of ourselves that dark spot used to be a lot bigger big enough to contain the entire earth in fact the great dark spot was one of neptune's most violent storms even though it is dissipated there are still several smaller storms to contend with before we dive in let's examine what is just outside of neptune like saturn neptune has an intricate ring system but not nearly as many rings there are at least five main rings including strange clumps of dust called arcs astronomers hypothesize that it's likely neptune's moon galatia and its gravitational disruption causing this bizarre clumping effect alongside galatia neptune has 13 other moons to our left you'll find its most popular moon triton known for its spectacular ice volcanoes based on neptune's tumultuous weather it's probably best that you descend at the northern hemisphere where the winds are tamer as a gas planet different parts of neptune rotate at varying speeds and depending on your location your length of day will vary at the north pole a day lasts 12 hours which is a whole six hours shorter than a day on the equator you gotta work smarter not harder as they say unlike earth neptune's atmosphere does not contain any oxygen so make sure to bring an ample supply to breathe easy with very little sunlight the brightest neptune gets is about the equivalent of a dim twilight here on earth so also be sure to pack a light source or some night vision goggles be prepared to brace yourself for wind speeds up to 550 meters per second that's about five times stronger than the harshest gusts here on earth and twice as fast as the speed of sound as you pass through neptune's exosphere its outermost atmosphere your spacesuit will experience freezing cold temperatures as you drift through the methane clouds and it might reek a little that was not me like in some places here on earth the weather can be a bit unpredictable as you reach the thermosphere suddenly the temperature rises to about 477 degrees and you'll encounter ammonia and hydrogen sulfide clouds astronomers agree that this bump in temperature could be a result of the atmosphere's interaction with ions in the planet's magnetic field okay once you've made it through the blistering heat of the thermosphere you'll notice an increase in pressure in the stratosphere and the closer you get to the planet's core you'll notice things are starting to heat up fast as you make your way through all of neptune's 3 000 kilometer thick hydrogen and helium atmosphere don't worry about smashing into the ground neptune doesn't have one per se it's more of a slushy ice and water layer about 17 500 kilometers deep if you were hoping for a spectacular view well sorry the atmosphere here is too dense to see anything as you finally pass through all the slush you'll encounter a super hot ocean and possibly some hidden treasures one of the consequences of the high pressure and temperature on neptune is that its carbon and hydrogen atoms could separate forcing isolated carbon atoms to be squeezed into diamond structures these would likely sink to the planet's core but could be as large as one meter in size who knew neptune had so much bling here in the core the temperature is piping hot about 7 000 degrees which is comparable to the surface of the sun realistically a mere human probably couldn't survive this journey but maybe a resilient space probe could now that we've got our sea legs maybe we could explore jupiter next think you could handle it well that's a story for another what if [Music] [Music] you

Channel: What If

Views: 1,205,882

Rating: 4.9363842 out of 5

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, mysteries, neptune, planet neptune, solar system, landing on neptune, space, unexplained mysteries, science, outer space, space facts, solar system planets, space exploration, documentaries, hypothetical scenario, facts about space, space documentary, space discoveries, documentary, astronomy, what if cosmos, neptune planet, hypothetical, interesting facts, neptune rings, neptune moons, planets, free documentary

Id: R5pYI0vjI6k

Length: 6min 56sec (416 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021