We Could See the Second Moon!

We Could See the Second Moon!

on a starry night you look at the sky and see twin moons high above Earth it’s a view science fiction fans can only hope for but it could have been a reality billions of years ago if we want to be super precise 4 billion years ago a recent model suggests that the highlands of the moon’s Far Side could have been created by a collision with a smaller compion moon in an event dubbed the big Splat the mystery of why the near and far sides of the Moon are so different have been puzzling astronomers for decades the near side of our natural satellite is low and flat while the Landscapes of The Far Side are high and mountainous that part also has a much thicker crust it leaves us with a somewhat lopsided Moon according to the giant impact model of the origin of our satellite a mars-sized object crashed into young Earth early in the history of the solar system this event produced loads of debris that then coalesced and formed the moon the new model though suggests that there could be a second moon orbiting around Earth it would have been around 750 mi in diameter and could have formed in the same Collision later on this smaller Moon could have fallen onto the bigger one coating one of its sides with an extra layer of solid crust tens of Miles thick this model fits the moon forming giant impact Theory surprisingly well after all it does predict that there had to be tons of debris left in orbit around Earth after the Collision besides the moon itself it also agrees with what we know about the dynamical stability of such a system the ages of lunar rocks and the timing of the cooling of the Moon there are other computer models that suggest a companion Moon too another team of scientists used computer simulations to figure out the Dynamics of the collision between the Moon and a potential smaller companion according to their model it was about 130th the mass of the Main Moon they tracked the distribution of lunar material in the aftermath of this event and its Evolution they found out that the impact would have been relatively slow at a mere 5,000 mph which is slow enough for rocks not to melt plus no impact crater would have formed at such a speed instead the crust and rocks from the smaller Moon would have spread over and around the bigger moon on the other hand such a collision sounds a bit weird being slow it doesn’t leave an impact crater but at the same time it Splats material onto one side of the big bigger object there is a theory that the companion moon was originally trapped at gravitationally stable Trojan points sharing the moon’s orbit but later it became destabilized after the moon’s orbit moved further away from Earth the collisions could have happened anywhere on the moon but that might be the reason why today’s moon is lopsided this model also explains the differences in the composition of the moon’s crust on the near side it contains more potassium Rare Earth elements and phosphorus these elements are thought to have been concentrated in the magma ocean that remained under the solidified crust of the moon in the simulations the Collision squish this layer onto the near side of the moon but even though this model explains a lot of things and answers loads of questions the theory remains unconfirmed we still don’t know the full history of the Moon and what really happened there scientists say that the best way to figure it out is to get more data from lunar orbiting spacecraft an even better way to get information would be a human mission to study the moon okay I officially give up on the hope that the moon is made of cheese after all wow not even Gudda the shiny lunar ball or a curved banana or half of a coin depending on what phase it’s in has different layers inside just like Earth one of these layers is called the inner core about 20 years ago scientists were observing how the moon rotates using that data they concluded that it had a fluid outer core but the inner core was hard to study so they didn’t know if it was solid like a rock or molon like a hot liquid but things are clearer now astronomers have collected data from different missions including the Apollo missions where astronauts went to the moon and gathered information themselves plus they’ve used a special technique called seismic data this method is all about studying how sound waves move through things take earthquakes on our planet as an example when an earthquake happens it creates waves that travel through the ground scientists can detect and analyze these waves to learn more about Earth’s interior the same idea can apply to other objects in our solar system or planet or in this case the moon when Quakes or Moon Quakes happen they generate sound waves and by carefully listening to and studying these waves scientists can create a detailed map of what’s inside the object they can figure out things like different layers what they’re made of and how they’re arranged to check the moon’s deep interior scientists also use something called laser ranging this method measures the distance between the surface of the Earth and the Moon very precisely and Tada our natural satellites inner core is a dense solid ball made of iron just like Earth’s it’s about 310 Mi wide which is nearly 15% the size of the entire Moon researchers also have stumbled upon evidence that supports the theory that the layer between the moon surface and its core called the mantle has been moving around as the moon evolved over time this movement is something we call lunar mantle overturn and it could explain why we find elements rich in iron on the lunar surface mantle material ends up being carried upward and the volcanic rock remains in the moon’s crust some of the materials in this rock were too dense like me so they just sank back through the lighter crust material all the way to the core mantle boundary it’s like a cycle where the moon’s mantle material goes up during volcanic activity carries iron rid elements to the surface and then sinks back down there’s another mystery scientists have been trying to solve what caused the moon’s magnetic field to weaken and nearly disappear over time it seems that now that we know about the iron core and the global mantle overturn we might get some more answers about the moon’s magnetic field knowing what the inner core is like can help us better understand the moon’s history as well as the history of our entire solar system now one of the theories that’s widely accepted about the origin of the Moon says there was a massive collision between Earth in its early stages and another mysterious object in our solar system it’s called the large impact Theory and this Collision was so strong it ripped off a big chunk of the Primitive molten Earth I mean not so big compared to what’s left if you put a US nickel next to a green PE you get a good idea of how big our planet is compared to the moon now this chunk was set into orbit around our planet and this might have happened about 95 million years after our solar system formed the object that collided with Earth could have been about 10% the mass of our home planet and roughly the size of Mars well it makes sense Earth and the moon do have similar compositions after all of course there are other ideas about how the moon form one says that the gravitational force of our planet captured it this means that the moon was just an object innocently passing by when suddenly it got attracted and pulled into Earth’s orbit there’s even a hypothesis that Earth stole the Moon from Venus oo in that case the moon shouldn’t complain I guess the view is way better here so yeah the Moon and Earth are similar when it comes to rocks and some minerals but the moon doesn’t have the same atmosphere as our planet its atmosphere is thin and consists of some weird gases that include potassium and sodium which is not so something you can find in the atmosphere of Mars Venus or Earth and the rocks on the moon don’t contain water but that doesn’t mean there’s no water at all up there a long time ago in the 17th century astronomers saw large dark spots on the moon surface one of these astronomers thought these spots look like oceans and he called them Maria which means seas in Latin other astronomers also made maps of the Moon and they Ed the term Maria to describe these dark spots for example mayor tranquilatus translates to Sea of Tranquility where Apollo 11 made its touchdown but it seems those dark spots are not actually oceans they are ples made of hardened lava that erupted long ago these volcanic eruptions Left Behind smooth flat areas called Basalt plaines in the late 1800s one sky Watchers studied the moon and found it didn’t have an atmosphere without an atmosphere there are no clouds and no air to keep water from evaporating so scientists thought that any water on the moon would just disappear right away they believe the moon was totally dry but then in 1961 one physicist had a different idea he pointed out there could be water on the moon in special areas called permanently shadowed regions these are spots on the moon where the sun doesn’t shine so they stay dark all the time water ice could exist in these dark areas because they’re extremely cold and the ice wouldn’t evaporate but when astronauts from the Apollo missions went to the moon they brought back soil samples and scientists found no signs of water in them so everyone went back to thinking that the moon was completely dry in the ’90s NASA focused on these shadowed craters and found high concentrations of hydrogen which meant there could be ice at the moon’s poles they still weren’t certain so they kept digging and after a while found hydrogen trapped inside tiny beads of volcanic glass since there are no active volcanoes on the moon today which means water probably was present on the moon when these volcanoes erupted long ago plus there could be way more water back in the early days of our moon in 2020 NASA’s sopia Mission showed us what we’ve been looking for for a really long time there is water on the moon after all it turns out the water is hidden within the grains of lunar dust or sticking to the surface in the sunlet areas of the moon so there are no oceans like we have on Earth but at least there’s something the question remains how did water even get there it seems the moon had a chaotic history back at the time when it was forming as probably most of the planets and moons in our solar system so there is some evidence that water came there from comets hitting its surface back in the old days or maybe even keeps on coming from those that are slamming into the moon right now we’re talking about a chaotic situation where I see microm meteorites collide with the moon surface and dust then makes an even bigger mess when interacting with the solar wind but we’re waiting to find out more about this because as we all know when you mention water you also inevitably talk about life that’s why we want to know more for instance about all that ice hidden in polar craters on the moon maybe it can teach us more about how life developed on Earth maybe comets brought all the necessary elements here then what if there are some of those elements stuck in the ice on the Moon too H count how many times the word moon is said in this video enjoy there might be Moon moons out there in space these are moons orbiting other Moons online these fascinating hypothetical space objects have already been nicknamed sub moons Grand moons Munos munes and even Ms they might not exist in our solar system or any other but some astronomers claim that the concept of a moon bringing up its own baby moon is quite plausible the thing is in all planetary systems we know about natural satellites occur in a strict order planets orbit stars and moons move around planets but then why can’t sub moons orbit moons take Earth’s natural satellite it’s so massive that some astronomers even want to call it a planet in its own right then why shouldn’t This Plane sized Moon have its own satellite in a new paper a couple of researchers looked for a mathematical answer to the puzzle of Moon moons using special equations created to show the tidal effects of planets on their moons the scientists determined that sub moons could exist if the host moon was massive enough and the sub moon was small enough plus there should be a wide orbital gap between these two moons and the host Planet this way a 6 mile wide sub Moon could only survive moving around a 600 M wide moon on a wide separation orbit if these parameters are not met the tital forces of the host Planet would be too powerful and would smash the moon and the Moon Moon together or these forces would be too weak to keep the submoon and it would get jettisoned into space based on these conditions there are quite a few natural satellites in our solar system that could hypothetically host baby moons of their own these could be Saturn’s Moon’s Titan and iapetus Jupiter’s satellite called Kalisto and our moon yes our own Moon could have its own tiny satellite why doesn’t it the researchers haven’t found the answer to this question yet the existence or lack thereof of Moon moons May shed light on satellite formation and evolution in planetary systems but once we find the answers we’re looking for the next logical question may arise can a moon moon have a moon moon moon of its own if so what name would be the most suitable for such a space body a great grand Moon write your variance in the comments besides hypothetical Moon moons there are loads of other bizarre things in the universe the existence of which we haven’t proven yet hypothetical nuclear pasta is one of them if it does exist nuclear pasta is the strongest material in the entire universe it forms from the leftovers of extinguished Stars when this substance gets squeezed into spaghetti like Tangles of material it can theoretically break but according to estimates It could only happen if you appli 10 billion times the pressure you’d need to shatter steel then there’s dark matter and dark energy we kind of know these things exist but no one has seen yet everything on Earth and everything people can observe in space with the help of telescopes and other instruments is normal matter it’s made up of atoms and molecules and adds up to less than 5% of the universe almost 34s of the universe is dark energy astronomers wouldn’t even know the thing existed if several decades ago they hadn’t found out that the expansion of the universe wasn’t slowing down quite the opposite it was accelerating it meant there had to be some enigmatic Force that counteracted gravity it was dubbed dark energy as for about 27% of the remaining Universe it’s believed that it’s made up of dark matter if dark energy is a force responsible for the expansion of the universe dark matter is supposed to explain how objects work together potential candidates for Dark Matter vary from strange particles to Super dim objects objects but even though astronomers can’t grasp what exactly dark matter is they know for sure what it isn’t it’s dark which means we can rule out visible stars and planets it also can’t be dark clouds of normal matter otherwise scientists would be able to detect it dark matter is not antimatter astronomers don’t see unique gamma rays that appear when antimatter comes in contact with matter and neither is dark matter gigantic G galxy sized black holes there are a few theories about how the moon appeared in the sky and recently a new idea has popped up but before we discuss this newcomer let’s look at the most popular hypotheses of the moon’s formation the capture Theory claims that Earth’s natural satellite used to be a Wandering body something like a large asteroid it had formed somewhere else in the solar system before it was captured by our planet’s gravity when passing nearby the accretion hypothesis suggests that the moon formed in orbit around Earth at the same time as our planet appeared in the darkness of the cosmos then there’s the fishing theory that says that at one point in its development Earth was spinning so fast that some of its material broke away and started to orbit the planet and the giant impact Theory which is the most popular these days claims that the moon formed during a collision between Earth and another hypo itical planet called Thea which was way smaller probably the size of Mars the resulting debris collected in an orbit around Earth and formed the moon and now let’s move to the new Theory you’ve been patiently waiting for according to it our satellite might have formed immediately in a matter of hours after the collision between Earth and Thea the material from the two planets was likely launched directly into Earth’s orbit right after the impact it formed formed the moon and left traces deep inside Earth in previous scenarios Thea’s remains were thought to have been scattered all over space mixing with just a bit of the material coming from our own Planet but then why do we see such shocking similarities between the moons and Earth’s compositions could it be that Thea was isotonically and chemically similar to Earth unlikely but according to the new Theory more material from Earth was was used to create the moon its outer layers in particular it might explain this similarity in composition one more Theory also tries to explain this mysterious similarity the cestia model according to it our satellite formed inside a swirl of vaporized Rock left by the Collision but this Theory can’t explain the moon’s current orbit the new single stage Theory does offer us plausible explanations for both the similarities in composition and the orbit of the moon it might also provide us with some answers to previously Unsolved Mysteries since this scenario puts the moon into a wider orbit and gives it an interior that is not fully molten it can explain the satellite’s Tilted orbit and thin crust in any case to confirm one of these theories we need to analyze future lunar samples that will be brought to Earth by NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions scientists will be able to get their hands on some material from deeper beneath the moon’s surface and compare if real data matches these simulated scenarios in the past the Apollo missions already brought back about a third of a ton of rock and soil from our satellite these samples showed that Earth and the moon had some remarkable chemical similarities they could only suggest one thing these space objects had a linked history if the moon had formed elsewhere and been captured by our planet’s gravity later on its composition would be very different from that of Earth but if the moon had been created at the same time as Earth or if it had broken off our planet the type and proportion of minerals on the moon would be the same as on Earth but they are a bit different the moon’s minerals contain less water than their terrestrial counterparts the satellite is also richer in materials that form rapidly at high temperatures that’s why the most accepted model of the moon’s formation these days is the giant impact model meteorites coming from the moon are a great source of data for studying the origins of our satellite too they can tell us even more about the moon than Apollo samples all because such meteorites come from all over the surface of the Moon meanwhile Apollo samples were collected just in one place near the equator on the near Side of the Moon you hear some noise in the street and Rush up to the window to check what caused it you look up at the sky and just stand there speechless the Moon is giant it looks much larger than usual and it’s both beautiful and scary so what would your life be like if the moon moved twice as close to Earth as it is now unfortunately it would be quite a catastrophic scenario you see the moon has a pretty strong gravitational pull on Earth’s oceans it produces two high tides and two low tides per day but with the moon so close to us the tides would get eight times higher some regions would be completely covered with water during the day the water would only retreat at night many islands and highly populated Coastline territories would become uninhabited because of this many other regions would experience frequent devastating floods but if you think it would be the only consequence let me tell you this the moon ALS Al has a tital effect on dry land that’s why if our planet’s natural satellite was to suddenly relocate its gravitational pull would increase Making Waves of energy reverberate throughout the planet this would affect earth’s crust triggering earthquakes and starting volcanic eruptions now let’s leave Earth and the giant moon for a while and have a look at Jupiter’s moon EO which is the most volcanically active World in our solar system this volcanism comes from the push and pull from Jupiter’s gravity two other moons of the gas giant also have an effect on poor eio that’s why eo’s surface is littered with hundreds of volcanoes most of them are spewing sulfurous plumes high above the surface of the Moon our planet might face the same fate should the moon move so close to it and that’s not all Earth spin would start to slow down over time look the moon’s gravity pulls the oceans and the resulting friction between the water and the ocean floor slows Earth’s spin yes Earth is slowing down even now as you’re watching this video but this process is almost imperceptible around 1,000th of a second per Century if the moon was twice as close to us the rotation of our planet would slow much more making days and nights longer if people managed to survive unexpected earthquakes high tides and volcanic eruptions and got used to longer days and nights they would get an award solar eclipses these spectacular events that occur when the moon passes between the Sun and Earth would happen much more frequently since the moon would cover a much larger area in the sky it would pass in front of the sun more often people on Earth would be able to see the sun’s outer atmosphere called the corona it would shine beautifully around the silhouette of the Moon such solar eclipses would also last much longer but what if the moon didn’t shorten the distance overnight what if it was a much slower and much more gradual process then our planet’s crust would shift more slowly Tides wouldn’t change so dramatically either this would let living creatures on the planet get used to the new conditions and adjust in time longer days and nights would likely change the climate and animals would have to evolve to adapt to it their eyes would have to change to be able to deal with brighter Moonlight at night prey would have to learn to hide better but Predators on the other hand would have more advantages when hunting but what catastrophe would have to happen to make the moon move so close to Earth well it could be some massive object like a giant asteroid passing very close to the Earth Moon system if the moon was in the way of this space traveler it could take energy from Earth satellite which would cause the moon to spiral towards our planet it’s dark outside almost 2: a.m. you go outside and look at the sky and here it is bright full moon you might think you know a lot about Earth’s natural satell but let me ask you this how did it form the answer is nobody knows but of course there are theories the most popular one called the giant impact Theory claims that the moon formed during a collision between Earth and another planet this planet must have been smaller than ours the size of Mars and the Collision itself probably happened around 4.5 billion years ago another theory called the capture Theory claims that the Moon used to be an asteroid or some other wandering body it Formed somewhere else in the solar system when it was passing by Earth it got caught by our planet’s gravity but here is one catch our planet and the moon have remarkable isotopic and chemical similarities so they must have a linked history which means the moon couldn’t have been created elsewhere other experts think that at some point in the past Earth was spinning so fast that some of its material broke broke away it soon started to orbit our planet that’s how the moon appeared in the sky but again there’s one problem in this case the proportion and type of minerals on the moon would have to be the same as on Earth but there are slight differences the Moon is richer in materials that form very fast at high temperatures there’s one more Theory and it’s probably the least exciting it claims that Earth’s natural satellite could simply appear along with Earth during our planet’s formation duh but these days a more urgent question keeps astronomers busy is the moon really Earth satellite or are these two twin planets the moon is big compared to our planet about 1 qu of Earth’s size that’s why some experts refer to our planetary system as a double Planet but how correct is that if we want to figure it out we need to give the definition to the word planet according to the international astronomical Union a planet is a space body that orbits the Sun is massive enough to have a nearly round shape thanks to its gravity and has cleared the region around its orbit now what about a satellite it’s an object in space that orbits around a larger Celestial body if we take the system earth the moon its center of gravity called a berry Center is inside the earth that’s why at the moment we can’t say that we live in a twin planet system according to this definition the Moon is the satellite of our planet now let’s get back to the past like 3 or 4 billion years ago even though the moon wasn’t a planet it most likely had a full-fledged atmosphere it Formed at times when powerful volcanic eruptions were rocking our satellite gases spread all over the moon’s surface and it happened so fast that they didn’t have enough time to escape into space at that time the lunar surface was covered with basins filled with volcanic basalt just imagine ginormous plumes of magma hurdling High into the air falling to the ground and creating lava flows that’s how the basalt basins appeared on the surface of the Moon at one point scientists got their hands on samples brought from the Moon they found out that lava flows there contained not only carbon monoxide and sulfur but also the building blocks of water thanks to these samples researchers managed to calculate the amount of gas that Rose and formed the atmosphere it became the thickest around 3.5 billion years ago and existed for about 70 million years after that poof the atmosphere was lost in space but the coolest thing when the moon did have an atmosphere the satellite was 3 to 10 times closer to our planet one computer simulation even suggests the moon was probably up to 19 times closer than it is now the distance between it and our planet could be 18,600 M while these days our satellite is around 240,000 Mi away that’s why the Moon looked much much bigger in the sky unfortunately at that time not even dinos were around to admire the view these days the atmosphere of the moon is almost non-existent and that’s why the satellite can’t protect itself from meteorites the surface of the Moon is dotted with craters for comparison there are about 190 identified impact craters on our planet many of them are hidden by vegetation or covered with water but if we speak about the moon the number is so much greater several million and around 5,000 of them are more than 12 M across and since the Moon is less seismically active than Earth these craters and other ancient formations stay in perfect condition for centuries when you look at the moon it’s the brightest object in the night sky but in reality its surface is dark because the reflectance of our natural satellite is just a bit higher than that of asphalt you might know that the moon’s gravitational pull causes tides on our planet making the oceans bulge out on both the side closest to the moon and the one farthest from the Sou but that’s not all the moon also slows down Earth’s rotation this phenomenon is known as tidal breaking it increases the length of a day on Earth by a bit more than 2 milliseconds per 100 years the Moon is also moving away from Earth at the same rate at which your fingernails grow that’s about 1.5 in per year if one day the moon floats away into space our planet will have to live through tough times without the stabilizing pull of the moon’s gravity Earth’s Tilt would start changing wildly from no Tilt at all meaning no Seasons to a large tilt resulting in extreme weather even though the moon surface is mostly dormant Earth’s natural satellite still experiences Moon Quakes one Theory suggests that they may be happening because the Moon is shrinking as its insides are cooling scientists say that the moon has become around 150 ft skinnier than it used to be several 100 million years ago to help you understand it picture a grape turning into a raisin it wrinkles while shrinking the same is happening to the moon it’s shrinking and it’s wrinkling but unlike the grape the moon doesn’t have flexible skin its surface is hard and brittle so as the moon gets smaller the crust cracks and breaks and its sections get pushed over neighboring Parts want to know another cool thing about the moon a recent study claims that it has a tail and every month it wraps around our planet like a scarf this slender tail is made up of millions of atoms of sodium and our planet regularly travels directly through it meteor strikes blast these sodium atoms out of the moon’s surface and further into space for several days every month the moon remains between the Sun and our planet that’s when Earth’s gravity picks that sodium tail our planet drags it into a long stripe that wraps around its atmosphere this lunar tail is totally harmless it’s also invisible to the human eye 50 times dimmer than what you can perceive but during those rare days high- powerered telescopes can spot its faint yellowish Glow In The Sky the tail looks like a gleaming spot that’s five times the full Moon’s diameter and the spiciest fact for you 2 or 3 years a ago an asteroid was pulled into Earth’s orbit and started to travel around the planet even though it was no larger than an average car it was still a big deal out of more than 1 million asteroids astronomers know about it was only the second one to orbit our planet called 2020 CD3 it was our temporary Mini Moon it didn’t stay with Earth for long though the asteroid followed a random orbit and slowly drifted away temporarily captured objects such as 2020 CD3 are rare they need to have a specific direction and speed to be caught by Earth’s gravitational pole otherwise they either crash into the planet or fly in another Direction they aren’t supposed to exist no one expected to find them scientists can’t explain how they formed and still the James web Space Telescope has found them these six galaxies as massive as our home Milky Way are full of mature red stars they’re so far away from us that they look like tiny reddish dots even to this extremely powerful telescope astronomers have analyzed the light coming from these galaxies and estimated their age they appeared 500 to 700 million years after the big bang so far nothing surprising galaxies that young aren’t exactly rare scientists think that our first star clusters could have sprung up soon after the universe left the so-called Dark [Music] Ages those were the first 400 million years of its existence at that time only a thick fog of hydrogen atoms filled the cosmos what is extremely bizarre about these galaxies is their tremendous size and the age of the stars in inhabiting them but this doesn’t coincide with the existing ideas about what the universe looked like and how it evolved in its early years plus it doesn’t match with earlier observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope W’s less powerful [Music] predecessor so according to scientists what are early galaxies supposed to look like the answer is simple young and small and indeed previously most early Universe galaxies we found were just space babies blue and small they seem to have appeared out of the primordial Cosmic soup just recently and were still building their early stars and other structures most young stars are actually blue as they age they acquire a reddish glow after burning through their star Fuel and cooling down that’s why astronomers were not ready to see old red stars in those ancient galaxies web telescope was built to discover another thing they weren’t ready to spot was galaxies more massive than a billion Suns and still it happened the most massive galaxies discovered recently seem to have masses just twice or four times lower than that of the Milky Way and the most astounding thing here is that these galaxies were already that big when the universe was a mere 3% of its current age but before astronomers start rewriting their theories trying to explain how such huge galaxies formed so fast after the big bang we need to make sure that what we’re looking at isn’t some other space phenomenon even so most alternative theories need totally new Concepts as well one of them goes like this perhaps stars in the early Universe emit light in some unusual exotic way and since astronomers didn’t know about it they didn’t include this possibility in their models or our understanding of how stars form might be inapplicable to the early Universe if any of these theories turns out to be true it’ll overturn our understanding of star formation all together now how about we talk about the device that helped astronomers to discover those bizarre galaxies the James web Space Telescope is an absolutely stunning piece of equipment which is around 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope and the latter has observed places that are 13.4 billion light years away the James web telescope is also on the pricey side to put it mildly even though originally the cost of the telescope was estimated to be just 1 to 3.5 billion the whole development process cost around $10 billion for comparison it cost NASA 4 .7 billion to build and launch the Hubble telescope it was another 1.1 billion to fix it in orbit even though the James web Space Telescope itself is three stories high and the size of a tennis court its mirrors are the lightest large telescope mirrors of all time during the manufacturing process they underwent a 92% reduction in weight when you look at them the telescope’s mirrors seem to be gold but in reality they’re made of burum this is a steel gray lightweight and brittle metal a gold coating is applied to each mirror that’s true but they can’t be produced entirely out of gold since this precious metal tends to expand and contract even with small temperature changes so the total amount of gold in the James web Space Telescope is is less than 2 oz that’s a golf ball-sized piece of gold and the gold plates covering the mirror are only 1,000 atoms thick as for the telescope’s abilities it would be able to clearly see a US penny from 24 M away and a football from 340 M away James web’s telescope side is cooling itself down and its temperature doesn’t rise High higher than 370° F that’s cool enough to make liquid nitrogen a truly enormous five layered sun shield surrounds the telescope and reflects away as much sunlight as possible letting the telescope stay cool jwst is believed to be able to detect water on distant exoplanets for a long time astronomers have been discovering planets orbiting stars outside of the solar system by monitoring slight dips in Stars light such dips happen when planets pass in front of them plus it’s possible to read unique signatures in the light this can tell us about a planet’s chemical composition and the strongest and most readable signatures happen within the infrared spectrum and guess what James web has state-of-the-art infrared instruments they can help scientists spot new planets and even identify the presence of water there the telescope was launched near the equator because Earth spins a bit faster there and this gave the rocket some extra push when the James web Space Telescope runs out of fuel it’ll keep orbiting the Sun indefinitely on the other hand even though the telescope wasn’t actually designed to be serviced or upgraded it might potentially be refueled with the help of robot this would extend its lifespan interestingly at first astronomers were sure that finding something exciting with the help of James web would take time they thought that the first discovered galaxies would be so small and dim that the telescope would only find some remote candidates at best but it didn’t go as planned as soon as the first images were released scientists started finding countless galaxies bright large and impressively old the competition is still on one research Group after another spots new record-breaking worlds one astronomer even said that the scientific world was freaking out since no one had actually expected such impressive results one of the main goals of the web telescope is to observe the light from the very first stars and galaxies in the universe unfortunately the farther away an object is the faster it’s moving away from us and the longer the light has to travel the more it stretches towards the infrared side of the spectrum this is called red shifting in astronomy but thanks to its infrared equipment James web can reveal previously invisible worlds to us so thanks to this telescope we’ve managed to see incredibly distant galaxies that were born around 3.8 billion years ago it means that the light jwst detected took more than 13 billion years to reach Earth can you imagine that but one of these galaxies stands out from the rest it appears to be the oldest Galaxy astronomers have discovered so far it’s called glass z13 and it dates back to a mere 300 million years after the big bang the previous oldest Galaxy scientist identified was found by the Hubble Space Telescope and it dates back to 400 million years after the big bang during that scarcely probed era the very first galaxies of Stars started to appear but how exactly did this process unfold no one knows for sure yet it might have depended on the laws of some exotic physics including the influence of dark matter and dark energy or some poorly investigated communication between gas dust and staright with the help of the web telescope scientists can now test their theories about what was happening out there after the birth of the universe about a third of all grown-ups have a snake phobia but if you decide to become an astronaut not to have to deal with them it might not be a great idea according to story Musgrave there are snakes in space Musgrave is one of the most experienced astronauts in the world right now he is the second astronaut who managed to go on six space flights and fly on all the space shuttles with that much experience and time in space he has to have one or two space horror stories in his career once on a space mission he looked out of the window and saw something resembling a snake Musgrave said it was 6 to 8 ft long and looked like a snake but many people don’t believe his story they claim it was some trash floating in space or something that had detached from the spacecraft but the astronaut went on another mission and saw the creature again the first time he spotted it it could be some detached piece from the spacecraft but what are the chances of that happening twice he gave many interviews in which he explained these crazy encounters let’s hope those snakes stay in space and don’t come crashing down on Earth if they are real of course snake rain would not be [Music] fun and as we all know space is like a giant vacuum chamber with zero air and sound can’t travel there making this story even more terrifying to communicate astronauts have a special system in their suits to exchange information young leeway shared his terrifying experience and it’s hard to believe it actually happened you would be terrified if you were alone at home and someone started knocking on your door at night of course if you weren’t expecting anyone imagine the same scenario but you’re in space you hear some knocking you have nowhere to run you’re trapped in a metal can floating into nothingness young was sitting in his spacecraft minding his own business when he suddenly heard knocking coming from outside how is it possible sound can’t travel in Space the noise was unique the astronaut described it as if someone had been knocking on an iron bucket with a wooden hammer way looked outside but to his surprise there was nothing there he investigated a bit more but couldn’t find the source of the sound when young returned to Earth he was eager to tell scientists about what had happened but he could not recreate the sound to add fuel to the fire his colleagues who were on the same Mission from 2005 to 2008 said they had also heard knocking similar to what Young had reported this is still a mystery nobody knows what happened then maybe it was just spacecraft noise like those your house randomly [Music] makes we’ve already mentioned that sound can’t travel in space but that doesn’t stop weird noises the Apollo 10 mission was one of the most significant space missions ever so astronauts had to ensure everything was perfect before they went on a moon exploration Journey three people were on that mission Thomas Stafford module pilot John Young and lunar module pilot Eugene cernon they had to do tons of gear test for the upcoming Apollo 11 missions the astronauts were circling the moon when they heard music coming from somewhere it wasn’t like Ed Sheeran’s concert it was more like constant loud screaming then it was quiet whistling they were terrified imagine being in space for the first time and hearing we we noises The Sounds lasted for a whole hour the astronauts had never heard anything like that before the sound was otherworldly and creepy when they returned to Earth they didn’t know if they should tell someone about their experience because it was hard to believe Michael Collins an astronaut from the Apollo 11 Mission later shared that he had also heard this sound but there is a kind of logical explanation for this Engineers from NASA said that the sound that they had heard had been caused by the interference with the communication system so you can relax and throw your tinfoil hat in the trash but before you do that Al Warden an astronaut from the Apollo 15 Mission said that this explanation was unlikely so we might never find out what really caused the sound Leroy Chow was the commander of the International Space space station in 2005 when it comes to space he’s seen a lot of things that can send chills down your spine one encounter he and his crew had will live on in their head rentree forever Chia was sitting in the space station doing his job when he suddenly spotted light from the corner of his eye he took a closer look and it resembled an upside down V floating and glowing in space Leroy later explained that he hadn’t been scared by the object quite the opposite he was extremely excited to see it even though he had no idea what it was his crew also saw the strange object Chia was convinced he was visited by something not from Earth his team could also vouch that indeed they saw something unexplainable the information about this encounter is all over the Internet and many people are skeptical it could have been anything there are more than 10,000 satellites in space right now it could have been a satellite floating in space another theory is that those were lights reflecting from a fishing boat on Earth but who knows there may be another logical explanation for this phenomenon waiting to be discovered horror stories don’t stop there this one is hard to believe and it’s up to you to figure out if it’s true astronaut Alan Bean was the fourth individual to set foot on the moon’s surface when he was on the Apollo 12 mission he claimed he saw a unique shape on the moon it was shiny and shaped like a shoe it’s hard to know what he saw because he passed away in 2018 Chinese lunar rover yutu also discovered some shiny substance on the moon scientists say it was something gel-like it could be a glaze that formed when something impacted the moon surface like a meteorite or something else but in the future we might find a better explanation for this strange [Music] find this may sound Wicked but many countries send animals to space before humans follow them take Miss Baker a squirrel monkey ham the chimp and many more many of these animals returned to Earth safely and lived happily ever after like ham the chimp that lived for 26 years but some weren’t so lucky astronauts are still creeped out when they see animals floating in space imagine seeing something like that in a dark vacuum no matter how tough you are after that you will be afraid of your own shadow this may be sad but it was an essential step in space exploration the following Horror Story comes from space engineer Musa manov this this guy came across something that made scientists confused he was shooting a video of Space when he accidentally filmed some shiny object flying in the distance the thing had a cylindrical shape and manov thought it was something that had detached from the spacecraft but he was unsure because it moved in a unique way when you think of a creepy Space story the first thing that comes to your mind is some creature crawling on the spacecraft or some weird object object flying in space but all those things are highly unlikely to happen when somebody asked Chris Hadfield what the scariest thing about space was he said it was asteroids there are thousands of them in space and the spacecraft is constantly getting hit by them Chris said that he’d always heard sounds from asteroids hitting his spacecraft He also mentioned that the spacecraft’s solar panels were covered with holes and you never know whether a giant asteroid will come and hit your spacecraft now are there real life space monsters well of course there are no huge beasts made of stars that are flying through the universe however there are some things in space that truly remind us of things from our nightmares the first one is the Eagle Nebula also known as Messier 16 or Star Queen nebula a Wonder located in the constellation serpents this dazzling nebula was discovered in the 17th century and earned its nickname from the visual impression it creates if you look at it it resembles a giant eagle flying through the universe it’s a young star cluster located super far away about 5,700 light years away from Earth the Eagle Nebula spans a region of about 70x 50 Lighty years in size for comparison our entire solar system is only 2 Lighty years long with the distance between the Sun and Pluto being only around 5 light hours this enormous nebula is home to more than 8,000 Stars one of them is especially bright it’s a Duo of massive stars one about 80 times heavier than our side and the nebula is actively creating new ones every day the gas and dust in there are being compressed by the intense radiation ation and Stellar winds from hot massive stars within the cluster this triggers the birth of new stars and finally in the heart of this nebula lie the iconic Pillars of Creation these are vast Columns of dust and gas seen in blue red and green Hues they serve as active Stellar nurseries the dark clouds slowly draw together to birth the stars of the future shaping the rich and complicated materials found in the universe Pillars of Creation stretch about four to five Lighty years so about twice as big as our entire solar system the Eagle Nebula is remarkably interesting to astronomers it’s a wonderful place for us to study the star’s birth and evolution the Grandeur of this place is amazing however it’s more fascinating than frightening unlike the following monsters [Music] quazars captivating powerhouses fueled by super massive black holes at the heart of galaxies these black holes are millions to billions of times the Sun’s mass matter spirals into them forming a luminous accretion dis gravity within generates intense energy across the Spectrum making quazar shine brilliantly sometimes they can even outshine entire galaxies these Cosmic monsters have been intriguing being astronomers for years quazars have the appearance of regular stars but have incomparable levels of energy their name comes from quasi Stellar radio sources they’re radiating across the Spectrum radio waves visible light ultraviolet light X-rays and gamma rays we’ve been catching their signals for many years but first glimpsed them only in the 1960s quazars are one of the most ancient objects in our universe their light traveling billions of light years helps us to learn more about the universe’s early days when these monsters were a plenty they gradually dimmed over time so we can only imagine how brightly they looked back then one of the most iconic of them is quazar Colossus it’s not one monster it’s a giant group of 73 quazars together they’re spanning 4 billion light years and outshine 100 million Milky Ways something like that is impossible for us to even imagine our next Monster is called a pulsar when a big star goes out of its fuel it goes boom what’s left behind that is a neutron star which has a mass several times that of our sun but crammed into a sphere as small as a city they’re super dense sometimes it teams up with some friend like a companion star if the companion shares its stuff with a neutron star things can go wild the extra material might make the neutron star collapse becoming even denser in that case it would turn into a so-called Quark star but if it doesn’t happen the neutron star goes a different route this immense density means that the protons and electrons in the star collapse into each other forming a sea of neutrons particles without an electric charge this is when the so-called pulsars are born now pulsars come with an incredible magnetic flare these Stars boast magnetic fields trillions of times more powerful than Earth’s the fun begins when the super magnetized Pulsar starts to spin it’s not a leisurely twirl pulsars can rotate hundreds of times per second they’re the fastest objects in the entire universe as the Pulsar whirls around it shoots out beams of electromagnetic radi ation these beams act like lighthouses sweeping Across the Universe with each rotation if the Earth happens to be in the path of one of those beams astronomers detect pulses of radiation that’s where the name Pulsar comes from there’s someone closely related to pulsars the zombie Stars sometimes even after the star reaches the end of its life and goes Supernova it doesn’t Fade Away entirely some matter might remain in that case it transforms into a Celestial zombie these zombie Stars often appear in pairs with one star giving into to its smaller companion it acts like a vampire feeding on other nearby Stars it drinks up hydrogen to come back to life when it grows to the size of a planet it bursts into a brilliant Supernova again destroying the star at fed on zombie Stars aren’t fuss eaters they go beyond devouring Stars one of them is in the Virgo constellation and it doesn’t just munch on Stars it gobbles up the energy and stuff from its planets and just like actual zombies are always on the go to find more food these Stars travel through galaxies recently we found another one of them in a far away Galaxy It’s been traveling and evolving over the years getting brighter and this show started millions of years ago back in the age of dinosaurs studying them can help us better understand how space objects work in Wild conditions it also helps us reveal secrets about fundamental particles and explore the physics of superdense Stellar leftovers now that we’ve met zombies there are also Cosmic vampires blue straggler stars defy aging by sucking life from their neighbors they appear younger and Bluer Than their ancient companions because of that confusing poor astronomers about their true age scientists studied 21 blue stragglers in a far away 7 billion year old star cluster that’s when they made a breakthrough they assume that it was because of mergers or collisions but then scientists reveal these sneaky stars as thieves feasting on nearby stars to stay forever young while this discovery explains most blue straggling a few remain mysterious which means they probably have varied Origins researchers plan to use the Hubble Space Telescope to detect their hidden Companions and learn more about them in the future our final monster is an electric Leviathan in 2011 astronomers stumbled upon a colossal jet spewing out of a galaxy with a funny name 3 c303 it’s 2 billion Lighty years away what made this discovery truly electrifying was the electric current it carried an insane 1,8 amps for comparison a regular light bulb can barely reach 1 amp this is equivalent to a trillion lightning bolts this jet powered by a super massive black hole at the Galaxy’s core extended over 150,000 Lighty years surpassing the Milky Way span this faint Galaxy first observed in the 80s was hidden from us for a long time we only discovered it thanks to catching different wavelengths typically Jets emerge from galaxies with active super massive black holes only around 10% exhibit matter spewing Jets the secret to the record-breaking current of this little Galaxy lies in the hyperactivity of its black hole this black hole creates a super robust magnetic field and this magnetic field creates this electrical Leviathan so not only do we find the universe’s highest electrical current but it also marked a rare opportunity to study one of these large Jets scientists keep making their equipment better to study in more detail so we can learn more about them in the future

In this video, we explore the possibility of seeing a second moon in the sky. Tune in to learn more about this fascinating phenomenon! 🌕🌑 #SecondMoon #Astronomy #SpaceExploration

In this gripping video, we explore the concept of the block universe, where past, present, and future collide. Using space news, discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope, and insights from NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, we delve into the mysteries of time, lunar eclipses, and the moon landing. Join us on Bright Side Space as we uncover the secrets of the solar system and the universe, featuring moon photos, phases, and fascinating science news. Discover how the universe works and the eerie reality of the block universe in this compelling documentary.
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