What a journey to the end of space would be like?
We are in the future. NASA detected a strange signal, coming from a very distant galaxy.
Scientists from all over the world think this signal is special: it might have been sent by some
kind of intelligent aliens living their life on a planet, just like ours, orbiting around the center
of this distant galaxy. This might be the first occasion we have to meet another form of life!
People on Earth are insanely curious to get to know more about it, and so is NASA. A team
of engineers, astrophysicists, biologists, chemists, and astronauts, as well as doctors
and psychologists from all over the world, were chosen to be part of this incredible
mission. The plan is to get to this distant galaxy and see what these aliens look like.
There's only a small thing to take into consideration: the galaxy is incredibly distant.
And we are not even sure aliens will still be alive on our arrival.
But this is a one-time occasion. So, maybe, it is worth a try.
Let's go!
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For the trip, we're gonna need the best-trained astronauts in the world. They've been trained for
this purpose since they were young adults, and now their moment has finally come.
They will definitely leave the Earth and will never come back again. I know this is
heartbreaking, but everything comes with a price, and finding new forms of life is no picnic!
This team of astronauts has been trained to face the most dangerous situations and
solve the most challenging problems. They must know what to do in order to avoid space debris,
not fall into a black hole, and stuff like that. These inspirational women
and men will be our representatives out there when they will finally reach the far galaxy.
So, after years of training, their trip starts. They are so excited, and so are we.
The spaceship is equipped with the newest technologies and it can travel at the speed of
light. Actually, it can also make use of the so-called skip drive, a brand new technology
that allows one to travel huge distances in the blink of an eye. A distance of some light years
can be traveled almost instantaneously. Without the development of the skip drive,
interstellar travel would basically take an infinite amount of time.
The day has come, and the ground control begins the countdown.
The rocket is flying, bringing astronauts into space.
The spaceship is now leaving the atmosphere, getting ready for the first maneuver,
to avoid the space debris dangerous zone, just above the Earth. Space
debris is basically defunct human-made objects in space, which no longer serve a useful function.
Several spacecraft, both crewed and uncrewed, have been damaged or destroyed by space debris.
Therefore, our astronauts have to be really careful,
and thankfully this is what they were trained for!
The space debris zone, however, does not extend much in space. So our skilled astronauts are
soon out of danger, headed to the first object they will encounter: the Moon.
Our satellite is located 239.000 miles away, and it looks gorgeous
seen from this advantageous point of view. Out astronauts can see the craters, and all
the other beautiful features they had always seen through their telescopes. It's amazing.
The second solid object they encounter in the solar system is Mars.
Mars is red, and our astronauts know that it hosts the tallest
mountain in the solar system, Olympus mons. From this distance, they can appreciate it,
and finally, be the first humans to be able to see it with naked eyes. Mars is the fourth
planet from the Sun. Leaving it behind, the spaceship reaches the so-called Asteroid belt.
This is no good news, but the astronauts knew this moment would come.
The asteroid belt is a region of space between the orbits of Mars
and Jupiter where most of the asteroids in our Solar System are found orbiting the Sun.
The asteroid belt probably contains millions of asteroids. Astronomers think that the
asteroid belt is made up of material that was never able to form into a planet
or of the remains of a planet that broke apart a very long time ago. The asteroids in the asteroid
belt come in a variety of sizes. Some are very small (less than a mile across), while others
are quite large. The largest asteroid is called Ceres. It is about one-quarter the size of our
moon. It is a dwarf planet. Ceres was visited by the Dawn mission, which lasted from August to
October 2015, when the Dawn spacecraft flew over it at an altitude of some thousand miles.
ceres
Eventually, our spaceship makes it through the asteroid belt.
It's now time to boost it and reach Jupiter, the majestic gaseous planet in our solar system.
Here, astronauts can take a look at the giant spot on its surface.
Scientists know this is a huge storm, twice bigger than Earth.
Jupiter's orange colors are astonishing, but it's now time to travel towards Saturn.
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Saturn has got rings, and our astronauts now recall what the Cassini mission saw in 2017,
during its grand finale, when the spacecraft dove into Saturn's rings and atmosphere,
before being destroyed by the planet itself. The diameter of Saturn is about 72.300 miles,
10 times the diameter of Earth. Just in case you're wondering:
Saturn's rings are mostly made of ice! It's pretty cold out there, you know?
At this point, the spaceship can be boosted finally reaching Pluto.
This amazing planet owns five moons, the largest of which, Charon, was discovered in 1978.
Charon is the largest of Pluto's moons and the largest known satellite relative
to its parent body. Pluto-Charon is our solar system's only known double planetary system.
The same surfaces of Charon and Pluto always face each other,
a phenomenon called mutual tidal locking. Charon orbits Pluto every 6.4 Earth days.
Pluto lies actually in the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region of
icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. This belt is similar to the asteroid belt,
and it is made of leftovers from the solar system's early history.
People often think the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud are the same things,
but our astronauts know quite well that's not true.
In fact, the Oort's cloud is a much more distant region of icy,
comet-like bodies that surrounds the solar system, INCLUDING the Kuiper Belt!
However, both the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper belt host comets,
so our astronauts have to pay attention to them. The Oort cloud is too far to be reached,
even at the speed of light! That's a good moment to use the skip drive of our spaceship.
If we use it, we pass by this dangerous zone and after some time we can also reach
the closest star to our Sun, Proxima Centauri! In 2016, the European Southern Observatory (ESO)
announced the discovery of Proxima b, a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri at a distance of
roughly 4.7 million miles (7.5 million km) with an orbital period of approximately 11.2 Earth days.
Its mass was estimated to be at least 1.3 times that of the Earth.
Proxima b is within the habitable zone of its star. But a 2017 study suggested that
the exoplanet does not have an Earth-like atmosphere. And the strange signal we are
looking for doesn't come from any of these planets. So we better go ahead!
Our astronauts want to escape the Milky Way, and they do so using the skip drive again.
This maneuver is probably the scariest one, because, once out of our galaxy,
they will find themselves in complete darkness for some millions of parsecs.
But the Milky Way from the outside is beautiful.
This would be the first time for a human to appreciate the spiral morphology of our galaxy.
The astronauts could be able to see with their own eyes the location of the Sun, 8
kiloparsecs away from the Milky Way center, where a massive black hole, Sagittarius A*, is located.
They have been studying throughout their career, and now it's there,
and they can see it for the first time in real life.
Darkness is all around, and the spaceship needs more than
one skip drive to finally reach the galaxy where the signal comes from.
Each skip here allows us to travel bigger distances. One, two, three, four...we are still
far from our destination, but astronauts decided to stop by the famous Andromeda Galaxy.
This galaxy is visible to the naked eye in the sky on Earth, and we know it will eventually
collide with our Milky Way. The two galaxies will merge together to form a completely new galaxy.
But for now, they are still far in space, and they are actually the biggest galaxies in the so-called
Local group. They are surrounded by smaller galaxies, orbiting around them: they are
satellites of the Milky Way and Andromeda. If we skip further, we notice that the local
group is actually part of a bigger cluster of galaxies, the so-called Virgo Cluster.
There are roughly 2000 galaxies in this cluster, and ninety percent of them are dwarf galaxies.
It is huge! It has a diameter of approximately 15 million light-years which is
not much larger than our Local Group but it contains fifty times the number of galaxies.
This map shows 600 of the brightest galaxies within 7.5 degrees of the center of the cluster.
MAP
Finally, the skip drive is able to take the astronauts to the point
of destination – the mysterious signal coming from a faraway galaxy. This time,
the skip drive needs to take us million, maybe billion light years ahead. And here we are.
The signal strength has grown stronger. We have now reached another galaxy.
The astronauts finally get to see the aliens. But they are not welcoming, instead,
they are defending their galaxy, and won't let anyone inside. That's the end of the trip.
Our astronauts were prepared for every possible scenario, at least this is what they thought.
But they weren't expecting some evil aliens to have sent that message.
These aliens have developed new weapons, and astronauts weren't prepared for interstellar
wars. They are just poor citizens of the universe, with no guns, and nothing to defend themselves.
This is the end. They are all gonna die. Maybe they were just unlucky. NASA didn't think this
could be the beginning of an interstellar war. They were wrong and naive: aliens are
not good. They're evil. Or maybe they are just trying to preserve their species.
Suddenly, here, on Earth, we lose communication with the spaceship.
The signal disappears some seconds later. Now the Earth might be in danger.
This video ends here! This was an astrophysics video with some sci-fi outcome. What do you think
about it? Let us know in the comment below! And if you enjoyed the video,
don't forget to share it, and I'll see you next time on the channel