this is another collaboration with astrophysicist Paul M Sutter of Ohio
State University this time we're looking at the 10 best and 10 worse places to be
in the universe if you're a human for part to check out Paul's channel link in
the end screen and in the description below now without further ado here are
the 10 best places in the universe if you're a human number 10 the upper
atmosphere Venus Venus is a very strange planet on its face it looks like the
absolutely most awful place you could possibly find in a solar system
it's a hellish environment of sulfuric acid crushing pressure and extreme heat
from a runaway greenhouse effect but at the same time it boasts a layer in its
upper atmosphere that is one of the most Clement and earth-like environments in
the solar system so much so that if you lived in a balloon colony suspended in
the atmosphere at this level you could accidentally tear your spacesuit and not
die and in fact take your time getting back to your colony this is because
within this zone the atmospheric pressure is the same as Earth meaning
you don't get gases leaking in or out as badly from the tear as you would say on
Mars where the low atmospheric pressure would suck the air out of your suit very
rapidly this is one of the few places in the solar system other than earth where
this can happen as a result Venus is an interesting planet to humans though
currently often overlooked it has enough resources to be terraformable over a
long period of time and it has that Clement area where humans can
hypothetically live while the terraforming occurs though that colony
would likely be highly dependent on earth for centuries and there is a
potential astrobiological techno signature in this one as we gain the
ability to study exoplanet atmospheres and say we see what should be a Venus
like world given its placement and its system close in to its star but instead
appears atmospherically to be an unlikely analog of earth as far as
oxygen levels and chemical composition goes it would need to be considered that
someone may have made it that way number nine Trappist 1d the search for and the
discovery of exoplanets has absolutely exploded in recent years we know of
hundreds upon hundreds already and we suspect there men
more as a result of this we can now say with confidence that planets aren't rare
in the Milky Way but what of planets like Earth we simply don't have a good
understanding of how common our planet is it could be an exceedingly rare type
subject to a very specific circumstance which increasingly seems to be the case
but there could be others in the galaxy but so far we have not seen a twin of
this world but we do have one that may come close at least we think it is right
now it's a planet in orbit around the red dwarf Trappist one and it currently
holds the highest score on the earth similarity index out of any other
exoplanet 0.91 out of one study of this planet is ongoing and it could well go
down but as it stands new data shows that as much as 5% of the makeup of this
planet seems to be water very possibly in liquid form in other words it may
have oceans also studies with Hubble showed that the planet lacks a thick
hydrogen atmosphere opening up the possibility of a more earth-like
atmosphere but we know little else it could be a greenhouse effect atmosphere
like Venus or a carbon dioxide one like Mars but if it turns out similar to
earth and we start seeing odd oxygen and methane levels as ongoing study
continues then life would be on the table as the origin for that number 8
colonized ice shell moons when we think of colonizing a planet we tend to think
in terms of habitats domes and eventual terraforming in other words recreate on
another world the conditions of Earth where we evolved key to this is the one
thing that we're going to need lots of anywhere we choose to colonize an ample
supply of liquid water but we are land creatures fundamentally yet we venture
into the oceans with submarines and ships it also pays to remember that
Earth also has water environments that teem with life that hypothetically could
also be colonized realistically underwater colonies in Earth's oceans
would be limited to shallow waters to avoid having to deal with the extreme
pressures of the deep but they are in principle possible
with the right technology trouble is there's no reason to do this on earth
but in thinking about colonizing a body that doesn't have a land environment
quite like Earth rather a nice shell but does have liquid water oceans beneath it
might be viable to locate such a colony in that ocean rather than at the surface
the obvious candidates for this are the ice shell moons like Europa or Enceladus
while surface colonies likely would end up being more practical on these moons
should we ever choose to do it underwater components could also be
useful especially in regards to harnessing any geothermal energy present
at these places the high pressure in these oceans opens up questions here but
ultimately an ocean environment is at least more familiar to humans than the
surface of a frozen Jovian moon number seven ignorance is bliss we live in a
time where it is at least possible to largely understand the universe though
we are still very much within the learning curve but there is a part of
our universe so distant that light does not travel fast enough to overcome the
rate of expansion of the universe in between
barring faster than light travel we will never see this part of the universe and
we don't know how large it is and it gets worse as the universe expands
eventually everything becomes so distant from everything else that eventually
isolation becomes the rule as a result future civilizations may have no way of
ever knowing the Big Bang ever occurred or that there's an entire universe out
there as such why pay attention to the blackness of space outside of your own
galaxy future scientists may say that nothing could come of it and they may
well conclude that their galaxy is all that there is and it might as well be
what exists outside of what you can know or what affects you is meaningless just
as it's meaningless to ask what happened before the Big Bang and the onset of
time if that concept even makes sense this limited scientific toolkit could
leave a human-like future civilization in a kind of blissful ignorance never
able to know that your universe could someday come to an end
number six calm super-earths earth is an amazing world but it's by no means
perfect at times in its history it's nearly frozen over has caused mass
extinctions from periods of widespread volcanic activity frequently features
extreme weather and all manner of other natural disasters earth can be a harsh
planet but what if planets that might be a bit calmer it's possible to envision a
world perhaps a bit larger than Earth in circumstances that may make it possible
for it to experience less extreme weather or a lack of ice ages and
perhaps placement in a star system that sees less asteroid impacts and so on as
such it may be possible that there are worlds out there that are better for
humans than earth is oddly though this may only be true for us humans any
species native to such a world faces a possible challenge it may never evolve
intelligence with better more Clement conditions comes a less of a need for
intelligence it has been suggested that the general lack of true intelligence
and sea life on earth most intelligence in the ocean is limited to animals that
evolved to go back into the ocean after a period on land might indicate that
oceanic life has it too easy this may be true for land life on a Clement super
earth and worse water itself can become an enemy on full-on water worlds where
no land exists but very deep oceans do the conditions of earth-like life may
never arise volcanism may never occur on these worlds for example and certain
gases needed for heating might not get released into the atmosphere perhaps
creating ice shell conditions where the liquid water is locked up under the ice
life might exist but it might also not be able to progress past a certain point
number 5 Goldilocks zones as the earth illustrates where you are located in
relation to your star is crucial to the evolution and existence of life as we
know it known as zones of habitability or the Goldilocks zone for being just
right they provide a basic framework for what planets earth like life and humans
can comfortably live on the first of these zones are the circumstellar
habitable zones this essentially is where Earth lives in our solar system
just the right distance from the for liquid water this zone depends on
what type of star our planet orbits in this zone can be closed into the star if
it's cool or far from the star if it's hot but there is also a Galactic
habitable zone this one is more forgiving and that a
large part of the stars in our galaxy is within it but certain areas such as the
center of the galaxy or inside a dense star cluster probably would not host
planets where humans could easily live if at all the reason for this is that
you're simply too close to other stars and subject to their radiation and
nearby supernovas at the furthest reaches of the galaxy you don't have
that problem but that far out presents other issues that may make it
uncomfortable for humans such as a scarcity of raw materials of course
habitable zones are subject to exceptions such as the ice shell moons
like Europa and with technology humans could live far outside these zones but
as a matter of the best places in the universe for humans the habitable zones
provide the best starting conditions number four virtual realities well it
could be said that some basic Clement environment is needed for human life
that equation may change in the future when humans are able to alter our own
biology or abandon it entirely there the rules change for Machine life that was
once human a broad variety of environments open up including that of
deep space in fact if the speed of the calculations being performed by a
formerly human computer are a concern the colder the environment the better
but would humans as technological beings even care about what their actual
physical environment is like would earth still matter we don't know yet but it
may be that the best environment for a technological human is a total virtual
reality that's superior to anything that exists in the real universe why pay
attention to this universe when a digital utopia can be created that
better suits the human condition so here the concerns for where we would
be most comfortable depend more on efficient calculation and massive energy
production to keep it all going rather than the concerns of suitable
atmospheres and warmth number-3 improved earth one of the things that advancing
technology allows us is greater control of the circum
dances earth finds itself in within the solar system ultimately we will be able
to essentially improve earth by gaining greater control over certain risks such
as that posed by asteroid impacts in the past earth was not nearly as Clement as
it is today and in fact early in its history could
not support life at all and was subject to constant bombardment asteroid impacts
can still happen and with technology we can deflect or even destroy problematic
asteroids but in the future earth will eventually become uninhabitable again
but not necessarily so if we develop technologies to literally move earth or
move somewhere else as the Sun brightens and eventually
becomes a red giant this is not as far-fetched as it might sound by
orchestrating asteroids to pass by earth and provide a small but nonzero
gravitational tug on the planet over very long periods of time on order of
hundreds of thousands or even millions of years the planet could be migrated to
wherever we want so to some degree we could hypothetically improve our world
by giving it longer life in a changing solar system or protect it by mitigating
planetary risks like asteroids or even building orbital sunshades to mitigate
its growing luminosity number two better than Earth Earth is a wonderful world
located in an amazing solar system that all happened to allow conditions that
have resulted in the rise of life intelligence and a civilization in a way
human civilization for all its faults is still an encouraging indication that
other civilizations could exist in the universe and often we imagine them as
being more advanced or more enlightened than we are that may or may not be true
but Earth is not necessarily perfect while it has the conditions conducive to
the development of intelligent life it can also be subject to conditions
that might cause intelligent life to go extinct such as the aging and eventual
death of the Sun or asteroid and comet impacts but in the end if we stay in
this solar system the conditions of it will long-term likely force us to look
elsewhere for habitable worlds and while nothing in this universe is going to be
perfect including the universe itself which will
eventually become inhospitable to life in its own right there are some cases
where we might find worlds better than earth that could remain habitable for
far longer of a period than this planet could one factor would be stellar types
the Sun is a type G yellow dwarf that will eventually expand into a red giant
and finally settle down to be a white dwarf
while there are hypothetical ways to keep earth or at least some body in the
solar system habitable during all three phases it might be better to just
inhabit another star system entirely that will remain stable far longer than
this one will this includes the type K orange dwarfs and type M red dwarfs both
of which live far longer than our star and they're happily far more numerous
than any other kinds of stars in the Milky Way
so as far as long-term human survival is concerned there may be worlds located in
perfect sweet spots within the habitability zones of mature red dwarves
and orange dwarfs that might yield planets better than earth if we as
humans tweak them with terraforming number one artificial worlds and
habitats the case can be made that only humans know what's perfect for us our
own planet can at times become unpleasant or even uninhabitable but
being human we can also envision technologies that would allow us to
alter a planet's climate or even create a completely artificial environment that
maintains ideal conditions for human life we already do this to some degree
with air conditioning and heating but on a planetary or even larger scale we
could do this with far larger amounts of space than we have here on earth the
first such option would be a terraformed world a natural planet that we have used
terraforming techniques to alter to make for a better environment but that's not
the only option it's also hypothetically possible to build megastructures and
even artificial planets that can be inhabited by humans and maintain a
perfect environment for us these include Dyson spheres around other
stars or partial variants of that ideas such as Larry Nivens Ringworld but also
enclosed rotating habitats such as O'Neal cylinders that make use of
centrifugal force to produce the effect of artificial gravity such an
environment could be perfect for long term human habitation thanks for
listening I am John Michael Gautier I'm Paul Sutter and I hope you enjoyed
this collaboration and be sure to subscribe to our channels for regular in
depth explorations of science astrophysics and this amazing universe
in which we live