Ya know, I’ve been just about everywhere – a black hole, the depths of the Earth’s
core, my sister in law’s wedding!
Scary!
But today’s journey is especially dangerous…and unusual.
I wanna test my capsule by going all the way from the coldest temperature on our planet
to the absolute hottest!
Alright, jump in and I’ll tell you a little about this bad boy.
My capsule is made with a special material that protects ME from this insane temperature
range we’re about to experience.
Hey, without this cutting-edge technology, my journey wouldn't even last a few seconds
because right now, outside my ship, it’s absolute zero!
And tell you what, it's eerie here…
It’s as if…time has stood still…
USUALLY all atoms vibrate, move around, interact, and do their daily work of making up you,
me, and everything else in the universe.
They create energy and heat from all that bouncing around.
Absolute zero (what you’re seeing now) is the temperature at which atoms stop moving…completely!
So, naturally, things get reeeally cold – 0°Kelvin, hence the name.
That’s -459.67°F, so I’m glad to be INSIDE this capsule right now…
Absolute zero hasn’t ever been reached on Earth, of course.
It’s purely theoretical.
But scientists keep trying in the lab!
In 2003, researchers at MIT managed to slow down sodium atoms with the help of laser beams.
As a result, they got the lowest temperature ever recorded: just half a billionth of a
degree above absolute zero!
Ok, that was just one little atom.
Surely objects can’t get that cold…
It seems my capsule is taking me to… a hot-tub-sized chunk of copper?
It became the world-record holder for the coldest thing on Earth after scientists chilled
it to an unimaginable -459.659°F. It was just six-thousandths of a degree above absolute
zero.
So, yeah, the atoms in this chunk of copper almost stopped moving!
Good thing my capsule can … is that an icicle on my nose?
I say that's a clear sign it's time to move on!
-458°F – we’ve officially reached 1 Kelvin.
I can’t imagine I’ll find anything interesting this far on the cold side of the scale.
But wait, what’s that thing moving?
Is it…alive?
Get a little closer, and you’ll see it’s… a tardigrade!
Also called a moss piglet or water bear, this microscopic animal might look cute, but they’re
pretty much indestructible!
They can survive under layers of solid ice, in stone walls, and even in outer space!
Now that we’ve passed -458°, helium can maintain its gaseous state (a.k.a. it melts
into a liquid at that temperature).
Helium has a way lower density than air, which makes the gas rise.
Yep, that’s why helium-filled balloons float above your head!
*Ahem* -361°F – gonna need to be extremely careful now because I'm moving through the
temperature when oxygen melts into a liquid!
I don’t know about you, but I can’t breathe it like that, so let’s get outta here!
A bit warmer and at -297°F, oxygen starts to boil.
My lungs can’t work with that either!
Moving right along and far away from this danger zone!
Oh, I imagine there will be plenty more.
Sure hope nothing happens to my ship…
If I could go to the dark side of the moon right now, my equipment would be showing a
freezing temperature of -280°F. Think I’ll stay right here on Earth…
Now my equipment is showing -128°F. Ah, I see, it's the world record for the coldest
air temperature recorded at ground level!
It happened on July 21, 1983 at the then-Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica.
Speaking of the Russians, the coldest habitable place on our planet is the village of Oymyakon
in (you guessed it) Russia!
On January 26, 1926, the temperature dropped to a staggering -96°F!
(Psst, that’s colder than the average temperature on Mars!)
My equipment is showing -80°F, and it reminds me of the coldest temperature ever recorded
in the US.
It probably also comes as no surprise that it happened in Prospect Creek, Alaska on January
23, 1971.
By the way, what was the coldest temperature you've ever experienced, and where was it?
Let me know down in the comments!
Oh, look!
I’ve reached the most unusual part of my journey: it’s the point where the Fahrenheit
and Celsius temperature scales meet.
Exactly -40°F AND -40°C – both are still too cold for me!
I guess I have a lot in common with my phone – it doesn’t like extreme temperatures
either.
At -24°F, the most cold-resistant cell phone starts to work again.
If I didn't have my ice-cream in the freezer, it’d be melting right now.
It's 5°F outside, and that's when some kinds of the cold treat start to turn into liquid
disappointment.
At 32°F, I'm going through the area where ice turns into water.
I can see snowmen melting out there.
Sorry, guys, no room in the freezer – it’s full of ice-cream!
At least my capsule is thawing out a bit though…
Going further, and I see the temperature is 55.4°F. It's a shocking number because it
refers to the lowest human body temperature ever recorded.
But the real surprise is that this person survived and made a full recovery!
Oh, the wonders of the human body...
I’m sure you know 98.6°F is the normal body temperature for a healthy person.
Anything below 95, and you’re hypothermic.
If it’s above 104, then the body gets fried down to the enzymes!
Yeesh…
My next stop is even hotter than that, at 115°F. That's the highest human body temperature
ever recorded.
On July 10, 1980, a 52-year-old man was brought to the hospital with heatstroke.
Luckily, he survived too and made it to the Guinness Book of World Records!
Moving out of the “human body range” I've arrived at the 159.3°F mark, which is the
highest surface temperature ever recorded on Earth.
It happened in 2005, in Iran’s Lut Desert.
From the desert to the ocean, I can now see underwater hydrothermal vents out there.
And will you look at that – Pompeii worms!
These creatures were named after the famous city of Pompeii for a reason: they can withstand
incredible temperatures of about 176°F!
Besides tardigrades (hello again!), these are the most heat-tolerant animals on Earth.
Whoa!
What’s going on?
My capsule is bouncing and jerking!
It’s like I’m riding on a bumpy road or something!
…Can’t…get…to the… signalization switch.
Uh-oh, is this it?
Has my capsule finally given up on me?
Not down here at the bottom of the ocean!
….
Oh…it was…the water!
It started boiling!
Ok, I see!
We reached 212°F – that’s when water begins to bubble!
Phew, almost lost my cool… but not quite.
Just a couple of seconds later, and my capsule is traveling through a temperature of 257°F.
That's when any Intel CPU processor automatically shuts down.
Keep your computer away from such temperatures, folks!
What was that?
Sounded like a sonic boom.
Ah, it was a Concorde flying by!
The maximum temperature of the nose tip of this supersonic airliner can reach 260°F!
Too bad you can’t fly faster than the speed of sound on one of these anymore – they
stopped carrying passengers back in 2003.
Is that tardigrades again?
Sheesh, fellas, it’s 303°F out there!
Hey, when I said these microscopic bear-pig things are indestructible, I meant it!
At 674°F, mercury starts boiling, and isn't it a beautiful sight?
Something silvery, outlandish, and extremely toxic just bubbling right outside my capsule…
As you can see, my journey is getting more and more dangerous by the minute.
How about I take it somewhere less threatening?
Hey, do you really think the Formula 1 circuit is a safer place?
Anyway, since I'm here, I’ll tell you that the brake pads on a Formula 1 racecar can
reach a truly terrifying temperature of 1,380°F!
Right now, I see some burning woods around my capsule, and it means that the temperature
has skyrocketed to 1,800°F.
But the heat from this fire is still colder than the hottest part of a candle flame, which
can reach a pretty alarming 1,830°F. (Note to self - never touch candles...)
The next temperature stop is 1,900°F, and it measures the heat of a volcanic eruption.
Well, the lava spewing out of it, to be precise.
And if I dive deeper into this volcano - I mean all the way down to the Earth's core
- the equipment will show me a temperature of 10,800°F!
That's how hot the core of our planet is!
Way to go, Earth!
That’s hotter than the surface of the sun, which is only 9,941°F.
Let’s go to the hottest of the hot!
No, not Miami, but close…
The hottest temperature on Earth was actually human-made!
It was created in 2012 by scientists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
Inside the collider, lead ions were smashed into each other going 99% of the speed of
light.
The resulting plasma that formed had an absolutely mind-blowing temperature of 9.9 trillion °F!
That's 250,000 times hotter than the center of the Sun!
Whoa keep your chocolate away from that, if you don’t want it to melt!
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