[Music]
imagine you're out for a walk on a
lovely day with not a care in the world
the birds are singing and the sun is
shining actually the Sun seems brighter
than usual and come to think of it your
skin feels kind of funny it turns out
that's not the Sun at all but the
radiation and gamma-ray filled light
coming from a quasar so in short you're
in serious trouble
how did a quasar even get here and what
would happen to earth if a quasar moved
into our neighborhood this is what if
and here's what would happen if a quasar
entered our solar system I hope you
didn't have any plans today because the
brightest object in the sky
has set up shop in our solar system so
what exactly is going on anyway a quasar
is the result of two black holes
colliding to form a supermassive black
hole with a central mass that outweighs
our Sun by a billion times when black
holes merge everything goes out of whack
the two black holes begin to consume all
the gas and dust from each other along
with anything else in the area okay so
if they're eating each other why are we
seeing that bright light well the
material that's thrown off begins to
glow from pressure and friction
resulting in the blinding light you're
seeing if this word happened in Earth's
vicinity it would be a result of the
black hole in the middle of the Milky
Way galaxy smashing into the black hole
at the middle of the andromeda galaxy
which is two and a half million
light-years away if these two men we'd
be looking at a massive amount of
infrared light being expelled into the
universe oh and it's also a harbinger of
death and destruction too
what would happen to our planet well
brace yourself because this is going to
be a doozy quasars throw off Jets of
particles that are so bright they
outshine all the stars in their galaxies
so our Sun would essentially turn into a
candle in the middle of a very bright
spotlight the illumination from a quasar
along with all the radiation it throws
off would mess with Earth's atmosphere
the light is enough to energize
particles that make up the atmosphere
and free them from Earth's gravity our
atmosphere would be destroyed and we
really need our atmosphere it's our
protective layer that keeps things in
order and regulates the temperature
without it the oceans would dry up
Arctic ice would turn into water vapor
and everything would get much much
hotter in addition to it being
blindingly bright we would have no safe
air to breathe no plants to eat or feed
animals and there would be no water to
drink life on Earth would be a write-off
this would all happen very quickly so
you wouldn't have to live through a long
drawn-out apocalypse at least you can
look forward to that but could this sort
of doomsday scenario actually occur well
yes but not for another three or four
billion years at that point the Sun will
be flickering out and by that time we're
pretty sure something else we've covered
on what if would have taken us out first
so we won't even be around to see it but
it makes us wonder what other mysteries
could be found hiding in black holes
could we harness the energy of a black
hole well that's a story for another
what-if