so today we'll continue on Apple Planet
series with expression of rogue planets
if you've just jumped in the series by
starting with this video you might want
to go back and see the first one on
dwarf planets before watching this as
Marshall material in that video relates
to this one also like all the links that
will pop up in these videos the yellow
right box around them you can just click
on it and it will pause this video and
open that one in a new window similarly
if you're new this channel you should
probably turn on the closed captions I'm
easier to understand the subtitle or
something so let's begin with the
obvious what is a rogue planet
in a nutshell VOC plants all objects
that we either ejected from their native
solar system or formed entirely in
interstellar space so technically they
are not planets at all that's not new
for this series though we started by
looking at dwarf planets like Pluto and
last time we looked at large moons only
one of our videos in the series has
actually revolved around a classic
planet and that will continue to be the
norm for the series because to put it
simply regular planets around regular
ward Suns is terribly boring now it has
been over a century and a half since
Darwin published and we still don't know
how abiogenesis actually occurred the
leading scientific candidates are
hydrothermal vents tidal pools and
panspermia in basically that order but
we don't really know because we can't
see the classes in action and
unsurprisingly it is rather tricky to
hunt for evidence from billions of years
ago should be told all three of those
options might allow abiogenesis or
Northern Lights and we need a new theory
but it does seem plausible that however
the court here on earth it probably can
occur on plants a lot like our own
around US dollars that all look like our
own similarly if you've watched the
terraforming video you know that
colonizing any planet is a major
undertaking but the more like orphan is
the easier it is so looking at how life
might originate are both like planets or
how we might colonize them just isn't
all that interesting in this series
we're interested in the whole cases the
abnormalities the places that don't seem
like life could occur on them or
wouldn't see my places we want to make
our home well planets at first glance or
practically the epitome of that icy
chord Ward's without a speck of sunlight
totally inhospitable to life but on
second glance they may be a lot more
hospitable than they initially look both
as a source of life and as a place we
might want to colonize indeed for the
latter for colonization as we've seen
the upcoming interstellar colonization
video they may be the most valuable real
estate around and the keystone of us
give me out among the stalls another
thing to keep in mind is that VOC planet
is a very broad territory Tom when we
use it we're not really talking about
both size objects which are now on
special though interesting
case we'll look at sometimes called
Steppenwolf planets we really mean just
about anything from a decent-sized
asteroid up to a gas giant bigger than
Jupiter that might have its own moon
essentially we mean any object out Nina
still avoid and that's a big category
tons of things would fall within it with
nothing more in common with each other
than being decently large and devoid of
sunlight once you'd away from the sun's
light the energy to power life has to
come from something else and life needs
a power source now back in the fourth
video when discussing Pluto we pointed a
couple of these as well as some
alternative chemistries life might use
besides how we do it on earth for power
we have tidal heating from a mill and
milk plants can have moons they could
acquire some while watering out in their
solar system or picking one up in deep
space and they might have decent odds
are keeping the original one - tidal
heating can be a very powerful energy
source especially when not eclipsed by
sunlight Niccolo isotopes like uranium
down the cord will provide heating as an
option as well gravitational contraction
generating heat is also an option for
larger objects like gas giants none of
these provide much power though and that
matters because even though you could
have a warm planet far from the Sun it
doesn't necessarily mean there's
powerful life life can thrive just
because a place is warm it needs
incoming energy energy flux there's life
that lives in subterranean caverns here
on earth for instance but it's very
diffuse way less biomass in the surface
has usually slow metabolism creatures
and plants too unexposed the Sun such
life has lived mostly after waste of
solar powered ecosystems above or the
trickles of energy available from things
like thermal vents or chemicals which
you can metabolize for energy
photosynthesis is the way we get really
dense life and that's mostly off the
table for rug planets I say mostly not
entirely because objects do give our
photons at a rate and wavelength
connected to their temperature and we
found not only organisms that live off
the heat and chemicals communal
hydrothermal vents but also some
organisms like some types of green
sulfur bacteria that can live off their
light to infrared light especially mid
IR range light after known as thermal
light
is not going to give you super abundant
growth either but it does add one more
power source to our cool energy
available for life does need to be a
steady source and the more the battle
but even on decent-sized asteroids you
could have chunks of uranium in the core
decaying and giving off heat that emerge
from cracks in the pockets of mineral
rich water and that's basically the same
condition that you have for also notion
smokers that elite candidate for
abiogenesis of life on Earth ditto as I
mentioned there wouldn't be anything
strange about two verbs being in orbit
of each other and giving us tidal
heating as we discussed on the video on
tidal locking you could also have
pockets of radioactive material right
inside or near or underground pockets of
middle which model acne has a natural
nuclear fission reactor we've seen this
even on earth groundwater seeps into
places with dense Iranian deposits and
acts as a neutron moderator just as an
alone fission plants increasing power
output of these deposits beyond natural
decay now the next step to keep in mind
looking at rogue planets is they
probably wouldn't be large rocks in the
void both has very little hydrogen and
helium and even other gases are pretty
thinner rail because the Sun strips
atmosphere is off plants as we discussed
in the terraforming video there is
ionizing radiation in deep space but not
that much of it and no radio light to
warm the planet's surface to make the
atmosphere stripping process easier so
any object in the void is likely to
acquire a lot of interstellar gas if you
got miles deep layers of hydrogen helium
surrounding your world that makes for
one heck of an insulating blanket and
strongly implies the possibility of
oceans on these rogue planets just
taking the example of a rogue gas giant
with moons like Titan Europa place we
already consider possible candidates for
life very little of their mechanics will
lie on the Sun Titan has a thick
nitrogen atmosphere also strong a
methane that's warmed largely by
rotating amounts at on Europa is a large
ocean crust no with ice that's also
Tyler heated by Jupiter if life could
evolve on either one of those then they
could evolve unpayable as in
interstellar voids just as easily
what about earth-like planets
in fact let's consider what would happen
if the earth and its moon were ejected
from our solar system needless to say
such an injection combined with the loss
of lights would kill nearly all if not
all life on off though would take a long
time for something died and some might
not die at all there's a lot of heat on
earth and the cooler you get the slower
you radiate heat away what's more as
plants cool the oceans freeze over and
begin making an insulating blanket that
traps heat in the deep ocean by that
point all the water was frozen on the
surface but the AO is still around
nitrogen and oxygen don't liquefy - you
get a good bit Kotal but under the ice
sheet all the heat trapped which is
still being produced by radioactive
materials in the core while keeping the
deep oceans warm leaking out through
warm or hydrothermal vents where life
will continue
we'd also still be getting tidal heating
our own moon - for the warm things and
store the part now eventually that
atmosphere will liquefy - the heat
produced by our planet's core is only
about a three thousandth of what we get
from the Sun and keep in mind that
fourth power rule of heat radiation we'd
expect the temp to drop to about the
fourth power 3000 less than now which is
about seven or eight times cooler some
around 40 Kelvin which is called enough
for nitrogen and oxygen and all gone to
liquify but not quite cool enough for
hydrogen to liquefy pretty close but not
quite and helium takes even lower
temperatures so it's worth drifted out
into the void we'd stop collecting
hydrogen helium gases in the atmosphere
very slowly but it would begin to
accumulate and we'd also nab us some
comets and other stuff if we get enough
it might even create high enough
pressures and temperatures under that
new atmosphere - to a nitrogen option
back into a oh so you've got a water
ocean under the ice and possibly a
second ocean of liquid oxygen nitrogen
on top of that and increasingly thick
hydrogen helium atmosphere over that
planet significantly bigger than Earth
will be even warmer while smaller ones
will be caught on what we expect just
about any object large enough to get
double planet to act this way these
sorts of wards are sometimes known as
Steppenwolf planets or step and Ward's
for the comparison to a lone wolf of the
steps and would specifically be any
plants with a mass from a little less
than thorough two volts to a little over
triple its mass these plants would have
an insulating layer of ice and carbon
dioxide snow and whatever else they
picked up towing the lonely void to
allow subsurface liquid oceans heated by
geothermal activity coming up from those
hydrothermal vents now we can't be too
sure of the existence of separate wolf
planets which are Road plants with
subsurface oceans because we can't
really predict too well how thick that
ice would end up being on a given planet
ice will grow from the surface down
until it reaches equilibrium with the
heat coming from the mantle but that is
going to vary a lot from wall toward and
our best guess is for all there would be
nearly a kilometer deep for small awards
it could be several miles and dynamic
gets further messed up depending on
weather mostly heat is transported by
convection or conduction these
Steppenwolf plants our main interest
today because life on smaller plants
essentially icy dross or asteroids is
another subject we've already partially
addressed or wouldn't be much different
in the case of an asteroid from being in
our own belt or in deep space
dito gas shines themselves valid no
moons will be looked at later in the
series because rogue plants or just in
deep orbit around their own Sun they act
mostly the same there is pretty good
odds Steppenwolf planets decently larger
than Earth would have deeper oceans and
would actually get more radioactive
heating after all a planet of similar
makeup and density earth but say twice
as massive would have trice the
radioactive heating and twice the water
but only 60% more surface area for that
whale to be on and for the heat to
escape from super or Steppenwolf plants
might be able to support fairly robust
underwater ecosystems albeit rather
anemic compared to our own ocean life
even the deep-sea life which on earth
gains a second power source from organic
matter sinking down from the higher
levels that are fed by sunlight and
there might be a lot of these walls some
estimates right now place that number of
rogue planets objects ranging from as
small as bigger moons like you open
Titan up to super Jupiter's may number
around a hundred thousand for every star
mean there'll be a lot more of them than
objects of similar size in our own solar
system which is only in the area of
around a hundred not a hundred thousand
this doesn't even include smaller
objects like asteroids which we might
expect to be even more common but if for
the moment we assume this estimate was
right and those will fairly evenly
distribute in space these objects would
only be spaced a few light weeks apart
that's a long cry from the light hours
of spacing of our own mid to outer solar
system but a lot closer than the few
light years between other solar systems
now if you start tossing in asteroids
well they are around a million asteroids
a mile across a big ol just an odd
asteroid belt more than a thousand times
as common as the various plants and
larger moons we have and if that ratio
held up you'd expect interstellar space
where plants might be calm enough to
appear every few light weeks to be as
calm as every light day or two we'll
talk more about making marks like that
livable in the future though if you saw
the video on fusion you can take a guess
as to how but this would be an important
point when we get to interstellar
colonization because it means the solar
systems are not these lonely islands in
space years away from the nearest
neighbor but really more like cities
down in a vast perpetual plain of rural
land now getting back to Steppenwolf
plants the ones who amassed an internal
composition fairly close to all we've
seen that they ought to better places
for life to maybe and more John but like
we discussed in the case of Pluto not
places you'd expect life to be abundant
on if it exists at all how could we
change that how would we colonize a
place like that well again if you've
seen the fusion video you know how we'd
have the option to just manually light
the place I mentioned in that video that
July 2 square mile of land artificially
like North Training normally gets we
require about 10 to the 16th hours of
energy a year or about 10 kilograms of
fusion fuel hydrogen or deuterium both
of which are quite common in deep space
to light an entire planet the size of
Earth as well as our Sun does to fake a
Sun would require a lot more juice
something like 5 or 6 mega
of fusion fuel a year which sounds like
a lot but for comparison if that plant
had a hydrogen atmosphere of the same
mass as Earth's which about 5 billion
megatons of ale then you have a billion
year supply just from that not to
mention all the hydrogen oceans our own
ocean is roughly a thousand times more
massive than our atmosphere so if we
stuck a fake Sun in orbit around the
ward say orbiting every 24 hours and
Shanna beamed down like a flashlight
sort of like the geocentric model where
the Sun orbits the planet you can run
that as long as a normal star lift and a
normal planet lived without putting a
very big dent in your local fuel supply
of course if you're colonizing a
Steppenwolf planet you might not want to
go that route you might instead decide
to keep it frozen and just stick some
submersible fusion plants in the ocean
trilling strings of light and
introducing photosynthetic organisms to
it you could even do something like this
on earth if you want the great ocean
depths to have more life in them you
could just stick a floating fusion power
plant somewhere and flush all the
cooling water down along pipes with hose
synthetic optimized LED lights running
down firmly these Suns reach especially
if you add in some meshes to collect
minerals and Titus you could end up with
long gorgeous vertical coral reefs
holding huge amounts of marine life even
if the plant already had life down near
the bottom with the hydrothermal vents
wore you could attach cities the ice up
top and slowly melt it toe was just a
fairly thin layer ice maybe a few
hundred meters thick then in those new
upper regions you could attach strings
which provide lights and aerate the
model and introduce a third life
the detritus of which could sink to the
depths to help feel the need of ecology
done properly the too could be kept
separate and safe while allowing to
ecosystem supplied with the original one
now much more robust I'm not sure how
practical that is compared to other
colonization routes but personally I
find the idea of mollify on depths with
trailing lights providing oases of life
pretty neat so that's going to wrap it
up for low planets for now we'll look at
how the smaller and likely more common
rogue asteroids might be made habitable
in the upcoming video on rotating
habitats your major structural series
then talk about the importance of world
plants to interstellar expansion and
civilization in the upcoming video on
interstellar colonization if you want a
reminder when those videos come out
click the subscribe button as always
questions and comments are welcome if
you enjoyed the video hit the like
button and share with others thanks for
watching and have a great day