(space music)
- Oh, hello.
So I was always interested in the universe as a kid.
And to be honest, not much has changed as an adult.
Recently I picked up this book by Stephen Hawking called,
'A Brief History of Time', and all I have to say
is the man is so brilliant, that even though
he dumbs down his theories,
they're still really hard to understand.
- Why don't you understand the theories in my book?
Are you some kind of stupid idiot or something?
- But as I was googling some of the concepts in this book
to, you know, at least try to understand them,
I came across some really cool facts about the universe.
So I decided to gather up the most interesting ones
to share with you guys.
So, here they are.
There's a planet that scientists discovered in 2004
called Gliese 436B that's covered entirely in burning ice.
The planet has incredibly strong gravity,
which super compresses the ice,
allowing it to withstand the eight hundred degree
temperature on its surface.
Atoms are the building blocks of all matter
in the universe, but what's interesting
is they're comprised of a tiny nucleus
surrounded by about 99.9% empty space.
Theoretically, if you were able to remove
all of that empty space, you could fit the entire
human race in about the size of a sugar cube.
About 1% of the static that you see on your TV is made up
of cosmic microwave radiation, which is leftover
from the big bang that happened 13.7 billion years ago.
In 2011, there was a magnitude 9.0 earthquake
that happened in Japan that was so strong that it
actually shifted the Earth's axis, and shortened days
on Earth by 1.8 microseconds.
Every century, the Earth's rotation naturally slows
by about 17 milliseconds.
That means if you went back to when dinosaurs
roamed the Earth, days would only be about 22 hours long.
There's a mountain on Mars called the Olympus Mans
that's 22 kilometers tall.
That's three times the size of Mount Everest on Earth.
It's the tallest mountain on any planet in our solar system,
and it's so big that it actually sticks out
of Mars' atmosphere.
If you've ever wondered just how big the universe really is,
here's a picture taken in 1990 by Voyager One
called The Pale Blue Dot.
See that tiny pale blue speck?
Well, that's Earth from six billion kilometers away.
If you didn't feel insignificant before,
now's a good time.
Aerogel, also known as frozen smoke, is the lowest density
solid that we know of.
It's made up of about 96% air.
It can support eight thousand times its own weight,
and can withstand a blast from two pounds of dynamite.
It's also the best insulator in existence,
which is why NASA uses it to insulate space suits.
Our solar system takes 225 million years to rotate
around the Milky Way.
That means that the last time that Earth was in
its current position, dinosaurs were just beginning
to roam the Earth.
Stars are created when cosmic gasses collect
billions of tons of mass,
and gravity gets so strong that fusion occurs,
and the release of energy creates a star.
According to our best estimates,
275 million stars are created every single day.
Planets are created from the aftermath of starbursts.
All the remnants of material that's left over
will either create an asteroid, a comet, a moon,
and if there's enough, a planet.
Sagittarius B is a massive space cloud that's
26 thousand light years away from Earth
that's made entirely of alcohol.
It contains over a billion, billion, billion liters
of alcohol, which is enough for about 400 trillion
pints of beer.
I don't know about you, but I'm getting thirsty.
Astrologists theorize that the center of our universe
smells like rum and tastes like raspberries.
This is due to the discovery of ethyl formate
in the Milky Way, which is the chemical responsible
for giving raspberries its flavor and rum its smell.
Everything on Earth, including Earth itself,
is made of star dust.
Every single natural occurring element,
with the exception of hydrogen and helium,
is created within stars.
This means, as an example, that the iron in your blood
is actually billions of years old from a star
trillions of miles away.
Look at you! You're a star child!
55 Cancri E is known as the diamond planet.
Discovered 40 light years away from Earth,
it's so rich in carbon that it's believed to hold
three times our planet's mass in diamonds.
It's believed to have a solid diamond core
with the size of, wait for it,
10 billion trillion trillion carats.
Black holes are one of the most fascinating
things in our universe.
Mostly because of our inability to accurately study them.
Although we don't know too much about them,
what we do know is that they form when a star dies
and collapses on itself.
The gravitational pull that's created by this is so strong
that nothing can escape from it,
not even light.
Think of it as an intergalactic vacuum cleaner.
It's hypothesized that 85% of the universe
is made up of dark matter.
Dark matter is matter than cannot be directly seen
with telescopes, and the only reason that we know
it exists is because of its gravitational pull
on visible matter.
The planet Venus' day is longer than its year is.
This is because it completes an entire orbit around the sun
before it manages to turn once on its axis.
The light hitting Earth right now is over 30 thousand
years old.
That's because it takes that long for the energy in the
sunlight to leave the sun's core and reach its surface.
And when it does finally reach the sun's surface,
it only takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.
And finally, in space there's something really cool
called cold welding.
If two pieces of metal touch in space,
they instantly bond and become one.
This is due to the vacuum that occurs in space,
and doesn't happen on Earth because our atmosphere
puts a layer of oxidized material between the two surfaces.
And that's it.
Those are the most interesting facts about the universe
that I found.
if you guys wanna know more, just google
interesting universe facts.
There's lots of them out there.
And other than that, I will see you guys
next Saturday with a brand new video.
Peace.
Hey guys, thanks for watching my video.
If you enjoyed it, please remember to click
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And if you've already done those things,
then go out and get some literature by Stephen Hawking,
because I got nothing but the highest of respect
for that guy.
He's incredibly brilliant,
and he makes you think about the universe.
So, yeah.