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Could We Survive Without the Sun?

What do the cave trollsof Middle Earth, Gremlins, and Springfield's very ownMr. Burns have in common? Well, they've all declaredthe sun as the enemy for one reason or another. Our whole existence ashumans depends on the sun, but what could exactly happenif we adopted a lifestyle of the cave troll andcompletely turned off the sun? They were fine, so weshould be fine too, right? (upbeat music) In the case of thetrolls and the Gremlins, they don't like the sunfor an explicit reason. It will either turn them into stone, or melt them into a gooey mess.

Mr. Burns, on the otherhand, didn't like the sun, unless there was some wayto make money from it. Hence the invention of the Sun Blocker. Our favorite movies and TV shows say that living without thesun is completely possible, but while I'm going to showyou that this can be true for some life forms, forus humans, not so much. So instead of the fancy Burns Sun Blocker, let's say we could justget rid of the sun. Well, we wouldn't wannaget rid of it entirely since the orbit of the Earth and everything in our solarsystem depends on the sun.

Hence the name solar system. If the sun suddenlydisappeared, solar bodies would fly out on thetrajectory they were going when the sun went poof, andeverything would be out of wack. Let's say we could leave the sun there, but turn down the brightnesssetting all the way to zero. What would happen to us humans? (clicking)There we go, much better. Light takes time to travel to Earth, so we'd be living in blissfulignorance for eight minutes and 20 seconds beforeeverything goes black. Once we lose light, smallplants will begin to die, and the temperature of Earth will drop. The larger plants willhave enough stored energy to live for a bit longer, but not much. After a few weeks, theEarth's average temperature will approach freezing.

This could be the start of a food chain that can support life inthose dark cave environments, perhaps even trolls.(dramatic music) (shrieks)(dramatic music) Now that we understand thatthere are several sources of food in many weird places on Earth. What exist outside of our own planet that is similar to theseweird environments? Let's take a look at space. There are planets thatorbit their own star called exoplanets, there arecurrently 3,940 exoplanets and counting, 156 of them areterrestrial or rocky planets with iron-rich cores likethe Earth, Mercury, and Mars. Exoplanets vary significantly and with 156 different options, you could imagine the possibilities. Kepler-452b is a super-Earth, weighing in at five timesthe mass of our planet. The gravity's also twice Earth's, so it will be either the worse or the best place to skydive.

We take 365 days to goonce around our sun, and Kepler-452b takes 385Earth days to orbit its star. It has an average temperatureof 17 degrees Fahrenheit, which isn't the worst. It wouldn't be so bad, exceptwe would have to withstand over twice the pull of gravitybeing on this super-Earth. That means a personweighing 150 pounds on Earth will weigh 300 pounds on Kepler-452b. I keep talking aboutplanets, but you don't have to be a planet to host life. There are moons that havethe right ingredients to also possibly sustain life. Titan, Saturn's largestmoon, has large bodies of methane and ethanelakes on the surface. These lakes are super cold,but that doesn't stop life from possibly thriving inthis kind of environment.

There are microorganismsfound here on Earth that find methane to bea delicious food source, so although humans maynot be able to survive, Titan is still a placewhere life could exist. (scoffs) Is that a blob fish? Gross (scoffs)! From cave trolls to hungry Gremlins, your favorite sci-fi movies or shows may pose seeminglyimpossible scenarios of life in the universe that actuallyhas a scientific basis. So if this was an episode ofyour favorite cooking show, you now know that there are somany more mystery ingredients that you could use to sustain life besides the byproductsof the energy derived from our own sun. Could humans survive a sun-pocalypse? No way. But there are plenty oflifeforms that survive without that sweet, sweet sunlight.

Because Space!(upbeat music) Hey, everyone, thanks so muchfor watching this episode of Because Space, makesure to like this video, subscribe to the channel,and hit the little bell in the corner to get notifiedwhenever there's a new episode of Because Science, Because Space, or when we go live with the show!

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