ever feel like your sink is giving you the side eye or a random cars bumper is grinning at you peridia is the phenomenon of recognizing faces or other familiar patterns in inanimate objects astronomers are susceptible to this too and hence the existence of a term straight out of some Juni Ido story eyeball planets now whether they are cient cosmic monstrosities on their way to devour Earth or are a special classification of planetary bodies we shall find out in this video thanks to nordvpn for sponsoring this episode about three and four stars in the Milky Way
are red dwarves meaning most terrestrial planets that could possess water resources and perhaps even life orbit such low mass stars red dwarfs are so dim that their habitable zone is quite close to them the tiny orbital distances lead to an effect called tidal locking the gravity of the star pulls strongly on The Closer side of the planet and thus bulges it out from that part while on the other side a similar bulge forms due to centrifugal force in combination with a weaker gravitational pole we are also not making any bul puns because we're better than
that since the Bulge closer to the parent star experiences stronger attraction than the farther one if the planet rotates the closer bulge away the gravitational pull overall exerts a force in the opposite direction slowing the rotation until it rotates once every orbit which is also referred to as a one toone spin orbit resonance a neat example of this is the moon which is already tidily locked to the Earth as you can tell from the fact that it is always showing us the same side the Earth experiences the tidal breaking effect caused by the moon too
the bulges being the tides so what does this all have to do with eyeballs you might ask bear with me in combination with the stronger gravity of red dwarfs the close orbital distance and thus heightened difference of gravitational poles on the two bulges makes it a certainty that any planetary objects in the habitable zone of a red dwarf are quickly tidily locked to it except double planets moons and interplanetary chickens so some of these tidily locked planets could create concentric rings of climate regions due to having a permanent day and night side create a texture
that to the paralia prone human brain would look like an eyeball hence the term eyeball planets and these hypothetical tidily locked bodies come with a host of interesting properties which we shall delve into now habitability let's assume we have an earthlike tidal locked planet around an average Red Dwarf it's unlikely to have a large Moon due to the closer orbits so werewolves are out of the window the first habitability concern is the absence of a magnetic field due to the lack of rotation but since eyeball planets in the habitable zone make a revolution around their
star every few days or weeks due to the close distances they technically do rotate once every orbit Mercury only rotates once every 58 days but can still generate its own magnetic field while we cannot be certain for now a sufficient magnetic field to protect the atmosphere of terrestrial worlds around stars that are similarly active to the sun seems possible at the moment however red dwarfs are about as calm as a small Chihuahua on steroids their outbursts are likely powerful enough to strip planets of their atmospheres over time Red Dwarf flares are rather unpleasant too no
good counterargument for this yet so we'll just assume that our eyeball planet is lucky enough to orbit a red dwarf that ran out of Monster drinks but there is one more issue to consider when a body is tidy locked to a star its Dark Side tends to get a bit chilly due to the lack of Flesh melting radiation and if it gets too cold we might get something known as atmospheric freezing for anyone wondering that's when the atmosphere freezes you're welcome it could do so by slowly depositing itself on the dark side in the form
of various ices but apparently scientists already ran some simulations that disprove this even atmosphere's 1/10th as thick as ours would be sufficient to circulate enough heat to prevent that so the sky freezing over is not a concern for now but you know what is a concern the golden Armada Fleet finding your exact location and eradicating the eyeball Planet all because you forgot to secure your Galactic internet connection with nordvpn you already know them and what they offer top-notch privacy with strong encryption Global access to your favorite shows fastest speeds on the VPN Market in other
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247 customer support and a 30-day money back guarantee and for an exclusive deal and four extra months free visit nordvpn.com science file take the control of your privacy back and now back to some eyeball Planet terminology the substellar point is the location closest to the star the anti- Stellar point is in the middle of the dark side in honor of the great Skynet Empire and my channel the border between the day and night side is called the Terminator or refer to it as the temperate zone if you're boring both of the poles are situated on
it one would assume that eyeball planets depict scorching deserts on the sun-facing side and permanent ice on the opposite side with a small tempered strip around the border where life could potentially chill but again boring weather simulations are here to ruin our imagination and tell us that the region around the substellar point would be tropical given the presence of enough water by the way contrary to their name a red dwarf star would appear white to the human eye and very large in the sky due to the close orbital distance however it would appear red in
the Terminator region like the sun when it is setting the weather cycle on eyeball planets initially appears simple hot air rises at the substellar point creating thick clouds then spreads out in the upper atmosphere cools as it crosses the Terminator sinks and flows down the ice Gap from the anti- Stellar point to the Terminator this results in a steady Breeze around the Twilight Zone with Winds of 5 to 15 m/s similar to the human Sprint speed but the planet's rotation complicates matters a bit with an orbital period of 5 to 20 days the Coriolis effect
causes equatorial winds to strengthen and East Winds to dominate which creates a crescent-shaped Convergence Zone on the day side with heavy rain and hurricanes warm air reaches the poles while equatorial Regions near the Terminator are cooled by Nightside winds leading to an unevenly shaped ice Gap resembling a tennis ball now imagine you're on a ship lost in some ocean on the sunlet side without a compass it's always day so star navigation is out the window hate it when that happens you could measure how far you are from the substellar point by checking the sun's angle
to the Horizon but then you could be anywhere on the concentric ring sunward and anti-sunward would be like north and south on Earth at least the winds are distinct and constant in different locations so wind navigation could work aside from the ambiguity of what hemisphere you're in since the weather patterns are symmetric to the equator but eyeball planets may not face their star on one side as consistently as previously thought similarly to how your love handles may impact your chances at finding a biological partner so do the planetary handles decrease the eyeballs rotation yet the
opposite could also be possible the rotation that is not your finding a partner chances due to permanent asymmetries in Wind strength more ice could be deposited say in the East the Stars gravity would pull on that and cause the planet to rotate slowly over Ians from east to west Rising buoyant masses in the planet's mantle could be similarly destabilizing forcing eventual life to be able to travel with the survivable climate regions and then also gravitational interactions if planets are orbiting very closely as is often the case with red dwarf star systems they can flip the
planet around in a more extreme and unpredictable manner resulting in stable periods of tens to hundreds of Millennia and chaotic ones where the planet wobbles around for centuries life Evolution now let's consider an earthlike eyeball planet that is stable and locked reliably around its host star like you at the screen during my videos I'm always watching how would life evolve here speculative evolution is a risky business but it's always fun Earth plants primarily use chlorophyll A and B which absorb blue and red light but are less efficient with infrared and thus would be pretty inefficient
around a red dwarf plants there would likely evolve other pigments optimized for the Stars light spectrum we cannot know for certain it could be gray black red magenta purple or even deep blue all candidates for good infrared absorption trees would be shaped quite differently too as they could rely on sunlight falling at a constant angle and a constant direction of wind trees on Earth are kind of symmetrical to their axis like a headphone jack rotate it all you want and it will still work but trees on an eyeball planet especially those not near the substellar
point would be more like the USB with a clear front and back side depending on the flow of wind and angle of sunshine since there are no Seasons Flowers would bloom all the time and food sources would be constant there would be no seasonal migration or even daily rhythms of animal life which would likely be optimized for living in very specific climates thereby becoming particularly vulnerable to temperature changes similar to how we find Ice Bears wall russes and crossing over the Terminator we potentially find the most monstrous creatures of the planet Roaming In Cold and
sunless lands illuminated only by the reddish glow from light scattered around in the atmosphere near the Terminator and eternally Starlet night sky and aor near the poles due to the carnivorous creatures the more tempered parts of the dark side would likely be a danger zone still preferable to the Balkans speaking of the Balkans what if a humanoid species arose on an eyeball PL it let's call them ibans firstly their sleep cycle would be weirder than yours on the exam week when you accidentally discovered fact Oro maybe they devolve partial sleep where the brain shuts down
some parts while keeping others active but let's stick to iolan being able to sleep periodically or whenever they want like cats it would be advantageous to do so while taking turns for heightened security against predators or rivaling tribes and for helping reduce the living cost crisis imagine no morning traffic jams how about science and technological progress due to the lack of a moon or rotation it would be a lot harder for ibans to figure out the nature of their world if they can survive on the dark side over the poles far enough to observe other
planets in their system they would have good chances of figuring out that their world is spherical and not the center of the universe an important realization for any advanced society that many humans still seem not to get this breakthrough would likely happen at a later stage of development than Humanity flat earthers would have an easier time holding on to their belief explaining that the sun hovers over one spot above the disc which is frozen around the edges due to those being farther away eyeball leans would want electricity too wind power would obviously be an stier
energy source especially around the Terminator as the permanent winds have the optimal strength for this solar panels would be less efficient due to the lower wavelengths emitted by the star even though they could provide energy at all times geothermal or nuclear power would also be available if the eyeball leans were smarter than the German government which would especially be useful On the Dark Side permanent winds would allow for other intriguing Technologies too like in the transport sector trains with sails which by the way could be significantly faster than the winds themselves and even drive in
the direction of the wind especially since eyeball Ians are so unfamiliar with Darkness the dark side would probably be seen as a scary and mysterious place an important aspect of any culture or religion sparking mythology and inspiring art artists so how difficult would it be to explore the dark side to reach the prophesied anti- Stellar Point iolan religions might believe something sinister lurks On the Dark Side likely forbidding missions there to avoid Awakening ancient Horrors but eventually some brave souls would want to boldly go where no iolan has gone before but how tough would this
be compared to Earth's early Arctic Expeditions imagine walking a quarter of a planet in darkness bitter cold against howling wind Crossing treacherous crevasses all while carrying extra supplies for the round trip won't happen on foot to shk some adversities they could shorten their journey by starting from the poles where it's warmer and allows a starting point further on the dark side they first face a dangerous permanently thawing ice wall that replenishes the day sight's water and balances humidity carried to the dark side by winds after that just a little less than 10,000 km or 50
million frozen bananas would remain between their start and the anti- Stellar point the first Arctic Expedition covered 1,400 km with sigh dogs a Monumental feat for meat-based Mortals but eyeball leans would need more advanced technology a giant land vehicle straight out of a Mad Max movie that can deal with the ice crevasses and bananas and provides enough interior space for fuel and supplies for such an expedition would be difficult to realize so the first expedition would have to use a balloon or a plane speak speaking of flying when the eyeball leans are ready to explore
space the lack of rotation though it is a little detrimental regarding rocket efficiency would not stop them from being able to reach the conveniently nearby neighboring terrestrial planets which are common in Red Dwarf systems imagine one of their scientists proposing the Absurd idea that those inhospitable spinning alien planets around terribly bright and hot giant Stars could have habitable conditions and perhaps even resilient life forms being able to deal with drastic changes in temperature and brightness they probably make a horror movie about it Earth with its day and night cycle is the exception rather than the
rule when it comes to terrestrial planets nevertheless we find ourselves stranded in a strange Dynamic world of changing conditions perhaps a certain level of Chaos in the environment is necessary to force life to evolve the intelligence necessary to deal with it and the means and stupidity to make it even worse [Music]
