Imagine a super hurricane, but 10 times stronger—that’s what a hypercane is. If one hit the ocean tomorrow, the winds could reach speeds of up to 500 mph, powerful enough to rip apart buildings and toss ships like toys. The storm would be so intense, it could suck up warm ocean water and send it high into the atmosphere, creating massive rainfalls and even impacting the global climate. Hypercanes are so powerful that they might even cause a temporary cooling of the planet by blocking sunlight with the clouds they generate. Luckily, these monster storms are mostly a theoretical concept and haven't happened in modern times. But if one ever did, we'd be in for some seriously wild weather! Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Our planet has known terrible floods, powerful tornadoes, destructive hurricanes.
00:06Those dangerous natural disasters are familiar to us.
00:09Just picture this.
00:11Winds howling through the atmosphere at about 500 miles per hour,
00:14and they can stick around for weeks.
00:16These insane winds have the potential to damage the ozone layer,
00:19making our Earth a hostile place for life.
00:22It's not some wild Netflix dystopia.
00:25These are real-life hypercanes.
00:29A hypercane is a hypothetical extreme tropical cyclone,
00:32the likes of which we've never known.
00:35To kick off a cyclone, the sea surface temps have to hit around 122 degrees Fahrenheit,
00:40basically hot enough to sear a rare steak.
00:43It's tough to imagine, especially since that's nearly 22 degrees hotter
00:47than the highest ocean temperature ever recorded.
00:50Yep, the hottest ocean water ever was recorded in Kuwait in July 2020.
00:57What could cause such a serious increase in temperature?
00:59A powerful comet or asteroid impact?
01:02An eruption of a supervolcano?
01:04Or a large underwater eruption?
01:06There's even a theory that a series of hypercanes could have sped up the demise
01:10of non-avian dinos after the infamous asteroid impact.
01:15An important difference between a hypercane and any present-day hurricane
01:20is that a hypercane would rise as far as the upper stratosphere.
01:24That's up to 25 to 35 miles over the surface of our planet.
01:28Meanwhile, present-day hurricanes only go as high as the lower stratosphere,
01:32up to 6 miles above Earth.
01:34It would make a dramatic, catastrophic difference,
01:37but we'll talk more about it later.
01:41Hypercanes could gust to 600 miles per hour.
01:44For comparison, the most powerful recorded tropical cyclone
01:47in terms of maximum sustained winds was Hurricane Patricia.
01:51At its peak, it reached a speed of 215 miles per hour.
01:55This speed pales in comparison with that of a hypercane.
01:59Can you imagine how much destruction such a natural disaster could cause?
02:05Should they ever form, hypercanes will also have an enormous lifespan.
02:10They could rage for a couple of weeks, if not more.
02:13Extremely low pressure inside hypercanes would support massive storm systems
02:18the size of North America.
02:20At the same time, hypercanes could be as small as 15 miles across.
02:25Such relatively tiny formations would lose their strength
02:28in no time after wandering into colder waters.
02:31On the other hand, the waters after a hypercane
02:34could hypothetically remain hot for weeks,
02:37hot enough for more hypercanes to form.
02:42Since a hypercane would reach far up into the stratosphere,
02:46there would be a real chance it could damage Earth's ozone layer.
02:50And it would have devastating consequences for life on our planet.
02:54The ozone layer absorbs some of the harmful radiation from the sun,
02:58preventing it from reaching the planet's surface.
03:00Let's just hope to never see a hypercane in our lifetime.
03:06Another potential disaster that could seriously harm Earth
03:09could be the activity of our very own sun.
03:12I mean a massive solar flare.
03:14Few natural disasters can wreak as much global havoc.
03:18A solar flare wouldn't destroy buildings like a tsunami or earthquake.
03:22It wouldn't end lives in the same way an asteroid or a supervolcano would.
03:27But if the worst comes to the worst,
03:29it would destroy the entire electronic infrastructure of our planet.
03:33Recovering from the consequences of this catastrophe
03:36would cost trillions of dollars.
03:39An incredibly powerful solar flare could cause loads of infrastructures to fail.
03:44Including communication, medicine, banking systems, and transportation.
03:48Earth would be left without electricity for a long time.
03:52And people wouldn't be able to reboot the already broken power grids.
03:56Water supply systems would be out of order.
03:59There would be no food in supermarkets.
04:04In 1859, people in different parts of the world
04:07woke up in the middle of the night because it was so light outside
04:10they thought it was already morning.
04:12The skies were illuminated with colorful auroras.
04:15They showed up even in the regions where no one had seen them before.
04:19Like the Bahamas, Hawaii, or Jamaica.
04:23Telegraphs got electrically charged, even though they were disconnected.
04:28Fires started in many regions.
04:30In other words, the consequences were already catastrophic,
04:34even when technology barely existed.
04:37Imagine the avalanche of problems a solar flare could trigger today.
04:43Then there are gamma ray bursts.
04:46You can't come across this kind of radiation in your everyday life.
04:50A gamma ray burst occurs when two neutron stars collide when a massive star collapses.
04:55Gamma rays could turn into a serious danger to our home planet.
05:00If a gamma ray burst happened close to Earth,
05:03it would likely rip our ozone layer away.
05:06And you already know how crucial this layer is.
05:10Plus, gamma rays could create ground ozone.
05:13This kind of ozone could seep into the ocean since it's water-soluble,
05:17and that would lead to a mass extinction of marine life and plants.
05:22According to some theories,
05:24if a gamma ray burst occurred within around 200 light-years away from Earth,
05:28and its jets were pointed directly at us,
05:31our planet would be vaporized.
05:33If the distance was greater, but still in the Milky Way,
05:36the resulting radiation would sterilize all life on the side of the Earth pointing towards the burst.
05:45Another catastrophe that could potentially destroy our planet might be a supereruption,
05:50an eruption of a supervolcano.
05:53Yellowstone Park is located on top of one of those.
05:56The last massive eruption in that region happened about 664,000 years ago.
06:02The next eruption might be due anytime soon.
06:05Luckily, at the moment, there's no evidence that the supervolcano is waking up or getting ready for an eruption.
06:11But if it did happen,
06:13a massive column of lava and ash would shoot up into the air to a height of several miles.
06:19The volcano would keep pumping ash for days on end.
06:23But the most dangerous consequences of the eruption for all living creatures would be ash fallout.
06:28Buildings and trees would collapse under the weight of this dense substance.
06:34In just a couple of days, a 10-foot layer of ash would cover the territory of 50 miles around the center of the eruption.
06:42After the ash got into the stratosphere, the temperatures would start to drop all over the world.
06:48The eruption would most likely be rich in sulfur, an effective sunblocker.
06:53So soon it would get so cold that there would be no summer in the entire world for a few following years.
06:58It would be hard for animals to find food and clean water.
07:03Earth could also encounter a wandering black hole,
07:08a region in space where gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape its clutches.
07:13At the moment, the nearest to us black hole is around 1,500 light-years away.
07:19Seems like there's nothing to worry about.
07:21Well, until you find out about wandering black holes.
07:24Now things definitely get creepier.
07:27If such a black hole entered the solar system, Earth would be doomed.
07:32Recently, for the first time ever, astronomers have found a solitary wandering black hole in our home galaxy.
07:41This space traveler is 7.1 times as massive as the sun and is now 5,200 light-years away.
07:49Scientists discovered wandering black holes before, but those were in other galaxies.
07:55This one is the first to pop up in the Milky Way.
08:01Giant sinkholes could also swallow entire communities.
08:05For example, when one of such sinkholes opened up in the city of New York in the summer of 2022,
08:10it pulled a parked van into the Earth.
08:13And it wasn't the only sinkhole in that area.
08:16Local inhabitants reported around 4,000 sinkholes all over the city between July 2021 and June 2022.
08:24This kind of problem is also very common in Florida, and it's much more serious than it may sound.
08:31Sinkholes open all of a sudden, holding down everything and everyone that happens to be nearby.
08:40Sinkholes appear all over the world.
08:42They're totally unpredictable and form without warning.
08:45Luckily, experts know what causes them.
08:48In some regions, there are vast areas of groundwater.
08:51But during droughts, this water dries up, which creates large, empty caverns.
08:56After heavy rains, the surface over such a cavern is likely to collapse, creating a sinkhole within minutes.