Imagine arriving in a galaxy where humanity controls every star, planet, and particle of energy. This is the reality of a type three civilization, one of the most...
Militaries around the world are money-eating machines. And they keep getting more expensive. In 2019, the world spent $1.917 trillion on all the different militaries...
Day X has arrived. Mount Fuji, Japan’s most famous volcano, is erupting for the first time in 300 years. It’s raining ash, lava and toxic gases down on the world’s...
An earthquake can start without any warning. One second everything feels normal, and the next a deep rumble shakes the ground. Dishes crash, objects fall from shelves...
There are more than 2,000 satellites orbiting Earth right now. And there are about to be a lot more. But what does this mean? Endless entertainment. Non-stop...
Tectonic plates: can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Their movements cause some of the world’s deadliest disasters, but, as you’re...
The idea of opening a portal to a parallel universe sounds like pure science fiction. It brings to mind stories filled with mysterious gateways, alternate realities, and...
Dan Wherley never imagined a beaver could be dangerous. In his mind, they were slow, harmless dam builders. That changed in seconds when a rabid beaver suddenly leapt...
In North America we love our summers. We are basically trained to love them. From an early age we are taught that our calendar breaks up into school, and summer holidays...
Are you tired of cramped city-living? Then anti-gravity might be for you! Do you want to soar effortlessly over traffic jams, while the drivers below you lose their...
This blue, marble-like planet looks just like Earth. But only five seconds on this hostile death-orb would kill you. Welcome to HD 189733b. This planet is enormous. Even...
There is a reason people say you should never travel alone in the Amazon rainforest. As you go deeper into the jungle, the feeling of being watched becomes impossible to...
Neanderthal DNA is 99.7% identical to our own, and researchers claim that some humans might be carrying as much as 2% of the Neanderthal genome. Making things even...
Congratulations, you’ve taken the seven-month-long journey and have landed on Mars. And it turns out, you’re the first person. Better start getting the human...
Could there be an even better planet for us than Earth? Scientists are searching for a superhabitable world that wouldn’t just rival Earth, but be a place where life...
What if there are other universes, just like ours? With an infinite number of Earths? With uncountable versions of you? And what if we don’t have to look too far...
We visit a lot of planets here on WHAT IF, but K2-141b is the most extreme one yet. Are you ready to jump on board this one-way space shuttle? If you’d rather stay...
Buckle up as we submerge you in the most dangerous things known to humanity. From painful stings to severe frostbite, this journey could get fatal quick. Can you make it...
With its huge rings of ice and dust, Saturn is one of the Solar System’s most iconic planets. It’s beautiful, really. But what’s it hiding behind those...
When people think about space threats, they usually imagine asteroid impacts, solar storms, or distant supernova explosions. But some scientists warn that the most...
