What Earth do you live on? A round one? Flat one? Maybe your world is resting on the back of a huge cosmic turtle? What about a hollow Earth? Just a planet’s shell...
What would happen if all the volcanoes on Earth erupted at once?
It’s invisible, deadly and sucking up every bit of matter in its path. The most massive black hole in the known Universe is headed right toward Earth. What would you see...
Interstellar objects occasionally enter our Solar System, providing insight into the composition and dynamics of distant regions of the galaxy. Among these objects, the...
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...
What if you could time-travel a hundred years from now. How would the planet look like? Would human beings still be in the picture? Only in the past year, our...
Ahh, spring has sprung. Robins are chirping. Flowers are blooming. Yikes, it’s getting a little windy out. Wait a minute. Do you hear that? Is it just me or does it look...
How big is the Sun compared to the Earth? Imagine you were able to shrink the Sun to the size of a basketball. At that point, the Earth would be reduced to the...
When it comes to energy, we have a long way to go before our utility bills become a thing of the past. On the Kardashev scale we’re still a Type 0 civilization...
Jupiter is a massive, terrifying planet. Despite being studied for centuries and even visited by nine space probes in the last 50 years, the undisputed king of the Solar...
Betelgeuse is one of the closest stars to Earth, at a distance of only 650 light-years away. This makes Betelgeuse a fan-favorite with professional and amateur...
Things are getting hotter and hotter here on Earth, and global warming has everyone panicking. But let us try a wild idea: what if we took every drop of Earth’s water...
If you got into a spaceship, and traveled long enough and fast enough, could you eventually loop back to where you started? Assuming you don’t accidentally collide...
What if you found out that you had a long-lost relative? And what if that long-lost relative was from a different planet in our galaxy? And what if this faraway planet...
They’re in your yard, on your walls, in your attic, and there’s probably one near you right now. The thought of these creepy crawlers might make you want to go on an...
A mysterious interstellar object is on a collision course with Earth. And scientists don’t know what it is. What could this new astrophysical object be? Where did it...
We’ve thrown a lot of disasters at Earth over the years: from asteroids and aliens, to the Sun’s death. But hey, the Universe is a dangerous place, and we’re not...
In some of the wealthiest corners of the world, the very rich are putting their money towards building underground bunkers to survive the apocalypse. These subterranean...
The Moon has been Earth’s constant companion for billions of years, shaping tides, lighting the night, and inspiring countless stories. But what if our Moon had a...
When most people think of terrifying places, outer space often comes to mind. After all, it is a vacuum of extreme temperatures, high radiation, and deadly vacuum...
