Hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones. They’re all one in the same. Storms. Now, the mother of all of them is about to hit New York and you’re caught right in the middle of it...
On July 1, 2018, something happened outside Paris that sounded less like real life and more like a movie scene. Armed men hijacked a helicopter, flew it directly into a...
Coastal cities across the globe are planning how they will keep the sea away as it rises. One solution? Just move the city. How much would it cost? How do you lift a...
In 2015, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope identified one of the most Earth like planets ever discovered, Kepler 452b. It orbits a Sun like star and sits in what scientists...
Instead of falling apart after a single crash, now we all have cars that are completely indestructible. Would there be fewer fatalities caused by car accidents? What...
The thought of being swallowed by a whale sounds like something from an ancient legend rather than a real possibility. Tales of people disappearing into enormous sea...
Deep beneath the mountains near the Black Sea lies Veryovkina Cave, the deepest known cave on Earth. The cave is filled with narrow tunnels, underground rivers, freezing...
What causes moonquakes? What would happen if half of our Moon drifted away? Has the Moon already split in half? As friendly neighbors in the sky, the Moon and Earth have...
Welcome to Earth City. Yeah, you heard that right. You’re not going on a globetrotting tour to see all the planet’s major cities. You’re already there. Today, the entire...
With the world’s population growing every year, we need to find ways to produce more food. So, if we could bring dinosaurs back from the dead, would you eat them...
They are massive, and extremely dense. They rip apart anything and everything that gets close to them. Their gravity is so strong that even light can’t escape. We...
Venus, Earth’s closest planetary neighbor, is one of the most extreme and hostile environments in the Solar System. Its surface is scorched by intense heat, blanketed in...
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...
Scientists have discovered many planets similar to Earth beyond our solar system. These exoplanets can be up to 10 times larger than Earth, which might be ideal for our...
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...
Imagine receiving a message from another world. Not from a distant galaxy millions of light years away, but from a planet orbiting the nearest star system to our own. A...
Family planning. It sounds sensible, but it’s extremely controversial. At least, in some countries. What if it wasn’t? What if the world recognized a...
The ocean is so enormous that it is difficult to truly understand its scale. Covering more than 71% of Earth’s surface, it contains the vast majority of all the...
Imagine Earth with an even 50/50 split between continents and oceans. Our planet covered half by land half by water. How would this change the planet as you know it...
Deep frying a turkey can often times be incredibly dangerous. So why don’t we try a different cooking method? Let’s send our turkey up into space, and have...

