Would you spend a night at the top of the first tower to space? At 100 km above sea level, it would be the highest structure that humans have ever built. This tower...
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...
On Earth Day, we’re reminded just how delicate and interconnected our planet’s systems really are. From the air we breathe to the water we drink, even the smallest...
Unlike the world wars of the twentieth century, the next global conflict might not begin with soldiers crossing borders. It could start inside computer networks. A...
We can build really big things in space. Okay, not that big – yet. But we’ve packed the Earth’s lower orbit with about 5,000 satellites – some...
New geological models and updated hazard assessments from the U.S. Geological Survey and leading universities are once again raising concern across the American West...
What could be the most brutal way for an insect to die? Being struck out of the air by a predator? Snatched in a split second by a reptile’s tongue? Or something far...
Right now, only 15% of life on Earth lives in Oceans. Today, we’re gonna crank that up a notch. You, as well as all life on Earth, are moving underwater. Would we have...
Elon Musk has just claimed Mars as his own personal planet. Building his own human colony on the Red Planet, independent of Earth and with it’s own set of laws...
Unlike Earth, which is orbiting the Sun, there are billions of rogue planets roaming the Milky Way not bound to any host star. One of them has been spotted on the edge...
Have you ever been curious about Medieval life? Would you travel back in time if you could? Do you think you would enjoy it? How long would you last? After 200 years of...
You’d better mind your waste because it’s not piling up in landfills anymore. Today, we’re going to dump it all straight into the oceans. How much trash would that...
Legend has it that somewhere beyond Neptune and Pluto, there is a ninth planet, with a mass that is five times greater than Earth’s. Planet Nine, also known by its...
Deep in the western Pacific Ocean lies one of the most extreme environments on Earth. The Mariana Trench is not a place designed for human exploration in any comfortable...
See that strip of stars splashed across the night sky? That’s our home galaxy, the Milky Way. You can see it from Earth because we live on its very outskirts, far...
Space is famous for being unimaginably vast. Yet even among its endless distances, there are places that make the rest of the Universe seem crowded. One of those places...
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...
Slavery, America’s original sin, was outlawed by President Lincoln on New Year’s Day in 1863. But the repercussions of this brutality and dehumanization...
Unlike Earth, which is securely orbiting the Sun, there are billions of rogue planets drifting through the Milky Way with no star to call home. These worlds were likely...
2020 has been one of the worst years in human history. It’s been strange, confusing, and often terrifying. But what if when the clock strikes midnight on December...
