The 10 Scariest Theories on What - or Who - Takes Over the Solar System After Us

We've left about 40,000 tracked objects around Earth, roughly 200 tonnes of hardware on the Moon and 10 tonnes on Mars, and almost none of it stays ours. One satellite will keep circling for 8.4 million years, and a microbe known only from two spacecraft clean rooms may have ridden to Mars. So what claims nearly everything at the top of this list? Ten theories, ranked by reach, from Earth orbit out past the ocean moons and beyond. A full three-hour walk through the list, made for any pace, including drifting off. Settle in and let this slow walk through the solar system's far future keep you company tonight. Subscribe to The Cosmographer if you like the long way through the universe's greatest lists. CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 1:36 Number Ten The Next Minds on Earth 17:53 Number Nine The Shell of Dead Machines 37:29 Number Eight The Stowaways on the Moon 56:51 Number Seven The Hitchhikers on Mars 1:17:52 Number Six The Natives of the Ocean Moons 1:37:58 Number Five The Five Ships That Leave 2:00:39 Number Four The Machines That Build Themselves 2:21:43 Number Three Found Long Afterward 2:42:36 Number Two The Slow Traffic of the Galaxy 3:03:14 Number One A Loan From a Star SOURCES ESA Space Environment Report 2025 — https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Spac... Vanguard 1: Earth's oldest artificial satellite still in orbit (Astronomy) — https://www.astronomy.com/space-explo... The Chimpanzee Stone Age (Max Planck Society) — https://www.mpg.de/550270/pressReleas... The Silurian Hypothesis (Schmidt & Frank, arXiv) — https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748 Gardening Rates on the Moon (NASA SVS) — https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4505/ Water Bears Can Survive Impact Speeds of 1,845 mph (Smithsonian) — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-... Mars is littered with trash from 50 years of exploration (Astronomy) — https://www.astronomy.com/science/mar... Rare New Microbe Found in Two Distant Clean Rooms (NASA JPL) — https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/rare-ne... Hydrogen in the Enceladus plume (SwRI) — https://www.swri.org/press-release/sw... Phosphate found on Saturn's moon Enceladus (UW News) — https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/... NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 (NASA JPL) — https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-sh... — Disclaimer: The Cosmographer produces educational entertainment. Factual claims come from published research and official scientific institutions, and any speculation or open question is labeled as such when it appears. This channel is not a news outlet. Watch at your own discretion. #AfterHumanity #SolarSystemFuture