Could planets from Star Trek TNG really exist?

In this video Dr Hannah and I go through every planet featured in Star Trek The Next Generation to establish which ones could really exist. Fortunately for us the vast, vast majority of the planets shown on screen are actually really dull, leaving just a handful that we can sink our teeth into.

Oh, and we show you our own episode of the show, featuring a planet you've never seen before....

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REFERENCES

Scientists review planets! Hannah Wakeford and Simon Clark use their PhDs in exoplanetary science and atmospheric physics to review every planet shown in Star Trek The Next Generation. Star Trek TNG is one of my favourite TV series ever, and one of the great sci fi TV shows, but some of its planets are very boring. So boring that we created our own episode to show them how it's done!

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Huge thanks to my supporters on Patreon: Samuel Baumgartner, ST0RMW1NG 1, Jan Galkowski, Adrian Sand, Morten Engsvang, Josh Schiager, Farsight101, Liam Margetts, K.L, poundedjam, Alanah Mack, Daan Sneep, Felix Freiberger, Robert Connell, Jaime Stark, Kolbrandr, , Sebastain Graf, Dan Nelson, Shane O'Brien, Alex, Fujia Li, Harry Eakins, Andrew Young, Cody VanZandt, Jesper Koed, Jonathan Craske, Albrecht Striffler, hennersfl, Jon Sjöberg, Igor Francetic, Jack Troup, Austin Frazee, SexyCaveman , James Munro, Oskar Hellström, Sean Richards, Kedar , Omar Miranda, Alastair Fortune, bitreign33 , Mat Allen, Anne Smith, Colin J. Brown, Princess Andromeda, Aron Kári Ágústsson, Leighton Mackenzie, BenDent , Thusto , Andy Hartley, Lachlan Woods, Tim Boxall, Dan Hanvey, Simon Donkers, Kodzo , James Bridges, Liam , Andrea De Mezzo, Wendover Productions, Kendra Johnson.

[lamarepository]

Star Trek: our planets are either boring earth clones or completely scientifically inaccurate because we got a few stars wrong.

40k: heehoo what if a fat man was a planet.

[MedlifeCrisis]

Man the artwork and creativity in this is phenomenal, love that you made a new 'episode' 🤩 but I'm still overwhelmed by none of the ice planets lending themselves to you being able to make a "make it snow" joke

[SimonDonkers]

Given that Star Trek is around exploring the lives of humanoids, it makes a lot of sense that all planets are somewhat similar. We don’t live in uninhabitable places, mostly.
Just like almost all species they meet are 1.8m tall and with 2 arms and 2 legs.

[PeterReidUK]

I like to think the reason Star Trek's planets are so mundane is because the show has never been about spectacle or even fantasy, it's always been rooted in the human experience. What unites us, what divides us, what makes us unique, what brings us great joy and what brings us great sadness - it's other people. Star Trek has always consciously chosen to focus on that in a fantasy setting, to give a medium to convey messages of hope and warnings about the positive and negative impacts our interactions can have on others, ourselves and society.

To convey that, the writers never needed a new fancy planet every week, they needed an easy to achieve setting for their story about humanity.

[facecrash]

"...the amount of energy that would be required is astronomical..."

Well...I mean...well...

[AntonoirJacques]

Loving the numbers at 1:42

A-113 is the Pixar number
301 is the Youtube number
1729 is the Ramanujan number

[omnicron]

Simon don’t listen to the haters, I thought your Picard impression was perfectly serviceable

[DanaTheLateBloomingFruitLoop]

The fanfic episode was fantastic! As many other commenters have pointed out the planets were mostly dull because they usually weren't the focus of the plot, though yes, budget constrains wouldn't allow frequent deviations from that.

[NinjaWatermelon]

Loving the Greatest Gen Kevin Uxbridge impression :)

[cpasr]

As an avid star trek fan, the episode you made is what I believe star-trek episodes should be, barring all the existential and morality and relevant stuff.

That is, it's awesome.

[BeamsyTrek]

Can't believe that Qo'nos isn't included in the interesting list - if only for the pollution allegories created by the Praxis disaster.

Still a great episode Simon, absolutely love this series and how high the production values are!

[eth_]

Drema IV from the episode "Pen Pals" would have been fun to see. Trying to push through the technobabble, it was being put under stress by big crystals focusing heat. Realistic? No clue. Fun topic? Certainly. Enterprise also added a few interesting planets; Dakala was a rogue planet with some interesting life and both Vulcan and Andoria/Andor from season 4 had some interesting characteristics. Either way, love the work and that new episode was great! It even stuck to the classic "it keeps getting worse until it is all solved in a minute" formula.

[hoaddict]

Stargate next? I think the only interesting ones are on "Universe" though.

[xp]

Considering how 90% of the planets on the original Star Trek were literally earth clones right down to the cultures they encountered the fact that there is ANY diversity at ALL on TNG is progress 🤷🤷‍♂️🤷🤷‍♂️

[johningham]

Came for the science, stayed for the fan fiction

[ThomasRintoul]

I loved this video so much!! I'm not surprised most are fairly dull. But to be honest the best things about Stat Trek are the stories with the seemingly plausible science. And the memes. The memes are great.
I hope this does well and you can do the rest of star trek. Yes, even Enterprise (it's not that bad)

[Vroomi]

You should explore if planets from Dr.Who could exist.

[constantinople]

You've outdone yourself Simon! TNG and Simon Clark is definitely a dream team

[cjbrown]

I really enjoyed this YouTube! Loved the graphics and the TNG story!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[wifflebatcandycorn]

Nice to find another Friend of DeSoto in the wild. Excellent content.