KAKU ON WHAT IF: TYPE II CIVILIZATIONS

Will We Become A Type II Civilization?

How cool would it be if we could one day regulate our atmosphere, control the climate and maybe even blast threatening asteroids into stardust? Well, to do those things would require A LOT of energy.

Essentially, we’d have to be able to harness all the power from the Sun. According to the Kardashev scale that ranks planets according to their ability to harness the energy from their star and even their galaxy, that would make Earth a Type II civilization. What does that mean and how far away are we from achieving that level of uber energy capacity? You’ll have to tune in to find out as What If: Discussed welcomes back Dr. Michio Kaku, physicist and science communicator extraordinaire, to help us better understand “What If we became a type II civilization?”

KAKU ON DISCOVERY OF EARTH-LIKE PLANET

Join Dr. Michio Kaku and hosts at CBSN, the "Always On" online news network from CBS NEWS, for a lively discussion of Proxima b — a newly discovered Earth-like planet also dubbed as Earth 2.0. What promise does Earth 2.0 hold for life back here on Earth 1.0? Dr. Kaku calls it "A New Chapter in Astronomy." WATCH NOW!

NASA: LIQUID WATER FOUND ON MARS

This week NASA announced that it has discovered a source of free-flowing water on the surface of the planet Mars, a breakthrough finding that could forever change how human beings view our celestial neighbor. Famed physicist/futurist and CBS News science contributor, Dr. Michio Kaku told ‘CBS This Morning’ that, with this, NASA may have “hit the jackpot.”

Public fascination with Mars has increased ever since NASA launched its unmanned rover Curiosity, which continually sends back images of the Martian landscape. Once thought to be too hostile to support life, the discovery of liquid water alters our understanding not only of the origins of the red planet but in the future potential for an eventual human presence on Mars. “It changes everything,” said Kaku, “It means that this liquid water can be used for, perhaps, irrigation, drinking water, and even rocket fuel.” WATCH NOW!

KAKU ON ‘THE REALLY BIG ONE’ MEGA-QUAKE

CBS News science and futurist contributor, Dr. Michio Kaku returns to ‘CBS This Morning’ to discuss Kathryn Schulz‘s recent New Yorker article, ‘The Really Big One’ — an examination of the Cascadia subduction zone that predicts a "mega-quake" capable of wiping out a major portion of the Pacific Northwest and potentially triggering the worst natural disaster in North American recorded history. WATCH NOW!

KAKU ON PLUTO NEW HORIZONS SUCCESS

On the historic success of NASA‘s space mission to the Pluto System, the New Horizons space probe has started sending back the first-ever high resolution close-up images of the dwarf planet’s surface. The data is traveling across a staggering three billion miles of space — the same distance traveled by the probe on its trek to Pluto and beyond. Meanwhile, here on Earth, scientists are studying the data as it continues to stream in. Dr. Michio Kaku joins Ed Schultz of MSNBC’s ‘The Ed Show’ to discuss the scientific and historic significance of New Horizons revelations about Pluto. WATCH NOW!

KAKU ON PLUTO: HISTORY AT THE EDGE

Three billion miles from Earth, NASA‘s New Horizons space probe just flew by Pluto. The journey to the farthest edge of our solar system took nearly a decade to achieve. CBS News science and futurist contributor, Dr. Michio Kaku, who wrote an op-ed article for the Wall Street Journal entitled ‘That Pluto Probe Just Might Save the Earth’, joins ‘CBS This Morning’ to explain how this feat affects us here at home. WATCH NOW!

KAKU WALL STREET JOURNAL OP-ED: THAT PLUTO PROBE JUST MIGHT SAVE THE EARTH

New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft humanity has ever launched has also traveled longer and farther than any other — more than nine years and three billion miles — beyond any space mission in history to reach its primary target. Today marks a historic milestone in the journey, as New Horizons flies by Pluto and its system of at least five known moons, sending back breakthrough reconnaissance. What new insights will that Pluto probe reveal to expand our understanding of other such planet-threatening comets? Dr. Michio Kaku offers us his perspective in a special op-ed article written by Dr. Kaku himself for the Wall Street Journal. READ NOW!

KAKU ON HAWKING: AN ‘EARTH 2’ SOLUTION

At the recent BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards in London, England, cosmologist Stephen Hawking said, “The human failing I would most like to correct is ‘aggression.’ It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.” He warns that major nuclear war could be the end of civilization, possibly humankind.

As both a physicist and an optimist, Dr. Michio Kaku sees the very same scenario as motivation for ingenuity and opportunity. Specifically, using science, technology, and strides in space exploration to strengthen humanity’s presence (and its chances) to survive and even prosper beyond our earthly limits, out in space — to become, as he puts it, a “2 Planet Species.”

Dr. Kaku returns again on MSNBC’s ‘The Ed Show’ to discuss Hawking‘s remarks as he presents his own insights along with solutions that could be like an “insurance policy” for the human race. WATCH NOW!