Lifeless Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish concepts about find out how to tinker with the cosmos – from snapping the moon in half to inflicting a gravitational wave apocalypse – and topics them to the legal guidelines of physics to see how they fare. Pay attention on Apple, Spotify or on our podcast web page.
Uranus and Neptune are remarkably alike, so we don’t want each of them. That’s the reasoning behind this episode of Lifeless Planets Society, during which our hosts Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane have determined to gentle Uranus on hearth.
After all, there’s a scientific rationale for this – for one, burning a cloth and inspecting its gentle via a technique known as spectroscopy is without doubt one of the greatest methods to find out its chemical composition. For one more, the deep interiors of the ice large planets stay murky and mysterious, so burning away the outer layers may reveal what’s beneath.
Earlier than we attain for some matches, this episode’s particular visitor, planetary scientist Paul Byrne at Washington College in St. Louis, Missouri, says this is perhaps tough. As he explains, the outer layers of Uranus are missing in oxygen, which is required for combustion. It won’t even assist to pump in additional oxygen than is contained in the complete photo voltaic system.
However the inside of Uranus isn’t simply mysterious; it additionally could also be filled with iceberg-like chunks of diamond. That shortly shifts our hosts’ focus. That is now not a mission of pyrotechnics – it’s a heist.
We nonetheless have to eliminate the planet’s outer layers, and essentially the most environment friendly means to try this might be by slamming one other world into it. From Earth, this is able to seem like a flash of sunshine, a cloud of glowing vapour and doubtlessly a vivid tail forming behind Uranus. The influence must be rigorously deliberate to keep away from smashing the planet and its diamonds to bits.
With the suitable collision, although, we may accomplish each the brand new purpose of getting at Uranus’s diamonds and the unique purpose of exposing its deeper layers to allow them to be studied. We may additionally damage the complete photo voltaic system, however when has that been a priority within the Lifeless Planets Society?
Subjects: