Lifeless Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish concepts about easy methods 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. Hear 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, through which our hosts Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane have determined to mild Uranus on hearth.
In fact, there’s a scientific rationale for this – for one, burning a cloth and inspecting its mild via a way known as spectroscopy is likely one of the finest methods to find out its chemical composition. For an additional, the deep interiors of the ice large planets stay murky and mysterious, so burning away the outer layers might 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 could be difficult. 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 whole 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 do away with the planet’s outer layers, and essentially the most environment friendly method to try this might be by slamming one other world into it. From Earth, this may seem like a flash of sunshine, a cloud of glowing vapour and probably a vibrant tail forming behind Uranus. The affect must be fastidiously deliberate to keep away from smashing the planet and its diamonds to bits.
With the proper collision, although, we might accomplish each the brand new aim of getting at Uranus’s diamonds and the unique aim of exposing its deeper layers to allow them to be studied. We might additionally destroy the whole photo voltaic system, however when has that been a priority within the Lifeless Planets Society?
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