The asteroid belt is chaotic, filled with large rocks moving at high speeds, occasionally colliding with planets and causing disruptions. In the “Dead Planets Society” podcast episode, hosts Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane explore the idea of consolidating the asteroid belt into a single rocky planet.
However, merging the asteroids is not a simple task. To prevent them from breaking apart and instead form a cohesive body, they would need to collide at slow speeds. Methods such as using a large funnel or introducing aerogel across the entire belt to slow them down have been proposed, but these approaches come with their own complications and potential consequences.
The hosts were joined by planetary astronomers Andy Rivkin at Johns Hopkins University and Kat Volk at the University of Arizona for this episode.
“Dead Planets Society” is a podcast that delves into unconventional ideas for altering the cosmos and assesses their feasibility within the framework of physics.
