DiscoverNew Scientist PodcastsDead Planets Society: Removing Mars’s Iron With a Magnet
Dead Planets Society: Removing Mars’s Iron With a Magnet

Dead Planets Society: Removing Mars’s Iron With a Magnet

Update: 2024-05-28
Share

Description

When you bring a giant magnet to Mars, apocalyptic eruptions are just the beginning. In an attempt to suck out all of the iron from the red planet, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte end up shattering it like an Easter egg.

Their new cosmic plaything, a U-shaped Wile E. Coyote-esque magnet, is used in various different ways for the purposes of complete annihilation. 

With the help of science journalist and volcanologist Robin George Andrews, the team squeeze the core out like it’s toothpaste, turn the magnet into a projectile, bring multiple magnets to the fray to create a work of cosmic art and even hollow out the planet to fill it up with… SPIDERS!

Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.

Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comments 
In Channel
loading
00:00
00:00
x

0.5x

0.8x

1.0x

1.25x

1.5x

2.0x

3.0x

Sleep Timer

Off

End of Episode

5 Minutes

10 Minutes

15 Minutes

30 Minutes

45 Minutes

60 Minutes

120 Minutes

Dead Planets Society: Removing Mars’s Iron With a Magnet

Dead Planets Society: Removing Mars’s Iron With a Magnet

New Scientist