Whether it’s searing heat, sapphire winds striking the sky like rain, or an atmosphere that makes your eyes pop out of your head, some planets are just horrible for life. But even though some pretty horrific planets already exist, the team is not satisfied – they want to bring all of these calamitous qualities together to design the worst of all worlds.

In a special bonus edition of Dead Planets Society, recorded on stage in front of an audience at New Scientist Live, Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane rope two guests in on their mission of destruction.

Joining our hosts in their quest to make the most inhospitable planet are astrobiologist and author Lewis Dartnell at the University of Westminster and Vincent Van Eylen, professor and exoplanet researcher at University College London.

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. The hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.

If you have a cosmic object you’d like us to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. Or if you just want to chat about this episode or wrecking the cosmos more generally, tweet @chelswhyte and @downhereonearth.

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Dead Planets Society: #8 The Worst of All Worlds

The World, the Universe and Us