Asteroids are cool, but they’re all spread out across the solar system. Wouldn’t it be neater if we could smush them all together to make one MEGA asteroid? Maybe even an asteroid… planet.

From an asteroid sausage machine to a Jell-O infused asteroid donut, Leah and Chelsea discover just how difficult and disastrous it would be to merge the asteroid belt – with one surprising silver lining. Joining them in their quest are planetary scientists Andy Rivkin of John Hopkins University, and Kathryn Volk of the University of Arizona.

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… And 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 #9: Unify the Asteroid Belt

The World, the Universe and Us