It’s coming dwelling. In the season one finale of Dead Planets Society, our hosts Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte are taking on everybody’s favorite planet: Earth. But concern not – they aren’t destroying it completely, simply reshaping it a bit. Gravity naturally encourages objects in area to type spheres, however on this episode, Earth is getting cubified.
Transforming Earth right into a dice is tough, so our hosts have turned to geophysicist and catastrophe researcher Mika McKinnon for assist. No matter the way you do it, Earth goes to be uninhabitable for some time. But as soon as issues quiet down, life on our dwelling planet would be drastically completely different.
For one factor, if Earth were moulded right into a dice however stored the identical mass and quantity of water, the oceans would pool up into six seas – one on every face of Cube Earth – protruding from the floor like an enormous lens. The environment would behave equally, not reaching the sides or corners. This would go away a slim uninhabitable zone round every sea, with bleak mountains past the environment.
Space exploration would, in some methods, be simplified – all you would must do to get into the vacuum of area would be to construct a shielded rover and trundle off in direction of the sides of the world. With no air to hamper issues, these edges would be excellent for area launches and telescopes. But the fixed earthquakes triggered as gravity tries to make the planet a sphere once more may make issues robust.
Then, within the second a part of the finale episode, our hosts and McKinnon take on what life will be like on Cube Earth. Days will appear completely different, as every dawn and sundown will occur all of a sudden throughout every face of the planet. The world’s new form and the six bubbles of environment would encourage one thing like island evolution, probably producing unusual wildlife and massive sea monsters.
Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish concepts about the right way to tinker with the cosmos – from placing out the solar to inflicting a gravitational wave apocalypse – and topics them to the legal guidelines of physics to see how they fare.
To pay attention, subscribe to New Scientist Weekly or go to our podcast web page right here. Dead Planets Society will be again with season two in 2024.
Transcript, half one
Mika McKinnon: So, take into consideration if you wish to go exterior the magnetic subject you must be in your little fish bowl.
Leah Crane: Yeah, I wish to cruise round in my all-terrain fish bowl.
Chelsea Whyte: Why are we exterior Earth’s magnetic subject? Because we’re making the planet a dice. Welcome to Dead Planets Society, everyone.
Leah Crane: This is a podcast the place we think about what it would be like if we were given cosmic powers to rearrange the universe.
Chelsea Whyte: I’m Chelsea Whyte, US editor at New Scientist.
Leah Crane: And I’m Leah Crane, physics and area reporter at New Scientist.
Chelsea Whyte: And welcome to the primary episode of our two-part season one finale. This one is a doozy, people.
Leah Crane: This week it’s time for probably the most harmful recreation. We’re taking down Earth.
Chelsea Whyte: And in true Dead Planets Society style we’re doing it in superb fashion.
Leah Crane: Glorious, geometric fashion. We’re making it a dice.
Chelsea Whyte: Cube Earth, Cube Earth, Cube Earth.
Leah Crane: Cube Earth, Cube Earth.
Chelsea Whyte: I actually love this concept and I can’t wait to learn how we may slice the planet’s faces off.
Leah Crane: Thanks, Hannibal.
Chelsea Whyte: You’re welcome. But additionally I’m curious what is going to it do to gravity, or time, what would it be like to dwell on Cube Earth?
Leah Crane: Well, I’ve executed a bit little bit of analysis so one factor I do know is that it would be completely wild. Or ought to I say, it’ll be completely wild? We’ve additionally obtained geophysicist and catastrophe researcher Mika McKinnon to assist us out, and we began by asking her what’s the easiest way to make Earth a dice?
Mika McKinnon: I feel that’s truly probably the most difficult half, is making an attempt to get the dice, after which after getting the dice simply, sort of, assuming that it stays that manner, as a result of when left to its personal gadgets, something large enough goes to go within the spherical and/or lumpy potato path. Just that’s how gravity works. So first you must get it right into a dice, then you must hold it right into a dice. So I assumed that we would begin and hold the identical mass, as a result of if you begin screwing with the mass of the Earth then actually you don’t have the Earth in any respect anymore. So I figured it is advisable to, like, shave down the perimeters and stick them up within the corners, sort of like a giant ball of clay going on. And if you actually take into consideration the Earth, it’s not precisely stable, you simply have, like, a stable shell, so if you had sufficient drive it’s a large lump of actually heat clay, actually heat inexperienced and blue clay at that. So I’m simply going to be like, ‘Look, let’s simply have, like, large cosmic fingers doing this. Like, I don’t know, possibly we’re utilizing specifically formed primordial black holes? Why not? Giant chisels?’
Chelsea Whyte: Or it sounds like, like my first intuition was we want a cosmic chisel to slice off the faces of this dice nevertheless it sounds like it would be higher to have, like, a mould, like a Playdough mould.
Mika McKinnon: Yes, and simply smash it in.
Leah Crane: You know the way they develop these, like, fancy watermelons?
Chelsea Whyte: Oh, yeah, the dice watermelon.
Mika McKinnon: Yeah.
Leah Crane: Could you simply put a mould that’s gently squishing and wait? Because there may be lots of liquid.
Mika McKinnon: Yes, we are able to take the toddler method and be like, spherical peg, sq. gap, we’re set. Just squish that good, spherical planet right into a sq. mould and push it down sufficient, then adequate.
Leah Crane: Oh nice.
Mika McKinnon: So we’re going to take the identical mass that we had earlier than and if one thing sort of goes squishing out, that’s okay. It helps that the mantle of the Earth – so the Earth has the stable internal core, liquid outer core, then the large, gooey mantle and the tiny, skinny little crust. And the tiny, skinny, little crust is we’re simply going to, like, shatter it like an egg shell on a freaking arduous boiled egg, no matter, it doesn’t matter. We squish it then it’ll reform, it’s no large deal, we do this on a regular basis. The mantle-y bit, you’re in all probability considering of it being like an ocean of lava as a result of that’s how we draw it in textual content books nevertheless it’s not, it’s blue, and inexperienced, and gooey. So it’s extra like oatmeal.
Chelsea Whyte: Literally blue and inexperienced?
Mika McKinnon: Yes, sure, sure, the within of the Earth is blue and inexperienced. I imply, it’s actually, actually sizzling so it’s in all probability glowing pink, however the rocks themselves are blue and inexperienced, if you had color when utterly surrounded by a stable which is like this entire philosophical drawback of, like, what’s the color of the within of a human, proper? Like, are the insides of people truly pink or is it solely pink since you rip them open and take a peek? In this case we’re going to tear the planet open and take a peek so deep blue and inexperienced other than the actual fact it’s glowing pink sizzling. So, like, the entire idea of color simply sort of falls aside a bit. But, so blue and inexperienced squishy inside the planet and we’ll simply sort of squish it out and, like, the core will in all probability not get re-shaped throughout this.
Leah Crane: Once we dice it, it sounds like we’re going to in all probability have to attend some time for the crust to reform as a result of each technique we’ve considered makes Earth, like, tremendous disagreeable to be on for a bit. Like, you don’t wish to be on the floor whereas we’re placing it within the mould.
Mika McKinnon: It’s okay as a result of the earth goes to be tremendous disagreeable it doesn’t matter what for some time. So if we’re beginning off and we’re going to try to hold issues to be the identical mass, then we find yourself with, like, a bit cubical Earth with every little thing the identical dimension in each path, which it’s not proper now, like, you suppose Earth is a sphere, hey, we’ve a constant radius. No, we don’t, we’re like a squished sphere that’s truly actually lumpy so it’s extra like a potato. So we’re already getting into to the realm of, like, hey, it is a extra excellent planet than we’ve. But even if we squish every little thing, the gravity continues to be going to be pointing to the centre, so every little thing inside continues to be going to be all round, so we’re nonetheless going to have, like, the magnetic subject of the Earth, sizzling steel shifting quick, it’s that our core goes to nonetheless generate a doughnut-shaped magnetic subject. So you’re nonetheless going to get your northern and southern lights solely above these elements of the dice. Oh, by the way in which, will we wish to have the Earth rotating by means of a flat half? A face? Or do we wish it rotating by means of a nook?
Chelsea Whyte: So, this was a superb query that we were speaking about. Like, sure, I feel it’s attention-grabbing in each methods however I desire, for some cause, aesthetically to be spinning by means of a nook. Like a little-
Leah Crane: I’m the precise reverse.
Chelsea Whyte: Yeah?
Leah Crane: I feel that it’s a funner if it’s spinning like a dice as a result of you then’ve obtained a complete edge that’s on the sting shifting as a substitute of only one little nook. You’ve got-
Chelsea Whyte: Also days would be actually bizarre, proper? Like hastily the solar would hit a whole face if it was spinning with a-
Mika McKinnon: Oh yeah. Light and time are simply going to be far and wide, but additionally magnetic fields are going to be far and wide as a result of they’re nonetheless going to be doughnut-shaped, and that’s going to affect issues like you continue to have your cosmic rays shifting quick each time they hit the sphere, they gentle up, it’s like successfully northern and southern lights are this, like, ‘Hey, how you doing on hardening your electrical grid? It’s actually lovely and fairly up right here, we’re able to zap you all.’
So something poking out of the magnetic subject isn’t shielded from the zappage, which is- we’ve talked about this when it comes to considerations for when the Apollo missions occurred we were like, ‘Hey, you know, just so everyone’s conscious, if there’s, like, a coronal mass ejection in direction of the moon throughout the Apollo missions we’re simply going to have a bunch of fried astronauts up there.’ And they’d, like, the emergency speech put aside and every little thing. So that’s every little thing exterior the magnetic subject is simply, sort of, dying land.
Leah Crane: Screwed.
Mika McKinnon: Yes, nicely, I imply, it’s, you recognize, you may give you methods to guard your self from cosmic rays, like, you may wander round in large tanks of water, would be a technique of doing it. Or lead encasements.
Chelsea Whyte: I want you could possibly have seen our faces. That was unimaginable. I wish to be in a large tank of water.
Leah Crane: Fish tank, fish tank, fish tank!
Mika McKinnon: Yes, precisely.
Chelsea Whyte: One of my deep needs is to dwell within the ocean, within the deep sea, and I may simply take it with me.
Mika McKinnon: Exactly, and we speak about this when it comes to, like, how would we do deep area exploration of people, nicely, one of many issues we’ve to speak about is how will we hold folks protected once we’re going exterior our magnetic subject to someplace else. And one of many ideas is, nicely, possibly you could possibly simply put all of the water that you simply want anyway, put it on the surface of the spaceship, and retailer it on the surface to be a phenomenal defend to soak up all of the methods the universe is simply making an attempt to casually kill you as you discover deep area. So, we are able to do this. So, take into consideration if you wish to go exterior the magnetic subject you must be in your little fish bowl or, like, large lead aprons and X-ray machine fashion like, ‘Hey, let’s simply put on the dentist robes and go for a stroll.’ But that’s not the one drawback.
Chelsea Whyte: I desire the fish bowl.
Leah Crane: Yeah, I wish to cruise round in my all-terrain fish bowl.
Chelsea Whyte: So, let’s speak about what this would look like from afar. So which means we’d have this cubed planet however every face would have like a, like a half sphere, like a bit contact lens of water on it. Is that proper?
Mika McKinnon: Yes.
Chelsea Whyte: And then the place would the atmosphere- would the environment be additionally in that bizarre dome on every face?
Mika McKinnon: Yeah, so-
Chelsea Whyte: We’re dwelling within the dome, we’re dwelling within the dome in our fish bowls.
Leah Crane: We would have, like, six domes however they would not be related.
Mika McKinnon: Yeah, there’d be six little domes on six little faces and each would be surrounding a bit sea, and if you take a look at the scale of the ocean and also you take a look at the scale of the environment and the way a lot water and the way a lot fuel we’re working with right here on Earth, we’re speaking about all of humanity dwelling in a bit ten kilometre fringe round every of those lakes.
Chelsea Whyte: Incredible.
Mika McKinnon: So, area is outlined by how a lot environment you’ve got, proper? Like sooner or later you go excessive sufficient up that you simply’re like, ‘There’s not sufficient air, I’m in area.’ It’s not very excessive, it’s like 200 kilometres, proper? And the sides of the dice are going to be, like, 1000 kilometres exterior the environment. So the sides of the dice will be in area by how we presently outline issues.
Leah Crane: We going to must redefine area.
Mika McKinnon: Or we redefine spaceships so that they have wheels, so you’ve got a fish tank on wheels as your new spaceship as a result of you may go away the environment of your face, go as much as the sting of the world, then go throughout the sting of the world to go discover the subsequent remoted little bubble, proper?
Chelsea Whyte: Imagine the tourism. Imagine it. I wish to go on a trek to The Edge. Capital T, capital E, in my little fish bowl rover.
Leah Crane: I can image it completely.
Chelsea Whyte: But gravity wouldn’t be that sturdy on the market, would it?
Mika McKinnon: Well, you’d be coping with mountaineering issues. So, going to area would additionally be mountaineering. It’d successfully be like Everest on excessive ends as a result of gravity’s going to maintain pointing in direction of the centre, however the centre once you’ve obtained a sq. is at an angle. So, once you’re at the- like, if you’re within the centre of the ocean, gravity’s pointing straight down. But by the point you get to the sides of the lake or of the ocean, it’s going to be at a little bit of an angle and also you’re going to be, sort of, always strolling uphill or downhill. Even although the floor is flat, your gravity isn’t. Your gravity is at an angle and the additional you get from the centre, the larger that angle will get.
You’ve solely obtained, like- it’s a ten kilometre fringe so you may cross your complete width of your accessible shoreline, breathable space, in, like, a two hour stroll. I imply, strolling across the lake would take longer however you’ve obtained a really brief distance earlier than you’re going to want your fish bowl to maintain going. Your, like, little oxygen bubble inside a fish bowl on wheels to go to area. And the additional you go in direction of the sting, the steeper your angle goes to be. We’re going to know that the sides exist as a result of the horizon, if you’re in the course of the ocean, the very first thing you’re going to see goes to be the corners of the dice. And you’re going to be capable of see them from, like, I feel the fish bowl, or the little ocean lenses are, I take into consideration 300 kilometres throughout. And if you’re in them, so long as you’re inside 150 kilometres of the sting, or of the shoreline, so so long as you’re not within the useless centre, if you’re, like, midway to shore, you’ll be capable of see a nook. But it’s not till you’re inside, like, ten kilometres of shore, possibly fifteen kilometres of shore, that you simply’ll be capable of see the flat areas truly close by. So you gained’t be capable of see the human-inhabited portion until you’re nearly on the coast. You’ll solely be capable of see these corners jagging off, which are manner on the market, and haven’t any air and no inhabitation, they’re simply rock. So you see, like, these mountains off to the perimeters.
Chelsea Whyte: Would this look like a really massive mountain or would it take up extra of the sky?
Mika McKinnon: So, I’ve been making an attempt to resolve on that one and I feel to some extent we’re going to must mess around with some optical results right here as a result of proper, like, you could possibly inform issues were flat, one of many first locations you may inform that we’ve a spherical planet is within the ocean the place you’ve obtained these lovely horizons going on, and you may inform what’s going on with, like, sunsets and sunrises, why we’ve blue skies and pink skies, from how a lot environment you’re trying by means of. But that every one will get muddled up once you’re coping with, like, this tiny little bubble taking place. And I feel that you simply would find yourself nonetheless getting your pink sunsets, however they’d be actually shut.
Leah Crane: It appears like it would be simpler to do rocket launches from dice Earth, proper? Because you’ve got all these good corners with no environment.
Mika McKinnon: Instead of getting all of our area ports on the equator like we do now the place we are able to use the earth’s rotation to, like, fling issues in to area, we’d as a substitute in all probability have a two-stage spacecraft the place stage one would be wheels and go to the nook of the earth, and stage two would be launch from the nook into orbit. And if you’re actually fortunate you may as well do it with the rotations taking place – relying the place you’ve got the axis of the Earth, you could possibly form it to be capable of get that little gravitational help anyway.
Leah Crane: I’m wondering if we obtained somebody with mad hops, if they may leap off the nook of the earth in to area.
Mika McKinnon: If we may do, like trampolining?
Chelsea Whyte: Yeah, I wish to pogo-stick into area.
Leah Crane: Oh my god.
Mika McKinnon: And we’re nonetheless coping with the- it’s not that a lot decrease, sadly.
Chelsea Whyte: Okay.
Leah Crane: Dang.
Chelsea Whyte: But these edges would additionally be, like, unimaginable locations to do a complete lot of science. Like, I’m simply considering, put all of the telescopes on the market, proper? Outside of the environment.
Mika McKinnon: Oh, yeah, you haven’t any environment going on, you could possibly truly stroll out and restore them as a substitute of getting to cope with, like, the poor Hubble area telescope simply slowly disintegrating as its stabilisers- you don’t have to fret about stabilisers. You have much less gravity so that you don’t must cope with the mirrors warping as a lot. You have actually predictable gentle cycles taking place.
Leah Crane: Super- with a pointy edge.
Mika McKinnon: Yes, and you could possibly do issues like decide a nook and have a telescope on either side of the nook to have full protection. And they may even share, like, a bit processing centre simply like we do in Antarctica proper now. So yeah, you could possibly do some actually cool science with that.
Leah Crane: That appears fairly rad. I’ll say that it appears to me, and this may not be true, Mika, we’ll want your enter, nevertheless it appears like if we’re cubing Earth after which we’re going to place some telescopes and stuff on there, it does appear like earthquakes may be an issue due to how a lot we’ve screwed up the planet.
Mika McKinnon: Yeah, I would say there’d undoubtedly be lots of, like, floor degree earthquakes going on throughout the time the place every little thing was cooling. All the bits that we destroyed would be cooling down and crunching, and as they cooled and crunched they would contract and also you’d get some earthquakes from that however they’d be, you recognize, comparatively surface-level earthquakes. But the entire planet would be making an attempt to chill out from a dice again right into a sphere so it would all the time be making an attempt to have, like, the corners crumble in and the flat bits bulge out until we’re protecting it in our mould. So you’d undoubtedly have some pretty massive earthquakes from that because it’s all simply making an attempt to sag out. So I’d advocate we give you, like, an Earth sized pair of Spanx to shove it in. Keep it, like, forcefielded into place. Because after you undergo all the hassle of constructing a cubical planet you, sort of, wish to hold it.
Chelsea Whyte: Yeah.
Leah Crane: I like the concept of shapewear however the form is a dice.
Mika McKinnon: Look, everybody has their very own aesthetic preferences, we do no shaming right here.
Chelsea Whyte: Okay, we’re going to have to finish it there, however we’re not executed in any respect. We had a lot extra dialog with Mika that we’re coming again tomorrow with Cube Earth, Part II, the final episode of season one.
Leah Crane: We’ll get into how Cube Earth is simply mega-Australia, the completely wild local weather that’ll occur there, and the inevitable sea monsters that cubing the earth would create.
Chelsea Whyte: Thanks once more to Mika McKinnon for becoming a member of us, and to all of you for listening. If you’ve got any questions or concepts for destroying the universe, get in contact at deadplanets@newscientist.com.
Leah Crane: Or if you simply wish to chat about what Cube Earth would be like, you will discover us on X – I’m @downhereonearth and Chelsea is @chelswhyte. Bye!
Transcript, half two
Mika McKinnon: We’ve simply constructed Australia. We’ve constructed lots of Australias.
Chelsea Whyte: So, Australians are going to thrive in Cube Earth. They already know the way to do that.
Leah Crane: Welcome again to Australia, I imply, Cube Earth, I imply, Dead Planets Society.
Chelsea Whyte: This is a podcast the place we think about what it would be like if we were given cosmic powers to re-arrange the universe. I’m Chelsea Whyte, US editor at New Scientist.
Leah Crane: And I’m Leah Crane, physics and area reporter at New Scientist. And we’re again for half two of Cube Earth, which is our closing episode this season.
Chelsea Whyte: That’s proper, however don’t fear – we’ll be again with season two in a short while. We’re not going to be gone for too lengthy. But let’s get again to it. In the final episode, we were speaking with geophysicist Mika McKinnon about Cube Earth.
Leah Crane: The greatest planet.
Chelsea Whyte: It’s my favorite of all of the planets that exist in our thoughts, sure. So, that is the earth that we’ve reformed right into a dice. Listen to the final episode if you wish to learn how we obtained it cube-shaped.
Leah Crane: So once we cube-ify earth, we’re left with six sides, every of which has a giant lake within the center and a small space of shoreline round every lake that’s liveable.
Chelsea Whyte: And the environment would get wacky too, the sides would be out in area so we’d want area fits or, as we mentioned, little fish bowls of water on wheels that would shield us from cosmic rays.
Leah Crane: So let’s leap again in and discuss extra about what it would be like on Cube Earth. Spoiler, there are sea monsters.
Chelsea Whyte: And time will get a bit nuts. Let’s hop again into our dialog with Mika.
Leah Crane: There’s some messy time dilation taking place, proper, due to gravitational stuff.
Chelsea Whyte: Yeah, and likewise assuming that it’s oriented with a north pole and south pole flat face, like how would we expertise time after which what would time be like extra broadly?
Mika McKinnon: Yeah. Yeah, it is a little bit difficult. On the upside to the primary order of approximation, if we’re going to maintain the earth nonetheless the identical mass, and I assume we wish to hold it the identical 24 hour spin. So, to first order approximation, it’d be no extra disturbing than coping with leap seconds and time zones already. We already do bizarre issues to time.
Chelsea Whyte: Which, can I simply say, is already very disturbing to me.
Mika McKinnon: Yeah, however you don’t discover it on a each day foundation. It’s solely as a result of we’ve clocks that it’s an issue. Like, I simply vote no clocks.
Chelsea Whyte: I additionally vote this. Mika, sure, flip off time.
Mika McKinnon: It would be a lot less complicated if you’ve got a cubical face since you’re going to have, like, flash sunrises, simply don’t cope with time zones when you’ve got a flat Earth aspect.
Leah Crane: We’d want six time zones.
Chelsea Whyte: Well, we’d want 4 time zones after which the highest and the underside would must have extra conventional time zones, proper?
Leah Crane: So, we’d want 5 time zones – we’d want one for the highest and backside
Mika McKinnon: Well, they may do Antarctic fashion. Because proper now, in Antarctica, you don’t actually cope with time. You simply decide a time and also you’re like, ‘That’s our time zone.’ Otherwise, you may stroll between time zones, which would additionally be an issue once you’re obtained a ten-kilometre-wide loop round a lake. Time would not likely, you’d actually have some points going on. And then having to coordinate between the faces, however making an attempt to truly discuss between the faces, you couldn’t bounce radio waves off the environment like you do now. So, you couldn’t have communication between the perimeters till you’ve bodily gone exploring to them. And you’d must be motivated to go exploring over the sting as a substitute of up the mountain. Like, which would be extra interesting?
Leah Crane: Could I burrow by means of the sting? And simply lay a circle of fibre optic cable underground, connecting all of our settlements?
Mika McKinnon: You’d in all probability simply wish to do it above floor with possibly a bit layer on filth on prime. Because in any other case you’re making an attempt to do- you’d wish to do deep sea cables, successfully, is how we do our linking between continents now. But once more, you’re not going to do this till you’ve gone exploring. And the exploring to the opposite faces, I feel, simply primarily based on human nature, would occur so much later than the exploring to the mountaintops. Because the mountaintops, the dice edges would be simply looming. They’d be this factor on the horizon that we are able to all the time see over there. It wouldn’t be up above our heads, or no matter, nevertheless it would be only a presence, a big presence, versus falling off the sting of the world.
Leah Crane: Maybe we’d run into one another there. It’s like folks from the completely different faces would run into one another on the peaks.
Chelsea Whyte: ‘Where did you come from?’
Mika McKinnon: And they’d be these very remoted sections, proper? Like, the entire idea of island evolution, the place if you narrow off ecosystems and go away them in a single place, we’ve executed that on six separate sides of which, if we’re doing our flat poles, then you’ve got successfully 4 sides which have the identical climates. It’d be the identical local weather as, the identical idea of Earth climate now, simply far more excessive. Except for, the equator would nonetheless have equatorial zones of climate and all that. And the poles would have larger storms, apart from the environment doesn’t actually journey all the way in which as much as the poles. So, you’ve got all of it crunched down into these extremes, the place you tease now about having the ability to stroll between summer season and winter, like, in springtime you may have all seasons within the day in March or no matter. Well, actually having the ability to stroll from one aspect to the opposite would be like, ‘It’s chilly. It’s sizzling. It’s raging storms all the time.’ I actually hope that if we’ve obtained the know-how to create cubical Earth, we’ve additionally obtained the know-how to do some local weather upkeep, as a result of it would make our present scenario look very easy when it comes to extreme storms to have every little thing crunched down that tiny.
Leah Crane: You had talked about that it’s like island evolution. We’ve obtained these 4 or six, relying on how we’re oriented. Little islands of environment which are on their very own. And what that makes me suppose is that we’re going to have lots of bizarre birds. And I do know this isn’t essentially related to the podcast, however Australia has lots of bizarre birds. And we’re mainly making lots of Australias.
Chelsea Whyte: That’s what I considered too, instantly.
Mika McKinnon: Well, and that Australia is just about, you must dwell buster to the coast as a result of it will get quickly inhospitable the additional inland you get. So, identical type of idea is, we’ve simply constructed Australia. We’ve constructed lots of Australias.
Chelsea Whyte: So, Australians are going to thrive in Cube Earth. They already know the way to do that.
Leah Crane: To be honest, I feel Australians do are inclined to thrive wherever they find yourself. We’ve talked a bit concerning the coast however what concerning the oceans themselves.?
Mika McKinnon: And the oceans will be actually, actually, actually, deep. We’re speaking tons of of kilometres deep, versus a handful of kilometres deep.
Chelsea Whyte: Does that we would enable for the evolution of even scarier deep sea creatures?
Mika McKinnon: Oh, sure.
Leah Crane: This Cube Earth goes to have loopy birds and loopy fishes, and I sort of hate it.
Mika McKinnon: That was the place I needed to go along with this, is that we’ve this tiny little bubble of air and an enormous bubble of water that’s actually deep. So, many of the liveable space of this planet goes to be underwater or probably on prime of the water. So, I’m considering that floating islands would be the place to be, for probably the most half.
Chelsea Whyte: We’ve simply made water world, haven’t we?
Mika McKinnon: That’s the place I feel we’re going with it. But the deep ocean goes to be, like, actually deep. And with much less gravity in direction of the sides, you could possibly get even larger creatures. So, I’m sort of considering the entire behemoths challenge of, like, megalodon.
Leah Crane: It’s going to be filled with krakens.
Mika McKinnon: Ichthyosaurs, and yeah – we’ll have Loch Ness monsters, the entire works. The sea monster side of this planet has, like, lots of potential.
Chelsea Whyte: I obtained to let you know, once we first considered Cube Earth, I didn’t see that we were creating this insane planet with sea monsters. But I’m very excited that we’ve gotten right here. I didn’t know the horrors we would unleash.
Mika McKinnon: It’s a submarine Australia.
Leah Crane: The entire factor is only a mega Australia. You know we’re going to have some loopy spiders.
Mika McKinnon: Yeah. One of the issues that’s actually, actually enjoyable to do in precise, real-life Australia is to go attempting to find ocean fossils within the centre of the desert as a result of it used to have a large, in-land sea. So, you may wander round on the lookout for fossils and meteors and issues within the centre of the Australian desert. You may even catch a mail truck and go round and hop off on the aspect and be like, ‘Let’s go on the lookout for fossils.’ And it’s Australia, so everyone who lives in the way in which outback is a geologist and an astronomer as a passion. So, I’m considering we must always take historical inside Australian oceans as a part of our inspiration for what do we predict that the ecospheres will look like. But once more, you’re going to have these remoted six areas and the ocean creatures are definitely not going to combine between them, so that you’re actually going to have island results. So, once we speak about, ‘Hey, you’re going to have krakens.’ Well, you’ll have krakens on this area however you’ll have the Loch Ness monster on this different face. And each goes to have completely different units. And I guess you that you simply’d have, okay, so possibly the mammals are dominant on this aspect however possibly it’s truly the large alligators which are dominant on this different aspect. And then the people who’re making an attempt to cling to their little fringe are going to have completely different reactions and methods for coping with their explicit sea monsters.
Leah Crane: I like this a lot.
Chelsea Whyte: So, in my thoughts, I’ve imagined that the ocean that we used to have, the ocean throughout regular, spherical, boring Earth, contracts fairly a bit once we create the dice. So, would we be left with issues we may by no means see earlier than on the sting? Would the sting have remnants of historical historical past which were uncovered?
Leah Crane: The edge would have hella fossils.
Mika McKinnon: Oh, and you may go attempting to find dinosaur bones on the market. Again, Australia already does this. Except for the small itty bitty drawback of once we’ve been cramming it in, we’ve been actually mucking with the crust. And we undoubtedly wish to, I feel, plan our axis to protect Australia. I feel which may truly decide the place axis goes to be.
Leah Crane: Between the ocean monsters and the bizarre, airless edges and the six Australias, this planet appears truthfully extraordinarily rad.
Chelsea Whyte: Yes, I imply it sounds actually cool. But I’m additionally guessing possibly climate would be fairly robust?
Leah Crane: Yeah, positive. Especially since day and night time are flashing into one another so rapidly.
Chelsea Whyte: Yeah, I imply take into consideration that second when the face that you simply’re on all of a sudden sees no extra daylight. That appears actually terrifying. And additionally in all probability fairly uncomfortable. So, we requested Mika if the climate goes to only be wild throughout this Cube Earth.
Mika McKinnon: We’re amping up the seasons and we’re amping up the climate. So, once we discuss proper now about how local weather change is creating these extra excessive occasions extra usually, like we’re getting storms that construct up sooner and that they’re extra intense. That we’re having extra excessive seasons of it’s both actually, actually sizzling or actually, actually chilly and all that. Just take all that in and amplify it much more. So, you’re having it actually excessive all the time, which goes to do issues like make rising seasons actually tough, besides if you go underwater as a result of large ponds of water act as stabilisers and the deeper you go, the extra steady it’s.
Leah Crane: Oh, we’re all going to be, like, consuming seaweed.
Mika McKinnon: Well, SEALAB is the place I’m going with this. I feel that the individuals who have, like, probably the most stability are going to be SEALABS. And we were speaking earlier than about our spaceships are going to be on wheels with fishbowls. Our most steady and fascinating housing will be below the water on the ocean ground, or a minimum of in all probability truly bubbles at a sure depth, the place we are able to get a fairly good atmospheric strain going on and you continue to have some gentle coming as a result of being in perpetual darkness is not any enjoyable. But you’re stabilised from all the extremes of the floor. And then you’ve got, you recognize, large sea monsters coming previous periodically. So, SEALAB is our subsequent large motivation, inspiration level.
Leah Crane: Is move-in prepared? I’ll take it. I’ll go tomorrow.
Chelsea Whyte: Send me to the ocean on Cube Earth. Give me gills. I’ll simply dwell within the water. Like, I’m good.
Mika McKinnon: Well, what this actually, really will get to, as the last word conclusion, is that when folks debate which is scarier or which is extra attention-grabbing, deep area or the deep ocean- with Cube Earth, you get to mix the 2.
Chelsea Whyte: It’s excellent.
Leah Crane: And additionally, the deep sea is unarguably scarier than deep area.
Mika McKinnon: Except for you’re going to have each. Especially once you’re making an attempt to discover deep area by way of wheels in a fish bowl.
Chelsea Whyte: So, what you’ve stated is, we’ve made the scariest planet, is what we’ve executed.
Mika McKinnon: I actually respect approachable doom.
Leah Crane: This is the scariest planet.
Chelsea Whyte: Thank you for becoming a member of us for the conclusion of Cube Earth and for the ultimate episode of our first season of Dead Planets Society.
Leah Crane: Now we’ve to go, as a result of we’ve obtained a cosmic juicer and an asteroid gong and an Earth cuber to construct.
Chelsea Whyte: And now that we all know how, we’re off to show the moon into the largest piece of artwork that ever existed. Thanks once more to Mika McKinnon and to all of you for listening. And for these of you that despatched in concepts for modifications that we may make to the universe, we’re sifting by means of matters for season two and we’ll be again in a bit to do some extra cosmic destruction.
Leah Crane: If you loved this season of Dead Planet Society, you may also like my month-to-month area publication at New Scientist, Launchpad. Check it out at newscientist.com/launchpad.
Chelsea Whyte: That’s all people! Goodbye for now.
Leah Crane: Bye.
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