Comments on: How to Kill a Planet

By: bjgleas

bjgleas — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:26:25 +0000

Phil – I was with you the whole way – antimatter, center of the earth, a mount everest of antimatter, etc… but that whole nonsense of the result being like the earth 4.5 billion years ago…. dude – come on… 6,000 years, max!

By: Bad Astronomer on National Geographic - Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum

Bad Astronomer on National Geographic - Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:58:05 +0000

[...] Astronomer on National Geographic BA Blog: How to Kill a Planet: [...]

By: CelticMinstrel

CelticMinstrel — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:17:22 +0000

I’d really like watch that preview, but I can’t because Firefox is blocking Flash… (even though I’ve uninstalled FlashBlock…)

Oh well…

By: How to How To Kill A Planet | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

How to How To Kill A Planet | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:17:26 +0000

[...] night, National Geographic aired the episode of Naked Science called "How to Kill a Planet", about five ways we can literally and totally destroy the Earth. I was interviewed extensively for [...]

By: alfaniner

alfaniner — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:39:52 +0000

I was lucky in that I missed this blog post but caught the show by accident. Very cool. But it did leave me one burning question…

Why were you not allowed to touch the helicopter window???

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:49:34 +0000

Phil, are you practicing for your Mythbusters appearance? Loved the dynamite!

By: zer0

zer0 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:31:48 +0000

Last night while I was watching with some friends, one of them got really scared about CERN making black holes. I tried explaining that the show was blowing it way out of proportion. Hell, the show even said they were trying to make them, which simply isn’t true. It’s an extremely unlikely event, and as BA says, a microscopic black hole would just pass right through the planet anyways. She was really upset by that part of the show though, and started questioning why we’re even messing with things at CERN. I had to play science advocate for about 30 minutes =\. Friggin sensationalist show, ruined my night.

By: Ugly being from Uranus

Ugly being from Uranus — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:55:05 +0000

Hey, stop being rude about my Uranus!

By: Slartibartfast wannabe

Slartibartfast wannabe — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:52:46 +0000

@ Michael L : (April 23rd, 2009 at 4:06 pm)

@Slartibartfast wannabe:

I think I can say for many, that the Solar System would be a far less fun place without Uranus… Imagine, no more standing outside, in the darkest night, staring up wide eyed at the spectacle that is Uranus… along with his twin moons, glowing brightly for the world to see…

Brightly shining spectacle? Wha …? You can barely see Uranus under the very darkest skies with good eyesight. Really it takes binocs at least to find and even then ain’t much to look at. Just a pale greenish dot.

As for its twin moons, well to be pedantic its actually got quite a few more than two; Ariel Umbriel, Titania, Oberon & Miranda being the five largest and main ones with a heap more little rocks – twenty~ish all up I think?

Two moons? Not sure where that comes from – are you being cheek-y?

Uranus is the blandest of the gas giants, Neptune’s its close if not exactly identical twin. So we won’t miss it, I’m pretty sure. It’ll end all those asinine jokes & make the solar system much cooler if we just eliminate Uranus.

Still if it makes you happy, Michael L, I could add tipping Neptune on its side to my plans… after all that was Uranus’es only really interesting feature.

Besides, I’ve got to blow up at least *one* planet just for the fun of it!

By: Flying sardines

Flying sardines — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:36:22 +0000

@ Kyle (April 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 pm)

@Flying Sardines – Try this one

http: (double backslash) qntm (dot) org (backslslash questionmark) destroy

This maybe the site you were looking for.

YESS!! Many thanks! That’s the one. I’ve now bookmarked it again on my new machine.

@ TheWhitePhoenix : (April 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 am)

I think I saw something like that on live science, check this out:

http (double backslash) www (dot) livescience (dot) com (slash) technology (slash) destroy (underscore) earth (undesrcore) mp (dot) html

Is that the one? Phoenix

Not quite but very close and seems related – maybe a ‘live science’ version of the other site. Many thanks also for trying.

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:23:50 +0000

JackC Says:
Unclear on the concept. Maybe it’s the martinis. Maybe it is that I am only just partway through “Death from the Skies!” Why is Phil trying to get enough antimatter to blow the Earth up? Doesn’t he like us any more? Is he sore that he is so wrong about the pronunciation of kilometer?

To save the Earth from ‘woo’, we may have to destroy the Earth……

J/P=?

By: positronium

positronium — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:56:43 +0000

Whats with the computer generated graphic at 3:10 in the video? I recognized it as the dark matter map right away. You can see it at 1:15 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCgTJ6ID6ZA

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:49:06 +0000

Pfff … that’s not even COLD yet. If anyone offered me a trip back to Niagara I’d take it even if it’s smack in the middle of winter (even though I can’t walk next to the Bride Falls at that time of year).

Is there anyone out there who screams and tears out their hair whenever the Trinity Test or similar is shown with a “boom” that coincides with the flash of light? Anyone who’s even seen so much as a pyrotechnic mortar set off knows that’s just pure BS.

By: Not BA Phil

Not BA Phil — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:34:05 +0000

Yeah, here’s to Phil, the Bad Astronmer!

Maybe I should jump over to lay claim to badastronmy.com.

By: JamesB

JamesB — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:08:22 +0000

Just finished watching the show, very enjoyable. However I noticed a mistake. Whenever your name was shown on the screen, they mispelled “Astronomer”, instead it showed “Astronmer”.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:01:14 +0000

@Flying Sardines:

Try this one http://qntm.org/?destroy This maybe the site you were looking for.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:34:47 +0000

I am watching you right now Phil… Blowing stuff up in the desert huh?

By: JackC

JackC — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:24:50 +0000

Unclear on the concept. Maybe it’s the martinis. Maybe it is that I am only just partway through “Death from the Skies!” Why is Phil trying to get enough antimatter to blow the Earth up? Doesn’t he like us any more? Is he sore that he is so wrong about the pronunciation of kilometer?

Inquiring minds want to know.

By: amphiox

amphiox — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:13:26 +0000

My thoughts regarding Pluto:

Earth and Moon together make up >99.99% of the mass within the vicinity of the orbit. Pluto and Charon together make up < 0.001% of the mass within the vicinity of their orbit (and this is NOT including Neptune) This why Earth is said to have cleared its orbit and Pluto not.

The center of gravity around which Earth and Moon orbit lies beneath the surface of the earth. The center of gravity around Pluto and Charon orbit lies above the surface of Pluto. This is why Earth/Moon is not considered a double planet, but a true planet/satellite system, while Pluto/Charon used to be thought of as a double planet (double dwarf planet now?)

If you eliminated Neptune, it would do nothing for Pluto's planetary status, because the problem for Pluto is the Kuiper Belt, not Neptune.

If you put Earth where Pluto is now, the big question is what would happen next. Would earth be sufficiently massive to, over time, eject or capture all the Kuiper Belt objects, until again the earth constitutes >99% of the mass within the region. (I don’t know the answer to this. It might well be no, which is a legitimate argument against the planet definition. Another weakness is that if you go back far enough in time, to the early formation of the Solar System, then nothing would have yet cleared its orbit, and even Jupiter would not have counted as a planet. I guess you could define it so that it becomes a planet at the moment it clears its orbit)

Personally, I think Pluto should be a planet. A special subtype of planet which we could call ice dwarf planet. And all the spheroid Kuiper Belt objects are ice dwarf planets too. And Ceres and all the large asteroids should be rock dwarf planets. And Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury should be terrestrial planets. Jupiter and Saturn would be Hydrogen Giant Planets. Neptune and Uranus would be Ice Giant Planets.

And the subtypes can be extended to extrasolar planets too, as we discover their properties in greater detail.

By: mandydax

mandydax — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:03:37 +0000

Link to TiVo for this episode:
https://www3.tivo.com/tivo-tco/oneclick.do?searchCriteria=1800|14|tivo:ct.144151881|tivo:cl.29612088|episodesearch

I see that they’re also searching for Atlantis and investigating the Bermuda Triangle. :O I hope it’s just debunking, although since it only took Randi a few pages to destroy each myth in Flim-Flam!, I don’t see how they can fill an hour. O.o

By: Jill

Jill — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:53:09 +0000

Hm. Maybe it’s just me, but…why would we want to kill the planet in the first place?? I kind of enjoy living here!!

By: Michael L

Michael L — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:06:40 +0000

@Slartibartfast wannabe:

I think I can say for many, that the Solar System would be a far less fun place without Uranus…
Imagine, no more standing outside, in the darkest night, staring up wide eyed at the spectacle that is Uranus… along with his twin moons, glowing brightly for the world to see…

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:12:22 +0000

@Slartibartfast wannabe:
swap Uranus and Neptune – and then just get rid of Uranus entirely

Ouch! That would hurt….

sorry, just couldn’t let the pun go.

J/P=?

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:07:46 +0000

@ !astralProjectile

Got that one. Won’t wreck the plot for those who haven’t experienced it yet.

By: EdZ

EdZ — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:53:32 +0000

Forget moving planets. Take all the spare metallics in the solar system (and by ‘spare’ I mean ‘locked up in wortheless rocks a few thousand kilometers in diameter’), and fashion it all in to a bunch of Island 3-style habitats orbiting comfortably around 1AU from the sun. More living space than you can shake a stick at. Likely more than even Niven’s Ringworld if you arrange them cleverly (e.g. staggering orbits outside of the elliptic), and no need for as-yet-impossible substances. And, come the inevitable ballooning of a Sun into a red giant, you could float them up to a higher orbit on the increased solar radiation so you don’t cook yourselves, and eventually turn them into generation ships to leave for good.