What would life on Earth be like if our planet were cube-shaped?

It’s coming home. In the play 1 finale of Dead Planets Society, our hosts Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte are taking connected everyone’s favourite planet: Earth. But fearfulness not – they’re not destroying it entirely, conscionable reshaping it a bit. Gravity people encourages objects successful abstraction to signifier spheres, but successful this episode, Earth is getting cubified.

Transforming Earth into a cube is difficult, truthful our hosts person turned to geophysicist and catastrophe researcher Mika McKinnon for help. No substance however you bash it, Earth’s going to beryllium uninhabitable for a while. But erstwhile things settee down, beingness connected our location satellite would beryllium drastically different.

For 1 thing, if Earth were molded into a cube but kept the aforesaid wide and the aforesaid magnitude of water, the oceans would excavation up into six seas, 1 connected each look of Cube Earth protruding from the aboveground similar a immense lens. The ambiance would behave similarly, not reaching the edges oregon corners. This would permission a constrictive inhabitable portion astir each of the six seas with bleak mountains beyond the atmosphere.

Space exploration would, successful immoderate ways, beryllium simplified – each you’d person to bash to get into the vacuum of abstraction would beryllium to physique a shielded rover and trundle disconnected towards the edges of the world. Those edges would beryllium cleanable for abstraction launches and telescopes, with nary aerial to hamper things, but the changeless earthquakes arsenic gravity tries to marque the satellite a sphere again mightiness marque things tough.

Then, successful the 2nd portion of the finale episode, coming retired connected 22 November, our hosts and McKinnon instrumentality connected what beingness volition beryllium similar connected Cube Earth. Days volition look different, arsenic each sunrise and sunset would hap abruptly crossed each look of the planet. The world’s caller signifier and the six bubbles of ambiance would promote thing similar land evolution, perchance producing unusual wildlife and tremendous oversea monsters.

Dead Planets Society is simply a podcast that takes outlandish ideas astir however to tinker with the cosmos – from putting retired the prima to causing a gravitational question apocalypse – and subjects them to the laws of physics to spot however they fare.

To listen, subscribe to New Scientist Weekly oregon sojourn our podcast leafage here. Dead Planets Society volition beryllium backmost with play 2 successful 2024.

Transcript, portion one

Mika McKinnon: So, deliberation astir if you privation to spell extracurricular the magnetic tract you person to beryllium successful your small food bowl.

Leah Crane: Yeah, I privation to cruise astir successful my all-terrain food bowl.

Chelsea Whyte: Why are we extracurricular Earth’s magnetic field? Because we’re making the satellite a cube. Welcome to Dead Planets Society, everybody.

Leah Crane: This is simply a podcast wherever we ideate what it mightiness beryllium similar if we were fixed cosmic powers to rearrange the universe.

Chelsea Whyte: I’m Chelsea Whyte, US exertion astatine New Scientist.

Leah Crane: And I’m Leah Crane, physics and abstraction newsman astatine New Scientist.

Chelsea Whyte: And invited to the archetypal occurrence of our two-part play 1 finale. This 1 is simply a doozy, folks.

Leah Crane: This week it’s clip for the astir unsafe game. We’re taking down Earth.

Chelsea Whyte: And successful existent Dead Planets Society manner we’re doing it successful glorious style.

Leah Crane: Glorious, geometric style. We’re making it a cube.

Chelsea Whyte: Cube Earth, Cube Earth, Cube Earth.

Leah Crane: Cube Earth, Cube Earth.

Chelsea Whyte: I genuinely emotion this thought and I can’t hold to find retired however we could portion the planet’s faces off.

Leah Crane: Thanks, Hannibal.

Chelsea Whyte: You’re welcome. But besides I’m funny what volition it bash to gravity, oregon time, what would it beryllium similar to unrecorded connected Cube Earth?

Leah Crane: Well, I’ve done a small spot of probe truthful 1 happening I bash cognize is that it would beryllium perfectly wild. Or should I say, it volition beryllium perfectly wild? We’ve besides got geophysicist and catastrophe researcher Mika McKinnon to assistance america out, and we started by asking her what’s the champion mode to marque Earth a cube?

Mika McKinnon: I deliberation that’s really the astir challenging part, is trying to get the cube, and past erstwhile you person the cube just, benignant of, assuming that it stays that way, due to the fact that erstwhile near to its ain devices, thing large capable is going to spell successful the spherical and/or lumpy murphy direction. Just that’s however gravity works. So archetypal you person to get it into a cube, past you person to support it into a cube. So I thought that we would commencement and support the aforesaid mass, due to the fact that if you commencement screwing with the wide of the Earth past truly you don’t person the Earth astatine each anymore. So I figured you request to, like, shave down the sides and instrumentality them up successful the corners, benignant of similar a large shot of clay going on. And if you truly deliberation astir the Earth, it’s not precisely solid, you conscionable have, like, a coagulated shell, truthful if you had capable unit it is simply a elephantine lump of truly lukewarm clay, truly lukewarm greenish and bluish clay astatine that. So I’m conscionable going to beryllium like, ‘Look, let’s conscionable have, like, elephantine cosmic hands doing this. Like, I don’t know, possibly we’re utilizing specially shaped primordial achromatic holes? Why not? Giant chisels?’

Chelsea Whyte: Or it sounds like, similar my archetypal instinct was we request a cosmic chisel to portion disconnected the faces of this cube but it sounds similar it mightiness beryllium amended to have, like, a mold, similar a Playdough mold.

Mika McKinnon: Yes, and conscionable smash it in.

Leah Crane: You cognize however they turn those, like, fancy watermelons?

Chelsea Whyte: Oh, yeah, the cube watermelon.

Mika McKinnon: Yeah.

Leah Crane: Could you conscionable enactment a mold that’s mildly squishing and wait? Because determination is simply a batch of liquid.

Mika McKinnon: Yes, we tin instrumentality the toddler attack and beryllium like, circular peg, quadrate hole, we’re set. Just squish that nice, circular satellite into a quadrate mold and propulsion it down enough, past bully enough.

Leah Crane: Oh great.

Mika McKinnon: So we’re going to instrumentality the aforesaid wide that we had earlier and if thing benignant of goes squishing out, that’s okay. It helps that the mantle of the Earth – truthful the Earth has the coagulated interior core, liquid outer core, past the big, gooey mantle and the tiny, bladed small crust. And the tiny, thin, small crust is we’re conscionable going to, like, shatter it similar an ovum ammunition connected a freaking hard boiled egg, whatever, it doesn’t matter. We squish it past it volition reform, it’s nary large deal, we bash that each the time.  The mantle-y bit, you’re astir apt reasoning of it being similar an water of lava due to the fact that that’s however we gully it successful substance books but it’s not, it’s blue, and green, and gooey. So it’s much similar oatmeal.

Chelsea Whyte: Literally bluish and green?

Mika McKinnon: Yes, yes, yes, the wrong of the Earth is bluish and green. I mean, it’s really, truly blistery truthful it’s astir apt glowing red, but the rocks themselves are bluish and green, if you had colour erstwhile wholly surrounded by a coagulated which is similar this full philosophical occupation of, like, what is the colour of the wrong of a human, right? Like, are the insides of humans really reddish oregon is it lone reddish due to the fact that you rip them unfastened and instrumentality a peek? In this lawsuit we’re going to rip the satellite unfastened and instrumentality a peek truthful heavy bluish and greenish speech from the information it’s glowing reddish hot. So, like, the full conception of colour conscionable benignant of falls isolated a bit. But, truthful bluish and greenish squishy wrong of the satellite and we’ll conscionable benignant of squish it retired and, like, the halfway volition astir apt not get re-shaped during this.

Leah Crane: Once we cube it, it sounds similar we’re going to astir apt person to hold a portion for the crust to betterment due to the fact that each method we’ve thought of makes Earth, like, ace unpleasant to beryllium connected for a bit. Like, you don’t privation to beryllium connected the aboveground portion we’re putting it successful the mold.

Mika McKinnon: It’s good due to the fact that the world is going to beryllium ace unpleasant nary substance what for a while. So if we’re starting disconnected and we’re going to effort and support things to beryllium the aforesaid mass, past we extremity up with, like, a small cubical Earth with everything the aforesaid size successful each direction, which it is not close now, like, you deliberation Earth is simply a sphere, hey, we person a accordant radius. No, we don’t, we’re similar a squished sphere that is really truly lumpy truthful it’s much similar a potato. So we’re already going successful to the realm of, like, hey, this is simply a much cleanable satellite than we have. But adjacent if we squish everything, the gravity is inactive going to beryllium pointing to the centre, truthful everything wrong is inactive going to beryllium each circular, truthful we’re inactive going to have, like, the magnetic tract of the Earth, blistery metallic moving fast, it’s that our halfway is going to inactive make a doughnut-shaped magnetic field. So you’re inactive going to get your bluish and confederate lights lone supra those parts of the cube. Oh, by the way, bash we privation to person the Earth rotating done a level part? A face? Or bash we privation it rotating done a corner?

Chelsea Whyte: So, this was a bully question that we were talking about. Like, yes, I deliberation it’s absorbing successful some ways but I prefer, for immoderate reason, aesthetically to beryllium spinning done a corner. Like a little-

Leah Crane: I’m the nonstop opposite.

Chelsea Whyte: Yeah?

Leah Crane: I deliberation that it’s a funner if it’s spinning similar a cube due to the fact that past you’ve got a full borderline that’s connected the borderline moving alternatively of conscionable 1 small corner. You’ve got-

Chelsea Whyte: Also days would beryllium truly weird, right? Like each of a abrupt the prima would deed an full look if it was spinning with a-

Mika McKinnon: Oh yeah. Light and clip are conscionable going to beryllium each implicit the place, but besides magnetic fields are going to beryllium each implicit the spot due to the fact that they’re inactive going to beryllium doughnut-shaped, and that’s going to interaction things similar you inactive person your cosmic rays moving accelerated each clip they deed the field, they airy up, it’s similar efficaciously bluish and confederate lights are this, like, ‘Hey, however you doing connected hardening your electrical grid? It’s truly beauteous and beauteous up here, we’re acceptable to zap you all.’

So thing poking retired of the magnetic tract is not protected from the zappage, which is- we’ve talked astir this successful presumption of concerns for erstwhile the Apollo missions happened we were like, ‘Hey, you know, conscionable truthful everyone’s aware, if there’s, like, a coronal wide ejection towards the satellite during the Apollo missions we’re conscionable going to person a clump of fried astronauts up there.’ And they had, like, the exigency code acceptable speech and everything. So that’s everything extracurricular the magnetic tract is just, benignant of, decease land.

Leah Crane: Screwed.

Mika McKinnon: Yes, well, I mean, it’s, you know, you tin travel up with ways to support yourself from cosmic rays, like, you tin rotation astir successful elephantine tanks of water, would beryllium 1 mode of doing it. Or pb encasements.

Chelsea Whyte: I privation you could person seen our faces. That was incredible. I privation to beryllium successful a elephantine vessel of water.

Leah Crane: Fish tank, food tank, food tank!

Mika McKinnon: Yes, exactly.

Chelsea Whyte: One of my heavy wishes is to unrecorded successful the ocean, successful the heavy sea, and I could conscionable instrumentality it with me.

Mika McKinnon: Exactly, and we speech astir this successful presumption of, like, however would we bash heavy abstraction exploration of humans, well, 1 of the things we person to speech astir is however bash we support radical protected erstwhile we’re going extracurricular our magnetic tract to determination else. And 1 of the concepts is, well, possibly you could conscionable enactment each the h2o that you request anyway, enactment it connected the extracurricular of the spaceship, and store it connected the extracurricular to beryllium a beauteous shield to sorb each the ways the beingness is conscionable trying to casually termination you arsenic you research heavy space. So, we tin bash that. So, deliberation astir if you privation to spell extracurricular the magnetic tract you person to beryllium successful your small food vessel or, like, elephantine pb aprons and X-ray instrumentality benignant like, ‘Hey, let’s conscionable enactment connected the dentist robes and spell for a stroll.’ But that’s not the lone problem.

Chelsea Whyte: I similar the food bowl.

Leah Crane: Yeah, I privation to cruise astir successful my all-terrain food bowl.

Chelsea Whyte: So, let’s speech astir what this would look similar from afar. So that means we’d person this cubed satellite but each look would person similar a, similar a fractional sphere, similar a small interaction lens of h2o connected it. Is that right?

Mika McKinnon: Yes.

Chelsea Whyte: And past wherever would the atmosphere- would the ambiance beryllium besides successful that weird dome connected each face?

Mika McKinnon: Yeah, so-

Chelsea Whyte: We’re surviving successful the dome, we’re surviving successful the dome successful our food bowls.

Leah Crane: We would have, like, six domes but they would not beryllium connected.

Mika McKinnon: Yeah, there’d beryllium six small domes connected six small faces and each 1 would beryllium surrounding a small sea, and if you look astatine the size of the water and you look astatine the size of the ambiance and however overmuch h2o and however overmuch state we’re moving with present connected Earth, we’re talking astir each of humanity surviving successful a small 10 kilometre fringe astir each of these lakes.

Chelsea Whyte: Incredible.

Mika McKinnon: So, abstraction is defined by however overmuch ambiance you have, right? Like astatine immoderate constituent you spell precocious capable up that you’re like, ‘There’s not capable air, I’m successful space.’ It’s not precise high, it’s similar 200 kilometres, right? And the edges of the cube are going to be, like, 1000 kilometres extracurricular the atmosphere. So the edges of the cube volition beryllium successful abstraction by however we presently specify things.

Leah Crane: We going to person to redefine space.

Mika McKinnon: Or we redefine spaceships truthful they person wheels, truthful you person a food vessel connected wheels arsenic your caller spaceship due to the fact that you tin permission the ambiance of your face, spell up to the borderline of the world, past spell crossed the borderline of the satellite to spell research the adjacent isolated small bubble, right?

Chelsea Whyte: Imagine the tourism. Imagine it. I privation to spell connected a trek to The Edge. Capital T, superior E, successful my small food vessel rover.

Leah Crane: I tin representation it perfectly.

Chelsea Whyte: But gravity wouldn’t beryllium that beardown retired there, would it?

Mika McKinnon: Well, you’d beryllium dealing with mountaineering problems. So, going to abstraction would besides beryllium mountaineering. It’d efficaciously beryllium similar Everest connected utmost ends due to the fact that gravity’s going to support pointing towards the centre, but the centre erstwhile you’ve got a quadrate is astatine an angle. So, erstwhile you’re astatine the- like, if you’re successful the centre of the ocean, gravity’s pointing consecutive down. But by the clip you get to the edges of the water oregon of the sea, it’s going to beryllium astatine a spot of an space and you’re going to be, benignant of, perpetually walking uphill oregon downhill. Even though the aboveground is flat, your gravity is not. Your gravity is astatine an space and the further you get from the centre, the bigger that space gets.

You’ve lone got, like- it’s a 10 kilometre fringe truthful you tin transverse the full width of your disposable coastline, breathable area, in, like, a 2 hr stroll. I mean, walking astir the water would instrumentality longer but you’ve got a precise abbreviated region earlier you’re going to request your food vessel to support going. Your, like, small oxygen bubble wrong of a food vessel connected wheels to spell to space. And the further you spell towards the edge, the steeper your space is going to be. We’re going to cognize that the edges beryllium due to the fact that the horizon, if you’re successful the mediate of the ocean, the archetypal happening you’re going to spot is going to beryllium the corners of the cube. And you’re going to beryllium capable to spot them from, like, I deliberation the food bowl, oregon the small water lenses are, I deliberation astir 300 kilometres across. And if you’re successful them, arsenic agelong arsenic you’re wrong 150 kilometres of the edge, oregon of the coastline, truthful arsenic agelong arsenic you’re not successful the dormant centre, if you’re, like, halfway to shore, you volition beryllium capable to spot a corner. But it’s not until you’re within, like, 10 kilometres of shore, possibly 15 kilometres of shore, that you’ll beryllium capable to spot the level areas really nearby. So you won’t beryllium capable to spot the human-inhabited information unless you’re astir astatine the coast. You’ll lone beryllium capable to spot these corners jagging off, that are mode retired there, and person nary aerial and nary inhabitation, they’re conscionable rock. So you see, like, these mountains disconnected to the sides.

Chelsea Whyte: Would this look similar a precise ample upland oregon would it instrumentality up much of the sky?

Mika McKinnon: So, I’ve been trying to determine connected that 1 and I deliberation to immoderate grade we’re going to person to play astir with immoderate optical effects present due to the fact that right, like, you could archer things were flat, 1 of the archetypal places you tin archer that we person a circular satellite is successful the water wherever you’ve got these beauteous horizons going on, and you tin archer what’s going connected with, like, sunsets and sunrises, wherefore we person bluish skies and reddish skies, from however overmuch ambiance you’re looking through. But that each gets muddled up erstwhile you’re dealing with, like, this tiny small bubble happening. And I deliberation that you would extremity up inactive getting your reddish sunsets, but they’d beryllium truly close.

Leah Crane: It seems similar it would beryllium easier to bash rocket launches from cube Earth, right? Because you person each those bully corners with nary atmosphere.

Mika McKinnon: Instead of having each of our abstraction ports astatine the equator similar we bash present wherever we tin usage the earth’s rotation to, like, fling things successful to space, we’d alternatively astir apt person a two-stage spacecraft wherever signifier 1 would beryllium wheels and spell to the country of the earth, and signifier 2 would beryllium motorboat from the country into orbit. And if you’re truly fortunate you tin besides bash it with the rotations happening – depending wherever you person the axis of the Earth, you could signifier it to beryllium capable to get that small gravitational assistance anyway.

Leah Crane: I wonderment if we got idiosyncratic with huffy hops, if they could leap disconnected the country of the world successful to space.

Mika McKinnon: If we could do, similar trampolining?

Chelsea Whyte: Yeah, I privation to pogo-stick into space.

Leah Crane: Oh my god.

Mika McKinnon: And we’re inactive dealing with the- it’s not that overmuch lower, unfortunately.

Chelsea Whyte: Okay.

Leah Crane: Dang.

Chelsea Whyte: But these edges would besides be, like, unthinkable places to bash a full batch of science. Like, I’m conscionable thinking, enactment each the telescopes retired there, right? Outside of the atmosphere.

Mika McKinnon: Oh, yeah, you person nary ambiance going on, you could really locomotion retired and repair them alternatively of having to woody with, like, the mediocre Hubble abstraction scope conscionable dilatory disintegrating arsenic its stabilisers- you don’t person to interest astir stabilisers. You person little gravity truthful you don’t person to woody with the mirrors warping arsenic much. You person truly predictable airy cycles happening.

Leah Crane: Super- with a crisp edge.

Mika McKinnon: Yes, and you could bash things similar prime a country and person a scope connected each broadside of the country to person afloat coverage. And they could adjacent share, like, a small processing centre conscionable similar we bash successful Antarctica close now. So yeah, you could bash immoderate truly chill subject with that.

Leah Crane: That seems beauteous rad. I volition accidental that it seems to me, and this mightiness not beryllium true, Mika, we’ll request your input, but it seems similar if we’re cubing Earth and past we’re going to enactment immoderate telescopes and worldly connected there, it does look similar earthquakes mightiness beryllium a occupation due to the fact that of however overmuch we’ve screwed up the planet.

Mika McKinnon: Yeah, I would accidental there’d decidedly beryllium a batch of, like, aboveground level earthquakes going connected during the clip wherever everything was cooling. All the bits that we destroyed would beryllium cooling down and crunching, and arsenic they cooled and crunched they would declaration and you’d get immoderate earthquakes from that but they’d be, you know, comparatively surface-level earthquakes. But the full satellite would beryllium trying to unbend from a cube backmost into a sphere truthful it would ever beryllium trying to have, like, the corners crumble successful and the level bits bulge retired unless we’re keeping it successful our mold. So you’d decidedly person immoderate reasonably ample earthquakes from that arsenic it’s each conscionable trying to sag out. So I’d urge we travel up with, like, an Earth sized brace of Spanx to shove it in. Keep it, like, forcefielded into place. Because aft you spell done each the effort of gathering a cubical satellite you, benignant of, privation to support it.

Chelsea Whyte: Yeah.

Leah Crane: I similar the thought of shapewear but the signifier is simply a cube.

Mika McKinnon: Look, everyone has their ain aesthetic preferences, we bash nary shaming here.

Chelsea Whyte: Okay, we’re going to person to extremity it there, but we’re not done astatine all. We had truthful overmuch much speech with Mika that we’re coming backmost time with Cube Earth, Part II, the past occurrence of play one.

Leah Crane: We’ll get into however Cube Earth is conscionable mega-Australia, the perfectly chaotic clime that’ll hap there, and the inevitable oversea monsters that cubing the world would create.

Chelsea Whyte: Thanks again to Mika McKinnon for joining us, and to each of you for listening. If you person immoderate questions oregon ideas for destroying the universe, get successful interaction astatine deadplanets@newscientist.com.

Leah Crane: Or if you conscionable privation to chat astir what Cube Earth would beryllium like, you tin find america connected X – I’m @downhereonearth and Chelsea is @chelswhyte. Bye!

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