New Scientist Podcasts

Dead Planets Society: Giving the Milky Way More Arms

May 14, 2024

Astronomer Vivian U joins Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte to discuss creating unique galaxy shapes like octogalaxies and giraffe galaxies. They explore galaxy collisions, black holes, dark matter, and cosmic events to sculpt galaxies. The podcast delves into galaxy structures, gas density waves, sustainable matter addition, dark matter manipulation, and the potential for reshaping galaxies for communication.

37:31

Creator website

Episode guests

Vivian U

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Merging galaxies can introduce new shapes, potentially creating more intricate structures beyond conventional forms.

The formation and evolution of galaxy shapes involve distinct phases like spiral arms and blob structures.

Deep dives

Galaxy Shape Diversity

Galaxies traditionally come in limited shapes, such as spiral and blob formations. The idea of altering galaxy shapes, like adding more arms, through collisions presents a novel area of exploration. Merging galaxies can introduce new shapes, potentially creating more intricate structures beyond conventional forms. Studying galaxy collisions offers a glimpse into the potential for diverse and visually captivating galaxy shapes.

Introduction

2min

Galactic Shape Shifting: From Boredom to Cosmic Artistry

11min

Exploring Galaxy Arms Formation and Sustainable Matter Addition

2min

Offer, Event Promotion, and Dark Matter Discussion on Mind and Consciousness

2min

Manipulating Dark Matter and Black Holes for Galactic Structure

6min

Exploring the Shape of Galaxies

11min

Galactic Pranks and Stellar Observations

2min

Galaxies come in only a few shapes, which are all very round looking. You’ve got spirals and you’ve got blobs. Not content with this boring assortment, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte want to shake things up a bit.

First up they want to give our own spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, more arms. One, two… eight? As many as possible. But they don’t stop at “octogalaxy”. They also ponder on what it would take to defy the laws of physics and create a giraffe-shaped galaxy.

Aided by Vivian U, an astronomer at UC Irvine, the team discusses whether smashing galaxies together would help in their quest, how shooting black holes into orbit via rail gun may create interesting patterns and whether the galaxy sculpture can be made using dark matter.

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.

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New Scientist Podcasts

Dead Planets Society: Giving the Milky Way More Arms

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Galaxy Shape Diversity

Evolution of Galaxy Shapes

Implications of Galaxy Mergers

The Role of Dark Matter and Black Holes

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts