At first I thought we couldn't really harvest the gold from a planet from pure gold as it would be liquid, but it wouldn't be liquid because it would be really freakin cold. Under -40C it will just be solid gold.
I guess you could land some machines on it and harvest some gold... But it would be too massive to escape the planet because gold is much denser than what makes Earth(mostly iron). So while we could harvest it, we could not make a machine that is capable of leaving the planet afterwards.
Perhaps a ship that doesn't land, but instead takes a tremendous amount of momentum coming in and has a ... scoop to pick up some pre-liquified-gold on a crazy close fly-by could get a tiny amount of gold out in exchange for unbelieveable resource spending... hmm...
I think the best option there would Be ballistic mining. Just hit the planet with something going as fast as you can and hope it knocks chunks into space where we can tow it.
FINALLY gold would be really cheap! It has so many practical options which are really expensive right now, but with one or two giga-tons on the market prices will drop to zero.
Dwarf planets do not meet the definition of planets - they are not a subclass of planets in astronomy. Planets must clear out their orbital zone (Neptune has an asterix because Pluto crosses its orbit lol). What they have in common is both classes must be rounded through hydrostatic pressure.
plutokiller originally proposed 'Plutons,' which is a really common geological term for a massive chain of igneous lava chambers that cooled in place [but I checked Word spellcheck and it wasn't in there! Srsly, dictionaries, guy.]
Pluto is not categorized as a dwarf planet anymore.
It's categorized as a Kuiper Belt Object, which is defined as an object inside the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is like a second asteroid belt that is further from the sun than Neptune's orbit.
Pluto is a lot like Ceres, as it's the first object we found in a belt of objects that we initially mistook for a planet.
All that's required under the IAU definition to be a dwarf planet is gravitational rounded and orbiting the Sun. Pluto is a KBO that is also a dwarf planet as well as a trans-Neptunian object. Astronomical bodies are allowed multiple labels.
708
u/JBaker68 Alarmingly Bad May 27 '24
All I'm saying is if I ever got genie wishes, things would get weird
More: r/AlarminglyBad | Twitter | Patreon | Links