What would happen if we started clumping up asteroids and planets together to create bigger worlds?

Question

You know just keep on adding matter to certain parts untill it the planet would expand to a Bigger size.

Answer 1

Well, it's the general belief that this is how the planets formed in the first place. When our Sun formed from a big cloud of dust and gas some 4.5 billion years ago, there was left-over material in a disc around it. Particles of dust in the disc clumped together to make "planetesimals", which in turn clumped together to make planets. If the new planet was large enough and in the right region of the solar system, it could pull in gas, too. That's why the larger planetesimals which were further out became the gas giants.

Our solar system is fairly stable now, with each planet in its own "orbital zone" so this doesn't happen too much any more. Still, this is a really interesting question, so let's imagine that we have some future technology where we could bring some large supply of asteroids to the Earth and add them to its mass. (Note, however, that even the combined mass of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter still has much less mass than even our moon, so we'd have to find some magical source of material.)

Since our mass would be increasing, the first thing we'd notice would be increased gravity on the surface. We'd have to be careful, though, because by adding the extra mass we're decreasing the gravitational potential energy of the asteroids we brought in...all that energy has to go somewhere, most likely into heating up the Earth. If we added enough asteroids, it might be enough to boil the oceans and melt the Earth's crust, in which case we'd all be in big trouble.

Something else to consider is any "angular momentum" (such as rotation or the "spinniness" of the orbit) the asteroid might have...If the asteroid was orbiting or rotating in the same direction as Earth, we'd speed up the Earth's rotation and thus shorten the length of our day. Similarly, if the asteroid had angular momentum in the opposite direction of Earth, the Earth would slow down and the days would be longer.

Now if we keep adding mass, we're going to get a very large planet indeed. Eventually we'd get to the mass of Jupiter (which is 317 times as massive as the Earth)...but if we're adding asteroids (which are mostly rock with some metal and carbon), we probably wouldn't be a gas giant like Jupiter since there's not a lot of gas in the asteroids. Some of the rock might vaporize and we might get increasing volcanic activity which would thicken our atmosphere, but we'd have nowhere near the gas content of Jupiter. Deep in the interior of our Mega-Earth, metals would sink to the core while molten rock would float above...all this increased metal in the core would probably strengthen our magnetic field. As the heat increased even more, molecules would start to break apart.

As we start adding more mass, something weird happens. All that pressure in the core would cause the material to become "degenerate matter", a rare and exotic form of matter in which you can think of the electrons in the atoms as running out of room to get denser, so instead they just start moving faster. One of the strange properties of degenerate matter is that as you add more matter, it actually shrinks! So as we add more mass, the planet's size would actually start getting smaller.

Once we got to 8 times the mass of Jupiter, something special happens. There would be so much heat and pressure at the planet's core that deuterium (a certain kind of isotope of hydrogen) can start undergoing nuclear fusion...this would produce lots of heat at the center which would casue us to start expanding again. This is what astronomers call a "brown dwarf", somewhere between a planet and a star. However, deuterium is not super-common, so brown dwarfs usually just fizzle out once they burn up all their deuterium.

Once we reached 80 times the mass of Jupiter then suddenly there's enough heat and pressure to start undergoing nuclear fusion of regular old hydrogen...and that is when we'd become a star.

Answer 2

Interesting idea, and a common one, however consider the many practical problems, one of which is just how would you "clump" them together - that is wouldn't "clumping" asteroids together cause collisions that would fragment each body into thousands of pieces? How can these bodies be manuvered towards one another efficiently?-remember that an equivalent mass of fuel would be needed to shift around these heavy (usually iron and other heavy compounds) masses towards eachother, then "brake" them down so that they would, as you say, "clump". That's alot of propellant!! Some have suggested "nudging" coments and asteroids together, but to clump them, you would still need to change their orbits, wait a hundred years, and slow them down - which gets back to how the heck do you slow down the really heavy mass so that they stick together?

Answer 3

Well... Yes... ehmm...

One thing is to group asteroids and comets and another to clump planets. The don't clump. They fuse, melt together like a gelatin ball of lava.

The massive it gets, the faster it has to go around the Sun, or move it farther away.

Secondly, depending on the size you need to control the rotation or spin of the planet to create the acceleration (gravity if you will) so you weight the same.

Have fun "Q"

Picard out!

Answer 4

This is wonderfull idea! Just imagine if could expand the size of our tiny little planet.

On the downside though, it is believed that the dimensions of earth is perfect for the exixtence of life on it. if we made her any bigger, our atmosphere would be too close to the sun, and earth would fry like a tomato.

Just my opinion.

Answer 5

According to astonomers, that is how it all began. Now, all you have to do is figure out how and where you are going to begin, cause there are a lot of us that would like to see this.
Oh by the way, it took billions of years for the nine planets to be formed, so I think you better get cracking, cause you are really way behind schedule.!!

Answer 6

If we created bigger worlds then the force of gravity would begin to increase. big women would become even bigger and bigger until Jenny Craig replaced god as our main diety.DO NOT persue this madness !

Answer 7

The orbit is not to manage like a kitchen!

But the the principal idea is quite OK!

Answer 8

We would create bigger worlds. It would take a crap load of stuff tho.

Answer 9

That is how worlds are made, including earth.

Answer 10

Who is "we"?

Better include God in the job.