Direct continuation of Death Star Part III: Easier Ways to Entirely Destroy A Planet

Recap:

• In Part I, we learned that a Death Star requires 3.737×10³² joules to completely destroy a planet.
• In Part II, we learned that to power this enormous energy cost with methods currently known, we would need 4,152,222,222,222,222kg of antimatter or a series of wormholes connecting the device to a location networking Dyson Spheres surrounding suns or black holes that generate energy equivalent to 5,376 copies of Earth’s sun.
• In Part III, we learned that destroying the Earth through alternative methods is also pretty hard, but accelerating the moon to crash into the earth at 78,092.9m/s or physically moving the Earth to the Sun and getting it engulfed seems to be the top two plans.

Today, we look at these two plans in depth, and figure out how to move large celestial bodies using known physics.

Reminder: We are looking for methods that use physics already known to science, not methods that involve plot-specific technologies like hypermatter or The Force. Also, we do not need the plan to be feasible using the modern economy, because no plan will. It just needs to be physically possible. Additionally, the plan needs to completely destroy the Earth so that it can no longer be qualified as a planet, because that’s what the Sith want.

First, pushing the Earth into the Sun (or some other place hot, like Jupiter) is the most efficient manner of destroying it because you don’t have to push it anywhere fast. Whereas using the same methods to crash the Moon into the Earth requires a certain speed — 78092.9m/s to be exact — which is fast. With Earthmoving, we can choose nearly any pace we want. Actually, we can just produce enough gravity to stop orbital kinetics and let the Sun’s gravity take care of the rest.

That’s not to say this will be easy, of course.

A couple of problems:

1. The Earth is very big.
2. The Earth is already moving very fast.
3. #1 and #2 make it very hard to slow down the Earth, let alone move it elsewhere.

Still, there are some methods that will move the Earth anywhere you want. They’ll require large amounts of energy of course, but hopefully less amounts of energy than the amount you’d need to obliterate the Earth through direct energy transfer.

Rockets!

For the first plan, we’re trying to push the Earth into the sun by attacking large rockets to its surface. And by large, I mean… like the size of France. You also have to take special care to make sure the rockets don’t quickly drill themselves through the astronomical body, and may have to dig them out or build new ones after several centuries of thrust. And of course, you’re slightly encumbered by the fact that no one has any idea even how to build these rockets, let alone if they will work.

And then, of course, the object your moving is still spinning so you’re going to need to network your thrusters to constantly push in the correct direction. And also, you won’t be able to use your entire network of thrusters at once, or you won’t be going anywhere but squish.

The good news, however, is if the revolving the object is doing is annoying, the angular kinetic energy of that object is small in comparison, so you’d only have to divert a very small amount of energy to stop the object from spinning before moving the Earth.

Lastly, we probably should know how much thrust we need. The good news is that if we want to hurl the Earth into the Sun, we just need to cancel all the orbital kinetic energy the Earth has, and let the Sun’s gravity do the rest. The bad news is the orbital kinetic energy is 2.6488×10³³ joules, which if you don’t speak numbers — is still a lot. So we’ll be thrusting for awhile.

The good news about destroying the Earth is that we can be very careless with what the Earth will look like or what will happen to the surface during the move, since it’s going to be destroyed anyway. Most life on the planet will be dead before the planet even gets boiled by the Sun.

Chain Asteroids!

This one takes a lot of time — thousands of years. Start with an asteroid about 100km wide — which is more than five times larger than the usual killer asteroid that comes near Earth, but normal for the asteroid belt or the Kuiper Belt. You attach retrorockets to it and control and alter its course so it passes by Earth. And by passes, we’ll be bringing it just outside the limits of the atmosphere. This puts it about 120km above the surface of the Earth.

The trick is in the equal and opposite reaction — the Earth will use its gravity to pull the asteroid toward it, but the asteroid will use its small amount of gravity to tug the Earth just a very small amount. Channel the asteroid back around Jupiter and have it regain orbital energy from slingshotting around the gas giant. Repeat. Possibly with a chain of hundreds of asteroids until Earth is where it needs to be. Each rock should get to Earth every 6,000 years or so.

Given the universal gravitation equation F = (GMm)/R² we can find the force the asteroid puts forth on the Earth. In the equation, F is the force of attraction between two objects, G is the universal gravitational constant which is 6.67*10^-11, M and m are the masses of the two objects, and R is the distance between the objects as measured from their centers.

Plugging in the variables, we have F as what we’re looking for when we solve everything, G as a constant, M (The Earth) as 5.9742×10²⁴kg, m (the asteroid) as 5.34×10¹⁹kg (average for an asteroid 100km long), and R as the distance of the asteroid from surface of the Earth (120km) plus the radius of the Earth (because R is center-to-center distance) which is 6378.1km, plus the radius of the asteroid which is negligible and variable. Put that together and we get F = [(6.67*10^-11)(5.9742×10²⁴)(120)]/(6498.1)². That adds up to a force of about 1.132×10⁹ newtons per asteroid.

How far will each asteroid move the Earth? I don’t know how to figure it out from a formula standpoint, but I’ve heard a couple of kilometers… like say five. How far do we need to go? It’s about 150 million km to the Sun. So as a vague estimate based on overly rounded numbers and hearsay, you’ll need 30 million passes. Better start now.

It’s also feasible because Space.com says so.

Wormholes!

It’s a cop out answer, but it’s also scientifically possible. Not feasible, of course, but it’s a good ending note. Find a way to not only create an artificial wormhole, which is really hard to do; and not only a stable artificial wormhole, which is still not even proven to be possible; but a stable artificial wormhole large enough to fit the Earth through, and a connecting wormhole near the Earth. This would be similar to channeling the Earth through science fiction hyperdrive, but with a small inkling of working within known physics.

Solar Sails!

Additionally, an honourable mention for a method that had insufficient data available to make a feasibility conclusion — solar sails. Like very, very, large suspended from a space elevator solar sails. Place the solar sail against the sun and you can blow up the Earth via tidal forces via the Roche limit.

That’s all! Say good bye to your planet!

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