Energy to Blow Up a Planet - Calculations

[Avatar28]

Purpose of this thread:
To calculate the approximate energy (read: order of magnitude required) to "explode" any planet, given that we know the planet's mass and radius. Then, to use this formula to find the energy required to blow up a known planet, say the Earth.

Already been done here. Also if you want to play around, you can go to this page on the same site that has a calculator to let you plug in various values for size, density, etc

I think there is a flaw somewhere, after seeing what TNT does I'm fairly sure it can blow up more than 1/10th of it's mass..

yeah, something about that one doesn't seem right. Cool application of math, though.

No, those numbers are about right. You can use the Online Conversion site to calculate between different units for energy, mass, volume, distance, et al.

[gatelover12]

Your reasoning is faulty. The energy required to destroy a planet is less then the energy required to keep one together. Take away gravity and the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter would become a nebula. So, only a very small amount of thermal energy (the molecules must be moving) is required to destroy a planet.

[Arania]

Interesting site for those who want to start blowing planets into itty-bitty pieces-
How to destroy the Earth
Useful Data

Carries a few novel concepts and very sound ideas, along with a plethora of figures and facts.

Interestingly enough, to actually completely annihilate (That is, destroy the fundamental structure, turn into a debris/dust field) a planet, one has to overcome the gravitational binding energy of the planet. For Earth, MINIMUM energy required is 2.24*10^32 Joules, or somewhere in the range of a single 53 Yottaton blast (15 Orders of magnitude larger than the Mk 9 'Gatebuster', for comparison).
Spinspinspin was actually correct with the 10^32 J Energy figure in the first place

@gatelover12-
Sorry, but his reasoning is accurate. To destroy an object you need to overcome the total energy that is holding the system together, which, in the case of planets, is gravity. If seomthing has a tensile strength of 100 Newtons, a 50 Newton force wont break it, you need to exceed that 100 Newton barrier, which is basic physics. Of course, if one were to remove gravity, then every planet in the system would fall apart. Everything on the earth's equator would be flung outwards from centrifugal force, and the Earth would end up flying out of the system since gravity is no longer holding it there. Not only that, the sun would EXPLODE. Thats right, explode. Releasing AT LEAST 2.27*10^41 J of energy in the process, which is about 5 orders of magnitude higher than the energy required to destroy Jupiter. Remove gravity, and you can say bye bye to the solar system and everything in it.

[[SGC_ReplicÅtors]]

read a lot of uncertain things like earth is not spherical, density is not constant stuff like that a lot of variables...if i had the resources to blow a planet up....just compensate with all those variables with more explosive power

[Sparda]

Nice threat to mutch match for me though. ^^
Iff you wanna destoy the earth just shoot nukes c4 an Tnt takes 2 long.
You only need 2 nukes of a few megatons radiation does the rest for us. ^^

[Ace]

Next do the calculations for blowing up the solar system then we might get a fair idea of how much energy a ZPM contains.

Actually that energy output would only be half the energy a ZPM contains... if I remember correctly Dr. Lee stated the ZPM was only at 50% capacity. I believe it was Zero Hour

Ace

[spinspinspin]

read a lot of uncertain things like earth is not spherical, density is not constant stuff like that a lot of variables...if i had the resources to blow a planet up....just compensate with all those variables with more explosive power

Yes, the Earth is not spherical (and neither are most planets), and yes, density does varies. But my assumptions were valid since the goal of the calculation was to get the general order of magnitude of energy required. Even if only half the energy was required, then it would be like 1 x 10^32 J instead of 2.2 x 10^32 J. Hence my final answer was the energy would be something in the order of 10^32 J, not that it would take exactly "X" amount of energy to destroy a planet. It's just a rough estimate to get some idea of the amount of TNT, C4, or whatever would be needed.

And yes, it's probably something like the minimum energy required, compensating by adding lots more power is always fun! hehe

[Mister Oragahn]

Actually that energy output would only be half the energy a ZPM contains... if I remember correctly Dr. Lee stated the ZPM was only at 50% capacity. I believe it was Zero Hour

Ace

Indeed, and was corrected later on by Carter, who said that the ZPM would have destroyed the entire solar system.

If you to calculate this event, you have to remember that we're talking about an explosion that is going to start from Earth, not from the centre of the solar system.
Since it's off-axis, it's going to require even more energy to reach the other side of the system and still be powerful enough to destroy the farthest planet.
For moderate purposes, we should not include Sedna, but we'll keep Pluto, despite recent reclassification, since it's been part of the planetary charts for a such a long time.

I suppose that working from the basis of an expanding sphere of energy, guessing what's necessary to destroy the farthest planet, and recut this through the inverse square law, should get you to the necessary original amount of energy.

[Dutch_Razor]

Btw what about the gravity of all that C4 (ten times the mass of Earth)?

[PG15]

I'm guessing...ten times the gravity of Earth.