How would you go about destroying the Earth?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by monkspider
I would put several hundred pounds of TNT in the Moon's core so that it will collide into the Earth, knocking it into the Sun.

Actually the earth is a very resilient body and it survived the last big impact like that. The earth was originially formed 4.66 billion years ago (BYA) and some where between 4.4 to 4.3 BYA a Mars sized object colided with the earth causing the planet to remelt and forming the moon out of the debre field. This event also caused the earth to have a slight off axis tilt which is why we have seasons now.

We know the Earth had already solidified because the moon has the exact same composition as the earth's crust and is missing the heavier elements which are found in the earth mantel and core. We know the Earth remelted because the material from the Mars sized body "Mixed" with the existing Earth material and the only way you can do that is for the whole planet to melt. Lastly if you factor in the most likely angles the planetoid body would have come at the Earth (basically that would be either the plane the planets rotate in or a few degrees off) then you can figure out about how massive the body had to be to produce the level of tilt we see in the Earth.

[Combat Ingrid]

Slightly off-topic, it would be interesting to see the effects of detonating a big nuke at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, I guess it should create a BIG fountain

[The Mad Monk]

The only you'll find at the bottom of a subduction trench is sediments and water, and compacted sediments and water.

[The Mad Monk]

Now, what level of technology am I allowed for the project?

I mean, I could always hurl neutron stars accelerated to near c at it, and that would do the job pretty cleanly, but it hardly seems sporting...

[Lancer]

Oerdin, Mars sized object? It just blew through the solar system, hammered the earth, and kept on rolling?

Will the tilt of the earth ever flatten out, and end seasons? I guess it must have wobbled for a while, yes? If so, that flattened out...

[The Mad Monk]

The "Mars Sized Object" theory is the current favorite, but it didn't keep it rolling (according to theory) -- it was destroyed and ingested by the Earth and (forming) Moon.

[Richard Bruns]

Precision is always better than brute force. Spend some time studying the sun´s magnetosphere very closely, building up a comprehensive model of its actions and storing it in a supercomputer. Then send some neuton bombs to detonate at the right place and time, so as to create an enormous solar flare that enguls the planet and knocks it out of orbit. This would probably be feasable with current technology, and would probably only cost tens of billions of dollars, even if it would take 10 to 20 years to set up.

[Eli]

How would a solar flare knock Earth out of orbit?

[Richard Bruns]

Solar flares involve a lot of magnetic force, and if you got one big enough it could interact with the earth´s magnetic field and give enough boost to disrupt the orbit. It may take a few million years, but there certainly wouldn´t be anyone left alive to keep track of the time.

[Ribannah]

Re: How would you go about destroying the Earth?

Originally posted by loinburger
So? How would you do it?

Simple. By doing nothing.

[cia]

Mechanical Resonance.
Look it up under Tesla.
Crack this baby in under a month.

[Lancer]

By doing nothing the world will eventually be destroyed according to current scientific understanding. However, that takes the "you" out of the premise.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by loinburger
The two hunks of (anti)matter orbited around each other a few times, and eventually met at the center of the Earth

That can't happen. Once the anti-matter smacks at the crust it will produce an annihilation. The neutron star matter will blow a big hole on the crust like a big arse meteoroid

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Lancer
By doing nothing the world will eventually be destroyed according to current scientific understanding. However, that takes the "you" out of the premise.

It will happen a lot faster than that if I do nothing.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That can't happen. Once the anti-matter smacks at the crust it will produce an annihilation. The neutron star matter will blow a big hole on the crust like a big arse meteoroid

The idea in the book was that the anti-matter began to ablate as soon as it hit the atmosphere, but that the stuff was so heavy and dense that not even rolling around inside of the Earth for awhile could significantly decrease its size -- it would never find a similar mass of matter until it found its neutronium counterpart.