What would be the easiest way to OBLITERATE THE ENTIRE PLANET?

[Cheebsta]

Put a giant magnifying glass into orbit between the Earth and the sun.

[allmappedout]

Did you account for the Earth getting lighter thus requiring less energy each subsequent launch?

Plus you have the (il)logical conclusion that the railgun would have to fire itself to escape velocity

[tomf]

Did you account for the Earth getting lighter thus requiring less energy each subsequent launch?

Yes, the total gravitational binding energy of the earth is very similar to the fusion energy available in the oceans.

As for getting rid of the rail gun itself, you build a smaller one and use it to fire the pieces of the bigger into escape.

Or releasing a spring in the middle ought to generate enough force for the two halves to overcome their gravitational attraction.

[kahlzun]

Put a giant magnifying glass into orbit between the Earth and the sun.

Oddly enough, this would work quite well, but not for the reason you'd think.

If the concentration of energy was high enough to vaporise the surface where it touches, it would act like a giant plasma torch, giving a thrust to the side of the planet you aim at.

Over time, this would change the orbit quite drastically. If you fire it at the prograde side of our planet, we'd lose orbital velocity, and eventually collide with the sun.

[Asparagus Laboratories]

A large enough meteor with the right reentry angle could knock the Earth out of orbit.

[redwolfy]

how about plant 10 sets of twenty tsar size bombs near the bottom of the crust each at a different plate boundary, could do alot of damage and we could do it with our current tech.

[Pawelk198604]

Gamma-ray burst

[Mach56]

Gamma-ray burst

That would kill all life on the planet, but wouldn't destroy it.

Hmmm, perhaps a elegant way to do it is somehow to cancel all the gravity holding the earth together so that it would end up massless, and watch it spin apart in an ever expanding molten ring....

And how would you do that?

[stupid_chris]

Since the objective is to annihilate the planet, and not all life forms on it (even though most of the proposed ideas above would still leave some extremeophile life forms around almost certainly), probably none of those technique would work. If you really want to destroy a planet, you have to brute force it. That's why my primary idea was smashing it into Jupiter. Really, earth is ridiculously small compared to Jupiter. Actually, it will most likely be disassembled before even reaching it's surface due to gravitational tides. Really, that's one sure way to get it done. Crashing it into the sun is another viable idea, but that's way harder than reaching Jupiter honestly.

There's no simple ways to do it. Getting near to an object bigger and heavier is probably the best bet. There's no way we can gather enough energy ourselves to entirely destroy the planet.

[Kerbface]

But I've got to wonder, would the amount of energy needed to push the planet to Jupiter not be more than the energy needed to blow the planet up?

[Pawelk198604]

That would kill all life on the planet, but wouldn't destroy it.

And how would you do that?

Than black hole passing trough solar system:D

[Flixxbeatz]

Ask the guys at LHC to conjure a black hole large enough to rip the planet from the inside-out.

[MmPMSFmM]

We could make the earth a Venus copy by burning ALL burnable things we can get our hands on and cut down all the trees and burn them with the rest of the stuff... That would be destruction, but not obliteration.

[stupid_chris]

But I've got to wonder, would the amount of energy needed to push the planet to Jupiter not be more than the energy needed to blow the planet up?

If done very carefully, using a gravity assist around Venus (AKA give me your energy and get out of this solar system please), the Earth's orbit could push out to Jupiter's orbit, or really near to it. And that would require a lot less than going out to Jupiter on your own.

Actually, different techniques could be used to alter the EArth's. The faster you do it, the more energy you need. But some much slower ways could be very energy efficient. i.e. getting a large asteroid on periodical encounters with the Earth, altering it's orbit at each part. But the Orion aka "ol' boom boom" technique of a nuke under a tin can planet could also work. You just need a lot of nukes to alter a planet's orbit.

Crashing into Jupiter would most certainly completely destroy the Earth

And no, there is no way the LHC can create a black hole massive enough to destroy the Earth. Because you know, the term "massive" refers to mass, and the mass involved within the LHC are ridiculously small. The energy is great enough to theoretically create a mini micro black hole under the right conditions, but it wouldn't be stable enough to hold off for too long, and if it did, it would immediately plunge to Earth's core and get flung out at ludicrous speed.

[tomf]

Well I make the delta-v from earth's orbit to Jupiter to be at least 8km/sec so with an Orion ISP of 4300 it is going to take 1e24 kg of nuclear bombs to push to Jupiter orbit. Might be tricky, although it is probably still less energy than the piece by piece disassembly.

[The Jedi Master]

Kill all of Earth's velocity, it will fall into the sun.

[royalkingofgames]

Shoot yourself in the head,trust me its the easiest way to kill the planet,prove me wrong.

[stupid_chris]

Well I make the delta-v from earth's orbit to Jupiter to be at least 8km/sec so with an Orion ISP of 4300 it is going to take 1e24 kg of nuclear bombs to push to Jupiter orbit. Might be tricky, although it is probably still less energy than the piece by piece disassembly.

You have to consider that you wouldn't be using an actual Orion drive, just the technique. You wouldn't be firing an Orion drive pointing at the ground, but blowing up bombs repetitively over the surface of the planet. No idea what the ISP of that would be. Tsar bombs would probably be much more effective too. And the delta V to get to a close Venus intercept would probably be much much lower.

Kill all of Earth's velocity, it will fall into the sun.

That would require an insane amount of delta V.

[Tankbuster32]

If you could have a wormhole anchored with one end just after the big bang, and one end here and now, wouldn't the plasma destroy everything like a giant flamethrower?

Second method: somehow using gravitational pulses to drill to the nuclear-burning core of the sun. And then directing the fusing plasma towards the earth.

[Kerbface]

Shoot yourself in the head,trust me its the easiest way to kill the planet,prove me wrong.

Ah, you and your 1984 philosophy.

[Gatrnerd]

The easiest way would be von Neumann machines. Or a LHC accident.

[stupid_chris]

If you could have a wormhole anchored with one end just after the big bang, and one end here and now, wouldn't the plasma destroy everything like a giant flamethrower?

Second method: somehow using gravitational pulses to drill to the nuclear-burning core of the sun. And then directing the fusing plasma towards the earth.

Drilling the sun? It's not a solid. The sun is totally fulid. Not only wouldn't you be able to get any "drilling equipment" to the sun that it would melt before, but that's also something imposible to do.

Also, teach me on how to create a wormhole.

The easiest way would be von Neumann machines. Or a LHC accident.

An LHC accident wouldn't do much honestly, nothing destructive for sure.

[tomf]

The only think LHC accidents do is waste large quantities of liquid helium, which as a buyer of helium really annoys me. Do you know how expensive that stuff is?

[Kerbface]

The only think LHC accidents do is waste large quantities of liquid helium, which as a buyer of helium really annoys me. Do you know how expensive that stuff is?

We'll just send the Earth to Jupiter, it'll be a lot cheaper there.

[karolus10]

Well... why anybody would want to destroy entire planet in the first place ? It's a bit overkill for me.