Planet Buster weapons?

[AndrewW]

Alien Module 3: Darrians has some antimatter torpedoes at TL17.

Yep, but their maximum damage is 12d6 = 72, worlds below what would
be required to do significant damage to a planet sized object.

One that size wouldn't be useful in this situation, just mentioning it as a starting point in terms of an antimatter weapon reference.

 

[Solomani666]

Did you take into account that a sizable chunk the crust might be ejected into space, followed by a good portion of the molten core also being ejected to into the atmosphere/space under pressure, leaving a partially hollow core which then causes the crust to implode due to gravitational forces like a hollow egg shell? Hmmm?...

If you assume an explosion in a depth of 100 km and an explosion cone
directed upwards from there, the "sizeable chunk" would still be only a
tiny percentage of the planet's volume, and I see no reason at all why
any part of the molten core should be ejected, because the explosion
would happen above almost 100 % of that molten core. The result could
be a major earthquake on the hemisphere where the explosion happens,
but overall it would remain far below the level of destruction caused by,
for example, the cretaceous impact which ended the age of the dinosaurs
with its ca. 100 teratonnes of TNT equivalent (more than 10,000 times the
power of the AM warhead).

* The blast is spherical.

* Volcanoes explode because the earths core is under tremendous pressure.

* Krakatoa exploded with the equivalent energy of a 200 megaton blast and ejected 21 cubic kilometers of rock and dust into the atmosphere.
This was the result of releasing only a tiny, tiny bit of the Earths core pressure in a tiny region of the earth.

What do you think the results would be of you had a boms powerful enough to split open a fault line?


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[DFW]

What do you think the results would be of you had a boms powerful enough to split open a fault line?


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Probably lots of large lava flows. Volcanoes explode because of trapped gas that builds up under a lave plug, NOT because the Earth's core is under pressure.

 

[Solomani666]

The temperature of the inner core can be estimated using experimental and theoretical constraints on the melting temperature of impure iron at the pressure (about 330 GPa) of the inner core boundary, yielding estimates of 5,700 K (5,430 °C; 9,800 °F). The range of pressure in Earth's inner core is about 330 to 360 gigapascals (3,300,000 to 3,600,000 atm), and iron can only be solid at such high temperatures because its melting temperature increases dramatically at these high pressures.


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[DFW]

The temperature of the inner core can be estimated using experimental and theoretical constraints on the melting temperature of impure iron at the pressure (about 330 GPa) of the inner core boundary, yielding estimates of 5,700 K (5,430 °C; 9,800 °F). The range of pressure in Earth's inner core is about 330 to 360 gigapascals (3,300,000 to 3,600,000 atm), and iron can only be solid at such high temperatures because its melting temperature increases dramatically at these high pressures..

Yes, that is known. (good cut-n-paste) But as I stated, this isn't the reason for volcanoes exploding. So, you'd just get large flows if you cracked the crust. You can see remnants on other planets in the solar system that had these types of flows.

 

[rust]

What do you think the results would be of you had a boms powerful enough to split open a fault line?

Thanks to plate tectonics the Earth has several equivalents of open fault
lines where material from the core forms new crust. There are also many
permanently active volcanoes. The result in such cases is a lava flow, not
any kind of explosion.

Krakatoa exploded with the equivalent energy of a 200 megaton blast and ejected 21 cubic kilometers of rock and dust into the atmosphere.

The volume of the Earth is about 1,083,210,000,000 cubic kilometers, so
those 21 cubic kilometers are neither very impressive nor did they cause
any real damage to the planet.

 

[zero]

Ok, thanks for the insight, looks like I'll be dropping this idea from my games.

Btw, I'm building my first Capital ship and enjoying the ease of building it, its a 10,000 dton ship and lined to death with Railguns and Missile Launcher Bays 8)

It wont be cracking planets but it is made of awesome seeing as I have kept to ships around 100 dtons

 

[BP]

Good call - also leaves a lot of room for 'kicking things up a notch' without running out of reality.

When it comes to 'EPIC' , all things are relative - a planet exploding is nothing against even a moderate solar flare that happens all the time - which is even less than nothing against a super nova... etc.

However, if you want cinematic - spinal weps should provide plenty.

They would be quite spectacular in atmo - slagging ground installations (fuel depots for added effect), vaporizing acres of water - tornado force winds whipping all matter of debris about following the thunderous supersonic boom of a collapsing plasma tunnel bored through the air...

Humans are small in the relative scheme of things. Try mapping out that 'mere' 10,000 ton starship - then imagine it 100 times bigger. Then do the math on how many such ships would fit in an object the size of one of the Great Lakes. Then look at a view of that lake from space.

 

[alex_greene]

Remember that execrable movie Independence Day? The mother ship was a quarter the mass of the Moon. And yet the species insisted on sending down those big saucer ships to do its work.

All they really needed to do was to just settle into a really nice, tight orbit of the Earth, and let its mass, and the resulting tidal forces, wreak havoc on those tectonic faults.

Just a little bit. Just enough to shake the cities of Man to corduroy.

 

[locarno24]

Yeah - and we have some decent theories which provide conceptual ways of triggering a star to destroy itself - so, for Sci-Fi it has a higher degree of 'believability' over destroying a planet.

Of course, if one actually does the math assuming a trigger/catalyst the numbers become overwhelming - stars being so big... bigger than that... keep going...

But, at least a star is a dynamic, fluid system, bursting with stored and released energy (with some avoidance of neutron stars...).

Frankly that's the easiest way to destroy the planet. Obliterate the star it's orbiting and have done with it.....

Given the proven space-distorting abilities of the 3I, something akin to the Night's Dawn series Alchemist Weapon isn't impossible.

 

[rust]

Remember that execrable movie Independence Day?

Never expect any kind of logic in an Emmerich movie, he assumes that
people turn off their brains when viewing one of his films and pay for it
per explosion. :lol:

 

[zero]

Question - something relating to Cstars - if Pluto was flung into Saturn at such a force to make it a second sun (just handwave if impossible), what will that do to the temperatures and general states of the other planets and moons?

 

[Beastttt]

it did cause the yr without a summer
10 or 20 of these and the planet might have a nuclear winter

What do you think the results would be of you had a boms powerful enough to split open a fault line?

Thanks to plate tectonics the Earth has several equivalents of open fault
lines where material from the core forms new crust. There are also many
permanently active volcanoes. The result in such cases is a lava flow, not
any kind of explosion.

Krakatoa exploded with the equivalent energy of a 200 megaton blast and ejected 21 cubic kilometers of rock and dust into the atmosphere.

The volume of the Earth is about 1,083,210,000,000 cubic kilometers, so
those 21 cubic kilometers are neither very impressive nor did they cause
any real damage to the planet.

 

[Beastttt]

What about those tidal forces when applied to the mothership

Remember that execrable movie Independence Day? The mother ship was a quarter the mass of the Moon. And yet the species insisted on sending down those big saucer ships to do its work.

All they really needed to do was to just settle into a really nice, tight orbit of the Earth, and let its mass, and the resulting tidal forces, wreak havoc on those tectonic faults.

Just a little bit. Just enough to shake the cities of Man to corduroy.

 

[rust]

Question - something relating to Cstars - if Pluto was flung into Saturn at such a force to make it a second sun (just handwave if impossible), what will that do to the temperatures and general states of the other planets and moons?

Sorry, but no matter how hard you would fling Pluto into Saturn, it would
not turn Saturn into a star, Saturn is much too small for this.

The smallest currently known star has approximately 100 times the mass
of Jupiter (ca. 330 times the mass of Saturn), with significantly less mass
the core cannot reach the density required for nuclear fusion.

 

[rust]

it did cause the yr without a summer
10 or 20 of these and the planet might have a nuclear winter

True, but while this would be unpleasant for the planet's biosphere, it
would not damage the planet in any way.

 

[Solomani666]

Question - something relating to Cstars - if Pluto was flung into Saturn at such a force to make it a second sun (just handwave if impossible), what will that do to the temperatures and general states of the other planets and moons?

Nothing. 2010: A Space Odyssey.


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[BP]

Question - something relating to Cstars - if Pluto was flung into Saturn at such a force to make it a second sun (just handwave if impossible), what will that do to the temperatures and general states of the other planets and moons?

What is it you are trying to achieve?

As rust points out - the 'handwave' equates to pure fantasy... the stellar furnaces 'burn' at the behest of gravity and that means mass.

For a short time, compression of matter into a restricted space can ignite the fires, but without the mass to provide the appropriate gravity to counteract the release of energy, the energy created will push the artificial star apart...

 

[locarno24]

The smallest currently known star has approximately 100 times the mass of Jupiter (ca. 330 times the mass of Saturn), with significantly less mass the core cannot reach the density required for nuclear fusion.

You could, in theory, create 'fake' mass - that's essentially what a gravetic M-Drive does, albeit on a pretty small scale*. A fusing star can be any size if you've got a sufficiently heavy point mass at the centre (which with something the size of a gas giant probably means something like a small neutronium core)

As to the effect of a second sun - over to the stellar physicists...

* or not, when you think about it - 6G thrust means that space is, at least locally, being curved as is a planet 6 times the mass of the earth is directly in front of you...

 

[Iron Domokun]

I recall a Larry Niven novel in which Neptune was fitted with an enormous engine and used to tow Earth further away from the Sun (which had expanded after having fused most of its hydrogen). (The engine relied on Neptune's atmosphere for fuel and to absorb the shock of firing, it floated in the atmosphere in some way I don't recall). I don't recall the exact details, but the hero returns to Earth after going on a long trip (to the core of the Galaxy at relativistic speeds, to be exact) and finds it's in the wrong place when he gets home. Much ado as the hero figures out what's been happening in the millions of years since he left.

Anyway, such a planet-used-as-gravity-towtruck idea could be used to destroy a planet by pulling it into an orbit which will cause it to hit the star.

Or just have a Vogon constructor fleet show up. "There are a number of yellow, brick shaped starships in orbit around the planet..."