4 ms·
> to avoid the debris reassembling into a satellite would require an amount of energy larger than the Moon gravitational binding energy, estimated to be 1.2 × 1
by woopsn 2y ago
> to avoid the debris reassembling into a satellite would require an amount of energy larger than the Moon gravitational binding energy, estimated to be 1.2 × 10^29 J.[2][3][4] This equals a bit less than 600 billion 50-megaton nuclear bombs, such as the Tsar Bomba,[5][4][2][6] roughly equivalent to the full energy output by the Sun in six minutes
That's 33.33 quadrillion GWh. Or about two trillion times the annual energy consumption of Earth.
If we somehow harnessed windfall energy on that scale, hmmm what to do, what to do... let's blow up the moon!
There is no way to store or transport the energy though, it corresponds to hundreds of millions of tons of mass fused every second. Instead you would have to somehow beam or guide the full power of the sun towards the moon for several minutes. Pretty cool light show, for those who dare to look up... but don't miss!
- nullindividual 2y agoEven the Enterprise-D only outputs 6.8 x 10^19J from its phaser arrays. Looks like we’ll be waiting over 300 years for a single destructive device to destroy the Moon!
- throwup238 2y ago> Instead you would have to somehow beam or guide the full power of the sun towards the moon for several minutes. So what you're saying is... we need to build a Death Star.
- GolfPopper 2y agoNah, a sunbeam. (Courtesy of E.E. "Doc" Smith, Second Stage Lensmen, First serialized in Astounding," Nov 1941-Feb 1942.) Smith was the "trope-maker" for much of modern space-opera & SF. And as his stories went on, the scope of combat and forces involved just kept getting bigger. The Death Star is barely a capital ship by the standards of later Lensmen books, where a task force will regularly involve hundreds of immense ships, plantary masses worth of antimatter, and squadrons of armed and mobile planets. ("Starkiller Base" eat your heart out.) By the very end, exotic-matter planets were being used as ammunition.
- appplication 2y agoThat sounds like absolutely awesome world building.
- arethuza 2y agoIn the Xeelee Sequence humanity uses a neutron star as a missile to try and attack the Xeelee Ring - which is quite big (millions of light years across).