Five experiments that could destroy the earth. Can man destroy life on the planet? Simultaneous disappearance of atoms

A lot of information is written and shown that our planet will soon come to an end. But I assure you, destroying the Earth is not so easy.
The planet has already been subjected to asteroid attacks, and will survive a nuclear war. So let's look at some ways to destroy the Earth.

The Earth weighs 5.9736·1024 kg and is already 4.5 billion years old.

1. The earth may simply cease to exist

You don't even need to do anything. Some scientists have suggested that one day all the countless atoms that make up the Earth will suddenly spontaneously and most importantly, simultaneously, cease to exist. In fact, the odds of this happening are about a googolplex to one. And the technology that makes it possible to send so much active matter into oblivion is unlikely to ever be invented.

2. Will be absorbed by strangelets

All you need is a stable strangelet. Take control of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and use it to create and maintain stable strangelets. Keep them stable until they get out of control and turn the entire planet into a mass of strange quarks. True, it is incredibly difficult to maintain strangelets stable (if only because no one has yet discovered these particles), but with a creative approach, everything is possible. A number of media outlets some time ago spoke about this danger and that this is exactly what they are doing now in New York, but in reality the chances that a stable strangelet will ever be formed are almost zero. But if this happens, then in place of the Earth there will only be a huge ball of “strange” matter.

3. Will be swallowed up by a microscopic black hole

You'll need a microscopic black hole. Please note that black holes are not eternal, they evaporate under the influence of Hawking radiation. For medium-sized black holes, this requires an unimaginable amount of time, but for very small ones this will happen almost instantly: the evaporation time depends on the mass. Therefore, a black hole suitable for destroying a planet should weigh approximately the same as Mount Everest. It’s difficult to create one, because you need a certain amount of neutronium, but you can try to get by with a huge number of atomic nuclei compressed together. Then you need to place a black hole on the surface of the Earth and wait. The density of black holes is so high that they pass through ordinary matter like a rock through air, so our hole will fall through the Earth, making its way through its center to the other side of the planet: the hole will scurry back and forth like a pendulum. In the end, it will, having absorbed enough matter, stop at the center of the Earth and “eat up” the rest. The probability of such a turn of events is very small. But it is no longer impossible. And in the place of the Earth, a tiny object will remain, which will begin to revolve around the Sun, as if nothing had happened.

4. Explode as a result of the reaction of matter and antimatter

We will need 2,500,000,000,000 antimatter - perhaps the most “explosive” substance in the Universe. It can be produced in small quantities using any large particle accelerator, but it will take a long time to collect the required amount. You can come up with an appropriate mechanism, but it is much easier, of course, to simply “turn over” 2.5 tril. tons of matter through the fourth dimension, turning it into antimatter in one fell swoop. The result will be a huge bomb that will immediately tear the Earth into pieces. How difficult is this to implement? The gravitational energy of the planetary mass (M) and radius (P) are given by the formula E=(3/5)GM2/R. As a result, the Earth will need approximately 224 * 1010 joules. The sun produces this much for almost a week. To release so much energy, all 2.5 trils must be destroyed at the same time. tons of antimatter - provided that the loss of heat and energy is zero, and this is unlikely to happen, so the amount will have to be increased tenfold. And if you still managed to get so much antimatter, all that remains is to simply launch it towards the Earth. As a result of the release of energy (the familiar law E = mc2), the Earth will scatter into thousands of pieces. In this place there will be an asteroid belt that will continue to revolve around the Sun. By the way, if you start producing antimatter right now, taking into account modern technologies, by the year 2500 we can just finish the year.

5. Will be destroyed by vacuum energy detonation

Don't be surprised: we will need light bulbs. Modern scientific theories say that what we call a vacuum cannot, in fact, rightfully be called that, because particles and antiparticles are constantly being created and destroyed in colossal quantities in it. This approach also implies that the space contained in any light bulb contains enough vacuum energy to boil any ocean on the planet. Consequently, vacuum energy may be one of the most accessible types of energy. All you have to do is figure out how to extract it from light bulbs and use it in, say, a power plant (which is pretty easy to get into without raising suspicion), trigger the reaction, and let it get out of control. As a result, the released energy will be enough to destroy everything on planet Earth, possibly along with the Sun. In place of the Earth, a rapidly expanding cloud of particles of different sizes will appear. Of course, there is a probability of such a turn of events, but it is very small.

6. Sucked into a giant black hole

A black hole, extremely powerful rocket engines, and possibly a large rocky planetary body are needed. The closest black hole to our planet is located at a distance of 1,600 light years in the constellation Sagittarius, in orbit V4641. Everything is simple here - you just need to place the Earth and the black hole closer to each other. There are two ways to do this: either move the Earth in the direction of the hole, or the hole towards the Earth, but it is more effective, of course, to move both at once. This is very difficult to implement, but it is definitely possible. In place of the Earth there will be part of the mass of the black hole. The disadvantage is that it will take a very long time until technologies arise that allow this to be done. Definitely not earlier than the year 3000, plus travel time - 800 years.

7. Carefully and systematically deconstructed

You will need a powerful electromagnetic catapult (ideally several) and access to approximately 2 * 1032 joules. Next you need to take a large piece of the Earth at a time and launch it beyond the Earth's orbit. And so over and over again launch all 6 sextillion tons. An electromagnetic catapult is a kind of huge-sized electromagnetic rail gun proposed several years ago for mining and transporting cargo from the Moon to Earth. The principle is simple - load the material into the catapult and shoot it in the right direction. To destroy the Earth, you need to use a particularly powerful model to give the object an escape velocity of 11 km/s. Alternative methods for throwing material into space involve space shuttles or a space elevator. The problem is that they require a titanic amount of energy. It would also be possible to build a Dyson sphere, but technology will probably allow this to be done in about 5000 years. In principle, the process of ejecting matter from the planet can begin right now, humanity has already sent a lot of useful and not so useful objects into space, so after a certain moment, no one will even notice anything. Instead of the Earth, in the end there will be many small pieces, some of which will fall on the Sun, and the rest will end up in all corners of the solar system. Oh yes. The implementation of the project, taking into account the ejection of a billion tons per second from the Earth, will take 189 million years.

8. Will fall to pieces when hit by a blunt object

It would take a colossal heavy stone and something to push it. In principle, Mars would be fine. The point is that there is nothing that cannot be destroyed if you hit it hard enough. Nothing at all. The concept is simple: find a very, very large asteroid or planet, give it mind-blowing speed and smash it into the Earth. The result will be that the Earth, like the object that hit it, will cease to exist - it will simply disintegrate into several large pieces. If the impact was strong enough and accurate, then the energy from it would be enough for new objects to overcome mutual attraction and never gather into a planet again. The minimum permissible speed for an “impact” object is 11 km/s, so provided that the energy loss no, our object should have a mass of approximately 60% of the Earth's. Mars weighs approximately 11% of the Earth's mass, but Venus, the closest planet to Earth, by the way, already weighs 81% of the Earth's mass. If you accelerate Mars more strongly, then it will also be suitable, but Venus is already an almost ideal candidate for this role. The greater the speed of an object, the less mass it can have. For example, an asteroid weighing 10*104, launched at 90% of the speed of light, will be just as effective. Quite plausible. Instead of the Earth, there will be pieces of rock approximately the size of the Moon, scattered throughout the solar system.

9. Absorbed by a von Neumann machine

All that is needed is a von Neumann machine - a device that can create a copy of itself from minerals. Build one that will run solely on iron, magnesium, aluminum or silicon - basically, the main elements found in the Earth's mantle or core. The size of the device does not matter - it can reproduce itself at any time. Then you need to lower the machines under the earth's crust and wait until two machines create two more, these create eight more, and so on. As a result, the Earth will be swallowed up by a crowd of von Neumann machines, and they can be sent to the Sun using pre-prepared rocket boosters. This is such a crazy idea that it might even work. The Earth will turn into a large piece, gradually absorbed by the Sun. By the way, such a machine could potentially be will be created in 2050 or even earlier.

10. Thrown into the Sun

Special technologies will be needed to move the Earth. The point is to throw the Earth into the Sun. However, ensuring such a collision is not so easy, even if you do not set yourself the goal of hitting the planet exactly on the “target”. It is enough for the Earth to be close to it, and then tidal forces will tear it apart. The main thing is to prevent the Earth from entering an elliptical orbit. With our level of technology this is impossible, but someday people will come up with a way. Or an accident could happen: an object would appear out of nowhere and push the Earth in the right direction. And what will remain of our planet is a small ball of evaporating iron, gradually sinking into the Sun. There is some probability that something similar will happen in 25 years: previously, astronomers have already noticed suitable asteroids in space moving towards the Earth. But if we ignore the random factor, then at the current level of technology development, humanity will become capable of this no earlier than the year 2250.

The modern era has brought us one of the most terrible inventions in the entire history of mankind - the atomic bomb. This harnesses the power of physics, releasing enormous amounts of energy from a relatively small amount of mass. This small mass of charge creates an incomprehensible fire, a blast wave, and radiation. All this poses a threat to humanity in the form of the death of millions and diseases associated with exposure to radiation.

So it has long been a known fact that in the event of massive explosions of nuclear bombs on the planet, humanity could die. But can our planet die from a massive nuclear explosion? In fact, there are no military resources on the planet that could destroy the entire Earth, which rotates as a sphere around the Sun. Let us remind you that the diameter of our planet is 12,742 kilometers. Such a huge sphere cannot be destroyed by the entire nuclear arsenal that is on our planet. Here are technical explanations from famous physicists.

Recently, physicists (astrophysicists) were asked what the limits of destruction are for nuclear weapons available on our planet. Scientists were also asked how many nuclear bombs would be needed to dislodge the Earth from its orbit around the Sun. Among other things, physicists were asked a more important question: what consequences await the Earth if all the nuclear weapons on our planet are detonated?

Konstantin Yurievich Batygin

Astronomer, astrophysicist

- In principle, to displace the Earth from its orbit, you just need to stop its movement. Then it will begin to fall in space.
The Earth's kinetic energy (the energy of the Earth orbiting the Sun) is equal to half the Earth's mass times its orbital speed, which is about 10 40 ergs. (Erg / Ergs - unit of energy)
During the test (Starfish Prime), one of the most powerful American nuclear bombs released an energy of 10 22 erg (1 megaton of TNT).
Taking these data, we can calculate how many nuclear bombs need to be detonated simultaneously to stop the rotation of our planet. You will find that you will need 600,000,000,000,000,000 nuclear warheads with a yield comparable to the bomb that was detonated by the Americans in a test called Starfish Prime.

Luke Dones

Senior Researcher, South-West Research Institute USA

- Kinetic energy of the Earth in its orbit:

E = ½ mv 2 = ½ (6 x 10 24 kg) * (30,000 m/s) 2 or approximately 3 10 33 J, where m- mass of the Earth, v- its speed around the Sun.
The energy of a 1-megaton bomb is E bomb = 4 10 15 J.

To knock the Earth out of orbit and send it flying towards the Sun, for example, you would need to change the Earth's energy in orbit by a significant portion of its current energy, so you would need approximately E/E bomb = (3 x 10 33) / (4 x 10 15 ) nuclear bombs, or approximately 10 18 megatons of nuclear charges, i.e. a billion billion large atomic bombs.

Janine Krippner

Volcanologist

- If the largest and most explosive volcanic eruptions on Earth did not send our planet towards the Sun, then it is rather doubtful that humanity will ever have so many atomic bombs capable of, with their energy and a simultaneous explosion, knocking planet Earth out of orbit, sending it directly towards To the sun.
For example, on our planet there were volcanic eruptions that released enormous energy, comparable to hundreds and even thousands of nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima. Moreover, these volcanic eruptions do not take into account the incredibly enormous energy that volcanoes such as Yellowstone or Taupo occasionally emit.

Alan Robock

Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, USA

- I have no experience in calculating the nuclear energy required to change planetary orbits. But despite this, I will immediately say that this is impossible. We do not have enough atomic bombs on our planet that would be capable of sending our Earth to travel across the expanses of the Universe in a new orbit.

However, I have experience and knowledge of how the use of nuclear weapons in war can change the climate of our Earth.

So, if a nuclear war breaks out, then, naturally, the first strikes of atomic bombs will fall on the industrial areas (cities, towns) of the warring countries. As a result of the explosion of atomic bombs, incredible fires will begin. Smoke from the fires will rise into the stratosphere and will change for years.

As the smoke rises into the stratosphere, it will block the sun's rays from reaching the planet and twilight will fall on Earth. At the same time, the destruction of the ozone layer will begin, which will lead to a large amount of UV rays penetrating the Earth's surface.

How the climate and the amount of incoming ultraviolet radiation will change will depend on the number of nuclear explosions on the planet, their targets and how powerful atomic weapons will be used.

By the way, it has already been calculated that a war between the United States and Russia will lead to a nuclear winter, killing most of the agriculture on the entire Earth, as a result of which most people on the planet will face hunger. Moreover, this theory was recently confirmed by calculations by scientists in a number of countries.

But even a war between two new small nuclear powers, such as India and Pakistan, could also lead to climate change unprecedented in human history, the threat of which would be widespread famine across the planet.

Dr. Laura Grego

Scientist working on global issues of planetary security

- If you think about what nuclear weapons are and what they are intended for, you become uneasy. Even one atomic bomb can cause incredible destruction and a huge number of casualties. It's horrible. Especially considering the number of nuclear weapons on our planet today. For example, the United States and Russia currently possess the vast majority of nuclear weapons on the planet. Each of these countries could quickly deploy about 2,000 nuclear weapons for military action. Another 2000 are available for storage.

Every fifth person on the planet lives in one of the 436 cities with a population of more than one million people. Therefore, a significant portion of the world's population could be destroyed using less than half of the nuclear bombs owned by just one country.

But even a nuclear conflict on a much smaller scale can have devastating consequences. For example, a conflict between India and Pakistan could turn into a nuclear war between them, in which nuclear bombs with the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima would be used to strike the cities of these countries. As a result of this, about 20 million people will be destroyed in a short time.

And smoke from fires after the explosion of atomic bombs in the cities of these countries will be transferred into the atmosphere of the planet, which is why we will face climate change and acidic conditions for decades.

This will lead to mass famine, leaving a billion or more people at risk of going completely without food.

So, as you can see, just storing nuclear missiles is terrible. Probably, the moment has long come when it is time for nuclear powers to take real steps to reduce nuclear weapons on the planet. After all, storing nuclear warheads is a time bomb.

A lot of information is written and shown that our planet will soon come to an end. But destroying the Earth is not so easy. The planet has already been subjected to asteroid attacks, and will survive a nuclear war. So let's look at some ways to destroy the Earth.

The Earth weighs 5.9736·1024 kg and is already 4.5 billion years old.

1. The earth may simply cease to exist

2. Will be absorbed by strangelets

A number of media outlets talked about this danger some time ago and that this is exactly what is being done now in New York, but in reality the chances that a stable strangelet will ever be formed are almost zero.

But if this happens, then in place of the Earth there will only be a huge ball of “strange” matter.

3. Will be swallowed up by a microscopic black hole

Then you need to place a black hole on the surface of the Earth and wait. The density of black holes is so high that they pass through ordinary matter like a rock through air, so our hole will fall through the Earth, making its way through its center to the other side of the planet: the hole will scurry back and forth like a pendulum. Eventually, having absorbed enough matter, it will stop at the center of the Earth and “eat up” the rest.

The likelihood of such a turn of events is very low. But it’s no longer impossible.

And in place of the Earth there will be a tiny object that will begin to revolve around the Sun as if nothing had happened.

4. Explode as a result of the reaction of matter and antimatter

How difficult is it to implement? The gravitational energy of the planetary mass (M) and radius (P) are given by the formula E=(3/5)GM2/R. As a result, the Earth will need approximately 224 * 1010 joules. The sun produces this amount for almost a week.

To release that much energy, all 2.5 trils must be destroyed at once. tons of antimatter - provided that the loss of heat and energy is zero, and this is unlikely to happen, so the amount will have to be increased tenfold. And if you still managed to get so much antimatter, all that remains is to simply launch it towards the Earth. As a result of the release of energy (the familiar law E = mc2), the Earth will shatter into thousands of pieces.

In this place there will be an asteroid belt that will continue to revolve around the Sun.

By the way, if you start producing antimatter right now, then given modern technologies, you can just finish it by the year 2500.

5. Will be destroyed by vacuum energy detonation

A rapidly expanding cloud of particles of different sizes will appear in place of the Earth.

Of course, there is a possibility of such a turn of events, but it is very small.

6. Sucked into a giant black hole

A black hole, extremely powerful rocket engines, and possibly a large rocky planetary body are needed. The closest black hole to our planet is located 1,600 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius, in orbit V4641.

Everything is simple here - you just need to place the Earth and the black hole closer to each other. There are two ways to do this: either move the Earth in the direction of the hole, or the hole towards the Earth, but it is more effective, of course, to move both at once.

This is very difficult to implement, but definitely possible. In place of the Earth there will be part of the mass of the black hole.

The disadvantage is that it takes a very long time for technology to emerge that allows this to be done. Definitely not earlier than the year 3000, plus travel time - 800 years.

7. Carefully and systematically deconstructed

You will need a powerful electromagnetic catapult (ideally several) and access to approximately 2 * 1032 joules.

Next, you need to take a large piece of the Earth at a time and launch it beyond the Earth's orbit. And so over and over again launch all 6 sextillion tons. An electromagnetic catapult is a kind of huge-sized electromagnetic rail gun proposed several years ago for mining and transporting cargo from the Moon to Earth. The principle is simple - load the material into the catapult and shoot it in the right direction. To destroy the Earth, you need to use a particularly powerful model to give the object a cosmic speed of 11 km/s.

Alternative methods for throwing material into space involve the space shuttle or space elevator. The problem is that they require a titanic amount of energy. It would also be possible to build a Dyson sphere, but technology will probably allow this to be done in about 5,000 years.

In principle, the process of throwing matter out of the planet can begin right now; humanity has already sent a lot of useful and not so useful objects into space, so until a certain moment no one will even notice anything.

Instead of the Earth, in the end there will be many small pieces, some of which will fall on the Sun, and the rest will end up in all corners of the solar system.

Oh yes. The implementation of the project, taking into account the ejection of a billion tons per second from the Earth, will take 189 million years.

8. Will fall to pieces when hit by a blunt object

It would take a colossal heavy stone and something to push it. In principle, Mars is quite suitable.

The point is that there is nothing that cannot be destroyed if you hit it hard enough. Nothing at all. The concept is simple: find a very, very large asteroid or planet, give it mind-blowing speed and smash it into the Earth. The result will be that the Earth, like the object that hit it, will cease to exist - it will simply disintegrate into several large pieces. If the impact was strong and accurate enough, then the energy from it would be enough for new objects to overcome mutual attraction and never gather into a planet again.

The minimum permissible speed for an “impact” object is 11 km/s, so provided that there is no loss of energy, our object should have a mass of approximately 60% of the Earth’s. Mars weighs approximately 11% of the Earth's mass, but Venus, the closest planet to Earth, by the way, already weighs 81% of the Earth's mass. If you accelerate Mars more strongly, then it will also be suitable, but Venus is already an almost ideal candidate for this role. The greater the speed of an object, the less mass it can have. For example, an asteroid weighing 10*104 launched at 90% of the speed of light will be just as effective.

Quite plausible.

Instead of the Earth, there will be pieces of rock approximately the size of the Moon, scattered throughout the solar system.

9. Absorbed by a von Neumann machine

This is such a crazy idea that it might even work.

The Earth will turn into a large piece, gradually absorbed by the Sun.

By the way, such a machine could potentially be created in 2050 or even earlier.

10. Thrown into the Sun

With our level of technology this is impossible, but someday people will figure out a way. Or an accident could happen: an object would appear out of nowhere and push the Earth in the right direction. And what will remain of our planet is a small ball of evaporating iron, gradually sinking into the Sun.

There is some probability that something similar will happen in 25 years: previously, astronomers have already noticed suitable asteroids in space moving towards Earth. But if we ignore the random factor, then at the current level of technology development, humanity will become capable of this no earlier than the year 2250.

Science does not stand still. However, scientists' experiments are not always safe. And some also pose a real threat to life on Earth...

Trinity Test

The Trinity test is the first test of an atomic weapon. In 1945, the United States tested a plutonium bomb humorously called “The Thing.” The explosion occurred in the desert near the city of Albuquerque on the border with Mexico.

Initially, nuclear weapons testing was continually delayed due to concerns among some scientists. They assumed that the detonation of a plutonium charge could hypothetically lead to an uncontrolled combustion of the planet's atmospheric oxygen. But then calculations still showed the insignificant possibility of such a course of events. The power generated by the explosion of an atomic bomb reached 21 kilotons of TNT.

Kola superdeep well

"The Kola superdeep well is rightfully considered the deepest underground passage dug deep into the planet. It is located in the Murmansk region in the Arctic Circle. The depth of the well is 12,262 meters. It was originally dug to study the lithosphere. The place was not chosen by chance. It was believed that the crust there should be thinner, so it will be easier to reach the planet's mantle.

Researchers began drilling the well back in 1970, planning to reach the upper layer of the mantle. Their discoveries were a real shock. The well showed that much of our previous knowledge about the structure of the earth’s crust is incorrect. Thus, the Kola drillers greatly shook the theory of the layered structure of the earth’s crust. Another discovery by scientists: the Earth, it turns out, arose 1.5 billion years earlier than expected.

Work at the Kola drilling site stopped in 1995. The official version is the termination of funding. However, this coincided with a mysterious incident at the rig. In the depths of the mine, a strange sound was first heard, and then a powerful explosion of an unknown nature was heard. There was even a mystical version, as if a demon had escaped from the underworld.

At the same time, fears about the formation of large-scale earthquakes turned out to be unfounded.

The Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is the most complex facility ever built by man. It is located on the border of France and Switzerland. The collider is a proton particle accelerator. It is designed to accelerate proton beams. The goal is to obtain reliable information about the origin of the Universe. The circumference of the tunnel is about 27 kilometers.

Experiments at the collider began in 2008. And they immediately started talking about the fact that the experiments could lead to the development of a chain reaction, which theoretically would be capable of destroying our entire planet. Because proton beams, when accelerated and collided, form microscopic black holes. Some experts have stated that these black holes will grow over time until they swallow the entire Earth. However, the fears turned out to be unfounded, since each such hole has a limit, upon reaching which it evaporates. This phenomenon is known as Hawking radiation.

“Starfish Prime”

Starfish Prime is an ambitious US project to study the effects of a nuclear explosion in the magnetosphere. That is, in a place filled with charged particles that protect the Earth’s atmosphere from the harmful effects of the solar wind. Another goal of the project is to search for the possibility of intercepting Soviet nuclear missiles in space orbit.

At first it was assumed that the test would take place on June 20, 1962. However, immediately after the rocket was launched, a malfunction occurred in the engine. As a result, both the nuclear device and the missile itself were lost. Its debris and radiation waste fell on Johnston Atoll and poisoned the surrounding area with radiation.
Three weeks later, the Americans made a second attempt. This time the plan was completed. A nuclear warhead with a yield of 1.4 megatons was detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers above Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

These tests did not lead to the formation of a nuclear mushroom typical for such cases. However, the consequences of the experiment were felt in a different way. A strange glow appeared in the sky, which could be observed over the Pacific Ocean for 7 minutes. The explosion immediately disabled three satellites. And then seven more satellites stopped functioning. In Hawaii, 300 street lights, as well as televisions, radios and other electronics, failed.
After the explosion, the radiation belt stayed above the Earth for five years.

Project SETI

The goal of this project is to search for contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations. Nikolai Tesla first proposed establishing contact with aliens using radio communications in 1896. The scientist claimed that he himself managed to receive call signs from Mars in this way.

In August 1924, scientists scanned the radio air for several days in search of a signal from the red planet.

Similar research continues today. They occur using orbital, radio and ground-based telescopes. But the persistent search for extraterrestrial intelligence is not supported by all scientists. Some of them believe that drawing too much attention to the Earth can also be dangerous. After all, according to cosmologists, humanity has already experienced cases of collision between less developed civilizations and more technically advanced ones.

We've all seen movies about the end of the world - events in which the Earth is in danger of being completely destroyed, whether it's the work of some "bad" guy or a huge meteorite. The media constantly exaggerates the same topic, terrifying us with nuclear wars, uncontrolled deforestation of tropical forests and total air pollution. In fact, the destruction of our planet is a much more labor-intensive process than you might think.

After all, the Earth is already more than 4.5 billion years old, and its weight is 5.9736 * 1024 kg, and it has already withstood so many shocks that it is impossible to count. And at the same time it continues to revolve around the Sun, as if nothing had happened. And yet, are there ways to “liquidate” the Earth? Yes, there are a dozen such methods, and now we will tell you all about them.

Simultaneous disappearance of atoms

You don't even need to do anything to do this. Just one day, all 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms that make up what we call the Earth will spontaneously cease to exist at the same moment. The odds of such an outcome are actually slightly better than a googolplex to one. And the technology that would allow a person to do this is simply unimaginable from the point of view of modern science.

Absorption by strangelets

For this extravagant method of destroying our green ball, you will need to capture the relativistic heavy ion collider from Brookhaven Laboratory in New York and use it to create an “army” of stable strangelets. The second point of this diabolical plan is to maintain the stability of the strangelets until they turn the planet into a mess of strange matter. We will have to approach this problem creatively, since no one has even discovered these particles yet.

Several years ago, a number of media outlets actually wrote that this is exactly what insidious scientists are doing at Brookhaven Laboratory, but the bottom line is that the chances of ever obtaining a stable strangelet are approaching zero.

Absorption by a microscopic black hole

By the way, black holes are not immortal; they evaporate under the influence of Hawking radiation. And if it takes an eternity for this to happen for medium-sized black holes, then for small ones this can happen almost instantly, since the time spent on evaporation depends on the mass. Therefore, our black hole should weigh about the same as Mount Everest. Creating it will be difficult because it will require an appropriate amount of neutronium.

If everything worked out and a microscopic black hole is created, all that remains is to place it on the surface of the Earth and sit down and enjoy the show. The density of a black hole is so great that it passes through matter like a stone through a piece of paper. The black hole will make its way through the core of the planet to its other side, simultaneously making pendulum-like movements until it absorbs enough matter. Instead of the Earth, a tiny piece of stone, covered in through holes, will rotate around the Sun, as if nothing had happened.

Big bang resulting from the reaction of matter and antimatter

You'll need 2,500 billion tons of antimatter, the most explosive substance in the entire universe. It can be obtained in small quantities using a particle accelerator, but it will take a very long time to gain such a mass. It is much simpler, of course, to rotate a similar amount of matter through the fourth dimension, thus turning it into antimatter. At the exit you will receive a bomb so powerful that the Earth will simply be torn to pieces, and a new asteroid belt will begin to revolve around the Sun.

This will be possible by the year 2500 if we start producing antimatter right now.

Denotation of vacuum energy

What we call vacuum, from the point of view of modern science, cannot be called that, since particles and antiparticles constantly arise and mutually destroy in it, releasing energy. Based on this position, we can conclude that any light bulb contains such an amount of vacuum energy to bring the world's oceans to a boil. All that remains is to figure out how to extract and use the vacuum energy from the light bulb and start the reaction. The released energy will be enough to destroy the Earth, and possibly the entire solar system. In this case, a rapidly expanding gas cloud will appear in place of the Earth.

Being sucked into a huge black hole

Everything is quite simple here: you need to place the Earth and the black hole closer to each other. You can either push our planet towards the black hole using super-powerful rocket engines, or the hole towards the Earth. Of course, it would be most effective to do both. By the way, the closest black hole to our planet is located at a distance of only 1,600 light years in the constellation Sagittarius. According to preliminary estimates, the technologies that will allow this to happen will appear no earlier than the year 3000, plus the entire journey will take about 800 years, so you will have to wait. But, despite the difficulties with implementation, this is quite possible.

Thorough Systematic Deconstruction

You will need a powerful electromagnetic catapult (or better yet, several). Next, we take a large piece of the planet and, using a catapult, launch it beyond the Earth’s orbit. And behind it are the remaining 6 sextillion tons. In principle, given that humanity has already launched a bunch of useful and not so useful things into space, you can start throwing out substances right now and until a certain moment no one will even suspect anything. Ultimately, the Earth will turn into a pile of small fragments, some of which will burn up in the Sun, and the rest will scatter throughout the solar system.

Collision with a large space object

In theory, everything is simple: find a huge asteroid or planet, accelerate it to breakneck speed and point it at Earth. If the impact is strong and precise enough, the Earth and the object that struck it will break apart into pieces that overcome their mutual attraction, and therefore they will never be able to reassemble into a planet. The ideal object for a deadly experiment would be Venus, the closest planet to Earth, which weighs 81% of the Earth's mass.

Absorption by a von Neumann machine

It is necessary to create a von Neumann machine - a mechanism capable of recreating copies of itself from minerals, preferably exclusively from iron, magnesium, silicon and aluminum. Next, we lower the car under the earth’s crust and wait until the machines, the growth of which will grow exponentially, swallow the planet. This idea, although absolutely crazy, is quite feasible, because potentially such a machine will be created by 2050, and maybe earlier.

Throw into the Sun

You will need the same rocket engines as in the case of a giant black hole. You don’t even have to aim accurately - it’s enough for the Earth to move close enough to the Sun, and then tidal forces will tear it apart. Moreover, it may turn out that this does not require special technologies: a random object emerging from space can push the Earth in the right direction. Then the planet will turn into something like a scoop of ice cream melting in the hot sun. But if we ignore random factors, humanity will come to the necessary technologies no earlier than 2250.