With the current science and technology of human beings, can the earth be completely destroyed?

Let me first talk about what energy the earth relies on to gather together.
The earth is a rocky planet with a radius of about 6371 kilometers, a density of 5.517 grams per cubic centimeter, or 5.517 tons per cubic meter, and a mass of about 596.5 billion trillion kilograms. The force that brings so many substances together is the gravitational force. To destroy the earth is to destroy this gravitational force, and blow the earth to pieces and return to the state of dust.

Next, we will use two formulas, one is the kinetic energy formula: E=1/2mv^2, where E represents energy, m represents the mass of the celestial body, and v represents the velocity of the celestial body, that is, the energy is equal to one-half of the mass of the celestial body multiplied by Take the square of the speed of motion. The earth revolves around the sun at a speed of 29.97 kilometers per second. According to this formula, we can calculate that the kinetic energy of the earth is about 2.68*10^33 joules, that is, 2.68 billion billion billion million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million yuan of joules.

The second is the gravitational (gravity) binding energy formula: U = 3/5Gm^2/r, where U represents the binding energy, G is the gravitational constant, m is the mass of the celestial body, and r is the radius of the celestial body. That is, the gravitational binding energy is equal to three-fifths of the gravitational constant multiplied by the square of the mass of the celestial body divided by the radius of the celestial body. According to this formula, we can calculate that the gravitational binding energy of the earth is about 2.24*10^32 Joules, which is 224 billion million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million yuan of joules.

Universal gravitation is the smallest force among the four fundamental forces found in the universe, but as the mass increases and the distance between matter shortens, this force will increase exponentially, so planets like the earth that rely on gravity to aggregate , the gravitational energy formed is very large. If the earth is to be dismembered and crushed, the binding energy of the earth’s gravitation must be completely canceled out, that is, at least 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Now let’s see how much energy human beings have stored up.
The first energy with huge destructive power is nuclear weapons. According to the world’s top authoritative data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as of January 2022, the world has a total of 12,705 nuclear warheads in stock. These nuclear warheads are calculated at 1 million tons each. The equivalent is 12.7 billion tons of TNT equivalent. According to this estimate, the equivalent of each ton of TNT explosive is about 4184000000 joules, and the total equivalent of global nuclear bombs is about 5.3*10^19 joules.

If all these nuclear bombs are scattered and dropped in various places, the immediate destructive power and the subsequent long-term damage of the nuclear winter may destroy human beings and the ecology, but the global ecology cannot be completely destroyed, and there may still be a small number of human beings surviving. down.

Because the asteroid that made the dinosaurs extinct 65 million years ago had an impact energy of about 5*10^23 joules, and the explosion equivalent reached 120 trillion tons of TNT, which is about 10,000 times the total number of nuclear bombs that humans have now. Even with this huge energy, it only made 85% of the species extinct. Millions of years later, the species began to flourish again, and many new species appeared, primates evolved, and humans emerged from the primates. Become the master of the earth.

The impact of the Cretaceous asteroid on the earth only left a crater with a diameter of 280 kilometers in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The explosive equivalent is only about 1/400000000 of the earth’s binding energy.

The earth’s nuclear bomb needs to be increased by 4 trillion times on the existing basis before it is possible to blow up the earth. Therefore, to the earth, all nuclear bombs on the earth are more absurd than an ant trying to shake a big tree. It is not worth mentioning at all. How can it destroy the earth? So what energy would it take to destroy the planet?

Learn more about cosmic events that could destroy Earth.
Human beings are still at a very low stage of energy use. The total energy consumed each year, including all energy consumption in production, living, eating, drinking, and scavenging, is about 5.56*10^18 joules. The energy of the Cretaceous asteroid impact is 900 of this energy Many times, the binding energy of the earth is 40 trillion times of this energy.

The total energy radiated by the sun into space per second is about 3.78*10^26 joules, which is 37.8 billion billion joules. If all the energy of the sun can be collected without escaping at all, it will take 165 hours to destroy the energy of the earth ; while the earth can only receive 1/2.2 billion of the sun’s total radiant energy per second, which is about 1.72*10^17 joules per second. About 5.4*10^24 joules of energy can be obtained.

In this way, it takes more than 40 million years to collect enough energy to destroy the earth. And these energies can only blow up the earth, and the fragments of the earth are likely to circle the sun in the earth’s orbit. With the gravitational interaction, it is possible to gradually form a new earth.

Therefore, to truly completely destroy the earth so that there is no dross left, even greater power is needed, and these powers are not what human beings can achieve now, or even in the foreseeable future. This kind of power to completely destroy the earth can only be achieved by cosmic celestial events. These events include but are not limited to: collisions of giant planets, violent explosions of the sun, black holes breaking into the solar system, close-range exposure of gamma-ray bursts, and so on.

When the earth was first formed 4.5 billion years ago, there was a planet called “Theia” by scientists, which was about the size of Mars. As a result of colliding with the earth, it distorted the axis of the earth by about 23.5 degrees. Since then, the earth has revolved around its neck. There are four seasons of the year; the impact caused the crust to rupture and the magma fragments flying into space condensed into the moon, giving the earth a natural satellite. This consequence became one of the most important conditions for the birth of life on Earth.

That is to say, even a Mars-sized asteroid hitting the Earth will not be able to destroy the Earth. If we look at the orbital kinetic energy of the Earth, we need a planet equivalent to the Earth to collide head-on at the same speed before the Earth can be completely destroyed.