How Could We Destroy the Moon?

Nothing wrecks a beautiful night sky like that hideous , pockmark skylight . What would it take to destroy our moon , and eliminate the enemy of stellar astronomy for all time ?

Top image : Using imagery gather up by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter , NASA produce this video of the Moon rotating 360 ° about its axis .

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In the immortal words of Mr. Burns , “ ever since the beginning of time , man has wish to ruin the Sun . ” Your days are numerate , Sun .

But supervillains , being the pragmatic folks they are , bonk that a more suitable finish would be to destroy the Moon , or at least disfigure it horribly . Nothing wrack a beautiful night sky like that hideous pockmarked limelight . What would it take to destruct it and wipe out the enemy of leading astronomy for all meter ?

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The energy it takes to break apart a gravitationally held aim is fuck as its binding vigor , we talked about it in a Death Star sequence and inventive ways to get over it .

For example , the tie down vigor of the Earth is 2.2 x 10 ^ 32 J . It ’s a mickle . The binding energy of a smaller objective , like our Moon is a sizeable little 1.2 x 10 ^ 29 James Prescott Joule . It takes about 1800 times more energy to destroy the Earth than it takes to put down the Moon .

It ’s 1800 times easier . That ’s downright manageable , is n’t it ? That ’s almost 2000 sentence easier . Which , on the shell of easy to less promiscuous , is definitely closer to easy .

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A picture of Earth taken by Apollo 11 astronauts ( quotation : NASA )

Take the event that created the Caloris Basin on Mercury . It ’s a crater , 1,500 km across . uranologist call back that a big fatness asteroid , a fatsteroid ( ? ) around 100 km in diam crashed into Mercury billions of years ago . This effect eject 1.3 x 10 ^ 26 Joule of energy , carving out this elephantine pit . It ’s a thousandth of the binding vigor of the Moon . We ’ll require something more .

Our Sun acquire 3.8 x 10 ^ 26 Joule of Department of Energy every second , the equivalent of about a billion hydrogen bombs . If you directed the full power of the Sun at the Moon for 15 minutes , it ’d tear apart .

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That ’s quite a superweapon you ’ve got there , perhaps you ’ll want to mount that on a space place and take it for a cruise through a Galax urceolata far far away ?

If that scene took that long , we ’d have fallen asleep . It ’s as if millions of voices gradually became a little hoarse from crying out for a quarter of an 60 minutes . There ’s another way you could tear the Moon asunder that does n’t postulate an astral gate accident : somberness .

uranologist apply the Roche Limit to direct how close an aim – like a lunar month – can orbit another target – like a planet .

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This is the point where the difference between the tidal forces on the “ front ” and “ backside ” are tumid enough that the target is pluck aside , and if this sounds intimate you might need to look up “ spaghettification ” .

Spaghettification . ( mention : Streeter )

This is all based on the r of the planet and the density of the satellite and synodic month . If the Moon got close enough to the Earth , around 18,000 km , it would pull apart and be shredded into a beautiful gang .

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And then the objective in the ring would enter the Earth ’s atmosphere and rain down down beautiful destruction for thousands of yr .

Fortunately or alas , depending your position in this “ expire Moon , fail ” treatment , the Moon is roam aside from the Earth . It ’ll never be close than it is right now , at almost 400,000 km , without a little nudge .

Phobos , the large Sun Myung Moon orb Mars is slowly approach the planet , and stargazer think it ’ll make the Roche Limit in the next few million years .

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