How hard is it to shatter the moon?

After seeing this question, I wondered what weapon of choice (and, logically, the grand scale of energy amount) is needed to shatter the moon. Let's take our moon, the Moon, the natural satellite of Earth. As a homage to RWBY, let's say the moon is shattered similarly to theirs, i.e. about 1/4 of the visible disc is in ruins.

(I guess their image is a bit unrealistic in the torn away parts, as they would be probably propelled outside from the orbit and either burn down in the Earth atmosphere or leave the Earth-Moon system. But the point is here in "biting away" a similar part of the moon as in that visual. And the question is the specific "how to".)

Roche limit seems not to be an answer. I have seen an esitmation in the teratonnes of TNT equivalent, which is a lot. Here I am asking rather for Sci-Fi'esque (but meaningful from todays's physics point of view) weapons and tools capable of such an energy output. Asteroids made of depleted uranium traveling at some fraction of c and similar ideas are welcome.

posted almost 7 years ago

Oleg Lobachev‭

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