What requires more destructive energy? Destroying a planet or splitting a planet in half
I just wanna ask which option requires more destructive energy?
Option 1 : destroying a planet like earth to rubble (tiny pieces of rocks)
Or
Option 2: splitting a planet like earth in halves (2 pieces) Permanently that the gravitional binding energy of the planet won't merge the 2 pieces back together
Edit 1:for option 1 I meant rubbles the size of boulders and by destroying I mean by an explosion of destructive energy. To the point not even GBE will form the rocks back together
For option 2 I meant one clean slice in halve that overcomes GBE
P.S: I honestly can't be more descriptive than this edit and try not to overthink it. I just watch anime shit that do crazy feats and wanna know the how much difference in destructive energy is required for both options
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1 answer
So a bit of study has already gone into answering this question.
To blow up a planet into tiny rubble Death star style, it would take 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy.
The entire energy output from our sun is only 380,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules, so you would need the total energy output of the sun for a week to get that much energy, just to give you a bit of perspective.
Now, you could actually get that much energy "fairly easily" if it was a positron laser, AKA an antimatter laser, because of the total mass/energy conversion that happens when matter is annihilated.
Option 2 would take a lot more energy than that, since breaking it into 2 equal parts, especially with so many liquids involved (water, molten rock, etc), and then giving those two parts enough thrust to move away from each other, is actually a lot more than just shattering them. And if you don't get the two halves far enough apart they'll just bump into each other until all that is left is a lot of smaller rocks anyway.
According to this great answer, the energy needed for that is 125,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules, which is a lot more.
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