The moon, you and a little red button

[MiranoPoncho]

How many yottatons would it take to either destroy, dismantle or knock the moon out of orbit?

 

[oynaz]

I would guess about 39.

What is a yottaton?

 

[BrownTown]

you mean like a anti-matter bomb with equivilent energy of 1 yottaton of TNT? The answer is: your an idiot.

 

[snes tor]

39 seems good to me. but lets 40 just to really blow the fuvker up

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
your an idiot.

Famous last words. Reminds me of the Simpsons. Me fail English? That's unpossible!

 

[Sc4freak]

Originally posted by: MiranoPoncho
How many yottatons would it take to either destroy, dismantle or knock the moon out of orbit?

Um... several (10-50?) gigatons would likely be enough to blow it out of orbit. Place the nukes on the far side of the moon and watch as it plows into the Earth.

A teraton bomb placed deep under the surface would probably be enough to crack the moon in two.

A yottaton bomb is rediculous, you'd vaporise the moon and the excess energy radiating from the explosion into space would fry the Earth.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Sc4freak

Originally posted by: MiranoPoncho
How many yottatons would it take to either destroy, dismantle or knock the moon out of orbit?

Um... several (10-50?) gigatons would likely be enough to blow it out of orbit. Place the nukes on the far side of the moon and watch as it plows into the Earth.

A teraton bomb placed deep under the surface would probably be enough to crack the moon in two.

A yottaton bomb is ridiculous, you'd vaporise the moon and the excess energy radiating from the explosion into space would fry the Earth.

So, you're saying we should stick to just 39 yottatons, then?

 

[oynaz]

"Um... several (10-50?) gigatons would likely be enough to blow it out of orbit. Place the nukes on the far side of the moon and watch as it plows into the Earth."

Not nearly enough, the kinetic energy of the moon in orbit must be enourmous. I am too lazy to calculaty it right now, but the moon's mass combined with it's many kilometres/second velocity reletiva to Earth is, well, big.

 

[Jaq]

The moon weighs about 81 exatons. I think a yottaton is a little much...

 

[Qriz]

Haha a "yottaton" is simply 10^24 of SOMETHING. What do you mean by this? 39 yottatons of...what? Granite? TNT? Chamomile tea? Did you just learn the word or something?

For example, 1000 yottatons of marshmallow probably wouldn't put the moon out of orbit. But that would be pretty funny. It depends on density, velocity, etc etc etc.

EDIT: 1000 yottatons of marshmallow could put it out of orbit, but probably not (hence my addition of the word "probably."

 

[randay]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: BrownTown
your an idiot.

Famous last words. Reminds me of the Simpsons. Me fail English? That's unpossible!

Why I laugh?

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Qriz
Haha a "yottaton" is simply 10^24 of SOMETHING. What do you mean by this? 39 yottatons of...what? Granite? TNT? Chamomile tea? Did you just learn the word or something?

For example, 1000 yottatons of marshmallow probably wouldn't put the moon out of orbit. But that would be pretty funny. It depends on density, velocity, etc etc etc.

EDIT: 1000 yottatons of marshmallow could put it out of orbit, but probably not (hence my addition of the word "probably."

yotta means 10^24 of something.
the something is tons

Sorta like a yottameter would be 10^24 meters
A yottagram would be 10^24 grams

And, a yottaton would be 10^24 tons. Although, I don't know what kind of tons
Also, once you're at that scale, units of weight don't make much sense. (i.e. "what's the weight of the Earth?" really doesn't make sense)

 

[imported_Hamzter]

Well earths escape velocity is about 11.2km/s, and the moon has a mass of 7.36 × 10^22 kg, with a velocity of 3,700kmph (1030m/s). That means you'd need about 3.806x10^30 J of energy to knock it out of orbit. That's about 910 exatons TNT, quite a long way short of a yottaton TNT. That's assuming it's entirely kinetic energy, if you used a bomb a large ammount of it would be released as radiation, you might be much closer to a yottaton of TNT required.

The energy required to 'destroy' or 'dismantle' the moon is alot harder to calculate, since it's not a clear definition. Simply breaking it in two won't permanantly destroy it, given a bit of time the gravity of the two will make them collapse back into a moon (altho this may take a looong time to settle down, I imagine the two parts would 'bounce', when the two parts merge they'll throw alot of material back out, it could take 1000s of years to become a sphere again). You could consider the moon 'dismantled' if half of it was thrown out of orbit, which would simply be half the energy as before (so about 455 exatons TNT).

How you would achieve either of these would be interesting, some good ideas are suggested in How to Destroy The Earth Good luck on destroying the moon, I look forwards to it!

 

[Qriz]

Yes DrPizza, you're right. A "yotta" of something is 10^24 of something. A yottaton of something is 10^24 tons. I very dumb.

Thanks, Hamzter, for doing the work that everyone else was too lazy to do. Those're some pretty funny conclusions you have there.

 

[icarus4586]

The answer is not 39 or 40. It's 42!

 

[imported_inspire]

You wouldn't need to know the distance from the earth to the moon to make that calculation?

 

[dxkj]

Escape velocity assumes you start on the surface of the earth....

My question (because Im stupid) is whether it would take more energy to knock it into a degrading orbit that would cause it to crash into the earth, or blast it out of orbit so it escapes?

 

[Agent11]

it would take more energy to achieve an escape from the earths gravity.. much less to have it slowly degrade its orbit.

Why don't you practice with mars

 

[Jedi2155]

JUST FIRE THE FRICKIN LASER!!!!

But I would think blasting it out of orbit would definitely require more energy than knocking it towards the earth or degrading the orbit as it would be working against gravity versus with it.

I would also think that degrading the orbit would just require more precise amounts of energy applied but depending on the amount of degradation probably less than blasting it straight towards earth.

 

[Dom1105]

well possably not becasue if i remember this correctly our moon is allready on an escape orbit. As in every year it moves like 1 inch or something farther away from earth. Thusly with enough time unless something is done to correct it's orbit it will loose orbit and start floating around in space, possably enter into a degrading orbit around venus or mars depending on which direction it flies away and at what velocity. but this of course will take a frig of alot longer then any of us will live to see it.

This would lead me to conclude that it would take about the same ammount of high explosives to move the moon either way, into either a more escape orbit or into a degrading orbit.

Ok now onto how much high explosive it would take to completely and totally turn the moon into DUST. that would probably require a 1 or 2 yottaton tactical thermo-nuclear bomb placed at the center of the moon.

 

[Jedi2155]

Tactical? I would believe distintegrating the moon would be more of a strategic type weapon....unless the wars of the future are interstellar, then it'd be tactical.

 

[gwarbot]

24.56 gigatons. The device would likely be made with uranium, a microwave, and a couple of other house hold items.That is my guess anyways. As you can clearly tell im not a physics genius.

 

[inveterate]

whats wrong with you people.

 

[imported_Hamzter]

Originally posted by: inveterate
whats wrong with you people.

If you don't have an unexplainable urge to destroy the moon, there's definitely something wrong with you.

 

[inveterate]

Originally posted by: Hamzter

Originally posted by: inveterate
whats wrong with you people.

If you don't have an unexplainable urge to destroy the moon, there's definitely something wrong with you.

MMMMM.... I do have this urge to burn down all the trees, but i know that it's a dumb deal.