Friday, March 15, 2013

Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth Sam Hughes, LiveScience Contributor # 7


Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

Date: 12 January 2012 Time: 08:45 AM ET
This view shows a simulation of how a gas cloud that has been observed approaching the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy may break apart over the next few years. The cloud is expected to break up in 2013. This view simulates the expected
Credit: ESO/MPE
Sucked into a giant black hole
You will need: a black hole, extremely powerful rocket engines, and, optionally, a large rocky planetary body. The nearest black hole to our planet is 1,600 light-years from Earth in the direction of Sagittarius, orbiting V4641.
Method: After locating your black hole, you need get it and the Earth together. This is likely to be the most time-consuming part of this plan. There are two methods, moving Earth or moving the black hole, though for best results you'd most likely move both at once.
Very difficult, but definitely possible.
Earth's final resting place: part of the mass of the black hole.
Earliest feasible completion date: I do not expect the necessary technology to be available until AD 3000, and add at least 800 years for travel time. (That's in an external observer's frame of reference and assuming you move both the Earth and the black hole at the same time.)
Sources: "The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy," by Douglas Adams (Image above shows a simulation of a gas cloud about to get gobbled up by a supermassive black hole.)
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