Earth EXPLODING!?

Question

(Not referring to armeggedon more along the lines of Science Fiction) If Earth exploded about how far out would debris "land"?

(REFERRING TO SCIENCE FICTION)
If Earth (for some anomalous reason) exploded about how far would debris float?
What happens to the former gravitational field? Does it effect the other planets?

(REFERRING TO SCIENCE FICTION)
If Earth (for some anomalous reason) exploded about how far would debris float?
What happens to the former gravitational field? Does it effect the other planets?
(and yes i do know everyone on earth is done for I'm not asking because I'm wondering if everyone will live or die.)

Answer 1

How far the debris goes depends on how the Earth "explodes". If it is hit by an asteroid or other debris hard enough I doubt if the Earth would separate, the core would have to be ripped from the Earth to force the gravity to separate parts far enough to go into space.

Let's say for grins and giggles that all of the nuclear weapons on Earth (as well as the ones not claimed to exist) were simulaneously explosed deep within the crust of the Earth, hell, even in the outer core it wouldn't have a lick of a change of blowing up the Earth (though it would do quite a bit of landscaping). But let's just say a death star happens by and chooses Earth as a target and blows it to bits. The debris would continue to circle the sun as it does now (the sun's gravity holds us in it's grasp and since the mass would still be there we would still occupy the same space) as a debris field. The debris would probably be swept out hundreds of thousands of miles in all directions and some debris may "plummet" toward the sun or inner plantets or outward toward Mars, but doubtful it would ever reach the gas giants as they are farther away from us than we are to the sun.

We might get a chance to see this someday (if you happen to live another 6 billion years or so) as the perseus galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way which could spell a quick end to Earth.

Answer 2

No chance at all!
The mass of the earth is not big enough to start an atomar explosion. The sun will do so in a few billion years.
The width of the debris depends on what you define as debris.
If something hits the earth so hard that parts of it are bombed out into space, I cannot think they will go too far of, I guess, with not calculating at all, they will stop at L-2. Even the moon would not be damaged by any kind of asteroid hitting the earth. But the sense of our system is, that it will hit the moon instead, or get lost in the Kuyper belt. None offence meant, but any of this means say goodbye to mankind!

Answer 3

For some mysterious reason, there's always some kind of "when will the Earth explode" question in the top 100 Astronomy & Space questions. No one every comes up with a reason WHY the Earth would be exploding, but they kep asking.

The debris from the "exploding" Earth would spread out along its former orbital path and for some distance to the sides, but the distance would depend on what was used to blow it up and where it was placed when it happened. The more energy put into the explosion, the farther things will fly apart. Until you know how much energy that is, no answer is possible.

As for the gravity, the mass would still be there, so the gravity field would be there, just more spread out and diffuse. Think of a frictionless rubber sheet with a round weight sagging it down, then a bunch of little weights scattered around, sagging it a little bit over a larger area.

Answer 4

That depends entirely upon how powerful the explosion was. Most of the debris would simply go into orbit around the sun in roughly the same orbit that the Earth was in. BUT, the more powerful the explosion, the farther the pieces would go before the Sun's (and Moon's) gravity corraled the pieces back into orbit. If the explosion were powerful enough, pieces could get blown completely out of the solar system...though that would be one heck of an explosion.

Much of the debris would also go into orbit around the moon...and that would be a swirling cloud at least half a million miles in diameter. In the long run, you would end up with a ring of debris orbiting the sun...not unlike the asteroid belt and spread out just as much. (hundreds of millions of miles)

Answer 5

The answer to your question would totally depend on how much explosive force is involved... if there were large fragments of our planet left over from the blast, they would each have their own (weaker) gravitational force fields spreading out in a shell, and stringing out in the existing orbital path of earth. If the whole planet got vaporized, the gravitational leftovers would disipate quickly into an amorphous blob, also stringing out in our orbital path, similar to the asteroid belt, which may very well be the shattered remnants of an ancient orbital planetoid.... and yes the orbits of the other planets would be affected, but the effect would be relatively small.

Answer 6

If the earth exploded the debri would probably go out a little further than our moon. Our moon would increase in size and possibly form a second moon the remaining debri would collapse back on itself and form another earth

Answer 7

Kind of an interesting question. If the debris is ejected at less than escape velocity (~25,000 mph?) it all falls back together in a disorganized lump. If material does escape, I guess it would fall into the moon or form an asteroid belt where the earth's orbit was.

Answer 8

i doubt earth will ever explode unless if someone have the weapon to destroy planets (like Species 8472 - Star Trek Voyager). Earth, if we don't initiate space colonisation programme soon, may be contaminated will radioactive radiation, hazardous chemical and bio-chemical spread, carbon monoxide and the like to the point where earth may no longer support lifeforms.

Answer 9

actually there is a meteor that will just miss earth in 2036, but that changes its orbit and sends it into a crash course with earth in 2049 im pretty sure.

Answer 10

I would say that it would all be sucked into one of the many black holes plaguing the galaxy, so it would get as far as no more than 2 or 3 billion lightyears, not far at all by quantam physic standards. Black hole = galactical garbage can