Dead on Mars

Chapter 14 - Sol Two, How an Earth Can Be Blasted Apart
Kunlun Station’s Hab was a white hard shell that resembled a huge bowl placed upside-down on Mars’s surface. The outer shell was mainly made of glass fiber reinforced PEEK (polyether ether ketone) composite. It was a type of aromatic compound crystallized into a thermoplastic macromolecule material. It was widely used in space engineering. It was heavy-duty and high-strength and had an operating temperature range of –250°C to 300°C.

Tang Yue trudged across the sandy ground, circling around Kunlun Station as he did a thorough inspection. He couldn’t afford any problems in the Hab’s airtightness. Mars only had an atmospheric pressure of 700 Pa, less than a hundredth of Earth’s. Kunlun Station maintained a pressure of 101 kPa, so if there was a breach, the entire Kunlun Station would reduce to a silent tomb within two hours.

Today’s weather was very good. The sun hung high above his head.

Tang Yue caressed the smooth, outer walls of the Kunlun Station. The white outer walls were nearly three meters tall and were firmly held down on the ground by taut wire ropes.

“Tomcat, I have a question.”

“Yes?” Tomcat’s voice sounded through the earpiece. “What is it?”

“Under what circumstances would the Earth explode?”

“The Earth wouldn’t explode under any circumstances.”

“Then how did Earth vanish?”

“How would I know how it vanished? No matter how it vanished, it couldn’t have been from an explosion.” Tomcat shrugged. “Do you know how much energy would be needed to blast Earth apart?”

“How much?”

Tang Yue reached out to test the wire rope’s tautness. There were six fasteners that kept Kunlun Station down. One side would be latched to the outer wall, while the other was buried deep into the ground with a long peg.

“We can do a very simple calculation. Earth’s average radius is 6,370 kilometers, and its equatorial circumference is 40,000 kilometers. Hence, we can calculate Earth’s volume using the formula, V = 4πR³/3. Earth’s mass is approximately 1.08 × 10¹².

“Earth’s acceleration due to gravity is 9.8m/s². According to the formula you learned in high school, mg = GMm/R², as well as the known radius, we can derive that the Earth’s density is approximately 5.5 × 10³ kg/m³. That makes it about five times denser than water.” Tomcat continued, “Therefore, Earth’s mass is approximately 5.97 × 10²⁴ kilograms.

“In other words, 5,970,000,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes.”

Tang Yue didn’t even manage to keep track of the numbers Tomcat had said as his mind filled with zeros.

“We can then define ‘blasting Earth apart’ as accelerating all mass on Earth to first cosmic velocity—the speed needed to escape Earth’s gravity—or in other words, 7.9 km/s. Using the principle of conservation of momentum, one can derive that it needs at least 2.24× 10³² Joules.

“That’s 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules.”

“…”

“The atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima had an energy of 5.5 × 10¹³ Joules. That means that to blast apart Earth, one needs 4 × 10¹⁸ Little Boy atomic bombs.” Tomcat finally gave the conclusion. “This is equivalent to the 6.5 billion people in the world, each carrying 600 million nuclear bombs before they bury them deep into the ground and trigger the nuclear explosion at the same time to blast the Earth apart.

“Even if humanity was given another 10,000 years, it would be impossible for them to create that many nuclear bombs.”

“…”

“Taking a billion steps back, if someone was really capable of blasting apart Earth, then countless rocks would be thrown into orbit, forming an asteroid belt, or perhaps, form a new planet under gravity’s influence,” Tomcat said. “But based on present observations, the phenomena mentioned hasn’t happened. Earth has simply vanished without leaving any remains or fragments… That clearly means that it wasn’t blasted apart.”

“Then, what happened?” Tang Yue finally spoke.

Tomcat paused and hesitated for a few seconds.

“Earth seems to have been wiped clean as if it has been erased by an eraser. According to what I know, to be able to do it so cleanly while wiping out all evidence of the crime, it can only mean that a miniature black hole had landed on Earth.”

“What? A black hole?”