What would be the effect of 10.000 GT surface blast?

[Dilandu]

Okay, I confess: I love old "Perry Rhodan" sci-fi novel series. And one question that buzzed me, is "what exactly would be the effect of planet hit by full-scale transformcannon shot?"

For those who isn't a PR fan, the transformcannon is a standard piece of spaceship weaponry (from tiny fighter to 2 km in diameter ultrabattleships), and its essentially the teleporter, used to hurl a thousand gigaton scale fusion bombs through the hyperspace toward the target.

While destrucive effects of transformcannon blasts against spacecrafts and space stations/asteroids/moons are described realistically enough, the direct use against planetary targets isn't. If transformcannons are shown firing against planet, there usually is some excuse to use subscale shots of megaton/single gigaton range (like planet having civilian population, or good guys being there too)

So I got interested: what would be the actual effect of Earth-type planet being hit by 10.000 gigatons explosion? For simplicity, lets assume that planet is nearly identical to Earth in every major geological parameter, and the ground zero is directly on surface.

 

[Not James Stockdale]

The Chicxulub impact released energy equivalent to 72 teratons of TNT, which is 7 times larger than this explosion.

 

[Archibald]

The Chicxulub impact released energy equivalent to 72 teratons of TNT, which is 7 times larger than this explosion.

It dug a 180 km wide crater and wiped out most of life on the planet (large animals).

 

[Dilandu]

The Chicxulub impact released energy equivalent to 72 teratons of TNT, which is 7 times larger than this explosion.

Thats the global effects: what about more localized? Would there be some kind of exoatmospheric "mushroom cloud"?

 

[Archibald]

I do know that some rocks were thrown into the solar system (heliocentric orbit) that is faster than Earth escape velocity of 11.2 km/s. Heck some crashed into the Moon so there might be fossils buried up there.

 

[Michel Van]

Some explanation about Transform Cannon in Perry Rhodan.
it almost like the transporter from Star Trek, however the Humans here never manage materialisation.
Means the object send explode on arrival, So they send Warhead that explode with more force !
(This do higher Dimensional physic in Perry Rhoda series)

The Humans use the Transform Cannon first in 2115 AD with 500 MT warheads.
Over the time Arms race between this cannon and Protective energy shield started,
already in 25th century they used 2000 GT warheads.
in 35th century the Cannons were able transmit 4000 GT warheads to target.

In the Serie it self the use of Transform Cannon against Planets are world ending events.
Atmosphere strip from the Planet, ground zero is lava field, in worst case there is deep large hole in Planet crust.
it's major extinction event for any lifeforms on Planet.

 

[Dilandu]

Some explanation about Transform Cannon in Perry Rhodan.
it almost like the transporter from Star Trek, however the Humans here never manage materialisation.

A bit correction - they never managed to achieve materialization without the recieving station. Station-to-station (duopolar) transporters are pretty common. But station-to-anywhere are still beyond human science (and seems to be available only on supertinelligence level).

Also, transformcannons have a direct predessor - a counterpole cannon (used by Lemurian ansestors of mankind mainly). They works similarly, but Lemurians never managed to solve the problem of even partial materialization, so they use a separate hyperfield projector to create a "breach" into hyperspace where they want the projectile to materialize. Due to this, the counterpole cannon is slow-firing and short-ranged (it relate to transformcannon basically as XIX century 16-inch muzzle loading rifle to World War 2 battleship 16-inch gun).

(IRRC, only Posbis managed to develope proper transfromcannons by themselves - everyone else, including humans, worked from Posbis designs).

 

[Yellow Palace]

Thats the global effects: what about more localized? Would there be some kind of exoatmospheric "mushroom cloud"?

At those kinds of energy levels, the effects will depend heavily on the nature of the weapon used - and even for the kinds of weapons we actually have, scaling laws don't really go that far.

Plugging some guesstimated stuff into the Earth Impact Effects Calculator, you might expect the transient crater to penetrate the planetary crust, fires and blast damage out to a range of several hundred kilometres, and seismic effects comparable to a magnitude 9.3 earthquake.

If it's a higher-velocity impactor - especially relativistic - a nuclear-type warhead, or some other kind of scifi weapon, then it gets even more speculative.

 

[Dilandu]

If it's a higher-velocity impactor - especially relativistic - a nuclear-type warhead, or some other kind of scifi weapon, then it gets even more speculative.

According to the sources, it's a large fusion warhead (apparently pure fusion), albeit designed to detonate directly from the "materialization shock", i.e. from 5-dimensional energy pulse.

 

[Michel Van]

According to the sources, it's a large fusion warhead (apparently pure fusion), albeit designed to detonate directly from the "materialization shock", i.e. from 5-dimensional energy pulse.

Explanation
Hyperspace = 5-Dimensional Space used in Perry Rhodan series for Clark-Tech like FLT and weapons.
Einsteinspace = our 4-Dimensional Space.

The Transform Cannon "Puncture" the hyperspace at target site.
While the Warhead try to materialised, energy from Hyperspace comes into Einsteinspace, contribute to the explosion force.

Counterpole cannon biggest weakness is, they need receiver transmitter field at Target.
Not so powerful as Transform Cannon with it brute force approach true Hyperspace.
Also can the receiver transmitter field disturb by ECM or Paratron shield.

Paratron Shield is Hyperspace version of lightning conductor, transfers energy into Hyperspace.

I hope not to bored the reader with fictional Univers technology from obscure Sci-Fi Series.