Destroying the Earth

Wow, someone with more time on there hands than me! Awesome! (Thanks to Walt for the link).

I say, launch a strangelet into the sun and watch the fireworks. I find destroying the Earth through indirect means (i.e., destroying the sun) much more entertaining. I think it's the James Bond villain in me. Why destroy something directly and efficiently when you can make it elaborate and much more difficult to accomplish?

Also, what about adding enough mass to Jupiter to turn it into a second star? Or what if a star passed close enough to turn our solar system into a binary system but not so close that the two stars collided? The planet's orbits would certainly get screwed up. I think some might be ejected from the solar system while others would hurtle towards one or the other sun. Though Earth may simply change it's orbit. It wouldn't be a pleasant place to live anymore, but it would still exist.

Interestingly, I appear to already meet the "career" criteria for going about destroying the Earth (yes, I admit it, I'm Rael). So which method do you think I should choose? Solar plasma or von Neumann machine? Hmmm, I think I'll let the guys at Cornell work on their von Neumann machines. Solar plasma, then. Take a GIGANTIC ring around the sun, with several rings in orbit between the sun and the Earth - somewhere between five and twenty, depending on size and desired accuracy - to aim the coronal mass ejections at Earth. You'll need a good sized nuclear reactor to put a sufficent amount of electrical current through the rings to cause a MASSIVE solar flare. We'll build it in orbit around Venus, which we'll ensure is not in the line of fire when we power up. Heck, we'll turn Venus into a nuclear reactor. Base of operations: Callisto. When it's behind Jupiter. Don't worry. We'll place cameras in various places around the solar system so as not to miss the show. Okay, people, let's get crackin'. The Earth ain't gonna destroy itself.