Ever wondered what would happen if a 100 meter diamond travelling at 99.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light collided with the earth?
The momentum would be enough to knock the Earth into a different orbit—but the Earth is no more. The energy deposited is ten thousand times greater than the planet’s gravitational binding energy, and the planet is blown into an expanding cloud of plasma, with a particularly energetic streamer extending away from the far side of the impact site, out into space.
