Blowing up the Earth

An occasional theme in science fiction involves blowing up a planet. In ``Star Wars,'' the Death Star blows up Alderan. In ``The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,'' a Vorgon destructor fleet blows up Earth to make room for a cosmic bypass. So, as an exercise for upper division students, or the more advance first year calculus based physics students, the energy needed to disassemble Earth can be computed. Assuming that advanced scifi aliens get their energy from matter-antimatter interactions, students can then compute the amount of antimatter needed to accomplish the task.