Question: how much energy does it take to destroy a planet?
Answer: Easy! When Manley runs the particulars of Earth through this equation, he figures out that it'd take about 2.25 x 1032 joules, or 225 million trillion trillion joules. For much larger planets such as Jupiter, you're going to need about 2 x 1036 joules, which means 2 trillion trillion trillion joules of energy.