Originally Posted By: ImagingGeek
The amount of gravitational potential energy lost (and therefore transformed into some other form of energy - heat, elastic, kinetic, etc) when your two planets merge - starting with them in contact, ending with them fused into one - is 5.95 X 10^31 J..... Add that to the 5.95 X 10^31 J and you get... 5.95 X 10^31 J.

Given that you seem to be too intellectually challenged to understand exactly what potential energy is and why this number, 5.95 X 10^31 J, is not the energy released "when the two planets merge - starting with them in contact, ending with them fused into one," I will humor you for the moment and accept it.

By the way, I can't believe that after all the explanation given elsewhere,... you still don't understand this.

So, ImagingGeek believes the PreEarth-Heaven collision releases 5.95 X 10^31 J.

Originally Posted By: ImagingGeek
Remind me again, how does the earth and its continents survive an impact several orders of magnitude larger than the one that formed the moon? (Later you specify ~6 orders of magnitude greater).

Here is a quote from the page http://www.ucl.ac.uk/es/research/planetary/undergraduate/bugiolacchi/moonf.htm

"Other calculations were carried out and a figure of 3 x 10^38 erg was estimated for the energy release of a Mars-sized projectile (Theia) impacting (proto-Earth) at 10 km/s."

So, Roberto Bugiolacchi states that the proto-Earth-Theia collision releases 3 x 10^38 erg = 3 x 10^31 J.

A pertinent question for ImagingGeek.

Is the PreEarth-Heaven collision about 6 orders of magnitude greater than the proto-Earth-Theia collision, like you claim?

That is; Is 5.95 X 10^31 J about 6 orders of magnitude greater than 3 x 10^31 J?

So your statement "an impact several orders of magnitude larger than the one that formed the moon" is simply BS (even using your bogus energy number).