Non-profit · Planetary Research Division

The Doomsday Project

Scientific discovery through bold experimentation. Our ultimate mission: the deliberate and calculated destruction of Mars.

Read the mission brief View status board

01 / Mission Brief

Why we would destroy a planet

The Doomsday Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to scientific discovery through bold experimentation. Our ultimate mission: the deliberate and calculated destruction of Mars. By undertaking this unprecedented endeavor, we seek to unlock groundbreaking insights into planetary physics, the mechanics of celestial collisions, and the very forces that shape our universe.

From deepening our understanding of gravity to uncovering new clues about Earth's origins, the knowledge gained from such an event would be immeasurable. We believe that only through radical exploration can humanity push the limits of what is possible and redefine the future of space science.

Onward

Join us as we challenge the status quo and embark on the most ambitious scientific undertaking in history.

02 / Objectives

What we intend to learn

OBJ-01

Planetary Physics

Unlock groundbreaking insights into the forces that shape a world at the exact moment of its disruption.

OBJ-02

Celestial Collisions

Study the mechanics of a collision at a scale never before attempted, from first contact to the expanding debris field.

OBJ-03

Gravity & Origins

Deepen our understanding of gravity and uncover new clues about the origins of Earth and the bodies beside it.

03 / Method

How the program is engineered

Three coupled solvers — heliocentric trajectory propagation, shock physics, and a visco-elastic lithosphere model — run against a shared parameter ensemble.

Orbital mechanics & terminal guidance

Impactor trajectories are solved as Lambert arcs against a heliocentric two-body baseline, then re-converged inside an N-body integrator carrying the J2 and C22 coefficients of the Martian gravity field, solar radiation pressure, and the first-order relativistic correction to periapsis advance. Departure is phased to the 779.9-day synodic window at a characteristic energy of 14.6 km2/s2.

Terminal guidance runs a closed-loop proportional-navigation law biased for momentum enhancement. Intercept is targeted at 9.6 km/s along a 41° elevation vector, chosen to maximise coupling into the shallow crust rather than the mantle. Mid-course corrections are budgeted at 3% of total Δv, holding the 2σ b-plane dispersion to 240 m.

Δv = Isp · g0 · ln(m0 / mf) ;   C3 = v∞2

Heliocentric transfer and intercept geometry A plan view of the inner solar system. The Sun sits at the focus of a transfer ellipse whose perihelion touches Earth's orbit at departure and whose aphelion touches Mars' orbit at intercept. A dashed line through Mars marks the b-plane, and a velocity vector gives the impact speed of 9.6 kilometres per second. SUN EARTH T+0 MARS v = 9.6 km/s b-PLANE TRANSFER ELLIPSE a = 1.26 AU · 779.9 d WINDOW
Fig. 01 — Transfer & intercept geometry Perihelion of the transfer ellipse is tangent to Earth’s orbit at departure; aphelion is tangent to Mars’ orbit at intercept. The dashed chord through Mars is the b-plane, the target plane normal to the incoming asymptote. Impact occurs at 9.6 km/s along a 41° elevation.

Crustal response & shock propagation

Shock propagation is integrated with a Mie–Grüneisen equation of state for the basaltic regolith and a Steinberg–Guinan constitutive law for the underlying lithosphere. A π-scaled cratering relation returns an apparent transient cavity of ≈180 km for a 1015 kg impactor.

Elastic energy partitioning is estimated at 1.2 × 1021 J, of which roughly 4% couples into Rayleigh surface waves with periods of 200–400 s. Moment-tensor inversion of the resulting wavefield reconstructs the deviatoric stress field and the depth of the brittle–ductile transition.

The decisive term is tidal resonance. Where the forcing frequency falls within 0.3% of the fundamental spheroidal mode 0S2, mantle strain is amplified by a factor of 40 — sufficient to drive the lithosphere past its yield envelope and into a self-sustaining fragmentation cascade.

Es = η · ½ m v2 · cos2θ  →  1.2 × 1021 J

Planetary cross-section with shock fronts A cut-away of Mars showing four concentric layers: a thin crust, the lithosphere, the mantle, and a dense core. From an impact point at the surface, four dashed arcs radiate downward as an expanding shock front. The crust, lithosphere, mantle and core are each called out by a leader line. IMPACT INTERFACE CRUST LITHOSPHERE MANTLE CORE SHOCK FRONT P-WAVE · 8.2 km/s
Fig. 02 — Crustal cross-section Four concentric layers, outermost to innermost: crust, lithosphere, mantle, core. The dashed arcs are successive positions of the shock front radiating from the impact interface, crossing the Moho and the core–mantle boundary. Strain is concentrated where the front grazes a layer discontinuity.

Numerical integration & ensemble statistics

The propagator is a fourth-order symplectic scheme with adaptive sub-stepping; energy drift is held below 10−11 per orbit across 104 revolutions. The shock solver is a second-order Godunov scheme on an adaptive mesh reaching 109 cells at peak refinement.

Because the outcome is chaotic in the Lyapunov sense, we report ensemble statistics rather than point predictions: 512 perturbed initial conditions sampled across the impactor mass–velocity plane, with a 95% credible interval on fragmentation depth of ±14 km. The response of the lithosphere to forcing near 0S2 is a damped resonance:

A(ω) = [ (1 − (ω/ω0)2)2 + (ω/Qω0)2 ]−½ ;   Q = 92

Resonance response curve for mantle strain A graph of strain amplification against forcing frequency. The curve is flat near unity across most of the range, then rises sharply to a peak of about forty times at the natural frequency of five point four millihertz, crossing a dashed yield envelope on the way. Past the peak it falls away again. YIELD ENVELOPE 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 FORCING FREQUENCY (mHz) 100 10 1 STRAIN AMPLIFICATION (×) 40× PEAK ₀S₂ · 5.4 mHz
Fig. 03 — Resonance response Strain amplification as a function of forcing frequency. The response is near unity across most of the band, but within 0.3% of the fundamental spheroidal mode 0S2 it rises by a factor of 40 — crossing the dashed yield envelope and placing the lithosphere in a fragmentation regime.
Design parameters — baseline solution
Symbol Parameter Value
C3Characteristic energy14.6 km²/s²
v∞Hyperbolic excess velocity2.94 km/s
βMomentum enhancement factor3.6 ± 0.4
ΔvTotal mission budget6.2 km/s
QTidal quality factor (mantle)92
0S2Fundamental spheroidal mode5.4 mHz
EsCoupled seismic energy1.2 × 10²¹ J
dbdBrittle–ductile transition42 km

Program timeline

Phases are sequential and gated: no phase begins until the previous phase’s ensemble criteria are met at 95% confidence.

  1. Phase 0 · 1998–2026

    Constitutive model calibration

    Lithospheric rheology constrained against published seismic and gravity data; ensemble priors assembled across the impactor mass–velocity plane.

  2. Phase I · 2027–2029

    Impactor emplacement

    Launch and heliocentric phasing through the synodic window; mid-course correction burns; b-plane targeting and dispersion trimming.

  3. Phase II · 2030

    Terminal guidance

    Closed-loop proportional navigation with momentum-enhancement bias; final approach to the 41° elevation vector at 9.6 km/s.

  4. Phase III · 2031

    Intercept

    Kinetic energy coupling into the shallow crust; shock propagation through the Moho; excitation of the 0S2 resonance.

  5. Phase IV · 2031–2034

    Wavefield tomography

    Moment-tensor inversion of the returning wavefield; reconstruction of the deviatoric stress field and the fragmentation depth distribution.

04 / Status Board

Program tracking

Objective
Mars
Phase
Planning · active
Charter
Non-profit, 1998
Target mass
6.417 × 1023 kg