If Earth Collided With Mars, Which Planet Survives

Millions of people around the world go out on the streets and rooftops to look at the amazing cosmic phenomenon. Another planet... right next to the Moon! A big red one. At first, everyone’s excited. Mars showing up out of nowhere is having a strange effect on humanity.

Just as the moon can affect the psychological and physical state of some people, Mars’s unexpected visit is causing people to behave pretty strangely. Every night, the sky is lit up by the white light of the Moon and the red glow of Mars.

Many people get a sort of instant insomnia. Some even stop drinking coffee because they no longer feel sleepy. Mars brings out the energy and a little wildness in people, makes them laugh more, and even drives a few poor people crazy. They begin to go out of their houses more often and enjoy the unusual night sky.

A few days later, everybody can see what’s happening... Mars is getting bigger. Scientists announce that the red planet is slowly moving towards Earth. A collision is inevitable! Earthlings only have a few years left! A few months ago, a huge asteroid crashed into the red planet with such force that Mars simply flew out of its own orbit and went rogue. The chance that Mars would fly close to Earth was always going to be pretty high. After about 3 seconds of being announced, the news went viral. And panic set in.

The situation’s getting worse and worse. The closer Mars gets, the more it affects people on a physical level. Hundreds of videos pop up, showing collision simulations of Mars and Earth. And there’s no happy ending. “Want to see what happens?” — one famous blogger asks her followers. “The Earth’s almost completely covered with water, and Mars is all dust, sand, and rocks!” Then she puts a huge watermelon in the middle of her room. From the far end, she launches a bowling ball at it. Strike.

Mars looks almost the same size as the Moon now. It’s about to come into the moon’s orbit, and it’s affecting the Earth’s magnetic field. Floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, powerful thunderstorms... they go from bad to worse. Animals go crazy, birds no longer migrate south, the Polar Northern Lights appear in the Caribbean!

The economy isn’t handling the news that well. People stop showing up to work, why wouldn’t they? They just want to have fun and be with loved ones. There are enough resources on the planet to last until the catastrophe, so no one’s even trying to fix the Earth’s problems. Clothing, food, cars, yachts, whatever — everything loses its value and becomes free! Every day, huge street parties pop up all over the world. People decide to live their last months in peace and harmony. The global catastrophe’s uniting humanity like never before!

To go out with a bang, Earthlings team up to organize a huge rock concert. The red giant destroying our beautiful blue planet... Yeah, Rock’n’roll’s the perfect soundtrack. There’s just enough time to eat, dance, party, and listen to good music. Huge stages are built all over the planet, it’s every musician’s last concert! During all that preparation, hope suddenly appears. Scientists have calculated all the events that’ll occur when Mars crashes into Earth, and they have a simple plan. Luckily, humans had already planned on moving to Mars, so they’d already been building spaceships for years.

There’s no time to get to another planet before the collision, but the good news is that people can wait out the disaster just outside Earth’s orbit. You’ll get to sit in a space station, munch some popcorn, relax, and enjoy the show. When the dust settles, it might just be possible to return to Earth. Or what’s left of it.

After learning about this plan, people start working on finishing the ships night and day, everyone in the world pitches in. There are still two years left before the big day. The huge concert stages are converted into more space stations. Mars is now giving people more energy, and with epic teamwork, people manage to create thousands of stations in just a few months. That’s what happens when 7 billion people work together! Farmers, physical therapists, chefs, engineers, athletes, accountants... all on the same team!

Mars is now closer to us than the moon. The red giant blocks out the sun, and our planet is plunged into darkness. There are only a few days left. People are working like ants in a massive colony, putting the finishing touches on several hundred thousand space stations! It takes four whole days for everyone to get on board, plus there’s the loading of supplies: animals, fish, seeds, plants, vegetables, fruits, video games, fruit roll-ups...

The red giant is scheduled to enter Earth’s orbit in a couple of days, that’s when it’ll really pick-up speed. Mars is only a little more than half the size of Earth, but up in the sky... it looks infinitely huge. The ships start taking off. People take a last look around, memorizing every inch. In a few hours, it’ll all change forever. The stations fly up, far enough away to clear any orbits. Two worlds colliding together should still have a soundtrack, though. Rock stars on every ship organize an outer space music festival.

To the awesome sound of Rock, Mars enters Earth’s atmosphere and burns a thin layer of its own surface. This releases an incredible amount of energy. It gets faster and faster and smashes into the Pacific Ocean. A huge blast wave sweeps across the entire planet. Everything is lit up by flames, and everyone on the ship has to put on sunglasses to avoid being blinded. Our blue planet is turning into a fiery one.

The dust of Mars mixes with the water of Earth. The force of the impact goes through the earth’s crust, into the liquid hot magma. Hundreds of pieces of Mars, some the size of entire countries, are somehow floating in the atmosphere. The collision generates so much energy that all oceans boil and evaporate. Seas and rivers of molten metal are now spreading all over Earth. Days, weeks, months pass. A belt made up of bits of Mars forms around the Earth. It’s like a fiery version of Saturn.

It’ll take a long time before it’s safe to land back down, but humanity can’t stay alive on the ships all that time. Food, water, and oxygen will run out after a few years. But scientists already have a plan. The ships flip a switch and become huge cryo-chambers. The ships are equipped with energy panels, and the roasting hot Earth’s giving off a lot of energy, totally enough to keep the ships working while everyone onboard takes a few thousand-year nap. As soon as the planet cools down, humans will wake up.

Hundreds of thousands of years pass. One day, alarms go off simultaneously on all the ships. People wake up, slowly. Their bodies are exhausted, but after a few billion cups of coffee, everyone’s ready to go! Down on Earth, new continents should have formed, and the atmosphere’s most likely way different. The planet might have lost its original orbit, so it might be spinning at a different angle. The seasons as we used to know them, gone. All the water on Earth evaporated in the first few hours, but there were huge glaciers on Mars, which might’ve melted on impact? Mars may have shared its water with our planet!

The clouds of dust and dirt should’ve settled by now, and the ground should be pretty good for growing stuff on... all that magma probably spewed up a bunch of useful minerals and chemicals. It’s going to be difficult, but humanity somehow must adapt to the new Earth. People are ready for anything! All the earthlings run to the nearest windows to see what their beloved planet looks like after all these centuries.

Um... where is it? People are craning their necks, looking out at the empty spot where the Earth used to be. The impact of Mars was so strong that it pushed the Earth out of its orbit around the sun. It’s... gone.
“Great... What’re we going to do now?” Some bearded guy grabs a guitar and says: “Let’s play!”