Planet Killer (paten pending)

The device has mas of only a few tons. it is a silver cylinder about 3m long and about 80cm in diameter. It is accompanied by a coil of very thin fiber that has more mass than the rest of the device. This wire is several km long with properties that allow it to match the curve of a planet at many km above the surface. The whole thing will fit easily in a standard shipping container with plenty of room to spare.

To use the device, take it to a low orbit and expand the wire along the path of the orbit. Use the included control pad to maneuver the device and fiber to the most efficient vector. The placement does not have to be perfect, but the closer you get to the apex, the more spectacular the devastation. Once prompted, exit the vicinity of the plant as quickly as possible. The device is utterly vulnerable at this point. There is no attempt at defence of the device itself. It is recommended that some sort of third party automated sacrificial defence mechanism that will not get in the way of the device be deployed simultaneously.

The way it works is instantly creating a spacial de-phase area approximately 10000km long and dozens of km wide. This instantly freezes in place once activated as compared to the largest body of mass nearby. This will be the sun the planet is orbiting. The device lets the planet pass it and uses the inertia of the planet to slice the it in two. The matter that hits the de-phase area will be thrust perpendicular to the planet's direction of orbit. This causes a churning effect inside the planet.

The cut will be along a jagged line that is offset on purpose from the center of gravity. The nature of out of phase space prevents the planet from easily closing the hole before catastrophic damage is done to the structural integrity of the body.

The de-phase area will dissipate within a few dozen hours. Within a few hundred hours no remaining detectable ripple will remain.

If the planet has a solid core, the two half's will attempt to acquire slightly different orbits and basically collide as any two bodies would. This will cause massive liquefaction and turn the planet inside out grinding any civilization to very hot dust.

If the planet has a more liquid core, the entire planet will turn itself inside out taking all inhabitants and all their creations on the surface several hundred km below the surface. The outer shell will cool in to slowly thickening crystal.

Satellites are all but gaunted to be destroyed. More often than not, small moons are knocked out of their obit by gravitational drag effects. Occasionally, rings of debris are formed. The included control pad is not configured to predict these outcomes.

If the planet had a magnetic core, it will be demagnetized.

All of this devastation will render the planet uninhabitable for an extended period of time. However, this will not last. In as short as a couple of hundred years, the planet may be mined or even occupied by stout explorers. Even with the Planet Magnitizer (paten pending), It will take several thousand years for an atmosphere and any oceans to begin to return. The only life that typically survives is bacteria and similar microbes.