Physics and Star Wars
To estimate the effects of the second Death Star, Minton looks into its mass. According to estimated data from some students of Lehigh University, the steel mass needed for building one would be around 770 kilograms times the mass cubed in weight. This would give the Death Star of about ten to the power of nineteen kilograms in mass. Using this data, Minton produces equations that lead him to conclude the fragments would hit the moons surface so hard causing craters almost four times the size of the Chicxulub crater in Mexico. This impact would cause a planetary firestorm and vaporize all lifeforms on the moon.
Doomsday device
Doomsday devices started becoming more common in science fiction in the 1940s and 1950s, due to the invention of nuclear weapons and the constant fear of total destruction. A well-known example is in the film "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), where the Dead Hand is triggered by an incompletely aborted American attack, and all life on Earth is extinguished. Another is in the TV episode "" (1967), where the crew of the "Enterprise" fights a powerful planet-killing alien machine. However, doomsday devices also expanded to encompass many other types of fictional technology, one of the most famous of which is the Death Star, a moon-sized planet-destroying space station.