Galactus, the only survivor of a universe before the Big Bang, is perhaps the most feared being in the Marvel Universe. His almost limitless power must be fed by the “life energies” of planets capable of sustaining life. It’s a horrible, scarring process. It’s also pretty cool. So what would happen if Galactus came to Earth?

In my latest Because Science, I’m trying to figure out how much energy Galactus could get from consuming every living thing on Earth. More specifically, if Galactus converted all the living things on Earth into pure energy, how much energy would that be, and what could the cosmic monster do with it?

We start with the Earth’s biosphere—everything alive on Earth, from bacteria to plants to llamas. Scientists measure this as biomass, in millions of tonnes of carbon. While we humans are numerous enough to drain the entire planet in our own way, we are pretty low on the biomass scale. For example, humans are outweighed by cattle. And termites. And bacteria. But if you add all the biomass on Earth up, you get a final number that Galactus would turn into pure energy. We know how to do that calculation, thanks to a man named Einstein, but you’ll have to watch the episode above to find out the result.

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