Yeah, it was some sort of subspace traveling explosion (or some other nonsense), or else it would have NEVER effected other solar systems. There could have been plenty of options to get Nero and Spock back in time other than that, but oh well...

I can see Starfleet/KDF/Borg rendering a planet 'lifeless' fairly easily, but actually making it explode into pieces nearly impossible under normal conditions.

Blowing up a planet is easy - all you need to do is transport a few antimatter particles into the mantle and fly away.

In theory, one cannot transport Antimatter.

The Voth did, when they transported USS Voyager in "Distant Origin".

Expecting anything close to a rigorous adherence to real life physics and astronomy from Star Trek is wishful thinking. In order to accept Star Trek you must accept this.

examples:

"Captain, if we hid in that NEBULA near the planet, it should mask our ENERGY SIGNATURE so the (INSERT ALIEN RACE NAME) ships cannot detect us with their SCANNERS."

(Nebulae are in actuality MASSIVE ((hundreds, even thousands of light years across) clouds of dust and hydrogen gas where stars are formed, not moon sized multicolored clouds that float in circles around planets)

"Captain, I've SCANNED the planet and located the (INSERT ALIEN RACE NAME) base. They are using a (INSERT MADE UP COMBINATION OF SCIENCE LIKE TERMS HERE) so we won't be able to BEAM you directly into the base."

(do I even need to comment on this? LMFAO)

"Captain, my TRICORDER SCAN has manged to provide a detailed map of the enemy base. If we go to the console in the third room down the hall, we should be able to MODIFY it with a (INSERT RANDOM IMAGINARY SCIENCE TECHNIQUE) and cause all the automated defense systems to ignore us."

(again, the example makes it own point)

In order to enjoy anything Star Trek related, we must accept that real physics and science will be completely ignored and just accept that it is "Science" Fiction, not Science Fiction.

Dude, we have visuals of shattered planets with moon-sized chunks literally floating next to each other. Gravity at that distance works quickly. They'd pull themselves together in a couple of days and become a single superheated blob of rock until its surface cooled. The cooling part would take a while.

Here's what happens when worlds collide.

awesome video... tacofangs make it happen cap'n would be cool to see something like that in the game awesome visual effects.