So you don't want to add a star destroyer for these because it would be like a purger....

How about letting us use 'two' purgers to destroy these crap planets once and for all?

It could be added to the planet artifact usage as an option:

*combine 1 purger and a large energy spike to completely destroy the planet (25 energy)* -- very tiny
*combine 2 purgers and a large energy spike to completely destroy the planet (50 energy)* -- tiny
*combine 3 purgers and a large energy spike to completely destroy this planet (75 energy)* -- very small

This idea would be balanced because we could get rid of said planet from our list already.

while I love the image this brings to mind, you'd have every scanned planet fromk that range blown out of the game in about 3 days.

Also, the in-game traits of purgers is that it wipes them from your ship's computer logs. I don't think an energy spike with that could blow up a planet...

How about a limited mission artifact that completely harvests a planet for resources ;p

Or how about a similar thing that ignites a gas giant for a research boost ;p

OR a ship-mod that you can somehow combine two Tiny Planets to an average or 3 very tiny. With chances to increase/Decrease resources of the new planet. You could do a race with this ability.