Saga Do the laws of gravity apply in Star Wars?

Okay, so we know that George Lucas said that a decision he made in the interest of action and film purposes was that there would be sound in space which would not be the case in real life due to there being no molecules to carry the sound, but have the laws of gravity also been bent in the Star Wars galaxy?

I bring this up because I was watching an episode of rebels yesterday where Ezra was in space without his mask on and whilst he was having (some) trouble breathing, he wasn't floating off the surface he was on, he was firmly planted on it when in real-life space he would a) be floating around, and b) all the oxygen would be sucked out of his lungs because space is just a vacuum

Is this an oversight or has the game been changed in the case of Star Wars?

 

Things like that make me glad I don't watch Rebels.

 

Well, artificial gravity exists and can be adjusted on or within a spacecraft. For example, the gravity is clearly altered in the gunports on the Falcon, so that you can sit in the gunner's seat and not feel a gravitational drag, even though you're either facing upwards or downwards.

As for apparently breathing in space...♫ If you're wondering how he eats and breathes...♫.

 

The sound is there for the audience, just like the music.

 

The rules of the Force are the same as the rules of watching Star Wars. "Let go your conscious self" and if you have trouble believing, "that is why you fail."

Some things just just accept and believe and it works out fine.

 

ESB?

I'll just add this for the moment: For ANH I'm confident that Lucas was concerned about accurate portrayal.

When the Falcon arrives at the Death Star we can see two stormtroopers with added gear and what inevitably appear to be oxygen tubes.



Biggs suggestion to Porkins to "eject" during the later battle is ambiguous. In the extended screenplay scene Porkins had a problem with his converter "running wild", so it's possible Biggs recommended ejecting this component (IMHO, the Death Star utilizes an artificial atmosphere as a natural deflector shield to incinerate small space debris, so I wouldn't count out the possibility that Porkins could have survived, had he ejected himself).

 

I know it's for the audience but people have asked other questions on the boards that you could say the same thing for. I was just curious to see if people thought it was something the creators of the show overlooked or if people can walk around and breath in space as a rule in Star Wars.

 

Thank the Force, no.



We an clearly see two characters on Polis Massa wearing heavy spacesuits as it should be.

 

Ah I forgot about that sequence!

 

boo. op don't know which ep you're talking about. if it's the one with the whale creatures they were above a planetoid that had atmosphere and gravity of some kind.

 

I think they were still in the safety of the mining stations atmosphere before going back into the ship.

 

Well, that changes things... I was watching the episode in bed at around midnight so I must've been too tired to notice that detail.

 

I've heard that, when an X-Wing pilot ejects, there's some sort of life support equipment built into either the cockpit or the pilot seat that would allow the pilot to survive for a brief period. I'm sure the full details have been compiled somewhere.

I also remember an issue of the Marvel comic where it's shown that a spacecraft could generate a magnetic field that could provide a person some protection from the vacuum. (It's in the story "Showdown", the last part of the waterworld series, where Han and Crimson Jack finally settle matters.)

 

Does Crimson Jack's spacesuit have pants?

 

What spacesuit?

Oh, and I won't spoil it, but one of Han's best lines ever comes at the conclusion of their duel.

 

The answer: not even close

Hoth, given what (old EU) gave us about its size, and estimating a rough composition, should have only 30% of Earth's gravity. So Luke wouldn't need an ascension gun to destroy the AT-AT; he could just jump
Of course, Norway isn't another planet

Perhaps the most egregious defiance of gravity, though, is

Spoiler: this

 

Really? I think you just identified the most hilarious EU conjecture.



We can clearly see two satellites of Hoth that obviously must orbit the planet at such a distance so these could keep at stable orbit. Based on knowledge of our solar system the only asteroid / planetoid that managed to accumulate debris to roughly form the shape of a sphere is Ceres, and it already has a diameter of 587 miles.

So based on that image on Hoth, the planet is rather twice the size of Earth and therefore must have a higher gravity than Earth, but most definitely can't have less.

I have to concur reluctantly. Yet we don't know what materials that big asteroid consists of and they might be in an area that's parallel to the asteroid's center. And that's all I'm going to say 'bout that.

 

Let's assume these planets orbiting Hoth are about the size of Saturn's Tethys or Enceladus

That would make Hoth roughly around or at Earth's size

But Earth has a fairly high density. Hot is composed primarily of icy materials

As D=m/v, the D would be much lower, thus the mass would have to compensate to match up assuming its volume is roughly the same as Earth's

 

sw physics are sw physics. flash gordon and the like didn't worry about exact science.

 

Seagoat wrote

Let's assume these planets orbiting Hoth are about the size of Saturn's Tethys or Enceladus. That would make Hoth roughly around or at Earth's size.

Better still the Saturn moon Mimas, because with only 246 miles in diameter it is the "smallest astronomical body that is known to be rounded in shape because of self-gravitation".

Yet the above illustration is just to reveal its size in relation to Earth and does NOT show the actual distance from Earth its orbit would be in real life.

Even if we were to assume that the smallest sphere orbiting Hoth is just a communications satellite the Rebels put there, the bigger one on top of the Hoth picture is obviously a moon, judging by its texture. Even assuming it just has the size of Mimas would put the planet behind (Hoth) at a considerable distance for an orbit to even work, which ultimately would reveal Hoth to be a giant much larger than Earth.

But Earth has a fairly high density. Hoth is composed primarily of icy materials

I do not know where this conjecture comes from. Assuming Hoth was once a water planet with only a few mountain tops sticking out from the water, that would beg for explanation how an indigenous and mammal lifeform like the Wampa could have evolved there.

It rather looks like Hoth had been once a planet like Earth, suffered an Extinction Level Event (not surprising considering all the asteroids in its vicinity) that led to an ice age the planet is just recovering from, with the Wampa being among the few if not the only lifeform which has survived that long (and perhaps the Tauntauns).

 

Ah, but that brings us to another conundrum - infamously, the proportions for the Death Star II - Forest Moon - Endor (main) are terribly askew. Some sources will say that DSII is (I believe) 160 km in diameter, 20 more than the first DS, but I've read some saying that it's nearly 1000 km in diameter, roughly the size of the planet Ceres, which.... no. When it's shown exploding in the sky of the forest moon, that would imply it's either so close as to be in the planet's exosphere or so large that it must be several hundred km larger than stated to be (thus the whole "Endor Apocalypse" scenario)

So using visuals like that is out, as I'm sure that is not the only such example

As for Hoth's composition.... I admit, I'm estimating a rough density of 0.91 g/cm^3. But let's assume Hoth has a differentiated interior, or at least the composition roughly necessary to have a significant magnetosphere (we see the Rebels/Imperials and the indigenous creatures exposed to plenty of sunlight, so there must be some form of protection against it)
So let's say it's like Jupiter's satellite Ganymede, about 1.93 g/cm^3, as it was quite surprising to planetary scientists that it has its own magnetic field. That would likely be enough to protect Hoth, but I'd say it's certainly larger than the realm of Ganymede or Mercury's size
Doing some head math, that gives it a mass ranging around maybe 0.6-1 Earth masses, but there's certainly little chance that Hoth has Earth's density. So it must therefore have a somewhat smaller volume, aforementioned visual problems notwithstanding

God I love astronomy. Alright, I'm off for a Latin exam. Let's see how overthinking I am

 

Seagoat wrote

Ah, but that brings us to another conundrum - infamously, the proportions for the Death Star II - Forest Moon - Endor (main) are terribly askew. Some sources will say that DSII is (I believe) 160 km in diameter, 20 more than the first DS, but I've read some saying that it's nearly 1000 km in diameter, roughly the size of the planet Ceres, which.... no. When it's shown exploding in the sky of the forest moon, that would imply it's either so close as to be in the planet's exosphere or so large that it must be several hundred km larger than stated to be (thus the whole "Endor Apocalypse" scenario)

So using visuals like that is out, as I'm sure that is not the only such example

As I've recently demonstrated in another thread Death Star II has a diameter of almost 300 km, cross-referencing the height of the equatorial trench to the actual VFX model, but that is irrelevant here.
After some fans had noticed that the Rogue One teaser featured the horizon-filling "way-too-big" Death Star (I) John Knoll wrote an interesting article, confirming that it was way too close but apparently made use of repulsorlift technology, i.e. artificially decreasing its distance to the planetary body, not being dependent on a natural orbit. The same probably applies to Death Star II or the deflector shield generator facility on the Endor moon also used a tractor beam to hold the Death Star in place.

So comparing the man-made Death Star to the natural satellites of Hoth would be like comparing apples to oranges.

The image of Hoth during Luke's departure suggests a planet much bigger than Earth, but apparently density of the overall body is less than Earth, explaining that humans walk on Hoth as if it merely had 1 G.

Ultima ratio regis

 

While it's true that its rare for tiny asteroids to be "almost spherical" - it's still a plausible shape for them to be.

 

Interesting. I'll have to go see that demonstation

I wasn't really comparing the DS to Hoth's satellites so much as using the reasoning of bad proportions sort of mucking up our ideas of size comparison

Would make sense if Hoth was significantly larger but less dense. Too lazy right now to do exact calculations, unfortunately

It depends on your definition of "tiny"

Irl, Ceres is the only known asteroid to be spherical, and it's thought that Vesta once was before a catastrophic collision reduced its mass by about 1%, meaning its mass was no longer sufficient to round itself under its own gravity

 

And Vesta (above) still has a mean diameter of 326 miles, so spherical moon Mimas with only 246 miles still remains a better candidate.

Question remains: Is the gravity of the mother planet and a regular orbit a decisive factor for "rounding" a moon that previously consisted of the same debris and material like an asteroid?