CT Was the Death Star I or II bigger than any Solar System Moons?

HanSolo98 · May 5, 2022

So, is @Iron_lord the resident Death Star expert?

BlackRanger · May 5, 2022

Old_Brown_Shoe said: ↑

It's still going to be a trip; to do 157 km in, say, five minutes puts the Emperor Express at an average speed of 1884 km/hr. (It would of course peak higher because it's going to be slower at the beginning and end. Those Death Star contractors know a thing or two about compact inertial dampeners!) Lord Vader should have parked closer.
Click to expand...

Hyperspace elevators. It's the big new thing in Imperial technology.

DARTHLINK · May 6, 2022

Riv_Shiel said: ↑

Unfortunately there ISN'T a specific parameter of what makes a moon a moon. And don't hold your breath about getting one, either - it took 100s of years between it was widely accepted what a planet was to getting a proper definition of what makes a planet a planet.
It would seem straightforward to define a moon as an object that revolves around a planet (or dwarf planet, minor solar system body, etc.), but orbits are a little more complicated than that. Objects don't revolve around each other at all, they revolve around a common point in between each other (barycenter). This barycenter will be closer to the center of the more massive object. When there is a huge mass differential with respect to the distance between the objects (say Earth and the Sun), the barycenter is very close to the center of the more massive object - the smaller object nearly revolves around the center of the larger object, and the larger object seems to slightly "wobble". When the mass difference is a little less (say Earth and its moon), the barycenter is closer to the surface of the larger object - the moon causes the Earth to nearly revolve around itself. When the mass if even less (say Pluto and its moon Charon), both objects revolve around a common point in space. Furthermore, multiple objects will have significant impacts on an objects orbit. The moon goes around the sun as much or more because of the barycenter it shares with the sun as it does because it is "chasing the Earth". The sun is simultaneously revolving around countless barycenters due to all the object around it. Orbits are impacted by every other object, even if they do not cause them to revolve either around the other (sometimes they can cause the orbits to be in resonance depending on size and proximity - say object A travels x times around the sun for every y times that object B does).
Some popular ideas of when a planet-moon (read "planet" generically to include dwarf planets and lesser objects) system becomes a double planet system:
1. A planet-moon occurs where the barycenter they orbit is located beneath the surface of one object or another. Pluto-Charon would be double dwarf planets, Earth-Luna would be a planet-moon system.
2. A double planet occurs where both objects are always "concave in" towards the sun. In other words, if you traced a moons trajectory through space (relative to the sun) it would sometimes bend towards the sun, and sometimes away. If both objects only bend towards the sun, they are a double planet. Pluto-Charon would be a planet-moon system, Earth-Luna would be double planets.
3. Some relative mass criteria - usually requiring the mass to be close to equal. I would say this is the de facto criteria, but there is no definition of how close to 1 the ratio needs to be. Don't expect one until we discover something that makes us need a definition.
There is also no definition of what the minimum criteria for an object to be considered a moon is. Arguably you could define all the particles in a planetary ring as moons.
Click to expand...

Ah, I kind of get what you’re saying and it makes sense. Seems complicated though, but interesting stuff. I’ll have to study more into this.

Old_Brown_Shoe said: ↑

Holy cow, you're absolutely right! I never thought about that before. Must have been an anxious ride (not that the trip up would have been very fun, either).
Click to expand...

If there’s any consolation, Luke probably accepted going into the Death Star II that there was a high chance he wouldn’t be coming back out. So if he and (well, now the newly-redeemed Anakin) both died trying to get out? He’d be OK with that. At least he’d die with his father.

Log in or Sign up

CT Was the Death Star I or II bigger than any Solar System Moons?

HanSolo98 Jedi Knight

BlackRanger Jedi Master

DARTHLINK Force Ghost