Tag: physics

Are hyperspace maps a thing?

In a way, yes. A map of the galaxy is called a star-chart, a star map, or an astronav chart, and they are used for navigating a ship through both hyperspace and realspace. (No special map is needed to navigate hyperspace; each point in realspace has an associated point in the alternate dimension of hyperspace, and every object in realspace has an associated “shadow” in hyperspace, so they are linked.) When a ship jumps to hyperspace, a star-chart is used to calculate a route to the destination that ensures the ship doesn’t collide with a celestial body. This is called astrogation. 

~ Jacen

*another minor spoiler* at the end of Luke’s storyline he sees the twin suns again. I believe I read in the visual dictionary that the planet did have twin suns. What is the likelihood of that given it was ocean-covered? Even at a distance twin suns would affect I would imagine?

Going off of real life, it’s not likely. Planets in binary systems often have pretty elliptical orbits, meaning they can move in and out of the habitable zone, alternately freezing and thawing throughout the year. For life to even exist, the suns should either be so close to each other that the planet experiences a gravitational pull as if there were only one star, or they should have roughly equal masses. For the planet to be covered in water like Ahch-To, it would have to have a fairly large orbital radius, and if we assume that its climate stays pretty much the same, its orbit would also have to be quite circular. But who knows, it could be possible!

~ Jacen

Is there anything physics related that bothers you about the movies?

I’m pretty willing to suspend disbelief and accept the in-universe laws, but something that’s always bothered me is how starships move in outer space as if they were moving through an atmosphere. Obviously I wouldn’t want them to get rid of it, but they fly like they have air to push against and, in some cases, a force of gravity acting on them. If you’ve ever seen a shuttle maneuvering with its little air jet things, it looks nothing like the swoops and turns an x-wing can do. And I’ve talked about this before, as something that doesn’t bother me so much as make me curious, but I also notice the inconsistencies in how use of the Force relates to the laws of physics. For example, a Force-user may brace themselves so their feet don’t slip while pushing against something heavy, or fall to their knees holding something above their head (meaning that an object being manipulated through the Force can exert a force on the person manipulating it), but at the same time a person can pull a Star Destroyer out of orbit without experiencing a proportional physical strain (or getting pulled off the ground themselves). So yeah, that’s just something funny I’ve noticed. 

~ Jacen

I always wondered about relativity’s effect in the Star Wars galaxy, especially since the characters would age differently in lightspeed and traveling on ships than on planets. Also, wouldn’t time pass differently? Do they bend spacetime rules to have events happen in timely manners/ without much time lost?

We have to suspend disbelief a little bit here, but essentially relativity in the Star Wars universe is supposed to work much the same as in real life. The reason why people don’t age or experience time differently in hyperspace when compared to the rest of the universe is that the hyperdrive uses relativistic shielding to counteract the time dilation. In cases where this shielding has malfunctioned, a journey that appears to the passengers to be only a short jump could take centuries in reality, causing them to appear to travel in time. And we have to keep in mind that jumping to hyperspace in Star Wars is treated as entering another dimension, so it’ll be a little different.

~ Jacen

Is it possible for a ship to come out of hyperspace in-atmosphere?

The atmosphere itself wouldn’t be so much of a problem, of course, the issue would be with the gravity well of the planet. Theoretically, the safety mechanisms should pull the ship out of hyperspace as soon as the force of a celestial body’s gravity starts to have an effect on the ship, a ways before it actually reaches the body itself. Likewise, a ship should not be able to enter hyperspace while under the influence of the gravity well. However, we have seen that malfunctions in he hyperdrive and related safety systems can cause a ship to jump to hyperspace while in a planet’s atmosphere. It is possible that a similar malfunction, or disabling the failsafe that causes the ship to exit hyperspace, could allow the ship to end a jump closer to the planet than normally allowed. Naturally, this would be very dangerous and could easily cause the ship to just hit the planet’s surface or burn up upon reentry, and right now I can’t think of any examples of someone actually doing it, but I believe it could be possible with a lot of careful calculation.

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

theticklishpear:

(A table of contents is available. This series will remain open for additional posts and the table of contents up-to-date as new posts are added.)

Part of Fifteen: Further Research and Resources

AKA What Pear Read To Write This Series

I read a lot of stuff in preparation for writing this series of posts. Researching and writing each post usually took about 3-5 hours. Here’s most of what I read and watched, though admittedly not all of it, and yes, I did go out and read some very basic, elementary-school-level things sometimes to make sure I wasn’t misremembering things or misrepresenting them.

My biggest suggestion is: When in doubt, go to Youtuber Artifexian. He goes through all the math and how it’s related to what, and even has conlang and calendar creation videos. You’ll see him pop up a lot on these lists.

For hard sci-fi writers looking for all the math equations, go through the video descriptions for the Artifexian videos linked below. He explains what each equation means and why you should bother with it.

Solar Systems:

Stars:

Multi-Star Systems:

Planets:

The Habitable Zone:

Orbits:

Asteroids:

Planetary Considerations:

Seasons:

Day/Night Cycles:

Surface Features:

Skies:

Life in Space:

Health in Space:

Working in Space:

Progressing Toward Interstellar Travel:

Generators:

Additional Resources:

Literal Books From My Childhood:
(Yes, I understood they were outdated in some areas.)

If there’s a topic I didn’t cover or that you’d like to see more on, feel free to drop in a request for it and I’ll work on adding it. These series are always open to additions, and those topics can come from you!

Some resources for anyone looking to create their own planet or system!

Say a force user of slightly above average strength was trying to force-push a massive asteroid into another ship, while out in space themselves. Would it be easy to do, given the lack of gravity and air resistance in space? Or would it take a lot of effort still?

Theoretically, it would be very very difficult and would require the Jedi’s ship to be flying at speed towards the asteroid, even taking into account the extra strength given by the Force. Because the asteroid is so much more massive than the Jedi and their ship, any force applied to the asteroid by the Jedi would cause the ship to move away from the asteroid much faster than the asteroid away from the ship. Because of the lack of any friction, there’s nothing to oppose the ship’s unwanted movement. However, the Force doesn’t seem to exactly follow the laws of physics, and in fact behaves quite inconsistently even within the series.

I won’t get into a full analysis of how the Force works, but from examples it seems that the “equal and opposite reaction” rule still applies. That means, to make that asteroid move, your Jedi’s ship will have to be moving towards the asteroid. Obviously there are nuances that would make moving an asteroid from inside a ship a physically difficult feat (e.g., the force pushing back on the Jedi should crush them into their seat because the ship cannot move backwards), but since things like that are often ignored in canon I would say you shouldn’t worry about it.

To answer your actual question: moving a large object in space would be easier (though more complicated) than moving it in a gravity well, but it would still take a lot of effort because of the mass of the object. Exactly how much effort is up to you, and depends on exactly how massive the asteroid is as well as (judging from canon) how strong your Jedi is in telekinesis.

I know some of that might be a bit confusing, so feel free to send another ask or a message if you’d like clarification on anything. I hope it helps!

~ Jacen

xcassianxandorx:

writebetterstarwars:

xcassianxandorx:

BLASTERS DO NOT SHOOT BULLETS OR OTHER PROJECTILES. THEY ARE LASER GUNS. They burn and cauterise. They don’t make giant bullet holes and they don’t run out of bullets. There ARE NO bullets.

@writebetterstarwars, please reblog. I just read my third fic of the day that mentioned Rebels shooting Imperials with bullets and one mentioned a through-and-through.

No problem! I’ve seen that a few times myself. Blasters indeed do not fire any solid projectile; they fire small amounts of energized gas called particle bolts or, more commonly, blaster bolts. A blaster contains a gas cartridge (which usually has enough gas for 500 shots) and a power pack (enough power for 100 shots). However, those amounts change according to the type of blaster and its power setting, as well as any modifications made.

I should also point out that they don’t actually fire lasers (lasers are coherent beams of light and are considered archaic) but are based on the same principles. They most often cause burn wounds but the bolts can also hit with physical force (like a bullet), explosive force, or both. This can cause bleeding and damage around the actual wound and, because there is mass involved, can supposedly go right through a person’s body and cause burn wounds upon entry and exit (we already know they can go through armour, so a body should work the same, assuming the bolt has enough power to do it).

Calling it a laser gun was a vast over simplification but kinda gets the point across. They can act like projectiles, sort of, but there’s no ammo magazine, and they don’t do the thing bullets do with a small entry and large exit, is what I meant. I should have been more clear on that but I’ve had a long day and after two hours in rush hour traffic (even on a Saturday), I was extra irritable.

Also, blasters can overheat and/or explode from overuse or tampering, but simply being in a firefight won’t automatically cause that to happen. I’ve seen that described multiple times, but blasters are *designed* for this kind of thing. Unless the blaster is absolute crap and cobbled together, twenty shots isn’t going to make the handle get hot enough to burn the protagonist’s hand.

Very true. Using a blaster as intended will almost never cause it to overheat to the point of destruction

xcassianxandorx:

BLASTERS DO NOT SHOOT BULLETS OR OTHER PROJECTILES. THEY ARE LASER GUNS. They burn and cauterise. They don’t make giant bullet holes and they don’t run out of bullets. There ARE NO bullets.

@writebetterstarwars, please reblog. I just read my third fic of the day that mentioned Rebels shooting Imperials with bullets and one mentioned a through-and-through.

No problem! I’ve seen that a few times myself. Blasters indeed do not fire any solid projectile; they fire small amounts of energized gas called particle bolts or, more commonly, blaster bolts. A blaster contains a gas cartridge (which usually has enough gas for 500 shots) and a power pack (enough power for 100 shots). However, those amounts change according to the type of blaster and its power setting, as well as any modifications made.

I should also point out that they don’t actually fire lasers (lasers are coherent beams of light and are considered archaic) but are based on the same principles. They most often cause burn wounds but the bolts can also hit with physical force (like a bullet), explosive force, or both. This can cause bleeding and damage around the actual wound and, because there is mass involved, can supposedly go right through a person’s body and cause burn wounds upon entry and exit (we already know they can go through armour, so a body should work the same, assuming the bolt has enough power to do it).

(Kinda spoilery I guess?) So, in Rogue One we see an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer enter a planet’s atmosphere as low as ~2000m. Could an Executor-class Star Dreadnought do that too (and fly back out without plummeting to the surface) or would it require more repulsorlifts than the ship comes with?

th3rm0pyl43:

writebetterstarwars:

I think the main issue here is that the Executor-class Dreadnought is just such a huge ship (19 km in length, 100 times more massive than the Star Destroyer). The I-class Star Destroyer already needs full power to the repulsors to stay in the air in an atmosphere, so I can only imagine how much power would be needed to keep the Dreadnought up. To even have a chance, you would probably have to lower the shields and redirect all available power to the engines. Ultimately, even the relatively tiny Star Destroyer is not suited to flying in an atmosphere, so the Dreadnought might be pushing it. Perhaps you could try just keeping it in a low orbit?

That said, if you’ve got a pretty small planet or a moon with not a lot of gravity, you could still give it a shot. There just isn’t enough information available to say you couldn’t do that if you wanted to. But anything Jedha-sized like in Rogue One, I would say it wouldn’t work.

I hope your Dreadnought cooperates with you more in the future!

~ Jacen

This anon was me, yo! I’m a lot of your anons lol

I’m planning for the Ex to receive several technical upgrades (including a state-of-the-art hypermatter reactor and extra repulsorlifts) over the course of my fic, so the power won’t be much of an issue. 

It’s just that the planet whose atmosphere she’s supposed to enter is Byss, which has some very wonky gravitational anomalies going on as far as I know. I’m no physicist, so I have no idea how that would work with the repulsors. D: Any thoughts on that?

Well, because the repulsors work by changing how gravity acts on them, I would assume that any anomalies in the gravity well they’re pushing against would definitely mess them up. Exactly how, I couldn’t say. I think in this case you could pretty much make it up, because I doubt it’s been explored much in the EU. Maybe the ship only has to shudder or change altitude every once in a while. Or maybe an anomaly hits half the ship but not the other half and the whole thing is torn apart. I say just have fun with it.