Questions about Physics and Star Wars
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the Endor Holocaust in Star Wars physics?
The Endor Holocaust is a theory, circulating since around 1997, that the destruction of the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi would cause a nuclear fallout event on the forest moon of Endor. Radioactive debris, planetary firestorms, and radiation exposure would kill all life on the surface, including the Ewoks. Multiple physicists and planetary scientists, including Dave Mosher, Matija Cuk, Erik Asphaug, and Dave Minton, have analyzed the scenario and reached broadly similar conclusions about Endor's fate.
Is the planet Tatooine with twin suns scientifically possible?
Planets around binary star systems are scientifically plausible. NASA's Kepler space telescope confirmed the first such planet, Kepler-16b, a finding reported by The Guardian in 2011. Astrophysicist Jeanne Cavelos explains that close binary systems like Tatooine's would pose significant challenges including gravitational instability and extreme temperature swings, but astronomers have identified two scenarios in which a stable, life-supporting binary-star planet could exist.
Why can't you really hear sound in the Star Wars space battles?
Space is a vacuum and sound requires matter to propagate, so the explosions and engine noise in Star Wars space battles are physically impossible for characters to hear. The canonical novel Lords of the Sith confirms this: when Darth Vader ejects into space, his ship's collision occurs in "eerie silence" because the vacuum cannot transmit sound. The sounds audiences hear in the films are described as out-of-universe interpretations rather than what characters actually experience.
What would a real lightsaber need to work according to physics?
A real lightsaber would need a contained plasma blade held by a force field beyond current technology, since magnetic fields cannot contain heat. Euler and Heisenberg showed in 1936 that light can interact with itself at extremely high intensities; at an electric field strength of around 10 to the 15th volts per meter, the clashing force between two beams would be about 10 newtons. The energy cost to run such a device for one minute would be roughly 10 to the 25th joules, approximately one tenth of the Sun's total energy output per second.
How are blasters in Star Wars different from real lasers?
Official canonical Star Wars sources classify blasters as particle beam weapons rather than true lasers, which is supported by the fact that magnetically sealed walls in the Star Wars universe deflect blaster shots. A genuine laser would travel at the speed of light and would be impossible to dodge visually. Blasters have been depicted firing burning bolts, explosive bolts, and blue plasma bolts that cause bleeding wounds, as seen when Poe shot a Stormtrooper in The Force Awakens.
Why do Star Wars spaceships bank when turning in space?
Star Wars ships bank when turning even in the airless vacuum of space, where banking serves no aerodynamic purpose. Physicist Lawrence M. Krauss attributes this directly to aesthetics, stating the reason is simply that "it looks good." The films explain the g-forces that such maneuvers would generate by reference to devices called inertial compensators.