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Hiya. I presented this rather wild idea to a group of associates and friends, but I wanted to post it here too:

We all know many of the asteroids in the Geonosian ring were huge, many kilometers wide, right? The partially hollow rock that Fett used to flank Kenobi was bigger yet.

While watching AOTC on HBO, it struck me that most planetary rings consist of tiny rocks, most of which are no more than a few meters wide if that (Saturn's ring is a good example). Over time, the biggest rocks are subject to the most impacts, which tends to fragment everything in a ring until you're left with a fine "sand" of rock.

My guess is that the Geonosian ring is pretty young, created decades (?!), hundreds of years, or maybe several thousand before AOTC (?). Depending on just how old it is, could it be that the ring was formed artificially; e.g., a huge collision with that planet's shield? An early superlaser test against a satellite body maybe?

I like this idea somewhat better than a recent impact event which ejected that much material back into orbit. I suppose that could've happened, assuming enough time passed for Geonosis to return to its beautiful, arid, sandy self, but that requires ascribing a bit more resilience than I'm willing to give the Geonosian race (assuming, of course, that's been their home for a really long time). An impact that created a ring from THAT much ejecta would have to be rather hard to recover from, after all.

Thoughts? Do the asteroids themselves offer any clues as to their age or likely origin? I tried to note how "pock-marked" the bigger rocks were, but I paid little attention to their color, for instance...I was too busy marvelling at Slave One again

Since Geonosis is a heavily industrialized world in need of a constant influx of raw materials, the asteroid ring in the vicinity of Geonosis might well be artificial. With the available technology it would be relatively simple for the Geonosians to collect asteroids from their solar system and place them in appropriate parking orbits. The raw materials are then harvested from the ring as needed. Of course, an industrial operation that requires resources on that scale would be pretty big.

It would be one way to explain the apparent freshness of the asteroids and their being packed so closely.

Also, a massive weaponry test which went horribly wrong could have caused it. After all, the Geonosians are weapons manufacturers.

Page 3 of ITWoAOTC says that the geonosian rings are "recently formed"

Page 26 says "The Red, outer rim planet of Geonosis is ringed by asteroids which were created by the decimation of a local moonlet by a 2 kilometer wide comet"

Page 29 says "to supply the vast amounts of metal ore required, the Geonosians mine iron rich rock from the asteroid ring surroundign their planet"

There you go. Though the last qute brings up the interesting possibility of durasteel really just being a super alloy of steel. This is canon, and I'm not sure if the traditional durasteel makeeup is stated in a canon book or not.

The rings can't be decades old. The tidal forces that close to a planet will tear apart any moon-sized satellite real quick. I bet those kilometer-wide asteroids would've been torn to pieces themselves within a few years.

Its probably the remains of a higher-up moon that was rubblized for raw materials.

I know a thing or two about geophysics, and you don't get natural rings that low lasting that long. As for tidal forces? No, to destroy a moon you need a LOOOOONG time to destroy it, on the order of 100,000 to 1 million years.

Any large asteroid bodies would have crashed to the surface or been broken apart by impacts. After a long period of time.

Fun fact: The arrangement of Saturn's rings is determined by gravitational resonance, in a similar way to the dense and clear bands of Sol's asteroid belt.

As for tidal forces? No, to destroy a moon you need a LOOOOONG time to destroy it, on the order of 100,000 to 1 million years.

Depends on the objects, Cap'n. Back in '92, the Shoemaker-Levy comet was broken up when it passed into Jupiter's Roche limit.

true, but Shoemaker Levy nine was also an icy body, and was beginning to heat up and vaporize its surface material.

Rocky-Iron asteroids would be more stable.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:true, but Shoemaker Levy nine was also an icy body, and was beginning to heat up and vaporize its surface material.

Rocky-Iron asteroids would be more stable.

Can anyone calculate the Roche limit for Genosis and see if the rings lie within it ?

Ender wrote:Though the last qute brings up the interesting possibility of durasteel really just being a super alloy of steel. This is canon, and I'm not sure if the traditional durasteel makeeup is stated in a canon book or not.

?

It just says they need metal ore. Doesn't say to make durasteel, does it?

evilcat4000 wrote:

CaptainChewbacca wrote:true, but Shoemaker Levy nine was also an icy body, and was beginning to heat up and vaporize its surface material.

Rocky-Iron asteroids would be more stable.

Can anyone calculate the Roche limit for Genosis and see if the rings lie within it ?

I'd need to know its diameter and mass... I think. I'm on vacation now, I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Can anyone calculate the Roche limit for Genosis and see if the rings lie within it ?

Yes, they are. The Roche limit is about two and a half times the radius of the planet.

Alright. The equation for calculating the roche limit is as follows:

m is the mass of the smaller body
M is the mass of the larger body
RM is the radius of M
and pm and pm are the densities of m and M
and the bodies are of relatively uniform density, then it can be shown that m is torn apart if the distance between the two bodies d is less than DR where

DR = 2.44 x RM x (pM/pm)^1/3

Which can be reduced to : 1.5 x (M/pm)^1/3

This, of course, only applies with sufficiently large spherical bodies. It doesn't really apply at less than a meter of diameter.

So, anyone know the size and density of geonosis? If you want, we can assume ring density and planet density are equal, in which case it factors out and we only need to know the radius of the planet.