Death Star fired at a star.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2006-02-26 12:17am

Well, lets asume a star much like ours, we know the super laser's output is orders of magnitud the required power to destroy an earth sized planet, so what kind of effect does that have when fired agains a star? Ultra mega sun flares? does it dissrupt the sun enough for it to eventually become a very dim star, what happens?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-02-26 12:53am

I think we've done this before, and IIRC, the consensus was that more or less little would actually happen.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2006-02-26 01:07am

Actually, in one of the novels, think it might of been "Labyrinth of Evil" it was mentioned that a prototype of the death star or at least its main weapon was fired at a star and it caused a massive solar eruption which was big enough to spew ejecta all the way to one of the planets in the system which resulted in the local population being wiped out.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2006-02-26 01:12am

Not quite. The consensus was that bad shit *might* happen; you are, after all, dumping a hell of a lot of energy into there... however, a star is already producing astronomical amounts of energy, a few more E^10's of joules isn't going to do that much.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-02-26 01:14am

Icehawk wrote:Actually, in one of the novels, think it might of been "Labyrinth of Evil" it was mentioned that a prototype of the death star or at least its main weapon was fired at a star and it caused a massive solar eruption which was big enough to spew ejecta all the way to one of the planets in the system which resulted in the local population being wiped out.

Medstar 2: Jedi Healer, actually. Wiped out the Equanii homeworld, IIRC.

Lukedanieljames · Post by **Lukedanieljames** » 2006-02-26 01:30am

The gravitational binding energy of a star is 10e41, a trillion times more powerful than 1 superlast shot

Eframepilot · Post by **Eframepilot** » 2006-02-26 01:55am

Actually one superlaser shot is about 1e38 joules, "only" 1/10,000th of the figure you gave for the star's gravitational binding energy.

Even with the bare-bones minimum estimate of 1e32 joules that ignores the speed of the explosion, the Death Star still puts out many orders of magnitude more energy than a star does in a year. That would definitely cause an enormous disruption like a nova event; it could very well blow off the outer layers of the star entirely.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2006-02-26 02:58am

Like Eframepilot suggests, i think there would be more than moderate consequences, but unsure of the effects. More importantly, could firing the super laser at a sun be a quick and effective way to capture most of the equipment and mineral resourses in an entire system? This is ignoring the loss of life, obviously.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-02-26 05:30am

As Eframepilot said, it might blow off significant amounts of material from the outer layers of the star.
Of course, since the energy is injected into what is relatively a highly localized point, perhaps the material will be ejected from a more localized area on the star (rather than the mass coming uniformly across the star's surface).

I assume this is what happened to the Equanii homeworld. The superlaser test fired from the vicinity of the planet caused a wave of solar matter to be released back in its general direction. Some of it exceeded the star's escape velocity, and it fried the world on its way outsystem.

While the Death Star puts out orders of magnitude more enegy than a star does in a significant period of time, I'm not sure what the significance of this fact is. Even if a star put out no energy at all, the Death Star would still have to work on counteracting its gravitational binding energy the same way, would it not?

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2006-02-26 05:55am

A star is a lot less dense than a planet, isn't it possible the beam would just go right through the star and come out the other side?

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » 2006-02-26 06:57am

OmegaGuy wrote:A star is a lot less dense than a planet, isn't it possible the beam would just go right through the star and come out the other side?

Actually the sun's core has a density of 150,000kg/m3 or 27 times denser than Earth.
As for the beam effects the sun already contains 10^41J of energy in the form of heat and radiation so the input of 10^38J would do no appreciable "damage" to the sun.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-02-26 08:54am

You'd get a CME. Beyond that, not much.

Lukedanieljames · Post by **Lukedanieljames** » 2006-02-26 10:04am

according to this site, the superlaser has a power of about 4e32 J, i'm not sure where your getting 10e38, regardless, its not enough power

its not like we're saying, "its almost enough power" or its "50% of the power needed"

its between 10,000 and 1.8 trillion times not enough power, huge difference

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2006-02-26 10:14am

Lukedanieljames wrote: the superlaser has a power of about 4e32 J,

Power is measured in watts, dolt.
It's the absolute possible minimum energy dished out by the DS, and equivalent to the gravitational binding energy of the planet ( the minimum amount of energy imparted so that it doesn't reform through gravity ).
See here

i'm not sure where your getting 10e38,

Kinematic analysis of Alderaan's fragments being tossed around at c-fractional velocities.
See here

regardless, its not enough power

True enough.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-02-26 01:29pm

Can the superlaser be left "on" for a sustained length of time, and if so, would prolonged exposure to a superlaser make any difference in terms of the effect?

Spice Runner · Post by **Spice Runner** » 2006-02-26 02:30pm

What about tractor beams? Does the SW universe have sufficiently powerful tractor beam tecnology to be able to rip apart a star?

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2006-02-26 04:55pm

RThurmont wrote:Can the superlaser be left "on" for a sustained length of time, and if so, would prolonged exposure to a superlaser make any difference in terms of the effect?

Nope, Death Star shots only last a few seconds and then they have a significant recharge time before they can build up the energy for another shot. The DS2 was able to do lower yield shots to take out heavy cap ships in one blast but even that had something like a 2-5 minute recharge time between each shot IIRC.

What about tractor beams? Does the SW universe have sufficiently powerful tractor beam tecnology to be able to rip apart a star?

They don't need to, they built the Sun Crusher which was a relatively small ship that fired technobabble torpedoes which were able to cause stars to go supernova.

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2006-02-26 05:31pm

Spice Runner wrote:What about tractor beams? Does the SW universe have sufficiently powerful tractor beam tecnology to be able to rip apart a star?

centerpoint maybe, but not a normal anti-ship one

Cos Dashit · Post by **Cos Dashit** » 2006-02-26 05:50pm

Cykeisme wrote:As Eframepilot said, it might blow off significant amounts of material from the outer layers of the star.
Of course, since the energy is injected into what is relatively a highly localized point, perhaps the material will be ejected from a more localized area on the star (rather than the mass coming uniformly across the star's surface).

If material did indeed blow off the sun, what effect would it have on the Death Star?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-02-26 06:39pm

Spice Runner wrote:What about tractor beams? Does the SW universe have sufficiently powerful tractor beam tecnology to be able to rip apart a star?

We have no idea the strength of SW tractor beams. I can't even think of how you would figure them out beyond comparing the force a ship being pulled in would exert via its engines. Hopefully some day Dr Saxton will put up something expalining some other method to do it, or somesuch.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-02-26 06:40pm

Cos Dashit wrote:
Cykeisme wrote:As Eframepilot said, it might blow off significant amounts of material from the outer layers of the star.
Of course, since the energy is injected into what is relatively a highly localized point, perhaps the material will be ejected from a more localized area on the star (rather than the mass coming uniformly across the star's surface).
If material did indeed blow off the sun, what effect would it have on the Death Star?

None whatso ever. The first Death Star survived getting pasted with the debris from Alderaan. This is significantly more momentum and energy then one would see from a CME. Particularily the energy part, in fact its mroe then the power of the entire star.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2006-02-26 08:33pm

Icehawk wrote:
RThurmont wrote:Can the superlaser be left "on" for a sustained length of time, and if so, would prolonged exposure to a superlaser make any difference in terms of the effect?
Nope, Death Star shots only last a few seconds and then they have a significant recharge time before they can build up the energy for another shot. The DS2 was able to do lower yield shots to take out heavy cap ships in one blast but even that had something like a 2-5 minute recharge time between each shot IIRC.

Aye, the fact that the Death Star is stated to require roughly a day between planet-killing shots implies that its hypermatter power generators take that much time to charge energy-storage capacitors (the exact nature we can only guess) of some sort.

So assuming the superlaser itself can handle the heat and stress from firing a longer blast, the limitation to how long the superlaser can be left "on" is the same limitation for the total amount of energy we can inject into a target at once: the capacity of the capacitors that feed the superlaser.

Wyrm · Post by **Wyrm** » 2006-02-26 08:39pm

"CME"?

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2006-02-26 08:42pm

Coronal Mass Ejection

Material from the star's corona (the outer layer.)

Lukedanieljames · Post by **Lukedanieljames** » 2006-02-26 09:19pm

Ender wrote:
Cos Dashit wrote:
Cykeisme wrote:As Eframepilot said, it might blow off significant amounts of material from the outer layers of the star.
Of course, since the energy is injected into what is relatively a highly localized point, perhaps the material will be ejected from a more localized area on the star (rather than the mass coming uniformly across the star's surface).
If material did indeed blow off the sun, what effect would it have on the Death Star?
None whatso ever. The first Death Star survived getting pasted with the debris from Alderaan. This is significantly more momentum and energy then one would see from a CME. Particularily the energy part, in fact its mroe then the power of the entire star.

are you saying the deathstar could literally fly into a star without damage?

And where is the proof of this claim that CME would not harm the deathstar?