Death Star/Engineering Question

NomAnor15 · Post by **NomAnor15** » 2006-12-17 02:26pm

So I was thinking about this the other day: why, or how, would the Death Star's superlaser cause Alderaan to explode, rather than just punching a large hole through it? Actually, the same question applies to the asteroids in the Hoth asteroid field.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-12-17 04:56pm

Superheating of a portion of the object such that it vapourises and expands though the rest of the object at speed greater than that of sound in that object, causing the vapourization of the rest of the object as well through work heating. Also, in the case of Aalderan, the expansion of the whole of the vapourised planet was greater than the escape velocity.

fusion · Post by **fusion** » 2006-12-17 11:11pm

Also in Alderaan the sheild allowed the energy to be spread over most of its surface before it even touched the planet.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-18 12:08am

Why would anyone expect it to punch a hole through the planet? In order to do that, the mass ahead of the beam would have to be evacuated. This is pretty easy when drilling through a steel plate, but when you are talking about a planet-sized object, it just doesn't work that way. Heating it to plasma doesn't help because 12000 km of super-dense plasma is just as opaque to an energy beam as a solid mass would be.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-12-18 10:40am

fusion wrote:Also in Alderaan the sheild allowed the energy to be spread over most of its surface before it even touched the planet.

In some discussions, it's come up that perhaps the shield was dumping excess heat into the planet's mantle or core; that in of itself could have contributed to the explosion.

NomAnor15 · Post by **NomAnor15** » 2006-12-18 11:31pm

All right, thanks for the answers. To Darth Wong: Yeah, now that you say it, that seems obvious.

I didn't notice this until now, but I meant to put this in PSW, not SWvST

. So, if a mod could move it, that'd be great.