The Effects of an SD crashing into an earth like planet

[Bluewolf]

Lets say an SD is in a close orbit with an earth like planet(with earth like gravity). By the act of Q the ships shields refuse to work and all engines stop. It gets dragged down and crashs:

A. Near a city of at least 1000000. The city is set in the medevil area(ask why here if you want.

B. A mile or so away from the said city

C. In open countyside.

D. In the Sea

E. Into a mountain range.

The SD cant do an ROTS or ST Generations style crash land. What are the effects on the above locations? Thanks for the reply.

[chitoryu12]

If it came down and EXPLODED, the reactor would likely create a massive kaboom that would destroy anything nearby, especially since unlike during the Battle of Endor, the ISD would not have hundreds of meters of thick armor plating to stop it. The ship would likely plow some distance into the crust before the reactor possibly detonates. Depending on the fuel in the reactor, it may or may not have a nuke-like effect and irradiate the surrounding land. My idea is:

A. No more city. Likely, no more surrounding countryside either.

B. Once more, no more city or surrounding countryside.

C. Anything nearby will be either incinerated from the fireball or pelted with flaming debris that would touch off fires where they land.

D. Massive tidal waves. The remains of the ship will likely be visible above the water.

E. Dead on into a mountain? It would very possibly smash through whatever it hits. The resulting boom would blast the mountains with enough force to destroy the closest ones. The concussion alone would likely cause massive avalanches.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Just the physical impact of the Star Destroyer alone would be enough to cause massive devastation on a regional scale, probably eliminating entire countries. It's basically like a mile-wide asteroid hitting the planet.

[TC Pilot]

That, along with the reactor spewing Force know's what chemicals and radioactive waste into the atmosphere and ground. Honoghr is a good example of the effect.

Of course, one wonders why you bothered to differentiate between a city of medieval quality (it would be impossible for a city of such size to exist) and modern quality.

[Imperial Overlord]

Of course, one wonders why you bothered to differentiate between a city of medieval quality (it would be impossible for a city of such size to exist) and modern quality.

Not quite true. Ancient Rome, Constantinople at its height, and Tenochtitlan may have supported populations near that range (the upper limit for Rome at its height is 2,000,000). Those were, of course, capitals of at least regional empires with infrastructure that allowed them to support huge populations.

[Ritterin Sophia]

-Snip-

Chit, you know reactors don't explode like a nuclear weapon, right?

[chitoryu12]

-Snip-

Chit, you know reactors don't explode like a nuclear weapon, right?

Would the reactors, if they exploded, send out the fuel as debris, or would it be eaten up before that happened?

Also, what IS the composition of the ISD reactor fuel anyway?

[Big Orange]

-Snip-

Chit, you know reactors don't explode like a nuclear weapon, right?

There would be no explosion from the engine reactor, but there would be a massive explosion from the ISD's impact itself shooting up all those atomized exotic metal and chemical particles into the atmosphere...

[Ghost Rider]

-Snip-

Chit, you know reactors don't explode like a nuclear weapon, right?

There would be no explosion from the engine reactor, but there would be a massive explosion from the ISD's impact itself shooting up all those atomized exotic metal and chemical particles into the atmosphere...

No shit sherlock, but thank you for the pointless tangent. So are you going to answer the question at hand?

As for the OP, death on a massive scale since we are talking about about a mile long vessel made of things far stronger then an asteroid crashing into a planet.

Nothing on the level of global destruction but

A. All dead, city flattened.

B. Same as above.

C. Countryside is definitly worse for the wear, the impact would send shockwaves that would be felt through the coastlines at the very least, let alone the continent it landed on.

D. Tsunami heaven!

E. Same as open countryside...and a few less mountains.

[Ritterin Sophia]

-Snip-

Chit, you know reactors don't explode like a nuclear weapon, right?

There would be no explosion from the engine reactor, but there would be a massive explosion from the ISD's impact itself shooting up all those atomized exotic metal and chemical particles into the atmosphere...

I know that, but Chit is saying 'If it exploded, the reactors would...' leading me to believe he's the kind of person who thinks Chernobyl was a nuclear explosion and has never heard of a steam explosion.

[Ghost Rider]

-Snip-

Chit, you know reactors don't explode like a nuclear weapon, right?

Would the reactors, if they exploded, send out the fuel as debris, or would it be eaten up before that happened?

Also, what IS the composition of the ISD reactor fuel anyway?

Numbnuts, prove that any sort of engine just explodes.

Fucking A, you are working on some illogical presumption that engines are ticking time bombs waiting for the slightest jostle.

As for the reactor fuel. Hypermatter...helps none because no one fucking knows what SW hypermatter is other then a highly dense fuel that has some unusual properties.

[Sidewinder]

If it came down and EXPLODED, the reactor would likely create a massive kaboom that would destroy anything nearby,

I don't think any star destroyer has suffered a reactor failure this volatile in the movies, i.e., star destroyers are NOT powered by the same type of reactor that powers 'Star Trek' vessels. Any comments from people who've read the 'Rogue Squadron' novels?

[Ariphaos]

So, if it's made out of pure iron, and is a rather large cylinder (I'm lazy), it weighs ~1E13 kg.

Impacting at ~11 km/sec (it will be less from low orbit), ~150 gigatons, at a very high end. Probably not even a gigaton from a more thorough analysis, really.

[Mr Bean]

I remember for sure reading that hyper matter reacts rather violently when interacted with normal matter. At the very least by both the games, and the novels. When a ship is dieing, if the reactor is breached, the ship will detonate(X-wing series), but depending on the ship, it's not enough a nuclear style explosion, but it is sufficent to rip the ship into fair sized chunks. However, we have other instances were the reactor just DIES, and the ship becomes a floating hulk.

I dunno, we'd have to look up and find which type of ships can suffer a catastrophic explosive death, VS's just the stresses involved breaking the ships back.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Since we don't know the physical composition of a Star Destroyer, and I personally don't know the volume of it, it's hard for me to make a reliable estimate to plug into the old impact calculator. I roughly estimated a 1km wide iron asteroid impacting at 17 kps (average speed for an asteroid impact), which yielded a Richter 9.0 earthquake and a crater 16.6 km across--which is probably conservative.

I think just about anybody could do better than me, though.

[Mange]

That, along with the reactor spewing Force know's what chemicals and radioactive waste into the atmosphere and ground. Honoghr is a good example of the effect.

Honoghr isn't a good example as the core ship which crashed on the planet carried an experimental biological weapon which poisoned the biosphere.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hmm.. I'm not sure if it is considered canon or not, but I recall there was a short comic about a rebel and an Imperial who found themselves stranded on some corner of Endor and there was a crashed abandoned Star Destroyer. It didn't seem to have caused too much chaos.

[TC Pilot]

Not quite true. Ancient Rome, Constantinople at its height, and Tenochtitlan may have supported populations near that range (the upper limit for Rome at its height is 2,000,000). Those were, of course, capitals of at least regional empires with infrastructure that allowed them to support huge populations.

There is, of course, a profound difference between medieval cities and those of Antiquity.

Honoghr isn't a good example as the core ship which crashed on the planet carried an experimental biological weapon which poisoned the biosphere.

Really? That seems to contradict the planet's backstory in TTT.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I believe there was a comic depicting a battle between a TF Sphere and a (possibly more) Republic Acclaimator class star frigate. The TF Sphere had some biological weapon and the Republic warships were sent to intercept and destroy.

The end result was the TF Sphere crashing onto Honoghr.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I would think that all of this brings up an interesting question...

Could you Safely "Land" an ISD? Even if there was zero chance of it ever getting airborn again, could you land it in such a way as it be intact and unharmed?

[Surlethe]

The mass of the fuel is nontrivial compared to the mass of the ship's actual structure: an ISD has a volume of no more than 3.2e8 m^3; if it is composed entirely of iron, it has a mass of 2.2e12 kg. This is, of course, an absurd upper limit (assuming iron composition and not some super-dense structural material). By the same token, if the ISD has a peak reactor output of 1e26 W, it consumes about 1e9 kg each second. It will take less than forty minutes for an ISD running at peak output to consume its mass in fuel. If the ship is 30% iron, it will take 10 minutes.

If an ISD is equipped for battle lasting several hours -- i.e., running its reactor at peak output for, say, three hours -- then the fuel reserves will be at least an order of magnitude greater than its iron-equivalent mass. That is, it will be carrying approximately 1e13 kg of fuel. This is pretty much equivalent to a 1.4 km radius ice asteroid.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I would think that all of this brings up an interesting question...

Could you Safely "Land" an ISD? Even if there was zero chance of it ever getting airborn again, could you land it in such a way as it be intact and unharmed?

I remember Luke Skywalker landed on in DEI by clever use of the Star Destroyer's repulsor lifts. As to whether the Force was involved is another question.

As for the mass of the Star Destroyer in question, won't it be actually pretty heavy if we consider the extremely dense fuel?

Side question, do starships of Star Wars rely on some inertia compensators of sort to reduce ship mass or do engines in general have enough energy to propel the starships regardless of how dense the fuel is?

[Surlethe]

Side question, do starships of Star Wars rely on some inertia compensators of sort to reduce ship mass or do engines in general have enough energy to propel the starships regardless of how dense the fuel is?

I like to think that Star Wars violates as few laws of physics as necessary. Starships with engines forceful enough to significantly accelerate them are more parsimonious than starships that somehow reduce mass.

EDIT: Scratch that; we already have canon evidence that Star Wars violates Newton's first law, and you weren't talking about the first law anyway.

[Mange]

Honoghr isn't a good example as the core ship which crashed on the planet carried an experimental biological weapon which poisoned the biosphere.

Really? That seems to contradict the planet's backstory in TTT.

As Fingolfin_Noldor already provided the details, I can only add that the events were detailed in Star Wars Republic #68.

[Noble Ire]

If it came down and EXPLODED, the reactor would likely create a massive kaboom that would destroy anything nearby,

I don't think any star destroyer has suffered a reactor failure this volatile in the movies, i.e., star destroyers are NOT powered by the same type of reactor that powers 'Star Trek' vessels.

IIRC, a star destroyer in a background engagement of the Battle of Endor appears to explode in the manner that Chitoryu is alluding to.

Hmm.. I'm not sure if it is considered canon or not, but I recall there was a short comic about a rebel and an Imperial who found themselves stranded on some corner of Endor and there was a crashed abandoned Star Destroyer. It didn't seem to have caused too much chaos.

I always assumed that it had managed to execute a controlled landing. The ship itself did not appear to be particularly damaged.