The Death Star I's Roche Limit over Yavin

[Warsie]

I'm interested as to see what was the Death Star's Roche limit is, has anyone done any calculations on it? Considering how close the battlestation got (it seems to be only a hew hundred miles-up to 1000 mi from the upper atmosphere at some point) what do you think the Death Star was going under. This was when the DA was orbiting at 'maximum velocity', so? Would any antigravity generators cancel out any power?

And this is what the roch e limit is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

[bz249]

The Roche-limit is only important if the object is held together by gravitic force. This is clearly not the case for an artificial armored battlestation like the Death Star, where the chemical bonding in the metal plays the key role.

[Wyrm]

I've only one problem with that scene, which is that Yavin's Moon with the Rebel base on it has air. If the scale of Yavin is correct to the orbit (otherwise, there's not much point to that diagram), then the moon should be hovering just outside Yavin's Roche limit. It's very unlikely that a moon has an atmosphere if it orbits ouside the Roche limit of its primary, so what the hell?

[FedRebel]

It's possible that the moon was terraformed (perhaps by the Rakata) into a habitable base, and said habitability is maintained by a technology (possibly similar to the Rakatan device on kasyyyk, only the Yavin device didn't break.)

[Warsie]

I've only one problem with that scene, which is that Yavin's Moon with the Rebel base on it has air. If the scale of Yavin is correct to the orbit (otherwise, there's not much point to that diagram), then the moon should be hovering just outside Yavin's Roche limit. It's very unlikely that a moon has an atmosphere if it orbits ouside the Roche limit of its primary, so what the hell?

As FedRebel said, the moon could've been terraformed, and possibly be relatively-stable and free of gravity by any repulsorlifts placed there. then th emoon only gets that close one every ~4 months

The Roche-limit is only important if the object is held together by gravitic force. This is clearly not the case for an artificial armored battlestation like the Death Star, where the chemical bonding in the metal plays the key role.

Okay.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

It is doubtful the moon's atmosphere is natural, being as the underground City of the Jedi located on it (introduced in The Glove of Darth Vader I do believe, but supposedly constructed long before even the ancient Sith presence) had planet(moon)-wide weather and terraforming controls.