Could the StarWars Death Star really destroy a planet?

[XMEN Iceman]

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... hStar.html



http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... eraan.html

Discuss...

[XMEN Gambit]

Sigh.

This page, while certainly interesting, is assuming a simple explosion, as if you set off a bomb inside the planet. I don't think anywhere in the movies is the Death Star's weapon explicitly referred to as a "laser" (though it might be in a script somewere), but even if it were an immensely powerful laser I don't think its energy would translate to the explosion on a plantery scale we saw with Alderaan.

Now, let's work from a different assumption. What if it was actually an antimatter beam? That'd make a nice boom when it hit the planet. Better not let a ship fly through it too close to the Death Star, though, or great fun would result. Other possiblities include something that disrupts molecular bonds, but that probably wouldn't result in an explosion. Ok, how about atomic binding forces? That might work. With those, though, you've still got the gravity issue to deal with, so the amount of energy needed to be released in the explosion remains the same. Except the antimatter beam. Enough antimatter would indeed blow a planet to smithereens, and convert some of the planet's mass into energy to boot, reducing the required velocity needed to escape what was left. But could a space station the size of a "small moon" produce that much antimatter? I'm thinking not, but I'll leave the equations to people more qualified to do it.

[ATF Ravok]

alright, you have a computerized weapon the size of a small moon using X386 CPU capabilities... You have a really cool green beam thingy.... and you have a perfectly diplomatic planet (no military) target....

So yeah, baby... fire it up!

Deathstar PWNS diplomacy...

Now, if you put 4,000 X386 Computers together, and you make like, this huge internet.. ala Moff Gore... you get like, this capability for some kid to call your Deathstar, and hack it, and unleash unknown fury to the Galaxy! Luke Skywalker, you were teh Suck! I was about to PWNZOR you!

That punk tried to bust me when I was in my haxxored tie fighter with his stupid Millenium Falcon, HAH! But I got the 1337 Haxx on his butt! Han Solo can't outfly me! Punk idiot...

So yeah, like, you got this big moon thing, and like, you haxxor it man! Use the force... pffft. Use your modem!

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Actually, Gambit, if you get enough photons together, you can do just about anything.

The size of a planet destroying laser would have to be several orders of magnitude larger than the target planet because of cooling limititations in space (it's a radiative process only, no conduction).

It's always a simple matter of putting more energy per second onto a target than the target can get rid of per second. The magnitude of that difference in energy input vs. output will determine what kind of response the target has.

This assumes that you have a laser system that large, and are able to focus it properly.

Some gas clouds in deep space have been found to lase. And these clouds are on a massive scale, so we know that the lasing process can occur over very large distances (solar system -sized).

This coming from your friendly high energy laser expert.




Particle beam weapons would be more productive, especially if you could accelerate anti-matter in the form of full up anti-atoms. Any charged particles won't work because of the interaction with a planet's magnetic field. Charged particles would be much easier to accelerate though.

Your weapon would be bathed in high energy gamma radiation though. You couldn't have personnel on it.


Better yet would be meta-stable forms of anti-matter. These forms of matter would have say, extra positrons in their positron shells (ionized form of the anti-atom), or even anti-muons taking the place of one or more positrons. There is such a thing as meta-stable hydrogen in the form of a hydrogen atom with a muon instead of an electron: this hydrogen has a much higher energy content.


One interesting aspect of this whole process is something I just thought of. Would the ionized gases created by vaporizing a planet cause the planet's magnetic field to balloon? There have been many experiments and a couple of proposed spacecraft engines that operate on the principle of creating a magnetic field and injecting a plasma in the field. This injected plasma adds to the field's strength and size (thus the "ballooning"). And without a planet to anchor the magnetic field of said planet, would the field just collapse? Or, more likely, would it spin off as coronal mass ejections do from the sun?

Interesting... One could build a PhD from the above and this discussion. Seriously.

[Ambush Bug]

Bah, why destroy the planet outright when you, as owner of the Death Star, have enough space on board to house a very large array of kinetic weapons?

Crowbars from space, people.

Level the cities and anything else that looks inhabited, then you've got an easily subduable remaining population, and then you can go in and dig out all those handy mineral resources at your leisure.

[XMEN Iceman]

I'm with Ambush....I loved the way it was handled in the last Riddick movie. Hand to hand combat then they wasted the planet.