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Astronomy Signature Assignment
Astronomy Signature Assignment
Astronomy Signature Assignment
Star Wars is one of the most iconic films and series ever made, but
could a galaxy such as that exist on the basis of what we know about physics
today? In this paper I will show how different aspects of the movie are
inconsistent with modern physics, specifically dealing with outer space and
Episode IV A New Hope is not accurate with modern physics in these three
space, in fact the opening scene is an example of this. Besides the movie
accurate science, the movie shows many sounds happening in space. Some
explosions, and even the sounds of a giant asteroid worm that tries to eat
the space ship of our heroes, along with many more instances. This is a
problem because sound, unlike light, cannot travel through a vacuum and
mineral materials to embody and give it presence. (Revill, 2016) Sound can
only travel to our ears through vibrating matter, most commonly air
molecules, until it vibrates our ear drums and gets transmitted and
because of the lack of molecules for the sound to travel through. Therefore,
Kris Burns
movie. Without enough matter and molecules for the sound to vibrate
through and travel to our ears, this becomes an inconsistency with sci-fi
accurate equations that are relative to mass, but Albert Einstein gave us a
of mass and its effect on space fabric (Siegfried 2015). Even though there
are some accuracies in the Star Wars film, some of the things that are not
aligned with physics are the gravity within the space ships, the way that a
crashing fighter ship falls into and towards a bigger ship as if there is some
attraction there, etc. Unless the space ships in Star Wars are more advanced
than our modern physics and have sources of anti-gravity, the people inside
the massive ships, such as the opening scenes Empire cruiser, should be
floating around like our astronauts at the space station. However, in the
movie, the Empire officials and soldiers are walking through these ships,
which are flying in deep space, as if they are walking on earth with the same
gravitational effects. The only way that is possible is for the development of
anti-gravity, because they dont even try to use artificial gravity such as
smaller fighter ships would crash after being hit. In the movie, the smaller
ships fall along a curved path, seemingly always towards the larger battle
cruisers. This is false because in space, where gravities effects are lessened
because of distance from planets, the effects of inertia should not result in a
curved path of the falling object. However, if the ships did contain some
sort of anti-gravity device, it would make sense for the ships to fall towards
these larger ships. Once again, the gravity in outer space as shown in Star
The last inconsistency I will discuss is what the people in the movie
ships that have the ability to flip a switch and travel so fast, that they travel
across their galaxy in a matter of seconds. They merely need to check that
their path is void of anything they would run into and obliterate themselves.
In regards to this concept and in order to travel that fast, their galaxy must
they must be able to travel faster than the speed of light. According to
Francis Diep, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100,000 lightyears in diameter. Or
in other words, by traveling at the speed of light, which is about 300 million
meters per second. Albert Einstein stated that the maximum speed capable
of anything is the speed of light (Siegfried 2015). If the galaxy in Star Wars
is anything similar to the Milky Way, even at the maximum speed of light, it
should take many years to travel from place to place, rather than less than a
minute. Even if the Star Wars technology were super advanced, physics
Kris Burns
itself says that traveling that fast is impossible. From another perspective,
our heroes Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, and others must have
nearly indestructible bodies. The astronauts that ride in rockets off of earth
about 3 times the force of gravity with a change from standing still to
gravity. If they are experiencing 3 Gs, imagine what Chewy and company
are experiencing if they jump from their average flight speed to more than 3
million meters per second! As cool as the concept of hyperspace travel is,
Although we all love Star Wars and its entertaining fictional universe,
the science regarding outer space lacks the scientific validity of what modern
physics tells us what and should happen out in space. These examples I
have shared, sound in space, gravity in space, and hyperspeed travel, show
how unaligned with the laws of nature this movie series is. Despite these
facts, we all love Star Wars and it should stay that way, but merely as an epic
sci-fi obsession rather than a credible source to learn about our universe.
Kris Burns
References
Diep, Francis (2013). The Size of the Milky Way Galaxy Shown to Scale.
galaxy-size-comparison-chart
Siegfried, Tom (2015). Getting a Grip on Gravity. Science News, Vol. 188
Issue 8