Theory on Gas Giants

[OMEGA]

Call me crazy, but I have a theory:

 

Since gas giants are about 100% gas, wouldn't it be possible to have Star Destroyers, or any capital ship enter the atmosphere of that planet? Let's use Bespin for example. Bespin is a tibanna(excuse the spelling) gas mine, obviously a great asset for the Rebellion as well as the Empire. Cloud City seems to be immune to the planets large gravity, otherwise, it would be sucked into the core. If the station is able to remain airborne despite the planets immense gravity, wouldn't it be possible for a fleet of starships to enter the atmosphere, and orbit directly inside the atmosphere? Or perhaps even conduct battle as if Bespin itself were a space map? Think about it. Cloud City isn't the only platform there, so maybe some of the smaller mining platforms could be individually targeted as if they were space stations, but not in space.

 

Thoughts, opinions?

 

In response to a previous post, if the Death Star were to target a gas giant and fire it's superlaser, chances are that there would be an immense explosion. Why, you ask? Because the most abundant substance in the universe, hydrogen, just happens to be extremely volitile as well. Chances are that most gas giants have a large supply of hydrogen.

 

Theory:

 

Perhaps such an explosion would be sufficient enough to create a short lived sun possibly? Im no chemist, but im guessing no matter the result, there would be a rather large explosion. I also have heard somehwere that only Jupiter's smaller size kept it from becoming a star itself, and that it already has all of the substances needed to become a star, just not in abundance. Perhaps an energy release such as a superlaser would be sufficient to ignite such a reaction?

 

All comments in relation to my rambleings are welcome!

[Megajames2]

OMG, your a genius, nobody has even thought of this, very interesting post.

[Ghostly_Substance]

For the map part it could be space platforms connected to one another or just a huge Cloud city map. For Space battles in the planet I doubt that but you never know.

 

Well it would explode as the other planets would since it has to have land and a core somewhere.

[chewieusma]

Well, wee are unsure about the volatility of Tibanna gas. One can assume it is highly volatile if it is in high demand because most gases in high demand are used for power generation. I imagine that Tibanna gas may actually be more volatile than gases that we know about, but that's all guessing. Now if we are to believe that physics and chemistry are universal, then Tibanna gas is not just elemental, it would have to be some sort of combination of elements.

 

I've never really thought about what a "superlaser" would do to a gas giant. Because of the burn marks about laser impacts I can tell that these lasers are certainly hot enough to burn. I don't think weve seen lasers fire through an gases in the movies, so there is no precedence, but I have to bring everyone's attention to a simple cigarette lighter. The Butane gas is exposed to a high temperature flint spark. If we model the gas giant as a huge ball of Butane and the laser as the spark then surely there would be an epic explosion, but would it be like a star?

 

The light of a star, and our own sun, is not merely like a regular flame. The light we see coming from them is supplied by nuclear explosions. So for the gas giant to be star-like, there would have to be a series of nuclear explosions that feed on whatever fuel would be available. The Sun itself uses Hydrogen/Helium for this process.

 

I do; however, believe that the superlaser offers a different sor of explosion. One that is powered by pure energy rather than by nuclear fueling. What it seems to do is crack the crust of a planet and travel clear through to the core of the planet at which point the energy is deposited directly into the solid dense metal that makes up that particular planet. I believe this core expands rapidly (possibly changed directly into an expansive gas) and this is what causes the breakdown of the planet.

 

Now back to the gas giant. The core of Jupiter is relatively small for it size, is metallic and surrounded by metallic Hydrogen and that by liquid Hydrogen and that is surrounded by gaseous Hydrogen. It also has Helium aboard. Maybe you're right, maybe all it needs is a light.

 

Now, back in Oct 2003, the Gallileo plunged into the planet's atmosphere. It contained about 100 grams of Plutonium. A nuclear explosion is said to have occured and could be seen in the atmosphere as a small black dot. This reaction did not cause the melt down of the entire planet, but perhaps an attack on the planet's core could accomplish a continuing nuclear reaction and develop a new star for this solar system when the sun goes out.

[Nevets]

Jupiter, while large, is still kind of far from the threshold to become a sun. There have been planets discovered atleast 5 times its size.

[Teradyn_pff]

If such an artificial sun replacement were possible to be ignited, I doubt life on Earth would survive the transition.

[Ghostly_Substance]

Imagine the heatwave and also during summer Canada is like an oven almost. I was scootering once and damn I saw 2 when I came home and had a massive headache. Next time we'll be seeing 4s and head explodes few minutes later.

 

Well Bespin would be either connected floating platforms or one huge city and then a lower platform since theres 2 maps of planets right?

[Zer_Teron]

A Star Destroyer wouldnt be able to survive the intense heat from a Gas Giant, especially not that close.

[OMEGA]

OMG, your a genius, nobody has even thought of this, very interesting post.

 

Lol, thank you!

 

Jupiter, while large, is still kind of far from the threshold to become a sun. There have been planets discovered atleast 5 times its size.

 

Agreed. Like it has been suggested, it would probobly need a huge boost in mass, and a healthy spark for such an event to occur. I believe it was done in one of the "2000" movies, (aka. A sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey) but im pretty sure thats just science fiction.

 

 

If such an artificial sun replacement were possible to be ignited, I doubt life on Earth would survive the transition.

 

Indeed. Perhaps the climate would become closer to that of Tatooine's. Thats a binary star system. But then the asteroid field would melt and we would have problems....

 

A Star Destroyer wouldnt be able to survive the intense heat from a Gas Giant, especially not that close.

 

As I recall, the Millennium Falcon had no trouble flying inside Bespin's atmosphere. I doubt it would be a problem for an Imperial Star Destroyer (gotta love those ships! ). Btw, the temperature of a gas giant depends on how close it is to its parent star. Jupiter is very cold actually. Bespin im guessing would have hospitable temperatures for humans, seeing that Luke was hanging for 15 minutes outside on a pole.

 

If that's possible, perhaps oxygen is one of the natural gasses of Bespin too!

[ralphman]

it would be great to have space battles in the atmosphere of a giant gas... but the only ship capable of atmosphere flight is the Victory class destroyer...

[Deadeye31_pff]

Acclamators and Venators are movie cannon Destroyers that regularly enter the atmosphere. But there must have been a limit to repuslorlift echnology and the ISD class was built too big and needed transports.

[JanGaarni]

It was simply not designed to enter the atmosphere.

That's all.

 

The Victory was designed for atmospheric flight, so was the Acclamator and Venator.

[OMEGA]

Venators are about the same size as ISDs and possess landing capabilities, so im guessing the only difference between the two is the landing gear. So theoretically, ISDs should be able to enter the atmospheres of gas giants.

 

By the way, do we have any confirmation that we will be able to land these ships (Venators, Acclimators stc.) on planets with a suface? They would make great temporary command bases if so.

[Infinite_Xero]

Interesting topic.

 

The pressure of entering the atmosphere of a gas giant (Jupiter for exapmle) is insanely high, anything going in, would not be coming out.

its like putting a human 20 kilometers under the ocean and expecting him/her to survive. The only reason the Falcon survived was because it was either:

A. fiction

or

B. the extreme upper atmosphere and they should not have been able to breathe.

 

Also, jupiter is much farther away from earth than the sun is, even with a good boost to its mass and size, it probably wouldn't be very bright or hot, it would make a difference, and would probably screw up our nice Day/Night cycle and seasons.

the Earth is 1 AU (Approx 149,000,000 kilometers) from the sun

When Jupiter is closest to Earth is is about 5 AUs away (Approx 745,000,000 kilomaters)

 

I would be more worried about the radiation from Jupiter gone star, or what would happen to the solar winds, magnetic fields or the orbits of the planets.

Adding mass to jupiter so fusion can happen, is not a good idea IMO

 

And don't worry about the Sun going out, its a few billion years off (10 i think the estimate is), and it will become a Red Giant, and consume the inner planets.

Humanity needs to not be here when it happens

But don't worry about that either, we're going to blow our own dumbass selves up before anything like that happens.

 

Fighting on a gas platform in EaW will be just like the ocean planets, only instead of kilometers of water, you have hundreds of thousands of kilometers of gas beneath you.

Shouldn't be to hard to do/mod, just make the water brown, yellow, white, red, whatever.

[Ghostly_Substance]

Why are we talkin about real planets when we're talking about a science fiction series called Star Wars? Seriously why? Just wondering since I thought we were suposed to talk about Bespin and its city ?

[Nevets]

Ok, how did I just post as OMEGA???

 

Oh, looks like I went to quote him and accidentally edited instead......

 

Sorry OMEGA

 

Th answer to you question is no tho, Delphi told us it would not be possible.

[Infinite_Xero]

I thought we were suposed to talk about Bespin and its city ?

 

we are, but some real life sharing of knowledge is something more forums should encourage. And everything is still on the topic of Star Wars, it clearly shows its more fun than fact

[OMEGA]

Lol, no problem Nevets. It happens.

 

I suppose we are talking about a little bit of both: real life, and EAW. Pressure was a key factor that I seem to have forgotten. Thanks for the reminder Xero!

 

Perhaps ships and Cloud City itself have some kind of pressure shield that blocks such harmful forces. If so, maybe there was one developed for use on ships. Even so, I believe that Cloud City was still relatively high in the planets atmosphere, which would explain how the TIEs in ESB were able to chase the Falcon (TIEs have no shields whatsoever).

 

Maybe oxygen is one of the natural gasses of the planet, which explains how Luke was able to breathe. I suppose it isn't impossible for a gas giant to be partially made up of good ol' element number 8!

 

 

Th answer to you question is no tho, Delphi told us it would not be possible.

 

That's too bad. Oh, well. More for an expansion pack, right!

 

But I am guessing that my theory won't be in the game, unless someone mods it. Still though, this is proving to be a very interesting discussion. Thank you all for your wonderful replies!

[Nevets]

That's too bad. Oh, well. More for an expansion pack, right!

 

Maybe, but I know for a fact some of the mods ar going to try and do this, so we may not have to wait to long.

[Logain]

wouldnt the whole fact that a ship can survive in the pressure of space just point out that i'd be able to survive in a planets atmosphere from a phyiscal standpoint

[Infinite_Xero]

There is no pressure in space, its a vacuum

Ships in SW would be able to survive in the atmosphere of a Gas Giant, the upper atmosphere, but the slightest mistake or as a result of battle damage could send it to a fate similar to that of a submarine thats gone too deep...

[Zer_Teron]

Which is why theres pressure, the Atmosphere inside the ship is pushed in by the immense Vacuum

[Guest JediIgor]

Bespin is very different from other planets.. I have a feeling Tibanna might be inert unless something special is done to it. In one of the Young Jedi Knight series (which seems to be recognized by other series by the way), one of the main characters falls off Cloud City, and falls... and falls.. and falls. Until finally some kind of an animal catches him and saves him . But he could've kept falling until he ended up in the middle and died of hunger (seriously). So maybe Tibanna does something to the planet.

[JanGaarni]

Which is why theres pressure, the Atmosphere inside the ship is pushed in by the immense Vacuum

Immense and immense, doesn't vacuum in space equal 0 atmosphere?

With our own atmosphere being almost 1 on the scale?

 

I read that a human can stay conscious for about 15 seconds in space vacuum and up to 30 seconds without suffering any permanent damage, unless you're trying to hold your breath that is. Death comes probably after a minute or 2 though, so don't try this at home, kids.

 

And vacuum doesn't push, it sucks.

Pressure "pushes"

[R1ob7]

That’s just a scifi fallacy. Without any air pressure the nitrogen in your blood becomes a gas and your blood boils. You probably wouldn't survive more than a second in a vacuum.