SW "A New Hope" Question

[JCorre]

OK I’m sure there can’t be any possible star wars questions that haven’t been exhaustively researched and aswered on this board. However, since I’m frankly too lazy to go read through all of the lengthy threads on the subject, I’ll ask here.

If you know that this has already been addressed, a simple link to the thread will be entirely sufficient.

Questions:
Why did Grand Moff Tarkin wait for the moon of Yavin that the rebels were on to come into line of sight of the deathstar and its planet-destroying weapon?

Wouldn’t it have been much easier to just blast Yavin itself as soon as it was in range? Surely taking out the planet would have destroyed the moon as well. At the very least it would have thrown it out of (or more precisley, removed) it’s orbit and thereby causing the moon to become instantly uninhabitable?

[Guinastasia]

Could have had something to do with physics, or something-Yavin itself is a gas giant, and the destruction may have taken out the DS itself.

Or else it would have taken them just as long to set it up to hit the planet as it would the moon, so why bother?

[Mr.Blue_Sky]

I agree. The shockwave could have damaged the Death Star.

[MEBuckner]

It strikes me as entirely possible the Death Star couldn’t destroy Yavin itself even if it wanted to. Gas giants are big. You could drop Earth into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot with some room to spare. (The Great Red Spot is about twice as wide as Earth’s diameter; the north-south diameter of the GRS is about equal to Earth’s diameter. Now look at this picture of Jupiter.) Assuming Yavin IV is more-or-less Earth-sized, and assuming Yavin is at least as large as Jupiter (given Yavin’s apparently extensive system of large moons this seems plausible, and we’ve found quite a few extrasolar planets now that are bigger than Jupiter), even the Death Star may simply not have the power to blow away something as big as a gas giant.

[NoPretentiousCodename]

I wonder if the death star beam would have had much of an effect on a gas giant at all. Would there be anything solid at the planet’s core to blow up or would the beam pass right through? If the beam passed through, maybe they just could have shot a blast right throught the planet and hit the moon. Or, perhaps they had to be at a specific distance for the beam to achieve the desired planet busting effect.

[ultrafilter]

@NoPretentiousCodename

I wonder if the death star beam would have had much of an effect on a gas giant at all. Would there be anything solid at the planet’s core to blow up or would the beam pass right through? If the beam passed through, maybe they just could have shot a blast right throught the planet and hit the moon. Or, perhaps they had to be at a specific distance for the beam to achieve the desired planet busting effect.

I don’t think we know whether gas giants have solid cores or not.

[bouv]

@ultrafilter

I don’t think we know whether gas giants have solid cores or not.

I thought they had semi-solid cores. Like Jello.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@bouv

I thought they had semi-solid cores. Like Jello.

They can’t be like Jell-O. Bill Cosby hasn’t endorsed them yet.

[Smeghead]

@Bryan Ekers

They can’t be like Jell-O. Bill Cosby hasn’t endorsed them yet.

“I’m Bill Cosby, and I approved this planet.”

[Keapon_Laffin]

The Jedi Council has answered it: http://www.starwars.com/community/askjc/steve/askjc20010405.html

[MEBuckner]

@me

It strikes me as entirely possible the Death Star couldn’t destroy Yavin itself even if it wanted to. Gas giants are big. You could drop Earth into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot with some room to spare. (The Great Red Spot is about twice as wide as Earth’s diameter; the north-south diameter of the GRS is about equal to Earth’s diameter. Now look at this picture of Jupiter.) Assuming Yavin IV is more-or-less Earth-sized, and assuming Yavin is at least as large as Jupiter (given Yavin’s apparently extensive system of large moons this seems plausible, and we’ve found quite a few extrasolar planets now that are bigger than Jupiter), even the Death Star may simply not have the power to blow away something as big as a gas giant.

@the Jedi Council

The Death Star’s superlaser is very powerful, but it’s not all powerful. Relatively speaking, a terrestrial world of rock and metal like Alderaan is easier to blow up than an immense gas giant like Yavin. The Death Star simply couldn’t blow up Yavin, and had to circle the gas giant in order to get to the much smaller moon Yavin 4.

Hah! Hah! I rule! I am l33t! My answer was the right answer, as endorsed by the Jedi Council–I know more about Star Wars trivia than all the rest of…

Hmmm…

Uh, I mean, lucky guess for me, right? Heh. Ah, yes, Star Wars. I liked that back when I was a kid. Well, I think I shall go re-read The Iliad again. Good night.

[tracer]

@Mr. Blue Sky

I agree. The shockwave could have damaged the Death Star.

Normally, I would counter with “Silly, shock waves can’t travel through the vacuum of space!” – but this is the Star Wars universe we’re talking about here.

[Mr.Blue_Sky]

@tracer

Normally, I would counter with “Silly, shock waves can’t travel through the vacuum of space!” – but this is the Star Wars universe we’re talking about here.

Hey, if you’re going to steal the Star Trek VI shockwave, you’re going to have to live with the consequences!

[N9IWP]

However, they didn’t need to wait for the moon to clear beafor warming up the weapon (tho I suppose aiming might be part of warming up)
That could have saved a minute or so.

I’ll assume hyperspace physics made it so they had to go back into normal space on the opposite side of the planet as the moon.
Brian

[Robot_Arm]

If Leia figured out there was a tracking beacon on the Millenium Falcon, why did she lead them right to the rebel base?

[Lord_Ashtar]

@ultrafilter

I don’t think we know whether gas giants have solid cores or not.

We don’t know for sure, but we have a pretty good idea:

The extreme pressure and temperature inside Jupiter leads to exotic chemistry. For example, scientists have reason to believe that the inner layers of hydrogen in Jupiter’s atmosphere, under the pressure of the atmosphere above, may have formed into a layer of what is called liquid metallic hydrogen. Not exactly an ocean, not exactly atmosphere, this layer of hydrogen would have properties that stretch our understanding of chemistry. Instead of the simple, free-moving behavior of hydrogen in gas form (as we see in our own atmosphere and on the Sun), liquid metallic hydrogen is a strange matrix capable of conducting huge electrical currents. The persistent radio noise and wildly strong magnetic field of Jupiter could both come from this layer of metallic liquid. Some scientists theorize that beneath this layer there is no solid mass at the center of Jupiter, but that the unique temperature and pressure conditions sustain a core whose density is more like liquid or slush.

[cmkeller]

Robot Arm:

If Leia figured out there was a tracking beacon on the Millenium Falcon, why did she lead them right to the rebel base?

Because one way or another, they needed to get the Death Star plans to the rebel leaders. If they didn’t take that chance, there would have just been more Alderaans.

[Robot_Arm]

Yeah, but I figure they could just go to any random, inhabited planet, get off the Millenium Falcon, and find another ship to take them to Yavin.

[Ike_Witt]

@Robot Arm

Yeah, but I figure they could just go to any random, inhabited planet, get off the Millenium Falcon, and find another ship to take them to Yavin.

That would have been a good way to turn people off the rebel cause.

[Malodorous]

@cmkeller

Because one way or another, they needed to get the Death Star plans to the rebel leaders. If they didn’t take that chance, there would have just been more Alderaans.

Also, it’s not clear that the Rebels had the large fleet of ships that they possesed in the later movies and use to launch fighters to attack the second Death Star. We don’t see any large ships on Yavin’s moon, they may have only had x-wings at that point, in which case the only way for them to attack the Death Star was to bring it to them.