But taking all these sources into account, the death toll of the first Death Star can be left as around 1.1 million and the one of the second Death Star as over two million, which is still a lot even for Star Wars – more so considering that this happened in the first three films of the franchise.

The Empire initially appointed Vice Admiral Rancit to supervise the network of bases protecting the Death Star, an effort overseen from the remote Sentinel Base. Smaller pieces would burn completely upon entering the atmosphere, … [31] In addition, extensive data had been beamed to a communications complex on Galvoni III , which included a lot of transmissions, images, and footage of events up to the last seconds of the Death Star's existence, including the rescue of Organa and other related events. With a pure antimatter bomb, the Death Star wouldn’t have to supply all the energy needed to blow Alderaan to smithereens—only half (about 1.24-trillion tons). Let’s assume that the green light of death is just a “simple” laser.

Given the size of the first Death Star (100km in diameter, with the second beyond 160km) and estimated numbers of lives on board (said to be 1.7 million military personnel and 400,000 droids), many fans have come up with approximate numbers of deaths. So, it’s perfectly reasonably that a tiny amount of matter (or, in this case, antimatter) could destroy an entire planet. This gives us a little bit of scientific leeway to imagine potential sources of power for the death star.

In a display of the Death Star’s might, Grand Moff Tarkin used the space station to destroy the Princess’ home planet of Alderaan, killing billions. Darth Vader, an Imperial enforcer serving the Emperor and Grand Moff Tarkin, led an Imperial hunt to recover the plans. A one-stop shop for all things video games.

Palpatine, secretly the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, had his apprentice Darth Tyranus (also known as Count Dooku) deliver the plans from Geonosis to Coruscant at the start of the Clone Wars.

Pieces of metal debris larger than a few metres would be likely to make noticeable impacts on the surface, as meteorites. The Star Wars universe began its pop culture reign in 1977 with the film now known as Star Wars: A New Hope, which culminated with the destruction of the Empire's superweapon. Their goal: to find a weakness within the superstructure and exploit it.

The Death Star was the Empire’s ultimate weapon: a moon-sized space station with the ability to destroy an entire planet. In that case, it would have to generate all of the energy for the laser aboard the space station, which would be horrifically inefficient and very impractical. But also Caps and Leafs), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans.

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In it, the Death Star is said to have had a crew of 265,675, as well as 52,276 gunners, 607,360 troops, 42,782 ship support staff, and 180,216 pilots and support crew, making it a total of 1,148,309 people on board. While he proved unsuccessful on that front, the Sith captured Princess Leia Organa, a suspected Rebel sympathizer. In the famous dialogue between Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, its size was hinted at, “… he’s headed for that small moon.” “That’s no moon… It’s a space station.” The exact mass and diameter of the object are never explicitly revealed, but various sources suggests it is between 87 and 100 miles (140 to 160 kilometers) across. Although the attack didn’t really give them a chance to leave, it’s hard to believe that all of them were on board at that moment, so the final number could be slightly smaller. Antimatter seems to be a likely solution. Please upgrade your browser to experience the site.

Star Wars still hasn't answered how many people died in the Death Star, but it has dropped some clues here and there. How Captain America Survived Being Put On Ice, Star Wars: How Many People Died When The Death Star Was Destroyed, Rise of Skywalker's Star Destroyers May Solve Palpatine's Death Star Problem, Star Wars: The Real Reason Darth Vader Was On The Death Star, Star Wars: Why Palpatine Really Saved Darth Vader On Mustafar, James Bond 26's Best Idea Is Rebooting It To The 1960s, How Superman Can Fit Into The Batman's Universe, John David Washington's Tenet Protagonist Becomes Green Lantern In New Fan Art, The Batman Is Filming A Motorcycle Chase Scene In First Person, Lord of the Rings Would Be 24 Unnecessary Movies If Made Today Claims Fan, Black Panther’s Shuri Is Trying To Make More Super-Soldiers After Endgame, Third Alien Prequel Would Have Answered Mystery Of Original Xenomorph Eggs, How Mariah Carey’s Fantasy Became the Signature Song of Ryan Reynolds' Free Guy, Star Wars Concept Art Reveals D-Wing Starfighter Design, Star Wars: Palpatine Was Defeated by a Sith Prophecy, Not the Chosen One, Everything We Know About Die Hard 6 (Is It Happening? For the sake of argument, if we assume the Death Star has a diameter of 160 km (99 miles), and is a perfect sphere, its volume must be about 2*10^6 cubic kilometers. As a point of comparison, the Sun spits out 3.8*10^26 J (around 380 septillion Joules) of energy each second, which comes from the conversion of 4.3 billion kilograms of its mass into pure energy through nuclear fusion. Audiences had a hard time believing the well-resourced Empire would let such an obvious design flaw (a thermal exhaust port right below the main port) slip past them. For comparison, our moon is around 2,160 miles (3,476 km) across. (Alderaan was gone in 3). Annefrank, which is just a tenth of Ida, would be about the size of a single pixel at this scale. Alderaan and Earth are very similar, so we’ll look at what it would take for the Death Star to destroy Earth. In order to understand the Death Star’s power, we need to understand the target.

Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the Death Star would fire (or “push” ) the laser, and the laser would “push” (more like recoil) in return. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, with assistance from the Geonosians, had plotted to build the first dreaded Death Star -- a weapon unlike anything the galaxy had ever seen. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films, to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. It's long been a running joke in Star Wars fandom about the Rebels taking so many lives, but even Star Wars canon now has the Empire spreading propaganda that the Rebels are actually terrorists who want to take lives rather than bring peace, and the Death Star is a key part of that. Tarkin would become the battle station’s greatest champion, seeing it as the key to vanquishing all resistance to Palpatine’s rule. Even as the Clone Wars raged, the Death Star secretly took shape in space above Geonosis. In those few seconds, you can see at least one substantial chunk of the planet get ejected into space (leaving the top-center of the explosion) with a significant amount of force.

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There are many mysteries in the Star Wars universe, and one that fans have been wondering about for years is how many people died when the Death Star was destroyed? The exact results depend on how well the battle station was fragmented when it exploded. This gives a total of 2,471,647, again supposing they were all there when it was destroyed. All the latest gaming news, game reviews and trailers. ), Jared Leto Returning As Joker In Justice League Snyder Cut, Avengers: Endgame Director Trash Talks MCU Stars For Charity, Borat 2 Is Being Sued By Holocaust Survivor's Estate, Marvel & Scooby Doo Characters Wear Masks In Universal Orlando Reopening Photos, Adam Brody Confirms More Shazam Family Action Scenes, Mad Max: What Happened To The Oceans (Did They Disappear? Alderaan would supply the rest. For some scale, consider these objects below: Asteroid 5535 Annefrank (upper right) weighs about 1.24 trillion tons; Many other asteroids in the montage do as well.

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Rancit’s replacement, Wilhuff Tarkin, faced a host of challenges, from delayed shipments and raw-materials shortages to missed engineering deadlines and attempts at sabotage. There is a mysterious (in other words, “unexplained”) power source at the core of the Death Star.

Though, if you look closely, you’ll see that there isn’t noticeable recoil. After the Princess’ rescue, however, the stolen plans -- which Leia had hid in the droid R2-D2 -- were finally delivered to the Alliance.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view. As for the second Death Star, some numbers can be taken from the Star Wars: Behind the Magic interactive CD-Rom released in 1998, which said it had a crew of 485, 560, plus 152,275 gunners, 1,295,950 troops, 127,570 infantries, 75,850 technical personnel, and 334,432 pilots – not counting the contractors on board, as the Death Star was under construction. More recent Star Wars canon material sets the Death Stars’ death toll at “nearly one and a half million people” (according to Star Wars: Bloodline), with others going as far as saying the first Death Star alone killed “nearly two million” or “nearly a million” (both from Star Wars: Lost Stars). The Star Wars universe began its pop culture reign in 1977 with the film now known as Star Wars: A New Hope, which culminated with the destruction of the Empire's superweapon.. Several of the Star Wars games are concerned with the Death Star's destruction, or the theft, protection, and transmission of its plans until reaching Tantive IV.
Destroying the Death Star was an act of heroism on the part of the Rebel Alliance, with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo rewarded for their bravery and actions, but it's not such a heroic action from a certain point-of-view. The gravitational binding energy of Earth is 2.24*10^32 Joules (that’s 240 followed by 32 zeros). Then, of course, there’s that whole heat diffusion issue, which would probably vaporize everything in the laser’s vicinity (including people standing next to it). For that, the Death Star would have to overpower the forces that hold the planet together—in this case, gravity. All these numbers are just approximates, as the official number might never be known – unless George Lucas wants to share. Then, the antimatter would need to be kept completely isolated from other matter, because antimatter is the antithesis of matter—when they come in contact, they destroy one another . Firstly, the Death Star and Newton disagree, specifically where his third law of motion is concerned. The Death Star's destruction gave the project in question a newfound importance to the Empire. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round. This method is also very scalable; in the end the Death Star would only need to fire a beam of antimatter 0.00000002% of any planet’s mass to overcome its gravitational binding. Destroying the Death Star was an act … Assuming the death star weighs as much as the moon, if it fired 2.24*10^32 J of energy, it would accelerate about 48 miles (78 km) away from Alderaan per second. So if you want to send chunks of a planet flying off into interstellar space at high velocities to properly terrify your enemies, just toss in some extra antimatter, sit back, and enjoy the ride—it will be rather smooth.

Some games also focus on the immediate aftermath, such as Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. The destruction of the second Death Star would have cataclysmic consequences for life on the forest moon of Endor.