blacksaber
06-24-2007, 12:04 PM
This is a detailed account of Han Solo's parsec problem in Episode IV
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away in an interstellar cantina a young boy and an old man search for a pilot to carry them to a faraway planet. They finally discover a swashbuckling smuggler willing to take them. “Is the ship fast?” the old man inquires. “Fast?” The smuggler retorts, “she’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs” (one parsec equals 3.26163626 lightyears). At this utterance the question comes to mind of: “How can one perform a calculated distance in a less distance as if it was a time? Herein lies a continuity error in George Lucas’ film: Star Wars. This question, dubbed: “The parsec problem” by fans has been harshly debated over for years. The general consensus is that Han Solo (the smuggler) lied to get more business. During the duration of the Star Wars original trilogy and the Expanded Universe one comes to understand that the Millennium Falcon is no ordinary ship. Therefore, would navigating a distance in a shorter amount of distance be possible? One must consider the technical information of the Millennium Falcon, the geographical and historical situation of Kessel, knowledge of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and finally a grasp on black holes and their affect on space to discover the possibilities of how the “parsec problem” could be resolved.
The Millennium Falcon is perhaps the most famous ship in the Star Wars saga. It has a history that predates the clone wars and a reputation for getting the owner out of tough spots. The Corellian Engineering Corporation designed the Millennium Falcon originally as an ordinary YT-1300 f/yt-1300p light freighter. It was outfitted with two girodyne srb42 sublight engines and an ordinary hyperdrive. However, once it came into Han Solo’s hands he began to heavily modify the ship for spice runs. A new hyperdrive was installed that could reach .5 past light speed, and the sublight engines were heavily modified as well. After Han’s tinkering the Millennium Falcon’s maximum speed became 652.44 miles per hour. As seen in The Empire Strikes Back the Millennium Falcon is highly maneuverable in even the worst asteroid fields. If there is a near-impossible problem the Millennium Falcon has the highest likelihood of solving it.
The small planet of Kessel is little more than a giant asteroid. It is located in the Northeast (by Coruscant) below the outskirts of wild space and borders Hutt space and the Maw. During the Galactic Civil War the Empire controlled it. The desolate planet is the location of glitterstim a narcotic spice. Kessel is a penal colony where the inmates are forced to mine the rare spice. For smugglers it is either a cave of wonders or a deathtrap. Stealing the spice is hard enough, but escaping successfully is extremely difficult due to the presence of the Maw. The Maw is an enormous field of black holes that dominates the north of Kessel. A smuggler has two options to get his shipment clear. One: take a two- day trip around the Maw while having to avoid detections by patrolling Imperial ships. Two: take the dangerous 18 parsec Kessel Run. The Kessel Run takes the smuggler directly north towards Hutt space and through the Maw. Han Solo claimed his Kessel Run took 12 parsecs so obviously he took a more dangerous path deeper into the Maw to shave light years off his distance.
Before one delves too much into black holes and other celestial anomalies one should examine the curvature of space. According to Einstein objects in space are not in straight lines from each other. The most common example of space and object’s affect on space is a large rubber sheet with a heavy ball in the middle. The ball warps the rubber sheet into a funnel. The deformed area around the object is representational of its gravitational influence in the universe. The mass of the object is directly related to how big its gravitational influence. Smaller objects orbit the larger bodies in elliptical orbits and the objects smaller yet orbit the satellites. Light also is deformed by the masses of objects. A group of scientists noted that a collection of stars they measured seemed to move when they observed them a different night. They conjectured that the light actually bent around the areas of gravitational influence to give an optical illusion of being closer to a celestial body of larger mass. Armed with this new information Einstein postulated that if light was able to be bent towards an area with higher gravity like satellites then light: a) must have mass b) must have speed. With an understanding of the curvature of space and the tendencies of light one must regard the abnormality of black holes.
To understand the dangers of the Maw one should consider the makeup of black holes. Black holes are essentially dead stars, however, not ever dead star becomes a black hole. Stars with a solar mass (solar mass is a size as comparing to our sun, i.e. one solar mass equals our sun) of 1-3 will become white dwarfs. A star relies on nuclear fission within its core to stay alive and burning. Hydrogen burns in a “nuclear oven” that balances the gravitational forces by opposing outwards, this occurs for several million years where the stars remain in happy equilibrium. After all the hydrogen is burnt out the star begins to collapse onto itself until the helium in the core begins to burn. The star then bulges outwards and lives for a few more million years as a Red Giant. Finally when the helium is burned up completely the mass overwhelms the star and it slowly begins to collapse onto itself (the larger the star the faster its collapse). Finally the star is dead and is a White Dwarf. Since the star has collapsed into a much smaller volume its mass is several tons per square inch. Black Holes are formed when a star with a solar mass greater than three finishes all its fuel like the above model. Due to the pure gargantuan size of the star its matter collapses into a point of mass known as the singularity. There are four types of black holes including the Schwarzschild, the Kerr, the Reissner-Nordström, and the Kerr-Newman. However, the Reissner-Nordström and the Kerr-Newman are only theoretical black holes derivations of the Kerr black hole. For the example of the Maw, only the Schwarzschild and the Kerr black holes need explication.
The Schwarzschild black hole is non-rotating due to the smaller size of the star. This black hole looks (graphically; as black holes can only be perceived by their photon/ergosphere, ionized gasses, and x-rays flowing into it) like a funnel. The outer limit of the funnel is known as the event horizon. This area is the end of events in this universal plane. Once an object reaches this point it can no longer return. If something attempts escape the outer reaches of the black hole would seem to race to accommodate the escape—at the speed of light. After passing the event horizon one looses the ability to control motion. Luckily, most black holes are observed to have two event horizons where the second restores control of motion. If an observer watched a person with a clock fall into the event horizon they would see the person moving slower and slower and the watch would move slower and slower. The clock would never stop but it would continually get slower and slower. The person in the event horizon would view the observer and the watch would be moving faster and faster. At this point the person would feeltidal forces come into action. These forces exist when a huge gravitational pull happens along a tiny distance. The perceived feeling (actual occurrence would happen in several thousandths of a second) would be as if the feet of the person weighed a trillion times more than the head. This would stretch and rip apart the person into oblivion. Take for example if a person ripped up a piece of paper and then waiting on the table were one-inch tall men to tear those pieces up. Then there would be exponentially smaller men tearing exponentially smaller pieces of paper until they reached the singularity. Only three things exist in the singularity: mass, rotation, and charge. There is not enough scientific nomenclature to accurately describe the singularity, besides that all physics laws are broken.
The Kerr black hole is much different than its counterpart because it rotates. The Kerr black hole is shaped like a donut, where a cutout would look like an eye. The outer boundary is called the static limit. This area inexorably draws objects around in a light speed orbit. Just inside the static limit is the ergosphere. The ergosphere is very bright because all the photons from nearby lights are stolen and stored. An interesting difference between the two black holes is that the ergosphere in the Kerr model allows mass to escape. After the ergosphere there is the event horizon. However, the rotation of the Kerr black hole implies a larger size, and the larger a black hole the less intense the tidal forces are concentrated. As one approaches the singularity there is a significant difference between the two black holes. In the Schwarzschild black hole the singularity is described as a point, but the Kerr black hole’s singularity is described as a ring. The singularity of the Kerr black hole is much more forgiving, instead of crushing an object the singularity is described as having negative space-time, a negative radius and most importantly repulsive gravity. The Kerr black hole is also subject to the theory of white holes, which expel matter instead of sucking matter.
My first theory as to how Han and his hairy counterpart would have navigated the Kessel run in such a short distance is by skirting the distance using the brawn of the Millennium Falcon’s engines. Once they loaded the glitterstim into their cargo hold they would set a course directly for their destination of Hutt-controlled space. They would not be able to engage the hyperdrive because the navicomputer cannot calculate jumps where there is such gravitational interference. The whole basis of the navicomputer is that it finds safe jumping routes across the galaxy. However, the computer immediately pulls the ship out of hyperspace when there is a significant gravitational anomaly (such as stars, asteroids, and Imperial Star Destroyers outfitted with gravity well generators). Therefore a jump with so many black holes interfering would cause the jump to go too far or pull the Millennium Falcon into a black hole. Han Solo would have to pilot quickly and carefully as to not be sucked into the event horizons. One problem people might think of is the other black holes. However, black holes are not giant vacuum cleaners as some may think. Their event horizons behave just like a planet leaving an indentation in space within their gravitational influence. However, between two objects in space there is an area called a Roche Lobe where the nearest circles of gravity become deflected towards each other into a figure eight shape. Once an object passes the Lagrangian Point it will be in the circle of the object’s gravitational influence. It would only begin to pull the Millennium Falcon towards its event horizon but still leaving enough time to adjust the Falcon’s velocity. This is the longest trip of the three theories, but also the safest.
The second possible way is potentially the shortest and the most dangerous. In this method Han Solo would pilot through a wormhole or a Kerr black hole’s singularity. If they flew through a Kerr black hole, the tidal forces would not overcome the Millennium Falcon as a Schwarzschild black hole would due to the enormous size. Within the singularity the gravitational forces would be reversed and the Millennium Falcon would be shot out through a white hole near his destination or into an alternate universe. However, the study of white holes is inconclusive, as the radioactive buildup around one would eventually collapse into a black hole. Also entering into this argument is the theory of wormholes. Wormholes are rips in the space-time continuum that would create shortcuts throughout the galaxy. However, no one could distinguish a wormhole from a black hole due to their similarity in size and shape. If the “wormhole” turned out to be a Kerr black hole then Solo and Chewbacca could end up in an alternate universe or dead. If the wormhole were too big a minute long journey for them would pass 100 million years in reality. Since it is impossible to determine a wormhole from a Kerr black hole this method is extremely unpredictable.
The final and most likely option is the slingshot method. Using a Kerr black hole’s static limit the Millennium Falcon would be drawn at a speed close to light and whirled around the ergosphere. Since matter can still escape the ergosphere all Han and Chewie would have to do is angle their ship to a tangent line of their choosing and when the reach the terminal limit they shoot their sublight engines. They would be effectively shot directly towards their destination at the speeds approaching light. Since they are approaching the speed of light they would bypass all event horizon’s gravity. If Han and Chewie were able to slingshot themselves around a Kerr black hole they would arrive near their destination in Hutt Space in minutes.
In conclusion I believe that Han Solo and Chewbacca would have used the third method to cut a shorter path through Kessel. It has the elemental danger that they enjoy and affords the quickest path and the most reliable. Being a die-hard Star Wars fan I cannot accept that Han Solo lied about his ship’s speed and maneuverability. Here is my defense and advice to any future smugglers in a galaxy far far away.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away in an interstellar cantina a young boy and an old man search for a pilot to carry them to a faraway planet. They finally discover a swashbuckling smuggler willing to take them. “Is the ship fast?” the old man inquires. “Fast?” The smuggler retorts, “she’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs” (one parsec equals 3.26163626 lightyears). At this utterance the question comes to mind of: “How can one perform a calculated distance in a less distance as if it was a time? Herein lies a continuity error in George Lucas’ film: Star Wars. This question, dubbed: “The parsec problem” by fans has been harshly debated over for years. The general consensus is that Han Solo (the smuggler) lied to get more business. During the duration of the Star Wars original trilogy and the Expanded Universe one comes to understand that the Millennium Falcon is no ordinary ship. Therefore, would navigating a distance in a shorter amount of distance be possible? One must consider the technical information of the Millennium Falcon, the geographical and historical situation of Kessel, knowledge of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and finally a grasp on black holes and their affect on space to discover the possibilities of how the “parsec problem” could be resolved.
The Millennium Falcon is perhaps the most famous ship in the Star Wars saga. It has a history that predates the clone wars and a reputation for getting the owner out of tough spots. The Corellian Engineering Corporation designed the Millennium Falcon originally as an ordinary YT-1300 f/yt-1300p light freighter. It was outfitted with two girodyne srb42 sublight engines and an ordinary hyperdrive. However, once it came into Han Solo’s hands he began to heavily modify the ship for spice runs. A new hyperdrive was installed that could reach .5 past light speed, and the sublight engines were heavily modified as well. After Han’s tinkering the Millennium Falcon’s maximum speed became 652.44 miles per hour. As seen in The Empire Strikes Back the Millennium Falcon is highly maneuverable in even the worst asteroid fields. If there is a near-impossible problem the Millennium Falcon has the highest likelihood of solving it.
The small planet of Kessel is little more than a giant asteroid. It is located in the Northeast (by Coruscant) below the outskirts of wild space and borders Hutt space and the Maw. During the Galactic Civil War the Empire controlled it. The desolate planet is the location of glitterstim a narcotic spice. Kessel is a penal colony where the inmates are forced to mine the rare spice. For smugglers it is either a cave of wonders or a deathtrap. Stealing the spice is hard enough, but escaping successfully is extremely difficult due to the presence of the Maw. The Maw is an enormous field of black holes that dominates the north of Kessel. A smuggler has two options to get his shipment clear. One: take a two- day trip around the Maw while having to avoid detections by patrolling Imperial ships. Two: take the dangerous 18 parsec Kessel Run. The Kessel Run takes the smuggler directly north towards Hutt space and through the Maw. Han Solo claimed his Kessel Run took 12 parsecs so obviously he took a more dangerous path deeper into the Maw to shave light years off his distance.
Before one delves too much into black holes and other celestial anomalies one should examine the curvature of space. According to Einstein objects in space are not in straight lines from each other. The most common example of space and object’s affect on space is a large rubber sheet with a heavy ball in the middle. The ball warps the rubber sheet into a funnel. The deformed area around the object is representational of its gravitational influence in the universe. The mass of the object is directly related to how big its gravitational influence. Smaller objects orbit the larger bodies in elliptical orbits and the objects smaller yet orbit the satellites. Light also is deformed by the masses of objects. A group of scientists noted that a collection of stars they measured seemed to move when they observed them a different night. They conjectured that the light actually bent around the areas of gravitational influence to give an optical illusion of being closer to a celestial body of larger mass. Armed with this new information Einstein postulated that if light was able to be bent towards an area with higher gravity like satellites then light: a) must have mass b) must have speed. With an understanding of the curvature of space and the tendencies of light one must regard the abnormality of black holes.
To understand the dangers of the Maw one should consider the makeup of black holes. Black holes are essentially dead stars, however, not ever dead star becomes a black hole. Stars with a solar mass (solar mass is a size as comparing to our sun, i.e. one solar mass equals our sun) of 1-3 will become white dwarfs. A star relies on nuclear fission within its core to stay alive and burning. Hydrogen burns in a “nuclear oven” that balances the gravitational forces by opposing outwards, this occurs for several million years where the stars remain in happy equilibrium. After all the hydrogen is burnt out the star begins to collapse onto itself until the helium in the core begins to burn. The star then bulges outwards and lives for a few more million years as a Red Giant. Finally when the helium is burned up completely the mass overwhelms the star and it slowly begins to collapse onto itself (the larger the star the faster its collapse). Finally the star is dead and is a White Dwarf. Since the star has collapsed into a much smaller volume its mass is several tons per square inch. Black Holes are formed when a star with a solar mass greater than three finishes all its fuel like the above model. Due to the pure gargantuan size of the star its matter collapses into a point of mass known as the singularity. There are four types of black holes including the Schwarzschild, the Kerr, the Reissner-Nordström, and the Kerr-Newman. However, the Reissner-Nordström and the Kerr-Newman are only theoretical black holes derivations of the Kerr black hole. For the example of the Maw, only the Schwarzschild and the Kerr black holes need explication.
The Schwarzschild black hole is non-rotating due to the smaller size of the star. This black hole looks (graphically; as black holes can only be perceived by their photon/ergosphere, ionized gasses, and x-rays flowing into it) like a funnel. The outer limit of the funnel is known as the event horizon. This area is the end of events in this universal plane. Once an object reaches this point it can no longer return. If something attempts escape the outer reaches of the black hole would seem to race to accommodate the escape—at the speed of light. After passing the event horizon one looses the ability to control motion. Luckily, most black holes are observed to have two event horizons where the second restores control of motion. If an observer watched a person with a clock fall into the event horizon they would see the person moving slower and slower and the watch would move slower and slower. The clock would never stop but it would continually get slower and slower. The person in the event horizon would view the observer and the watch would be moving faster and faster. At this point the person would feeltidal forces come into action. These forces exist when a huge gravitational pull happens along a tiny distance. The perceived feeling (actual occurrence would happen in several thousandths of a second) would be as if the feet of the person weighed a trillion times more than the head. This would stretch and rip apart the person into oblivion. Take for example if a person ripped up a piece of paper and then waiting on the table were one-inch tall men to tear those pieces up. Then there would be exponentially smaller men tearing exponentially smaller pieces of paper until they reached the singularity. Only three things exist in the singularity: mass, rotation, and charge. There is not enough scientific nomenclature to accurately describe the singularity, besides that all physics laws are broken.
The Kerr black hole is much different than its counterpart because it rotates. The Kerr black hole is shaped like a donut, where a cutout would look like an eye. The outer boundary is called the static limit. This area inexorably draws objects around in a light speed orbit. Just inside the static limit is the ergosphere. The ergosphere is very bright because all the photons from nearby lights are stolen and stored. An interesting difference between the two black holes is that the ergosphere in the Kerr model allows mass to escape. After the ergosphere there is the event horizon. However, the rotation of the Kerr black hole implies a larger size, and the larger a black hole the less intense the tidal forces are concentrated. As one approaches the singularity there is a significant difference between the two black holes. In the Schwarzschild black hole the singularity is described as a point, but the Kerr black hole’s singularity is described as a ring. The singularity of the Kerr black hole is much more forgiving, instead of crushing an object the singularity is described as having negative space-time, a negative radius and most importantly repulsive gravity. The Kerr black hole is also subject to the theory of white holes, which expel matter instead of sucking matter.
My first theory as to how Han and his hairy counterpart would have navigated the Kessel run in such a short distance is by skirting the distance using the brawn of the Millennium Falcon’s engines. Once they loaded the glitterstim into their cargo hold they would set a course directly for their destination of Hutt-controlled space. They would not be able to engage the hyperdrive because the navicomputer cannot calculate jumps where there is such gravitational interference. The whole basis of the navicomputer is that it finds safe jumping routes across the galaxy. However, the computer immediately pulls the ship out of hyperspace when there is a significant gravitational anomaly (such as stars, asteroids, and Imperial Star Destroyers outfitted with gravity well generators). Therefore a jump with so many black holes interfering would cause the jump to go too far or pull the Millennium Falcon into a black hole. Han Solo would have to pilot quickly and carefully as to not be sucked into the event horizons. One problem people might think of is the other black holes. However, black holes are not giant vacuum cleaners as some may think. Their event horizons behave just like a planet leaving an indentation in space within their gravitational influence. However, between two objects in space there is an area called a Roche Lobe where the nearest circles of gravity become deflected towards each other into a figure eight shape. Once an object passes the Lagrangian Point it will be in the circle of the object’s gravitational influence. It would only begin to pull the Millennium Falcon towards its event horizon but still leaving enough time to adjust the Falcon’s velocity. This is the longest trip of the three theories, but also the safest.
The second possible way is potentially the shortest and the most dangerous. In this method Han Solo would pilot through a wormhole or a Kerr black hole’s singularity. If they flew through a Kerr black hole, the tidal forces would not overcome the Millennium Falcon as a Schwarzschild black hole would due to the enormous size. Within the singularity the gravitational forces would be reversed and the Millennium Falcon would be shot out through a white hole near his destination or into an alternate universe. However, the study of white holes is inconclusive, as the radioactive buildup around one would eventually collapse into a black hole. Also entering into this argument is the theory of wormholes. Wormholes are rips in the space-time continuum that would create shortcuts throughout the galaxy. However, no one could distinguish a wormhole from a black hole due to their similarity in size and shape. If the “wormhole” turned out to be a Kerr black hole then Solo and Chewbacca could end up in an alternate universe or dead. If the wormhole were too big a minute long journey for them would pass 100 million years in reality. Since it is impossible to determine a wormhole from a Kerr black hole this method is extremely unpredictable.
The final and most likely option is the slingshot method. Using a Kerr black hole’s static limit the Millennium Falcon would be drawn at a speed close to light and whirled around the ergosphere. Since matter can still escape the ergosphere all Han and Chewie would have to do is angle their ship to a tangent line of their choosing and when the reach the terminal limit they shoot their sublight engines. They would be effectively shot directly towards their destination at the speeds approaching light. Since they are approaching the speed of light they would bypass all event horizon’s gravity. If Han and Chewie were able to slingshot themselves around a Kerr black hole they would arrive near their destination in Hutt Space in minutes.
In conclusion I believe that Han Solo and Chewbacca would have used the third method to cut a shorter path through Kessel. It has the elemental danger that they enjoy and affords the quickest path and the most reliable. Being a die-hard Star Wars fan I cannot accept that Han Solo lied about his ship’s speed and maneuverability. Here is my defense and advice to any future smugglers in a galaxy far far away.