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NASA and Star Wars: The Connections Are Strong in This One
December 21, 2015 | NASAEstimated reading time: 5 minutes
This is an artist's concept of the fireworks that accompany the birth of a star. The young stellar object is encircled by a pancake-shaped disk of dust and gas left over from the collapse of the nebula that formed the star. Gas falls onto the newly forming star and is heated to the point that some of it escapes along the star's spin axis. Intertwined by magnetic fields, the bipolar jets blast into space at over 100,000 miles per hour. As seen from far away, they resemble a double-bladed lightsaber from the Star Wars film series.
It also turns out that some of the fictional planetary creations of the "Star Wars" universe are strikingly similar to real planets in our own Milky Way galaxy. There's an icy world nicknamed Hoth, a potential water world like Kamino and a stand-in for volcanic Mustafar. The Kepler mission, which has confirmed more than 1,000 planets outside of our solar system, has discovered a world orbiting two suns, much like the fictional Tatooine, where Luke Skywalker stared into that twin sunset dreaming of battling the Empire. Kepler-16b, confirmed in 2011, represented a "milestone discovery," according to Kepler principal investigator William Borucki. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars."
By the way, if we ever visit a planet like Tatooine, we may already know how to build a Jawa Sand Crawler, based on the treads on this crawler-transporter, which carries rockets to the launchpad in Florida.
No, NASA doesn’t have light sabers or hyperdrive yet. And despite popular demand, we’re not building a Death Star. But we are doing what we've done for over half a century -- sending spacecraft into our solar system and beyond, and peering with our telescopes into galaxies far, far away.
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