Technically everything with mass creates its own gravitational field; most things just aren’t massive enough for it to be detectable.
Comment on How did gravity worked on the Death Star?
finley@lemm.ee 3 months agoIt doesn’t create enough gravity because it isn’t massive enough to create gravity. They use gravity deck plating.
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 3 months ago
Ageroth@reddthat.com 3 months ago
One of my favorite science facts: Because of how the strength of gravity diminishes as you get further away and stronger as you get closer, when you approach to within arms length of another person (approx 1m) the gravitational attraction between the two masses of your bodies can exceed the gravitational attraction between your body and the sun at any given time.
finley@lemm.ee 3 months ago
When the inverse square law and weak gravitational forces meet
PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Where I end and you begin
intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Another fun property of the inverse square law is that an infinite sheet of mass produces a gravitational field that is equally strong no matter how far you are from it.
It applies to any form of flux, like sound amplitude or light intensity.
This is why when you’re sitting on top of Mount Sanitas, you can hear traffic sounds at seemingly full volume. It’s just all the traffic of Boulder, which is roughly like an infinite sheet below you.
This is despite being unable to hear any given car more than a couple blocks away.
It’s also why if Superman flies over manhattan at night, he’s lit from underneath with an amount of light similar to someone who’s 10 feet from a skyscraper.
shutz@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Yeah, but no one can escape the gravitational field of your mom.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist, as I half expected your comment to end with a “your mom” joke)
ramble81@lemm.ee 3 months ago
“Gravity deck plating”… okay that makes sense. So basically each floor has its own gravity generation to orient you to it. They’re all placed “bottom to top” to work like a building but it’d be possible to put one in at a 90-degree angle for say maintenance work.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
There are crew walkways (I think they even have handguards!) along the beam path of the superlaser, so there are definitely at least a few small decks at different angles.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Like in the Falcon
MudMan@fedia.io 3 months ago
Even if it was massive enough, if they can keep people sticking to the ground in a tiny ship they can surely counteract the gravity of a space station.
Also, most of their spaceships have wings. We're thinking about this way too hard.
cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
They don’t all have wings. Only the X-Wing and Imperial transport ships have actual wings, and we’ve seen them fly through atmospheres.
MudMan@fedia.io 3 months ago
Well, yeah, but we've also seen the ones that look like a hamburger patty fly through the atmosphere (and, in fact, outmaneouver the winged ones). Clearly that's not what they're for.
cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Ah yeah. Dang. Well there probably a good technical reason behind it. I’m no starship engineer in the Star Wars universe.
dwindling7373@feddit.it 3 months ago
They are clearly not wings meant to create aerodinamic lift.
MudMan@fedia.io 3 months ago
Well, no, they're meant to make the pew-pew laser fights look like a film about airplane dogfights. So yeah, way overthinking it.
finley@lemm.ee 3 months ago
You’re here discussing it too, man
MudMan@fedia.io 3 months ago
Oh, yeah, no, but that's because I'm a nerd.