So the reason the moon has a curved path is because of the earth’s gravity. Its velocity relative to earth is high enough that as the earth pulls the moon at 9.8 m/s2 , it misses the earth entirely. This pulls the moon into a circular trajectory, and that’s what we call an orbit.
Big ships in Star Wars are not “in orbit” in this sense. They’re relying on technobabble and dohickeys to stay up in the sky- above a specific part of the planet.
So when those engines stop providing power, they fa ll to the planet.
First, 9.8 m/s/s is the acceleration of things that fall near Earth’s surface, so the Earth is not pulling the moon with that acceleration, it’s far less. A basic model predicts the moons acceleration to be GM/r^2 where G is the universal gravitational constant, M is the Earth’s mass, and r is the distance between the Earth’s and Moon’s centers of mass.
Second, you have presented a misconception that “orbiting” does not include hovering over the same position relative to a point on a planet. The thing is the planet is not still, it is both spinning and translating. This means in order for the big ship to view the planet as not moving, it also needs to be orbiting around the planet at the same speed that the planet is spinning while translating at the same speed as the planet.
I’m not sure what you’re on about with the second point?
Are you suggesting that because geosynchronous orbits exist they’re always in geosynchronous? We see big ships (imperials 2’s) in all sorts of different elevations. They’re very clearly not orbiting- anything other than geosynchronous for that planet is going to require some kind of lift to keep it at elevation- and probably some amount of lateral/tangential speed to keep above a city.
Their repulsors could do the job (but probably bring in the engines for some reason… but we won’t get into that.)
Or are you suggesting that the orbit around the sun is somehow significant enough to affect the position of a ship able to transit most systems within hours?
It might be in a heliocentric orbit (along with the planet) but it’s still not orbiting the planet unless it’s moving with a tangential velocity roughly equal to the orbital velocity.
My general point is that people’s arguments regarding how star wars simplifies space flight into pseudo-atmospheric flight mechanics is generally correct. It’s not an awful thing though. Space is so foreign to almost everyone on Earth that trying to model realistic outcomes in the movie would probably not make sense to most viewers; so it’s being greatly simplified in order to cause less cognitive dissonance to the viewers.
Also, a lot of battles are taking place as ships come out of hyperspace in relation to the gravity well, so they are accelerating across or into the planet. They aren’t even in “orbit” at all.
Yes they don’t decelerate, but that’s an entire other thing.
I always envision that they’re burning velocity while in hyperspace to come out in a zero-zero rendezvous with whatever they’re meeting so that they come out “just right”
My head cannon is that the hyperdrive is like sliding into a blister on the edge of space and the drive is pushing that blister. Your momentum is preserved, start and stop but you can shift it so you’re always coming out “stopped” or advancing at a useful direction.
(Otherwise we’d see them making long-ass RV burns.)
Where are the Moon’s engines?
Not many space battles are taking place in stable orbit dude.
So the reason the moon has a curved path is because of the earth’s gravity. Its velocity relative to earth is high enough that as the earth pulls the moon
at 9.8 m/s2, it misses the earth entirely. This pulls the moon into a circular trajectory, and that’s what we call an orbit.Big ships in Star Wars are not “in orbit” in this sense. They’re relying on technobabble and dohickeys to stay up in the sky- above a specific part of the planet.
So when those engines stop providing power, they fa ll to the planet.
The physics you presented is very off.
First, 9.8 m/s/s is the acceleration of things that fall near Earth’s surface, so the Earth is not pulling the moon with that acceleration, it’s far less. A basic model predicts the moons acceleration to be GM/r^2 where G is the universal gravitational constant, M is the Earth’s mass, and r is the distance between the Earth’s and Moon’s centers of mass.
Second, you have presented a misconception that “orbiting” does not include hovering over the same position relative to a point on a planet. The thing is the planet is not still, it is both spinning and translating. This means in order for the big ship to view the planet as not moving, it also needs to be orbiting around the planet at the same speed that the planet is spinning while translating at the same speed as the planet.
Uh, you’re right about the acceleration.
I’m not sure what you’re on about with the second point?
Are you suggesting that because geosynchronous orbits exist they’re always in geosynchronous? We see big ships (imperials 2’s) in all sorts of different elevations. They’re very clearly not orbiting- anything other than geosynchronous for that planet is going to require some kind of lift to keep it at elevation- and probably some amount of lateral/tangential speed to keep above a city.
Their repulsors could do the job (but probably bring in the engines for some reason… but we won’t get into that.)
Or are you suggesting that the orbit around the sun is somehow significant enough to affect the position of a ship able to transit most systems within hours?
It might be in a heliocentric orbit (along with the planet) but it’s still not orbiting the planet unless it’s moving with a tangential velocity roughly equal to the orbital velocity.
My general point is that people’s arguments regarding how star wars simplifies space flight into pseudo-atmospheric flight mechanics is generally correct. It’s not an awful thing though. Space is so foreign to almost everyone on Earth that trying to model realistic outcomes in the movie would probably not make sense to most viewers; so it’s being greatly simplified in order to cause less cognitive dissonance to the viewers.
Also, a lot of battles are taking place as ships come out of hyperspace in relation to the gravity well, so they are accelerating across or into the planet. They aren’t even in “orbit” at all.
Yes they don’t decelerate, but that’s an entire other thing.
I always envision that they’re burning velocity while in hyperspace to come out in a zero-zero rendezvous with whatever they’re meeting so that they come out “just right”
My head cannon is that the hyperdrive is like sliding into a blister on the edge of space and the drive is pushing that blister. Your momentum is preserved, start and stop but you can shift it so you’re always coming out “stopped” or advancing at a useful direction.
(Otherwise we’d see them making long-ass RV burns.)
That’s no moon
(I see what you did there)