{"id":19221,"date":"2022-10-31T16:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T15:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=130109"},"modified":"2022-10-31T16:23:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T15:23:08","slug":"could-blasters-actually-exist-like-in-star-wars-andor","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/could-blasters-actually-exist-like-in-star-wars-andor\/","title":{"rendered":"Could blasters actually exist, like in Star Wars: Andor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Stephen Kelly\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 31 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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As the late, great Han Solo once said, \u201cHokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.\u201d A bit disrespectful, in retrospect, but a good point nonetheless. Just take the new series Star Wars: Andor<\/em>, which is based around the struggle of ordinary people \u2013 those who are born without space magic \u2013 who must stand up to the Empire with nothing but firearms that, according to Wookieepedia, are fire bolts of \u2018particle-based energy\u2019. But what does that mean? Patrick Johnson, author of The Physics Of Star Wars<\/em>, has a few ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people assume that blasters fire lasers, but the blaster beams travel at a speed where we can watch them move,\u201d he says. \u201cLasers, meanwhile, move at the speed of light, which is so fast that we wouldn\u2019t be able to see anything move. If blasters were lasers, it would be nearly instantaneous from pulling the trigger to arriving at a target. People would seem to suddenly fall down for no reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson also points out that lasers would not resemble \u2018bolts\u2019, but would travel in one continuous stream. \u201cAnd if it didn\u2019t kill you, it\u2019s likely that a high-powered laser could radiate you enough to give you cancer in 15 years\u2019 time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A more plausible answer, suggests Johnson, is that blaster bolts are made out of plasma, the electrically charged matter that makes up lightning, the Sun<\/a> and \u2013 in his opinion \u2013 lightsabers. Beyond the fact that plasma would travel at a speed that could be observed, Johnson also highlights the fact that in\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>, blaster ammunition is said to derive from gas (more specifically, the fictional tibanna gas), much like real-life plasma.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe temperature at which materials turn into a plasma is fairly consistent, so we could estimate that tibanna gas becomes a plasma at 360,000\u00b0F [200,000\u00b0C],\u201d he says. \u201cThat would vaporise whatever it touches\u201d.<\/p>\n

As for whether this plasma could be launched from a blaster in the form of a bolt, Johnson cites the Large Hadron Collider<\/a> (LHC) as an example of how it could work. \u201cAt the LHC, they send beams of plasma around in circles very fast, in a magnetic containment field,\u201d he says. \u201cBut if you turned off that field, the beam would shoot\u00a0off in a straight line.\u201d Reduced down to a handheld blaster, he adds, it would be like, \u201ctaking a can of soup, opening the lid and throwing it outwards really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plasma\u2019s susceptibility to magnetic fields also feeds into two quirks of the\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0universe. The first is how lightsabers are used to swat away blaster bolts. \u201cIf a lightsaber beam is being contained in a magnetic field, then a different plasma entering that field could in principle lead to a deflection away. It\u2019s more likely to just absorb it, though,\u201d says Johnson.<\/p>\n

The second quirk is the terrible aim of Stormtroopers, who can\u2019t hit a bantha in a barrel! But there could be a scientific reason for this, suggests Johnson.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlasma is a soup of charged particles,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd so it is going to experience forces from electric and magnetic fields. If we were on a planet with a large magnetic field, or if there were a lot of stray\u00a0fields in a structure like a Death Star, it could lead to a bolt\u2019s path being altered along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This would mean that everyone\u2019s aim is affected, but we\u2019re going with the simple theory that magnetic fields hate fascists!<\/p>\n

Verdict: <\/strong>Blasters, if they shoot out plasma, behave according to the laws of physics, so these weapons aren\u2019t beyond the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n

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About our expert, Patrick Johnson<\/h4>\n

Patrick Johnson<\/a> is an associate teaching professor in the department of physics at Georgetown University. He is the author of The Physics Of Star Wars<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more from Popcorn Science:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n