Talk:Parsec/Legends

Calculations

The calculations here assume that the sun of Coruscant is the exact same mass as Earth's sun (namely determining the mean distance from the sun based on number of days). There are equations relating a star's brightness to its mass, so if it were known how much brighter or dimmer Coruscant's sun was in comparison, a better approximation for the parsec could be found. Of course, if the mean distance between Coruscant and its sun were known, the calculation would be trivial. -Erich

Actually the calculations are based on Kepler's Third Law, which works for any planet-star orbit since a planet's mass is negligible compared to a star's mass. —MJBurrage • TALK • 05:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Not being particularly knowledgeable in physics I would note that Coruscant is depicted as being cold, even in equatorial latitudes, where, despite the greenhouse effect, the planet retains natural glacial features. They in fact employ enormous mirrors in order to raise mean global temperature. Whether this is due to Supra-Orbital or Climatic cycle I am unsure. But should it not be, (assuming Coruscant's sun is roughly the same size and age as our own) the distance of one AU could be much greater. - A random book reading Saxtonite —Unsigned comment by 206.87.4.192 (talk • contribs).

Do not respond to dead topics. This one has been inative for years, and the comment you responded to was from 2007. If you want to talk about this further, create a new thread. Also, please sign posts ith four tildies. NaruHina ^Talk 23:21, October 12, 2012 (UTC)

Kepler's 3rd Law depends on the mass of the star, so without knowing the mass of Coruscant's star it is not possible to determine the size of the Coruscant parsec.

The mass of the central object and the orbiting object are significant if their masses are close enough to each other. In the case of a star and a planet, the star is so much more massive than the planet, that the value become negligible for the calculations being made on the page.

I.E. mass is insignificant in a planet-star orbit, but is significant in a moon-planet orbit. —MJBurrage^(T•C) 17:19, October 20, 2011 (UTC)

Solo's claim

The thing to keep in mind about Solo's claim of doing the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs is that the Kessel Run is through the Maw. Event Horizons around black holes are dependant on the speed at which you are travelling. A standard ship has to do the run in 18 parsecs because to cut the route any closer, the ship would get sucked in. The Falcon, however, is fast enough to straighten the route and cut over 6 parsecs off the distance travelled. This makes sense, since the Falcon's hyperdrive is often rated as a x.5 rather than a x1 standard, potentially making it twice as fast as standard ships. While this argument may all be after-the-fact justification for an actual scriptual error, the logic does hold.

- Rhino

Hello. I corrected the math for this on the main page. Here's the explanation: The Millenium Falcon is stated to be able to make 0.5 *past* hyperspeed, which means hyperspeed (1.0) *plus* 0.5, which is another way of saying 1.5 times hyperspeed, or 150% *of* hyperspeed, or 50% *faster than* hyperspeed. These are all equal. If the Kessel Run is normally 18 parsecs, and the Falcon can do it in 12, then that further proves my math, as 12 x 1.5 = 18.

If it had a hyperspeed rating of 0.5, then that would mean *half* of hyperspeed, which is obviously not correct. If the ship could go twice hysperspeed, then it could do the Kessel Run in 9 parsecs, not 12. I hope I was able to explain this adequately. If not, then please ask another person to verify my math. Turambar007 03:01, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

• The West End Games sources which discuss the Falcon's hyperspace speed interpret "point five past lightspeed" as a "hyperspace multiplier" rating of "x1/2". This means it takes 50% as long to travel the same hyperspace route as a ship with a standard "x1" hyperdrive -- in other words, it's twice as fast. Do any of the newer sources change this interpretation? If they don't, your math may be right but irrelevant for the purposes of this article. —Silly Dan _(talk) 03:12, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Sounds like West End Games has faulty math. A multiplier of 1/2 should result in half speed, not double speed. Only dividing by 1/2 would result in double speed. The current souce for this article looks to be The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. If that states that the Kessel Run is normally 18 (which I can't verify whether or not it does) then I would go with that. Turambar007 03:37, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

No, the multiplier in WEG is applied to travel times (so a ship with an x1 hyperdrive takes the standard time, a ship with an x2 hyperdrive takes twice as long, and the Falcon's x0.5 takes half the time.) Together with a list of travel times for standard routes, it was convenient for gaming purposes. —Silly Dan _(talk) 03:48, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. Makes sense for the gaming purposes, as you said. I still think that "point five past lightspeed" sounds like a multiplier for rate of speed rather than for travel time. If my edits to the main article are incorrect, then your above explanation should be included in order to avoid further confusion. In any event, 18/12 = 1.5 no matter what galaxy you're in.  :)

Turambar007 04:02, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that a parsec is a unit of lenght, in real life as well as in Star Wars. No matter how fast you are, you gotta travel the same distance. Solo boasted to do Kessel Run in 12 parsec with the falcon because she was fast enough to pass through shortcuts that slower ships couldn't go through. I can be wrong of course. Spryquasar 13:06, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

That's correct. But don't forget that speed, distance, and travel time are all directly proportional to one another. Speed = Distance ÷ Time, or D = S x T, or T = D ÷ S. The best real life example I can come up with is this: Let's say you're in a car race with someone. Your course is 30 miles, but he gets to take a shortcut (for some reason) and his course is only 20 miles. You have to drive 1.5 times further than he does (30 ÷ 20 = 1.5). He's going 60 mph, so that means that you need to go 90 mph if you want to tie him, because 60 x 1.5 = 90. It's not really the best example, but we don't have black holes on Earth, so I can't really think of something that's directly parallel. Turambar007 01:39, October 6, 2010 (UTC)

Speaking in a purely conjectural manner, I believe their is a text where it is said that ships travel outside the Universe, in "bubbles". I believe reference is made to tachyon particles and that the hyperdrive may in fact, rather than impelling the vessel through real space at fantastic speed, transform it into faster than light Tachyonic particles, which exist outside the Space Time Continuum, in small ship sized universes. A problem posed with this extremely limited understanding (not aided at all by my own meager knowledge) is the Mass shadow, whereby large objects (ie planets, stars, Mass Shadow generators in Immobilizer 418 vessels) in Real space (the universe) stop ships in Hyper Space (the bubble Universes). Perhaps they exist in Parallel. Or some sort of Carry over effect exists between the two of them. - A random book reading Saxtonite —Unsigned comment by 206.87.4.192 (talk • contribs).

As above, this post is long dead. Start a new thread. NaruHina ^Talk 23:21, October 12, 2012 (UTC)

Under "Appearances"

Parsecs was mentioned in The Clone Wars episode 3. A battle droid said to Grevious that they were less than one parsec away from the medical base. Can someone put that in please? I'm on mobile and can't do much editing.--Secretss 20:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, I've added it in.--Secretss 08:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect info?

In the Episode IV commentary, George Lucas says that a Parsec is a unit of time, though here it specifically says that it is a unit of Distance, anyone care to explain that?

Thanks

Borntorule 18:34, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

He has since contradicted himself to retroactively explain it. See the relevant explanations on this talk page and the main article. Turambar007 03:40, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Calculations Revisited

I don't think we can definitively say the distance of a parsec based on Coruscant. Just because we know the duration of a year does not mean we know the distance between Corsucant and its star (I don't think the two figures correlate perfectly). And even if it does, I seem to remember Wookieepedia policy is to not use real-life calculations to assume things. Unless we're told the distance between Coruscant and its star, then we can only assume that a parsec is equivalent to 3.26 LY, as explicitly said by The Essential Atlas. Thoughts? Taral, Dark Lord of the Sith ^{-Just shy, not antisocial: You can talk to me!-} 14:17, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

• We not only don't know the relevant distances, we don't even know that the derivation of the unit "parsec" is the same in the Star Wars galaxy as in ours. Almost all of the information in the first Behind the scenes segment is speculative, aside from, as you point out, the specific numbers given in The Essential Atlas and "Dooku Captured." I'm going to delete it unless someone can source any of it. Asithol (talk) 22:03, April 17, 2014 (UTC)
  • Gone. Asithol (talk) 03:28, April 29, 2014 (UTC)

Attack of the Clones

I've looked at the scene where Padme says "Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away". Judging from the size of the area she zooms in upon, the distance actually appears to be something like ten thousand light years. Makes a lot more sense from the probability point of view, BTW, as well as more consistent with travel times. Perhaps there was some kind of mistranslation from Basic?Omeganian (talk) 04:20, July 4, 2015 (UTC)