What do Star Wars space battles actually sound like using accurate physics? By: Branch Education
This is what a Star Wars battle in outer space would sound like
if it used accurate physics and it might surprise you that it’s not silent.
But- before you start commenting about how I got it all wrong,
let’s rewind and explain why sound can
travel through the vacuum of space… sometimes.
[Rewinding Sound]
that sound cannot travel through space or a vacuum,
they're mostly correct, but not 100% correct,it’s more like 85% give or take.
So, to explain that other 15% of how sound can travel through a vacuum,
let’s use an example.
Here we have an alarm clock, a speaker, and a balloon
and they are all placed in a vacuum.
When the alarm clock’s bells ring, or we play
music on the speaker, there is no sound.
Both the bells and the speaker vibrate, and this vibration moves air particles,
which creates sequences of high pressure and
low-pressure zones in the air called sound waves.
Thus, with no air or medium for sound to travel through
neither the speaker nor the bells make sound.
So, now let’s look at the inflated balloon.
This balloon will, in fact, generate sound when popped in a vacuum.
Let's zoom in on the edge of the balloon.
Gas particles are bouncing around inside the inflated balloon
and there’s a vacuum outside.
When we pop the balloon, the gas rushes out
into the vacuum in all directions resulting
in a spherical propagation of gas particles
with a rather high velocity, of around 500 meters per second.
If we have a microphone nearby, these particles will hit the microphone
causing it to vibrate and record a sound.
In a way, the balloon provides its own medium or particles
for transmitting sound through the vacuum.
So, let’s get back to this Star Wars battle in outer space.
When you’re flying around in the Millennium Falcon,
and you dodge a laser, you shouldn’t hear a sound,
but when you successfully hit a tie fighter and it explodes,
you will hear a sound. This is because that tie fighter had
a good amount of air and fuel onboard and when it exploded all of it was
released into the vacuum of space along with a smattering of debris.
All that matter rushed out at a rather
high velocity kinda like when we popped the balloon
This results in your ship getting hit with a barrage of high-speed atoms, molecules and debris
and the force from this barrage of stuff on the outside of your ship,
generates sound on the inside.
The number and force of the particles hitting your ship,
and therefore the loudness of the explosion,
changes drastically with your distance from the explosion
and the amount of energy and mass released from the explosion.
But, if you’re too close to the explosion
and your deflector shields are damaged,
then there’s is a good chance a piece of high velocity shrapnel
might just tear a hole in your ship and you’ll have a lot more to worry about
than whether there is or isn’t sound in space.
So now we’re back to this clip of what a Star Wars battle
in outer space would sound like if it reflected accurate physics.
By the way, these sounds are as if we placed the microphone in outer space.
If the microphone were in the Millennium Falcon,
you would also hear the engine, radio communications,
and other internal noises.
I made a video that goes into more detail
as to what sound is and you should take a look at it.
If you still have doubts that explosions or popping a balloon in a
vacuum make sound, check out Cody’s lab where
he tested this out. A link is in the description.
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