Skip to main content

star wars - Is the galaxy depicted at the end of Empire Strikes Back a real galaxy?


I was reading this question about the Rebel fleet's rendezvous point, and it occurred to me that this galaxy below looks familiar: Star Wars Galaxy


I can't tell from the image whether this is an artistic creation or an actual picture of a galaxy taken by NASA or some other space agency. (Considering the date, it might be the former) but I'm sure I have seen a Hubble image or something somewhere online that looks like this galaxy.


Is this picture real or at least based on a real astrophysical image captured by a telescope somewhere? If so, what is the "real world" name for the galaxy being depicted? If not, is there a similar galaxy that inspired this artistic version? What's the closest thing that is really out there that matches this image?



Answer




The galaxy depicted appears to be nothing more than an artist's impression of a standard spiral galaxy. Telescope astronomers were able to capture images of Andromeda (M31) as far back as the late 1800s. Because of their popularity, these are the sorts of images that immediately say "galaxy" to most members of the public.


enter image description here


As you can see from these scans of "The Making of Empire Strikes Back" and "The Art of Star Wars : The Empire Strikes Back", the size, scale and shape of the galaxy were fully conceived by Star Wars artist Frank McQuarrie. There's no indication that he based these pictures on any specific galaxy.


enter image description here


For a bit of fun, you can see the true scale of the models used in the image below.


enter image description here



You may wish to note that Star Wars Made Easy identifies the object as a protostar rather than a galaxy, suggesting that it's very much smaller.


enter image description here


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

Which Doctor Who works are canon?

I have been watching a Doctor Who documentary and they mentioned that Paul McGann did audio stories so he wasn't just a one-hit Doctor (and that there are novels featuring his Doctor as well). My question is: is Doctor Who canon just the show, or is it like Star Wars where some books and audios are canon and some are not? The documentary also shows that before 2005 they did audio stories where the Doctor is female and obviously that cannot be — not the female part, but the show doesn't count any female Doctors in episodes like The Day of the Doctor . Answer Nothing, and also everything The definitive piece of writing on Doctor Who canon is this blog post by writer Paul Cornell . I'm essentially going to be summarizing his post here, much less eloquently, but one section I want to quote directly is this: Nobody at the BBC has ever uttered a pronouncement about what is and isn't canonical. (As I'm sure they'd put it, being such enthusiasts for good grammar.) Be...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more