Star Wars is fiction, of course, but did you know you can actually visit famous places from George Lucas’ epic space opera movie series?

Death star in our solar system
We begin the journey in our solar system. Saturn’s moon Mimas Very similar to the “Death Star”. The moon has a huge crater that is 139 kilometers wide. By comparison, the moon Mimas is only 396 kilometers wide.

Of course, Mimas are not artificial asteroid-like spaceships like the first and second Death Stars. These ships have enough power to destroy an entire planet at once. In this regard, Mimas are more peaceful.

planet with two suns
Tatooine is the desert planet where Anakin Skywalker and his son Luke Skywalker grew up. The planet revolves around two suns. Is this thing theoretically possible? Could a parent planet really exist? After all, a system with two or more stars is much less stable than a system with one star. Because two stars mate, gas and dust particles stick together less easily and — in theory — planets form less quickly.

In 2011, scientists succeeded for the first time in Looking for a planet with two suns. Kepler-16b is slightly less massive than Jupiter and is probably the closest planet to Saturn in terms of mass. The largest star in this system is also smaller than our sun. The planet with two groups is about 200 light-years from Earth.

Fun fact: In 2019, even I found a planet with three suns. This discovery once again shows that multiparental planets are not rare occurrences.

Technical impression of Kepler-16b.

From the icy planet of Hoth…
In the popular movie The Empire Strikes Back, rebels settle on the ice planet Hoth. The surface is covered with snow and ice. The average temperature is between -32 and -60 degrees Celsius. Perhaps in our galaxy there are as many planets as Hoth. One such planet is an Earth-like exoplanet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb located 20,000 light-years from Earth. This planet orbits a cold dwarf star at a great distance, so the temperature on its surface is about -223 ° C. This surface is covered with a thick layer of ice, possibly in combination with frozen methane.

An artistic impression of the OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb.

… To the scorching world, Mustafa
In Revenge Of The Sith, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi compete for the surface of the lava planet Mustafar. The exoplanet COROT-7b was discovered in 2009 and is very similar to the planet Mustafar. This exoplanet orbits its parent star within 20 hours and the temperature near the surface exceeds 2000°C. This is so hot that everything melts: even the rocks. This makes this rocky planet a big lava world, just like Mustafar.

lightsaber in space
In 2015, the Hubble Space Telescope took a picture Where a real lightsaber can be seen with a little imagination. The lightsaber reminds us of the double lightsaber Darth Maul who – as fans no doubt know – appear in Star Wars Episode One. The lightsaber in this image is not in a “far, far away galaxy” but in our own Milky Way.

It can only be visited with a swimming certificate
Finally, we fly to the water world of the Camino: the planet Boba Fett and Django. Did you know that many giant planets – planets larger than Earth – may be completely covered by water? The super-Earth has more gravity, so there are fewer high mountains and volcanoes. Scientists believe that the planet Kepler-22b is a water world, just like Kamino. Also a planet outside the solar system GJ1214b It might be an aquatic world. There may be Many water worlds in our universe. In fact, 3.2 billion years ago, our planet was Maybe also completely covered with water.

An artistic impression of the “Water World” Kepler-22b