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In Legends, the in-universe etymology of the term "Star Destroyer" lies in the earliest days of the Galactic Republic, when its creator envisioned a new class of ships that is powerful enough to destroy entire star systems. Well, obviously the ship models that eventually adopted the name aren't capable of that (orbital bombardment is the closest thing to it).

But the Death Star is indeed powerful enough to destroy entire planets. That begs the question though: Can the Death Star destroy stars?

Canon or Legends is acceptable, preferably both if there is a difference between the two at all.

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  • Sure, if you wrongly use star to mean planet. :D ;) Maybe the term Star Wars makes sense then, because, at most, people from different planets could be at war with one another, a star would have but one weapon in a stars' war: going nova, and hoping the other star is near enough the gamma burst or the shockwave triggers that one too (which considering galactic proportions, would be unlikely ... then again, this is the universe where you can see planets in other solar systems explode with the naked eye almost instantaneously, so who knows...) ;)
    – BMWurm
    Mar 27, 2016 at 8:03
  • Well, we know the Star Destroyer can - by using up the star for fuel. The term Star Destroyer could be either a direct or double reference to that process.
    – Misha R
    Mar 27, 2016 at 16:00
  • @SJuan76 Have you seen recent news? The Kepler telescope managed to catch and record a star at the precise moment it went supernova. The whole explosion lasted 20 min. imo that's not time enough for anyone to escape unless they are already prepping to leave. I guess the most important engineering problem is to give the Death Star enough effective range to escape a supernova with superficial damage at worst.
    – thegreatjedi
    Mar 28, 2016 at 0:52
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    "In Legends, the in-universe etymology of the term "Star Destroyer" lies in the earliest days of the Galactic Republic, when its creator envisioned a new class of ships that is powerful enough to destroy entire star systems." ........................... That's the explanation of the name? I thought that it was a reference to the class of ships that many Earth Navies have, known as "Destroyers;" and that the term "Star" was added only to emphasize the fact that they are starships (like how an X-Wing is known as a "Starfighter" instead of just a "fighter").
    – Spar10 Leonidas
    Mar 28, 2016 at 2:41
  • @Spar10Leonidas It wasn't originally meant to be a destroyer, it just happens to be though. The Anaxes War College System (starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Anaxes_War_College_System) tells you more wrt that. Ships are classified by size, though it can be raised or lowered a class if the amount of ship-to-ship armaments is above/below average.
    – thegreatjedi
    Mar 29, 2016 at 1:17

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In Disney Canon, I'm afraid I don't know, but to my knowledge it has never been shown either way.

In Legends Canon, whilst not explicitly stated to my knowledge, it would seem likely that it cannot, as the Death Star was designed at a research centre set up by Tarkin, the Maw Installation. After the completion of the Death Star design and prototype project, the scientists working in the Maw moved onto the Sun Crusher, whose sole purpose was the destruction of stars.

If the Death Star laser could already destroy stars, it would seem that this second project would be a large waste of time and resources.

The Sun Crusher was indeed built, and used to devastating effect as seen in the Jedi Academy trilogy, written by Kevin J. Anderson.

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In (not so) hard science, giving a very big amount of energy to a star does almost nothing. Temperature rise will cause pressure increase, but energy will be radiated or convected out quite fast. You'll notice only that the star energy production increases together with its radius... but the radiated energy goes in the whole 4pi solid angle. A Helium flash only happens when the lack of Hidrogen causes the star to collapse enough to burn Helium. A nova can't happen at all in a normal star, because it happens only on accreting White Dwarfs. A Supernova, on the other hand, happens only on massive stars at least 8 Sun masses, and only when Iron core collapses.

I bet not even 1000 Death Stars would be able to kill our dwarf G2V Sun, not even to cause it becoming nova or supernova.

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I don't know if the superlaser had enough joules to do so, but in Lost Stars, Cienna Ree's smart friend says the kyber crystals give the Death Star unlimited power, so its very possible it cause the sun to go nova, but it might destroy the Death Star in the resulting supernova.

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  • One pellet, one trip. +1
    – Mazura
    Mar 28, 2016 at 2:20

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