io9: Luke should have died in tauntaun's belly

io9 examines, at surprising length, the weighty question, Could Luke Skywalker have really survived a Hoth snowstorm warmed only by tauntaun innards? From the piece:

Using Newton's Law of Cooling, we can estimate the time it takes for the tauntaun's body temperature to reach levels detrimental to Luke's survival. Luke is swimming in a sea of blood, bodily fluids, and organs during his time inside the tauntaun.

This is essentially a liquid-like environment, one that will transmit the body temperature of the tauntaun well. To best model this scenario, merging Luke's body with the tauntaun becomes necessary, creating a one body system.

Forensics teams use Newton's Law of Cooling to estimate the time of death of a newly discovered body. Dead bodies will acclimate to the surrounding temperature of the room as the bodies no longer metabolize nutrients or generate heat. By measuring the rectal temperature of the cadaver and temperature of the room, the time since blood circulation ceased (i.e., death) can be calculated. Let's just let the idea of obtaining a Tauntaun's rectal temperature sit with you a moment.

If you can bear any more of this--and there's a lot--follow the link.

io9: Science Proves Luke Skywalker Should Have Died in the Tauntaun's Belly

Comments

[Tobar]

Well that was dumb, the whole article is based around whether Han has enough time to find shelter and transport Luke to it. When even in the clip embedded in that very article Han mentions that he's building a shelter right on that spot. In the very next scene there's a shot of Han waving to the snow speeder while standing next to this snow covered shelter. Just that would be enough but since he's also referencing EU sources there's an entire additional scene that takes place inside said shelter in the radio adaption of ESB.