Here’s something to think about the next time you’re complaining about how cold it is outside. At least you’re not stuck inside a tauntaun trying to stay alive.
In a normal environment, a carcass gets cold in 8 to 36 hours losing an average rate of 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit per hour. However, the ice world of Hoth is not an average environment. The Star Wars database lists that Hoth reaches nightly temperatures of -60 F. In a frigid, sub-zero environment, body heat can be lost almost 32 times faster. This means a Tauntaun’s body heat could drop almost 51.2 F every hour. Considering that Han Solo’s Tauntaun died of severe hypothermia even before it was cut open with Luke’s lightsaber, one could assume it’s core body temperature was already well below normal.
The problem for Luke is if the Tauntaun’s body temperature reaches freezing point those once toasty guts, blood, and assorted alien goo, will in fact become a frozen coffin. If the Tauntaun died of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia with an average body temperature of 75 F (23 C), and if Tauntaun blood freezes at 28.4 F (-2 C), then Han has roughly 56 minutes to set up a shelter before Luke once again is in danger of losing his life in the barren wasteland of Hoth.
Read the full article here:
How Long Could Luke Survive in a Tauntaun?
That makes you think twice before leaving your house without your tuantuan sleeping bag!
I think we could assume that there are additional elements to tauntaun physiology that adapt them to the cold, and its internal organs were clearly steaming.
1. Han’s god => he had the iglu up in less than ten minutes
2. “And I thought they smelled bad…on the outside.” => smell surely provides a ‘warmer coat’
3. damn it’s fantasy… why does anybody even bother explaining temperatures, cariac arrests or whatsoever… does anybody truly think that in the Attack of the Clones Anakin could have survived the jump and fall and ‘catch’ he did in the begining of the movie while chasing Zam Wesell?
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my bet is he would get out of it before he froze
A human carcass may become cold in 8 to 36 hours, but a tauntaun is not a human. Larger animals have a relatively small surface area to volume ratio, meaning that more of that warmth is contained deep within the animal, aware from the skin heat is lost to the frigid air. This fact alone would lengthen the time the tauntaun retains its heat, but add to that the thick coat of hair that protects the skin from the convection affects of icy wind, and the tick layers of fat or blubber we see when the creature is slice open, and we see a carcass that will retain its heat far, far longer than a human corpse.
But what is the starting temperature of our hypothermic tauntaun? We can only guess at the normal body temperature of the animal, but humans – whose normal body temperature averages 98.6 degrees F – can die from hypothermia if their internal body temperature drops a mere 12 degrees (polar bears also average 98.6 degrees F). The truth is, though, even if the body temperature had dropped to an unlikely 40 degrees F by the time it collapsed, the animal could still protect the chilled Jedi-in-training. Like a down blanket, as long as the beast hadn’t completely frozen, its body would provide Luke with insulation that would help trap the heat generated from his body. This heat would stay near Luke’s body, slowing the rate of conduction and protect against convection from the wind, dramatically reducing Luke’s rate of heat loss. His own heat would keep the part of the tauntaun that was around him from freezing for quite some time, and even a while after Luke had frozen to death, should he stay all cuddled up in tauntaun guts for too long.
But Luke didn’t stay long. As Dragosmart pointed out, Han said to Luke that the tauntaun’s body would keep his warm until he could get the shelter built. We don’t know how long that took, but even if it were several hours, it’s a fair bet that the tauntaun could keep Luke reasonably toasty to keep him alive in the meanwhile.
Well the Tauntauns were not adapted to the cold, that’s why they were working on the snowspeeders, wasn’t it?
Besides, at the Rebellion Picnic, didn’t Han win the shelter building competition with a time of 16 minutes?
Not much of a survival tent if it takes an hour to put up!
I know its just a movie, but i really think that it could work. Pretty cool.
How fast could a tauntaun REALLY lose body temperature, given its evolution? Maybe the hypothermia only came to affect its brain knowing how its head sticks out in the cold, and not the central area (which was wrapped with a saddle).
Still, Han having only less than an hour to dig an ice shelter in a blizzard really adds excitement!
LMAO! Yes indeed, I can see the mountains in molehills when it comes to having a conversation with the person who writes this blog. Geesh! Next SW convention you will be able to recognize me by the dead carcass of tauntaun I am wearing complete with smell.
C’mon, everyone knows that with standard rebel survival training, you can get that emergency shelter up in 15, 20 minutes tops. So 56 minutes is more than enough.
Notice that as the snowspeeder flies in to rescue Han and Luke, we don’t actually see their shelter but for a pair of antennae. For all we know, and for all it matters to the story, they both spent the night inside that tauntaun.