Following the release of Halo Infinite, a scientist has explained just how gravity could work on a Halo ring if they were actually real.
It’s something that we can’t help thinking about as fans of science fiction. Could these impossible imaginary concepts actually work in the real world? The Halo rings that Bungie invented in Halo: Combat Evolved have always been awe-inspiring to look at. They’re huge structures that spin gently in space. It’s possible to walk about on the internal face of these rings with the structure shooting off into the sky on the horizon. The halo rings are a sight that never gets old, even in the newest entry in the series, Halo Infinite.
Could a Halo ring actually work?
It’s pretty far fetched to think that these structures could exist in the real world. However, a new podcast has explored how a Halo ring could exist from a scientific point of view. The podcast is called “Hey, Lesson!” and explores all sorts of questions that originate from video games. The latest episode asks “How does gravity work on a ring world?” and speaks to Scott Manley, a celebrated YouTuber and astronomer.
“The Halo ring is 10,000 kilometres across. I guess it’s actually within the realms of physical material science that you could build a ring of that size and spin it fast enough to make one G, but they actually in the game are not spinning. They are producing gravity by gravity generators or something as I understand it,” Manley explains.
“The law of spinning things is the smaller your object gets, the smaller the radius, the faster you have to rotate it. So, if you look at the space station in 2001 [A Space Odyssey], it rotates like once a minute… the Ringworld would take months to spin around.”
So there we have it – the rings in Halo could feasibly generate its own gravity if it span at the right speed. However, it’d probably take humans a while to adjust. Manley reckons that there would be plenty of vomiting involved in the adaption process! Give the full episode a listen for yourself below.
Do you reckon we’ll ever see a Halo ring in real life? Let us know across our social channels.
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