It Would Cost £6.2 Octillion to Operate the Death Star Each Day

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The Death Star from the Star Wars franchise is a technological wonder that could only exist in fiction. According to one estimate, the space station/galactic super-weapon would have taken 800,000 years and cost $852 quadrillion to construct. To commemorate the upcoming release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (out in American theaters on December 16), Ovo Energy, an energy supply company based in Bristol, England, wanted to figure how much it would cost the Galactic Empire to run the Death Star each day.

Alexander Barnett, a math professor at Dartmouth University, and Stephen Skolnick, editor of Physics Central, crunched the numbers to find out the ship's daily cost of use. After accounting for factors including the number of people aboard (2,068,937), the approximate cost of their meals (£237,531.31), and the energy needed to power the ship, Barnett and Skolnick arrived at a final answer: more than £6 octillion. Learn how they came up with this staggering sum by checking out the infographic below.