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Just 48 short years ago, movie director George Lucas used the phrase "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" as the opening to the first "Star Wars" movie, later labeled "." But at least four important aspects of the "Star Wars" saga are much closer—both in time and space—than Lucas was letting on.

One, the ability to , was possible even at the time the first film came out. But in 2024, "Star Wars"–themed blue milk became periodically .

And we, an and a , know there are at least three more elements of these ancient, distant Lucas stories that might seem like science fiction but are, in fact, science reality.

Moisture farming

In that first movie, "Episode IV," Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen was a farmer on the planet of Tatooine. He farmed in the middle of a desert.

It might sound impossible, but it's exactly what experts discussed at the second hosted by Arizona State University in March 2025.

Each day, a human needs to consume about the (3 liters). With more than 8 billion people living on the planet, that means engineers need to produce nearly 2.6 trillion gallons (10 trillion liters) of clean drinking water every year. Taken globally, , but it's —including landing in the oceans, where it immediately becomes too salty to drink safely.

Deserts, which cover about one-fifth of the Earth's land area, are .

Researchers at places such as Berkeley have developed . In general, they use a material that traps water molecules from the air within its structure and then use sunlight to condense that water out of the material and into drinkable liquid. But there is still a ways to go before they are ready for commercial distribution and available to help large numbers of people.

Space debris

When the second Death Star was destroyed in "Return of the Jedi," it made a huge mess, as you would expect when blowing to smithereens an (140 kilometers). But the movie's mythology helpfully explains a hyperspace wormhole briefly opened, across the galaxy.

As best as anyone can tell, a has never appeared near Earth. And even if such a thing existed or happened, humans might not have the technology to chuck all our trash in there anyway. So we're left with a whole lot of stuff all around us, including in space.

According to the website Orbiting Now, in late April 2025 there were orbiting the planet. All in all, the United States and other space-faring nations are trying to keep track of orbiting Earth. And there are of space debris too small to be observed or tracked.

Just as on Earth's roads, space vehicles crash into each other if . But unlike the debris that falls to the road after an Earth crash, all the bits and pieces that break off in a space crash fly away at speeds of (10,000 to 30,000 kph) and can then hit other satellites or spacecraft that cross their paths.

This is creating an increasing problem. With more satellites and spacecraft heading to orbit, and more stuff up there moving around that might hit them, space travel is becoming more like every day.

Engineers at NASA, the European Space Agency and other space programs are exploring a variety of technologies—including a net, a harpoon and a laser—to and clean up the space environment.

The Force itself

To most Earth audiences, the Force was a together. That is until 1999, when "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" revealed that the Force came from , a microscopic, sentient life form that lives within every living cell.

To biologists, midi-chlorians sound suspiciously similar to . The current working hypothesis is that mitochondria emerged from of other living things. And , including bacteria.

There are many different kinds of mitochondria, and medical professionals are learning from one cell to another just like they transplant organs from one person's body to another. Maybe one day a transplant procedure could help people find the light side of the Force and turn away from the dark side.

May the Fourth—and the Force—be with you.

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