Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-26975268-20130407222910/@comment-5507557-20130411110247

CzechOut wrote: No, it's nothing to do with stellar matter of any kind. It's not an astronomical object. It is a living being of an unknown species that some variously think of as a planet or a god, but which is actually a parasite. Being a living being and being an astronomical object are not mutually exclusive. It is a planet that is also a parasitic living being who the local population worship as a god. It isn't a god though (as the Doctor says), but it is a planet (also as the Doctor says).

CzechOut wrote: And while it has some mass, enough to pull in a few minor asteroids, its disappearance is hardly a gravimetric concern for the region. That's why everybody lives even after it disappears. Just being massive does not necessarily mean an object will have many things orbiting it, and we don't even know how many things are orbiting it since they wouldn't necessarily have to be as close as its rings.

While the planet disappeared, that doesn't necessarily mean the mass did. It exploded in a burst of light, but it wasn't made of light so the rest of the matter had to go somewhere. I would say it would just be more compressed or no longer emitting visible light.

In fact, we only saw it explode and not anything immediately afterwards. Even if the mass did somehow disappear and its gravitational effects on its rings suddenly disappeared, the rings would just continue orbiting Ahket (assuming that is the name of the star, which I think is a fair assumption) and everyone would be fine.

Of course, this is applying physics to Doctor Who and it really just breaks down when you do that. Even if Akhaten had minimal gravity, it doesn't make it not a planet.