Some GSW readers may remember that I mini-reviewed the 'Halo Effect' book a few weeks back, and in there I mentioned that "Kevin R Grazier, apparently the science advisor to Battlestar Galactica... contributes 'Halo Science 101', including... lots more insane planetary calculations based on the Halo mythos."

Well, delighted to say that the folks at Smart Pop Books have allowed us to reprint the 'Halo Science 101' article in full on Gamasutra, and it's extremely fun frippery:

"The Halo universe, detailed in the video games, novels, and upcoming movie, is a richly detailed one and lends itself well to such musings. An entire book could be written about the science and physics, both explicit and implied, within the Halo universe, but with only a little scientific knowledge we can have a lot of fun simply musing about a spinning ringed megastructure—suspended between a planet and its moon—that doubles as a research facility and a superweapon."

More random examples from Mars space scientist (!) Grazier: "A 5,000 kilometer radius [for a Halo] would yield a circumference of roughly 31,400 kilometers. If the Halos had a width-to-radius ratio similar to that of Niven’s Ringworld, they would be approximately 5.37 kilometers wide. They are significantly wider, though, at 320 kilometers. The Halos, then, would have a surface area of 10 million square kilometers— slightly larger than the surface area of Canada, and approximately 2 percent of the surface area of Earth."

[UPDATE: Ahem, text updated - the publishers somehow gave us a pre-production version of the article with a honking great decimal point error in it. This is now fixed, and I only lost about half my sanity doing so, hurray.]