Australian Science Illustrated – Issue 51 2017

The Game of Thrones

dragons can devastate entire

cities and reduce people to

ashes in a split second. No

living creature spews fire,

but in a cremation oven,

dead people are turned into

ashes at temperatures of

800-1,200 °C. The process

lasts at least one hour.

The dragons of the series hatch in three

fossilized eggs. That is not possible, but

cloning can be carried out, if the egg

includes intact DNA, which could survive for

a million years, if kept sufficiently cold.

Daenerys Targayen is revived as the Mother of Dragons after

moving into a burial fire. When the fire dies down, she appears

• without any burns.
  Our body temperature is normally around 37 °C. The skin is
  the outermost organ, regulating the body temperature, etc. If
  the skin becomes 44 °C warm, pain is caused. At 55 °C, blisters
  develop, and at 72 °C, the skin cells are immediately
  destroyed. According to scientists, some people can walk
  barefoot through live coal without getting burned, because
  one step takes half a second to make at the most, i.e. the feet
  are only briefly in contact with the coal (poor heat conductors).

Can humans walk through a

fi re without getting burned?

Wing shapes and angles are vital, when dragons and
other huge animals take flight.

By the end of season 6, the largest of the three dragons in
the series, Drogon, is the size of a small passenger plane.
The animal which resembles dragons the most in size
and looks is the extinct pterosaur flying dinosaur. Until
about 65 million years ago, the creature dominated the
airspace with its impressive size. The largest member of
the pterosaur family, the Quetzalcoatlus, had a wing span
of about 13 m, which helped it counteract gravity.

How do huge

animals fly?

HOW HOT IS DRAGON

BREATH?

CAN FOSSILIZED EGGS BE

BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE?

1 Wing shape and angle relative to air currents

produce a lift, because the

air above the wing is moving

faster than the air under it.

2

The flying dinosaur's

weight will weigh it

down, when it is in the air.

To compensate, the dinosaur

must produce enought lift.

3

Air resistance

counteracts the

flying dinosaur's thrust,

but it can use its wings

to force air backwards,

increasing speed.

Already at a temperature of 71 °C,

skin cells are destroyed.

Humans burn at temperatures

of 800-1,200 °C.

HBO NORDIC

HBO NORDIC

CLAUS LUNAU

HBO NORDIC

DRAGON EGG

FROM SERIES

SKIN

TEMPERATURE

71 ° Skin cells

are destroyed.

44 ° Pain is

caused.

55 ° Blisters

develop.

37 ° Normal

temperature.

LIFT

WEIGHT

AIR RESISTANCE

THRUST