One of the great works of fan speculation regarding the movies is Dr. Curtis Saxton's analysis of the effects that Death Star II's destruction must have had on the forest moon of Endor.

 

Essentially, the planet was wrecked by nuclear winter caused by the debris disintegrating in the atmosphere of Endor. Further complicated by the high probability that this debris was extremely radioactive.

 

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html

 

This website details Dr. Saxton's arguments in marvelously well reasoned steps.

Yea but.... they're Ewoks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who cares?

Just revel in the scientific amusement, haha.

 

Really it's just a great example of Star Wars fans being devoted to a fault. The number of scientific consultants who pooled their time to make this analysis is pretty impressive.

 

At the end of the day, though, I think it's comforting to know that the Ewoks were destroyed.

At the end of the day I think it's comforting to know that the Ewoks were destroyed.

 

Aye, warms my heart to think about how the stupid furries killed themself by siding with the rebels. "Ooh, the Evil Empire will take your trees from you! Fight them for your past and your future!" Kaboom... goodbye trees, goodbye Ewoks.

It's a moon orbiting a gas giant, both Saturn and Jupiter emit huge amounts of radiation, so the gas giant that Endor orbits probably emits radiation too, so radioactive debris not that big an issue. The fact that the debris was burning when it hit the forest moon, now that's an issue, but presumably their have been forest fires before. probably exacerbated by weather conditions started by the explosion just outside it's atmosphere though.

You should probably read over the article I linked in the OP, since things are much, much worse for Endor than that.