YOU should never underestimate the power of the Dark Side, or the size of their wallet.

Economics students believe they have figured out how much it would cost to build the Death Star. And it’s no wonder the Emperor appears haggard.

Members of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania believe Darth Vader’s boss would have to shell out a whopping $8,100,000,000,000,000. Or roughly 13,000 times the world's gross domestic product (GDP) to build one today.

The economics team said they believe the Death Star to be made of steel and, based on reports it is 140km in diameter, came to the figure based on today’s steel prices.

“Scaling up to the Death Star, this is about 1.08x1015 tonnes of steel,” the student’s blog Centives said.

“Which seems like a colossal mass but we've calculated that from the iron in the earth, you could make just over 2 billion Death Stars.”

But Luke and those “loveable” Ewoks can rest assured knowing that it would take 833,315 years to produce enough steel to begin work on another Death Star, Centives wrote.

Read the Centives blog on how much it would cost to build a Death Star here.

