Space is a favorite setting for many Hollywood movies, but how accurate is their portrayal? Patricia Skeleton, an astronomer from Royal Observatory Greenwich, sheds light on the scientific rigor of her favorite films.
For example, in an explosive space battle scene Star Trek, The crew is thrown into space and suddenly falls into silence. For skeletons, this moment accurately portrays physics. The space is almost perfect vacuum, and sound cannot be moved without the medium.
Apollo 13 It tells the story of NASA’s unfortunate mission in the month of 1970. What stands out for the skeleton is how the filmmakers tackled the challenge of drawing zero gravity using NASA’s KC-135 plane, lovingly known as the “vomiting comet.” By flying a parabolic arc, the jet creates a short, zero-gravity moment long enough to shoot the scene with realistic zero gravity.
In the Star Wars film The Empire Fights Back, Darth Vader meets Emperor Palpatine via Hologram. The vast galaxy is far apart, but their conversations flow surprisingly well without delaying communication. In reality, that’s not possible, says Skeleton. To illustrate this, she is currently using the example of Voyager 1, the universe probe, the farthest human object from Earth. Communication with it involves sending radio signals. This is electromagnetic waves that travel at 300,000 kilometers per second. As Voyager 1 is 24 billion kilometers apart, the messages sent today take about 22.5 hours to arrive. Real-time intergalaxy chat may not be possible, but a bit of a creative license is all part of the magic of sci-fi.
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