Space is a favorite setting for many Hollywood films, but how precise their representations? Patricia Skelton, astronomer of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, sheds light on the scientific rigor of her favorite films.
For example, during an explosive space battle scene in Star Trek, A crew member is thrown into space and suddenly in silence. For Skelton, this moment portrayed physics with precision: space is an almost perfect void, and the sound cannot travel without means.
Apollo 13 tells the story of the 1970 unhappy lunar mission of NASA. What stands out for Skelton is how filmmakers took up the challenge of portraying zero gravity using the NASA KC-135 plane, affectionately known as “Vomit Comet”. By stealing in parabolic arcs, the jet creates brief moments of weightlessness, just long enough to film scenes in realistic zero-gravity.
In the film Star Wars, The Empire, Dark Vader meets the Emperor Palpatine via the hologram. Despite being large galactic distances, their conversation circulates surprisingly well, without any communication time. In reality, it would be impossible, says Skelton. To illustrate this, she uses the example of traveling 1, a space probe which is currently the most distant human object from the earth. Communication with it involves sending radio signals, which are electromagnetic waves that travel 300,000 kilometers per second. Since traveling 1 is 24 billion kilometers, a message sent today takes around 22.5 hours to arrive. Real-time cats between galaxies may not be possible, but a small creative license is part of the magic of science fiction.
