Bad Astronomy. Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing 'Hoax'

Our fictionalized movie scene has some dreadful astronomy in it, and we haven’t even touched on black holes, star birth, and what nebulae really look like. But what movies have good astronomy? Any astronomer will instantly reply: 2001: A Space Odyssey. In that movie, for example, the spaceship moves silently through space (a fact they evidently forgot when making the sequel 2010: the Year We Make Contact). There are countless other examples. An astronomer once told me that the only mistake in the movie is when one of the characters, on his way to the Moon on the PanAm shuttle, takes a drink from his meal and you can see the liquid in his straw go back down after he finishes sipping. Since there is no gravity on the shuttle, the liquid would stay drawn up in the straw. This is nit- picking at an almost unbelievable level, and I think we can forgive the director.

Surprisingly, the TV show The Simpsons commonly has correct astronomy. There is an episode in which a comet threatens to collide with the Earth. The comet is shown being discovered by an amateur (our antihero, Bart). Most comets are indeed discovered by amateurs and not professionals. Bart then calls the observatory to confirm it, which is also the correct procedure (he even gives coordinates using the correct jargon). When it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, the comet is disintegrated by all the smog in the air of the Simpsons’ overdeveloped city. That part can be chalked up to comedic license, but then comes an extraordinary scene: The part of the comet that gets through the pollution is only about the size of “a Chihuahua’s head,” and when it hits the ground, Bart simply picks it up and puts it in his pocket. As we saw in chapter 15, contrary to common belief, most of the time a small meteorite will not be burning hot when it hits the ground. The rock (or metal) is initially moving very rapidly through the upper atmosphere, which will melt the outer layers, but friction very quickly slows the rock down. The melted parts get blown off and the remaining chunk will only be warm to the touch after impact. In this episode of The Simpsons, they imply that the comet chunk is hot but not too hot to pick up. That’s close enough for me.

After the original version of this chapter appeared in Astronomy magazine in April 1998, I received a letter from a young girl accusing me of ruining science-fiction movies for her. I have also received the occasional e-mail from my web site, where I review specific movies like Armageddon, Deep Impact, and Contact, telling me to either “get a life” or “learn how to just enjoy a movie.” On the other hand, I get a hundred times as much e-mail agreeing with my reviews. Still, dissenters have a valid point. Do I really hate Hollywood movies?

Armageddon notwithstanding, no I don’t. I like science fiction! I still see every sci-fi movie that comes out. When I was a kid I saw just about every science fiction movie ever made. I ate up every frame of rocket ships, alien monsters, evil goo, and extraterrestrial planets, no matter how ridiculous or just plain dumb the plot.

So what’s the harm? You may be surprised to know that I think it is minimal. Although bad science in movies does reinforce the public’s misunderstanding of science, the fact that science fiction does so well at the box office is heartening. Most of the top-ten movies of all time are science fiction, showing that people really do like science in movies, even if it’s, well, bad. I would of course prefer that movies portray science (and scientists!) more realistically. Sometimes science must be sacrificed for the plot, but many times, maybe even most of the time, correct science could actually improve the plot. Thoughtful movies do well, too, like Contact and, of course, 2001, now a classic of science fiction.

If movies spark an interest in science in some kid somewhere, then that’s wonderful. Even a bad movie might make a kid stop and look at a science book in the library, or want to read more about lasers, or asteroids, or the real possibility of alien life. Who knows where that might lead?

For me, it led to a life of astronomy. I can only hope that even bad astronomy, somehow, can spark good astronomy somewhere.

Recommended Reading

No book on astronomy could possibly cover every topic in every detail without stretching from here to the Moon and maybe even back again. The following list represents just a few books and web sites that might help you pursue the topics covered in this book a bit further. Many of them helped me a great deal when researching Bad Astronomy.

Books

Carl Sagan did so much for public outreach in astronomy and science that scientists everywhere owe him an enormous debt. Of his many works, by far the finest — and the most fun to read — is The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Ballantine Books, 1997, ISBN 0-345- 40946-9). It’s a brilliant look at skepticism in many disciplines, and can be easily be applied to everyday life outside the observatory.

Stephen Maran has also helped the public understand astronomy for many years. His book Astronomy for Dummies (IDG Books Worldwide, 2000, ISBN 0-7645-5155-8) is a fun and helpful guide to the universe.

I turned to Joel Achenbach’s Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe (Simon & Schuster, 1999, ISBN 0- 684-84856-2) expecting to read a silly expose of people who think they are channeling aliens from another dimension, but instead found a thoughtful but still funny book about people trying to cope with modern times.

John Lewis’s Rain of Iron and Ice (Helix Books, 1996, ISBN 0-201- 48950-3) is a fascinating look at asteroid and comet impacts. It’s riveting, and might scare you a little. I have always said that no one has ever been documented to have been killed by a meteor impact… but that was before I read this book.

In this short book I could only scratch the surface of the Velikovsky affair. Numerous books have been written about it, but you can start with the man himself: Immanual Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision (Doubleday, 1950). I also recommend the transcripts of the AAAS debate mentioned in the text Scientists Confront Velikovsky, edited by Donald Goldsmith (Cornell University Press, 1977).

In the end, one of astronomy’s most rewarding gifts is simply the stunning beauty of the universe. There are many wonderful astronomy books loaded with great pictures; a recent and very good one is astronomer Mark Voit’s Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe (Harry N. Abrams, with the Smithsonian Institution and the Space Telescope Science Institute, 2000, ISBN 0-8109-2923-6). This coffee-table book will have you thumbing through it again and again, staring in amazement at the glorious pictures.

The World Wide Web

Or as I like to call it, “The Web of a Million Lies.” For every good astronomy site, there seem to be a million that are, uh, not so good. But if you have a guide and a skeptical eye, there are a lot of web sites out there that will sate your thirst for astronomical knowledge. If these don’t do it, you can always try your favorite search engine. But knowing the web as I do, you might want to search it with both eyes in a permanent squint. Maybe it would be better to just go with the sites listed below.

If I may be so immodest, I’ll start with my own: Bad Astronomy (http://www.badastronomy.com). You’ll find a few of the same topics covered in this book and many other as well. There are also links to other sites that will keep you busy for a long, long time. (Believe me.) Penn State University meteorologist Alistair Fraser’s Bad Science web site (http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html) was in many ways the inspiration for my own. A weather kind of guy, Alistair has created a site that is a bit more down to Earth than my own.

Bakersfield College astronomer Nick Strobel has put together a wonderful web site called Astronomy Notes (http://www.astronomynotes.com), which covers everything from navigating the night sky to the shape and fate of the universe. I rely on it quite a bit to help explain why things