When movies depict explosions in space, the flare is often horizontal. Is there a scientific basis for this?
In the atomic bomb documentary Trinity and Beyond, they show some of the space-based nuclear weapons tests. The explosions look pretty much like a small sun, round and bright.
If you had a massive object rotating quickly you might get a bit of a bulge along the “horizontal” but really I think it’s more likely the “rule of cool”.
Ahh, the Praxis Effect!
In reality, an explosion produces a spherical shock wave. In space, where there is no atmosphere to propagate a shock wave, you would have an expanding spherical cloud of gas and debris. Viewed from far away, it would look like a ring. Sort of like this image of a supernova explosion.
And if the object were rotating, eventually that cloud might form into a Saturn’s rings shape.
But in Hollywood it became this trope where any massive explosion throws out a ring of plasma. Sort of like how all nuclear explosions are mushroom clouds and all mushroom clouds are nuclear explosions. In reality all big explosions/fireballs form mushroom clouds because of the way the hot gasses and debris slows down and expands as it rises and cools.
There is no horizontal in space.
This may be the best information to disprove the sci-fi trope.
If we’re talking about a ship exploding in space, I guess you could argue that if the ship’s structure is stronger on the top and bottom than it is on the sides, then the result would be a “Horizontal flare”.
For a spaceship explosion might it make a little bit of sense in that odds are the resistance of the explosion moving parallel to the decks* is likely to be less than that perpendicular to the decks and so would tend to funnel the explosive powers along those lines.
- This of course makes assumptions about how fictional spacecraft were constructed but I am assuming something similar to my apartment building where I have 4 inches of concrete between me and my upstairs neighbor and drywall and insulation between me and my next door neighbor.
He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates…two-dimensional thinking.
Assuming your spaceship is of the Standard Human Spaceshipflying gunmetal brick variety.