# Glaring astronomy mistakes in a movie or video **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [September 5, 2026, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849 "2026-09-05T20:39:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/121 "2026-09-08T15:04:40Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > > [@robby](#): > > > > I don’t understand this. Why would you _not_ depict the stars on the ceiling as they would appear to an observer on the surface of the Earth looking up at the night sky? Why is this “logically wrong”? > > If you look up from the surface of the Earth at the night sky, you’re looking at the celestial sphere from the centre of the sphere, i.e. from the inside. But if you look at a celestial globe, you’re looking at that sphere from the outside. That makes sense if you are depicting a celestial globe. But the mural in question at Grand Central Terminal shows constellations on the ceiling. If I understand you and the prior poster, they are a mirror image of the view from the surface of the Earth. But a depiction on the ceiling would seem to me to logically be a view from Earth looking upward at the celestial sphere from the inside. So why would they depict it instead as a view from outside the celestial sphere? This still makes no sense to me. P.S. The only reason this _would_ make sense for me would be if you wanted to display the stars and constellations on the floor for some reason (instead of the ceiling). Architects run into this issue when trying to depict ceiling plans of buildings. To keep everything lined up, they print ceiling plans as _reflected_ plans (because you typically look down at them on a plan table). But if the plans were taped to the ceiling and you looked up, you would not have to do this. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/122 "2026-09-08T15:15:41Z")
The flag of Brazil includes a depiction of the star as it was in Rio de Janeiro when the Brazilian republic was proclaimed, and that depiction, even though it’s on a 2D plane, is as an observer from outside the celestial sphere would see it. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/123 "2026-09-08T15:20:24Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > The flag of Brazil includes a depiction of the star as it was in Rio de Janeiro when the Brazilian republic was proclaimed, and that depiction, even though it’s on a 2D plane, is as an observer from outside the celestial sphere would see it. The flag of Brazil depicts a celestial globe. By the arrangement of the constellations, it’s clear that it is a view of the celestial sphere from the outside, as you say. But I don’t understand why you would use that type of depiction when painting a ceiling. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/124 "2026-09-08T15:25:42Z")
> [@JWT\_Kottekoe](#): > > Also, I swear I saw a movie once in which they announced that they were one mile from the asteroid belt. The one I’ve seen repeated over and over and over again is the mistaken view that the asteroid belt is so crowded with asteroids that you literally have to weave your way through it. The fact is that there is a very large distance between asteroids in the asteroid belt. According to “NASA Science”, the chances of a spacecraft hitting an asteroid is something like 1 in a billion. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/125 "2026-09-08T15:31:47Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > , the chances of a spacecraft hitting an asteroid is something like 1 in a billion. Never tell me the odds! ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/126 "2026-09-08T16:55:54Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > > [@DPRK](#): > > > > What if the werewolf is on Mars? > > Phobos, the larger moon, is close in, such that it has an orbital period of 7:39h. Mars has a day of 24:39h, so Phobos would present full 3 times a day. Deimos has a period of 30:19h, so it would present full about 4 times in 5 days. Thus, a Martian werewolf would spend most of its time being a dangerous raving creature, because it would have to keep transitioning every few hours, and it would be in its worst state at times when both moons are presenting full (but those times would be rather brief). A dear friend of mine (seriously…I’ve known him for like 35 years) is a professor of astronomy at a Georgia university. I copy/pasted your post to him (he’s aware of this board, but hasn’t posted, despite my invitation), and this was his response: “ That is an amazing breakdown. I bet with Stellarium we could figure out how long and how regularly it happens, too.” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/127 "2026-09-08T17:23:56Z")
There was so much bad science in that episode that a dissertation could be created. Lasers do not bleach everything in a two-foot diameter stark white. Nor does a laser capable of killing a person leave every fiber of clothing and every particle of skin completely untouched otherwise. Or that the same laser beam capable of killing a human if hit is stopped by a piece of paper. I won’t even mention Mrs. Peel following a car by the light of its laser - which is not being fired - even though the laser is not on the rear of the vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/128 "2026-09-08T17:33:40Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Even with the remastered fx of the Original Series they are all clearly discs and not points of light. I give a pass on that sort of stuff. Real stars are almost impossible to film if you have anything bright (like a person or spacecraft) in the field of view. Whatever choices they make for the purpose of telling a story on the screen is going to be wrong one way or another. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/129 "2026-09-08T17:57:52Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Is it really? I would have guessed from the (admittedly limited) knowledge of orbital mechanics that I have that a course in interstellar space is an orbit around the black hole at the centre of the galaxy; the most efficient course would be a Hohmann transfer from the orbit where our solar system orbits the black hole to the orbit of the target solar system. In other words, it’d still be a curve. Technically, the line will curve slightly due to the gravitation of the galaxy as a whole, not just the black hole in the middle. But since the distance to the center is something like 29,000 light years, the curvature is going to be really slight. And since the spacecraft is zipping along at faster than light velocity, even that slight curve won’t be noticeable. Now if the ship went at a realistic velocity (i.e. much less than the speed of light), so that the ship has to take centuries to get there, then the navigation would have to take into account the curvature of both the ship’s trajectory and that of the target star’s path. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/130 "2026-09-08T18:27:34Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > Is it even _possible_ to travel in a straight line anywhere in the observable universe? with all those gravity holes and waves? Light always travels in a straight line, along a _geodesic_; but space is curved, so the straight lines often look bent to an outside observer. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/131 "2026-09-08T18:48:56Z")
One last _Star Trek_ episode rant. Spock: “Its hull is solid neutronium.” (Leaving aside the redundancy of “solid neutronium”) this doomday machine looks to be between five and ten kilometers in length, tapering from a point to a width of maybe 1200 meters at the wide end. The hull material looks to be on the order of 100 to 200 meters thick. In other words, it looks to have a mass close to that of our entire solar system, with some sort of unimaginable power source that is capable of holding neutronium in an arbitrary shape.        And yet, there seem to be no discernable gravitational effects around this massive device. When its power source is disrupted (it is essentially killed), it goes into a slight nose-down orientation (another silly-sci-fi nitpick) and just floats there all dark. Loss of power should cause it to instantly collapse into a small sphere, perhaps even a black hole. (I am assuming here that “neutronium” means what neutron stars are made of) ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/132 "2026-09-08T19:49:28Z")
_The Three Body Problem_. I saw the show, haven’t read the book. I think it’s supposed to be “hard science.” I’m not here to nitpick the premise, which has a lot of nits to pick. Instead, I’m just going to mention one scene that had me rolling my eyes: I think it was in the first episode. The characters were told to watch the sky at midnight or something. They did, and the stars blinked on and off a few times. But wait, that’s not it - the how is explained later. What got me was the view of the sky. They’re supposed to be in London, yet sitting on their back porch, the night sky is as spectacular as it would be if they were hundreds of miles from the nearest light source. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/133 "2026-09-08T20:01:32Z")
That’s not a mistake. The Sophons were messing with their brains. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/134 "2026-09-08T21:47:53Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Is it really? I would have guessed from the (admittedly limited) knowledge of orbital mechanics that I have that a course in interstellar space is an orbit around the black hole at the centre of the galaxy; the most efficient course would be a Hohmann transfer from the orbit where our solar system orbits the black hole to the orbit of the target solar system. In other words, it’d still be a curve. In principle, a Hohmann orbit from one star to another would be the most efficient path. In practice, though, the difference in energy cost would be minuscule and the difference in travel time would be immense, so Hohmann orbits are utterly impractical for interstellar travel. And I also don’t understand why a dome would be painted with a mirrored sky. For a globe to be viewed from the outside, there’s at least an argument to be made either way, but for a dome viewed from inside, there’s just plain a right way and a wrong way. > [@eschereal](#): > > Spock: “Its hull is solid neutronium.” > > (Leaving aside the redundancy of “solid neutronium”) Not redundant at all. Naturally-occurring neutronium is not only fluid, but superfluid (though the equation of state matches neither liquid nor gas). Getting it to be solid would be quite the trick. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/135 "2026-09-09T00:24:24Z")
You could have the pure neutronium hull any shape at all, if you wrapped it in a slaver stasis field (which ST has, courtesy of the Animated Series.) Of course if you has stasis fields, you could make the hull out of Papier-mâché and get the same results. And save money! As for straight line navigation, with sufficient power you could fly straight\* to the moon in minutes. Orbital mechanics only matter if you don’t have unlimited power. Starships have (virtually) unlimited power. \*yes yes it’s probably a section of a hyperbolic curve. Way out at the end that is asymptotic to a straight line. ---
**Author:** ![Xocomil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xocomil/32/14927_2.png) [@Xocomil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xocomil)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/136 "2026-09-09T00:24:39Z")
What’s the mistake? It takes light, traveling at light speed the for the entire trip, eight minutes to cover the same distance. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/137 "2026-09-09T00:34:33Z")
That episode just has to be enjoyed despite the inconsistent mechanics. In the episode they are flying at warp 3 to the sun. Minimum (by convention) 27X C. 17 seconds by my calculation. But they exceeded warp 8 inside Mercury’s orbit. That’s about half a second. Oops! Missed it! And why are the chronometers going backwards if no one else is? Dum dum! Let alone beaming one man into his own body would kill them both. And probably explode too! ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/138 "2026-09-09T01:18:48Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I remember Neil deGrasse Tyson saying that, in the movie Titanic, the stars in one of the shots were in the wrong place given the date Tyson also pointed out that the globe in the opening credits of _The Daily Show_ rotated in the wrong direction. I think they fixed it a few years later. ---
**Author:** ![Xocomil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xocomil/32/14927_2.png) [@Xocomil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xocomil)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/139 "2026-09-09T01:24:27Z")
Ah, _warp_ speed. Yeah, no, that’s pretty glaring. It could still take several minutes to accelerate to superluminal speeds over that distance if the acceleration is exponential. Not the case in that episode, though. Why do they need to slingshot around the Sun at all? Is TOS even good? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849/140 "2026-09-09T01:30:07Z")
> [@Xocomil](#): > > Yeah, no, that’s pretty glaring. It could still take several minutes to accelerate to superluminal speeds over that distance if the acceleration is exponential. Well, that’s the thing. It has never been stated explicitly that you have to accelerate to (near) lightspeed before going to warp. In some episodes they go to warp from a “standstill”. Not to mention “pivot at warp 2”. What does that even mean? Sure it sounds dramatic. And it works. But…what? Instead of pivoting at, say 8K degrees per second under impulse power, they turn at 2M degrees per second? That’s some targeting computer!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glaring-astronomy-mistakes-in-a-movie-or-video/1032849.md?page=8)