Jun 4, 2019
Image: Galactic Center (enhanced) - NASA
There are a lot of misconceptions in popular culture about space, astrophysics and what's possible versus what's probable according to mom.me. Notto ruin your love of space travel movies and graphic novels, but some of that stuff? Impossible.
1. Space Makes You Float - It's a misconception that space makes you float. This might sound like a technicality, but it's important to understand what's going on. Objects in Earth's orbit aren't just floating out there. They don't plop straight down onto Earth because of one thing: speed. Their orbital velocity keeps them moving around in space (for "floating" astronauts, it's the spacecraft that's orbiting). So, they're falling around Earth, not onto Earth.
2. Asteroid Belts Are a Threat - You'd think a spacecraft would be doomed if it had to speed through an asteroid belt. In fact, it's a common plot twist in many space movies. But the fact is, you could probably survive it. The nearest asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and the distance between objects is about 600,000 miles. (Definitely easy to squeeze through.) If pushed together, the asteroids that make it up would be smaller than the size of Earth's Moon. Just a little dust-up.
3. Jupiter Orbits the Sun - Here's a stunner. Jupiter doesn't orbit round the sun. At least not if you go by the true definition of "orbit." This is how National Geographic explains it.
"When smaller objects orbit bigger objects, the smaller object doesn't travel around the larger in a perfect circle - both objects orbit a meshed center of gravity. In a way, they meet in the middle. This isn't the case with Jupiter."
Instead, the center of gravity between the Sun and Jupiter is just about the Sun's surface, not inside of it. (So, Jupiter technically orbits around in space just above the sun.)
4. A Space Shuttle Landed on the Moon - U.S. Moon landings and NASA's Space Shuttle programs were separate accomplishments in space that do not overlap in time. So, no Space Shuttle ever landed on the Moon - no matter how fun that sounds. That's not what they were designed to do.
5. Space Isn't That Big - We often talk about travel to Mars as if it's just like a trip to the Moon, itself a fairly distant place. But space is huge - way bigger than is easy for us to conceive of. Scientists think it's at least seven trillion (with a "T") light-years across. That quick trip to Mars? It takes about seven months, depending on how close Mars is to Earth in its orbit.
6. Radiation Belts are Impossible to Pass Through - Probes launched in 2012 to study Van Allen Radiation Belts upended a long-held belief that radiation belts couldn't be traveled through. The study found that in certain parts of the belts, there is less radiation than previously thought. So, spacecrafts and humans would need much less radiation protection to travel through them.
7. Interstellar Travel is Possible - Space-travel movie fans look away. Interstellar travel is just not going to happen. Certainly not in our lifetimes and probably not ever. There is no conceivable technology that would permit it. And the logistics? The realities? Hardly playing on the strengths of humans. First, as Scientific American explains, there's the problem with damage caused with spacecraft collide with things - even really tiny things. Space shuttles took a beating over the course of their programs. Space isn't just a big emptiness, and running into things would thwart the mission. Also, the time frame required for space travel is problematic, we'd be traveling not for months or years, but for generations.
8. Space is Always Freezing - Sure, it gets pretty cold out in space. The coldest spot in the knows universe is -458 degrees Fahrenheit. But, closer to the surface of the Earth - still technically space - the temperature can reach +360 degrees Fahrenheit where the Sun shines. Definitely not cold.
9. Bodies Were Made for Zero Gravity - With less gravity to work against muscle and bone loss happen rapidly. So say you don't mind becoming spindly, your body would still have to deal with the calcium buildup from the bone loss ... which will give you kidney stones. Ouch! There's also the impact that decreased gravity has on our circulatory system. Turns out, we evolved to optimize bodies at the gravity we have here on Earth. Less gravity means more body problems.
10. There Are Only Three States of Matter - Solid, liquid, gas: the three states of matter, right? That's a nice list but not an exhaustive one. Another state of matter is plasma. Plasma is something thought of as a subset of gasses, but because of the way the atoms and molecules that make it up behave, it's a different state. It's also the most abundant state of matter in the Universe. It's what makes up the Sun!
11. There is a Dark Side of the Moon - Sorry, Pink Floyd fans, the only dark side of the Moon is on your old LP's. There's a far side, there's a near side, but all the sides at some point in the day get sunlight.
12. Nothing is Faster Than the Speed of Light - What is faster than the speed of light? How about the Big Bang? The Universe expanded faster than the speed of light. Wuantum theory predicts that the quantum entanglement - that is, the connection between particles and their reactions - moves faster than the speed of light. And then, you can just wrap space-time and - BOOM - faster than light. (But that's theoretical, too.)
13. The Moon is Close to Earth - All those "Super Moons" we keep having sure makes the Moon seem close to the Earth. Close is relative, but the simple fact is: The Moon's not close as it appears. It's 30 Earths - or 238,855 miles - away from earth on average. That's far!
14. Summer Means the Sun is Closer - Seasons, and therefore, climates, depend on what time of year it is and which hemisphere you're in. Time of year is important because the Earth orbits the Sun on an axis (meaning, the Earth we are used to seeing on globes is actually tilted). So, at some points of the 365+ day orbit, there's longer exposure to the Sun. In the Summer months, the Sun shines directly on the Northern Hemisphere and indirectly on the Souther Hemisphere - and vice versa for Winter.
15. Nuclear Weapons Protect Us From Asteroids - In the movies, sending a nuclear weapon up to vaporize an asteroid works great. In reality, it'd be a mess. Nothing would get vaporized - just blown apart into smaller (but likely still pretty big) pieces that would hit Earth in more places and wreck even more stuff.
16. The Sun is Always Yellow - The Sun isn't really yellow. And - are you sitting down? - the sky isn't really blue. Those colors are just the way sunlight gets scattered in the atmosphere and creates different wavelenghts of light.
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