Exoplanets in Popular Culture

The fascinating nature of exoplanets has inspired many films.

Binary Stars

The image above is from the 1977 film Star Wars Episode IV a New Hope. In the Star Wars universe, Luke Skywalker lives on a planet that orbits in a binary star system. In reality, binary star systems exist. Many potentially habitable exoplanets have been found orbiting binary star systems. NASA has estimated that between 50%-60% of binary stars are capable of hosting terrestrial planets.

This is a schematic depicting the fundamental structure of a binary star system. The stars are represented by grey light grey circles. The blue circles represent planets. Planets that inhabit binary star systems are classified in two different ways. S-type planets orbit around a singular star, while P-type planets orbit around the common center of mass of the star system. P-type planets are more suitable for life because their distance from the stars. The orbital stability of an S-type planet is dependent on the distance between the two stars. The greater the distance between the stars the greater the orbital stability of the S type planet.

Long Duration Space Travel

One of Stanley Kubrick's masterpieces, 2001 a Space Odyssey, explored potential solutions to problems associated with space travel. Released in 1968, one year before man first landed on the moon, the film brought attention to proposed technologies such as artificial gravity and cryogenic freezing. In the scene from the film pictured above an astronaut can be seen excising in a rotating space station while passing by three cryogenic freezing units.

Artificial Gravity

Scott and Mark Kelly photographed together in 2018

The negative effects of a virtually weightless environment were revealed in 2017 when NASA astronaut Scott Kelly spent an entire year aboard the International Space station while his twin brother Mark remained on Earth. Once Scott returned, it was revealed that significant changes to his gene expression occurred. In order to negate these effects scientists must devise methods to produce an artificial gravitational force.

Universal Law of Gravitation

Physics of Circular Motion. The Radial force is represented by the red "R" Vector.

When objects leave the solar system and enter deep space the force of gravity that they experience will decrease as evidenced by the Universal Law of Gravitation depicted above.The distance between the spaceship and the center of mass of the solar system represented by the variable "r" and the force of attraction between the two objects are inversely proportional. During the journey to various exoplanets astronauts will be required to traverse large distances of empty space. In empty space they will experience almost no gravitational force.

This is an image of the "Space Station V" from 2001 a Space Odyssey. Many scientists agree that the most efficient way to produce artificial gravity is through a rotating disk. In Kubrick's film, astronauts can be seen walking as the space station moves in a circular fashion. The constant angular velocity creates a force that acts opposite of the centripetal direction. This force is responsible for holding the astronauts to the floor.

Time Dilation

Actor Matthew McConaughey experiences time dilation in the movie.

The 2014 mystery/drama film Interstellar, thoroughly explored the effects of time dilation. Throughout the movie the characters are constantly reminded of the relative nature of time. In one scene, a group of astronauts land on a planet that is in close proximity to a black hole. Every hour that then spend exploring the planet equates to roughly seven years on Earth. When they return to the space ship they find that 23 years have elapsed on planet Earth.

Physicist Kip Thorne instructs actress Jessica Chastain on a set from the film.

Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Kip Thorne is credited with explaining time dilation. He served as an executive producer and script adviser on the film. All of the equations and derivations depicted on the chalk boards in the film were developed by Kip Thorne and are completely accurate.

RETURN TO HOMEPAGE

Works Cited

Billings, Lee. “Parsing the Science of Interstellar with Physicist Kip Thorne.” Scientific American Blog Network, 28 Nov. 2014, blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/parsing-the-science-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/.

Cousins, Larry. “2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).” IMDb, IMDb.com, 2018, www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/.

Haghighipour, Nadar, and P Thebault. “Planet Formation in Binaries .” Astro-ph.ep, 5 Oct. 2010, www.researchgate.net/figure/S-type-and-P-type-binary-planetary-systems-A-and-B-represent-the-stars-of-the-binary_fig1_45882420.

Welch, J. “Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).” IMDb, IMDb.com, 17 Mar. 2016, www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/.

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