Part of the Sun is Dying!
Last weekend, I attended StarFest, the annual scifi convention held in Denver and learned about a movie coming out this summer called Sunshine. When I heard the premise of the film, I almost went supernova myself. Here’s what the film’s about. Someone, ANYONE, tell me what’s wrong with this picture:
“The premise of SUNSHINE,” explains producer Andrew Macdonald, “is that in 50 years from now the Sun is dying. It is no longer providing the energy and the light that mankind needs to survive on Earth. The entire global community pools its resources to send a mission into space to deliver a bomb to reignite the part of the Sun that is failing. Our story concerns the eight astronauts and scientists who lead this mission. On their journey towards the Sun the crew stumble upon the ship that was sent on the same mission seven years previously, the Icarus I, drifting in space. From this point on things start to go very wrong and it’s about how the crew react under the enormous pressure of their endeavor to save mankind.”
Setting aside for a moment the utterly ludicrous idea of the “entire global community pooling its resources”, my favorite part is they’re going to “deliver a bomb to re-ignite the the part of the Sun that is failing”. I would be laughing my ass off at this point, except that I think they’re serious. Which part? The bottom? The top? How the hell can part of the Sun die? Does it have an inoperable tumor?
I have a real problem with sh*t like this. Remember the movie The Core? Apparently the magnetic dynamo in the Earth’s core stopped and a team of plucky geeks hadda go down and re-start it. I couldn’t even go to the theatre for that one.
Let me set the record straight here, the Sun is, in fact, dying. In five billion years, the Earth is going to have a very bad day. The Sun’s nuclear fuel – hydrogen – is being fused into helium, which will in turn fuse into Carbon and so on to heavier elements until finally all that remains is Iron. Long before it gets to that stage however, the Sun will begin showing dramatic signs of dying. It will expand into a red giant, engulfing the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, then shed its outer layers of gases leaving behind a beautiful planetary nebula. What remains will be a white dwarf (from the University of Chicago):
White dwarf stars pack one and a half times the mass of the sun into an object the size of Earth. When they burn out, the ensuing explosion produces a type of supernova that astrophysicists believe manufactures most of the iron in the universe. But these type Ia supernovas, as they are called, may also help illuminate the mystery of dark energy, an unknown force that dominates the universe.
I’m going to post more on how the Sun will die later this week, but one point I must bring up again (I’ve written a post about this once before but I can’t seem to find it) is that the timescales over which things occur in stars is quite long. EVEN IF something suddenly stopped in the Sun that would cause problems, it would take millions of years for us to even notice.
For example, if all nuclear reactions stopped today, right now, in the core of the Sun, we wouldn’t even know it for six million years. That’s plenty of time to get the hell out of Dodge.
I am so tired of movies like this spewing out stories that sound scientific but have a juvenile view of science and the nature of the universe.
I guess soon they’ll make a movie that tries to stop global warming by turning the Sun off for a couple of minutes each day.
Technorati Tags: solar research, Sunshine Movie
I was in the cinema and also watched the trailer. My reaction was excactly the same ;)
Haha, I can’t believe some of the crap people come up with, well actually that’s a lie, I’ve come to expect it, but it still amazes me. If even half the money that’s wasted on things like this was spent on universal education and progression humanity might actually be worth it’s share.
On a completely unrelated note, have you heard the news about Gliese 581 c? Forgive me if this is relatively old news in astronomy circles but there’s been a buzz about it in the British media today and it’s got me quite exited (the find not the media buzz) as I’m sure you can appreciate. Finding a planet like this is something many people have been expecting and anticipating for quite a while. It’s a natural conclusion to assume that, given the evidence that science increasingly offers, the universe is swarming with planets like these, so while the planet may eventually turn out to be nothing out of the ordinary, finding it at this stage is an awesome boost of motivation to the cause of searching for extra-solar planets, and a great addition to the argument that the universe is quite plausibly bringing with places capable of supporting life, even as we know it.
That sounded like a shameless plug I know, and it’s badly misplaced in the comments section of this article, but this stuff fills me with warm fuzzy feelings!
What’s wrong with this picture?
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that picture, tony…
that’s a robot standing close to you, and you have your hand in your pocket.
WTF?
don’t make me jealous…
Wow, well when you put it like that it is pretty stupid. And the interview made it sound even worse from a scientific stand point. And why are ships always running into other ships in space, and always from a mission that went horrible wrong? That one always kills me given the vastness of space, and the fact that it’s a cliche in Sci-fi. They make it sound like they’re just running into eachother at the mall. By the way, love the picutre, it turned out great.
Gotta say though, Tony is WAY hunkier than Robby !! wOOt ! ^_^
As for the (partly) dying sun, it reminded me of an old episode of the Thunderbirds (not sure if anyone remembers that good ole’puppet TV show…)
Anyways, the whole movie smells more ‘déjà vu’ than anything else.
I can’t wait to see the trailer however, I need a good laugh.
I suppose I should cut the movie some slack, but I just can’t seem to do it. I mean come on, saving PART of the sun that is dying?! Re-igniting the Sun?!?!?!
If we could do something as big as that, fossil fuels would be a thing of the distant past.
@Julie: Don’t worry, the robot’s not my type. Pocahontas on the other hand…
@Shannon: Excellent point. It seems the solar system is more crowded than a Costco parking lot.
@Frederica: I LOVED that show. Thunderbirds was being aired for a while on a channel on DirecTV and I would watch it periodically. It brought back LOTS of memories from my childhood. The show scared my kids though, they thought it was creepy.
What do you mean it’s not realistic? Put together a crew of idiots to save humanity from an implusable threat with an even more impluasable solution not based on any known science… and if it doesnt work the first time, ignore all the obvious faults,don’t change anything, and just keep trying until it does. Sounds like the kind of mission the government would come up with (and has before) This movie nailed it right on. =) Now if the government came up with something that made sense and worked… that’s sci-fi.
come on guys! dont be ungry on this movie, If they want to save the sun then let them save it. here on earth we will continue the investigation if the human went to moon or NOT?
The sun is really dying.
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