Above image: A concept drawing by NASA showing the accretion lines and accretion disk from a black hole. Source: Wikimedia.org.
Human travel over interstellar distances required a wormhole* and a time dilation in “Interstellar.”
* The theoretically possible wormhole is, in the movie, a gift from unknown aliens, created by the aliens for human use, to make human interstellar travel possible within a human lifetime.
Place one end [of a human-controllable wormhole] at, say, Saturn’s orbit, and another in the heart of the Andromeda Galaxy, and a chisel-cheeked hero like Matthew McConaughey can make an intergalactic crossing in a few moments that takes light itself—the fastest thing there is—a round trip of more than 5 million years.
Quotation source: Scientific American critique of the science in “Interstellar”.
An infographic from Space.com tells the theoretical scientific aspect of the “Interstellar” story.
See the science behind the film, “Interstellar” in this infographic from Space.com.
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Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.
What does the above Infographic depict?
Warning: SPOILER ALERT! If you missed “Interstellar” when it was released at the end of 2014, this infographic will fill you in on the scientific details of the film. If you saw the film, you may find information explained that had you guessing.
The film “Interstellar” relies on real science for many of its stunning visuals. Physicist Kip Thorne, an expert on black holes and wormholes, provided the math that the special effects artists turned into movie magic.
The spaceship Endurance’s destination is Gargantua, a fictional supermassive black hole with a mass 100 million times that of the sun. It lies 10 billion light-years from Earth and is orbited by several planets. Gargantua rotates at an astounding 99.8 percent of the speed of light.
“Interstellar” in Pictures: A Space Epic Gallery
Gargantua’s accretion disc contains gas and dust with the temperature of the surface of the sun. The disc provides light and heat to Gargantua’s planets.
The black hole’s complex appearance in the film is due to the image of the accretion disc being warped by gravitational lensing into two images: one looping over the black hole and the other under it.
One feature of Einstein’s equations is that time passes slower in higher gravity fields. So on a planet orbiting close to a black hole, a clock ticks much more slowly than on a spaceship orbiting farther away.
To see the full article, including a video on “Warp Drives and Wormholes,” visit the source article at this website.
Click next page to read about the collaboration between theoretical physicist, Kip Thorne, and director, Christopher Nolan, which grounded the movie in scientific theory, and how they framed the problem of time dilation.
