Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Here’s What ‘Gravity’ Gets Right

After criticizing Gravity‘s plot holes in a series of tweets, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson posted an open letter to Facebook on Wednesday, clarifying his earlier gripes and praising the space drama film

“When I saw a headline proclaim, based on my dozen or so tweets, ‘Astrophysicist says the film Gravity is Riddled with Errors,’ I came to regret not first tweeting the hundred things the movie got right,” Tyson wrote in a post entitled, “On the Critique of Science in Film.” He then went on to list parts of the film that were accurate:

1. the 90 minute orbital time for objects at that altitude;

2. the re-entry trails of disintegrated satellites, hauntingly reminiscent of the Columbia Shuttle tragedy;

3. Clooney’s calm-under-stress character (I know dozens of astronauts like that);

4. the stunning images from orbit transitioning from day to twilight to nighttime;

5. the Aurorae (northern lights) visible in the distance over the polar regions;

6. the thinness of Earth’s atmosphere relative to Earth’s size;

7. the persistent conservation of angular and linear momentum;

8. the starry sky, though a bit trumped up, captured the range and balance of an actual night sky; Read more…

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