Phil Plaits Bad Astronomy SPOILERS Review Armageddon. The Astronomy of Armageddon. SPOILER WARNING If you havent seen the movie. I wrote, which will spoil the ending and lots of plot bits Note added September 6, 2. This movie came out three years ago. I missed. I cant catch everything, of course, and in this. Watch Armageddon starring Bruce Willis in this Science Fiction on DIRECTV. Its available to watch on TV, online, tablets, phone. I couldnt keep up So let me. I appreciate the comments, but to verify what people tell. I would have to watch the movie again, and I would rather stare. Sun through Hubble than sit through this vile flick one more. I will consider this review. Heres the short version Armageddon got some astronomy right. For example, there is an asteroid in the movie, and asteroids do. Showtime Full Ca$H Online Free here. And then there was. Okay, so that was about all they got right. Now I know that. accuracy was not the main point of the movie, and clearly from the way. One person who emailed me said the movie had sub comic book. The Internet Movie Databases coverage includes cast, crew and plot information, plus numerous links. Here it is at last, the first 150minute trailer. Armageddon is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and youd have a TV ad. Heres every TV show and movie marathon you can watch on Memorial Day. But as always, I can use. Bad Astronomy as a jumping off point for some Good Astronomy. Shall we start In the opening sequence, we see an asteroid headed for Earth. Dinosaur Killer 6. The narrator says that it exploded with the force of 1. Good 1. 0,0. 00 Where did that number come fromIf we assume. Hello. Even if we assume a 1. And remember, I rounded down a. If the velocity is higher, that number increases. Note added. January 1. I found a press release about the dinosaur. I find this funny. However, this is not. Interestingly, the dinosaur killer segment was narrated. Charlton Heston. In 1. NBC aired a TV show called. The Mysterious Origins of Man, a fringe science show ostensibly about. Anyway, it had a segment about the Paluxy River. This turns out not to be the. Glen Kuban about them. They thrill you, scare you. They make you laugh, make you cry. Watch our selection of new releases and classic movies. Anyway, I find it odd and. Charlton Heston narrated both the dinosaur part. Armageddon and a TV show saying that humans and dinosaurs. You may make of this what you will. The director of NASA, Dan Truman, says that the asteroid, the size of Texas. Yegads. First off, there are no asteroids in the solar system. Wed have discovered them ages ago Ceres, the largest. Texas. is about 1. Even if we assume the size is an. A comet could not simply impact. An asteroid with a radius of, lets say. Thats a lot of asteroid you could ram it with comets for years. Plus, the odds of a comet hitting an asteroid at all are very slim. I have hashed this out in. Asteroid as well. Incidentally, the real director of. NASA is named Dan Goldin, and I have to think the similarity was on. I am not implying anything here I think they were just going. W03CktCmek9ok5aOgOSZCWHYk.jpg' alt='Watch Armageddon Full Movie' title='Watch Armageddon Full Movie' />The Astronomy of Armageddon SPOILER WARNING If you havent seen the movie, this is your last chance to get out of this page before you see what I wrote, which will. The big asteroid is preceded by lots of little ones which hit New York. City, Paris, Shanghai, etc. Good It is possible for the Earth to be pelted by forerunners. But that shrapnel would dissipate quickly as. Earth, very little would be left. But even given that. Not only that but the average. Because, in an explosion, lightweight stuff gets thrown faster than. Since it is faster it reaches the Earth first, before the. There is a broad range in the size of the debris. Earth as the debris cloud. And since the bigger stuff moves slower, itll hit after. In the movie, we only see a few episodes of collisions. And another thing why do movie asteroids only target big cities I bet Ithaca, New York got hit too, but I guess watching students. Cornell running around in panic isnt as much fun as watching. Manhattan. I will say though that. Paris sequence was very well done. Sacre bleu The asteroid is completely missed by everyone on Earth until it is only. When asked why NASA didnt see this coming, the director. We only have a million dollars to search the whole. Later, they use Hubble to view the asteroid. Big professional telescopes only look at. But even discounting them, there are tens of. Could they have missed itLets see. Lets say our killer asteroid is the same size as Ceres. The movie says it is moving at 2. That puts it about ten million miles away, or 4. Moons. distance. At that distance it is 3. Ceres. Ceres itself is just barely too faint to seen by the naked eye. Note actually, it would be even brighter than that. Since it would. be closer to the Sun, it would receive more light from the Sun, making. Ceres. My thanks to Bad Reader Craig. Berry for pointing that out to me. That would make it one of the brightest objects in the sky. Even if we. were to assume it was farther away, like 6. Ceres, and an easy naked eye. Anyone familiar with the sky would spot that easily. Incidentally, they said in the movie that only 1. As I have just shown, there are. Using Hubble is a big deal in these. Unfortunately. it wont work. Go to. my review Doomsday Rock for details. Basically, Hubble. Note added May 2. Doh Actually, for an extreme emergency, Hubble. However, it takes. We get a good look at the asteroid. It is rough, jagged, with lots of. It is surrounded by vapor. When an object gets to be a certain size, the strength of its own. Why is this one jagged I have heard some people say its because of the. This doesnt work. First, a collision big enough to send something that. It would easily form a. Second, relatedly, the asteroid was not. It wouldnt have had sufficient time to. The vapor was weird. I suppose an asteroid can have pockets of gas deep. But the gas is shown as red and green. Nebulae, or gas clouds, in deep space have color, and do look red and green, but that. The asteroids vapor would look white to the eye, because it is lit by. No big deal, but its just another dramatic effect. Bad This is just Bad. During the X 7. 1 launch sequence, they used real. Space Shuttle footage, and used computer graphics to stitch the image. X 7. 1 onto a shuttle rocket stack. However, at least once. Shuttle to the X 7. They just left the video as it was. Shuttle, and not the X 7. This reminded me of the old TV show I Dream of Jeannie, when they. Captain Nelson went into space. Youd see an Mercury rocket miraculously. Saturn. I laughed out loud in the theater when I saw that. Just before the X 7. Russian space station. Arg A scene chock full of bad science. First, a spinning station. The X 7. 1s would have to basically. The real Russian station, Mir. Remember. the biggest near disaster with Mir occurred when a rocket tried to dock. No docking is routineSpinning the station would make docking. Then, after they dock, what is holding the. Green Chair Movie Watch Online here. X 7. 1s to the station All you see is a little tube connecting them. That little tube could not possibly hold the weight. X 7. 1 against the spin of the station. Now, when you rotate a space station, you would feel. This would feel like gravity. During the next scenes. At the center of the station. The force outwards that you would feel in. At the center, you are at zero distance by definition. Thered be no gravityFinally, whats a Russian space station they never call it Mir. I dont think the Russian space agency. The Big Plan is to split the asteroid in half far enough away from the. Earth that the separating halves will both miss. This must be accomplished. Imagine the asteroid four hours before impact. Watch Disgrace Online Full Movie more. Each half must move away. Earths radius to miss the Earth. Anything less than this means an impact. In turn, this means each half. Thats about 1. 00. But wait This asteroid is 1. It is extremely massive, and something with that. Sun produces every second. Needless to. say, one bomb aint gonna do it. A billion or so might though. I dont think even Bruce Willis is up to that task. After the asteroid passes the Moon, a technician says the Moons gravity. Earth. Amazingly, this can actually happen, though not the way they mean. The Moons tides will put a torque, or twist, on the asteroid, which. Basically, the strength of gravity depends. The asteroid. was big, and passing close to the Moon. One part was a lot closer. Moon than another, so got pulled harder. As the asteroid swung. Moon. That might actually cause the. In my opinion, the writers needed Yet Another. Plot Device, so they threw this in, not knowing that it was actually.