Christopher Nolan’s latest film Interstellar relies on real science for many of its stunning visuals. Renowned theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, an expert on black holes and wormholes, served as an advisor and executive producer. He provided the math that the special effects artists turned into movie magic. Thorne recently published a book with a foreword by Christopher Nolan, The Science of Interstellar. The book is ranked in the current top 100 on Amazon. Here’s a look at some of the space-science concepts that play key roles in the film. Black holes One of the most prominent scientific features of Interstellar is the ‘Gargantua’ black hole. The CGI team modelled a black hole using information from academic journals provided by Thorne. According to Wired’s feature on the process, it’s possibly one of the most scientifically accurate black holes ever created in a sci-fi film. What is it? A black hole is a gravitational mass so strong that not even light can escape it. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. They’re formed when large stars collapse. There’s a giant one at the centre of our galaxy, which has a mass equivalent to four million suns. Wormholes In the film, explorers use a wormhole near the orbit of Saturn to travel to another planetary system. The analogy used is if you fold a piece of paper you could travel between two distant points almost instantly. But is this theoretically possible? What is it? A wormhole, or an Einstein-Rosen bridge, is a warping of space-time that in theory may allow near-instantaneous transit between two vastly-separated areas of the universe. Wormholes are thought to be highly unstable. Researchers have no observational evidence for wormholes, but the equations of the theory of general relativity have valid solutions that contain them. Time dilation The crew in the movie age much slower than their counterparts on Earth owing to the effects of time dilation, something theorised by Albert Einstein. What is it? In the theory of relativity, time dilation is an actual difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses. As people travel nearer to the speed of light, time goes slower, something that has been experimentally proven on Earth. For example, clocks on GPS satellites orbiting the earth at a great distance from the planet tick slightly faster than clocks ticking on Earth. Accretion disk The swirling yellow ring of super-hot gases circling Gargantua is called an accretion disk. It’s one of the most stunning sights in the film. What is it? Black holes attract lots of matter, which can even include gas from other suns. As the matter orbits the black hole (before it falls in) it gets heated up. Accretion disks around black holes are among the brightest and hottest objects in our universe and are also called ‘Quasars’. Some of these are so hot and bright that they can outshine entire galaxies. The spaceship - Endurance is a ring-shaped vehicle consisting of 12 box modules, some of which can be shuttled to the surface of an exoplanet to set up a base. The mothership carries two heavy-lift “landers” to perform this work, as well as two more-agile “Rangers”, which the crew uses for planetary exploration. - Endurance rotates 5.6 times per minute to generate Earth-equivalent gravity aboard the ship — a detail the sticklers in the audience will doubtless appreciate. Sound science, says astrophysicist Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the host of the show Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, has been tweeting about the science behind Interstellar. Tyson points out that the film nails concepts like Einstein’s Curvature of Space and the way zero gravity works, which is significant if you paid any attention to how he criticised the film Gravity for struggling with similar concepts. While Tyson deliberately avoids discussing the plot or his opinion of the film as an entertainment vessel, he can’t be any more clear that the science in Interstellar is sound. With 2.58 million followers, Tyson is by far the most followed astronomer on Twitter, and perhaps the most famous astrophysicist in the world. Compiled by Aleesha Matharu
