from reel to real
In 2022, NASA and Arizona State University will send a spacecraft to investigate the unique asteroid 16 Psyche, a metal-rich body about the size of Switzerland orbiting in the asteroid belt at an average distance of 2.9 AU from the Sun. What is unique about asteroid Psyche is that it may, perhaps, be the exposed …
Needing to understand the comparative size of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, I decided to compile a graphic showing as many objects as I had the patience to find. So far, I've managed the first twenty two. The images are roughly to scale. Only four are direct images, the rest are constructed from …
Inspired by five words, or is it six, in the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon — a movie about an asteroid the size of Texas on course to destroy Earth in 18 days (and a team of deep core drillers sent to break the asteroid in two) — I wondered whether there were any quantifiable clues in …
One year ago, Amazon announced that its legal drama Goliath starring Billy Bob Thornton as underdog lawyer Billy McBride had been renewed for one final season, then coronavirus arrived — so when will Season 4 be with us? We do know that production has restarted. Rumour has it that Season 4 will be released in …
Last year I started digging around for space rocks — movies about space rocks — to compile a list of every asteroid and comet disaster movie ever made, from the very first silent, black and white offering in 1916, to the major blockbusters that launch at us every special effect that digital mastery can conjure …
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Apparently, if you smell a fresh meteorite it smells like sulphur, according to reports about the Tagish Lake meteorite and the aroma that filled the air during its fall in 2000. And the Aguas Zarcas meteorite that fell in Costa Rica in 2019 has been said to smell of compost, vanilla and Brussels sprouts, depending …
Graphics showing all asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as at 18 August 2020. The images and distances are not to scale but are distributed to give a rough idea of increasing size and distance. The Trans-Neptunian Object 486958 Arrokoth isn't included, but as at 1 January 2019, it became the farthest object in the …
Continue reading "Asteroids and Comets Visited by Spacecraft"
Asteroid vs Comet is not the title of the latest impact disaster movie where one Solar System object battles another, but a discussion about the differences between asteroids and comets. If, however, you came here by mistake hoping actually to read about asteroid and comet impact disaster movies, try one of my other articles, where …
Having watched all five seasons of the Amazon police drama Bosch, I was excited to find Season 6 arrive during the lockdown imposed on us due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ten minutes into the first episode and Bosch is called out to the Overlook at Lake Hollywood Park on a murder case. An abandoned 911 …
It's the end of the year and one particular tabloid newspaper is again warning us that it could soon be the end of the world — yes, asteroid 2019 AE3 is in our vicinity and the apocalypse is coming. In keeping with the tabloid drama, below is a list of all the film and TV …
Continue reading "80 Movies and TV Shows Featuring Earth-Threatening Asteroids and Comets"
Amazon TV's Goliath is back for a third instalment and after the two previous diverse offerings, no-one knew what to expect in Season 3. When Billy McBride in Season 1 said, “Ever since I took this case, weird shit is happening to me…”, well, that kind of weird has nothing on this. Get ready to …
Continue reading "Goliath Season 3: The Weird and the Wonderful"
So there's another apocalyptic asteroid warning in the tabloid news headlines. The lead scaremongerer in the UK is the Daily Express, who started out playfully alerting us to asteroids that will skim by Earth in the coming days. It didn't take long for a war of the digital world to start warning of swarms of …
I once read a quote in a conference abstract that stated the paper had been written to serve as “a historical guide to the asteroid literature for the perplexed”. That quote aptly sums up my desire for writing a piece on the history of asteroid classification and taxonomies, and the schemes currently in use. When …
Knowing what sells is essential if you want to write a successful script, so a key part of a scriptwriter's toolbox is to read as many scripts as possible written by others. It also becomes less disheartening when you see that some of the most successful films and TV shows contained ideas in early drafts …
More than 100 years have passed since the first film was shown in movie theatres that depicted events in the run up to a rock from space striking the Earth — although in that case it was a comet rather than an asteroid. That movie, a silent film called The End of the World released …
Continue reading "Making an Impact: Lights, Camera and Asteroid!"
Many people will remember the day in 2013 when one asteroid stole the limelight from another. On 15 February 2013, all eyes of astronomers were on the close approach of a 30 metre-sized Apollo asteroid 367943 Duende (then known as 2012 DA14). The asteroid was not expected to be visible to the naked eye. Nor …
Continue reading "Real and Simulated Asteroid and Comet Impacts"
It’s a dilemma universally acknowledged in Hollywood that the makers of asteroid and comet disaster movies must ignore the laws of physical science and make events look the way moviegoers expect from their own experience on Earth, otherwise they won't believe it. And so asteroids and comets are called meteors, meteoroids and meteors are called …
It has been a while since Amazon's eagerly anticipated Goliath Season 2 was released. Those who watched the drama unfold might think it has taken so long for me to write a commentary because I needed to get over the shock of what we saw. I admit it, I did have to cover my eyes …
In the second of a series of posts about rewriting characters, this article looks at Season 1 of Goliath, the Amazon legal drama starring Billy Bob Thornton as underdog lawyer, Billy McBride, who is pitted against the powerful. The discussion compares the third draft pilot script for Goliath Season 1 entitled Trial dated 20 July …
As part of my fledgling scriptwriting aspirations, I was interested to understand how a hugely successful TV show knows right from the start what people will watch whilst making content unique. This led me to start reading drafts and pilot episode scripts of TV shows. I soon realised that those making these shows often don't …
Continue reading "Rewriting characters: The Big Bang Theory"