This film from the point of view of family relationships is quite good, but it completely fails once it enters the realm of science, and is not even good 'Science Fiction.'
The fragment that hits the moon is reputed to be from a brown dwarf, brown dwarfs are astrophysical objects that are intermediate entities between planets and stars. Stars like the sun are not immensely dense, in fact the density of our sun is comparable to that of water and 'brown dwarfs' are of the order of .1 of a solar mass so the film as usual for Hollywood and TV is based on a failed premise. I think they meant to use a fragment of a 'Neutron Star,' as this would have fit with the effects described and even the goofs section is inaccurate about the suggested effects of an impact with the moon of a brown dwarf fragment. The author probably read about brown dwarfs being the size of Jupiter with a mass of between 20-50 times that of Jupiter and assumed that they were superdense objects. Brown dwarfs are failed stars/suns and if they were broken up they would diminish due to molecular reactions because gravity would no longer keep the fragments together and they would most probably combine with other molecules and elements to form conglomerate meteor/asteroids that would not be very dense at all. It is because they do not have sufficient mass to become stars that they become brown dwarfs in the first place. There are times when I wish that Hollywood or the TV commissioning editors would at least check that the science is at least plausible before allowing projects to go forward.
I know that science has been dumbed down, but this is going too far! So although this films scores on how relationships cope with extraordinary situations, it fails as a premise in my opinion and anyone with a better than high school education will realise that, but in the US and in the UK most people don't have a clue about science, and neither do film makers apparently.
Andy
The fragment that hits the moon is reputed to be from a brown dwarf, brown dwarfs are astrophysical objects that are intermediate entities between planets and stars. Stars like the sun are not immensely dense, in fact the density of our sun is comparable to that of water and 'brown dwarfs' are of the order of .1 of a solar mass so the film as usual for Hollywood and TV is based on a failed premise. I think they meant to use a fragment of a 'Neutron Star,' as this would have fit with the effects described and even the goofs section is inaccurate about the suggested effects of an impact with the moon of a brown dwarf fragment. The author probably read about brown dwarfs being the size of Jupiter with a mass of between 20-50 times that of Jupiter and assumed that they were superdense objects. Brown dwarfs are failed stars/suns and if they were broken up they would diminish due to molecular reactions because gravity would no longer keep the fragments together and they would most probably combine with other molecules and elements to form conglomerate meteor/asteroids that would not be very dense at all. It is because they do not have sufficient mass to become stars that they become brown dwarfs in the first place. There are times when I wish that Hollywood or the TV commissioning editors would at least check that the science is at least plausible before allowing projects to go forward.
I know that science has been dumbed down, but this is going too far! So although this films scores on how relationships cope with extraordinary situations, it fails as a premise in my opinion and anyone with a better than high school education will realise that, but in the US and in the UK most people don't have a clue about science, and neither do film makers apparently.
Andy