2561: Moonfall - Revision history

130.76.187.33: /* Transcript */ movies

2025-10-03T18:51:57Z

‎Transcript: movies

Caralice: fix formatting

2025-03-22T08:18:09Z

fix formatting

172.70.163.151: /* Explanation */ consistency and correctness

2024-12-06T10:40:36Z

‎Explanation: consistency and correctness

Tyylk: /* Realistic analysis of the scenario */

2024-12-06T07:10:16Z

‎Realistic analysis of the scenario

141.101.99.108: /* Explanation */

2024-03-21T10:47:06Z

‎Explanation

SuperSupermario24: /* Explanation */ more fluff

2023-03-31T11:07:24Z

‎Explanation: more fluff

SuperSupermario24: /* Explanation */ add link, remove fluff

2023-03-31T11:06:13Z

‎Explanation: add link, remove fluff

SuperSupermario24: /* Explanation */ reorganize explanation to flow better, and rewrite parts to make them actual explanations rather than just restating the comic

2022-06-24T02:56:51Z

‎Explanation: reorganize explanation to flow better, and rewrite parts to make them actual explanations rather than just restating the comic

Jacky720: Reverted edits by Xray Kilo Charlie Delta (talk) to last revision by Davidy22

2022-05-23T18:44:59Z

Reverted edits by Xray Kilo Charlie Delta (talk) to last revision by Davidy22

Show changes

Xray Kilo Charlie Delta: haha your js cant stop my js

2022-05-23T18:12:35Z

haha your js cant stop my js

Show changes

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 {{comic discussion}}
-[[Category: Fiction]]
+[[Category: Movies]]
 [[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
 [[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
 [[Category: Comics featuring real people]]

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 The [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834426/plotsummary basic premise] of ''Moonfall'' is that a mysterious force manages to knock the Moon out of its orbit, leaving it on a collision course with the Earth. This is scientifically preposterous (see [[#Realistic analysis of the scenario|analysis]] below), making it potentially 'cringe-worthy' for someone who prefers {{w|hard science fiction}} where things are more grounded in established scientific facts and theories. Cueball states that a story based on good science can potentially serve as a novel window into what the real world may look like someday—or, as he puts it, "expand our ideas of what's possible."
-But Cueball then goes on to imply that he's still looking forward to the movie because his less critical side is still excited by things like cool spaceship noises and smashing moons into things. Sometimes you just want to [[311: Action Movies|get lost in mindless action]], even if it's less 'mature' than a well-thought-out meaningful plot. Megan then sums things up by playing off Cueball's wording from the previous panel, saying she's excited to "expand our ideas on how much stuff can explode at once." Given the scale of ''Moonfall'''s premise involving a potential planetary-scale collision, as well as the director's tendency to use gratuitous visual effects and explosions in his movies, it seems reasonable to conclude that the movie will likely contain quite a lot of stuff exploding at once.
+But Cueball then goes on to imply that he's still looking forward to the movie because his less critical side is still excited by things like cool spaceship noises and smashing moons into things. Sometimes you just want to [[311: Action Movies|get lost in mindless action]], even if it's less 'mature' than a well-thought-out meaningful plot. Megan then sums things up by playing off Cueball's wording from the previous panel, saying she's excited to "expand our ideas on how much stuff can explode at once." Given the scale of ''Moonfall''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s premise involving a potential planetary-scale collision, as well as the director's tendency to use gratuitous visual effects and explosions in his movies, it seems reasonable to conclude that the movie will likely contain quite a lot of stuff exploding at once.
 In the title text Cueball continues by explaining that while novel ideas and cool explosions are good, what he really wants from a movie is novel ideas about cool explosions. So new ways to explode things, or ideas about exploding more things at once. Or both!

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 ''{{w|Moonfall (film)|Moonfall}}'' was released in February 2022, a couple of months after this comic. Its director, {{w|Roland Emmerich}}, is known for blowing up things in his movies (see for instance [https://www.gq.com/video/watch/explosions-the-roland-emmerich-supercut the Roland Emmerich Supercut]), as well as for factual inaccuracies in his work (mainly the scientific implausibility of his many disaster movies like ''{{w|Independence Day (1996 film)|Independence Day}}'', ''{{w|The Day After Tomorrow}}'' and ''{{w|2012 (film)|2012}}'').
-The [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834426/plotsummary basic premise] of ''Moonfall'' is that a mysterious force manages to knock the moon out of its orbit, leaving it on a collision course with the Earth. This is scientifically preposterous (see [[#Realistic analysis of the scenario|analysis]] below), making it potentially 'cringe-worthy' for someone who prefers {{w|hard science fiction}} where things are more grounded in established scientific facts and theories. Cueball states that a story based on good science can potentially serve as a novel window into what the real world may look like someday—or, as he puts it, "expand our ideas of what's possible."
+The [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834426/plotsummary basic premise] of ''Moonfall'' is that a mysterious force manages to knock the Moon out of its orbit, leaving it on a collision course with the Earth. This is scientifically preposterous (see [[#Realistic analysis of the scenario|analysis]] below), making it potentially 'cringe-worthy' for someone who prefers {{w|hard science fiction}} where things are more grounded in established scientific facts and theories. Cueball states that a story based on good science can potentially serve as a novel window into what the real world may look like someday—or, as he puts it, "expand our ideas of what's possible."
 But Cueball then goes on to imply that he's still looking forward to the movie because his less critical side is still excited by things like cool spaceship noises and smashing moons into things. Sometimes you just want to [[311: Action Movies|get lost in mindless action]], even if it's less 'mature' than a well-thought-out meaningful plot. Megan then sums things up by playing off Cueball's wording from the previous panel, saying she's excited to "expand our ideas on how much stuff can explode at once." Given the scale of ''Moonfall'''s premise involving a potential planetary-scale collision, as well as the director's tendency to use gratuitous visual effects and explosions in his movies, it seems reasonable to conclude that the movie will likely contain quite a lot of stuff exploding at once.
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 ===Realistic analysis of the scenario===
-For the moon to fall from the sky, it would have to stop orbiting. Most forces applied it to will simply change the way in which it is orbiting, making the orbit more elliptical, larger or smaller. To stop it from orbiting entirely, a 'braking' force would need to be applied in the opposite direction of its travel, to halt it.
+For the Moon to fall from the sky, it would have to stop orbiting. Most forces applied it to will simply change the way in which it is orbiting, making the orbit more elliptical, larger or smaller. To stop it from orbiting entirely, a 'braking' force would need to be applied in the opposite direction of its travel, to halt it.
-The moon's mass is about 7.34767×10<sup>22</sup> kg and its speed about 1.022 km/s, so the energy needed to stop it is ½''mv''<sup>2</sup> or about 3.8364×10<sup>28</sup> joules. That's about the energy of 1 trillion large nuclear explosions, centered on the leading-most point of the moon's surface. In theory, a precisely-oriented stellar body could strike the moon to do this, for example, if something the mass of Ceres impacted at 16km/s. This would be dramatic. {{Citation needed}} It would, however, be below the Moon's gravitational binding energy, which, since the Moon is densest near its center, is much greater than 3Gm<sup>2</sup>/5r = 1.2x10<sup>29</sup> joules, so the Moon would not be immediately entirely destroyed. It is, however, about the right amount of energy to liquify the entire Moon, if it takes an average of 450kJ/kg to melt the lunar rock, then it comes out to 3.3×10<sup>28</sup> J to liquify the Moon. Whatever the exact details of the impact are, it would be bad for the Moon, and it is implausible that it would result in the Moon falling into the Earth.
+The Moon's mass is about 7.34767×10<sup>22</sup> kg and its speed about 1.022 km/s, so the energy needed to stop it is ½''mv''<sup>2</sup> or about 3.8364×10<sup>28</sup> joules. That's about the energy of 1 trillion large nuclear explosions, centered on the leading-most point of the Moon's surface. In theory, a precisely-oriented stellar body could strike the Moon to do this, for example, if something the mass of Ceres impacted at 16km/s. This would be dramatic. {{Citation needed}} It would, however, be below the Moon's gravitational binding energy, which, since the Moon is densest near its center, is much greater than 3Gm<sup>2</sup>/5r = 1.2x10<sup>29</sup> joules, so the Moon would not be immediately entirely destroyed. It is, however, about the right amount of energy to liquify the entire Moon, if it takes an average of 450kJ/kg to melt the lunar rock, then it comes out to 3.3×10<sup>28</sup> J to liquify the Moon. Whatever the exact details of the impact are, it would be bad for the Moon, and it is implausible that it would result in the Moon falling into the Earth.
 Less counteractive energy could make the Moon change orbit to one with a {{w|perigee}} below the surface of the Earth, close enough to (partially) enter the atmosphere or merely bring it down beneath the applicable {{w|Roche limit}}. These scenarios would be only technically less catastrophic, and whether the Moon fragments from the initially applied force, the stresses of its nearest (non-contact) distance to Earth or actually survives largely intact until there is a more direct physical interaction, the precise degree of the effect might be practically academic.

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 For the moon to fall from the sky, it would have to stop orbiting. Most forces applied it to will simply change the way in which it is orbiting, making the orbit more elliptical, larger or smaller. To stop it from orbiting entirely, a 'braking' force would need to be applied in the opposite direction of its travel, to halt it.
-The moon's mass is about 7.34767×10<sup>22</sup> kg and its speed about 1.022 km/s, so the energy needed to stop it is ½''mv''<sup>2</sup> or about 3.8364×10<sup>28</sup> joules. That's about the energy of 1 trillion large nuclear explosions, centered on the leading-most point of the moon's surface. A precisely-oriented stellar body could strike the moon to do this, like a billiard ball colliding with tons of interstellar moon shrapnel instead of dust.
+The moon's mass is about 7.34767×10<sup>22</sup> kg and its speed about 1.022 km/s, so the energy needed to stop it is ½''mv''<sup>2</sup> or about 3.8364×10<sup>28</sup> joules. That's about the energy of 1 trillion large nuclear explosions, centered on the leading-most point of the moon's surface. In theory, a precisely-oriented stellar body could strike the moon to do this, for example, if something the mass of Ceres impacted at 16km/s. This would be dramatic. {{Citation needed}} It would, however, be below the Moon's gravitational binding energy, which, since the Moon is densest near its center, is much greater than 3Gm<sup>2</sup>/5r = 1.2x10<sup>29</sup> joules, so the Moon would not be immediately entirely destroyed. It is, however, about the right amount of energy to liquify the entire Moon, if it takes an average of 450kJ/kg to melt the lunar rock, then it comes out to 3.3×10<sup>28</sup> J to liquify the Moon. Whatever the exact details of the impact are, it would be bad for the Moon, and it is implausible that it would result in the Moon falling into the Earth.
 Less counteractive energy could make the Moon change orbit to one with a {{w|perigee}} below the surface of the Earth, close enough to (partially) enter the atmosphere or merely bring it down beneath the applicable {{w|Roche limit}}. These scenarios would be only technically less catastrophic, and whether the Moon fragments from the initially applied force, the stresses of its nearest (non-contact) distance to Earth or actually survives largely intact until there is a more direct physical interaction, the precise degree of the effect might be practically academic.

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 The [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834426/plotsummary basic premise] of ''Moonfall'' is that a mysterious force manages to knock the moon out of its orbit, leaving it on a collision course with the Earth. This is scientifically preposterous (see [[#Realistic analysis of the scenario|analysis]] below), making it potentially 'cringe-worthy' for someone who prefers {{w|hard science fiction}} where things are more grounded in established scientific facts and theories. Cueball states that a story based on good science can potentially serve as a novel window into what the real world may look like someday—or, as he puts it, "expand our ideas of what's possible."
-But Cueball then goes on to imply that he's still looking forward the movie because his less critical side is still excited by things like cool spaceship noises and smashing moons into things. Sometimes you just want to [[311: Action Movies|get lost in mindless action]], even if it's less 'mature' than a well-thought-out meaningful plot. Megan then sums things up by playing off Cueball's wording from the previous panel, saying she's excited to "expand our ideas on how much stuff can explode at once." Given the scale of ''Moonfall'''s premise involving a potential planetary-scale collision, as well as the director's tendency to use gratuitous visual effects and explosions in his movies, it seems reasonable to conclude that the movie will likely contain quite a lot of stuff exploding at once.
+But Cueball then goes on to imply that he's still looking forward to the movie because his less critical side is still excited by things like cool spaceship noises and smashing moons into things. Sometimes you just want to [[311: Action Movies|get lost in mindless action]], even if it's less 'mature' than a well-thought-out meaningful plot. Megan then sums things up by playing off Cueball's wording from the previous panel, saying she's excited to "expand our ideas on how much stuff can explode at once." Given the scale of ''Moonfall'''s premise involving a potential planetary-scale collision, as well as the director's tendency to use gratuitous visual effects and explosions in his movies, it seems reasonable to conclude that the movie will likely contain quite a lot of stuff exploding at once.
 In the title text Cueball continues by explaining that while novel ideas and cool explosions are good, what he really wants from a movie is novel ideas about cool explosions. So new ways to explode things, or ideas about exploding more things at once. Or both!