Don’t Look Up: How we should deal with asteroid threats in real life
Unfortunately, it does not involve Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence
Is ‘Don’t Look Up’ realistic?
Don’t Look Up is an allegory, using the globally catastrophic impact of a “planet killer” for the globally catastrophic impact of climate change. It is a tale of corruption, venality and political and corporate self-interest placed ahead of the health and welfare of humanity. It is also very funny.
Without giving away too many spoilers, the plot focuses on two astronomers (a graduate student and her professor) who discover a comet that will collide with Earth in six months time. They try to tell the President of the United States (played gloriously by Meryl Streep), but she is more concerned with the mid-term elections.
The film pokes fun at right-wing US politics, the influence of donations to political parties on policy (and politicians), the increasing capacity for modern technology to collect information about health, habits, and lifestyle, and the use of that information by technology giants.
It does not poke fun at the science though: the discovery of the comet is (sort of) realistic. Which is as it should be, sinceAmy Mainzer, Principal Investigator of NASA’sNEOWISEasteroid tracking program, was a scientific advisor to the production. In the film, the astronomers report their findings to thePlanetary Defense Coordination Office, which, as the movie shows, is a real organization operated by NASA.
So is the film realistic? The Earth has been hit by large asteroids in the past – which is why there are no enormous dinosaurs roaming the planet today. And it is bombarded every day by tonnes of dust and meteorites. It is certain that a “planet killer” is written in the future (though occurring at most once in 50 million years) – and this is taken much more seriously by international governments than is shown in the film.
There is awell-tested protocolfor reporting new asteroids and comets, which is how we know about the ones passing close(ish) to Earth this month.
There are also plans tomitigate the potential consequencesfrom an asteroid on collision course with the Earth. These typically rely on deflecting the asteroid’s course, as trying to shoot it down last minute isn’t feasible – it would take too much energy. The launch in November ofNASA’s DART mission, a technology-testing mission, will further help shed light on how to best deflect asteroids threatening Earth.
But where Don’t Look Up touches a nerve is the lack of preparedness for the emergency if (when) it finally happens and the mitigation plans have failed. Here I come back to the allegory for climate change. There is no Plan B. In the film, the slogan ‘Don’t Look Up’ is a denial that an approaching comet will destroy the planet – it is portrayed as fake news.
I thought it was a great film. It is entertainment. But it is not fake news. We are a global community and we must act together.
Article byMonica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences,The Open University
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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