Comment by orsenthil
1 day ago
Since you built it, I am curious about the scientific accuracy of the movie, book and while taking the information GAIA DR3. I wanted to assume at least the stars part is science, but I think, there is a lot of fiction in that setting. Is this map the reality of what we know as science, since it came from GAIA DR3 dataset?
And, thank you very much. This is super cool and exciting. I wish such a one exists for Asimov's foundation universe (fiction).
The book does a significantly better job explaining the science behind the mission than the movie (which I found insulting, but I'm clearly in the minority of holding that opinion).
The book was certainly better than the movie, but I'll take every damned example of 'humans working collectively to solve an existential crisis' I can get.
As 'on the nose' as 'Don't look up' was, we clearly need more content that inspires action than pits us to despair.
The stars featured in the movie and in this chart (and in the book) are real, and reflect their real-world locations.
The planets around the stars, aside from our own solar system (obviously), are fictional-- both Tau Ceti and 40 Eridani are stars where we're looking for exoplanets, but we don't have strong evidence for either yet.
IIRC at the time the book was written, there was some data suggesting a planet detection around 40 Eridani, but has been ruled out since then.