Science & Cinema: The Martian

The Martian (2015) follows astronaut Mark Watney on a life and death battle against the odds as he is accidentally left stranded on Mars when his crew leaves in desperate bid to survive a sudden and severe dust storm. With no way to communicate with Earth, his only hope for survival is to make do with the limited resources left in the Mars habitat until the next crewed mission comes.

A fantastic film all around, one of its greatest strengths is how accurate the science is portrayed. In fact the biggest flaw in the science is the dust storm at the beginning that sets up the plot. Mars’ atmosphere has much lower density than Earth, so even in high speed winds the force that it carries is much lower than we’d experience on Earth. The dust storm that rips across the planet in the film would have almost no effect in reality, apart from covering the modules with Martian dust, which is mostly oxidized iron rust which gives it that famous red color. 

NASA is sending a probe to Mars with a robotic helicopter that has been specially designed to fly through the much thinner atmosphere. Check out this video from Veritasium!

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