If you were born before the year 2006, you might remember learning about the nine planets in school. Fast forward to Aug. 24, 2006, and there were only eight planets.
An astrophysicist that helped declassify a planet is now trying to ruin the biggest movie of 2022 and its impossible scenes.
What Happened: Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson might not be fun at parties. On social media, Tyson often points out things that are impossible or unlikely to happen, often shooting down viral new stories or theories.
Tyson made waves in the early 2000s for pushing to reclassify Pluto as a planet, something he covered in his book “The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet.”
Sixteen years after being associated with getting Pluto reclassified from planet to “dwarf planet,” Tyson is now taking on “Top Gun: Maverick.”
“Late to the part here, but in this year’s @TopGunMovie, Tom Cruise’s character Maverick ejects from a hypersonic plane at Mach 10.5, before it crashed. He survived with no injuries. At that airspeed, his body would splatter like a chainmail glove swatting a worm. Just sayin’,” Tyson tweeted.
Tyson went on to say that “air cannot smoothly part for you” when traveling at supersonic speeds.
“When Maverick ejected at Mach 10.5, he was going 7,000 mph, giving him 400 million joules of kinetic energy — the explosive power of 100 kg of TNT. A situation that human physiology is not designed to survive. So, no. Maverick does not walk away from this. He be dead. Very dead.”
Tyson’s tweet on Cruise’s character being dead generated a response from Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX.
“Indeed, that kinetic energy scales with the square of velocity is not well-appreciated! A sealed escape pod with a heat shield would probably work,” Musk tweeted.
Related Link: Elon Musk's Porcelain Throne Tweet Has Got Noted Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson Busy With Math
Why It’s Important: Most people go to movie theaters or watch movies at home to escape deep thinking.
“Top Gun: Maverick” is the top-grossing movie of 2022, making $714.7 million domestically and $1.48 billion worldwide. The movie was released by Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA)(NASDAQ:PARAA) and is a sequel to the 1986 movie “Top Gun.”
The movie has an 8.4 rating (out of 10) on IMDb, a movie database website, making it one of the top 100 rated movies according to the website’s top 250 scoring algorithm.
On Rotten Tomatoes, “Top Gun: Maverick” has a 96% rating from critics and a 99% rating from the audience, making it a top 2022 movie.
“Top Gun: Maverick” provided a big boost to movie theaters in 2022 as the top-grossing movie domestically since April 2019.
Tweets from Tyson and replies from Musk could be trying to take the breath away from movie theaters and movie lovers and heading on the highway to the danger zone.
Photo: Shutterstock and Wikimedia Commons
