Revisiting our formula we see we get an angular diameter of 0.145375 radians, 16 times larger than the Sun. We might ask how large Elysium would look if it traveled at the altitude of the International Space Station. The International Space Station, for instance, maintains an average altitude of 265 miles, or 412 kilometers. This is high above where any space station has yet been placed. Putting this and the diameter of Elysium into the formula and solving for D yields an upper altitude of 6,538 kilometers, or 4,063 miles. The angular diameter of the Sun is 0.009177 radians. Where δ is the angular diameter, d is the actual diameter of the object, and D is the distance from the viewer. I was unable to get an exact measurement of its angular diameter, but I estimate that Elysium appeared at least as large as the Sun, which gives us an upper limit on its orbital distance. What else can we determine about Elysium? Well, based on its angular diameter as seen from the surface, one can determine its altitude. That is roughly one turn every six minutes.
RING OF ELYSIUMSIZE FULL
Wolfram|Alpha tells us that the rotation speed for a radius of 30 kilometers and centripetal acceleration of standard gravitational acceleration is 0.01808 radians per second, or a full rotation every 348 seconds. But how fast would it need to move to accomplish that? In the movie, Elysium does indeed turn like a Ferris wheel, spinning to generate a centripetal acceleration equivalent to Earth’s gravity. If a person were to leap off at that point, the person would exceed the height of Felix Baumgartner’s record jump by a factor of 3/2. If this ring were set upright on the surface of the Earth like a gigantic Ferris wheel, it could carry 25 city blocks side by side into the mesosphere.
The movie’s premise is that the wealthy members of society have relocated to an orbital space station, named Elysium, that circles the Earth while the rest of humanity is stuck on a seemingly dying world.įocusing on the science of the movie, what can Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha tell us about the space station and some of the other events portrayed?įrom the production crew, we know that the space station Elysium is 60 kilometers, or about 37.3 miles, in diameter and about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick.
RING OF ELYSIUMSIZE MOVIE
Like many people, I went to see the movie Elysium last weekend.
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