From Dr. Becky.
How much of the science in Project Hail Mary is actually possible? Because this story is packed with real science! I got to sit down with Ryan Gosling and author Andy Weir to chat about how the science in Project Hail Mary (one of the most scientifically ambitious sci-fi stories ever written) was translated from the book to the big screen. Plus along with Andy Weir and Ryan Gosling, I also sat down with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller about how you visually communicate difficult concepts like relativity on screen, whilst keeping the human story at the heart. It’s got alien life, interstellar travel, astrophysics, molecular biology and more, but how much of the science in Project Hail Mary works in the real Universe? In this video we’re going to separate the real physics from where the story naturally has to lean into the fiction side of sci-fi. There will be mild spoilers but nothing that hasn’t already been revealed in the trailers… #projecthailmary #ryangosling #andyweir @SonyPicsUK @AmazonMGMStudios @sonypictures
Full interviews with Ryan Gosling, Andy Weir, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller also coming soon!
00:00 Introduction
01:28 What could make the Sun dim?
04:18 The science behind "astrophage"
06:57 Relativity and time dilation
14:19 The real stars tau-ceti and 40 Eridani and their planets
16:24 The science of alien life (but not as we know it)
20:27 Bloopers
Ashby (2003) – https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrr-2003-1
Burrows et al. (2024) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.17494
Figueira et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07514
Ginsburg (2018) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.04307
Hafele & Keating (1972) – https://www.jstor.org/stable/1734834?origin=ads
Horneck et al. (1994) – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0273117794904480?via%3Dihub
Jönsson et al. (2008) – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208008051
Leibundgut et al. (1996) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9605134
Ma et al. (2018) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.07098
Schwieterman et al. (2018) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.05791
Smith et al. (2021) – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2197
Tuomi et al. (2013) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.4277
Wallis et al. (2004) – https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2004MNRAS.348…52W
Wesson et al. (2010) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1011.0101
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Dr Becky Smethurst
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👩🏽💻 I’m Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about black holes, cosmology, dark matter, the early universe, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the biggest unsolved mysteries in astrophysics. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don’t know. If you’ve ever wondered about something in space and couldn’t find an answer online – you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
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