Cinema Science: Planetary Propulsion in 'The Wandering Earth'

In this Chinese sci-fi blockbuster, our planet is threatened by the rapid expansion of the Sun, necessitating an ambitious response: to fit the Earth with giant engines in order for it to escape the solar system and travel to a new home. There are plenty of legitimate scientific topics lurking underneath this preposterous premise, including the Roche limit, fusion physics and the cataclysmic consequences of stopping the Earth's rotation, as Dave Crewe finds.

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Screens in the Classroom, middle years, senior secondary, China, science fiction, disaster movie, apocalypse, apocalyptic, Jupiter, Great Red Spot, orbit, NASA, Juno probe