Christopher Nolan‘s epic 2014 film Interstellar depicts a crew of astronauts travelling through a wormhole to find new habitable worlds for the human race. During their adventures, they encounter a planet called Miller‘s planet located dangerously close to the supermassive black hole Gargantua. Due to the extreme gravitational pull from the black hole, time passes much slower on this planet – so slow that each hour spent exploring its surface equates to 7 years of Earth time.
While such extreme time dilation makes for gripping cinema, just how close is this science fiction to science fact? Here, we‘ll dive deeper into Einstein‘s century-old theory of relativity that gave rise to the concept of time dilation, understand how gravitational forces can warp our perception of time, and explore just how far creative license was taken in Interstellar to produce its stunning representations of bending spacetime.
Time Dilation 101
Albert Einstein fundamentally transformed our understanding of space and time with his 1905 special theory of relativity. A core consequence of this theory is that time passes slower for objects moving close to the speed of light relative to a stationary observer. This effect is called velocity time dilation.
The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. This has been repeatedly proven demonstrably with atomic clocks flown around Earth on jet planes or satellites. Clocks raised to higher gravitational potentials or speeds tick slower compared to reference clocks on Earth‘s surface.
Einstein expanded on this in 1915 by establishing that gravity also causes time dilation. Clocks close to a gravitational body like Earth tick slightly slower than clocks positioned higher up where gravity is weaker. This gravitational time dilation means time passes slower closer to the centre of any gravitational field.
For example, time passes slower on Earth‘s surface than for GPS satellites orbiting higher above Earth:
Location | Time Dilation Factor
--------------------------|--------------------
Earth‘s Surface | 1 (Reference)
GPS Satellite Orbit | 0.99999976This miniscule difference in passage of time has to be adjusted for by GPS satellites accounting for a general relativity correction factor. So in effect, astronomers and physicists are very accustomed to factoring in time dilation impacts for spacecraft travelling at speed around massive celestial bodies.
Spacetime Across the Solar System
Below we quantify relativistic time dilation spanning locations right across our solar system and beyond:
Location | Gravity (m/s^2) | Time Dilation Factor
------------------------------------|----------------|--------------------
ISS Orbit Around Earth | 8.93 | 0.999994
Moon Surface | 1.62 | 0.999992
Mars Surface | 3.711 | 0.999992
Jupiter | 24.79 | 0.999977
Saturn‘s Rings | 10.44 | 0.999983
Event Horizon of a Supermassive
Black Hole Like Gargantua | 3 * 10^9 | 0 --> ∞As can be seen, normal orbital mechanics and astrophysics revolve all around accounting for Einsteinian impacts of relativity. But what about the extremes? Could we ever experience an interstellar-style planet that slows down time to a perceived near-standstill?
Planet Miller‘s Time Warp
In one key planet-side exploration scene, astronauts Cooper and Brand land on Miller‘s planet remarkably close to the black hole Gargantua. Due to immense gravitational forces, each hour spent collecting data equated to a shocking 7 years back on Earth!
Director Christopher Nolan creatively depicts this by showing the spaceship‘s handheld computers ticking rapidly, with each audible tick representing 1 entire Earth day passing by. But could such an extreme time warp planet actually exist in reality?
While gravitational time dilation is very real, a time dilation factor that large resulting purely from proximity to a black hole‘s gravitational field would likely not be possible. The required gravitational acceleration for Miller‘s planet to achieve such effects exceeds the upper limits of what physics models can account for before reaching paradoxical scenarios:
Miller‘s Planet Time Dilation Requirements
Time Dilation Factor: 61,320,000,000,000
Surface Gravity Needed: ≥ 1.1 * 10^16 m/s^2 For perspective, the gravitational acceleration on Earth is just 9.8 m/s^2. Technology would be hard-pressed to ever withstand and transmit data back from such enormous forces!
Surviving the Time Warp
To quantify the impacts on a hypothetical crew of astronauts:
- The pull of gravity would have to be trillions of times stronger than Earth‘s gravity
- This would immediately crush any humans attempting to walk on its surface
- The strongest known materials would be ripped apart
In effect, no physical spacecraft or astronaut could actually withstand or experience time flowing like it does in the movie. Instead, the extreme time dilation serves as an effective plot device to immerse audiences into how relativity can warp our perceptions of time itself.
While Christopher Nolan exercised creative liberties with the depicted scale of time dilation, he succeeded tremendously in bringing Einstein‘s relativity into mainstream consciousness. By conveying spacetime warping visually through the audible ticking clocks and rapid data uploads, Interstellar stimulates wonder around reality not always aligning to our human perceptions.
The movie imprints several powerful contemplations around time for audiences:
- That time behaves differently across varying frames of reference.
- That future human exploration will have to grapple with relativity in radical ways.
- That love and connection can perhaps transcend the physical boundaries and rules of spacetime itself.
Ultimately, Interstellar reminds us of the untapped mysteries around time by creatively extrapolating experimental concepts to their most extreme for cinema. And independent of precise scientific accuracy, it represents one of the most ambitious and stunning movies to portray just how weird and unexpectedly malleable our cosmos may turn out to be!