What are common misconceptions people have about outer space?

A lot of people have some pretty big misconceptions about space. To be fair, very few of us have ever been, there's a lot more to study before anybody really knows what's actually going on up there, and movies tend to give us the complete wrong idea. read more

Judging by Gravity, the movie, here is a partial list of things that people don't get about outer space (which I take to mean low-Earth orbits): 1. Distances are huge. 2. Velocities are huger -- satellites are in orbit because of their velocities, they are falling constantly and overshooting the ground. read more

A lot of people have some pretty big misconceptions about space. To be fair, very few of us have ever been, there’s a lot more to study before anybody really knows what’s actually going on up there, and movies tend to give us the complete wrong idea. read more

There’s NO gravity in outer space. (Quite common in students.) “Rest” is the natural state of a body. (This misconception arises from Newton’s 1st law of motion. It’s the 2nd part of the 1st law that causes the misconception.) There’ll certainly be a time when your energy will finally run out its course. read more