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I watched the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a couple of questions regarding the physics, so I looked for answers. I got them, but I was left even more questions.

I know that a lot of these questions can be answered by "this is still a movie, so you can't expect it to be 100% accurate". I know that. So please bear in mind that this is not a rant about the movie. This is just an inquiry about how would the nature of such a planet be like, irrespective of the events in the movie.

a. I wanted to know where the planet got its "sunlight" from and I found out that it is in fact the light and heat from the accretion disk that made the environment habitable. It was however not mention how warm was the planet in comparison to earth and I could not find information, regarding real life black holes, on whether the heat from the accretion disks would in fact be not too hot and thus able to sustain life.

b. Dr. Kip Thorne writes in his book "The Science of Interstellar" that the planet was tidally locked. Doesn't this mean that half the planet, the dark side, would be frozen, and the other half would be scorching (a Mercury situation), thus eliminating any chance of sustaining life?

c. If the planet was indeed half frozen half scorching, coupled with the surface being totally covered in water, the giant tidal waves should not have formed. Is that a correct inference?

d. Assuming the planet isn't half cold half hot. Are the giant tidal wave at all a scientifically accurate prediction of what would have happened in such an environment?

e. The gravitational time dilation was 1 hour of Miller = 7 years on Earth. The x60000 factor was a product of Dr. Kip Thorne looking for a stable orbit, the size of the black hole and that the black hole was spinning at close to maximum velocity. Is there a combination of these factors (stable orbit, black hole size and black hole angular velocity) which would allow for a stable orbit with way less time dilation?

f. I also read that the Miller's sky was not accurately depicted. That, because the black hole was much closer to the planet, the event horizon (the accretion disk) should have taken up half the sky with the other half looking warped, similar to how a photo with long exposure would look like. However would this sky be visible from the surface when factoring in the atmosphere or just from orbit?

Talli
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  1. The accretion disk of black holes can be extremely hot, up to million degrees. The temperature of a planet is influenced by many factors such as the distance from the BH, the presence of atmosphere, the fact that some of the heat from the accretion disk can be shielded by the outer layers of the disk itself and so on. It is not unrealistic that it could be habitable.

  2. It again depends on the atmosphere and the orbit, but in general I would agree with you. Maybe you can find regions in between light and darkness that could always be at an habitable temperature.

  3. Again maybe in the region between light and darkness, you could find liquid water.

  4. I would say yes, but there should be only one big wave in my opinion.

  5. Probably if you play with the parameters. See this very nice post What is the maximum time dilation factor when orbiting a rotating black hole?

  6. Not really sure if I understand this question correctly, but it depends on the atmosphere, if it is enough optically thin, you could see the stars also in "daylight"

Davide Dal Bosco
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