History Main / ArtisticLicenseSpace

* ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'': There's an observatory in the middle of Gotham City.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir I Shot an Arrow into the Air]]", after launching from Earth, a spaceship goes off course and ends up on the surface of an unknown celestial object. Even though the object has Earth standard gravity and a breathable atmosphere and the Sun appears to be the same size in the sky as it is on Earth, the astronauts somehow conclude that they've landed on an asteroid. This is impossible, and the astronauts should have known it: in order for the object to be an asteroid, it would have to be the size of the Earth, and it certainly would have been already seen by astronomers. Not surprisingly, the KarmicTwistEnding of the episode is that the astronauts have in fact [[spoiler:landed back on Earth]].

* ''Literature/ASwiftlyTiltingPlanet'': Charles Wallace and Gaudior suggest that an EarthShatteringKaboom brought on by a nuclear war on Earth could be enough to cause the Sun to become a supernova. Notwithstanding Creator/MadeleineLEngle's [[AWizardDidIt customary bizarreness]], the Sun is so much bigger than Earth it wouldn't care one whit if it physically fell in, but also is far too small to ever become a supernova. (That's quite apart from the fact that [[SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfEnergy all the nuclear warheads we've ever built put together could at most render Earth uninhabitable, not destroy it altogether]].)

* In ''Film/StarTrek2009'', the Romulan system is destroyed by the shockwave from a supernova. Trouble is, the star shown exploding is an average-looking ''yellow'' Main Sequence star (like our own), which are neither hot enough nor massive enough to generate a supernova. Supernovae form almost exclusively from extremely massive blue-white stars. Also, a supernova can't destroy the galaxy or even a warp-capable multi-planetary civilization like the Romulan Star Empire, since, like everything else in the universe that doesn't have a warp drive, the expansion of its radiation and shockwave is limited by the speed of light: even a very powerful nova should give the Empire ''years'' to evacuate its core planets. [[spoiler:''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', which takes place in the prime universe 22 years after the supernova, acknowledges its implausible behavior and justifies it: it was deliberately induced by the [[BigBad Iconians]] using {{technobabble}}.]]

* Larry Niven's ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'' and ''Literature/KnownSpace'' mention a supernova chain reaction at the core of the galaxy happening thousands of years ago[[note]]Before the [[ScienceMarchesOn now commonly accepted and supported by observations]] view of black holes and/or star formation galore powering active galactic nuclei such as quasars, that was once proposed as one explanation for them.[[/note]]
* In ''A Swiftly Tilting Planet'', one of the sequels to ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'', there's given yet another reason not to throw a nuclear war on Earth: (The Sun isn't even massive enough to cause a supernova, anyway.)

* ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': In attempting to address the [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale scale problem]] of ''Film/StarTrek2009'' above, the pilot episode issues a {{retcon}} that the supernova that destroyed Romulus was of the Romulan sun itself, rather than a distant star as the film had implied (and confirmed in the tie-in comic ''ComicBook/StarTrekCountdown''). This introduces the new problem that a star big enough to turn into a Type II supernova would be unlikely to ever have any Earthlike planets around it: larger stars have shorter lifespans and produce more radiation, and the star would expand and incinerate any planets formerly orbiting in its habitable zone millions of years before going nova. (This was addressed by implying that the supernova wasn't a natural occurrence.)

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* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czQAHdRul-Y This]] ''WebVideo/DoorMonster'' video plays it for laughs. Using a completely normal telescope, they view, among other things, a meteor, an alternate universe, France and an Independence Day rerun. The thing also apparently has five septillion optical zoom.
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* Sometimes in fiction, every large telescope located in observatories have an eye piece. In reality, large telescopes usually don't have one. In addition, it's not common for the observing room to be brightly lit while in reality, the room should be dark.

* ''Series/UFO1970'': In the episode "Destruction", one character has a large telescope in her flat, looking out through a closed roof window, and uses it with the lights on. The reflections in the window would of course make it impossible to see anything. Even if she had turned off the lights, the window glass would still distort the image, and if she opened the window the turbulence caused by the temperature difference of indoors and outdoors air would ruin the images.

** Additionally, inhabitants of a world will consistently refer to ''their own homeworld'' by this terminology, even though they would have named their world before they even knew that there ''were'' other planets, as was the case with Earth in real life.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobMovieSpongeOutOfWater'', when Jupiter and Saturn crash into each other, they appear to be made of solid rock. Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants. However, like many other parts of the film, this can likely be excused by RuleOfFunny. [[spoiler: It happened when the [[ItMakesSenseInContext when the watcher of the universe was in the restroom]].]]

* In the episode ''A Planet Blown To Pieces'' of ''WesternAnimation/IlEtaitUneFois''... Space, the leaders of the [[TheFederation Omega Confederation]] discuss about the primary star of a multiple star system, where the antagonists (Cassiopeia) are building a military base, going supernova (it fall into the next category too, since they often refer to it as a ''nova'') soon. Not only supernovae do not work the way it's explained there but also in the show people are far more concerned about the debris of the explosion -that moves far slower than the light, thus not reaching the planet where's the base is located until days later and allowing Omega to assembly a fleet of ships to save the prisoners used as construction workers- than the energy emitted by it. In RealLife, the energy emitted by the supernova is '''''far''''' more dangerous than its debris, and it moves at the speed of light -so no days to rescue everyone on that planet, as happens there (at best, hours)-[[note]]The sheer dumbness of a general who decides to build a base in a place so dangerous, ignoring those who warn him about the instability of that star, ''and even with the supernova having destroyed the planet'' sends ships to savage base's equipment is not discussed here[[/note]].

Earlier media can get a pass since they were made in a time when [[ScienceMarchesOn there hadn't been much research on the subject yet]]. Modern portrayals of space, however, still haven't changed much from the [[TheAsteroidThicket rock-filled]], [[SpaceIsNoisy noisy]] place where an unprotected human can instantly [[ExplosiveDecompression explode]] into [[SpaceIsCold clouds of ice]]. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools However]], some of the modern misrepresentations can be put down to the RuleOfCool, RuleOfDrama, AcceptableBreaksFromReality, or simply the belief that audiences [[TheCoconutEffect wouldn't accept it any other way]].

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* In ''Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem'', the Alpha Centauri system is depicted as chaotic, subject to the titular mathematical principle, with the stars orbiting around each other in unpredictable ways. The planet Trisolaris is a victim of this, getting tossed around like a football between different stars, going from Stable Eras where it settles into orbit around one star to Chaotic Eras where the atmosphere freezes or the surface melts. The planet is also the last in its system and is doomed to fall into one of its stars, prompting the aliens living there to [[AlienInvasion migrate to Earth]]. This is not how the Alpha Centauri system or ''any'' multi-star system works- Alpha Centauri A and B both orbit around each other and Proxima Centauri orbits the two at a distance of 13,000 AU, and the latter has two confirmed planets.

* The final result of Adam Warren's ''Literature/DirtyPair'' comic arc "Fatal But Not Serious" (during which [[CloningBlues a cloned Yuri]] raises hell on a planet) is the launch of a supernova-causing weapon to the nearest sun, which makes it explode with such power that ''other supernovae will occur from the shockwave''. This is not possible-supernovae don't produce a "shockwave" powerful enough to create "sympathetic explosions" of other suns (''especially'' because they are normally too far away from each other for this to happen, if it ''could'' happen in RealLife), and while it's never said about what the weapon can cause other than that it can cause supernovae, it's easy to assume that such a mess would be beyond the designer's original desire (and it was unmodified, mind). [[WalkingDisasterArea Just another thing that could be chalked to their inhumanly bad luck]], apparently.

* In ''Film/LaraCroftTombRaider'', all the planets including Pluto ([[ScienceMarchesOn which at the time, was a planet]]) are aligned. Okay. Pluto's orbit is highly erratic, tilted at an angle of 17 degrees to the ecliptic and highly eccentric (being the wrong kind of ellipse). It will probably never align closely with all the other planets in the lifespan of the solar system, but you can't have a ''really'' good planetary collection without having the whole set.

* Towards the end of Creator/JKRowling's ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', in mid or late June, Harry is taking his astronomy O.W.L. and charting Orion. Orion is not visible in the night sky in mid or late June at ''any'' latitude. The same scene also has him looking around for Venus (which is never more than 47 degrees away from the sun) around midnight. Needless to say, he didn't do particularly well on ''that'' O.W.L.. Just as well. Muggles have to be better at ''something.''

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* In the 1959 film of ''Film/JourneyToTheCenterOfTheEarth'', Professor Lindenbrook remarks that more is known about the stars and galaxies than about the depths of our own planet. The film is set in the mid-1800s, when the term "galaxy" only applied to our own Milky Way; the distant celestial objects now known to be other galaxies were then called "spiral nebulae".

* The final result of Adam Warren's ''ComicBook/DirtyPair'' arc "Fatal But Not Serious" (during which [[CloningBlues a cloned Yuri]] raises hell on a planet) is the launch of a supernova-causing weapon to the nearest sun, which makes it explode with such power that ''other supernovae will occur from the shockwave''. This is not possible-supernovae don't produce a "shockwave" powerful enough to create "sympathetic explosions" of other suns (''especially'' because they are normally too far away from each other for this to happen, if it ''could'' happen in RealLife), and while it's never said about what the weapon can cause other than that it can cause supernovae, it's easy to assume that such a mess would be beyond the designer's original desire (and it was unmodified, mind). [[WalkingDisasterArea Just another thing that could be chalked to their inhumanly bad luck]], apparently.

''Literature/ThebeAndTheAngryRedEye'' plays so fast and loose with real science that creator David Hopkins [[https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16405724/ wrote an article]] for Fur Affinity that acknowledges and addresses several of the story's inaccuracies, some of which he left in due to RuleOfCool.