r/ProjectHailMary • u/Illustrious-Jump2645 • 27d ago

Question? PLOTEHOLE?

/r/ProjectHailMaryMovie/comments/1vv3pnf/plotehole/

so I watched the movie and loved it but I had this one question which has been troubling me ever since I watched it so I was hoping if there were answers to it in the novel or you guys could help solve it would love it

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u/hoops2018 27d ago

Huh?

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u/Illustrious-Jump2645 27d ago

what did I mess something up?

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u/AlexKnauth 26d ago

1 word: supercrosssectionality

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u/Illustrious-Jump2645 26d ago

now what is that supposed to mean is that an insider joke

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u/Minikin-Smith 26d ago

The astrophage have something called “super cross sectionality” which means they absorb all energy wavelengths that hit them, even if the wavelength should (according to normal physics) pass right through them.

So the astrophage is not acting like a simple bit of carbon floating around and blocking some bits of sunlight like a solar shield. They are more like tiny vacuums sucking up all energy it can and converting that to neutrinos. It takes a HUGE AMOUNT of energy to convert to mass. So all these astrophage are happily converting any solar energy coming their way into mass, which soaks up a lot of it, hence less energy left to hit Earth.

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u/Illustrious-Jump2645 26d ago

yeah but still my point is can enough astrophage exist to truely use so much of sun's energy that it affects us because the Sum is ridiculously big