OK ehres a question.... for any one who has ever seen star trek voyager and i may osund liek a nerd or trekky here but tehy always seem to ahve to fly through something, couldnt they just flew upa nd go above it? What are teh chances a comet can hit earth when it is so small compared relative to space?
Because it wouldn't look as cool. That's it. The Star Trek shows are produced to entertain, not merely to teach us about astronomy. Ever wonder why nothing important ever happens when the night shift bridge crew is on duty? Why everybody's favorite piece of music is something from our era? Why all but one or two races of aliens have five fingers? The laws of probability are suspended. If you want science in your science fiction, stick with books by Robert L. Forward, James P. Hogan, etc. If you join the TV audience you'd better be prepared for some eye-popping visual entertainment with an occasional juicy dose of morality. Science is not a high priority. We've got books for that. Sorry.
I think the stuff they have to fly though is really big, so sometimes it's quicker to fly through something rather than go around it. As for the comets question. The chances of comets hitting earth at any given time are relatively small. But keep in mind, objects collide with the earth fairly regularly. There are many impact craters on earth. I don't know which ones are from comets, but some of them are really huge like the Sudbury crater in Ontario (250km diameter) or the likely dinosaur killer in the Yucatan (170km diameter). Yes, space is big, and the earth is small, but time is long and flying chuncks of rock/ice are many.
Try the anime (or the book if you can find a English translated version) "Crest of the stars"... they go through a lot of hyperspace dimensions. Also there are no alien, just Humans verse genetically engineered humans with blue hair, pointy ears, really hot bodies in very tight suits, and feudal government. And the battle scenes are very realistic: did you know that a war ship load with anit-matter fuel actually has the tendency to explode? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
