I'm watching The Next Generation, which is a lovely show. This episode opens in hilarious fashion, though. Geordi is explaining the nature of a new planet to Riker. He describes it as "Nasty. Hydrogen, methane, liquid neon... surface temperature minus 291 degrees Celsius. Winds up to 312 meters per second." In case the viewer wasn't sufficiently impressed by the fact that liquid anything is being blown about at about 20 degrees below absolute zero, the screen they're looking at displays a few more interesting facts about the planet.

In addition to having a mean surface temp of -291°C (the wind must be coming from the warmer parts--you know, the ones that obey the basic principles of thermodynamics), the planet has an estimated age of 7.2x10^10 solar years (a little over 7 times the age of the universe) and a mass of 4.35x10^12. I don't know what units--the screen provides hours and days for the rotation and revolution period, degrees Celsius for the mean surface temperature, and solar years for age, but apparently in the future mass is a dimensionless quantity. Being charitable and assuming it's in kilograms, we have something that, as far as I can tell, is a bit over 1/1000 of the size of the Martian moon Deimos (which, at 1.4762×10^15 kg is unable to form a spherical shape due to how weak its gravity is).

This isn't a huge deal. I still love Star Trek, and if I hadn't heard "negative 291 Celsius" I wouldn't have noticed any of this. Still, it tickles me pink that even a soft scifi show could get so much so terribly wrong.

What are some science errors (Star Trek or otherwise) that you came across and found amusing?