The science behind the show

Did you experience a fantastic space journey with Kosmos Airlines? Did you visit Mars, destroy an asteroid and see a black hole? Then you might be wondering if you can do the same in real life. That's why we listed for you what is possible and what is not (yet).

Is there really no sound in space?

‘Don't shout in an emergency because no one will hear you in space.’ That helpful advice is given to you at the start. Crazy, isn't it, that no one can hear you! That's because sounds are actually vibrations. Those vibrations need air, water or another substance to travel. So they travel, for example, from your mouth to the ears of your (grand)parents or friends.

But... most of space is vacuum. There is no air. So the vibrations cannot travel. You can shout, but the vibrations no longer reach anyone's ears.

So is there no sound in space at all? No, in some places there are clouds of gas. Thanks to those gas particles, sound can propagate.

Can you artificially generate gravity?

When you travel through space, there is no gravity. So normally, you start floating. But did you know that you can generate ‘gravity’ by making the spaceship rotate all the time? This pushes you against the ship. You can compare it somewhat to spinning a bucket of water. The water doesn't fall out of the bucket either and is pressed against the bottom.

Can you generate energy by stomping your feet?

The spaceship needs alternative energy: you guys! Stomp it out. Did you know that you can actually generate power with movement? That's possible with piezoelectric crystals. These are crystals that generate electricity when pressed. You can already find them on some dance floors. When people dance on them, they generate electricity and the dance floor lights up in all kinds of cool colours.

Can you travel faster than light?

To travel faster than light through the universe, we use our ‘warp engines’. Unfortunately, that technology - which you may know from Star Trek - does not exist (yet).

Can you travel to Mars?

People have been on the moon, but not yet on Mars. Although that will surely come. There are quite a few countries and organisations that want to send people to Mars. Elon Musk's company SpaceX, for instance, is developing a new mega-rocket: Starship. The US space agency NASA has its Space Launch System rocket. Which looks like this:

The first manned flight to Mars is likely to take off sometime in the 2030s. Just a little more patience, then.

Is the sun really yellow?

The sun is a medium-sized star. The category the sun belongs to is called ‘yellow dwarf’. But it is actually white in colour.

Can you destroy an asteroid?

During the stop, we save the Mars rover by destroying an asteroid. Did we really do that already? No, but NASA did manage to make an asteroid change its orbit in 2022. They shot it - not with air like in the show - but with the unmanned spacecraft DART. They deliberately allowed that spacecraft to impact the asteroid and so it changed course. DART mission accomplished!

Are we all made of stardust?

Yes we are! Without stars, you wouldn't have been born. We, everything on Earth, and even the Earth itself, are made of stardust.

In the beginning, the universe was made of gases: hydrogen and helium particles. These gases collapsed under their own weight into a dense cloud. In it, the gas particles were pressed together so strongly that they formed new, heavier particles. This is how the first stars were born.

Stars spew their particles, or their ‘dust’, back into space when they die. That dust, in turn, then forms even heavier particles in new stars. For example, carbon, calcium and iron are formed. And not only new stars are born from that dust, but also planets and living organisms.

What does a supernova look like?

What beautiful colours in such a supernova. The colours you see on film are different from what you would see in real life, though. We gave the different elements (oxygen, hydrogen, sulphur...) that are blown away in the explosion all a different colour.

This happens very often in space photos. They are processed. For example, different kinds of invisible radiation, such as infrared and UV radiation, are also given a colour. So you see more in a space photo than in real life.

Above you can see the Crab Nebula, the remnant of a supernova. The orange parts are mostly hydrogen, the red are oxygen and the green is sulphur.

What happens when you fall into a black hole?

In our show, you -happily- end up back on Earth, but in real life you wouldn't survive such a black hole. The enormous forces would turn you into a very long string. Like a spaghetti string. This is what scientists call ‘spaghettification’ (yes, really). Astronomers have already seen it happen to a star.

There are scientists who think a black hole may well be a tunnel between universes. Matter falling into the black hole gushes back out the other side. From a ‘white hole’. This is the opposite of a black hole: it does not gobble up matter, but spits it out. But we don't know that for sure yet.

As you can see, there is still a lot to discover in space. Did you find the show and this blog interesting? Then space exploration might be for you!