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The Independence Day: Resurgence Spaceship Has Its Own Gravity.

In the trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence, the alien spacecraft seems to rip buildings from the ground using gravitational force. Is that physically possible? Nope. But that didn't stop us from calculating the mass it would need in order to destroy Earth.

Released on 05/17/2016

Transcript

(♫ ...spangled banner yet wave)

[Voiceover] It's Independence Day!

The aliens are back and they're none too pleased

about losing their last battle on Earth.

Why are they screaming?

They're not screaming, they're celebrating.

[Voiceover] As part of their plan for revenge,

they move one of their large ships

over the surface of the Earth.

The ship is so massive that its starts

to gravitationally rip the Earth's surface towards it.

It has it's own gravity...

[Voiceover] But could this ever be for reals?

Like, for reals reals?

Uh, yeah!

[Voiceover] First things first.

Gravitational force is an attractive interaction

between any two objects with mass.

That means that if the Earth pulls down on a person,

the person also pulls up on the Earth.

So, in order for a building to actually be lifted up,

the gravitational attraction to the spaceship

has to be at least as large as that of the Earth.

We don't really get a good view of the spacecraft,

so lets just guess that it's 5000 meters

above the surface of the Earth.

So if it were to have a gravitational effect,

from our calculations the spaceship would need

a mass of 3.7-quintillion kilograms.

Meh. That's about the same weight of an asteroid

with a radius of about 70 kilometers.

But really.

Who's to say mass is the only thing

that can create gravitational fields?

Or, maybe the explanation is...

I got nothing.

This is a science-fiction movie for Pete's sake!

On top of that, it's an Independence Day movie!

Which doesn't give a hoot about the laws of physics.

(electronic dubstep music)