New Star Trek science consultant Dr. Erin Macdonald talks exploding suns, warp drive and why transporters just won’t work

The destruction of Romulus in Star Trek (2009)

A new article in Science Focus, the online home of BBC Science Focus Magazine, focuses on the science of Star Trek: Picard with Trek’s newest science consultant, Dr. Erin Macdonald.

One of the main points of discussion is whether our Sun could destroy the Earth, in a similar way to how the fictional Romulan sun went supernova and destroyed Romulus. Macdonald first explains that because our sun is pretty average in terms of mass, it’s simply not going to up and explode. So what will happen to our sun as it ages?

According to Macdonald, “Our Sun works by fusing hydrogen and helium. [...] Over time, this reaction will use up all the hydrogen in the centre of the Sun, and the residual helium will start to fuse into carbon. We’ll get heavier and heavier materials until our Sun just runs out. It’s only so massive and it will only fuse for so long.” Macdonald further explains that during this process, the Sun will grow in size, slowly becoming a red giant, with its radius eventually reaching where the Earth is now. But probably not for another 5 billion years.

“So yes,” Macdonald says, “Romulus exploding is a great tie-in [to Star Trek canon], but not something we need to worry about our star doing any time soon.”

What about other well-known Trek “science”? Macdonald says she believes warp drive is “theoretically, mathematically” possible, but that transporters are a no-go because the Heisenberg uncertainty principle rules them out. However, she says, “What Star Trek did is brilliant [...] They have a component in transporters called the Heisenberg Compensator – they don’t say anything more than that.”

You yourself can ponder over the pseudo-science of Star Trek: Picard; episode 3, “The End is the Beginning” will be available for streaming this Thursday, February 6th.