Avatar‘s Planet and Unobtanium (ugh…): A Massively Obsessive Sci-Fi Nerd Look

Share on Facebook posted 12-15-09 by Angelo D'Argenio

Welcome to Part 3 of our aggregation of everything we know about Avatar. In the recent months, we’ve had a flood of new information about the setting and plot and from our pov, it’s about damn time. There’s so much information in the media at this point that it’s almost too much to sift through. In fact, it would take some sort of massively obsessive supercomputing sci-fi nerd to organize every detail. Luckily enough, we here at 30ninjas only employ the best in massively obsessive supercomputing sci-fi nerds. So here is a rundown of what we know of the setting and tech of Avatar.

In this post, we’re looking into the cosmology of the planet itself, its position in the universe, its strange magnetic fields, and its most important resource, unobtainium. Yes, you heard me … unobtaininum. The name is really that dumb.

Pandora

On a universe scale, Pandora is not actually that far away. In fact, if you look up at the night sky, you can see Pandora’s sun with your naked eye. Pandora is a celestial body in the Alpha Centauri system. Alpha Centauri is a binary star system that is our closest celestial neighbor in real life. Its solar system is only 4.4 light years away, which, while still massive in scale, is remarkably closer than any other celestial body. In the world of Avatar, one of the celestial bodies that orbit the largest star in the system, Alpha Centauri A, is Polyphemus. Polyphemus is a gas giant which, much like our Jupiter, is far too massive and toxic to warrant much study or to even allow any sort of exploration.

Pandora is a massive moon that orbits Polyphemus, just the right distance away from the sun to allow for life to flourish. Most of the surface is covered in tropical rain forest which is packed with plant and animal life. Typing that paragraph reminded me of my astrology and cosmology class back in college. Wow, James Cameron really did want this whole thing to be plausible.

Unobtainium

Being that Pandora is orbiting a huge gas giant in a binary star system, it is subject to the pulls of numerous gravitational fields. Without going into a massive amount of scientific jargon, lots of gravitational fields make things go bat-shit crazy. In fact the magnetic fields of Pandora are so strong, it basically hoses any sort of technology that relies heavily on electricity, like computers or other sensitive equipment. As a result of these strong magnetic fields, a rare mineral called unobtanium is naturally formed inside Pandora’s crust. For those of you familiar with science fiction and basic engineering, you know that unobtainium is a slang term for any sort of material that is too perfect to exist.

Regardless of its fucking retarded name, unobtanium is pretty much the key to humanity’s survival, and the sole reason for any sort of human presence on Pandora. Unobtainium in the Avatar world is a superconductor at room temperature, has its own magnetic field that allows it to levitate without any alterations, and if given just the right electric charge, it can bake you cookies! Just kidding. Seriously though, this stuff is awesome, so awesome that it creates gigantic floating islands that move through Pandora’s magnetic fields. If humanity has enough of it we can solve our energy crisis forever. We can create vehicles that fly and propel themselves while using no resources. We can do anything! It’s like Flubber, but without the annoying side effect of Robin Williams.