7 Ways No Man’s Sky Gives Us A Science Boner

After years of hype, No Man's Sky is finally out.

Whether you were hugely excited, wildly disappointed or mildly entertained, you have to admit that it's pretty groundbreaking stuff, even just for it's truly mind bogglingly massive scale.

As well as being great for gamers, there's plenty in there for the science crowd. Perhaps it's unsurprising that a game set in space will get the old science buds tingling, but it goes beyond the feeling of "Isn't space pretty?" and delves into some of the weirder, more wonderful, more obscure nooks and crannies of physics, astronomy and even astrobiology. So much so that it led Elon Musk to reiterate his belief that we might be living in an artificial reality (this isn't as madcap as it sounds).

Giving science nerds the opportunity to explore a complex and self-inventing universe is something that dreams are made of. This is, after all, a big reason why a lot of people do science, so that one day we might be able to hop in our space ships and discover brand new worlds for realsies.

Sure, the science isn't perfect, and the makers have taken some liberties for the sake of entertainment. This is probably something of a wise move, considering how many gamers - usually spoilt with dizzying set pieces, big explosions, sexy lady aliens and dramatic storylines - have already denounced NMS as eye pokingly tedious.

There are, however, little touches in there that are enough to set our science sensors a-quiver.