20 Things You Somehow Missed In Gravity

20. Its Inciting Incident Is A Real-Life Orbital Hazard

After the stunning opening sequence, Dr. Ryan Stone, Matt Kowalski and their fellow spacefarers received a warning from NASA's Ground Control about a rapidly approaching debris field following the shooting down of a defunct Russian satellite.

As seen throughout the remainder of the film, the debris field poses a significant threat to the astronauts, but what may not be known to some is the fact that this is an actual problem faced in current space travel.

The Kessler Syndrome (also known as collisional cascading or ablation cascade) was developed by Donald Kessler in 1978, and posits that the excessive amount of trash in low Earth orbit poses a significant threat due to the increased chances of collisions with debris.

Using this phenomenon to kick off Gravity helps ground it in reality and serve as a sobering reminder of the dangers of careless space travel.