Download “Contact” Movie Notes

“Contact” Movie Notes
Astronomers in the movie use what look like satellite dishes to gather information about stars in the galaxy. These are radio
telescopes. These actually do exist, in New Mexico!
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What do these telescopes “look” at? ____________________________________
The main character says that she works for an organization called SETI.
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What does SETI stand for? ______________________________________________________________________
At the party, the theologian points out what science is.

What was his statement? Science is the search for ________________________.
Venus can be seen in the night sky some nights. It was named that for its beauty. What scientists didn’t know at the time is
that Venus is inhabitable for humans because:
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_____________________________________________________________________________________________
The main religious person in the movie has a quote at the beginning of the movie that is very profound (it is also repeated by
the main character at the end of the movie). What is that statement?
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If we are the only civilization in the universe ….. _____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
The astrophysicists studying these stars ran across a large, steady signal from a specific, but unexpected place.
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What was the name of that object/place? ________________________________

Why do the scientists need to hurry to decide whether to tell someone about that signal or not?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
An older, male astronomer was picked to be the representative to go through the machine for the first time. He died
tragically in a suicide bombing. The next scientist in line to go was the main character. When the passenger pod was
dropped into the machine, what happened?

Ellie was transported in what she called a tunnel, or a ______________________ to other areas of the universe.
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After she sees the star Vega, she is swooped off again into a wormhole and her next stop is at a system of stars, that
she calls a ___________________________ system.

The swirling cloud that Ellie first sees in the sky around her final destination could be considered a nebular cloud (or
interstellar cloud), which is where a ____________ is forming in the center.
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Just before Ellie is dropped out of the machine, she sees a group of shiny lights shooting across the sky. What do
you think this could be? _________________________________________________________________________
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Ockham’s razor is a scientific term describing that if everything is equal, the _______________________________
explanation is often the correct one.