Our Heavenly Bodies

Acts

The film is divided into seven acts. The first, On the Road to Truth (Auf dem Weg zur Wahrheit), presents a history of cosmology. The Night Sky (Der nächtliche Himmel) covers the Moon: its motion and faces, its tides, lunar eclipses; the fixed stars, Berlin-Babelsberg Observatory, constellations, the North Star, comets, meteors and falling stars. The Star of Day (Das Gestirn des Tages) discusses sunspots, auroras, solar eclipse, solar prominences, night, day and meridians, heating of the equator vs. poles, earthly seasons.

A Flight to the Moon (Ein Flug zum Mond) introduces a "fantasty ship" pulled by "huge electrical energies," calling it a "space ship." It depicts its launch, discusses the nature of the vacuum of space, the idea of a Moon-day, the Earth as seen from the Moon. The Sun's Children (Der Sonne Kinder) continues the imaginary journey to Mercury (mentions that it's thought that Mercury always presents the same face to the Sun), Venus, Mars, its seasons and polar caps, the observed canals.

Depicts an imaginary landing, and people bouncing around in reduced gravity. Asteroids. A depiction of Gulliver's Travels in Lilliput illustrates Jupiter's size. The moons of Jupiter.

Depicts a person labouring to crawl on the surface of Jupiter, and giants residing on Jupiter. Saturn's rings as "numberless small bodies," depicts the rings as seen from Saturn, and Saturn's moons; Uranus; Neptune, its discovery, and its one big moon. At the Gates of Infinity (An den Toren der Unendlichkeit) explains that there is no up or down in space, and attempts to show people in zero gravity; discusses nebulas. The travellers use a flat view screen to look back on Earth, where they witness historical events.

As the ship proceeds to travel faster than light, the travellers view the same historical events in reverse. The ship then proceeds much faster than light to visit binary stars — Algol, globular cluster. The fantasy comes to an end as they leave the last star of the Milky Way. (In 1924 it was controversial whether the Milky Way comprised the universe or not.)

Becoming and Waning in Outer Space (Werden und Vergehen im Weltenraum) discusses the relative movements of stars; that the shape of constellations is a matter of perspective; a mass of gas taking a spiral disk shape, wherein knots form to become planets — in their youth as gas, forming a solid kernel — formation of (terrestrial) planets; erosion of surface of Earth, prehistoric creatures. Speculates on the future of the Earth — shows people freezing, then a very extended depiction of the world burning up upon being hit by another heavenly body.

Did You Know?

• Scenes of the film are often described as forerunners of space science-fiction films, especially Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• The film's spirit and content more closely parallels that of Carl Sagan's TV series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
• The film was described as being "overwhelming" and a "wild success" at the time, in contrast with Ufa's later, better known production Metropolis.