Ami's Science Behind the Manga

Naoko's manga embodies a lot of scientific stuff that lots of people don't realize. Here's a look at some of the scientific facts behind the storyline.

In Sailor Moon, Gurio wonders if the ginzuishou's light was a supernova. A supernova is when a star explodes.

In Sailor Moon, Ami researches facts on the moon before they visit. She finds out that the moon's mass is 1/80 of earth, the moon's diameter is 1/4 the diameter of earth, and the moon's gravity is 1/6 of earth's. The minimum escape velocity (velocity needed to escape an orbit) of earth is 11.2 km/s while the escape velocity for the moon is 2.4 km/s.

In Sailor Moon, the senshi visit the moon at night. If they weren't senshi, they would have frozen to death due to the moon's extreme cold.

In Sailor Moon, the Dark Kingdom exists in the North Pole. If your average Joe visited the Dark Kingdom, his limbs would instantly freeze and break off if he goes without proper amounts of layering.

In Sailor Moon R, the Black Moon is called Nemesis. Nemesis has the ability to change its orbit. In truth, the earth's orbit is not a perfect circle but an oval, or ellipse. A circle has 1 center but an ellipse has 2. One center, or focus, is the sun. The other is empty space. There is a theory that another sun that comes-and-goes serves as the other focus. It is called Nemesis and supposedly when it returns from its unknown orbit it will collide into us, thus killing everyone (ouch.)

In Sailor Moon SuperS, when Sailor Moon frees the Amazoness Quartet, they become the Asteroid Senshi - Sailor Ceres, Sailor Vesta, Sailor Juno, and Sailor Pallas. These are the names of the largest asteroids in existence. Juno supposedly spent her life persecuting her husbands deeds, while Vesta is the goddess of fire and the hearth.

Throughout the series, Naoko uses different things for enemy names. Nephrite, Zoicite, Jadeite and Kunzite are stones. Kunzite is a pink spodumene. Zoicite is a blue tanzanite. Jadeite is a hard stone that comes in a variety of colors, called true jade. Nephrite is a soft dark green stone, another type of jade. Gem names are Esmeraude (emerald), Safir (sapphire), Rubeus(ruby), Zircon and Zirconia (cubic zirconia), and Demando (diamond). Many enemy names are derived from something that can probably be found in an earth science textbook.