Goofs

Martin Landau's character, Gen. Adlon, must have been a naughty boy. He is first portrayed as a three star general, but seems to have been demoted before the 'meeting' @ about seventeen minutes.

At 1:31, Narrator gives speed of comet as 108,000 MPH. At about 6:01, 'Sherwood' says that the observatory called (7 days ago), and the comet was: "a couple of hundred thousand miles" from the belt. By the time Sherwood says this, the comet is almost 18 MILLION miles past the belt.

Paul Bradley (Connery) is shown riding in the limousine to a meeting. He is wearing a white shirt and dark tie. When he arrives at the meeting room, he is now wearing a black shirt and striped tie.

Every time we see the meteor heading toward Earth, the distances change between shots.

When the splinter hits NYC, the same ground level shot looking up at the Twin Towers exploding is repeated moments later.

Comet tails do not automatically trail behind them; they are always pointed away from the Sun.

The rockets sent to hit the meteor would not burn their engines for the entire trip from launch to impact. Rockets are very fuel-thirsty. The ones in the movie would burn for a few minutes to achieve escape velocity and get on an intercept path. They would coast the rest of the trip to the meteor.

The meteoroid is headed for Earth at about 35,000 miles an hour, and it will hit Earth in a week. At 35,000 miles an hour, an object would take at least six months to travel from the asteroid belt to Earth orbit.

The asteroid belt is shown as being crowded with asteroids. In fact, asteroids in the belt are so far apart that one can fly right through the area without even seeing an asteroid.

Mission Control is able to communicate with Challenger 2 in real time, despite the fact that the Challenger 2 is outside the orbit of Mars. Depending on the exact positions of Earth and Mars, at that distance the transmissions would take between 13 and 24 minutes to reach Mars.

The sequence in Siberia supposedly takes place during a blizzard (flying snow is matted in over the scene). However, the Siberian man has no snow on his hair or clothes, does not have to fight any wind when walking, and leaves the flap to his hut open when he goes inside - and the smoke coming out of the hut's chimney rises vertically.

In a shot of the meteor passing in front of the Sun, the Sun appears eclipsed AND the meteor appears to be lit from somewhere to the left of the camera.

When the Challenger II is silhouetted in front of the Sun, the "Sun" is obviously a stage light, partly covered by a shade (the same thing happens again in a shot of the Hercules satellite).

Views of Peter the Great and Hercules turning into position are live on a communications center monitor. Unless each of those armed satellites had accompanying satellites with cameras, that would be impossible. Those views should have been limited to the movie audience and the monitor should have stuck to only the generic graphic, not an impossible live shot.

The Russian Transport that takes Dr. Dubov to America is an American Boeing 707 with a large red star on the nose and US Air Force style serial number on the tail. In that era a Soviet Air Force transport would have a star on the tail and number in the form CCCP-12345, or a civilian registered airliner would have the Soviet flag on the tail.

The earlier an asteroid's path is changed, the less force that is needed to change its orbit. It is simply absurd that they wouldn't have launched as soon as possible.

In the underground control center in New York City Dr Bradley (Sean Connery) meets an Air Force captain, Bill Hunter (Roger Robinson). Captain Hunter has a decidedly non-regulation mustache and haircut.