At the beginning of Don’t Look Up, a small group of astronomers gathers around Professor Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he does comet calculations on a whiteboard in an observatory on the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea. 

Mindy’s practical, scholarly attire, complete with wire-rimmed glasses, stands in sharp contrast to that of astronomer Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), who wears nose rings, combat boots, vintage straight-leg jeans, a Nordic sweater and fingerless gloves. 

As for the rest of the team, aesthetics don’t seem to be a priority: Parkas and button-down shirts (often plaid) are the unofficial uniform. 

We had to know: Do real astronomers dress like the ones in Don’t Look Up? We sat down with Amy Mainzer, the real-life inspiration for comet-spotting Kate Dibiasky, to get her official opinion on what astronomers wear while they’re on duty.

Do real astronomers dress like the ones in Don’t Look Up?

[Laughs] The fun part about this is that astronomers have a lot of different areas of style, some of which range from the very painfully nerdy to some of my colleagues who are positively fashion plates, and everything in between. However, yeah, there is definitely a tradition in astronomy of some pretty creative wear. I like to joke that a dressed-up astronomer is when I wear matching socks.

In the movie, there’s Professor Mindy with his plaid shirts and blazers. Then we’ve got Kate, and she’s got her boots; she’s got her nose rings. Would you say that those could be two fashion archetypes in astronomy?

Well, it’s funny, because I do think that there is that whole professorial look with all the plaid. I mean, I definitely have some of my colleagues where you can count how many different plaids they’re wearing on the same outfit. I mean, how much plaid can you wear at the same time? That’s definitely a look.

Yeah, that’s one way to go.

On the other side, some of my colleagues are very, very stylish, so I love the fact that Kate in the movie has her own sense of style; she’s her own person. And she clearly does not let anybody else’s notion of what a scientist ought to look like slow her down in any way.

Do you think anything Kate wore was inspired by the way you dress?

Well, I have a Twitter photo, and it’s my Star Trek outfit with my red wig on. I’m like, “Wow, okay, her hair. Yeah, a little bit like the red wig.” So there you go.

This is a rookie astronomy question, but we noticed that all the astronomers were wearing parkas in the observatory. How cold is it in observatories? And are they all that cold?

That is a very important question, because it points out that most observatories are at high altitude. And this is because you want the clearest, darkest skies. Of course, those are often found at the tops of the mountains. As anybody who’s ever spent a cloudy day on the ground knows, you want to be up above the clouds. And some of the highest-altitude mountains in the world are perfect places for astronomy because they’re so clear and so dark.

But that also means they can be pretty, pretty, pretty freaking cold. In fact, one time I went observing in Chile, which has some beautiful, beautiful sites for astronomy. Extremely, extremely high-altitude, dark, clear sites. And I managed to do a really dumb thing: I packed my parka in my checked luggage, and my luggage got lost for a week.

Oh no.

It was bad.

Did you have to borrow one? Or buy one somehow?

There wasn’t anybody else there, really. I mean, there were a few other people, but there was not much in the way of spare coats. So I literally bought a couple sweatshirts at the airport gift shop. And I just froze my butt off. That’s what happened.

So the parka wearing in the movie is legit.

Spot on. And it’s funny: You will go to some places, and everybody else is there in resortwear. And you have your big, heavy parka because you are not going to the beach. You are going to a very tall mountain.