8-Year-Old Boy Points Out Errors In Planetarium Documentary About Rockets, Storms off

A Chinese boy became an internet star after he visited a planetarium and quickly pointed out errors in an educational video about rockets.

Yan Hongsen, 8, accompanied his father to the planetarium in Lhasa, Tibet, and noticed that a science education film about China’s Long March rockets, shown to visitors, had several blunders in them. During his July 16 visit, Yan grew furious over the documentary inaccurately identifying the Long March 3 rocket, the South China Morning Post reported.

“What are they showing here!” the infuriated boy said in a video that went viral. “How can they caption this as Long March 5? This is Long March 3!”

An exasperated Yan then stormed out of the screening in disgust.

The boy’s rant was widely seen by internet users, who were impressed by Yan’s extensive knowledge about the space industry in China. Yan was also praised for easily catching the inaccuracies in the planetarium’s video.

“I am deeply impressed by his talents!” one commenter reportedly said. “This is a God-sent star to help China’s space industry.”

“Children’s excellence is closely related to parental guidance; if it were not for the parents’ many attempts, the child’s talents might not have been discovered,” another added.

Netizens also slammed the planetarium for displaying a video that carried “low-level mistakes.”

“The planetarium was using those videos to fool adults, and they didn’t expect children to come,” joked one netizen.

The planetarium acknowledged the mistakes in the video and said they would have the errors corrected, according to AsiaOne.

Yan’s father explained that the child has been a space science enthusiast for years and often creates rocket models out of cardboard. He even shares his knowledge with other enthusiasts through online classes.

The father explained that the child’s love for space science began when he was around four years of age.

“Like many other parents, we were eager to learn about his interests,” the father told the outlet. “So we began to try various things, like digging up rocks for him and taking him to see trains, until one day he saw the launch of the Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite-2 at the Jiuquan satellite launch center.”

“He became interested in space science as a result of the rocket launch. And because of space science, he fell in love with astronomy and military affairs,” he continued.

Physics, chemistry and computer programming also became subjects that piqued the little boy's interest.

“It’s a strength of his that he can study in his spare time, even while eating, going to the bathroom, in the car or on the bus,” the father added.