[mcswell]

Not about the stars part or the map, but xenonite struck me as rather odd from a scientific standpoint. Apparently it's some organic chemical bonded--somehow--to xenon. But the mystery depended on the mass spectrometer Grace uses to analyze xenonite not being able to detect nuclei of atoms smaller than some atomic number (something like 20?). So he couldn't tell what it was made of, except for xenon. My initial assumption was that it had to do with one of the few xenon-based compounds we know about, XeF4 (xenon tetrafloride), but there must be more to it than that.

[IAmBroom]

The movie makes it clear that it is both an unknown, and unexpected, xenon-based material. Plus, the scientist analyzing it has (presumably) no real background in materials science.

IOW: it's intended to seem odd.