People badly underestimate how very rapidly understanding degrades as you move away from someone's focus of expertise.
You might laugh if you heard a conversation "You're a Doctor? Yes, of medieval french literature. Good, what do you think of my blood pressure medication?". Or people looking to their local TV meteorologist for climate-change-isn't-real expertise. Or "he's a Scientist!".
The press gets excited when say first-tier business school students don't know what causes Earth's seasons. But if the last time they touched a topic was middle school, it shouldn't shock to find a middle-school-ish understanding. Asking a protein chemist a quantum chemistry question is perhaps like asking a years-ago "I hate studying for quals" graduate student. If something isn't a focus, there's little selection pressure to prune misconceptions.
But perhaps one expects a 5-year old asking "What color is that Sun ball thing?" of first-tier astronomy graduate students to go well? Doesn't. And many of the few who get it right, learned it discussing common misconceptions in astronomy education, rather than from their own.
As you move away from people's active focus, understanding can become ramshackle startlingly fast.