Browse content similar to Curious About Mars. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Good evening. This is a good time to talk about Mars. The red planet, | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
possibly the most interesting in the entire solar system, | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
and the planet least unlike the Earth. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:40 | |
Just a few words about it. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
It's the fourth planet out from the sun, smaller than Earth, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
but bigger than the moon, has a thin atmosphere, and life? | 0:00:45 | 0:00:50 | |
Well, we don't yet know. Nothing very advanced. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:53 | |
As first views go, you can see the main markings. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:56 | |
The dark areas, the white polar caps, and the red deserts. | 0:00:56 | 0:01:00 | |
There was a time | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
when the dark markings were thought of as seas and the polar caps | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
a thin layer of hoar frost, | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
although they are solidly carbon dioxide. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:11 | |
We know much better now. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:12 | |
I've been drawing Mars and so has Paul Abel. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
-Good evening, Paul. -Hi, Patrick. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
Paul, what have you been seeing? | 0:01:17 | 0:01:18 | |
Some very interesting features on Mars. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
When Mars is up close, even your three-inch refractor | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
will show quite a bit of detail. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:25 | |
-Mars is smaller than Earth. -Yeah. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:27 | |
Further away from the sun, a much longer year, | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
but it spins quite quickly. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:31 | |
Its day's only half an hour longer than ours. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
That's right and this is quite interesting. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:36 | |
If you go out and observe Mars on successive nights, | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
you get this retro rotation. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:41 | |
To see the whole surface, you need three weeks. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:43 | |
Over the course of those three weeks you'll see four distinct faces. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
There's the Syrtis Major region, there's the Sinus Sabaeus region, | 0:01:48 | 0:01:52 | |
the Thatsis region within the geology, and then the dull | 0:01:52 | 0:01:57 | |
and unintersting side with the deserts in. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
I think perhaps the most striking feature on Mars | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
-must be the Syrtis Major. -Oh, yes. Was once called the Hourglass Sea. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
-Also named the Kaiser Sea. -It was indeed. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:08 | |
But Syrtis Major is quite a stark contrast feature on the planet Mars. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:13 | |
It was one of the first recorded observations. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
Christiaan Huygens recorded Syrtis Major in 1659. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
I've seen it easily with your three-inch refractor | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
and a good telescope will show progressively more. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
Huygens, of course, didn't know what it was. It's a plateau. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:27 | |
It is a plateau, yes. | 0:02:27 | 0:02:29 | |
As you said earlier on, the earlier thinking | 0:02:29 | 0:02:32 | |
was that these dark places on Mars where thought to be vegetation. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:36 | |
-We now know that's not true. -We must mention the Martian canal. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
Percival Lowell, he used a big telescope, which I've used myself. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:43 | |
So have I. The Lowell is a great telescope. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
And he drew Mars, and he drew straight, | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
artificial-looking lines which he believed were canals | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
dug by intelligent Martians. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:53 | |
He did, he did. Sadly, he was fooled, wasn't he? His eyesight... | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
Clearly tricks of the eye. | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
Moving away from Syrtis Major, we have | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
that lovely, curving feature, Sinus Sabaeus. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
-That's a beauty. -A lovely feature. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:05 | |
And then just next to that, we have one of my favourite regions, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
which is Mare Acidalium and Erythraeum | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
and, of course, the Chryse region, which we think | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
may have been a sea at one point. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
-And don't forget Hellas. -Hellas. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
In the early days, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:20 | |
it was thought Hellas was an enormously bright peak. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
A snow-covered peak. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:24 | |
-Now it's a deep plateau. -The deepest basin on Mars. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
From the Northern region, it can look like an extra polar cap. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:30 | |
It can, especially when the Northern hemisphere is well presented. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:34 | |
Hellas can look very bright indeed. Next, we have the Tharsis region. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:38 | |
-There we have the great volcanoes. -Absolutely. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:40 | |
Olympus Mons is visible in your 15-inch reflector. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
We didn't know what it was. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:45 | |
No, but know we know it's one of the large volcanoes. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:47 | |
No one knew that before the first spacecraft went there. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:51 | |
The first really good close-up view was obtained in 1970. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
Three times the height of Everest. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
-And you get this lovely sort of W shaped or M shaped cloud regions that form. -The great question is, | 0:03:57 | 0:04:04 | |
are they active now? They are certainly dormant, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
they may be extinct, but I'm not too sure about that. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
-Hopefully spacecraft of the future will let us know. -Not active now. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:15 | |
Volcanoes on Mars are very tall and very massive because there are no great tectonics there. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:20 | |
-No. -On Earth, the volcanoes sit on great tectonics, but on Mars they don't. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:25 | |
One of the interesting things, as much as the drawings reveal a lot of the structre, you yourself made maps, | 0:04:25 | 0:04:30 | |
lots of people made maps of the Martian surface. The spacecraft really revealed the geology of Mars. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:35 | |
For example, in the Tharsis region we have this enormous grand canyon region that goes through Tharsis. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:41 | |
-A huge thing. -You could fit most of America in it, it's an unbelievable place. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:46 | |
I've been observing Mars for many years, from my own observatory | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
and from some of the world's largest telescopes, including Lowell's. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:53 | |
But you can also see a good deal with much smaller telescopes. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
And on Hampstead Heath, there's a nice little observatory | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
open to the public where there is a six-inch refractor, | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
and it's very popular. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:06 | |
Quite recently, Pete and Paul paid a visit there. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:10 | |
OK, so here we are in London. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
Who'd have thought you've got a big observatory like this | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
-in the middle of London? -Good, isn't it? | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
-Did Patrick come here? -He did. I think in '57. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
He came here to make some Mars drawings | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
with a six-inch Cooke refractor. Very good for planetary drawings. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
Absolutely perfect. If it's clear tonight, we might get a view of Jupiter, as well. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:30 | |
Doug Daniels is president of the Hampstead Scientific Society, | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
which has been looking at the stars and planets since 1910. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
The observatory is run by volunteers and relies on donations | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
to keep it going. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
It's open to the public from September to April, | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
two nights a week and a Sunday morning. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
And, of course, the planets are very popular. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
Mars has been a particular fascination | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
and Hampstead astronomers have been observing it for the past 100 years. | 0:05:56 | 0:06:01 | |
-And there it is. -Oh, isn't that fantastic? -It's lovely, isn't it? | 0:06:01 | 0:06:05 | |
-We've clear skies. -We should see the planets tonight. -You think so? | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
-It's cold. -You're never prepared. -I know, I'm hopeless. After you. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:12 | |
-Hello, Doug. -Hello, Paul. -Thanks for inviting us. -Hello, Doug. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:16 | |
-Nice to see you. -So you're in charge of this magnificent instrument? | 0:06:16 | 0:06:20 | |
Yes, I've been in charge for more years than I care to remember. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:24 | |
It's a lovely six inch refracter. Can you tell us when it was first established? | 0:06:24 | 0:06:29 | |
Well, the optimum tube assembly itself was built by Thomas Cooke of York in about 1899, | 0:06:29 | 0:06:34 | |
and it was presented to the society by a generous member, George Avenell, in 1923. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:41 | |
The observatory itself was established on this site in 1910, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
-so last year we celebrated the centenary. -Fantastic. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
It has always been part of our brief to open this observatory to members of the public, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
so that they get access to an astronomical telescope, and we've been doing that | 0:06:50 | 0:06:55 | |
on clear Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
and we've been doing that for 100 years now. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
So you've covered a lot of astronomical events. Haley's Comet, Shoemaker Levy 9. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
Haley's Comet was seen twice from this observatory, the orignal pass in 1910, | 0:07:04 | 0:07:08 | |
and then in 1986, when we had about 1,000 people queueing up in the freezing cold to see it. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:13 | |
Generally speaking, we use the telescope now | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
for looking at solar system objects, the moon and planets. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
-Later on, hopefully, we'll see Jupiter. -That would be fantastic. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
-The sky is clear. -Hopefully it stays that way. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
Unfortunately, we won't see Mars, because that doesn't rise here | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
-until quite early in the morning. -I noticed earlier you had a logbook | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
with some wonderful old Mars drawings. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
-Can we have a look at them? -Yes, you can. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
-We have drawings dating right the way back to 1910. -Good grief. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:42 | |
And there are some reports and everything else there. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
Look at the colour of these. They're superb, aren't they? | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
Thank you very much. Those two are mine. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
Oh, well done! Very good! | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
It's not surprising that mars is so interesting, because it's the only planet int he solar system | 0:07:53 | 0:07:58 | |
-apart from ours that we can see the surface of. -Absolutely! And it's very similar to the Earth. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:02 | |
-In some ways. -A day is similar to us, it has seasons. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:04 | |
-Hopefully we'll catch Jupiter later on. -With any luck. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
And we'll get a good view, this telescope gives good definition on planets. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:11 | |
'While we wait for night to fall and Jupiter to rise, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
'Pete and I have some fun things for you to look at over November.' | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
-Oh, it's definitely a bit nippy. -How about here? -This'll do. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
Jupiter is the obvious thing we should mention first, Pete. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
Very, very bright object. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:30 | |
It's incredibly bright and if you go out sort of | 0:08:30 | 0:08:33 | |
in the later part of the night, there it is, very high up, | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
very prominent in the sky. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:38 | |
It was at opposition at the end of October and that's the point | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
when it's actually in the opposite part of the sky to the sun. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
And quite a good opposition. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:47 | |
That's approximately about a 30th of the diameter of the moon. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
-That's quite impressive for a planet. -It's still quite impressive. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
Some very fascinating details on Jupiter. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:55 | |
The great red spot's quite prominent. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
-The southern equatorial belt's come back. -It has. -We've got these storms. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:01 | |
We've got these amazing bargees. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
-Very dark spots. -Dark spots which have been spread out. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
There's some very prominent ones in the north equatorial belt. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:09 | |
Very interesting objects. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
It's an amazing planet to look at, it really is. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
Well, that's Jupiter. Moving on now to Mars. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:16 | |
Mars is making a bit of a comeback in the night sky. You have a nice event | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
-you've picked out for us. -I have. -Well, we think it's nice. -It is nice. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:25 | |
It's actually quite striking, because what's going to happen | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
is Mars is going to move very close to the bright star | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
in Leo the lion, which is Regulus. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
Regulus sits at the bottom of a backward question mark | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
of stars known as The Sickle, so that's quite easy to identify it. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:41 | |
Both Regulus and Mars will be about the same brightness | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
and get really close on the morning of the 11th, so you have to get up | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
in the early morning, about 5.30am, if you can face that. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:52 | |
There's no real cosmic significance, but what really stands out | 0:09:52 | 0:09:56 | |
-is the contrasting colour. -Yes, of course. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
Because Mars looks very red and Regulus looks sort of whitey-blue. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
It's really striking when they're close together. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
I've never seen that grouping before. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
-Definitely worth seeing. -A photographic opportunity there. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
So early morning of the 11th. You'll see it several days either side | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
and it'll look really impressive. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:16 | |
I'll keep a look out for that. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
-Moving on, we have the planet Saturn. -It's coming back. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
And it's well-tilted, so the rings are really well on display. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:26 | |
It's tilted by about 14 degrees, | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
so that means it's the north pole of the planet has been tilted over, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:32 | |
and the rings appear to open up to us. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:35 | |
Over the last year or so, they've been looking really quite thin. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:39 | |
-That's right. -But now they're really quite chunky. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
Of course, we had that storm, didn't we? | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
-The Dragon Storm. -Oh, that was amazing. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
It spread right the way around the planet. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
It looked beautiful in blue light. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:50 | |
What will the legacy of that storm be? | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
-It's always worth having a look. -Can't wait! | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
100 years ago, Hampstead was a lovely dark site, clear of London smog. | 0:10:55 | 0:11:00 | |
But now light pollution is a challenge for the astronomers. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:05 | |
But that does not put off the observatory regulars, | 0:11:05 | 0:11:07 | |
who wander in to see the planets and our moon. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
Jon Culshaw is a local and has come to find out more | 0:11:10 | 0:11:14 | |
about his favourite planet, Mars. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
-Ah, there you are. -Oh, Jon Culshaw. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
Hello, Jon. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
Let me deactivate this. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
-Yes. -My own portable light pollution. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
-Works very well, Jon. -How are you doing? | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
-This is your stomping ground, isn't it? -Yes, this is. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
This is my local observatory. Great to have you here. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
What a fantastic telescope to have access to. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:39 | |
-And a wonderful clear night as well. -It is. Jupiter's peeking up. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
Yes, as if it's reported for duty. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
-PATRICK MOORE IMPRESSION: -I'm very happy about that. Yes, very happy. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:50 | |
-And of course, we're getting ready for the return of Mars. -Yes. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
Looking at Mars through a telescope, | 0:11:54 | 0:11:56 | |
it's often quite a disappointing thing to look at | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
first time out. I remember my first view of Mars, | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
I thought my telescope was broken, I have to say. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
What you get is this sort of pinkish blob. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
Yes, it can be fuzzy, can't it? | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
You don't see much details on it. You really have to let your eye | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
get in with Mars. Also, if you've got your own telescope | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
and you keep it in the living room, or the kitchen, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
you need to take it outside and give it time to cool down. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
That's the biggest hurdle a lot of people fall over at. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
When it's warm, you get air currents inside it | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
and that makes the view fuzzy, as well. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
When you do that, If you get a really good, stable viewing, | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
Mars is high up and you've let the telescope cool down, | 0:12:35 | 0:12:39 | |
that's when you can get this beautiful view of Mars | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
which almost looks like it's a sketch that's been cut out of a book | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
and stuck on the end of the telescope! | 0:12:44 | 0:12:46 | |
But you've seen Mars through this? | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
I do remember one view, about 18 months ago, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
when the view of Mars looked just like those early diagrams. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
-Oh, yeah. -The polar caps, the canals. I love it when it looks like that. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:01 | |
-You didn't see canals, Jon. -No, no. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:06 | |
-The formations that were mistaken for it. -Yeah. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:08 | |
From a distance, you'd think a visitor | 0:13:08 | 0:13:10 | |
from another world would see the Earth and Mars | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
and imagine it was hot and cold. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
'Well, we won't be seeing Mars tonight, as it's not appearing | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
'until three in the morning. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
'Outside, astronomers gather to enjoy the clear sky. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
'We may even have a glimpse | 0:13:26 | 0:13:28 | |
'of our nearest galaxy, Andromeda or M31.' | 0:13:28 | 0:13:33 | |
-Hello. -Hello. -Oh, it's a cold night, isn't it? | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
-So what are you looking for? -Well, we're looking for M31, but... | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
-Nothing like optimism! -Absolutely. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
Well, this is a substantial instrument. What size is it? | 0:13:42 | 0:13:46 | |
-This is a six-inch refractor. -Can I have a look? -Yes. -Let's have a look. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
Are you sure? | 0:13:50 | 0:13:52 | |
Yeah, I can just about make it out, actually. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
It's still there. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:00 | |
-Hello! -Hello! -It's John, isn't it? -Yes. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
-Nice to see you. -Nice to see you. I have to say, | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
-this does not look like a standard telescope! -No, this is one I made myself. -Really? -Yes. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:10 | |
-That's phenomenal. -Over a period of about six months. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
This is the telescope that introduced me to Saturn, so... | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
It's the first thing I saw through it. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
I've been wandering about the observatory site | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
and look what I've found. The most enormous pair of binoculars. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
-They really are quite large, aren't they, Kevin? -Absolutely. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
Can I have a look? What have we got? | 0:14:27 | 0:14:29 | |
We've got the double cluster in Perseus. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
Oh, and we have! Quite, quite beautiful. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
and I think one of the amazing things | 0:14:34 | 0:14:38 | |
looking at an object like that through binoculars | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
is this amazing wide view that you get. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
You do get an enormous field of view. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
Some great view of the moon, and the star clusters of the Milky Way. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
-Absolutely. -No observing site would be complete | 0:14:49 | 0:14:51 | |
-without a pair of binoculars, Kevin. -Very special. -Very special. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:55 | |
Well, we've got Jupiter in the sky. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
The telescope's trained onto it and by the magic of Pete Lawrence, | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
it is now on the television screen. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:07 | |
-That's quite an impressive image, isn't it? -Certainly is, certainly is. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
-Yes, live from the scene of Jupiter. -That's right. -Live pictures. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
There's lots of detail. There's those two main belts which are easily visible. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:18 | |
-If we'd looked last year, one belt would have been missing. -The south equatorial belt had vanished | 0:15:18 | 0:15:22 | |
but it's back with a vengeance. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
-It is. -It's a nice view. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:25 | |
-Does that compare with the views you normally get up here? -Indeed. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:29 | |
-We feel spoiled with how bright Jupiter is. -Yes, it's marvellous. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:33 | |
I've been wondering very recently, Jupiter and the moon | 0:15:33 | 0:15:38 | |
-always seem to have been close together. -For a few days now, yes. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
-Like they're working together. -Jupiter can stand the moonlight. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
You see that really bright dot next to the moon in the sky. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
It's really very impressive. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
Even with binoculars, you can see the wonderful moons. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:54 | |
You can, yeah. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:55 | |
-The little pinpricks of light. -Absolutely. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:57 | |
Here's a little tip. With a pair of binoculars, it's sometimes difficult | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
to hold them still, especially when cold, so you can see moons clearly. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
If you've got a broom, a nice, clean broom, you put it with the handle | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
on the ground and you can rest the binoculars on the broom. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
-That is such a great tip. -That broom will be riddled with spiders | 0:16:12 | 0:16:16 | |
and it will be absolutely appalling. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
-Thanks for coming. Great to have you. -Thanks for inviting us. -It's been fantastic. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
'Pete and I have had a great time at Hampstead. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:27 | |
'It's free to the public | 0:16:27 | 0:16:28 | |
'and well worth going to see the wonders of the night sky. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
'You can find your local observatory or society | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
'by looking at our website.' | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
Don't forget our Sky At Night Flickr site. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
If you take any images of Mars over the next month, post them up | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
and we'll take a look. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:50 | |
Well, telescopes tell us a great deal. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:53 | |
But don't forget, Mars never comes much within 35 million miles of us, | 0:16:53 | 0:16:57 | |
so we're bound to be limited. We need spacecraft, | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
and unmanned probes being sent there. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
Some of these have crawled around the surface. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:06 | |
But later on this month, a new probe, Curiosity, | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
is going to blast off and land on Mars. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
It's a very complicated probe indeed. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
There was a gathering of planetary scientists. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
Sadly, I couldn't get there, but Chris Lintott could | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
and he's been enquiring about the Curiosity rover. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
Nantes in France, a large trading port near the sea, | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
with the River Loire running through it. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
It's a wonderful time for anyone | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
who's interested in exploring our solar system. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
We've got probes around Mercury and Vesta. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:40 | |
We've got missions all over Mars. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:42 | |
Cassini's still at Saturn and there's even a probe, | 0:17:42 | 0:17:45 | |
New Horizons, on the way to Pluto. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
And to discuss the flood of data that they're all sending back, | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
1,500 of the world's leading planetary scientists have come here to Nantes. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
It's the largest gathering of them since the days of Apollo. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
'The solar system is full of new and exciting stories, | 0:17:59 | 0:18:04 | |
'but the reason I'm here is to find out what's happening on Mars.' | 0:18:04 | 0:18:09 | |
The very first rover to land on Mars was this little thing. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
This is Sojourner, that landed in the mid-'90s. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
But things have moved on since then. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
We've got Spirit and Opportunity. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
Opportunity's still going strong, | 0:18:19 | 0:18:20 | |
reaching Endeavour crater not so long ago. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
And then come over here. Look at this big beast. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
This is a full-scale replica of Curiosity, | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
the next rover to land on Mars. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:30 | |
It's going to change everything we know | 0:18:30 | 0:18:33 | |
about science on the red planet. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
NASA's latest rover, | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
originally called the Mars Science Laboratory, | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
has been renamed Curiosity. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
And it is an impressive machine. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
Weighing in at almost a tonne, it has a nuclear generator on board, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:48 | |
which keeps it warm, so it can work day and night, | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
even throughout the cold Martian winter. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:54 | |
I hope the science team can keep up with it. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
It's too big to bounce onto the surface in an airbag, | 0:18:56 | 0:19:00 | |
and that means a spectacular landing, complete with rockets | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
and a hovering platform. It's really scary stuff. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:08 | |
Mars isn't an easy place, even for the most well-prepared explorer, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
and so the engineers have been testing Curiosity not only for that landing, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
but also for the extreme temperatures that it has to endure. | 0:19:16 | 0:19:20 | |
Curiosity's essentially a roving geologist | 0:19:22 | 0:19:25 | |
and a laboratory, | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
and it's looking for evidence of conditions | 0:19:27 | 0:19:29 | |
that could have supported life. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
ChemCam sits on top of the mast and has a telescope, a camera | 0:19:31 | 0:19:36 | |
and a new addition, a laser, which will vaporise rocks from a distance. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:40 | |
Sylvestre Maurice has spent ten years developing ChemCam | 0:19:40 | 0:19:45 | |
and simply can't wait to get to Mars and start zapping rocks. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:49 | |
How do you choose where on Mars to go? | 0:19:51 | 0:19:54 | |
It's a big planet and you've only got one of these. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
-So, where are we going and why are we going there? -Where to go? | 0:19:56 | 0:20:00 | |
We look at this wonderful planet, and say, where do I want to go? | 0:20:00 | 0:20:03 | |
Engineers say, "Guys, this is too cold, don't even try, too cold, you don't try," so you stay here. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:09 | |
There's a big mountain here called Olympus Mons - | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
-here it is. They say, "Don't even try here, it's too high." -OK. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:16 | |
This part here, Hellas, is too low and so the engineers | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
-reduce the number of possible sites because they want somewhere where they can land. -OK. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:25 | |
It needs to be flat, no wind, not too many rocks, not too high altitude, | 0:20:25 | 0:20:29 | |
-not too cold, not too hot. -So where are we landing? | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
Where are we landing on the planet? It's the crater called Gale. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
It's a big crater but what's interesting, | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
you have a nice landing ellipse on the bottom. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:42 | |
-How big's the crater? -About 50 kilometres. It's a big crater. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
-So the edge will be over the horizon? -Yes, but there's a peak. -Ah, OK. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:51 | |
When you form a crater, a crater is formed by an impact coming from there and the impact smashes. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:56 | |
So, this is an impact crater, not a volcanic one? | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
It's an impact crater, expels a lot of things | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
and there's always at the centre a rebound | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
because of some pressure effect and that creates some sort of peak. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:09 | |
-Like you see on the moon? -On the moon you see many of them. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:13 | |
It's like climbing the Grand Canyon. As you climb on, you're going to see different histories. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:18 | |
'Silvestre's laser will analyse its surroundings quickly so that Curiosity | 0:21:18 | 0:21:22 | |
'doesn't have to waste its time on less interesting rocks. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:26 | |
'It's on a mission to find evidence that Mars was once a very watery world. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:31 | |
'The ChemCam team want to find really old rocks, billions of years old, | 0:21:31 | 0:21:36 | |
'from Mars's ancient past, when water might well have been in abundance.' | 0:21:36 | 0:21:42 | |
In the past ten years, we've completely changed our view of Mars. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
-We know that there was water there once. -We know there was water | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
but let's be honest, we know that for the last three billion years nothing happened on Mars. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
-Sure. -Kind of a boring place. -There are people who'd argue the volcanoes are recent, though? | 0:21:53 | 0:21:58 | |
Maybe, the volcanoes, Tarsis, and Olympus, and the axis doing that and that, | 0:21:58 | 0:22:03 | |
climate, a lot of stuff happened, but these are small. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:09 | |
-This is old terrain? -Yeah, and it's ceased happening. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
The real good stuff, we know now it happened between the origin of Mars, in 4.5... | 0:22:12 | 0:22:19 | |
-Same as the Earth, roughly? -Yeah, about the same as the Earth. ..and 3.5, the first billion years. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:25 | |
If you went back 3.5 billion years, Mars would look more like Earth than it does today. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
Yeah, and the big news we've got also from earth scientists is that we think that on Earth, | 0:22:29 | 0:22:34 | |
during this first billion years, had water, atmosphere and life. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
We have another one that now we know but in its past has probably the condition | 0:22:38 | 0:22:45 | |
exactly the same as Earth at the same time. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:47 | |
Those Martian oceans are long gone along with the rest of the thick Martian atmosphere, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:52 | |
lost thanks to Mars's weak gravitational pull. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:57 | |
Some water still survives, particularly under the surface, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:01 | |
but that, on its own, is not all that's needed to support life. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:06 | |
It's a combination of physical condition, temperature, | 0:23:06 | 0:23:10 | |
pressure, water, is the water liquid or not? And then... | 0:23:10 | 0:23:14 | |
-And how long was it liquid for? -Exactly, and then do you have the elements to do that, | 0:23:14 | 0:23:19 | |
-do you have the organics, you have carbon? We call them the CHNOPS. -OK. -You know the CHNOPS? | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
-No. -Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, phosphor and sulphur. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:31 | |
-OK. -You get the CHNOPS, you get life. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
'Curiosity is trying to track down evidence of CHNOPS in the rocks. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:39 | |
'If those elements were present in Mars's early history, | 0:23:39 | 0:23:42 | |
'life may well have formed. But we want to know also | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
'if the conditions that can support life are there today. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
'The polar caps freeze and melt with the seasons, but it's very, very cold. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:56 | |
'This eye in the Martian sky is Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
'and it's picked up very subtle changes on steep slopes near the equator. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:06 | |
'Candice Hansen works on its camera, HiRISE, | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
'and believes what they're seeing is evidence of flowing, briny water.' | 0:24:09 | 0:24:14 | |
So what we see are dark streaks that go down-slope. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
They are dark to begin with, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
which you would expect if they're fluid of some sort. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:24 | |
-So darker because if you wet sand or something, it gets darker. -That's right. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
So what we think that we are seeing is liquid brine - very salty water. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:35 | |
It's always in the summertime and in locations that have them, | 0:24:35 | 0:24:39 | |
you'll see thousands of them. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:40 | |
'So every Martian summer, salty water is unfreezing and creating mini-flows when it's warm. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:47 | |
'Mars isn't a dead place but a living, breathing, changing world. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:52 | |
'Seeing channels of water in the equatorial regions is | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
'one of the most exciting discoveries on Mars so far | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
'and the implications of flowing water are immense.' | 0:24:58 | 0:25:02 | |
You know, here on Earth, if you find water, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:06 | |
you find something swimming in it. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
'Methane is a hydrocarbon gas | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
'that's very much associated with life here on Earth, | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
'but which also breaks down in the atmosphere very quickly. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:17 | |
'On Mars, we've found methane in the atmosphere and so something, | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
'either volcanic activity of some sort or even life, | 0:25:21 | 0:25:25 | |
'must be producing it. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:26 | |
'Jonathan is an astrobiologist | 0:25:26 | 0:25:29 | |
'who'd like to find some evidence of life on other worlds.' | 0:25:29 | 0:25:33 | |
If you want to look for life today it's actually much more difficult, | 0:25:33 | 0:25:37 | |
because most people think that life on Mars | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
exists deep down in the crust if it exists at all, | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
where the liquid water is persistent. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
Mars, billions of years ago, | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
almost certainly had large amounts of liquid water. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
That was one of the great discoveries | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
of the Spirit and Opportunity missions. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:55 | |
But Mars today is dry | 0:25:55 | 0:25:57 | |
and liquid water on the surface exists for short times. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
So, you would have to go down maybe kilometres through the crust | 0:26:00 | 0:26:04 | |
to actually find that life. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
I'd say that's incredibly difficult. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
It is - we're not going to do it between now and the next DPS meeting. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
But, there's one caveat to this, which is that methane | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
appears to be present in the atmosphere of Mars. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
Methane in the Martian atmosphere, | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
very unstable, is chemically eaten up very quickly, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
so something is actively producing it. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
There are two possibilities. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:30 | |
One is it's produced by geological processes. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:32 | |
-Volcanoes. -That's one possibility. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:35 | |
The other is that it has something to do with life. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:38 | |
But in the case of Mars, | 0:26:38 | 0:26:39 | |
what you could do is you could go find the sources of methane, | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
you could look at what are called the isotopes of the carbon, | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
and life favours the light carbon. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
There will be a difference in the ratio of the heavy to light carbon | 0:26:49 | 0:26:54 | |
in the methane than in all the other sources of carbon on Mars, | 0:26:54 | 0:26:58 | |
for example, carbon dioxide. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:00 | |
If there's a strong signature of that, | 0:27:00 | 0:27:02 | |
that would be a very good indication that biology was somehow involved. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:06 | |
'Thanks to the fleet of spacecraft now exploring Mars, | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
'we're getting an excellent understanding of the planet's chemistry, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
'both in the atmosphere and on the ground. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
'Curiosity's SAM instrument is a mobile chemistry lab | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
'capable of analysing soil collected by the rover's robotic arm. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:25 | |
'The previous landers, Viking and Phoenix, both analyse soil samples, | 0:27:25 | 0:27:30 | |
'but the results have been difficult to interpret, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
'reminding us that Mars is an alien world which we barely understand. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:38 | |
'The steady flow of discoveries about Mars | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
'expands our knowledge of the red planet. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
'Each successive mission takes us further in our quest to find out | 0:27:43 | 0:27:48 | |
'whether life has existed on Mars and whether it's still there today.' | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
Next month, we're going to visit the Alpha solar system. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:57 | |
We've also got something rather special for you - | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
we've found a lost Sky At Night programme going back to 1963, | 0:28:00 | 0:28:06 | |
which is a rather young me talking to someone whom we remember, | 0:28:06 | 0:28:11 | |
known as Arthur C Clarke. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:13 | |
I think you'll enjoy this! | 0:28:13 | 0:28:15 | |
Now, I'm talking about moon bases tonight for two reasons. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
First, because they are very topical | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
and we've just shown you one new design study. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
But secondly, because I'm delighted to have with me my old friend | 0:28:23 | 0:28:27 | |
Arthur Clarke. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
Arthur, you, of course, were forecasting developments | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
of this kind more than 20 years ago. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:34 | |
Thank you, Pat. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:35 | |
Until then, good night. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:52 | 0:28:56 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 |