0:00:06 > 0:00:08Hi, I'm Ayshah and this is Newsround.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11Coming up in the next few minutes.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14Find out what this huge drill is for and...
0:00:14 > 0:00:20We answer one of your big questions.
0:00:25 > 0:00:28First up bad weather has hit parts of the UK causing big problems.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31More than 70 people and 20 horses had to be rescued from floods
0:00:31 > 0:00:33in Lancashire in North West England.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Emergency crews received more than 500 calls.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Lots of houses have been flooded, schools have been shut and buildings
0:00:39 > 0:00:42left without electricity.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Roads were closed and train services have been stopped because of floods
0:00:45 > 0:00:51in north Wales and snow is forecast across Scotland.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54Next to The Ashes, a huge cricket tournament between England
0:00:54 > 0:00:56and Australia which started today.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59There is a long standing rivarly between the two countries
0:00:59 > 0:01:03so this match means a lot to the players.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06England were the first to bat and James Vince made a strong start
0:01:06 > 0:01:11to his first Ashes with 83 runs before Australia fought back.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13England finished 196 for four on the first day of the five
0:01:13 > 0:01:20day test match so it's all still to play for.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22Now if you've ever watched Star Wars you might be familiar
0:01:22 > 0:01:25with Warp Speed technology, which allows people to travel
0:01:25 > 0:01:28through space at super-fast speeds.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30But, how far away, are we from making this
0:01:30 > 0:01:36technology in real life?
0:01:36 > 0:01:39In this week's Big Question we're answering Oliver's question,
0:01:39 > 0:01:41and who better to answer it, than a Nasa jet propulsion expert?!
0:01:54 > 0:01:59Right now it's impossible for us to move at warp speed through space.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01We've thought about ways of trying to do that,
0:02:01 > 0:02:06but there's nothing that's practical at this point.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08Like, for example, right now, our fastest spaceships can travel
0:02:08 > 0:02:13at about 25,000 mph.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17With the speed of light you can travel at 186,000 miles a second.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21So if we could travel at that speed that would take us a second
0:02:21 > 0:02:25and a quarter to get to the moon.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28Right now, with our fastest ships, we can take about three
0:02:28 > 0:02:32days to get to the moon.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37So, wow, really, really slow in comparison to the speed of light.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40Now, we've also computed how much energy it takes for a spaceship
0:02:40 > 0:02:43to go at about a tenth of the speed of light.
0:02:43 > 0:02:45And that's about between five and 100 times the total
0:02:45 > 0:02:49world energy output.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52So, wow, all of that energy, so much, and we just don't
0:02:52 > 0:02:54have that on the earth.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58So we're going to have to find some new, fantastic way of creating that
0:02:58 > 0:03:01energy before we even think about going near the speed of light,
0:03:01 > 0:03:04let alone going at warp speed.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12And we'll be answering one of your big questions every Thursday.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17So if you've got something you'd like to ask go online now.
0:03:17 > 0:03:21Next, what do you do when you need to dig a really deep hole?
0:03:21 > 0:03:27You bring out the Vibrocorer of course.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29It can drill through water 6000 metres deep and can
0:03:29 > 0:03:32cut six metres down.
0:03:32 > 0:03:41This is the Vibrocorer, and it means business.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43Which is just as well, because these scientists are drilling
0:03:43 > 0:03:46deep chunks of the sea bed around the British Isles.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Their mission is to solve the mystery of what happened
0:03:48 > 0:03:51to the ice sheet covering Britain thousands of years ago.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54We now have the tools at our disposal to actually
0:03:54 > 0:04:00put together a really, really meaningful and detailed
0:04:00 > 0:04:10reconstruction of ice sheet extent around Britain and Ireland.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13They want to find out when exactly and how the last ice age ended.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16And this could help them predict what could happen to the ice sheets
0:04:16 > 0:04:17in the South Pole today.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21So the team are using the Vibrocorer to find clues from the sea bed.
0:04:21 > 0:04:27The giant drill is lowered down to the bottom of the sea
0:04:27 > 0:04:31where it vibrates to collect a long tube or core of rock and mud.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34It's then cut up and brought back to land to be studied by scientists.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36As soon as it is landed, the scientific party
0:04:36 > 0:04:38are desperate to get the sample, and they disappear
0:04:38 > 0:04:39into their magic laboratories.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42They are now testing the samples to find out exactly
0:04:42 > 0:04:43when the ice melted and why.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46They are hoping that understanding what happened in the past could help
0:04:46 > 0:04:52predcit the future for ice sheets on earth today.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55That's all from the afternoon team but I'll be back with more top
0:04:55 > 0:04:58stories tomorrow morning from 07:40.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07Hello, everybody. My favourite programme on CBBC