Back to Earth 1 Stargazing Live

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, welcome toback to earth, our

discussion programme where we'll have more time to flesh out the

questions you've asked. Brian is still with me, and we're joined by

Tim O'Brien, the associate director of Jodrell Bank. And Dr Lucie Green,

a solar astronomer joins us, and Andy Nyman, a comedian and

illusionist. Are you a fan of astronomy? Oh, yes. Absolutely,

especially after the show. The gravitational stuff on the beach

blew me away. I could have talked to Captain certainon for ever. I've

got his phone number now, I'm going to phone him back. So, half an hour

of questions that you've sent in and photographs that you have sent

in as well and some other surprises. One thing I want ed to ask, one

question from two young stargazers in Dublin. They can, through the

telescope see the Jovian moons, but what others can you see? You can

see Saturn's moons and and you can see the rings and Titan. Stuart

says why are all planets and moons in our solar system the same shape.

Well, they're all spherical, if you're big enough, that is what

gravity will shape you into it. It's the lowest form of dust and

ice and rock. But some are not spherical because they're very

small the two moons Phobos and Deimos, so they're too small to be

made spherical. Now, some asteroids are grabbed by

gravity? They can be captured bits of space debris or formed at the

same time as planets, or, like our moon, probably formed in a

collision between two planets. So there is a whole spread of ways

moons can be formed. We have Keaton over there, who is taking in e-

mails as they arrive, so we'll have more of those. Lucie, you're an

expert. Solar astronomy? That's right. I'm looking at emissions

that come out from the sun and impinge on the moon. What I look at

coming from the sun has an effect throughout the whole solar system.

And Helium-3 is from the sun? That's right. And the moon lass

this great history embedded in its surface.

Andy, we have a scratch and sniff card of the moon. Scratch it

anywhere on there. Is this a school-boy prank? No, it's not

cheeky. There was an Artist who took testimony from those who

visited the moon and they smelt the dust off their suits. It smells

like the moon! You know what it smells a bit like...cap guns, I

loved that when I was a kid. That's what the astronauts said, they said

the moon smelt a little bit like gun powder. Really? I nailed that.

That was a lucky guess. Wow! I'll be doing this for the whole show.

want to ask what, if any changes we've seen on the surface of the

moon. Meteors regularly bombard the earth. Do they really? Tonnes and

tonnes. It's a huge amount. Mostly small bits that come into the

atmosphere, but sometimes satellites. In the absence of an

atmosphere that burns them up, like we have here, those collisions will

be changing the surface of the moon all the time. Oh, yes. It is

thousands of tonnes per year. of tonnes per day of dust. And will

that eventually remove those footsteps that we see of the Apollo

mission s? I think the sun dying will remove them now. It's

disconcerting how you say that with a beaming smile. Look on the bright

side. It will get brighter and brighter. So we can look after a

tremendous summer! How long before that? About five billion, well,

attitudely less. Lucie about 1.5 billion? Yes, the sun will get much,

much brighter and it will swell up and there will be more surface for

the light to come out. So we've only got about a billion years

before it will get unmanagably hot, so get a move on. How far will the

sun swell up? It will come into the inner planets. So it will be

approaching the earth. I'm not sure whether the earth will get burnt up.

I don't know whether that is any comfort! We're not going to survive

it any way? No, it will be too hot long before it reaches the earth,

so we'll have to move before that. I get asked this a lot and there

are a lot of stars out there at different stages of their lives.

Beetle juice is a star right at the end of its life, it's getting

brighter and dimmer all the time and it could explode tomorrow,

literally, or it could explode in thousands of years. It could

explode on December 21, 20126789 that like when you say we are

coming to the end of our life? it is running out of the fuel core

so it is coming to the end of its life and roughly the sun will look

like that in..? Four billion year. So how bright exactly do you think

it will be? Will it be like a second moon in the sky? When that

one explodes? It will be so bright you can see it like a star in the

day. And the last one? 1607 was the last superNova in our day.

beetle juice is ten times closer than something that was seen in

1054 that was painted like a crescent moon and that was seen by

the Chinese and the people in next co-all that time ago. But it won't

do anything to us, it's not part of the apocalypse.

Let's go to Skype. Hello. They are frozen? Can you hear us? Yes.

question would you like to ask our panel? Have we lost them

completely? (sound breaks up) We've lost it. Do you believe

keeneos are the answer to time travel? It's a question about the

certain experiment in Cerny. Where it looked at newt Renos. And the

experiments still say that they travelled faster than light by

quite a large amount. If that is correct, and most think it is

incorrect ct but nobody has yet found out what the problem is in

the calculations. So people are saying we have something that

travels greater than the speed of light and you keep Einstein's

theory of relativeity, then you could build a time machine. No

physicalist thinks you can build a time machine, but it means that our

picture of time -- and we should go back to the experiment. If that

experiment bears up to scrutiny we'd have to throw all of the past

calculations away. And the pulsars are a test. Yes, when we observe

these remnants of dead stars, the size of cities, because they're so

big they spin very stably, they almost tick. So we have two

spinning and orbiting each other like two clocks and for us that's

the best-ever test of Einstein's theory of gravity and we've been

able to show it is 99en 7% correct of the theory, which isn't bad for

a theory that old. And the thought of two spinning stars the size of

cities spinning round each other can show that that theory is

correct is amazing. So, if we're wrong about this, e-mail us from

the future! This is our most amazing

stargazers' board. Over the next three nights we want you to send in

as many pictures of the night sky as you can, and the best ones we'll

put up on the board. This is the sun, if the sun was really this

size, I have to stress this is not to scale, because if the sun was

that big the earth would be a marble outside. But it's too cold.

So we'll put the best pictures up on the board.

We have a few. This is a picture of the moon that was sent in by Julian

Cooper. A brilliant picture taken by 40 individual pictures of the

moon through a modest six- inch telescope. You can see beautiful

detail along the line of light and dark.

And the next picture -- also stuck to the first one! This sticky stuff

This image was taken over one hour and 24 minutes. And finally, we

have the great Andromeda galaxy. That was taken in Belgium. And it

was a long exposure about two-and- a-half hours and made up of 47

individual pictures. Keep the pictures coming in, e-mail them in,

[email protected] and the best ones we'll put on the board. There

were ex poshs there, how long? hour and 24 minutes. And that sky

is moving? Nigh yes, the earth is spinning. But the point is that man

wasn't slowly rotating in order to allow for that, it's all through

the equipment he has as well? That's right. The earth rotates to

give us a day, and the camera rotates in the opposite direction

to the earth's spin, so it freezes what it is viewing. And what is

incredible, is that those pictures are real. Is that on the equipment

that you showed in the show? That's right. This is all amateur

equipment. And it's relatively cheap, that is what is amazing,

because you expect it to be thousands and thousands of pounds

and then you see the quality of those. It's stunning. We've been

talking about the moon and we mentioned some of the pseudo

scientific elements, like the apocalypse. But it fastates on many

levels. We've seen these tremendous pictures, which is the raeplt

reality of what's out there and I know you do a lot of work on

Victoriania. And you have an atmosphere around exploration, what

is it that captures our imagination? I think one of the

things that is fascinating, there was a name that grabbed me, the

Transylvania effect. We laugh at it, but the wear wolves and the idea

that the pull of the moon, as it is pulling the waves, also, the theory

comes from the idea that because the brain is the moistest part of

the body, that it is being pulled and affected by the moon. It's one

of the great misconceptions. The tides apply to rock as well, but it

makes weird sense. Well, it makes fantastic sci-fi sense, as opposed

to logical sense. One researcher said, no, the skies were brighter

so people could see on those nights, so crime was higher. That's right.

And now people who they believe were Bi-polar, were affected by it,

but it's not, it's the sleep deprivation. So it's mythology,

backed up by consign science -- science.

Now, Lucie, you're hoping to send something to the moon? Yes, I've

brought it with me. It's being led by UCL, but Leicester are involved

and imperial College are involved. So this is a British mission we

want to send to the moon. It needs a little Union Jack on it. It does.

This is nice and simple and relatively small, so it is quite

cheap. And we would drop them from a British satellite around the moon

and they will land on the surface of the moon and bury themselves.

This will land at 300 metres per second, so it has to survive. And

then you can search for things like search for quakes on the moon. The

moon is tectonicly active and has quakes. So if you send these to

different points you can detect them. Which might mean possible

human habitation on the moon. part of a probe has been sent to

the moon? That's right, a part of the probe was blasted on to the

moon to look for water on the moon. Again a really important question

if we want to send humans to the moon. This was sent into a big tub

of sand to simulate landing on the moon and the sand has scraped away

the surface. And that's completely sarned, we have to test it before -

- standard, we have to test things we're going to send to the moon.

And one of the prerequisites to build a moon base for potential

human habitation, I know you worked on the physical effects of space

travel and going to the moon. Can you speak a little about the

difficulty of living in space for humans? The main problem is you

just have to take everything you take for granted down here, the

light, water, the atmosphere, and take it with you to space. And it

has to be wrapped up and parked out there. And keeping people healthy

is enough of a problem, but you have to consider what happens if

something goes wrong and you need a doctor or a hospital. It is tricky.

I remember you told me that the Americans had an operating theatre

in space, and the Russian response to that? Yes, at the start, the

Americans literally thought they would take the kitchen sink up

there, and the space module had an operating theatre in it, and the

Russians said, "We just send healthy astronauts into space!"

We're going to go back to a few more questions, but firstly, a

short quiz for you. Patrick Moore here. Nice to be

talking to you. Have a look at this little chap, Buzz Lightyear. Has he

really been into space? Fact or fiction?

OK, the question simply is, is it fact or fiction that Buzz Lightyear

has really been in space? That, I know is fact. Oh! I disagree, it's

fact. Your sense of drama. There's a wonderful video. You can go on

the web and look at it. And it's about all the space shuttle

launches. And in one of those there is a rotating picture. Do you think

we wouldn't have looked for that! Are you going to show the answer

now? Of course we are. This is the way quiz shows work. Oh, I thought

I was going to get a mug or a prize. Buzz Lightyear, has he been in

space? We say, Sir Patrick Moore, it is fact. Are we correct? Yes, he

has actually been in space. He has been one year and over 15 months

orbiting the earth and seemed to enjoy the experience. Do we have

the footage? There's the space station and there he is. Look at

that! That's sweet, isn't it? great. We are getting questions

about the moon base. If we went up there, it's not like going to an

tafbgtia or underwater, there is been been Antarctica, or underwater,

there is a deteriorating effect, isn't it? Yes, going into space, it

is like going to Everest, or Antarctica, you waste away and you

come back feeling like you've had the hell kicked out of you, even if

everything went right. So it is like going to places we have

explored in the last century. calcium definite see, isn't it?

Your bones and muscles become weaker. Yes, everything, the heart

itself, which is a muscle. And your hand co-ordination is impaired. No-

one knows how long enough is enough. The longest in human missions is

478 days, which was undertaken by a Russia, because the Americans

weren't crazy enough. That's the longest anyone has been in space.

How noticeable on the depletion those things were on the astronauts

after that period of time? Russians know more about long-

duration space flight than any other country in the world. And

when they bring their crews home they just lie them out on a couple

of lilos and bring out a packed lunch and let it all wash over them.

They don't try and do interviews. You feel dreadful. And there are

some stories of astronauts coming back from space and going to

banquets in Russia and basically throwing up all over the table. You

feel pretty beaten up. And if we go to Mars that will happen the entire

journey if you're travelling in weightlessness? That's the problem.

The moon is just a few days out. Mars is six to nine months out-

bound journey and all that time you're wasting away and then you

get there and have to do a heroic landing, with all that muscle

wasting and impairment of hands and eyes. And we are' wondering whether

we can use the far side of the moon for a telescope. That is a

fantastic idea because you're shielded from the atmosphere on the

far side, so it would be a great place to set up telescopes and not

have the interference of mobile phones going off from the earth.

And gravity is lower so you can make physically larger structure

than here on earth, so they wouldn't collapse. So that would be

useful for us. Yes, absolutely. obviously want you to go and look

at the stars yourselves, and Mark has set up a star cast to help you.

If the sky is clear where you are after the programme, look to the

north-east and you'll see the seven stars that make up the plough,

sometimes known as the saucepan and at this time of night it is stood

on its handle. But it is the back and tail of Ursa Major. They point

to Polaris. If you can see this star then you know you're facing

north. Polaris is the brightest star in another bear constellation,

the little bear. If you don't think it looks much like a bear, blame

the ancient Greeks because it's been called that for over 2,000

years. If you swing round 90 degrees to the west, there are nine

stars that make up Pegasus, but be quick, as it sets around ten

o'clock. Move another 90 degrees round and Orion is in the south.

Above Orion is another easy one to spot, Taurus the bull. The clue to

finding Taurus is a distinctive V shape on its side. And above Taurus

is Auriga less well known, the Kharioteer. It's supposed to look

like a helmet. Throughout the night, these constant layings move towards

the west as the earth spins and around 2am, if you look to the east,

the moon will be rising on the eastern horizon. It should be half

full tonight so look along the line between light and dark and you'll

see some fantastic detail. All that to see in the sky tonight.

This is the perfect time to do it because the weather is particularly

good. Tonight. It may not be as good over the next couple of nights.

Thank you very much to all our guests for coming in. Kevin, Tim,

Lucie, and Andy, I hope you have enjoyed your visit. I've smelt the

moon, what can I say! Tomorrow, we're into black holes. Yes, we're

stepping away from the solar system and talking about black holes. The

strangest prediction of ice and galaxies relativeity. Do they have

a role? Physical -- physicals is odd around black holes. It's a

paradox, how do you see a black hole? No light can escape from them,