Back to Earth 3 Stargazing Live

Welcome to Agnes Lukudu. How exciting is this? We have found a

planet, it is amazing. It is exciting. Normal people, amateur

astronomers have found the planet around a distant star, something

none of us could do 20 years ago. In the way you involve people who

are interested in these projects is absolutely superb. Astronomers for

the future. Not astronomers from the future. A few quid

introductions, Tim O'Brien, Lucie Green. The John Bishop, good to see

you. I am going to skip pass that, would you pour some wine for these

people. It is that why I have been brought on. Essentially, yes. We

have with us, Chris Holmes, one of the disc covering people of our

planet, Threple-Holmes. Chris, are you there? I am. The you are

regarded as a God. How are you handling the responsibility? It is

quite a surprise, but quite exciting. How long did you spend

having a look at the website? was yesterday morning, I checked

out 14. Are you an amateur astronomer, an enthusiast? I have

had an interest in it since school, but I am more of the technical

person, computers are my thing. you make the other co-discoverer?

We cannot track him down, if you are there please get in touch. We

have to get the two of you together. So we can fight it out at over the

name? There is a more formal name to go through in process?

Congratulations. It is a bizarre piece of maternity you have a

planet named in your honour. Congratulations. -- eternity.

Thanks very much. He is so mellow about it. Relaxed. John, how are

you? If I had a planet named after me, I would have been going off my

cake. I would have been blotto on the couch shouting YES! You cannot

see it, but it is there. A UN enthusiast? Increasingly so. I am

one of those people who think it is really interesting until it gets

hard. Shows like this are the avenue to it. We have in front of

us, it is turning into a picnic, we have some free food, astronaut food

for you to try. These are strawberries you would take into

space. Every time I seafood I think Brian is going to scope, "if we are

here...". How is it? It is like dry Special K. OK. This it is like real

food that has had a life sucked out of it. Why am I trying it. This is

made for us by the Mayor's daughter of Dulverton. Since they turned the

lights off about 40 minutes ago, Dulverton has turned into

lawlessness and chaos. The you are going to be sued by the electricity

board for the loss of earnings. do have a number of questions.

Human life, we were listening to a planet, Kepler. We did not listen

to Threple-Holmes because it is Degas, it is less likely to have a

population. One of the things you kept on saying is you are looking

for water. Why are you so sure water has to sustain life, that his

life as we know it. On earth, where you find it water you find life. In

some parts of Antarctica where it does not rain, very arid, you don't

find life. We know water is special, it is a biological process. It is

almost the scaffolding of which biology happens. There is a list of

special properties of water that most scientists would probably say

make it necessary for life. It is most likely you need water.

tried to listen in to this planet but did not hear anything. This is

a question... The BBC have to look through the editorial guidelines to

see if we do discover an alien civilisation because there is a

health and safety form to fill in because it could trigger riots.

Researchers rang a number of global bodies, the un wouldn't tell us.

Neither confirm or deny there is a protocol and they won't discuss it

and hung up. There is a protocol, I am shot. The only people who took

the call and spoke for 20 minutes are where the Vatican. They were

extremely excited about the possibility of contact. We have the

Pope's mobile number. The first thing we had to do is ring the Pope.

You all scientists and listening to that genuinely hoping to hear a

sound, but the rest of the country was hoping to hear and go do.

is a question from Glyn Grant, if the radar was pointed to worth from

Kepler 22b, what were they here? are not sending out strong signals.

They would have had to have been sending an extremely strong signal

to pick it up. Our TV and radio and stuff is pretty weak, so they would

need a big telescope to detect us. It is not beyond the realms of

possibility. We did send a message out didn't we? There was a

publicity stunt in 1974. It was a coded message in binary digits and

it had information about us. Fragments about our DNA, how many

planet's there are around the sun. Where the earth was, and so on.

we know how far away it could be detected realistically? It depends

what you assume in terms of what the aliens have got. Are you in

favour of sending a message out? Absolutely, it is a fundamental

question to ask. If we could find life somewhere else and have a

conversation. It blows my mind how we would have that conversation.

Because it takes years and years. If you want to say hello, it would

be slow, several generations down the line. A teenager going, she

never writes to me, she never called. We don't send information

out to them? Some people are in favour of sending out a signal, a

lot of people are against the idea. I don't think there is a consensus.

What about that signal. What could it be apart from an alien planet

may be on T-Mobile that lost a signal. Why would something come

out and then not be anything? something that drifted through the

beam of the telescope. Some think drifted past as the Earth spins. It

rose and it fell in the way we would expect. When they pointed the

telescope in the name -- same direction again, there was nothing

there. Maybe we do get Astrophysical sources that fade

away and we don't see again. What was the contents of the signal?

There was no information, it was just the brightness of the signal.

It rose and fell as it drifted through the site of the telescope.

It wasn't a fragment of a conversation? You should get on to

the News of the World, they will tell you what it was! In favour of

sending a beacon out and alerting other civilisations and other life

forms to us, show of hands. How many would be in favour of doing

that? A majority. Anyone against it? That man there. That is a

mandate will stop I think this is a pointless question because it is

not like a teenage girl or boy communicating. It is like your

parents try to communicate with you. If there are aliens out there, they

are likely to be more advanced. As an interim person, is this

inferiority complex that we assume they will be better than us. I can

explain that. You don't have much of an inferiority complex!

other one is about, we think they will be better than us, but they

have to be based on what we believe is biologically possible. Also we

have based it upon a framework of understanding. We have sent out a

message based on a bindery signal. It is a A6 signal. It is this thing

between this life and the afterlife. If we are going to communicate with

them they have invented radio astronomy, so they understand

physics. They must have a basic understanding of the university

must know about scientific signals. We don't know what sports they play

or what music they like, but if they are receiving a signal they

have an understanding of science. We can assume civilisations go a

long and then they invent things like satellite dishes that are

sitting out there. We have only had it for 60 years, the technology to

detect any signals from space. Unless you are willing to say all

civilisations to invent this technology destroy themselves

within 100 years, almost everyone is ahead of us. We are in the

reception class. We can see this vast... Mark is in Dover to end

fighting off an army of people fighting for loyal like Mad Max in

the thunder don't. -- Dulverton. We do the photographs? Have you been

shown what we want you to do? have, it is very interesting. The

first one is from Ross Harper, who actually went out last night after

watching the programme, on his balcony in Manchester and he did

this one which I am going to put here, I suppose. He took that

picture. I know the game, I have got to put it somewhere. It took

him 87 minutes and that is what he did after the show. He was taking

pictures every 25 seconds. It shows you it is an amazing programme that

inspires people or that there is nothing to do in Manchester! The

next one is this one. I have got to be honest with you, I think it is

great and looks fantastic. It has come from New York from Peter Lopez.

It took Peter 17 hours of exposure which he took over four days. What

I have found out his he has put filters on, a green, blue and red

filter. That would normally be read. It looks pretty like this, so it is

a photo shop picture of the universe. OK, but you know what I

mean? And the third one is from Wales and it is taken by Carl Jones,

but what is good about that one is it is taken on what I think is a

normal camera. It is 11 images stuck together. But he is not happy

Damian, what competition did you win. Astro Photographer of the Year.

Do you have the photo? Not on me. Is it in a vault? It is a

photograph of Jupiter, and it is moons Ganymede and Io. So what did

you use for that. That was taken with a 14 cinch telescope and high

speed video camera. Was that from the back garden. No, it was taken

from the Caribbean island of Barbados. All of a sudden nobody

likes you!. That, is that Io? is yie owe on the bottom left and

Ganymede at the top. What did you do with the video? It is pluling

plugged into the telescope. All those frames are stacked together

and that gives you a final image which is enhanced. How long did you

run the video for ?. That is two- and-a-half minutes of time. With

detail on the moons. They normally appear at points. You get a sense

of the size of Ganymede there. Ganymede is the size of Mercury.

Thank you very much Damian. Enjoy your next holiday in Barbados.

Question of exo-planets. A number of questions, it is possible for a

telescope to get a picture of a exo-planet. If we are really lucky

so we have a trick where we can block out the light for a star. If

a nearby planet, there are as many as ten which have been seen like

this. So ground based telescopes. The Hubble has seen, but normally

they are dazzled by the star, it is like looking through a fly, flying

in front of one of your lights. This will be something that is much

more in the media, because the new spacecraft will be launch and able

to use this technique and another one, and be able to see the thermal

emission and reflected star light to try and see.. But the cool thing

isn't the image. The cool thing is to detect the atmosphere of the

planet. If you can find out what it is made of, that tells us more

about a planet than a pretty picture. I think this is remarkable,

that we could find signatures of life on an exo-planet, round a

distant star before we find any... I think that is going to be the

care, because we can scan the sky, especially with the mission we were

talking about, that will use this technique and look for the

siingchoufrs life, whereas to find life in our solar system we are

thinking about going there and drilling and taking samples,

robotic exploration, and that is a single place you go to, very

expensive. How far away is, how close is the closest exo-planet?

the moment the closest is, we are saying closer but it is not close

enough, I mean it is quite different. It is certainly possible

to go there. How far is it away? few tens of light years, so, I

really don't think we can go there in a foreseeable future. Can I ask

a question about the exo-planet. When you were doing that clip from

South Africa, that guy said the most exciting thing he had was the

exo-planet that going in rotation, counter to its sun. Why would that

happen? What is going on there, because that defies, it is the only

one. We have strange rotation, so Venus rotates slowly, Uranus

rotates on its side. It is not uncommon. They need to be flicked

over during a collision process in the planetary system. We have

learned the beginning of the solar system was chaotic. Uranus and

Neptune are thought to have swapped places. So collisions can...

creation of the moon came from a collision, so these things are

common in the early days. We are going to go to a question from Sir

Patrick Moore. Science fact or science fiction. I love music, so I

thought I would give you a music question. Is it true to say that

The Beatles were part of the first attempt we have to send music into

space? OK. Were The Beatles in space in I won't ask you because

you will blurt the answer out. ruined both questions. I will sit

and have a drink of wine. I will ask you. Yes. You are saying yes.

think their mie sick went. OK, so you are saying science fact. Let us

go back to Patrick Moore. Oh dear, I am afraid you are wrong. I was

referring to the list of all the Voyager probes so bad luck I win

that one. It is only Chuck Berry included on that disk. Chuck Berry,

this is the model of the plaque which is there, what information is

contain on this Lots of information. My favourite one is our position,

the position of our sun in the local. Which is there. Sun there

and the distance markers. This is a record. A lot of instructions to

play the record. Is it is. The RPM is encoded. This is a picture of a

hydrogen molecule. Anyone who knows about physics can look at universal

properties, of the universe, things we would agree on, things you don't

have to be human to understand, like the propertys of hydrogen. It

maps that on how to build a record player and how to rotate it. It is

a very clever thing. Then you have the grooves on the other side. So

it is a wonderful thing. That will outlast our civilisation. It will

be so long until it get tots any planetary system. Tens of thousands

of year, so it... I think we said it is 300,000 years to Sirius. It

goes very close to Sirius, which you can see at the moment. On the

horizon. It is low down in winter but it gets confused for a UFO

because it is bright and twinkles. It is not long before we will get a

group of school kids who have no idea what it is and see if they can

decode it. Give a group of school- children anything that is on vinyl

records and let them decode them. No amounts of pictures of hydrogen

will do it for them. There are questions about alien life. Lucie

asked, what would an alien look like? Depend where it is found. So

if we find it in the seas of Europa, it would be streamlined and fish

like. If it is in the clouds of a gas giant, someone was talking

about flying whales. We have had flying whales. Is that a real

picture. Yes, a genuine picture taken today! The atmosphere is so

dense, the idea, they could get enough lift to fly through. Because,

if you were standing on a planet. Three four times the size of earth.

You remember, wonders of the universe, they put me in a

centrifuge and spun me round to 5G. I think that was the gravitational

force on one of the planets, I can't remember which one, but one

of the exo-planets we detected. Because it is five times the mass

of the earth. The radius is not too much different so the Gav taitional

pull would be excessive and my face went very funny. It was not very...

So that means a human could not land on a planet larger than ours.

5G, your rib cage weighs five times more, you are not built to breathe,

so it is very difficult. If you get to about 9G, then you don't survive.

So taking that the other way, what you said, everything that aliens

have got is better than our, they will come from a bigger planet. If

they came here what would happen then.. They would jump over you.

Giant leap. They would if they came from a bigger planet. Like the

astronauts on the moon. They went to a smaller body and that moonwalk,

so if you see anyone bouncing down the street... That is a good tip!

With the Olympics coming up. He's not on drug, he's an alien! Thank

God we sorted that out. There an argument from evolution, we can

look at earth and look at what evolved. Intelligence has only

evolved once but the eye has evolved 17, 18, 19 time, so maybe

we, that means that is ease groi get to and we should expect that

aliens have eyes and most things that have eyes have two I suspect

they have eyes. Would they have eyes that pick up the same wave

length of light. We have a star that matches our eyes. I like to

think, could something evolve that had the ability to detect radio

waves. They would have very big eyes. They are so much loner, that

you get a blurred view, even that giant, if you imagine your pupil

expanding to the size of that telescope, you could get, that is a

more blurred view than your eye, to see sharp images they would need

giant sensitive radio dishes. Dulverton, they are fighting

Predator for control. Christina says is it possible that advances

extraterrestrial life could communicate using other waves?

think we know the whole of the spectrum from gamma waves to radio

wave, but we have only searched a tiny fraction so it is possible

they could be sending us signals we haven't noticed. We are bad at

looking for fast signals, as well. So they are sending rapid pulses,

we wouldn't necessarily have seen them. We have been talking about

sending a solid object or by using radio waves but it could be using

laiders so there could be other parts of the spectrum that we

aren't using at the moment. One of the things we want you to do over

the course of the few days is take advantage of the clear skies if

they are above your area. To do that Mark has left us with a star

cast. The the sky is clear where you are after the show look in an

ark from the west to the east t. You will be looking at a band of

familiar sounding star, the zodiac. In the east, is Leo the lion. Then,

Cancer the crab. Gemini the twins. Taurus the bull. Aries the ram. And

Pisces the fish. These are the stars that the planets pass through.

Just above Pisces tonight is the brightest object visible in the

night sky. If you can see what looks like a very bright star, it

will be the planet Jupiter. And if you can stay up for a while after

the programme ends, you will be able to watch the planet Mars

rising in the east from around 10pm. As the night progress, it will move

towards the south. And then, after 1am Saturn follows in Mars's past.

Rising behind Virgo. And finally, if you are out early tomorrow

morning, there is a great chance to see something different. The

International Space Station flies over head tomorrow morning between

7.15 and 7.25. Look out for it at its highest point in the south. Now

there have been Stargazing Live events happening all over the

country and they don't do so it is a fairly social thing, being an

astronomer so we have events all over the country. You can find out

more information about them if you go to the website. There is also,

it is there in Nottingham, there in Northern Ireland. These events are

taking place all over and will continue to do so to find out more

go to the website we as we all know is bbc.co.uk/stargazing. Also on

the website you will find information on loads of resources

given to us by the Open University. I want to thank all our guests.

Chris, thank you, your excellent work. John, I hope you enjoyed your

time here. I think I have given a lot. So much. We only have three

seconds left what is thing that stands out. That comment from duver

on the at the end when someone said this is inspire us to form a

society. To carry on doing astronomy. That is the key thing I