Episode 3

Download Subtitles

Transcript

:00:10. > :00:15.What a week we have had a Jodrell Bank. When we went hunting, we never

:00:16. > :00:22.thought we would see this. The glorious colours of the Northern

:00:23. > :00:28.lights. Or the extraordinary event of the sun bursting particles the

:00:29. > :00:31.waters. All along you have been searching the galaxies and you have

:00:32. > :00:37.made a remarkable discoveries, and you've had a glimpse of event that

:00:38. > :00:39.happened 11 million years ago. I am Brian Cox, he is Dara O'Briain, and

:00:40. > :01:10.this is Stargazing Live. Welcome back to Stargazing Live.

:01:11. > :01:14.Let's get straight onto the most exciting news of the series - an

:01:15. > :01:17.amazing discovery made by you over the last three nights. We asked you

:01:18. > :01:21.to search for hidden galaxies. And not only have you been successful

:01:22. > :01:24.but what you've discovered is of genuine scientific importance. So

:01:25. > :01:27.much so that some of the biggest telescopes around the world,

:01:28. > :01:34.including this one, have dropped everything to focus on what you've

:01:35. > :01:40.found. This is why it is pointing in this direction, it is tracking one

:01:41. > :01:46.of the things you found because it is so interesting. Here to tell us

:01:47. > :01:53.more is Chris Lintott. What did our viewers need to do? We asked people

:01:54. > :01:58.to look for gravitational lenses, the light where it has been bent by

:01:59. > :02:01.more nearby galaxies, and that bending of light means we see

:02:02. > :02:07.further into the past and we see distant galaxies we would not be

:02:08. > :02:13.able to see. You said you were hoping to get 500,000 hits by

:02:14. > :02:22.Thursday. We broke that easily, so now we are at 6.5 million

:02:23. > :02:29.classification is made by 50,000 Stargazing Live viewers. Such a big

:02:30. > :02:32.response that the professional community have got involved. It's

:02:33. > :02:38.not only the Lovell we have taken over. It's not just the quantity or

:02:39. > :02:43.the classifications, it's they found wonderful things. We have more 50

:02:44. > :02:48.candidate gravitational lenses, and we've used some of the biggest

:02:49. > :02:53.telescopes in the world. A genuinely global initiative. Let's go over to

:02:54. > :03:00.the UK, because how many telescopes there? We have used the Lovell

:03:01. > :03:07.telescope, and even as far away as Cambridge to track one of the

:03:08. > :03:10.candidates. Six radio telescopes working in congruence. One of the

:03:11. > :03:18.more interesting targets is is there. Over the course of the

:03:19. > :03:24.evening, excitement gathered, and other people in America join this.

:03:25. > :03:30.We got data in America, archive data, from West Virginia, the

:03:31. > :03:34.greenback telescope. We called our friends in Hawaii because we wanted

:03:35. > :03:41.to get optical and infrared data must be called the biggest telescope

:03:42. > :03:45.in the world. It is Hawaii but you are 13,000 feet in the mind him. The

:03:46. > :03:49.dome was frozen shut. They hacked away at the icicles chorus. The

:03:50. > :03:56.director of the Institute have away so we could get the data -- for us.

:03:57. > :04:00.We don't recommend you do this at home, but we were late in the bar

:04:01. > :04:10.last night, and we rang up the Greenback telescope. I also saw you

:04:11. > :04:14.ringing Chile. We called the Canary Islands, but it was snowing, but we

:04:15. > :04:19.still call them. They have been trained on one target in particular,

:04:20. > :04:26.and we will talk about that later. It's all because of the effort of

:04:27. > :04:30.Stargazing Live view is that we've done it. We are contributing to the

:04:31. > :04:40.sum total of human knowledge rather than the usual television thing.

:04:41. > :04:43.This is real star. Real science. We have also been getting astounding

:04:44. > :04:50.images sent over in the last couple of days. Look at this one. The moon,

:04:51. > :04:57.but a beautiful photograph by Julian Cooper from the Black Country. Also

:04:58. > :05:02.beautiful photos of this sunspot group. Again, this is the thing that

:05:03. > :05:08.gives us the possibility of Aurora Borealis tonight. We gave a

:05:09. > :05:12.prediction of the time that the burst of energy might arrive. That

:05:13. > :05:17.might not have been exactly right and we might still be waiting. It is

:05:18. > :05:22.ongoing. We have space observatories up there and we think it might

:05:23. > :05:28.arrive now. I want to show you a couple more. This is a bit of a

:05:29. > :05:32.cheat. We talk about amateur imagery is -- images, but this is a

:05:33. > :05:39.beautiful picture from Reykjavik, in Iceland. Just a few moments ago in

:05:40. > :05:43.Norway, Liz Bonnin took to the skies to see if any of the recent activity

:05:44. > :05:54.on the sun is producing any Aurora yet. How is it looking, Liz? Welcome

:05:55. > :05:58.back to a world first, Aurora hunting. We are crammed into a

:05:59. > :06:01.plane, and the equipment is working nicely. Pete Lawrence is with us on

:06:02. > :06:07.the flight, so let's take a look outside the window. In the last ten

:06:08. > :06:11.minutes, this beautiful site revealed itself. A lot of structure

:06:12. > :06:17.and beautiful curls at the bottom of it. Very bright tonight, isn't it?

:06:18. > :06:22.Very nice. Lots of structure. It's been changing as we have watched out

:06:23. > :06:29.of the window, lots of vertical rays. Am I wishful thinking, or can

:06:30. > :06:35.I see some red and brown? I can see some red at the right. That is a

:06:36. > :06:40.first, and we're excited about it. Let's talk about the forecasting we

:06:41. > :06:46.had last night. Has the corona hit the earth? What has changed between

:06:47. > :06:50.last night and now? It hasn't hit us. It's hard to forecast the

:06:51. > :06:55.arrival, and it got slow down as it headed from the sun towards us. It

:06:56. > :07:01.could arrive anywhere between now and 4am. It could still affect this

:07:02. > :07:07.beautiful light display we see tonight? Absolutely. That is the

:07:08. > :07:10.beauty of space weather. The aurora changing all tonight. I will leave

:07:11. > :07:17.you with that beautiful image, a sight for sore eyes. See you in a

:07:18. > :07:23.bit. Seeing different colours within the Aurora, as we have. You can see

:07:24. > :07:26.the red on the right, but if that is the immediate, who knows what will

:07:27. > :07:32.happen? There have been special Stargazing Live parties taking place

:07:33. > :07:41.up and down the country, and there is one in Egham, in Sussex. A

:07:42. > :07:46.wonderful evening at Royal Holloway University. Thousands of excuse you

:07:47. > :07:53.asked it -- enthusiastic stargazers, are you having a good time? What has

:07:54. > :08:00.that been the best thing so far? I think it was the DIY. What do you

:08:01. > :08:06.look forward to seeing next? Tourists in space. That is the thing

:08:07. > :08:10.about this, they're so many things going on. There is the option also

:08:11. > :08:14.to see yourself in infrared, and there is an army of astronomers and

:08:15. > :08:19.telescopes to look at the sky. We've even set up a field of astronomers

:08:20. > :08:23.away from the light so we can take some wonderful views of what the

:08:24. > :08:29.clear sky has to offer. And I will also show you how you can find

:08:30. > :08:34.galaxies through your own telescope and how to navigate through the

:08:35. > :08:40.stars. Back to the studio. Lots of young faces in the studio. Those

:08:41. > :08:43.youngsters seem to be the new co-hosts, and I know how you feel

:08:44. > :08:50.about this out region getting involved. Getting kids excited about

:08:51. > :08:53.astronomy leads to so many other things, entrepreneurialism, careers

:08:54. > :08:59.in science. I remember when I was about three years old watching the

:09:00. > :09:07.Clangers. And we are yet to find them! The great thing about them was

:09:08. > :09:10.the row of kids about seven or eight years old, and that is what

:09:11. > :09:14.astronomy did for me, and I went into physics and I caught the bug.

:09:15. > :09:21.Your career has been mainly based on space hardware, mainly the James

:09:22. > :09:28.Webb telescope, a tremendous telescope. It is amazing. It will

:09:29. > :09:32.travel 1.5 kilometres away from Earth and then deploy, which looks

:09:33. > :09:37.challenging, but what comes out is a heat shield visit and infrared

:09:38. > :09:42.telescope and the biggest source of heat nearby the son, so it hides

:09:43. > :09:47.behind the earth and it protects it from some of the sun and it has

:09:48. > :09:53.Earth radiation. This is the heat shield, then? It's about the size of

:09:54. > :09:59.a telescope. It's going to be launched in about 2018, hopefully.

:10:00. > :10:03.We see the golden mirror, so what is the difference between that and the

:10:04. > :10:10.Hubble telescope? The Hubble telescope was mainly optical, but

:10:11. > :10:15.the James Webb is infrared, so it gets orange and red and the rest is

:10:16. > :10:23.infrared. But why? We have pictures of the Milky Way, so what is it that

:10:24. > :10:29.the James Webb gives us? It was called a next-generation space

:10:30. > :10:35.telescope. Mind you, it is coming from a long way. We can see the

:10:36. > :10:38.Milky Way galaxy, but here you can see the patches of dust, and of

:10:39. > :10:44.course a visible light, optical light, which doesn't past -- passed

:10:45. > :10:49.through it. But with the infrared you can see what is behind. An

:10:50. > :10:56.interesting look at the centre of the galaxy, the black hole obscured

:10:57. > :10:58.by the dust. What I find fascinating is that when people think of

:10:59. > :11:03.telescopes they think of visible light, but we have an amazing piece

:11:04. > :11:08.of equipment, a radio telescope, and the James Webb is infrared. We take

:11:09. > :11:13.parts of the Informatics spectrum and get a broader picture of what is

:11:14. > :11:19.out there. This will be coming back to earth and we will see later.

:11:20. > :11:24.There is a huge question about the Milky Way that spin around for

:11:25. > :11:27.hundreds of years, but Simon Taylor of Runcorn has sent things in over

:11:28. > :11:31.the last two years, and asked, if we've never been outside the Milky

:11:32. > :11:39.Way, how do we know what it has been looking like? Let's find out. On a

:11:40. > :11:45.clear, moonlit night you can see a milky glow across the night. The

:11:46. > :11:49.Romans called it a milky road, and when Galileo pointed his telescope

:11:50. > :11:57.at it, he discovered that this haze of light was in fact made up of

:11:58. > :12:03.distant stars. When we look out into the night sky, we see the stars and

:12:04. > :12:07.the glowing gas and dust which are bound together by gravity and make

:12:08. > :12:12.the galaxy, which we call the Milky Way. But because we are in it, it's

:12:13. > :12:21.very hard to work out what the shape of the galaxy actually is. One of

:12:22. > :12:28.the first attempts to map the galaxy was from astronomer William Herschel

:12:29. > :12:34.in 1785. What needed was to assume that all of the stars we can see the

:12:35. > :12:37.sky are roughly of the same brightness and it uniformly

:12:38. > :12:46.distributed. By doing that, he came up with a map, which is the shape of

:12:47. > :12:51.the known universe of the time. Now, this is not accurate, the many

:12:52. > :12:54.reasons. But one of them is that there are many stars in the Milky

:12:55. > :13:04.Way galaxy that cannot be seen from Earth because they are obscured by

:13:05. > :13:07.dust. No one appreciated the children -- true extent of the Milky

:13:08. > :13:20.Way until tools were developed to help them peer through the dust. In

:13:21. > :13:23.1955, the Stargazing Live -- Lovell telescope was built at Jodrell bank,

:13:24. > :13:32.and it did not look at Starlight, but was designed to capture radio

:13:33. > :13:35.waves. While visible light is easily blocked by dust, radio waves

:13:36. > :13:44.emanating from the furthest reaches of our galaxy can pass through.

:13:45. > :13:47.Clive Dickinson is an astronomer who choose into these electromagnetic

:13:48. > :14:00.waves from our Milky Way. -- choosing. -- tunes in. Obviously

:14:01. > :14:04.there are lots of stars in the galaxy, but when you look with the

:14:05. > :14:07.radio waves you get a different picture. You can still see the

:14:08. > :14:10.galactic plane, but you can also see completely different things, and

:14:11. > :14:17.different objects and different structures. What is revealed is that

:14:18. > :14:23.the space between the stars is far from empty. It is filled with gas,

:14:24. > :14:28.mostly hydrogen. And because radio telescopes can detect waves emitted

:14:29. > :14:34.by the hydrogen gas, they can be deduced to work out the shape of the

:14:35. > :14:39.Milky Way. This is a map of the hydrogen gas in our galaxy that was

:14:40. > :14:42.first made in the 1950s, and the hydrogen follows the distribution of

:14:43. > :14:50.stars in the galaxy. By measuring the velocity of that gas, and the

:14:51. > :15:04.brightness in any direction, you can deduce that the Milky Way is, in

:15:05. > :15:09.fact, a giant spiral of stars. But astronomers are now mapping more

:15:10. > :15:12.than hydrogen. These brands in new views of our galaxy show other

:15:13. > :15:20.components in our Milky Way, including the dust that obscure

:15:21. > :15:24.would their view 200 years ago. By combining these results, we are

:15:25. > :15:29.finally beginning to build a picture of what the Milky Way looks like. A

:15:30. > :15:36.disc of hundreds of billions of stars, gas and dust, swirling around

:15:37. > :15:44.a central bar into the most beautiful spiral galaxy.

:15:45. > :15:52.We know enough now to take an educated guess at what the Milky Way

:15:53. > :15:56.looks like. About 27 light-years from the centre. But the most

:15:57. > :16:02.distinctive features of the spiral arms. They are the focus about one

:16:03. > :16:09.of the big debates about the Milky Way. How many arms are there and

:16:10. > :16:14.what pattern do they form? That is one thing the team here at Jodrell

:16:15. > :16:21.Bank have been studying. Professor Tim O'Brien is here. You have one of

:16:22. > :16:25.your telescopes scanning? The severed meter telescope has been

:16:26. > :16:30.scanning through the Milky Way and I have a live signal from it now. What

:16:31. > :16:34.you are seeing in this spectrum which is updated in real-time, the

:16:35. > :16:40.peaks in the middle are from hydrogen atoms in the spiral arms of

:16:41. > :16:46.the Milky Way. There is a peak along the side which is a second arm. It

:16:47. > :16:50.indicates a cloud of hydrogen gas as we look through the disc of the

:16:51. > :16:56.Milky Way. Each produces a peak in this spectrum. We just talked about

:16:57. > :17:02.the infrared, this is the 21 centimetre? Yes, it is the same

:17:03. > :17:09.thing Maggie mentioned, there is dust and it makes it difficult to

:17:10. > :17:16.see through it. What is this image? It is a scan we did earlier. You see

:17:17. > :17:25.these patterns, each of these spikes is a spiral arm. I can see three

:17:26. > :17:30.arms for example. It seems to reveal it into arms and three arms? It is

:17:31. > :17:36.difficult to see the structure of the Milky Way from inside. We were

:17:37. > :17:42.aware of four of them, and then there was a paper that said there

:17:43. > :17:48.were just two, now they reckon there are four of them again. This

:17:49. > :17:51.telescope, we have taken over. It is not looking it's beautiful self. But

:17:52. > :17:58.it is pointing at an interesting object? But beside the moon, there

:17:59. > :18:03.was an object discovered by our view was the other day that is billions

:18:04. > :18:06.of light years away. We will be showing you that later. It is not

:18:07. > :18:12.the only galaxy you can see from Earth. Mark Thompson can show you

:18:13. > :18:20.how to see our closest galactic neighbours.

:18:21. > :18:35.We have wonderful clear skies. The party and come local astronomers. I

:18:36. > :18:43.want to show you this wonderful moon. We are here to spot as many

:18:44. > :18:51.galaxies as we can. We shot this video in Norfolk a few days ago that

:18:52. > :19:02.the Andrew Meda galaxy. Jamie, what can you say? I can see a bit of a

:19:03. > :19:10.blur. If you look to one side, you can use a technique called averted

:19:11. > :19:16.vision. Have another look. Is that better? Can you see the spiral

:19:17. > :19:25.nature of the galaxy? Yes. It is wonderful, you are looking back in

:19:26. > :19:32.time, 2.5 million years. It is a weird concept. You can see it with

:19:33. > :19:37.binoculars and you can see it in the south-west at this time of year. I

:19:38. > :19:42.will leave you to enjoy that. There are a couple of other galaxies you

:19:43. > :19:52.can see tonight. We had some footage we took about half an hour ago

:19:53. > :19:57.called M81 if we look through the Hubble telescope, it looks

:19:58. > :20:01.spectacular. It is visible just above the plough at this time of

:20:02. > :20:09.night. If you want to bind the details you have two June into my

:20:10. > :20:16.Starcast. This is a view of M82 sometimes you can see the two

:20:17. > :20:22.galaxies through one telescope will stop with the big Hubble telescope,

:20:23. > :20:25.we get some wonderful views, sharing the turbulent nature in that galaxy

:20:26. > :20:30.where loads of new, young stars are starting to form. That is all we can

:20:31. > :20:36.see for tonight. If it is clear where you are, get outside and see

:20:37. > :20:46.how many galaxies you can spot. You can find information on our website.

:20:47. > :20:53.Now back to Brian and Dara O'Brian. We are about to explore a galaxy in

:20:54. > :20:58.more details. There is a new mission underway set to revolutionise our

:20:59. > :21:06.knowledge of the Milky Way. The chief K scientist behind this is

:21:07. > :21:14.Professor Gerry Gilmore. We spoke to Caroline about the nerve wracking

:21:15. > :21:25.nature of space exploration. What did you feel? I was there. It is an

:21:26. > :21:30.interesting experience. There was perceptible relief when it opened up

:21:31. > :21:36.and it was working. It is not just the money it is the 20 years of work

:21:37. > :21:44.from the 400 engineers. Tell us about the mission? GAIA is designed

:21:45. > :21:49.to answer the questions you were asking. It is a shield half the size

:21:50. > :21:54.of a tennis court, but it is a big camera and to telescope will stop it

:21:55. > :22:01.is taking a video of the sky for five years and will measure the

:22:02. > :22:10.distance of a billion objects. This is exquisite UK technology. They are

:22:11. > :22:16.cameras? Every one of these things is a bigger version of what you have

:22:17. > :22:26.in your telephone. This is only half of it. You have two touch them

:22:27. > :22:34.carefully. In terms of an eight megapixel camera, what is that? It

:22:35. > :22:41.is a Ilion pixel camera. It is very sensitive, thousands of times more

:22:42. > :22:44.sensitive in terms of dynamic range and quality of anything that has

:22:45. > :22:53.ever been made before. We need that to get that exquisite position GAIA

:22:54. > :22:59.is designed to get. If you put a human hair in space, this thing can

:23:00. > :23:09.see either side of it? From London. GAIA will locate the stars. It is

:23:10. > :23:19.the equivalent of locating a small coin on the moon. Also how they are

:23:20. > :23:25.moving? Yes, we keep doing this for five years and see how it moves. It

:23:26. > :23:30.allows us to measure the distance of the object. We can see where all of

:23:31. > :23:36.these objects are in 3-dimensional. Also how everything is moving. When

:23:37. > :23:42.we walk through space and we can see what is there, and where it really

:23:43. > :23:46.is, but how those things are moving and from that we can deduce the

:23:47. > :23:52.entire formation of the Milky Way and that is what GAIA is. What

:23:53. > :24:02.affect will this have on the industry? GAIA will rewrite the

:24:03. > :24:07.textbooks. People have studied with these giant telescope because they

:24:08. > :24:15.knew it was interesting. We haven't done that for a billion objects

:24:16. > :24:21.before. So GAIA will do it for a billion objects and tell us what

:24:22. > :24:28.looks normal. How did the Milky Way get to be the way it is? We have a

:24:29. > :24:32.video from last year and one of the theories. We know the Andromeda

:24:33. > :24:39.galaxy, one with about a trillion stars is coming towards us quite

:24:40. > :24:48.quickly and is going to hit us. The debate is that it has hit us before?

:24:49. > :24:54.That is one of the questions GAIA is designed to answer. We can

:24:55. > :24:58.understand one, then we have a Rosetta Stone for all of them. To

:24:59. > :25:05.answer that question we need to know not only were the galaxies are now,

:25:06. > :25:11.so GAIA will tell us that, we also need to know how much they weigh.

:25:12. > :25:16.That is the unique thing with GAIA. We can introduce weight, so we know

:25:17. > :25:20.for the first time, not only what we can see, but everything that is

:25:21. > :25:27.there. It is an incredible project. We will be talking to you later. In

:25:28. > :25:30.a moment we will be revealing a new galaxy you have discovered, but last

:25:31. > :25:37.night Brian looked at how we might fuel a starship puckered

:25:38. > :25:40.transporters to the stars as close to the speed of light. What about

:25:41. > :25:48.the astronauts on board? I were to find out what it would feel like.

:25:49. > :25:57.To travel anywhere fast, first you have to accelerate. Apparently this

:25:58. > :26:13.car can go from zero to 60 mph in just six seconds. Acceleration

:26:14. > :26:25.creates the force that pins at you back in your chair whenever you

:26:26. > :26:32.change speed. And in small doses... It is a lot of fun. However, to get

:26:33. > :26:38.to the kind of speeds you need for intergalactic travel, you can have

:26:39. > :26:43.too much of a good thing. So, would my body stand any chance of handling

:26:44. > :26:55.the kind of acceleration needed to reach near lightspeed? To find out,

:26:56. > :27:00.I have come to brook city based in San Antonio in Texas. Hidden inside

:27:01. > :27:09.building 170 is a machine of torture. In it, over 100 astronauts

:27:10. > :27:16.have learned to endure the extreme acceleration of a space shuttle

:27:17. > :27:23.launch. It is a human centrifuge. And today, it is my turn to take a

:27:24. > :27:31.ride. How are you? This man is lead centrifuge technician. Basically I

:27:32. > :27:36.am in a space shuttle launch? Yes, we will go through the same protocol

:27:37. > :27:40.the astronauts go through. The centrifuges is going to spin me ever

:27:41. > :27:59.faster, subjecting me to the crushing force. What can the body

:28:00. > :28:05.take? The G will be pushing on your chest. I won't feel more sure is, I

:28:06. > :28:15.won't feel ill? I hope you don't. Will I feel all of my limbs heavier?

:28:16. > :28:19.Your ear lobes, your eyelids, everything will feel three times

:28:20. > :28:34.heavier. It is heavy enough as it is! Wow! This is amazing. At maximum

:28:35. > :28:40.acceleration, reducing 3G, my body will feel three times heavier than

:28:41. > :28:45.normal. It takes shuttle astronauts seven seconds to reach the speed.

:28:46. > :28:56.Obviously they are trained professionals. Three, two, 1...

:28:57. > :29:15.Liftoff. You are at 2.5 G. This is about as

:29:16. > :29:23.much as the shuttle or anyone on board can take for more than a few

:29:24. > :29:30.seconds. I am beginning to see why. It may not look it, but my arm feels

:29:31. > :29:38.as heavy as a bag of cement. Wave to the camera. That is getting

:29:39. > :29:41.uncomfortable and it would take months to get to lightspeed at this

:29:42. > :29:53.rate. That is not good enough, we need more G. Would you like us to

:29:54. > :30:13.take you 25 G for ten or 15 seconds just to see what it feels like? Go

:30:14. > :30:23.on then. 2.5, three. 4.5 and we are at five, how does it feel? Tough

:30:24. > :30:32.will stop back down now. That is tough. It is amazing. No way you

:30:33. > :30:40.could do anything at five G. Can't even talk. It would not be very

:30:41. > :30:45.flattering. He has been laughing at this all day. It is unflattering.

:30:46. > :30:53.This famously good-looking man in a centrifuges, this is what he looked

:30:54. > :31:01.at stop that was at seven. You look like an old woman out of correlation

:31:02. > :31:05.Street. Now back to Liz. What is in the sky above you? You

:31:06. > :31:12.have no idea what you have been witnessing.

:31:13. > :31:17.We were giddy, applauding and at one point we were circled by this stuff.

:31:18. > :31:22.The sky is filled with Green. There was a pink border at the bottom. It

:31:23. > :31:27.is changing every second. What have we been looking at? I have lost

:31:28. > :31:33.track of the amount of movements, the red and the pink. It is

:31:34. > :31:38.glorious. It gets confusing doesn't it? You can see how the bands fold

:31:39. > :31:46.upon themselves. They wrap around and you get various struck just. It

:31:47. > :31:52.looked like a cascade of light. We have some footage from a few moments

:31:53. > :32:07.ago. It was a multilayered, multi-structural, if that is the

:32:08. > :32:12.right terminology. I am overwhelmed, it is mind blowing, I never expected

:32:13. > :32:17.to see such beautiful displays. The fantastic thing was it that was

:32:18. > :32:22.moving dynamically. The ripples of light moving through the whole

:32:23. > :32:27.display. People describe the Aurora is a dance across the sky, and we

:32:28. > :32:31.have witnessed it, it is glorious. With regard to the different shapes,

:32:32. > :32:39.are they ever in a certain order or does it happen haphazardly? Those

:32:40. > :32:42.bright bands are characteristic, and what happens is they fold up on

:32:43. > :32:46.themselves and it gives the impression of a curtain hanging in

:32:47. > :32:51.the sky. They can also wrap up into a huge spiral structure and they

:32:52. > :32:58.look amazing. They are enormous, and go up to about 1600 kilometres. We

:32:59. > :33:03.can see it now, it is a little more diffused, but they are vertical,

:33:04. > :33:09.streaking through the colour. What is that? They are bits of the

:33:10. > :33:13.curtain which folds up on themselves. When you look from the

:33:14. > :33:17.side, you look through multiple layers of light, so they look

:33:18. > :33:22.brighter than the rest of the Aurora, and those are called Reyes.

:33:23. > :33:28.I have heard about the crowns as well. What are they? You see the

:33:29. > :33:32.rays going up vertically, but if you're underneath, and you look up,

:33:33. > :33:36.you can see those rays going up several hundred kilometres into the

:33:37. > :33:41.night sky, and via perspective they converge together, that is the

:33:42. > :33:47.Aurora Crown. On the right-hand corner of the screen we can see a

:33:48. > :33:52.new bright bit of green that defuses upwards. It is very much in real

:33:53. > :33:57.time, this is the beauty of the cameras, we can see it as it happens

:33:58. > :34:01.without a need for time-lapse. Guys, we are besides ourselves. As you can

:34:02. > :34:07.imagine from my boys. Please come back to us soon because we will try

:34:08. > :34:14.to get more footage -- as you can imagine from my voice. You can tell

:34:15. > :34:20.that you was quite overwhelmed. It is beautiful. That demonstrates the

:34:21. > :34:24.power of the stars. We think of it giving light and heat, but it is a

:34:25. > :34:28.magnetic field that is influencing particles from the stars and

:34:29. > :34:34.reaching out across 90 billion miles and causing the atmosphere to light

:34:35. > :34:38.up. It is beautiful. You say all that, and I am thinking Mavis Riley,

:34:39. > :34:47.the old woman from Coronation Street. You look like Mavis Riley, I

:34:48. > :34:53.am like Eric pickles. -- Pickles. We have been building up this discovery

:34:54. > :34:57.all night, but it's quite a big one. Let's look at the images that the

:34:58. > :35:02.viewers were the first to find. Six people on the first night saw a

:35:03. > :35:05.close-up of the image, so let's zoom in on the galaxy. This is the

:35:06. > :35:18.infrared image we showed people, and you can see that lens. There were

:35:19. > :35:24.six people on the very first night is spotted this. You are looking at

:35:25. > :35:30.the nearby galaxy, a couple of billion light years away, so nearby

:35:31. > :35:33.in astronomy terms. This red ring, I think it is a ring, that is a

:35:34. > :35:41.distant galaxy and we are seeing that as it was about 11 billion

:35:42. > :35:46.years ago. To be clear, the light from the galaxy, 11 billion light

:35:47. > :35:53.years away. Well, further than that, so it's actually about 40 billion

:35:54. > :35:58.will -- years away. The starters, we are looking back at when the

:35:59. > :36:02.universe was getting going -- for starters. This galaxy is quite big.

:36:03. > :36:07.It's very active, and we know it is forming stars at a rate of about 100

:36:08. > :36:13.times that of the Milky Way, so about a hundred huge stars every

:36:14. > :36:17.year. The really exciting thing is what happens when we switch to the

:36:18. > :36:22.radio. We will show you the radio image, and the scientists we work

:36:23. > :36:27.with haven't seen it yet and we wanted to share this with all of the

:36:28. > :36:31.collaborators. So this is from a little telescope, five other

:36:32. > :36:36.telescopes. If you are a professional astronomer, this is

:36:37. > :36:42.exciting. This blog here is the result of yesterday evening's

:36:43. > :36:49.observations. -- this blob. It shows is a nice narrow arc, so perfectly

:36:50. > :36:54.convincing as a lens, but there is more radio emission here than we

:36:55. > :37:01.expected. Brighter than we expected. An unusual object, in that sense? We

:37:02. > :37:06.get the Radio 2 ways, from the young stars. We can predict that, but we

:37:07. > :37:09.might also get it from the gas spiralling in and growing a black

:37:10. > :37:14.hole at the centre of the galaxy. We are watching the early stages of the

:37:15. > :37:21.galaxy. It might be young galaxies merging together. This kind of black

:37:22. > :37:27.hole normally means a collision, so these could be proto- galaxies.

:37:28. > :37:32.Billions of years ago as well, so close to the beginning of the

:37:33. > :37:38.universe. We still have to name it, and we want you to do that as well,

:37:39. > :37:43.so please send suggestions. The only thing is that it needs to have the

:37:44. > :37:46.number nine at the stars. We will give you a decision on that and we

:37:47. > :37:51.will have it by the end of the show. And that will be its name. There

:37:52. > :37:56.will be scientific papers with the name on it, and that's wonderful. To

:37:57. > :38:03.find out what the conditions are like for stargazing outside, here is

:38:04. > :38:07.Helen Willetts. It was not the best weather for getting out Stargazing

:38:08. > :38:11.Live, but I can tell you there are going to be more clear skies

:38:12. > :38:15.tonight. It won't be warm if you head out and about, widespread frost

:38:16. > :38:22.coming and icy patches, and some patchy cloud, but if we are lucky

:38:23. > :38:25.enough to see Aurora Borealis, and talking to my colleagues at the

:38:26. > :38:28.space centre, it could arrive, we might see it in northern England and

:38:29. > :38:32.Northern Ireland, but if we don't see it, plenty more to look at in

:38:33. > :38:38.the sky and we should have plenty of clear skies. Come tomorrow, there

:38:39. > :38:42.will still be cloud across southern and eastern areas, but for many,

:38:43. > :38:48.with the cold light, it could be clear and plenty to see. If you are

:38:49. > :38:51.not lucky enough to see Aurora Borealis, Jupiter is meant to be

:38:52. > :38:55.bright in the sky, and the good news is that into the weekend, Friday and

:38:56. > :39:01.Saturday, it looks clearer, but it will be cold, so wrap up warm.

:39:02. > :39:12.Mark is under the stars in egg, with a huge crowd of other stargazers.

:39:13. > :39:15.Hello, I'm still here. Now, all evening I've been at the Royal

:39:16. > :39:19.Holloway University at one of the biggest star spectaculars in the

:39:20. > :39:21.country - and this is where lots of budding scientists start their

:39:22. > :39:26.astronomy careers. This is where many budding scientists start their

:39:27. > :39:29.careers. And one of the first things any beginner has to is learn their

:39:30. > :39:32.way around the night sky. So I've decided to enlist the help of Royal

:39:33. > :39:36.Holloway's Physics department to bring to life the one constellation

:39:37. > :39:39.everyone should know and I'm also going to use some ingenious BBC

:39:40. > :39:41.software to create a human constellation. There is the gang of

:39:42. > :39:44.students, we have armed them with torches. There you go, guys! With a

:39:45. > :39:49.bit of BBC magic, we will try to create a human constellation. If you

:39:50. > :39:54.look at the sky on any night, you can seek seven bright stars. There

:39:55. > :40:01.they are appearing, and as those stars form, it is a shape we are

:40:02. > :40:06.familiar with, the Plough. It's one we can see at any time of night from

:40:07. > :40:10.the UK. The lines are wobbly, but maybe that is gravitational lenses.

:40:11. > :40:15.You should be able to see this at any time of night, but the itself is

:40:16. > :40:21.Ursa Major. Those are the stars slowly appealing -- appearing, and

:40:22. > :40:26.they are slowly joining up the lines, that is the great Bear, the

:40:27. > :40:36.name of the constellation, where we find MA and M 82. -- M81. I can't

:40:37. > :40:42.quite see a bear, even squinting, but if you look now, you can make

:40:43. > :40:47.the shape of the bear. The important thing about this constellation is

:40:48. > :40:51.that there are two stars at the end of the bowl that point towards

:40:52. > :40:58.Polaris, the North polar Star, and that is the only fixed star in the

:40:59. > :41:03.sky. If you can find the poll by looking at those two points, you can

:41:04. > :41:09.find anything in the night sky -- pole. And that means navigating is

:41:10. > :41:14.easy, as I found, when I took to the seas. I might know my way around the

:41:15. > :41:19.night sky, but I don't know how to use the knowledge down here on

:41:20. > :41:28.Earth. Fortunately, I'm not alone. With me is natural navigation expert

:41:29. > :41:32.Tristan Gooley. Without even knowing where we are starting, we are

:41:33. > :41:40.navigating to Alderney. Tristan, nice to meet you. Alderney is 50

:41:41. > :41:46.miles from England, and just three miles across, so it will make for a

:41:47. > :41:49.small target as night falls. Before we can think about finding the

:41:50. > :41:56.island, we need to think exactly where the boat is. We are not using

:41:57. > :42:01.GPS, radar, any modern gizmos. I have even had my phone taken of me.

:42:02. > :42:05.With the sun setting, we better make a start. To calculate position on

:42:06. > :42:11.Earth, we need to work out which area of the night sky we are under.

:42:12. > :42:17.And Polaris, the star always due north, is the perfect place to

:42:18. > :42:22.start. If you're standing on the North Pole, the star directly above

:42:23. > :42:26.your head would be Polaris, and if you travel south, that star gets

:42:27. > :42:30.steadily lower and lower, and if you reach the equator, it will be on the

:42:31. > :42:34.horizon. We are halfway between the equator and the North Pole, so we

:42:35. > :42:40.should expect the North Star to be halfway between the horizon and

:42:41. > :42:44.directly above. Tristan uses the sextant to measure Polaris and give

:42:45. > :42:49.us the latitude, how far north or south we are. But what about East or

:42:50. > :42:54.West? That is trickier. Unlike Polaris, all the other stars move

:42:55. > :43:02.around the sky through the night. Tristan sets his sights on Vega, so

:43:03. > :43:09.we can work out how long that -- how far along the path it is. Timing is

:43:10. > :43:20.critical. Now! Like every star, the timing of the path is predicted.

:43:21. > :43:23.That is 59 degrees and 47 minutes. Its position at any moment depends

:43:24. > :43:32.on how far east or west you are, the longitudinal. The time now is for 30

:43:33. > :43:35.a.m. And 50 seconds. Now we know the longitudinal attitude, we can

:43:36. > :43:42.pinpoint where we are on the map, so we can tell what direction Alderney

:43:43. > :43:46.should be. -- 4.30am. We are about five miles from land, so we can

:43:47. > :43:52.pretty much say it is five miles due south. It is a pretty creepy

:43:53. > :43:56.experience heading into the darkness. I can barely see anything

:43:57. > :44:03.ahead of me. We are having to put our faith completely in the stars.

:44:04. > :44:08.The signpost now is the star due south at this time of night. If we

:44:09. > :44:14.look up, you can see Pegasus. If we look at the bottom left-hand star,

:44:15. > :44:19.that is very close to the North Star, so that's a good one to follow

:44:20. > :44:25.now. We sail into the darkness were a couple of hours and the stars

:44:26. > :44:29.constantly move on, so once again, it's time to realign the sites.

:44:30. > :44:38.Judging by where Polaris is, we properly need to head for the group

:44:39. > :44:42.of stars called Cetus. If we look at that group of stars, and you lower

:44:43. > :44:47.your gaze to the horizon, what do you see? I can see a clump of

:44:48. > :44:55.lights, where I am confident that that is Alderney. Looks good to me.

:44:56. > :44:59.The constellation known as the sea monster is currently south of us,

:45:00. > :45:03.and it is guiding us in. One hour later, out of the inky blackness, we

:45:04. > :45:12.see the shape of Alderney. We have made it. You can see where the Pope

:45:13. > :45:17.kisses the ground. I can feel it coming on. We have travelled well

:45:18. > :45:21.over 50 miles and managed to hit a small target using just the stars to

:45:22. > :45:25.navigate by, but unfortunately, it has turned cloudy, so no way I can

:45:26. > :45:38.enjoy a nice dark skies that Alderney has to offer. I guess it is

:45:39. > :45:43.time for bed. Navigating by the stars seems archaic, but the

:45:44. > :45:54.commander of the space shuttle navigates by the stars as well.

:45:55. > :46:03.Let's play guess the planet. That is Mars. Has the biggest volcano in the

:46:04. > :46:09.solar system. Next one, what do we have there? That is Mercury. No way

:46:10. > :46:13.would we have had pictures like this without messenger being in orbit.

:46:14. > :46:21.What is fascinating is in these permanently shadowed craters,

:46:22. > :46:27.Mercury only presents one place, you can get zones that are so cold, you

:46:28. > :46:35.can get water and ice mixed in with the pebbles. There is water on

:46:36. > :46:46.Mercury, frozen solid. And planet you cannot recognise easily?

:46:47. > :46:52.Neptune. Nobody has ever seen this planet. This has been worked out by

:46:53. > :47:01.a team of scientists at Exeter University. This is remarkable, it

:47:02. > :47:08.is a genuine simulation. A planet we have never seen. This is how they

:47:09. > :47:12.did it. Planets beyond our solar system are

:47:13. > :47:17.very far away and we have little hope of imaging verse surfaces. So

:47:18. > :47:22.finding anything out about what these worlds are like, might seem

:47:23. > :47:27.like an impossible task. But a team of planet hunters at Exeter

:47:28. > :47:31.University are gearing up to do just that. With a new technique that may

:47:32. > :47:42.one day help us identify another habitable Earth. Planets can be

:47:43. > :47:47.detected by the almost imperceptible dip they cause as they pass in front

:47:48. > :47:52.of their staff. And that is all of the scientists have to work with.

:47:53. > :48:03.But with some ingenious methods they are beginning to construct these

:48:04. > :48:06.distant worlds. This stock has been working on one of the current

:48:07. > :48:14.planets. Orbiting around a star 150 light years away. When I started

:48:15. > :48:24.there was only one planet we could study the atmosphere of. This is an

:48:25. > :48:31.image of the host star. David measures precisely how the light

:48:32. > :48:34.from the host star changes as this iris filters it through its

:48:35. > :48:43.atmosphere. Starlight is made up of many different colours. And by

:48:44. > :48:48.analysing the colours that are absorbed by the planet's atmosphere

:48:49. > :48:53.when it passes across the star, David can work out what is in the

:48:54. > :49:06.atmosphere and even how thick it is. Unfortunately, it does not sound

:49:07. > :49:16.very welcoming. It looks quite alien, it is mainly made of hydrogen

:49:17. > :49:19.and helium. They have also detected sodium in the atmosphere and not a

:49:20. > :49:24.place that could support life as we know it. But even if they found

:49:25. > :49:29.oxygen and nitrogen, an earthlike atmosphere, to predict if it could

:49:30. > :49:36.be habitable we have to see how the atmosphere behaves. And that is how

:49:37. > :49:41.David was Makro Collie comes in. We are trying to interpret these

:49:42. > :49:47.observations of these climates. To do this Nathan's team have

:49:48. > :49:52.reconstruct did its atmosphere in the most sophisticated climate

:49:53. > :50:00.prediction model around. The Met Office's model of planet Earth. This

:50:01. > :50:08.brings the planet to life. This is the night side facing away from the

:50:09. > :50:13.start. This is the heart day side, temperatures of a few thousand

:50:14. > :50:21.degrees. And the arrows represent the wind flying past, incredibly

:50:22. > :50:25.fast. With this model we can dive through its atmosphere and it

:50:26. > :50:34.reveals 3000 miles down there are even stormy conditions. Very violent

:50:35. > :50:43.region, and nastier place to be, for a human anyway. Although this might

:50:44. > :50:48.not be the earthlike than it we are looking for, Nathan hopes modelling

:50:49. > :50:51.its atmosphere will help the search. Models like this can make a

:50:52. > :50:55.contribution in trying to find an alert analogue or an alert to win

:50:56. > :51:06.and trying to understand that atmosphere. -- and Earth twin. You

:51:07. > :51:14.can see the behaviour of the fluids? The model predicts there is an

:51:15. > :51:22.equatorial band, so a Jetstream at the equator. Also a couple of

:51:23. > :51:36.storms, that is Jupiter's red spot. This is orbiting around what we call

:51:37. > :51:42.a K star. But it is the M stars that are the most common in the galaxy.

:51:43. > :51:47.What these models have shown is that does not preclude the existence of

:51:48. > :51:53.life potentially on these planets. These storms distribute the heat

:51:54. > :51:59.around the planet. So we can add myth about 75% of the stars in the

:52:00. > :52:09.galaxy could support life. But this cannot support life? Know it also

:52:10. > :52:16.has silicon rain, so it rains glace. If you do last 20 years ago, perhaps

:52:17. > :52:23.ten years ago, we did not know about the other solar systems in the

:52:24. > :52:29.galaxy. Now we have over 1000 planets beyond the solar system

:52:30. > :52:34.confirmed. Many of them looking at a planet as it passes across the

:52:35. > :52:37.star. This is an encyclopaedia of the planets passing by. The most

:52:38. > :52:42.interesting than it is, the most interesting candidates are the 12

:52:43. > :52:48.planets that have been found and are most likely to be second earths.

:52:49. > :52:56.They are in what is called the habitable zone of the staff. We can

:52:57. > :53:02.also tell about the gases within the atmosphere? We can look at the

:53:03. > :53:08.atmosphere to ask questions such as is their oxygen in the atmosphere?

:53:09. > :53:14.Carbon dioxide, so the likes of Venus, it's atmosphere is too dense.

:53:15. > :53:21.But we can look for industrial pollutants in the atmosphere. If you

:53:22. > :53:27.found CFC which are not created naturally. You would know there is

:53:28. > :53:36.industrial civilisation. We're not far away from being able to do that.

:53:37. > :53:45.For the final time, we are crossing over to Liz who has been circling

:53:46. > :53:54.the skies in Norway. We are still admiring the aurora borealis. It has

:53:55. > :54:02.changed quite a lot? Yes, it has actually hit now. I am not landing

:54:03. > :54:13.now. This could burst into a multicoloured ray of light? This is

:54:14. > :54:22.the beginning of it. It is changing by the second. Do Rohrer occur

:54:23. > :54:27.regularly? There is always something there, whether it be a faint glow up

:54:28. > :54:32.to a full-blown display like we are going to get now. As we're looking

:54:33. > :54:42.at this appear, there is the equivalent happening in the South?

:54:43. > :54:50.Yes, in the southern Oval as well. We have been sending our hunters out

:54:51. > :54:57.to get us some pictures. This was captured in Tasmania several hours

:54:58. > :55:02.ago. It is beautiful. Seven hours ago then, that would have been

:55:03. > :55:07.manifesting itself appear, the equivalent of it somewhere in the

:55:08. > :55:14.zone? Yes, the northern zone as well. So many questions from viewers

:55:15. > :55:20.about the nature of this. Someone asking, are they identical in

:55:21. > :55:26.appearance? As one happens up here, the exact same patterns and

:55:27. > :55:31.features, happens down there? If you are standing the same distance, yes

:55:32. > :55:37.that is what would happen. When it comes to them being mirrored image

:55:38. > :55:42.of each others, one is mirroring the other in shape and position? It was

:55:43. > :55:48.thought for a long time that was the case, but in 2002 a couple of NASA

:55:49. > :55:52.spacecraft by chance just imaged both ovals so they were able to

:55:53. > :55:57.compared them. There are subtle differences. When things come from

:55:58. > :56:01.the solar wind it can make both ovals move in opposite directions.

:56:02. > :56:07.On the regions of maximum at liberty in the ovals tilt towards the dawn

:56:08. > :56:13.side of the Earth as well. It is nearly time for us to say goodbye,

:56:14. > :56:17.but it has been glorious. We are still waiting for changes in

:56:18. > :56:25.colours. It has been an ambitious mission over the last three nights

:56:26. > :56:29.and a privilege to observe this. We were lucky when we were on the

:56:30. > :56:35.ground? Extremely lucky, I have known people who waited two weeks

:56:36. > :56:40.and saw nothing at all. There is so much to learn, but somewhere in the

:56:41. > :56:45.not too distant future, not only will we be able to admire this, we

:56:46. > :56:50.will have learned enough to say exactly what is going on at that

:56:51. > :56:54.moment in time. VAT for me is thrilling and it brings home are

:56:55. > :56:59.intrinsic relationship with our start. That is it from us. We will

:57:00. > :57:07.keep rolling until the end of the show. It has been an honour to be

:57:08. > :57:14.part of this live from 30,000 feet. It is good night from northern

:57:15. > :57:21.Norway. I don't know what to say without being hyperbolic. We knew it

:57:22. > :57:32.was a gamble and we knew we could not get nothing. Mark, how are you

:57:33. > :57:37.getting on? We have had a wonderful evening, the

:57:38. > :57:42.unforgettable human constellation. A Milky Way projection the size of a

:57:43. > :57:47.house and there is a simulator somewhere. Not forgetting the

:57:48. > :57:52.wonderful clear skies, we have seen beautiful images are planets and

:57:53. > :57:55.beautiful images of galaxies. These guys are going to be here for some

:57:56. > :58:04.time yet so I am going to join the party. So from me and everyone here,

:58:05. > :58:16.goodbye. Rebecca, some names coming in. Nine Jodrell Scope, I like that.

:58:17. > :58:24.We will be discussing this in a moment. Thank you for all of you who

:58:25. > :58:30.have taken part. What a wonderful way to finish the series. Let's take

:58:31. > :58:36.a last look at those images captured from the Ark ticks circle. It is

:58:37. > :58:40.incredible. Thanks to all of our viewers who have sent in

:58:41. > :58:49.photographs, or just watching at home. The show may be over for

:58:50. > :58:56.another year, joiners in two minutes per K9's space tributes. The first

:58:57. > :59:02.time we made this programme four years ago was to encourage you to

:59:03. > :59:07.look up and go outside. We have described the planets, the space

:59:08. > :59:13.probes orbiting the planets, let your imagination fly and we will see

:59:14. > :59:22.you next year. Also in two minutes as well.