Tag: skyatnight

The Sky at Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC.

The show had the same permanent presenter, Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. The latter date was a posthumous broadcast, which followed Moore’s death on 9 December 2012. This made it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Many early episodes are missing, either because the tapes were wiped, thrown out, or because the episode was broadcast live and never recorded in the first place.

Beginning with the 3 February 2013 edition, the show was co-presented by Lucie Green and Chris Lintott. Since December 2013 Maggie Aderin-Pocock has been a presenter. The programme’s opening and closing theme music is “At the Castle Gate”, from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

This episode:
This month, The Sky at Night teams up with BBC Ideas to discover the secrets of archaeology and astronomy and to reflect on our ancestral skies. Throughout history and across the world, humanity has looked up and marvelled at the night sky. From ancient civilizations who were guided by the sun, moon and stars, to modern astronomers uncovering the universe’s history, we have always found deep meaning in our dark skies. But is modern civilisation putting this important link at risk? Out on Cornwall’s beautiful Bodmin Moor, George Dransfield meets up with archaeoastronomer Carolyn Kennett at an ancient archaeological site. The Goodaver stone circle is steeped in history, but it has been cut off from the public and researchers like Carolyn for decades. But times are changing. The site will open to the public in November, and Carolyn and fellow archaeoastronomers are finally able to assess the stones against the horizon and understand how they are aligned to the sun, moon and stars.

What new stories about ancient peoples and their relationship to the night sky will be discovered? Chris Lintott and Maggie Aderin-Pocock are also finding out about archaeology in Cambridge – but not necessarily the archaeology you would expect. At the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Maggie links up with Australian space archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman to look at what we should be preserving of our history in space so far. From satellites to moon landing sites, what will future generations want to see to help them understand our early history of our journey into space? Meanwhile, Chris heads to the Department of Archaeology to find out about the surprising and fascinating field of Galactic Archaeology, which takes inspiration from archaeology to try and solve the mystery of our galaxy’s history – using only what we can see today.

Chris meets anthropologist and evolutionary biologist Professor Robert Foley and astrophysicist Dr Payel Das, who are part of a team that has been using phylogenetic trees – models normally used for evolution – for modelling the evolution of galaxies. Each generation of stars within a galaxy forms from material polluted with elements produced by previous generations, opening up the possibility of understanding their shared history. Finally, Pete Lawrence is at the Exmoor Dark Skies Festival, where he is meeting Jo Richardson. While Pete waits for night to fall, he talks to Jo about the importance of maintaining our view of the night sky and how modern lighting is affecting the health and well-being of humans and other animals. But will the clouds clear and provide the spectacular view dark skies sites can offer? Don’t miss this captivating exploration of our shared history and the stars, as we discover where archaeology and astronomy meet to illuminate the profound connections that shape our understanding of both the universe and ourselves!

Links:
The Sky at Night

The Sky at Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC.

The show had the same permanent presenter, Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. The latter date was a posthumous broadcast, which followed Moore’s death on 9 December 2012. This made it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Many early episodes are missing, either because the tapes were wiped, thrown out, or because the episode was broadcast live and never recorded in the first place.

Beginning with the 3 February 2013 edition, the show was co-presented by Lucie Green and Chris Lintott. Since December 2013 Maggie Aderin-Pocock has been a presenter. The programme’s opening and closing theme music is “At the Castle Gate”, from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

This episode:
The Sky at Night is embarking on a journey into the future, as we explore how space will revolutionise life on Earth over the next 50 years. As humanity’s reach extends into the cosmos, we face unprecedented challenges, from redefining what it means to be an astronaut, to confronting our own space junk, to dealing with the impact of life in space on our earth-adapted bodies. With privileged early access to a groundbreaking new report from the Royal Society on humanity’s future in space, the Sky at Night team are on a mission to find our destiny among the stars – our place in space.

The criteria for becoming an astronaut are famously tough. But if we want more people to go to space, maybe it’s time to start challenging that. That’s what the European Space Agency are doing with their pioneering study Fly!, which aims to figure out if someone with a physical disability can live and work in space. At the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, presenter Chris Lintott meets one of the newest members of ESA’s astronaut reserve: John McFall. John is already a medal-winning Paralympian and orthopaedic surgeon and – as if that wasn’t enough – he is now the first recruit to the Fly! study. Chris discovers what’s involved in John’s extensive and gruelling training, and finds out what his hopes are for improving access to space.

Training for space travel is one thing, but living on the moon or Mars is a whole new level for humanity. Our bodies are used to gravity, and being in environments with less gravity than Earth can make them go a bit haywire. At the Royal Society in London, Maggie Aderin-Pocock meets up with space medicine expert Professor Kevin Fong to find out all about the challenges of keeping humans healthy in space. What would an astronaut on Mars do in a medical emergency? What happens to our bones, muscles and organs if we are without Earth’s gravity for a long time? And could a baby be born in space?

While Maggie and Kevin unpack those mind-bending questions, George Dransfield heads to Astroscale in Oxfordshire, a company who are coming up with clever ways to take out space trash. There are already 130 million pieces of space debris in orbit around our planet, and that number is ticking up. George meets up with Dr Mekhi Dhesi to learn about Astroscale’s clever missions to clean up space junk – including ELSA-M, a spacecraft which uses magnets to tow defunct satellites out of orbit, and Cosmic, a spacecraft with a robot arm to grab onto debris.

Our increasing dependence on satellites isn’t just producing a lot of space junk though, it’s also becoming a nuisance for amateur astronomers around the world. Thankfully, our resident astronomer Pete Lawrence has some clever tips and tricks for telling satellites and meteors apart, and using smart telescopes to remove satellite trails from deep sky images.

Finally, back at the Royal Society, Maggie sits down with Professor Suzie Imber, planetary scientist and co-chair of the groundbreaking Space: 2075 report. Together, they unpack some of the biggest questions about our journey into the cosmos over the next 50 years. How do we make sure space benefits us all, including those of us still down here on Earth? Should we be concerned about the commercialisation of space travel? And will there really be people on Mars by 2075?

Links:
The Sky at Night

The Sky at Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC.

The show had the same permanent presenter, Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. The latter date was a posthumous broadcast, which followed Moore’s death on 9 December 2012. This made it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Many early episodes are missing, either because the tapes were wiped, thrown out, or because the episode was broadcast live and never recorded in the first place.

Beginning with the 3 February 2013 edition, the show was co-presented by Lucie Green and Chris Lintott. Since December 2013 Maggie Aderin-Pocock has been a presenter. The programme’s opening and closing theme music is “At the Castle Gate”, from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

This episode:
In this Sky at Night special, the team talk to Dr Nicola Fox, NASA’s head of science, whose life began in the UK. Presenter Chris Lintott chats to Nicky about her early years growing up in Hitchin in Hertfordshire and discovers how she fell in love with the stars. Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes Nicky on a trip down memory lane. Both women studied physics at Imperial College London from the late 80s to early 90s. As they revisit familiar haunts, they discuss their experiences, and Maggie finds out about Nicky’s love of astrophysics, the challenges she overcame and how she landed a dream job at NASA. Along the way, Maggie and Nicky chat about how the university and science have changed and how new technology and deeper understanding are fuelling the missions for which Nicky is now responsible. As they come across familiar places, nostalgia hits and the two women unleash their inner child. Finally, Chris and Nicky discuss her role as the associate administrator for the science mission directorate at NASA, and Nicky reveals what the exciting plans for future missions may reveal.

Links:
The Sky at Night

The Sky at Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC.

The show had the same permanent presenter, Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. The latter date was a posthumous broadcast, which followed Moore’s death on 9 December 2012. This made it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Many early episodes are missing, either because the tapes were wiped, thrown out, or because the episode was broadcast live and never recorded in the first place.

Beginning with the 3 February 2013 edition, the show was co-presented by Lucie Green and Chris Lintott. Since December 2013 Maggie Aderin-Pocock has been a presenter. The programme’s opening and closing theme music is “At the Castle Gate”, from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

This episode:
This month, The Sky at Night has a spooky twist. Across the universe, there are hidden objects that we can’t see, but astronomers and scientists still believe they’re out there. To find out how we know that these mysterious objects exist, the team are going ghost-hunting. Cosmic ghost-hunting.

Prof Chris Lintott and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock are at Provan Hall, one of the oldest buildings in Glasgow and the site of several supposed ghost sightings across its 550-year history. But they aren’t looking for anything supernatural. Instead, they’re meeting the scientists and astronomers trying to solve some of the universe’s greatest mysteries by finding new ways to sense what surrounds us in the cosmos.

In the medieval rooms of Provan Hall, Chris meets Dr Olivia Jones from the UK Astronomy Centre and discovers how a tool often employed by ghost hunters is actually great for finding objects hidden in the dust of the cosmos. He also meets Prof Tessa Baker from the University of Portsmouth, who shows him how ripples in space-time are helping scientists to detect new, unseen cosmic events. And while scanning the house for spooky sounds, Maggie hears a voice from the past, which leads her to uncover the wonderful work of Vera Rubin – a trailblazing astronomer who helped to prove the existence of dark matter.

Across the country, and over a kilometre further below the Earth’s surface, guest presenter Prof Chamkaur Ghag is at the Boulby Underground Laboratory. While there, he discovers how the incredible research site has changed since Patrick Moore and The Sky at Night team visited 20 years ago and meets some of the Boulby team who are working on the hunt for ghostly dark matter particles.

Meanwhile, Pete Lawrence is at the Bedford School Observatory to show us how to find and photograph inky, ghost-like objects in the sky known as dark nebulae, and to tell us what to look out for in the night sky over the next month.

Links:
The Sky at Night

The Sky at Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC.

The show had the same permanent presenter, Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. The latter date was a posthumous broadcast, which followed Moore’s death on 9 December 2012. This made it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Many early episodes are missing, either because the tapes were wiped, thrown out, or because the episode was broadcast live and never recorded in the first place. Beginning with the 3 February 2013 edition, the show was co-presented by Lucie Green and Chris Lintott. Since December 2013 Maggie Aderin-Pocock has been a presenter. The programme’s opening and closing theme music is “At the Castle Gate”, from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

This episode:
Total solar eclipses, like the one seen last month in North America, allow us to see details of the Sun that can’t be seen at any other time. So, this month, The Sky at Night team looks at how scientists are creating eclipses on demand and discovering the secrets that can be revealed hidden in that starlight, including habitable planets like our own. Maggie Aderin-Pocock travels to Belgium, where the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission is going through its final testing stages. This groundbreaking mission aims to fly two satellites together in formation, with one satellite acting like the moon during an eclipse, blocking out the central light of the Sun. This allows the other satellite to image the corona, the Sun’s outer atmosphere as seen during an eclipse. Maggie meets Dr Damien Galano from ESA, who tells her all about the challenges of the mission and what it hopes to achieve. Maggie then goes on to meet satellite operations test engineer Marie Beeckman, who takes her up close to the satellites to find out how the testing is going. Meanwhile, Pete Lawrence is out and about in Bristol, meeting a team of scientists and amateur astronomers. He discovers how input from the amateurs was crucial to the discovery of two exoplanets colliding, which had caused the dimming of a star. Finally, Chris Lintott is in Glasgow meeting Professor Beth Biller from Edinburgh University to discover why it is only by creating eclipses of distant stars that we could potentially find exoplanets more like our own. And as ever, our resident astronomer, Pete Lawrence, guides us through what can be seen this coming month, with a particular focus on the rewards of viewing in daylight – but as always, he reminds us of the need to take care when doing this.

Links:
The Sky at Night