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Patrick MooreThe Sky at Night... Foreword When I became the producer of the Sky at Night in 2002, I was given some friendly advice: “It’s a quiet little programme, not much happens in as

The Sky at Night

Patrick Moore

The Sky at Night

Patrick Moore

Farthings

39 West Street

Selsey, West Sussex PO20 9AD

UK

ISBN 978-1-4419-6408-3 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-6409-0

DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-6409-0

Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010934379

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

All rights reserved This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY

10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar

or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden.

The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject

to proprietary rights.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Foreword

When I became the producer of the Sky at Night in 2002, I was given some friendly advice: “It’s a quiet little programme, not much happens in astronomy.” How wrong they were! It’s been a hectic and enthralling time ever since:, with missions arriving

at distant planets; new discoveries in our Universe; and leaps in technology, which mean amateurs can take pictures as good as the Hubble Space Telescope

What a privilege it is to work on a programme with such a huge heritage! I am constantly amazed looking back at the flotilla of excellent programmes which have gone out over the past five decades The Sky at Night has always been at the sharp end of science broadcasting, whether it’s showing the first view from the far side of the Moon or pictures of a new comet which has swept into our sky Viewers can depend on Sir Patrick to tell them the latest news and explain what it means It’s an outstanding achievement and Sir Patrick still holds the world record for being the same presenter on the longest running TV programme

Our guests love coming down to Farthings, Sir Patrick’s home For them,

meet-ing him is like meetmeet-ing their astronomical hero Over the past five decades, the Sky

at Night has managed to talk to the space scientists and astronomers making the landmark discoveries No matter how busy they are, they make room for Sir Patrick

We have been privileged to record astronomical history as it is made For example,

when NASA’s spacecraft hits comet Tempel 1, the Sky at Night was given exclusive

access to film the astronomers using the Palomar Telescope, thanks to its Director, Professor Richard Ellis

I will never forget the night the Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon, Titan Professor John Zarnecki, Principal Investigator for the surface science package on board Huygens, gave us the ‘nod’ to set up our camera in the dining room at ESA’s mission control The world’s media was camped out next to the press room, but we trusted John and moved our camera It paid off when the astronomers came rushing

in to us for an impromptu presentation of the first images of Titan, from a distance

of some 900 million miles

Filming the Sky at Night every month is always a challenge First, there is the

set-ting of our main interview with Sir Patrick and the guests To make room in Sir Patrick’s study for our three cameras and lights, we have to clear much of his furniture and move his work I always try to make sure that the Woodstock typewriter is in shot Patrick still uses it for the programme scripts and, of course, his many books

vi Foreword Secondly, there is the programme budget I like to remind my BBC colleagues that daytime TV programmes get more money than we do We do not have the money to commission CGI graphics; instead, we use simpler and much cheaper props to explain complex theories Professor Fred Watson rose to the challenge when explaining the transit of Venus with a lemon and two hoops Dr Dave Rothery juggled coloured ping pong balls to great aplomb when discussing the formation of the Solar System Professors Carlos Frenk and Derek Ward-Thompson resorted to dinner plates to illustrate the grand collision between our Galaxy and Andromeda When our dear friend Dr Allan Chapman from Oxford comes on the programme,

he always steals the show He managed to cover Sir Patrick in sloppy plaster when creating craters on the Moon When Health and Safety said he couldn’t use sulphu-ric acid to recreate an histosulphu-ric Robert Hooke experiment about understanding com-ets, he used vinegar instead The bubbles may not have been as explosive, but they did the job! Another show stealer was comic and impersonator John Culshaw, who became Patrick Moore from the year 1957 for our ‘Time Lord’ programme Seeing him adopt Patrick’s mannerisms, including the monocle, was quite unnerving Sir Patrick, in 2007, was more than happy to admit that Patrick Moore in 1957 had got

a few things wrong and told him so!

There are many people I would like to thank on behalf of the programme First and foremost are the viewers, who search the schedules for our monthly time slot and stay up late to watch us Without their loyalty and dedication, we would not have had a programme There are the amateur astronomers who share images and observations, with their endless enthusiasm and good humour when the clouds role

in on our observing sessions; the BBC team who work behind the scenes and who love the show, and put every effort to make it the best science programme that’s all year round

I would like to thank the other man who presents the programme, Dr Chris Lintott He has been with the programme since 2003, and reports from far flung observatories, asking the astronomers all the right probing questions, and helping

me understand the complexities of the Cosmos

Finally, there is Sir Patrick himself The past few years have been the most excit-ing and most enjoyable period of my career It’s been a pleasure and honour to work with Sir Patrick Every time I meet him, I am bowled over by the enormous breadth

of knowledge, grasp of the subject and his ability to explain it simply and suc-cinctly He is a wonderful broadcaster

I look forward to many, many more Sky at Night programmes, with Sir Patrick

at the helm presenting the show, reminding us why we should step outside and look

up at the night sky There is a whole universe out there, and Sir Patrick Moore is going to tell us all about it

Jane Fletcher

Producer, the Sky at Night

Introduction

This new book, the Sky at Night series is the 13th – I hope this is not an omen! It

covers an eventful period, and I hope that we have managed to cover it successfully

It is interesting to look back to the early days of the Sky at Night; after all, our

programme goes back to before the start of the Space Age

There has been one important change Chris Lintott who helped me join as co-presenter, now plays a more major role than I do – which is exactly how I planned

it Unlike me, he is now a leading research astronomer It is good to have him with

me, and he will still be around long after I have faded from view

My special thanks go to Jane Fletcher (in private life Mrs Segar) for guiding the programme throughout this period, and for masterminding that never-to-be-forgot-ten Fiftieth Anniversary

Well, here’s to the next half-century …

Patrick Moore

About the Author

Sir Patrick Moore is one of the world’s leading popularisers of astronomy He has written more than 100 books and presented his BBC TV programme The Sky at Night every 4 weeks since 1957, making it the world’s longest running television program of any kind

While still in school, he became a member of the British Astronomical Association (BAA) and was later appointed director of Brockhurst Observatory He served as director of the Armagh Planetarium between 1965 and 1968 He is a fel-low of the Royal Astronomical Society (and a Jackson Gwillt medallist), a member

of the International Astronomical Union, a holder of the Goodacre medal, and for-mer president and current vice president of the BAA A minor planet (# 2602) has been named after him He was knighted in November 2000 He was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society As the presenter of the record-breaking The Sky at Night series, Patrick was awarded a BAFTA in 2000

The most important research Patrick has carried out has been about the Moon

He is credited with independently discovering the Mare Orientale He did this with his “traditional” 12½-in reflector, which still sits proudly in his front garden His maps of the Moon were among those used by the Russians in 1959 to correlate the first Lunik 3 pictures of the far side He was also at NASA for the lunar mapping prior to the Apollo missions

Chris Lintott, the co-star of the latest episodes of The Sky at Night, has a mas-sive fan base that derives equally from The Sky at Night and from his paradigm-shifting astronomy website Galaxy Zoo, which has some 150,000 members

Acknowledgements

My most grateful thanks to those who have joined me on the programme during this period I give them in order of first appearance – of course many have joined me in several programmes I hope I have not turned professors into doctors, or doctors into professors – if I have, please forgive me!

Dr Chris Lintott

Prof Gerry Gilmore

Prof John Brown

Mr Ninian Boyle

Mr Alan Clitheroe

Mr Keith Johnson

Prof Richard Ellis

Dr James Bauer

Prof Iwan Williams

Prof Andrew Coates

Prof Monica Grady

Dr Simon Conway-Morris

Prof Carlos Frenk

Dr Robert Nicoll

Prof John Zarnecki

Dr Carolyn Porco

Prof Michelle Dougherty

Prof Bernard Foing

Dr Steven Squyres

Dr Mark Kidger

Mr Damian Peach

Mr Pete Lawrence

Mr Ian Sharp

Mr David Tyler

Prof Richard Harrison

Prof Lucie Green

Dr John Mason

Dr Harriet Jones

xii Acknowledgements Prof Michael A’Hearn

Dr Andrew Adamson

Dr Geoff Marcy

Mr Bruce Kingsley

Mr Alan Schultz

Mr Tim Wright

Dr Carl Murray

Prof Niall Tanvir

Dr Julian Osborne

Dr Helen Fraser

Mr Tom Boles

Prof Richard Nelson

Dr David Rothery

Prof Fred Taylor

Dr Don Kurtz

Dr Yvonne Elsworthy

Dr Piers Sellers

Mr John Culshaw

Prof Andrew Collier-Cameron

Dr Fiona Spiritz

Prof Sir Bernard Lovell

Dr Ian Morrison

Dr Phil Diamond

Mr Bernard Baruch

Prof Derek Ward-Thompson

Mr Nik Szymanek

Dr Eugene Cernan

Contents

1 Eye on the Universe 1

2 The Turbulent Sun 5

3 Comet Crash 9

4 The Search for Life Elsewhere 13

5 Mapping the Sky 17

6 News from the Planets 19

7 Spanish Ring 25

8 The Sizes of the Stars 29

9 The Edge of the Solar System 33

10 The Telescopes of Mauna Kea 37

11 Turkish Delight 41

12 Ringed World 45

13 Matter We Cannot See 49

14 Gamma-Ray Bursters 53

15 Wandering Giants 57

16 The Problem of Pluto 61

xiv Contents

17 Non-identical Twins 65

18 The Sounds of the Stars 69

19 Space-Man 73

20 Exploring Mars 77

21 The Lakes of Titan 81

22 Fiftieth Anniversary 87

23 SuperWASP 91

24 Scorpion in the Sky 95

25 The August Perseids 99

26 Black Holes: And Black Magic 103

27 Jodrell Bank: Fiftieth Anniversary 107

28 The Grand Collision 109

29 Holmes’ Comet 113

30 Cosmic Debris 117

31 Nearest Star 121

32 The Flight of the Phoenix 125

33 Devil’s Advocate 129

34 Galaxy Zoo 133

35 Four Hundred Years of the Telescope 137

36 The Merry Dancers 141

37 The Fountains of Enceladus 145

38 The Herschel Telescope 149

39 Onward to the Moon 153

xv Contents

40 Forty Years on 159

41 Impact! 161

42 Life? 163

Index 167

P Moore, The Sky at Night, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-6409-0_1,

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

The Hubble Space Telescope – named after the great American astronomer who proved that our Galaxy is only one of many – was launched on 24 April 1990 and was put into a near-circular path 366 miles above Earth Ever since then, it has been orbit-ing the world, movorbit-ing at a speed of 16,800 mph, and completorbit-ing one circuit every 96.5 min It seemed appropriate to devote a programme to it on its 15th anniversary, and I was joined by Dr Gerry Gilmore, who has long been associated with it.

The Hubble Space Telescope is now 15 years old and working almost as well as ever I say “almost” because there are some parts which need attention, and this would have been carried out by a servicing mission, but at the moment no manned flights have been authorised, mainly because of the risks involved The Columbia tragedy, when the returning capsule broke-up on entering the atmosphere, is still

Chapter 1

Eye on the Universe

Hubble Space Telescope (NASA)

2 1 Eye on the Universe fresh in everyone’s minds The astronauts are all prepared to go up, and have said

so, but of course the NASA authorities have the last word

Hubble did not have an auspicious beginning I well remember sitting with the audience in 1990 and watching the telescope launched; that was a great moment, but a few weeks later it became painfully clear that something was wrong The images were blurred It was found that mirror had been wrongly made – not by much (less then the width of a human hair) but enough to ruin the telescope’s performance It was a straightforward case of human error, one of the most embar-rassing in the history of science, and some sections of the media made the most of

it I am delighted to say that the Sky at Night took a very different view Hubble

might be flawed, but it was still an instrument of immense value

Then came a daring repair mission Astronauts went to the telescope, and to all intents and purposes fitted it with spectacles The results were amazing Hubble was not only repaired, but was also performing better than had ever been expected Regular servicing missions have kept it in peak condition, until now

Some people do not realise that by the standards of the present day, Hubble

is not a giant telescope It has “only” a 94 in mirror and is dwarfed by the reflec-tors such as the Keck twins in Hawaii and the VLT ( Very Large Telescope) in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, which is made up of four 8-m mirrors working together But Hubble is above the main part of our atmosphere so that there are no problems caused by the unsteadiness of the air – and it can receive all radiations from space, whereas on terra firma many wavelengths are blocked, leaving astronomers in the unenviable position of a pianist who is trying to play

a concerto on an instrument that lacks everything apart from its middle octave and a few isolated notes in the treble and the bass For many investigations, then, Hubble is supreme

There is nothing particularly unusual about its optical system, and there are no real problems in sending the images and data down to the Earth Also, there have

so far been no major hits from meteoroids and harmful interplanetary “dust” The planners have always been worried about the possibility of a collision with a piece

of debris the size of say, a teapot – which would cause serious damage and might even put Hubble out of commission permanently After 15 years, it is starting to look as if the risk was overestimated I remember making the comments before Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space; in 1961, pessimists were sure that he would

be seared by cosmic rays and battered to pieces by meteoroids, as well as being hopelessly space-sick None of these “Bogeys” happened

Hubble has paid attention to all branches of astronomy Until the recent Mars rockets, the Hubble pictures of the Red Planet surpassed all others and the famous “canals” were finally laid to rest (though by 1990 I doubt if anyone still believed in Percival Lowell’s brilliant-brained Martians) Amazing views were obtained of Jupiter and Saturn, and for the first time a certain amount of surface detail was seen on Pluto Hubble was also ready to monitor an exceptional event When Comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter in 1994, leaving vast scars on the Jovian clouds, Hubble was able to obtain the best pictures, and when the Deep Impact probe was aimed at Tempel 1 in 2005, Hubble was very much a part of the observational programme But it was in “deep space” that