Star Gazing with Prof Brian Cox :))

Hey you Guys, 

so, i've just watched 

Stargazing LIVE with Professor Brian Cox

& it was amazing :))))

It was on last year too, but due to it being quite cloudy we didn't really get to see a great deal :((

Tonight they spoke to Captain Eugene Cernan

who was the Commander of Apollo 17

& was the last man to walk on the moon over 40 years ago.

This man has seen and done things I can only imagine

in my wildest dreams, If I could go to space, I do it tomorrow.

Eugene Andrew Cernan (born March 14, 1934)

is a retired United States Navy officer 

and a former NASA astronaut and engineer. 

He has been into space three times: 

as pilot of Gemini 9A in June 1966; 

as lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 in May 1969; 

and as commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972, 

the final Apollo lunar landing. On Apollo 17, Cernan

became "the last man on the Moon" 

since he was the last to re-enter the 

lunar module Challenger during the 

mission's third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA). 

(Crewmate Harrison Schmitt was 

"the last man to arrive on the Moon", 

as Cernan left the module first.) 

Cernan was also a backup crew member 

for the Gemini 12, Apollo 7 and Apollo 14

 space missions

Liz Bonnin was in South Africa exploring the differences between the constellations visible in the Northern and Southern hemisphere,

with the help of S.A.L.T.

The Southern African Large Telescope, which is the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere and among the largest 5 or so in the world, (That's another thing i wanna do before I die, have a look through that)

They also covered a few of our galaxies and planets visible

 to the naked eye & through telescopes.

You'd be amazed how good the photos were that were taken

 by amateurs with telescopes that don't cost and arm and a leg. 

Contrary to popular belief, getting into astronomy doesn't 

have to be expensive.

(Although the telescope I now have my eye on, could be a bit more pricey as you can programme what you want & the remote will automatically find planets and more)

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion's Belt. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. Older texts frequently referred to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.

The Lagoon Nebula (catalogued as Messier 8 or M8, and as NGC 6523) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. The Lagoon Nebula was discovered by Guillaume Le Gentil in 1747 and is one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible to the naked eye from mid-northern latitudes. Seen with binoculars, it appears as a distinct oval cloud like patch with a definite core. A fragile star cluster appears superimposed on it.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It's gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian or outer planets.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Named after the Roman god Saturn, its astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god's sickle. Saturn is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. While only 1/8 the average density of Earth, with its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive than Earth.

A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as the bulge. These are surrounded by a much fainter halo of stars, many of which reside in globular clusters.

Spiral galaxies are named for the spiral structures that extend from the centre into the disk. The spiral arms are sites of ongoing star formation and are brighter than the surrounding disk because of the young, hot OB stars that inhabit them.

He also covered the Moon's gravitational pull on the ocean, making it appear to us, if we're on the beach, like the tide is going up & down, or coming in & out,

It causes two bulges of water on the ocean . . . one where ocean waters face the moon and the pull is strongest . . . and one where ocean waters face away from the moon and the pull is weakest. As the Earth rotates, the bulges move around it, one always facing the moon, the other directly opposite. The combined forces of gravity, the Earth's rotation, and other factors usually cause two high tides and two low tides each day.

They also mentioned planet hunting, with exoplanet Keplar, if you go to the link below you can go hunt some planets yourself :) . . . Get clicking now guys

http://www.planethunters.org

Can't wait for tomorrow night, they're gonna be taking a look

 at The Milky Way, amongst other things.

So tell me . . . Is there Life out there????

I strongly think so, or should I say

I Hope so :)))