 There's something incredible, I think, about how when we look at a map we can transport ourselves and our imaginations to the places they show, whether it be a place we visited from our memory or that paradise island we would dearly love to travel to. Maps as armchair travel or virtual tourism has actually been a thing for many, many centuries, and maps can offer some much needed escapism, and that's never been true than the present. I'm particularly enthralled by how older maps, when we look at them, can transport us back in time. And of course, when we consider maps such as star charts or celestial charts, we see the idea and the possibility of travelling beyond our world altogether. I'd like to introduce you to one of my favourite items. It's a celestial globe or a star globe. The globe was produced in 1700 in London by a man, a map maker, an instrument maker called Thomas Tussle, and it's one of a number of globes from the British Library's collection, which we've had digitised and turned into interactive 3D models and put on our website, bill.uk forward slash maps, you can study and enjoy for free. We're very grateful to the British Library's digitisation service and Cyreel for helping make this possible. The globe is a papier-mache sphere, about 36 centimetres in diameter, that's set in a mahogany stand, and when we look at the surface, we can see all sorts of things. We can see all of the known stars. We can see the stars grouped into constellations. Now, everyone's familiar with the idea of the terrestrial globe, the globe of the Earth. But although celestial globes are rather more niche, we actually think that they predate terrestrial globes by quite a long way. The earliest surviving globe is actually a star globe. And actually, when you think about it, the sky would have had a far greater presence upon people's lives in earlier eras, both practically and psychologically. I'm fascinated by this globe and just how vivid and dynamic the constellations are. Now, this way of showing the constellations really derives from Dutch globes produced the previous century, but they're full of expression and they all flow into each other in this really compelling and entertaining way. For example, if you look at the area of Centaurus, the centaur, he's actually running through with a lance in his neighbour constellation, Lupus the Wolf. Now, this is absolutely top draw entertainment for those looking at it. I really like this globe because it shows us just how successive societies placed what they valued most in the constellations. For example, ancient civilizations placed their myths and legends there. And we've still got them there today. Europeans from the 16th century created constellations from the wondrous things they'd seen on their travels, such as the constellation of the chameleon and the flying fish and the toucan. Tuttle's Globe contains the constellation Cor Caroli, which is that part of Charles. And this was placed as a constellation in honour of King Charles II of England, who came to the throne in 1660 following the restoration. When I look at these constellations, I sometimes wonder what our society might place as a constellation as well had we not become more preoccupied by the moon and Mars. Now, a celestial globe doesn't just show the stars. It's actually nothing less than a conceptual model for the entire universe. The idea of it is that the celestial sphere was imagined to be this colossal globe that actually encased our own world with the Earth right in the centre. And onto the inside of this vast globe were studied all of the stars and celestial objects you can imagine. That's basically the idea behind it. And we, the viewer looking at the globes, are placed outside the globe looking in, which is why when you look at celestial globes, actually all of the constellations and the stars are the wrong way around. They're back to front. And that's why we're pretty sure that one of the main users of celestial globes was not stargazing. We think they're very probably used for teaching, education, theorising about the world, the nature and form of the universe. And also, that often forgotten aspect of Mars, it's incredibly important, cultural enrichment and enjoyment.