 I have been warned that this is on now so I better watch what I say, oh where I can hear it. Oh what a change is seeing it like this. Hello and welcome to the Scottish Parliament. I'm Christine Grahame MSP, I'm a deputy presiding officer and I'd like to welcome you all here to our second science-themed family day. I hope that you've already been enjoying yourself at the inflatable planetarium or the sci-fi roadshow or maybe just bouncing around on the space hoppers. I'm a bit old for that now. I'm delighted that as part of this family day you're able to join us at this very special festival politics event, the brilliant daughter Maggie, a Darren Pocock MBE. Dr Adrian Pocock is a space scientist, if you don't know it, hello, yes. A broadcaster, a science educator and now the author of The Sky at Night, Book of the Moon, a wonderful and very accessible celebration of our unique neighbour in the sky. As a young child, she dreamed of space travel to visit the Clangars. Who knows who the Clangars are? Hands up if you know who the Clangars are. Wow, there we go. Can you make the Clangar noise? There you go. As most of you know, it's a children's TV series about mice-like creatures who lived on the moon. Perhaps Dr Adrian Pocock would still be thrilled to hitch a ride on a NASA mission to space to see if there's any of those small, green, soup-loving creatures. Dr Adrian Pocock graduated with a BSc in physics and later a PhD in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London. She then went on to work for the Ministry of Defence on projects ranging from land mine detectors to missile warning systems before returning to her first love of building instruments to explore the wonders of space. She's worked on a host of high-profile, big-budget projects guaranteed to astonish any space fan. She was the lead scientist for the Optical Instrumentation Group for Astrium and is working on the observation instruments for the, I'll get this wrong, aeolus satellite to measure wind speeds as part of the investigation into climate change. Who knows about climate change? Hands up. Well, there we are. Up, me too. From groundbreaking work on the Gemini Observatory in Chile to the Hubble successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, Dr Adrian Pocock is always leading on those exciting and amazing projects and innovations. Since 2014, she has co-presented the long-running astronomy TV programme at the Sky at Night. Who knows about the Sky at Night? Hands up. Oh, there we are. And is a regular contributor on a TV comedy panel shows Duck Quacks Don't Echo and Would I Lie to You. That's exciting. Oh, forget the mood. Would I Lie to You. I've been taking her first steps at a time when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon. Dr Adrian Pocock attended 13 schools during childhood and struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia for many years until a telescope-making night class changed her world and a space scientist was born. Who knows what dyslexia is? Ah, yes. It's Trouble With. Oh, spellings, mind me. Trouble With spelling and reading words. So 13 schools dyslexia. Look at this wonderful person. So there's hope for us all, isn't there? You're supposed to say yes. That's it. There's hope for us all. Partly because of her own experiences and because she's passionate about making science successful to all, Dr Adrian Pocock has spoken to almost 30,000 school children through her own company, Science Innovation Ltd, inspiring them to chip away at the stereotypes of STEM subjects being the preserve of white males. What is a STEM subject? Oh, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. There you are just so you know. It is now my pleasure to introduce Dr Maggie Adder and Pocock invited to give a presentation all about what? The Moon. What? The Moon, yes. Over to you. Well, first of all, I think I should introduce my friend. This is Mooney. It's not a very original name, but this is Mooney. I don't know if anyone can see him. And my daughter Lauren, who's sitting in the front there, she may heckle later. She found him for me. And I think Mooney sums me up, really, because one of the reasons I wrote the book is mainly because this year is a very exciting year, because this year is 50 years since we first stepped foot on the moon. So the words you'll be hearing a lot this year is, you know, one small step for my own, one giant leap for mankind. Because that's the words that Neil Armstrong said as he stepped out on the moon. And he did that 50 years ago. So on the 20th of July this year, we'll be celebrating that and there should be all sorts of wonderful things happening. Now, the other reason I wrote the book is because my name is Dr Maggie Aderon-Pocock, and I am a self-certified lunatic. Yes, it's embarrassing, but I do need to say it. And when I say I'm a lunatic, it's because I am mesmerised by the moon. Now, we've been up in Scotland for a few days now because we flew up on Tuesday. And when we left London, it was cold, it was wet, and it was horrible. And we flew up and we landed in Glasgow because we were doing some filming there. And it was beautiful, it was sunny. And each time I see a nice clear day, I think, oh goodness, it might be clear tonight. And it was true that night I looked out and there was the moon. And I must confess, I don't know if you two know about this, but that night I actually went outside at about one o'clock in the morning and it was just sort of looking at the moon like this. And that's why I'm a lunatic. But what I want to do is I want to show you that each and every one of us should be lunatics because the moon does so much for us and we take it for granted. So, yes, and with moonies help, I'm going to talk about the moon. So first of all, I think I should give you some of the basics about the moon. And to do that, I've got some props here. Now, this, as you might recognise, is the world. Now, if I look at the world, how big is the moon? So if this is Earth, then the moon is about this size. Now, let me put this piece of paper down. Now, that doesn't look very big. Oh, thank you. I'll need that back in a minute. It's my crib sheet. Now, it doesn't look very big. Our moon is one of the biggest compared to its planet in the solar system. And this makes a lot of difference and I'll explain that as I go along. But so if this is the Earth and this is the size of the moon, so the moon is quite a bit smaller, but it's a fair size. Now, life on the moon, when the first people went to the moon, they weren't too sure what to expect because the moon is sort of a, it's a long way away from the Earth and they weren't sure what to expect. But as they analysed the moon, they did lots of sort of orbits around the moon to try and find out what it's made of, where would be a good landing sites. Now, one of the first things that people notice about the moon is, I've got an image here, is the moon looks a bit like this. Now, can everybody see this if I hold it up? I pass it round. Can everybody see the moon is covered in craters? Now, this is quite interesting because it's very, very different from the Earth. If you look at sort of the planet Earth, you see oceans, you see land, but four-fifths of the Earth's surface is oceans. When you look at the moon, no oceans at all, although these craters, when people first looked at the moon, they thought that these craters were full of water. And so, the craters on the moon usually are called seas. They're called various, and they're given names of various seas. So, looking at the moon, they saw the craters and they thought they were full of water. And it turns out there's not much water on the moon. But there is a little bit, but I'll talk about that later as well. So, the moon is a fairly barren place and it's got no atmosphere. And that's one of the reasons why we have all these craters. Because it hasn't got an atmosphere here on the Earth, when a debris comes from space, it comes and it hits the Earth's surface. Sorry, it hits the Earth's atmosphere and it gets very hot as the friction as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere. Now, has anyone here seen a shooting star? Okay, see a few hands going up. A shooting star, unfortunately, has nothing to do with stars whatsoever. Stars are massive. Our local star is the sun and it sits at the centre of our solar system. Now, if you take Planet Earth, Planet Earth here, you can fit a million Planet Earths into one sun. So, if we had suns shooting through the atmosphere, that would be very bad news for Earth. So, what a shooting star actually is, it's a small piece of debris that's left in space. And as it hits our atmosphere, it burns really brightly and it leaves a trail. And sometimes you get different coloured trails and from that trail, you can see what that meteorite is made out of. And actually, when it hits the Earth, that's when it becomes a meteorite and that's when we pick it up. And actually, I was told that actually, there's something that's meteorites downstairs. So, if you go and look downstairs, you might see some meteorites. Okay, so that's a meteorite. Now, on the Moon, it has no atmosphere or it has something we call an exosphere, which is really, really, really thin atmosphere. So, when things are hurtling through space, they just go plomp and crash straight into the Moon's surface and that's what forms these craters. So, the craters are formed by things from space hitting the Moon. Now, the Moon has had a hard time because it was formed about four and a half billion years ago. And in that time, it has been pummeled with various things from space. Now, here on Earth, if we do have a sort of big meteor craters, there's something called the Baringer crater in Arizona, and it's about a mile wide. And it's where a huge meteor hit the Earth and made this huge crater. But most of the craters on Earth, because we have plate tectonics and we have weather, they get eroded away, so there's not much evidence of them. But on the Moon, because it has no plate tectonics, because it has very little weather, when you get a crater, it can stay there forever. So, there's an idea that Neil Armstrong, as he stepped out on the Moon, he left a footprint. There's no wind to take that away. There's nothing to erode that. The only thing that's going to take that away is a meteorite hitting that space. And if that happens, then that will be obliterated. But otherwise, things just stay on the Moon's surface for billions of years. So, the Moon, in that way, is a time capsule. It shows us, you know, what the early solar system was like. And so, that's another reason why I'd love to go to the Moon and investigate. So, this is what the Moon looks like, but it is sort of, it's been pummeled with all sorts of debris for many, many years. Okay. So, the Moon, what would it be like to live on? Well, in the future, it would be lovely to have a Moon base. But the Moon is a sort of a very alien atmosphere. And it's alien because of two things. When people think of the Moon, they think of it as quite cold. But the Moon, depending on what side of the Moon you're on, if it's in the daytime side, then radiation from the Sun is hitting the Moon. And the temperature of the Moon goes up to 100 degrees. Now, who's had a cup of tea here and used boiling water? So, boiling water, that's 100 degrees. And so, that's the temperature on the Moon's surface during the daytime. Now, daytime on the Moon lasts about two weeks. And then you have two weeks of night time. And then the temperature plummets to minus 100. Now, that's colder than Antarctica. So, one day, one day it's like, oh, wow, it's a bit hot here, you know, 200 degrees C. And then the night time comes and whoa, it's freezing. Suddenly, it plunged down to minus 100 degrees C. So, it gets very hot and very cold. And so, when they sent astronauts to the Moon, they had to sort of dress them appropriately so they could survive those extreme temperatures. And so, I don't know if many of you have seen pictures like this. It's a picture of an astronaut on the Moon and he's wearing a big, bulky spacesuit. And they had to wear that because, A, the extreme temperature difference. And also, I mentioned that there has no atmosphere. We are surrounded here on Earth by a wonderful atmosphere where it allows us to breathe and just not run around and do all sorts of things. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere, there's no oxygen, there's nothing we can breathe. And so, they have to wear a big, bulky spacesuit to protect them from the temperature range, but also to provide an environment where they can breathe and they can survive as humans. So, a life on the Moon looks like fun, but it will be pretty challenging. So, that's what they did. So, 50 years ago, they sent the first people to the Moon. So, I mentioned that I'm a lunatic and the lunar landscape is pretty hostile. I think that's the best way to describe it. And so, yes, one of the other questions is, had anyone seen the Moon changing shape? I mean, maybe some of the kids, yeah, have you seen the Moon changing shape? So, what sort of shape does it have? Can you tell me? Yes. Yes, crescent half and full, perfect. Now, I've got another place to hear if I can find the right one. It's probably this one on the floor. Let's have a look. Yes. Is that the right way round? No, it's not. Let's go this way. So, you mentioned crescent half and full. So, that's some of the phases of the Moon. Now, I'll just show you that round. Now, I think people are familiar with the phases of the Moon. Now, but why do we get them? Does anyone know? Do you know? What do you think? The Sun is reflecting to the light on the Moon and the Sun is not reflecting to the dark part of the Moon. Yes. And so, if I take Moony here, now imagine that you guys are the Sun. So, now, this is the Moon and I'm going to be the Earth. Now, if the Moon is here, the sunlight is coming in this way and I'm looking at the Moon this side. So, this side of the Moon is all lit up, but I'm on this side of the Moon, so I only see the dark side of the Moon. So, this side is in the nighttime side of the Moon. So, this is what I see. So, this is what we call a new Moon where you don't see the Moon in the sky at all and I hate that phase because I can't see the Moon and I get quite upset. Okay. Let's go for the other extreme. Now, you're still the sunlight. The sunlight is coming in here. This is the Moon here and now the sunlight is hitting the Moon and I'm looking at the Moon. So, I'm looking at the bright side of the Moon. So, this phase of the Moon is a full Moon, but let's say the Moon is over here. Now, I'm here. The Moon is here and the sunlight is coming in this way. So, this is the lit side of the Moon and I'm seeing half of that lit side. So, I'm seeing half of the Moon's disc, well, quarter of the Moon's disc actually, but I'm seeing this side of the Moon lit up. So, that's why we get the different phases. It depends on where the sunlight is coming in, where the Earth is relative to the Moon. And so, we get all these different phases. Now, if you think about it, if you're the Sun and this is the Moon and I'm the Earth, this is actually what we call a solar eclipse because the Moon should be in front of the Sun and then the Sun, sorry, the Moon's in front of the Sun. So, that should be a solar eclipse. But has anyone here seen a total solar eclipse? Ah, were you impressed? Were you impressed when you saw it? Yes, yes, you were. Okay. Actually, because I saw a total solar eclipse and it blew my socks off. The first time I saw a total solar eclipse, I had to sit down afterwards because I was so blown away and my mind was like, whoa, that was amazing. Because what you see is the Sun disappear behind the Moon. And all you see around is you see the bright corona of the Sun, that's the outer atmosphere of the Sun, beaming out into space. And so, you see this dark disc and then all this light streaming off the Sun. And then, as the Moon moves on in its orbit, what you do is you get the diamond ring effect where a bright ray of light springs out from the Sun. And you see this diamond ring effect and then the Moon goes on. Now, a total eclipse of the Sun only lasts a few minutes. But you'd think, and with all the alignment, you could get a total eclipse of the Sun every month as the Moon goes around the Earth, because it takes about a month for the Moon to go around the Earth. But the thing is, you don't get that because the Sun and the Moon and the Earth aren't in a perfect alignment. They're about five degrees off. So, sometimes the Moon is too high to eclipse the Sun, sometimes the Moon is too low to eclipse the Sun. So, that's why you don't get a total eclipse every month, but every few years. And I think the next one is coming up later on this year in a place where I used to work in Chile. So, I'm really looking forward to going out and seeing that if I can. Because we went out as a family in 2017 to see the total eclipse of the America, it was called, because it was a total eclipse that went across America. And we started right at the beginning in Oregon and saw it there. And it was an amazing thing to see. So, that's eclipses of the Moon. And that's eclipses of the Sun, a solar eclipse. But you also get eclipses of the Moon where the Earth gets between the Sun and the Moon and the Moon disappears for a while. But the Moon doesn't just disappear. What happens is, the Moon goes blood red. Now, has anyone here seen a lunar eclipse? Ah, now you've seen one. Did it freak you out? Was the eye sore one? And a total eclipse of the Moon, because the Moon literally goes red. And you can imagine ancient people looking back in time, looking up and, whoa, okay, the Moon's red. We're doomed. I don't care what's happening. We're doomed. But it happens because what happens is the Earth gets between, so this is the Moon on the Earth. And the Earth gets between the Sun and the Moon. And so light can't get through the Earth. And so the Moon should just disappear. But what actually happens, because the Earth's got an atmosphere, some of the light from the Sun goes through the Earth's atmosphere. And as that light goes through the Earth's atmosphere, some of the blue light gets scattered out. So it's only the red light reaching the Moon, and so that's why the Moon goes blood red. Now, a total eclipse of the Sun only lasts a few minutes. A total eclipse of the Moon lasts a few hours. So if you get a chance to see one, do check it out, because it's pretty freaky. Okay. That tells you a bit about the Moon. But one of the things that I'm interested in also is something called archaeoastronomy, which is a bit of a mouthful. But you know, you've heard of archaeology and you've heard of astronomy. Well, archaeoastronomy is just emerging of the two. So it's looking back in the past and seeing how people have celebrated the Moon. And lots of people have been fascinated by the Moon. And I've mentioned a few of them here. Now, one of the women that I was fascinated about was a woman who lived 4,000, I think 4,000 years ago. And her name was Et Heduana. And she was the chief Moon goddess in the city of Babylon. Now see, to me that is a great title. I would like to be Archie, if you don't mind. Well, Archie, I'd like to be chief Moon goddess of the city of Edinburgh. So it had to be arranged. There you are. I think it's an amazing title. But her name was the first female name to be written in the history books. And it's quite interesting because we can find pictures of her. We can find busts of her. And if you find, so we've found these ancient busts of her and we looked at them and they were something a bit odd because we found pictures and they were named and they had her name on it. But she had a beard. And we thought, hey, what's going on here? And it turned out that because she was speaking to many of her male colleagues to show that she had sort of, you know, she was a sort of an important woman, she used to have to wear a beard. Now, I do this television programme called The Sky at Night every month and it's been going on. It's the longest running television series in the world and I've never had to wear a beard yet. So we think we've come a long way in 4,000 years, but it's quite interesting that she used to have to wear a beard. So this was an amazing woman and sort of celebrated. And one of the things I love about her is she used to write poetry and she used to write poetry about the moon and she used to write poetry about astronomy. And her poems live on today. People sort of read these poets and they sort of study this poetry from 4,000 years ago. But her title, Moon Goddess of the City of Babylon. Now, I'm looking at people and I've investigated people, but I'm also investigating places. And one of the places that really caught my eye is a celebration of the moon. Because people hear places like Stonehenge and sort of various other places that celebrate the sun, but there are many, many, many places that celebrate the moon and many of them are up here in Scotland. And one of the places that I'm most interested in and I wrote about is somewhere called Warren Fields. Now, Warren Fields was only discovered in 2013 and it's up in Aberdeenshire and it's a series of pits that run, I think, a track of 50 kilometres. And each one of these pits is one of the phases of the moon. Now, when people worked out, when these pits were actually dug, they were dug 8,000 years ago. So this is going back 8,000 years and people dug these pits over a track of 50 kilometres. Now, as I say, each pit represents a phase of the moon, but also if you look at the winter solstice, the alignment of these pits also aligns up with the winter solstice. Now, 8,000 years ago, people here were nomadic. They weren't sort of a, they were hunter-garries, they were moving around. And so the fact that they took time to build these pits shows that they wanted to celebrate the moon and understand the moon. So if you go back in time, you can see that people across the world have wanted to understand the moon. And they did this because the moon is like a timekeeping piece. I mean, back in those days, they didn't have digital watches funnily enough, but they needed to keep track of time. And they had, you can have the sun, but the sun, you can map the sun over a period of a year. The moon is really convenient because you can map the phases of the moon over a period of a month. And a month is quite a handy unit of time. And so they were looking and understanding the phases of the moon to try and keep track of time, to try and see when the seasons were going to change, when to plant things, when to do things. And so I think this was sort of a moving people from hunter-gatherers to actually sort of people who were sort of sassel who stayed in one place. Looking at the moon helped them do that because they understood the phases of the moon and they understood the passage of time. Now, actually, oh, I've got a poem. One of the other things that people have done is they've just looked and just like me, they are, we have many fellow lunatics out there. People have looked up at the moon and they've wondered about the moon and they've written stories about the moon, but people have written some amazing poetry about the moon. Now I can't do the poem here, but there's a poem called Child Moon and it's by a chap called Carl Sandberg. And he's an American poet and he wrote about a little girl looking up at the moon out of her window. And she looks up at the moon and she sees the beauty of the moon and then she falls asleep saying, oh, moon, moon, actually, he's going to sleep. So if you get a chance to read the poem, it is truly beautiful, but there are many, many beautiful poems about the moon. And so people are celebrating the moon in all sorts of different ways. Now, yes, one of the other interesting things is I love science fiction. I think there's a science fiction exhibition here, so I might go and check that out later, but I love science fiction. I'm dyslexic, so I always found reading hard. And one of the things I did as a child, I started reading science fiction. And when you start off reading, it's all about Peter and Jane and sort of very pretty dull stuff. But when I started reading science fiction, I thought, oh, wow, this stuff is worth reading. And so that's, I think, science fiction really helped me sort of get established because reading science fiction, they were stories worth reading. And so one of the things I was interested in is trying to find out, yeah, which one of the first science fiction stories about the moon. And there is sort of an ancient Greek, the first science fiction stories written by an ancient Greek philosopher who talks about a whirlwind, sort of picking people up and taking them to the moon. But one of my favourite stories is about a chap called Wan Hu. And Wan Hu is a bit of a legend because Wan Hu was a Chinese bureaucrat and he lived in China and he kept on looking at the moon and sort of think, oh, yeah, the moon. And so he did this. And one day he decided that he's going to go and visit the moon. So this was our first potential astronaut. And so what he did is he actually got his minions to put fireworks onto his chair. And so they strapped lots of fireworks. I would not recommend this. No one tried this at home. But this is what he did. He got his minions to put lots of fireworks on his chair. And he sat in his chair and then he said, okay, like them. And so the minions came forward, lit the touch paper, ran as far as they could. And there was a large explosion and Wan Hu wasn't there any longer. Now the question is, did he make it to the moon? I can see some people sort of shaking their heads. He seems unlikely. Well, the unlikely answer is he did. Not through the rockets though. Because I think we don't know if this story is true or not. But people have been speaking about this story for many, many years. And as a result, when people first started orbiting the moon and seeing the craters of the moon, they named one of the craters of the moon after him. So there is a crater on the moon named Wan Hu. So he did make it to the moon, but not technically. I think there's a couple more people I'd like to mention. Another person who was a poet, a Chinese poet called Lai Po. Now Lai Po is a guide directly after my own heart. Because he used to write poems about the moon. And one of his poems is just very simple. It's about four lines. And it says, you know, I sit here drinking and I salute the moon and we drink together. Now I've done that because I'm a lunatic. And so I do that sort of thing. But I was working out in a telescope in Chile. And I was on my own for about six months. And I used to get a glass of Chilean wine, which is very good wine. And I used to sit there with the moon and we'd toast together, we'd drink together. So that's one of the things I did with the moon. But Lai Po wrote this poem 2000 years ago. But Lai Po was definitely a lunatic. Because I think one day he'd actually drunk a little bit too much wine. And someone was rowing him across the river to take him home. And he saw the reflection of the moon in the water. I thought, oh, it's the moon. And he reached out to see the moon and he fell in the water and drowned. So be careful. Be a lunatic, but not too much of a lunatic. OK. So that's what gave cover some of the amazing things, the way to celebrate the moon in the past. And we've talked a little about what the moon's made up of and how it works. But one of the things that really interests me is the moon in the future. Will we actually put up your hands here, how many people here would like to make a trip to the moon? OK. I'd say that sort of a... I think that's probably about 50%. I would definitely love to go to the moon. I mean, it's been sort of my dream. It's been literally a dream for me. I remember having a dream as a child. And I had a nice hot bath and I put on a bathrobe and I stepped out. And I looked out of the window and I could see the earth. It's like this picture. This picture. I could see the earth rising around the moon. And this is a picture that is called Earthrise. And it's one of the first... It's a picture of the earth. Sorry, I had to hold it. I held it like this. It's a picture of the earth rising behind the moon. And this is the image I saw in my dream. And since then, I've always wanted to go out there. But this image is quite interesting in another way because it's a powerful image. When we first went out to the moon and we started taking photographs, when we first went out into space, we suddenly saw the earth more like this. When we're living on the earth, we sort of run around its surface and go, we're all very busy and all doing lots and lots of things. But it isn't until we saw the earth like this that we realise what's truly going on. Because when you see the earth like this, you see the earth as vulnerable. You see it as a point in space. We see it as something that should be nurtured. And some people believe that by seeing images like this, people were inspired to actually protect the earth. The environmental movement is thought to be partly responsible for pictures like this. Because suddenly we saw the earth as a small blue entity in space rather than just the thing we live on. So the moon can inspire so many different things and it can inspire things like this. So my dream is one day to get to the moon myself. And it's a crazy dream. But I love crazy dreams because I think crazy dreams take you further than you ever think is possible. So my crazy dream is one day to get to the moon. But will we do it? Well, I think we went to the moon and landed on the moon 50 years ago and it's about 45 years since the last people left the moon and travelled back to 1972. So it's a while ago since we've actually been to the moon. But when will we all get the opportunity to go to the moon? Well, I think we're in a new era of the moon because in the past it was about dominance, showing you I'm better than you and I can reach the moon. And it was all about the space race, the Russians against the Americans showing who was the dominant power. And now we're actually going through an era of collaboration where many people are going to the moon. I don't know if you heard, I think, yes over the day before, there was an Israeli moon probe, a lunar probe, and unfortunately crashed into the lunar surface. But more and more countries are getting interested in the moon. And also it's not just companies. The people who crashed into the moon, they were a commercial company and I think it's commerce that's going to get us to the moon. And I like to compare it with things like computers and mobile phones and actually flights. When people first started flying across the world, it was the great and the good. It was the starlet with the Chihuahua, hopping on to an aeroplane. It was only the famous people that flew across the world. But slowly but surely, things have changed and more and more of us. And so I think we didn't actually fly up EasyJet, but now we're living in the EasyJet era where most people can fly anywhere because flights have become cheaper. So why did that happen? Well, it was demand we wanted to travel across the world. And so when there's commerce and there's demand, people will actually meet the demand and flights and things like that get cheaper. You can see the same with mobile phones. The first mobile phones were sort of, whoa, they're huge. And a few business people had mobile phones because they were the only people who could afford them. But slowly but surely, phones got cheaper and cheaper and now I've got my mobile phone in my pocket. And supposedly, this has more processing power than the things that talk people to the moon. So with demand and computers as well, the first computers were the size of this chamber. But now we've got more computing power in this than the computers we had earlier. And that's because there was a demand. People wanted it. And so the price came down. And so I think as many of us want to go to the moon in the future, the price should come down. We have our first space tourism, sort of travelling into space and they're paying sort of virtually millions to get out there. But given time, I think that the price will come down. And so maybe the young ones in the audience will be making regular trips to the moon and sort of living out on the moon and sort of having fun on the moon. So I think there is a future for all of us out there. And why go to the moon? Well, there's so many things we can do out there. I mean, there's a great astronomy to be done on the moon. Radio astronomy, sort of visible astronomy, that would be great on the moon. And that's my dream to have a visible telescope on the moon in one of the dark craters that never see the sunlight. That would be my ideal job. I'm working on it. It's a bit expensive. But other things on the moon, in the future, as we get sort of a less power here on Earth, maybe we want to use the moon to actually provide us with power on Earth. And there's one idea that you could actually, out of the moon soil, you could make solar panels and you can put these solar panels on the moon's surface. They'll get two weeks of constant daylight and then you can beam that power back down to Earth via microwaves. So we could use the moon to power the Earth in the future. But at the same time, we can mine the moon for all sorts of elements in the future. But at the same time, there's a question to be asked. Should we be doing this? Is it ethically correct? Because it... Why are the fields to me as if we've had a wild party here on Earth? Yo, woohoo! Burn all the resources. Yo! Oh, no, we're running out. Where do we go next? Hey, the moon! So should we be looking for the moon or should we be solving our own problems and looking to have a future here on Earth when we look after our resources rather than just going further out and looking for somewhere else to mine? So I think these are the questions that we're going to be answering. And it's the young people that will be having to face the consequences of these decisions. So I think each and every one of us should be looking to the moon. So the moon does so much for us. I mean, it gives us tide. But effectively, I think the moon created life here on Earth by creating a chemical called RNA, which is the precursor to DNA. So without the moon, I don't think it would even be here. So I think each and every one of us should be lunatics because the moon does so much for us. We take it for granted. But the best thing to do is just look at it and admire it. Thank you very much. Well, it's your turn now to ask questions. So if you want to ask a question, just put your hand up. And the microphones in front of you, a little red band will come on. And that will be you live. So watch what you say. And so who wants to ask a question? Come on. Oh, I can see a hand up over there. That, there you are. Little boy, you want to stand up so we can see you? Oh, there you go. What's your name? Oh, it's a microphone. It's on, but you need to stand next to it. Go in front of it. That's you. Thank you. What's your name? Joshua. Joshua. What's your question, Joshua? How far away is the moon? How far away is the moon? Now, see, I'm dyslexic, so I don't remember numbers, but I have a handy crib sheet here and I can tell you exactly how far away it is. So hold it, let me just see. If you talk amongst yourselves. Because of my dyslexia, sometimes numbers come out wrong and I want to get this right so let me see if I can find it. Unless anyone else knows of hand. But it's, if you want to travel to the moon, it would take about three days to get there. So, although the Israeli probe took a lot longer because it took a scenic route, sorry, let me just get to my... While we're searching that, who's got another question on the pipeline? Right, now just come to you next in grey, Lady in grey. Actually, would you want to tell me your question while I look at that? Right, if you want to ask your question, wait till the red, that's in grey in the middle here, I'm pointing, can you see is your red light, come on? Is it, is it, come on? No? Oh, maybe because that lights up. I need to wander over, over here. Is it, come on? That was a tumble. Right, there you are. You can ask your question now. What's your name? Erica. Erica, there's your question. I'll try not to fall over again. Right. Erica, what's your question? Can you swim in the sea on the moon? So, can you swim in the sea on the moon? Well, first of all, let me answer your question and your question is, so the answer is, the moon is on average, and I'll need to explain the average, 239,000 miles away. Okay, it's quite far, but I need to qualify that because that's on average because, so let's say, if my hand is the earth and this is the moon, people usually think that the moon goes around the earth in a circular orbit, but it doesn't. The moon actually goes around in an orbit which is slightly squished. Everything that orbits, so the earth's orbit around the sun is a squished circle called an ellipse. And so it means that sometimes the moon is closer to the earth and sometimes the moon is further away from the earth, depending on where in the ellipse it is. And so it's on average about 300,000 miles, but sometimes it's a bit closer and sometimes it's a bit further away, depending on where it is in its orbit. Okay. Does that make sense? Thank you. Now, Erika. Can you swim in the moon's seas? The answer is no. But you see, in the past we thought that the moon was really, really dry and there was no water on the moon. But there is some water, not enough to swim in seas, but there is water and the water is mainly at the poles because I mentioned very briefly that there's some areas of the moon where the craters are so deep in the northern regions or the southern regions where the sunlight doesn't actually get into the craters. Now, any chemicals that go into those holes, they are some of the coldest places in the solar system because the moon is pretty cold anyway and without the sunlight those places are just incredibly cold. And so any water rate post or we have a lifting pass that goes into those holes, the water will collect there and we can find ice water on the moon. Now, this is really important because if we want to live in the moon in the future, water is one of the critical things we'll need because water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen is rocket fuel but oxygen is what we need to breathe. And so to have a self-sustaining a sort of a colony on the moon, we need to be able to tap into that water, break it down into hydrogen and oxygen and then we'll be able to create environments like in domes and things like that where we can use that water, break it down into oxygen and we'll have a breathable atmosphere. So rather than ferrying things up from earth which is incredibly expensive because the earth is so big and it has such a huge gravity, getting things off the earth's surface is really hard work. But if we can find water on the moon, it's going to be really helpful. Now, there was one sort of a... We looked at the amount of water that we found on the moon and many of the orbiters that go around the moon they look for signs of water and if you actually took all the water on the moon and you were able to melt it, you'd probably get a puddle which covered the whole of the moon's surface which was about sort of half a metre deep. So unfortunately all this is sort of in little pockets and it's sort of in the actual zone in the lunar soil so you can't swim in the seas but there is water on the moon. So if you did go and live there as a colonist you could probably have a swimming pool. And there was a question up there. Yes, can you watch myself here? Is your red light come on? Yes. Good, good. Oh, we're getting progress. What's your name? Ross. Ross, go for it, Ross. How big is the moon? How big is the moon? Well, if this is earth, this is the moon. So it's sort of significantly... I can check the time to... I can give you the facts and figures but I always have to check them because I was going to get them wrong. So what I should tell you is the earth... Sorry, the moon. Where is it? Sorry, next page. Because the moon is sort of significantly smaller than the earth but its diameter is actually all tilt rotation distance from earth. Diameter is 2,159 miles in diameter. So from this side to this side that is its diameter. And see, but compared with the earth the moon is about 27% of the earth's diameter. So it's significantly smaller. So yes, that is the actual diameter of the moon. And because it is smaller, it has less gravity. So I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of people walking on the moon but you know, they're sort of like, whoa. And they have that sort of really funny date. And it's because the moon has less mass and so it has less gravity. And so when you're on the moon if you jump on the earth the sort of force you need to do a one meter jump on the earth if you did the same jump on the moon you jump about 1.6 meters. So on the moon it should be a lot of fun. And there are some videos of some of the astronauts playing golf on the moon's surface. And there's one guy who uses I think an eight iron and he sort of swacks the ball and he sees it and he says look at it travelling miles and miles and miles. And it literally did. It travelled about 2.8 miles when he whacked it on the moon's surface because the moon is so much smaller and there's less gravity and there's no air resistance. This ball just went shh shh shh and I think it was travelling for about a minute and a half before it actually landed on the moon's surface. So golf on the moon could be a lot of fun. Right, well over a whole sea of hands now. I'll give you numbers. So I'm coming to one, then two, then where's three? Three, anybody else? Four, remember your numbers and they're called five. Oh, six, seven, eight, nine. Right, you all know your numbers. Good. Number one. Who's that? Lady in red, red light on. My name is Ashwita. My question is can we fly on the moon? Can we fly on the moon? Can we fly on the moon? Unfortunately, no. Because to fly here on Earth, we need the Earth's atmosphere, we need this gas surrounding us because we're held up by the air pressure and on the moon, because it has virtually no atmosphere at all, we couldn't fly that way. Because even helicopters and all those things, they need the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere to keep us up there. So on the moon, we can't. So if you walk on the moon and jump on the moon, it might feel a little bit like flying but if you wanted to take a helicopter there or anything like that, you couldn't. And it's quite interesting because recently we've been trying to land probes on Mars. Now Mars is sort of bigger than the moon but it's smaller than Earth and Mars has an atmosphere around it but it's quite a thin atmosphere. And so when we actually land things on the Martian surface, we need to find ways of slowing them down because they were zooming through space, through space and then they get into orbit around Mars and then we want them to land on the surface. Now here on Earth, we have air resistance. And if you see meteorites, I mentioned meteorites coming down to Earth or meteors coming down to Earth or if you see spacecraft capsules coming to Earth, they heat up in the Earth's atmosphere and that friction slows them down. In Mars, it's got a thin atmosphere so the moon has no atmosphere so that wouldn't work at all. You'd just go splat into the surface. And so you need other ways of slowing yourself down. But on Mars, it has a bit of atmosphere and so they have to find ways of using some really huge parachutes and sort of jet packs effectively on the Martian probes so that they can land on the surface gently. And unfortunately on Mars, it's really quite embarrassing but 50% of our landers hit the surface too hard and go smash. And every so often, you see footage of sort of a, or you see sort of pictures of where another Martian probe has landed on the surface and gone smash. So it's all to do with the atmosphere and unfortunately the moon hasn't got enough atmosphere to hold anything up in the air. No flying on the moon, I'm afraid. Number two, who's number two? That's Lady there, but the glasses. I mean, is your light come on? Yeah, your light's on, perfect. Good. My name is Kayu and my question is, is the moon hot or cold? So it depends on where you are. During the daytime, the moon gets incredibly hot, about 100 degrees. So if you're making a cup of tea and you boil the kettle, that is 100 degrees. And if you, that would really hurt, wouldn't it? So you wouldn't want to touch it. That is the temperature of the daytime on the moon. But at nighttime, so you get two weeks of daytime when the moon is blasted by the sun. Then during the lunar nighttime, the temperature plummets to minus sort of 100 degrees. And it's really, really cold. And then that's quite challenging. So anyone who's going to live on the lunar surface in the future, that have two weeks of daytime, two weeks of nighttime, but the temperature change between them would be vast, bigger than Antarctica. And so we need to develop sort of houses and things like that, where people can survive those temperature range and also spacesuits, where you can live comfortably and sort of run around the moon's surface, but they'll protect you from those huge temperature ranges. So the moon is both hot and cold, but yes, it's pretty challenging either way, I think. Sounds worse in Scotland. That's a change. Where's number three? And who's number four? Who's number four? Where's three? Who was four? I've got three. Okay. I will focus forwards here. Just a minute, I forget. Numbers you see, so you're number four. Number three, where are you? We're back to you, yes. Oh, no, no, no. Please say your question. Say your question. Come on, darling. Say your question. Does the moon change any other colours apart from red and white? That's a good one. That is a very good question. One of the things I was quite interested in is now, I don't know if we had the opportunity to see the moon when it's low on the horizon. So sometimes you see it when it's up here in the sky, but if you see it low on the horizon, it looks very different. Now, a while ago, I've got your question, a while ago I was looking at the moon and it was low on the horizon and it looked really orange. And in fact, it looked so orange, I couldn't believe it was the moon. I was looking at it and you're, boy, is that really the moon? So it was low on the horizon. Now, when it's low on the horizon, what you're seeing is the moon and the moon itself doesn't change colour, but the light coming from the moon is coming through the Earth's atmosphere. Now, when it's low on the horizon, it travels through more of the Earth's atmosphere than when it's directly above us, what we call it, zenith. And when it's doing that, the blue light, again, gets scattered and so the moon looks more orange. And so, but then when it's up here, it looks its usual sort of pale, sort of bluey, yellowy colour. But there's also something called a blue moon. Has anyone here heard of that? A blue moon, you've heard of a blue moon? You heard people say, ah, once in a blue moon. Well, I've looked at the moon for many, many years because I'm a lunatic, but I've never seen the moon go the colour blue. Now, a blue moon is actually a phenomena, and it's a phenomena when you actually get two full moons in one month. And that actually happened this year. In January this year, we got two full moons because we got one very early in January and then one in late January. So you get two full moons in one month. That is considered to be a month with a blue moon. But then if that happens in January, then February has no full moon at all. And then March, again, has two full moons. So that's what happened this year. We had two full moons in January, no full moons in February, and two full moons in March. And this doesn't happen very often. Maybe once every three or four, five years. And so blue moons are quite rare, but they're a bit like buses. You wait for them to come along, and then two come along at once. So blue moons, that's what it is. But the moon doesn't change colour at all. So you can get a red moon during a total eclipse. You can get a sort of a yellowy moon or an orangey moon when it's low on the horizon. But you never actually get a blue moon. A blue moon is just a phenomena where you get two moons in one month. But thank you very much for your question. Question four. Wait, is the red light on? Ah, there it goes. There it goes. My name's Savannah, and we, my big sister, have the same question. So you know how the other planets in the solar system have their own moons? So does the moon have its own moon? Ah, does the moon have its own moon? Our moon doesn't have any moons around it. And it's quite interesting. We don't believe that moons, we haven't, I don't think we've found any moons that have their own moons. But we have found asteroids. So if you think of the solar system, you've got a sun at the centre, a big bright moon. And then if you move further out, you've got a mercury, a Venus, earth, and then you get something called the asteroid belt. And in the asteroid belt, you get lots of lumps of rock, which sometimes you get dwarf planets which are at the size of Pluto, so quite small. But then you get a tiny, tiny little, sort of little rocks. And it's funny that some of these tiny asteroids actually have moons going round them. And there's actually an asteroid out there that has two moons. So this is something that is smaller than our moon, but it actually has moons going round it. So we don't believe, another interesting place is Saturn. Saturn, I think, has something of the order of sort of 62 moons going round it. But it also has something called moonlets. And it seems that these moonlets are what guide the rings around Saturn, because Saturn is the planet with the huge rings around it. Well, it's these moonlets that actually keep those rings in place. And so we have sort of many, many, many moons out there in the solar system, but none are quite as good as ours, because our moon compared with our planet is very, very large. If you look at a planet Mars, Mars has two moons. But they're really diddy. And one looks like a potato and one looks like a pebble. And they're really quite small. And I think it's quite interesting, because where do these moons come from? So we think the moons of Mars, because Mars is next to the asteroid belt, we think that sort of an asteroid was sort of bumbling along one day. Whoa! It got caught in the gravitational pull of Mars, and so that's how Mars got its moons. But the Earth Moon is too big for that to happen. So there is a question as to where our moon came from. And there are all sorts of different theories. And the most common theory is our moon was formed when a planet about the size of Mars crashed into Earth about four and a half billion years ago. Yeah, crash! And it sort of, effectively it smashed Earth up. And all this sort of debris, sort of from this Mars-like planet we call Thea, hit the Earth and it sent all this debris up into space. And this debris was around the Earth and it slowly clumped together. We call it coalescing. It coalesced to form the moon. But when the moon formed, it was much, much closer to Earth. And so I like looking at the moon, I see the moon. In the early Earth, four and a half billion years ago, the moon would have been massive in the sky because it was so much closer. But slowly but surely, it's spiralling away from us. So to get back to your question, the moon doesn't have any moons. We don't know of any other moons in our solar system that has moons. But there are some asteroids that do have moons, which is a bit surprising because they're pretty diddy. Thank you for your question. Question five. Where's five? Oh, five, thank you. Five, are you five? Are you? Good job, glad you remember. That's your light. Just give us your name, your question. My name is Sai. Why is there little water on the moon? Why is there so little water on the moon? Well, I think it all comes back to this atmosphere again. One of the questions that we often ask as scientists is, where did all our water come from? Because when the Earth was first formed, it was hot and like a molten ball of lava. So where did the water come from? As the Earth cooled down, we got water. And the idea is that asteroids, because in the early solar system, it was chaos, things were pinging around all over the place. Some of the outer planets used to be closer in, and then gravity from other planets pulled them outwards. And so in the early solar system, there was things that were zipping around all over the place. You'd have had to duck. And so what we think is that some of these large rocks had quite a bit of water on them. And in the early, we call it the mass bombardment period, we think lots of these rocks hit the Earth and left water here. And that's why now four-fifths of the Earth's surface is water. And we are very much a product of the planet we live on. So we were bombarded with all these rocks. Now the Moon could have been bombarded in the same way, but the Moon is much smaller and it doesn't have this atmosphere that we have. And so if it had got water, the water would have just evaporated out into space. So if it was bombarded by similar rocks containing water, the water would have settled on the surface but just evaporated into space because it has no atmosphere to contain it. So that's why, and it has no atmosphere partly because it's much smaller. And also our magnetic field around the Earth helps us contain our atmosphere. So these are the various reasons why the Moon doesn't have water. It was probably bombarded in a similar way to Earth, but that water just evaporated into space because there was no atmosphere and not enough mass to keep it all in place. Another interesting place is Mars. Because if you look at planet Mars, smaller than Earth, Mars used to have water flowing over its surface. We can find sort of river tributaries and we can find sort of a boulders or sort of a rocks or a shape by water. But Mars also lost its water. And that's quite interesting because we have all this water we're here on Earth. Mars used to have water, but what happened to it? And so we're investigating the history of Mars to try and understand what happened. Why did the environment change so much that it lost all its water? So by looking out in the solar system, sometimes it helps us understand our planet a lot better. And that's why I love what I do. I love being a scientist and investigating all these amazing different things because it helps us understand our place here on Earth as well. Thank you for your question. It's a bit like being Ms Marple. It is just a detective. It is a detective. I think that's what being a scientist is about. It's sort of detective what, getting the various clues, getting the evidence and trying to come up with a theory. And sometimes you come to the right conclusion and sometimes you come to a totally different conclusion. I've got where's six and where's seven? Now I'll take, if I may, two hands went up for seven. Well, I'll take six and then I'll take the two sevens together, if that's all right. That sounds good to me. I'll take two sevens. Number six. If you stand up, tell me where are you there? It's a light on. And what's your name? My name is Sandy. And does the moon have the same minerals underground as Earth, like diamonds, gold, iron, et cetera? That's a very interesting question. Now I mentioned that we think the moon was formed because we had this collision with the planet Thea. And they sort of smooth and the moon formed. One of the problems that we're finding is when we analyze rocks that we've got from the moon, so you know when the Americans went to the moon, they brought back moon samples and I've actually held one of the moon samples. It was very exciting. And when the Russians went to the moon, they brought back moon samples, we've analyzed those rocks. And when we analyze them and look at the chemical composition and compare it with what we have on Earth, they are very, very similar. In fact, they're too similar. And this is one of the reasons why the theory about Thea doesn't quite add up. Because if Thea collided with the Earth and formed the moon, then the moon should be partly Thea and partly Earth. But what we're finding is that the composition of the moon, as you say, the minerals and the chemicals that make up the moon, are very, very similar to what we find here on Earth. And so Thea doesn't quite add up. So this is why we've got a theory, but it doesn't quite... We need to do some more detective work. So the answer to your question is, the moon has very, very similar chemicals to what we find here on Earth, but at the same time, that is a problem for us because it means our theory about how the moon was formed doesn't add up. But it's also quite interesting because if you look at the moon, if I take this ball and say this is the moon, if I was to slice this ball in half and look at what's inside the moon and slice the Earth in half, on the Earth, we have an outer crust. And then after that, we have an area called the mantle. And then after that, we have the core. And the core is made up of two layers. One is a liquid core, which is liquid molten metal, liquid molten iron actually, then at the very centre of the Earth, we have a hard iron core. And it's that liquid metal core that gives us our magnetic field that protects us from all sorts of things out there. So we have a magnetic field. If you have a compass and it points north, that's the magnetic field of Earth at work. So we often compare the Earth to a sort of like an egg. So if you crack open the egg, you've got the shell and then the white bit is the mantle and then the core is the yolk in the centre. Now, if you look at the moon and crack the moon open, the moon isn't like an egg. It's like a chocolate chip muffin. But it's a really boring chocolate chip muffin. So it's a boring sugarcated chocolate chip muffin. Cos if you crack the moon open, what you have is you have a nice sugar coated outside, which is sort of the crust. And then you have the mantle, which is the nice cakey bit of the muffin, I like that bit. But then at the very centre, you have this tiny chocolate chip. So it's a muffin, a chocolate chip muffin with just one chocolate chip sitting right at the centre and that's the core of the moon. Cos the core of the moon is quite small. It's iron, but it's quite small. And one of the questions we're asking is, does the core of the moon, it's iron at the centre like the Earth is, but much, much smaller in comparison to the size of the planet? But does it have a liquid outer layer which can cause a magnetic field? We know it did in the past cos we've found magnetism on the moon. But it's quite interesting to know if it's all solid now or is there still a bit of liquid metal flowing about the moon creating a tiny, tiny magnetic field? So, yes. I mean, they're very similar in composition. They're very similar in composition in terms of the chemicals they're made up of, but the inside of them is quite different cos the Earth has got a much, much bigger core than the moon has. Thank you for your question. No, two sevens. Yeah, two sevens. What? Seven A. Lady in red? Got red. Yes, lovely. Uh-uh. How come some planets have more means than ours? Yes. Now, that's a first. So what's it done? I'm trying to squeeze them in because we're getting on. Where was the other number seven? Stand up, please. What's your question? How did the moon go further away from the Earth in time? Okay, perfect. Thank you. So that's two. Okay, that's two questions. So the first one is how come we've only got one moon? I know. I think Jupiter's got about 67. A Saturn's got about 62. How come we only have any engine that we've won? Well, it's all partly to do with gravity as well. But if you look at the planets of the inner solar system, let's start at the sun at the centre, then you've got Mercury. No means at all. Venus, no moons. Earth, just the one moon. And Mars, two moons, but they're barely moons. I mean, you've got pebble and potato. And then you sort of go through the asteroid belt and then you get to the gas giants. Now, the gas giants are huge. So Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. And Jupiter, if I took planet Earth, I could fit 1,000 Earths into one Jupiter. That's how big Jupiter is. And when you're that big, it means that you have lots of mass and so you can sort of attract things to you. So with Jupiter's moons, we're not too sure how they formed. One way is when the solar system formed, it had a sort of a huge disk around it. And we think that sort of things in this disk sort of clumped together. And Jupiter's so big, we think that Jupiter clumped together, but things around Jupiter clumped together. And so that's how its moons formed. So I think it very much depends on the size of the planet you're talking about. And also their location in the solar system. So Mars has got two moons, but we think it just stole them from the asteroid belt. But then as you go further and further out, but then you sort of see Jupiter has lots of moons, Saturn has lots of moons, but then as you go further out into the ice giants a long, long way away from the sun, you get fewer moons again. So they've still got quite a few moons because they're quite big planets, but they do have fewer moons. So I think it depends on where you form and how big a gravitational mass you are to attract other things to you. So I think that's why. And although we've only got one moon, I have to say it unbiased, it is the best moon. It really does help us in all sorts of different ways. So thank you. That was number seven. And then the other question, the moon is moving further. You said it's spiralling of... It used to be really... I was worried about that because what if it goes away completely? Well, see, it's a very interesting question. And a few years ago I made a documentary called Do We Really Need The Moon? And the answer is yes, we need the moon. But the moon is... Now, this is a bit of a complicated idea. But if we've got the earth in the centre, the moon orbits the earth, but it orbits the earth in a spiral rather than just in a static ellipse. And so it's slowly but surely spiralling away from us. And as it does this, as the moon speeds up and spirals away from us, the earth actually slows down. So if you go back in time, a day on the early earth when the moon was first formed was only about five hours long. So rather than taking 24 hours to go all the way round to spin on its axis, the earth used to take just five hours. But as the moon moves further away from us, the moon speeds up, but the earth slows down. And it's due to something called the conservation of angular momentum, which I'm not going to go into, but it's a process that happens. And so as the earth is slowing down, we have a 24-hour day now, but in the future, the day will slowly but surely get longer and longer and longer. Now, you have to be at school longer, then. Is it no longer than this? I can see a look of horror on your face. Now, the problem with this is, I don't know, have you ever seen someone sort of have a netball or a baseball on their finger? They spin it up and it spins on their finger because it just balance it really carefully. I've tried it a few times and I just burn my finger, so I'm not very good at it. But if you do that, the problem is, as the ball starts to slow down, you might notice that the ball starts to wobble. And as the earth starts to slow down, as the days get longer and longer and longer, and the earth starts to slow down, the earth could start to wobble. And if it does this, interesting things could happen because our seasons would go up the creek. Because at the moment, we're at a tilt of about 23 degrees, and we've got the polar ice caps. But if the earth starts to tilt, what could happen is that ice caps could actually go to the equator. And if that happens, these ice caps will melt. And if that happens, quite a bit of the world will be submerged under water. And so the whole world could change. Now this isn't going to happen for about another two, three billion years. So no one panic. We're okay. I know, I can see the size of relief all round. But as the moon moves away from us, so if we didn't have a moon, our days would be a lot longer, our earth would be a lot less stable. So this is another thing that the moon gives us. So nothing to worry about, because we're safe for a long, long time. But in the future, as the moon keeps on spiralling away from us and gets further and further away, and eventually it could get far enough away from us that it's not really captured by the earth's gravity and it could sort of spiral on out into space, which would be quite scary. But as I say, two, three, four billion years. We haven't got anything to worry about for now. We're covered for now. But yes. I've got eight and nine. Where's eight? And nine? Is there a nine? No. Well, let me have one from over here. Somebody who's not asked a question. Who's not asked a question over here? I'll see two questions here. There. I'll take eight, nine and 10. And then we're... Actually, I'm going to have to take a... So that's my daughter. Like your daughter, yes. So shall we end with your question, my love? Eight, nine, and we'll end up with 10. Eight, please. Where are you? Right, you stand up and watch your name. Is your microphone on? Oh, did you just ask a question? If you just asked one, somebody who's not... If you asked one already, somebody who's not asked a question. Where are you? You're up. I've got specials in there as well. Is your light on? That's it. Thank you. My name... That's you, yes. My name's Isaac, and my question is... How many moons can you fit into the earth? How many moons can you fit into the earth? Well, actually, because I haven't done the calculation, but let's have a look. I want you to guess. So this is the earth, and this is about the size of the moon. How many do you reckon you'd get in there? Four to six. Four to... Oh, I think maybe a few more. Because if you think of this as a fruit bowl, and this could take quite a few oranges, couldn't you? And then if you put the top one, that's another sort for your audience. What would you say? Well, I'm going to ask. How many think 10? 20? 25? 30? Are we getting closer? I think of the order of... I think of the order of 20, I think. Oh, there we are. But I think you should go online and do the calculation. Because if you work out the volume of the moon and work out the volume of the earth, and then divide the volume of the earth by the volume of the moon, you can work out exactly how many you can squeeze in. Now, that will be swizz. If you do that calculation, that will be how many moons you can fit into the earth if you squish them in. But it's an interesting calculation to do. I've done it for the sun, and I've done it for the earth and the sun, and I've done it for the earth and Jupiter, but I haven't done it for the earth and the moon. So it'll be an interesting one to find out. Lovely. Next question. There was, yes, right at the back. I got all muddled up. Where are you? I'm sort of pointing. Oh, I can't see you. Are you standing? No, right at the back. Pigtails. Is the lady with... Yes, you, is it you? Are you standing? There you are. Now I can see you. Has your light come on? There you go. Ask your question. My name is Claudia, and what makes the moon go around the earth? Nobody's pushing it. No one's pushing it. That's a good question. Now, you see, now, how can I do it? If the moon wasn't going around the earth and moving, then what would happen is the moon would just get sucked into the earth. And so, how can I describe it? If I had a piece of string and a ball on the end, if I swing the ball around my head, if I go very fast and I cut the string, what's going to happen to the ball? It'll go pinging off effectively into space. That's right. It'll go whoosh. And now, because gravity is an attractive force, if the moon didn't have what we call momentum, if it wasn't travelling around the earth, it would actually get pulled and sucked into the earth. But we think it's about how the moon formed. We think the moon hit the earth at a glancing blow, but it had momentum. It was carried. And so, we think that it continued because it was captured by the earth's gravity and because it had speed or velocity when it first hit the earth, we think it continued spiralling around the earth. But it is spiralling slowly but surely away from us. So, because in space, for instance, the earth goes around the sun and the earth takes a year to go around the sun, if things in space were static, then they would just be sucked towards the very large bodies around them. So, the moon would be sucked towards the earth, the earth would be sucked towards the sun. But because they have this angular momentum, which is keeping them spinning around and around, it means they keep on orbiting and they don't just get sucked towards the very large mass that is at the centre of whatever they're orbiting. So, that spin is very important because it would have a very, very different solar system if it was just all the force of gravity because gravity is a force that attracts things, but it's the velocity of these things, the speed of the things that actually keeps them in orbit around the bodies they're going around. But a very interesting question. Thank you. Now, I've got a couple from over. I'm going to take a hold. Yes, and it is one over there as well, which would be this one. Where's the one? I don't want to keep you too long, but I want to... I know, but gosh, we have gone over. I'm so sorry. No, no, answer yourself. Where's the one that I've missed? Oh, in the gap. Oh, whoa. Right, with a microphone. Well, wait a minute. I'm going to take... Can I take two or three at once? Yes, yes. I think that's fine. You have to remember them for me. I'll have you in a minute. You get there. So, that will be one, two. Will you one as well, I think? Three and then yourself. And that's it. Darling, I'll have to stop soon and we'll be here till the moon goes up. And this lady will be a lunatic and won't let us leave because she'll be taking a glass of wine looking at the moon. Maybe we should all have a glass of wine looking at the moon. Right, so question up here first, please. Ms Merriam, and I want to know who encouraged you to be a lunatic. Who encouraged that? We'll keep that one to last. And I think that's the... Like, who encouraged you to be a lunatic? Where's the other one that's here? Yes. Is your microphone on? Little chat there. Yeah. There you are. Right. Oh, golly. Pull it a word to me, but that's it. Why is a moon's path an eclipse and not a circle around the earth? Okay, why is it elliptical? Okay, elliptical. Yes, why is it not a circle? And... If you're in a moon base and you're growing a flower, would... And because there's less gravity, would this affect the growth? Okay, moon base. Right. That was... We'll come to very, very last. Okay, lovely. We'll come to very, very last. Right. Okay. So, we'll come in... Well, we come to... You second last about why... So, we'll come to this one about why doesn't it go around in a circle? I've learned so much. I know it's an ellipse now. Yes, you're an ellipse, yes. And you want to know about growing flowers, right? It's quite interesting because many... If you go back way back in time, people thought that the earth was a centre of the solar system, that everything went around the earth. And that makes sense because they saw the sun rise and go around the earth and set. But then people came up with new ideas. That was the helo... That was the sort of... They came up with what we call the helocentric universe which has the sun at the centre. And people like sort of Copernicus started coming up with these ideas and they started doing the calculations. But it doesn't work if it's a circle. Now, I need to be careful because an ellipse, a circle is a special type of ellipse. So, an ellipse is this squash circle. And when you actually look at the planets going around the sun or the moon going around us, most of these, they're quite circular but they are this squash circle. And unfortunately, the maths doesn't add up. It's not a stable orbit if they're circular. An ellipse is a special thing because it has... A circle has a sort of a point of centre in the middle and an ellipse has what we call two foci. And for a planet to go around the sun or for the moon to go around us it needs to be the ellipse for the mathematics to work. And it took us a long time to work this out because when people started to think that the sun was the centre of the solar system they said, okay, then the planets go around the sun in circles. And when they did the maths, it didn't add up. And so it wasn't until they realised that it was ellipses that a maths added up and we could actually predict where various things are. And these predictions are really important to us because, for instance, we send probes out to Pluto which is billions of miles away. And it's because we understand how the universe works and these ellipses that we're able to actually actually fly past planets like Pluto or land on Mars. So these are very important but it turns out that the ellipse is the stable configuration and a circle just doesn't work with the maths. So that was a discovery but it took a while to get there. Okay, so I think the next question is the flower. Yes, now flowers are interesting because have you ever... When I was at school we did an experiment called tropisms and I don't know if you remember this but this is when sort of flowers grow and if you put light on one side of the flower and not the other the flower will bend towards and also gravity actually affects the way a flower will grow. So because the gravity of the moon is fairly even the flowers will grow but I think they might grow faster and shoot up quicker because the force of gravity is less. So it's quite interesting. Now have you heard of Tim Peake? He's lovely. I met him once and he's really, really very friendly. He actually took rocket up to the International Space Station and he took some seeds that went into space and left some seeds behind then he sent it out to schools. And so it was quite interesting to see if the seeds that had been into space were any different than the seeds that were stayed on earth. I don't think they were. But if you're actually growing a plant because of these tropisms the ways that plants are affected by light, by gravity and by various other things I think the plant might grow... It has a force to grow up and because the gravity is less I think it might grow up faster so you might get taller plants. And if you as a baby if you were born on the moon and you grew up on the moon you'd probably be taller on the moon's surface than you are here. Because just like a plant you'd grow up but with less gravity you'd probably grow taller. So people who live on the moon or who are born on the moon would be taller. People who live on Mars the Martians would be taller as well. So for the future people if you have a baby on Mars they're likely to be taller than you because there's less gravity pulling them down and their muscles will grow and their bones will grow and they'll shoot up. But at the same time just as a quicker side if you're living in less gravity then your bones suffer from something called osteoporosis because they're not working against earth's gravity. The calcium in your brains actually leaks out and some of the early astronauts well astronauts that go on the International Space Station and people who live on the moon in the future if they want to come back to earth they're going to have lots and lots of exercises so that they don't lose the calcium from their bones and that's another way that space is teaching us about earth because people here on earth can get osteoporosis and by studying astronauts and seeing how the calcium comes out of their bones you can get a better understanding of how we can help them by looking at the astronauts and what they do. Thank you very much for your question. Okay so we've got a question over here and that was um I think that was about getting oh right why am I a lunatic? Yes Well um I think it runs in the family because my father used to tell me because he was brought up in Africa he came from Nigeria I was born here in the UK but my father came from Africa and he used to tell me about riding his bicycle late at night because he lived 12 miles away from his school and so he had to cycle to school and cycle home again and sometimes when he was cycling home it was dark and there were no streetlights so he'd be cycling across and the moon was his friend because when the moon was up it had more light and so he could see where he was going so my father always told me that the moon was his friend so I thought the moon must be my friend now I grew up in London and there's lots of streetlights and you can't see the moon so well but I still thought the moon was fantastic because it was a good enough friend for me for my dad it was a good enough friend for me and my daughter who's going to ask the last question I think she is a lunatic too sorry kid but because sometimes we look at the moon and sometimes we go outside and we just howl at the moon because the moon is so beautiful so it might be hereditary but it might be just indoctrination but I think I got it from my father and so my father passed it on to me and now I'm passing it on to my daughter but what I want to do is I want to pass it on to everybody because I think it's worthwhile being a lunatic we should all be howling at the moon so thank you very much for your question and now your daughter and then finally leading on to you a spacesuit soft a spacesuit soft that's a very interesting question so actually this wasn't I didn't know this was coming honest a spacesuits the spacesuits they took onto the moon were quite hard and rigid and most spacesuits that they use are quite hard and rigid but and it depends on the environment that you're in so on the moon's surface and because of the temperature ranges and because of the very very extreme environment the spacesuits are quite rigid and that they're articulated in various places so it's a bit like one of your Barbie dolls some of them got arms that move and the elbows can move and things like that so but if you had a spacesuit for somewhere like Mars Mars is a bit of an atmosphere I haven't got such a quite such a big temperature range so the spaces they're designing for a planet like Mars could be a lot more flexible and sort of a less rigid and less because I have to do less protection so I think the spacesuit is very much a product of the planet you're on or the moon you're on or wherever you are so I think that's a like dressing and when we flew up here it was really warm and so we were wearing some dresses now it's got a bit colder we've got our winter coats out it depends on your environment the way you dress thank you very much well can I say fascinating we could sit here all afternoon now it's cool and super questions from you all really great questions from right round so big round of applause here because that was really excellent and I know you've got copies of your book downstairs at the outside the shop where you'll be signing them I hope there's a cue there because I'm learning I'm coming I really learned an awful lot about the moon I just felt like doing a moon yawl who would like to do a moon yawl let's let's how do you do you show us how to do it right ready one two three okay so we're going to do a howl okay so yeah one two three we're all lunatics we're all lunatics now thank you very much thank you thank you for your questions enjoy the rest of the festival