Looking Up - 02 March 2018

Man-made objects in space - they are there, but where? In this programme Kechil talks about her favourite space mission: the Voyagers.

There are many things, and perhaps people, that you’d like to send into space, and others who seem to be already in orbit. But what is the fate of Elon Musk’s Tesla roadster that he sent into space? Several observatories on Earth have photographed the car on its long, long journey, and it looks like a tiny speck in the far off distance, which is what it is.

Looking Up - 9 February 2018

Sutherland is where you can find the telescopes used by astronomers and other scientists for all sorts of purposes. Find out more, listen to Dr David Buckley, SALT Scientist, tell us what's going on up there or better still - visit yourself.

Detecting gravitational waves is one thing, to verify their source with a variety of instruments is ground-breaking stuff. Ushering in a new era of astrophysics is Dr David Buckley from Cape Town's South African Astronomical Observatory, describing how we used instruments up at Sutherland to help carry out this work.

For more details about this event enjoy this extraordinary 5-minute video:

https://youtu.be/JjCVNdeEoQk

The Earth could have formed inside the dense shell of an enormous bubble within a giant star, no kidding.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a Dyson Sphere? No, just dust.

Stars have a lifecycle just as living creatures do. They form in nebulae, they continue to shine for millennia, and then they turn into different entities depending on their size and composition. Dr Sally MacFarlane takes us through the basics.

Where can you go to look at the stars? Kechil Kirkham and Sally MacFarlane talk about their favourite places and where the public can enjoy a spot of star gazing.