BBC Show Stargazing Live Leads To Exoplanet Discovery 66
arnodf writes "Tonight BBC's show stargazing live ended after three days of live astronomy with comedian Dara Ó Briain and professor Brian Cox.
Throughout the show they were trying to make the viewers help in finding an exoplanet via Zooniverse. Thanks to the program they managed to get 1,084,760 classifications in 48 hours and two volunteers discovered an exoplanet which now bears their name.
From the planethunters website: 'Thanks to your help and BBC Stargazing, we managed 1,084,760 classifications in 48 hours.
There's still more to do, and more discoveries to be made, so keep clicking!'"
I didn't know you could name them... (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought that the names had to be approved by the IAU or something. (The summary says the planet found "now bears their name". Unless the IAU decided to name it after them I suspect they got to name it). Is the summary wrong?
On the other hand, if the summary is correct, the chance for OFFICIALLY naming an entire world would be worth something! Who knows, maybe the exo-planet you named after yourself (or your firstborn, or your pet dog) could one day be determined to have life, maybe intelligent life! (Or maybe it'll just have cool double-sun sunsets or pretty rings).
Couldn't NASA get a bit of funding from people who wanted to bid on the rights to name a world? (Unlike copyrights, aren't celestial bodies named FOREVER?).
Re:I didn't know you could name them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't NASA get a bit of funding from people who wanted to bid on the rights to name a world? (Unlike copyrights, aren't celestial bodies named FOREVER?).
No, it couldn't. NASA has nothing to do with naming planets. NASA is a US government agency. The US is one among many countries in the world. Funding such an agency of such a country through such a mechanism would come close to the "sell me a star" or "sell me an acre of moonscape" con trick.
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On the other hand, if the summary is correct, the chance for OFFICIALLY naming an entire world would be worth something! Who knows, maybe the exo-planet you named after yourself (or your firstborn, or your pet dog) could one day be determined to have life, maybe intelligent life!
Which opens some interesting prospects, such as tourists from Earth visiting said planet and the natives welcoming them cheerfully in the <insert-your-dog's-name-here> Visitor Center, with <insert-your-dog's-name-here> being present on most bilingual place signs all over the planet.
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Oh great. "Welcome to Planet Slashdot. In Planet Slashdot your order takes you."
Big Bang obligatory (Score:2)
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On the other hand, if the summary is correct, the chance for OFFICIALLY naming an entire world would be worth something! Who knows, maybe the exo-planet you named after yourself (or your firstborn, or your pet dog) could one day be determined to have life, maybe intelligent life!
If there is intelligent life, there is most likely alraedy an official name for that planet.
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I thought that the names had to be approved by the IAU or something.
The IAU gives objects like that designations. They do not name them [iau.org] and have no plans to do so.
Great Series of shows (Score:5, Informative)
For those outside the UK, BBC2 broadcast them live at 20:00 for three evenings. The first two were fantastic as the skies were clear. LAstnight was pretty cloudy but the experiment where a whole town went 'dark' was amazing. It really showed how much light polltution there is.
Part of the show came from the Uk and another segment came from South Africa. This latter one enabled us to see the milky Way in all its glory.
Real kudos to the Beeb for putting this on at peak times.
Re:Great Series of shows (Score:5, Insightful)
You act like BBC 2 is some obscure channel no-one gets.
That joke is old and is more suited to BBC 3 or BBC 4. BBC 3 especially since it's about on par with "Dave" since it's reruns of Top Gear and anything starring the cast of Mock the Week obscure any kind of decent programming they'd care to put on.
Not to mention they advertised it hard on BBC 1 between programmes and it was in alot of the paper TV Guides. I'll admit, the only way I know about the TV Guides is because my gran buys them.
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BBC2 has been around since the early 1960's. I can remember watching the Test Transmission films round about then. The channel was the first to be broadcast in UHF 625 lines as opposed to VHF 405 lines.
If you don't know about BBC2 then you have missed some really great programmes over the years and I feel kinda sad for your narrow minded existence.
There is a whole world outside of ITV1 and its soaps, gameshows and celeb TV you know.
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Wait.. people WATCH BBC1? I've heard they have shows like "eastenders" and "strictly come dancing" on there. If they'd put it on BBC1 I would've missed it.
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I watch QI on BBC 1... wait, no, that's BBC 2.
University Challenge then... wait, BBC 2.
Top Gear... ah, no, 2 again.
Mock the Week... BBC 2.
Newsnight... BBC 2...
Have I got News for You... Ah! Yes. BBC 1!
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I watch QI on BBC 1... wait, no, that's BBC 2.
And thank god they moved it back. It was terrible on BBC 1. Went from "let's say something quite interesting" to "lets all shout at the same time!LOL!" and back again.
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It's more the fact that BBC 3 is the 'reruns' channel. I think Frankie Howards Good News is pretty much their only original content and that gets repeated ad nauseum between series
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Do you mean Russell Howard? Just imagine Frankie Howerd doing that show: "And here's my mystery guest this week. Let me guess, were you in the news for boarding the wrong flight and getting tossed off by a stewardess? Now, now, settle down. Ooh, missus!"
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I think I just merged Frankie Boyle and Russel Howard.
I scared myself.
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Um, BBC1 HD is just a mirror of BBC1, but in HD. Auntie couldn't have shown a BBC2 programme in HD except on BBC HD.
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It took over BBC HD which was nice too.
Bah (Score:3, Funny)
They were probably planted by the show's producers, to drive up ratings.
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Re:Bah (Score:4, Interesting)
Why the cynicism? The PlanetHunters site wasn't set up specifically for the show, it was a "citizen science" project running independently (and still is). Users of the site apparently tripled and worked on over a million images in 24 hours which is a pretty awesome amount of help from a three-night show, although I can't find a mention of what is "normal" traffic for the site.
Besides, the show is over now, it was only on for three nights, so there are no more ratings to drive up.
The Beeb have done this sort of thing before: as far as I remember during a documentary on climate changed they encouraged viewers to get involved with a BOINC weather analysis project. The difference there is that BOINC projects don't involve people actively examining the data themselves and it's very hard to separate out individual contributions.
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Uhm, hear that whooshing sound? It's not a flying car passing by.
Dara (Score:5, Informative)
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There's the other one too. Him that isn't Rob Brydon. I'd tell you his actual name but ... curse you Wikipedia!
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You mean the one that played keyboards for D:Ream? (Wasn't he the first Hannibal Lector too, or am I getting confused?)
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I always wonder if that ever comes up when one of his PhD students is having a rough time.
"Don't worry Mike, I know your last set of results look awful even though you put months of effort into it, but look at it this way: Things! Can only get BETTER! *While doing a little jig*"
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No, I mean there's another comedian who's right brainy at science and stuff. He's one of them two that aren't Mitchell & Webb.
No doubt there are plenty of people (mostly Daily Mail readers) harrumping about dumbing down, pop stars, etc etc.
Re:Dara (Score:5, Informative)
Ben Miller? Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org] he started a PhD in Quantum Physics and Cambridge (then abandoned that to go showbiz).
See also Brian May [wikipedia.org], who completed his Astrophysics PhD after a three-decade hiatus playing guitar in some band.
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Not to mention Brian May, who was lead guitarist with Queen.
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Things Can Only Get Better / Universe Heat Death (Score:4, Funny)
>You mean the one that played keyboards for D:Ream?
The lyrics of which told us that "Things Can Only Get Better" despite Professor Brian Cox spending most of the subsequent decades telling us that the universe will end up in a still, frozen heat death. [wikipedia.org]
The Labour party successfully used the song as their campaign slogan. Their time in office ended in a crippling debt crisis whereby there was no money left to perform any more government work, in a remarkable allusion to Cox's lectures on how maximum entropy will mean that heat differentials will no longer be available to perform any more work in the universe whatsoever.
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I think you've just paved the way for a new academic discipline: Comparative Thermodynamic Econo-politics. Wanna organise a conference? We could get News Corp or someone to sponsor it.
Re:Dara (Score:4, Informative)
Ben Miller (he was on QI with Rob Brydon on ABC1 on Wednesday Night)
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I admit I wasn't very accurate when writing the summary because in fact no exoplanet was discovered but major signs for one were. They still need to double check with the guys at Hawaii I think to confirm it. :-)
It was mentioned on the show that Dara has a degree in maths and physics but that's not what we know and love him for is it?
What? (Score:2, Funny)
Alien 1 - What do they call it again?
Alien 2 - Earth!
Alien 1 - Why would they call it that? Its blue!
Alien 2 - Our name for it - Krup - is so much meaningful and relevant.
Alien 1 - Must be a bunch of nitwits living there.
Alien 2 - Yup!
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Only the BBC could so progs like this (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd never get a commercial channel doing live astronomy for 3 nights. In fact they barely tough science at all these days except for the occasional Discovery channel funded sensationalist drivel on channel 5 ("OMG , tidal waves, asteroids, earthquakes, we're all gonna die!! - but find out how after the break" type stuff)
This sort of program alone - almost - makes the license fee worth the money.
Re:Only the BBC could so progs like this (Score:5, Insightful)
A few weeks ago they aired an hour long show on a Sunday evening in which Prof Brian Cox gave a lecture on atomic structure, quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle and wave-particle duality to a bunch of celebrities. It was very edutaining, but can you imagine pitching that show to a commercial network?
Re:Only the BBC could so progs like this (Score:5, Insightful)
Unles everyone thinks so, it isn't worth it.
By that reasoning, nothing is ever worth it.
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a) Picking someone up on a typo ceased to be an impressive counter argument sometime in the early 80s.
b) No one is being forced to pay FFS. Don't want to pay? Sell your TV. We're not talking food and medicine here, wer're talking a non essential piece of entertainment equipment. And what planet do you live on where you expect 100% consensus on anything before you think its worth a damn?
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Unles everyone thinks so, it isn't worth it.
Either you didn't quite think this through or you're effectively saying that nothing is ever, ever worth it. Good luck getting 100% of people to agree ;)
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This sort of program alone - almost - makes the license fee worth the money.
I guess you forgot the smiley-face.
The "licence fee" (in reality a tax: collected under force of law and threat of punishment for non-payment if you own a TV) is £145 per year (about 220USD) and gifts the BBC about £3Bn annually. This pays for a series of 9 TV advertisement free channels and a whole slew of radio stations: both national and local.
For £3 Bil, I'd expect a dam' sight more than 3 hours of astronomy every year - hell, I'd expect a direct feed from a dedicated space telescop
Re:Only the BBC could so progs like this (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be interesting to see if a more fair and commercially balanced TV-scape would give rise to some healthy competition (instead of a scramble to stay alive) that would raise the quality, and maybe even the breadth, of programming across the board if all the broadcasters got a share of the licence fee and they all had to put up with the same commercial realities.
Have you ever tried to watch American television?
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Have you ever tried to watch American television?
Frequently - whenever I'm in the country. Have you ever wondered why so many of the successful/high-quality dramas on British TV are american imports?
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And have you ever wondered how many are produced by pay TV companies such as HBO? I wonder why that is...
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You only have to look at cable TV in the UK or the entire television setup in the US to see that the one thing you would definitely not get by defunding the BBC is a rise in quality.
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For accuracy, I think it's worth pointing out that Channel 4 get a teeny-weeny slice of the licence fee also.
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Absolutely agree.
I watched all 6 programmes (including the follow-up Star Gazing Live: Down To Earth) and was thankful that the BBC hasn't yet been destroyed by the Tories and their cronyism with the Murdoch Empire.
Genuine public service broadcasting.
From Wikipedia: