One such show was Stargazer, where the mystery's of the universe are shoved before our eyes and some clever dick with a white coat and pens in his top pocket explains it all.
That's what i love about this types of show, the sheer size and speed of everything in the universe that makes it hard to comprehend.
Astronomy is fascinating, but sometimes it isn't easy to get your head around and it doesn't help when scientists talk about something being light years away because many of us don't really have a concept of light years and even if you know that a light year is about 6 trillion miles, it still doesn't really register because it is just too large a number.
So how can we make sense of all this?
As usual, we turn to Monty Python to explain things and the brilliant Stephen Hawking who rewrote the Galaxy Song tune with corrections
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving (Earth has changed gradually over time so it is evolving).
And revolving at 900 miles an hour (true for certain latitudes).
It’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned (Our orbital velocity is 18.5 miles a second).
The Sun that is the source of all our power. (If we dismiss Nuclear and geothermal energy).
The Sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day, (try 11 million miles a day)
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour, (We’re going at 450,000 mph.)
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way. (It is indeed called that)
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars, (The common consensus is between 100 billion and 400 billion stars)
It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side (150,000 light years across)
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick, (the bulge in the center of the Milky Way is closer to 10,000 light-years thick).
But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide (Between 1,000 and 3,000 light years thick by us).
We’re thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point (26,000 light-years).
We go ’round every two hundred million years (Every 225 million years, more or less).
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions (Latest estimate is 2 trillion galaxies)
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whizz;
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know (The universe can expand faster than the speed of light as it isn't constrained by the cosmic speed limit)
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is (11 million miles a minute)
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space (not found any yet),
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
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