The Comet's Tale BBC 4

[peterbolson]

Looks interesting. Tonight at 8pm.

"Modern space missions can show what comets are really made of and where they come from "

I believe it's a repeat but I don't recall seeing it before.

Peter

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[Darkstar_1]

Should be worth a watch, all good stuff.

[nmoushon]

I wish I got BBC over here in the states. I doubt its on BBCA but I'll check. Maybe I'll have to find it on the internet somewhere. Thanks for post. Sounds interesting.

[JamesF]

BBC4 is almost the only channel I watch these days, though I may venture back into BBC2 now University Challenge has restarted.

James

[JamesF]

I wish I got BBC over here in the states. I doubt its on BBCA but I'll check. Maybe I'll have to find it on the internet somewhere. Thanks for post. Sounds interesting.

You have a PM.

James

[jeremy1]

Hi. I will look out for this one tonight. As for you guys abroad I use www.viewtvabroad.com it's a subscription service at £6.49 a month. As i work overseas all the time it's a small cost to keep up with things and watch decent TV and you can set up using paypal and stop at any time.

[Si W]

I've seen this before on Sky a couple of time's, think it was on one of the Discovery channel a few month's ago, very good, well worth watching.

[Tinker1947]

Thanks for the heads up....

[Ganymede12]

Thanks for the heads up! I'm watching it now and It is very interesting!

[Astro-Nova]

i just noticed this so ill record the repeat around 23.30

[Jake Bullit]

Just catching the last half an hour.

Sent from my HTC HD2 using Tapatalk 2

[Ganymede12]

Cells without DNA rained down in blood red rain following a comet impact.

Cool

[Ganymede12]

Oh wait, there is DNA

oh well, it's a start!

[DaveGarland]

Yeah I saw this on iplayer about a week ago and it's well worth seeing. I've just set the recorder for the 11:30 showing so i can see it again

[Ganymede12]

I had never heard of Heaven's Gate until I saw that documentary.

What a tragic story.

[Viv]

iplayer tomorrow ... thanks, looking forward to watching that.

[jeremy1]

Watched it. A good program. Gonna have to watch out for black lumps hurtling in from outerspace.

[DazC]

Doh!!!

Missed it.

IPLAYER tomorrow!!

(thanks for the post).

D.C

[JamesF]

Interesting programme, I thought, and definitely worth a watch. Stretched credulity a bit too far in one or two places and really failed to properly close out on the red algae thing, which is so clearly part of an invasion by the Martians that I can't believe no-one has yet spotted it.

James

[russ.will]

Just watched it. If they lost the boom, boom, boom, ta da! graphics, there's about 20 minutes of useful programme.

5 minutes is lost to worthless conjecture over King Arthur's identity as a comet. So what? Get to Newton/Haley and actual science, which they did eventually. I'm married to an archeologist and enjoy roaming historical sites the world over, so I'm not dismissive of the historical perspective. In fact, I have a bit of thing for Roman bridges, but I digress.

My point is that facts, of which there were some, presented in an engaging fashion, we're sandwiched by claptrap like the above, plus the usual Daily Mail take of 'We're all going to die and it's the fault of (cosmic) immigrants'. Luckily they offset it with nearly 30 seconds of statistical analysis to point out we could die tomorrow, or in a million years. Not such a headline grabber that one, hence the short shrift it was given compared to the borrowed dinosaur extinction CGI.

And what was the bunkum from India with misrepresented earth bound bacteria toward the end? It wasn't a comet, so why spare it screen time?

Still, at least it's Astro getting some exposure, so I'll watch the next one too.

Yours, disgruntled of middle England,

Russell

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Naemeth]

I saw it a while ago, and it was quite good. Although some of the footage was "borrowed" from The Planets (1999) .

[Darkstar_1]

This programme contained no new information about comets, it was just a re-hash of every other 'pop' astro programme. It wasn't even educational to anyone who may know very little about the subject. At least Prof Cox seeks to illuminate, and give some understanding in his programmes.

[JamesF]

I for one wasn't aware of what qualified as a "long period" comet, nor that they're thought to be pushed from the Oort Cloud into the solar system by the action of other stars. I wasn't even actually aware that comets had one tail of gas and another of dust, nor that the halo could be larger than the sun. Neither did I know anything about the apparent cometary impact in AD536.

So, I know little about comets and learnt something. I'll be your counter-example

And remember this programme pre-dates the "Wonders of..." series by several years.

James

[cs1cjc]

And what was the bunkum from India with misrepresented earth bound bacteria toward the end?

Chandra Wickramasinghe is a very notable physicyst living in Cardiff, but originally from Sri Lanka. Note the health warning on his Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia...._Wickramasinghe

[russ.will]

Indeed. I wasn't having a go a Panspermia, more that the programme makers devoted so much time to a case where it verifiably wasn't. Fortunately people doing good science sorted that one out!

Russell