"Birth of The Solar System" TV

[dave1978]

On National Geographic tonight at 9, its a new programme for a change.

[MikeD]

Thanks for that heads up.

mike.

[david scanlan]

Aint got that channel :-(

Does anyone know if its planned to be released on the net?

Dave

[algol]

gutted think i've missed it, might have to look for it coming on again sometime.

was it any good?

[George]

gutted think i've missed it, might have to look for it coming on again sometime.

was it any good?

There will probably be a repeat or 2 this month I imagine.

[algol]

great stuff i'll have a look on A-Z later for it.

knowing my luck there won't be a repeat, repeat corrie and stuff like that but something good? oh no!!

[Casus belli]

It was actually quite good. The latest theories got a good airing and they pointed out that the asteroid belt isn't quite as full of rocks as science fiction would have us believe.

Its a pet hate of mine that on every "Science" program they always show the asteroid belt as a churning, colliding mass of rocks when in reality the average asteriod is approx 1,000,000km from its nearest neighbour

[Xunil]

Its a pet hate of mine that on every "Science" program they always show the asteroid belt as a churning, coliding mass of rocks when in reality the average astiod is approx 1,000,000km from its nearest neighbour

I had no idea, I'd always thought of it as per the sci-fi view. Just goes to show...time to do some research

[Astroman]

when in reality the average asteriod is approx 1,000,000km from its nearest neighbour

...and that's on average, which means many are farther apart. SpaceWatch has detected something over 6,200 NEO's during its mission. Place these at the orbit of the asteroid belt, ~402,000,000 km in diameter. That makes the circumference ~1,300,000,000 km long! Spread 6,200 asteroids over this length, and it appears quite sparse, to say the least. To be fair though, there are "clumps" of asteroids at the trojan points of Jupiter's and Mars' orbit, in front and behind, where the concentration may actually be detectable by the human eye.

Still, I always get a laugh out of sci-fi depictions.