Strongly criticize the Department of Health and Social Care for failing to deal with a shortage of care workers. An annual survey of local authours Ses has found that 95 percent plan to increase council tax the l g u I think tank says it's the highest proportion since the analysis began in 201280 percent fear for their financial stability. The amount of British households with outstanding personal loans has increased by 25 percent in the past 4 years lending data from u.k. Finance shows the average household last year had almost 1400 pounds of unpaid loans Melanie Reynolds from Batley West Yorkshire is now debt free but at 1280 pounds my salary wasn't very high salary and it would cover my mortgage in the utilities but not much else so I was using credit cards to pay for food shopping in borrowing to pay for school trips it wasn't frivolous it wasn't to go on holiday or anything like the Financial Conduct or thought he says it has strict rules for lenders regarding affordability. The leaders of both parties in the u.s. Senate's have announced a deal to avoid a repeat of last month's government shutdown the proposed 2 year funding agreement would increase spending by hundreds of billions of dollars including for military projects and the 1st modern Brisson he lived around $300.00 generations ago had much darker skin than previously thought d.n.a. Reset reveals the oldest complete skeleton known as Cheddar man would also have had blue eyes and dark hair Professor Chris Stringer is from the Natural History Museum back combination of blue eyes and dark skin really very strong and something we want to be back and also get from the d.n.a. You know details before which is the fact that we couldn't digest real before and all that some people might really would be aware of from it and 10000 years ago people didn't have to be have the sports column overcame a spirit to display from league to Newport to advance in the f.a. Cup I Dan Butler own goal and an Erik Lamela strike see Spurs through the face League One Rochdale in the next round in the Women's Super League Arsenal beat Liverpool 3 nil the head of the Football League Sean Harvey has told the b.b.c. That a winter break would not work for the championship or leagues $1.00 and $2.00 the Premier League is looking for options to introduce a break similar to other top year rippin leagues Harvey suggests the shuttle is already too packed what for Captain Troy Deeney will not face any formal action phase goal celebration in their $41.00 win over Chelsea Patrice Evra says he's thankful to West Ham after they sign him until the end of the season the 36 year old left back at his contract counselled by Ma say in November after kicking one of the club's own fams Great Britain easily beat Portugal $3000000.00 that Fed Cup tie and Roger Federer has accepted a wildcard into the a.t.p. Event in Rotterdam so could be the oldest ever male world number one by the end of the month this is b.b.c. 5 Live and did. Just hold on a smartphone and stop it the weather spells of rain and hills one to Scotland's on northern islands edging into northwest Wales and Northern England a hard frost elsewhere that is f. Minus 30 degrees across the u.k. Having am and f.m. Are in the u.k. On and on like I'm broad sharp and we're up all night when the snow goes and we can reach them again a walk in the woods can often be interrupted by the unmistakable drumming of a woodpecker So it looks for a tasty morsel under a bit of rotting bark it takes great next trick some bone density to pull off this performance and researches in Poland have recorded 41 of them they did use of the drumming itself as the woodpeckers we have advertising as superior strength to a mate and to ward off weak arrivals drumming patterns they say are unique to individual birds so perhaps we should think drum solo the next time you're up. And this week Dr Karl is having a little holiday but that gives us the opportunity to welcome back Bianca Grady the science journalist and author of Hello Bianca how I write how are you very well thank you it's super to have you and Lisa Harvey Smith don't totally Zahavi smithy astrophysicist Hello Lisa Hey Ron How you doing fake good very good so we find you both down down south and I speak I speak in a kind of global way here because you both and both in Australia today but I guess you too would have been just watching that space x. Recovery with your most high and open and we certainly were it was it was a remarkable thing wasn't it Lisa Yeah it was an incredible incredible sort of you chief sensation in fact 2300000 people signed into the biggest of a live stream. The 2nd biggest ever live stream it was this event across this Wednesday where they launched this amazingly new powerful rocket cool fall can heavy and just such a such a beautiful sight and lovely little touches there with David Bowie and so on. Right and and of course the cars with the with the camera behind it which which made me think I must admit made me think for a while that it must be. Not a fake exactly but it was it was produced by space x. You know as a an animation you know it would be something that wasn't quite real but it will you know evil musky in amazing guy the guy who runs space x. Is a c. Is made his money in software and things like Pay Pal but he's actually got a background in physics as well so he's a chief engineer so this thing but he's definitely a showman as well and the little touch of sending his sportscar into space is really a clever bit of marketing I think that there is a serious side to the launch and it really is a great leap forward because you know NASA the mind of course doesn't have any way of really sending things into space and that's incredible that now private industry is taking over this month at the moment when the American nationals want to get to the International Space Station they go on the Russian rockets and you know this this is really a huge gap in the market that people like space x. Have really started to exploit So I think it's exciting for the future quite quite extraordinary of course we're hearing no that the idea to actually take people up to the space station is really very achievable with with this technology . That's right I mean you know this particular rocket this was designed to take big highlights that's why they they shove this car in there is a bit of a gimmick but really the serious side of it is that we will now be able to launch largest satellites and also classed as a satellite so one of the ideas is to send up a large number of very small satellites to do scientific experiments or even one of Space X.'s big idea is to spread broadband right around the world so the whole of the world has broadband coverage and what you do is you chuck thousands of little mini satellites around the earth and even a above the Sahara desert or the remote areas of the Amazon jungle you'd have you know really great broadband network coverage so this is something that could really change the world for everyone it's exciting. But should possibilities there for questions but one other thing I'd like to ask about before we kind of open everything up and like Bianca it in the is the strange behavior of dark matter you know we do get questions but about dark matter but you've you've been looking at some reports about dark matter that's behaving a bit unusually. I think this is Lisa not me Oh I'm sorry yes it is Lisa you're actually reading yes I believe yes not you know Bianca where promise will come to you very soon but but as I understand it at least has been been you know hoovering up some some facts about dark matter for us but sorra it's the weird stuff that makes up 80 percent of the universe we don't know it's there but we know it's there this it's got so many way of properties this is the stuff that makes galaxies orbits faster than they should this is the stuff that brings together super clusters of thousands and even millions of galaxies is strings together the cosmic structures that make a giant sort of spider's web shape the cosmic web which is the giant super structure of the universe but it's not behaving the way it should so as a being a weird little study done that found that in nearby galaxy clusters there is a disk shape instead of a spherical shape of all the little galaxies there that are all getting the logic galaxies and after areas of dark matter say this should be a big spare ical distribution so these things should be spread out in all directions in the sky but new studies have shown that in the nearest 3 galaxies. That little satellite galaxies that was around us like planets are all lined up in the disk so this is not a way dark matter should behave and it's really turning ideas of our universe on its head. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about that. Let's let's go in and start this whole business 85 or 5 a few texts and 5909693 if you'd like to give us a call upon a b.b.c. C o u k. Now then. Bill in Glasgow says as the Earth has an orbit around the sun does the sun itself have an orbit to. Attack in the world of Galileo I get I guess that would have to be a question for you Lisa what would you think yeah I mean the idea obviously orbits around the sun along with all the other planets in fact the Earth orbits around the sun's center of gravity which is extremely extremely close to the center of the sun so in a little way the and the Sun orbit around the center of gravity so that the Earth has a tiny little gravitational tug that causes the sun to wobble but then the sun has its own orbit around a galaxy the Milky Way So does this huge giant circle over millions of years around the galaxy too so yes we do have a big obit that takes us on a huge Secu assist journey around the Milky Way but it also has a tiny little tug from the that's what's nice. And this is from Phil the lorry driver who's been writing us an email he says after watching you on mosques totally amazing test flight of the 4 can have it 2 days ago got me thinking about the fuel that they use nowadays and rockets I understand and days gone past with rocket engines such as that used in the main engine of the space shuttle they do use oxygen and hydrogen makes it together and light and this would also give the added benefit of making it rain after a lunch or a test firing of the rocket Nowadays I hear the fuel is much more efficient Sadly after seeing the 1st stage break away and watching the 2nd stage engine burn for a considerable a long time considering the size of the thing can you tell me what you know about the fuel use on modern day rockets. Phil says probably checking my load over with the door wide open so I can hear you know underwear Phillis tonight anyway. I'll give that I'll give this to you Lisa 1st of all but I'm sure Bianca might have a few a few things to add to this too. Yeah that's a really good question I just read read a really interesting article actually about this from an environmental scientist here in Australia and there are concerns of course with these huge rocket launches that there was a lot of energy you could either say used or wasted the pending on your point of view you know the the scientific progress does take a lot of energy and when you're trying to launch things from the air the really is no way around that as you say that in the sort of Apollo era in the 1960 s. Used to be a lot of hydrogen oxygen. Rocket fuel used and of course when those come together there is a huge amount of energy released and in fact you could say that hydrogen fuel is is cleaner Some people say it just creates a waste product of water but in fact you've got to create the the liquid or frozen oxygen you've got to create the liquid or frozen hydrogen and that takes a lot of energy and that takes fossil fuel so which have a few use it it actually creates quite a bit of pollution but they're using more kerosene in the modern space x. Rockets I believe and that's that has its own environmental concerns of course safety concerns so whatever you use whatever be using There are the environmental impacts I suppose and there's also the energy efficiency so these rockets are much more efficient there are 3 years of all as you saw the. The boosters were actually jettisoned after a couple of minutes and they 2 of them landed safely in Florida and one of them attempted to land on the ocean and unfortunately crashed into the sea so you know we're getting there with with increased efficiency new fuels but really we're not at the stage where we've got an environmentally friendly or sustainable way to get into space but hopefully we'll get there. But if you were going to you know achieve sustainability Aliso where what direction would you go and would you would you try to do something with water yeah it is it is very difficult as I say that there are many proponents for the hydrogen fuel economy but the problem with hydrogen fuel it's beautiful and hydrogen and water sorry $100.00 option come together a lot of energy is released it just creates water but you've got to get the hydrogen in the 1st place you've got to create it just like creating. You know things like solar cells are very environmentally friendly in one way but they have heavy meant minerals in them and things which pollute the environment so nothing is is coming for free it's very difficult to see where we get free and safe critically the safe part energy from because as we know nuclear power creates a lot of beautiful energy for us but it has its safety concerns too so really what direction do you go in well you've got to just keep trying and the more energy can get the bigger the explosion you can get so that's it's a bit of a conundrum for us. Helpful note here by the way from Paul in Shropshire who says that the 1st stage of Saturn 5 was kerosene and liquid oxygen and the 2nd and 3rd stages were liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen quite right is a fountain of knowledge there yes he certainly is he certainly is. I'm I'm on the hunt for a question for him. For what can I say actually probably just jump in there just on that hard liner and your yes come on I will. Never want to pipe down but hydrogen is really being investigated now as as a means of effectively transporting renewable energy so for example solar solid generated electricity or solar generated energy because at the moment it's very difficult to transport electricity of a large distances because you have transmission losses and things like that and so one of the processes it's being looked at is in parts of the world that have an excess of solar power being one of those you can actually use solar energy that's generated by the sun through photovoltaic you can actually use that to effectively split water into hydrogen and oxygen and then you can bottle up and compress the hydrogen and then you can transport the hydrogen and so you're effectively using the hydrogen as a means to transport solid energy even though it is a fuel in itself so it's kind of becoming a bit of a proxy I guess but it doesn't mean it doesn't solve the problem there is still as Lisa said the solar cells to begin with have their own environmental cost and the compression process but it you know does as well require a lot of energy but it's certainly hydrogen is one of the I mean people keep talking about 100 economy and that's one of those areas there's a lot of interest in how we can make use of hydrogen for the very reason that when you consume hydrogen as a fuel the byproduct of generally relatively benign. You know. Looking at the. Mosques Tesla Roadster Phil Reedy says what about the tires on the car Surely any air in there would have expanded to a huge degree in the extreme low pressure in space are the tires strong enough to counter this I seem to recall the lunar rover having unusual airless tires for just the season someone we talked to yesterday said that they didn't inflate the tires Any advance on that the anchor Do you know I actually don't Naru that so that would make perfect sense if they were filled with air presumably that would decompress and it was hacking only. Reds and rubber all over the place Yes and under all of Iran masks hard work so I suspect without knowing any with already that that's something I would have I fully thought about well in advance otherwise I think You Tube would have had quite a display of as he said exploding shreds of rubber. But yes I actually don't know Lisa have you have you know anything. No but having taken a bag of crisps up to the top of a very high mountain in Hawaii and then expanding to double the size I can definitely vouch for the fact that you couldn't have. Regular ties in in in the Tesla I guess I think with the lunar rovers they they use some sort of. Sort of hard material which had a little bit of spring in it so I would imagine they would have thought about this and I think of a really interesting question to ask a lawn maybe could get him on Twitter or something and. Fire him off the question because that's not something I haven't come across as a really great question. And the other thing that I was asking yesterday was how resistant the car would be to space Deborah and so on I mean it's going to get pretty doing the opposite to. Where you would hope so wouldn't it be a good way to catch it and a good way to actually study how much there is be quite interesting to get some photographs as it goes along and see how many little dents in the bumper because you know if you driving down the m 6 or something and a piece of gravel comes up from a lorry you know you can crack you wouldn't screen so much and that going at hundreds of kilometers per 2nd you're going to get a car full of holes pretty soon you know Musk was pretty confident that his car would be up in the orbit about a 1000000000 years I think he said so I'm kind of magine how many holes it would have been by the time I got to the hands of a killer. Yeah like. Quite a bubbling wondering what they've put in in the in a human figure that's sitting in there in the same whether they're put some kind of ballistic gel in there you know all that that amazing star is that star Joe that Joe was constructed that resign used to catch a stardust from the back of an asteroid where they feel they feel the Manichean a car seat with something that would actually be able to track particles as a kind of an ongoing science experiment. But I think retrieve it if it's an ongoing science experiment I'm sure we'll catch up with it eventually where we think the net the hope that someone will be able to pick the car up as I where did you leave it I think a part that got me my own way. But there is an interesting interesting point though right that you know space debris is really a huge problem near the end of the in low earth orbit but you know it's once you get out into space it between the Earth and the moon there's very little debris at all and then as you go out even further we really haven't crashed a lot of things out there course Apollo 13 famously blew a gasket on the way to the moon but once you get out to Mars it's really very little out there so you'd mostly be natural things like rocks and so on which would probably just go right through the metal I imagine go out the other side. And did they say any more today Lisa about how it got through the Van Allen belt because that was their big concern wasn't it but it was on its way to this fabulous elliptical orbit but it had to get through the Van Allen Belt furnished That's right I think the Van Allen belts for training on listening to hasn't heard of them as. A region of radiation which gets trapped so the radiation comes from the sun and the sun's emitting light and heat but it also emits charged particles like little protons and electrons parts of atoms that come from the interior of the sun and these are flown out very. Uniformly but also in large solar flares so you get huge sort of reams of particles flying out towards the Earth sometimes these get trapped in belts which are caused by magnetic fields of the earth sort of creating this shield and these particles gets trapped around there so you get lots and lots of. Charged particles which can cause damage to things like electronics or even to people so you have to shield aircraft and so spacecraft from radiation from these these belts and that was one of the real the real interesting things that the u.s. Military wanted space x. To measure as they go through I don't know if the results of actually being released publicly Yes I have been on the lookout but some certainly over the next couple of days if they do release that information publicly will be really good to see how we go because of course we haven't sent people through those zones for a very long time since the 1970 s. So yeah that's very important if we're going to send people to say model of the moon again. This is from Graham in Glastonbury who shares does the shore when the x. At the Shore Drive are to or does it go back. Listen. To when there's no wind it doesn't get sucked back because the particles are so so tiny and the the the sun is so hot in its center It's actually 15000000 degrees in the center of the Somme although it's only 6000 degrees on the surface 50000000 degrees so these particles are actually accelerated in the center of the sun that they're by the magnetic fields at the surface of the sun and they are flown out of a good fraction of the speed of light so they they actually achieve escape velocity of the sun and they and they fly out forever so the answer to that is yes they just go straight out into space past all the planets and off they go never to return and isn't that I think they're relying on that for some of the. I want to say star shot I'm not sure that's right description for the way they actually use the solar wind build these enormous delicate sails news the solar wind to to accelerate a tiny tiny slice craft out beyond the age of our of our solar system and you know hopefully to take as far as I have centaury or you know track a store or whatever the nearest sort of habitable planet system out there is so it does just keep going out Madame out exactly right yeah well more bone question from Martin in Peterborough who says I have heard that credit and debit card should be kept away from mobile phones as the signal given off by a forward can degrade the information stored on the cards magnetic strip is there any truth in this Bianca. I don't want to I know that magnetic strong magnetic fields are a risk for credit and debit cards or any kind of card that it has because I think the information is encoded magnetically So if you have a strong magnetic field and that can actually disruptors. And I think that applies to a whole lot of electronics but in terms of the signal from a mobile phone I don't think that it's Anyway nice strong enough or of the right kind to actually interact with that material certainly not the way that we have our mobile phones in proximity to credit cards I don't believe there's any destructive interaction at least none that that we kind of feel in saying any kind of impact from some if there was a problem I think we'd all be holding him serious trouble because most of us keep. Our wallets and our phones pretty close to each other so I think there was any kind of interaction probably would have seen it by now but I don't know the actual physics of it I'm afraid. At this point I know Dr car would immediately start to tell us about these screened wallets you know these bullets were not a little bit of. Human in file or something in them to stop the anybody from diagnosing what your credit card number is an innocent woman these days with contact lists you know where you can just touch which you haven't started I think in the u.k. As well where you just touch your credit card or your gun to a yes to receive I mean that is you know our concern if you happen to accidentally brush the wrong way against the counter when your new way out and yet you know you end up paying somebody else's coffee I don't know how often that's happened but I think they unite I do have that has been set up so that you do have to have contact for a certain period of time it's going to be pretty close for it to be able to pick up that information but yes I in terms of you know the government or somebody else reading your to cut history I'm not sure that that's so much of a concern at home although not I'm sure it's feeling a healthy trite in well it's designed to prevent that from happening. Certainly sounds like a good selling point well we'll be back in a couple of minutes and do please keep the questions coming especially on the texts 5058 for bank integrating the science journalist Lisa obvious missed the astrophysicist any questions you have about the physics feel free to ask them though would be a very good time it's half past 3. Digits a lot on smartphones and tablets this is b.b.c. 5 Live and The news comes from Joe Harvey. Government report to be released this morning will say that one in 5 people working in parliaments have been sexually harassed in the past 12 months a group set up to look at the problem is expected to recommend a new code of conduct the Prime Minister's Breck said cabinet committee will meet again today following the full release of economic forecasts showing areas of the u.k. Which strongly supported leaving the e.u. Could see the biggest slowdown in growth the government says the study didn't look at the bespoke deal which it would prefer research suggests 95 percent of local authorities in England plan to increase council tax this year the report compiled by the local government information units found that children services a facing the greatest budget precious and leaders of both parties in the u.s. Senate's have announced a deal to avoid a repeat of last month's government shutdown the proposed 2 year funding agreement would increase spending by hundreds of billions of dollars including for military projects don't Buzby has the sports Newport made it tough but spurs into the next round of the f.a. Cup after a 2 nil win over their league 2 opponents a Wembley a down bottle on goal followed by an Erik Lamela strike means Spurs now face Rochdale away in the next round and they thought the manager merits here Patino says his side did what they needed to do but it was of a provisional performances who have been to. Their legs this show is doing it in that this is the most important and yes this is difficult. It's difficult to assess the team and this is it can't be because we wanted to be in the new system in the no this was all the new poll goalkeeper Joe Day says that he feels he and his team could do very little about Butler's own goal a goal of ice just just unfortunate but I've gone through the lawn of the ball and I thought was going to take it and it's just taken a light the flexion you know about a down but was just trying to clearly. The bonus unfortunate us is deflected in elsewhere Arsenal boosted their hopes of a top 2 finish in the women Super League won with a countable 3 nil victory over 3rd placed Liverpool ladies if the Premier League is going to introduce a winter break then it appears it'll have to do it without the championship and leagues $1.00 and $2.00 the chief executive of the football 8 Sean Harvey says they need all the available weeks to accommodate their $46.00 game league program but he says that doesn't mean the top clubs couldn't do it reality is that he made the England international's branch of the Premier League clubs that badness we carry on without actually negatively impacting on the West Ham of confirmed the signing of Patrice Evra until the end of the season the 36 year old defender left must say under a cloud 3 months ago that was after kicking one of his team's own fans. The former England batsman James Taylor says England need to be cute in their approach if they had to progress in their t 20 tri series early Australia in Morgan's men by 5 wickets in the opening match and Taylor says next time they must adapt better yet it's t 20 cricket and you feel you have to hit every ball for 4 or 6 but you've got more time using Glenn Maxwell of all people showed you've got more time you gave yourself a chance at the top and you can make up your deliveries that you soak up at the top by hitting for the Sixers later which every England player can do they just need to be smarter at the right times adapt to the situation is put in front of them and they will come they'll come good just like they did and they are finally tennis Great Britain have easily beaten Portugal Sri mill in their Fed Cup tie Bolton and Anna Smith won that double in straight sets to clinch victory in Estonia and Roger Federer has accepted a wild card into the a.t.p. Event in water down and so could be the oldest ever male world number one by the end of the month. That's my school c.b.c. Radio 5. Ecologies he. 144 Lysimachus Sunday artillery shell it was. Mary's Southampton against Liverpool this is your station 5 lines and 5 extra That's the 1st for news and the best large school this is b.b.c. 508 with Shabab. Signs for one and this week we'll be back in a gritty science journalist and Dr Lisa Harvey Smith they asked a physicist and talking about fuel for the space x. Rocket Kit Kat who's trucking on the one writes and says if memory serves correct Shaw would rock. Fuel used to be a morning impera chlorate our human in filings and a rubber binder it was widely believed that ammonium para Kori on its own would not burn or explode but cut the pepper con disaster was a rude awakening for the industry and this I have no where and from Wikipedia happened on May the 4th 1908 the Pacific engineering and production company of Nevada plant out in the Nevada desert but the confrontation and explosion still killed 2 people and injured $372.00 others caused about $100000000.00 worth of damage and all because this is nasty stuff ammonium Pourquoi it caught fire and exploded in several very very damaging explosions youtube says kick out shows the massive explosion including the shock wave that measured in excess of 3.5 on the Richter Scale my goodness. There's a. Does that figure in your in your archives your sort of mental archives Lisa this amazing thing yeah I mean every chemical has its drawbacks those Now of course you know we're as I said earlier we've got no free rides in trying to get out into space we you know we we we have these giant boosters to get us out of the earth orbit but then of course once we get into space we've got to keep doing the neighbors such as client different directions beating up slowing down whether we use you know these these dangerous chemicals whether we use dangerous radioactive sources if something goes wrong that stuff falling all over the earth so you really do have to think very carefully about what you're doing so yeah there have been some really tragic accidents and yes it's a thing. Just business you know and I know what did happen to there the final Bush story yesterday in the space x. Short I mean the 2 boosters obviously they recovered very successfully but the 3rd one they lost didn't they the one that was supposed platform at sea Yeah absolutely they've done it successfully destroy these amazing landings on the floating platforms and the not so wonderful thing to get to do because it's an amazing feat of Veron all tix really in flying Unfortunately I had several They had several different engines and 3 of the model a failed to light I think it might been something due to the due to a conflict figuration of the launch and the fact that there were there were large vibrations that's at least what Elon Musk said but you know it's 3 of them failing to lights that's pretty serious the force successfully lifts and these are the most as it were trying to slow down the rocket as it landed so really it just landed far too quickly missed its little floating platform and just dive straight into the sea I think it's about 500 kilometers an hour so I imagine it broke out so and they may be recovering the wreckage at some point in the future. Here's a question from David in Byron Bay which is their own you're aware and David says Can a manmade object generate gravity for instance of a man was to build a structure as big as a planet e.g. The Death Star would it have gravity and what would happen inside the structure would it collapse when it got to a certain size. Who would like to take that question. Well I think. It's it's an interesting thing there's 2 things about gravity One is that every single mass in the universe will generate a gravitational field so whether it's a quark the tiniest portion of a proton or an electron tiniest tiniest particle that we know of that has its own gravitational field we don't have to create that So if we create matter and we sort of gather it together we make a cup or a sorcerer or a car all of those things have the gravitational field the other thing about gravity is really it's an acceleration so if you actually spin an object around it if you can't tell if you have the object being spun around you can't tell that you're not under a gravitational force you can't tell for seducer gravity or some other acceleration so what I'm saying really is that even if you're flying through space and you are not subject to the gravitational forces of planets or something like that and you're feeling 0 gravity if you spin around you still feel like you're under the influence of gravity so really gravity is a force it's generated generates an acceleration on other forces due to the property of mass but you can also create sort of fake gravity as well so I don't know you know what the question exactly was thinking but you can you can generate the the feeling or the sensation of gravity in space or you can you can generate a physical body which would have just the same gravitational properties as as a planet Absolutely. And aren't the g. Forces that you feel on a fair grown droid the same kind of thing they are indeed Yeah again the the the the person feeling that the acceleration doesn't know what's causing it you're just kind of experiencing this acceleration and the acceleration is just a pull or a push that changes your speed and direction so yes if you're one of those spinning fairground rides and you're trying to fly off in a different direction but that the side of the fairground ride keeping you in you're feeling the same kind of forces gravity exactly the same so the experience can be there without the the actual size of the body without the size of the mass you can still experience the size of the gravitational force. It's an interesting question in terms of a construction aspect of it though when you've got for example the Death Star which incidentally I have to try and replicate in kc form so my small my small son tomorrow but some of this is a question. Not discuss any suggestions on how to build the best out of a cake would be gratefully received gratefully received but it is that idea if you have something of that size from a construction perspective there is a point to it well one of the gravitational. Factors that you have to take into account but really we're anything that we build on earth is subject to gravity so you know the tallest skyscraper are constructed to deal with the force of gravity so I guess really a death star isn't going to be any different it's just that it's going to be you know the distance from the bottom of the building which would presumably be the center of the Deathstar to the top of the building which would presumably be on the skin of the Death Star those That's a much greater distance than it might be for you know the Empire State Building for example was actually not nearly one of the child buildings in the world but it's the 1st one that that leaps to mind so it would really come down to you know the the strain of the weight bearing loads of the construction materials but yes it would be one heck of an engineering challenge I'd like to see him or must tackle that one next. Held at Stars Hollow I'm not I'm not sure how they're actually built in which case will be much gravity it's all it has to us to shove a black hole in the middle there or something to hold it all together interesting maybe you could try that in your cake tomorrow. I'll keep you posted what I would like for photo proof. Well as. Here's a here's a question from Peter who says Why can anything apart from the expanding universe travel faster than the speed of light is that as a kind of look at Einstein. Or to that or is there or is there a better answer Well it's in some in some sense a metaphysical question there are certain rules in the universe you know why do objects with mass of gravity well they just do but you know why Can things not travel faster than the speed of light that's because it requires infinite energy to accelerate them to that speed so it's just one of the fundamental rules of the universe and the way that the way that acceleration and energy work is that it's just physically not impossible it would take more than the energy contained in the entire universe to actually accelerate something to that speed so it's just breaking a fundamental speed limit of the universe which is for some reason. 839-0000 kilometers per 2nd and luckily it is because otherwise things be going back in time and objects which hath Internet mass and all sorts of things incredibly interesting that very very strange physics when you get up to high speeds and I masses Well let's take a call and let's talk to Jonathan is calling us from London hello Johnson. Hi Ross thank you for taking my call and hello to all tests are really sorry I didn't catch their names because i Village really I just saw a right person and I just wish them well let me introduce you to Bianca Grady the science journalist and Dr Lisa Harvey Smith astrophysicist Excellent thank you. Yeah just on a completely side note for Michael then is is the universal constant. Is that something people steroids might change as we get a greater understanding of. Things like dark matter and dark energy or is that completely sext and it does matter how much our knowledge of the universe grows something that will always be set in stone maybe I'll maybe I'll start with this one. So when you talk about the universal constant the main things like the speed of light and the mass unless you wanna know Starling Yes sorry I was just because you're just talking about the speed of light and the last correspondent of all color said Wise of the universe is the only thing that can contrive a softer than speed of light and I see enough down to the theory of hyperinflation . Yeah the read there's some really good studies on at the moment astronomers colleagues of mine are studying whether in fact the the universal constants have changed throughout time because you know if we if we're putting all our theories on how the universe is being created in the Big Bang has evolved and changed through the last 13700000000 years and we're assuming that we know the set of roles and in fact those rules of change throughout time you know we we really stuffed in trying to understand what's going on and what the future will look like so the risk current study about the fundamentality of those constants and whether some of them have changed throughout time they are honest answers we just don't know we don't know yet it is a field of ongoing study but things like the speed of light we do understand how that's connected to a lot of other things in the universe we do have a very good grounding of understanding of how time and mass work and how gravity work and how that's connected we have a very good understanding of how particle physics is connected and how the laws of particles and their interactions work but we don't have a good kind of connection between those 2 concepts so we don't have this theory of everything yet so we we really are missing quite a few pieces of the puzzle and the fundamental constants of the universe like the speed of light which is always the same wherever we go we think that really connects those 2 things and we just don't know yet that's the answer the a honest answer we're still trying to figure this out but we hope I hope the concepts are fundamental that least give us some hope of really trying to figure out the theory of everything otherwise it's going to be a big long road ahead of us Ok thank you I mean the initial reason I called is just . Really really fascinating to hear your sponsor. The actual reason I called is really. It's kind of Friday in comparison I mean basically with the. Space x. Launch. It's I was wondering well if we you know flat fluster serious I was wondering if we lived in a flat earth is there enough mass for gravity to work in other words if the Us was like a giant slot plane would would be beast that his or would we be like floating off into space with or to be floating off its space we would be would we have an atmosphere and the other question is. Was the video pictures beamed back is that the kind of thing that could play Kate flushed flatus theorist or are they still likely to you know rush to some savers whenever they get a chance I think I've got my own answers on this maybe the anchors got. To give the. Goddess a look I suspect. And I'm choosing my words carefully I suspect Flatow theorists will believe in a flat or no matter what evidence is shown to them as I think this system of belief is exactly that it's a system of belief it's not based on evidence so I don't think in that situation any amount of the evidence would convince them to the contrary but to ask the question on gravity I will hand that one to lasik as I genuinely have no idea how to even start working that out. Ok Well well think about this what does gravity do . To push things apart pull them together although they gather right yeah so how could you have a flat earth. Why would it be flat because gravity pulls things into spheres that's why stars a spherical that's why planets a spherical that's why everything sinks heavy thing sink towards the ground you drop a stone in the water it sinks towards the ground gravity makes that happen the core of the earth is molten it's made of metal all the lighter stuff floating on top the whole gravity what gravity does it pulls things together so if the earth was flat that wouldn't that gravity wouldn't exist because there's no reason for it to be flat it would curl up into a ball because gravity pulls everything together so there is even no sense in saying that the Earth could be flat it doesn't even make sense in the fact that I've met 2 human beings who've actually set foot on the moon convinces me and us that you know the earth is not flat they've actually been up there they've seen it they've photographed it they've left evidence on the moon's surface and you know that the idea that people still believe this is. It very interesting that maybe social logically and psychologically but there's no physics behind it thank you thank you Charles and thanks for that question and thank you don't I'm going to and I I guess we can put this little bit of skepticism in here from John an exit. And I think Lisa you may have you know a nice follow up here he says I find it interesting that with the advances in technology since the sixty's we haven't been back to the moon if the moon has no atmosphere is it feasible that astronauts could have been protected in their space suits from what I believe to be massive amounts of radiation in outer space and if I had a powerful enough telescope would I be able to see the abandoned moon buggy. Yes so the moon does have a little bit of an atmosphere not very much just a tiny little wisp. And now the the reason why there isn't a huge amount of radiation in space is because you're protected on the earth by a lot of things like the atmosphere the magnetic field of the earth the moon has rather less of that so there would have been a large dose of radiation as the astronauts traveled for 3 or 4 days between the Earth and the moon so the Nationals were protected by metallic linings within lead linings within both their equipment and their spacecraft and they would have received high radiation doses just as we do when we fly off that you know 40000 feet above the earth's atmosphere so they will have really really received quite high radiation doses there are effects on the body from space flight and we certainly haven't solved the problem of whether we could live long term on the moon or other planets due to that reason. But yeah the question about whether you if you had a powerful enough telescope could you see the moon landing sites yes in fact the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which you can look up on the Internet has photographed the landing sites over the Apollo moon landing sites and these have been released publicly they're really interesting you can see the various spacecraft and the landing pad you can even see the remains our flag and one of them the American flag which has been left there so there are other things left on the moon to like these triangular prism shaped reflectors which 3 years decades now scientists have been shining lasers at the moon and reflecting the laser beams off the main surface on these little prisons that the astronauts left and we're seeing that the distance between the Earth and the moon gets bigger by about 3. 3.8 centimeters a year so we can actually measure by their reflection time the time taken for the laser to get from the earth to the moon and back it gets a bit bigger every every year so we can see that the orbits a changing so there's lots of ways we can see the moon landings were real real photographs reflections of lasers off the equipment that they left there and of course they brought back hundreds of kilograms of rocks to from the lunar surface so yeah it's a it's a very very exciting endeavor and I hope we go back really same because it will really I think based people's confidence again in science and technology and get people behind space exploration once more and whatever else the exploration for not going back to the moon wasn't scientific it was it was political wasn't a there was bite it it was like it was expensive it was a really expensive thing to do was a very difficult thing to do you know they had lots of other things destructions the types of human things like conflicts and wars that the got in the way and unfortunately you know that that means that nobody's really had the energy or the might to sort of the will to to go back but now I think we're seeing this for a nice science because there are private entrepreneurs who are deciding to branch out into space and I think this is really the time where we're going to see some amazing things really really amazing things and commercial astronauts achieving some some brilliant feat. I think we have a question for Bianca This is from Miriam and Kara Dagon and she says can plants be affected by the phases of the moon is it true seedlings planted when the moon is waxing do better than those planted when it's waning does the moon have an influence on people and animals. The laser there that biodynamic planting is a is based on principles around this idea that the moon does influence plant growth I can't think of a possible mechanism by which that would happen I mean obviously we have the influence of the earth the moon's gravity honestly say that with the times we have I mean they could argue that there is influence of life. And the light reflecting the light of the moon perhaps has some influence certainly has obviously influence on the different creatures the way that they behave anyone who goes prone fishing you know you know that you do it not when the moon is out because that makes it harder to attract the problems in terms of the influence on behavior and this is one of those areas where there's been. A long held myth and I think this is probably said to call it a myth because there isn't necessarily any evidence to back up the idea that people do go crazy around the full moon it's I think there's been studies done in emergency departments there's been studies done in psychiatric institutions to see whether there is this idea that a full moon somehow precipitate some kind of weird and manic behavior on the humans any animals and as far as I know certainly in humans there isn't strong evidence that the moon form or in makes us go crazy so I think I mean we have you know such a romantic mythological attachment to the moon it features in so many different mythologies and so many different stories that you know I think we are entranced by it and we are captivated by it but whether there's any kind of a biological mechanism the by which the moon influences our behavior or influences you know sort of growth cycles I don't know that there's any evidence for that. Fine thank you very much let's go on this is from Mark who's h.g.v. Driving in Wales at the moment. Maybe not far from Canada again who knows anyway says I actually is from Newport So he says talking about flat earth the earth is wider the middle jus to retain could a planet spin fast enough to be cigar shape if not flat Not that anyone could live on such a fast turning world Lisa. Yeah interesting you say that I mean you can see the difference the earth is as you say faster in the middle like a lot of us and it's because it's rotating and the the polar regions are rotating more quickly so they they expand outward slightly you can see the difference Jupiter and Saturn are quite a bit flatter on the poles and fatter in the middle because they're made up of gas and liquid and the more quickly there are these amazing stars and planets but stars cooled will neutron stars and they were tight thousands of times per 2nd and we don't know much about the shapes yet but astronomers are starting to study them and it's a really interesting. A really really interesting study about you know whether or not a very flat and they have incredibly strong magnetic fields which you would think like the steel reinforced rods through concrete would kind of keep them in a nice steady shape but we think diverting so so quickly that they must be very very a blight indeed So this is an interesting field of study and hopefully soon we'll find out exactly how fat they are but absolutely if if something's rotating very very quickly it will flatten out and it can become cigar shaped. Well there we must leave you daughter Lisa Harvey Smith and Bianca integrated thank you for being our guest in this hour thanks to everyone. For challenging craft. Your well. Thank you Robert.