Moon Documentary Facts and Images

Do We Really Need the Moon? might seem like a silly question for a werewolf, but not so much for humans. The traditional werewolf and a wolf did feature in a documentary presented by Maggie Aderin-Pocock, along with lots of magnificent moon facts and greenygrey images. It’s available on the BBC iplayer (just in the U.K. I think) until Tuesday, and may be elsewhere on the internet?

Moon Documentary Facts and Images

Hi, it’s Stephen Werewolfing, satirical science correspondent at the Greenygrey inspired by legendary astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. I was limited to ten greenygrey images and moon facts in my assignment, but could have got much more, as the moon documentary was that interesting and greenygrey. The first three greenygrey images were within the first 42 seconds.

I think ten greenygrey images is too much to load onto you in one go, so here’s the first five, with another five in the second instalment of this howlingly Hawkingish high-five x2:

Moon Facts and Images

1. The moon is 14,000 miles away from earth. We only see one side of the moon because it takes exactly as long to rotate once on its axis as it does to circle the Earth. The Dark Side of the Moon made famous by Pink Floyd has more craters, meaning it has stopped a lot of asteroids hitting Earth, helping to preserve life on the planet.

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2. The moon was created after an impact between another planet and a planet that is now our planet Earth. The debris dislodged in the collision coalesced into a ball. The moon was initially much closer to Earth, and must have looked like a gigantic orange disc in the sky from our planet.

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3. Moon tides might have started life on Earth. Darwin thought life started in warm little ponds, and many scientists now think he was right. In a simple chemistry experiment in the documentary they replicated tidal power, sunshine and a process of mixing and drying to create Ribonucleic acid (RNA), one of the main building blocks of life.

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4. While there is no evidence that the full moon has any direct effect on animals or humans, it is brighter than the moon at other times, so nocturnal animals can be more active when there’s a full moon. It can also provide a time cue, and coral mainly spawns on or around the full moon.

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5. By sending laser light photons to the moon, and measuring those returning, they can tell how far the moon is travelling away from the Earth now. They have found a clear pattern showing the moon still travelling away from Earth at 3.78 centimetres a year, about the same speed as finger nails grow.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed the first trip to the moon, and are looking forward to the second…

New Wonder of the Science World – Martian Light Satirical Comedy

After the Greenygrey was the last new scientific wonder of the world when it emerged into the human world in 2008 it seems planet Earth is already ready for the next one. That’s according to Ben Gilliland in Metro’s Microcosm anyway, although he doesn’t mention the Greenygrey part.

Moreover, in a hot off the press Greenygrey double bill, there’s also today’s amazing image of a light on the Mars surface, which life on Mars believers claim is evidence of something living under the surface.

Square Kilometer Array (SKA) 

The Very Large Array at Socorro, New Mexico, United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, satirical comedy science correspondent at the Greenygrey inspired by legendary astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.

Gilliland was talking about the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which ‘will be the ultimate in Universe-probing radio telescopes. Made up of hundreds of thousands of individual radio telescopes and built across South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, the SKA will have the resolving power equivalent to telescope with lens measuring one square kilometre. ‘

Seeing to Beginning of Time

Moreover, after I reported greenygrey present in the universe soon after the Big Bang last month, SKA will be able to see back to the time before the universe we can see at the moment was created; when there were just gases and no solid forms.

Green Alien (Photo credit: Fried Dough)

That means we might finally get to the bottom of the Greenygreylien mystery. Metro has a great Greenygreylien image in its infographic online, which was part of the bigger picture, so was too massive to import into the Greenygrey world.

But never fear, there are loads of great greenygreylien images online, thanks to Martians being perceived as green.

Light on Mars Image

Talking of Martians, but not greenygrey coloured, although in line with Greenygrey theory, an exciting new photo today showed a spark of light on Mars; reported in Metro today by Jimmy Nsubuga.

It was taken by the NASA Curiosity Rover, which is like a futuristic Greenygrey robotydog.

Believers in life on Mars, who could be seen as the Green theorists, claim it is evidence of Martians living underground; while sceptics, who could be called the Grey theorists, say it is a cosmic flare hitting the Martian surface:

Metro

 

Stargazing Live GG Highlights: Northern Lights

There was great excitement in the Greenygrey world on Monday night while watching Stargazing Live on the BBC, because there was a possible sighting of a greenygrey in the U.K.

Greenygreys Love Nature

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, satirical comedy science expert of the Greenygrey world in the style of Stephen Hawking in the human world.

As intrepid greenygreyologists know only too well, greenygreys love nature. This was epitomised by probably the best evidence yet, when a groupack of greenygreys were sighted in the Nepalese Himalayas.

Now, thanks to Stargazing Live, we have evidence of a greenygrey in the U.K. While the U.K. doesn’t have very high mountains like Nepal, it does have nice nature, and this lone greenygrey seems to be enjoying itself in nature at altitude.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enceladus and the U.K.

You could see what a fertile land the U.K. could be for greenygreys when they compared it to Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Enceladus is also quite greenygrey, and it is thought there may be life there, but not big greenygreys; just greenygrey microbes.

 

Northern Lights Greenygrey Sky

Maybe that U.K. greenygrey was drawn out of its cover by the greenygrey Northern Lights seen live from Tromso, Norway, where our ol’ pal Marc Latham did his second marathon in 2007.

The greenygrey northern lights are even more spectacularly shown in this year’s Stargazing Live calendar:

 

January Night Sky and Moon Phases

Happy New Year. It’s Stephen Wolfing with some Sky news. Bright sky in Britain today offers the opportunity to view Venus under a thin crescent moon soon after sunset. Here’s what the One Minute Astronomer website reported:

January Night Sky

2-3 Jan.  A thin crescent Moon shares the southwestern sky with Venus after sunset.  The planet is on its way to inferior conjunction on the 11th, lying roughly between the Earth and the Sun, so it appears in a telescope as a slender crescent more than 60″ across, larger than Jupiter.

The slender crescent Moon and Venus, along with the stars Altair and Vega, as seen looking west about 30 minutes after sunset on Jan 2, 2014.

If there’s a bright sky on January 24th you will be able to see a crescent moon waning, as well as Mars, Saturn and Venus.

Mars, the waning crescent Moon, Saturn, Venus, and the bright stars Spica and Antares as seen looking SSE on Jan. 24, 2014.

Moon Phases Explained

Wikipedia features clear explanations of the lunar phases. The waxing and waning times are seen oppositely in the Southern hemisphere, so when the northern is seeing the right of the moon, the southern is seeing the left.

Phase	Northern Hemisphere		Visibility	Mid-phasestandard time
New moon	Not visible (too close to the Sun)Later to be followed by theMoon’s first visible crescent		(too close to Sun)	(too close to Sun)
Waxing (young)’crescent moon’	Right side, 1–49% lit disc		late afternoon andpost-dusk	3 pm
First quarter ‘moon’	Right side, 50%-lit disc		afternoon andearly evening	6 pm
Waxing ‘gibbousmoon’	Right side, 51–99% lit disc		late afternoon andmost of night	9 pm
Full moon	Completely illuminated disc		Sunset to sunrise(all night)	sunset to sunrise(all night)
Waning ‘gibbous moon’	Left side, 51–99% lit disc		most of night and early morning	3 am
Last (third) quarter moon	Left side, 50%-lit disc		late night and morning	6 am
Waning (old)crescent moon	Left side, 49-1% lit disc. Diminishing to the Moon’s last visible crescent		pre-dawn and morning	9 am

Paralympics Opening Ceremony and Horizon Universe Documentary

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, science correspondent at the Greenygrey. Watching Channel Four, I was thrilled to see that my human version in the parallel universe planet Earth thingy, Stephen Hawking, opened the London Paralympics 2012 last night, with an inspiring message about reaching for the stars.

The opening ceremony went on to provide lots of fun, moving and spectacular displays, including some greenygrey ones:

Horizon: Mapping the Universe

The opening ceremony’s emphasis on science and space was nicely timed after the BBC‘s Horizon this week covered the attempts being made to make a 3-D map of the universe, and the current theories on the size and contents of the universe or universes.

Amongst many things, it thoroughly explained how our understanding of the observable universe is limited to what light has had time to reach us, and that galaxies are not moving away from each other; the gaps between galaxies are widening because the universe is still expanding.

It ended by showing how the universe is thought to be infinite, and could be one of an infinite number of such universes.

Higgs Boson Posing, Without Boasting

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing again. Yesterday we surpassed the BBC’s clear and concise explanation of how the Higgs boson works by distilling their minute or two down to one image. But the Greenygrey Higgs boson story does not end there. No readers, it certainly doesn’t. In this blog we will provide photographic evidence to show how the Greenygrey was part of the Higgs boson discovery at every stage.

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Site

In this aerial view of the LHC site, where the Higgs boson was found, we can see evidence of the Greenygrey in fields and lakes, trees and sky:

Inside the LHC Site

Here we can see that the Greenygrey was not only above the surface. Oh no, it was also combining with precision below the surface too:

The Greenygrey of the Higgs Boson

And the Greenygrey didn’t end there folks. No, we can also see the greenygrey at work in the Higgs boson particle itself:

Higgs Boson Find Explained in Glorious Greenygrey

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, science correspondent at the Greenygrey. It was very exciting news this week about scientists having found the Higgs boson, which is thought to be the missing link in explaining everything from the Big Bang, and has been nicknamed the God-particle.

Higgs Boson in a Sub-atomic Nutshell

The Higgs boson is the particle that is thought to have provided the mass that helped bind particles together after the Big Bang. This was explained on the BBC by Jonathon Amos.

Greenygrey Version

During a video of Brian Cox (in glorious greenygrey) explaining the relevance of the Higgs boson find on the BBC, we saw a greenygrey explanation of how life on earth started:

In this image taken from the video we can see a green and a grey meeting by chance, and combining into a greenygrey. And that basically explains how life forms in the universe.

Germany’s Euro 2012 ends in Chaos

Hi, it’s Martin ‘Werewolfie’ Adams. Germany failed to heed the lessons from the Greek game, when our science expert, Stephen Wolfing, hypothesised that their decision to kit their goalie, Neuer, out in bright orange instead of subdued greenygrey had resulted in a goal bonanza; including Neuer letting in two goals for the first time in the tournament.

Italy v Germany Shock Chaos

The Italy v Germany game started to form, with Germany having most of the early possession, and a few chances.

But then Italy broke into the German half, and before the brightly coloured Neuer had made a save, Balotelli seemed to spot him moving to the left, and headed the ball into the opposite corner.

WARSAW, POLAND – JUNE 28: Mario Balotelli (C) of Italy jumps with Holger Badstuber (R) of Germany to score the opening goal past Manuel Neuer of Germany during the UEFA EURO 2012 semi final match between Germany and Italy at National Stadium on June 28, 2012 in Warsaw, Poland. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Lighthouse Goalie Kit Ends Greenygrey Hopes

Then a little while later, Balotelli beat the offside trap, and seemed to use Neuer like a footballing lighthouse, sending the ball well wide of the stationary goalie and into the top corner.

The game ended 2-1 to Italy, so the last chance of greenygrey playing a foreground part in the final seems to have been ended with off-the-field decisions, rather than the greenygrey being given the chance to shine… in a subdued way…!

But as the above photo shows, greenygrey is always a background part of football pitches and stadiums.

Debbie Harry of Blondie the Growth D of Y 3-D

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, science expert at the Greenygrey. I saw an interesting story about plants recently. It reported that photosensitive molecules in their leaves gather intelligence about sunlight, and make stems grow in a certain direction to reach light and reap its benefits. They will also compete with other plants and living organisms to survive and grow.

Leaf lamina. The leaf architecture probably arose multiple times in the plant lineage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Growth is one of the 3-Ds of Y

I found it intriguing to think that something that seems so random and accidental as plant growth actually has a kind of ‘thought’ and ‘knowledge’ about it. These are of course the three dimensions of the greenYgrey Y.

And the dissecting of the greenygrey Y into its three dimensions, which I think is a first in etymological science, is reminiscent of the advances in nanotechnology.

At the tiniest levels of life scientists are finding traits such as competition for survival and prosperity that still rule human society, which is considered the most advanced (by humanity), and some claim special (special humans), amongst Earth’s life.

Growth D Representative

As we think most of our readers are humans, we thought we’d provide a D human representative to epitomise growth.

Cover of Deborah Harry

We have chosen Debbie Harry. Debbie had a hard early life, being adopted, but grew into the icon of her generation as the lead singer of Blondie. And not only was Debbie a beautiful and brilliant singer, but she also stuck by her long-term partner and bandmate, Chris Stein, when he suffered a debilitating illness for several years.

So not only did Debbie have to fight and learn to survive, but she also grew up with strong personal morals.

Cover of Blondie

Venus and Jupiter Over the Moon again Tonight

Hi, it’s Stephen Wolfing, cosmology expert at the Greenygrey.

One big space story today. A month after Marc Latham’s Night Sky poem, a
Yahoo article reports that Venus and Jupiter are set to closely meet again over the moon in the next couple of northern hemisphere night skies.