1. New views of the sky By taking our sense of sight far beyond the realm of our forebears’ imagination, these wonderful instruments, the telescopes, open the way to a deeper and more perfect understanding of nature. - René Descartes, 1637 00:00:12:20 00:00:17:09 For millennia mankind gazed out into the mesmerising night sky... 00:00:17:10 00:00:23:10 ...without recognising the stars of our own Milky Way Galaxy as other suns... 00:00:23:11 00:00:30:08 ...or the billions of sister galaxies making up the rest of our Universe... 00:00:30:09 00:00:33:20 ...or that we are merely punctuation in the Universe’s... 00:00:33:21 00:00:37:15 ...13.7 billion year-long story. 00:00:37:16 00:00:41:01 With only our eyes as observing tools we had no means of... 00:00:41:02 00:00:45:06 ...finding solar systems around other stars, or of determining... 00:00:45:07 00:00:49:15 ...whether life exists elsewhere in the Universe. 00:00:53:05 00:00:55:15 Today we are well on our way to unravelling many of the... 00:00:55:16 00:00:58:20 ...mysteries of the Universe, living in what may be the most remarkable... 00:00:58:21 00:01:01:03 ...age of astronomical discovery. 00:01:01:04 00:01:04:10 I am Dr. J and I will be your guide to the telescope - 00:01:04:11 00:01:07:03 the amazing instrument that proved to be mankind's... 00:01:07:04 00:01:09:18 ...gateway to the Universe. 00:01:24:02 00:01:27:07 Four centuries ago, in 1609, a man walked out... 00:01:27:08 00:01:29:16 ...into the fields near his home. 00:01:29:17 00:01:34:11 He pointed his homemade telescope at the Moon, the planets and the stars. 00:01:34:11 00:01:38:13 His name was Galileo Galilei. 00:01:38:13 00:01:42:03 Astronomy would never be the same again. 00:01:59:08 00:02:03:13 Today, 400 years after Galileo first pointed a telescope at the skies... 00:02:04:01 00:02:09:01 ...astronomers use giant mirrors on remote mountaintops to survey the heavens. 00:02:10:01 00:02:15:01 Radio telescopes collect faint chirps and whispers from outer space. 00:02:15:23 00:02:18:16 Scientists have even launched telescopes into space... 00:02:18:21 00:02:23:01 ...high above the disturbing effects of our atmosphere. 00:02:25:03 00:02:28:21 And the view has been breathtaking! 00:02:36:00 00:02:39:15 However, Galileo did not, in fact, invent the telescope. 00:02:39:16 00:02:42:23 That credit goes to Hans Lipperhey, a slightly obscure... 00:02:42:24 00:02:46:11 ...Dutch-German spectacle maker. 00:02:46:12 00:02:50:15 But Hans Lipperhey never used this telescope to look at the stars. 00:02:50:15 00:02:53:18 Instead, he though his new invention would mainly benefit... 00:02:53:19 00:02:55:24 ...seafarers and soldiers. 00:02:56:00 00:03:00:06 Lipperhey came from Middelburg, then a large trading city... 00:03:00:07 00:03:02:19 ...in the fledgling Dutch Republic. 00:03:07:00 00:03:11:03 In 1608 Lipperhey found that when viewing a distant object... 00:03:11:04 00:03:17:02 ...through a convex and a concave lens, the object would be magnified, if the... 00:03:17:04 00:03:22:14 ...two lenses were placed at just the right distance from one another. 00:03:22:15 00:03:25:10 The telescope was born! 00:03:26:20 00:03:30:12 In September 1608, Lipperhey revealed his new invention to... 00:03:30:13 00:03:32:22 Prince Maurits of the Netherlands. 00:03:32:23 00:03:36:10 He could not have chosen a more advantageous moment because... 00:03:36:11 00:03:39:03 ...at that time the Netherlands were embroiled in the... 00:03:39:04 00:03:42:05 ...80 Years' War with Spain. 00:03:48:15 00:03:52:07 The new spyglass could magnify objects and so it could reveal... 00:03:52:08 00:03:55:14 ...enemy ships and troops that were too distant to be seen... 00:03:55:15 00:03:57:09 ...by the unaided eye. 00:03:57:10 00:04:00:06 A very useful invention indeed! 00:04:00:07 00:04:05:00 But the Dutch government never granted Lipperhey a patent for his telescope. 00:04:05:00 00:04:08:10 The reason was that other merchants also claimed the invention... 00:04:08:11 00:04:12:00 ...especially Lipperhey's competitor Sacharias Janssen. 00:04:12:01 00:04:14:20 The dispute was never resolved. 00:04:14:21 00:04:20:00 And to this day, the true origins of the telescope remain shrouded in mystery. 00:04:22:09 00:04:26:17 Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, the father of modern physics... 00:04:26:18 00:04:30:00 ...heard about the telescope and decided to build his own. 00:04:30:20 00:04:34:08 About ten months ago, a report reached my ears that a certain... 00:04:34:09 00:04:38:24 ...Fleming had constructed a spyglass by means of which visible objects... 00:04:39:00 00:04:42:18 ...though very distant from the eye of the observer, were distinctly... 00:04:42:19 00:04:45:22 ...seen as if nearby. 00:04:49:15 00:04:52:15 Galileo was the greatest scientist of his time. 00:04:52:16 00:04:55:18 He was also a strong supporter of the new worldview advocated... 00:04:55:19 00:04:59:08 ...by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who proposed that... 00:04:59:09 00:05:03:15 ...the Earth orbited the Sun, instead of the other way around. 00:05:05:10 00:05:08:22 Based on what he had heard of the Dutch telescope, Galileo... 00:05:08:23 00:05:11:00 ...constructed his own instruments. 00:05:11:01 00:05:13:20 They were of a much better quality. 00:05:16:20 00:05:21:17 Finally, sparing neither labour nor expense, I succeeded... 00:05:21:18 00:05:25:06 ...in constructing for myself so excellent an instrument that... 00:05:25:07 00:05:28:13 ...objects seen by means of it appeared nearly one thousand... 00:05:28:14 00:05:33:00 ...times larger than when regarded with our natural vision. 00:05:34:15 00:05:37:20 It was time to train his telescope on the heavens. 00:05:40:05 00:05:44:11 I have been led to the opinion and conviction that the surface... 00:05:44:12 00:05:49:01 ...of the moon is not smooth, uniform and precisely spherical... 00:05:49:02 00:05:52:09 ...as a great number of philosophers believe it to be... 00:05:52:10 00:05:57:16 ...but is uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences... 00:05:57:17 00:06:01:05 ...being not unlike the face of the Earth. 00:06:08:10 00:06:12:03 A landscape of craters, mountains, and valleys. 00:06:12:04 00:06:15:04 A world like our own! 00:06:16:13 00:06:21:13 A few weeks later, in January 1610, Galileo looked at Jupiter. 00:06:21:14 00:06:25:10 Close to the planet he saw four pricks of light that changed... 00:06:25:11 00:06:29:20 ...their position on the sky night after night along with Jupiter. 00:06:29:21 00:06:34:17 It was like a slow, cosmic ballet of satellites orbiting the planet. 00:06:34:18 00:06:37:13 These four pricks of light would come to be known as... 00:06:37:14 00:06:40:10 ...the Galilean moons of Jupiter. 00:06:40:11 00:06:43:01 What else did Galileo discover? 00:06:43:02 00:06:45:06 The phases of Venus! 00:06:45:07 00:06:48:18 Just like the Moon, Venus waxes and wanes from crescent to... 00:06:48:19 00:06:51:01 ...full and back again. 00:06:51:02 00:06:55:09 Strange appendages on either side of Saturn. 00:06:55:10 00:06:58:00 Dark spots on the face of the Sun. 00:06:58:01 00:07:00:07 And, of course, stars. 00:07:00:08 00:07:02:24 Thousands of them, maybe even millions. 00:07:03:00 00:07:06:04 Each too faint to be seen by the naked eye. 00:07:06:05 00:07:10:18 It was as if mankind had suddenly thrown off its blindfold. 00:07:10:19 00:07:14:00 There was a whole Universe to discover out there. 00:07:20:15 00:07:24:24 News about the telescope spread across Europe like wildfire. 00:07:25:00 00:07:29:07 In Prague, at the court of Emperor Rudolph II, Johannes Kepler... 00:07:29:08 00:07:31:24 ...improved the design of the instrument. 00:07:32:00 00:07:36:00 In Antwerp, Dutch cartographer Michael van Langren produced... 00:07:36:01 00:07:39:02 ...the first reliable maps of the Moon showing what he believed to be... 00:07:39:03 00:07:41:15 ...continents and oceans. 00:07:41:16 00:07:45:11 And Johannes Hevelius, a wealthy brewer in Poland, built huge... 00:07:45:12 00:07:48:03 ...telescopes at his observatory in Danzig. 00:07:48:04 00:07:52:19 This observatory was so large that it covered three rooftops! 00:07:55:20 00:07:58:22 But the best instruments of the time were probably constructed... 00:07:58:23 00:08:03:24 ...by Christiaan Huygens in the Netherlands. 00:08:04:00 00:08:09:12 In 1655, Huygens discovered Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. 00:08:09:13 00:08:13:22 A few years later, his observations revealed Saturn's ring system... 00:08:13:23 00:08:17:15 ...something Galileo had never understood. 00:08:17:16 00:08:21:11 And last but not least, Huygens saw dark markings and bright... 00:08:21:12 00:08:23:15 ...polar caps on Mars. 00:08:23:16 00:08:26:21 Could there be life on this remote, alien world? 00:08:26:22 00:08:31:00 The question occupies astronomers to this day. 00:08:32:23 00:08:36:09 The earliest telescopes were all refracting telescopes that used... 00:08:36:10 00:08:39:13 ...lenses to collect and bring together the starlight. 00:08:39:14 00:08:42:08 Later the lenses were replaced with mirrors. 00:08:42:09 00:08:45:24 This reflecting telescope was first built by Niccolò Zucchi... 00:08:46:00 00:08:48:22 ...and later refined by Isaac Newton. 00:08:48:23 00:08:52:15 Now in the late 18th century, the largest mirrors in the world... 00:08:52:16 00:08:56:11 ...were cast by William Herschel, an organist turned astronomer... 00:08:56:12 00:08:59:09 ...who worked with his sister Caroline. 00:08:59:10 00:09:03:02 In their house in Bath, in England, the Herschels poured red-hot... 00:09:03:03 00:09:06:18 ...molten metal into a mould and when the whole thing had cooled... 00:09:06:19 00:09:12:08 ...off, they would polish the surface so that it would reflect starlight. 00:09:12:09 00:09:17:05 During the course of his life, Herschel built more than 400 telescopes. 00:09:21:08 00:09:25:06 The largest of these was so huge that he needed four servants to... 00:09:25:07 00:09:28:11 ...operate all the various ropes, wheels and pulleys that were... 00:09:28:12 00:09:32:16 ...required to track the motions of the stars across the night sky... 00:09:31:22 00:09:36:08 ...which is of course caused by the Earth's rotation. 00:09:36:09 00:09:39:24 Now Herschel was like a surveyor, he scanned the heavens and... 00:09:40:00 00:09:43:14 ...catalogued hundreds of new nebulae and binary stars. 00:09:43:15 00:09:47:04 He also discovered that the Milky Way must be a flat disc. 00:09:47:05 00:09:51:00 And he even measured the motion of the Solar System through that disk... 00:09:51:01 00:09:55:17 ...by observing the relative motions of the stars and the planets. 00:09:55:18 00:10:03:06 And then on the 13th of March in 1781, he discovered a new planet - Uranus. 00:10:03:07 00:10:07:13 It was over 200 years until NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft... 00:10:07:14 00:10:12:18 ...gave astronomers their first close-up look of this distant world. 00:10:14:05 00:10:18:18 In the lush and fertile countryside of central Ireland, William Parsons... 00:10:18:19 00:10:25:05 ...the third Earl of Rosse, built the largest telescope of the 19th century. 00:10:27:05 00:10:31:23 With a metal mirror a whopping 1.8 metres across, the giant... 00:10:31:24 00:10:36:15 ...telescope became known as "The Leviathan of Parsonstown". 00:10:36:16 00:10:40:24 On the occasional clear, moonless nights, the Earl sat at the eyepiece... 00:10:41:00 00:10:45:15 ...and sailed on a journey through the Universe. 00:10:47:18 00:10:52:02 To the Orion Nebula - now known to be a stellar nursery. 00:10:52:03 00:10:57:06 On to the mysterious Crab Nebula, the remnant of a supernova explosion. 00:10:57:07 00:10:59:06 And the Whirlpool Nebula? 00:10:59:07 00:11:04:06 Lord Rosse was the first to note its majestic spiral shape. 00:11:04:07 00:11:10:04 A galaxy like our own, with intricate clouds of dark dust and glowing gas... 00:11:10:05 00:11:13:15 ...billions of individual stars, and who knows - 00:11:13:16 00:11:16:17 maybe even planets like the Earth. 00:11:16:18 00:11:20:18 The telescope had become our vessel to explore the Universe.