1
00:00:04,500 --> 00:00:06,280
100 years ago,

2
00:00:06,280 --> 00:00:08,880
Gustav Holst's masterpiece
The Planets

3
00:00:08,880 --> 00:00:11,120
premiered at The Queen's Hall
in London.

4
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:17,800
It has since become a favourite on
the concert platform.

5
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:29,520
Holst's inspiration was more
astrological than astronomical.

6
00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:32,760
When he composed the seven
movement suites,

7
00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:36,880
Holst knew little of the physical
nature of the worlds he represented.

8
00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:43,760
But thanks to a century
of discovery,

9
00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:45,960
using space probes and rovers,

10
00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:47,880
these are now worlds we've
photographed...

11
00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:49,800
Worlds we've touched.

12
00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:58,240
And, yet, Holst's music is
just as powerful today,

13
00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:02,720
reminding us of the fragility of
humanity, adrift in the universe.

14
00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:09,400
OK.

15
00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:13,280
I've been working with
the BBC Symphony Orchestra

16
00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:17,240
and conductor Ben Gernon,
exploring the latest science.

17
00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,200
The images, I think, are very
powerful.

18
00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:23,640
I'll show you an image in a moment

19
00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:25,600
which I think is probably
my favourite image

20
00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:27,280
in the history of
space exploration.

21
00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:31,560
We want to discover if this new
knowledge

22
00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:34,240
can deliver a fresh
insight into the music.

23
00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:40,480
Tonight, at a special event at the
Barbican,

24
00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:43,000
all seven movements will be
performed...

25
00:01:43,960 --> 00:01:48,480
..this time, set to the backdrop of
the latest imagery of the planets.

26
00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:01,840
CROWD APPLAUD

27
00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:24,560
Holst's Planets were characterised
by their astrological

28
00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:26,120
and mythological characters.

29
00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:29,680
So, Mars, The Bringer Of War.
Venus, The Bringer Of Peace.

30
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,080
Neptune, The Mystic.

31
00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:35,760
The aim of tonight's performance is
to explore how the music changes

32
00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:40,080
if we listen today, with the luxury
of 100 years of scientific discovery

33
00:02:40,080 --> 00:02:45,800
and, also, if we listen in today's
social and political context.

34
00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:50,560
You see, composers like Holst
were involved in and contributed

35
00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:54,120
to the political and intellectual
arguments of the day.

36
00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:58,760
Holst was on the left of politics,
and he was also a spiritual man.

37
00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:01,120
He was interested in eastern
philosophy,

38
00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:05,680
he learned Sanskrit, and his music
had a strong Indian influence.

39
00:03:06,640 --> 00:03:08,640
While he was writing The Planets,

40
00:03:08,640 --> 00:03:11,880
during the First World War and just
before the First World War,

41
00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:16,360
a time of great social, and economic
and geo-political instability,

42
00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:19,200
his character, his interests,

43
00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:23,480
and his political ideas are
reflected in The Planets.

44
00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:26,320
Precisely how, of course,
is open to interpretation.

45
00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:28,760
That is the point of great art.

46
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:31,880
But an interpretation
I find interesting

47
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,040
is that The Planets can be
seen as an intellectual journey,

48
00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:37,880
informed by Holst's socialism,

49
00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:40,560
and his attraction to eastern
mysticism.

50
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:43,560
In fact, the director Tony Palmer,
in his film on Holst,

51
00:03:43,560 --> 00:03:48,640
wrote that in this context,
The Planets begins to make sense.

52
00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:52,560
Not as an astrological chart,
a la Mystic Meg,

53
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:54,560
but as a pilgrim's progress

54
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:59,280
from the ferocity of industrial
capitalism, represented by Mars,

55
00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:04,720
towards a karma of enlightenment,
represented by Neptune.

56
00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:07,560
Now, tonight I'm not
interested in arguing for this,

57
00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:10,640
or indeed, any other
particular interpretation.

58
00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:15,040
What I am interested in is how
the work might suggest new ideas

59
00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:18,000
when set in a 21st century context,

60
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:22,560
alongside the images and the
understanding of the solar system

61
00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:24,640
to which we now have access.

62
00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:33,560
This is a modern day spacecraft
picture of Mars.

63
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,920
Everywhere we look,
we see evidence of rivers.

64
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,040
So Mars, actually, was a world which
could have supported life

65
00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:42,280
about 3 billion years ago.

66
00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:47,040
Now we know that there's water on
Mars, there are minerals on Mars,

67
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:49,800
pretty much everything you need
to support human life

68
00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:51,280
in a civilisation.

69
00:04:51,280 --> 00:04:54,680
And so Mars becomes not a bringer
of war,

70
00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:57,880
kind of a terrifying red
object in the sky,

71
00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:00,840
but a bringer
of opportunity and hope.

72
00:05:00,840 --> 00:05:03,000
I think it's really interesting.
There's a moment...

73
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:05,720
Actually, in the orchestra, if
we could just have a look, please.

74
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:07,280
And it's four bars before Figure 5.

75
00:05:07,280 --> 00:05:09,240
And I'm wondering if we could just
soften this

76
00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:10,920
to make this more hopeful?

77
00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:13,360
This fanfare that we have
in the brass, instead of it being

78
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:15,600
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dee,
da-da-dum,

79
00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:17,800
could it be
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dee?

80
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:20,880
So it's ever so slightly softer
and, maybe, as you were saying,

81
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:23,160
Brian, offers a sort of place for
hope.

82
00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:33,040
Mars, as Holst would have known it,

83
00:05:33,040 --> 00:05:37,080
was not a well-resolved planet,
if you like.

84
00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:40,120
The photograph behind me is a
photograph taken by telescope

85
00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:42,800
that was commissioned in 1917,

86
00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:45,400
so, in fact, just after Holst had
written the piece.

87
00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:48,320
What you see is a fuzzy blob.

88
00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:51,080
You can see dark
markings on the surface.

89
00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:55,600
And at the time, even reputable
astronomers mistook those markings

90
00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,960
for, perhaps, signs of vegetation.

91
00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:03,960
That image of Mars was dashed
when we went there with spacecraft.

92
00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:07,080
The first spacecraft to fly past
was in 1965,

93
00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:09,240
the Mariner 4 spacecraft.

94
00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:12,360
And it sent back grainy
images of the surface.

95
00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:16,600
President Lyndon Johnson, president
at the time, reflected.

96
00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:21,640
He said, "It may be, it just may be,
that life as we know it,

97
00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:26,280
"with its humanity, is more unique
than we may have thought."

98
00:06:26,280 --> 00:06:30,960
If we move forward to today,
a fleet of spacecraft have visited.

99
00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,560
The first thing we see is
a world of geological giants,

100
00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:39,440
that you see a canyon spanning over
half the face of the planet,

101
00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:42,960
which is called the Mariner Valley
after the Mariner spacecraft.

102
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:46,600
The Grand Canyon here on Earth would
fit into one of its side channels.

103
00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:49,440
It's also a planet
of great volcanoes.

104
00:06:49,440 --> 00:06:52,000
We have good evidence that there
were lakes,

105
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:54,240
possibly even oceans on Mars.

106
00:06:55,440 --> 00:06:56,960
We've landed on Mars.

107
00:06:56,960 --> 00:06:59,600
As I speak, there's a robot called
Curiosity,

108
00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:03,720
which is exploring an old dry lake
bed.

109
00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:07,120
It's found the signatures of organic
molecules,

110
00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:08,960
it's found signatures of minerals

111
00:07:08,960 --> 00:07:11,920
that only form in the presence of
standing water.

112
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:16,160
So we've built a picture up of Mars

113
00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,640
that tells us that it was
Earth-like

114
00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,960
perhaps three and a half
billion years ago,

115
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:23,720
with rivers and oceans and seas.

116
00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:26,200
In a sense, it could have been a
living world.

117
00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:29,120
Whether life began there,
we don't know.

118
00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:33,360
But what's interesting is that this
changes our view of Mars again,

119
00:07:33,360 --> 00:07:36,600
because a planet like Mars
that had water,

120
00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:40,080
and still has water, becomes a
planet that has everything you need

121
00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:45,720
to build a civilisation, to sustain
life, to sustain human beings.

122
00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:50,920
So even if there weren't Martians
three and a half billion years ago,

123
00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:55,480
even if there aren't still Martian
microbes today living sub-surface,

124
00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,520
there will probably one day
be Martians,

125
00:07:58,520 --> 00:08:01,400
because the Martians will be us.

126
00:08:01,400 --> 00:08:03,800
Can we listen to Holst's Mars

127
00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:07,960
and forget the deeply ingrained
20th century symbolism

128
00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:09,880
of mechanised warfare?

129
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:13,120
Can we instead view Mars
with optimism?

130
00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:16,800
Having survived the barbarism of the
20th century,

131
00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:19,440
our technology and our rockets are
now free

132
00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:22,960
to deliver perspective on our cosmic
isolation,

133
00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:25,400
to provide a bridge to the future

134
00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:29,000
where humanity is no longer confined
to a single world.

135
00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:39,120
MUSIC: Mars, The Bringer of War
by Gustav Holst

136
00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:50,800
CROWD APPLAUDS

137
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:56,040
I think the photographs of Holst
speak to me about the time.

138
00:15:56,040 --> 00:15:58,080
So he was late-thirties,

139
00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:01,320
40 or so when he wrote
The Planets. Mm-hmm.

140
00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:04,200
But Holst didn't have so much
success as a composer

141
00:16:04,200 --> 00:16:05,840
before he wrote this piece.

142
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:09,480
I often get the impression that he
was searching for something deeper

143
00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:12,920
and more meaningful than his current
existence.

144
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:17,240
The First World War
was on the horizon.

145
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:20,520
He wanted to sign up, he couldn't
sign up, because he was ill.

146
00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:26,080
He will have friends and colleagues
go and fight on the Front,

147
00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:28,160
potentially never come home.

148
00:16:28,160 --> 00:16:30,000
The historical context

149
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:33,640
within which this piece was written
is frightening.

150
00:16:33,640 --> 00:16:37,520
We didn't know there
was an origin to the universe.

151
00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:39,680
We didn't know how the sun shone,

152
00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:41,760
so we didn't know about nuclear
physics.

153
00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:44,840
So all those things that we almost
take for granted now...

154
00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:48,240
..we'd not known.
That's what's interesting.

155
00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:51,640
This is music from a time
when we had no idea

156
00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:54,760
about our place
in the wider universe.

157
00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:56,120
And I'm intrigued to know,

158
00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:58,640
so if Holst was standing in his back
garden at night,

159
00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:00,640
what could he see in the sky?

160
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:05,560
With the naked eye, he would've been
able to see Venus, of course.

161
00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:09,400
I mean, Venus is often, depending
on where it is in its orbit,

162
00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,040
but often the brightest
thing in the sky,

163
00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:15,480
either close to sunset
or close to sunrise.

164
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:17,400
It's always close to the sun.

165
00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:21,320
So he would have seen Venus
very bright, Jupiter, Saturn,

166
00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:23,000
Mars, again extremely bright.

167
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:25,040
But that's pretty much it. Mmm.

168
00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:27,680
CROWD APPLAUDS

169
00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:33,160
Venus, The Bringer Of Peace.

170
00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:36,640
It's a planet that's very
Earth-like in many ways.

171
00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:42,080
It's not too much closer to the sun.
It's about the same size as Earth.

172
00:17:42,080 --> 00:17:45,760
And this really led astronomers
in Holst's time

173
00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:48,880
to consider it potentially Earth's
twin.

174
00:17:48,880 --> 00:17:53,280
Just like Mars, it was considered to
be a world which may harbour life.

175
00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:57,160
We can never see the ground from
Earth, it's shrouded in clouds.

176
00:17:57,160 --> 00:17:59,360
And that added, I think, to this
idea

177
00:17:59,360 --> 00:18:02,520
that Venus may be a tropical
paradise.

178
00:18:02,520 --> 00:18:05,280
But as with Mars, you know,
we had a shock

179
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:06,960
when we first started to point,

180
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,960
initially, radio telescopes to
Venus,

181
00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:13,160
and then began to fly space
probes past the planet.

182
00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:18,480
We found that Venus is
a scorched world.

183
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:23,400
This is a photograph from a Russian
spacecraft called Venera 9,

184
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:25,600
which landed in 1975.

185
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:28,360
It found a world that it could
barely survive.

186
00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:30,440
It only lasted for around an hour.

187
00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:35,720
It measured temperatures of 465
degrees Celsius on the surface.

188
00:18:35,720 --> 00:18:41,040
The atmospheric pressure is 90 times
the atmospheric pressure on Earth.

189
00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:43,680
That means if you or I stood on
Venus,

190
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:46,480
we would be toasted
and then squashed.

191
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:49,360
And if that didn't do it for us,
we would be dissolved,

192
00:18:49,360 --> 00:18:53,280
because the clouds of Venus
rain down sulphuric acid.

193
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,880
So, far from being an idyllic,
beautiful bringer of peace,

194
00:18:57,880 --> 00:18:59,520
the goddess of love,

195
00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:03,360
Venus is the closest world to hell
you could imagine.

196
00:19:03,360 --> 00:19:05,400
AUDIENCE LAUGHS

197
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,240
Then we started peering through
the clouds using radar,

198
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:12,760
and we see a surface that is
covered in volcanoes,

199
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:17,360
far more volcanoes than any other
planet in the solar system.

200
00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:21,280
What's interesting, though,
is that it seems that, again,

201
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:25,040
like Mars, Venus would have had
water on the surface,

202
00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:30,120
may have been a habitable world,
may even have given rise to life,

203
00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:32,280
may have been that paradise.

204
00:19:32,280 --> 00:19:34,840
But something went wrong on Venus.

205
00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:39,280
Those volcanoes pumped carbon
dioxide, sulphur dioxide,

206
00:19:39,280 --> 00:19:41,960
greenhouse gasses
into the atmosphere.

207
00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:45,240
The cycles of the planet ran
away with themselves.

208
00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:48,680
A runaway greenhouse effect
heated the planet up

209
00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:53,240
and destroyed it, certainly as a
habitable world.

210
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:59,640
So I think the lesson of Venus is
that planets are not eternal.

211
00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,600
A world that was once heaven
can become hell.

212
00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:08,560
Venus, Bringer Of Peace, becomes
a requiem for a failed planet,

213
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:14,840
and perhaps also a reflection on
how rare places like Earth might be.

214
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:24,080
MUSIC: Venus, Bringer Of Peace
by Gustav Holst

215
00:28:34,360 --> 00:28:36,520
It is a vision of hell.

216
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:39,440
And I think that's fascinating
when you set it against the music.

217
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:43,080
I think that this idea that there
are just small falling motifs

218
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,400
and there's a couple of solos
in the orchestra as well,

219
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:46,920
so, really as a listener,

220
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:51,320
you're drawn into extremely personal
and lonely sounds.

221
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,680
And then the piece ends with just
the second violins playing.

222
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,720
A very long diminuendo,
suspended high note,

223
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,320
and you are left with this
sense of loss.

224
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:05,200
I'm sure Holst did not intend Venus
to be listened to that way.

225
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:09,080
How do you feel about that
re-interpretation?

226
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,320
Erm, so I find this layering
fascinating because, you know,

227
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:17,000
human beings aren't just 1-D things
that write seven notes on the page

228
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,240
and it forever means
that it's locked in history.

229
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,840
It's almost as if he had a weird
premonition

230
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:26,160
of what was to come, in terms of
some of the research as well,

231
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:30,200
because how can it be that this
music is so easily transformed?

232
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:32,040
And it sort of adds to the
more mystical

233
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:34,960
and mysterious side to his character
and what he wrote.

234
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,760
Mercury, The Winged Messenger.

235
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,600
There are spacecraft whose
job it is to observe the sun,

236
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,640
and one of them is called
the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

237
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,920
It just sort of sits there and looks
for solar flares and solar storms,

238
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:52,960
watching how the sun behaves.

239
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:58,120
But occasionally, the spacecraft
capture something quite magical.

240
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,280
They capture what's called
a transit of Mercury,

241
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:06,760
a small black dot, tracing its way
across the face of the star.

242
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:10,240
Now, Mercury zips around
the sun very fast.

243
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:14,960
"The Winged Messenger"
is a rather nice title

244
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:20,040
because it's very close to the sun,
but very difficult to get to.

245
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:24,440
The Mercury Messenger spacecraft, it
took seven years to get to Mercury.

246
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,680
It had to fly around the Earth once,
then go round Venus twice

247
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:29,960
and then round Mercury three times

248
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:33,160
before it had slowed down enough
to get into orbit.

249
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:37,880
What it found was a world that...
Well, we knew it would be hot.

250
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,480
It's close to the sun. It's about
430 degrees Celsius

251
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,120
by day on the surface.

252
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,560
However, because there's no
atmosphere on Mercury,

253
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:48,720
it drops to about minus 180 degrees
Celsius at night,

254
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,560
so it's a world of extremes.

255
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,920
Messenger found traces of what
astronomers called

256
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:56,320
"volatiles" on the surface,

257
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,040
things like potassium.

258
00:30:58,040 --> 00:30:59,800
Now, that's interesting,

259
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:03,520
because potassium is only expected
to be found on planets

260
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,320
that form further out in the solar
system.

261
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:08,240
They're called volatiles for a
reason.

262
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,280
They boil away when they're close to
the sun.

263
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:16,680
So we now think that Mercury formed
much further away from the sun

264
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,880
than the position where it orbits
today.

265
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,360
So again, the Winged Messenger
seems to be rather apt.

266
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,920
Mercury has shifted a great deal in
its orbit

267
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,880
during the history
of the solar system and, in fact,

268
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,200
our simulations suggest that
it's at least possible

269
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:37,960
that Mercury will shift again and
fly out into the outer solar system,

270
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:42,240
perhaps even be lost into
interstellar space.

271
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:47,040
So Mercury illustrates another
important point.

272
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:51,240
The solar system is not a piece of
eternal clockwork

273
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:57,080
crafted by the gods, but a dynamic
living and evolving place.

274
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,400
MUSIC: Mercury, The Winged Messenger
by Gustav Holst

275
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:16,840
Jupiter is a dominant planet
in the solar system, in a sense.

276
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:20,600
It's two and a half times
the mass of all the other planets

277
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:22,560
and moons combined.

278
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:24,800
And that means that it's really
the only object

279
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:27,040
in the solar system, other than the
sun,

280
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,440
that has a quite profound
gravitational influence

281
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,400
on the rest of the system.

282
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,680
For example, the asteroid that wiped
out the dinosaurs

283
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,120
here on Earth 66 million years ago
is likely,

284
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,680
or at least it's possible, that it
was deflected

285
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:47,520
on to a collision course with Earth
by Jupiter.

286
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:52,320
Jupiter is a creator
and destroyer of worlds.

287
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:56,080
Now, we have a spacecraft in orbit
around Jupiter now called Juno,

288
00:36:56,080 --> 00:37:01,000
which is sending back the most
remarkable images of the planet.

289
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,360
It's a spacecraft that,
for the first time,

290
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:06,240
orbits the north
and south pole of Jupiter.

291
00:37:06,240 --> 00:37:08,680
When you zoom in, you see images of
clouds

292
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:11,720
that look almost like
Impressionist paintings.

293
00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:15,160
The storm that we're probably most
aware of on Jupiter

294
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:16,600
is the Great Red Spot.

295
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:20,960
But it is shrinking, so
when Galileo saw the storm system,

296
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:24,120
you could have lined up three
Earths in that spot.

297
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,960
Gives you a sense of scale of
Jupiter. Now it's shrunk,

298
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:30,000
you could only fit about two Earths
across the diameter.

299
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:33,440
But it's still a big and long-lived
storm.

300
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,600
Jupiter is a fascinating
world in itself,

301
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:40,120
but equally fascinating is its own
mini solar system,

302
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,480
its moons, over 70 moons.

303
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:47,280
And the four brightest
were discovered by Galileo.

304
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,320
These moons played an extremely
important role

305
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,320
in the history of
human thought,

306
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,200
because they confirmed to Galileo

307
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,080
that we
are not the centre of the universe.

308
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,480
Because when you look at Jupiter
through a telescope,

309
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:05,720
it's obvious that those moons are in
orbit around it and not around us.

310
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:09,400
Those moons are worlds
with their own characters.

311
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:14,800
Io is the most volcanically active
body in the solar system.

312
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,240
And then, a rather magical world
called Europa,

313
00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:22,600
a moon covered in a shell
of frozen water ice.

314
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,880
But we know that beneath that shell
of water ice,

315
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,520
there is an ocean of liquid
salt-water.

316
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:34,400
It contains more water than all
the oceans of the Earth combined.

317
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:38,320
And so Europa may well be a home
for life.

318
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:42,360
Now, we've got our first
pictures of the planet,

319
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:46,560
and particularly the moons, from two
iconic spacecraft,

320
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,040
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.

321
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,160
These spacecraft were
launched in 1977.

322
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:54,800
They arrived at Jupiter in 1979.

323
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:57,640
We are still in touch with them
both today,

324
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:00,200
41 years after they were launched.

325
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:06,080
Voyager 1 is 13.3 billion miles away
from Earth in interstellar space.

326
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,000
It's a tiny little thing.

327
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:10,240
I want to show you this photograph
of me

328
00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:14,200
standing in front of a scale
model of it at JPL in California.

329
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,680
It's a remarkable engineering
achievement.

330
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:21,440
On Valentine's Day, 1990, as it was
on its way out of the solar system,

331
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,760
it took what I think is
the most famous image,

332
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,800
certainly of Earth, in the history
of space exploration,

333
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,840
when it was 4 billion miles from
home.

334
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,480
It's called the Pale Blue Dot image.

335
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,320
Now, there are coloured stripes
crossing the image,

336
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:37,960
which are lens flare.

337
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:40,200
But if you look carefully
in the red stripe,

338
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,240
you'll see a point of light,
which is our planet, the Earth,

339
00:39:44,240 --> 00:39:45,840
the Pale Blue Dot.

340
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,320
Carl Sagan, who's one of my great
heroes,

341
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:51,920
wrote a very powerful piece of prose
about this image,

342
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,440
reflecting on what it tells us
about our place in the universe.

343
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,680
"The Earth," he wrote,

344
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:01,920
"..is a very small stage in a vast
cosmic arena.

345
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:05,800
"Think of the rivers of blood
spilled by all those generals

346
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:09,920
"and emperors so that in glory
and in triumph,

347
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:14,640
"they could become the momentary
masters of a fraction of a dot.

348
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:16,960
"Think of the endless cruelties
visited

349
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:20,440
"by the inhabitants of one corner of
this dot

350
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,120
"on the scarcely distinguishable
inhabitants

351
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,840
"of some other corner of the dot.

352
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,000
"How frequent their
misunderstandings,

353
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,400
"how eager they are to kill
one another.

354
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:33,600
"How fervent their hatreds.

355
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,720
"Our posturings,
our imagined self-importance,

356
00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:41,280
"the delusion that we have some
privileged position in the universe

357
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:45,520
"are challenged by this
point of pale light."

358
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:49,560
This idea that Jupiter might
represent humility,

359
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,920
they're the beginnings of the
realisation

360
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:56,560
that we are perhaps more fragile,
smaller, and more interdependent,

361
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,680
both with each other and the wider
universe,

362
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:01,960
than we often like to imagine.

363
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:06,320
I find fascinating, in the context
of tonight's performance,

364
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,400
that Holst's Jupiter, after all,

365
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:12,320
contains one of the most well-known
passages in classical music,

366
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:15,680
the lyrical section that became
the patriotic hymn

367
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:18,200
I Vow To Thee, My Country.

368
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:22,480
Patriotism. The love of country.
These are important ideas.

369
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:24,800
They were important to Holst.

370
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:30,000
But so, too, is the idea that we
are one civilisation

371
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:33,160
living together precariously on one
planet

372
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:37,360
in an ever-changing and
always-challenging universe.

373
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:41,840
If we are to avoid Sagan's endless
cruelties of history,

374
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,600
we must find a way to reconcile
our affection for our countries

375
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:49,400
with our responsibility
to protect our home world

376
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:51,360
by working together.

377
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,840
It's my view that the exploration
of space

378
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,040
has helped deliver this perspective.

379
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:01,800
CROWD APPLAUDS

380
00:42:07,240 --> 00:42:11,160
MUSIC: Jupiter, The Bringer Of
Jollity by Gustav Holst

381
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,760
CROWD APPLAUDS

382
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:02,400
And what I think is really
interesting is,

383
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,040
in terms of all the planets and all
of the movements,

384
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:07,680
this is the one planet that has
the most important

385
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:11,520
and emotional journey where you have
the physical decay of death

386
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:14,480
at the beginning, and then of serene
acceptance.

387
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:15,680
That's a good point.

388
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:18,880
I mean, I could show so many
pictures from the Cassini spacecraft

389
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:21,680
which was in orbit around Saturn for
a long time.

390
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,480
The interesting thing about this
ring system

391
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:27,960
that we learnt recently is that it's
extremely young,

392
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,400
probably only tens of millions
of years old,

393
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:35,080
a dynamic world that's changed
radically over...

394
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:38,920
in a fraction, the blink
of an eye in geological time.

395
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:42,200
And I think how this fits in is
maybe the serene acceptance

396
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:44,640
could be a sense or renewal
and rebirth

397
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:48,280
and things growing and
things not dying.

398
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:52,960
Saturn, The Bringer Of Old Age.

399
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,000
Saturn is, I suppose,
the most iconic planet,

400
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,840
made famous by its ring system.

401
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:04,120
They are an intricate system,
beautifully complex,

402
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:06,800
made of a very simple thing -
ice,

403
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:12,040
water ice sprinkled around the
planet. Snowflakes, if you like.

404
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:14,480
A friend of mine who worked on the
Cassini probe,

405
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:17,280
which has taken the most spectacular
images of Saturn,

406
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:21,200
said that it's like, you know when
you get a magnet

407
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,480
and sprinkle iron filings over it,
and you can see the magnetic field?

408
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,760
Well, in the same way,
it's like some deity

409
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:30,400
has sprinkled snowflakes over Saturn

410
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,040
so you can see the gravitational
field.

411
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:38,160
Its rings, they look impossibly
thin and they are impossibly thin.

412
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,960
They're, in fact,
only around ten metres thick,

413
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:46,160
so they would fit comfortably inside
this auditorium.

414
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:51,960
And they also, we've
found, are most likely young.

415
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:56,360
What we think happened was that
a moon came close to the planets,

416
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:58,440
probably in collision with
another moon,

417
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,600
or perhaps a gravitational
interaction with another moon,

418
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:05,720
and then dissociated and broke up to
form the rings.

419
00:52:05,720 --> 00:52:07,880
It's possible that they
weren't there

420
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,160
when the dinosaurs were on Earth.

421
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:12,800
So if the dinosaurs had invented
telescopes

422
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:14,760
and looked up at Saturn,

423
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:19,080
they may well not have seen that
planet that we see today.

424
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:24,400
Saturn has one of the largest
moons in the solar system, Titan,

425
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:28,840
which, in this image,
you see above the ring plane.

426
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:33,080
Titan is the only
object in the solar system,

427
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:36,000
other than Earth,
that has liquid on its surface.

428
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:37,840
But it's freezing cold,

429
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:41,840
a long way from the sun, minus 180
degrees Celsius or so.

430
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,480
So that liquid is not water.
It's liquid methane.

431
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:47,360
Liquefied natural gas.

432
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:52,320
So this moon has lakes and seas
and rivers of methane.

433
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,840
It has methane rain
and methane snow.

434
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:56,680
A methanological cycle,

435
00:52:56,680 --> 00:53:00,680
in the same way that Earth has
a hydrological cycle.

436
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:04,600
We also think that it may have
liquid water below the surface,

437
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:09,480
so, again, this is an interesting
moon in the context of life.

438
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:13,280
But there is another moon around
Saturn that is equally,

439
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:15,560
even perhaps more intriguing.

440
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:17,760
It's a moon called Enceladus.

441
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:21,040
What we see on Enceladus
are fountains of ice

442
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:25,720
rising up from the surface
and disappearing off into space.

443
00:53:25,720 --> 00:53:29,520
Beautiful, but what we think is
causing those fountains

444
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:31,200
is even more beautiful.

445
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:33,640
We are now, I would say, certain

446
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:38,520
that there are lakes of liquid water
below the surface of Enceladus.

447
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:43,600
And on the floors of those lakes, we
think there are geological systems.

448
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,240
Systems called hydrothermal vents.

449
00:53:46,240 --> 00:53:48,280
Now, that is fascinating

450
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:52,000
because we think that one of the
prime candidates

451
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:55,560
for the origin of life on Earth 3.8
billion years ago

452
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:58,080
are hydrothermal vent systems,

453
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:03,520
where you get energy in contact with
rock, in contact with minerals,

454
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:05,920
and that transition from
geo-chemistry

455
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:07,760
to biochemistry happened.

456
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:10,600
So this moon is one of the prime
candidates

457
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:14,640
to look for life beyond Earth
in the solar system.

458
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:16,480
And when we look at images
of Saturn,

459
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,960
which are backlit by the sun,

460
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:21,400
you see the sunlight illuminating
the rings.

461
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:25,440
There's a diffuse ring far away
from Saturn known as the E Ring,

462
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:29,320
which is created by the ice
fountains of Enceladus.

463
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:33,960
So it's a tiny moon, but with
a potentially dramatic impact,

464
00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:37,320
in terms of the creation of the
rings, but also philosophically,

465
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:40,440
intellectually, as a possible home
for life.

466
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:46,000
So, Saturn, The Bringer Of Old Age,
in Holst's mind,

467
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,600
is not a world enjoying
a sedate old age.

468
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:51,400
It's a dynamic world,

469
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:55,520
a fast-changing system,
constantly rejuvenating,

470
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:58,320
raging against the dying
of the light.

471
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:01,720
And its moons, in particular tiny
Enceladus,

472
00:55:01,720 --> 00:55:07,480
are perhaps engaged in the most
spectacular rejuvenation of all.

473
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:10,640
That natural transformation of rock
and minerals and water

474
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:13,520
and heat into living matter.

475
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:17,440
They're the transition
from geo-chemistry to biochemistry

476
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:19,880
that brings meaning to the universe.

477
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:31,560
MUSIC: Saturn, the Bringer of Old
Age by Gustav Holst

478
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:03,840
CROWD APPLAUD

479
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:09,120
We are now entering the mysterious
dark frontier of the solar system.

480
01:04:09,120 --> 01:04:11,480
Uranus, the Magician.

481
01:04:11,480 --> 01:04:16,080
These worlds would have been
absolutely unfamiliar to Holst.

482
01:04:16,080 --> 01:04:20,680
No more than points of light,
because they are so far away.

483
01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:22,120
When we look at Uranus

484
01:04:22,120 --> 01:04:25,400
through our most powerful telescopes
on Earth,

485
01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:30,360
and here you see it through The VLT,
the Very Large Telescope...

486
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:32,160
It's powerful.

487
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:37,040
..we see that it's a planet you can
see some surface features.

488
01:04:37,040 --> 01:04:40,960
It's a blue planet with white,
high altitude clouds.

489
01:04:40,960 --> 01:04:45,440
And also, four moons are visible in
this VLT image.

490
01:04:45,440 --> 01:04:49,680
The image looks odd, though, because
the moons are aligned vertically.

491
01:04:49,680 --> 01:04:52,560
The planet appears to be tipped
up on its side.

492
01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:54,520
And that's because it is.

493
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:58,480
That's one of the most mysterious
things about Uranus,

494
01:04:58,480 --> 01:05:02,240
it orbits the sun with its poles
leading the way.

495
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:03,480
Now, why?

496
01:05:03,480 --> 01:05:08,120
It's almost certain that Uranus must
have been hit by a large planet

497
01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:10,840
at some point in the very distant
past,

498
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:12,480
four and a half billion years
ago

499
01:05:12,480 --> 01:05:16,200
during the formation of the solar
system, which tipped it over.

500
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:18,640
Also from Earth-based telescopes,

501
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:20,920
we can see that Uranus has
a ring system.

502
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:23,400
It's nowhere near as spectacular
as Saturn's rings,

503
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:26,600
but they're rings, nonetheless.

504
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:29,840
Sunlight out there is only
1/400th

505
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:32,720
of the intensity of sunlight
here on Earth.

506
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:38,800
Temperatures are very low, the cloud
tops are minus 224 degrees Celsius.

507
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:41,200
But there are very powerful
winds there.

508
01:05:41,200 --> 01:05:45,120
The winds at the equator
move at 200mph,

509
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:48,760
but in the opposite direction to
its spin. Very strange.

510
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:51,600
But as you move up to the tropics,
towards the poles,

511
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:57,480
the winds reverse direction
and blow in excess of 500mph.

512
01:05:57,480 --> 01:06:00,520
The moons are beautifully named,
actually.

513
01:06:00,520 --> 01:06:03,400
They're named after
Shakespearian spirits

514
01:06:03,400 --> 01:06:05,400
and spirits in English literature.

515
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:08,280
So Umbriel, Ariel, Miranda.

516
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:13,120
Now, the only spacecraft to make it
this far out was Voyager 2.

517
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:14,360
The photographs,

518
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:18,000
because light is so dim and Voyager
was travelling so fast,

519
01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:19,840
are quite blurry sometimes.

520
01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:23,080
This is a photograph of Umbriel.
You don't see much detail.

521
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:25,120
And Miranda...

522
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:27,160
..which is one of my favourite
moons,

523
01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:30,880
because it really does look like
some kind of drunken deity

524
01:06:30,880 --> 01:06:32,840
assembled it on their day off.

525
01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:37,800
It's a complete mess. Bits of rigid
sort of... Bits of rock stuck on.

526
01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:38,880
Big canyons.

527
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:41,360
And the reason, of course, is it
must have been split apart

528
01:06:41,360 --> 01:06:45,480
by a collision many billions of
years ago, and then reformed.

529
01:06:45,480 --> 01:06:49,200
So, the Uranus system is
a strange system.

530
01:06:49,200 --> 01:06:51,920
It's a long way away from the Earth.

531
01:06:51,920 --> 01:06:55,000
Voyager only spent five and a half
hours in the system

532
01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:57,040
as it travelled through,
taking these,

533
01:06:57,040 --> 01:07:01,280
the only photographs we have from
near the planet,

534
01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:02,520
and then left,

535
01:07:02,520 --> 01:07:07,280
leaving the strange tilted magician
behind in the twilight.

536
01:07:12,920 --> 01:07:17,480
MUSIC: Uranus, the Magician
by Gustav Holst

537
01:12:44,440 --> 01:12:46,240
CROWD APPLAUDS

538
01:12:46,240 --> 01:12:48,560
Neptune does sound like the
soundtrack

539
01:12:48,560 --> 01:12:51,080
to a 1960s science fiction movie in
a way, doesn't it?

540
01:12:51,080 --> 01:12:53,120
Sounds very Star Trek-y,
actually, at the end.

541
01:12:53,120 --> 01:12:56,880
Yeah, I think
he's such a mini John Williams

542
01:12:56,880 --> 01:13:00,200
because you hear the celeste,
you hear the harps,

543
01:13:00,200 --> 01:13:03,840
you hear the harmony that's not
quite conventional,

544
01:13:03,840 --> 01:13:06,080
you hear the low brooding sounds.

545
01:13:06,080 --> 01:13:08,320
And he does create this
world

546
01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:12,000
that we have associated with
blockbuster movies.

547
01:13:12,000 --> 01:13:13,640
I mean, if you were to
look in the score,

548
01:13:13,640 --> 01:13:15,440
just at the end,
at the ladies' chorus...

549
01:13:17,280 --> 01:13:20,120
..this is a facsimile
of the original score.

550
01:13:20,120 --> 01:13:23,560
This bar is to be repeated until the
sound is lost in the distance.

551
01:13:30,920 --> 01:13:32,800
FEMALE CHORAL SINGING

552
01:13:32,800 --> 01:13:35,600
You have this wonderful ethereal
quality to the voices

553
01:13:35,600 --> 01:13:39,560
where you can't quite hear what
exactly is going on

554
01:13:39,560 --> 01:13:40,880
or what they're saying,

555
01:13:40,880 --> 01:13:45,600
but it creates this space for you as
a listener where you think,

556
01:13:45,600 --> 01:13:47,320
"Actually, what is out there?"

557
01:13:48,560 --> 01:13:51,160
And then you end up with this
thing which is...

558
01:13:51,160 --> 01:13:53,000
..you know, the fading away.

559
01:13:54,040 --> 01:13:58,920
"Lost in the distance",
he writes. Which is...

560
01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:01,840
And they're sort of harmonically
resolving.

561
01:14:01,840 --> 01:14:05,000
There's tension, there's release,
there's tension, there's release.

562
01:14:05,000 --> 01:14:07,400
So it's almost like the heartbeat
of the music

563
01:14:07,400 --> 01:14:09,680
is just still slowly carrying on

564
01:14:09,680 --> 01:14:13,120
as it sort of disappears into the
universe. Yeah.

565
01:14:13,120 --> 01:14:18,120
CROWD APPLAUDS

566
01:14:18,120 --> 01:14:22,080
In summer 1989, Voyager 2 arrived at
Neptune,

567
01:14:22,080 --> 01:14:25,320
the true frozen outpost of the solar
system,

568
01:14:25,320 --> 01:14:28,120
a planet that's known as an ice
giant.

569
01:14:28,120 --> 01:14:32,840
It dwarves the Earth, but made, just
like Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus,

570
01:14:32,840 --> 01:14:35,960
primarily out of gas.

571
01:14:35,960 --> 01:14:41,680
It's still very cold, minus 220
degrees or so at the cloudtops.

572
01:14:41,680 --> 01:14:46,280
But Neptune produces some heat
internally,

573
01:14:46,280 --> 01:14:49,720
and so at some point as you
dive below the clouds

574
01:14:49,720 --> 01:14:52,320
and the pressure's increased,
there is, we expect,

575
01:14:52,320 --> 01:14:55,360
a zone where you could find,
perhaps, liquid water.

576
01:14:56,600 --> 01:15:00,080
Neptune is a world of violent winds.

577
01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:04,120
We saw high altitude
clouds as Voyager passed by,

578
01:15:04,120 --> 01:15:06,640
clouds of methane crystals,

579
01:15:06,640 --> 01:15:13,520
supersonic winds that
blow at speeds of up to 1,200mph.

580
01:15:13,520 --> 01:15:18,920
It has moons and the largest moon is
a moon called Triton.

581
01:15:18,920 --> 01:15:21,000
And this is so far away from the
sun,

582
01:15:21,000 --> 01:15:23,600
very little energy falls on its
surface.

583
01:15:23,600 --> 01:15:27,680
But we saw activity. We saw geysers
erupting into the air.

584
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:30,920
Geysers of nitrogen, sprinkling dark
material

585
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:33,360
down wind on to its surface,

586
01:15:33,360 --> 01:15:36,440
processes that we don't yet
fully understand,

587
01:15:36,440 --> 01:15:39,840
leaving streaks across the surface
of the moon.

588
01:15:39,840 --> 01:15:42,920
But as Voyager left
the Neptunian system,

589
01:15:42,920 --> 01:15:46,560
it took one of the most iconic
images

590
01:15:46,560 --> 01:15:48,280
in the history of space
exploration.

591
01:15:48,280 --> 01:15:51,360
I think, actually,
it's my personal favourite,

592
01:15:51,360 --> 01:15:55,160
and I think it enhances Holst's
music more than words.

593
01:15:55,160 --> 01:15:58,000
Crescent Neptune, and a moon Triton.

594
01:15:58,000 --> 01:16:01,800
A world of ice 230 degrees
below zero,

595
01:16:01,800 --> 01:16:05,240
orbiting a blue planet of storms.

596
01:16:05,240 --> 01:16:07,680
These two worlds remained unseen

597
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:11,400
for four and a half billion years
after their formation,

598
01:16:11,400 --> 01:16:14,040
until our tiny emissary from Earth

599
01:16:14,040 --> 01:16:17,840
passed by on its way to
interstellar space.

600
01:16:17,840 --> 01:16:20,280
Now, I suggested at the beginning
of tonight's performance

601
01:16:20,280 --> 01:16:23,400
that I hoped new ideas would emerge
from the synthesis

602
01:16:23,400 --> 01:16:27,200
between Holst's music and the images
and scientific discoveries

603
01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:30,440
we've made since the first
performance of The Planets,

604
01:16:30,440 --> 01:16:36,120
precisely 100 years ago today,
on 29th September, 1918.

605
01:16:36,120 --> 01:16:39,160
And, for me, they have.

606
01:16:39,160 --> 01:16:42,240
There are billions of planets
beyond our solar system,

607
01:16:42,240 --> 01:16:47,120
orbiting around the 200 billion
stars in the Milky Way galaxy,

608
01:16:47,120 --> 01:16:51,760
and in the billions
of galaxies beyond.

609
01:16:51,760 --> 01:16:55,040
But we discovered that solar
systems and their planets

610
01:16:55,040 --> 01:17:00,360
are not necessarily, or even
perhaps, usually stable...

611
01:17:00,360 --> 01:17:03,760
..on the time scales necessary to
allow complex life

612
01:17:03,760 --> 01:17:06,200
and civilisations to evolve.

613
01:17:06,200 --> 01:17:12,080
So we, the human race, might be
extremely fortunate to exist

614
01:17:12,080 --> 01:17:15,760
and, therefore, we may be
indescribably rare,

615
01:17:15,760 --> 01:17:18,000
and therefore precious.

616
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:22,440
I mean, imagine that there are no
other civilisations in our galaxy.

617
01:17:22,440 --> 01:17:26,080
There would then be no music
amongst the stars.

618
01:17:27,120 --> 01:17:30,560
Holst tells us through his music
that it's up to us

619
01:17:30,560 --> 01:17:32,200
how we navigate our problems,

620
01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:37,480
to choose HOW, or even IF we want
to undertake the journey

621
01:17:37,480 --> 01:17:41,760
from Mars to Neptune,
from war to enlightenment.

622
01:17:41,760 --> 01:17:45,360
His message is amplified,
I think, a hundredfold,

623
01:17:45,360 --> 01:17:48,240
by an understanding of our place in
the universe,

624
01:17:48,240 --> 01:17:52,120
an understanding of the fragility
and value of humanity,

625
01:17:52,120 --> 01:17:55,640
living as we do together on a small
world,

626
01:17:55,640 --> 01:18:01,640
accompanied by our seven planetary
companions adrift in the dark.

627
01:18:06,720 --> 01:18:12,080
MUSIC: Neptune, the Mystic
by Gustav Holst

628
01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:10,360
CROWD APPLAUD