WEBVTT - The Ashen Light 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.520 My welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:14.160 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.120 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.520 And today we're going to be exploring a ghost light 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.920 of astronomy. So in the past we've done episodes about 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.280 things like the Will of the Whisp, Right, remember that one, 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.400 Robert that was Strange Lights in the Wood. Yeah, that 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:31.200 was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:33.720 the thing about things like the Will of the Wisp 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.400 is you have so many sightings of it over the years. 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.280 People claim they see a light over the marsh or 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.199 a light in the swamp or something like that. Um 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.519 that you have to assume it's not just people making 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.080 stuff up. Somebody at some point really did see something. 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.519 But obviously we don't think it's a ghost or a 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.840 spirit or a malevolent blacksmith who died in the swamp 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.840 and now wants to lead people off of cliffs and 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.000 to quicksand uh, those stories are pretty great, but you 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.360 have to assume something is there, right, well, something is 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:10.959 there that the woods. The woods are filled with various 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.520 some things. I always come back to the star jelly example, right, Uh, 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:18.039 the the idea that there's a shooting star and someone says, hey, 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.199 I think there's a meteorite out there in the woods. 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:23.520 I'm going to go find it. And then they start 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.399 going out and they start looking around, poking around in 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.679 a place that they have passing familiarity with but have 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.240 no real expertise. And then as they're poking around, they 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:37.759 find something strange to them, some sort of gooey substance, 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.720 and it's it's probably, I mean, it certainly is some 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:47.480 sort of natural occurring is you know, maybe it's Yeah, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:49.400 there's a lot of oozy stuff in the woods if 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.920 you poke around enough, and that's what they find. But 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.920 then they think this is the thing, this is the 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.080 goo that fell from the sky, and and so I 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.200 think there there's there's certainly a case to be made. 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:02.800 I imagine. I discussed this in the Will of the 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.080 Whisp episode, and we both discussed this that we noticed something, 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.320 we have no immediate explanation for it. But then if 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.560 we have some sort of predominant theory to tie into it, 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:16.880 or some bit of a myth or folklore, then it 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.360 can take on a life of its own. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:21.919 But then with a lot of this stuff, you do 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.640 actually have to wonder about it in ways that you 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.079 you feel disinclined to, because, like with the Will of 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.600 the Whisp, there are so many reports over the years, 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:31.720 you think, well, people had to be seeing some kind 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:33.880 of light. We don't know what it was. We think 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.560 there was a materialistic explanation for it, but we don't 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:38.200 know what it was, but there must have been something. 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.280 Then again, how often are people seeing Will of the 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.960 Whisp today? What where did all the sightings go? Yeah, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.560 that's kind of a strange question. If people really were 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:48.919 seeing something, how come they don't seem to be seeing 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.720 it with nearly the same frequency anymore? And if you're 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.240 if you're intrigued by that question, you should check out 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.920 our Will of the Whisp episode. Will include a link 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:58.480 to it on the landing page for this episode is 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:00.679 Stuff to your Mind dot Com. Today we want to 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.799 focus on a totally different type of ghost light, one 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.720 of the most interesting elusive lights in the history of science. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.040 And this is not something that you would see in 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.560 the Mars shore. This fickle, unexplained light in the swamp. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.440 This is a fickle, unexplained light that astronomers have claimed 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.240 to see through the vast reaches of outer space on 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.840 the surface of another planet. Now, to be clear, we're 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.680 not talking about seeing it, just gazing up into the 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.799 sky and seeing it. We're talking about using a telescope, right, 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.760 because obviously planets other than I don't know if you 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.160 call the Moon a planet, things out there other than 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.760 the Moon and the Sun resolved to a kind of 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.080 point like light source for the naked eye, right. And 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.400 and of course we're all familiar with the various strange 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.600 lights one can observe in the sky. Uh, and then 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.760 attribute to any number of of natural or appearing normal 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.720 or causes. Yeah, we're not talking about UFOs or anything 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.480 like that. We're gonna be looking at a planet in 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.280 our Solar system. So I want to start off this 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:02.240 mystery hunt by introducing you to a seventeenth century Italian astronomer, 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.160 and his name was Giovanni Batista Riccioli. He lived fIF 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:12.240 to sixteen seventy one. And Riccioli was a Catholic priest 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:16.440 and an astronomer working in the generation after Galileo. So 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.160 this was a great time of innovation and progress in astronomy. Right, 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:25.360 So you've had Galileo's strong case made for the Copernican cosmology, right, 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.719 and you've had Galileo improving telescope optics and and so 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.200 the people working at this time to appear into the 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.440 night sky had a lot of new ideas and a 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.719 lot of new technology available to them, better able to 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.480 see and model observable universe exactly. Riccioli was also a 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.120 very important lunar astronomer, and he made detailed maps of 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.159 the Earth facing side of our moon. As we know, 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:50.839 the Moon is tidally locked with planet Earth, so we 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.200 always see the same side of the Moon, and that 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.960 side has a bunch of topographical features like seas and craters, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:04:59.839 and so a lot of the names of the features 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:03.680 on the surface of the Moon come from Riccioli's original nomenclature, 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.160 like the Sea of Tranquility and so forth. But on 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:12.640 January nine three, richili was examining the planet Venus through 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.800 a telescope when it was in its crescent phase. So 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.640 what does it mean for Venus to be in a 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.359 crescent phase. The easiest point of comparison for this would 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.400 be our moon, right, which goes through phases of its own. 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.960 You've got full moon, give us crescent new moon. Uh. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.400 And of course the moon orbits around the Earth, and 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.440 as it does, it's always day on the side of 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.480 the moon facing the Sun and night on the side 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.960 of the moon facing away from the Sun. And so 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.560 the type of moon we see depends on how much 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.560 of the day versus night side of the moon we 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.839 see facing the Earth. So when the moon is between 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.359 the Earth and the Sun, we're looking at the dark 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.760 nighttime side of the moon, and we get a new moon. 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.200 And when the moon is on the opposite side of 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:58.479 the Earth from the Sun, we're seeing the bright daytime 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.440 side of the moon, so we get a full moon. 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.440 We're always looking at the same side of the moon, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.680 but it but sometimes it's day, sometimes it's night on 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.000 that side that we can see. Uh. And then of 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.480 course in between those phases there there are crescents and 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:13.800 stuff like that. So a crescent moon happens when the 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.360 half of the moon facing us contains mostly the moon's 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.080 night side and then a little sliver of the lid 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:24.120 up day side. Now, of course, Venus isn't orbiting Earth, right, 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.560 so the timing of these phases is somewhat different, but 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.120 the same basic principles apply Venus orbits the Sun on 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.600 a different schedule than we do. So when Venus is visible, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.000 sometimes the side facing Us is mostly the bright daytime 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.760 side which reflects a lot of sunlight and looks very 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.719 bright in the sky. And other times when Venus comes 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.600 sort of between the Earth and the Sun. As you 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.520 can imagine if you picture this, the Venus orbits inside 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.640 the Earth's orbit, so it sort of comes between the 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.480 Earth and the Sun. The side facing Us is mostly 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.120 or entirely the darkened night time side of Venus that's 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.880 facing away from the Sun. And Robert, I bet you've 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.880 heard about this before. But of course the phases of 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.160 Venus play a role in the history of establishing how 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.840 the Solar system works, right like this was a point 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.520 of contention for Galileo and and his critics during during 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.000 the time he was alive. Yeah, I mean, this is this, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.200 this all it makes for a major advancement just celestial mechanics, 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:24.240 just understanding how the planets in our Solar system are 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.160 moving exactly because the first time we actually know of 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.120 that the phases of Venus that seeing it as so 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.600 sort of more darkened or more or more bright and 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.320 more daytime side. Uh. The first time these phases were 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:39.320 observed through a telescope and described was by Galileo, and 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.680 this was in the early sixteen hundreds, and at the 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.480 time the phases of Venus were more than a curiosity. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.840 They were a kind of brutal line of evidence against 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:52.240 the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the universe. And the reason 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.000 for this is that Galileo showed with the telescope you 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.960 could look at Venus and that it had phases just 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.040 like our moon. But he observed the unlike our moon, 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.680 Venus had a full phase when it was roughly in 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:10.120 the same direction in the sky as the Sun. So 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.600 think about that. You're looking toward Venus and it's in 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.440 pretty much the same direction as the Sun, but the 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:18.640 side we can see of it is all lit up 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.520 and bright. The Moon's never like that. When the moon's 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.640 in the same direction as the Sun, the side of 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.280 it we can see as dark. So if all of 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:28.880 the planets in the Sun went around the Earth, how 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.160 would it be possible for Venus to appear full to us, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.040 lit up in daytime side when it's in the same 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.160 direction as the Sun. It couldn't were forced to to 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:43.040 reevaluate the entire structure of our our solar system. Exactly. Yeah, 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.960 So what this showed was that Venus, because it showed 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:48.160 a full phase at the same time that it was 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.040 in the same direction as the Sun, it couldn't be 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.560 between the Earth and the Sun. It had to be 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.160 on the other side of the Sun from Us, which 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.360 meant that Venus was not orbiting Earth, it was opening 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.560 the Sun. And so Galileo first published this argument in 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.640 his sixteen thirteen Letters on Sun Spots, which was a 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.080 sort of a series of letters that he turned into 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.360 a pamphlet, and which turned out to be the first 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.400 place Galileo actually officially endorsed the Copernican model of the 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.240 solar system, in which the planets go around the Sun 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.440 instead of everything going around the Earth. And of course 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:23.320 we all know that this was kind of a this 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.600 was rather a controversial theory at the time. It it 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.840 was not well received by by some powerful individuals. Yeah, exactly. 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.360 I mean this put Galileo on course to have extreme 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:38.360 conflicts with both the scientific and religious hierarchies of the day. Uh. People, 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.079 people forget that it wasn't just the church that was 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.160 persecuting Galileo. I mean a lot of his scientific colleagues, 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.840 I just thought he was wrong for reasoning, you know, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.199 for reasons of their own. Yeah, and there were a 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.040 lot of people that were very invested in the previous model. 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.120 He's really changed everything, whether you were looking up at 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.079 the stars with a with a more of a scientific 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:03.199 mindset or or a purely religious one exactly. But anyway, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.600 so when an astronomer looks at Venus in its crescent phase, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.280 they're seeing mostly the night side of Venus, right, and 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.960 so you've got this sliver of daytime that's separated by 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.880 what's known as the terminator line. The terminator line is 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.360 the boundary between the night side and the day side 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.520 on the surface of a planet. And if you've never 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.040 seen this, it can be very haunting, Like if you 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.400 view the terminator line on Earth from the International Space Station. 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:29.559 There are videos of this you can look up online 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.080 where the station is rapidly orbiting the Earth. You see 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.760 the ground beneath passing along and it's the daytime side 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.920 of the planet and suddenly this curtain of dark just 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.040 sweeps over the face of the planet. Uh. It's it's 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.800 kind of terrifying to see actually but also very beautiful. 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.560 It's it's worth looking up alright. So so we're looking 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.200 up at the night side of Venus here gazing into 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.760 the dark, just into the dark on another planet, right, 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.400 What is the curious incident of the Venus in the 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:01.600 night So on that j Your evening sixteen forty three, 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.360 Richie Ali's looking at Venus through his telescope in this 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.840 crescent phase where there's a small crescent limb of light 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.000 and there's the terminator line, and most of Venus should 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.120 be dark. The crescent portion was at roughly thirty percent 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.199 of the planet when when Richieli was looking at it. Now, 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.040 when you look at Venus in a crescent phase like this, 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.680 the nighttime side of the planet is supposed to be 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.439 completely invisible. It's so dark compared to the brightly lit 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.240 up crescent of the daytime side that you shouldn't be 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.440 able to see it at all. The daytime sliver of 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.800 the planet should be like a bright melanrind floating in 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.559 space by itself with nothing else there. But when Richili 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.680 looked at it that January evening in sixty three, something 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.800 was not right. Instead of a bright crescent and an 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:52.839 invisible nighttime side, Richie Eli believed he saw something startling, 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:57.640 a very faint glow coming from the dark side of Venus. 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.440 The side of Venus where it was currently night time 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:05.439 appeared to be ever so faintly shining gray light into space. 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.280 And Richie Eli gave this glow a name. He called 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:14.440 it the ashen Light of Venus. Spooky. Huh, yeah, it 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.640 has it has it certainly has an anonymous ring to it. Yeah, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:19.760 it's It's funny. How if you just give something a 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.199 really good name, it'll end up getting a lot more 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.680 attention than something that doesn't have a good name. Uh 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:27.920 And and I think that's probably the case here. The 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.160 ashen light, I think maybe gets more attention from amateur 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.720 astronomers trying to find it and stuff like that than 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.559 a similar observation would be if it was just called 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.319 something very mundane. It sounds like a like like a 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.600 new metal album from from the early two thousands, so 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.480 people were like, yeah, let's look for that ashen light. 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.160 I'm pretty sure there is a is a metal band 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.080 called Ash and Light. You just know it happens, right, 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.760 It's like there's nothing left. The metal bands have scoured 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.480 the earth. It's like going through a post apocalyptic wasteland 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.320 has been picked clean of every bit of canned food 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.880 and ammunition and everything you think you might want. If 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.280 there's an idea or an ordering of words that sounds cool, 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.880 it has been scavenged by a metal band in Ohio somewhere. 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:14.959 I don't know. I have a feeling that before we 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.640 make it through this this episode will have found something 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.559 that some fledgling metal band can latch onto and embraces 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.200 their name. But anyway, the Action Light itself. So Ever, 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:30.800 since Riccioli's original sighting, other astronomers, both professional and amateur, 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.559 have been looking for the Action Light, and a lot 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.640 have claimed to see it, but many others have looked 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.080 when it should be visible and found nothing. So this 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.720 controversy exists. Does the Action Light really exist? And if 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.800 it does exist, what is it? What is making the 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.640 night time side of Venus glow? On that note, we're 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.160 going to take a quick break, and when we come 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.800 back we will discuss subsequent sightings or claims of sightings 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.560 of the Action Light and some ideas about just what 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:06.240 it could be. Alright, we're back. So we've been discussing 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:11.400 Giovanni Batista Riccioli's original sighting of what he thought was 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.960 the action light on the night side of Venus in 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.640 sixty three, and here's how he described it. So he said, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:23.080 it appears to be a dull, faint glow, some sort 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.800 of gray, somewhat like earth shine on the dark side 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.240 of the moon. Now what is earth shine. That's when 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.160 the moon is in a crescent phase, meaning most of 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.040 the moon's sunlit day side is facing away from Earth 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:37.800 and most of the moon's darkened night side is facing 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.960 towards Earth, and light from the Earth shines on the 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.360 night time side of the Moon to produce a soft, gray, 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:49.000 glowing reflection. But the action light is allegedly even fainter 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:50.960 than the earth shine on the moon. Because we know 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.560 the earth shine on the moon exists, we've got evidence 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.960 of that that the action light is still controversial. So 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.560 you've got all these claims of sighting this of this 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.960 dull brownish or copper or gray light on the other 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.640 side of Venus. Now where do some of these sightings 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.920 come from? One of them was by William Durham in 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.680 seventeen fourteen, so that was apparently the next sighting after 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:20.040 richie Oli. Uh seventeen fourteen, the English natural philosopher William 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.440 Durham was observing Venus through a telescope and he called 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.000 the light a dull, rusty color. Then you had actually 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.520 a big name in the history of astronomy, the German 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.080 born British astronomer Sir William Herschel. Oh yeah, yeah, nature 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.800 name there. So he lives seventeen thirty eight to eighteen 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.760 twenty two. And Herschel was the discoverer of Uranus in 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.360 seventeen eighty one, which was extremely significant because I think 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.840 a lot of people don't really It's got a mythological name, 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:49.960 right like the other planet. So a lot of times 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.840 I think people assume that Uranus was known about by 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.080 the people who believed in the god Uranus or Uranus 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.960 like I guess, however you say it, both both are correct, 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.160 just once more funny solistic with Uranus. But yeah, the 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.560 Uranus was actually discovered in sev one. It was. This 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.840 was extremely significant because it was the first discovery of 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.640 a new Solar System planet since ancient times. The ancients 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.760 had been able even before telescopes, to see planets like 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.160 Jupiter with the naked eye, so to be clear at 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.640 this point, we've we've already established there's not just one 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.720 individual who saw it, and it's not just uh, and 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.040 and and and Also we're talking about like noted astronomers 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.560 of of their day here, not near amateurs who just 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.800 happened to pick up a telescope and and gaze hopefully 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:37.920 up at Venus to see what they could see. No, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.520 these were respected astronomers and observers of the sky. These 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:43.840 are people who we can talk about this more in 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:45.920 a minute. But there are people who you wouldn't expect 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.600 to be hoaxing. You know. It's not like somebody is 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:50.520 just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw a willow, 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.560 the whisp and the swamp. Yeah it was great. But 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.760 then to be clear too, whereas the willow will of 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.520 the whisp already has like supernatural connotations to it, this 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.480 was more of a purely scientific observation without getting into 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.359 some of the possible reasons that could be attached to it. Uh, 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:11.119 just gazing at another planetary body and and and seeing 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.239 some sort of illumination or seeing just anything, any kind 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.520 of phenomena that they could not be easily explained. I mean, 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.639 that's kind of part for the course of gazing up 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:21.880 at other planets. I mean, I would be shocked if 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.800 over the years, somebody at some point didn't claim that 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.040 the ashen light was caused by I don't know, the 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.560 fires of hell burning on the surface of Venus where 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.880 all the damned and heretics went. I mean, just think 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.680 of Herschel for example, here like which is the crazier thing, 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.040 Which is the bigger moment in his life? Yeah, I 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:41.680 saw some of this light that this other guy was 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:43.880 talking about. I saw it on on the dark side 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.159 of Venus, versus I've discovered a new planet. Yeah, he 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.199 don't planet exactly. That's a good point. He didn't need 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.000 to be like a tension seeking or anything. There's no 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.359 reason really for Herschel to claim to see this without 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:58.560 actually seeing it, though of course he could be mistaken 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.919 about seeing right, And when we're discussing it in hindsight, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.199 the action light is more of a mystery, yeah, versus 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.399 the the the awe that would have been associated with 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:10.640 discovering a new planet. Because, like you say, we've known 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.680 of of Uranus our entire lives. It's just it's one 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.800 of the planets to memorize, and we often fall into 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.040 the traffic, just thinking that humans have known about it 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:23.280 for ages. Yeah, exactly. Uh so. Another observer in the 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.159 nineteenth century Thomas William Webb in eighteen seventy eight. He 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.840 was a British astronomer. He was a reverend, and he 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.800 claimed he saw the light in eighteen seventy eight on 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.720 January thirty one, with a two hundred and thirty eight 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.520 millimeter reflector, so you know, mirror based telescope. And he 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:43.280 writes quote on January thirty feet after having many times 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.920 looked for it in Vain in former years, I saw 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.520 it without specially thinking about it, with powers of about 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.439 ninety and two twelve on my nine point three at 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.080 inch or two hundred two hundred and thirty eight millimeter mirror, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.800 coming out at intervals rather paler and browner than the 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.480 twilight sky, and equally visible when the bright crescent was 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.720 hidden by a field bar. Now, this field bar, or 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.520 sometimes called an occulting bar, would be a device that 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.440 essentially blocks something bright so that you can see dimmer 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.280 things better. In this case, it would block out the 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.399 crescent on Venus, because that's the daytime side is very bright, 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:20.960 and that would allow you to see whether there's something 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.320 visible on the nighttime side by eliminating the glare. And 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:25.720 I also want to point out for anyone who lacked 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.000 unto the fact that this guy was a reverend um 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.679 a number of these sort of gentlemen scientists of the 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.720 of the day. Uh, we're also religious individuals as well, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.960 so that's not really that uncommon. Oh yeah, Especially in 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.360 the history of astronomy, you see tons of astronomers who 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:43.840 were affiliated with, for example, the Catholic Church, or with 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.119 the Church of England or something like that. Another astronomer 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.560 named C. V. Zinger of Prague said he observed the 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.399 ghost slide of Venus in January eight eighty three and 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.760 that the disc of the planet was quote splendidly visible. 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.760 The most important feature of the observation was the ring 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.040 that I could detect all around the disk dark part 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.679 and crescent of brownish red color more pronounced on the 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.399 illuminated side than on the dark part of the limb, 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.400 but of a peculiar coppery hue. And then of course 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.399 there were many reported sightings in the twentieth century. A 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.840 bunch of sightings in nineteen fifty three with independent observers 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:21.960 claiming to see the light at the same time in 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.200 different locations. Uh. There were also a number of alleged 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.240 sightings in nineteen fifty six and fifty seven. Also, I 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.600 think I read about sightings in nineteen forty and I 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:34.840 think on all in all these years I mentioned there 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:40.080 were sightings on consecutive nights reported to the British Astronomical Association. 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.800 But already we can see that if something is occurring, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.080 if there actually is a light there, it's not it's 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:49.439 not there all the time, right, Yeah, So this is 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.720 something that's going to contribute to the mystery and maybe 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:56.080 help us reason about if it really exists what it is. Um, 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.960 Now you may be noticing so far that we're all 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.879 talking about visual sightings, not about capturing images of it. 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:04.919 Now that that'll that will play into our discussion. In 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.440 a minute, just to mention a couple more sightings real quick. 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.879 Um and Dale Crookshank, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.639 Research Center, and William K. Hartman, another planetary scientists, they 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.720