You could try the Galaxy Song by Eric Idle (Monty Python's Meaning of
Life), about what science had found already in the 1970's about the
Universe, still valid today, and how those findings fit (or don't!) within
our busy lives. It makes people think and wonder, perhaps the ultimate
goal of public outreach.
Regards,
Francisco
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Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
'Round the sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In an outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
--
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*
*
Dr Francisco Diego, FRAS
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
University of London Observatory *
553 Watford Way
London, NW7 2QS, UK
Vice President of the Association * * *
for Astronomy Education (AAE)
*
e-mail: [log in to unmask] *
*
(international) | (UK)
Tel: 44-20-8238-8872 | 020-8238-8872
Fax: 44-20-8906-4161 | 020-8906-4161 *
Mobile:+44-7974-917878 | 07974-917878
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