Space Bears!

I have always been interested in stars and space.  Even when I was stuck in the elderberry bush by the Thames, I could look up into the night sky and wonder whether there were small bears on other planets looking back at me.  So when Grizzly said he was going to take Polar to Jodrell Bank for her birthday, I made sure we bears were taken along too.

Jodrell Bank is where a scientist called Sir Bernard Lovell had a huge radio-telescope built.  Because it listens to space, rather than looking at it, it is a huge dish which can be turned to face any direction in the sky - usually.  When we arrived, we found it was being repaired! 

I think I have said before that bears would be good at space exploration, because we could hibernate during the dull parts of the long journeys to other planets.   Because space is so big, it takes months or even years even to get to other parts of our Solar System - the other planets and things orbiting around our sun.

Because we might not find other planets we can live on, we bears want humans to look after the one we all share.  Sensible humans, like the scientists at Jodrell Bank, want this too and have asked visitors to make a Planet Pledge.  We are looking after bees by planting flowers that they like, picking up litter and putting it in the bin and not wasting food or things that we can use again.

There were lots of scientific things to read, which were quite confusing but also fascinating, like how looking up at the stars is actually looking back in time, because light from so far away takes hundreds, thousands or even millions of years to reach Earth.

There were some fun experiments to try too.  That's me looking at a plasma ball and an infra-red (heat wave) picture of Polar and us bears in our bear bag.  You can see that we look cool, because our thick fur traps most of our heat inside our bodies!

Outside, there were some experiments about gravity and sound waves for human cubs and grown-ups to try, including the 'whispering dishes'.  

Even though these are many metres apart, if you stand right in front of one and your friend stands right in front of the other, you can talk to each other in whispers and still be heard, because the dish focusses the sound waves from your friend's voice on your ear!  While Hanley Bear and I were trying this, Endon found another use for them...

At least he didn't try to climb the big dish!