How Far Can I See?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2018
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How far can you see? A few kilometres down the road? Or do you struggle to see past the end of your own nose? Well one listener thinks he might be able to see 15 quintillion miles away... but can he really? Marnie Chesterton and Bobbie Lakhera are on the case for this week’s multi-question human body special. As well as delving into the power of vision, they also discover why male mammals have nipples despite not needing to breastfeed, and Marnie puts herself in a giant refrigerator in the name of finding out why some people feel the cold more than others.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Anna Lacey
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.5 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.7 | Hello there, I'm Marnie Chesterton. This is the BBC World Service and you're |
| 0:37.7 | listening to crowd science, the show that takes your science questions and hands |
| 0:42.0 | you some BBC grade, that's high quality, answers. |
| 0:46.1 | We've had lots of questions in the inbox and this week I thought we'd try and get through |
| 0:50.6 | more than one, but I'm not doing this alone. Joining me is Bobby |
| 0:54.6 | lookera hello Bobby. Hello. Bobby I'd say if there's anything that links this |
| 0:59.4 | week's queries it's biology. Yeah well there's definitely a human body theme. So our first question |
| 1:05.4 | comes from Stephen in Kent in the UK not far from where I grew up and he asked |
| 1:10.1 | how far can I see? As in how far away? |
| 1:14.0 | Yeah, because he was looking up into the night sky |
| 1:16.0 | and he was looking at the Andrometer galaxy in fact, |
| 1:19.0 | and that's over two and a half million light years away, which is 15 quintillion miles from Earth. |
| 1:27.0 | So like a long, long way away. |
| 1:30.0 | But Stephen wants to know if he can really see that far, |
| 1:32.8 | because that kind of number seems pretty mind-blowing. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.