Katherine Joy on moon rock
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2019
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Katherine Joy studies moon rock. She has studied lunar samples that were brought to earth by the Apollo missions (382kg in total) and hunted for lunar meteorites in Antarctica, camping on ice for weeks on end and travelling around on a skidoo. Working at the forefront of the second wave of lunar exploration, she studied remote sensing data from Europe’s first mission to the moon, Smart 1 which launched in 2003 and data from many subsequent missions. She tells Jim Al-Khalili why she believes the moon is the most exciting destination in our solar system and explains what it can tell us about the long history of planet earth. Beneath the magnificent desolation of the moon’s surface, multicoloured rocks contain vital clues about the history of our solar system. Every crater on the moon is evidence of a collision and the chemistry of these rocks tells us when these collisions took place. Katherine’s research supports the idea that a period known as the late heavy bombardment was a particularly turbulent time. Could the late heavy bombardment explain the origin of life on earth? Producer: Anna Buckley
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service. |
| 0:04.7 | Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests. |
| 0:08.8 | Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook. |
| 0:11.2 | Technology doesn't want to be good or bad. |
| 0:15.0 | It's in the hands of the creator. |
| 0:16.7 | It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room. |
| 0:20.7 | If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong thing. |
| 0:26.0 | Julie, at your service. |
| 0:28.0 | Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales. |
| 0:31.6 | Welcome to the podcast of the Life Scientific. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | The 21st of July 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the day Neil Armstrong |
| 0:46.1 | and Buzz Aldrin took one small step on the moon and a giant leap for mankind. |
| 0:51.4 | My guest today has been at the forefront of the second wave of lunar exploration. |
| 0:56.2 | It began at the dawn of the 21st century and continues to this day. Europe, India, Japan, China |
| 1:02.4 | have all sent missions to the Moon. |
| 1:04.4 | Earlier this year, China landed a probe on the far side of the Moon. |
| 1:08.5 | NASA has promised to put astronauts back on the Moon by the mid-2020s, |
| 1:12.4 | and Russian cosmonauts are due to return by 2030. |
| 1:16.0 | Catherine Joy knows more about Moon Rock than most Earthlings. |
| 1:20.0 | She studied remote sensing data sent back by successive space missions and has spent a lot of time looking for moon rock that has landed here on Earth meteorites. |
| 1:30.0 | She's even studied meteorites that have landed on the moon, the point of it all to understand |
... |
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.