R: Yeah, just it's not my thing. It's not really up my street at all. But I'd suppose you wouldn't really say that, you'd be more likely to say it's not my thing.
M: The light pollution. So if there is a lot of light in your city, you can say whoa, so I've got a lot of light pollution, so I can't see any stars. Rory told us that the light pollution is low, so he actually can see the stars, and constellations.
R: Constellations are just the imaginary shapes that people make by drawing imaginary lines in the sky. The way that stars are placed is not organized that way. It's just how they happen to look for human beings who are trying to find patterns and things that don't necessarily have one. Or if you believe in astrology, then they control your destiny and what kind of food you like.
M: Yeah, there are different kinds of constellations. And you can say, oh, I can spot different constellations from where I live. And I know the names of constellations. Also, I can see planets like Mars. Planets are without article, right? No articles? Mars?
R: I suppose it will depend on what you're talking about. The names of the planets do not have articles. Yes. But if we are talking about the word planet, then you can say the planet Mars.
M: And also you can spot, you can spot Mars. Spot like notice, or you said like, nebula. Again, but Orion. You said the Orion Nebula. The Milky Way.
R: Yes. But that's because... Well, if we talk about the Orion Nebula, it's being used as an adjective there. It's a specific nebula with a specific name to describe it.
M: And you usually see stars on a clear sky, so a clear sky. But if you don't have any clear skies, then you can say the sky is usually hazy, or the sky is overcast, like cloudy, so I don't see many stars. What is twinkling away? Twinkle, twinkle, little star...
R: Oh... It's actually, the reason that stars twinkle is quite complicated. But the first thing to talk about is twinkling. So twinkling is when you see it's not like constantly on it's kind of going. It's intense. And it's not so intense. And it's back to intense again. But the reason that stars twinkle, oh, strap yourselves in, folks. So the reason that stars twinkle is because of, first of all, the stars are not solid things, they move around and change. And they have hotspots and cool spots. And that will affect the intensity of the light. But the other thing that affects the intensity of the light, is you've got your star here, and you're watching all the way over here. And in the middle, there's all kinds of stuff, including something called the Oort cloud, which is a giant cloud of comets and debris from the beginning of the solar system that the light has to travel through. And then there's all the nebulas and gases in between the stars that the light has to travel through as well on its way to your eye. So...
M: Houston! Houston! We have a problem! We have a problem! It's Rory, he's, he's, we should shut him up.