----- Original Message ----- From: Dearbhla O'Sullivan To: info@astronomy.ie Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 3:39 PM Subject: FAO:David Hi David, I'm just off the phone from your office to find you're not there. Well as you know it's April Fool's Day tomorrow and we here at 103fm would like to mark the day!! Attached please find a copy of a prank that was played on BBC radio back in the 70's....we were hoping to do something along the same lines....except change the time of the gravitational thingy to 11:11am....and hopefully have yourself on at 10:40a.m. to "verify" such events. Thank you so much for your time, Dearbhla, Producer of West Cork Today 023 - 43103 ----- Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room. ----- Yes, I was at Birr Castle for the launch of a superb exhibition of astronomical photographs: DEEP SPACE ART. I am already scheduled to do an interview on East Coast Radio at 10:30am about the anniversary of a paper proposing the Big Bang model of the universe on April 1st 1952. That may run until after the 10:40am you suggest, but if that is OK I could do the piece after that? It sounds like fun. I believe anyone can listen to the show on the net at http://www.103fm.ie/103fm.asx ===== David Moore BSc FRAS, Chairman, Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 5. Editor, "Astronomy & Space" magazine. ASTRONOMY SHOP: open until 6pm Mon.-Sat. Tel (01) 847 0777. Fax (01) 847 0771. www.astronomy.ie (Subscribe to AI's FREE emailing list) info@astronomy.ie