Trouble with UNITs

It is nice when somewhere you know gets referenced in popular fiction. I broke into a smile when Jodrell Bank was mentioned by the Colonel from UNIT in this week's episode of Doctor Who - The Poison Sky. Apparently Jodrell Bank had detected a signal 5000 miles above the Earth. I have to say that I am slightly disappointed that UNIT don't use SI units.

In real life Jodrell Bank is a radio quiet zone - it listens rather than transmits - but it does occasionally get referenced in British sci-fi detecting (or failing to detect) aliens. Back in real life, searches for aliens have been carried out at Jodrell Bank for the SETI Institute. That is one of the reasons Jodrell Bank has been referred to as a "real-life Torchwood Institute".

Now, I must go work out how to get perl talking to my sonic screwdriver.

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Posted in astro blog by Stuart on Saturday 03rd May 2008 (20:17 BST) | 7 Comments | Permalink

Comments: Trouble with UNITs

I was watching; thought you would like that reference.

BTW congrats on the citation, one of many to come no doubt!

Will

Posted by Will on Saturday 03rd May 2008 (20:55 UTC)

Darn! I missed that! My children were making too much noise.

The terraforming fix was a bit silly scientifically, but very pretty. If only global warming was so easy to put right.

Posted by Pharos Project on Sunday 04th May 2008 (15:37 UTC)

Will, thanks.

Pharos Project, I like your choice of name. Actually, that reminds me of a case of real life imitating art. One of the projects that Jodrell Bank is involved with is named Pharos (Phased Arrays for Reflector Observing Systems). As far as I know the name wasn't chosen in homage to Doctor Who.

Posted by Stuart on Monday 05th May 2008 (01:07 UTC)

gravatari definately loved this thank you for the post it was very informative

Posted by youtube on Thursday 22nd May 2008 (11:21 UTC)

gravatarI've removed a few comments from this page which appear to have no association with the content of the post and are merely promoting links.

Posted by Stuart on Thursday 02nd Oct 2008 (10:59 UTC)

gravatarOnce again I've removed a few spam comments from this post.

Posted by Stuart on Monday 24th Nov 2008 (18:02 UTC)

gravatarOK, I've really tightened up the comment rules on this specific post and almost every single comment has been spam (I've deleted 10s of them). Make sure that you don't include a URL in your comment.

Posted by Stuart on Wednesday 11th Feb 2009 (14:03 UTC)

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