STEINER to prison in the city mustn't be allowed to stop investigations into his alleged crimes politicians of question why the disgraced financier who was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges wasn't being monitored after an earlier incident last month in which he was reported to have tried to kill himself the energy giant S.S.E. Which is headquartered in Perth are said it is in discussions with the group about the possible sale of its struggling Energy Services business in May S.S.E. Announced plans to offload its energy retail arm after losing more than half a 1000000 customers 3 people were rescued from the water of the Marri Coast last night after their boat ran aground in bad weather it lost power just before 8 police in Norway say a young woman has been found dead at the home of a man suspected of carrying out a shooting at a mosque in Oslo they believe the woman was related to the suspect and have begun a murder investigation a man was arrested after opening fire at the mosque injuring one person police said he was carrying several weapons and heavy rain is still forecast for much of Scotland this morning the Met Office is issued a yellow warning that's in place until around 6 o'clock this evening to support and there Bernie and head coach Paul hacking bottom believes tactically Rangers haven't changed in season the sides me did I brought this afternoon at the same time St Mirren play Aberdeen and Paisley but if that is kick off at 3 o'clock Meanwhile there are 3 games in the English Premier League including Manchester United against Chelsea at Old Trafford and I was in Jackson will take the race it is yellow jersey into the final stage of the wins tour of Scotland the race starts and finishes in Edinburgh and look at the weather a rather cloudy day with showers or longest hours of rain for some dryer this afternoon across many northern areas quite windy in the northeast but winds should tend to ease somewhat elsewhere and highs are between 17 and 20 degrees Celsius and that's all if you latest B.B.C. Radio Scotland news. Yes. Welcome to the roads of even Maria we are up in the. At the moment in beautiful telescope day and in front of the we can see a beautiful blue telescope that was built in 1928 in New Castle grub passes. The company that built it. And it's quite dusty what is in it is it is still used now hasn't been yet. And if we look up you can see where the roof would have opened the pulleys Is it the pulley system there and it would drop back in so it was just is it just this middle section yet it would open out because of the middle section of that but the whole rotates around so you can point the telescope to look at whatever part of the sky that you want to the now when this was built it wasn't sort of in the era of computer camera technology so there were still astronomers looking at it through that ice and we've got these little finder scopes on the back here and imagine this whole thing tilting up in the air it's absolutely massive The astronomers to be able to look through the pieces needed to use the chair so there's a wheelchair here on a little lift that. Into the sky so these storms could look through when they 1st built this observatory we were miles out of the city center and it was one of the darkest places to observe Whereas now if anyone knows Edinburgh the royal observatories kind of you know we were on the edge of the city when it. Comes all the way out say. OK So if you're listening to this is it a slight challenge for you whatever you're doing I want you to pause and maybe imagine you're here with this it's a crisp clear dark night we're going to forget about all that light pollution that there is now. Tilt back your head. And gaze up at Does God. What do you see and what kind of reaction does it bring out in you. Professor Catherine havens I'll introduce you we've been yakking I don't know how to do you see you when you look up at the sky what do you see can I be in Chile when I look up at the night sky you can be anywhere you want to be on top of a mountain top in parallel the best observing site in the world this is fantasy sky I watch be anywhere I see everything I see no darkness at all if you're really in one of the darkest observing sites in the world and in Scotland we have some of those darkest observing sites the longer you look at the night sky if your eyes get dark as Apted you can see stars absolutely everywhere millions and millions of them heat. Well I'm pretty let in for this brain waves I've come here to the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh to join Catherine who is professor of astrophysics and European Research Council fellow at the University of Edinburgh cattery not be honest when when I stare up at that sky I get over a bit of a mix of fear and. No I mean that sounds slightly weird because it's stars out there nothing to be scared of but I do feel slightly like I'm on the edge of a precipice about to fall into the abyss because there are so many huge questions up there out there and that slightly tips me off balance how comfortable are you with the just enormity of those questions. I find it really quite relaxing to be only spending on the key offices if you asked because. We also use small on this tiny planet Earth is very very very special planet that we need to take care of but we're so small and insignificant compared to the rest of the universe I kind of feel like it doesn't really matter if I make any mistakes because it's somebody somewhere else will be doing a better job and it just actually makes me feel quite relaxed I guess because I spend all day every day thinking about how large the universe is where it came from how it's going to end the fact that it's probably infinite the fact that it might not be the only universe that there might be multiple universes out there I think if I had the same feeling as you I probably wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning so I have to feel quite relaxed about it all. Let's move on to talk more about than the research and study that you do do what exactly do you study and what kind of questions is your research honing in on OK so I study something that sounds a bit Star Wars It's called the dark side of our universe say our best observations are telling us at the moment that our universe is only made up of about 5 percent of the stuff that you and I and the earth and the moon in the Suns made up of so that the stuff that my colleagues down the hill in the physics department can understand that makes up less than 5 percent of the universe now the rest of the universe we say it's dark it's invisible you can't touch it you can't see it but we know that it's there because the effect that it has on the things that we can see and there are 2 different types of dark stuff out there one that we've called dark matter and one that we've called dark energy but just because they've got names doesn't mean that we actually understand them so we don't understand 95 percent of the universe and that's my job to try and understand it how much do we know. About that 95 percent or is it all guesswork it's scientists we never met know anything we have a fit we have lots and lots of theories to explain the world around us and our job is to try and disprove those theories so we have a lot of fear is about what makes up these dark side of the universe dark matters more well understood than dark energy and that's just because I guess we've known about it for longer so dark matter is the kind of the strong gravitational force in our universe it kind of sticks everything that we can see together and if we didn't have to matter our own Milky Way galaxy would simply fly out into space so the stars are kind of swirling around in our Milky Way galaxy and if there wasn't dark matter kind of housing our Milky Way galaxy all of those stars would fly out what the dark matter particle is we don't know I really thought the guy's a CERN and the girls at CERN would have found it by now they weren't supposed to only find the Higgs bows on but you know maybe they'll find one soon I think they will find something I think in 10 years we'll see a major revolution in that so that's kind of the dark matter stuff that's about 25 percent of our universe. Now the rest is a single dark energy here we start really getting into the grounds of really lots and lots of different theories but no real front runner in those theories but what dark energy appears to be doing to our universe is it Piers to be causing it to expand as an ever increasing rate. So the distances between galaxies are getting further and further apart at a faster and faster faster rate we don't I'm stunned that. It's great. How do we know that it's even doing that so you can measure it so this is driven by observations you can measure the distances to distant galaxies and you can see how fast they're moving away from us and that if the further you look back into the universe the further back in time you're looking and you can see that things are speeding up. This is new source of energy in the universe and it's very mysterious and it's widely believed that in order to be able to understand this we're going to have to come up with some sort of new physics because we simply can't explain it with our current knowledge of physics. She that's where my brain goes yeah and your face is looking like. Well I've already learned the kind of 70 percent of what out there is is a big mystery in your clearly 95 so I mean I'd lump in dark matter as well that putting dark matter in there as well OK yeah OK So 95 percent of it we sort of don't really know what it isn't and how it works and that makes me kind of slightly go there and it but it clearly it excites you absolutely actually is a major opportunity because when you don't understand something as massive as 95 percent of the universe that's that's an amazing opportunity to discover something new say migrate here are asking questions that 10 years ago probably would have been thrown out of the community for asking like where we're questioning Einstein's theory of gravity itself maybe camp can we explain these observations by going beyond Einstein with his theory of gravity. Is it a field where you can ever really though pin it down and find Aunt says or is it a field of theory upon theory upon theory and just more questions is Is the field ever expanding I don't think all of science is theories and theories and an expanding because that's that's I guess that's difference between science and faith really isn't it science you never You're never going to know 100 percent you can only rule things out so I know things that are incompatible with my observations things that don't work and I can rule them out but I'm never going to be able to say this is the answer so let's take a regenerative ety that works extremely well in our solar system you have it in your smartphone every day with every time you use D.P.S. Or Sat Nav you are using Einstein's theory of general relativity we know it works here on planet earth but we've never tested out in the rest of the universe so let's test it is probably right but. To test it and we've got a chink away at these theories until we get a better understanding of the world around us we're going to come back and talk some more about your research and and some of these theories but what brought you to this extraordinary subject in the 1st place. I like a good challenge penny but I mean I'm gathering I'm getting really good talent I'm told that I was 6 years old when I asked what the most challenging job in the world was and it was my primary school teacher at the time scratch their head and said it's a brain surgeon or a astrophysicist and about the age of 18 to decide which of the 2 poles I would take and came here to Edinburgh to study astrophysics and then I had a similar question to my professor at the time when I finished my degree what you know what's the most challenging question the 3 physics and it was just around then that this 1st discovery had been made about dark energy so off until then never being thought about in the 1st observation were coming out showing that this expanding universe was exaggerating getting faster and faster and the professor at the time said to me oh you know maybe you want to do a Ph D. Studying this now that you have asked that to my P.H.D. . Long time ago still haven't found the answer. Let's go back a bit what is it then about the challenge why do you think you're drawn to the most challenging thing that you can possibly find I think I just have this desire to understand there are things that need to really really want to understand things I think inside I'm still a total or you know a total is always asking why why is it why you why and that's that's me I just say . Excited and captivated by it all and from a really early age you recognise you want it was a big challenging questions not even just keep asking why but what's the biggest Why I can possibly are so here and I think partly it was fuelled by the fact that a lot of people were saying to me when I said I think about being a brain surgeon what astrophysics work for creation of a lot a lot of people kind of said to me Are you sure why don't you to a different job. Sure that's a job. Girl And you know I wanted to prove them wrong so yeah takes us into a whole another I said I thought I wasn't. You come from a science background we are parents scientists no family of scientists no no no scientists my family so I'm considered to be a little bit strange breaking them oh yes. When would I get a normal proper job. Studying this weird stuff I think they're proud of me now so did the leap come when you went to degree level was that where you went into astrophysics and got hooked into to that so I was knew I wanted to be 50 physics or medicine but physics got me really excited we had the most amazing physics teacher I think I think most academics you or me or if not most high flying people will always resort back to some teach and they teach is really you know the core of what builds us and the way she went off one summer to go to a NASA training school for teachers amazing opportunity for her and when she came back she was full of exciting stories about space travel and astronomy and galaxies the universe and so whenever it got a little bit boring in physics lessons because let's face it physics can be a little bit dry at times you would go. Missing here you tell us about NASA and then she tell us something exciting for she was smart and I only realized this later on because she always picked the stories that she learned from NASA that was related to the dry physics that she was teaching us that day but we didn't realize that you know we just thought you were going to talk about fun astronomy and she was a really smart teacher and I think that's one of the great things about astronomy is that it can get people really excited about really basic physics that then they can go out and do lots of really important things for society because physics is what really builds our society even though it can be a little bit dry astronomy is kind of like that the shiny exciting part of it in my humble opinion. Does she know the impact she's had on you I did not did you ever go back and tell her I did not attend for this now I should track it down Mrs Elliot if you're listening. Thank you feen amazing. 94 building I used to talk ice here when when I. Really yeah when I was trying to. Pay for universities I was an undergraduate student here and so if I wasn't in the lecture theatre. Studying my day I would either be working in a very lovely bar. Putting points for people or I'd be here giving people but they've got my favorite exhibit they're my favorite exhibit here was a little bit of the ball that the Suffragettes used to move beyond this establishment I believe so back in those days that will accept a bit of cynicism past you know like a male dominance and say the suffragettes came up here to go watch the ball and that it blew through a window and there was a force. That's gone. This is brain waves on B.B.C. Radio Scotland last seen in this week I'm with the astrophysicist Professor Catherine havens Catherine we've moved to the library here at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh where we share the space with Isaac Newton's death so yes you see this very. Nice 500 These produce this is number 44 it's written under her chin here the words are she said we have a large collection of various different astronomy artifacts and ancient manuscripts and this is the most fun one but exciting the 1st copy of. His Law of Gravity Copernicus a wonderful wonderful old whole books here it's a wonderful space because it is incredibly tall and there's a great curving staircase in the corner that goes up to a gallery of more books you feel like you're walking into a piece of history here really don't you don't you feel you know I love this place so I used to study here a lot when I was I was an undergraduate and at that corner up there Penny. You can't see it if you're lying on the floor so when I want you to stop to look it's really tight I just got in for a nap and nobody would know. I love this place this is a building steeped in history you walking in the the shoes of extraordinary scientists over the years how much has our understanding of the universe evolved over those years I don't usually in my own field we've gone from thinking there was a universe with a new dark matter in it to this new discovery of there being dark energy and if you go back even further in time just sort of the understanding of how large the universe is how it began with the Big Bang 13800000000 years ago these are all very very recent discoveries and how large do we think it is you know us if our theories are right you know talking more about theories and not knowing for certain our universe is infinite. If our best theories are right about how the universe was formed then it will be infinite in space but not in time so it did start at a particular point back in time certain point 8000000000 years ago. If we're right if we are right now or if we wrote How do you go about testing some of these theories so there's always a marriage between science and technology so you tend to find that major advances in science come with a major advance in technology my SO VERY is survey astronomy where we just take huge deep images of the universe with the biggest telescope we can find at the time the biggest camera we can find at the time so at the moment we are working a project called The Killer degrees survey imagine you're looking back at that night sky again it was thinking about the beginning and imagine looking up with this going to work with your fingers together and your elbows outstretched the patch of sky that we're looking at the moment goes elbow to elbow across the sky so a stripe across the sky here about that big and we are surveying all of the galaxies in that stripe and their light has taken about 7000000000 years there at different distances but on average take about 7000000000 years to travel towards our telescope so that I was traveling 7000000000 years all the way towards planet earth in the last nano 2nd gets caught by a telescope and then it gets recorded in C.C.D. Camera similar technologies what's in your phone and then we analyze this data now that's the stuff that we can see and what we're doing is looking for very small distortions in the data that tells us about the stuff that we can't see the invisible dark matter. And we use that data to map out where all of the dark matter is in that patch of sky that we're looking at and then we can confront that data with a range of different theories and try and disprove them the more data we get the easier it is to confront these different theories and rule things out and our next big project is something called the large sy